Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 050-001
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 1971 at 8:05 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Hardin, Clifford M.; Moorer, Thomas H. (Adm.); Scott, Hugh; Griffin, Robert P.; Smith, Margaret Chase; Cotton, Norris; Allott, Gordon L.; Dominick, Peter H.; Ford, Gerald R.; Arends, Leslie C.; Anderson, John B.; Stafford, Robert T.; Poff, Richard H.; Rhodes, John J.; Conable, Barber B., Jr.; Wilson, Robert C. ("Bob"); Smith, H. Allen; Dole, Robert J.; Shultz, George P.; Ehrlichman, John D.; MacGregor, Clark; Timmons, William E.; Klein, Herbert G.; BeLieu, Kenneth E.; Buchanan, Patrick J.; Dent, Harry S.; Ziegler, Ronald L.; Harlow, Bryce N.; Price, John R., Jr.; Harper, Edwin L.
Recording device: Cabinet Room
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/050-001

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[5:48] This morning, we have a certain push to do something at all, particularly those who plan to save folks.
[5:54] But, you know, we've got all those various programs with regards to the president's care, and the staff, and the president's care.
[6:06] Thank you.
[6:36] A lot of people who live in what is called rural America, and that's more than 500 people.
[6:44] It's about 340,000 Americans.
[6:45] In fact, here in the state, less than 2 million people are being classified as farmers.
[6:52] It's a identification.
[6:54] Multiply that by 5 million, it's 7 million voters.
[6:57] Hey, wait a minute.
[7:00] They feel that not simply because of the reduction of farm prices, but because of the emphasis that not only this administration, but the previous administration, everybody in this city, problems in the ghetto, and so forth, nobody cares anymore about the farmers, and the farm, and rural America, and so forth, which has enormous problems.
[7:28] I need to say one thing about the poor education, poor housing, poor college.
[7:33] I didn't want that senator or senator to exist in rural America.
[7:39] Of course, it's in fact two-thirds of the counties in America in the last century has lost population.
[7:48] People are moving out of that part of the country.
[7:53] They're moving into cities and approximately half the people of this country by the next 18 years of living in the great metropolitan areas of Boston, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco and San Diego.
[8:08] Whether that's good or not, it doesn't have to be seen like it is.
[8:13] But whatever the situation,
[8:15] There is, on that part of the country, there is a feeling of wealth, as the administration is saying, and that might be the weekend.
[8:31] But remember, this has been, in truth, our hard line.
[8:56] In fact, the amounts that are in this budget for what we call rural development are 30% more than last year.
[9:07] And we put a kicker in their direction.
[9:12] The problem is that after a long last there is some beginning to recognize that there is a special problem in this part of the country.
[9:34] That's really what this is all about.
[9:35] And I see folks like Bobby Griffin here, and Hugh Scott, and others who like to get themselves to be represented in urban America.
[9:45] I believe this is something we all need to listen about here in central Pennsylvania, rural America, and much more rural America.
[9:56] Most important, it's a very, very essential part of the country in terms of disparities.
[10:02] I don't like to see it destroyed.
[10:05] That's why we have set up the rural affairs council as one of the regions.
[10:10] It's on a very, very standpoint, but more important in the standpoint of what we do and pay attention to what happens in this part of the country.
[10:21] It's hard to make that presentation and ask you questions that people like.
[10:27] And I had a forum over around 9 o'clock to give an update to you.
[10:32] It's on the station, which I thought you'd like to have.
[10:36] And I give one every morning.
[10:39] I'm going to let you have it this morning so that you can notice it.
[10:45] It's a great job.
[10:46] I'm one of those folks that does a very good job.
[10:52] Thank you.
[11:25] Is that part of the question?
[11:27] Mr. President, I have one question.
[11:29] What was your reaction when you visited rural America at a good point at the end of the day?
[11:34] Well, very, very good.
[11:36] I guess the Iowa legislature also, and the governors, and the others, I...
[11:51] I feel that what is speaking more than anything else is just a lot of growth.
[11:56] We know they're there, and we care about them.
[11:59] It's just the attitude of all these things.
[12:01] The idea that we have programs and policies that we care about.
[12:08] As I said, there's a real bunch that does it to me.
[12:14] Whether it's the media, whether it's the episode, and so forth.
[12:18] All eyes are on the city now.
[12:44] We have done a lot, but the general reaction was great, great appreciation for the fact that you came.
[12:52] We have a program, and they said, well, it's about time.
[12:56] We're glad to hope you made it.
[12:58] Mr. President, we hope to come back to Rochester when the sun's shining.
[13:03] Yeah, but we figured that what we would do would be,
[13:09] We set that, perhaps, a lot of part of the goal.
[13:14] About a month away, the latter part of the team had now had to go after Easter, after Easter, because we were still going to have the meeting in Rochester.
[13:27] Having picked that before, we had it all set up.
[14:30] Yes, there are great people out there.
[14:35] I'm glad to give you the opportunity, President, because I went on from Des Moines to Kansas City and spent the day there.
[14:46] I came back to Washington and read the papers.
[14:51] And I couldn't believe that people who reported from the local papers had even been there.
[14:56] It didn't sound like the same meeting.
[14:59] And believe you me, there was great excitement out in Midwest as a result of the visit.
[15:03] I think it was a highly successful endeavor, and I just can't understand why some of the people from here were out there, but the rest of them didn't catch some of the spirit of it, rather than the little sideshow that they did report and give headlines.
[15:18] Would you spend a moment to tell them logistically what we did?
[15:22] You see, I first went out and spoke to the legislature, and to all the governors and presentenaries in the area, and those congressmen, and people like Kyle and others who were present, and also then opened the media briefing.
[15:35] That was my anticipation, about four hours.
[15:39] But in addition to that, I hope everybody else had a whole day to get out.
[15:44] It's not a day before, it's a very bad next day, and the next day as well.
[15:48] Very good, you mentioned it when we talked to the legislature, which always says a great deal about the next day, the next day and a half that I heard.
[15:57] But then, the meeting with the four governors, which was the second meeting of this group, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Iowa, with their staffs, on the area of rural development, all of them, and these are states that are somewhat developed pretty well, encompass all the problems, urban and rural, because you have tremendous metropolitan centers in three of those states,
[16:27] So the governors were aware of the mayor big city problems as well as the rural problems.
[16:32] All of them have big rural areas.
[16:35] And the thing that impressed me with this meeting after following the one in Springfield in October was that we didn't have to be entirely preliminary, but we got right into the guts of the issues.
[16:40] And I thought we made great progress with this group.
[16:41] Then we went in and had 85 members of the agricultural press.
[16:43] These are the members of the farm magazines, Successful Farming and Farm Journal, and the state publications.
[16:45] The radio TV people, the leaders of...
[17:06] It was indeed.
[17:41] A chance to get a real feel for their views because they were quite candid and twidal when the entire atmosphere produced, well, encouraged them to ask the tough questions and gave us a chance to discuss them with equal candor.
[17:56] But I feel we'll get some good stories from this as the publications come out in the next weeks, and if you have a delay on that kind of reaction.
[18:06] But it just can't help but be good.
[18:09] Then I went on to Kansas City for a series of TV and radio appearances and talked to the Midwest Dairymen.
[18:17] Sands went on to the Twin Cities for a schedule of events.
[18:25] Morten went to Denver, and Romsfeld went to Memphis, and Romney came back here for a series of meetings, but he's got to get them all there, and in every place I think you should know that our cabin people go in.
[18:43] We have this program set up.
[18:47] in which they just don't go in and make any speech, you know.
[18:52] They do chicken dinner business, but they hit the media.
[18:57] They talk shows, they meet with the movers and shakers, and then of course with the special interest groups and so forth.
[19:07] In fact, I saw your schedule last year.
[19:08] A 16-hour day there in Kansas City.
[19:11] Yeah, I had a bit of fun.
[19:15] Now these are the types of things that you kind of get through, because if you can get several different groups, and all of the media, one after another, it seems to me it has more impact, because other people get some playback from a variety of sources all at once.
[19:33] But, looking at the whole area of rural development, this is a matter that you fellows,
[19:42] I don't like you, Mr. Ray, to speak to a problem here.
[20:10] There's been too, a lot of a tendency for, as I said earlier, to look upon rural Americans as being farmers, and then point out that the farm population goes down and down and down, the personal size of the American, which is to the great credit for the productivity of the farm population.
[20:28] It's the most productive part of the American.
[20:32] It's the greatest increase in productivity in all of America occurs not in chemicals,
[20:39] Not in automation, but in farming.
[20:42] So that's what inspires us.
[20:44] On the other hand, rural America is about 40% as we've been saying.
[20:48] We take a certain figure, you can get the figure of about 50,000, a town of 50,000 or less, or a county which has a density of population of 1 per 100,000.
[21:07] With the county of 2000, if the county of 2000 is in the county of 1 for 100, that will be classified rural America, because those people tend to identify their problems and treat it that way.
[21:16] Take for example the part, Margaret, the country that you come from, Norris County.
[21:23] New England is really rural America now, except for Boston.
[21:30] Maine, Vermont, Hampshire, much of that part of the country, you know, has its problems primarily more related to what you're talking about now, smaller towns rather than the big cities.
[21:47] You can have a Delaware, right, the middle of Pennsylvania, your farmers, of course, southern Illinois, of course.
[21:57] I think that we all have to realize that if you take California, Smitty, Central Valley, is now key to the election of anybody in California, right?
[22:24] And that's rural America.
[22:29] That's Fresno, Bakersfield.
[22:33] That's something you've never heard about.
[22:36] The point that I wanted to make for this background, these remarks, is that all the 20 odd years that this has been discussed,
[22:51] This is the first time that the President of the United States has articulated the problem and indicated that something should be done about it.
[22:59] And after maybe two years around the town, I have a permanent conviction that not a lot of things are important to ever get done unless the President himself endorses them.
[23:07] This is the first time that has happened.
[23:10] And I believe as we go around the country, this is a point that we can't make.
[23:13] President Nixon has spoken out strongly.
[23:15] He's gone into the country.
[23:18] He's talked about the problem of the farmers, he's talked about the problems of rural America, and they go together.
[23:23] They're part of the problem of rural America, totally.
[23:26] The stagnation that includes, as the president says, about 30 people, nearly half the poor people of the nation, those below the poverty line, over half of the substandard housing in the nation.
[23:42] Now, another thing that's important.
[23:45] Among the states that have lost population, or have failed to hold their natural increase, and there are a huge number of them over half the counties, there are growth centers that have grown as rapidly as the metropolitan centers.
[24:02] That's a trend we want to accentuate, to promote more growth centers, more small towns and small cities, becoming part of the modern growth of this country, as a part of the total program then of balanced growth of the nation.
[24:19] Income.
[24:22] Farm income, income of farm families, has closed with urban income a bit over the past ten years.
[24:32] But it's still running at a level close to three-fourths of urban income.
[24:39] It's also true of returns for capital invested and returns to labor.
[24:43] If we take then the next group, all rural families, and include those in towns of 250,000,
[24:53] We find that family income, totally, is now this past year 78% of global urban income.
[25:03] It was 55% ten years ago.
[25:06] Again, the gap is closing, but not enough.
[25:12] Again, then, let's accentuate the trend that is underway and make it move more rapidly.
[25:25] States are in much better shape to deal with this from their standpoint than they were any time in the past.
[25:33] The competence of staffs around the governor's offices are uneven, but at a much higher degree of competence and knowledge and ability to move than has been true before, and they're changing very rapidly because we do now have their interest.
[25:52] The programs that will have impact in rural America come from almost well over half the agencies and departments of the government.
[26:00] It's not just the Department of Agriculture program, although we perhaps have a higher percent of our programs that are involved than any other of the existing departments of government.
[26:12] Revenue sharing then, and I don't need to go into the philosophy of this, we've had that before, but the rural revenue package, one of the six in the special category, includes a group of programs that are underway, extension service, the Economic Development Administration in commerce, the ACPR program in agriculture, then a group of smaller ones, the Great Plains program, the grants for sewers and water systems,
[26:42] Pre-replanting, Forest Service, and things of this sort, grouped together with an additional amount of free money, charged $150-some-odd million, that goes with this package bringing into a total of $1.1 billion, that then will go to the states for their use in...
[27:08] for use in the areas defined in the proposed act that are the cities of less than 50,000 or counties with populations of less than...
[27:27] So that is the program.
[27:32] People have asked as we move around the country, when are you going to have a road development package?
[27:40] I think it is important to point out that it's really not a single program.
[27:45] It's a process.
[27:46] It's a process of the federal establishment responding to state and local initiatives, and particularly local community initiatives,
[27:53] Working with those communities that are willing to do those things that will permit them to move, and then perhaps the federal programs can come in and make the difference.
[28:02] And then with the revenue package, giving the states the flexibility, they may want to put more of their resources into some of the things that have been under the Intercultural Conservation Program, or they may wish to put less.
[28:16] They may wish to add more resources to the Extension Service,
[28:20] And they can't do this with the extra monies that are made available.
[28:25] There is some apprehension, and some of you may have heard it from the land grant college people, about putting the extension service in this package.
[28:36] I've had a great deal of mail, public, telephone calls.
[28:40] I think it's well to remember that this is a program that's been underway for a good many years.
[28:45] There has been a state matching requirement, matching the federal laws.
[28:50] In all the 50 states, the state, all of them, individually, have matched the federal funds and appropriated a great deal more money, state money, than is required by federal statute, as an indication that they're not about to abolish the extension service and do something else.
[29:10] I think this is a very important point.
[29:14] I can't believe that this will happen, because this is the basis for the campaign.
[29:20] There has been a concern among the county agents, the home agents, the 4-H agents, and others, that they're part of civil service retirement, and this would be cut off.
[29:30] The law that has been proposed protects all of these people's free benefit programs, including retirement.
[29:37] It permits this to be continued with payments being made from the states, from the revenue-sharing package.
[29:44] I really should try to think of a good place to stop her.
[29:49] And I think Mr. Harper and Mr. Price have the details on how the functions work.
[29:55] Yeah, would you like to take a look at this?
[29:57] Very fascinating charts sometimes are hard to understand.
[30:02] This will be the most complicated one you've ever seen.
[30:07] Okay, go ahead.
[30:08] Would you like to do the chart, John?
[30:10] Well, I don't want to say any words about the math and all the complicated charts.
[30:14] All right, John, you can start.
[30:15] Thank you.
[30:16] Go ahead.
[30:19] I remember the chart you put up in your mind with all those circles, and I just wanted you to be sure to show them what you think, and things that try to make us understand.
[30:29] Mr. President, Senator Smith, and gentlemen.
[30:31] The counties which are marked in red on this map are counties which during that 10-year period lost 10% of their population in World War I.
[30:59] while at the same time the other extreme, the counties in blue, are counties which picked up 14% of the war population.
[31:07] So what you see is really an emptying out of this part of the country to either coast and to the Great Lakes region.
[31:16] When we were briefing some of the Senate members of Agriculture and Public Works committees the other day, Senator Curtis, I think it was, on looking at the map, shook his head, and he said, you know, and I don't see a governor's micro persuasion anywhere from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in that area either.
[31:33] But I am not one of those who is bored by the subject at all.
[31:37] I'm what the pioneer seat court people would call a hybrid, since I've spent my life in a mix between the New York metropolitan area and Iowa.
[31:46] And what I'm happy to see is the recognition now at Law Lab of the interrelationship between the problems of rural areas and the problems of urban areas.
[31:58] And the need, as Secretary Harden pointed out, for better balance in our patterns of growth.
[32:03] Now the reasons for the move are very obvious from what the Secretary pointed out on income figures.
[32:11] Very typically, the people who have left these counties, who have left the upper peninsula of Michigan, are people who are slightly better educated, who have slightly higher incomes than the average of the counties they live in.
[32:24] They are the opportunity seekers, and that's why they've gone to more urban areas, because that's frankly where the jobs have been, and that's where higher median incomes have been achievable.
[32:35] That's accounted for what's been happening.
[32:38] But at the same time, again as Secretary Hart has pointed out to you, looking at virtually any portion of the country which has suffered this attrition, you'll still see little marks of blue, namely points of growth, whether it's in Malaysia, or the upper Great Plains, or the mountain states.
[32:57] What this means is that in each stage there is some sort of hub of activity, or center of industry, or services, or perhaps it's a defense installation, or there's some reason why that has been a magnet for people leaving the more remote rural counties, but it's been able to hold them there, or to attract people from entirely other parts of the country.
[33:23] Now these are what we've taken to call growth centers.
[33:27] The Secretary pointed out that the tension or interest in rural development is not renewed, at least below the presidential level.
[33:35] But in the past, our efforts at the creation of job opportunities in rural America have, we came to feel, been misdirected.
[33:46] Typically, the programs like the Economic Development Administration, the Appalachian Commission, and the so-called Title Vs, Title V regional commissions,
[33:57] have isolated those counties which really were the worst off for attention.
[34:04] That is, they picked out usually the red counties.
[34:07] though not in this part of the country, interestingly enough.
[34:11] None of the federal programs which are mentioned qualify the upper Midwest for assistance, neither EDA, nor the Title V commissions, nor certainly Amalasia.
[34:22] So what you've had is federal attention maybe to the wrong sector of the rural problem.
[34:29] What's been happening with EDA is that it's been putting money into attempts to lure industry to counties
[34:36] where there really is nothing there.
[34:38] There's no tax base because the population left behind is aged and poor.
[34:44] There are few services.
[34:46] Doctors have not been attracted to the area.
[34:49] There are no community colleges in those counties.
[34:52] So that, in our opinion, in this Cabinet Committee on National Growth Policy and Rural Development, past federal efforts were not targeted on the right areas.
[35:01] We came to feel that a much more appropriate effort would be built around growth points or growth centers.
[35:09] The reason was that usually these centers not only have a growing population and jobs,
[35:15] But they also are a hub.
[35:17] They are a commuter center.
[35:19] People drive 35-50 miles each way each day to work in this kind of area.
[35:26] But frankly, we thought about and then dismissed the idea of targeting these resources only on growth centers that we thought we could identify.
[35:37] The reason was that having set up federal programs for rural development in the past, which we now feel are not targeted properly, we were wary of saying, let's lay down strict federal criteria about what areas are going to get aid.
[35:52] We didn't want to make the same mistake all over again, having constraints in federal law, which wound up not letting the states do what turned out to be best for rural development.
[36:05] So at the same time that the president was moving toward his decision on revenue sharing, this cabinet committee, headed by Secretary Hutch, was headed toward a block grant for revenue sharing approach to the states,
[36:17] for rural development purposes, and that's where we've wound up with the rural development grant that Ed Harper will describe here.
[36:25] What we are going to do is to exhort the states to plan in terms of using the trends that we see here as a way of holding people in the rural states, and perhaps in the long run, more importantly, attracting people who otherwise would settle in the most congested areas
[36:46] into the middle part of the country and the smaller cities wherever they occur in the country.
[36:55] So we will, as I say, exhort the states to build around this, but we will not in any way hobble them.
[37:01] They're probably a lot better than we are at deciding which areas have the potential to grow, and we would be very reluctant as federal government to get into that choice.
[37:12] So now, Ed Parker will describe to you, not alone the billion and one hundred billion revenue sharing for the world development, but the way in which all the other revenue sharing, some 16.2 billion dollars, will, in some way or another, be brought to bear on the problems that we're in right now.
[37:28] You pointed out, Mr. President, you pointed out what the red wasn't until it was utterly striking in 2019.
[37:35] There are varying degrees of one trend or the other.
[37:40] The shaded red is a county which has lost less than 10%, but it's still a lost population.
[37:48] The shaded blue is a county that gained less than 14%.
[37:59] President, I think you'll find my charts today a little less complex, because I think that a large part of the complexity of the charts I displayed in Des Moines was due to my penmanship, since the charts in Des Moines were freehand.
[38:12] This morning we've heard a lot about the concepts behind rural development at one point that has been stressed.
[38:21] The fact that rural development is not just one thing, it's a capital phrase that describes a number of different kinds of activities.
[38:30] Because there's not just one thing that rules it all.
[38:33] What it is, very often, is a strategy to build a base which attracts industry, that creates jobs.
[38:40] Essentially, the process that's involved is planning to take advantage
[38:46] of opportunities that develop in the private sector, because in the private sector is where the jobs are.
[38:53] This is one way of keeping a look at the different kinds of things that are involved in rural development.
[38:58] Of course, the most important point in any development strategy is people.
[39:03] That's the base you have, their educational background.
[39:07] They're specialized in training for industrial purposes.
[39:11] The health of that labor force is also critically important.
[39:14] And it's important that the disadvantaged in that population do not become a drug upon the labor force.
[39:19] It's important for them to take care of the disadvantaged, the elderly, the disabled.
[39:24] Whereas you have to link...
[39:27] from transportation, your labor force, to resources and to markets for their work.
[39:35] We also need to have the public sector infrastructure to support industry through water and sewer programs,
[39:43] which are indicated here.
[39:44] Of course, the environment is becoming more and more in consideration in industrial locations around the country.
[39:51] And finally, of course, there's the need for adequate housing, not only for the executives of any company, which might move into an area as well, for people in these areas.
[40:02] We are familiar with the fact that there is considerably more substandard housing in rural areas
[40:09] That there is in urban areas.
[40:15] And here, on this overlay, I'll take you to that.
[40:19] Yes.
[40:19] Yes.
[40:31] For example, when we're out there with governors and so forth, they often think, we've got seven agencies, where do we go?
[40:34] And particularly for the smaller towns and the smaller communities, we don't have a council or that sort of thing, we have the slightest ideas.
[40:50] How to get a grant.
[40:51] The congressman or the senator, or whatever the case might be, and then the congressman or the senator, because he always doesn't work well.
[41:01] Don't ask me.
[41:03] And you can probably give them... Well, there's only three, that'll help.
[41:07] The FHA, the Department of Tourism has traded with one.
[41:12] The High Basin Sewer and Water Program is another.
[41:15] The Urban Renewal provides the sewer program.
[41:18] The Naval Development Program has sewer authority in it.
[41:22] The Model Cities Program has sewer authority in it.
[41:25] And there are a couple of other programs.
[41:27] EDA has their authority, and Appalachia has their authority as well.
[41:29] They've had it in a couple of other areas.
[41:31] I think there's another one.
[41:32] I think there's another one.
[41:33] These are the different ones.
[41:45] The president is
[41:56] made proposals to Congress with respect to each of these areas.
[42:00] You find in education, the special revenue sharing program, in math power, another specialized revenue sharing program.
[42:07] Within the field of health, President's recent message has emphasized targeting health resources in scarce areas.
[42:16] One way that he's done this is to suggest a loan forgiveness proposal for young doctors during their education years in located areas that are scarce,
[42:26] In terms of doctors, parts of the cost of their education would be forgiven.
[42:31] Also, incentives for health management for organizations with new health services delivery mechanisms would be located in scarce areas.
[42:39] Also, health education centers would be located in areas that are short in supply for personnel.
[42:46] For the disadvantage here, the welfare program comes into play, and we expect about $2 billion of that would be targeted on rural areas, whereas formerly, if you lived in an urban area, then you had a good chance of getting whatever your fair share of the welfare program might be.
[43:04] In transportation, the president will shortly be sending to the Congress a new special revenue-sharing program there.
[43:09] His budget for fiscal 1972 proposes a 60% increase in the outlays for the rural sewer and water program.
[43:14] In the area of the environment, waste treatment outlays go up 100% for fiscal 1972.
[43:19] He has proposed environmental finance and authority, which in particular helps smaller towns finance their municipal waste treatment programs.
[43:34] And also, this year, the environmental message proposed a new land use planning grant program of $20 million a year for the next five years.
[43:44] And finally, in the area of housing, loans for low- and moderate-income families will go up 64%.
[43:51] Off the slide.
[43:55] So this is what the president has proposed aside from the special revenue sharing program for rural development.
[44:03] And it provides the kind of flexibility which will allow you to bring together all of the factors that we see here on the chart into a coordinated and effective strategy for development, for creating income opportunities, for bringing into rural areas, to cultural, educational,
[44:22] recreational and health opportunities that are going to make rural America a better place to live in.
[44:29] Now, as the Secretary briefly touched upon, a number of the present programs will be combined into the Rural Development Special Revenue Insurance Program.
[44:39] Here I've displayed them more or less by where they come from.
[44:43] You see, first of all, more or less the general categories of programs that are currently covering a broad spectrum of authorities in the rural development field.
[44:55] The new money, untied in Japan's history, is $179 million in new life authority.
[45:00] First full year.
[45:01] I apply regional commissions, Appalachia, the EDA, the Education and Extension Service, water and sewer, rural water and waste, and the environment and several programs there.
[45:14] One of the reasons I wanted to display the programs in this manner is to point out the kinds of flexibility that would be available in the use of the Rural Development Funds.
[45:25] All of the authorities you see represented in these programs would be authorized for the use of the Rural Development Special Revenue Sharing Funds.
[45:36] In addition, because we'll have a number of small communities in here, we will also ensure that the authority is available for programs like model city urban renewal, but also be available to our smaller cities and to rural areas in promoting what would be in their mind the most effective developmental strategy.
[45:57] Finally, just go on to one last chart, one that summarizes my part of the presentation.
[46:00] We're talking about $1.1 billion for the purpose of rural development.
[46:02] The purposes are briefly sketched out there.
[46:03] The benefits are 100% for rural areas, as we've defined them.
[46:05] Towns under 50,000, counties anywhere with populations of less than 100 per square mile.
[46:27] The distribution formula in this special revenue sharing program, as in all of the special revenue sharing programs, is problem-oriented.
[46:35] And you'll see here that we are, in this program, dealing with three indications of the problem.
[46:41] One of these is rural population.
[46:44] That here we compare the state's rural population with the rural population of the nation as a whole.
[46:50] That's been one of the factors determining individual states' share of the rural development funds.
[46:56] Secondly, it's rural out-of-migration.
[46:58] We call John Price's map with all the red counties on it.
[47:03] That gives a heavy out-of-migration.
[47:06] We have focused funds there for two reasons in that state.
[47:09] One, because if there's out-of-migration, there's either a problem there or there isn't a good reason to stay there.
[47:15] And so we ought to be focusing on the problems of the individuals there.
[47:19] Secondly, from a national perspective, in terms of the population trends, which the President pointed out earlier, and John Price pointed out earlier, there's good reason to make this kind of investment.
[47:31] And finally, we talk about per capita rural income, and we compare the per capita income of a particular state with the per capita rural income of the nation.
[47:39] And these are the three
[47:46] Rural population, rural out migration, or...
[47:56] or growth rates below the national average as well, and growth per capita income.
[48:02] In terms of federal restrictions on these funds, there would be no requirements for manning or maintenance record by the states.
[48:10] There would be no federal prior approval of plans or projects.
[48:14] The only process to not refer to these funds is no strings attached, because there would be two important strings.
[48:18] One of them is guaranteeing that the Civil Rights Protection Act would accompany our present categorical grant funds, would accompany these funds, and secondly, that there would be proper auditing provisions to make sure that funds for rural golf are used for proper public purposes.
[48:26] Thank you.
[48:40] I think it might be well to take a little look at the history.
[48:57] Back before the turn of the century, the Congress did establish federal funds for the agricultural experiment stations and made them available to the states for this purpose on a formula basis.
[49:10] Some money for all the states.
[49:12] This has been modified and increased through the years.
[49:15] This has been the bedrock under which this great increase in agricultural productivity has taken place in all the states.
[49:23] We have the very strong, professionally competent research programs in 50 states today.
[49:32] Now, the alternative to that would have been to have, in fact, in the time of World War I or any time since, to have concentrated these funds in what might have been called centers of actions.
[49:43] In that case, most of the funds would have gone to three or four states, New York State, Cornell, or Wisconsin, or a later date, California, and others.
[49:57] and we would not have had this broad development in agriculture that is unique in the world.
[50:04] Now we came along in World War II,
[50:09] And under the pressure of war, it followed a wise decision that our initiative and so forth was intended to invest in the centers of excellence.
[50:14] And this had a tremendous impact on economic development.
[50:15] And the patterns of population as the country had grown, even at that time, we had a bit more leisure.
[50:29] And the funds have been spread like the agricultural funds have been spread.
[50:30] It's my feeling that we would have had a more uniform balance growth across the nation, and the heartland in the south would be in better shape today.
[50:34] Now, back to the funds.
[50:34] I'm sure in the early days some of these funds were not used well.
[50:47] But through the years, they did develop competence, whether it was professional pride or institutional pride, state pride, or just getting on with the job.
[50:50] Competence did develop as the funds remained available.
[50:52] And I think we have to trust that the state people, that with these kinds of programs, likewise, as time goes along, they don't have it today, will develop the competence, they will respond to the problems, they will get the work done.
[51:23] Yes, John.
[51:24] Mr. President, Secretary Hardin has just addressed himself to the question of competence.
[51:26] It occurs to me that one other question may be raised, because in the general formula, or in the formula for general revenue sharing, we have included, as I recall it in the memorandum of action that's used to determine the state that each share gets, an element which reflects the tax effort of the state.
[51:52] Now, as I understand it, from the explanation I was given, we do not consider either tax effort or maintenance of existing tax effort in deciding on the allocation of these funds.
[52:05] How do we do that?
[52:07] We argue that we don't really thereby give the states the incentive to do what they should be doing, as well as the federal government.
[52:16] Ed, do you want to respond to that?
[52:19] Well, that...
[52:21] With respect to maintenance of effort first, one of the basic considerations of the revenue sharing approach is that the state and locality be able to determine their own priorities.
[52:33] To impose the maintenance of effort restrictions upon the state and locality takes away from them an important measure of determining their own priorities.
[52:44] With respect to the maintenance of tax effort, as has been pointed out in various forums, in some places perhaps the most appropriate use of additional funds, especially with general revenue sharing, perhaps in other places as well, might in fact be a reduction in taxes.
[53:08] It would just arbitrarily apply the principle of maintenance and tax admission.
[53:16] It would arbitrarily, in fact, just pour more money into the existing tax, rather than to allow flexibility in terms of what the tax is.
[53:27] That's our philosophy.
[53:30] Mr. President, last week,
[53:56] We had the committee of agriculture members down.
[54:00] There were several that came from the Appalachian area that indicated some concern and apprehension.
[54:08] In those particular instances, as I recall, Ed or...
[54:14] Somebody was going to take a look at some way of protecting some of their programs by state plans or regional plans.
[54:24] Was anything developed in that regard?
[54:28] The specific point was the highway.
[54:32] I explained the route here.
[54:55] that with respect to some of the special revenue insurance programs, we have an intrastate distribution formula.
[55:02] If I can just briefly refer to John Price's match, one of the problems with an intrastate distribution formula with respect to rural development is need to aggregate funds.
[55:15] If you just have a formula, let's say, for the state of North Dakota,
[55:21] That would arbitrarily distribute a certain amount of funds to each one of the counties.
[55:26] Each individual county would like to choose to decide to try to build an industrial park with its few dollars that it would get out of an intrastate distribution formula.
[55:38] When in fact, from really the perspective of all the people of the state of North Dakota, they'd be better off if they aggregated and concentrated
[55:45] The funds they got for rural development, as they perhaps in these more rapidly growing areas, in fact, an investment there might well benefit a number of the red counties surrounding the growth center at this particular time.
[56:00] That's why we are reticent to get involved in the intrastate distribution formula.
[56:06] If we don't have an interstate distribution formula, how do we ensure a fair distribution of the state?
[56:11] There, we were examining different processes by which a state plan would be prepared.
[56:17] Here, one of the chief concerns is accountability.
[56:21] If you use it too greatly within the state, then nobody knows it's responsible for the plan.
[56:31] In the eyes of some, the plan doesn't have a gigantic log-rolling operation, and then again wind up with the economy more or less disproved within the state on a practical basis, with no significant advance in rural development being accomplished.
[56:47] So the governor probably will have to play a key role.
[56:52] We are right now studying what alternatives we have with respect to involving state legislation more thoroughly in this,
[56:59] as well as ensuring some kind of consultation perhaps with cities and counties in rural areas.
[57:06] So the sessions last week with the National Republican members of the House and Senate were very valuable.
[57:13] We are following through on those.
[57:14] We haven't come to a final recommendation from the President on that yet.
[57:22] Hugh, would you like to give us a brief report as to where you all stand in the Senate?
[57:29] We're not your rules.
[57:30] Yes, you're not very much to say.
[57:32] We are voting on the report at 1 o'clock today on the fourth closure petition.
[57:40] Jack Miller has an amendment to it at this time, one which needs to serve the favor.
[57:47] And the church's suggestion of accepting it, the proposal is to retain the two-thirds of any changes to rules.
[57:57] Three-fifths, otherwise, if a majority of each party are recorded as favoring three-fifths, it could pick up anywhere from two to five votes, yet assuming possibly in the 57-59 area, it will not be sufficient.
[58:13] This may hold me down.
[58:14] Meanwhile, this may be the end of it.
[58:17] There is some talk of continuing.
[58:20] Meanwhile, we will tomorrow begin the discussion of the constitutional amendment, the 18-year-old vote, and other than federal elections.
[58:31] And we have little else except that I understand from that.
[58:37] Thank you for watching!
[58:54] Mr. President, may I ask you a question?
[58:56] I read in a paper this morning that at the hearing yesterday, Long indicated there may be some problem on this four and a quarter percent amendment.
[59:07] Is that just newspaper talk, or is that just...
[59:12] I don't know.
[59:15] I thought you had any questions.
[59:18] Four and a quarter percent amendment.
[59:22] Well, we...
[59:44] We have two bills up this week.
[59:47] Extension of the interest equalization measure, which I don't think is going to have any difficulty.
[59:55] There wasn't any problem in the rules committee.
[59:58] And then we have the extension recommended by the banking and currency committee on wage and price control authority and the credit control authority.
[1:00:16] There will be any opposition of significance there.
[1:00:21] They're hell-bent on getting this authority through, and I think they make capital out of it, but they didn't seem to on that point last fall, so in light of what the Secretary of the Treasury testifies for the Joint Economic Council,
[1:00:41] There was no objection to the extension of the story, you know, and the top of the question was repeated at this point, but both measures were voted without understanding.
[1:00:56] I would say this, Mr. President, that probably next, tomorrow, the week from Wednesday, we're going to take up the Department of Transportation appropriation bill, which is, of course, highlighted by the controversy over the SST subcommittee that imported it out of appropriations.
[1:01:20] There's a 72 vote that comes before the full committee Thursday of this week, and it will be on the floor next Wednesday, and it will probably be Wednesday in terms of the vote.
[1:01:32] With regard to the SSP, recognizing the differences there are on the side here, I want to reiterate.
[1:02:14] It's at least 150,000 jobs.
[1:02:15] That's probably, probably...
[1:03:31] Hei!
[1:04:02] If you were to poll people, you'd probably find about 70% of them against you.
[1:04:07] The reason is that we're not here to follow people when people don't know the facts, but we're here to lead the people.
[1:04:14] And sometimes people don't know the facts.
[1:04:16] It's just that we always follow the people, and I might say we never built the airplane in the first place.
[1:04:21] It was a matter of fact that we would have done it before we did it.
[1:04:53] It's a major breakthrough in terms of the inevitable, it's inevitable that people, whether it's the deal with government or it's your law, it's true.
[1:05:05] Let's understand there's some that have bought it through, considered all the fact that you're trying to respect them.
[1:05:34] I'll see how he does it in person.
[1:06:35] Mr. President, gentlemen, as a background to the briefing of the two key operations that are now underway, I think it would be helpful to give you the general overview of the situation in Southeast Asia, and to show you why these two operations are employed.
[1:07:03] I'm very sure you recall last May, after the cross-border operations were ordered by the president, and still there was spoilers, but you can see that two very important things happened.
[1:07:16] One, the North Vietnamese operating along these Tanksbury areas lost access to this port.
[1:07:22] Two, they also lost a very large amount of supplies of various types.
[1:07:28] This meant that an interdiction
[1:07:31] All the supplies brought down for their actions in South Vietnam as well as in Cambodia, and all the supplies which would be required to replace those that were destroyed here must come down from the Haiphong area down through the North Vietnam, then cross the passes, the Gia, Bangkorai, and the Ravang, into Laos,
[1:07:56] pass down through the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where they would then be distributed at intervals into South Vietnam.
[1:08:05] The North Vietnamese recognized this decision.
[1:08:10] As a matter of fact, last fall during the wet season, they immediately began to reinforce their transportation capability in this very critical area right here just south of the DMZ.
[1:08:25] Now I think I might just take one second to explain to you the nature of what is called a Ho Chi Minh Trail.
[1:08:30] In the first place, it's not a trail.
[1:08:33] It's a series of interconnecting links and roads all the way through this particular area.
[1:08:42] The key transportation group that manages all this transportation is called the 569th group.
[1:08:48] This is because it was established in May of 1959.
[1:08:51] That will give you some idea of how long the communists have been freely operating in this area without any interruption from any source.
[1:09:02] In other words, they've had a complete sanctuary down through this very critical period.
[1:09:08] These supplies are managed by what they call benchmarking.
[1:09:11] And they assemble a series of little substations a few miles apart, distributed all the way north and south down the OGMN trail.
[1:09:19] And each tent tram is responsible for moving from point A to point B.
[1:09:24] The point I'm trying to make is that they do not load a truck in North Vietnam and drive it all the way down to Saigon.
[1:09:32] The supplies are frequently offloaded, cached away, then picked up again by another group of trucks, and it's kind of shuttled down in that fashion.
[1:09:43] They use trucks.
[1:09:44] They use Russian trucks that carry about four tons of material.
[1:09:48] They use just the A-frame.
[1:09:51] They used bicycles, they stopped being able to catch hundreds of bicycles, and they used a pipeline.
[1:09:56] They had a four-way pipeline running from North Vietnam down into this area to about this point, and they had spores off of it like that, which would go into the way stations where the trucks would stop and refuel.
[1:10:10] Now, there's another interesting feature of the old G-Man trailer, mainly the weather.
[1:10:16] Only about six months out of the year when it is usable.
[1:10:22] This is from about 1 October to 1 May as a matter of fact.
[1:10:25] The roads only become roadable for heavy trucks beginning in January and February.
[1:10:31] So this means that the major health must be forced through in a matter of just a few months.
[1:10:38] And this is what the North Vietnamese began to prepare for as soon as they realized what had happened down here and lost access to this port.
[1:10:46] They sent in large numbers of road builders and truck repairmen and so on together with the personnel to protect them.
[1:10:54] And they even went so far as to withdraw some of their combat forces from South Vietnam back into this area in order to provide security for the forces that they had in there to ensure, through this bottleneck right here, that they could keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail open.
[1:11:13] Now we began in October a very heavy air interdiction program against this movement.
[1:11:21] And we have been very successful in destroying trucks.
[1:11:24] Well over 3,000 trucks have been destroyed.
[1:11:28] Last night over about 120 were destroyed in this area from just about here all the way south and down here.
[1:11:38] A very large number, over half of them,
[1:11:40] right north of the Chupona area, which is in the ocean at this point.
[1:11:47] So, faced with this situation and realizing that unless these supplies could be transported at a high rate, the South Asian meetings began to look at ways and means of doing something about this area, as well as this area down here, which contained the remnants of the forces that were left from the cross-border operations.
[1:12:10] last year.
[1:12:10] I think you've got to realize that at the same time that the Capitolian operations were conducted, another very important thing happened.
[1:12:18] And that is that the South Asian media became amazed that this means that they now have the capability of planning and conducting their own operations.
[1:12:27] And don't go away and look at it to the feasibility of conducting operations of this nature.
[1:12:33] With that in mind, then they laid on tunes
[1:12:39] Key operations.
[1:12:39] One up here that we call Lansan, which is in the lounge from just south of the DMZ.
[1:12:45] The other one down here in the vicinity of what is called the Juklanation, which is north-east of Mount Denton.
[1:12:54] The president authorized the use of American air power to support this operation.
[1:13:01] This air power includes B-22s, tactical air, as well as helo-lift, helo-gunships, and helo-metabank.
[1:13:09] However, there are no American ground forces in either one of these operations, and anyone that says otherwise is just wrong.
[1:13:19] Now I will brief each operation in turn.
[1:13:29] This operation in Laos is called Lam Son 719.
[1:13:32] It's named after a town where a very heavy battle was fought in 1432, I think, where the Vietnamese defeated the Chinese.
[1:13:41] But you will note that all of these operations have South Vietnamese names.
[1:13:52] Now, let me just show you in general what the scheme and the plan has been for this operation.
[1:14:00] First, this is a very steep highway.
[1:14:03] It's Highway 9.
[1:14:03] It goes all the way across the northern part of South Vietnam, across Laos, and it actually goes into Thailand.
[1:14:12] This, as you recognize, is the DMC.
[1:14:15] This is the border between North Vietnam and Laos, and between South Vietnam and Laos.
[1:14:20] And this general area here is known as Military Region 1.
[1:14:25] Now, the plan was for U.S. forces to provide security in South Vietnam, particularly with respect to this road.
[1:14:34] And you see these little symbols here indicate what we call blocking forces that are put up there simply as a precaution to any kind of action on the part of the North, East and East across the DNC.
[1:14:48] At least I don't think that there's any...
[1:14:51] Prospects of this, but nevertheless, the North Vietnamese have put forces in this general area, and they do, on occasion, make SAFA attacks and a few Barati mortar attacks in an effort to cut the transportation that goes along this highway.
[1:15:10] About 600 trucks a day now giving support.
[1:15:14] And in the supply situation, so far as the South Asian media is concerned, and the U.S. concerned, it's in good shape.
[1:15:21] I just talked to a gentleman not less than 30 minutes ago.
[1:15:24] He said they have 15 days of suppliers, and in fact, what they have to watch is that they don't get too much involved and put it in jeopardy.
[1:15:31] But the supply situation is in good shape.
[1:15:33] Now, with the use of the United States forces supporting the South Vietnamese and providing security for this role, a very large qualification was established at Khe Sanh.
[1:15:47] You all have heard of that.
[1:15:48] No way it is.
[1:15:50] Which was permitted to bring in air supply as well as truck supply.
[1:15:55] and also provide a jumping-off place, you might say, for the helicopters that then put the South Vietnamese into the area.
[1:16:04] As you record, it was on 8 February that they actually crossed the border and then went again.
[1:16:12] At that time, the North Vietnamese had about 14,000 or 15,000 troops,
[1:16:16] In the area of the...
[1:16:31] ...next town of Schiphol, and the Schiphol River, which runs out here.
[1:16:35] And I would like to say right now that Schiphol, per se, is not an objective.
[1:16:41] It does not have any military significance.
[1:16:43] It's just a tiny little deserted village.
[1:16:45] What we understand is, of course, the area around Schiphol, where not only do we find very large caches, but also where the North Vietnamese run their trucks.
[1:16:58] endeavour to go around this area, which in fact is the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, and we call it Highway 92.
[1:17:07] What does that mean when they begin to establish what they call five support bases?
[1:17:14] And here again, the idea was to provide on the flanks here security so that the penetration in through here could contain.
[1:17:23] And I should say that there was never any intent of digging in and stinging in one place.
[1:17:31] The idea here was to take full advantage of our mobility and our firepower from the airstrike artillery and so on, which would keep the North Vietnamese off balance, force them to more or less concentrate at one particular place, and thereby provide very innovative air targets, and this is exactly what has happened.
[1:17:55] There have been over 7,000 now of these troops killed in this operation.
[1:18:01] And we don't really know how many have been killed because as often we don't know what the effect of their operations are.
[1:18:08] And I don't think we'll ever know exactly what their casualties have been.
[1:18:13] But nevertheless, General Engels estimates that four regiments have been very badly hurt already.
[1:18:22] The North Vietnamese react to this operation very strongly.
[1:18:26] They have just about doubled the number of fragments they have in the area.
[1:18:32] And they have, we estimate now, if they still have the caches, they could have about 30,000, which would be followed down to about 16,500 South Vietnamese that are in this area operating.
[1:18:46] In general, I have color-coded the way the areas are colored.
[1:18:51] The green is the responsibility of the very famous and best French Army Division, which during the entire war has operated here along the DMZ.
[1:19:04] The yellow is manned by the Army Airborne Troops.
[1:19:08] They were the ones that went in first and got so much publicity in what was called Minus Support Base 30 and Minus Support Base 31.
[1:19:18] I point out again that these were simply forts that they had temporarily occupied.
[1:19:25] They were high forts, listed in the MRE law, and although there was much to be told in the paper, the facts are that the northeast of these suffered about six to one casualties.
[1:19:39] In that engagement, suddenly South-Eastern East joined up with the tank forces, which are represented by this orange color here.
[1:19:47] This is where they are operating, and they regained the area, and they've been there ever since.
[1:19:53] I would just like to say in this connection that we do not expect the South-Eastern East to win every battle, not by any means.
[1:20:00] This is the first time they've ever been on their own, and they're doing very, very well indeed.
[1:20:06] And thus was the military effect.
[1:20:09] of this overall operation, so far as the characters and so on are concerned, must be viewed in the terms of the cumulative effect of a series of almost continuous, sharp clashes throughout this entire area.
[1:20:26] In the blue area here, just around out the location of the Army forces, we have the Marines, the Army Marines.
[1:20:34] During last night they had the most fighting.
[1:20:38] You have to realize that the...
[1:21:02] A force up into this area, south of the line, where they are doing their best to keep the one remaining road, which we call Highway 914, which comes down from the Chippewa area and gets back on the main avenue's transport down through here.
[1:21:20] And you know that I might talk about these roads in a little bit.
[1:21:24] Of course, the primary objective that the president set for this operation was disruption
[1:21:30] of the flow of supplies during a period when the flow of supplies is at its peak.
[1:21:36] And this has been accomplished to a very high degree already.
[1:21:40] We've had all kinds of intelligence indicating that some of the units are out of ammunition.
[1:21:45] One of them was told to fight with explosives only, despite the fact he didn't have any ammunition.
[1:21:51] These mid-trams are moving out and having to reposition themselves
[1:21:56] And so on.
[1:21:57] And so the fact is, it might be very heavy, it will be long range, we will not know in total what's happened until we've had a chance to completely analyze the thing after it's all over.
[1:22:13] Now let me just describe these roles a little bit, because as I said,
[1:22:19] This highway 92, which comes down through here, and then continues on south, is the key avenue through which they pass their supplies.
[1:22:31] In addition to that, they go over into the Chapone area, and can come down through here on highway 914, and continue on down, and then move into the way area of south Vietnam through this road we call 922.
[1:22:48] As I said earlier, all of these roads have been under attack, and just last night, about 60 trucks were destroyed in this area.
[1:22:58] They are still pressing ahead on their people to do better, and to do what you can to transport supplies,
[1:23:08] But they have a very difficult time.
[1:23:11] They have supplies backed up here in this northern area along where the taxes permit them to move from north Vietnam into south Vietnam.
[1:23:21] So this is the general road complex that we are interested in in this destruction process.
[1:23:26] We know that in this general area here, this is perhaps one of the largest base areas that exists along the entire Laotian, Cambodian, South Vietnamese border, and the South Vietnamese are working on that.
[1:23:43] I heard this morning on the radio that they had resumed normal transportation style, but I can assure you that this is not the fact.
[1:24:01] Now, as of this moment, we have, as you probably read the paper over the weekend, the great division is in the general vicinity of the Chippewa area, and there's nothing in Chippewa.
[1:24:13] They've been through Chippewa.
[1:24:14] It's not a matter of seeking and holding a point, anything of that kind.
[1:24:19] There are no B2Bs in Chippewa now.
[1:24:21] They've killed them all.
[1:24:24] They've found very large caches, 2,000...
[1:24:28] Rounds of 82 millimeters, several hundred rounds of 122 millimeters.
[1:24:36] They found overall well over about 2,500,000 pounds of food.
[1:24:44] They have 134,000 gallons of fuel, and they cut this pipeline, which I show here, coming down through this, and cut many, many places.
[1:24:56] It extended all the way down to this point, and now they are being forced to transport the fuel by truck.
[1:25:02] And this, of course, would consume space that otherwise would be occupied by ammunition and supplies.
[1:25:09] So the operation continued last night, which was that daytime.
[1:25:15] The weather was not too good, but nevertheless there were several operations in this general area, just contacts.
[1:25:26] In addition to that, the South Vietnamese continued to find large numbers of bodies that were killed by air attack as they moved around in that general area.
[1:25:37] The sharpest fight was conducted by the Marines here in this area where they managed to dispose of a couple hundred of the...
[1:25:48] So the plans now are for these operations, these, which aim, as I said, primarily at the drugs and to contain.
[1:25:57] Now that the South Vietnamese
[1:26:01] pretty well situated in this very key area.
[1:26:04] Now, there's been some talk about, there has been talk about bypassing the operation to the west.
[1:26:11] This is highway 23, and I don't show you all of it.
[1:26:13] I should have pointed it out on the other chart.
[1:26:15] It turns around and comes back down here and goes on south.
[1:26:20] But the point is that there's no road suitable for truss that will permit the north-eastern majors from coming down this road and then getting back on the main highway again.
[1:26:31] And so that, although there has been some truck traffic observed here, very minor, 10 trucks a day or something like that, sometimes each with soldiers in it, we don't think that the transport that can be moved over Highway 23 will be too significant.
[1:26:51] So, there's another aspect of this operation which I think is best noted, and that is that the North Vietnam have been firing missiles from North Vietnam into Laos, and from North Vietnam, on one occasion at least, they fired a couple across the DMZ.
[1:27:13] In addition to that, in this general area of Chiffon River, they fired some unguided rockets one night, and caused quite a bit of discussion on the part of the pilots nationally, because a rocket at night is quite a spectacular event, particularly if it's hit towards you.
[1:27:33] But we determined that...
[1:27:35] These were not guided rockets.
[1:27:36] They were simply unguided rockets, and they were just 140mm sawed, and I guess they were fired in desperation.
[1:27:43] But of course, so far, fortunately, we've had no planes hit.
[1:27:48] Right inside the Baskerville Pass, which is just here, they established for the first time a rocket site in the Lameb House, and...
[1:27:59] This was possibly hit by a tactical aircraft and was made an inspection.
[1:28:06] I should also point out another interesting feature, and that is the use of tanks.
[1:28:11] The North Vietnamese have brought a large number of tanks down into this area.
[1:28:17] They have three kinds of tanks.
[1:28:19] They have what they call the PT-76, the T-34, and the T-54.
[1:28:22] The PT-76 is nothing more than an armored amphibious vehicle.
[1:28:26] The T-34 and the T-54 are heavily armed tanks.
[1:28:29] However, the South Vietnamese have also put their...
[1:28:34] N41 tanks in here, and the tactical aircraft have done a great job on these tanks.
[1:28:39] So far, the North Vietnamese have lost 93 tanks, and tank operations have intention to thank them.
[1:28:48] So I can certainly say that the operation is certainly going well, bearing in mind that the South Vietnamese are fighting in an area in which the enemy has been located for about 11 years.
[1:28:58] They are out on their own for the very first time.
[1:29:01] They have no American advisors, so they have to make their own decisions.
[1:29:06] And they have it without exception, off-well and off-IUL.
[1:29:09] Again, we don't expect them to win ever gravel, and you'll probably see a couple of crises and a headline for the big one.
[1:29:17] But I want to point out to you that the way this terrain is formed, and I'll show you a topographical chart in just a minute, it's clear that there's not going to be any such thing as a dead man's food.
[1:29:29] That really is ridiculous, because, again, it's just a series of strong points
[1:29:34] They occupy it for a while until they serve their purpose, and then they move on to the next one, using this key load lift.
[1:29:43] We expect continued harassment of this road.
[1:29:47] This took place last night.
[1:29:49] For instance, we have had trucks fired upon.
[1:29:53] and normal type of ambushes, but we feel they can handle that.
[1:29:57] We've spent rocket fire on Kinshaw.
[1:29:59] There's already been a small amount.
[1:30:01] Nevertheless, General Abrams and General Sullivan, who's in command of this area, are well aware of this.
[1:30:08] They've been up there a long time, and they've taken, in my view, every precaution that a true military commander can take.
[1:30:17] So, the idea here is to continue the operation.
[1:30:21] The South Vietnamese will decide, as the president chooses that, the limit, the scope.
[1:30:27] Of course, as a practical matter, he will be limited by wealth, because, something good to me, this area particularly here gets to be nothing more than a quagmire.
[1:30:37] I know the area down in here remains dry longer than it does up here because the weather in this area is most peculiar in the sense that it makes a depth shift back and forth, and the South Vietnamese will probably withdraw back through this area, at least some of them will, in order to, again, contain and disrupt the supplies that might have been put here before this operation was conducted.
[1:31:06] So much for the Lansan operation.
[1:31:09] As I said last evening, the activity was widespread, but not too loud, except for this one place right here where the Marines are fighting.
[1:31:23] If you would like some statistics, I'll be happy to list some, in the sense that recognizing that, of course, these are subject to confirmation and are continually updated, but...
[1:31:35] By and large, as I said, there are 7,044 reported killed against 455 of the South African nations.
[1:31:47] They have lost 2,443 weapons, 2,869,000 pounds of rice and food, 134,000 gallons of water.
[1:31:55] They have lost some 95 tanks, and the South Vietnamese have lost 8.
[1:32:00] Most of the tanks have been lost by the North Vietnamese have been due to tactical death threats.
[1:32:09] There's been quite a bit in the papers about the loss of helos, because the helos have been operating in a very difficult environment from an AAS point of view.
[1:32:21] But I just had some figures
[1:33:04] and reached the proportions that one would, beyond which one would expect an operation of this kind, and beyond the experience we've had in the past, understanding the circumstances.
[1:33:14] Fortunately, in most cases, the crews have been rescued.
[1:33:18] And therefore, there's been a very little loss of life, relatively speaking.
[1:33:26] So...
[1:33:28] As I said before, this operation will continue on that vein with the objective of disrupting this flow of supplies, and we feel, and we are confident this will have a very serious impact on the capability of the Southeast and the East to conduct operations this year and next year, too.
[1:33:47] And consequently, it should and will serve to facilitate our plan for reducing U.S. involvement and withdrawing U.S. forces from Southeast Vietnam as the visualization program, or that is, as the strength of the Southeast Vietnamese continues to grow.
[1:34:03] And that's what this operation is all about, gentlemen.
[1:34:06] And in my view, it is well aware of the evidence, and well conceived, and...
[1:34:13] I think that history will show that this was a very useful operation.
[1:34:22] Now I may turn down to Cambodia.
[1:34:24] This operation hasn't been getting anything like the publicity that this one has, simply because all of the 150 or so reporters in South Vietnam dashed madly up to military Region 1.
[1:34:36] When both of these operations started at the same time, they hadn't seen fit to sit down and take a look.
[1:34:45] But here again, to orient you, this is the main front row.
[1:34:50] Right here.
[1:34:51] And this is the South Beach community Cambodian border.
[1:34:55] This is the famous Parris Beach where we conducted the operation last May and June.
[1:35:00] This is the fishhook that you heard quite a bit about about eight or nine months ago.
[1:35:07] And this is what is known as Highway 7.
[1:35:09] There are generally seven highways in Cambodia that revolve around South Bend.
[1:35:16] And they go clockwise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 going to Thailand.
[1:35:19] And you get around here to 7 coming over to the northern part of South Vietnam.
[1:35:26] And this is a very active area for the North Vietnamese.
[1:35:31] As a matter of fact, after we conducted the cross-border operations here in the Fisher area, three of their key divisions pulled back,
[1:35:40] ...into this general area, in and north each of what is called the Chuk plantation.
[1:35:46] This is the biggest rubble plantation in Cambodia.
[1:35:49] and the divisions of the 5th, 7th, and 9th.
[1:35:51] And they have been there ever since the Cambodian operations were conducted last year.
[1:35:57] They haven't been too inactive.
[1:36:00] They have conducted some veronic mortifying, things like that, against the Phnom Penh airfield, for instance, and against Khong Phong Cham, a little city right here.
[1:36:12] But by and large they've been inactive, I guess because they're waiting
[1:36:15] for every spike to come down through the whole G-men trade.
[1:36:19] And consequently, the South-East Namese decided to mount this operation to sweep out and clear out this area, so that they would then eliminate this threat of the North-East region coming across the South-East Namese waters, moving back, coming back, and making strikes against our forces and our facilities in this general area of what is called military region,
[1:36:44] 3.
[1:36:44] This is Saigon right here.
[1:36:46] This is Mount Penn.
[1:36:47] Highway 1 is the key road that goes from Saigon to Mount Penn.
[1:36:54] So the southeast main mountain operation, which is a consent of about 17,000 men.
[1:37:02] They have been operating along Highway 7, and they have been all the way up to Geelong.
[1:37:27] I think when this operation is over, it will probably extend several more weeks that these divisions will be...
[1:37:48] ...severely hurt, and their logistics posture will be severely hurt, and this again will contribute to the safety of our forces in South Vietnam.
[1:38:00] So, ladies and gentlemen, that's what these operations are all about.
[1:38:04] They're being conducted on the ground solely by the South Asian East.
[1:38:10] The South Asian East have gotten the best of practically every fight that they've been in, in this operation and also in the Lamsan operation.
[1:38:19] And I think that there's no question about the fact that the...
[1:38:23] And that long-range effect will be to certainly improve the security of our forces, facilitate the withdrawal program, and contribute to the strength of the South Vietnamese so that they can stand on their own two feet.
[1:38:40] And things are going...
[1:38:44] Mr. President, should I ask a question?
[1:38:50] Our old news media admiral keeps talking about the number of US helicopters lost,
[1:39:09] I have heard it put in proper perspective relating to the number of sorties.
[1:39:14] I mean, you said there were 47 lost and lost 54 overall.
[1:39:21] How does that relate to the number?
[1:39:23] I think it's .56 to 1,000 sorties.
[1:39:26] I don't get those exact figures for it.
[1:39:29] But as I point out here, if one looks at the numbers of sorties...
[1:39:39] No loss, of course, in distress, but look at it from a point of view of what one might expect.
[1:39:48] They're actually alone.
[1:39:51] They made thousands and thousands of tortillas in this operation.
[1:39:58] Mr. President, I have a further question about the rescue crews.
[1:40:04] Could you give any ballpark percentage or anything like that of how many of the percentage of the crew were rescued?
[1:40:14] Well, not only are the crews rescued, but also the aircraft themselves are frequently rescued.
[1:40:20] As you know, we have these flying crane aircraft that recover the helos.
[1:40:26] Now, so far, I'm running a show that we...
[1:40:31] have lost 32 Americans and eco-crews in Laos.
[1:40:36] Just yesterday we had seven missing.
[1:40:40] They turned up in good shape and they were all repelled with no injuries.
[1:40:46] So this is a fluid situation and we have to conduct these rescue operations.
[1:40:54] By and large, I would say that something like
[1:41:01] Well, I wasn't going to give you a double, but I'll get you one.
[1:41:04] I was going to estimate 15% or something like that.
[1:41:10] 15% are lost.
[1:41:13] Yeah.
[1:41:13] If that was your question, 15%, I'd lay it to the total number of people.
[1:41:18] But I don't think it's high.
[1:41:20] You must remember that the North Indian media has been there a long time.
[1:41:24] They have not only have their own anti-aircraft organization, but for this operation they've directed everyone to get a gun, so to speak.
[1:41:36] And this is why I think it's the, because we went down the...
[1:41:40] I'd like to pass this around, if you'd like to look at it, because...
[1:41:51] You see, it shows how rough this country really is.
[1:41:55] And it shows that, you see, the South Beach communities have established these fire support bases along these high points here.
[1:42:03] Now this is the Chiffon area, right here.
[1:42:07] This is the intersection of Highway 92, which is really the mainstream of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
[1:42:14] This is the Highway 9 that I saw you coming out of South Beach now, and moving across Laos into Thailand.
[1:42:21] And this juncture hill of Highway 9 and 92 is a very important point.
[1:42:28] And so far, of course, the South Beach Bay has completely cut that.
[1:42:32] There's no trucks.
[1:42:34] Going down this way, there's no trucks on this road at all.
[1:42:38] Now, the South Vietnamese are now moving down into this road, we call 914, and they're just gradually squeezing this whole thing off.
[1:42:49] And this is the Highway 23 that I mentioned to you.
[1:42:51] It goes out to the left, but as I mentioned, there's no access by vehicles from here over to here.
[1:42:57] When they get down there, they get down there into the Saravane area, Boulderman Flat Coat,
[1:43:02] And that's it.
[1:43:03] That's as far as they go.
[1:43:03] And then they have to hand over the material over to the distributors further south, into South Vietnam.
[1:43:08] Mr. President, once this is done, if you chose to visit an audience, I mean, if it was ready to be, if it was going to increase their age, if it was going to be a first sectional, if it was going to be a second,