Nixon & Connally on Press Briefing and Agricultural Policy

3:42:50Professor, you haven't been out here in a little bit.
3:42:57No, sir.
3:42:57But I still have time.
3:42:59Unfortunately, I see you without me.
3:43:01You understand that what I say to you is almost by instinct.
3:43:09As much as he can attract, this would be the explanation.
3:43:33He's got to fight it.
3:43:34And we can put out the stuff over here.
3:43:40Well, he's against it, but he's not really against it.
3:43:46But from the standpoint of the American public, he's against it.
3:43:54Well, I must say, I have the very basic feeling that, first of all, what's wrong with getting defeated?
3:44:04It's technically for what you believe in.
3:44:05Looking at it strictly from a political standpoint, leaving aside many other considerations, I suppose.
3:44:16But if there's one thing we need right now, Sammy,
3:44:21And a good enemy is communist China.
3:44:24Talk about political speakers.
3:44:27And so you go to have a fight.
3:44:28Suppose you lose it.
3:44:30What have we lost?
3:44:31As a practical matter.
3:44:33Suppose we go out on the road.
3:44:35We don't lose anyone.
3:44:36Suppose they kick the Chiang Kai-shek guy.
3:44:40What's he lost?
3:44:41How is he going to do it?
3:44:42What has he really lost?
3:44:44Yet he retains the friendship of this country, the collective civilization.
3:44:51I'm not sure that, uh, that I wouldn't take the car if I hadn't, uh, sold Canada, sold the United Kingdom, sold Canada, sold each other.
3:45:01I mean, they'd be higher than the rest of them.
3:45:05That's what I think we should keep in mind with some of the other Asian nations.
3:45:08I think most of them hope that we can keep companies right now.
3:45:12Well, I'll tell you, I can't sell the idea now that this is a very adroit maneuver on our part to keep companies right now.
3:45:22Communist China has the opportunity to come in and if they want to, and they're as smart as I think they are, they'll come in and still denounce you and still use the United Nations as a podium to try to kick someone out.
3:45:36That's what I do.
3:45:37That's what this position, we Americans are compulsive negotiators.
3:45:43We've got to try to reach the court and our enemies in the world are going to hate us.
3:45:48Well, listen, let me say this.
3:45:50I'm sure you've heard from everybody, but I want to say, Marshall, if you were going to call your people out,
3:46:08This was really an excellent tapering of the whole scene.
3:46:12I read it completely last night.
3:46:17But it really lays it out in a way that we really have to face the facts as they are.
3:46:22There's an old, frankly I've got some old age in hand, it's Alex or Martin Green.
3:46:30For whatever it's worth, I'm just looking at it.
3:46:37How do we sell it?
3:46:38What happens?
3:46:40My view is, China has done it.
3:46:41I think everybody is an expert on the Chinese and nobody knows anything about the Chinese.
3:46:49The Chinese are curious.
3:46:52I had a very interesting talk with a fellow.
3:46:56There's Old Town, Hong Kong, and the Mandarin Motel, which is one of the more pleasant parts of it.
3:47:02And, uh, St. Scaroly.
3:47:05And Harold Lee is, of course, like all Chinese, playing all kinds.
3:47:08I mean, I was having a conversation.
3:47:11I will do, but not a lot.
3:47:14I asked him about this, about where in 1967.
3:47:15So Harold, he just probably couldn't lay it.
3:47:19It was too strong for him.
3:47:21And Harold, I said, I said, what do you think about it?
3:47:24And I said, you know, when you find a British that's up to this, what would you think of our recognizing of this?
3:47:33He said, you're crazy.
3:47:38He said, you're crazy.
3:47:39He said, you saw what they were saying.
3:47:43He said, they say, you recognize us.
3:47:46He said, when are we going to recognize you?
3:47:50His point being that their reaction is not going to be one generally, but it's certainly going to play in.
3:47:56To play it to you, your analogy, John, to play it in terms of the clever thing, well, we've got the option to come in, so we'll go in, but we see the United Nations, their reaction to being in the vanguard now,
3:48:10people from movies around the world would need to say, by God, we need that.
3:48:17And so we're not going to go in unless this guy gets out, you see.
3:48:22That's what we're going to do.
3:48:23That is one way to look at it, but we can't be sure.
3:48:27The point that I'm making is that the paper is brilliant and setting forth all of these very interesting options, and now we've got to decide.
3:57:13I just love it.
3:57:17I love it.
3:57:22I love it.
3:57:23I love it.
3:57:25I love it.
3:57:27I love it.
3:57:30I love it.
3:57:32I love it.
3:57:40I mean, as far as news is concerned, it's a damn complicated matter.
3:57:55Whatever you get across.
3:58:03I will try to say very briefly, I think a lot of it is true.
3:58:07The one part is, depending on what you say, I would not throw it to you first.
3:58:12Well, I think what you say, I think we ought to cover it.
3:58:15One of us ought to cover it.
3:58:17In fact, most people are frustrated with that.
3:58:23They think it costs too much.
3:58:25In fact, do they want to do it?
3:58:27I'll let you take those points.
3:58:30In fact, I think that it costs too much.
3:58:33It doesn't work.
3:58:34You can't do anything about it.
3:58:35It just gets at it.
3:58:36This just gets at the problem.
3:58:37You know, the one problem that I thought that we could discuss perhaps, which is a very great political problem, and it has to be the one that poaches the greatest confidence we might imagine.
3:58:49It's accurate to what you just said.
3:58:53Sam Farmer is trying to really raise the tone on the ground, and they say now they've got to go to three, but those are the ones that won.
3:59:01I don't think that's true.
3:59:02As a matter of fact, I think they go to 30 of those now.
3:59:04But I would like for you to put your mind, if you would, to how we can qualify them.
3:59:12In other words, maybe there's a way to put up a farmer window here or something.
3:59:16I don't know.
3:59:17Or a clearinghouse in the White House.
3:59:20Or I don't know.
3:59:21Or maybe you just say, just remember we decided to do this.
3:59:25We did it later in the farm.
3:59:27We said, well, let's have all of our animals done that.
3:59:31I don't know how significant the department thing is.
3:59:33It's not very clear.
3:59:35I always gave it to the business person.
3:59:37I think what happens in the department of green access is what happens in the department of systems.
3:59:45That's like the belt.
3:59:45I don't know.
3:59:46Did that go all right?
3:59:46Well, I don't know.
3:59:47I'm doing that.
3:59:48That's what that job is.
3:59:53I think it was a little bit of a reading when he was talking about it.
3:59:59It was a little bit of a reading.
4:00:01I don't know if we're reading any times.
4:00:03Well, on agriculture, my approach to it was going to be, I'm just going to say good luck.
4:00:09Y'all get the cues of all kinds of things.
4:00:12You've got food stamps.
4:00:13You've got service commodities.
4:00:15You've got everything in the world.
4:00:17You've got everything.
4:00:20toward New York and get your corporations involved with your manpower and all of a sudden it really contributes nothing to your welfare.
4:00:29If you get blamed for it, you have this.
4:00:32If you don't, if you don't get a low profile here, these cities legislate hard, it's gonna absolutely destroy you.
4:00:37You're not gonna have any kind of progress that's gonna help you there.
4:00:41And so my approach is gonna be, they've got to get out of the spotlight and out of the limelight.
4:00:47They've got to get submerged.
4:00:50Because they can't, they can't exist.
4:00:52For very long, they can't be present, to be honest with you.
4:00:56I know some states, they were ready, they were ready to meet up.
4:00:59Well, they, you know, of course, you know, you know, you really come down to it.
4:01:03You can stop and think about it.
4:01:05I told him, I said, Steve, that was so gross.
4:01:11Here, two, three people, Anderson.
4:01:16A person just practicing how it is to be me when he's left.
4:01:21That man, Margaret, who was a ridiculous young woman who was living in John.
4:01:29But I'll tell you this, I feel exactly the same.
4:01:34This country doesn't go forward like that.
4:01:37I think we're fighting the right battle here.
4:01:40The public may not be with us yet, but they will be in the end.
4:01:43Don't you think so?
4:01:45Yes, sir.
4:01:45As far as the next 10 weeks go, we've got to do the talking because we're not able to monitor the crisis in the world.
4:01:53Of course, just like you said.
4:01:57We've got a negative balance of payments for the first two and a half months of this year of $5 billion.
4:02:05We've got the Germans coming over here.
4:02:07They want us to give some guarantees.
4:02:08We've got the settlers that come in and say we want gold.
4:02:12And the Dutch and Swiss are talking about the same damn thing.
4:02:15The Germans, for the first time in 54 years, we've got $15.5 billion in reserves.
4:02:20We've got $13.5 billion.
4:02:22Uh, and this is going to be a serious problem for us when we get to the point where we're not even put into the mass.
4:02:29I think the need for commercial aviation, that's a serious point.
4:02:31They want to dismantle the army to bring the boys home.
4:02:35They don't want to support the space program.
4:02:38The space will be next.
4:02:39They're next.
4:02:40They're going to dismantle the lack of doors that have any relation to the military or science.
4:02:45And they won't support the commercial essentially until you get ahead on this side.
4:02:50Uh, we're in the hands of the beast.
4:02:52But don't we just have to fight with Peter?
4:02:55I'm all for fighting.
4:02:56I'm happy to fight.
4:02:57It's all tied in, like I said.
4:02:59It's all splitters.
4:03:00Well, that's going to be one of those games.
4:03:03No, of course not.
4:03:04Something will happen to the world.
4:03:10We're going to come out to the park and come out of this place and think, all right, you know, we did a bad job.
4:03:19You know, these little guys got out of there.
4:03:23They got out of there and they just got to report down the side.
4:03:26I think they did an awful lot.
4:03:35Yes, sir.
4:29:47Of course, I couldn't say this again for a long time.
4:29:49So, that's where that picture was taken of you.
4:29:52That big wall.
4:29:52Yeah, I've got to stumble over to make the frame.
4:29:56I don't want to do this for the president.
4:29:58So, that's the appeal of it.

Nixon & Connally on Press Briefing and Agricultural Policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 25, 1971

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