Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 455-014
Date: Monday, February 22, 1971 at 1:01 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Sanders, H. E.; Sanders, H. E. (Mrs.); Cashen, Henry C., II; Parker, David N.; Price, Raymond K., Jr.; White House photographer
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/455-014

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:06] Son, how are you?
[0:26] I'm happy to see you.
[0:27] Well, I'd like to go to my wife.
[0:28] Yes, I see you.
[0:28] So nice of you to receive us.
[0:28] Well, I hope many of you.
[0:29] Let's go get a nice picture for your family.
[0:30] Oh, do you like it?
[0:30] Do you like that?
[0:31] That's incredible.
[0:31] Thank you.
[0:31] Okay, sit down.
[0:32] Thank you, sir.
[0:34] It's certainly a very anxious time.
[0:54] And this is us.
[0:54] Our team is old, and we need to rapidly think we have something to be interested in.
[0:56] Whether it's April to 30, we would like to revisit the list before Saturday.
[0:58] We'd like to take some and make a little progress.
[0:59] We feel that we would have a lot to offer you, and we know that you would be good by industry, and especially in the field of the environment today.
[1:16] I think it would be a good place as a suggestion for you to...
[1:17] And I know that this is great, but this is my job.
[1:41] I was with you a few weeks ago on your briefing on the reorganization in the tribe.
[1:59] And did you know George Ford?
[2:03] I'm a small independent operator.
[2:23] I do not own any of my own forests.
[2:28] I depend on local things.
[2:31] And we have a program going in the south now, this third forest, that we think is going to be the greatest place that I've come from.
[2:44] In the south, there's about 200 million acres of forest land.
[2:46] About 17 million acres are owned by the federal government and other forms of agencies of the government.
[2:49] Then there's about 30 to 40 million owned by big industry.
[3:01] That leaves about 140 million acres of land in the South that is owned primarily by small landowners.
[3:09] There's some large landowners, but primarily entirely small landowners.
[3:10] Now the industry lands and the federal and the government lands, but they're properly centralized, are growing more timber.
[3:15] than the private lands.
[3:26] And our program is to take and stimulate the growth of the Temple on the 140 million acres that are owned by private owners.
[3:34] We feel, by the private owners, I say, we feel by the year 2000,
[3:37] that we can double the worth of temper in the South, et cetera.
[3:56] You know, a lot of people don't realize that the South is a high-quality country.
[3:57] I've been a schoolmaster on it for years.
[3:58] They don't really travel through their country.
[3:59] It's a magnificent country in terms of its temper and everything.
[4:00] You know, it's a green part of the country.
[4:01] It's a green as it can be in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee.
[4:03] Mississippi is pretty easy to do.
[4:19] It is pretty easy.
[4:20] And it's fine that you're, I think it's a great program.
[4:21] It fits into the environmental program.
[4:22] That's the Everglades.
[4:22] We ought to try to save us here.
[4:23] We've got to save us.
[4:23] Some, say some.
[4:27] Yes, sir.
[4:30] I'll tell you, we'll, we'll follow some of these programs.
[4:35] Yeah, we'll follow what?
[4:36] Some of these, these programs that they have to lead with.
[4:38] There's people entitled to these things.
[4:39] Sure, sure.
[4:39] But on the other hand, it doesn't make any sense to be quite candid about it.
[4:41] This idea that nothing should be cut of soil.
[4:54] That is why you're going to have a whole place grow up like a jungle.
[4:57] And so what it is is just proper management of our resources.
[4:58] We need to develop the kind of program.
[4:59] I think the industry makes a great deal of sense.
[5:12] In effect, you take the offensive on this and don't let the government come in and try to push you.
[5:14] We go the last way.
[5:14] I agree with you on that.
[5:15] I basically am a man of understanding.
[5:15] And we are about to get you around.
[5:30] Now, for example, we feel how far service needs more push to grow.
[5:33] We are exactly what you recommended in June, our push to the part to grow more temple.
[5:35] We did this in the South.
[5:59] I left it with this caption.
[6:00] A small rediscovery of our plans.
[6:01] I know you're a busy man, but I assure you I'd love to have you look it over.
[6:02] This will take you out of the old room as well as in a few ways.
[6:04] I'm glad you're going to have such a far-sighted
[6:05] Well, the South is a great part of this country, and I hope that we've done this administration a good job.
[6:31] All right.
[6:51] schools in which the majority of the children are white.
[7:07] In the North, only 28% of all black children go to schools in which the majority of the children are white.
[7:11] So in other words, the South, the people that have been kicking around for so many years, is doing a better job of trying to handle this terribly difficult problem in the North, because the South basically is a wall-binding part of this country.
[7:18] That's what it really is.
[7:18] The South, not only is it wall-binding, the South is also intensely patriotic.
[7:20] The best support that I've had
[7:24] The other thing about the South is this.
[7:47] The idea is the South don't care about the beauty of the country and all the rest.
[7:52] The South looked back for too long.
[8:12] I think any Southerner would say that.
[8:12] It was true when I was a kid, too, from 34 to 37.
[8:15] I was looking back, 100 of us back.
[8:16] But now today, the South not only looks back with such good pride to what it's accomplished and how it's served, it looks forward.
[8:18] The South is moving in a very progressive way.
[8:19] That's why it's attracting industry.
[8:20] That's why it is
[8:20] making, frankly, such an armistice.
[8:39] You go to Atlanta and look at that city.
[8:40] It's a great, bustling, powerful city.
[8:42] And the reason is, the Southerners got on the ball.
[8:43] And the result of these balls, we don't consider the South a second-rate, second-class part of the country, not necessarily.
[8:46] I have some more things I want to tell you.
[9:08] We've got a report that I might say to you, but it's going to get too late.
[9:09] There are some in the Navy.
[9:10] We have one of the finest naval air stations in the world, a Russian, really new player.
[9:12] It's sitting pretty at the end.
[9:12] But he's not a piece of it.
[9:13] He's a line officer.
[9:13] He's going on the Albany.
[9:14] Yes, Albany.
[9:14] See, it's a line officer.
[9:15] You brought me here.
[9:15] I brought you something to do.
[9:16] A pine cone produces seeds for the growing trees.
[9:41] This pine cone, I hope, will produce some seeds to grow in the natural forest.
[9:43] So it's a type act that I want you to have.
[9:44] You don't want to see it.
[9:44] I have one there.
[9:45] I very, I just hope you bring you one for me.
[9:46] I'll change it.
[9:52] It's so hard, but it's so nice and very nice.
[9:53] Thank you so much.
[9:54] You're on the seat.
[9:54] We'll give you a lift.
[9:56] Oh, thank you.
[10:17] Oh, thank you.
[10:17] I will.
[10:17] I just want to tell you, I'm not going to let you use that gun for what you're getting.
[10:35] That's right.
[10:35] Thank you so much.
[10:58] Thank you.