Nixon, Williams & Ehrlichman on Arizona and Water Rights

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All right, back to the studio.

Sit down, sit down.

All right.

There you go.

Yeah.

Oh, I know.

I got it.

Our problem is we're fourth century, we've had nothing new.

We're living on Bush Manorville.

Yeah.

Back fourth century, so we're mining water.

And we are in a good economic shape.

There are questions in the black.

We've got people working on this, not as high as the national average, but we're a frugal state.

But if we don't begin to, because there's a full or tentative whole year lag in buildings.

So if we begin to fall behind,

It's a situation where we're going to face drops down the road even if we start to build.

So we've got a time schedule.

And we figure, I've been here 10 years, my team 80, so I figure we ought to have to do that.

And every year we drop nine.

So last year we had a legislature that set $85,000 ourselves just to advance the government.

To show that we really meant it, we really needed it.

I know it's a terrible budget problem.

Johnny Rose, you've got one of the most loyal people, John Rose and Barry and Paul Fenton.

Gosh, you've got to get all three of them.

John Rose has been having a serious meeting with a bunch of people on this, and it's still an open possibility.

We can help Randy.

That's for sure.

We want to try to figure out a few if we can, you know what I mean, as we move along.

And John is the chairman.

But he's a bear dad.

He's all over.

So I talked to Weinberger briefly about this, and he has another meeting Saturday.

So this is still very much on the table.

John is a member of the First Class Committee.

I've had to say no so much to keep our budget in the black, and I try to look at the right things.

So I know I'd like that.

So I'm ready to come back and go to you again.

Tommy, your state, though, has lower than the national average amount of flights.

Good, good.

You weren't hit by the aerospace engines, huh?

It's not as heavily.

Our manufacturing is down, but our other industries are up, like mining is up from $16,000 to $20,000, $4,000 up.

Agriculture is up.

Construction is up.

You've got a nice state in which to live.

Yes.

We've got a real estate market.

It's a great state.

Your real estate market is pretty good now, I understand.

The real estate market is good.

I hope we can keep pushing everything until we can follow the nation six months afterwards.

It's not having any solvency.

No, no, it's going to come up now.

You've been through it.

They've been arguing about the economy now.

I mean, the various economists are actually on whether or not the administration's target is too high as a forecast.

But no, but they're arguing about...

But everybody agrees the economy is going to go up this year.

The only question is the amount is going to go up.

So I think you're going to do all right.

I'll be apologetic to that extent.

We're going to do everything we can to get it up.

Particularly this year and next year, if you want to understand.

We're going to do everything we can.

We're not going to get this.

It'll hurt our world.

Everything is predicated on water.

We've got a $5 billion economy out there running off about less than 2 million acre feet of water.

We just use it on one side and turn it over and use it on the other side.

And we pump it out, but the thing is, in order to keep the thing going, we're pumping in the water underground.

And we're mining our water more than we're getting back in.

So we face a furious disaster down the road.

Well, I want to admit that I heard about it.

I told Johnny about that shit.

I thought he was going to support it like you.

I thought he was going to.

Here's your presidential conference.

No, no, you got one now.

That's right.

You got a seal on the signature.

There's a bunch of them.

Okay.

Thank you, my governor.

Mr. President, I had a nice press just now.

The president, Governor Hearns, and the fire agent, the governor.

urge that everything be public, a portion of it be public.

And my suggestion would be that we cut it right after you put the press in as soon as you're finished.

In the middle of thinking is this, that there's a very small minority of governors, suppose, Brampton and a couple of others.

He's under control, but there are a few who both of them are opposed.

They will probably not speak up

in the same way if there's a lot of press present, that they would if it were a closed meeting.

And what they're afraid of is that then there'd be the press on these guys down afterwards, and that they will say why the meeting was called hostile meeting.

Is it a closed meeting?

Yeah.

I see.

All right.

Well, what about the situation of having me go in and talk privately to him?

I suggested to him that something like that might be worked out, but I said I wanted to talk to you first and see what your opinion was.

That's what I would prefer.

All right.

That's all right.

No problem.

Mr. President, we have a range.

The flack is not coming from the press as much as it is from the governors themselves.

Do they want me to talk about it?

Yes, sir.

It appears that way.

That's where the vice president is.

Well, wait a minute.

I didn't say that was...

See, I talked to the Vice President about the possibility of slicing it so that the President made direct remarks off the record and left.

And then the colloquy and all the rest of it was out in the open.

And he said, well, that might work because, see, their big fear is that in the Q&A,

that there'd be a lot of hostility expressed in a closed meeting by the minority, and that then the whole meeting would be colored by that, by these guys who went out and got jumped by the grass and said, oh, the administration is going to get their ears beat off.

While if you had it open and the press was there to observe, they would put it in context.

I just don't think it's a jackass forum.

You know, I've done it before.

It's a very bad forum.

They have those bastards sit around in a very big room, and I'm talking to them, and they sit there with their egg in their face.

What about streaming with the 54 of them in a smaller room?

And that...

I just like to have a little, I just like to tell them privately my own feelings and so forth.

And the second, I want you to ask any questions that you want.

I know as an executive, this is the open session.

You can ask what you want.

We're here for that.

But I want to tell you, if I want to speak to you as a man-to-man, as a political man-to-political man, it's basically trying to win them rather than trying to play all that.

Now, of course, I can go on and I can make, of course, if I go on, the other three aren't going to get a blip.

Why don't you assume?

The point is, we really need Ron.

We can't.

God damn it, we need him.

The John story particularly has got to get out.

My story, I'm just going to bullshit him again.

I think, what do you think?

I don't know any way, but I can assure you that Mike's simply going up there saying, look, fellows, this is not, this is, we want action, not initiative.

That's all I'm going to say.

This is something that we are all part of the establishment.

We all have to work for it.

We have confidence in local government.

This is our chance to make it work.

I'm going to say that you'll use the police jails that I've said before, but that's what they'll all use.

The point you have to say is that you really want this secure?

Oh, yes.

I have to say that there's talk for the effective.

Let's understand.

When I say action, Arnie, I'll say that we've thought this through.

We've considered all the alternatives.

I don't think any of them are any good.

There are a lot of small rooms around that hall.

Why don't we get one of those rooms to accommodate you and the governors and the vice president, you know, and Senator Tom.

But you can make your pitch in there, exclude the press from it, then come into the big room and, uh, for pictures if you want.

But, uh, if you just leave, they can get the pictures for them.

Sure, that's right.

Okay.

Why don't you assume we'll do it that way unless we get back?

Yeah, but if you have to go open, I'll go open.

I think Agnew and the rest of them.

But these assholes are playing for their own publicity.

And actually they want to play off of me, but that does not help our HBO.

Okay.

Rob, have you finished your briefing?

Yes, sir.

And do you have anything that came up that was new in your case?

No, sir.

We're going to put up the advance on policy in the second half.

Henry's going on.

And, of course, we've got our...

The big news today, in Christ's name, and what I say in the governor's name, in case it turns out... Who's doing what?

Oh, shit, I forgot.

Well, then the hell with it.

I just don't want to be there in front.

I don't like to have a picture taken.

Why are you speaking for the governor?

Because I don't see the pictures tonight.

Are they going to see the pictures of the guy in the room tonight?

No.

We haven't planned to have a picture with the toast.

Well, they're not going to be the toast.

Well, I just wondered if they want a picture.

So that we could prove that we had them there.

And then cover some of the entertainment, you know.

Yeah, you're breaking the mark, Senator.

What does that mean?

It's a scandal.

Nixon, Williams & Ehrlichman on Arizona and Water Rights

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 23, 1971

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