Nixon, Shultz & McCracken on Breeder reactor and Energy policy

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All right

I remember that the first month came on and said, oh, one month doesn't prove anything.

Two months doesn't prove everything.

But three months has got to prove something.

That's about right.

And the battle is still not won.

But it means that we might make a breakthrough.

I think we might make a breakthrough in the battle in about a month.

And now we must exploit the breakthrough, and we must not allow our clients to be overrun by the host.

But we've got to continue to fight.

If we have a breakthrough, we must continue on our personal course.

All right.

Another quick thing to run over about the energy packages.

Yeah, I read that.

I think they're...

The one point that I want to be sure that I do understand is that I didn't have a message.

I wouldn't drop anything about greater reaction than a message.

That's just throwing away some important something.

Well, now I'm told we've got a deal in Rockville.

That's right.

I think the breeder-reactor thing is, if we decide to go on, it should be done with massive, it's mainly for public relations and a lot of other things, too.

You know, I don't want to play along with the, I feel very strongly we either do it or we don't do it.

I don't want to just, that's the only question I raise here.

We've got a way to be satisfied.

I don't want to be a one-man order.

I want to be satisfied.

That's what I'm going to say.

I don't do this, but I think it's, I think it's a long, long, long time going in this direction.

I don't care about the environmentalists, and I don't care about the spirit of the conference, or any of the other things.

I don't worry about the president on this.

Well, you see, so to speak, my concern is different from what is expressed here.

take it off, I guess, your organization.

It's the main thing.

He'll give us that.

But when we do it, we bring him in.

Bring him in, let him do it.

What I had, John, I said, I want the reader reaction thing to go on.

Let's make a big deal out of it.

You know, don't you think so?

Yeah.

You heard the man come out and say it's a big deal.

It's about a big deal.

It's $137.10.

That's what we're talking about.

Well, the total program would be about $3 billion.

That's pretty good.

But we're on the track now, Mr. President, and we're adding just a small entrance to it.

My point is that nobody knows we're on the track.

Yes, sir.

The second thing is that the way they know that they're on the track is to talk about it in terms of, well, our budget this year would be less than $35 million, which is $5 million more, $30 million we had last year, so forth and so on.

What we've got to do is to take them on the mountaintop and say, all right, let's do this.

That's what I want to do.

I want to get some excitement into it, rather than just simply having another good, dull, business-like, words-and-mind, responsible program.

See?

And that's what I really mean.

The message will have all the rhetoric to it.

But don't put the reader back in the message.

You want to do it separately?

Well, we probably have a problem here, and that is that if you don't do something, you want an increasing price of gas.

Oh, I know that.

Oh, that's got to be done.

Are you worried about that?

Well, I'm not worried about it.

But the one I would worry about, I think your, the oil import policy, not yet, in spite of what George said, you can't do that now.

But if you want to deregulate the price of cracked gas,

.

And we will support this effort.

He feels very strongly that the reason we're short of gas is because there hasn't been enough price to pay for it.

I don't think we should.

We could find out.

The point is, we can get what we want, probably.

by having the Commission do it.

So if we do it by legislation, then we're in a position of advocating higher prices and relief.

What I meant is that you're not going to get it without any kind of a standard.

That's what the Harris thing was all about.

And the Commission's willing to respond.

I think they will.

To go a long way, the question is, if we do have a lead address for what they did,

i'm really concerned about the credit and you get the credit publicly is is a medicine

All we want to happen is the people that get into this business to know that we are not a person.

That's all you need.

I think the point is that professionals in this fuel shortage area know that the real problem is we don't have enough gas.

We're not going to do anything publicly about getting a lot of gas.

Therefore, the breeder reactor becomes the centerpiece.

of the message.

Now that gets back to the question of whether you go seven with the breeder or do it with one message.

Is that all right, sir?

All right, fine.

Sure thing.

Make the breeder... Do you want to remember the...

I would think that we would want to make the breeder reactor a big part of the message.

We will be.

Let it be.

Let's not underplay it.

I mean, overplay it.

I think the thing to do is to give it a hell of a play.

they're sure well we've been going along on this but we don't need things right nobody knows it it's not even the number that seems to have the gravity that we don't know not so much the money but the time we don't think that we have this to meet you or the meeting and say we have to meet you don't think you could be 10 years we know so

Although you did say that, they did say that you could, by bringing it, by just speeding it up some, and that it was agreed that it would, you could move it down.

and save money or something like that.

Is that what those points?

Do you agree with that?

The quicker you do it, you do save money.

But you can't do it below 10.

That's about right.

Yes, sir.

Well, why can't you do it below 10?

What's the reason?

You can't spend that much money.

You can't spend it.

It just takes time, and you have to let reactors run for a while to make sure they work.

That's right.

I mean, it's the economic reason.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Not a money reason.

I think a lot of these things...

Well, I think so.

You can put the Department of Natural Resources in there, huh?

Good.

I still think, I'd like to see a strike or a trade-off here to get better cooperation out of Hollowfield for the whole government reorganization thing.

The thing is fixing his truck.

They should take part of his ADC away to put it in the Department of Natural Resources.

So the question becomes, do you just do this program and hope you get the credit from Hollowfield, or does someone go down and play a little, it's like, oh, I'm all for that plan.

Yeah.

My point is that I don't see that as any political benefit for us.

I mean, it's been in the flavor of him in order to get the reorganization.

But in terms of what we're using for us, it's the us who are going to take the breeder reactor.

Well, we'll do that.

In other words, probably the decision is made that you want the breeder reactor and you go for it big.

But when someone approaches how it will be, we would approach it on a trailer basis.

And look here, this is what we have to have in order to get it.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

And the outer continental shelf is not a question problem, is it?

Yes, sir.

It's driving on the wall.

That's what I'm saying.

It's driving on the wall.

Are you using four of them?

You still didn't get the...

Yes, sir.

It's the last major source of oil in this town.

So what are you talking about?

So we'll just do our best to see if it doesn't drown the pigeons.

Well, we're spending a lot of money on technology to make drilling safer and all that.

The facts of life are just like on land, there's one fire a year, there's one or two fires a year.

But it doesn't bother me at all.

I guess that's a great question.

Oil is available, that's true.

I don't know if it does any good or not, but it does cost too much money.

The truth is, it might turn out better.

Well, isn't the real problem there is whether it be economic charges or not?

Yes, and it's like there's a lack of inclination.

Well, there's a lot there, and as people learn how to deal with it properly, it just might become economic.

Technology is pretty close to being economic now.

Is it?

Between oil now and oil shale, however, there are three trillion gallons of barrels of oil in Tar Sands County, which is...

even closer, work out a decent deal with Canada on oil.

Is that on here?

Yeah, that's the deal with Canada is on here.

So that's one where it seems to me we need to work on negotiations and push a little harder because the pipeline questions, the Canadian deal,

are all far less where they were a year ago.

They don't seem to have any much now.

Who's in charge of that?

Well, don't do it.

I said yes, as the negotiator.

Don't resign.

The State Department is in charge of the negotiations.

The ball has been up there, and Abe Lincoln's in on it.

With regard to pipeline, I think, George, that we have convinced ourselves that pipeline in Canada is just too far down the line to make a valuable alternative this time to the Aliasco line.

You mean from North Slope?

From North Slope.

What is the, what is the, I owe him to the precise variable follow, is he?

He is.

Yes, sir.

I think he's a stronger negotiator than we are.

I think first we have to review with him the status of it and why we can't move faster.

It may be that there's a lack of sense of urgency that we feel about it.

And then when you package that with that cream and clean up the Great Lakes program, you can eat it once a month.

And I don't know, do you agree with me?

We don't have the money.

Clean up the lake.

Look, the environment, I know you're interested in it, John.

I know it.

I see these people that march in that Earth Day and the rest, and they don't have to clean up before they try to do it.

You saw John Lindsay and the Flower Children.

We'll see you every time, sir.

What?

I don't agree with you, but anyway.

He's always said you've got to clean up the water, clean up the air, and so forth.

And I think it's just great.

I just can't go to people who are not pure bottles around themselves.

I should have told other people not to.

It's a very horrible group of people.

On the breeder reactants, I wonder if there is a way to build three breeders or one breeder.

We all think one breeder is the right approach.

The credits will say, you know, half artist members.

Three different contractors.

What is the argument for the tree?

I don't know.

You're one of the experts.

What do you mean?

You say that's true?

No, sir.

What is it, George?

You referred to trees over here.

Yes, sir.

Wait a minute, Bill.

I understand.

The point is that we know it'll work.

Here's the argument, as I understand it.

Why don't you build a tree and then we've got a tree working?

No.

Well, the idea is to build a prototype, and then you've got something, and you know it's working.

Yeah.

And how long after you build the prototype does it take to build another one?

Well, that is how you build into the process.

It takes six years to build everything right now.

Starting from scratch.

This doesn't mean, though, that you wait until you've got your first prototype before you go into some future expansion.

Or go commercial.

You know, you can do an awful lot from there.

Why are you for one rather than three?

Well, I mean, the reason for having three are that there are three major contractors above GE, Westinghouse, and A&M.

So give all three a contract, you establish confidence in all three, and you also establish competition among all three.

But here we've got a program that's too expensive for private industry to fund itself, and too uncertain for them to fund themselves.

Is it really right for the federal government to go into a free soda patch, bang, one right after another, when all these uncertainties exist?

And I think this is the problem, I guess, that all of us have.

You know, I mean, there's no way you've got to... No, they won't work together.

You might be able to get two of them to work together, and there is some hope here.

A.I.

and G.E.

could conceivably be forcing them.

Who could?

North American, Rockwell, and G.E.

North American.

North American is, you know.

What else is out there in California?

That's right.

I put it down there.

The problem is that apparently the least competent of the three is the California operation.

That's the reason.

I don't know.

Well, least competent, but also least politically attractive to EC, the Joint Committee.

Well, we don't care about that.

They're like G and Westinghouse.

These are the two contractors that they brought along from the submarine days.

And have done everything for it.

No, nothing big.

They've had some small projects.

Small compared to this.

They are also...

I don't know the company.

I know the man had to defer on that to...

You don't think so?

Yeah, it's a good company, but we've never seen them operate in this area, so it's pretty hard to judge whether they'd be competent.

Well, I don't think you'd turn them into a good company.

If we just put GE together with North America and Southern Cal, that would be great.

The real trick is to put it in a building in California.

That's the point.

It must be in California.

That's where we have the problem.

We have a serious problem.

And any time you put anything out there, it's not going to do.

And here's the science.

Even though 85,000...

They're at least much better at detecting somebody when they're at all the fucking fields.

No sir, a lot of concrete, a lot of aluminum.

No, but I mean, do they have any scientists or anything like that?

They're about a hundred, maybe.

There are a lot of scientists and engineers involved, yes, both in the development stage as well as in the building arrangements.

I just have a few, if you have a book, I'd have an answer that way.

We'd go.

It would be an awfully good thing to announce, if we could, when I'm in California at the West Toronto Station.

Can't get rid of that stuff.

Uh, yeah.

We can.

We want to.

We want to crack the hollow field.

That's your question.

We might do this.

George, are you going to find an old black man over here with a hollow field?

That's not an issue.

That's George's job.

He's already got a mill.

He told me he had a mill.

I haven't seen it yet.

I'll never, I'll never get a kind word out of Smitty again.

Well, what's he going to do?

What's he going to do about it?

Well, we'll have to work on that, but he's a happy man.

Did Cluffy, did he take the responsibility?

Well, Cluffy, well, I think we're sort of in a loose situation right now.

We're right along.

Why did Cluffy, did he not want to step up to a buddy?

He just went ahead and did it and then told the committee.

Oh.

And we didn't program to go check with him first.

Now that's true.

He was a congressman and he didn't check with him.

You'd think that would be routine.

Well, he had the word to clear it first.

But anyway, we have our, I have my problems.

This photo was obviously a name dropper in a picture.

I mean, he had Henry Salvatore's name on there.

He said, my brother was on there.

He had Smith's name on there, McLaren, some guy that was in the office.

And he must be an utter incompetent.

I just mentioned the governor, a great fellow.

He's called the governor.

The governor is...

Backed off?

Backed off.

Is that right?

What's the governor saying?

Well, I didn't mean to bring this up, and we're not really ready to talk to you about it.

But don't talk to him.

Work with him.

The point that I make is this.

The governor raised hell about this thing.

We checked and thought about the problem.

We did something about it.

Now he says that you don't want him to do anything about it, right?

No, he says he doesn't.

He just doesn't identify with this individual.

He was damn clear with him.

He said, I'm not a very good blackmailer right now.

You don't have to go out there.

It is right.

Well, sure.

If you want to, of course you can do anything with all the people you want.

I understand that.

That would be nice.

If you can't move, we can come back.

There's too many farm elements on your account.

I think if they made the announcement in Santa Barbara, that would be good.

They'd love it.

Well, we're going to put your thing up there and drill their continental shell.

I think on the energy question, if we can proceed on the Canadian negotiation card, with the possibility of Europe coming into it in some fashion, as we talked about,

and get some sense of pace and movement, that there's a deadline, that there's something that ought to make people come to a conclusion.

And get that done, that would be a very instructive thing in the whole United States.

Well, let me ask you this.

Is this something that...

The Peterson Committee should be, the Council should be working on anything or something that should be handled specifically in the way of the present channel.

Peterson should certainly be fully aware of it.

But I think what it essentially is is a way to get more oil into this country.

Some domestic producers might feel that it's not as good as it might be, but I've discussed it with Bellman, and I have not discussed it with the talent.

But the oil industry discussed it with Eichhardt, who's the head of the API.

There are no reasonable people who object to that line of thinking.

There are some who live in domestic, marginal domestic productions, and even they're not going to cause a lot of trouble.

What do you say, though, about the oil that they can't afford?

There isn't any additional oil coming into this country because they feel that there's enough of a shortage of price to continue to go up, and they'll be able to make more money on their domestic production.

I'm not going to answer that.

the oil the major oil people are fine and api and the thoughtful members of our

like Bellman, are fine.

It's just that there are a few churches that are fascinated with Prince of London.

He was the head of the Indian text in Chattanooga.

And he would argue, even he doesn't argue with the kind of DMC arguing against tariffs and arguing against the moral of the eastern hemisphere from South America.

They recognize that, beside that, most of them operate in Canada.

How long have you been working on this message?

Nothing you can do about it.

Yes, sir.

Oh, we can take some short-term actions, as we did last summer.

And we'll do them again.

We'll do them again.

They're making a house, like, turn your switches off and things like that.

We're really close.

John, if you get an agreement with the Canadians, it's not done within a matter of, say, months.

and they react to that, the reaction will build and within the year and a half, we'll get quite a lot more out of it.

But as of right now, you're thinking, but as of now, the election is kind of sending in all your own airtime.

Were you here when I was talking to John McCall?

No, somebody was here.

He was talking to me about a Federal Power Commission deal involving a, in Arkansas, not an Arkansas company, but

getting power in the Arkansas Valley in there, and getting gas, natural gas.

I don't know.

I don't really know.

The Federal Power Commission has a good management of it.

It's under very collaborative good management.

And not only is the chairman somebody who knows we can work, but the majority of the commissioner people who know we can work, so we don't have the kind of problems we do at the FTC.

And there is the place to leave the gas.

It has to be done.

Looks like we've got quite a job here.

On the other hand, actually, just make the best deal you can and it should be won.

You guys just decide that.

If you agree to our decision, you all won.

That's what you all recommend, that there be one reaction, right?

Mr. President, I think we can be silent on this question so we don't raise a lot of hackles from Howell Field at this time.

That's one of our points, but I think that's the perfect thing about this.

I think what you can say about this, Congressman, is this is a matter that we have to negotiate and so forth and see what will work out.

But I think that he liked the idea of putting California, maybe.

Like the 1980 days in Central.

Well, I didn't mean to say the 1980 days, putting it in California and so forth.

You could mention to Kissinger that

make the message what you wrote, because it was a trauma and a story.

I think it was very important.

I did not make this reader react to it.

I mean, Hollywood and some of these other golf centers are like, you know, second coming, so let's make it.

It's important.

But not that important.

Now, it could be, I mean, also the thing is that if you go along, you might learn something new.

On the way.

We also might get overrun by fusion.

Right now, fusion might come in the meantime.

No, sir, but that's a risky thing.

I don't think it will.

Can we get any credit for it?

Is it risky, you say?

There's a risk that it could overtake the breeder.

If it was a major breakthrough, you never know when that will occur.

It could overtake the breeder program, but I don't think it will occur.

This is what Howard Baker argues, for example.

There is a risk.

to complete the circle, a semi-breeder that Rickover has been developing for the Navy, and that will be completed with another nice $5 million, I believe.

There are those, like your friend Edward Teller, who think that's the trust we ought to take because it's less dangerous in case of an accident.

However, he's pretty much alone in that area.

But maybe we can take some credit for giving more to Rickover and putting this into the

and the story that we just hurriedly developed on that online too.

I'd like to think about that.

Well, it's not an economically competitive system.

It's a very good system.

It's a prototype for Rickover Submarines.

The problem is that they're just not economically useful.

You have to get them all done.

It's useful for a submarine program, and I'm, you know, that's, it never bothers me.

No, sir, it sure doesn't ever bother you, sir.

That's all.

Thanks.

Thanks very much.

Oh, I've got to give you your time.

Don't let the McLartin thing make problems with his work.

The point that I make is that just get the lesson across.

He's obviously a dandy and confident man.

Let's put it there.

you know, some pusher and put it there and then follow some of us.

But there's always a reason for you to take that county, from what I understand.

So, I don't know, what's Smith to tell you?

Does he just say that he's the greatest guy?

There are a lot of places he's a good guy.

really sit down and talk about what I thought he was going to do, which is have him say he hasn't spent 11 years in the situation.

And sit down with McGuire and give him a chance to re-resolve it.

What we're now doing is

But he's coming back.

He's supposed to be going over it with our people now.

He and his deputy.

The whole case.

And then, uh, to drill, this is your, see it this way, and so on.

Assuming he's convinced this is the right thing to do.

Not because he's told to do it, but because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

That's going to be hard.

Then we'll get down and talk to Smitty.

And I've said he's like mad.

Well, that's one thing.

He's persuadable.

And he's got some points.

That's the way he's doing it.

And I don't know, should we back off?

Did he get too upset about it?

He called me and said, is this because I didn't vote for the SST?

And I said, well, I don't know if the president knows about that.

I thought he was a reporter.

He wasn't.

But I read it.

No.

No, no, no.

But you should be back on the news.

The reason was because we got a call from California.

I told him about that.

He called for you.

He had already called for you.

He said he was very close to it.

And we basically got off as far as the individual was concerned, although he said there was a big problem and it was the bureaucrats in Washington.

Oh, no.

But we thought it wasn't true.

We found that it was right there in San Francisco.

In San Francisco.

Well, anyway, we will try to explain it better this way.

Let me put it this way.

Whoever is the ranking member of the Rules Committee is very important to us.

And I know you've got to make a deal.

It just irritates the hell out of us that we find it incompetent, that we are struggling.

But the message will get around.

We'll work on it.

If it looks as though it's going to be too rough, we'll spin it a little back off and we'll transfer it and we'll do something.

But the point is, it's already been made, but the damage here is starting to hell down.

Because I am sorry because my constituents in California raised totally hell with us about 100 applications out of 4,000, you know.

And Sidney should be sorry about that.

He doesn't care about that.

I've got to go.

The Board of Agriculture Productivity, Citizenship, and Peace.

On the 30th of April here, you all know that's the day you're on your way to California.

And we have a pretty good lineup now for a major conference in late June.

which we would hope to have the elite of labor and management and some government people and public people concentrate on a variety of subjects having to do with productivity.

I think it might be, if it shapes up right, on a good board for you to talk about the importance of that and the kind of things that you're looking at on the 30th about the available as a matter of fact.

If I leave, what time is the committee meeting?

You mean the 30th?

What time is it?

10 o'clock, I think.

Well, it might be that I might not want to leave, so I might maybe stop in at 10 and go right out.

It'll be in the roadside room.

So if you can talk to Bob and see me, he's out there in the creek, and Tom, I'll see you on the 30th.

Okay?

Nixon, Shultz & McCracken on Breeder reactor and Energy policy

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Also recorded on April 21, 1971

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