Nixon, Collier & Warner on Texas politics and Urban development

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The whole point is, uh, this guy Collier, the president, simply wants to introduce him.

Sorry to get all the bets on this, but it's a charismatic commitment.

What Collier wants to do, he's really wanted to be his replacement.

Yeah, it's only in three minutes.

Well, I think that we can carry on.

This is the problem with the level and the replacements.

That is your problem.

Well, I shouldn't, but I don't want to get tighted.

It'll come in here.

I don't want to hear it, sir.

I've got to listen.

Hello, this is Secretary Randolph.

How may I help you?

Good to see you again, Mr. President.

You've never watched this, have you?

I'm Mr. Randolph, President of the Registry of the City.

Is that right?

That's right.

Uh, Mr. Randolph, why don't you let us get a picture of all of you, of all three of you, here.

Shall we?

Well, I'm glad to have met you.

If you'll welcome, sir.

Oh, yeah, listen.

No, sir.

I went tonight last year.

Oh, yeah?

I had to work.

I like that.

You probably appreciate it more.

He was a newsman first, and when Ronald came back, he started a news agency?

Yes, journalism.

I did a small school there called .

Oh, yes, I know.

And then you worked journalism, and then went to work at the Krakow, and then went to law, took your law at the Knight Law School while you were still working?

And then for three and a half years was an assistant attorney general of Texas.

And he was hired because of his double background.

During campaigns, the attorney general used him as an advance man.

Was that Wilson?

No, that was Crawford Martin.

I had just been made to come back to Crawford two months ago.

And then my boss.

Howard Freedmore hired him in April to understudy me and started praying to succeed me.

Well, that's great.

That's great.

Part of the new breed.

The new breed.

That's right.

But Howard Freedmore is a lawyer also.

Ah.

And Jesse Jones is traditional in that organization.

that they lean to lawyers for executives.

See, we have had three lawyers as characters.

Are you a lawyer?

Nope.

I'm not even a journalist.

Dang, that's how we, that's why we get along.

That's why we get along.

Right.

Well, I see.

Well, so this is a...

I think the legal background is actually, of course, we think, don't get the impression at all lawyers, if you would well know, our assets are, the difficulty with the legal training I find with people around here is that they're not advised on how to speak, so it's a couple of different stories of how not to do it.

Very handy.

You can always see both sides of every question.

It's this risk and so forth and so on.

And now when a lawyer can rise above that, he's going to rise above that where he can find, when he recognizes that his job is to find a way to do something.

And a good example of one is John Connolly.

Now Connolly is a lawyer, not a damn good one, but he's a very,

There he's capable leader, executive, politician, call him what you will.

And I say that in a commendatory sense.

But here's this guy, he could run the secretary, he's the secretary of the treasury.

People, and I find it interesting, people don't know anything about the treasury.

You know that.

He runs it.

And he could be Secretary of State.

He could do any job.

And he can't do the job because he's a lawyer, however.

That helps.

It gives him that balance, seeing both sides, which lawyers have.

But he doesn't because he has a leader quality.

I'm not trying to lecture you, but my point is, I know there's too many lawyers.

It doesn't matter.

There's the railroad president.

The railroad's in trouble.

I have Bob.

And

Of those railroad presidents, five of them are lawyers.

And I think part of their problem, I think part of what happened is they opened the railroads through the organization.

The problem is that the railroad leadership in this country has been extremely, up until the last years, has been extremely, with the exception of a few roads,

It has been an extremely ingrown, incestuous, unimaginative event.

Networks become uncompatible.

And a lawyer is presiding on that chaotic situation, just to be sure no mistakes are made, to be sure you keep your head above water, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It's the worst thing they can do.

They need a driver to get out there and keep the lawyers around.

So the best advice I can give anybody who's going into a business, which of course there is,

It really is, who is a lawyer, is to be sure, not to act like a lawyer all the time.

Right?

Would you go over and see John Cobb and say exactly the same thing?

We take the lawyers around this government now.

I mean, he doesn't trade.

If you were to see him, would you see him?

Would you see him?

Oh, good.

Would you say what John Cobb is saying could be interesting in Denmark?

Oh, yes, Ben Barnes will announce for governor on the 19th.

Ben is going to stay out of the United States Senate race.

If the man who is already running for governor, Donald Briscoe, the so-called fat cats in Texas are trying to force him into the United States Senate race, in my opinion, he cannot beat John Tower.

I think John Tower is going to be pretty hard to beat next year.

Briscoe is now running for governor.

Yes, sir.

What is his banner?

Rancher.

Very well, they ranked him.

I see.

But when he was a member of the House of Representatives, he had one of the most liberal voting records of any member.

And the Houston Chronicle is not liberal.

It's not that liberal, huh?

No.

And Barnes is an odd character.

He's an extremely able young man.

Yes, I hear that.

He talks liberally and acts conservatively.

Oh, I see.

In this last session of the legislature, the liberals had 17 of the 31 senators, and that man was able to maneuver them where he avoided a corporate income tax or a personal income tax and gave big business the taxes they asked for.

That's right.

He was that able, that skillful.

by juggling and balancing.

He's a very, very good politician.

And he has just turned to Senator Muskie and made the incredible statement out here the other night, the other day, that Senator Humphrey was the only outstanding Democratic aspirant that could carry taxes.

Well, Ben knows better than that.

I don't know what he's doing, but he had it for the same thing.

Mr. Humphrey is dead in Texas, Mr. Frank.

I remember I told you that once before, but...

But the other, 1968 was a big year, though, when basically when Johnson and Connolly all got together in that big ashtray-drawn thing to rise Texas.

You know, Connolly lost only $60,000 in votes, and that was it.

Shed the dirt.

Connolly has the warranty.

The Texas establishment, the Texas establishment got together, and I, and we understood that.

I understood it.

coming and swarming, you know, a train coming from Chicago that under no circumstances would either say to you, go into Mexico and go home, and then the president twisted his own table.

Sure, I understand that.

You feel the president's position is strong in that.

It's very.

Oh, if you've got the Louis Webb survey, and while you're, if you bring it up, this will show you how strong the president is in Texas.

His name is Louis Welch.

Oh, yes.

Well, I met him, yeah.

And, uh, he's on the A-Bolt studio.

Yeah.

I'm positive he's got a C-3rd.

He's kept that city.

We've got a chief of police.

Houston.

Very good.

And the military is behind him 100%.

And that's the way to avoid the trouble.

Every city's got trouble, and even Texas cities.

But the difficulty is the way to avoid it is to be firm but fair.

And that's the way to do it.

But you've got to be firm.

The trouble is that too many people emphasize only the fairness and not the firmness.

And if you're not firm, these rats are running right over you.

Mr. President, I want to tell you the two things that just went over terrifically in Texas on your television appearances.

Your statement on welfare and your statement on the demonstrators, these demonstrators and what you were going to do.

I went down to my ranch on the weekend after you made the one on what you were going to do.

Yeah.

It's in a German settlement.

And all of those little communities, that's all they talked about in the cafes, at the service stations.

They never say the president.

They always say Mr. Nixon.

And they'll say, did you hear Mr. Nixon?

And then one phase of what you had said on welfare, call them the angry welfare.

Or all kinds of welfare.

So rural Texas, if you are really popular in rural Texas, which you weren't out in 68 because they didn't know you.

You had no record as a criminal.

And of course, in a state like Texas, which is an old, well, maybe democratic state, where they do not know the individual, and I quote Kip Hardy, if they know the individual, they might vote the man.

That's the whole trick in Texas, or for that matter, in many other states, the same thing in California.

California is a four to three Democratic state in terms of registration.

And those four major Democrats can always be three major Republicans, but not enough four major Democrats.

If they just know the party, they're going to vote their party, but they know the man who's on the ship.

That's why if I were I in Texas, I would probably go to either one of those Republicans.

Not that I'm sure, but my question is,

Basically, it's just to get you out of your mind.

They want to see what it's like.

A few of them can get all of them here in Los Angeles.

Absolutely.

Oh, I'm a part of it.

We get so used to it.

I do everything I can.

I don't like it.

There are other things I like when I drive, but I don't.

Mr. President, this little hole here, I'm not sure what kind of a base it was.

He said 800.

It was in the city of Houston, and it was as to their approval of the job efficiency.

And Nixon, 61%.

Hold on.

So you're right in the center of this.

You're right in the center of this city.

Conley was 70%.

Oh, of course.

But don't think, this would be very highly regarded.

I noticed, you've heard of the library?

That's true.

Yes.

You noticed that he got the biggest name on the menu on the truck.

I was watching the press when he was in the kitchen.

They were nice to all of them.

I was glad to read on that occasion that they did Johnson Rock.

I think, frankly, as you know, we naturally used to take them very rough on them.

As a matter of fact, as I've said to people, my brother, the Democrats, his Democratic friends, including Hubert, who wouldn't be anything without him, are pretty shameful to have this at home.

After all, he is the former president of the United States.

Second, he did what he thought he would do.

Third,

history is better treated in hell because we're finishing this war, it finishes as I think it will in the right way, and so he's going to look a little better.

But my point is, well, I suppose he was wrong on all those things.

My point is that

that a fellow that has given as much of his life to this country as he has, I remember him in the House, I remember him in the Senate, he was a damn good partisan.

When he was against you, it was tough.

When he was for you, it was helpful.

But a man deserved respect.

And I just don't like this position of a group of just because they think Johnson's a little unpopular.

come out, and they go running to the hills.

As a matter of fact, I've had a few points where they can be way up in spite of what he looks.

Have you agreed that he was not on that boat?

No, he wasn't because he's not.

They don't expect to run for seat.

But you're not third in the city of Houston, and it was ethnically balanced, 26%.

You did not write that.

No, I didn't.

And what is your legal population?

I have no idea.

Well, they're 22%.

Of course, the University of Houston has a very heavy, I don't know what is it in terms of Negro, I know your basketball table is virtually all Negro, but they don't have that kind of percentage because it's an all Negro university right across the street.

That's a Southern University.

All Negro.

Of course, they're all old.

That's what we had in Ryan three years ago.

And I believe you just want to help bloom and stop it.

And the district attorney brought in five months

I can't believe it.

What do you post?

Houston is somewhat like Los Angeles, Florida.

When I ran for the Senate.

It's now a sick city, right?

I guess so.

Uh, it's in a growth pattern.

I mean, Los Angeles is depressed at the moment because of the aerospace that can't come back, of course, because people want to live there.

But Houston is a ballsy, and this and that, and everybody thinks they can build things in the city of Carolina.

Question is, where are you going to be?

Are you going to become, uh, do you have a small problem yet?

Yes, not to the degree that I know of.

We don't have a problem.

Now, on the other hand, most of the major cities of this country are becoming livable.

New York, you see that miserable place now?

God, it's awful.

You know that strike out there?

Still age people going on strike.

It's everything.

You know, well, you just can't allow this.

You cannot allow public employees to strike.

That's all.

But anyway, if you take use of the thing that I think, if I were the publisher or editor of a great paper, I think you ought to be looking forward, if I may say so, looking forward to the next 10 years.

How big do you want Houston to be?

What's it going to be like?

How are you going to handle traffic and housing and all that sort of thing?

You've done awfully well so far.

Just let me grow.

And I'm all for letting things grow in their natural way in this country.

But at the present time, when we see, well, the problems of cities are easy.

You can pollute the air.

You can pollute the water.

But things have come down to the

Terrible problems of racial strife.

You're going to have that in your city.

And you, of course, have the problem of crime, dope, et cetera, which you will have.

Right now, your city basically is more conservative than Harris County.

Mainly because there are people that work.

You didn't have like the East.

You didn't grow up like the East with all of its inherited wealth and the rest.

sort of snobbery, et cetera.

First of all, your city is respected, and your state somehow is in my state.

At least was the case.

Still the case today.

Well, because by God, he's got it, right?

He made it.

Huh?

You still got that kind of spirit.

You get 25 years older, you're guilty.

That's the problem.

25 years older, you're guilty.

And you're already having an elite develops and they'll say, well, that's when you begin to have your problems.

So I think that the real thing is how do you keep the vitality of the city, how do you keep it, keep one jump ahead of those that will bring in these elements that terrorize the city, that suffocate it with traffic.

the traffic problem, which we probably already have.

What are you going to do, you see?

You see, here we build the asterisk.

I don't know, I've never done the asterisk.

I think it's a great thing simply because, why shouldn't you have an asterisk, isn't it?

I mean, you're down a year around, you need to put something on there.

And Houston ought to be thinking in terms of a transportation system now,

You know, which was the best in the world.

We must have.

Maybe you're already doing that.

We've got a mass transit bill.

I'd like for you to come up and let me suggest this.

Any of the people I have to talk to, talk to both people.

We've got to throw a lot of money in mass transit in this country.

You know, in this country, in this government.

The plans of the plan.

You just ought to be thinking about it.

Don't wait until you get so jammed up as New York.

Please don't.

We're all on the same page.

You chose to stay downtown when you planned that with the remodeling there in Houston, so that would have been even more important.

Right, you see, we see the same thing.

Houston's a new city compared to some.

I know you've got a lot of Houston.

But also, I can remember Houston.

I can remember Houston.

Well, if you want to go back 25 years, my God, Dallas was bigger than Houston was.

No, sir, not 25 years ago.

20 years ago?

Yes, sir.

It was 50 years ago.

But now we have the work where you're exactly correct.

We have those problems and city council disappointingly dabbles at mass transit.

The state legislature dabbles at mass transit.

And although I believe in local government, as I've heard you say so many times, I believe in it.

Take the federal government to do this because the Illinois community and the states just are shirking in their... Well, this is a place where the federal government...

The cities have got it.

They make the decisions, but believing it's going to take a lot of money that you're not going to be able to get the local people to vote for.

You can't get it.

You just can't get it.

We have the same thing in pollution control, Mr. Tracy.

The people won't vote for the taxis.

And that water pollution?

Yes, sir.

Do you have a problem?

Sir, do we have it in the ship channel?

Very much so.

Oh, that's right.

You've got the ship channel.

We've got the ship channel.

And the greatest pollution is municipal sewerage.

When are we going to have this program?

That's what I'm working with you on.

And the legislature has approved some funds, some matching funds, to help the cities in Texas.

The worst pollution of our streams is not by industry at all.

It is by municipal surge.

And in our air pollution, the worst is not from industry.

It is from motor vehicle exhaust.

Sure, sure.

That's California's experience.

The gas lobby, and you have a hell of a big one in your state.

All of a sudden, that's not true.

It is true.

It's not.

We have Los Angeles.

It's not industrial.

by other standards, they stopped the smokestacks and they stopped the burning of the incinerators and they stopped the smudge spots and all the rest.

Now there's automobiles and they've got smog.

So automobiles, see.

Well, anyway, we wish you well.

Just keep Houston growing.

Don't let it get too ultra-little, you know.

Oh, that scares me.

Then you'll quit growing.

Yeah, that'll be good.

She is a pro-nation and she likes to play.

So this young man on your right, that is going to be my successor, is me, Texas.

And when you say that, Texas, everyone knows exactly what you mean.

That's right.

He is the right man.

I wouldn't say that was the right of the last president.

I certainly would say that.

That's my truth.

I certainly would say that.

I would certainly stand beside him.

President Eber just became a grandfather last night.

Suspense.

Turn left.

They all like to date on the crash, they are.

That's on the present station, if you like that at all.

Let's see here.

You're going to be my grandfather.

Do you believe in that sort of thing?

I love it.

I don't know if you believe in a girl getting married or something.

I don't believe it.

But listen, if you have a little girl, you can be a little bit bolder.

Yes.

Are you married?

Yes sir.

To your wife.

Thank you.

You're both callers.

Well, you've always been very kind to me there.

We also have strong feelings about what Texas has.

Vitality and character still can do attitude that this nation needs.

You know, there's a sort of a schizophrenia.

It is in the majority, but if you follow some of the, not all, but some, if you get the feeling, obviously, that people are depressed about America's role in the world, what we do at home, and so forth, and turning away from progress, turning away from that's the greatest

Your state is still a ballsy state.

Just keep it that way.

We in Kansas do it, right?

So you have a college that wouldn't have a drive.

Thanks, but...

Nixon, Collier & Warner on Texas politics and Urban development

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on June 10, 1971

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