Conversation 616-010

TapeTape 616StartWednesday, November 10, 1971 at 5:17 PMEndWednesday, November 10, 1971 at 6:39 PMTape start time01:30:03Tape end time02:52:32ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Curtis, Carl T.;  MacGregor, ClarkRecording deviceOval Office

On November 10, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Carl T. Curtis, and Clark MacGregor met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:17 pm to 6:39 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 616-010 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 616-10

Date: November 10, 1971
Time: 5:17 pm - 6:39 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Carl T. Curtis and Clark MacGregor; the White House photographer was
present at the beginning of the meeting.

     University of Nebraska football team
          -Go Big Red
                -Note from authors
          -The President's possible attendance at a game

     Photograph session
          -Arrangements
                -Book
          -Distribution
                -Omaha World-Herald

     Agriculture
          -Grain sale to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]
                -Press reaction
                -Announcement
                      -Farmers' reaction
          -Senate Committee
                -Bill regarding strategic reserve
                -Support loans
                      -Michael J. Mansfield and Hubert H. Humphrey
          -Corn prices
                -Level in Nebraska
                -Support loans

Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:17 pm.
     The President's schedule
          -Richard Wilson

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:50 pm.

     Agriculture
          -Corn prices
                -Support loans
                      -Curtis’s letter to the President
          -Strategic Reserve Bill
                -MacGregor's schedule
                      -John H. Kyl
                      -Wiley Mayne
                -US Department of Agriculture [USDA]
                      -Possible announcement
                            -Purchase of corn
                -Necessity
          -Dairy industry
          -Corn prices
                -Clifford M. Hardin's view
                -USDA program for 1972
          -Support loans
                -Curtis's meeting with Hardin and Clarence D. Palmby
                      -Nebraska
                            -Irrigation
                                  -Wheat and corn
                -Strategic reserve
                      -Possible veto
          -Grain sales to USSR
                -MacGregor's conversation with John B. Connally
                      -Possible level of purchase
                -Possible effect on corn prices
                      -Iowa, Nebraska
                -Possible legislative effect
                      -Strategic Reserve Bill
          -Strategic Reserve Bill
                -Milton R. Young's view
                -Democrats' strategy
                      -Carl B. Albert's conversation with William M. Colmer
                      -Senate
          -Corn
                -Supplies
                      -Blight
                -Volume of production
                      -USDA
          -Strategic Reserve Bill
                -Timing
                -Curtis's conversation with Dick Long [?]
                      -Corn reserves
                -MacGregor’s conversation with an unknown banker
                -Congress's schedule
                -MacGregor's schedule
                      -John C. Whitaker
                      -Palmby and Hardin
               -Possible cost
               -Symbolism
               -Possible cost
               -MacGregor
                      -Contacts with Curtis
          -Curtis’s role
               -Discussion with the President
                      -Price of corn
                      -Grain sales to USSR
          -MacGregor’s view
                -John D. Ehrlichman's view
                -Price of corn
                      -Farmer psychology
          -Curtis's role
                -Jack R. Miller
                -Young
          -Secretary of Agriculture
                -Hardin

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[Previous PRMPA Privacy (D) reviewed under deed of gift 03/18/2020. Segment cleared for
release.]
[Privacy]
[616-010-w001]
[Duration: 15s]

     Agriculture
          -Secretary of Agriculture
                -Clifford M. Hardin
                      -Finances

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     Agriculture
          -Secretary of Agriculture
                -Hardin
                     -Finances
                          -Job offer
                                -Ralston Purina Company
                     -Popularity
                          -Ezra Taft Benson
                          -Orville L. Freeman
                          -1972 election

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[Previous PRMPA Privacy (D) reviewed under deed of gift 03/18/2020. Segment cleared for
release.]
[Privacy]
[616-010-w002]
[Duration: 9s]

     Agriculture
          -Secretary of Agriculture
                -Clifford M. Hardin
                      -Finances

*****************************************************************

     Agriculture
          -Secretary of Agriculture
                -Louie B. Nunn
                     -John N. Mitchell
                     -Background
                           -[Kentucky]
                                 -Tobacco
                                 -Horses
                           -Possible perception by farmers
                -Requirements
                     -MacGregor
                     -Political skills
                -Search for candidates

Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:17 pm.

     Wilson’s arrival

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:50 pm.

                -Curtis's call to William E. Galbraith
                      -Galbraith's secretary
                -Hardin
                -Rumors
                     -Page Belcher's call to MacGregor
                -Hardin
                     -Tenure
                     -Press reports
                     -Ronald L. Ziegler's statement to press

     Burkett Van Kerr [sp?]
          -Conversation with MacGregor

     Don Bryant

     Curtis's staff
          -Presentation of gifts by the President
Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:17 pm.

     A bag

     Envelope

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:50 pm.

     University of Nebraska football games
          -Curtis's conversation with Phyllis Devaney
          -University of Oklahoma
          -University of Colorado
          -Devaney
                -Robert S. Devaney
          -University of Oklahoma
                -Greg Pruitt

     Notre Dame

Curtis left at an unknown time before 5:50 pm.

     Agriculture
          -Corn prices and strategic reserve
                -Pending legislation

Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:17 pm.

     The President's schedule
          -Wilson
          -Alexander P. Butterfield
          -W. Kenneth Riland
          -Charles W. Colson

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:50 pm.

     Camp David
         -MacGregor and wife

Wilson entered at 5:50 pm.

     Dinner, November 9, 1971

MacGregor left at 5:50 pm.

     Refreshments

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[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 03/18/2020.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[616-010-w003]
[Duration: 15s]

     Refreshments
          -Alcohol

*****************************************************************

Manolo Sanchez entered at an unknown time after 5:50 pm.

           -Soft drinks

Sanchez left at an unknown time before 6:37 pm.

     Wilson's book on Nixon administration
          -Contents
                -Chapters
                -Time span
                -Scope
                     -The President’s initiatives
                     -Supreme Court
                           -Unknown speech
                                 -Rose Mary Woods
                                 -John N. Mitchell
                -The President's programs
                     -Domestic
                     -Foreign
                           -Vietnam
                           -Possible publication date
                           -Forthcoming trips to USSR and People's Republic of China [PRC]
                                 -Significance
                           -Foreign aid program
                                 -Recent Senate vote
                           -Vietnam
                                 -Objectives
                           -Forthcoming summit trips
                                 -Peace
                                      -Time frame
                                 -Winston S. Churchill

     PRC
           -Economic power
                -Compared to Japan
           -Nuclear power
           -Prospects

     The President's forthcoming trips to PRC and USSR
          -Pragmatism

     The President
PRC
      -Prospects
      -Isolation

Summit trips
    -Possible accomplishment
          -Mutual self-interest

US foreign relations
     -Balance of payments
           -Surcharges
     -Protectionism
     -European Economic Community
     -USSR, PRC and Japan
     -Competition
     -Burden sharing

The President's domestic policy
     -Economy
          -Indicators
          -The President's previous conversation with Curtis
                 -Corn prices
          -Inefficiency
          -Phase II
                 -Inflation
                       -Freedom
          -Unemployment
                 -Federal spending
                       -Defense
          -New economic program
                 -Tax incentives
                       -Job Development credit
                 -Modernization of industrial plants
                       -Japan and Germany
                            -USSR
                            -Analogy to San Francisco earthquake of 1906
                       -US physical plant
          -Inefficiency
                 -Business and labor practices
                       -Competitiveness
          -Competition
                 -Jobs
                 -Exports
                       -Value
                            -Percentage of total economy
          -Exports

Isolationism
      -US postwar burdens
           -Korea
           -Foreign aid
           -Vietnam
               -Possible consequences
          -US role in world
               -The President's speech in Chicago, November 9, 1971
                     -Power vacuum
          -Effect on national security
          -Long-term effect on American spirit
               -Space program
               -Supersonic transport [SST]

     National economy
          -Business
                -Competitiveness
                -Vietnam War
                -Reliance on government
                      -Labor

Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:50 pm.

     The President's schedule

Bull left at an unknown time before 6:37 pm.

     The President's domestic policy
          -Government reorganization
               -Institutional obsolescence
          -Cabinet
               -Meetings
          -Welfare reform
          -Revenue-sharing
          -Health reform
               -Compared to socialized medicine
                      -Great Britain
          -Education
          -Environment
          -National growth
               -The President's 1969 State of the Union speech
          -Competitiveness of American industry
               -National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] techniques
                      -Applied industrial research
                            -Jobs for Peace Program
          -Tax reform
               -Previous bill
               -Goal
                      -Relief
          -Applied research
               -Japan and West Germany
               -Peter G. Peterson's and Ehrlichman's efforts
               -Competitiveness of US business
          -Problems of the American spirit
               -Wilson's previous writings
               -US role in world
                      -Sense of mission
                     -War
                     -Trip to moon
                     -Environment
                     -Competitiveness
                     -Leadership
               -Military power
                     -Compared to USSR
                           -Long range missiles
          -Welfare reform
               -Family Assistance Plan
                     -Shift to work requirement
               -Dignity of work
                     -Protestant ethic
                     -The President’s Labor Day speech of September 6, 1971
          -1970
               -Election
               -Economy
               -Foreign affairs

Vietnam
     -Cambodian incursion
          -Demonstrations
     -Incursions into Cambodia and Laos
          -Effect on casualties

Politics
      -1970 elections
           -Results
      -Competitive value

The President's domestic policy
     -1970 election
          -Aftermath
                 -Revenue sharing
                 -“New American Revolution”
     -Government reorganization
     -Revenue-sharing
     -Health, education and environment
          -Elliot L. Richardson
     -Actions of previous administrations
     -Role of politics

The President's foreign policy
     -The President's role in formulation
          -Advice of staff
          -Upcoming PRC and USSR trips
          -Glassboro, New Hampshire meetings of 1967
     -Nuclear weapons
          -Parity
                 -USSR
                 -Policy alternatives
     -PRC
                 -The President’s 1967 foreign affairs article
           -Timing of initiatives
                 -USSR
                 -PRC
           -Preparation for trips
                 -The President's vice presidential trips
           -The President's previous meetings
                 -Nikita S. Khrushchev
                 -Nicolae Ceausescu
                 -Josip Broz Tito
           -Forthcoming trip to PRC
                 -Timing
                       -Trip to USSR

     Unknown matter
         -Date

     Hardin
          -Tenure in office

     Wilson's forthcoming book
          -Attribution

     Wilson's possible columns
          -The President's comments
                -Attribution
                      -Discretion
                      -Domestic programs

Wilson left and Butterfield entered at 6:37 pm.

     [Material for signing]

     Sanchez
          -Delivery of items

Sanchez entered at an unknown time after 6:37 pm.

     The President’s gratitude

The President, Butterfield and Sanchez left at 6:39 pm.

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Go Big Red!
Go!
And here's a little note from the office.
I may go, but it's a game.
Well, good.
I hope you do, officer.
I hope you do.
Oh, all the workers.
Yeah, there's three of them.
All right.
All right.
Yeah.
Oh, I want to change the shop.
Oh, yeah.
Let's do it a different way now.
Can we get the book in there?
Yeah.
Oh, that's a fun shop right there.
Yeah, I'm here.
Come on over here.
Take this shop.
We want to send it out to the all-in-all world here.
Here we go.
I'll call you tonight.
Wait, they were still there last night.
They sure were.
They were so nice.
You came out there for that presentation.
Yeah.
All right.
I didn't have anything on my mind to talk to you about except to
One, thank you for all your support for these months and so forth.
And second, to tell you the honest whole, the whole problem, the spark and the risk that I'm very much naturally interested in and concerned about and so forth.
We were able to do something on the Russian thing, which I...
I left for the airport right after the announcement and I got home and picked up the papers.
The local farm payers, not any of them from Washington, but the local farm payers were all on the front page, praising it.
Well, you know, it's a, we can never get it to go in.
I can't believe they got it signed in on the wall.
Well, it's hard to know the answer in, uh, in agriculture fields, in many respects.
A person gets a fear.
You get a fear.
And you don't trust your own judgment on how serious it is.
Right now, I went to the agriculture committee this morning.
You're not on it?
Yeah, I'm on it.
Oh.
Yeah, I'm on the agriculture committee.
And the Democrats have got a deal there.
That would call for a strategic reserve.
Oh, I heard about it.
Which I have a serious question about.
Because if you put it in reserve, it's still there.
It's got to be exposed in some kind.
It's probably in the market.
And the second problem is the 25% increase in support loans.
about 25 cent increase, a private increase.
At any rate, they brought out a man who testified, or he didn't testify, he was listening, he wasn't supposed to be listening, and so on.
Well, I saw this thing coming.
I felt, and I'm not here to argue, but I should give you an overview.
Corn in Nebraska is quoted at around 92 or 95 cents.
When he asked for the effective loan amount, it was about $5.
The difference between the price of the elevator and the loan was $12.56.
And I thought that the department would have used their power not to lower the $20,000.
But maybe increase the loan price.
$0.15 or $0.16.
Then we avoided ,, which had certain psychology.
And that was what I set forth in the letter .
I don't want to take your time to tell you all that.
I just think I have to get to .
Answer any questions or?
What's the latest running?
I've been kicking these people around.
I've got to go over and look into this.
Mr. President, I had a meeting with the House members, particularly John McConnell, and a lot of other West Park people, and they tell me that the strategic reserve bill in the House will move out of the House.
Unless there's an announcement from USDA of an attempt to purchase corn, it doesn't have to be any specific amount.
There should be a decision, an announced decision, on the part of the USDA to purchase the felt-tel, immediately with the price count.
And at this point, give the Republicans a chance to say, hey, maybe you don't need this, but you can go zero to zero.
Yeah, I'll tell you this.
You can keep this for yourself.
Here's the market today.
I don't think it's because it's complicated, and the average farmer can figure out that's a doubtful, solid, long-term solution.
That's just too big a word.
I agree.
There are some questions.
When you took the action you did in reference to dairy,
It pleased a lot of people on the air.
They said, well, here was a situation to pay attention to the President.
August 1st is the card, Carlson.
Here's the problem.
I know I put that up, and it's in the heart of the voice, but they all looked over and said, well, I'll help us this year, and I'll help us next year.
The program that the USDA announced as a good program for next year, they're pleased with the program for next year.
I've had part of the economy.
Because the outdoors are about to come up.
I said, well, I think... How big is the grass in your car?
I mean, you're not supposed to be in your car here.
Well, we were.
No, I don't know.
I don't know.
As we've gone through more and more irrigation.
Of course, the irrigation.
We have some irrigation.
Right.
Thanks, man.
We have so much irrigation.
This is far away.
Yeah.
Yeah, all right.
And we presented this to all the heart...
And they felt that to raise the loan, the minister of the program next year, well, I would hate to see the Democrats force a vote on what they're not even going to stand.
If it passed, I'd hate to see a veto, and I think things are bad.
As far as they went, you know, Strategic Reserve, they went back with a 25% increase.
It was a 25% increase in the loan.
Watch her in that car.
You've been listening to all these follows.
I had no reason to watch her.
She's one of the rare birds that will race and ride it up and try to support us.
What in the hell shit is your view on them?
You think about it.
You know my feeling.
You've heard them now.
The thing, the note I wrote when I got there, I said, dude, go ahead and do it.
And they all came through with big paper saying, you shouldn't.
What you're doing about it.
Now, you know there's an agricultural problem.
I feel like this is a just, uh, how much are we talking about in terms of money as a real problem?
No, I talked to John Collins.
I said, how much do we have to purchase to, uh, to defend the law?
And he said, we have to pay the bill.
And he said, throw it to my money.
That's what I think.
I think about $200 million.
You see, the Russian sale goes to $250 million, which it probably will.
It's $100 million now, right?
Probably over $250 million.
If you get $200 million here, it's $450 million.
Not bad.
I said, well, see, I worked with John.
He said, well, he said $600,000.
He said, no, you couldn't find $600,000.
You had many portions to buy.
How much did they figure out was raised in price?
Figured it would take $0.68 in Iowa.
Iowa's a little lower than the Raskin's, $0.91, $0.92, $0.02 lower than the Raskin's.
If we could do this, sir, it would cost too much money.
This would be a defensible action to take.
It would be solid in terms of the decision itself.
It would have a desirable result, and it would very well affect the legislative attitudes toward the strategic reserve bill, at least in the House.
But the strategic reserve bill is going to cost a lot of money.
You bet.
You bet it is.
Well, you made Carl very sure that if we did this, this would be the strategic reserve available, whatever you call it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
They're going to do it.
They're going to do it.
They can't do it.
Now, I think over at Melchion, as you know, Melchion, he's part of our office.
They're very honest.
He's a very decent man.
Very decent.
I said to him, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said,
He said, I don't know.
And I thought maybe he would be enough of a non-part of it.
He would know.
He said he didn't know.
But I think there is a Democrat strategy in the House to pass the bill.
Agriculture, they talked to Carl Albert, and Carl's talking to Bill Palmer, and this is an emergency, you know, the farmers have to get a rule in the House.
And I would think that probably they would, they might do the same thing as that.
I'm sure that if nothing's done, if Christ doesn't do something, if Christ doesn't act now, I can't.
They don't look for us.
They won't be here.
And if they decide that it'd be better to not do that decision and have the rest of Christ, well, they'll play better.
So they, whether or not they want to fight to win, they're just fighting to make a leap.
Yeah.
Well, they know also the problem is, you're just one of those great actors.
And the damn flight, all of a sudden, we had a plan for it, and then you didn't have the flight.
And you got a coach who served us.
Well, a year ago, we had 4.1 billion corn.
Now almost 5 million tons.
And that's a big difference.
Oh, yeah.
I see.
And he had yesterday's re-assessment of the total body from 5.4 to 5.5. Who did it?
This was a house, a USDA assessment, I guess.
No, we had the plane that materialized the problems that we tried to deal with.
Tell me, tell me, tell me this, Carl.
What was our timeframe?
How soon did we decide this?
If anything was done on the purchase of the metal of the purchase route, how would you suggest is the time frame?
I asked, I said, how many, how much of the corn is still in the farmer's hands?
And he got in quick service.
They called him out of the committee within five minutes.
And he had the guy there that was in that charge of the testimony.
And he said, well, we have absolutely no hard figures on that.
But he said, I promise you that it would be
not to see 5 or 10 percent.
We had 10 percent, and passed in the department's hands.
So anything that was done now, or originally assumed, would take care of the bulk of it.
Well, then by chance, I got a call from a banker in a house of about 5 or 6 thousand.
There's a lot of farmhouse people.
He called me a little bit.
Actually called me on a federal service.
And I chatted with him.
And he said something about the price of corn and so on.
So I said, how much is corn sold?
If something good be done, you raise the price.
It would still affect the benefit of most people.
And he said they're having a trade.
So he deferred.
It was a small percent.
So any action not, he said that they're taking
the loans.
He said they should.
He said he had his back.
He was recommending people take loans, hoping that things would get better.
And he said there's not much for them.
So we're in time now to do substantial good.
Well, I think we could do this in the next couple of weeks if we were to do it.
That would be a good time.
Is that what you mean?
Or next, are we talking about two weeks or two days or what?
Sure.
I am not enough of that.
Yeah, I see.
We're over the mark.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm talking about the market so much as the congressional action.
Oh, Congress, the House won't act on this.
The House won't act on it until it's president until next week.
That would be the week beginning, the week before Monday.
I don't know.
All right, I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you what you do.
Let's just keep this among ourselves.
Now, you, in addition to your other, I want you to reopen this subject yourself.
Now, the way you do it, you know this subject well enough.
Now, I want you to, if you know this, it's a...
Because Whitaker is the guy that works on it, isn't that correct?
Yes, yes.
Sorry.
Well, he's a good solid man.
He'll have everything you want.
But my point is, I want you to reopen it in terms of Whitaker and go back on the Pompey-Hardin group, you know, to look at it from just a cold turkey political proposition.
Now, if we could buy it, so it costs us a little money.
Jesus.
Well, we seem to be paying it out.
If we can buy it, we have to, if we can make some purchase.
Really, I think the main thing here is to do something that is symbolically important.
You still don't care that actually this is a price sale.
You could pick it up.
Maybe, you know, I'm talking about something in the neighborhood ballpark, say, 200 weeks.
Is that what you think about it?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm not doubting it.
I just don't know.
Let's check on it and see what we're really talking about here and see what was possible.
Let's reopen the can.
Can you reopen it?
Then you study it just as if you were sitting where I am.
It's carried from the farmers.
See?
And then you keep in touch with Carl on a QT basis.
Now don't open this up, don't open this up with the Iowa congressmen, because I want to believe in how they're really thinking about it.
Because then the critics will go, you keep in touch with Carl.
If we can, maybe we can't do it with Carl, but if we can, then what I want to do is to have him, you know, take a look at it and say, well, we talked about the dam and we worked it out.
I don't know that we can.
I just don't know.
You don't want to know unless it's the right thing to do.
Yeah, but my covers are going down.
Oh, you don't need any cover.
No, what I want you to say, you came out talking.
You came out talking that I wanted to talk to you about agriculture problems.
All right.
Absolutely.
Agriculture.
Pricing on it?
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
You'd like to leave that our sale of the Soviet Union.
I said everybody continue to explore that.
We discussed the pricing card.
So, absolutely, you put that out.
Yeah.
I don't know, but how did you leave the thing?
You thought we should buy it, didn't you?
But you were the only one .
I heard a story that we .
Well, you better say I was the only one .
Now, if 10 cents .
Then in many places you'd get rid of it.
quoting the price of corn in cents, but rather in dollars.
There's a certain psychology, if you go to the 90s, to go about with reflecting most prices, that say 98 or 99 cents, that this don't look good in another two cents.
Mr. President, you're the only one who would sit around and think, what about 92 cent corn?
What?
They don't rumble about a dollar and two cent card.
They probably have about a dollar plus card, but they rumble about a $0.92 card.
It's the same sort of psychology of reverse.
The same old Jesus when he sells a $0.99, he says,
All right.
Now, Carl, another thing.
Now, if you were to do this, you keep Clark informed on any of this stuff.
And now, don't be bashful about it.
We hear it from all the crime agents out there.
And I don't want people crying.
But we don't hear enough from you.
You've got something.
You are something.
You put your ear to the ground.
Give Clark a call.
Yeah.
The agriculture field, you watch the agriculture work.
They do that for that whole area out there.
Rich dogs hunting jacks and other people like that.
You're going to think of the whole Midwest.
Because you always have, I think.
And you talk to Milton, you talk to, I don't know about the wheat boys, the corn boys, the soybean boys.
You know, this is a big field.
You know there's some talk about it in secretaries, of course.
I heard it.
Yeah, I heard it.
I heard it two hours ago.
Yeah.
I didn't get any confirmation, and I decided what to do with it.
Well, that's what it is.
It's not even a common situation.
It's just part of it.
Perfect.
It's a big kind of problem.
He doesn't have any money.
Like no, like most of our people that came to the camp.
I mean, when I say they didn't get money, he's got a, he doesn't have no, I don't know, visible means of the future and the rest.
And he, on his own, he didn't want to leave at this point, but on his own, he decided about three months, came and saw me about three months ago.
And he's got this terrific offer from a company, a very good company.
It's the...
a Ralston, a Ralston Marine, and he would like to take, I had to give him my best advice.
I said, well, now, Cliff, look, nobody can be popular Secretary of Agriculture.
I said, but, Heather, and you at least have avoided the David Peskin problem and the Freeman problem.
I said, Heather, I'd have to turn you on if you stay home.
And we should not win the election.
You're not going to be worth as much as somebody you're going to be worth now.
And my wife was just talking to a cop next to me and we said, you forget you ever heard it.
And so I said, you've just got to decide if you're, if you really feel that you have, you have a problem trying to build some sort of an estate at this time in your life, you don't want to live with those, then you're going to get a better offer now than if you go out as one who is in a cab and see my wife.
Yeah.
So
Uh, uh, he was the one who moved.
And we're very quietly, of course, searching around for a person.
It's doggone hard to find, because anybody that can do this job, certainly can lose money you're pushing.
No.
I'm telling you, I don't know the guy.
I don't know if he's any good or not.
But I'll report to Rupert.
Rupert, if you hear what I'm talking about, is good or not.
Well, that's a good thing.
But I don't know the difficulty in his case.
I'm not promoting the difficulty in us.
It doesn't matter.
The difficulty in his case is that he really has no relationship to the fire problem.
He comes from a fire state.
The different types.
The tobacco.
The tobacco.
And the horses.
Yeah.
And the like.
Yeah.
And I just don't think that up in Minnesota and Iowa and the rest of it, they look like so much of a political.
I think the guy's got to be related to agriculture somehow.
And you know, now I say this to argue or throw out fear, that these domino connections have been so close.
Yeah.
But anyway you slice this thing, everybody moves.
Oh, you're right.
I made you wrong.
I said you suggested it.
But I guess I believe that a good politician will think about his secretary of agriculture.
right now, or we'll take it on.
And then an agriculture comes,
And I thought at one time, I had a great idea, I thought I'm going to have... Farmer.
Farmer.
So did I.
And I said, fine.
Well, when you get one big up for the job.
Well, he's such a big guy.
Farmer.
He's such a big guy.
Too rich.
But he did it by all means.
That's right.
And the court of law made that big of a job.
So someone that's got political standing.
Yeah.
Uh, that she'll understand what farmers are talking about, and a country called America, and auctions.
Your district goes out of our district, Mr. Clark.
Tell us, President.
If you don't want to protect your agriculture, that's what you're saying.
I learned a job ahead of us, President.
Well, anyway, let me tell you about her life.
Well, very quietly, I guess.
Now, when will this, uh, when will this news break out?
No, I mean, when will the news be about the secretary?
Oh, within two or three weeks.
It's the lieutenant.
Yeah, they are, huh?
The call I got to Vietnam said, did you know that the Secretary resigned and wouldn't leave it in this country to live in Turkey?
And I called him.
I called for Bill Cowell, and Bill was out for some time.
I was expecting her, even though I didn't want to know if something was already happening.
And she didn't.
She didn't know what was going on.
I said, well, I...
Let me say, you don't have to talk about how I talked to you because you know how to keep this in the comments, but I think you should know that you talked about it and he is, of course, will not do anything until I find a successor.
But he wants to do it and I decided that's okay.
And I think it's the right thing to do.
Well, I was personally scared.
That was the entrance.
In fact, we got a bike, we got a bike, a car, we got a bike for a deal, for a lease.
Pete Belcher called me down the block half an hour before the senator arrived, was supposed to be saying, uh,
I hope the story of the water is not true.
I said it's false.
I said it's false.
He asked about this, as a matter of fact, at the end of the second year.
He only agreed to come for two years in the first instance.
And I said, gee, we just can't have it change out after the seventh election.
So he's hanging on all through the summer.
Now, this is Bob that wants the mile to pass.
Today will be it.
So that's something you ought to know.
The press think they've got something.
So I think he's pointing it out, the story that people know about it.
I'm telling you that he is racist, but just in time.
I did a text with you about a man, Berkut Anker.
Who?
Berkut Anker, who you've been fighting for.
Yeah.
Do the best you can.
I know his problems.
Right.
And I think it was about how he disappeared.
I talked to him about it a lot this afternoon.
Good.
I'm working on it right now.
And any one of those things would be, yeah, I'm going to put that, I'm going to put that over there for two days.
Yeah, everybody's ego, big red, take out my congrats to the fans.
Now, this is impressive to me.
Donald Bryant, his name is Bryant here, is the public's director on all of this.
He runs this company.
How many secondaries do you have?
Fourteen secondaries.
It's changed to the seventh.
Are they all men?
No, they're not.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay.
The game before last...
The game before last, I sat...
This was the day.
And, uh...
Wait, what?
I saw one on TV.
What was that?
I saw one on... No, this was, uh... And at the luncheon beforehand, somebody asked for...
The only thing is, Oklahoma is very quick, and the question is whether the Nebraska, which has a marvelous defense, is quick enough to contain their running, their quickness of their running attack.
But I would say that the Nebraska defense
As I saw it, it's Colorado.
Geez, I don't think anybody could ever beat it.
I hope.
But it's the quickness of Pruitt.
They've got to hold him so fast.
I hope he doesn't have a bad day.
Because it's going to go down in a great deal.
Well, it'll be greater than another day in Michigan City.
All right.
All right.
Well, thank you.
You follow up on it.
I will sign.
All right.
I understand that I hope not to make it on a budgetary basis, but I'm sure we can't
We just can't let the day end for the first time.
The thing that I'm concerned about is that in the past, the Strategic Reserve, you know, we screwed the other way so far, Mr. President.
Okay, all right.
Although the Senate apparently has a gross little policy that the Green Line is not in the House.
The Democrats need to report it when they have this.
Okay, we've got it.
We've got it.
Yeah, I wish you had a good idea.
But yeah, you know, you're a quarter actor.
He's going to watch it.
My suspect is waiting.
Alex Butterfield has some exciting material.
So why doesn't he just come in and quarter actor since then?
I'm just not going to bother with it right now.
Is it available to notice that you have an appointment at 6?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, I'll sign it in the morning because he's got something else to do.
Sorry, I'll just work up the demand, Mr. President.
I'm starting a campaign on my own initiative starting from 7.30 p.m. where I'm working up here.
I'm going to check it out and maybe it just doesn't work.
We'll see.
All right, sir.
Thank you very much.
Oh, great.
You didn't have to go to the dinner set, did you?
We had just a delightful time.
Yes, I went to the dinner set.
Oh, did you go to the dinner set?
You were very effective.
No, we were camping.
I would have gone to the dinner set.
I think fundraising dinners are the worst dinners.
I also think it's... You had to go.
I wanted to.
How are you?
I'm well, thank you.
You were great.
We had to catch you.
We had to catch you.
I'm just letting you make your side of it before you get a hold of it.
Sit over here and get me some coffee.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Uh, I don't want any SC or bang bang.
I'm just...
I'm all about a coffee thing.
Tea?
No.
Coke.
Coke.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
I don't...
I don't have any partner around.
I have a room across the way in the red room you were in before.
Yes.
It will boost the hair for the people who drink it.
You'd have to take that step.
Hair for the people who drink it.
Hair for the people who drink it.
That's right.
It has to be a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi Manolo or a Jibber.
Which one of the people give you the most touch of your coffee?
I can tell you, sir.
Here.
I don't have to explain to you, sir.
I don't want to advertise it.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Okay, I'll listen.
Then I'll come and call you again soon.
And you said, you said Coke, Coke, you spoke about Coke, Pepsi, R.C.
Yes, sir.
Well, first of all, I was, perhaps you could have told me, it's a kind of song, but the writing of that book, they have all kind of success.
The book contains under 24 chapters, ranging from February 1970, roughly, until the end of September 1971.
The lesson includes
all your pension proposals, plus the initiatives in the foreign affairs.
That's good, John.
How about the Supreme Court?
Uh, the... Do you want to get that man in the cab?
No, that ought to get in.
You see, that's a very important speech, isn't it?
It's one of those that I wrote out every damn word by hand.
Well, by hand, I got a copy of it.
And I gave that to Rose.
And she goes, I've got a copy.
You've got a copy, but I think she might give you a little of it.
I'll just go ahead and show you the notes.
Because that's mostly how they've ever...
I was trying to get you to evaluate this particular period.
which is midway in your term, first term.
And after, as I see it, you've made your proposals not only of substance in the general field of reform, but also in the general field of foreign affairs and in the field of reorganization of the government and environment.
seeing me as I went back and over this material, that you would, by this time, present it to your full program for your first term.
I'd say the full program in terms of domestic policy, I mean in terms of foreign policy, except that there is still, of course, the winding down.
of the, well, the completion of the Vietnam, the draw of power,
is something which is certain.
And so there's no, there's no, I don't even know how it's going to happen, but this little product, it might just end up at the end of February.
But you could say that there, there is, there's nothing you can do there.
But the, it's the, and as far as the, as far as the border policy is concerned, while we,
The announcements of the trips to Peking and Moscow, of course, will probably get, particularly the one to Peking, bigger public attention even than the trips themselves.
I'm not sure.
But of course, the real work remains to be done.
Whether this is the, the extent to which these two, and everybody would have to call it a story, some meetings,
the extent to which they will alleviate tensions between major powers, reduce the chances for confrontations in the future, remains to be seen.
From a subtlety standpoint, both, both, of course, can have
very, very great in that respect.
I would tell you, in evaluating the two trips, I think it's important to have in mind the... the fact that they, as distinguished from the problem which obsesses most people, in other words,
ending the war we're in, getting peace and saying, thank God, now we can lay down the burdens of world leadership, which is sort of a gut reaction that many Americans have today, which was reflected, of course, in their votes in the Senate on April 4.
As a statement of that, which might have solved any first term, or for that matter, in any president's term, would be the Armistice Chief.
a very significant achievement, ending a war, as they would call this, ending it without humiliation, without defeat, in other words, ending it in a way that we accomplished in our tactics, because South Vietnam resisted the efforts of the North Vietnamese communists to impose their rule of force over the South.
that this would be a major key.
Where, however, the two sons become important is not in charge, as I was saying in the fundraising last night.
It's not a territory of the next election.
It truly is the terms of the next generation.
And for that matter, to affect the next session, that may
sound too tertullian, but it is quite true.
China is a particular example.
China today is not a significant economic power.
Japan, 100 billion, produces more than China, 750 million, twice as much.
And China today is a minimal nuclear power.
20 years, 750 million Chinese, who at that time will be 800 to 900 billion Chinese, will become a significant economic force in the world, and have a great
powerful military force in the world.
It is destined to be a super military power, yet it wants to be because of the capability to change people, because of the resources of the country, because of where it is.
Now, under these circumstances, no one sitting in this office could allow an opportunity
to be missed, to attempt to avoid that time coming, avoid a situation in which that time would come 10, 15 years from now, when China was a massive power, both militarily and economically,
with the United States and the BRC in confrontation with each other.
So no one, no one, believe me, in the world has less illusions
How do you impact, basically, such things as goodwill trips, getting to know you, et cetera?
How do you impact such things?
really have on great substantive differences, such as we have with China, such as we have with Russia.
On the other hand, I am convinced that we are dealing here in the history of both China and Russia
That's what they want in the world.
We know what we want in the world.
If I have anything else, if nothing else, I am a pragmatist.
With, I must say, perhaps a bigger dose of idealism than most realize.
But nevertheless, I want to realize that
case of history was strewn with the stories of idealists who simply weren't able to put their ideals into practice.
And so, here I am.
I know what our power is, what theirs is, and I can protect it with execution.
And I can see
developing a situation, a deathly peril hanging over the world of this powerful people, isolated from the rest of the world, not in contact with the strongest free nation, and it wasn't.
And it seems to me that steps have to be taken to move on that problem.
This does not mean that as a result of this, or the one with the Soviet, these differences will be resolved.
I think they know each other.
necessarily like each other.
I'm not speaking of persons like each other.
I'm speaking of like each other's systems, like each other's board policy, like each other.
But we're going to agree.
But I do believe that there are significant areas where mutual self-image, the strongest being the interest of survival, avoiding national suicide,
And this is something which has to affect every major nuclear power in the world.
We'll find areas of agreement.
And so I would say that the foreign policy field, the energy use, the major energy use that they've taken, they're, in fact, I mentioned China, they mentioned Russia, they mentioned Vietnam.
I should also point out that there are,
We have this very significant problem presently growing out of our balance of payments and so forth, surcharging the rest.
That will pass.
That at once should not concern me.
That is a temporary measure.
There is no one who feels more strongly than I do that the United States can and must not build a wall around itself
probably competitive race with the new economic power block of Europe, which is probably going to be the strongest economic force in the world, the competition in the Soviet Union, the competition in the future of China, and, of course, the growing competition of Japan, not mentioning what could happen in the third world.
Those are another moment.
And I feel strongly that the United States
that can compete, that it must compete.
And we must do it, not because we want to beat somebody else, but because we must do it for ourselves.
Because whenever nations, as I read it, cease to drive, or cease to drive to the defense, they cease to
to leave, it seems to be great.
And I don't want to see that happen to this country, and I particularly don't want to see us failing that challenge line in this office.
So our, what we were simply doing with our New England policy as far as its foreign aspect should take, was to take, give some top treatment.
But in the long run, the problem that the United States has
Insofar as this whole international problem is concerned, it's not so much the problem of our competitors abroad, but it's the problem of what we do at home.
America, we cannot... Sure, there are non-tariff barriers.
There are burdens that we have carried that are more than we should have carried.
It's now time for more burden sharing.
It's time for discrimination against the United States to come down.
But on the other hand, a final analysis, we must not have any illusions that it's a new game now, a new game in which we're no longer running against the clock as we were 25 years ago with no competitors in the world, but that we're in a real competition
fortunately, peaceful competition on the economic side with these five great superpowers, economic superpowers.
Now, with regard to the domestic side, it really all relates to a canon.
Of course, first, you can look at America's economic problems in terms of what does the market do today?
What's the unemployment rate?
What is the rate of inflation?
And how do we deal with that problem?
Just talking to Carl Curtis about the price of corn.
How do we get it up over a dollar and so forth?
Believe me, I am, as a pragmatist, keenly aware of all those problems we work on.
On the other hand, we are in a period now where the United States must realize that we can't afford inefficiency in business, inefficiency in labor, and inefficiency in government.
We've frankly become fat.
We've been able to afford the luxury of being fat.
We've been able to afford that because we have such a massive advantage.
But now, other strong people, dynamic people, not to the benefit of our tremendous technological advantage that we've developed over the years, but they're really not our next.
And so what we have to do, what we have to do, is to examine our whole system.
Examine it in terms of making it.
efficient in every respect, making it competitive in the world.
Now, on that, in that terms, it all fits into a pattern.
On the economic side, you simply cannot allow the forces of inflation to run rampant because you cannot have a healthy growth
with inflation.
So we have to fight it, fight it hard.
We have to fight it hard, and fight it hard in a way that does not destroy the free system, which creates trouble.
And that's why this phase two thing is a very delicate mechanism, which we trust will work out.
We want to do enough to deal with inflation, but not so much to destroy freedom.
And so it is a case of
of, uh, our, uh, our, our, our problems on the, uh, uh, uh, had to, uh,
It would be easy to answer the problem simply huge doses of government spending with frankly more military spending than we need and so forth, basing it on basic jobs as to a great extent they have been based to the war situations we've had since World War II on military spending.
But I think that also is not a healthy world.
So our goal, which of course is in tandem with our foreign policy missions, not any peace abroad, but a full plan in peacetime activities at home is very much needed.
That is why we look, for example, at the so-called new economic
program.
What we have put in there, and here's where I really want to lift the curtain on something we may be offering in the future, what we've put in there with regard to the tax initiatives or incentives, whatever you want to call them, the job development, deduction, whatever it is.
Anyway,
The purpose there is to encourage American business to bring their plants up to a competitive level where they can compete effectively in the world.
You look around the world, the Japanese, the Germans,
who are respectively number three and number four in the world.
We are number one, Soviet Union number two economically.
The Japanese and the Germans, that's the most modern class in the world because
Because it's, it's all like the San Francisco fire.
Remember the fire in Earthquake, everybody, what I call the tragedy.
San Francisco, how did it become the most beautiful city in the world?
Would never have been that if they had not had the fire in the Earthquake.
And so the tragedy of war in Japan and Germany.
Japan and Germany have an uneconomic plan.
Probably a plan that's better than if they had simply built on the old.
Now, America has been blessed with the fact that we have not had the devastation of war, but not only our physical planet, but even to an extent, and here we get into other things, even to an extent, our physical planet, not only the mission of our physical planet, our spirit, our economic policies, and practices, practices of business, practices of labor, and so forth,
have become inefficient.
They have not picked up to the realities of competition in the world abroad.
Let me come to another point that's very important.
I had this competition thing.
It is not a very significant thing in terms of how many jobs have agreed to have more markets abroad.
I think that the
The total value of our exports, we're talking about four or five percent out of a $30 economy.
What difference does it make?
The difference is, of course, that we are the biggest market in the world, but there's more in here.
But another thing we've got to have in mind is that if a nation or people lives on an island of themselves,
they inevitably, just like a person, don't do as well as they would do if they are looking outward.
I think the greatest danger that I see in America today is that because of the burdens we've carried since World War I, the First Korean War,
And then, of course, the ending of Vietnam, that America will turn in, turn in, not only militarily, diplomatically, but economically, and the rest would say, oh, let's look to the problems of our cities, and look to the problems of our own people, and these murders, and so forth and so on, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will,
They don't like it in particular, but there is, there is, there is in this country among people that you know that a latent isolationism, which is developing, and developing with what would seem to be the best of intentions.
the idea that, my God, we've been practically carrying the burgers in the world all these times, and now it's time to look after our own people.
What we have to realize is that America, by playing a rural role, helps, of course, to make the world safe, not only for other nations, but for itself.
Because if we lay down the burgers, I said in Chicago last night,
It isn't that, as it was in the old days, before World War II, when the British and the French or some other great power might have given up.
There is no other free nation in the world because of what happened after World War II that can or won't pick it up.
And so if we live now, the mansion's going to be filled.
And you know I hope.
But it isn't just that.
It's the fact that here we as Americans
If we turn Edward here, we not only run the risk to our national security, but it will be a mortal to the vitality, the drive of the American spirit.
America will be finished as a greater people when America turns inward rather than outward.
That's why I, of course, have supported such things as the space probe going to the moon.
Not because I ever thought there was anything on the moon.
I hope they found something.
But because it's there.
That's why I supported the SST.
Despite the environment, I think it was a very grave mistake, but we lost it.
Not so much.
I think it was very important that Jobs and people talked about $50,000.
The fact that America, the longer it's going to be, the later in commercial aircraft, which we will not be.
But because when there is a new breakthrough in any area, the great people must at least try to be in the forefront there.
As I see it, it's very important that our, this country, have an outward-looking forward policy.
It must have an outward-looking economic policy.
And we must do that so that we will develop the inward strength and vitality that we need to continue to be a great people.
Now, let me hold that back here.
Let's do the other thing.
the foreign policy, the economic policy that I eat on the carpet.
I'm American.
during the 60s, the latter half of the 60s, simply got bad and deficient.
They got so used to it that now they are, so many of them just don't know how to compete anymore.
And they're always
And these people, strong, vigorous management leaders that used to say, we can do it, we'll sell it, and so forth, so many of them say, what's the government going to do?
And labor has also had some of the same problems.
This inevitably happens with societies and shareholders that become more encrusted in a lot of possible ways.
But in the field of government, the reason the government reforms are so important is that our government institutions are, frankly, totally obsolete.
When I say totally obsolete, I mean the capitol organization at the present time just doesn't speak to our times.
It's irrelevant.
One of the reasons, for example, that we have not had as many cabinet meetings, very practical ones, I don't believe in having meetings unless they're useful.
And not because the cabinet people aren't doing a great job running their departments, but because, you see, it's proliferated.
to represent certain constituencies, but it is not organized.
This government is not organized in a way that it can really effectively deal with the problems, the national problems, as well as the international ones.
Now, coming to the other things, welfare reform, revolution,
and then many people do not pay much attention to it.
What we have recommended is that the need for health is not just that we had it born and old, it's a very significant reform, retaining the, what I think would be a bodily disastrous program of a British-type socialized medicine program, but nevertheless reforming the present out-loaded system of
Uh, healthcare.
uh education here this is because educators are one of the top groups in the country to reform uh they have they they got their whole thing in ovest but education needs reform it just doesn't need more money money will not solve it more money uh will simply uh in my new uh name that uh we will uh
able to keep the educators from devolving the new ideas and the new approaches that are essential if education is going to be relevant to our times.
in the other areas of the environment.
Here, of course, it is just a question of cleaning up the water, the lakes, the air.
And these are, of course, problems we can all see.
And so we must work to find ways to clean up the air.
We must work to find ways to clean up the water.
That's a question of research and a question of priorities and a question of money.
And we're putting a lot in those directions.
But look beyond the environment.
We must look at national growth.
And here, there are two areas where there's still some unfinished agenda as far as the first four years are concerned.
One, the national growth policy.
We will have some things to say about that as we get into the state of the union.
And you remember I opened the curtain on that in my state of the union in 1969.
And this is coming up.
We're really trying to find out what we're having to say on that.
The other is related to the business of making American industry more competitive.
And here, what we're getting into is the
is to take the great concept of NASA, its organization, and apply to the United States a lot of our government resources to industrial, apply to industrial research, not just channel research and so forth and so on.
Apply to industrial research, and not just go up to the moon,
Uh, and Mr. Chairman, uh, this is the whole Jobs for Peace program, as you see.
But, but, but, but, but, it is a, uh, we're, we're doing some heavy thinking about that, and that will be one of the segments.
Also, the other area, which, uh, I can't really be sure is starting to come up next time, but it's very serious to consider, which is some more major tax reform.
Major tax reform.
Now, beyond that, it's about where we stand.
But you can figure the tax reform, the tax reform, which will, which I think is very important.
The tax reform that we had the other time was sort of a hodgepodge, and it is the best thing we can get, and probably better than the old bill.
But this country really needs some tax reform.
But the tax reform intended to lead to our national growth, to relieve that aspect of the space.
really, really, really, it's a, it's a, to, to, to have the burden of warfare on the face, let's put it that way, tactical warfare, and, but, but in the case of a research name, research for the purpose, the Japanese, the Germans, the Germans are putting enormous amounts into, you know, research for, for applied research.
I'm not too much on the article, but Pete Peterson's work in this field, and John Redmond, we've got some first class.
First, he asked Albert Harris to restore the competitive position.
You've got to restore the competitive position.
I said, but Pete, but it gets back to something that you wrote about three or two years ago or something, when we first came out.
You said it's necessary for a president in some way
for people, to lift the people up, that the people lead them into something other, out of themselves, bigger than themselves and the rest.
It's very difficult now.
When you're in a war, that's it.
When you're going to the moon, that's it.
Maybe, maybe in time, such problems such as the environment and so forth may deliver.
But I accept, but I think in the present time,
We, the, the, uh, it is a shame that, uh, that we, we, we revitalize the
the American competitive spirit.
That's why I call it competition.
I don't mean to get sick of it.
But I believe in it, and I believe the country has to get that competitive spirit back, or by the end of the United States, maybe at the beginning and the end of its period, as we're earlier, which has only existed, as you know, since World War II.
Now, this is too early for that to happen, and it should not happen, and it need not happen, and I'm not pessimistic about it, but here at the time when we're first in production, and as we still are first in military power overall, despite some Soviet advantages in long range missiles, is the point of greatest danger.
It's quite a great statement.
It is just what they mean, well-thought-out people.
Not always that much.
Too much.
Over too long a time, you get solid.
And we've got to get this government leaning down.
It's got to be lean and strong and vigorously.
We've got to, that's why I'm well-heard.
Did you notice that I've benefited?
We've changed a lot of things.
The family has sent us to a lot more emphasis on work requirements.
And there'll be more as time goes on.
And that's why I talked about the dignity of work.
Not because I want people to get out and take a shovel, but because it's not because we need the work done so much as a partner, but it's because the individual needs to do it for himself.
He needs that spirit of self-reliance and so forth.
It's considered to be the promise of a small p.m. We put it under a clarity of speech for a variety of reasons.
Yeah, that relates to that problem.
I had to go out with some trade-off.
I was born with the condition that you are.
Well, I hit a slope in 1970.
perhaps due to a number of different things, to the elections.
The election was a massive wave of horrendous stuff.
And the fact that at that time you had not yet brought under control certain outside factors, like the drift in foreign affairs, which you later brought under control.
Well, we also had to go through the traumatic experience of Cambodia and the massive demonstrations.
And that, of course, tends to slow you down and paralyze you at that time.
Cambodia is another one.
And Laos later, now, while our critics will not give us any credit for it, have now proved to be.
That's why our casualties are eight this week rather than a hundred.
I mean, Cambodia brought them down in 1970.
And Laos brings them down in 1971.
And now we get the payoff of all this.
But yes, hey, it was rough.
We went through it.
People forget how that period of time.
But you're right about that.
You're right.
It was that.
And, of course, the election year, the fact that we had to take off some time on that.
And after the event, and frankly, let me say, the election years that turned out probably turned out to be a good thing.
In fact, we didn't do quite as well as we would have liked.
We made some gains in the Senate, we made some losses, but it was an off-year election that had lost the governor and so forth.
But then you tend to
In other words, I believe in competition and politics.
Believe me, if you didn't have people kicking your rumble, or criticizing, or breathing down your neck, I mean, set your facts.
I think we wouldn't care much about it.
Actually, the truth.
No, I'm not.
Despite the fact, of course, we have to fight back from time to time.
I'm not.
And I'll speak up.
My critics, perhaps, and all the rest of it, they didn't do that.
Like the, it was a little bit as if another administration would begin.
It seemed to me after the election.
It seemed to me that it was after the first president.
All right, you said it.
Said it, yeah.
It was then that the community administration would begin again.
We got it.
That's right.
When we came up with Revenue Shed, we came up with the new American Revolution.
We came up with what it is, and it will come.
Government reorganization will pass.
There's no budget on all of it.
Not this time.
But we started it, and it's going to come, surely, because it's the right thing to do.
Revenue Shed will come.
It's the right thing to do.
I do a whole program, probably along with a lot of churches that's worked on it.
It's a very involved one.
It's just good.
will probably come, and our education reforms will come, let alone the environment, the others, which are, others have also pushed them.
But if we hadn't put these out, they would never see the light of day.
You understand there have been administrations around here for many years that have done a thing about revenue sharing, government reorganization, health reform, and so forth.
I mean, a lot of talk.
But your children are in action sometimes by,
by elections, by breaks, and by the needs of the time.
And so it is now.
Now, let me say that I would not say that, though, with regard to the Ford Palsy Initiative.
You've got to look at it in a different book.
There, and I, this is one place you'll have to meet.
somewhat of a self-serving statement.
I have to call those signals myself.
I've had very good advice.
But my plans with regard to the Soviet, my friends, the Chinese, are plans that have been long, frankly, long-headed, long range.
And the idea that, well,
The trip to China sort of grew out of sort of a few messages that popped back and forth here and there, and the answer grew out, and it's nonsense.
Not true.
And the same with the Soviet.
If they worked out that way, any meetings at high levels that come accidentally or quickly or at the wrong time are destined to fail.
A meeting has a good chance to fail even if it's well-planned, well-advanced.
It had a very little chance to see if it is a planet.
I mean, the glass world may be an example.
In other words, you can develop some of these.
Exactly.
I have a determination of what we want to do with the Soviet, the arms control, and so on.
I mean, look, this way.
I can see when we came in that we were reaching a time when we were buried with the Soviets.
I saw that we didn't have to make a decision to go one of two ways.
We either had to make a decision of negotiation, that's why I use the word negotiation rather than confrontation, or we'd have to go hard on it.
In other words, we had to start rebuilding because the sections of the United States lost.
It's been a nuclear match.
So it was either negotiate or escalate, as far as New York is concerned, and other areas as well.
With regard to the Chinese, as you know, I wrote an article on it long ago.
The Chinese, I think, is all part of a long process where, again, not because of my attitudes toward communism,
Oh, I certainly think they haven't changed at all.
Just as theirs haven't changed about me.
There's no question about that.
They know me, and I know them.
But on the other hand, it gets back to the practice and the office.
But here we've got it.
The Soviet initiative couldn't take place before this time.
We weren't ready, and they weren't ready.
The Chinese initiative could take place before this time.
because we didn't get that much time to prepare the waveform.
So these came as a result, not of any product, as a result of the election, not because of the year before the election, not because we thought, well, this would be great, we could take a couple trips in 1972.
I'll tell you, these are going to be the hardest trips I ever took in my life.
You know, you don't want to work with the others, so it would be a trip.
Well, if I hadn't worked that much in the vice presidential, you can imagine what I'm going to have to go through going up through these two.
But I always prepared.
And I expect that to be prepared.
That's one of the great advantages of having done the vice-presidential trip.
Well, I have first talked to a number of Congress leaders, everybody.
And, of course, Drew shut up, and Jim Chester, and Petito, and the rest.
There's one thing that impresses me about them.
They vary from television to television.
But by God, they are always ready.
And so I'll be ready.
You can pick it two months before the other one.
See?
Yeah, that's the ballpark.
You know, they had it in May.
You know, I had all that in May.
Yeah.
So now it's set for late May, so it's two months before it does.
Mike.
How's that figured out, eh?
What?
How's that figured out?
Oh, yeah.
It's still in law.
It's still in law.
Very close to the date now.
How about Martin?
There's nothing to report on that at the present time.
I would, Martin is, Martin, you know, he came in as one of the, like so many others, one of the coming two-year period.
But I ask you to stay on because I don't want any changes at this point in the cabinet.
This is what happens.
I'm more staying on at this point in time.
I think there's something out there, some discussion, but some discussion that my position is that I wanted to say.
His question, frankly, is the... How do you... All right.
Finally, how can we...
This?
Yes.
Well, you mean in terms of your book?
Yeah.
Well, in terms of... Well, the book, I had no problems on it at all.
The... And so forth.
Regarding columns.
Oh, sure.
And a book for attribution and so forth.
In terms of columns, I would prefer not to do it for .
I'm not kidding.
It's just my other reporters.
So in terms of columns, I would prefer to do it the other way.
And I say the present things.
The present is most difficult.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let's see.
Another one.
Let's see.
The areas of...
Well, you've got to be careful of the new programs.
That's the only thing.
Because that's fine.
But the three new programs that the tax reform, the new research program, the new, I wonder if it was, I'd be very confused.
But in terms of the other matters,
I don't mind, but I would need, if you would need it, I would like you to just be extremely careful in terms of anything that appears to be attribution.
Do you see my point?
I understand.
Because of the .
Oh, yes, yes.
Oh, Sid.
Well, I thought you said you were going to tell us something else, sir.
Well, of course I did.
I told them at first.
I said, well, thank you.
Well, say those things.
Thanks a lot.
What's my number?
Here's your number.