Nixon, Ehrlichman & Sanchez on Federal Budget and Higher Education

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But remember, my house is good property here.

It's a very good investment.

You're going to be here a long time.

Yeah.

Oh, when he gets back.

How do you get stuck?

General, said he was ready to discuss the MIT matter with you.

He did it by memory.

Sir, he must have dropped all of these on his way to canteen.

So we can all get out.

All right, we're still here.

Yes, sir.

We'll be down in just a moment.

Say, uh, do you know whether they finished the panda ceremony specifically?

I believe she's back, Mr. President.

How did it work?

Were you able to get up to them?

Did you pet them or anything like that?

How does it work?

Yeah.

But did they get a good picture of them?

No.

It got a lot of interest.

How did the people enjoy it?

I just, you know, I didn't, I got better even the press was pleased.

Isn't that great?

Oh, they'll come back.

That would be great.

— 3 min 10 s with no transcribed speech —

Well, let me just line it up.

Can you do anything?

Yes, I found out we've already done something.

Turn it up.

We went through this apparently once before.

Oh, I know.

30% off.

And we can slice everything except a Defense Department program that I don't know anything about.

For the developmental laser, a laser gun to hit satellites.

Okay, well...

Then the only question is, how do you want to do the rest of it?

The rest of it amounts to $31 million.

And we can, yep, that's all.

Well, that's still a lot of money.

It's to them.

It'll be everything.

No, thank you.

No, I'm going to have to go to a thing I know, and I've got to speak to that.

I want this, I believe I'm taking a hard look at the next year's budget to see if Georgia's figure is going to kill it.

But I want you to look at it, and this is something you can follow up on.

I think higher education is a disaster in this country.

And I just think we're subsidizing it too goddamn much.

And I really want to jump the hill on that.

That means science, you know, that kind of science.

It's just a substitute for left-wing professors, you know what?

Right?

Right.

And David may bring his resignation, but that's all right.

Well, we've got to rejigger that whole science community.

It's awful.

Yeah.

It's incestuous.

It's unbelievable.

They just kind of pat each other.

But I want the science thing cut.

Let's cut that 50%.

Let's just make a...

Or is that too late?

I don't know.

I just don't know what the rolling numbers are.

Let me find out.

I'll cut it to 33.

I will address it.

On a budget basis, George has raised a budget question.

Now, I'm going to start with this.

What would you do on this?

Well, I'd say I'm surprised the numbers are as low as they are, but it's partly accountable for the fact that we've been doing some of this as we've gone through.

Now, there's two ways of going on this.

One is... What is this, a direct subsidy?

Well, it's the ATWS contracts up there...

Transportation has contracts up there, and they've got research of different kinds going on.

Plus, there's grants for assistance and all that kind of stuff.

All the grants are out, period.

I've asked CAP to inventory everything that this $31 million goes for on a list.

We don't have any way of getting that by just punching a button.

So it'll be Monday.

They work on it.

I understand.

I'm just trying to get it done.

But I also would like to see it done for other schools, too.

I just don't kind of understand it.

All right.

Stanford, the whole goddamn project.

Let's go ahead.

All right.

That's my opinion.

So that it is not picking them out.

But I just think across the board, we're going to start getting the desired education.

The grants are going to go down.

The grants are out.

I've got two ways to go on this.

And one of them

would be to just sort of fight cancellation of existing contracts, but there's penalty clauses and we catch lawsuits.

The other is to just wait two months and not refund them again.

See, we're at the end of the fiscal year.

How do you avoid them?

Well, we just pass instructions to all these departments that contract.

Contract number 31-509 will not be refunded.

All right, fine.

Let's do that.

Get this ready.

Tell Pat what I want to know about this.

And that includes everybody, even the University of Chicago.

I don't care what it is.

There are going to be no more grants, period, for any teaching assistants of any kind, and so forth and so on.

I mean, we're going to have an austerity budget.

I did Bob or George's memo, and he saw it.

And we've got an austerity budget.

And one place we've got to cut like hell is in education.

Now, not in any place, but I know higher education is the place to cut jobs.

We'll get at this.

I'll figure out the whole thing.

All the grants, all the teaching assistants get to be.

That whole damn business of the National Science Foundation.

PSAC and all that business.

What do you think?

I'm all for it.

You know, $16 billion a year going into that.

Well, of course, your argument that they will make on the other side is, well, this is basic research, and this is essential for this or the other thing.

But there are other ways of getting that.

You know, get McGruder on, is he still with us?

Oh, yes.

Well, get McGruder to say, look, we want to take the hell out of this.

Put it in the restaurant.

We'll be laughing.

Peterson will be laughing.

I am not going to give in.

I'm not going to give in.

It's like a light cap, you know.

Well, that's for sure.

Just because it's cutting.

In fact, he's very enthusiastic on that.

He jumped right in.

Tell him I want to be with the whole country, okay.

And slice it up.

Now, also, does he have the National Science Foundation figures in on this?

No, this just goes to MIT.

The National Science Foundation?

Yes, from the whole government.

You sure?

Yes, sir.

Because I asked him about this, and I said, now, what kinds of things are in here?

And he gave me a description, and I'm sure National Science Foundation did in 31.

Now, they have a management contract that's not in here.

They manage Lake and Labs, but that's a cost-less contract, so it wouldn't be any scale.

As a matter of fact, we have trouble keeping these managers.

So I understand.

That's kind of, you know, I understand.

I understand.

But the thing that hits them in the gut is this grants for teaching.

Those are finished.

And don't you question the decision?

No, I think that's fine.

I think there will be a point beyond which

you can't go to an irreducible minimum.

Well, because, sure, it's like a laser.

That I understand.

But I mean, there will also be irreducible minimums in some other areas.

I just think on an individual basis, you'll agree we don't want to cut a particular thing that's going on.

I don't know what they might be.

But rather than to just...

If you start looking for exceptions, that's the problem.

You'll end up with doing nothing.

Well, okay.

I'll make sure we don't...

I said, all right, you know what I mean.

Tell Cap that I want these, and Cap is really good at these.

He's excellent.

And I just want you to leave a little tiny loophole.

I've been leaving loopholes, and very little has been done.

Okay.

Well, we'll cut this one's head off for sure.

And I agree with you, and I just, and I do it two months from now as part of a refund.

And let them, if they come down here, just let them talk to the secretary.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Fine.

I mean, Lois,

Faster than a stand-up.

That's the way it goes anyway.

Okay.

What are you speaking of?

American Enterprise Institute.

Oh, it's a very nice, very conservative subject, right?

Good.

I've hired them to do a lot of studies.

So, so.

And for that, the, they seem to me that your exercise yesterday, the police thing was worth doing.

Good local coverage.

And a little national blood went out on the wires.

And Colson's going to take a reading now on how much of the feed was used by the regional stations.

And we'll give the old people just how to do these things.

Well, how much is used is, we're concerned that some, how much is used or how little is used.

Let me say this, sir, two useful words.

One, clearly a lot of undergression of those sons of bitches out for us.

That's worth doing it for.

Didn't I say earlier?

how much you get from it.

networks and so forth, it depends on what other news there is out there.

They've got the war news, they've got the IDT news, and they've got the economic news, and Conley made a speech, and so what the hell.

You know very well how little we get.

So my point is, just keep feeding it in.

You've also got my view about the Saturday Sunday story.

I want a Sunday story every week, every Saturday.

There's an interesting thing that happened yesterday.

It certainly wasn't by contrivance.

But I went in there and I laid an hour of facts on them, which they might not have used.

You went out and did a two-minute picture.

And so what we got was the picture.

And then a whole lot of text about crime rates and about the LEAA and about all kinds of stuff.

I watched all of the feed here.

And somehow or another, if we can figure out those combinations...

Figure out a way to get a picture.

Yeah.

And make it use the other... That's it.

And I can load the text on it.

You don't have to go out and do any more than you did yesterday, which was, you know, you said, cut it in half, and that was a little easy.

And... Save the city.

Yep.

Good picture.

And then they carried a tremendous amount of the other stuff.

Great.

We'll take it through and see what kind of combinations we can work.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Sanchez on Federal Budget and Higher Education

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on April 20, 1972

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Nixon, Ehrlichman & Sanchez on Federal Budget and Higher Education

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on April 20, 1972

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