Nixon, Laird & Hébert on 1972 Election and HR 2

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How are you?

Aren't you down there working?

Thank you.

Good morning.

They didn't come out of the air, that's good.

Well, now we've got to go out and make some non-political speeches, so I don't have to look at that.

That's a terrible place.

It's a neat job, isn't it?

That's a terrible place.

All right.

You'll get another pen inside if I want to use it.

Unless you hit number two.

I do.

You get the rear end of the name, right?

Yeah.

Back side.

Yeah.

And who wants to meet something like that here?

I don't know.

The great day, I was hoping some of you would notice that, but we did.

That's right.

My staff called this a bad building, but we signed a request for you to enter.

If I did a bad building, I would screw with the problems I would have and get through to you.

You know, if you have a lot to say at any time, right?

Would you wait 25 years to build a building in China?

I would.

And they said, unless I have a personal commitment.

I had to talk to Adrian when I go there.

I have a personal commitment.

Let him see that.

I hope it's a good pillow.

Just to be sure we get a lot of good doctors.

All right.

You all line up in the area, I'll be in.

Mel, you stay in with me and we'll all get together.

You show that

Yeah, yeah, very good.

You know, I've just done a very good job.

And if you know this, everybody in this government is against it, except if you crush the relationship.

I was going to ask a couple of things on this.

We could speak for three, four minutes, you know, to give the, uh, I think what I was saying was true.

This is a, this is a bill that has such enormous interest to all the armed forces.

I'd like the Secretary of Defense to, uh, to, to, to, to give an explanation to the bill before I sign it.

And you say, well, then I'll sign it.

So that I, that's just, just a few words, two, three minutes, you know what I mean?

Just to say that you could, I didn't think you should say this as a,

bill that we should have, that we, that is, we're to rectify and adjust this in 25 years, perhaps, whatever it is, longer, and that it helps, and that it's one that has bipartisan support, I mean, that, and that we, this is, this is, well, this will not receive the kind of, of, of public, you know, uh, uh,

Let me ask you another thing.

You've got, I understand, a good answer for the last, whatever defense you want to have.

You already put it out last night.

We put out some last night.

We had more.

It's in our opinion much to our interest to have that subject debated.

The more that you can have his defense account debated, that's better than having all the rich people.

The more you can

The plan doesn't really change anything.

No, it doesn't change anything.

He still cuts the barriers.

He still cuts the air force.

We still ended up with the second strongest navy, the second strongest air force, the second strongest missile force, and I'm all in the hell.

But one thing I know for the new sergeant today, and I'll let my...

Another economist wrote a derogatory article about it.

It's about Chase's talks, talks directly.

And one of them particularly, which you might want to hear sometime, where he said that as far as our troops in Europe are concerned, that there's no problem in the fact that we withdraw because within 15 to 20 days after an attack up in the Lefebvre plant, we would air the proportions back in.

Well, Melanie, you know,

This isn't like World War II or World War I, where we've got one to two years.

The next war will be determined in maybe 30 minutes.

Or, at least, even in conventional terms, all the plans that I've seen on NATO and the Cape, 15 to 20 days would be too damn long.

And second, Henry made a point this morning, I concur with you, to brave a land.

One, at Clark Airport, too, we have these two reforging conditions that we already have over here, and they cost us more to have that stuff repositioned over there.

Equipment there, equipment here, and you can show that the costs are at least 15% greater.

To keep them here?

Yes.

By having their equipment repositioned.

Also, it's so ridiculous that you know the moment you withdraw, your allies are just not right apart, it seems.

They give up.

They quit.

And this is absolutely the wrong time to be talking about it.

You talk to all those people.

But I think the party will keep an engagement on that.

Well, I will.

And I'm going to meet the press Sunday.

I know you're going to follow up on that.

The idea is to meet the press.

I don't think people watch it too much.

But it does get some news.

But the idea is that he is not just a second rate.

His job.

What is his job?

He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

And we had him up two or three speeches a day.

He's a big lad.

He also represents me on the Centennial Commission.

But he does well in his public appearance.

He does well in his mind for something.

Today's show, we pretty much have today's show.

I'm speaking after the election.

He's kind of a guy.

It's very difficult, you know, by any blacks that are competent to do top jobs.

I mean, they are competent.

It's a race.

They just don't have the opportunity.

But you think he has the cold stuff underneath anything, don't you?

When they set up that Brigadier General's list the last time, it didn't have a lot of promotion to the major people.

I just said, in fact, the Air Force.

And he was made a major general.

Is he a major general now?

You can tell that because we have a report from our people in San Francisco.

He was on a television program.

He was fantastic.

And Erland was out there.

We heard about him.

Really, everyone's great.

All over.

Everybody's talking about him.

They're just fine.

And he does a great job for the administration.

Well, Erland says it's the best speech he's heard about our foreign policy and everything.

He changed it.

He does a great job.

He understands and talks about the Nixon Doctrine and its application.

He does well.

And he's got a good sense of humor.

He can tell good stories.

And he sings well.

You know, I had him at the, I take him with me once in a while, and I had him at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.

And I had him.

by the protestors on the front.

So I called out Chappie to lead us in singing some hymns.

Right.

And you should have heard it.

I mean, he got that whole crowd singing and everything.

I was going to give him a presentation.

Thank you.

Well, at this point, the steam has gone out of the protest room.

I hope you're not, if you're casual as you're now, if you're not dragging people to the Vietnam, there's not a hell of a lot of people in the field of this bombing the Dynasties.

Well, it's still a tragedy, but it isn't like it's...

I don't think they got the spirit or anything.

They got their leaders.

They're disorganized.

They're not organized.

It's not as big.

I've followed the group.

I know there's still demonstrators around, but they're not big numbers.

That's right.

They're having trouble getting people to do it.

There's a hard thing.

Where are you?

I've told everybody that you've got to be not with them.

But...

I would hope that you would be concentrating on the big states.

I would hope you could design.

If you could be sure that I think you, they tell me now there's a chance even to get Massachusetts.

I'd like you to include one in Massachusetts if you've got anything.

Is there anything you could do there that you know of?

Wisconsin.

Wisconsin made it this week.

Is there anything other than, is there anything you could do in West Virginia?

Now that's a, that's a God-fearing state, you know, and high loyalty and the rest.

If you could add West Virginia and, well, at least include West Virginia, and Massachusetts, I just have a feeling, you see, my point is, keep the other fellow busy.

Where do you think he's safe?

That's why we're doing some southern stuff.

I'll be doing southern, not a swank, but I'll go to Atlanta in about a couple weeks, mainly just to keep them busy.

They can go down there.

There's no way they can get some away.

We are getting people out, and I'm going out, and I'll be in Pennsylvania this week, next week, and then in Missouri, Ohio, Texas, California, Oklahoma, and then going back to California again.

So, and we are getting the others out, but Zumwalt was up, and Zumwalt was accused, you see, they come out demanding that he be relieved and so forth and so on, with a partisan attack on the government budget.

And he does a good job.

He does well in here.

believe is necessary.

He's got to be for a big thing.

Well, he's fine.

If he doesn't find that, he can justify that totally.

If you were Secretary of Defense, you've got to be for a strong defense.

Rod, if you're Secretary of State, you've got to be for a responsible foreign policy.

You've got to be for that policy.

You're not being partisan, right?

No, and I think that we have them answering now.

Where can you go in Massachusetts?

Oh, yes, we have a son.

I don't need to go to Cambridge.

We have three or four places we could go, but if you could get us some place that's sort of ethnic, hard-had, defense-oriented, it just might have a damn good effect.

We're going on a contract with Quincy Shipyard.

That would be excellent.

The point is that it shows also that we care about Massachusetts.

In other words, we haven't written it off.

If you can't do it, like the Quincy shipyards, pass that over to the schedule makers and tell them to get somebody up there.

What are we going to build there?

We're going to build a merchant ship for the Navy, a cargo ship, which is very important to that shipyard because they have a solid period right now.

When is that going to come?

Probably next week.

You're going to announce the contract that you're out?

Yes, yes.

But we can work out something on that.

I'll get back to you.

That used to be the woman's place, wasn't it?

Yes, she had that in her district.

That's right.

I was there when she had it.

What was her name?

Robin.

Edith.

Edith Robin.

Edith.

She did?

Yes.

She was on our post.

Yes.

Well, and she was really, no matter how bad I compare it, where she was always over, you know, with Rankin and those people, that's how it used

Sort of got organized in that sheltered marching group at the time that she had to fill out there with the .

Well, let's see if they're ready for some signing here.

Okay, if you want to go in, I'll be right here.

Just a second, I'll have to get you this one.

Wait now.

As soon as they are ready, I'll come in.

Don't wait until it's 12.

I said that that way because they're all busy and it gets back to the Congress.

Nixon, Laird & Hébert on 1972 Election and HR 2

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on September 21, 1972

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