Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 831-020
Date: Wednesday, January 3, 1973 at 3:16 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Abshire, David M.; Timmons, William E.; Atkins, Oliver F. ("Ollie")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/831-020

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:03] Thank you.
[0:04] Thank you.
[0:39] hard-working, working their tails off.
[0:41] I know in Spain, particularly, that we did work with some of those foreign-religious kind of people.
[0:49] What a horrible experience it was.
[0:50] And it serves so much value.
[0:52] You never get a chance to see, you know, I see the secretary, I see Alex Johnson, I see Irwin, and I never see anybody
[1:15] how you were able to not only retain the confidence of the State Department people, which is, at the same time, be loyal to the White House, which is hard.
[1:24] So I really appreciate it.
[1:26] I'm sorry to see you leave.
[1:27] Well, Mr. Secretary, I'm very sorry to leave.
[1:30] And, you know, had I not this commitment to go back and take over this Senate of Georgetown, I would not be leaving.
[1:36] That's a good, that's a good, a very important...
[1:40] I'm Arlie Burke, and I helped get that started back in 62.
[1:44] And Arlie is retired, so I must do this.
[1:48] How old is Arlie?
[1:50] Arlie is 72.
[1:51] Arlie Burke is 60.
[1:54] But he is still growing at 31 knots, so he's great.
[1:59] But he just didn't, if I wasn't coming back, he didn't want to be left with the financial responsibility to send us to Sandbrook.
[2:10] Let me say what we want to tell you, but let me be quite candid.
[2:15] It's time that rather than having the Ford Foundation and Brookings and Carnegie take the lead, Georgetown and the group of Pennsylvania, I think we ought to play our people.
[2:29] You agree?
[2:29] Yeah, we should.
[2:31] You find a way.
[2:31] You find a way.
[2:33] You find a way, whether it's speakers or others.
[2:41] And along those lines, I've been talking to Bill about, let's take some of these, I know you've been having new senators in here, but I think that our senator, for example, senators, more junior people that are not on key committees, that are making a knowledge for Williamsburg for a weekend, you know, with their wives, but work them down.
[3:09] Can you do that?
[3:10] Yes, we can.
[3:11] Because part of it.
[3:13] Well, half of my job is fundraising.
[3:17] The other half is the education.
[3:19] But I think we can do a lot more.
[3:20] That's a marvelous idea.
[3:23] Because I... You know, basically what you've got to do is to...
[3:28] There's a little backbone in people, isn't there?
[3:32] Unless they have understanding, they won't have backbone.
[3:36] That's backbone enough.
[3:38] Because you take this last year for six months,
[3:41] We had one key foreign policy bill or another on the Senate floor with amendments day after day.
[3:47] And we ran out of senators that were knowledgeable to get out there and defend.
[3:52] So this is what we've got to build on.
[3:54] You know, if you could take the young guy and show you this guy.
[4:10] Jerry says it will, Mr. President.
[4:13] I'm concerned about it.
[4:14] They haven't elected the chairman yet.
[4:15] They will probably this Saturday.
[4:17] The committee on Wilson may still go.
[4:21] It may still go.
[4:23] Jerry is prepared to do battle and fighting on it.
[5:05] We were in.
[5:06] Three out of the three candidates didn't deserve to win.
[5:08] There were lousy candidates.
[5:35] They're out walking in boats.
[5:37] Is Bud with Kennedy?
[5:38] Yes, he's eager and aggressive and he's making his calls.
[5:41] Is your, our friend from Tennessee, supporting him?
[5:44] Yes, he is.
[5:44] But they've been together already planning, the two of them, even though they weren't elected.
[5:48] Bill was elected today.
[5:50] That's great.
[5:51] That's tremendous.
[5:51] So, no problem.
[5:52] Yes.
[5:55] No, no, no, no, I meant the other guy.
[5:59] Kirkendall?
[6:00] Yeah.
[6:00] Yes, he's working for Bud, too.
[6:04] He thinks it's wrong for Bob Wilson to stay in there.
[6:06] He would have preferred to have been the candidate.
[6:08] I held him.
[6:34] I'll come in here at 9.30, 9.30, 6 or 7.
[7:16] The difficulty is today, you showing me in our house, because I know you've got four, it's not like you can put it in one hand.
[7:24] It can't be real.
[7:24] That is correct.
[7:25] It's really, it's very exergy.
[7:27] It isn't.
[7:28] That is correct.
[7:29] When they go abroad, unfortunately, so many of them go and, you know, visit the flesh pots and all that.
[7:36] Many of them don't understand what they see.
[7:39] First, they don't read them so that people can go.
[7:40] And then when they go out, they don't know what to look for.
[7:43] And as a result,
[7:51] I couldn't agree more.
[7:54] And Mr. President, I think one thing that my Senate can do
[8:13] is encouraging specialized travel with a specific purpose.
[8:17] Now, Bill Maillard said to me that he's quit traveling because most of them are boondoggles, but if we could come up with a specific trail for him to learn something and that he would come back and be able to use it on the floor, it would make the trail.
[8:30] So I think we can do more planning along these lines.
[8:34] Our congressional travel in two years is double, but I'm not sure it's gone to that good a purpose.
[8:39] I see.
[8:40] In other words, I guess...
[8:42] It really is a junk.
[8:44] Well, the end of it is too many large meetings and natal parliamentarians, which are large meetings and nothing is said that is the way it seems.
[8:52] I'm a natal parliamentarian.
[9:23] important European parliamentarians that is involved with their tribe.
[9:27] Not the, not the Kurt Barenbochs, but the ones that don't matter that much.
[9:32] Oh, they're involved in these groups?
[9:33] They're involved in these groups.
[9:35] I know, I know.
[9:38] When they go abroad, they are, they'll find ways to be in service.
[9:44] I used to talk to them.
[9:45] I used to go in and talk to all the labor leaders.
[10:38] Mr. President, may I bring up another idea?
[10:42] This gets to the national security issue, which is going to be so key in the next four years.
[10:47] But I would like to see my center sponsor maybe using the same facilities where they had the IAM conference.
[10:56] An annual conference on national security.
[10:59] Now, maybe to have this in March of each year after the various reports are out.
[11:06] Get foreign experts.
[11:09] I think you have that kind of a conference.
[11:12] I would give you here, Bill Burns, Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense.
[11:16] I'd be one of them.
[11:17] I'd give you all three.
[11:18] I think it's some of these people like Simon and the forces that have been in that atmosphere that back up in some of their positions.
[12:02] political or what they call.
[12:31] You see, we've got to go to power or something.
[12:34] And the Council on Foreign Relations is getting forward.
[12:37] It's been invaded by Jack McCloy and David Robinson.
[13:07] And 61.