Nixon & Decker on Career development and New York City

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Now, what about this, I was going to ask you, what are your plans?

Are you planning to go to New York or someplace, or what do you decide?

I was thinking of the finance area.

You're really looking forward to that.

Do you think that's too advisable?

I know.

It's the, uh... You taught school.

You got out of school.

How long?

I just taught for one year.

One year.

Oh, and I created a school.

And then, where'd you come?

I started with the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health.

That's when you came here.

Right.

And I came over here with John Brown, who was the staff secretary.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You grew up in Ohio and went to school there.

Well, the North is a visual place for the world and a place to live and work in.

It's very exciting.

I mean, it is very, very expensive.

Whatever you get there, it will not go as far as it does in here.

I don't know.

Many young people do like it there because of the extent.

I'm sure it could impact the whole party.

Most of the, as far as this is, for putting it quite gently, as far as girls are concerned,

I think many prefer New York because basically it's not, there's a, there's more, there's a better ratio of men to women in New York than there is here.

Washington is a, it's always been a matter of, you know, pleasure.

Most girls, it's not acceptable work in the life of this place.

But

I know.

It depends if you've got the, if you've got a decent kind of a job, and there are some good jobs for girls with your background up there, you might find it very different.

It's a really basically New York Jewish city.

And I'm speaking about the city itself.

That doesn't mean it's a bad city, but basically it's, if you get down in that area, there's a certain detachment.

But in terms of, shall we say,

Friends, that sort of thing, or whatever that means.

Very beloved.

Very.

Hopefully it's all on a scripted, personal basis.

You live in an apartment house, you don't know anybody.

You won't know your neighbor or anybody else.

Nobody pays any attention to that.

Dog eat dog.

It's highly competitive.

I've often said that New York is a place for the very rich and the very poor.

The welfare goals are huge there.

They do rather well.

The very rich can afford the tip of the ration.

The people in between don't do too well, because it's just too expensive.

And yet you don't, you can live there.

You don't have to, in other words, you don't have to take taxi cabs, you don't have to ride subways, you don't have to use the fancy restaurants, you don't have to go to a lot of restaurants.

You name your price, you can get there.

And it's, as far as I can tell, most girls, particularly, walk down and sit down and look

The great city of the world for that.

There's more concentration of great shops.

With the exception of Los Angeles.

You can't go too far.

Some of the great stores were over there.

New York has more.

So I don't know.

Depending on your job.

Last time, Mr. President, just to clarify two more reasons for wanting to leave.

Basically, I was concerned about what to do with the rest of my life, not seeing this as a career-type position.

You've got a lot of lifelines.

You didn't want to be a secretary all your life.

I understand that.

That's your point.

You're a college graduate.

You're an elementary teaching degree, right?

You've got a teaching degree.

I was concerned too that at 30 it would be so much more difficult to find something.

And now at 26, even now people probably wonder why I haven't gotten my MBA or whatever it is if I'm just interested in something.

What do you mean?

Why you haven't?

Well, I mean, even at this point...

It looks as if I've dawdled or something.

I don't know if they think I have some great desire, but it's... No, I think on that you're doing very well.

If you were 36, then I would say I would be working out of transition.

Out of transition.

Well, it's an awful decision to have to make.

My family sometimes...

Your family still lives in Ohio?

Yes.

Well, that's true.

Again, it'll be a terrible adjustment for six months.

And you find different things to do.

But the government can be exciting, but it can also be

My view is, don't say anything that's too long.

I would stick around here.

That's longer, I mean.

But if I were you back then, I'd consider New York horrible.

I'd say Los Angeles has its pull, too.

That's a very...

In New York, as far as the traffic is concerned, it's the best.

There's more competition.

It's colder in here.

It's ruthless.

Exciting.

I don't know about girls.

Did you ever talk to Rose about it?

Rose Wood?

No, I haven't.

Go talk to her sometime.

Now, she lived there.

It was, of course, eight years or five years I lived there.

I can't give you much advice about it when it comes to...

I just can't tell each individual as to just...

I can see why you want to change.

I mean, you're going to move from one thing to another.

You just don't want to be either...

If you are going to make a move into a, shall we say, a professional kind of work, you've got to do it very soon.

You do think that's right?

That's my feeling.

I'm not sure that it is in that respect.

I mean, I must say that I think many women think that, well, secretarial work is a little bit certain.

So below being, say, a professional person,

working for you.

I'm not so sure of that.

Depends.

If you're working, if you're a good secretary of work, it's important.

You will find a lot more English.

And probably a financial standpoint, almost as important.

This whole business of the secretary of the United States is a terribly important person.

Terribly important person.

I'm not so sure that it would happen if it didn't happen.

Look at that.

But you ought to think about it for a while.

I wouldn't jump up in New York for sure.

But they're doing a pretty good job.

And there's something in front of the device, because she... Talk to Rose about it.

She'll give you her best advice.

And she lives in Los Angeles, in the dark of Washington.

She's had a good life.

It must have been awfully, it must be fun to be able to share that kind of relationship over the years and all the changes.

You see them all up and down.

You're right.

But I think a little about, you know, before that, I must say, a lot of pretty girls like you, they end up in the garb of essentially the two places that draw them all together.

Mr. President, you can't appreciate it because you don't have a contact with it, but the thousands of people who

who say to people like me, please tell the president he's doing a great job, or please let him know we support him for re-election, or the people who talk to me about it, as well as I'm sure everyone else, and the people who are dying to work here, just so often I think he has no idea how supportive or how the people are expecting so much from him.

What do you think about it?

We want our people to work.

I like to see them celebrate.

David just left.

I think David is going to do a good job in the industry and others.

I heard Brian go, he should.

He's 54 years of age.

He should be wasted.

Four more years and he's too old to play along.

He should make some money.

As far as the girls, it's probably open as well here.

But she did well here.

She knows that place.

Thank you.

Nixon & Decker on Career development and New York City

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 5, 1973

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