Conversation 873-001

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You can do these in the present place.

Mr. President, John Cunningham is the president of the person who stands.

Why, Mr. President, do you want the Spaniards to be rightful or do you want them to be happy to make it right?

You don't have to be rightful.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

That's good, that's good.

That's great.

Vice President, our freshman class, George O'Reilly.

Yeah, who's that?

I don't know.

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

The flag.

He's got it.

I brought it over to you.

Good to see you.

I've got to show you.

I got all three tickets.

I put it down here.

That's the best place I've ever heard of.

From New Jersey, Stavron office.

Maybe a few minutes late.

Oh, there you are.

And Bob Hammerhead, Illinois, of course.

Give me that flash, please.

Is that Bob Hammerhead?

Yes, yes, yes.

He was talking to me the other year.

I'm sorry.

Bob, good to have you here.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

Mr. President, we have a new member of our class coming in from Alaska tomorrow.

Yeah, I've got to say, that was good, wasn't it?

I agree.

He came in beforehand to have his, you know, for a picture with the senator.

And you could tell he was going to win.

Oh, with a name like Young, he couldn't win.

Well, I wanted to have a chance first to get all of you down in the office since you've been elected.

How many were here?

So you all know the place pretty well.

What did you pick up?

But we were going to have you in the cabinet room, but there isn't, fortunately, enough room for all of you to sit up on the table.

And I didn't know who to put in the back row.

So that's it.

I just want to take the shoes.

I hope you can come in here.

I want you to know that...

But I'm very grateful for the leadership that you've shown as congressional members of Congress.

I suppose you wondered, after you had a press conference, and after you had a special order, and all that time preparing all the speeches and so forth, you gave out the Washington Post, you know, you financed back in the course of that.

You really wondered if it was worth it.

And I want you to know that it was worth a great deal.

I would hesitate to try to give advice to members of Congress, but having been one 26 years ago, I think I've had a few a bit.

You never judge the effect of what you're doing by what you see in the Washington papers.

What really matters is what you see back at home.

And also, you can never judge the effect of what you do by what happens to you in TV and the rest because of less.

A husband happens to be totally controversial, and so forth.

You get all of them to come out and say, attack the White House, attack the president, so forth.

You're going to have the same thing.

I remember in those early days, you are important to history.

You think you should be here, and you should be who you are.

And then you wonder for a while, and you wonder what's going to happen.

And you've got to go back.

make your speeches, and so forth.

It was really worth it.

Worth it to run.

Worth it to win.

And worth it to be here, to go through that jury business, and answering all the mail, and taking people to us.

And how fresh it would have been soon.

And I had these white days in the mouth burning, and so forth and so on.

But I ought to say that it is worth it.

And I think that you're here at a very important time.

And you're here at a time which is important and worthwhile for a reason that will surprise you if I've missed you.

And that is because it is a time when you will be standing up on occasion, not always, but on many occasions.

You're going to stand up on very tough issues.

Where do you think that you're against the tide?

I can only say that I look back over my own political career.

When I was smooth sailing, it was fine.

It was funny and pleasant.

We always liked to have a little fun.

But on the other hand, what makes the individual is to go through the fire of confidence.

That's where the flying steel comes up.

You're going to have plenty of pockets, I understand.

And when you're ready, and you see all those loggers coming in, and you think that maybe it's you or the wrong party, or whatever the case might be.

But I can assure you that, in my view, you're here in a historic time in the history of the country, both in the sense of domestic policy and foreign policy.

I'd like to spend this time on both subjects.

to tell you why I think that looking back two years later, and I'm sure you'll look back, and I'm sure you're going to win, too, because we're going to work for you all the way to this next election.

I look back and say, well, the year 1973 was tough.

Pretty hard to break into the Congress in the year we had so many controversial votes.

Pretty hard to break into the Congress when sometimes you had to vote no, but the easy thing was to vote yes.

But on the other hand,

also look back and say that you had the guts to stand up and do what was right and as a result the country was a lot better than what you did.

Rather than just gloating on the pot, which is always the easiest way.

And of course that's a little bit of a self-serving thing because I remember the first time I was in this office, I was in this office when Congressman Hyatt was in this office when Congressman Hyatt was in this office when Congressman Hyatt was in this office when

I don't know why Harry Trump saw us.

He wouldn't see me after we had a few arguments later.

And I already have a little sign on this desk about stops here.

And it's there always on this desk when it does stop here.

And when you wonder about budgets and the rest, I'm sure you'll know.

It would be much more positive for us to see if the Congress budget would provide everything for everybody.

So all we did is increase the budget this year over last year by $18 billion.

And people wonder, is it enough?

And when you look at any specific program, of course, it never is.

Now, if you look at the polls around the country, you will find, and this is not surprising, your own polls will show this, polls in the international, will show that

The majority of the people favor more money for education, yes, 70%.

The majority of the people who favor spending more money for housing, yes, perhaps 65%.

The majority of the people who favor spending more money for the cities, etc., in this direction, and the rest, yes, for all of the fields.

And the factor is 65 to 70%.

The difficulty is that doesn't ask the right question.

And the critical question is,

to pay more taxes to provide more money for education.

You ask that, and it's 72% of the country say no.

That's the issue.

And you say, but this final bill for this and that and the other hand, it doesn't require more taxes.

Just remember that.

It's like the pain of the diet.

You break through here or there or the other place, and once it begins to pile up, in the end, they just have to face the fact.

Neither, and the budget goes beyond full employment revenues,

Either you have inflation or you raise taxes.

That's why we had to take this line.

And so though it's a tough decision from my standpoint, as much as we would like to do it, and we are doing an awful lot, as you know, perhaps more than we should in some areas.

But nevertheless, let me say that what you are doing, in effect, those of you who have stood up and you have sold effectively for spending limitation, those of you who will, I hope, on whatever you possibly can, stand with the president on vetoes,

Remember, I'm not vetoing more money for education.

I'm not vetoing better health.

I'm not vetoing better housing.

I'm vetoing a tax increase.

That should be the real issue.

If that is clearly understood, if you get that across to your constituents, then I think you'll be on the right side of the issue.

But if you ever get down to the point where it's the other way around, the program, you're going to lose.

And so I hope that all of you will see it that way, because that's the decision that I have to make.

Well, that's a little bit tough.

Let me say, to promote your consciousness, whatever they are, is pure.

I respect it.

I can only say this.

The British parliamentary system, all of you, of course, everybody who's been in Congress has studied a lot of political parliamentary history.

There's only one vote that is one that requires total party loyalty.

That's the budget.

A budget can bring down a government.

And it does.

There are many others in a vote of confidence.

You can either have a department or you can lose.

But on the budget, that is the one that, of course, is the most important.

We don't have the kind of discipline in our parties and in our country.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have.

But I am saying that as far as the budget is concerned, it is, in terms of presidential and party leadership, the most important.

And on this floor, we would hope that when Jerry Borg, the leaders, when you sit down and caucus, your own people, that you can realize on these budget items, it comes down time and time again, not to a matter of principle, but a matter of partisanship.

I would suggest that all of our friends on the other side are partisan.

A lot of them are.

They get a little more partisan when they go to this subgroup.

So we would appreciate it.

Let us put it that way.

If they're partisan, you want to be partisan for us.

In other words, the golden rule of politics is do one other than say do one to you.

I had an interesting conversation with her.

This is my area at the end of the day.

And for those of you who don't know, we have these seats.

They're the old ones.

We sit in those two chairs there.

The Prime Minister sits in the one on the right, and I sit in the one on the left.

Mr. Kissinger sits over here, and Ambassador sits over here.

It's almost a private conversation.

I was explaining to her our economic policies, our trade policies, which are on the stand as well as on the view, too.

And I would say, it seems higher what we're doing here in this field is...

We're asking for the right to go out and slow us down because we're willing to let other people come into our markets and do us.

And there, there's going to be a circle of one day, three days gone.

And I said, as you know, there's a role to play with international policies.

What do others think of you?

And the customer said, plus 10%.

I'll digress quickly before policy let me spend a few minutes.

All of you ran a year when we still had the war on.

All of you probably had to step up to that issue.

All of you probably caught a few eggs.

I know a few of you might have had worse.

And all of you won.

Now you here are the first freshman class

The first one in eight years has been here in London.

We don't have war in Vietnam.

We're thankful that is the case.

But I want to tell you today, I want to urge upon you, the kind of responsibility that this country needs and what you have to provide, even though your constituents may happen to be educating others.

The kind of leadership that we need in a post-war period.

The tragic history of America

has been too often that after a war, we tend to relax, lose our defenses, and so forth.

The seeds are planted for another war.

We can't let it happen again.

I voted, for example, the suggestion that because we went to China, because we went to Russia, because we invented the war in Vietnam, that now we would come to the defense budget by $10 billion, or $15 billion, or $8 billion.

I would spend a lot of money.

Why?

I can't be done.

Believe me, if it could, we would cut it.

Because that would give us more money for all these things, the new ones, the residuals, that I would want.

Or perhaps the money to cut the tax credit just over the money.

I was talking today with a very well-intentioned, earnest, board of all the experts.

Well, actually, he was a political reporter.

I talked to him.

Why?

He was raising the question, he said, you know the fact that you've had this for a long time, that one time you were shaking hands with your children, lying, taking glasses off, and then you know the fact that you caught the Soviet Union and reached a solid agreement, which is the first one, after a great amount of trade, space, and all the rest.

You know all those facts.

You know the fact that the war is over.

Why can't we not cut back?

This is the new year of peace here.

And the answer is what we have at the present time, of course.

We have reached a time when we have haste in terms of the absence of war.

We have also a period in which we have communication and dialogue with the People's Republic of China, representing one of four of all the people that were hurt.

We have reached a period where we are conducting negotiations with the Soviet Union.

The reason we're here today.

planning for the next summit that will take place later this year, and which will deal with arms levitation on a broader-than-comprehensive basis as well, is another very important point.

But my grandmother would say, why do these facts?

Why have the American people now get some of the burden lifted, the burden of money and so forth, that they have for a strong defense?

And my answer was this.

Why do you think the Chinese wanted to call it

Why do you think the Russians wanted to talk to us?

Why do you think the Russians made the deal?

And here is something all of you can certainly understand.

They didn't make it because they liked the color of my eyes or the firmness of my handshake.

That is the way it works in any form of life, but certainly not in the international one of us.

As far as the Chinese were concerned, they felt we were served by

and their relationship with the United States that they previously had.

I won't go into what those reasons were.

We may get this.

As far as the Russians were concerned, they felt their interests were served by them.

But looking, for example, at the Russian side and how we felt the arms control agreement, that would point out two things.

critical vote in the United States Senate before you got here.

So I was on the EDM.

You all heard about it.

Before the EDM, we were against it.

Those that were for the EDM were considered to be the militarists, the people that wanted more arms.

And those that were against the EDM were considered to be the dishonorants, the pessimists, those that were for peace.

And that's the way the vote went.

We won it by one vote, by addressments.

It was just exactly the other way around.

If we did not have, and had not have indeed, the time we went to Moscow, the EDM, we would not have dreamed.

Because our interest was in getting the Russians to limit their big offensive weapons, the SS9.

And unless we had something we were doing that they wanted to stop, they wouldn't think of stopping what they were doing.

So international policy is like every other phase of life.

You can only get it.

when you have something to give.

In other words, we got something from the Russians in this whole area because the United States was strong, and then we were able to negotiate agreement.

If we had not been strong, if we had been weaker than they when we got there, they would have had no incentive whatever, for example, to make a deal.

For example, this year, the President negotiated with no one about this, what is called an EMR, which is a balance for production.

and many already anticipating that are suggesting well let's cut nato cut our nato portions by 30 000 50 000 100 000 150 000 let's demonstrate our good faith in advance and there will be no mutual reduction we'll only mean we will go down and they will stay up and europe and america will be in a very dangerous position we're ready to go down but only if they

So what you have to do is to realize that, based on our experience, we're going to negotiate, but we have to negotiate not the position of weakness, but probably the position of strength.

That's why we're going to have to ask you to stick with us on the Fed's budget, which is definitely, in terms of level, is not one that, compared to what it was four years ago, is even higher than it was then, in spite of the fact that the Spanish are the best in the world, as you guys all have done.

The other thing that's required in addition to a strong national offense is respect.

You may remember the tough decision which was made in your primary campaigns, or if you didn't have a primary, it's different if you're making your campaigns.

I made them last year.

I remember some candidates, I don't think any of you that I recall, some senatorial candidates said, well, that closed the election.

Because of May 8th of 1972, if you recall, there was a huge conference of investing in Vietnam.

And the various news magazines and the press were talking about the specter of defeat and all that.

And so we had to do something.

But we were confronted with a terrible dilemma.

Three weeks from then, we were going to Moscow.

We had all laid out what we were going to reach.

It was starting to be a very successful summit.

So here, we had to make a decision.

Can we go to Moscow and allow Romney to sweep over Vietnam, South Vietnam, or maybe something?

So I made the decision to do it.

I made the decision for a fundamental reason, for you to understand.

I made the decision to mine and blockade an Austin on television on May 18th.

And that boy did it, didn't he?

All over the country, editorial writers said,

And we went and negotiated.

Not only because we were strong, but because they knew we would use our strength.

We were respected.

Put yourself in the difference.

There were those who said, do nothing.

Let it go.

Don't take the risk of finding a blockade in order to stop the offensive.

I can tell you, knowing the conscience, as I have known them perhaps more than anybody talked about today, in a close hand, because I have been a little bit, when I was a freshman in high school, but knowing that if we had gone as high as the Kremlin, at a time of Soviet tanks,

were running through the streets of Hue or even on the outskirts of Sinai, the Russian would have just rolled over me, and that means the United States, like a truck because he would have had no respect.

What I'm simply suggesting here is that our policy requires strength, it requires respect, it requires sometimes some very lonely and tough decisions.

I don't think we're going to be made any like that in the near future.

You won't have to be put to the path.

But I do want you to know that the reasons for these are not simply rational, but it's based on a calculated proposition that this country at this time and its feelings of this critical period with both the Soviet Union and with China, and Congress China, has to have a policy of strength and but also respect.

Let me just say one other thing.

It's a very controversial subject which I know many of you may be aware of now, and which I would ask you respectfully to withhold your judgment.

I think perhaps the toughest vote I had as a congressional congressman was on aid to Japan and aid to China.

Because believe me, after World War II, I hated the Japanese.

Particularly, I was upset.

And a lot of people went to Greece and they ate in Germany.

Not as a division, not as a race and so forth, but because of what their division was done, because of what they had visited on the earth.

And also, Truman was president.

I didn't take my chance then.

But that time, I heard a respect from the parliament leader.

And my point is, when he presented those programs of mass invade, the Germans had high pull in my district.

It was 70% against me.

This is about the old call that would either out-hammer the roads or small towns, basically isolations.

And that bridge has changed somehow, but it's still very conservative.

And yet I voted for it, as did a great number of us who were Republicans, for a reason that seemed to be quite important.

The Japanese had been a very warlike people in this war.

This gentleman had a record of being so on board.

It seemed to me that what we needed was to make some investment that we possibly could in turning them from the pursuits of war into the avenues of peace.

And it worked.

It was one of the best investments the United States ever made.

Oh, we're paying some price for it now because ironically our major competitors in the free world are the Japanese first and the German second.

But it's much better to have that competing with us economically than competing with us militarily.

And that's what the name of the game was.

When you hear about April 14th, I want us to understand first, there's nothing before you now.

There will be nothing before you unless and until the agreements are complied with.

Of course, the other nations will be participating in it.

And as I said in the news conference, he admitted any request that comes will come out in the current budget request for military and foreign assistance.

But let me suggest this.

And weigh it not with the parochial view.

It's so easy to be parochial and say, why do I hate them when I need more for my school or for my dam or this or that or the other thing?

The point is,

not because we are thinking simply in those parochial terms, but because we are trying to look at it in terms of an investment in peace.

Now that sounds a bit cliche and all that, but let me tell you, there have been certainly men who have different attitudes in this office, and certainly other people who have great advantages over me, but in terms of a hard-headed approach to foreign policy,

I think even my critics would say I perhaps was harder than anybody to have been here.

I would only say that I will recommend this to the Congress only under circumstances in which other nations are participating in doing their share.

Under circumstances that will come out of the existing military and foreign assistance budget.

And under circumstances where I am convinced that such assistance gives us a better chance

and have the Nara Vietnamese turn their efforts inward to the words of peace, rather than outward to the words of aggression, which could, of course, lead to what none of us want, more war in that part of the world, which could splash over into places like Thailand, the Philippines, and so forth, when we have treaties with all the consequences that would be involved.

The other line that I would like to make is that on this whole area of trade, the U.S., when we send our trade bill down, it's going to be quite different from what we faced then.

When I was a freshman, I recall I voted for reciprocal aid.

I didn't think much of it for the time it was like we said it was.

We were totally against it.

But on the other hand, again, I was lucky.

At that time, the United States was looking at everybody's sterling dollars.

Europe was on its back.

Japan was on its back.

We were the only people in the whole world.

So we had the biggest market.

And we needed, we needed, of course, to build them up and get some trade going.

So we opened up our markets.

We lowered our barriers.

We did it then.

We did it in the Kennedy Round.

And we've been doing that for 25 years.

But now, Japan's on its feet in a very aggressive pattern.

The Germans are on their feet.

The new Europe is joined together

So, here is where Chief Michael would rule, you know what I'm saying.

Instead of presenting to the Congress as is traditionally been the case, let us trade legislation that we have to give us the right to negotiate reductions of tariffs.

We want the right to blow as well as have.

Because if we find a country which wants to come into our market, but has

non-tariff barriers, as other barriers which keeps us out of their markets, and it's no dice.

The days of the one-way street and economic foreign policy are over.

As far as we're concerned with the Germans, the Japanese, our friends, or our ancestors, it's pure, shall we say, pragmatism.

We're willing to have good relations with them economically,

But American goods must have the same rights, even in their market, that their goods have, even in their offers.

And that is why, give us, not that the president wants the power, you see the power over that.

I talked to Will Mills down here the other day, he tells you what, I talked about this man.

And I said, you fellows have all been talking about too much power in the presidency.

I said, believe me, there's nothing I would like less than to have this here.

Because the moment you have this power, every one of your constituents, the panel makers of this thing, the watchmakers over here, I guess you don't make watches anymore.

But anyway, whatever your case might be, they'll come in and say, look, they're driving us out of business.

You've got to use this power that you've got to raise this power.

Nevertheless, I have advanced that unless we do have that authority, the President and his representatives will not be able to negotiate a deal that will save our own jobs.

Let me put that whole economic thing in one context for this moment.

I was going to talk to you, but my old adversary and now sometimes friend to me at the end of the day,

He is personally about to say it.

But in this last four years, case after case, others who served would not stand by, whether it was the Maine shaking the Mayan bomb, or whether it was the Cambodian decision, or whether it was keeping America's defense strong.

Whatever the difference we have with organizing the meetings and the Fitzsimmons, rather than spilling a rock, without them we couldn't have done it.

So let's not knock on it.

Now, the point that I say, this point, I don't know if we can have this difference, is another thing.

The position taken by much of organized labor is to support their currency.

And the argument they make is, look, we import $50 billion from the United States.

Now, that's $50 billion worth of jobs that were taken away, effectively said.

That's the deficit shows one side of the coin.

We also export $50 billion abroad.

And so, if we decide to put a wall up here that keeps those 50 billion dollars or any substantial part of it out of the United States, it will certainly save the jobs that those imports might take away.

But it would cost us the jobs

that the export otherwise would gain us.

So what is in our interest, of course, is to have a balance.

We might continue to export and have a balance between export and import, and that's what's best for the American working class.

That's the kind of trade policy we're for.

I, for example, was talking to some automobile dealers last night.

They had a Chrysler as well.

They made this one car.

Bought four cars for us.

We said, well, we'll talk about it.

I said, what do you really think about it?

Well, he said, we were talking because it made me proud of the big tree.

I decided we better get the out-of-custom vision out of it.

So we were talking.

And what we found is that as far as our jobs were concerned, as far as our party was concerned, that we did have a problem with foreign imports.

Not that they don't want to sort it out.

That's why we saw it.

But he said, on the other hand, we find we're exporting more than we're importing.

I said, don't do something that's going to cut off our export.

Just protect us against the imports.

Well, let me say, we understand that.

And this is a highly-sophisticated difficulty.

But I would urge you, of course, state of your constituents, come out on the table and give us the names of the Commerce Department or the White House if you think necessarily about their case, and we'll try to respond to them.

But remember, this year, if you will,

we are looking after.

This is an administration that is not going to give away the store.

That was done before we ever got here.

What we're trying to do is to restore the balance and to get a fair shake of the American products in the area.

I'm going to make one last point, but it's more than this rather extended thing is perhaps.

That's what he said to this group, because you ran in the year 72.

You won.

You had to be courageous.

You had to stand up against the slings and arrows of those who told you that the only way for the United States to have peace was to have been dishonored in any way, and so forth.

Anyone who is in this room,

Anyone who sits at this desk has to think about what he would like to leave.

I don't have that compulsion that President Johnson may have had.

I'm not saying this critically of him, because each man is different.

He felt very strongly about his place in history.

I'm more of a fatalist, as you know.

A place in history will be determined not by what the instant historians or the instant commentators say, but by what they write about years from now.

And no one knows what that will be.

No one can guess.

But we do know what we want.

In the next four years, and this is the great thing that we're going to work together for, we have made more progress for a peaceful world, a bigger breakthrough in one year, 1972, than has made in all the years since World War II.

It's a historic change.

The world is different now.

The game has been changed.

The game has been opened up.

And there's a chance to make us gold.

But it's not here yet.

We've got to continue our strength.

We've got to continue our respect.

We've got to continue also a strong American economic degree with the private enterprise system that gives us the major advantage that we have over the Soviet and Soviet-era nations.

There's one other advantage that we need that I've often addressed myself to.

I want to say just one word about that as I conclude.

I ought to read late at night the history of nations.

What always impresses me is that the great civilizations and great nations of the past have been strong and rich and have gone down because they didn't have a here and they didn't have a here.

In other words, it was a lack of character rather than a lack of wealth.

It was a lack of spirit, a lack of discipline.

The more wealthy they became, the softer they became.

And we must not let that happen to America.

That's what really unlocks their legality more than anything else.

I know many of us have had it brought home to us as we've seen these POWs come back.

Here they were, away so long, and they come back with their heads high and smoothing and so forth.

Let me say one thing.

If we get bugged out just to get them back,

They were denied.

And if there's one thing that I think we should be proud of, the fact that we ended this war in a way that made their sacrifice and those that died worthwhile.

To see them come back saluting, standing straight, saying, God bless America.

I mean, it's all worthwhile to stand firm in that period.

I received a letter from a man who got off first, we all got off first, and finished with a parent of us.

I don't know this man, never mind, but he wrote to me because I had written all the things he would have written to me, and I, of course, should have received the answers from most.

This is his answer.

I read it not because of what it says about me.

It's much too complimentary.

But I read it because of what it says about America and what you have to do, what we all have to do.

Since there has been a President that's from the U.S.

Naval Hospital, of course, thank you for your letter.

Even more, thank you for your firm, effective leadership, the proofs of which have now, unmistakably, reached a regular philosophy stage, most particularly

Thank you for biting the bullet in the political sense by arising the decision to use the B-52s, which not only brought us home, but perhaps put many of our previous half-actions in Vietnam War in better perspective.

Those of us who ran prison camps may have had jobs similar to yours, my cousin.

I realize that we had a advantage, because we and the men under us were under constant physical pressure in the early years.

As you surely know from personal experience, pressure catalyzes the ennobling crossness involved, the questing for, and inevitably finding sufficient divine help to hack it somehow.

Though I have pride in America's past, hope, or future, I believe that recently, too many of our citizens may have developed through soft environment,

a blurred awareness of fundamentals, such as a recognition of the rights and needs of authority.

Such rights are corollary to the very first of the Ten Commandments.

They are the lifeblood of nations.

With such weaknesses prominent and prevalent among many of our citizens, including Congressmen, added to the bewildering complexity of your province, I consent something of the immense ease of the pressure that's acting on you as you pursue your mission.

I'm grateful that the nation has you in office and is perhaps the most proud of my democracy.

So many Americans have expressed to me the hope that God will use us returning POWs to arouse our citizens to some new awareness.

I intend to tackle this task as opportunity prevents, not by providing physical pressure, but by motivating people to solve their position of their own intellectual pressure.

I have been more of a compensator for my ordeal, my own simple satisfaction with having done my duty.

My families, my countrymen, expressed an appreciation therefor.

The glorious worthiness of our national spirit, which deserves any sacrifice, expressly appreciated or not, any one of these three factors

A thank you again for the creative expression of your own personal gratitude.

And it's signed by Captain Jeremiah.

And I simply want to say to you, sometimes we get so obsessed with the techniques, this being told, this vote, this appropriation.

We lose sight of the vision of a man who for seven years watched us in solitary confinement in a prison camp in Vietnam.

And so the great goal as I see it, I want to work with you in these next four years first to keep this country strong, to build a world of peace, to keep our economy strong so that people can have the progress that we're trying to do.

But above everything else, I want to work with you

to restore the spirit and the faith of America.

Faith in God, faith in our country, and faith in ourselves that death talks about.

That's what I would like for you to do.

Gentlemen, thank you, and ladies, I wanted to say we can give up the chairs.

We don't have enough, so I don't want to disappoint you.

Mr. President, thank you for your time.

I wish that we could get each one in hand and talk personally with you, but we're just back on, so many of you can't.

But you can be sure that we'll do this.

You make those speeches, you cast those votes, somebody watch.

Somebody appreciate it.

Well, if I just could respond on behalf of members of the class, I think we very much appreciate your time in giving us this overview.

A little lost, I think, many of us being here, perhaps we haven't had as much communication within the Republican Party as to what is the strategy, what is the program, when do we fight and where do we fight.

And this is what we try to do on our part to create an initiative along this line for the police, and this is the freshman class, and some of the senior members of the party.

I think you put these things in very good perspective for us.

We appreciate it.

And we're behind you, and we particularly appreciate your sensitivity to our needs in being re-elected two years from now.

And your comments along the line that if we had some problems, you didn't tell us who to call, that you've got some good men back there.

And if we can know that

You told them to look out for us from the agency.

I want you to know this.

I understand.

You come from different sisters.

Some people are going to vote against anything because they don't like it.

Others, you know, who I'm not speaking to, are the people who differ in their views, whether that's the Republican Party.

We have a little bit of a difference, because I understand.

It isn't often that there are wars or people say this is a party vote.

It isn't often that I say, look, here's what we don't need.

And that's when you go out.

We understand that.

But when you do see something where it does involve basically a vote of the conference and the whole big strategy, then you've got to know and you've got to be in on the game.

I used to appreciate when the leaders of those days were Hugh Martin and Charlie Allen.

Joe was a speaker in Charlotte, so he was moving a speaker somehow over here.

And that makes it easier to go with.

My voting record was pretty high for most percentage, not for a lot of members.

I don't expect all of yours to be.

I simply want you to know that however you are, we just want you back.

and we'll understand it, we'll appreciate it, it'll help any other earth.

It'll help me help get you back if we can have as much support as you and good conscience can give us.

That's all there is.

Now I want to show you something else to take with you.

I had a birthday the other day.

I have a very good friend, but he argued with me about what to give me.

And so when he made his plaque,

Kissinger here today because he's on a secret mission.

The other guy.

That's right.

All right.

Right.

Thank you very much.

That's what we need.

That's right.

All right.

Thank you very much.

That's what we need.

And we .

That's right.

We do appreciate it.

All right.