Nixon, Passman & Hannah on Foreign Aid and Legislative Strategy

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Well, I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. President.

Don't worry about it.

I signed up for the meeting in here.

My gosh, you've been on a trip.

Sit down, sit down here.

Oh, Mr. President.

Listen to me, yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Mr. President, I'm here today.

It's just as I come with you.

Why don't you listen to me, Mr. President?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Plants are spreading.

I've been running up hills and all that sort of thing.

Every night, he always reminds me how old he is, and I say, oh, you're cute.

Well, I have a lot of things going for me.

I don't drink.

I don't smoke.

I don't plant or read.

I'm on the bed at least nine hours a night.

Do you sleep, though?

Do you sleep that long?

Yes, I train myself to do that.

I learned as a young man that if you can rest that heart,

And it means that you could really be an old man.

And these things are not necessarily by choice, but just a good advice that doesn't fall into many years.

I used to smoke.

I used to drink.

I used to overeat.

But it's pretty much finished today.

That's the care of the hardest-working member of the House Congress.

I do really put in my said in the platform.

Tell me this, Otto.

uh i know your general feelings about this loan thing let me let me uh let me come directly to the point yes i'm for your vote but i but i i i thought i want to ask you to give us some time to deliver you know what i mean let's take a country

some of these others.

You say if you're willing to pay, they can't vote.

It's a fraud to say that.

They don't damn well, but they're never going to be able to pay, you know, just to indicate anything like that.

Of course, I've never agreed with some presidents that couldn't

Of course, all of these nations are developing nations, and I would certainly agree with you that Laos and Kamboi would be the worst of the rest of the other half.

That's a small part of it.

If you hear me through on this, you'd like a story, to be perfectly honest with you.

I might hear you through, Charlie.

Can we get Dr. Kisly coming in?

Or should I talk to you?

You go ahead.

We'll talk about that.

Now, let me tell you what I said.

There's one reason I wanted Dr. Ham here.

I have said many times that I can always get your nose count on who's going to vote for this, that, and the other.

But that's one thing.

I recognize that this bill is important.

For the past two years, I could write a book on the extremes that I had to go to to get this legislation through for you.

And Dr. Hannan was actually with me two years ago.

Two years ago, we would have had no aid.

They looked back there on how to pass them.

Well, remember, I mentioned that to you, didn't we?

Yes, and last year, we would have had no continuing resolution.

Well, I know that.

Maybe we were in for three or more than that, because I came very nervous.

I'm sure it was there because it cut you down.

I wasn't able to get John McCall in the day, so I'm...

Sorry, that's all right, sir.

He's been out for us in the Congress.

Great.

Would you call him on my behalf and tell him that I've tried to reach him?

If I have.

But of course you have.

You saw Lansfield and George Maynard when they agreed to take the son of an old figure two days before we were driving the son to die.

And I demanded that the chairman give me a conference, you know,

protecting you.

So I just, uh, uh, put McSherbert's event on the line.

We finally went to conference.

We went back in that day where I did it.

Fifty days for supporting assistance, fifty for military, fifty for development loans.

It was the most difficult job.

Same thing happened this year.

When they called Fulbright, they're not a member of the Corporation Committee, they're a member of the Senate Conferies.

When we go to conference, you get a continued resolution through June 30th.

And you just don't have the votes.

I don't care what jury court may have to tell you, you don't have the votes in the Congress today to pass a four-day bill.

Some of your benefits you're going to get by some seven or eight votes.

Well, I have support, John.

I call it the Parliamentary Legislative Budgetary Reserves.

And I have to back you up, even though it's frankly my own district.

I realize somebody's going to have to face up to Eric Montero, who's in that district.

You have a precedent for what I'm trying to do.

What I'm trying to do is say to the foreign aid, you know, I'm given a job to do.

It becomes personal to me.

I don't like to take this charge to me, and that's why I felt so darned worried about this bill, too.

Now, developing nations, you have a development loan fund.

Some of the poorest nations on the face of the earth

or up to date on their repayments on the development loan.

And if you go in to the Asian Development Bank, same thing, at the Inter-American Development Bank, or either International Development Association, what are their terms?

50 years.

No interest, and they're graceful.

And after 10 years, they start paying back 1% per year for 10 years.

And at the end of 20 years, they pay no interest, and only 10% on the credit.

Now, so many people in Congress will find themselves in the victim of having to support this bill that's on the loan basically because you've defended either.

And either, in my way of thinking, that's the worst type for it, because it never comes back to our tradition.

I don't know if it ever comes back to Mr. President.

But this bill can be passed.

Now, I wouldn't have had to embarrass myself.

I may be embarrassing.

said that Dr. Kissinger didn't seem to be too opposed to it.

So as soon as you get back, you want to talk to me.

I talked to Jerry Morgan.

He said, I am Morgan.

Morgan and Morgan.

I talked to Dr. Hanna.

In January, our line was planned.

He said, it's good.

And what'd he do?

He went on to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

They fought it, lock, stock, and barrel.

Then when President Du was here, I spent about four minutes with him.

And I asked him to say that if he had any questions, he'd listen patiently.

So I set up a meeting, and I flew all the way here.

And I must admit that the man was very cordial.

I called former Governor James A. Melvin, one of your enthusiastic supporters.

I called Governor Monsignor Ed Edwards and asked him if he had a company on this trip.

I didn't go to the other expenses.

I flew over to Wednesday, Saigon.

We had a two-hour meeting with one of his great leaders, the ex-finance minister for the economic minister there, and President Duvall, just last time in Paris, about reservation or equivocation.

He said, yes, on a concessionary basis.

And I understand.

So it's pretty local.

And I've repeated myself several times.

And I am so sure that having the endorsement of Senator Duvall, he said, there's a reason I'm trying to.

that, yes, we should get on that basis.

Now, he said the economic DHS would be on a lot of the current basis.

Now, your back part of your military assistance, that would be on the long terms and the orderly payment.

But that part becomes out of the defense appropriate.

But both of these articles form the evidence.

I'm not meeting with President Parker to have a very strong economy that, they said, is particularly willing to reach 78 on a 15-year basis, 10-year grace period, 1% of the year for the next 10 years.

So I can assure you that the word that I'm about to use, if you're ready for it, that President Thune is absolutely and really going to resonate with me.

of what we were doing.

And he was so pleased with my trip that he went back to Hong Kong with me.

And it's wrapped up.

He's pleased with it.

Now the third time.

Let it be enough for me.

You see, when we began to talk about this thing, when we began to talk about the possibility of providing aid for North Vietnam.

And when...

The only way I'm going to get a bill, too, it's going to be my responsibility and it is

very generous, made it a no-win result, or some kind of a deal, or something rather than outright gift to these people, and all these friends were saying the same thing again and so on.

Well then, ran it over our building, because my people, you know, they threw up their hands, Maury Wiggins and the rest of the people, you know, that was something new.

Well, he convinced them, partly because he's not a fast one, and they knew they really weren't going to get it any other way.

Dr. Rogers and McWhorter and the people up there, and they agreed that this made some sense.

It wasn't impossible.

I mean, just to get them, Lawson, Campbell, and Smith, the first of course, one of our masters, I say to the administration, what I thought the situation was, that we were going to get the kind of quantity that we required.

This is probably the way it's going to have to be.

Talked to his finance minister and his economic minister.

Caused him no problems.

Talked to Lon Lowell and that stupid government of his, but it caused him no problems.

I recognize everything you say, Martin, that they have to get them repaid, but this is also true of all the loans that we made to very poor countries.

They do well to pay their interest.

And the question of Arnafuma impressed me very much.

It never did.

a very evil guy, and this caused them no problems.

Reported it back to Bill.

In the meantime, two came, and he was divided by two.

So some wires came in 10 days ago or less from Bunker.

He understood from the two governments that the past one was coming.

I knew he was coming.

I knew that he told me that the Vietnamese ambassador here had invited him after the president had left on behalf of his government,

that it was the age of North Vietnam that you told me, you know, if you had to get something through the Congress, it couldn't be better for North Vietnam than it was for the South.

You didn't think you could sell a straight-track program.

And we hadn't had time to do that.

I see.

This is the way to get an age in our country.

That's right.

This is the whole issue.

Mr. President, I've worked very closely with Dr. Hatton.

I told him 10 years last year for a second.

Two years.

You can't switch for this reason.

That would give us Clarence Long as the chairman of that committee.

For the experience that I had two years ago, fighting with Fort Brighton, this guy, Washington, and I, and the whole group of immigrants, seemingly those people, the folks who, unless we were able to get us out of this mess, then run, you understand, just when we needed it.

I'm 30 years.

This woman had concluded that a year or two years earlier, she carried it.

I know this bill, last year, after it became very unfaithful, the authorization bill, the co-legislative statistics, this is my report, for instance, we have to have our cost, we have to have $143,690,000.

Fantastic.

That's the cost.

$160,000,000 in our resources.

$56,000.

We'll make it $303,000.

So I give the cost, and I do the same thing to Correa.

Now, he said, he said, I'm going to leave this report.

Now, this is the way I think my people do with COVID statistics.

You can't go back.

This count is approved, Mr. Johnson.

Hello, Dr. Johnson.

Good to see you, sir.

Yes, sir.

This is the way you do it.

Justice Shurer has recently been introduced, sir.

You can't give this to those who want to do this.

That's the important thing.

It has to be a law.

Because the necessity you have in the House of Commons, and they know this, like if I choose to file this, 22 members who voted for it in the Senate will not vote for it now.

I have never voted for a dime in foreign aid authorization.

I've always voted against the authorization.

first time this year, I am going to not only vote for the authorization, I'm asking for time to speak for it.

Let's be realistic about this.

It isn't the way I view what it is.

It's the cold-blooded facts that the State of the European Nation's Marshall Plan costs us $38 billion to branch.

Now, sometimes hindsight and foresight have to spend on these concessions, on basic tenure, grace period, no entries.

The next 10 years, one of the shots.

They would have just now been about six years into that period, 3% of the year, and we could have used it because of waxing fat as well.

Now, of course, the sample we have lost, you mustn't think about necessarily, you'd have to make this thing all inclusive, but think on the sake of how the career is able to move over on a concession or on the basis of 50 years, no cameras, 10-year grace period, and President Park accepted it readily

without any reservation whatsoever.

President Putin did not want this bill of goods to have been sold.

Now, of course, you wouldn't want to put your investment in Laos or Cambodia or this kind of a loan, but you have to make it all inclusive.

I mentioned to Dr. Adams, personally, recently, that you couldn't put family planning, it has to be a grand age, or technically it must contain on a grand basis.

And the only thing I'm talking about is the two big pieces.

Now, let's have a look at it.

Regardless of what we may find ourselves in the future, if you bring Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Korea in on a long basis here,

70% grant to start with simply because of the no interest it had for the entire period.

And you can get this through the Congress.

I'm going to take a personal interest in it.

I don't believe that you can this year get a foreign aid bill through the Congress.

I've checked closely.

You can just count votes and in time you come out and talk to Anderson, maybe with the people who supported it in the past.

We'll not vote for it this time.

But if you sugarcoat that bill, it's going to be a lot easier to swallow.

Now,

after discussing it with Bill and Dr. Kissinger, and I got tremendous encouragement from Dr. Allen because these nations told him they were ready to take it on a long basis, and based up on my interest in Nixon administration, my respect for Dr. Allen here, and having carried the ball for you in the past, I said, okay, I'm going to take the ball, and I'm going to run it.

So I go all the way out to Korea to be sure, to be known this understanding, and to be verified by through the ambassador here.

I go at my own expense.

If anybody didn't pay my expense out there, I'd go over.

I've never been treated so cordially.

Well, I spent two hours a night and gave one of these 49 board luncheons in the private dining room.

These are an awful high spot.

And the scant agrees.

And if this becomes a club that makes a doctorate, and it's going to be on the loan basis and on the grant basis, you're going to shake the Congress up a little bit.

And you're going to place yourself in a position where we can get this legislation through.

i just believe that you know how you work with me that i am effective i don't go around too long but the record speaks for itself i've made the country bill and i had to go off the attack two years ago

He told me it was an acquittal case that he was for.

All right.

I was out late getting in from 4 East, and I didn't know that you were going to have a meeting here.

I was going to leave you then, Harold, because I was so tired after 20 hours on the bathroom.

But I came to the office, and here's a notice.

You're going to have a meeting.

It's too late for me to come then.

But I am going to carry the ball for you.

Do a little check.

It's about to happen.

You talk to those people out there.

You know they're ready for it on a long basis.

Unless they're just analogies.

It makes it easier for the Congress to approve it.

And it makes it easier for me then.

I don't know.

I can only tell you, I've been effective in the past, that I'm willing to go on that floor fighting for the authorization bill, and I've never voted for it.

There's only one part of me, as you mentioned, I'd have to run to the bathroom, I'd have to tease for it, I'd have to abolish that, I'd have to switch my party affiliation within an hour.

There's anything that shouldn't be abolished.

There's a confounded tease for it.

It drives the party affiliation.

I'll do it for you this year.

I'll fight for it.

I'll report it.

I want to make every business work.

Well, you know, I'm excited about this thing because you're in trouble with this 4-A bill.

There's a way I can solve this bill.

I'm using that word, I. I know what I can do.

I've had delivery in the past.

And I'm doing this because I'm supporting the Nixon administration, even on the other side.

I think this is your decision, Mr. President.

Well, let me just say it again.

I want to bring Kissinger up today, Dr. Kissinger.

If you get into this business, I'm a loan rather than a grant.

when it was clear that it looked like we had a ceasefire and there was going to be a requirement to fund X billions of dollars for aid for North Vietnam.

This is where you began to take the notion that if you had to get this thing through the Congress, the first time you talked to me, you said that the only way I'm going to get an aid bill through the Congress with aid to North Vietnam is we're going to have to tie it so that the development loans and it will be in our estate.

I don't want to hit you with that, but that's what you've got to do.

I talked to the gentleman.

Yes.

Now, I was going to give you a quick answer, but I'm a little bit angry because I don't like to have to do a job.

I don't like to do a job.

I'm going to be sure of it.

I came up with it.

But there's no failure in church.

And I'll say it with you about it.

As a successor within this line, there's been no failure.

Nixon, Passman & Hannah on Foreign Aid and Legislative Strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 2, 1973

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