Nixon, Weinberger & Stone on National Institutes of Health and Health policy

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Why don't you sit down here?

I wanted you to have a chance to meet Dr. Stoneley.

This is such an important position in your empire out there.

You've had a lot of problems in the

Well, we're glad to have you.

Thank you, sir.

And, uh, I should say, uh, at times NIH has had its share of the controversy.

You'll have yours.

But, uh, the main thing is to do the job.

People have total support.

We're interested, frankly, in, uh,

We are interested in the cures.

We are interested in research and the rest.

We have no interest in whatever other, you know, the idiosyncrasies of various people.

There's politics and the rest.

You're a professional.

You're a professional out there.

You're right up and down the line.

So that's what we expect from you.

I think that Dr. Stone has got the qualities that are going to give us that.

I think he also appreciates your interest in CAHPS and recognizes all of our interest in trying to develop some kind of a federal health strategy rather than this hit and miss thing.

I think that Dr. Stone is going to try to push NIH in that direction, which I think is terribly important.

mentioned to Dr. Stone that there was no such thing as democratic research or republican research.

There was also a very important aspect of managing that institution, it being so very large and it's very difficult to get a thoroughly qualified doctor who's also got great managerial experience and abilities, and so that's one of the reasons we're so delighted he was able to come.

We hope all of that puts together in a good way.

You may be in the middle of the great controversies about health care, NIH, I think.

No, I don't think they'll get involved.

No, but they are concerned about research and about the desire that you have to put more emphasis on one or two diseases.

They want to put more emphasis on every disease.

We've had a few fiscal discussions with them, but I think there is an appreciation of the fact that we can't do everything for everybody every year.

As I've mentioned several times, the person supremely qualified, they've selected priorities for the government of the United States as the president, and those priorities have been selected.

Well, I don't know.

other things and so forth.

I will, but I can't really tell the experts what they can find.

No, no.

And I've made a lot of research and so forth, and maybe the breakthrough will come in some other areas, but there isn't, you know, research for the sake of research, but we all have to make a list of a bunch of crap.

I mean, research has an objective.

I'm sure if I hadn't done our research, we would work with the cats and the mice and the dogs and all the things they do and

on the sound, too.

There has to be, now, a real direction toward not saying, oh, look, here's this issue, find a cure, or something like that.

But there has to be more accountability than there could be recently, frankly.

There hasn't been enough accountability.

It's been sort of a tendency.

Well, NIH is a nice little team out there, and all that.

It's been more than that.

But basically, it's a question of,

leadership, it's a question of getting the priorities and so forth, and morale improvement.

This is what the captain said, we don't do one damn amount of politics.

We care a great deal about their brains and their dedication to finding the answers to the problem.

We will see that you have the accountability.

Right.

The captain said you better not buy energy.

Thanks, Patrick.

It's terrible going up in these counties, Mr. President.

I've never asked anybody for $93 billion before.

It's quite an experience.

That's what our budget for next year is.

I don't see how anyone can say as much about it as Social Security.

Yeah, that's right.

So they can't really say we're all austere, but a large part of it, the increase in Social Security.

But of course, that's real money, too.

That is presumably a very good thing.

We've done it recently, won't we, Appropriations?

Yes, we have.

We've done it, sir.

The concerns expressed regarding the education deal, which you've probably heard.

They're very worried that they can rest.

And they, and Cedarburg just made the final statement.

There was no delay.

The question is sort of, I guess the question is the strategy of when you agree that the revenue sharing can't get through.

It seems to me that if we've got now about eight weeks

No, about four or five weeks.

And if we, in a sense, give up now, obviously we would never get it, we are not going to let the situation go to the point where there would be no dollars, no federal dollars for the schools, clearly.

I just thought we ought to stay a little longer with saying we have our bill and we don't want to continue the programs we're convinced haven't worked in the past.

At some point, we will have to try to work toward an accommodation, and I think that perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 days is about the right time to start that.

Well, we're trying to.

Yes, sir?

I'll do this.

I like you very much.

Oh, no, first class, right?

I'd be delighted to do that because I mentioned it so far.

But...

That's what we're talking about doing.

You can't play the string out to the end because you can't get the situation where we just don't give them anything.

If we say now that we can't do it, then we'll never get it, not for two to three years.

So I just thought we ought to try for another couple of weeks, maybe a little less than that, to exert all the pressure we could and see if we can get something out of it.

And I think if we drop a few more dollars into it, we might have a reasonable, possible chance, a possible chance.

But if we don't, why, then we will, in plenty of time, we would make the shift.

But I hate to do it because it's going back to programs that we're absolutely convinced are quite wasteful and not really all that effective.

But you don't have all that freedom of choice in this business.

Well, I'm glad to have you aboard.

Well, good luck, Tom.

Get to work.

Thank you very much, sir.

Nixon, Weinberger & Stone on National Institutes of Health and Health policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 29, 1973

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