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PRESS

Public Streets

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

AC
to
be

September 23, 1974

No. 373

ADDRESS BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
BEFORE THE 29TH UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
SEPTEMBER 23, 1974

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Last year, in my first address as Secretary of State, I spoke to this Assembly about American purposes. I said that the United States seeks a comprehensive, institutionalized peace, not an armistice. I asked other nations to join us in moving the world from detente to co-operation, from coexistence to community.

In the year that has passed some progress has been made in dealing with particular crises. But many fundamental issues persist and new issues threaten the very structure of world stability.

Our deepest problem — going far beyond the items on our agenda — is whether our vision can keep pace with our challenges. Will history recall the 20th Century as a time of mounting global conflict or as the beginning of a global conception? Will our age of interdependence spur joint progress or common disaster?

The answer is not yet clear. We are delicately poised. New realities have not yet overcome old patterns of thought and action. Traditional concepts — of national sovereignty, social struggle and the relation between the old and the new nations — too often guide our course. And so we have managed but not advanced; we have endured but not prospered; and we have continued the luxury of political contention.

This condition has been dramatized in the brief period since last fall's regular session. War has ravaged the Middle East and Cyprus. The technology of nuclear explosives has resumed its dangerous spread. Inflation — and the threat of global decline — hang over the economies of rich and poor alike.

We cannot permit this trend to continue. Conflict between nations once devastated continents; the struggle between blocs may destroy humanity. Ideologies and doctrines drawn from the last century do not even address, let alone solve, the unprecedented problems of today. As a result, events challenge habits; a gulf grows between rhetoric and reality.

The world has dealt with local conflicts as if they were perpetually manageable. We have permitted too many of the underlying causes to fester unattended, until the parties believed that their only recourse was war. And because each crisis ultimately has been contained we have remained

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complacent. But tolerance of local conflict tempts world holocaust. We
have no guarantee that some local crisis — perhaps the next — will not
explore beyond control.

The world has dealt with nuclear weapons as if restraint were automatic. Their very awesomeness has chained these weapons for almost three decades; their sophistication and expense have helped to keep constant for a decade the number of states who possess them. Now — as was quite foreseeable — political inhibitions are in danger of crumbling. Nuclear catastrophe looms more plausible — whether through design or miscalculation; accident, theft or blackmail.

The world has dealt with the economy as if its constant advance were inexorable. While postwar growth has been uneven and some parts of the world have lagged, our attention was focussed on how to increase participation in a general advance. We continue to deal with economic issues on a national, regional or bloc basis at the precise moment that our interdependence is multiplying. Strains on the fabric and institutions of the world economy threaten to engulf us all in a general depression.

The delicate structure of international cooperation, so laboriously constructed over the last quarter century, can hardly survive — and certainly cannot be strengthened — if it is continually subjected to the shocks of political conflict, war and economic crisis.

The time has come, then, for the nations assembled here to act on
the recognition that continued reliance on old slogans and traditional
rivalries will lead us towards:

- a world ever more torn between rich and poor, East and West, producer and consumer;

- a world where local crises threaten global confrontation and where the spreading atom threatens global peril;

- a world of rising costs and dwindling supplies, of growing populations and declining production.

There is another course. Last week before this Assembly President Ford dedicated our country to a cooperative, open approach to build a more secure and prosperous world. The United States will assume the obligations that our values and strength impose upon us.

But the building of a cooperative world is beyond the grasp of
any one nation. An interdependent world requires not merely the re-
sources but the vision and creativity of us all. Nations cannot
simultaneously confront and cooperate with one another. We can no longer
afford to pursue our national, or regional, or bloc self-interest —
except in a global context.

We must recognize that the common interest is the only valid test
of the national interest.

It is in the common interest, and thus in the interest of each
nation:

- that local conflicts be resolved short of force and their root causes removed by political means;

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- that the spread of nuclear technology be achieved without the spread of nuclear weapons;

- that growing economic interdependence lift all nations and not drag them down together.

We will not solve these problems during this session, or any one session, of the General Assembly.

But we must at least begin:

- to remedy problems, not just manage them;

- to shape events, rather than endure them;

- to confront our challenges instead of one another.

-----

I. THE POLITICAL DIMENSION

The urgent political responsibility of our era is to resolve con-
flits without war. History is replete with examples of the tragedy that
sweeps nations when ancient enmities and the inertia of habit freeze
the scope for decision. Equally, history is marked by Brief moments
when an old order is giving way to a pattern new and unforeseen; these
are times of potential disorder and danger but also of opportunity for
fresh creation.

We face such a moment today. Together let us face its realities:

First, a certain momentum towards peace has been created — in East-West relations, and in certain regional conflicts. It must be maintained. But we are only at the beginning of the process. We have eased tensions; we are far from reconciliation. If we do not continue to advance, we will slip back.

Second, progress in negotiation of difficult issues comes only through patience, perseverance, and recognition of the tolerable limits of the other side. Peace is a process, not a condition. It can only be reached in steps.

Third, failure to recognize and grasp the attainable will prevent the achievement of the ideal. Attempts to resolve all issues at one time are a certain prescription for stagnation. Progress towards peace can be thwarted by asking too much as surely as by asking too little.

Fourth, the world community can help resolve chronic conflicts, but exaggerated expectations will prevent essential accommodation among the parties. This Assembly can help or hinder the negotiating process. It can seek a scrapegoat or a solution. It can offer the parties an excuse to escape reality or sturdy support in the search for compromise. It can decide on propaganda or contribute to realistic solutions that are responsive to man's yearning for peace.

The Middle East starkly demonstrates these considerations. In the past year we have witnessed both the fourth Arab-Israeli war in a generation and the hopeful beginnings of a political process towards a lasting and just peace.

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We have achieved the respite of a cease-fire and of two disengagement agreements, but the shadow of war remains. The legacy of hatred and suffering, the sense of irreconcilability, have begun to yield — however haltingly — to the process of negotiation. But we still have a long road ahead.

One side seeks the recovery of territory and justice for a displaced people. The other side seeks security and recognition by its neighbors of its legitimacy as a nation. In the end, the common goals of peace surely is broad enough to embrace all these aspirations.

Let us be realistic about what must be done. The art of negotiation is to set goals that can be achieved at a given time and to reach them with determination. Each step forward modifies old perceptions and bring about a new situation that improves the chances of a comprehensive settlement.

Because these principles were followed in the Middle East, agreements have been reached in the past year which many thought impossible. They were achieved, above all, because of the wisdom of the leaders of the Middle East who decided that there had been enough stalemate and war; that more might be gained by testing each other in negotiation than by testing each other on the battlefield.

The members of this body, both collectively and individually, have a solemn responsibility to encourage and support the parties in the Middle East on their present course. We have as well an obligation to give our support to the United Nations peacekeeping forces in the Middle East and elsewhere. The United States applauds their indispensable role, as well as the outstanding contribution of Secretary General Waldheim in the cause of peace.

During the past year my country has made a major effort to promote peace in the Middle East. President Ford has asked me to reaffirm today that we are determined to press forward with these efforts. We will work closely with the parties and we will cooperate with all interested countries within the framework of the Geneva Conference.

The tormented island of Cyprus is another area where peace requires a spirit of compromise, accommodation and justice. The United States is convinced that the sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity of Cyprus must be maintained. It will be up to the parties to decide on the form of government they believe best suited to the particular conditions of Cyprus. They must reach accommodation on the areas to be administered by the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities as well as on the conditions under which refugees can return to their homes and reside in safety. Finally, no lasting peace is possible unless provisions are agreed upon which will lead to the timely and phased reduction of armed forces and armaments and other war materiel.

The United States is prepared to play an even more active role than in the past in helping the parties find a solution to the centuries-old problem of Cyprus. We will do all we can but it is those most directly concerned whose effort is most crucial. Third parties should not be asked to produce miraculous outcomes not anchored in reality. Third parties can encourage those directly involved to perceive their broader interests; they can assist in the search for elements of agreement by interpreting each side's views and motives to the other. But no mediator can succeed unless the parties genuinely want his mediation and are ready to make the difficult decisions needed for a solution.

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The United States is already making a major contribution to help relieve the human suffering of the people of Cyprus. We urge the international community to continue and, if possible, to increase its own humanitarian relief effort.

## II. THE NUCLEAR DIMENSION

The second new dimension on our agenda concerns the problem of nuclear proliferation.

The world has grown so accustomed to the existence of nuclear weapons that it assumes they will never be used. But today, technology is rapidly expanding the number of nuclear weapons in the hands of major powers and threatens to put nuclear explosive technology at the disposal of an increasing number of other countries.

In a world where many nations possess nuclear weapons, dangers would be vastly compounded. It would be infinitely more difficult, if not impossible, to maintain stability among a large number of nuclear powers. Local wars would take on a new dimension. Nuclear weapons would be introduced into regions where political conflict remains intense and the parties consider their vital interests overwhelmingly involved. There would, as well, be a vastly heightened risk of direct involvement of the major nuclear powers.

This problem does not concern one country, one region, or one bloc alone. No nation can be indifferent to the spread of nuclear technology; every nation's security is directly affected.

The challenge before the world is to realize the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology without contributing to the growth of nuclear weapons or to the number of states possessing them.

As a major nuclear power, the United States recognizes its special responsibility. We realize that we cannot expect others to show restraint if we do not ourselves practice restraint. Together with the Soviet Union we are seeking to negotiate new quantitative and qualitative limitations on strategic arms. Last week our delegations reconvened in Geneva, and we intend to pursue these negotiations with the seriousness of purpose they deserve. The United States has no higher priority than controlling and reducing the levels of nuclear arms.

Beyond the relations of the nuclear powers to each other, lies the need to curb the spread of nuclear explosives. We must take into account that plutonium is an essential ingredient of nuclear explosives and that in the immediate future the amount of plutonium generated by peaceful nuclear reactors will be multiplied many times. Heretofore, the United States and a number of other countries have widely supplied nuclear fuels and other nuclear materials in order to promote the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This policy cannot continue if it leads to the proliferation of nuclear explosives. Sales of these materials can no longer be treated as a purely commercial competitive enterprise.

The world community, therefore, must work urgently toward a system of effective international safeguards against the diversion of plutonium or its by-products to the manufacture of nuclear explosives. The United States is prepared to join with others in a comprehensive effort.

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Let us together agree on the practical steps which must be taken to
assure the benefits of nuclear energy free of its terrors:

- The United States will shortly offer specific proposals to strengthen safeguards to the other principal supplier countries.

- We shall intensify our efforts to gain the broadest possible acceptance of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, to establish practical controls on the transfer of nuclear materials, and to ensure the effectiveness of these procedures.

- The United States will urge the IAEA to draft an international convention for enhancing physical security against theft or diversion of nuclear material. Such a convention should set forth specific standards and techniques for protecting materials while in use, storage and transfer.

- The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which this Assembly has endorsed, warrants full and continuing support. The Treaty contains not only a broad commitment to limit the spread of nuclear explosives, but specific obligations to accept and implement IAEA safeguards and to control the transfer of nuclear materials.

Mr. President, whatever advantages seem to accrue from the acquisition of nuclear explosive technology will prove to be ephemerel. When Pandora's Box has been opened no country will be the beneficiary and all mankind will have lost. For then we will be living in a world in which stability has been relegated to history and fear has become the pervasive reality.

This is not inevitable. If we act decisively now, we can still
control our future.

### III. THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION

Lord Keynes wrote, "the power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realize with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the economic organization."

The economic history of the postwar period has been one of sustained
growth — for developing as well as developed nations. The universal
expectation of our peoples, the foundation of our political institutions,
and the assumption underlying the evolving structure of peace are all
based on the belief that this growth will continue.

But will it? The increasingly open and cooperative global economic
system that we have come to take for granted is now under unprecedented
attack. The world is poised on the brink of a return to the unrestrained
economic nationalism which accompanied the collapse of economic order in
the Thirties. And should that occur, all would suffer — poor as well
as rich, producer as well as consumer.

So let us no longer fear to confront in public the facts which have
come to dominate our private discussions and concerns.

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The early warning signs of a major economic crisis are evident. Rates of inflation unprecedented in the past quarter century are sweeping developing and developed nations alike. The world's financial institutions are staggering under the most massive and rapid movements of reserves in history. And profound questions have arisen about meeting man's most fundamental needs for energy and food.

While the present situation threatens every individual and nation, it is the poor who suffer the most. While the wealthier adjust their living standards, the poor see the hopes of a life-time collapse around them. While others tighten their belts, the poor starve. While others can hope for a better future, the poor see only despair ahead.

It can be in the interest of no country or group of countries to base policies on a test of strength, for a policy of confrontation would end in disaster for all. Meeting man's basic needs for energy and food, and assuring economic growth while mastering inflation require international cooperation to an unprecedented degree.

Let us apply these principles first to the energy situation.

- Oil producers seek a better life for their peoples and a just return for their diminishing resources.

- The developing nations less well-endowed by nature face the disintegration of the results of decades of striving for development as a result of a price policy over which they have no control.

- The developed nations find the industrial civilization built up over centuries in jeopardy.

Thus both producers and consumers have legitimate claims. The problem is to reconcile them for the common good.

The United States is working closely with several oil producers to help diversify their economies. We have established commissions to facilitate the transfer of technology and to assist with industrialization. We are prepared to accept substantial investments in the United States and we welcome a greater role for the oil producers in the management of international economic institutions.

The investment of surplus oil revenues presents a great challenge. The countries which most need these revenues are generally the least likely to receive them. The world's financial institutions have coped thus far but ways must be found to assure assistance for those countries most in need of it. And the full brunt of the surplus revenues is yet to come.

But despite our best efforts to meet the oil producers' legitimate needs and to channel their resources into constructive uses, the world cannot sustain even the present level of prices, much less continuing increases. The prices of other commodities will inevitably rise as a never-ending inflationary spiral. Nobody will benefit from such a race. The oil producers will be forced to spend more for their own imports. Many nations will not be able to withstand the pace and the poorer could be overwhelmed. The complex, fragile structure of global economic cooperation required to sustain national economic growth stands in danger of being shattered.

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The United States will work with other consuming nations on means of consumer conservation and on ways to cushion the impact of massive investments from abroad. The preliminary agreement on a program of solidarity and cooperation signed a few days ago in Brussels by the major consumer countries is an encouraging first step.

But the long-range solution requires a new understanding between consumers and producers. Unlike food prices, the high cost of oil is not the result of economic factors, of an actual shortage of capacity or of the free play of supply and demand. Rather it is caused by deliberate decisions to restrict production and maintain an artificial price level. We recognize that the producers should have a fair share; the fact remains that present prices even threaten the economic well-being of producers. Ultimately they depend upon the vitality of the world economy for the security of their markets and their investments. And it cannot be in the interest of any nation to magnify the despair of the least developed who are uniquely vulnerable to exorbitant prices and who have no recourse but to pay.

What has gone up by political decision can be reduced by political decision.

Last week President Ford called upon the oil producers to join with consumers in defining a strategy which will meet the world's long-term need for both energy and food at reasonable prices. He set forth the principles which should guide such a policy. And he announced to this Assembly America's determination to meet our responsibilities to help alleviate another grim reality — world hunger.

At a time of universal concern for justice and in an age of advanced technology, it is intolerable that millions are starving and hundreds of millions remain undernourished.

The magnitude of the long-term problem is clear. At present rates of population growth, world food production must double by the end of this century to maintain even the present inadequate dietary level. And an adequate diet for all would require that we triple world production. If we are true to our principles, we have an obligation to strive for an adequate supply of food to every man, woman and child in the world. This is a technical possibility, a political necessity and a moral imperative.

The United States is prepared to join with all nations at the World Food Conference in Rome to launch the truly massive effort which is required. We will present a number of specific proposals:

- to help developing nations. They have the lowest yields and the largest amounts of unused land and water; their potential in food production must be made to match their growing need.

- to increase substantially global fertilizer production. We must end once and for all the world's chronic fertilizer shortage.

- to expand international, regional and national research programs. Scientific and technical resources must be mobilized now to meet the demands of the year 2000 and beyond.

- to rebuild the world's food reserves. Our capacity for dealing with famine must be freed from the vagaries of weather.

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- to provide a substantial level of concessionary food aid. We must prevent the poorest nations from being overwhelmed and enable them to build the social, economic and political base for self-sufficiency.

The hopes of every nation for a life of peace and plenty rest on an effective international resolution of the crises of inflation, fuel and food. We must act now and we must act together.

## IV. THE HUMAN DIMENSION

Mr. President, let us never forget that all of our political endeavors are ultimately judged by one standard — to translate our actions into human concerns.

The United States will never be satisfied with a world where man's fears overshadow his hopes. We support the United Nations' efforts in the fields of international law and human rights. We approve of the activities of the United Nations in social, economic and humanitarian realms around the world. The United States considers the United Nations World Population Conference last month, the World Food Conference a month from now and the continuing Law of the Sea conferences of fundamental importance to our common future.

In coming months the United States will make specific proposals for the United Nations to initiate: A major international effort to prohibit torture in international law; a concerted campaign to control the disease which afflicts and debilitates over 200 million people in 70 countries — schistosomiasis; and a substantial strengthening of the world's capacity to deal with natural disaster especially the improvement of the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization.

## V. CONCLUSION

Mr. President, we have long lived in a world where the consequences of our failures were manageable — a world where local conflicts were contained, nuclear weapons threatened primarily those nations which possessed them, and the cycle of economic growth and decline seemed principally a national concern.

But that is no longer the case; we confront a fundamentally changed situation. It is no longer possible to imagine that conflicts, weapons and recession will not spread.

We must now decide. The problems we face will be with us the greater part of the century. But will they be with us as challenges to be overcome or as adversaries that have vanquished us?

It is easy to agree to yet another set of principles or to actions other nations should take. But the needs of the poor will not be met by slogans, the needs of an expanding global economy will not be met by new restrictions, the search for peace cannot be conducted on the basis of confrontation. So each nation must ask what it can do, what contribution it is finally prepared to make to the common good.

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Mr. President, beyond peace, beyond prosperity, lie man's deepest aspriations for a life of dignity and justice. And beyond our pride, beyond our concern for the national purpose we are called upon to serve, there must be a concern for the betterment of the human condition. While we cannot, in the brief span allowed to each of us, undo the accumulated problems of centuries, we dare not do less than try. So let us now get on with our tasks.

Let us act in the spirit of Thucydides that "the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it."

There is hope now because our necessity is compelling if we but recognize it.

* * * * * *

Administration of Gerald R. Ford

PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS

Week Ending Friday, September 27, 1974

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Education
Act Amendments of 1974

*Statement by the President Upon Signing the Bill Into Law. September 21, 1974*

I am today signing into law H.R. 9456, the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Education Act Amendments of 1974.

I share the concern of the Congress and the people about the problem of alcohol and drug abuse among our Nation's youth. At the Federal level, this concern has been expressed over the past 5 years in greatly increased efforts to find effective ways of dealing with the problem. The 1975 budget proposed Federal spending of over $600 mil-

lion to support alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment—apart from law enforcement activities.

This act improves the overall program a number of ways. It includes alcohol education explicitly as a part of the program. It provides for comprehensive school and community demonstration activities which focus on the causes rather than on the symptoms of drug and alcohol abuse. Most important, it consolidates scattered activities under the Office of Education. This will provide more economical and higher quality development of educational and demonstrational materials. It will provide more effective thrust and more effective management.

In signing this bill into law, I wish to reemphasize my determination to keep the overall budget in line, in this area as in other areas of Federal activity. This act provides a means and a commitment for more effective management; it does not represent a commitment to greater spending.

NOTE: As enacted, the bill (H.R. 9456) is Public Law 93-422, approved September 21, 1974.

WORLD ENERGY CONFERENCE

*The President's Address to the Ninth Annual Conference in Detroit, Michigan. September 23, 1974*

President Groza, Steve Bechtel, Walker Cisler, Governor Milliken, Senator Griffin, Mayor Young, Minister MacDonald of Canada, other distinguished guests from abroad, and all participants in this special World Energy Conference:

On behalf of the American people, on behalf of my home State of Michigan, on behalf of the city of Detroit, it gives me a very great privilege and pleasure to welcome you to the city which some blame for the energy crisis.

But I hasten to add this, if I might: This is also a city [to] which we, along with the world's other great industrial nations, look for significant solutions that I know are possible. This is a "can do," a problem-solving city and State.

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PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS: GERALD R. FORD, 1974

It was here in Detroit that the internal combustion engine was transformed from a plaything of the rich into basic transportation on which people all over the world now depend.

The whole structure of our world society rests upon the expectation of abundant fuel at reasonable prices. I refer to cities and suburbs, farms and factories, shopping centers and office buildings, schools and churches, and the roadways that connect them all.

The expectation of an assured supply of energy has now been challenged. The repercussions are being felt worldwide. There is widespread uncertainty and deep and serious apprehension. Today, at the opening of this conference, we are determined to provide guidance to a world in crisis.

Many people became aware that there was an energy problem for the first time last October, when the oil embargo was imposed. But those who were well informed about the energy situation had known for some time that a crisis was coming. With burgeoning demand all over the world, they knew that we could not forever expect a steady supply of low-priced fuel. The embargo merely brought to a head what experts had known for many years—that energy sources must be expanded and wasteful use eliminated to keep pace with the needs of a growing and modernizing world.

Everyone can now see the pulverizing impact of energy price increases on every aspect of the world economy. The food problem, the inflation problem, the monetary problem, and other major problems are directly linked to the all-pervasive energy problem.

The American response to the oil embargo and recent oil price increases, along with production decisions, has taken the form of a program for action under the general title "Project Independence." This integrated domestic energy program will seek in many, many different ways to reduce American consumption and to increase production of energy.

Officials of my Administration will more fully describe to this conference our determination to achieve energy independence. We will take tough steps to obtain the degree of self-sufficiency which is necessary to avoid disruption of our economy. We will make sure there is heat for our homes and power for the people who work in our plants. Realistically, this does not mean zero imports.

In the immediate future, we will expand our efforts to increase our energy efficiency. This will reduce the growing dependence on foreign petroleum. Project Independence will also require us to increase the output of existing domestic resources.

In mobilizing to achieve long-term goals, we will fully exploit one of our most powerful natural resources—U.S. technology. We are moving in this direction.

Last year, for example, the United States Government funding for energy research and development was approximately $1¼ billion. This year, we will spend over $2¼ billion. These funds, together with those provided by private industry, will support a growing national effort. In terms of joint private and public resources, it will mean a commitment in excess of the successful one made by John F. Kennedy to put a man on the Moon in the last decade.

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I mention this highly successful Moon landing to dramatize the magnitude of the energy task before us, the dedication with which we approach it, and the national mobilization of attention and talent it will require.

We are also moving to improve the organization of the U.S. Govern-
ment for carrying out our energy programs. A key step now awaiting
final action by the Congress is the creation of an Energy Research and
Development Administration. It will provide coordination and leader-
ship, in cooperation with private industry, in developing the necessary
technology to fulfill our long-range energy requirements.

Even if there had been no political interference in the production and distribution of petroleum, nations today would still be facing the problem of finding enough fuel at reasonable prices to continue the modernization of our world. Our needs then and now for energy are increasing much, much faster than our ability to produce it. But, in addition, most industrialized nations experienced the direct impact of the oil embargo which, obviously, greatly intensified the problem. All nations have been adversely affected by price increases.

When nations use their resources as political weapons against others, the result is human suffering. It is then tempting to speculate on how much better off man would be if nature had distributed vital resources more evenly around the world, making every nation self-sufficient. But perhaps nature had a better idea. Because vital resources are distributed unevenly, nations are forced to choose between conflict and cooperation.

Throughout history, nations have gone to war over natural advan-
tages such as water, or food, or convenient passages on land and sea.
But in the nuclear age, when any local conflict may escalate to global
catastrophe, war brings unacceptable risks for all mankind.

Now, more than any time in the history of man, nations must accept and live peacefully with the fact that they need each other. Nations must turn to international cooperation as the best means for dealing with the uneven distribution of resources.

American foreign policy rests on two obvious new facts: First, in the nuclear age, there is no rational alternative to international cooperation. Second, the more the world progresses, the more the world modernizes, the more nations need each other.

As you know, a theme of the foreign policy of this Administration is "international cooperation in an interdependent world." Stressing interdependence, you may ask why is our domestic energy program called Project Independence? As I see it, especially with regard to energy, national sufficiency and international interdependence fit together and actually work together.

No nation can be part of the modern world and live unto itself. No nation has or can have within its borders everything necessary for a full and rich life for all its people. Independence cannot mean isolation.

The aim of Project Independence is not to set the United States apart from the rest of the world; it is to enable the United States to do its part more effectively in the world's effort to provide more energy. Project Independence will seek new ways to reduce energy usage and to increase its production. To the extent that we succeed, the world will benefit. There will be much more energy available for others.

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As America expands existing sources and develops new ones, other nations will also benefit. We especially want to share our experience and our technology with other countries in efforts to increase their own energy supplies. We are also aware that in some respects other countries are ahead of us, and we will seek to learn from them.

Sovereign nations try to avoid dependence on other nations that exploit their own resources to the detriments of others. Sovereign nations cannot allow their policies to be dictated, or their fate decided, by artificial rigging and distortion of world commodity markets.

No one can foresee the extent of damage, nor the end of the disastrous consequences, if nations refuse to share nature's gifts for the benefit of all mankind. I told the United Nations assembly last Wednesday, and I quote: The attempt by any country to use one commodity for political purposes will inevitably tempt other countries to use their commodities for their own purposes.

There are three ways, fortunately, that this danger can and must be avoided:

- first, each nation must resolve not to misuse its resources;

- second, each nation must fully utilize its own energy resources; and

- third, each nation must join with others in cooperative efforts to reduce its energy vulnerability.

In doing so, we emphasize that our actions are not directed against any other nations, but are only taken to maintain the conditions of international order and well-being.

The quest for energy need not promote division and discord; it can expand the horizons of the world's peoples. I envision a strong movement towards a unifying cooperation to ensure a decent life for all.

I welcome the development in Brussels last Friday of a new international energy program by the Energy Coordinating Group of the Washington Energy Conference. We were pleased to participate in that meeting. The 12 nations reached an ad referendum agreement on a far-reaching cooperative plan to deal with such emergencies as emergencies by sharing available oil and by cutting consumption and using stocks on an equitable basis. While seeking conservation, we and the other nations will work for expanded production of both conventional and nonconventional fuels. The cooperating countries are also creating an international agency to carry out this program.

The United States welcomes this demonstration of international action rather than words.

Just as Americans are challenged by Project Independence, the world faces a related challenge that requires a "Project Interdependence." No single country can solve the energy problem by itself. As President, I offer America's partnership to every other nation willing to join in a common effort to expand the spirit flowing from the Washington Energy Conference. A start has been made in Brussels. The momentum must be continued if true interdependence is to be achieved.

The economy of the world is facing unprecedented challenges. Old remedies are inadequate for new problems. New and appropriate solutions must be found without delay, and I am absolutely convinced that they will be found.

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I firmly believe that the unselfishness of all nations is in the self-interest of each nation. We all depend on each other in so many ways that there is no way in today's world for any nation to benefit at the expense of others—except for the very short term and at a very great risk.

Without having planned it, we find ourselves in the strange situation in which the most selfish individual can figure out that it is profitable to live by what we call the Golden Rule: We can help ourselves only if we are considerate and only if we are helpful to others.

The energy crisis is the clearest example of the world's interdependence. The industrialized nations need the oil produced by a few developing nations, and all developing nations need the technology, the services, and the products of industrialized nations.

The opportunity for a great advance for the whole world is tantalizingly apparent, but so is the danger that we will throw away this very, very rare opportunity to realize mankind's hopes. Let us build and implement a global strategy for energy.

If I may, I call on this World Energy Conference and other international organizations to accept the challenge of formulating Project Interdependence, a comprehensive energy program for the world to develop our resources not just for the benefit of a few but for all mankind.

This task is surely monumental, but the United States believes that it is possible, that it is essential. To help you in the beginning to take the first steps, let me propose some principles that could guide a global approach:

First, all nations must seek to increase production, each according to its resources and its level of technology. Some can develop known and available resources; others can try to improve methods of extraction or intensify exploration; and others are capable of developing new sources of energy appropriate to their own circumstances. But all nations can and should play a part in enlarging and diversifying the sources of usable energy. Diversification can help deter nations from resorting to monopolistic prices or practices.

Next, the rate of increase in consumption of energy must be reduced, and waste eliminated. Americans will do their part in this necessary effort. But all nations can contribute to discovering new ways to reduce the energy we consume, partly through common sense, partly through self-discipline, and partly through new technological improvements. Whatever energy-saving methods are developed anywhere must be communicated quickly to all concerned. Energy-saving possibilities are promising, especially for the short term, as production increases.

Third, a cooperative spirit, a cooperative conduct are essential to success in a global energy program. Nothing, in my judgment, could be more harmful than policies directed against other nations. If we lapse into confrontation of exporters on the one hand and consumers on the other, or an unseemly scramble of consumers being played off one against another, all hopes for a global solution will be destroyed.

Fourth, we must be especially attentive to the situation of the poorest nations which will suffer drastically if the energy problem does not come under control. Actually, they are the chief victims, even now, of the

Volume 10—Number 39

1186

uncontrolled inflation driving world prices up, far beyond their reach for all the goods and all the services they must import to survive.

Finally, a global strategy must seek to achieve fuel prices which provide a strong incentive to producers, but which do not seriously disrupt the economies of the consumer. We recognize the desires of the producers to earn a fair share or a fair price for their oil as a means of helping to develop their own economies. But exorbitant prices can only distort the world economy, run the risk of a worldwide depression, and threaten the breakdown of world order and world safety.

It is difficult to discuss the energy problem without lapsing, unfortunately, into doomsday language. The danger is clear. It is very severe. Nevertheless, I am very optimistic. The advantages of cooperation are as visible as the dangers of confrontation, and that gives me hope as well as optimism.

But good intentions will not be enough. Knowledgeable people, like all of you at this important conference, are needed to give understanding, analysis, technical competence, and solutions for the people and the leaders to consider.

I call on all of you to respond to the challenge and to propose to the world your recommendations for a global energy strategy. Whether you call it Project Interdependence or some other name is not the essential point. What is essential is the challenge be accepted and the job be done quickly and well.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now declare the Ninth World Energy Conference officially open, and thank you very, very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 10:40 a.m. at Cobo Hall, Detroit, Mich.

## Hurricane Disaster in Honduras

*The President's Message to General Oswaldo Lopez, Chief of State of Honduras, Following the Disaster Caused by Hurricane Fifi, Together With Details on Relief Efforts.* September 23, 1974

The President today sent the following message to General Lopez, Chief of State of Honduras:

Dear General Lopez:

On behalf of the Government and people of the United States, I extend our profound sympathy to you and the Honduran people on the tragic loss of life and suffering caused by the hurricane which struck your country. The close bonds of friendship between our countries evoke particularly strong feelings of solidarity with the Honduran people at times like these. You may be assured of our continuing interest in and support for the courageous efforts which you and your people are making to alleviate human distress and initiate recovery from this tragedy.

Sincerely,

GERALD R. FORD

The President has been receiving reports on the situation regularly and is following the activities directed at

assisting Honduran efforts to alleviate the suffering and begin the rebuilding in stricken areas. He has directed that appropriate government agencies apply their full efforts to providing relief and rehabilitation in an effective way. To this end AID's Disaster Relief Center has been functioning to coordinate our efforts. The Center has been in regular contact with the Embassy at Tegucigalpa, the Defense Department and the State Department.

Since September 18 when the U.S. Ambassador declared that a disaster existed requiring U.S. assistance, approximately 1/4 of a million dollars has been committed in search, rescue and relief actions. Four UH-1 helicopters were dispatched from the U.S. Southern Command in Panama. Two C-130 Hercules have been shuttling back and forth between the AID Disaster Relief stockpile in Panama and La Mesa Airport in Honduras. Three smaller U-21 observation planes have been assisting in surveying the damage. The relationship with the Honduran director of civil defense has been close and effective. To date, the United States has supplied communications equipment, three large water purification units, emergency and medical supplies, jeeps and transportation, including three large boats.

Volume 10—Number 39

THE SECRETARY
OF STATE Interview

Following is the transcript of an interview of
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger by
James Reston, as published in The New York
Times on October 13, 1974.

October 13, 1974

MR. RESTON: You have been sounding rather pessimistic in the last few weeks. Are you worried about the state of the West?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don't mean to sound pessimistic. I think that there are huge problems before us, and I'm trying to define them. I believe that the problems are soluble, but they require a major effort and, in some areas, new approaches, but I'm not pessimistic about the ability to solve them. We have--

Q Could I interrupt there to say that in reading what you have written in the past, I have a sense of pessimism in your writings, even of tragedy. Do you regard your thought as being essentially tragic, when you look at the last two generations?

A I think of myself as a historian more than as a statesman. As a historian, you have to be conscious of the fact that every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.

History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized, of wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what one expected. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy. As a statesman, one has to act on the assumption that problems must be solved.

Each generation lives in time, and even though ultimately perhaps societies have all suffered a decline, that is of no help to any one generation, and the decline is usually traceable to a loss of creativity and inspiration and therefore avoidable.

It is probably true that insofar as I think historically I must look at the tragedies that have occurred. Insofar as I act, my motive force, of which I am conscious, it is to try to avoid them.

## The Issue of Feasibility

Q Don't we have to bring this problem down to practical points, the difference between the ideals of a republic and what can be done? Is there a conflict now in America between the ideals of foreign policy that you see for the order of the world and what can actually be done in terms of public understanding and in actual votes in the Congress of the United States?

A I think almost every nation right now has the problem of reconciling its domestic view of itself with the international problem because every nation has to live on so many levels.

Certainly in every non-Communist nation--and probably even in Communist nations--public opinion in one way or another is becoming more and more important. But what public opinion is conscious of are the day-to-day problems of life. The remoter issues, geographically and in time, do not impinge on the average citizen.

Bureau of Public Affairs • Office of Media Services • Department of State

- 2 -

In foreign policy, the most difficult issues are those whose necessity you
cannot prove when the decisions are made. You act on the basis of an assessment
that in the nature of things is a guess, so that public opinion knows, usually,
only when it is too late to act, when some catastrophe has become overwhelming.

The necessity of the measures one takes to avoid the catastrophe can almost
never be proved. For that reason you require a great deal, or at least a certain
amount of confidence in leadership and that becomes difficult in all societies.

But, speaking of the United States, if one looks at the crisis through which
America has gone over the last decade--the assassinations, the Vietnam war, Water-
gate--it is very difficult to establish the relationship of confidence.

Then the United States also has particular problems in terms of its historical
experience. We never had to face the problem of security until the end of the
Second World War, so we could afford to be very idealistic and insist on the pure
implementation of our maxims.

To the average countries that were less favored, the problems of foreign
policy have usually appeared in a much more complicated form; that is, their
morality could not be expressed in absolute terms. Their morality had to give
the sense of inward security necessary to act step by step in less than perfect
modes.

Rebellion in U.S. Sensed

We are now in a similar position and therefore there is an almost instinctive
rebellion in America against the pragmatic aspect of foreign policy that is secu-
rity-oriented, that achieves finite objectives, that seeks to settle for the best
attainable, rather than for the best. In this sense, we are having domestic prob-
lems.

On the other hand, there is a strain in America which is curiously, extremely
relevant to this world. We are challenged by the huge problems, peace and war,
energy, food, and we have a real belief in interdependence--it is not just a
slogan.

The solution of these problems really comes quite naturally to Americans,
first, because they believe that every problem is soluble; secondly, because they
are at ease with redoing the world, and the old frontier mentality really does
find an expression, and even the old idealism finds a way to express itself.

In what other country could a leader say, "We are going to solve energy;
we're going to solve food; we're going to solve the problem of nuclear war," and
be taken seriously? So I think it is true that there are strains in our domestic
debate; I think it is also true that there are many positive aspects in our domes-
tic debate that can help us reach these larger goals.

Q Are you worried when you see the situation in Europe today? What's going on in Portugal, the fragility of Italy, the almost state of war between two members of the alliance, Turkey and Greece. Surely, from the point of view of Moscow, this looks like a fulfillment of their prophecy of the internal contradictions of the Western world.

A One of the troubles of the Western societies is that they are basically
satisfied with the status quo, so that when you have governments like the previous
government in Portugal, or the previous government in Greece, the tendency is not
to change it.

I think that's a mistaken conception. But what comes after is so uncertain--
and we really lack a philosophy for how to shape a new political evolution--that
one tends to leave well enough alone. In the process, the political base erodes
invisibly, and then, when the changes occur suddenly, there is no real base for a
democratic, liberal, humane evolution--or at least it can be put together only
with great difficulty.

- 3 -

So, in Portugal, after 50 years of authoritarian rule, the Communist party was the best organized, most purposeful opposition and therefore has a very large influence on Portugal's contemporary orientation.

In Greece there are also massive domestic pressures. The problem of Italy and other countries is different, in that you have there a residual vote that has never been reduced by prosperity and goes to the Communists. This shows that there is a significant percentage of the population that does not consider itself part of the system.

If you take the authoritarian parties in Italy on the left and the right, you have only about 60 percent of the spectrum to work with for a democratic policy. When that is split you have an inherent weakness, and it will be split, because that's the nature of the democratic process.

Q When you came to Washington in the first place after your study of history, it was said that you had a concept of how to achieve the order of the world, and yet in the last years, since you have been here, the tendency has been to say that you have not defined your concept, but that actually what you have been doing is negotiating pragmatic problems and not really dealing with the concept or making clear the concept. What is that concept? First of all, is the criticism correct, and second, what is the concept that you see?

A Well, I think you will find few officials who will tell you that any criticism you can make of them is correct, but I don't think the criticism is quite correct. I do not have the choice, in any position, between imposing a theoretical order or negotiating, because if you don't solve immediate problems, you can never solve long-term problems.

If you act creatively you should be able to use crises to move the world towards the structural solutions that are necessary. In fact, very often the crises themselves are a symptom of the need for a structural rearrangement.

I faced a number of problems partly of perception and partly of structure. I feel it is essential that when the United States acts in foreign policy, that it understands first what the American national interest is in relation to the problem. And, to define that, America has to know what the world interest is, not only in relation to the specific problem, but in relation to the historical evolution from which any solution of a problem starts.

## No Response From Europe

So I have tried--historians will have to judge with what success--to understand the forces that are at work in this period. My associates will confirm that when we tackle a problem, we spend the greatest part of our time at the beginning trying to relate it to where America and the world ought to go before we ever discuss tactics.

I think somebody would have to go through my speeches and press conferences to see to what extent I have articulated general propositions. I don't think I should be the judge of this here.

Q When you made your speech at the Waldorf, I regarded it at that time as something equivalent almost to the offer of the Marshall Plan. Yet we got no real response from Europe. Even when you went to London and talked about interdependence, there was no response. Now, something was wrong there. Could you define it?

A There are always at least two aspects to any problem. One is your definition of the problem. Second, how you solve it. Are you doing it correctly?

I believe that the issues that I've attempted to define are serious issues. Take my Waldorf speech, the so-called Year of Europe speech. It came at a period when we had opened to China and opened to the Soviet Union and when we had ended the Vietnam war.

- 4 -

Until we had accomplished at least some of those objectives, I did not see how a creative period of relationship with Europe would be possible, because the disagreement with our Vietnam policy in Europe was too deep. The fear of nuclear confrontation was too great, as was the fear that the United States was somehow to blame for this state of hostility in the world.

So, in early 1973, I thought the time was opportune to move towards a serious dialogue with Europe, and I thought it was all the more essential because I did not want success to become identified in the public consciousness only with relations with adversaries, and I felt that the old Atlantic relationship would over a period of time become so much taken for granted and so much the province of an older generation that the next generation would consider it as something not relevant to itself.

## Debate Over Consultation

I think that this perception was essentially correct. Why did it lead to this intense dialogue? One reason is that, at that particular moment, Europe was enormously absorbed with itself. Every European country, it soon became apparent, had a leadership crisis of its own and was trying to sort out its own domestic problems. Beyond that, Europe was very much occupied in forming its own identity, and it had so much difficulty in doing so that any greater conception seemed a threat to whatever autonomy they had so painfully wrested from their deliberations.

So we became involved in an abstruse theoretical debate over the nature of consultation, something that could never be written down because you can't wave a paper at somebody and tell him he's obliged to consult if he doesn't want to consult.

Then the Middle East war occurred, and that had a tendency to emphasize national frustrations, so that the larger dialogue that I had sought took a long time to get started, but finally the end result was pretty close to what we had asked--though not completely in the spirit I had hoped to evoke. We got the documents we wanted, but we didn't get the spirit of creativity that, for example, the Marshall offer evoked.

Now, similarly, with the Pilgrim speech in London. It was not received very warmly because, again, it was looked at very much from the national point of view. Nevertheless, events have moved us inevitably in that direction. The emergency sharing program which seemed revolutionary in February, has now been accepted by all the countries. Even France, I hope, will find some way of relating itself to it.

And we are now engaged in discussions which will go far beyond what we could talk about last year. In the late nineteen forties the mere fact that the United States was willing to commit itself was a tremendous event. Now, this is probably not enough, and our aspirations have to be expressed in action rather than in debate.

On that point, when you offer, as a basis for discussion with the Europeans and the rest of the world, a sharing of oil in a crisis, do you believe that the spirit of this country will accept it? When you come down to a question of producing oil for other countries who are in worse shape than we are, is it politically possible in this country to do it?

## U.S. Disillusionment

There is undoubtedly a profound disillusionment in America with foreign involvement in general. We have carried the burden for a generation. In fact, if you go back to the beginning of World War II, it doesn't seem to end. Most programs have been sold to Americans with the argument that they would mean an end of exertion. Now we have to convince Americans that there will never be an end to exertion. That's a very difficult problem.

And if you look at some of our recent debates you would have to say we could fail. I don't think that those in key positions at this particular moment have

- 5 -

any real choice. At a minimum, we have to tell the American people what we think is needed. If they do not agree, at least they will know 10 years from now, if there is a catastrophe, what happened. And then there is a chance of restoring a sense of direction. But if 10 years from now there is a catastrophe and people say, "Why didn't somebody tell us about this and why didn't they ask us to do what they should have foreseen?", then I think our whole system may be in difficulty.

Q That's a critical point because I don't think the country--if one may presume to think about what the country thinks--has the vaguest idea of what it is called upon to do. We are complaining about how the oil-producing nations are using their resources, and yet we have larger reserves of food in North America than the nations of the Middle East have oil resources, and yet here we are now arguing our national interests. We are against high prices for oil, but we are still a very gluttonous wasteful country. Can that be made clear?

A I think it is fair to say that we ourselves--I say "we," those who have positions of responsibility at this moment--we ourselves are learning the magnitude of the challenges as we go along. In 1969, when I came to Washington, I remember a study on the energy problem which proceeded from the assumption that there would always be an energy surplus. It wasn't conceivable that there would be a shortage of energy.

Until 1972, we thought we had inexhaustible food surpluses, and the fact that we have to shape our policy deliberately to relate ourselves to the rest of the world did not really arise until 1973, when we did call for a world food conference.

But you are right. We have to tell the American people what they are called upon to do. That is our biggest problem. It's our biggest challenge right now. And will they support it? I hope that they will. I am, in fact, confident that they will.

## For the Country

Q Can you define what those questions are that should be put to the country? What does the government want the responsible citizen to do? He hasn't had much lead from you and your colleagues and the Government as to what you wish him to do.

A I am not sure that I agree with whether he has received leadership from my colleagues and me. I think it is also fair to say that the nature of our debate for many years now has been so bitter that it's hard to put forward a conception that doesn't immediately get ripped apart by an attack on motives.

But leaving that aside, I think in foreign policy we need a national understanding of what is needed, what is meant by peace, and an understanding that we are living in a world in which peace cannot be imposed on others, which means that sometimes the outcomes must be less than perfect. I have been concerned about the detente debate because so often the issue is put in terms of--did the Soviets benefit from a particular deal? Of course, they must benefit, or they won't feel a stake in maintaining the resulting structure.

So, we have to know what we mean by peace. We have to know what we mean by cooperation, and we have above all to understand these big issues which we have been discussing, like energy and food, in which our actions will crucially determine what happens in the rest of the world.

And, of course, what happens in the rest of the world will play back to us, so we cannot afford an isolated approach. If we try a solo effort in energy and, as a result, Italy collapses or Britain has a crisis, that is going to bring about so many political transformations that, within a very brief period of time, we would be affected in ways that even the average citizen would feel very acutely.

On food, the same is true in reverse. We there have an opportunity to demonstrate that when we talk interdependence, we are not just talking an American desire to exploit the resources of other nations. What we are saying is for our own benefit, of course. But it is also for the benefit of everybody else. Now,

- 6 -

that requires many changes in our thinking. Of course, senior officials are always
so busy with the day-to-day problems that they always seem to think one can wait
for a day or a week to articulate the bigger issues.

It is also true that our people have been so preoccupied with domestic problems
that it is not so easy to get attention for the longer term.

## Vision of the World

Q If we do not see this problem of interdependence, what's the vision that you have of the world? What will happen to Western Civilization?

A If we do not get a recognition of our interdependence, the Western civili-
zation that we now have is almost certain to disintegrate because it will first
lead to a series of rivalries in which each region will try to maximize its own
special advantages. That inevitably will lead to tests of strength of one sort
or another. These will magnify domestic crises in many countries, and they will
then move more and more to authoritarian models.

I would expect then that we will certainly have crises which no leadership
is able to deal with, and probably military confrontations. But even if you don't
have military confrontations, you will certainly, in my view, have systemic crises
similar to those of the twenties and thirties, but under conditions when world
consciousness has become global.

Q Well, now, that is your nightmare.

A That's right.

Q What are your hopes? We are halfway between the end of the last world war, a little more, and the end of the century. As an historian, and not as a Secretary of State, looking back, if one can, from the end of the century to this era, how can the nations find some way of living together or going beyond the nation-state to something else?

A Looking toward the end of the century, I would hope that Western Europe, Japan and the United States would have found a way of not just overcoming the current economic crisis, but turning it into something positive by understanding the responsibilities they share for each other's progress and for developing cooperative policies that are explicitly directed towards world interests.

This requires a degree of financial solidarity, a degree of equalizing burdens
and a degree of ability to set common goals that cannot be done on a purely national
basis. This, incidentally, requires a united Europe because with a plethora of
nation-states in Europe we'll never be able to do this.

## Must Halt Arms Race

In relation to the Soviet Union and Communist China, we should have achieved
a position, not of having overcome all our difficulties, but having reached a
point where the solution of these difficulties by war becomes less and less con-
ceivable and, over time, should have become inconceivable. This means that there
must be a visible and dramatic downturn in the arms race. Otherwise, that race
itself is going to generate so many fears that it can be maintained only by a
degree of public exhortation that is inconsistent over a historic period with a
policy of relaxation, and maybe even with peace.

The underdeveloped nations--the now underdeveloped nations--should by then
have lost their sense of inferiority and should feel not that they have to extort,
but that they should participate. Thus, what I said earlier about the relationship
between Western Europe, the United States and Japan should have begun to be
institutionalized to embrace at least some of the key countries, and the Soviet
Union and China must be related to that.

- 7 -

Take the food problem. I do not believe that over an indefinite future, we
can solve the problem of world food reserves if the Soviet Union and Communist
China do not accept obligations of their own, or if they simply rely on the rest
of the world's production to solve their problems on an annual basis.

Q What should they be doing?

A Well, I think--and I will speak about that at the World Food Conference--we have to develop over the next five to ten years some conceptions of the reserves that should exist and the contribution that the major countries should make. Countries that will not participate should not then ask necessarily equal rights to participate in purchases of reserve stocks. But this is something that requires further study.

Q Do you foresee in the next decade the possibility of political disarray in Europe and of enormous human tragedy in other parts of the world?

A I think we are delicately poised right now. I genuinely think that the next decade could either be a period that in retrospect will look like one of the great periods of human creativity, or it could be the beginning of extraordinary disarray.

## Hope in Adversity

Q Is it possible--and it is obviously a Scottish Calvinist point of view
that the greatest hope of progress is adversity--that we are now really up against
economic, financial and social problems of such magnitude that we are suddenly
being forced, even by inflation, into a view of life that could be more hopeful?

A While this period has more strain than, say, a decade ago, it has also infinitely more opportunities, because we really have no choice except to address our problems. Who would have thought of an international food policy or a world food conference 10 years ago, or could have been taken seriously if he had? Today, it is only a question of time until we develop it, and the real question is, will we develop it soon enough? I think we can.

Q Is there a danger that if we do not deal with the world problems that here at home we would become so frustrated that we would retreat, not into the old-time isolationism, but into a kind of chauvinism that would make the whole question of world order really quite impossible?

A It is a big problem. There is such a tendency in America, but at least part of our chauvinism is disappointed idealism, so it's always a question of whether one can evoke the idealism.

Q The charge is made, I think, that you have been so personal in the way in which you've dealt with the Department of State that you've not organized it; you've not put this great machine to work, but actually you've replaced it with yourself.

A One has to ask oneself: What is it that needs to be done in the Department of State? For a variety of reasons, one could make a case for the proposition that since Dean Acheson, the Department of State has really not been used as an institution. There have been a succession of secretaries of state, many of them outstanding individuals, who have tended to operate as Presidential advisers.

When I came in, I deliberately set myself the task of trying to turn the Department of State into an institution that can serve succeeding Presidents and succeeding secretaries of state. Now, in my judgment, this can work only if a number of requirements are met. First, the work done in the Department of State has to be so outstanding that the issue of who is the principal adviser to the President does not arise as a bureaucratic problem, because if the work is of the requisite quality, then inevitably the Department of State will be the organization for decision-making.

- 8 -

The second problem has been to put into the key positions younger, more
forward-looking and more creative people. That part of it, I believe, has been
substantially accomplished.

## Need For Long View

The third problem is: How does the Department think of itself? What do the officers think their mission is? And this is where the difficulty has arisen. It exists on several levels. In calmer periods of American history the rewards, the incentives, the emphasis was on negotiating, not analysis. Therefore, the organization of the Department of State is more geared to producing cables and day-to-day tactical decisions than it is to getting a grip on national policy.

Now, I have attempted to get at the conceptual problem first and not to bother reorganizing the operational part particularly. I think the Policy Planning Staff is in a more central position in the Department of State today than it has been at any time since George Kennan. I believe the quality of its work is outstanding. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which in the past was a sort of adjunct to policy-making, has been given new vitality.

In the bureaus--in the geographic bureaus--the relationship between a more conceptual approach and a more operational approach has not yet been fully balanced. One of the results of having more power flow to the State Department has been that the assistant secretaries have spent so much more time with me--at least, those that I've worked with--that they have not had as much time to give to leading their bureaus. So, paradoxically, what some of the lower-level people complain about is the result of the greater involvement of the middle and upper echelons.

Now, I have had over the last two months a series of meetings. I have a small group that is dealing explicitly with the problem of how the Foreign Service and the Department of State can be turned into intellectual leaders of American foreign policy--not bureaucratic operators, but intellectual and conceptual leaders.

It is too early to tell what the legacy will be. I feel very strongly that, partly based on my study of history, individual tours de force by secretaries of state can be counterproductive if they don't leave a tradition behind, and the reason I have always admired Dean Acheson so much is because I believe he left a legacy of thought and of organization.

## Fewer Political Appointees

Q How do you rate the use of diplomatic appointments to this theme of superiority?

A Well, if you look at the diplomatic appointments that have been made since I became Secretary of State, in all the key departmental positions, I think we have outstanding personnel. In the overseas positions, we have reduced the number of political appointees and, quite frankly, have been quite resistant to purely political appointees in key posts, maybe a little less resistant in more peripheral appointments.

Q Is there anything to the charge that trying to be Secretary of State and head of the National Security Council is doing too much?

A Well, all of these positions have to be seen also in relation to the history from which they evolve. I was head of the N.S.C. staff for five years before I became Secretary of State. I think the two positions are really complementary. The basic responsibility of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs is to make sure that the President receives the fairest possible statement of his alternatives. It is against the national interest, and it is against, for that matter, a correct perception of the self-interest of the Assistant to load the dice.

I generally open an N.S.C. meeting by presenting the options. The other heads of department or heads of agencies are there. If I loaded the definition of the

- 9 -

opinions, they would in a short time know I was cheating. I don't believe the N.S.C. job takes too much time. I do believe the two jobs complement each other. But, of course, every President must organize the decision-making process so that he is comfortable with it.

Contrary to what has been written, I never expressed to the President any particular view as to how he should organize himself. I never talked to the transition team, and I have always understood that the ultimate decision has to be the President's. He has to live with his decisions, and he has to live with the way these decisions are made.

## Implementing Policies

Q Always there has been a problem between defining policy and then seeing that the policy is actually carried out through the departments. I gather this is still a problem?

A The problem, I believe, is that the difference between great policy and mediocre policy or substantial policy and average policy is usually an accumulation of nuances. The intellectual debate tends to be put in absolutes, but I believe in fact it is nuances that count.

Now, how you fine-tune a big bureaucracy to be responsive to little shifts and to understand the psychological intangibles on which major decisions often depend is very hard.

In addition, the key men in any government are there because they usually are men of strong will. Obviously, they believe in what they are proposing. If a decision goes against them, they may believe they haven't heard it right, or that the President didn't understand them correctly. Or they may subconsciously try to interpret it as close to their convictions as they can. I don't say this critically; it is unavoidable.

Thus, how you can have enough control to make sure that there is coherence in the actions, this is the big problem. But basically we have not done too badly in implementing decisions. I think in many respects -- in at least the key areas of policy-making -- we really haven't had too much to think of in getting it implemented.

Q I don't know how many years ago it was that Governor Rockefeller made Godkin lectures at Harvard. I always suspected you had something to do with it. He talked then about new concepts of confederation in the West. Now, one hears nothing about those concepts. Why is this?

A Because we have reached the paradoxical position that at the moment when the need for cooperative action is greatest, the national and regional sense of identity has also grown. Thus any attempt to institutionalize a new structure, within, for example, a confederal framework, would meet resistance out of proportion to what it could achieve.

Indeed, some of the efforts that were made last year tended in the direction of what Governor Rockefeller was talking about in 1961 without using those words. They were resisted for the reason that they seemed to be too formal and an intrusion into the sense of identity of others. Nevertheless, while the organization or the institution of a confederation may be more than the traffic will bear, the need for cooperative action is absolutely imperative.

## Soviet Union vs. China

Q When I was in Europe just a few weeks ago, the question was raised there about your concept of China and of the Soviet Union. The question was raised whether in your mind you have not actually chosen one over the other, and in the process were playing one up against the other. Could you clarify that?

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A When one analyzes foreign policy, there is always the temptation to look at the day-to-day tactics and not at the underlying reality. Any attempt to play off the Soviet Union and Communist China against each other would have a high risk that, at least for tactical reasons, they would combine against us. The rivalry and tensions between the Soviet Union and Communist China were not created by the United States. In fact, we didn't believe in their reality for much too long a time. They cannot be exploited by the United States. They can only be noted by the United States.

The correct policy for the United States is to take account of what exists and to conduct a policy of meticulous honesty with both of them, so that neither believes we are trying to use one against the other. In the course of events, it may happen that one may feel that it is gaining benefit against the other as a result of dealing with us, but that cannot be our aim or purpose.

We have meticulously avoided forms of cooperation with the Soviet Union that could be construed as directed against China. We have never signed agreements whose chief purpose could be seen as directed against China, and conversely we have never participated with China in declarations that could be seen as aimed at the Soviet Union. We have developed our bilateral relationships with both, and left them to sort out their relationships with each other. In fact, we have rarely talked to either of them about the other.

## The Kissinger Legacy

Q When you leave this office, what is it you want to have achieved at the end of your service?

A It used to be that the overwhelming concern of any President or Secretary of State had to be to make a contribution to peace in the traditional sense. That is to say, to reduce tensions among nations or regions. That remains, of course, an essential preoccupation. History has, I think, placed me in a key position at a time when we are moving from the relics of the postwar period toward a new international structure.

The Administration did not invent that structure. It did have, however, an opportunity to contribute to it -- an opportunity that did not exist 10 years earlier and that may not exist 10 years later. Now, the difference between that structure and the previous period is that there are more factors to consider and that it has to be built not on the sense of the pre-eminence of two power centers, but on the sense of participation of those who are part of the global environment.

This has required a change in the American perception of the nature of foreign policy. What is described as excessive pragmatism is really a rather conscious attempt to try to educate myself, my generation, and my associates, insofar as I can contribute to living with the world as it is now emerging. Pragmatism unrelated to a purpose becomes totally self-destructive.

In addition, I would like to leave at least the beginning of a perception of a structure that goes beyond these centers of power, and moves towards a global conception. There is no question in my mind that, by the end of the century, this will be the dominant reality of our time. I believe we have to move towards it now.

Q Can you define it?

A Before I go to that, let me say one other thing that I have been very much concerned with. However long I stay, it will be but a temporary episode. To succeed in these objectives, I will have to leave behind a public understanding and, above all, an intellectual understanding in the State Department that can carry on not only the detailed policies, but an overall understanding of where America fits into the global scheme of things. I intend to give increasing attention to this problem.

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## Two Kinds of Ambitions

Q One of your close friends once said to me, "Kissinger has a weakness for becoming melancholy and leaving the job." What is your perception of how long you wish to stay in this job?

A I may have a predilection for becoming melancholy, but there are very few jobs I believed in that I have actually left. Jean Monnet once said that he isn't interested whether a man is ambitious; the question is whether he is ambitious to do something or ambitious to be something. I think the same is true of vanity or many other qualities that can be ascribed to people in key positions.

I'd like to leave at a moment when it is still clear that my ambition and my vanity are geared towards doing something and when holding onto the job does not become the central preoccupation or the chief focus of public debate. Now, when that is depends on many factors. Obviously, on the confidence of the President, about which I have no problem; the degree of public support; the degree of Congressional support.

I have felt very strongly that foreign policy must be a national effort and that while, of course, disagreements are inevitable, I'd prefer them to cut across party lines just as I hope the support would cut across party lines.

Now, if debate becomes too partisan, then I would have to look at the situation again and I do not believe anyone is indispensable or should develop a policy that makes him indispensable, because that would contradict the whole perception of what I --

## Waning Support on Hill

Q There has been a lot of talk on the Hill, since they cut your foreign aid bill and one or two other things, that the support you had on the Hill and in the country has been eroded recently. Is that true, in your judgment?

A Support in the country, I cannot judge. Whenever I appear in public, I seem to draw large crowds, but I am no expert on public support.

As to support on the Hill, I think one has to distinguish the very unusual situation that existed before President Nixon's resignation with what could reasonably be expected. Before President Nixon's resignation there was such a sense of horror at the disintegration of authority domestically that everybody had an interest in demonstrating that there was no debate on our foreign policy. There was a desire to preserve one island of authority in this general disintegration.

Therefore, I probably had an unusually favorable situation on the Hill that no one could expect to preserve in normal circumstances.

So I would think what has happened now, after President Nixon's resignation, is the opening of foreign policy to normal partisan debate. Probably in the excitement the pendulum is swinging a bit too far and there are intrusions in day-to-day tactical decisions which Congress really isn't best equipped to handle. But I think the pendulum will swing back -- not to where it was before, and that wasn't healthy, anyway -- but to a normal kind of political debate.

Q You mentioned Jean Monnet and he once said to me, not in recent years, in prior discussions about the C.I.A.: "A democratic country as open as America can never really run a secret service and, if it tries to do so, in the end probably its losses are really greater than its gains." What do you think of that?

A I think an intelligence organization is essential for a great power. I don't think there is much dispute about the part of the intelligence organization that collects information, analyzes it and tries to interpret the world to political leaders.

The debates arise where the intelligence organization is operational and attempts to affect political events in other parts of the world. In this case there is a

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serious problem, because there is a gray area between the exercise of diplomacy and the use of force. Admittedly, you may create political realities -- or political realities may come about -- of great magnitude.

There is no question that insofar as covert operations are conducted they should be carefully controlled, first of all within the executive branch to make certain there is no alternative and that they meet political goals, and, secondly, to the degree possible by Congress. How to do this, I think, requires careful study.

## A View of America

Q I'm more interested in the rising generation than I am in the contemporary problem, and for that reason I wanted to ask you this: A colleague of mine went to see Willy Brandt and asked, "What does the young generation in Germany now think of America?" And Brandt replied, "The magic is gone." And when he was asked what he meant by that, it was that we have used power, he thought, in a way that did not comport to our ideals, particularly in Vietnam, but there was something beyond that, a kind of sense that we were engaged in a kind of disintegration. He mentioned the drug culture in America as being profoundly worrisome and that somehow we had lost our ideals in the way in which we approach the world.

A I was told last year that the public opinion polls in Germany in the second half of the year dramatically changed from showing a declining image of the United States to increasingly favoring the United States. The explanation I was given was the end of the Vietnam war and the decisive handling of the Middle East crisis.

The Germans, the younger Germans, again saw the United States as a nation that could solve problems -- and that is one of the elements of the American appeal.

America has gone through many changes, dramatic changes, in the last decade. We even began to develop a new isolationism. The old isolationism was based on the proposition that we were too good for this world; the new isolationism was based on the proposition that we're not good enough for it.

When one looks at the process of growing up, it is largely a process of learning one's limits, that one is not immortal, that one cannot achieve everything; and then to draw from that realization the strength to set great goals nevertheless. Now, I think that as a country we've gone through this. We were immature in the sense that we thought the definition of goals was almost the equivalent of their realization.

Then we went to the opposite extreme, and I think from this point of view the Kennedy period is likely to be seen as the end of an era, rather than as the beginning of one: the last great flowering of the naive version of American idealism. And I don't say this as a criticism.

I think now that the drug culture, the student rebellion, are in that sense behind us. Of course, we still have the drug culture, but as problems that threaten the spirit of America, I think they either are behind us or could be behind us if we can now do what any adult has to do in his life. When you get to the recognition of your limits, then the question becomes whether you transcend them or wallow in them. That is a choice that is up to us.

Q From the period from Roosevelt through the Kennedy period, the central theme of this country was that we could do anything in the world, and then we ran into some disappointments and seemed to go into a phase of self-doubt in which we began to wonder whether we could do anything effectively. Now, do we have the self-confidence and the essential trust in one another and in our institutions to support the kind of foreign policy you want?

A I have to say this is the big question I ask myself. In some strange way, I think the American people have come through these recent crises in rather good shape. I would not have thought you could have assassinations, the Vietnam war, Watergate, and all that went with it, and still have basic confidence in government.

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[L.C]

Among the intellectual and political leadership groups, I'm not so sure. But even there, as I said earlier, during the Watergate period, there was support for foreign policy. There is still a remarkable sense of national cohesion, so I am basically optimistic. But above all, I don't think we have any choice except to try, and in this respect, the American idealistic tradition gives the United States a resource that exists in no other country in the world.

In this country, even with all the isolationism, when you talk about a sense of responsibility, you touch the core of people; you can mention very few other countries of the world where it could be even a plausible argument.

## Cohesion of the West

Q At one point the West was bound together by certain religious ideals, certain moral ideals. What is it that binds the free world together today, if anything?

A Well, what binds us together on an unsatisfactory level is industrial civilization which imposes common realities and necessities on all of us. We are also tied together by an approach to politics in which ultimately the fulfillment of human needs plays a central role. Now, the definition of what those needs are can be disputed, but that it does play a crucial role is clear. Indeed, much of the political turmoil in the industrialized world is caused by the uncertainty as to precisely what those deeper needs are.

We are tied together, too, by a perception of politics in which various groups and the individual play a crucial role. And the combination of industrial necessity plus the fact that a complicated society cannot be run by direction and must have a certain amount of consensus will in time begin to permeate even totalitarian regimes.

Q Do you see the possibility of a closer regional understanding, and even structural development of regionalism, within the Hemisphere in the foreseeable future?

A Since I've become Secretary of State, I've spent a considerable amount of time on Western Hemisphere relationships. If it is true that the relations between industrialized and developing nations are essential features of our period, then in the Western Hemisphere where we are dealing with countries of similar traditions, and indeed, similar history -- this is where a beginning must be made. If we cannot solve it creatively here, it is hard to know how we can be creative about it elsewhere.

How formal that structure can be, I don't know. I have found two things: One is that the mere act of dialogue in the Western Hemisphere has had an emotional response; and, secondly, I have been struck in my meetings -- I've now attended three foreign ministers' meetings in the Western Hemisphere -- by the fact that if one read the records without the mood of the meetings, one would find in them a litany of criticism of the United States. But if one actually was at the meetings, one had the sense that this was a family quarrel; that in some intangible way, one was talking as a member of the family.

So I think that in the Western Hemisphere we have the possibilities of a creative phase, provided the United States can shed its traditional predominance and recognize that the decisions that emerge must be genuinely felt by our friends in the Western Hemisphere to be theirs.

## Need for Sacrifice

Q Is it reasonable for the American people to go on assuming, in a hungry world where raw materials are increasingly scarce, that our standard of living each year can go on going up, or do we have to face new responsibilities and even some sacrifices in this country in order to bring about some kind of world order?

A Now, here I'm talking off the top of my head. I would think, if we look ahead to the year 2000 and beyond, we have to be prepared to face a world quite different from what we have now. We see it already in energy. I believe that the day of the 400-horsepower engine is over, whether it's this year or five years from now. You're going to see different types of automobiles, and that affects our style of life.

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We will have to develop a global food policy. We cannot deal with issues like this week's grain sale to the Soviet Union on a crash basis every few months. To do so will affect our whole perception of the relationship of agriculture to our society and our foreign policy.

## Weakness of Communism

Q When you talk about cooperation between the Communists and the capitalist world, where do you see this leading? To the domination of one over the other, or to a combination of the two, or what?

A I think that any attempt at domination in a nuclear age is going to involve risks that are catastrophic and would not be tolerated. If we remain strong enough to prevent the imposition of Communist hegemony, then I believe that transformations of the Communist societies are inevitable. I believe that the imposition of state control of the kind that communism demands is totally incompatible with the requirements of human organization at this moment.

The pressure of this realization on Communist systems is going to bring about a transformation apart from any conscious policy the United States pursues, so long as there is not a constant foreign danger that can be invoked to impose regimentation.

What inherent reason is there that keeps the Communist societies in Eastern Europe from achieving the standard of living of those of Western Europe? The resources are about the same, the industrial organization is there. I think the reason is inherent in the type of society that has been created, and that I believe must inevitably change.

## Looking Back

Q Looking back over these almost six years, is there anything in the conduct of our foreign policy that you regret, that you would like to change?

A I'm quite convinced that I'll be much more reflective a year or two after I leave here than I can be today. What I regret is that so much of the time had to be spent on the Vietnam war. If we could have got that behind us more rapidly, we could have brought the more positive side of our foreign policy to fruition at a time when attitudes were less rigidly formed.

The real tragedy was Watergate, because I believe that at the beginning of President Nixon's second term, we had before us -- due to changing conditions -- a period of potential creativity. We contributed some of that potential, but some of it was inherent in the objective situation.

Instead, we had to spend almost all of our energy in preserving what existed, rather than building on the foundations that had been laid. Even the Year of Europe could have gone differently in a different environment. But you never know what opportunities may have been lost.

Those are my big regrets. There are many tactical things I would in retrospect perhaps do differently, but I think it's premature to speculate on those.

Now, what problems I leave to my successor depends, of course, at what time I leave, and I don't want to have this sound as a valedictory. If I resigned today, he would have the Middle East problem in mid-solution.

I think we are now at a point where the framework of the structure exists, if we can put it together. We have the raw material, we have the elements, we've identified them, I hope, correctly. We are at the beginning of building a consciousness of the global community that must come after us.

Q Can you see a settlement of the Middle East thing in, say, before we get to the Bicentennial, or the end of this Administration?

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A Before we get to the Bicentennial I think we can make considerable progress, at least to a point where one can see the settlement emerging. But it could also go very badly. That is yet a delicate point.

## Role of Intellectuals

Q You once said to me that you were relying very heavily -- even when you were in the middle of your service in Washington this time -- on concepts and intellectual support you had got from your colleagues in Cambridge way back in '59, and that you felt a lack of this as time went on. Is that still true?

A I think it is true. As I look back, for example, at the area of strategic arms limitation, most of the creative thought with which I am familiar dates back to the late fifties and was then introduced into the Government first in the Kennedy Administration and then, I hope, in ours.

Two things are lacking now: One, the same sense of relationship towards the Government that intellectuals had then; now they volunteer less and participate less. Secondly, there is a lack of relevant intellectual work.

Intellectuals are now divided into essentially three groups: those that reject the Government totally; those that work on pure, abstract intellectual models which are impossible to make relevant; and a third group that's too close to power and that sees its service to the Government as residing primarily in day-to-day tactics. No outsider can be very helpful on the day-to-day business because he doesn't know enough of the current situation to really make a contribution.

The best service intellectuals can render is, first, to ask important questions and that's a difficult problem, and, second, to provide a middle-term perspective. But for that they need to have some compassion for the problems of the policy-maker, just as he needs an understanding of their needs. I feel the lack, and I hope that now that our domestic climate is somewhat better we can restore mutual confidence.

Q Was it not a great mistake to wipe out the Office of the Science Adviser who was bringing in objective thought? I felt that lack of it, for example, on the whole question of oil and other raw materials.

A I think it's a pity. I hope that some focal point is created which will look upon the intellectual community as its constituency, and that they will be listened to.

Q Just one last point: I take it that you are saying that you don't want this to be interpreted as a swan song?

A Yes.

★ U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1974 584-229/4

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# Boston School Desegregation

*The President's Remarks Recorded for Use on Radio.*

October 12, 1974

Boston is a fine, proud city, the cradle of liberty, where many of the freedoms that we all so cherish today in this country, were born, 200 years ago. The people of Boston share a tradition for reason, fairness, and respect for the rights of others. Now, in a difficult period for all of you, it is a time to reflect on all that your city means to you, to

react in the final tradition of your city's people. It is up to you, every one of you, every parent, child, to reject violence of any kind in your city, to reject hatred and the shrill voices of the violent few.

I know that nothing is more important to you than the safety of the children in Boston. And only your calm and thoughtful action now can guarantee that safety. I know that you will all work together for that goal, and have one more thing to be proud of in the cradle of liberty.

NOTE: As printed above, this item follows the text of the White House press release.

# VISIT OF FIRST SECRETARY EDWARD GIEREK OF POLAND

*Joint United States-Polish Communique.*

October 13, 1974

At the invitation of the President of the United States of America, Gerald R. Ford, and Mrs. Ford, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, Edward Gierek, and Mrs. Gierek, paid an official visit to the United States October 8 through 13, 1974.

The First Secretary was accompanied by: Mieczysław Jagielski, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Mrs. Jagielski; Stefan Olszowski, Foreign Minister, and Mrs. Olszowski; Ryszard Frelek, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party; Witold Trampczynski, Polish Ambassador to the United States of America.

The First Secretary was also accompanied by a group of advisers and experts.

The official party also visited New York, Pittsburgh, and Houston.

During his stay in Washington, First Secretary Gierek held talks with President Ford on the development of relations between Poland and the United States as well as on international issues.

He also met with Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, Secretary of Commerce Frederick Dent, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Caspar Weinberger, and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank William Casey.

The First Secretary paid a visit to Congress and met with members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. He also had talks with leading American businessmen and bankers.

Talks were also held between Foreign Minister Olszowski and Secretary of State Kissinger.

The talks and meetings were held in a friendly and businesslike atmosphere and were characterized by a mutual desire to expand and strengthen the relations between Poland and the United States.

In the course of the talks, the President and the First Secretary noted with satisfaction the significant progress which has recently been made in Polish-American relations. Both leaders expressed their desire to fur-

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ther develop these relations, which are based on the long-standing traditions of friendship and sympathy existing between the Polish and American peoples.

They agreed that the "Joint Statement on Principles of U.S.-Polish Relations" signed during the visit provides a firm basis for broad cooperation between the two countries and contributes to the process of strengthening world peace, security, and international cooperation.

The President and the First Secretary also attached importance to the "Joint Statement on the Development of Economic, Industrial and Technological Cooperation between the United States of America and the Polish People's Republic," which they signed. They agreed that the main directions and scope of cooperation stipulated in the field of trade, industrial and technological cooperation should contribute to the further advancement of bilateral economic relations.

The President and the First Secretary noted with satisfaction the rapid growth of trade between the United States and Poland in the past two years, accompanied by a substantial intensification of general economic relations between the two countries. They considered a mutual trade turnover of one billion dollars by 1976 and two billion dollars by 1980 to be a realistic and desirable goal.

They also agreed that the provisions contained in the "Joint Statement on the Development of Agricultural Trade between the United States of America and the Polish People's Republic" create possibilities for a further expansion of trade in food and agricultural products as well as for cooperation in various sectors of the agricultural economy.

They noted that the Joint American-Polish Trade Commission plays an important role in the development of trade and economic cooperation.

President Ford and First Secretary Gierek expressed their deep satisfaction at the conclusion during the visit of agreements in the fields of: Coal research; Health; Environmental Protection; Cooperation in Science and Technology; and Avoidance of Double Taxation.

They also welcome the conclusion of an agreement on the establishment of working relationships between the U.S. and Polish Chambers of Commerce.

Both leaders stressed the significance of the broad development of cultural and scientific cooperation between the United States and Poland and expressed their conviction that this cooperation should be further developed.

The President and the First Secretary emphasized the importance of historical traditions in strengthening the bonds of sympathy and friendship between the United States and Poland. A positive role in this strengthening of mutual relations has been played by American citizens of Polish descent. Both leaders undertook to encourage and support further development of those and other contacts between the American and Polish people.

The President and the First Secretary conducted a broad and useful exchange of views on the most important international issues with special emphasis on European questions. They agreed that there exist a number of spheres in which both countries can contribute to the strengthening of peace and international security.

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Both leaders expressed satisfaction with the results of the talks they held and agreed that consultations will continue between the two countries at various levels on matters concerning their mutual relations, including the assessment of the implementation of the agreements that were concluded as well as on important international issues of mutual interest.

The First Secretary and Mrs. Gierek expressed their warm gratitude for the hospitality and friendliness accorded to them in the United States.

The First Secretary extended an invitation to the President of the United States and Mrs. Ford to pay an official visit to the Polish People's Republic at a time convenient to them. The invitation was accepted with pleasure.

## Veto of Continuing Appropriations Resolution

*The President's Remarks Upon Signing the Veto Message. October 14, 1974*

Today, in the interest of preserving the ability of the United States to assist the Governments of Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Cyprus dispute, I am returning to the Congress without my approval the continuing resolution which the Congress has amended to cut off military aid to Turkey.

In so doing, I want to clear the air of a number of misunderstandings concerning the U.S. position toward the Cyprus crisis.

Since the outbreak of the crisis, our objectives have been to establish a ceasefire, to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees, to assist the parties toward a negotiation and a settlement, and to strengthen and to improve our historically friendly ties with Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus.

I have discussed these goals with the bipartisan leadership of the Congress and have received their unanimous and vigorous support. Our ability to pursue these goals depends, however, on being able to maintain a constructive relationship with the parties involved. The cutoff of assistance to Turkey is destructive of that relationship.

Further, it in no way helps the Greek people or the people of Cyprus who have suffered so much in the past months. In fact, by dashing hopes for negotiations, it prolongs their suffering.

We recognize clearly the need to ensure that the honor and the integrity of the Greek people be maintained. We seek a settlement which ensures that fundamental requirement. United States friendship with Greece has been established through generations of cooperation and mutual respect, based on shared values and common goals. I intend firmly to carry on and strengthen that relationship.

I cannot, however, carry out this pledge if my ability to act in the current crisis is undercut by restrictions imposed by the Congress. We all seek a peaceful resolution of this problem; we all seek justice for the people of Cyprus; we all seek to maintain the strength and cooperation in our relationship that is a cornerstone to Western security in the Mediterranean.

It is for these reasons that I return this resolution to the Congress and ask that it thoughtfully reconsider its position.

I pledge to continue working closely in partnership with the Congress to enable the United States to play a useful role in helping the parties toward a peaceful resolution of the Cyprus dispute.

I am now signing my veto message, which will be delivered today to the Congress.

Thank you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 2:23 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White House.

*The President's Message to the House of Representatives Returning H.J. Res. 1131 Without His Approval Because of Provisions Concerning Military Assistance to Turkey. October 14, 1974*

*To the House of Representatives:*

At the beginning of my Administration I pledged to work closely and cooperatively with the Congress. I believe I have kept that promise. I have appeared before two joint sessions of the Congress, I have met frequently with the leadership of both Houses, and I have agreed to appear personally before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives—a step no other President has undertaken in more than a century.

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I commend the extensive work one by my colleagues in both houses of Congress on this bill, and I am pleased to sign it today.

NOTE: As enacted, the bill (S. 3044) is Public Law 93-443, approved October 15, 1974.

# Future Farmers of America

The President's Remarks to the 47th Convention of the FFA at Kansas City, Missouri. October 15, 1974

Thank you very, very much, President Mark Mayfield, the 13,000 Future Farmers of America registered for this wonderful 47th Convention, the 500,000 Future Farmers of America in every State of the Union, and your guests:

It is a great privilege, and a very high honor to have an opportunity of participating in this wonderful convention, and I thank you. And I thank you on behalf of Betty because she wanted me to come, too.

One week ago I asked the Congress and the American people to help me revitalize the economy, slow inflation, and save energy. At that time I proposed specific and urgent actions.

The American people, I can report tonight, have responded magnificently. A great citizens' mobilization has begun and is beginning to roll. It is already evident here in this eager, up-beat convention of Future Farmers of America. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

In this last week, I have received inflation-fighter enlistments from Americans of every conceivable occupation, economic circumstances, and political persuasion. Support has been freely offered by organizations and groups representing all ages, races, religions, and reaching into every corner of our great land.

America is arousing itself, as it always does in time of great challenge, to prove that we are a people who can do anything we want to do when we really want to do it. We are going to win in America.

Now some have said that instead of asking Congress and the Nation to bite the bullet, I offered only a marshmallow. Well, I had already asked the Congress to postpone for 3 months a 5.5 percent pay increase for Federal Government employees which would have saved $700 million. Congress wouldn't even chew that marshmallow. They haven't, as yet, shown much appetite for some of the other "marshmallows" in my latest message.

But if they don't like the menu, I may be back with some tough turkey.

It is my observation and view that the American people are hungry for some tough stuff to chew on in this crisis. I don't know of any better place to look to the future of America than right here in the 13,000 faces of the Future Farmers of America.

I don't see anyone in this auditorium, not one, wearing a button that says "lose." You want to win, and we are going to win.

When your State presidents came to Washington last July during a time of tension in our national affairs, I pointed out to them that people around the world have great faith in America. I asked Future Farmers to have confidence in themselves, in our system of Government, and in our free competitive society.

I appreciated their response and your response. I think it is well expressed in the creed of the Future Farmers. I believe with you, for example, "in the future of farming, with a faith born not of words but of deeds . . . in the promise of better days through better ways, even as the better things we now enjoy have come to us from the struggles of former years." It couldn't be expressed better.

Number one of the major points in my address to the Congress last week was food. In a war against inflation, farmers are the front line soldiers. They have done a great job in America, making our country the bread basket of the world.

To halt higher food prices, obviously we must produce more food. I called upon, in that message, every farmer to grow to full capacity, in return—and properly so—I promised every farmer the fuel and the fertilizer that he needs to do the job, plus a fair return for the crops that he produces.

It is not only the young people in this auditorium who must lend their hands and their hearts to this task. I need help from young Americans all over this great land. The creative energy and the enthusiasm of youth in my judgment is our sure guarantee of winning.

But in all honesty, youth has the most to gain. Restoring stability and strength to our economy doesn't call for sacrifices so much as for contributions to one's own future well-being.

Last Saturday, 22 members of the Citizens' Action Committee to Fight Inflation met with me at the White House. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and I am sure many would have preferred on that committee to watch their favorite football game, or play some golf, or be with their family.

But I am deeply grateful that this fine committee took the time and made the effort to join with me on a Saturday to work on our national enemy number one.

Let me stress this point, if I could: This is a volunteer working committee, a completely nonpartisan group dealing with a nonpartisan problem. It will seek to mobilize America against inflation and for energy conservation.

I told the committee that if there was a scintilla of partisanship or if the group seemed to be merely a front for the White House, its efforts would be doomed to failure.

Columnist Sylvia Porter, who has agreed to serve as national chairperson of this committee, responded that if I tried to manipulate the committee or seek to influence its actions, she and the other members would not participate. We understand each other.

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And I say with all the conviction that I have that I was greatly impressed with the membership of this committee and the cross section of America which it represents.

Let me illustrate, if I might, in addition to Sylvia Porter, the committee elected four co-chairmen. They are: Carol T. Foreman, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America; William J. Meyer, president of a small business company in Lansdale, Pennsylvania; Leo Perlis, director of community service of the AFL-CIO; and Frank Stanton, president of the National Red Cross.

A task force headed by Ralph Nader, one of the committee's members, came up with suggestions which coincide to a large extent with the views emanating from the Conference on Inflation which the Future Farmers of America and many other groups attended, and your fine president, Mark Mayfield, was one of the participants and made a substantial contribution on behalf of all of you.

I had touched upon some of the proposals in my message to Congress a week ago—grow more, waste less, drive less, and heat less. But the committee, last Saturday, added a few suggestions of their own. And I promised to pass the committee's recommendations along to all of you here tonight.

I will add some of the comments I have received, for example, in the mail at the White House from thousands upon thousands of individuals who responded enthusiastically to my request at the summit Conference on Inflation.

Committee recommendation number one: Bring budgeting back in style. Balance your family budget and expect your Government officials to do exactly the same thing.

I have already asked the Congress to work with me on this, the handling appropriately of the Federal budget. As to your family budget, I know how hard it is to balance, but many of your letters prove that it can be done. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Spaek live in Holland, Michigan. He is a locomotive engineer working on a freight run between Grand Rapids and Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Spaek describe in their letter to me how they are cutting their household budget, but they urge, and I quote, "Our Federal budget should be pared to the bone." Don't we all agree?

Robert Stewart writes from Waverly, Tennessee, that he has a heart condition, unfortunately, and draws a pension of only $251.28 a month. This allows him just two meals a day. "But thank God, we are not on welfare," says Mr. Stewart. He asks me, and again I quote, "Cut our Government spending except for national defense." Again, I think his example is a good one for all of us to observe.

Committee recommendation number two was stated to me this way by Sylvia Porter: Learn how to use credit wisely. Postpone unnecessary borrowing. Wait for interest rates to come down, as they will, and pay down as much as you can, and pay off as quickly as you can. The cheapest way to buy anything, we all know, is to pay cash. But credit wisely used is essential to our way of life in America.

Committee recommendation number three is to save as much as you can and watch your money grow, which it will. Mrs. Frank Tennant writes from Climax, Michigan, that her husband works hard and she helps stretch the paycheck through systematic savings. Mr. Tennant is a self-taught machinist and a veteran who lost his leg in Korea. But it is his ability rather than his disability that comes through in his dear wife's letter. The Tennants report they do not use credit cards. They put something in their credit union each week and buy a Government bond every month. They should be applauded.

James Kincaid of Belleville, Illinois, suggests a new type of Government anti-inflation bond, purchased through payroll deduction in which the interest rate is more competitive.

Because I received many communications in this area, I have asked the Treasury Department to look into the possibility of issuing a new series of WIN bonds and report to me the feasibility of Mr. Kincaid's idea.

Meanwhile, if you can save more, the hard-pressed homebuilding mortgage market, homebuilders and home-purchasers need your dollars. For those who can't save much, or anything, under the present circumstances, here is a very simple formula—everytime the cost of living drops one percent in the Index, put just one percent of your spendable income into savings.

Committee recommendation number four: Conserve energy, save on fuel, and take the pressure off scarce supplies. The committee advocates observance of the 55-mile speed limit. It urges that we use public transit and car-pools. And they respectfully suggest that all of us walk a bit more.

Enforcement of the 55-mile speed limit is largely a State and local responsibility with voluntary cooperation from all of you which is an essential ingredient. Here, we can save both gasoline and lives. Yesterday, I wired every Governor and many local officials urging them to follow through on this recommendation.

At the same time, I directed the strict enforcement of the 55-mile speed limit, except in emergencies, on all Federal property and by drivers of all Federal Government cars, including my own. And I say this now, with some firmness, but some trepidation: I will ask for voluntary cooperation and compliance from the four younger Fords in our family.

From Hillsboro, Oregon, the Stevens family writes they are fixing up their bikes to do the family errands. They are also using fewer electrical appliances, turning the thermostat down, and the lights off.

Bob Cantrell, a 14-year-old in Pasadena, California, gave up his stereo to save energy. Bob urges the initiation of high school courses that teach students how to conserve energy. He adds, and I quote, "If a kid nags his parents to conserve energy long enough, it will help." And I might add from my own experiences, believe me, it will.

Committee recommendation number five is directed

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at business and labor. It calls upon them not to raise prices or wages more than costs or services absolutely require.

Admittedly, this is a very complex subject, and it cannot be handled on a nationwide basis. I believe that local citizen action committees, including labor and management representation, should be set up in every community to interpret this recommendation, set realistic goals for themselves, and to report by Thanksgiving—just 6 weeks away—which plants, which stores, or other enterprises are doing the best job of holding the line in their community on costs and on prices.

If they do a good job, and we find the winners around the country in every community, in every State, I will then award WIN flags to the most outstanding as public recognition of their contribution to the fight on inflation.

Similar recognition will be given to outstanding energy savers, both individuals and groups. Saving energy is, of course, a major way to save costs.

The national committee will help local groups to organize.

Committee recommendation number six: To help offset pay increases, insist on productivity improvements where you work from the boss on down the line. In short, work better, waste less, both of time and materials.

And there is not a place where business is done or activity is undertaken where the boss and everyone else can't work better and save more. And we should urge them to do it as soon as possible.

Now, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Monson write from San Antonio to urge support of companies showing a higher degree of concern for energy solutions and the unemployment problems.

Mrs. Hannah Folsom of Ojai, California, offers an additional suggestion. She urges that steps be taken to cut down on the proportion of administrative personnel to productive workers in plants and stores and the like. I think this is a great idea.

And let me say to Mrs. Folsom, I will apply this good idea to the Federal bureaucracy.

Committee recommendation number seven proposes we make economizing fashionable. Let me repeat that— economizing fashionable. Shop wisely, look for bargains, go for the lowest-cost item, and, most importantly, brag about the fact that you are a bargain hunter. You should be proud of it.

The committee certainly is not suggesting Americans should buy less. We should all buy smarter, stick to a shopping list. The experts tell us that is the best way to get a real bargain.

Kathy Daly, a student at Sacred Heart High School in Weymouth, Massachusetts, has one formula for shopping wisely and saving energy. Kathy suggests buying warmer clothes this winter.

G. M. Knapp of Tucson, Arizona, puts it this way: "Only you can stop inflation. Buy only if you need it."

Committee recommendation number eight asks Ameri-

cans to work with others to eliminate outmoded regulations that keep the cost of goods and services high and to enforce regulations that advance efficiency, health, and safety.

W. A. Taylor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, points out that because of Interstate Commerce Commission regulations, many, many trucks return empty, deadheading, so to speak. I have already asked the Congress to undertake a joint review of restrictive and outdated rules by the Federal Government and its independent regulatory agencies.

Yesterday, I called upon Governors and mayors and others to do the same thing.

Committee recommendation number nine is do it yourself. Plant WIN gardens for yourself or within your community. Pool other do-it-yourself skills, and you can.

Sylvia Porter tells me that $10 worth of seeds on a 25'-by-30' plot will grow $290 worth of vegetables. And she contends that community gardens can grow even in the inner cities of our major metropolitan areas. Many letters to the White House propose WIN gardens.

Rick Jacobsen of the fifth grade at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, writes the White House that "we planted our own garden so we could save on vegetables." In southern areas of our country, there is still plenty of time to plant WIN gardens. The rest of us who come from the northern States can plan for the next spring.

Committee recommendation number ten asks Americans to assist in recycling programs and the reuse of scrap metals.

Margaret and Bill Dalton of High Falls, New York, write me on recycled paper that 1 ton of recycled fibers saves 17 live trees and a ton of waste.

Talbert and Elaine Stein of Detroit ask for more recycling centers at local sites so you don't have to travel so far to deposit a few cans or bottles.

Mrs. Laird Barber of Morris, Minnesota, wants to know if a national program can be organized to collect cans, glass, newspapers. The Citizens' Committee is going to stimulate local organizations throughout our country in this regard.

I cite these because they are typical of thousands and thousands of creative suggestions from Americans in all 50 States.

I would like to add, if I might, just two points on my own to round out the committee's ten to make it a daily dozen.

Number eleven, waste less in every way. Unfortunately, Americans have an international reputation as the world's worst wasters. We waste food, gasoline, paper, electricity, natural resources. As a matter of fact, we waste most everything. We litter our streets and countryside with waste.

One friend told me we could probably whip—just understand this—whip inflation with the contents of our trash cans.

In your own home, let me make a simple suggestion.

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Just take one hour to make a trash inventory. In the letters that I have received at the White House are thousands of good suggestions, for instance, take all you want, but eat all you take.

The first words I can remember in my dad's house were very simple but very direct: Clean up your plate before you get up from the table. And that is still pretty good advice.

When you aren't using them, turn off the lights, turn off the television, turn off the radio, turn off the water, use less hot water, insulate attics and windows, shut doors, keep rooms at 68 degrees in wintertime when you are awake, and lower temperatures when you sleep.

Reducing waste, we know, can save money and energy at the very same time. It is a double duty for inflation fighters.

My 12th and final point is an important one to every one of us: Guard your health. One of the worst wastes we have in America is days lost through sickness. Statistically, we are one of the healthiest nations in the world and your governments and the medical profession are constantly trying to improve public health and disease prevention.

But the facts are we can do much better. This will materially strengthen our attack on inflation by increasing individual productivity, by reducing demand for health care and the checking of its soaring costs, by helping balance the family budget in this essential but unpredictable cost item.

The success of cooperative voluntary action will depend on a mutuality of effort, a sense of fairness, and a widespread support of goals. The benefits of such action will lead to greater civic efforts by millions of Americans and a focused awareness of what directions public policy should take toward economic justice for all.

I have requested the Governors of every State and the governing authorities of our territories and the District of Columbia to form WIN committees on the State and local levels. It is my observation that a chain reaction has started. Our Government will not dictate this drive but will use its existing mechanisms to assure the cumulative effort.

I have asked the Federal Energy Administration to continue and make public, to exhibit for all of us to look at, monthly reports on gasoline consumption so we can make sure that we save that 1 million barrels per day from foreign imports.

Earlier, I asked every American to drive or to cut his car mileage by 5 percent. That is not very hard. That would save one-fourth of the 1975 goal for petroleum savings.

Tonight, I ask, I ask those who can, to make it 10 percent, and I am ordering an even larger reduction for all Federal vehicles.

A national reporting system will be instituted before this year ends to assure a new year of less inflation and

greater self-confidence for all Americans. We will know exactly where we are going and how fast we are getting there.

As I listen and travel, I hear each day of new and exciting efforts by individuals and volunteer groups in our great country. This is the real WIN spirit of America. I am greatly encouraged. I think we are on our way.

With your help, each new day will bring more good news than bad news for our economy. Yes, there will be some setbacks. We will not be out of the economic trenches by Christmas. But I remind you, if I might, of just one fact: Every battle in history has been won by the side that held on for just 5 minutes longer. Our enemy in this battle has been called inflation. But perhaps Pogo was wiser when he said: I have met the enemy, and he is us.

If we, the people, can overcome ourselves as we have other enemies in our history, we will surely overcome our economic difficulties and come out a happier and a better people.

Let me close by reading you an energy-saving suggestion of an 8-year-old girl in Bristol, Virginia. Her name is Luette Drumheller, and here is what she wrote: "Turn off lights when not needed, and if you are scared when you go to bed without the light on, tell your mother or father, and they will do something about it."

Luette, we are not going to be scared of the dark, any of us, because we are all in this together—mothers and fathers, grandparents and great, great grandparents, sisters, and brothers—until together, we turn back on the lights of a brighter tomorrow in America.

Thank you very, very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 7:05 p.m. at the Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Mo. His remarks were broadcast live on radio and television.

## Kansas City, Missouri

*The President's Remarks at a Breakfast for Republican Candidates. October 16, 1974*

*Thank you very, very much, Tom, Governor Bond, your associates of State government, public officials, wonderful people from Missouri and elsewhere.*

It is a great privilege and pleasure to be here for this occasion.

I had a great meeting last night with some 13,000 or 14,000 Future Farmers of America. I looked outside this morning and the weather is super. I have met some grand people here today, and I ate breakfast I didn't have to make myself. [Laughter]

Let me just summarize by saying everything is up-to-date in Kansas City.

Volume 10—Number 42

Your Eminence, Mr. Silver, Judge McGivern,

distinguished guests and friends,

* * * * *

I am, for several reasons, deeply honored to
address this gathering. First, because of the many
distinguished men who have spoken from this podium
in years past. Second, because I know and admire the
humanitarian work which this dinner helps support.
And most important, because we pay tribute tonight
to a man who represented the best of America and embodied human
qualities which are an inspiration to us still.

Al Smith's America was an optimistic country --
a land that never doubted its ability to solve the
problems before it, regardless of magnitude. We were a
people confident in the worth of our moral values and

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the decency of our purposes. We were a nation that felt safe from the rest of the world's quarrels even while we believed that our ideals were relevant to all mankind.

Al Smith epitomized the irrepressible spirit of his time and his country. He never flinched from a battle, but he never let the battle consume him. He was without pretense, rancor or despair. His compassion and his dreams sustained him, because he knew that all great achievements begin as ideals.

Our America, regrettably perhaps, has lost some of that innocence. We have learned that we are not ominipotent; now we face the true test of maturity: Having learned our limits, are we prepared to Marshall our strengths? Or will we, shrink in frustration from our new challenges? It is a crucial question, for the world

needs our optimism, our faith and our creativity as never
before.

Cardinal Cooke, in his gracious letter of invitation,
asked that I share with you my "vision of a better and
more peaceful world".

It is not an easy task. For what is peace?

Through most of our history Americans thought of peace
as a static condition -- a world living in the absence of
war unless evil men intruded their darker designs.

Secure behind two oceans, we left to others the day-to-day
decisions that, over time, spelled war or peace, security
or fear for less favored nations. We were spared the
agony of reconciling the ideal with the practical, of
making do with limited means and contingent ends.

But two world wars and an era of involvement and

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conflict should now have taught us that peace is a process,
not a condition. We have learned that moral values
are often expressed in steadfastness of purpose even
while necessity imposes compromise. We now know that
we are on a journey that has no terminal point, whose
engine is reality and whose beacon is a better life for
future generations. And we have come to realize that if
we are ever to have true peace there can be no end
to our own exertions.

-- Curs is a pluralistic world. It must find peace
in conciliation rather than the domination of any group or
country. This is the kind of world we have always seen
as reflecting our national interests as well as our highest
hopes.

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-- Curs is a world in which the needs of ordinary people cry out for economic and social progress, for self-respect, dignity and justice. These were objectives to which Americans responded even in the most isolationist of times. They are our objectives still. Food aid and public health, development assistance, scientific and technical cooperation are fields in which international efforts have been sustained by our contribution. They now become not an exercise in charity, but the cement of global community.

-- It is, above all, a world of turmoil and change, a world much in need of a self-confident America that understands that without its leadership there can be no stability, no permanent improvement in the human condition, and no lasting peace. The irony of our time

is that the simple faith of Al Smith's provincial America
is precisely what the world desperately needs today.

In the past few years we have achieved important
goals. We have ended our involvement in a divisive
war; we have resolved the perennial postwar crisis
over Berlin; we have begun hopeful efforts to achieve
peace in the Middle East; we have bridged two decades of
hostility with the world's most populous nation; we have
taken major steps to diminish the danger of thermonuclear
war and to build a more durable political relationship
with our most powerful adversary; we have sought a
more mature and equal partnership with our allies
to give impetus to a new relationship among the free peoples.

We have emerged from and perhaps put behind us,
a postwar structure of rigid East-West military and
ideological confrontation.

But now -- indeed partly because of our success--
we experience the birthpangs of a new order. We face
a new dimension of challenges, more pervasive and
complex, with perils at once more subtle and profound.

A new world is emerging, a world whose security, well-being
and moral fulfillment demands interdependence; - a world
whose peoples are interlinked by technology and global
communications, by the common danger of nuclear war
and by the world-wide thrusts of human needs; --
a world in which traditional structures and tenets of
diplomacy are being overwhelmed. At the midway point
between the end of the Second World War and the end of
this century, we find ourselves also midway between

the nation-state from which we began and the global
community which we must fashion if we are ever to live
in peace.

In short, we face a new and fundamental crisis
of the international system:

-- Inflation is a global phenomenon infecting all
societies and clearly beyond the power of any national
government to control alone.

-- The threat of global famine and mass starvation
are an affront to our values and an intolerable threat
to our hopes for a better world.

-- The abrupt rise of energy costs, and the
ensuing threats of monetary crisis and economic stagnation,
threaten to undermine the economic system that nourished
our well-being for thirty years.

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All these problems are dealt with in a clearly inadequate framework. National solutions continue to be pursued when, manifestly, their very futility is the crisis we face.

Inflation eats away the well-being of nations on the verge of development and of whole classes at the margin of society. Economic stagnation, or recession, will feed the frustration of groups whose expectations for a share in the prosperity they see around them are suddenly and cruelly rebuffed. Starvation will shatter the hopes of developing nations for progress and a positive international role. Thus the economic crisis threatens to magnify the discontent and ungovernability of all societies and the harmony of international relations.

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Only cooperative international solutions are equal to the challenge. With respect to energy, consumers must be prepared to share and conserve and provide mutual financial assistance; consumers and producers together must shape a mutually beneficial long-term relationship; there must be a determined and lasting commitment in each country to the conservation and discipline President Ford proposed to the nation a week ago.

The threat of mass starvation, in particular, requires a major commitment. Cardinal Cooke's eloquent appeals for assistance to the drought-ridden Sahel, which he has just visited, deserves our strong support. And at next month's World Food Conference in Rome the United States plans to launch a new long-term international program of action. To do less would

violate moral imperatives as well as practical necessities.

Nor is the current crisis purely economic. After nearly 30 years without general war, the world has become dangerously tolerant of accelerating nuclear proliferation and the purposeless expansion of strategic nuclear arsenals. Festering political conflicts -- whether in the Middle East or Cyprus or Indochina -- ultimately could pose the same threat to general peace as did the more dramatic great-power crises of a decade ago. Such conflicts, if not urgently resolved, may yet tempt tests of strength between outside powers, with dangers far transcending the interests of those directly involved.

Thus the requirements of peace and progress demand of

all nations a new and unprecedented sense of responsibility to the
international system.

The issues confronting America today are not, in
their deepest sense issues of economics, technology, or
diplomacy. They are a challenge to our preconceptions, a test of
our foresight, our will, and our strength of purpose. Dogmas
left over from the 19th Century -- of national autonomy or economic
determinism -- do not even address, let alone resolve, the
international issues of the last quarter of the 20th Century. Nor
do the newly fashionable theories of the special wisdom of this or
that bloc of nations. The fact is that all nations -- East and West,
aligned and non-aligned -- are part of one global system and

dependent on it for their peace, their well-being and the achievement
of their own national objectives. If that system fails through accident
or design, no nation or bloc is spared the penalty.

We thus face basic questions: Can democratic societies
summon the will and understanding to make sacrifices whose
necessity will never be self-evident until it is too late, in the wake
of catastrophe caused by lack of foresight? Can the bureaucratic
state provide vision and creativity when lulled into complacency
by the apparent efficiency of routine? Can independent nations
act in concert to avert a global tide which will otherwise surely
engulf the very autonomy they seek to preserve?

Such questions are too often considered pessimistic.

On the contrary, I consider them the prerequisite of hope. If they reflect reality, their recognition is the platform of action.

We have the ability, if we have the will, to master those issues we are prepared to face. The greatest pessimism is to assume that our nation is incapable of dealing with its challenges.

Your Eminence, ladies and gentlemen, a great responsibility rests upon us here in America. For many years our country has carried a disproportionate share of the burden of maintaining the peace, of feeding the hungry and giving hope to the world's dispossessed. It has been a heavy burden -- which we did not seek and which we have often been tempted to put down. But we have not done so, nor can we afford to do so now, for it is the

generations who follow us who could pay the price for our abdication.

For more than a decade we have been torn by war and then
by constitutional crisis. We have been enervated by our exertions,
and perhaps even more by self-doubt. But now the war is over and the
crisis resolved. It is time we made peace with ourselves.

The bitterness that has characterized the national debate
for most of a decade no longer has reason or place. Governments,
by their very nature, must make difficult choices and judgments
when facts are not clear, when trends are uncertain. This is
difficult in the best of circumstances. It may grow dangerously
eratic in a pervasive climate of distrust and conflict. Debate
in a democratic society should find its ultimate limit in a
general recognition that we are all engaged in a common

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enterprise. Let us never forget that at home a society thrives not on its internal victories but on its reconciliations.

A year ago, your speaker ended with these words:

"My own great hope is that all of us may do honor to the memory of Alfred E. Smith by loving this country as deeply as he did, and by serving her as faithfully." That speaker was Gerald Ford. These phrases are especially meaningful to someone for whom America was a haven and not something to be taken for granted.

This country is summoned once again to leadership, to helping the world find its way from a time of fear into a new era of hope. With our old idealism and our new maturity, let us disprove the impression that men and nations are losing control

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over their destinies. Americans do still believe that problems
are soluble if we but try. We do still believe it is right to
seek to undo what is wrong with the world. And we do still
seek the excitement of new frontiers rather than shrinking from
their uncertainty.

So we return to our starting point. Our "vision of a
better and more peaceful world" begins with a vision of ourselves.
Let us remember the jaunty little man from the sidewalks of New York
who was not for nothing called The Happy Warrior. In him America
proved that man achieves nobility not by his beginnings but by his ends.

**********

This Copy For

NEWS CONFERENCE

#52

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH JACK HUSHEN

AT 4:45 P.M. EDT

OCTOBER 17, 1974

THURSDAY

MR. HUSHEN: President Ford and the Pakistani Minister of State for Defense and Foreign Affairs Aziz Ahmed met in the Oval Office for 50 minutes, starting at about 3:40 this afternoon. You have a list of the others attending that meeting.

They discussed international and regional matters of mutual interest in line with our long-standing and close friendship with Pakistan. President Ford welcomed this opportunity to review the whole range of our bilateral relations. He assured Mr. Ahmed of continuing interest by the United States in Pakistan's economic development and well being, and our continuing support for Pakistan's independence and territorial integrity.

As you probably know, the Foreign Minister has been in the United States in connection with the U. N. General Assembly meetings in New York.

That is it.

Q Did he extend an invitation for the President to visit Pakistan?

MR. HUSHEN: There is nothing I can give you on that.

Q Did they talk about resumed arms aid?

MR. HUSHEN: Well, they discussed a whole broad range of things, but I can't give you specific subjects.

Q Jack, is the President getting his contact lenses this afternoon?

MR. HUSHEN: Is he getting them this afternoon.

MORE

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think this inspirational group here tonight can be what all of us hope for and seek for, a group of 5,500 people who have got the courage and the wisdom, the vision, the imagination to meet the challenges, the challenges that are important to the preservation of those things that we think so dear, that have been given to us by the sacrifices of so many before us.

And let me conclude, if I might, by reminding Demo-
crats, Independents, and Republicans, and the like, No-
ember 5 is just a few days away. It is closer than you
think. And Congressional elections for the Senate and for
the House are really what it is all about in 1974.

I think you have to sit back and take a close look at
the stewardship of people who are candidates for re-elec-
tion and candidates who seek election. I have no doubt
that you can support the people who have served you
on our side of the aisle, because they are first-class. I have
no doubt that as you reflect in your home or in that vot-
ing booth, that you can support a person like Dick Lugar.
If I were a Hoosier, believe me, I could support him with
vigor and vehemence and with a good, clear conscience.

There is nothing in America really like the sanctity of
the voting booth. That is where you have an opportu-
nity to reflect on what is best for America. And as I talk
to Dick, and as I have worked with our candidates and
our incumbents from Indiana, my reflection in that voting
booth would give me a clear message: They are the kind
of people that will lick inflation. They are the kind of
people that will give America the leadership in trying to
preserve the peace. They are the kind of people that will
fight for and preserve the two-party system. They are
the kind of people that you will be proud of on the basis
of personal integrity and Government service dedication.
And they are the kind of people that will be a part of
this great bipartisan effort that we have to have if we
are going to solve our problems, either at home or abroad.

Yes, your support for them—not just for you individ-
ually, not just because of what they can do for your Con-
gressional district or your city or your State, but more
importantly, what they can do for what is good for
America and what is good for people around the world.

They will be a part of a strong and responsive Congress.
And as one commentator put it on television last week,
and let me quote, "I am looking for a Congress that will
praise the Lord and pass the legislation."

Thank you very, very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. at the Indiana Convention-
Exposition Center, Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to the dinner, the
President attended a reception at the center for a group of
Republicans.

Pardon for Former President Nixon

Statement by the President Delivered Before the
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Committee on
the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Together
With the President's Responses to Questions From
Subcommittee Members. October 17, 1974

We meet here today to review the facts and circum-
stances that were the basis for my pardon of former Presi-
dent Nixon on September 8, 1974.

I want very much to have those facts and circum-
stances known. The American people want to know them.
And Members of the Congress want to know them. The
two Congressional resolutions of inquiry now before this
committee serve those purposes. That is why I have volun-
teered to appear before you this morning, and I welcome
and thank you for this opportunity to speak to the ques-
tions raised by the resolutions.

My appearance at this hearing of your distinguished
subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary
has been looked upon as an unusual historic event—one
that has no firm precedent in the whole history of Presi-
dential relations with the Congress. Yet, I am here not to
make history, but to report on history.

The history you are interested in covers so recent a
period that it is still not well understood. If, with your
assistance, I can make for better understanding of the
pardon of our former President, then we can help to
achieve the purpose I had for granting the pardon when
I did.

That purpose was to change our national focus. I
wanted to do all I could to shift our attentions from the
pursuit of a fallen President to the pursuit of the urgent
needs of a rising nation. Our Nation is under the severest
of challenges now to employ its full energies and efforts
in the pursuit of a sound and growing economy at home
and a stable and peaceful world around us.

We would needlessly be diverted from meeting those
challenges if we as a people were to remain sharply divided
over whether to indict, bring to trial, and punish a former
President, who already is condemned to suffer long and
deeply in the shame and disgrace brought upon the office
he held. Surely, we are not a revengeful people. We have
often demonstrated a readiness to feel compassion and to
act out of mercy. As a people, we have a long record of
forgiving even those who have been our country's most
destructive foes.

Yet, to forgive is not to forget the lessons of evil in
whatever ways evil has operated against us. And certainly
the pardon granted the former President will not cause
us to forget the evils of Watergate-type offenses or to for-
get the lessons we have learned that a government which
deceives its supporters and treats its opponents as enemies
must never, never be tolerated.

Volume 10—Number 42

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The pardon power entrusted to the President under the Constitution of the United States has a long history and rests on precedents going back centuries before our Constitution was drafted and adopted. The power has been used sometimes as Alexander Hamilton saw its purpose: "In seasons of insurrection ... when a well-timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth; and which, if suffered to pass unimproved, it may never be possible afterwards to recall."¹ Other times it has been applied to one person as "an act of grace ... which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed."² When a pardon is granted, it also represents "the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by inflicting less than what the judgment fixed."³ However, the Constitution does not limit the pardon power to cases of convicted offenders or even indicted offenders.⁴ Thus, I am firm in my conviction that as President I did have the authority to proclaim a pardon for the former President when I did.

Yet, I can also understand why people are moved to question my action. Some may still question my authority, but I find much of the disagreement turns on whether I should have acted when I did. Even then many people have concluded as I did that the pardon was in the best interests of the country because it came at a time when it would best serve the purpose I have stated.

I come to this hearing in a spirit of cooperation to respond to your inquiries. I do so with the understanding that the subjects to be covered are defined and limited by the questions as they appear in the resolutions before you. But even then we may not mutually agree on what information falls within the proper scope of inquiry by the Congress.

I feel a responsibility as you do that each separate branch of our government must preserve a degree of confidentiality for its internal communications. Congress, for its part, has seen the wisdom of assuring that members be permitted to work under conditions of confidentiality. Indeed, earlier this year the United States Senate passed a resolution which reads in part as follows:

"... no evidence under the control and in the possession of the Senate of the United States can, by the mandate of process of the ordinary courts of justice, be taken from such control or possession, but by its permission." (S. Res. 338, passed June 12, 1974)

In *United States v. Nixon*, 42 U.S.L.W. 5237, 5244 (U.S. July 24, 1974), the Supreme Court unanimously recognized a rightful sphere of confidentiality within the

executive branch, which the Court determined could only be invaded for overruling reasons of the fifth and sixth amendments to the Constitution.

As I have stated before, my own view is that the right of executive privilege is to be exercised with caution and restraint. When I was a Member of Congress, I did not hesitate to question the right of the executive branch to claim a privilege against supplying information to the Congress if I thought the claim of privilege was being abused. Yet, I did then, and I do now, respect the right of executive privilege when it protects advice given to a President in the expectation that it will not be disclosed. Otherwise, no President could any longer count on receiving free and frank views from people designated to help him reach his official decisions.

Also, it is certainly not my intention or even within my authority to detract from this occasion or in any other instance from the generally recognized rights of the President to preserve the confidentiality of internal discussions or communications whenever it is properly within his constitutional responsibility to do so. These rights are within the authority of any President while he is in office, and I believe may be exercised as well by a past President if the information sought pertains to his official functions when he was serving in office.

I bring up these important points before going into the balance of my statement, so there can be no doubt that I remain mindful of the rights of confidentiality which a President may and ought to exercise in appropriate situations. However, I do not regard my answers as I have prepared them for purposes of this inquiry to be prejudicial to those rights in the present circumstances or to constitute a precedent for responding to Congressional inquiries different in nature or scope or under different circumstances.

Accordingly, I shall proceed to explain as fully as I can in my present answers the facts and circumstances covered by the present resolutions of inquiry. I shall start with an explanation of these events which were the first to occur in the period covered by the inquiry, before I became President. Then I will respond to the separate questions as they are numbered in H. Res. 1367 and as they specifically relate to the period after I became President.

H. Res. 1367* before this Subcommittee asks for information about certain conversations that may have occurred over a period that includes when I was a Member of Congress or the Vice President. In that entire period, no references or discussions on a possible pardon for then President Nixon occurred until August 1 and 2, 1974.

You will recall that since the beginning of the Watergate investigations, I had consistently made statements

*Tab A attached.

¹ *The Federalist* No. 74, at 79 (Central Law Journal ed. 1914) (A. Hamilton).

² Marshall, C. J., in *United States v. Wilson*, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 150, 160 (1833).

³ *Biddle v. Perovich*, 247 U.S. 480, 486 (1927).

⁴ *Ex Parte Garland*, 4 Wall. 333, 380 (1867); *Burdick v. United States*, 236 U.S. 79 (1915).

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and speeches about President Nixon's innocence of either
planning the break-in or of participating in the coverup.
I sincerely believed he was innocent.

Even in the closing months before the President re-
signed, I made public statements that in my opinion the
adverse revelations so far did not constitute an impeach-
able offense. I was coming under increasing criticism for
such public statements, but I still believed them to be true
based on the facts as I knew them.

In the early morning of Thursday, August 1, 1974, I
had a meeting in my Vice Presidential office, with Alexan-
der M. Haig, Jr., chief of staff for President Nixon. At this
meeting, I was told in a general way about fears arising
because of additional tape evidence scheduled for delivery
to Judge Sirica on Monday, August 5, 1974. I was told
that there could be evidence which, when disclosed to the
House of Representatives, would likely tip the vote in
favor of impeachment. However, I was given no indica-
tion that this development would lead to any change in
President Nixon's plans to oppose the impeachment vote.

Then shortly after noon, General Haig requested an-
other appointment as promptly as possible. He came to
my office about 3:30 p.m. for a meeting that was to last
for approximately three-quarters of an hour. Only then
did I learn of the damaging nature of a conversation on
June 23, 1972, in one of the tapes which was due to go to
Judge Sirica the following Monday.

I describe this meeting because at one point it did in-
clude references to a possible pardon for Mr. Nixon, to
which the third and fourth questions in H. Res. 1367 are
directed. However, nearly the entire meeting covered
other subjects, all dealing with the totally new situation
resulting from the critical evidence on the tape of June 23,
1972. General Haig told me he had been told of the new
and damaging evidence by lawyers on the White House
Staff who had first-hand knowledge of what was on the
tape. The substance of his conversation was that the new
disclosure would be devastating, even catastrophic, inso-
far as President Nixon was concerned. Based on what he
had learned of the conversation on the tape, he wanted to
know whether I was prepared to assume the Presidency
within a very short time and whether I would be willing
to make recommendations to the President as to what
course he should now follow.

I cannot really express adequately in words how
shocked and stunned I was by this unbelievable revela-
tion. First, was the sudden awareness I was likely to be-
come President under these most troubled circumstances;
and secondly, the realization these new disclosures ran
completely counter to the position I had taken for months,
in that I believed the President was not guilty of any im-
peachable offense.

General Haig in his conversation at my office went on
to tell me of discussions in the White House among those
who knew of this new evidence.

General Haig asked for my assessment of the whole
situation. He wanted my thoughts about the timing of a

resignation, if that decision were to be made, and about
how to do it and accomplish an orderly change of Ad-
ministration. We discussed what scheduling problems
there might be and what the early organizational prob-
lems would be.

General Haig outlined for me President Nixon's situa-
tion as he saw it and the different views in the White
House as to the courses of action that might be available,
and which were being advanced by various people around
him on the White House Staff. As I recall there were
different major courses being considered:

(1) Some suggested "riding it out" by letting the im-
peachment take its course through the House and the
Senate trial, fighting all the way against conviction.

(2) Others were urging resignation sooner or later. I
was told some people backed the first course and other
people a resignation but not with the same views as to how
and when it should take place.

On the resignation issue, there were put forth a number
of options which General Haig reviewed with me. As I
recall his conversation, various possible options being con-
sidered included:

(1) The President temporarily step aside under the
25th Amendment.

(2) Delaying resignation until further along the im-
peachment process.

(3) Trying first to settle for a censure vote as a means
of avoiding either impeachment or a need to resign.

(4) The question of whether the President could par-
don himself.

(5) Pardoning various Watergate defendants, then
himself, followed by resignation.

(6) A pardon to the President, should he resign.

The rush of events placed an urgency on what was to
be done. It became even more critical in view of a pro-
longed impeachment trial which was expected to last
possibly 4 months or longer.

The impact of the Senate trial on the country, the
handling of possible international crises, the economic
situation here at home, and the marked slowdown in the
decisionmaking process within the Federal Government
were all factors to be considered and were discussed.

General Haig wanted my views on the various courses
of action as well as my attitude on the options of resigna-
tion. However, he indicated he was not advocating any of
the options. I inquired as to what was the President's
pardon power, and he answered that it was his under-
standing from a White House lawyer that a President
did have the authority to grant a pardon even before any
criminal action had been taken against an individual, but,
obviously, he was in no position to have any opinion on a
matter of law.

As I saw it, at this point the question clearly before
me was, under the circumstances, what course of action
should I recommend that would be in the best interest
of the country.

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[LC]

I told General Haig I had to have time to think; further, that I wanted to talk to James St. Clair. I also said I wanted to talk to my wife before giving any response. I had consistently and firmly held the view previously that in no way whatsoever could I recommend either publicly or privately any step by the President that might cause a change in my status as Vice President. As the person who would become President if a vacancy occurred for any reason in that office, a Vice President, I believed, should endeavor not to do or say anything which might affect his President's tenure in office. Therefore, I certainly was not ready even under these new circumstances to make any recommendations about resignation without having adequate time to consider further what I should properly do.

Shortly after 8:00 o'clock the next morning James St. Clair came to my office. Although he did not spell out in detail the new evidence, there was no question in my mind that he considered these revelations to be so damaging that impeachment in the House was a certainty and conviction in the Senate a high probability. When I asked Mr. St. Clair if he knew of any other new and damaging evidence besides that on the June 23, 1972, tape, he said "no." When I pointed out to him the various options mentioned to me by General Haig, he told me he had not been the source of any opinion about Presidential pardon power.

After further thought on the matter, I was determined not to make any recommendations to President Nixon on his resignation. I had not given any advice or recommendations in my conversations with his aides, but I also did not want anyone who might talk to the President to suggest that I had some intention to do so.

For that reason I decided I should call General Haig the afternoon of August 2. I did make the call late that afternoon and told him I wanted him to understand that I had no intention of recommending what President Nixon should do about resigning or not resigning, and that nothing we had talked about the previous afternoon should be given any consideration in whatever decision the President might make. General Haig told me he was in full agreement with this position.

My travel schedule called for me to make appearances in Mississippi and Louisiana over Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday, August 3, 4, and 5. In the previous 8 months, I had repeatedly stated my opinion that the President would not be found guilty of an impeachable offense. Any change from my stated views, or even refusal to comment further, I feared, would lead in the press to conclusions that I now wanted to see the President resign to avoid an impeachment vote in the House and probable conviction vote in the Senate. For that reason I remained firm in my answers to press questions during my trip and repeated my belief in the President's innocence of an impeachable offense. Not until I returned to Washington did I learn that President Nixon was to release the new evidence late on Monday, August 5, 1974.

At about the same time I was notified that the President had called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday morning, August 6, 1974. At that meeting in the Cabinet Room, I announced that I was making no recommendations to the President as to what he should do in the light of the new evidence. And I made no recommendations to him either at the meeting or at any time after that.

In summary, I assure you that there never was at any time any agreement whatsoever concerning a pardon to Mr. Nixon if he were to resign and I were to become President.

The first question of H. Res. 1367 asks whether I or my representative had "specific knowledge of any formal criminal charges pending against Richard M. Nixon." The answer is: "no."

I had known, of course, that the grand jury investigating the Watergate break-in and coverup had wanted to name President Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator in the coverup. Also, I knew that an extensive report had been prepared by the Watergate Special Prosecution Force for the grand jury and had been sent to the House Committee on the Judiciary, where, I believe, it served the staff and members of the Committee in the development of its report on the proposed articles of impeachment. Beyond what was disclosed in the publications of the Judiciary Committee on the subject and additional evidence released by President Nixon on August 5, 1974, I saw on or shortly after September 4 a copy of a memorandum prepared for Special Prosecutor Jaworski by the Deputy Special Prosecutor, Henry Ruth.* Copy of this memorandum had been furnished by Mr. Jaworski to my Counsel and was later made public during a press briefing at the White House on September 10, 1974.

I have supplied the Subcommittee with a copy of this memorandum. The memorandum lists matters still under investigation which "may prove to have some direct connection to activities in which Mr. Nixon is personally involved." The Watergate coverup is not included in this list, and the alleged coverup is mentioned only as being the subject of a separate memorandum not furnished to me. Of those matters which are listed in the memorandum, it is stated that none of them "at the moment rises to the level of our ability to prove even a probable criminal violation by Mr. Nixon."

This is all the information I had which related even to the possibility of "formal criminal charges" involving the former President while he had been in office.

The second question in the resolution asks whether Alexander Haig referred to or discussed a pardon with

*Tab B attached.

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Richard M. Nixon or his representatives at any time during the week of August 4, 1974, or any subsequent time. My answer to that question is: not to my knowledge. If any such discussions did occur, they could not have been a factor in my decision to grant the pardon when I did because I was not aware of them.

Questions three and four of H. Res. 1367 deal with the first and all subsequent references to, or discussions of, a pardon for Richard M. Nixon, with him or any of his representatives or aides. I have already described at length what discussions took place on August 1 and 2, 1974, and how these discussions brought no recommendations or commitments whatsoever on my part. These were the only discussions related to questions three and four before I became President, but question four relates also to subsequent discussions.

At no time after I became President on August 9, 1974, was the subject of a pardon for Richard M. Nixon raised by the former President or by anyone representing him. Also, no one on my staff brought up the subject until the day before my first press conference on August 28, 1974. At that time, I was advised that questions on the subject might be raised by media reporters at the press conference.

As the press conference proceeded, the first question asked involved the subject, as did other later questions. In my answers to these questions, I took a position that, while I was the final authority on this matter, I expected to make no commitment one way or the other depending on what the Special Prosecutor and courts would do. However, I also stated that I believed the general view of the American people was to spare the former President from a criminal trial.

Shortly afterwards I became greatly concerned that if Mr. Nixon's prosecution and trial were prolonged, the passions generated over a long period of time would seriously disrupt the healing of our country from the wounds of the past. I could see that the new Administration could not be effective if it had to operate in the atmosphere of having a former President under prosecution and criminal trial. Each step along the way, I was deeply concerned, would become a public spectacle and the topic of wide public debate and controversy.

As I have before stated publicly, these concerns led me to ask from my own legal counsel what my full right of pardon was under the Constitution in this situation and from the Special Prosecutor what criminal actions, if any, were likely to be brought against the former President, and how long his prosecution and trial would take.

As soon as I had been given this information, I authorized my Counsel, Philip Buchen, to tell Herbert J. Miller, as attorney for Richard M. Nixon, of my pending decision to grant a pardon for the former President. I was advised that the disclosure was made on September 4, 1974, when Mr. Buchen, accompanied by Benton Becker, met with

Mr. Miller. Mr. Becker had been asked, with my concurrence, to take on a temporary special assignment to assist Mr. Buchen, at a time when no one else of my selection had yet been appointed to the legal staff of the White House.

The fourth question in the resolution also asks about "negotiations" with Mr. Nixon or his representatives on the subject of a pardon for the former President. The pardon under consideration was not, so far as I was concerned, a matter of negotiation. I realized that unless Mr. Nixon actually accepted the pardon I was preparing to grant, it probably would not be effective. So I certainly had no intention to proceed without knowing if it would be accepted. Otherwise, I put no conditions on my granting of a pardon which required any negotiations.

Although negotiations had been started earlier and were conducted through September 6 concerning White House records of the prior administration, I did not make any agreement on that subject a condition of the pardon. The circumstances leading to an initial agreement on Presidential records are not covered by the resolutions before this Subcommittee. Therefore, I have mentioned discussions on that subject with Mr. Nixon's attorney only to show they were related in time to the pardon discussions but were not a basis for my decision to grant a pardon to the former President.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh questions of H. Res. 1367 ask whether I consulted with certain persons before making my pardon decision.

I did not consult at all with Attorney General Saxbe on the subject of a pardon for Mr. Nixon. My only conversation on the subject with Vice Presidential nominee Nelson Rockefeller was to report to him on September 6, 1974, that I was planning to grant the pardon.

Special Prosecutor Jaworski was contacted on my instructions by my Counsel, Philip Buchen. One purpose of their discussions was to seek the information I wanted on what possible criminal charges might be brought against Mr. Nixon. The result of that inquiry was a copy of the memorandum I have already referred to and have furnished to this subcommittee. The only other purpose was to find out the opinion of the Special Prosecutor as to how long a delay would follow, in the event of Mr. Nixon's indictment, before a trial could be started and concluded.

At a White House press briefing on September 8, 1974, the principal portions of Mr. Jaworski's opinion were made public. In this opinion, Mr. Jaworski wrote that selection of a jury for the trial of the former President, if he were indicted, would require a delay "of a period from nine months to a year, and perhaps even longer." On the question of how long it would take to conduct such a trial, he noted that the complexities of the jury

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selection made it difficult to estimate the time. Copy of the full text of his opinion dated September 4, 1974, I have now furnished to this subcommittee.*

I did consult with my Counsel, Philip Buchen, with Benton Becker, and with my Counsellor, John Marsh, who is also an attorney. Outside of these men, serving at the time on my immediate staff, I consulted with no other attorneys or professors of law for facts or legal authorities bearing on my decision to grant a pardon to the former President.

Questions eight and nine of H. Res. 1367 deal with the circumstances of any statement requested or received from Mr. Nixon. I asked for no confession or statement of guilt, only a statement in acceptance of the pardon when it was granted. No language was suggested or requested by anyone acting for me to my knowledge. My Counsel advised me that he had told the attorney for Mr. Nixon that he believed the statement should be one expressing contrition, and in this respect, I was told Mr. Miller concurred. Before I announced the pardon, I saw a preliminary draft of a proposed statement from Mr. Nixon, but I did not regard the language of the statement, as subsequently issued, to be subject to approval by me or my representatives.

The tenth question covers any report to me on Mr. Nixon's health by a physician or psychiatrist, which led to my pardon decision. I received no such report. Whatever information was generally known to me at the time of my pardon decision was based on my own observations of his condition at the time he resigned as President and observations reported to me after that from others who had later seen or talked with him. No such reports were by people qualified to evaluate medically the condition of Mr. Nixon's health, and so they were not a controlling factor in my decision. However, I believed and still do, that prosecution and trial of the former President would have proved a serious threat to his health, as I stated in my message on September 8, 1974.

H. Res. 1370* is the other resolution of inquiry before this subcommittee. It presents no questions but asks for the full and complete facts upon which was based my decision to grant a pardon to Richard M. Nixon.

I know of no such facts that are not covered by my answers to the questions in H. Res. 1367. Also:

Subparagraphs (1) and (4): There were no representations made by me or for me and none by Mr. Nixon or for him on which my pardon decision was based.

Subparagraph (2): The health issue is dealt with by me in answer to question 10 of the previous resolution.

*Tab C attached.

*Tab D attached.

Subparagraph (1): Information available to me about possible offenses in which Mr. Nixon might have been involved is covered in my answer to the first question of the earlier resolution.

In addition, in an unnumbered paragraph at the end, H. Res. 1370 seeks information on possible pardons for Watergate-related offenses which others may have committed. I have decided that all persons requesting consideration of pardon requests should submit them through the Department of Justice.

Only when I receive information on any request duly filed and considered first by the Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice would I consider the matter. As yet no such information has been received, and if it does I will act or decline to act according to the particular circumstances presented, and not on the basis of the unique circumstances, as I saw them, of former President Nixon.

By these responses to the resolutions of inquiry, I believe I have fully and fairly presented the facts and circumstances preceding my pardon of former President Nixon. In this way, I hope I have contributed to a much better understanding by the American people of the action I took to grant the pardon when I did. For having afforded me this opportunity, I do express my appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, and to Mr. Smith, the Ranking Minority Member, and to all the other distinguished Members of this subcommittee; also to Chairman Rodino of the Committee on the Judiciary, to Mr. Hutchinson, the Ranking Minority Member of the full committee, and to other distinguished Members of the full committee who are present.

In closing, I would like to reemphasize that I acted solely for the reasons I stated in my proclamation of September 8, 1974, and my accompanying message and that I acted out of my concern to serve the best interests of my country. As I stated then: "My concern is the immediate future of this great country . . . My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquility, but to use every means that I have to insure it."

## TAB A

H. RES. 1367

93d Congress

2d Session

## IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEPTEMBER 16, 1974

Ms. ABZUG (for herself, Mr. BADILLO, Mr. JOHN L. BURTON, Mr. DELLUMS, Mr. EILBERG, Mr. HECHLER of West Virginia, Mr. HELSTOSKI, Ms. HOLTZMAN, Mr. KOCH, Mr. ROSENTHAL, Mr. STARK, Mr. STOKES, Mr. SYMINGTON, and Mr. CHARLES H. WILSON of California) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

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## RESOLUTION

*Resolved, That the President of the United States is hereby requested to furnish the House, within ten days, with the following information:*

1. Did you or your representatives have specific knowledge of any formal criminal charges pending against Richard M. Nixon prior to issuance of the pardon? If so, what were these charges?

2. Did Alexander Haig refer to or discuss a pardon for Richard M. Nixon with Richard M. Nixon or representatives of Mr. Nixon at any time during the week of August 4, 1974, or at any subsequent time? If so, what promises were made or conditions set for a pardon, if any? If so, were tapes or transcriptions of any kind made of these conversations or were any notes taken? If so, please provide such tapes, transcriptions or notes.

3. When was a pardon for Richard M. Nixon first referred to or discussed with Richard M. Nixon, or representatives of Mr. Nixon, by you or your representatives or aides, including the period when you were a Member of Congress or Vice President?

4. Who participated in these and subsequent discussions or negotiations with Richard M. Nixon or his representatives regarding a pardon, and at what specific times and locations?

5. Did you consult with Attorney General William Saxbe or Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski before making the decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon and, if so, what facts and legal authorities did they give to you?

6. Did you consult with the Vice Presidential nominee, Nelson Rockefeller, before making the decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon and, if so, what facts and legal authorities did he give to you?

7. Did you consult with any other attorneys or professors of law before making the decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon and, if so, what facts or legal authorities did they give to you?

8. Did you or your representatives ask Richard M. Nixon to make a confession or statement of criminal guilt, and, if so, what language was suggested or requested by you, your representatives, Mr. Nixon, or his representatives? Was any statement of any kind requested from Mr. Nixon in exchange for the pardon, and, if so, please provide the suggested or requested language.

9. Was the statement issued by Richard M. Nixon immediately subsequent to announcement of the pardon made known to you or your representatives prior to its announcement, and was it approved by you or your representatives?

10. Did you receive any report from a psychiatrist or other physician stating that Richard M. Nixon was in other than good health? If so, please provide such reports.

## TAB B

Memorandum to: Leon Jaworski

From: Henry Ruth

Subject: Mr. Nixon

The following matters are still under investigation in this Office and may prove to have some direct connection to activities in which Mr. Nixon is personally involved:

1. Tax deductions relating to the gift of pre-Presidential papers.

2. The Colson obstruction of justice plea in the Ellsberg matter.

3. The transfer of the national security wire tap records from the FBI to the White House.

4. The initiating of wire tapping of John Sears.

5. Misuse of IRS information.

6. Misuse of IRS through attempted initiation of audits as to "enemies."

7. The dairy industry pledge and its relationship to the price support change.

8. Filing of a challenge to the Washington Post ownership of two Florida television stations.

9. False and evasive testimony at the Kleindienst confirmation hearings as to White House participation in Department of Justice decisions about ITT.

10. The handling of campaign contributions by Mr. Rebozo for the personal benefit of Mr. Nixon.

None of these matters at the moment rises to the level of our ability to prove even a probable criminal violation by Mr. Nixon, but I thought you ought to know which of the pending investiga-

tions were even remotely connected to Mr. Nixon. Of course, the Watergate cover-up is the subject of a separate memorandum.

cc: Mr. Lacovara

## TAB C

September 4, 1974

Dear Mr. Buchen:

You have inquired as to my opinion regarding the length of delay that would follow, in the event of an indictment of former President Richard M. Nixon, before a trial could reasonably be had by a fair and impartial jury as guaranteed by the Constitution.

The factual situation regarding a trial of Richard M. Nixon within constitutional bounds, is unprecedented. It is especially unique in view of the recent House Judiciary Committee inquiry on impeachment, resulting in a unanimous adverse finding to Richard M. Nixon on the Article involving obstruction of justice. The massive publicity given the hearings and the findings that ensued, the reversal of judgment of a number of the members of the Republican Party following release of the June 23 tape recording, and their statements carried nationwide, and finally, the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, require a delay, before selection of a jury is begun, of a period from nine months to a year, and perhaps even longer. This judgment is predicated on a review of the decisions of United States Courts involving prejudicial pre-trial publicity. The Government's decision to pursue impeachment proceedings and the tremendous volume of television, radio and newspaper coverage given thereto, are factors emphasized by the Courts in weighing the time a trial can be had. The complexities involved in the process of selecting a jury and the time it will take to complete the process, I find difficult to estimate at this time.

The situation involving Richard M. Nixon is readily distinguishable from the facts involved in the case of *United States v. Mitchell, et al*, set for trial on September 30th. The defendants in the Mitchell case were indicted by a grand jury operating in secret session. They will be called to trial, unlike Richard M. Nixon, if indicted, without any previous adverse finding by an investigatory body holding public hearings on its conclusions. It is precisely the condemnation of Richard M. Nixon already made in the impeachment process, that would make it unfair to the defendants in the case of *United States v. Mitchell, et al*, for Richard M. Nixon now to be joined as a co-conspirator, should it be concluded that an indictment of him was proper.

The *United States v. Mitchell, et al*, trial will within itself generate new publicity, some undoubtedly prejudicial to Richard M. Nixon. I bear this in mind when I estimate the earliest time of trial of Richard M. Nixon under his constitutional guarantees, in the event of indictment, to be as indicated above.

If further information is desired, please advise me.

Sincerely,

LEON JAWORSKI
Special Prosecutor

[Philip W. Buchen, Esq., Counsel to the President, The White House, Washington, D.C.]

## TAB D

H. RES. 1370

93d Congress

2d Session

### IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEPTEMBER 17, 1974

Mr. CONYERS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

## RESOLUTION

*Resolved, That the President is directed to furnish to the House of Representatives the full and complete information and facts upon

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which was based the decision to grant a pardon to Richard M. Nixon, including—

(1) any representations made by or on behalf of Richard M. Nixon to the President;

(2) any information or facts presented to the President with respect to the mental or physical health of Richard M. Nixon;

(3) any information in possession or control of the President with respect to the offenses which were allegedly committed by Richard M. Nixon and for which a pardon was granted;

(4) any representations made by or on behalf of the President to Richard M. Nixon in connection with a pardon for alleged offenses against the United States.

The President is further directed to furnish to the House of Representatives the full and complete information and facts in his possession or control and relating to any pardon which may be granted to any person who is or may be charged or convicted of any offense against the United States within the prosecutorial jurisdiction of the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force.

*[The President read the statement at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary which began at 10 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing was broadcast live on radio and television. Following his opening statement, the President responded to questions from subcommittee members, as follows:]*

**THE PRESIDENT.** Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the committee members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to make these views known.

**CONGRESSMAN WILLIAM L. HUNGATE.** Mr. President, on behalf of the subcommittee, we express our appreciation for your appearance here bringing facts that will be helpful to the American people and the Congress.

There will be some who will find the answers fully satisfactory and forthright. There will be others who will not. But I would hope that all would appreciate your openness and willingness to come before the American public and the Congress to discuss this important matter.

The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Kastenmeier.

**CONGRESSMAN ROBERT W. KASTENMEIER.** Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, would like to join my colleagues in welcoming the President. I don't believe any of us could have anticipated a year ago, when the President then appeared as a nominee under the 25th amendment for Vice President, that you would once again appear before this committee as President of the United States.

I would only comment, no matter how well motivated the desire to put Watergate behind us, I can only acknowledge today that several key issues in the news this morning—the President's appearance before this committee, the trial downtown, the Watergate trial itself, and even the nomination of Mr. Rockefeller to be the Vice President, occasioned by a vacancy due to Watergate—all of these still command the attention of the American people, and I guess we will just have to be patient.

Mr. President, you indicated that you wanted to spare Mr. Nixon a criminal trial. Did you specifically have any other end in view in terms of protecting Mr. Nixon in terms of a pardon; that is to say, whatever a pardon would spare the President other than a criminal trial, were there any other adversities which a pardon would help Mr. Nixon with, as you saw it?

**THE PRESIDENT.** As I indicated in the proclamation that I issued, and as I indicated in the statement I made at the time on September 8, my prime reason was for the benefit of the country, not for any benefits that might be for Mr. Nixon.

I exercised my pardon authority under the Constitution, which relates only to those criminal matters during the period from January 20, 1969, until August 9, 1974.

**CONGRESSMAN KASTENMEIER.** I appreciate that, Mr. President, but it must have been something you foresaw which could happen to Mr. Nixon which justified a pardon, if in fact you were advised, and perhaps you were not, that there was no proceeding going to be commenced against Mr. Nixon, that nothing would happen to him, really a pardon may have been an empty gesture in that event?

**THE PRESIDENT.** As I indicated, Mr. Kastenmeier, after the press conference on August 28 where three questions were raised about the pardon or the possibility of a pardon, I asked my Counsel to find out from the Special Prosecutor what, if any, charges were being considered by the Special Prosecutor's office.

As I indicated in my prepared statement, I received from Mr. Jaworski certain information indicating that there were possible or potential criminal proceedings against Mr. Nixon.

**CONGRESSMAN KASTENMEIER.** But you did not determine, as a matter of fact, that there was any intention to proceed to indictment with any of those matters, is that not correct?

**THE PRESIDENT.** In the memorandum, I believe of September 4, from Mr. Jaworski, prepared by Mr. Ruth, there were 10 possibilities listed. On the other hand, there was, I think, well-known information that there was a distinct possibility of Mr. Nixon being indicted on the grounds of obstructing justice.

**CONGRESSMAN KASTENMEIER.** The effect of the pardon in terms of the 10 possible areas of investigation as you saw it at the time was to terminate those investigations, as well as end any possibility of indictment on those grounds.

**THE PRESIDENT.** Well, the power of pardon does cover any criminal actions during a stipulated period, and as the pardon itself indicated, it went from the day that Mr. Nixon first took the oath of office until he actually resigned on August 9.

**CONGRESSMAN KASTENMEIER.** My question is, did you have reason to believe that other than the 10 areas of investigation and the coverup, that the former President might need to be protected in any other area where possibility of criminal prosecution existed?

**THE PRESIDENT.** I knew of no other potential or possible criminal charges, no.

**CONGRESSMAN KASTENMEIER.** My time has expired, Mr. Chairman.

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CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Smith.

CONGRESSMAN HENRY P. SMITH 3D. Mr. President, in regard to your answer on page 18 [p. 1305 of this issue] of your statement of whether you consulted with certain persons and in that connection and in connection with question number six of H.R. 1367, you stated in regard to the Vice Presidential nominee, Nelson Rockefeller, that your only conversation on the subject with him was to report to him on September 6, 1974, that "I was planning to grant the pardon."

Now, the question asks whether he gave you any facts or legal authorities and my question is, did he do so?

THE PRESIDENT. Nelson Rockefeller did not give me any facts or legal authorities. He was in my office to discuss with me the proceedings concerning his nomination, and at the conclusion of a discussion on that matter, I felt that I should inform him of the possible or prospective action that I would be taking, but he gave me no facts, he gave me no legal advice concerning the pardon.

CONGRESSMAN SMITH. Mr. President, as you were minority leader of the Congress before you became Vice President of the United States, did you at any time discuss the wisdom or advisability of a possible Presidential pardon for President Nixon with President Nixon or any of his representatives or any member of the White House Staff?

This was in the period before you became Vice President.

THE PRESIDENT. The answer is categorically no. Before I became Vice President, Mr. Smith, I, on several occasions—I can't recall how many—indicated to President Nixon himself that I thought he should not resign.

If my memory is accurate, Mr. Smith, before I became Vice President, there were individuals both in the Congress and otherwise who were advocating that Mr. Nixon resign.

I do recall on one or more occasions telling Mr. Nixon in my judgment he should not, because I thought that would be an admission of guilt, and on the information I had at that time, I did not believe Mr. Nixon was guilty of any impeachable offense.

CONGRESSMAN SMITH. Thank you, Mr. President. You touched upon your observations of President Nixon's health, and I wonder whether at any time before you became Vice President of the United States did you learn any facts about his physical or mental health which later became relevant to your decision to pardon Mr. Nixon?

THE PRESIDENT. Before I was Vice President I saw Mr. Nixon periodically, coming to the White House for leadership meetings or for other reasons, and during that period, I had the distinct impression that his health was good.

I didn't see any discernible change, in my own opinion, until the last day or two of his Presidency. I did notice the last time I saw him in the Oval Office on August 9—

I thought he was drawn and possibly a little thinner, but that is the only observation I made.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The gentleman from California, Mr. Edwards.

CONGRESSMAN DON EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. President, on pages 10 and 11 [pp. 1303-1304 of this issue] of your statement, you indicate that there were some general discussions with General Haig and Mr. St. Clair, before the resignation, about the pardon power in general.

Did they have any reason to carry a message to then President Nixon that this pardon power could possibly be used on his behalf if he resigned?

THE PRESIDENT. None whatsoever. Categorically no.

CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. Then why, Mr. President, those general discussions about pardon?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, as I indicated in my prepared statement, General Haig came to me first to apprise me of the dramatic change in the situation, and as I indicated in the prepared statement, told me that I should be prepared to assume the Presidency very quickly, and wanted to know whether I was ready to do that.

Secondly, he did indicate that in the White House among the President's advisers there were many options being discussed as to what course of action the President should take, and in the course of my discussion on August 1 with General Haig, he outlined, as I did in the prepared text, the many options that were being discussed.

He asked for any recommendations I would make and as I indicated in the prepared text, I made none.

CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. Thank you.

Mr. President, Mr. Buchen said several times, and I believe you mentioned, that the pardon did involve a certain aspect of mercy. Would not the same considerations of mercy apply to the Watergate defendants downtown who now are putting forth as their chief defense their allegation that they were merely acting under orders of Mr. Nixon, then President and their boss?

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Edwards, in light of the fact that these trials are being carried out at the present time, I think it is inadvisable for me to comment on any of the proceedings in those trials.

CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. Mr. President, put yourself in the position of the high school teacher, shall we say, in Watts or the barrios of San Jose or Harlem, and if you were such a teacher, how would you explain to the young people of America the American concept of equal justice under law?

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Edwards, Mr. Nixon was the 37th President of the United States. He had been preceded by 36 others. He is the only President in the history of this country who has resigned under shame and disgrace.

I think that that in and of itself can be understood, can be explained to students or to others. That was a major, major step, and a matter of, I am sure, grave, grave deliberations by the former President, and it certainly, as I have said several times, constituted shame and disgrace.

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CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. That you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, do you think that it is wise to pardon a man before indictment or trial for offenses that are completely unknown to you and which might possibly be terribly serious?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, as I indicated, Mr. Edwards, I did to the best of my ability check with probably the best authority in the country on what, if any, charges would be made against Mr. Nixon. Those were, or potentially were, serious charges.

I think that in taking the action I did concerning those charges, I was exercising in a proper way the pardon authority given a President under the Constitution.

CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. President.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Dennis.

CONGRESSMAN DAVID W. DENNIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. President, I would like to state that I, too, share with my colleagues, deep appreciation for your appearance here before our subcommittee this morning.

Mr. President, on page 7 [p. 1303 of this issue] of your statement where you were talking about your second interview with General Haig in the afternoon of August 1, you state that, "I describe this meeting because at one point it did include references to a possible pardon for Mr. Nixon."

I take it that you have spelled out what those references were over on page 9 [p. 1303 of this issue], where the options are spelled out and page 10 [p. 1303 of this issue] where you state that you inquired as to what was the President's pardon power.

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, it is spelled out in the item instances 1 through 6, the various options involving a pardon.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. And does that include everything that was said at that time on the subject of pardon, substantially?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, sir.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. Mr. President, I note that on page 10 [p. 1303 of this issue] you state that you asked the General as to what the President's pardon power was, and he very properly replied that he had certain information but couldn't give legal opinion.

When, where, and from whom did you ultimately obtain the opinion that you were entitled under the doctrine of Ex Parte Garland and so on, to issue a pardon when there has been no charge or no conviction?

THE PRESIDENT. When I came back to the Oval Office, Mr. Dennis, following the press conference on August 28, where three questions were raised by the news media involving a pardon, I instructed my counsel, Mr. Buchen, to check in an authoritative way what pardon power a President had. And he, several days later—I don't recall precisely—came back and briefed me on my pardon power as President of the United States.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. Mr. President, the exercise of executive clemency is, of course, a well-recognized part of the legal system in this country, exercised by you and all your predecessors, is that not the fact?

THE PRESIDENT. That is correct, sir.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. And you have given this committee, as I understand your testimony this morning, your complete statement as to your reasons for exercising that power in this particular case?

THE PRESIDENT. I have, sir.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. And in answer to my friend, Mr. Edwards, you have stated the fact that you felt that for an ex-President of the United States to resign under these circumstances was sufficient, strong punishment, and that that should answer the problems of those who have raised the question of equal justice under law?

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. And that you would consider other possible pardons on the facts of those particular cases when and if they were presented to you?

THE PRESIDENT. That is correct.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. And that there was no condition attached to this pardon and no sort of agreement made in respect thereto before it was granted?

THE PRESIDENT. None whatsoever, sir.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. Thank you, Mr. President. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mann.

CONGRESSMAN JAMES R. MANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. President, Mr. Kastenmeier asked you about the termination of the investigation by the Special Prosecutor's office. Was it your intention, by the pardon, to terminate the investigation by the Special Prosecutor's office in the 10 areas that you received the report from that office upon?

THE PRESIDENT. I think the net result of the pardon was, in effect, just that; yes, sir.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. And is that part of the reason that you didn't consult with Mr. Jaworski with reference to the tape agreements as to how that might affect his further investigations?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, as I pointed out, the tape agreement was initiated between my legal counsel and Mr. Nixon sometime before the question of a pardon ever arose.

The reason for that, Mr. Mann, is that I came into office and almost immediately there were demands and requests, not only from the Special Prosecutor, as I recall, but from other sources as to those tapes and other documents. And one of the first things I did when these problems came to my desk was to ask the Attorney General for his opinion as to the ownership of those tapes or any other documents.

And once we got that information, then we felt that there ought to be some discussion as to where the tapes

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and other documents would be held and under what circumstances.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. Of course, the mandate of the Special Prosecutor's Office was not directed solely at President Nixon.

But is it not so that the pardon in effect terminated that investigation insofar as other parties, other possible defendants, in getting to the true facts of the matters that have disturbed our national political life during these past 2 years?

THE PRESIDENT. I do not believe that the action I took in pardoning President Nixon had any impact on any other mandate that that Special Prosecutor's office had.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. What response would you have if the Special Prosecutor's Office now requested access to certain of the tapes now in the custody of the Government?

THE PRESIDENT. The material that is still held by the Government, in my understanding of the Supreme Court decision, permits the Special Prosecutor to obtain any of that material for its responsibility, and I, of course not in a personal way, would make certain that that information was made available to the Special Prosecutor's office.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. According to press reports, Mr. Clement Stone visited Mr. Nixon on September 2 and thereafter met with you in Washington. Are you at liberty to tell us the gist of the communication involving President Nixon from Mr. Stone to you?

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Stone came to see me about a program that he has used very successfully in his business, a program which he is very proud of, and he was urging me to institute it in the various bureaus and departments of the Federal Government.

There was no other message conveyed by him from Mr. Nixon to me.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. Did you ever discuss the pardon with former President Nixon after his resignation and prior to the granting of the pardon?

THE PRESIDENT. Will you repeat that again, please?

CONGRESSMAN MANN. Did you have any personal conversation with former President Nixon concerning the pardon, between his resignation and September 8?

THE PRESIDENT. Absolutely not.

CONGRESSMAN MANN. Now, in response to Mr. Edwards' question about equal justice under the law, I know that you make a distinction that here we are talking about the office of President of the United States.

But let's assume that we are talking about the president of a bank or Governor of a State or Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and in our minds those are very high political offices. Do you think any of those persons who are allegedly criminally culpable through resignation should be entitled to any treatment different from any other citizen?

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Mann, I don't think I should answer a hypothetical question of that kind. I was dealing with reality, and I have given, in my best judgment, the

reasons for the action that I took. And to pass judgment on any other person or individual holding any other office in public or private, I think it would be inappropriate for me.

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS. You have heard the maxim that the law is no respector of persons. Do you agree with that?

THE PRESIDENT. Certainly it should be.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Mayne.

CONGRESSMAN WILEY MAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. President, I believe that the Chairman and others in their questioning have established very clearly that your appearance here today is an entirely voluntary one on your part, that it was your idea, that you had not been requested by the committee to come in person, that we had indicated that it would be entirely satisfactory as far as we were concerned if some assistant appeared instead.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. I do not think, however, that it has yet been made clear in the record, and I think this should be, that it is also true that you were willing to come and to tell this full story, as you have done, before the committee and on television before the American people, much earlier than today. Is that not true?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. I think the original schedule was set for about a week ago. I have forgotten the exact date.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. My recollection, and you can correct me if I am wrong, is that as early as September 30, you offered and volunteered to appear before the subcommittee at our next regular meeting, which would have been on October 1, but it was indicated to you that that would be too early for the committee to be able to accommodate such an appearance.

THE PRESIDENT. I don't recall that detail, but when I indicated that I would voluntarily appear, a member of my staff met with, I think, Chairman Hungate, and between them they tried to work out what was an acceptable, agreeable time as to when I should appear.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. There was, of course, the concern which developed in the subcommittee as to whether there would be any possible jeopardy to the impaneling of the jury in the Watergate cases, but I think this timetable should be established, and I would ask the Chairman if that is not his recollection, that originally, the President did say that he would be glad to appear on October 1.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. Not being under oath, the Chair is glad to reply. The gentleman's recollection is the same as mine.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just think the point should be made that there has been no stalling at all or delay on the part of the President in

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making this appearance, but he was not only willing to make the statement but to do it much earlier.

CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS. If the gentleman would yield briefly—that is precisely the fact, and it was consideration on behalf of many of us concerning the proper effect on any trials that held us till this day.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. Now, Mr. President, I think there was perhaps one part of Mr. Kastenmeier's questioning of you that was left unanswered, and I am going to try to go into that again.

Did you, by granting this pardon, have any intention of stopping the investigations of any other defendants or potential defendants?

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. Mr. President, ever since I first heard of the Watergate break-in, I have felt that this was a matter which should be fully investigated and prosecuted, and that anyone found to be criminally involved should be punished as provided by the law, and I have repeatedly stated I thought our American system of justice, as administered in the courts, was fully capable of handling the situation if permitted to proceed without interference.

I have been apprehensive that the activities of some of the legislative committees and the large amount of publicity attending upon those activities might make it impossible for our court system to function as it should, and I have also been fearful that the executive branch would intervene to limit or handicap the normal functioning of the courts.

Now, Mr. President, I must say to you I am deeply concerned that both the legislative and executive branches have indeed interfered with our courts making it extremely difficult for the traditional American system of justice to proceed in the regular manner in this case, and I was very disturbed by the granting of this pardon, particularly at such an early stage, even though, certainly, there is no question that under the law, you had the right to act as you did.

Now, I realize that hindsight is always better than foresight, but I am wondering if after all that has happened and with further opportunity for reflection, if you do not now feel that you perhaps acted too hastily in this case.

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Mayne, I have thought about that a great deal because there has been criticism of the timing. But as I reviewed my thoughts prior to the granting of the pardon, I had to look at this factual situation: If I granted the pardon when I did, it would, as quickly as possible, achieve the results that I wanted, which was to permit our Government, both the Congress and the President, to proceed to the solution of the problems.

Now, some people say in their criticism—and I understand it and I am not critical of the points they raise—I should have waited until Mr. Nixon was indicted, in-

ferring that I should have then pardoned him, if I was going to do so. Well, other people say that I should have waited until he was convicted, if he was convicted, and at that time, I should have pardoned him.

Others have indicated that I should have waited for a conviction and a jail sentence, if that were the result. Now, all of that process, whether it is the indictment, the possible conviction, a conviction plus a jail sentence, would have taken, as I have tried to explain, at least a year and probably much longer.

And during that whole period of time, Mr. Mayne, all of the things that I wanted to avoid, namely the opportunity for our Government, the President and the Congress, and others, to get to the problems we have, would have been, I think, deeply upset and roadblocked.

So, I am convinced, after reflection, as I was previously, that the timing of the pardon was done at the right time.

CONGRESSMAN MAYNE. Thank you, Mr. President.

CONGRESSMAN HUNGATE. The Representative from New York, Ms. Holtzman.

CONGRESSWOMAN ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Ford, I too, wish to applaud your historical appearance here today. At the same time, however, I wish to express my dismay that the format of this hearing will not be able to provide to the American public the full truth and all of the facts respecting your assurance of a pardon to Richard Nixon.

Unfortunately, each member of this committee will have only 5 minutes in which to ask questions about this most serious matter, and unfortunately, despite my urging, the committee declined to provide sufficient time for each committee member to ask the questions that were appropriate.

The committee declined to prepare fully for your coming by calling other witnesses, such as Alexander Haig, Mr. Buchen, Mr. Becker, and has failed to insist also on full production of documents by you respecting the issuance of this pardon.

I must confess my own lack of easiness at participating in a proceeding that has raised such high expectations and unfortunately, will not be able to respond to them.

I would like to point out, Mr. President, that the resolutions of inquiry which have prompted your appearance here today have resulted from very dark suspicions that have been created in the public's mind.

Perhaps these suspicions are totally unfounded, and I sincerely hope that they are. But nonetheless, we must all confront the reality of these suspicions and the suspicions that were created by the circumstances of the pardon which you issued, the secrecy with which it was issued, and the reasons for which it was issued which made people question whether or not, in fact, it was a deal.

THE PRESIDENT. May I comment there? I want to assure you, the members of this subcommittee, the Mem-

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