Richard Nixon Quotes

Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women, undoubtedly... The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animallike charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch... To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me. [...] They turn me off. They are repulsive and it's just easy to be tough with them.

If he gets shot, it's too damn bad.

Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people. We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.

I think of what happened to Greece and Rome, and you see what is left—only the pillars. What has happened, of course, is that the great civilizations of the past, as they have become wealthy, as they have lost their will to live, to improve, they then have become subject to decadence that eventually destroys the civilization. The United States is now reaching that period.

Listen to Professor Peter Drucker analyze the problem of government today: "There is mounting evidence that government is big rather than strong; that it is fat and flabby rather than powerful; that it costs a great deal but does not achieve much .... Indeed, government is sick--and just at the time when we need a strong, healthy, and vigorous government." The problem has not been a lack of good intentions, and not merely a lack of money. Methods inherited from the thirties proved to be out of date in the sixties. Structures put together in the thirties broke down under the load of the sixties. Overcentralized, over-bureaucratized, the Federal Government became unresponsive as well as inefficient. In their struggle to keep up, States and localities found the going increasingly difficult. In the space of only 10 years, State and local expenditures rose by two and a half times---from $44 billion in 1958 to $108 billion in 1968. States alone have had to seek more than 200 tax increases in the past 8 years. You know--you as Governors--and I know, that simply piling tax on tax is not the long range solution to the problems we face together. We have to devise a new way to make our revenue system meet the needs of the seventies. We have to put the money where the problems are, and we have to get a dollar's worth of return for a dollar spent. Our new strategy for the seventies begins with the reform of government: overhauling its structure; pruning out those programs that have failed or that have outlived their time; ensuring that its delivery systems actually deliver the intended services to the intended beneficiaries; gearing its programs to the concept of social investment; focusing its activities not only on tomorrow, but on the day after tomorrow. This must be a cooperative venture among governments at all levels, because it centers on what I have called the "New Federalism"--in which power, funds, and authority are channeled increasingly to those governments that are closest to the people. The essence of the New Federalism is to help regain control of our national destiny by returning a greater share of control to State and local governments and to the people. This in turn requires constant attention to raising the quality of government at all levels.

I firmly am convinced of the fact that all of you are playing a great part in a cause that is much bigger than any of us. All of us have that privilege. And we in America can say that, and it cannot be said in all countries of the world. It can be said frankly in the free world, more in ours than in any other, not because we asked for that responsibility, but because it is ours. And as we play that great role, I want you to know that sometimes it appears that all that really matters is what a President says or what he does, or what the Ambassador says and what he does--and all of those things are important--or what the Secretary of State may declare in his various remarks or in the statements that he may send out around the world. But I can assure you that what the men at the top do does have an immense effect on the foreign policy of the United States and whether we have peace and freedom in the world, that the success of a policy depends upon thousands of people around, in an Embassy like this, an establishment like this, and millions around this world--3 million people, maybe 4 million, if you include military and the rest in the service of the United States.

Present subsidized housing programs are marked by inconsistencies and inequities. Many families pay the same rent despite wide differences in income. A small increase in earnings may force the family to move, losing much more housing assistance than is gained in income. We have proposed a solution to many of these problems in the Housing Act of 1970. Rents would vary directly with income. A family would not be forced to move at some arbitrary income limit. We will offer this provision of the Housing Act to the Senate Finance Committee for its consideration.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic.

I want to express appreciation to the Hearst Foundation for making possible what I think is one of the most exciting projects in our Government today. When I think of all of you from all over the country, from high schools, having the opportunity to come to Washington to be exposed to the great institutions of Government that are here, I think that no greater service could be rendered, not just to you--I mean it is a wonderful experience for you--but to the Nation, because you have the opportunity to go back home now and to tell the people there what government is like. And I hope many of you will be inspired to participate in government in one form or the other. I wouldn't be surprised if some of you will end up in the House or Senate or, who knows, you might be here sometime in the future.

Screw State! State's always on the side of the blacks. The hell with them!

When our astronauts returned safely to earth last Friday, the whole world rejoiced with us. We could have had no more eloquent demonstration of a profound truth--that the greatest force working for peace in the world today is the fact that men and women everywhere, regardless of differences in race, religion, nationality, or political philosophy, value the life of a human being. We were as one as we thought of those brave men, their wives, their children, their parents. The death of a single man in war, whether he is an American, a South Vietnamese, a Vietcong, or a North Vietnamese, is a human tragedy. That is why we want to end this war and achieve a just peace. We call upon our adversaries to join us in working at the conference table toward that goal. No Presidential statement on Vietnam would be complete without an expression of our concern for the fate of the American prisoners of war. The callous exploitation of the anxieties and anguish of the parents, the wives, the children of these brave men, as negotiating pawns, is an unforgivable breach of the elementary rules of conduct between civilized peoples. We shall continue to make every possible effort to get Hanoi to provide information on the whereabouts of all prisoners, to allow them to communicate with their families, to permit inspection of prisoners-of-war camps, and to provide for the early release of at least the sick and the wounded. My fellow Americans, 5 years ago American combat troops were first sent to Vietnam. The war since that time has been the longest and one of the most costly and difficult conflicts in our history.

Nixon: I'm not saying that blacks cannot govern. I'm saying that they had a helluva time. Now that must demonstrate something. Now, having said that, let's look at Latin America. Latin America has had 150 years of trying at it and they don't have much going down there, either. Mexico is a one-party government; Colombia, they trade it off every two years, Venezuela is tipty toe, and the rest are dictatorships, except for [President Salvador] Allende [of Chile], which is a communist dictatorship. Elected but communist.

Most Latin American exports now are raw materials and foodstuffs. We are attempting to help the other countries of the hemisphere to stabilize their earnings from these exports, to increase them as time goes on. Increasingly, however, those countries will have to turn more toward manufactured and semimanufactured products for balanced development and major export growth. Thus they need to be assured of access to the expanding markets of the industrialized world. In order to help achieve this, I have determined to take the following major steps: First, to lead a vigorous effort to reduce the nontariff barriers to trade maintained by nearly all industrialized countries against products of particular interest to Latin America and other developing countries. Second, to support increased technical and financial assistance to promote Latin American trade expansion. Third, to support the establishment, within the inter-American system, of regular procedures for advance consultation on trade matters. United States trade policies often have a very heavy impact on our neighbors. It seems only fair that in the more balanced relationship we seek, there should be full consultation within the hemisphere family before decisions affecting its members are taken, and not after. And finally, most important, in world trade forums, I believe it is time to press for a liberal system of generalized trade preferences for all developing countries, including Latin America. We will seek adoption by all of the industrialized nations of a scheme with broad product coverage and with no ceilings on preferential imports. We will seek equal access to industrial markets for all developing countries, so as to eliminate the discrimination against Latin America that now exists in many countries. We will also urge that such a system eliminates the inequitable "reverse preferences" that now discriminate against Western Hemisphere countries.

I speak somewhat with humility whenever I address a group of Governors. If you will permit a personal reference at the outset, as many of you are aware, I have run for many offices in my political career. Twenty-three years ago I ran for the House and 4 years later for the Senate, and then for Vice President and then for President, and then for Governor and then for President. The only office that I have sought and have never won is that of Governor, so, therefore, I respect the Governors who are here tonight. To show that respect, as a demonstration of it, we have in our administration not only the Vice President, who served as the Governor of Maryland, but three other members of the Cabinet, who hold their respective posts with great distinction. I suppose that one of the reasons this administration feels so strongly about the relationships between the Federal Government and the various States, the necessity to have a new relationship to which I will refer tonight, is that we have that strong representation, the strong voice of those who have served as Governors and who, therefore, know what the problems are.

I knew and you know that filling the post of Secretary of the Interior is not easy. It is not easy in any department, but perhaps in this one, as much as in any and in more than most, it is necessary to take positions at times that will not be agreed with by many very honest people who have reached a different conclusion because they start with different attitudes toward the problem. I could go down the list of issues in which people are divided as far as the Department of the Interior is concerned. I know, for example, going back to the time when I was a California Congressman and then a California Senator, how the States of California and Arizona had arguments about water. They are still having arguments about water. And how also with regard to the development of our resources, our oil resources, water resources, and others, that men and women very honestly taking a point of view were in sharp disagreement. Somebody had to make the decision. So when I picked the Secretary of the Interior, I knew that I would have to find a man, first, who had courage; second, who was an honest man; and, third, a man--and this was one of the things that attracted me to the new Secretary--who had a real love for the land in the deepest sense of the word.