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This file includes comments on Richard Schweiker.
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1511503
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Reagan, Ronald - Interview, 1/4/78
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1511503
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Reagan, Ronald - Interview, 1/4/78
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This file includes comments on Richard Schweiker.
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collections
A. James Reichley Interview Transcripts
Politician Interviews
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Presidential campaign, 1976
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Welfare
International relations
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1976-12-31
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1976
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1969-01-01
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1969
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The original documents are located in Box 3, folder "Reagan, Ronald - Interview, 1/4/78"
of the A. James Reichley Interview Transcripts at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. A. James Reichley donated to the
United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives
collections. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in
the public domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are
presumed to remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject
to a valid copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Interview with Governor Ronald Reagen, Jan. 4, 1978.
&
FORD
REFRATOR
GERALD
Governor Reagon showed me around his home in X Pacific Pallisades which
LIBRARY
was built during the time he was working for General Electric. The house
with which
as he explained, is completely electrified, he showed me a dial in wish/ he can
can turn on lights all over the house when as he says, he thinks he may hear
a prowler.
I asked Reagen if he felt that the Nixon and Ford administrations had
Cusvrn
been conservative administrations said that this was hard to pin down when
one considers the fact that they were always up against an opposition Democratic
Congress. He said that only once in thelast 25 years had the Republicans
controlled both the presidency and congress. He pointed out that in that
two year period the beginning the the Eisenhower administration, there had
been no inflation. Since then the dollar has been losing value on a regular
basis. Reagon said *** that in 1972 he thought the people had for the first
time become aware of the directionof the Democratic party and it was this that
produced the landslide for President Nixon. Nixon had been the beneficiary,
he said, of the change in the Democratic leadership. Prior to 1972, Reagen said,
Dems,
the Democrats had not been particular campaigning onthe basis of what they
intended to do in the way of social reform and federal funding of education
which inevitable requires control of education. The Democrats, Reagen said,
pretended that they would never use federal grants in aid to pressure or
threaten other levels of government, when in fact the very existence of
such grants represent a threat to local and state governments. While he was
Governor, Reagen said, he was often faced with threats of cutoffs of federal
aidx this was the reason the Republicans had turned to the principle of
ver.
shr,
revenue sharing, Reagon said. The threats of cutoffs of aid had been
particularly applied tx in the area of highway building. While he was governor,
indicated
the federal government X that the state would have to require motor cyclists to
reduced
n/s,
wear crash helmets or federal aid would be for highway building.
mid
Reagen said that his personal view is that anyone who does not wear an helmet
- 2 -
for
when riding a motorcycle is nuts, this is a matter XI personal preference
FORD in LIBRARY GERALD
as far as he is concernedy and The refused to modify the state legislation
in the way that the federal government was attempting to force him to do.
Reagen said that onsome occasions he had found it necessary to oppose proposals
made by the Republican administration in Exdax Washington, the notable
example of this being President Nixon's Family Assitance Plan. He said that
Welts
it was his feeling that if Nixon had understood what was in the plan. he himself
would have opposed it. The Family Assistance Plan, Reagen said, would have
added millions to the welfare roles, The said *** that he had personal reason
the
to know that Nixon ultimately "sheathed had become disillusioned with m/plan himself, and
had, Reagon said, sheafed his blade. "
In the area of foreign policy, Reagen said, he had in general supported
the Republican administrations thought that there was a planx program
furn,
poloy.
going ahead which unfortunately the present administration has abandoned. The
Carter administation, Reagen says, has chart no course inthe area of
foreing policy. Reagen said that in 1972 he ted went as a personal emissary
of President Nixon to several European countries, and that in each of these
countries the leaders of the countries si said to him the same thing "Do
the people recognize that President Nixon has a workable plan for peace that
i
is the best hope for peace that the world has! He said a little
after that he went toSinapore and was told by the leader of the Singapore
government, that That the Nixon policy is the only thing that is holding a
stable Southeast Asia together." Everywhere he went during the latter part
of the Nixon administration in Europe and Asia, Reagen said, he was aked asked
by government leaders, "How can the American people allow Watergate to get
in the way of the carrying out of President's NixonS foreign policy. In the
Middle East. too the current initiatives that are being made by President Sadat
are the result of the diplomacy that was begun x duing the Republican administra-
tions. Under the Republicans, the Soviet influence was removed from the
- 3 -
is
FUND
Middle East and now as a result of Carter's policies the Soviets are back in
GERALD
LIBRARY
the Middle East. Reagon said that no one had prayed harder than he had that
President Ford would be successful as President, but finally there were some things
Fve
that Ford proposed that he could not go along withy and Also, he was concerned
whether Ford would be able to win the election if he were the Republican candidate
in 1976. His differences with Ford were not differences of basic philosophy, he
said, but more differences of method. Ford, he pointed out, had run up the two
biggest deficits in American history de said that Ford wanted to fight inflation,
(curring)
but he was not prepared to carry on the fight of to the point of
back
spending to the extent that Reagon feels is necessary. Such cuts, Reagon says,
are long overduex and I he were to become President, he would make them.
Reag on said he had really no philosophic difference with Fordy he Telt that the
had been allied with him many x times but he felt that Ford had become so much
( the Washinz ron "buddy S3s rem'n
a part of the Washington establishment that he was unable to break with that
in the way that was needed to make the drastic changes that are
necessary in American policy.
Reagon pointed out that all the polls show that the American public basically
agrees with the conservative position onmost major issues. Reagon referred to
a study done at Georgetown University which showed that in 1972, the rank and file
Chsr,
Democrats were more in agreement with the delegates to the Republican convention
than they were with the delegates to the Democratic convention on a wide range of
issues. I pointed out to Reagen that the same study had shown that the Wallace
delegates to the Democratic convention had not be well disposed to own Republicans,
been
including Reag en, and asked if this showed that it was not correct to include the
Wallace following and the Reagen following as a single conservative block.
Reagon agreed that 6x this was truex the said that in his view Wallace an independent
Wk,
Wallace candidacy in 1972 would have taken more away from the Democrats than from
the Republicans. He said there is a lot of populism inthe Wallace movement which
would be different from the kind following that he has. I asked if there were some
4
Reagen's
3
populist feeling in wis/own attacks on bigness Reagon said in sense x he thought thereford
was but he thought the Democratic kind of populism was going down the wrong path.
LIBRARY GERALD
He said that on the otherhand Democratic liberalism was creating a distortion in
the balance between
levels of government, which has led to an erosion
of individual freedom. The Democratic kind of populism, Reagen said, favors
redistribution of wealth, redistributing the earnings of the middle-class to those
who are less productive. I pointed out that Reagon in his opening statement in his
campaign for the presidency in 1975 had included big business among the groups that
he had attacked. Reagen said that R he would not want to make blanket indictment
of all big business that Some of them are working **p to preserve The free enterprise
(systemi)
(BUP)
Big
many elements withinbig business have decided to line up with the government.
Bsns,
Reagon says that he uses the analogy that it is like feeding the crocodile, X and They
hope that they weitt will be fed to the crocodile last. Large corporations have
their own bureaucracy, and these tend to develop sympathetic relationships with
the government bureaucracy.
Reagen said that he thought the platform that was adopted by the Republican
convention in 1976 provided a good proga banner under which the Republican party
'n'
should now go forward he pointed out that both the Ford delegates and the Reagen
plrfum.
delegates had agreed to this platform. He conceded that some conservatives had
(specific
wanted to put somewhat different shadings into the platform to be more definite
on some statesments on foreign policy, more specific on some statements on foreign
policy, but he said that he thought that the platform as it was written was a very
acceptable document. He pointed that it even took ( the position XÍ in favor of
protecting Taiwan.
(Schweiker)
Reagon said that his selection of Richard Swiker as a his running mate in
1976 was aimed more at winning the election in November than at getting the nomination
from the convention. Reagon said that he found in his exploration in meetings with
Republican leaders that inthe Northeast that they had no hope of winning in November
that
in their areas. And Le felt by brining someone on to the ticket who was from the
- 5 -
&
FORD
Northeast that he might be able to bring the Northeastern Republicans back into CEERALO
LIBRARY
Swiker Schweiker
the fight as he put it. Reagen said that he recognized that if keyhad brought
if Schweiker
Drew Lewis into consultation earlier onthe selection of/Swiker had brought
Lewis into consultation earlier that it might have been helpful but he said tat that
**** the Pennsylvania delegation was really sewed up when they visited the
White House about 2 weeks before the Republican convention. Reagen returned to
the theme that President Ford had had great difficulty going against his old
F-d
friends in Congress that ne could not reverse the policies that they had put into
effect over a long period of years. He said that Republicans in general have a
difficult time dealing with the federal bureaucracy. Reagen said that if he were
breven,
President he would do the same as he had done in California, which was to show
the bureaucrats that he meant business. He said that during the eight years
he was governor of California, he had kept the level of state employment stable while
the population of California was rapidly growing. He said that he had made increases
where necessary for instance, the highway patrol had doubled in size, but at the
same time they had added a great deal of additional mileage to the state highway
system. Governor Jerry Brown, his successor, Reagen said as far as he could tell,
has no philosophy he's allowed the state government to deteriorate. The mental
health system that used to be regarded as a model for the nation and indeed for
the world is now in terrible shape.
Reagon says that he thinks the Republicans are going to gain in the 1978
elections because the problems are now clearly identified with the Democratic
president. He said it was difficult to make out the case that the Democrats
were responsible for national problems as W long as the Republicans held the
presidencyx but now that is no longer SQ he thinks the Republicans will make gains
commesurate with their following on issues in the population. He says that he has
noticed the young people are coming more and more to the Republicans he said that
he used to tell Nancy (Mrs. Reagon) after speaking on campuses that he thought
that many of the young Republicans were Republicans because they couldn't get into
- 6 -
is
FORD
anything else this is no longer the case, Reagon said. Reager said that
GERALD
LIBRARY
President Carter is now at a low ebb in populatrity, but he points out that
President Truman was also at a low ebb in at a comparable time in his term.
Reagon recalled campaigning with President Truman in 1948, he and George Jessel,
when Truman 1011 came toCalifornia. Both he and Jessel were amazed to find
that Truman had complete self-confidence that he would win the election.
Reagon said that Republicans do have a special problem in **** attracting
their best people to government because it is hard to get a man who is making
Rpbs,
a year
$90,000 to take a job for $35,000 a year. He said that has governnor he was
able to attract people who of two kinds from the business community. Some
"the
what he called premature retirees" who had left business for one reason or
another at a early fairly early age, and the other group were young executives
who would come usually for about two years. And the business men whom he
knew told him that if they came back to their companies broader and with more
experience. Off the record, REagon made the comment that Nixon a had had
NX.
Chur.
difficulty controlling his administration because he had filled his cabinet.
with political appointments such as the Governor of Massashusetts and
George Romney as a means of repaying politicians who had given him delegates
at the 1968 convention IS a X result, he did not have control over these
cabinet people. It became necessary for him to run the administration from
the White House, which inturn led to the centralization of power within the
administration.