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Press Conference of the Vice President, Rochester, New York
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Press Conference of the Vice President, Rochester, New York
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Digitized from Box 15 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 5, 1975
Office of the Vice President
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF THE
VICE PRESIDENT
Rochester, New York
(1:45 P.M. EDT)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I
want to tell you it is a real pleasure to be here and
to be here with your two distinguished Congressmen in
Rochester. I am just delighted. I am very happy to
participate in so many community activities, the ones
that are taking place today.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, we understand
an attempt was made on the life of President Ford in
Sacramento, California. You have heard about this
almost certainly. Can you respond in some way to what
happened out there?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It is a tragic situation
that people resort to an attempt of that kind.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, is it a good
idea for you to be out of town at the same time that the
President is out of Washington?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it is a big country
and we are both in the country.
QUESTION: Does that sort of thing worry you,
Mr. Vice President?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, sir.
QUESTION: Why not?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because that is a risk you
take. If you join one of the armed forces, you take that
risk. If you go into public life, you take it. There is
an awful lot of innocent citizens who are not involved in
anything who get into serious situations. This is one of
the tragedies of the time in which we live.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, when did you
first learn about it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just after lunch.
QUESTION: You received a call from the White
House, or from whom?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I get my information all
the time. I am in constant touch with Washington.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, what does this
tell you about the mood of this country?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Nothing.
MORE
PAGE 2
QUESTION: Did you talk to the President himself
after lunch?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, sir.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, Senator Frank
Church's Special Intelligence Committee has produced some
evaluations concerning possible CIA involvement in the
assassination plots against foreign leaders. Why didn't
your panel come up with the same information or at least
similar information while you were in charge of the
commission appointed by the President?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Of course, if you read our
report or if you followed our press conferences, we
examined this whole question of assassination, alleged
assassination attempts, stated we could not find enough
hard evidence to warrant the drawing of any conclusions,
and therefore we turned over all of our material to the
White House, and the White House turned it over to the
Church committee.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, when you went
South to talk to the Governors, you said you wanted to
go there to prove you didn't have horns. Do you feel you
were successful in doing that and do you feel now secure
that President Ford won't dump you as his running mate?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have to make some
corrections on the statement. I never made that state-
ment about the Governors. I have known the Governors
for a long time, and Lieutenant Governors, as I was one
for many years, as you may remember, myself.
That comment was made after some speculation
about the South, and I simply said that I would be down
there off and on and I thought they would find that by
looking that I didn't have horns.
I am not a candidate for any office. I have
said that for seven, eight months. I have said right
along, as you know, or maybe you don't -- I will
repeat it -- that the President in my opinion should not
make his decision as to who he wants as his running mate
until after he is nominated at the convention. That is
the American tradition for 200 years. At that time he
will make a decision. And by tradition the convention
usually supports the President.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, Governor Wallace
says you are beginning to talk like him. What is your
reaction?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it is a free
country.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, this is a New
York State question. As former Governor, you are
obviously well aware of the fiscal problems of the
State. What impact will there be in upstate New York
if New York City defaults, and do you think that the
Federal Government should get involved in bailing out
financially hard pressed cities?
MORE
PAGE 3
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That is a two-part question.
The first part is that a default by New York City would
have very serious implications in terms of the ability of
other municipalities to sell bonds. The repercussions
would be hard to estimate because this has never
happened in modern history and certainly not in the
largest city in our country. Therefore, it is a very
serious and very tragic situation.
She asked a two-part question. As far as the
relationship of the Federal Government to New York City,
the cities are creatures of the State, as you know. The
State creates the charter of the city, and so forth.
The States have the responsibility. There is a special
session of the Legislature at the present time to deal
with the situation.
I think that we all have to keep in mind that
through their financial procedures in New York City that
they have accumulated a floating debt of about
$3.5 billion through deficits, and that this is the
basis for their problem and that they have got not only
to balance their budget but they have got to have a
surplus to be able to pay that off.
Until the people of this country who buy
municipal bonds are confident that that is going to
happen and is happening, I think it is going to be very
difficult to restore the credit. In the meantime, the
States are considering an action to help.
The Federal Government and the President are
deeply concerned about the question. As you know, under
the present laws of the Federal Government, there is
nothing the President can do directly without the action
of the Congress. That is a question which is before
Congress.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, do you believe
that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace
situation could draw us into a conflict if war broke out
there in the Middle East once again, even though we only
have 200 technicians there?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. I think that the
involvement of the United States and the presence of
the Secretary of State has done nothing more than prevent
the war that might have involved the United States.
That was the big risk. The agreement that has been made
is a major step forward in achieving peace in the
Middle East.
The 200 technicians is a maximum limit that was
requested by both parties. The United States assistance
as an intermediary in the negotiation had been requested
by both parties, and this presence in relation to the
nations which will be observing each side is a peace
mission and not an identification with the war effort.
The whole thing in my opinion is one of the
most constructive steps that has been taken in a long,
MORE
PAGE 4
sad history of conflict in the Middle East.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, are you concerned
about getting tied up in a lot of civil suits such as the
recent subpoena to appear in court over that $1 million
suit as the result of the death of an Attica inmate?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: As you know, if you are in
public office, you are subject to suits constantly. I
have all the time I was Governor, and since. One is being
sued by one group or another, so that is just part of the
risk you take in taking public office.
QUESTION: Do you intend to honor the subpoena
and appear in court?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I will abide by my counsel's
advice.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, could you clarify
something you said in Warsaw a week ago.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It depends on what I said.
QUESTION: You would have gone in earlier in the
Attica riot situation. Would you have gone in with the
police officers armed? How would you have gone in
earlier?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Excuse me for correcting
the facts. What I said was, somebody asked, "In
retrospect, would you have done it differently?" I said
that in retrospect my opinion was that had the State
continued its action to retake the prison when the up-
rising occurred which was being undertaken by the State
police without arms, half the prison had already been
retaken when the commissioner, who was afraid of loss of
life, said that if he negotiated, he thought he could get
the release of the prisoners without any death. If he
had been successful, it would have been beautiful.
Unfortunately, he wasn't, and it was sad.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, considering the
fact we have an energy crisis of a sort in the United
States, it has just been announced Russia is now the
largest producer of oil, and is there any possibility
that the United States might try to start some dis-
cussions to buy oil for wheat from the Soviet Union?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think that the
President's objective which he presented to Congress in
the State of the Union message last year, and to me is
a sound program, is that we should as rapidly as
possible become self-sufficient in energy from a
national security point of view so that we cannot be
threatened with blackmail of the withholding of sources
of oil, that we could have our economy jeopardized, and
it could be just as serious as a military attack.
I think the faster we become self-sufficient,
that our whole emphasis should be on that rather than on
MORE
PAGE 5
trying to make special deals or additional purchases.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, as a former
Governor, do you think you bear any responsibility for
the financial crisis in New York City, and do you think
it will hurt your political image as you look towards the
nomination?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I tell you, if you
will read my message to the Legislature for the last seven
years that I was Governor, you will find that I was
talking about this problem of fiscal relations with the
various levels of government, and particularly with local
government, and made important recommendations which, had
they been followed, this situation would not have
occurred.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, if you were
Governor today, what would your solution be to the
problem of New York City?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am not Governor and it
is very difficult to project oneself into someone else's
position, particularly five months, six months after the
crisis has broken. Each day that goes by it is more
difficult to deal with. But, fundamentally, the most
important thing is the city balance its budget and then
develop a surplus so that they can start to pay that
floating debt.
QUESTION: You said this morning New York City
should cuts its expenditures.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That is right.
QUESTION: How can the city cuts its
expenditures and not cripple the operation of the city?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There are a great many
ways you can do it, but not necessarily by firing
policemen and firemen, which every time the city says
they have a problem, or used to say, and came to the
State for more, they said, "If we don't do it, we will
have to fire policemen and firemen."
The budget of the city is over $10 billion.
There are 35,000 or so policemen, so that is not the
answer. There are a great many other areas of
expenditure which can be dealt with.
QUESTION: Did you ever warn Mayor Wagner or
Mayor Lindsay they were spending too much in New York
and the State could not bail them out forever?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We didn't bail them out.
Our policy was to try and support and strengthen local
home rule. The government is closest to the people.
Sixty-two percent of the State's budget went back to
local governments to help them meet their responsibilities
and problems. But we believe in local home rule and not
intervention. Policies were followed which led to the
MORE
PAGE 6
situation we are in.
I think in all fairness to the City of New
York and to all cities and other levels of government,
inflation has added very importantly into that cost;
recession has resulted in a loss of jobs and, therefore,
a loss of income revenue; plus the fact that there has
been very major in-migration and out-migration in New
York City, a total shift of population; plus a major
loss of industries. So that they have got a great many
problems, and it is a matter of deep concern to the
President, to the Federal Government, to the Congress,
to the State, I am sure this present Governor, and the
Legislature, and to the entire American people what
has happened.
QUESTION: Mr. Rockefeller, what went through
your mind when you first learned of the assassination
attempt on President Ford?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: The President is
all right.
QUESTION: What went through your mind?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That is what went through
my mind. Thank God he was all right.
QUESTION: Sir, have you ever discussed this
kind of situation occurring with the President in
the --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Which kind of situation?
QUESTION: An attempt on either his life or
your life.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. That is something
you just take for granted in public life.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, I am here
representing the Rochester Labor News. I would like to
ask you a question in the area of labor, sir.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir.
QUESTION: The question is, when you were
Governor, you stimulated jobs and you created thousands
of positions in connection with the building of the
South Wall. Now you are part of an Administration that
the President has seen fit to veto bills creating jobs
in the area of housing, the area of public employment.
Do you ever counsel the President in connection with his
prospective vetoes of jobs, job opportunities for
working people?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I understand exactly what
you are saying. But what you haven't said is that the
Federal Government has a deficit now for this current
year well over $60 billion. Both the House and the
Senate of the United States have set up Budget Committees
MORE
PAGE 7
trying to control expenditures. Of course, the President
would like to sign these bills for health, for education,
for housing, just as has been going on along down the line.
But the President knows that the most insidious tax and
the most insidious force in destroying savings, in
destroying buying power of individuals, is inflation.
He has made the control of inflation the
number one objective of his Administration, and the
number two is employment; but employment for industry
through the growth of our economy rather than govern-
ment expenditures which add to the deficit and increase
the forces of inflation. That is the tragedy of the
situation.
He is doing it because he is trying to protect
the long-term vested interests of the people of this
country, recognizing you can't spend money you haven't
got. This is the tragedy of our present situation.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, if President
Ford gets his way with oil price decontrol, how do you
think the American people will react to gasoline prices
going even higher?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think that the American
people are a lot smarter than some think they are. I
think they recognize that the days of cheap fuel are gone,
that we no longer are self-sufficient in energy, that we
have got to be able to produce new sources of energy and
they are going to be at higher costs than the old sources.
Therefore, energy is going to cost more.
But the most important thing is that we have
the energy for this country, because industry depends on
energy, jobs depend on energy.
I know in the State of Ohio that there is a
tremendous shortage of gas because gas prices have been
controlled by the Federal Government, and the result is
that controlled price is way below the cost of producing
new gas. Therefore, the new gas isn't produced;
therefore, the shortage. Six hundred thousand man days
of work were lost last year in the State of Ohio because
they didn't have gas.
QUESTION: What about the windfall profits that
the oil companies are making?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: They are not making. The
President has recommended that there be windfall profit
taxes in order to take off the price control, put on the
windfall profit tax and give the money back.
We have a plan that we have returned
$16 billion to the consumers of energy so that it
balanced out the extra money they would pay. That plan
has been before the Congress of the United States now
since his message in January. So he is totally aware of
the problem you are talking about; trying to find a
broad-based, balanced program that would encourage
production of new energy, that would take the higher
prices and take that money, the windfall profit tax, and
MORE
PAGE 8
take that money and give it back to the consumers of the
various forms of energy. It is a very comprehensive plan.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, who do you think
the Democrats are going to nominate for President? Gerald
Ford said he wouldn't be surprised if it was
Senator Humphrey.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't have any idea, and
I don't think the Democrats do either.
QUESTION: What about Ronald Reagan?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have no idea what his
plans are.
QUESTION: Mr. Vice President, in light of the
fact it has been recently announced that the organization
in Southeast Asia to search for bodies of men missing in
action be disbanded, does that mean the U.S. Government
is going to abandon those 1,300-plus men --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: The U.S. Government has
been doing everything it can. It is not the U.S.
Government that is doing this. It is the government in
Southeast Asia. They have been trying to do exactly what
you are saying. They have been pressing the government.
What they are doing is they are holding the
search for these missing heroes as a hostage to try and
get the United States Government to give aid to North
Vietnam.
QUESTION: Thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: A pleasure.
END
(2:05 P.M. EDT)