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- Parte de White House Staff Member and Office Files (Nixon Administration), President's Personal Files
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OCR Page 1 of 7(BUCHANAN) JK
March 20, 1969
Suggested Remarks for Santa Barbara
I don't think that any American could walk the beaches of
Santa Barbara without the same feeling of sickness and shock that I
feel about the tragedy that took place here.
It was a special shock to me, because I am a Californian. I
have been to this city many times; I have visited the shoreline before.
And I have always been one of those people who go to the ocean's edge
when they want to think or to write or just unwind.
It is a tragedy in the truest sense of the word because what hap-
pened here could have been avoided. This was not some inevitable
disaster, like a hurricane or an earthquake, which men have to accept
as an Act of God. This resulted from a failing of men; it was a
tragedy specifically because it was avoidable. These waters did not
have to be polluted; this marine life did not have to be destroyed.
The fault lies in the fact that men - - government men among
them acted too rapidly. They took too many risks with what
belongs to all of us in order to get a quick deal for the benefit of
some of us. They acted under a national code that had hardly been
changed in fifteen years -- while technology grew tremendously and
the exploitation of our oil resources offshore increased accordingly.
We challenged the odds here; the stakes were enormous and we lost.
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