Remarks at the National Association of Realtors Annual Convention.

President Sawyer, all of the distinguished gentlemen on the platform, and all of the very distinguished ladies and gentlemen who are here for this convention of the National Association of Realtors, and your guests:

First, I am most grateful for this presentation¹ and I hope I will not have to use it in some places. But in any event, it will always be a symbol of my affection for you, whom I have known for many, many years, long before I became President, and also of what I appreciate, your receiving me so well this morning.

¹J. D. Sawyer, president of the National Association of Realtors, presented the President with a gavel made of wood from the home of George Washington and metal from the deck of the battleship Missouri.

And, Mr. President, I should mention that as I looked over the background material, I am able to say today to this group that I am honored to be the first President of the United States since 1960, when Dwight Eisenhower addressed you, to address the National Association of Realtors.

Now, there must be a pretty good reason for that, and it may not have occurred to you, but I should point it out to you, and that is this: All I own in the world is real estate. I think it is a good investment.

I remember in the year 1968 when I decided to become a candidate for President of the United States--that is not quite correct; I decided to become a candidate several times for President of the United States but in the year 1968, when I decided to become a candidate, I read of the difficulties that Cabinet officers, Presidents, et cetera, had had through the years when questions were raised with regard to owning stocks and bonds and blind trusts, and all that sort of thing, and although those difficulties had been raised, I knew that in each case when they had been raised where a President was concerned, I had no doubt about his integrity, but I felt that in this instance there was only one thing to do, and that was to make sure that there would be no question about whatever I had acquired, and consequently, I sold what few stocks I owned, I sold my apartment in New York, I bought a house in California, I bought also my mother's house in California, and I bought two pieces of property in Florida, one of which I have since sold, and that is what I own.

I believe in America, and I believe in America's real estate. That is why my money is in real estate.

The other day when I was riding up the road, the old 101 to Los Angeles from San Clemente, I saw a sign on the window of one very handsome real estate office saying "1973 is our best year ever. Come on in and make it better." It occurred to me that that is the spirit of this group, and I would like to talk to you at the conclusion of your sessions today about 1973, why it is a good year in many respects and a great year in some respects, and why, also, it is a year that is troublesome in other respects and that causes us concern. Because, as realtors, I know one thing about you--I have been exposed to insurance salesmen and to stock salesmen, but believe me, you have never been exposed to a salesman until a realtor gets at you.

And the reason realtors are good salesmen is that you believe in your product. You believe that real estate is a good investment. And real estate is not a good investment unless America is a good investment. And I want to tell you today why I think America is the .best investment in the world, a better investment because of what has happened in 1973.

The year 1973 has seen some major accomplishments which makes America a better investment than it was in any of the years prior to that time, going clear back to the time that President Eisenhower left office in January of 1961, because the year 1973 saw the end of the longest war in America's history. It saw our prisoners of war returning home and, as one of them said, proud to return on their feet rather than on their knees.

It was a year which saw that for the first time in 25 years, no young Americans are being drafted for the armed services. We want them to serve, but they will be volunteers and so young people can plan their lives their own way and not be drafted.

Also, on the international front it was a year when we saw continuing progress in our relationships with two of the great powers in the world whose ideologies are totally different from ours, but who, because we both exist on this planet together and have the potential of great power, must find a way to live together or we will find ways that we will die together.

And that is why the relationship with the Soviet Union, with the second summit held here in Washington, at Camp David, and concluded in San Clemente, the relationship with the People's Republic of China where 800 million people of 'the world live, has continued with Dr. Kissinger's trip just being completed there, with meetings with Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung going, as usual, very well and, in this case, better than the previous meetings that we have had, and they went very well considering the state of our relationships.

It has seen also in this year 1973 in the foreign policy field a very serious crisis develop in the Mideast, but a crisis which, after war flared up, has now been resolved, at least on a temporary basis. But this is the difference: We have had truces in the Mideast before, because this is the fourth war in the last 25 years, but it has only been a truce. There has never been any hope that the truce might be followed by negotiations which would lead to a permanent peace.

This war we have ended with a truce where the United States played an indispensable role, but having played that indispensable role, the difference is that for the first time in the four wars that have been fought in the Mideast in the last 25 years, we now have laid the foundation for the parties involved to negotiate and to build a permanent peace, because putting it quite directly, ladies and gentlemen, in this trouble spot of the world, one which has flared into war four different times, here, as distinguished from Vietnam, where none of the great powers would have become involved because of Vietnam--it was not that important to the Soviets or to the Chinese for them to become involved except in furnishing supplies--here in the Mideast, the crossroads of the world, the oil of the world, the gateway to Africa, the anchor of NATO, the entry to the Mediterranean, here the Mideast is so important that if the great powers do not find a way to work together in that area, if they should come in conflict in that area, the possibility of that being an area where neither could back down is quite obvious, and that is why our negotiations with the Soviets at the highest level have continued and will continue in this area.

That is why we are working, having obtained the cease-fire, now to take the second step to build a permanent peace.

I do not tell you, this audience today, that 1973 will be the year that the permanent peace was agreed to. It will not be such a year, because where hatreds go back over thousands of years, they are not ended even in thousands of hours, let alone a thousand days, or whatever the case might be. But I do know this: 1973, I trust, I believe, I am confident, will be the year that will mark the beginning of a process which will lead to a settlement which will be a permanent peace, one where the parties in the area will not learn to love each other, the hatreds will not be removed, but where they will understand that they must learn that neither side can afford another war, and that it is to their interests, therefore, to find a way to have peace in that area.

You see what that means to us, you see what it means to our European friends and our friends in Japan who depend on the war (oil) in the Mideast. You see also what it means to the cause of world peace, where the Soviet Union has a vital interest in that area, where the United States has a vital interest in that area.

This, then, is the major target of a foreign policy which has ended the war in Vietnam, which has developed a new relationship with the two great powers, the Soviet Union and China, and which now attempts to find a solution to an age-old conflict in the Middle East.

Moving from that area to the domestic front, we have here achieved a goal that I set when I first came into office in 1969.

When I came into office, I found that during the entire period of the sixties-1961, 1962, '63, '64, all through the sixties--the previous 8 years, the United States had never had unemployment at a rate lower than 5 percent, in the 4 percent range, which most consider to be possibly acceptable, although we like it as low as possible, but the United States had never had unemployment in the 4 percent range except at the cost of war.

In fact, we had to go back to the year 1955 and '56 when President Eisenhower was in office to find a period when the United States had unemployment, or what we might call a full employment, in the 4 to 4 1/2 percent range, without war. And now, finally, in this year 1973, as you will note from the figures that were released just a few weeks ago, we have achieved the goal of employment without war ]n the United States, and that is a goal worth achieving.

And so, we could stop here. We could say, a good year, 1973; therefore, real estate is a good investment because it is a good year, because of what has happened abroad, because of what happened at home in our economy, with the economy moving up.

But then, we also have to put in the balance those things that people are thinking about, that you are thinking about, which tend to indicate 'that there are minus sides of a year as well as plus sides, which will always be the case in any year.

There is, for example, the problem of inflation, and I know that in your case it hits it in the case of interest rates. I know that in your case, you are concerned about the downturn in housing starts. All that I can say is that this Administration is going to continue to fight the battle of inflation as we have fought it in the past.

We finally have begun to make progress on the food price front. We believe we are going to be making more progress on the interest rate front, but the main thing is--lend now and borrow later, that is what I would suggest you to do--[laughter]--but one of the main things that you can do that can help, apart from complying with our programs of controls where they happen to affect you, and I assume that you who are in other business than real estate may find areas where you are affected by the control system, remember this: A major factor that drives up prices is when your Federal Government spends more than it needs to and spends more than it takes in in taxes.

Help us in the battle against Government spending. Let's not have the Government spend down.

And incidentally, I say this in no partisan sense, because, believe me, Democrats as well as Republicans in the House and the Senate have joined in this battle, and we have won most of them. But we need for them to hear from back home, because they always hear from those that want to spend more; they seldom hear from those who realize that when you do spend more in a way that raises prices, it means that your busting the Federal budget makes it impossible to balance the family budget.

You can get that message across, because you know how to talk quite directly to people, as I have pointed out on several occasions.

There is then the problem of energy. I discussed that at some length a few nights ago on television. I will not go into it in any detail because I am sure you have read about it, thought about it, wondered how serious it is.

Let me capsule it very simply in this way: Before the Mideast war broke out, we had a serious energy problem in the United States. The reason the problem was serious was not because our production was lower, but because our demands were so much higher.

It is the fact that, for example, more people have television, more people use more lights, more heat, there are more cars using more gasoline. In fact, the United States, with 7 percent of the world's people, uses 30 percent of the world's energy, and so, consequently, it was a question, a serious problem in the spring of this year, that was arising with regard to energy.

We had to get more sources. It was in April of this year that I sent to the Congress requests for seven major pieces of legislation. I urged action on an urgent basis.

One has now reached my desk, the Alaskan pipeline, and as far as that one is concerned, despite the fact that it has some riders on it that I will have to ask the Congress in later legislation to remove, I, of course, will sign the bill, because the Alaskan pipeline is necessary, and once it is in operation in 1967 (1977) it will furnish the United States--and get this number--almost a third of our oil needs [imports], and that is, of course, one of the reasons why its delay has been almost unconscionable, a delay for reasons that I thought were rather fatuous, frankly.

Now, coming beyond that, however, as we look at our energy problem, as I described it, a serious problem, what was a serious problem in April--and the Congress did consider it serious but not serious enough to act upon it--became a crisis as a result of the Mideast.

Now, one thing I must warn this audience and the American people about, now that we see that we have already had a cease-fire in the Mideast, now that we see negotiations beginning that hold out the hope that some of the Arab nations that have oil may relent with regard to their oil embargo and let the oil come in, some may get the impression, well, if we begin to get the Mideast oil again, then there will be no energy crisis which the President had described a few days ago in his remarks, and we can go back to driving 70 miles an hour rather than 50 miles an hour, and we can turn up our heat in our home from 68 to 78 or 88, or higher yet, if you want to go someplace that I don't want to go to. [Laughter]

But the point is, we have already lost, my friends, we have already lost 6 weeks of oil from the Mideast. Even if the thing were settled in the next e weeks, we would have lost 2 months. We may lose 3 months. And so the crisis is there, and that is why these extraordinary measures have been taken and why we urge your cooperation voluntarily in seeing that across this Nation we have enough light, enough transportation, enough heat, but not more than we need, so that everybody sacrifices a little, and no one, then, will have to suffer at all. That is the program, and I hope that you will support it.

But again, putting it in parallel with the Mideast situation, it is so easy to say, as in the Mideast, "Well, we have a cease-fire," and then relax, and then 7 or 8 years from now another war and an even closer possibility of confrontation between the super powers.

In the Mideast we have not been satisfied with that. We are moving from the cease-fire toward a permanent settlement, and in energy we must not be satisfied with doing enough this year to take care of our heating and transportation and lighting and power to run our factories and farms, and so forth, and feel that if we do enough this year, then maybe next year we can go back to business as usual.

And that is why I have set a goal for the United States, one that I ask all Americans to join in. In the year 1976, as you know, we will be celebrating our 200th birthday, and that, of course, is a great birthday because it is the birthday of our independence. I was hoping that we could also set as a goal for the year 1976, our national independence birthday, a goal of being self-sufficient in energy so that no nation, not an Arab country, not a Latin American country, not even. our Canadian friends--they are pretty tough on us at times, too, you know, when they are looking down our throats, and I understand it, and we do not complain about it, because that is the way the business world works, but the point that I make is this:

The United States of America is a great nation. No great nation must ever be in the position where it is dependent on any other nation, friend or foe, for its energy. That does not mean that we will not continue to desire the oil of the Mideast, and try to develop the gas resources, perhaps, in Siberia, and work with our friends in Canada and Latin America, and so forth, for trade and all that kind of thing. But it does mean that the United States must be independent in this area, and we can be, and we can be by 1980, and I will tell you how.

First, coal. We have half the coal resources of the world in the United States. We have got to find better ways to bring it out of the ground without destroying the environment--John Whitaker,² I am sure, has addressed you with regard to land use and that sort of subject, and I could have more to say, but time will not permit--but that can and will be done.

²John C. Whitaker was Under Secretary of the Interior.

And second, we must find ways to make coal a cleaner fuel, and through a process that we are now going through of maximum research, we are finding ways where coal can be made a cleaner fuel through degasification and the like. And so coal is one of our potentials to make us self-sufficient in energy.

A second area is natural gas. Here we run right counter to great political forces, which I well understand. In order to get more natural gas, which is the cleanest fuel we could possibly have, or a very clean fuel, I should say, because nuclear power is probably cleaner than natural gas, but in order to get more natural gas, the old law of supply and demand works. And at the present time, the price for natural gas is held so artificially low that wells that could produce it and wells that could be drilled anew to produce it are not producing it and are not being drilled.

Now, we need the gas. In order to get it, we have got to deregulate so that the price can go up, not a price where the American consumer pays an exorbitant price, because as that supply goes up that demand, of course, will also eat it up, and eventually the price situation will, I think, take care of itself. But it doesn't make any sense to keep the gas in the ground at a time that people in New England are going around cold because they don't have the fuel they need. We have got to get it out of the ground, and that is why the deregulation of natural gas is important. And I would hope that the Congress, after due consideration of all the price factors and the rest, will act expeditiously now on this particular matter.

The third area--there are others that could be mentioned--is nuclear power. And here, as educators of your country-and I know that real estate people are educators to an extent. You spend long days in which you never make a sale. You spend long days when people come in there and put their feet up on the desk and they waste your time and talk about things, but that is a time to do some educating, and I want to tell you what I think you can do in this particular area.

In the field of nuclear power, there is a fear syndrome in the United States. Because nuclear power created the greatest destructive force the world has ever known, there is the feeling that the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes should not even be explored. I live 12 miles from a nuclear power plant in California, and I am not afraid, and none of my neighbors are afraid. It is safe; it is clean; it is necessary. And the United States, which was the first to develop nuclear power, must now go forward to develop it for peaceful purposes so that by the year 1980 we can have all the power that we need.

And now let me come to a critical question-realtors. Realtors, of course, believe in this country. Realtors believe that real estate, American real estate, is the best investment you can make, not only in real estate or probably in anything else. I didn't check with my New York stockbrokers to see whether or not they agreed with that--the ones I formerly knew-but nevertheless, I think most of them are now saying, have your portfolio with some real estate in it as well as common stocks and bonds. If I have left anything out, it is not deliberate.

The point is, when I have been talking here, I have been talking about extracting coal and making it a clean fuel, and in the meantime using it even when it isn't clean if it is necessary in order to have the energy that produces our jobs and keeps us warm and keeps us moving.

Second, I have been talking about nuclear power and nuclear power also runs into the problem that some people who are desperately concerned about the environment, the beauty of America, as I am concerned, and as you are concerned, they wonder, should we develop nuclear power, might it have a detrimental effect on the environment?

Let me tell you what is my belief. Our goal for 1980 is not only to have independence--we call it "Project Independence 1980"--to be self-sufficient in energy, our goal for 1980 is to be self-sufficient in clean energy.

America can have all the energy it needs, and we can still have it a clean energy, clean nuclear power, clean coal power, clean shale oil power, and clean natural gas power, just to name those.

That is our goal, because we want this to be a beautiful country, not just a prosperous country. We want this to be a beautiful country, not just a peaceful country. We want this to be a beautiful country, not just one that has all the energy that it needs, but which so contaminates the air that our children will not enjoy the life that we have had the opportunity to enjoy in past years.

My time has expired, and I will simply close on one final note that I know will be of some interest to this great audience.

I mentioned some of the plus things and some of the problem areas and some of the minus things, but all of them are soluble. There is one other problem that most of you have been reading about and hearing about, the problem of the campaign of 1972 and the issues that arose out of it, the mistakes that were made, mistakes made by people who, as I have often stated, were overzealous, mistakes that I never approved of, mistakes that I would never have tolerated, but mistakes for which I will have to take responsibility.

But let me also say this: Mistakes are one thing; as far as the President of the United States is concerned, he has not violated his trust, and he isn't going to violate his trust now.

And I say to you ladies and gentlemen that, finally, I was elected to do a job. I considered as the great goals ending the longest war in America's history, but not stopping there, building a permanent peace that in the year 2000 your children and my children could enjoy.

I had as another goal building a new prosperity of full employment without war and without unacceptable inflation.

And I had as another goal making this country a safe country, a beautiful country, a country that our children would invest in and believe in and love.

That was the job I was elected to do, and I can assure you that no matter what some of my good-intentioned friends and, certainly, I would say, honest opponents, may suggest to the contrary, I am not going to walk away until I get that job done.