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Informal Exchange With Reporters After Visiting Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

February 07, 1973

THE PRESIDENT. Mrs. Longworth was unable to come to the Inauguration.

Mrs. LONGWORTH. I couldn't come. I had the flu.

THE PRESIDENT. She had this flu.

REPORTER. I hope you won't get cold now.

MRS. LONGWORTH. Well, I am dressed up warm.

THE PRESIDENT. Then she was also to be at the luncheon that the Cromers1 gave and she couldn't make that, so we called her up and said we would come by.

1The Earl of Cromer was British Ambassador to the United States.

But I will tell you what. She is going to come to the dinner for Golda Meir. That is March I.

Q. Have you got any good advice on being 89?

MRS. LONGWORTH. None.

THE PRESIDENT. I was really worried about her because she said it is the first Inauguration she can remember missing, and I guess she has seen them all, going back to 1900. She said she just couldn't make it. But of course, I said, "At least you have had the benefit of television."

Incidentally, if things develop the way we think they will, we will probably go to California tomorrow. I had a meeting with Wilbur Mills today and I am going to see Russell Long tomorrow. There isn't much more you can do with the Congress because of the Lincoln Day recess.

I am going to see the Vice President when he returns from his trip. I think we are going to set it for Monday morning. I think Ron [Ziegler] may have already told you that.

Q. We want to hear about that.

THE PRESIDENT. I think it is at 10 o'clock Monday morning. That gives him time to get in a night's sleep.

Q. He won't see any of the POWs's?

THE PRESIDENT. No, no. We have no plans, as I told you earlier, I have no plans, he has no plans on that. He will return directly from Manila, stopping in Hawaii overnight, and coming to San Clemente Monday morning, and we will have a talk there.

It is also my plan at this time, unless something develops during the week that requires me to come back here, to see Dr. Kissinger there and have him ride back from California on Monday.

Q. A week from Monday?

THE PRESIDENT. Assuming he gets back around--we don't know what day, probably the 19th, roughly speaking. But I might have to come back before Monday, so I don't want you to pack your bags for a week since we might come in the middle of the week.

Q. Do your meetings with Mr. Mills and Senator Long indicate that you are planning some new economic moves, perhaps with relation to the problems with the dollar?

THE PRESIDENT. No, it is not related to any of the immediate international problems, the meetings with the Congressman and the Senator. What these meetings have to do with is our long-range legislative plans in the matters over which their committees have jurisdiction--tax reform, welfare reform in the case of Senator Long, and trade legislation. These are the three items that we have talked about. And it is part of the extensive Congressional bipartisan consultation that we are having.

Q. Did you bring them in line?

THE PRESIDENT. No, no. We didn't try to. We were eliciting and soliciting their views, and they were interested in ours. And also energy. Those are the subjects that the Senate Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee are on. We will obviously have consultations with their Republican opposite members as well, and there will be bipartisan meetings also on the subject of trade legislation and energy, since those are, we think, as Chairman Mills agreed today, those are typically what we would call bipartisan subjects--trade and energy--where we think we can elicit a lot of bipartisan cooperation.

There are some other areas which are inevitably going to be partisan. We don't discuss those.

Thank you very much.

Q. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Note: The President spoke at 6:55 p.m. outside Mrs. Longworth's home.

Richard Nixon, Informal Exchange With Reporters After Visiting Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/255766

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