The investigations into the Republican campaign tricks in 1972 have uncovered much hanky-panky such as illegal corporate gifts, spying inside the Democratic headquarters, and huge cash donations from people wanting favors such as Robert Vesco, Howard Hughes, and the Associated Milk Producers. Yet, the investigators have overlooked the biggest trick used to guarantee a Nixon landslide.
It was the 1972 person-to-person diplomacy — in Moscow with Brezhnev, and in Paris with North Vietnam’s Le Due Tho (the latter winning the Nobel Peace Prize for Kissinger and Tho) — which convinced the voters that they should not swap the Nixon-Kissinger team in the middle of the stream.
We are now learning more about the price we are paying for these talks. First came the 1972 giant Russian wheat deal which costour taxpayers nearly a billion dollars in export subsidies and loans, and cost the American consumers more than a billion dollars in higher food prices.
Now we are building a truck plant in the Soviet Union on the Kama River which will be the largest in the world. It will have an ultimate capacity of 250,000 diesel engines and 150,000 trucks. It is being financed by loans and guarantees from the Export-Import Bank, which means out of the pockets of the American taxpayers.
Sixty-five U.S. corporations are far advanced on their contracts to build and equip this gigantic factory headed by Swindler Dressier, C-E Cast Equipment, Holocraft & Company, and Ingersoll-Rand. So pleased are the Soviets, they have recently asked General Motors to build another huge truck factory for them in Siberia. Chase
Manhattan Bank has put out a trade guide on the Kama River plant called “The Billion Dollar Beginning.” Other deals are in the works, including fertilizer and chemical plants and computers.
The amazing part of this deal is that our own country is desperately short of trucks. Trucks often must be ordered a year in advance to get deliveries on time. It takes months to replace the vehicles which break down. A General Motors spokesman Francis Cronin, recently said: “No one has been able to build facilities fast enough
to keep up with the demand.” Other leading truck manufacturers such as Mack Trucks, International Harvester, White Motors, and Detroit Diesel also say they cannot supply the current American need for trucks. Suppliers of truck parts and diesel engines are faced with the same problem as truck manufacturers: the inability to keep pace with the phenomenal demand.
Was the 1972 Nixon election victory worth skyrocketing the cost of our bread and meat, and worth giving the Soviets a gigantic truck factory at a time when we do not have enough trucks to serve American business and farming?
Congress should investigate not only the secret Watergate tapes, but also the secret White House commitments made in Moscow and Paris to insure victory in the 1972 presidential election.
