n097  1912  03 Mar 80
 
BC-SPEECH-ANDERSON 3takes Undated
    Candidates for the presidential nomination in both major parties
make hundreds of speeches in their campaigns, speeches that vary in
content depending on where they are given and the audience being
addressed.
    But every candidate has a body of material, presented in most of his
speeches, that varies little from audience to audience. This material
represents the heart of his message to the voters as he moves around
the country.
    This is the fourth in a series of texts of such ''stock speeches,''
heard by millions of Americans but rarely published at length, that
have been collected by The New York Times.
                 The Basic Speech: John B. Anderson
c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Service
    We are confronted today with a vile and ruthless enemy: an enemy
that threatens the vital interests of the United States, Western
Europe and Japan. The enemy is well-entrenched, its forces deployed
for a long battle of attrition against the major industrialized
nations of the Western world.
    Against this enemy, we have marshaled an army of rhetoric, a
batallion of contingency plans, and a policy of containment and
appeasement.
    The enemy, of course, is our excessive dependence on foreign oil.
The battle against this enemy has now persisted for a decade, and we
are losing. Our casualties - measured not in the loss of human lives,
but in the loss of purchasing powers and jobs - have been high.
    The conflict has been costly, and its costs are continuing to rise.
In 1970, we paid less than $3 billion for imported oil. In 1975, we
paid $27 billion. This year, the price of imported oil will rise to
$90 billion, and billions more will be spent in the defense of our
oil lifelines and the development of synthetic and alternative fuels.
    Despite this decade-long record of struggle, many Americans today
still fail to recognize the enemy, because the enemy does not dress
in combat fatigues, because its strength is not measured in
firepower, and because its numbers are not denominated in terms of
airplanes, tanks and missiles.
    The enemy, however, is no less real just because its salvos come in
the form of economic and political extortion, rather than bullets.
And, the threat to our vital interests is no less imminent because
the problem happens to be here at home.
    Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the attention of the
American public has been focused on the possible threat of further
Soviet action against either Iran or Pakistan.
    We ignore the Soviet threat at our peril, but we must not allow our
concern over the situation in Afghanistan to obscure the equally
important lesson of Iran. Just 18 months ago, Iran was America's
trusted ally; it produced 5 million barrels of oil per day for export
to the Western world; and it was relied upon to keep the Strait of
Hormuz open to international commerce. Today, Iran is no longer
America's trusted friend; it exports less than 2 million barrels of
oil per day, and it now poses a new and dangerous threat to the
stability of the region.
    The political instability that has crippled Iran could also spread
to the other oil-producing nations in the Persian Gulf, including
Saudi Arabia. The Saudi oil fields are operated by foreign workers,
including a large population of Shi'ite Moslems with close ties to
Iran. In the aftermath of the recent radical Moslem attack at Mecca,
trouble broke out in the Saudi oil fields, and twenty thousand troops
were dispatched to quell the disturbances. Similar troubles in the
future could shut down the Saudi oil production of 9.5 million
barrels per day for an indefinite period.
    Thus, the threat to the security of our oil supplies stems from
internal political strife in the Persian Gulf, as it does from
external threat.
    Whether, however, our access to Persian Gulf oil is threatened by
internal or external factors, prudence requires that we take dramatic
steps aimed at reducing our dependence on it.
    It is important for all Americans to recognize that conflict in the
Persian Gulf - regardless of its outcome - would mean an indefinite
cut-off of up to 17 million barrels of oil per day to the Western
powers. A shortfall of that magnitude would require nearly a 50
percent reduction in the amount of oil consumed by Western Europe,
Japan, and the United States.
    Now, just as before the enunciation of the so-called Carter
Doctrine, the Persian Gulf is a vital interest of the Western powers.
    But now, just as before the Carter Doctrine, we do not have the
ability to keep oil flowing from the Persian Gulf in the event of
large-scale hostilities.
    So dependent are we upon the oil resources of the Persian Gulf, that
any prolonged cut-off of oil supplies from that region would
jeopardize our ability to defend it from internal or exteral threats.
    Given that degree of vulnerability, it seems more than passing
strange that those who would arm to the teeth in the defense of the
Persian Gulf are not prepared to call for any sacrifice here at home
to reduce our military and economic vulnerability in that region.
    Those who define our national security in terms of guns alone commit
a fatal error that invites - rather than deters - foreign aggression.
    (MORE)
    
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n099  1932  03 Mar 80
 
BC-SPEECH-ANDERSON 1stadd
NYT Undated: foreign aggression.
    I, for one, believe in a strong national defense; but national
defense, like charity, begins here at home. If we are serious about
defending our national interest, we can best demonstrate that to the
rest of the world by strict new conservation measures, rather than
registering young men and women for the draft.
    Stringent new conservation measures, however, are not required for
reasons of national security alone. There exists, in fact, an equally
compelling reason: our economic welfare.
    In 1798, when the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, demanded a $2
million bribe from an American diplomatic delegation before he would
consent to discuss the French seizure of American vessels on the open
seas, the cry went forth, ''Millions for defense, but not one cent
for tribute.''
    Today, however, as our annual oil import bill reaches nearly $90
billion, we quietly and submissively offer up billions in tribute to
the extortionist demands of the OPEC oil ministers.
    The tyranny of the spot market has ended. The ''leapfrogging' of
OPEC price hikes have brought OPEC contract oil prices to spot market
levels.
    Recently, two major American suppliers - Nigeria and Algeria -
announced a $4 price hike to $34.21 a barrel. Saudi Arabia, the
so-called moderate of OPEC pricing, announced two weeks ago a new fee
of $26 a barrel, up 44 percent over three months ago and 116 percent
above the price of just 15 months ago.
    And still the demand of the oil producers continue to escalate. The
Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Yamani, has warned the United States that
unless advanced technology transfers were forthcoming, and unless the
Saudis could find inflation-proof investments for their oil earnings,
they would curtail their oil production to 8.5 million barrels a day.
    We are in danger of being numbed by the rapidity of the oil price
shocks. Two years ago, a price hike of $2 to $3 a barrel would have
been the subject of front-page news; today such a price hike barely
warrants mention in the financial pages. We behave like shell-shocked
victims of economic warfare; we have lost our economic orientation.
    The oil increases that have occurred in the past few months will add
2 to 3 percentage points to the Consumer Price Index, worsen the
length and severity of the recession, and contribute to a further
weakening of the dollar.
    It is critically important that we express the cost of imported oil
in terms that the average American can understand. Imagine if you
will the entire population of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Massachusetts working year around just to pay the
nation's annual oil import bill, and you can begin to appreciate its
magnitude.
    It is also important to recognize the threat that OPEC poses to the
stability of the international monetary system. Last year, OPEC
revenues reached $186 billion, and OPEC nations had a resulting
balance of payments surplus of $50 billion. This year, with the price
of oil averaging $30 a barrel, OPEC revenues will rise to nearly $300
billion, and OPEC nations will have a balance of payments surplus of
$90 billion.
    Rimmer de Vries, the senior vice president of the Morgan Guaranty
Trust Co. and an internationally respected expert on monetary
affairs, said in a recent Paris speech that private banks do not have
the ability to recycle so vast and unprecedented a sum to the oil
importing nations. De Vries warned that the huge build-up of surplus
funds in OPEC coffers threatens to create havoc in foreign exchange
markets and precipitate a world monetary crisis.
    The oil consuming nations of the world are walking an energy
tightrope, and, for the moment, without a safety net. Our strategic
petroleum reserves are nearly empty, we have only enough for a few
days. For areas, like New England, we do not have even adequate plans
for the construction of strategic petroleum reserves.
    Despite the threat that our oil dependence poses to our economy and
national security, we have yet to take the type of conservation
measures that are required.
    The House and Senate conferees have gutted the conservation tax
incentives in the windfall profits bill in favor of generalized tax
cuts.
    Last summer, I recommended a tax of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to
be coupled with offsetting payroll tax reductions for working men and
women, and Social Security benefit hikes for the retired and
disabled. Dr. Lawrence Klein of Wharton Econometrics, one of the
leading econometric forecasting firms in the country, has testified
before the House Budget Committee on behalf of a tax of 50 cents a
gallon on gasoline to be coupled with payroll tax reductions and a
relaxation in interest rates. Dr. Klein testified that such a package
would curb inflation, reduce energy consumption by as much as 1.2
million barrels per day, strengthen the dollar, moderate the
recession, and enhance the recovery.
    Similar policy steps have been advocated by such noted economic
authorities as Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow; Dr. Hendrik Houthakker
of Harvard; Dr. McCracken at the University of Michigan; and Michael
Evans of Evans Economics in Washington.
    Such energy experts as Daniel Yergin and Robert Stobaugh at Harvard,
Robert Pindyck at MIT, Robert Williams at Princeton, and Charles
Ebbinger at Georgetown, have all expressed strong endorsement of a
higher gasoline tax.
    (MORE)
    
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n100  1939  03 Mar 80
 
BC-SPEECH-ANDERSON 2dadd
NYT Undated: gasoline tax.
    All have recognized that a gasoline tax would be a pre-emptive
strike against OPEC pricing policies. A gas tax would help to reduce
our economic and military vulnerability in the Persian Gulf by
reducing our imports by as much as 700,000 barrels a day in the first
year alone. The revenues from a gas tax could help to reduce
regressive and inflationary payroll taxes. A gas tax could help spur
the development of mass transit in urban areas and bus and vanpool
services in rural areas like New Hampshire. A gas tax, combined with
offsetting tax cuts, could help to boost the dollar overseas and at
home.
    And yet, despite these obvious advantages, discussion of a gasoline
tax remains a political taboo amongst my Republican and Democratic
challengers.
    Instead of trading upon glib promises of more energy production to
come, we should level with the American people. In the decade ahead,
there will be a world shortage of liquid fuels. Americans will have
to share in that shortage. Our domestic oil production is declining.
It is expected that domestic oil production will fall from 10 million
barrels a day to 8 million barrels a day by the end of the decade -
with or without a windfall profits tax. Our natural gas production,
which peaked in 1972, is also declining with or without the
deregulation of natural gas prices. Despite all the public hoopla
over synthetic fuels, even its ardent proponents do not expect more
than 2 million barrels a day by 1990 - not even enough to offset our
declining oil production.
    There are, of course, alternatives to oil and natural gas. For the
decade ahead, however, our best bet is conservation through more fuel
efficient cars, homes and factories. Conservation in its truest sense
does not even have to mean sacrifice; it can actually save us money.
Moreover, conservation can make an important contribution to our
national security and reduce the chances of precipitous military
involvement in the Persian Gulf.
    The only question is whether we have the moral and political courage
to act in the defense of our vital interests.
    It is all too obvious that such courage is sadly lacking in the
political leadership of this nation. Rather than confronting the
issue of our energy dependence, congressional and presidential
candidates alike prefer to traffic in the politics of vain hopes. The
politicians that promise to produce our way out of the energy crisis
in a few years are the same politicians that promise tax cuts and a
balanced budget. Rather than mirroring the hopes and aspirations of
the American people, it is time to reflect things as they are. I, for
one, will not perpetrate so cruel a hoax as to promise a budget that
cannot be delivered, or an energy policy that cannot be fulfilled.
The greatest danger that we face today is not the Soviet Union, it is
our unwillingness to make the sacrifices that are necessary for the
defense of our vital interests.
    
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