41 



the South about not a dime's worth of difference between the two 

 parties, when we made the change those of us who consider our- 

 selves responsible conservatives that there was an awful lot of me- 

 tooism in the Republican Party as opposed to what to do about the 

 unbelievable growth of the Federal Government in the last four 

 decades. 



Would you say some of those charges of me-tooism were correct? 



Mr. Richardson. Yes, I certainly would. Of course, by the time of 

 the 1980 campaign the concerns about the growth of the Govern- 

 ment and the burden of regulation had become very widely shared. 



It is somewhat ironical, although I am regarded as a liberal or 

 moderate Republican, that I first made a speech urging block 

 grants in 1967 and wrote a book in 1975 which developed at length 

 the problem of excessive intrusion by Government, so I don't think 

 that alone is the earmark of conservatism. 



Mr. Dornan. I agree. 



Mr. Richardson. There are certainly many such differences, in- 

 cluding attitudes toward multilateral international organizations. 

 That is a set of concerns as to which my own views tend to diverge 

 from those of many conservatives. 



In the case of this treaty, for example, the criticism, as I said 

 earlier, has shifted from a criticism by mining company representa- 

 tives of features of the seabed mining regime to an attitude on the 

 part of some conservatives of general hostility toward any sort of 

 international seabed authority exercising supernational powers. 



Mr. Dornan. Each one of our great parties and each one of the 

 major ideologies within those parties has its fever swamps, and I 

 feel it is totally unacceptable from what I now call my administra- 

 tion, to put off until August coming to some sort of resolution on 

 this treaty. 



However, I can sense without being overly apologetic, for a view- 

 point with which I do not agree, and unfortunate paranoia among 

 conservatives who now have real power for the first time in their 

 lifetime that everything is suspect that came out of this long era — 

 also, my entire lifetime of 48 years — of massive Government intru- 

 sion and then a lot of me-tooism on the part of our Republican 

 Party. 



What I hope to convey to the administration in the White House 

 is don't, to use a weak cliche, throw out the baby with the bath 

 water and think that everything that came out of every adminis- 

 tration is tainted. 



I think the Carter administration showed some skill in keeping 

 Peter Benzinger on at the Drug Enforcement Agency from the 

 Nixon administration, and in assigning you this most difficult task 

 it gave a reputation, your reputation, the impact on the interna- 

 tional scene that was needed to move forward with this treaty. 



I would like to read to you from one of the so-called conservative 

 think tanks on the Hill formed the year I came here in 1976, the 

 Heritage Foundation. 



I will read it slowly so you can absorb it. I want an impression of 

 whether you think there is any merit to bilateral agreements and 

 some of the good things in the treaty that everybody agrees are 

 good. 



