Reply #23: Nixon Called for "energy independence" in '73 [View All]

Back in 1973 Richard Nixon called for energy independence:

"President Richard Nixon in November 1973, three weeks after the Arab oil embargo, when he introduced "Project Independence" and pledged that the United States would, within seven years, "meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy source." It was a bold assertion but one that puzzled his own advisers. "I cut the reference to 'independence' three times from the drafts, but it kept being put back," recalled Richard Fairbanks, a drafter of the speech. "Finally, I called over, and was told that it came from the Old Man himself." Nixon knew that energy independence was something that Americans would crave after the 1973 oil shock: He deliberately modeled his Project Independence on John F. Kennedy's Apollo goal of getting a man on the moon within a decade."

That worked out well.

http://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/public1/news/articles/newsArticleDetails.aspx?CID=8560