The Ex-Candidate

After Christmas 1987 things got quiet enough for me to enjoy the visiting water birds at my home on Lake Buchanan. My financial affairs were in good shape, and my business was running well with almost no attention from me. My kids were all educated, married, and scattered where one atom bomb couldn’t get them all. I was in love with a charming new wife. Things couldn’t get much better.

Then I read a book celebrating the 200th year of the United States Constitution and became disturbed at how far our present system of government has strayed from the original plan. It occurred to me that it was my job to straighten out all the silliness and insanity I had been complaining about to my beer-drinking buddies.

I had written several letters to Senator Lloyd Bentsen with a great idea to end the cold war, make productive use of thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and produce electric power without pollution and greenhouse gasses. At first I received form letter replies, and then one that obviously came from Bentsen himself saying, “We can’t out-spend the Soviets.”

Bentsen was up for re-election the next year, and suddenly I got the idea that it was time to carry my great ideas straight to Congress. Surely the people of Texas were ready for a bright new voice in the Senate, and I would promise not to ask for more than one term. I would retire from public service at the age of 65 after having done my bit to clean up the mess in Washington.

Sherron laughed when I first mentioned it to her, but she is a political creature. Her uncle, Preston Smith, had been governor of Texas, and her parents had worked for him while he was in office. The next thing I knew she had hired a campaign manager and arranged for me to announce my bid at a press conference in the State Capitol.

The next three months were wild. We traveled allover Texas to hand out cards and make ‘three-minute speeches anywhere Republicans would listen. There were three other candidates for the nomination. Two were fairly well known politicians, and the other was a businessman who spent more than twice as much of his own money as I did. Mercifully, I got my honorable discharge early; Two others had to continue campaigning in a run-off for the privilege of being beaten easily by Lloyd Bentsen in the general election.

Mine may have been the shortest political career of all time.

For a couple of years Sherron and I attended the Republican gatherings and gave money to the candidates. I still had a powerful urge to tell people how to solve the big problems, so I began writing a series of Ex-Candidate’s Reports. The Williamson County Sun, The Georgetown Weekly, and the Brady Standard/Herald, owned, published some of them by Sherron’s parents.

Later on we invested some money in an effort to keep the Austin Weekly in business. As the publisher continued to need more cash to keep going, he hit on the idea of appealing to my vanity. Eventually I was called every week to be sure I had written something for the “Publisher’s Perspective.” The editor did me a favor by sometimes deciding not to print what I had written and other times by leaving out or cleaning up the stuff that would have gotten me on somebody’s hit list Even with the editor’s help I prompted several nasty letters and alienated some of the advertisers. My little adventure as a publisher ended up costing me more than my political campaign.

The disease is in remission now. This little book is not intended to correct all the problems of the world. Only my kids and my friends will receive copies, and they will not be required to read it.

Thanks for staying with me this far. I hope you enjoy the rest of the book.

Edwin deS. (Ned) Snead

February 1995

Ned Snead Interview On WOAI

“One of the people who is running for State Board of Education is Ned Snead, and he’s with us right now. Ned Snead, welcome to the Carl Wigglesworth Show and good to have you here today.”

Ned: Thank you, Carl.

Carl: In past experience in the teaching profession, what makes you want to run for State Board of Education?

Ned: Well, Carl, I think you’ve got your notes screwed up. I’m running for the U.S. Senate.

Carl: Oh, they have you down here as district 5, State Board of Education.

Ned: Well, I’m Ned Snead, Republican candidate for the U. S. Senate.

Carl: All right, OK, they did give me the wrong information.

Ned: OK, well, maybe I can help you out a little bit.

Carl: Well, all right, we can switch to that because we have also had the, ah, an opponent of yours on, Beau Boulter, about a week ago, who is also running for that seat, correct?

Ned: Yes, he is. He’s a good man but I don’t believe he can beat that Democrat that’s in the office now.

Carl: All right, he’s going to be running against Lloyd Bentsen if he wins, and so will you, right?

Ned: Right.

Carl: So you’re competing for the same spot on the Republican ticket on Super Tuesday.

Ned: That’s right.

Carl: OK give me Ned Snead. Let me shift gears here with a different set of questions. U.S. Senate. Lloyd Bentsen. As you said Beau Boulter would have a hard time beating him. I must say equally you would have a hard time beating him too, would you not?

Ned: Oh, I don’t expect it to be easy. I’m an engineer and a businessman. I’m not a lawyer, and I have promised that I will never be a career politician.

Carl: And, why are you running then. What is it you are looking for, what do you want to do?

Ned: Well, I have been accumulating messages for Congress for quite a few years now, and I can’t get ‘em to answer my letters or my phone calls, so I just decided to carry the message there in person.

Carl: You say, “Carry the message there in person”, what message do you want to take?

Ned: Well, I’ve got quite a number of them. I think the Congressmen and Senators should be limited to two terms in office just like the president is. Break up the seniority system. Of course, like all Republicans, I think we need a Constitutional amendment demanding a balanced budget every year unless we are in a war declared by Congress. But, ah, those are the ordinary things. I’m pretty much a long-range, far-out thinker, rather than inclined, as I think my opponents are, toward band-aid quick fixes for the immediate problems.

Carl: All right, then, give us some of the things you are actually proposing. What do you want to do. I mean the generalities sound nice, but I can get any Democrat, any Republican, anybody else to say they would solve all our problems for us.

Ned: Now, I didn’t tell you to say that, did I?

Carl: OK, ha ha, well what do you say? What specifically would you try to get done, realizing you have to work with the rest of the US Senate?

Ned: Well, I’d like to get every boy and girl in the USA to devote his eighteenth year to his country in military service for one thing. And not a matter of draft. I don’t think the unlucky ought to serve. I think everyone ought to serve so the next war is everybody’s war. But I do believe that in order to keep the peace you have to stay ready for war. On the other hand I feel like forty years of mutual assured destruction is enough for me and you too. I think it’s time to start very cautious cooperation with the Soviets on the problems that face all mankind.

Carl: You approve of the INF treaty and President Reagan’s moves in that direction?

Ned: Yes, I do. I think he’s done a beautiful job with one exception. I don’t care much for the idea of crushing and burning these things, because I don’t believe the observers are gonna know a dummy or a dud from a really poisonous rocket. So I would recommend the simplest case would be to just take the warheads off and into some one square mile target area in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. That way anything that blew up on the launching ramp or couldn’t hit the target would get no credit. It would be very easy to keep track, and I’ve never been convinced that we are going to be able to allow Soviet generals to crawl all over the United States looking for anything that interests them, and they’re not going to do the same for us. But something like this would give us a really workable verification system.

Carl: You don’t believe the one that has been negotiated so far is workable?

Ned: Oh, I doubt it. I think it’s going to be very expensive, and I don’t think it’s going to prove...I don’t think it’s reliable.

Carl: OK. Let me get to one that I believe is concerning more Americans than INF treaties and nuclear destruction and that is our own pocketbooks.

The American economy, in particular the Texas economy I’m sure you know is not in it’s best shape ever. The whole American economy, I think every economist agrees, has huge clouds on the horizon...a lot of ideas as to how to make it through the storm...

Ned: Well, I think we need to get a bunch of Texans working again, I have a proposal to build an interstate railway system for 200-mile-per-hour trains like the French and the Japanese have.

Carl: 200-mile-per-hour trains between where and where?

Ned: Well, we are working on an initial deal that would run from Fort Worth to San Antonio, but eventually would like to run it all the way from Amarillo down to McAllen, and then take in Houston and El Paso. But I want to emphasize that I don’t want the taxpayers to pay for this. I want this to be a toll road financed by private investors. I think they ought to start buying the land right now while it’s cheap, and then... incidentally, the same right or way could be used for150-mile-per-hour cars and busses as long as we have cheap gasoline. But, uh...

Carl: So you’re suggesting making like the Autobahns of Europe over here...

Ned: Except faster and with more discipline. I would like to have the cars especially designed and in communication with the dispatchers so that anyone who misbehaves would immediately be identified and have his license removed.

Carl: OK, well, they don’t seem to have much problem with that in Europe.

Ned: No, they work pretty good, but they don’t go quite as fast as I think they ought to go here. I think they...the Autobahns were designed forty years ago.

Carl: Of course all these things are based on what technology is available and the price tag that goes with it. I know they can make 150-mile-per-hour cars. We already have some, but most of them cost around $30,000 and more.

Ned: I’d say thirty thousand probably wouldn’t get it for you. But on the other hand, look at it this way. If it got from San Antonio to Dallas in an hour and a half or something like that, you’d have the advantage of the same rig.....you would not have to rent a car. You could go directly from your house to the speedway. Off the speedway go directly to your destination, and for the first few years when these cars are rare, I can’t imagine a better way to pick up girls.

(Long pause, laughter...)

Carl: “Pick up girls” ha ha. Now I’m wondering, are you really a serious candidate for the US Senate?

Ned: You bet I am. I am as serious as I can be. I’m having a little trouble getting attention for these far-out ideas, you know.

Carl: Yeah, I’d say yes, you do have some far-out ideas. 150-mile-per-hour cars, uh, I mean some day I’m sure that’s gonna be possible and practical.

Ned: I think we can start now, and I think it will put 20,000 Texans to work...

Carl: And you use a lot of terms like you think they should start buying this right of way today, but who’s the “they” that’s going to buy it?

Ned: I have a theory that as long as you build the frontage road first, a speedway or whatever you want to call it, actually adds to the value of the land to a depth of about a thousand feet on each side. So if it only doubles the value, then the landowner has about a four to one pay-off even before the road is built.

Carl: All right, but, to get this you have to change the laws passed by Congress, because they won’t even allow you to have an expressway like that.

Ned: That’s right.

Carl: This is not a free country for those kind of ideas.

Ned: What I plan to do is to put some of my people to work, regardless of how this election comes out, trying to get options to buy this right of way. Then before we go to the Legislature or to Congress we are going to have a stack of contracts. We’ll say all we want is for the government to get out of the way and let the productive people get to work on this. And I’m as serious as I can be about this. I’d like for you to see one of the little tabloids I have put together describing this project.

Carl: All right, that’s one of the things that you would do, and we’ll get to some of the others. His name is Ned Snead. He’s running for United States Senate, Republican primary against Beau Boulter and about three or four other candidates, which we’ll have on the radio this week before Super Tuesday. Of course, you can ask Ned Snead your questions too. The number is 737-1200. If you live outside San Antonio, dial 1-737-1234.

(music and commercials)

Carl: Carl Wigglesworth on WOAI radio. Can’t stay at the Motel Six if you’re doing 150 though, you pass them pretty quick. The gentleman is running for United States Senate, Republican primary, Super Tuesday. Ned Snead is his name. He says one of the solutions to the economy of Texas would be a SUPER highway and train.... 200-mile-per-hour trains, 150-mile-per-hour cars going from Amarillo down to the Valley....San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, Dallas area. So that would take in a pretty big part of the state. What happened to El Paso? Why no highways from here to there? That would seem like a natural too.

Ned: Well, I see that as phase two. As a matter of fact we have another plan to come from El Paso, south of Midland, San Angelo, on through the center of the state, a little north of Houston and Beaumont, so that we’d be tying Texas together both east-west and north-south.

Carl: I take it that you are familiar with the highway that is already funded. The people are already committed to doing it, but the United States government is not allowing them to do it in Colorado. The front range super highway, and all they propose is a very modest 100-mile-per-hour highway between Colorado Springs and the Wyoming border I believe...maybe Pueblo, Colorado and the Wyoming border...a stretch of three hundred miles, and they can’t get Congress to approve the rights to do it.

Ned: So that’s why we’ve got to send some new people to Congress.

Carl: OK, Marcel, you’re on WOAI.

Marcel: Uh, I’ve got about two questions for you sir. One thing...my car won’t go over 85 miles per hour. That’s number one. I’d have to sell my car and get another car that would go 150.

Carl: Well, if you want to drive on that highway. No one forces you to drive on this super speedway.

Marcel: Right, right. The other question I have. He’s talking about the Autobahn. The Autobahn is originally designed as a landing strip and takeoff for the Messerschmidts which they hid in a parking area under trees and so forth. And we sort of went around it during the second world war. Because we just thought is was only highways, and it wasn’t that really complex, but they were used as landing strips. Uh, uh, the Autobahn was. And they still have police cars which they drive Porche, and they still control the traffic. They’re not lettin’ anybody go, I don’t think 150. Well, they say no speed limit, but...

Carl: Yeah, well, it’s true. I was just there last fall, and believe me, cars are doing 130, 140 miles an hour.

Marcel: I know, but, just don’t make an error. Ha ha. Don’t swerve.

Carl: But they are good drivers, and they have good enforcement of their laws so that everybody drives on the right except those that are going 130.

Marcel: But why should we have such a high speed area even from El Paso to Houston and vice versa?

Ned: Want me to answer that?

Others: Yes.

Ned: I believe that some time in this generation there will be a real shortage of petroleum, and we really should do something smarter than fight over who gets to burn up what’s left. Now as I see it the high-speed road is the “sizzle.” The “steak” in my opinion is the high-speed train. But I have been convinced that Texans are not yet ready to give up their pickups and gun racks and get on trains. And I don’t think the price of fuel is going up very sharply very soon. The real reason for doing this is to go ahead and get the right of way now while the land is lightly settled and when it can be acquired cheaply. Whether we do the 150-mile-per-hour thing or not is really immaterial. The main thing is to get the land now because as Texas builds up we’re going to need a fast way to get around, and a train is ten times as efficient in terms of passenger miles per gallon as an airliner. When I came on this thing I was trying to say that my plans are 20 or 30 years out in front.

Marcel: Truthfully, being from Texas, I’ve been out here thirty five years from New York. I had some property which I bought right past Sea World. This is the truth. And I project myself for ten years, and as of today it’s thirty five years. So to that respect I think you’re right, truthfully. Because this land has to be appropriated now for future use. There’s no getting around it, and if we don’t do it now like you say, truthfully, I don’t care if it’s 150 or whatever it is, the land has to be appropriated so there is access to any part of Texas, or anywhere in the United States.

Ned: And in order to go FAST on this road we are not going to be able to use existing railroad right of ways. We’re gonna have to have curves with a minimum radius of about two and a half miles. It’s gotta be all new. We’ve gotta go through virgin territory, through the farm and ranch land.

Marcel: Well, I’m only sixty two, and I don’t want to go 150 miles an hour.

Ned: Well, I’m fifty eight, and I’m probably gonna have a co-pilot driving me around.

Carl: All right, thank you, Marcel. Jerome, your turn. You’re on WOAI, and you’re talking to Ned Snead. Go ahead.

Jerome: First of all, just a little pun. Yeah, now, Mr. Snead, you will need a co-pilot out there if you’re gonna have little girls going there between San Antonio and Amarillo. First of all you might wind up the way Gary Hart did. But that isn’t what I’m really concerned with. I work, and I’m the same age as the other gentleman was. Grew up in Texas. Yellow dog, straight line, straight ticket Democrat, OK? And I have voted for years Republican to establish a two-party system. And we are being rather successful with it. But when the national committee comes in and says, “If you lose the election to Fox or Gilbreath, there is no support from the national committee, and only Beau is gonna get one-point-one million,” it seems to me that there is something remiss to the contenders that are opposed to Beau that is not being brought out. We are being blackmailed with one-point-one million dollars to vote against you.

Ned: (laughing) I have been assured by the committee that handles this million dollars that they will stay neutral. So I think Beau has started counting his chickens before they hatch. But that’s not going to be enough anyway. We’re going to have to.....In order to unseat the democrats, we’re going to have to get the money from the ordinary voters. The entrenched politicians at the top of these powerful committees can get all the money they need from....the lobbyists. If we’re really gonna have a real election, we’re gonna have to start getting the five and ten dollar contributions from the people who have had enough of the tax-and-spend type of democratic government.

Jerome: You’re correct there, and you’re gonna need an awful lot of people that....I talk to Knox Duncan on this thing and got nowheres, and he’s almost convinced me to, Hey, go back where I came from on, Hey, being a yellow-dog democrat. Sorry, Sir, but that’s what you run into with the establishment. This is true not only in the Republican but it’s also true in the Democrat party.

Ned: If you’ll put me in that general election, I am a fairly wealthy man myself, and I think I’ve got enough seed money to bring in what it’s gonna take to beat ‘em. I also think that, to some extent, the election is going to be determined by what the Soviets do and what the economy does.....that it’s not gonna be all determined by money. You know, you cannot BUY an election. At some point that money comes back to haunt you.

Jerome: I’d like to say one more thing, and I’ll let you go, Carl. The other day Carl had a....a political analyst, and he said the opposite. The reason the national committee can command the attention they’re doing with the power they have is.....money. So what that political analyst was saying on Carl’s show the other day is that it’s money that determines the elections, and us people that are trying to establish a two-party system.....we’re just kinda out there.... gonna have to fight and claw ‘till we win....over.... money.

Ned: Keep in mind that not more than about twenty per cent of the people are settling these elections. So if you really want to fight and claw, you can get out there and find out who agrees with you and get them to vote. And you are the kind of people I’m counting on.

Carl: Thank you for the ideas and comments. 737-1200 is the number. Ned Snead is running for United States Senate in the Republican primary. He’s on the ballot on Super Tuesday, and we’ll find out more about why he thinks you should vote for him right after news and weather update.

(commercials, etc.)

Carl: His name is Ned Snead. He’s running for United States Senate on the Republican side of things for the primary coming up Super Tuesday. 737-1200 is telephone number, and long distance, you’re calling from Austin, go right ahead.

Voice: Well, Hello

Carl: Hello.

Voice: The question I want to raise is consideration of the repeal of the drug prohibition. The reason for raising the question and trying to get this on the agenda is: we have just been treated over this weekend to a call by the state and county government to spend more tax money to build more jails here in Texas in spite of the fact that, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics in 1981, we were putting less than the national average per capita in the jails, that rate per capita went up 50 per cent, and we are now over the national average. And on further investigation, we find that about a third of our criminal justice system in Texas, the jail system, about a third of it, at a conservative estimate, is being consumed by this idiotic effort to socialize personal responsibility. It doesn’t work. It’s corrupting our government, and the policy seems to be corrupting...has already corrupted several governments throughout Latin America. Do you have any ideas on how to address this problem?

Ned: I sure do. Carl, did you put that guy on there just for my benefit?

Carl: No, I didn’t.

Ned: What’s his name?

Voice: Terry Liberty Parker in Austin.

Ned: Terry?

Carl: Terry Parker in Austin, Texas.

Ned: Parker. I believe our war on drugs is gettin’ nowhere. I believe that three-time convicted drug dealers should get an overdose of their own merchandise. And then, in addition, I feel like if we’re gonna give away clean needles to stop the spread of AIDS, we might as well give away the dope to go in ‘em. At least the dope fiends would not have to rob and steal to support their habit. So I probably agree with you better than anybody else.

Terry: Could be. Uh, by the way, Rider Scott on your station, not on your program, Carl, but on your station, Rider Scott on the general council for the governor seemed to indicate that the difference between the legal price of cocaine and the black market price of cocaine was five dollars an ounce versus ten dollars an ounce, and of course he couldn’t see how that would make any difference on the crime rate. In fact the difference is this. The Sigma Chemical Company legally sells cocaine to those who are authorized to buy it, and this is the same stuff that’s called crack on the street, for seven dollars a gram. On the street it’s a hundred and fifty dollars a gram. An ordinary person has no other way to sustain that habit but to go out and steal six hundred dollars worth of merchandise every day in order to fence it for a fourth of its worth. That means it’s not a wonderful life for the addict, to be an addict, but we’re compounding the problem with this echo from the old alcohol prohibition by having these addicts come out and terrorize the rest of us, stealing our stereos, and we’re corrupting our government, and uh, with these enormous black market profits.

Carl: All right, a comment from our candidate.

Ned: Well I wish I had him along to campaign with me. He could just as well make my speech.

Carl: OK. Thank you for calling from Austin. On the mobile line, Ray, you’re on WOAI. Go ahead.

(confusion due to auto radio & mobile phone)

Ray: Yes the gentlemen called a little while ago. He wanted the two-party system...that’s why he was backing the Republicans, and I’m saying to him that if that’s the case then we don’t need another Republican, because we have a Democrat and a Republican Senator, and maybe what we need to have is to keep it like that instead of having two Republicans. I think that with two Republicans we need two Republicans like we need a head in the hole.

Carl: A hole in the head. The message is plain, yes. Go ahead.

Ned: I have a suspicion that this guy who just called in is not a Republican. Incidentally I asked your buddy over there if I could speak a little Spanish on the air. Can I do that?

Carl: Well, very little, ’cause I can’t keep up with you if you start that.

Ned: Does the fellow on the phone speak Spanish?

Carl: He’s already hung up.

Ned: OK....tell him that, “Mucha gente creen que las personas que hablan espanol no votaran para un republicano, pero los amigos mios que hablan espanol han trabajado por toda la vida y no estan buscando algo gratis. Quieren exacatamente lo que quieren todo el mundo...la opportunidad, lo que es justo, y respecto.”

Carl: Ah, you want to translate that for us, Mr. Snead?

Ned: Well, I just said that people tell me that people who speak Spanish won’t vote for a Republican, all of my friends who speak Spanish have been working hard all their lives, and they’re not looking for somethin’ for nothin’, and that, uh, they just want opportunity, justice and respect.

Carl: And our guest is Ned Snead. He’s running for United States Senate in the Republican primary on Super Tuesday. You can talk to him, too. We have a couple of lines open. The number 737-1200. If you live outside San Antonio, dial 1-737-1234. I say something truly amazing the other day. I heard these were coming

(he continues with a commercial for color copiers)

Carl: Carl Wigglesworth. He’s running for U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket. Ned Snead is his name, and you are talking to him. Go ahead.

Voice: Thank you. Ah, one comment. The gentlemen who called in, the man immediately in front and the other man who is a democrat...voted Republican. I think in a very broad sense they’re saying the same thing, that they want a two-party system and not a complete democrat or a complete republican. Going back to what you were saying about your transportation, Mr. Snead. You might be, have been, uh, twenty to thirty years ahead. Why don’t you jump a little further and talk about monorails? That’s the...they’re more efficient. They’re safer. They’ve proven theirself. We already have the technology....in the world. I don’t think we have it over here. But if you think about that...your right of ways and everything else...should diminish.

Ned: My concern is not for any particular mode of transportation. My concern is to, right now, while Texas is lightly settled, and while the land is cheap, that we acquire the right of way for some type of high-speed transportation. I have no objection at all if monorail turns out to be the most technically feasible. I also have no objection to magnetic levitation and other things that have been proposed. But I figure that it’s hard enough to get people to take me seriously, so I stick to proven technologies like the French and the Japanese. But I agree with you, there’s nothing wrong with monorail.

Voice: I understand why you...because people can relate to proven technology. But we have been dormant, ignorant, ears closed, lacking of (?) something as far as monorails go. But it is just too great a transportation system, that uh, is just being ignored. I appreciate it, and thank you.

Ned: Well, you’re gonna’ vote for me anyway?

Carl: Larry, you’re on WOAI.

Larry: Mr. Snead, sir.

Ned: Yes sir.

Larry: Ah, I’d like to hear some more of your comments about the military and uh, bringing back the draft did you say?

Ned: No, I particularly don’t like the draft, because I, I have the feeling that a draftee is an unlucky guy who has to go do a dirty job while somebody else stays home and goes to graduate school or something. I would have it universal. I would have it, every boy and every girl put in at least a year in military training and then if they want to do Peace Corps or missionary work or almost anything else, uh, they could do that too. But I particularly want the white-collar warriors in Washington to know that it may be their kid or their grandson that goes to the next war that they declare.

Larry: As an ex-veteran, sir, I wholeheartedly agree that everybody should at least serve in the military in some way, shape, or form, be it National Guard, Reserve, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, something. (confusion) They should give back something of what this country has given to them.

Ned: I totally agree with you. I served in the Korean War, and uh, I think a lot of civilians don’t realize how few military personnel ever get shot at. I was over there for a year with a war going on all around me, and as far as I know, nobody ever shot at me personally. But there’s thousands and thousands of jobs to be done, and well, (laughter) I think it’s everybody’s job.

Carl: All right, Larry, thank you, and our guest is Ned Snead running for U S Senate, Republican primary on Super Tuesday. The number 737-1200 here at WOAI.

(commercial)

Carl: Carl Wigglesworth on WOAI radio and our guest is Ned Snead, running for U S Senate. We have a caller who is not on the line but wanted to know how he could contribute to your campaign. He says he likes what he hears.

Ned: Boy, am I glad to hear that. The mailing address is post office box six, Georgetown, and you’d be amazed how hard it is to raise money for a campaign this year.

Carl: OK, box six, Georgetown, Texas, and zip code is?

Ned: 78626

(Note: P. O. Box 6 was rented only for the campaign)

Carl: 78626 All right, let’s see, next caller on the line is Stan. You’re on WOAI radio, go ahead.

Stan: Good afternoon, Carl, uh, Mr. Snead.

Ned: Yes, sir, Stan.

Stan: Senator Bentsen, along with others in Congress, gave away the Panama Canal. It is of vital interest to the United States, both economically and from the standpoint of our national security. How would you propose to deal with this situation?

Ned: Well, I’m glad you asked, because I have been thinking about it. It ties in with another item. I’ve been in Guatemala and Belize and Brazil, but I’ve never been in Nicaragua. I doubt that our taxpayers’ money is gonna be able to dislodge a well-entrenched government, so I’d be more inclined to export prosperity to Nicaragua than political instability. Long ago plans were made to dig a sea-level canal across Nicaragua, which would let our aircraft carriers and the escorts operate in two oceans without making a ten-day trip around Cape Horn. So I’d like to make the same kind of treaty we made in Panama 90 years ago. Then I’d have every engineer and construction man be required to be fluent in Spanish and buy all his supplies locally. If possible, I’s rather overwhelm the locals with prosperity and tourists, than...of course, we’s have our own naval and air bases there to look after our own interests. I think Panama could eventually become just a tourist route for millionaires’ yachts.

Carl: OK, thank you, Stan. Mary Jane, you’re on WOAI.

Mary: Good afternoon. Uh, I want to tell Mr. Snead I am what you call a Spanish-speaking American, and I was born in Litton Springs, Texas, and I agree with him. We’re not, uh, we don’t want free stuff. We just want a chance to make a living, and he is a real swell fellow. The only thing I sorry is that on Channel 41 last night, or last afternoon, a Mr. Duncan talked and said a lot of things that is gonna change a lot of Spanish-speaking people, you know.

Carl: Duncan Knox, Republican Party Chairman in this area.

Mary: Uh huh, he called the Spanish-speaking people, the ones that don’t know English, you know, the old ones, and maybe some new ones, that have crossed over, you know, short from stupid and all that.

Carl: Well, that wouldn’t be very wise politically for sure. Mary Jane, I need to cut it a little bit short because we have 30 seconds for our guest to wrap it up here for today. People should vote for you on Super Tuesday coming up, Ned Snead, because basically you’re gonna get government off their backs?

Ned: Well, that’s one of the things. I’d like to answer Mary Jane. Incidentally language, I think, is a trade barrier to most Americans. I think we ought to call an international convention to select a trade language for all the world and teach it to all children from their first year in school. That would be in addition to their native language. But getting back to why you should vote for me, my uncle, M. J. Neeley said he would never hire a man who likes to fish or play golf. Well, that’s part of my platform. Just remember Ned Snead is the yodeling Senator who’s too busy to play golf.

Carl: All right, Ned Snead, thank you for being here today. We are out of time. Primary day is Super Tuesday coming up a week from tomorrow. Thank you for being with us.

Losing An Election

March 18, 1988

First, the embarrassment and disappointment of losing an election only lasts for about a day.

Second, there is a tremendous sense of relief that there is no more campaigning to be done, and no need to take on a public job with no simple answers and no possibility of satisfying all the people who would demand your attention.

Third, is the appearance of so many friends and supporters, and the newly acquired skills of reaching out to strangers.

During the campaign there is a tremendous sense of urgency and importance in every hour. The old, every day sense of meaninglessness is overwhelmed by a passion to get the TRUTH to everybody. The candidate knows without a doubt that he is doing the Lord’s work. Campaigning is LIVING at the peak of intensity.

Obviously, running for office is not for everybody, but it’s too important to be left to lawyers and politicians. Any one who has a reason to complain about the government should consider taking an active part in it.

But if you think of public office as a means to personal gain, forget it. The pay is too low, the hours too long, and the cost of getting the job may be twenty times the salary or more. If you get in it for the money, you will just be part of the problem.

On the other hand, if you are lucky and clever enough to have lived as long as you have, and to have accumulated more than you need, maybe it’s your name that is being called.

To continue living like you have been, you depend on smart and honest governors, legislators, judges, commissioners, mayors, councilmen and party chairmen. The wisdom you have accumulated may be exactly what is needed somewhere, and there is no better way to invest your time and money for the benefit of your children.

If you think you hear your name being called, even faintly, volunteer. It will begin the most exciting time of your life. And if you are really not needed now, the Lord and the people will give you an honorable discharge.

Power Companies Could Lead Us into 21st Century

Editor’s Note: This is a letter the candidate, Mr. Snead wrote before losing the Super Tuesday, March 8, 1988 Republican primary. The remaining writings are as an ex-candidate.

To: Directors and Managers

Electric Generating Utilities

This is an unusual time in history, and it presents some unique opportunities for the electric power industry which may not be repeated soon.

Our Navy is fighting to protect oil for our trading partners.

The promise of nuclear power has lost its public appeal.

Our national effort in space is suffering a crisis in leadership.

We are beginning to suspect that the Soviets want peace.

The Soviets have developed the world’s largest spacecraft. (The name is Energia.)

Coal-fired power plants cost twice as much as gas or oil fired plants.

Coal prices are being held up by monopolistic railroad transportation prices.

Environmentalists are worried about carbon dioxide and heat in the atmosphere.

Nearly all practical sites for hydro-electric power in Texas have already been developed.

There are still large areas of unsettled land in the world, particularly Texas and Brazil.

I believe the time has come to form an international co-op of electric utility companies and private investors to begin to develop a ring of Solar Power Satellites.

One of my classmates from Texas A & M, Hubert Davis, who designed the spacecraft that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of onto the moon, was also NASA’s chief investigator for the Solar Power Satellite, originally proposed by Dr. Peter Glaser. He concluded that it would work and produce power at a reasonable cost, but the initial investment was far too much to squeeze out of the taxpayers. However, in the thirty years it would take to build, the world’s electric utility companies would have to spend seven times as much on nuclear and coal-fired plants to meet the expected demand.

Because the system would release no waste gasses and waste heat into the atmosphere, it would make the environmentalists see the utilities as heroes rather than villains.

It would be seen as a thrilling adventure by young people who were aroused by our trips to the moon, but have been disappointed by the recent failures in our space program.

It represents an ideal project for cautious cooperation with the Soviets, friendly competition on a vast scale, and diversion of vast amounts of labor and wealth from dangerous weapons to useful tools for mankind. This is the perfect example of “beating swords into plowshares.”

Where can we start? The project is obviously far too large for any one utility company, and perhaps even for a nation which is spending more than its income. The answer is on land.

The last item which will be needed happens to be the first which must be acquired, and the cheapest.

Receiving antennas which convert microwave energy from space into direct current, called rectennas, will be built on elliptical areas about five miles in diameter. A forest of devices similar to TV antennas will be supported on an open frame ten or more feet above the ground. Sunlight and rain will fall through, and cattle can graze normally under it.

Birds will fly through the beam without any effect, although airplanes will experience temporary radio interference.

Sites for these receiving antennas must be acquired now, while they are still available and cheap. Since they will not need to be occupied for many years, they might be acquired by options with a very small initial cash outlay. At the same time land should be acquired for transformer sites, power lines and service roads to connect the receiving sites to the power grid.

The power companies could signal to the world that they are moving aggressively into the twenty first century just by starting to negotiate for the necessary land.

Another real estate acquisition will be larger and needed sooner. Since about five per cent less fuel is required for rockets launched from the equator, the co-op should acquire a launching area of a hundred square miles or more in the Amazon Valley and fronting on the Atlantic Ocean. This could probably be a gift from the Brazilian government, since their people would expect to supply the site with most of the food, fuel, power, lumber, steel and cement for thousands of technicians working there.

A very low-cost early requirement is the drafting of a charter for the proposed international co-op in English, Russian and Portuguese. Another friend of mine, Art Dula, is a Houston patent attorney familiar with INTELSAT, and who has been negotiating recently with the Soviets on space transportation.

As a first step, I would suggest that your directors and staff plan a seminar discussing the possibilities with Hubert Davis, Art Dula, Peter Glaser and myself.

We may have a unique opportunity to lead the whole world into the twenty-first century.

Sincerely yours,

Ned Snead

On The Panama Canal

March 20, 1988

In the last week of the Republican Senatorial campaign I found a book written in 1977 by Congressman Philip M. Crane entitled, Surrender In Panama—The Case Against The Treaty.

The more I read, the madder I became.

The entire text of all the Panama Canal treaties are in the book, including:

Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901—with Britain

Hay-Herran Treaty of 1903—with Colombia

Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903—with Panama

Friendship & Cooperation Treaty of 1936—with Panama

Treaty of Mutual Understanding & Cooperation

of 1955—Panama

Panama Canal Treaty of 1977—with Panama

The provision which bothers me most is Article XII[2](b) “During the duration of this Treaty, the United States of America shall not negotiate with third states for the right to construct an interoceanic canal on any other route in the Western Hemisphere, except as the two Parties may otherwise agree.”

I find it hard to believe that either Jimmy Carter or Lloyd Bentsen have ever read the text of the Treaty they approved. Their days may have been completely filled by official duties, conferences with aides and visitors from home, and by campaigning for the next election. They had to rely on others to tell them that, on balance, the Treaty was acceptable.

In August of 1977 Lloyd Bentsen received 1,889 letters or phone calls with 99 per cent asking him to vote AGAINST the treaty, and yet he voted for it.

I saw Mr. Bentsen in Washington last week and told him that the Panama Canal would be a big issue in this year’s general election. He told me that he visited Panama in 1977 and was convinced that failure to ratify the treaty would be playing right into the Castro’s hands.

I wonder if a hundred thousand letters from Texans could have stopped him from giving away this extremely valuable national asset which may be essential to the defense of the Western Hemisphere.

However, I don’t want to be one who complains without offering a possible solution.

The smartest lawyer I know told me that according to Constitutional Law, a treaty has the same force and effect as an act of Congress, and when two conflict, the most recent overrides the earlier.

Therefore, a bill could be passed by both Houses of Congress and approved by the President to nullify any part of all of the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977. I have personally asked Senators Strom Thurmond and Lloyd Bentsen and Congressman Beau Boulter if they have considered this possibility. Apparently none had, but Mr. Boulter has promised to look into it.

Possibly the old canal is obsolete, being too small for modern supertankers and aircraft carriers, but without it we must have the right to build a larger sea level canal.

I have been excavating rock for 35 years, and my rough estimate for a ditch 1,200 feet wide, 60 feet deep and a hundred miles long would require moving about three billion cubic yards of material. At two dollars per cubic yard, it would cost about six billion dollars, roughly the cost of one aircraft carrier complete with airplanes, but without the fleet of escort ships.

Such a project would bring immense prosperity to Mexico or any Central American country where it might be built. It would also benefit American suppliers of machinery, explosives and tools, and reduce our need for a larger navy.

I have been called a visionary. OK, here is one of my visions, and I want to share it with every Congressman, Senator and challenger in the country. Please, somebody, pick up the ball and run with it.

Written from Panama City

August 10, 1988

Senator Lloyd Bentsen

Hart Building, Room 703

Second and C Streets, N.E.

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Mr. Bentsen:

When you visited with Sherron and me in your office in March, I told you that the Panama Canal would be an issue in your campaign. I still believe that, but not in the way I did at that time.