NIXON AND AMERICAN POPULATION POLICY: ANNIVERSARY OF A MISSED OPPORTUNITY (NPG Footnote)
- David Simcox
- March 1, 1998
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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NIXON AND AMERICAN POPULATION POLICY: ANNIVERSARY OF A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
An NPG Forum Paper
(An NPG Footnote)
by David Simcox
March 1998
The post-mortems marking the 25th anniversary of Watergate earlier in 1997 overshadowed another quarter-century milestone of the Richard Nixon era – one of even greater long-term consequences for the nation’s future.
In 1972 President Nixon rejected the report of John Rockefeller’s Commission on Population and the American Future – the nation’s sole consideration of an explicit population policy. While the idea of a national commission took form under Lyndon Johnson, President Nixon made population growth a major concern, calling it in 1969 “one of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century.” He backed legislation creating the commission and appointed most of its members. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a Nixon White House advisor, was a driving force.
There was good reason then for Nixon’s sense of urgency. The post-war baby boom had added fifty million Americans in just two decades. If that high birth rate had persisted there would have been 400 million Americans by 2013.
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David Simcox is a former NPG Senior Advisor. From 1985 to 1992 he was executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. From 1956 to 1985, Simcox was a career diplomat of the U.S. Department of State, with service in diplomatic posts in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and in Washington. His diplomatic assignments involved formulation of policy for labor, population and migration issues in such countries as Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Brazil and the nations of Indo-China. Simcox is a frequent contributor on population, immigration and Latin American matters to national newspapers and periodicals and has testified on several occasions before congressional committees on immigration, labor and identification policies. He holds degrees from the University of Kentucky, American University and the National War College. Simcox is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and saw service in the Korean conflict. If you are affiliated with the media and would like to schedule an interview with David, please contact us at 703-370-9510.