On his 26year career. And a discussion on corporations and stock values. Dan burton is retiring from the house this year after 30 years in office. The 15term congressman represents the Fifth District in east Central Indiana which includes parts of indianapolis and the surrounding suburbs. Earlier he talked with cspan about his past investigations of the collective demonstration and the oversight ruled congress. This is 30 minutes. As you exit the institution how would you say it stated . It has changed a great deal. It is not the same as when i came 1983. There seemed to be more comedy. Tip oneill was speaker. I will never forget he was the first time he was on the floor raising cane with democrats. He had someone take his place and he came down and started giving me the dickens. After that we became very good friends and played golf together. Michael was a wonderful leader. There was a spirit of camaraderie even though we had differences politically then that we do not have now. Now it is much more combative. I have a lot of friends on the democratic side of the aisle, very good friends. As far as working things out is not as easy as it used to be. What are some of the root causes . I think and i am not pointing fingers, when we went after jimi was the newt speaker and jim was forced out of office. They went after newt. That is one of the things that started this movement. Over time, i think it has become political as well as personal. Much more political and personal. She said raising cain, are you will the the gavel for the Oversight Committee and use that to raise the number of investigations especially of the Clinton Administration. What do you see as your legacy of that tenure . I think bill clinton, president clinton and secretary as secretary hilary as secretary of state do not like me very much. I was chair of the government Oversight Committee during the time we were investigating whitewater and we were investigating Campaign Contributions that came from sources outside the United States and from various people. There was an awful lot to that. We had people testifying like ohnny chonung, they had contributed money to gain favor with the white house. And they came into the kitchen at hong kong and said we wonder we like your president and we want to contribute to his campaign. The man who said that was the equivalent of the cia. These were people who were under oath and swore to this and we also had over 100 people take the fifth amendment or flee the country. There was a lot there. That is not to say that president clinton did not do some good things. He worked with Newt Gingrich and we got out from under some difficult financial problems but i do believe and i still believe there was some illegal activities that took place and we were unable to get the job done. Ive always said that janet reno was the greatest blocker than anybody i had ever seen in the National Football league. One thing ive learned was if youre the president and you want to protect your legacy and office you want to make sure you have an attorney general that will protect your back and janet reno, god bless her, she did that very effectively. I sent five criminals i thought were ironclad and she never moved on any of them. The Clinton Administration did a lot of good things. I also think there were things that were done wrong. That should have been pursued and that is why we pursued them so diligently. I was criticized roundly, they made fun of a lot of things we did. That goes with the territory. When you want to explain to people about the investigations power of congress, how do you explain that role of congress . The congress has the responsibility to ferret waste, and abuse. Were supposed to oversee that. Most committees do not do a good job of it. When i became chairman, newt charge me with being aggressive in a number of investigations. I investigated the food and drug in restoration and the fbi and the white house and we found there were people in jail for crimes they did not commit. J. Edgar hoover knew about it. There were a lot of things that were wrong in government that were not readily known. We had our investigations and we were very aggressive. What did we do . I issued over 1200 subpoenas. I do not think anyone will ever touch that record. I am not sure it is a good record but it was when i thought was necessary. We wanted to get to the bottom of a lot of these things and i think it paid off. We not only put pressure on the clinton demonstration, i put pressure on the chief counsel at the white house. I know you probably heard of Whitey Bolger who was captured recently. His brother was one of the people we have before committee working on that. There were a lot of things we did. That is the responsibility of congress. The oversight of the executive branch and the agencys of government is extremely important. No matter what you believed, what you think, there is free to be ways waste or fraud and criminal activity and abuse in any government. And you have to take a hard look at it. With that hyperpartisanship you were talking about and its true causes, did your aggressive stance for investigation contribute to that and if so, is that the price you think is necessary to pay . I think that it did contribute that. You are stepping on toes. When you go after the president of the United States, he had better have doorplate amor armor plate. They will put a stop to your investigation. They contacted girls i dated in school, they went into everything. That is one of the things you have to expect when you are aggressive and it does cause problems. I have no regrets about it. If youre going to do your job and do it to the best of your ability and live up to your commitments to the constitution, you have to be ready to take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What did you learn through the experience of the powers of the executive and the powers of congress . As i said before, i learned the president of the United States, if he has an attorney general that will stand behind him, there is very little that can be accomplished as far as bringing illegal activity to the fore and to justice. Richard nixon, he went to his attorney general and did not get support. I do not think he would have left office. I felt we had strong evidence of illegal activities. Janet reno protected him and i think that ended up helping him a lot. But i want to point out if bill or hillary is the attention, they did some good things and i think the economy of the country was helped because he worked with Newt Gingrich so there were some positives but nevertheless, i feel like there were some things wrong that we were pursuing. Were talking about president to served you served under five of them. I wonder if you could reflect on which of those president s and administrations to the best job of relationshipbuilding with congress. No question, the greatest man i ever met and the credit the greatest president was Ronald Reagan. Ronald reagan had a heart and determination and i have that i have not seen anybody in the white house or anyone in congress since. He was a softspoken fellow who was so underrated, it was not funny. Let me tell you a story about his heart. My father tried to kill my mother when i was a boy. That is one of the reasons i never liked bullies and why was aggressive on a lot things i did. I think my father had a lot to do with it. He went to prison and my mother waited on tables for 18 years and he went she married a man who went to the grade. I said i will take you in the front door of the white house and sintroduce you to the president. They looked at each other and said yes. 18 years later i got elected to congress and i called reagans secretary and let me see if i can arrange this. They range did and arranged it and mom and kenny came. We went into the oval office and president reagan came over and said, i want to tell you your son is one of the brightest young congressman we have and he is going to do great things. I know you have to wait on tables for 18 years and it worked in a foundry. And danny had to shine shoes. We had those problems in my family. Isnt it great we live in a country where you can achieve anything . He had had his secretary called my abbas to find out about me and my family. When i walked data that office, i would have done out of that office, i would have done anything for that man. She was so happy and she carried the picture until she died. Her favorite actor was Ronald Reagan. A lesson for that about relationships for president is the personal touch . It is a big part of it but it was not just a personal touch. He had goals like the strategic defense initiative. I was the first one who defended him against a guy named al gore and tom downey. I went after them for about an hour. Reagan wrote me a nice personal letter the next day. He was very committed to what he wanted mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Once he made up his mind he was very strong in his position but he was also very amenable to dealing with people where he could. He was not so hard knows that he was not willing to try to find a way to solve problems. He worked with tip oneill, a very strong democrat, in order to solve the Social Security problem and i am not sure any other president would be able to achieve what he did. Plus the Economic Growth with his tax cuts. I think he had that real nice, soft personality, a very warm guy who knew what it was to be poor and to fight your way out of difficult things. But he was also a man who had convictions. He was willing to go to the mat if he had to. A good man. The best i knew. Does the president ial nominating process bring candidate in to this system with conviction, with the kind of skills you think it takes to be a successful president . I do not mean to disparage anybody who has run for office but i think there is too many people running for office who are concerned about politics in getting elected than doing what is really right. I feel like Ronald Reagan was one of those guys who had a commitment in his soul to do what he thought was best for the country, and not to worry about being partisan all the time and being worried about the next election. And so i think right now we have too many people that when they run for office they read the polls and they try to do what they think is going to get elected instead of saying what they believe and i think it is time now that we need people who will speak out forcefully about what they believe, because the people of america are hungry for that. They want someone who will say clearly, this is what i believe even if they disagree but i will do my best to achieve these things and stick to it. I think people i have people in my campaigns say i do not agree with you on this but i think youre a straight shooter and i will vote for you anyhow. Im not holding myself up as any paragons of virtue but i sense from that that people are willing to give you a chance if they think you are a straight shooter. You made reference to using for time as a way to achieve policy discussions. When you looked back, you have spent a lot of time on the floor. Some members never go to the floor. How have you seen the floor as a research as a member of congress . They used to be that you could get down and go down and get an hours special order. A guy from texas would talk about the Space Program and talk about chuck holes in his district. They started changing it that we had quit by midnight. I think we have gone too far. Members need to speak their mind on personal time more than just five minutes in the morning and maybe one minute at night. Many times, there are things that need to be eliminated with a little extra time and getting two minutes during a debate or one minute at the end of the day or five minutes in the morning, sometimes as i get it done. I would like to see the revisited. Many members complained or hearken back to the time when members used to stay around on the weekends and go out to dinner with one another and families would get together. What changed that . I think the acrimony that started with the jim wright case and going after newt, that was a payback. I think those were the seeds for a lot of that. Were not friends any more. I still get together with some people for dinner. Very rarely is it with my democratic colleagues. There are some democrats are really like, charlie rangel. There is a lot of guys that i like on the other side of the aisle and we get together once in awhile but it is not like it used to be. It should be better. Any sense of congressional scheduling practices change that . When i first ran, i spent 200 tricky thousand dollars or thereabouts my First Campaign 250,000 or thereabouts for my First Campaign. Members spend an inordinate amount of time at their headquarters calling people, begging for money. I think you spend maybe one third to onehalf of your time asking people for money. That should not be the Main Objective of our job. We should be doing the job for the people instead of worrying about raising money. I do not know what the answer is. Maybe limiting the terms of the campaign, i do not know what it is. You cannot limit the funding because of the first amendment. It is gone way beyond the pale. I think we have state representatives that are spending threequarters of a Million Dollars for house in indiana. We have gone beyond where we should. In addition to your long service, you have been on foreign affairs. 30 years. A somewhat Early Association was with jesse helms. How did that alliance come together . Lets start with that part of the story. I was always a strong anti communists. I never liked fidel castro. I became chairman of the subcommittee on western hemisphere. I worked with some of my cuban ileanaan friends, ke roslehtinen and bob menendez and we worked hard to put sanctions on castro to try to bring that regime down. It was not until the soviet mig that was shot down, they shot a couple of them down. One of them made it back. That created a huge for error furor. Bill clinton was put in a difficult position. I was the author in the house and the jesse helms was the author in the senate and we worked together on the bill along with my cubanamerican brands. That regime is still around. At the time, a number of our allies protested the bill. In the rearview mirror, how effective was it overall . Do you feel good about that . It shows the repression is so strong in cuba, the ability of fidel castro to reach out to some of his friends around the world that he has been able to circumvent sanctions. I think we ought to do everything we can to bring freedom to the people of cuba. The helmsburton law was not as effective as i would have liked. Another issue out you are associated with is autism. How did that get started . My grandson was a very normal child. When he was 18 months to two years old, he got nine shots in one day. Seven of which had thimerosol, mercury. It is a preservative. In 1929 it was tested on the 29 people who had meningitis. They said that the mercury had no impact so they started using solutions. Halmologic when children get a few vaccinations, it did not have a huge impact but they started to get as many as 25 or 30 before they get to the first grade. My grandson got nine in one day and he became artistic, banging his head against the wall. Then diary and constipation diarrhea and constipation. He was doing terrible. I was not aware of autism and all but i was chairman of the committee that did the investigation so i started to looking into with health and Human Services and the food and Drug Administration and that is where i had four years of hearings on that and i became convinced that women that mercury, women who are pregnant should not eat any fish. We are injecting it into our children and adults in the form of vaccinations and the brain tissue according to the scientists we have before the committee is very soft and it is hard to get that mercury and of their once a gets into the brain. We also had mercury out of their once it gets into the brain. And we saw very clearly how it affects the brain cells. I would be working on this after i get out of congress to get mercury out of everything that goes into the human body. A causes autism and other neurological problems and is a contributing factor to alzheimers. When you get a flu shot, and has mercury in it. And so i have to tell you right now. My colleagues do not know it. We used to have one eye and 10,000 children who were autistic. Were looking at it one in 10,000 children who are autistic. We have an epidemic and we have to find other reasons. The mercury in vaccinations is a contributing factor. After the investigation, did anything else, of that effort . Has anything changed . After the investigations, did anything else come out of that effort . We were able to change the vaccinations. They have also tried to sneak legislation to that will protect the pharmaceutical companies against classaction lawsuits and we have been a will to stop that. It is a neverending case of constant vigilance to make sure they do not protect themselves. I met with the leaders of the various pharmaceutical companies, ceos, a whole bunch of them. I said if you would put money into the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund to compensate people who were damaged and did you get mercury out of the vaccinations and put the shots into singleshot vials which cannot require a preservative, i will get legislation passed that protect you against classaction lawsuits. It would not do anything with it. I will continue to fight and one day, 10 or 15 years from now, somebody will say to you remember dan burton . We finally got mercury out of those things. Mercury is toxic to the human neurological system. We need to get every form of mercury out and in particular, stop the vaccinations. We have mercury in the light bulbs. If you drop one and breaking, therere all kinds of things you have to do to protect yourself from being exposed to the mercury. We have l. E. D. Bulbs and they work fine. Where we using this things . Back to autism. You have the great support of the autism community. Is the aspect is of it size of the debt. You have brought lots of federal dollars to autism.