On November 2, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and members of the Cabinet Committee on Executive Reorganization, including Rogers C. B. Morton, Maurice H. Stans, James D. Hodgson, Elliot L. Richardson, George W. Romney, George P. Shultz, J. Philip Campbell, David Maxwell, Frank C. Carlucci, III, Egil G. ("Bud") Krogh, Jr., William L. Gifford, Neal Ball, Geoffrey C. Shepard, Dwight A. Ink, and John D. Ehrlichman., met in the Cabinet Room of the White House from 3:37 pm to 4:35 pm. The Cabinet Room taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 081-004 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
The REA, I do not think, or a certain amount of light, and the POM's own administration does not have a constituency.
And why can't those two be separated?
I thought we were in terms of separating those out.
No, this was extensions.
Extensions, I think.
We've done that in the county gates.
Yes, I can tell you about the pastor of the REA.
The REA had their own elected board of directors of the local level.
They have cooperatives.
It's a horrible lobby.
And you see, we have no control over them because of their quantities at the local level.
But they are a constituency.
The salt conservation people are a constituency.
But Forest Service and your farm's home have no constituency.
They just have people in the Congress that are their champions.
But the REA people are the benefit from
There's no doubt about it.
He's not a rural community development.
There's no doubt about it.
And that's one of the objectives here.
I've made speech after speech on this in different groups over at the Secretary.
And we've promoted in every way we could in all of our appearances, not every appearance, because sometimes we're not in focus.
We're not in focus.
And I think there are other things.
Some of them are considerable.
I think there are other things.
I think one of the things that some of the agriculture people are concerned about is that they visualize this as things being moved into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whereas it isn't that at all.
They are a constituency.
It's all conservation people who are in constituency with Forest Service and your farm's own panel of constituency.
They just have the people in the Congress that are the champions.
But the REA people are the benefit from
There's no doubt about it.
He's found rural community development.
There's no doubt about it.
And that's one of the objectives here.
I made speech after speech on this in different groups over at the Secretary.
And we've promoted in every way we could in all of our appearances, not every appearance, because sometimes we're not focused.
We're not excited.
I think there are other things.
Some of them are considerable.
I think one of the things that some of the agricultural people are concerned about is that they visualize this as things being moved into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whereas it isn't that at all.
I think we ought to have a jurisdiction.
dispute that will occur within the Congress can be resolved.
I think if we can address ourselves to that problem, to the problem of what's going to happen to this committee or that committee or the people on that committee and what piece of the action they're going to have and lay it to rest across the board with all four of these bills and all of us track together on that so that we know what it is.
And I don't think we've ever really done this.
Uh, and this is, this I think, this is my take, and I want to be sure this is the correct position here, that what we're proposing does not affect the jurisdiction of substantive committees.
Well, it does, Mark, it does.
Well, I mean, we can lay this thing out in a way that we can convince the chair to propose, other than we can convince, uh,
I've done this to a degree for the DNR proposition to see what's going to happen to a guy like John Dean or what's going to happen to a guy on the agriculture as far as salt conservation is concerned.
And there are some concerns about this, but if we could some way put this whole thing right out in a way that we could deal with that problem and not sweep it under the rug when we're talking to these people, I believe we'd be way downstream.
Okay, you got anything?
I mean, you heard it.
Isn't that an immediate answer, Ron?
do committees retain the jurisdiction they have now.
There's no intrinsic reason why a given committee should have responsibility for all the problems that involve a particular cabinet department.
EDW is the case in point right now because it was originally formed out of the Federal Security Agency, which in turn was an umbrella agency assembling very existing bits and pieces.
The result is that now we deal on the health side in three substantive meetings.
For education bills, rehabilitation bills, education and labor, health bills go to the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Social Security Act, including health financing and welfare reform and so on, both ways meet.
On the Senate side are education bills as well as rehabilitation and health.
Gold and public welfare and anything that comes out of it means that House side goes to Senate Finance.
Now it means that we have to deal with a lot more people.
It's very troublesome in that point of view.
It's a matter of fact that it's going to change.
If we want to, what really ought to happen, as everybody knows here,
It's the Congress that reorganized itself.
The Congress organization, you know, voted.
Uh, they, uh, they, uh, the La Fosse and Rooney thing was the last whack of that, you know.
And, of course, they went through the tortures of the Dan when they, uh, when they, when they had the, uh, the Defense Department, you know, the Naval Affairs Committee, the Military Affairs Committee, whatever many tiers you get down there, I mean, real tiers.
You can see those old committees go.
And so it will be in this instance.
The Congress isn't about to reorganize itself at this point.
But I think the belly of this point is that you've got to tell these committee people, look, right now, there is no direct relationship, except perhaps for agriculture.
I think you go before more than one committee, don't you?
As far as service goes, in theory, you stay in the House.
And so the idea is that in the present time, later you go for more than $2,000.
So if you do go for more than $2,000, you have that.
We don't have to.
We've got to go through more than $1,000.
appropriation subcommittee.
No, not appropriation.
We only deal with one at this point.
But under the proposed new department, the new department would deal with five subcommittee committees on each side.
As far as I'm concerned, it isn't proposed, but we recommend any change.
We would deal with it.
The Subsidies Committee doesn't exist.
Well, that's the thing I think they need insurance on, right?
I've got this in circle.
Is anybody suggesting that the...
that the Congress has organized itself.
No, that's been our line right along.
Now, if they want to reorganize, that's the best I can say.
The idea, though, at the present time, ACW is perhaps the best example.
Here's ACW.
It deals with three different committees.
Here you've got a new department.
It will legal apply to the committees.
The committees go right on like they did before.
That's what you understand, Mr. Chairman?
Has that been adequately done?
Is it being necessary?
I don't think we've really gone over, gone after these committee people on these other substantive committees.
to give an assurance on this, if you want.
Well, this, I think, suggests this is, George, an inattentive money that all of you give before the high-field committee.
That's the point, undoubtedly, we'll come up with a question.
If not, you can, of course, you can share it yourself.
I mean, you've got to get through that committee first.
That committee goes through, then it gets to the forum.
When the other committees matter is when you get to the forum, you've got to have the votes.
And then before that happens, you can pull them in
and said, now look here, you're invited to start making the record before the Hollywood Committee, and this, and this, and this, and this.
the Department of Communities, and also we'll be dealing with the various committees that deal with this, even five-year committees to Congress.
Just say five-year committees to Congress.
But, Mr. President, if we can get the subcommittee chair of the new committees that will do this, this department and the Department of National Resources, that's who that is going to be, the subcommittee of the Authorizing Committee.
And he knows then that he's going to continue to mark up the legislation that we will take the same area or same programs.
And he's convinced that you think that and that you're going to go with him on that.
It makes all the difference in the world in his attitude.
Because that's what we're already doing.
Because that's what we're already doing.
I can't read it very well, I'm sure, but I think the cabinet level can do it.
Well, we can say that we know that that's your position.
As a former member of the House of Senate, I was a member of the Senate before, and I was a member of that.
the House Education and Labor Committee, the Senate Labor Committee, and then there's also government organizations here, right?
And basically, I know what the situation is, and I know that I had insisted that as far as this organization is concerned, that it does not affect the prerogative of the House of Representatives to assign
legislative proposals to the committee that they determine are the ones that have jurisdiction.
That's what you're talking about.
Their legislative parameters are not going to be effective.
The department is going to be so constructed
that they're going to be able to deal with the department just as effectively as they've dealt with the same areas in the department from which the program has.
Now, there is a special problem in agriculture.
It's a problem that's really interesting.
Well, we have been using an argument that was given to us by
He had to worry about the amount of money he spent on his farm.
and we've been using this very effectively, and the farmers buy this.
And that is that this jumps off of the farmers' children's political list, so much of a load that they've been carrying for other social effects that they shouldn't be saddled with.
Food stamps, school lots, et cetera.
It reduces the farm budget, but also it removes that signal of them having $12,000 going to farming, which is, it'll help us like that.
That's right.
And so this is the farming virus, and they're very glad to shove this political response to it out of the park.
Then they come back to it.
They do have a one-window concept.
No.
No, but they do under the reorganization.
But it's very distinct in their organization that they can't identify us.
We've had quite a house of practice behind the scenes as to what this position should be called so the Army could identify it.
And it is in the Department of Indian Army Development.
And it's one of the administrative zones.
Well, they don't want to go to an administrative zone.
This is an all-in-the-farm and welfare health argument zone.
You see?
It isn't one of those areas.
We could have had one off the fence.
He doesn't, the farm doesn't go to real electricians, you know what I'm saying?
The co-op goes there to service the rural America.
He doesn't go to farms to own the water and waste the coal and housing.
See, the way he goes for it is, uh, his for it is across a lot of these areas and so on.
We've done all of this, you know, and we want all of this to serve the county.
But it isn't identifiable with regard to Titan.
This is a...
If we could just tell him the title is a tough one.
Yes, and if we could just tell him this is where he's going, this is a Titan, this would reduce about 60% of the art.
Yes.
Let me ask you, we've been around that type of thing all the way down here.
We've still got to have administrators.
That is a lot of Titan.
Can we call him something else, like...
like prime ministers or something like that.
That's a pretty system.
They didn't like that at all.
They called the cabinet members ministers or whatever you want, and they called these people secretaries.
But you leave the American concept when you do that.
If we had those, that would actually happen to me.
Why can't we have a title that, of course, we've been through this battle, but that is the answer that we're doing.
This is what that is.
This is what I tell the markets.
If we could have had, I'm going, if we could have had this thing, the economic and agricultural development, I mean, they used to say that word agriculture.
Now, they're at the top.
I don't think they'll get it from us.
There it is.
There it is.
There it is.
Why do they say that?
That that's a modest change.
In other words, to me, the regular renterators are somatics.
They're, I mean, that's a cheap price.
And if you put out your economic man, why the hell do you have to call the department that makes these little differs in economics?
Right.
No, no, not now.
He doesn't.
He's in an awful situation.
He wants that insurance policy, though.
He has that.
That's how you're coaching.
I'm talking to these two.
That's how you're coaching.
That guy, they all said that.
They said, you know what, we need to do something about that.
What do you want to call that, an economic and agricultural department?
The AED.
Yeah, the agriculture department.
Well, hey, one of our, one of our, how are you doing here?
So, for the immediate practical things that we're trying to get done is...
The community development has an immediate chance.
Natural resources has an immediate chance.
The Department of Economic Affairs is certainly the last one in line, and we really don't see how we have much of a chance of getting there during this conference.
Right there in the first year, he wanted to say, where can the farmer go?
Because Kevin Bowe's going to show up and pull that committee, and he's going to get them to go there.
He's going to say, let's go to the Department of Agriculture.
I think it's just the Department of Agriculture.
It couldn't be more right.
There's a chance of snowballing hell for the development, because the later guys are going to fight.
They're going to have their department of labor come hell or high water.
But I would like to say, if we get two departments, or even one, just one or two, that get into me and that really work, then that's the difference.
That's the difference.
I don't understand that, but I think it would draw some of the buyers from this, that type of change, even though that's going to be the last part of the point.
I do know what I'm saying.
I just see where I'm at, and I'm thinking about that, because this is going to change.
I just can't hear you.
I can't.
Well, maybe one of them has a trade.
I call it the economic time.
It's the time of the end.
There's a time to do this, and it may not be during this testimony.
The point is that you could certainly say, well, of course, that's where the farmer goes if you pass all three of them.
But at the present time, he's going to go to the Department of Agriculture.
And the labor guy will go to the Department of Labor, and the businessman will go to the Department of Commerce, because that's the way it's going to be played for quite a while in the foreseeable future.
But looking at the time, I must say that the mean problem is one that I'm concerned about.
We've all been concerned about it.
It really gets done.
Is there anything other than farm, labor, or business?
Transportation business.
Well, that's business.
Farm, labor, or business?
Agriculture, labor, or business?
The person, her desire was to get away from the constituency.
Correct.
If that's so, you really don't have to change that up there, in my opinion.
You don't have to change the conference if you just call your name and face it.
cabinet number by some other time and secretary and then drop that time secretary down to that second line.
You don't have to put agriculture in that top nine, Roger.
Because you can have secretary of agriculture in your second line.
Well, that's all right.
But then you're really making the ball.
This isn't the first time that's been brought up.
That's all right.
It's been cut into the proposal at the executive day schedule.
have added to it another notch, and the secretary would still be level one, and there'd be a little hero or something.
A super secretary.
A super secretary.
I don't know what they call that suit in California City.
I don't know what they call it.
What do you call them when there's a counselor here?
And they have secretaries.
But don't you have something like that out there?
Because they could be asking something different than I do.
Don't you have to ask yourself?
Of course, it's a government counselor.
Well, it is a vestigial, but that's the definition of a secretary.
But secretary may not be a bad term.
Because it implies a relationship with the chief executive.
Perhaps it's better than secretary when you get it right down to it.
I don't think there's any magic name for secretary.
No, no, no.
I think it is.
But I think in terms of the great international thing,
They're creating a national scene.
There's a hell of a lot more places where they call them.
They love to be called ministeries.
But I don't see that, apparently, because although they do it in some countries, they don't have teams.
Is there any reason why can't we follow the practice of the service department?
The service secretaries are secretaries.
It's the secretary of defense.
So you have a secretary, and you've got a point here, you have a secretary of the economic development department.
Under that, you've got a secretary for agriculture, you've got a secretary for so-called, you've got a secretary for that.
What's wrong with that?
The first is continually stripping over their own shoelaces on this aisle.
Well, that's what comes down to the timeline.
You've got the first deputy secretary, then you've got a deputy secretary, a ranked secretary, and this guy is very confused.
Mr. President, I wonder if I could just put it out there.
Let's continue to work on it, but let's not let this fall because of our inability to think of something.
It's very much a current question.
Very much a current question.
You can also run the possibility, it just may be that you've got to play at the top level.
I don't think so.
We have used a factory, a counselor.
President's counselors, basically.
That could be possible.
We have counselors in the cabinet now.
What's wrong with being president's counselor for community development?
President's counselor for this and that.
And under that, you've got secretary, secretary, secretary.
What the hell?
I think a lot of people, too.
There's something to be said.
This is just my state's data center.
There is something to be said.
There is something in a name.
And it doesn't smell sweet if it's, uh, if you're an administrator.
Not really.
That's the way this thing works.
Go ahead.
Could I just go back, because there are two points there, so.
That's right.
I asked you a moment ago.
Yeah.
About the, the name.
Gay agriculture, anyway.
Could it be that the...
I didn't think, I did not think that was important.
Talk a little bit.
Well...
I just wanted to raise one thought anyway, which is that it might be useful to combine the discussion of the problem of committee jurisdiction and status and identification of these interests in an entity with the substantive committee chair of the Brexit members.
where the whole, all of these problems could in effect be serviced and where maybe they would have suggestions.
Somebody would do a check.
They would feel that they had that issue, had that deal.
And say, all right, how would you follow this thing?
This ought to be parceled out at this point.
Very good point.
You know, the way it comes out here is, you know, when a bill goes down in the House or the Senate, there's always a call to fight.
as to which committee gets it to know many, many times.
Not just between Foreign Relations and Armed Services, but the Air Department gets a lot, and some of the others is gonna go here, that, or the other place.
The only thing that's very clear is that when it has an implication of this tax bill, it naturally goes to Ways and Means on the one side, and the Nance on the other.
Now, if calling these guys in and saying, I hear you've got all these things that are coming, where do you think it ought to go?
Which committee?
And they might figure it out.
And then there would be the cricketing of the rat wall.
Yeah, and they could sound off and say, you know, where did the farmer go?
And we have something that identifies with the name, so it's part of the sound generally.
John, do you want to say something?
To focus on this department, which is the possible one right now, and to enlist everybody to really try and put this one over the line as the first accomplishment, I think it's going to be awfully important to the success we have on the other side.
And to ask you all to read an article in the National Journal, which we'll send it around to you if you have a chance,
About three weeks ago, they did a piece on the transportation lobby's resistance to just the vote, which I think is a very good case study in what happens to the interaction of the lower levels of your bureaucracy with your constituencies.
I don't know if there's anybody from transportation here, but it's a very interesting sort of capitalized exact of what's going on right now in sort of the lower reaches of this whole thing and could very well end up being
the sort of the action that deems this thing.
This thing is going to be cut from within, not from without.
And what I'm trying to say is, is Secretary Bowlby and Jimmy Banks calling Turner and the people in the roads and of their department in
and lifting them in this fight, and turning them around, because it just occurs I'm sitting here, the Bureau of Public Roads is out cutting this thing off right now.
And undoubtedly, it's never been worth it in your stand.
And those of you in your Bureau of Public Roads, undoubtedly have an analogous situation in a clear time that is eating away at this thing.
It's going to take your individual attention, reaching into your departments for the two guys who can wheel those constituencies and win them to this thing.
and getting them to work in turn on the American Society of Highway Officials in turn's case, and I don't know what they might be in your perspective, but some particular highly effective lobby that's at work kind of setting up for them.
Well, let me say it in connection with the transportation situation.
There are three groups there, excuse me, in this highway situation.
On the private side, on the automobile industry, the oil industry, and the state highway industry.
I don't think it's impossible.
There's got to be a close working relationship here, and we've got to get things done.
and let them know what's involved here in terms of improved governmental structures, operation, economy, and the other things that they're concerned with.
I have no doubt that what Secretary Volpe has reached the bank that, like, well, I'm assuming his department is going along in this direction, but at the same time, down in there, I'm just confident that the National Journal has the correct picture.
Let me add no indication that there's been any meaningful contact outside the department in terms of getting this bill done.
Well, let me just say that I'm in touch with every one of the presidents of the board, every major author.
Every one of them.
John Warren told us here once today.
And welcome.
They are strictly for the re-organization plan, and they are strictly
or they get to get the whole energy package stuff.
They are.
And I don't agree with that group and that part of the structure that you've got to make sure of.
Mr. Secretary, that may be true of DNR, but I wonder if their lobbyists are really clued in that they also want this.
The way to get D&R is to pull this one across the line.
You've got to reach Seattle.
You've got to reach Seattle.
And then upstate highway.
And the park.
There are supporters going on the hill, Mr. President.
It probably works for me.
Dealing with EDA, Economic Development and the Regional Commission down there in the right-hand corner, we spoke to Tom.
They're also involved in shared revenues.
And there have been a series of moves in the public works community.
First, to vote down the shared revenue bill, which they put aside.
Instead, are endorsing these two agencies and continuing them and adding shared revenue to it in addition for half a billion or a billion dollars a year.
And there are other proposals in the same committee now in the Center for Public Works to make these an independent agency, which would take them out of the Department of Community Development now.
We were then trying to slow down all of that on the basis that it is part of shared revenue and it is part of this department.
But Montoya and some of the others up there in the Public Works Committee are running away from us completely and I think we may need some special effort to try to pull that back into place.
They may vote out a bill any day that would be entirely inconsistent with this whole program.
It's been almost 11 months now since this proposal was made and it's the first time for
There's too much to do.
There's a pacifier for maybe a lot of people.
So, let's see if we can't get going.
What's the commitment from the Senate, George, on this bill?
What is he actually doing?
Well, they have a, we hope, a commitment from Rubicon, who says that he will start hearings on community development.
He changes his commitment by saying the Finance Committee has allowed this to play.
He has to pay attention to that too and get the tax bill through and so on, but we think we have him lined up to work on this.
At one time we were sort of hoping that Hallowfield might take up community development and Jackson might take up natural resources and we came up with a plan to hold our hearings and the two would cross, so to speak, the two houses to try to talk the whole thing along.
Can you give us that one, ma'am?
Yeah, we came up with the plan to get Jackson.
I talked to him about three weeks ago, and he would indicate then to me that this is what he would like to do.
He wants to get some credit for the DNR.
He's got a deal with Moss, of course.
He's introduced this bill over several years.
Where is the thing to go with this?
The drop of a hand.
The drop of a hand.
That's right.
And also, I had a strong hearing disability on this, so to the extent of all of the assumptions he spent with McCollum, he will not ask, but he's extremely sensitive about being by his own varieties.
And because all of us said, well, I'm the other members of the committee, he will make those commitments.
A little bit of therapy there would be helpful.
Well, I hadn't quite known the extent to which I should have picked to act with public people like that, George, and I wanted money in the water.
I'm very willing, Steve.
I know.
Of course.
Bring on that.
We have it better.
Bill Gifford is sitting behind you there, coordinating our congressional relations for the Senate, Senate, and the White House, and there it is.
And incidentally, when you do it, if you would, if you were to go down and say, or any one of you do, would you go down and say that the President asked you to?
Because I thought it was a holiday.
And he said, well, I'm the chairman of the committee, and I sort of thought I ought to be consulted, you know, how it is with her.
And he's going to run against me.
So, and, uh, so the thing to do is to go ahead and tell him to pass.
And he'll say, well, I'll even go over to Jackson or this and that and say, no, we just got the head of your health now, you know what I mean?
And let this be the following reorganization bill, and tell all of you to re-organize the reorganization bill.
And, again, we'll marry it, just cross-cross it with Jackson's first name.
Fair enough.
I don't know what that does to Horton and the others, but they don't know how many things to get done.
I'll actually go back to this when I meet with some of these bureaus down the line.
You have to realize there are some common sense about the spirit of bureaucrats dedicating themselves.
I'll never forget my experience with the Bureau of Public Works in 2010.
I'm very curious the way it has traveled.
Some of you are probably not aware.
The activities that we had had building the Pan American Highway were conducted by the Bureau of Public Roads.
When I heard the trip to Latin America in 1955, they were, they had been working at Pan American Highway.
They hadn't finished.
There was a little difficult piece of road up in Nard, Panama, and so it ended up in Southern Nicaragua on the right, and so forth.
And this was just, this was like, just get it down to the canal.
And this is 1955.
And so I asked him the question, I said, what was the matter?
And I thought we had one wise ambassador down there.
I don't know where he was.
He said, oh, the Bureau of Public Rail System took 20 years to manage this.
But it was delivered on their part.
They wanted it to take 20 years.
I mean, it was a good deal.
And this is sort of a way of life for them, right?
I said, it's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
It's got to be done.
But it wouldn't have been done if we had waited for the Bureau of Public Works to make the recommendations for it.
It had to be done by taking Harlan from upstairs at a very high level.
So I must say that I think all of you in the cabinet should know better than I.
Never assume that you're bureaucracy is going to do what you like.
Just got to kick them in the tail every time they have to turn around and be sure.
I think you're probably preaching to the choir here.
Right?