Conversation 067-013

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Take it to the general expressway.

Oh, excuse me, I thought you were going to say something.

I didn't want to take any of your time.

About our, as far as what I can say, a word to the members of the cabinet as to how we

They set up this group, and then I'll give it its charge.

Unfortunately, we did not set it up.

The Congress created this statutory monster.

I understand.

So we'll go through it a little later, because we don't remember.

So the cabinet just finished the cabinet meeting.

We'll probably learn more about this about just another White House conference, or if it's something where we just have a meeting and forget it after.

Say, if we can find a group, are we going to do something?

This is the second of the four meetings that are required to have my statue.

Under Chairman Ramirez's leadership, we think that we should go out immediately and have these regional meetings, because you cannot, it's very difficult to recognize the constituents of the Puerto Ricans, the Spanish, the Chicanos, and the Cubans.

And we want to go into the district offices and call the regional people together,

They're real people.

And we think those will be very productive, very hopeful.

And that was just one of the first things Henry wants to do.

You're going with me?

Yes, I understand.

Call us a bit about your trip.

We've had one meeting in San Francisco.

We've had what?

We had one meeting, already one session, trial one in San Francisco.

You have all of the heads of all these departments and these agencies, and we invited students like Spade, and I think we got a lot out of it.

We learned a great deal, and then the holding of the game is to upgrade

The number of employees with Spanish speaking has a great number, but they're in the wrong places, and they're at the lower levels.

We're trying to move them up.

And I think, thanks to Fred Valley for supporting me here at the department.

Yes, sir.

I think our major effort thus far has been a bilingual program.

I think John's LEA program has done a better job than the Mexican community.

And a...

That's where we can make a major impact.

Well, let me say to the members of the cabinet that are here, and their representatives, the representatives of other agencies like the Small Business Administration, the Civil Service Commission, and others, that we make decisions that will affect the members of this group that are here.

I have said this before around this government table, and there has not been enough follow-through on it.

The reason there has not been enough follow-through on it has been that there has not been enough pressure from the media.

There hasn't been enough pressure from the Congress.

There hasn't been enough pressure from, basically, within the groups themselves,

compared with the pressures that other minority groups put on to get what they think they should have.

Let me be very candid about this.

I am not suggesting that in terms of any group that does not have an equal chance, that we should not make an all-out effort to rectify that situation, and we are.

We're doing, frankly, a rather outstanding job in many fields with regard to minority groups.

We're making progress.

I understand that women are a minority group.

I don't know.

They do all right.

As I find that, nevertheless, we're doing a better job.

I understand that.

But let me be coming back to the analogy that I made.

In government, only those groups that raise hell and that indicate that, well, you either do something or you're going to blow the place up, get any attention.

That's been the experience of this country almost from the beginning.

It's been particularly the experience during the 60s and the early 70s.

I do not suggest that individuals should not therefore, should under any circumstances, just roll over and be nice guys and so forth and so on, after not complying and not raising certain issues.

I do not suggest that at all.

I only state the political reality.

Whether you're dealing with the Congress against congressional action appropriating, say, for a biannual program, or whether you're dealing with a government agency in terms of getting the proper slots, not just the menial jobs, and of course they are important too.

Most of us, I didn't start with menial jobs, I think probably everybody did too.

You don't live on the yards, you don't live without it.

100 bucks a day.

100 bucks a day?

I can just assure you that what is happening here is that the, what we call our

All doubts, considering where they are in the economic spectrum, considering what they can do on the merits, aren't getting a fair shake compared to other groups.

Not only with regard to the groups that are on top, but with regard to other groups that aren't up to standard.

That is what it is.

That is going to change.

It can only change, however, if the members of this cabinet

And the members of this government get off their dust and pay attention to this problem.

I do not want this administration to be one that only responded to those that were in there pounding and...

tearing up the place for this or the other thing.

That's a very good response to them.

I'm not suggesting this.

A lot of people haven't had a good reason to power to tear up the place.

But it just happens.

It just happens.

It's a very recent time.

We've had some, as you know, very disturbing experiences in Los Angeles and other places.

Perhaps sometimes a very good reason.

It just happens that

I speak now only to the many that I know in the Mexican-American community.

I grew up in the political, the journalistic, the political, the rest of it.

I feel very, very close ties to this group.

It just happens that because they were family-oriented, because they were law-abiding, because they did work politically, work through the union processes and so forth and so on, that people thought, well, they didn't really need the attention.

That wheel wasn't sleeping on you, even though that wheel had a lot of its bearings on it.

Now, this has got to change.

It's got to change.

We owe it.

We owe it, believe me.

We owe it to all groups of society to see that they get an equal chance.

We owe it particularly, it seems to me, at this point, to look at a large group of Americans that aren't up there getting an equal chance for the reason that they have it, basically.

That's it.

of fighting for the law, that they have not been, have not had a very effective lobby.

I've already told him that I believe that you need a lobby.

I think you need it.

I think you ought to have it.

I think you should, I would hope it would be, and I know it would be, to use the peaceful processes of government in order to get it.

But on the other hand, what I'm saying to this cabinet group is that we should not wait until a lobby is done before acting.

Is that clear?

What I say to you is that in terms of grades and so forth, you've got to go out and search.

You've got to search for ways that people of the, and all of the group members out and around here, can get a promotion.

I know I've raised this question before at times, and they say, well, we don't have as many applicants.

Go out and find them.

They're not going to be applied, but you can find them.

They are there.

The reason that they don't apply is that they have been told us.

That's the reason.

But you appoint a few, and then they all start coming in that way.

And that's for old hotline agencies, even Secretary Campbell.

In agriculture, you can do it.

But let me say that there are a lot of prestigious positions in, say, immigration and in justice jobs.

You're looking for lawyers.

You're looking for judges.

And that's the other point that I want to make.

I think the thing I want to get across to those who are the non-governmental people in this area, I urge this, just as I urge it with all of our minority groups, just as I urge it, for example, when the people representing the women's group came in.

We're not doing this just as a favor to you.

This country at this present time is in a very, very interesting position now.

I think this is probably a pretty good note for me to bring my remarks to close on, put this at a level that we all understand.

Understand what the stakes are.

George Romney, and I just had a little colloquy at the cabinet meeting, and this will take it off.

We were talking about doing America competitive.

We were talking about the fact that we're pricing ourselves out of the world markets by the way the price pushes us over.

What are we going to do to make ourselves more competitive?

How are we going to respond to that?

Let me tell you how important it is.

25 years ago, the United States was number one in the world economically and militarily without any fear in the competition.

7% of the world's people 25 years ago in the United States produced over 50% of the world's goods.

There was a dollar gap, and there wasn't anybody in the world that offered us any chance of competition.

Whether it's automobiles, steel, or anything else we produce all the different kinds of world steel, most of the automobiles and the rest, we really had it.

We didn't have to run very fast.

We didn't have to be very competitive.

We really didn't have to develop all the resources of our country.

We didn't have to have all of the American people.

It doesn't matter whether that person who might have great leadership qualities developed or not, because America was first so we could get along.

In 25 years the world has totally changed.

By reason of our health, our former enemies, Japan and Germany in particular, are now our two main predators in the free world.

And boy, they are tough competition.

And also, we find Western Europe, to whom we have given billions of dollars a day to rebuild them after the war,

Very, very competitive with the United States of America.

And with the 300 million people that will be in that common market, it will be a bigger trading area than the United States of America.

It will be a kind of people that are like the people here.

You'll have them all the way, and they get, of course, sampled in as the rest of all of its trade drive.

And you're going to find those 300 million people really competing with the United States.

They'll be our friends.

But believe me, the toughest competition usually I find in the world is with our friends.

So you've got Western Europe at 300 million competing.

You've got Japan competing with us.

Then, of course, we have the new openings.

We are negotiating with the Soviet Union in a number of areas.

We're reducing, we think, the danger of conflict, of invasion, of war.

We have the new openings in China.

It doesn't mean that there aren't great differences between the United States.

There will not continue to be great differences between mainland China and the United States because our interests are different.

Our systems are different.

But now we're going to talk about them, and by talking about them, negotiating about them, it may be that 20-25 years from now, instead of having an inevitable confrontation with a huge nuclear power, we may have a negotiation, and that, of course, the stakes are high.

But the other side of the coin is that, as you open the silver, and have more trade with it, as you open the mainland China, and have more trade with it,

That means the United States has another great competitor in the world.

Take the Chinese, for example.

There are any hundred million of them.

They are the most creative people, and probably, in terms of capacity, if you look at what they've done in all the countries of the world in which they operate, in Manila, in Hong Kong, in San Francisco, any place you want.

The Chinese have an enormous capability, particularly in the business and economic field.

And as they hold up to that, you have a new competitor.

How does all that end?

The United States is still number one in strength.

We're still number one in economics.

And I think we can stay that way.

But, with the new players that are on this field,

Western Europe, inevitably, will be breathing down our neck, and they're going to compete hard.

Japan, it is breathing down our neck in a number of fields.

They've already run us out of the whole radio business.

They're competing with us in the automobile business.

There are a number of others.

And of course, here's China, not the president's serious competitor, looking down the years of building, and of course the Soviet Union, potentially a competitor.

And I haven't even mentioned

The growing potential in Latin America, the growing potential in Africa, and so forth.

What does all this add up to?

The United States at the present time, if we're looking to our children, the people will be sitting around this table in this cabinet for 25 years from now.

Whoever is sitting here, and whoever is sitting with him or her who is in this chair,

will be representing the second or third strongest country economically in the world, unless America develops all resources to the hilt.

In other words, we cannot afford any lease.

That means we've got to develop the heartland of this country.

That's why we're going out and developing rural America again, you know.

That's because we've got to have the production.

That's why we've got to be competitive in our business.

That's why the government has to be slimmed down and made more efficient.

Also, above everything else, we've got to develop the human resources of this country.

There are only 200 million Americans.

There are 800 million Chinese, 300 million Europeans, 150 million Japanese, and of course millions of others in other parts of the world.

There isn't numbers that really count so much as if it's quality.

But America cannot afford to have tens of millions of people among the people of Spanish or Latin backgrounds, have them not operating up to their full capacity.

In other words, the ideal in this country must be that every American, whatever his background, has an equal opportunity to develop to the full his capabilities.

If he can be the best lawyer in town, he's got to have the chance to be that lawyer.

If he's the man that can be the judge, he's got to have the chance to be the judge.

If he's the man in any government field, if he's the fellow that can be a GS-14 rather than a 13, or up the line or whatever, he's got to have that chance.

Because we cannot afford to have any group in this side, any group in this country, not having...

their equal chance to develop their capabilities to the core.

Now he comes back to government.

Why has government had such a great responsibility?

It has a great responsibility because, as far as the private sector is concerned, it, and this has always been true in our society, it does not move as fast in developing opportunities

for promotion, et cetera, et cetera, for waterfalls, et cetera, et cetera.

And if government can, whether you look at the Eastern Europeans, whether you look at the Irish, whether you look at others through the years, their first move, significantly enough, was that they governed, and then later they developed a capacity in the private field.

And so what we must do in government is to provide the opportunities that may not presently be available in the private sector.

So they were going to push private enterprise and so forth to do their part.

But what we must do in government is to make sure that here, where there are many opportunities, where there is great need for great talent, that people...

who are represented so well by the non-governmental people around this room, where people like that have a chance, where they don't have to be, well, because I don't happen to be a name, because I happen to be a Mexican-American, or a Norwegian, or a Cuban-American, I really don't have that equal chance.

Well, that's going to change.

It's either going to change, or the people in the personnel offices in every department represented around this table are going to change.

But you've got to take it in hand.

I'll just close with this one thing.

Don't wait.

And this is said particularly in civil service.

It's said to everybody in the government.

Don't wait.

till the wheels freeze.

Don't wait till they blow something up out of Los Angeles, because they're, with justification, frustrated.

But get out there and provide the opportunity so that there is not even one single suggestion, not only that we are discriminatory, but I want to turn it around.

I want to say that not only are we not discriminatory, but that we are taking, making,

positive moves, positive moves directed by a situation in which an imbalance has occurred.

Occurred because the groups involved have been law-abiding people who have just trusted, put their trust in the fact that in this country everybody is destined to get an equal right.

Now that is true.

There's a better chance in this country, and I conclude with this fact, than in any other country that I know for an individual to get an equal break and to go to the top and to have his abilities recognized.

But I simply say that we in government have a great opportunity here.

We've got an exciting, strong group of people who have great abilities, untapped abilities, who can make an enormous contribution to this country.

It's our job to seek them out.

It's our job to find them.

It's our job then to promote them and to give them that chance.

And if we can get that kind of a spirit around here, this will help.

You're to follow up, Bob.

This is to follow up.

Not only with this one meeting, we've made the little talk, we've made the pitch, and I've tried to make it before.

But the only way that's going to work in the future is to have...

and other meetings with her.

I want to have reports, and I've already talked to everybody about my reports, from him, of course, and from you, as the progress is being made, and also we want reports as to what our failures have been, because if they say that nothing happens here unless there is presidential backing, I think I have been quite clear as to where the president stands on this, and we expect all of you to follow through.

Thank you very much.

I think before we go to the president, we'll be watching some questions.

If you have your thing by then, we'll be welcome to introduce the nine new advisors.

Thank you.

Again, Mr. Tim Martinez from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And from Louisiana, Florida, Mr. Dr. Butari.

And from Washington, D.C., Dr. John Hennig.

And from Texas, Mr. Eddie Studi.

and from Arizona.

Viajes a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, Mississippi State, Mr. Banin from Phoenix, Arizona, Mr. González from New York, Mrs. Gilda from New Jersey,

And Mr. Nacho Lozano, Erector Loginio de Los Angeles.

Thank you.

I think this committee should now build on this very positive beginning

I saw very good beginnings.

As I see the people in this country are certainly looking to us for continued work and partners in this respect.

You must recall that this is a committee, and I am your chairman to help you.

I believe that she's stolen the success that will bring us out of some of the...