Conversation 088-002

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Hei.

ok ok ok ok ok

Thank you for watching!

Pretty good wild card would be Barry Goldwater.

But I must say, you know, Barry is very odd, and he's speaking all over the country, and fighting the good fight, and so forth, particularly in this whole area.

And that's interesting.

Glad to have him here.

I just see how...

Ha ha ha!

He came in and he told us that he was in Chabut since 1986.

So you want this fucking deal?

That's recorded as a Harvard memoir.

Everything says it's recorded.

We'll have three items today in addition to our very quick story.

I think first, a brief look down would be... ...the... ...the... ...the... ...the... ...the... ...the...

We could not die both, although the top leaders were working from time to time.

We were, of course, just very channel-centered, that the public channels, we cannot put on the most what we could, because that would have been a violation of the whole method of private policy, which we will continue to use in many areas.

It is the best way to achieve the goal.

Never has the administration done more work harder in all channels.

And never can we expect that the government administration has gone further in trying to find the best solution for where they have no confidence in.

Why don't we try to get some new political solution regarding President Trump?

I've done all that.

I've done months and months and months.

It's almost two years ago.

The fight is that I haven't done that.

It's a total answer to the critics today.

Why have we done that?

I mean, we fight a lot.

We could offer everything except total capitulation and surrender, and still be criticized.

Because there are some who, as a matter of conviction, want the United States to just get out.

They don't care how and why, because they believe very deeply that we should never have gotten in.

They care nothing about how we get out, and that is their belief.

That, for example, if you've got to respect it, or if it governs you, he says, I never supported this thing, and so therefore anything we say is not going to satisfy him.

Let me say, we don't intend to satisfy people like that, because if we go that far in this country, as far as his position,

and being able to be a powerful piece in the world is so challenging.

Because what happens there is, after all of the sacrifice, the rest of what ends up is a total abject surrender.

That we're not going to do.

On the other hand, we have gone not only the extra mile, but perhaps the extra hundred miles, maybe an octave, could have been,

Practically, it's an offer that nobody thought for us to do, to be able to do it, but as far as it goes, it doesn't matter in front.

It's a good offer.

It ought to be considered.

It ought to be accepted.

I'm not suggesting that you go in and do it, or that you go react.

It's inevitable, but we're being honest.

It's not crazy to do it, but it's not what I was going to do.

I think that we should start out by saying that

It's just a matter of getting rid of two.

And why don't we get rid of two and get rid of the quarterback?

We couldn't do that at all.

But the Comets won what they tried to get, but we never clutched from one game.

Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, and so forth.

So if we had considered throwing this government out, letting the communists put their own government in, it would be the greatest defeat this nation has ever suffered.

Now, in addition to the private discussions with the president for every last time, we had discussions with diplomats all over the world, and told them they could figure out any way to get the communists to seriously negotiate anything we could do with them.

When I say all over the world, I mean...

Tito, and Pax, and the Jordanians, and all over the world.

The French, the French have been in contact with them all the time.

We said, look, we can't do that.

So that's one thing I think we should keep in mind.

It's not just getting rid of the Jews.

It's throwing out a government that now exists and putting it in a communist government.

That's what they want.

That's what we can't possibly do.

The second point I'd like to make is that I think that there may be some questions

They were criticizing us in public.

By making these criticisms public.

That's what they did during President Johnson's time, and that's what they thought they could do this time.

They could keep these private discussions going, not let anybody know what we proposed, criticize publicly, and gradually their own public support for President Nixon and the government.

And that's why they haven't answered us for three and a half months.

They just haven't done anything.

That's why they're planning probably a really comprehensive attack in the next month or so.

All the investigations are going to be attacked.

If we had let that in public continue to erode, or at least that's what they hope would happen, we would have gotten to the end of a very serious trouble this next year.

So we felt that in view of the fact that they were not in good faith, they were using these private discussions for the very purpose of comparing the people against the government.

The wisest thing to do is to make it all public.

If they have any interest in negotiating, which is, I think, quite enough, you never can tell though, they can still negotiate for the state on that.

We haven't lost the opportunity in any sense to negotiate, but they know now that we're on a strong foundation.

The American people have encouraged the facts, they're going to support the government, they're going to support the president.

So they've lost this opportunity they thought they had and turned the people away against this.

And for that reason, I think that this was a very constructive step, because now that they've lost that hope, and I think they have,

If they realize that they can't divide us as a nation, if the American people are going to support the president, then they may say, well, maybe that won't work.

Maybe we should try to negotiate something.

Now, as far as international opinions, because the president spoke about that, I think that the climate has completely changed in the last year in the rest of the world.

It's something that's not discussed anymore.

When I went to the NAO meeting, it never even arose.

Two years before, a year and a half before, that was the main subject of discussion.

I meet with foreign ministers all the way over, and something doesn't come up.

Sometimes they say, oh, things are going, I say, fine, they say that.

So, as far as the international climate is concerned, it's excellent.

They think the president's policy is sound.

They think it was done in the right way.

And it doesn't present a problem anymore.

And I think after last night's broadcast, it's going to be more so.

I happened to, after the broadcast, want to do a deductive to see if Prime Minister Putin is going to see his president today.

And we all watched the broadcast there, and I think he's going to see if he's going to talk to Prime Minister Putin.

It was a good turnout from the Hill and the diplomatic corps, and they were all supposed to be complimentary at that time.

It was particularly complimentary.

But Mike Mansfield was there, and afterwards he said in front of all the people, well, he said, I think this is a great step.

And he said, I think the person has gone just as far as he could possibly go.

I don't see how he could go any farther.

And I think that is going to be the intention that the American people have.

How can we go any further?

And that was really the purpose of the presence we all had, and I think we're supposed to do that.

Thank you.

I feel that we can make the point that, the point that was proposed along a central goal that is to make something that could be had on another center line for that political.

Yes.

See, Henry just came in.

He had discussed it with us on May 31st, in which he made the proposal of a total withdrawal on a given day

in exchange for the purpose of the war, of the speech war.

Now, they retracted that out of panic.

We were asked last night what was the date.

Well, we didn't propose a date, but we wanted to know what they consider it.

I wonder if you have a perfect mind that...

Some of these steps are progressive, that is, CO2 is brought progressively at all at once.

There is this response that's occurring on the other side.

That's it.

I think the point that we should keep in mind

Yes, but the only thing they're interested in is to change the government and put their own government in.

Everything else is just fucking around and talking about it, but they've never varied from that.

That's what they have in mind.

That's what they had in mind from the beginning.

So, this is what Ernest said last night.

We've done everything we can.

Short of that, we're prepared to do anything that any reasonable man can think of to negotiate a settlement.

We can't do that.

At the one thing you can't do, when the United States couldn't stand up, it would be the greatest defeat we've ever suffered.

Let me say, and I'd like for Henry to say a word first.

I'll just point to you, correct me if I'm not wrong, but...

When some suggest, why don't we offer simply a solution for basically the military side separately, and not get into this very difficult political thing, that's exactly what we did offer in May.

We continued to get it in August, and last night...

We've offered it as a choice.

If they want to negotiate the military side separately and not the South Vietnamese in a later time to discuss the politics of working out, that's fine with us.

But Bill couldn't be more right in putting his finger on the problem.

The reason they rejected a deadline in return for prisoner of war and ceasefire...

The reason they rejected it in May, the reason they rejected it in August, the reason they did not respond properly in October, is that it is they that have insisted always that there can be no discussion with regard to withdrawals, ceasefire.

The goal is

political that's why the very important one very important move was made by the last nine five and this is where Hugh gets the credit where he offered to resign the month before the election along with the vice president have a caretaker government come in run the administration side of the government and of course an entirely independent electoral commission with the communists participating in it run the election but you can't go further than that in my opinion

Henry, it seems as though I stated it in the way that you've used that term, clown, several times.

Secretary Clown, go ahead.

I know that speech is by us, but is it funny that the president, or the Secretary of State, is exactly correct?

We offer, on May 31st last year, to settle... We offer to set a day of withdrawal, but to cease fire...

...return for exchange of prison.

He had to be fired for a variety of reasons which I would like to mention.

Their response was not, says this, was that point wrong that you proposed?

They didn't negotiate that proposal.

But they said that proposal is wrong because it deals only with military issues.

And we will not discuss military issues alone.

We want to discuss political and military issues together.

So whether they were thrilled in our proposal that had complexities are really irrelevant.

Because they wouldn't even get into the proposal.

They said it had to include political issues.

It was the next meeting they came back with their nine-point proposal.

It was one that was secret.

It was June 26th they came back with their proposal, which included political elements and put it before us.

The president and the secretary of state have authorized me all the time to say, all right, if that is the only thing that makes the negotiation go, we'll include these political elements in the discussion.

It was one of the few times I received high marks from them.

They said that's a great performance.

And that is the only thing they'd be willing to discuss.

Every proposal we have made since then has sort of followed the outline of their proposal.

And we have attempted to take those elements that we could really have reasonableness to go along with it.

So, we have made two attempts to separate the political and military issue.

One, we made a flat-out proposal.

The second is in a more complicated way.

It's the last proposal which the president has put before them yesterday.

We have said, if you agree in principle to that whole package, the whole package being one, that includes those elements that they want,

Let's start the withdrawal of prisoners.

Exchange these key slides and let's look at the details of these negotiations.

Now that's very important.

What we said yesterday, and that's another thing we offered this October 11th, yesterday, what we said is, we are ready immediately.

If we could agree in principle along the long term, we would immediately go forward on the matter of withdrawal, phase withdrawal of POWs at...

...developed the situation with regard to the political matters in the ceasefire.

They told me that the whole package would be completed, that the negotiation would be completed, and that the success would be completed on the 26th month while we are withdrawing.

But that's good to hear.

President, I'm so...

First of all, I think the reaction is that there's only a political settlement that should offer that.

What you just said makes me wonder whether agreement in principle means that there is no possibility of them being executed without any agreement in principle.

I just thought it was clear that we had two things on the table.

Either the political settlement, or simply the ceasefire withdrawal of the UNW exchange without any requirement for any political settlement, or even an agreement in principle.

They're both wrong.

No agreement in principle is helpful.

As far as the... Let me say it exactly.

You said this exactly.

It's what we just said.

It's pretty sincere.

If they want to sit down today and negotiate, and agree to negotiate for withdrawal into a WFN ceasefire, we'll do it, period.

Let them work out the political thing in the later time.

We have said that, but they have rejected that up to this point.

They have said, we won't do that.

So that's why we said, all right, all right, we'll discuss the political thing.

What we are saying now is, all right, we won't do that.

Let's have that.

And we'll have a political settlement.

We set forth a very, what we think is a comprehensive political proposal.

And then, we even go further than that.

We said in discussing the two together, assuming you want to discuss them together, we'll do it in a phased way.

So, we really go off into three different ways.

And it gives them a smart response.

You say, one, what we would actually like to do, as a matter of fact, prefer, would be to chop off the military aspect here.

When you read the media, they always come back and they recognize POWs, and they recognize the trolls, and they recognize these pirates, and they say, hold on, the key thing is, what are you going to do about the Nazis and their government?

Because that is why the proposal of the Nazis to be a government is thrown in.

for the other but if they want to go back to the original proposal, we're willing.

And that's six months now.

We give them back.

There's all the people that they have proposals with.

They want to do it.

And within six months of total withdrawal, buses fire.

And that's a real downside, right Henry?

That's exactly it.

I haven't been to residence yet today, actually, as you know.

When I thought you were going to author a purely militant package of pistols for Christmas.

The military package is still on the table.

I think that, I think the

I said, I said, we are, I said, we will do this, we will do that, and remember the words I said, the choice is theirs.

I said, or, I said, we will negotiate a new proposal, or we will negotiate for six months.

We are willing to negotiate a total withdrawal to cease fire in Philadelphia, period, if they wish to do that.

So it's on the table, either way.

Both are on the table, Mr. President.

Mr. President, can I say, I think it's important that the discussions that we have, we don't get too involved in the public here, is that not the case?

No.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. President,

Say this, it seems to me.

First, people say, why didn't you make this offer earlier?

Why didn't you offer to get the POWs back and change groups?

They said, yes, we did.

We made that offer.

You know what I'm saying?

We made it in May 31st.

Secondly, ever since May 31st, they have said, the other side has said, we won't accept that.

In fact, the New York Times sent them some questions, and they sent answers back, which were printed in the paper.

And it says we won't consider that.

So they made sure they won't consider that.

Notwithstanding, last night the president said, we renew that offer.

He said it in his speech.

Now, we don't have to say much more than that.

We've made the offer.

They've rejected it every time.

The president made the offer again last night.

Now, that's one part of it.

Now, the other part is a new offer, too, because they keep saying, well, we want to have a political settlement, not just a military settlement.

The president says, fine.

You're the president now, officer.

On a military settlement, here's a proposal that we think is a reasonable proposal, including both.

And that's on the table.

Now that's all there is to it.

And the other point that we have to keep in mind, they're not interested in any of those things.

They're just interested in achieving their objective, which is to force us.

to change the government, which would be the tremendous surrender.

That's all.

When the point of the agreement in principle comes up, that seems to indicate to me why does it require agreement in principle before executing the first one.

Well, the answer to that is that the only reason that that comes up at all isn't again an attempt to accommodate what they want to do, but to say, look, we'll leave it there quicker.

We want to insist that we have a complete agreement.

If you agree to principle, we'll decide.

That's just another way of accommodating to their point of view.

Mr. President, all the time that Henry was going through this 30 months of...

Negotiations.

We were battling up on the floor of the House and the Senate the various versions of the Mansfield Amendment.

I'm curious, Henry, to make any calculations, what impact did those battles, if any, have on your negotiations?

They have hugely affected it.

to American public opinion.

And at the first few meetings, I always would get long lectures about American public opinion.

After the first meeting, I would say, this is out of order, and I will, if you talk to me about American public opinion, I will talk to you about your public opinion, out of order.

Nevertheless, every time one would come there, they would say that this is a criminal expression,

And therefore, in Brits you have no real choice.

Our concern with the Mansfield Amendment was this.

We wanted to have this deadline in such a way that we could negotiate.

They warned us in the position where no matter what they do, we have to withdraw.

And they said we don't have to do anything, including the Brits.

Men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men,

And don't talk about bayonets, or freedom, or anything like that.

Now, our concern with the Mansfield Amendment and the variations of it was that they would construe a congressional mandate which would meet their point for an overthrow, and of a date that we could then not change.

Because their sophistication about the details of expression in the foreign policy field is not so good.

At the precise moment, one of the problems we had when we proposed our major was a good proposal.

They were watching a lot of our domestic debates, and so forth.

So I have to say, in all candor,

We never raised that question in answer to your question.

My generation last 90 days has been one of critical inhibiting features to the West.

Let's get it in terms of marketing and bailout.

And I'm all lawyers.

I'm a lawyer for all.

The difficulty with the man's field and, let's not say it personally, the difficulty with...

The whole rigmarole of the Congress setting a deadline was this.

It completely destroyed our negotiating position.

Let's put it this way.

If you go to the other side and say, regardless of what you do, the Congress has said we will withdraw by a day's service, you're not letting anybody in for it.

our position was, look, and that's what we said in May 31st, look, we will discuss the deadline, and in August we gave them one in nine months, and in October we gave them one in six months.

But, we said, we return for, on the line, POWs inspired.

For example...

Let's assume that we just say, pass the resolution, the United States will get out of Vietnam within six months, forty million or nine months, whatever happens.

And, with the idea that we will let it be discussed with the U.S. Senate and Senate.

The difference in the men's bill resolution

The congressional approach in our system, the congressional approach, despite all the likely that it was basically unilateral, is that we should withdraw Congress' dictates to the administration that they withdraw from Vietnam by a date of certain.

That's a little fuzzy language about our concern about the government.

Whereas we were saying to them in the negotiations,

...in a very hard-headed way, but a very conciliatory way.

Look, we're willing to withdraw and intimidate certain, but in return, we have to have certainty.

We're making our cool about this, and we're not going to get the tails of our guys cut off while they're withdrawing.

That's why we have to have a ceasefire, so that nobody can object to that.

Under the President's plan, they can set the date.

All they have to do is to agree to one of the two words of our proposal.

If they say they want to settle military questions at all, six months afterwards, we are out.

If they want to do the package six months after we are out, they can get a date to demoralize tomorrow by a statement of principle.

Thank you, sir.

And they can send it.

But incidentally, that was true.

That would have been true in May.

That was true in May 1934.

Before the Matthew women's match.

But the critics will say that, of course, these fires have developed.

I understand the rationale for it.

You said you might discuss that briefly.

But the issue, let's take the May 30th.

Let's first take the May 5th.

We have to despise it.

If you combine it up with the military shoes along, ah, that is to say, bullet draw, stuff, all that kind of things and so forth, it is riskier for risk.

And also raising the issue of why few Americans are left.

Now, they didn't say, however, just to get the record straight, when we put this report, they didn't say, now look, of this package, we don't like disease 5.

That wasn't their answer.

Their answer was,

A military proposal is in itself unacceptable, no matter what it contains.

Any settlement must include the overthrow of Hume, so we never reach the point where it didn't break down on the issue of these fires.

It broke down on the issue that they wouldn't even discuss it, saying it has to include the overthrow of Hume.

And after all, as the Secretary pointed out, it...

The New York Times sent a list of questions which were an open invitation to say we'll settle for withdrawals for prisoners.

And it would be front page if this had been asked.

They flatly refused.

Monday night when these news stories were out that we were going to offer withdrawals for prisoners, and they were afraid the president would get on television with this,

They rejected me, rejected it, and made a public statement yesterday in Paris saying absolutely not.

The reason being that they have consistently, not ultimately maintained that it's not a negotiable deal, that it must be tuned for very well.

What would have happened if it made, on May 31st, they had said, all right, start the withdrawals immediately after the ceasefire, so one day that we can't conduct our negotiations, you know, with newspapers.

We are on absolutely safe ground.

As the Secretary pointed out, if we sit off of this, then they absolutely refuse to have a separable package.

And that's the reason we are putting a global package forward.

It's not because we are accommodating it, but because we are trying to follow

They are packaged as much as we can.

In fact, in our package, we are actually picking up formulations of four of their points in order to speed the process to evade it.

And four of their nine points and two of their seven points to evade it, just to speed up the process.

This package is theirs.

I mean, our approach is theirs, not ours.

Usually, when you put something before them, they say, this is a trick, this is, this doesn't work.

We do our demands, and that infected will figure out.

Even in private meetings.

Last summer for the first time, they would... Because what we would consider to go is that it's been to each of their points, and each of our points, and we try to find some action.

And in effect, we settled seven of the nine points, more or less.

The only outstanding point was not to cease fire, that's agreed to as coming.

The only outstanding point last summer was how many troops will be left after our withdrawal.

That is, how many can we have as part of the military and the trade office.

But if the communists can win the election, it is possible that we have to add to what the president pointed out.

It is not only his cue to resign one month before the election, but to take the agreement in time.

All matters pertaining to the election are going to be put under an electoral commission.

That is to say, six months before the election, under the Electoral Commission, which all parties, including the Communists, are equally represented.

And the election itself will be run not by the government, not even by the caretaker government.

The election will be run by the Electoral Commission, which by then will have been operating for six months, in which the Communists will get to do with the disease.

So we've gone, we've leaned over way backwards to arrange a free trial.

Now, they have turned this down completely.

I'm interested to see if I know your angel.

This morning, all they said was this is a cunning plan, which is not new.

Well, that's true.

I mean, it is new in the sense that they've already had it since October.

But they haven't totally rejected it.

Mr. President, last night...

And one of the questions a Democrat asked interrogated Henry on the word overthrow.

And I thought that Henry's response was very helpful.

I hope, Jerry, we can document.

We are on the list.

We have this dilemma.

We would like to keep open the house of going back to the secret zone.

So we are revealing only documents that we submitted

And we have not released their nine points, so we have said, if they want to, they're free to release them.

Nor have we, up to now, released what they actually said.

But we have a verbatim transcript of the meeting.

And the president chose to overthrow his strange deliberations.

It is a word which we can defend from the record.

And if they threat us there, if they threat us to it, we will have no difficulty of receiving the opinion transcript.

We like what they said.

It would be nice to drive them off at that point.

I'd like to hear them say it.

They said two things.

One is an indirect overthrow, and one is a direct overthrow.

The indirect overthrow is they want us to withdraw all equipment.

And the way they phrase it, we have to take away even the equipment that we give to the South, even if anything American has to be withdrawn, to stop all American military aid, to stop all American economic aid.

Well, this is an indirect overthrow, although that is not what we meant.

That's an indirect overthrow, because they are getting between 800 million and a trillion dollars worth of outside aid.

We responded to that part of it, which is at least a proposal, by saying, we will agree to any restrictions on economic and military aid for South Vietnam that you are prepared to accept for North Vietnam.

And we agree to a policy of neutrality for South Vietnam.

We only want it as allies, as such.

But beyond that proposal, which is an indirect open vote, they have flatly asked us on a number of occasions to hold a vote to resolve it in each government, and we have to have made it record to back it up.

Henry, on your point, it hasn't been done yet.

Practices have been made to their preparation for MFS.

How well are they able to amount to defense?

Well, what we've done is that, let me just say we have a course of analysis.

We've had an analysis made by paper, by the Joint Committee, by the CIA, etc.

And the indication is that they can amount to a rather substantial amount of defense, particularly in Newport.

We expect them to mount a substantial offensive troop board in February and in November 1 in March.

And we have somehow changed our estimate.

And they seem to have changed their orders.

Their orders meant we had to intercept them in December for a series of high points stretching throughout the year.

The orders now seem to be to throw everything into a major military operation in February and March.

So we expect an attack in Tukor and in Haiku.

The unknown in this equation is how well this will lead to a fight in the face of a very sustained attack.

Our judgment is that with American air power,

They should be able to hold, although there will be some setbacks, we may lose this provincial city here and there, and this could be played by the Kreb into a terrible defeat.

On the other hand, it could easily follow the test pattern, that is to say, they'll throw everything into this attack, and yet, in the hope of overturning the situation, if they have overtaken the situation,

We will not be surprised if then they mention the negotiation, and on something like this plan, which after now they have stood here to refuse to reject, avoid the rejection.

Well, the important thing is, don't undercut a position that we have now presented publicly in the Vietnamese Commission that goes and gives us the authority to go.

The language must be exactly as we put it.

That's the way I would put it.

If the Senate goes off on a half-assed deal, without offering more than we have, then you can forget negotiations.

Just forget it.

This is the problem here.

The problem with the Manningfield thing and the rest of it, and I don't say this critically to Mike, they probably best say this to Mike, but some of these other colleagues always say it.

Well, it's Kennedy's action.

He sent the first 16,000.

At that time, there was Senator Biden, President Sanders, and Senator Harkey.

And I did not see if I was also told that the center of government, both by and heart, saw separately, not only Hanoi group, but the NFL group of government.

I was told at that meeting that I had seen both groups twice within a period of time.

Specifically, how did this adventure go around?

I don't want to ask any aspersions of any of those candidates.

I'd be happy to go ahead.

Let me just say, I was reading, if I could make one allusion, we had a meeting in the cabinet the other day, and the vice president and several cabinet members were saying very long speech,

very non-partisan, arrest and so forth.

And I said, listen, I just vote for myself, I'm not going to speak for yourself.

Let me ask a few questions.

All of these proposals have a long history, in which the words have very specific meanings.

The North Vietnamese are masters at delving hundreds, which

then enable their visitors to improve it the many way they want.

For example, for months after they had rejected our May 32nd proposal, people were coming back for tenants.

You remember Clifford was saying that he had inside information of the settlement.

We knew damn well, because we had heard it directly, that it couldn't be true.

I happened to have seen Swansweets a day after he saw McGovern, and I said, what is this?

He said, well, what McGovern says is his problem.

And I said, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we.

You remember last July, there was a lot of discussion of if we only set a withdrawal date, there had never been a prisoner.

They had never said that.

They had said they had discussed the modality of how the prisoners are going to be released.

Well, that's a true point, but it's not good to play it as soon as it comes to the point where it might happen.

It goes full way back.

So...

One of our disadvantages has been their tendency to use American visitors, congressional and otherwise, who go in there, make a statement to them, and they then reply with an ambiguous formulation which the visitor interprets as an acquiescence, and which they then don't contradict, and which we then have to argue with.

And the major, one of the major reasons why the president spoke yesterday is to bring before the American public and the Congress a record that everything, that any one of these visitors had brought back, we had been there before, and asked explicit questions about.

And so we knew what the real position was.

We have regret from putting our knowledge forward because we were hoping to bring it to a conclusion.

So I have to tell you these visits are counterproductive because they never tell.

I do not recall in the whole history of negotiations that they have ever told anybody who was not authorized by the government anything that they did not tell the government.

They use outsiders for propaganda.

They do not use them for negotiation.

Bill, yes, you want to?

Well, I just want to say, I agree with Henry.

I know, I think it would be unfair, strongly and wisely, to suggest it to me, but these are, as we've been talking about, had an adverse effect, in a sense, changed his mind.

Had an adverse effect in terms of American public opinion.

They were just using these, they were using them, for propaganda purposes.

That's what they had in mind.

I mean, I don't know how anybody feels.

I've never had a feeling up to this point that we're serious at all about working on a negotiated settlement.

It's all been out of propaganda.

It's what they had in mind when they went to Paris in the first instance.

I don't think they went there with the idea of negotiating as we think of negotiating.

They got a good deal.

They got the bombing stopped.

For nothing.

They went to Paris and they got the very best place in the world for a

for a sounding board.

They've got the French press, they've got the old Communist Party, and the Communist Party has put them up in their headquarters, that's where they live.

So it's an ideal place for them, and they use the Paris talks as a sounding board for the propaganda, and they use our American politicians as dupes to propagate the propaganda.

And I didn't know if they ever get to the point where they...

I'm speaking about the government.

So, I'm comfortable.

Unfortunately, we haven't had any buyer people over there.

So, I've never thought up to this point, and I think it may well be that when they realize they can't turn the thought of division around, they can't achieve any military spectacular, then maybe they will talk about whether they can recoup something or not.

The way they work, the way they work, Senator, is the use of phrase that sounds quite recent.

For example, you've got to replace you because he doesn't have peace, neutrality, freedom, all words that we sort of like.

So, on one of these meetings, I tell you that you should replace you.

Why do you say that?

samtidig mode, while they started making one of these double talks about peace, neutrality and independence.

So I then ran down a list of South Vietnamese politicians that we spent for peace, neutrality and independence.

Now, I never reached anybody that they thought could vote for peace.

I think the attraction to them as long as they had this room of big men was because

All factions in Vietnam seem to be agreed on his encounter.

And he seems to be the guy they thought they could overthrow.

But even that is true.

They never said to us...

That they would take big men.

They were lying there as a sort of a stalking force against you without ever committing themselves to taking big men.

But again, in our August 16th proposal to them,

We made proposals to them of what we were prepared to do to make those voter elections fair and free, and what we were willing to say publicly and so forth.

And we asked them to tell us what more they wanted.

They didn't want that.

They didn't want an election at all.

They wanted to guarantee governments that they had an overwhelming probability of taking office.

Thank you.

I'll tell you, I've never laughed at that picture.

Barry, you have to go.

Do you want to say a word for me?

Well, I want to apologize for how I recognize you.

Senator Hayden passed away last night, and I haven't been able to get on the floor.

I want to thank the president for asking me here.

It was last year.

It was late, I think it was.

I hope all of you are helping me.

This is not the end of their efforts.

Their total efforts is to change the Constitution to protect them.

The man who keeps it has the war power.

That's exactly what they're after.

And so far, the Republicans have not fought back on this extent with Bill Rogers, and I would hope that we take this issue and really shove it down their throats and shove it up the exercises that they need.

That's what we need to do, right?

Another suggestion you mentioned to me is that if you and I and anyone else who wants to might introduce a resolution in support of the President's plan, if that's all you have to say.

It's very important that the intricacies of these things be discussed by the media here, because no one who is a computer can go out and support a proposition unless he understands it.

And we hope that this may help to make it really more understanding, and any questions you have, may I say, Paul, Henry, or Bill, both of them are totally familiar with this.

or or or or or or or or or or

All these interests must be understood, but it is vitally important for us to recognize what the real issue is.

The real issue with regard to, at the moment, the North Vietnamese is not whether or not the United States is making a forthcoming negotiating alternative.

We have, months ago, three months ago, and then the last time.

I would not be, I would not take the pessimistic view about the go-shin.

I would take the view, we believe they want to go-shin.

They turn it down, we're not getting the right answer.

I think that it's very important to keep hope, without being, of course, polyamorous about it.

But the key thing with regard to the North Vietnamese, and this is the advice of many of our well-intentioned people here in Venice, is that their purpose is not negotiation.

Their purpose is they want South Vietnam.

Now, the other side of the coin is with regard to our critics.

Some of our critics have been really concerned, and some of these I think we can take and continue to hold.

They were concerned that the United States was being inflexible, that we hadn't answered the seven points, that we weren't considering the possibility of withdrawal, that we weren't doing anything about POWs, etc., etc., etc.

Last night's speech totally answers the honest critics.

who is not interested in going as far as a total surrender.

On the other side of the coin, however, there are other critics working on the table.

They are those, and I would say, maybe the government is one, I would raise the question about using them as an example.

Certainly certain publications that I can name are in this category.

But their interest is not...

Many more than that of anarchy in the means of how they try to get the United States to increase the negotiating commission.

Their interest is to prove their point, which is that

The position we should take is this.

This is a fair offer.

It proves and demonstrates that for the past three years, on the negotiating front as well as the withdrawal front, remember, 500,000 women out of Vietnam will withdraw from May 1st, regardless of what happens on the negotiating front.

That this offer is the fairest offer in permanent international history, basically, where a great power, which frankly had the power to do a lot more than he's done, has been very restraining the Jews because they've offered for the ending of war.

And they think of it as an offer which...

All reasonable questions.

The question of having answers to things they have not.

The question of the POF.

The question of setting a withdrawal date.

The question of separating the ideas that we want.

Or negotiating an attack.

The question of what to do about you.

What do you do about elections?

All right, we've got answers in all of them.

And...

Somebody, of course, has got to make the decision of what we offer.

We've made it.

It's as far as we can go.

It's a reasonable proposition.

I think we ought to stand up, fight for it, take on those trades.

Not the reasonable people that are really concerned that we haven't offered enough.

Give them a chance.

And in an honorable way, also to support them.

But to those, whether in Turkey or not, who are in the United States for different reasons, not because they're pro-Turkish, but because they're against what happened there, take on those people very hard for being envisaged, for not uniting behind a recent peace proposal, and for frankly not serving the cause of peace.

disturbing the cause of peace in the present time.

for for for for for for for for

You might get a better deal later.

And the war is prolonged.

If you want to end it, the thing to do is to get the great majority of East Samaritans, Democrats and behind, and honorable with these proposals.

And that will peace the end of the war, and give whatever chance there is for negotiation.

But the old chance for negotiation will be destroying the league.

There continues to be

over all over over over over over over over over over

Well, now, we'll have to take a break.

We're going to have an economic report Thursday.

So, I would like for Herb Stein, who is the preacher of that.

Is that issue Thursday?

Yes, it will be.

Bill, you're here.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

I can make a guilty voice in one minute.

We're going to call it.

Go ahead.

This is only curves, only shots.

Well, I'm hoping to talk about this in my last show, but...

I thought it was probably good news that the administration of Georgia was going to put up a few points, something you might regard as rather dreary, but my main point is that the good news really depends on Georgia's news.

We've been making progress, as you can see.

The rate of increase of climate disparity has been very high in the fourth quarter.

It was over about 750,000.

We'll certainly reduce to unemployment during 1972.

Now, in this economic report which I've handed out, which as the President says is for release tomorrow, I hope that the color doesn't disturb you with things.

We have good color for an election year, but in many cases we have a fairly restrained

And it implies a decline in the unemployment rate to what we call the neighborhood of 5% by the end of 1972.

That's a fairly big neighborhood.

We intend to avoid it.

We can be put more precisely about that, but we do see a significant decline in the unemployment rate during 1972.

And this forecast was well within the range of the common forecasts made by people who try to estimate these things quantitatively now.

We are not, as we were last year, trying to push this economy off its more probable path to a target which was difficult to achieve.

We are now looking for a continuation of these.

The business plan, equipment investment, inventory, housing, all housing will certainly not rise.

As long as we can live here, we expect total housing expenditures in 1972 to be higher than in 1971.

But the point that I would like to emphasize is that this degree of recovery, which is by no means an exuberant move, but a strong, steady, non-planar recovery, depends very heavily on the increase in...

Thank you for watching.

Thank you.

...in a very long time, and quite a big percentage in the earlier years, in the middle of the 1960s, but still a very big increase, and an awful lot of that comes in the first half, as we see in the first half of this year, in the first half of this calendar year, and we count on that to boost the economy in 1972, and I hope that...

We will not be distracted by talk about some familiarly large deficit, to be timid along that path, because we believe constantly that it is a part of policy that the economy rises, that it drops down inflationary pace, but by no means

And irresponsibly, according to the inflationary court, we expect the rate of inflation to decline during 1972.

We expect that in part because the economy will be thriving at a moderate rate, and in part because we do expect some contributions to be made by the price-to-weight control system, and I'd like to work...

Thank you very much.

The standards put forward by the two boards, the pay board and the price commission, are, we believe, a system with the goal of getting inflation rate down to 2-3% at the end of the year.

This is analyzed in our recording, chapter 2, which is, I think, the first compact account of what's been going on here.

I know some of you will have a chance to look at it.

The system has many hurdles to overcome.

And by no means out of the woods, but we make it exist to a certain degree of confidence in every place that we go.

And our feeling is basically about the economy that we have a

A defensible program, and a necessary program, which I would use the legendary part as a final ingredient, which will give us, most statistically, an out of gear in a long, long time, a first year in a long, long time, which would make substantial financial progress on the unemployment front, the inflation front, on the international and on the position of the heavenly drive of the system, subject to very dramatic moves in Canada.

I just have one point that is very important to make with regard to real income.

It's not true, but it's very 1967, roughly through the 90s.

Thank you very much.

I will have to come back to that question.

I just have one point that is very important to make with regard to real income.

It is not true that in the period of 1967, roughly through the 90s,

We just try to make the point that it's important.

I think it's hard to get people focused on it, but it's an important point there at the last.

That while there's all this turmoil, there's basically no reason to press about the behavior of the economy, the inflation and so on.

If you look at what is the economy really doing for the people, that is, what level of real output per capita is being generated.

Of course, the performance is tremendous, but 1971 was no exception.

It was also a year in which we had by and large the highest output per capita in the world, or in our own history, and it was a split-up that by and large the economy operated in a historical and comparative sense amazingly well.

Thank you.

Let me tell you about...

I'll tell you the rest of the story.

One of the most impressive men to see on economics and on following in the search science.

And while I've got to keep them here, you know, we're going to make things true.

At the time that I would say that when you have a highly sophisticated economic audience, then it's very, very effective.

I really think that's a potential area of considerable additional embarrassment.

Unless we let this thing jerk around by the currency we want, and then by whatever concessions we're ever liable to get.

And I suppose that's the reason August 15th came on August 15th.

We've got a short-term accommodation there, but how long can it last?

Well, I think maybe it's really the other way that we have more of it.

We have a long-term accommodation and we have certain short-term troubles to get through that the main benefit of the realignment of the currencies will take some while to go into place.

Where long-term barbers, we're saying, in our opinion, we're going to have a...

In terms of... We basically have a monetary realignment.

But long-term, we're saying...

Short term, we still have problems.

It isn't going to turn around in the next quarter, for example.

Because it's going to take time before whatever trade decisions we get will get something to damage the Europeans.

It's going to take time before the new monetary alignment, you know, where the yen and the rest might be valued correctly, apparently in terms of dollars, before that turns around here.

And also, let me say, it's going to depend upon the productivity of the American workforce.

I mean, we can't assume that.

that the balance of payments will turn around simply by getting some trades.

In the final analysis, we do have to be competitive, but we feel that we are moving in that direction.

Long term, our projection is that we're moving in the right direction, and that will correct itself.

But I think that John Collins' point, and Paul Walker's, is that we don't expect it in the first place.

Well, I really don't remember when, but for a long time we had everything.

I don't know what to say about it here.

how much the tax cuts that we have, shall we say, at the Burns tax bill, how much of the tax cuts, how would that have changed the trade with regard to the fighters?

I had not realized this until I was in the neighborhood 20 years ago.

The taxes that would have been paid by the individual income tax at the rates in effect when the president took office.

but it generated $22.4 billion more in 1973 than the tax rate is now in effect.

So that, I think, is one of the very sharp cutting edges in this budget, or talking points, or whatever you want to call it.

I think through this budget, the president...

Quite a number of very distinct positions that are going to be controversial, all right, but they're clear, and this is a return of power to people.

It's like resident hearing, except that it doesn't go to a state government or a local government.

It goes to individuals and their families to decide how they want to spend it for themselves.

So that is the point that we have dramatized.

It is a tax cut to individuals of 22 billion dollars is represented in this budget.

I'm not over 41.

Here, they're going to do this.

So, if we had tax at the same level, we'd have four of them.

They're going to do this.

That's right.

Although, I think we have...

I was pointed to the large deficit, particularly in fiscal 72, as representing a commitment.

And he didn't call it medicine or bitter medicine.

I guess Captain and I would feel that it's bitter medicine.

But nevertheless, medicine has done.

We feel we must get going and represent a commitment to an expansion.

which, because it will automatically be accompanied by high rates of improvement and productivity, is perfectly consistent with continued success.

And I say continued success in struggling with the problem of inflation.

So there's that part.

There is a tax point that the President has already brought out, that I think is a very important point.

In practical terms, it is putting practicality behind a philosophy, and it is, as the President says in his message, as remarkable as it is unremarkable.

You don't hear a thing about it.

A third point that I think needs emphasis, recognizing Herb's comment about the calendar year increases and how much.

That, too, in some considerability defense budget, did not become available to us until the middle of December.

That changes the rate of spending between the first half of the fiscal year and the second half of the fiscal year quite substantially.

But it does give us a good rough when we think Herb is 11 and a half.

Nevertheless, the rate of increase in outlays in the last three Johnson years was 17%.

That was the annual rate of increase in outlays.

In the first three years of President Nixon, the annual rate of increase in outlays was 9%.

The rate of increase in outlays is 4%.

In other words, this has been gradually coming under control, as the President has proposed.

absolute riches ceiling on spending to be enacted by the Congress right at the outset so that we can maintain full over output.

So, the outlay picture is not one of wildly escalating out of control.

It represents a very big effort to get control.

Looking at the composition of the budget, the outstanding element in the composition of the budget is in the direction of defense.

with a big increase, over a $6 billion increase in new obligational authority for resurgent development, for shipbuilding.

That's a very controversial thing, but the president has his very square and strong on that point, and we will have a line fighting very hard for that strong defense president.

Now, it is also the case that there has been a shift in priorities since the president took office, as reflected in the budget.

This budget dollar here shows 45 cents going for human resource programs and 32 cents for national defense.

When the president took office, those proportions were exactly reversed by chance.

At 52 percent, that was 45 percent.

So, there has been a shift, and that, I think, is something worth noting.

There are a great variety of strong talking points, strong moves in the area of drug control.

In the crime area, when you look at the chart, and you see the federal efforts in the field of crime control, or the federal efforts in terms of drug abuse prevention,

At the time the president took office, and let's see what has happened in those areas since that time.

And also some result, arrest, conviction, doing something about these problems.

I think it is a very dramatic story.

I believe there are some excellent characters here that I haven't had the time to show you.

They're very dramatic, and they're in a card book.

We have a bunch of copies prepared by the door.

There's one more, but I would strongly agree.

The characters are really pretty good.

They come all the way through, and I think if you can spend...

Even ten minutes just sort of leafing through and looking at some of your questions, quite rewarding, and then if you like, in your own speech.

So then, from 1972 to 1973, the defense outlets go up about a billion dollars, a little over a billion dollars.

What we have here is kind of a turnaround.

When the defense spending, the colloquial authority, is lagging behind the outlets, in order to get outlets out of the defense, you have to get the colloquial authority out first, and that's boldly,

There are quite a variety of programs we have held down and held back, and as the budget message says, people will look through this budget and find that many of their favorite programs

...has not been funded as fully as they would like.

They will be absolutely weak.

You cannot hold out laid down if you don't hold things down.

So we have sort of a crust, or... ...human problems on this paper, programs that are not... ...all together.

All of a sudden, we are here against things like public housing...

We of course are going to urban revenue sharing for general revenue sharing.

That's a better way of going about it.

And I think the evidence is just abundant.

But nevertheless, we're sort of calling them jobs.

I was quickly looking for some of our...

Here's one.

It is said that we have not paid attention to the needs of the hungry.

Well, here's what happened to expenditures for food stamps.

Since the beginning of the presentation, you can see what happened to food stamps.

And even in many ways, in the sense that hungry people are getting the stance, it also represents a program that is on the verge of getting totally out of control.

And we've been trying to see if we can't get it under control, and of course we had a role by a lot of people in the process of getting it under control.

Every now and then, every now and then, some of my staff...

This area, they always, you know, since we came in, the number of people getting food stamps is quite brutal.

I think I got it.

I think it's not because I don't want people to be fed, not because we're not sent, that it takes a day or another direction.

I mean, I mean, you just go out and say, this has been great.

Four times as many people in this country are living off the government.

I'll go ahead.

Here's another story.

Sorry, go ahead.

These are my first children.

Fred made a commitment for the feeding of needy children in school.

So, that commitment has been kept.

Look at what's happened to that line.

There's an issue here.

These are the needy children.

And the distance between these lines has grown.

In other words, this is typical of what happens to programs where you try to do something for these people.

They're all in there.

It gets transformed into a program for...

It gets so big that you can't handle it, and you destroy the original purpose.

Now, there are many people going around saying, you know, this is a congressional mandate.

Well, you're trying to say...

Look, let's get a little control here so that we don't just go totally out and look at most nothing.

And the OMV can drag and drop.

You can say we're accustomed to that.

But, you know, we've got to do something about these things.

Let me just show you one other chart.

Better and better than this.

It's a good one.

I'll release it here.

Here's one on outlays that are crimes, or the treatments you might say.

Here's one on drugs.

Here's what the federal government was doing when the president took office, in terms of expenditures on the law enforcement side and on the rehabilitation and treatment side.

That's all.

And we are beginning to see some results in the form of illegal seizures and seizures of illegal narcotics and arrests for direct violation.

So that is as though this money being poured in and nothing happening, we're beginning to get somewhere, right?

I hope you get some of those.

One other thing which I guess bugs me particularly because of the speech that Senator Kennedy made the other day about civil rights, which is so far away from the truth that I wish, but we'll see even.

by sort of quiet, persistent efforts to bring quality of opportunity to people.

It is very strong, this demonstration, and I suppose one way to test that is to say, what have you done closest to home, namely, in your home country?

So, if you look at federal employment,

And particularly the so-called super-graves, where these Jews are, not great ones before and so forth, you see a rather dramatic picture on the chart here.

Here is what is a minority of boys, Spanish-speaking, black, Indian, and so on.

Now, don't get the idea that this means the minorities have been getting all the jobs.

What this means is that

that how many were there in November 69?

Some number.

And what is the percentage increase?

So it's a measure, really, of two things.

Secondly, with all the rhetoric in the talk, how much had they really accomplished when we give up?

And, well, these numbers in these bases through here are very low.

But progress has been made.

All through, you can find examples

throughout this budget document of achieving, not only just in the field of civil rights, but in the field of support of civilian research and development, supportively doing something about the drug problem in people, attention to human resources, and also

He's strong.

And you understand, as far as the amount of federal and private generally is concerned, it's been relatively level.

But here we are in the grades, and the grades that are higher, 33% increase, 4% increase, 12% and 13%.

In other words, they're getting the administrating jobs.

And when I say administrating, the words are negative.

It's a great job.

Well, it's a...

It may be unfair to some others, but we won't...

Well, I think the point to be made here is...

There is one point in preparing talks for a public address, which I'm doing now, and it's not the easiest task in the world because we've been talking the other way on that one.

There is one point, and that is that 72% of all of these programs are uncontrolled in the sense that it lets the laws change.

We're absolutely bound to fund them.

They're just required programs, like interest on the national debt, welfare, and so on.

So, you start with about three quarters of your budget, in a sense, out of your control.

The other thing is that that makes the reduction in outlays that George spoke of all the more impressive, from 17% per year down to 4% a year.

The reductions the Vice President asked about are coming in leveling off and actually increases in a lot of the social programs that

We're prisoners of programs that started years ago, and we just have to fund.

So those are some of the points that can't be changed.

So we aren't asking dollars so much.

Well, in dollars, somewhere in the neighborhood of 181 billion dollars.

181 out of the 264.

On the economy and the prospects for better development on the employment side, this chart shows how much of a drawdown there has been in military-related employment.

So that's been a bogey, so to speak, that we had to pick up all the time before you cut into the regular increase in the labor force.

And it's represented as our problem for us all through these years.

Now, that's leveling off.

We don't have that problem to fight anymore.

They even begin to go up slightly.

But basically it's leveling off, so we don't have the problem.

And I think that, therefore, when we see that dignity creates an appointment that we've been getting, the courage to start fighting.

brødhavn brødhavn brødhavn brødhavn brødhavn

The budget presentation is complex, but it's like everything else.

There aren't companies for republicanism, particularly for conservatives to handle.

George and Kat make a very, very good presentation of this, and to the extent that you have a conference, or if you want to do something on the Senate side, they would be glad to

You know, you have to give the full report, which takes about 45 minutes.

But it's worth it.

It really is.

You know, it's very complicated.

There's a lot of stuff in here that tells you the story about what we're doing, what our priorities are, and all the rest.

So I think that's very effective.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm sorry to mention, it's more than a huge area, I guess, in here, so...

They are held.

You're right.

You'll be there.

I don't know if they're on the other side.

I don't know.

Either one can go down and take the charge and lay it out there, you know, with all the air on it.

The other point that I would make is this, that this has come up, because I'm focused on her, this is very, very close to you, but, um,

other than the budget.

And in our sense, it is a story that is extremely difficult for us as conservatives.

We all know that it has angered Republicans, and I would go further concerning the doctor, to say that the government should not spend more than the Dixon in taxes.

On the other hand, it is a very sound government, and I think this is also concerning about it, that particularly as the transition is made for the peacetime economy, and the economy is not operating in full capacity, the government must do everything it can to take up the gas.

Putting it in another way, and this is not related to the transition from war to peace, but the penalty that we call the year 1958.

That was a bad year for us politically.

I'm very frankly sitting back here, but do you remember the year that we ended up hanging around the country in that year?

1958, I remember President Eisenhower and Daniel broke his heart to have a 12-billion dollar accident.

It would have been far better if we had had 20.

Far better.

Because we had 8 points on 1958.

And the draw for the government was simply due to the fact that the economy had a downturn, and it was a decrease in revenue.

But instead of taking strong action,

and may take on the $40-50 billion deficits that occurred in the 67-68 period.

Like I say, the deficits then were inflationary, and deficits under our ministry was our logic.

We're not equating her.

The reason, of course, is that in 1966, 1967, and 1968, the economy was operating at full capacity.

When the economy is operating at full capacity, and the government spends more than it takes in its taxes, that inevitably creates a demand for employees.

The government does not spend more than the tax system would produce a full capacity.

The history tells us that that does not prove to be inflationary.

Now, having laid that doctrine out, let me say, I think we can't vouch for it totally.

You can't say that it will always be that way, because inflation is also contributed to sometimes by a wage price inflation, as well as a demand for it.

When we talk about the demand for inflation, and the effect of government spending,

I think this is almost a rule that can operate in a quarrel, that when your economy is operating at less than full capacity, a deficit provided it is controlled, provided your spending does not exceed what your tax system would produce if you had relatively full employment, meaning full capacity,

The deficit is not inflationary.

In fact, the deficit is necessary in order to take up the flask of unemployment.

Now, that's the argument that has to be made.

It's a very tough one to make.

It's one, however, which we believe is sound.

And you're going to ask the question, well, are these bubbles giving up on balance budgets and all that?

Are we ever going to have one in the future?

The answer is certainly not.

Our goal is to get the economy back to full capacity.

When that happens, then the budget must be balanced not only in terms of full employment revenues, but it also must be balanced in terms of

would be inflationary.

We believe that deficits are necessary to take up the slack in the economy, and the economy does not operate in full.

Mr. President, I think most of us understand that here, but this is a suffering call.

Translate that in terms of the guy carrying the dinner bucket is going to raise it.

But I would say this.

You know, the long, the important thing here is perhaps what works.

And if we get toward the end of the year, that guy is carrying the dinner bucket for work rather than going down to the soup kitchen to get those food sands, we'll be fine.

We're not going to be worried about him on the other hand.

It hasn't worked.

And we have the worst of both worlds.

And so we're just, we're doing, I must say we're doing what we think is right.

Stimulating confidence.

We're going to be very tough, however, in holding the line in this 246.

I would say, finally, on the budget, looking at our presence, we'll post it.

Let's just say our number, right?

Because there are some Republicans...

They can't talk out of both corners of their mouth.

On the one side, they are saying, in Crete, we're not spending enough for the environment, for food stamps, for welfare, and a lot of other things.

What is that, daycare thing that you post?

Not going to talk for that.

But what they ought to do is to cut the fence.

On the other side, you have a guy like Jackson, who might have enormous respect, saying we're not spending enough for the fence.

Now the question is, you're talking about cutting.

What are you going to cut?

Defense or the other?

You made the point of it, I understand.

You told the point you made.

Well, I made the point again.

It is not a single dollar.

It's spent by the president.

It is inappropriate by a democratic congressman.

You don't like it, let's see your dad cut it.

You support us in the defense, try to cut it, dad.

You support us in the welfare program, let's see if your dad cut it.

Let's see if you leave your dad across the board cut, which would be the only honest approach, is that you won't cut your own for that, but for their wages.

But as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, on defense, I can say, and I will, Mr.,

We need this demand for two purposes.

One, because of increased costs, the need for some new weapons and so forth and so on, modernization, et cetera, particularly in naval areas.

We need it as a matter of fact in order for the United States to have a national defense.

We also need it for another very important reason.

I will be going to Moscow.

We are going to be negotiating with regard to a limitation on arms

And if the Congress could cut the fence unilaterally before we had a chance to negotiate, is to get through the negotiation.

Now what we have to do, we're going to try to negotiate with them.

We're not going to make any negotiations.

Not yet.

But we can't negotiate even the latest thing.

Let me say for those of you who start your next conference, vote for the ADN.

If you have voted for the ADN,

The Russians wouldn't be negotiating with us to negotiate to limit their IDMs.

What do you call them?

SS9s.

Because in order to get something, you've got to have something to give.

So in this case, to hide a mess is necessary first in itself, and second, to maintain a negotiating position so that we can limit arms, which we'd like to do.

But in order to negotiate with those guys, believe me,

Like we said a moment ago about the deadline.

Don't give a deadline unless they give you something for it.

That's the difference in our proposal and the one made by the one that's in front of the Senate.

The other thing I think is important about the domestic summit is that on the domestic summit and the rest, I mean, I know all the pressures in the water bill down here and a lot of these other things, but I will be silent.

But the point that I have is that there, for that,

If we go, go off, and beyond this number that we have set up, beyond the purpose that we have set up, we will never have this thing under control.

Because basically, you're going to have a situation where you're spending...

I'm not separating the non-defense from defense.

The non-defense is what is growing like hell.

It continues to grow, and some of it is inevitable.

Social Security, as Frank knows, and the interest in the debt support, and so on, is better.

Other social programs, great society programs, etc.

etc.

That's a different company.

That's a big added one, like the food stamp.

My god, let's put it up and go.

If we had a daycare in there, believe me, we'd have 250 billion dollar debt.

That's the reason why we have to be restrained in this area, but we are being very generous.

A point I would like to make with regard to the general approach, and I would hope you would follow it.

Just make it real simple.

There's so much talk about what are we doing?

Where are we going?

If you will read documents that I sent out to the Congress, I would advise you to take a minute to read the phrase.

But if you will read it, believe me,

The other thing I would say is that I would constantly hammer one point.

This is the 93rd Congress, and the President has 93 programs that have been there.

From one to three years that have not been acted upon.

You folks make the record.

The record that I will have to see through that reconciliation.

But it's the time on your part to make the record.

That the Congress has the programs it has not acted on.

Now, if they don't act, they'll act on something.

But, suppose you take 93, you, and go, you keep the court near 93, I'm sure, and maybe they give us one of the reorganization plans, and maybe they give us something on the environment, something on the health.

So, finally, we get down that they acted on 93.

If so, you say, what a lousy record.

They acted on 50% of the president's programs.

What I meant is, I wouldn't get it.

The point is, the average person can say is, if they want to act on problems of high priority of interest to the country, then the point is, who is responsible for not acting?

Is it the administration?

No, it's the Congress.

We'll have another meeting before you leave, of course.

You'll have West Coast down straight, right after this present bill.

Then the women's rights and H.R.

1.

What are people's rights?

People's rights.

Here's last night.

We had a high level of strike.

We had high demand for the industry's product, and the industry was having trouble getting on the ground.

And there was some difference between us, really, but we might talk about it several ways.

I think that...

What we will be doing is to have short reports about the circumstances of the industry and some of the things that this group and related groups have been doing.

Their associations, their unions, have to work together to solve a very burdensome problem for this industry.

And as a result, we can make some reports today that I think will give you a certain amount of satisfaction, and certainly give those of us who are here to talk with you some real pleasure.

First I thought we would let Dr. Dunlop, who somehow or other manages to run Harvard with one hand, and involve himself in everything in the construction industry, talk to us about the construction industry, and not only the...

I thought it best to be rather specific.

First of all, our objectives have been both to seek to improve the performance of the collective bargaining

and also to make it together more responsive.

This chart shows the number of strikes in 1970 as compared to 1971.

Most negotiations take place in the second and third quarter.

You see a total of 424, here 232.

In the second critical quarter of the year, in 1970, there were 309.

In 1971, there were 174, a decline by half.

The duration of strikes, likewise, was reduced by about...

But third, and therefore the total impact of production costs, the use of resources and productivity in the industry was increased by a good bit by that kind of collective bargaining.

A year ago, President, at this meeting and in the Labor Department,

This particular chart, as shown in the exact chart that was presented here to show how badly things had reached the state of the industry, this black line shows the percentage increase

in construction by year, thus a figure reached over approaching 15% of the average, and the red line shows the increase that was taking place, percentage increase, each year in many factors.

Now this chart will show what has happened in the year or nine months since we met together.

The very marked retardation that has been taking place and continues to take place in the construction as compared to that perhaps is a chart which shows the increases in percentage charts.

These are the percentage increases in wages to take effect

During the first year of the construction contract settlement negotiated in each year, the quarters that are important again are the second and third.

These ran in 1970 at UC, 16 or 17% here and 0.1% there.

The comparable figures in the second and third quarter run 10 to 12%, showing a substantial, again, retardation.

Those are the short-run effects of our work, I believe.

I'd like to just make two further points, if I may.

The first is that we have had our eye throughout this year, not merely on the short term, namely 1971, but...

We hope to continue that process during 72, that retardation process, but at the same time we pretend our eyes have worked together on what are some of the fundamentals, longer run processes in the industry, having to do with increasing productivity, having to do particularly with the perfection of the system.

I think this has been a...

Work and contribution as labor and management together, working with the government, have made a significant impact on a very difficult situation.

Problems which we have called to our attention most fortunately a year ago, and this is a report on what we have been doing since.

I think that, not as rapidly, but we have made reports...

by week and month of the activities of this committee, and so that it is in the public domain that the activities of the committee have succeeded in bending the curve that was ever upward, downward, and doing it markedly.

I believe that it's a success story that has been noted in a lot of quarters, but we plan to see to it that it gets more wide attention.

Now that we have it in more graphic form like this, and I suppose that's a good reason for getting us together is to actually portray this kind of story, and we'll be talking with the press after this meeting, and through the same piece of us.

We're going to use each other.

Yes.

Now, John mentioned something very interesting in his discussion.

He's distance of a new kind of organization that marks this industry's relations.

Last year, since the new program got underway, a series of crack boys were each scratched the industry with establishing a bipartisan, apartheid, I guess I should say, approach to the solution of labor management issues.

ford ford ford ford ford ford ford ford

What happens here, policy levels, is what happens actually out where the net is cut.

And certainly the craft board concept is one that has done an amazing job in accomplishing that kind of objective.

I'd like to have Hunter Wharton, the President of the Operating Engineers, here to my video.

Let's speak just a bit about how this thing looks from the inside, how it makes sense.

I think that it was a challenge to us.

We didn't realize what we were getting into.

but I think that we have found that the craftwork concept has been beneficial.