Conversation 121-002

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to get away from here.

They're waiting for me to come up.

They want to see him first.

I hope it might be useful.

I mean, instead of just going into the things that don't seem to be the obvious things that are coming up, we need to follow some of those together.

I know it is in our office.

I mean, I seem to be signing papers and meeting with people all the time.

which is the way it should be, and I know it isn't yours, but it would be interesting for all of us to hear, and other people that I'm going to call, I know they're going to be calling on this, so this is going to be extroverted.

I said, the Mr. Barr, who's running the,

Well, at the conclusion of the meeting, I'll spend a minute in regard to the going on the Paris talks.

But that would be interesting.

So we'll do a moment to look at, and also a moment about the conclusion.

I always say it first off, because everything is at the first impression.

It's very alike and very different from anything.

I know that you're coming in today with Spanish speaking and so forth, but what activities do you deal with at the present time that would be of interest to the members of this government of ours?

Good things to do.

Well, in the field of the Spanish-speaking, we started a little bit from behind the bill because we were getting attacked for not pushing forward on appointments for Spanish-speaking.

I think we were at ground and we got up to the starting line again.

And hopefully with the three major appointments we've had recently, we will be getting ahead in this field.

On the property review... Let us stay there to find the appointments.

We know all of you have been trying very, very hard to find appointments.

Successful people in those groups are doing so well in the private sector that they're not about to want to come to government.

Or if they are, or if they've done too well, they've accomplished so much.

So that's why they need to come to government.

That's right.

They made a breakthrough by putting Alec Armandadis over at Alton.

That was very mean.

Yes, sir.

Good.

He's the board there.

And, of course, the Sanchez ambassadorial post is a good breakthrough, too.

A gentleman by the name of Alberto Carabino will be a level four announcement in our department.

Together with the New Communities Development Program.

For example, a situation of small business administration

But it was just a loser.

And we just must do that.

I mean, much as we want to spread the positions around, you cannot put unqualified people in positions.

And that's what we were trying to say to the captain last week.

You've got to get qualified people in positions.

But when you've got two people, one who is, shall we say,

They are irrelevant.

And may I say that your meeting with Jenna and Nancy the other day was very helpful, too.

She didn't want to drop us.

No, she didn't want to drop us.

That Warren Soto circular frame is very interesting and compassionate for the Spanish people.

In the field of property review board, we're going through the maintenance with the help of Roy Ash's lawyers.

How to set it up organizationally.

It looks as if we're going to put it down and go in there and see if we're going to make it an entity.

I think that the office is the president and get that off the ground.

Foreign policy is a new responsibility for me, and the Commission on the Organization of Governments for the Conduct of Foreign Policy has just gotten started with Bob Murphy and his head, Senator Mansfield and the Blocky and the Democrats on their team to beat.

Cooperative, I think that this could turn into a plus thing.

What do they report?

It's 75 asking for extension of funding appropriations, and since they've got pretty good input from the committee, I think they're going to do all right.

They're asking for a million dollars, and they've got excellent staff.

Fran Wilcox will be the executive director.

Good man.

Very good man.

And Bill Fong was interested in contributing on a different sort of basis, so he's going to be the pastor.

But I think it's getting started in a good way.

Constantly, and also frankly, I attend and I listen to my mentors and

And, uh, well, of course.

I hope they're right.

Uh...

Domestic Council, we haven't had any meetings that I've attended yet.

This is the most exceptional young woman.

I think she is doing a very fine job in this field.

Her other responsibility is the liaison with the Bicentennial, that's on High Center, hung up in Congress, and I really can't predict the outcome of this.

We have some personality conflicts.

Larry Williams, Mr. Hansling, that are very difficult to figure out.

I'm going to hear it forward and see if we can work out something on that.

The problem there is that I guess we have to get a congressional approval.

What do you think?

We'll get it before 1966?

I don't know.

It's a tough...

I can't predict the outcome of that right now.

We have a two-headed monster still.

The trouble is not installed, it's being done, you see.

A lot of thinking, but no direction.

I quite agree.

Yeah.

Do you need any help, sir?

Well, I've had the help of several people here.

I really think right now, this push has to be in Congress.

Not being there to get what we need in the way of an organizational structure that makes sense.

Because the problem, the main problem, has been, as I see it, is that you have a part-time head of excellent land in Mahoney.

But he hasn't had the time or the organizational undertaking to do a good job.

And some in Congress are intent on keeping it so diffused that you can't do a good job on it.

So I would welcome help in lobbying in Congress.

Brr, brr, brr.

Brr, brr.

Version of what we think ought to come out of there, but right now we don't have it.

And I think the key to this is a conflict that Larry Williams...

With the rocks, okay, off the ground.

The St. Larry.

Yeah.

Of course, it's, uh...

I've got so many favors for Larry, and I'm sure you can just say that it's a personal favor.

If you'd like for him to carry them all, I'm sure he'll do a good job.

He's really, gosh, he feels strongly about this.

But Lenin, he's... Well, he wants congressional oversight to a degree that I think it would render it far less useful.

Well, the main thing is you have to get it done, though, and you can't just wait.

So you have to make the deal look like Elliot on his special prosecutor, my goodness.

Yes.

Elliot, at the present time, your charter goes about it.

As I say, about as far as you can go.

The only parameters I've set, Mr. President, are on the one side that I would not quote, disqualify myself.

There'd be no sense for you to replace one attorney general with another who placed the same disability on himself as the first.

The other is that I thought it would not make sense to pass a special law.

There are all kinds of practical problems in that.

But within those parameters, I've said, in effect, that the man should have full independence and authority.

The real hang-up now, though, is not that.

It's getting a man.

In other words, the man will be the...

I can get a man who inspires confidence on the part of...

of the committee and the Congress, we've still got some candidates.

And a lot of the, yes, then a lot of the problems of language will just evaporate, I think.

So that's the key to what I have.

But a real good candidate, I think, who is due to give me an answer at two o'clock today, I'm splitting that up right now, is the answers in front of this thing.

Don't tell us who he is, please.

But my point is, if you get an answer, what would you do?

Just go immediately to the committee out in the House of Lords?

I would have to work out.

I would announce it today, and I would arrange with Chairman Beasley to

That comes for the committee next week.

Probably they would meet Monday or Tuesday.

You couldn't get Christopher or they set them up?

They're getting down there.

I just want to hear it.

I know Christopher in California.

Yeah, he was strongly for it.

And you know what?

When I originally put him on that, it turned out that he was.

By the way,

That's your problem.

I think it's a man who is due to beginning that way today.

He's the man that will have everyone's confidence.

And I think he's a man whose stature is such that

it will reduce, really, to one thing in its existence, any remaining differences over time.

I think that's correct, Mr. Mann, other than, you know, how many of the language and the rest was I involved until last night.

I felt that I had intended to put out these guidelines at first.

It was still hard.

It was been very constructive.

very decent man, who said, look, it'd be too bad for you to get a good man and then have significant problems over these guys.

Why don't you get them out first and let us look at them so that that can be reduced as much as possible as a problem.

So I said, okay, and that was the reason why I put it on yesterday.

Good, good.

Don't tell us anymore.

We've got a legislative set of proposals that some of which have gone forward and we're testing the water up there to see how they'll move the Better Communities Act which will replace these seven categorical grant programs in community development, urban renewal, model cities and so on.

It goes that that act has gone to the hill and we're in the initial skirmishing as to position as to what will happen.

I think you'll see movement on the bill in a period of time.

Yes, I do.

If you want my best guess, I have a hunch it'll come down in the first month

the second month of next year.

One of the reasons being, as you know, another major trust in the department is this studying of federal involvement in housing generally and subsidized programs and the rest.

And I have a hunch that Hill is going to, may, that would be the better word, may hold up on final action on the Better Communities Act until they see what our proposals are.

A little bit of hostage playing because in the past, traditionally, action taken over the community development side has lived in tandem.

with housing, and they're a little scared as to what we're going to come up with, so there are some people up there that are saying, well, Jim, we may hold hearings, but we're not going to mark anything up until we hear from you, or hear from the president, really, on his policy recommendations on housing.

On the other hand, I'm trying to chin up some enthusiasm by the mayors, the governors, county officials, and so on, to say, look, you know what happened last time?

You got an omnibus bill with housing proposals and everything else in it that got buried in the closing days of the session, and the whole thing dropped.

How do you want this money or don't you?

Especially since we've terminated the other programs.

So that I think there's an outside possibility they'll move on Better Communities Act before they move on housing, but I can't count on that.

But my best guess would be the tone overall is good.

And our main thing to keep an eye on is whether or not they go too far in Christmas Dream, that they try and add too much money to it, put too much authority back in HUD so that I have to approve all the plans of the cities and that kind of thing.

And you know this is a flexible funding proposal, $2.3 billion a year to replace these old programs.

And it'll be a move down the hill that let's make HUD have to look at everything that the states and the cities do.

Let's have them decide the priorities.

And this is just against the new federalism.

So that's what we're gonna have to watch for.

Other things we're doing, a response of government's act to improve planning money to the states.

Department of Community Development bill will be going up shortly.

We have a very improved disaster proposal to the hill, which is very important for the future, which would give the states more authority in this area, but with good support by the federal government instead of the way it's been drifting, which is an adverse disaster.

Uncle Sam, if something goes wrong, you take the money you get from the shaft.

last year on Agnes and so on.

It's kind of interesting, there's a saying in the insurance business that there's nothing like a good fire to write a lot of insurance.

There's nothing like a good flood to write a lot of flood insurance.

We've about run out of authorizing money.

We're writing policies at an incredible rate under this insurance program.

As you know, that program is one that we won't write the insurance unless the community agrees that they won't build anything new down in the flood plains.

Well, notwithstanding that restriction, we're writing a lot of insurance, and we've got a new approved bill on that in the Hill, too.

On the housing study, last count, Mr. Moscow, for me, had 80 people that worked on that study because we're asked to do a very monumental job in a short period of time.

We're getting excellent cooperation from the rest of the agencies and departments who have pitched in.

At the same time, Cap and I are working very closely because when you consider housing for the needy at the very low end of the sector, there isn't any way of considering that without considering what else you've got for the poor.

And Cap, of course, people are looking at where we go after the family assistance plan, how we should move over there and that type of thing.

So we're working very, very closely hand in glove.

I would say the other thing we're doing is what I call broadly improved operations.

which covers everything in this apartment from trying to get the FHA up from under being bogged down entirely as it's become over the last three, four years to our housing management problem.

It's been predicted that by the end of next year, I will own or control 254,000 units of housing in the United States.

by way of defaults, and this is a really messy situation, and we're trying to turn that around, putting in plans to turn it around, because... No, not just that, it's housing of all kinds, just where there was an FHA insurance on the house, quite a bit of that.

See, the efforts that have been made over the last three years to extend FHA insurance into the inner cities, for example,

to take higher risks.

Congress said take higher risks.

Well, George did.

Now we're getting those back.

And it's one thing to get them back.

That rate isn't so bad.

The point is we're not getting rid of them.

So houses will sit on the street, vacant, become vandalized.

People tear out the plumbing.

They tear out the electrical wiring.

Believe it or not, they tear out the copper wiring to get enough money to go get a fix.

on the drugs, for example, and that then tears down the whole community when you get into that kind of a situation.

So, when I say improved operations, I'm not an expert.

I'm relying entirely on hearsay evidence at this point.

But those are the main things.

In addition, we're continuing for the good coordination that we've had on things that relate to urban development.

For example, Earl's people and ours are working closely on how do we implement this Rural Development Act of 72, working closely with Claude Berger and his people on coordinating our planning money out to the communities.

And that kind of coordination is something that's extremely valuable if you sit where I sit, particularly with, quote, urban development, unquote, because everything relates to everything else.

What are your relations with Congress?

Very good.

It's from time to time, Sparkman blasts me on my suspension of the housing programs, and some of my other friends on both sides blast me, but it's a good relationship.

You know what I mean.

They even call me on the phone and tell me they're going to blast me.

And that's my judgment as to whether my relationships are good.

No, they're very satisfactory.

You can't make a budget trade, can you?

You know, I heard about your conversation and, well, what had already happened was H.R.

Crawford, who's my new assistant secretary for housing management, who's 37, I think, a black, who spent all of his life in housing management.

He had 3,600 units of low- and moderate-income housing under his control for a private firm before he came here.

Maine is his first business goal, which is like walking in the lion's mouth, because that's where a large share of these stated houses are, which is the thing that's got Mayor Gritz up the wall and the governor, too.

And when he came back, we got the first favorable press out of the Detroit news that we had had in two years, I was told.

And I'm going to send those clippings to you.

He went in, talked about the whole thing, and it's doing quite well.

It's a terrible situation, but I'm saying the people there seem to turn around at the present time.

Crocker talks their language.

Don't don't send the clippings.

He may send them to the mayor.

Already done that.

And the governor.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's white, too?

America's white.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

He supports.

All right.

I didn't know that.

Yes.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I'll be spiritist.

One of the senators with a nomination.

That's right.

Click out.

No, so Detroit is a special problem.

Philadelphia is a special problem.

Cleveland.

Los Angeles is.

Well, Cleveland's getting there, but it isn't quite in the ranks yet, is it?

The mayor of Cleveland told me their unemployment was the highest in the country.

It's 10%.

That's my hometown.

One of the problems in Cleveland is that Cleveland historically has been a large manufacturing city.

It's specialized in areas like steel and heavy equipment as well as lighter equipment.

And imports and changes of consumer desires and the way you make things results in unemployment.

And it's a tough situation.

It's a tough situation.

But again, it's a story where the SMSA, the total metropolitan area, does well.

And in fact, a number of the people that used to live in the city, black and other minority groups, have done well in the community, but they've moved out of Cleveland.

So it's left Cleveland with the people that can't get the jobs in the inner city.

And that's a problem that is repeated.

It's a Christian primary, a black problem.

Yes, indeed.

Part of it, the sad thing about it, Mr. President, part of it is success.

And what I mean by that is, if you look at the problems of their inner city, and the terrific unemployment is, there now is upward mobility with minority groups.

And as quick as they have that mobility, they get out of the central city like everybody else does and move to a house in the suburb.

So it leaves Mayor Kirk with just the people that can't get the jobs.

It brings me to a point related to you, which you would, of course, do naturally if you might.

On matters like Cleveland, Detroit, etc., etc.,

Be sure to build George in whenever you have something of this sort.

Because, you know, these mayors descend on him.

Right, George?

And they do descend on me and Richman.

And we had to look out for quite an outstanding fellow.

I'd rather do, shall we say, homespun.

Well, that's his style, and he does it very, very well.

Well, I would agree.

I think Captain might be interested in his overall political approach.

Here's a man as a Republican in a Democratic bastion, up for election, confident he's going to win.

I sat at one of his cabinet meetings, not quite as beautiful surroundings as this, and he got his people, and he says, all right, here's the way we feel about revenue-sharing.

And he talks to him, and he's got a cross-section of an ethnic candidate.

He gives them the word, and then they all fan out through the city hall.

Okay, what's your reminiscence?

And he's been a strong supporter of the president.

He's not ducking being a Republican.

And he's very positive on it.

He told the president about it.

Well, I was out at St. Agnes Hall, and he mentioned the water.

He said, what they wanted, I wasn't going to have anything.

And he gave us a good positive talk yesterday about where things stand politically in a city that you'd think would be tough as heck for Republicans.

Thank you.

Well, we heard from Pete Brennan on occasion here, but I think we ought to turn it over to Commerce to see if they get their side.

Pete won a couple of scrimmages this last week in the committee.

Yes, sir.

How'd you do up there?

I don't know.

It was a development.

I remember it was a fundamental way to differentiate so forth.

You moved down to second.

We have laid the groundwork, Mr. President, depending on timing and accord for some kind of accommodation.

I had a personal courtesy call yesterday with Mr. Meany.

This is just my second week on board.

And although we had a very assertive discussion about a variety of topics, including minimum wage, I got the feeling that there was a possibility of some combination, certainly at a staff level, in several areas, including pensions and minimum wage and unemployment insurance.

So we certainly need to be doing that.

We should be for most of those issues.

Yes, sir.

He just wants more than we have provided.

But again, I don't know.

Yes, sir.

I'm satisfied that at least there is an opening here that we want to be exploring.

With your committee, Quigg and the rest, you did make some progress.

Yes, Congressman Quigg is extremely supportive and has an excellent relationship throughout the House, particularly in the minimum wage area.

And we are taking strong signals from him with respect to how we move and when we move.

He is a great guy.

Yeah, yeah.

You like him?

Very much so.

I have two weeks.

An enormous challenge for Secretary Brennan.

He is spending a great deal of time in personal diplomacy in your direction, so there wasn't enough to do to get things together administratively.

And for you, on these matters, he had mentioned all these to me.

To me?

Yeah.

and we finally made some decisions on it.

The one point that I know is a sticking point within the site is picking, picketing.

But at this point, it presents enormous problems between business and labor at the beginning, but it also presents problems within labor itself.

That's the problem we've got.

And while Pete Brennan has a bill that creates all of these problems, I mean, even Pete, a lot of people,

He asked about it again.

We wrestled with it, but that's something that we just can't buy into a fight that may pick out just a few at the moment.

But he's winning enough.

He wants more of you.

He's a very aggressive, a very loyal man.

Everything that he knows.

Right.

Well, what about, have you ever went anywhere to the center?

Absolutely.

Oh, we've been there.

Oh, that's better.

That's better.

Okay.

One of the most interesting things going on in Congress, Mr. President, is a call out of your office last year.

We've had representatives of every government

behind the Iron Curtain and anxiously pursuing trade matters.

Mr. Alkingoff is back in this country for the second time since February, pursuing a transaction that was negotiated with Occidental.

All of the other eastern countries are just lined up, anxious to open up commercial relations with us, depending in great measure on your getting authority to extend MFN.

But the interest here and the commercial opportunities is wide open.

The interest shown by our potential trading partners there is tremendous.

In addition to this...

We need sort of a reasonable attitude as part of Congress.

Reasonable only and not in the sense of principle, but reasonable in the sense of the tactics.

You can't have a persuasion or a repression over here and say, look, but unless you do what the United States Congress says with regard to aid and no aid, so to precisely, as I say it,

and the variety of blood that there is.

We're not going to have salt talks.

We're not going to have trade.

We're not going to have the rest of it.

The whole foreign policy initiative, the Soviet Union, will go down the tube like that.

But you cannot have the entire

and the foreign policy of the United States, and when I say the entire foreign policy, the linear and any successful foreign policy is a, at least not conciliatory, but, shall we say, a constructive relationship between the two superpowers.

Now, if that relationship is destroyed, then the chance of meetings without the station

for trade and all the rest of it is, if not destroyed, almost in the heaven of the Gentiles.

That's what this is all about.

We're trying to move times around and so on.

They get a little better with some change in language, but now, let me say this is,

in terms of votes and so forth and so on.

I can understand why 77 senators all go on the other side of the line.

The interesting thing is about seven members of the Commerce Committee visited Moscow during the Easter recess.

Some who were on the Jackson Men's after the visit indicated they were no longer going to support them and tried to discuss the matter with their colleagues and associates.

In addition to this, of course, we're spending a great deal of time developing an export expansion program, and we've submitted it to George Shultz, and he proposes to have the Council on Economic Policy approve it before coming to you.

We think that the devaluation plus incentives will go a long way towards solving the trade deficit years ahead.

Of course, in the first quarter, you don't believe that yet.

Uh, in the domestic business area, it's very encouraging to see the high level of prosperity that we're enjoying.

Despite, uh, in Lynn's area, I was interested last night in seeing that, uh, the state of South Carolina has an unemployment level of 1.3%, uh, of domestic businesses .

Well,

You mentioned the black problem.

Of course, there's about 30% blacks in that state, so it can be done with the right care.

It is encouraging from the standpoint of inflation as well as international competition.

providing additional production for export to see that our capital investment will peak this year at $105 billion.

This is very encouraging for the days ahead.

Apropos of that, Peter Brennan and I co-hosted a dinner on Monday night, off-the-record roundtable discussion with eight business leaders and eight labor leaders, and it was very interesting to see the consensus

As to the necessity for investment incentives, when you talk off the record this way, they realize what creates jobs.

And it really was interesting to see the general harmony that prevailed around the table.

In addition, of course, a very important program which is underway is rebuilding the domestic merchant rate.

We have the highest backlog of contracts or new ships under construction at the present time, as we've ever had in a peacetime history.

Many of these are technologically advanced so that the tonnage of the ship is going up while the size of the crew is maintained.

And before the territory administration grants a construction subsidy, they approve many of them.

and industry management and labor are teaming together to try to reduce the disruptive strikes that have prevailed in the past.

It is a very encouraging sign the way it's moving.

A rather mundane problem we're attacking is the North Atlantic fishing problem.

The Russians and other Europeans have overfished the New England coast and

We're getting ready to drop a shoe at the North Carolina Fishing Conference to see if we can't bring some rhyme and reason to this, which is rather mundane.

Another area... John Olin came in to see me talking about the...

I need you to know him.

He's a very fine man.

I thought he was going to talk about business or something like that.

He couldn't care less.

He was scared about it.

He was going to be ambassador and he needed Norway or Sweden because of this.

What do you mean?

Denmark.

This is for the country's purpose.

It's an important mission.

It's very important to have something that's a sport mission.

Anyway, that's your job.

He's critical.

He's very critical.

working in trying to develop a marketing system which will show that money spent to encourage tourism in the United States will return a whole 35 to 1 in the objective we have to prove.

Last year, we had a tourist deficit of $3 billion.

and it certainly is in our interest to reduce this.

With the bicentennial coming up, we have a tremendous opportunity to bring them in offshore, as well as the devaluations have been created, more of a bargain buy for a European or a Japanese to come to this country.

We have been working with the Cost of Living Council, trying to encourage the increase in supply, particularly

Lodge for lumber and steel craft for the steel and foundry industries in this country.

I'm glad to report that in the last two weeks we have filled the pipeline with men we need to fill out the compliment.

And your emphasis on bringing the people forward has certainly helped us.

One of the most gratifying things, I might say, is the opportunity to get out around the country and try to cut through the fog of headlines and make people realize that we haven't last come to the goal that this nation has so long sought, a peace and prosperity.

And that if we are clouded by headlines and lose this opportunity, not just for this country, but the world, that all of us are going to ruin the day.

And I do believe that people realize this and are determined to see that the programs that have been started are carried out.

Well, uh, Earl, you know, if we didn't hear from the farmers, I'd hear from them, too.

We didn't want to hear from the farmers.

But, uh, Mr. President, can you still go speak to the farmers?

Mr. President, uh, today's good news is we're going to eat well in 1973 and 1974.

We will pay, except those of us on fixed salaries, and we'll pay a smaller share of our pay than the other.

30% of our workforce is produced enough to feed all the United States.

Give away about...

I'm sure we don't give her any much away.

We had $11 billion worth of exports.

No, you're not talking to farmers.

$11 billion.

Which less than $1 billion was sensational savings.

No, how do you find out?

I know the farm sellers are discouraged about it.

They don't like to see it.

How would they like a freeze?

No, not particularly.

Would they like a freeze?

No, they don't like to freeze unless it's frozen meat.

No, the farmers are not unhappy, except they're concerned about fuel until you get right down to them.

The good farmers have made a tremendous fuel reserve this year.

They're concerned about the weather, but as of today, as soon as we can tell, the corn is...

between 40 and 50% planted, which is approximately where it was last year at this time.

We had a wet spring last year, and farmers were concerned at this time last year about the crop.

We ended up with the highest yield ever of corn in the United States.

We have good weather in the North Delta now.

If we can get another four or five days, the corn will be in.

I think we're gonna come through the year with a good start.

It'll be a little late.

Our cotton crop may be a little short because the honey's in the Delta area down in the Mississippi area, but except for a million to a million and a half acres of that, it's heavily flooded.

It'll be bad for something, probably soybeans, and we could use the soybeans.

That's what they told me in Mississippi.

That's right.

And we can allow the TV shots to flood the area.

We must have time to do it.

And you think, my gosh, this is terrible.

We may lose a million or a million and a half acres.

I guess a total of a couple of acres of $400 million is going to be really in the aggregate.

So that I don't feel bad about prospects for this year.

Let me say that in Farm Act, we're reporting out from the Senate Ag Committee,

The guy away from me fixed mandatory payments he had to make, but they said the target price is sublime.

I thought it cost us more money than the old bill.

Oh, no.

This is a bunch of senators up there.

Eight of them on that committee are up for re-election next year.

We're passing the book to the House.

I remember the minority group before this.

They all admitted to having that change in the conference.

So they were best on the House side to get that change.

I think this group should know the president a week ago today signed a new R.E.A.

bill.

in which we yielded a little, the Congress yielded a little.

It's a good bill.

It left a good taste in the mouth of Congress up here.

I think we got, Bill or Tim went out, I guess.

I think we got some pluses up there as we saw.

Really?

I certainly did.

They've done good.

Even if we did, it cost us very much.

And I think saving a veto fight for just a,

a couple million dollars a year, that's the cost here, and it was worth it.

We'll do our best on this new farm bill that comes up.

We're getting an appropriation bill out there that's going to break our recommendation by about 800 million dollars, as I can tell right now.

They're gonna make mandatory the restitution of some of those things we've cut out, like this REAP program.

When that comes through, I think I'll recommend that you treat the Department of Agriculture like you treated next year, like you treated A.C.W.

last year, and not the modeling on the continuing resolution, which A.C.W.

did.

Thank you.

They don't have the appropriation bill yet.

They haven't done so badly.

But if they come through with this and mandate the restitution of these programs, which we've now eliminated, by which I hear no flack whatever from farmers, and some of those who farm are farmers and still produce some flack over here.

I don't know, but I recommend that these folks get the appropriation bill if it comes in.

The new Attorney General of the United States is not only going to be responsible for the current problems and so forth, but the new Attorney General of the United States has got quite a wide

uh spectrum on which to play and uh we're you know what i mean when we you come up to uh come up to some of the things the department of justice is in no it's not because i mean wait this is an opportunity to make magnificent proportions i mean the challenge is not just this business in the present time the challenge is

make a whole department, right?

Penal reform improves the administrative right of justice, right?

Crime prevention, right?

Drug use control, right?

There are a lot of things over there.

That's right.

They, in China, directly, in many respects, into the responsibility of the AGW, and particularly, but really, one way or another, into...

I think this is, by the way, I think this is a very good kind of meeting, at least from my point of view.

I find it very interesting to hear about what is being done in the other departments, and it opens up trains of thought about opportunities for more effective

Well, so we have to realize that, well, Kelly, it is the news.

I mean, it is that it's not true.

If it weren't the current subject, it would be what's going on in Southeast Asia or what are we doing with the Russians or something.

Basically, in these areas, unless they're checking it out, you just don't read about these things.

We don't know how the departments are doing, right?

But I have the slightest idea.

I have to get across in H.W.

to some of my friends in the press, as he used to do.

with virtually nothing being asked except about busing.

And I had a hell of a time conveying to these people the range that I was in service from here to here.

Busing might be about that much.

But this is what you realize when you listen to colleagues around this table.

The kind of money that I may have to be aware of is within their province is just one

small bids, a whole range of their responsibilities, and day-to-day constructive things that they're doing to deal with very real problems.

Well, for example, take health.

The things that we're doing in health, not just the cancer initiative, but the rest are, you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Well, Frank, you're over there now sort of carrying the hot air with the campus, campus, you know, extended.

We're fighting a budget battle in the front benches now, Mr. President.

Well, you're doing a few good things too, aren't you?

Yes, sir.

And since you mentioned the health area, we've just undertaken a fairly major reorganization in the area of health.

to create a strong line of assistant secretary for health, breaking up the large health services and health administration, a pretty big, amorphous mass, and focusing on specific measures.

We are having trouble with the Congress and the whole series of health bills.

We wanted to phase out the regional medical programs and Gilberton and the manpower training grants, and they've got legislation coming back at us.

All of these areas in the Senate, Kennedy has just pushed through a pretty exaggerated HMO bill.

We just want an experimental program, and we'll have to fight that one, I think, in the House.

We just want that.

AMC doesn't want any.

No, they don't want any of it.

Ours is about $60 million.

Bill, the one that just passed the Senate, I think it's around $800 million.

They were trying to focus and evaluate the comprehensive health planning agencies throughout the country and get them involved in the whole area of control costs and facilities, health facilities planning, so we aren't over-constructing in the health area.

And we're working closely with the hospital living council people on that.

How about the education?

The NIE is underway.

They're getting to staffing out their programs and their roles, and they've had the first meeting of their board.

And of course, that's a long-range initiative, experimental, and we can't expect results for another year or two.

But it's getting staffed out and it's moving.

The fund for post-secondary education similarly is getting

staffed out and we have, we're hopeful there.

That's much more important.

It's a much more have the university do its own thing kind of a program and I don't know that Gavin and I are completely happy with that.

We'd like to focus a little bit more on some specific goals.

Probably the most significant thing that has happened in the education area is that we got

Funding this year for freshmen only, we had hoped to get it in four years for the basic education opportunity grant program.

That's a significant breakthrough because if we get full funding for that next year, it means that for the first time in this country, qualified students will have access to higher education irrespective of their family income and status.

That's an achievement that very few people appreciate.

We ought to talk more about it throughout the future.

You remember, Mr. President, you announced that goal in your message on higher education in 1970.

And this program is the direct result of that mission.

Yes, thank you.

It means that we get away from the institutional aid and move to aid which follows the student.

And that will have significant repercussions on the way our higher educational institutions operate.

That's been the problem in getting it through.

Higher education institutions do not want to lose that institutional aid and respond to the needs of the student as they will have to under the basic grant program.

So I think it's very significant.

In the elementary and secondary education area, we are wrestling with the Congress on the Better Schools Act, which is a consolidation of some 30 categorical grant programs along the resume-sharing lines.

I don't think we'll get it this fiscal year, but we are working with Floyd's people on creating some incentives to see if we can't push it through later this year or next year.

A little bait on the hook.

A little bait on the hook, and we'll have a paper for you in the next day or two on that.

If we can get something there, that would be a very significant breakthrough.

In the welfare area, Mr. President, we are tightening up the management of that system.

And I think you'll see the caseloads go down.

And we have regulations on which will oblige these states to reduce their error caseload from its present 25%.

to something less than 5% over an 18 month period.

They have sort of goals that they have to get to, and we've only paid federal benefits up to those goals.

And we had quite a tussle with the states on this, but the regulations are out, and we've got pretty general agreement.

At the same time, we are giving the states more management flexibility in the area of eligibility determination, fair hearings, so that they cannot take a necessary action

to get the caseload down.

We've focused the social services regulations on the most need.

We had quite a battle over that.

Those are now out.

And we're moving ahead on a very, very difficult amount of undertaking implementing the HR1 legislation that was passed last year with regard to the adult

As you know, January 1st, 1974, 6 million checks have to go out to the federal government for those categories, formerly handled by the states.

It's a massive undertaking.

And we finally, as Jim mentioned, we do have a task force underway to look at the whole area of welfare reform.

We've got to come up with new terms.

Yep.

And no, we've got that responsible.

I don't think that was funny.

But this time, we're looking at it across the board, a whole host of government agencies, and we're taking into account how food stamps relate and how the housing proposal relates so that we don't get into the disincentive problem and the match problem that we had last year.

But that's a very, very difficult thing to do, and it's gonna be a massive undertaking, and our goal is to have something, a series of options for you sometime in September.

Roger, your wife built me a dinner the other night, but I think you were doing some sales.

You have one minute.

Well, for a department that produces more revenue than it spends.

First up, next.

Let me say this, Mr. President.

My energy situation is our primary playing field at the moment.

The pipeline legislation, which is a technical amendment to the 1920 Leasing Act, will give us right-of-way flexibility in Alaska, has been marked up by the Senate and is scheduled for the floor of the Senate on the last day of May.

pretty well along the same sort of bill in the House, though the bills, the two bills are quite dissimilar and there will be some problems, I think, in bringing them together in Congress.

Hopefully, we will have a by the middle of the summer legislation before you that will give us the technical

privilege to go ahead and retry the environmental aspects of this case.

If we're lucky, we can start building this pipeline in late fall, early winter.

If we're not lucky, and I would see a year's delay, and I think this is tragic, but we're working on trying to improve that.

Mine health and safety area, we finally have broken the health and safety out of the traditional Bureau of Mines, and I hope that's going to help in the whole production process.

These are about 7,200 cases behind in collecting the fines and carrying out the judicial process that is involved in this whole Mine Health and Safety Act, and I think the whole thing is going to have to be revised.

We, the organization, have been able to revise it.

A lot of this has been because Fred Malick and Roy helped us get our people on board.

We've had our people on board for some time.

We're, I think, lucky in that respect, and we're lucky, too, that the Undersecretary was formerly in the natural resource business over here, and is familiar with all the aspects of our department.

He's helpful.

He's very, very good, and doing a great job.

We also have Ken Frizzell.

who has been an assistant attorney general, is our solicitor now, and he got baptized by fire in May, literally.

And I think we're, with his help, going to move forward in the Indian area.

The Indian budget in our department is 25% in total, which is quite well known for $550 million dollars.

Incidentally, I think it's a pretty profitable thing to do right now, particularly if you're an Alaskan Indian.

You've got pieces of a billion dollars.

Let me just, the other big area that we're working on now to meet the deadlines on the Alaska Native claims bill,

in terms of land allocation selections in Alaska.

We think we're going to be able to do that.

It's going to be a horrendous job, and I think we can get it done.

Basically, I think the department

is moving better than it ever has.

For the first time in history, we have an Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, John Kyle, former member of Congress.

For the first time in history, we have an Assistant Secretary for, actually, Program Development and Budget, who was a former Assistant Secretary at HBW, Larry Lynn, in this respect.

And for the first time in history in this administration, we have a

assistant secretary for management.

So we're beginning to bring the 21 bureaus together, 21 missionaries together, and I think hopefully Roy thinks we're more responsive to our relationship with the OMB and getting things clear and getting them up to date.

In my final word, I would say that

We're doing well on the Hill.

We've got the Indian package before both committees.

McGovern, as you know, was chairman of the Indian subcommittee in the Senate, never held a hearing in the entire time that he was chair of the year, never held a meeting in the entire time that he was chair.

But now we have all the Indian package, and before the Congress, it will, I think, come out substantively in the

And I think this is going to be the beginning of a whole new PR relationship between the government and the Indians.

Hopefully we can keep the Indian effort in the executive consolidated and not have it be fragmented as it's been before.

Basically, we're looking forward again to about $2,750,000,000 of revenues and an expenditure of something less.

That's good.

I know treasuries is so tied up in so many things that I have to talk to our guests anyways.

Would you like to say a word for your department?

Well, he doesn't have anything to say for us.

Does everyone else here, Mr. President, have a full plate?

From the economy to the energy issue, I spoke of trade, tax reform, east-west trade, international monetary reform.

We have...

As Fred said, unprecedented prosperity.

If anything, I'd say we have too much prosperity right now.

The GNP advance of $41 billion in the first quarter, with the growth rate approaching 8%.

And unfortunately, inflation made it 6.6%, adjusted upwards yesterday.

There is a good effect to this business rule we're having, and the revenues obviously have increased, and thereby cutting our budget deficit.

We'll cut it to fiscal 73 to something slightly under $18 billion.

Yes, I'd say we're down to about $17.5, $17.8 right now.

In 1974, revenue estimates would cut our budget deficit to $3.8 billion.

And it is my personal opinion that this is close enough to balance that we ought to strive for balance.

I don't think anything would affect the psychology of the American people better.

and if we could have a balanced budget, a balanced full employment budget.

From the understanding.

Yes, exactly.

And wherever people don't understand economists and this full employment budget, we understand it's a great gauge as to what we should be doing.

That's all it is.

The full budget should be described for balance.

But one of the most important areas today in national interest is

As I've said, energy.

I've testified about ten times in the last three weeks, and it makes no difference what topic I'm on the Hill to testify on, whether it's reorganization of the federal government, which I did with Roy and Fred Mount.

The subject is energy.

Yesterday, appropriations.

Three hours.

Energy.

And we can make...

real political cattle on this subject.

We should really move ahead with action on this topic right now and work with the Congress.

The Congress has responded to this.

They are truly interested in this subject.

Scoop Jackson is so interested, he's running for president on this subject.

We had an energy message that I would say

By and large, we see a very favorable reaction from the local office.

I classify it as a blueprint, and like any blueprint, without action, it's useless.

And that's what we need right now.

We need action in the Mideast area, which I talked to Ken Rush about yesterday.

The Japanese are taking our market away from us in the Mideast.

I was told that we're going to see an announcement within the next few weeks of a

economic assistance from Japan in the East, and we're not even getting to the plate.

We ought to be over there.

We ought to commence conversations.

We all want to talk to you.

They want cooperation.

They would love to get together and become definitive on this subject.

I met with the oil minister of Abu Dhabi yesterday.

They're presently producing a million four barrels a day.

He said, we have the capability of producing five to six million barrels a day.

What do you need?

Tell us how we can get together and let's be forthcoming on this issue.

And we better move.

It's the old press the button and nothing happens syndrome.

Bill, there's one other area too that I want to touch on.

That is the question of whether we're going to have to go mandatory on this voluntary allocation system because this Gulf, as you know,

right here in the district of Columbia, as of this morning, have cut down their deliveries to their filling stations, and I think we're going to be

We're going to be in a very difficult situation to come in another two months if this volunteer system doesn't work.

Josh, we're meeting this afternoon and on Tuesday morning we're going to publish the federal registry guidelines.

There's no public hearings within the next two weeks and Mike, we probably are going to have to go mandatory.

We're only going to have to go mandatory for political reasons.

Mandatory isn't going to work any better than voluntary.

It's about cooperation, the sanctity of contract problems, the incentive problems.

We're a dead duck, but I'm more than optimistic that we can solve this, because a 10% shortage isn't that great.

Everybody thinks the situation's so horrible.

This is what I mean by a crisis acting as a catalyst, an opportunity for us to really look like the government is doing something about this issue, and we're going to be able to do it.

We've set up, as Errol says, as smart farmers have all swirled away all this gasoline and

diesel, and they're all complaining loudly, but the funny thing is, it's not going to be as bad as everyone thinks.

Now, we've set up a special thing in the Office of Oil and Gas just to take care of each delivery of 300 gallons of diesel fuel to a farmer in Idaho yesterday.

And I think every time we do, I call, whether it's Congress and Shirley or whoever it is in Nebraska or Michigan, and they love us.

They know we're trying to help.

They just want to be able to go back to their constituents and say they're doing something.

We're trying to do that.

And actually, you've got to recognize the product's compounded because we've condensed our normal plowing plants because of wet weather for a short period.

It means that you've condensed your fuel requirements into the same three or four weeks, and we can buy this next three or four weeks.

Well, you were praying for sunshine, I was praying for rain, because we didn't have the fuel, and this is not too early.

Well, the Lord answered me.

Well, we have completed our hour, and that doesn't mean that we won't give some of the rest of you a chance to our next meeting.

I think we'll have a meeting of this type about once a month, if not more, because the other times we will have to have meetings that are basically, you know,

and give you an opportunity to .

It's very helpful to us .

And also get your perspective changed .

What do you think, Mr. Vice President?

Mr. President, I confess I was in the process of writing .

You're just listening.

Okay.

I was going to say, one last thing I was going to say is that there is very little to report.

I mean, oh, of course, I have to spend a great deal of time right now with the...

very close touch with the situation.

Let me put it in starkest terms.

Kissinger has said on occasion, and he's correct, that if you're trying to enforce the peace agreement, you have to have, it is best to have both the carrot and the stick.

If you have neither the carrot nor the stick, it's impossible to enforce it, because you either have to have an incentive

uh or you have to have uh perhaps a distance or the other has no no reason to apply now uh the problem we have in south asia at the moment has been blown out of proportion because of the unfortunate

basically is that while there was some confusion, there is clear that the agreement, Article 20 of the peace agreement, provides categorically, independently, that all of our Vietnamese forces withdraw from Cambodia.

Do you understand that?

And while they have not done that, not having done that, that presents a problem in Cambodia.

When the U.S. continues as we have been continuing our air support of Cambodian activities against these forces and some indigenous forces, the purpose is not to get into a war in Cambodia that we have no attention to.

We have no ground forces there.

We never will have.

The purpose is to enforce the peace agreement that we've got in Vietnam.

Having obtained the piece, we want to keep it.

We do not want to let these, you know, encourage these regressing forces to start going on a rampage again.

So that's what's going on.

Now, on the stick side, the carrot side, of course, is this very, very troublesome problem of any kind of reconstruction program for North Vietnam.

And here, God knows, it's the most unpopular thing we could possibly demand.

I think we have a deal with the U.S. and the world, etc.

On the other hand, I think most of us would agree that if we get in compliance with the agreement, then the interest of the United States in peace in the world will be served by U.S. participants of other nations

in the resumption process.

Basically, that is the most known.

I was impressed that the meetings are going forward and the Congress, by its action on the Cambodian resolution, will have to take, unfortunately, the responsibility in the event that the meetings

because if you can't negotiate it as bad, you can't cut his legs off and say, look, we're running 9,200 and he can't run it all.

And we hope this doesn't happen.

We hope our best to try to salvage it and so forth and so on.

And this is all, this part of what I'm saying and what I've just said is totally in this room.

It's not gonna be repeated.

I don't want to see it in some damn column tomorrow.

Is that understood?

No.

Because, this is dark as I can say, because the North Vietnamese also has other disincentives.

They've had a long war.

They've had an awful lot of people killed.

They would like to have some relationship with the United States.

They also have a problem with their major allies

And I see a problem, but it is, I do not, I'm not prepared to say that neither would ever, neither would ever admit it.

But on the other hand, put yourself in the position of the Soviet leaders and the Chinese leaders.

Do they want to risk the bigger game, in other words, a better relationship with the United States, simply for the purpose of serving an irrational,

aggressive, smaller allies on these issues.

That, of course, is part of the game and it's very important to us.

So you see it all fits together.

The Soviet initiative would not have occurred without the Chinese.

And like I say, we look at the whole world picture.

the relations with the Soviets become enormously important in terms of what happens in Europe, what happens in the Mideast, what happens in Southeast Asia.

To a lesser extent, of course, the same is true of China, except that China does not affect the Mideast yet.

It affects radical groups.

I mean, it does not affect Europe, except that actually it affects radical groups to an extent in the Mideast.

But it affects India enormously.

Now we've come down to where we are, I'd say.

I don't want to leave you with the impression that when you see the Secretary of State having problems on his trip, and the rest of his students in those areas, so that they're starting to demonstrate against the Americans when they come down.

And one should not overreact in terms of that.

My guess is that

From what I have seen, his reception has been, in general, a very, very favorite presence of mine.

His trip has been worthwhile.

The tendency is only to play out the fact that there have been demonstrations just when we go out for campaigns and so forth.

We have 10,000 friendly people and about 1,000 demonstrators.

There's 1,000 demonstrators already we've found, but that isn't the situation.

All right, but what I'm saying is this.

I said before when I stayed in Canada, as we approached the Soviet summit, that it is one of those watershed periods in the history of the modern world.

Either the United States and the Soviet Union move forward, building on the constructive initiatives that we began last year, or

If we stop, and if we stop, the world will be a very dangerous place in which to live.

I say that not because of what the Soviets may do and what restraints we may have on them, but I say it because of the effect that it will have also on the Chinese.

If the United States has no influence on the Soviets,

They have no interest in us.

In other words, they eat us.

We are useful to them, the Soviets.

So, where we, many of the present time is this, that we're keenly aware of all the problems with the Soviet.

We're working on an arms control agreement, a trade agreement, a number of other things.

Right now, in terms of his personal attitudes,

but a great start in this trip.

It is essential to his survival, and that's one of the things we have going for us.

And for us, we would like to have a very successful summit.

It will be a long one.

It will take place all over this country, but all of me can't play with it.

Probably we'll set one of these ones here.

But an enormous amount of rides on it.

Thank you.

In addition to that, it's also stated that with all the problems that we have, it isn't just that the U.W.

should return to America.

It's our problem.

The level of fighting is down.

Sure, they have resistance every day and so forth and so on, but anybody who goes to Saigon today sees a very, very, shall we say, vigorous economy.

thanks to American assistance and so forth.

And South Vietnam is going to survive for some time.

What happens to Cambodia, however, places like that, you see, it affects places like Thailand.

It affects Indonesia.

It affects that whole complex of nations.

And also, also, it affects China.

Because if the United States is

after negotiating a peace agreement in Southeast Asia, proves that he could listen.

In enforcing that agreement, you can see why the Chinese would feel that the United States would be a paper tiger if they ever had to defend their rights.

And so it is with our other allies around the world.

Not that the Chinese are allies, but if a neutral and or an enemy appeals that way, we're going to have an unalloyed deal.

The situation, believe me, concerns us all.

It gets down to the problem of Israel.

It gets down to the problem that the Israeli lobby is so strong in this country that the Congress is not rational.

And it gets down to the problem, too, that when anybody ever suggests that the Israeli be more reasonable in their attitudes, that people say, well, they're going to have an election in October.

Well, it's their election in October, but it's ours, and they're going virtually every year.

And so the situation goes on and on and on and on.

What I am simply saying is that I know all of you who are worried about the situation in Israel and in Egypt and the U.S.,

uh there are no easy answers but i would simply hope and pray that everybody in this room don't join the demagogues in simply taking these all out

And the hell with 100 million Arabs.

Not because the Israelis are not, which is true.

The English were the most admirable people in that part of the world.

My God, they could lick all these Arabs for years.

But because, what is it called?

Not just oil.

What is it called, of course, is the whole Mediterranean.

And so therefore, it is essential that in this, these months ahead, that the United States move in a way that is reasonable.

To impose, to get this thing off dead center, right?

We're trying, we're trying.

And you hear some screams from some of our people who say that it's,

uh that we should take the israeli decision with regard without regard to anything else to come down to one final fundamental point israel can defeat all of its enemies with the present aid given for five years maybe 20 years from now they can't let's leave that out though nobody wants to look that far

as a result of the collapse of the Soviet America.

The Soviet begins to play a very significant role in the Middle East.

And I mean by that, ten nations, pilots, SAM operators, and the rest.

Israel's finished.

Because the Arabs alone can never be a match for the Israelis.

that the Arabs with Soviet, not just material, but Soviet physical assistance, will swallow them.

And that's why we're having to have some very candid talks about which things and so forth.

To be honest, I'm sure you know this is a problem you wrestled with me before.

And it's one where all of my sympathies are basically from the standpoint of what they've contributed to this country, their ability, and India's real peace.

In fact, it's a great explanation of that.

Our women are the state of the song.

But we have to develop policies which will not allow our obsession with that one state,

to destroy the entire American policies.

John Friedman, I had talked with the English presidents of the sort of American organizations, and one of the factors that I put on the table for them was that there is a Palestinian cause, and Palestinians are active,

by succeeding in radicalizing that area.

And among other questions that I was asked was, well, why don't we cut off all aid to the mid-East camps, which are the center of enemy activity?

I said, I think that would be one of the most unwise policies in the world, because we've just succeeded in radicalizing .

And yes, we have our own policies, President.

I'm pleased to hear what you say.

And let me just say this, though, that I present these in terms of problems, but let's look at it the other way around.

When we first came into this place, we were talking to the Russians about arms and a few little things.

When we first came into this place, we had not talked to the Chinese significantly at any level for 20 years.

When we first came to the new place, there was a big, shall we say, war.

And now there is a so-called crucial, uneasy, but it's there.

And when we first came here, as we know, there were three of us, we, and the war didn't seem to have no end.

We've come a long way.

We've got a long way to go.

The point is that just because we've come this far, and I'm going to try to say this in a very brief speech tomorrow, but we've come a long way.

But having come this way, we have to realize that we would never have had the China nation, the Soviet nation, at the end of the war in Vietnam.

Today, we have adopted the kind of that presently permeates, unfortunately,

a great number of members of the Senate, and I must say, John, some of the less responsible members of the press.

I mean by that, bug out, unilaterally disarm, and so forth.

A United States that is weak and not respected will not be a force for peace in the world.

And there are other forces in the world that are strong

have other designs than we have, and they then, will be the dominant voices in the world.

So the critical question we face when it comes to budget, you take Sleeting at $3 million, visit with George Harvey about it, you take it out of defense.

Well, I said, George, we're going to have to take a hard look at that.

I said, I doubt it.

But I mean, we take a look at everything, and you've got to look at this, and LA that's been looking at it, and so forth.

Trade is saying, George, we need $3 million more out of defense.

Maybe.

But let me say, a balanced budget would be great.

A lot of folks would like it.

It might let us a few more Congressmen.

It might get us some very good headlines in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Barron's arrest.

But if the cost of a balanced budget is a defense posture, which makes the United States the second strongest nation in the world,

It isn't going to make any difference whether we have the cleanest cities and the best universities and the rest because we're not around to enjoy it.

So what I am saying here is that I and this administration does stand for a strong national defense.

We do stand for keeping our commitments.

We will continue to do so.

And why?

Because there just isn't anybody else that can do it.

Only America today.

in this whole big, wide world, and exert the leadership that will keep these terrible forces of war that have been explored all over the world from getting out of control.

And the question is, do you want this country at arms?

Much as we want to clean up our cities and all the rest, much as we want to have our kids better educated, much as we want to have our countries have three Cadillacs rather than two,

Do you want to have a situation in which the United States is a gray, swollen, economic giant?

But where some other nation in the world, leaner, tougher, stronger, determines whether there is war or peace or freedom?

That's the game we're playing.

And if you could all understand that, you could see why sometimes I appear to be rather strong in this national concern.

Let me say, finally, I've been very proud of all of you.

I know you've been taking a lot of heat.

I sympathize with you.

From time to time I'm thinking about Conan Elliot, but I never got to think of Conan.

They're going to ask him if I gave any suggestions, so I don't want to do that.

So give a free hand, Elliot, and accept everything appointed in the Supreme Court.

There you will be at least consulted.

But the point is that you're going through a rough period, but it will pass.

Believe me, the great majority of men and women

standing job over the past four and a half years.

We fought this country a long way.

The cities that are in flames, the campuses that were disturbed, the war that was tearing our guts apart, a world that was dangerous with China out of communication, arms race out of control, all of this has been changed.

And it's a change because we were here.

And by God, we intend to stay here and continue to do that job.

Mr. President, I feel a little bit like the sales manager that comes back to the home office because I've been misspelled.

It's been out of Washington probably more than anybody this past week, I'm going to guess.

And what you're saying about the current situation is underscored by what I've seen.

I've been trying to move out in front of the economic issue.

I've made two economic speeches this week, one in Chicago, one in Atlanta, to responsive groups who are concerned about inflation.

I've met with some of our party people, which I always try to do on the side.

And I want to tell you that there isn't any focus

on the current deadline situation here in Washington where I've been.

They're concerned, Jim, the mayor of Columbus, the mayor of Columbus that replaced Allen, who unfortunately died, is struggling with his concerns over the better communities and whether he's going to get cut any.

He was in the meeting.

The political people, some of them are talking about things like the energy crisis and other people in...

talking about their political problems in Chicago, and there just isn't any focus on this other matter.

It's absolutely amazing.

All you have to do is get 100 miles outside of Washington, and the whole climate, the whole ballgame's different.

In Georgia, Mr. President, and you'll be interested in this,

We started two new Republican women's clubs in the last month with 80 new Republican workers involved.

You can't do that if there's a kind of frustration and concern that you read about here.

Everywhere I've been, people come up to me at the table and ask me to tell you that they have the utmost confidence in your policies and praise for what you accomplished.

If you go out in the country today, you'd find the situation is so different than the atmosphere around here.

And I thought it was important to, for all of the cabinet officers who may not travel as much as I do to know that.

I went up on the hill yesterday to the father-son breakfast, they call it, where they have the ranking committee members and their leading staff.

I found nothing but a good feeling about the administration.

The REA compromise is looked at very favorably.

Everybody's happy about the directions of the administration, and I haven't had a better report

from more different perspectives than I had last week, and I thought maybe they'd be interested.

You'd be interested to know that.

Well, thank you.

I'll just conclude by saying I'm not a, I'm the least polyamorous of anybody, and we've had a situation.

It's been rough, and it's going to get rougher and rougher and rougher.

president of the United States, but with the director of the CIA to put the Watergate buggers on their payroll or something like that, you know, or something like that, where you know the testimony is not quite that.

But anyway, and that weird cover-up and so forth and so on, you're going to see more.

They're going to go after it, but my point is that generally speaking, you will find that

In these instances, what really distinguishes this is the rather rough general presidency.

I just want you to know, as far as I'm concerned, my concern really is not myself.

I don't say this in pious light.

Of course, we all think of ourselves in terms of being good.

But my concern is of all of our

Some of these high hopes and great aspirations and saying, my God, what is this situation?

So it's around here, it's in the back door.

So I remember Jack and I probably were in frustration because I'm not going to have anything to do with the corruption around Hawaii.

I don't know who he's talking about, maybe me, but...

But nevertheless, my point is this.

Remember, the crab is going to fly.

But you want to remember that the only time that it gets you down is when you just hunker down and take it.

And as it flies, as the charge makes, let me say, don't suggest that every time a charge is made, the President's got to walk out and answer the ticket without an answer to it or something.

That's so wrong.

It's going to be rough.

You want to remember that the most part, most of it will come

who basically do not like the fact we have succeeded and do not want us to succeed.

As far as we're concerned, the main point we have to bear in mind is to have confidence in ourselves.

And to remember that we've got a job to do.

I know this is hard to say.

It's hard for me.

But I still feel about those 16-hour days.

And get them done.

And the rest of you carry your bunker on your heads high.

Proud of what we're doing.

recognize these things are not a fly-around and so forth and so on.

And as far as I'm concerned, this administration has a very proud record.

The country's better because we were here, and we think it's probably going to be considerably better later on because we're here.

You will find that Vice President George Nelson has made you proud to agree with the politicians.

By that, I mean that they naturally do this because they're used to doing this themselves.

I mean, charged, counter-charged threats.

And by the politicians, it means the politicians on our side, the House, the Senate, the country, the National Committee, and so forth and so on.

Poor George.

Poor George Justice.

Much less than you'd expect them to do.

I don't know.

I just want to hear from those that do.

In other words, they're just supposed to be there at meetings, I've said.

They're just supposed to be there.

One other thing, what I've tried to do intentionally, the press takes the attitude now that they expect everybody to run from them.

Don't do it.

No, I'm going to the press more now.

Good.

I'm going to the board.

Go right out there.

That's right out there.

If they give you, as I say, a very strong suggestion, because it's what I think at the present time the grand jury is going for, the early committee is going for, it would be the height of irresponsibility for any of you to comment one bit about it.

Now, they say, but do you think the president was involved?

No.

But no more than that.

But what about this charge?

You say, I'm not going to comment on this charge.

You see, the moment you go beyond that, the moment you start getting into this business, you are getting into the judicial process, and the judicial process will run its course.

Do you have any advice for them on that?

Because they all get that question.

You know, I think you said it exactly right.

I couldn't add, I don't know, but I was glad to hear that.

the greatest determinants in our law enforcement system.

In general, we hope he gets his name out there.

And so, of course, we can't get this thing in a traditional process.

Well, anyway, if I don't talk long, you'll miss the urban committee.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

The resistance from the Japanese.

The long-term threat to make it over there again.

Thank you.

That doesn't exist.

There is no way to let the person who knows take this responsibility.

That's right.

Energy conservation, so that it doesn't appear to be a thing.

to make a massive shift in production.

But they want to do it over and over.

Well, I think we can do it over a period of two years.

I think we can do it over a period of two years.

Thank you.

We can set up a task force that doesn't have to report to anybody really other than Harry.

In fact, the way it's working in this instance could share.

If you've got yourselves a member, Pat Weinberger is a member, maybe you could take one of them.

Yeah.

Put the big spanners up there and keep up with everyone else.

I don't think it was part of the White Sovereignty.

The only thing that was part of the White Sovereignty was the White House manatees.

The manatees there would be absolutely marvelous if they made the thing out.

So I'm sticking with that.

You know, my plan has never been to do that.

My plan has been to form it.

So I don't want to make it weird to you, but the thing about it is, the thing that's standing in Calgary is that you have Garland Patterson over here, and

They had us on a cell of policy there.

They had C.D.

Warren who'd be over in Vice President's House.

They had the C.I.A.

structure with the Secretary of Interior and so forth.

Now we brought the thing into the Interior.

We brought it to the out in Wonderland.

So we were forced to write this.

And so we got a clean organization at level four.

So that person can have tight liaison with whoever the staff people are in the White House.

So we're all tracking together.

One of the reasons we got in all of a sudden is because of that fragment.

Well, we've got to straighten that out.

That's for sure.

I believe there's a human fragment over here.

That's what we've got everywhere, though.

Yeah.

I've been pregnant.

You've been pregnant.

We all have.

We've been in the other direction.

Ellen and Brad were on an airplane flying somewhere.

They hopefully put you in your ears together and got them bruised.

Well, I could be.

They lost, yeah, that.

If you're going to talk to Larry Williams, I can tell you that you are going to want to know real quick.

Oh, I know.

I know.

He has got this thing stuck so far in his craw today.