Conversation 463-001

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I mean, I can't, I don't know how to deal with this idea.

You know, the other thing is, for a reason, Mr. President is in the public information area.

We go around to these departments, look at our public information offices, and we just look at the White House.

Well, we're looking at that, and that's why we're bringing this up.

There's a great opportunity to deal a lot more effectively through the departments, and we're doing a lot of nickel and dime stuff here at the White House because we don't really trust the departments to do it, I think, in many respects.

that caution is valid, but what we need to do is build up our departmental capability, get this day-to-day nickel-and-dimes department to really focus on the long-term, tough, really important issues for you.

Oh, that's good.

Any people that have imagination, let's do it.

Bob, maybe we are not right now.

Oh, maybe we were.

But at least we had one of them all here.

I think that's right, but I don't think you care very much about getting it done there.

I really, my point is, whether we care or not, I wonder really if we just ought to find places for people.

We've got one we're dealing with right now with balloons.

You've got a guy who owns a...

Lovely old fellow over there.

We've made up to that.

No, he doesn't have it.

We're going to... We've been talking about that already.

Client's office, you know, what's happened to Saul?

He's either gone or gone.

He hasn't gone yet.

Is he gone?

He doesn't have it.

Yeah, what about, say, a fellow, you know, the large guy, John Deere, what about him?

He should be over, he'd be great over at the department, you know.

He isn't quite up to the speed that we need here.

I don't think.

No, I think you're right.

I think you're right.

It's hard for me to talk about guys because these are the guys I'd rather keep than my friends.

In this business, there's no friendship.

I think it's solely a question of whether the guy's got it.

He hasn't got it.

Well, your whole congressional relations area under Timmons and your communications area, starting with the top person, you've got problems.

Well, let's go right into it.

I think the communications area is weak.

Well, that one, we're busting wide open.

Yeah, that's that one.

Well, that, by now, we should have a gear target at the client office this evening.

But don't both need some busting open?

Yep.

And Ron's office is not all that strong either.

And he knows it.

And some of these others are not very strong people.

Oh, you mean...

There isn't any question about that.

If you've got a guy that's a hell of a lot better, is that how they go?

Put them out with, they've had a lot of experience in the White House, let them go to NASA.

That's what I think.

He's got a couple of people he's... One thing you will find, of course, is that there are many that fear having good, young, bright guys under them.

They're afraid, you know, that they don't know how smart to be.

If you ever find any of those, let me know.

You want to know now?

The problem was they weren't all dummies.

He had a couple of bright ones who were against us.

Well, the approach that we're taking is most successful if you look at a department, if you really go to work on a department, like the Department of Transportation.

Can I give you some priorities?

That's what matters to me, and I want it for everything else.

And concentrate most of the public information.

Now, I know there you've got the problem that you've got Ray Price, I mean, who slows molasses.

I couldn't get Ray yesterday, so I talked to a clerk who sat with somebody else, and I said, there is a desperate need somewhere in the White House staff of somebody who can write in the foreign policy field, who can write a decent letter.

or something of that sort.

I know in the State Department there must be 10.

There are 100 that can, but only 10 that might not be disloyal to the administration.

So out of that 10, we can find one that we can bring over here to riot.

The only guy we've got in the State Department is the fellow over there in charge of manning the station.

very nice but he's been there long enough he should go it's a horrible job that's a very important job very important to me to have somebody really confident doing that and i i don't think it ought to be just over sort of a half-assed arrangement where the price is off us whenever they think it's an important matter and so forth and so on only if it's important

day to day, and with that, right as well, doing foreman as well, et cetera, et cetera.

This is an important, to me, an enormously important, it can have a very great effect for the administration.

Nobody else around here gives a goddamn about the mail.

I think they're grateful about it.

So let's just talk about that.

I want that mail apartment taken right down to the streets.

No friends, no nothing.

They don't have it out.

They've got to get people that know what happened.

I'm not just interested in terms of numbers.

Equality.

People with heart.

People who care.

People who can write.

People who can see the opportunities to get out.

Well, we digress.

Let's come back for a second.

My view is that your weaknesses are primarily the information field.

information field, and that includes both Sicker's office and the other office.

And you've got to look at both of them damn hard, and they don't have it out.

The other point is, and the other data, and by out I mean put them out in the HSS or the regional office or something of that sort.

The other point is that I think that wherever these are concerned, of course, has to be related in terms of research.

And of course, the whole price operation.

And research, retry, and mail.

There again, you'll find very difficult.

I appreciate you looking around, but if you can ever find anybody, did you uncover this guy?

He turned out to be pretty good.

I say pretty good, maybe he could be very good.

But is he given a chance?

I don't know.

You never know how one intellectual will treat another.

This is the hardest area.

It's so hard to find people who are bright and on our side.

The other side.

Now, the other areas that you've got to be

You get those two things.

The rest of it, I don't really get much of that.

Congressional relations.

Congressional relations, would that be?

I don't care much about that because basically it's just, when I say I don't care much about it, I just know the way it's going to handle it very well anyway.

So just let it go.

Just do the best they can.

See, the Congress is like a sponge.

It's spotting all that.

And if you find somebody that's real good at it,

What he'll do is to find a way, if there's more money coming, what you need in congressional ways is somebody big enough that he can get the guy to talk to him so that he doesn't have to drive and hear anybody say, well, they've got to add Mark Maher to the president's time.

But every time, every minute I spend with the congressman is wasted.

Just like that.

Or Senator.

There are occasions, of course, when there's a specific matter of discussion that's extremely important.

But I mean, all this therapy stuff, it's a waste of time.

It's a legal issue.

But the idea that we're going to have a bunch of Congressmen come in and tell us about how to run the world, that's a waste of time.

So your congressional relations guy, McGregor, is very good at the time.

Timmons is a pixelate in terms of getting the votes.

He knows how to count.

Below that,

Below them, they have very little bench strength.

I don't know what you could do, but I know.

It's a pretty tough field to recruit into.

I didn't find this experience.

That's right.

Nobody knows anything about it.

Those that do know about it, if you do find people that are about it, good, I don't mind.

Broke it down, conquers them.

That's why really, Colin and Cook are pretty good in that field, and you've got two new ones.

Oh, I think Cook is fine, and I think that other balls are all right.

I think the, uh, they're low key, but, but, uh, what about the, what about the, uh, is your, is your shop, do we, are you doing anything about the, the temptations you're doing?

No, we've got, we're handling the temptations.

That's one of our greatest weaknesses, when you get a jackass like Secor Brown.

The other guy was a worse jackass, but this guy is awful.

So we say we've improved.

We haven't improved enough.

We have simply got to take those agencies and improve them an awful lot.

Of course, you put in a new man because of us, and you don't want to do much in case of injury.

I still believe in some of those earlier disclosures, so I know what the problem is.

Your problem, it's just a terrific problem, but it's not insoluble.

I mean, the comfort is you go after it, you find it.

And you've also, you know, you've got my word, too, about why you're looking for the young guys.

Generally, they're the best.

But don't overlook certain assignments, the chief executive officers or the retired naval or military personnel who retired in the 60s who are still full of meetings.

Most of them are not.

Most of them aren't worth a damn.

But about one out of ten is very, very good.

And some of those, you know, they've done everything.

They've built the Panama Canal.

They've done a lot of other things.

And they're extremely important.

Well, that very thought, as a matter of fact, has triggered us on two things.

We're going after a tech store, not the possibility of the ADC chairman.

Yeah.

And to replace his follow-up, Seabart.

Yeah.

Seabart wants to leave the system.

No, they don't.

You can't get him to take something where he has to sell his stock.

Maybe he doesn't have to for that.

I don't think there is that.

I'm just trying to think.

He sends personally good songs.

Any kind of a time you can get a thought for the rest.

You stop to look at what's going on.

It's really great when you get someone in for a big time.

I remember when we had the Connolly appointment, when this old White House practically went up in smoke.

It was funny, he's a Democrat.

The moment that anything they realized, they went by the course motion, the captain worried about, they realized that he was a man with a lot of balls.

That's why we took him.

That was the main reason.

Had nothing to do with his politics, had nothing to do with his experience, had nothing to do, nothing about the Treasury.

And sometimes in that kind of a position, you need very good strength.

You don't want many of those guys around who can't handle those guys in the second positions.

Because they'll cut the heart of the guy in the first position.

He can only be in the first position.

You see, your thinking has been, and I've talked about it a little bit, your thinking is so right.

The way that you say, let's just go after the best guy you might get.

Who knows?

Like me, brother.

I mean, they, they, like, they offered this ambassador ship with a link letter to Australia.

You can't do it right now.

I'd be in love.

I'd be a hell of an ambassador next year.

What a great one to go, you know.

Hartman Clipper.

Olsap.

You know, it's not a huge ambassador.

And then, of course, along the yawm, gosh, there must be, you know, if you think of the Harvard School of Business and the rest, I don't know whether they spoil people, they may be strong on the Harvard standards and all the rest.

I mean, they teach them all these little games to play and all this and that.

But if they haven't denied them completely, some of those guys can be worthwhile.

But mainly, I mean, we want strength, guts, brains, imagination, man.

And the most important thing is soullessness.

They can't think of themselves.

The most important thing, though, is that by themselves,

Oh, deep down, they've got to be ambitious.

Oh, they want to go right to the top.

But the way to go to the top is not to always think about going to the top.

They start to attack us like it's real, you know.

They're not scared on that.

Both of them.

They want to be present.

They talk about it all the time.

It's the most stupid thing they can do.

They want to be present.

Just work for it.

But you didn't have us.

We want people who think they ought to go to the top

but who are willing to put themselves on the sword in order to get there.

That is the key to real service in government.

And it's very different from service in business.

In business, nobody puts themselves on the sword.

You know, these are the works that are going to cost me.

Well, you know, matter of fact, these are the kind of candidates we're looking at for stuff together now.

Do you understand that he's probably making twice what he's doing right here?

And we want him to sacrifice.

I don't think we want him to do it.

I'm just a mainstay in getting it together.

But I think it's, I certainly admire you.

I always forget.

You really feel, and you've analyzed the whole government, what it said before you came in.

I thought, this is our next chapter.

It's really weak.

Now why do they know it when I know this?

I'm really surprised.

I thought we picked a good captain.

Everybody said that while they were all good, great men, they were good managers.

Maybe they're lousy managers.

Is that right?

Some of them are.

We knew when they first came in that some of them were good.

We're selective for that reason.

Some of them are.

I mean, you've got some damn capable, damn strong men in there, too.

They aren't all bad.

No.

At the capitol level?

No, at the capitol level.

Oh, no, the capitol level's different.

Yeah, you take a guy like Richardson, you know, you're talking about one of the most capable men in the public service, kind of an ancient conservative.

Well, if you look at a cabinet officer in terms of his potential to be a president, Richardson is a potential president.

He doesn't have the charisma, but he might develop.

Conley sure as hell is.

Mitchell isn't in that sense, but he is a man of strength, so you've got the right kind of guy.

That's right.

and is the right kind of guy in the cabin.

Laird is a weird animal all his own, and so is Rogers.

Volpe and Romney are disasters.

He blunders on his way out anyway, and he was great for that job at that time.

Because he went after it, did what nobody, including anybody in here, thought was possible.

Harden has an impossible job, and I'm not sure you aren't just as well, but Harden, if you would be with any food company, I would say.

It's impossible.

But I was thinking the bench strength, not the character strength.

Okay, the bench strength.

The undersecretaries are a very undistinguished lot, really, right down the line.

Not really.

But at the bench, you've got to know the guys around your secretary, who is a strong man.

He may not be tough, but he's sure strong.

God knows what you got.

Irwin's not strong.

No, Irwin was a mistake, and it was our mistake.

Well, there's no rocket for every man.

I know, but we could have stopped it.

And he's a drunk, John.

But he's bleeding.

He's not too abrasive.

That may be good.

Morton is so unabrasive that the little abrasion over there... Martin also is spongy.

This guy, he's not spongy.

He's tough.

He'll be good.

Are you going to move those around?

Good.

We've got some good people going.

But now it's come below that level.

You say below that level, too, we could strengthen that.

Well, that's the biggest problem there is the deputy assistant level.

It doesn't make a lot of difference.

What do those people make on the deputy assistant?

They make anywhere from $26,000 to $36,000.

Well, it's not a bad job.

Good job.

Level five is $36,000.

Sir, how's it?

Level 5 at GSA.

Not bad.

Very, very good.

Not bad.

It's a funny thing, Bob.

I've always been thinking in terms of the cabin people, the sub-cabin people, never crossed my mind.

It's good that there's somebody working on this.

Well, see, that's that whole, you know, the thing I went over with you, the removal list, which was Fred's first task of coming in here, and which we accomplished, frankly, more than I thought we would.

We went through it.

No.

We're doing it slowly and slowly.

Oh, we're doing it out of the barracks.

You know, when you go in and tell a guy that the guy is worth a damn and point out why...

and therefore you should get rid of it.

It's hard as hell for them to argue against it.

Where are you going to put it?

Well, we're not sure yet.

There's a material resource council.

Material Policies Commission.

Material Policy Commission that you could go ask the executive director and the other director of, which is a less sensitive than the one he's in now.

And then we're looking at a couple of really good pros to put in there.

That's part of our overall campaign.

What are we planning to do, Bob?

Are we taking control of the foundation?

Nope, we didn't.

And sometime you all mentioned to George, because that was a hell of a thing for him to do, that he stepped up to it, bit the bullet, called in to it, he worked it out, he talked the text on it, worked it out to get it meshed back into lift, and then called in, told him himself, and told him he wasn't going to get it after all.

And that's...

That's bullet-biting at the highest order, I think.

It's tough as hell what you have to do.

But he went all the way around the bottom on it and came back to this.

And his pitch to Antofin was that it's just perfectly clear, starting this new council, that you'd be starting off in a position that would be harmful to you and the council, and it's just better off for you not to, or the district council would tell it that it's a foundational institute.

You can't do other than quit, I think.

Well, that was the point.

It was a bad move.

We're working on finding another person here.

I think this list of some of, you know, as examples of some of the people that we've, that Fred and his crew have moved in here, is a fascinating indication of the kind of thing he's doing at the subcabin, where he's brought in, like, a General Counsel of Transportation, a partner from Cravath in New York, at $150,000.

Wow.

A guy that was making $150,000.

And Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at AGW was the Director of Communications at Boise Cascade before he came in, making $45,000.

Assistant Secretary for Administration Interior was a partner at Tooth, Ross, Queen, and Smart at $83,000 a year.

Assistant Secretary for Administration AGW was Vice President Hughes' tool at $60,000.

Assistant Administrator for Management at EPO, was Executive VP of Evans Broadcasting, 45 of us.

And he's got a bunch of people that he's brought in from 50, 60, 70 years ago.

Usually we go in the other direction.

We pick some guy up, you know, that's sort of out of a job, and he says, gee, I helped him.

I put out bumper stickers.

That's, of course, the other side of the problem.

You still have to play the patient game, which is what Dan's got to balance against quality where it matters.

is the other side of it, of putting down and we have to take care of our own.

And learning.

But typically, those are in the top level, really key operating positions, like the ones you're talking about there.

You can take care of those guys in areas that don't have quite that much impact on the overall defense.

Especially now, because you've got the GS scale.

The price is just about right.

See, a GSAT gets $36,000.

$35,000.

It's not bad.

It's up to the presidential company.

Well, not necessarily.

But we can get GS-18 equivalent type positions of 16.

Super greats now pay damn good money.

They used to only pay $24,000, $25,000.

What are we doing with the likes of Nils Bohr?

Well, that's an interesting case in point.

It's a hell of a problem.

We've got to get it out, and we can't—he won't take anything except the judgeship.

Mitchell won't make him a judge because he's incompetent, so—

He's still there, but he's not doing anything.

He's out of the line of the Intergovernmental Relations Office.

That's why there is no line of the Intergovernmental Relations Office.

That vice president's office really is a mess.

That's true.

And that intergovernmental relations office, of course, is a very key one.

We have to attend upon that.

The intergovernmental relations permit is something that's really important to our whole White House operating department.

You can't even make one of those commitments.

Absolutely.

And as you've been working with Morgan, I've kind of put his thing together.

You see it even more so, because a failure...

Everywhere that there's been failure in the Morgan operation, or most of the places where they have, it's basically due to that operation.

They just can't get through to the governors, mayors, legislators, and councilmen.

The other thing I wanted to bring up, Mr. President, is this issue of getting more women appointed.

So we can build some kind of a campaign issue, perhaps, by having a bunch of people roll around.

We have done not a bad job, but an average job overall.

We're still in line with what's passed in the administration, but we're really making an effort now to get a larger number pointed at the presidential point of view.

And we're trying to get people who aren't just women, but who are gay and non-violent as well.

Isn't that kind of like the black thing, where you're, instead of numbers, which we're in great shape on, with blacks in the government, for instance.

But it's symbols, yeah.

It's putting a woman into a job that's never been held by a woman before.

So it's the first woman, whatever it is, in history.

And doesn't that mean more than putting 100 women into...

Well, my view about the women is different from others, and very different from my view about the blacks.

But the blacks is essential, and it's essential from the standpoint of symbolism as well, from the very standpoint of numbers.

You know, numbers, we can do everything for very, very long.

Oh, very long.

Right.

In fact, they have a greater portion of blacks growing their bodies with women.

Well, I think we have a problem.

I think that generally speaking, women, as voters, are not particularly concerned about whether or not a woman is the director of the men.

or a judge or any of that sort of thing.

I think that women, as voters, are more concerned about other problems where we would much best put our effort.

Also, women in government are a pain in the neck for the most part.

They're very difficult to handle.

Very difficult to handle.

And I don't, and likewise, I doubt if they're really worth the effort.

Now, you get a very different view from Pat Hitt and all the rest, and I know their views, and I know how strongly they feel, but I'm looking at it from a co-political standpoint.

I think there are other things we should do for women in a political way, but I just don't think that pointing them to positions is going to say, gee whiz, he likes women because he puts women in positions.

That's my argument.

Do you disagree?

I don't know.

Well, as a matter of fact, your strategy, you've worked out a compliment to the president's attitude, and that is that rather than placing the women in full-time positions, rather the idea would be to put them on prestigious presidential boards and commissions.

That's a hard-time position where they wouldn't get in there.

Well, that's fine.

But I think there are selective instances where you can make a total impact with the woman.

I'll give you an example.

I've got a girl.

I'm ready to come aboard.

She says,

President of the Hewlett-Robbins Division of Electric Industries, and she's on this board.

Her name is Jane Spinney.

And she is about 48 years old.

Damn attractive, articulate, a partisan Republican.

Very partisan, I might add.

Very, very.

and a real tough lady executive.

Now, she wants to come on board, and we've got her charged with the Vice Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, where she can be a rally point.

Well, that's fine.

Great.

Well, if you've got a common one, what I'm getting at is this.

Let me put it this way.

With a black, I think you have to settle usually for a new common one, because there just aren't enough common ones.

And so you put incompetence in and get along with them.

Because the symbolism is vitally important if you're gonna prove that you care.

With a woman, though, please, good God, don't send us an incompetent woman.

If a woman is competent, if she's up to it, if she hasn't, fine.

Have her in.

I just don't think it's worth, I don't think it's worth the votes when you bring it up down to it.

Put an incompetent woman in the position.

Mr. Helen Bentley, for instance, was a good one.

She's a damn good maritime commissioner.

Covering most of the sailors.

But what I meant is, I don't want you to go overboard and say, well, now we've got a nice little lady putting the job.

Only a woman has got to be comfortable with the black woman.

Just look the other way.

And the same with the Mexicans.

You've got to look the other way.

That's the problem.

You don't worry about competence at all with Mexicans.

It's just a matter of finding an honest one.

Even that.

Well, that's too bad.

The Lomas had lots of problems.

All the problems.

What time did he go through to grow up?

The Italians have somewhat the same.

Some of the Italians.

Not because of the connections, because of the background.

We do need on the block so that we can look for some visible first time ever.

What about that judge type thing?

That's supposed to be going to happen.

Military appeals.

That's a good one.

Get it done.

It's like molasses.

First black judge to be there.

Yeah, and that's why they checked it all out and everybody thinks it's great.

So as far as I know, that's still on track.

We're still getting that one.

I'm a four-year-old and I think this one would live and sound great.

Well, if you get a competent woman, she'd be great.

Usually, though, if you put one who's really not competent in a job...

And then around the group of men, and there's constantly the feeling that the men should hit us, the men, and say, it's not good, it's not good, it just isn't a good thing.

You know, the idea, they always say, put a woman in the care.

We had one.

It was this hobby of ours.

She was very nice and kind, but it was...

Well, frankly, I don't particularly like working with them.

But I think if we can find the kind of language in Spain, then we're good.

Oh, I think it's great.

I think it's great to put them in the Civil Service Commission.

And that way, shouldn't we get a better black Civil Service Commission?

Well, that's the one that she's going to replace.

Oh, he's leaving?

Well, is she black?

No, no.

That's too bad.

Tell her that she has to be black enough.

I don't know.

We're going to make him an assistant secretary of one of the services if we can.

Good God.

Well, go ahead.

Is it like that in the church?

Oh, it's a lie.

It's not possible.

He's not confident.

We can't really bounce him.

He's the only black member of the Bird Society in the nation today.

That's right.

He's articulate.

He can talk.

I know.

So we're not going to have any blacks in the service commission?

No.

That's, there's only three.

We wanted to see the public appoint ACM, of course, as the chairman.

So, the idea was that, uh, looking for where we could get the most mileage on that number two spot over there, we thought we could get the most mileage out of a woman.

Uh, we sure as hell haven't gotten as much as we should have out of a black in the past two years.

They're not having a black.

What?

They're Samaritans.

They're not having a black.

I mean, having had one.

Look at the percentage of federal employment, 40% of federal employment.

The one thing I would say is be sure that this announcement is made almost in tandem with the Court of Military Appeals.

That must be followed through.

Now, I've given the orders.

I've heard from 18 other people, and I haven't heard from them in about three weeks now.

I don't tell them.

Homer very soon is pushing his secretary for a job.

Actually, he is.

What's the weakest part?

The weakest part right now I would say would be probably the interior.

We're in pretty good shape there now because we've got some people coming on board.

Transportation has been weak, but we've made some appointments there in the past few months that people are coming on board, including a couple you might know.

I gave you some of them.

We're good people.

All the Italian people.

Plus there's $150,000.

Nothing you can do about it.

Not much we can do.

That's really the truth.

Oh, agriculture is really weak.

Agriculture.

States are a pretty big problem.

Well, that started it.

Well, that's impossible.

I've got it still in front of me all the time.

I'll give you that list, too.

We've done reasonably well there.

So it is terribly difficult.

I've gone through, we took our first report on it, we got rid of it, and Bill's, with a couple exceptions, he's moving ahead on it.

And he's got reason.

I'm the one that he's abducted to.

And the agencies, how about the little boys that run the councils, for example, the SEC and FEC and all the rest?

Those are bad boys.

Can you change some of those?

We are in the process of changing them.

We're doing a pretty major job on the general counsel position in these agencies.

In other words, down the line, they're going to hire better people.

Those are the ones that cause us trouble.

It's FTC, FCC, well, FCC is no problem.

FTC and SEC and ICC are the ones that really matter.

Because of the regulatory power that they've got.

They're so bad, it's...

This whole area of outstanding lawyers is one that we haven't had in the past, and it's just kind of like a goldmine right now.

We're really coming up with some good people who want to come in, and so we're approaching going right down the list of agencies and evaluating these general counsels.

Part of the problem there, too, is you see we did all the lawyer stuff through Justice, through Clint Easton Mitchell when we first came in, and naturally they...

They took the best ones for their own department and what they thought were the best for their own department and for Judge Gibson and that kind of thing that Marshall, not Marshall, but U.S. attorneys.

And we didn't do as good a job on lawyers as we could have done.

But good part of it because of that.

Because they were all cleared through there.

Now we go direct and start getting .

We've got to do something.

Well, we're going to have to attack the intergovernmental relations office.

The rest of the office, I don't think we can .

That's his problem.

But I hope you can do something with it.

You really have to, don't you?

With the intergovernmental relations department, that's... Yep.

I think he must know the back of the standards model.

Is that right?

I don't think so.

I think he's such a bad judge of people that he doesn't know the difference.

He doesn't know the difference.

Well, we can tackle that one.

You know, this is not unusual, running this government.

You've got a lot of these same problems.

Sure.

except there you've got time you can ease them out and build around them in all life you got time to let it work its way out here you don't have any time because every day we lose no way to catch up

There's a finite point.

When you're running a business, there's no end.

It goes on.

If you don't get it done this week, you get it done next week.

But here, if you don't get it done this week, it's... Let me say this.

This has never been done before in the Republican administration.

It has been done in some of the Democratic administrations for just obvious reasons.

They conspire all Republicans, Republicans, Democrats.

They've got the incompetent ones to bring in because basically most of the left-wingers are intellectuals and therefore incompetent.

They may not be able to run it, but they're competent.

The election now, in our case, is that most of those who are conservative and they're thinking that the kind of people we want are people, those that are really competent, so they're not busy out making money, that they aren't interested in becoming a member of any government.

And so you've got to go out and find them.

And also, the bureaucracy, you have to realize over so many years, has been so infested with these left-wingers, who've gotten into positions of power in civil service or in administration.

They all promote each other and they scratch each other.

It's a terrible system.

It is.

I know.

I know how it works.

God, you say that we sit around here and say, well, I'm an old Joe.

Boy, they don't do it that way.

They figure it out years in advance how they're going to do this one and that one and the rest.

I'm speaking about the bureaucracy.

And it's a continuing establishment.

Do you agree?

Oh, yeah.

Well, this whole issue of responsiveness is, you know,

It's a great one.

We're tackling that in a little bit different way.

We're doing a couple things.

First, we're taking a look at the civil service system itself.

Well, we hope to do short of abolishing it is to come up with a system whereby middle-level executives have to transfer between departments and functions as they move ahead in their career.

Because we've got to break these ties with the constituent groups and subcommittees.

that you've got a thing with now.

And the second thing we're trying to do is identify, have better means of identifying and training those people who really aren't any good, who can't be good professionals in the best sense of the word to move ahead.

But I think the key thing is we've gotta shake them up by starting to move them in a plan basis, in a career plan basis, from assignment to assignment as they move through the levels.

Then they can't get locked in.

in anyone's place.

They can plan their careers that way.

And also, they develop a more general capability.

And they're no longer health researchers.

They're broader executives by the time they get to the top.

And they're capable of being loyal.

The other thing we're doing, you know, we really haven't done as much as we should have done in the past on orienting our own appointees to the White House.

These guys go out there, and they're working for George Romney, and they're working for John Boeke, and they're working for Richard Nixon.

And so we're approaching this, too.

We've got an orientation career now.

We're setting up for all the appointees.

They're going to come in, they're going to be oriented by various members of the substantive political congressional staff here.

We're going to ensure that the presidential appointees get an opportunity to come in during open times and to meet you, get their pictures taken, share a little bit of identification going there.

We're going to worry about the presidential eyes all the time.

Right at the beginning.

Come in with a picture of the lab.

That's right.

And now we're moving to try to set up a system of recognitions and rewards for these people that again, will identify them.

Yeah, you see, we have a system here in Chappell, particularly in the Penn State.

Hell, I've never met, in the Penn State, I've never met half those people.

It's even a military old bandit or a congressional medal of honor's thing or a church thing or something.

And by God, they've all been appointed, and I've never even met them.

So they have no obligation.

Why would you leave out them?

That's right.

And that's one of the things you pointed out, is that we've got to get into this.

And have the guys in his office have a picture of you on the back of his essay.

Instead of just his wife and kids or the secretary.

And the cabinet officer then knows, you know.

He knows he grows very sick.

This is very important.

Working right on down the line.

Can't be a bureaucracy who'll put a cell around him and never let him see a memo tonight.

And so that way, I can't emphasize too strongly this, but don't be obsessive.

If a guy's got an R or a D after his name, I don't care.

That's the slightest impression.

That was another mistake we made.

I'm only interested in his confidence and his basic loyalty to us.

And frankly, you've got to have a hell of a lot of Democrats.

In fact, a third of those that you've got will probably turn out to be Democrats or independents.

Now, I would much rather, for example, have a conservative Democrat than a liberal Republican.

If you ever had the choice, Paul was a conservative Democrat or a liberal Republican.

And he did it.

That basically, if you had more choices, as far as Secretary of Treasury was concerned, would have come between

David Rockefeller and John Connery.

I would date John Connery.

I believe he had all the political ability and interests because one is a liberal Republican, the other is a conservative Democrat.

That's what we need.

See?

So remember that.

Don't you worry about the politics.

Don't worry about the clearances and all the rest.

We'll get those through.

We just tell them that I have to have Democrats here.

Oh, you of course should have problems.

Great problems.

If you have a problem, they'll scream and say, now what about this?

This guy's not a Republican and he didn't support him so far.

If you have a problem, the guy has openly fought for it.

Which was the case of John Tower fighting Conley.

Where Conley, because Conley had supported Tower's opponent.

We can take a few of those, too.

We put it on the basis of what we're trying to broaden our base and so forth.

But remember, you look for the good men.

Don't worry about whether they're young men.

Don't worry about whether he's even been in politics.

What we can take the first time, particularly young men.

What you can't take is the symbolic Democrats, like Entho.

Entho is the one you can't take.

I don't care how damn competent Entho is.

He was.

He would have, he was superbly part of it.

Unilateral disarmament, which of course is what the conservatives all think about.

He can't come in here.

Because it would kill us.

That's what we mean.

The symbolic ones we don't want.

But the others... That was the thing Lee DuBridge never understood, and that David does understand in the science, which is the toughest area of them all.

Yeah, we're always in the science area.

We're tired of finding science.

But David knows what we're talking about there.

We never did.

You know, he could never...

He'd come bouncing in here with the craziest bunch of people I ever heard.

Some guy had been out on some package, you know.

Yeah, Gell-Mann, Murray Gell-Mann, or whatever his name is.

He kept on every goddamn list they put in.

The guy wrote articles blasting his ABN thing, saying he wasn't political.

Because he wasn't political, he said.

Well, anyway, you know, we appreciate your work.

I know it's frustrating, but not at all.

The main thing is, well, it's an all-three-day competition.

It's never been done before by any Republican.

I mean, I've never even touched it.

Never touched it.

Hell, there wasn't anybody down the line, horrible, that at least we could ever find, as far as I'm concerned.

The only ones we usually found down the line, as far as I'm concerned, were so incompetent, it was just, you know.

Really.

That's really true.

That administration was really distinguished by incompetence.

It was, Bob.

It was.

Do you remember?

He was actually trying to find people around him.

That was true in his own staff.

They were incompetent.

His staff was incompetent.

And everything else.

And a whole bunch.

You know what I mean?

People around here, they didn't know what they were doing.

The only competent person was the secretary.

Well, here he is now.

Well, at the top level of the White House, the good pastor was competent.

Well, the good pastor, of course.

But Bobby wasn't very competent, John Bobby Guthrie.

Guthrie wasn't.

He was just an old friend.

Sure, Adam.

He really wasn't an old friend.

He did a hell of a lot considering his limitations, but he was not competent to be as good a judge as he had been.

So you'll have a lot of fun.

Well, we're going to get the money up a little.

That's one thing that I'm going to work at.

What else?

What else can you do to make this money?

That's it.

That's the first word.

To make money.

You're all rich.

You get nothing.

Are you all golfers?

All right.

Are you married?

Absolutely.

Yes, sir.

That's what I was going to say.

If you aren't, don't do it.

If you aren't, for your wives.

Thank you.

Your wife hasn't given it to your son, sir.

All right.

If you're taking the role in the office, who's got five children?

I do, sir.

You have five.

I do.

That's great.

That's a good start.

Good stuff.

Thanks a lot for the next one.

Don't get discouraged.

Oh, not at all.

Yeah.

Thanks a lot.

Always in the style.

Keep the ax ready there.

Well, you know, meeting with a group like that makes you feel a little better about what we're trying to do, Bob.

But there's the other thing.

You know, you'll never understand.

There's no fuss that we hear about any more yet.

Bob, is that all right?

He's got to get off of this.

Court's really sharp, young guy.

Well, they're all good.

They're all good.

I mean, he's got some more of them.

I mean, the same kind.

Yeah, they're all good.

They're the same amount.

This is me.

This is seven.

The key to that was we had to change it.

We had to get Plumlee out of the country.

Plumlee had a vested interest in the status quo.

I like Charles Madison, the nice guy, but I don't know how he tried.

He had a lot of problems around his home, but he was successful.

you