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20 of us.

That's this time.

He's subject to control for that reason.

Yeah.

Except for Stantz, the attorney general, and the client.

Yeah.

Because Stantz is going to be gone.

We tried to put Stantz off until the attorney general got back.

So we had to switch him.

But then nothing changed.

Because he leaves.

Stantz leaves Friday.

He gets along all right with me.

Stance?

Oh, sure.

That's why I want to be here, because I've got Pete in charge of that, as I told you.

Absolutely.

I was going to tell you that one observation regarding that pole.

It shows, of course, the enormous, well, the considerable impact that is the difference among those who, the attitudes of those who

saw you and those who did, discounted to a certain extent some who may have tuned in because you were listening, because they were for you.

On the other hand, it still doesn't get away from the point that we constantly gotta analyze as to how much damn traffic

the traffic will fare, right?

And how much you really have to say and you can't just keep going.

You talk about how much you have to say.

That's the old story.

I think our scheme, I wonder, just thought of it once more.

You're right.

I know that nothing should be televised this week.

The S&P editors, and it fits perfectly in.

Radio's fine.

Lesson that you can do pretty well.

And if I feel like it, I might delete the reporters next day, but I'd rather think, I'd rather go on the 21st and do another crack.

And, uh, I think it's, uh, it'll work out quite nicely.

You should not try to, uh, what is it on the 29th?

I asked to talk to Bruce Daniels that night.

Uh, you could do it, well, you do, really.

I said we wouldn't want to.

Oh, yeah, I know, right.

Uh, you could do it for 28 years.

Or, what do we have, six?

I kind of had in mind the, uh, maybe the idea of trying to, uh,

Or maybe get him to come back every three weeks, tell him.

Rather than every four weeks.

Yeah.

Perhaps I'm being guided a bit by your... Sets the door.

...attention.

Yeah.

Then you're only a week after the office first time.

That's no problem.

I don't think that's a big problem.

Not a damn thing.

I want to step up the frequency a little bit then too.

I want to step up the frequency in press conferences a little bit then.

That says quiet as we get some of this.

Oh, let's get our options open.

I'll put a piece through there.

Hold our options open.

You've got a long reaction thing already.

I don't mind doing that.

Well, I like to keep the eating free the night before.

I don't want two nights free.

You're doing that next year?

Oh hell, I can see what you mean.

You wouldn't be sending them up, it's just that it... Oh, I see.

You do the correspondence this year and the photographer's next year.

They know that, yeah.

So that's just on there so you'll know it's just FYI.

Well, isn't it, you're feeling that Friday's not as good a night?

Geronimo.

Yes.

I don't think it is.

I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

A lot of difference.

A lot.

I think it does make some.

I'm trying to figure out what the hell is...

It's been a great thing.

It's really been a great thing.

What... How little they seem to know of what's going on.

But the...

I'm trying to keep it...

The dating things still hang with the April 24th demonstrations.

Tested with some vandalism.

Strong efforts are being made by groups favoring disruption to rally support for the events scheduled April 25th through May 5th.

The disruptions have been planned by some actions to go beyond the control of leadership, including blocking of key bridges and traffic arenas, sit-ins, and interference with working building employees, knocking out the telephone system, having Hanley Radio announce the state of insurrection and martial law in Washington, and the cutting of all power sources in the Capitol.

They have decided to take over Rock Creek Park as a campsite for the demonstration.

and have stated that federal troops will be required to prevent the use of the park.

But there's no evidence of any campus support, and without it, they can't do anything.

It includes, it's not saying, national coalition against the War of the Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice.

Let me ask you this, appropriate comments.

Let me ask you this, Bob.

What about going on the 30th?

Is the anniversary of the Cambodian speech the best good or bad?

Oh, that's when I thought we wanted to move forward.

Yeah.

I think it seems to me that the voluntary action thing is not going to take you long into the night.

It's not like the desert.

Could we keep the cabin on solid low that day and not screw around with it?

Move the damn cabin up to Monday.

We could do that.

Get it back a day early.

Perhaps.

For an office press conference, I don't need this kind of preparation, but for the other one, I really need to sort of get it through for it, you know.

I don't believe it, believe it.

I've been here for an hour and two hours.

I think we have to try, but I'm not sure if they are trying to cooperate on a bunch of something too much good.

Maybe you have to remember that it's not us, you know, we're not going to get much.

We just aren't going to get the reviewers, you know.

We had one hell of a time.

We did very well on considering everything, but it was only because it was quite a little bit of a hell of a time.

You know, I just couldn't do it because of the water.

I was just wondering if these average white people had a bad time.

Alan Curry, Richard Gillespie, Lee, everything.

Well, you know, of course.

Well, they're there.

That's the end of them.

We're not going to do any more, because we've got .

There aren't any more that would do us any good.

Well, we've basically covered the stories that they're already covered.

There isn't time to do any more between now and then.

Well, I think the press conference is fine on the 28th, don't you?

And I then figure, damn, that we can employ 30 to see.

You say, go out then?

Go down the night of the 29th?

Yes, sir.

That's what I mean.

Of course.

Now, that's good that the doctor's here, though, yes.

Oh, that.

All of it.

That doesn't make any difference.

I guess it does.

I don't really think it does.

We're not going to take it.

They don't have to go with you.

They didn't come down Friday.

You're not doing anything.

I will not schedule an emergency.

I'll go down and I have it.

I've got my four days.

That's the right thing.

That'll be a good time.

This weekend we'll keep free.

You ought to go to Camp David that night.

Which one?

It's the 23rd.

Get out of here for the 24th.

Oh yes, I'll be out here.

I think we just go to Camp David.

Yeah.

I don't think at this point you can really be all that concerned about a bunch of people in Washington.

He did need to be the other two times, but, you know, you chair, you don't have to be, we have to be sort of appearing to be just as usual.

Well, I sure don't think he has to be here.

I think that thing of being he had to sit in the White House while a lot was going on, that's wrong.

Royce.

27, looking at the press conference, possibly looking at the 28th.

Would you look at the 26th?

Sure.

Let's just do that now.

Then I'll have that day for myself.

Yeah.

And the only thing you have on the 27th would be the 7 seconds.

Or better still, by the 7th of the week in the morning, I should put the damn cap in the afternoon.

Fair enough.

After the chamber, so you don't have to be bothered.

The chamber may be a good thing.

All right, why don't we say Kevin didn't do it.

Yeah, that's probably better for Kevin than her saying they didn't do it.

All right.

Yeah, sure does.

And they very likely are to be a more pliable group than the college juniors.

Yep.

Less effective, I think.

Less effective, yeah.

And it's all of them.

Because the other advantage is that that includes all the kids that don't go to college, as well as the ones that do.

That's right.

So, if anybody here was one of the kids, an awful lot of them go to... Yeah.

Never go on.

Never go out to work or something constructive.

I suppose that you've got all sorts of things.

The letter from the president of the high school would be right in the high school directory or something.

We write it to each class.

And we talked about the idea of doing individual letters.

We decided it would look pretty blatant to get us to send four or eight letters out.

And the fact that you've done it to the classes in the past makes it possible to do it to the class without looking like an odd step.

But the thing that would have some simplest would be considering doing the high school graduation.

Letting that be nationally radiocast or something like that or national television or something like that.

Played in high schools.

That's a play that young voters do, which I think is what you have to do.

You have to make a point that this is an historic high school class.

You will be the first who will vote in a presidential election within a year and a half from the time you graduate.

Mr. Peterson.

No, I don't see any reason to do that.

I think, as he said,

We have a good reason.

I don't mind seeing pictures.

I don't know.

I'm not going to see it.

He's doing a book on the vice presidency, and I'll ask for an interview.

I'm very nice to you.

Thank you.

It's time to be a vet.

I won't cooperate in a book.

I won't write a book now.

What he's trying to do is stretch out his old notes on the first verse and see if he can do something else.

See, you can go every time, Mike, when I get work.

No, no.

Yeah.

Yes, sir.

On your speech, on your remarks, a couple of things you're going to run into that you may or may not run into.

One is this thirst that you actually feel.

They may try to get you into the whole business of the war.

I just say all of them.

I just say, well, the President's taking a position, and you think it's a sound position, and it's a terribly difficult problem, and you're convinced of the sincerity, and also you're convinced it's going to work.

Just be, just play it very cool and very confident and say, we understand why this position's different, and that's that.

Because if they try to get you into, what about negotiations, and what about this, and what about that,

All you can do is get away with something you want.

The second thing that I think is very important that may now be hypo, because of that ping pong team, is relations with China.

For your background, you know how the move toward China was made.

I think, among others, had some piece to the effect that it was an issue in the state, or it wasn't my initiative.

over the very, and you're welcome to call this, over the very strenuous extensions of state for interesting reasons.

State normally, this was two years ago, see I, I think it first of all in our position for a time was with an announcement in regard to, you could say a year and a half ago, 18 months ago, and we can get up to the other time, an announcement of trade and travel restrictions really relaxed

And everybody was surprised.

Now, Satan would normally be for that.

They hadn't previously.

The reason that in essence they were against it was that they were afraid of being slowly in the head.

And they're right in that sense.

I knew that it might.

But on the other hand, you can tell that it's kind of like, my philosophy there is, we did not do this for the purpose of making the Soviet mad, but that I strongly feel that

That at this time, when, well, as I summed up for some people yesterday, what interested me enough, we, what happened?

When the Soviet Union is China's number one enemy and we are their second, and when China is the Soviet's number one enemy and we are the second,

That's something very new in the situation.

And so we're now number two, the boat.

In other words, with all this in mind, it is, I feel the bridge, the bridge that must be built, must probably come from the west, the east side of the west, the east side of the west.

Now, the British that may eventually be built in China may very well have to be open to the Japanese, and they have to be the broker.

This is my own opinion.

I have not been.

I have been, in my talks with Assad, very understanding of their positions of trade and so forth, because I said, look, I'm just sitting there, and so forth and so on.

Go ahead.

But...

I also realize that it is my belief that at this time, there is much greater likelihood that the United States may have some, most of them, even communist China than there is in the Soviet Union.

The irony of that is that even though their philosophies are the same, their forms of government are the same, they have been reconciled there, which is not so great.

But the fact that the very essence of their philosophy will not allow more than one for one.

And neither the Chinese nor the Russians.

The Russians because they were first.

The Chinese because they knew their superior.

They will never admit that nobody else is one.

That is the problem.

We should not have that problem with the Chinese.

It's part of the Russians.

Particularly with the Chinese.

We don't care about them.

They're not good people.

So to come back to it, so I initiated this first thing.

The state, well, frankly people, old criminal knowledges like Tommy Thompson, Chet Bowden, and others, I must admit privately, but they did, were rambled about it.

They said this is going to help the Chinese, which it did not at the time.

We had one or two Warsaw talks, you remember, and it knocked off.

And it's only going to irritate the Soviet.

See, but that was the classic State Department, the whole State Department.

I'm not talking about Iraq, but the bureaucracy, the criminologists, the communist experts were against that position at that time.

Now, having made that move,

We are now really seeing, I think, the first fruits of it.

Let me say that I've also had, and this is, this part is, what I just told you today you can use.

No, you cannot use.

In my conversations with Yahya, the president of Pakistan, which has gotten me in a trip around the world, Chichester,

with several others, I've taken this line, that we would not join, that we did not buy the idea that the United States and the Soviet Union should join together in basically a condominium against the Chinese.

And then I want to say, on the other hand, we knew we would need to, of course, join the Chinese economy as a soldier.

That we want to have proper relations, and to the extent that they're really friendly with both.

Now, there's a little bit of magical thinking there, too.

But nevertheless, that is the line that we've taken.

The message has gotten back to them.

Now, obviously,

If you will follow Chinese broadcasts and Soviet broadcasts, you will find that what I've just said is so true, that they race hell with the Chinese rather than hell with the Soviet, and the Soviet race hell with the Chinese.

We get our share, but always have a second party.

And this always leads us to the point that the Chinese

Now they've opened up the ping pong game.

It's typically Chinese who have a ping pong team of three or four players.

I do not mean that they should draw from that, that an instant opening to China is coming.

It's not going to be instant.

I do not mean by that that the United States quickly shifts its position.

We can.

They would become enormously suspicious.

but what i do what i am convinced of is that that the that a china isolated from the rest of the world the soviet of course isolated and we isolated uh every year becomes a greater and greater nation

As they're nuclear.

Right.

And also because of their isolation.

Because only the old leaders remember.

Chiang Mai remembers us, you know.

He knows the West.

But the new and the Chinese leaders are very old now.

And the new leaders of China, they'll die.

The new leaders of China don't know.

the non-communist world, they don't know the Soviet, they've never been to the Soviet Union, let alone the United States, they may know a little about Japan.

So you see them sitting there in total isolation, growing in power, and what happens?

That's the thing.

So the United States, looking far beyond all this has got to hold on now, how do you hold it?

We have a very great diplomatic problem.

Here's where you create an inference.

We have an enormously difficult political problem because of our alliance with Taiwan and the effect that, not only Taiwan, but we have on Korea, on Philippines, on all the other countries in creation.

On the other hand, trade,

is something you can do without relations.

You do not have to recognize a country.

You do not have to have a country in the UN to trade with.

That's why I made the move in trade.

And that is why, now there isn't a hell of a lot of trade to be had, but on the other hand, here is one area where, where I think, if it begins, and we're going to make another announcement, and so if you're speaking tomorrow afternoon, you can say there's going to be an announcement on Lynn Street of considerable interest on this map item.

On China?

Yes.

We announced relaxation of more trade restrictions.

This is a presidential decision, not State Department.

Not State Department.

There's a little bit, there was some argument with the inspector who said, I think the time had it that the state is doing this.

You know, the old idea that they're figuring all this out over my own system.

They had nothing to do with it.

I started it.

I'm continuing it.

And I'm following it.

Help me avoid the obvious trap of why are you doing this and not letting up on east-west trade.

Well, the east-west trade is very closely related to this.

The east-west trade, well, first, let me say, we are letting up on east-west.

both of those, as you know, Kirsten, that's your letter.

The east-west trade thing, and we, I don't want them to have a story given in the way of advance, but for your information, it is gonna happen, and it's going to happen relatively soon, but it is part of a larger package, I'm sure, is what it is.

And on east-west trade, it gets down to the

Donovan, come back real quick, as you see, you're sitting on the board that's all for relaxing your stress, Jerry.

that it is a matter under intensive study, but that you aren't prepared to say, in other words, you have to play that role.

You're gonna have to.

And then say, I'm gonna fight you back.

that don't write anything.

All right, that's what I told him.

I said, let's see what happens.

He said, this is something that is being constantly under review in the administration.

So the reason we haven't been disillustrated for this time, of course, is because of the whole Soviet package that is.

It's one of the few things the Soviet wants from us is this.

Now they just want to trade my credits.

Let me say, I am well prepared to go all the way, hell with your credits and anything else, if we can make progress in these other areas.

We would be prepared.

But on the other hand, I am not in the school that believes and just trades, and then the other things will follow.

I don't mean that you just, I don't mean the that.

That you do not do some things, like with child, we are not, we are just, we are moving, and then hoping the others will follow.

But the Soviet Union, where we have relations, I feel that this time, since we've been discussing these in the context of the others, that it has to be.

Now, a couple of other things.

I would hit hard on the Productivity Commission that we have, Productivity Council.

But this is essential to this trade position of the United States.

The United States is just in a week.

And a great part of this is going to be, you might get a little bit of a problem with the fact that my interest is in the engineers and the scientists.

We have a glut at the present time of engineers, scientists, and PhDs.

I think that's a very national asset.

I think whoever, and at this time, it's time for a basic research breakthrough in industrial research to get back to your point.

And you're making some recommendations with regard to that.

So that the United States, we've got to trade something.

In other words, I think they were against SSG.

The point is the United States has got to have something that we can do better than anybody else and that we can sell to the rest of the world.

And you feel that it's very important, whether it's the nuclear, clean nuclear power or whatever else it is, and that therefore the administration is putting great emphasis on that.

The other point is that I think you might

You might say, oh, and this is the other point, very interesting.

You can say that the president and his, and his, his, and his, and his, and his, and his, and his, and his, and his, and his,

You can tell, George, the Presidents told you that the most difficult reorganization plan they had to get through was the one setting you up.

And the reason was that all the agencies were fighting for it.

But the agency that fought it the hardest was State.

And the reason was that State knows

as Franklin Rogers told Schultz and told me, he said the only thing, once you get the ball rolling with it, that the State Department has got really left to do is economics.

Yet the damn State Department isn't prepared to do economics because the economics, man, you can hit this hard.

I think I had been hitting that from the time you came in.

It's the lowest form of political life, of life of the Foreign Service and the economics people.

Then, you can say that George Shultz brokered it out, and the way he brokered it out, very solidly, rather than having any of the vice-champions, we put Rochester as the vice-champions, the State Department as the leading role.

Now, what does all this add up to?

It means that those that watch foreign policy, looking at the long haul, in the State Department, knows that the economic, that economics is going to be the next major thrust of American foreign policy.

Economic rather than power.

And the way I would put it is this.

Say the President says, and it's an end to the status of the State Department that you have in meetings or whatever.

We are still going to have brush fire wars.

We're going to have hell racing around in various areas which we're going to try to stay out.

But in terms, we are now, I believe, we are entering that era.

The era Khrushchev talked about, that I talked about in 1959.

It is now coming to all of your sight.

We truly, as Vietnam ends,

We will then be in the era of peaceful competition.

But I look at the competition not between this communist world and the free world.

I look at it as competition between all parts of the communist world with each other to the extent that there might be an end between the United States, Europe, Japan.

In other words, the world's body tankers.

And for the balance of our time, there are only five places that are going to matter.

And they are the United States, Japan, China, the Soviet Union, and of course you see the region, and Washington.

That's it.

That is the world.

Now that doesn't mean Latin America is important and Africa is important and the Middle East is important.

They're all important.

But these five figures are what matter.

That sand, that is, that is the area that, and this, we're going to see these three areas competing with each other and

Of course, each of these areas will be looking at where most of the people will live, except for China.

They'll be living down here in Asia, Latin America.

How will they compete?

Basically, here's where investment, economics, trade, and so forth, trade preferences, and your aid package, and all that.

So, you can say that you've too been impressed with the fact that your assignment is to take us cold and exciting in the midst of that, that we're at the beginning.

We're not waiting until the end, you see that?

We have a national security council which deals with politics, basically, with great political decisions, political and military and national security.

We have domestic council.

But here now, we finally have an international economic field.

This is where the great action is going to be.

that does not overlook the enormous difficulty of our question.

But I see that as a, that will pass, it will pass, and we will wonder year and a half of the sickness was over.

Well, it's just tactical anyway, really.

It's all what's in play, but it's six months this way or six months that way.

I think historians are going to look at this and say, well, it's not just what it's all about.

But the point is, you'll be talking about something, what life really should do, what time it is.

And they ought to, they ought to see the, this is the enormous thing.

I would wait a month for it.

One month.

One month I think they're ready, they should have a cover on this whole subject.

And where it goes, it's a hell of an important thing.

And you can,

You can tell that everybody in the administration is excited about it.

Rogers is, Connolly is, Schultz is, Harden.

And also, you can say, you can sort of, the president said that he never had a hell of a more difficult problem than trying to get the membership of this commission.

Everybody want to own it.

Every goddamn member of the county except for Postmaster Carroll.

And he's not going to be in it, Captain.

That's true.

I think tonight I'd like to write up an outline as to how I present this.

Because I don't want to do anything prematurely that launches something before we've got the program.

I want to be sure I've heard you on the right.

The more I think about this, the more I think that at some point a bipartisan aspect to this makes sense.

You know, as I think about this problem,

It's America's role in the world, and this is not a political thing.

And you might be likely to say the president recalls when he came to Washington as a young congressman in 1947.

that the Marshall plans, the Marshall plan would never have gotten through in a Republican Congress unless it had been for the overwhelming support of Republicans.

It was my part of it, and it isn't on.

But I think a part of it, also that was your question.

What was that, the Van Der Berg?

Van Der Berg.

You can say now President's field, that whole economic field,

may well be the device for American foreign policy to become truly bipartisan.

And also truly coming across labor, business.

Labor is going to be the hardest.

But labor is going to get into this.

You see, labor has become isolationist.

Business has become isolationist.

We've got to get those people out.

I think this is a very good point.

All right.

The second part of this

where we might get a little bit ahead of ourselves here.

We haven't really, I haven't had a chance to sit down with George and John and the others to lay out a plan.

I'm a little bit worried about sounding like the plan is too far along for how to do this.

So maybe it ought to be positioned in terms of your convictions and your interest in this and your philosophy, and not so much yet on the...

I would say that's why I was told...

You'd be glad to come back maybe in say six or eight weeks.

Maybe that is a little more.

But what I can say is that in several meetings that we've had before you took the job, actually taking the job, the first meeting, that I spelled out what we had in mind here.

And we actually also really suggested it because we had a mission action.

across parents with no organization.

But I don't want to put it that I don't see this as simply coordinating chaos.

You can quote it directly.

I do not see this as coordinating chaos.

That isn't enough.

That would help.

But I see this as an opportunity for a massive leap forward in America's whole foreign policy and changing the dialogue from one of

That's what it really gets down to.

Guns and butter and bread.

Not that.

Because the guns and loot are all coming off, see?

Now you can go, and I agree with you, don't give them the idea that this is all ready to come to a halt.

Say it's a matter of fact that you should point out that we've authorized the setting up of committees outside.

Committees that may disagree on the ban more, I don't care what they have in government.

But we've authorized the setting up of citizens' rooms.

I told you to get the best people in the country, the best economists, the best businessmen, the best labormen, and the whole name of the country.

Right?

And so I also think we ought to look at some international leaders.

Get a picture.

You see?

Yeah.

I'm saying that at Rockefeller tomorrow.

Yeah.

He'd be good.

You know Andre Meyer?

Sure.

All that kind of people.

Yeah.

All right.

But don't look at these.

Right.

I understand.

And Pat Haggerty, you like, right?

He's fine.

Thank you.

At least he's a Western.

Well, you've got the other peers in Chicago and L.A.

Right.

They must have been all that, you know, international harvest crowd, the whole crowd around Chicago.

They've been big.

Blackie at Caterpillar, do you know Bill?

Sure.

He's a good Midwest name, Peoria.

One other small item is textiles.

I want to be sure you know what we're trying to do this week, because David, we're trying to get out this weekend.

And Maurice Sands leaves also this weekend.

I think we're going to need a session no later than Thursday.

Very confidential.

We have about 35 carrots and sticks that can be used to do this Section 204 thing that I'm talking about.

Do you remember where we can impose it on Japan, or at least threaten to impose it to get a deal with them?

Some of these are very delicate because they involve not only giving them things, but taking away things from them.

And I'm inclined, as I've told you, to not pass out anything in advance of this meeting, to perhaps have a brief list on a piece of paper, to collect the pieces of paper at the end of the meeting.

And I think what we need from you, aside from approval of the approach, is to tell us how far you're willing to go in terms of what we're willing to give in order to get their names signed on this piece of paper.

And I would

I think you, a very small group, ought to do that.

I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Yes.

John Connelly and Bill, and if you want Mel there to do the defense, that's fine.

Well, yeah, we've covered it.

There's nothing we can give there.

Well, I know there are some kind of... Well, let's play one game.

Fine.

Let's do it and cover it on their side.

Fine.

That would be better.

Maury, of course...

I don't want to get Larry involved in it because it's too complicated.

Yes.

Right.

Maurice Sands, I'm afraid, feels very strongly he should be involved and feel his history.

No, he's leaving in two days.

But that's about Henry and then anybody else from your own staff.

But I'm visualizing something very small.

But just so your subconscious can be dealing with how far you think you'd be willing to do, there are such things as, you know, Taiwan wants submarines and Korea wants submarines.

You know, the equipment that's now in Vietnam and isn't part of that modernization package, or isn't it?

So we're going to be discussing not only aid and economics, but...

If you do it Saturday morning, it's a better time.

All right.

Thursday's out.

Is it for you?

It's a little hard.

It's got the S&P editors in town.

All right.

Saturday morning.

That's a very good time for that.

We can discuss it tomorrow.

The state, of course, would rather we not use any pressure.

And I spent most of Saturday with them.

And I said, how the hell do you expect the Koreans in Taiwan and Hong Kong, who've been growing at 40 to 70 percent, to accept a 5 percent growth figure without some attractive and business assistance?

Well, of course, the feeling is that we get into a lot of history.

It's why we, you know, agreed to do it and all that kind of stuff.

And I just have to say, let's stop this discussion.

It's irrelevant.

Let's get on with it.

But their view is that they're not very anxious to give up.

much in the aid of military.

I mean, my view is we're going to have to do something in order to... Well, I mean, to these... See, my argument, Mr. President, is we're going to have to offer these countries... We're going to have to offer them something in order to get to these...

I have a question.

The more you meet with me, don't bother to stay on that.

We'll work that out.

If you talk to Henry, he'll know what we did and what Larry did.

And let me have a feel of it, because it's worth a little price.

And I'll also listen, since we're playing, okay, it's the Chinese, and then I'll have to be nice to you or something, or it's the Taiwanese, for whatever reason.

See?

Yeah.

Right.

Would you mind if Bill Rogers, I think, signed down the life insurance thing?

Yeah, he's not going to buy it, though.

He's on it if Lex Johnson does.

Since he owns that firm.

Oh, Bill Rogers.

Well, he's gone.

Because there's some sensitivity with everybody taking this trip.

Oh, sure.

He should be fine.

He knows what it's all about, too.

That's interesting.

I only have some civil rights things that I'd like to check with you.

We have a series of things going on.

evaluation of the Black Corvus suggestion.

They have these 62-odd suggestions that we're trying to evaluate and figure out the things that are controversial and certain controversial things that we can make a review before the end of this month so that we can get that going.

We have a suggestion that's coming from Art Fletcher that

having to do with sort of presenting a 10-year-type program.

Then we have the Civil Rights Commission, Father Hesburgh's commission, which has sent out questionnaires to the various departments and agencies.

Rather than let those just go out and then be sent back in directly to the Civil Rights Commission with no evaluation, we have been undertaking in the Domestic Council on the OMB to ask the agencies to send us before they send the Civil Rights Commission what they're planning to send in.

And we've had some back and forth discussion with them about their responses so that we can coordinate

I think that most of that is fairly straightforward.

There are a few things, three in particular, that I'd like to check over with you.

First of all, two of them about housing.

First of all, as far as the housing policy is concerned,

The posture that we have had is that this area is under review, and so they're not responding to the Civil Rights Commission in any sort of direct way, that the policies are understudied, and say to us that, first of all, that is the case, and second, that this really isn't the right.

Or to sort of make an announcement of some kind about, you know, whatever you do, decide to turn it off.

So that's the way that's supposed to be.

That's the rule with you.

You'll be happy to look that way if you sit and make an announcement.

That's the rule with you.

Now we have a different kind of an issue presented by the GSA as far as housing is concerned.

As the person has as part of his policies that the housing that his personnel use around bases must be fair housing.

Sure.

We don't enforce it.

They enforce it.

There's no problem.

GSA, when it decides to place a building somewhere, as part of its site selection criteria,

has to have a building where people have access to the buildings.

And so an aspect of this is whether or not the surrounding area in the community has housing that is open to the kind of employees that GSA would have in that building.

And that includes, or can include, a more positive fair housing element in it.

And the question of whether or not that ought to be put forward directly in struggling is something that I thought I should check with the Rock before they do it.

But personally, I don't know what kind of hairs I want on my own.

Well, it doesn't have very much, it does seem a little bit meaty, but what I mean is what kind of, how much does it accomplish and how much do you give us and how much do we get for it?

What I'm getting at is, you know, a lot of it seems to be perfectly all right, but is it hot, cool?

It's hot only in the sense that housing is a generally hot area.

But this is a question of where GSA puts its building.

Although, if the GSA says, well, we're not going to put a building in community X because community Y doesn't have fair housing, we're going to put it in community Y instead, then that is, in a sense, having the existence of fair housing in a community, what is called fair housing.

or by undersigning, or I suppose that's right, or by the Canadian proportions, there's a certain proportion of blacks.

No, I don't think that, you couldn't do that very well because you have sections of the country where there are very few blacks.

There's very little in the way of new buildings built on, new sites being selected.

at the moment, although we have a proposal for the GSA to have buildings which it leases rather than it puts up on its own right.

That needs congressional approval, which

It's not exactly coming in a big hurry, but until we get that, we're not likely to have a big piece of that building program.

So the operative aspects of this are not tremendous.

Yeah, but it is a policy.

They want us, we're asked, we're being asked to do that.

Yes.

Yes, they want to do what I want.

It seems to be reasonable.

I think it deserves to be brought to the region to do the hell with it.

We've got the Fresno case, I recall, about the IRS building, you know, the bad side, the good side, which finally ended up with the issue raised out.

You remember that case?

Fred Wilder's day, he did.

So we have no reason there.

It's an interesting point, but it seems to be this long we can do it.

All right, so it seems we're going to do it, but we don't really do it.

That's what the GSA did.

If GSA did just make an announcement or leave for directing, the Concern of Atonement would be very important because it is put out on the plate.

in a hair-raising way, that's one thing, but I don't mind doing it.

What I'm concerned about is just making an issue.

They have a whole series of things that they use, criteria, as I came to say.

What I would much prefer is for them to do it, not say I'm a lost mother.

You could work on something like...

There's a position in the whole thing that raises this is

GSA has been asked certain questions by the Civil Rights Commission.

So they will make a statement about, or they could say that Christ here has been the policy.

I don't want to indicate that there's a new policy.

I would simply say that it is the policy of the GSA to do this, that, or the other thing.

GSA has made criteria having to do with available housing for the people who would normally work in the building.

And their assumption is that available housing is fair housing.

And they can simply say that that has been their assumption all along and they're making it explicit.

Something of that kind, you see.

I think it's all right.

Let me just do a little check on that.

Now, the other issue has to do with employment in the federal government.

And as you know, under the Philadelphia Plan and the various other orders going back in this administration to the year of textile cases, the federal government has required employers, under some circumstances, to have a program or a plan for affirmative action

to give the number of minorities in their employment to get themselves on a non-discriminatory basis.

Many of the agencies of the federal government have, in effect, done that themselves.

We did it in the OMB when I came over there, and that's the reason why, in 2018, he said we've done so much well.

We sent him to our organization.

We have the goal of increasing our employment within the framework of people who can do the job well, and this is important.

So some people have done a fair amount, others haven't.

The question is whether or not the Civil Service Commission

ought to have a positive policy with respect to the various agencies of government, that each agency should have a program and a positive plan, set some timetables for when they're going to get to here, there, or the next place, along with a program for remedial action, for remedial action if necessary, and also recruiting and that sort of thing.

the service commission's basic hanging on this is that they have historically been wedded to the merit system that's uh most uh pristine for any evidence needs to intrude other considerations even though it's explicitly stated

Let me say that on this, on this I see no problem, but if I get back to my major point, I would rather have it done, but I don't want to critique any political capital.

Let me explain that I feel there's not, of course, politically acceptable problem.

It's the right thing to do.

So I'd rather have you do it the way they want to be, just order it, tell people to do it, but don't tell them without a great big damn press release saying, look, aren't we great?

We're doing all this when it's done fine.

It's just hard, dude, it's hard.

See that it's done.

But the demagoguery on it, which is, that's all it is, too, is saying, well, the government sends a big policy, you know, we're going to kick all the whites out and put the Negroes in their jobs.

I don't want any part of that.

I just don't like that, you know.

I mean, it's the 10-2 no-charts, the real problems, the promotion and stuff, the lack of plenty of Negroes in the government.

I don't know if they're senators, but it's the super greats.

But, you know, there's a hell of a lot of whites in the super greats.

Why are these guys not getting it?

So my point is, do it.

but do it low-key and double-celled service permission, that's the ways to do that.

You wouldn't believe the way he did it.

It's the only fair thing he did.

Nobody knew he did it.

But that's the great government.

And that's why it's a government honest town.

And it may say there's no, then you do no harm.

You do no harm in terms of stirring the people up so that they, that basically is, the whites should not be disturbed.

Hell, they're not going to lose anything.

But if you raise the issue, then he was, then they,

You see what I mean?

In both cases, if you can work them out both feet, my whole philosophy in this is like the way we did in Southern school.

Do it.

Do the right thing.

Do it quietly.

But don't try to brag about it and raise a lot of stuff about it until it's done.

And then, for the groups that matter, say, look, all right, we've done it.

Fine.

I just feel that otherwise, all we do is to create insurmountable obstacles.

You get every damn demagogue on that.

Racist, basically.

A chance to create this, you know?

And it makes it more difficult.

also the consciousness of the world.

Well, I understand that, and we'll try to put it in such a way that you can.

I know I don't have these answers, but that sort of has to be in our policy.

You can find out what the ORB has done, and that same procedure will be reflected in other agencies that have them.

I've got more to say on this trip here.

Well, I'll save that for later.

I'm going to go off and do a jerk.

I'm going to do a jerk.

I hope it's good.

you