On April 21, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Harry S. Dent, Stephen B. Bull, Bryce N. Harlow, John D. Ehrlichman, John N. Mitchell, Elliot L. Richardson, Edward L. Morgan, and George P. Shultz met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:57 am to 11:16 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 484-002 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Terry, how are you?
I'm good, sir.
How are you?
I'm good, sir.
How are you?
I'm good, sir.
Well, I talked to a gentleman who likes it over here.
Yes.
Yes.
Right.
Excuse me.
Right.
Right in the Roosevelt Room or somewhere.
Yes, I mean, it would be good.
I think it would be easy to do the thinking some of the time.
Yes.
Right.
Yes.
Harlow, we want to tell him to come in in about ten minutes.
He's over there.
He's over there in the other room, I think.
So can you see him somewhere?
Not this minute.
About ten minutes.
We have a couple of minutes left.
We've got to go over first.
Tell him to come in about ten minutes.
I want to see you on another subject.
This subject is going to be with us forever.
All right.
I mean...
You're in good shape.
You know, the polls continue to show you're in better shape than any other section of the country.
Now, what this court decision, the only bad impact about that is that Berger and Blackmun made the unanimous and Berger issued the opinion, and that's going to make my speech have to change a little bit.
I've got to do some thinking on that.
And I worry about
the ATW going in there and trying to, you know, whether they realize it.
I've seen Mitchell today, and your information, Mitchell, Colt Mitchell, and his Mitchell's suggestion.
And I thought, you've got that thing, it's got a little more requirements.
Right.
They're going to be told what they will see.
Right.
I know the speech does concern me.
It's a...
If you read the people, I don't think you got any, I don't read the opinion carefully.
Mitchell seems to think it's much more narrow than some of these boys are making it up.
I think it is from what I've heard.
Much more narrow, at least much more flexibility.
Of course, I'm an employee.
I can tell you, they told me, you shouldn't go down and include it in our...
in the essence of the decision, that emergency school aid bill, and I said, hell no.
No, sir, let the Senate put it that way.
Incidentally, I think it's good that you're going to call for an off-pushing disempowerment, don't you?
You see, he's fighting head to chest.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
You think that's good?
Yes, sir.
Now, I'd like to get Muskie on the line, and Hubert on the line, and Teddy on the line on that amendment, wouldn't you?
Right.
They're going to have to get on that today, I think.
Well, if they're there.
Now, let me tell you why.
Well, we're...
I say, this thing doesn't mess things up much.
But with the school issue, what are you judging on how that's going to sort out?
Just a question.
If the thing is open up all over again, they've pretty well gotten over the race kick.
And that's what's wrong with this decision.
It just reopens the old thing.
And that's what I find difficult to judge right now, what this is going to do and the impact it will have against our administration because of Berger, handing it down and so forth.
You see, when you tell him that Berger does a great job on criminal law decisions and so forth, but then I don't want him to become the new Earl Warren.
That one thing I was telling Colson the other night, I stay on the road a good bit, making speeches and setting, and everywhere I go I have a news conference in the town, and I try to confine my remarks so that they don't make news back to the Washington Post.
And I was telling Colson, Mr. President, that I get this kind of reaction.
People come up when we get through with a speech or a question and answer session.
And they then get the total picture of Richard Nixon.
Now, they're not getting it out to the news media.
They're not, and they're getting answers to questions, and they're wanting to be for you.
And I told Colson, we need to get all the key sub-candidate-level people in this administration, and the ones who can make speeches, who are really pro-Nixon and so forth and so on.
They all should be, but the ones who are really that way and really politically oriented.
And we should conduct a little school
And get these people out, send them.
Now, I was in southern West Virginia last weekend.
I had the whole southern end of West Virginia.
I was on television making speeches to two groups of 500 each.
And there's an impact.
You can tell the full story of what you're standing for and what you're up against.
They're not getting that total picture unless someone gives them the total picture where they have their attention.
You know, a group like that, or get on television.
I was on television for one half hour, and we had friendly stations, and then they put me back on.
Well, I sell your revenue sharing.
First, I sell your program.
I sell your situation about Vietnam and the honorable cause and your strength and determination and your courage in this area.
and that this is the only way out.
And then I say to you as an individual, the kind of leader you are, the time you put on your work, which means a lot to people, that you write your own speeches, this means a lot to people.
And I also tell them what you're up against in Washington.
And I tell them it's not just one administration in Washington.
Yes, sir, that there are six administrations in Washington.
I give them the Supreme Court, the Eastern Liberal Establishment.
All right.
the Democratic Congress.
And when people recognize what you're up against, they don't know that.
They think that everything that happens in Washington is Nixon.
That's the way the average man looks at it.
But my point is, if we train enough people and put them out as missionaries,
going all across the country and finding out, for instance, where the friendly television is, where the friendly press is, and go in.
They will give time.
Now, I would just tell them, Bryce, like in southern West Virginia last weekend, I would be dignitary in southern West Virginia all last weekend, all the press people.
I mean, I'm nothing in Washington, but I'm big out in the field.
And they will give me the time on TV.
And no matter where I go, it's Miami or New Orleans.
I'm going to New Orleans Thursday.
Now...
they will focus in on me because I'm from Washington and work at the White House.
And unless we monopolize this TV and radio and this news at the local level and tell the total story of the president, what he's up against and what he's trying to do and set him in a position, that total package of the president is not getting through to the people out there.
I haven't come to be out there.
I mean, I don't want to hear it.
But for people not here who are preoccupied with their normal incentives and make a living and struggle around with life that is separated from medicine, this is confusing.
It's very because you have an enormous program
And it's hard for them to see the mountain peaks out.
As you, of course, know them.
But whatever is on your mind, you get people out of it.
It's a program of the individual, that's the program.
That's right.
And that's what I agree with.
You seem to be right for saying this, too.
Wherever I go and speak, Mr. President, people want to be for you
because they think you're like they are.
I mean, from the little they've heard and seen, but when you paint the total picture of Richard Nixon and what you're standing for and who you are and what you are and so forth, hard work, ethics and so forth, all of this, patriotism,
The people out in the field, Mr. President, are different from the people here in Washington.
They're not as sophisticated, and they like... What I'm saying is, and I've told you this before, you and your administration and your program can be sold out there to the average American, but we've got to get the missionaries out in the field.
where they get the total picture to 500 people who then ripple it out.
And then you get on TV in all two.
Because the average American thinks like you think, though.
Like you think.
But they don't... That's been our only salvation, you know.
Those average Americans, the country has been lost in the last three years.
That's really true.
But we need... My point is, as long as we try to push things out...
Through the press, we can only get so much out, no matter how much we try, because there's a filter there, and most of them are against you.
And so you just have to go straight to the people with your missionaries.
Let me ask you another thing.
How is the Vice President doing now in your country?
Well, he does fine.
Everywhere I go, I always generally get questions after this.
And I get the question about the Vice President.
People are always interested in making sure that he's not off the ticket.
I have to answer that.
All the time, everywhere I go.
I was down at Williamsburg, and by the way, the governor's passed a resolution commending you for revenue sharing and welfare reform and for coming and so forth.
And the attitude there is better than I've seen it in these recent governance conferences.
They have a lot of those.
They're always having conferences, aren't they?
Yes, they are.
Regional and then together in the regional.
They're well above our price.
They have the Western Governors' Conference, they have the Republican Governors' Conference, they've got the National Governors' Conference.
At the time, you have them twice a year.
They're having a conference every month.
But down in my area, down in my area, of course, the Vice President is strong because he's a man of principle.
He stands up and tells it like it is.
And they like it like they think it is.
Let's comment.
We can.
What are we going to do with this court case?
I have a mental enemy with Richardson, 945, and I'm going to lay the law down hard.
I have a mental enemy with Richardson.
Nothing is to be done except with the law required to let the courts do it.
You know, changing the AGW, whatever it's doing.
That's been your study across the channel, and you've noticed it's, of course, the problem Harry points out is that
that the burger had been out in the city for a lot of money, but
But if you notice, when you say they're making a statement, you have to say it.
You know, when this decision came in the morning, some of the boys around here, you know, made this statement.
This is a historic decision.
I said, we know these are in a different position now that this happened.
Why get out in front?
I said, hell no.
They wrote me a statement up there.
I said, this is a landmark decision.
And if it wasn't, it will change.
I said, you know, I said, I'm not going to be a Democrat.
I said, I was against.
I was against busting the racial balance.
I'm still against it.
And all I will say is that the Supreme Court has spoken.
Now it's all over my head.
Period.
Don't you think that's the right decision?
Well, yes, I have, you know.
I think it should come up.
I have a very good question on this, because it's in our part of the country, so this thing is...
It's my part, too.
I think you come off here, say this very honestly, with a vest.
If your statement is that you labored on the sultanate, and no one is a sultan with a sultanate, and that's you must have been a monarch, did that cost you explicitly from the neighborhood school, and explicitly against compulsory busing of racial violence?
That's right.
It's hard and it's straight and it's very carefully written.
Your conviction on it is therefore unsale and explicit.
Yeah, the coroner seems to have come in.
And, all right, he put it in.
By the way, I should, by the interruptions, I told Harry, though, and Harry, if you recognize him.
No, I've just read the paper.
Mitchell tells me the opinion, who I read it to, is really narrow and oppressive.
What do you mean?
Yeah, I did read it.
He wrote this, and I frankly, this is just me, Mitchell and Berger and I had breakfast about three months ago, and I laid it in Berger.
I said, now look here, the opposite of you would insist on busting the paper.
So I was sort of disappointed.
Mitchell says he's extremely narrow.
He says he doesn't even come out for a...
He says he doesn't require racial violence.
That's what I was going to say.
That's what I was going to say.
far more so than on this freedom of choice issue.
This is going to be a clear reversal of your state, a clear reversal of your state's position by studying up here.
And so the Southland, I don't know if you're a good case on this, the only poison that I can see against the
Number one, um, in Arden's he had a burger and in Poiseuille, yeah.
That's right.
And number two, the burger.
That's right.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
Burger.
This is a much narrower decision than it would have been if Warren had written, you know, this is not a sloppy decision.
I think maybe one of the first things we do, by the way, is let's get that full decision out to these editors all down to the South right fast.
And say, well, look, you might do this, get it to every editor and say, what this decision, say, the Northern Press is going to represent what the decision does do and what it does not do.
A little line like that would mean that what the decision does not require.
Let me figure out who to get it out.
It could be somebody other than us to get it out, but let me figure that out and get that out.
Well, uh... With an interpretation by somebody of justice.
Good.
And get Marty up there right in the church.
I don't think it's a disaster for you, though.
We've got to play it.
But we're going to play it very cold around here.
I mean, they ask me, I'm in a press conference next week, and they ask me about it, and I say, well, that's the law of the land.
What are your opinions on busing and so forth?
But my opinion is, well, I've stated my opinion.
The court has spoken.
That's the law of the land.
But, Bryce, one of the things we have to do is, you're assuming, and this is the thing that worries me, you're assuming...
that the average Southerner knows that the President sent the Attorney General there against this and into the court against it, and that they're familiar with his statement of last March.
Now, one of the things that's got to be done is somehow we've got to push this out, and I'll work on these Southern reporters in the Washington area here, push out the line that the, about the President's position, you see.
Now, the Washington Post, fortunately, has, unfortunately for this,
for the Washington people, has a front page article saying, you know, Nixon was defeated by the government.
Yeah, Nixon was rejected.
But that isn't going out across the country.
That's what we've got to see, that it goes out somehow.
And I'm going to clip this out and send it to a lot of people.
Right.
And we're going to have an interesting vote in the Senate, Ribicoff, Mr. President.
You agree with that?
In a way, he and Javits have a fight.
Let me tell you, I wouldn't want to be one of the Democratic presidential candidates on this, would you?
Well, when you, Patrick Muskie, and Ted Lieberkamp are going to vote for that guy, Ribicoff, that's an excuse.
Now, I'm going to say something that's embarrassing, perhaps.
But I agree with Mr. President.
Do you want anybody in here who should come out against the Ribicoff Senate solution?
I think we're sort of busted.
It's postured that way in the paper.
Rivertop is saying that you are against him.
He's saying that you are against him, but you're not sailing on record.
Against him?
That's what was written in the paper.
Why don't you want to be against him?
I am against him.
Well, um, I haven't really thought here.
I mean, I would guess what he's trying to do with you is, what do you mean?
Well, I think you're in this kind of situation now, but I guess I'm in a different judgment here on this.
I, uh, look at this as a semi-subject.
The plan has gone undone.
It's been in the movie.
It's been largely scrapped.
And it's been forced to the United States of America.
It has reached into the tractor line to have separation.
It's unquestioned.
It's fallen all over the tractor.
And of course, this is the jury.
I cannot see how, in principle, both can be joined to clusters.
Should be... Should be... Should be... Should be... Should be...
Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the identity itself.
If I say it's a suit, I would think it would be a mess.
Do you think so?
Oh, yeah.
Because the ingredient is an arm.
You see, one of the things I bring to the show, and if you see it, it's fundamentally correct.
It's fundamentally correct.
The principle that if the...
See, you haven't meant for the principal that the court has forced you to say, I'll carry it out.
But they're enforcing a principle.
There's one section on the United States, the principle, that you can't have a section on the principles.
Right.
And therefore, and I'm talking, of course, I'm really talking about it.
I think that you should say I find it extremely difficult to contest and the thinking also of the Senate.
Now, the only problem now is this is a very big thing to do.
I know.
I know it was voted on before.
I know it's second.
When did we vote on it today?
It should be today.
Oh, good.
It should be today.
Bryce, do you know what the figures are on integration now?
This is, you know, one thing in this case is...
There are still some all-black schools probably would now have to be taken into account.
Their lines have to be redrawn.
Black schools will come.
Let me show you.
It's 38% now of all
black children in the South.
38% of the black children go to majority white schools.
And only 28% of the black children in the North go to majority white schools.
In other words, there's a hell of a lot more in the North.
There's a lot more polarization in blacks
all black schools in the South.
And it's funny, it's that way in the South, Harry, just as soon as people can afford it, they're gonna move into their white neighborhoods, you know, in there, this and that, and the hell with it, right?
Right, that's true.
There comes the message.
See, regionally, that's my point, and you have opposed the campaign of 68.
I just cheered your position on it.
No more sexualism in South Africa.
Well, maybe we just, since the busing has come, you mean to have it all over the country?
Well, I'm just saying that you have to get at the principles that have been applied to the Southland.
I find those different.
Considering those.
Considering not the sheer legalisms.
I find it very difficult to force the opposition sitting back.
The only trouble, Bryce, is that if that's passed, and if the president then has to bring about this busing, then we've got a real can of worms.
And I agree with your position.
I like that.
If agreed, that'd go great.
And another thing that could come out of this, Mr. President, is this.
If we are caught opposing the River Coffins tennis thing, then Wallace is going to pick this up, you see, and say, and I can see his case right now against us.
You appointed Berger, who is another Irwin, and then you turn around and you oppose the application of this, therefore you are unreaded there.
Now, we have a business in 69.
Yeah.
We did a letter to John Simmons.
Do you remember?
The letter John Stannis was written to the Senate.
What is what?
I forgot now.
We had a post that had been embroiled in that.
And John Stannis had a ball with it.
and just raised out inside the Senate.
And you're right, there's some kind of candidates.
And the great liberal is opposing without that.
And on this specious ground.
What is this specious ground that you put that stuff into this bill and you kill it?
So I'm in this bill, and this bill is so important in this area, and I'm so strong with this.
Why would I kill it?
Well, let's just get a combination of the northern liberals against it and the southern conservatives.
Where?
If the Senate's not in the Senate, though, the southerners are going to vote for it.
The southerners are going to vote for it?
The southerners are probably going to vote against it on the final passage.
No, not if you put that in the Senate's amendment.
And now the Supreme Court, they say, see, the South's been crushed so far as they're concerned.
Why not crush the rest of the country now?
That's right.
So they have votes on the final passage.
But I say this, if you could be sure...
If the Rivikov thing were not passed, the President wouldn't have to end up doing the busing in the rest of the country.
And you could, and the President could get himself, uh, uh, postured for fair and equal treatment across the country.
That would be one thing.
Well, I'm sorry.
Uh, maybe I don't like saying this, I'm going to pull the temple down around this.
I, I tell you, I, the Supreme Court, and the courts generally, have done so damn horrible to this, and have created such havoc.
And they don't reach for a concrete promise.
So this is a regional decision?
Correct.
And that's the way they're staying still with me, contrary to the desire and pressure in the United States as to how this will turn out in the end.
All right.
Now then, I will, I will give you, the only way maybe, the only way maybe you can get any sense into this area is this redacto ad absurdum.
I, President of the United States, I can't find it.
I can't find it.
Where is it?
You can call me at lunch.
Let me get the, just the key of legalism.
What does, what does Rivercroft require?
It requires proportion.
What it does is to categorize the type of segregation as a jury.
And say that you can't have that type of segregation either.
And you have to use the instruments of government to prevent it.
If that should take place and create the chaos, as you say,
The only trouble is, what do you do if that thing becomes law?
And so all of a sudden, Mr. Richardson, Secretary Richardson over here, does have to implement that too.
That's the only problem.
I would suggest that we examine the feasibilities of carrying it out, and we will report there on to the country as to how this is going to operate.
We're going to do our best, and then our limited resources to effectuate what's going to be required, of course.
and to look at the total consequences of this enormously huge matter, and its impact on education in America, and on the budgeting of the national resources of the states and the universities.
And, um, I, I, uh, just, it's very, I just agree with all that, with all of what's going on, you know.
That's the only thing, Bryce, I like your position personally and everything else, but you tell us about the situation all down in Southern Boston.
I don't like to say the president.
I like to say the president.
Yeah, yeah.
I agree.
I agree.
If we could keep that thing from becoming the law.
Now, maybe Secretary Richardson, when he's in here today, you could ask him.
What impact this thing would have if you did that?
You know, about Rybakov getting through, what does it actually do and what would it require the president to do?
But if we got to dismantling de facto... You've been doing it on the subject area.
Yeah.
And the rest of the country.
You've been doing it on the subject area.
I wouldn't want to do it until after 1976.
And that's the point.
Well, that's a miserable thing.
I mean, the court should never, frankly, going back.
I would have said that 15 years ago, we should have never gone.
The whole thing is wrong.
The whole thing is wrong.
We're in the wrong path.
The Negro is finding an opportunity.
They can't compete.
The Negro teachers, the Negro colleges are going, they have all the Negro teachers are frustrated that they can't compete with the white ones.
By the way, Mr. President, one thing you might just tell Secretary Richardson, we had a meeting the other night of all your black appointees, Bob Brown's home, and every one of them said, don't touch these black colleges and universities.
In other words, no college desegregation.
They say if you start dismantling these black institutions of higher learning, you're really going to be in trouble.
And I was surprised.
I didn't realize this, but... Because basically if you dismantle that, then the blacks have no place they can really... No identity to their institutions.
Right.
Right.
And they don't want college desegregation.
That's the point they were making.
They don't want any of this college desegregation.
They want everything.
For Arthur Fletcher, Sam Jackson, all of these folks.
President, I think in this area, and this is for you and I, I've got to be careful with each other on this.
This is a tax business for the private schools.
And you're a good shaker of this issue.
Yes, you do.
Holy Christmas.
No, no, but what I mean is...
No, they're open.
See, all of your colleges today, except maybe someplace like Bob Jones University, are open.
They have an open-door policy, and they'll all sign them and say they do.
Bob Jones won't sign them, but all the rest of these college institutions will.
Now, my point is, let's don't have an affirmative action whereby we go into a black place and make them have a racial balance.
I'm not saying you ever have a racial balance.
But let's leave the...
Make sure they have an open-door policy before they get the federal money.
That's all.
And you see, very few whites are going to be down the door to get into black institutions.
I thought they were just black.
No, no, I...
In other words, whites don't grow.
But there's a fraternal feeling there.
For all the black sororities and fraternities, they'll fight you.
And I can tell you, yes, I was very much surprised about this, too.
Very pleased.
People, hypocrisy.
Ribicoff is right about the race issue.
He is not an hypocrite.
I think Ribicoff is basically not an hypocrite.
He's right.
And I think this is one of the best places to stand.
Now, if you want one thing that will excite the Southerners, I have to agree with Bryce, Mr. President, that will excite the Southerners,
And then forget all of our sins of commission and omission previously.
If you would extend that, what we call the Southern Strategy, which is treat the South like you treat the rest of the country.
And when you can't treat the South like you treat the rest of the country, treat the rest of the country like you treat the South.
That's the way I put it.
They really go wild on that.
If somehow or another we did wind up behind this thing without getting it on our hands to implement, that's the truth.
And it's also highly important, I think, that you, not that you're supposed to do this, I think it's taking place in opposition to that.
Yeah.
You saw Lin's government.
Mr. Lin was after both of us this morning.
He was?
Well, he says it's so important to get this education bill passed.
The hell it is.
I don't want to talk about that.
Why is it so important?
Tell me.
Really.
Well, he'll pass one.
Huh?
I mean, he'll pass one, really.
Yeah, I know.
It's a billion and a half.
The hell with it.
I mean, you know, most people... Well, that's not...
I don't think...
I didn't think...
I don't think that's true.
I think it was a good play to show your earnestness.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I'm not going to... We're not going to go around this... go around the track here and fight for this goddamn thing.
Was Len against the River Company, man?
Yes, sir.
Oh, very much so.
Yes, sir.
And he thought that... Because they sent Jack Tevens... Jack Tevens...
Great.
And then he would split his britches for you.
That's what he would say.
I don't know.
When I was in that position, I feel great.
I got to say, our great leader, I don't know, was there.
Remember, we did it right in his office.
He sat in his chair just going, and he said, well, he was more experienced.
He was clever and all that.
He went that way.
I think if we had played it the other way, we could have gone safer.
What do you think?
Or a rusk.
No, we could have gone a rusk.
Couldn't have gone a rusk.
My God, Mr. Howard.
Howard couldn't win a second time around.
I get more and more people tell me, Mr. President, that the answer to the farm situation, we can do all the farm fares and all this, but the key thing is you have to make a change at the top over there and maybe make the secretary ambassador at large for exports or something, letting go around the world selling exports.
Well, the man that people talk to me about is Clarence Palmby.
He's your strongest man over there, so I'm told.
You know, he's really a number three man, but he's actually number two.
And he runs all over the world.
How about Bryce?
There you go.
If you do it.
There you go, Mr. President.
That and now.
They don't... Well, I think that would be first place.
And Palmby could help you a lot, Bryce.
You see, agriculture, I agree with most people.
Like I said, the agriculture here just today, and we're having an agriculture fair and all the rest.
The price that you need in agriculture is somebody that goes out and talks to the airline and reaches in.
And it says we're for them.
And we love them.
Right?
I do.
These are the great people.
I made a little talk to them.
I said, you know, I had a thought in my mind.
An old man, if you've never seen a man in this country before it was, before they went west,
That whole western part of the United States, including the south and southern western part of it, was called the Great American Desert.
And I said, now, then it became the Red Vest of the world.
It was called the Heartland of America.
And I said, now, you see people emptying out of there and the rest of it may again become the desert.
It's going to become the Great American Desert.
I made this particular point.
Not only is it the Heartland of America in terms of
But what I've been told repeatedly by different farm leaders and people is, Mr. President, they need PR, they need the Department of Agriculture.
I mean, they need to tell what they've done.
They have good points in the appointment.
They've done a lot of things.
But they're not getting out.
Not getting out.
And... Well...
If this guy were the ambassador for exports, and that would stop Palmby from running around the world.
See, Palmby is so important, but he's running around the world all the time himself when it's exports stuff.
Let him take over all that.
Let Palmby really be your man to help you with the nitty gritty.
But you need, you see, when you talk about a Palmby, or who's ours?
Campbell.
One of them being secretary.
Neither one of us has got any charisma.
They can't talk.
We need a talker.
Well, and you need a guy, see, the Congress would salute, that the Congress would go, would like.
Because they'll help sell you.
Right now, they're running from us in this area, aren't they, Bryce?
I mean, they're scared of us in the Indians.
Well, they're talking really arrogant stuff.
Now, the Secretary came in the other day with a number of little ideas of things that he wants done that would add onto the budget.
Yes, you hear about those, yeah.
How are they?
Well, Bryce and I were sitting in a meeting, and of course I like a lot of them, and I think maybe as long as we go in the hole, we might be able to go in the hole a little bit more.
But I don't think they could ever make the capital out of it.
I don't think the Secretary could ever make the capital out of it.
I think you need to do what he's talking about, some of what he's talking about.
What do you think, Bryce?
Do you think he really is in sales?
What happened?
He's a one-armed man.
Yeah, yeah.
I was married over to Daryl.
He wanted me to talk to him.
He said, well, I haven't talked to you in a second, have you?
Is he here?
He said, yeah.
He said, listen, I want you to look at this.
And, uh, and also, uh, I, uh, you got a chance, and I'm here to stay with us next week.
I don't want you to hear it.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Yes, sir.
It's been two and a half years since I've been in the office.
Couldn't even walk out of the office.
Yeah, well, it's cold.
It's cold.
The point is that he isn't Ezra's name, that's it.
You know Ezra.
This falls in our stead.
When you look at it, that's not what it is.
Thank you.
We've talked about it somewhat this morning, and Elliot's people have done some research, a little bit preliminary.
Elliot's got some material there.
And our people have two.
uh i can't say that as of the moment i can add a great deal more than what we talked about yesterday with the caveat that i think that we have to stop right here not let any more people go charge at penny castle review our status of the different types of
problems that we have there some you know that are education plans have been negotiated they're not in the courts most of them are in the courts and this is where the jurisdiction is proceed with whatever requisites are required the general feeling is that we're not going to have a great deal of application in the rural districts
problems will be in the cities where we have the heart of school, like school concept that they will be looking at.
And if there's one thing that we shouldn't allow
Our people are the opposition to what followed the concept that racial balance is now required and that blessing is now required at all levels.
You have that language in there, the ages of people and so forth and so on.
And we, I'm sure that that was done intentionally by the court.
so that what they were doing was sustaining the Charlotte concept that the concept of racial balance was something that you might look at in the desegregation process, which was not required.
Actually, what the court wrote on that was in defense of who Mecklenburg was.
Mecklenburg was known as the judge in the defense of this ultimate conclusion, because he did talk about the ratios.
And again, we have to, as I say, the busted concept is that largely it relates to the younger students.
It's obvious that that's put in there for a particular purpose.
It also sets distances, I guess.
Yes, but as I point out, we shouldn't be allowed, we shouldn't allow anybody to push us into a concept that this is a racial-balanced decision or a tax-free process.
Trust me.
Any other questions?
Well, I have a few views about it that I really feel strongly about.
It will be the administration's decision.
They will run contrary to some of your people's views and some of yours as well.
So you probably may as well understand what they are.
In the first place, this will not be for you to hear, but some of this has been on record for 20 years against what I think is the hypocrisy of the norm.
This is an area where there was no hypocrisy.
And that means that I don't want any more expressions in this administration with regard to Ms. Dennis' riddle column position there.
Incredible position.
Before the court acted, then we were in a position to say exactly what we did, not that the courts acted.
We cannot, in one sense, say, of course we're not going to apply one standard to the South and another standard to the North.
I have no idea.
I'm not suggesting we won't support it.
I'm just simply saying I don't want us to be in a critical position and say, oh, we're against this because maybe it's going to kill our school bill.
So be it.
Steve Hill will be killed.
He isn't going to be killed, as a matter of fact.
I cannot stand up for the press conferences and take the position that I think the South want to do this and that, because it has a long record of legal discrimination.
But in the North, where only 28% of all black children, the moderate majority white students,
And whereas in the South, 38% of our advice rules that in the North, we should have a different rule.
So, point one, the rule is the same nationwide, North and South.
And I want AGWR Justice to go rushing around with Pastor Deacon and Westchester and the rest, and use the funds for their purposes.
There are buses to haul kids that are here.
And from what we say, I do not want the position taken just strictly on this bill.
Taking legal ground, well, we have to take a position.
There is, there is, Mr. President, a joyous coincidence.
There is a major difference, north and south, with respect to our powers.
Of course, under Title VI of the Act, we enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment.
And this means, therefore, that in the north, we have a glorious process, in every instance, where we
inquire into the situation at all of proving that the pattern of segregated education derives from official action.
Oh, I have to do it myself.
No, I have to.
You're exactly right on that.
And I'm not talking about what you do.
I'm just talking about what you say.
The moment that you get into that business world, that you can say, well, there's a very difficult problem of proof in the dark because this is the 14th Amendment.
But as far as the principle is concerned, we treat this as one country.
and one principle.
That's what I want to say.
That's what I want to say.
I don't want people in the administration to say, no, you can have as you do 75% of the black children in the north going to all black schools.
In the south, you have 15% of the black children in the south going to all black schools.
That's wrong.
wrong to solve that's what my point is and i and i just want to say i don't care much to do anything about it because i think it's wrong to do i i would have gone down this whole line to begin with in retrospect because i i think it's uh created such problems but i just want the principle of it i don't want us to be in the position we can send the city i don't mind there is a problem let's not want the administration romping up and down the halls of the senate
say that we're going to treat the South differently than the North.
Right, right.
Look here, we've got Stannis and all that.
I don't want anything publicly said that we are taking a decision that treats the South differently than the North.
That's the thing.
As far as I'm concerned, now that the Court has acted, the North is going to be treated exactly the same way to the extent that the law allows.
And it's hypocrisy to the effect, well, we'll use our bid and a half for the purpose of integrating the southern schools and paying all attention to the northern schools that are far more segregated.
But of course, the application of money goes to the, you know, to buy the buses and stuff.
Under the law, you can't do it.
The other point that I wondered, I think is very important, is that it goes back to how
the situation that we went through last summer.
You know, we had a very strong advocacy in the administration.
I understood all the people that wanted us to go rip-roaring around, you know, drive the horses down through the south and force these backward people
to comply with the law.
We didn't do it that way.
We tried to do it as we thought responsible statesman-led way.
We did it in cooperation with some senators.
It hasn't gone as far as the court now requires it to go.
We understand that.
But it was a remarkable step to solve.
And the way they can argue this, and I've seen all the statistics, is now 50% more integrated than ours.
50% more integrated than ours.
Because desegregating, resegregating, that's the thing.
All right, we did it.
Now, at this time, as a result of this Supreme Court decision, I can't express too strongly my view that I want, I want, oh, I want, I want absolute discipline.
in the Justice Department and in HEW.
And actually, the White House is to say the hell out of everything.
But I'm absolutely disciplined with regard to taking the initiatives that some pipsqueak bureaucrat thinks should be taken with regard to enforcing what he thinks is the Court's opinion.
We do not yet know how the opinion is going to shape up.
Because really, what this gets down to is
In individual cases and individual cases, it's going to depend upon such factors as the age of the children, the distance that is involved, and other factors.
And I want those decisions made by courts.
I don't want them made by VGW bureaucrats, and I don't want them made by your bureaucrats.
And I think that's the best way to do it, too.
We have a very explosive situation going on in the South.
It's going to raise holy hell after all we've done.
All right, we'll do it.
We'll take it on.
But one way we can cool it to an extent is not to have a double standard.
So I emphasize again, I don't want to, I'm not suggesting in any way that you or anybody else do anything about the Norton, the segregated cases.
Don't take the position that the Norton should be treated differently than the South.
Stay out of the river cough.
Just stay out of the debate.
That's their problem.
I mean, don't try to be a big hero there.
Don't let us try to be.
The other thing is, with regard to carrying out this court's decree, this is a matter for the courts to decide in individual districts.
depending upon the circumstances.
And I think the decision should be made that way.
And I say that because I believe that if this is not the political consequences I'm concerned about, it would be bad enough with the courts doing it.
But if we go rushing down there into the South, we're going to have a damn revolution there.
And we're going to have senators and others that are only support on some of the issues that are going to have to be served.
So fine, the court has now spoken.
This is a matter for the courts to carry out.
There will be cases, of course, where I understand where the Justice Department and the HW people are called on.
But no initiative can be done.
We are simply due.
comply with the law, but it is not our responsibility to go running around saying, no, we have a new mandate to go down and put the South around hidden shelters.
It's been wrong to do it in the past, and God damn it, it's not going to be done now, as long as I'm here.
Mr. President, we do have a problem, which I think I ought to identify in this context, though, because this is a very real one, and I think it needs to go through what we are going to handle.
The Department of AGW in recent years has negotiated a great many voluntary plans with districts.
And in the last six months preceding this,
Current school year, we negotiate something like 300 plans.
And the terms of the plans
were based upon what we understood the law of being about.
Of course, your memorandum of March 24, 1969, set this forth in quite what was the 70, in very comprehensive terms.
And that served, in effect, as the base for the principles that were incorporated in these involuntary negotiating plans.
probably now faces, under these decisions, what effect they have on the provisions of those plans.
Since they, by definition, they were voluntarily a bookish agency,
These are not districts that are operating under a court order, and therefore there is no district court that has current jurisdiction.
And so a lawsuit would have to be initiated in order to make it a court's business to apply the decisions handed down yesterday.
It seems to me that we've got to consider what it is we ought to do in those districts.
It seems that we've got to determine where the line is between
what the Supreme Court permitted in sustaining the equity power of Judge Miller in the Charles Mecklenburg case, and what the Court required in overturning the Fifth Court Circuit in the Mobile case.
I don't, on the basis of seeing how we can stay out of contact with these school districts,
Well, if we didn't go then, we'd be coming to us to ask what we think the court requires of them.
And I think we do need to work with John Mitchell, his civil rights division, and our people in a very careful analysis of the cases.
I think we need to involve our certain state advisory committees
in the enlistment of what is in effect a consensus as to what are the kinds of situations that need to be revamped and whether, and it may be that in some cases if we handle this carefully and have a real dialogue about it, that the school systems will themselves come forward with modifications of their present plans in order to
two accommodations are rough and that means look at it just as yesterday suggested we may be dealing with somewhere between 50, at least it would be involved somewhere between 50 and 100 districts.
How about 300?
Well, out of the 300 recently negotiated, the number of, I think, of voluntarily negotiated plans that have been or are being carried out is
If I start to recall something like five or six hundred.
So that it...
Voluntary.
There are seventeen hundred and sixty districts in the eleven southern states.
So that we're talking seventeen hundred and sixty.
So we're not in any case, as John Bishop said a moment ago,
The South, fortunately, has apparently few large cities.
The problems that we now have are the larger communities where, as he also said, there do exist the bigger concentrations of black pupils.
In the rural and small town districts, this decision is not going to have any real impact because their plans have eliminated
all black schools.
And so it isn't in this range of communities.
I think it's, I think what we, we can have an initial phase in which we are carefully examining what the decisions mean.
We can establish through our
are advisory committees through the university centers that are administered under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, through the Office of Education, and they're not going to be educational policies and questions of what this requires and so on.
I think we'll put into this conversation, because it's certainly one other point,
As you know, we transferred all these into the courts, right, that we could.
The courts weren't completely stupid.
They called and ordered in ATW to provide plans.
So even though you have that limited number negotiated, we may look forward to the courts
calling upon each other for assistance in providing plans, which brings the heat right back to the federal government when the plan gets into dispute.
ideas that can be made or avoid that one of these decisions or we'll we'll be right back into that project the problems arise because of that particular zoning or busing or whatever may be recommended in a particular plan so i think this is something again where we've got to give mature consideration to make sure that if it's
possible to do so.
But let the court make the determinations under this decision.
I'm not sure it's going to be that way, because they may order the HEW back in until after we pass.
But it is a point where we're not able to structure the concepts of HEW's recommendations so that you don't tear up the patient in there.
I think the first thing is to say that, to the greatest extent possible, justice, ACW, and particularly the people down the line, the situation is highly explosive.
And I wanted to just say one thing, we're going to rely on the law, but what role that depends, we're looking at the situation.
And that must be enforced rigidly.
Anybody who breaks that in a GWR justice will be fired.
Is that clear?
Fire?
His ass is out of here.
And if he breaks it, and if he's a civil service man, fire him anyway.
Now, we're not going to have anything said on this.
The second point is that with regard to the...
What we do, I know that there will be cases, I'll ask you to say, where you have negotiated the plan.
However, the renegotiation of that plan is to be taken by others.
I don't want AGWs to go running around all over the South Island saying that we negotiated the plan.
We don't make this in compliance.
You guys are not the judges.
In this instance, if there are, the NAACP or somebody else wants to come in and say this plan or that plan should be changed, fine.
and come in and say, I don't want any initiative undertaken by HEW or by justice to go in and break up the plan.
Let it come.
You will cooperate if the courts order you to cooperate.
And that's what will happen, of course, with some of these.
Some of the suit will be brought and say the voluntary plan does not comply with the court.
And then you'll go in.
But unless you are requested to come in to the federal court, the order is referred to by one of our citizens' groups, one of our citizens' groups, which are responsible.
I just do not want us as the federal government in this highly explosive area trying to be heroic and rush down there and take it south around.
First, you're not going to do the dingoes any good this way, and second,
I don't think that he would cause such a chance that he got me in justice service in his life.
We all have to comply with the court order.
What I particularly am afraid of is, and I know the pressure you're going to get, the press is going to descend on you and all the rest and say, now, this call that's been eaten here at the White House, God, they sent in a recommendation here to me for a statement.
This is a landmark, historic, great decision by the courts.
I refuse to street it.
I said, I developed a statement which is different.
Of course, it happens.
This decision was not in accordance with my thinking.
I disagree with the decision.
Everybody knows that.
I can't be so hypocritical and say, well, get out in front on what has been done.
For what reason?
Why show yourself to be a goddamn hypocrite?
I don't have an agreement with the decision.
So having moved the vote, the court has spoken.
We will comply.
HBW, Justice and Arrest will do everything that the law requires, but you initiate nothing.
That's the point that I made.
And in terms of this, of these districts, I...
voluntary agreements, get the suits written off.
How do you keep one in history?
And it also, excuse me, could I ask a question about these plans?
Do they expire in a period of time, or are they permanent unless mutually revoked?
No, they're permanent.
And one of the most significant paragraphs in the opinion is the last take, which in effect the court says that a district that has
taken every action that is necessary or reasonable in order to eradicate the messages of
of officially required segregation does have to keep updating its actions because, in effect, what he's saying is that the court, the district, then requires the same situation as any district anywhere else in the country may have segregated schools, but nonetheless,
not schools that are segregated because of official actions.
And this means, then, that the way that they have desegregation comes from white, so to call, into the suburbs or into white private schools.
That doesn't mean you have to draw additional lines all over again.
So the problem that remains now is a problem
applicable to communities where a plan was negotiated under a different concept of what the law required.
Well, but no, it can't be over presumption of validity as to those plans as a departmental policy or position.
Let me stand when somebody else makes an issue.
Yes, don't you think?
Yes.
Well, let me say this first.
I think the question is, look, you've only got so many people in your department.
You've got so many lawyers.
You just have to start studying.
And start studying for a long time.
And then determine, really, what you want to do.
But right now, I can't emphasize the importance of not indicating that you're all going to get on horseback and rush around down through the literature of the South and find some districts that we're going to change because the Court has spoken.
You've got to look into these things.
You've got to look into them.
But the, I think you're going to have plenty of, I think you should study the whole situation.
But I think in terms of these that have been negotiated, you just have to, naturally, you'll have to ask your questions on it.
You'll say, well, those are matters that have to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Some of those, many of those, we're studying those.
We'll look into them, and I believe that all will be compliant with the buzz about us.
I just don't want the initiative taken by the administration to remain.
make an already terribly difficult, explosive situation more difficult.
Now, this is what we did last summer, and it was right.
And most of our friends were strong civil rights, and the government thought it was wrong.
They wanted us to go in and kick hell out of the South.
I refused.
We did the right thing.
Now, I'm just saying, now we do the same thing now.
It may not work.
It may not work, but it has to go with the fact that we're
You can see the wallaces and all the rest stirring up the troops down there and the southern senators and congressmen and the rest.
The point is that let's don't make a bad situation worse.
And I don't want anybody to come here and tell me there's a lot of good politics in this.
for us to get in.
I'm not doing this for political reasons.
There may be good politics in to get in and get out in front and push the software out or these racists and all the rest.
To hell with the politics.
The main point is it's my responsibility to not let this country come apart.
And it's not going to come apart on this God damn issue and on this silly decision.
There is this to be said and said that to some extent, through these advisory committees we have and through a lot of people themselves who care about the educational system,
There is a role, I think, and some responsibility that can actually, for us to play, can actually contribute to the avoidance of difficulties by helping to work with them.
These are people, as George and I have seen in these meetings,
Well, I can't come to that.
I said two things.
I said one, it's a court action.
Or two, if one of our committees, in the case of this scenario, they want to look into, then cooperate in action.
What I am saying is, let's be the aggressor.
I don't want us to be the aggressors.
Our main purpose here is to take this out through this terribly agonizing experience.
uh in a way that will uh uh not uh just full of hate for the whole system that's what i would be concerned about the dogs will begin this yelp again in the songs resolve this
There's going to be y'all.
And get to these people.
I have no, I think if you or John, for example, talk to our Citizens Committee, we've got a call problem in the state.
Excellent.
That's fine.
The Citizens Committee is the best thing we've done in this field.
And it worked.
I think they made quite a contribution.
What I am saying is that I don't want AGW or Justice Department support to go down to have press conferences.
They have none.
The only people that are to speak on the issue are the Attorney General and the H.E.W.
Secretary.
Nobody else is on there to say a goddamn word.
The first one that does is fire.
And that, I repeat, fire.
It's terribly important that we not make a bad situation worse.
And it's bad.
And we'll comply.
I'm for the compliance.
We'll comply.
We'll see that the court is good.
and spend a billion and a half on buses, we'll do anything that they want.
But the point is that there's no reason, I don't want us to try to make, to have any illusions that anything, that we're going to be held by appearing to be great, great vigorous, you know, principle like jazz.
That great principle of man, you know.
And he said when it affects Leicester, Nassau, Berkman Heights, different.
And that, when we go back, you referred earlier to the Rybakov and Tennyson amendments,
He voted on the day.
It comes up at 1 o'clock.
Well, I don't know if he voted on it right away, but at least he did.
And I've talked to Jeff.
He drank all of a sudden.
Well, he did.
He's trying to preserve.
I think this is genuine.
I negotiated a compromise on the administration's bill with Tell Monday.
I think this was an okay compromise.
It is now really out of hand.
I had a talk to Len Garland, and he brought it up to me earlier this morning.
What I plan to do
I thought I would bring it up now.
Sure, sure.
Was to write a letter to probably to Williamson's chairman, and probably as chairman and ranking member of the Education Subcommittee, saying, in fact, this is a hell of a way to run railroad, but not dealing with the merits of the River Cop Amendment.
It would not in any case take effect until after the
two-year emergency period of the legislation before you, the mechanics of that legislation, the way in which money would be used and how it would be distributed, had a lot of thought.
And there's plenty of time to think this will improve as it applies to any longer-term program.
To avoid addressing the merits, it's entirely good in effect to say that we think it's wrong to add it on.
I don't want to take a position on that.
Nobody, no matter how you state that, it's going to be interpreted as treating the North differently than the South.
The amendment is...
I don't want the administration to get into a position saying, in fact, well, the court has now spoken, and now we're saying we reject applying to the North the same thing that you said.
So the court is applying to the South.
I just view it as...
If you've committed to writing a letter to a friend,
I don't want to put you in a spot.
Let's say, I have suggested, asked if I would write it.
I said I would take it under advisement, and the result of that, it was brought up this morning, and it so happened that
A long story, Steve.
During my staff meeting this morning, which was, as it turned out, addressed by Attorney General Mitchell, I had the legislature to call Jeff and tell him that you were writing a letter.
Oh, I see.
But it turned out you can't get on the staff.
Of course.
What does it do?
You got the bill through, was that the point?
I think the problem is with the amendment of the bill.
A lot of southerners will vote and afford to amend the bill and then vote against the bill on the time of passage.
I think they will now.
I think they will now.
I guess that's for sure, but I don't know if we're going to vote for it or not.
Well, certainly, certainly, that would have hurt.
That would have hurt.
They would have done it yesterday, but I don't think today.
The senator of our state committee, Senator Clark Watson, the chief economist, again, they want the money.
The community wants the money, but the senators, they're free.
And they think they're voting for integration, funding of integration.
And I'm in a fight with us, having to do posters, seeing what's happening.
I always tell them to start to write.
And they'll put in the amendment, and the vote makes the vote.
I don't have any kind of head count.
No, I don't.
Well, I think the real question is, you know, if the letter is interpreted as meaning in a sense of what is, how what we do is interpreted.
on the face of the proposition that a 10-year bill shouldn't be tacked on top of a two-year bill, a $20 million bill shouldn't be tacked on top of a billion-and-a-half bill without any hearings, or a real consideration of the ways in which the money you use is used in house, student, and so on.
It doesn't perfectly balance the entire proposition.
The only question I can answer is whether it gets across.
You see, I just don't want to have anything said at this time in the world.
What's going on with us?
I mean, in fact, it's tough.
And I know all the constitutional arguments.
There's just the fact that the jury and so forth, forthwith, will be creative in that context that your letter is trying to take on in some great extent.
Now, let's see.
If you would say that there are two separate issues here.
One is the issue of dis-amending.
In fact, what applies to that, what do you call it, is that you are not taking any decisions.
Thank you for saying that because it is not the matter which drew you before you, the matter meeting you before you is the matter of this emergency date.
That you feel it should be separated from the amount you're thinking.
Thank you for watching for us.
That's where he wants to treat himself in the North.
I am too.
So you think that, you see how it's a problem.
Yes, I do.
I, uh, I don't want to put him in a position where I haven't told him something's been right or he doesn't.
That'd be the way to do it.
That'd be the very point I just said.
It's the very...
He's trying something.
Yeah.
Well, the fact is I can't control it.
I'm struggling.
I don't do it.
Is that it?
In a cell?
Yeah.
A man in this situation strikes me.
After having been led painfully through the fingers by Georgians and everybody here in these meetings and all these people, I spent all my years in the world walking barefoot through the vessels.
To the end of my life, they've been led out of this patch.
They've all refused to let me go again.
And in all the rest of the country, no problem at all.
Thank you.
That's the feeling.
That's the problem.
There's a massive discriminatory act being performed against the South, really.
And it's so obvious.
There isn't even an argument.
That's so, you know, that's what they argue.
And of course, if I'm not a technical leader, what do you technically do?
That's our problem.
As lawyers, we understand that.
And that's what Berger's face is painted on.
That's what Berger's trying to do.
in this court for a long time.
But it's a, no panel work, what really gets down to the numbers, let's look at burgers.
There was one very weak place, and we should not put this in, but it's a little bridge over there that they would have to examine in the future situations where there were all black schools.
All black schools.
I looked at the figures on that too this morning.
All black schools.
At the time, we came into office, 80%, 86% of all black kids and stuff were in all black schools.
Today, 15% are in all black schools.
or 50% are in all black schools.
Now what the hell are we talking about?
Oh, the government.
You try to tell that to them.
That's all you're talking about.
That's all you're talking about.
You can just imagine the tremendous battle they had in that court.
Four out of nine wanted to remove the executive sheriff exemption.
Why don't we go to the river, which we've really been more honest with.
As a matter of fact, I can point out that that was the most fateful decision.
I think that in terms of this discrimination against the South, that is the way it's going to be played throughout the South.
And I can finally think that they would have been better off just to sit at home.
All over the country we're gonna get busy, boys.
What the hell, anyway, Goosey caught me up, you know, just saying.
Good American motors will start making buses.
One way to say that.
I think L.A. is in a spot here, though, I think that if you could do it in a very low-key way,
What do you think, John?
Maybe you should write a very, very low-key way to say, I mean, many points.
I don't know.
Well, I felt, Mr. President, you see, I thought, well, I don't know.
Yeah.
I guess because I know I'm going to be asked a lot of questions, but I have a perspective.
One thing that would be pointed out is that, say, like this, that
I think before you listen, today these legislations can assist in carrying out the process of desegregation itself and so on.
as well, that there is a need to .
And the legislation, in fact, I think, does apply to the North.
It's nothing like this.
Take the point of any legislation that can assist in the process of desegregation, North as well as South.
We know from the experience of our .
plan that the bill before you has had careful consideration and has been subject to a debate.
without reaching at this time the question of the merits of the Rivikov Amendment, which in any event would not take effect until after the expiration of the period covered by the emergency school aid legislation.
forward with the end of the bill and consider it as an interest of the Ribbentrop Amendment, rule it over in the process of hearings and so on, and then if you can't make it.
I think, uh, let me try this on.
You said there was a very serious report that sounded very much the way it's dealt with in the National Bureau of Public Health.
issues should be settled and considered on their hands.
The emergency school aid bill is one that is desperately needed, et cetera, et cetera.
On which this department is, at this time, not prepared to take a decision on the merits.
It is a matter, however, of high consequence that there should be
considered, what do you want to call it, a long range, at another, separately by the Senate, on its merits.
I'm just not impressed.
No, we don't like that.
What do you suggest?
I think this is kind of as close as you can.
I'll get into it.
I don't think there's any reason for him to do the same subject without the team out in the South.
deferring or opposing some of the front lines.
Well, I can see, I can see Elliott, who's renowned for his integrity in these matters.
That's right.
That's what's up.
Reagan and Kennedy.
They always praise our Kevin Hoskins.
Yes, sir.
And the right to...
I mean, it's a great invested group of people.
Kennedy, I heard at the start that that the...
In respect to the Stannis-Rudikoff proposals, I must say that it's very difficult to find the fundamental, what would you say, in the words of the manager next to you, the fundamental justice for the president in terms of the, that's basically, let me go back to your old State Department experience.
Why don't you, why don't you, as those who get a little pat on the back for the approach of that, that you believe that in considering the, that in considering the, in other words, make this basically the data of your opinion, in considering the, the, the, the, the, the, that, that you, that you can see, that, that you,
who believe that there should be an open-handed policy with regard to the matter of desegregation throughout the country, and that all, with all legal side, that we should not have, that the effective policy should not be one-way,
and the north in another way, and the south, that the south, that the south should be
that all sections of the country should in fact, as well as in law, should be treated in an even-handed way.
That is your general principle.
However, in your second paragraph, in this point, I think the student is going to fall.
Yeah, yeah, he is.
And it is true.
I have read that it was all a fault.
I can well understand, therefore, the support that this amendment has in the Senate from both darkeners and southerners.
who believe in an even-handed policy, which he believes in.
However, then you go on with the question, this is a matter that should be considered by the Senate on its merits, separately.
And the immediate, the legislation immediately before you would not be affected by this.
It should be considered in its merits and passed as quickly as possible because it deals with a special problem, not just some race.
Well, if it is the judgment, if it is your judgment, that would be... Don't look at it too much.
We haven't got a chance to submit nothing.
You would have jeopardized this other legislation.
Oh, yeah.
Then I'll say that the legislation is originally needed.
That's a good point.
That wouldn't be a disturbance.
I think you could speak a little practical policy.
Yes.
That is the, if you could say, the urgent necessity of passing the emergency school and the reports that we have that attach to this matter.
Clearly, apart from the merits of the amendment, which I have already given victim 100 people are expressing some collateral thoughts on.
I think that would be for that under the circumstances.
Therefore, I would urge that members of the Senate would consider this legislation and act on it and reject that in this context of this subject.
The idea that such a movement is going to impair this, is going to endanger this basic strategy, that if you pull aside from exploration,
That's what we believe.
We believe that the South should not be singled out.
I'm worried about a headline that says Nixon administration for desegregation.
That's an audience rule.
The follow up question to this is, does that mean you're not going to move against the fact of it?
That's the problem.
I think the president's basic posture here is, I must say, John, he's got a position in prison here.
That's critical, it seems to me, that there's no value in what he's doing, personally, to the county.
And that's the position he took in the county in 1968.
He's treated really well himself.
that he, in this area, he was going to see was going to be even-handedness in the future.
And this was a very powerful thing, not only the Bowling Lights Proposition, and this was a breath of just fresh air throughout the South.
Now, the way it's worked out is because of the legal issues, it hasn't worked quite like that.
That's how he was given the most of it.
And now it's just another one across the back on the heels of giving those children a piece of it.
Now, I think that the president's position should be palatable.
I am concerned about the even-handedness of these things.
We will carry out the statutes.
We will carry out the court decisions.
Obviously, it's my responsibility as president.
But I have become deeply concerned in two respects.
One is to even-handle this subject.
And number two, the principle.
That's the principle we're trying to apply here.
And it should be applied nationwide.
if it's to be addressed.
Do you want to fight that and take a vote?
Let me say this, that I think they're pointing the trigger.
I didn't expect them to go that far, but I see we have them.
You know how to write this.
We cannot be in a position where the next step has gotten people now, I don't want to call them the most anxious,
Now, I think what you should say in that first paragraph, when I say so, is that you can understand the
without, without, I am not, but that you believe that that is a matter that should be considered selfless in the Senate.
Well, I think that they have to understand that the sincerity or the, and so forth and so on.
I'm inclined to thank Christ and Jupiter.
We, we would have one hell of a time there because here's the thing.
I don't want the Attorney General and the Supreme Court arguing for the, for the integration of the Los Angeles County School District back to segregation.
That's what I'm afraid of here.
But none of that, I'm more afraid of the concept that the next administration for desegregation of all the schools will be the headline that you're going to get in the paper.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you signal, if you've got your heart lost to the rules?
Well, I was going very seriously on this.
I was going to say, as compared to you and me, it was going to be, we were going to focus on the procedural situation, the need for hearing, the fact that we had a bill, which does, which is an even-handed bill, does address the process of desegregation of school systems both across the South, and it would do so on an emergency basis and in a short time frame.
the question of what else needs to be done, if anything, in the long-ranged future.
And it should be considered separately, and with the same degree of care that has been devoted to this before you.
It would not apply to another factor.
I suppose that was enough.
It's their language without being even handed some of that language in to the picture in discussing the bill as it stands.
In the emergency, you have to build that aspect of it up, and that's why, I guess, if you could ever get that done, you could say our bill is as it was.
You could say the amendment, of course, is concerning all of you.
Well, you could say it would be if the, if the apparent affidavit of Senator Rookhouse understands to be, to assure you that it was necessarily a shooting, they would fear that this,
for now to interfere with this, uh, critically needed measure designed specifically to assure that you can handle this as well.
And I'm sure the Senate, the appropriate commission of the Senate would care to put the proper commission to give attention to you.
It won't be a tale at another time because of the tremendous, uh, consequences of your, uh, uh,
Actually, his statements regarding the fact of segregation was very addictive, wasn't it?
And therefore, the court still has open the possibility of Los Angeles gets the right John Lennon Roth.
Well, you're right from the technical point of view, wasn't it?
It was awfully strong.
Yeah.
I think there's the word economic and other...
He's so careful.
Yeah.
And I don't believe that this might be the plan of the country.
It might be the whole thing.
I don't...
This is what happened on the road to them.
What?
So I think this is because he was evil.
Too much evil, isn't it?
He would have had to invent some constitutional doctrine in which to say that there is a constitutional right for children to receive a desegregated education, or education in desegregated circumstances, no matter what was the process by which they came to live in a segregated community.
Well, has any constitutional doctrine ever been a problem for the Supreme Court?
Well, except you have... No, that's very unfortunate.
You've got to get a strict construction.
All right, all right.
I've got a pair of seasoned ping-pong players.
Anybody want to see the ping-pong?
Well, I was going to say, Elliot, having discussed all this with you and John, I think you more than John, but you've got to help.
You've got to help Tom, and I know that, too.
You've got to be very sincere.
You've got to punish yourself.
No, I don't think that's a problem.
You don't think you've got to change it.
Well, I know that we do have it to a degree, but I think the process of the last six months is so long that there has been...
I think that...
the demonstration of what has been accomplished by policy and collaboration and so on has had some effect.
And I think that we have a foundation in which we can
I think one of the things we need to do is discuss right away, following this, we don't even take time now, the question of how to use the advisory committees and so on.
Right.
And that kind of, and how to intend to that thing, you know.
Let me just reiterate, first of all, the vital importance of saying as little as possible about the decision.
You and John, you will have to say it, because both of you have to meet the press.
Your underlings do not need to.
And I would certainly try to keep them.
Just have them refer all the questions to the secretary.
Well, we're studying the matter, and I'm not going to go into it.
This is a very complicated matter that we will, of course, carry out the law.
What are we going to do if I'm not going to go into that matter?
You know, that sort of thing.
That's very important.
I've got to let Ellen say that, just to be sure.
Second, I think it's very important, Elliot, for you and John, again,
You and your people there, when I say study, I already mean study.
Study and just find out what we really have to do and do only what the law requires, having in mind the fact that we'll have to do more as time goes on, but recognizing that doing what the law requires is going to cause a lot of heartache and agony.
The south's come a long way, and so let's do just what it requires, but don't borrow any trouble.
But I think here's where you and John are going to have to exert great leadership in your department.
As far as the bios is concerned, John, Ervin, I've got that, but I don't want any of our people over here, who are also, I know, very honestly and sincerely, you know, maybe on one kick or another, I don't want them to interfere with this line.
It's to be one of...
finding out what the law is, but applying the principle that worked so successfully last summer, and we're gonna try to cooperate with the South, we're gonna work with the South on an understanding with them.
That's really what we wanna do here.
And I think what we say is so important because those damn southern, it's not only the southern papers, but it's the southern demagogues.
You see, we have a different situation now.
Genomic walls in front of the southern senators.
And just every time anybody says anything, they all rant and rave around and say, well, the administration is out to punish the south.
That's what we want to avoid.
Don't give them any headlines.
if you could possibly avoid it.
Do something, do whatever is necessary.
We're going to do this, but we're out to cooperate.
I think that also in your public statement, Elliot, that you make, John, that you make, if I'm asked about it, I'm going to say it.
I'm going to say this.
I'm going to point out that the South deserves a great deal of credit for the massive strides they've made to deal with this terrible, controversial problem.
So let's not overlook that.
point out that the South at the present time has already, at least as a result of the cooperation of people that believe in flying with the law, is more integrated, or more desegregated, I guess is the word, than they are.
Now, that's not over with, in fact.
Now, the court requires that in some districts, and this is only by some districts, in some cities,
that there be a different action taken, but this action is going to be taken through cooperation, not piety, not coercive, not vindictive, not singling out, but, you know, I tell you what they need, they need some compassion and understanding at this time.
And then they'll come a lot further than they will than if you rock around on them.
The way, let's face it, that Chavis and others want to wrap around on Chavis, sure, he may want to help us on here.
You ever hear the next speech in New York?
Christy, as we talked about, Secretary of State, I saw he's taking the Mississippi and all those terrible southerners.
I just, I just understand a lot of our, a lot of our partners and senators have been already running against the South all the time.
One of them just found, it's a countdown, this is later, is going to attack Jets.
Yeah.
And the thing is, of course, is Sir Johnson,
I have here a letter expressing the active opposition of the Nixon administration to this job.
That's the Southland section.
And that's what I...
I personally...
I personally...
It could be worked out...
Well, I think that's it.
Here's your very best judgment and, uh, on it, I, uh, but, but you see, I, but you see, right, he has made a, he's told them he's going to give them one, that's what I mean, and, and I, and I would, too.
But if you were to, if you were to find a way to annex it, I just say, I don't want to see a charge of, uh, now, whatever, a week from now, I wouldn't bother to call.
Right today, the day after this decision, the next administration opposes the Senate, they'll call it the Senate Senate.
I'll give you one other bit of information.
Speaking of coincidences between the Supreme Court decision yesterday and the Senate action on this legislation today, it so happens that
Several months ago I accepted an invitation to speak to the NAACP Inc. Fund tonight.
Great, great.
The new president of the Inc. Fund is Bill Coleman of Philadelphia, who's now the President of the Productivity Commission.
With whom I served as a Frankfort law clerk in 1948-49 at Good Church.
So when he was to be brought in as president of the Inc. Fund, I was asked if I would come and speak.
And I've since talked with members of your staff who have felt that, you know, this is a good opportunity for us to put a, you know, to educate them that we would have done a hell of a job in this area with some of these, you know, .
But I strongly just say that on that one,
But there, you're speaking, if you will, as the partner attorney general of your state, Lieutenant Governor, and the partner undersecretary of state, now on the highest level of the Senate.
Just talk to them straight, because these are rational, upbeat liberals.
Let's not be hypocritical about this, but there have been people running for political office in the North for many years that run against the South.
They run against the South.
And that's no way to get progress here.
The jury segregation in the South is wrong.
I mean, you can say that, of course.
The courts are so held and so forth.
But is it not time, ladies and gentlemen, for us not to recognize, why the national media, I said, why they have not recognized the enormous strides that have been made by us voluntarily, voluntarily to deal with this problem.
And then those figures, I don't know if I know for sure.
38% versus 28% of the North, in all majority white schools, 38 black, 38% of the blacks in the South are all majority black.
There are 21, 28% of the blacks in the North in all white schools.
Think a little of that.
This shows you what cooperation, goodwill, et cetera, will do.
And then I think you can carry it on there.
Right on that.
We need the same spirit to try and get cooperation, goodwill, and getting jobs, and getting promotions, and getting an art enterprise in the handling of women.
you know all sorts of things like that in the appointments in government that that is that we can get a lot further that way than than frankly engaging in the classic into the message as a matter of fact you may not want to say this but i have said and i will say it again i think one of the really disgraceful aspects of american
politics, both parties, Republican and Democratic Party for the last 100 years, is the way that both parties have demagogued in the race issue.
The demagoguery in the race issue, it has not said they have used, they have demagogued, they have written fantastic, beautiful rhetoric into their platforms and then turned their backs on them, or they have used the race issue rather than try to solve the issue.
And our interest, and the way to solve it, is not to use it, not to exploit it.
The way to solve it is to get men and goodwill.
You might tell, for example, how if you stood in a room here where some people don't know this, you'd read about all the public meetings.
I've had different groups here in the White House.
And I talk to them, you know, as far as, you know, look, let's get together and do this.
Now, here's what's happened as a result.
It's quite an achievement.
I think a little of that personalizing could be.
that we are, we want to, we want progress, we want to make it, but the progress is going to take simply by handing down the decision.
The decision has been handed down.
The implementing of that decision, if it's going to be implemented in spirit as well as a letter, it's going to be implemented by getting cooperation other than coercion.
Cooperation means implementing a decision in its spirit, and coercion means implementing a decision only in its latter.
And it's the latter that we're, the first that we're for.
Little that, Chas, these guys are here.
But you think so?
And it's true.
It happens to be true.
And you could say that it applies to law and so forth.
We're all from the NAACP and Robbie Wilkins and all the rest of the sailors.
We're just working on satisfying Harlow and Schultz together.
If we can't do that, we know what to do.
We'll make you, let's see, somebody can't get any more job opportunities.
You know, that's a big, that's a hard job.
The economy has a lot of work on it now, right?
HR wants your job through.
I mean, that's such a good sound.
We should create a force.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I mean, it's probably, I mean, there's not a lot of talk about it.
It's on the girls' side, and it's getting, you know, what are they going to do?
They have this money, you know.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to tell anybody.
I don't want to tell anybody.
As far as we can tell, they're going to come around.
Are they so sick about this?
Oh, yes.
Well, they did.
And one of the few things here and there, they're all things in which we should come back through this process here.
Good luck with that.
Well, you did good with it.
We're conservatives.
You see, we needed to get us duties.
As a matter of fact, this appeal holds if you read it.
But I was ready to read it, but I made some problems.
This is the heart of it, and I know you're the heart of it.
We're always down to get us together.
These are the Southern Americans.
Those are the problems.
You know, I can say
privacy of this office.
But we're really fortunate to have a man who appreciates his quality in this job.
And first, he's smart enough to understand everything.
And second, we know he may have disagreements with the new rights in a little while.
I asked who the hell could do it, and I said, uh, she just said Marty.
And you said, no, she's using MLB.
And, uh, if you would call Margaret, it would be better.
Question?
Margaret's been spread pieces, but it can be done.
See, he still has his little staff left over from the, uh, uh, committee.
John, uh, the thing that I'd like to ask about here is, is, uh, let's face it, it's, uh, it's, as you know, uh, a lowly witness.
There's nothing there for anybody.
Don't, uh, don't let's, don't let's go right now.
I mean, I couldn't have achieved it.
Well, it was completely opposite of what I'd seen.
The credit runs the other way, it seems to me.
All over the South, they know where you are.
Yeah.
Well, and if you were out in front of this thing now, you would get any credit with it.
Well, anyway, well, listen, there's no credit.
Now, incidentally, I agree with what Johnson said.
I spoke to Johnson about it.
You can't go too far in terms of the Rybnikov thing, because then it would be segregated into the north, and that's a can of worms.
So this is where the trough is now.
And that would be just like Poland and Russia.
Once we start down that road, then we'd be lost in it.
There's no way it might ever happen.
Well, the thing I was talking to John about was our, he is on veterans out here, Paul.
Oh, yeah.
Berger has stayed for the rest of his life.
Why didn't he go to U.S.?
I guess.
Oh, I don't mind.
I understand his decision here.
I would agree with it, but Bertram wanted to keep his course together.
I think that's what I was, too.
Yes.
Wasn't that it?
Well, I mean, the course might have kept Bertram going first.
That's where I'm from.
Not with my senses.
Well, the thing that I would like John to insist, and I don't know whether your department wants to do it or Earl's,
What Terry Bennett said would be extremely helpful to him, and I worked out the format, what the decision does not require and what it does on one page.
And what it does not is very significant.
It does not require racial violence.
It does not require busing and all that stuff.
It does not require any introduction.
Get around through the zone.
You can't ask, because you're in high school.
Schools are good.
Small high schools.
Who'd make this up in a hemorrhagic way?
But let's have the research done.
All right.
Well, don't give us a long paper.
We're going to get it down to a page and a half.
See?
And then have it sent out.
Not by justice.
Send it to the White House.
We'll have somebody outside to send it out.
Now, what about the Vietnam veterans?
Well, they have four o'clock today on the day of the quarter.
We have the right to go in and bust them out of there.
Well, they don't care.
They don't have any money at all to knock down.
Oh, well, I'm concerned this way.
We're coming up the sack.
And I would prefer leaving that to slide by.
Let me point out why this is going on.
The Randy Davis terrorist groups
are asking for us to go into Rock Creek Park.
And this, with any numbers down there, whether they're potting us, would be a hell of a problem.
And of course, whether it's the mall or Rock Creek Park or whatever it is, it's the same situation.
And the only legal approach we had to it was this particular proceeding in order to get this sorted.
Now, there aren't so many veterans down here that's going to make a hell of a lot of difference.
And this is their last day, isn't it?
So I know they're staying.
Where are they going to stay all day?
Well, even there.
Well, we can't get a corridor and then ignore it.
So we're going to have to fuzz at some point.
We'll have the police go in and invite them out.
So we'll have to rouse them up and carry them out.
Now, this is a matter of time.
John, ignore it as much as you can.
Well, you know, Kirsten, Kirsten, well, it's not just the veterans.
There's a terrorist group that's coming in.
Well, no.
They're in Rock Creek Park.
They drove a few rocks into Georgetown.
Well, you know, Kirsten, bear with John.
You know what's happening.
You come on TV, and the governor's getting up and saying, I'm proud of you.
You're the finest body.
I'm wonderful to be associated with you.
Then they come to these guys, and they're shaking, and they're stretching themselves, and they've got girls running around in there.
I mean, they're running themselves.
I don't know.
Oh, they look terrible.
In addition to that, there's actually a business story coming out.
I've understood that a lot of them are not perfect.
There's a business story coming out.
There was a thing that got started last night about a woman in a song and all this stuff.
I really think...
Let me ask you for once, don't fall into the corner of the police.
Just find a way to have the police around or something.
For Christ's sake, sleep in there.
Let them hear you.
you do that well it's just going to come down our problem could you could you rationalize and just say well this was so near the end of their three days or four days that uh of course stay in common time for us and uh slightly i'd say that this doesn't cost too impressive the in other words we take uh
The Supreme Court will go ahead and hear these two out.
One thing, I know one of them is to be seized physically.
Don't let anybody get a picture of anybody being picked up bodily, of anybody being moved bodily.
If they're invited out, it's fine.
I think if you could go in and say, gentlemen, here's a court order and serve it on them, and if they don't follow it, then you've got to consider what you do.
We can do it that way, or we can do it any way we'd say.
That's why I say we're not done with the problems that are ongoing.
I think in this instance, I just, the worst thing that could happen to us now is to pick up some poor guy.
We think heroes are what are now pretty cramped people.
This is what I told Clint last night.
Randy Clark is their lawyer.
You get Randy Clark to go down there and tell him to get the hell out.
He did.
I've seen the picture of it.
Yes, but yeah.
He said he wanted to stay the night.
He said he'd stay the night and we'll see about it tomorrow.
Well, there he is.
Yeah.
In the paper this morning.
God!
My!
Fuck the Christmas!
Fuck!
before the whole court this morning.
Well, he said that may be the out of course.
Yeah.
Mr. President, one other thing, and that is that at your instruction we sent this, Captain Davis' letter, you know, these two judge advocates, over to Sam Rieser with Iraq, whether or not it's him to reply on your behalf.
He's now sent it back and said he is going to do it, that he too is a reviewing officer in the process.
And he doesn't think it would be appropriate for him to reply to these fellows.
He's prepared a draft reply, which he likes better than to pass him on the ass.
And wishes Captain Davis well in his future career.
So, we've got several ways we can go.
In fact, we could have the General Counsel of the Department of Defense answer your behalf.
He's not at the chain of command, or something of that kind.
Or you could have your counsel here.
But don't make a big thing out of it.
I think we've been accused of that.
Well, that's right.
We've been accused of it.
Don't make a big thing out of it.
And that reader's ass is out of there July 1st, right?
I hope so.
I hope so.
that Ziegler said that the guys would get some sort of an acknowledgement.
Well, I just simply, I simply, I would, as a matter of fact, I simply acknowledge, maybe just a curse, we have, there will be a few letters that have been brought to the attention of the President, and he will have them under consideration, as a matter of consideration, as a reviewing officer, he of course cannot respond on the merits, period.
Why don't you just say that?
Sorry?
Just about a three-line letter, the lowest possible.
The most possible letter, that is the President cannot do it as a reviewing officer cannot.
It will be brought to his attention as a reviewing officer.
He, of course, would not be able to comment upon the merits.
The other thing, John, I really meant when I say about this one thing.
Anybody who pops off on these school cases is getting fired.
We've got to fire some dirty people out of this government.
We've got to fire them.
We've got that fellow in San Francisco who turns out to be a Republican and he's a Democrat.
You know, he's a regional officer.
He's a good friend of Salvatore's.
Even though he's my brother, he's obviously a name-dropper kind of a judge.
But he's a total con.
Even that stupid ass that we had previously thought he should be fired, you know, that Salvo, the Mexican.
No, but Tuffy wants to.
But John, you're not going to get any discipline around here until somebody's here.
We'll put the lid on this one very clearly.
This lid's got to be on.
You make the statement.
And Elliot is very good, don't you think?
And John, I know you always keep to the message, but don't let the people down the line.
That's what gets us in trouble.
Our problem is going to be with the backgrounders and the law of the records and those kinds of things.
All right, on this, John, I think, to be perfectly frank, I mean, on the merits,
I think this decision is so complicated, it requires a long study.
Would you not agree?
Well, I agree with what the Mr. President mentioned.
It's clear that it applies district by district.
Yeah, right.
They said so.
And that's the thing to say.
If you will be sure to agree with Digger, he says, well, no more.
He says, I have nothing more to study than my art history.
But that's what it is now.
Yes, sir.
Right.