Conversation 517-025

TapeTape 517StartFriday, June 11, 1971 at 3:11 PMEndFriday, June 11, 1971 at 4:11 PMTape start time04:35:48Tape end time05:37:42ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Ehrlichman, John D.;  Nixon, Thelma C. ("Pat") (Ryan);  White House operator;  Bull, Stephen B.;  Richardson, Elliot L.Recording deviceOval Office

On June 11, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, Thelma C. ("Pat") (Ryan) Nixon, White House operator, Stephen B. Bull, and Elliot L. Richardson met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:11 pm to 4:11 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 517-025 of the White House Tapes.

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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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Bye.
There's a difference between what's been printed and what John Connolly has heard actually happen in the Democratic caucus.
He understands that the printed story, about the three and a half that fit into cities, is only part of the story.
and that they're going to come in also with $2 billion to state on Johnny Byrne's tax credit basis, or more or less an equivalent package, hedged about with the kind of special revenue sharing categorical limitations and a need formula.
Now, what that amounts to is special revenue sharing, pure and simple.
We've been talking about this today.
John Connolly feels strongly that we ought to stay out in front of the parade by writing Wilbur Mills and saying, we'll go for a need for him.
That's not a problem for us.
George is a little hesitant to do that.
There's a third route, which I kind of like, which is to leak that Wilbur Mills went to the Democratic caucus with a formula that George Shultz gave him.
So he gets mad.
I don't think we could be in any worse shape with him mad, you know.
What he's nice to us is what it hurts.
But I got a draft letter here that John O'Connelly did.
Yes, he's very disillusioned.
Now, here's Connolly's letter, and in effect it says, we know how to do this formula, and therefore I wish to communicate to you our interest in amending the general revenue sharing proposal, and our willingness to work with you and the committee regarding the allocation formula.
I do believe it's imperative to recognize the needs of states, cities, and towns.
I continue to hope that in the spirit of bipartisanship, we can produce a touch better result.
I do not have a vote against me.
I have a vote for Connolly.
and I have discussed this matter with the President and the rest of you.
Our interest is that we do not present our legislation to take a legal basis.
We want action.
There's going to be an honest evidence of opinion.
But this is a deep market limit.
The main one is can we get action?
But having covered him,
This was Jordan's problem, wasn't it?
That sounds fine to me.
Yeah, that's fine.
But I'll tell you, one reason I'd like to have a letter in existence is because we're going to be working the mayors all this weekend and next week in a
I'd like to have them be able to flash a letter that says, you know, we're still in the position of leadership.
They've come to us.
They're taking our plan.
And it's an administration victory.
And stick with us, boys.
Well, we have enough.
We're working the floor.
We're working the floor.
We're working America's plan.
How does it differ?
It isn't well thought through.
It isn't that.
has a very interesting analysis of the drawbacks.
The smaller communities are hurt badly by it.
Good.
And that's good to play to our constituency.
Well, I noticed Wilbur Mills could possibly be either the three and a half days alone because it gave nothing to the counties, nothing to the smaller communities, nothing to the states would have gotten that move.
Exactly.
I'm fighting on that to the death.
Let him be for the city.
We'll be for the states and counties.
It's our efficiency to get it there.
Yep.
He said, I just got to tell you, where an officer can be for an open rule on H.R.
1, he said it's a strange combination of the Negroes, the left-wingers, and the conservative Republicans, and also the idea that we all want to rule over a bill, so we don't want to have to deal with it now.
He said, second, in regard to H.R.
1, he said, we just cannot take advantage of it.
We've just got to start the damn thing out of there.
I don't want to talk to Schultz, sir, but I don't want to talk to, actually, to Richardson, indicating that we have departed from our position.
I'm not a Republican, but I just think from a political standpoint,
My gut reaction at this time is that, and equal to welfare, which is exactly what my family assistance does, is not a politically viable argument.
I don't think that, first, I don't think it's going to help serving with our constituency.
It could be a very, very bad.
But beyond that, and beyond the cost factor, it's not a bad thing.
It'll work.
I just have more doubts about it.
Maybe the cost factor is running into an arrest now.
So what do you come up with in HR?
Well, what you come up with is just basically more work requirement than you might get because we do have an empty shell, right?
That's the problem.
Let me go back.
Let me double back on this question of whether it will work or not.
To be candid about it, I don't think you're too well advised.
I don't know.
And I don't have any experience.
Actually, the thing, when you really get into the guts of it, it might work.
I'm not going to tell you it will, but it might.
It will be hard as a devil to administer.
And administration is going to be 90%.
how well we can get hold of it and run it.
And that's why I say might instead of will.
But there's a chance for it.
And obviously no chance for the president.
Now, if they cut family assistance out of the middle of it, then what you end up with is AFDC with a work requirement.
And that's a kind of a bastard.
Now, the old guy, I'll say, is AFDC
continue to go up like this, whether you put people back to work or not, because there's not that many able-bodied people involved in any of these things.
I'd want to take a look at the end result of that.
Let's talk about the political thing, the posture.
Let me say, in terms of political posture, I'm not thinking in terms of my
from a conservative point of view, that if I said to him, I don't want you to talk to anybody, but the president wants you to do this and this, he'd do it and he wouldn't talk to anybody.
He wouldn't mention it to McGregor or anybody.
But he probably could submarine this.
I'm also thinking in terms of getting to the cost of doing the things we want to do right now.
And that may be true at least in the long range.
I would substitute it for this.
Actually, the trial he did.
Yeah.
You saw that Reagan's welfare reform was lost yesterday.
Yeah.
The committee killed him.
So?
So, he's got an issue.
Oh.
Well, he wins either way.
Assuming that the majority of people doesn't like welfare and want it to be tough on the maligners, he's in pretty good shape.
The Democrats have come in with a substitute.
Which increases welfare.
Which he says is going to quadruple everybody's taxes and so on and so forth.
And he's beginning to beat them on the head with it.
So he's in pretty good shape.
All right, let's sort of let it go further.
That's okay.
Do you consider family assistance a good political issue for us?
No.
I consider welfare reform a good political issue for you.
Is there any way we can separate it from family assistance?
Well, we've been trying to reform it.
Family assistance really, John, comes right down to adding a hell of a lot of people to welfare.
All right.
Short, short term.
That's true.
And that's all it'll appear.
It's a bridge to get them off welfare.
Yeah, that's the argument.
That's right.
That's right.
If somehow or another you could get a big enough fight going about work requirements, and you could get some liberals really upset with the work requirements, you might come out of this all right.
But as matters now stand, the liberals are lying low.
There's guys like Devine and Raising Hell about the other party.
The liberals.
form, assume that there were closed rules, went through the House, went over to the Senate, and maybe came out of the Senate by the first year.
Then you'd have a year in which to make the thing, to get the thing ready.
But by election time, you'd still be getting it ready.
It wouldn't be in place.
It wouldn't be operating yet.
So that nobody could say it had failed.
how we handled it, we could argue that you had brought welfare reform to the United States.
Might make some pluses out of it.
You brought welfare reform, accepted.
That's right.
thing.
We fought for it for four years.
We finally got it.
And now we have a chance to administer it, hopefully, to make sure that both the fakers and the cheats and so on, or does the nation want to turn now to the liberals who will administer it loosely and in a sloppy fashion in the way they did AFDC and run it into the ground?
And in whom should the nation repose its confidence in administering this new reform?
You talk about the great society programs, everything that most of the time just comes down.
We just come down inside and continue to do it on the ground.
Well, we can't knock it off politically.
We can't do this or that or the other thing.
But the approach that you have suggested, and I think you've suggested, I understand you've suggested, are slicing through some of this.
Maybe, well, yes.
I just don't know.
The reason I'm for it is not because I think we'll get
And that's been our dilemma, you see, up until now.
We have to live with whatever we propose.
If we go up with a zero budget for model cities, Humphrey and everybody else will kill us because we don't control the damn Congress.
Sam Devine will be there right for us, but John Anderson and all those guys will be against us.
So what will happen then?
Would you still do it?
This time I would because we're coming into the election.
And the ground would be to let the Congress come up with it.
It's an up or down deal then, but we've declared our position.
And we can, we can say, well, then.
Sure, sure.
No, I don't know.
No, sir.
There's a way to get rid of them, believe me.
I do away with the highway press fund, for one.
I do away with model cities for another.
Urban renewal.
No excuse for urban renewal.
Oh, yeah, we'll close it tomorrow as far as I'm concerned.
And, uh... Oh, gee, the governor's in a solid phalanx.
And, uh... Well, because we've got $4.5 billion tied up in there.
And as a matter of arrangement of priorities, that program is just about done.
We could phase that way, way down if we could get at that money.
You know, we could do that on the basis of the environment.
Environment?
Revenue sharing?
Send it down there and let the localities decide where to build the highways if they want highways.
But the thing is, you've got all that gas tax money rolling in, and we can't use it.
Believe me, they've got a lobby that won't quit on Hill.
See, this is our problem.
Even though our instincts tell us we ought to do away with the Great Society programs, there are so many constituencies supporting those now that even though we propose them, it just won't happen.
Oh, I know it won't happen.
I realize that.
Maybe the fact that they have so many to propose also means that it would be a bad political issue.
Well, yeah, but therefore, in the sense not of the voter, you take the highway thing.
That's perpetuated by the concrete manufacturers, the petroleum institute, the truckers, the bus companies, and those guys who have their guys on the hill.
That's right.
Highways are kind of a dirty thing these days to people.
So that's an example.
Now, Model City has its constituency, but it's mostly black and it's mostly yellow.
We've cut it very substantially.
280 million, I would give, something of that kind.
Well, see, what we're doing, we're rearranging it through a device called Variables.
We've gotten a hold of it so that we can take the money away from the model cities where we don't want it and award it to cities in Southern California, Northern California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, some of those places that we want it.
And we're in the process of playing that game now.
We're about to announce the variables.
And it's a form of revenue sharing because we take all the strings off.
We just send it down there to the mayors.
However, is this something they haven't passed yet?
No.
We can do it.
Good, good, good.
I've been at it for a year, getting it done through the bureaucracy, and it's a hell of a thing to move, I'll tell you.
That whole series of meetings I had over at Blair House has all led to this.
And we now have the list and the amounts, and we're ready to go.
Your house is the thing that we're writing this?
It's out, and we've been backgrounding all day, and it seems to be going all right.
I had a Hubbard up there.
Something for everybody.
Yeah, that came through loud and clear.
It was kind of interesting.
The Washington Post guy, Kloss,
said, God, where's this referendum business been all this time?
He says, I live out there in McLean.
He says, that sounds like something we ought to have.
Yeah, and a few other states.
Not many.
Sure, I like referendum.
I think that's a damn good thing.
Yeah, yeah.
That belongs in the state constitution, and it's hard to get in there.
It's pretty much up there.
Well, yes.
Now, the only other thing
beyond that is if you want me to give a signal to somebody which i can do remember we did it before well i say i have to figure it out if they did what divine's talking about i don't know let me get back to you in a number uh i suspect uh about two and a half billion
Okay, let me cross that out.
It's getting pretty hot, isn't it?
It really is.
Rocky really blasted him last night.
Said the poor fellow was well.
Yeah.
He's been under great emotional stress lately with that strike, that terrible strike that he had down there.
It was skillfully done.
And he shouldn't be held accountable for those remarks that he made last night.
Rocky just has a passion of hate for Lindsay.
Just passion.
And when you talk to him, it comes through very clearly.
It isn't just political rivalry.
It's just right there.
Rockefeller's got all the horses.
I don't see whether Lindsey can ever win that fight.
Lindsey's lying about that.
I thought it was a little crude that he said it's a great city and call us across.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, well, see, that's the rejecter then.
See, Rockefeller came back and said, well, you have to forgive him for that kind of talk.
Because he's not himself.
I don't understand that.
Lindsay's troubles aren't over by a long way.
Yeah, he's got one after the other coming up.
Public service employees.
Tough shape.
Oh, yes, but contracts coming up all the time.
The garbage men and the sewer workers and the one after the other.
That's the direction he seems to be going, and he's breaking down confidence in us all the time, and he's moving in on housing, and he's moving in on police, and he's moving in on narcotics, and it just looks to me like that's his ploy to get the legislature to do something.
Well, I don't...
The political issue that may be, and not the budget issue, aren't us coming up with a goddamn big cut, you know, cut in expenses, in other words, in order to save, fight inflation, and fight taxes, and fight government costs, may be one hell of a good issue.
That's why I think we've got a way off of this, and that's why it was ridiculous even for Morris Hansford to say, let's spend $200 million more on a goddamn big chunk of budget.
All right, yeah.
Produces job justice.
Not that thing, not many.
I must say some of the other things that are going on will produce new jobs.
You're cranking on that.
They're really working on that for your satisfaction.
Pete Flanagan and Cap are working nearly full-time on that.
They're also working in terms of the, let's say, not just how much money.
I think it does take good money.
You made it for me that way.
You spent government money, and it goes...
You go to the record company, and it goes to the job.
You know where it goes.
That's one thing.
And then, of course, it's to remove blocks, to let money flow to private enterprise.
You're not sure.
But I don't know.
Somewhere it feels better.
I simply do not buy the idea that the way to boost the economy, if we do boost it, is to increase the personal exemption.
social security and things like that where we just send money to people and he doesn't do it.
That we know is a totally, totally unpredictable task.
Whereas if you release money to business, you've got a 50-50 chance at least that business may crawl back.
Right?
Isn't that where we...
I think so.
I think that's right.
And I wouldn't worry at all about these tribes that were pro-business with regard to all these things.
The point is, as far as the people are concerned, this administration is losing votes from being voted in the Senate.
I don't know.
And we've got to be able to say to guys in business what we've done for them lately.
Otherwise, we have no right to come to it, as we're going to be doing.
So I think we have to have some things we can point to, definitely.
I apologize to you for attacking your Secretary of State last night.
I may have gone a little heavy there.
I...
I'll tell you what I'd like to do Monday.
Well, that's apparently the case.
Here's where I would like to end up Monday, and I don't know if I can, I have to talk to Henry about this first.
I would like you to say to these ambassadors, I want you fellas to go home and tell your countries that we are not going to extend foreign aid to any country that persists in permitting narcotics to be produced and transhipped to our people through their
Uh, territory.
Well, I didn't call it Albuquerque.
We're not talking about any countries there.
We don't give them territory to the French.
We do to the Turks.
Yeah.
The Turks might say, okay, and we can't afford to kick them out of NATO.
Who else do we give it to?
Well, were you concerned?
We have Thailand, Laos.
It'll work with Thailand.
It'll work with Laos.
And it'll work with, uh... Mexico.
Mexico.
How do you put it?
Well, we don't give money.
We don't give it to Mexico.
Well, we give military assistance to Mexico.
We do to Turkey.
Well, I think you could put it in terms of the Congress is going to do this.
We may do it.
I don't know.
I do pretty well.
I'll talk to Henry about what the possibilities are.
You know, the problem that every Cadillac officer has
is that unless he's a man of strong will, is that he becomes a creature in captivity with his bureaucracy.
And so on and on and on.
Oh, he's a captive with an advantage in transportation, bureaucracy, and so on.
Richardson, particularly, he's strong.
He leads in that direction anyway.
Well, that's right.
He sort of captures them.
But he doesn't, listen, I can't say over and over again,
How the hell we didn't just avoid an organization?
That must have been the worst administration that the department's ever had.
Well, it's never had a good one until Elliot.
I don't know if you saw that New York Times article on Elliot, but Herbers did about a six-column piece on Elliot Richardson and ATW.
Best secretary that the department's ever had.
He went through and sang his praises.
He's done this, he's done that.
People in the department say this, they say that.
They're all for him and so on down the line.
And yet he gets along with the White House, he gets the president's programs through, he defends the president, and on and on and on.
When did it come out?
Day before yesterday.
Well, three cases got out of the bill.
He, more than almost any Secretary of State that I know, is almost a total end to the State Department's funding.
Now, for example, he knows damn well that they aren't doing as much as they should on our colleagues' name, and that we've got a hell of a problem.
He also, I always said to him, like on this expropriation, the rest of you call it all swine.
I'm very concerned about that expropriation was the policy of this government.
The expropriation pay, we don't care.
Well, that is actually right.
Sure, if they expropriate your pay, that is a rule of international law.
But the government of the United States doesn't really intend to discourage expropriation.
The Prime Minister has begun to.
Otherwise, we wouldn't have any foreign business.
That's not what the world is going to be.
And here's Bill sitting there, and he's got to have the State Department people.
Therefore, expropriation.
Now that, I don't know what you've done to me, but I have the feeling that basically that...
that he's sort of captured by the State Department people who really are for the goddamn foreign government.
That really surprised me.
And he analogized between expropriation and condemnation in this country.
And there is such a difference between those two.
Condemnation is a procedure where you go into court.
I don't know about it.
I didn't.
You've done it.
But you go into court.
I didn't say attorney.
But you go into court.
You condemn.
You have a court hearing and so forth.
It's an adversary proceeding and eventually you have to create an expropriation.
The government decides that you get what you got and pleads.
Well, and in condemnation, the government has to go in and prove superseding necessity.
Right.
And that's the element that is present in expropriation.
In expropriation, they just say, OK, we're going to take over all the oil business today.
And I just felt quite, well, we're going to have a couple of fights there.
It's quite obvious that the economy is going to take a very strong position in other directions.
And I'm glad he is.
He's someone who has my great encouragement.
They just get into the way of everything.
They always end up on the side of the left.
They end up on the side of, frankly, not standing up for the United States.
Well, and also another thing that I get sort of surprised by is Bill's complete lack of appreciation of the importance of Peterson.
Now, got a minute.
Bob Anderson was not wrong in 1959.
He was just premature.
But it's all that.
You know that when you look at those graphs without worrying.
Aren't you worried?
I'm very worried, and I just can't understand how Bill heard it.
He heard it, but he obviously didn't hear it.
He was there.
But, you know, he tends to say everything's okay.
Yes, if he's around, everything's okay.
Well, he tends not to be around when things aren't okay, is my observation.
But he can truly be an optimist under those circumstances.
That's a lot of work.
The thing is that Bill John could be such a strong secretary of state.
He's got brains, he has charm, and he's tough as hell.
Yeah, he can be.
When he's fighting,
Look at the way he took off on Sands last night.
If he'd take off on Bolivia like he took off on Sands, we wouldn't lose the oil business.
Well, to be frank with you, Frank Sands does get a pretty good target.
Sands, you know.
I can't argue with that.
He is greedy.
I mean, we love him, and we appreciate his loyalty, but he ain't very smart.
I agree.
He's got a hell of a smart undersecretary over there.
Yeah.
That's a shrewd.
And he'll do a lot for more air, I think.
Yeah, he'd be good.
He's good at that.
Aren't you impressed?
Yeah, very, very impressed.
He's completely opportunistic.
Well, he's not a damn thing.
He's a good operator.
But he operates, and he knows where the power is, and he's quite a captain.
And he's smart.
Yeah.
He has the respect of all the Establishment Charities, but he's a genius.
I think he is.
That's right.
Hard-working guy.
Very hard-working.
I know he's ten times as smart as Percy.
Yeah.
I think so.
That's right.
Percy is more of a show-off.
Yeah.
If they're looking past, boy, this fellow is hard-working and comes up with nothing but the thing that's almost reasonable.
Yeah.
He's the kind of guy that'd make a lot of money for a company.
Oh, yeah.
I think we ought to put him over there.
I'll tell you why.
I think we need one friend.
It'd be nice.
It should be great.
He'll be sitting in all the meetings.
And people talk up to him.
You talk up to anybody.
Yeah.
The difficulty is, we need him here.
But you've certainly got somebody that can do all that stuff, haven't you?
Crowell?
Crowell can do it.
He could.
And spare him.
quote to take that spot and i can't very well stand in his way not very well no see his credibility with the business community is fact that he's here pete peterson could do it if he could double
and he's the delegator to hire somebody.
Well, he could take these three guys that Flanagan has and run them.
No, in a sense, he could take all these in.
And we could say, since it's all tied in to how we get American competitive in the world, that's not a problem.
Well, he could have two portfolios as far as I'm concerned.
And he'd be good at it.
I have mixed emotions about the planning initiative.
He's a curve operator.
He's loyal.
And he's dependent on it totally.
He can come in and do it.
But I must say to the State Department, it really is
I just feel awfully uncomfortable.
Well, yeah, but I don't come in contact, you know, too much.
But an episode last night really hit me.
I went home just really wondering.
The way Rodgers performed generally, the way he took off on Maury and the whole thing just discouraged the hell out of me.
Pete would be very good over there.
And we could get along, and Peterson would be willing to double here.
I'm also glad we didn't have Pete go over to be, I mean, Peterson go over to be Undersecretary to Rogers.
Because he would be loyal to whoever he worked for.
He'd be over there.
He'd be a dead tiger to the state.
But I don't know.
I don't think he's going to hold that.
Irving's weak.
I have his problem, John.
It's a curious one.
Oh, he's got, he's got money, he's got everything else.
But his problem is a total obsession with self.
He is in total obsession.
I just can't, I just don't see anything else.
Do you?
No, that has to be it.
And I don't think he knows it.
What the hell would I have told him?
He's sort of no-nonsense.
I don't know.
Apparently not.
I agree with you.
He doesn't know it.
Because he is quite obviously obsessive.
Yeah.
He really is.
No conversation comes up.
Frankly, no conversation comes up.
Bill is false, without exception, is talking about it.
How this went, how we were here, what the reaction from the rest of us here, and how long we got along with the forum.
Yeah, I saw that.
And we understand all that.
We all do, to an extent.
Most of us try to say, oh, gee, it was good that you did a program there.
Bill, Bill don't have trolls again, but almost an actor does.
That's correct.
That's right.
It was a pleasure to work with Dean Rusk, who was, you know, so amazing.
So, yes.
Remember I told you about Eisenhower's comment, the most important asset.
It's a hard thing to push to me, but it's the way to go.
It's the way to go up.
It's the way to be a really great guy.
This bill is not going to be known as a great secretary of state.
Well, because everybody knows where the good foreign policy has been made in this administration, and it hasn't been made in the state.
They think it's been made in Kissinger, and there's no confusion between you and Kissinger about who makes foreign policy.
It was interesting that the Washington Post guy who came on said,
on this housing policy.
He says, well, for a long time, we were going to play this as it turns out, won or lost.
That was going to be the story in the housing thing.
But he says, it's pretty evident from the way this came out that this is the president's work product, and that there is any question of win or loss.
And that's pretty good to have him, you know.
He was fortunate that the style was the same as the style of the other.
They had both left and right.
They didn't win.
Yes, they did.
Very well.
Very well.
Good start.
Yeah.
Good start.
But Tony, with the foreign policy thing, it is a package.
For whatever successes we do have, it is what we have done.
Sure.
With the exception of that issue.
Well, but that's still pretty wide open, it seems.
It's wide open.
He's identified with it.
It's a hell of an accomplishment to have 10 months of a truce.
Yeah, I suppose.
If it ends up right.
But ten months of a truce and then a war is a loss, you know.
Well, my views of the Middle East are much closer to their...
I don't know how Roger's ever come down this side with all of his friends.
He's got a Jewish community.
He's got an anti-Israel community.
Not an anti-Israel, not because they're Jews, but because they're two million and they have a hundred million Arabs.
It's goddamn unreasonable.
And because I know that they constantly use this game
and then say they're going to play one of these things.
That happened, John.
So in this respect, do you think they're faking us along until we get closer to the election?
No, but I say they told the Lakers out there that they were waiting until the election, that I couldn't do anything but give them the money they needed.
They weren't going to have a Democrat win.
They always get everything they want from Democrats, and they always have a Democrat.
And there's some talk about a bunch of, you know, a lot of money that could slow down the campaign through the troops' sponsorship of that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
The United Jewish Committee will work on it.
Well, anyway, we were Jews.
We did the same thing.
But my view is that their American foreign policy is very badly hurt.
That the Soviet presence in the East would be astounding, John.
It would have to be.
I can see that.
Yeah, makes good sense.
Because inherently, there's nothing antagonistic between our interests and the Arabs.
We're business partners on oil, and we should be together.
And this group and the Redcoats and the whole thing.
Sure, it does leave a couple of parts that ain't bad.
It's not bad.
It certainly is good for your education.
Probably pretty good as a matter of fact, east side and west side of the town.
One of the next legacies, one that I really do deserve credit for, that we've got to really build up, is right out here.
Come on, we throw that goddamn building down.
We open that up.
It shouldn't be just a great thing.
Be so long that the dogs go out and crack on it.
There should be something else.
I don't know what, but something beautiful should be there.
I don't know, but I just have something where people can...
I think that if we can do that, and I think get going on that now.
Well, we are going, you know.
All I know is doing some plans with Owen.
What kind of plans?
Does he know?
Does he have any good ideas?
Well, he's going to bring you a range of ideas for the use of that property.
somebody else, but we're sorry.
You see, that's going to take a lot of time.
They could write it very, very hard and get something started on it.
You see, they've got to get a national committee, whatever you call it.
The city's got to approve that.
Oh, yeah, it's the National Capital Planning Commission.
The advantage of Owings is he's on it.
Then he can, he can, oh, he's really turned out.
I got the money and he's off and going.
But, uh, yeah, I'll get, uh, I'll tell you who could do this is Len Garment.
Great.
Garment's just great.
You give him the job and say, no, let's, let's agree that that'd be the next, uh, good.
Why not?
Good location.
It's here in the town.
Yep.
It's right now.
Everybody knows we did it.
What do you think?
Okay.
Let's create something there.
Okay.
I still, I still would hope it's something people could use rather than, you know, rather than just ballpark.
Okay.
For the kids to run around and people go out and smoke pot on them.
Fair enough.
What do you think?
We could make it like, well, we've already got the capital grounds.
We could have a... We could get ideas.
Maybe you've got something like, uh,
like the Radical Spears.
What I was really thinking of is, I really think, if I go to Disneyland or Oxbury, recreate a street.
Something like that.
And have it in a way that people can go in and get to, you know, buy a top or something like that.
Yeah.
I don't know whether that'll work or not.
It would, but the right management could be fantastic.
You could recreate early Washington.
George Washington's day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That kind of thing.
Or could you maybe create parts of it or something?
Sure.
Typical street scene?
Yeah.
Horse wagons?
That kind of thing?
Horses and wagons and rides.
That would be great.
Where kids could come.
People love to ride carriages.
They could go back to the days when they were building the White House, you know.
Well, that's the line that he's going on.
He's aware that we do not want to be modern.
Right.
I don't want to be modern.
Nothing.
I mean, they're thoughtful stuff, but something that the midwestern, middle American would love to have there.
All right.
Well, I think we're, I don't think that Owing's efforts are going to be any lost motion in that direction.
He knows the things we talked about were these kinds of factors.
Yeah.
And I would say that I would have started with Liz Blaine.
Right.
It'll be about 60 days before you have his drawing.
About two months.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Because he has a contact with the Interior Department to work on this.
I'm getting rid of my Rippon Society girl, Bobby Green.
She's leaving to go into private practice.
She's a lawyer.
She's going with...
I'd like to bring her in just to say goodbye at some point in time.
She's done some damn good work for us.
We really sit on her pretty hard.
And if you mention the Indian thing to her, that would be great.
She's smart as hell and has been pretty loyal.
She's been pretty hard to keep her under control.
Losing the other Rippon Society boy, John Price,
who is going to go to Long Island and run for Congress in Darunian's district.
He's a Democrat?
Yep.
Whoa, that's wolf.
Well, he's from there.
He's from Manhasset, so he's got some chance.
His father was mayor of Manhasset.
And so he wants a lot of things from us in the way of help.
uh some of which we could get him uh but uh he's got to make his peace with the county chairman up there first the tight end guy uh oh yeah you know why don't we have to make his peace well he's probably the right kind of the person to run in that district
Yeah, he's kind of left and kind of pansy, but he just got married and he's settling down, and he's not our style exactly around our place.
Do you mind from there?
Yeah, if he got in Congress, I think he'd track with us pretty well on most things.
Foreign policy would be fine.
I really like to see his presidency.
Somebody would probably read the primary.
Do you make a note of it?
Sir?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it's working.
Maybe it's working.
It's on the bench a little bit.
Food salesman almost.
He is so bad.
But I guess in terms of the yard, it is a district where they're having a fight.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Paul Owen, I think, has a very good idea on Finch.
He thinks Finch ought to leave.
I think he should, too.
Yeah, I do, too.
I think Bob is spinning his wheels, and it's an embarrassing position for him.
What would you have him do if he were to leave?
Move back into Herb Combox, sir.
Yes, he'd work out well there.
Yeah.
And then out of that, he would do really well.
I think Herb would be happy to have him.
Finch could make some decent money there.
And use it as a base.
Yeah.
And it could be useful to us.
He'd be close to San Clemente there.
We can keep him on us.
We really ought to do it.
I don't think Bob and I did the same about Roosevelt.
I see that.
As a matter of fact, we did it.
Everybody understands that the policy of the NSC is more important than being the chairman.
Yeah.
Bob, there's a real tough problem for us on the policy side because we just can't keep a line around it.
Oh, hell no.
He goes out and talks about it to me.
And he talks about things way ahead of their time, or he gets a long slam on them.
Well, he mainly wants to make news.
He's got a passion for it.
That's why he has to be good politically.
He gets out and he wigs these things out and sales them out there.
Everybody says, gee, Bob, you did a great thing.
You were very popular.
God damn it, that's not the way to play the game.
It's awful.
We've got to watch it, too.
You've got us in six states and everything else.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a .
I believe the run for the Senate went on there.
The thing that's been very impressive to me is my family got that.
It's true, observers have told me.
They say Klein's Q&A is absolutely excellent.
Is that right?
Yeah, they heard it before.
The first time we were talking, it was John Tompkins.
He said he's not very good at speaking, but at the Q&A, he's clever.
Yeah, yeah.
So I believe it.
I believe it.
Yeah, he's deadly on speech.
Petrifying.
Oh, yeah, about the business council, he gave a speech.
And I just felt like I was turned to stone by the time I got done.
Oh, it was so dumb.
And he gets all mixed up.
And he says, you know, he just rambles around.
And after a while, you just stop trying to track him.
He just gets so murky.
And he just does it.
But I can see on QI, he's a good mind.
And he's got a kind of a diffident way of putting things.
He's very persuasive.
And he never gets in trouble.
Never gets in trouble.
Never makes a false move.
He's just damn smart.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was thinking about it in that pit today.
I wouldn't have his job for a million dollars.
Snakes, you know, they're just nasty.
Yeah.
And they're tipping away at us.
Good afternoon.
We're not ready yet, but you know, a lot of florists, they don't have any of their time, and they're working their dogs, and we're going down to thank them.
You want to take a quick trip with them?
Sure.
Florists?
Florists all over town, they need their time.
Well, where are they?
They don't have time to drive downtown?
No, they're down here working in the farm.
Yeah, this is great.
They've done it for nothing.
And the nursery moves with both nation-building biotech technologists.
Planting is essentially a park package.
Here, I'll... Don't move, man.
Just stay right where you are.
I just wanted to let you know that I really wanted to see that piece of crime.
So I just crossed the desk today on you.
That's it.
That's it.
Wasn't that a good one, Tom?
Yeah.
Uh, Merrick and I were sitting there talking, and he, uh, had brought in three guys with him.
I don't know who the makers were, but I did.
And I didn't forget to say this was.
Excellent.
I am much deserved to be for all people of this region.