Conversation 530-012

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Oh, no, you're not on your own.

All right, come back in a minute, I'll set it up.

I'm sure you'll stay here.

You know what I think that is about science and all these things, which is you get to launch.

That's not about science.

I'm telling you, you can see right there.

The way it stands is that the question was whether there was anybody else.

There isn't anybody else who can do that, to my knowledge, except now.

The question then is a matter of relative priority, doing that versus doing the other.

If we're going to do that, there's no way around it.

It's an enormous, it's an enormous present problem.

We've got to have somebody go.

There's nobody I can trust and state an offense to go to.

I have not talked with Alan about it, and that's the next step, is to talk to him, because he's the only one that I can talk to who will know what I'm talking about.

Well, the other possibility is Marty Anderson, who wants to come back.

And at first, John was in debt.

Will he go around?

Let's talk with him, and I want you to talk to Marty Anderson.

I mean, he's a great man.

You know him?

You see, that's the one who tells us all.

Oh, no.

No, that's somebody else.

Oh, no, no, no.

That's that guy.

Yeah.

Marty Anderson is a young genius.

He wrote a book, The Federal Bulldozer, with regard to housing.

He was Arthur Burns's

great protege.

Uh, he has a foe who is, uh, is a, uh, he's an authentic genius.

I mean, he's really smart.

I said, why don't I raise that out?

I'm not sure.

The other question is, do you have enough confidence in Anderson?

Now, he is conservative, but, uh,

I don't think the problem here is, I would think he would be all out in all these fields.

He's very imaginative.

And very, he was on the White House staff for the first couple of years.

He was on the campaign staff.

He loved to go to Stanford and some, you know, we've been trying to get him to come back because, well, let me say, let me say this.

Let's, let's, I'd like, let's,

Get him back as soon as you can.

Talk to him.

I'd like you to take a hard look at him.

Marty's here, apparently, because Sir, I was asking if you would see him.

Well, he's kind of... Wouldn't it be well...

It will be tomorrow, again.

Wouldn't it be well to have somebody here to have you take a look at him?

If you would be good at this, this whole...

It's like he comes, so he has something to manage over here.

Uh...

First rate, got a first rate in mind, and as I say, it looks very young, very young.

Let's go over to Arthur Burns and talk to him.

Yeah, Arthur Burns knows it better than anybody else.

Understand, Burns will be biased for it.

But just say, in other words, if you want to get out of the wheel, you understand that whatever out here is going to try to put somebody on your staff, and it's not up to you, because you need the best man.

My own view is that Anderson, just looking at the two men in terms of qualifications, that Anderson would be better than Allen.

Mainly because Anderson will know two bases on Richie.

He's much better as an inside man.

Allen will be hard to keep as an inside man, if that's what you want.

I don't know if it is.

Alan likes to get out and sing.

Yeah, and he's got a very big ego.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anderson, Anderson, Anderson is a, is a, is a staff man-oriented kind of guy.

He's a scholar, staff man, totally loyal, hard worker, and brilliant.

Where he really broke with us, when he broke, the main, the only point he really disagreed with us on was on family assistance.

He disagreed with that.

It's not, as Arthur Burns said, Arthur, it's because they didn't want to add people to well-earned homes.

And yet, Anderson has written some of the best, absolutely best stuff we've got.

I think he writes very quickly and so forth.

He ran the whole task force operation when the administration first came in.

Granted, I hope to get it all written on task force.

You talk to Art, as I say, you talk to Art.

Call it as you see it.

But don't make a commitment on it, because let me talk to Alan.

Alan may know that he's not the guy for the other project, too.

He knows more about the other project.

He may not.

He can't do it.

He may.

Hollywood Project is...

We're closed to do research.

In other words, we're going to set up some teams.

the very best people we possibly can to let the United States concentrate on the five-year plan, the 10-year plan, and all that sort of thing.

And it's the kind of thing where Anderson has the far-ranging mind that he could understand.

Yeah, intellectually, he's substantially ahead of Allen.

Yes, that's right.

And creative intellectualism.

Allen, however, would be ahead of him as a...

personality.

Alan is a stronger, more dominant personality.

Although Anderson apparently did well on his staff.

But Aaron did extremely well running the task force, as he said, and working with all those task forces.

Should we do some checking in on that?

Move on, Alan.

Ask him.

That's fine.

And you don't want him to ask Burns about Marty yet?

I'm sorry, yeah.

I think you ought to ask others about him.

Because it may be that Marty's just the best guy for that job period.

We'll bring Alan in in some other capacity.

What other capacity could we bring him in in?

Because we want him back.

Well, Alan, we were going to bring him in.

He's good on intelligence.

He's good on the spy business and all that.

We were going to bring him in in that whole area, which we badly need help on, too.

Yeah.

It's a different kind of a different game.

See, he's basically, as you know, a very intelligent, technical man, but he is not at all as interested in the

who stole Pippert's type and should this be classified top secret or should this not be?

See, that's a very different game.

You need a political-oriented man for the second and a technician for the first.

Hmm.

But this is an idea he asked me.

He hadn't occurred to me.

He's... Well, it hadn't to me either.

I didn't know there was any chance of getting him.

But there apparently is.

He'll be very impressed with it.

I can assure you.

He'll be very impressed.

He'll say, he's running by right now.

Mm-hmm.

What he can do, what you think he should really do, is somebody that will take all these projects that you have.

I think he's doing it.

Marty knows his way around here a lot better than Alan does.

He knows his way.

He knows Henry.

Oh, Alan knows Henry.

But you are proud of him.

That's the other thing.

Alan and Henry fight like a couple of cats on the back fence.

But Alan also knows, he knows the whole domestic economic group.

Theirs, very intimately.

Intimately.

Which we call, knows the government.

He probably doesn't know the international picture as well, but on the other hand, he knows.

And I'm not sure that you want a guy, I mean, it may be just talking all about it, it may not be, you may not want a guy, you may want to keep those plays for yourself.

See, what I mean, see, look,

You really can't have a deputy, basically.

And Rogers.

No, no.

Yeah, I hear that.

Well, you'll give it back.

Oh, we'll leave it then.

We want you to have a good man.

And basically, Bob, if it turns out that Alan is the better one for the two, we're working out the elephant, too.

This project is terribly important.

Declassification.

Alan would be very good at that, though.

He's so oriented on that sort of thing.

He's a historian, basically.

Alan is a historian.

Marian is an economist.

There's more of a creative thinker, too, than Alan.

Alan is obvious.

Let me, maybe, let me check with Orlin on what, where the status of his talk with Marty Anderson is.

He and John has apparently been talking to him, and I don't know why.

I mean, I don't know in what specific terms, because I didn't think we would talk to John about trying to get Anderson back, but I didn't know he had any chance of doing it.

Like a lot of people, you get away from here, not the campus, and you're not the campus anywhere after.

It's the remarkable thing about congressmen, senators, and the rest, they say, oh, Christ, we're going to go home.

They always tell me, you know, it's like Thomas Wolfe, you're never going to go home.

You can't go home again.

It's never the same.

You never want to go.

It's, in fact, the most difficult speeches here to go back and speak at home.

I mean, for a national figure, terribly difficult.

Because all the people there want you to be like they are, and you're no longer like they are.

And you never will be.

You know the story.

You'll find the same thing.

Yeah.

You'll find the same thing.

Believe me.

You move sort of light years away, and you'll do different things.

All right, good.

I have one more question.

Sure, go ahead.

Before we leave, I want to tell you about a conversation I had with Bill, because I believe that Bill Rogers is lying in the moment.

I heard a thing or two that your solution over there at some point is going to be to get somebody near the top of that structure.

you know, somewhere, I don't care whether he's number one, number two, or number three, who really understands what you and Son County and I are talking about, you know, because I'm a great black black guy.

Yeah.

And Peter, I understand, is not good, because somewhere along the line, I learned that business, if your division managers don't, you know, aren't with you, it's a tough fight, and I'd love to have one guy over there who understood what we were talking about.

Not a problem.

You're a gentleman.

Let's leave it there.

The difficulty is, really, is that Bill always comes down as a candidate on the side of his department.

Is that correct?

And Bill, who I'm very fond of, a person, is an optimist at his core about a lot of things.

And he tends to think they aren't all that bad things.

I talked to Bill about our balance of payments, profits, and trades.

Oh, it'll be a lot better just like the business gets better in the middle of it.

Here's what's happening in Japan, here's what's happening in Ohio, you know.

Let's look at that.

It's great.

It's everybody's strength.

That's right.

Bill is such an attractive person.

He's got a wonderful optimism.

He's always upbeat.

And yet, things are never upbeat.

Always.

I mean, I can be upbeat when it's good.

And boy, I'll tell you, the other side of the coin, when they're down, I can be a lot stronger.

And you probably can too.

The way I look at it, I look at it just as it is.

Just as it is.

And when things are down, I'm higher.

When they're up, that's fine.

But you never, never must be, I don't mean you should be always hanging crazy, Frank, but now you cannot ignore that factor.

I've been here for about four months, and I'm always a great believer in doing what the boss wants.

I don't know what suggestions you have to make for criticism, you know, what you'd like me to do differently or better, or whatever you'd like.

I haven't bothered you a lot.

We have done, but let me tell you something that I do have in mind that I think you've got to have in mind.

I'm not sure I would advise you to do it, but the opportunity may be presented to you.

If something opens up in the cabinet side, the domestic side, I think it would be very useful to have you in a cabinet position.

I've talked to, this is only between,

and I have discussed this.

Now, the reason that I'd like to have you there is that in this position, while you could be a very, I mean, you could be an advocate and all that sort of thing, and the rest of you could, sort of the White House staff man is considered to be more of a, well, he's sort of an advisor and the rest, a cabinet man can go out and sell

And you have an enormous ability to sell.

Now, the minus side of that is running a goddamn department may or may not be worth the challenge.

I don't know the one that is coming up at the moment.

And so nothing is going to happen before November in any event.

Naturally, you can guess we're not thinking of things like agriculture or justice, but there are others where something may happen.

Now, for that reason, I would like for you to, in an event,

Between now and November, if you could set your sights, I'd like for you to get everything, I'd like for you to build an adequate staff and get everything on the track in the event that a, a move is made that you can make.

Now, I believe it's involved further than this.

Hellman and I believe that if it is the right position that we had appointed you to the cabinet position, and have you retained this one,

In other words, wear two hats.

That's just what we're thinking about, yeah.

Well, I don't understand this kind of question.

I don't think there are any more.

I just didn't know whether...

You had some suggestions on how I could do my job better.

I don't send you a lot of writings.

I just wanted to tell you one.

I much prefer, I much prefer to, if there is something that you think I should read, Senator, remember, of course, that I have more to read than I understand every other truth.

But you just do exactly that.

But when you've got something to talk about, I get it.

Come on in.

We'll work it in.

And as I say, everybody else is trying to get it.

You do it, too.

Also, the second thing is that I like the way

I would urge you to do this.

You know, you've got to throw in one or the other.

I am convinced, I don't mind about international news, but I am convinced that, and John Connolly is the president, that politically this could be a very major issue in 1972.

We've got to think politically about it.

It is here where I would urge you to tell me

with Connolly, rather than with George Shultz.

Now let me say, generally speaking, I agree with George's philosophy, because I think you do too.

On the other hand, George does not think politically, and shouldn't.

Connolly, on the other hand, is a political animal.

And also he understands a little of this kind of stuff too.

I want you to keep extremely close to Connolly.

So we've made him chief economic spokesman of the administration.

But Connolly is the man.

that can have the greatest trolling vis-a-vis state.

He can have the darkest trolling, the anti-communist ones.

He had just said, they've gone down, we've got to do it for this or that or the other reason, and that'll do it.

The other thing, too, is that if you'll run by anything that has political overtones, run it by economy.

I think this would be very helpful.

Keep close to him and talk to him as often.

Go over there to the family.

Well, if you're ever here, I've got a problem with John Hyde, you know, please.

You have none.

No, no, no.

He has great powers.

But what I mean is this.

I'm trying to pull him.

I don't want him to develop over there a special little group and a different attitude on these things that you develop.

So therefore, in allocating your time, leave more to Colin than you do to perhaps some people here.

Right?

or if you do the CEA or the other people, they should all be paid attention.

But Conley, Conley is the guy, for example, in all these, most of these items we talked this morning, right down the line, right down the line.

And that's definitely, it's very reasonable.

If you explain any changes like that, you get the reason that that doesn't work.

You know, his expropriation ideas are kicking somebody in the nuts publicly.

He'll understand why, and he'll say, look, we'll find some maps

That's the thing.

Except he wants to make something.

Yeah, whatever he can.

I know what he's doing.

I want you to be, he and I have spent hours together.

He wants you to be a tough-minded leader.

He wants you to be that public.

His view is that that is necessary for a public image.

You may be right.

But maybe in one case, I like your formulation rather than the policy.

I would maybe even pick one of them.

You see,

John feels that way for other reasons.

Basically, he comes out of the Texas tradition.

Johnson's a graze hell, you know, stomp around, make a great lot of noise, and that's the way you impress people with the fact you're doing something.

And my tendency is not to do that.

I try to make big plays, but make them look easy.

Connolly is probably right in one sense, although you can't get out of character.

I can't go rushing around acting like Johnson.

And yet, I don't think Johnson would do that.

On the other hand, it could well be that there is a need for, and this is where you get into the jargon and advocates and everything else, there is a need for more positive, direct,

old, you know, these are the cliches of the day, old leadership, and he wants to do that.

It's really a question of presentation, and the rest, I think we can do it.

Well, I'd like to be very close to coming, because that will also fit into our leader plans.

Incidentally, I think the way you're coming through foreign policy side, if I may say so, is much closer to your truer nature than

John is being true to his nature.

I'm getting an image of a long-headed view that knows where you're going, that's planted, and it's emerging.

john would be a little more about shooting quicker and for john it's effective for you i'm not so sure yeah well it is not my nature example it isn't that i'm cautious actually i mean i didn't read my name in the present time in a place that nobody would dream of nobody knows about them john doesn't know you don't you will at the right time if they work if they don't work all night but nevertheless uh

See, everybody, and that's one of the problems, one of the problems we have with Bill.

Bill is somewhat impetuous and patient, overly optimistic, and he's always looking for, well, what's tomorrow's headline?

I don't see this critically.

I agree with tomorrow's headline, too.

But to me, I will never, never risk a long-range goal for a headline tomorrow.

Never will.

I'm always looking, at least like I told this productivity test commission, I've given my little pitch, you know, about the five-fingered world, you know, China, Russia, the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and that we have the irony that as our relations, militarily and politically, get better, the challenge

in terms of trade, competition, economically, gets infinitely greater.

Not only the challenge, the danger, but the opportunity.

And that we will receive the number two, inevitably, unless we get off our ass and do something.

Now, that sort of thing, you don't hear it around Congress, and there is nobody strong in this way, but it's what we've got to talk about, and it's one of the few things that I can bring to this, because, not that I'm any expert on the world, but I

I have somewhat of a better feeling about it than some because I've been through so much.

And we in this nation need to think that way.

America never thinks long term.

We never have.

It's not a foreign policy.

It's a foreign policy.

They want instant peace, instant harmony, instant friendship, instant jobs, instant, you know,

stop inflation and the rest.

That's why we've got to, we've got a very tough problem.

I'm aware of that.

I'm not as pessimistic, I'm not as pessimistic for reasons that are, I mean, just basically, which are, it isn't just intuition, because I read all this crap that they send in here about the economists, and the economists are clever bastards.

You know what they always do?

They tell you both sides so that they're, you know, they're coppery.

Have you ever seen one that did?

I mean, they'll use the term silver.

But I understand that.

But nevertheless, I look at the numbers.

And I know that you look at the GNP this month.

It's down.

The stock market's down some.

And this is sluggish on the employment ends.

Unemployment end is higher than we like.

And inflation is proving to be enough not to crack.

I'm aware of it.

But also, I'm aware of the other side of the coin.

All the talk about lack of confidence in the rest of it.

When I talked to your friend, who's the head of Sears Roebuck, his name was Metcalfe, or, what?

Or Metcalfe, or Metcalfe and Carter,

Broadway said, and I hear that and they say, Todd, this retail salesman is going through the roof.

He was very good.

I talked to him.

And he said, with retail salesmen, when you put retail salesmen, I know enough to know that when you put retail salesmen, when you look at those low inventories that you have,

That's a fact.

There are low inventories.

That wouldn't be an asset unless, if you had sluggish retail sales, usually you'd have low inventories or you'd have too much retail.

But here you've got a booming retail sales, you've got low inventory, you've got booming housing.

Now something's got to start moving.

I'm getting wrong.

If I'm wrong, then, and this is my new colleague, somebody's got to call the signal here.

then we'll move to America.

But not now.

I just don't feel we should change the game now and come out with a wage price for it, come out with a...

I'll draw on this field when I get around the tail, and that'll get out.

And that's pretty good.

And I know that the businessmen, 95% of them, that's all they talk about, their excessive wage price.

They hate the unions.

They hate them only because the unions are just...

Unreasonable is the deputy's name.

They think it's impossible.

Inflation is here to stay.

There's a psychology.

I know all those things.

But I personally think it's too early to throw in the towel with regard to the American free enterprise system.

I'm not talking about Long Beach County.

I'm for this.

But I mean, you realize that if once we take the step, the enormous step, of a wage price freeze,

which Arthur agrees his wage price for, if it fails, you've got to go to freeze.

If it fails, you've got to go to controls.

I believe that you then would kill this economy.

I really believe it would make a difference.

Do you agree or not?

It's like the one number that disturbs me, and I'm not an economist, as you well know, is not all the things most people are talking about, but it's related to the future, which is what we've been talking about.

It's this new plant equipment.

It's slow, I know.

And I think, and I may be wrong, this is businessmen worried about foreign competition.

Should they put their plants in Taiwan or should they go here?

And that's why I think this technology,

Investment credit, you know, that side of the thing.

The reason we can't do that now, as you know, is frankly, if I could sign an investment credit bill and get that act done on a loan, I'd do it right now.

The difficulty is that Dan Ells won't bring it on.

He'll bring out a Christmas tree.

But the other thing, and I think we're very well advised, is we are going to go ahead strongly with the economy's administrative action on depreciation.

It's going to have a little while.

And the other one on technology that I know presents you with some problems, but I continue to feel that all we're exploring is the space that is present.

There's hardly a person I talk to who doesn't say,

We ought to be spending more on our own economy, on our own industry, our own economics.

And I think you might find that you could whack that thing.

I'm not saying get rid of it, but we're going to whack the, as I indicated to you the other day, and I'm preparing some numbers, I agree that they're going to shock you, as to how little R&D money certain industries spend.

And as you and I discussed all day, a billion and a half doesn't seem like much around here.

But you just might be a fighter against it.

Well, a billion and a half in relation to 10 billion is a hell of a lot.

And if you're 20% on five or six projects, I'm going to send some numbers in to you so you can see how little major industries spend on R&D.

And it could make a hell of a difference in this country.

But we've got to buy our space.

I know that.

You've got to wear it.

Nobody's schooled it.

And we'll keep on fiddling with it, move on it.

And there's room to move on it.

But right now, we've got to put it in more urgent plans.

I wanted you to know, though, that I want you to put all the steam in the boiler you can between now and November, and then nothing may happen, because everybody may decide to just...

But if there are, then...

What I do now is that if we should make this move, it would be in the department for you to do both.

I don't know where it will pass.

Okay.