Conversation 531-029

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I see people were quite stimulated and set up.

I think on the whole, that's by far the best meeting we've had.

We've had a lot of good, substantive discussion.

Some little sidebar things.

When we set this up, we were thinking that that might be one of the things that Jim, you might tell us as a visual.

Oh, absolutely.

Stan will get three top businessmen, and then he and our Stans and I, at least a complement of three each, will get together and work on freeing up some of these projects that are being held up by environmental considerations.

The things that people, some of them will need legislation, some of them will need to be broken.

That's great.

Hot or ice?

Hot.

And so we're going to do this with the idea of fixing up these very different projects that have been held up.

We've got about $5 billion of them held up one way or another around the place, either in the agency or in Congress because of adverse environmental considerations.

We're going to work on them.

So it's either really an emergency, that's what Maury told me.

I don't know how they got it.

I asked her earlier about this.

She said that's not true.

What is the fact?

I'm not sure.

I don't know about the dollar.

I know there's plenty of them.

I don't know.

I don't want any self-serving defensive arguments on it.

It's true that by a billion dollars, Marty said it's over and over again.

He said it's not true.

I don't think he's saying it on his own.

I think he said it.

I'll find out about that, and I'll also give you a little statement on what Jim and his group are going to do about it.

I'm sure there are some.

There's a lot.

Of course there are.

There's some miserable ones.

Well, I know it was very important to try to do two things for this group.

First of all, they're all outcast dogs.

We can't do that.

they first have got to get on the mountaintop and see the world's it's going to be and why which of course is something that nobody has written and i've been saying three or four times

And get away, and finally, we get across the border, we get away from this constant, aggressive, sobbing around, defensive thing that, if we're behind the stage concrete, we're afraid we're going to poison ourselves, or kill ourselves, or...

We'll build a nuclear power plant, maybe it'll explode, and we can't do this or that or the other thing.

It's an attitude of mine.

Please, guys, leaders, all of you.

It comes up to me, you know, it's interesting, all the labor that you're talking about, nuclear power.

My dad would have already done it.

doing, but nevertheless, they need to hear that.

They need to hear the little problems.

Of course, Abel, I didn't want to respond to that.

He was making this classic argument, of course, that labor is the problem, it's not production.

The problem is, the problem is, China's consumption has put more money in the hands of people than it can do.

This is the problem at this time.

That was true once.

I told them, incidentally, that you wanted to see the management groups on the 6th at 10 o'clock here at the White House, and that I would be

I asked them to give me some thought about who were the right people.

They each have a bargaining committee.

That's balanced in terms of numbers.

At the same time, from the standpoint of bringing people in here, it seemed to me you might well want to have the chief executive officer for these .

And especially for the way this subject

Well, you sort of have a problem on both sides.

The U.S. Steel Corporation may get the business seat and run off and get to the point where it will make a settlement, but in a sense, they almost have to make it.

And at the same time,

Somehow they've gotten to see that they're on the spot and they have to bring something constructive out of this negotiation.

But anyway, I take it your thought would be that you do want to have the chief executive officers come in and out of their bargaining committee.

The best thing I can prove is to have the chief executive officer, the chief executive officer of the east, but also you could have a marketing guy on either side, one on either side of the chief negotiator.

Well, make a pretty good room for it, I can see.

What?

I said make a pretty good room for it.

Wait a minute, you mean all the companies?

Well, you have nine companies, so you've got two there.

And you only have one union man?

No, they have their president and their chief vice president and their aides come to five all together.

Now, they would want to expand their numbers, and they don't know quite how to have the same as the management side, which would probably be around 13, because they'd want to bring their environment.

So we'll work that out.

I've got all the guidance I can give you.

I'm very precise talking to people.

I've got all these guys.

We want to do something that helps.

We want to make a record.

We want to put it out there pretty bad, strong.

Or we will consider it just, you know, something.

Well, I think that's after tomorrow.

We'll make this announcement tomorrow afternoon.

As far as what happens on the whole thing, it's very, very useful.

to make the points that I did those things, because they really get the purpose of speaking, and they get the feeling that they aren't just there grabbing the money out of the tree.

They're causing arguments or bargaining about this or that or the other damn thing, but they're going to play a great role in that.

It's just, they like to do that way too much.

Well, listen, I think that what I've got with

The point about the importance of research and applied and getting it directed and also other forms of applied research as well as basic research, when we get to the point where you have a program on that that you want to put forward, I think you can get a hell of a lot of support from that group.

No, I thought we wanted to come over.

One has to do with Kurt Townsend.

We need some reassurance and give me a mic.

I got a call from Kurt.

He came before yesterday.

What's your problem?

Well, the problem is that he's suffering from the luxury of alternatives.

He has an offer, a six-figure offer to go into.

He has a job.

He's negotiated for all the airlines and decided he had to get it in that single man.

And he said...

My lifestyle doesn't call for this kind of money.

He said, I didn't come back here with the idea of looking for a job like this.

He said, it's a great thing to consider.

But he said, I came back here to support the president.

And I'd like to kind of get a feeling for how he feels.

I don't want to talk to him personally because of our past personal relations.

living guy and really all I think hurt would be just delighted if he said, look, I feel very comfortable having you in that job.

I think that you've done a splendid job.

Everybody tells me you have.

I'm not going to tell you what kind of decision you ought to make, but if my confidence in you and my support for you means anything, I'm delighted to give it.

I'd just like to pass that message on.

Can you pass it down?

Well, you should tell them, as a matter of fact, I think it would be, I mean, first of all, I think that if he can get that, that job will be there at a later time, too, I think.

But the main point, if he wants to, he may not.

The main point is that we would be, it would be very difficult to make a change now.

We're coming into a year where we, it's extremely important, and the very

The other

The other is the general counsel of the NLRB.

Yes, you've asked me to be sure that the management people were checked on, which Jim has done.

We've talked with Colson.

You've talked with John Ehrlichman about it.

And now it goes about it.

And also you've been making some congressional contacts on it.

Why don't you report on that, Jim?

All right.

First of all...

And anybody that he isn't top choice on, he's second choice.

He's just that kind of a person.

He comes out of a management law firm upstate New York.

There's a kind of fraternity of these kind of people that if I call about 20 to 50, I can get the sentiment for the whole nation in no time.

And I've been doing that over the last weekend.

And it will be a popular appointment.

The problem that I'm really concerned about more than anything else is that Dick Burris

worked on the Hill with a lot of our friends.

He's a Republican.

He's a deserving Republican in their eyes.

And that's the way I look at it.

Frankly, Nick Burr has worked at Lockheed, and I did.

I consider him a longtime acquaintance and friend.

So this has been a very difficult thing for me to do, but I would have to tell you that... You can't take it.

I don't know what the Burr saying is.

Well, he might, but it would be a fight.

In fact, it's partly worth it.

Yeah.

So, Matt mentioned the Teamster ad.

We got the message on first.

The thing about Nash is just, I don't want to, just be sure that management is not going to knock him.

Because we need somebody that management is going to feel comfortable with.

Management is going to feel comfortable with.

Jerry was concerned about that, and I said,

It can't be burst, so that's all right.

I said, well, what I'd like to do, I said, you've been out there and formed a lot of opinions about what was needed in the NLRB over the years.

How about my sending Max up to talk to you before it gets confirmed?

And he says, great.

So let that thing get sprinkled down.

All right, go ahead.

That's what I heard.

Now I can tell that they made it a dependent check.

It seems political.

Somebody came in here and was raising hell about that.

Maybe it was Jerry.

He didn't go to heaven.

Well, because he worked with Arthur.

Arthur, of course, could favor him.

Bryce Arnold knew him in the old days, so Bryce liked him.

Somebody came in, what I mentioned.

Somebody came in here.

You know, there's a man that you said is a congressman or something.

I guess...

Not so much against him, but, you know, that we didn't take burdens.

It's just one kind of terrible thing.

But I see what the political facts are.

We just go on.

Nash is the guy.

But be sure Jerry will support him.

Because Jerry has a strong feeling about this.

Wait a minute.

Let me see.

Well, hell, we've talked it down and down.

And if he doesn't, it's all right.

So he's already been confirmed to one of the solicitors.

He's 34.

He's got balls.

And I tell you, it's not as good as it has been.

How long has it been?

I consider it an honor to meet you.

He'll make a much better Davis.

Turn around and say, Alan Davis is a political doctor.

I agree.

I see exactly what you mean.

Well, go ahead.

I'm glad you've got a good young guy.

I was afraid of Michael Jordan because he was a good solicitor.

Now you can leave him and lose him later.

However, could you put him to rest?

Well, he's in a costly article.

He's a lawyer.

And, uh, but Malik said he's got several jobs.

Oh, Malik.

Yeah, well, leave it to Malik.

These are dependable, loyal, and all that sort of thing.

And, uh, I see this, though, this is the reality of the situation, so we go.

But, that's all we've got to do.

I'm trying to get in here and accomplish something.

Oh, it's not.

As you know, they moved out of the conference.

They did one good thing.

They settled that date in October.

Oh, did they?

Or did they help us on the budget?

A little, I understand.

$300,000, $400,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000, $300,000

and pay structure, even if it's a lot, because that's more in conformance with the Volunteer Army notion.

And the House, they were pushing pretty hard for extra money for the career officers, and I don't know how that... What position is the governor in Woodcock?

By the way, it's Woodcock.

Woodcock.

The...

He was against it.

I think he was against it.

Yeah, he was.

Just watch what Senator Mondale does.

Woodcock, Mondale.

Mondale, in the heart, he takes his orders from Woodcock.

Absolutely, the U.N.W.

runs him.

But Meany is just, he'll never forgive Humphrey.

Never forgive him.

And he's also ready to run Humphrey right out of town.

Must be right out.

He's so furious about this environment business.

You just hit a sensitive chord with me.

He's furious.

I was talking to him.

Well, it's really true.

You know, we're all for the benefit.

There is a, what do you call it, cost effect.

You know, I don't know how, whatever you weigh.

Well, when you have a project, for example, a reclamation, what do you do?

You have a benefit.

Yeah, all the benefits.

So here you've got the benefit.

This is the way the benefit is to clean up the river.

The cost is here.

You've got to weigh it.

The same is true.

Insecti, the same is true.

I think a meeting like that, it's one of those situations I think where a lot of people

think just what you said, but somehow it isn't proper to say it yet.

And by bringing it out, it's not practical, by bringing it out and then suddenly finding, gee, here's this very diverse group of people, academic people, union people, business people, and they all have this feeling.

And they start expressing it.

Well, maybe then we'll begin to get some headway.

I think it's one of those leadership things you have to do.

I think you're quite right.

I

oversight and oversimplified returns at a time as we get into this enormous competitive situation in the next 25 years at a time that the totalitarians turn our way.

In other words, we reward systemists.

You know, they've been turning our way for a long time.

They're going to have to turn it a hell of a lot more before they really get the building.

We should not turn their way, which, of course, gets back to the point that our candidate, that if there is a line where the government

The government should support it.

If we can't, we must avoid it.

This is the government stepping in, stepping in in so many countries.

And also, if mine's married, should we turn it the other way?

I really imagine some of these cities can't be saved, really, without turning an awful lot of these things over to non-government actions.

Yeah, sure, that'll never happen.

Well, let's go ahead and take trash collection.

I say that shouldn't be done with the government.

It just shouldn't be done with the government.

You remember the big fight?

We had a lot of action in our social programs.

I know that there's a lot in our social programs.

You know, we had a big fight with Yorty.

Yorty was against the private church, but he was wrong.

He got elected on it.

He won on it.

He won the people on it because the private people were making all this profit.

But on the other hand, they took this and they processed the cans and all the rest and they did it better than the damn city of Louisville.

And that's cost the city more money.

Well, that's the thing.

He wanted on the basis of getting to the housewife that she could put all her trash in one thing and get it picked up free.

I know.

Whether it was private or public, the housewife couldn't care less.

That's right.

But he did it this other time.

Very clever.

Under the president of the system, they made him put the cans in one thing and the others in another thing.

the taxpayers a hell of a lot of money to put that way.

So, and there we are.

And of course, everybody who can follow that kind of a twist of nodding, everybody who lives in New York has really got his dog around.

About New York State will be running itself, huh?

This is Bruce Boleyn.

That's a damn baller.

He does, yeah.

Oh, he's a very good baller.

Who was the son of that guy?

It's called the Southern Company.

And he's a very strong supporter of yours.

He's retiring.

He's retiring at the end of June, and he came around to say that if you wanted him to leave the commission for that reason, why he'd be glad to, but he sort of wants to stay on.

He handled himself very well in there.

He had a lot of cool things to give.

And he's our southern.

Our house southern.

Our southern stranger.

Well, do you think we'll have another meeting tonight?

Oh, we're not.

Yes, I think the spirit was good, and I sort of, we have a statement that doesn't say all that much, except that, well, it says that these things are important, and that's worth saying.

And we'll get that agreed on.

The thing I do want you to do, though, before we get to California charges, is to go sit down with Pete Peterson.

And I think probably he ought to be out there, because of his enormous interest in this thing.

You know, he's been thinking about this

flying research did, you know.

And I know you are, and John Erdman is, and the rest.

But I just have a feeling, I have a feeling, that there may be something there that we can grab.

Something we don't have to worry about getting the money, but we can get the hell out of it.

We can get something out of NASA.

Of course, we should take it out of that budget.

Let's just do something about it.

And also, we do think in terms of, certainly in terms of the tax program,

If we do go for a change in the tax reform, I think we're going to be hurting Lansing.

I would see no reason why you shouldn't have a value-add, have an extra percent with $5 million into a new NASA.

For what?

For anything.

You know, I just don't, I take it in terms of a subsidy of applied research, right?

At SSC, this makes me sick.

There's a hell of a lot of things, and that's why I wish that

They must know, let's take five or six areas.

Huh?

I don't know.

There are a couple things.

One is there's a lot of talent to do this kind of thing you're talking about.

And the second is the circumstance of the last couple years has sort of turned off the technological community about us.

This is bringing them back on their knees.

Yeah, well, NASA, for example, we're cutting them back.

The defense company cut them back.

They cut off the technological community.

And, of course, the war.

The other thing I just want to say, though,

I said, now you've got something.

He says, oh yes, I've got something.

You see, the trouble that both of you have got is that almost everybody, like Woodcock, comes up.

Everybody would punch him up.

And they say, let's take all the space engineers and make them clean up the rivers.

Or the air, the environmental air.

That is not it.

Believe me.

I think it's important.

to be cleaned up is in the automobile industry.

I really think it's going to be done there, and they're going to deal with issues and so forth.

The river thing and the rest, that's dope.

We've all looked at it all over, and there's no easy way to clean up the river.

Connelly's right.

You've got to cut off, you've got to stop your sewers going into there, and you've got to stop the farmers from irrigating and pouring the water into there or whatever they do.

But what I'm getting at is that aren't there some other areas

a new moon shot.

Now we're going for it in the nuclear power plant.

We're going for it in terms of the saline water.

We're going for it.

But there must be some other areas where the United States, with its enormous technological capability, decides we're going to do something and leave.

According to Peterson, he says there's a hell of a lot of places that the Japanese don't think.

I don't know.

I think

notion of working out a type of tax arrangement that encourages private research efforts so that you get the diversity of the enterprise of many different things.

And there was an idea brought out in the Productivity Commission discussion a couple of times now that I think might very well be a pretty good one on this.

No, but on this case, let me say that the department of my conventional conservative

philosophy.

This is one area where I believe where you've got the Germans and the Europeans, the Japanese, as well as the Russians and the Chinese, all in varying degrees, some in the ultimate and others in partial degrees, having government subsidy in particular areas.

Let's not back away from it.

Let's do it.

I mean, if in order to do something, let's do it.

I recoil at the idea of having government subsidy

If it's just something we're doing, something that private enterprise ought to do.

But this may be, George, it just may be that we've got to kick it off.

Because let's face it.

You know, it's really true.

Stop this, Nick.

How the hell would Lockheed get created?

I know this is a testimony of the Lockheed president.

They've got some business in the city.

I'm not going to speak to you.

Same thing is true in our other big balance of payment side, namely computers.

It's out here in all the states.

Well, space, and also the big patron, and it was the military, and the Census Bureau, and so on.

That's what got these computers going.

You see, what I'm going to ask you, and I, and I, most freedom would like to hear this kind of talk, but basically, I, I would say, just make damn sure that government does what it needs to be done.

The whole philosophy is this.

The whole philosophy is that our way is the private enterprise way.

Always choose that way when you can.

But when private enterprise won't or can't do what needs to be done, the government has got to do it.

Now, just as simple as that.

And that's what we've got here.

If the private enterprise won't, there's no interest in it.

And therefore, that's when the government gets into all this social stuff.

Or it can't.

because it doesn't have the funds.

Something that we want to, we can't.

Then, set it off.

And that still would go for, like I know, this telecommunication and the rest of it.

I'm all for the private thing.

I don't get it.

TVA sell the damn thing.

Well, the private can come in, even if it is a government enterprise, just as you said on NASA.

NASA's the first.

A hell of a big...

A bunch of privates.

How do we do it?

How does NASA do it?

NASA is a great management thing.

Governance is supposed to be government.

But they contract all this stuff out.

That's right.

That's what Jim Witt says.

All I have is a management team.

And he contracts it out to a bunch of brilliant, well, I think brilliant managers in the private sector, which you could never build in the public sector.

He nurtured it.

Take another look at another thing.

I'm not sure that we don't want to get that.

Now, these nuclear power plants, we are moving those into the private.

But this moves in the other direction.

Why the hell don't we find ways to move more of the AEC stuff out of the public into the private?

Yeah.

Well, we've been trying to do some of that.

And it's quite a struggle with a joint community.

But we have, there's kind of a gradual process of doing that.

Of course, the ADC contracts out the Argonne Lab, for example, as an ADC lab.

I don't know what the Brookhaven Lab, I guess that's a non-profit organization that they've set up.

But let me check on that further.

I know that we've been

putting the pressure on to privatize a lot of the ABC stuff, and we're kind of in a struggle with it.

But you know, the re-privatization thing, find everything you possibly can just for symbolism, and we do some of that, Jim.

We've just got to do it.

And I put somebody on that all through the OVM.

find things that we can read, that we can have, so we can talk about it a little.

That can have enormous effect on those who just philosophically are repelled by our huge budgets, by our growing government, by our welfare programs, by our family assistance, and all the rest, all of which government should do.

I recognize that.

If they're repelled by that, let's start showing that really when we come down to it in terms of what produces wealth, we know government doesn't produce a goddamn thing.

We prefer to do it through private institutions, private institutions.

Well, I'll see you tonight.

Well, that was a very worthwhile thing.

I think it's...

They're important people and I think they may need to go back.

They might go back and do something maybe.

They are important people.

We have a powerful group.

I've got Ed Meany and Woodcock and Abel all in the same room.

Gilbert.

You get that kind of powerful group.

And then, of course, Roach and Branch and Ed Carter and Ed Carter.

Well, you get that group lined up behind you.

on the necessity for certain kinds of research and the program to do something with it, it's pretty damn irresistible.

Well, what I'd like to do is to be able to say some things that are quite very soon, in the next couple of months, that are quite exciting.

I'm speaking now about the research.

The thing that we can point for, I think this is a good idea, is to have a larger conference of the type we talked about, say, in mid-September sometime, and use the productivity commission as a basis for it.

We'll have a statement that they'll approve.

It's a general statement about the importance of this topic.

We'll have a bunch of more detailed statements and studies, which they will have approved, which we can distribute, saying these have come out of the discussions and we've put them forward for a discussion piece.

And we can put together a day of

And that might run like Will Briston has agreed to speak at a meeting of this kind on the manager's side.

He's being a precious figure.

I'm pretty sure we can get George Meany to do the same.

Although, he may drag his feet and not want to be playing around.

And somebody like Howard Johnson or one of the public people, we can have some discussions in smaller workshops, point towards some of these things, and we can wind up with an address by you to the group.

Right.

It gets that 150 of a very high-powered and diverse group together.

Well, in terms of the, in terms of basically, we have no illusions, actually.

We are.

But on the other hand, particularly with regard to the first two, the Al-Oqba and the Uyghur, of course, all thank you for your kindness, but it tends to mitigate your service.

What are the things that they, you, take the politics out of it and say to me, who do you agree with on those things more, Muskie or the president?

And he'll tell you just like that.

Oh, I agree with Charles.

I agree with him on the water.

I agree with him on the environment.

I agree with him on the chemicals.

I agree with him on crime.

I agree with him on drugs.

I agree with him on youth.

But now he's got me.

Well, he's got me.

But you know what's the cure for that?

Moving up a little.

Within a year.

And I advise y'all, Sean, I'm still saying I have confidence in you.

Today has been about nice.

It's been different for a long time.

Well, our retails now for June so far have been pretty good.

Nothing better.

Everybody tells me they're supposed to.

Well, everybody, they're all private holes, I think, in the set of retail sales.

Because, of course, you still have a week.

I mean, not the first time we had it.

that looks, looks like it's coming along maybe a little better than many.

So, I'm sure he's concerned.

I'm going to have an ostracize you before you go on an appointment in Texas.

Yeah, that would be possible.

Well, I think the people in the back are saying that we're in for a study.

Are we going to be helped at all by those programs of hiring blacks and that sort of thing?

About two-tenths of one percent on this program.

Two-tenths of one percent, yeah.

How soon will it be effective?

I would say about 90 days after the thing goes into effect.

So that's effective September.

Now I would think about after.

All right, all right.

We'll get it through this summer, all right.

We'll get it through this summer.

It isn't all that bad.

just isn't all that bad.

I mean, the figures that Colin, he's really had it down.

I mean, it's really, where is it?

It's you?

I mean, look at the young people.

At least during the school year, 50% of those young people say they're unemployed.

Our students.

So they're fine.

So we count them as unemployed people.

Yeah.

Okay.