Conversation 540-009

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I've got just a sort of a collection of items here.

Before I do, sitting in there listening to Henry talking about this trip, I'd like to volunteer to advance that trip.

I don't know what currency you're going to make, but it sounds to me like it may be a little out of the ordinary.

And I don't need any response from you, but it's something I'd sure be interested in doing if it works out.

School desegregation, we've got monumental problems, and they're going to get worse as we get farther into the fall.

Morgan is pretty well on top of it.

I'm going to have a woodshed session with Elliot Richardson shortly.

But you should just be aware that all is not well there.

It's a typical problem that we've had right along, except it's a little worse than it was last time.

George Stentz has put a good face on it because of the citizen committees and so on and so forth.

But Morgan tells me that we have some very serious potential political problems that have just got to be watched very closely because the damn AGW bureaucracy is going to screw us if we aren't awfully careful.

So, no, I don't think so.

You have my absolute backing.

Oh, I know.

Well, I've got several, I've got several things.

Elliot's boats begin to leak a little bit.

And we've got several places that we've got to sharpen up.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So we'll keep on it, but you should be aware of the fact and...

We took a little rap in Austin the other day, and there's a case in Dallas that's given us problems.

Texas is one of the really serious situations.

So I told Morgan.

Well, they've got some of the worst swan case-type problems of any place in the country.

Well, he doesn't have to leave them alone.

Most of these are private suits, and we get dragged in by the court.

So anyway, there it is.

On the billion dollars, Morgan's strong feeling is we'd be better off not to get that money right away.

And so our secret strategy is to delay it.

Elliot is doing his best to shake it loose.

Edith Green is doing a lot to delay it.

And we're planning it.

Well, I know why she's delaying it.

It doesn't make any sense.

But what our fear is is that we would get the money,

And then we'd have to go out and buy a lot of buses with it.

Well, we're going to slow it down, keep them closed up, try and delay it as much as we can.

If the Congress really does adjourn in October, as they're talking about now, that's what the leadership is talking about.

Yes, sir.

Well, that's their strategy.

is to, the last request for rules, according to the letter that the House leadership sent out the other day, will be October 1.

And they're October 15 in general.

Sure, sure.

Start right in the Democrats.

Start right in the early primaries.

And, now, if that's so,

they'll never also get out oh yeah yeah just roam up and down well uh i think we can beat them over the head on early adjournment too with a lot of unfinished business but at the same time i want you to know that we're trying to slow that money down because you'll be hearing from people about what a tragedy it is and all this kind of stuff play the game just just do it without getting caught in it that's right but let me say i couldn't agree more and i know that

shows you'll hear a lot about it on family systems on family systems uh john williams has been hired as a consultant to the senate finance committee and uh there's a lot going there a lot of problems and so

I am aware of your sentiments on this thing, and we'll continue to do what we can to get your result.

On the conspiracy, Kurt's on badness just before we leave that.

I talked to Conway about it yesterday, and he said, well, I think he was got on us because I really don't know.

He says, my gut of the action is that it's a loser.

But he said, on the other hand, the present program is a loser.

So maybe that's, so we ought to enforce something.

But he, I said, well, if we're not sitting there, I'm sure if I go with the loser or something, it's not going to help us politically.

But even about John and his crassest political terms, let's face it, in his crassest political terms, do you think men and citizens will help us?

No, it doesn't show up on any of the polls.

Well, what we're talking about, what about the people that go on the CD?

My hand used to make the point, well, the working poor all get on, they start getting checks and they'll all be forced.

I don't believe it will be.

No, no.

The makeup's wrong.

They aren't our people.

They aren't our people, basically.

They are people that are just basically not going to vote for us.

Well, you say that you can't generalize that.

Well, to some extent you can.

Under $8,400, the damn few Nixon voters in that group.

On all the demographic breakouts, we just don't show up.

Well, all right, if you can go to them and make the argument that you put money in their pockets and translate that into votes, that's an assumption I'm not willing to make at this point.

In the first place, I don't see you making that argument, and I don't know of anybody that will make it for you.

And secondly, I'm not so sure that translates.

The guy says, gee, I got this check, and I never got a check before, and that's a good person who did that.

Now, on the other side of the coin, are you all that convinced that the goddamn thing will work?

No.

As a matter of fact, I've been thinking a lot more.

We've had this one experiment.

Let me tell you my concern about it.

My concern is that...

This is one of the things I've talked to Elliot about.

I left him on the call.

I told Bo not to bring him on.

Oh, I see.

Sorry, that's okay.

Well, let me tell you this.

It gets back to something that is really very fundamental.

With all of our concern about poor hungry kids and the poor, charity, et cetera, et cetera, I have a strong conviction that

that there is a point where societies become basically bread and services and then they go downhill.

I do, I am convinced that welfare generally is bad.

Bad because, not because the fact that somebody gets something for nothing.

In other words, I like to see them get the food and the clothes and the rest.

But bad because I think it does something to the character

person, and of his family, of his attitude.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Now, if I feel that way, if I believe that, I just can't in good conscience get a lot more people thinking in welfare psychology terms.

I go back to see my own family, and I think of the, and I look back, and it was goddamn foolish on their part.

But as I've told this before, but as I remember, my brother was sick for five years, and my folks refused to take all of you to sanitarium.

It was the county tuberculosis sanitary.

It was much better than the one they had before.

We sent it to Hillcrest, and it broke.

And my mother took me to Arizona for a couple of years.

But that almost broke us.

But they said, we are not going to accept public charity.

Now, probably as a result, he might have lived.

I don't know.

I doubt it.

I mean, they had nothing that could help.

But the other hand,

On the other hand, looking back, what we went through then was a damn good thing for us.

I just believe it was.

I guess it's not for the majority.

But follow up the other line of reasoning.

You've got a lousy system right now.

It's going to bleed the economy white if it's let to run the way it goes.

Correct.

So it's got to be changed.

And everybody agrees on that.

So the only question is change to what?

Yeah.

And then the question is, what should this administration stand for, what should we be in favor of as a change?

And when you get to that, then you're right up against a kind of a national assumption that you can't eliminate welfare.

So what you really talk about is a substitute system of welfare in this country, a substitute for what we have that eliminates a lot of the abuses

and is fiscally sound and doesn't offer a chance for runaway costs in the future.

So we say, all right, we want a system that'll put people on payrolls.

And one of the critical abuses is that it's better to be on welfare than to work under the present system.

So what do you do about that?

Well, you put premiums on working

And you put penalties on welfare.

And that's, of course, this whole working poor thing.

That's how we got into it in the first place, was to try and get a motivation to move people toward working for a living.

Now, if it's correct, if our assumption is correct, that's what will happen, that more people will go to work because they make more money going to work than they do being on welfare.

All the incentives are in the direction of work.

then it's oversimplification to say that we're introducing a lot of people to welfare.

What we started out to try and do was introduce a lot of people who are going back to work.

Now, we can still make the argument that that's what we're doing.

If you ask me the question, will it work?

And I've had one of my guys named Kavanaugh, who's come from AT government,

look into this for me to find out what they're doing about implementing the damn thing.

And it's enormously complex to put into effect.

And he's just given me a report that is very, very discouraging.

He says they're in terrible disarray over there.

They don't know what the hell they're doing about putting this into work.

That's one of the things I've got to talk to Elliot about at great length.

Because this guy comes back and just says it's a shambles.

And the worst thing that could happen to us right now would be to have this legislation adopted because we're not ready to implement it.

So that's something we've got on our plate to really get into.

And I've got to, as soon as I do some checking and make sure that Kavanaugh's right, I've got to get with you.

But at the present time, like you say, can we frankly...

Yes, I think without very much effort that it can be hopelessly delayed in the Senate, certainly this year.

And then in next year, because Long is going in one direction, Ribicoff's going in another.

Ribicoff's got a lot of expensive amendments he wants to add on.

And I would say almost certainly we can hold off until right there.

Then in our budget, what do we do?

Do we just dump it next year?

I think we have to keep showing unless we can say...

that the Congress, against our will, has precluded the possibility of its being adopted.

That would be more my inclination.

My inclination would be just to say, well, because of this Congress's attitude, it's unrealistic to put it in.

And what I would do is do this.

I would back off.

Here's what I'm going to do in the next budget.

If the Congress doesn't pass it in this session, I'd say that I've tried, and I've tried twice, and we've done some twice.

Therefore, I would put it in on a trial basis.

In other words, put the trial basis in, and then we're not backing off of the goddamn trial basis with all the work requirements.

I just think that's the way to do it, John, and that we've done the goddamn thing.

See, Lucky and Ray will support that.

Okay.

I really feel like we should get the thing delayed.

All right.

And then let's have a try.

Because, listen, let me tell you honestly, I think we ought to have a trial.

Couldn't we learn something?

Oh, definitely.

The Kavanaugh study is right.

If they are in such bad shape on management, Elliot may very well support us on that.

He may have to admit that he can't pull it off and that we ought to go to the trial.

So I'll try and pull that one off.

Because if we can get him on our side on that, it would be a lot.

a lot nicer all the way around.

He had a good meeting with Reagan.

I talked to Reagan's people about it afterward.

And there's some remaining questions, obviously.

But I don't think Reagan is going to blast us on welfare reform right now.

They're still talking.

And Reagan wants to talk to you the next time you're in California.

I'll be there in August.

Yeah, that's what I told him.

Well,

If you declare publicly that you're going to have a vacation, then I don't think you'd have to have the appointment.

I think it could be done here or some other way.

I think it would be better to be here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where you have some advantages.

Right.

You remember you gave Marty a lecture about Ivy Leaguers in the Justice Department.

So he went back to check and see how it stacks up.

And it's really pretty good.

It's predominantly non-Ivy League, as defined as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell.

Total

84% not Ivy League, 16% Ivy League, and then it breaks down by U.S. attorneys and so on.

Of our appointees, heavily non-Ivy League by four to one, five to one.

So he's got the message.

On our conspiracy, I-Court does not want to have this in his committee.

He's going to run for governor, and he needs liberal support.

He says he's got all the conservative support he needs, and this scares him.

On the other hand, Hebert and Ahrens are definitely interested in appointing a select committee of their committee.

And we're talking to them.

We've got an agreement with them that we'll take a couple of weeks to analyze what we have.

And then we'll sit down with Ahrens and Hebert.

I told Aarons that I would like him to pick out a bushy-tailed young congressman on that committee, that junior dies, that he has some confidence in, that we could use as a sort of a manager of this thing.

And he said he would try and do that.

Well, they've got a pretty good staff.

Could I suggest that this is a place for an outside counsel?

Are you going for a top outside counsel who wants to make himself a hell of a reputation?

There must be somebody, John, you know what I mean?

Right.

Outside counsels have done very good jobs in terms of this sort of deal.

All right.

In any event, Krogh and his guys are going to pull together the evidence.

And in two or three weeks' time...

They are working on the evidence.

Yes, indeed.

And what he's trying to do yesterday and today is get around...

Well, there are a lot of leads.

There are all kinds of leads.

How did Cook come off?

No, and I'm afraid Elliott's got some jam on his face.

More Cook is concerned.

Cook spent 14 hours with Ellsberg.

Well, I want him to come down, call the senator's office, and his secretary, and tell him the president would be delighted to have him.

I don't know when.

In fact, I'm not terribly familiar with all the details of this, but they're on it.

They're into it.

sat with Cook yesterday on the ground rules for the polygraph test, and there is to be a polygraph.

Kleindienst personally interviewed Richardson on it and is not at all satisfied with the answers he got and wanted to know if it would be all right to talk to Bill Rogers about it, because the contention is that the Secretary approved of this process

But Dick says that from the way the story's unfolding, he doesn't think that Rogers really did approve of the process.

Okay.

Well, that was my hunch.

That's what I told him to go ahead and do.

You don't think this is just Richardson talking about that case involving, you know, the job?

Well, that's why I couldn't talk 14 hours about it.

No, that's the point, you see.

There just wasn't that much material.

And so that's what's got Clint East's wind up.

He's on this now because he thinks they were together too long to be credible in that context.

So anyway, that's it.

Senator Mathias would not give up the National Security Council papers that he didn't volunteer to.

Now, nobody's made a demand on him.

And I think that you should ask Rodgers to talk to him.

I think really that's the best thing.

I think Rogers is willing.

Okay.

You need to talk to Rogers about it.

I have.

I talked to him on the airplane, but not about that.

Not about that.

You call him and say, look, will you go see him?

Will you talk to him?

All right.

And just put it at that level.

If the son of a bitch doesn't do it, then we demand it.

Well, I think it's rapidly coming to the point where we ought to just put it to Matthias.

Or do you want to talk to Rogers?

I think that's treating Matthias with kid gloves unnecessarily.

Ellsberg delivered the documents to him.

There are documents.

And it seems to me that somebody like Kleindienst or me or somebody ought to just say to Matthias, please return.

Why didn't Kleindienst do it?

Rather than you...

I had a long talk with your brother and then with your nephew, Don, about his European adventure.

He's a weird kid, if I may say so.

He's strange.

He told me, no, no sign of that, but very, very odd guy.

He told me he'd been spending some time with Huey Newton, the Black Panther.

Told me that he had tried to phone Chew and Lye about 10 days ago.

And it was just a lot of things of that kind that really, yeah, strange.

What I did, I don't have any grounds for telling him not to go to Europe.

There just isn't anything, all in all.

But what I did do was ask the CIA to surveil him and to give us a monthly report.

And I just talked to him like a Dutch uncle.

I just really tried to make it very plain to him that... What the hell did he say?

Was he calling you online about it?

well about the war he decided that the way to get this war settled would be to go right to the top and he just couldn't sit around and see us continue the way we were so he picked up the phone put in a long distance call

I don't know what to do with him.

He's a keg of dynamite.

He could go off, you know, any minute.

I told him not to talk to the press, for instance.

He said, well, he kind of enjoyed matching wits with the press.

And so I've talked to Don since then.

I don't know whether Don can't control it.

No, he obviously can't.

Don was trying, and that's why he came to us.

Yeah.

And, you know, Don, that's why Don asked me to talk with him.

He thought I could control it.

I don't think you could do it.

No, I don't either.

I don't either.

In fact, I think you broke it.

I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm a little afraid he might broker me, and I ran through my mind.

That's at least not quite as bad as... That's right.

But basically...

Well, he's going over there this week.

Why don't all these people take him?

Oh, well, it's pretty obvious.

This guy that's taking him is an associate of Robert Vesco.

Robert Vesco is a fellow that moved in on Kornfeld, IOS.

It turns out, I had an investigation done in Europe, it turns out that he has held himself out as being a business associate of your brother's.

And the brother that was reported to me was Eddie.

So when Eddie was in the office the other day to talk about the library, I said, did you ever have anything to do with a man named Stroud?

And he said, no.

Well, then he talked to Don, and Don phoned me and said, well, I've had some business dealings with Stroud.

I'm in a land syndicate with Stroud and Visco on some land down in Luton, some recreational land.

So that was all news to me.

But...

He's the kind of a guy that will exploit this kid as your nephew, and I'm reasonably sure.

Now, I've told the kid that he's going to get set up, that he's going to be used, that they may try and frame him with either a woman or a man, that he has to assume that people are going to overhear his conversations.

that he's got to carry your colors, that he's just got to be very circumspect.

But I just feel like I was hollering down a well, frankly.

You just didn't pay attention.

Well, he listened, and he bragged a little bit, because I said, you can't talk to the press, and you can't do this, and you can't do that.

First, he said, now listen, when you fellows...

It was right after the China announcement.

He said, when you fellas get this thing all settled with China, he says, I want to be one of the first ones in there.

Just think of that.

There's 800 million people.

What a market.

He said, there's a lot of money to be made there.

And I said, my friend, you will be one of the last people to go in there.

He said, why is that?

And I said, well, just look how it looks if the president's relatives are the first ones into China on a commercial basis.

Well, he said, that's not fair.

I said, I didn't say it was fair.

I just said that's the way it had to be.

So that was the way our conversation went.

And I tell you, he's a potential problem.

And so we'll keep on him.

Is there anything else you could do?

I guess Don's apparently working out all right with him.

I guess.

I hope so.

I hope Mary...

I've not heard any of the comments.

Is there anything else to do with this little son of a bitch?

I don't know.

Well, I know.

That'd be the ruination of it if he had any kind of income.

See, he's run up a big debt in California.

And so part of his trip is to get away from his creditors.

And, uh,

I really feel more comfortable with the agency watching him than I would if he were roaming around this country talking to Huey Newton.

If I thought we'd get him committed, that would be the best answer, I'm frank to say, but I don't think we can.

Well, anyway, there's that one.

It's a bitch, and I...

He's quite sensitive to it.

Does he know you're bragging and doing all these things?

I filled him in on this.

And he didn't realize it.

First, he didn't know anything about the phone call in China.

He was just appalled.

He was just taken apart.

And he said he'd check into it.

And I said, no, there isn't anything you can do.

He said, God, I just want to know.

He says, for nothing else, I want to know who paid the phone bill.

But he said, I just, you know, so.

But ComBot can help us on this.

ComBot gets to Europe pretty regularly, and so I'll use him on it.

On consumer sentiment, this thing that was discussed in here this morning, Eddie Harper has given me a memo.

of a session on consumer sentiment that he was in that makes some interesting points, and I'll just leave it with you, rather than to rattle it around through George and some.

It's a little bit of an unorthodox angle on this whole business of consumer sentiment.

So there it is.

This is an analysis of the various polls.

No, no, no.

This is a report from a consumer poll man in a seminar that Harper was in.

And he just passed it along to me for my information, but I thought it would be of some interest to you.

It's this whole question that was raised here this morning, what people are thinking and what the administration can do to respond to these, uh, these, uh, passions.

We, uh, we definitely, uh, of course, uh, we, uh, we need you to step through it this morning.

All of it.

Uh,

Have you ever really seen such an impressive group of people?

You know, I was just thinking this small thing.

I was just thinking that, and I hate to ask for it, but here with Henry sitting there, and all the rest, and the whole band were applauding and so forth.

Wouldn't you think that one of them would have said something?

Yeah.

And say, well, look, Mr. President, we've got confidence in you.

We think our tradition, you've done a great job.

Not a thing.

Did you hear anything?

As a matter of fact, one of them was asleep all through Henry's time.

Cotton.

Oh, Cotton, when they said.

But my point is that it seemed to me, and actually we've been talking about it, but here they have, John, you can imagine what kind of a session that would have been with the Democratic leaders and a Democratic president.

how can we exploit this part of our problem here of course is that and then maybe we even overdo it and then we said we don't speculate in this and we've all agreed we can't the reason that we have what we really need is about everything else because he has been speculating on the purpose of us saying the lord yeah

Frankly, it is one of the purposes that they got a man in Chinese and can't say it.

Yeah, can't say it.

See, they'll deny it the third moment that you do it.

And they may help us, but they've got to help us quietly.

Sure, you can't say it, but anyway.

I suppose that when we say don't speculate, that puts a damper on it.

But on the other hand, what I said at the last, I think that's very, very stable.

There it is.

And one of them, you could have said, but one of them could have said, man, what we really have here is the whole thing of presidential leadership.

This is the head of the ticket.

And this is just gold in their pockets, you know.

And somebody should have said that.

Dole or somebody should have said that.

But they didn't.

And I don't know why Dole doesn't step up and say that.

It's discouraging to see that much.

It really is.

But now the economy, I must say, of course, Dominic is a deep question.

Yeah, negative.

Everything is negative.

Everything he says is negative.

He says something positive.

But here's Dominic, Griffin, all the rest of them, Anderson,

Anderson, of course, saying, well, this and that and the other thing.

Now, understand, I don't mean things are all that good.

But God damn it, they aren't all that bad.

I mean, they ought to be on there.

But what is your view on that?

Listen, they should have come up there swinging.

Why do I have to make the point, I make it time and time again, that if you had maybe 300,000 off back defense plans in Vietnam, your unemployment rate would be 4.5.

You know, the thing that occurred to me, if a little guy like Pop sitting in that meeting would have spoken up and said, Mr. President, I can see how this thing is going now.

He said, you're taking us out of this.

He said, this is great news.

There's a trend running here.

He could have, you know, he could have really colored that meeting.

And for George or for me or for anybody else around the edge there to say something is, of course, self-serving.

Also, it's very difficult for me.

that have to take responsibility, particularly right now when it should be the other way, to have to charge up our own troops.

They'll always be charging me up a little bit.

I've been working, I mean, the last three months have been tense.

We've been taking this meeting on this and that and the other thing, fighting on the papers and the rest.

Any of these goddamn people come in, why?

I mean, I just thought it was a rather critical performance.

I didn't think much of it.

Well, go ahead.

That's nearly all I have.

I've been asked to do one of the late talks at the Grove on the last weekend, and I don't know whether I should do it or not.

I want to hear your guidance on this.

And in that talk, I mean, I think we've got to get a talking point out for people on the China panel.

And it's not very good at those talking points.

It's a little technical, but, you know, you've just got to say a few little things like, like I say, well, here's 800 million people.

Here's the danger.

Or so we make a deal with the Russians.

What if we don't have a deal with them?

Well, you know what I mean?

That's sort of exciting.

Yeah, it really is.

I think people around the country generally are excited about that.

I mean, the average guy.

And you get these clowns.

Well, I think some of these clowns are.

You want me to do it?

Yes, we're all set.

I do some of these guys.

Must be.

Yes.

Where's the guy with the smart... Where the hell is the guy with the smart gun?

Very, very...

I don't know what the results are.

What are the results?

What comes out of it?

Do we get better results in terms of their defending you on the hill or

legislative support, and I must say, I think McGregor ought to do a little more in this respect.

McGregor, I thought he would actually, McGregor's was yesterday, but before a meeting like this, McGregor should have had somebody set to speak up.

Yeah, yeah.

Why don't you speak to McGregor?

I will, Pat.

I will.

He said at that meeting, you should have programmed somebody to speak up.

God damn it, you've got to do it.

I guess that's what we have to do, John.

Nobody's going to do it.

I don't know.

I think that's true.

But there are guys that are like Tom.

who, if programmed, will do just faithfully what you asked them to do.

We were talking about this sterling performance in there this morning by our legislative colleagues.

I was saying to John that if they had, if the Democratic president had come back and talked to the Democratic leaders after they announced some of this in China, hell, the people would have been slapping each other on the back.

As a matter of fact, some of the Democratic people were doing it yesterday.

They would, after Henry's presentation, say that it was a great job or something, they'd just say a word about, we're just proud to be here.

It's a goddamn thing, except think about the thing.

The economy's in a terrible shape and so forth.

What did you really think of it?

As a performance, basically, it leaves, I just thought, what a sandlot.

I mean, the...

I was interested in it.

I was sitting opposite the nearest cop, he was sleeping, and he was sent to sleep.

I don't know how he got up quite and he said, I will get up.

But it's incredible when you're hearing about something as significant as that, that you wouldn't pay attention.

I've heard you and everybody talk about it now, three times.

It's extraordinarily interesting, as well as important, and just how people can do it.

One of the main points is that they should be making a point about the fact that free interest in peace issues, and they should be making a point about the economy of what God does.

Let's look at some of the good things, and let's point out that we're never going to be able to produce

We're working for it.

We even have it now.

We can afford it.

It's just a hell of a dirty deal to stay in for.

It's only partially true, but it's true enough.

Jesus Christ, I mean, they run around and think, like, John Anderson, he killed his aunt, his sister, and his wife.

And so you picture this problem, and I'm like, well, they've got a special problem in Illinois.

It's basically not bad.

Illinois is very good.

Rockford is a machine tool.

Sure.

Right here.

They've got to be living off the side of the land.

You know, talks such as everything you're doing is wrong.

I worked out one thing that I'd like for you to do.

I told Dole and Dominic that you ought to talk to the 19 Republican senators running for re-election.

Give them the same pitch.

But always make them give the economic picture and make that political point about the war.

In other words, tie a peace issue into it.

If we haven't,

If we had 180 to 300,000 in defense plans and in Vietnam, or in farm searches that we had when we came in, that same proportion, then our unemployment would be down to less than 5%.

When you use a picture, make up 4.5, 4.6, and then you can say they don't want you to change.

And that's been a good point to make.

But then I would make that, and I think also if you could get out about

one or two pages of just straight up talking points about the strong things about the economy that people can use for speeches and so forth uh basically and let's see if we can't get that circulated first part of the 19 republican senators and then i think uh we ought to have between you and calmly

You ought to take on 25 branches at the Republican Congress, and you can take 25, you know what I mean, and let Connolly have them, and do that within the next week or the next two weeks or so.

You talk to Connolly about it.

You can just advise that group of people.

And if he gets a good, I want to talk about the economy engaged.

We should accomplish this work.

Always make the work.

See the way, remember that at the moment, peace is our issue.

The economy is our issue.

But their interest has been in us over the end of the economy.

Our mistake would be to talk only about their issues.

We must talk about ours.

They don't want to talk about the war.

They don't want to talk about it.

You're going to see the Democrats going to talk about this.

They want the war to go away.

I'll be careful about what you do.

I agree with you.

I have my skin.

But you can check it.

On this general subject, if you would do that, set yourself free.

And you, you, you, you.

I'll talk it down.

David John, we'd like to just sort of, just a second.

Do what?

Spend an hour.

George and.

John, to operate separately.

Separately, all right.

Well, what I meant is, I did it.

I want George to do the Republican senators.

Right.

Basically, they've got the White House.

A congressman could be drawn to trade.

Okay.

And so that Johnny, you can't overwork him.

He's got these other.

But George, the only way you're going to get through 150, that's what I was going to use, or 160, 25, that's six, seven.

six groups, that's three, you take three to 25, and he takes three to 25, and all of them, and just give it to them.

I think it's a very, I think it's a very positive way, and aggressive, just to be like you did, to find the reservations, and don't take any of this crap off of them.

Part of the problem here is that they,

don't do their homework.

I don't think they even read the financial page.

There's a whole lot of them writing it down when you make the search signs.

My point is,

that unless you really study this stuff, you get it from our standpoint.

You've also got to get to the George Marvel positive stuff, like Stein's thing.

It should be mailed around so that they all get it.

And with the letter, I would urge that you read it.

Jerry Foro sent that to everybody, all of his colleagues.

Maybe Scott says it to all of the Stein Center colleagues, the Stein team.

But then it's just a question of getting them a different kind of mind.

Because part of the problem here is basically, in terms of psychology, is basically talk.

Now, let me say, I agree with you that when you take the Silver Sandals surveys and Harris polls or what have you, that they aren't really what matters.

What matters is what people do, their decisions at the moment, to win retail sales seem to indicate some confidence.

Right?

Now, on the other hand,

The psychology does affect politics.

In other words, consumer sentiment does affect politics.

And if people even buy a car and think things are going to hell, that is the problem.

Now, the reason they think that is that they hear it from the Democratic spokesmen who are back at their hands all the time, very little defense on our part.

I mean, the parts of our accomplishment centers.

And they hear it on television and read it also in the press to an extent.

The answer to it, of course, is to have the numbers begin to look a little better.

That isn't going to come for a while.

I'm not particularly sanguine about all these things.

But I'm not also, I'm not ready to run to the hills on the, you know, this idea of 8% on the line.

Elliot Jalen, of course, I've never known him.

He's been right, yeah.

Have you?

He makes very extreme predictions.

He's like Pierre Renfrew.

Renfrew does the same thing.

They go to one extreme or the other in order to keep their clients.

And people never remember a bad prediction.

They always remember a good one.

And that's what they're playing there.

But he's not a professional in that sense.

But maybe it may even apply to Booker or something.

History starts to will.

I don't know.

You don't think so?

I don't think so.

Let me say, the present, the main thing is if your number starts to just recede a bit.

And I don't expect this, if it started October, to go down.

I would get the 5.6 out of the way and let it go back down to whatever it's supposed to be.

Then have it go one tenth of a point at a time.

That's all.

No more.

It's all the same.

Shake a little bit down, just a little.

Look back to the Kennedy years, 61, two and three.

God damn it, the average is 5.7 in those years.

The average, 6.7 in 61.

You know, when they hit the crop, 5.3, 5.7.

God, but why did the people think times were good?

Because it was getting a little better, correct?

Well, it's getting better now.

Huh?

Griffin, of course.

I think the point I tried to get across to him was most of what I had to say in there was a report on what had happened in the first half.

It wasn't a forecast.

It was a report.

Absolutely.

That's a good point.

We're not blowing smoke up their ass or anything of that sort.

You were just telling them what had happened, and then they said, all right, what's going to happen in the future?

Well, based on what's happened in the past, we think it may look pretty good in the future.

But I don't know.

Well, let me put it this way.

I can tell you all that matters is what happens.

Everybody can forecast, they can talk it down, they can talk it up, but it's what happens.

And if this happens, well, all these aren't going to mean anything.

But on the other hand, I do think some hand-holding sessions of these dumb crooks, before they go out in August, you know, they try.

The other thing that you want to remember, George, is that most of these guys are talking to Republican audiences.

Most Republican audiences are business-oriented, and most businessmen are vicious.

See, everybody likes him again.

He kind of jerks Atlantic and gets in here and talks, you know.

Well, there are a few people who snap out of that, but that's the new standard.

He's a budget, budget private.

I don't know what they are.

And it's interesting how their profits will make a difference.

You talk to retailers, and they just extend.

They say, are you going to sell the whole city?

What is going on?

And...

Many of the production people haven't quite felt it yet, but they're beginning to.

Along the retail side, too, George, they talked about, he was talking about, for example, Anderson Graves, the great dude, I mean, talking to one of his sons, giving him a picture about this.

And this is a terrible thing.

He's just dead wrong.

In terms of the past, it's terrible.

In terms of the future, it's pretty.

Correct?

In other words, it means there's a hell of a lot of money ready to be spent.

Well, I'd hell of a lot rather have that money ready to be spent than to have it already spent.

Like on inventory, see, you can say, gee whiz, the fact that businessmen have very low inventories indicates lack of confidence, correct?

On the other hand, in terms of the future, if retail sales are heavy, it's something to be very, very bullish about, correct?

Well, that's right, because it turns...

It gives the economy a terrific wealth.

That inventory building has been a traditional big swinger on an upturn.

We haven't gotten any benefits from that yet.

Even the steel buildup, I think, came to a fair extent from foreign imports.

That didn't give us quite the lift of the steel buildup we might have gotten, although they've been going pretty well until now.

We have a bunch of money for public service jobs coming up.

And the incorporation has not passed yet.

But we're trying to get in shape to be ready to spend it right.

And I guess possibly our problem is we don't do things the right way.

We had a one-day turnaround on that.

We signed that bill.

And the next day you sent the appropriation request.

There was no delay.

We were set to go.

The money will be ready.

The plan will be ready, it looks like, right after Labor Day, if we get the appropriation in the meantime.

Not until then.

Good God.

How does it take that long?

Well...

That seems to be part of the operation.

Well, I would guess we get the appropriation within a month.

No, I'm not so sure whether we get it before the recess or not.

Well, we are badgering them.

The park is badgering them.

Badgering them?

Well, I'm not saying I'm badgering them.

There's some public badgering them.

I think some public background on that is very important.

Denny, you get the money.

Let's suppose you got it before the recess by 4 July 31st, the appropriation.

Why don't you start spending it right then?

Why the hell can't you?

Why does it take another month to start getting the money?

Well, I hate to tell you why things can't be done.

I didn't think you could because I didn't think you would be planning it now.

They are planning it now.

But I just can't get it done.

Well, let me give you an example.

One of the things that has to be done

is that a formula for distribution has to be set.

And there's about four or five different ways that this thing can go.

We were working on this in San Clemente, and George just saw us here, on the right formula to use to get the money into the ten critical states, into our ten states.

You can do it on a lot of different bases.

Present number of unemployed people or change in unemployment since 1969 or there are a lot of different formulas that can be used.

So we got this set up on a computer now and they're running the variations.

And the first readout that I got on it didn't get us enough impact in Texas and Illinois and California and some of the places we really wanted it.

So it's back to the drawing board.

That's going to take some time.

We don't have a distribution formula yet, so we're not in any shape to spend the money.

Then the problem is in appointing a dispersing agent.

Should it be the states?

Should it be the cities over 100,000?

What should we use as our dispersing mechanism?

And so that's got to be once decided, it's then got to be arranged for, and then regulations have to be printed.

It's a question of whether it affects the next percent, period.

Well, that's what we're working on.

I'm not worried too much about the formula.

I don't really think, you know, I said we're going to have a lot of digital marketing the best you can, but I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

I think it will.

It'll make some real difference in the percentage number.

Really?

Yeah, I think so.

It's a peripheral kind of thing, too.

If you put a guy back to work, you get some ripples.

The other thing that we've got going in this general area is this fellow Foy.

Yes, I understand.

And he's about ready to report.

When he does, I think it'd be a good idea to give him a little time.

And we've had some pretty good reaction from his being out and around.

I don't know whether his report will be any good, but it's just the fact that he's being out there.

No, we're going to use him for this.

We're going to keep him traveling around, showing presidential concern about Californians.

the coast and then try to get a flight.

Reagan thinks this too, that things are better in California than people make out to.

I think it's, frankly, it's just the psychology of the thing, talk and everything.

Because of aerospace and the rest, sure, unemployment is done, but there's just a California thing.

You've got to remember California 40 people are working.

It's just a lot of people, huh?

Did you...

a visit with Connolly at all about tax reform yesterday?

No.

All right.

No comment at all.

The reason I ask you is that we're going to make a presentation.

He told me that Mills had a tax bill and he wanted to see me and him about his tax bill.

And I said, okay.

Just to hear Bill's repulsion.

Well, let's not.

He's still on this track.

We're not going to come up with a tax thing until

If we do until the end of the year, we're going to pay for the next year.

Value added and so forth.

Value added?

Well, no, no, no, no.

We didn't discuss it.

That's what I'm getting at is the... We didn't discuss it.

What we were discussing was basically the tax.

Mills is not like the game.

He's going to have a tax bill.

Remember, I was so close to not letting the tax bill come up this Congress.

I doubt he can get one.

And frankly, if he does, well, he gets it, right?

What he's doing is he's coming up with various devices to soak up revenue sharing money.

And that's one of the gimmicks here.

Tax credits or tax relief or tax reduction.

Now the reason I ask the question is that we have a number of

tax reform proposals like value-added and other than tax simplification and deductions and so on.

And they were sent to Connolly, and he came back saying he had no comment, which I thought was kind of odd.

And I thought perhaps he had made some comments to you, Buck.

All right, well, we'll pick it up at the end of the week.

Probably isn't ready yet.

Now, Mills is taking revenue sharing and basically saying instead of 5 million for revenue sharing, it's 5 million in tax deductions.

Okay, well, what's the answer to that?

Well, the answer to that is that that leaves the money in the pocket of the taxpayer, and he's going to go and put it in the bank.

For one thing, it's not stimulating.

What about revenue sharing?

Well, revenue sharing gets translated into all kinds of capital construction and to put money into circulation.

That'd be a superficial argument.

Now, I don't know how the economists would look at this.

The economy is just furious at the Fed.

He says that they can't believe it.

He says, you know, they've been for almost 30 years.

It's hard to burn yourself in Vermont, didn't he?

Arthur's asking for an appointment with you.

No.

That's what I told him straight to him.

I told Jacob that I didn't think he wanted to see him.

I'm going to see him.

He's going to sit and wait and see me by 1 o'clock.

Do you agree?

I agree.

I'm going to see him.

He's called and asked me to come over.

So I'm going to come see him and see what he has in mind.

Well, it'd be better for me to go over there and have him come to the White House.

All right.

Well, we've got to clearly understand here that Archer, he's chosen his bed now for a while.

And if he wants to be independent, I respect his independence.

Now, it's just going to be that way.

And his guts have proved wrong, you know.

And Archer may be, he may be, he's crafty enough to know.

He's, George, as you know, he said before, he's extremely volatile on his own, up and down.

Archer's either way up or way down on his predictions.

But Archer may be smart enough, as he looks at these things, he must have some smart people around him.

He does have, of course, the thing that maybe, just maybe, his predictions could prove to be wrong.

What do you think?

Well, I think that, I mean, on the recovery, not on the inflation, on the recovery.

His prediction on the recovery, as you say, he's predicted everything there is.

And I think most recently now he's saying that it's a good recovery.

As he said that a couple of months or so ago, he was saying that there was no confidence and so on and so on.

But is he saying it's a good recovery?

I noticed the Fed's last things.

Even the Fed had something on the inflation prediction.

They had a couple figures that were a little better.

They put out the industrial production figure, and it surprised us that it was as good as it was because the employment report, if you remember, showed a slight decline in seasonally adjusted employment.

There was an increase in hours, so that sort of offset, but usually that's a tip-off on industrial production, but there are other information that actually carried it up.

I didn't talk to the county about this.

I'm sure he has the same view.

And we certainly will be prepared to see him either way.

But I just think at this time, George, the view of his conduct, that I'm not gonna come here and he'll lecture me about something.

He can't take a decision as made and then go out from there.

He's got to keep working until he gets his way.

That's the way we spent our first year around here.

So the decision is made, and I'm delighted.

I've got his views, but I'm damned if I'm going to have him come and talk to me about it.

He's been up there in Vermont.

His neighbor is Milton Friedman.

Milton told me that he has a hard time talking about economics with Arthur because they are challenged now.

But at the same time, Milton is a pretty effective fellow.

He may have gotten a little better, I'll try to find out.

That's right, you test the water with him.

And let me say, a few people that I see, but I think I ought to see Arthur with people.

I'm just not going to see him alone again.

I just feel that he's going to let us down.

Don't you know that?

I just hope he keeps that money supply going.

That's not the right that it was, but the problem there has been to go from one extreme to the other.

That's the problem.

There's one thing that if Arthur raises, that I think you should know.

I understand that there may be a change in the board as one man.

Well, if one fellow has the river around him, he's got to resign.

I don't think that.

And Arthur may be coming in to tell me who's going to be appointed.

If it's Ray, just say, I already have somebody in mind.

I already accomplished the position.

I want you to tell him that.

Just say that.

He wouldn't tell me who it was, but the President has already promised it to somebody else.

The way he should have consoled me, hell no.

He should have consoled me.

He really agreed this time, right?

I didn't consult the Board before I appointed him.

I've already got a spot in mind.

I'll tell you what I've done.

I've told Connolly to find the easiest money man he can find in the country.

And one of them will do exactly what Connelly wants.

And one of them will speak up for Burns.

And Connelly is searching the goddamn hills of Texas, California, Iowa.

We'll get a populist senator on that board one way or another.

But that's what we have.

If you know somebody that's that crazy, let me know too.

Just like John.

John's on the way.

I said, John, I'm a fan of that board.

I think so.

I really do.

Basically, they call it a patrol.

They call it what it are.

But Art is not going to name that after the board, George.

It's just not going to be done.

I've got a whole string of things to say.

Go ahead, I'll go through with you.

I know the agent called this morning, the steel workers president.

He said,

Do you want to hear these things here?

Yes, I would like to.

He's sending you a letter.

He wanted to tell me about it, make sure you get it.

I heard that the Granite City Steel National Steel merger be approved.

He thinks it's good for jobs and so on.

So I'll be sure that you get the letter and we'll have the knowledge.

But I think that's interesting.

angle of view on this antitrust business.

And no doubt he's willing to say publicly what he'll say in the letter if we wanted to.

And we do.

So I think that... Well, now, what do we have to do to get this merger approved?

Who's going to fire that bull, McLaren?

That's the problem.

I'm not sure he's holding it up.

I don't know if there's any particular problem.

No, I want there to be a problem.

So it appears that we're doing it at his request.

This is one where I want you to find out, John, through the subterranean channels, is there a problem with trouble?

Let them raise questions about it.

And then I want Abel to know, and you can let him know for me,

The President checked the matter and found that there is a problem.

He personally has said that he feels very much in the interest because the interest expressed by Mr. Abel, as well as the management of the people, actually the management of the people are asking for the money.

Mr. Abel's expressed interest.

He believes in that.

So the interest should be just right, right here.

But incidentally, there used to be no opposition.

McClary doesn't want to do it.

The hell with it.

It's a matter of judgment.

I know the antitrust wants to, and my judgment is, without knowing anything about this case, the murder should be approved.

Okay.

Amy also reports that the copper thing, who, Abel, I mean, Abel, he reports the copper thing, he thinks pretty well, along by the end of the week, he thinks they'll have plenty more copper to settle.

Basically, I'm starting to get it out on the way.

He reports that the, and I'm interested that he felt that he wanted to let you know what's going on in the steel market.

That's going well.

They've done a good job of cleaning up local issues.

They haven't gotten to the money yet, but they're getting along fine.

And then I said, well, don't forget that out of the settlement somehow or other, whatever your wage settlement is, that there should be a constructive angle to address yourself to these costs

I think if we should, so we'll do that.

I said our door is open here.

If you want to come over, if you and Larry want to come over and talk about it, we'll see.

So there's that communication, and that's going on.

High Romney's called you last week, you know, who is the chairman of IT, AT&T, to tell you that, and I returned a call on your behalf, and his message was,

And don't worry, they'll have phone service.

So they've completed their settlement now.

And it might be a good trick for you to call Hiram.

He's a thank you for the call.

So he's an influential fellow in the business community.

Pretty good fellow.

Yeah, pretty good guy.

And his message was really a point of reassurance.

And the big thing that the Indian was pounding on them for, to eliminate regional differentials and wages, they didn't give in on it.

And I mean, if they didn't give in on it, it would have been a tragedy for us.

My God, you can't give people in Mississippi the same amount that you give in New York.

It's a labor.

It costs a third as much as it is.

I don't understand.

The town has done an extraordinarily good job in that boat.

Both the Indian and the company have done it.

He's got great patience.

He does what he does.

He sizzles.

Sizzles all night long.

Now, another color who's been performed, and I mention this because this lighter thing has been very explosive for a couple of weeks, is ussering.

Red Blood will tell you they couldn't.

This postal settlement is pretty good, and Red would say they couldn't possibly have done it without ussering.

He's settled back and forth between the railroads and the postal.

He's been very creative in the railroads.

They have on the table now a breakthrough on work rules.

And no, I just hope that they don't get all hung up on side issues themselves.

But anyway, Hustler is in that.

I don't know how he stays up as much as he does.

We're lucky to have him.

Very lucky.

You know, the other thing that you should mention, that I was too quick to make in your group presentation, George, is to make the point that you made in the audience today, but these folks are so violent.

that next year is going to be a much better year in terms of wage settlements than this year.

And you already point out the ballooning, of course, but also there just aren't going to be as many big standards.

72 is going to be a relatively quiet year in terms of labor conflict.

And I think that's true.

This postal thing is a two-year wage agreement.

If we, once we get these railroads locked up, and there are a couple more things that go beyond the present one, they'll be locked up first.

And let me tell you one thing that I feel about Steve, and I know you didn't want to just go this far in meeting, but I feel very strongly that there cannot be a strike here.

We just don't want any damn strike in this economy at the moment.

So they're going to pay a price anyway.

What's your feeling?

I think there's a good chance they'll go ahead, and I think your meeting with them helped in that regard.

Well, I hope it didn't help to the extent that the Steele people, the employers, figured that we took a weapon away from that.

But again, they don't want to strike too late.

I think maybe he's being overly suspicious of them there.

The little companies certainly don't want it.

They can't.

The big companies know that if they force little companies into a long strike, it looks like bankruptcy fraud or something.

So probably at higher rates than otherwise.

Don't have a strike.

The West Coast longshore, I think, is the best shaping up to be quite a difficult thing.

I was trying to tell you about something.

I disagree about that.

I don't think that that affects us so much that we should just look and screw around.

On our labor business, now switching to the Productivity Commission, we have been looking towards some sort of a conference in September, and we've checked some dates on your calendar, and I was on the verge of calling me to get his

participation and so on.

And then the AFL-CIO got off this conference and he took out pretty hard after John.

And I don't think John liked it very much.

He didn't say anything that Kevin said before.

He told him critical on the economy.

He was explicit in giving you credit on foreign affairs.

I haven't called him because I just want to check back with you once more on whether we

I want to continue to do that and to try to get this as a labor management type conference, talking about productivity.

I think a lot of your ideas about the interest in the future, that kind of thing, can be put right in here.

But I just want to check back with you again before doing that.

We could have a conference of that kind and so on without the labor people, but ours would be different.

Well, isn't this part of a larger question, really, of what our tactics ought to be with regard to labor, and particularly Meany, who's taking this on very hard in a partisan way.

He got in bed with Carl Albert and the Democrats on this whole unemployment thing, and that was sort of the ideological keynote to this Democratic attack that we've been undergoing.

You know, I'm just thinking, among many other things, it wasn't intended that way, that this China thing, it was a, when that attack was launched, the idea of just keeping it going for about, I mean, for three weeks or so, and they got happy, too, that they should blanket it.

Sure.

We'd blanket it in Vietnam.

Sure.

It'll come back.

But we at least brought ourselves a good time there every week.

That's right.

You notice how little they can get in there, economically.

That was the day that Senator Harris announced he was running for president, too.

One of the news magazines said he chose to run.

Oh, yeah.

Declared.

Declared out of Oklahoma.

Declared out.

Yeah.

Because he can't get the nomination.

He thinks Edna's going to get the nomination, apparently.

But I don't know if it was Time or one of them said that the senator unerringly picked the worst day of the year to make his announcement.

Well, he's had so many.

I mean, they've been so many.

I think this is it.

Yeah, this is from the timeline, people.

We got it correctly.

Lindsey was going to announce his shift to the Democratic Party this week.

Now he's delayed it.

Well, he may still go, but they're going to use him as a great appraisal.

We went past

We've had a couple of other predictions.

This one came from an unimpeachable source.

I think what we ought to do is sit down and talk to him about that in terms of politics.

Let's have you and George, and I guess John Connolly, and I think, in essence, let's have Colson.

Colson, of course, is the advocate and can belong to labor people.

And, you know, on one side, Connolly, I wish so would we.

He might, might not.

My own view is that such conferences

What should be the alternative is just to ignore it and declare war on it or something like that.

I don't know what that means too much.

I mean, I don't know what you get except that unless taking them on, and that means taking all the labor on, the wage increases and so forth, means that you have a lot of public support for it.

Maybe you do.

And there are many that we need to know that the polls show that they're terribly very strong.

And I label you as the man who's not terribly strong.

The unions are, they're in pretty bad political posture.

They're pretty good enemies to have.

The political side, I don't know where we have them.

We certainly have the teamsters and probably the construction trades in some areas of New York looking at us with some paper.

And that's, that's

something more certain, rather a marvelous deal with, well, let's have a good ending.

That's another way to look at it.

Right.

We just don't have a very clear signal right now.

Yeah.

And I think it would be awfully good to sit down and talk it through and get some feel for how you want to go on.

How soon do you have to decide?

Well, Maine is going to leave for the West Coast.

serious things, I believe, at the end of this week.

Or that we should meet.

We could do this this week.

Or sometime very soon.

Fine.

Be fine, all right?

See what you get tomorrow.

See if we can get a little conflagration on the labor thing.

Might be worth listening to Bill Esser here on the second thing.

I'll talk to him, so I'll drive him to the new point.

You got it, sir.

Thank you.

I think it would be well also if Conley just come in with coals and tell him to maybe talk to him a little in advance.

It might be that the group could talk a little about it now.

You see what I mean?

Because he's probably got feelings about the thing.

I see no reason to have anybody else.

I wouldn't get nothing.

The reason I honestly stand is because

They have to represent certain constituencies, but we all, we all accomplish it in the United Nations, we all know.

As he will think politically, that's the point.

It's a political decision, that's all.

Skipping on to, I guess it counts too.

It's an interesting thing.

He might have, have him just get his view for what it is.

He liked being asked to.

That's what he thinks.

Does he think we ought to?

of course he wants to get along, but that's his stock and trade.

He may have some thoughts on that, have some ideas of how people talk to him about on the side.

Within the OMB we have a personnel shift impending.

Arnold Weber is going back to the University of Chicago.

I'll tell you that.

And so we've probably announced that on Wednesday.

We won't be going back until the end of August, but we're just kind of getting around to something with an announcement on that.

We've explored around about who might be a replacement.

I might just say, whoever leaves with great affection and respect for you, and he's 100% for the administration and so on.

and a strong feeling there.

We talked about possible replacements.

It's a hard job and it requires somebody who knows something about government as well as a subtle touch in a managerial sense.

John and I have talked about that.

The person that we thought would be good, I think would be good, John does, Kat.

just enthusiastic about and who would be glad to do it would run a chance to do it was Frank Carlucci, the head of OEO.

He's a very good man.

What the hell do you mean with OEO?

How would you downplay it?

I'd love to.

Get a good gray administrator in there.

Well, O'Connor,

I just think we've got to be sure that we've got a hand to track those cheats down.

Well, he has.

This is a higher calling.

This is about the sizing.

Does he deal with it?

Has he got somebody?

Has he got some good, great guy that he can put in that position?

Yeah, I think he has a couple that might be pretty good there.

There's a fellow named Wilson that I think could do it.

I just want somebody to be in control.

I've got a good deputy.

Yeah.

Well, maybe he can oversee it before he does.

He would have a lot of dealings with those.

He could take this and then just sort of ride her around the damn thing.

Because I know he's always the first thing we're going to flush when we have an opportunity to.

I think that's fine.

One one thing we might do if you can't get this

The OEO thinks so, is just say it'll operate under the deputy director for the time being, which would tend to downgrade it all by itself.

Just settle along with the deputy director.

The OEO director will be the acting director later on, just making it right.

The OEO chief would have to actually take off, so to speak, in the OMB until September or so, so he can continue with the problem he's got.

a variety of things going on the Hill right now that we're really content to report on.

He's getting badgered on his CRLA settlement now.

Grant's doing it.

Sure.

So forth.

Well, he did it right over there.

On the statistics situation, I've sent out a statement to the Secretaries of Commerce, Agriculture, and Labor.

which have the big statistical agencies, under which they reorganize themselves so that when the bringing together the statistical agencies proposed in your reorganization plan comes about, they are internally organized so that it's easy for them to put themselves together.

Essentially what this involves is dividing a statistics gathering function

as the big operating from analysis and statistics.

Now, I think that's a perfectly logical thing to do.

It was more or less underway.

And that will also be an occasion when Goldstein's duties can be shifted without any great strains.

And he would be moving into something else, probably

a statistician as such type job, and anyway, he would be gotten out of the employee statistics analysis business.

Just be removed from that area.

And we'd expect to have that part of it accomplished in the BLS by September is your date.

And you'll also have the BLS shorter announcements.

the latest statistics on the table, so to speak, with a brief statement about it.

Well, we can do the interpretation as Jim Hudson or somebody can give his view, and all the Democrats will give their view, but anyway, the DLS can just put the statistics there, and we'll start it.

make them sure the words that they have to say will be less.

What is the problem?

I don't want to say in terms of your side, but what is the problem with the move?

You mean you say that this is a plan that was already underway?

We can, basically that's right.

And I think we can take that position.

I think one thing we have to be very careful about, and we're not going to stop that.

is that we don't get labeled as fixing the numbers.

Particularly at the time, the numbers may begin to get better.

But I think we can bring this off all right.

We've just been, the OMB statistician is gonna write a little something for the statistics community, and he thinks this is a good idea independent of those things.

We'll probably move to that appointment.

A woman who's been at OMB for a long time that I've known for years, Margaret Martin, very able gal.

And she will look after her with her BLS, and she can take charge in this area.

She's competent, and she's not as flamboyant as Goldstein or any of those people, and she's not looking for publicity.

I think she'll handle it pretty well.

and that persuaded Julie completely to let go of her.

He wants to keep her in if she's good.

But I think that's something that can work out, so we have that going.

You went over the memorandum that I sent you on these executive pay schedules with John.

Followed the discussion you and I and John had.

And you checked some things and put no by some things and put some question marks down by some other things.

The question mark was, maybe I can just explain a little bit more what I thought.

With the OMB, the business of creating a deputy director for the management side, as well as the deputy director for the budget side, which we have now, by way of implementing the ASH Council recommendations,

and giving this business of managing the government there and so on this ability and raising the status of it.

We sort of created that job out of old cloth by taking a loose level floor and signing it to OMB and just putting a title on it.

And this would be making it more official.

And at the same time, putting Kat's job and this management job

at the level of level two, which is the deputy secretary level.

That's what we were seeking to do there.

I think the only problem we have of the whole deal is not to give the critics an opportunity to say that we're raising the salaries of the White House people

Now, even though it's projected in the future, I don't mind raising the positions.

I mean, I think it's fine.

That's no problem at all.

But I think the question of the salary increase and due to the fact that we're supposed to be fighting labor increases interest is going to be dynamite.

As you can see from our own Republican stalwarts in here, they'd probably be the first to jump on the story.

So I think that's my concern, looking over that paper recently, to be sure that everything we did created good positions.

I don't think it poses any problem, John.

Well, I take it that we're talking about salaries here, aren't we?

Well, we've created the position already.

It's 11-4.

So really what we're talking about is an increase in salary.

Thank you.

how much is it called?

That particular involved about $4,000, $4,500.

CAS involved $2,500.

But it would not, the way this is structured, the individuals involved would not get any change this hour.

It really is something, it is building a structure for your second term so that that structure would come up and get laid.

more or less, at that time.

I certainly don't want to have no Sergeant Berners in there.

I'm not going to do that.

Well, the two could just go to level one and be the director of OMB and Arthur Burns, and then he'd put nobody in there.

I don't want to pass that.

See, with Arthur, we have to raise him now.

And that should be done.

I mean, there's no question about it being done.

I'm just... That's the one that we've done.

Because the greatest, we've made a small slumber.

That is because of the amount that the large event, the level two level, the large event.

I'm just thinking how I would put it in favor of the opposition to send you $6,000.

$15,000 increase in salary for the head of the Federal Reserve, the director of the OMB, even though I guess projection ahead.

I'd like to see... No, sir.

You know where I've been, where I should be getting on this.

I just think it's dynamite.

And George and I have talked about it, and we disagree.

We've got these problems.

I've got it with my staff.

Guys can make more money out in the departments than they can coming here to work for us.

And I've been trying to get Bill Magruder from transportation to come over here.

Hell, he's making more money over there than I can even approach from the message council side.

So it's a problem, but I just don't see any good political answer to it.

The awful problem right now is largely because of this steel negotiations and all the rest, and it's like, I don't know, these fellows in there watching us like hawks.

And then they always will raise their own bitch about others.

But I think right now the sensitivity...

Well, we can pass the whole thing for now and wait until next year.

And then it's sort of more obviously, it really can't be, it takes a long time.

When does a capital review take place again on executive salaries?

Well, that kind of thing is going to take a year.

68 will have 72 recommendations to make.

prior to the next Congress coming.

That could also be an occasion for getting this whole thing.

We have a problem that's illustrated by the Carlucci case.

He's a level two.

He will take this job as a level four.

He's a long-time government employee.

Now, that hurts.

But he says it's a better job, and I'm excited about doing it right now.

Well, you've got the other.

If there's any question about Kevin, I don't want to make a point.

I just don't want to get into the issue right now.

And particularly right now, I think we could, uh, John, I think we might be able to hurt it if we get, uh, capital to recommend it.

Well, we have to appoint a commission.

It won't be, it won't be Fred.

It'll be somebody else, I guess, this time.

But, uh, every four years, there's supposed to be this review of executive salaries.

And, uh,

what's happened apparently is that the capital commission was pretty modest in their increase.

Johnson cut it back, I guess.

He didn't feel the traffic could bear it.

As a result, some of the hierarchy around the government has gotten ahead of your people in terms of what's being paid over here.

So the review would be timely across the board.

And if you could tuck it in under that, I think we could win it.

If you make the case, I don't know if we're allowed to do that or not.

I think it's under statute that it's every four years.

I'll find out.

I think we could do it in terms of timing at the same time.

This implements the ASH Council recommendations, right?

I don't know what the capital commission type thing would recommend on these levels, but that could be put in at the same time.

I support it.

I mean, it would certainly give me assurance that the approach would be done.

It has to be done.

Does Ernst know that this is a matter of consideration?

Oh, he has.

It's an amusing thing.

He's never talked to me about it, but he talks to Cap about it about whatever we ask him.

that this because he wanted the whole federal reserve board raised to level two and we tell them no and apparently what you're doing i think it's a good way to handle it all when you say that you see just say the president because of the inflation problem with which he is so deeply concerned about the government should set an example can you do that please uh we have some other things that you guys are aware of

But I think they are basically, I know that in there, it's terribly important to have a treasury thing that you've got to get common and mostly move on.

So I just thought, well, yeah, we were going to raise the undersecretary to a level two to be deputy secretary, create a new undersecretary.

I don't think that raises the same problem.

Do you?

No.

I don't think it poses the same problem.

That's so obvious with the reorganization.

And also, I'd like to do that in an archival order where we're looking at this as well to see what the hell this is going to mean.

And I can see what the point is.

We're telling George and the rest of the people, if we do it, it doesn't affect them.

That's not right.

That's right.

I don't think it ought to be done.

I mean, I don't know.

We're just terribly going to fight this inflation.

That jogged my recollection on something.

We have been hanging over the question of 25 more slots for customs that John Connolly requested.

And Krogh has some recommendations for you on that as a result of his trip around the world because the thought was he still has to be used overseas.

So at some point in time, that might be something.

We're all traveling around here.

We don't go around him.

No, we won't go around him.

But the problem here is that he made a request direct to you, which went around Mitchell, which is what escalated the whole thing into our office, because Mitchell objected to that.

Well, I don't think you do.

Kurt makes a very good case for not granting this.

And I think what you have to do is look at the whole picture of our overseas narcotics operations.

and decide where we can best put this money and this effort.

And so at some point, you may want to visit with Krogh a little bit about this to get a feel for it, because I know Connolly will be coming to you and coming to you on it, because he's getting gigged by Rossidis all the time, and they're doing a little empire building there.

And so I'd just like to flag that and then postpone consideration of it until you can hear from Krogh on what the overall picture is.

I think you have to get into it because Connolly will get you into it in the future.

Otherwise, it's something we can handle.

On this list, we'll go ahead with the non-OMB Fed things.

There's one other in the Executive Office that we put question mark by.

And that is an additional position of deputy director for the Office of Science and Technology, Ed Davidson.

He has one deputy, and he wants two.

He's a level four guy.

And this is because he wants to get a broader spread of sort of scientific representation.

He wants a biological science type as well as a biological science type thing.

And that would be my question.

Well, if we wondered about their office, it would be a huge office, a whole office.

With your push, we've been examining guns and working on this, and I have this whole business of research and development, what we're doing and what we should be doing and how it's organized and so on.

And I think one of the real questions there is what is the right role for the Office of Science and Technology?

Should they be sort of playing a stronger coordinating role or what?

But I think one of the emerging things, I think your interest, what Peter has been talking about, the interest in the Productivity Commission and so on is a growing interest

more effective research and development, particularly what can be done to help make American products more competitive and so on.

So there's this area.

We'll get to it later.

It'll relate to it.

And this has to be a part of it.

We can do it this way.

We probably can also, in this, we ask for 15 additional level four or five slots that are

in a pool, which you can assign.

And one of the things we have said was we'd assign one to Treasurer, for example.

We get this.

Another way of doing this would be just to say, we'll assign one to the House of Science and Technology, and let it fill this job without labeling it as a specific request in here.

Do it that way, if you want.

Why don't they go over to the other piece?

Yeah, I don't really know.

the merits of this OST request.

I do think we will, we're getting more and more tentative about whether we're really structured right for this R&D attack.

I mean, we're, we're, yeah, I guess the other way to say it is we're getting less and less convinced that we're starting to structure right, that we're going to have to change to do a better job.

Yeah, I'm getting a chance to do that.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Very, very good.

Uh,

Switching to another topic, I am scheduled to give a talk to the Urban League on Monday.

This is following your discussion with Mr. Kim and George and the Whitney Young business and so on.

And I thought I would just adapt this study as you go, business, philosophically, so to speak,

to the civil rights area.

I'm sure it'll be helpful.

I know that I should make a comment about the great leadership of the Urban League, and that, of course, would be taken as a slam bag.

I don't know how you could go there.

And all that's something that really would win me out.

I said to Bob Brown, I told God in the sun, I said, you know, that was one of those things that I...

And I said, if you ever ask me an opinion, my opinion is that I know a lot of black African leaders.

And I say that I go through, I've always been impressed by their leaders.

And black Americans can be very proud of their African heritage.

Right, John?

Yeah.

I'm proud of some of them.

Among other things.

I'm just, I couldn't understand it.

Could you?

No.

I really, I don't know what you're saying.

I don't, I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, why do you want to build up, for example, I don't know what you're saying.

Well, you know, the interesting thing about the police is that they also have to deal with blackness.

They have to deal with whites.

They have to deal with the slaves.

Cows, cattle, money.

The sad part of it is that Wilkins had just come out to the NAACP and said, look, we're going to have to live with this until 76.

So we better start learning to get along with it.

And then a lot of the things like this Black Caucus response and so on, you know, something like that.

Yeah, they all blasted him.

The press exploited it quite a bit.

And some of the blacks were pretty smart about it.

They were more in sorrow than anger.

Isn't it too bad that the

Um, the funny thing is, the funny thing is, I don't think, just looking at old politics, and I, there are no, you know, we don't have any horrible blacks.

You know, if you get black votes, we have no regard for black people.

We simply, uh, we simply aren't going to have as much of their strife and opposition as we have ourselves.

Well, that way we'll get a few more white votes, maybe, maybe.

But the important thing is that from a political standpoint, what in the world do you gain

by praising Malooch, or Kenyatta.

Hell, what in the world does that do us?

That's the point that I couldn't see Christ.

I mean, if you could take a heart, sure, the black leaders are responsible here.

But it wasn't the kind of a crack that would get any redneck support.

That's my point.

Hell no, because he was praising the blacks.

The rednecks down there think they're a bunch of bad people, too.

I suspect that all the nations in Africa, not one.

And we'll be probably

all of the delicacies and, you know, the flair.

And it may be that Spurzo just kind of carried away with all that and thought, you know, here's... On the airplane.

On the airplane.

There is where he gets in trouble.

At the very time that he relaxes a bit...

and then he starts poppin' on some men, and then he gets in trouble.

You know what I think happens is he drops his guard.

When he's on a program, he's very often on .

But I don't, I've never, of course, good news, I've never beaten a person to relax, man.

Never, I've never gone through, you know, one of the dangers of this was that he could never let anything tear down.

You know, just pop him off about something, say what he thought.

And I think that's what he probably,

He thought we're going to beat the press.

He would never have said such a damn thing.

But what do you think, John?

If you look back over the problem that he's had, he's publicly done extremely well.

Very good at his feet.

Very, very articulate.

But privately, he makes these damn moves.

Is this correct?

Yeah, this is kind of like the fat jab crack that he made on the airplane.

You know, and he hits them off.

They get carved in stone once that gets out.

That's it.

And they bend when he's off guard.

Yeah.

I don't know, George, how you do this.

Well, they won't hold you responsible for the damn thing.

But, uh, I'm going to quote my real issue with you, John, and what you're trying to work with.

You believe this is what it's all about.

Yeah, we've got a real bridge to the Urban League.

We're in bed tonight.

I thought this was a photo of you bedding here.

Very.

I understand that.

He's to keep his own constituency down.

From the other end, he's a very able follower.

He's a quick mind.

He moved with very great precision.

He could be a great leader.

I had a nice letter from him afterward, because he went upstairs and I had McLean come over and brief him on reptile sharing.

And when he got back, he wrote a very smooth,

A droid letter.

Where does Irving Schroeder stand when the president comes over to say anything?

No, he can't find the plug.

He's having a hell of a time.

And they're backing and filling up there.

And finally, our inside man in the executive sessions reports that John Burns slapped his forehead in the middle of one of their sessions and said, we're in a political trap.

We've got to find our way out of this.

But they're really floundering.

And they're not taking Wilbur's plant.

He hasn't got a plant.

He hasn't got one.

That was just a...

It was all smoke.

And he said he'd find the smoke.

Yeah.

And he's checking very well.

Is he really?

Yeah.

I call Rockefeller.

And he had arranged to come down and get Mills and his airplane, take him up to New York, have a day with him, and demonstrate to him the plight of the states.

And...

Mills is just catching it from every side.

He's been buffeting it.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him finally run the white flag out and come up with something that is identifiably yours.

On general revenue sharing, our special is in various states of plus and minus.

We'll get some, and we have no chance on others.

But the fact that special revenue sharing is there, tactically, protects a flank.

Otherwise, they'd be clear around you that way on need and all that sort of stuff.

The combination is made such a solid front that they just can't avoid finally coming to your proposal.

And I think given that this thing keeps going the way it has been in executive session, they're going to end up in your lap.

Don't worry about the Vice President.

Don't get in the position where it is handed directly so they can say.

But you just say what you feel, you know what I mean?

You've got to when it's honest.

You've got to be honest.

You could say you were talking to the President about this.

He was so, he was so, he had remarks about how he had known Whitney Young, which is very, you know, impressive by him.

been through their offices and the people and their dedication.

He had met the new president, an appointment that was, you know, just for what was supposed to be a formal, I mean, a formal appointment that went on for twice the amount of time.

He kept somebody waiting for a half hour, which is really true.

And because he was so impressed by it, I think a little of that stuff goes a long way with it.

And we want to work with them.

This is responsible leaders.

Just say that he's impressed by the responsible leadership that the Urban League has given.

What about a letter from you that I took and read?

Oh, yeah.

Just write it.

Write it.

I don't need to see it.

Just have a nice letter written down.

Write it.

Or write it.

Or list it.

You know, anybody who has a good letter writer, write it to them.

Right, you take it.

Well, blow it up, will you?

Sure, sure.

We've got to get, we've got to really get at him.

Well, I've been talking to Bob a little about this.

I think we do have to do something.

And, you know, for example,

He's an abutu, you know, who's a, incidentally, it's quite an impressive call.

He's a big, strong, vigorous guy, who over here would be pushing him on.

Really, that's right.

I mean, he's smart.

John Steps, he might be a sergeant, or something like that.

And an able guy, in that way, but, I mean, no bridge.

So he talks about abutu, and they talk about the Red Chinese thing, and so forth, and abutu expressed support for him, and he said, well, he is, and does,

First of all, he had doubts he should never express it to a foreign country.

Second, particularly he shouldn't express it to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a child.

He's a child up here.

Because he's never had a chance to grow up up there, he'd be all right with it in the end.

Gosh.

It's just unbelievable to me, the guy that Henry was trying to drive.

He just went away.

And fortunately, it was only in the reporting cable, and Mobutu hadn't put it out yet.

It's just the fact that it's this compulsion on the part of this just angry.

Some of our others, you know, have a compulsion to be honest.

Dr. Nair.

And also to be, I don't want to be doctrinaire, we've all got prejudices deep, you know, and convictions, and we have ideological, but when you're in a, when you're in a position of responsibility, you don't learn how to believe.

You pick the time, you take a pledge, sometimes you just shut up.

And rather than just trying to be, to know about everything, I think Edgar has a composure to say, well, I'm honest.

This is what I'm honest about.

That's just great.

He may honestly think something, but anybody who's a vice president or who's a member of the White House staff or who's a member of a cabinet has no views of his own.

None.

He can't have any.

You know, George, that's the point.

He cannot have one.

Otherwise, he gets sent out.

That was the Hickel problem.

The Hickel problem was not in and out.

I know Hickel.

He was quite an asset.

The problem was that he felt that he had to express views and feels, which, under the agreement we had already made, you can't have anything.

You can't have views of his own.

The economic thing, the same thing.

Well, my president, above all, can't do it.

Because he's the guy that's next.

You know, and for Christ's sakes, if he's...

I mean, also, they also... Another thing that bothers me, which I think is terribly difficult, they know that for eight years, when I was vice president, I never expressed a view that was nice and harsh.

I never expressed...

I had some.

Some of them were different.

You know, I'm just so happy to be here.

And I'm very grateful.

That's very bad.

Also, the comment I made the other night, for Burns and Mitchell and I were a cabal.

We were just crushing up on Bob Anderson and Steve Sanjay.

But anyway, the thing about this is that, having done that for eight years, they think that I, as president, am smart enough to know that

Elijah's president is supposed to simply be the echo of the president.

And Agnew wouldn't be doing this without my knowledge and or approval.

And I think that's the real problem.

Don't you think so, John?

Absolutely.

I get that all the time.

A lot of people think, oh, God Almighty, the president always...

Well, at the right time, I'd like to get into this with you.

that with so much going for you right now, you can't afford to have the sort of debilitating negative or detraction that's involved in the process and the existing arrangement.

And I think he just has to be either brought aboard or something.

And in all candor, I don't think we've done enough.

to get him on board.

I think we've all sort of sealed him off and just sort of assumed that nothing could be done there.

And I think... Well, I must say that I think we've done it.

I'm inclined to think that unless he's just utterly obtuse, that maybe he'd be earlier on.

Now, we wouldn't say he'd be earlier on.

I put Harlow in the career, and I thought Harlow was going all around.

Harlow said when we get the agnish staff, he appreciates it going around.

He should have gone all around.

I talked to Harlow about that this morning, and Harlow said Harlow really liked it.

He said that the agnish staff made it almost intolerable for him in career.

For Christ's sake.

But...

Another thing that he does is this fraternize with his staff and with his Secret Service.

George, you can't do it.

I mean, when I say you can't do it, I'm not saying you can't fraternize with your staff.

Maybe you can.

But I never fraternize with the staff.

I never, I don't, I mean, what I mean is just sit down, have a few drinks, all that sort of thing, and so forth.

It can't be done.

Cannot do it in a rush job.

Not in that position.

State Secret Service.

My God.

I would dream of having a drink with the Secret Service man, except Christmas time.

Would you?

No, his Secret Service is out of control, unfortunately.

There's no discretion shown there, you know.

Very heavy-handed.

Very heavy security.

Way out of all proportion to the politics of it or to me, either one.

But they're runaway.

You know, there's a... Well, it's a question of the dignity of the office.

The vice presidency is the number two office in the nation.

Well, and you get an ambivalence.

Because at times, you know, you have to have that dignity, and he claims it, but at other times, he denigrates it, and you just can't operate on that kind of a turn it on, turn it off.

You know, I must say one thing, though, that you've got to hand it to another context of comedy.

He's got a lot of guts.

He goes out there and sticks his chin out and feels the hell kicked out of him.

He did awfully well last week.

I mean, the poor guy, Mills really worked him over last week.

And I read over his transcript of his press conference Thursday.

And I thought it was very impressive.

And the press didn't begin to record it right.

I've been worried about the statement that 4% unemployment would be omitted, and that's been picked up.

So I took the trouble to read the transcript.

They have done a job on him.

Let me say, they picked the wrong man to do the job on.

They all try to do jobs on him.

Connolly, I know, and let Mills, Mills is a competitive politician, and the idea of him as a candidate for president and so forth,

He's got about as much chance to be nominated on that ticket as people all around.

That doesn't sound like he's an able man.

Yeah, there's no question about it.

He could do any job.

I mean, you compare him with Muskie, you know, and Teddy, he would be far better than any of the others.

He sure introduces an interesting element in that whole race.

I think all of the good going around.

I don't know if I

soaking up delegates.

Money?

Money.

I think it's all of the good.

No, Harris.

I can't believe Harris.

Well, see, he's forced out of Oklahoma.

What the hell is the president?

He has a populace, he says.

And I don't know.

I suspect Perot is probably financing all these guys.

I don't know where in the world the money is coming from.

Harris.

That's so curious.

Well, there was a note in the paper about Lewis financing it, but I didn't... One thing about it was, of course, is that Harrison being forced out of Oklahoma is the right side of the jury.

Sure.

Here was one of our most vicious critics, and he can't even get his own party up.

It throws... Well, that's the point.

They all thought he was a pushover, and it's a little bit like the Texas situation.

No, it's like this.

He's tough.

Yeah.

so that that Republican nomination isn't worth quite as much.

It could be.

He wants it.

Well, he did want it against Harris.

I don't know whether he'd want it against him.

Yeah.

might do well.

If you get a sweep going, you win.

Even, you see, if you run extremely well at the presidential level, in Oklahoma, March, I think you would win.

That's the whole fight, even against Evans.

Because that's one state I did reasonably well in.

Interesting problem.

Well, go ahead.

I don't know if there's something.

McCracken has asked for a question with you, and I don't know how to find out what it is.

Oh, I'll talk to him.

What he's talked to me about is the

his own position, you know, his desire to return to teaching, and I personally think he should not, because I think it would look like we're planning to screw up and so forth, and so I said, well, you want to stay?

I've asked him to stay at least for the semester break, you know, in February, which he ought to be able to do, but of course he should have it in mind any time he wants.

Well, I don't know whether he is going to renew that or what, but I'll try to find out for sure then.

Well, when you talk to him, has he talked to you about his planning to change?

He had some time ago, but I've got nothing to say about it.

Well, you would just say that I just happen to mention very emphatically that I hope very strongly that he should stay.

Or don't you think he should?

Yeah, I do.

I just feel this, that what the hell, after all, McCracken is hearing.

I, I don't know, I'm, I, we just, we just may be wrong as soon as they come, and I say we, all of my hard guys are, and we might be wrong, but anyway, at this point, we cannot give any indication that we have lack of confidence in ourselves, right?

But be sure he knows where he comes in, and he ought to say,

I mean, that's how I feel.

Of course, I suppose a lot of these attitudes, people in here, congressmen, senators, my guess is that, and this is a comment there that he has expressed from time to time, my guess is that Arnold puts a lot of background talk into these guys.

Our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our,

and come and take half.

And you take half, the House of Members is going to take half.

You know, spread the word around.

I think 19 senators together between then and today will do it.

I think eight senators, or nine senators at least.

What do you think, John?

Yeah, yeah.

And sort of select how the two, I talked to Timothy some of you over the time.

And let's get that worked out.

That's an awfully good plan.

I just think getting these people in charge and then following up with a,

With a little spank sheet.

That's enough.

Who do you think that's a political gig?

A party to war?

We might try the 19 together.

Connelly and I could both talk to them.

Senators may feel that some get Connelly and some get me.

The ones who get me are sort of slighted.

No, no, no, no, no.

I don't think so.

Well...

I do not think that's a problem, because the ones who get you are going to come out and ask.

And the ones who get found are going to go to the Treasury Department.

What do you think, John?

Do you think there's a problem?

No, I'm inclined to think that George and John make a nice combination, though.

Yeah.

And John can pump in some of the gutsy political stuff, and George can give them the economist's.

you know, facts and logic and all that.

Well, maybe the two of you should do the Senators together.

Yeah.

And that divides the House members.

Yeah.

I think that's a, I think that's a good combination.

Good.

We testified together every other year.

We didn't have any trouble at all.

Now, when you bring them down with the Senators, that's tough.

If you want to use it, if you could use the, you could use one of the, I don't know if it would be better over here or whatever.

Oh, I don't think that's, no, I understand.

If you wanted to use either the library or the, they're not, or they're concerned to use the library.

Yeah, I, for the map.

Both are always available.

Either the library or the map, whatever you want.

Another way, of course, Connelly's got a hell of a good room.

I've gone to the Treasury Department.

That's what I would get.

Connelly comes.

I didn't.

You ought to go over to his shop.

Two of you can get it.

But never hesitate to use either of those two rooms when I'm dressed in one in particular.

The back room or the library.

Because I'm never in it.

Every time I read it sometimes.

You got anything else, sir?

It's my life.

The exception of campaign spending reform, which we'll cover with you at a later time.

That's coming along.

We're making a little progress there.

Toward lifting the restrictions on contributions and so on, there's going to be some restriction on spending, but it looks like it'll be workable.

There's a bad house bill.

We've got to get around that.

What's the answer to that?

All right.