Conversation 617-012

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The main problem here is, frankly, .

We're lucky we reached a conclusion .

But that means .

OU, foreign aid, defense, the District of Columbia.

There's no real... What does it cover?

It covers the District of Columbia, the police, the farms, the teachers' salaries beginning December 7th.

No obligations after tonight to incur any civil welfare recipients or customers.

I just talked to Mayor Washington.

He said he's had a meeting in his office of the mothers, the welfare mothers, and they're sending telegrams to the Congress and they're terribly alarmed.

Cut the welfare tonight.

Good.

There is not a way to answer that.

Everybody says we've done this before.

Well, I know you say there's a difference.

What is the difference?

Well, there are two differences.

One is that you aren't willing to use the illegal practices that have been followed in the past.

And the second is that the simple continuing resolution that he's talking about, or passing the appropriations bills later, within the next two or three weeks, may not validate all of these illegal actions that have taken place during this period.

Yeah.

put it in a little different way, I think.

Namely, that the authorizing legislation for two of these major bills have not been passed and are very much in dispute within the Congress, let alone between you and members of the foreign aid and the OEO.

So it isn't as though we have an authorization that everybody's agreed on and we're wrangling about the money or something.

But the very authorization is uncertain.

That hasn't happened before.

No, that's different.

No.

Yes, sir.

That's right.

I know.

That's different.

One of the problems with the first argument that you don't want to do this because it's illegal is that we did it.

In the post office.

And so maybe we shouldn't have done it anyway.

For two days.

We didn't do that.

Then there wasn't a problem.

Yes.

There was no authorization problem, though.

Nothing.

It was a matter of just getting it.

and less controversial, but this is very controversial.

And that seems to me that if you can get the ground that you're not at this point arguing about the merits or demerits of a particular approach to foreign aid or OEO, but rather just keeping things going while those questions are settled and fight them out in their own terms and on their own grounds.

Because he is definitely trying, I think, to trap you into a position where he forces on the House and on you his ideas about what foreign aid should be.

He said that to me on the phone this morning, practically, and that's none of those words, of course.

But about that, Eleanor, he said the President has just got to understand, and so does the House, that they've got to do foreign aid the way we've said in the Senate.

That's what he's getting down to.

It must be very hard for you to detail an authorization deal if we've been operating two, three weeks without any authority at all.

And the OEO may very well come down to that.

It's a bird through a five-year-old child care thing, and they coordinate and have all kinds of restrictions and limitations to apply to it.

So it would be almost necessary to detail it.

And yet, if you did, you'd take me on, Senator, keeping the illegal situation going.

One comment on the illegality

as the non-lawyer in the room here right now.

The provision in the Anti-Deficiency Act, I take it as the basis for this.

John Mitchell is getting up a statement.

I think they're getting over here, and I don't know whether he'll get it or not.

But the Part B, which talks about no employee of the United States shall accept voluntary service

or employee personal service in excess of that authorized, then there is an exception.

Except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.

And it seems to me that while tomorrow there will be a lot of dire consequences, that using this

you can be in a position of saying, well, I'm not going to, because of this fight, no matter what, expose our people in Vietnam to danger because they couldn't buy gasoline or whatever it is that could be kind of technically hit over there, and I'm not going to expose the streets of Washington to crime by...

reason this and your action on that clause.

Well, one of the things you might want to note is that even in this last provision that George has just read, it applies only to voluntary service.

It still has to be voluntary service.

That service is a service as far as the money, as far as the supplies are concerned, they've got a lot of them.

They have, but apparently there are open-ended contracts by which supplies are purchased.

I presume that they have a stock of things.

On the other hand, how ample it is and whether you want to have a situation where any commander in the field feels that somehow this action has inhibited him from doing something that he thought was in the interests of his troops.

That would be a question.

There's a whole round of horrible examples that we put into these two terms.

My only point is that it seems to me we have to take a firm position, and at the same time, if you get yourself in a position where you have made it hard to protect human life and to see that the war operations are conducted properly and so on, it's not desirable.

We have to do that.

We've got to go forward with our operations.

We have to let the bombing and everything else go to our volunteer bases, right?

Well, all of the military, as I would understand it, the military assistance in Cambodia and so forth is at least technically affected, even though there is a big pipeline.

You can't employ anybody to administer it.

You see, this section says that you can't accept any voluntary service.

You can't even accept voluntary service, except in these cases where you're willing to follow that.

Well, that would cover everything in Amboy, Vietnam.

No problem there.

I would rule that.

And it'll cover the streets of Washington.

Right.

Fire departments.

But that has to be voluntary, right?

It has to be voluntary, and you have a very public and legal area as to whether it is or isn't an emergency.

It's not like hanging a traffic tag on reading an emergency.

I get it.

Well, let me get to the... First, the foreign Vietnam and Cambodia is voluntary.

I mean, it's an emergency without question.

As far as here, it's a traffic tag thing.

Oh, well.

Let's just see.

But Congress is placing the whole government in a positive position on the master.

and have a motion like that eight years old, running for the Senate again?

Well, he has a good motive, in my opinion, anyway, and a bad motive.

On the good side, he is trying to get the Congress to do their work and appropriate their money and face up to the thing explicitly.

And he's done a pretty good job on that, very good job.

But on the other side of it, he has very strong ideas about foreign aid and defense.

And he's trying to...

use his particular power here in order to force his views on those things on everybody else and that's where it seems to me he needs to have his card called we were told that the votes were there in the committee and on the floor of the senate so it sort of comes down to kind of fun one thing blocking the whole thing is his refusal to let the appropriations committee consider this particular resolution

And so it's a very simple point that we'd like to get today, is just to remove that block which opens the whole Monument to his backing of those.

Yes, he is.

At least tacitly.

Whether he's openly backing him, I don't know.

Do you hear me, Mr. President?

Is there anything?

Yeah.

Mr. President, Hale Boggs is presiding on the 7th House today, and the Speaker of the Parliament is out of the sitting, so Boggs cannot be here.

So it'd be seven of them then?

Seven and two, the carpet breakers built in.

Nine more, total of nine.

Plus two, or seven.

We can get them around here.

If I can get another chair in, see if I can sit around the desk.

All right.

Hi, Mr. President.

Hi.

How are you?

Fine.

How are you?

Great.

Oh, you're early.

You're early.

Thank you.

You don't mind being on the right, do you?

That's right.

They're using the cap for the cost of living, the council will pay more in the price commission.

So it's sort of fully filled up and they have to run this thing separately.

Well, I'll come right to the point.

That's all we have.

Those are the most notable agreements, which

At the present time, it does not seem to be a solution.

At least one solution we can all agree upon.

And that is with regard to whether we can advocate for the resolution by the Senate as the House is acting, or whether they will not do the resolution, which would be, certainly, secure.

Now, I am aware of the position that you've taken.

You're most excellent in this area.

You've been around this track for the rest of us.

I guess Mike's in a lot of it.

You know that.

Frank, you seem a little in charge, but you probably upraise all this.

But anyway, nevertheless, I had to look at it, too.

You know, I've had to study it.

I may reach a different conclusion than some of you have, but I have to reach what I have, and that is that we don't get the continuing resolution.

I have, I've reluctantly concluded that we, in the case of OVO, the District of Columbia Defense, and of course, foreign aid, that I will have to follow the law

As far as I understand, the Attorney General sent an opinion over to me as I asked for an opinion about this.

As I understand it, this case will not allow me any other course.

Now, I know that there are arguments to the effect that what we have done is before.

We, however, have not had a situation on all fours of this in one respect.

In other cases, as you know, we have had authorizations

the Congress at the time, and the Executive on our side, about central reappropriation.

There's two areas, particularly OEO, and the case also of obviously foreign aid.

But there are very great differences, and very honest differences within the Congress.

and the Cleveland Congress, some of the Congress and the administration on the authorization side.

So that makes it, this is the point the Attorney General comes down hard on.

He says that's distinguishing the situation.

He had the post office department.

He says, here's a case where, putting it very frankly, the President's going to be mousetrapped into a position.

where he will have no choice on an authorization bill, and I know none of you would want to do this to any person, no choice, but to take whatever the Congress passes for an authorization bill, because an authorization becomes essential for picking up this, what is happening in America today, because of lack of a resolution.

So this is the, this is the position we find ourselves in.

I regret that it's come to that.

Try to be important to the Congress.

We realize, Alton Hart, you've worked in there, in those appropriations.

George has worked on his side.

I know the Congress wants to get out in 10 days, the House does, and the like, but, and I,

frankly wrestle with it because I realize that most of you, many of you believe it.

Well, just go ahead and sort of wink at it.

Keep everybody off.

Don't put the police on the fire.

People over in Canada and the people in the armed services and the people who have to, you know, defend themselves and so forth in that position.

Well, Mr. President, if you want to follow the law, you'd be very dispensed with the use of the continuing resolution.

Because in the continuing resolution, you're authorizing appropriation, which is not legal.

I look into that matter very carefully.

I've studied it.

I don't want to raise any issues.

But your OEO is supposed to be an ACW bill.

That bill is an act and it's not law.

You signed it.

That's where your OEO should be.

But because it was not authorized at the time of the passage of ACW,

You stuck it, not you, but Congress stuck it in a continuing resolution, which is wrong.

It's illegal.

I didn't raise this subject as a question, but I want to give you assurance.

I've got the list here.

You've got Export-Import Bank, Aid to Business and Development.

You've got Office of Refugee Migration.

7 or 8.

The payday doesn't come on any of them.

The earliest is December 1st.

And all we need to do, and I want to hear your assurance about it, but I'll leave the waiter to it.

All we need to do to make you pay this is to pass the Convening Resolution.

But what I'm trying to do, Mr. President, is to conform to what I've been trying to do now ever since I've assumed this championship.

If the Lord spares me, I'll come back here next year.

I would like to see us get all of your appropriation bills signed on June the 30th.

And we can do it on the regular appropriation bills.

We can do it.

Now, as to appropriations wherein you need authorization, we can always bring that up in supplementary.

It'd be the right way to do it.

But what we've been doing in the past, you see, was to pass your regular appropriation bills where they didn't need any authorization.

That was done in all cases, except, except,

You didn't have any authorization for your OEO, and you have no authority to spend the money you're spending now, because you don't have it authorized, now you have it appropriated, except through the continued resolution.

And that's an abuse of the use of the continued resolution.

And if you folks would just, shall I say, keep your pants on, and let us handle that, we'd come out all right.

Last year, 13 days elapsed before you got your thought spent in agriculture.

Nine in foreign assistance, nine days elapsed.

In six to seven, 20 days elapsed.

They went on and pushed you to spend the money, but Congress didn't fall down on you.

That is, they agreed to do what you said they would, and that is provide the passage of this continuing resolution at proper time.

And that's what I hope to do.

And if we're permitted to act, as I've told you, I feel confident that before December 1st,

The first day in which you're going to be in trouble, because you either have to have the bill passed or the continuing resolution.

Your first payday, as I said, would be December 1st, then December 2nd, December 3rd, December 7th.

So you have to worry so far as pay is concerned until the 1st of December.

But Mr. President, let me say this to you, Ralph.

As of November 15th, there's no authority for law to have people on the payroll.

We can link them and keep them on, on the assumption Congress is going to have.

But I don't see how you can expect an administration to act on that probability.

Why isn't it a lot more sensible and reasonable to pass the continuing resolution, which the House has passed,

And let us get the authorization through for foreign aid, for OEO, and for, well, I guess those are the only two basic ones now, except the DC Revenue Bill, which is not an authorization, but it's a provided one, for OEOs and your foreign aid authorizations.

will be true either, well, not this week probably, although there's a possibility of it, but what we know probably won't be true this week.

I don't see the cause, it's illegal.

You're putting in your continuing resolution, you're asking me, you're asking every senator around here to violate the law by voting for the continuing resolution which contains an authorization and an appropriation.

You've been doing that now for several years, and you've been doing it legally.

But that's not the fault of the administration.

Well, I'm not blaming the administration.

Well, I'm not blaming anybody except that we've been in the same situation.

It's six to seven.

As I said, 20 days, 15 days in one, 20 days in the other, 18 in the other, 15 in the other.

And this last year, as I pointed out, 13 days in one, nine in the other, four in the other.

I don't believe that.

But you want the administration to do something that is illegal, and you're a legend of the Congress.

You can't have a close wait.

Well, well, well.

To indicate that this was on the minds of some of the Senators, Senator Young, Senator Scott, Senator Hellinger, who will recall that right after the economic aid bill was passed on November the 10th, this is the 15th now, that Senator Fulbright proposed a resolution which reads as follows, being enacted by the Senate and House,

A settlement that there are authorized to be appropriated to the President such amounts may be necessary to pay the compensation and allowances of personnel of the United States government employed to carry out the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 61.

and the Foreign and Military Sales Act.

This act shall expire at such time as there are enacted as to date of enactment of this act provisions of law authorizing appropriations to pay the compensation and allowances of all such personnel.

But there was opposition to this.

because we were told that the Conventional Resolution was the way to carry out the difficulty which we could see in the offing and consequently this was not brought up.

Fulbright said that if one senator objected he would not bring it up,

So it wasn't brought up.

No, this isn't .

But, but, but, as, as Alan says, for some reason or another, I've got the same key given, I think.

The Office of Economic Opportunity, the last date, the earliest date there would be December the 6th, and for community action legal service, Mike, it would be December the 16th.

Well, I, I, I got this from the appropriation.

with the Appropriations Committee to ask him what the status of the pay was for all of these appropriations that we're talking about now.

The pay is here, the operation of it gets a chance.

It's a question of whether or not you have the right to check.

Mr. President.

I believe we agree in the House, and certainly in the Appropriations Committee, that an appropriation is made by the Congress is the law.

And it is both the authorization, if there had been no previous authorization, and the appropriation.

In other words, the appropriation committee is in this unique position.

If we are granted a rule to bring up an appropriation bill, if none of it is authorized, if we bring it up and pass it, that is the law.

You don't have to have a preceding authorization for it.

Now, that's the way it is in the house.

That's as far as you're concerned.

That's the way it is in the house.

But we don't have to accept that, do we?

No, of course not.

You don't have to accept it.

And what we've done, what you've done, that is, through that method, you have been using this method of authorizing and appropriating.

But you are right.

It's wrong.

We are glad to do this in the Appropriations Committee.

It gives us power to move, to let the government move.

I mean, and you're chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

I would think you would embrace this philosophy.

Well, I tell you.

No, I want to try to follow the law if I can.

And I don't believe we ought to abuse.

We ought to abuse appropriation and the authorizing process, as you're doing, by misusing, I say, the continuing resolution.

Well, this is not continuing the resolution you passed since the time of the memory of man running on the contrary.

This is a form, and certainly if it's enacted, it is the law.

It's only a few years, George, but you've been using appropriation and authorization at one time.

Now, just to show you how this can happen, let me see if I understand this problem that you and George are talking about.

In other words, you disagree basically with the fundamental philosophy of the House Appropriations Committee, which is, if any resolution is basically an appropriation resolution,

that you can appropriate and thereby also authorize.

You have to move the other way.

No.

Is that right?

No.

If you have an existing appropriation that is not complete on which there is authority, there's no objection then.

Because that's exactly what he does.

Here, for instance, let's be specific.

I'd rather have these to be, not because you, General, are here, but believe me, I'd rather leave the fate of the country in the hands of the Appropriations Committee than some of the Authorizations Committee.

But here's a great compliment to you, Father.

Well, I appreciate your support.

But here's what's happening, Mr. Bradley.

HEW was enacted and passed, said here, you signed it.

That's where your OEO should be, in that building.

All right.

Why wasn't it put in that stuff?

Because it wasn't authorized.

How did we get around that?

By the House passing an authorization and an appropriation.

not of any specific amount, but to carry on the law of the program in the same manner it's carried on in 71.

And that's the rule of law.

Because it's been superseded by your new H-E-W. That's what has happened.

Can you see why you've abused that?

I don't regret it.

We owe him the appropriation of H-E-W last year.

It was in a supplemental.

We've often had it in a supplemental.

Well, in any event, the law under which you were acting is no longer the law.

And my recollection is, I may be an error, but it don't make much difference.

But the law under which you're acting has been superseded by another law, which left it out.

It's been left out entirely.

Now what you're trying to do, you're using the...

the process, what do you call it, the continuing resolution process, you see, to resuscitate a law

The philosophy of the continued resolution is that you don't start new programs and you don't stop ongoing programs.

And OEO was an ongoing program last July, late last June, when we provided for the continued resolution.

What became of that law?

Yes, it was.

No, it was in a supplemental account.

No, no, the containing resolution which we passed last, late last June, said that you don't start any new appropriations, any new programs, and you don't stop any programs.

It just continues the situation as it is.

That's the virtue of this piece of legislation.

In other words, the Senate bills, both of them came to law.

uh, last year's, uh, 11.

Yes.

I believe that whichever is lower controls.

Whichever is lower, the budget on last year's figure is in control.

Now it controls even on the 10th, right?

Yes, right.

Well, why do you have all of you at this time?

It's in the continuing resolution.

That's the only place it is.

Because it hasn't been reenacted.

Well, then, and why did you put an issue up here?

Because it wasn't authorized by us.

That's right.

We could have put it in some room, but we didn't.

Because it was not authorized, and here you are putting it in a continuing resolution where you authorize an appropriation.

That's what I was getting at.

It would be shocking to take out Head Start, all those roads, and park the program.

I voted against the authorization of that house, but still...

We don't want to do it.

But I don't want to do it either, George.

I'm trying to get out of here before December 1st, or before Turkey Day.

And if you extend this question... That's the reason that I am so disturbed about this, because let me just say this.

We all know that there are a few games played around here.

We all know that.

I understand that.

But as you called us all, I said, well, I'm the man of the Congress.

I don't want the Congress to win.

We'll fight about this and that.

We may disagree, Al and I, but we won't disagree as much.

We're going to have a good talk before I go to the Soviet Union and so forth.

We've got some ideas.

I talked to Mike about trying to get a lot of things to come out of it.

The point that I made is this.

Here we face a situation where I think, and that's that.

But I know that most, many of those in the Congress say, well, the president looks bad because he didn't run as far away, and so it shows that he can't run as far.

I would just simply suggest that in this situation, the direction looks bad.

And I think we have to, I guess I'll take this bit for the country, to have the government look bad.

I mean, I don't want the Congress to look bad.

Now, let me tell you that, I, let me tell you that.

I, I, that's why I didn't call it, I haven't called it any propagators, and I'm not going out and having speeches, and I'm not raising hell, and all that sort of thing.

And the reason that I resisted this, the reason is that, well, on foreign aid, as Mike knows, we have, we disagree, we'll disagree on that thing that I mentioned to you about tomorrow night, George, your people,

I got a call from Massachusetts.

Oh, he's got to run.

He's all right.

We'll just fight that out.

And, you know, the OEO, they've got this program, you know, where they turn the kids over to the car to raise, you know, not for that.

And those are things that need to be argued out.

But we have something that's much bigger than all that.

What we have here is basically a case of George and Frank Bowe and Alan Helder and Bill Young.

four powerful men, and let's face it, Mike would agree, and you would agree, and you would agree, George, and I think, I mean, our friend's speaker, that the four people, the appropriations, are the most powerful people in this Congress.

I mean, you've covered it now.

And you're supposed to be the most responsible.

I was down for that picture, sir.

Remember what I said about the appropriations committee?

I said the same thing about your corporation.

But if the appropriations committee, if the appropriations committee decided to pilot this, create basically what is a constitutional governmental crisis,

that a lot of things will pop up.

Some will blame the president.

Speeches will be made in the Senate and the House saying the president should have blamed, he could have kept these people on, he could have wished, and he's done it before and let the law go through.

And of course, some down here will have to blame the Congress.

Actually, we just can't take that.

But who's going to win?

Neither.

What's going to be bad is government.

And we just don't, I just don't think it's a good thing for government.

I'll let you study climate and I'll tell you the main thing.

I think now Mo has a good point.

I think that we've reached a lesson here, that we must not reach this impasse again.

I think we've got to reach it so that the next time around, we agree that we did.

That we are, usually it's the other way around.

The Senate has never been this far before.

What are you going to say about that?

I'm going to say on what we are in a difficult time.

There's no chance of a single result before the 1st of December.

We did waste a lot of time, aren't we?

I think we'd be better off to go ahead.

But I was wondering, Mr. President, if on the 4-8, if it went through the House again or the Senate, it would be lower.

Could we cut the amount for 4-8 or something?

Could you?

But what I'm hoping for the government to do is tackle those.

It's already done.

Well, Mr. President, maybe I could add to what I think George is suggesting, and I checked with Doc Morgan and Bill Maher,

just before I came down.

The House bill is dead.

The two Senate bills are on the Speaker's desk.

We are trying to find a way, and there's a meeting scheduled this afternoon, to get a House bill, either the precise bill that we passed in July, I think it was, or to take that bill and cut it 10% and

through a very unusual rule, get the Rules Committee tomorrow to authorize it being brought up with one vote, and then set the conference with the two senators.

This takes a very unusual rule, and Lou Dechler is not very prone to be sympathetic, but the Rules Committee, I think, could be sold out.

If that's true, or if that works out, on Wednesday, we could pass

and send a conference, the House version to the two Senate versions, how long they would take in conference.

I don't know why.

I mean... All right, Jerry, you put your finger on the envelope.

If you do want to go on the House, if you don't know when this bill is going to get out of Congress, I think I can say that with certainty.

But I would suggest, Mr. President, that both houses give consideration to this proposal, which would take care of the administration of the Foreign Assistance Act of 61 and the Foreign Military Sales Act and pass the rest under a continuing resolution.

Then you've got all these others out of the way, although I think as a matter of fact the law states right now that as far as the military, any part of the program is concerned, there is no limitation of continuation of payments of the personnel attached there too.

This is what I showed you, Alan.

You saw it a little late, you.

You looked at it a little late too.

And it appears to me that if you do something like this,

It might be getting out of the mind in which we find ourselves on foreign aid at the present time.

But Mike, on that, if we could hear from George Shultz, because I couldn't go along with it if you don't know.

Because at the time, I understood that this doesn't begin to cover the whole problem.

It doesn't authorize.

That's it.

That is the creation of an act.

I haven't seen this particular proposal, but

I think our problem here is broader than the foreign aid problem.

It goes to the OEO, it goes to the defense appropriations, and you see appropriations as well as the foreign aid.

Foreign aid, military and economic, and the continued resolution will take care of all the rest.

Is that right, George?

Allen?

Sure, this just applies to the foreign aid.

And it was offered after the economic assistance program was passed.

It would have to be approved by the House.

Well, that would have to be approved by the House.

Yes, I understood it would apply to the King Party.

That's right.

That's what I'm saying.

It wouldn't apply to what he wants and what the President wants.

Contracts.

No, no.

That's why I didn't think, Mike, it was a good idea.

I didn't tell that to Fulbright.

But we ought to take care of the people who are hired wouldn't meet that problem.

I know that.

All right.

That's out there.

Well, remember this.

Let me see if we understand we're in a continuing resolution.

I'd love to see if George would have the same chance to restate his case.

Or draw up and ask George Maynard.

You've decided and you say the continuing resolution passes.

that it is still, as far as it amounts to, it is still under the restrictions of whatever authorizing legislation.

So if the authorizing legislation is less, we're restricted by that.

So if you cut down the authorizing legislation,

then we have to pick up the dough.

So it isn't a question of a continuing resolution meaning that you're going to continue.

It means that, well, for example, if you don't pass the authorizing legislation until, say, three weeks from now or four weeks from now,

Uh, Tennessee authorized resolution makes a 25% cut.

But as I understand it, we have to pick that up.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Well, the budget is higher in both instances.

Well, that's the case, George, as far as foreign aid is concerned.

Well, really, we want to spend a second on that.

That's the administrative aspect that bothers me.

George, you want to say something?

So I would say that you have the president's budget.

You have last year's appropriation.

You also have, in many cases, an action by one house or the other.

And in apportioning funds,

from the OMB as people go about their business.

We have to look at those and basically be guided by whatever is lower so that we don't wind up having a distorted program.

If we, of course, had a very high level for what amounts now to the first four or five months of the year and then the level turns out to be much lower, then the whole program later in the year

is almost impossible to administer.

So we try to get people down and apportion the funds.

And as you all know, we're probably better than you'd like us to be at withholding some of it.

Well then, I would like to think that we would work with Dr. Morgan and he and Bill are trying to get something done.

I'm very much in sympathy with Alan Melvin's push.

He's gotten more done than anybody's ever done.

And Bill's polite and so is Frank.

I would want to put you on the spine of what I'm doing.

in the hope that you can get this thing through.

But Boggs tells me this afternoon in the presence of

Morgan, he says, we've got such a crowded schedule running through Saturday that we couldn't bring the bill up.

Well, look what we did yesterday.

We did Saturday and we did Friday.

We stayed all day.

I wish we could do it.

I'm all classed.

But I don't know what the speakers in San Francisco will be back until tomorrow.

But I would like to see him bring it in this week following.

Well, I know, but you'll never get it done this week if you send this until Congress assesses it.

I guarantee you that.

That's what I'm trying to stop.

Not only the 10 days recess, I want us to get out of here around September, I mean, not later than December 1st.

Bring up something that doesn't relate to appropriations or authorizations.

The House Committee on Banking and Currency is going to have a final markup session on November 29th on the extension of the Economic Stabilization Act.

Right, Pat?

Well, that can be taken up in January without trouble.

That's not necessary.

The appropriation bill is the one you want to get rid of.

You know that.

And that's what I want to try to do.

Well, no one would be more anxious last year, this year, or next year than to get the appropriations bills up and out of the way.

And if we had a two-year extension of the foreign aid bill, before we adjourn, you won't have it.

You'll only have one problem in appropriations next year, and that will be the military procurement bill.

Well, that we can have in a supplemental.

All right.

But if you get a one-year extension of the foreign aid bill, you'll have the same problem next year that you got this year.

No, no, not if we start early enough.

After that, I've got a question.

Whether you start early enough is depending upon the authorizing committees.

Now, the Senate, in this bill you just passed, has asked two more areas of authorizations.

State Department, and A, it's the Fulbright Amendment.

Now, as long as you can take it, if the Authorizing Committee's authorization and the Appropriations Committee has to wait, we're going to be in the same dilemma.

I said to the Rules Committee the other day, testifying up there, that I'd like to see a rule, in the House at least, that

If authorization bills do not pass by June 30th, then points of order would not be made against appropriation bills.

Gives us a chance to move and puts the authorizing committees on record that they've got to authorize before June 30th, or we're going to move.

And Mr. President, you recall back when John Faber was chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

We got all appropriations out in the Senate, too.

By the end of May, except one,

And that came up in June.

But in those days, we didn't have this question of authorizations.

As long as we're going to let the committees authorize, unless we get a cutoff date on authorizations, we're going to be in exactly the same position we're in now.

Well, Frank, in answer to what you're saying now, we started a move on the Senate side that unless the authorizing bill is in our hands by June the 1st,

that will go on with the appropriations, the regular appropriations.

Well, I think that's what we've got to come down to.

Of course you've got to come down to that.

And back to...

But notice on the authorization committee...

Right, right.

And then if they don't give it to us by June 1st, then it's a supplemental bill.

And not hold back.

Why should DOD, for instance,

a bid involving 70-some-odd billion dollars be held back for that item of maybe just three billion.

I'm concerned now this last bid you passed over there, you've had the State Department, and they've got to authorize it for the appropriate committee connection.

Yeah, which I think was wrong, which I think passed by 9-7-0-8-7 in the committee.

How do you figure, on that separate first date sort of increase, do you think you could get the Senate to get those two judges?

I don't know.

I just had to present to you today a very fascinating thing.

Just a little bit, all of them.

Most of them.

How many, who's not a liar here in your room?

Please.

Yeah, you're not a liar.

You're not a liar.

I'll never win the poll.

You know, the great Judge, he lived to be 90 years of age, left his whole fortune, just $250,000, a lot of money, for all the, almost 5 million, he left it all.

He left it all to write a history in the Supreme Court.

And so Judge, I mean, there's some five great scholars, Fry and Gale, and Marron, always, always came in the day and presented the first two volumes.

But as they presented those volumes, I was reminded of the fact, and they reminded me of the fact that they had never seen the court with such a terrible backlog.

And you have seven judges on there.

And, you know, you've got a lot of cases there where it just is right.

That's all.

And this is a very hard philosophy.

So do you want it.

I understand.

We've got to get those judges voted out this week.

We've got to get them out.

Well, I have talked to Mike a very number of times.

And I understand him.

We're willing to say.

Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President,

I mentioned it to Mike the 1st of December, but that's a Wednesday, and you know, at least since I've been here, we have never adjourned in the middle of a week.

Now, why don't you set a date on the continuing resolution until Saturday, December 4th?

Oh, you can't get through with that time.

Well, then... Oh, yes, you can.

I think if you have any time... That's worse.

You're trying to find a compromise.

Yes.

I mean, Alan, Saturday, December 4, that gives us a full week to be back here to finish up any unfinished business that we have on our desk.

It gives you time to get the judges up.

I think that's a modest date when we can try to conclude.

I think the House...

Uh, the warning is only two and a half weeks.

The what?

The December 4th is only two and a half, two and a third weeks.

That is only a vacation.

Well, listen, we so always get through by making a normal step, George.

Remember when we talked together?

And here at November the 5th, now, you're just as bad off now as you were.

Well, your proposal's only four days, because they're leaving the 19th, and I've said it.

Well, you are now.

I want to stop that pretend.

My question is, where do you leave?

We go up there, Mr. Archer.

And I think you only got the following bills, if my memory is correct.

The defense appropriations coming up tomorrow, the D.C. appropriations and the foreign aid appropriations, and the supplemental...

and the Economic Stabilization Act, and the political campaign legislation, which is scheduled for Wednesday of this week.

Those are things that's fine.

That's fine with me.

Those are not essential.

You can pass those and some of those in January when you come back, because you never get that through.

I don't see.

All I'm saying is our total program, our total program, according to the speaker,

is five or six more bills, and of which four are appropriations, and one is coming up tomorrow.

And if you give us from November 29th through December 4th, we can get through.

Now, this George doesn't agree, sir.

I think we could, but we can't.

Then we've got to go through this measure again.

I'm tired of it.

Well, George, listen, personally, I can't get the committee to do it.

I don't think before December 1st.

Remember Mike, the last time we met?

The trouble was December 1st.

That's the situation.

What about before?

Maybe we can, uh, George, uh, how about we stay in the port and then we can start the port in Coldwell?

You know, you don't, do you think it's unrealistic?

Of course I think it's unrealistic.

You've got to pass the foreign aid authorization, the foreign aid appropriation.

It takes some length of time.

You've got to get the reports.

You've got to be put in for two days, this, that, and the other.

I just don't think we can do it.

George, if we're going to take that ten-day recess, I can't even do it.

We're going to stay here until the 23rd.

We're going to stay here until the 23rd of November, as far as I know.

Am I right?

Two days old.

Huh?

Two days old.

How is it going to take ten?

Well, that's wrong.

That's unfair to us.

We've been working like slaves around here to get out of here by November the 15th.

Here's November the 15th, and we're still here.

I wish the Speaker was here, and I can't speak for him, except to relate what the Speaker told me, and I think he may have told you, Mike.

That a week or ten days ago, the Democratic whips met with the Speaker in Hale and said they were going to insist on a whole month of, I mean, a whole week of Thanksgiving off.

And the Speaker said under those circumstances, I had to agree to them.

The speaker, that's right.

The Democratic whips met with the speaker and told him that.

And the speaker will verify that's what he said.

So if you make it before, I think more optimistically than George does, that we can get out of here.

Otherwise, you're an impossible impasse.

Well, I'd be glad to take it up with the member of the committee.

But I doubt that I'll be able to get it before the first time.

You're going to adjourn by the fourth?

Except that they have a route of complete reluctance to accept that, I guess.

Right.

But how is that?

Well, you're going to adjourn by the fourth of December.

What's wrong with that?

sorry with me i'm just trying to help them i don't know i don't think there's much to make of it of course but make it a chance you could but that's what we're trying to make it a lot worse well make it make it uh quite important that you're doing the house is making it very well they can work fast when they when they have to you know all these conferences the only topic is going to be the uh the authorization on four days that i can sleep

Well, George, when we agreed to the 15, you remember the trouble I had.

You know, I took the matter up with George and with Mike and others, and you wanted to make it, I think, the 20th, and all 15.

And now I've postponed that until the 4th of December.

You can see the trouble we went through.

I think, excuse me, George,

Now, the President has indicated his personal interest in this matter.

I think that he is entitled to every consideration I would suggest.

Rather than keep off this conversation, let me go back to the Senate and call in the appropriate people to see what we can do along the lines that Alan has in mind.

He has mentioned the 23rd.

Maybe you might see a way in there to move them longer.

Would that be satisfactory?

Go ahead.

Would that be satisfactory?

To do what?

To go back and meet with the appropriate people in the Senate, though there are some who aren't here, and see if some agreement cannot be reached to at least a 23rd, but very likely beyond that, subject to your approval.

All right.

I think the President is all right with that.

That much consideration, and he's made his case.

I wouldn't want to put him on the hook.

No.

We don't want to put him on the hook.

No, no, but I'm standing, I'm talking about it.

But I'm the only one who's trying to support it.

I'm trying to support it.

And then let George and the speaker, the Georgian speaker, look, I think there's some argument with us for the fourth deal.

We're going to get it done.

What do you think?

I've been wondering what you all make of it.

What do you think?

I'd be willing to try.

Let me just say, I remember this.

The year that we were all on elect duty, remember, elect duty, I'll never forget, we went up to Philadelphia, the hottest city in the world.

Thank you, but I'll never forget, remember Mike, we were all in session way, way late, but we got everything done.

So those bold conventions, remember, we all took off and got up there.

But we got more work done on that last week.

Everything was done.

How can you fix a date?

Maybe you set maybe the fourth.

I don't want to set an unrealistic date, but the fourth sounds pretty good.

Well, why do you think the fourth will work?

No, you can try.

I don't think we're in trouble.

Well, why can't we do this?

As a result of this conference with the President,

We all agree that we're going to have our target date, December the 4th.

And go ahead, that's a continuing resolution, subject to sign of our adjournment.

On the 4th.

December the 4th.

On or before the 4th.

That's all right.

But couldn't you have your continuing resolution still say, subject to sign of our adjournment?

You might as well have it still on Christmas Eve.

Exactly.

Listen, if you don't have something in you to force these persons to make them do it, you're never going to have anything in that very private system.

I'd like to assess it first, then if we have to go a couple days more to do it, we'll go ahead and do it.

Well, but the Congress and the House is going to be out of session from now until the following Monday, Matt.

Oh, there you are.

If we really adjourn and we pass some of these bills on the day of adjournment,

We've got to give the press a little time to sign bills.

Or he's in the same position.

He said, no.

Well, except, Frank, if any government doesn't meet with the satisfaction, he has the power and the authority and the responsibility to call us back.

I know, but in order to keep the government running, he still has to have a little time to sign the bill that we might pass on December the 4th.

Well, I'm surprised.

Well, he said, no, he didn't.

He said, no, he didn't.

I'll let you on this one.

As a matter of fact, I've got a deal with you.

If you get through in the forest, I'll set up all my dogs.

The whole bunch is here.

You're a special bunch if you get through in the forest.

I'll get the Air Force one.

That's the only reason it isn't here now.

The Boeing people insisted on taking it back.

They painted it for the trips we're going to take.

And we'll all take you all to Florida.

Wait your watch.

The fourth may be too tight.

But it's an incentive, George, and we can put the beat on it.

But now if you do the fourth and you're not there, what do you do if you're up against it?

Well, you just would have to pass another interval.

No, that's true.

But you're going to be very close.

That's true.

What'd you say?

I suggest we go through this again.

We don't get hit before.

And tell the house to take a week off.

Well, I'd go in and cancel the week off.

Oh, I heard the white horse.

Let's go.

Thank you.

I want to set up a time before I go to the strip where we can sit down and I want to go over that whole thing so it's fresh in my mind before the whole thing comes up.

I don't have a chance to do it.

I didn't even see the movie.

I thought before we were excited to go there, we were going to see the movie.

And so, again, this will be...

I don't want to sit down and spend a couple hours, you know, and I won't listen for the book, you know.

Good?

Fair enough.

You will be moving down.

We only have one line here in the New York area.

So if you stay at 1-9, that would see you at the bottom of the consulate.

That's right.

Thank you very much.

They want to play that game.

Tom Dewey once said a very interesting thing.

He says, I've never seen a time in a direction

the exacting of the legislation, or the exacting of the bill.

You see, because I'm sitting here right now, and I'm trying to prove it to you, and everybody thought that we all thought that.

You know, everybody thought that.

You know, it's a great time.

It's a good time.

And I don't want to do that.

Everybody's wrong, because what we're going to do is we're also going to

You're the only responsible man.

Would you mind if I request to have a talk with him?

Exactly that.

I have to have one word.

Yeah, sure.

I want you to tell me that if you cannot tolerate that bullshit, then you can pull all the horses out and leave the park.

Look, I heard this.

We just, we just said, we just said.

Forty-five thousand dollars.

You know we're getting out of here.

They didn't know we were getting out of here.

But right now, the bowl of remnant, let me say, there is a chance on the ocean.

People say, well, there's no chance.

If there's a little bit of a chance, it gives us another tool, another tool that we can use.

And also, if you simply say, hold on a minute, I understand, June 1st, it's not going to happen.

It's like a Cooper Church.

They only have that now.

Hold on.

But the other thing is, if you simply tell the enemy,

Oh, but do the first, and you have no other choice, no other choice, except to withdraw it.

They won't give you a deal of it, but they'll say, all right, fine, we've got that now.

You also cut off all your aid and can't go in, all your aid and allowance, all your aid and can't go in.

They won't give you a deal of it.

Then we do that.

Oh, no, we won't do that.

And now you give us an indication.

And I'll say that I'm speaking to the president, and he thinks it would be injurious to the members, but I'm not giving him money.

Exactly.

that our objectives are to get back to POWs and not to limit them, that we are, and to end the war, in a way that means our lives even, honestly.

And that this would torpedo those efforts, and that those who support this must assume the responsibility for failure.

That's it.

That's the conclusion of responsibility.

Well, Director, I appreciate your patience.

I want you to have time to sleep.

Ah, boy, no.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Very well, Mr. President.

It did.

It made you, you know, very strong.

Right.

And then you also were very confident.

Yeah.

And then you admitted yourself to the movies, which will get you out of it.

We can't.

Oh, I see.

Well, I forgot about it.

But you don't really...

They didn't like to face these people.

We had it right here, for sure.

You better think that they knew it.

Son of a bitch, they wanted to play this game.

We'd have kicked their brains out.

And as a matter of fact, you give them an opportunity to get off the hook.

I mean, that's just absolutely uncomfortable.

And the only way, right?

But also, the police would go in, and the fire would go in, and the rest.

And they'd say, well, you couldn't pay them that check, so come on.

Bullshit.

If you don't vote money, you can't write up a check.

I'm just saying, that's right there.

unless December 4th date.

If there are just a few things left hanging, they can accept that as well.

That's four of us days.

Okay, all right.

Thank you very much.

Take care.

Good job.