On November 12, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Elliot L. Richardson, John D. Ehrlichman, Stephen B. Bull, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., unknown person(s), and Oliver F. ("Ollie") Atkins met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:41 pm to 5:55 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 617-018 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Come in, Elliot.
Get out of here.
We'll start it in a minute.
We'll move on to the next shot in ten minutes.
Well, you've had an unexpected, uh... Yeah, we had a man in the water today, yeah.
In an hour.
You know what he said.
He said, in an hour, he said about this.
That man in an hour in there.
He just had a hell of a time in there, yeah.
Put him in a sandbag, and I don't know what he said about it.
You know what I mean?
Well, we had a lot of problems, and I had hoped maybe to
minimize some of the specifics in order to get a little bit of feel for your views and give me a chance to express some of mine on the larger context within which some of these things come up.
But lest we not have enough time on specifics, I think I should bring up first the selection of a desegregation amendment to the Constitution.
Did you get a chance to look at my sort of memorandum on that?
But I think that covers well enough what my general view is.
Basically, I'm concerned that apart from the merits of the issue of busing the children itself, that the issue is so emotional in terms both of the parents who are concerned about having their children bused, and in terms of black people who don't know quite what, which is worse,
having their children the primary victims of the busing, or having the feeling that there's some sort of a racial failure to follow through and so on on the process of desegregation itself.
The result is that it seems to me that there's a very serious risk that if you have to take a position on the amendment of the issues
affirmative position, but it polarizes attitudes in a way that then becomes escalated into a major campaign issue, tending perhaps to push out of sight the affirmative things that you have done, the leadership you have given in bringing the country together.
Did you have a C-60 Minutes last night on CBS?
No.
Well, Mike Wallace did a piece about 15 minutes long, where the liberals in Washington send their kids to school.
That was a classic.
Liberals, liberals.
Where did he send yours?
Public school in Virginia.
He sent you what he sent to his.
You're a liberal.
And now the liberals all of a sudden, there's the private school.
I believe in public school, you know.
Hell, I went to public schools.
Well, he went through, he showed where Muskie and McGovern...
Everybody sends their kids to school.
St. Albans and the Catholic private schools and the whole business.
But he, he libeled you because he said you sent your kids to private school.
No, we, we, I was going to say you give me too much credit.
We, we did send one, a girl to St. Albans.
You have one boy in St. Albans.
I'm not, I'm not.
Well, I, you know, my daughter goes to school, I guess, with your daughter.
They did.
Ah, for two years.
Well, hey, that school ran out.
Ah, you remember.
Look, it's a terrible problem.
We all know what it is.
It is.
It's a disaster, isn't it?
Well, the choice part of this show was he had Nichols Vaughan and interviewed him.
And he had Walter Fauntleroy on and interviewed him.
Both of them sitting in front of the private schools where their kids went to school.
And he really laid the wood for them.
I saw him Friday night and he told me to watch it.
Because he thought it was so delicious.
And it's a, it's a great piece of work.
Our kids went to Isabella, for your information, they went for their first years, they went to Horace Mann.
And then when they got out of the penicillin situation, I think, we sent them to the Sidwell Friends.
Basically, the high school in Michigan, Elliot, here in the district, was full of rough people then, but Sidwell Mann, of course, we had to use it.
The really first thing on the show was that there were some women from Pontiac, Michigan, picketing the cattle.
about busing, and he had Fauntroy on with a capitol in the background, and as they walked by, he called them over, and they chewed Fauntroy out, and it was beautiful to see, because here was a black who sent his kids to private school, and a bunch of whites who had to have their kids in public school bused, and he had that, so he said, you know, first of all, I'm not gonna make a determination on it in a hurry, you can be sure,
It's a very important busting machine to clutter up the Constitution with issues, things like this.
I talked to Mitchell about it, of course, and to John.
To me, that's what's done.
The California Constitution is utter monstrosity due to the fact that it's full of legislation.
I don't think the Constitution is a place to be.
The problem gets down to...
what we're going to be facing as we go along here.
I don't want to get into a polarization.
And I talked to John, I said, God, can we have any alternatives?
We got, I think we do have one where, how do they come up with those goals when they finally occur in the House?
Very, very long and clear.
But be that as it may, when do we have to decide this, John?
We don't have to say anything.
We don't have to say anything immediately at all.
It's just a question of whether you want to increase visibility, if you want to step out of a position at any point in time.
Yes.
Well, what I meant is, what I meant is we may, we may at some point have to say something.
The constitutional amendment,
I guess it has 100 and something in the house.
And it doesn't seem to be going to happen again in a hurry.
Having said that, I couldn't be more opposed to busking.
Just as a matter of conviction.
It has nothing to do with black-white segregation.
It's just a fact.
I despise the concept.
I've got it for you.
It's very long, and I'd like to have you take it to California with you.
Because, let me say, a lot of these readings, we all have a chance to talk about it.
It's going to be a very...
I've been racking my brain.
The Emergency School Aid Act may help a little, depending what goes through.
I should flag a concern that arises out of this, which is the Ervin amendments.
Senator Ervin has proposed some amendments that go considerably beyond even the House amendments because they would mount
Really, for almost all of what AGW and Justice do, they would amount to an appeal of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act itself.
Not in so many words, but...
Yes, it seems likely they will be offered.
I have hope that the senators would agree to go to conference with the House-passed bill, which is a combination of
the higher education bill and the emergency school aid bill without repassing the senate higher education bill with a their own version of the emergency school aid bill attached in order that all of this schmear gets the conscience but it appears according to pell whom i saw the other night that it doesn't matter which way it goes that the amendments will be offered anyway this this will create a
a showdown.
In any event, though, it had, it could have the advantage, no matter how, what the ultimate outcome on these amendments of the Emergency School Aid Act, serving as a lightning rod for some of the pressures that have gathered around the constitutional amendment issue.
In other words, however it falls out,
There will be strong anti-busting language in the emergency school aid bill, and this may seem like that.
Well, let's leave that.
Go to that.
Now your other subjects.
Maybe cover Reagan and get it out of it.
That's what I mean.
The main thing I'd like to do is just get something so that maybe it's in it.
I read the papers, and I know the differences and so forth.
John, write out the Stanford and Reagan thing, and his band and so forth and so on.
The main thing is, Elliot, as you know, this is a hell of a political problem, as my children are in here with us.
And if you could possibly take a deal on it before I have to see it from you, I would just hate like hell to have Ray come in here and then...
Well, we're pretty close, actually.
The range of difference now, it would be silly to bother you with.
What would be bad for you to have the impression created in any event
that Reagan had come to you and precipitated the result.
He couldn't get out of me.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, I don't want him to come in and go over a cabinet officer.
He's trying, you know.
He's been to Mitchell.
He's been to the vice president.
So the other vice president is everything along.
You should know along forever.
This thing is bouncing back and forth.
I last talked to Reagan on Friday evening.
The ball is now in my court.
I'm supposed to get back to him with our reaction to the latest possible deal.
I wonder if you could use this as a means of getting him to talk.
You might say that the president expressed concern, but he is very strong.
I mean, he wants to be as helpful as possible to the governor and to the great inspector of the press.
I mean, what about the initiative versus the Reichenhausen and Delsburg?
for the real, Denver's trying to stop Versace, and it does put the president in a little bad spot.
And the archivist, one of his captainals, and he's asking to take it, trying to see if you could prank the archivist and negotiate with him, that it would just subversive, because you've got, we've got another thing someone's talking about, and other subjects that we ought to take account of.
What do you think of that approach, John?
Or do you think Reagan wants to go over the camera box?
Well, I think he would like to have a scouting, but I think if you aren't close on it, that it would probably come from, of course, negotiations themselves.
Another thing I think is that it would be very, before we don't, it would be so natural.
If I could say to you, it would be very, very important.
You do it, and don't have Venom doing it.
Now regardless of what he says, you know, he's extremely jealous of the Minch, and Venom is a Minch man.
And I think Venom is a fine fellow and a good operator and everything, but I think if you could sort of give an indication that you've taken this over at my request, and Mr. Gauthier is a politician, is a fellow politician, a fellow Republican, and all that,
There's a lot of ego involvement in it.
He wants to win.
It's a sort of a say uncle type thing.
I don't mind saying, uncle, as far as the public impressions are concerned, but what bothers me is that we'll, we'll certainly get sued anyway.
And we seem to be saying, in effect, that this is the basis on which we believe that H.R.
1 should be administered.
It's awful hard to get out from under this.
And we are charged with
exceeding the authority that is supposed to be utilized to test on what normally is assumed to be a limited scale, etc.
So I've just been trying to go along, but within limits that are comparable to the limits we have already succeeded in getting Rockefeller to agree to.
Well, what it amounts to is that he wants quite as much as Rockefeller.
If he would go, had been going along with the deal we've already made with Rockwell, this thing would have been over weeks ago.
And so when it really comes down, just to give you an idea of how silly the damn thing is, I said that we would be willing to cover not more than 25% of the caseload.
He came back to a proposal for about two-thirds of the caseload, but it's also hard.
from where I sit to say that it's an experimental project when two-thirds of the largest caseload of the United States is being covered on an experimental basis under my exercise of a waiver authority for this kind of demonstration.
So I decided to get him down.
And I got him down to about 45%.
And then I came back to him and I said, Governor, how about this deal?
You cover all the counties you want to cover,
but say that the number of employees will be covered.
is a total representing not more than 25% of the potential number of employees.
I'd already settled a deal with Rockefeller on the 25%.
You could have any number of counties you want, any level of total caseload you want, so long as the number of workers you want to get into the system, which is still three times the number he told me he was going to put in.
He said he was going to start out at 10,000.
I've offered him 30,000 for the 20,000 cushions.
Well, now, it gets, and I think there's a good chance that if we don't have it settled by Wednesday, at least we'll have everything down to a range that shouldn't involve you.
I understand.
It's a hot one.
How do you want to talk about the, what else?
That child, Oyo?
Well, I suppose we'd better talk about that.
That is a tough one.
What are your prospects?
When does that come up?
Countries are due to meet again this afternoon at 4.
They have, for all purposes, given in on what I thought was the chief issue, namely the level of free
daycare services and the fee scale above this, I'd better go back.
I've been proceeding on the basis of what I have understood to be the Federalist Administration guidelines in dealing with the committees on this bill.
Those guidelines, in turn, go back to negotiations
internally with OMB and John and his staff back around late spring, I guess.
They rest on several grounds.
Number one, that the administration had a concern with the first five years of life, expressed in one of your earlier messages.
Number two, that when we talked about- I remember when I came to that recently, I remember
Well, related to that was the proposal for daycare services to be covered under the welfare reform program itself.
Yeah, HR1.
HR1, which contemplates that daycare services will be made available to the children of mothers who are helped to find jobs under the program.
And we have testified all along in this context that we meant something more than merely custodial services, that there would be a developmental element, well,
That means babysitting plus at least things like screening to detect health defects that may be remediable.
It means for children who are old enough, some element of preschool content in helping them along the lines that Head Start has developed more or less.
It means utilizing mothers who had some training in taking care of children rather than so on.
So we've testified to this all along and have said that this was the kind of daycare services that we expected to provide for the children of welfare mothers under welfare reform programs.
As to the child development bills, we've said that we could support a new statutory base for the three sources of federal funding for daycare services that we expected to be in the law anyway.
One is Head Start.
Second is daycare services which we match under Title IV Social Security Act as a service.
purchased by state welfare departments.
And the third is the welfare reform program itself, HR1.
And that consistently with the approach taken in the special revenue sharing program, it made sense to create a common statutory base for the federal involvement in these various daycare services.
As to federal commitments of money, that the most we could expect to put into it would be the combination of these three funding amounts, which we were going to put into it anyway.
So we then came to the question of the level at which HHS would be free.
And I insisted that it could not be more than the income benefit level in H.R.
1.
The cutoff there is $4320.
That is, of course, in other words, when a family affords earnings rise to 4320, they get no money in the form of workfare benefits.
So we got an amendment on the House floor that put this into the act.
And the issue in Congress, or at least what I had felt to be the principal issue, was whether we could hold that 4320 or whether the Senate figure of 6960 would prevail or something in between.
I said we could not take any free care figure higher than 4320.
And the countries either have or are about to fold on this.
with provisions for a fee schedule that starts at 10% of the income range, 4320 to 6600, 15% up to 6900.
The ultimate costs of this are very high, even of the amendment itself.
On the other hand, it's fair to say that we went over that dam when we proposed the welfare reform program itself.
because even there, there is, and this is, I might say, parenthetically, the kind of thing that, in a way, is more interesting and more important.
We have over and over again, in the range of HEW programs, gotten into things on a limited, underfunded scale, which, if you project it, would cost more money than we have.
was already, in a sense, one of these things when we began to say we would provide daycare services for welfare mothers, or when we started Head Start, or when we started to match daycare services under Title IV Social Security Act.
So, in any case, we have said that we couldn't
put more money or certainly not much more money into this than we were already committed to for these other purposes.
And that the 4320 cutoff is consistent in essentially with what we had already committed ourselves to under HR1.
Now I believe you are being reached by people who feel that the whole idea of daycare services is bad.
I don't think, from where I sit, a veto of the bill on those grounds would be totally inconsistent with the history of the administration with a capital A involvement in this whole legislative process to date.
I wouldn't be placed in a...
in an exceedingly embarrassing position on this score because I don't believe that I have at any point said anything about the bill or taken any position in testimony or before committees and so on that has not been consistent with and cleared by and all that.
I've testified on it a couple of times and all the testimony has been cleared and so on.
What about the money side?
Well, the money problem arises out of the potential universe of children who might theoretically be eligible.
This was the problem, as I say, that we began to get into anyway when we started with H.R.
1.
And at least when we got into H.R.
1 and then on the Senate side in 1970, recognized the so-called notch problem.
You remember this issue that Williams brought up, which was in fact that it creates a disincentive to work if a family can get a free benefit up to a fixed income cutoff
And then the entire benefit is forfeited if they cross that threshold.
This was one of the troubles with Medicaid.
You might have an income of $4,300 and get free medical care if you earned $4,301.
You lost maybe $1,000 worth of free medical care.
This is one of the things that the Senate Finance Committee hopped on in last year's hearing.
And it's one of the reasons why we developed the recommendation you have now submitted to the Congress for the Family Health Insurance Plan, which has a graduated scale of family premium payments as income rises.
Well,
When you come to daycare, we have to recognize essentially the same thing, that if you have a free care level up to the cutoff under HR1, then you have to have a graduated scale from 4320 to some.
So the two things that I've been fighting on with the conferee have been, one, to hold the free care level to 4300, and two,
to have a substantial bite of the income from there up.
Now, the problem is still that we would be undertaking a commitment which it would take a long time to fulfill in the sense that everyone who was in the same income situation had equal access
to the same benefit.
I think that is inherent in this situation.
I think it became inherent in effect when we said that it was good for welfare mothers to go to work and to provide daycare services for their children.
Looking at the more primitive side of it,
I think it is good for welfare mothers to go to work.
I think it is good to have their children in a setting that can provide these other components.
And I think in the long run that our society should be prepared to create a system that is capable for parents who want to take advantage of this kind of opportunity, and well-to-do parents generally do,
In their own case, they put their children in some kind of a nursery school.
So, I think in general that the, so long as there's a clear understanding of the limitations of our funding of this and the rate at which these services can be developed, I think that the bill can
appropriately be signed and that we can begin through state agencies and local communities which would be responsible for the development of these services under local control so that we can move in a direction gradually that makes some sense.
part of the representation in getting the conservatives in the Congress who felt they had a crack at this, because the parliament was really good at its job.
And he said the House was able to crack our way in the House.
I think it was, what, a year and a half ago, I guess, the greatest dumb actual situation.
But it's a very fundamental thing.
They say, we can make money in our daycares where welfare workers can go to work, but we can't buy that in the other aspects of it.
The thing that troubles me about it is that, you know, I can see all the difficulties.
The thing that troubles me about it is part of HR1, the total program, I can see it as one thing.
It's part of something that should bite off separately.
it hybrids that particular element.
And I think you put your finger on one, well, better than you actually could if you could get on this work.
Once you start on this road, how far do we go?
It's, why do we have to decide?
Well, the countries will have resolved any remaining differences.
I don't know.
Of course, the bill is tied to labor and public welfare and education and labor.
It's tied to the OEO bill, and I don't know very much about that.
Well, it's got problems.
It's got dollar problems.
It's got mandatory spending features.
We have other problems apart from this, but I'm trying to look at all of them, right?
Javits has been trying every way he can to kind of just compromise on the charter development thing and try to get a pre-commitment by the administration of the President to sign it.
And we've not been willing to do that.
And he's raced all around trying to compromise on the OEO aspects in a pretty clear way.
And what he finally can conference out is that what he gets, I guess, on the OEO part, he's going to do his level best.
Well, I've got your state of the earth here.
It's very effective.
I can see the problems you're having.
And I'll have to look at the damn OEO thing all the way
Well, I should tell you this.
We have a real problem.
I told them.
The whole bill.
I told Javits and I've been telling them all along that with the 6900 or anything between 6900 and 4320 that I would recommend the veto.
This turned out to be more effective than I thought it was.
And the result is they have come down to 4320.
i told javits that if he could hold that compromise that i would recommend signature that i obviously couldn't speak for you and i didn't know about other parts of the bill i decided i would not try to speak to you actually before they met again uh i think it's impossible to ask you to to take a position but i but i have felt that my involvement with this you know it was such that
If they agreed to this deal, that they were entitled to know that that was where I was going.
They had agreed to it.
I don't know.
They said it was easy.
I said, well, let's cross the bridge and see.
And John, keep me in touch with the whole thing.
All these things, too, with Elliot's things, John, he did.
I want you to particularly run by him.
on a very confidential basis of education.
We have talked about it in an extraordinary way.
This is a tax reform.
I think that is tremendous.
Well, the thing is, as a politician, I want his judgment on it, and also about whether or not you might go to the 4% and apply it to other views and so forth.
But think about all those things.
to let us look at this one when it comes along.
But on that, and then John, you're going to be caught.
I've got that.
Keep it in the back.
He said that he can't have an answer for us about what we can and can't not.
He said he's about to give me the papers.
And he leans toward the big move very much so.
You lean toward the big move.
I'm not sure I know exactly what the...
I know your education people oppose, but I feel very strongly about them from a political standpoint, and also because I simply haven't believed what you're talking about in striking school.
I believe, whether it's in this, or whether it's in the tax credit deal, that we have got to do something on the private schools, on the tax credit on the private schools, to provide the constitutional land.
I don't know, I don't agree with the Catholics, the Catholics are in my gather, but I just don't want to see those 5 million kids knocked on that dust wall.
Beyond that, I'd just like to have two systems.
Now, I just hope you'll... Well, of course, property tax relief would help, wouldn't it?
In our... One of our schemes involves that.
One of our schemes involves that.
But I want you to know that I feel very strongly about that.
I know the NDA is there.
The principal, I don't...
But I've seen it.
In principle, I don't have any trouble with that.
When I was at H-E-W last time, I was the principal point of contact for the department with Monsignor Hope Walton.
And at the time, the NDEA and I had, I think, a good deal to do directly with putting into that bill whatever we could do to help the non-public schools.
And in general... Can you talk to them lately, yourself, and all of those people, the other properties?
We have a conference with them.
Before you get lobbied by your own education people too much.
I'd like to do this now.
Somebody like Cook, who was a decent fellow and intelligent, just let out this thing.
what their problem is.
I just have strong convictions about it.
Of course, these Catholics are persuasive.
I think it depends a little on the specifics, but in the principle, I assume you can see.
Let me say one weird thing, which would be a sort of, ties in a way with this,
You'd have to see the article in the Post today about Governor Matthews.
Well, I wouldn't.
I think you're kind of interesting.
In a way, it ties in with it.
But most of all, we don't really have time to sue as much.
It bears out what I think is the kind of political pitch
Well, it's basically, the direct tie-in involves the major attacks by people.
But in general, the article is to the effect that he has been much more successful than anybody expected because of the
general pitch of his conduct of the office toward what you might call moderate-middle responsible opinion with respect to the tax program itself and with respect also to racial issues and school segregation.
He's a very decent follower.
who have been very decent to us, S.P.
John, so far, and his statements, you know, he isn't demagogic like Jimmy Carter and some of the other new governors, but as you personally were, to be able to support him for that, he's part of it.
Well, this is only a way of saying that I think the political pitch that he represents
Is the political pitch which has also, in your major moves, brought the swing of public opinion back in your direction?
Yes, he knows.
He can tell.
I think it has and is.
Well, I'm saying, really, and John and I have discussed this, and there's not really time to go into it further right now.
You're saying you'll get your doctor there, right?
That's what I'm saying.
It's a matter of overall feelings.
Okay.
Okay.
We'll see you around.
Have a good trip.
Thank you.
I don't like any muscle not occurring with me, okay?
It's a real, uh, great time to...
I don't know.
By taking some more benign functions.
I know.
Okay.
You got this.
Okay, that's all.
But I really, really enjoy it.
You like the battle, I'm sure.
Sometimes I do my job.
It's all right.
Good luck.
He's got a terrifying slash.
He's a very hard rat on the fight.
He's handled it.
You know, he broke the edge.
He broke it physically and mentally for a while.
I mean, he knows he has to be serious.
He just hasn't, you know, sure enough.
And Elliot's...
It seems to me at this point that I haven't received a few feels, but I think at this point it's very important to your
you'd realize first that you're really the first Capitol officer to go over there.
I mean, I don't think anybody else has gone yet.
Somebody went over there and looked around.
There have been some assistant secretaries, a couple of mine.
The second thing is there will probably be a considerable amount of attention on it.
Now, they, one of the reasons of the attention, first, you are a Capitol officer, second, they know you're close to them, to me.
a better day to see the upcoming trip and so forth and so on.
Now the other thing is, is Bill, anybody that's talked to the Russians, our Russian friends, Gromyko and the rest, they're enormously interested in trade.
That's one of the big things we've got for them.
It's something that we must not indicate that is going to be linked with something else, but they in their minds know very well that if you make progress on the political front, that you'll make progress on the trade front.
The way I've always described it is this,
You never say trade, political, combination of the land.
But the two are just inevitably in a triangle.
If you move on one, it helps the other.
And it just moves like that.
And we know that.
Now, I think the thing that I think is to go out
You look at the situation and notice that they're, I think it's $16 billion worth of trade this will be and has at the present time, $16 billion worth, and we've got $250 million worth approximately.
That's in both directions, but our exports were less for about half of it.
That's right.
So we've got a hell of a big savings.
On the other hand, we, in fact, we have been very careful up to this point.
I think more than anything else, it's a, it's a, to the extent you can, and I know that you have a different view of expressing, I think what we want from Maury, talk to everybody, listen, learn everything you can, but I don't think we want to appear to be panting so much after him.
I don't think we want to be, I don't think we, I mean, I don't think we want to be, I think, let me put it this way.
There's some things we'd like to get from them.
And, for example, we're still screwing around.
Trade is something.
Trading from us to them is infinitely more important than it is for us to have trade with them.
We like it, you know what I mean?
I read in my story, I don't know how much it would mean if we had all this and the Europeans are taking the trade, but this is something that means a hell of a lot more to them than it does to us.
And you, of course, I don't mean to play with them, maybe that's a stupid group, but isn't that about what he said?
And I don't want to get enlightened.
It's important to let them know that the climate for trade is improved.
The political climate is better.
The political climate will be better when the president goes there, and particularly if they're cooperative with us on some of these things that we're trying to accomplish.
Berlin, China, and other matters.
They need to trade a hell of a lot more than we do.
They've got a real problem, because what they're doing, some of their allies, particularly Hungary, is doing a lot better than they are.
So they're trying to get .
And of course, India's building up a little trade.
So they're concerned about having more trade with us.
And I think we should
and assess their prospects for trade, and listen to see where we can get some benefit, but not seem over-eager.
If they think we're over-eager for trade, they'll snap at it.
Furthermore, they've got a lot of other eyes as far as they want this conference on European security very much.
I don't want a discussion of non-mutual analysis, but they don't want to concede very much.
As the president says, trade is a weapon that we have.
They need it.
Now, it will benefit us some, and politically it's always good to talk about it.
But if you analyze it in real terms, it doesn't amount to a hell of a lot.
But us, we've won for some time, little bits and drags.
And what's the point?
Well, I differ on that a little bit, Bill.
There's a great interest on the part of American businessmen, and a great number have been over there recently.
There's a group of 50, over 100, including our friend Don Kent, who's going to be over there for the last day or two that I'm there.
Let me say, I'm going to say more, and I think you're absolutely right.
I know Don Kent will and all this group want to do, but what I'm suggesting is you play a different game.
That's our business, man.
And they're over there, and they're panting around over the Soviets, and they're slobbering away and giving away our bargaining position.
You should not go there and say, and I want you to take a position which indicates, well, we're going to look at this stuff.
We're very interested in hearing what you have to offer.
We have people, of course, who would like to do this and that at the end of the day.
But, you see, because I really do believe that on this business side, Bill, I've talked to some of these guys, and gosh, they can win a store.
Well, we don't disagree on this.
They don't need to know.
It's a total impact at the moment.
For the next couple of years, it's going to cost a lot.
We can talk about it.
We can tell American business we're doing everything we can.
We want to increase that rate.
But if you look at it in total, in the overall picture, it's not going to cost a hell of a lot for the next couple of years.
Well, I think there's billions of dollars of business there.
The big problem is that they have difficulty in paying for it.
And the next thing they're going to ask, and I'm sure they're going to press it with me, two things.
Export-import credits so they can buy more, and MFM so they can ship more to the United States.
These are the roadblocks.
I think the business is there.
I think that we could have $4 or $5 billion by 1975 if we... Well, they've taken a new line, which is a very interesting one.
And I've spent a lot of time on this in the last couple of weeks talking to Americans.
They're talking about joint ventures.
Not of the type that we are talking about in Romania, Yugoslavia, where the American company would have a 50% interest in the business and a 50% interest in profits.
They're not willing to give up title to the property or define profits.
But what they are talking about is having American companies come over there and develop natural resources.
oil, gas, copper, other minerals, and so forth, under a deal where we put the technology and part of the money, they put in some labor, we get the product, get our money back out of the product, and then have a share in the product rather than in the profit.
Now, there's a lot of minerals, and they're oil and natural gas, and it would be a great appeal to us.
They're already talking with one American company about a deal for natural gas, similar to the Algeria deal, where there'd be about a billion dollars worth of gas moving over the years, beginning about 1975.
And the American companies that would go in there and invest would take the natural gas, freeze it, bring it over to the United States.
Now, they're talking some real big things, I think, you know.
Really?
No.
That's right.
real big things of that nature.
And of course, the one thing that our American business has to learn is that anything we do in terms of trade is not going to be small potatoes, because the Russian government is the buyer for the whole economy.
They can buy 10,000 blades at one time if they want to, and spare them all their plans.
They can buy 2,000 drill presses.
Oh, I think what would be, what I would want is for this to be, would you have a fellow farmer, I want to get his picture of this, so that we can do it.
I think that it would be very helpful for us to know just the rules and what you have in mind and what you think will change so well.
Yes, sir.
I feel very careful listening.
And I say that you have mentioned these other things.
If they raise, and I don't know that you stand to it, but if they get it to the European Security Conference and all the rest snatchers stay miles away.
I thought I would listen and ask them if they have any message for me to bring back to you.
But if they do it, they're just ladies because they talk to themselves.
I have the same way with the political questions because we don't want to talk about the European Security Conference.
We're not going to talk about it.
I'm not a force on those.
And I would just simply say that's not your...
I would like to look at ideas that you could develop for your May visit.
I think there may be something that's come out of this that you could use for May.
Well, all they've got that they could give us is gold.
Well, they don't have much gold left.
They've only got about a billion-eight.
They've got a billion-eight.
What's that?
In the reserves, a billion-eight now.
They've got a lot of gold in the mine.
They've got it in the ground.
They've got petroleum and a little chrome.
A few other minerals.
When you send that stuff in, they don't want to give us.
If they start exporting to this country, that's a whole other ballgame.
That's an element of risk, of course.
We'd have to be on a minimum basis.
But what I propose to do is to go over the whole list of possibilities, talk to all of them, see what needs to be done.
As I say, they're going to press for export credit.
They're going to press for MFM treatment, most favored medicine.
I think all those things that you've indicated, the thing that we have done in the conversation we've had here with her is to indicate that there are very great possibilities
in those areas, but obviously they are contingent upon and related to improvement in those areas.
I mean, you can't talk about MFN and Springer Banks just as long as they're helping.
Or joint ventures, for that matter.
You know, a lot of the joint ventures have got to be, the political blanks have to be pretty
Well, I think the American company is going to want that.
But we have a very, our attitude for progress in the political front is very open, and our attitude for progress in the trade front is very open.
How about men's exegesis?
We can send men's exegesis.
Well, I don't know.
I think they'll buy some, but I don't think they'll buy much beyond.
It's machine tools they want.
That's what we should push for, huh?
We've got plenty of manufacturers.
Boy, they need us.
They need us.
They need us.
black for how many years?
Four or five years.
What they want us to do is teach them how to manufacture them so they don't have to buy from us.
They want the technology, they don't want the goods.
The American automobile companies and some of the others are pretty smart about that.
Ford and General Motors have told them and tell us that they're not interested in going over there and building a plant for them.
They're interested in going in and working with them if there's a long-time relationship of some kind from which they can benefit.
They're not going to build a plant and walk away from it.
And I told a group of American businessmen today that I'm concerned about selling our technology too cheap for them.
Oh, you're so right.
3% patent license fee and so forth doesn't give us much of anything.
If we can't get more than that out of it, then we can't...
It will do absolutely no harm at all for you to be a very shrewd traitor, Yankee traitor with the Russians.
That's the way they are.
They expect it, that's the end.
They would be very sprightly.
But, you know, as you would, of course, in a very, very... We're very nice in this, but you know, this is the way our guys look at it.
So what do you want to do?
Would you like to help on this sort of situation?
We've got real problems, and what can we do?
And they come.
They come that way.
The Russians are a tough bunch of bastards.
They sell cameras and televisions and say, we really have to get it today, get it today, get it tomorrow.
Have you been there before?
I've never been in Russia before.
What cities are you going to visit?
Well, it's still pretty indefinite.
We will go to Leningrad for a weekend on Sunday and a day there.
The second weekend, I suggested we go south to Georgia.
They're suggesting Baku and Tbilisi and possibly Samarkand and Tashkent, which is strictly sightseeing.
Really?
Beautiful place.
It's never been there.
Samarkand has, you know, that sort of thing.
It's got those little temples.
Oh, yeah.
They're making quite a thing of this because you see you get out there you realize that Russia is not a country of Russians.
go down to Amata, which is right near the Chinese border.
And you'll see the Valley of Apples.
And by God, they're all Chinese.
But they're really, they're all slanted.
And it's a fascinating thing to see this part of town.
So they're putting up a red carpet because they say this is all at their expense.
They want me to stay longer.
I'd rather stay longer.
This is the 10th or 11th.
How about you two?
One city, for example, I wonder if they'd want you to see it.
How about Smirnoff Street?
Are they going to have you go there?
That's a huge steel complex place.
There's offers to take us to Lake Baikal, but that's so far.
That's seven hours out of Moscow, the fastest track.
It's farther than across the United States.
What is it?
uh but uh
It's a very miserable place, except for the rats.
Another subway.
Beautiful subway.
I didn't think of a subway to take subjects to.
I had lunch with a secretary from Pakistan today, just came back from Beijing.
He was down in the underground areas of Beijing.
They just have huge underground areas prepared for a nuclear attack, with huge tunnels going out into the country for 50 miles.
So they think that if the nuclear attack came,
But apparently, what this fellow says,
It's very, you know, basically, you know, it's a very, while it's defensive, it's a very provocative kind of action because it means you are preparing so that you can make a strategy.
He says that, he said that they told him they had this under all the major cities.
Well, I said, well, did you go down to look at it?
He says, it's amazing.
He says, I talked everything down to a visitor.
Somebody who had been up there a pack two years ago, he said...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
He was in Korea at the time.
They came across the yellow.
And he said, this is why I have a problem flying.
He said, you know, the first time I was there, it was really scary.
He said, not before I was there.
But I looked down.
And he says, they were there.
They came hundreds of thousands, swarming across there.
And you realize, you know, they were up here.
But that's basically what I'm trying to make.
It's about, there's 750 million of those people.
And they're a fourth of the people in the world.
And so what the hell do we do about it?
We just gotta do something.
You can't slaughter them.
They will not be slaughtered.
And they are going to produce something in the world.
How many Russians are there?
250.
Well, the Russians and I are a hell of a people.
Virtually all of the Americans who were good were with Bill Bullock.
He was there as ambassador.
Harry Rush went.
Picked him along.
Mr. President, I'm going to stop in Sweden on my way over the rest of the day.
And why do you have to stop in Sweden?
Oh, they're big customers.
Fine, all right, fine.
Solve something they don't want.
You know, the plan is to respond as fast as possible.
No, that's fine.
Have you ever been to the Air Force?
No.
There was something worse on the way back where I didn't realize Wolfie had been there, but it came back that the embassy had been present.
Is there any special message?
in Warsaw.
You get your message.
I told him it would be cool.
We respect their people that contributed so much to this country.
But basically, we're not too damn happy about the way they kick us around the world.
But that's fine.
They're with us.
They're with their church.
More so is another matter, I think, there.
There, we do want to play the line.
and all the rest, they are.
Yes, they are.
They are working on it.
But we also have a good relationship with them, and they've improved something last year.
And the people, of course, are particularly cold.
They love her.
If Warsaw doesn't have active credits in there, and if they're going to pressure that, I would guess from all the discussions in the government, they'll come after Romania.
I think it sort of relates to the person's trip, because if there's a considerable improvement in time of trip, they need to do some of these things.
I think you people don't realize how much of a
how very difficult still the political situation is in the United States with regard to MFA and with regard to credits and so forth.
The President, basically, in his policy that they worked out with the administration, the Secretary of State, all of us, that we are really, that we are a very important company.
We want a better relationship.
We want to build it.
We want to trade with it.
But that we have proposed things, and we are, that I will be able to deliver things that, if they had been proposed,
by someone who didn't have the confidence that we have, they would never be approved.
In other words, that there is a political problem, that we're prepared to fight the bullet to solve the problem, provided we can make progress on their side, that we think that it's time, the time has come that these tensions between the two countries, the confrontations between the two countries, the religious confrontation,
the military competition, that it'd be muted, and that the time has come for a new period.
That kind of stuff is history.
But I think you should point out that it's a damn tough political problem for us here, and that we're taking it on.
And therefore, if we look upon this trip as a very significant watershed, the American people will be watching.
They want better relations, but it has to be a two-way street.
They understand that.
I think one of the things that will have the most effect, most of the rhetoric goes over their heads and they're pretty accustomed to it.
The thing that could have a real effect would be to convince them that the president's going to win the election.
Correct?
I mean, they watch campaigns in this country and they want to be where the power is.
They think it's a pretty sure thing the president's going to win.
Their attitude on political matters would be quite different.
Good point.
I would put it in your mind.
That's a very good idea.
You could say it where I come from, or some others could.
Well, you could say it.
You could say, well, you've been following this thing, and it's been, basically, and it's not, since they don't have any politics, they'd love to hear about it.
You'd really love to hear this kind of talk.
and say that we, and maybe bring it in toward the end of a conversation or dinner, so would you like to hear a little about American politics, and say now, on his career, you read about it, you hear about it, and so forth, and so forth, and said that it's been about rather remarkable, the president has been able to bring war to the land of Vietnam, and so forth and so on, and also the utter disarray of his opponents,
The fighting, they're all fighting on themselves.
They can't get together and so forth.
And now the pendulum has spun in that direction.
We're very confident about the future.
A little of that.
And that the president, frankly, therefore, is a man who can deliver on any commitment he makes.
Do you like that?
You're in a good position to do that, because of your connection with the president.
And you can let them in on the inside, Bill, and you can tell them, you know, what it was like four years ago, what it's like now, and you can tell them that you're making sure that this stuff's going to come out.
There's no doubt about it.
In fact, I'm starting this to start out.
Four years ago, it was mighty tough to know where she began.
I don't need to exaggerate on that, do I?
Well, you still do.
It's one job all the time.
You can't decide.
But they play very well in things just like that.
Sure.
Well, you have to remember that Khrushchev, incidentally, you can also recall, wrote in his book, he bragged that he helped to defeat Nixon in 1960.
And we're quite aware of that.
That may come up.
You might write it up.
And at this time, we're going to be done.
It's just an interesting little point.
That shows you how much they care about our colleges.
Be a little careful in this case.
They leak things all over hell, particularly the bridge.
So we wouldn't want that to be the position that we were asking for any help from the president.
Oh, God.
Oh, no.
So, I mean, there are things that really could do us good.
is to convince them that he's a sure thing.
Because that's what they pay more attention to than anything else.
I think they come around to that point of view.
I think that's one of the reasons they're so anxious to address the competition.
I think that's probably why they agreed to it.
I think the idea that basically it's
They'll want to know what kind of a man, and this is another point I think, though we agree, what kind of a man is the President.
And so you tell them the President would like that.
But particularly emphasize, though, that he's a man you could make a deal with, but he's eyes totally open.
I noticed when I talked to Tito, he was very interested in telling me what kind of a fellow Brezhnev was, and he compared Brezhnev.
Because see, in the communists, they're quite ambitious men.
I mean, in the woods, that's the personalities.
You could say, here he is.
considered a hero.
As I must say, I was, I mean, I had to be, because we deal with a Democratic Congress and actually a conciliatory all the time, but I remember he brought up those bastards today.
My idea is I just want to include that you can hear what Senator Brown had to say.
It's an official opinion.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
They have to know that, though.
They have to know.
Well, they're in a non-technical position.
They have a law that says we shouldn't do this.
They never fixed it.
Now they're asking us to.
And they can't even volunteer the services.
It turns out that they could.
They can't even get our police and firemen and soldiers abroad to volunteer their services unless the president declares that it's a national security business involved or something like that.
The law reads that.
So did you know that when they don't pass a community resolution?
Well, this would be practically the first time in history that they haven't passed it, wouldn't it?
No, of course not.
Has it happened before?
Yes, other times.
Other times we have gone and done.
There is one difference this time.
Other times we have gone and did what we didn't want to ourselves.
But in all other cases except this one, apparently there were authorizations.
And it was the case of a continued resolution for appropriation.
Here's the law in the section.
So you've got a pretty good case in this section.
Here we've got a foreign nationalist club that we'd have.
Well, you're quite generic, Eric.
Should all of that 14,000 people win?
Why don't you make a haul of that?
Where you've got these... And also foreign expenses.
You can't tell those people no.
We hope we can pay you again, sir.
What are they going to say?
It's an obligation when we take on something like that with the foreign nationals.
They're gonna blow you up all next year, I think.
Well, yeah.
I'm disappointed in Mansfield.
This is the first time he's been totally irresponsible.
Yeah, he's out there.
He's getting off his sour.
You know, John Stennis is a hell of a man.
I called the other day.
What?
I called the other day after that boat, you know, he sort of got busted.
Oh, he got sold.
I said, Senator, you know, five years ago, I wondered what would happen to our country when...
when Dick Russell died.
I said, I'm not worried anymore.
He's taken his place.
Well, you know, he said a very nice thing to me.
I mean, I remember having a little note of it.
He said, I said, I said, I said, I just want you to know I don't know how we can really run, run this country, this international defense without your assistance and the assistance of your colleagues that are on the Democratic side.
He said, well, very nice.
He said, I'm just so sorry we're giving you so much trouble.
I heard all the burdens you carry in that office.
Can you imagine that?
What a challenge.
Isn't that what happened?
George Allen told me that back in the 1990s, during the Eisenhower years, at one point urged Dennis to Eisenhower for the Supreme Court.
Did you know that?
In Georgia, he didn't know what we were doing.
Oh, thank God he didn't take it.
But we got granted instead.
Well, you ought to bring the truck.
I think it's going to be very interesting.
But as I say, I know there are possibilities here.
American businesses panting with their tongues hanging out, and all the rest, and I, and it may be much bigger than it appears.
If you come back, I want you to talk very, and it's very important to talk about this, over there.
Let them think that they need us or that we need them.
That's very important for the other games we're playing, right?
And Alex, that's the line we've been playing all along.
We'd be glad if you let us know what you want to trade or what we can do.
When I get back, I'd like to have a chance to come in and give you a full report on the discussion.
Sure, sure.
I'll be back in three weeks.
I'll be back in 17 days.
Thank you.
i'll try to get something this morning
Well, I don't, you know, I don't really care, but I think it's going to be difficult to get an outside reason for, well, I don't get somebody who's got the, uh, I don't, I don't see it as very, as any political, I don't, I don't get, uh, you know, even now that it's so long, I don't get that at all.
If you got it, it helps, doesn't it?
He didn't know when tomorrow was going to be.
I know, I know.
He told me.
He told me.