Conversation 628-006

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The good lady from Milwaukee?

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

Well, what are your reports today?

You have a way of describing things just as they are.

The tax conferees, the conferees in the tax bill have

reached agreement on everything, as you know, except the check-off.

And they have just taken a 10-minute recess because Wilbur Mills has made his proposal.

And Wilbur Mills wants to know from John Burns what the position of the president would be.

The Mills proposal has three elements, Mr. President.

The check-off concept would be retained, but the effective date would be moved to January 1, 1973.

Uh...

removing the 1972 presidential campaign from any involvement in the funds.

No funds would be available pursuant to the plan in any event until January 1, 1973.

Item number two in the Mills proposal, there would be no appropriation marrying in this legislation an authorization for appropriation requiring subsequent action by the appropriations committees of the House and Senate.

Item number three,

There would be written into this bill a provision for a court test of the constitutionality of the Chekhov concept, and the Chekhov could not go into effect even if it were later than January 173 without a favorable ruling by the federal courts on the constitutionality.

I should be of interest to you now.

I can give you my recommendations to your response.

All right.

You see, we cannot... Let me put it this way.

That may well be the...

The gambit that Wilmer Melvin is hoping you'll... That's what I'm feeling at the moment.

Is your recommendation taken?

Or is it?

I don't know.

Let me talk to you about it.

Right.

I told the old folks that there were 30 men around the country, which tends to be, I suppose, a little bit like that.

Well, were it not for the history of the 1966-67

how consideration by the Congress of this proposal were, as you know, in 66, towards the end of the session, they adopted it, and then in 67, on reflection, they threw it out.

Were it not for that history, and were it not, therefore, for the opportunity that it presents to you to say that you are totally opposed to this on principle, that you would veto the bill, were it not for the history that indicates that when this bill

proposal is certainly aired, and when members of Congress consider it, they will realize that it's a proposal of highly doubtful validity and will reject it.

And the two are confident that they will do that again, either by failing to provide any appropriation or by, in effect, as they did before, just rendering it inoperative until Congress shall issue rules, regulations, and guidelines.

That's the way they did before.

I say this, Mr. President, I would be the last one to suggest that you ever make any compromise with the President.

And I appreciate that for you to sign the bill with a strong... That's right.

And I know you do.

I haven't talked to anyone else, Mr. President.

He made it in the conference at 11.15, and they had a considerable debate about it.

John Byrne's original reaction was, it's still bad because the principle is bad.

And John floated his idea, let's limit the authorization to the specific purpose of broadcast expenditures up to the limit provided for.

I wouldn't buy that.

Let me try to put it on the TV, guys.

It's pretty clear.

You could buy that.

I can take that.

I think so.

There's a lot of free guns and other things.

Wrong.

It's also wrong.

We'd kind of like to get a bill with you.

Let me see what's going on.

Is it give us another shot at it?

Yes.

I don't want to be in a very undefensible position saying I'm against it's only going to affect the election next time.

I've watched that very closely.

I don't know.

I don't suppose you thought of that.

Yeah.

Maybe...

First of all, if the Democrats based on this are wrong, then there's a lot to take care of in advance.

Right.

Because if this is applicable in the calendar years 73, 74, 75, and 76, there's a reasonable expectation of quite a bit of money flowing into the fund.

It's not limited, as you know, to presidential election years.

It's a general provision of law that would be applicable in each year.

That's the year.

That's the outside date.

Possibility of $112 million a year because there are that many individuals filing returns.

My guess, Mr. Brennan, is that none more than one in ten would check this box.

That's what I don't know.

I figured it was used in some debates.

My personal opinion is that

Whereas no one knows what percentage of the taxpayer would check the box, probably a percentage would be very low.

I know I have to admit, things are difficult to beat.

If we get another crack at it, not that it doesn't apply in a campaign, do you understand?

I do.

It's just that we could never go on that basis.

If you take something back, you just look out here and hell around or something like that, but you can't do that.

If I thought, Mr. President, this was ever going to be implemented fully by the Congress, I'd feel different than I do.

I don't think I ever will.

Well, let's look where we are.

We're all positioned against it.

We've all said it's unsigned.

We disagree with it.

And I signed into law

The historical grounds that you are going to urge the Congress to take action, set it aside, or to fail to implement it by appropriation on your side?

The way the bill is set, I totally agree.

I'm signing this bill.

I have a complete disagreement, total disagreement with this operation.

And I shall ask the Congress to repeal it, shall I say.

All right.

They may have to leave it without implementation by passing no appropriations.

Any appropriations that are passed, I'll veto.

Any other things?

Yeah.

Okay.

Or that you will oppose.

Yeah.

You will oppose.

I will oppose appropriations.

I will ask for legislation next year to repeal it.

I think that might be a might be a way to get around that.

I do too.

You could say, all right, of course, the Wilbur's put out the money.

I don't think I can veto it anyway or will veto it.

It doesn't mean it.

This is its way of attracting incentive.

He must have caught some heat on this.

Why do you think Wilbur's become reasonable?

The Democrats want this money, don't they?

Yes, they do.

What's happened up there, Christopher?

You apparently are confident that you're going to win the House anyway, aren't you?

I have a feeling that we will, Mr. President.

I can't tell you that we have the votes now.

We believe we have 172 Republican votes.

We believe we have 30 Democratic votes.

So we're up within the range where it's very close.

And Wilbur knows it.

And I think...

He doesn't want to get rolled, do you?

No, you bet he doesn't want to get rolled.

But if it's like this...

I suppose it's like this and we're against it.

Will we still get our same number of votes or will we pick up some votes?

No, our count is predicated on the Senate version.

And if it's softened and modified in the fashion that he's suggesting, chances are he will hold some of those Democrats and we may lose some of the Republicans that we now have.

We can't get an exact count from the Democrats because there are too many of them being pressured heavily by Larry O'Brien and by their local county chairman and district chairman and chairman to support this concept.

And so they're

Many of them that we had hoped would be telling Joe Wagner and others that, yes, they're solid or not.

My feeling is, Mr. President, we'd beat the Senate to check off provision in an up-and-down vote in the House.

How we would do with this, the addition, no way at all.

There is a way, Mr. President, that you can totally adhere to the principle that you have laid down, and that is to eliminate the checkoff completely, but to agree to an authorization of X dollars.

What that would be would be subject to argument for the purpose of

paying for clearly specified expenditures, such as network television or network radio, where there can't be any possible abuse of public funds.

I say there can't be any abuse.

What I'm talking about is the arguments about you don't know what the county is going to do with the money here.

It would be required by law to be used for a specific purpose.

And if John Burns looks at it, they apparently won't take that.

You have been for a positive proposal.

You have been amenable to compromise where you're not compromising with principle.

And you are then in a better position to flatly oppose this and to make your opposition more credible should you feel you had to sign the bill.

So I guess my recommendation would be that I go back to John Burns and say, you can't expect the president to make any definitive statement on this.

And I think John would say, well, no, I don't expect it, Clark.

And I'd say, well, John, you and I talked about a proposal that you were going to make.

And he'll say to me, well, I made it, and I didn't buy it.

And I said, well, then why don't you make it again?

Maybe they wouldn't buy it before, but maybe they will now.

And if they don't buy it, then I'd oppose it.

Because, huh, Moses stuck his neck out on this, too.

Now he can't, too, very well back away from it.

Yes.

He would prevail in the conference, but our options are open as far as whether we would seek to knock it out.

in a House vote to recommit the bill to conference with instructions to delete the modified checkoff proposal.

I would like our contrary to oppose it.

That's why.

That's the answer there.

Because I do not intend, under any circumstances, to approve the goddamn thing that Miami signed the bill.

So I would like for them to oppose it.

That's the answer to that question.

And those are going to be on the law at the damn end.

And that will leave it open.

How's that sound to you?

Sounds fine.

Now, when we get down here, I agree with you that we have to take a hard look at a few of the fields.

There is a tactic whereby we could get rid of the dark thing next year.

There is something you could just not authorize.

Not appropriate.

Fight it.

It's appropriate.

You did this as an authorization.

Would you just say, I would ask you not to repeat it?

Or you could even ask to repeat it.

I can say that.

Absolutely.

I think we ought to say in a bit of message time to me, Joe, that I will send a message in the first of the next comments.

And you can repeat in your comments that you are convinced that standing alone this idea, this harebrained is not a presidential phrase, this harebrained idea would never be seriously considered if it worked.

We're not attached considering it because it's tagged on your backstop.

And I, uh, I'm going to give you a second chance.

It's going to last until it should peel.

Since it will not go in your backstop, I'm going to give you a second chance.

First I'm actually going to put it in the old version of the next time it has to peel.

Okay?

I can't understand why he doesn't back him that far.

Why he's under...

The business community is finally getting busy, Mr. President.

I can't tell you how many copies we've distributed of the text of the statement I made and that Ron followed up making on Tuesday morning where we just simply said, this is not a threat.

This is a declaration of presidential decision.

This is his president's decision.

This is what he will do.

There's no threat.

Yeah, yeah.

It presents us with some problems.

Well, I'll just go back and say that the President has indicated that the checkoff is objectionable in principle, and the President adheres to that statement.

It's a matter of principle.

I agree with that position.

Yeah, because if Wilbur's going like this, he's coming our way, Mr. President.

I'm the one who got the idea that it's a swear word of us, because I think

It would be very helpful, Mr. President, if you could do that before you left for Florida.

He can make the announcement tomorrow at your direction of the decision to purchase so as to lift the corn price.

Is he going to purchase?

Yes.

Is it decided?

Yes, unless you veto the decision.

I can see that it's a good idea.

Yes.

Really?

Yeah.

That's a surprise.

Yeah.

How the hell did he convince everybody?

Christ, the whole clan, all get around here is going to give us purchase.

What's changed their minds?

Well, part of it is Dr. McGregor saying that you've got to hint at that action or else it won't be confirmed.

So he's hinted at the action without finding you in any way.

He says he's going to urge this on the president.

How much does it cost?

That would be up to what you decide, sir.

But my recommendation would be up to $250 million.

Well, that is starting on such a positive note.

Yes, sir, we do.

And your move on Taft Parkway has already begun to pick up the situation.

I've gotten two calls.

Yes, our state chairman called me and the big county chairman of the county of Minneapolis called and said, of course, we have a lot of great businesses in the area and all this, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And their readings are.

But the attitude in the rural area is up because of your decision on that, aren't they?

I know.

Our meeting seems to be more seriously ill than we've heard.

That's what Bob Morgan in general has been told at the senior staff meeting this morning.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Yep.

And you know that Leonard Flynn, in part at least,

It's not an attitude down there towards you.

Might have been sick.

Yeah.

Do you think so?

I always like to think so, Mr. President, that the people are not as mean and petty as he appeared to be.

But he has been another match a while ago.

I think he just made it into bed, just not feeling too well.

We've...

Good luck with the lady from Milwaukee Intellivision.

When I listen with her, she's dead in her office.

She is, as you know, very part of me.

I say that in the sense that she thinks very highly of me.

integrity and ability and so forth.

She was, uh, the first lady to come up on a job.

I, I, uh, I managed to figure out how we had to sign on that.

But do you agree that our tactics now that we've earned one person's life?

I do.

I know it's like that.