Conversation 631-008

TapeTape 631StartTuesday, December 7, 1971 at 5:05 PMEndTuesday, December 7, 1971 at 6:16 PMTape start time02:37:35Tape end time03:39:00ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Moynihan, Daniel P.;  Ehrlichman, John D.Recording deviceOval Office

On December 7, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Daniel P. Moynihan, and John D. Ehrlichman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:05 pm to 6:16 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 631-008 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 631-008

Date: December 7, 1971
Time: 5:05 pm - 6:16 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Daniel P. (“Pat”) Moynihan and John D. Ehrlichman.

     United Nations [UN]
          -Ambassador
          -India/Pakistan
          -Israel

     India–Pakistan
           -War

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[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2012-003. Segment declassified on 04/16/2015. Archivist: DR]
[National Security]
[631-008-w001]
[Duration: 17s]

     India–Pakistan
           -War
                -Daniel P. (“Pat”) Moynihan’s opinion
                -The President’s opinion on Indian desire for war

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     India–Pakistan
           -War
                -Withdrawal
                      -Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan
                -Talks with East Pakistani leader
                      -Location
                            -Calcutta
                -Indira Gandhi
                      -Trip

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[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2012-003. Segment declassified on 04/16/2015. Archivist: DR]
[National Security]
[631-008-w004]
[Duration: 27s]

     India–Pakistan
           -War
                -Destruction of ships
                -East Pakistan
                -West Pakistan

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     India–Pakistan
           -War
                -East Pakistan
                      -Refugees
                -Military operations
                      -Possible duration
                           -Cleanup in East
                                 -Duration

                 -UN
                       -Indian elections [?]
                       -East Pakistan
                             -Partition

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[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2012-003. Segment declassified on 04/16/2015. Archivist: DR]
[National Security]
[631-008-w005]
[Duration: 1m]

     India–Pakistan
           -War
                -Movement of forces into West Pakistan
                -East Pakistan
                       -Bengal
                -Ability of Indians to conquer West Pakistan
                -Possible length of war
                -People’s Republic of China [PRC]
                       -Pressure on West Pakistan

**************************************************************************

     United Nations [UN]
          -George G.W. Bush
               -Praise from Moynihan
          -Unknown Stalinist
          -PRC representatives
               -[Forename unknown] Jackson [?]
          -Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]
          -Moynihan’s schedule
          -Secretary General [U Thant]
               -Max Jacobson
               -Agha Sadruddin Khan
               -Maurice Strong

                      -Canada
                           -Environment concerns
                           -Chances to become Secretary General
                 -Jacobson
                      -Background
                           -Jewish descent
                      -USSR
                      -Arabs

     Arab-Israeli dispute
          -Unknown person
                -Background
                      -Saudi Arabia

     Secretary General
          -President’s view
                -U Thant
                      -Possible asylum
                            -Burma
                                  -Unable to return
                -Bush
                      -Moynihan’s upcoming conversation with Bush
                -Agha Sadruddin Khan
                      -Youth
                            -Friendly to the Administration
                      -Yahya Khan's brother
                      -Iranian passport
                      -Zanzibar
                      -Education
                            -Harvard University
                      -Qualifications
                -Jacobson
                -USSR
                -Arabs
                -Importance of selecting the Secretary General
                      -Type
                -Strong
                      -Support from the President
                -People’s Republic of China [PRC]

                 -USSR
                 -Sadruddin Khan
                      -Security council
                      -Refugee reports

     Busing issue
          -Politics
          -Constitutional amendment
                 -Civil rights issue
          -James S. Coleman
          -Effects on children
          -North compared to South
          -Moynihan’s view
                 -Civil rights movement
                       -Consequences
                              -Possible damage to race relations
                                    -William H. Rehnquist
                              -Constitutional amendment
                                    -Possible perception by Blacks
                                    -Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education
          -January 1969
          -State of the nation
                 -Decline in confidence
          -Whites
                 -Majority
                       -Degree of wellness individually
                              -Discouragement over the future
                              -Large percentage believe country is “worse off”
                              -Studies
          -Brown decision
                 -President’s accomplishments
                 -Integration
                       -Supreme Court
                              -Dual school systems in the South after Brown decision
                                    -Percentage
                                    -Percentage during the Nixon Administration
          -North
                 -Dual school system
                       -Non-existent

                        -Ethnic community schools
                              -Neutral
                                    -Ethnic pockets in the North
            -Court decisions
                 -Learning about the education process
                 -Courts are usually proven wrong
                        -Brown decision
                              -Difficult to prove in court
            -President’s message to Congress on education, March 1970
                 -Style of messages
                 -Timing
                        -Cambodia
            -Congressional action
                 -Moynihan’s previous telephone conversation with John W. Gardner
            -Dual school system
                 -National requirements
            -Schools' performance
                 -Lower class students
                 -More choice
                 -Expenditures
                 -South
            -National Institute of Education [NIE]
                 -Education bill
                        -Progress
                              -Possible results
            -Dual school system
                 -Possible elimination
                        Particular methods tried
            -New York Times
            -H.L. Mencken quote
            -Race relations
                 -Hostility in schools
                        -Elementary and secondary
                              -Blacks
                              -Jews
                 -Local control
                        -New York City
                              -Tax brackets
            -John V. Lindsay

                   -Re-election chances
            -Public schools
            -Parochial schools
                   -Financing
            -Domestic Council
            -British
            -Dutch
            -French
            -Canadians
            -Australians
            -Consequences
            -Possible Constitutional amendment
                   -End of the dual school system
            -Alexander M. Bickel paper
            -John N. Mitchell
            -New York Times
            -Increase in elementary and secondary school population during the 1970s
            -Teachers
                   -Increase
            -President’s instructions
                   -Education bill
                         -Possible Congressional action
                         -Moynihan-Ehrlichman meeting
                         -Comparison to revenue-sharing
                         -Senate
                               -Tax bill
                                    -Wilbur D. Mills
                                         -Check off
            -Bickel letter
                   -New era of education
                   -National Primary and Secondary School Educational Opportunities Act of 1972
                         -Busing and desegregation
            -California and Michigan decision
                   -Compared to the President’s People’s Republic of China [PRC] initiative
                         -1967
            -Neil H. McElroy Commission
                   -[Forename unknown] Serrano [sp?]
            -Congressional action
            -President’s instructions to Moynihan

            -Bickel letter
                 -New era
                        -Possible support from Blacks
            -Race relations
                 -Potential speech from the President
                        -Leadership
                        -Reassurance
            -Desegregation
                 -Progress since 1969
                        -Dual school system
                        -Congress
            -McElroy Commission
                 -Duration
            -Moynihan's suggestions
                 -National institute [?]
                        -March 1970
            -Emergency school aid
                 -Finances
            -School vouchers
                 -Opportunity for children
                 -Experiments
                        -California
                              -Legal decision
                        -Florida
                              -Possible changes
                 -Property tax and value added tax
                 -Private schools
            -Blacks
                 -Reassurance
                        -Symbolic gesture by the President
                              -John N. Mitchell quote
            -Ideal school system
                 -Choices
                        -Legislation
            -Bickel arguments
                 -Busing is symbolic
                 -New era of education
                        -Busing and desegregation
                        -Declare peace

                   -Federal money
                   -Equality of education
                   -Inequality in educational opportunities
                         -California decision
                               -Serrano [sp?]
            -Intelligence Quotient [IQ] scale
                   -Comparison
                         -Asians, Europeans, Blacks, and the Irish
                               -Unknown person
            -Education bill
                   -Preamble
                         -Equality of educational opportunity
            -Moynihan's suggestions
                   -Measure of outputs
            -Property tax bill
            -Education bill
                   -Special interests
                         -National Education Association [NEA]
                   -Private compared to public schools
            -Moynihan's suggestions
                   -Moynihan's talk with Ehrlichman
            -Bickel
            -Brown decision
            -How to present
                   -Brown brief
                   -Tax system comparison
                         -Change
                               -Idealistic overtones
                                      -Honesty
            -Parochial schools
            -Segregation and busing
            -New era
            -Bringing people together
                   -Choices
                   -No inferior education
                         -Right of every American to a superior education
            -Presidential leadership
                   -Generosity
            -Dual school system

            -George C. Wallace
                  -Polls
            -Articles
            -Letters
            -Moynihan
            -Note to H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
            -Jews
            -Chinese
                  -Work ethic
            -Richard Herrnstein
            -The President reads from a letter
                  -Vice President [Spiro T. Agnew]
            -Mitchell
            -Herrnstein’s article
            -Nathan Glazer
            -Further discussion
            -Allegation
            -Coleman

     Economy
          -Taxes
               -Unknown person
               -Money supply

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 07/11/2019.
Segment will remain closed.]
[Personal Returnable]
[631-008-w002]
[Duration: 49s]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2

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Moynihan left at 6:08 pm.

     Office of Economic Opportunity [OEO] legislation
          -Veto
                -Votes
                     -Number
          -Child care
          -Gerald R. Ford
          -Ronald L. Ziegler
          -Timing
                -Veto
          -Continuing resolution
          -Conservatives
                -Seeking credit

**********************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 07/11/2019.
Segment will remain closed.]
[Personal Returnable]
[631-008-w003]
[Duration: 34s]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3

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     Busing
          -Alexander P. Butterfield
          -Moynihan
               -Position
                     -Compared to Bickel
               -Idealism
          -Comparison to Vietnam

            -Revenue sharing
                 -Tax bill

Ehrlichman left at 6:10 pm.

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.

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, you really, you cut your life later on, didn't you, Melvin?
I don't know why.
I'm not here, but you look back.
It's the whole thing.
I mean, I think it's necessary for us to be once in his life, and it's never again.
It's like war, you know.
You'll never regret it.
You'll never see it.
You'll never want to repeat it again.
What about me?
Well, you know, I've talked to him about Christ before, but...
The Indians are saying that, but I don't know what they're doing now.
God, they are, they are insensible.
They're speculative and they are right.
You know, one of the things that the, that I've listened to the Indians now for about six weeks.
And you walk out of there saying, you know, what really makes you curious about most of the things you've just said is that they're right.
They wanted to send her back instead.
But we tried everything for one, you know, in terms of withdrawal, which Joshua was willing to do, unilateral.
Was he going to get out of the – Well, have withdrawal from the border, is what they would.
And then he was willing to have conversations with the East Pakistani leaders, either in Calcutta or another place, and willing to talk to a representative.
Everything was offered, but she wasn't interested.
She must have made up her mind before she took the trip and was taking that as a sort of a cover for the whole thing.
Well, also the way that it's been run, it looks like they had it well planned.
You don't knock a hose in 60 ships with ordinary sailors.
So the frogman and all of this, they were trained.
This was a few weeks ago.
The great tragedy, and once they get it, which they will in East Pakistan, they can't even digest the West, right?
Now, what do they get to eat?
They're not a damn thing.
That's just not sustainable.
And we've done very honestly on the refugee situation.
I used $20.
That's $60 a month.
That's right.
And we will now, of course, stay on until they've been shot.
It may take three or four weeks to wipe it out.
We don't have much to write about that.
There's no supplies.
You know, in March.
And we're never going to be together again.
Thank you.
I was thinking of what people do with their plants.
Of course, they're not going east.
They're coming up the east in about 10 days.
which they probably would do more clearly.
Then I think they're probably, the U.N. maybe, confront us.
What's going to happen to a million and a half loyal U.N. birdies and so forth?
You know, I think that's going to be rough because, you know, they do a lot of killing down there.
Even as you don't have the election, I'll tell you at least, after the election in March, to celebrate, they went out and swore to loosen up.
You know, it didn't slaughter a hundred thousand, which is, and they do it up now, 5,000.
And then I think what will happen is they'll move their forces, they're already starting the movement, up to the west, and they'll try to bring, then they'll advance to the west 5%.
And that's a pretty war.
Because in each situation, there is a bank law, and it was, in fact, going to be independent.
That's no lie.
But the rest of Pakistan is a country.
And the Indians have no power.
They only conquered, that's the fact.
It'll be a longer war, but I just think they're going to win.
It's not a war of conflict.
I think it's going to be inevitable.
They can take that, too, because we're all going to be here.
We're all going to be here.
So the Chinese can't threaten the Indians enough to keep the pressure off the West Bank.
I think they're going to be kidding you.
That'd be my guess at the moment.
But we'll see.
We're not going to get
Your ambassador does a very fine job.
Bush, he's nice.
He's tough, and he's got energy, and he's got range, and he's not got poor situations.
The United States is now the number two enemy of the two other countries in the world.
Now, you wouldn't be able to sit there and witness those things.
That was, isn't that fun?
Great style.
And their own, they hear something.
Moloch is an old Stalinist, you know, and he just hardly gets one of each other.
And the Chinese just sit there and trip, trip, trip.
It's a little weird, isn't it?
But it's a pretty rough side of our language, isn't it?
Isn't it something?
So if we can play chess instead of chess, I mean... Stay away from that.
Stay in the middle.
Don't take sides.
Particularly the outside of the rushes.
How many days do you spend out there?
Four days a week.
Really?
Really?
I always felt it was lopsi, but I thought I was pregnant.
Well, it grew lopsi, but people ignored it.
And you've had this man sitting up there representing morality, and that doesn't get on the patient's list.
Let you represent morality.
The Secretary General and the UN represent, you know, the business of that sort of thing.
We get a good man.
Who do you think is going to get it?
Well, Russell, tell us.
You know more about it than I do.
Jakobson.
I'm not so crazy about Jakobson.
I have read his book, and I've talked with him.
All right, but this is Rudin Kahn.
He's a very clever man.
I saw him.
Yes, I did.
And he...
He might have made you do it.
He's nice.
He's young, but I mean, he's... You think he's good enough?
He's good enough.
He's good enough.
But he's a man who is fighting a different world.
If we could get this man, Morris, strong, Canada,
Or that would be, that's what we need, is running the environment conference.
Is he, does he have a chance for it?
I guess not.
He thinks not.
He is?
He's white?
Yeah.
He's a NATO country.
And I don't know.
It's got to be a NATO country.
Do you think it's the U.N.?
Well, Jakobson is a...
I don't.
No, I don't.
But he has the Russians.
He has the Russians against him because he's Jewish.
I didn't know it was Jewish.
Well, that's an interesting thing in the air.
How do you get along with these three in the air?
Dude, they can't find much attention while they're at war right now.
They've got to stop them.
Yeah, he's a flight doctor there.
He's really a visionary.
Yeah.
The who?
Ken comes from a place called .
And so they're signing on as their ambassador.
I'll do this for you.
And it's his career he likes to do.
He's retired .
That was his strength, pretty good.
He's not very happy with that.
But did you have any views about the second term, Ken?
My gosh, no.
That's a deception.
I mean, he's a person of deception from our standpoint.
I mean, we are never going to have a friend, but we don't need to have an opponent.
He kind of, despite all this business, basically beat down this place.
He just does what he says.
Well, anyway, may I say he'll be glad to stay.
He'll be glad to accept our assignment.
You know, he can't go back to Burma.
Burma?
Yeah, he's in trouble.
What about his monastery?
Yeah, a lot of people are going to look at him.
I can tell you, the other...
The other?
I...
I don't know, without knowing the thing about it, I sort of like this drink of G.I.
You don't?
I don't.
Can I tell that to George?
I don't.
Why don't you do this?
Why don't you tell George?
See what he thinks about it.
You've always said you'd take it around.
George and I have that big pentagon of drinks.
Right, yeah.
It might be just good to have a young guy that's organized better, that won't be against us.
He can't be forced to get the job.
But it was... See the other Kahn's brother?
Yeah.
He's got an Iranian passport.
His family comes from Zanzibar.
Is he educated in this country?
No, he's educated in Harvard.
But you know what I mean.
The best thing is don't get caught in a meeting for anybody.
But this guy sounds all right to me.
He sounds like a good guy.
You want to leave, I prefer him in the same domain.
You'll never get a Canadian.
You'll never get an M.I.A.
I don't think you'll ever get a Canadian.
And I don't think that you will be commended for other reasons.
Because of what you said about us being half-Jewish.
I don't mean the Russians or the Arabs.
I don't do that either.
If we got a good man, there's a case for shifting around a lot of things.
There's a case for us trying to take over the economic and social section of the UN, get out on the colonial side, and say, well, why don't you just do it?
We've got to stop this soldier, and, you know, we've got to stop America.
It is so important.
So it's all just going to be better.
Whether it's one left or one we don't want to get in the middle of, you know.
And there are men like Morris Strong in the world who will come down and work for the United States.
Are there?
Yeah, and I mean, you know, Strong is the bonus of this thing.
He's practically, he's a multi-billionaire.
And kind of just like Telly, the only reason he got rich is in order to... Don't take too much faith in it.
Maybe he is the guy.
I'd just like to know what you folks out there,
It's coming out.
I mean, you know, it's crazy what they're supposed to make of it.
There's no word in Chinese yet.
It's going to be very important for us to not put somebody up.
They will oppose.
I wonder how they... You see, we don't want to get into the middle of that fight.
We could get into something where the Russians would oppose, but we don't want to start out by opposing somebody
That's going to be a picture thing moving along with it both.
We'll be back at you if that's the issue.
This fellow has the records that he has yesterday as the security capital is deadlocked and people shouting at each other.
His refugee force is going unanimously through the clinic.
I'm getting on this fellow thing.
Tell me this, uh, in getting onto the various topics that are there, because they're not necessarily, uh, uh, covered in the letters.
By far, the hottest issue is the cross-busting.
Right.
It is completely the same as the political emergency that Kelsey Johnson told.
You must have done a lot of thinking about it.
You remember our friend Colton.
I know his views.
Having read your piece,
Speaking about the busing, what do you feel about the day?
It's not just a subject for mythology.
It's basically a subject that is going to be very much live.
And it's just terrible to hear you.
In the north.
In the north.
In the north.
First of all, the issue of boxing could unravel the last 20 years in race relations in America.
it could be an absolute disaster.
Yes, I don't, I mean, by all means, let Griffiths look after himself, and he should, but if anything should happen, that a constant amendment of some kind should start moving, it could only appear to be one that would be
the country is turning back on the directions that have been so powerful, and which you have been the one to finally deliver on since the Brown position.
Let me say one thing.
The first piece of paper I ever sent you in January of 69 was a long memo to say, look, in one way or another, every problem you have domestically
turned on the question of the legitimacy of American institutions, wrote him an apology, took over a very shattered president, an almost shattered president, the mistaken country.
You've been putting it back together.
I mean, at least everybody here, they don't like you, and therefore they feel better about each other.
The country's quiet.
I mean, people look up and say, you've got to save the dot mix, and things are better.
Things are better.
The war is coming on.
The seats are filled with riots and demonstrations.
The schools open.
Nonetheless, the country continues to feel a real decline in confidence.
We've done some very good, there's some very good social science on this.
And the interesting thing is that Americans ask how they feel about this.
With the great majority now, the whites, will say they're doing fine individually.
But I think the country has gone down, and I think they'll be a long while before it goes up.
And this finding is what we call stapled.
I mean, different kinds of men are required to get the same answer.
You know, this doesn't apply to the blacks.
They think the country's issues.
They think they're doing well and the country's doing well.
They think things have been bad.
Better they were, they're going to be better than they are.
And that basic phase is still there.
And some of these studies are showing that the first time or the second time, the history was going to be very different.
they showed a large majority of a different country, a different country for a thought.
And they're going to have to replace one of these studies.
Just a second.
All the rover studies, that's the one I was thinking of showing.
And these others are rather much more complicated.
More complicated, but they're the same thing.
And that's why they all come out the same way.
Yeah.
At various levels of sophistication.
Now, what I would say is that the one great thing you've done
And you did it, but the price of almost not being able to say you did it.
You finally delivered on Brown's decision.
You, the Supreme Court, you know, the authority of the court was being put it away, too.
You know, 14 years after Brown, when you took office, when you took office, about 84% of the students in the South were in dual systems.
When you took office, 14 years after the Supreme Court said, stop that, Mr. Baker.
Now, the question is, is the agony of that going to now roll over into the other northern situations, where you haven't had a dual school system?
You've never had one.
You have myths of an ethnically neutral public school fact-checking yourself.
Everybody knows that's a Jewish high school, and that's a black high school, and it's time you all get to go here, and there's an Irish neighborhood, and it's time you all get to go there.
Now, the courts have, among other things, there's one other point to make about this.
In this interval, we have been learning an awful lot about the education process.
We know, for example, that almost everything courts have thought they knew about the system is false, or, if these are not lies, cannot be proved.
Most of the factual presumptions of the Brown decision wouldn't hold up.
Most of the notions about equalizing, if you take all the studies you know, they wouldn't hold up.
But the courts don't know that.
And the President was aware of them, or Congress has ever told them.
You sent, we were talking before we came in here, the messages you sent to Congress in March 2017 on education, elementary and secondary, and then on higher education, were the two most sophisticated, honest statements of something ever made by an American president.
And they came six weeks before Capitol Hill, and you might as well have heard it.
But the Congress, for example, you're supposed to not introduce education.
For one year, the economy wouldn't even look yet.
They wouldn't know anything.
And this is making sense.
Then last February, John Stein spoke me up.
He said, look, you know, we can think about this for a year.
We'll come a ditch.
It looks like the Navy may keep going.
Everything we checked out and checked out, there was no correct, there was no key.
He was telling us what we knew.
And that's the idea that we came down to.
Start hearing, they went right through, they put that dynamic into the science, put that dynamic into the housework.
In fact, you've got a combination of two things there.
One,
You have delivered on the national requirement to give it a dual school system.
You delivered.
Two, you have begun the process of trying to make the education system perform where it's not performing well enough right now, which is in the education of lower class cases.
That's the basis of the problem.
There's no other way to fix it.
It's not a problem.
There are individual problems, and there are some other problems.
If you were to move family schools, at this point, I think it would make a difference in Boston, that what you should stand for is giving people more choice.
Not less.
Giving parents and children more choice in education, not less.
Everybody is going around simultaneously saying that we must let students fix it correctly enough, we must have open systems of education, and we will compulsorily take you from here to there, whether you want to or not.
And what do those things put together?
Nobody's done it.
I think that in the third year, the first part of your situation is that you began, long back, seeing the situation, right?
of the first formal inquiry into the expenditure of school expenditures, taxes, finances, that have been made by the National Education Commission.
Now, these things begin to come together.
You've delivered on the southern situation.
You're getting the National Institute of Education.
People are beginning to see that there's .
Well, I can't tell you that it's part of that tremendous education bill.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
It's hung up.
It's not visible right now.
I don't know when we'll get it.
Maybe we'll get it next year.
Maybe we'll get all caught up in it.
It's possible.
It's possible.
Well, that part of it isn't, but there are all kinds of very big-ticket items that are floating along with it.
You have one, you have set the national agenda of learning how to make this visible system work.
We have exhausted all the previous assumptions about what was normal.
They don't hold up.
The things, of course, like it's around, of course, obviously there must be equal expenditure, but that's when we get the equal results.
You can't control that.
Unequal expenditure, equal expenditure, over-equal expenditure.
But you know that.
Nobody else knows.
And the other time, I read it.
Well, as president, you found that out.
And you are elected president of Congress a year ago.
A year and a half ago.
I mean, you've been telling this record.
That third Constitution, I mean, and the lesson of this is we have to lose the opposite.
We have to expound on it.
We have to make it.
We have to become, for example, you know that one remark of Mencken, that romance is the illusion that one woman is different from another.
I mean, it's not just children, it's basically all of us.
I mean, you know, it's a terror of us, but you know, a hundred times, if we cared about race, we would be like, men are different from one another.
But they're all, you know, they're all race, aren't they?
And these, I apologize, I apologize, these rules of war are basically like that.
And they don't need to do much of any kind now.
they have this important difference of, are schools part of a society which is coming together racially, rather than coming apart?
I mean, are schools a place where people associate more racial contact and mixing and easing with each other, or is it the other direction?
What I think is that the basic research that you have described, and what I've argued for, is that if the ego exists, if it moves in and out, if people war on us, if you want to hurt us, it's not an issue.
I mean, if you see anybody in a pressure system, you know, despite a change, you might lose the other person.
And the fact is that you get to feel better about it.
We are already in a very high level of racial hostility in schools.
In the schools.
Even in the college schools?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, the universities.
Oh, well, then you must get in there, right?
No, it's just elementary, secondary.
As much as it's associated, you see, with the fact that the blacks fall behind.
Sure.
Exactly.
And they say, someone gets healthy, you have a system, they are strict, and that whole thing stops them.
That's right.
Now, you understand.
You know, you understand.
And the third thing is...
They made all their kids visit us.
So we need local control so we can kick them out.
Well, I think not anymore.
The same thing is to have based up religious question of the finances.
not just the public schools, but also the parochial schools, which is part of the ECC.
If you would do that, I would be opening the system.
I should be, to be honest.
All the democracies agree.
I have one partner.
Oh, God damn it, that's the council.
It's against it, and I'm for it.
I'm for it.
The English, the Dutch, the French,
But I would say the purpose is just to kind of part the schools and have them a little different.
He's not a theater of diversity.
And boxing is a business.
It's a kind of business of, you must, you must, you must be man.
Boxing is more humane.
But I'm passionate.
How do you get out of it?
How do you get out of the manly business?
Without you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.
because that would be basically a red flag or a white flag to the blacks.
No, a black flag to the blacks.
It's not all what you want.
I've got the right version.
So, on the other hand, you're not for busing.
I am not for busing.
I would say, I think you are in a situation to say, look how well we did in this.
This is a middle school system.
That's like you did in your day.
Have you read the Bickle paper?
No.
Because this is precisely what he says.
Go ahead.
That's right.
All right.
Secondly, I would say that I would call attention to what you have been saying about the level of our knowledge, the nature of our knowledge about this.
Two years ago you were saying these things, and you were right, and the Congress is now responding.
Remember the 1970s, there would be no increase in elementary and secondary school population, whatever.
That's a very important point.
So for the first time, you've got to breathe there.
You're not going to just have to scramble to stay alive.
You've got to build more classrooms, get more teachers, because the kick of the wave is coming in.
You don't need any more teachers.
You could live in a little more classroom.
Now, if you've got time, and just as economy grows, if you will, you can experiment.
You've got a chance to be a breeder.
Now, you have said these things.
Well, I love what my teachers have said.
Well, what are you going to say?
Let's take the normal road of teaching for it and see if we can't get something better out of it.
Smaller classes are good.
Smaller classes have enough to boost it.
But something is wrong.
I am the president who said this is a complex subject.
And I have asked us to work at it as if we had typed up our answers about it.
Yes, sir.
We did, by any chance, get the Congress to slice out the Ministry of Education thing.
Well, we haven't been successful at it thus far.
And it's being held hostage.
That's the point.
And I doubt that we're going to be able to take it loose.
Well, what we might do, if we go with this other idea that we've been working on, that I told Pat a little about, that we're going to put him down here for a day next month and lay it out for him.
and get his reaction.
And it's probably the best idea that's come along.
I think it's a great idea.
I think it's going to change the whole thing.
I mean, everybody, it'll be like, we'll have, it'll take us, it won't happen, I'm sure you understand, because, but it's like revenue.
We didn't get it this year, but we're going to get it next year.
You know, he's got that, he's been back the last year.
I think it's a good idea.
I think it's a good idea.
I don't know what to talk about.
this year.
If we can get the hay in the barn early enough, we've got a chance next year.
It's too late.
It's very interesting, though, that Pat's taking this line because it's precisely what Bickel has written you, that you declare an end to the dual school system.
that you say, we're entering a new era in American education.
Well, he says, no, he would have a whole legislative package.
He'd call it the National Primary and Secondary Educational Opportunities Act of 1972.
This is from the preoccupations of the past.
So that busing, desegregation, all of those preoccupations are laid behind and you have something new to lay before people.
And I don't think it matters.
I think it would matter to the presidency.
It would matter to the way in which it's received to do something.
Say, look, I did a story about in the aftermath of the decision in Michigan, the decision in California, they're going to talk something.
Well, here's the McElroy Commission that has been working on this problem right along.
in anticipation of something like the serenity.
We heard some calls and good messages.
We want to speak to Brown and some of the people that made the message.
Brown was the first top president that told us it would make sense.
And it took them a year to think that you might have been doing that, but these were things in their mind.
In order to believe you, they had to stop believing almost everything else they had.
I'd like you to read the letter and send your, if you would, your confidential, which is coming down.
Yes.
But I'd like to see it coming down.
I am inclined to think that what is that Pat has got intended to us does make sense.
that the Binkle Lettership declares the new year, but it didn't declare the new year, that we should say now, now in our education, boys, here's what we have at the gate.
But now, and all these things we're for.
this new year, we need to do this and this and this, and put it out there, and we'll never get an issue, but at least we will if we get it.
Sir, can I make this point?
Yes, of course.
We might get it.
Wow.
That's true.
That's true.
That's true.
If you were to make a speech, and I said, no, no, no, I thought somehow you need to make this issue,
and it gives them leadership and reassurance.
We're not going to wreck the school system, we're not going to unravel the race, we're not going to get the country going downhill.
But in terms of the timing, you could say very well, look, in 1969 we set out to give the school a school system.
We have now done it.
I set out to get into a massive science effort, comparable, if that's me, to put an arrow on the 19 public school systems work.
It took the Congress two years to give it to me, but they gave it to me.
I set out to find out one of the basic facts of school finance.
A first time webinar.
It took not over 18 months to do it.
Now these things are falling in place.
Now here's what I'm telling you, and we ought to do it.
You could say that things that you were not proposing come at the logical conclusion of the first stage of activities that went along here.
Here you might, people not seeing them as connected, but you saw them as connected.
You know, your National Institute, your McElroy, your defibrillation, your fiscal decision, the half-hour, and what was the other one?
Emergency schooling.
When I asked for a version and a half of emergency schooling, I knew what I was asking for.
This is part of the scheme of the Blue School system.
When I asked the National Institute, I knew what I was saying.
It was hard.
I understand, of course.
We don't know what to do in the face of what is apparently collapsed in our conventional business.
So we said, let's find out what it is in case .
When I first did the finance commission, I knew we were heading for a real estate property tax in the midst of the election campaign.
And then, of course, you're not warned by it.
Now I've got to take into account the people.
And here's my plan.
And it should be a plan.
Well, I don't know much about that, but I said you mentioned vouchers to you, for example, school vouchers.
I say you should give more opportunity, not less, to children.
Can you work in the free zone?
That's basically the number three.
Yeah.
Well, is that any of the work that we've been screwing around with that?
You know what's happened to us?
We had, you know, half a dozen experiments, right?
I mean, two of them in the state of California.
The California state legislature has just adopted a law making them illegal.
We had two of the nicest Republicans and Democrats.
We had a conference about it last spring.
I'm the chair.
And California Senate and the House.
Because of the Democrats, these guys looked like they were top of their jobs, they got office, they get the bills, they went home and got a role.
But we have four experiments.
And we're going to have to replace these with something else where we stir our money up.
Let me say, you know, the plan that we have for the financing for the, you know, it's just...
replacing the property tax with the value added in the course of the program.
And all of that in education directly is going to help the credit schools on a per capita basis.
So it's directly going to help them.
And this is the thing I want to describe to you next week.
Meantime, keep it under your hat.
The feature of it is, by the magnitude of the cost, it goes directly to that private school.
So the 5 million kids in private schools get the money.
Well, we want to remember, Mr. President, like you say,
Blacks need reassurance.
They need a kind word.
And it's symbolic.
It doesn't matter what you do for people.
It's symbolism that you do.
And for the first figure, the great remark of John Mitchell, my favorite political manager,
Because the only thing that matters to people in life is what you say.
But I think you could give a little symbolic
But certainly tonight, we want a school system which brings the country together and doesn't separate it up.
We want a school system that gives people choice, gives access to choices that does not take away from them.
And we can have both.
Well, now, the thing is that in order to do that in the context of the whole busing thing, then there has to be a legislation to allow a choice.
Is that right, John?
Well, Bickel says that
Bussing is symbolic.
Well, he argues more than legally.
He argues like Pat is arguing, that bussing is a symbol.
It's a symbol of a kind of a congestion.
And he says the way that you work out of this is not by passing bussing legislation, pro or con.
But it is by declaring peace.
It's like the suggestion of Vietnam.
You stand up one day and you say, this is a new era in education.
All this stuff about desegregation and busing and things like that are all behind us.
We're going to move vigorously into a whole new American education system.
Then he says, you gather together all of the federal money that you can lay your hands on.
Very much, he ties that into our thinking on this.
And he says, move down into equality of education.
He says this busing business is geographic, but he says what lies behind it for the blacks and everybody else is the certainty that there is
Inequality in educational opportunities.
Right.
And that's, of course, what lies behind this Calisarano case in California.
That's the point.
That's the point.
That's the point.
Well, but you see, it doesn't make a great way to say it, because before then, if I ever blacked a black mother or father or something, I certainly don't think it made a difference, because I can only doubt it.
And most whites don't.
You see, the mythology, the mythology is, despite what your friends wrote in those articles that we were talking about, the mythology is to the contrary.
Most people think it doesn't make a difference.
Most people believe that you can't start education, you will work.
Most people don't believe
that there are differences, and I keep talking about a few southern races, that's true, but you know there's all this business.
You know, for example, of looking at the differences of people, you know that probably Haitians are first, and the Anglos or the Europeans are second.
And that the blacks, the third, I don't know where the browns stand in here.
The browns are a little better than the blacks.
And you know, and you said the real picture is that the British are half a step ahead of the average.
Now, I mean, you know, this is his analysis, which, of course, he said, please don't show this to anybody in the administration.
He said, particularly, who'd you say not to show it to?
John?
But it's true.
You know it's true.
God damn it, that's the problem.
But on the other hand...
You could be more right.
We can never admit that it's true.
The moment you think that it's true, then a country is going to be torn to pieces.
You can't live with that knowledge.
You can't live with it.
That's the point.
The words are better spoken.
You cannot live with that knowledge.
I understand that.
If you make a speech like this, send a message like this, I really think it's important to you and important to the country to say, look, in March 1970, I sent to Congress a bill to establish the National Institute of Education.
that the preamble of which Pro claimed had a national goal, the achievement of equality of educational opportunity.
There is no such legislation ever set before by any council.
I still, I didn't pick up this thing.
I think I passed it after this a few years ago.
I'm now moving in a certain direction.
I haven't moved it yet.
And if you want messages,
which is really a very damn good message, if we may say.
You said we have got to move from the measurement of education, quality of education, to measuring in terms of influence.
What's that?
Imagine if you cared for outlets.
What happens to each other?
And say, and that's still where I'm at.
I want to make better things happen for children.
I want to give more opportunities.
I want to open up opportunities for those close to death.
My point being, I just think that this country would be prepared for a lot of things.
The country would be pretty great to say now.
You know, Senator Mitch Nixon has been saying this all along.
You know, here's the thing that it feels to me with this job, is it gives a dimension that is different.
If the, if the VAT, the VAT property can't steal,
plus education.
It's just that.
Then all it does is to get all the special interests who are finding, who are panicking to get away to finance education out, beat the drums for it.
The NEA has a bunch of bachelors that don't want to change anything.
If you well know, they all sit around there begging for more money and trying to screw everybody else, including particularly the public schools, trying to screw the private schools, vice versa.
Well, the private schools and functions were with.
But nevertheless, there is, don't you care, instead of having that, if we could cast this,
in the broader term of our whole approach to education and take it into segregation, the busing thing.
This would be a whole thing.
Does it seem possible or we might not get it?
Is it feasible?
I would think so.
I would think so.
What I'd like to see if Cath Wood, if you could
put some of the views you've just expressed down, in other words, the preamble, so to speak.
You don't do it like you talked to John about what Arnstein is.
Also, read the pickle piece.
And then what I thought, what we will get, this is not going to be a speech.
This is going to have to be a profound document.
It's got to be.
What I would like to see, what I would like to see it be is, I'd like to see it be in the same
In the same context, basically, many people may disagree with it, but it was a goddamn good statement.
Our school, our statement on school education, which was, and like the breed in Brown,
I think the breed of brown turned out to be wrong, but nevertheless, the breed of brown is a hell of a breed.
And that's what we want here, right?
Do you agree?
And on the other hand, what we would say would be to kick all this mythology.
Don't knock down any of the things like mine.
I say the breed of brown is wrong, and I agree to that.
that what you can't prove is what everybody believes now.
Or all well, me, good, decent, honest, Christian, Jewish, or atheist, whatever they are, believe a certain thing.
But we ought to say, if we could cast this whole thing in something other than programmatic terms, let me put it this way.
He's right that what you say counts more than what you do.
If we put it simply in so many terms, we're going to change the taxes so that you who are bachelors that are paid a property tax are going to get relief.
That's fine.
A lot of people may vote for that.
They may like that.
They may hate that.
And if you say that the third guy at the parochial schools is trying to keep open the Archbishop in Boston, they say, geez, that's great.
Or whatever the case might be.
But, and all of these, so you're appealing in each instance to materialistic motives, and they are important.
They sometimes make people do things.
But on the other hand, if you can cast it, if you can put an idealistic order, overtone on, if you can assume historic proportions,
In other words, if we are doing this, we are changing the past.
We're making it possible to have education that is a star.
And at the same time, we are finally on reforming education and dealing with the problem.
The unthinkable problem, the thing that people don't see is what the hell are we going to do about segregation, busing, and all that sort of thing.
It's done now.
We've entered the segregated system.
We're in a new era, and now this is what we do in this new era, which I guess is going to be one of forcing people together.
It's going to be one of opening up choices.
Now, something like that, we can do that by opening up churches, as you say, where everybody has an equal shot, where there is no inferior education.
In other words, every American should have a right to a superior education.
That doesn't mean that every American has a right to be equal to somebody else, but it's always education, because most of us can't learn.
If only we could get something there, it might give a tone to this that could be quite different from simply this simple shot.
The other is going to be the potatoes.
And we know, well, the idea of a property tax relief is a hell of an issue.
It's terribly important.
But on the other hand, in terms of presidential leadership,
It has to be a generous thing to do.
You're not simply relieving people of this terrible burden so that we can finance the little bastard kids.
But the purpose is to do this so that we can have them.
Is that a good point?
What's my deal with somebody?
It's not like you haven't been saying it.
It's not like you haven't been listening to it.
And you believe it.
And if you try to think about it, if there's anyone that we have that we have done a good job to do in the school system, and done it without revolution, violence.
A single gun was appointed as a single judge.
Think of that.
A single gun was appointed as a single judge.
All it's done is keep Wallace at 12%
That's an irreducible minimum.
That's like body temperature.
I think you have a great opportunity.
And it's an opportunity to insist to go over what you're rapidly doing.
You're the one who's going to call them in and talk to them.
You're the one who's going to put up money to reward people who were criminals who were together and punish them.
And they think we'll leave it at that.
We didn't get the money yet.
John, before you do this, you don't give it to anybody, but you read the, you read the articles that you got, and I sent two or three of the last letters you, but you know, I didn't ever send you the one where he said, don't show this to anybody.
Did you read that one?
No, no.
I've got one about Irishmen.
Oh, wait a minute.
Doesn't say, doesn't say anything about not showing it.
That one, that one, that note's all in the top of the metal.
It's all real?
No, it's all mine.
That one's in here.
Let me just make sure that I've got it where to go.
Let's see.
It's laid out there.
After all, one doesn't have to be very smart.
You know, the Jews and Chinese are unbalanced, smarter than the rest of us, but the rest of us get along.
Not just because they weren't trying to be smart.
It's the greatest things in here.
What is it?
Finally, may I please that you say nothing about this subject, or let anyone around you do so.
There is no possibility you are concerned to be protected for what it is and desire to respond to knowledge and accruing that.
In the bowels of Christ, I please you not to let the Vice President say anything.
But I would understand if you could agree.
We're going to bend his ear, but if they ask whether to come back to the Reed Center, we're going to stay quiet.
You were saying that I have a meeting at all the other clubs that you said, and I'm going to see if there's any new environment.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Actually, you know, it hurts a lot, doesn't it?
It's very encouraging.
Well, if you want to really do work on this more, Mr. President, I expect... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not going to say that there's anybody like that.
Because the men that I see, they don't get out.
They're racist.
Yes.
But Tim Coleman is absolutely responsible, and he has served you well in the past, and he's been a great and smart successor.
Remember, it was him sitting right there, who set you up for what you do, so you'll have some incentive for doing it.
And again, this is not even enough.
So you may keep him in touch.
Are you also fine here with this?
It's going to be a lot of these.
We are, uh, in front of a little depot of OEO, which has been passed down by about 35 votes.
We expected it to.
Now, we were hoping we could beat it.
And, uh, it, uh, just wasn't headed to child care, to child welfare.
And, uh, we signaled, uh, Jerry Ford, the leadership that you would be telling,
And we told them we're going to position you so that you can without there being any strikes.
And we're going to try and hurry it up so that you can get down here right away so you can be towed before they come home.
So they can pass over.
So you'll be sustained.
But it'll be a matter of continuing resolution.
And we put 80,000 people on board.
But I want you to know where we were.
But we have to do it.
That's right.
I think we didn't get it for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, he's, uh, one thing about this hall, he is a very, very creative mind.
I think his idea of breath is good.
That's uncanny how close he came down.
Well, I like the idea of wrapping all of this around, you know, some caustics and all of them, and some idealistic jargon.
And also, it's probably like,
You read it well.
It is probably the only option.
Just like Vietnam, you'll never get the last one.
I'm busting.
I'm busting.
Yeah.
I'm really firing into the war in effect.
And move on.
And then you say everybody likes to use revenue sharing.
Well, that's a problem, but revenue sharing solves it if they don't bypass it, you know.