Nixon, Ford & Etherington on National Center for Volunteer Action

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Mr. President, how are you?

Happy New Year, see?

Happy New Year.

Congratulations on everything you're doing.

I'm excited to see you.

How are you?

Sit down here.

Henry, get to the chair.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I can't name it.

I've got a big briefcase.

Yeah, I do.

Isn't that awful?

I was down pretty near to Miss Kane.

We have a house at Hope Sound.

Everybody's got to have a rentable asset.

That's right, everybody.

Well, I want to tell you that I am certainly grateful for what you've done.

This operation, I know it's...

He's done all the work.

I know, I know.

He's done all the work.

I think it's very important.

I realize that it's...

It's terribly spongy, hard to get into, hard to go up to grab.

That's why, and you get it particularly in the fundraising side, that's an awfully hard thing to do.

It's, of course, a wheel, as you know.

So, I don't have a certain chance it's going to work.

I think it's very much...

When I wrote you the letter, you were in a little trouble.

Yeah.

I'll handle it.

Ted tells me that I was away a couple of weeks, and his information here, things look much better now.

Yes.

Investing in courage.

So I understand it as of just recently, the $500,000 from acting, and then a budgeted number of $1 million for fiscal 73.

Right.

And I think with those two things, the program now has a million and a half, and you add it to what we have.

Well, you do have to work in numbers that we don't have to work in.

But I still feel very strongly that we need a private sector, more private sector back, in order not just to become an arm of government without any of the leverage of being inside.

What it's like, in a way, is like Radio Free Europe.

Everybody, we all know the CIA.

But as you know, we used to have dinners all the time to get a little business guys and I appeared in some of those to get them to put up a little deal with Radio Free Europe.

And that gave it a big credibility and a standing that it wouldn't have had if you said, this is the voice of the CIA.

And in this instance,

The private financing is essential in order to get us to stand as a volunteer activity rather than just as a government activity.

That's my feeling.

Well, we fully agree with you, Mr. President.

The point, however, is that it was very difficult to be able to get money out of the private sector because actually we didn't have a tangible

really good, tangible program, fun to look at, and get firmly interested in saying, well, this is something we believe in, and this is something we'll give the money to now.

I think with what we've been talking about, what you're talking about, we'll get going further on this program.

We may be able to get some more in private money, but it's not going to be very easy.

I wouldn't want to have you think that it's going to be easy, because I don't know.

People have got so many applications.

It's awful.

There are so many institutions that are looking for funds for one reason or another, and you've just got to work hard at it, but it just isn't easy.

And we really haven't even had to hold back on a lot of the pledges that we've been getting for quite a period of time.

At this point, when I wrote the letter, it was sort of in the 60s and 70s, and I felt that that should let you know about it.

When Henry, to pull that down to some numbers, Mr. President, when Henry recruited me, we were about 400,000 behind on pledges, and we had recaptured just half of us.

So they're about 200,000 out.

And I think that one thing that can be done that would be appropriate...

and very, very helpful would be if your four or five top aides in the White House could be encouraged, whenever they have the opportunity, just to articulate your sense of priority to people who are strong supporters of yours and of this type of program.

There are a bunch of them, and that would include some of the people who are behind on pledges.

When they just happen to run into them, just say, I hope you're going to be able to pay that up, because that's the flow that's already there, and these people are just so petty.

And there may be others, as they would know.

That's sort of our political year right now.

since you haven't declared ideas yet.

It is.

It's out of a different country.

Sure.

They have foundations.

Foundations and corporate gifts.

And it's deductible.

We have established that as of two weeks ago.

Finally got the IRS ruling that we're a public foundation.

So we took all that time.

Because they had to rule on all of these things for the new tax law.

All right.

So I want that follow-up law.

That'll help immensely.

That'll be done.

Uh, the, uh... Now, what about the project?

Uh, you know, I talked to Finch, and, uh, I, you know, he, he... Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think...

I think we're looking very good, uh, I'm glad you didn't ask.

Give us a chance to chat with you a month earlier.

It's going to look very good right now.

Good.

We set out by the end of the year.

That's when I talked to him about three weeks ago.

He said you were working on it.

Yeah.

But what we aimed for was to get 100 local centers into place so we'd have a network for pushing programs.

So we've got 80 going, full force in effect.

You really have?

Going.

They are really there?

Yeah, since April.

So we know the program is going to be there.

Oh, yeah.

Directors, boards, the whole lot.

Using volunteers.

Good.

And another 40 being formed.

So now we have a network.

With the money from action, we'll be able to sustain that and let the network grow slowly.

That's the important thing.

My understanding is that you've agreed to come to the awards center if you're free on the 10th.

That itself is...

It is very, no, no, not if you want to change it, but it's awfully close to one, sir, because... Bring the main book in, please.

Every time Facebook leaves the office, it gets in advance.

Well, let me tell you, I'll come to the award event that we made.

No problem.

January, February the 10th.

No, not the 6th.

We all thought it might be a good idea.

No, it ain't.

Good, good, that's better.

Thank you.

We all drink this lousy coffee.

It's very good coffee.

It's because of the old mix.

Thank you.

I take it back.

Thank you.

You could do it on another date.

Tell me, do you have any range of dates that you could do on that?

Well, we will surely rearrange it.

We need to file it.

It's going to be in the top floor of the Kennedy Center.

Oh, you're going to have a meeting.

Yes, the dinner would be for the White House.

We would have our board meeting that afternoon, and they would come to the dinner, which would give you a chance to salute the board as well as the volunteer award winners.

And we can surely push it off.

We didn't want to do it in the middle of China.

Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't mind getting there.

Along with the rest of the press, huh?

Look, I'll work on this schedule and I'll tell them all.

tomorrow.

We'll set a date in that ballpark between the 10th and the 16th.

Fine.

Is that all right?

Sure.

We have to leave in the 16th.

So we'll set it between then.

But the date is not a problem.

It's the Congress.

But I don't know about

Well, good stuff.

I'll come.

That's marvelous.

Well, now that seven itself will give us visibility, since you're being here in this town.

Now, isn't that an opportunity for you to get to the next people?

I mean, maybe we should get them on that occasion.

You'd get your top, not just your rear.

You'd probably go eight or ten wheel through.

Right.

I've got a little bit of that.

That would be marvelous.

Just marvelous.

that you will work out something.

I'd like to add some people to it who haven't been part of the program and who would, I think, be able to back it.

Ways that will really be useful for everyone to have, I know, would complement the other ones.

Then, secondly, with this government help, we will be in a position to run a national advertising program, and we have developed a scheme for it.

It's a minute and a half enough.

It's there, I'm going to be candid with you.

The reason I say that is that from this year's action appropriation and the million from next year's action in fiscal 73 is budgeted for next year.

If I could guess at the train of your thought, I might give you an idea or two.

The two programs that we're now mounting, one to help the right to read people get off the ground.

This is a great program.

And it's one where people could really volunteer.

Hell, I'd volunteer.

I really would.

If I didn't, if I had the patience.

That's a wonderful thing.

You know, the real problem is, basically, it's directed to blacks.

And to all of those, you know, I have lore learning about me.

whether by heredity or her background, and it's about, and it's directed also to an awful lot of people with language problems.

I mean, Mexican and all the rest.

It's the most important program in the world.

We all know that reading is the most important subject, except for a businessman, I mean, for his arithmetic.

And we're moving on an aid to the elderly program that comes out of your conference to help older people stay in their own homes.

Now, how does that happen?

Volunteers will be trained, and they're going to be working on college kids, young kids, etc.

There are just all kinds of older people in the conference.

The college kids will often be the volunteers.

That's what I mean.

Right.

To be the volunteers.

They like it.

Through these local action centers.

Right.

And they can help them write and read.

They can help them.

Right.

Visit these older people and so forth and so on.

They're going to be there.

Right.

Well, now, the reason I brought them up is when you asked if a million and a half was enough, doing either each of those programs will cost us

more than $100,000, just the staff at the time had to put into it.

An ACW grant or contract to pick up our tab on that would release some overhead for us in a really crucial way.

And it's a little unfair to Elliot and his associates to come to the President's desk with this, but this is something that Ray Hanslick and Bob Finch and I have talked about.

And we are going to approach them.

Yeah, let me ask you, let me take it out of the way, so you are the one who's going to harvest the chaff.

I'm going to talk to Mr. Hall and Schultz.

Now,

Yes, yes, yes, it did not look like it.

And because of my interest in the thing, that amount of money can easily be picked up.

That band agency has too much anyway.

I mean, they've got all their waste in the house.

They've got a hell of a lot of money in the mines.

That's a waste of years, and it's going to be wasted.

But you check it out.

Now, I'm just going to write to them and say, now, this is something that I want to explore.

And also, look at the action budget.

The action thing is much to be desired at the moment.

It has very, very minimal congressional support.

And I think that, sure, it's not.

You need to know what you really need, what you can spend.

And also, yours has got to work, too.

Of course.

Of course it does.

But we must not allow those two programs, on the A to the L, right degree, they must be properly funded.

Now, what did you say, $100,000 each?

Actually, the one we find, too, is $114,000.

All right.

Well, the hell with it.

$150,000, what's the other cost?

I'd say we had $250,000 for the two programs.

Could you do it?

Get them off the ground.

Is that very strong enough?

Do you really believe that will do?

In addition to what we already have budgeted, you need $250,000 for those two programs.

For those two programs.

They're both, you would expect to get that from ATW, correct?

I would think so.

Now, when I say that, I'm talking about a one-year budget, and I suppose... All right.

All right.

It's a good man.

A good man.

Solidly behind this book.

He's a good man.

He's behind it.

Just on this, this is a personal fetish of me, and also it happens to be a personal fetish of my wife, who's in the right to read up her ears and really want to do something.

Just say, look, God's sake, find it out of that $80 million budget here.

Most of which, you know.

This next one is very helpful.

Could we bring up the matter of organization quickly?

As I said in my letter, I thought I ought to resign as of about the 1st of February from the chairmanship because I've had it about 18 months or thereabouts.

And I've got some other things that I've got to get into.

And so I thought, Ted and I have talked about it.

He's talked to your people here in the White House.

And I know he'd be an excellent chairman.

And we've got to find a president.

We've been working with Mr. Ted, been working with Mr. Malik on some possible people.

And hopefully you might have somebody maybe by the middle of February or something.

That's a good point.

That's the thought, to secure the continuity in the program.

Do you want to continue to help?

Yes, sir.

But we really need continuity on the officership part.

There's no question about that.

I think if you don't have it, things, you know, it takes a while.

I think you should know that I agree to take this on part-time originally.

And it needs a full-time president in the worst way.

Well, I think that's a good scene.

You the chairman.

uh you'll continue to help yes sir i will right okay that's and you i'll be an answer yeah i've got to go out there and some money someplace too but i'll pay attention right but then the other thing is then we try to find the president yes and he must be a full-time president and he should be paid right yes absolutely working full-time and i know and uh i've done a wonderful job with this thing

I think it's really starting to move down.

I think that the help that you've given us with these Malachas are... Malachas are first class men.

He is the...

He is, by far, the best national personnel that's ever been in this White House.

I mean, I don't doubt that's what's going on in their back, because he always shoots at the top.

He gets people who are not his enemy.

I mean, you know, Henry, we got Bill Everett, who could be the trade record.

It's all speaking, loud, and chopped up.

Bill Everett, as you know, is one of the great, bright, yeah, one of the bright young guys, you know, in the White House.

as the chief executive officer of Boise Cascade, then he came on to be our representative.

Right, Sandy.

He comes and does a trade representative.

That's a hell of a thing, isn't it?

You've got some great people.

Pete Pierce is a great person.

He's a great person.

Everybody supported me for the United States Senate, too, so I suppose you told me I ought to be your trade representative.

Yeah.

But that's the amount of touch.

So many people, personnel, usually say, you can't get this, you can't get that, this, that, and they do a little look, or whoever you can get.

And Mallory always says, try for the best.

And they go down from there.

And he does a terrific job with Solomon.

I don't know how he does it.

And he's terrific with women, too.

He's put more good women in positions.

We're even considering a woman for the first time in history as one of the members of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Oh, really?

You see, we've got her signed as first to last.

We've got Edgar Solomon, who's a great international expert.

Of course, McCracken's right back in the 60s.

Now, if we can get a woman in there, she's a tremendous woman economist, that's a real break.

Well, that'd be terrific.

It proves, don't you agree?

Absolutely.

It proves as to if a woman has it.

Now, I believe women have other uses than government at times, but if they want to be in it, they ought to be able to go to the top.

I think that's terrific.

So, hope we find her.

Good for you.

Well, anyway, thank you very much.

We appreciate your time.

Congratulations on a great international concert.

Well, I think that's better.

Our friend, uh, uh, I did a tremendous job.

He was strong.

Here's a man who spoke about some of those things.

I'm sorry.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Thank you.

I'll see you on the 10th or 14th, like whatever it is.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Oh, we had the actor.

Thanks a lot.

Good to see you.

Happy to see you.

I had the opportunity to meet you this afternoon.

That's why I said it.

The first major issue is the timing of the legislation starting with Bill Price and how it should be handled.

The thing we know everybody is that we have to go for a price that is clean, that is without any legislation.

You'll want to remember, which I'm sure you do, that if we can handle our oil price legislation, we can keep it in the Banking Committee's frame of works, which is not very protectionist.

If we start adding things to it, like the generalist preferences, or anything of that sort, and we go into ways that need us incentive finance, and then you've got it.

So the generalist view is mostly let's go clean.

When Volcker, I think, believes that it ought to be submitted to

It's very shortly after the Congress gets back.

The argument on the other side of doing it immediately is to deliver these meetings with the community or not until they don't start until the 14th of January.

You know how important it is on agriculture to get some great stuff in the package.

And my own view on this is... What does Connolly feel on that?

Does he feel we should delay?

He's always said we can't get the price to go unless we get the trade.

Unless we get the trade.

Well, he knows how different he says that.

Right.

My guess is, and I haven't talked to John after the meeting, but John's position would be we've got to get something on the agriculture side, just politically.

It means we wait a couple of weeks.

We ought to wait for it.

But there is this other point of view that we've got to capture the momentum and get in there right after Congress comes back.

But a few weeks might buy a fair amount of funds.

Are we going to get anything out of it?

Well, we've got a better deal on citrus than we had before.

We've got a better deal on tobacco.

The high-card crunch, which is from the Midwestern states, is unbearing.

So that's the thing that's going to take everybody's working.

And it's working harder than that.

Well, maybe it's better to keep the heat on.

Well, that would have been my view.

The only difficulty that I see with that is I don't want to create another international crisis.

Absolutely.

That's the same thing.

The Congress will not act, you know, because it isn't going to act, ultimately.

The other thing we can do is orchestrate the committees, you see.

We've got pressure on for trade items, too.

Let's see, let's see how we can do that.

First of all, you buy a little time.

You don't, I wouldn't put it in the week, the evening, in any event.

That's our, excuse me, we're going to have, I'd say the union has about 20 minutes.

And so that gets you treated that way, and that brings you over to the 24th.

And so about the 24th, you get to the topic bill, and then they got into hearings, and they got into a debate, and they made a report, and so on.

I think maybe the thing to do is to filibuster it rather than delay it.

I think that's what I would like to do.

i want to see confidence in california but in the meantime you call that back to this meeting you see what i mean

But your call had a building impact on me, if you will.

On trade legislation, I just want to draw on the gold price.

Virtually everybody feels we have to wait until later.

April, May, June, I feel it.

The reasons are it's false.

I'm going to talk about the reasons we've talked about and the reasons we're going to talk about.

The reasons we've talked about.

You've got an OECD trade group, you know, reports in many of the offline areas of negotiations.

Yeah, you can make a line out of employment here, as you used to say.

Congress wants to be consulted, you know, on the kind of authority you should have.

Everything's now good.

And you say there are things going on now that will determine, you know, the negotiating authority you want, and you're waiting for the actual stuff to be tried by New York City.

All right.

Secondly, you have a little time to discuss the effects of this exchange rate and some of this trade stuff.

Now, normally that takes a couple of years, but you can use that as a little pinnacle.

Third, you've got priorities you want to remember.

You've got revenue sharing, you've got pension money, you've got health money.

You don't want to get this in there.

Right, right, right.

Excellent, excellent.

Now, all ways and means.

All ways and means, all sense and means.

Now, there's some gutsy political reasons you may want to remember.

First, keep in mind that Wilbur has got this fellow Burke on his committee.

Burke is the author of the Harty-Burke bill, which is this awful labor bill.

Burke is either Wilbur's campaign manager or his finance manager.

Now, I don't know that you're going to accept, I'm sounding cynical, but I know that you're going to accept this.

I hear you.

No, no, no.

What he said, there's a beautiful mousetrap opportunity here, and it looks over to us for the labor.

You... Well, let me tell you, let me tell you what I think.

And there is a chance of a snowball in Hamilton for any great legislation this session.

There isn't because they're going to foul the damn stuff up with all sorts of protections or vices.

So what I want to do, though, and this is an area where you've got to play, you, you, I'm speaking to you first, you've got to play up.

Well, I think what we really have to do is speak to different places.

Maybe to that rock.

The beasts are out there eating the ground up.

There's a better trade on that than any.

You, you see, speaking for the business community, you've got to serve before it, but also in the same hand.

On the other side, you've got to be on the other side, too.

And then, of course, you've got the economy here.

who's a goddamn tough on the trade, and he wonders about it.

Now, that's the political game that I see.

I think what has to happen is that, and I can say that, all I can say is to say the pious thing, the loneliest things, and I will say what you're on for, but it's a congressional problem.

But I think as far as the public statements, you, Rogers, and Collins, and of course then Stein, the council, you three particularly, you sort of worked out a good scheme

where you just confuse the hell out of the arm, but recognize nothing can or must happen this year.

It really can't.

Or you agree with that.

It'd be a nightmare.

If we were to get non-strap from a lot of September up to October.

But I do think, on the other hand, it would be very good for us, for our credibility in Europe, and the rest, and also for our credibility here at home, that we're not a bunch of mad detections.

And also, I believe in the law.

I just don't believe in it.

Sure.

He has gone out on a psychological limb here with these generalist preferences.

After you had your discussion on the airplane, you apparently got off of your plane and promised it in June to submit it in June.

The problem with that, of course...

is that it gets us into this Christmas tree approach, and I've been trying to figure out how to get him off the hook.

Well, in the meeting this morning, we got the conversation worked around with how, obviously, and Bill agreed to this, we would want to consult Congress, you know, on this matter.

Now, I think we could use Clark in a very useful way.

Clark, McGregor, Bill, Captain Spector, Clark, Nelson, Nelson, and so forth.

Visualize a scenario where we send Clark up there,

You and I give Clark some, shall we say, instructions on the answer that we want coming back.

Clark goes over and reports to Bill that there's some pretty high risks.

You know, I'm submitting just piecemeal legislation.

Bill then can get off the hook, in effect, by saying there was foreign policy people leaving the congressional department.

It's not, it's not.

Well, the high risks are, if you put it in generalized preference, we're going to get quarters of a million dollars.

Bill knows this.

I think you've got a lot of folks here.

On the public record, we've got a lot of good play out here.

We've got several panel requests.

I saw the Times that hold that whole column.

Even when we have the volume.

And there's a whole page inside you can see the charts and everything.

Now this is the kind of thing I'd be wondering.

What should you take on?

I wrote it in the State of the Union, New America, and all this sort of thing.

And then let some of the rest of us carry this message out to Congress, the business, and so forth.

And use this year as a year of education.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You would not have me talking to that.

In the state of the Union, I think you can take the high road.

You want a confident America.

You want an employed America.

You want a competitive America.

You want this new America.

We've talked about how that relates to... You're not going to California.

I thought you were.

But you didn't go to Japan.

You were over there.

Now, I ask... We've got... Everly is the one I think has...

And our guy, Stan, really is awesome.

Nixon, Ford & Etherington on National Center for Volunteer Action

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 3, 1972

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