Conversation 693-001

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I do say, however, that it is necessary to do something.

to get the folks off that center and to see what is the enemy, continue to want to use the cost only to negotiate.

When they're ready, we're ready.

But we're not going to continue to allow them to use this forum for the purpose of fully righting the United States in a propaganda forum, rather than in a seriously negotiating piece as we tried to do, as we got provided by our private contacts and fellow users.

to discuss the January 25th, but also on our state's January 25th, which I made a very forthcoming offer.

Mr. President, was there any league between the IDC and the U.S. government and the Constitution of San Diego as a Confederate city?

And do you think that Mr. Klein will be approved, confirmed as the Attorney General?

Well, I noted that the U.S. government invested

I've been pressing on this matter, as you should, as it is a matter of courage and consent in the nation.

I will complete one of my remarks through these observations.

First, Mr. Coindes is being considered for, as you've indicated, confirmation of the current general of the United States.

That's the purpose of the hearing.

I had confidence when I appointed him that he was qualified for this position.

I still have that confidence.

I believe that he should be confirmed, and I believe that he will be confirmed.

Now, as far as the hearings are concerned, there's nothing that's happened in the hearings to date.

There is one way that my confidence is defined is as a able, honest man, fully qualified to be a member of the United States.

However, I'm not going to comment on any aspect of the case while the Senate is still conducting it.

While the Senate is still trying to determine the authenticity of the evidence of the report, that's a matter for the Senate to make and the Senate to continue to consider.

But I would ask for these hearings.

We want the whole record brought out because as far as he's concerned,

He wants to go into the hearing now with no follow-up.

He will not have any, in my opinion, once the hearing is concluded.

And what we're talking about will be approved rather than sent to charters, which is definitely not substantial.

Mr. President, I have a follow-up on that.

Another aspect which I think is not directly related to the ICP case, and I think we need to give it your view on the proper role of White House

in contact with executive departments and regulatory agencies concerning matters that are before those departments or agencies.

My specific reference, of course, is to the involvement of Mr. Flanagan in some of these matters.

But I wonder if you could give us, on a more general basis, what you can see as the proper role and limits of that role for President DeLay in dealing with regulatory and law enforcement matters.

Well, at President DeLay, he must listen to all those who come to the White House

as they do in great numbers on all sides of all cases with regard to complaints that they have or causes that they wish to work for, just as they go to the members of the House and the Senate and others in that domain.

What is improper is to use influence for personal gain and to use influence in any way that would be in the public interest.

As far as planning is concerned, Mr. Zingler's response to that charge has a considerable length with my total authority, and his views represent mine.

I have nothing further to say.

Mr. President, how do you expect the War on Inflation to succeed without the cooperation of Jordanians and the French?

The War on Inflation will succeed with their cooperation

And I think the best indication of the fact that it is succeeding is that as far as that part of the consumer price index, which is made up of those items that are under control, as Mr. Stein pointed out in his briefing yesterday, the wage price controls have been effective.

The only part of the consumer price index, or the major part of the consumer price index, which resulted in what we thought was a disappointing increase in prices, at least a one-month increase, was the food index.

The food index, as we know, is not controlled.

Now, insofar as that food index is concerned, we discussed that at considerable length at the cost of the Liberty Council yesterday.

that it's a mistake and totally unfair to make farmers scapegoat for the high meat prices and the high food prices.

Approximately a third of what prices are that the consumer pays to the grocery store or the supermarket, approximately for food, approximately only a third of that amount is a result of what the farmer receives as farm income.

The other two-thirds goes to middlemen, to retailers, and others.

And our preliminary investigation of this situation shows that the spread between farmers' receipts and what the consumer pays in the grocery store and the supermarket has widened.

It is too great.

That is the reason why the cost of...

The price commission is on April the 12th, as you know, and it was announced this morning.

We're going to conduct a hearing on this matter to determine whether or not the profit margins in this period

have gone beyond the guidelines and been laid down.

I also would say that as far as we are concerned, we are, we can say that on the one hand, we're glad to see that looking at a six-month period, the rate of inflation has decelerated.

On the other hand, we are disappointed at even a one-month figure in which the rate of inflation is at the level it was this time.

We're particularly disappointed that the food component

was as high as it was.

And that's why we welcome the action of the Paris Convention looking into that component of why it is.

And then, in the event that

those food prices do not start to move down, then other action will have to be taken.

And I'm prepared to have other action taken.

I have expected those who have responsibility in this field to see what action can be taken.

But I simply conclude by pointing out that the field of the action that will be effective is to control or move on the one third that what the farmer receives as income or what he sells is not the most effective.

into a one little example like you.

I think it's quite graphic.

Secretary Connolly was discussing this matter across the room yesterday.

He said he'd been in Texas and had to talk to a renter who raised chickens.

He asked him how much he got a dozen for pay.

He got $30 a dozen.

A couple of days later, he got breakfast from Hotel Pierre in New York, and he ordered a couple of eggs for breakfast.

It was $5 for two.

That's at the rate of $30 a dozen.

Now, of course, the eggs have to be transported.

They have to be processed.

They have to be cooked.

They have to be served.

But $0.30 a dozen to the farmer and $30 a dozen to whoever buys those eggs in a restaurant, that's just too much.

And we're going to get at that middle ground one way or another.

What you do is your views on the general proposition of large political contributions in terms of possibly getting something back.

Nobody has any back as far as the general contributions are concerned.

As far as such contradictions are concerned,

They should always, of course, comply with the law.

Second, as far as those who receive them are concerned, they must be accepted with no understandings expressed or implied that anything is to be done.

or as a result of those contributions that would not be done in the ordinary course of that.

Let me just say on that point that looking at ITT, which I understand has been a contributor to a number of political causes over the years, it's significant to note, and I hope that the members of the press will report this, I haven't seen this in many stories, it's significant to note that ITT became a great conglomerate of what it was in the two previous administrations primarily.

the Kennedy administration, the Johnson administration, it grew, it grew, and it grew, and nothing was going to stop it.

In this administration, we moved 1903.

We're proud of that record.

We moved up effectively.

We've acquired the greatest divestiture in the history of the United States of America.

And secondly, also, as a result of the Kennedy degree,

required that I, it seems to be, not have additional acquisitions so that it became large.

Now, as Dean Griswold pointed out, that not only was a good settlement, it was a very good settlement.

And I think under the circumstances that gives the lie to the suggestion

This administration, in the handling of the IT&T case, just using one example, was doing a favor for IT&T.

If we wanted to do a favor for IT&T, we could just consider, we could just continue to do what the two previous administrations have done, and that is not let IT&T continue to grow.

But we moved on and moved effectively.

Mr. McLaren?

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

and at the same time by putting more money into black schools, what you are doing, in effect, is going back to the old doctrine of separate but equal facilities for blacks.

Yes, I see that that charge has been made and I can see how that understanding or misunderstanding could evolve.

But let me explain what we were trying to do and what I believe our proposals, if they are enacted, the Congress will accomplish.

In the first place, we have to analyze what the constitutional problem is.

under the 14th Amendment, provided for equal protection of the law.

The Constitution does not provide as a remedy, busing, or any other device.

The Constitution in the 14th Amendment expressly grants power to the Congress to disseminate the remedies to accomplish the right of equal protection of the law.

Now, we turn now to busing.

and let me relate this to Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown v. Board of Education, as its name indicates, was about primarily education.

Brown v. Board of Education held in effect that legally segregated education was inherently inferior education.

I agree with that.

On the other hand, how do we desegregate and thereby get

better education.

And here is where busing compounds the evil.

Busing, for the purpose of treating racial violence, not only does not produce superior education, it results in even more inferior education.

And so what I was trying to do was to tackle the issue by saying we can and should have desegregation, but

We should not compound the evil of the school system, of legal segregating, by using a remedy which makes it even worse.

That's why I have included that first moratorium on busing for a year was the right move to make.

I believe it was a good move, the moratorium was constitutional.

I believe it was so held, it will be so held by the Supreme Court due to the fact that it deals with a remedy, not a right.

That's the fundamental difference.

Lawyers will disagree on that and the court will decide.

I think the court will decide that the moratorium is constitutional.

That is why also I move in another case.

When we talk about education, we must remember that if we had busing at the maximum degree suggested by the most extreme proponents of busing, it will still leave the vast majority of black school children

living in central cities, going to what are basically inferior schools.

A lost generation, as I describe it.

And I decided that we could not allow that situation to continue without trying to move on it.

How have we tried to move?

We've tried to move through a program which has not yet been fully tested.

I'm not sure that it will work, but we've got to do something.

And that is in the field of intensified education.

a program in which we, rather than doing it with a shotgun approach, which has proved ineffective, that we use the critical mass approach, $300 for the purpose of improving education in those schools where no plan for de-segregation that anybody has suggested

will ever affect them.

We cannot leave those people, those students there, without having some action and some attention paid to them.

One other thought with regard to this whole matter of compensatory education.

I noted on one of the networks, not yours, but NBC's, a very thoughtful series to the effect that compensatory education is a failure.

We looked into that.

As a matter of fact, on the basis in which it has been used up to this point of a shotgun approach, where you have $100, $150, $200 a student, it has not worked.

You have an example in the District of Columbia where over $300 is not helpful.

On the other hand, in California and in four other states which came to our attention, we have found

that there is substantial evidence to indicate that if we can get $300 a student or more into those schools, it will raise the level of education in those areas.

That is why we are going down this road.

Another point I should cover is a matter of new money.

Let me say there is certainly a great deal of new money in this program.

First, you must remember that the Congress has not yet passed and has not yet sent to my desk a request for a billion dollars in emergency school aid funds that I've asked for.

That billion dollars will go to this program.

And second, we have asked not only that that billion dollars come here, but that the program be four years

rather than simply one year, because our proposal, as you know, is simply a one-shot proposal for a billion and a half.

So that means that you have two and a half billion dollars in new money.

I would say, in conclusion, I would like to be able to assure everybody here that this program of compensatory education, concentrating money in some of these areas on students who will never be helped by any program of busing at all, no matter how extreme,

I would like to say that it will succeed.

I am not sure.

But I do know that we cannot go on with the present situation, where we leave them there, growing up in inferior schools with no chance for hope.

And others, experts that I've talked to, this critical mass approach will get us proper.

I just want to say, however, that segregation, as far as segregation, desegregation is concerned, this administration has made great progress in desegregation.

There are more black students that go to majority white schools in the South than in the North at the present time.

Dual school systems virtually eliminated.

What we were trying to get at is the problem from busing.

Busing, which is a bad name because it compounds the evil which Brown versus the education was trying to get at.

And also, it poisons relations between the races.

It creates racism.

And at the time, it's one that we move on.

And what I thought

was in a responsible way.

Yes, sir.

Go back to the I.T.R.

case for a minute.

Since you have said that you've seen nothing improper in Mr. Flanagan's activities in various cases, would you permit him to

in the Judiciary Committee if he's invited to do so.

If you dare answer that question, I will not respond further.

Would you care to comment on the crime areas, and do you expect Mr. Ashworth to go right down to the wires of the convention?

I realize there's a lot of questions.

You may remember, I think the first president of the press I ever...

introduced in one of their meetings that I stated several months ago that in presidential press conferences I would not ask questions on part of the political matters of the back of the Republican convention.

That includes the Republicans, that includes the Democrats, that includes those who may leave the Republicans or Democrats.

And is it still your intention, Mr. President, not to campaign until after convention time?

It is.

As a matter of fact, I will not be making any political speeches.

Thank you.

political questions one way or another in a presidential conference or in any other forum of this kind.

Between now and the Republican Convention, I shall continually be

President of the United States, and I'll answer all questions in that area.

I will not answer political questions.

I'll have plenty of time to answer them after the call.

Mr. President, how do you assess the military situation in Vietnam, in Laos, in Cambodia, and would you be able to follow your schedule for withdrawal?

Could you perhaps tell us something about it?

Well, I'll tell you more about the withdrawal at this time.

on the basis of the situation as it exists then.

Another announcement will be made before the 1st of May.

Second, with regard to our program for withdrawal, it has gone well, as you know.

The cashiers, again,

As far as the military situation is concerned, an ominous enemy build-up continues.

The press has very well reported the threats from the Laotian base in Guangxian.

sporadic mortar attacks in Cambodia, and there have been a considerable amount of action in South Vietnam.

On the other hand, I have gotten a report from General Abrams just a few days ago.

He says that they still expand.

He doesn't guarantee it, but he says they are still prepared for

some attacks in this dry season.

They have not come yet.

He says if they do come, he is confident that the South Vietnamese will be able to contain them, and he's also confident that while the South Vietnamese lines, in the event the attacks are heavy, may bend, that they will not break.

If this is the case, this will be the case.

It will be the final proof that Vietnamization has ceased.

Mr. President, have you satisfied yourself, sir, that the United States Department acted properly in quantifying the accessibility of the campaign on abuse in San Diego last year?

I heard that question.

Mr. President, you spoke to me about the question a minute ago and the patterns of living that Ruth calls out.

Have you been thought of some kind of new programs to try to break up the patterns that keep the blacks in the inner city, to try to get integration in that way?

Well, it's very difficult to find a new program.

Many of it's just as new.

The breaking up of these patterns is something that probably is going to occur over a period of time as economic considerations and educational considerations come more into play.

I am confident of this, that we cannot put, as I said, not in my statement two days ago, but in my statement, the original statement on the school educational process, last year, we cannot put the primary burden for breaking up these patterns on the educational system.

The purpose of education is to educate.

And whenever a device is used

to desegregate, which results in inferior education for everyone, grave disservice to the blacks who are supposed to be helping.

Mr. President, is it a pragmatic observation that the world now is divided into three parts, the United States, China, and the Soviet Union?

Some would perhaps describe the world that way, but I think the world is much bigger and much more complicated.

I don't think that you can do that.

rule out by such a simplistic observation, the future of Latin America, the potential in Africa, the potential in South Asia and the rimland of Asia, the future of Japan, which is an economic giant even though it's a mini-military power.

At the present time, it could be said

that the United States and Soviet Union are the two major superpowers from a military standpoint, that the People's Republic of China is the most populous nation in the world with the potential of becoming a superpower.

Therefore, anyone who is interested in trying to build a structure of peace must deal with these

with the relationships between these three great power centers now.

I think that is the key to the future.

But we must also, at the same time, have policies that look to the future of Japan, the future of Western Europe, because it will play a major role.

And, of course, it will play a major role in Latin America.

Mr. President, so you have a sort of a pattern of making peace with everybody around the world.

Are you next going to see Fidel Castro?

Do you have a comment, sir, on the recommendation of your commission on drugs, that the use of marijuana in the home be no longer considered a crime?

I met with Mr. Schaefer.

I read the report.

It is a report which deserves consideration for receiving.

However, it's the one aspect of the report I'm in disagreement.

I was before I read it.

Really, it did not change my mind.

I oppose the legalization of marijuana, and that includes its sale, its possession, and its use.

I do not believe it can have effective criminal justice.

based on the philosophy that something is half-legal and half-illegal.

That is my position in spite of the Commission's recommendations.

Mr. President, Mr. President, on your children's calendar, do you have time to try to do something about getting us a better trade position and also to lift up the matter of cleaning up the trade lakes?

We're working out the agenda for our media trip for the rest of time.

I would have to say quite candidly that we've had very little success to date in our negotiations with our Canadian friends, which shows that sometimes you have more problems negotiating with your friends than with your adversaries.

But that is as it should be.

They have a right to their position.

We have a right to ours.

But we will discuss certain trade.

We will discuss the Great Lakes environment.

And I am sure we will also discuss the world situation in which Prime Minister Trudeau

He has some, based on my previous visits with him, some very constructive ideas to suggest.

In addition to my trip to Canada, I will, of course, reframe Trudeau personally on the results of my visit to China.

and also agreed him prior to my going to the Soviet Union, on my visit to the Soviet Union.

I think it is a very helpful thing that at this point we are meeting with our friends in Canada, although we will find that we have some very basic disagreements probably after the meeting.

Sir, when you went to China, there were a lot of people in this country

It was clearly hoped that your trip would be helpful in terms of settling in the Vietnam War in some fashion or another.

Did you find that trip helpful in that respect, and if so, could you tell us how?

At the time that we went to China, I indicated that the purpose of that trip was to discuss relations between the two countries, and it was not to discuss the

situation with regard to other nations.

Now, as far as the discussions that did take place, the agenda did include the whole range of problems in the world in which the People's Republic of China are interested, as we are interested.

As far as Vietnam is concerned, I don't think it would be helpful to indicate what was discussed and what was not discussed.

Only time will tell.

Mr. President, there's been some questions raised about Ambassador Watson's qualification to negotiate with the Chinese in Paris.

Do you still have confidence in his ability to negotiate with the Chinese in Paris?

Mr. Lissinger, the best chance of that, in my opinion, is how the negotiations are going.

They're going very well.

Ambassador Watson is contacting them with...

great confidence, and I understand total sobriety.

I realize that there are a lot of great questions about the ambassador when he travels to his post.

And, uh, I see that some members of the House and Senate are raising such concerns about it that I would say that people in the glass houses shouldn't put a stone in their face.

I think, uh, I'll, I'll be, uh, do you, uh, Senator Ellis, did you say anything?

No, no, if I go, well, I have two more thoughts.

I'm sorry.

The amount of $30 a dozen for anything.

We'll take one more.

No, no, seriously, Paul.

I always want to say that I respect Mr. Meany.

I don't know if he's a powerful labor leader, but he's a patriotic American who, at a time that many of his weak-spined business colleagues were

ready to throw it in a sponge with regard to the security of the United States and what was best for this country in dealing with its adversaries abroad, stood firm.

On the other hand, in this particular area, I think Mr. Meany, I respectfully say, is overshadowed.

In the latter part of the 19th century, this country determined that no business leaders could take the attitude of the public to be damned.

And in the latter part of the 20th century, that applies to both business leaders and labor leaders.

Mr. Meany, in this case, I clearly think he's acting in the best interest of his members.

I would respectfully suggest that I believe that a great number of his members, possibly a majority, realize that wage increases that are eaten up by price increases are no wage increases at all.

They also, in the first, as they look at me, they're incompetent.

And in the past six months since phase two began, we have increased in real wages something that we had not had for five years before that time in any significant degree.

And while we have had for one month,

The bad figures, and believe me, I'm not satisfied with the bad figures.

I want these food prices down.

Nevertheless, our wage price controls are working.

We are going to reach our goal, in my opinion, and I'm very much looking forward to it, of cutting the rate of inflation in half.

And even though Mr. Meany is not with us, I think what we do will be an investment.

I'm sorry, I think you had him in.

Well, I covered that question in a rather lengthy discussion with Mr. Radd, sitting right in this room a few months ago.

And my views are the same now as they were then.

Well, Mr. Tumblewood, and I realize that there are, and I hope many of you will be able to go on that trip.

You went to PRC, and many who didn't go to PRC can also go.

The Moscow trip at the present time will be very different from the PRC trip in the sense that it will be primarily devoted to a number of substantive issues of very great importance.

One of them may be SALT.

If SALT is not completed before Moscow, it does not appear now likely that they can complete SALT before Moscow because

In my conversations with Mr. Smith, before you left, Ambassador Smith, I find that while we are agreed on principle on the limitation of authentic and defensive weapons, that we are still very far apart on some fundamental issues.

Well, for example, whether or not it's ODMG.

matters of that sort.

And Mr. Smith went back to the meetings this time in Helsinki with very full instructions from me, both written and oral, to do everything he could to attempt to narrow those differences.

I believe there is a good chance at this point, particularly in view of Mr. Brezhnev's quite constructive remarks in his speech the other day, that we will

that we may reach an agreement on salt in Moscow, on defensive and offensive limitations, and also agreements in a number of other areas.

This is our goal, and I would say that at this time the prospects for the success of this summit trip are very good.

What year were you president, Jerry?

55.

That's what I remember.

I was there for the inaugural part.

The only other was my name was Warren Frank.

Remember Warren?

He died.

I was vice president.

Thank you.