Conversation 767-020

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I'm not a writer.

I think between now and Labor Day would be, give us the right kind of evidence.

And then at that time, if I were you, if this was my advice to you, I would kick off.

I would say what, in general terms, perhaps not to the press, but maybe speak to a few press guys.

Tell them what you have in mind.

You see what I mean?

You mean...

Yeah, that's right.

What I meant is I would get your thoughts, and then I would spell it out to the press at that time.

Then you get a very positive story about this is what you want to do.

You finish your job here, housing starts, you see a good point.

The way I would work it out, and I would sort of rewrite this in terms of this, I put out a hell of a list.

the greatest accomplishments in housing history.

So now you finish this work, now you have interest in other fields, you're interested in this field, this field, this field, the concentration of power, you know what I mean?

And that you believe that it's necessary to develop public support

at the time of .

Let me ask this.

John Rhodes has asked me to come down to platform.

Now, each of these three problems vary directly on housing and problems I'm responsible for.

We discussed before the question of whether I might discuss these with the platform.

I don't mean to take it out.

You said, well, they might want to fuzz them up.

Is there any reason why I couldn't, why you would feel it would be unwise for me to participate in that hearing?

Well, the only problem that I see, you know, if I put it this way, if I could participate, no problem there.

But I wouldn't like you to go down and get rebutted on the platform.

That's my point.

Don't get in that position now, because then it would have a wrong...

I think that the best stage actually, the best way to launch, you wouldn't want to launch

And then announce your new thing and lay the foundation for it.

That will be kind of what the press will be looking for.

I think that's wise.

I can assure you that I'll work with you on it today.

You can say, well, it's a matter of time.

You can say, I'm sure that...

which is closely related to public service.

Nothing to announce today.

What about the future?

And then I'll say, well, are you going to stay in the second term for us?

There you've got an easy answer.

You say, well, as far as that's concerned, you're going to follow the practice.

You're not going to discuss it.

Because I'm not discussing it.

The reason it's like doing it is you have to keep it in your head.

You shouldn't discuss that.

You have to do the right thing by everybody else.

I think if they ask you about second term, I would say my long-range interest is I've indicated the president.

Oh, yeah, that I have not.

In private.

No, but that's the answer.

There's a game I'm grateful to.

And then let me, I'll do the PR on this.

I'm grateful.

I'll get Holden on it to expert this PR stuff.

We'll get it set up in a way that I would let me rewrite the letter.

Well, that's for a different purpose.

But I appreciate the suggestion.

You know what I mean about the letter.

I mean, in terms of what we... Yeah.

Very good.

Let me suggest what you do.

All right.

You rewrite it.

No, no, no.

I appreciate it.

What I want you to do is, what do you accomplish in housing?

Yeah.

Make one hell of a lot of money.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Very good.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

You see, now, man, I'm going to have to send you out.

And then I'll see you out right after the convention.

I'll be in California.

We're going to Hawaii.

All right.

Bye.

Good.

Thank you.

Okay.

They went up there with me.

It's where they're having their reasons.

I took a task force with you.

I mean, what I mean is that they protect you.

I thought you got hit.

But actually, you know,

place where we've got a real morale problem is in Wolfsburg.

And I don't doubt this is importantly as a result of Schaaf's kind of kneeling up there and creating expectations that are way beyond anybody.

That woman in the car, she was a real spook.

Well, she's a professional.

Of course.

And I thought, you know, that's a beautiful idea.

and talk to him about how he should do this and that and the other thing.

I thought she was expressing it.

I didn't know she was a UBI.

Probably wasn't expressing it.

So, later on, she got a Pepsi.

That was fine.

Later on, she got a coffee.

press people wanted to be in the meeting.

And Schaaf was equivocating, and he thought maybe we ought to have the press in the middle of it, but it wasn't worth a damn, you know.

These local government officials

And I don't want those programs reported now because they'll lead people to think that they're real programs and so on.

We're not going to have the press flash all this stuff.

We've got to go up to him then and whisper to him and so on and so forth.

And then as we came on, we had invited private citizens to meet with us at 1.30, including this camera worker there.

She was one of them.

And as we came on, there were these women with placards.

And I said to him, I said, look, you're not going to have any meeting of that type of event.

I'm not going to participate in it.

And I said, who's this girl?

PR girl.

He said, no, she's the UPI girl.

I said, well, she's still your PR girl.

There are 25,000 houses destroyed.

There are 2,600 marshals in this town, which is destroyed.

My wife, Lenora, was there.

They were picking people up, the helicopter, all the rooftop things going on.

I don't know.

And there are 1,500 industrial

the one-third of the people out of work.

It's the worst natural disaster in one community.

I think it would have kept us history as far as we can imagine.

But it's not 52,000.

It's 52,000.

Well, the city's 52,000, but the surrounding area...

Now, we've taken unprecedented actions here, such as what the General of the U.S. wants to say.

We're doing things in housing that have never been done before in any disaster.

We're using travel trailers where these campers are put next to the house so people can live in them and help put their house back in shape.

We're putting the elevator in hotels and dormitories and lodges, which is what the Red Cross normally does.

We're leasing a motel.

The general and the rest of the cooperative get a minor home repair program of $3,000, which is a new interpretation statute as something new of the temporary home.

We've put 2,500 modern standard homes.

We've made them available to the housing board.

These are permanent structures that they can use to help meet the health needs of the area.

Now, I think there are three areas that need prompt attention.

I've discussed this with the General.

One, rehabilitation, both minor and major, not getting everything.

Number two,

completely away from fire stations, schools, anything like that, transportation, et cetera.

So they've got a whole infrastructure problem to provide for these people who are being dislocated in terms of their normal public services.

And then the third is the need for an accelerated long-term redevelopment of planning and development.

As far as the red tape is concerned, our department, which is the thing I was specifically directed to take a look at, we delegated... That's basically the charge, the shot that these people were making.

Yeah, that's right.

But the letter, the public statement kind of indicated that we probably... What we've done, what we've done, almost the start of

Now, the question of bureaucratic haggardness.

I'm with all the federal department people up there, including our own, probe that.

There isn't any significant haggardness.

There's a breakdown of communication at times.

And this needs to be strengthened.

The bureaucratic haggardness, I mean, I'm part of the government.

Let me ask you this.

Sometimes in a situation like this, it's urgent.

can let you have one, one basic, let's face it, officer in charge who's responsible, and when something comes up, rather than my having to say, well, you know, I'm going to get this thing, I'm going to get this thing, I'm going to get this thing, I'm going to get this thing, I'm going to get this thing.

authority to call upon and direct the activities of all federal agencies, including the authority to modify, when necessary, the 50 federal codes and administrative regulations to expedite the activities to the full extent permitted by the statute.

So, I won't go into that.

And that's what you're, that's what you're really attached to.

But there are two men, there are two men, that I think you ought to take a good hard look at.

First, let me, first, let me back up a bit on this.

And these other disasters of lesser character, they all need to be set up with the cooperation of the departments that work pretty well.

But this is such a major disaster and there's so little time to deal with it.

He is responsible and he has his authority.

In fact, your authority is delegated to me, not delegated to everybody else.

the local governmental effort is largely paralyzed.

There has been some local private organization under Judge Rosenberg, and they're a very powerful, potentially a very powerful group, but they have not yet, with the assistance of local officials and effective federal assistance and so on, really moved out to do this sort of

federal leadership that has a tough understanding with respect to leadership and how to get these things done.

To get the local people back into a global government and use this Rosen Group to help stimulate organizations at the block level, the neighborhood level, and to give them the means they need to begin to do things.

Because if people were given certain

lumber, they're given some other things.

They can begin to repair some of these houses and put them in shape so they can live in them before winter.

But that's all covered here.

I'm not going to go into detail.

The gentleman hasn't had a chance to look at this.

There's that reason.

And the third reason is that this federal disaster czar needs to have authority going beyond what General Lincoln has to coordinate the temporary emergency

And Mr. President, if that doesn't get going very quickly, they're going to be rehabilitating these houses in floodplain areas and other areas, and that's going to stymie redevelopment on some places.

That's going to make redevelopment a long and much more costly thing.

It's going to be paying twice.

And the federal government's going to pay through the

Two men come to my office.

One's in your own organization here, and that's Frank Carlucci.

He comes from that area.

The Pennsylvania political thicket is a tough one.

The local governmental structure there is a tough one.

There are 80-some-odd local governmental instrumentalities.

John, some of the local people in that local meeting said, why can't we plan and redevelop it here on a real city basis?

And Carlucci, my point is that Carlucci knows all those things because whatever is done in a permanent way from a planning and redevelopment standpoint must be initiated by the local people.

And furthermore, this rehabilitation effort is going to be fully effective.

It's got to be one where there's local leadership and private leadership working with the local citizens to get it done, and not Uncle Sam stepping in to tell about it.

And that's why it's important to have a leader of this whole effort that's got to grasp it.

Now, the other man is Bill Scranton.

I don't know.

Bill and Mary Scranton.

Look, Bill and Mary Scranton are terribly hearing.

with this overall directive.

Bill would never have taken anything.

Well, that's why I didn't do things temporarily, he said.

This isn't contemporary, is it?

Well, he could get it off the ground and get it underway, and it would be underway within two or three hours.

He said, that's that part of the key.

He said, part of the key.

That was all of them.

really might get stranded.

The reason, let me say that it has to,

go back to the San Francisco earthquake, go to the horrible disaster in Peru, go to the disasters of floods in Japan that's happened through the years.

It's about, it's about 25% material

seven weeks ago.

But you see all the way, I think the real magnitude of the disaster didn't really set in until they realized what had happened.

And then the host and the shaft and others began to live in capital.

As a result, the spirit of the town goes down.

got to start those people thinking that we're really, really caring, we're caring.

And I don't know, I think symbolism is terribly important, but if you can get it, Carlucci, you can do it as a team, but Carlucci in charge of operations, you have Sprang in charge of making a long-range plan.

That's right.

You might have something there that really, really set on fire.

And also Sprang

Well, thank you very much, Mr. President.

But it'll be five, of course.

Look, I said in my last statement that my best estimate is that in the emergency area, the federal government will spend a billion dollars.

In the emergency needs, we will spend a billion and a half on the permanent rebuilding of that area.

And I don't think there's any question about it.

But, Mr. President, let me move on.

One or two other recommendations.

I'm not unrelated to this question, but Morata said this.

We recommend that

because the people need to know you cared.

And your visit would boost their morale as nothing else could.

The appointment would help, but your personal visit, then the appointment would do it.

Now, my being had to have boosted morale.

There's no question about that because I was dead.

And unfortunately, my going up there was interpreted by the papers and many of the people

Now, there's just one other point I want to make before we drop this.

That's this.

The timeline.

Well, there are two.

First, let me write the timeline to give you some idea of what's been done.

In Camille, it took us six months to get

housing situation thoroughly and we've got a schedule now on land on sites on trailers that would permit these people to get in by winter but there's no assurance that's going to happen unless there's somebody there i mean by september by the end of september

have any feeling of assurance that that's absolutely going to get done.

I said it can be done, and it must be done.

But I didn't say it will be done.

Because I think somebody's going to have to be there to write it through, and also to get the rehab and these other things.

And after all, there's the question, what does a gas

We don't follow up.

John, I'm going to give you the need for a man on that spot.

He's got to move up there.

I believe he should go to this door.

He's got to move up there.

He's got to be right on the spot.

That's got to be his candidate assignment.

The Scranton thing, did you tell him about it?

No, I didn't.

Did he say anything about it?

that Paul said that this was the number one need.

Right.

We can fully understand the need for the lower experimental part.

Probably.

Well, right.

I don't think we can understand it very close.

Here.

I've been there.

I suggest approach.

Well, I don't think you'll get him to do the city thing.

And I'm not sure he's the right one to do the city thing.

Well, again, I think you've got to get that leadership out of that community.

Bill isn't in that community.

He's over in Scranton.

Rosen is an excellent man.

Rosen and Scranton are working hand in glove already.

I'll tell you what we'll do with this.

John, can we talk to Bill?

Well, I can feed him on it if you want me to, but I think I'll really nail it down.

Oh, sure, sure.

I'll tell you what to do.

I can feed it out on the basis of luck.

How about it?

That's the right way to do it.

Yeah.

Keep working.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're going to rush.

I'm sure you appreciate that I was concerned about the place.

On the other hand, I find myself in this bind.

Things I didn't even mention in my communication.

I've got 200 of our top permanent people assigned to these disaster areas right now.

I've got 283 in Detroit, because Detroit's a disaster area.

Is there another one?

This statement that was kicked out Monday had quite an impact.

Reporters were

doesn't this stick with the president's agreement to send Romney up there so when he comes back he can fire him?

Oh, and it was like a kick in the pants to our people up there.

We've got, Mr. President, we've got permanent employees that have been in every one of these major disasters over the last three years and haven't even been home except the weekend, you see.

And if they're working their hearts

There's one other thing I want to mention.

And I'm trying to look at things very coldly and very realistically here in the United States.

As far as I'm concerned, ever since I've been down here, I have progressively lost status.

And I have reached the conclusion as a result of experience

such as this development, and they're simply illiterate.

And let me deal with this and show you how garbled the organization structure is.

My understanding is that either, I don't know if it's Ken or

swings his way around, Albert Helms, who says he represents the White House and orders people to give him stuff.

And he's the one that submitted reports here indicating we had some real problems in the housing area.

And the facts are, Mr. President, that my discussions up there, the Corps of Engineers

They don't want the trailers backed up and sitting on empty where they can't be used because that would put them on the spot.

So we would try and coordinate that.

But this guy goes up there and sends back reports.

And then the Washington Star article appears all of a sudden.

Then I'm called at noon on Monday, told that you're going to issue a statement at 3 o'clock telling me to go up there.

Anyway, I didn't actually get the statement until after the announcement we made.

Now, Cole did call me and ask me after I got the statement, but this was after the announcement that I was directed to go up there and directed to get into this question of red tape and bureaucratic hacking, the implication being that we perhaps were guilty of something.

But I got a copy of the statement.

I didn't want to release the statement because as far as I was concerned, it was a direct slap of me and the president directing me the first time I know it's happened publicly to go up there and get into something with the implications being that our department done a hell of a job.

So I said, no, I'm not going to release the statement.

If it's going to be released, you release it over there.

Well, it was released.

But in any event, Mr. President, let me go to the heart of the matter.

The heart of the matter is this.

If there was, if George Romney had any effective participation in policymaking and operation decisions with respect to his area of activity, I would have been called, I would have been asked what the situation was before they made a decision to have the president issue a statement directing me to go up there.

That doesn't happen.

And I'm not dealing with

that I have to deal with, and I've had it clear up to here, and I have no effective voice in the policy areas or the operational areas related to my own department.

Now, let me go back a little bit.

I've mentioned him.

This all originates with some guy up in,

reports in here, and then I get in front of the director.

Now, let me go back to the very early stages here, because I want, I don't like to, I don't want to, not necessarily, but I want you to know why I have reached certain conclusions.

One of the first differences I had

with my activities which on one hand persuaded you without saying anything to me that we ought to announce we were going to clean up this and rebuild the riot areas.

We had quite a battle in the cabinet committee about it.

And I was opposed to it because I said the mayor's going to decide whether that gets done and we don't have control over it.

And I was only directed to do it, to Moynihan telling me that you told him to tell me that it was so we announced it.

So now the reporters still aren't cleaned up in some cases

the mayor just hadn't done it.

But I've gone from that situation to the Helm situation where I now get such, I get these decisions being made by people way down the line with respect to, and I have no affecting voice now with respect to policies outside my department or operational decisions, and I don't even feel I have any there.

So,

I come back to what I discussed with you earlier, namely that as I analyze the nation's situation, I'm convinced that even in this election there are certain issues that would not be dealt with.

This campaign, I think one issue that will not be dealt with

an approach that involves imposing the effort to eliminate discrimination by requiring the children to do it rather than the housing approach, which makes the adults step up to it.

I don't disagree on this busing thing because I've been opposed to massing busing.

I took a position in opposition to massing busing way back in 1964.

But in any event, I think that's going to be neglected, and I think that

concentration of private power in the price area and the wage area is going to be neglected, not dealt with.

Now, I had hoped that these problems might be dealt with in the second period.

And let me lay it right on the line, because I'm not now hopeful of that.

I'll tell you why.

As far as the central city is concerned, versus the suburbs.

While I was for revolution, after all, I've been for

I headed up the Governor's Committee on Revenue Sharing beginning in 1965.

It's been a two-year study.

But one reason this real city problem will be dealt with, that is the problem of the central city, which is the suburbs, Mr. President, which is that pattern of balkanization that I mentioned before, where the suburbs, through their zoning, through their building codes, through their properties,

as long as that pattern continues.

And the reason revenue sharing will set back the solution is that it's gonna give the central cities a little money for a little while, a little bit.

It won't require them to face the problem, facing the problem, do something about it, or the suburb.

It simply postpones action.

In the economic area,

with the economy under some degree of control now, and with recognition of the need for fiscal management and monetary management.

But without, as I see it, a real prospect of dealing with this excess, this abuse of private power,

Schultz is opposed to it.

Schultz and I have battled this ever since I've been down.

Schultz says that it's just fiscal and budget.

Now, they have to be a part of it.

They have to be a part of it.

I just question, even though you may want to deal with some of these things, unless there's public understanding, unless there's public support, you can't do it.

And I recognize that.

And I'm not critical when I say these things to you or anyone else, but I just know that you can't do more than what you're saying.

There's public support in the politics, I would say.

And I know you've done what you could.

I have no question about that.

And you've shown great leadership.

But my concern is that time's running out on some of you.

time running out on me.

Two, you see.

Now, I've really reached the conclusion that I ought to resign.

I ought to get out.

I ought to do it now.

And I'd like to exit with the least negative impact on the campaign and on the results of the campaign.

And

And I have no plan to do anything other than in a private capacity to support your re-election.

I think I can be more effective probably in a private capacity supporting your re-election than if I'm still a member of your team.

That's right.

In other words, I'm not the one that's going to be caught up.

he said that he could do a lot more outside of this.

That's right.

And I think that I don't think anyone else is qualified to do what it's possible to do than you.

What about your organization?

Well, I thought this.

I would explore that during this period.

I wasn't saying anything about other direct attention.

Let me say one other

I'd like to do this gracefully, and I have no plan to discuss team experience here.

I'll try to be a loyal member of the team.

Some of the fellows around here think if anyone does anything they don't agree with, they ought to immediately start out to cut them down and price another one.

Now this happened to Berger.

was I had to defend myself and fight.

But in any event, let me, here's a letter that I've prepared on the basis that I've made a decision

more of a contribution to the private capacity and that I want to do what I can.

Well, let me see.

I just assume I get immediate.

Or what I do is come back in time, back in time, and I want to do what I can.

The way Georgia got us here, I realize you've been concerned about race policy.

I think also you would agree that certainly on our economic policy that you contributed a lot to that.

Well, our back aren't at all.

No, but I mean our August 15th program.

That's right.

It's worked out well to our great surprise.

My great surprise, actually.

in the sense that we got more discipline basically from the country than I expected except the way we got this thing done.

But let me say this.

It concerned me because even when that was adopted, I think it was necessary action.

I happen to think it was necessary because we didn't do that wage price thing earlier.

But in any event, we're not doing anything now to see what we have to be better at getting it done.

I don't disagree with that.

If people wonder why we had to turn around on that bill of transportation, hell, it had nothing to do with the teachers.

I met with the legislative guys down

that a thing like this should be handled in a way that it does not appear as it would

it's interpreted that way I think that would be part of the administration.

I don't think it would be particularly helpful to you either in those terms except that you're well I disagree with one looks for a because I went up there and I was mistreated and so forth and so on.

I think on the other hand let me put it this way I think

But I think that it would be, I think it's very much in our mutual interest that we consider

My own view is that you should consider it in terms of, if you were to move right now, you'd say, oh, I'm forthwith, and it's bad, and so forth.

I think it inevitably would be, whatever would come in would inevitably be, well, we had a blow-up about this, because that's been terribly written about.

I just don't think that, if, on the other hand,

we, as a result of your going up there, we set up a cartel to choose a czar, and we get Scranton hoping to do something to finish that off.

And then, if you feel that way, right after our convention, then you could indicate your desire to be active in another way or something that sort of thing.

It would give us the time.

because I want to be sure that we did our very best

So that's the way I would say it.

My other feeling is that I respect your wishes on it.

What have I indicated as a result of this, these recommendations?

Yeah, because I understood from Ken Cole that there was a desire to have this covered following, if you hear anybody with the press.

Yeah, and to indicate that we supply a recommendation and indicate that I'm going to undertake to help get out that sort of,

John, I really wanted you in doing it, but you and I have had several discussions over the last five or six months, as we have, about my long-range future, and that I have decided that I can make a greater contribution, long-range in a private capacity than in a public capacity, and at the mutually agreeable time here in the near future, I expect

My own view is that it would be much better if you were to handle this on this basis and then within a reasonable time.

I think he's the man, just from what I've heard.

That having been accomplished, then you could indicate that we've had our discussions on this.

You feel that you have made the contribution, and you feel that your greater contribution now could be made to the country.

I don't think that would be very helpful.

You wouldn't?

I just don't think it would be very helpful.

Well, it's not just the post-barrier matter.

As a matter of fact, I have been disappointed.

Look, I have been basically disappointed in this Diane

no use of it in an effective way.

I've registered this, and so on.

I guess to reach the conclusion that I pointed out in there, I have a meaningful role in policy or operational matters in the Inspector General Department.

I...

Yes, I am not frank.

I understand.

My concern, frankly, is the way that it's interpreted.

And I think that everything that you say could be accomplished.

And I don't mean it as the way or the amount of time.

Well, I guess we'll do it.

So it was related to operations.

That's actually kind of good.

I have plans for the private sector, which frankly is related to public service.

That's what I might say, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

Do you discuss that with them?

I have nothing to announce now.

postage.

We set up what this fellow Gardner did very irresponsible.

You set up the opposite number.

As a matter of fact, I'm an explorer with Gardner.