Conversation 794-002

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Well, that's the easiest.

Take a picture of us moving out.

All right.

Thank you.

That's Bridget's here.

We don't have Bridget's in this county.

It should have been her.

Yeah.

Would it be a good thing?

Or would it?

Oh, you don't know.

I think in the long run, it wouldn't be such a good thing, because it congregates more power than one union.

But to the standpoint of their disputes, a lot of their problems result from the conflicting jurisdiction of the two unions.

In that sense, it would solve a lot of their problems.

Well, I'm very broke.

I'd like a chance to turn around and figure out possible subjects for discussion.

I have a mind of my own.

I'd like to get the rest of you to talk a little about what our line can be on what is said and done, and what's much done, and what we're going to say in the next four weeks.

If we do the right thing after this.

If we only do the right thing.

So who would like to?

I don't want to talk about it, but I've got to talk about it.

I've got to talk about it.

So it's your view that we should wait a while.

If we can't, yes.

Preventing the overriding.

So it's your view that we should not leave until Wednesday.

Let's get that message out.

I mean, the message comes quick.

I don't know if we're looking longer than that, but I sent it over.

I'll revise that one now.

When we were at Camp David, you said you wanted a special one, so I sent one in.

No, it may just be longer.

I just want it.

It's strong, so I'll take it.

I'll make sure you do longer.

I sent one in, by the way.

Well, I sent one in.

I don't know if it's coming up, but it started on the path, so it's longer.

Oh, fine, fine.

Let me take a look at it first, and I'll tell you what I think about it.

It's the biggest veto.

It's the one that's supposed to follow through.

It's something we're all for.

It's $24 billion over three years, so what the hell has it got to be against you?

I don't know.

What?

I don't know.

that it's not, it's 24.

And again, I can make a point that a third part of it isn't going to get any more clean water.

It's simply reimbursing cities, which is work they did in some cases 10 years ago.

So it's going to be like, you know, it's not at all, you know, cities before and so forth.

Anyway, it's done.

Good.

It's done good.

I know that it got overwritten on the railroad.

On the railroad, you know, my persistent feeling that it doesn't get overwritten.

It was forced against us.

Many don't know it, but we'll have to ask more.

We've got a week to do that.

At the moment, nothing.

They've got about four or five still to go.

They've got a second HEW appropriation bill.

It's 868 million over.

There will be others.

We can't fund HEWs to have that fire all the time.

But generally, Saturday, you'll be able to get these things without being overwritten, which is the best way to do it.

What is the status of the continuous resolution?

They've got just one at the moment through October 15th.

They don't have, they don't know whether they'll end up with any bills, appropriation bills, but another one has started that will run through December 31st.

December 31st?

No.

Yeah, it may be back here a bit off, but.

I think that's a good thing.

But it isn't moving at all.

Well, we do our best, you know.

And the only one that I didn't have any, that I have, you know, the problem with the cancer, as I told you, is veterans.

Yeah.

I've been trying to work that undercut for some reason.

Yes.

That's education.

Basically, most of it is education for the non-veterans.

And that's what I'm looking for.

I can't flush it.

You will get it from President Crowley that another supplemental thing is completely within the budget and stuff we announced in January, and they're just now resolved.

So while it looks like a big number, I made the point in the transmittal letter that it doesn't add anything.

As a matter of fact, we're a million under on higher education.

Higher education.

Five million.

What does one need to do?

Well, .

All right.

You're recognized.

Well, one of my to try to direct our attention to the probability of being drafted when I was settled and what has to be done.

Then, in a sense, .

Is there another problem left by previous ?

I say one more thing.

We get a lot of questions these days as to what our plans are for the election in terms of the four years and so forth.

I think you, gentlemen, should say that we're busy, you know, we're, you know, discussing that as just a subject.

Except where I have to make speeches or something like that.

But if they want to say, well, the grant and the schemes, the grant and the plans and so forth, don't get at it.

Why is it, it's like they'll say, who's gonna be in the next administration?

I won't say.

The moment you do that, the first you're educated, there's a place to see about the election and the chance and so forth.

But, why I wanna make to you is this, and I know this will be something important to your staffs.

It may affect, in your case, our timing a little bit.

I do not intend, and that's why the other things

I think that will be probably the most important month of the next four years.

What we want to do then is really to sit down and get our planning done with regard to the budget, with regard to, well, that says it all.

With regard to the budget, with regard to what the initiatives are,

kind of do a lot of that at Camp David, where we have sessions and bring everybody up so we can sit around and really do something that, which I think has never been done in an administration.

I don't think it was done in the arts line.

It certainly wasn't done in the arts line, where the top people who are going to have responsibility take about a month.

the inaugural State of the Union and so forth and say, now what the hell are we going to say here that's new?

And then what we say determines what we do.

So what I like is the long-term plan that you have here.

I would like for you to do it within the council and talk a bit about it, but I want to talk about the outside of it.

And in your case, Arthur, of course you have to have it in different states, but I would say I wouldn't plan for a lot of it.

It's a good idea.

You know what?

I've already spoken at home about it.

I've heard it from some of those people.

And we broke a lot of China.

We had a lot of bad trips on it.

I told Henry, he can't take any trip either.

I don't think I can, perhaps.

That's right.

Well, if we could sit down, like I said,

We don't know.

It's going to be a terrible problem because the Europeans all want to have meat right away.

I don't know.

But I heard that early in December.

It's the other friend.

See, immediately after the election, there were also, again, which, unfortunately, I don't want to participate in, but this will be announced in the next few weeks, the second phase of our control talks will begin.

In fact, the second, that's based in Salt.

And they added

The European Security Conference talks, the preliminary talks, we'll be getting those answered in the Senate.

That way, you know, it's going to be before the election.

So we can get our allies all lined up and be a party in January.

All those things will move in their normal pace.

So we'll have a lot of action.

But what I want to do is to get my team in the domestic thing right then, so that we do not get dragged into

We have to say, now we've got to have something new to say, and stay in the argument, stay in the argument.

How are we going to spend more money?

We can't find out how we spend less.

I have to call for a program, too.

I have a bulletin call.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, what would be helpful to me is that all of you, who are between now and more or excuse me, it's over, so I'm going to do some thinking.

How do you think it ought to come out?

What do you think we ought to be?

See, the whole, the thinking that I have is quite different.

When we came in in 69, everybody thought, and it's everything.

And it's everything.

Jesus, we've got to think of something new.

We've got to think of something new.

We've got to offer something great.

We've got to give to people.

People want to do something.

We've got to have progress.

We've got to have action.

What is progress?

It's just some of the things we've offered.

But the point is that I don't mean it just because they're turning the clock back.

And also, I don't mean sitting on our butts and doing nothing.

Back to normalcy.

What I am saying is that we ought to take that State of the Union 1972 message.

All the stuff that we have on the plate.

Revenue Sheriff's Day.

All that jazz music.

We've got to say, all right, let's flip over.

What parts of this deserve to survive?

What parts deserve not to survive?

What, if anything, should be done for the future?

For example, now we've got to take a look.

What are we going to do about energy?

Now, you notice the networks, the media, the finance government, energy, that will probably be there next week.

They've been through longer and longer in the environment, longer in energy.

This is the first one where you need something.

I mean, it should scare the hell out of you.

What are we going to do about energy?

Some of these other problems.

What the hell are we going to do with these patrols?

We die.

We've got to keep them on forever.

Or just half forever.

Or where do we go?

It's easier than I said.

I think if we could...

There will be a period of a month after the election.

Everybody will be buggered the hell out of us to say, what are you going to do?

We're going to flip back.

We're going to let the back of the election go.

We will decide, and then we'll see.

That's my scheme.

But don't talk about it.

Fair enough?

Anybody disagree?

You see, otherwise you'll come out of an election and everybody that know it, people will go out, they'll talk to this house and that commentator and the rest of us.

It is expected that it can be, or it can be said from the highest source that

I guess the main thing that I have to say that we've been trying to deal with the consequences of the economic mismanagement since we've been here.

Maybe we're finally working our way out of that.

Now we have a positive problem of how do we

generate some assurance that we can go through that all again, and we don't have another flood or spurt of economic mismanagement ahead.

Up to this moment, our main contribution to this problem is the $250 billion manager's figure.

But that is a stopgap.

It doesn't last forever.

We could get it.

And so I'm trying to raise the question of how to get better fiscal management.

Let me say this.

Don, you take that.

Now let's speak to that.

As you noticed, I very carefully, if you read the paper, I very carefully played that Congress good in terms of saying, you know, I'm a proud member of the Congress and I don't like it, but they're just caught in a huge damn octopus procedure that destroys them.

And crazy mills and all the rest of it is really not so relevant.

Some of them do.

But the procedures of this Congress, that is the reason we're not getting government reorganization.

That's the reason we're not getting special revenue sharing.

That's the reason the Senate goes all wild.

It is true.

Congress has now had these special interest committees, and each one says, my God, here's the problem with health, here's the problem with hunger, here's the problem with the city, here's the problem with the black, here's the problem with the white.

We've got to spend this, this, this, this, this, this.

And you would if that's all you had to do.

But nobody sits there at the top and says, we can't go any further than that, right?

That's what our job is.

So it rolls down here.

So when the president fights it, you have the partisan fight about it.

Does the Joint Economic Committee do this?

It's supposed to, isn't it?

Well, in the Appropriations Committee, there's George Mann, but there's the new committee in the spending ceiling bill that's specifically in charge of doing it, and I talk about it.

How many?

Yeah, a great list of them.

I've got an idea.

There are a number of, there are not as many as there should be talking to each other.

It's true.

If Wilson had died, if they had any control, I would like to hear if they have any control.

But if, in some way, the Republicans had picked a few more good candidates, assuming present trends at even half their present magnitude, we'd be sitting here talking about how do we

Take the members of the House.

God damn it.

They shouldn't have anybody running for the House this year for the first time who's over 45 years of age.

Nobody.

Because in the House, you don't even know where the bathroom is, unless you're lucky if that was done with good pay and so forth, until about 20 years.

good, ballsy candidates are often enough.

That's the point.

On the other hand, there are some good ones.

Do you remember the La Follette when Roman built the city of Chicago when you were just a kid?

I remember.

And I remember that that made young Bob La Follette and Mike La Follette.

They lived on that for years.

Bob La Follette committed suicide and Mike until he was defeated.

And the point is, if I were a young

candidate for the House of Senate, and one would be for something other than just being for the president and so forth, which is basically a passing position.

Why not come out?

Let's reorganize this damn Congress.

Point out how much time the Congress has taken on.

Point out how much time, how they have, in other words, make the point that they have not come true on dealing with the problems and priorities.

They haven't dealt with the problems.

Because Congress needs reorganization and I'm going to go in there and fight for reorganizing this damn Congress.

Now that isn't going to send audiences to Ohio.

But on the other hand, a few young bucks could really go to town on this.

Maybe you've got some guys down there.

Well I led the Congressional reforms like that.

is an excellent man, I see it in my note piece, but if you could get, if you could get a group of them, I don't know, pick up a couple senators, but give them a, get them in and charge them up with something.

Reorganization of this Congress, because this, it's disgusting, it's really disgusting and discouraging to see this month.

The House doesn't reasonably well because of its ironclad rules, but the Senate is a dead disaster area.

I mean, a person could be a tiny billionaire, he

considering what they had done in economic matters.

But she hadn't done it.

God damn, it's terrible what they've done.

I mean, these bills that they come down here, these huge amounts, they know damn well that we can't take them.

They know that they're going to go through this.

So they screw her up.

They've got to do something about their organization.

That's all there is to it.

One other point I'll make while I'm on the subject.

I was reading the other night

The reason was that the Irish War Minister, this is a highly clear way of all this, was that his epitome of mine, the Irish War Minister, was that we were, he was talking about how you were in time to read,

I had clipped out, sent you all copies of it.

The point about withdrawal and return is, by looking at the political leaders, that's the outposts, which is 40 days, and the Buddhists, three years, and all the rest, coming to the political leaders.

You see a Churchill in the wilderness for 10 years.

You see a de Gaulle out of Harvard for seven or eight

The point is, you see, Nehru was doing his best thinking in prison.

That's when he wrote his books.

Nehru, Gandhi, Adenau, the mayor of a skinny little German village, and then coming back when he was 75 to be the greatest chancellor since Bismarck, and so on down the line.

The point that I make is, the trouble with the man in Congress today is that I'm now prepared for them.

They aren't decent men.

Most of them are honest.

They're not dumb, man.

Damn.

I looked at the records of some of these guys.

You've got five days of capitalism ordered and questioned and you're out of your ears.

So they come down to the Congress and they get so busy taking their constituents to have bean food, soup, and all that sort of thing.

And they get so busy doing things, looking at every little piece of the puzzle.

They never sit back any time.

And look at that great big mosaic in which they're in harm.

Now, God damn it, we've got to get that Congress home in July.

But some of them just might go home and get a different perspective.

They might begin to think.

As a matter of fact, I would like to see the people in government and cabinet officers, for example.

We don't give them enough vacations.

You take a month off, not to go on some damn journey, you know, in order to pick out a bachelor.

Go up in the woods, wherever they like to do, or down to the beach, you take a month.

You'll die in the first week.

In about the second week, you might

But I think we are not getting the creative thinking we could get out of our government, because we're so damn busy doing things.

I go back to the Israeli-Israeli struggle period in British history, which is the most creative in terms of reform.

You read Blake's history, and you read about the fact that the Israeli, of course, didn't have the physique that Gladstone had.

Gladstone was just at this point.

The Israeli, of course, didn't become prime minister.

He would go to Lutheran, which is his country place.

For a month, he didn't do one damn thing.

He'd walk around, he loved to forage, and he'd plant trees, and he'd lay bricks, and see some of his neighbors go down to the village.

Then after a month or six weeks or so, his most creative period is when he invited people in.

He'd get people out of London and so forth.

He'd go to some of the great houses.

By the time January came across,

We came to this very back with no major physically.

But do I live mentally?

Now, the present time in our government, and this is what we've got to look at, the present time in our government, we don't do enough of what we did last August the 15th.

August the 15th was pressure on me.

But we all go out there and we sit around and can't make it.

We're a little bit away from it.

We have a little bit of an edge.

But what we have to do is to get our

out of here and I have three months off.

It's a good idea.

For them, it's a good idea for them.

So that maybe they'll do some thinking.

Maybe they'll get closer to people.

Could you recommend this to them now?

I could.

I've talked to Albert about it.

I have talked to Ford about it.

I've talked to Michael Mansfield about it.

They'll all agree.

But also, I think it ought to be done.

I'm speaking to the administration.

I mean, let's face it.

Where do ideas come from?

Basically, the leadership must come from the administration, it must come from the executive branch, and it must come from the White House.

How is it going to come?

Now, it can come working here, grinding away, and taking a lot of problems forward.

But after you get your schemes, take our family assistance program.

Probably we would have been better advised after we got the scheme, which is the birth of the scheme, which is true.

It was well thought out.

The fact that they had to come to us, that nobody could come, it may not be the best scheme.

Part is after you get it.

We very well might have taken a month to look at it and think about it a little more and then come back.

You see what I'm talking about?

And you take professors.

It's a great thing that a professor gets a sabbatical, right?

What do you do with that sabbatical?

Sure, some of you, you know, I guess, are caught up.

Others have got to make your own book, right?

Maybe you give someone, maybe you travel with them.

But you come back refreshed.

And the old lectures don't look as good as they used to.

Maybe you put in a few new anecdotes or something, or you're a little more creative.

But we all get damn tired of ourselves.

Lawyers are the same.

Take business.

Business at the present time has the required vacation for three weeks, or so forth and so on.

And usually the businessmen do exactly the wrong thing.

They go out and play golf and drink and race hell and come back and have to take a vacation.

I've often pointed out that under the Soviet system, it's interesting, you know, the Russian, the Soviet, and I had a long talk with Goshen.

And he told me, they are required, they are required, they are required to take a month's vacation off in the winter or summer, whichever they might select.

And if they do it in the summer, they take two weeks off.

And they don't do one damn thing with government unless they're even Russian, who's Mr. Dick.

At that point, they're off.

My question is, 64 years to me, purposely, is to physically to keep up with the job, and of course, Madeline, who gets the mark for creativity.

What I would do, if I had the time, is to read books.

Nobody around this damn place reads enough books.

All we do is to read columns.

I mean, I read the columns and the speeches and the news summaries and all the rest, but that's current history, and that's the worst kind of history.

It is absolutely the worst.

What you need to do as an accountant, read some great books.

I had this fellow, Vernon, send me over a book.

Now I get a chance to read the damn things.

But the point is that if you've ever put your nose in a great book, maybe that'll help a bit.

It gets you some perspective.

It gets so that you come back to these problems.

And don't let the problems run you.

You run the problems.

I mean, you look at this economy at the present time.

Herb is absolutely right.

It's not the truth.

It's true of our enemy, domestic and very generally.

We have allowed our soldiers to be prisoners of the problems.

We have just reacted to them, reacted to them, until we seized the Nihilo Rocks in the 1950s.

And I know that's a grave downfall, but we did in some way, we did in all of them.

We seized it.

In the field before us, we have also been bound.

But at least the China Initiative and the Russian Initiative

simply a case that Kissinger and I just sat back, thought about what ought to be done.

And despite Vietnam and all the rest, and Latin America, and Africa, and Europe, and everybody else, Beijing, and Cyprus, and the Mideast, we moved.

And we've got to do that sort of thing domestically.

You find that in the following years.

an article out in 1967.

I've traveled around, that's when I have a luxury of time.

For six months, I've traveled all around the world, four continents.

I've learned a hell of a lot.

If you could learn law from reading the New York Times, it wouldn't be accurate, but you could learn it.

My point is that the travel tended to stimulate, that's my point.

And I really feel, I feel first, just a second, first, they're killing the older people.

Some of them are so old.

But beyond that, even some of the younger ones.

They're running about.

Well, look, you know what happens.

They sit around.

They go to those goddamn cocktail parties.

They drink too much.

They eat too much.

That's what's happened to Albert.

Carl Albert's a decent man.

But the poor volunteers can't take the damn social stuff around here.

Right?

He should be better to get the hell out to Oklahoma and smoke some of that dust.

But you get to

Also, we do the same thing with our company.

We burn them up.

And I don't know, they're in here early, and they're tired, and so forth and so on.

And it's a bad thing for them.

That's another thing I should quote Rob and say.

One of the reasons for much of the family breakups, and a lot of them handle their problems, is because we just drive apart.

What I'm really trying to say is this is a long situation, but we want to go after this all.

Rather than say, oh, thank God the election's over, and now we've got four more years to do something that we want, and 35 states, whatever, and we hope we can win.

And now, we'll all take a nice vacation.

We'll come back fresh on December 15th, and then we'll work like hell on a nice president inaugural with phrases that we'll be a part of.

Then we'll come up with a state of the union with all the same old hackneyed new programs, and then we'll be stuck with the damn things.

That's exactly what we're

John, if you would like, if you could get together a few tigers, I would be glad to meet with them.

It would have to be, like he said, it would have to be in a way that Jerry did not feel he were undercut.

I think he should be told, Jerry, or maybe he should not, I don't know.

But it should be done.

But the house, maybe it's going to be a house mission.

If you've got to get them together, let's get professional.

But if the president tells the Congress, look, it's time for congressional organization, here's what you want to do, that Congress will say, you go straight to hell, right?

I don't know.

Oh, yes.

Well, I have.

In their commission.

Well, the commission.

Yeah.

I should have had that in my speech.

I didn't know that was there.

You know, that's a good possibility.

It's another joint committee, but it's charged with exactly the things you're talking about.

No one has been charged with that for a long time.

Well, the thing I would do with that committee, I mean, I think we should talk about if they have that journey.

They'd be periodically with the president.

Right.

Why not?

Is that what I'm hearing here?

that they just don't want to hear.

But I really, the reorganization of that...

It's got to be very carefully handled because it is something that's purely legislative.

It's not something that you even get to sign or anything else.

It's something that...

It can be done.

What I do would be to... A way to do it, rather than a speech on television or radio, which I don't listen to much, would be to write...

article, or I will write, or a magazine.

Not one with a big circulation.

You might take the New Center Evening Post, for example, where you get all the space in the world and the much circulation there is.

And you need to write something, go over it, and talk about these problems.

There's a way to answer this so we don't have

John Schilling, of course, full awareness of the sensitivity of Congress could wake up some of the authority members of Congress.

There is tremendous interest in this already in Congress.

One thing about it, one thing about it, it will certainly wake up interest in the press.

The press, the media, the political scientists, the rest, you know, that's a glass hole and so on.

They're always, they're always however early in the president.

have a reason to Congress and its partners to pull it the other way.

Right.

They don't want to be.

I think that we do have some problems with this attitude in the management of the budget.

Oh, yes.

And it might make it a little easier for you to say something about the Congress.

If we were ever going to address all this.

That would be right.

Correct.

And then if we do something about it.

I've never been quite fully aware of what are the implications out there for four years.

There's not, and I don't think we can do nearly enough evaluation work.

Here we have these various programs that cost so much.

What the hell are we getting from them?

Yeah.

This is the big thing that even brings people, all of the great societies,

That's where we got it all.

It's the thing we're after.

Well, coming to the most immediate problem, possibly about the control system.

Well, I've never heard one said, you didn't have to do it the way you did.

Yeah, but I have to do it a little longer.

That's my answer.

Well, it reminds me of Stephen Archer at Princeton.

It's always going to be a hard decision to stop us doing this.

You always have a certain

Right, sir.

and they're becoming more and more business and efficiency and business.

And so I think that the fact that we're more about stability is to grasp that and not just keep slicing it off.

Well, I would rather get out of here.

be so shocking and country feel if they are exposed that you would want a certain amount of cosmetic on the way out that you didn't need on the way in.

But I don't think it will stop it.

It's working over a period of time.

But I do think that the whole question of whether you can do it and when you can do it is also tied with the extent to which you're able to get a grip on the

budget now, and also whether you can do a number of other things, which we have talked about during the year, which we felt could not be done, with food prices and the way in which the government itself is working on inflation.

We've said at the same time that we have our gatehouse controls and show more vigor on that side.

We have lots

that would make it easier.

And I guess my main problem is that I don't see how it's going to become easier for us to get out of it if we delay getting out of it.

Do you need in your mind that you would let the economic sterilization act fly?

I think there's a virtue in having that.

I think there's a virtue in having a third-world machine around here to really talk about it out loud.

I think that we can escape a new inflationary spiral to hear how they tell people

a lot of people were knocking down the way he had done.

Five of them had four, possibly four of them had.

And every press commission became in such fashion that people were to get by politically and psychologically.

I don't think you can.

The other point that I would make there, which I like, how much of the

How much of the deceleration of wage demands is a result of pay for it?

And how much of the deceleration is a result of market forces?

I have a feeling, Arthur, that unless the

began to the period before August 15.

It seemed like much, but it's finally developed into a very significant change, and a change in their attitude.

I don't think that's the result of August 15.

I think that's going to happen anyway.

this construction stabilization committee that was established in the old office of the secretary of defense.

That's an interesting example, I think, in that we have basic marks, of course, for such a construction.

told them, but they, sort of like the Congress and the budget, they were on this first.

They were not able to act on this.

The total situation, all they saw that it was getting out of control, and the committee that you were provided a means whereby they could work at something that they knew they had their company grips with.

They didn't know how to do it otherwise.

We'd like to see some kind of committee like that continue for a while.

I don't know how long, but they like the results.

They are getting their hats in order.

They don't have to do it otherwise.

I think, Mr. President, this analysis that

Coster, the young fellow from the Coastal Olympic Council's day, presented to you in the cabinet room last week, or at least the week before.

It's a pretty interesting analysis of how 1973 is really rather different from the two previous bargaining rounds, the start of another bargaining round.

And one of the things that seems to me we

try to do whatever decision is made about the controls as such is to set a climate for bargaining that brings out some of this material and has the effect of impacting people's expectations about why 73 can be looked on as different from 69 or 70 as far as the bargaining demands are concerned and getting

Fox had on that getting intelligent as paper fellows like Ed Dale would be writing about it and so on and see if we can't get that climate to rearrange.

I'm not going to argue for keeping the stand-alone power team, but it's just having them on.

What do you think?

First, let's talk about what we do between now and forever.

What would you say?

I think we would be making a mistake if we followed the polls.

The polls tell us politically that the thing to say is that the government's made a mistake in talking about lifting the controls and going to a general session.

That's Harris, I guess.

Well, most of the polls indicated that people want the controls stricter so the government comes out of it looser.

Therefore, our motivation would be to crack the court.

My feeling is that that closes off options

Sure, after the election, sure.

We don't need that.

We can play it politically to get enough out of it without going that far.

I think we ought to all have a caution about talking about how we're for child control.

And what's his name?

That's an error we can make.

Oh, there's another thing here, too.

There's basically a philosophical problem as far as I'm concerned.

I am for control.

I am not.

the federal government has to take a different position.

But I don't want us to be in the position of being the great controllers of people who tell this great economic complex that we have, oh look here, why don't we make all these damn decisions for you?

So I agree with him for that reason.

And also I do agree with tie your hands because he said we're the controls, we're the rules.

Then we decided in January

I broke your promise, sir.

Because there's going to be, once you remove the controls, which was the case, you may remember, in 1947, I believe, when Jesse Wolcott, you remember, was the congressman of the House, who had the, had some prize, and all hell broke loose for a while.

The prices went up, the rents went up, everything, things, everybody went, you know, the year, everybody said, wasn't that great?

Well, secondly, it seems to me that we can resist pressures to come out with some sort of a new format between now and the election.

I don't think there's any need to announce what's going to happen after the election and in connection with the legislation.

I think that people keep saying, we ought to, but I don't think we have to, and I don't think the pressure is great at all.

So I think that's no problem.

I think our posture is between now and the election should be what it is.

We ought to be strictly enforcing and fairly enforcing

rules as they exist, and we ought not to be sending out signals that there's a lot of change or something like that.

So I think that fits into the earlier concept.

But I think the economy needs a degree of certainty.

And I think that while we've got what we've got, they ought to think that that's what it's going to be.

And now, as far as the future.

Before you get into the future, what are you going to say about food prices between now and then?

That's the only thing.

You're going to keep right on doing what we're

We're just climbing all over every retailers, wholesalers, every piece of that puzzle, trying to wring every dollar we can so that we can keep it down.

It's an incredibly tough problem, short range.

And we just have to show that you care about it and that you're on top.

That's what we're doing.

So we track it weekly one way or another.

The opposition program is fired.

Chuck Rose is very good.

I mean, it's some of the best meat in the whole thing.

Everybody wants to taste their wine.

But the Cheddar Roast, properly prepared, is one of the most flavored in the whole family.

My wife, at the front of the severance, is going to give a speech about how you shop for more affordable foods in the Midwest, and all the way of eating.

So I said, the Cheddar Roast is very good.

I have a cute little story on that proposal.

My wife grew up in a very poor, but proud Spanish family.

They had companies in their house.

And of course, she grew up in Florida.

He said, he was 15 years of age before he realized that the chain, that the chain wasn't the best

For the further future, it seems to me that if the system, it's been a year exactly this week, since October 7th, you announced phase two.

And as I look at it, it seems to me that it's rather clear that this system does not deal with demand for inflation.

It cannot be adapted to deal with it in a responsible way.

The controls have got to be changed.

and things are starting to roll around.

In some cases, the economy is finding ways to sort of bend the controls.

In other cases, they're starting to use it as a crutch, and we're creating a situation that's not in my judgment a good one.

So there have to be substantial changes.

It seems to me that there's two things most in trouble.

And I think this is the greatest opportunity is to jack government and stop doing all the things it's doing to create inflation.

And it's absolutely dishonest almost for me to go out and worry about food prices with respect to the controls when the person who's selling out food prices is you and me and the federal government.

We are causing the problem.

And it seems to me we've got a whale of an opportunity to

get rid of the controls or a major portion thereof at some point by creating a situation where it wouldn't just be nice to do some of these other things, but where we, in fact, have to do them.

I'm thinking of the counterculture policy.

I'm thinking of tariffs, and I'm thinking of growths, and I'm thinking of various pieces of legislation to restrict and add costs to .

There's an opportunity to pose what our options are.

I don't know quite how we're going to do that.

Maybe through some hearings, public hearings, towards the end of the year, maybe in a speech.

But there are a whole series of things that we can do.

Congress and we go on employing, we don't have any procedure in the executive branch of the federal government for you to be assured that when agriculture takes an action, that it's been looked at from the State Department of Education.

It's been looked at from the State Department.

When a bill or an amendment goes through OMB, somebody looks at it.

Now, the CEA does, is able to on occasion, but heard you express frustration about the way they get kicked to the side.

ought to be plugged into all the decisions made around here.

That's a big problem.

They're all over.

They're going to keep the consciousness about agriculture.

They're all over.

That's right.

One of the best ways of doing this, Mr. President, would be in the context of the kinds of reductions that have to be made to have a fiscal policy.

So it wouldn't be just agriculture here.

It's in the interest of preventing inflation for everybody.

But a lot of these special paper programs that Tom has mentioned now have to be either given under sharpening

that without taking quality politically?

I think there's two distinct pieces here.

One is spending programs that affect your fiscal policy as to whether or not it's going to be a pleasure.

The other are legislative enactments that end up in administrative decisions in one department or another that don't cost money.

They're not part of the budget.

But they do, in fact, add cost to consumers.

And the list of them is many steps, too.

have to consider one, or what we can do to illustrate, and second, what we have to have Congress's help to do.

The second part, pardon me, though, to fight the load of agriculture is one hell of a problem.

I think they have to be prepared to do so.

On the other hand, a bloody battle on agriculture must be

I mean, you just can't, you can't justify that.

I mean, and that ought to be, that ought to be grabbed.

I think that one of the comments that are recently gone is that we've got to grab that thing.

I think you should.

You know, cotton is Texas.

My theory of how it could be done is something like this.

You talk about bolding the program.

I mean, it would really be bold to go before the Congress with a substantial number

record of legislative changes.

Now, with that pending in the Congress, it seems to me to affect George's point.

What's the atmosphere in the next year?

What kind of atmosphere is going to exist in terms of people's expectations and perceptions about what's going to happen to inflation?

I think there's a way, and I don't know this for sure, but it strikes me there's a way for you to kind of set the board of Congress

On the other hand, this control, the activation of controls, it seems to me that you can then put yourself in a position of feeling that we've got to move in a direction.

And I don't think you have to bleed or die in any one of those.

I think it's what you have to have is some sort of assurance that we can get a lot of them, even if not all of them, that would make up the house in the Senate

the atmosphere in the country lends itself to that kind of discussion and having it come out very favorable.

I think that a lot of the interest that we've been successful in the old conferences we've received to get in and out of the difficult, very important, but ended up adding on, we just, the search contract bill cost the defense department $35 million.

There's an example of that.

There's just so many of these.

That bill has the prevailing, not the prevailing points.

That bill says whenever you get a collective bargaining contract, the highest of that rate has to be taken from the government service contract.

I don't think that's true.

Well, Labor Department is the only one in Georgia that says it isn't true.

Everybody else says it is.

We've got a difference of opinion to present to you on an enrolled bill report because we've got to lay a counsel from all the other

That is a bill one of many that .

There's never been anyone looking at bills and past property and asking that question.

Does it in fact

They do doubt that.

There's just no question.

They do have all of these Jones Act and all these other things that are so firmly embedded.

But they are some of them you could touch.

Maybe some of them you could never get through.

There are a whole lot.

At least, goodness knows, they're ultimately going to want to do this in two or three years before the 76th election.

It's going to be the time.

The time that you've got sanctions to do that.

It's right out of the box.

Right back to your comments about the month of November.

The difficulty we have here is that there will be, whatever happens, we control this house progressively, because it will be certainly a possibility, a possibility.

And he started that year with the strength of the House and the Senate about the same.

That was in the book, Democratic House and Democratic Senate.

And it is today.

We carry both the House and the Senate.

That was 10 points.

And he said he did it too.

He did it too.

And so we went onto control.

But in 52, we only had 10 points spread, and it was a cakewalk.

And we controlled both the House and Senate.

54 lost its life primarily because of events and defections.

And 56 was a virtual wash, and 58 a debacle because of the recession.

The point that I make is that

by a 45 district.

This year, anybody could win.

There's no way you could lose.

But you see some of our guys, and they haven't put a mark on their name.

And that's the only thing that's a cross.

I'm sure the other guys are worse.

But my fight is, whatever the House and Senate gives,

I don't know anything about how they survive.

They're going to be very, very tough.

Now, that'll be one force.

The other force of the pact is that if we win, we win substantially.

They will want not to be against the president.

And we've got to play that force.

But you see, those were two great forces.

If we were to survive, don't be against anything or for anything, it's going to hurt our health and that's something we're going to have

put yourself in the position of that young house guy, say, New York State, or Connecticut's better.

Connecticut's a swagger.

We might get five out of six out of Connecticut this time, or four out of five.

Where's the Connecticut guy?

What the hell is he going to do with us?

Yeah, so it's really like,

Yeah, but I don't know which way he's going to go.

Is he going to go with the president in this case, or is he going to go with the special officers?

I think he's going to end up being against the older guys in the counties, the older guys who would be against you, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, because they're part of the process that put all those things in there.

I think if the president comes out for a word, they change.

Those people, the bottom two-thirds, you're going to get a majority.

The bottom two-thirds, you're going to have to get votes.

It's tremendous.

The number of new members in the last decade, as of the next election, will be something between 50% and 63%.

And they've all got, as you know, not one ounce of power at all.

Everything is concentrated in the Frank Bowles of the world.

And those guys...

It's a different dollar, too.

And I am a part of it.

That's why I love it.

their educators did a hell of it.

They, if there were some way, and as you talk about how you regard it, I think that there's just some way of giving you some sort of a voice.

I'm very interested in just a point, but that is, if you were in Congress in London, I remember you would have to wait 41 years to reach in with the appropriate people.

Currently, 41 years.

So that's why I say, currently, that would be it.

He likes to sweat.

It's a good point, though.

I have not realized your figure.

The number of people you see is about beneath this iceberg, beneath the water.

My first term, I got a title of 85 because I was in the top half of the senior order.

Six years.

I was second or third on all of them.

Why?

Because we had a reapportionment, a decision by the Supreme Court, which had mid-census reapportionment.

Two, we had Goldwater to block awards.

We had a bunch of them.

But the tragedy is that since we're talking about the Congress and all of this does not seem to be pertinent to the subject, the things that all of you should remember is that Connolly, who was a pretty strict political observer, makes an interesting point, and I think he's right.

He says that the reason that everybody turns to the President now, not only

is that there is no leadership in the Congress.

And no leadership among the governors.

Now, if you look across the country, what governors can you name as being leaders?

Rockefeller, obviously.

Toward the end of his term, though, he's a big man.

A big man and an able man.

And the other end of the spectrum is Reagan.

There's two.

Who the hell else is considered to be an able governor that you can mention the rest of the time?

The other one's an ass, smart ass, but a

All right, there's the other one.

Ogilvy's a good guy, but Ogilvy is, if he survives, he's going to be by his ID.

He's a good governor, though.

He's a decent man.

But in terms of the others, the Michigan governor's a nice fellow, not very strong.

Massachusetts governor is the same.

The Republicans, none of the Southerners really have.

In Texas, they probably have.

Bristol, who is an oil billionaire, followed him from it, but they don't mind down there.

We now come up with a situation with regard to the Congress.

If you look back at the period of our history, you'll remember.

God, we had duty.

We had war.

I haven't seen any.

Did you see the list that Jerry Borg gave me?

I can tell you to send me the 10 best young members of Congress.

Right?

There wasn't a hell of a lot on that.

Anyway, what I'm going to say is the difficulty we have at the present time in the Congress is kind of this.

Let's go back to the leadership.

In the Senate, it's a disaster area.

Mike Mansfield is one of the most decent men and one of the most ineffective leaders we've ever had.

There is no leadership in the Senate.

You have all of Mike.

Russell always smart as hell, and older a lot, and which way he wants to be.

And in terms of the others, when you talk about a responsible leader in the Senate, where do you have to go?

You have the South.

And the South has had it in the Senate.

But the real responsible guys, I mean, Russell is dead.

The real responsible guys.

They have liabilities.

Spiderman, unfortunately, yes, he is.

We've got to keep from the other guy.

But Spiderman is a good man.

Let's take those things.

Here's your Southerners.

Those three fellows.

Eastland, particularly, is a bad civil rights issue.

It has to be.

I'll call it a problem if it is.

That's kind of a problem.

But they cannot leave.

They're not going to have a Southerner.

On our side, in the Senate, I mean, we have well-intentioned people, and they're clever, and they can jab and dart and so forth, but we do not have, basically, we haven't got anybody who's considered to be the kind of heavyweight

me enough, and this is a common side of the question, he did this interestingly enough, and the house is a disaster.

I mean, four hours had it.

It's just a question of hanging on a certain amount of time.

Bob's his next in line.

He is nothing.

Poor fellow has fortunately gotten off the bottle for a while.

He's smart enough and tough enough and the rest of it, but he doesn't have the courage and the fire and everything.

Bill's going to restrict to certain lines and so forth.

He could be everyone, could be speaker, act like a speaker in the traditional way, or he could be a leader.

But who knows what the hell he's going to do.

Maybe that fellow out of Missouri may come on the line.

I don't know.

He's pretty capable.

That guy in Missouri, that's right.

Those leaders go off.

He's headed up.

He's done.

Okay.

All right.

But there's nobody in the House who's a leader.

You've got the Democratic radicals on the left side and the conservatives and the others flopping around.

I mean, Tom...

He could be a leader, but he will never cease it.

Now, he's too old.

Too old.

He's over 70.

Tiger Teague is in the leadership now.

He's got something.

Teague has got a case of all that, but he's on the wrong committee.

The Veterans Committee is a special interest committee.

Teague has got it.

Teague is the kind of man who can be a leader.

He's set up to it.

On our side, and this is kind of the question, the only man in the rich community who's got the whole damn Congress, who's got a bunch of leaders, Ford, Ford could be a leader.

But he has got to step up to some type of decision.

He, for example, he should have stepped up to the Wilson problem.

God damn it, we told him to six years ago.

He ain't going to make it, Mr. President.

Ford is the leader.

Why are we laughing?

We looked high and low earlier in the conference.

We didn't get to do it.

It was the other three people who got the revolt.

It was a process of elimination.

Ford was the only guy who didn't get the votes to do it.

He wasn't the leader then, and he hasn't developed it.

He's a nice guy.

Who could, uh, who?

Well, Mel Black.

He was, he could have done it, but we couldn't have gotten him elected.

Is that true?

I was going to do that.

Who did that?

Where are you going to go now?

Where are you going to go?

You're going to miss a generation.

Well, you see, the problem that you have when you're talking about leadership, it finally gets down to a man.

I mean, there was a time.

That's right.

You talk to Lyndon Johnson.

You talk about old Lyndon Johnson.

He was a hell of a leader.

And so was Taft.

He was a hell of a leader.

I just, after this, we both got some Johnson on his domestic policy and Taft on his foreign policy.

But boy, they led.

When they got up there to speak, I mean, people listened.

They particularly listened when they mentioned the folk group.

What in the hell have you got now?

Can you imagine Mike leading anything?

I have breakfast with him and we enjoy the eggs and talk about China and a few other things.

And he goes down and does what he damn pleases.

But he can't go.

He won't do it.

See, that gets kind of attractive.

Here's, these are the guys, these are the big men in there.

And they seem quite used to being settled.

We don't have, we don't pay them enough.

I think it's worse.

I think by having them retire in 10 years and paying them so much, you're getting poorer than we got before.

Probably right.

I don't know if it's a relationship.

What do you think?

I don't know.

No, I don't think this is a relationship.

All right.

Some of these guys, though, are just staying there for that 10 years of retirement.

Not anybody who looks to retire in 10 years is going to be a real nothing.

He's really going to be a nothing.

You take the whole crew coming up under the floor.

Our guys have turned in that shit.

They're nice people, able.

He's got a rose.

Rose has got the hair.

If he, he's way down in the CBR.

It's got to be bolstered.

I don't know how this thing works.

It requires, I mean, you're talking about Hal.

Hal had his problem.

He drank too much.

There's a lot of other things.

He'll be five times as good as Frank Bowles.

Oh, Frank Bowles.

My great friend, Frank, just... See, he's retired now.

He was an up-and-comer.

He was the guy who was making a lot of money.

Here's where I see it, right underneath.

I saw him turning their tickets about

And yet you look at Adenauer, and Gall, and frankly Eisenhower, who kept his smart voice despite the stroke right from the time he died.

He never went out of that hospital.

He was still sharp as a tag.

But anyway, Adenauer, Gall, Churchill, who despite his stroke was still pretty good at the end, and Yoshida, I think of a number around, Shantoshe, Zhou Enlai.

These guys never grow up.

Some do.

But the trouble with other guys, there's something about the system down there.

I don't know.

What is it?

The booze?

Or what?

Is it the...

I shouldn't blame it on the booze, but... Or is it the system?

Is it the fact that they just really can't do anything?

That they're just... As you said, turning their chips.

Oh, I'll just go along.

Is that what happens to me?

They just turn their chips.

And part of it is the fact that the...

executive branch successively makes a decision that they've got to deal with what is, and what is, is the leadership.

Therefore, the remainder of them are cut off from access to anything that has anything to do with the world, with the government, and what's happening in life.

Another thing, if you want to remember, too, is that we have one hell of a time.

You think Jerry Porter, that's right, would ever be free for us to meet with each other, guys.

They will allow it.

Of course not.

That's the only thing.

I had another senator from the Republican side.

And the result of it is that we feed the very nature of change.

Yeah.

We tried.

When you came in, you asked me to work with it.

It lasted about six weeks.

And I remember I just felt, no, we just cannot mess around around your reports back.

Or Durson.

We'll have a difference.

And we stopped doing that.

Who will be in the event that they happen?

awful lot of people in the House.

Or awful lot of people in the House.

I don't know what you mean.

But nevertheless, who will be the majority leader?

Or at least get their money?

Probably.

I don't see how they could.

But who the hell will be the majority leader?

Johnny Anderson.

Who else?

He's a smart fellow.

He's able.

He's very able.

We've got to get him.

The nurse is a hawk.

Of course, that's true, isn't it?

He's going to be a good leader of the house.

He's going to be the president's man.

He's going to be a leader.

He's going to have his own independent piece of power.

That's the definition of Dr. Rose.

Rose will go for it.

Rose will try and not make it.

He won't make it.

He's not certain he's going to try.

Unless he's retired.

He would have been strong.

He's saying, if I take another crack at it,

That may not be all that remote a possibility.

There may be a lot less independent voting for House members than for Senate members, and it might be well to have a candidate or a slip for vote.

It might just happen.

If it happens, things will move awfully fast, and maybe we ought to have some sort of prepared lens.

Is it possible for any of the council to check that out?

Sure.

It's possible.

They've got to get going, that's right.

They've got to get going.

I don't think any job is speaker.

Now, speaker has got to be, but speaker isn't, you see, speaker isn't necessarily, speaker can preside over and run, normally he runs it.

But on the other hand, I have known times when majority leaders have had one hell of a lot of, well, let's put it this way, when Martin was speaker, how that was a hell of

But if you had a hell of a strong majority leader, I mean, that would be something.

And a good, strong whip, right?

Good, strong majority leaders could be strengthened, but could close away those relationships.

All the bones had a passion trouble with Chuck Rose.

He had to get the bones out.

Did you find out anything?

No, I haven't discussed it with him.

All right.

Well, they need both of them.

If you can't use it, you've got to use it.

Oh, boy.

That's really not weird.

Well, we'll see you later.

Thank you very much.

You've seen Mr. Crane out there.

All right.