Conversation 827-022

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He's a good writer.

I saw a look at his piece.

He's got a thoughtful style.

He does an excellent job.

And that's far more important than having been in New York.

Yes, sir.

Or the Washington Post.

See what I mean?

No.

Burroughs was pleased about that.

You know, the session in here.

He was doing phenomenal.

So, but...

Yeah, good.

Well, if you don't mind if you take some of them out, I'll share them with others if you like.

All right.

I want to know, you're not going to borrow anything, are you?

No.

I want to check, because they've heard it before, I see.

No, we're in a good state.

We were just talking about something.

You left, and I said I'd finish it later.

What the hell was it?

It must not have been important.

I don't know.

I just think we're just...

I don't want to have anything kept.

I think there's, I don't know if you've got to run something, but we've got a good enough staff around here.

If something comes up, we'll move in.

That's right.

You've got Colson in this bunch.

He's still here.

Colson's here.

We've got our base crew here.

Any of us can get back here if we need to in short order.

It's a revolt.

But a short-haul, there's not going to be any better time.

Because once Congress gets back, we've got to keep it, and we've got to do our best in the first three or four places.

It's a short-haul.

Better than anything that happened.

It has to be an on-screen vote.

We would have attended an awful amount of marvelous time and so forth and so on.

But it was what we did.

That's right.

So you've got to take up another play in a very interesting way.

You know, with Chew's attitude, it's good that it wasn't too bad.

Because, you know, without our good enough whack, and then making a second deal without Chew,

you have a greater problem of selling the piece with honor than you do this way.

You understand?

That's why now you've got all the groundwork laid for

Get her a cell phone.

You've got to leave her a cell phone now.

They couldn't have done it before.

The last mile of incense.

Where am I going to put this?

Oh, we're going to put a cell phone.

Collapse.

Oh boy, collapse is nuts.

We've got to make it stronger.

Buchanan says a golden opportunity has presented itself to the president, the administration, and Buchanan.

Each year the Girard Company at Pennsylvania Bank puts out a book of some 12,000 words written by a famous personage to his own specifications about a subject consuming national interest.

James Michener's done one, Barbara Ward another.

This year they're asking Buchanan to write such a book about the Nixon administration's first four years and no editorial judgment to be exercised on their part.

Opportunity is unexampled in terms of providing philosophical foundation to the president's policies and decisions, to the Nixon Doctrine, Vietnam, China, Soviet Union, the new court-seeking bureaucracy, the new American majority in politics, etc.

Putting out the book, they will use Dolly Atkins' photographs of the president during the past four years.

The defendant touched on any of the arguments.

This would require three straight weeks of Buchanan's effort, mostly writing and rewriting material from his own shop.

I found part of the somewhat controversial document point out some of the new directions Mr. President's headed, meaning on the Horner interview, making a case for administrative decisions, past and future, especially in those areas where I am most enthusiastic, meaning biased to him, but which would be good.

Aye.

Good, that'd be good.

Recent weeks, presidents urged a number of lines to be moved or other lines knocked down.

This is the place to do it.

A controversial vote that they sent out to 30,000 people and wish experts could be taken would be precisely the kind of defense I had in mind in the second term.

Right.

Not just pro-administration, but the material should not be the official White House position.

It's the best things we want.

Good.

Maybe yes or no, unless the one's coming for sure.

Good.

Just a second, I want to prove to the commissioner what we can do.

You know, it's nicely bound, right?

Right.

Good.

Well, let's start it.

Turn it.

He kind of wants to do it.

I know.

Well, it's a big deal for him to be put in with Barbara Tuckman and James Minchin.

I hope so.

They have a guidance.

Now, you see, you've got to do it when you can.

You've got to do it when you can.

You never get to God and everything.

You couldn't do it anyway.

You'd have to go back over it.

Because he would present you softer than you want to be presented.

You can't present you harder than you want to be presented.

Which is good because you have no ideologue.

His bias is clear.

That'd be a hell of a thing.

I'm all for it.

They belong to the shark people.

Don't worry about those in the press.

Don't worry about that TV.

I like to get that across, you know, because it's a silly thing that if I did and all of it, rather than making decisions when he's answering and he does this or that or the other thing, there are many things that are true that they say about us.

Not that, but that is, that is over.

I raise hell of people, but I do not make decisions except cruelly.

Very cruelly.

Most of the decisions made in here in your four years have probably been

maybe to their detriment in some cases, more carefully thought out, analyzed, and counterbalanced than has ever happened in this place.

There's been a million made by the Secretary of the Secretary of the Secretary of the Secretary of the Secretary of the Secretary of the

Well, you know, I can probably give this a self-serving second, but perhaps it might help.

Others won't use it otherwise, you see, if they don't.

Right.

Well, I think you've got it.

I say it myself, but I don't know why they use it.

Who uses it?

I think... Huh?

Yeah, he won't have any trouble.

Yeah, he's nice folks.

Well, you've got to decide before 30 years, don't you?

Well, we have the weight and price control system.

I was certainly glad to see all those labor guys in there.

They had Fitz in the same room.

You know, you had the greatest labor power in that room for a hell of a long time.

Abel, Fitz, Meany, Hall.

And then, of course, you had the representative from the outworkers.

Yeah, well, Bill and Craig.

It was a really powerful room.

And it was a terrific discussion.

Did they have a good talk?

Very cooperative.

I deliberately did not want to get involved with them because I hadn't been involved with the business people.

Oh, no, I just decided to get in and out.

They at least got the message that the door was open here.

They sure did.

And not just to Brandon, you see.

They understood.

They still come in here.

They didn't know that.

No, I thought that went well.

And you...

managed to let them know that you had dropped in on them and you hadn't dropped in on the business meeting and that gave them a little bit of a clip.

It wasn't on my agenda, but I heard you were talking about personnel things.

I got a message, which I don't know how to interpret just before I came over here, from Jim Schlesinger.

that he thinks that David's problems can be solved and that it's important to keep David.

He is not all that confident about the lady over there.

I don't know where that stands at this point, but I report to you David's competitive mind.

The readings on the lady are...

Well, as I say, I don't know how to interpret this He was told that we couldn't

give a commitment to have the Energy R&D and the Atomic Energy Commission, even though they have the best people in terms of their... Well, that's part of the slug of it, but we can't give it all to them.

I said, well, I can tell we've got NASA, for example.

Remember, we have a whole lot of... Not only NASA, but we've got all these other departmental...

Interior ones, for Christ's sakes.

Well, it isn't going to make it in the road, it's the R&D.

But anyway, he's been told he can't have that, so Schlesinger must be coming back within that framework.

But if it's like they are today because Ervin is so deeply involved in this, you better have Schlesinger and Ervin talking on the phone to get back to David.

Right?

Where are you from?

California.

That's not bad.

I can go back to David within the framework of what Erlichman and I have thought.

How are they about it?

David will be the first last guy.

As a matter of fact, I thought he would take NASA, which I think would be a real, really a great thing for him, but apparently they won't let you there.

But David ought to take this.

I mean, this is a, AEC is going to be an operational job rather than just sitting around here with a bunch of goddamn scientists that come in and give advice.

It's not good.

So, well, to the extent that he likes that role, we told him that he could continue to be the fellow that received their advice.

Sure, sure.

I would love to have you see him.

Somebody's got to talk to him.

He'd be great.

I'm making an international science foundation.

Well, I don't think it's a good idea.

If I can, if I can, I'll go back to David.

He's up in charge.

David ought to take an operational job.

He seems to have a big job.

How much of the science is he going to get?

What time is it?

I think the darkness is wide open, but the point is we don't want to say, we just aren't going to have this fight between these various departments about where everything goes, because we've got to keep that here, you know what I mean, like on this institution.

You know, the Interior Secretary, even whatever is already there, he set a plan for, they want to do the whole thing.

They aren't going to be able to do it.

The state wants to do it.

And AEC, whether I can address it, it has to be operated out of here in 25.

Now, my answer to that, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the best option to do it.

I really wouldn't be.

But they may have a special view that runs contrary to what

but they might maybe they haven't maybe they don't pay enough attention to the oil to the shale or the coal gas thing or to the or the canadian stuff or the russian deal or you see what i mean i think that's the kind of thing that you know the first you were more wrong because they have to do with r d and uh but

It would seem to me, without knowing too much about it, that's very much in the ballpark that they would have a major chunk of it.

But we just don't want to say that we're just not going to start parceling that thing out yet.

But he is, you could say this, he's an inside man.

He's an inside man.

David's an inside man.

We rely on him.

Okay, well, I'll go back.

Make the sale if they can.

That's all right.

So I can keep you.

Excellent.

President, I had several things that I wanted to just sort of touch base with you on to be sure that I'm moving on the right wavelength because these things are all moving along pretty fast and I don't want to be out of line.

First of all, on the wage price business, we are consulting widely.

We are finding

that moods are changing and that people are, when confronted with it, getting nervous about too long a period of wage and price controls.

And they are telling us that

Sure, they've got to be continued, but us do some things that make it clear they're temporary and they aren't going to last forever, and the President always said that, and we hope he still thinks so.

In other words, us having come out and said, by gosh, we're still going to hold on, has created a reaction that's very good from our standpoint, I think, for the sort of thing that we talked about.

Now, later,

They will go toward the following, I'm sure.

A strong effort on food, which we organized.

This is a continuation of the construction industry business in the state line.

organization of something that keeps a hold of state and local government wages, which everybody agrees is important, and a strong effort in the field of medical costs, which we think should be done.

All those things were in the memo, and we are stepping up the food area, as you directed that we should.

Beyond that, I think labor will be willing to take part in an advisory committee to the cost of living council, and will be willing to endorse a continuation of the 5.5% wage gap.

Now that would be a triumph because prices have not been all that good lately, and we're going to have a bad food rating again.

uh friday when that comes out at food prices are just going crazy so if we can get that and i think we can that would be a good result it would in this concept it would free a lot of the economy although it would leave it with some standards and us with authority to move into particular situations

with this kind of an umbrella of agreement by the labor people that the standard is reasonable and so our actions in administering it would have that blessing.

Now that's the track we're roaring down.

We've been consulting with Congress

all kinds of people.

You said that you wanted to have this all done by the end of the year and get it out of the way before the January messages and so forth start.

No, that's...

It's a good date, but if it's not the right date, does it make any difference?

When do you think it should be done?

Well, I've been, I've been, you were talking, I thought you were, in order to get to meet that, I thought you were talking about doing it between Christmas and New Year's.

Right, that's what I thought.

But let me say this, George.

Don't hurry the damn thing up.

We need a little more time to take it.

I mean, do we go the first week?

Congress is back.

Okay.

Well, we have been... We need a little more time to take it.

We've been consulting with the congressional people

with twos and threes and ones, I suppose what they would like, and I don't know whether you would even want to do this from a physical standpoint, is another one of these meetings in the cabinet room where they sit around and talk about it, and you would have to be there for that kind of a meeting all the way, and hear what they have to say, and we'd brief and discuss back and forth.

and then after that decided to do it.

Well, I understand that there's a possibility for that on January 5th.

It would meet your schedule on how we move then.

Otherwise, we would... That would be a pretty bipartisan meeting.

Pretty good move for you to start out the Congress calling in for a bipartisan meeting.

Bipartisan.

Okay, we'll listen to them.

All right.

Well, we'll be scheduling.

We'll be sure to let the major leaders know, the major bipartisan meeting, that primarily on economic matters, that this is...

Bob, do you remember what I told you about having Simmons point out that there would be a series of these sorts of things?

This sets up a major signal on that and forces us on an overriding economic thing instead of coming in with your first name on it.

That's right.

Alright, well then we'll point for that and point for an announcement of your decisions shortly after that.

Yeah.

Any of the jurors' decisions, they know the main thing, let me say, whenever you're thinking about these decisions, never be under any compulsion to get anything done one day earlier than you do it right.

You know that.

We talk about, sure, it'd be nice to have something we can envision, but it's not necessary.

Just do it, because I'm a little part of the decision.

As far as the controls are concerned, you know my views.

They're just as free trade as yours are.

There's a hell of a political problem there, particularly because of the Eskimo food thing.

But now is the time to ride it through.

Get it done.

Well, I think we can probably take it now.

A lot of you should be able to take it later.

On the food, I understand the track we're on.

I'm going to get ahold of the bus.

Yeah.

just say the president wants to do everything we can about this that is politically possible and let's just always look at the uh he supports he supports that he would

I went ahead and hedged it a little bit, but he asked me to come out and fight for those people.

But jeez, the right meat prices are there on the damn mine, so I don't want to do that.

But anything you can do in that, you go ahead and fix the right date, or fix it at the time.

Talk to tenants, actually.

I still love the meeting, so it's a rather important one, and so we have a song, so we can make a little ground punch.

Good.

Okay.

Um...

And we will try to get our committee structure set up in this wage price thing.

We'll have to get some push on getting names cleared and so on, so we can announce as much as possible on it.

Bingo.

Probably there'll be some reasons why not, but that's kind of inevitable.

This is no problem.

Okay, now the next subject that I'd like to check in with you on is trade.

I'm reflecting on the

what you told me and I have been meeting with the people that have been working on it and I have sort of tentative conclusions and views and I'd like to hear them here very briefly and see what you think about them.

I think that we are pretty well committed to be talking about trade problems next year with the Europeans and with others.

We've made lots of noise about it, so we have to be in a position to do it.

And I think that we pretty much have to ask the Congress for negotiating authority or implementing authority or however you want to put it.

Now, I think where we have been going wrong in the

in the discussions that have been going on and which I've now been tapping into is that we have thought about this as a next version of a Kennedy-Rand negotiation.

And everybody thinks, well, is it going to be the next round?

I think that is the wrong way to think about it.

Well, here's...

So now, coming off of that and trying to get a new concept of it,

when we say trade negotiations, we mean authority, we mean adjustment assistance, we mean the escape clause, all these things that are part of the traditional thinking on this subject.

Particularly as I've talked to the labor people, I think adjustment assistance, which was an aid in selling in 1962, is a red flag in 1972 because what it says is

We're going to go out and negotiate a deal that's going to cause somebody to lose his job, and we're going to be nice and provide adjustment systems.

And it just, it is the wrong message.

Now, at the same time, we know that people do have to make adjustments, and they have to make adjustments for a lot of things.

And labor very much wants two things.

That we have been poor, and which you

have sponsored at various times.

One of them we had to back off of four years ago, but you're still sort of on a hook on it.

The other was an administration program, namely an improvement in the benefit levels of unemployment insurance and getting over an investment in Michigan.

As far as the workers, we plan to close them down.

It's kind of a justice problem.

It's nothing to do with food.

It is the law at the point of time.

So, if we were to begin to say, well, we're going to talk about negotiations, but we also have a forthcoming position on our employment insurance and our pensions, that adjustment that we're talking about here is something that Trader Boyd really wants.

And then when we ask for authority, we say that we're not looking just for authority to get into a gas-type, multilateral negotiation for mutual character, but what we need

is authority to negotiate a square deal for American jobs and American business.

And this sword has to have two edges on it.

It has to be able to impose sanctions or let them off.

It has to enable the President to participate in multilateral negotiations but also give him some authority to negotiate bilaterally with the Japanese or with the Canadians so that we're not so much in this posture

where we have to go around begging them for voluntary quotas and whatnot.

There's a little more authority here to do that.

Now that's a different kind of negotiating authority which

that we have talked about this sort of thing in the past it's a little dangerous to get in your hands because everybody will want you to lower the boom on people but as i have thought about this listen to what people are talking about in the state department and around and then i may just visit the mill as long and i listen to them somehow i just don't think these

the standard trade-bill approach is going to get anywhere.

It's going to get left out of court.

On the other hand, I think this is kind of an approach we would like to do.

We have to

really be doing my homework on it.

Well, I don't mind that.

If it's kind of an approach that I'm talking about, if I don't see some sort of approach like that which really defends America for our interests and so forth, we need to do it.

But I guess I know that anything that smacks at all of reducing trade barriers has got ants in hell.

We get down to the point where we have to drive that through the carcass of the river.

But it's a question of getting us started, leveraged, all these three things.

And we're working on it.

You know, let me proceed on this basis, and then we'll bring it to knowledge.

But I guess if I talked as good, I honestly would have a very close congressional checkmate.

I think it's very important to know what's doable in Congress.

There's no reason for us to, you know, build any witness on issues of this sort.

If both of you got selected and you brought me to Congress, I don't want to take long on this.

Both Long and Mills would welcome this kind of approach, I feel, for Egypt.

And they're very nervous about handling the standard trade deal.

They know all the practice for it.

They have the same attitude we do for it at times.

Well, you go ahead and first I'm going to let Steve in, just to be sure we understand that it's a studied problem.

We're going to check congressional reactions and we'll see what our creative vision should be.

Remember the primary importance of political thought.

I think that we'll probably have most of the action in monetary negotiations.

If everything else could more or less remain the same except for the 10, that's probably a good amount of time that we could expect.

But it seems to me we have to be in a better posture to talk and negotiate now.

not only to reduce barriers, but also to oppose where other people are at.

The Wildermill is planning to hold hearings on taxes beginning in late January for five weeks, and what he is proposing to do is a series of exploratory panel discussions

And we don't even have to participate in them if we don't want to.

At the same time, you have made various statements during the campaign, or very early in the campaign, about being prepared to make statements about tax policy.

And we're ready with memoranda on various subjects there, such as simplification and so on.

And I would like to start feeding these memoranda into you, and then at some point we might sit down with Eddie Collins and some others and talk it through.

But I think there's a real question whether or not you want to be in the position of having made some proposals prior to the military.

But I don't think we're going to get embroiled in a big tax fight.

He doesn't want it, so he's not going to hold these hearings to sort of hold off.

Russell Long, officer, you suggested that if I see Mills, I should see Long.

Yeah, I don't have to see Long.

And it was good that I did.

He must have pledged allegiance to Richard Nixon about once every ten minutes.

It may be that there are a lot of Republicans who can't do the election insurance, but he can.

He's up for re-election in two years, and he is getting himself so close to you, you won't be able to see him in distance.

He just talks about it all the time, and he's doing it that way, and he is ready to cooperate on the Senate and the House committees.

pretty much across the board.

So I told him, and he had it pressed, and I said, they ought to do it, and I said, explicitly, they're consulting him, and they're devaluing him, and so on.

And I think he is in very good shape from that standpoint.

But if I may, I'll start feeding him some tax material.

I'm not certain that we shape up a position.

You, Arthur Burns, was going to fall for a monetary discussion early January and apparently you mentioned to him that you wanted to see him before he went.

But, uh, that was at the Saturday party.

And he has been...

Early January?

Yeah.

And he has been saying, what does the president want to see me about?

And I said to him, well, if there's anything special, I'll find out about it and let you know.

Oh, okay.

Whether or not that policy is part of the program is not a whole question.

You know, they wanted that young guy, Shin, you know, they were going to move him into the castle, but they decided not to.

They decided not to move him into the castle.

I asked Arthur what he thought of me.

Arthur said he thought very well of me.

I checked out a lot of people and he said he doesn't want to leave because of his other name.

He's a very right guy.

That's right.

So would you just say that there were some who thought that she, you know, we would better reserve the building that, you know, it was an undersecretary and that's what I want to talk about.

Thank you.

He's hard for his money to go to France and to the Gryphon Panthers to get through his bomb in early January.

So I guess that's that.

He is very hard to get through.

We're joking.

This is what we did.

Bye.

like you said what i really want to see

This is Gina's thing.

I don't need to see it.

I'm being active and I want to pull the guy off the fence.

They're approaching him and I'm talking to him first.

It's all out on the other side of the fence.

I have this business with the government and the IMF because I kind of cleared with Bill Rogers.

I've already signed it.

Merry Christmas.

That's our defense.