Conversation 833-017

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Good morning, sir.

How are you?

How are you now?

Okay.

You're getting all ready for your new job?

Yeah, I've been spending quite a long time mainly...

Okay.

Mainly talking to the...

people who are there now.

We've talked to all the presidents of us on TV now.

And while it has been a very systematic kind of exposure to the problems of the department, we will be moving into more formal briefings soon, starting, as a matter of fact, tomorrow afternoon on Grumman and Lippman.

I thought it would be useful to seek an opportunity to get a little more fully your own sense of what my approach ought to be.

We talked some of it at Camp David, but I had not, of course, at that time.

I haven't had any chance to think about it, ever, to get current.

I am not better educated now, I think,

to be a more receptive and more understanding recipient of any views you'd like to give me.

But also it would be useful if I came with a sort of a topical list.

Not by way of restricting the scope of this.

And I've got to go a very limited amount of time anyway.

And these are quite broad subjects, obviously.

But they are meant nearly to be suggestive or illustrative as reflecting the kinds of things that have come to the fore in my own conversation, thinking.

First, there were too many assistant secretaries over there, and I wanted to cut it down to about a third, just to build some close spots.

That's particularly, that's not a new, that's in the Army, in the Army, in the Navy, in the Air Force.

At first, you shouldn't have a secretary in the Army, a secretary in the Navy, a secretary in the Air Force, and I would say that we do that to have them.

So, let's start with the assistant secretaries, and in other words, the McNamara system should be dismantled, then cleared.

I don't want those jobs that, I don't want those jobs that you can determine which one you want.

What you do is go to the National Guard House and just give people two hands.

Move them out.

Move them.

Other things.

And for the same token, there are military people around.

Get them out too, you know, so that they can get them out of the commands and so forth.

But the, I expect a reorganization of the Defense Department.

If we have not had one, you will not be ready.

But this I've already decided.

We've got to get the assistant secretary thing.

The whole McNamara thing was a butch.

The second thing is I want none of the McNamara people around in any position.

I don't trust them.

I don't like them.

And even though they can do other things, they can be in other departments, but they're not to be over there.

But I'm taking, for example, all that I have great respect for.

There was an exception, Johnny Bolshevik, offering something else.

Maybe a balsamical system.

I don't know.

Generally speaking, we've got to get a new team over there.

Blair is not done.

And we want to get our own people.

One of the reasons we've got the undersecretary.

I'm referring to the assistant secretary, but of course we don't.

But we have the deputy secretary.

We want to get a new approach there, too.

The Defense Department of L.A. always runs the Secretary.

The Secretary has never run the Defense Department.

That's going to be your big job, to run the damn thing.

And I have, it grows like topsy.

Whenever cups are made, they come to sweep even the char women.

And that's going to be changed.

as far as the budget is concerned.

I've already told you

operations, one for the Secretary, one for the Army, one for the Navy, and one for the Air Force, one for the Marine Corps, all duplicating what each does.

And then, of course, the CIA on top of the whole heat.

That's going to be very hard for you, because they're all jealous of that.

And they take their dumbest big guy and put him into that, or the guy that they don't think can go to the top of command, and they give him the enormous thing as one of the things up.

But that's one thing we're going to

Second thing is that there's going to have to be in defense some reappraisal of looking at the duplication thing of this whole business of 1-3rd, 1-3rd, 1-3rd.

You've heard me say this before.

But we're not going to have four tactical Air Force corps.

We're not going to have a Marine Air Corps, an Army Air Corps, a Navy Air Corps.

It doesn't mean we can have one.

It doesn't mean we're just not going to have four doing the same things and tactics and so forth.

That's going to have to be very, very, very much reexamined.

Now, perhaps the greatest waste in defenses in R&D here is an area where the subsidies, and this is going to be very hard on you, the subsidies of some of the educational institutions are shocking.

uh those subsidies are basically used by those educational institutions for the purpose of rather than really contributing to defense what they do is to simply build up the uh the salary scales and so forth and so on i'm going to cut the hell out of those i'm trying to get this done before you get there because i don't want to

And it's also going to be done by people who believe in defense and not those who oppose defense, which the educational institutions oppose almost to a man.

Get some of that out of the way before you get there.

Now, in your case,

One of the reasons that I think that you will particularly be effective in the Defense Department is that you'll be a very good politician at this time when we're going to have to close bases and so forth.

It's going to be hard, but we hope you get a little of that done before you get there.

You've got a couple weeks.

Above all, you understand international affairs.

That's the reason I thought very strongly that you could do this.

I want you to play, and Henry feels very strongly we've talked about this, I want you to play a very important, I mean, a very substantive role in the participation in the National Security Council.

And also on a basis where Henry can talk to you about international security.

He is not a strategist.

I consider you to be a strategist.

Right, Henry?

Right.

Now, we come to the whole business of how we work.

We do have the system, the NSC system.

It is one of the defenses that always can present.

The state doesn't like it, the defense doesn't like it, everybody else doesn't like it, but you've worked with it before and you know how.

You've got to determine whether on this Washington Special Action Group, for example, I mean, I don't see how a secretary could sit there with another deputy secretary.

I don't think that can be done.

On the other hand, I think you should take a very active interest in it.

I expect to be meeting with Elliot

I think you should have a week to keep going, if you will.

Did you do that?

Oh, yes.

I used to when he was undersecretary.

Well, but I mean, now, you see, look, every man is just the man for his time.

Laird is just, he's the right man for his time.

You're the right man for this time.

Because you will see the great strategic...

In the event they look, for example, at such things as air defense, one thing we certainly hope is that all the deeper biopositions, biomechanics, planes coming over and so forth, that that's going to be very, shall we say, intuitive.

We all know what's to do.

As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, it's going to be a missile kind of thing.

In other words, you take some, understand, we're looking at it here.

It's a major project that we've been on for some time, and Andrew's going to get into it somewhere.

But I'd like for you to, I'd like for you to, I'd like for you to get into it, to do a lot of thinking about it.

Think basically in very firm terms, very hard terms.

We've got to, I'm not here to dismantle the fences of this country.

but I think we could get a hell of a lot more defense.

Out of what we're spending, I really do.

I think this business of the three services fighting and scrambling with each other for how many billets that they get, the positions, and who's going to have this mission and who's going to have that mission.

I think the R&D program, of course, has been a disgrace.

I think the overlap...

I mentioned the tree services is something that we have in various areas.

Intelligence is the best example.

But beyond that, I do feel that you should not, that the one danger you're going to have is going to be that people will think that you're there to raise the Defense Department.

I don't want you to be the Louis Johnson.

I want you to be there as a strong national defense man, but a strong national defense man who, frankly, takes what the poor, dead poor skull really had in mind and finally begins to implement it.

We have not had a Secretary of Defense who has been, frankly, the Secretary of Defense.

We had a Secretary of Defense who was simply a broker, frankly, between the three services that were being created.

I want you to be just a broker, you see.

Now, they aren't all there.

We've got to get along with them and all that.

Well, but I feel it's very important for Clements, I told him this, he should participate in this work.

There really isn't.

And it's, you can also be sure that anything you want against the media gets it.

It really does.

I mean, I'm saying it's true, nothing's ever kept out of here.

That doesn't mean that you don't come in and talk about it, because you and the Secretary of State

Secretary of Treasury, Attorney General, were about the four cabinet officers, the division, the director, which is what I had to see from time to time.

The others, I say on a somewhat regular basis, the others you see like when you were at AGW because you have a hell of a big department, you have to see when you've got major problems that come up.

But as I see it, you go over there, you can even preside over the men's department,

As it's always been for Jack Overton, it's now done perfectly.

And, you know, get everybody to get along.

Or maybe we can develop some new strategic concepts.

Maybe we can develop some new weapons systems.

Maybe.

I mean, but not at MIT doing the research.

You sure as hell won't.

And they are out of programs now.

I'm cutting them completely out.

But that'll be done before you get there, so you'll get no heat.

Well, and this last point.

I've been stroking this a little bit in my conversation.

I've tried not to leave the shelf.

I'm sure that I probably look like it.

Oh, but I have tried to assess the extent to which it seems to me that we needed, in effect, to create a new national consensus with respect to the force levels and the weapons capabilities required for the long term in peacetime, given

the strategic global balance between the U.S., U.S.S.R., China, and so on.

I don't feel that, as any of you both know a lot more about this than I do, but I have the sense that while a lot of thought has not surfaced yet in terms that the Congress and the public

clearly perceive, they see the next government.

They see what they're doing in the area of confrontation, I mean, of negotiation, rather.

But what they, there seems to be another step, which is, given a generation of peace, given a progressive process, how do we keep it?

How do we keep it?

What additional, I suppose, we get out of that war with Vietnam?

And we get peace.

Everybody says peace isn't a wonderful little thing.

Getting peace isn't as difficult.

The main thing is to keep it.

Getting it difficult, not keeping it, is more difficult.

Another thing, I don't know, but I think, Henry, don't you agree that Eliot should not get bogged down in the details of all the arguments?

You've got the kind of a guy who, you know, big texts and so forth.

Some said, well, maybe he ought to be Secretary of Defense.

I had, you know, I said, I only would comment as deputy secretary.

He said, I don't want to be secretary.

I said, I would not follow that.

He said, I'm basically a manager.

I'm a weapons guy.

I want to be out, you know what I mean?

I think he's the perfect guy to do that sort of thing.

But where we have lacked, we have had a tactician as secretary of defense, frankly, for the last several years.

euro strategies right now that's why we want you there but i want you to tilt to look very strongly in terms of how we have this generation of peace and so forth it's going to be one bench to keep because uh before you you've got to take a briefing on if you will on what the russians are doing and it's a frightening thing you know we're going to need that we're going to go into the next salt talks

You know, I, uh, I don't know, I, uh, uh, I think if you could get some, do some strategic thinking, just, just go off for a while, do this.

Think about it.

Sit down with Henry.

Uh, Henry, uh, when, after we get the announcement, when Henry, Henry steps in, who do you, you've got to think about it.

Well, I'll have, yes, I have guys at the second level to work with.

You and Elliot worked together.

Elliot and I worked together.

As you pointed out, typically, we have in the NSE system, in the DPRC, I should mention it, DPRC, you know about that, to deal with these issues.

But we need the enthusiastic support of the defense department.

Which we have not had.

I agree.

If I can just ask you for that support.

Let me tell you, it isn't the rim around the view.

It isn't intended to be that view.

You're completely, but at least, you see, then how you, rather than having us burning a pipe between us, you know, Ash, the new director, Ash, is he in that?

Ash is in it, and all the rest.

It allows us to get these tough, knotty problems in one place.

Of course, Elliot and I could do it as we did when he was in the State Department.

If he and I redirected

You've mentioned signals out and in and out of the program, the group.

Listen, no, nothing can be run by the group.

This is a question of a man.

I can't guess.

One of the great options is that I can't tell anyone to be Secretary of State.

Pop shots all want to be Secretary of State.

I can't tell anyone to be Secretary of State for eight years.

My point is, my point is that you, you in the past have an opportunity, which in terms of your career in Canada, will wrap it up in space.

Then you will stay in the state, you've been in HEC government, you've been in the Attorney General's office, and now you're in the defense.

That's a very, very solid thing.

But you're in the mess.

You're too late.

Rather than going,

I want to hold that to you.

You're two things.

One, you get the reputation because we're going to have to cut in order to meet our budget needs.

You get the reputation of being an all-out dove.

You must not have that.

I don't want you to be a warlord brandishing weapons all over the place.

But on the other hand, basically you're a strong man and you're a tough guy.

You've been in the state.

You know that the balanced power in the world cannot be allowed to shift against us.

And as Secretary of Defense, you must not jump with these wonderfully well-intentioned but misguided people like Bill Foster.

and all the others who come in and say, the United States should resume whenever we come back.

Enough is enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Enough is not enough unless it is as much as the other guy has got.

Particularly when the other guy is out to expand and we're out to defend.

That is my philosophy.

I feel it very strongly.

And therefore, I want you, if you've got to fight, in your case,

you will have to tilt a little more to fight for a bigger function than a smaller one.

I don't want you to get in the position where they say, ah, here comes this beast, Nick Elliott, this state department cop.

He's going to run the defense department.

He does not let this happen.

So you will have to tilt against the Secretary of State.

Let's face it.

Not that, not that.

Right.

We'll be basically a softie, or you are, but basically the State Department attitude is soft, key, you know, get married, please everybody, and so forth and so on.

The defense, believe me, you've got to be out there fighting for a strong national defense, but also fighting for a different one, a different one.

And let me just say one other thing on the volunteer workforce.

I don't know if it will work or not.

Larry doesn't think it will at all.

I didn't even mind.

Unless we get unemployment and I'm too low on it, then maybe it won't.

But my point is, we've got to give it every chance to work.

We've got to get every chance to work.

As I say, one of the main things in the Secretary of Defense's job right now is to, and this will, you can do this better once the war is over, is to make people proud of the people who are leaving the farm again.

Make them proud of them.

You've got to go out there and speak with private like fine men they are.

These men devote their lives, and being in the services of peacetime is the most boring.

It's like in a war time, as you know, being in a rear area.

You're damn near dying.

So you want to go up front.

Why?

Not because you're brave, but because you're bored.

I didn't say that.

Well, now I'm going to go up front.

So I got up there.

You guys are supposed to tell, drop a bomb.

Why the hell are you letting your right hand stand with you?

See?

But think of the peacetime polls.

Think of those poor guys sitting over in the 80s or the rest.

They're going to be bored to death.

Where's the big army side?

at least the other pilots have their planes to fly, and they are supposed to...

They, incidentally, will be a very, very hard hit with the command structure.

You should know what we did with him.

And I am not going to go for the usual traditional promotions and so forth when it comes to the chairman

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when it comes to the chairman of all the chiefs, I have a look for bright, tough, strong men like he.

When I say strong, I mean the chief, because he's very strong.

He can do it.

Abrams, as Eisenhower would probably put it, was a great division commander, period.

Abrams is not worth a damn as one that can run.

He's a wonderful guy, a wonderful guy.

The man will love him and all that.

And he's brave as he can be.

But he's a guy who knows how to run tanks and a few other things, that sort of thing.

And he's an honest fellow.

The key man there is he.

I want you on a private basis

The Air Force is a hell of a problem too, Henry.

Well, I may say so.

The Air Force is a fraud.

But the Army, I don't know how you can do it, but have a way to talk to Haig.

You agree?

Haig can tell you what all you're doing.

Now, understand, Haig's got this weakness.

He's an Army man, and he'll be killed for the Army.

And also, he's a defense man.

He'll be killed for more defense.

He won't agree with this idea that we ought to have five intelligence services.

He will agree, probably, that we ought to reduce them a bit, and maybe we ought to coordinate them a little more, which I'm going to do under Schlesinger.

And Schlesinger, that will eventually be in Henry's, uh, to the committee for Saturday.

And that'll be, that'll be working on you, Henry.

The reason I gave it to Schlesinger, if you know what I mean, is that I, we put you in charge of it for a good bit of time.

And the other thing is, the Congress is going to have to roll another meeting.

I'd like you to be looking for the brave guys.

And listen, I think this is another thing.

I think you ought to talk to Higg, if you would, and tell him that.

I'd like to hear you say it, though.

You tell Higg I want him to be looking for people at his office in Memphis, and Lorde, and the Army, I mean, and the Navy, the Air Force, etc.,

who can be jumped and go up to the top of their heads.

We've got to put young, special people in the Air Force.

Air Force is unbelievable.

It is unbelievable.

And it isn't going to be done the old way.

Brian's a sweet guy, and the poor guy lost his son in Vietnam and everything, and every time I see him, I almost cry.

But he can't run to the hot damn Air Force.

But I say one other thing, out of disrespect.

If you take one hard look,

at the service academies, I notice they grow like topsy.

They're building new buildings every place.

I don't care about the new buildings.

I'm not talking about the cost.

But if you graduate 4,500 new army officers, navy officers, and air force officers every year, you've got to fill us for them.

In other words, I think those service academies, as we look to the future, have got to get back to a realistic level, which may be 2,500 or something.

I just think you're going to have

Unless all we want to do is just have officers in service.

But I think that's part of the problem.

The pressure is to find bellows for 4,200 guys who graduate.

They don't 4,000 graduate.

It's just unbelievable the number they have.

And they're all growing.

Every service academy is bigger.

Take a heart with it that way.

Can I go back to one point?

budget and spending and my overall, I don't have for a while an advantage in the sense of coming from each of the very biggest domestic spending agencies and dealing with people on the Hill who, who, who are really jealous of the tenants.

After about August or so, they'll conclude that they can't by the generals, I suppose.

But in the meanwhile, we face, I think, a very tough problem with the loss of four Republicans, three of them on appropriation.

And we've got on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on the Republican side, four senators who really cannot help us on the floor.

We start with Thurmond, Tower, Dominick, and Goldwater.

Now, the guy who is least valuable in that Senate is the guy who is the most gun low after his departure.

Thurmond cannot get us one vote.

Then you go from those four to Schweiker and Sexton.

And we probably will not get another.

Margaret Chase Smith, whatever her flaws and assets, at least had the reputation of making up her mind independently.

So when she got out, she could get, she could swing five, six, seven, eight votes.

Now, I would say that was the only one that I would not underestimate.

Because he's a clever politician.

He's miserable.

He's miserable to get along with.

He's cocky and all the rest.

But Tower will program.

He'll program.

So spend a little time.

Thurman can't get you any votes.

Goldwater can't get you any votes.

Dominic can't.

Dominic's tired.

He's a sweet guy, but he doesn't have anything.

He doesn't have anything.

But Tower is a tough little bastard with ambition.

And I think he can get votes.

He's a dealer.

He can also help you, tell you how to do it.

He's a deal-cutter.

Even though he can't do it.

He's the only one you've got.

That's right.

But you have a problem, I think, as you know, Steve.

Well, the thing is, when I get him some tender loving care, he will be a hell of an asset to you.

The thing I was coming to is that we are, I think, in a...

The Defense Department and all the services...

are in the same boat on a synchronous basis, John.

We are, it seems to me, and this is part of what I see as an interrelation between the articulation of policy and strategy and the force structures required.

In a sense, I'm trying to say too many ones, but I have to stop.

In a sense, the very difficulty of the situation is also an opportunity because

seems to be there may be a chance, unprecedented, really, since Karl Stoll, to create an awareness on the part of the military that they've got to get their heads together.

They've got to perceive their individual contributions to a total balance and subordinate their individual interests on the recognition that unless they do, the whole thing is going to get...

The other problem is that

Because this is why the U.S. is so crucial.

Their basic approach is to get budget categories, even if it's a small item, because their whole approach was formed in the series when they could then expand it.

While they don't address the question of what board is unique to conduct the foreign policy,

And this is what Eliot has to drill into.

Eliot, one thing I want to do, too, is this, and I'll help all this.

I will help.

Because, as I said, when we get Vietnam out of the way, it's a top burner for us, and part of getting ready for the Soviet Union.

Europe, of course, which is a very high-end country.

I'm not going to give a pat on the back of America.

Could die in the Mideast, well, in a few little months.

But we have been...

Henry and I have always talked about this.

We've just been waiting for the day when we could finally get out of this continent.

The Defense Department, do you understand?

The Defense Department, they've never had a better friend in this place for a long time.

I stood up for them, and good God defended them in Cambodia on November 3rd, and all that.

We are not going to have a common defense.

Could I ask you to do one thing?

It'll take you, you're a fast reader.

You're probably like all those Harvard people, read a thousand words a minute.

I read 50 words a minute.

And my point is, I want you to go, there's one thing that Churchill's the worst reader.

Read, not the last five, but read Churchill's account of World War I.

There's five volumes.

Read particularly, just start about the time, see he was a procurement person, start about the time of when the battles really began.

And also read as it comes to Eastern Front, which is the most fascinating of all.

The only reason I kind of dare to learn a damn thing of it, it's fascinating history to begin with.

It's the best history he probably ever wrote.

Because he wrote it when he was out of office and he did it himself.

And the stuff that was done later on was ghosted in World War II.

Stuff just sort of a collection of, you know, papers and dispatches all over some nice writing and that too.

Now, the point that I make is this.

There's no, Churchill really sees the military mind, its weaknesses and its strengths.

he's as a matter of fact i don't mean to equate myself with that but i see it exactly as he sees it i mean i i'm for him i'm for the uniform i have the greatest respect for him but god damn it that military people never have conceptual strategic concepts we have had two

I was a great politician.

He was not a great military leader.

He was a fellow politician.

That's how he was able to pull everything together.

When I say not a great military leader, he was not a field commander.

The best field commander and the one whose concept was patented.

That's why it happened to him.

That's why everybody's jealous of him and hated him.

And the other was MacArthur.

That's why everybody hated MacArthur.

We all hated him.

I was in the 80s.

We always talked about, you know, MacArthur's, the MacArthur seats in the airplanes and all that sort of thing.

You recall all the rest of it sitting on the floors of those dead B.C.

Frees or B.C.

Fours.

There'd be a seat where they'd say, you know, it wasn't much.

It never mattered.

But anyway, what I'm getting at is, generally, the military people, for some reason,

Haig is an exception, although he has some of the same problems.

But somewhere the military guy thinks in terms of the last war rather than the next, because of the exception.

Now, let me come to two points.

In World War I, for example, Gallipoli was the right concept.

It would have shortened the war.

It would have won the war.

at the goddamn British Navy, had not feared to lose a battleship or two or something that had gone in there and they could have knocked the thing off.

But where did it come from?

Did it come from the military?

No, it came from the other side, I would say.

Now, the other might have said it came from Churchill.

But even more important, the tank.

Now, everybody will argue about who got the tank and so on.

But the concept of using tanks in mass without

without advanced artillery for preparation.

That was the Battle of Cambridge.

This, of course, became the standard thing in World War II.

It was Churchill who got that developed, and it wasn't done until 1916.

If they had started sooner, if they had started sooner, the whole damn war could have changed.

The French used them once like that, and the British used them once.

I'm just recalling out of my mind things that I read long, long ago.

What I want, the reason I want you to read this is that it will give you a feeling of the defense mind and, you know, what it is, and also of the civilian mind and how you ought to approach it.

Don't you agree, Henry?

Yes, I thought the meeting we had before, when you put blood on the line and the swell face upon it, and Moore tells you they had only eight hours

when they could use our tactical airplanes.

Well, let me speak to them.

Only eight hours, in how many days?

In 12 days.

In 12 days, we have eight hours to do it.

And at the present time, in terms of so-called small wars, and God hope we never have one, but in order to avoid one, we better be prepared for it.

Elliot, good gift.

Do you think a jet is the right thing to get a truck with?

Or, on the other hand, do you think we ought to have helicopters out there being used for... Jesus Christ, the helicopters are vulnerable.

They might shoot the goddamn ass off.

And it's because... Do you know who has the biggest tactical... You've heard it.

I mean, Clemens told me this.

Did he say it?

The biggest tactical air force at the present time in the United States Defense Department is not an air force.

It's just a goddamn army.

The Army Air Corps is back.

It is.

It is bigger.

There's a bigger budget for tactical air in the Army than there is in the Air Corps, frankly.

Now, there is something damn wrong.

What's the Air Corps doing?

All right, here's what they're doing.

First, they've got a lot of damn good fire pilots that are ready to take care of the Russians.

The Russians come over with those bare bombers saying,

Second point is, what else are they doing?

They're going to fly B-52s over there.

Well, the B-52s are going to get their tail shot off.

Anyway, if you have once that kind of decision is made, it's going to be, it's still going to be done through the missiles.

We know that, Henry.

And yet, the Air Force just will not think conception.

How many times, Henry, have I told these people to start thinking this way?

Every meeting you've had with the chiefs has been gorgeous.

Well, I'm going to handle it.

What I want to do is this.

I'm going to see more from time to time.

Well, first I have that right.

I have the responsibility.

You will be informed.

He will not be told anything.

You will be known about it.

I don't want you to feel that there's any problems.

The reason I want to see him is if I'm going to work him over, I've got to work over him more and his successor.

What I want you to do is to have the very closest communication with Henry, and actually with me, so that we can get a tandem on this thing.

You know, I had a thing, Henry, at a very early time.

I just don't know whether we ought to put this in the NSC, I mean, in a full NSC meeting.

Then you'll have Andrew Yakimov.

He doesn't know about it.

We should have a small executive committee.

What do you think?

I wonder, before we do that,

Before we do that, maybe we should do it this way.

Maybe you would tell me, maybe Clements, and I said, I don't know.

I just don't know.

I don't believe me.

You see the problem with the NSC, I said, we'll get it.

Now, it should be at the NSC level, actually, because Rogers, there is a secretary of state.

But we do, you do need, I think, quite a lot of, quite informal.

That's right.

Discussion.

And some of which I don't want to.

You see, the difficulty with the briefing, with the regular briefing, unless we have programmed it in advance, is that more are going to put up all those damn charts and prepare them for the recent.

You put up a lot of charts.

Doctors and states will say, well, you've got to do this or that or the other thing.

And if it turns out to be you go on doing the same goddamn thing,

Now that should be done over and over again.

I don't want it done that way again.

Mr. President, when Elliott was in state, we met regularly, and we had a lot of groups on which we were jointly, but we always knew ahead of time where we wanted the groups to go.

And that way we could narrow down the choices for you.

And it didn't get to be such a freewheeling discussion.

And I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that.

Let me suggest this, because this is just in the room here, because Bill, of course, will be here through the negotiations and so forth and so on.

They will naturally be changed.

I haven't yet decided what.

But it's very important that Rush, who will be carrying the labor and more, be brought in.

And if you have no feeling, I know you don't have the state assistance and so forth,

I'd like to see him review and Rush and Elliot.

Rush just hasn't been in advance.

You see, then you can get Rush programmed so that he can wheel state.

Am I right?

Yes.

I think that's an excellent idea.

Because Bill is going to rely more and more on Rush at this point.

Since he's over there.

I don't want to imply any formal or regular cross, but I do think that there will be

There would be some value in a fairly informal process in which you could engage directly.

I agree.

In which we're not, in fact, simply submitting conditions over with, all conflicts over with, all we have to do, if we get the Lord over with, at some time in the next three years.

And I'll have maybe a year to do some formal talking.

If my sense of the situation is right,

It will be important that you publicly address some of these things at some point in ways that really come across.

There's a lot of them, and that's got to come out of your own... Well, I'd like to have you prepare, if you would.

I'd like for you to prepare, if you would.

I'd like to speak on national events a few times.

It ought to be done.

I agree with that.

Because what we've got... Rather than just going through the usual thing, do I look people in uniform, which I have made over and over again?

Your public utterance is amiss.

They haven't had to go beyond where they have gone, but they will have to in the foreseeable future.

The moment being on the road, we will then have to.

So we'll be prepared.

I think you're going to, let me say, I think you've got a true head challenge.

You'll play to go with the detail.

And don't let it run you.

Clements, I understand, is a very strong, and he's a bull-headed kind of guy.

It'd be hard to work him the way you want to, but the main point is make him do the detail.

Cast the detail down.

You get up there, that's the old story, don't let the department run you, you run it.

And as you run it, if you could remember that of all the departments that spent money, this is the one where I had the major responsibility.

The AGW, you had only about 20-15% of your budget that was controllable.

a little less noisy.

But I do know this, I do know that we have been screwed on the fence.

I do know that we've got an awful lot out there of waste.

I do know that we've got very brave men, very badly lit.

Right?

Now let's get, that's what I want you to do.

I think you should take a look.

I have to go through it, and I'd say, I don't know what your wife had to do.

let me say this don't start too soon though showing your cards at the present time of course

or if I can just suggest that there's an old politician here, I'm too.

I keep the cards very close to the vest.

Well, I'll be sure you don't want to commit on that at this point, and so forth and so on.

So that when we get the new ideas around, the moment you float something out, they'll shoot it down.

And if you think they're bureaucrats in state, they're bureaucrats in defense, right?

So when we get the idea, let's the three of us decide it, right?

And then put the idea on itself, right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Good luck.

Thank you.