Conversation 842-013

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Can you tell me whether you've got the people, you know, batting order ready for that meeting tomorrow?

I can't say I have.

Well, can you sort of see that?

I sort of need, you know, I need it.

But the one thing I know you're, you're not like Henry.

You don't like to just get up and sing it yourself.

But the point is that

unless somebody takes charge of it.

There's monitors there.

If not, they better give me a lot of talking papers, which I have not had to do.

I shouldn't get into my fight with them right now.

There is supposed to be a talking paper for you, though.

That's right.

They've got quite a detailed talking paper for you, but I'm not in touch with the preparation of it, really.

I will be in touch with it.

Timmons.

Timmons?

He doesn't know anything about it.

Well, he's in charge of getting the meeting organized.

You know what I mean.

As far as the copy paper.

The presentation at Weinberger.

Weinberger.

He made the copy paper.

Right.

And this is his subject.

He's been selling this for a year.

If you want me to, I'll go back over the ground and make sure they're lined up.

I think that the

And I don't think it's going to be any time once we, first once we set up a meeting with the small group, you and Schultz and Ash, and then once we have that first meeting with the councillors, then I will position it so that you frankly will have to be the, sort of the, you've got to be the in-man on these things because there isn't a councillor that can handle this sort of stuff.

That is,

You know how to do it, and then you can put them through their little pieces.

But you think they need to hear that, don't they?

I wish you could just...

I guess that's wrong.

If you could just do the thing yourself, the breathing, it sounds to be better.

Goddamn, I guess that's what a captain's for.

That's awkward.

Doesn't even bother Henry.

That's for the white, well, it doesn't bother Henry.

It doesn't bother me as far as that's concerned.

We bother the white.

We play hell with a captain, you know, and we catch 50 pounds of flack.

Of course, you're moving.

You've got a new cabinet, John, and a new relationship, and you're moving.

How about the need to maintain the same kind of work?

No, I'm overstating it.

I'm kidding.

People have to go, have to be in there and sing and prove that they're, and I understand that.

But I do think that some of them can learn to do it better.

Well, this thing yesterday was, uh, should be done.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I was waiting for the guy to start talking.

Well, let me suggest that from now on, from now on, as a matter of course, somebody ought to be assigned as the moderator of the meeting.

And you won't have to worry then about who's in charge and should say so right on your briefing paper.

That should not be a captain, sir, because they are all parties at interest.

It should be done on a divisional basis.

and then, um, Casper Weingart, legal justifications for him, huh?

That's Q&A.

Weingart, huh?

This is Republican news.

You know, 74 budget out, Casper Weingart, Q&A, Casper Weingart.

Boy, this is going to be a great meeting for these guys that are first line.

They'll be miserable.

If you didn't post it, okay, public incident.

What do you think of the great performance of our vice president this year?

That was certainly stimulating.

Of course, I had read it all in the newspaper ahead of time.

Were you the VP?

He announced to the senators that he certainly sympathized with their points of view and that he would convey them in living color with courage.

I don't know.

There's triggers.

It's huge.

I'm prepared to believe pretty much anything.

I had a... You see, John, we now are in position.

Not that we aren't going to have a little problems.

I've got a hell of a... My major problem in the foreign field is defense.

Defense and intelligence.

There's going to be some...

Your budget is going to be a problem over there.

Their budget.

The defense budget.

Oh, getting it.

Well, yeah, every guy we squeeze on some old farm program is going to have a complete answer.

Take it out of the fence.

Sure, I don't have a war anymore.

Let me ask this.

Who is the, isn't John willing to do it?

When you had the meeting over here, John handled it.

You know, when you had it over in the White House, you can handle a meeting.

You know, you don't have to do it with the others.

You don't think it'll work?

It'll work, I think, if we just set up an interlocutor.

Say, the interlocutor for this meeting is.

And then he's basically done with that.

I don't know if there are any where it's going to be him.

That's right.

You can't really put it in the hands of any cabinet officer.

You don't know how.

I think that's right.

I want you, Henry, to take a moment with your two colleagues here.

It was a Freudian sweat.

Yes, sir.

Can we hear you?

I want you to take the call.

Hey, please.

Bring some tea for me, please, whenever they want.

Tell them how your recommendation that

When he sent the price president to Vietnam, how it's worked out, how he's been so selfless about it.

In fact, I didn't cut him off.

He was just leaving when I told him to come.

He's the only one who can do any of this.

But why didn't he go back?

Well, kids spoke about every day that we...

All the negotiating records so that he'd be ready to pick up the threads for Henry.

Well, they've already signed them.

That's right.

That's the point.

We signed them on Saturday.

Well, we got the bullet.

You know, John, it was my idea to have him go out.

I said, I was afraid.

He decided on Hague as the last time.

But what happened here is that, so that you'll know a little of the story here, John ought to see it.

I don't think he's, I don't think about him.

Well, then, John, look at those three letters you wrote back over the sheets.

Yeah, you'll see.

What broke the back was the letters we read and drove last week every third day.

In fact, we don't even read it.

Secondly, I'm taking a series of the next little steps, stopping the bombing, announcing that I was being sent back a complete text of the agreement, releasing the pictures, and then the President's letter.

I wondered about the pictures.

So, but the Vice President has been...

The day, the week before the inaugural on Thursday or Sunday, while Henry was in Paris, the vice president came in to see, not the final round, but the real final round, not the 23rd.

The vice president says, I have to see the president.

He comes marching in and he says, we've got a real problem, Mr. President.

We've got to divert attention for the

Paris in the Vietnam situation because they were climbing on the hill and all that.

He said, also Sadat is about to wage war and therefore I, single-handed spirit of the Agnew, shall go to Egypt, meet President Sadat and settle the Middle East.

The President's mouth fell open and he said,

Before the, oh yes, this weekend, this very weekend.

That'll be a diversionary.

A diversionary from Henry's bumbling in Paris.

He said another great problem, sir.

I could.

Why not?

It doesn't bother me at all.

And anything to give you something to do.

I'm in quite service with that.

Otherwise, go ahead, Henry.

Let Henry finish.

Well, then he came after me, and he had two other proposals he wanted to negotiate.

He arranged an oil consortium deal, and they considered it.

And when I said that, I didn't think that this would require a lot of technical expertise in any part of the country at this point.

He said he wanted to go to Moscow to prepare the president's summit and to negotiate the deal so that all the presidents would have to do is sign it.

And now on this trip, he's driving me out of my mind.

Well, what's he doing in Vietnam?

Well, he wants to emerge out of Vietnam and negotiate something.

How about canals across the Mekong?

He gives some general sense of what we are planning to do, but there isn't a hell of a lot to negotiate.

He is looking for situations that are all winners with no downside.

And what he wants is maximum publicity.

Sadat wasn't one of those.

He just pointed out that Johnson took many steps in the trips as Vice President, and he knew this was directed at him because he hadn't taken any steps in the trips.

Well, I know what trips Johnson took.

It's fuzzy, but I've got a candle to dry this.

He did not.

Johnson's were not.

Mine weren't very substantive either, but there's something.

The man is, uh, I don't know, just riding for President.

It's as fast as his legs will carry me.

Hey, Johnson's become an expert at that.

He's been convicted by all the candidates.

Your candidate dropped in on me today.

My candidate?

Somebody's candidate.

Who was?

Because he went to see me after he saw me.

That was all.

But I know he went to see me.

Dr. Fowler has made no secret of it.

I don't think he did.

But I think he did a little bit better than that.

I don't know if you know what I knew.

He was pulling on us.

Senate, when he had set himself up as a one-way pipe from the Senate to the President.

Did he have any complaints?

He got it exactly right, except 180 degrees wrong, the discussion he had at Camp David, which was that he was to be a one-way pipe from the President to the Senate.

But he could be Chappell soon, because every time I see him in pictures, especially when you take

Of course, he ought to be elated.

He's going to have a hell of a career.

He's going to be in a huge amount of wages.

He's the candidate at the alcove for Saturday night.

He says, I mean, I was riding on a wave of glory there.

All over the place.

But he's on the tracks now.

But he chose anything I tell him, you know, he sort of... What can I negotiate?

What can I announce?

I said, any announcements.

First of all, there's nothing concrete going to come out.

Secondly, the announcements are going to come out of the White House, you know, on the mission for the better.

Henry, could he come back and make recommendations about post-war South Vietnam and its economic viability?

He could sit and have a brief until the cows come home.

I told him he could do that.

Sir?

Speech to adjourn, sir.

He says there's a campaign going on to ridicule him from his wife.

Sounds like Chuck Percy.

Does he disagree?

Well, not...

He only has the fact that he was removed instead of the individual's body.

Then he blacks.

He doesn't say who did it.

It was the lead to the dress, in a way, that humiliated him.

He doesn't blame John for that.

He's got something against you and Zika for letting him speak before the policy committee of the Senate last week.

What?

He spoke to the policy committee of the Senate without being given advance word that the president was going to give a speech that night.

ticket stuff was handed in while he was speaking and asking the speech.

I'm just telling you the truth.

I didn't know he was speaking at the Policy Committee, and I have never given him

You thought about the 2019 speech?

Was he in the Policy Committee on Tuesday?

That's right.

We didn't announce, we didn't give the advance word in the speech until we did.

Remember, we didn't decide until it was in its monetary result.

That's right.

He's also complaining about me because I don't give him the substantive permission that he can negotiate, so it's not...

I haven't seen how that happened because he should know.

I'll tell you what, we made that decision.

The decision about going and how to go, whether to go to the Congress or not.

We didn't make it until 1 o'clock that day.

I told him that I was out of town that day, but that I didn't know.

What you were going...

I knew you were going to say something, but I didn't know what form it was going to pay.

And in what way until I was already...

In the air.

In the air, and rather than be home, I'd forgotten what time.

But when I left you...

But you see, the reason, nobody knew.

He was informed.

Didn't you inform him?

I informed him after.

Well, if I had the reason... Then I got in, and I think the reason...

at what time, whether it should be before the Congress or at noon, and we didn't want to interrupt you.

We didn't request the time, John, or what it's called.

That's right.

And that's why we can't have them forget it.

What the hell is the matter with the man as he realizes that his relations with the White House are important?

It's the most extraordinary quote I've ever seen.

Also, from his own selfish point of view.

But after all, it's only...

function as loyalty to the president if he wants to grow in 76.

I've never known a vice president to try to compete with the president for attention.

Not until about the election time.

He's going through a change of life, I think.

He's becoming a presidential candidate, for one thing.

He's shed a lot of his staff.

And he's going through a major rethink over there.

And he really doesn't have anything to do with it.

There isn't any question about that.

But I'm surprised that he has the drive.

That's something new.

He hasn't had the drive up until now.

He's been content to sort of, you know, leave.

He's going to have this seminar before him.

He's not going to be a presidential candidate.

Yeah, that really was the first candidate.

And then the poor guy that's trying to cut his price was, and he sat there and joined.

He led the charge.

He started it.

He led it.

And Lutz picked it up.

He didn't even back.

He wasn't backing.

Well, I think you've got to know that there are lots of people that definitely think I read his goddamn papers.

All I have to look at is the Trump convention.

He really, I may have made a mistake there.

I told him he ought to spend some time out there in the Senate.

But that isn't what I had meant.

What he said is still in our lineup.

What I meant was for him to do it more on an individual basis with small groups, not to look for a policy committee and not to become the agent of the Senate.

He's not there as the agent of the White House.

He's the agent of the White House.

God damn it, I used to go angry before that.

I used to go down there to that House and Senate, and I worked those vacuums over.

Always selling the White House.

Always selling the President.

Always, always, always.

But thank you, Chairman, I haven't prevented everybody down here.

Well, I have.

It's an inconceivable position for a Vice President to be anything else but a spokesman for the President.

That's the way you're going to get ahead, too.

He should be, and that's the way he will be.

Well, let me tell you this.

John was there.

No, what's the chance?

I thought he was going to complain about that.

But any time, anybody would do anything about the Johnson trips.

They were jokes.

He was getting no briefings.

The camel driver and the one up there to Norway, remember, was where he got drunk several times.

I remember he was totally frustrated.

He never said a word against the President.

I had any seen him ever, but I didn't know him.

I didn't know what a volatile man he was.

Only afterwards did I realize what it cost him.

He never talked unless the President asked him something.

And then he would ask in a very short sentence and always in support of the sentence.

When I got to know him and realized

That our country is energy.

Energy is volume-related.

And there he goes, I've been in meetings where the last president attacked you, even in the last term.

And just, I forget what it was now, but there was some energy issue where he just took a view contrary to you.

And that's inconceivable.

We come in afterwards.

Why can't we give him back that intergovernmental thing?

We can if we want.

We spent the time during the inaugural when all the governors and mayors were here cultivating him over the cold.

We can cultivate him back if we want.

Why can't we give him?

We've got to keep him out of the war, I think.

He's too dangerous.

We gave him the bison today.

But I don't... Did you see that revenue-sharing paper that I sent down, by any chance, the program for the surrogates out around the country and so forth?

Yeah.

He could do that.

I don't mind him going on a nutritional trip, but...

But now he wants things.

He's totally capable of negotiating with... Well...

The oil is so complex, so delicate, which involves relations with all the other Arabs.

With all the Arabs.

Well, and also, if Connolly's in there with both feet, he'd have a connection, if my first son.

I can't help this one.

I couldn't believe it.

He wants to go advance the Russian trip.

He wants to advance it and settle it and solve things so that it'll go smoothly.

So then all you have to do is sign it.

He looked like Henry did it.

That's what he meant.

Yeah, but how even?

When I did it, and I know the subject, you had to spend a week of haggling with Gresham before we had it.

Maybe he could represent the Russians to you.

How much trouble are you in with him?

No, we were talking here about a big restaurant about a subject, but this would be a very serious subject for us unless we get the damn thing hit because, you know, he has it.

It's a lot different.

First, I was totally loyal to Eisenhower and Johnson.

I was totally loyal to Kennedy and Humphrey.

I was totally loyal to Johnson.

Humphrey went around.

Humphrey didn't believe in any of that stuff, any of Johnson's stuff in the war, none.

Humphrey's a beast, but he supported Johnson in the war.

Egg, who can't run around like this, and, uh, hell, he was a deserter on the war during bombing.

Remember?

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

And then he came, the same day he came in.

What are the other security briefings he gets?

Don't they tell him that there's water behind the back?

Well, this is, I agree, this is a problem and it's going to get worse.

And there's going to be a lot of stresses.

So we don't solve this problem.

I mean, I know I suggested it, but are we in there?

Does he invite us to that much later in the meeting?

I'm sure he did.

And I said that we were going to have some NSC meetings.

And I said I wanted him to speak out on foreign policy as well as defense things, which I think is a good thing.

Because he'll be an asset of the NSC discussions.

Totally loyal.

And he'll follow the program.

He'll speak out.

But once you decide, Richardson, call Richardson.

All in line.

And I said at least, kind of,

Hey.

How much do you tell him?

Nothing.

I never see him.

It used to be that he would go off on trips, and I never could see him at all.

On this one, he's been bugging me every day.

And I thought it would be better since he is actually

What are you trying to do for him?

I'm telling him to try to do what John says.

See what other post-war programs that these people need, what is needed to adjust the conditions of peace and give them a sense that we remain interested in them.

That we're not withdrawing our presence.

I have an idea that would be useful, I think.

Rather than just boring the NSC people with that,

that we have to have reasons to get the cabinet together.

That's our report to the cabinet.

How does that sound to you?

That's a good way, because you're talking about economic reconstruction and stuff.

You know what I mean?

That's a good way.

Anyway.

Sorry.

I'm going to call you back.

How do you look up this economic counselor at the embassy and have some briefings?

It's cool.

Yeah.

John, as a matter of fact, which is true, I've got to make sure that they have children.

I'm trying to get rid of it, but that's why you might say that what I had called the purpose, that I said the purpose was to make a photo or an economic purpose, but we want to get it lined up.

I don't know if you've got to have Schultz or somebody get it out so that he doesn't make an asshole report the first time.

I know, you know, I remember a year ago,

About this time, I said to Barbara, if I could just pull it, I think we should have.

Your son was not quite ready to accept the other half that.

But it might have been a year ago that we put it to him.

Of course, the teen man, the boy that was mentioned, I think she was not willing.

You couldn't get him off.

He had to get off.

That's right.

The thing that occurs to me is that this new majority that you're building laboriously stone by stone and brick by brick is his legacy.

So?

Well, I'm thinking more of the lower middle class, blue collar, ethnic, and so forth.

Well, let's talk about it before we get to yours.

What can we get you to do?

I've got to have an answer to that.

Is there any other?

John came up with a thing, which is, you know, I really, you know, I think it is going to be a hell of a thing to do it right.

It is.

And we can't accept it.

It's a potential big loser.

And it depends on what the concept is.

Garmin's been doing some very good work on this lately.

And he's getting it off of a Disneyland World's Fair kind of approach and onto a much solider base of back to history, some content to the thing, some substance to it.

And of course, I like this idea that the prizes are best

Well, that's all part of it.

That's all part of it.

He's on that track.

And we had a hell of a good session the other morning with Irving Crystal and two or three of his fellows, his colleagues.

We got into this.

Remember the dinner we had was a disaster in Hawaii because John Mitchell was drunk.

So I didn't get to know him personally.

He's a hell of a guy.

I read his show.

We had a fellow named Diamond.

We had John T. Wilson at Star.

Diamond is a professor.

He's a rhetorician?

No.

Didn't have him in this group, but we were going to have him.

This is the reason we're going to have him here.

And we had John Q. Wilson, who's the head of political science department at Harvard and conservative as hell.

And he's beautiful.

He's really something.

And I had any idea he's just tougher than everybody else.

He's young, he's brilliant, and he's tough.

And he's sort of a soulmate of Banfield's.

We had him instead of Banfield.

You know, we hired him back when we only had four.

There were four of us.

He must have been one of them.

He's not already with you.

He happens to be a law and order man.

And he's on one of our narcotics commissions.

And he's just tough as hell.

Well, I don't know.

I've got a paper in that I put in because I think

Rather than have free-grade domestic goals, what we really need is an action program.

Okay.

And borrowing from...

I'm not suggesting the truth.

I understand.

What I'm just thinking, I want to get something out that we're remembered for.

Okay.

Just something.

Maybe it's a boy or a cancer.

Well, you're not going to be remembered for a program as such.

Right.

You're going to be remembered for a change of direction, for a new mood, a new something.

Maybe we can find a way that we need a word for it.

Well, we do.

It's going to be word.

And self-reliance may be it.

It's a thread that runs through this.

Here's what the idea is.

We've got revenue sharing all over the country.

We have just gone through a hell of an important historic event.

And this is local debate on priority.

Now, we go into the field.

First of all, we canvass.

We can get everybody in our regional organization to send us in.

What have people done with their revenue sharing money, number one?

What have local communities done without any federal money?

And what have individuals done without any government money that have been good things, and that have worked, and that have made a house better, or a neighborhood better, or a city better, or a region better?

Yeah, what did the junior chamber do?

All right.

Right.

In our town, they cleaned up a big lake.

And they did it all with their own money.

No federal does it all.

Indiana does things like that.

So then, service, cabinet wives, cabinet, vice president, you, Mrs. Nixon, everybody,

are alerted to these things.

And we pick them up and we send somebody into a community and we say, we understand you all have had a debate in here about revenue sharing.

How did you, what did you decide were your top priorities here?

Why?

We want to understand this.

The President wants to understand the dynamics of this.

Go to another community and say, we understand the workers in this place cooperated with management and everybody approved the conditions in this working place.

And we want to see this, because we don't believe all this crap about discontent in the workplace.

We think Americans are better than that.

And you're setting an example, and we want to understand this, and we want to make a report to the president about it.

You put the spotlight on the positive.

Yeah, then, then, well, Rob, I interrupted you.

Rob, Rob Fowler has this, this, he goes around the state.

Sure.

At some point.

But this would be your guys going into a community and turning the spotlight on individual initiative, on individual accomplishment, on community accomplishment, on self-reliance.

Rather than just going and interacting about how much we've raised the budget and how much we're going to do and we're doing this and that.

And more than that...

They can say, Senator, don't tell me this has to be a federal program.

I just come back from Muncie, Indiana, where the people in the community put in their own sewer and water all by themselves, and they didn't need a nickel of federal money to do it.

And it's great.

I went out and saw it.

You ought to go see it.

And then you write a letter to the shop foreman of such and such a factory and

But the wonderful thing you all did out there.

You certainly can be congratulated.

I'm sure we get a lot of them.

Just a lot of them.

And they're big and small.

Did you get to the point of just individual people things and big total city things?

Now, if I were Spiro Agnew and I wanted to run for president, I would want this program for my very own.

Because it could get me to every community in the country on the right side of the issue.

I could make a speech every hour on the hour on individual worth, self-reliance, the spirit that made America great, bicentennial, all that stuff.

It would be heaven sent.

I don't know if this will appeal to them, but I... What would you call it?

Spotlight on America or...

Spotlight on America.

There's a higher word.

Let us believe in ourselves.

Letters to work on this.

He's a good wordsman.

We seem to be quite, you know, that's the one thing that the greatest minds have.

Well, they work the damn wrong words anymore.

You do tricky.

I'm tricky.

I don't mean that.

Slick.

McCrory has a deep feeling for this sort of thing.

So does Moore.

Moore's a good guy.

Or very, very good.

Well, anyway, there's one thing he might do.

All right.

That could keep him damn busy.

I mean, that's a beauty about it.

There's infinite possibilities.

You could work at it.

Yeah.

We announced the program and designated him to be the one to carry it out.

Sure.

And if you get a little staff.

Sure.

train the surrogates, get them out, get the reports back, make the awards, travel around.

You can make the awards.

There's a danger if he gets a good staff, you really are setting the guy up in one hell of a machine for running the president.

I see it as a vehicle for you, but... Well, no, I want to...

It's really what I believe.

Well, that's not good.

It's necessary to do that for the reason that you know and I know that if we didn't have budget problems, we wouldn't be paying taxes.

Well, it validates your budget.

If we had the income from the taxes, if we hadn't cut taxes, for example, and if we had the letter saying that we wouldn't be worried about turkey and all that, why shouldn't we talk about all that?

You know and I know that it's only necessity that we trust.

No question about that.

On the other hand, the necessity we believe is a good thing.

I think so.

It's the right direction.

I think so.

It's going to be painful as hell.

It's going to be the battle of the age.

But it's a little bit like going through the crisis, you know, and a fever.

And we've been running with a very high temperature here for a long time.

Well,

The very things that everybody talked about in Johnson's Great Society, I mean, both the ideologies particularly, what he did was to simply blow up this damn government to the point that it blew up.

Somebody had to stick a name into it and let the gas come, right?

Yeah, and it's interesting.

A lot of the commentators are recognizing that, and they're all apologizing that the programs were experiments, and they haven't worked, and they did get into inflation and so on at the same time that they're saying we're a visionary guy.

Yeah, they all talk about it.

Rough schools, where there were no schools.

Lights, where there were no lights.

Opportunity for blacks, where the blacks had no opportunity.

And riots, where there never were no riots.

Notice in this eight-man pallbearer's head, five blacks, five blacks.

That was a little box.

Did you notice that here?

No, I didn't.

I watched it on television.

Eight guys carrying the box, five of them were blacks.

Soldiers?

Well, yes, mixed groups.

Yeah.

Yeah, so did the soldiers and the military and the military guards.

And there were five on the 8th group.

I think it was five to four, because the commandant in our house, I guess, was five to four, but that's still pretty far.

Well, that's the way we ran the White House, in a way.

It looked like they were going to drop the box, too, as they were coming down the steps.

Apparently, it was pretty heavy.

So, this guy's a sure spender.

I've got a couple of odds and ends that I'd better get through.

All right.

I should tell you about it.

Right.

Rockefeller can't be.

He can't be.

He's too old.

And I don't know if things can make it for the nomination.

On the other hand, Rockefeller can't be.

Reagan cannot be.

Nobody else has got a horse with Brock in the restaurant that's going to be Reagan.

Percy, I would oppose.

Edgar, I would not support.

And the only other one that can be and that people lose fast enough is Connery.

Connery sweatshirts and sweatshirts are the number two.

Connery can get the marbles.

So you've really got a situation here where the only men, there are only two men, in my opinion, John, present that we have on our side that could handle a job, and one is Rocky and the other is Connell.

So that's how I feel.

Rockefeller gave me the very clear, unambiguous signal today that he's interested, which shouldn't be any particular surprise.

I'll be sorry.

I'll be.

He showed me a long memorandum that little Frank Leonard wrote him.

Remember Frank Leonard?

Frank Leonard wrote him and said, you're the only man I see for 1976.

And he said, there's some things about the Republican National Committee.

They're very bad for you, and I better tell you who your enemies are there, and so on.

And it was about a three-page letter, and it said that the editor of Monday is a bad guy, and then just lost it.

You've got to remember that Leonard is a Rockefeller man.

Oh, yeah.

So Rockefeller said, I have this, and then I have this Braden article about how I have presidential pretensions and so on.

He said, the Braden article we don't need to talk about, but the Leonard memo troubles me very much.

And he said, I need to know whether you all have any objection.

Am I doing something about this?

And I said, well, Governor, I talked to George Bush yesterday, and I know George is thinking about a number of personnel changes.

Rather than talk to me about this, I think you ought to talk to George, because I think you'll find him to be very receptive to any suggestions that you have.

Well, he said, yes, I intend to talk to George.

I'll do that, and that's fine.

But then I said, I haven't read the Braden article.

And he said, well...

I hope you get a chance to read it.

And that was then all that was said.

But I'm told that the Brady article says Rocky's off and running and so on.

Well, she didn't know Brady works with Rockies.

Well, John was laughing when Rocky said so.

Did you hear about my interview with Percy this week?

I've had them all up.

That's about what I've been doing this week, between that and the press.

That's where my week's gone, that's right.

But Percy complained because somebody in the White House had been cutting him up.

And I said, well, Senator, when you get to be a frontrunner for the president, those things are bound to happen.

And he said, well, you know, on that subject,

Five years ago, my name was advanced.

And at that time, I felt I was not qualified, that I had a great deal more to learn.

And then he went on to something else, which is not exactly a non-secretary.

So he's very concerned that we not cut him up and down here.

Well, that's the first subject.

The first subject is Percy.

He wants to make subject to confirmation all these six assistants.

Oh, I know about that.

Now, what do you think we should do?

I think we should hang very tough.

There's no good place to draw the line except to give them the director of the cost of living council, which is not a presidential assistant.

It's a line job, and a distinction can be drawn.

If you try and defend that one, you'll bring the whole thing down.

Why don't you give them that then?

Well, we have given them that.

In fact, George at a press conference got asked about it.

Who is the director?

John is Dr. Dunlop from Harvard.

He'll have no problem being concerned.

That's right.

But the others are CIEP, Office of Management and Budget, Domestic Council, National Security Council.

Let's talk about Office of Management and Budget.

That could be my new goal.

Well, remember how that was set up now.

The way the OMB was set up was to have all of the powers that had previously existed in the Bureau of the Budget transferred to you.

And then you, in turn, had delegated them to the Office of Management and Budget Director so that he is not a statutory creature.

He's a creature of your creation.

And that is an a fortiori situation, it seems to me, in view of that fact.

All right.

And I don't think you can anymore give him away to confirmation than you can Henry or any of the rest of us.

We can't give you or Henry the B plan.

That's right.

So I think you have to draw the line short of OMB.

Right.

Now... That gets crunchy because you've got a bill up.

All right.

Okay.

There's a bill going through the Senate 100 miles an hour.

It'll pass the Senate, no question.

The house, by the time it gets to the house, the house will be mad as hell over the cuts.

So it'll probably pass the house.

So you veto it.

So you veto it, and you'll probably be sustained, as near as we can tell now.

Yeah.

And Jerry will be able to wheel a third.

So reminiscent of the poor old, uh, which was the, uh, you know, I made it to the council.

You know, it's an issue, but you really thought about it.

You know, I didn't know that.

It was about, basically, not that, but it was about the cabinet.

At that point, they wanted the, when Andrew Johnson came in, they, the Lincoln cabinet and so forth were all pissed off.

And they, the Congress passed some sort of law, a rural law, making it necessary for a president to have, not only, he not only had to have a,

approval of his capital or confirmation, but he had to have approval for discharging.

I remember that.

That was to keep him from getting rid of the Lincoln.

That was to preserve Sandman on the boat.

So as I said, these fights are not controlled.

Now talk to Bill Rogers.

He said that this had never really come up, except in the Sherman Adams case, where

Adams was required to testify.

It was never a confirmation question.

It was a question of availability to testify.

And he did testify because he was under fire.

He said that if you're asking his opinion on what your position ought to be on this, that you ought to draw a line around every presidential system in no way,

I thought there was an important constitutional issue.

My view, John, is this, that we apparently, we are going to be fatalistic.

We thought that we won the election, but I guess maybe we will, but I guess there is a deal with being in constant battle with just a bunch of three, frankly, second grade people.

I'm afraid.

I don't say that in the air, but it's quite true that when you see that, it's not just people, it's the leaders.

The interesting thing that came from the leaders meeting on the most intelligent questions were asked by the Democrats, by Steve Jackson and people like that.

And they were also the ones that, frankly, had the most to say publicly.

Where is our position?

I don't know.

It's pretty weak.

Ford's not bad.

Scott's just, you know, marshmallow.

Ford's a good man.

A good man.

But look, if you were picking a guy, you know, to run your corporation with Jerry Thorpe, you'd pay him for about a second.

Sure.

But you don't.

I think the reason Roy Ash is going to have problems with the Congress is that he's so head and shoulders above them.

And as I said before, I think one of Ford's fatal charms, as far as his colleagues are concerned, is that he's not mediocre.

Yeah, he's not any brighter than that.

If he beats there, though, it would be a lot better.

Well, he's got a charge to be found.

But he had character.

But I must say this, he had, he was worse than Ford, though, in one sense.

He openly fought Eisenhower on occasion.

And Ford was not, never done this.

Ford works like hell.

Yeah.

Not kind of, I think he had to do it.

He was very quiet about it.

No one, you know, would move out of the, move out of the chair.

And I said, I cannot do this unless somebody else took the chair.

The day that happened, there was a comment, he had to keep his ass out of the job.

I don't know, it was shocking.

I discovered something about Ford in the last couple of weeks.

Uh, he's terribly insecure.

Uh, I called him after he was done.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

I mean about the White House.

Uh, he did a hell of a fine job.

We briefed him up and then he went on Meet the Press a week ago, Sunday, was it?

Something like that.

I called him afterward, telling him he'd done a great job.

Geez, oh, he thanked me for calling.

I got a note from him.

Thank you very much for calling me up after Meet the Press.

And he had a reception over here that some guy put on for him, and we dropped around.

And it came up again.

Oh, thank you so much for calling me after Meet the Press.

I just realized, I guess, that we all can't see that.

We have to do more of that stuff, I guess, just for him.

Except this, that we must.

Part of the problem may be, John, and when Bryce was here,

I used to write Ford and Scott and so forth about every week.

I don't do it now.

I don't write them.

And it may be that it feels that that's changed, but I can't do it.

I don't want to get back with it again.

I think we can do it.

We don't have to.

I want all of you to do.

I want you to do it.

And every time you call me and say that the president thought it was wrong, I know what I'm going to do.

I do catch the news.

I say to the president, I

or that I heard in the no time that he was terribly pleased.

Mention all that.

Always use the present same.

You do the same thing.

But call more.

I mean, our people are going to grow to do some things like that.

Just tell them to call.

Give them a listen if you have a call.

That's what they need.

But for security, he's our brother-in-law.

Man, you're lying about that.

Well, we've just got to do more of that kind of stuff for him, I guess.

And I'm learning.

It's a surprise to me, though, isn't it?

At this point, you see before, we were playing governors, etc., etc., because we had an election.

Now look, the governors beat us, and we don't need that anymore.

Not that much.

Right now, in terms of our programs, we need this miserable Congress.

So if I leave, I would spend a hell of a lot less time with governors and mayors and press, and a lot more time on congress and press.

That's my view of it.

Cole has just taken over that governors and mayor thing, with the exception of Rockefeller.

Rockefeller, we'll never talk to you about that.

What about Reagan?

I've never been on Reagan's beat.

Except when he wants to cuss at somebody.

He calls Weinberger, or he calls Vice President.

All right, we'll fight the thing.

And we get rolled, and that's that.

And it's never, let me say, there are certain things worse than we get rolled, we get rolled on.

And then we all just sit down and fight them until we'll be in battle.

And I think on the code and the legislation, Congress is in a stellar mood.

You read all that, and everybody's worried about it and so forth.

I don't know how worried they are.

I don't think they're very worried.

We just have to do the right thing, right?

The right thing.

Well, and get our story out.

And this is another subject that sometimes when you have time, I'd like to get into, is this whole business of secondary and tertiary advocacy.

Right.

People out around the country.

Not only that, from here, but I mean people out around the country who are going to speak up for you.

Well, I have another thought.

I'm glad you raised it.

I think we should get a list of 100, and maybe it's 500.

But I don't know.

But about every month to two months, I write a letter to them.

Don Kendall, for example, may have five or six businessmen around.

Maybe there are others.

And I'd like to give you a report on what's going on.

In other words, have it as a no background letter.

Somebody, I think this is a report, a letter from the president.

Now, those letters, first, the womanist, they'll read them to the court.

They'll get in the papers without a question.

It'll get enormously more publicity than if I just put it out here to the secret.

And I can write a letter and say, for example, that's one thing I intend to do in the budget in addition to the speech today, and one that I will probably have to make within about, when I get the first speech, over two or three months.

Probably have to make it two or three weeks, maybe.

when we get an issue.

But this business of letters, I'm just thinking, can be enormously effective.

I want you to talk to Rice about this.

This was something that Eisenhower did at the time of unification.

And he wrote letters, in this case, to business people around, business leaders.

Now, we've got a broader list.

And here, you write to our labor leader friends.

You write to our business friends.

You write to those editors.

I mean, now that Vietnam's out of order, you can goddamn near write to every editor.

on an economic issue, we could do pretty well, right?

Yeah.

Right.

But you ought not to write every editor.

The cost of that ought to be special.

No, I don't want to have 10,000.

That's it.

I was thinking maybe a list of 100.

So I've got 100 damn surrogates on it.

And let's pick them.

And don't worry.

Pick one or two of the smaller states.

Maybe there should be one in each state.

I'm not sure.

Maybe we should just get them.

You can't write five businessmen in Chicago with the same letter, you know.

If you're going to write the businessmen, you see what I mean?

You should be on the basis where if they get to talk to each other, it's sort of special.

So if I've got out of line work, I don't mind.

I tend to go out of line work to have a letter from the president to everyone.

There's a way.

It's no crisis.

It's a deal.

Yes, well, I started the letter out by saying, I am writing to a very small group of friends that I'd like to give a report to from time to time.

Also, another thing I thought, John, I could write them a poll.

Now, I'd like to get your views on these, and let them write back.

Now, this is a lot of work, but you know you'll get some ideas sometimes, and you'll stir up their interest.

I was thinking, too, that some of the people who have left

can be very valuable to us.

I was thinking of that fellow, David, and his wife.

He said hello to all of them.

He's going to be in Chicago.

He could be a terrific add-on.

This fellow, Barker, has gone back to Utah.

This Barker out in Utah?

I thought he was in Chicago.

This is a different Barker.

This is a complete Barker who's going to be an advertising guy in Long Island City.

And a wheel of the community out there.

He must have come back.

Because he really went out for a week and came back.

Well, OK.

I've got a couple of other kind of early warning things I'd just like to run through very quickly without any decisions being necessary.

Here are some events that you ought to know about.

We have a reorganization plan going into Congress on Friday that does away with OEP.

Then, over the weekend, we're briefing on the budget and the economic statement, and there's a major PR plan for following up on that that looks quite good.

Lots of television and so on.

I'm not going to brief over the weekend.

That's this all-day Saturday.

traditional budget director and secretary of state.

I'm doing some television, I'm doing some magazines.

Today Show sort of things, you know, CBS Morning News, that sort of stuff.

All the television you can do, you can do.

Some of the others you're not doing, you should do them.

Then, I don't think, let me see the ones that are good.

The only ones that I've ever earned again that you can do it.

Brandon, he's got a good, strong face.

The rest are... Lynn's going to be all right.

Lynn, he's a very, he's a ball-strong guy.

He's a ball-strong guy.

Sure, a lot of energy.

I'd love to hear that.

That's what I was going to say.

I was like a guy with a commercial that he had to read, and he didn't get to it now.

Wonderful guy, though.

Well, he's a wonderful guy.

George Bush.

He's a wonderful guy.

The woman that stood on top of him.

I remember.

That's about usually what we'll come over.

John that stood, and that's about the beginning.

Yeah, that's not good.

He has an eye for it.

Schultz, on those esoteric programs, he's not so.

Well, Schultz is such a decent man.

He comes through very sincere.

That's it.

He's convincing.

Yeah.

He's not that.

He doesn't sell.

But he does.

Schultz is not a live audience man, but he might be a damn good guy on the Q&A.

That's what he is.

He's everything.

He's very good on the briefings.

He sells these guys on these all-day briefings where Hobart and Rowan and the rest of them sit there and he goes into all this stuff.

And they believe him and he's got the facts.

He's smart.

They like him.

Yep.

Well, he's an honest man.

They trust him and they like him.

State of the Union starts from a week from tomorrow.

with an intro, and then the following week with our two-a-week subject matter things, when you're doing a radio on 2C or 1C, and then the rest of it coming up.

Now, which one?

Are any of those up to, if they are, to a television intro in the week?

I have been wanting to do television within two weeks, in a week or so.

Did you think it's just ready?

I want to let...

I've read about it.

It may be, but this budget thing that you're talking about, or the response to a veto or something, could take the place of, or be, the economic State of the Union.

And that's set for the 6th of February.

You think they would have a veto by that time?

I don't know.

I doubt it.

I don't think we'd have one by then.

Is there going to be a recess then?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

And then the sequence is, I don't, we don't, John, I think it did, not that it's any great work of ours, but I went over it, and I worked quite a bit on that speech today, and cut it down to some, and, see, I, I've evolved in the inaugural, and in this Vietnam thing, and I really worked a little hell of a lot on myself, and Christ, finally, what is basically my style,

and then it was the way it is.

Now this thing, this thing, the way this is, makes the points very, very simple.

And that's what I'd like to pass around to our car so that they can, here's what a congressman I know, he simply got to say, he says the way to hold out, I mean, I'm against higher spending because I'm against higher taxes and higher prices.

A vote for higher spending is a vote for higher taxes and higher prices.

It's that sort of thing that we've got to get in on, just that sheer, oversimplistic demagoguery.

And I wish we could do it.

Well, anyway, that's a sequence on the State of the Union.

And that'll run on into March, before we get to the end of that line.

Right.

And, well, Ken has some of Price's guys working on it.

And they're cranking them out.

Next week, I have a meeting with Sam Urban.

on the matter of executive privilege, which is a hot, touchy, miserable issue in the Congress right now.

And I— What do we want to do on that?

Well, our position is that it isn't a problem, that it hasn't been a problem, that we've only invoked it three times in four years, that you have a policy that you have set out in 1969 that we live by, and it really is illusory.

And I've talked to him a couple of times, and I'll go see him one more time and see if we can head off this legislation.

Do you want to bring him in?

Maybe.

Let's wait and see.

I know he's broken it down.

I don't know if you would bring him in.

Let's see.

I do a lot of executive privileges to say I should talk to the president about it.

He says that he's been on the other side when he was in the Congress, and he's always told our people to bend over backwards on the subject.

And we lie in our hand before getting this entire legislation that let's take off each of these cases.

He's got case where he thinks he shouldn't be an attorney.

That's our example.

We're sending Kissinger down to the damn Congress to read what he's saying.

Interestingly enough, our problem is not nearly as much with Irvin as it is with Percy and Javits.

Why is that?

Well, just because they're Percy and Javits.

Armory bastards, you know.

Crusaded, you said it.

Yeah.

They're saving the president from himself, you know.

And so... Well, who do they want?

Who are they having?

Oh, their actor, Kister.

He's going down to the Congress.

Yeah, but, I mean, that's...

He's symbolic, you see.

He should be available and should be forced to testify at any time.

He's never going to be done.

And he's got to have exactly... Well, John's written a marvelous... How the hell does he think we did all these things?

I don't think we...

He only knew the offers that we spent.

That's...

Hours he spent in the past.

I have laid our position out in a long letter, and we're circulating it on a hill, and it goes into all this kind of trouble.

Now, substantive issues.

There is now, on your desk, two great big fat notebooks for decisions.

one on tax reform and one on energy.

The tax reform is the one I better look at.

Well, no, I don't think you need to look at it yet.

I've had it staffed out.

I've just gotten the reports today, and they're very critical.

So I want to give you a little bit about the Treasury effort.

So I want to give George another crack at this, and so we'll pass it.

The energy book is a very full, complete job.

By Martin?

No, by a task force.

Flanagan was the staff director of an eight-month study, and it suggests about ten things that ought to be done, and it can be the nucleus of a very good energy message, short-run.

It's interesting how the point is we always have to refer to this as crisis.

I mean, there was the hunger crisis, and then there was the environment crisis, and now there's the energy crisis.

It sells newspapers.

I don't see the people getting that excited about energy.

Well, they will.

They're closing schools in the Midwest.

We have maldistribution.

Here's a typical problem, and it will validate your instincts.

We have not built a single oil refinery in this country in your first term.

And the reason we have not is because of the environmental... Let me tell you about it.

Let me tell you about energy.

I am totally for it, you know, because it's the guts of the country.

I'm just saying, I would rather not refer to it.

I understand.

There is an energy crisis, but it happens to be in Iran right now.

The Shah is raising hell, and we've got problems.

Here are the steps.

Well, that's a possibility.

It's dangerous as hell because he's got clients, as you know.

And I don't know what his conflict is.

Well, we have to have Dan and Frank talk with him about that.

Okay.

But let me say, Helm's been out there.

Helm's over there.

So anyway, here's what I suggest.

We're going to hire Charlie to phone him.

Who is this assistant fab?

He's going to be our energy guy in the White House, and he'll work for George and Henry.

We'll not add any staff, but we would like to detail about four guys to operate this thing.

That's better than, as you know, the mining thing, for the reason that the mining thing would be a red flasher.

then they'd have him down there right in his house.

Well, Devona is clean.

He's had no connection with any .

Well, he's on tankers, and that's a problem.

Well, that's my point, yeah.

But Devona's bright and tough.

And I think we'll be able to carry this off.

But at some point in the next 10 days, you're going to have to check some boxes.

so that we can, on this energy thing, so that we can start the energy message and get it up there and come up to market.

Do you want to put anything in my briefcase?

I'll take it with me to Florida.

I was hoping they'd not do anything, but I didn't.

Well, I've got about a seven-page synopsis of this energy thing, which you might want to go into.

I don't think the secretary's on there.

I mean, I hope he grows this week.

I'm going to say one girl.

One girl should be their case.

I'm not even president now.

Well, I'll send this along.

I don't have anything else.

The tax thing is not ready for you.

The only other thing you will have in the near run, say in the next week or ten days, is a paper on trade.

Let me say that if there is anything to be done in the way of a television speak,

I have to let him write for a week, and then he has to come in in his first half.

And then we go through 10 or 11 reps. That's about the best way we do.

I don't have anybody else to do it at the moment.

He does about as important.

So I haven't got any new people to recommend to me other than what you have.

Well, we've got one new guy, and I think maybe this is the time to try him.

But we ought to do it for 10 to pretend, which is your guy, Gannon.

Gannon.

OK.

Again, it looks like the... Did you read that paper?

Yes, Ray has turned out very well.

I've got to agree to that.

I've spent a lot of time with him myself.

But he's turned out extremely well.

And finally getting the style down, just the style that Ray's from.

He's a...

Yeah.

I was sitting here talking to John earlier, and I was wondering when you could get out of Iran.

How soon you could get out there?

Middle of March?

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, let me say this.

I wonder...

He said he would.

Yeah.

See, the John's death slowed it up.

But, but, but... Oh, I know that.

I know that.

I see.

Well, but he'll be... Oh, God.

Yeah.

Well, that may be over.

What I would like for you to do is this...

I have a talk with John at your next week sometime, don't you?

And the Iranian oil thing is in apparently one hell of a situation at the moment.

And did you talk to Connelly or you're going to?

Well, I would say the first man to talk to is John Irvine.

And then Blankin, who's made a study, read the whole thing.

And what I want to do is that if you're not going to a march, maybe we could find a way to expedite it so that you could even take a trip even now, couldn't you?

Well, what we have, what I have in mind, I've talked to everybody here, which is a great idea, idea, and I was talking to Henry about that.

What I really have in mind is for you basically to be sort of the,

without downgrading the other ambassadors, the ambassador in charge of that sort of area, you know, in particular, you know, so you can go down to those sheep dens and these other places and pull this thing and then give us the recommendation, you know, and in charge of the area, not only in terms of oil and so forth, but in terms of the stability of the governments, what we can do, frankly, covertly in the rest and so forth and so on.

So, I mean,

I think a trip of that sort would be very worthwhile.

Let me suggest this.

You come in to, you have a talk with John Ervin at their responsible time.

Have a talk with, and the common, the common is a little sensitive because he represents some clients, but he'll, but on the other hand, you should talk with him.

Then, and then sometime next week, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday or so, maybe toward the end of the week, I'm going to be traveling first of the week,

uh, we can, uh, we'll try to go over the thing.

And, uh, uh, but my view is that you probably ought to take a trip very soon.

In other words, uh, you know the job well, right?

If you could do it, I don't think it's any problem as far, but you, you, you better think about that when you talk to, uh, if you think it's too sensitive to go out there and hurry that, or anybody, but you're still the director of the CIA, right?

Well, that's, uh,

Yeah, right.

All right, fine.

You talk and we'll work something out.

Because I don't want, I'd like to get, since you're going to be in charge of it, I'd like to get you in the field now before it blows.

It might blow if we can blame you.

If you can do that for us.

Okay.

All right.

Good.

You can do that now.

There.

Thank you.

The only other thing I have is perhaps a quick review of our personnel situation, which I suspect we need not get into at the moment.

When you get back, we're going to want to cope with the FBI.

No, I mean some specifics.

We've got this FBI thing hanging on him.

How did my Brussels house flyer work?

Oh, it's still flying.

Well, we turned up a hell of a big guy who has everything going for him, except he doesn't look like the director of the FBI.

He's got everything else.

Who's that?

A fellow named Curran, who's head of the crime commission in New York.

What's his name?

He doesn't look right.

He looks like an Ivy leader.

He wears a vest, and he's got a wavy haircut, and...

It's on face.

But he's an Irish Catholic.

He's perfect from every standpoint.

He's had crime and law enforcement experience coming out of his ears.

He's a lawyer and everything else.

Well, I'm sure he could do it from the standpoint of performance.

He's just not typecast from the standpoint of the way he looks.

Ruck is a better combination.

But anyway.

Next week, you're going to have to come to some kind of a decision on that.

By next week, we will have either made it or broken it with Brennan on staffing the Labor Department.

And that's been a problem.

So we'll take a problem.

Oh, just the independent of the hog on ice and...

He wants to staff the thing with a bunch of cronies that are hacks and are not going to do the things that probably ought to be done there.

He's got some old retired general that he wants for undersecretary who is just not right from any standpoint, by any standard, except that he's Brandon Skye.

So, we're going to give the boys another four or five days to try and work that out.

Schultz is going to help them to try and mediate it.

Well, why did you tell Brennan that he is such a hell of a public spokesman that he wants some guy as his undersecretary to run the damn department?

Absolutely.

And that he can rely on?

Yep.

The trick is to get some guy who isn't a cookie pusher.

and that Brennan will buy.

He says, they ain't got no right for it.

So anyway, there's that.

Now, welfare reform.

We did this poll.

I don't know if you saw those numbers.

Interesting numbers.

I don't know.

Well, I'll tell you.

The thing of it is,

We haven't got a lot of money.

What I have to say is this.

My view is... Would you call, uh, Mrs. Monroe?

Would you call, uh... Julie?

Tell her, uh... Tell her to go ahead and dinner, you know.

I've got a bag of colds in my conditioner bottle.

Yes, sir.

And, uh, let me tell you what I have.

Uh...

I'd like to call it... No bonus for welfare.

That's what it really is.

Stop the bonus for welfare.

That's what the program is.

And in other words, a bonus for work, not for welfare.

That's why people, in effect, the way that question is worded, I see people voting for it.

People voting for it because they are really voting for a worker.

We're going to pay a little tax to see that somebody who works gets as much as somebody who doesn't.

So that those niggers don't get it for nothing.

Basically, the welfare thing is a flash.

You know it is.

Here's what I'd like to do.

It's not fair, but it is.

Here's what I'd like to do.

I'd like to give Warren Weinberger the assignment.

of developing welfare reform options.

The only thing is that I would wish that you, my man, had written in a book a guaranteed annual income.

I mean, that's what we want to call it.

Well, we'll get away from it.

And, uh, I think with Weidenberger's... Well, let me say, let me put it this way.

You know how I feel about them.

I think this is basically what all of our projects and our budget strangers do.

There's nothing we can do about it now, but...

When I look at the welfare, it's the main thing, John, is that we think there's nothing else that will work.

You saw that curb line on food stamps in the room.

All the other social services, up and up and up.

Now, the thing about welfare reform, if we do welfare reform, it ought to strip out all that other stuff.

There's no way to reform welfare and leave all that other stuff in place.

And that's cataclysmic.

It's a major job on that kind of a basis.

Well, see, you're being very fundamental about everything else.

You're going in, you're ripping up OEO.

What do we have in this budget for welfare reform?

We don't have anything.

And why don't we just say that's going to be, that's still under study.

It's under study.

All right.

Under study.

That would be your answer.

You don't have any objection.

What I'd like to do is just start a domestic council operation.

That's right.

On welfare reports.

Oh, yeah.

So that way when Reagan's wheel says, all right, we've got a government we're working on.

Yeah.

He can't have his veto anyone.

So he'd either himself or Reagan's.

He's the one that pitches the most.

Well, he'll have it with Weinberger, you know.

They talk all the time.

Well, okay.

That's fine.

If you have no objection to that, we'll kind of align in our direction.

You sent it back earlier.

I should know.

But the one thing I do, I just wish that in the budget, when people get the budget, they can actually play in addition to taking out stuff for the farmers.

Is there anything we can say about cutting down money for higher education?

Well, we are.

I like that in some speech I make sometimes.

Everybody has on these college professors that is subsidizing us.

Well, maybe we shouldn't.

Maybe I shouldn't.

We should know nothing.

But God, I think that's such a waste.

I really think it's a waste.

Subsidizing professors that are against war.

Well, I'll tell you, you're not going to have to make a speech about it to get it noticed, because they are going to start screaming next Monday morning.

And they are going to scream and scream and scream.

Why?

Well, because we're shifting from grants to institutions.

No grants to institutions, now grants to students.

They don't like that.

Oh, they hate that.

They can't budget for education instead of research.

You see, they can't budget how many research assistants they can hire and how many lab assistants and all this other stuff.

Now the customer decides what he's going to buy instead of his right.

I think it's very sound and it's very consistent with your philosophy.

It's the market.

Well, sure, I supported it when I went in.

It's the marketplace approach to education, which we've all said ought to be given a chance.

Who's the sport besides you?

Weinberger.

Weinberger's sport.

He is?

Yep.

I don't know if I know it.

We didn't ask those problems.

Any conservative who is familiar with how the operation of the education machine would be for this?

How about Crystal?

I'm sure he's for it.

I'm sure he is.

Were you able to handle a problem with the voters of the University of Colorado faculty?

I didn't know we had a problem.

Yeah, that's your whole thing on apology.

Remember?

Well, we're handling all of these universal issues.

The University of California claims that we were forcing them to hire only black professors this year in order to meet the quotas that we were handing down to Washington.

That was why they affected the apology, you know.

Remember that quote?

Yeah.

The Jews were against Biden.

Well, I checked into this.

So I just told you, if you can't hear me, this is how it is.

Yeah, I was right.

We're going to change executive order.

But I did check into the two cases that Pat gave me.

And they were, well, they had been true.

But it was some long time ago.

And they have been brought into conformity with what has been our policy and now quoted.

Now, let me go to the other one.

don't get the impression, because it is not my feeling, that because we only got 12% or whatever it was, what was it, 70% of black people were 12, 12 was, you know, 19.

I don't know.

But whatever it was, for that reason, we have no concern.

We have no concern.

Because remember I told you, I want something.

I want, but what are we doing for blacks?

What can we say?

You're surprising me.

Your speech should go about like this.

The Johnson years were the years of getting civil rights laws on the books.

These are the years of quiet, effective law enforcement and an end to economic discrimination.

And our strategy all the time has been to steadily increase the sound, prudent,

Quiet, effective law enforcement in the civil rights area.

Our budget has gone up every year.

Our guys have been working every year, and the results have been piling up every year.

And at the same time, our strategy has been to create jobs free of discrimination.

so that black people could have money in their pockets to give them the social mobility that they desire.

Well, manpower training all over the place.

But more importantly, we've been adding 2 million new jobs a year to the economy.

And the employment in the black community has been going steadily up.

The median income has been going steadily up.

And we've been getting results.

Now the job's not done.

What can we do?

What can you do, John, really, in terms of the blacks?

You know, it's something much more subtle than all that.

Sure, they'll say, well, it's just bread and all that.

But more, it's a feeling of...

whether you really...

It's satisfaction.

It's ego satisfaction.

And you really think they are ego.

I do.

No, I understand.

I don't think you could be them.

Why the hell?

We should...

I could have come out like a rose on that.

Right.

Because I am...

I have this... Nobody ever treats them less condescendingly than I do.

Well, your friend Vernon Jordan was in the scene the other day.

Right.

And as you know, Lyndon Johnson had a big civil rights conference down at the library.

And they all showed up down there.

And the thing that came out of that conference was a call for a summit conference with the president, a black summit conference with the president.

He'd been to China, and he'd been to Russia, and now he should have a conference with us.

So Vern Jordan came to see me, and he said, this isn't going to go away.

It's going to build up and build up, and either the president's going to have a summit conference with the blacks or he's not.

And that's going to be very symbolic.

And he said, like it or not, you guys talk about jobs and the minority business enterprise.

He said, half of our makeup is symbols.

And he said, we live on symbols.

So I said, well, look, Vern, I said, look, the China summit conference, the Russian summit conference did not come off until after there had been months and months and months

of laborious preparation, hard work.

And I said, it wasn't symbolic.

There was a hell of a lot of preparation.

And the president didn't even agree to have a summit conference until success was assured.

That's right.

Now, I said, any time that you or your colleagues want to come to me and sit down and plan an agenda for earnest, hard work leading eventually to such a thing, my door is wide open.

But I said, let's not talk just about symbols.

Let's talk about preparation.

Let's talk about hard staff work.

Let's talk about...

ensuring success before we ever get into this because that's the only kind of summit black caucuses well i said you know this administration got its lesson in black symbolism about the first two months we were here when moynihan talked us into heading around abernathy into the cabinet room

And I said, I don't know if you do.

Yeah, he says, stop.

I know all about that.

He said, that was a terrible thing for you to do.

It was a terrible mistake, and so on.

I said, okay, and we got it burned a second time because we had a big summit conference with a black congress.

And I said, that was a disaster.

And he said, yeah, I know about that.

I said, well, now, why the hell should we rush out with open arms and say, oh, boy, let's have a summit conference with the blacks if we've been burned twice?

I said, this is the only way we'll do it.

And he said, okay, well, I'll go talk to the brothers, and I'll be back to you.

And I haven't heard anything since.

But I think that's the posture we've got to take.

Well, you could have some.

You could have meetings with her.

Oh, I do.

Well, I could let her go and say, all right, let's plan something.

And then what I would do is rather than all of them.

You might have one same committee or something.

Well.

I'm not nearly as worried about the symbolism as I am the backlash and you know what it is that everybody agrees to and then the delivery afterward and the reaction afterward so

They're perfectly content to go to a one-day meeting at the Johnson Library and yell at each other and hoop and holler and talk about civil rights, and that's a very big, gratifying experience for them all.

And I just think there's nothing in that for you.

You can't play that game.

Sure, and I think you should.

I'm going to give you a list of folks that I think you ought to be talking to.

People that are responsible.

This is a good guy.

And a responsible person.

He will tell you things that you probably need to hear.

Of course.

He will be fair in his criticism.

But he's a civil guy.

Very decent.

He won't abuse the person coming in to the degree the other is doing.

That's right.

Very decent.

And he doesn't have to prove anything, and he knows it.

You know, he's got the status, and yet he's got hang-ups.

He told me he's got a big limousine that the Urban League furnishes him.

And, you know, he's got a black chauffeur, but he doesn't ride in the back seat.

He rides in the front seat with the chauffeur.

And you know why?

Because that's where Whitney always used to ride.

He says, the day you see me riding in the back seat, you know I'm my own man.

Because then the guts don't move.

That's right.

They won't let it.

Because the communist leaders always are over the front seat.

Kershaw.

Always.

But they don't now.

So that's cheating.

Well, I'll tell you another problem that might be interesting for you to talk about.

Who's this young Gannon that Bob mentioned?

No, no, no.

But in just thinking about this list.

Oh, is this his father, Gannon?

No, no, it was a kid who was a White House fellow, and we kept him on, and he worked for a Russian fellow, Finch, jointly.

And what I might do is send you something that he's written.

He's got some real writing talent.

Ray thinks he is the one possibility of anybody we've scouted who could become a presidential speechwriter.

I'd like to have you read a piece that he did on goals.

That I think is perceptive.

I want to talk to him and be sure that I have anything else for him to do.

Well, John had a, it's kind of interesting, John had a father.

We talked with Petersmeyer.

Did he tell you about it?

took a large mackerel and slapped him across the face with it.

He said, you've been a dilettante for too long, and it's time for you to get off your ass and go to work someplace.

And we'll get you a job somewhere in the government where you can work instead of diddling around here picking up and being cheered by the little old ladies in their purple lace.

But still may be.

We can discipline him.

He's very rarefied.

He's very, he's been raised in this atmosphere.

Well, but he's worked here every summer.

But he spent all his summers working in the White House.

You know, it's pretty heady material for a 17-year-old kid who's now 21 or 22, but he's been around, kicking around here a long time.

But we were talking about using him as a guy to

sort of pick up the pearls that drop along the way here and get a petal.

And because he does have that quality of hero worship that most of our people don't have, and the willingness to express it.

It's basically what the people who come in say.

That's right.

But he's willing to say it.

He isn't just interested in a cigarette.

That has to be a hot news.

Hard news is not important.

Well, one way I thought we might be able to use it, we've got a guy who could discipline his crew there, how many people were in the room, what were they doing.

We've got a guy who could discipline him, make him work, and we could also get this kind of gentleman.

That's over at Dave Parker's place, which is a thing he's interested in doing, scheduling of people.

And then use him as a note taker and a sort of pseudo-aid so that he can be in places where he can move in and out without getting noticed too much.

But you need him to work under somebody who will ride his ass a little bit.

He has had the luxury of dilettantism.

Well, not very well.

These guys are not making progress to the extent that satisfies me.

We were filling some of the assistant secretary's ships pretty well, but the thing is not moving.

And I take it that having meetings with them three times a week and just kicking their ass, they're bogged down, they're floundering, they're thrashing, and they're not well managed, in my opinion.

It's a problem.

Yeah, it does.

It's laborious work.

They're interviewing, they're scouring, they're calling.

I think we've probably got too few guys as a practical matter.

I'm not sure we may.

I think part of our problem is they haven't given the input or we haven't given the decisions or both of them.

And there's a little bit of both.

Sure.

As I say, I've been trying to make key slots down so that they can move to the other jobs.

They've got a hell of a pile of good people.

And the other thing, we're trying to force all of Olson's new majority types into slots.

And that is why they're on that.

Because it is traumatic.

Because some of them.

Well, and some of them are qualified, but they don't want what they're qualified for.

They want something else.

And some of them don't want to come in at all.

And we've wasted a lot of time talking.

Like, we have a hell of a problem with Conley, and it's going to probably erupt what Conley problems are wanting to do at some point.

Because he's bitching now that we haven't placed any of the people he recommended.

Well, that, in the first place, isn't true.

Second place, most of the people he recommended are pure, I think he's playing a game with us, to be perfectly frank.

You know, after he talked with you, weren't you there to keep us game that night?

Yep.

They gave us all those names.

Those are people who didn't do a goddamn thing.

They're just people that he remembered, you know.

And then there's a nice guy, a lawyer I knew over in San Antonio.

99% Republicans.

And not worthy, except that John Tony remembers their names.

And some of those we haven't placed.

Well, I saw one of those guys the other day, and he happens to come from the Sid Richardson organization.

And I said, what do you want to come into the government for?

And he said, well, I really don't.

He said, your fellow called me and had me up for an interview, and that was nice, but he said I'd be out of my mind to come up here.

And I said, well, you know some things I'd like to know about the oil business.

I said, would you be willing to sit down and talk?

little advisory group together.

He said, I'd love to do that.

He said, I'd like to help my country.

But he said, I can't leave my wife up here and leave my business and all that.

John has not been, he's not been realistic.

The ones that want jobs that he's recommended are terrible people.

And we're finding places for them.

But it's a pain in the ass because they're, well, like one of them, he's pushing very hard on is Marty Underwood.

Well, it took us a year to get Marty Underwood out of here.

And he went to work for the Vice President, terrible old drunken hack.

And that was the first battle John had, the first clash he had with Sparrow Eggman, was he forced Agnew to fire Marty Underwood.

Why do you want him back?

Because he was a Democrat for Nixon, and the guy is a typical drunken political hack.

We've got a job for him.

And he's happy with it, and we've got him back in the government, in a non-sensitive position.

He's going to be an advanced man for

That was in Ruffles' house or something.

He's got a place, and we've got to take care of it.

They've spent an inordinate amount of time on that.

You know, Dick Scape has got some totally incompetent guy that he's demanded we get in.

Colson has a purple badge every afternoon because Scape calls him unfortunate.

Unfortunately, Scape is very innocent, except for the captain.

There's a cop subject.

I don't want to hear it.

You'll hear it.

You can't avoid hearing it.

Conley will get at you and say, those sons of bitches you got down there aren't hiring anybody.

And I'm going to make the whole case for Conley.

And I'm going to sit down.

I've got the chart.

I'm going to sit down with him, go over all the names.

You've done a hell of a lot.

I don't know.

The next week, I think.

Oh, that's right.

He was due before that.

I didn't see him.

He told me he wasn't sure whether he was going to come up or not.

He's got to go to Texas for that.

I'm sure he went to the town of Texas.

I don't believe he was here.

But that's the common way, though, isn't it?

But it's not an escape.

I wonder how he would handle, basically, his appointments to his cabin when he heard the job.

He'd call in George Christian some night and sit down and say, let's see, let's get old Jake and we'll make him Secretary of Agriculture.

He always did like Tavis.

I don't think he'd be such a hell of a good president in the day-to-day.

He'd be inspirational.

He'd be a leader.

He'd be a big thinker.

Uh, and he, he, he needed Sherman Adams to keep the thing on an even keel.

Maybe he doesn't.

He doesn't work well with a Sherman Adams.

He has this theory, you know, which is exactly the opposite of yours.

And he's absolutely probably right as a lawyer and totally wrong as President of the United States.

And that is, if I'm going to get, if I'm going to make mistakes,

What is this?

Let's look at Agnes.

Look at the jacket.

They're terrible.

Agnes are worse than Connors.

I think it's just frail and stronger.

He has both disabilities.

That's right.

He would be also lazy.

Yeah, that's right.

But he's short-sighted, narrow, negative.

And also a bad man.

What is the situation with regard to the formation of Joseph John?

Rockefeller's plan, the scheme you want me to help on?

It's well along.

It can help us.

And it also can, I think, move our new federalism, this whole thing.

And it's going to take the job of contact with them.

That'll be one of the principal subsidies.

What about the new federalism volunteers?

Well, matter of fact, that may touch the Rockefeller thing.

They're talking.

Now, I cautioned Rocky about the whole Romney thing, what it looked like to us.

Romney's written us a letter, written me, and said he wants to sit down with me and go over proposed board of directors, and then as you promised, he wants to come in and talk to you about the board of directors.

Well, I missed that, but apparently he had that impression.

So I'll get him that one.

I'll get him in and talk to him about it.

And, uh, uh, then, uh, Rockefeller's going to see him next week.

He is one of the great shit in the world.

He really should be here.

Oh, no, he loves it here.

He loves it here.

So does she.

Lenore's going to build a salon as near as I can tell.

She's beginning to entertain.

No, no, no, I mean a salon.

critique and opinion and political activity, and she's having little lunches in honor of people and that sort of stuff.

Well, is he running for president, too?

No, I don't see any sign of that.

Hmm?

Well, he hasn't admitted it to me like everybody else has.

The problem here is that the Rockefeller's age, he'll be 67.

He's beginning to show it a little bit.

I know.

How about Romney?

What's his name?

He's a little younger, I think.

He's a little younger than he looks.

He's older than you are.

Rock.

Yeah, but he's not, you know, he's very gray, but he's younger than you are.

Yeah, I would guess.

Yeah.

So in 71, when he leaves, I'll be frank with you, I don't think anybody, I just don't think anybody ought to run for president past the age of 60.

Yeah.

The first time.

He was in three times.

So Eisenhower's just on the edge.

He was 61.

The gap's just too heavy.

And Eisenhower was the oldest president.

No.

To take office?

No.

Oldest president?

William Henry Harrison was.

Buchanan was 65 or 66.

There were two or three that were old farts, but they never lasted.

William Henry Harrison only lasted two weeks.

He died, eh?

He didn't eat strawberries or something.

He died the next day.

I've never seen oldest men to leave the office.

No, I'm sure.

You said he was oldest at one end or the other.

William Henry Harrison didn't last very long.

He certainly didn't.

He rode back from his inaugural in a rainstorm in an open carriage.

He rode back.

He gave it an hour and 45 minutes in an ugly dress in a rainstorm.

Took to his death of pneumonia and died in anger.

They can't prove it.

He proved it.

He proved you can't give an hour and 45 minutes in an ugly dress in an open carriage.

There's nothing to do with this.

Well, I don't know where he, uh, he stole it consistently.

Oh, we're not going to abandon them.

Well, the Schedule C thing, John, may be in better shape, potentially, than the assistant secretaries.

How often do most people work?

On the personnel.

Well, I haven't seen it.

You know, the personnel side, where they're at the low level, and they're moving, you know, to put the political loyalists in, at the same time they're moving to get qualified people.

I hope so.

I haven't seen the evidence of it.

Malik is going to shift over to OMB and work on that.

Jerry Jones is going to pick up the personnel.

I think we'll do better because Malik has been involved in so damn many things and trying to shift himself over and all that.

I think when we get him out and Jones running it without Malik interfering with it, that he'll do better.

And he is more attuned to the political side of things and less

obsessed with the super managerial role.

I strongly urge you to use Bush as much as you can.

I would use Bush as a very, very strong wheel to deal with the Congress.

Yeah.

And with retelling the governor to the rest.

I mean, I don't want to undercut evidence, but Bush is going to be one hell of a fellow here.

He wants to do it.

And you should use him.

Don't you think so?

Great.

The last thing I want to suggest I ought to talk through for our depression.

I should talk more to the Congress and the Senators, particularly the Wilbur Mills and the Santa Cruz men.

It's true.

How do we do it?

We can do it, I guess, by and by.

Sometime as a grandstand, you've got to determine what you get for it.

As a grandstand, perhaps, during the recess,

If you went to Searcy, Arkansas to see him, you'd turn the town on its ear, you'd turn the state of Arkansas on its ear, and you'd enormously compliment him.

Something of that kind.

A little out of the ordinary.

That's right.

If you'd go out and present a Chinese ping pong, that's a good idea.

That's very good.

I know you could stop way back from a question.

Or California.

If you were in California, you could stop and say, well, I haven't been there.

So I'll sit on the way out and take him with you and ride there.

No, no.

I didn't mean to butt you.

I'm sorry.

The more I can keep people at home, the better.

Because if I'm there, you know, you're stuck on a parking lot.

Get your new plane and be in better shape than that.

When do you think we ought to start getting the counselors together?

Next week.

Yeah, next week's fine.

He's got the excuse for my murder to confirm that, so that's fine.

And we've been meeting with them right along, and they're under control.

I frankly think that having the cabinet, that the easiest therapy for the cabinet, for me, is really to have the whole cabinet rather than having an individual.

Those individual meetings are areas now,

The place the work is done is in the little committees.

We get three or four of them together.

I think that's fine.

And just give a gift, have their wives in or some giving.

No, that too, that too is a problem.

But I really feel that they come to the cabinet meeting, like when Angela comes back, I'll have them report it to her.

I know they come in.

The book, the trinket, the little memento goes back to the department.

They can show them all around.

That's a big deal.

That's a very big deal.

And all that, Henry Kerr chose to do it.

Ha, ha.

Go bring another one.

I mean, permanently, permanently, not permanently.