Conversation 848-015

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I don't know.

Well, I haven't talked to her.

I've only talked to him.

And the way he explained it, she wants the field organization of AGW to be left exactly the way it is, which was formerly under her jurisdiction.

He and Carlucy and others, and as a matter of fact, he says she at one time in a paper that she gave him, advocated a reorganization to move greater strength into the regional offices.

The implication of that would be it would come out from under her jurisdiction that the lines would run all directly to the secretary.

She's not willing to stay in that job under those circumstances, so he said, all right, Pat,

anything else in the department you can have i want you to stay and she said well maybe it's time i went back to private life anyway and so it's in that kind of a situation and he said that he has done everything he knows how to do to keep her without success and so the fat's in the fire

And I precipitated this.

I got a rumor of it last night.

And so I called and said, stop, do nothing.

And the problem that it faces us with, basically, is that it's the old French syndrome.

This is here within this shop.

But the problem with Rose.

And Rose is always suspicious of people over there.

It's a good gun.

If anything, we have it.

You want me to talk with her?

So I mean, we didn't really make the arguments that we could say, we made an exception here, we gotta make an exception for the other departments with regard to field organizations and arguments across the board.

This is the problem that they all hatched and recommended that we did this and so forth.

The second point is that, I don't know, what in the hell

Well, I don't know.

I think perhaps if I call her and say, obviously, she's too valuable to lose.

Does she have anything in mind?

Is there someplace else that I can say?

I want to just say that there is a view, frankly, with the president.

He said that the district should hear it early, even if he doesn't want to pretend that it appears to be, but that we can't change the deal organization thing.

And I want her to choose that.

Maybe we can take her out of there and put her someplace else.

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah.

I was thinking if she'd take a gun out.

She's been there a long time.

I'd like her to go over to maybe labor.

She could do something then.

Yeah.

Well, let me let me sound her out, at least indicate to her that you're aware of it, that you care about her, and so on and so forth.

I haven't sounded that a lot.

What do you think she thinks?

I don't know.

I don't have any idea.

She's had a good deal.

She'd go by the board.

She's traveled a lot.

She's been all over the country and had another road.

She's perused, you know, Europe.

I don't know what we have to do.

So, I mean, the people things, you know, people, you know what I mean?

was just where we would be now had we not settled into where we are today.

It's a long past victory.

Well, let me start this way.

I'm saying that I'm going to end this point.

I'm going to end this point.

to celebrate the election.

And I said, well, first of all, we couldn't because we still had some problems to be about.

But beyond that, quite incidentally, if we had started to celebrate the election, those cabin officers, they would be there when I saw them.

Jesus Christ, I quote him, he wanted to stay, not here.

I was like, both of you, both people, everybody.

The interesting thing is that the, uh, the interesting thing is, John, that the, uh, I noticed that the, uh, in some cases, they affected, uh, the White House staff.

They all came out and told the Department of Justice.

And that, of course, obviously had to come from Peterson.

But of all the people who have left, he's really the only one that's done a general invention.

Peterson's wife has been the source of most of these stories.

Right.

And wouldn't she have had a hell of a problem if we'd done it?

Yeah.

I think probably less.

Probably less of a problem, but a real problem.

She's running with Margot Hahn and with the Washington Post Georgetown staff.

He's been swept off her feet by this crash.

Well, that's it.

It's a good thing, I think, that Pete goes right now.

He could only have gotten worse.

I don't know what it is or not.

You don't know?

We wrote this long letter.

I don't know what the outcome of that will be.

I saw him the other day.

He said, I've got to come in and talk to you.

And I said, fine, any time.

And we're doing it.

It could be useful.

But we did.

We're not putting our hopes on it.

It might be better to just let it fade off if he's got a good job or something and wants to get this job from Adam.

He's got $300,000, $400,000.

He says he's got some big offers.

Right away.

Yeah.

John, why can't we do better than Klein?

I mean, I'm sick of this morning.

Klein was considered president of the university.

Yeah, he told me that last time.

I'm gonna see him.

Sure, because he knows everybody.

He's probably there after government grants.

I don't know what the hell that is.

Well, I'm going to see him tomorrow and talk with him about this.

He has to come.

Of course, I guess he'd really like to slide in and stay, but should he stay?

I mean, he's always a problem to me.

He is a problem in the sense that...

I just don't know how to act.

Yeah.

You've got to have one guy calling the shots on communications, and we've got two.

If you look at it cold on the organization chart, we ought to pare it down to one.

I don't know what his job hunting situation is.

Bob's been talking to it.

The other point is, 54 years of age, he is one of those who, and well, only now, it doesn't apply to Rogers.

Rogers, of course, well, he'd slide back into his old firm, you know.

Sure, sure.

I believe he won't be worth one damn thing.

That's right.

We don't play it like Johnson.

Johnson gets a job for a while.

He probably is a blackmail.

I can't do that.

I never will.

Well, I have a better reading tomorrow after Helen comes in.

And I will...

I'm going to get... Did you get your camera ready?

I just want to have a problem with Rose.

Well...

That's one of the reasons I slid in here, because I want you to be able to say to her, I know about it, or it's Italian and so on.

Well, they all say, you know, I couldn't have it saved.

Even if you come down to the Secret Service, you know, I find they've worked out as expected.

Duncan can't pick the top of the details.

He'd be chomping other people that would hurt his career.

And Taylor has been in it 22 years in the Secret Service.

so i think he wants out anyway at this point but yeah but rose comes in so we understand we tried to get that control but we can't give the impression the capacity of the whole uh

I want all of them to talk to us about it.

I don't want Patty, but I want you to.

Well, if anybody raises their hand, just refer them to me, and I'll try to keep on top of it and see if we can move this along.

I had the economic thing today.

Yes.

I just want to get there and run down all the phase three and so on.

Phase three.

Yeah.

I think you're wise.

I don't know if you've seen anything on Scoop Jackson, but Jackson began to play a line on the press yesterday on issues and answers yesterday.

That's kind of interesting.

The economy kind of went down.

They banged him on budget cuts.

First of all, they laid a clever foundation with him.

Interrogation was a droid.

They got him on the defense budget.

He said that was about right.

And then they drew him out on your budget cuts.

And he said, no, those are bad.

And we ought to full fund all those fine programs.

And then they said, okay, how are you going to pay for this?

Are you for a tax increase?

And he said, oh, no, the economy's got to grow.

And the economy's all screwed up and it isn't going to grow.

And that's the whole problem.

County would just grow.

And William McChesney Martin says that they've made a lot of mistakes now, and so on and so forth.

So he's taking what I think is probably the most adroit line in this whole budget thing that I've heard.

And he's beginning to pick up Arthur Oaken and different ones, and they would have a company grow.

How?

Well, he didn't get to that.

Well, I wonder.

I don't know.

But what he's doing is using the negatives.

that Martin and others are feeding in and criticizing the growth of the economy and saying, if the economy would grow, if they would do the right thing, then we could afford guns and money.

Then we wouldn't have to have a tax increase.

Yeah, yeah.

I finished up at U.S. News this morning.

They got me on that, too.

Their economic guy was talking about unemployment and was very much down on this.

So I think we've got to start a little counterattack going here on the business of the economy.

Well, they're talking about, see, our projections show our coming into full employment.

And in the light of the market falling off and current economic uncertainties and so on, do we still really think that we're going to achieve that and so on and so forth?

So I think we've got to get out with an assertive, positive economic line.

And these folks can be encouraged, I think, to do that.

It's early in the problem, but I think we've got to watch it here.

That's right.

That's for sure.

Yeah, I'll say.

Loud, clear.

simple message.

George keeps banging away on phase three, but do you see the market falling?

That's just lack of confidence is all that is.

Do you think it has to do with all phase three or does it have to do with part of the firms and the credit crunch?

Some, I'm sure it does.

And they bang the banks, as you noticed, Sunday.

We'll see what

This man loved controls.

And you take the controls off and they get all leery and concerned and unconfident or whatever the word is.

I think that's your point.

And there's another thing, John, that I've realized.

Despite all their beating about it, businessmen like war.

Sure they do.

And peace is an uncertain time.

God damn right.

But the war, I anticipated this one.

I remember all of them were talking about it.

And the reason is just as plain as a nose to your face.

They don't want that gone.

They don't want this... Well, they don't want a tax increase.

Curiously enough, they don't like budget cuts either.

They like expensives.

Sure, right.

Go forward with things.

I don't know.

I don't have a feel for that at all.

I just don't understand the elements of that.

Not a lot.

I've been kind of out of that.

I was getting pretty comfortable with those controls.

And I wasn't really in on the operational problem, so I don't know how badly the deterioration of the edges was caused.

Could be.

I just don't know the answer to your question.

I think if we clobber some guys, bang them hard,

they're down in the banks catching guys that are going over the guidelines and just just read them out that that'll tend to bring some confidence back into this let me just put it on the other side of the car now

Don't get the impression that we, I don't think we should ever get the impression because confidence recedes for two, three weeks and so forth, or four weeks.

That means the world is cold.

We have been through a lot of that.

Oh, 72, how many times have you heard?

How come that?

Yes, I've heard.

Certainly, how come that?

It's confidence, Mr. President.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you invite him to the war.

It's a bone to the Lord.

Yes, it is.

I'm not being chicken little about this, but I do think we've got a PR job.

We've got a big PR job to do on this whole area.

And it crops up all over the place.

So I think it's what we see.

The business people, basically, despite all they're talking about, free enterprise and the rest, are leaning on government.

And they like the paternalism and all the rest.

That's what the police rights have to do.

They want government to fight their way

That's really what we're going to be able to say.

Let me say that I certainly hope, though, that I can embrace the long list of Justin Martins.

He sold his Spanish goddamn bed.

Anyone that could be into the 69-70 relapse, he did.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Now, in terms of the situation today, we know that old Martin Burns, and I think you ought to say that Martin, we can't, he, Martin Burns, can't help but just work with it.

If he rolls around and says, Martin, do you realize that this is Martin's, this is the guy calling you?

um that doesn't affect this thing that much but the fact that the dollar weakened the european markets

What they think is going to be a credit crunch.

They think it's going to be a credit crunch that affects the market.

They think it's going to be too much of a turnaround for the government spending that affects it.

They think it's going to be, they think it's going to be a huge wage quotient that affects it.

Inflation, a little bit of it.

Securities.

Um, George is asking to see you tomorrow about tax reform.

And, uh, this may have talked to George.

No, I know.

Yeah.

Well, he's got to start seeing those other people.

And he should also be talking to them on tax.

And I've held him so far to just the two reforms, the parochial school and the elderly real estate.

But there's a whole list of stuff that House Ways and Means wants to get into.

And we've got to have administration positions on stuff like depletion allowance and that sort of thing.

So he wants to come in and get some general guidance from you on your reaction to certain sets of problems.

The reason he picked tomorrow was that he was under the impression that you were going west on Wednesday.

If you're not going, why, we can set this off to another time.

Well, I just don't want to sit and talk with him alone.

No, I'm sorry.

You're starting to think it's gospel.

Well, I'm not ready to do it.

I'd like to hear at least what the other point of view is, if there is one.

All right.

I have spent quite a bit of time here.

Well, there's a great thing I didn't need to do.

I understand.

I know what I feel about that.

Well, if you like, we can have a kind of a warm-up session on tax, or I can give you a paper that outlines the kinds of stuff that he'll be presenting.

He's got a whole... You ought to hear what Stein has in mind on this, yes.

He's got, for instance, what he calls a...

Isn't there something where...

No, I don't think Ash has been in it.

I think that Herb would probably bring you to another point of view that would be good to have.

You get into such things as a rejiggering of the whole capital gain structure toward more equity.

You get into such things as a new approach to deductions, blanket deductions, to put more emphasis on housing, in other words, a higher housing subsidy.

where really your call is basically a policy call rather than to get into the nuts and bolts of the whole thing.

You're developing.

Yes.

Right.

I'm going to brief on Thursday on that.

I think so.

See, it isn't so much the mayor's looking at the hole in New York.

We're going to have other mayors answer that because that's just a small group of Democrats.

They're going to say these guys don't speak for the mayors of the country.

This is Lindsey trying to politicize our little committee here and so on.

Will they say that?

Yeah, they're being programmed right now.

Ken's got three or four of them around the country that are going to do that right away.

I don't know what this housing decision and so forth will take about the leaders meeting tomorrow.

Good answer.

Yeah, and in the talker for this afternoon, I suggest that you quiz Lynn

a conversation for the Sanford.

And what we've got, of course, is a moratorium on commitment, new commitments.

There's $3.5 billion in the pipeline.

And so there'd be no slowdown in construction.

That money shows the whole time.

Pure bullshit.

Yeah.

Pure, total, absolute crap.

Well, in other words, we are not knocking off projects.

No, sir.

We of course should do that.

I didn't think we had

We are honoring every commitment.

Now, there's a little gray area as to what is a commitment, but that is a ten to one percent of the total.

Well, that's what the mayors are going to do, and if they don't do it, why we can do it from here.

Could you get me up before the leader's meeting tomorrow?

Just one paragraph.

You agreed to have a new second.

We got a 400% increase for the elderly.

Sure.

200% increase for the elderly.

I want to know what we got for the old, for the elderly, for the disabled and so on.

300% increase for veterans.

Whatever the hell it is.

Sure.

And for housing.

Thanks.

All right.

Well, it's an interesting record.

Yeah, very interesting record.

And much better than the kind of baloney that Albert's been throwing around with some of these other guys, much more thoughtful.

It's a very simple .

The President's strategy is to have great economic growth, but at the same time, a tax increase frustrates that kind of growth.

It can't be done with marriage.

You've got to have the dollars.

Well, on housing, you want something to talk to Lynn

Oh, sure.

Well, I explained to them that from time to time you'd be meeting with them.

This is the first meeting, and it's kind of a get-acquainted session.

Yeah, you can just go, you know, kind of draw.

Now, Weinberger's out.

He hasn't had a chance to even get into his department, much less his new role, because of his confirmation problems.

But today or tomorrow, I think he'd be confirmed.

But I think you can talk to Lynn about his plans for developing new housing programs, and you can talk to Butts.

I forgot what I've been in.

I've got something in the talker for Butts.

I can't remember.

But anyway, I've got one point that you might want to raise with him that's of current interest in the natural resources area that he ought to be getting into.

He is tending to be much more parochial as we thought he would be.

And he's still bogged down in farm legislation and all that kind of stuff.

And we've got to continually wean him away and get him back to the natural resources stuff.

He's letting loose in the department slowly.

And not fast enough.

Well, that's true, you know.

Oh, I know what I'm talking about.

You can ask him his advice on whether or not the Department of Agriculture should be folded in to the new Department of Natural Resources.

Remember, we left it out for election purposes.

It'd be interesting to get him thinking in those kinds of terms as to what the hell we do when we send our rear position going.

I think so, but it'd be interesting to get a little chatter going back and forth on that.

It's something that you have to decide today.

Well, I'm guessing people are getting into that because of everybody fighting in the Congress.

It really isn't because it's really a conflict of things.

It's just a pathogen.

At the same time, we have yesterday started a discussion and said that we have a time that the Congress is terribly frustrated.

Yeah.

They don't know what the hell to do with themselves in there.

They're screwed up.

And of course, one thing that frustrated them even more, even our hawks, not the hawks, but even our police corps people, was the success of them on the war.

They were screwed around.

Even though they were glad to act out of this, wham, now they've come.

Now they've got all hard choices.

And if you agree, of course, they're important.

Hard choices, yeah, they are.

I got an interesting reaction with the U.S.

Senators this morning.

I questioned, well, why does the President have his people vote using the executive privilege so much?

And I said, sir, how many times has executive privilege been invoked in the last four years?

He said, I don't know, but it must have been a lot of times.

And I said, three.

He said, three?

I said, I don't know.

I said, that's right.

He said, can you document that?

I said, yes, sir, we certainly can.

So what were the three times?

And so they're just around the table.

General amazement.

I wonder if you've got any comparisons to any other presence?

Sure we have.

You bet we have.

Could we do that?

Sure.

All right.

That'd be fun.

Thank you.

I've got to get the preparations for SALT and EMR at the European Security Conference, so we'll make an European situation.

That's one I'd like to talk to you about sometime.

I can foresee a major problem.

We're now saying that we've got a tight budget and so on and so forth, and we can't have a tax increase.

There's no give in the budget.

And sure as shootin', we're going to be coming up with some kind of a Vietnam here before too long.

The effective date of that is going to be critical in terms of the credibility of our budget and tax.

When I say part of the deal, I don't mean that they sat down and said how much, although they're talking about figures, but certainly no bilateral reparations or anything like that, but a program of reconstruction for Southeast Asia is part of the deal and it's part of the, it's an argument.

Well, the dialogue that you've developed to get around the apparent inconsistencies in the budget thing would be awfully important.

Think through exactly how to approach this.

Yeah.

Because our 74 budget just shows nothing at all.

And the boys have done these kinds of questions on the budget briefings.

When it begins to gel, we're going to have to figure out how in the world to make the explanation.

Oh, excuse me.

I got you off the mic.

For the extent possible, the extent of course where I realize they're required.

I think I'd like to get as many of these problems handled at levels that I don't have to insert.

On the other hand, if the messengers are astute, I should tell them they stand for .

They're all in the works.

Next week, I believe, is...

I can't tell you.

No, it's this week.

You're going to have to cut a little radio tape sometime this week.

And then, well, I have it.

It goes the end of the week.

I'd like to see it, of course.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

Right.

Well, but I think...

What we really got to do is, we got to sit down and figure out how the time, the demands on time are extremely heavy.

We don't want to see Congress and Senators and the rest, we don't want to push everything to the city government.

We've got to stop just running out of our ears.

And if we don't get hold of this, they're going to buy it.

We might have a subversion of that and not have the chance to control the events to a certain extent.

People suggest that we should just leave it to the press to decide.

They invited us to do it, but that doesn't carry on until after a couple of weeks.

Right.

So I'm sorry to tell you that we shouldn't give up.

I think, too, we have to be aware of the fact that there isn't really a hell of a lot that can be done.

You've got the same thing.

And yet you've got to let the cabin officer, he's got the people that he brought in.

One of the problems that you have with George, I had a good talk with, I brought him in, for issues you want to discuss, but George finds it difficult, more difficult than Cunningham, he finds it difficult to

where he can really do it better than I can.

And he'll say, look, I've decided this.

Unless you have an objection, you're in there.

And you can get him to be involved and so forth.

In other words, I haven't given it, but if I know something about a subject.

You see, in the foreign policy deal, it's all a different thing.

Oh, there's something Latin America or Africa.

I know that.

I can kick his ass on it.

I'm not bothered with that.

We've got something important to do.

But you've got to read it.

You've got to take it into your very mind.

Unless it's a matter that my experience or something contributing to, I should not get legally involved.

Now, I'll be in phase three, but I have to because it's important.

I didn't see myself getting too involved in the energy thing.

Well, I know it's terribly important.

It probably is the most important thing.

George needs international monitoring.

Thanks.

That probably is the most important thing.

That's one thing.

Tomorrow we'll be talking about it.

And I'm glad I talked to them and the rest.

But there comes, there are a few who have got to serve a driver of these people and say no.

Among peers.

If I could just say one other thing.

I've got to have some special relation with Brennan.

That doesn't make any difference.

I mean, they got to.

I mean, obviously, they got to tell them to calm down and so forth.

Granted, Scott had a special relationship with him because of the political situation.

And he's got to, you know, he's got to be in.

And I think, too, I think the idea of having one formal cabinet meeting and the other daughter going to show up for the show once a month is interesting.

Thank you.

let's play a little a little game here okay on the domestic thing

is going to come in as a special pleader.

He's coming in to plead the treasury case.

Rather than for you to react, let's have a therapy session where you sit and listen to the whole thing.

And then you say, OK, George, I think I understand.

Now would you give me a decision paper on this so that I can think about it some, and I'll get it back to you as soon as I can.

And if you will reduce every one of these therapy sessions to a decision paper,

so i can short-circuit that and dispose of it without your having to come to grips with it unless you have something that you find that is a particular important steel and then i'll advise you of how

have a call on it if you wish.

Otherwise, you can just throw it in the box and it'll be out of your way.

But if we get into a situation where I have to have a debate with George in your presence on something of this kind, we're in trouble.

Or particularly with a cabinet officer.

Then that's, that's... Do you think I should see the cabinet officer alone?

No, it wouldn't matter under that arrangement.

It wouldn't matter.

I think there always ought to be a note taker at some point.

And you can give reactions as we go along if you have any.

But as long as the thing is being very careful.

That's right.

Because my reaction may be, he'll take that as a marching order.

That's right.

And also, he's a very persuasive and persistent to nations.

And I can't be pushing him to something.

He's persistent about all the trade that I push very, very, I think, down across the country.

The thing on tax, if you can sit, and if you don't understand something, ask a question, or if you want to appear to be following it that way, and then at the end say, okay, now there's some fundamental questions.

I see what there are.

I assume there's an option paper.

If there is, I'd like to have it.

In the case of the tax thing, there is an option paper, which has already been sent in to you.

It's a black notebook.

And you can say, okay, I've got your auction paper, I've got your notebook.

Let me make some notes on it.

I'm going to run over it again, and I'll have something back to you to write.

That's all you need to do, and I'll take it from there.

He's going to start calling taxes on these guys right now.

Pretty soon, yeah.

They start their hearings tomorrow, and they'll run six weeks.

And we can dispose of it any time in the next week or ten days.

The reason he pressed for tomorrow, as I said, was he thought you were going out of town.

But I'm perfectly happy to feel these.

Now energy, I can handle it.

That is a hell of a huge

paper on that there's a reason for you to get into it in my opinion the calls are pretty obvious pretty clear and um

I've had this guy up here.

Well, it's a hell of a problem.

It's probably the most complex interrelated problem that we have in the government right now.

Well, that's the point.

When nothing happens when they throw the switch, they're going to get excited.

They're going to say, where the hell were you?

But if you go out and you solve it brilliantly in all of its interrelated facets, you're not going to get a thank you from anybody.

But it is now the big CBS crusade and those things that you're crusading.

Yeah, the US News was, by the way, actually spent 30 minutes on it this morning with me.

And you know what you get in the poll, the press time, about 2% probably.

You just don't.

Yeah.

I'll tell you where it comes in handy as an issue.

I turned this whole US News thing into a discussion of the costs of environmental protection.

And demonstrated how people are going to have to pay more for clean air, pay more for clean water, and all this kind of thing.

And centered the discussion on that.

So you can use it as a springboard to get into issues that we care about talking about.

But it is a hell of a challenge.

to pay because he's a professional analyst and he's a he's an intellect and he says god this is the most fantastic problem he said i'm just he said there just isn't any other

After you sit in, you have a meeting, I'd ask you to sit in and represent the private sector.

That should be the representative of the private company rather than me planning it.

Because he's part of that complex.

He should be called in.

Otherwise, he'll come at me.

I don't have the time or the right to learn about it.

Oh, he feels like he did the other day.

I saw him for a half an hour before he came down here, and I expected...

But I do think they have a meeting.

Oh, now, is he on board yet?

No, he will be in 20 seconds.

He's on board.

I have a meeting, and I'm calling in, or as an outsider, participating in the meeting.

So, you know, here's what we're going to consider.

Could you do that?

Sure.

Could he be informed of that even sooner?

I'm calling, like, you could call at the time.

We're chatting in the room, you know, and people...

I've done that.

He's perfectly content with that.

.

. .

and leave her in the library for the rest of her life.