865–28

Conversation No. 865-28

Date: February 28, 1973
Time: 4:25 pm-5:46 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Roy L. Ash, George P. Shultz, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. (“Bob”)
Haldeman.

Greetings

Statistics

Governor’s meeting
-Nelson A. Rockefeller
-Death of Winthrop Rockefeller
-Revenue sharing
-Partisanship
-Fait accompli
-State budgets
-Ash
-Misinformation
-Health, Education, and Welfare [HEW] telegrams on library funding
-Congressional appropriations
-Caspar W. (“Cap”) Weinberger
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NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Governor of South Dakota Richard S. Kneip
-Special revenue sharing budget
-Library programs
-President’s support

Revenue sharing
-Program cuts
-No bid [?] programs
-Ronald W. Reagan
-Categorical programs for special revenue sharing
-Congress
-General revenue sharing
-Budget limits
-Social services cuts
-Weinberger
-Regulations
-James T. Lynn, John J. Gilligan
-Community development, housing

Congressional relations
-Budget
-Abstract
-Fact sheets

Budget
-Human resources compared to defense budget
-Changes during President’s administration
-Social Security
-Effects on foreign policy, defense
-Wheat exports
-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]

Governors’ meeting
-Marvin Mandel
-General revenue sharing
-President’s statement
-Kenneth R. Cole, Jr.
-Ehrlichman, Bryce N. Harlow
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NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Special revenue sharing
-Efficacy
-Formula
-Advice of governors
-Previous talks with governors
-Foreign policy
-Vietnam

Governorships
-Parochial atmosphere
-Role and function
-Rockefeller, Reagan
-Political aspirations
-Budget
-Revenue sharing
-Compared with Shultz’s role
-State of the State address
-Sacramento, California; Albany, New York
-Press coverage
-Publicity
-Special revenue sharing
-Expanded role
-Compared to categorical grants

Governors
-Press relations
-Vietnam issues
-Time, Newsweek
-[Arnold] Eric Sevareid

President’s talk to governors
-Previous talks
-Foreign policy
-Middle East, Cambodia, Paris peace, Vietnam
-Trade
-Trade missions
-Farm states
-Exports
 -30-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Mandel
-People’s Republic of China [PRC]
-Liaison office
-Chou En-lai
-Exchange program
-Henry A. Kissinger

PRC
-Clouse and Peabody [?]
-Trade mission
-Textiles
-Centralization
-Economic capability
-Compared with India, Africa

Latin America
-North, South economic development
-Brazil
-Africa
-Southern Africa

Congressional testimony
-Shultz
-Treasury budget
-Ash
-Appropriations committees
-Funding compared with implementation
-Taxes

Congress
-Lobbying
-Farmers, special interests

Poll on budget cuts
-Stewart J. O. Alsop
-Kissinger
-Congress
-Sindlinger, Harris
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NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Questions
-William J. Barody, Jr.
-Federal spending
-Inflation
-Taxes
-Charles W. Colson
-Haldeman
-Gallup
-Impoundment

Administration’s image with people
-Shultz, Weinberger, Ash
-Compassion
-Federal expenditures, spending
-Robert F. (“Bobby”) Kennedy
-Compassionate rhetoric
-Congressional testimony
-Weinberger, Lynn
-Hardhats
-Taxes
-Federal spending
-Democrats, Republicans
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F.
Kennedy
-Minority hiring
-President’s view
-Blacks
-Italians
-Mexicans
-Woman
-Symbolism
-Weinberger, Ash
-Responsibility compared to demagoguery
-Robert Kennedy, Edward M. (“Ted”) Kennedy

Milton Friedman’s interview
-Playboy
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NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


Dean G. Acheson
-Present at the Creation
-School vouchers
-Minimum wage
-Effect on poor
-University of California
-Tuition
-Education subsidies

Veterans
-Ash
-President’s supporters

Farmers
-President’s supporters
-Legislation
-Subsidies

Veterans
-POWs
-Press coverage
-Cartoons
-Raymond K. Price, Jr.
-Legislation
-Vetoes
-Bureaucracy
-Benefits
-Appropriations
-Johnson
-Charles M. Teague
-Power of lobby
-POWs
-Price
-War critics
-Moral issue
-John V. Lindsay

Loss of faith in country
 -33-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Upper class, universities
-George S. McGovern
-POWs’ return from Vietnam
-Press reporting
-United Press International [UPI]
-Programming

Press relations
-White House press corps
-Antiwar bias
-Peter Lisagor
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, Truman
-Television [TV]
-Downfall of Johnson
-Attitude toward President
-Press conferences
-President’s statements
-POWs
-Press coverage
-Popular perceptions
-Evanston, Illinois
-Administration’s message
-Bias
-Cities, veterans, “Jobs for Veterans”
-News summary

Veterans
-Unemployment
-Memo from Price

President’s meeting with Ivy League presidents
-Cambodia
-Campus violence
-University of California, Berkeley

Critics
-Reaction to end of Vietnam War
-Intellectuals
 -34-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Congress, press

Intellectuals compared to manual laborers
-Lawyers
-Psychiatry
-Seattle
-Wives

End of Vietnam War
-Arthur F. Burns

Glenn Olds [President of Kent State University]
-Drug policy

Critics
-Administration’s handling
-Congress, press

Politicians
-Washington Post, New York Times, Martin Z. Agronsky’s show

Social events at Blair House
-Thomas W. Braden
-Women
-Kissinger
-Cabinet officers

Executive reform
-Shultz
-Special revenue sharing
-Program cuts
-Budget
-Ash
-Congress
-Alsop
-REAP [?]
-Tax code
-Water quality
 -35-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)


-Muskie

Muskie
-Linwood Holton

Executive reform
-Camp David
-Shultz

Partisanship
-Congress

1972 election
-Carl T. Curtis
-Nebraska results
-President’s victory
-Electoral college vote
-Compared to Johnson’s 1964 victory
-Governor of Massachusetts [Francis Sargent]

Opportunities for President
-Dwight Eisenhower
-Budget
-Reorganization
-Revenue sharing
-Centralization of power in Washington
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, Johnson’s administration
-New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society
-State government compared to Federal administration
-Property tax
-Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations
-Efficacy
-Ehrlichman’s briefing in Detroit
-Reports
-Publicity
-Graham Watt
-Congressional hearings
-Special revenue sharing
 -36-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. Mar.-09)
Conversation No. 865-28 (cont’d)



The President, et al., left at 5:46 pm.