White House Tapes . Presidential Recordings Program

President Nixon wanted to "cash out" the Food Stamps program--in other words, to give recipients cash they could spend as they chose instead of stamps that they had to spend on food. One group strongly opposed giving recipients the option of spending the money on something other than food--the agriculture lobby. Agriculture Secretary Clifford M. Hardin sided with the farmers. That morning the President's top domestic policy aide had held a White House strategy session to determine how the administration would work with Congress to pass welfare reforms. 

President Nixon: [c05215] Well, sit down. Let’s see what you have for me today.

Chief Domestic Policy Adviser John D. Ehrlichman^∇: Well, on the face of it, not much. We had a wrap-up meeting this morning. We had a wrap-up meeting this morning on welfare reform. [We] had Labor, Agriculture, HEW^∇,[1] others in to make sure that all the testimony that’s gonna go on this week[2] was in line. And, uh, briefly summarized, [Wilbur] Mills[3] may try and separate out Social Security[4] and, uh, put it through right away and hold welfare back. There’s a very respectable view that Mills doesn’t want any welfare bill at all. There are those who disagree with that.

President Nixon: I don’t think he wants it. My view is that he doesn’t, because I think he’s gonna play his plan politically now. [Unclear—overlapping voices] that way last year [unclear—overlapping voices].

Ehrlichman: Well, that, plus the fact that it’s not very palatable to him to see Long[5] and the others sitting over there in the Senate ready to criticize whatever it is that he sends over there.

President Nixon: Oh, yeah.

Ehrlichman: And he’s got a position of leadership that’s been enhanced in the House now which he doesn’t like to jeopardize.

President Nixon: You mean, enhanced by opposing the other—[6]

Ehrlichman: Well, now, he’s the one who [unclear—played pretty? Purty? Proper name?] in the House through the change—

President Nixon: Oh.

Ehrlichman: —in the Speaker[7] and so on. He has a very dominant role in the House. And he’s more and more exercising his muscle. And he’s [—] Dick Cooke[8] and I put a lot of weight in Dick’s view of things. Mills is not anxious to let Long and the Senate Finance Committee [unclear—polish off?] a welfare bill that he sends over there. [—] liberals or conservatives, so that he’s gonna be very slow about sending it over. [HEW Secretary] Elliot [Richardson^∇] feels that Mills will try and couple welfare reform and a substitute for revenue sharing, probably federalizing welfare, and send them.[9]

President Nixon: And Social Security.

Ehrlichman: And not Social Security. He suspects that he will try and [unclear—slough?] it off.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

George P. Shultz^∇: [—] view of the congressional people—as distinct from Elliot [unclear]—if he does that, then he’ll have an awful hard time getting that very expensive piece of legislation through the House unless he gets a lot of support from here.

Ehrlichman: Right.

President Nixon: It’s a bill [unclear] welfare reform—

Ehrlichman: —and [unclear—overlapping voices]—

President Nixon: —welfare reform?

Ehrlichman: A tougher welfare version, that is, tougher work requirements—

President Nixon: Yes.

Ehrlichman: —and so forth—

President Nixon: Yeah.

Ehrlichman: —and send it over—

President Nixon: And hit revenue sharing?

Ehrlichman: —and a form of welfare sharing, so to speak. [Unclear—overlapping voices] Dick Cooke[10] and other congressional relations people think that Mills could not get that through the House without [unclear—overlapping voices] support.

President Nixon: Why—why not? [Unclear—overlapping voices].

Ehrlichman: Well, just ‘cause there—there’s—

President Nixon: Democrats wouldn’t take it?

Ehrlichman: —pretty strong sentiment against welfare—welfare sharing. [c05518] It disadvantages so many states—

President Nixon: Oh, yeah. That’s finally getting through [unclear].

Ehrlichman: Well, I don’t know, but that’s their sense of it this morning. I don’t think they’ve counted any noses. It looks rather premature.

President Nixon: [Unclear—overlapping voices] state by state.

Ehrlichman: We talked about cashing out Food Stamps.[11] We talked about public service employment. We talked about tough work requirements. Well, we just went through the whole—the whole litany of issues.

President Nixon: How’d it all come out?

Ehrlichman: I think there’s a pretty general consensus. They understand that you want tougher work requirements. They—

President Nixon: Only way to get through.

Ehrlichman: Right. They are gonna hang with not cashing out Food Stamps or—putting it this way—we’ll do all the technical work to assist them in cashing out Food Stamps, but because of [Agriculture Secretary Clifford] Hardin’s very strong opposition, [John] Veneman^∇[12] will put his tongue in cheek and say we don’t have a position on that.

President Nixon: Well, I have.

Ehrlichman: Well, I know you have, but your Secretary of Agriculture is opposed. [Unclear.]

President Nixon: Why?

Ehrlichman: He thinks the farmers will oppose it and that’d kill welfare reform.

President Nixon: He really thinks that?

Ehrlichman: That’s what he says. And there’s disagreement among the departments on whether that’s an accurate reflection or not.

President Nixon: I can’t believe it is.

Ehrlichman: But I have side arrangement with Veneman on this.

President Nixon: In other words, let it roll through.

Ehrlichman: Right.

President Nixon: Cash it out.

Ehrlichman: Right.

President Nixon: Exactly. Good.

Ehrlichman: The—

President Nixon: Is Veneman doing well?

Ehrlichman: I think he is.

Shultz: I think he’s doing very well.

Ehrlichman: The Ways and Means Committee people like him, trust him, and, uh—

President Nixon: [Decent money?]

Ehrlichman: Oh, I think so. I think so.Yeah.

President Nixon: Okay.

Ehrlichman: Incidentally, Richardson’s gonna replace [Roger] Egeberg.[13] I don’t know if he talked to you about that.

President Nixon: Gonna replace him.

Ehrlichman: Yeah. Uh—

President Nixon: Blunderbuss?

Ehrlichman: Yeah.

President Nixon: That’s what I figured. [14] 

Ehrlichman: Let’s see, what else did—

President Nixon: [Unclear.]  

Ehrlichman: No. He’s got—he’s got a couple of prospects. One of them’s got a great Italian name. It’s, uh—

Shultz: I suppose the other thing we talked about was the public service employment—

Ehrlichman: Yeah. 

Shultz: —aspect of welfare reform. That is a department recommendation to have a fairly substantial program of public service employment for welfare people, [C05747] and to use this plus our special revenue sharing—

President Nixon: That’ll be our—that’ll be our alternative to their—

Shultz: That’s the Labor Department’s view of how to [unclear—overlapping voices]— 

President Nixon: It’s an alternative to the—to the, uh— 

Shultz: This [Senator Gaylord?] Nelson effort.[15]

President Nixon: Huh?

Shultz: This Nelson effort that’s going on now. 

President Nixon: Yeah.

Shultz: Plus our special revenue sharing, which has a large budget attached to it.

President Nixon: For manpower training.

Shultz: Yes, for manpower training. But even in the welfare reform we’re sticking to the concept of these jobs being as much transition[al] jobs as possible—

President Nixon: Good.

Shultz: —from the welfare job into a regular job.

Ehrlichman: Strong incentives [c05833] 

President Nixon: [c07502] But I think it’s the—I think it’s the right decision with regard to this, George, [unclear] [—] either this or you go all the way—wage and price controls. And that’s what the likes of [Federal Reserve Board Chairman] Arthur [Burns] and the rest are not willing to face up to. I am. I’m perfectly willing to face up to if—if we have a situation where inflation psychology is so serious that you cannot stop it, that the market forces will not work any longer in this country, then we’ll have to have wage and price controls. And I mean with—with teeth. But this idea that you’d set up a wage-price board [and] men of good will will sit around a table and work it out is bunk. It’s not gonna work. It just doesn’t—it hasn’t worked for wage-price controls. [Unclear—I’d have a hell of a time working it, too.] You know, I realize that. [Unclear] on the economy. But, uh, and this is almost, uh, almost fatalistic about it. See what I mean, John? [c07603]

Ehrlichman: [Unclear.]  

President Nixon: [Unclear] Do you feel that way?

Shultz: Well, I—

President Nixon: [Unclear—overlapping voices.] How about you, John? You’ve heard this argument. [Unclear—overlapping voices.]

Ehrlichman: Well, I, uh—

President Nixon: I know the reasons to do it—for cosmetic reasons—good God—but this is too early for cosmetics. If we were doing it [unclear—overlapping voices]—

Ehrlichman: I don’t know.

President Nixon: —months from now, maybe.

Ehrlichman: I don’t know what happens next and I think that’s the thing that concerns me. I’d like to feel that I could see what the alternatives were at the next step. If they did this, we’d do that. And—and it looks to me like it’s much too fluid at the next step. [Unclear—overlapping voices.]

President Nixon: Well, some things may be happening. Some things may be happening in here. I have a feeling that [unclear]. I think this thing will have some effect on the steel [labor contract] negotiations, that even the Davis-Bacon . . . .

Shultz: The, uh, [Treasury] Secretary [John] Connally^∇ is gonna testify tomorrow on a wage-price control bill.

President Nixon: Oh, is he?

Shultz: We had a brief conversation here, I guess—

President Nixon: Yeah?

Shultz: —Thursday—or Friday at the end of the Quadriad meeting with you.

President Nixon: Yeah [unclear].

Shultz: And I get from that and your comments that our best posture is to be willing to have those if Congress wants them, but we’re not asking for it. We’re waiting—

President Nixon: Yeah, not asking for it.

Shultz: If they want to do it, go ahead. [Unclear—overlapping voices.]

President Nixon: Basically, they’ll give it to us anyway. Doesn’t that sound like a—

Shultz: That’s what I think we ought to do.

President Nixon: Yeah, because we have to realize that people in the country don’t understand [unclear] and so forth and so on. We’re not asking for it. [—] [Part of this is a power trip. There’s not any question.] [—] You think he’s[16] got enough guidance on it?

Shultz: Well, I think I’ll—perhaps I’ll call him and just—

President Nixon: Yeah.

Shultz: —reinforce this.

President Nixon: Would you also—when’s he testifying?

Shultz: Tomorrow. I don’t know whether it’s the morning or the afternoon. 

President Nixon: I think it’s morning.

Shultz: Well, he’s doing an awful lot of testifying.

Ehrlichman: Sure is.

President Nixon: [Unclear—overlapping voices.] Would you also tell him what we’ve done on that? Tell him in the greatest of privacy, what we’re considering on the wage—on the construction trades [unclear] Davis-Bacon. [—] Bring him over here and talk to him a little this afternoon.

Shultz: Yes, sir.

President Nixon: Good.

Shultz: I think he deals with these things with great skill.

President Nixon: Yeah. If you would call him in and say on the wage-price board and also on the wage—on Arthur Burns^∇’s suggestion . . . now that’s a thing they’ll try to pin—well, no, this is on the legislation. But if he says, “What about the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board’s suggestion that we have a wage [—]stabilization . . .’

Shultz: A wage stabilization board of some kind.

President Nixon: If he’s asked about that, I think he should [—] give him—give him the same disdain that Arthur gives everything we suggest. [—] I don’t want him to get into a direct fight about it. That isn’t a good idea. But maybe to just say, “Well, that’s a matter that has—we—we have considered and the President hasn’t as yet been convinced that this is something that will work. He isn’t about to put anything that won’t work.” How’s that? “And that, uh, we’re—but he’s—his mind is open. He’s considering all these things. As his action later today on construction indicates, he will act. As his actions [on] oil and steel indicated, he will act where—but he doesn’t believe . . . .” Let’s see, if we talk about—if they ask about jawboning, “He doesn’t believe in jawboning without teeth. He doesn’t believe in any action unless it will work. [On the] wage-price thing, I think you have to consider whether or not that sort of thing will work even with—in—not Arthur’s suggestion, but the law—will work in peacetime. And whether it should. And for that reason we have not asked for it. We have doubts, grave doubts about the, uh, the, uh, the thing. However, if the Congress proceeds to give that authority, we will not object to receiving the authority as one of the tools that could eventually be used.”

Shultz: [—] I pass that along to him—the gist of our conversation—and say that you suggested I pass it along and that if he had some questions or things that he wanted to clarify with you personally, why, you’d be glad to talk with him on the phone or —

President Nixon: Yeah.

Shultz: —otherwise.

President Nixon: Or—yeah, fine, fine. Tell him I know he’s prepared for this, but I would just as soon that he stay just as far away from it as he could.

Shultz: Yeah.

President Nixon: And keep just as loose as he could. [c08034]

President Nixon: [C08048] One other thing that I wanted to be sure we understood: You know, uh, I want to be sure that, uh, [Housing and Urban Development Secretary George] Romney^∇, you know, in the, uh, and, uh, and also Justice [unclear—terry?] over there, [—] they follow up on that, you know, that they not—that they not indicate any—any administration division on what we have said about this housing thing.[17] You know, I was extremely clear on that and it is our position, you know? Now it may be that they want to go a hell of a lot further than that and I, as I said, I’ve got [unclear—the black jack piece?] but why is it—why? I know it isn’t George and I know it isn’t [Attorney General John] Mitchell^∇. [c08131] Is it these people down the line?

Ehrlichman: Sam Jackson[18] made a speech, I noticed, the other day, [unclear—overlapping voices]—

President Nixon: And what’s he want us to do?

Ehrlichman: —and, uh, he’s talking about the fact that the factories are all in the suburbs, so we’ve got to get the workers out in the suburbs.

President Nixon: So?

Ehrlichman: So—

President Nixon: What’s he want us to do about it?

Ehrlichman: Well, uh—

President Nixon: Build public housing projects in—

Ehrlichman: [Unclear—overlapping voices.]

President Nixon: —Beverly Hills?

Ehrlichman: Well, that’s the—that’s the theory. And, uh—

President Nixon: I’m not gonna do it.

Ehrlichman: —uh, I’d say that you—your problem’s in Justice now. You know [unclear—proper name? Leonard]

President Nixon: [unclear—proper name]

Ehrlichman: —will be Commish, you know.[19]

President Nixon: Well, understand on the housing thing, there isn’t any—any way to win on it with regard to—

Ehrlichman: And we—

President Nixon: —except this: that I think we—I think we understand we’ve bitten every bullet there is in the civil rights area. We cannot bite this one.

Ehrlichman: Yeah.

President Nixon: Do you agree?

Ehrlichman: I agree. I am going to try and get this worked around into a reflection of the plight of the small homeowner in these suburbs, because I think we have to personalize this now.

President Nixon: Yeah, but you may—

Ehrlichman: The property values—

President Nixon: What would happen to him?

Ehrlichman: Yeah. In other words—

President Nixon: The small homeowner wouldn’t be affected.

Ehrlichman: Oh, he is. He’s—

President Nixon: How?

Ehrlichman: He’s—no, no, no. If you put one of these projects next to—

President Nixon: Oh.

Ehrlichman: [Unclear—overlapping voices.]

President Nixon: A public housing project

Ehrlichman: Yeah.

President Nixon: I see.

Ehrlichman: And his property values go down. He doesn’t have any way to get them back. He doesn’t—

President Nixon: Even the small homeowner?

Ehrlichman: Oh, sure. And percentage-wise—

President Nixon: I see.

Ehrlichman: —the value of his home goes off much faster—[in a] much more, much more damaging fashion than a middle-range house.

President Nixon: Those are the people that I see, and so the small homeowner—

Ehrlichman: When one of these projects moves in the field out behind his platte and you get the people coming in there who park their junk automobiles and throw their mattresses in the backyard and all the kinds of things that you get, you just can’t get your money out of one of these marginal plattes, single-bedroom residence plattes, and these are the guys who are hurt by this. And the location decisions for these projects—these public housing units—has to be very carefully done.

President Nixon: Well, as I understand, they’re working it out. Under the law there is no requirement that the public housing project be put anyplace—

Ehrlichman: Well—

President Nixon: —except—

Ehrlichman: Yeah, that’s right. And what—

President Nixon: —except—

Ehrlichman: —really is the thing we’re saying [unclear] not forced integration is that the federal government will not impel a location which is selected by a non-profit corporation or a public housing authority—

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Ehrlichman: We’re not gonna use the coercive elements of the HUD money to compel that location where it is resisted by the town provided that it is not solely for—

President Nixon: Race.

Ehrlichman: —reasons of race.

President Nixon: Right. [Unclear—overlapping voices] in other words, it’s because of economic or other reasons—

Ehrlichman: That’s it.

President Nixon: —other than race.

Ehrlichman: That’s it. And, uh, that—

President Nixon: Well, isn’t that always the case, for Christ’s sake? [Unclear] reasons of race.

Ehrlichman: It isn’t.

President Nixon: [This Black Jack— ]

Ehrlichman: Up in our—up in our part of the country, the housing projects that are being put up [unclear—in the county?] are basically not black. They’re low-class white and Indians.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Ehrlichman: And they just don’t know how to flush the toilets, and they throw their garbage in the backyard, and the place is just, you know—

President Nixon: Ruined.

Ehrlichman: Lousy neighbors. And that runs property values down.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Ehrlichman: There’s a way to do this, and it is to say thata Prince George’s County or Fairfax County or one of these places has to have low- or moderate-income housing in it, and it’s up to them to find a good place for it.

President Nixon: Yeah, yeah.

Ehrlichman: It’s got to be on public transportation. It’s got to have sewer and water.

President Nixon: That’s what Romney’s plan is, as I—

Ehrlichman: That’s what his plan is. And what we say is, this is now a question for local decision. You put it in the best place in your county you can. And you can’t discriminate against this. 

President Nixon: How can the federal power be used [unclear] otherwise? How could it be used if we wanted to?

Ehrlichman: [—] We don’t have any federal power to compel—

President Nixon: Well, when you say [unclear—overlapping voices] should not be coercion [unclear] coercion. What do you—what—how do you coerce, if you wanted to? How are we coercive? [Unclear—overlapping voices]—

Ehrlichman: We’re coercing by saying [unclear—black jack, Missouri?[20]] where, for instance, we might say, “Look, a Baptist church has decided they want it here and you’ve zoned it out of existence, now you don’t get any more sewer and water money for your whole—”

President Nixon: Oh, I see. Never, never [unclear].

Ehrlichman: Well, that’s the game they’re playing.

President Nixon: Now that’s not gonna be done. No. [Unclear—overlapping voices] They can do it—see, they do it because they’re black, no. But goddamn it [unclear—overlapping voices]—

Shultz: The President said this—I’m thinking of this point about the jobs that are out on the outer ring—that people with income can buy a house on the market.

President Nixon: Sure.

Shultz: And the government will see to it that fair housing laws are enforced—

President Nixon: Sure.

Shultz: —that people are not discriminated against and that [unclear—overlapping voices.]

Ehrlichman: The President has said that in the March 24 statement.[21] [c08639]