WEBVTT 00:08.500 --> 00:16.700 : ...feel like it, and you don't need to give Marvin Watson but fifteen minutes notice and be sure I'm in the office, and I'll sit down, whittle with you a little bit and brag on you. 00:17.200 --> 00:20.500 : Let me say this, you're a great president. I mean you're great, I mean-- 00:19.600 --> 00:24.039 : I'm doing, I'm doing-- If I'm great, it's because I've got a few friends like you. 00:24.000 --> 00:30.100 : Yeah, well... You're a great president. I've said this many times in private and public, and you're just great, that's all. 00:30.000 --> 00:38.200 : Well, well... I'm awful thankful to people like you. I want you to help John Gardner. I want to get down here some night, I'll get a little quiet dinner, and I want you to sit down with him. 00:38.600 --> 00:40.800 : There's a lot of help I can give John Gardner. 00:40.800 --> 00:41.000 : Of course you can. 00:41.100 --> 00:45.500 : And there's an awful lot... Mr. President, you're passing so much. I think that frankly the great problem as I see, is the pipeline is getting clogged up. We're going to have indigestion in the country. 00:45.600 --> 00:52.100 : [Laughter] 00:54.200 --> 01:21.300 : And I don't know when you'll sense it and feel it. There's so much reorganization that has to be done. You know, I'm chairman of that reorganization committee of Government Operations, and we've been putting these things through for you, but there's so much that can be done, and I would like to talk to you. I mean with all the plusses you are doing to get things done, there's a great opportunity for you to do what's thirty years overdue, to reorganize the whole Executive Branch. 01:20.000 --> 01:42.7880 : Yes, that's... Next year we're going to deal in trying to do some foreign policy that doesn't cost money. We're going to try to administer what we've done this year and get it where it's not a scandal, and it's not as good-good, and we're going to try to improve and reorganize our transportation system and our government system. And that's about it; we're not going to have a lot of new stuff. 01:42.800 --> 01:43.600 : Well, I mean... 01:44.500 --> 01:50.100 : We're going to consolidate, as you say, what we've got, and try to get where we can administer it efficiently and economically. 01:50.300 --> 01:57.800 : Well, now, we're putting on that poverty program, and I'm voting a lot of this stuff, but--the greatest mess in the country, Mr. President, is the Poverty Program, believe me. 01:57.800 --> 01:58.100 : Is that right? 01:58.200 --> 02:07.700 : Oh, god... it's so confused, and we're pushing money out too fast. I'm voting the money you're asking for, all of it, but we're pushing it faster than we've got people... 02:07.700 --> 02:17.800 : He demanded two billion four, and I cut them to a billion and a half, and they've got a hundred and fifty million more than I asked for, now, and the House gave them three or four hundred million more than I asked for. 02:17.850 --> 03:09.300 : Well, you see, what... you've oversold the program. Everybody... Johnson says it's great, President Johnson says it's great, so everybody thinks it's great, and it is. But the trouble is, this is going to start kicking back in everybody's teeth within the next year, and I'm deeply concerned with what I see back home and what I hear, and that's in dealing in a damn clean state. You can imagine what happens when you're dealing in states that aren't clean. And there's so much overlap, there's so much stuff that should be in Labor, there's so much stuff in HEW, so much in Agriculture, and what you've got--you've got so much confusion, nobody can ever get an answer down at the Poverty Program, because they're on a treadmill; they're moving too fast, they don't have the people out in the country, and they're shoving out the money before people are ready to use it. I'm just giving you my personal reaction, Mr. President. 03:09.200 --> 03:16.285 : I appreciate that, and that's what I want, I've got to have friends that'll do--that will give me their reaction, and I invite it. Have you ever told Shriver that, or should you? 03:16.400 --> 03:22.700 : Well, I don't know, I've talked...it's hard to get to Shriver, and basically, it's, I told-- 03:22.800 --> 03:26.800 : Let's pass this bill, and then let me call you in here next week, and you give me hell in front of him. Unclear. 03:26.900 --> 03:30.500 : No, well, the idea is this: I don't like to-- 03:30.600 --> 03:30.800 : No? 03:31.000 --> 03:39.000 : --fool around in somebody else's department. I told both Teddy and Bobby, I said, "Look," I said, "I'm telling you, this damn program is a mess, one of these days it's going to kick Sarge in the teeth." 03:39.000 --> 04:24.885 : I mean, it's not up to me to tell Sarge. But, the programs are good, he's got a lot of imagination, but this is-- it's just too great, and there's duplication. There's too much duplication, and stuff that HEW is doing that overlaps, Labor overlaps, Agriculture overlaps, Small Businesss overlaps. And when you have overlap, you've got too many administrators bumping into each other. I think that the great tragedy that I saw in the Cabinet, were all these interdepartmental committees. I have always had the feeling, and when you've talked about it from time to time with what you'd like to do with the Executive Branch, I think you have got a great potential, the Johnson Reorganization of the Federal Government, because-- 04:24.900 --> 04:28.750 : Let's get to work on it. I'll just get Charlie Schultze with you, and let's start to work on it. 03:28.800 --> 04:41.900 : All right, well look, I mean, I've got that committee, I've sought that committee, and John McClellan created a committee called, Reorganization of the Executive Branch. And anything you want... and that you've got the committee, and I've got the vehicle to do it. 04:41.900 --> 04:46.200 : I'll just get... I'll get Charlie Schultze over at the Budget, and we'll just start work on it right now. 04:46.300 --> 04:48.300 : And there's a great opportunity. 04:48.400 --> 04:51.600 : All right, I'll do it. Try to get something up in my messages, and we'll start work on it. 04:51.700 --> 04:54.100 : Mr. President, it's always good talking with you. 04:54.100 --> 05:00.412 : I'm glad to hear you, and please bring these other things to my attention, and let me know about them, and I'll try to improve them. 05:00.800 --> 05:08.200 : Well look, this I know: this is the toughest job in the world, and too many people want to tell the President what he wants to hear. 05:07.900 --> 05:08.900 : No, no. 05:08.900 --> 05:13.900 : I would say this, that none of the troubles I see, are Lyndon Johnson's troubles-- 05:14.000 --> 05:14.800 : Well, well. 05:14.800 --> 05:18.950 : --but there's always...I've been in government long enough to know--am I taking too much of your time? 05:19.000 --> 05:19.500 : Not at all, I want you to. 05:19.600 --> 05:31.300 : What the problems that you've got, is you've got an ingrained bureaucracy, and decisions are very seldom made on a day-to-day basis by the President of the United States or his secretary. Decisions are usually made in policy in-- 05:31.400 --> 05:31.800 : Lower levels. 05:32.000 --> 05:33.600 : --twentieth down to the echelon 05:33.700 --> 05:34.100 : That's right. 05:34.500 --> 06:00.600 : Now, basically...and what the bureaucracy lacks is an element of grace. The element of knowing when to step back, when to give credit; the element of knowing that the Executive branch doesn't have to have everything. If a Senator or a Congressman has got a good idea, for heaven's sakes let him carry the ball on his own idea, and not fuzz it up, and change a few words, and take it away from him. And this causes--I mean, you were in the Legislative Branch a long time. 06:00.600 --> 06:00.900 : Oh, I know that. 06:01.000 --> 06:27.500 : And I think the question of how policy is made and who makes policy-- and to start eliminating the duplication. Because, you're doing so much, that if you added another dimension to Lyndon Johnson, and the dimension is this man not only does it, but he saves money in doing it, and has a much more efficient operation, and a much more efficient government, then you add an additional dimension to what you are doing for the Great Society, and you are. 06:27.600 --> 06:29.800 : We'll get on it and I'll have Charlie Schultze get in touch with you. 06:29.900 --> 06:30.600 : Thank you, Mr. President. 06:30.700 --> 06:31.000 : Alright. Bye.