Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Presentations by federal cabinet members on goals and programs of the new Nixon Administration.

Points of Interest:

Vice President Spiro Agnew announced a restructuring of intergovernmental relations under the new Administration of Richard Nixon. Previously, Mayors liaisoned with the federal government through the Vice President’s office, while Governors liaisoned through the Office of Emergency Planning. Under the new plan, the two liaison functions were being merged through the creation of an Office of Intergovernmental Relations, which was to serve as an ombudsman for both Governors and Mayors dealing with federal agencies, and as a mediator of disputes between state and local governments. The Vice President remarked that mayors of large cities in particular distrusted Governors, who in their opinion—prior to reapportionment—had favored non-urban areas of their states.

Cabinet members and other high-level federal officials told Governors of the following plans:

• Budget Director Mayo recognized that state and local governments administered one-quarter of the civilian domestic services in the United States, particularly for highways, education, and welfare. He referred to the Nixon Administration’s commitment to the principles of federalism and government decentralization. And he told Governors that the Budget Bureau was working on a number of management improvements, including grant simplification and consolidation, expedited program funding, and increased consultation with state and local officials prior to the adoption of federal regulations.
• Defense Secretary Laird reported that the Soviet Union had embarked on a tremendous buildup of strategic weapons systems, outspending the U.S. by better than 3 to 2 on offensive weapons and 3.5 to 1 on defensive weapons. He accused the USSR of heating things up in the Middle East and providing arms to the North Vietnamese. He went on to say that the United States was investing nearly $30 billion annually on Vietnam. Given budget limitations, this made it impossible for the nation to move ahead with certain weapons systems and meet essential strategic aims. And he noted that President Nixon planned to study converting to a volunteer military.
• Health, Education, and Welfare Undersecretary Veneman said that his department would focus on nutrition and Head Start, and he referred to the upcoming White House Conference on Youth. He made a connection between the conference and campus unrest, asking Governors to convene groups of young people to solicit recommendations for conference discussion subjects.
• Labor Secretary Schultz recommended merging federal employment and training programs, eliminating staff duplication in the two areas, and focusing staff at the regional, rather than the national, level. He spoke in favor of amending the Manpower Development and Training Act to give states authority over 20 percent of funding and provide for 75 percent federal/25 percent state fund matching to correct imbalances in program categories from state to state.
  Schultz also addressed the problem of occupational safety, noting that in 1966, a total of 14,000 workers had died in job-related accidents while two million were disabled, at a cost of $6.8 billion. He noted that one-half of all safety inspectors were in three states—an imbalance that called for correction. And he pointed to the need for research and technical assistance to better understand the causes of unsafe working conditions.
• Postmaster General Blount conceded the disorganization and antiquated operations of his agency. He referred to a study completed the previous June by the Commission on Postal Organization that had recommended conversion of the Post Office to a Tennessee Valley Authority-type of corporation charged with operating on a self-sustaining basis. He added that Congress had been asked not to act on the commission’s recommendations until the Administration had an opportunity to carefully review them. In the meantime, the patronage system for the appointment of postmasters and rural carriers had been eliminated, and a new system was being created for the selection of postmasters by impartial national and regional selection boards.
• Treasury Secretary Kennedy reported that the federal government was currently contributing nearly $21 billion in grants and aid to state and local governments, equivalent to 18 percent of state and local expenditures. Yet he recognized that public needs and demands were rising at a rate faster than revenue sources. He spoke of revenue sharing, block grants, and federal income tax credits for state and local income taxes as possible solutions to the problem. He noted that state and local income taxes, as well as state property taxes, were already deductible from federal income taxes, at a loss of $1.4 billion in federal revenue. And he argued that tax credits in place of tax deductions had a number of drawbacks, among them: (1) they might be viewed as coercing states not to adopt other tax measures; (2) they disadvantaged states that did not have income taxes; and (3) state revenue would not increase until the states’ own taxes were raised.
• Urban Affairs – The Administration had established an Urban Affairs Council made up of seven cabinet members and chaired by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose title was Assistant to the President on Urban Affairs. Of primary concern to the new Council would be the issues of racial polarization, the fiscal crisis facing cities, the new phenomenon of central cities surrounded by other subdivisions within the same jurisdictional boundaries, problems posed by the proliferation of automobiles, and population density in urban areas. Moynihan predicted that by the year 2000, the U.S. population would increase by another 200 million people.

Vice President Agnew also drew the Governors’ attention to a letter from Father Theodore Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame University, which asked that it be left up to colleges and universities, not the government, to decide when outside help was needed to quell campus unrest. The Vice President compared this view to a situation in which a crime was being committed but the victim couldn’t or didn’t call for help.

During consideration of committee reports and policy positions, there was extensive discussion of a resolution proposed by then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California that would: authorize a federal investigation to identify the instigators, and the causes and effects, of campus violence; determine whether federal funds should be withheld from institutions, faculty members, and students who were found to have permitted or performed unlawful acts; and recommend steps to reduce the incidence of violence without curbing the right of dissent, hampering the ability of educational institutions to function in their proper arena, or instituting new federal controls over the legitimate authority of the states.

A number of Governors expressed concern that the resolution might be interpreted as intrusion on academic freedom. In its place, a substitute resolution was adopted as described below.

During a press conference after the meeting ended, media representatives asked for more information on the campus disturbance resolution. In response to a question about the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in containing unrest, Vice President Agnew said that FBI agents monitored disturbances and sought to identify links that might exist among them, but he did not know whether FBI investigations were carried out with the knowledge and cooperation of school authorities. He argued that the point of the resolution was to address the issue of what the government should do if the academic community refused to call for help to protect an individual student whose safety was in jeopardy because of unrest. And he emphasized that help should come from local—not federal—law enforcement officials.

Memorable Quotes:

Former Maryland Governor and newly-elected Vice President Spiro Agnew said: "…I suggested that [a] new Office be created; that it be called the Office of Inter-Governmental Relations…this is sort of an ombudsman’s office…where when you get into a real snag you can come through this Office and we will then go into the [responsible federal] agency and try to clear it up…We also intend to function as mediators where you may have troubles with a mayor or county official, and there may be a legitimate dispute that you can’t seem to iron out yourself. But, primarily the purpose of this Office of Inter-Governmental Relations is to see that there is only one artery through which the Federal Government is used for State and local government contact."

In introducing the new Attorney General to the Governors, Vice President Agnew said: "He was born in Detroit, put himself through Fordham Law School by playing hockey for the New York Rangers…In World War II, he was in charge of PT boats in the Pacific, and former President Kennedy was one of his junior officers. In 1968, he was Richard Nixon’s campaign manager, and I mean manager. He ran that campaign. He is tough, lucid and fair; organized and dispassionate, one of the few public officials who speaks with honesty yet with tact, and without appearing to speak out of both sides of his mouth. If I have one thing to say in tribute to this man…it was what was said to me by one individual in the news media last night who had just completed an interview with him. He said, "If I had to lay my civil rights in one place, and rely on the fact that they’d be there when I got back, I’d give them to John Mitchell."" [NOTE: Attorney General John Mitchell was later convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice in the Watergate case.] Vice President Agnew said the following about the Nixon Administration’s position on campus unrest: "…how can we bring about a rationality in our dealings with these dissidents that is not a deprivation of academic freedom is a delicate subject, and it is a subject that leaves you as Governors much open to misunderstanding. I think I separate it in my mind this way…There is no academic freedom involved in refusing to allow a dissident to take control of a college campus…because this person is flying in the face of an academic principle that has descended to us over the years. He is not listening he is simply disrupting…we must make sure that the listener does not get the idea that there is a desire to send the police in to suppress a dissent, to simply put it down because we are in disagreement with it…But, where the law is broken, whether it is in the streets or on the college campuses, or in a private home if you will, we have a need and an obligation to put down the breaking of the law to protect our freedoms; the freedom of people to move about within the realm of their own legal desires…and…the freedom of a student to go to a college and learn what he goes there to learn without being interfered with by someone who simply wants to get his name in the papers."

Transportation Secretary John Volpe said: "In aviation, of course, we have problems galore. I could spend the entire morning trying to give you a few of the problems. I won’t do that except to say that one decision I have to make concerns the SST supersonic transport. I have the assignment of recommending to the President…whether or not he should recommend to the Congress the appropriation of some three to six hundred million dollars which was not provided for in the previous budget, and it is a great weight on our shoulders." [Also see 1971 Winter Meeting quote regarding the SST]

Secretary Volpe also said: "…we are going to be doers. We don’t expect that we will be able to move people and goods quite as fast as NASA [the National Aeronautics and Space Administration] has moved Apollo 8 around the moon, but let me tell you we hope to move people and goods on Earth here a great deal more expeditiously, and more efficiently, than has been done in the past."

Labor Secretary George Schultz said with respect to improving DOL’s manpower programs that the department needed to get its own organizational structure in order. In his words: "My Assistant Secretary of Manpower…says that it looks like the wiring diagram for a perpetual motion machine and, as we know, machines of that kind run forever but they seldom go anywhere…when you get right down to the operations and delivery of programs to individuals, important groups such as the Employment Services don’t have the authority to carry out the function which they ultimately become responsible for, and State and other groups we find must deal with the maze of federal agencies with programs often competing with each other…We want to simplify this by grouping the employment and training work together…We want to eliminate staff duplication in this process of bringing the units together…it is really pretty startling to find that two-thirds of the [Manpower] Bureau is in Washington…if we are going to serve the States, and the communities, we should have a greater proportion of the people working on it out somewhere near there they are…We want to create a one stop service for the States."

Interior Secretary Walter Hickel said: "I think that the Department of the Interior which, in reality, is a Department of Environment and Natural Resources, in some way touches the…life of nearly every American. I think we should look back to the turn of the century, when America was coming from an agricultural society into an industrial society. I think at this point there weren’t any guidelines, and there was some exploitation…We call that the abuse of natural resources, and the land environment, and the pendulum swung all the way over and possibly rightfully so until there was no use permitted, and we don’t want that either…I think we should project our minds ahead to the year 2000 and…figure out how we are going to wisely use and develop, and conserve…resources…How are we going to take care of the problems that will be pressing then because of the population explosion that is bound to occur at that time."

Then-Representative Gerald Ford of Michigan recalled once being introduced incorrectly as having graduated from Ohio State University, and deciding that the best way to correct the error was by referring to the story of "…a man who had the burden and responsibility of introducing the Governor of the Virgin Islands and this man, after a long introduction and [talk] of the Governor’s accomplishments, his achievements, and virtues finally concluded before this vast audience with a final statement: "It is my honor and privilege to introduce to you the virgin of the governor’s island.""

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President Nixon’s Assistant on Urban Affairs, said: "The American birth rate is increasing, and it is a fact that by the year 2000 we shall have added 200,000,000 people to the American population. We are going to have to find places for people to live, and things to do. This is a rate of growth, the magnitude and proximity which is new to American society. We can do two things. We can act like it is not going to happen, and let it happen anyway, or we can act like it will happen and try to shape a change; try to give some form to the process, and try to create new views."

Selected Policy Statements/Positions: (1) With respect to human resources issues, recommending among other things that the Aid to Dependent Children financial freeze be repealed, that the federal government help hold down rising hospital costs by abandoning the mandated cost-plus formula used for Medicaid and Medicare payments, that human resources categorical grants be consolidated into block grants, that the federal government increase its financial participation in welfare costs, that federal aid to education be increased via a block grant to states, and that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare review directives in federal regulations as to their possible adverse effects on states; (2) reiterating opposition to irregular disbursements, cutbacks, and restrictions on allocations of the Highway Trust Fund; (3) reiterating support for the principle of revenue sharing; (4) reaffirming support for the Multistate Tax Compact and opposition to legislation that would restrict the power of states to administer their own laws pertaining to the taxation of interstate business; (5) urging Congress to enact legislation allowing state taxation of National Banks; and (6) expressing the view that lawless acts by a small segment of the student population on college campuses not be allowed to interfere with the vast number of students seeking to exercise educational opportunities.