—work with [George A.] Smathers [D–Florida] in getting—and [Michael J. “Mike”] Mansfield [D–Montana]—in getting Democratic support for a 10-10-5 package, which I would hope would become a joint product of Mansfield and [Everett M.] Dirksen [R–Illinois] as a compromise from the original Smathers position and the [John J.] Williams [R–Delaware] position.

I’ve been going into this situation in detail in my own thinking, and I think it boils down to roughly this: I think there are about 26 to 32 Republicans who are going to be with them. And I think we have about—I would count about 32 Democrats against the bill, and, therefore, that leaves us about 34 prime targets. Now, of those prime targets, with our information and Smathers’ information, we know that about 13 of them would be definitely with us. The remaining 31 are the people that I—

Not 31. Twenty-one?

Twenty-one, I beg your pardon. The remaining 21. Now, the ones we think would be with us are as follows: [Clinton P.] Anderson [D–New Mexico], [Robert C.] Byrd [D–West Virginia] of West Virginia, [Daniel K.] Inouye [D–Hawaii], [Henry M.] Jackson [D–Washington], [Frank J.] Lausche [D–Ohio], [Warren G.] Magnuson [D–Washington], Mansfield, [Joseph M.] Montoya [D–New Mexico], [Frank E.] Moss [D–Utah], Smathers, and [John J.] Sparkman [D–Alabama]. They have all, at one time or another, spoken out in a manner that indicates they’d be on such a package. [William B.] Spong [Jr.] [D–Virginia] and [Albert A. “Al”] Gore [Sr.] [D–Tennessee] I would add to that from the information Smathers has given me.

Now, the people that we would go after initially would be as follows: [Alan H.] Bible [D–Nevada], [Harry F.] Byrd [Jr.] [D–Virginia] of Virginia, [Howard W.] Cannon [D–Nevada], [Thomas J. “Tom”] Dodd [D–Connecticut], [James O. “Jim”] Eastland [D–Mississippi], [Allen J.] Ellender [D–Louisiana], [Samuel J. “Sam”] Ervin [Jr.] [D–North Carolina], Fred [R.] Harris [D–Oklahoma], [Carl T.] Hayden [D–Arizona], [Spessard L.] Holland [D–Florida], Jackson, [B. Everett] Jordan [D–North Carolina] of North Carolina, Lausche—

—Mag . . . [John L.] McClellan [D–Arkansas], [Gale W.] McGee [D–Wyoming], [Thomas J.] McIntyre [D–New Hampshire] . . . [Edmund S.] Muskie [D–Maine], [Jennings] Randolph [D–West Virginia], [Richard B. “Dick”] Russell [Jr.] [D–Georgia], [John C.] Stennis [D–Mississippi], [W. Stuart] Symington [D–Missouri], and I think that’s it. Those are the 21 we’ve primarily focused on.

Now, I’m counting against this, without any information, hard information, but just general attitudes and some specific information we gathered last fall. I’m counting against us: [Edward L. “Bob”] Bartlett [D–Alaska], [Birch E.] Bayh [Jr.] [D–Indiana], [Daniel B.] Brewster [D–Maryland] [tape repeats] , [Quentin N.] Burdick [D–North Dakota], [Frank F.] Church [D–Idaho], [Joseph S.] Clark [D–Pennsylvania], [J. William “Bill”] Fulbright [D–Arkansas], [Ernest H.] Gruening [D–Arkansas], [Philip A. “Phil”] Hart [D–Michigan], [R. Vance] Hartke [D–Indiana], [J. Lister] Hill [D–Alabama], [Ernest F. “Fritz”] Hollings [D–South Carolina], two Kennedys [Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy [D–Massachusetts] and Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy [D–New York]], [Russell B.] Long of Louisiana, [Eugene J. “Gene”] McCarthy [D–Minnesota], [George S.] McGovern [D–South Dakota], [A. S. “Mike”] Monroney, [Walter F.] Mondale [D–Minnesota], [Wayne L.] Morse [D–Oregon], [Gaylord A.] Nelson [D–Wisconsin], [Claiborne] Pell [D–Rhode Island], [E. William] Proxmire, [Abraham A. “Abe”] Ribicoff [D–Connecticut], [Herman E.] Talmadge, [Joseph D.] Tydings [D–Maryland], [Harrison A.] Williams [D] of New Jersey, [Ralph W.] Yarborough [D–Texas], and [Stephen M.] Young of Ohio.

Now, I don’t know that all of those would be hopeless [unclear], but that’s just a rough reading of it. So, we really end up with about a question of, I think, about 30 Republicans. Dirksen says that all but two, and Williams, I think, is saying all but two. About 30 Democrats that I would write off at the beginning as being against us, and that leaves the battle largely between those 21 Democrats that I indicated. [Pause.] In other words, we start off with a base of about 30 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

I would doubt you’re going to have anything like that many Republicans. If they committed, though, they know more than I do. But I sure wouldn’t think—

Well, now, they’re committed—

— [speaking over Fowler] that you’d get [Clifford P.] Case [R–New Jersey], or [Jacob J.] Javits [R–New York], or [Thruston B.] Morton [R–Kentucky], or [George D.] Aiken [R–Vermont], or any of your general liberal group—

They’re committed to the Williams package of 10-10-6, whether they’d stay with the 10-10-5, that we don’t know.

Well, I don’t believe they’ll—I don’t believe that—I believe there are half a dozen Republicans that are going to vote to cut 5 billion [dollars] in expenditures out of the budget. That’d be my guess. Now, so—but you know better on that than I do. I don’t. I would guess that—that’s the first thing I’d question. I think they’re screwing you right on the Republican vote. I would guess that there’ll be 5 to 10 Republicans that will not go with you on cutting four or five or six, but now maybe we’re wrong. I think they’re hollering for the cities’ money. I think it’s going to be Morton and Javits, and [John Sherman] Cooper [R–Kentucky], and Case, and I can’t think of the rest of them, but—

Aiken and Javits.

—Aiken, and the so-called liberal groups. I’ve been watching them on TV and saying that we’re not really measuring up to the problem, and we’re not doing enough, and so forth. Anyway, that’s what I would do.

Now, what—is there any way that we can get Wilbur [D. Mills] [D–Arkansas] to feel that if we did it, we weren’t slashing at him and that he wouldn’t take it out on us?

Yes—

He wouldn’t use it as an excuse—

—I have four suggestions on this score—on the whole score. And one of them would be for you to have Wilbur and George [H. Mahon] [D–Texas] in sometime tomorrow, and just tell them that this thing is moving on the Senate. It doesn’t—it isn’t in any sense to foreclose whatever they might do later, but we’ve got to break this . . . get this sentiment registered while the iron’s hot. Now, Wilbur, every time I’ve approached him on this, he said, “Look, I know what you’ve got to do. You can’t say no if the Senate wants to put on this tax bill.” He told me that before the hearing.

Yeah, but saying no is one thing and getting—giving the green light’s another because—

That’s right.

—I imagine when you go to lobbying, I’m for this, and I’m scared to death to be for it, really. First place, I don’t think you’ll get to it. I think, we’ll—they’ll get—screw us. They’ll have some exceptions, and they’ll have some doctrines. And I don’t trust Williams any more than I do a rattlesnake. And I think anybody messes with him is going to wind up getting burnt. That’s my best judgment with him. Now, the question is whether we get burnt more by not doing it; we might. I think your argument’s good there, and I’m more troubled with this than you are. I see the whole—all the consequences. But that’s a snake, and I’ve been burnt by him so much and I’ve been—that I just—like dealing with Cosa Nostra.[note 1] President Johnson seems to say “Costa,” but likely means “Cosa.”

So am I. So am I.

When we say go give them the green light, I don’t want to be advocating cutting this thing. I—like I wound up last year, and I cut the hell out of it at 4 or 5 billion [dollars]; I got nothing. And I’m going to wind up this year, and that’s about what I’m afraid I’m going to get here. So that’s it. I don’t know what my own Cabinet’s going to do to me on this. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised they don’t cut me to pieces. The social people, the health, education, [and welfare] people, the labor people, [W. Willard “Bill”] Wirtz.[note 2] W. Willard “Bill” Wirtz was U.S. secretary of labor from September 1962 to January 1969.

Mr. President, they’ve put you down in this spot. Now, they owe you some loyalty on this sort of thing.

Well, they—

They’re going to get cut a hell of a lot [unclear]—

[speaking over Fowler] They really don’t agree, though, Joe. You listen to fellows that—the only muscle we got is [George] Meany.[note 3] George Meany was president of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) from 1955 to 1979. We haven’t got any muscle anywhere else. Nobody else is staying with us, and when they go to thinking that I’m just slashing these programs—you don’t—you didn’t see this blood in their eyes. You just talked to him over the phone the other day, but they have it. I would say that we ought to do this: I’m willing to see Wilbur. I don’t know about George. George is . . . I just don’t know about George. I don’t know. I just think you can handle George. I’m willing to see Wilbur, and say, “Now, Wilbur, if we would get something like this hung on, what would happen to it? What good would it do?” And if we leveled and leveled everything. And I imagine he’s going to say, “Well, it’s not enough. I’ve got to have 8 or 10 or 12, something else in—"

Oh, you can make a much better deal with the Senate than you can with Mills and Mahon at this stage of the game.

Well, I don’t see any point in making one with the Senate, though, if you can’t get one in the House. Except just up the Hill and down and make you look like an ass. If Wilbur Mills cuts your peter off, all he and John [W.] Byrnes [R–Wisconsin] got to do is say, “The hell with you. We’re not going to do one bit of it. We’ve been insulted.” And appeal to the House’s prerogative, and there won’t be four votes for us.

I don’t think they can take that before the country and the world.

[speaking over Fowler] Well, they’ve been taking it pretty well.

I think they’ve got to come up with a—

Well, I’ll see Wilbur tomorrow. I’ll call him tomorrow. Now, let’s get with the others.

Let me ask you about—

What did Russell say?

Let me ask about—we couldn’t get to Russell. We haven’t seen him yet. We got a runaround yesterday from his man on the basis that he was going to see you.

Well, I haven’t seen him. [Fowler acknowledges.] I’ve held off, hoping that y’all [unclear].[note 4] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary.

Let me run over two other notions about this situation tomorrow: One, whether or not it’d be a good idea to have Mansfield invite the Democratic members of the Appropriations Committee to meet in his office with me and with [William McChesney “Bill”] Martin tomorrow.[note 5] William McChesney “Bill” Martin Jr. was chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from April 1951 to January 1970.

[Pause.] No, I think it’d get out in the paper and just cause you lots of trouble. I don’t think it’s that strong. I think it’d be a good idea to have Mansfield meet with Russell in there. [Fowler acknowledges.] I just think that’d be bad, our meeting with his policy group, like Muskie and some of those folks there. I rather think before we do it, we ought to talk to our Cabinet about it, because I’m—my guess is they’re going to come loose on it, unglued. The way I hear them talking and what I feel—I just don’t believe that [Stewart L.] Udall and [Orville L.] Freeman and [Wilbur J.] Cohen and Wirtz and the poverty group and housing—I believe they’re going to think that this is a reactionary Republican move that undoes all they’ve been fighting for.[note 6] Stewart L. Udall was U.S. secretary of the interior from January 1961 to January 1969. Orville L. Freeman was U.S. secretary of agriculture from January 1961 to January 1969. Wilbur J. Cohen was U.S. assistant secretary of health, education, and welfare (HEW) from 1961 to 1965; U.S. under secretary of HEW from 1965 to 1968; and U.S. secretary of HEW from May 1968 to January 1969. And that they ought to get a tax bill without having to cut them to pieces.

Well, they just can’t get it, Mr. President. That’s the long and the short of it.

I think that’s right. I think that’s right.

They just can’t get it. That 12–5 vote when Smathers offered the tax bill in committee and we got two Republicans—I mean, two Democratic votes! [President Johnson acknowledges.] We got Smathers and—wait a minute, Smathers, Gore, and Harris. Now, that’s what we got.

Is Harris for cutting these things? That’s what I’m—

I don’t know.

I don’t see how he writes the Civil Disorders Committee [unclear]—[note 7] Fred R. Harris [D–Oklahoma] was a member of the President’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, more popularly known as the Kerner Commission. Its report was released on 29 February 1968.

I don’t know whether he will be or not. I haven’t counted him.

He’s raising hell about my not embracing this Disorders Committee report, you know. I don’t know how I could be—

Well, you hear, of course, from this constituency. And I know it’s there. I know the concern about it. Of course, the constituency I hear from is just all the other way. And [Richard M. “Dick”] Nixon is preparing a blast for a speech on fiscal responsibility to tear the hide off.[note 8] Richard M. “Dick” Nixon was a U.S. representative [R–California] from January 1947 to December 1950; a U.S. senator from December 1950 to January 1953; U.S. vice president from January 1953 to January 1961; Republican nominee for president in 1960; Republican nominee for California governor in 1962; and U.S. president from January 1969 to August 1974. He’s going to make a major issue of it.

I think that’s right. I sure think he’s there. [Fowler attempts to interject.] And I think that it’s right with the Congress. It’s not because we haven’t—we can’t make them do it. We’ve been abandoned.

Well, you see, however, the—as I’ve told you, the trap that—the plan that Williams has made is to point out that you’ve got two-thirds of the Senate. You are the master of the Senate and always have been.

That’s not—I’m not master of a damn thing. I haven’t got anybody—

Well—

—I can’t—Mansfield—I can’t even get Mansfield! He makes a speech against me every Thursday, just regular. Denounces me and all the world.

Well, the more you say that, though, the more the—you’re going to feed up to the Williams thesis, which is: the Democrats are not fit to rule.

I’m not saying much about it, but you—I’m trying to give you the facts, though. I’m not master of nothing. I just haven’t got it, and we cannot make this Congress do one damn thing that I know of, or the last one, either.[note 9] End of 2021 revisions. I started out in January ʼ67, I called—ʼ66—I called them in my office, and they told me right then and there that they would not give me four votes on this committee for a tax bill. I called the businessmen in, in March, and there wasn’t a damn one of them for it. They kept me all ʼ66, they wouldn’t go, although my Council of Economic Advisers thought by all means that they had to have it; ʼ67 we recommended it and we shoved it every way we know. I’ve talked until I don’t think I have a damn bit of weight anymore with anybody. And I never got one minute. I don’t think Coh—Wilbur Mills is a damn bit further along now than he was, and I think he’s the key to it. I’ve done everything I know to. I’ve given him his rice, I’ve given him his milk, I’ve given him every damn project I could, and I don’t think I made a bit of headway. He’s courteous, but I just think he’s against us, and—

Mr. President, if you come—

He told somebody the other day that I decided that I would have you handle his business instead of Henry [Hall] Wilson [Jr.], and that they better have the White House come back and start dealing with him.[note 10] Henry Hall Wilson Jr. was a congressional liaison and White House aide from 1961 to 1967. And he’s just—I don’t believe I got a bit of influence with him. But anyway, I’ll try him. I’ll see him tomorrow, and I’ll see Russell. I’ve waited on Russell till I could see what you talked to, and my judgment then would be that we’ll have a Cabinet meeting, and we’ll—I don’t care about [Dean] Rusk being there.[note 11] Dean Rusk was U.S. secretary of state from January 1961 to January 1969. And I don’t care—we’ll have—he can have anybody he wants to. But we’ll have the rest of them, and you can just tell him how serious it is. And Martin can tell them how serous it is. And then you can tell him what Budget can tell him, where it’s got to come, the 5 billion [dollars]. And we’ll hear all of them out, and then we can go up and ask Mansfield if he won’t ask his people to work with your man, and with [Mike] Manatos to poll these folks and see if they’ll vote for a 10-10-5 if we offered it.[note 12] Mike Manatos was a White House aide and Senate liaison from 1963 to 1968. I’m afraid we’ll get hung on there, and we’ll wind up with six or seven. Or we’ll wind up where they won’t let Medicaid or something else. It’ll just screw us good because I don’t trust them, and there’s no leadership. It’s a bunch of jello over there.

But I think we’re flirting with fire there. I think we’re never going to get anywhere unless we get Wilbur Mills, and my guess is we could pass a bill in the Senate if we could ever get the House. I think we’re like a wrong-way car generally going the wrong direction. I think if we can’t get Wilbur, we can’t pee a drop. If we can, we can.

Now, [Fowler acknowledges] they tell me Henry Wilson came down and spent a long time with Wilbur last night. He says that he spent a long time with Wilbur. Wilbur said that he—Henry said, “I used to spend a third of my day with him every day handling his business, working with him and getting him to pass our legislation now.” But Wilbur was saying to him this and that. And Henry said, “What it adds up to with Wilbur, if you look back over the record, that where the House, you can get them to vote, he’d go with us. If you can’t, he won’t. He was against us on Medicare all through the years till we got the votes, and then he voted with us. He didn’t want to repeal the taxes till we could get the votes, and then he voted with us. Now,” he said, “unless you can get to where he can see a majority, he’s not going to be with you. The day he does, he is. And you ain’t going to pass a tax bill unless you do.” I think that might have a little merit, so I’m willing to talk to Wilbur and just say, “Won’t you be willing to even lose?” And if he won’t, I don’t think we need to mess around. If he will, then I think we ought to just lift everybody up by his coattail and—but I don’t want to go up and get myself in the box because these 32 are going to destroy me. These 32 that you’re talking about, and when you add 22 more with them, which you’re likely to, they’ll just murder us. They’ll say we took the baby’s milk. We took these things. I don’t mind cutting space and supersonics and stuff like that, but when you go to moving into this poverty area, they’re already screwing me. They just murder me every day.

Now, these folks like [Philip H.] Phil Hoff, he has to quit me because I cut Head Start.[note 13] Phillip H. Hoff was the Democratic governor of Vermont from January 1963 to January 1969. Gov. Hoff had endorsed Sen. Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy [D–New York] for president two days before this conversation. Hell, I didn’t cut Head Start at all. They got 400 million [dollars] more this year than they had last year. This goddamn, no-good [R. Sargent] Shriver, he went out and told all the publicity people that he . . . what Congress cut out of him, he wanted to make me put back.[note 14] R. Sargent Shriver was director of the Peace Corps from March 1961 to February 1966; director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from October 1964 to March 1968; and U.S. ambassador to France from April 1968 to March 1970. And I wouldn’t do it in this year’s budget. I gave him 400 million [dollars] more than last year, but that didn’t satisfy him. And there are just a good many of them that are getting ready to get off of this bandwagon to go with them, that they want to use this as an excuse. And I’m willing to let them use it and deprive me of the nomination if I must, but I just goddamn don’t want to do it unless I have to and unless it’s going to do me some good. And I can’t see that we’ve ever got up to that. It looks like to me that it’s not that tangible. We don’t know—we’re going to have to get the Appropriations Committee to agree with it. I don’t believe we’ve even got Russell or Mahon. We’re going to have to kind of get Wilbur to say, “Well, I won’t denounce you for it, and I’ll at least look at it. I may not do it.” But I think we ought to get that much out of him if we can. If we can’t, why, I think maybe we have to work on the House members. But I don’t want to just do it for an exercise and pass it in the Senate and say I got some sentiment. Hell, I ain’t got any sentiment if passing it in the Senate causes the House to get in concrete, letting him denounce us. And I imagine that’s what he’ll do. But I will see him in the morning if you’ll call him now and tell him that this is grave enough that you want him to come by, and we’ll make an appointment 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, whenever his—that dentist’s not bothering him. And he can bring George with him, too, if he wants to, or just by himself, whichever he wants to. I will try to see Russell before twelve o’clock tomorrow. I’ll try to have a Cabinet meeting before. That’s three—

—senators with no increase in taxes. And the problem is to get a formula that combines those last two groups.

Yeah, those last two groups I’m for, those last two, if you can do it, but if Wilbur’s got 15, I don’t see you close to it. But I don’t believe you can get one vote in the Cabinet for that. I don’t believe you can get one vote among the people who are normally Democrats. And I believe that, where we are, if we’re counting [Richard J.] Dick Daley, and we’re counting [Richard J.] Dick Hughes, and we’re counting Roger [D.] Branigin, and we’re counting Ohio, and we’re counting [Joseph M.] Joe Barr and Philadelphia, we’ve got 1,400 votes.[note 15] Richard J. “Dick” Daley was the Democratic mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from April 1955 to December 1976. Richard J. “Dick” Hughes was the Democratic governor of New Jersey from January 1962 to January 1970, and chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1973 to 1979. Roger D. Branigin was the Democratic governor of Indiana from January 1965 to January 1969. Joseph M. “Joe” Barr was the Democratic mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from December 1959 to January 1970. And we go to cutting the guts out of them, and I don’t—I know what I’m going to hear from them. And I know what I’m going to do. I just know it as sure as I know my name’s Lyndon Johnson. They’re going to say I sold out to the Dixiecrats and John Williams, and I got us in all this mess, and we got old [G.] Mennen [“Soapy”] Williams’s fiscal responsibility thing.[note 16] Johnson may have meant to continue referring to Sen. John J. Williams [R–Delaware]. G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams was the Democratic governor of Michigan from January 1949 to January 1961; U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs from February 1961 to March 1966; U.S. ambassador to the Philippines from June 1968 to April 1969; and a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1970 to 1987. But, by God, I’m blowing up everything in Southeast Asia, and I’m blowing up all the cities here at home. And [Robert F.] Bobby Kennedy’s [D–New York] going to be the number one guy, and if he wrote my conduct, that’s what he’d recommend I do.[note 17] Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy was U.S. attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and a U.S. senator [D–New York] from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. And that’s what [Edward M.] Teddy [Kennedy] would do.[note 18] Edward M. “Teddy” Kennedy was a U.S. senator [D–Massachusetts] from November 1962 until his death on 25 August 2009, and Senate Democratic Whip from January 1969 to January 1971. And that’s what Mansfield—the whole damned outfit would.

I’ll call Wilbur, and I’ll call Dick Russell, and you go and see Wilbur and whatever—Mahon—wherever that meeting is, and—

Well, I’ll just turn off on the Senate, then, until these things are behind us.

If it means—if you mean by turning off, I don’t know what we got turned on. If they’re asking us to commit to the Williams proposition, the answer is, I’ve turned it off the other day. I told Mike Manatos. He said Smathers said he’s got to know right now, in an hour or so, he and Mansfield. And I said, “Well, now, I’m not going to go on anything with my recommendation—with Williams’s—that’s got 6 billion [dollars] in expenditure that Mills is not signed on with and it has no exceptions to it. And that’s what the author of the thing is.” Well, they said, “Mans—Smathers’s going to do it anyway.” I said, “All right. But I don’t want Smathers speaking with you—"

Well, I want—

But the papers this morning said—

What I’m asking—

Smathers is a Johnson supporter.

What I’m asking you to is not that, but it’s a 10-10-5 that has the exceptions and has the obnoxious Williams things knocked out that would be sponsored as a substitute measure by Mansfield and Dirksen. That’s the proposal I have. And the one that we would try—attempt to rally around.

Well, if Wilbur and the Appropriations group would look with favor on that, if it had better than a 50-50 chance, I would certainly want to . . . take a good, careful look at it, and I think sympathetically. But I don’t think you’ll get in a position to offer that. I don’t think you got that. I just think that’s what you’re hoping. I don’t believe Williams will buy that. Smathers said he wouldn’t. And he won’t give an inch. And I don’t think you got it, then. I don’t believe that you’ve got those 30 votes you’re talking about when you split him. But if you could do that and Mills wouldn’t get mad at us and would consider seriously taking it, I would not say it’s bad.

We [unclear] have to have Dirksen to pull—

You’d have to have Dirksen. You’d have to have a hell of a lot more than you got, in my judgment. I think [unclear]. But if you could do that—if they would do it—that I would say I wouldn’t want them going around Bobby Kennedy saying the President’s up here trying to cut the budget $5 billion. But if Dirksen and Mansfield, without getting up there—I don’t want—like I read in the paper this morning, “Smathers speaking for the administration and doing this.” One of this damn—I guess this Washington Post article or something. Well, I’m afraid that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to wind up being—it’s going to be the Williams-Johnson-Smathers deal. I don’t want to get in that, ‘cause I think that’ll ruin me. I dislike getting in with Ezra Benson’s Birch company.[note 19] Ezra Taft Benson was President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture from January 1953 to January 1961, and a supporter of the John Birch Society, an extreme right-wing group whose founder, Robert Welch, considered Eisenhower a tool of the Communist conspiracy. And I know the others are going to ruin this. You don’t need to remind me of that. I know that, but I think we better try to get something that Wilbur will stand on. I’ll ask him, and I’ll try to talk to Russell over the weekend, and we got till twelve o’clock, I guess, to tell Smathers and them and see if Dirksen and Mansfield are willing to buy this and if Williams will vote for it. I don’t think Williams will. And then if he doesn’t, I think the [Carl T.] Curtises [R–Nebraska] and the [Jack R.] Millers [R–Iowa] and the damn reactionary Republicans will go with Williams.[note 20] Carl T. Curtis was a U.S. representative [R–Nebraska] from January 1939 to December 1954, and a U.S. senator [R–Nebraska] from January 1955 to January 1979. Jack R. Miller was a U.S. senator [R–Iowa] from January 1961 to January 1973. And you’ll have Mansfield and Dirksen, probably, and 12 Democrats, and maybe 8 or 9 Republicans. But if you could put them all together on this, where you could get your 30 Republicans as your count . . . and Wilbur wouldn’t get mad, I think we could get him the Democratic votes. If he’s got 30, I think we could get 20 [unclear]—

Well, you take his pulse on that, then. I think it means a lot more for you to do it than it does for me to do it.

OK. I’ll do it, and we’ll get together in the morning. I think we ought to talk through the fiscal thing, anyway, again in the morning with the council, and you and [William McChesney] Martin and the Cabinet, if we can [telephone line clicks] them in without their getting in the paper. What’s your judgment on it?

Well, I think it’s up to you. I think if they knew—

I’m willing to do it. I told you my judgment. Now, what is your judgment? That’s what I want to know.

Well, my judgment is that you ought to have them in and hear them and hear—let us present it. I know I’ll be as popular as—

[Unclear] oh, I know—

—skunk, but let’s do it.

You’re going to be popular. They’re going to like you. It’s just a question of what it does for them and how we do it—but I think they’ll see the facts of life. I see them. I think it’s tragic. I’m for fiscal responsibility. I’d tax at 20 billion [dollars].

Well, you’re going to get this ceiling on there anyway, I’m convinced. I don’t think that your—the Congress is going to go home without gutting these programs.

Well, now—

I think it’s a question of whether the knife is—

[speaking under Fowler] I think that’s a good point to make. [Unclear]—

—the knife is wielded with the tax bill on the books or whether the knife is wielded without it.

I think that’s right. And last year, why, we got—we didn’t get any taxes. And I think that’s what they’re liable to do. I think they screw us.

Oh, may—[Frank T.] Bow [R–Ohio] is going to put it on every appropriations bill that comes through.[note 21] Frank T. Bow was a U.S. representative [R–Ohio] from January 1951 to November 1972. And then they’re—

What is he going to put on? Five percent—

He’s going to put on a ceiling.

Five percent?

Oh, something. I would think something worse than that.

Well, that’s what he had last year—

And then in the final, along towards the end, why, he’s going to put on an overall ceiling, and what he’s asked for is 178 billion [dollars]. It’s the 8 billion figure. Now, Smathers got Williams to come down to 6 [billion dollars], and that was as far as he could get him to go. But Williams’s initial proposal, which has been worked out with Bow, on the Republican side, was for 186 to 178, 8 billion [dollars] cut in expenditures, with no exceptions. Now . . . Williams’s initial exceptions were Vietnam and interest on the public debt. Now, he’s broadened that to include a number of other things. But I wouldn’t—still, his bill, the one that they will—have offered as an amendment, has unacceptable features we couldn’t live with. And I think Smathers understands that. He just was—didn’t want Williams to get the whole—make it appear that Williams was the only fellow that was for a package deal. But Smathers knows—and his program is to change the—take out the objectionable features of the Williams bill, have a 10-10-5 package, which Mansfield and Dirksen would join in offering. Now, whether Dirksen could get Williams to go along on that—I think Williams is a wrecker. He’s a spoiler. He’s out to prove just one thing, and that is the Democratic Party and the President are irresponsible and not capable of ruling.

Isn’t that a worthy endeavor? To tell Dirksen to try to see if that’s something that you can sell? See what Williams will do? Just say if you can get him to do it, I’ll try to make my sell. That a worthy undertaking?

That’s right. That’s our plan.

You do that, and I’ll work on Wilbur and see what he says.

All right, sir.

OK.

All right.

Wilbur—