[answering on speakerphone] Hello?

Kermit Gordon on 9-0.[note 1] Kermit Gordon was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1961 to 1962, and director of the Bureau of the Budget from December 1962 to June 1965.

[speaking aside in the background] [Unclear] it’s rather accurate, isn’t it? That about what happened? [Unclear exchange.] [answering the telephone] Hello? [Pause.] Kermit, [Gordon acknowledges] I want to congratulate you. I haven’t read the financial pages, but I don’t know how you and the Wall Street Journal and these business journals, Business Week and the rest of them, get along, but the story on your budget, I thought, was exceptionally good. And only one suggestion: don’t you ever refer to me as “the President” in a campaign year. These Swarthmore [College] professors . . . sophisticated and respectful . . . and you get down, though, in the ward heeler from now till next Tuesday. [Gordon laughs.] You refer to him as “President Lyndon Johnson.”

[Laughs.] Yes, indeed.

Fellow always told me every time that name’s mentioned, it’s worth 10 dollars’ television time.

I’ll remember that, Mr. President.

You did a beautiful job, but it was always “the President.”

Yes, I’m afraid I just slipped into that habit.

All the good qualities that you possess you attributed to me, and all the prudence and the fiscal responsibility and everything, but you always attributed it to “the President.” And they don’t know whether you’re talking about [Herbert C.] Hoover [Sr.], or I guess they know Hoover’s dead . . .[note 2] Herbert C. (Clark) Hoover Sr. was director of the U.S. Food Administration from August 1917 to November 1918; U.S. secretary of commerce from March 1921 to August 1928; and president of the United States from March 1929 to March 1933.

[speaking over President Johnson] Well, I think most of them are clear on who I mean, Mr. President, [President Johnson laughs] but I would still accept your correction. I think that would have been a better way to do it.

Now, find anything else that we can use between now and Tuesday. We are really hard up. If you got any good figures on September employment or October—I guess October employment will be too late; we won’t have that. If you got anything on Defense Department’s employment. I’d just really search around these things. If you got anything on September expenditures that looks good. We were 41 million [dollars] as I recall it—

Yes, that’s right.

—for the first quarter.

That’s right, Mr. President.

So that’s all we’ll get. We’ve bled the expenditure thing. Have we bled the employment thing . . . fully?

I’ll make a recheck.

Why don’t you issue—why don’t you issue—

[speaking over President Johnson] I’ve been deeply involved in the ‘66 budget, and I really haven’t had a chance to look at the current figures, but I’ll do that as soon as I get back to my office.

Why don’t you issue a bulletin this afternoon to every head of every agency, Cabinet, and say you want for Friday for me to use for Sunday papers the grossest and most unusual and unique and . . . dramatic—I don’t think you could put that in a memo; someone will leak it out. But we—something of that type of waste that they had uncovered and stopped.

Mm-hmm.

Let’s just get samples of waste. We had a new—we had a new—

[speaking over President Johnson] Did you read—you read that story I sent you by Marshall McNeil?[note 3] Marshall McNeil was a Texas newspaper publisher; a reporter for Scripps-Howard Newspapers from the 1940s to the 1960s; and a longtime associate of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Yes, I did. [Gordon acknowledges.] I thought—I did.

He used several of those—

That’s right.

—but I’ve got several more in reserve that he hasn’t used [unclear].

[speaking over Gordon] We could get some different ones. I would like to use them. I’d like to say that I stopped them from using . . . floor sweeps that cost us 1,100 dollars a month on sidewalks in the air base at Fort Worth [Texas]. [Gordon laughs.] That’s not a true story, but we did that one time—

Yeah.

—when I was investigating [with] the Preparedness Committee.[note 4] When he was Senate Majority Leader, Johnson had chaired the Preparedness Committee.

I see.

Now, GAO [General Accounting Office] gets all those stories now. They put out all this waste stuff.

Well, I’ve got a considerable backlog of these stories, Mr. President. I can produce them either out of my files or from some of the agencies. This won’t be hard at all.

Get a file of them and let me say for Sunday paper that here are examples of how we’re saving money. They laugh at us about cutting off the lights, but here we—

They’re not laughing anymore, Mr. President.

—we’re doing some of these other things, and . . . and so forth. And the main reason for calling you, though, is not to overwork you anymore, but we do want to make it Tuesday, and we can’t be complacent, and I need some good examples. But the primary reason was to thank you for good job you did on the budget.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Bye. Bye.

Waiting.