The White House During the Nixon and Ford Years

from communication center the university of taxes at austin this is university forum that the forum is a public interdisciplinary meeting place for the wide ranging world of ideas opinion and analysis this week the white house during the ford and nixon years jerry age jones a former deputy assistant to presidents nixon and ford discusses the white house and its operations during the nixon and ford presidency is jones joined the white house staff as a personnel administrative officer under president nixon in nineteen seventy one originally planning to stay only six months he switched positions often leaving the white house with president ford on january twentieth nineteen seventy seven working on a day to day basis with nixon jones posts included on a tour for the committee to re elect the president deputy

director for nixon's campaign and of white house personnel and staff secretary of the white house under president ford he continued as staff secretary and was in charge of the presidential campaign strategy for nineteen seventy six in this program mr jones discusses the operations of the white house staff and its effect on the functioning of the government that i've been asked to talk about the white house under presidents nixon ford this of course is a very very gentle topic would fill many many volumes of books magazines take years to do it i'm sure you'll notice many of my colleagues are making their living now writing about that topic but i'm not in the book presence and we only have an hour of your day i would like to have you all have time to ask me question so i will try to cover that brought topical in fact i'd like to talk about really just two things and then give you time gas in a crush injury might have i'm

trying to come through first of all some famous racehorse let me tell you generally in the beginning part of it there so that you if you have any interest in the area so i worked in we still what they are the second thing i would like to do is really discussed the role when the journal and philosophical way of the white house staff under both nixon and ford international girl as you or very aware the white house that itself has been widely criticized for the mix of ministers from the voter restrictions my view it's been little understood and i think it's an area where many many people have some very strong and it wrong ideas and beliefs about it so that i want to talk about day i'll throw out several fairly broad brush conclusions about her are kept having

look at it for some time you all will probably disagree with someone you may not understand some moments on the large inflow my single string please feel free as we go into a culinary time period ring up a prohibition might have with what claims on first of all let's turn to sort things out that they're so you can check out her credentials and stored some questions for me let me say from the beginning i'm not really a politician normal management person i went to graduate business school i joined the consulting management consulting firm in new york city where my specialization there was organization and management of large enterprises i spent almost all my time working on reorganizing various aspects of one of their top five corporations and arab states because of that background i was invited down to washington for about a six month period to help them some reorganization work and the six months fell outside could possibly last

eighteen months in the end it lasted six years from the spring of nineteen seventy one and so i left the white house about love and thirty on january twentieth nineteen seventy seven just as mr carter must forego driving out the gate to the capital so that was a time period that span the entire watergate period this odyssey really began and what was called the white house personnel office where i was the administrative officer that sounds like a strange place to start with the white house personnel office is one of the key an unknown areas of the government that is responsible for helping the president decided to appoint to the key president who appointed jobs in the government all toll at the presidential level where roughly two thousand jobs are present can appoint an executive branch in addition to that there are some three thousand other jobs that the white house worries about that are called non career jobs there people at a level below the

president chile appointed positions but the critical in carrying out presidential palace and the departments and agencies i was responsible for organizing the nixon administration's way of going about making those appointments both presidential ii and vermont we're trapped that took about a year after that i went to work for john mitchell with the famous campaign staff the committee to re elect the president ms parker political divisions responsible for organizing and carrying out the presidential campaign in each of the fifty states i was taught that until mr michel colin general mitchell how well the campaign was going and i kept sending reports back from the fields are carried out mile the duties that it would be found on a campaign except i haven't yet found the campaigned on it there is none here yet when estimate your journal mitchell resigned they

said if you're so smart about this moment you just go run it and make it happen so i wound up as deputy director of the campaign responsible for the day to day development and management of the campaign in the fifty states for the nixon reelection effort nineteen seventy two the campaign was divided into two halves the magruder half and our hair i didn't have anything to do with the magruder half or new job well unfortunately it was completely isolated from her famous colleagues now will be on the record and others fort hood know i returned to the white house for reelection and was named head of the white house personnel as mrs nixon decided that in his second four years he did not want to spend volcanoes in the key presidential job is he fired half to two thirds of the presidential appointment he had made in the first term and i took over this job with

about two hundred and seventy five thousand five hundred and fifty vacancies in the presidential appointments mr haldeman was my boss man reported to him and i was told that i had to fill will strapped in two months just as we started the watergate started as well this was in january of nineteen seventy three before i really even made a dent on the job mr holmes i'm mr hager isn't the job of chief of staff off we went it took me almost a year of those jobs and as you can imagine many many people were not politically interested in joining the nixon administration that the recruiting job was not an easy woman from their general haig asked me to become the staff secretary of the white house that job is a completely unknown job but was a key job because that it was responsible for really the present in boxes out talks everything that went to the president

came to the staff secretary ensure that it was correct that everyone had seen it that should have seen it and that it was the final recommendation of his staff and of the executive branch on whatever policy matter or issue was being dealt with also the presence out marks came back to the staff secretary and he decided what to do with the various items of nature presents or so poor and sent a memorandum to wherever we had received instruction had an officer staff member song so for the roughly four people that saw everything that went to the president was that secretary to the chief of staff the president and the staff secretary secretary it was a real privilege to see really the entire decision making process of the government for the crew time i was in that job the hooker in it however was the general haig said there was an additional responsibility and that was that i was to be named and to be responsible

for the nixon tapes which i did for a lawyer this fortune was after the eighteen minute gap which we all know about and a present for the continued not jobs who was really a transition job the ford staff who had insisted both on capitol hill and in the vice presidency really had not had time to go up to speed on the requirements of the presidency and they asked me to stay and help them organize return to do from there the president asked me for the year and a half we were campaigning in nineteen seventy five and six to take charge of his schedule and do the campaign planning as it related to countenance or was responsible for when he did worry when what he said in general the campaign strategy for the fall of nineteen seventy six law didn't do very well we lost but it was probably the highlight of my time in the white house with that

you can see an odyssey your informal organization expert from someone who's responsible for the key political decisions made very tight time the administration the political time in an administration reelection effort and that doesn't really speak for my been very good at that all it really says is that when you begin to deal with presidential elections nobody is an expert on family only occur over for years usually with a completely new team and to have someone who had gone through two presidential elections that still was young enough to have the energy to work on it is unusual and so one begins to be an expert on presidential politics fairly rapidly now let's turn to really the chief topic two really the role of the white house in these two administrations international now let's

call it the way it is this white house staff quickly in the next sometimes was seen as a criminal organization was reported as such it was talked about in terms of being very bad for our country and in fact got much of the blame for the watergate fiasco things were said about it like this it was too large that supplanted the cabinet that we no longer had a cabinet government we have a white house that government that isolated the person that was much to protect evolving that somehow by shielding him from the hard realities of the world it kept him from seeing reality in and letting to make a series of blunders that any reasonable man would not have made that it was not responsible to anyone but the president the congress didn't confirm the people on the staff they were elected by the by because of that they had become arrogant and much too powerful and checked only responsible to the presidents they were much too anxious to please and that they have

become a really ok political machine a political party paid by the people of the united states and had abused in ways that work and dreamed of really the powers of the presidency the sequel to that discussion is that we can correct many of the problems of the presidency if we simply correct all these problems with the staff what we need to do is we need to cut the staff back to nothing and go back to a cabinet government the cabinet officers are all responsible to the congress and the media can get to them and report what they think and that we do away with all of the problems simply by abolishing the staff in fact that became a campaign issue not i would say the most major issue mr carter's book quite a major issue reorganizations woman as he paints and reelection and it was really based on the fault that you could cure many of the provinces

government if you could take care of first the white house organizations were musicians now in my view this is not a criticism of the problem abolishing the staff the correct answer to the assessment why have a very different view of it and i'd like to share the perspective with you and have you think about it with great first of all let me freely admit that the charges against the staff and some great part are true was that was large i guess it reached its largest under lyndon johnson but still under presidents nixon and ford it was quite large it was very powerful it did have power in many cases to overrule the cat guard needs to check make the cut it did to some extent isolate the present from other members of the executive branch in fact the white house staff will protect them or president nixon became

the major source of creative ideas for the administration it coordinated the recommendations to the president on all types of substantive and political policy unless a court made that that's a funny word in washington what it really means is has the power to control it implemented many many presidential programs it was the enforcement arm of the presidency on enforcing presidential palace in the executive branch it did spend a major chunks of time on politics major chunks of time on the image making that's a very bad word these days but a lot time on that us so the facts are that they do the things that people charge that with but the problem and the reason that i have a quarrel within the analysis is that the reason that did those things was not because you have a criminal president and a bunch of thugs in the white house the causes of that are are very much more basic and very

much more complex and frankly have much more serious ramifications for our country and our government then those simple answers that we had a criminal president and a group of thugs that somehow got under the wire to run our government that brings me to some analysis that i've done about the executive branch and about the national government in general that i want to share with you the day these are the problems that caused the white house staff in my view to do what it does and frankly does under president carter still that under lyndon johnson bit under a john kennedy did it at a magnified worried richard nixon that the triple loss for you and we can discuss that later the first in key point is but the executive branch is terribly organized it is terribly organized it's a hodgepodge it was put

together over many many years two hundred and what made sense and eighteen forty was incorrect and when it no longer made sense in nineteen twenty in fact you can kill a federal agents they gone forever they grow forever even when they're simple purpose bodies as they grow they shatter responsibility for example when we were putting together our energy effort we discovered the two hundred and fifty three separate officers had a piece or an influence on coverage across accent it was written sixty three what that means is a hundred and sixty of any kind of organization can't agree on anything to cleveland there vying for power and responsibility in a new sex cereal like image it became almost impossible to deal with the problem without creating an ad hoc organization and the sun in many many responsibilities to it which is precisely what we get that's now become a

cabinet level department park mich however many of their energy functions are still scattered around and workplaces bureau minds of so and so or the various pieces of the government now it's really organized because each little organization that brings up suddenly develops a cluster of people who are interested in continuing the congressional staff committees that have oversight congressional budget committees to give money the constituency that feeds off of the bureaucracy itself the media that covers the special newsletters that report on what it does and most people make their level of acting and they simply won't let it die only no one died there the whole time i was there bill anders one of the astronauts headed the national oratorical and space council not mass of the council and he came to me one day and he say inaudible with your

brother eighteen months and i worked on this thing and we have these lovely offices not crossed that about the people but we don't do anything and i'm tired of not doing anything else we killed and got away with only one or the second point about executive branch not only is it badly organized but it's very very large it has many functions and all those functions really have to report into the present and they do and they do requires attention and no one man can possibly cover the breath of activities of the federal government is involved in and this is the shocker but don't really understand it the president under our constitution is the executive and he is responsible for executing the laws of the country and the executive branch of the managing executive branch but actually he doesn't control executive branch as far as i can tell the executive branch is not in anyone's

control most of the time was that the main one is that what happens is that all the departments and agencies in the government have many constituencies and many sources of pressure for action services activities the congress there oversight committees and budget committees the media the self interest of the bureaucracy likely the self interest of the presidential appointee that we'd name to them cabinet agency this is particularly true when you see it in a heightened way when you have a republican president and a democratic congress it will also works and we have a democratic president republican congress departments and agencies are torn between many different walton is the president is not the strongest of those in fact he often is the weakest and now frankly and our government today the present doesn't really control executive branch produced i felt we didn't deny i have the feeling that

part of the windows in there from the newspaper accounts are read something that goes along with size and disorganization is frankly we've created a monster apparent that as it grows and as increasing numbers of responsibilities have become less creative and less and less able to meet the new requirements of the american people as they begin to develop if you left each of the department and agencies to respond in a creative way to the needs and the new challenges as they do crop up over time they would never go down there is no creativity there it is become strangled by canceling no there's very little certainly new ideas get killed very rapidly an award bureaucracy a final point the executive branch is not very effective in implementing

presidential emissions now president gets elected by promising people he's going to do so and so he gets there and he thinks he's got a bit of snow and so it creates a whole bunch of things to do and he says to the executive branch let's start on and guys were all enthusiastic and we got these new initiatives let's really go and the bureaucracy doesn't change pace the president's time horizon is very different from the bureaucracies for bureaucracy thinks that two years is the time to get that dominate take two years and the president though has a different form of pressure from the media and the congress this time or are so much a car might be two months hence the clash between the bureaucracy in the present critically on presidential initiatives or eight just ninety five or six organizational problems with the executive branch itself what that means is if you're trying to be an activist president and trying to be aggressive and imposing a direction on executive branch that

means that you can't rely on now presently constituted organization in place to do it for you if you don't put us back together that can create policy employment policy and keep enforcement pressure on the department and agencies over time nothing happens in the plot that's why we had six hundred people doing that that's why i believe unless you have both people there with our present organization you can get very much gone out to some people and many of my printer so that's probably the presidents of both parties will go look at that way because they were elected to do something the staff is there to do something that exactly branches they're the present now beyond those organization problems or some others which are even more serious and more fuzzy more fundamental of the list the fuel

and i'm sure you all of cinema or felt them and some ways the first point the media focus on the president united states is far beyond reason and far beyond what baucus deserves the president is only one of three co equal branches and frankly in the scheme of things in washington between the executive branch and the legislative branch by far the most important activities carried on and the legislative branch that creates the walls that it puts in the law and implements national policy the president and developing those recommended the congress he implements the law experts past but the critical activity is the development of the war itself and the legislative body well unfortunately we're dumbstruck here either by a hollywood kind of pain or any hero worship leader something but the national

media and response to our citizens focuses are all too much attention on the present you can turn on the radio and in one hour the lead story most days will be what the president did this morning when he is gonna do tonight or who he's meeting with our what he thought or what his children did when as children do and has nothing to do with anything as far as i can see it but this is reported day in and day out and were saturated with the presents and this focus is in my view very unhealthy an unbalanced on terms of what really is going on in washington and what's important there in terms of national policy i guess really what happens is that it's very hard for the media to get a sexy story out of fifty legislative committees meeting this morning they go at a snail's pace it might take years for them to complete their work and frankly its doll you've ever sat in on an element here in austin here in washington and his deadly doll and in not very exciting in serving up or newsworthy

but when you have that kind of media distortion you've got a couple things happening ago the president saying look if you're going to give me the media time my mother's were use it and help himself politically with that so we spend a lot of time in the white house are planning trips that can be well reported colorful regional the great wall of china helps get you elected the next time therefore if you're going to have that media attention if you're the president you certainly need a group of people in the white house that no other news media to help you and to get your viewpoint across to the american people and what happened before they can about just how you play the media and how do you respond to what they do i guess teddy roosevelt served a the most important part of the president says is the ability to influence public opinion and that is true we've taken it beyond that and it takes a large to make that happen the second thing that's true partially because of this media coverage and partially because of

many other things in our society people think the president is much more powerful than he actually is they think he can do things for one that he can't do they hang on to his every word and promises though it can actually happen and i expect him to do it the sad thing is is that the president really has a very powerful it can influence opinion but the legislature determined policy we have a situation where president somehow big elected me to promise you're going to do a lot of stuff that they really can do more stuff and so you have on a chain reaction of people expecting too much and then being disillusioned with the card is going through that right now you started with seventy or so percent approval now is down in the thirties people don't think he's doing what he said he would do and he hasn't but the point is is that he couldn't do it really started because he doesn't have the power to do and let me make an aside on that point one of the things that disturbs me as a citizen more than almost anything else on washington was the fact that we have a cycle that's a

disaster that is the politicians over promise they got elected on his over promises they can't deliver but they never admit they can't deliver the people by these promises in a very naive way in fact want them to promise them things that can't be delivered then are disillusioned all the time about their government either what you or check the opinion polls but when you look and see what people think of the congress and of the president and so on you'd find that people dont think very much out of the reason for this is that that we go through a whole cycle of over promise under production and and the people's wanting to be deluded promise things that can possibly happen the reason that happens is that politicians are bad guys are necessarily dishonest they're what's known as flexible they will promise what's necessary to go active and it if they think they get elected and stan office by making these absurd

promises they make up and they do elected and they do stay in office and so we have a pet biology in our body politic where the guy that's the most dishonest to get elected in terms of the things he promises on what can happen when they really can't in fact the problem is that no one no politician is willing to risk standing up and saying to the american people you cannot have which are asking for because it isn't possible it cost too much i'll give you an example the national health insurance is something that seventy percent of the american people want but national health insurance as a full grown program will cost on the order of a hundred billion dollars it can be done and yet within the next six or eight years were probably have a form of national health insurance now no one is ever going to tell people what that's going to cost

and probably the cost of that because it'll be financed with the deficit is going to mean on ending that's my speculation i'm not saying it will happen it may not but the point is is that politicians never tell people what the costs are so like and why there's the benefit of years the cost they always talk about the benefits they always talk about things that they would like to see happen and may not happen and they very rarely ever talk about what the downside is the cost the fact is you can't get elected if you talk about the downside a third point unfortunately the congress is in fact a very ineffective institution it's chickened out but the way you get elected in this country today is that you don't do anything you can possibly help you don't take a stand if you can walk off and they want what they have allocated to the executive branch many many powers that and the constitution were theirs and they should

execute but if they have to make the choices themselves they become unpopular and therefore liable to be defeated in the next campaign the way have a lab issue both through something with a nice title and that puts the bear on the back of the present and the president gets to make the bad decisions and therefore take the political heat the other thing that the congress does from that which is precisely the opposite of shirking and is to all religiously all if there is a fed going in the country and i dont mean did remain major problems as being fat was taken formal probably several years ago the environment was the major issue in the united states and everybody wanted to fix the environmental problems immediately and the congress understood that and they pass some incredible laws environmental walls was the party couldn't possibly be enforced are if they weren't forced the

cost would be so great all american industry that it would put people out of jobs all across the country soul a legislated something that they thought would be very popular at the time it was probably and then nato will present you go in forcing a worry and so he had to go and force a wall that was the responsible thing for congress just one last point the american political parties at the presidential or national level are really no longer effective then have them there may have been in the last century they are now in fact what happens in the presidential campaign is over president create his own political party his own group of workers his own group a policy people his own group of media experts and they together part by money he raised himself put all the campaign and the national political organizations have very little to do with this process and in fact i been true to our home and we've

tried not to use the national political parties because they're not up to speed in their capabilities are not going up in this country today for presidential action by us cool what does that mean really well what it means really as compared in england where the conservative party runs the elections and finance is the elections and develops the policy positions for the members' running and their elections it means that the president stayed suddenly also puts on his staff a political party and part of the white house staff he is the national political party for that particular party rallies last points outside the executive branch point other functions of the white house staff have taken on a political party function the image creating function the function and frankly about having to take up the slack with the united states congress we devoted an incredible time on congressional matters trying to get logical

reasonable legislation through the us congress and finally our home media effort i don't know if you all realize how many people but i think a prosperous officer sixty or seventy people would do nothing but feed shovels full of paper to the national media so they can use it grind it up and put it in your newspapers so darn the thing that oversee a while i just outlined in summary our series of forces on the president that they can gather to him a bunch of functions that are seen as a natural he has a policy creators this policy of commanders us policy in force years he has image makers he has pressed people he has politicians that run an actual political party out of the wiretaps and that all adds up to what i began with in the beginning a very powerful white house that does a whole bunch of things that make it an executive branch run by white house staff it is no longer a cabinet government under those

conditions and that is the conclusion we have a white house that government we've had one for some time at least as early as eisenhower we still have one in spite of what carter said no as far as i can tell we're going to continue to have one until he's much more basic underlying causes are dealt with this organization an executive branch that isn't creative anymore because of that organization an executive branch that is written by bureaucracy so that it is no longer in control are more responsible to oppression somebody asked to take extraordinary means to implement as passing a national press that distorts the role of the presidency a citizenry who doesn't really understand our government and is willing and in fact wants to be deluded about what

politicians can do and what the federal government can do when congress voted on taking on its role as a show and a president who saying the back and is willing to try to absorb all of these things onto is that that's what happened but what's caused that that's why we still have a mind and with that i'll be glad to party running you might want to talk the first question mr jones was asked dealt with news media coverage of the president he was asked would you advocate some types of control of the news media concerning its reporting of presidential activities the only thing worse than a free media is a controlled media that began with no i don't believe that there should be any control whatsoever over nationally i think the media's responding to what sells others on a printer was as anybody else in the country and now

frankly they're selling oneself and that is in my view and unhealthy focused on the white house it distorts our national policy is made about employment in a large well known terms of the knick something that was a much broader thing that a confrontation between nixon the media for confrontation between nixon and congress it was a confrontation between nixon and really over a wide group of people who were being damaged by his policies and that he was trying to carry out a very fundamental change in the way the government operated he didn't believe in a strong central government he wanted to decentralize the car he didn't believe in atlanta and a bureaucratic term they believe in a whole bunch of things and was trying to destroy a lot of that stuff and in the process he stirred up the sand pile considerable in that process he created great patriots when you challenge the status quo and the conventional wisdom the

stirrup great patriots and passions and in the middle of that the germ of watergate colin and you know completely infected by the park a job that was a much broader confrontation the media happened to be the stand in for the very large group of whom irving kristol called the new class will fuel follower mcchrystal calls the new class group of people who i have sort of a problem americans starting to see their responsibility as being that a governing class and make up the bureaucracy the national media album or and many of the institutions that deal with than the pressure group that lobbies and so on and they see their job as it is taking on the role they believe crystal

you that that they have a responsibility to impose their view of what is good for the american society only traditional people who have carried on those roles business the church new social organizations and it was essentially under that theory a confrontation between there was a crime as the next lost and that's that was there a big difference in the decision making process between the two presidents yes there was a very big difference and know and i just i thought about putting an inherent and i thought no the point the white house staff under presidents nixon and ford had virtually the identical structures and yet the decision making process was entirely different and no i guess the point there is is that each white house is structured around their needs the

capabilities the ceo weaknesses of an individual prayers the most striking thing in the report was the way through is that a policy area would come to his attention are key staff members and a directive would be sent to one of the policy groups in the white house to produce and options paper for the president that would present a homeless possible solutions to this problem and recommend to what should be done this policy group would that work with the executive branch outside experts on foreign governments anyone in the united states to pull together a concise or five page option paper that would lay out for the president precisely what the prom was and what could possibly be done about it it would cover the staff

secretary the staff secretary would ensure that on each option the president knew where each of the key people in his administration stood and that pipa would go the present you would take down within the mine in and read it and he would check a little box with a new option three and that little paper would come back to the staff secretary and i would write a paper to the head of the policy offers domestic elsewhere national security council saying on your memorandum of virginia were portrayed the president says option three is a gun under president ford it was a very different process the problem would come from somewhere not necessarily the president or one of his key officers but a paper would be written and it would be staffed and all the same ones that i just described and a staff secretary would have it and it would send it to the president and the president would take it home and you agree and three days later we would call a great big meeting with

everyone who had a piece of that and the president would say are you guys recommended to me option three and i see where you john lennon was head of the budget and new brent scowcroft who was the head of the national security council disagree i want to hear you got a regular spot on the phone from eight years and they would then debate for an hour two hours maybe running over fiscal issues and what they might come out with was an option three but option for x in the process of this debate was that mean well i think what it meant was worried about a creative guy enderle the executive branch to produce

wide ranging solutions on a bunch of things and decided those things and prior secretly from papers president ford let his whole staff and soul apparatus percolate the things that you should look at they brought everybody and and they don't debate it and the creativity in the ford administration came out of that decision making process where in the nixon administration it came from the president himself sitting there thinking through a lot of series of public policy question very different process very different white house in the nixon white house it was quite difficult what the decision was made to ever go to reconsider it was very difficult to go and have a confrontation in front of the president on an issue in the ford white house if you disagreed with the solution it came through two days later reported the average roman romans a us president option three were defrauded because we think they made the wrong decision

and we like to come back and discuss it with you again because so we think you didn't consider some additional thought about here and so we would say are like the world by comeaux mike talk about how we might do that or four times and finally he would say you know it's still option three to me and i'm giving you guys three chances to change my mind and how many would do it and so we're going to auction three please go to it is going to be done are you might say which he was fully capable of doing a change my mind i read now i i think with permission to watch so it was a very different goal of a very different feeling and the staff a very different process of decision over the crippled with jeanette mr jones with the personalities of presidents nixon and ford he was asked how did the personnel is of president

nixon and president ford differ president nixon's it would never win any medals for being a nice guy president ford is the nice guy of all time factor about had a friend of mine claimed that a president has to have what's known as the snake factor to be effective and that means to be tricky a president ford was the most honest man i've ever seen in a national politics they were very different and i don't know what happens but when a man as president degenerate a threat of a halo affect the room in the law and it is in control of you know these and control the problem when a man has like a present for hamburger well the problem you've got is not using that power in a way that scares people from telling you what they really think because you see if you if you're grumpy or if you have to be on our if you shut your eyes for a minute and has an unbelievable impact on the

galileo thought that if you're grumpy with somebody when they bring up of you that's different from yours that pretty much assures that they're probably not going to back and so you have to be extremely careful and cutting off people's willingness to give you use that are different from yours i think president borders congo that that presents with us they're human beings like all worthwhile when an angry their feelings get hurt their happy these things come out and they didn't really react to things the point though is that what you've been in politics for as long as president nixon ford reagan you have a tolerance for the political process far beyond most of those and can deal with the pressures much better for longer than most of us and the last questioner asked jones if he would return to work for another presidential administration if given the chance absolutely moneymaker for comment on that was the

hardest period of my life the watergate period i would go on the white house or in morning and i would think today it's going to the other candidate and every day i would get worse for two years ago or seven and it was extremely the solution and now just as you all were we inside were mystified that nixon stasi the vote the facts and the truth we're we're not clear all inside either they really love the people they work with and in spite of the things upset about the government not being very effective or not very powerful and not really the source of all the solutions in our society which are i've seen it first of all just going there every day to work even the last day you're there when you walk in the door and say this is spectacular my mind of all i never got over mean it's such a privilege to be a worker

in an ad and touch the history that has gone before in the west wing of the white house for all of our officers are working was built by teddy roosevelt really every major piece of our history since that time or have occurred in the very remote it was an experience of a lifetime bob haldeman his book called the mountaintop experience go on without ever have a chance to go to recommend an outdoor dance you can stay too long ago that the fatigue factor that our shoes when i left i was absolutely beaten and it took a year to get back why write about the year i go up there as long as i was in the procurement longer and he looked like he would record a very workable right now to takeover the only token terrible terrible burden for that very much where

jerry h jones a former special deputy assistant to presidents nixon and ford discussing the white house and its operations in the government mr jones address was part of a recent symposium on government sponsored by the ideas and issues committee of the texas union at ut austin you've been listening to a university forum the forum is produced at k u p fm by kevin myers and is distributed by communication center university of texas at austin are at this morning radio network