For the Record; 103; Lloyd Cutler

fb production funding for four the record is provided by

jefferson national bank in support of local public television programming in central virginia and by the compton foundation additional funding is provided by mrs do was crawl and the prairie foundation originally the rainy and governments that cooperate in their return to talk to goldman insisted she threatened to association we head but we really on we throw some thirteen billion dollars worth of iranian assets in american banks both here and you know so we had a party for the record low income for a conversation on policy and politics and the president of the miller center at the university of virginia i matter for the record our guest is distinguished lawyer or counselor to presidents and respected public servant in times of crisis is my

pleasure to welcome lloyd cutler thank you for joining us you've been writing and thinking about this growing problem of public there's distrust of our government what are some of the reasons today we've reached a stage where there are a series of public discontent snow the government has solved at least temporarily the problem of nuclear war spread of communism around the world things the government really could do something about now we have other discontents there was some limited before that three what we call the restructuring revolution the fact that we have been able over the last few decades to advance the mechanization of the world the ability of the world communicate so that almost any product can be produced anywhere in the world where there's a stable government we have literally reduce the number of people necessary to produce any unit of value

people who thought they were going to work for a company or a bank or university them and spend the rest of their lives there now find their vote be restructured out of their jobs that is a very basic worry and one that the government really can't do very much about except by protectionist measures that would turn back the clock and are counterproductive we have the same sort of problem in our own personal lives what's happened and two career families what's happening to our children the spread of crime the disappearance of what we refer to his family values we tend to look to the government to solve those problems even though there isn't much the government can do about it so i would say that the public distrust of governmental institutions is pretty much a repetition of what we saw that word from president clinton's favor in nineteen ninety two mistrust of president bush and what his administration was able to do

work against president clinton in nineteen ninety four and what will happen in nineteen ninety six depend largely i think on hold the public perceives to be in power if the public perceives that the stinking rich and there publicans have to be in power they will still be dissatisfied and i will remember president clinton's benefit people ask frequently world what is a council do what how's the office set apart from other officers what are the responsibilities of the council for the present well it's it is so much difference in the sheer growth of government more than anything else no and no president really before president franklin roosevelt would have needed a council because the attorney general was right nearby and the attorney general did not much else to do except advise the president today the attorney general presides over a department of something like ninety five thousand

people including the effect of not just the lawyers the trial the government's cases of the federal bureau of investigation the immigration naturalization service the drug enforcement administration she's got a great huge department to run and when the president needs the chances are she'll be down on the rio grande looking offenses are tightening up the immigration process the whole government has grown to the point where the cabinet departments important as they are have become what you might call out moves and the president's need for an intimate personal staff who used to be the cabin now require him to create with in his office a person will say that oddly enough important is this personal staff is important is the chief of staff as the national security advisor has to some extent the white house counsel we're all what the constitution would call inferior officers

if we were real quote offices of the united states we would have to be confirmed by the senate and there are a number as you know of and people in the senate who believe that that's exactly what should happen particularly with respect to the national security advisor but i think the president does need a small personal staff which he does not have to clear with congress and said he cannot operate without a body ever planned this that the president would have a personal staff above and beyond the cabin itself people thought of the government as a much smaller think the closest analogy really is to the inside general counsel of the corporation who sits there in the staff meetings of the management and who thinks of legal issues that the managers anxious to solve a problem never think or legal issues which they're aware of but which they were a sweep under the bed

in order to accomplish the job so the lawyer has to be the one to identify the legal problem remind them of it he also has to have a certain amount of political sensitivity as to what will get the group into trouble it even though it maybe it's legal and strict legal sense of us remember your counsel to president carter during the american hostage crisis in iran and the manner in which to handle the yo iranian assets in this country could you reflect a little on that whole experience certainly the hostage negotiations which workers for i took part in conducting more about as complicated a lawyers our diplomats negotiations one could imagine we had early on after our hostages were seized in the ayatollah

and originally the iranian government was going to cooperate in their return the ayatollah took over and insisted that the government shouldn't affect endorse the seizure we head only early on we froze some thirteen billion dollars worth of iranian assets in american banks both hear him abroad in europe so we had a bargaining lap and the eventual deal was that we would unfreeze this thirteen billion dollars reserve part of it for a settlement of claims of americans against the iranian government give them the balance and they would release the hostages and the closing arrangements for that what lawyers call closing could've been more complicated go to be deposited in the bank of england and held on the bank of england until planes took off with the hostages from tehran and then the positive in the algerian central bank was a very very complicated

business as you can imagine than a great throw for a lawyer to be able to take part in something that we ever resent thief after all those laborers the succeeding administration rather than yours receive the credit well armed or harm our greatest concern as weak president carter got the credit but if you've got the credit on november the service of january the twentieth he might've been reluctant and obviously did not get credit for accomplishing a during that period the republicans were afraid to succeed in that and i always claimed there was going to be what they called an october surprise you may remember that phrase that we had made a secret deal that they would come out the day before the election i wish we could've done you re enter remembers council to oppose them controversies swirling around his head and the talk of whitewater and suits against presents and all the rest could you tell us a little about this phase in your

service to the country it was that was a fairly similar experience i do think the level of distrust for the institution the willingness to believe that presidents have misbehaved was much greater by president clinton's time and the presidents carter simon fact there was very little criticism of president carter personally as you know some people thought of the roots not a strong presence here might be a little i think a whirl but on the crystal said there was very little criticism of it by the time we get to president clinton we have ten so almost twenty years of this independent counsel experience i originally favored that statute unless am having some second thoughts i think i still favor of change it so one mustn't think that investigations and questions about the president's cabinet began with president clinton you've only to recall the reagan bush years and which we

had independent counsel proceedings against attorney general nice three times yet sector labor that donovan who heads sectors sam pierce of a judy we had cap weinberger sector defense george shultz my represented secretary of state says on iran contra we had bill casey the head of the cia we had mike deaver and lyn nofziger to white house aides all having independent counsel proceedings on their own unfortunately we now eat quite the attorney general's decision to appoint an independent counsel which he almost has to do routinely unless is crystal clear proof of no violation we now a quake that with some sort of finding of guilt it isn't even an indictment that simply a decision to have an investigation conducted by an independent lawyer and yet the end of her lawyers take so long and the

notion that there must be something to it for reform was appointed cripples the particular cabinet member for a semester whereas rwanda which media fit in it seems to a feast of an international controversy pretty and the pastor of some of your comments about your surprise that what you encountered when you went back into the carter administration in terms of the white house's relationship with the media would use a little about the high would say it was all political people in the public eye grows too dislike and distrust the press at least as much as the press and the public in general distrust them if there's any issue on which is the present president clinton and speaker gingrich and i might add thomas jefferson would agree completely it's the irresponsibility of the press they see i

got on the outside i don't quite go along with irresponsibility prior i do legal work i have her number of newspapers i have a lot of journalists friends but when you get inside something changes it greatly enjoyed reading bill sapphire for example when i'm out of the government when i'm in first time scared to death of my wanting to talk to try to get something in a second i get a sense of outrage and how could he say that huckabee do it without calling me upstairs and nine we speak was so it's a natural we've a decision i don't blame the person that's their job what about the time that the white house prepares to spend preparing for the evening news well there is quite right the press and in particular the television versus our main source of news the evening news is is the main source and whatever you came to the white house in the morning

prepare to work you have to turn your attention to the mourning stories have some response ready by forty or five o'clock in the afternoon which is the deadline for the evening news programs in you and you become a short term i'm a slave of the news cycle and there's very little you can do about that if you don't respond will be stories that the president can make up his mind that his advisors are crossways and can't decide what to do panic the hot job consists very largely in this unfortunate part of an instrument a lot of reporters counselors do you have to act too soon on insufficient information and if you wait until you have all the information even you've had time to reflect on what you really want to do which is the way lawyers like to conduct their lives it's too late so focus for a moment on the man in the oval

office you've written and spoken about the way we select presidents what's wrong with the process you're let me say first i'm a great admirer of the president met in the oval office and i like him or having been there for six months but really i don't think has that much wrong with the outcomes with people and we've selected to be the nominees as there is in the sheer cost of the process and in how many people get left by the wayside the primary system was one of the great reforms end of the progressive irrational at the turn of the century it never became important for him in presidential elections until jack kennedy so it's bland though it's only thirty five years old today the primaries have become the dominant factor in the election whoever wins the first two three or four almost always gets the critical

majority before the convention center the convention is just an empty hacked the social peace the entire premium is on money and television appeal you have to have enough money two when those first race is you have to spend everything you can raise on the first races and if you don't finish first or second and first races you can't raise enough money and on that has been the story for a very long time we haven't had a contested convention in i think the last real countess and a convention was eisenhower against taft in nineteen fifty two i'd like to change that i had an idea about changing of the public who cares for much of their lives to create what i call a bike at their bicameral convention by party rule in either or both parties in which you have one chamber

who would be the present primary delegates the latest now selected by boat and you'd have another chamber consisting of the party's incumbent members of congress plus the incumbent governors etc and to be nominated you would have to carry both chambers and then you could have a tie breaking systems of eight when chamberlain one way one went the other way a carefully selecting out that way the convention itself would be the final decision maker and there would always be a time for deliberation do we really want this person who has proven popular on television or do we want some other person who we know would be a better president of the country could the parties decide that each party for about its own rules of the convention that could be done by party rules yes so the restraints or restraints people wanna keep up there it's hard to say but usually the party

forced into the hands of whoever wins the presidential race and actually he likes it that way so he got there david broder wrote a book called the party is over what's the fate of the major political parties as you see it especially in reference to that selection of presidents and arts anyone i used to think and now we all have to go back to school because of what newt gingrich and the republicans have demonstrated by way of solidarity because of the primary system because of the inherent what used to be the inherent advantages of incumbents and raising money and in establishing a voter adherents because of their seniority in congress and their ability to win particular pieces of court ordered the record for their constituents he'd used to be that the party had low as such party officials had little or no say he and how the

candidates for congress was selected on how the presidential candidate was elected was everybody could raise his own money rather than get the party's nominee everything depended on your own particular television appeal and in recent years everything is depended on how the negative you can be in attacking her opponent michael huffington spent something like thirty one million dollars against em finds almost all over the negative commercials and california as you know political commercials or everything that's the way you've campaigned plant toward the end of the race had to do the same things she had to do negative commercials against him both of them were into election day with overall negative ratings republicans are so negative campaigning works there's no way the party's stop i say we have and as a result party members when they get to the legislature think of themselves as independent of the prison one difficulty with the democrats where they can never get together

and very much is for twelve years in congress while they have the majority there were accustomed to being against the president and the notion of working with the president was something they didn't come to very well the republicans are showing something different republican votes or a month the rules changes that were made on the first day of the new house republicans voted two hundred twenty nine to nothing in favor of those new rules they have two or three members were women arrived yet it may be that the republicans will prove to be a coherent party at least for a short term but once they're in power and the new freshmen become incumbents and raise their own money and rise and their committees and depend on special interest in financing i think it's going to change i think essentially david is right and that the parties have had their day and we pretty much wrote for individuals to that in fact is you know one third of the

public when i asked the question are you a republican and one third season you're serving on a commission which is looking at the problem of selection of federal judges is that a problem in our society and what might be some of the reasons for the problems welcome i think we do quite well in selecting the judges i think the question that relations have been particularly good oh from quality we have a higher percentage of nominees to the american bar association rates is highly qualified a never before we certainly have more women more diversity than ever before i do think that carries a very serious problem bout in the nomination and banning of government officials in general that we now requires so much information from them about their past lives or consultant psychiatrist about their financial records we talk to every person was ever a neighbor of theirs any place

of the world from other lions well we ask than even a question is there anything else in your background that if it became known would be from bassam and then we go through it layer after layer of vetting both in the nominating department and the white house in a particular senate committee that's a goal i don't where a very unforgiving about that we've now going to have a new page or social security taxes for household employees as you know and i once made a calculation that even after we reform this process was as white house counsel that the president had so many poems to make he would never finish and get them appointed before his term of office was over so that's a system that has gone berserk i don't think you can blame the white house for that kid is the insistence

of congress the public in general that we only one absolutely squeaky clean people to be in the government this by the way most of us of our own lines you are a few of us were qualified you also served on a commission which looked at the selection process for vice presidents and their aides thought that you might wanna share with us on that question and i don't think it's today at the moment as you know it used to be that aware of their second an electoral college became the vice president we change that we know pair the president and the vice president from one party you cannot vote for one candidate party's candidate for president at the party's candidate for vice president says you can do for governor lieutenant governor and tough one today so you have got to give whoever wins the presidential nomination the decisive role in picking a vice presidential candidate otherwise you may end

up with somebody who is totally incompatible with the president even though he's of the same party you have a light touch even serious problems they won't cover quote thing i remember best you borrowed from snoopy on a tennis player and mike the children most of the tennis players and they gave me one birthday a big city post through a chance charlie brown an aisle or whatever name is on one side and snoopy and would stop them bird on the other side and there's this mesh coming across landing between snoopy and woodstock and they're each looking very reproachfully one another and the caption says it doesn't matter whether you win or lose its how you placed the blame is that related to some of our over expectations president wealth wherein were very good have blamed placing is you know and

when the during the times when we have what i called divided government that is president of one party in the majority in one or both houses of congress of the other party we cannot hold either party accountable and each is very good offensive line everybody says i want to balance the budget but that wouldn't do it my way and lloyd cutler councilor depressants thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with us thanks also joy of yours for the record and jim thompson the house yes nice

job this week nice production funding for four the record is provided by jefferson national bank in support of local public television programming in central virginia and by the compton foundation additional funding is provided by mrs do was crawl terry the

i think the investigations steve inskeep host as boy i'm a believer in the sense of honesty fb

fb