The President's Men; 15; Daniel Moynihan: Counsellor

BEEP Behind every president is a group of men who advise the chief executive and carry out his policies handpicked they serve at his pleasure and in turn they help run the national government cabinet members special assistance agency

heads collectively they are known as the president's men this is the series of programs dealing with some of those president Nixon has selected as his men they discuss with reporter Paul Niven their functions their thoughts and their aims the night Daniel P Moynihan counselor to the president Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the most atypical of this president's men a Democrat among Republicans a professor among business and advertising executives an Irish Catholic child of the New York slums among Protestant sons of the West born on New York's east side Moynihan tended his mother's bar shine shoes and worked as a stevedor on the nearby docs but after Navy service in World War 2 the full-bright scholarship carried him to the London School of Economics and

a PhD his first government work was in the New York State administration of Governor Avril Haramon still a close friend president John Kennedy brought him to Washington first as assistant to the secretary then assistant secretary of labor during the Johnson administration he wrote a study of Negro family structure which became known as the Moynihan report and made its author at once famous and controversial Moynihan left the federal government had a brief unsuccessful fleeing at elective politics in New York then retreated to an academic life he was running the joint center for urban studies at Harvard and MIT when president elect Nixon summoned him after some careful and mutual scrutiny he and the incoming Republicans came to terms and he was made assistant to the president and head of the new urban affairs council in the last month Moynihan has been promoted to a kind of long-range think tank assignment with the title of counselor and a seat at the cabinet

table he is also the only adviser to a Republican president ever to quote the turn of the century German socialist Rosa Luxembourg in a television interview Mr. Moynihan you're the only adviser to this president who also served the last two does the internal organization of the executive branch very very much from one administration to another well the the White House arrangements always very much reflect the personality of the president at least they have in my experience and I was suddenly ordinarily always would the the thing that comes to be very much in your mind if you spend a fair amount of time in government is the the degree to which the permanent government he was author says in his term changes not at all the the bureaucracies there it's arrangements it's treaties with one another it's contacts with the Congress

its positions on things don't change at all and the the tension that the press will pay the tension that people like you will pay to the Cummings and goings of rather unimportant people like myself in contrast with the degree to which you will ignore what really happens in Washington it's quite astonishing have you had any programs lately on the bureau heads of the American National government no when's the last time you had a deputy assistant secretary of the treasury on are you saying every new administration has presented with a battle for these thin layer of political appointees to seize control of the machinery sees control is a is it presumption to prevent being seized as much take it on to try to maintain some options for the president and and in some

respect get here get the system to respond to his address it's it's not a function of difficult men who will not respond it's a question of how do you make large systems work and charisma doesn't seem to do it which Kennedy had and and intimidation doesn't seem to do it and and remain to be seen whether certain kind of persuasion and attraction for order does it but he's saying this is administration is trying a new new new approach only I mean it's a fundamental to the presence understanding of what he what he is about is the idea that the systems of government aren't working very well that that the really the issue of an American society day is much less what it is we would like to do than it is how to get it done the goals that there's a much wider

consensus on goals at this point and there is on the processes by where by which you achieve that you tell us a little about the meaning of the robust recent reorganization of the White House in which you and mr. Harlow become counselors and mr. Erletman takes over the Urban Affairs Council I take it or some of the work of that you've been doing at the Urban Affairs Council you just mean you're going to sit back and take a long range view it domestic problems oh it it would be hard for me to tell you how the day my day has changed I mean I could do the same thing I'm always doing we're trying to divide up work a little bit president dividing up the work between things he thinks some people do well and others do less well and and to some extent he's a good fellow and he's trying to let people do the thing they like to do and he's certainly lately do the things I like to do he's suggesting that these arrangements it's very difficult to codify them in a press release that it's

absurd and the criminologists in the press who are always trying to figure out what it means who's up who's down who's down who's right precisely this is a question which I've put to president to White House advises both in this administration and the last one isn't the development of this new breed of government official the White House advisory inevitably going to result if it hasn't already in the diminution of the authority and prestige and contact with the president of cabinet officers I think it will I think it interesting that president Nixon has made first doctor Burns and then Mr. Harlow and myself a member of the cabinet but I think this is part of the diminution of the role of the cabinet but that never was very great as a institutional one and there is a very real problem of cabinet officers and their access to the president particularly those who don't dealing in the day-to-day crises of foreign affairs they decided by members of the White House staff isn't that pretty much if

if they're bad staff men that's why they will behave yes if they're good staff men they will try not to have that happen but it's a real danger I remember in in the Kennedy administration the Secretary Hudge's had put down on the agenda for Accounting a frank discussion with the president of relations with the White House staff nothing ever came of it did it presumably my president Kennedy decided with his staff I would hope was the cabinet officer I would not ever expect to have a conversation like that in public with the staff president they're sitting around on the edges of the comments and raise the question is to whether he should leave when the subject came up and Mr. Saranson didn't leave and apparently the subject never got discussed very much is the Urban Affairs Council been a valuable tool in coordinating the work of various cabinet departments in the Urban Affairs field and will that continue despite this reorganization well you're out you're kind of asking me have I been a useful staff member but the answer is yes but what I mean is that

I do think the Council has been very useful in an institutional role of bringing together those cabinet officers whose programs in fact relate to one another but who had no structural way of acknowledging and accommodating that relationship before the mean the iron law of urban affairs that everything relates to everything but unless the Secretary of Transportation Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development somehow are they get together and within the presence of the president to talk about common programs and reach at the president reach decisions which then they know the president has reached and they all know he has reached it and they know each other knows there just tends to be that kind of isolated program that goes on as if the other programs didn't exist and that causes half the trouble that you get into well the stories about the reorganization have been very fuzzy about the future of the Urban Affairs Council will it in fact continue to fill

precisely that function it will continue to fill precisely that function it is intended that it should you say your days have not changed appreciably nor last my evening well when you devote your days and evenings to long rains thinking more as you're alleged to be doing now what what do you do with your lingerie and thoughts well let me say that we the administration had to do what any administration must do in a takes office which is to get a legislative program up to the Congress and I think it has done this and there that there's a program before Congress which is a complex and an important but you've got to have another big one do we I mean I want we we ought at least to start I mean you know the first priorities are there and we would hope to see them enacted that hasn't the president quoted is this is saying that comes a point where we have to stop fixing things and do things and well let me know there's more program coming down the line but the president has

sent to the Congress some some very important legislation and it's not just important itself it it's important as a as a as a representing an effort to kind of redirect the style of American government the proposals for the family assistance program which was sent to the Congress in September announced it in August that was a bill that the governor Rockefeller New York testifying on the bill said this is may well be the single most important piece of domestic legislation in a generation and he's right it it is if enacted you will measure certain aspects of American social history in terms of the before and after of this bill it's it's a it's a it's a it's a quantum change it is it is not incremental it is a fundamental redirection proceeds from a fairly complex set of understanding about what government can and cannot do what it should and

should not attempt before we get to the merits of what about the legislative prospects it was probably getting with great publicity there was some testimony last month before the Houseways and Means Committee but it's agreed everywhere it won't happen till until next year is the administration working hard to get this bill through is it was say on the ABM or is now in the appointment of Judge Haynesworth is it going to use the muscle of the cloud on the hill it did how we will need to get it through well well no one has expected it would pass this session the legislature there there there's no opportunity for the committee to get to it and that the the issue you asked me a question like that what do you expect me to say I mean I'll say of course we do but the real issue is what do we in fact do and that that issue of fact will emerge in next March April as it were something very important happened though you asked about the general prospects there are some kinds of subjects which just do require a measure of national consensus occasionally that can be reached when there's an overwhelming dominance of one party as there was

in 1934 35 when the Social Security legislation was passed those are there for such moments in American history typically you have now the advantage of universal discontent with the president that's right and you have a further advantage that the republican president proposed into a democratic congress so that each party can take credit for whatever happens and they will try to and they ought to try to and they'll have then they will be deserving of credit the the very a rather important fact came along just a few days ago in a sense to consolidate that situation the so-called Heinemann Commission the president's Commission on Income Maintenance Proposals program rather reporting this was a Commission established by President Johnson pointed in 1908 1968 they worked about 19 months they spent a million seven hundred thousand dollars mission of liberal democrats and they came forward with their proposal and in

every fundamental it was identical to the president's proposal mr. Heinemann came by to see every fundamental it's fundamental it's not work oriented is the president's all all those are those are the kind of little issues that people get up and fuss about of course it's work oriented it I mean it that that is it's curious to me how people who get paid to be kind of smart and so persistently be obtuse about some things the fundamental thing the Heinemann Commission said is that there are in that you will never solve the problem of poverty through the wage and employment system alone that a great many people work full-time try to maintain their families maintain an independent situation like and just don't do it because they don't make enough money and therefore you must supplement their wages that is exactly what Richard Nixon that is his work oriented is work could be they say they work

but they don't get enough Heinemann came and presented the report to the president and they talked about things they it was a very pleasant occasion and he he went out and he said that he was asked by the press are there not differences between your proposal and the president's proposal he said their differences but the the those aspects on which the proposals agree are far greater and far more important he said the president's proposal is a gigantic step forward courageous and pioneering and I think I would say the same might be said of Heinemann's report itself Mr. Minnie of the FLCI oh now this began immediately to accuse you of trying to create a cheap labor force is there anything in the bill that would prevent a mother of non- preschool children being compelled to take a twenty-dollar week job is made say any one that the U.S. employment service which will make a judgment judgment what suitable employment has got a 35 years of making this

judgment about people with respect to the unemployment system what's what are you trained for what is the prevailing wage the rate of wage what is the minimum wage without applies it won't be left to the stage the U.S. Employment Service and we don't do this and it's a great mystery about it and people trying to make a right fuss about it let me say my other things if nothing that wrong being a maid it's honest work no I'm the yes but you know I mean the question the question arises made it is sixty dollars a week maybe one thing in a minute twenty-dollar a week is another well that's right the fear has been expressed that it would force well there's just that that's a groundless fear I mean I was in the U.S. employed not I was assistant secretary of labor on president Kennedy president Johnson with everyone always has troubles with the U.S. employment service but it's it's not the monster it's turned it's made out to be by certain kind of upper middle class liberal who's never gone to the U.S. employment service looking for a job you can be pretty sure and they have a very very very sensitive these subjects and they they

responsible about them and they have Nash when there are national standards and there's thirty five years of experience and but let me say just if I can on this point I get annoyed at a certain kind of upper middle class liberal who somehow insists on devaluing the only kind of work experience that most people are going to have who says huh some lousy job driving a truck what kind of life is that you show you can't accuse mr. meany of this and I'm not talking about it I know you're not but mr. meany's organization said for one thing you would accompany this with a raid and that raised the minimum wage mister mr. meany's organization is always asking is the U.S. employment service going to do the right thing by workers and it should be it's a trade union organization and always wants to know and it's never finally satisfied never shouldn't be that's that's one thing it's nothing to this I'm

talking about a much more general phenomena of people talking about dead-end jobs and things like you know never you're in a dead-end job you know that probably you never gonna own the national educational television system you're gonna be announcing for it and interviewing for the rest of your life I'm in a dead-end job I'm professor at Harvard University I'm never gonna be anything but most people that's people you know do their jobs and they shouldn't be told that lousy jobs just because somebody who went to and over and then to Yale and then to the Princeton graduate school decides that it wouldn't those jobs wouldn't interest him when you talk about a national urban policy you talk at the same time and in common with the president most conservatives and a growing number of liberals of decentralization of revenue sharing isn't there contradiction here between a a national urban policy conceived in Washington DC and the simultaneous turning over more and more funds and responsibilities to state and local government oh no that they're not and this is I think is you're

listening to me a moment on this this goes back to one of what we're talking earlier about how do things get done what works there was a time up until very recently when anyone when you heard a fellow saying I'm all for this particular program but I think it should be done at low at the grassroots I think it's the job of a local government what he meant was that he was against the program because he knew probably well local government wouldn't do it this is a way and and there was a gradual as finding this to be the case in some many situations more and more and more programs made their way up to Washington all we had I think about 69 categorical programs 1960 we had 438 1969 that kind of process went from well we're finding that that in fact there are just some things don't work when you try to run them in Washington they just don't happen and if you want them to happen you have to give

the response that they have to be done locally and they're only going to be done locally if there are resources locally there's a basic equation of the American political economy is this for every 1% increase in the gross national product you have about 1.5% increase in the revenue of the federal government because of graduated income tax and you have a half to three quarter percent increase in the revenue of local government a 1% increase in GMP generates about a 1% increase in demand for public services that means the the local government's dependent on the property tax constantly are falling behind the demands placed on them the federal government constantly able to say well I'll do it instead but in fact you find you don't do it very well you you among other things we just don't know how to run local programs from Washington and the president's proposal is like look if you want certain kind of things done get some revenue back into those cities give it to the mayor

and the city council let them run their lives are the only people who know how to do it it's all very well to act like you know better but in fact you will not perform and this this goes to a critique of what works and to a curious degree the most interesting questions of politics in our time are problems having to do with process what about black capitalism which played so big a part in the campaign last year is that on the back burner is it still being studied or what no after a fairly difficult tooling up period the commerce department announced its project enterprise just recently secretary stands taking a very active role in this is an enormous amount of of capital seems to be available it's a tough thing to do why was it more difficult than apparently some people thought well because the small businesses are pretty

hazardous enterprise the I think about four out of five fail in the first three or four years and and any government effort to get them going is government didn't know no particularly know how to do this it was found I think I wanted to locate one particular problem as far the money was much more readily made available than sort of managerial skill my entrepreneurial experience and all that being the case men you know I'll put it this way if I can a business man like Morris stands and administration a lot of business men in it takes a lot more time developing a program of small business enterprise than a administration made up of college professors nothing about business don't know

much about it and who who figure you know who've never seen bankruptcy don't really care another question on black problems so to speak if you're is the deterioration of the Negro family which was the subject of your famous report the last administration halted have been arrested now those data continue in the direction we thought they would and even when when employment goes down unemployment goes down the AFTC cases continue to increase as they were then well that was our argument yeah this this this relationship which had been very strong between employment and welfare dependency seemed to have seen up and that process has continued and there's never a correlation has ever been reestablished not that you didn't by analyzing you think you you stand on the conclusions you reached in that report I haven't seen any any more reasonable set of conclusions there were very limited conclusions which is that we were approaching a crisis in our central cities and it's more than turning to the divisions which have torn the

country in recent years do you think the end of the war will restore the national unity the absence of which has been lamented by people on both sides of the fence much where we get back once this running so we'll get back a great deal of level great deal of unity at the level of political parties we must expect however for the next for the rest of our lives you and I that we will live with the heritage of intense distrust of and distaste for a government which the elite young people of the country have acquired in the course the 1960s they believe their government capable of doing hideous things and will never be able to feel about it as as you and I did when we were young men shaped by the second world war associating the American national government with the finest of things they will not do that that's the legacy of

this war yes it's a morning with your care to venture any comment on Mr. Agnews recent speeches in general particularly his his attacks on the television networks last weekend I know that you have been often appeared as a private citizen as a government official on the network to serve them as consultants you know quite a lot about the news media do you agree with the thrust of his argument well I was interested in Lester Bernstein's remark Bernstein editor of Newsweek he has a column in the current issue he says I wish Mr. Agnew would get off my side saying that he's been sort of arguing some these things for a long time I would simply put it this way if Mr. Agnew finds it possible to live in an administration with someone like me in it I find it possible to live in an administration someone like him in it and one of the one of the pleasures of this administration is it is open to a very wide range of views you get caught as a fugitive Democrat in this Republican president say you got caught in the middle when Mr. Agnew attacks Governor Haramon

or do you are isolated from politics when anyone attacks government governor Haramon for whom I work for four long years I find myself frankly apprehensive about the situation of the attacker I never find myself much concerned about the position of the governor who is able to defend himself in your experience who is more than able in my experience not only to defend itself but to to discourage future attacks thank you Mr. Bonin next week Secretary of State William P. Rogers will appear on the president's

mint This is NET, the public television network. This is NET, the public television network.

This is NET, the public television network. This is NET, the public television network. This is NET, the public television network.

NET, the public television network.