Remarks on Plans for the Second Term.

Ladies and gentlemen:

As you have been here at Camp David for the past 2 weeks, I know that you would like somewhat an evaluation of what has happened up to this time and some projection as to the future, so that you can know how to cover our activities between now and the time the Congress reconvenes.

I have had the opportunity over the past 2 weeks to meet now with all the members of the Cabinet and with all of the senior members of the White House Staff. All of those meetings, as you know, have taken place at Camp David.

The decisions with regard to the members of the next Cabinet will be announced beginning tomorrow. They will be announced over a period of time, and I think that all of the announcements will be concluded before the 15th of December. As far as the order in which they are announced, you should draw no connotations from that, because that depends in some instances upon whether we have completed the Congressional consultation which is necessary when Cabinet appointments are being made, and also, in other cases, whether we have completed the evaluation of appointments to the sub-Cabinet. Those appointments, as you will note as time goes on here during the next 2 or 3 weeks, become increasingly important in our plans for the operations of the Cabinet and, particularly, its relationship with the White House Staff.

I think a word would be in order as to why we do have you at Camp David, why these meetings could not have taken place in the comfort of the White House press room and, for that matter, the Oval Office.

I thought it would be interesting to recap for you in a moment the times that I have been here and why we will be using Camp David for activities of this type and other major decisions that will be made by the Administration over the next 4 years.

Looking over the past 4 years, I have written most of my major speeches here-the speech of November 3, the speech of May 8 with regard to the bombing and mining of Haiphong. A number of the major decisions have been made at Camp David, the August 15 economic decision in 1971, for example, the major budget meeting of this year, the budget for the next fiscal year, will be held this Thursday at Camp David.

The reason for that is not that the facilities here are any better than those at the White House--as a matter of fact I suppose the White House facilities in some respects, even for members of the Cabinet who come here, might be better--but the reason is that I find, and each individual, of course, who holds the position which I hold must work in the way that it best fits his own patterns, I find that getting away from the White House, from the Oval Office, from that 100 yards that one walks every day from the President's bedroom to the President's Office or the extra 50 yards across to the EOB, getting away gives a sense of perspective which is very, very useful.

I developed that pattern early in the Administration and am going to follow it even more during the next 4 years. We know that in all walks of life, even in the case of you ladies and gentlemen of the press, that one constantly has the problem of either getting on top of the job or having the job get on top of you.

I find that up here on top of a mountain it is easier for me to get on top of the job, to think in a more certainly relaxed way at times--although the work has been very intensive in these past 2 weeks as it was before the other great decisions that have been made here--but also in a way in which one is not interrupted either physically or personally or in any other way and can think objectively with perception about the problems that he has to make decisions on.

As far as the Cabinet members are concerned, I asked them to do exactly the same thing over these past 2 weeks or 2 1/2 weeks since the election. I asked each of them to leave his office or his home for a period of time to think about his department, to think also about his own role in Government, and then have a discussion with me with regard to how we could do a better job over the next 4 years than we have done over the past 4 years.

It has been interesting to note that each member of the Cabinet, virtually to a man, has said that having that opportunity, as a matter of fact being directed to take that opportunity, proved to be valuable. Each has come back with recommendations for reorganization of his own department, each has come back with recommendations for very significant cuts in expenditures and significant cuts in personnel, which had not been considered possible in the prior budget rundown which took place about a month ago. And each, of course, had had an opportunity to think of his own role, what he would want it to be, in the period ahead.

Now, with regard to the members of the Cabinet and what decisions you may expect as to those announcements, let me--without divulging what any of the decisions are now because they will be made over the next couple of weeks--let me tell you what generally has been the pattern.

Some members of the Cabinet--Secretary Laird, Secretary Romney, of course, come to mind--had indicated before the election that they desired to leave Government after their first 4 years. Those desires, of course, we have accepted, but with regret, because I would like to say that I consider every member of the Cabinet a valuable member of our team. I consider each one of them one who is a very valuable public servant, and every one of them, even those who have left, has been given the opportunity to remain in Government service in some very high capacity.

But as I have indicated, some had made the decision, and that decision has been respected, to leave Government service. Others felt that they could better serve by changing their position, by moving from one Cabinet position to another Cabinet position, or from a Cabinet position to another position in another area of Government with similar responsibility.

Without divulging what the eventual decision with regard to his future is, a good example of this is Caspar Weinberger, the Director of OMB. I remember, when he first took the job as Budget Director, he said that no one should be a Budget Director for more than 2 years, because by that time he wears himself out and he is unable to look at the job objectively from that time on. Mr. Weinberger will leave that position. I have prevailed upon him to accept another position. That will be one of the announcements that will be made in the course of the next few days.

But that same pattern repeated itself in a variety of ways with other members of the Cabinet and of the White House Staff as I talked to them.

A word, too, with regard to the White House Staff. Several changes will be made. I felt from the beginning that it was important that the White House establish the example for the balance of the Government in terms of cutting down on personnel, doing a better job with fewer people. Consequently, while there will be cuts in personnel across the Government, throughout the departments, the biggest cuts will be made in the White House Staff itself.

We have been able to do that for a number of reasons, but the most fundamental one is that we are going to put greater responsibility on individual Cabinet members for various functions that previously have been that of the White House Staff.

The White House Staff has rather grown like Topsy. It has grown in every administration. It is now time to reverse that growth to do a more effective job, by bringing the Cabinet members into closer contact with the White House, of course, with the President himself. This will become more apparent as the various appointments are announced and as our plans on reorganization are announced.

The other point that I should make is that there has been some speculation to the effect that there is a move here on the top of this mountain to, as a result of the rather significant victory of November 7, reach out and grasp a lot of power and draw it into the White House and to the executive department. Exactly the opposite is the case.

What we are trying to do is to find a way to make our Government more responsive to people, and the way to make it more responsive to people across this country is not to concentrate more and more power in one office, but to have that power given to and delegated to, where it possibly can, to responsible members of the Administration team in the Cabinet, in the White House, or in other agencies of the Government.

I think a final point that I might make has to do with the reasons for changing at all. I have covered this in an interview I gave immediately after the election, but I might elaborate on it for just a moment with you ladies and gentlemen here at Camp David.

My study of elections in this country, and of second terms particularly, is that second terms almost inevitably are downhill; not always for example, in Woodrow Wilson's case, he had a very significant first term on the domestic scene, and then the war, World War I, came along in the second term. No one would have known what would have happened in the second term had that crisis not come along.

But generally speaking, whether they are Democratic administrations or Republican administrations, the tendency is for an administration to run out of steam after the first 4 years, and then to coast, and usually coast downhill. That is particularly true when there is what you call a landslide victory. As I have put it to some of my closest colleagues, generally when you think of a landslide, you are submerged by it and you also think in terms of a landslide pushing you downhill.

What I am trying to do is to change that historical pattern. The only way that historical pattern can be changed is to change not only some of the players but also some of the plays, if I may use the analogy to sports. What I am suggesting here is that when a new administration comes in, it comes in with new ideas, new people, new programs. That is why it has vitality and excitement. That is why oftentimes it has change which is very helpful to the country, and progress.

A second administration usually lacks that vitality. It lacks it not because the men and the women in the administration are any less dedicated, but because it is inevitable when an individual has been in a Cabinet position or, for that matter, holds any position in Government, after a certain length of time he becomes an advocate of the status quo; rather than running the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy runs him.

It has been my conviction for years that elected officials in this country too often become prisoners of what we would call the bureaucracy which they are supposed to run. This is no reflection on the bureaucracy. There are millions of dedicated people working for government throughout this country who are not elected officials or people who are appointed by the elected officials.

It is, however, simply a statement of fact that it is the responsibility of those who are elected to the highest office in this land to see to it that what they consider to be the directions that the people want them to follow are followed out and not that they simply come in and continue to go along doing things as they have been done in the past.

I do not consider the election of November 7, 1972, despite the rather massive majority, to have been simply an approval of things as they were. I do not consider that election to have been an endorsement of the status quo. That is completely contrary to the American tradition. This is not a standstill country. It is a go-ahead country. That is our tradition from the beginning. The American people are never satisfied with things as they are. The American people want change. In my view, as I have often stated, I think they want change that works, not radical change, not destructive change, but change that builds rather than destroys. It is that kind of change that I have tried to stand for, and I will continue to work for over these next 4 years.

But when we look at the election of 1972, we must recognize that it came after a year of very significant change: the Moscow summit, the Peking summit, and in the domestic field--while we had many disappointments--the revenue sharing, which will have such a massive effect on the relationships between Federal and State governments. But after that year of '72 in which we had had very significant change internationally and to a lesser extent on the domestic front, the American people, in voting, I think, for the present Administration, were not voting to stand still but to go ahead with that kind of imaginative change.

So, I think you can expect the next Administration to be one that will have some new players. We will have some new plays, although we will consider this to be not a game, but very, very serious public business.

But we feel that we have a mandate, a mandate not simply for approval of what we have done in the past, but a mandate to continue to provide change that will work in our foreign policy and in our domestic policy, change that will build a better life, that will mean progress at home toward our great goals here, just as we have been making progress in the field of international affairs.

I will conclude simply by saying that Ron Ziegler will make the announcements here from Camp David. I will be here, of course, at the Camp, meeting with a number of sub-Cabinet people and others over the next 2 weeks, and as those announcements are made, you will have the opportunity to talk to each of the members of the Cabinet and the sub-Cabinet and to interview them.

Of course, those who have to come up for confirmation, and there will be several in that category, will not be able to answer any questions except in a very general sense.

With regard to specific names, I think it would be well to remove from the speculation two names I have noticed in the press. I did meet, as you know, with Governor Connally and with Governor Rockefeller. I believe that Governor Connally and Governor Rockefeller would be very valuable members of any Cabinet.

After discussions with them, I found that each would prefer at this time not to take a full-time Cabinet or Government position. However, I am glad to say that each has agreed to continue to serve on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and each has agreed to undertake special part-time assignments--Governor Connally in the field of international economic affairs where he has particular experience and capability, and Governor Rockefeller in the field of domestic affairs where he is undertaking some very intensive and very important research work in the development of our urban policies.

Thank you.