 with about a hundred and thirty million dollar deficit as to what our own contractors tell us we ought to have to do the work if we just tell them we can't have my head group back in California this week with the North American and the problem I've got is that in order to get on with the work and to to get it done cheaper we have stepped up this white schedule we headed right for the flying with the Apollo and this is produced all the problems you get with something about four or five times as complicated as the Gemini and as you know when Congress made that big splash of six hundred billion in one year we went to all up system test so I'm headed now for about the hardest thing that anybody ever undertook to do and that is to fly these big boosters we've got one off the Saturn one be we've got now coming up two more flights and then men on the fourth flight and everything on that booster that flew that first flight had not flown first stage second stage and they and the payload now you see it's awful hard to to to do much more than I have done and to be faced with that kind of a terrific responsibility to take that big rocket which is the biggest thing anybody's ever done anything with the Russians up now I mean I'm not trying to do in any sense say to you that how much to feed it but I do I do want you to know that I have really put my mind on doing everything in this direction I could you remember you asked me if this one's in the cabinet room and I know that and I really have worked at it and I'm in a the reason that I haven't come back to see you after that time is that although I needed help I didn't know how you could give it to me with all your problems and in a sense what I've got here is a is a situation where when I get through the Congress I've been up with Margaret Chase Smith late this afternoon Clint Anderson this morning we're going to be facing for this year and I've got this is something I have told nobody outside the agency and nobody in it except Siemens and I and one other man know it I've got a request on my desk right now for $207 million in demand space for a supplemental from George Miller with a statement that he is not sure he can can hold this thing or hold our organization together without it now I'm just trying to show you that if your budget people tell you I'm a big spender I'm really doing for the dollars and then you might about nobody's talking about about you're being a big spender what we're talking about is what we budgeted what we planned what we estimated our expenditures would be now there are two people that they're the efficiency the results they're getting that leverage a forehead of what we guessed one of them's make 700 million last month and you for the year gonna be about 600 million now that knocks the living hell out of me which on the other hand I told the budget director at the beginning of the year I think that's right I think that's right I think I think I think that's right I think that's right I think he told me that I think he's told me that now then it's not a question who's right who's wrong a big question is what do we do when we got these overruns of our estimate now you won't go on even we won't bother you bet but if you get 51 men defeated and they take control and they spend all the next two years investigating while we wish we could have spent a little time just trying to figure out what we can do now what I'm hoping is that what I buy in June comes to you what I could buy in May down here at my roll a habit and my safeway go first over and my forward place they send me a bill they get this bill up about June the fifth and they made it to me and tell me that I'll get a discount if I pay it by the 10th and so forth now I just mean I'd get around to that told you lie first we are we are we are we are working in this direction now all I want to do is do as much as you can and that's all a mule can do and while you are going to run more than they estimated six seven hundred million dollars they think you could save sixty said me that you are doing and that they they you you're ace high on their list Mike Meyers hoping he can find a way to get his postponed over in where he just doesn't meet him all because he writes his own checks where he can hold a little bit not overrun Framon is going to come in under and if if we can do a little it's conceivable we can keep our expenditures I don't know but I notice a business week this week estimates that our expenditures will be a billion more than I estimate them there'll be a hundred and seven something instead of a hundred and six but my revenues will also be up and if my revenues are up more than my expenditures I'll still look good and I'll be probably the first president that's had three budgets or the deficit less than he promised or predicted and my third one will be not withstanding what we've done in Vietnam if you could spend several billion more in Vietnam and still have less deficit than you start out with you're a mighty lucky man but we've got a lot of increases in revenue and we got a lot of gimmicks I'm making the big companies send in there withholding three days instead of keeping it working for a few days and that picks me up a little and I've got several one-time things like my taxes and so forth and then the economy is just so damn booming and so prosperous that it's running ahead of our expectations and we're going to be a several billion over what we anticipated on our revenues but it's so close to being a good picture in other words I estimated that that we'd spend 99 something and we're going to spend a hundred and say seven but I estimated that our revenues would be 94 and hell they may be a hundred and four that'd be wonderful a hundred and three to the way up there if you saw what I wanted what I want to do then is to make as good a picture June 30th as I can three reason one is if it's good enough picture it might dampen a little of this this inflation stuff they might say well hell the government's taking in damn you as much as it's spending so that's not too bad it's not a big deficit though that's less deficit was last year that would help me a little to have that kind of conversation going around the town the second thing these 75 young boys that got elected on my coot tails 51% districts they could go back and say hell you talk about our spending we fought the war in Vietnam and got less deficit than we had last year I was elected I went up there and I got sure we spent some more money head to on account of Vietnam hadn't been to Vietnam we spent less money we we only got 600 million outside of it now over a domestic program overall had last year but good God almighty we're taking in several billion more in taxes so that gives them a pretty good record and then third I might be able to say well fellas I don't have to I just don't have to have a tax bill I don't look at it in January and I might get by that November election out of damn tax bill what I'm afraid of is I'm afraid I'm gonna have to have a tax bill and I'm afraid if I had not on account of revenue I don't count a deficit on count of the get some of this purchasing power out take some of it out now if I could avoid it to January fellow now has got a whole lot better chance running on the Democratic ticket coming back saying I got less deficit and had the year you had a Republican in there and furthermore I didn't have to vote for taxes and furthermore I'm fighting the war in Vietnam and paying for it and we damn you got a balanced budget he's in a whole lot better shape than if he goes back home and said I got a seven eight billion dollar deficit and so on so forth now the fellas that are going to make the differences you and Bob McNamara and all the Freeman and John Gartner now we haven't told anybody but we have held back allocations this last quarter 20 billion two billion on new agreements we've helped that a little bit out of the fire awarding those contracts that don't save as much an expenditure but it'll show up down the road and we're gonna try to work on another billion or two after July 1st and in addition to that all the framers gonna come in with 839 under what we said so that'll make up for yours I'm getting McNamara to come close to what he said and if the gardener just don't go hog while by making all of his grants he and Dave Bell between now and July the first making some of them July the 4th where they don't grow down and hit me where I have to settle between now and July the 1st so what I'm saying is this I'm not question your management I'm not questioning your your expenditures I'm not questioning your your objectives or your assignments or your missions are you're being on target I'm glad that all of that's happening all I'm saying is if you just get off in North Carolina and don't have to sign those checks between July the 1st where you don't pay out every damn thing in the bank and give me a big overdraft I just didn't have a little surplus even though you got some bills outstanding when you hit that July 1 dead now I don't have to spell it out too clear to you but I the thing that's got me off it's frankly the efficient managers I've got our gardeners doing a good job and McNamara done a good job and you're doing a good job to damn good a job you know I'm in contracts let me get stuffed delivered and you getting your bills and you're paying well you know what what I'm faced with but I'm gonna do everything you asked me to do to the fullest extent that I can I just assure you that but yes what I'm faced with we went up you see to a little about a violent quarter billion and we were we were pushing the work out and getting it under contract and there's a long lead time in this and then of course when we started down the expended to us that for work we'd already contracted all people on the payroll the 448,000 people working in this program and you see if I cut them off right in the front of my flying period the thing that I was going to have to come and tell you is that under the program for 67 we're gonna lose between 50 maybe as many as 80,000 people I knew I've been nice to that press cards for hoping that that loosen up this economy a little bit well now the point though that that is facing me is that I don't know that I can hold this organization together and lose 80,000 and still do this flying and you know I wouldn't say that casually I've up to now I've always told you I could do what had to be done right now I'm in a position where I don't know really if I can do it because the forces are really in the most well I mean these people have got to fly and put men up there and it's awful it's awfully hard to go to North America and say we're gonna cut you back 130 million under your own effort of doing the work and demand even more work for 130 million less and you got to find a way to do it you know what I mean and you got to meet this flight schedule and got a fly got a fly three men on the nose of the fourth rocket now the thing that you and I have got to face with the greatest of care here in terms of the political future of 68 plus the fact that the Russians I want to bring you the latest report the CIA boys put out if you haven't seen it because it confirms everything I told you down at the ranch so in a sense what we're faced here is every visible sign that they're going to be doing something bigger than we're doing stuff they've been with you know it's bigger than what we're doing and when you when you face that and and I'm easily 250 million under finance on what I'm doing and I got no backup and I'm assuming I can succeed on every flight and now I could do that except that the word is getting around that maybe you've lost some of your interest in space I talked to a couple of scientists that I don't want to say this but it's gotten a lot of information a lot of advice that he should not push this program he should stay away from it my boy is a beginning I'm gonna lose the very men that make this thing fly unless we you telling me don't know what you're talking about no I haven't nobody's talked to me that way I don't know who would know you know I think it's just some propaganda somebody that that's either under your interest or some purpose because no nobody's talked to me that way I haven't got anybody you're the only space advisor I got I haven't discussed space with horny or seaboard or Welsh or Mike Marr anybody we haven't had one last space discussion I had was with you at the range that's the last one I've had and I think that I I rather doubt there's been anybody in the government but that's the damn trouble that does make you want to lose it if you folks don't really believe you see after all I've done in the space thing it's some goddamn gossipers stand on sidelines don't know I think it's kind of like groupers don't but who I'm gonna point to it in the district Columbia I read a big column the other day that I had had Roger Robb and I said it was Roger Robb