 remarks and answers to questions at a barbecue for the press in the live Oak Tree Grove of the LBJ Ranch December 27th 1963. Secretary Rusk is going to Houston to meet Chancellor Earhart and before he leaves he'd make a very brief statement to you and then Secretary Freeman is returning to Washington and he have a statement for you and then when they shall have concluded and you've eaten all the barbecue you want why I'll tell you some of my secrets. Secretary Freeman spent the morning riding over the ranch with us and seriously considering buying one of these heifer cave but we haven't agreed on the price yet. I'll let him tell you all about it. I want you to meet Tom Mann who came down this morning and who's been in meeting with us and had lunch with us. As you know he's the new assistant secretary in charge of Latin America and the State Department special assistant the president and we'll take the oath of office at January the 3rd. He will also take over the duties now performed by Mr. Moscosa who will receive another assignment and I'll go into more detail with that later but Mr. Mann will become the coordinator of the Alliance for Progress. The job now held by Mr. Mann by Mr. Moscosa and it will give us better coordination there and also will save us some money and we'll go into details with that a little later but I want you to meet Mr. Mann before he leaves. I think you want to I want to extend a welcome to the newspaper man from the Federal Republic of Germany. We're very happy to have those of you who have been able to come early and we look forward to meeting others later tomorrow. We hope that you enjoy our barbecue and soft drinks and we'll see you when you've concluded with your meal. That is we have no more that we're aware of now. First we have the announcement that I've invited President Adolfo Lopez Mateus of Mexico to meet women Southern California on February the 21st and 22nd 1963. This invitation the president followed an invitation to President Mateus myself to receive honorary degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. The invitation for the honorary degrees was extended by Governor Brown president of the University of California Board of Regents and the Board of Regents. University plans to hold a special convocation in the morning of February 21st following lunch in Los Angeles which is currently in the state of planning. Two of us will fly to Palm Springs, California where we'll meet on Friday afternoon and evening February 21st and Saturday morning February 22nd. President Lopez Mateus has accepted invitation and they will make their own announcement in due time. Federal civilian employment was reduced by more than 1,000 during November and stood 3,500 lower than the end of November last year. Special significance this is that if federal employment had grown at the same rate as the population and 400,000 new employees would have been added instead of then able to make a reduction 3,500. If federal employment grown at the rate of state and local government employment 100,000 new employees would have been added. So you can see that we're trying to at least set a good example. This reduction was achieved mostly by not replacing employees going off the federal payroll, failing to fill vacancies. Overall there were 2,470,571 regular employees of the federal government at the end of November 1963 of this total 42% work in the Defense Department, 24% in the Post Office Department, 7% in the Veterans Administration. All the rest if you don't mind I ask them not to take pictures while we're going on. Just please. All the rest of the work the federal government has done by 658,000 employees. Major reduction in the federal workforce were made in the Veterans Administration of Tennessee Valley Authority. These reductions were partially offset by seasonal employment increases in the Post Office and increased requirements of NASA's manned lunar landing program. Federal government must be a model of competent and efficient management with economy that watch word and an end to waste is our goal. Secretary of Defense McNamara's recent announcement relating the closing and reduction of activities 33 defense installations taking in line with my announced goal of economical operation of all agencies the government has resulted in mail it's about five to one supporting the action. A telegram from James E. Bent president of the Greater Hartford, Connecticut Chamber of Commerce says that the directors of chamber passed resolution which said in part that the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce commends president for his action work and reduce spending by all departments of government and commend Secretary McNamara for his courageous step in ordering the closing of unnecessary military bases. A Seattle Washington man cabled the secretary and he had five children coming up and I back you wholeheartedly on intelligent cutbacks. A Rock Hill South Carolina man cabled closing unneeded installations a brilliant move. Thomas Nelson corresponding Secretary of the Queen Anne Democratic Club Los Angeles said that the club at its monthly meeting hardly endorsed our action. We are heartened by your courage and leadership. A retired bishop in Cambridge, Massachusetts wrote Secretary McNamara there's an humble citizen I shout with joy that somebody's got the nerve to face up such criticism save the country money without cutting down necessary defense machinery. A Houston Texas man wrote I want to congratulate you on the economy moves reported in yesterday's papers. And New Brunswick, New Jersey businessman wrote that this will be painful but with the support of president I feel sure you will accomplish your objective. I want to point out that before these installations were closed the secretary gave us his judgment that every person employed at any of the installations could be offered another job if he's willing to move at some other defense installation where there existed vacancies have not been failed or whether where these combined installations would need more people. So number one everyone could have a job at some other installation. Number two the secretary felt that he could not justify spending a single dollar on any of the 33 installations. Good many of them were archaic they were performing work that could be better performed if consolidated and combined elsewhere and no additional expenditures could be justified. At my direction secretary has now appointed a board of top department of defense officials to step up the study of military installations which been going on since 61. Secretary named assistant secretary defensive installations logistics Thomas Morris to head this board with the assistant secretary for installation logistics from the three military departments and naming the board Secretary McNamara said since early 1961 we've been conducting review of military installations and view of our president's direction to get maximum efficiency out of every dollar spent we're going to intensify this effort. So I'm asking assistant secretary Morris and the representation of the Army Navy and Air Force to apply themselves more vigorously this task so that we may have the maximum results in the earliest possible time. Secretary Morris is base utilization division composed of civilian installation experts commissioned officers and three departments will of course carry the bulk of the load as they have done so admiring the past. New board will supervise studies to identify additional unnecessary installation which should be reduced to close during the next several years. While each installation change is a matter of serious concern to the individual affected we're confident the national interest we cannot properly justify maintaining any installation which does not truly contribute to a strong defense in the most economical manner. So you'll have these releases and you don't need to copy all this material I want to review them with you briefly in case you have some question I'll try to either refer it or answer it. I do want to point out that there is a mistake in Pierce Allinger's girls that he brought down here from the east coast. They say office the White House Press Secretary LBJ Ranch, U-Texas, H-U-E-T-E-X-A-F. He didn't misspell Texas but he did misspell high and I don't want any of you to follow the announcement literally correct all mistakes before using please. Another observation I want to make is I gave Pierce that jacket he has on today because it's too large for me to wear. Are too small. Mr. Moscoso will be appointed U.S. Representative of the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress and the U.S. Representative on the Meetings of Inter-American Economic and Social Council of the Pan-American Union. He will act as Special Advisor with a rank of Ambassador to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Mr. Mann. Mr. Mann will assume Mr. Moscoso's responsibilities for administering the Alliance for Progress. His first job will be to explore all the possibilities for increased efficiency as well as operating economies which may be obtained through the exercise of this combined responsibility for the work of Inter-American Affairs. These changes design to facilitate better use of United States resources, both private and public, promoting economic development, social progress, and Latin America. United States Assistance Program supplements self-help measures taking in other American republics. Those are five little announcements that we have to make and we'll make others from time to time. I spent the evening working on the briefing papers for the meeting tomorrow. I will join you in welcoming Chancellor Earhart at Berksford Maribas in the morning at 10 o'clock. This morning I had a chance to take a long walk with the Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of State and other folks who missed me. I had breakfast with Mr. the Head of Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. John McCone. He brought me up to date on affairs around the world. I asked him to, I directed him to seek an appointment with President Eisenhower and to review with President Eisenhower some of the matters that he briefed me on this morning and to also bring him up to date on the action we had taken on some suggestions that he had made prior to the time I appeared for the joint session of Congress. Mr. McCone left shortly after 10 o'clock and the secretaries came in and I had a private meeting with the Secretary of Agriculture which we discussed a more comprehensive farm bill to be considered the next session of Congress. We'll talk about the results of his meeting with the farm organizations and talked at some length about my talks with Chancellor Earhart with regard to the common market area and our export of agricultural commodities and our access to the common market area. I talked to Secretary Mayn at some length about many ambassadors for Latin American nations, about some of his devotees and personnel generally in his new organization. I talked to both Secretary Mayn and Secretary Rusk about the reorganization of our various aid programs and attempt to effect efficiency and economy and discussed with them the work that's being done under the direction of Mr. Ball, Chairman of the group, and Mr. Gene Black and Sergeant Shriver and the group that studied reorganization of our whole relation with other nations in the field of economic and military assistance. In due time we'll have more thorough announcements about that, more complete with regard to military aid and Latin American assistance as well as whatever may be recommended in the way of consolidations on the entire aid program. I think that's all I have to say this afternoon. I'm going to take a ride horseback and then I'm going to study briefing papers until I go to bed tonight and I'll see you all up in the morning. Meantime if you have any questions that are burning and need an answer and I can help you I'll be glad to do it. Yes it will be the budget for next year, the steps that we have taken with regard to effecting economies and the federal government, the ceilings that we placed on each department, the new targets, the goal that we'll have, the economic conditions that we anticipate for next year, the general intelligence developments from information from throughout the world. President, with as you've indicated popular support for the closing of unneeded military installation running so strong, your opposition? Yes I think that each congressman and senator that represents his area be expected to express the hope that we'd give very careful attention to the economy of that area and the effect and impact that closing installation would have and a good many of them have done that but they've been very reasonable and very prudent and most of them have taken a position that if they could not be justified in the national interest by the executive department that they did not want to see them continue to operate when they were not needed. The point I want to make about that is there's every congressional district in this country that has a defense installation must understand that they're going to be reviewed from time to time and we are not going to be just satisfied with the status quo. When Mr. McNamara came in, this administration, we had 6,900 bases. We cut out 400 of them, we still have 6,700. That's not bad arithmetic, that just means we've built some missile bases in addition to the ones we already had so we must constantly, we must constantly review these installations and combine them and consolidate them if we are to operate at peak efficiency and we want to save every penny we can, every place we can so that we may have some much needed funds to fail unfilled needs, educational needs, health needs, poverty needs generally and we think it's much better to curtail the production of unneeded military armaments and take the money saved thereby and put in educating your children and following the form of course or taking care of the health of your citizens or providing security in old age or medical aid or things of that kind so we're combing with a fine-tooth comb every department and every individual agency. After meeting with the cabinet the other in a three-day study we came back with recommendations to the budget that reduced it $731 million and eliminated more than 10,000 jobs. I have a cabinet officer coming a little later in a week to tell me how he succeeded in reducing his request by 5,000 jobs. The Secretary of Agriculture told me today that he's very proud of the fact that he had reduced his request by in excess of 4,000 jobs so we're trying to have the cabinet set a good example in the hope that the people down at lower echelon will increase their productivity and without increasing expenditure. Mr. President, does this briefing of President Eisenhower indicate a continuing relationship between you and him? It means that the President of the United States is going to keep the ex-presidents of the United States fully informed and seek their council advice from time to time. I've had extended conversations with Mr. Hoover first with his son who talked for him over the phone right after I took the oath as president. Later with the President Hoover personally and just Christmas Day I had another conversation with him. He has given me some very constructive suggestions on the operation of federal government that grew out of his experience. We are studying those suggestions, we're applying them where they appropriate. The Hoover Commission reports have been very carefully evaluated since I became president. President Truman has given me his suggestions on how to increase efficiency and affect economies and operate the federal government and General Eisenhower has spent a good deal of time working with me and I found all of them to be very cooperative and I'm very grateful for it. How important that part will the East West relations play in your talks with Chancellor Erhard? The most important part. There's nothing more important than East West relations and as I have said on other occasions and I won't take an opportunity to repeat we the most important thing in the world all of us is to live in a world of peace, to learn to live together and we're going to go down any road that can possibly lead to peace and express the hope that all the other leaders of the other nations will do likewise and we believe that there is progress that can be made and we're going to do our best to do our part. We have no doubt that what the Chancellor will have the same feeling and what other world leaders have the same feeling. I once said that I'd serve with over 3000 men in the Congress in 32 years that I've worked and served there and I don't believe I've ever seen a man either Republican or Democrat that ran on a platform of doing what is wrong. They all want to do what's right but sometimes their ideas about what's right and wrong differs some and I don't think that I know any leaders of the world that wouldn't prefer peace for their people. Now the job is to how to secure it, what road to follow and we're going to be constantly genuinely searching for that road. I wondered if this tied in with your knowledge of the information on this subject and if you found it. I'd probably talk much more fully after the visit rather than anticipating it ahead of time although you know our administration wanted great links and made great sacrifices past the trade bill last year and we are very hopeful that we not only will continue to have increased opportunities for trade in the industrial field but that will also have access for agriculture commuters. No I don't think so. I might say that the Senate asked me if it made any difference what day they took up the bill and I told them it was a matter for the Senate to determine and I'm sure if Senator Goldwater had been around that he would have known that. And I made no special request of the Senate about their holidays. They determined when to have them and I'm glad that they and their wisdom are determined to go ahead and try to complete some unfinished business and I believe the people of this country want us all to of course they understand when we have to be aware on account of sickness or something but I think they generally speaking they want us to get our work done and that's what I want to do. I imagine when we get caught up with all these other things I don't want to I wouldn't if you got plenty of time on your hands I wouldn't mind visiting with you about it sometime in the near future. I have felt for some time that we ought to constantly appraise our expenditures and evaluate them and try to bring them modernize them and they've been a very strong report by the Committee on Foreign Relations for all of whose members I have great respect for and I did consider that and recommended but I have some definite views of my own and I communicated them to the committee I pointed in on how the Alliance for Progress should be handled on how military aid should be handled and on how the development loan funds should be handled and they're considering my views and and all other information they can get and they'll come up with the recommendation and if they're close to my views I hope they'll be we'll probably adopt them.