THE WORD FROM WASHINGTON
The Word from Washington "Few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate...
...Amtrak, the General Accounting Office, and the White House Office of Consumer Affairs did not bother to respond...
...Here are some excerpts from the record: Fulbright: I believe the full $151.5 million expenditure would be unwise and unwarranted, particularly at a time when the country has serious financial difficulties and there is a strong need to limit spending...
...It's nice to know he cares...
...It may well be the shape of things to come...
...Stennis : That is old equipment...
...I support the view of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, which rejected the procurement request for the airborne command post on grounds that it is "premature and cannot be justified...
...What are they going to do up there...
...Fulbright suggested that one such airplane would be more than enough, and proposed an amendment to that effect...
...It involves matters concerning the black box, that can be used but not talked about here, but I assure the Senate that it would protect our security...
...Fulbright: Yes...
...Perhaps it's time to consider some truth-in-advertising standards, or even a message to appear in every ad...
...The bracelets are distributed by an outfit called VIVA, which urges that they be worn "as a visible display of your concern and as a means to bring the plight of the POW/MIA to the attention of others...
...The Word from Washington "Few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders...
...The Department of Defense already has a sizable fleet of airborne command posts, having spent nearly $550 million and perhaps more for them...
...Among Senators—all Democrats—who took part in the ensuing discussion were Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin...
...We have looked into this matter, I say to the Senator...
...Nixon has done or will do...
...General William C. Westmoreland, who retired recently as the Army's Chief of Staff, has taken to wearing a POW bracelet engraved with the name of Major Joseph Karins, who has been a prisoner of war in North Vietnam since November 3, 1967...
...Certainly, we are not going to be a five-mile runner and then stumble at the very last because we put an old barrier up that we cannot get through ourselves...
...And then, as the bombs are dropping all over this country, they are going to run the show from up there in the air...
...Does he anticipate nuclear war with the Soviet Union...
...Fulbright: The Strategic Air Command alone has twenty-nine of these planes now...
...The U.S...
...The chairman knows this...
...Fulbright: No studies have been made...
...That is the considered judgment of Justice Lewis F. Powell, who set it down, along with many other equally intriguing thoughts, in a "confidential memorandum" he wrote for the U.S...
...He is dismayed at "the extent to which the enterprise system tolerates, if not participates in, its own destruction...
...Surely we do not want him ever to have to use it, but we have one sitting out yonder at Andrews right now that is not modern any more...
...Stennis: Having this new equipment is highly important...
...Fulbright: I do not know about that...
...Once the President is up in that 747, which will hold 400 people —I do not know how many they will have—and all the command personnel are in the plane, what happens so far as the decisions of the Government and the military...
...I think that command and control, as the Senator from Washington has indicated, is absolutely of essential importance...
...That is the sole issue—it is command and control...
...Something like, "Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that government propaganda may be dangerous to your health...
...Whom are they going to be calling down here to find out what is going on so they will know what to do up there...
...It involves something that is very sensitive and cannot be brought out on the floor of the Senate...
...He calls on business to "assiduously cultivate" political power, and to use it "aggressively and with determination...
...Existence of the Powell memorandum was discovered and disclosed a month ago by columnist Jack Anderson, and the Chamber—which now has Justice Powell's proposals under consideration—subsequently released the full text...
...Henry Jackson, Washington ; and Hubert Humphrey, Minnesota...
...Here's a small figure you won't find in the huge Federal budget: In the last three years, government agencies have spent almost $80 million with private advertising agencies for recruiting, promotion, and image-building campaigns...
...It involves new equipment, that which can be put into this plane which will protect further the security of those aboard the plane in a crisis...
...The total is above and beyond the uncounted (and uncountable) millions spent on the Government's own formidable "public information" apparatus...
...Chamber of Commerce in August, 1971, two months before President Nixon elevated him to the Supreme Court...
...As James Reston recently wrote in The New York Times, "the so-called Nixon Court may have a more enduring influence on the history of the Republic in the next twenty years than anything else Mr...
...Nelson : Let me ask the Senator this question...
...Predictably, the military services, which have recently turned to Madison Avenue for their recruiting drives, accounted for three-fourths of the total advertising expenditures...
...The Environmental Protection Agency paid an advertising firm $70,000 to "develop a comprehensive advertising plan...
...It is an instructive document, for we can assume that it faithfully reflects the climate that will prevail in a second Nixon term and on the "balanced" Nixon Supreme Court...
...Whereupon the Senate, in its wisdom, rejected the Fulbright amendment by a vote of sixty-two to fourteen...
...He is wearing the bracelet, he told reporters, to relieve some pain in his fingers because he has been playing lots of golf since he retired...
...which cost $300,000, to the Commerce Department's $1.6 million for "an advertising and promotional campaign to stimulate domestic export expansion...
...Now, there's something to look forward to...
...Representative William Moorhead, the Pennsylvania Democrat who heads the House subcommittee, said he was surprised at the extent of commercial advertising in which the Government is engaged, and so are we...
...The bracelets come in two styles— nickel-plated ($2.50) and solid copper ($3...
...The Strategic Air Command alone has twenty-nine EC-135 aircraft serving as airborne command posts, auxiliary command posts, communications relay aircraft, and airborne launch control centers...
...Most significantly, he sees the judicial system as "a vast area of opportunity for the Chamber, if it is willing to undertake the role of spokesman for American business and if, in turn, business is willing to provide the funds...
...Justice Powell believes that what he calls "the enterprise system" is under unprecedented assault, not only from "extremists of the left" but also from "perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians...
...Jackson: What is proposed here involves new equipment and more space...
...He suggests that the Chamber begin evaluating social science textbooks, so that authors and publishers and schools will "return to a more rational balance...
...I am somewhat familiar with this argument from other days...
...Fulbright : Will the Senator tell me what is so urgent in the present situation...
...The Justice reminds the Chamber that educational institutions are dependent on taxes and corporate contributions, and that the media "are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations which depend upon profits and the enterprise system to survive...
...Fulbright: That is the purpose of it...
...The Republic is safe...
...This matter they are asking about, where the President is going to be and how he is going to communicate with them, is the very thing we want...
...He wants business to go on the offensive against "the Naders, the Marcuses, and others who openly seek destruction of the system...
...It includes new devices to prevent detection...
...Nelson: The fact is that we do not know whether the President wants to get up in that plane once the nuclear bombs start to drop...
...What Justice Powell has proposed is nothing less than a blueprint for "benign" repression—repression that relies not on guns and jails but on economic coercion and intimidation...
...Postal Service paid an advertising agency $625,000 for "selling certain selected postal services to the public," and the Department of Agriculture hired a promotion firm for $41,000 to "prepare and place articles explaining crop insurance to farmers...
...Stennis: It is urgent that we be prepared and let them know, and anyone else coming along, that we are prepared...
...We want him in some place where he can be communicated with, with the least delay possible, and have the most modern equipment that can be made, and also have enough others with him to advise him militarily and otherwise about that kind of decision which, God forbid, he will never have to make...
...Is that it...
...What is so urgent about the new one...
...Humphrey: I think this is an item on which economy is not the question...
...The House Subcommittee on Government Information surveyed seventy-nine government offices on their advertising projects, and received replies from seventy-six...
...Potomacus...
...The latter, VIVA explains, are "for those who feel copper has a therapeutic value"—among them General Westmoreland...
...Others ranged from the Forest Service's Smokey-the-Bear campaign—"Only you can prevent forest fires...
...Is that the purpose of it...
...The Senate of the United States was debating the $76 billion defense appropriations bill a few weeks ago when Senator J. W. Fulbright, Arkansas Democrat, arose to question a $151 million item for procurement of four Boeing 747 aircraft to be used by the President and other members of the National Command Authority as an "advanced airborne national command post" in the event of nuclear war...
...Nelson: The purpose, as I understand it from the Senate report, is that "this system will significantly improve our capability to control and direct our strategic forces during a nuclear conflict...
...Nelson : So we are going to take the President of the United States, if he is willing to go, and haul him over to Andrews Air Force Base, stick him in a 747 with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a plane big enough to haul 350 people...
...John Stennis, Mississippi, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee...
Vol. 36 • November 1972 • No. 11
