Interview: Senator Robert Morgan with Pete Daniel, July 26, 1979. Washington, D.C. Daniel: What legislation over the last five years do you think that you have given the biggest push to or made the biggest contribution to? Morgan: It would probably be hard, but maybe the first thing we ought to do is point out that my first four and a half years, now going on five, have been sort of limited pretty much to special assignments. That's not to say that I wasn't involved in legislation, but within the first sixty days after I was here, I was put on the Church Committee, which was the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. This was a committee that was created by the Senate to investigate many of the allegations of wrong-doing on the part of the intelligence agencies, the assassination attempts allegedly carried out, and many assassinations carried out, by the CIA and other agencies. I didn't ask to get on that committee. As a matter of fact, I didn't vote to establish it, because when I came here I was one of those persons that thought that what the FBI and the CIA had done was in the interest of national security and that we ought not to tamper with them or 2 bother with them. So I didn't vote for it, and I think the reason I was put on it by Mansfield was because he wanted somebody on the committee who had not been one of those making accusations and also because of my ex- perience as Attorney General. Without going too much into detail on that, that took the first two years of my time, basically all of my time. Because those hearings went on day after day after day. And then after the main hearings were over, Senator Mondale and Senator Schweiker and myself were designated a subcommittee to pursue further the allegations of wrong-doing in domestic intelligence, primarily the FBI and the IRS. It might be sort of an aside: the IRS director at that time was Don Alexander. He was a professional CPA and a lawyer and had been in practice, and he resented the fact that IRS agents engaged in a lot of illegal activities in trying to entrap taxpayers. So he tried to bring an end to it. For instance, I remember a case of a banker from the Bahamas being in this country, and they investigated. The IRS wanted some papers in his briefcase, so they literally set him up with a woman in Florida, in Miami, and then got him about half drunk, and 3 while he was drunk with the woman, they robbed his briefcase, photostated the records, and put them back. Well, when Mr. Alexander heard about it, he put a stop to it. This always brings accusations from the men in the field that the man at the top is covering up. They had two investigative grand juries. Since I was designated to handle the IRS part of it, Walter Ricks, my staff aide, and I made that our business, and we cleared him and wrote reports. Later the two grand juries cleared him. Real interesting--yesterday I got my first $250 contribution, and it was from Don Alexander. He said that I was one that showed a little concern and interest about protecting the integrity of his office. But anyway, that took most of the first two years. Growing out of those investigations was legislation establishing some charters for the operation of the FBI, the CIA, and all of the intelligence agencies--the defense intelligence agencies, the National Security Administration. Because I had been so deeply involved in it for two years, Mansfield put me back on the committee for two more years to help draw up the charters. And we did draw them up, and they're in the process of being legislated. 4 My term expired this past term and although the leadership wanted me to go back on it, I didn't feel like I could. Because first of all, it was taking away from my time on the Housing and Banking Committee and my Armed Services Committee. In addition to that, the things that we were doing in the committee I couldn't talk about them publically. And if I had the people in North Carolina wouldn't have wanted me to talk about it. Because basically the people think that the FBI ought to be able to do whatever they want to. They don't really appreciate the invasion or the threats to freedom when you allow federal agencies to determine who should be investigated and who shouldn't and who's guilty and who isn't. So I got off of it. So that took the first four years. But in addition to that, the last two years I was put on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. Again, I think because of my training as Attorney General. We got involved in the Koreagate investigation which involved allegations against such Senators as Hubert Humphrey, Joe Montoya from New Mexico, Birch Bayh from Indiana, John McClellan from Arkansas, plus some others, none of which really proved out to be serious. In the meantime, the allegations against Senator Ed Brooke came up. That was the most difficult thing I 5 ever did, and that took almost full time. But of course when he was defeated, for all practical purposes that ended his case. But lo and behold we were right in the middle of the Herman Talmadge matter. So that's taken almost all of this year. So, as a long answer to to a short question most of my four and a half years' experience in committee work has been in the two special committees doing work I think that has to be done, has to be done by the Senate, and somebody ought to do it, but I'm not sure that's what the people sent me up here to do. On Banking and Housing, for instance, the first year I chaired the Subcommittee on Small Business, which had oversight over the Small Business Administration. During that year, I think we did fairly well, considering I didn't have much staff. As the newest member on the committee I was sort of given the staff that nobody else wanted, and I was given a fellow named Dudley who had come to the Senate a long, long, time ago with Senator Sparkman and who primarily was a, I won't say a liquorhead, but he was tending toward an alcoholic. Nevertheless, we did do some things about strengthening the SBA, getting them more involved in minority loans. At the end of the two-year period, I voluntarily voted and moved to transfer the authority from that agency over to the Select Committee 6 on Small Business, because they had twenty-five staff members and no legislative authority. That committee was set up really as a political committee to help Senators get re-elected, and they never would give it any legislative aurhority. Gaylord Nelson is chairman of it and is doing a good job, and I think I was right in doing it. So then they made me chairman of the Rural Housing Subcommittee, which I'm still chairman of. I think some of the best things we've done is strengthen the low rent, low income rental housing for the lower incomes. We've created a new program we call Low Income Home Ownership Assistance Program, which is designed to help the hardworking man who has a job, some stability, but just simply doesn't earn enough money to qualify for any of the others, but yet who would be a good possibility to own his own home. Hubert Humphrey and I introduced that. Daniel: That's interesting, because it goes back to the Thirties, the programs they had to help tenants purchase homes and land and things. I guess it's right in that tradition. Morgan: Probably so, and it's probably not all that new except that many of those home programs in the early .1. 7 Thirties I think became more sophisticated. Minimum income in order to purchase a home became so high that here again it was excluding the lowest income people. Daniel: Well, what had happened there was that even the one which was supposed to help the poor farmers, the federal agency, like the Farm Security Administration, had to have a good record. So they would only lend to the people that they thought could pay it back. They had a good record, but they didn't help people who were the most desperate and the ones who needed it most. So your bill probably did that. Morgan: It did that. And one of the things it did, it said if you have a good job, now we're not talking about a profession, but if you've got a job, and show some signs of stability, that you can borrow money for a home, and pay 25 per cent of your income toward the home, and the government will subsidize the rest of it. Now it's not a handout, because in our bill, as you build up equity in that home, if you transfer it or sell it, then the government will recapture as much of its investment as need be. So, the whole theory it's based on in the first place, every American is entitled to a decent home, and that's 8 something that their government owes them an obligation to help them do. And, secondly, a man who owns his own home, owns his piece of land, is a better citizen. He takes more interest in his community; he has more pride in his community. We've seen right here in Washington what happens when a city becomes a city of renters, how it deteriorates. So it's based on sound logic and sound reasoning, and it's not a give-away program that some people think it is. And I think it's just in its infancy right now, but I think that within a few years you're going to find that this program will do as much as any to really help low-income farm people, rural people, get their homes. And the first two years I was here, I served on my second major committee, Public Works. It's real interesting that in that committee I also chaired the Subcommittee on Federal Buildings and Grounds, which is, first of all, the lowest committee on there and one usually given to the freshman Senator. But it's an interesting committee in that at that time it had oversight over all federal buildings in the country, except military posts and the Post Offices. It included the United States Capitol, and that's where I got my interest in the Capitol. Before a building could be built, it had to have the approval of our committee, and of course the comparable 9 committee in the House. And we saw some outlandish things. We saw the GSA coming before our committee with proposals to build new federal buildings that were costing about $100 per square foot, at a time when I had just come off the state building authority in North Carolina, and we were building a better building for $45 a square foot. We knew there was something wrong. Carroll Leggett took a real interest in it. We had hearing after hearing for them to explain it. We went up to Maryland and around to look at these buildings, and we knew that there was a rat in the woodpile somewhere, but we just couldn't find it. I remember in one particular case they wanted $145,000 just to renovate some judges' offices, some offices in a federal building in Chicago for a judge who was retiring. Well, golly darn, that's more than the whole building would cost. And I sat on it; I wouldn't approve it. Until one day I was gone and they went to Senator Randolph who is such a perfect old gentleman that he took it up while I was gone. They came up one day for $45 million to build a new building as executive training center at the University of Virginia. Oh, for a hundred and some few students they were going to have gymnasiums, swimming pools, and so forth. Carroll Leggett and I got into it, and we stopped it. Of 10 course, they accused me of stopping it because I wanted the center to be moved down to Wesleyan at Rocky Mount. You know that was about the time that Wesleyan was about to go broke. They want $45 million to do that. I doubt that the whole campus at Wesleyan Methodist College in Rocky Mount cost $45 million. And I doubt that East Carolina cost $45 million. We did a lot of good in it. And I think we were able to foresee that there was something wrong, which, you know , it later developed this year all the scandals in it. But we couldn't get our fingers on it, and the truth is Senator Randolph wouldn't let us get our fingers on it. Every time we sat down on something, they would bypass us. So even though the committee itself had been interesting, and my major work on that committee was done in re-writing the Clean Air Act in 1975, even though it was all interesting, I felt I could best do more work, do better work, somewhere else if I wasn't going to be really given an opportunity or authority. So I went to Armed Services during this Congress-- well, during the last Congress and this Congress. This is my third year on Armed Services. And now I chair the Subcommittee on Procurement and Acquisitions, Military 11 Procurement and Acquisitions. Senator Stennis has asked Senator Goldwater and I to do a thorough investigation of the waste in those programs, and we're cranking up to do it. Daniel: Goldwater is probably a good one to work with on that? Morgan: Yes, he is one of the best. I might mention, in the Intelligence Subcommittee, Senator Dan Inouye, who was chairman, disignated me as chairman of the Committee on Investigations on that committee, named Senator Goldwater as the ranking minority member, himself as ranking senior member, and gave me the aurhority to hire as many staff, as much staff, as I needed provided they were the best in America. It was real interesting how I got into that. You know, the first two years under Kissinger and Ford we were giving armed assistance to the pro-Western anti-communist forces in Angola, trying to keep it from going communist. And you remember that Church, Culver, and Gary Hart led the fight, this was just post-Vietnam, to cut off that aid. There was a terrible debate because Kissinger had presented all of his evidence to the Foreign Relations Committee that had jurisdiction. The 12 Foreign Relations Committee under Sparkman, and he was sort of getting older at the time and didn't take a lot of interest in it, but Javits, Percy, Church and all of that crowd were all doves, so they recommended that we cut off aid. Well, on the floor of the Senate, those of us who were for trying to help pro-Western forces turn back the communist aggressors had no real information, but anyway we lost the fight. Well, Gary Hart had a bright young staff man, who had been an investigative reporter with the Chicago Daily News. He'd been talking to a former CIA agent who was telling all these things had been going on even after we had cut off the money. So Gary Hart wanted Inouye to establish this committee and make him chairman of it. They already had it set up; they would have public hearings with great fanfare and nationwide television. In other words, this was going to propel Gary into the national limelight. Well, Inouye could see through that, so what he did was, he created the committee suggested by Hart, but he made me chairman of it. And it really was the most fascinating committee, because working with Goldwater was great, and Inouye. But we had that investigation; we investigated for a solid year. I brought on Don Sanders and a team of former FBI agents, and we really made a thorough investigation. 13 We found the charges basically groundless. But it is an interesting thing that we never had the first leak until the day we reported to the full committee and recommended that a copy be sent to the White House and a copy to the CIA. The following day after we delivered those copies the New York Times had a copy, a report of it. So it either came froff the CIA or it came from the White House, because we had it for a year and nobody got it. Another investigation that was real fascinating: the Prime Minister of Australia, his name slips me right now but it will come back, the labor Prime Minister, had fallen. As a matter of fact, he was fired by the govern- ment and replaced. It was quite an international incident. But anyway he blamed the CIA for his downfall, said that we had been conspiring with the Conservative Party to kick him and bring down his defeat and that we had spies in the government and so forth. In the meantime, there was a spy out in California that had been arrested, a young Navy man. In his testimony he said the public ought to know what we were doing to the government in Australia. Well, here again, that was my job to investigate it. And we did. Of course, we have some intelligence operations down there, but we found that they were not true, that while we had basically done a couple of things that were improper-- we had placed some agents in Australia without notifying 14 the government--but they were placed there for the purpose of collecting intelligence from other people in the Far East who were coming in and out of Australia. So basically we were exonerated; but here again that went all the whole year and nobody ever got it in the press until we issued our report. And we made some recommendations. For instance, we made clear that we would never again have spies or intelligence agents in a friendly country without first declaring them to that friendly country. A number of little things came out. But I think what we did do in that subcommittee, I think Admiral Turner would probably tell you and certainly his predecessor will tell you that probably was as constructive as anything that has been done to help get the CIA back on been right busy in those years. In Armed Services we've done But most of all, I think the thing a sound track. So I've right many things. you have to remember is that in nearly all of these committees your greatest work is not done by a given bill sponsored by Senator Morgan, but it either comes from input into the Committees or in the bills that come out of the committees. As we go along I'll try to think about some of the major ones. And there have been a goodly number, because last July 3 in New Orleans I was awarded the Vanguard Award by the 15 Non-Commissioned Officers Association of the United States for outstanding work in the legislative field for a strong national defense, and that came from a number of issues. Daniel: From the NCOs? Morgan: Yes, which is right interesting. Daniel: If you can win their favor you're doing all right. Morgan: Well, that's sort of what I thought; I thought one of the things that might confront me in this coming election is the Panama Canal ssue. Bascally, the people that were against the Panama Canal are almost all for a strong national defense--the American Legion, the VFW-all of these people have been basically my friends for ears. But I just happened in this case to think they were wrong. So, if in the next election this becomes a real issue--national defense--then certainly with this NCO Vanguard Award I could come back and say, "Well, look, I couldn't have been too bad on it or else I wouldn't have gotten this award. 16 Daniel: Well, who do you enjoy working most with over there, like on the committee work, men you would think have the most integrity and intelligence? Morgan: Me, I reckon. I'll tell you the finest man in the United States Senate, one of them, and a most remarkable man, is Dan Inouye. He's very low key, very, very much a hard worker, a great patriot, a man of extreme intelligence and integrity. He chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence for two years, and he chairs the Subcommittee on Appropriations, on Foreign Aid, Foreign Relations, and that's a difficult one, but he takes a good stand. I'll tell you an interesting thing •• him. Last night at this party I went to--which we all hated to go to--it was a command performance • Bob Byrd so that he could play his fiddle, but he called on a number of Senators to perform. And really, some of it was pathetic, you know; he had Sparky Matsunaga and David Pryor playing the harmonicas, and I could have played them about that good when I was in the second grade. He had Don Stewart from Alabama picking guitar and singing; Don's pretty good. As John Coles (?) said, he had talent, he had no business being there • • But he called on Dan Inouye to play the piano, and you know that Dan doesn't have but one arm; he lost one 17 arm in the war. So we were all just astounded; well he always had a lot of dry wit, businesslike humor. He said that twenty-five years ago our country was better to the veterans than they are now, so when he was in the veterans hospital having lost his arm in Europe, they told each one of them they had to learn to play a musical instrument. So sort of throwing off on those who had been playing the harmonica, he said he certainly didn't want to play the harmonica. So he took up piano, and I'll be darned if he didn't play the most beautiful music you've ever seen with one hand. You could not, no way you could have told that that man was playing with one hand. It is that kind of determination that made him come back and do what he's done. But he'd be a great leader of that Senate. He wouldn't have to do like Bob Byrd, pull the rules, or bend the rules, or manipulate anybody. Everybody would have so much respect for him, and he'd be such a straight shooter. He, in my opinion, is a real leader. John Stennis is an interesting character, probably knows more about Armed Services than any man alive--I'd say any civilian, but almost any in the military. Course, you know, he's been here since the Forties. But a perfect gentleman. You have a crowded committee room like we've had for the last week, hearings on SALT talks, you know; 18 the rooms are packed, and the TV covering it, and the doors are guarded, and they let visitors in two or three at the time. If a woman comes in that door and stands inside looking for a seat and there isn't a seat, you can see Senator Stennis squirming in his seat, and it won't be two minutes before he'll say, "Gentlemen, wait just a minute, now, Mr. Officer will you get that lady a seat back there?" He's still that much of a southern gentleman, you know. The only trouble with John is he still plays the old political game of home-state business. For instance, last time, he played footsie with Senator Hart, from Colorado, on carriers. Senator Hart's got a bright young Ph.D. on his staff who's got this philosophy that we ought not build any more big carriers, that we ought to develop this VSTOL aircraft that the Marines use that have had so many accidents, and just build small carriers, and let:em take off from these small carriers. Well, Gary was smart enough to know that if they converted some smaller ships to one of these, to carriers, that then they'd have to replace the smaller ships, that they in turn would be built in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Senator's own state. So John went along with all that knowing dern well it wasn't right because the military brass in the 19 Defense Department testified that it would be twenty years before the VSTOL aircraft would be far enough along developed to use it. Well, thank the Lord, the House killed it. Along this same line, this time when the Shah was overthrown in Iran, and the Ayatollah Khomeini took over and canceled all of the contracts of the Iranian government with this country for arms, for weapons, for they were building four destroyers and just happened to be building them down in Senator Stennis' home state. He was determined that the Navy would get these destroyers. Although I really felt, and a lot of people felt, that they were a lot more luxurious than we would want for our Navy. We didn't think that the government had anything to lose because Iran had been required to keep a trust fund just in case this sort of thing happened. But Stennis didn't want those darn carriers, didn't want the shipyards in his state to lose those carriers. And he fought that thing, and fought it, and fought it, and fought it, and went down to the White House and he just flat out, I know, laid the cards on the table to the President. The President called Secretary Brown in and told him to put those things in the budget. Now you wait and see. And now Stennis is supporting the SALT agreements. And it's just as clear as day that the deal was cut. 20 But other than that, I'd have to say that he is sort of Mr. Integrity of the Senate. But that's that old kind of politics that the old timers engaged in and it's perfectly legitimate as long as it's looking out for his home constituency, but when it comes to anything other than that kind of politics, John Stennis is one of the best men in the United States Senate. Herman Talmadge has the clearest, most logical, methodical mind. Any time that you hear his speeches on the floor of the Senate, even though they're extemporaneous, he's clicking off one, two, three just like a computer. Daniel: I was always impressed in the Watergate Hearings how he could nail a witness, have him on his knees in a few minutes, a few questions then he'd come right out. . Morgan: That's right. And he still, in my opinion, is, even though notwithstanding all of these hearings and we're probably going to end up with some kind of disciplinary action based on negligence as far as I'm concerned. Now we've got the Moonrocks, Schmitt, on that committee, and he takes the position that anytime charges, public charges, are made against a Senator, he has the responsibility of 21 proving his innocence. And Senator Burdick is on that committee, and I can best describe him as a nice fellow, but nervous or erratic. I best describe him by saying that he's been in the Senate eighteen years and has never held a responsible position or subcommittee yet, and he never held one before he came up here. He's run for governor, he'd run for judge, he'd run for anything in North Dakota and had never been elected to anything, just happened to get himself appointed to the Senate. He came back one weekend from home, and he said, "Oh dear, the papers in my home state are already saying that all we're going to do is slap him on the wrist, slap him on the wrist." And I said to him, I said, "You know, Quentin, suppose somebody makes some serious charges against you and I happen to be on this committee. Would you want me to judge you based on the evidence? Or would you want me to judge you based on what I think the public reaction in my home state is going to be?" And an interesting thing, contrary to the practice in every court in the land, where a juror is charged not to read the papers or listen to media reports about these trials, the staff of the Ethics Committee, which is a bunch of young Turks, all bright, but you know, it would be a feather in their crown to bring down a United States 22 Senator, has sent to each one of us on the committee each day in a sealed envelop marked "sensitive," newspaper clippings from the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal, two papers which everybody admits are biased. Except this week, when they did a favorable article on him showing the polls and reactions of people in Atlanta, they didn't send us that one. And that has literally scared Burdick and Jack Schmitt to death. That's not to say that Herman isn't guilty of doing what all of us have done. He had not looked after his office, but neither had I ever signed a voucher. My administrative assistant is the highest paid man in my office. I don't know what my man's paid, but it's in the Forties. And some of 'em are paid, all right, you can pay them $52,000, which means that an AA is not an intern or some flunkie; he is a top-flight executive, and if he can't run the office, the finances of the office, and if you can't delegate them to him, then I don't know how a Senator can operate. My office budget is almost a million dollars a year. But anyway, notwithstanding the fact that he comes from the old political school, he's a man of great ability and great intellect and I think a man of integrity in keeping with what he believed to be what was right. And I know from my own experience that back before Watergate and before the federal election reform, those 23 things were done. For instance, one of the things that sounds awfully bad was in a divorce action. His wife's lawyer kept pushing him about "where do you get your money from? And just sort of out of desperation, he said, "Oh, I don't have to have much money. My friends look after me." Well, that sounds sort of bad, but then Governor Ellis Arnall, former governor Ellis Arnall, you know, most people remember who was sort of a reform governor in Georgia and always opposed the Talmadge people, came up and testified that it had been a practice from time immemorial in the state of Georgia that supporters of political candidates and office holders would from time to time hand them money and say, "Put this on your campaign expenses." And many times prior to '72 reporting laws, they were respected more in their breach, so to speak, than they were in being upheld, you didn't report it. If a man came along, he gave you a hundred dollar contribution. He didn't mind giving you the $100, but he didn't want it reported in his name because he didn't want every politician in the country coming to him for money. So, I'm not saying that that's right, but I'm saying it was a practice. Governor Arnall was right interesting. He had N 24 written a couple of books, and he was the one who threw Herman out of the office of governor at one time. He testified that Herman was a man of great intelligence, good reputation. So the prosecutor, Mr. Eardly, read him some quotes from his own book about the Talmadge machine. He said, "Do you still, did you hear of that now?" "Oh, yes, yes," He said, "Well, did you think he was a man of good character, and good reputation when you wrote this book?" He said, "Oh, yes, yes." He said, "Now his politics was then and is now terrible. I've never agreed with him on anything politically. But, personally, he's a man of great integrity." -So I say Herman is a good man. Daniel: How did he ever hire Menchew? Did that ever come out? Morgan: Well, Menchew was hired like we all hire people. And this is one of the bad things about government. You happen to be in the right place at the right time. Washington was in the early Seventies, and I guess always has been and is today, just full of bright young people wanting to get in government. And so how do they get in? They'll come in, they'll take a job operating an elevator. Menchew took one as just a flunkie on the 25 Capitol Guards. And then some Senator would come along after maybe a rush of mail on some given issue like the Panama Canal or some similar issue, and he'd be thousands of letters behind and he'll pick up one of these bright young men that's come to know him and be nice to him and talk to him from time to time and say, "How about coming and helping me, be a legislative correspondent." And the first thing you know, he's sort of ingratiated himself to you and you need an administrative assistant and Menchew makes a great appearance. And I've never done a background check on but one man. He should have done a background check and he didn't. Daniel: From what I've read in the paper, he comes across as so different from Senator Talmadge in almost every way. Morgan: Biggest crook I've ever seen in my life. INTERVIEW WITH PETE DANIEL, July 26, 1979, WASHINGTON, D.C. ,., over 0,„ -,i;e, yt, Vs4'"1 Jr ita.r\''Ph J.- • PETE- : „roe, !do you think that you have given the biggest push to or ;0:0161 4t& CO-fr contribution? MORGAN: itliprobably be hard.. Butrmaybe the first thing we Q ought to do is point out that my first,4i-years, now going on 5, have been sort of limited pretty much to special assignments. That's not to say that I wasn't involved in legislation; but the first—within the first 60 days after I was here, I was put on the Church committee, which was the 6ommiitee, the Select Committee# Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. This was a)gommittee that was created by the Senate to investigate many of the allegations of wrong-doing on the part of the intelligence agencies, the assassination attempt allegedly carried out,and many assassinations carried out, by the CIA and other agencies. I didn't ask to get on that,eammittee. As a matter of fact, I didn't vote to establish it, because; when I came here)-I was one of those persons that thought that about what the FBI and the CIA had done was in the interest of national security and that we ought not to tamper with them or bother with them. So I didn't votenit, 44A7 and I think the reason I was put on it by Mansfield was because he wanted somebody on the committee who had not been one of those making accusations and also because of my experience as a-WAttorney General. I--Without going too much into detail on that, that took the first trXCe years of my time, basically all of my time. Because those hearings went on day after day after day. And then after the main hearings were over, Senator Mondale and Senator Schweiker and myself were • designated a $Ubcommittee to pursue further the allegations of wrong-doing in domestic intelligence, primarily the FBI and the IRS. be. --It mightAsort of an aside,--the IRS director at that time was Don Alexander. He was a professional CPA and a lawyer and had been in practice and he resented the fact that IRS agents engaged in a lot of illegal activities in trying entrap taxpayers. -Anti so he tried 14- to bring an end to-toicik.F„ For instance, I remember a-geed-case-o' a, a case of a banker from the Bahamas being in this country, and they investigated. The IRS wanted some papers in his briefcase, So they literally set him up with a woman in Florida, in Miami, And the, while,and got him about half drunk, and while he was drunk with the woman, they robbed his briefcase, photostat4ed the records and put them back. Well, when Mr. Alexander heard about it, he put a stop to it. W-e44-1,,,this always brings accusations from the men in the field that the man at the top is covering up. A-nd they had two in-vestigatinns, investigative grand juries. tAnd since I was designated to handle the IRS part of it, Walter Ricks, my staff aide,and I made that our business and we cleared him; And' wrote reports;and' later the two grand juries cleared him. Real interesting, yesterday; I got my first $250 contribution.and it was from Don Alexander. He ot said that I wasAthat showed a little concern and interest about pro- tecting the integrity of his office. But anyway, that -t-e-ek,- that took most of the first two years. Growing out of those investigations -+-47V-e-r-EL, was legislation establishing some chart CS the operation of AA the FBI 'CIA, and all of them intelligence agencies ___Adefense intelligence agencies, the National Security Administration. Wc11),---because we-itadt I had been so deeply involved in it for two years, ,4-}en Mansfield put me back on the Committee for two more years/ to help draw up the charters. And we did draw them upiand tiotell'-they're ..101 ‘i‘ process of being legislated, Put I didn't)my term expired this past term-, and althoughfthe leadership wanted me to go back on it, I didn't feel like I couldp Because first of all, it was taking away from my time on the Housing and Banking Committee; and my Armed Services Committee. And, in addition to that, tt-7. the things that we were doing in the Committee; I couldn't talk about4publically. And( if I had; the people in North Carolina wouldn't have wanted me to talk about it. Because basically the people think that the FBI ought to be able to do whatever they want to. They don't really appreciate the invasion or the threats to freedom when you allow federal agencies to determine who should be investigated and who shouldn't)" who's guilty and who isn't. So I got off of it, so that took the first four years. But in addition to that, the last two 1A,0' years I put on ther-aga--i--ni the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. COL.1.6 Again, I think because of my training and'as Attorney General. When- 1 we got involved th-ere in the Koreagate investigation/which involved o< allegations against such Senators as Hubert Humphrey, . J—, Montoya 1) .4..enclia.‘mx.,, - from New Mexico, Birch Bayh from Luu-i-siana, none of which really it proved out to be serious. LJohn McClellan from Arkansas, plus some _____....... othel7& Janet in the meantime, the allegations against Senator Ed Brook came up. And that was the most difficult thing I ever did) and that took almost full time. But of course when he was defeated for all Cut. 4,0wC. edeOrr, practical purposes thatended his case. But lo, and behold right in the middle of the Herman Talmadge matter. So that's taken almost all of this year. So long answer torzour short question, most of my 1ttir a v *S years experience in /ommittee work has been in the two pecial het is ,'ommittees doing work that I think that hard- to be done, had to be done by the Senate; and somebody ought to do it, but I'm not sure 7t that's what the people sent me up here to do. -14.464, now I did-en-- Ok( Bankiatand Housing, for instance, the first year; I chaired the 11.A Subcommittee on Small Business, whichiloversight over the Small Business Administration. Aziduring that year, I think we did fairly well, considering I didn't have much staff. As the newest member on the Committee I was sort of given the staff that nobody else wanted,and I was given a fellow named Dudley who was,had come the Senate a long, long, time ago with Senator Sparkman and who primarily was a, I won't say a liquorhead, but he was tending toward an alcoholic. But we nevertheless, we did do some things he, about strengthening the SBA" getting themeinvolved ix the, more -involve-d in thfminority loans. But at the end of the two-year period, I voluntarily voted and moved to transfer this authority Orr from that agencyAto the Select CommitteefSrom that Committee, over' Comm-i-t-tec on Small Business] because they had 25 staff members and no legislative authority. That Committee was set up really as a political ,6ommittee to help Senators get re-elected. ine 4,4_, 6U lei. „Aud-....wie-ath.a.t., and theyiwit giveiti‘allegislative authority. BuiP Gaylord Nelson is chairman of it and is doing a good job, And I think I was right in doing it. So then they made me chairman of the Rural Housing Subcommittee, which I'm still chairman of,A4,gg I think some of /0/4)8%ivti the best things we've done is strengthen the i„4.4 lowei-?-income 4446ifte- _..L.f.or the, _h u.slug, rental housing for the lower income We've extended 106 the m., subsidies to farm people. is designed to help the hardworking man who has a job, some stability, but just simply doesn't earn enough money to qualify for any of the 14.7AV others, but but yetrwould be a good possibility to own his own home. We've created a new program callisler ibatact-Loan, Lowegi-Income Home Ownership Assistance Program, which their government owes them an obligation to help them do. And, secondly, a man who owns his own home, owns a piece of land, is a better citizen. He takes more interest in his community; he has more pride in his community. We've seen right here in Washington what happens when a city becomes a city of renters, how it deteri- ) orates. So that it, it's based on sound logic and sound reason and it's not a give-away program that some people think it is. And I think that it's just in its infancy right now, but I think that within a few years you're going to find that this program will do as much as any to really help low-income farm people, rural people, get their homes. And the first two years I was here, I served on my second major committee, was Public Works. An4 it's real interesting that in that committee I also chaired the Subcommittee on Federal Buildings and Grounds, which isifirst of all/ the lowest,on there and one usually given toAfreshman Senator. But i4Tit's an interesting At. i4s0A- Committee andAthat time it had oversight over all federal buildings in the country, except military posts and the Post Office4, hu-E it included the United States Capitol, and that's where I got my interit in the Capitol. ,Butbefore a building could be built, it had to have the approval of our Oommittee, and of course the comparable committee Hato in the Senate4eHouse/). And we saw some outlandish things. We saw the GSA coming before my Committee, and I was the Committee, Buckley 17, bat/4 and I, saw GSA coming before our Committee with proposals c a new t,eri. federal buildingthat6waff costing about $100 per square foot, at a hem time when I just come off the state building authority in North Carolina, and we were building/better building for $45 a square foot. we knew there was something wrong. Carroll Leggett7;44.Wtook a real interest in it. We had hearing after hearing for them to explain it. We went up to Maryland and around to look at these build-ingssand we knew that there was a rat in the woodpile somewhere but we just couldn't find it. I remember in one particular case they wanted $145,000 to, just to renovate some judges offices, some offices in a federal building in Chicago for a judge who was retiring. Golly, that's more than the whole building would cost,for it'. And I sat on it; I wouldn't approve it. Until one day-when I was gone and they went to Senator Randolph who is such a perfect old gentleman that he took it up while I was gone. They came up one day for $45 million.' „trvto d.,e 0- executive training .derct-the Univer-amekk s sity of Virginia. Oh for a 100, few students they were going to have -a' gymnasiums, swimming pools, and so forth. And Carroll Leggett and I got into it, And we cused me of stopping it because I wanted,,i4-,-... moved down to stopped it. Andtpf course they ac - IA. c e ie A-c- Wesiejet at Rocky Mount. You know that it was about the time that e-s ) was about to go broke. But that—we,s, they want $45 million to do that, and the who-}e campus.,_ I doubt VhatItfre-s.:126,, Methodist, West -64'w, College in Rocky Mount cost $45 million. And I doubt that East Carolina cost $45 million. We did a lot of good in it. And I If think we were able to foresee? there was something wrong, which, you ii' In know, it later developed this year all the scandalsi But we couldn't get our fingers on it)and the truth is Senator Randolph wouldn't let qr us get our fingers qiit it. Every time we sat down on something, they would bypass us. So it: even though the committee itself had been e/ea Hit Het ing the,,-..., in 1975, interesting, and my major work on that )Zommittee was done in rewrit-even though it was all interesting, I felt I best- could -44+st do my, do more work, do better work somewhere else if I wasn't going to be really given an opportunity or authority. So I went to Armed Services; during this CongressE—A-n-e, well, during the last Congress and this Congress. This is my third year on Armed Services. And now I chair the Subcommittee on Procurement and Ac- 14o building a new building as quisitions, Military Procurement and Acquisitions. And Senator Stennis has asked Goldwater and I to do a thorough investigation of the waste in those programs and we're cranking up to do it. L') PETE: „e -Goldwater is probably a good one to work with °. -1_ MORGAN: Yes, he is one of the best. I might mention, in thc, dub the Intelligence4Committee, Senator Dan Inouye, who wasiehairman, designated me as piairman of the Committee on Investigations on that Committee morof named Senator Goldwater as the ranking minority member and himself as ranking senior member, and gave me the authority to hire as many staff, as much staff, as I needed provided they were the best in America. It was real interesting how I got into that. ing. You know, the first years underKissinger and Fordr-We were givem0 armed s-ystems/ to the pro-Western; anti-Communist forces in Angola, trying to keep if from going Communist. And you remember that Church) Culver and Gary Hart led the fight, this was just post-Vietnam, to cut off that aid. ARcrthere was a terrible debate because Kissinger had presented all of his evidence to the Arme-d-8"urvtc-ers-7-W44.9- Foreign Relations Committee that had jurisdiction. 'B theForeign Relations Committees under Sparkman, and he was sort of a getting older at the time and didn't take a lot of interest in it, but iottideA)Javits, Percy, Church and all of that crowd were all doves, so they liet-ed7-4.4ey recommended that we cut off aid. Well, on the floor of the Senate, those of us who were for trying to help pro- AopreA5e-r5a.9 rc s. t Western forces turn back the Communist'144,,, had no real information, but anyway we lost the fight. Well, Gary Hart had a bright young staff man, who had been an investigative reporter with the Chicago 4fo Daily News. He'd been talking 44-th-4-he-former CIA agent who was telling all these things had been going on even after we had cut off the money. So Gary Hart wanted tQJ Inouye to establish this Committee o *A-ci and make him chairman, -a-n-d they already had it set up, they would have public hearingsauoli,4 edtd7 with great fanfare and nationwide television-to, in other words this was going to propel Gary into the $ational limelight. Well, Inouye -knu.)-could see through that, so what he did was, he created the Committeersuggested by Hart, but he made eA",[. me chairman, And it really was the most fascinating 0ommittee, be- -1-"„„ye . causeworkingwithGoldwaterwasgreatila any waN... But we had that investigation; We investigated for a solid year,,, at.44—hrloyugirt-77 I brought on Don Sanders and a team of former FBI agents, and we really made a thorough investigation. Br we found the charges basically groundless. But it is an interesting thing that we never had the first leak until the day we reported to the full Committee and recommended that a copy be sent to the White House and a copy to the CIA. The following day after we delivered those copies/ the New York Times had a copy,°;:report of it. So it either came from the CIA or it came from the White House, because we had it for a year and nobody got it. Another investigation iir that which)was real fascinating: the Prime Mininster Q--- of Australia, his name slips me right now) but it will come back, the labor prime minister)had fallen, as a matter of fact he was fired by the government and replaced. It was quite 4-7---dtaAinternational incident. But anyway he blamed the CIA for his downfall, said that we had been conspiring with the conservative party to kick him and bring down his defeat and that we had spies in the government and so forth. And--that)1-: in the meantime, there was a spin California that had been arrested, a young Navy mans, fttrdin his testimony he said he'd be, that we jus the public ought to know what we were doing to the government in Australia. Well, here again, that was my job to investigate it. And we did. And of course, we have some intelligence operations down there. But we found t-litt-t---our. a - that they were not true. That while we had basically done a couple of things that were imprope% that, we had placed some agents in Australia without notifying the government,- /gut they were placed there for the purpose of collecting intelligence from other people in the far east who were coming in and out of Australia. So basically we were exonerated; but here again that went cal 11.A, on--et whole year and nobody ever got it in the press until we issued our report. And we made some recommendations. For instance, we made clear that we would never again have spies or intelligence agents in a friendly country without first declaring them to that friendly country. Alrid a number of little things came out. But I think that-A-what we did do in ttrat-tnve-sti-, in that Subcommittee, I think ---,Turner will probably.e/would probably tell you, and certainly his *Ae-ortAer'4"TriVTX-74- predecessor),,,,„ I see him-evpyday ... come by, will tell you that ,.v cd 45, probably was a, construct+eir:clit any3hing that has been done to help 7ci ‘6 T e bees the CIA 'get back on a sound track. right busy in those years. ---I- am trying to think of other things) In Armed Services we've done right many things, but most„all, I think the thing you have to re- member,Pete, is that,nearly all of these 0ommitteesi your greatest -40( L.1 6p0i1SDrCei work is not doing by a given billAby Senator Morgan, but itlr-either come from input into the Committees,in the bills that come out of the Committees,. as we go along I'll try to think about some of the been a qoocUtt, major ones. And there,...4 4 number; because last July ,t in I (AYck6 awarziect New OrleansAthe Vanguard Award by the Non-Commissioned Officers Association of the United States, for outstanding work in Feig-i-sta-= "011 yt-ire legislative field for a strong national defense, and that came from a number of issuese,,A PETE: '1-1" FrOkIn Tilt NCOS . • 4.1r tv,k•ertykt-v1 • MORGAN: Umhuh; wh-}eh is rigtt Oct !heir TtTE: if you can win that favor you're doing all right. 2 MORGAN: Well, that's sort of what I thought: I thoughtc--Tara--- one the of the things that might confront me in this coming elec- ) tion is the Panama Canal issue, because-;'basically, the people that were against the Panama Canal are, almost all of them are for a strong national defenses the American Legion, the VFW6 all of these people have been basically my friends for years. But I just happen Lu-e-v-t 66 in this case think they,'' r.e wrong. So, if in the next electionr S K 'sale --Itirew, this becomes a real issue national defense and certain4..- co,AA Vanguard Awaid autit.t—tt come back and say well, look, he couldn't have been too bad on it or else he wouldn't have gotten this award. PETE: You want to have some more coffee? Or, how much time do you have? MORGAN: I've got about 20 more minutes. PETE: I'll fix another pot of coffee. MORGAN: No, I'm fine. : PETt: Well, who do you enjoy working most with over there, like on the jommittee work, men you would think have the most integrity and intelligence? MORGAN: Me, I I'll tell you the finest man in the United states Senate, one of them, and most remarkable man, is Dan Inouye. He's W very low key, very, very)4much a hard worker,Agreat patriot, a man of extreme intelligence and integrity. He chaired that .ubcommittee,' that, he chaire4 the Select Committee on Intelligence for two years, And he chairs the Subcommittee on Appropriations, on Foreign Aid, Foreign Relations, and that's a difficult one, but he takes a good stand.,06.I'll tell you an interesting thing about him last night obk this party I went to which we all hate to go tol, command performance by Bob Byrdrso that he could play his fiddle. But he called on a number of Senators to perform. And it-LS really, some of it was pathetic, you know, he had Sparky Matsunaga and David Pryor playing the harmonicae, I could have played them about that good„rtmek in, the second grade. He had Don Stewart, from Alabama,* tir s • J picking guitar and singing and Don's pretty good. John ,-- said. he had talent, he had noiibeing there last night. But he called on Dan Inouye et-played piano, and you know that Dan doesn't have wovvi b- t p.<.• *nd he said thatl years ago our country was better to the veterans than they are now, so when he was in the veterans hospital having lost his arm in Europe, they told each one of them they had to learn to play a musical instrument. So sort of throwing off on those who had been playing the harmonicaecertainly didn't want to play the harmonica. So he took up piano, and I'll be darned if he didn't,H4e—played the most beautiful music you've ever seen with one hand. YOu but one arm, he lost one arm in the war. And so we were all just av,.1 haY"'' astounded; well he always had a lot of -tha-14.7.e... . businesslike A built in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Senator's own state. So John was)/ //- went along with all that knowing very well it wercn't right because the military brass in the Defense Department testified that, t44.etestified ,i,ww that it would beA20 years before the VSTOL aircraft Z-0e4 Yhani— "/"1-7€ would be far enough along developed to use it. the House 4_ L44 'r carrier---i-t-, killed it . 11 BtrtA this time, you Tray^ a d Shaw was overthrowq ,he Ayatollah Khomesni all of the contracts of the Iranian government with this country 4:01x, for they were building destroyersc just 561 A "5*-4/7i.si happeded to be building them down -8-efra-t-e-P-Js home state. He was cA, determined that the Navy get these destroyers. Although I really felt, and a lot of people felt that, it- was not designed or equipped for our Navy and also they were a lot more luxurious than we would want for our Navy. And we didn't think that the government 4 had anything to lose because Iran had been required to keep a trust fund just in case this sort of thing happened. But Stennis didn't want those darn carriers, didn't want the shipyards in his state to lose those carriers. And he fought that thing, and fought it and fought it, and fought it and went down-iLader the gun and he just (A2.4=-411*- 1-at -out ... the White House and he just flat'', I know, laid the cards +0 on the table w44-1,1 the President. The President called Secretary Brown in and told him to put those things in trii.e.7-41/the budget. Now you wait and see. And now Stennis is supporting the SALT agreements. And, just as clear as day that the deal was cut. But other than that, I'd have to say that he is sort of Mr. Integrity of the Senate. But that's that old kind of politics that the old timers engaged in and it's perfectly legitimate,' as long as it's looking out for his home constituen14, but when it comes to anything remember Iran when the earieeky4 took over and counseird 4=w for arms, --- weapons, other than that kind of politics, .John Stennis is one of the best men in the United States Senate. Herman Talmadge has 2A the clearest most logical, methodical mind. Every time that you hear his speeches on the floor of the Senate, even though they're extemporaneous, he's clicking of 1,2,3 just like a computer.dhecri pcm le 1 • 4.4.04 s cz-limet r we're eSeold 1' fli• 4)ahf v cruarhMWIeroL, to14-+ite- pre55, afita cal'. 14" " "‘ej " W2:1 A 141 PETE: How- about heari-n*.s.-a-144—s-4uff. How he-ean k,4 witn49.1- 74 -ad 4-k41 kl&7/ ,4jals.t have him on his knees in a few minutes, ... questions ... OGI*1 MORGAN: That's right. And still, in my opinion/is, even though notwithstanding all of the hearings; and we'll probably going to end updsome kind of disciplinary action based on negligence/as far as I,- fq0e1 --4:Imn concerned, and we've got the moonrocks and th siffl444.1-, wild, from that committee, and he takes the position that anytime charges, public charges,are made against a Senator, he has the responsibility tic> 41All ?ux-dtekt of proving his innocence. -„ Senator is on that qommittee, and I can best describe him as a nice fellow, but nervous or erratic, I can s-a-y, best describe him by saying that he's been in the Senate years and has never held a responsible position or subcommittee yet, and he never held one before he came up here, he'd run for ernor, he'd run for judge, he'd for anything in North Dakota and never .1ppe1r, froi been elected to *anything, just happened to himselfA -eft the Senate. But he came back one weekend a1 home,and he said, "Oh dear, the papers in my home state are already saying that all we're going to do is slap him on the wrist, slap him on the wrist." And I said to him, I said.to-h?t"You know, Quentin, suppose somebody makes some serious charges against you and I happen to be on this Committee. Would you want me to judge you based on the evidence? Or would you want me to 1 k, judge you based on whatAthe public reaction in my home state is going to be?" And an interesting thing, Pete, intcontrary to the practice 6 Char ' in every court in the land, where pipm jurors AM not to read the papers or listen to media reports about these trials, the staff of the Ethics Committee, which is bunch of government turks, -r- they're all bright, but you know, would be a feather in their crown to bring down a United States Senator, has si i to each one of us on the Committee/ each day in a sealed envelope4 marked "sensitivq", newspaper clippings from the Atlantic Constitution ai ri) S 4 re bictSva.. and the Atlanta Journal, two papers which everybody Except this week, when they did a favorable article,. showing the polls and - that- 6,42... • the reactions of people in Atlanta, they didn't sencittil Burdick And that has literally scared and Jack Smith' to death. ,A+Ri that's not to say that Herman isn't guilty of doing what all of us have done. He had not looked after his office, butAhad I ever signed a voucher. -1-44,11..b..tmy administrative assistant is the highest paid man in -64-office. I don't,, what my man's paid, but it's in the 40is. And some of rgem are paid, all right, you can pay them 2,000) whichrthat an AA is not an intern or some flunkie; he is a topflight executive, and if he can't run the office, the finances of the office,and if you can't delegate them to him, then I don't how a Senator can operate. My office budget is almost a million dollars a year. But anyway, notwithstanding the fact that he comes from ',Aunt-,, the old political school J1e's a man of great ability and des and I think a man of integrity in keeping with what he believed to be what was right. And I know from my own experience that back be- fore Watergate and before the federal election reform those things,‘ •done,. fEr instance,one of the things that sounds awfully bad was in a divorce action. His wife's lawyer kept pushing him about "where do you get your money from?" And just sort of out of desperation, he said, "Oh, I don't have to have much money. My friends look4 after me." C4k- f),,163 Well, that sounds sort of bad, but then Governor Ellis Araold, former tY'ct governer Ellis rnold, you know, most people remember who was sort of fl 74.1k-4,4 q rat 0,04 a reformed governer from Georgia and always posed 114.8—trwIrspeople, came reJ up and testifiediit had been a practice from time immemorial in the state of Georgia that supporters of political candidates and office holders would from time to time hand them money and say"put this on your campaign expenses' And many time5prior to 444 '72 reporting law5i br ,%.) 6pcet,k, rpo-p, not, they were respected more in their, than they were in _ • TipLe.;$.444--what-is being upheld. Ailt you didn't report, If a man came along, he didn't want, he gave you a $100 contribution. He didn't mind giving you the $100,but he didn't want it reported in his name because he didn't want every politician in the country coming to him for money. So, I'm not saying that that's right, but I'm saying it Avra-th 44aa wasApractice4. Governer Primito4d....ie right interesting. He had written ry a couple of books, and he wastone who gotit4-rough Herman out of the office of governor at one time, so he testified that Herman was a man of great intelligence, and good reputation. So the prosecutor, read Mr_ gave-him some quotes from his own book about the Talmadge rv.4- machine. He said, "Do you still, did you hear of that tr "Oh, b" yes, yes." He said, "bid you think he was a man of good character, and good reputation when you wrote this book?" He said "Oh yes, yes." He said, "Now, politics, was then and is now terrible. I've never agreed with him on anything politically. But, personally, he's a great man of,,integrity." So I thinic Herman is a good man. P4A1,14: _ ...ETA 1owdid he- h )r-e- zHencheez). Did ve-f'. 00/77e_ era7',12 AVerlatevAJ MORGAN: Well, M4-nel-e-hew-.(--?-) was hired like we all hire# people. And • this is one of the bad things about government. You happen to be in the right place at the right time. Washington was in the early 170's,, and I guess always has been and is today, just full of bright young people wanting to get in government. And so how do they get in? They'll come in, they'll take a job operating an elevator. Menchew took one as just a flunkie on the Capitol Guards. And then when some Senator would come along after maybe a rush of mail on some given issue like the Panama Canal or some similar issue, and he'd be thousands of letters behind and he'll pick up one of these bright young, that's come to know him and blonice to him and talk to him from time to time and say "How about coming and helping me, be a legislative correspondent." And the first thing you know that he's sort of in- gratiated himself to you and you need an administrative assistant and Menchew makes a great appearance. And I've never done a back- ground check on but one man. He should have done a background check and he didn't. '411% aeros5 what I've just read in the paper, he Ap., a la-14 different from Senator Talmadge in almost every way. MORGAN: Biggest crook I've ever seen in my life. 14T11, it= ahniLtic__ 9:25