Charles S. Murphy Oral History Interview, 1973

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened May, 1992
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

MURPHY: I graduated from law school in 1934, and I came to Washington in the fall of 1934 to work as a legislative liaison in the Office of the Senate Legislative Counsel. The Senate Legislative Counsel was the bill-drafting office that worked for all Senators and Senate committees on request. Actually, in my time, and I suppose still, there's likely to be more work for the Senators who are members of the party that does not have control of the administration. But I worked up there until 1947, and naturally doing this work I got to be quite familiar with the legislative process as it looked from the Hill. That's where I got to know the then-Senator Truman, and that's how I happened to come to the White House to work for him in 1947. For all

[2]

the years of experience that I had up there, I did not know anything about the Legislative Reference Division in the Bureau of the Budget; I simply had not heard of it. But when I went to the White House first, in January of '47, I went as Administrative Assistant to the President, one of several. Because of my experience on the Hill, I gravitated toward working on legislative matters, on the White House staff. One of my early assignments, in the spring of 1947, was to work on the unification bill. So the President set up a task force with General Lauris Norstad and Admiral Forrest Sherman, and me, to draft the unification bill. They furnished most of the wisdom, and maybe all the wisdom, and I furnished the technical drafting knowhow.

Well, as I said, the President put us to work on this unification bill, and of course the Admiral and the General had the task of forming the Department of Defense. We got to the point in the bill where they began to authorize appropriations, and it seemed to me that that was the kind of thing that the Bureau of the Budget should be concerned about, when you begin to spend the Government's money. That is when I thought of the Bureau of the Budget. I asked someone--and I don't remember who--I asked someone to come around and talk to me about it. Don Stone sent two fellows. One

[3]

of them was Wes [?] (1) and I'm not sure who the other one was; it may have been Arnold Martin. So the first thing I did was to impress them with the confidential nature of our instructions. They were not to tell a soul in the world. That was the way I thought we had an understanding.

The next day, I guess it was, I happened to be sitting in Clark Clifford's office when he got a call from Jim Webb, who then was Director of the Bureau of the Budget. Jim Webb was raising quite a fuss because the drafting was going on without the Bureau of the Budget being involved in the drafting. This, as far as I was concerned, was a clear and gross violation of a confidence. These fellows had gone right back and told Don Stone and he went straight to Jim Webb. I had barely met Jim Webb.

The result of this was that after thinking about it overnight, I decided to protest and the next day I went around to Jim Webb and raised hell about it. He believed that I was right, and he apologized about it. This is the way I first got to know him and at that point we established a working relationship, which I think improved from then on. I found out at that point that the Bureau of the Budget and the Legislative

1. The sound quality of the tape recording is of poor quality, making it impossible for the editor to understand this and a few other words in the interview. Those places have been left blank.

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Reference Division were interested in legislation, on all parts of it, and not just the part that authorized appropriations. So I then began to work in a regular way and closely with the Bureau of the Budget on legislative matters. I was a White House Staff man, trying to develop a modest program for the following legislation. At that time there was no organized White House staff effort to monitor legislation, and keep up with it at all, much less to work to try to get it passed.

I think the Legislative Reference Division was relatively new at that time. The head of it was a man named [F.J.] Bailey; he came from Maine. The number two man was Elmer Staats. During that period Bailey retired, and Staats moved up to be head of the division. Later he moved up to, I guess, become Special Assistant to the Director. Dave Bell, during this period, 1947, had just become Special Assistant to Jim Webb. Webb, who was quite a bureaucratic politician in his way, wanted to do all he could to facilitate cooperation between the White House staff and the Bureau of the Budget. He had the notion that this was the way in which to give the Bureau of the Budget the most influence on what happens in the administration. It was a very sound doctrine. I think that's exactly the way it worked out. I was saying

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that Jim Webb got the notion that he wanted (?) for the Budget Bureau, and he insisted that I should have an assistant. He offered to give me anybody in the Bureau of the Budget that I wanted. This went on for several months. During that period, I got to know David Bell, who was just then made the personal assistant to the Director. I said, "All right, I'll take David Bell." Jim made good on his word, and I got David Bell for one assistant. This was in the fall of 1947.

Getting Dave Bell on the White House staff obviously facilitated the cooperation of the White House staff and the Bureau of the Budget. We did then, as long as I stayed at the White House, cooperate very closely. Until February of 1950, I worked as administrative assistant. Then I was made special counsel to the President, and I continued to look after this part of the business. This was sort of my specialty, and I liked it. We, I think, did a good deal to develop the machinery for cooperation. For example, we developed a system where the agencies were requested in September to send in their recommendations for the State of the Union message, for the Budget Message, and for the Economic Report.

HYDE: This had not been done before?

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MURPHY: This had not been done before. The primary responsibility for the State of the Union suggestions was on the White House staff; the primary responsibility for the Budget Message suggestions was on the Budget Bureau staff; and the Economic Report suggestions, on the Council of Economic Advisors. We had in our group the responsibility for trying to see that these three big messages were not in conflict with each other. Dave Bell got that assignment primarily in special (?) . Actually he went back to the Budget once, or maybe twice, as the chief draftsman of the Budget Message. I say went back; I think it was just a work assignment, I don't think he transferred from the White House staff to the Budget staff. Jim Webb, I think, urged that we treat the Budget staff, for this purpose, as an extension of, or part of, the White House staff, and we did.

HYDE: Did you see yourself, Mr. Murphy, in these recommendations for the State of the Union budget messages as [part of] the machinery for developing, in effect, an annual legislative program for the President?

MURPHY: It was. That was the machinery. The machinery didn't cover everything, but it covered almost everything. Some questions would come up, of course, that were not within the normal purview of the departments

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and agencies that would be sending recommendations. The civil rights program, I think, would be an example. The President appointed a Civil Rights Commission, I don't remember exactly when, I think in early 1947, and that commission made this report about the end of 1947, or early in 1948. That got to be a very important recommendation, and of course very controversial. That did not come up through this regular budget, executive office machinery.

HYDE: During this programming that was done, what exactly was the role of Legislative Reference? Did they attempt to collect material, synthesize it, and send it over to you, or did they make judgments on it? What did they do?

MURPHY: Well, they did some of all that. The collection and synthesizing, I think, came through more clearly in processing legislation that was passed by the Congress, acting on enrolled bills. This is precisely what they did. They made agency comments; they synthesized them; they prepared a report for the President saying what the agency comments were. Then they would end up by expressing a Budget Bureau recommendation which of course, was a matter of judgment. There were a few classic cases in which they gave all the recommendations and all the reasons why a bill should

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be signed and then they would put at the bottom a paragraph saying, "Therefore, we recommend that you veto it." Not many. The recommendations usually hung together fairly well.

HYDE: Did they all go to you?

MURPHY: No. We had a rule of thumb that operated pretty uniformly. If it was not a major bill, and there were no dissenting recommendations, they did not come through me. They went directly to Bill Hopkins who was the executive clerk, and he would take it directly to President Truman. Normally, President Truman would sign it when it came in that fashion, on the basis of the Budget Bureau recommendation. If he had any question about whether or not he should sign, then he would send it back in to me and get my recommendations.

HYDE: Did he read the Budget Bureau memorandum for that purpose, or wasn't it necessary for him to because he knew the ground rules on which it had come to him?

MURPHY: He would read enough of it to know what he was signing, Jim. Of course, the largest volume of bills are of relatively little importance, things we used to call "private relief bills," for example. The Budget Bureau report would be probably only part of a page, and he could look at that almost in the length of time

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it would take to sign his name, to see if there was anything except just pure routine.

HYDE: Who determined whether it was an important bill or relatively routine bill? Was this determined in Legislative Reference, or determined on the White House staff?

MURPHY: Well, it would be determined, I think, sometimes in Legislative Reference and sometimes from the White House staff. Legislative Reference, I think, normally would talk to me about it--really the big ones would be talked about long before an enrolled bill ever got there. Normally, they would send the bill to me, if they thought it fit in the category of those that were to come to me. If they sent one directly to Bill Hopkins, and he had some questions about it, why, then he would ask me.

HYDE: How would you characterize President Truman's involvement on the big bills? On the enrolled enactments? Did you submit a recommendation on these bills to him?

MURPHY: I did submit recommendations to him, and I would say more often than not, he did what I recommended. I don't know that it was because I recommended it, but at least that is what he did. He did not always, and if

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you are interested in a little story, I do have one that I think is a classic in connection with enactment, I guess, of a natural gas bill. At any rate, it was something that a good many of his close friends in Congress were very anxious to get passed. The so-called liberals worked against it.

The President sent Clark Clifford and me up to the Hill to talk to first one, and then the other, to see if we could work out an understanding, an agreement, and we did. The people on the Hill agreed to what our proposal was and they let us write the language. I actually wrote the amendment. They took it up there and put it in the bill with the understanding that the President would sign it if it were amended in that fashion. It came down to the White House and eventually he vetoed it. As far as I'm concerned that's quite conclusive.

HYDE: Yes.

WAYNE: Did you see those fellows again?

MURPHY: Oh yes.

HYDE: Did President Truman usually take the memoranda that was submitted through you and study them, or did he usually make a decision on the spot just reading the cover page, yours and Bob's and then make a decision?

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Did he spend a lot of time on this?

MURPHY: Well, it would vary, of course. He was quite fast I would say as a rule, in reading, in understanding and absorbing. He also had a tremendous background of knowledge. He knew pretty well what he was for and what he was against. Very few things came to him as (?) strange. I think he had his mind pretty well made up. He had many years experience with the legislative process, and I think he gained confidence from that.

HYDE: On those major bills, Mr. Murphy, when you went in and there was a dissent, did you tend to sort of meet with him and discuss them over the paper, and perhaps bring other people in, or did he just perhaps operate off the papers and reach a decision that way?

MURPHY: Well, I would go in and give the memorandum to him and after he read it, we would talk about it. [Sentence here is too faint to be understood.]

HYDE: When these major bills came to you with the signed recommendations, would you call in other members of the White House staff that might have [expertise], such as Dave Niles on minorities? Would you call in someone like that to participate in the recommendation to the President for a discussion?

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MURPHY: If there was anyone on the White House staff that had any particular interest on the subject of a bill, I would call him in. Instead of Dave Niles, that more likely would have been Philleo Nash. Dave Niles, in a way, was a very gifted staff person, but in working with the staff, he just didn't do that. Philleo Nash was the man who would work on minority matters with the staff. John Steelman was equally interested in [the areas he was assigned]. Steelman's staff had very competent professional-level people, and they worked very closely with my little group.

HYDE: On that point, what was Mr. Steelman's character? We're thinking in terms, today--just to fit in--we're thinking of the Domestic Counsel and John Ehrlichman and of Joe Califano in the Johnson era. How would you characterize the Steelman group at that time, the charter?

MURPHY: I'm not sure precisely. I think that goes back to the place where it originated. It originated out of OWMR, Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. John Steelman was the last director of that office. Generally speaking, I think that charter was to look after (?) and this was part of the winding down of the war. About the end of 1946, I think, that office was converted into the Office of The Assistant

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to the President, and John Steelman became The Assistant to the President, and he retained a part of the staff of OWMR. He looked into labor matters, labor economic matters, and then I think Steelman primarily was the President's advisor on day-to-day Government operations, as distinguished from the establishment of policy and long-range planning. We had a general dividing line. They were dealing in the day-to-day operations, while the special counsel was involved in terms of messages and speeches. But our function was more that just putting words together; it involved putting together policies that . . .

HYDE: You had the responsibility for legislative policy, responsibility across the board then?

MURPHY: For the staff work. I make that distinction. The President made policy.

HYDE: Mr. Murphy, one more question in the programming area. You mentioned calling for recommendations from the agencies for State of the Union and budget messages, so on, and that sort of led into the development of the President's annual legislative program. There's been prevailing for some years, a requirement from the Budget Bureau, that agencies submit legislative programs to the Budget Bureau along with their budget estimates. Was that in effect at

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that time, do you recall?

MURPHY: Yes, I'm sure it was in effect at that time, and it might have antedated what we did. It may be that what we did was to add to that--the request for recommendations for the State of the Union Message and the economic report. On that I'm not clear in my memory.

HYDE: Well, the reason I ask that is because, particularly in the Eisenhower Administration, the role of Legislative Reference was to pull all of those together and to nominate, select, or propose to the White House staff, the candidates for the President's legislative program. That was sort of a prime source in the Eisenhower days. It had become less important in recent years.

MURPHY: (?) What we would do, when we got those things in, and after we got them in, we'd all sit down and work on them together. There may have been some formal paper that came along, at the end of the process. I don't remember.

HYDE: Mr. Murphy, throughout the regular operation of the Truman White House, Legislative Reference was undergoing clearance, wasn't it throughout the year, in terms of clearing legislation, to find them in or not in accord with the President's program?

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MURPHY: That's right.

HYDE: Were you frequently called by Legislative Reference to determine whether or not something was or was not in accordance with the President's program, or did you depend on their judgment? How did that work?

MURPHY: Well, I think initially we depended on their judgment. If they had some question about it, they might have called me about it--if they had some question that they thought I'd given the wrong answer on. Jim [Webb] might have taken it directly to the President if he thought it was important. Then, those determinations by the Bureau of the Budget were subject to appeal by the White House.

HYDE: By the Departments or agencies?

MURPHY: By the Departments. Yes.

HYDE: Did that go on fairly frequently?

MURPHY: Oh, no, not very much, no. Our procedures were relatively informal, I guess. We reasoned and argued together, pretty much, as a team.

HYDE: Did you have any suspicion about the civil servants who worked in the Bureau of the Budget or in Legislative Reference, from the fact that you were political types and they were career civil servants?

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Did you have any question of their loyalty?

MURPHY: No. I didn't inquire about their politics. I don't know what Elmer Staats' politics are to this day. I worked for the man since 1947--this is 25 years--and I still don't know whether he's a Democrat or a Republican, or either one. And Roger Jones, I guess I just naturally assumed that all good people are Democrats. I never thought to ask him; I just took this as a matter of course. Well, Roger Jones came along, and by the time when Elmer left the Legislative Reference Division, why I was in favor of Roger being appointed at that time. But there was someone else considered at the time; I think Rosen was his name. At any rate, we didn't support Roger at that time, and the other fellow didn't stay very long. Then, it came open again and so up comes Roger again, and Roger was appointed. I never knew Roger was a Republican until the Eisenhower Administration when he was appointed to Civil Service Commission or something like that. I'm not implying I would have done anything differently if I had known he was a Republican. It wouldn't have made a bit of difference.

As I say, I never had any questions about Roger's integrity and impartiality in the Bureau. I have pretty much the same feeling about the rest of them. I did get awfully mad at Don Stone that first time, and

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I've never quite got over that, I must say.

HYDE: You've described how you would be contacted by Legislative Reference as far as clearance is concerned. Did it ever work the other way around? Other than in the programming area, was there any other area where you might contact Legislative Reference? How would you use them, or would you simply receive what they did and act upon it?

MURPHY: I'm not sure. I guess the answer would be that I contacted them frequently whenever I needed help on anything, almost anything. On foreign policy questions, generally, I think I would not have gone to them very much, but on the domestic side, I think almost across-the-board that I would try to get some help from them.

HYDE: But in the on-going clearance operation, as bills passed through the hopper, positions being cleared by the Bureau of the Budget, you counted on Legislative Reference to sort of winnow that out and decide the ones they could clear without consulting you, and the ones that they would need to come to you on?

MURPHY: That's right, yes. I think we probably should think of three general groups. One was what they would clear without sending through me at all. Secondly,

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there was the sort of middle-sized ones that they would talk to me about. Then, there were the great big ones that would be the subject of conversation long before they got up there. Occasionally the President would know what he was going to do before it got up there and tell us. I think some of the biggest bills--the Taft-Hartley Act, for example--I doubt if you'll find any Budget Bureau recommendation on Taft-Hartley. I doubt if they made one.

HYDE: You mentioned Jim Webb. I believe also Frank Pace, and Fred Lawton were directors in your time as well.

MURPHY: That's true.

HYDE: Were they involved in the legislative operations either in this developing of the program, or clearance, or enrolled bills, or was it all Roger Jones?

MURPHY: I think the Director was involved in it all along. Again, I think you'd draw distinction between the big bills and the little ones. I think Fred Lawton would have been more likely to be into it than Frank Pace, because of his long years in the Budget [Bureau], and a lot of his work in the Budget was legislative liaison. He was the man the Budget Bureau used to send to the Hill, before I came down to work in the White House in '47. I knew Fred Lawton on the Hill. It would seem

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natural that he would have more interest, and be more active in the legislative clearance process.

WAYNE: There was a Larry O'Brien operation of congressional liaison, and Jerry Persons, in the Eisenhower Administration. Was there any kind of formalized group like that in the Truman White House?

MURPHY: Not of much consequence. Perhaps I shouldn't say it that way. There was not, except in the last two years or possibly three, when he had two assistants that he appointed for that purpose, legislative liaison. One was Joe Feeney, who worked on the Senate side and the other was Charlie Maylon who worked on the House side.

WAYNE: Who was the second?

MURPHY: Charlie Maylon. He was a retired brigadier general. Joe Feeney, by the way, was a retired naval captain, and that's the way they had gotten their Hill experience, up there for the Department of Defense. That operation was quite limited. There was nothing like the Larry O'Brien operation. Donald Dawson and I planned to do a little bit of that. I might say we were not highly successful. President Truman did a good deal himself, mainly on the basis of my specific recommendations. If I would go to him, and I did from

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time to time, and recommend that he call people on the Hill, he would pretty regularly call. But it just didn't approach what was done in the Johnson Administration; that era is still just unbelievable. I still can't believe it.

HYDE: I take it Feeney and Maylon had no involvement in policy formulation at all.

MURPHY: Very little.

WAYNE: Mr. Murphy, you spoke in generally praiseworthy terms of Legislative Reference and their aid to you in the White House. But could you note for us some weaknesses of the operation, and things you think could have, or perhaps were, improved during your time in the White House?

MURPHY: Steve, I just don't think of anything to say. I'm sure that they were not perfect, but I tend to remember the good things and forget the bad ones anyway.

WAYNE: It's interesting that you should say that. Someone used almost the exactly same language [poorly formed sentence].

HYDE: Bernie told us that just last week, the exact same words.

MURPHY: Who did?

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HYDE: Bernie Shenley.

MURPHY: I see. Well, he's a nice fellow.

WAYNE: May I just follow that up?

MURPHY: I guess I would say that there probably was not enough of them. I guess I would say that.

WAYNE: Well, could you have gotten along without that operation, as far as your tasks were concerned? Would you characterize it as nice to have it as back-up, but you could have gotten along without it?

MURPHY: Sure, I would have gotten along without it. I don't think I would have done near as good a job. But the republic would not have fallen without either one or both of us out there.

WAYNE: Jim, Mr. Murphy has answered most of our questions. I would ask you one question about President Nixon's White House. I wonder if you could generally characterize President Nixon's first term and his White House operation?

MURPHY: I really don't know about that. I'd hate to make any hard and fast comments. I have a feeling it must be larger than necessary, but a fellow on the outside is not in very good position to make an intelligent comment about what's going on on the inside.

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HYDE: One more quick question. What role if any, did Richard Neustadt play in the Truman White House?

WAYNE: He studied under him, I might interject.

HYDE: He was my dissertation director.

MURPHY: He came over to the White House staff as my assistant, I would guess in 1950 or '51. He was a bright . . .

HYDE: From where?

MURPHY: The Bureau of the Budget. At any rate, he saw something of us and our operation, and he was a bright young fellow. I must say I had the feeling he very badly wanted to join us. I never held that against anybody. I thought that was another reason for hiring somebody, if they wanted to join you. That was a plus. At any rate, he did come, and we had Dave Lloyd, and it was an extremely able group. I had a rule of thumb that I used to decide whether or not I wanted to get somebody to come to work for me. I thought that if he was smarter than I was, I'd like to have him, provided he could do me any good. Dick [Neustadt] met that test all right.

HYDE: Since you have been involved in a number of these transitions, does the subject of Legislative Reference,

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and the kind of work it does for programming clearance and enrolled bills ever come up? Are new administrations interested in this?

MURPHY: You've asked two questions. It certainly came up. In the briefing books I'm sure you'll find a very fine description of the operation of the Legislative Reference Division. Whether new administrations are interested in this, I really don't know. I would guess a brand-new administration, without any past experience, wouldn't know enough about it to be interested. When the Nixon people came along they had Bryce Harlow in the beginning. Bryce might have remembered enough of the Eisenhower administration to foster an interest in this. I think the Republicans would be more likely to be suspicious of all bureaucrats, including the Legislative Reference Division.

HYDE: Thank you very much.

List of Subjects Discussed

Bailey, F. J., 4
Bell, Dave, 4-6
Bureau of the Budget, 2-8, 13, 15-18, 22

Califano, Joe, 12
Civil Rights Commission, 7, 16
Clifford, Clark, 3, 10
Council for Economic Advisors, 6

Dawson, Donald, 19

Ehrlichman, John, 12
Eisenhower Administration, 14, 16, 19, 23

Feeney, Joe, 19-20

Harlow, Bryce, 23
Hopkins, Bill, 8-9

Johnson Administration, 12, 20
Jones, Roger, 16, 18

Lawton, Fred, 18
Legislative Reference Division, 3-4, 7-9, 14-17, 20-23
Lloyd, Dave, 22

Maylon, Charlie, 19-20
Murphy, Charles S., 1, 13, 21

Nash, Philleo, 12
Neustadt, Richard, 22
Niles, Dave, 11-12
Nixon, Richard, 21, 23
Norstad, Lauris, 2

O’Brien, Larry, 19
Office of the Assistant, 12-13
Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, 12

Pace, Frank, 18
Parsons, Jerry, 18-19

Shenley, Bernie, 20
Sherman, Forest, 2
Staats, Elmer, 4, 16
State of the Union message, 5-6, 13-14
Steelman, John, 12-13
Stone, Don, 2-3, 16

Taft-Hartley Act, 18
Truman, Harry S., 1-2, 7-15, 18-19

Unification Bill, 1-2

Webb, Jim, 3-6, 15, 18