Diary Entry - 02/11/1982
Key Facts
President Reagan attends a dinner for the foreign diplomatic corps - the first such dinner since Eisenhower’s day.
President Reagan agrees to review the Federal government‘s property holdings to devise a plan to sell unneeded property, Using the money to pay off the debt.
France nationalizes five groups of major industries and thirty-nine banks.
Sens. Baker, Laxalt & Cong. Bob Michel came over this morning. There is unrest among the troops over the budget problem. The mystery of Sen. Hollings proposal to freeze spending, taxes etc. at this year’s level for ’83 was explained. Sen. Baker persuaded him to do that to drop a bomb on his own party. They’d love to go for the tax & the spending list—for Defense only—but they have to be against him for suggesting lower social reform spending than we did. N.S.C. briefing. Castro is very nervous. We’ll try to keep him that way. Ray Donovan presented our new job training program to replace C.E.T.A. We have cut budget from $3.2 bil. to $1.8 bil. But under the old one only $592 mil. of the $3.2 bil. went to actual training. Under our $1.8 bil–$1.35 bil will go to training. I’ve agreed to a committee to review Fed. govt.’s property holdings (1⁄3 of the land in the U.S.) and come up with a plan to sell unneeded property & use the money to pay off the debt. Joe Canzeri resigned. We all feel terrible. It seems the press had discovered he had a large low interest loan from Laurence Rockefeller & someone else to buy his home. There was a minor matter of a couple of double billings for expense items but that was carelessness not fraud & he reimbursed. He has worked for the entire Rockefeller family for most of his life. I think the loan was out of appreciation. Tonite a state (type) dinner for the foreign diplomatic corps. It was the 1st such dinner since Eisenhowers day
