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TI: But also -- and the reason I wanted that story in here -- was when you went to the White House, again, I did the math, you're forty years old. I mean, you may not have felt this, but you were a young man with, around a lot more older and experienced people.

JS: Most of them were willing to tell you that, too. [Laughs]

TI: Right. And it wasn't like you were coming through the back door, they were recruiting you, you were a star. I mean, the fact that the president would have your wife come to the Oval Office and, as you say, put the arm on her and essentially convince her that you had to do this, the undersecretary job, it says a lot to me. You're a very modest person, but I just wanted to establish that to be in the position you are, and for them to want you so much, says a lot in terms of what you were doing, what you were capable of. I mean, did you get that, did you understand all that?

JS: Well, you have to remember, I had in... well, let's see, how many years would that be, I don't know. But I had been through two of the biggest wars that Ronald Reagan went through as a politician.

TI: So welfare?

JS: Welfare reform in California and social security, saving social security. And today, people look at it and they say, "Oh, they want to cut social security, it's running out of money." Well, it ran out in November of 1982, and it took a lot of courage on the part of the president and a lot of leadership, and the very excellent help of Alan Greenspan and a number of other people that were on that commission, National Commission on Social Security Reform, to fix the system in 1983, knowing full well that in about forty years, we'd have to do something again. I mean, that system's a simple system, it works just like your checkbook. You got money coming in, you got money going out. Now, when you got more money going out than you got coming in...

TI: Right. Okay, so you had...

JS: So what I'm saying is I'd been through those two battles, and the president knew it, and his key lieutenants, Ed Meese was there in Sacramento, Mike Deaver was there in Sacramento, Jim Baker had been through the social security fight. And so I guess they said, well, so what if he's only forty years old?

TI: I mean, were there other Assistants to the President?

JS: Oh, sure.

TI: As young as you, though?

JS: Oh, no.

TI: Okay, that's what I thought.

JS: I don't think so. No, there weren't any that were as young as I was.

TI: And again, for the benefit of the viewer right now, explain the rank of Assistant to President. I mean, to some people, "Oh, he's just an assistant." No, the Assistant to the President is an incredibly high level position. I mean, if you were try to compare it to like a rank in the military, what would something like Assistant to the President be?

JS: They don't have any ranks that high.

TI: So, I mean, higher than like a general, like a two star, three star general type of thing?

JS: An Assistant Secretary in a department is the equivalent to a four star general.

TI: Yeah, so people, I think, most people don't understand this in terms of, when I say, "Oh, you were only forty years old, I mean, that seems so unusual. And people don't understand, you have direct access to the president.

JS: It depends on the White House, it depends on who's running the show. And even with the president, the Chief of Staff is an Assistant to the President; the Press Secretary is an Assistant to the President; the National Security Advisor is an Assistant to the President. It's a rank as opposed to a description.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.