WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON FOOD, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH

After my service as Executive Director of the President's Committee On Mexican-American Affairs, that is after Hubert H. Humphrey lost the Presidency to Richard Nixon, I reverted to my position at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the Division of Technical Assistance.

We had three teams of two people each, usually a white and a black who made visits to Corporate Headquarters of the giants of American Industry, and sometimes the not so gigantic. The idea was that we would help them meet the requirements of the Equal Employment Act in a non-adversarial approach.

Most tried the wine and dine ploy with us, but when we paid for our own dinner and drinks they knew that they were dealing with a different breed of cats. One firm in Southern Illinois we visited because their EEO reports indicated that a very high percentage of their employees were Indians, some even in management positions. I called them and arranged for a visit, I indicated, "I want to see how it is that you have such a good Equal Employment record and your competitors do not."

I, and my partner, a West Indian, showed up at the appointed time and after discussing their reports I announced, "Hey, I want to meet some of your Indians." There was all kinds of hemming and hawing and finally the President of the Company said, "Hey, we do not have any Chiefs around here, we are all Indians. That is the meaning of our EEO reports."

While not all firms we dealt with were that flagrant or blatant, most were just paying lip service to Equal Employment. Hardly any had Native Americans in their employment, one or two Chicanos maybe, and a scattering of blacks. This experience soured me and I decided that I should look for more productive activity.

Having served in New Mexico on the Public Welfare Board and having had a policy making role in the management of the State Hospital at Las Vegas, the Los Lunas Training School, the School for the Blind in Alamogordo, the Carrie Tingley Hospital for Handicapped Children at T or C, the Torquise Lodge for the treatment of Alcoholism in Albuquerque, and the Geriatric Hospital at Fort Bayard; I had managed to get myself appointed to the Planning Committee of the National Health Forum in New York in the Spring of 1969 where I met Dr. Jean Mayer, Nutritionist from Harvard University, who had agreed with Dan Moynihan to head the White Staff to put together the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health in the Nixon Administration. I had learned how to get myself on details and how to get monies for running the President's Committee I had headed, and got myself detailed to Dr. Mayer's staff. We brought together 5,000 people from the Food, Nutrition, and Health Industries as well as representatives of the poor. I had the government issue tickets and pay the hotel bills for over 100 people from the Hispanic community, among them Paulette Aténcio, Carmen Frésquez, and Peter Chacón to attend the week long Conference.

Most of the recommendations of the Conference have been implemented since, which showed how correct most of them had been, but President Nixon rejected the report outright. There was a confrontation for which I received the credit for bringing it to a peaceful conclusion. (See accompanying letters from Dr. Mayer and Abraham Ramirez)

Believe me it was not easy, but it was productive, I felt I was involved in something important. I was detailed to this task for six months. There is a report in our Library which details our recommendations. I was on the Staff of the Community Organizations Task Force which as you might surmise dealt with the most controversial of the issues.

These issues were written by a diverse group at the Sheraton Hotel at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, under the guidance of myself and Robert Choate. We brought representatives of such conservative groups as the American Medical Association, the American Hospitals Association, the American Dental Association on the right, to the Brown Berets and the Black Panthers on the left. Your Daddy had the task of bringing these "minds" together. The day we first met, as I had the representatives introduce themselves you could feel the tension and some even expected the doors to fly open and the meeting simply to break up. Somehow we were working until 2:00 AM and after two days had a paper on which we could all agree, at least agree that it was representative of what the Nation faced in terms of problems in the Food, Nutrition, and Health areas.

These were some of my finest hours. I was in my element. Had Nixon and Corporate America listened at the time, we may have a better Health Care Delivery System in place today.

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