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activity which teaches all the other members quite a bit about what's going on. And then the two heads of N.E.A. and N.E.H. will make a report at each meeting on what they're doing and how this committee could help them, or what suggestions they might have for it.

Has the Committee, in fact, defended the N.E.A. and N.E.H.? As you stated?

AH. It doesn't need to. The fact that here is a committee which once a year meets at the White House, Mrs. R. invites us to lunch at the White House. If you look at the composition of the Committee, it's a shield that's just there. Given the fact that N.E.A. and N.E.H. are not that big in the total picture, the Executive recommends a ten percent cut every year, and then Senate and the House put it back in again.

So you haven't had to do any lobbying, as it were?

Not really, no. We don't need to because in the House and the Senate there is great sympathy for this; for N.E.A. and N.E.H.. It's only in the White House that there wasn't very much advocacy for the arts and humanities.

What about your interactions with Mrs. Reagan on this? Anything noteworthy?

Well, she was a pretty tense lady the other day. She's