Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Press corps management

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She's got two more that have to go to the other room.

Here, five more minutes.

Tom Hughes wanted very much to see her for about two minutes.

I'm going to call it a personal matter.

I'm not sure.

I don't know why.

Oh.

— 1 min 57 s with no transcribed speech —

And I'm not going to take any more diplomatic questions.

I'm just not going to bother him so he gets out of his sleep.

I won't say any questions, just that I can't go over the next sentence.

Maybe he didn't have to run into anything.

I don't want any, let him say for sure.

I don't want any between now and February.

I'll take it.

We know what is left in February.

It is a... You have to check to see whether they can present it to anybody else.

Have them present it to Robbie.

Do you know why?

Was someone checking on that?

Perhaps they could.

It's just a memory, Charlie.

I got it, Mr. Doolittle.

I said, I don't want Secretary of State to receive credentials from home.

Bob, did you ever check on these credentials to see whether the Secretary of State received them or not?

He's not accredited to the government.

They're accredited to his company.

I can designate him to receive them.

He probably can designate the vice president.

All right.

We're going to have a meeting to designate the vice president.

After all, he will receive diplomatic credentials from now on.

I mean, in an hour of the election or not.

It's been an hour of my time.

Yeah, every two months it's just not working.

That's the one thing, you know, with all the Mickey Mouse things, we never get a thing out of it.

But work it out and speak to me.

Just say it because, you know, put it on the basis that my, that because my trip's here, and the other trip, I just have to concentrate on that.

And I think I'm going to investigate the vice president.

Get the hell off my desk.

We are.

in a multiple sclerosis presentation to do all of this kind of work.

That I gave to Mrs. Nixon, her suggestion.

That's great for her.

I think she's willing to do this kind of thing.

She has better use of her than having these goddamn teams for 500 people where you get no credit.

This can take 10 minutes.

Take a picture and it's good.

And there's some groups where it's worth her doing some of that, but she's doing more than that.

It has to be terribly important.

Now another thing that I tell you to sit down and eat.

sort of on the spot with this D.C. thing, but this is it now.

I'm doing it today.

I bought their no votes in the country by seeing that black from the D.C.

I watched it.

I had never seen, I had never seen any story out of this Washington stuff in any way except in Washington, D.C. Goddamn it, now it's just not good anymore.

Look to anybody, but no, not me.

I mean, I don't need to spend time, you know, to come in and give me a report on what they're going to do for the San Antonio.

I don't give a shit what they're going to do.

I mean, we're going to do that.

But it's not a waste of again.

That's what I said.

We've got to cut.

The only thing that does is if you get a crime.

Well, if you get a crime, you don't seem to be doing very well on that.

We do all right in the PC.

That's the only one where we... That's the only thing we have done so far.

and that's the only thing that's, the only thing that's positive for us.

Well, I mean, overall, that's an outstanding instrument.

There'd just be a pension.

They'd elect a mayor in this place.

What'd it be like to have to live here, trying to operate here?

They'd think the goddamn place was going to be... Well, I mean, it's a problem being the mayor of Washington.

It was a complete and utter tool.

Back to what it would be if we had some... Not Walden Park Road, you know.

Well, but I'm militant.

You know what you're going to have?

Then, when you have demonstrations... Well, no, no, we could do better.

Check the protective services.

We've had a tough time with it.

Well, we would, but we'd have to fight the District Governor.

Because in every instance, they'd give the... Now, they do what we tell them to.

I see.

They would give the, uh... Well, hell, they'd earn the permits.

Christ, they'd give the permits to throw bombs on the way out as long as they could.

If not...

We have not.

The problem we have with the court here shows you what the problem we have.

The district court's doing a good job on that.

Call some police.

I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I hope it makes a sound.

It makes a sound.

No, it's sort of become a tradition.

I like that the House passes it and the Senate doesn't.

Somebody's got to send in something good.

Does somebody want me to go out and make a statement on it?

I would, sir.

You should just say, uh, it was one of my dad's great pushes, you know.

He had many good things.

He was always ready for a home goal.

You've got to be a walking disaster.

They want to elect their own council and their own mayor.

Jesus Christ.

And you have a...

You know, Julian Hobson, or Julius Hobson, or Walter Montroy, or somebody who had to prove to the blacks what anti-white he was.

He had an all-black council.

Could have looked at the fire.

They fired Walter, I mean, you know, Chief Wilson, or whatever his name was, and they killed a black police chief.

The police force is bad enough now to hire a lot of blacks on the town.

On the chief, but it is payoffs.

Yeah, which is a smart move as long as you've got a tough guy like the chief running.

For the blacks to do the payoffs.

They apparently have a Mrs. Hoover theory.

They have this operation where they put the blacks on the police forces.

It's a part of a sort of payoff operation.

And it's worked.

I agree.

It's payoffs.

By hiring blacks, they keep black areas, and they put the blacks on.

They're not good blacks necessarily.

They're not necessarily good cops, but they're on the force, and they more or less do what they're told, and they're better than having a, you know, it's part of the keep the lid on game.

I, uh, Chuck, uh, I was, uh, just, uh,

it seemed to us that our Republicans were trying, you know, I mentioned this briefly to you last night, could really demonstrate a little enthusiasm about these major

The thing is, quite frankly, if you take a look at the news some reason, and the best statements are basically by Democrats.

I mean, when there is one, it's by a Democrat.

And the Republicans say it's sort of a dog in the mane, your mealy mouth sort of a thing, you know, hand in the arm or something like that.

Now, it's gotten forward for better.

Yeah, you know what I mean, because they're there, but I just kind of feel it coming somewhere.

And maybe you just got to sit down with McGregor and talk to him, a little cold turkey, and say, oh, what the hell's the matter with these guys?

I mean, it's sort of technical.

I guess you were talking to me about that.

It is rather shocking to me where they were all, you know, sitting on their bus, you know.

And it's the old story that we've really got something very strong going for us here.

And it's very exciting.

But are they in people with some of this excitement?

For Christ's sake, why would they be letting them in like this?

They see what this is.

Bob's sitting here looking at us, huh?

Yeah.

They didn't know?

Yeah.

Well, goddamn, why is it that you have the right to start to deliver the job?

I mean, I would think greater people in that are tenants.

We got about 30, 40 people down here, including secretaries.

Yeah.

But they do a hell of a good job of getting to the coast.

That's one thing that I've got to say.

But I need to state that things are a different party of both things.

Yeah.

I'll try to see what you can do.

I don't know whether you can call it or not.

Yeah, I don't think it's anything.

I guess it's right.

It is just that perhaps they have to be gotten together when I talk to each other about it.

I mean, to a greater extent than I will.

You know, that's it.

Rather than whining at Jesus Christ, I never see the outlaw.

Right?

Come on.

Okay.

I was, uh, I mean, the opportunity to just go back to anybody ahead of that means you don't get anything, and he could have...

and got upset ahead of time and said, yeah, but there are some times when we just can't tell people ahead of time.

The only time we haven't gotten stuff leaked is when we haven't told people this one couldn't be leaked.

He said, I understand that, but that's the price you pay.

All right.

If we don't have people, that's fine.

I don't want to have to ask a program manager to ask a problem.

They're the ones that blur out something or speak out something.

And uh, I won't forget that.

I am hopeless.

Hopeless.

Democrats are just smarter.

Democrats can't make it.

It's a good thing.

So they're gonna apologize.

They're gonna apologize.

— 3 min 24 s with no transcribed speech —

I don't want to hear this.

I'm just keeping time.

Do it the same way as the black camera.

Yeah, yeah, I'll go.

I don't mind, uh, no, I mean, that's just in case.

I don't mind giving them 15 minutes notice, you know what I mean, and let the, let the cops go over here to the road.

It isn't that, the black camera, I didn't want to go at all.

Yeah, I see.

I don't want to give, I don't want to give an hour to them to see.

Right.

It's sort of that sort of thing.

Let it appear to the press that I just decided to go.

Let the cops quietly...

Clear the way.

Please clear.

Tell the family that I'm coming.

Uh, the other thing, Bob, I was trying to ask you about what that is.

What is that?

That's Bob.

The time of the day doesn't mean anything.

Who else is speaking?

They need, uh...

I don't have the final word on the program.

I want to get back.

But they need...

Well, it's the Editorial Writers Association for Arts and Editors.

Let me have them get the...

They don't have a very tight program.

I did it.

what administration people will then come up with tools.

Two, are they having any Democrats?

Are they having any Democratic presidential candidates?

Three, what occurred to me that I might do, might do, would be to drop out of that.

Here we go.

The way I would do it would be to go over, and since it is editor's things, not allow any names.

This is for editors, for your background.

There's no office, whatever.

You can write editorials, it's not for direct publication.

And for foreign policy.

having in mind the fact that it didn't for me to have to get out there and screw around about studying.

The rest of it would be studies to be done.

Studies to be done.

Studies to do politics.

So, we had a lot of the administration and the bus thing.

Well, what I mean is all they would grab on vacations of the vice president, the media, the kind of thing that doesn't help me particularly to get into.

I wouldn't have to strike you as being something to do with me.

All right, I'll go over and I'll understand.

But you see, the way I would do that, other people are going to come and get the message.

Well, they're supposed to be.

And I will go over and say, the president will do it for us.

Well, you've got the ball game then.

All right.

I think it's good not to go.

I'm all for it.

I wonder if you can go to Pittsburgh on the day of the World Series.

You just go over there and play with it.

And in fact, the captain, you know, as the ball came, I said, I believe in the captain.

And they're playing a night game tonight.

That's right.

Is tomorrow a night game, too?

No, no.

This is the other one.

Oh, I don't know.

I had no idea.

This was the first night game, but I thought it was the only one.

I didn't know about that.

I'm going to send this one tonight.

I haven't seen the game yet.

I called a little on the radio yesterday.

Just a little.

I can't believe it.

I'd like to not see this one.

Is Pat Wendell Jr. in there, apparently?

It's a hell of a story.

Troy got off the boat the first time we were directed.

Anchor, I was awfully busy, as you can imagine, because of the announcement I made yesterday.

I had noted that Clark McGregor keeps me informed, and some very good friends have birthdays, and you, the healthy home viewers, had a birthday, and I said, no, you can't be that old.

That's right.

He just looked great.

Well, I just want you to know that I, as I saw a little note from Clark, and he did that for a second, I remember how you really came to bat with us in those early days before 68 and everything.

And, yeah, I think we're, they're lobbying on something.

Don't do it.

Oh, that's all right.

You can do that.

Yeah.

Yeah?

What would you like him to do, busy?

Right, busy.

He's not in the court now.

No, no, no, no.

No, I just believe you.

Let me ask you to do this.

Just, uh, you put his name.

How old is he now?

He'd like to be on one of the district courts up there.

Oh, he's here in Washington.

A good, strong man.

All right, I'll tell you what to do.

You don't have to wait.

You just give the name, get it down to Clark.

Send it down to me.

Or tell him to bring it in to me, and I'll give it to Mitchell.

And boy, when we get there, they can see why we don't take the hard way.

This is a fine act.

Well, I appreciate that.

The reason I need a direct line is this, is you know what happens after you talk about it.

It all gets down in the woodwork and nobody pays any attention, but it's just a feeling that the president really cares about it.

It's like I'm working with Jack in his drug thing.

Good.

Sounds good to me.

All right.

Well, anyway, unless there's all of you, but let me tell you something.

Edwin Nelson deserted me.

He was one of the few that came out in 1968 in Minnesota.

Do you remember?

Old anchor.

67 years old.

Is he?

I don't know whether I should do it or not, but I just might.

I haven't meant to do it for nothing.

I'm just thinking of the long range of fashion that may be happening soon.

Sort of planting a little seed, maybe a little more positive editorially.

It violates one rule that this is this place where clients are saying to the writing press, rather than going to the television press, that these are television guys, I wouldn't hesitate to go.

You know what I mean?

This is different.

But they're not television guys.

Except for a few television guys, maybe three editorials, but it's all part of the package.

The general trend of editorials does affect television.

It affects people.

Yes, it affects people.

All the television people, all the people even though they don't read them, get an awareness of the editorials are all the same kind of things and that gets reported.

It's the Washington Post incident.

The Washington Post really discourages people in this town.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I just said that I thought I was ready to go, and I got her to go to that game, Julie, and I did.

Well, he played as the left of the number one baseball fan.

That's right.

And had her throw out the ball.

She had a fine picture in the post.

And that played you as a baseball fan again without you having to go to the game.

That's right.

And that's great.

I don't know whether he got it yesterday.

You know, I predicted that game yesterday.

Did you?

Yeah, many of those were considered.

Yeah, well...

was so busy and they came in for the photo opportunity with the leaders.

I said, I think that Pittsburgh will take it today because of the artificial turf and some of those balls that we're hitting that they can feel go through.

And I thought that's exactly what happened.

So that's, you have to say that, you have to get it across the market.

Well, why don't you give me more?

I consider this too busy.

All right.

Well, I'm sure there's everything here.

There were so many big things, you know.

Yeah.

Sometimes, you know, there were little sidebars here.

You know where you're going?

Yeah.

Are you kidding me?

We've got today, which you should be aware of, I don't know, we probably don't want to get... Somebody's here now.

Yeah, I'm glad as well.

We've got that whole Citizens for a New Prosperity group, our support group of the economic program.

They're meeting right now.

I'll be lunching there next month.

An afternoon session.

Next month.

No, they won't meet next month.

There's 750 people.

It's a big...

high-level bunch of people.

I just want to be sure you know that if you do want to do it, what we could do is have them come over to the White House for a cocktail at the end of their day or something, if you wanted to.

The only reason they're here is because of the kind of people they are, and it's Bob Anderson, Dwayne Andreas, Dewey Barton, Carl Van Detsen, Al Cole, Dick Cooley, California, Roger Fleming, the Farm Bureau,

You really don't have to do it.

No, you don't.

You don't.

You don't have to do it.

I see.

Who the hell is going to see it?

No, they're set up for a complete luncheon meeting and companies addressing the luncheon with press.

And then there are going to be a briefing panel this afternoon with Rumsfeld and McCracken and Weber and Peterson.

And then they're going to have a press conference with Moe Lewis and Joe Fowler, Bill Murray and Pierre Renfray, who are the executive committee.

And then we're going to meet the press.

It's 150 or something like that of people.

You know, every one of the people you have mentioned have already been in that White House shirt so often that I wonder, maybe you should do it in Blair House or something, and maybe I could do that.

Sure is.

Could you do it?

Could I do it in there?

No, it isn't.

This is not for a speech, really.

I've got a couple of remarks in the shirt in their hands.

You could do it in the patio of the White House.

Jacoby.

I'm 70 today.

It's amazing the group that got Jim Roach to head it, which I guess helped.

The names I've mentioned to you are names you know.

There's a lot of names here you don't know that are people.

What time is the situation here?

You see, I've got errors.

You can just survive if you want to do it.

You're supposed to end it or something like that.

I assure you, there is no, there's been no thought of you doing it.

You're here to keep it funny and get this treatment.

Maybe, rather than you getting into anything like that, they're doing it to the sky, really.

Would you go over at the lunch or just in the middle of their afternoon session, just come in and say, I just want you people to all know how much I appreciate your support on this.

I know the briefers have closed down for a minute.

Right, and logistically it's a lot simpler than hauling them all in here.

And having to set up something to feed them or move them.

Right, yes.

They started the reception.

And if this is meeting 1130, then a reception... How do you do that, may I ask?

Please, without the God damn television and so forth and so forth this time.

Or are they televised in common?

They are.

And they may not be televised in the afternoon panel.

You could maybe go over...

If they're going to be televised, it's better luck not to get the television anyway.

That's probably the best thing to do, is delay or ask them to go right over right after the... thing or right before the diplomatic credential.

Isn't the lunch the best time to come at the end of the lunch?

Say a word about it.

Come back and tell us.

Okay, but there's a press there.

They'll be there also.

They have a global press coming.

Why check it out?

Maybe that's the best thing to do.

I have to go at a time when the press was not there.

And if they were, it is going to be a closed session.

And I just pop in.

The other thing is not to do it at all.

It's a...

It's a good way to get some strong attention focused on a thing in a good group.

I can see when...

There's a pre-luncheon reception.

If you could go in while they're standing up, just catch them at the pre-luncheon reception, drop in at that.

They won't all be there.

They'll sort of travel in.

There's supposed to be a business meeting ahead of time.

Well, they might not.

You're right.

It's better if they're all sitting down.

I'd rather they come in properly when they're sitting down.

I mean, you don't want to go out and run from one to the other and raise your hand.

There is something also to be said for each of you.

There's probably something to be said for getting suppressed.

No, no.

I wouldn't do that.

I've done enough press.

I've done enough.

What do you think?

There are a lot of people that you don't know.

Yeah.

Also, even the ones I do know, people like Copeland and the rest.

Just at the moment, they'll get to say that China is buried or something.

See my point?

Rather than my point, let's just think about the effect.

I can take it however I want.

It's the kind of, you know, like the President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the President of the National Insurance Association, Vice President of Chrysler, President of the National Business League, President of Health Productions.

I would not allow that in any person.

That's right.

So I want to thank you for your work, and thank you for your great support here.

I think the White House intersection is the thing, Bob.

I already knew that.

All right.

Some of them will probably have to leave anyway or something so we could, you know, get the credit for doing it now.

Five o'clock.

Yeah, five o'clock we intend to do it.

At the White House rather than where?

Can I ask you a quick question?

I have no deliberate way that I have the burden of voting again.

I want you to do it.

I want you to vote again on the woman.

I want that to be a surprise.

I want to be sure that the teacher got that option, which she is being considered.

Let whoever leaked out the fact that I was

So we're discredited now anyway.

Whoever leaked out the fact that I was not considering murder, should leak out the fact that a woman really doesn't have a chance.

You hear what I mean?

But I'm told now, they do that, that a woman, that girl, that action, two top runners are two men.

Could you get that in?

Now, second point I want to do, and this is a PR thing.

I want you to, I want you to,

Get out a story over the weekend.

Get out a story, get us over the weekend, that'd be...

The strongest one advocating for pushing beyond the woman's side are the Mrs. Nixon and the Julian Christian.

You see that they are, they have felt strongly.

She just mentioned, all right, we're not going to, the idea they're not going to split and so forth and so on.

If you've got anybody that we can give that sort of thing to.

I don't think we use more sapphire.

No, not sapphire.

There's a lot of people who play the column.

I just like to get out pretty directly to the wire service.

See, that's what I do.

I want to be sure that the fact that they're pushing for it gets out.

But I want to knock down the idea.

I don't want the idea to get, I don't want this killed before we get the thing out there.

Here's the reason.

I don't want to get either of the people we're considering out of the contract.

Right, right.

Before I get a chance to defend them, you see.

And that's really on the verge, because I know he'd be destroyed by getting the same amount.

Or at least cut out of that.

And it is, you can see what's going on.

Of course, he needs people who say that in that position.

I think they'll climb up now, I think they'll realize.

The McGovern thing was so blatant that they got so completely botched up and all the way around that now it appears like the rest of them are not saying anything.

They're going to lay behind the law.

I don't think they would now.

They couldn't bounce out of that one.

Mary McGuire wrote an English column on it.

Oh, she was despicable.

She writes it as a great political coup for you to put Byrd in there, because you finally get, you force the Senate to confirm.

You put Byrd on it, they have to confirm.

And you get the worst possible racist you could get on the court, which would satisfy your desire to do that.

You screw the Senate, which you'd love to do.

It's not far off the mark.

We do try to see how this will be the last chance that I will have of the candle burning being busted over this weekend.

Then I hear just you.

Yeah, what is the situation?

They have several cabins.

The president's cabin has, I think, two or three bedrooms.

I said it doesn't, it's very difficult.

I don't think he'd want to take that.

I'd like to know what it looks like.

This is probably the last chance.

It's like the debris up there.

Well, it's a good study.

It's got a big fireplace.

I have not seen it, but I've seen pictures of it.

Yeah.

Looked over the...

It sounds like it's sort of...

But there's several cameras.

Now, leaders meeting when do you have that scheduled?

We get it all quickly.

Wouldn't it be good if we had it tomorrow morning?

I'm just kind of bashing this down, taking the whole lunch on our hard work on that case.

Yeah, the Tuesday.

I don't understand either.

They're such a bunch of whiners and bitches.

I may be wrong, but I just don't feel it.

You shouldn't do that.

But I said the Colson has some merit to it.

Yes.

I'm not sure if anything will change it any time.

No, we don't think so.

Also, if you're going to have it, I'll get Bill Rogers there.

He won't be there tomorrow.

He'll be in New York still.

If you're going to do it, let Rogers give his same pitch to the Republican leaders he gave to the Kappas.

All right.

Have a good day.

We have, as of now, we have tomorrow.

Yeah.

It's really weird because he's a lot older than you.

That's very confusing.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Also, one other story here about his transfer with Henry.

I know you have to do some things on that file that are going to be awful rough on the whole Secret Service.

The communications and the press, as I'm sure you know.

We've done that.

I know you have to cut the Secret Service from 48 to 36.

I cut it from 80.

Because I've got to cut everything down.

I agree that this is just a number that I saw in my book.

Yeah, it is 36.

We cut it from about over 100 to 30.

No, but I meant from Romania.

I meant we got to ask for something from 48 in Romania.

I don't know where it was.

What I'm getting at is this.

I know what the top figures were and so forth, but I've just got to get it down.

Let me tell you what my interest is.

You know, I'm impressed that I want you to get a cigarette to give me a priority.

For instance, let's see, what would it be for me to take 10?

two wire services this is my view two wire services

I think you've got to take one network crew and three network reporters.

See what I mean?

They'll have to pool.

See, that's my point.

We cannot take three crews and network.

I mean, I'm thinking of what we may need to do.

I mean, explain.

I mean, I, I, Henry can ask for 800, but he may have it marked down, and I don't know what we really want.

And I don't want to end up with, say, what, say, a literacy test, you know, with major risks and all those episodes.

I'm not going to take any special, blah, blah, blah.

We're not going to take the Denver Times or the Los Angeles Times or any of those people.

They do not matter.

All that matters is the two wire services.

a radio reporter, one radio man, and the three networks.

That's to our interest.

So I want him to come up with a list of priorities, and he had to live up to ten.

What would he have?

I agree he has a tent.

If you have to have a tent, you can't do it.

No, I know, I know.

He's got to still come up with a camera crew that's over.

But let us suppose, can he have a pool?

Or do we have to have three network crews?

Our plan on camera crews, for the absolute minimum, is ten people.

Which is four two-man crews and two light crews.

You just can't do it for less.

A crew can only do so much, and one crew can't cover an event.

They are the crew.

The optimum press plan, and I agree with this, incidentally, and the one I think we should fight for is the 80 plan, not 100.

The AD plan is three wire services, three reporters from each wire service.

Three from AD, three from API.

No computer.

And you've got another problem when you cut down because when one guy's writing, the other guy's covering.

Five magazines, which is one for each of the Newsweek, at least, plus Businessweek and Line.

I would do that.

Now you cut that.

You cut light.

By light, light is how you cut out.

Well, you just let timeline cover it.

Now, I read U.S. News, though, said we have it.

You know, timeline, Newsweek, U.S. News.

No, no, I would have it.

Look.

The hell with light.

We'll have it.

Time.

A time reporter can cover life.

That's what I said.

Time.

One business week in U.S. News.

That's all the magazines.

We don't need business week.

I know we'll have to.

I agree.

And we've got that in our hands.

And then we can go for that.

But what you do then is put one full magazine on, which I think you should do.

Because you've got...

So you go for the broad-gauge magazines, all the interest magazines.

Okay.

And TV correspondents, they argue just almost passionately that you should take three per network.

I don't see why you can't do two per network.

There'll be one per network.

about if that's the reality.

We've got a problem here.

I don't think that you know what it is.

We've got to know what we can negotiate for it.

We may not get any of these goddamn people.

I'm sure you've remembered because you're natives.

What did you do with the tree?

If you're going into these technical things, we ought to get into the detail.

And I hate to get you into the detail, but when you go through what...

Now this is, all right, all right, now we go into that, all right, one of those, one of those, and that's just, all right, that's fine.

And you're going to take three from each wire service.

Is that right?

That's the, that's the optimal.

Now then, I do not take any other discriminant.

Just don't get into the special newspapers at all.

I think if you cross the line, you're screwed.

Okay, that's my argument, too.

Now, that's what we're going to do.

Okay, so you get back on it.

Scali and Wallace Ziegler, and Scali, of course, is much more interested in the TV.

He's probably not as hard on the TV.

Is the problem you have with living with them afterwards.

It's recognizing you don't need them there.

But, you've got, they've got to cover you if you have left out newspapers, which has never been done.

Uh, you mean, if you miss that, you mean that?

Sips, Sips AP will be covered, you know, newspapers present.

That's right.

They don't need to send that newspaper out?

No.

Those are wires.

All right then, put in, I told them not to put in, uh... Oh, what I, what I'm asking is that they should take 4 AMs and 4 PMs, which is...

Now they say if you cut down, or I don't know, I don't think the three, which would be six total.

They said that if you go below 5 a.m. p.m. 10 total, you're in real trouble.

I don't know how you decide what the magic number is.

Well, I'm determined to let you know you can.

I'm not allowed to say where to pick these people.

I'm here.

Understood.

All right.

But it's still...

You know, so it's... Alright, the number is five.

Five.

What do you mean?

The nominated photographers is still photographers.

Six.

That's, well, no.

They're only talking about photographers, one AP, one UPI, one black and white pool photographer, and one color pool photographer.

So that's a total of four photographers, and then you have to take two lab guys to do a process.

So it's a total of six in a photo.

And all these guys have an AP that you're just giving me.

All right, here's how you get eight.

Seven wire services, that's three AP, three UPI, and one Reuters.

Five magazines, we'll cut it back to three.

Nine television correspondence, three per network.

80 television producers, and you've got to have producers.

They carry the lights, as well as run the thing.

Seven photographers.

And they've got seven radio independents.

That isn't necessary.

One ratio is all you need.

That's the one.

And they did it until they cut that.

And then, so that's pretty big.

In their 81, they have 17 on the camera crew.

And that's two two-man crews for each network, plus, which would be a total of six crews, plus two lighting men and our own cool crew, film crew.

I don't know whether or not it's necessary this time.

Why?

Do you think it is?

Why don't we ever use what we've done?

We've used it for documentary stuff.

We'll use it next year for documentary stuff.

Okay.

And I think for the next library type thing.

All right.

I'll ask you.

You sure don't want to do this kind of history without it.

All right.

We'll get that level in.

And then they've got 10 AMs, 10 PMs, a total of 27.

That's in motion.

5 to 5, we've got 5 to 5.

Okay, there goes my count right there.

Well, what's your damage on all five radios?

If I can't do it with their 50 plan, then I think we can probably live with their 50 plan.

I need to go in with that, though.

Now, what will happen there, if you cut the networks down to a certain point, is that they will no longer want to man the satellite.

In other words, if they don't have enough crews and commentators to cover, then they aren't going to want to send the money.

Why haven't you got any concrete evidence of that?

He told me he thought he wouldn't have any trouble with Henry.

I talked to him about it.

Henry's died because he was in a heart depression the last time where he called the chamber and blew up and all that.

He said...

He's just going through it.

He's uptight before a big thing.

I'm cutting numbers.

I didn't talk to him about numbers.

I talked to him in the afternoon, you know, going over the numbers.

He had been perfectly happy with it.

With the 150 press, which is what he told the Chinese to begin with.

Now the 150 press, you've got to understand, is about 50 working press and 100 technical people, 63 in the ground station.

Get it down, get it down on one airplane.

Get it down.

Do you understand?

I don't want any radio people and I don't want 20 AMs and PMs and you know what I mean?

Sure, this is a problem with living with them.

Let them drop out of a hat and let them sleep.

It's terribly hard, but somebody's gonna have to be...

I don't have a problem.

Well, it's...

Scalding will argue, and he makes it almost worth reading some of his cases he's made on.

He is just deeply concerned.

He overly hopes on it.

that we're hurting ourselves, which to a degree we are.

Everything we cut out of it.

Well, if we can't get it in, then that's fine.

But his argument is we should at least try.

Not what they're asking for.

I'm for trying.

Or Andrew's trying to get down to a minimum, which he should be.

That's what I thought.

You see, they started out with 600, as you know.

And what we've been working on is to get it down to a realistic 600 is...

what you'd do if you were going to France, where there's no restrictions.

But at some point we hurt ourselves.

There isn't any question.

It's how much we hurt each other.

I completely agree.

We don't gain a thing from a special.

I mean, if there's no newspaper specialist along, it doesn't hurt us if they're not there.

Because the newspapers will then carry the wire copy.

I'd rather have the wire copies writing in, because my character is in the special case.

The network thing, Scali's argument there is you're on a marginal thing on whether they take the facility or not.

When you cut it down too far, because then they can't use it.

I still think if you go down there too far, it's too big a story in Christ.

If they were interested, they'd go to the moon.

That's exactly why that would be huge.

What I think will correspond to the moon, I think after you cover your eyes.

It's exactly the same thing.

I, I, we're not very far off.

The only thing, I want, I need the back end.

Should I, could I do this on the secret service, though?

I want that back.

I don't need that back.

Now, what about reference room?

Can't you cut that?

Did you explain the reference?

I'm not going to have phones in the residences.

I'm not going to do all that stuff that we usually have.

All the luxury goes now.

And what they're talking about doing is putting in the minimum thing they can do, which is a one-position board.

There was one man on a switchboard.

And that man can handle a maximum of, I think, it's 30 telephones, which means phones to a very limited number of the party.

There'd be no phone service to the state department people.

Correct, correct, correct.

They've got, we'll all, you understand, Bob, that we're all going to be, the whole batch will be in one grave and guesthouse anywhere.

Now, they also point out, we're not going to be all over town.

It's likely we're on other places.

Well, we'll be in a group of guesthouses that are in a, I mean, it's all around walking distance of each other.

That's my recollection.

They point out there will be no audio-visual support, no lights, no podiums, no backdrops, no vaults for the press, no press secretary greeting facilities.

Oh, that's correct.

No one except the senior White House staff and the president would have any communication service at all except the secret service checkpoints.

There'd be no courier service, no pickup, no deck service, so we have no paper communication.

And this allows for no stops in China other than Beijing.

And that's the biggest problem is if we stop to go to other cities.

What they will all do, and properly.

The head of WACA will have to and the head of the Secret Service will have to.

It will be a by-law appeal.

No, not an appeal.

A by-law, a statement of limitation, saying that because of the restricted opportunity air coverage, we'll not do this and that, so that if anything happens, they're covered in that.

All right.

You can get it down to where you have .

Because you've got my schedules all right.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just, and I, I, all, you know, I don't lecture government people.

Now, we're going to keep Henry's staff coming out.

He has a private staff, but they are.

And as far as my staff is concerned, I don't do this much.

I mean, it's going to be like usual where I'm calling people and talking about this and that.

And it comes to conversation.

The only question there is whether we want to take a right.

Well, I wonder.

Let's say that while you're there, his buddy dies.

Khrushchev is assassinated, I mean, Krasina is assassinated.

You've got to make sure it's safe.

We can get it drafted from here, but we have no way of getting it there, because we're not in the depths.

Okay, so let's say...

I think there's some value in having a writer with you.

We take one on every trip.

The writer, if you were going to take one, I would strongly urge each other to take what you can.

And I think there's a decided batch of fringe benefits to taking one.

Well, the other one is symbolic.

The right wing.

And you can write a lot of stuff that we can use, that other people particularly could do.

We have a very good case for that.

Buchanan's never been on a trip with you.

All the other writers have.

Sapphire has, Price has, McKeener has.

The other senior writers have all been on foreign trips.

Buchanan has not.

Another writer, Buchanan is the senior writer in terms of service.

He's been with you all day.

I think you could take Buchanan, and I suggest this, think he also is, rather than having Ziegler pay for his monies, have him be Ziegler's assistant.

We could do that.

But we're going to tackle things that Ziegler needs to have war on, for example, with people like that.

But Buchanan's not.

No, he doesn't.

But you can pick one, and Buchanan can be the other.

Buchanan is a hell of a good man, you know, to rub around with friends.

He's quicker than all the shit that other people put together.

What's there going to take?

Wheelan and all those people again?

None.

We don't need it.

Wheelan is gone.

He's got a scallop.

He was only going to take one.

I'm sorry.

He needs one.

And he's got a scallop, you see.

You're right.

And he's got to take, you know, a secretary and his notion of a semi-exec.

He better leave at least one.

At least Ronstadt is going to do a very low operating head.

And then Harkstead here will be new, and who else?

Chapin and Hessel.

That's good.

And then we've got to determine whether we take female secretaries or not.

I think we may have to do.

Have any parties that we should read?

Now, I'm planning that we take only one White House secretary.

And two Kissinger secretaries.

And that's it.

Those take the part of the secretary.

And I don't have a White House secretary.

She could work for the whole crew.

She's fast and is used to that.

She's got to be told different things.

She's got to be in the whole crew.

She can't stop around.

She's got to do a right-hand look into her health that may be that she is able to go anywhere.

I suppose she's going to be over that question.

She's just going to be a tough character and a lot of work.

She was over that question.

She would have never received it.

I think that's a very good idea.

Two history secretaries.

Rogers is going to have to kind of go there about a secretary.

Yeah, you do.

He doesn't do any of that.

He's never taken a secretary on the job.

Good.

Rogers is there on a ceremony.

He disappears there on an operation in Texas.

Good.

You're a good kid.

Henry is one of them.

He's taking Coleridge and Windlord and John Howe, three staff people, and that's all.

Substitute staff people.

He's like two secretaries to service the poor at any age.

He doesn't think or eat.

All right.

I'm going to see everything.

Now the question is how many State Department people do we take?

Oh, Rogers and one man.

Well, he says Rogers and Green.

He says we have to take Green.

And the men have to take Jenkins.

The guy needs to take Green.

Because he's the assistant secretary of the area.

And also he just said

It's not that good.

Frankly, God, he isn't, you know, I love him, but he's just, he doesn't know really how to, the kind of stuff he does, I can handle with him, and a lot of changes can do it better.

Where do people stand, and who's going to do that?

And Mosbacher doesn't really know how to do it, you see.

Let's see, Mosbacher's not as good.

I don't think there's any reason for me, I just, I just explained it, you know, the dramatic variations.

Well, in a small party, it doesn't...

I don't think you need it.

Look, the protocol is part of what you need.

When you call us the abandoned type, you know, as I say, I take it, but it practically drives me up the wall to have the military aides and the reception lines and church services and the rest, but we've got to give them something to do.

If all I pull, one of our own people doesn't end up in bed.

But a friend is as good as any of our guys.

Why not the others?

And Campbell's getting good.

Campbell will be good.

Coffee's

Well, what I meant is that it goes on and on.

When they have settlers in the churches, they don't stand there.

They're very good, but it's better to be always... You see, the difficulty with the military guy is that he doesn't have the pens, and he doesn't see here's the card, and he doesn't do... You see my point?

And all military guys, that's why I want the political guy with me.

That's the difference.

If we go over with Henry, that schedule, the general schedule stuff, that's the other end.

What we do there, just on a pattern basis, so that they've got some approach.

What he's talking about is a

A first day, they apparently want us to arrive at around 11 or something like that.

The point which is, if we have television coverage, I.D., because that's 10 o'clock at night Eastern and 7 in the West, then you'd have a brief talk that afternoon, apparently.

And a banquet that night, which is almost imperative.

But nothing after the banquet.

Then the second day would be a long talk with Joe.

The third day would be a long talk with Joe.

Two eight hour talks is what he mentioned.

Got to have.

And go see mom.

Then that'd be the second, third day.

The fourth day would be out to the provinces and the fifth day you make an outside trip via Shanghai, Canton, whatever you do.

Fourth and fifth days, back in that fifth day, going out one night.

And then the sixth day would be to see Miles and possibly visit the wall or something like that.

I think we've got too much time here.

I think the seventh day is a busy visit with Joe and the department.

I don't think that we're too long.

I don't think we are.

It looks like it's a lot of time.

Well, they were trying to be too long.

If you look at other people, they've been working on some of the other business there, too.

I'm trying to get a feel out of it.

We're a lot bigger than Bob.

He goes to the lasso's and comes to see me.

He expects to see me every day for four days, and I can't do it for a second.

No, it should be a four-day visit.

That's what it should be.

I've never, I haven't done that any other time.

You realize this as I've been president.

Not even a four-day visit.

Of course.

You know, a four-day visit.

Four days of work is a hell of a lot of work, you know.

Yeah, but it'd be...

That's what you said you wanted to visit a couple other cities.

That's your only chance for television.

You aren't going to get much in Beijing because you're going to be whisked from a guest house to a meeting room in the back.

Well, I go to one other city.

I've come to number one now.

This is just on that.

But we'll start thinking about that and we'll see.

If we could do one other city and not spend the night there, it would be a very good thing.

If you do two, you'll have to spend the night somewhere.

And as soon as you spend the night, you have to have a banquet with the province officials.

I think if one other city, right down through the town, get a little coloring and colorful reception, one other city like Shenandoah would be great.

Okay, he's worried about .

We couldn't have .

Henry worries about the wrong things in some ways too.

Chris, I don't necessarily know how many closest we're going to have.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that is substantive, you know, talks with the advisors and all that.

But there's, I hope, going to be something where you're outside, something where there's to be pictures.

I never saw that, for example, in Romania.

He didn't see it from his lobby or my insistence.

I had to do it, break, break, break, break out of the impasse.

Henry's only concern was whether or not we were making a deal, Matt, or whether or not Chichester would be happy.

How do you give a shit what they thought?

Of course, the Chinese do give a shit how they feel.

So how different?

They didn't make them mad.

That's the whole point.

Henry is overly...

concerned about that.

And also he's been digging in like everybody goes to Canada.

These are such superb and meticulous and graceful people that they want to know.

He doesn't, I don't ever really include, I don't think he includes that.

My point is though that I've read all of Henry's stuff.

He's always had a lot of trouble with those conversations with Henry.

It's going to be a real problem for me.

It's like Henry has his meetings with them.

The only time Henry's ever tough, believe me, the only time he's really tough with the enemy is when I gave orders to be tough.

You know, Henry loves to, frankly, be buttered up.

He's a sucker for it.

And they put the words, you know, they put all their tough demands in elegant language.

He's overwhelmed.

He's overwhelmed by it.

And he shows that.

And the ridiculousness, the fact that they say every word is the same, and that you can't get out of that.

But let's say you're a peace or universal peace writer.

But it's, anyway, good work.

I'll hand it over.

I told him also that I'm going to have him try.

I think probably I'll have him try to save Patrick.

There's a bunch of reasons for that.

I don't want Mrs. Rogers.

I don't want any other women.

But the woman thing and so forth, that they've tolerated from her going out to...

one of their pioneer camps and so forth, could be in arms.

Sure, absolutely.

His overwhelming argument against it is that they'll use her for communist propaganda purposes, and I don't care that Russia uses her for that, and our people don't understand that.

That's to serve our interests and let them get their pictures out.

I don't really see why.

Serve our interests?

Hell, he doesn't understand that.

I don't care about that.

He should be knocked down on that one.

The point is that Henry's overly sensitive about the Communist Party.

Sure, they'll show their little girl, their women working.

They'll show what they're doing.

Of course they're going to get their propaganda out.

They'll make it tough on the other guys.

The other guy, they'll see, it'll see, show Mrs. Nixon moving thousands of yellow faces.

And that's going to be, well, that's what people are going to get paid for.

They're going to get the propaganda going right over their heads.

Scali and Ziegler, of course, argue strongly for Mrs. Nixon.

And Scali's argument is that then the picture that will move will be Mrs. Nixon with Chinese people instead of John Chancellor with Chinese people.

The Chinese cannot let John Chancellor out with Chinese people anyway.

But I think they will.

I think if they get it, they're going to use it to propagandize using the commentators.

At least if they've got any points.

I'm sorry.

Uh, yeah.

There are no, we have no business with them.

We call them, we talk with them, but their program, this morning, work programs and seminars among the writers are not having outside speakers.

And then when they're having a tour of the city of Pittsburgh, then they're going to fog you in one pocket.

It's an afternoon game.

They declined, spokesman, because their format is unstructured.

It's a professional seminar format.

Uh, we can't find any evidence that any Democrats will be speaking to them either.

How long?

Three days, starting today.

It's 13, 14, and 15.

There are 500 attendees, so we meet basically in small seminar groups.

If the president attended, they would go to a full plenary session for the president.

And so you could, in effect, work it in, I would assume, at any time.

The fifth game will be at 1 o'clock.

There's virtually no chance of rain.

No one is scheduled to drop the ball.

I will move.

So you could go over and say 3, 3 o'clock.

See, they go to the game.

So you can't go, obviously you can't go during the game anyway.

Maybe they just go before the game, go in the morning.

You don't have any chance to prepare then.

Oh, good.

I get another after the ball game.

I guess that's right.

Have a 4 o'clock game to be over at 3.

anywhere from three to four.

The last two hours, it would be over by three.

The games go over two hours.

Likely to go three or three and a half hours.

If you go three and a half, you put a nine in the game.

It's a lot of scoring.

So, maybe off at 4.30, you could go.

Maybe if you have big money, you could consider that.

Schedule a five o'clock thing with him.

I don't know, I just think it's important.

His approach to this trip is that he would have everything behind closed doors and very, very intensive conversation.

And the communicator is going to be cut down then.

He doesn't really, what I mean is he doesn't see that the major purpose of this is just the fact of going, does he comprehend that?

The fact of going.

No, he will not buy that at all.

And getting that picture.

No.

No, his argument is that they don't have a relationship, but it works.

This is an historical event.

What you're doing is laying down the first steps of something that has been forged.

for the centuries, and that must not be jeopardized by a cheap shot to get a picture.

That's the way he puts it.

See, he colors it in the worst possible terms.

He always says, we must not look like a circus.

We must not take a cheap shot to get a picture.

We must not look like clowns, like Khrushchev did or somebody who was schooled up in his visit there.

The problem with this one is that we can't really go around Henry.

This is the thing I've been trying to explain to Scott because he's gotten very emotional on the other side.

He's as unreasonable on his side as Henry is on his side.

And Scali wants to appeal all this stuff.

He's still arguing that he ought to go with Henry, because we have to have somebody who understands what we're trying to accomplish out of this.

And he's right, in a sense.

But my point to him was... My point to him was that whatever is done has got to be done through Henry.

We can't send you there to argue separately, and we can't have a fight within the U.S. party while they're in China.

Jalen can do it more if I can get Scali.

Jalen knows, and he's greatly smarter than Scali.

And, you know what I mean?

Well, plus the fact that Jamin won't think.

Jamin will do what he tells him to do.

Scali will do what he thinks.

So, you know, he just gets emotional.

You know, one of the things about, which is small, I've been here for so long, I've been here since I was a kid.

I wish there was a puddle like this made.

that Henry planned this trip to Chicago today.

I told him he can't sell it.

He says, I can't because I've got Percy's vote instead of the man's.

And I said, no, Henry, Percy has voted with us on one thing.

He's voted against everything else.

And I said, you shouldn't go to Chicago right now.

Because I told him I'd save the day to meet with him.

And also, he's got a cold and all that sort of thing.

He's got some marker on him.

He says, I'm saying, the Jews too.

Did you know that?

Is he?

He says, they're a group of your supporters.

Well, I don't know about anybody who didn't with me.

It's funny, the only ones he clears with me are the ones he doesn't want to do.

And he uses me as the basis for not doing it.

But when he does want to do it, he doesn't ask about it.

He just doesn't.

I've got Jewish dinner in L.A.

He never mentioned that to me.

The L.A. Times.

He never mentioned that.

We've gotten turned off on the Times.

I want you to, if necessary, put a memorandum up on the Times, on the evidence in the WAC.

And you've done that, haven't you?

Not that I haven't done it.

Well, I know that's not good evidence, right?

But I sure want our people to understand.

That's my compliment.

Don't you agree with that?

Those people for a little while.

Now Henry's sense of priorities in some of this stuff is just, and that's why he gets uptight, that's, I told him.

So Henry would not say, say when you're in Chicago, stay home and sleep all day long, he'd say.

Get rid of your cold and get rested.

Because you've got a hell of a trip ahead of you.

And you've got to be sharp and on key for all of it.

And it's much more important that you be up for that.

I told you the same thing.

What did he say?

It's the Jews, it must be.

There's a Jew group out there.

He says a group of my supporters want our ship.

I know it's not anybody.

I didn't know about the group of supporters.

The only thing I knew about was after he was scheduled to go there was that he got to do the papers, which is for the TV or something, some media.

He's over-scheduled there.

He's not really used to every shot.

Again, it is the TV he's doing it on.

It's not about any clients.

He's got all of them.

He's doing the papers.

on the papers are not worried that much here, not even in Chicago.

So, it's a good step.

TV, I know, but TV is more important.

Just keep writing clients that are good on the back end of the tape.

The center guy's out there.

Because we've kept Henry off of TV, at least for the back end.

I have to go ahead and talk to the TV.

I mean, the charge about him, Chicago, wherever he is, I'm going to go talk to him.

On all these things on the trip, it's a tough balancing act, I think, because to, like on the security thing, we don't need any, and you can start on that basis, there's no point in taking any Secret Service at all.

But you can't do that as far as this country is concerned.

The walk-in, I think we do need it, because you do need some ability to

But not all the luxuries like the old ones and so forth.

A lot of it's like the mystery, the sublime, the ridiculous.

It's like those that my first year in New York when they handed out a damn bed.

and a mattress, and a mirror, you know, a special mirror that was high.

I've got five sticks.

We're not going to do any of that.

They're not going to do that.

I'm not concerned about that.

I've been to China.

It's any kind of Chinese.

It's probably the safest place in the world to eat.

You see?

I don't think so.

It's a hell of a job.

I see what they did to keep this going, all those big lockers and so forth.

I would say those are events compared to .

They have to do something for me, but let's let the staff and everybody else.

He had a little urgency.

He's done that.

I think it's very bad for us to all go in there.

On this case, I think it's an insult to them.

We don't need their stuff.

Oh, we have, we do that on all the trips.

See, they used to set up a mess for the staff.

We don't do that now.

We, the government gets out, screens us.

What?

You know.

Right.

They all go out and get it.

I've got to save some time for comedy today.

I just wonder maybe if I shouldn't do that then.

I'm sorry.

Well, we're saving some time for comedy tomorrow.

We should not do the thing tomorrow.

I'm inclined to think you should spend tomorrow with Henry and maybe Conlon and whatever, rather than either trying to do these writers.

I don't think the writers are worth that much.

Zipping over to Pittsburgh means that just the timing doesn't work out very well anyway.

All right.

There's some benefit to it.

Yes, they're called every day.

So someday, you know what we can do?

Call them every day.

Which would be a bigger thing.

Call them every day.

And call them to read matters other than the 500.

And put a day-long administration briefing on them.

And a reception.

And we'll talk about you at the end of the day.

All right, knock this off.

I don't think that's enough.

So we'll do this from section to section.

Now we've got to make some progress.

I made some progress last night on getting Pat, who I mentioned three weeks ago, for her to go as a representative to the inaugurated Pollard Library.

We had that.

With Billy Graham.

Well, Graham was only going as a member of the delegation.

That wasn't possible.

If it happens that there are any, I don't know how this is treated, and you check any other African countries to agree,

then she might too.

Or one more, maybe one more.

She did goodwill on, you know what I mean?

She used to do another, she made another shop.

So she never treated one of you.

I think her going there, and I wouldn't have her spend a hell of a lot of time in the library, not two or three days, just go there for a couple days, but her going there,

You'll be a very good man.

You'll be the first of the year.

You'll get good play.

She won't do a very good job.

She plays in the Nantucket.

It's like we've already played with the Latin Americans.

I'm never going back, of course.

Amen.

The collar is my friend.

It's all been served.

Okay.

I'll hear about that.

What you've got to find out is

not as a weapon.

During this chat with Rogers about it, he said, I'm planning to do something, but I'd like to do something especially for poverty, and so I'm anxious for me to come, because I'm going to be the career-highest, closest man in the world.

So I think I'd be glad if Willie Graham would come.

He's not a goat.

I think he'd just have to pack a little bit, and would it be worthwhile for her to go to a couple other countries?

We don't want Adele to go to tour in that circuit, you know what I mean?

You can only have one star.

I think Henry made a deal, in a very impromptu way here, I mean, that was bad judgment,

over there that all these talks and so forth are going to be the important thing that's going to happen.

That's not true.

In terms of affecting our election, which is one of the major reasons that we're doing this, God damn it, Henry doesn't realize that those historic things, I mean, those are mild.

I mean, he is so proud of his long-taught 17-yard show, and he counts every minute and so forth.

What do you mean about that?

So he's locked for seven, eight hours.

Period.

Is he my friend?

Yeah.

Nobody gave him anything.

Nobody got anything.

So it'll be a mess.

And those hours were causative before I had to shoot you.

No, we don't need one goddamn thing in terms of our dollars.

We've got to have a way to do it.

That's right.

Although you've got to put in the hours to maintain the facade.

No, no.

I must do nothing but work.

The counter-in-mind of other groups I've taken is that when she's along, I can send her out there and make the goddamn news.

In this case, it will be big news.

They'll really then probably give a hell of a ride.

Well, I'm just gonna...

If you have a...

He says they're gonna exploit her for propaganda purposes.

That isn't his reason.

He's got other reasons, but...

His argument is we don't want pictures out of China with people that are good things to the Chinese people.

We've got to remember these are our worst enemies in the world.

You think this is the same impression?

Probably.

What did you think?

You remember the pictures out of Russia when I went to Leningrad?

You've got the stairs and stuff.

You know, shaking hands with people in streetcars and mines and so forth.

Did you think the people thought that was bad?

The American people don't look at it that way.

They want us to be Russian people in China.

We're supposed to like the government.

It's our worst enemy, but the people are not our worst enemies.

Henry's got to get back to his contented head.

The main problem, I want you to talk to your brother, the thing you should mention to him, all right, who is our enemy?

The 750 million Chinese or Zhou Enlai and his people?

So the only picture will be Nixon with our enemy, Zhou Enlai.

That's right.

Or Mao Zedong.

And we don't have anybody with our potential friends.

He doesn't.

But his judgment is just visibly bad.

Of course, he's super sensitive to what the government is gonna want.

He's in existence there because what he's saying is they'll exploit her if she goes over there.

Well, then he says, but we can't do anything like that because the Chinese government won't like it.

If they're going to exploit her, they'll... One of the troubles I have with Henry is this.

God damn it, he gets his mind made up.

He deliberately jiggers himself into this trip, you know.

I didn't want him to make this trip in between.

I thought it was a considerable length, so he kept pushing off and pushing off, and I said, hey, that isn't the way to do it.

The arrangements you make, you set everything up, the final arrangements, the arrangements should not be made by a year going over at that level.

It's going to cause a hell of a problem, and it does cause a problem.

And he wanted to go back to him on a public trip.

And so he delivered.

He said, they asked for him to come.

And you know about that.

Well, it didn't come that way, Bob.

They didn't ask for him to return.

He said it that way.

That's what I've got to really get on him on this.

I've got to tell him in very, very direct terms what I am going to consider, Bob, on this.

You know, in terms of the reason I want to get him to press the thing down to the minimum and so forth.

I've got to know where it is, so that he can go to practice on it, you know.

He is supposedly going, and it seems to me this is the thing, the one thing you really want to do with it, is to confirm this by order, is that he's going with the understanding that he will not make any decisions or final agreements, that he will...

raise our position and then we'll raise theirs, but we won't settle on schedule or anything else.

He says that's the way he wants it, because he wants to be able to say, I have to come back.

And it seems to me, him making the decisions on the spot, what times you'll spend and all that, are not going to be the best decisions.

You're much better off telling him he's to do all the exploration, but then he'll come back here and review them here.

before he confirms it with the Chinese.

And that's the pattern he's talking about following.

All right.

That's a hell of a lot better pattern from our viewpoint than Henry and...

to sit over there and try to decide what you want to do.

I have no problem with changing the building, but I have a great problem with Henry because Henry will distort everything and fix it to suit him.

As he did on the European trips, he would have had to meet for seven hours a day with intellectual leaders or the community.

We have about half the time to do this.

A lot of them killed in the Philippines with us.

which was utterly useless.

Those babies were just not worth a shit.

Are you sure?

Yes.

They were just not worth a damn.

They were fine for the ten German dream-burger-busters that came in, the British intellectuals and the rest.

And I was talking to the intellectuals.

Well, he's learned a lot since then.

We're not going to sit with any goddamn intellectuals over there in China.

We're going to go to the twisties of this atmosphere.

Yeah.

I don't know if we've set this up enough for 5 o'clock.

Yeah.

Okay, where do we want to be doing that?

The guy who rapped up here, he did have those.

Remember, we were way over schedule.

And he also remembers Bob in Italy.

That horrible night where he had me meet.

that he represented every political party.

And I don't approve of him.

I sat there, talking to people that didn't mean a damn thing.

Like I said, somebody that comes here to meet Wallace and the Black Packers and all of that stuff.

And he just doesn't think that the world screwed up on that.

Sir, should we go to the flag the next day?

Everyone seems to be the favorite.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

He's not a bad guy.

Yeah, I told Cedric to put it out, but the President ordered it.

I wanted to put it out, but I ordered it, you know what I mean?

It doesn't really have to be that anyone can ask for it.

I know it has to be that way, Alex.

I just want Cedric to tell the press that the President has ordered the flag to be put out this morning.

I don't see something in that goddamn thing.

Yeah, we're ready to talk.

I see your problem, Henry, on this one.

I'm glad we got this conversation.

Well, I'm armed with that injury on us, and we're working fine on it.

You see, we both know the same crap.

I know what Henry did before.

He just went all around us on this, and I am not going to let him set this schedule up.

I mean, he just did that.

That European schedule would have been an utter disaster if we hadn't had that week.

As it was, we didn't exert enough influence over it, but we did pretty well then.

Well, there's nothing here of being sure if we did damn well, the second one's fine, but I've had the first one.

I mean, Henry had me doing so many goddamn things, I didn't even do it for anything.

I'm going to call on people and things.

It's going to keep it.

And you're absolutely right, you cannot send me.

Scaliol would, because Scaliol is too emotional and distraught to kind of handle this sort of thing.

He would be a good advancement.

Oh, no, he'd be terrible.

Never.

But he is good.

As I see it, he's getting his input and he has some concerns and he'll get what he wants.

If you look at the long range, there's some merit to the argument of not antagonizing any more of the press than we have to antagonize them.

Look, if we didn't have a problem, I'd take 500.

I really would.

Make them all happy.

The other side of the coin is how much of a problem do we really have?

We don't know that.

With the rest of the Chinese.

Yeah, I know.

Maybe they're willing to have 500.

There's none of it, like, and I'm sure he's, it's his own self-interest, but Scali's talking to, has talked with Richardson, isn't it, Richardson of AP, the guy that was with the ping pong team there, covered them, who said he's convinced that the reason the Chinese are doing this is because they want maximum publicity.

They see it as a publicity opportunity for themselves.

And that's where I'm never sure whether Henry's leveling with you.

You know, when he says they're shocked at the thought of 150 preps, they may have been shocked because there wasn't going to be 400 like it is everywhere else we go.

And he argues that Haile Selassie only had 10 preps with him.

Well, Chris Haile Selassie only has 10 preps with him wherever he goes.

He's lucky to get that.

It just...

Or to say that some Soviet leader went in and only had 11 press with him or something, but they've only got one news agency.

After tax goes, then there's nobody else to go.

Here, he only had five press.

I mean, five Ethiopian press, there were other...

No, we're not.

I swear.

I think that's making the vice president's seat credentials is really great.

Don't get away with it.

No, it's true.

It's true.

But get away with it.

Understand, I'll do it again.

Let me get tested for the next year.

Wouldn't you be bothered?

Whether it's Maine or Washington or anything like that.

Let's just go on the end of this market.

So that's the rule we should follow.

And the way you get away with it... Yeah.

is to have them do some major ones as well as minor ones.

The problem is if the next batch is all Africans, then you'll have a big flat.

If there's a decent country in there, too, it will help.

And it really will move the batches in some sort of associated way.

And after that, they're presenting their credentials and all that sort of thing.

I'm just going to play that really down, all the way through my stuff, unless we're going to get some sort of a story out of it.

The drone station and the 80 press is really the... And we cut the 80, but I...

See, if you get into the questions, like the Teddy White thing, there will be others coming up that maybe are interested in your desire to take.

Well, it's also very much to my desire to take some so we can screw with the other guys.

Now, I really need that now.

I don't think I have any goddamn enemies on this trip.

This is one time we could be very hard-nosed.

You agree or not?

Yeah, I do.

They can be really depressing, I assume.

They can make them mad and so on.

They're mad.

They are mad.

And it's like that at any invitation.

No, no, no.

It's like any invitation.

You're going to make far more people mad than happy because you can only take a small percent no matter what you do.

Even if we took 400, we'd make people mad.

In fact, we'd make more mad.

We would, yeah.

Why don't you let it out then?

We'll share it with them.

Well, there's only 10.

He's got a bridge to go there.

I want him to get down.

I'd like to have a very brief background to people working in the canyon.

What do we want to come out of this visit?

What will they want to have come out of this visit?

What are they going to try?

That we have to resist.

What do we want?

And what are our goals?

Here's his point, Bob.

Henry's gone over this at 99% as he's gone over it.

I mean, Joe and I present his position.

We present our position.

He talks about the historical process and some of the energy that might have been caught in this.

The point is, he doesn't get down to that point.

What are we going to say about this event at the end of the day?

And what are our minimum goals?

Because I guess the purpose of this is not for my benefit.

The purpose is to force Henry to take a brilliant 100-page book and get it down to what he wants.

And so that he doesn't really need, let me say, he doesn't need four days of eight, 12-hour conversations.

The reason he requires four days is that Henry, in his mind,

If you know you've got four days, you can talk for four days.

If you know you've got four hours, you can get it done in four hours.

See my point?

We have to get it done.

He's got a long blurb.

I'm not going to tell Henry what I heard, but his speeches are too long.

It's the same thing in this meeting in Paris.

He goes on and on and on about bullshit.

Now, he's always impressed with what I mean when these leaders try to come.

I'm very decent, but I come directly to the point pretty fast.

I said, well, now let's brush aside all this.

Now let's, what about this?

What about that?

And you get at it.

You've got to get at the problems.

But Henry's, Henry's like a professor, loves to talk.

And that's the other thing about my, when I go there, I'm not going to fire on them.

I'm going to go over and over and over and around and around.

They must be able to see.

To a degree, you can't avoid that, can you?

Don't.

Isn't it like you're,

I know, still we've got your, there'll be some.

But what I mean is, the Khrushchev of the Nazi was not bullshit.

I understand everything was cold steel and heavy stuff.

Three-fourths of it is bullshit.

If it really is, yeah, well, let's talk to him about the historical processes and so forth and so on and so on.

You see, Bob, now Haig's heart knows enough.

He'd deal with it.

So the important things are discussed.

Okay.

And that's what I'm going to do.

I'll do all the nice things.

What are we, and I'm sure you've seen this stuff, maybe we just don't worry about it.

The one that concerned China and the UN, Taiwan.

is Jeff Hart, because he's been solidly with us all the way.

Now, his book's done, and he's written a very good book, but he's also been very much with us on the China visit and all that, holding the line with the Conservatives.

Now he has written, I don't know if you saw his column, but he's written a column saying, because of the fact that if Taiwan is expelled from the UN, that crosses the Rubicon.

I can stand it.

with the president on everything, all of us, but at Taiwan.

But the U.S., if it really needs it, can keep Taiwan in the U.N. And this is the key question to conservatives of America.

Does the U.S. mean it or don't it?

We're putting up an apparent fight, but are we putting up a real fight?

And he argues we can level a real draft, which the Congress has already laid the groundwork very well for us on it.

that we will suspend all financial support if they throw China out or whatever.

Maybe that's not realistic, but that's the argument that's being used now.

It is getting through to... And maybe it only gets through the human events crowd.

If it does, then I wouldn't worry about it.

But I'm afraid it gets through past the 10% that's the human events crowd to the 30% that are basically...

The human events crowd is not 10%.

All right, 5%.

Great.

All right, 5%.

It's 2%.

It's a human events crowd.

But then there is something like 20% or 30% perhaps that are real conservatives who are going to not be very happy with, I'm totally aware, maybe we can't do anything about it, right?

There are going to be those that we can if we really want to.

And Henry's argument the other day would be we can't because of the Chinese, the people of Chicago, the communist Chinese.

Well, we're doing a hell of a lot of it.

I talked to the Italians, I talked to the British, and we talked to the... Well, maybe we're...

Yes, but don't worry, we're...

I know Bill's, and I know Bill is very much aware of it, making the public moves on it and all that, which he, it should be Bill, not even.

Bush is doing a good job of the apparent thing, and he met with, and he's getting good publicity on him.

He met with Senator Buckley one day, and then Senator Taft the next day.

Yeah, Bush, the one thing that's interesting is that

Get it from the slinging countries where we can, another example is I said that I saw Panama on one of the lists.

I've already sent that back to them.

I saw Venezuela on another list.

And we could just, there shouldn't be any question.

Maybe I don't get it true.

Panama and Venezuela indicating they didn't know which way they were gonna go.

Now Panama and Venezuela was in our history.

What kind of a goddamn world was this, you see my point?

That's what we're going to do.

And I want to know that other factors, where we can aid or something like that, where we can just twist their arms goddamn hard.

That's my point.

Of course, you've got to give us some time to do that.

I'll put my sitcom out if you want to.

Okay.

We've got to play the game.

It just doesn't make any good to play it publicly.

I've seen these congressmen today and so forth.

And the question is when are they losing?

And we're working just as hard as we can.

Well, I thought at first it was just a matter, as Rogers had said, we're going to lose it anyway, but we've got to look like we're fighting.

Well, Rogers is doing better now than we are.

Yes.

And Bill Bennett, I mean, he was, Bennett instructed me.

But I said earlier, looking at the broad range of stuff here, I've been concerned that the one thing that would hurt us out of all of us was it would have thrown China out.

And I think it will.

I know the problem.

I know.

It's all.

I'm just totally aware of it.

There's not anything I can do about it except, you know, what we are doing and pushing it every way that I can.

Yeah.

Okay.

I made him call me.

He said, and of course, he asked Richardson to go with him.

He was saying, he said yes, he said knowledge about what occurred in his department.

And of course,

I've seen these congressmen today and so forth.

The question is when are they losing?

And we're working just as hard as we can.

Well, I thought at first it was just a matter, as Rogers had said, we're going to lose it anyway, but we've got to look like we're fighting.

Well, Rogers is doing better now than before.

Yes.

And Bill Bennett, I mean, he was meant to construct it.

But I've said earlier, I

looking at the broad range of stuff, I've been concerned that the one thing that would hurt us out of all this was it would have thrown China out.

And I think it will.

I know the problem.

I know.

I'm just totally aware of it.

There's not anything I can do about it except, you know, what we are doing, pushing it every way that I can.

We'll have to go out and push it some more, too.

The speeches aren't, they're only speeches and things.

Yeah.

They're not what they do.

The thing they do is privately to arm to us the league governments.

And by God, I'll be with us on that.

Okay.

He said, you know, he said he was at the Catholic mission the other day.

I made him call them.

He said, I had a curse.

He asked where you should go to.

She was saying he said yes and said no, that he thought it would hurt in his department.

And, of course, Larry backed off of that.

He stood up off of it because he knew what was happening.

That's a funny thing.

I never saw it.

I can't remember.

Sorry.

No.

But Harry did make one point that was very good, which may be the reason that it has to be made, is that Bill was there in college.

It was odd that he could have said something like that.

Henry said, I've never seen such a weekend.

He said, here's a good thing.

Vange, Rumsfeld, I mean, all these other people sang.

It was a hell of a historic day, Bob.

It really was.

It was a hell of a historic day.

And those guys just aren't the type of people.

It isn't.

Oh, I guess.

They do.

Henry said, you know, it was such a day.

And so she didn't call all that time.

It really is quite discouraging, you know, to Henry.

I mean, he's all built up and takes the whole world.

And in this case, the world is watching.

This was, I guess the American staff doesn't even realize how very big this is.

And I don't think they do.

And I think that's part of it.

We, we, see this is, we do so much of that.

And this is,

No, we kid the congressional guys because they always make our tenants.

They always make each vote look so tough, and then they pull it off.

But the Russians are just a bunch of people who can't get away with it.

It's not after the service.

It's not for a long time.

Yeah.

And it got played that way around the country, but our people don't react that way.

They don't see the Russians for Christ's sake.

Well, part of it is because they don't understand it, part of it is because they didn't know about it, you know, they just can't get with it out of the blue.

And Henry, with the staff, see, he breathed the staff, he just pounded them on the head about, don't get euphoric about this.

You know, I talked to Henry.

And he was not even playing that way with the leaders or with the captain.

I played it as a very significant event.

I said, we won't have you for it, but it was a very significant event.

I said, Henry, don't depress the staff.

Don't tell them that this is not happening.

He just quietly, you know, he does.

I think he depresses them by saying, look, Bob, you've got to, let's not get excited about this.

He says, don't get excited about this.

Don't get carried away.

Don't start making a lot of promises that this is going to change the world.

He goes on and on.

And I just refuse to say it, because you know it.

I just refuse to say it.

We know that.

I mean, the way they say it, we have great differences.

These aren't necessarily solved, but we're going to talk about them.

It's very significant to remind you.

That sounds a lot better to say, don't be euphoric about this.

This theory doesn't mean anything in and of itself.

I'm going to go back to that.

Do you ever read one of Henry's reading books?

You get the difference in tone and color, well, in all these speeches that we make, you see.

That's why, as I said, Henry is not able to say, well, it's on the far side, and he feels on the other side.

Bill's thing was just right on the nose.

He's got four points, you know, the four points I want to make, Mr. President.

That's right.

But you see, have you ever heard him do it that way?

I don't think so.

I don't think he does it, I think it's...

He'll do it privately and he'll do it, you know...

I know what he feels.

He does.

and do it to you, that's the most frustrating thing of all.

This is, you know, anybody coming in and telling you what a great job you did.

I shouldn't do that.

He doesn't go out and he doesn't do it.

I'll call him, you know, and say, you shouldn't tell a president what a marvelous job you did.

My standard answer always is, well, tell a president that's fine, but you tell some other people who do that a lot more good.

That's good.

Having said that, I think we handled this thing, Bob, with great depth and skill in this one.

I mean, it went through the whole day.

I thought that was one of our, really, the top video demo running.

Well, the little press conference is a good thing.

The big press conference, I mean.

Yeah, but I mean the non-televised press conference.

That's what I mean.

But they, it was on film, right?

You should have dominated the news.

It looked all right, apparently.

I didn't see it, but they... Good picture.

They showed you up there talking.

So you'll see anyone, huh?

So you'll see anyone.

When you're prepared for the big press conferences, you're better lighted, you're painted up and all that sort of thing.

A little.

This is a little bad from what I heard.

I don't know.

The difference isn't all that great.

Also, when the news is important, they're listening to the words more than they are...

The short clips, if you're on for half an hour, you've got to be lighted right, you've got to be set up right for the short clip.

And that, I would never argue that you'd want to let it do a live thing for a half hour in there.

How?

Because then you just, you're on camera too long.

But when you're only on for a minute and a half, two minutes, thirty seconds in the various clips that they do,

Then it's like at an airport, yeah, but lighting's no good at an airport when you're along the fence or, you know, standing in a car in a motorcade, you have bad light and bad makeup and your hair may be must and your, you know, cuffs sticking out of your sleeve or something like that, and that's good, because that's what makes that an event instead of a staged presentation.

But you only get little bits of that.

But your general impression on the whole Moscow thing is what is it basically?

It must be that you get the feeling of the horror thing.

Oh, yeah.

And I think that's, I mean, first, the editorials.

There's immediate editorials, and they're all very strong.

And this is a big thing.

important thing and all that, made all the commentators make the point it's the first visit of a president.

Well, most of them say first visit to Russia is wrong.

It's a different trip than those of us.

It's gonna build over a period of time.

That's what's so great, I think, about both of these trips is that they're delayed release type things.

They have built into them an ongoing story that will carry for six months.

That'll pick you up into a held position as of next June.

Then the question is, well,

A lot of it is, how do you avoid letting it get rubbed off you?

What was planned and it was planned to do it at the end.

It should be one of the quickies.

Why don't we do it right at the end?

That will break up the meeting.

They can come at the end, but it should be a quickie when it's all wrong.

Yes, sir.

Ten seconds.

10 seconds here at the main stage.

We're going to fade the hell out.

All right, so we're ready to go to the bus.

Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Press corps management

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