Conversation 001-108

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And on the retail sales thing, I think this is terribly important.

Yes.

Well, one of the reporters asked me the question, they said, well, how does the president interpret the consumer attitudes and their reluctance to spend?

And I said, well, the president focuses

and has been very much impressed with the actual performance of the consumers in March and the strong retail sales figure.

Also, you've got to say that consumers also are reflected in the stock market, aren't they?

And in the stock market.

Consumers, sure.

Although I think really the stock market kind of reacts the other way.

When it's going well, people tend to go ahead and spend the money like they've got it.

Yeah, I see your point.

Okay, well, we've got a good balance anyway.

Yes, sir.

Will you have some time tomorrow, or are you going to be preoccupied?

I'll be pretty, but Saturday I'll have some time.

All right.

Saturday would be a better time.

Saturday, I'd just like about ten minutes.

I'll work out this fellow Ken Dan with you.

Sure, Adam.

Well, let's talk about it Saturday morning.

All right.

I have plenty of time, then.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well?

Mr. President?

Yeah, no, it's me, Manolo.

Oh, listen, I have Dr. Kissinger for him now.

Oh, yeah, sir, Dr. Kissinger, sir.

Just a minute.

Mm-hmm, thank you.

No, sir, no, have a line, no.

Mike, call him back.

Operator?

Yes?

Please tell him, call back in 10 minutes, please.

In 10 minutes?

Yes, sir.

Okay, fine.

Thank you.

Yes, please.

Dr. Kishore, please.

Yes, thank you.

Hello, Mr. President.

Hello, Henry.

I thought it was outstanding.

And I was at dinner at, in fact, I still am there at K. Grains, but I'm glad I can talk.

And the Indian ambassador was there, and a very well-known British publisher, in fact, my publisher, Sir George Nicholson.

What paper is that?

I beg your pardon?

What paper is he with?

It's not a paper, it's a very large publishing... Oh, you had a book, a book, I understand.

...book publisher, but who runs a big salon in London, very influential.

So George Weidenfeld is publishing out his...

Right, right, right, that's all right, sorry, sorry.

And Adlai Stevenson is...

And the reaction is absolutely enthusiastic, outstanding, very good.

And I thought you handled it with very, very great delicacy.

The question of residual force, the question of withdrawals.

Well, we didn't give a goddamn thing away, you know.

You did not give it away.

I was pretty tough.

But you handled it with really extraordinary delicacy.

And to stand up to that for an hour, I thought you handled China beautifully.

Well, China, we've got...

I know I'd handle that well, but, you know, kidding Deadman a little and say, look, this is not the time to discuss the other things, but we're ready step by step, you know.

I thought you handled Vietnam with really enormous delicacy.

I was just now...

assisted by the Indian ambassador, strangely enough, beating up Adlai Stevenson on the terminal deck.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That poor bastard, he doesn't know what to do, does he?

Oh, no.

The Indian ambassador is hitting him from one side and I'm hitting him from the other.

And the consensus here is that we have one minor technical problem, Mr. President.

You kept mentioning November 1st.

Actually, you had announced it for December 1st.

And if you don't mind, we would like to make clear that what you announced is the date that stands.

This is the one you announced last week.

November 15th rather than October 15th, that's right.

Otherwise we'll have an uproar in Saigon.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

And this is just a minor technical...

I know, I know, but I said November 1st.

I meant December 1st and November 15th, right.

And it isn't going to create any problem.

No problem, no problem.

But I thought...

Well, I thought that China was beautifully handled.

I thought you were very wise and it was tremendously effective that you turned that first question into a little speech on teeth.

What was the first question about?

Oh, yeah, yeah, about what do you wake up about?

Oh, it's a silly question.

Well, it was a silly question and therefore hard to answer, but it was important.

that you had a chance to state the, uh... That I sleep, I dream about peace all night.

I know.

You put everything else into a good framework, and you got a good hand.

I don't know whether you got any comments afterwards, but here, really, uh...

Well, we got across several points.

You know, I wouldn't let them drive me off of Agnew or Hoover, now that both of them are, frankly, people that are not my kind of people.

But I had to defend them, and I think people expect me to.

Don't you think so?

In a fine way.

What do you think?

Do you think it was worked all right with Hoover?

I said, look, you're not going to help.

He's never going to get out where you attack him.

I think that was good to say.

Don't you agree?

Absolutely.

And I thought that was calling attention to his great public service.

For 50 years.

No, I went around the table and everybody, there's another Democrat here, David, uh, Ginsburg, I don't know if you know.

Oh, Dave Ginsburg?

Yeah.

You mean the former head of the OPA?

I guess.

Yeah, a lawyer?

Lawyer, yeah.

Oh, yeah, you tell him that he was my boss?

He'll love this.

You go to the back of the table?

Yeah, yeah.

Tell him that he was my boss, he, David Ginsburg, and, uh,

Harris was my immediate busper.

David Ginsberg was the man that recruited me to go in the OPA

30 years ago, 30 years ago, David Ginsburg recruited me through David Cavers.

Mention Cavers.

Cavers is now at Harvard.

Yeah, I remember Cavers.

But because I was at the top of my class at Duke.

It wasn't because of me, because I was, you know, Fred, a good student.

It was outstanding.

Huh?

How did Ginsburg feel?

That's the one that he said it was absolutely outstanding.

he said well it wasn't really that good the point is the questions weren't all that good and they were a little stupid some of the residents you had a tough tough road to hold there i had to avoid a few things but yes but ginsburg fell all right you tell him that i remember that he recruited me he was the man that recruited me to be to go into the opa

In 1942, and he'll love that.

He'll love hearing it.

Will you tell him that?

Absolutely.

Yeah, and that one day you bring him in, and you have him for lunch, and you bring him in and say hello to him, okay?

Absolutely.

See, he was the head of OPA then.

Right, another one who was there is Kermit Gordon, the former director of the budget.

Oh, how was he?

He liked it, too.

He was nagging a little bit on that figure of $28 billion.

Oh, for Christ's sakes.

28 million feet.

What the hell?

I didn't say that that's the end of all.

I said, look at the numbers with regard to retail sales, with regard to automobile, with regard to housing.

So we're... And Alice Longworth is here, and she is, of course, praising you to the sky.

But the reaction was really very, very interesting.

Very favorable.

And I must say, I was tremendously impressed.

by the delicacy with which you handled the foreign policy questions, because this was a tough moment.

But the main thing was not to give anything.

I don't think we gave a goddamn thing away.

I didn't give anything away on, frankly, Henry Juno.

I didn't give a thing away on Vietnam.

I didn't give a thing away on China.

You know, like China, I said, well, no, I'm not going to talk about that.

That was beautiful.

I said, no, this is not the time to talk about it.

That was beautifully done.

What's up?

Okay.

But you see, with the way the China thing now sits,

is that we haven't said a thing and also in the way they haven't raised any expectations all of the expectations have been raised by the way i said where it's in effect as far as we're concerned we're ready to trade we're ready to exchange but as far as recognition and all these technical problems the other problems we ain't going to talk about them right now i think that's good now we're going to have a blast from the washington post new york times why don't we say we're going to recognize red china screw them

Don't you agree?

They didn't get you to this point in your China policy.

You did more in two years than they... Oh, this drives him nuts, Henry.

This drives him nuts.

That's what...

I really think we've done on China policy.

And Dedman, who was a decent, honest, liberal Democrat, you know, you notice how I played him up so good.

You played him beautifully.

In fact, you played off, you mentioned that you were playing off one of his questions.

Mm-hmm.