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Yeah.

Mr. Colson, sir.

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Hello, Chuck.

Yes, sir.

Well, how's everything on your front today?

Well, I think things are going well.

We're getting a little bit going with Mr. McCloskey at the moment.

Oh, are you working on that?

Yes, sir.

He, as you know, has made some pretty...

serious charges.

I think you saw Henry, or Henry sent you a memo, I don't know whether you've seen it.

About Laos?

Yes, sir.

Ambassador and everything.

But... Serious, but untrue.

Oh, God.

And he went on Face the Nation today and argued that Ambassador Godley had instituted a new policy that deliberately destroyed the villages.

So we think that some of the tougher House members were taken on this afternoon and tomorrow.

which is the way to do it.

We should stay out of that.

Well, we should at the White House, but...

The White House, right.

I think Laird might be well just to... Well, our state really should.

Yes, sir.

State really ought to say, after all they've taken an ambassador on, Roger should step up to that and just get it right in the nose.

Well, we've suggested that state do that.

We got a hold of them this afternoon.

What did they say?

I haven't heard back, Mr. President.

We asked Haig to get to them and also to have some of our tougher guys up on the Hill take him on tomorrow when they go into session and perhaps get a statement out this afternoon if we can.

I think he's going to, personally, I think he's playing it a little bit too hard and too early.

Well, certainly too early.

Basically, in terms of his situation, he's in the wrong party.

I mean, if he were on the right, he could be, but he isn't talking to a big enough audience.

That's right.

In the Republican Party, in the Democratic Party, he'd be talking to a hell of a big audience.

Well, it was interesting on Face the Nation.

He said that everywhere he went, he found the South Vietnamese were well-equipped, well-able to fight, too.

every bit the equal of the North Vietnamese.

And what he was really saying was that your Vietnamization policy has succeeded, which affects in some way the credibility of his next argument, which is we ought to get out forthwith.

Yeah, well, we mustn't allow his situation to distort our whole

campaign because... Not at all.

I mean by that, it has to be handled at levels where we don't escalate it.

He must be hit, but not at too high a level.

The state level's just proper and a couple of House members, but Ziegler should just stay out of it.

Completely.

He should just refer it to the fact, well, I think the State Department has responded to that, and that's what he should do tomorrow.

He should not respond to it himself.

Exactly.

And he ought to do that more often anyway, so that we don't get into this thing like that with him.

Well, you certainly don't want to dignify a guy like that.

Yeah.

Or elevate him any more than that.

Well, he's a little bit, I think he's a little off his nut at this point.

You know, he's very erratic.

Yes, he is, always.

You don't quite go this far.

It's a funny thing, he and Regal and Goodell are just rude of a kind, aren't they?

Yes, they are, and it's too bad with...

He's emotionally upset, I think.

Yeah, and he's basically, he's a fairly attractive, articulate fellow.

Oh, yes, he is.

It's a damn shame that he's gone off the deep end.

Yeah.

That's fine.

We have your hard hats coming in tomorrow, Mr. President.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we told him to come in.

Jim Hudson, who I've talked to this morning, said that he thinks they're going to be...

He thinks it'll go fine.

He thinks the attitudes are better.

There's one or two in there that still aren't completely back on the team, but the majority of them are.

And we're one by one talking to them...

I think it'll be a good meeting.

I don't think there's any risk that it'll backfire on us.

What is it?

What will be the sense of the meeting?

I mean, do we just hold the end or just discuss the... Well, I've sent you in a briefing paper which suggests that you hit the mud at the beginning on the economic issues.

After all, if they're going to really participate fully in the economic rebound that is obvious with housing starts up, which is a big thing to them,

uh they've got to get their own wage and price policy stabilized and that's what we're trying to do and the thing they object to is that being singled out and i well they've singled themselves out exactly i think that's just what needs to be said and they uh sure they're singled out but well i think what you can say is that you you've had special problems and we are really trying to help you with those problems right basically they know that most of them uh

And then if you can talk about the foreign affairs, they were still as hawkish as ever.

And I think that...

I think the meeting, I think it'll go well.

I think it would have been bad not to have them because... Oh, no, I think we should have them.

Yep.

They would have felt... Well, we didn't.

We had them before.

We're going to have them now.

We're not going to duck away from it.

That's right.

Exactly.

It's a good idea.

Yeah.

I did talk to Ed Brook, as I indicated to you.

Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

And that's on the track, he said.

Yeah, well...

He's, you know, let him go running off if he wants in months, but that's the way to handle it.

It keeps others a little loose, too, if they think something's going on.

Well, that's exactly right.

They're not quite sure what's up.

They're all a little loose now, the China thing, where it keeps them loose and so forth.

That's right, exactly.

I think there's a little different sentiment up there, Mr. President.

I think Saxby coming back the way he did, that's a pretty good

blow for us.

Well, it sure is, and it makes a lot of fellas think twice.

Actually, I think that when you sort of began with the March 7th speech, the April 7th speech, then the China thing, and I followed it up, of course, with the editors Friday night.

Which was very good.

You laid it right to them, you know, you can't, you can't leave, leave, were you there during the radio?

I heard it on the radio, I suppose.

Well, it's a, it was a good reaction, and the point is that they, we just,

You've got to take a very solid, firm line on things at a time like this or otherwise.

The moment you start getting gittery and reflecting the fraidy cats, then they're all going to get frayed.

They lose confidence in you.

That's right.

It doesn't mean that we don't have a difficult time.

We've got some of our hawks have been worrying, the doves are still worrying, and the war has been going on a long time.

But now,

The whole thing's winding down in such a way that people are going to say, well, now look, what the hell is the fight arguing about?

Is it going to be four months or six months?

Exactly.

Well, it clearly is a time to hold firm, and I think things are picking up.

Lou Harris called me yesterday, and they have completed their field survey, and he did not have all the raw data, but he said he did have raw data, but it hadn't been processed.

And he said, there's one thing I'm convinced of, and that is that the president has picked up quite a bit.

And I said, how much?

He said, well, he's certainly up from the last time.

He said one indicator is that in response to the question, do you approve of the way the president handled the Kelly matter, that the results on that were 55, 56 approval, and I think it was 37.

I don't have the figures.

I think it was 55 to 37.

And he said that's an indicator that... By his standards, that's... You know, our own standards indicate it far higher than that, but, you know, that's the way he puts it, excellent fare and all that sort of thing.

By the way he does it, that's damn good.

Yeah.

And you plugged into him what our ORC says in approval of the law, right?

Oh, yeah.

Yes, sir.

And he said that that was consistent with what he was getting, that upswing.

He hasn't told me how.

Well, the main thing is we don't get what he shows so much.

chuck is basically if he shows a shift upwards that's the big that's the important thing if the uh if the trend is up with all the other good things that we know are coming along that's what's really important and also we know what our own polls show on there and we know they're right because the orc is we don't load them at all we

Right now, if we can keep, say, a Brook in line and get Saxby, that would make a very major break.

He got Saxby, I think, for a while at least.

Oh, absolutely.

I think he came back convinced.

I think the facts are pretty overwhelming when you go look at him.

Yes, sir.

I think if a Saxby stays in line, I think Percy, even though you never can trust the gun, he's got more reason to want to stay in line with it.

political situation he has in Illinois.

He needs the money.

And he needs the money.

And you get broke quiet, which I think we can do with careful work.

You really don't have too many of our people out on the fringe.

Well, you basically have Javits and Case and Mathias, that kind of people.

Schreiker.

And Schreiker, yeah.

And that's about it.

You can't do a hell of a lot with them, Chuck.

Not a hell of a lot.

No, I don't think we can.

And Mathias is just

Just weak, that's all.

And Javits, of course, is going to play his own little games.

Case will play his games.

And Shryker, I don't know what the hell makes him tick.

I think he's weak, just like Matthias.

He's like what Matthias is, isn't he?

Yeah, personality-wise, he's very much like him.

Sort of a... That's it.

There isn't a great deal of strength character in either of those two fellows from what I've been able to see.

Unfortunately, there isn't.

There isn't.

They're nice fellows, but there's just no guts.

Very nice fellows.

Oh, yes, yes.

That's not the issue.

No guts.

Mac may begin to come around a little bit with Glen Bell taking a good solid line.

That may tend to, every now and then, make Matthias a little more nervous.

Yeah.

I think we're, I think in all in all that our situation is probably about as much.

I'm glad we did exactly what we did this week.

I think it was wise to do this for radio and not for television.

I think we've had enough television for, I think, next week, maybe if not next week, but the week after next week and get it on television again.

Would be time, yes, sir.

But, you know, people get, I think they get a little bit tired of seeing the man up there all the time.

Well, I have mixed feelings about that, Mr. President.

As you know, I was one of those who urged going on.

But the reason is that you do it so superbly.

I watched the videotape of the ASNE.

It was just magnificent.

It would have been great.

The question none of us can ever tell is when do people get tired of it and when do they want it?

That's a judgment.

Well, they probably ran some of that, yes, in a news show Saturday night, too, anyway.

Oh, I saw it rerun several times, yes.

People see it.

And the argument about taking away a 9 o'clock on a Friday night is a good argument.

Yeah, I'm not doing it.

And there'll be another time.

There'll be another time.

Well, it's the only thing that...

The only way we really get the message to people... That's when I do it.

You do it, and it's...

It's no other thing to say, but I just, we fight and we fight and we make a little ground here and lose a little here, but when you go on, it just never fails to get our, at least get our people, even if we don't make converts.

Once a month.

That's right.

Well, this thing finally, though, Chuck, I think it probably, either from those who heard or read,

or so little on television, it may have reached 30, 40% of the people in a pretty positive way.

Well, there were two areas you discussed, Mr. President, that you just go to home run on.

The Cali question, I thought you handled that beautifully.

And I think if there was public approval before, there's even more now because you put it all in perspective, which it hadn't been put in very well.

And the economy, the economy answers well.

were marvelous which is both of both of those are things that we want to strengthen if you want to strengthen exactly the economy issue particularly right well we'll come on with more of that later conley conley of course is very effective there we got to get him out a little more i mean he's out a lot but i mean we can't uh we may have to get him a big four on one time just let him

he's he's what we've needed in terms of a good spokesman god we just haven't had one but you know when you come down to it you know all of our other people who's are just they're good but they're bland i mean that isn't what they said they just don't say it strong enough well mccracken is actually kind of a negative when he does yeah his stuff is it is so so reasoned and cautious

And, well, the other way, on the other hand, it's best that he not do it.

Schultz is good, he's solid, but not colorful.

Conley's got color.

Conley gets up there and he bangs it out there as if he believed it, you know.

He's great at that.

Yeah.

Well, we'll find, I think we do have a couple of forums that we've been talking about for Conley on the economy.

Yeah.

We're going to start to try to do this on a very regular basis as some of the better figures.

Just be sure they're televised.

I think, too, that I think we ought to get Rogers out a little more on the Vietnam thing.

What do you think?

He's very good, I mean, with Peter on these things.

When it's something he's warmed up to, he's very good.

Yeah, yeah.

When he gets defensive, he's terrible.

Defensive, huh?

Defensive.

Yeah.

Which he sometimes does, but if he... What do you mean defensive?

You mean like when they pin him?

What do you mean?

What does he do then?

Well, he doesn't come through very strongly.

uh when he's when he's being pressed hard but given a forum of his own he's uh he's very effective yeah with a fine one uh he did that when he spoke to the vfw which was uh right after the revolution exercise god he was just tremendous uh because he did it with a lot of feeling and he projected very well when he got into a press conference he tends to yeah

Try him again, maybe on a forum where he's... No.

Well, I've got a... Of course, he's gone, I think, for... Yeah, he'll be back Monday.

And then he goes again to Europe, so we... Oh, boy.

We won't have him for a while, but I think he's gone for two weeks when he goes this next time.

He will be here, that's right.

He'll be here this coming week, and then I think he goes for two weeks after that, Mr. President.

What about Laird?

Laird is here, I think.

Yeah, but how does he come over, in your opinion?

I don't like to be critical of people with you, I don't think.

Not as effectively as you could.

I wouldn't use them.

I mean, I wouldn't rely on them.

As a good spokesman, no.

You see, that's the problem in the foreign policy field.

Beyond Rogers and Laird, there's nobody they want to hear.

That's right.

Yeah, that's the real problem we've got.

Well, I think it is, but I think that if things happen the way we think they're going to happen, that may be less of an issue in the next... Oh, yes.

And it's kind of an issue now that Bill Rogers does handle well.

If things are going well, he... Yeah, he's always...

He's much better when things are going well.

That's what I was trying to say before.

If you can't attend on something, he's not good.

But if he's...

Some things are sure running, that you're even better.

The...

This whole China business has sure got the duds and the tizzy, hasn't it?

But they don't know what the hell to do.

They don't know how to react.

They don't want to react positively, but they don't know what the hell to do.

Well, the timing of it was just masterful, the way it turned out.

It was a marvelous break.

Yeah, of course, the main thing there is that

We must get their hopes up too high because it's going to cool off now some.

I mean, nothing's going to happen in China.

It's going to be a very slow process.

So that's why I played it very down the middle.

I just say, now look here, this is important, but let's not go running around and thinking that tomorrow all

going to have great relations with china it's going to be a hell of a long time i think if you moved too fast mr president you'd get our constituents where you get the right areas that's right you've gone just as far as you need to go that's right but i i've been amazed that uh but they've been acquired as they have and the main thing is that we're still sickened by taiwan you see that's right and we will do that well anyway we shall see we this uh

We got Frazier in today.

He was fine.

He stood in line with us.

A kid?

He's a fine guy, Joe Frazier.

He apparently is, from all the reports we get, he's sympathetic to you.

Well, he certainly is good with young people.

I mean, he's a very young guy.

He says, look, you've got to work, kids.

That's why we had him.

We have Sammy Davis who's smelling around.

We'll see.

We'll wait just a little while, and then we'll do it.

If we pick up a few fellows like that, it has quite an effect.

Okay.

Fine, Mr. President.