Conversation 019-159

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So... Mr. President, I have Mrs. Conley.

Yeah.

President.

Hello.

Good morning.

I just wanted to call to see how John was.

He got a little touch of flu?

Well, I don't know whether he had a little touch of flu or just a little upset stomach, but he's just been... Been miserable?

Yeah.

Did it hit you, too?

Yes, sir.

Oh, gosh.

It's a good thing we were with you last night.

Yeah.

We hated to miss your dinner party.

Oh, well, listen, we didn't care about that.

We did.

You did a lot of fun, but I heard it yesterday at noon when we had this firing in, but it's probably not only that damn flu that's going around.

I think it is.

Ryland was telling me that in Takasha, it's really in epidemic proportions.

So it hits in various places.

Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry to hear it.

What are you doing?

You're just staying close to home now?

Uh-huh, and we just stayed in the bed.

That's good.

John's right here and awake.

Yeah, I'll talk to him.

I hope I didn't wake you up.

No, no, no, you didn't.

You're very sweet.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, they felled you, huh?

No.

I don't know what the heck it is.

At first, it was an upset stomach.

I was up all night, night full-assed.

That was after your Richmond...

It was the second night after that.

And then yesterday, though, I got a headache and started aching all over.

That's it.

I was afraid maybe it must be...

Is anybody taking a look, or are you doing... Not always.

You usually just wear it, try to wear it out.

Hell, I've had them look at my cousin for years.

They don't help.

I never found one that did any good.

The thing is that they have exactly the same idea.

You just sort of wear it out, and...

But there is an epidemic, you know, of the damn stuff going on.

Well, I didn't know it until I got up yesterday afternoon, got feeling bad, talked to the girls in the office.

I talked to Ryland about it on Wednesday, and he said it's in New York.

It's just...

one out of three at this dinner last night we had for the wallaces i know everybody wants to come to the white house 12 out of 100 canceled the day before you don't mean i mean these are people that are his intimate friends you know they didn't guess we knew they'd been planning they bought their dresses they had their gowns and they told their friends i'll have the flu and this is from new york this is from new york

So I just hate to hear it.

But anyway, you're doing well, John, with the market.

What the hell's happened to that damn thing?

Did you see what's happened to it yesterday?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's gone, Mr. President.

And Keith Funston came through the line, you know, the former head of it.

No, not Keith Funston.

He did.

But Don Regan, you know, of the big firm.

And I said, Don, I said, it's a good thing I got you here in Washington.

The market went up.

And he says, look,

He says, you tell John Connolly, and I'm going to tell you.

He said, don't you worry about the market.

He says, that market's strong.

I said, what about this dip it had?

He said, that's just, that's the way the market is.

Isn't that interesting?

He was very, very strong.

I think the market's strong.

You have 25 million shares, which, of course, that seems to be very significant to those fellows, because they think folks are getting in the market again, maybe.

Well, I think they must be.

But the main thing we have to figure is this.

Don't worry about it, you know.

It's this worrying about up and down that I think is foolish.

That's what's killing everybody around here all the time.

We wait every hour.

That's right.

And we say, well, and also not only the market, but everything else we worry about.

Well, what was the CPI this week and how much was on its insured unemployment and were retail sales up or down and so forth.

And you remember old Churchill talking about popularity.

He says, if I ever...

If I ever made my decisions by taking my temperature with a Gallup poll every week, he says I couldn't be prime minister.

Well, he's right.

I mean, you just can't do that.

Well, I'm just sorry to hear them sitting up here when you'd like to be down there and down home, but we'll...

It's one of those things that we'll...

I don't feel too badly this morning.

Oh, you do.

You sound bad.

Well, I mean, I can tell.

You've got some stuff.

I'm stuffed up.

That's right.

It'll pass.

You'll feel miserable and think you're going to die, but nobody ever died of the damn stuff.

I'm going to meet Malvina Whitman today.

You know, we've got this woman who was on the council's staff and is on the price commission at Stein.

I think that's a great idea.

They say she's pretty, too.

Is she?

Yeah.

So I said, that sold me when Stein told me that.

I said, all right, we'll put her on the council.

Well, that's great.

Has she checked out pretty well?

Very well.

Well, the thing that I had not known...

that i had not known first they stein was high on her because she's been on the staff had been on the staff as a senior economist for a year and had so good they pointed her to the price commission she's a dog she's the wife of a brittsburg professor but the other thing that checked out is that i learned for the first time that she is the daughter of dr paul von neumann

was the great nuclear physicist and here and was a member of the atomic energy commission and of course a major author on economics mathematics one of the great geniuses and they say that she is just as smart as he is and i remember when he used to brief us during the eisner administration he is one of the most impressive men in the world

So, you know what I mean?

Not that you always take people on the basis of who their fathers was, but this fellow, I just know, you know, this woman, she isn't just a woman.

She's supposed to be one of the really able women in this business.

Stein said an interesting thing, though.

He said, I said, well, what about this?

He said, well, I said, I've got to be very honest with you.

I said, why don't you get Malvina Whitman?

He said she'd be number one among all the women who knew in this field.

And then you have to go down 100 before you get another one that would even rank number two.

So she's apparently outstanding.

So anyway, I'm glad.

I don't know her.

Neither have I.

That's wonderful.

You know, I'm a little old-fashioned.

I'm out for a woman for a woman's sake.

But if this woman has got it, I will.

And, of course, Stein and his crowd, they'll run it.

But

How about she does a good job?

Well, it's a perfect place.

It's three people.

Three people with the strong man running it.

That's right, and with no operating responsibilities.

That's right.

So I would think it would be a great spot for her.

Well, I won't keep you in the phone, and I'll...

Oh, if you've got a minute, we had to pick up the paper you're reading.

You missed one of the most interesting things.

We had the Ray Conniff Singers, and before they came out on the stage, one girl with her hair down to her waist, there were about 16 singers,

and they're all pretty girls and nice looking guys and so forth the kind of singers are kind of square types of it she stepped out and stepped out in front of them i mean to the shock of everybody and hung out a homemade sign on cloth saying stop the killing and she says mr president stop the killing if you believe in jesus christ stop the killing of men and animals and children and vietnam she said and then she said god bless the

Daniel Ellsberg, God bless the Berrigan brothers, and then step back.

Well, you can't imagine the shock, and you remember the Earthquake thing?

Are you serious?

Yeah!

You read it in the Post this morning, and even there, it's, it's, it's, the audience, well, then what happened is, poor Ray Conniff came out, and, and they had their first number.

And there was icy coldness, nobody in that crowd.

I clapped, of course, but very few.

And Conniff says, I just want you to know that I didn't plan that first to act.

And he says, we're all at most proud to be here at the White House and so forth.

And then somebody in the crowd, I think it was old Jack Mulcahy, says, well, then act like it.

And then somebody else back in the room, to my utter amazement, said, throw the bum out.

Throw her out.

And then several people said, throw her out.

And Conniff, on his own, asked her to leave, and she left.

You don't mean it.

This happened at the White House last night.

Now, you tell Nellie what you missed.

That's the damnedest thing.

But can you imagine?

I asked Manola, you know, about it.

You know, I always get, he's my man to check.

I said, Manola, what do you think?

He said, you know, I heard it about your, about your, about in the 7 o'clock news.

Now,

This you can pass to Nellie to clean it up a little.

You know, the Spanish have wonderful profanity.

And she says, she's a hija de puta.

And I know what that means.

That means a daughter of a whore.

And he says, no, she's a whore.

She says, muchisima puta.

She says, a great big whore.

And he said, she acted like a streetwalker.

Isn't that interesting?

But I don't know what the heck they're coming to.

Well, that's the damnedest thing I ever heard of.

Nelly just threw the paper down and he said, tell the President it's a good thing I wasn't there.

That I would have personally taken her on.

I'm telling you, several of them were ready.

So I just sat and smiled.

Oh, I did one thing at the end.

I think you appreciate I didn't pay a bit of attention.

Of course, I couldn't.

And at the end, though, I walked up and thanked Ray Conniff and

And then I turned to the other girls and I said, we were so, I enjoyed your music and it's always nice to have our music look so pretty, you know, because they were pretty girls.

And then I turned to the audience and I said, we hope that Ray Conniff will have as great success in the next 50 years as the Swedish Digest has in the last 50 years.

And then he says, in thanking him and his very fine orchestral group, I know, too, that because the Marine Orchestra had played the accompaniment, that all of us would want to express our appreciation and our thanks to the fine Marines.

who have played a compliment, most of whom have fought for American Vietnam.

Boy, that place came apart.

So I had a little confrontation, John.

But what do you think?

Of course, I was worried, John, about Conniff ordering her out, and I almost got up.

I told Pat later, I almost got up to think maybe I better stop him.

But I was afraid if I tried to stop her that I didn't know the whole group.

I thought maybe the whole damn group was going to walk out.

But they didn't.

All of the rest of them were in tears, and they were apologetic.

She's not a regular member of the group.

They were one short, and he brought her in.

Well, I'll be damned.

I think that's all you could do.

You wouldn't have stopped her from being thrown out.

Conniff threw her out.

We didn't.

But he invited her to leave.

Well, that's fine.

I think that's fine, because if you hadn't, I think the whole thing would have really fallen apart.

Your audience would have been icy throughout the performance.

Oh, it was awful, that first number, awful.

I don't know.

Well, anyway, anyway.

I must say, I'm astounded.

You give Nellie a little... Tell her about Manolo's swear words.

That'll cheer her up.

Okay?

All right, sir.

Okay.

Well, get well.

Are you going to go up to Camp David?

Well, I'm going to stay here today until about noon, and...

Billy's in town, isn't he?

He is.

He was here tonight.

Oh, he was there.

By golly, yes.

And Billy and Ruth both.

Yeah, yeah.

And I wish you would because he's here and, oh, there was quite a gang.

Bob Hope was there and he spoke.

And, oh, we really had a gang.

Billy spoke.

Norman Peel did.

It was a good old time.

Well, I'm sure sorry we missed you.

Well, anyway, you just take care.

Take care now, you and Nellie.

And we're...

to tell her, you know, we're all ready for that big party in Texas.

Incidentally, on that, we do not have to worry about the date of the Latin thing because Rogers, in checking with those fellows, found that they would prefer to come to Washington.

oh so that leaves us completely open and so what i would like for you all to do is to pick the date that fits your weather the best all right and if it's nelly was saying may 1st but if uh if april 15th or may 15th is better we can do it anytime no if we push it it'll be toward the first june that's in other words it gets better later in the year well that'd be better for us actually because as we get then we're a little closer to moscow you know and everybody will be

It'll be nice to talk to the folks a little about the trip and so forth.

So you'd rather have it the latter part of May rather than the... Good.

All right, we'll hold it.

Bye.

Thank you.