Conversation 061-004

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We'll have to move a little faster this morning, because Jerry and the house members have to come.

They have to get home, and they're in trouble pressing down.

So, what I consider one of the most, what I consider a problem of

It's very hard to put any of this problem above others.

And it seems, I should say, that we have to see this frequently.

The President outlined in his press conference a few weeks ago, go to stopping the source of supply overseas.

This involves primarily the work of our embassies and their dealings with one of the embassies in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and Fraud.

Secondly, law enforcement internally, which calls for a much more intensive B and BD effort to eliminate domestically manufactured dangerous drugs, law enforcement at the federal level, and intensive implementation of the Controlled Dangerous Substances Act, which passed in November last year and became effective, I mean, May 1 of this year.

Third, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts.

And fourth, education and information.

In interdicting the source of supply, we've already done a great deal, as you'll know.

Operation Intercept began in 1969, which was to seal off as much as we could of the narcotics that were coming across the Mexican-American border.

Secondly, the Franco-American Protocol was signed in February of this year, which provided for trainings of overseas enforcement officers, primarily in France.

Third, U.N. activities.

We've added money to the U.N. fund.

We will be adding more money as other countries participate in that effort.

Fourth, we've been getting more cooperation from Southeast Asia with the South Vietnamese government in helping us to shut down the source of narcotics being stumbled into South Vietnam.

And fifth, right now, pending the report of Congress on the foreign aid bill, there is a provision which says that the President shall take into account the efforts of other countries, foreign countries, in stopping drugs and determining whether or not aid will be extended to these countries.

That basically is what we are doing in the overseas area right now.

In law enforcement within the United States, we now have a controlled dangerous substance act.

Now this does push the drugs in various classifications depending upon their dangerousness and potential for abuse and sets high penalties for traffickers and suppliers.

First offenses start at 50 years or $25,000 or both.

For second offenses, it's 30 years or $50,000 or both.

In the last two areas, which is what we are focusing on primarily in this new series of initiatives, treatment, rehabilitation, education, and information, we have prepared .

I'd like to emphasize, too, that this problem is perceived as a national, international problem, not one that is just a war problem as it's being presented lately.

First, we will be proposing a special action office

of drug abuse prevention could be located in the executive office of the prison.

The reasons for this are pretty obvious.

First, in the rehabilitation treatment

education research areas.

We had federal programs fragmented throughout the government.

In ATW, the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Health, the Office of Education, all of these have been involved in food and drug administration and research education training programs.

We've also had that in the Office of Economic Opportunity.

The Veterans Administration has their own treatment program.

The Bureau of Prisons has done some work in it.

LAA has done some work in it.

And most recently, the Department of Defense.

We had felt that it was necessary to be able to set a national strategy on drug treatment, rehabilitation, education, training, and research.

To do this, we wanted to have this office in the Executive Office of the President to maximize federal resources.

The way that he will work, he will be working with existing federal agencies.

In short, this man's responsibility is policy direction, setting a strategy, funding, and evaluation of existing treatment and rehabilitation programs.

This word is what we're looking for in this office, that we will have one man who is accountable to the President for these efforts.

When it's been proliferated the way it has been, it's been practically impossible to try to get one person who was responsible for setting a comprehensive plan, a national strategy, and holding him accountable for it.

Now, another word here that we haven't had so far is in...

evaluate the programs that the federal government is going to mount.

As this previous chart indicated, he will be working with line agencies.

They will be the operational units, but he also has the flexibility to go out and fund or contract with a state or a local program or a private program.

An example of this would be the Narcotics Treatment Administration in the District of Columbia.

We began this last year, February, where we found that the treatment programs were in the Bureau of Corrections and the Public Health Agency.

Those were the only two narcotics treatment programs we had.

We felt that we wanted to greatly expand the piece of treatment in the District of Toronto to reach out into the community areas.

In about one year, we expanded from 150 people in treatment to over 3,000.

This included psychotherapy, job counseling, legal services, family counseling, methadone.

The whole gamut of treatment was available in this system.

The results that we had had from that year of that program show that there has been a marked decline in criminal recidivism.

There has also been a marked increase in employability, people who are able to hold jobs.

So we're not saying that there's any one form of treatment or rehabilitation, which is the way that we're going to go.

It's not going to be just psychotherapy or just job counseling.

We're trying to include all of these factors in this expanded program, and it depends upon where the problem is.

In a city like Washington, D.C., you might need more methadone maintenance than you might need someplace else in the country where job counseling, psychotherapy might be the best form of treatment.

We're aiming for flexibility and the ability to be able to move where the problem seems to be spread out.

This is a preliminary organizational chart for the new office.

Administration, planning, evaluation, reports and indicators of how we're doing.

So far in the drug field, it's very difficult to know how we're doing.

What is performance?

I think the way we are thinking about this now is that you're going to try to have a person drug-free by treatment if possible.

But if that is not possible, if you're getting completely off drugs, we'd like to be making sure that he is a law-abiding, job-holding, tax-paying citizen.

That's what we have tried to achieve in the District of Columbia Narcotic Screening Administration, and this has called for some high-dose methadone maintenance for an extended period of time.

We know there are a lot of risks involved in this kind of treatment, so very careful procedures must be set up so that we don't get this type of substance into illicit channels as heroin has been before.

So we feel that this type of treatment will enable us to get men into jobs, to leave them in jobs, to be with their families,

and hopefully will reduce the crime rate, which has been clearly associated with heroin addiction over the last few years.

If you have any questions along the way, please just pop in.

This new agency will also, I should say, it's fixed a little on the NASA model.

There was a story about a year ago

how we could take this NASA experiment and apply it to social problems.

And what we've tried to do with the Special Action Office on Drug Abuse Prevention is to enable the director of that office to have maximum flexibility to chart his strategy to decide where he wants his money to go and then apply it there.

We're also going to try to set up criteria for success along the guidelines I just mentioned.

The goals are law-abiding, job-holding, tax-paying citizens.

That's what we're shooting for in treatment.

I'd like to go next to new resources, new appropriations.

This gives you an idea, generally, of where the money has been spent on drug programs.

This is generic.

This is law enforcement.

It includes education, treatment, rehabilitation, research, and incremental steps that have taken place since the last Johnson budget, beginning with Article 70, 71, and 72.

This was...

program for the 1972 fiscal year appropriations 201.7.

This includes law enforcement, includes treatment, education, research, and the 1970s budget.

This is what we proposed

in new money for this year, $120.2 million on top of the $201.7, plus $48 million of reprogrammed money in the Department of Defense.

I will mention that program in a moment.

This money here breaks out of approximately $15 million for the Veterans Administration to rapidly expand their capability to treat returning veterans.

It also includes approximately $70 million for treatment programs.

How exactly that money will flow through to those programs in NIMH or in a local or state program is yet to be decided.

We felt that $70 million, after seeing how we wanted to go, was enough money to do that.

This also includes additional money for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Bureau of Customs.

Bureau of Customs, we felt there was a need, particularly at ports of entry, to be able to expand the Customs' ability to detect narcotics coming through.

So this would go to detection systems, it would go to aircraft, hardware, things of that nature, plus 1,000 additional positions in the Bureau of Customs.

The Bureau of Narcotics and Danger is for us.

It also goes to overseas operations where they will be able to train foreign law enforcement officials.

We have found this to be very effective, particularly in France, where we began training some French officers last year.

Subsequently, they have been serving very well in and around the Marseille area, and a recent seizure that we had in Spain two weeks ago was attributable to the international cooperation we have had with the Spanish and French governments.

So we feel that our liaison with those countries at the law enforcement level has been very effective so far, and we'd like to expand that.

This also would go to increasing the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs' ability to inspect the internal manufacturers of dangerous drugs in the United States, including amphetamines and barbiturates, where we have a problem that seems to be expanding.

So we program one in here, and this figure is personnel currently working in the military who will be able to spend time working on their extended treatment programs.

This is a general breakout.

The total that we have come up with is $369.9 million.

Everything in this column breaks out approximately this way.

Treatment, rehabilitation, comprehensive heroin treatment.

This includes the AGW program's government administration.

This is education, training, community planning, law enforcement, primarily the Bureau of Narcotics, Dangerous Drugs, and the Bureau of Customs, and research.

An important part of the new Special Action Office's responsibility will be in research.

This is research on narcotic antagonists to try to find some kind of drug that will totally block the need for heroin.

We don't have it yet.

We are doing some research right now on this acetyl methadone, which gets a longer effect than methadone does currently so that we don't have to go through daily dosages to keep a person functional.

So that kind of research would be administered by the Director of the Special Action Office on Drug Use Prevention.

That is the general breakdown of allocations now.

Both addictive.

They are synthetic opiates and they are addictive.

We found that they do not have the same physically debilitating properties that you had with heroin.

also in the program in Illinois that is able to dissolve the methadone in a cup and it is taken with tang of orange juice, something like that.

And when they come in for that, they also will get a urine sample.

free while he's taking his treatment.

This blocks the craving for heroin.

Also, it takes about three weeks as a person is coming off heroin to increase the dosage of methadone until he's at the point where he can get no high euphoric effect from heroin.

Usually people that start in treatment will go right back out and Jack Carroll can see they still got a high front.

It takes a while to build up to it.

And in that period of time, you need to be able to talk to him, work with him, counsel him about his family, his problems, his jobs, what have you.

So it's a package type of thing.

I have one quick question.

The very small allocation of the 5% community planning projects, would you expand that a little because

I have a feeling when we did an appropriating process, some of our friends were trying to steal and show and have greater solicitude because administration guns emphasized that.

Yes, sir.

The community planning project money.

We had done research last year on the best community-wide planning organization that we could find was in Phoenix, Arizona.

I think it's the Community Organization for Drug Abuse Control.

And that is an umbrella agency that brings to bear on all the facets of drug abuse

The private organizations, the public organizations, local government, and pretty much that's a strategy for a metropolitan region.

Not just a heroin problem, but a dangerous drug problem, not just a black problem, but a white problem.

They're able to allocate their resources within that community umbrella where they feel the need is greatest.

It's had a terrific response from the public in the metropolitan Phoenix region.

And what we wanted to do with this money was to be able to provide resources to local communities, metropolitan communities, to set up these planning organizations so they too could approach it on a metropolitan basis and allocate their resources where they felt it was most necessary.

5% represents roughly how much money?

Well, I mean, it won't go very far.

This will finance plans.

This is not going to actually finance treatment itself.

This is so that the planning function can take place before the money is spent on the treatment.

Now what can happen is once you have a plan, a comprehensive metropolitan plan, which sets up certain types of treatment,

organizations, then the new special action office on drug abuse prevention could contract with one of those organizations underneath the comprehensive plan.

But this is just so that we're not just throwing one half willy-nilly at some of these communities, which right now everybody wants money for drug programming.

We want to make sure that it's spent intelligently and rationally, and that's the reason for that.

to be able to detect whether or not a person is, you know,

the military, do they have any program whereby they check to find out who the heroin addicts are and so they can separate and do something about it?

Yes, sir.

That takes me to the third part here is on the Department of Defense program.

At present, we are developing legislation.

This program would apply to all officers and most of them, primarily drug-dependent persons.

It provides for identification.

of these individuals.

Now the way this works is that we are going to be establishing urine analysis in programs in Vietnam, in Europe, in this country, primarily right now in Vietnam.

This will tell you at the outset whether or not a person has used heroin.

It doesn't tell you right away whether he's an addict.

There's also a or a reinforcement

a reinforcing diagnosis which takes place after that with another drug, which you can determine whether or not the person is an addict.

So, as he comes down this line, these are arm years, and it's not just a problem in Vietnam, it's a problem all over the world.

As he is determined to be a heroin addict, then he comes into seven days,

of detoxification.

This is in-country, be it in Germany or in Vietnam.

During this seven-day period, he will not have access to heroin.

He will be counseled about some of the problems that he's had and will be physically detoxified from heroin.

At this point, he will come into at least three weeks of mandatory additional treatment.

Now, it may be that a person who has developed a habit of smoking or snorting heroin may need to be detoxified in part by using methadone as he tapers off.

It may be that it could just be done with psychotherapy or job counseling.

but those three weeks of additional treatment on top of the week of 87 days of detoxification will ensure that you are releasing people that have had the most treatments that would be effective for him before he is discharged.

The options available for treatment

He can either go to a civilian facility, like the Narcotics Treatment Administration in Columbia, or the VA facility.

And that is the reason for the great expanded VA capability to handle returning veterans, $50 million.

Or he will be retained within the military at some of their treatment centers that are being set up now.

So we have three options for treatment.

Yes, sir?

Does this envisage anything at all for those who may be addicted to other than heroin, say methadrine or LSD or amphetamines?

The bill itself right now does go to drug-dependent persons, which is an all-inclusive term, but we are focusing on primarily here, our heroin addicts.

John Kester is from the Department of Defense.

He might want to speak to that.

We're starting on heroin initially.

Anybody who was addicted to something else could come into the treatment program.

The treatment is just about the same for any kind of addiction.

Is this underway now?

I'm waiting for legislation.

It starts today after tomorrow.

Your analysis machines are very simple.

It takes 30 seconds to make.

It's interesting, the point that was made, what Ambassador Cromer pointed out, it was only the worst of the problems.

We get the impression that the problem is the anecdotally, and it's just not the worst.

We assume that we will be making agreements there about the country.

This is a very desperate national problem.

A group of fighters finds out that of the new recruits that come to Vietnam, 50% give them some kind of drugs.

In other words, now, most of that 50% is marijuana.

But nevertheless, if you start down that road, you can be pretty sure that there's a pretty good chance to get down to an area where you're a little less inhibited.

You may go up now to Europe, and actually, you see some big sharks.

The kids started in the high schools where these people come from.

They started, they go over to Europe or Vietnam to go down there themselves.

And then they have an opportunity to wait for home.

They move there, hoping that their assets will be soaked in and the students will go the other way.

On the other hand, on the other hand, getting the service could move them the other way.

They'd finish the plan and it'd take the European situation.

They'd finish Rumsfeld and get back to Europe.

It says in there, from what they could see, that in the most obvious drug problem, rather than being among servicemen, it was among young people who were not servicemen, tourists traveling in Europe.

And if I did travel abroad and see these hippies running around, you know, on drugs and so forth, you know exactly what they mean.

You see they run around over there, you know, and you get people away.

The point that I'm making here is this, that what we do is we have people in the service in many places in the world.

There's a special obligation and also a great opportunity for us to take young people, young people who have been exposed to the drugs and who've been moving in that direction, who might move all the way in that direction and rehabilitate them.

This is a program that does allow that.

I'd like to also point that this three weeks of treatment is for everyone.

We will be seeking authority to keep people for that treatment, whether he wants it or not.

We felt that once a person has been identified as a heroin addict, our responsibility did go to giving them detoxification and treating them before it could be used to release them.

I've been on this committee now for over two years.

We've had people over in Vietnam and Germany both and around the places here.

Generally speaking, the urinalysis is effective if it's soon enough after someone's taken the shot.

But how often does that mean you're going to have to have people do an examination?

So the first part, the first part will go to trying to get this urinalysis set up for those that are coming back that are waiting until the, we can get them before they get on the plane to Cameron Bay or at Thompson as they come back.

If they've had it in their system within 72 hours, that will show up in urinalysis.

We then want to back that up with another test, an naloxone test, which will determine whether or not a person is an addict, not just a user.

Then we have a positive identification of an addict, and he goes into detoxification programs.

Then as we move back in time, time left in Vietnam to the GI, we're going back to about 60 days, and they will be taken on a random basis only.

about every two days, because you do have that 72-hour time period within that 60-day period.

If you have to get it within 72 hours, it will not show up in your analysis, and that is the problem we have.

Well, this is one of the great problems that civilian planes control, these people.

And we've been around in this various...

We're dealing with a kind of a culture here.

We're going to run into a lot of sort of problems of control as a military.

Even rigs, how are you going to isolate them?

During the seven days detoxification, they will be somewhat isolated.

It's not going to be a rig.

bars on the windows or anything like that but they will be in a very serious and apart at the two exit points from vietnam they will have to be under fairly close security then to keep the drugs from getting in amongst the troops between that and the three weeks traditional treatment they'll be back in the united states and out of the vietnam drug scene and

they won't be able to get drugs of the kind that they're used to getting in Vietnam.

So we think that by getting them out of the country as soon as they're detoxified, we'll go a long ways to eradicating that.

They will all be identified, and then when they get back, you can follow up on them.

Yes, sir.

And as far as making a follow-up after they're serviced for three days,

And then of course, they become voluntary on their part in the distribution of the service.

And it was released.

What I meant is, when I was thinking about it, well, once they're released from the service, and they have VA facilities, which we are also beating it up.

That's quite an adequate facility for drug use in this country.

Yeah, and that's not marijuana at all.

It's just not a problem.

Okay.

It's a tremendous problem, almost to the point of being a condition in parts of South Vietnam right now.

This program goes to primarily the heroin addict and those that are involved with the dangerous drugs, the amphetamines, the barbiturates, which up until very recently were available without prescription pharmacies throughout the country.

And now it's changed.

So this goes to the dangerous drugs and heroin.

The anti-marijuana campaign is still underway in South Vietnam.

Mr. President, may I ask, as a person who has an addiction, when he's in the service, goes through this process, his availability of VA treatment, is he considered service-connected disability, technically?

It depends, Congressman, on the kind of discharge the man gets.

In all except a very few cases, now the man is eligible for VA treatment.

And part of the legislative package that Bud mentioned to try to take care of a few cases of punitive discharges where a man would not be eligible for VA treatment right now.

But in more than 90% of the cases, he can't get VA treatment.

In a more legal way, does he get benefits as a person who has a service-connected disability?

Does he get paid?

You mean any case of benefits?

No, I'm talking about if you lose an arm, you get a service-connected disability for the rest of your life.

Does this person...

get that kind of illegal pay.

He wouldn't be eligible for that, as I understand.

That's a very important point.

This is considered an illness due to his own misconduct.

And it wouldn't be his service to the United States.

Yes, sir.

It all paid.

I read that as soon as can before we leave marijuana.

There is a lot of on us disagree.

I say on us disagree.

I stated with regard to marijuana.

But the position of, my position, and I strongly stick with the position that I have ordered for this whole government is at the negative point.

for a burn position, totally against legalization of marijuana.

Now, I'm going to tell you why.

There are a variety of reasons, but not the least of which is that, while you can argue, well, why is marijuana any better than whiskey?

Are there any worse than a case like A&M among other ones?

And as you can argue, it's that way.

In this whole area of drug culture, once you move the possibility of your moving further down the line of the heroin, they honestly, the hardship becomes even greater.

In other words, you take the individuals who are, if you take a soft line on the marijuana, they go, well, it's just a kick.

I mean, it's just a little fraud and all that sort of thing.

So they move into that group, and they move on to the day that they're extremely great.

I feel very strongly about this.

I've taken this decision and this government's going to take it.

It's not been easy because many of us in the mental health agree with it, but they will or they don't stay.

And that's going to be the decision.

We have to take the decision that is all out now with regard to treatment of marijuana.

We have to start here with the most.

But as far as the position is concerned, in this service, and as far as the national federal government position, I would regard it with state posture.

Our position is totally against any permissiveness, any legalization.

The other day I read the doctor's report today, the fact that they had discovered some new drug or something new.

Do you know anything about this?

I think it's called PERS.

Yeah.

The drug that is being experimented with in New York City that is currently under review by the .

We've talked with the doctors that are doing that research right now.

They've come up with rather inconclusive results.

They don't feel that it has proven its efficacy right just yet.

They haven't had a large enough sample.

This part of the research program for the Federal Action Office will be to explore any drug that will have the effect of its claim for first, but right now it may not be within the same board where you've seen it as an investment for a new drug in the FDA.

Who did it?

over again when the program is going to be announced.

It's scheduled for announcement on Thursday of this week.

The message will make reference to the new office, what its functions will be, the appropriations.

The military program will be sketched out.

Generally, this is all over the world, not just in South Vietnam.

We will also discuss a number of the measures that have been taken in the international field, diplomatic area.

that have been underway for the last two and a half years.

And we expect to go with that around 11 or 12 o'clock on Thursday.

When will the appropriation amendments come up?

We're still working on that right now.

We've already marked out the state justice and as the, our guidance to justice.

We've marked out the veterans administration that has the money in that.

And we're about to get to the floor.

Yes, sir.

We were planning on a supplemental appropriation.

We were trying to work how we could do that.

There were some suggestions about rebuilding the buildings up there now, but that's not, can't be done.

So we're thinking of a supplemental appropriation.

So we can pass our bills and go to the Senate probably.

You mentioned a thousand new customs personnel.

Are those essentially inspectors or inspectors?

The breakout is with inspectors and agents and clerical backup.

They haven't specified.

I haven't seen exactly how that breaks out.

I have a meeting Saturday at the border city's conference and this is a big problem.

They do this completely inadequate to the inspection procedures of the border, not on personnel.

As he mentioned, of course, the various things we're doing .

As you'll know, we're really trying to get this thing in four different ways.

The first one is the sources of supply.

So sources of supply as far as the United States is concerned .

And by that I mean

When I say Turkey, that's where it's grown.

The Turks do not use it.

They grow poppies in Turkey and then they go over and it's processed from France and other places.

It's about 75% of the heroin that comes from the United States comes from that way.

The rest of it, other parts of Asia,

Now, so we're working on the Turkish problem, we're working on the Turkey problem, and we have some time with considerable cooperation between us.

And also we're working on the problem in Southeast Asia, because the poppies are growing in places like Laos, Thailand, America, the whole area.

sources fly to Kansas.

A point should be made on this.

Let us suppose we are able to stop those sources.

If the demand still exists, they're going to grow someplace else.

So you see, it's very important to get it back.

But if the demand continues to grow as it has been growing, they'll simply move and make it someplace else.

Second point, with regard to prosecuting those who are

pushers and distributors of drugs.

We've made considerable progress.

We've had some huge hauls in the last few weeks.

Over a $100 million group of drugs have been picked up.

But if you take a $100 million group and pick it up, it's very significant by itself.

However, if you look at the total problem and find that, and we don't have statistics on this, there are no estimates, it will be solved this time.

But if the $100 million is only $1 million out of the $1 million, $100 million out of the $1 million, whereas before you picked up only $25 million but it's only out of the $100 million, then you're simply taking one step forward and two steps back.

So the source of supply doesn't do it because they can move to support the source of sanctions.

Moving on, as we are on the very strong law enforcement program, if they continue to have a greater number of people who are violating the law, then you come to the treatment of addicts.

This, of course, is going to be the main problem in the White House office.

It ought to be drawn in here.

Nine different government departments deal with this problem, and the press is one of nine, and far have to do it.

And many of them talking with different voices.

I mean, you have somebody come out in the state as I did in the press conference, and this administration opposes the legalization of marijuana.

And somebody in a lower echelon department says, well, marijuana's not that bad.

Somebody just wants to get a warning when you're trying to get into this thing.

You can't have that.

You're either going to have one line or the other.

I may be wrong.

We may be wrong.

But you've got to take one position or the other.

And so we're taking the line.

As far as the treatment of anthrax is concerned, the year we leave, it can have an enormous effect because the

Because when you look at the pushers and the rest, we find that those who become addicts obviously become something in order to get money.

So it grows and feeds and it's often very .

But now you take the three of them, right?

You take the addicts, you cross them through the pushers, and you test the source.

It's a rather spongy area of education, except you have to change the attitude of the people.

Young people disregard drugs.

An interesting thing with regard to statistics, we've always had the impression, we've heard this before, but I think it's worth repeating, we've always had the impression

Drugs, basically, as far as the United States is concerned, is a ghetto culture.

Now, it is true that if you look at the numbers in the United States, approximately 50% of those who are heroin addicts are not white.

50% are white.

But the proportion is very, very radically changing.

And this change is also, in another respect, is moving from the ghetto before

a laureate company, Hopeless Times.

It's moving into the non, into the white or non-black area outside the central cities, into the suburbs and the upper middle class.

But it's moving for Chappell, not only for high schools, but it's moving particularly in many of the colleges and universities in certain areas.

where basically it depends on the atmosphere there, the colleges or universities or the military units and the attitude with regard to who is going to grow.

Now, what this really comes down to then is the need for a massive public program of public education with regard to the state and so forth.

I suppose from this one thought, it can be done.

No societies in the world who just relax and say, well, we can't do much about it.

It's a sad human problem.

If people have problems, they don't take drugs.

They go down that path of questions.

In the case of the Japanese,

They had a very serious problem with this.

They, of course, they have dealt with it so severely that they've gotten them to pushers, they've gotten them to suppliers, they've gotten people to violate their own program of education so severely that they have made rather remarkable strides.

And if people violate the law there,

I think one of the things that really troubles people is that there aren't more

there's a need for greater incentive.

What if the government doesn't want to put up a felony and I can see some problems with that?

What about a non-profit

a corporation or a group or a foundation of people with some oil to make some money available, to make some kind of a substantial reward available to anybody who might have been sleeping in the prosecution of somebody who pushed hard drugs, particularly at a high school level or any school or something, so that you could really have some prosecution.

I don't know if that had any merit, but I just think that somehow or other we got to identify these people and prosecute them.

And this reward that was made available for evidence leading to those people that were involved in the bombing of the Capitol, that was useful.

The Detroit News has a program like this, and it's been very helpful.

Well, just kind of generally, but I suggest one just directed to this drug problem, Mr. Richards.

On that, I think it's worth noting interrelationship with this court reform.

In New York City,

They were backed up about 35,000 narcotics offenses in the courts.

And in Tennessee, when you got a jammed up situation like that, of course, just to let them call a plea.

And they were taking lesser pleas.

We had moved LEAA money to New York to set up a special narcotics court.

alleviate this problem and make sure that these narcotics violators particularly pushers are brought to prosecution for the narcotics offenses rather than the monster offenses and if this works in new york city then where we have congestion that's contributing to this problem we can do this in other places through making leaa funds

We've done some research on that in the last few days.

We don't know what we can do just yet.

And that does go to police and BNDT and Customs agents right now, so we're having to reassess that.

Is it correct that it takes about $15,000 a year to support college verification?

In the United States, it's around $50 a day.

About $50 a day, $50 to $100, depending upon the market.

To show that, well, of course, New York City is the first, I guess, prime example.

The number, there are probably many more who die of drugs than is really ever given to the public records because these statistics are inadequate.

Families don't want to know, etc., etc.

Many, many people say they died of natural causes, drugs, etc.

But the number in New York City last year was over 1,000.

And that is probably heroin.

A thousand people died of heroin here in the city last year.

Consider it more effective to .

Mr. President, could I mention one thing?

Sure.

I'm pretty much interested in your kind of statements that people in the administration have walked on.

This wouldn't stay in the administration.

We have comments that you've watched.

cigarettes over a period of six or eight years.

When he started out, even though the Surgeon General was very strong in his testimony about blood cancer and cigarettes at heart,

And they were taking lesser pleas.

We had moved LEAA money to New York to set up a special narcotics court.

to alleviate this problem and to make sure that these narcotics violators, particularly the pushers, are brought to prosecution for the narcotics offenses rather than the lesser offenses.

And if this works in New York City, then where we have congestion that's contributing to this problem, we can do this in other places through making LDAA funds available.

Figure out some way to get more publicity to focus down on people and their prosecution, too.

You covered it.

Covering the probation with regard to those who take bribes.

We've done some research on that in the last few days.

They're under the federal .

We don't know what we can do just yet.

We're under the statute just in time for these justices to appear and get some control of the Dangerous Substances Act.

And that does go to policemen, BNDT, and customs agents right now.

So we're having to reassess that.

Mr. President.

Is it correct that it takes about $15,000 a year to support college reputation?

In the United States, it's around $50 a day.

About $50 a day, $5,100 depending upon the market.

It shows that, well, first, New York City is the first, I guess, prime example.

The number, there are probably many more who die of drugs than is really ever in the public records because the statistics are inadequate.

Families don't want to know, etc., etc.

Many, many people say they died in active violence against drugs.

But the number in New York City last year was over 1,000.

And that was probably Harold.

Right.

1,000 people died of Harold in New York City last year.

It's considered more .

Mr. President, could I mention one thing?

Sure.

I'm very much interested in your kind of statements that people in the administration have walked on.

This wouldn't stay in the administration.

We have comments that you've watched.

cigarettes over a period of six or eight years.

When we started out, even though the Surgeon General was very strong in his testimony about blood cancer, about cigarettes and cards, the medical capacity seemed to be split as the years went on due to the adamant position of the Surgeon General and

and others, and other doctors, and others, have to reach the point where the tobacco people found great difficulty in finding the ice-free conductors that we had before.

And when they had a question, the trouble was that they couldn't see the rest of the day.

And it shocked me when you listened on television to a debate between a couple of doctors about whether marijuana

is that it's bad and one of the pieces we can find.

The other reason is a lot of doctors in government, all of the ministries, all of the VA, never showed up.

And I think, even the high school kids, the rest of them, everything that can be done as a surgeon general and a government doctor is out of that business of putting cigarettes in the mainstream.

I'd be able to stop some of that.

The evidence is not conclusive on cigarettes.

through numbers and so forth, they're more likely, people who smoke cigarettes, they're more likely to have cancer than people who don't smoke cigarettes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, this is not inclusive on marijuana.

Marijuana's bad because there are different kinds of people who use it.

They don't get addicted and they don't go on to the letter.

It's a harder drug and so forth and so on.

But the point is that there are some times when it's necessary to go on.

I've considered all this and I've read all these things.

and there's a lot of psychiatrists that work with places like the National Institute of Mental Health to come down on the progressive side, because basically they're probably all on the stuff themselves.

And as far as I'm concerned, we've demonstrated such a hard line.

It's going to be a hard line on that team.

And it will be considered square, and et cetera, et cetera, but I think it's right, and we've got to.

You start moving across that line.

I don't mean by that, but it's called marijuana.

They become hard criminals and so forth.

As far as, for example, Philadelphia, your attorney there has an excellent program.

The program is that they have an indictment before the indictment.

they bring them in and put them on basically on probation before indictment.

So that your young people who just are out on the plane, they get caught into the web.

They do not have a criminal record if they behave themselves for a period after that.

That's a very good thing if you're thinking of it.

So a kid is out on the plane and somebody gives him a marijuana cigarette and he smokes it.

And then he gets caught, so he gets in, and he becomes a criminal record for life, and there's a pending job, and all the rest is the way to hell.

This is an enormously effective thing.

Also, there's a sports club.

It's true that an inspector's program is one of the relevant programs.

What I'm simply saying is that I know I'm sounding hard-line.

I want to do away with all the evidence.

Well, we'll wait 100 years before all the doctors agree on this.

We're not going to wait.

We'll watch.

It's a problem.

Because it is a problem in the sense that

And the percentage of those across that line to go further is significantly greater than those that don't cross it.

So we're not going to cross it with our help.

That's the way it is as far as the federal government is concerned.

Mr. President, as far as the financing of the program is concerned, Frank, I hope you agree with me on this.

I think it would be a good idea to submit a supplement to fiscal 71 on the whole thing and

the part that is not in the DOD because if the DOD has that kind of money that it could reprogram, they better hold on to it for fiscal 72 because they're going to need it for other purposes.

And for this purpose, Frank, in a supplemental, there's no problem.

You'll get the whole amount without any reduction.

This is St. Peter's.

Looking down the road, you'd better hold on.

The market was so far this whole month's gone in on all these programs.

There's no telling of any of the programs.

I should emphasize that.

The whole administration is completely...

that's the line we're gonna take.

That's why the White House's control is so essential.

Frankly, it's going to be given the same technical direction to control the cancer .

I consider it that important.

Well, it could be more important.

Well, it's important to understand why they're cutting out some rivalry between certain agencies.

Yeah, because it's been very bad.

Oh, of course.

Well, they even bumped it into prosecution.

Well, I will talk about that later.

Well, they don't have a rivalry of who can do what.

They've been fighting for years, and they spend more time fighting each other than fighting the dope traffic.

I don't know if the White House position will clear that up, or if that's been serious.

Could you give us, Mr. President, the reaction of the Ambassadors to meeting with you?

I was here, so they had to react.

The problem, actually, with regard to an ambassador that is accredited to another country is always, how does he get along with the other country, the relationship between that country and this country, and how does he also carry on a program which might be detrimental to those relations?

and so forth and so on.

But to the ambassadors, I said that I considered a higher priority, a higher priority than trying to work out the relations with this or that or the other country stopping at this track.

They had to put that at the highest priority that they were going to form their opposite numbers, in other words, prime members, et cetera, et cetera.

We considered that the Congress, of course, was in the mood to cut off any kind of assistance or and or relations with countries that did not cooperate, and that we wanted to avoid that.

Now, one thing that's very important, in order to accomplish it, you must purge these factories in the upper community.

You accomplish it without losing face-ups.

If you remember, we're the customers.

It's an interesting thing about these countries.

They don't use this stuff.

I mean, they're smart, they grow it, but they don't use it because they don't know what it'll do.

But nevertheless, nevertheless, ambassadors in this industry

No, and they know very clearly after the meeting.

I think they've known it previously, but on any regular basis.

Now they know it on collective basis.

The State Department knows it on all levels that I consider this to be the highest priority.

And, therefore, we have to put it first and put it above the fact, well, now how can I do something that's going to make the Prime Minister feel good today?

Which, of course, is the natural attitude of the ambassador.

So, of course.

It's even more important than textiles.

Which is another problem.

So we would like to go, let's set it up for us.

We talked about this before.

I've had this talk for two years.

We had the first briefing.

Everybody's home.

I say to most people here,

tragic stories against the American people generally are very, very, very strongly in support of this kind of program.

But I think it's important to bear in mind that one, the program, the interest in the program has been heightened by disclosures with regard to American service and Vietnam.

It made no greater of a statement to think that that was

Because before Vietnam, the problem was the problem is the problem is the problem is in young people generally.

The problem is in non-service people as well as service people.

The problem is in service people in Europe as well as in Vietnam.

And it's our responsibility

Wherever we get young people, wherever they are, whether they're in Germany or whether they're in Europe or in other parts of Vietnam, we do everything that we can to send them back after their period of service.

drug-free.

That's what we're trying to do.

And this, we think, is a very great goal, very good one.

As a matter of fact, I really believe that with this program, we're going to be able to take a lot of people to go through the service.

This will be after Vietnam is over, to go through the service.

And we'll come in, as Abrams pointed out, with some exposure to drugs.

This will be the case, as he says, of approximately 50%.

I think part of the whole process of the service

should be to have an educational program to indicate the danger, and second, a program that is really tough with regard to the hard drugs, finding out their own, try them out, send them out as drug-free as possible, and after that, VA service for those.

Mr. President, I'd like to encourage you, I don't know whether you will or not, to go on television

Tell the people that this is a national problem.

This is your brokerage account.

It's always your brokerage account.

I've delivered four of the drugs after each of the times.

That's why, whether it's four drugs, it's hard.

Well, particularly, if I can see these, these...

The difficulty is that I'm going to be, when I speak to the AMA, I'm really going to take the height off of them.

See, the doctors themselves, of course, they all, they're, but the doctors can do a lot more.

We all remember our family doctor, Ulysses, he's carrying that, if nothing more, and also, but the doctors, you know,

But that's, of course, I want to go, doctors want to prescribe heroin.

But on the other hand, you can take a lot, an attitude toward marijuana.

You can take an attitude toward other drugs.

And frankly, the doctors have gone overboard getting prescriptions.

They really haven't.

They go, they go from the ups and downs and so forth.

And a lot of those are by prescription.

You get people hooked on those things, and then they go right on down the line with something else.

And the medical profession bears a great deal of responsibility.

The pharmaceutical industry bears a great deal of responsibility for letting a lot of this stuff out so easily.

I reckon now we're referring to how did you see the other drugs that one of you mentioned in your comments and the rest.

They could be pretty bad too.

We're gonna have withdrawals.

That means people could die after withdrawal.

second to all of these sections.

But they contained too many.

So we really got it to get the thing under the control of that field.

And we traveled this land, among many others,

There will be an argument based on the word that has gotten out to the press.

We have any

Any word on this as to whether or not they have actions in any type of school?

No, the government of the state, I'm sorry, the government of the state, the president of the state, there are suggestions that the problem did not arise.

There are, of course, as always, where any kind of traffic like this involves the government and so forth.

The government of Vietnam in one case and Turkey in the other has moved on those people who haven't gone.

The Black Sheep and the family out there, the brother of the prime minister, Kim.

One terrible story that I read about vending stands on the road between Saigon and Bien Hoa, where you can just pull up and buy heroin.

I'd like you to buy it.

Here you go.

Well, I think that was where they had moved on.

We had this pressure in the last three or four months.

It was still five, two weeks ago without any problems, is that right?

Yeah.

I don't think it, we're going out of the, the, I don't know if I have to do anything.

I'm just saying I'd do what you'd like to do.

Yeah, sure there are.

There are 38 votes for, there are 52 against, and there are six uncertain.

Of the six uncertain, at least two are leaning against, so it looks like 54 against,

438-4.

It may get better part of this 4.

In other words, the vote will be about the same as it was last year, 39-55.

Very close to it.

We both wait to see the 4-5 o'clock tomorrow.

I

We'll have it straight up and down.

The government has to.

If you know of any amendments, come on in and let us know.

That's a process.

They're going to lose.

There might be an effort to amend it and push the date farther along or something like that.

We've discovered that if the next one changes to mid-72, we lose.

There's some votes.

I think there's five or six that lose.

That might be the question.

So far, we don't have any solid indication that they're going to do that.

It is a problem.

It was that and Ken.

I'd rather expose what they were trying to do.

I just need a version of that.

Please withdraw.

So we just want to be sure that we're supporting it.

They're just trying to get ahead of us, of course.

It's the second thing, frankly, as we've said so many times.

And they're really getting so ridiculous now that it's getting out of the way on that point, if I may say so.

But it was like the last days of the church.

He said we would be out in 60 days.

We were out in 60 days.

Yet the Senate had to debate and so forth and so on to say get out in 60 days.

What does it mean?

Not a goddamn thing.

Except the Senate wanted to say we got him out.

In this case, sir.

The real question, of course, is whether or not they believe we are getting out and what we are going to accomplish in the way that we are going to accomplish.

There is an intention to lay down a cloture on Monday the 21st.

A cloture?

A cloture, yes sir, and the Senate will sign it.

I believe he already has signed it, Bob and I have signed it.

And Stanley says he has not been turned down yet by any of his other Democratic colleagues in going along.

He's going to a one-by-one.

He may be short some on the first cloture, and if so, I would expect a second one to follow pretty soon.

That'll be cloture on sale, and all amendments there, too, until Stanley sticks by his presidency.

Mr. President, in honor of Reverend Hatfield, just to brief those of you in the Senate who haven't been approached by yet, the Vietnam veterans against the war are very high with all the hazy, idealistic kids back in town.

They're approaching two or three or four at a time to talk to the Senate.

The ones that I had in yesterday

They couldn't be nicer kids.

They were really great kids.

Some of them were special forces.

Some of them had fat pilots.

I mean, they've been there.

And their pitch at the moment is that the day is needed as it is to stop the war.

And I say that's very easy.

How do you do that?

Their feeling very strongly is that once we get out,

the Vietnamese effort to try and defend themselves would probably go down the drain.

And that what could be done is some kind of an urging to some sort of coalition government.

I'm not saying I'm sure of the word they said, but this is the pitch that they're in at the moment.

And it's going to be pretty persuasive, because they've been there for quite a long time.

have fairly intimate connections with the Vietnamese guys and lords, not the generals, not the presidents.

They are very handy, too, and handy people.

And I think they may make some impression on some people.

And on this one, we've only lost seven reproducers so far.

There's three.

Henry, I think we, I think they wanted you to spend, if you'd like to spend a brief time on, I don't know, the house poppers coming up, it might be of interest to Terry.

I think I shouldn't say something about my own position.

My vote is about voting.

My vote for the

That had to have been a bitter choice.

That being my date, I just can't keep back from there.

We did it because I'm the only great public left in the whole of that area.

But our people just wanted out of there.

This narcotics conference.

And me and them are the ones that worried the hell out of it.

This market, the full city of Narrow Dakota, is the worst place to work.

For our fire watchers, they can buy heroin, they can get candy here.

They can smoke a regular package of cigarettes, but heroin has, heroin cigarettes in where?

In D-Man.

So it's become a terrible problem.

Our people, and if I can vote for it, I'll make a statement that I'll give you a hell of a lot of credit for not having pulled out for it and what you've accomplished and not pulled out for it.

But I'd like you to know my position.

I haven't made up my mind completely yet.

And no one has contacted me.

My government has done an unnamed thing, not a soulless contact.

I understand that you're thinking about this all year.

Of course, I'm sure someone will understand that.

But you need white blood before everything ends.

Why don't I do that?

I mean, why not be a hero with nice editorials from the New York Times and CBS and NBC?

Why not let our Republicans and others do well?

that we got out now, and so forth.

But what we have to realize is that first, what we found and what we have accomplished is that we found 550,000 Americans there, we found 350 dying every week, and as a result of

Very strong.

We adopted a new policy.

Very strong action.

The action in Cambodia was last year.

The action in Laos this year.

Your cash is last week worth 19 years.

You're acting wrong.

Now, let's commit.

The fight is...

That's 110, 115 of what they were.

I remember the number in Vietnam was introduced by a factor of two-thirds.

Now you come to the key question, why didn't we get out there then?

That's the whole point.

Why haven't you got it?

That has to get down to a judgment.

A judgment that only the President can make, well, anybody else can make it, but he's the only one that's going to be accountable for it, is what will serve the interests of the United States, what will serve the interests of peace in the long run.

As I've often said around here, in the event, first, that a deadline is voted, any deadline,

That is a vote by the Congress to stop negotiations.

culture, nothing else.

I talked to David Bruce about it, and he says, if the Congress votes to deadline, he says, bring me home right away.

So that says there's nothing to negotiate.

Of course there is.

You can't tell the enemy, look, I'm gonna get out, and now let's continue to negotiate, but what do we negotiate about?

Well, we'll negotiate about, I mean, how many kids are gonna leave and all that sort of thing.

What do you do about ceasefire?

How do you protect your people?

What do you do about some of the resolutions?

Say we will get out as provided they will do this and that.

Is that something you've got to negotiate?

Or we'll get out provided they will not harass us and give us a ceasefire during the period we're getting out.

How do you do that?

I should negotiate.

So my point is that if the Congress says that has to make certain

the United States is leaving because of that, that certainly expresses a desire that all of us, in fact, they certainly should have meant, we thought the day we got in, but if it expresses it now, it is an expression to stop the negotiations, bring home the investors, and just get out.

They certainly, as a matter of fact, exploded.

You just have to figure that we will have no option but to speed it up.

is that we're emotive, and we're emotive in the Congress because it'd be out of our minds to simply leave them there sitting ducks with the enemy knowing that regardless of what he did, we were going to get out on the second day.

Negotiations would be that the enemy would have a free drive, he'd know exactly what we were going to do, and that's the way it would work.

The other side of the coin is, and I'll let Henry expand upon this just a bit, is this, and why do we see it through?

Well, very frankly, I can tell you that, well, I, and I have never misled anybody around this table either, and I could have misled anybody.

Let me remind you of something.

I want all of you, I don't know if any of this is mentioned outside this room, what I'm just saying now.

I want to remind you of something.

And then as the summer goes on, and the rest of the year goes on, remember that I said this now.

But we, before we made the joint announcement with regard to Gretchen and I, in fact, admitting ourselves to seeing a limitation on offensive and defensive missiles, Fulbright, the New York Times, and I'm just picking out a few, in one editorial, Fulbright had a speech, several columnists had articles on salt.

The whole trust of them was

I don't read the papers anymore about assault because nothing is happening.

Now, something was happening.

It had been happening for a long time.

On January the 9th, I sent a message out to Soviet leaders.

I worked on them for months and something happened.

Now, don't underestimate the power of the Soviets and don't underestimate what we may be doing.

Now, with regard to Vietnam, I don't tell anybody around this table

that something is happening, that something will happen for sure.

I can only say that there is a chance for negotiation.

That chance will one day be gone as the number of Americans there who see the intent of the enemy to negotiate after a certain point will go, but it's still there.

As long as that chance to negotiate is there, a chance for the United States to negotiate a settlement,

with the ceasefire for our people of Afghanistan and on a basis where maybe our friends who everybody is of course an expert on what's going to happen in Vietnam after we go on a basis where Vietnam will not be taken over by the Chinese if that happens that will be worth doing the point is

that what we offer here is something quite unusual.

We offer it from the one side, one that we're negotiating and trying to beat any deadline.

We may not succeed.

Probabilities are certainly, you would say,

If you look at the papers, if you follow everything, past conduct, up and down, hoax up and down.

I've never raised, I'm not raising comments, I'm just saying we're trying.

And don't underestimate what we may do here and in other cases.

We're expected to be relatively good in things, for example, the China thing.

Don't underestimate what will happen there either.

What I'm saying in this case,

We have two things.

One, we're negotiating.

But second, taking negotiations to the United States, we have a plan.

It's an effect.

It will be carried out.

We have kept every promise we've provided to withdraw.

I have said we will withdraw all Americans coming to Vietnam consistent with our objectives.

So the real question here, does the Senate want to have a vote of no confidence in the president?

That's all it is.

Let me tell you, people who vote for this amendment will look good in two months from now.

I forget that I made a prediction.

It will not look good.

Just as those who said that there's no progress in Salt didn't look very good.

Those who say there's no progress in Greenland

They may not look too good.

They may look very good.

You know, it's always good to predict the worst.

But let's suppose that something happens one day.

I don't underestimate what I might do.

That's just what I'm suggesting.

President, may I ask a question here?

Some of the charges, maybe one charge we'll have to meet is

Nothing's going to happen in the White House until after the October elections in Vietnam.

I know that's faceless, but how do you recommend that we answer?

Well, the Senate recommended explaining that, or in the case that we just bring Bruce home right now, having him stay out.

Look, not only in the Bruce area, but in every other possible area, through the State Department, through the White House, and through the Soviet Union, we are exploring the negotiating channel I mentioned.

And as far as we're concerned, we, not only this election, but the next year, the Renato aside, we just want to re-end it this year so that we can end it next year.

That's what we're thinking.

I said it in my function.

That was great.

Now, my point is, as far as the South Vietnamese elections,

As far as the White House, the State Department, Bunker, whom I met yesterday and will meet again today, Bruce, whom I met last week, their highest priority to be given is the small negotiating channels with regard to legalities, with regard to ceasefire, with regard to all the things that we proposed last year.

You know that he brought in your religion, and that was the argument for two columns in the congressional record on whether he had a right to say that you were invoking your Uyghur heritage in a political aspect.

And I said every man with the trust of any society in France came down here and demanded the name of the wall was invoking his Uyghur heritage in a political framework.

Mr. President, you may be interested in a conversational lesson I had with the Speaker yesterday.

We went to discuss the matter that was coming on the floor of the House.

The Speaker said he would fight any day certain on this ground.

Number one, you had made various commitments for withdrawal, and you lived up to every one of them.

You had said that in the case of Cambodia, our troops would be outside of date certain.

That had been accomplished, as promised.

In reference of Laos, the speaker is going to support us in fighting the Nancy Whalen Amendment.

And I think it's important that he believes that you are living up to every commitment and he will help us in every way possible.

Let me say that having said that, I am very sympathetic with the people who want to move forward in any way, because I know you're reflecting what your people want.

Your people want to get out of it.

They aren't concerned about all these intricacies that they say, well, gee, that's going to go away.

They say, why didn't you go in the first place?

I understand all this.

What I can simply say is that I have to make considered judgments on whether

the nexus of our fighting men, their security, of our foreign policy objectives and so far as they will be certified by a conference table over there at this point.

I have to make a decision in the heart of this line.

And I simply say once again, I make no promises because

Sometimes all plans we work on come in coming.

Three months from now, remember what I said on this day.

Those that voted wrong insofar as this particular concern.

By wrong, I mean those that voted a lack of confidence are going to have to take the responsibility for saying, well, we didn't think you'd do it.

We could leave this company.

Part of what's happening is something can happen.

We're not sure.

We may not get a negotiation.

We may not get progress.

from the Soviet Union, I'm thinking further progress from the Chinese and so forth, but there's much more going on, and many of you know, I can't tell you what's going on, because if I did, that would destroy the chance of a swing.

That's again the reason why you can't do this.

You as a lawyer, all of you, you can't discuss in public what the process is, and people say, well, why don't we discuss what, but we have doers like that three times a day around here.

I think what we need above all is

to give the President an opportunity to do what he wants to do.

It's almost as fair to say publicly that

And so that may be going on.

The facts of the matter are, earlier this year, everybody was ridiculing the administration at the time of the last operation, the end of the last operation.

We were giving a whole series of background this year to various members of the press.

Everybody was ridiculing us for our ridiculous faith in negotiations.

Everybody said, look, it is clear there won't be any negotiations, so just get out.

Now our opponents are suddenly remembering that we are going to negotiations.

You look at what the administration has said and done since we've come into office.

No one has pushed negotiations more energetically.

And as the President pointed out, whenever we choose to reveal the record of what in fact has been done,

We are going to, there's just not going to be any question about what the important plan to prop the Mir up against is this.

As the President pointed out, we have perhaps one more chance at a negotiation.

We want to conduct that negotiation with Hanoi, not just Larkland, but with any Hanoi in the Washington Post.

If we get into the debate, I don't think we'll set a deadline.

Then the next question is, 13 months, 8 months, 14 months, 7 and a half months, 6 or 7 quarters, all of it in the press, and nobody who has participated in the negotiations.

in reading the cables now since 1966, and has read every record of every conversation that has been made to me.

North Vietnamese are masters at the problem.

They like to give the impression that negotiating with us is like a detective story, in which they throw out fake clues and we have to guess at the answers.

and then they count on the American masochism to assume that somehow or other they've dropped a little hint somewhere, we fail to pick it up, and then we flagellate ourselves because we've hurt their feelings.

If you watch if they want something, then they have 8 points, 5 points, 13 points, they vary every year.

And they keep repeating those points day after day after day after day.

Now their negotiating trick is this.

Their negotiating trick is to get us to say what we will do in return for their willingness to discuss.

I was part, in 1967, of a negotiation.

There are no synesthetes anymore because they're always in New York Times.

I understand that one is going to be, it's going to be published in one of the next few songs.

In which they kept dangling a bombing ball in return for what they then called constructive talks.

And everybody said, well, why don't you try it?

They never defined what they meant by it.

You could always go back to bombing.

Now, the trouble is,

that if one engages in this process, they'll never talk.

They will then bank that particular concession and go on to the next, and then go on to the next one.

Their tactic is to keep building so much to wring out of us, to bring us to such a state of psychological exhaustion

before the negotiations ever start, that they have their hold with Procore, and we then have to go on to something else.

They've already laid the groundwork for that in the conversation of Thomas Roberts with Kwan-Twee, where Kwan-Twee now doesn't even talk about that line anymore.

Now he talks about military and economic aid.

And no doubt they have another set of demands waiting.

So our problem is,

to get them to talk to us.

Not to adversaries, not to peace groups, not to charmers, robbers, but to us.

Because they know the channels, and they know we're not sitting passively via the telephone waiting.

They know we are exploring it.

But they are trying to get around.

There's only people on our side who have the authority to enter.

So that, the problem is to convince them that they won't do any better anywhere else.

The second problem is, for the first time in the negotiations, to make them hit a critical point in a serious framework.

Now, the reason we feel so strongly about this now is because we have, to a computational fact, a constellation of events, and this is what the press is talking about.

Not so much that anything is necessarily going on now, but we have a constellation of events which makes it possible

that they will want in the country.

I won't go into them in enormous detail, but let me just enumerate some of them.

One, the military situation in Vietnam.

Who would have thought it possible two years ago that we could withdraw over 300,000 troops, as we've done up to now, and improve the military situation in the process?

so that our casualties are way down and the security within South Vietnam has, in fact, enormously improved

So as they look at the military situation in South Vietnam, it doesn't sound evident to them that they'll be better off two years from now, which is really involved by waiting us out through the 72 elections.

That they'll be better off two years from now than they will be by that time now.

Every intelligence report we have indicates that there is considerable war-bearingness in the North, too.

As you would have to expect, they have lost a minimum of 700,000 to 800,000 men, which is something that we lost 8 million men.

No one who's gone south has ever come north again.

That's, I think, 800,000 dead.

I'm not talking that there must be almost an equal number of wounded.

Certainly if they look at the international situation through the eyes of Vietnamese suspiciousness and communist paranoia, they can't know what's going on in our relationships with communist China and the Soviet Union.

All they can see is that there is a certain number of steps being taken to ease relationships.

Again, I'm not saying anything is going on.

We'd rather talk about things after they've happened.

All I'm saying is if you sit in Hanoi, in a communist world where every leader has gotten to the top by double-crossing the people who helped him in his career,

There's no reassurance that P.K.

can give them that they could possibly believe.

Even if P.K.

isn't doing anything.

The same with Moscow.

So their nightmare has to be that they don't become a backwaters of insignificant little country in Southeast Asia while tremendous things are being settled all around.

And we have a number of indications.

for the first time in quite a while, that they are thinking very seriously of the problem in negotiations.

There are many, I'm saying they're looking at it, I'm not saying they're doing it.

I don't want to go into those in great detail, but you can find certain soft links in formulation.

Some of the speeches they are making, some of the boilerplate speeches they are making, have a slightly different character.

Now, they have a tremendous decision for themselves.

They fought for 25 years.

There's no settlement.

We cannot, I don't believe any American, not even one of the opponents, actually want us to turn over the government of Saigon to them.

practical consequence of bringing this about, but no one has yet actually been interested to direct it.

Well, for them, the big decision is, are they willing to leave any political structure that they don't control in being?

The other issues, the military issues, are more salient.

Well, that's a tough decision for them to make, and I'm sure they're going through an enormous domestic crisis.

And this is where what we do here is of such crucial consequence.

If they see that we are not standing, if this board, for example, really comes out the way you think, that is, if they see that

Over the years, the MacGyver-Hansfield vote did not erode against us.

If they see that whatever the speeches may be on the East Central, they're not causing us, then I think in the next three or four months, something may happen.

As far as we're concerned, it has nothing to do with the Vietnamese election, except that the Vietnamese election may put a slight pressure on the North Vietnamese to get something done before the election.

But I'm expecting that on that island, it is not attacking our neighbor.

I think I'll get him out of the bed now.

We have, we have our, our program as the President pointed out, and we have, we have kept to it, we have maintained our rate all the time, increased it and increased it, and we never reduced it.

But to them, getting all our troops out, that is not just our doing.

that we are going to do it.

That is of tremendous importance.

It is one of the biggest bargaining cards we've got.

And therefore, for us to give this away in advance of negotiation, and on top of it, to give it away as an act of the Senate or the Congress,

would run directly counter to the conditions that I have described.

We are in an extremely delicate situation right now.

We are in a position, as the President pointed out, where we can, and frankly, the less we say about that on the outside, the better we feel like it, where we can perhaps

feel our way towards it.

And I must say one other thing.

If you look at the history of negotiations with the North Vietnamese, they don't negotiate as we do.

The Westerners think of negotiation through a process in which gradually the two sides are brought closer together.

The North Vietnamese think of negotiations as a process which reflects

the reality in which they first tried to exhaust their opponents psychologically, to make sure that they had run every possible concession out of them, and then they suddenly moved.

We talked about the site of the conference for weeks, and for six weeks it was settled in three days.

We talked about the bargain vault for six months, it was settled in a week.

We talked about the shape of the table for two months, it was settled in three days.

Now, I'm not saying that anything like this is coming.

All I'm saying is the President has pointed out from the first day here, when the break comes, it will come suddenly.

And you will not be able to tell it through complicated negotiations.

I don't want to mislead you.

I'm not saying we have any indication now in which we know that a break is coming or anything of the kind.

All we're saying is the factors are in play in such a way that it is essential that for the next month we begin the chances.

And this is why the President has been so insistent on leaving that one factor in our negotiating position open.

And I must say, really, that all of this business about our missing this chance, missing this signal, are really childish.

And the only thing that keeps us from slaughtering it is because we're playing a bigger game.

This is what we are against precisely.

Give us an opportunity to take a crack at negotiating this, but to do it in the only way that will work.

that the president has taken the, that's involved in, I mean, standing up against all these gimmicks that are floated from now.

Mr. President, I don't think some of these are gimmicks.

Most of these proposals, I say most, have come from the other side of the aisle.

a date certain will end negotiations and thereby destroy any possibility of solving a war more quickly, then I'm not so sure some of our people on the other side of the aisle aren't doing it for that purpose.

And to end the possibility of any real solution more quickly.

This has been done before.

I think some Democrats back in 1930, 31, 32 were just as happy to make sure the country won in economic chaos.

I'm not so sure.

Some of them.

I'm not saying all of them, but some of them, I think.

just as soon had no negotiated settlement, so this thing might drag on longer and longer and longer.

And I think we ought to be practical and realistic about this from a political point of view.

These are more serious than gimmicks.

These are aid in the minds of some at prolonging a war for purely political purposes.

Well, if you want to look at it politically, you could say, too, that people like to be confused.

They know, as they do know, that we will end the war, as far as we're concerned.

They like to get on just a little bit ahead.

They say we don't.

Now, let me just sum it up, because then we'll have to go through this, and so we don't.

I have to give you my definitive judgment that there is a chance.

I do not say how much of a chance, because no one knows I can't read the mind of the enemy.

There is no chance.

That, uh...

we could have a negotiation.

If there were no chance that we could have a negotiation, there would be then nothing to deter me from indicating what our plans were to withdraw.

We'd just bring Mr. Bruce home and so forth.

But as long as there is a chance for negotiation, put yourself in my position.

I have to run it out because the negotiated end of this war would be infinitely better

for our POWs, for our men, the safety of our servicemen, for the future of South Vietnam, than to go the other way, which we're prepared to go, of simply a long way of withdrawing our men on a daily basis, as we will.

So what we're saying here, in fact,

And let's not, and Jerry's raised the point that I do know that there are several voting for these amendments in the House and the Senate who are doing so for other reasons.

Bill touched upon one of them.

I understand that's what it is, sir.

Let us understand, as far as the fact is concerned, if you look at this, I would have to say that they moved

to set a deadline is a vote to destroy any chance of negotiations.

I'm giving you my considerate judgment to give you a chance if you want to destroy a full grid deadline.

Second, in terms of what your option is, if you vote against

the deadline.

Then, of course, people say, well, he wants to vote for prolongation of the war.

And I see that.

Because after we reach the polls, 80%, 90% of the people will say, let's end the war tomorrow.

It's maybe 95%.

You don't understand that.

Most of us, however, were sent here not to follow the polls of the week.

I would only suggest that in this instance, that

Your choice is a pretty good one.

All that I can say is that I don't ask for blind trust.

There's this little story in the New York Times about what presidents say and what they find and so forth and all this.

But I do say that based on the record, we've done pretty well in the foreign policy.

We're doing a lot more than it is in the service.

And those who vote against the president

on this particular issue are going to have to carry the responsibility of being against the President on the other issues to see the board of policy.

Because, you see, you cannot separate parts of this whole thing.

the effect of this vote on Moscow etc.

etc.

You're saying, in effect, I'm voting against it.

You're saying, no, we're not voting anymore because the president has offered a plan which he is implementing and which he is pledged to bring off at the end of the war that we don't get to investigate and make negotiations.

So there it is.

I think it's a pretty good choice.

I think, in other words, it's a pretty good option to come down to it.

It's terribly tempting.

I know it.

If I were to talk to individuals, I'd have a hard time saying to a guy, I'd go, well, he goes this way and that way.

and I'm not going to attack their courage or motive or anything else.

That's up to them.

But I do know, looking at it from a pretty cool political standpoint, we're going to, we are getting, and we'll be getting you a pretty good record of who we're going to run on in this state.

One last point with regard to the war, and just an aside with regard to these dissimilar times, and you're asking about that.

My answer is simply this.

I'm not going to say how close it becomes.

This is a major family fight, not involving us.

And this report is all, of course, as you know, is this report that was in the Pentagon study, which was completed in 1968.

And one Pentagon official, Ed Sumrub, apparently took out boxes full of files and turned them over to the New York Times.

It was a contingency study, but it's a fight within the previous administration as to what first should be done in Vietnam and so forth.

It's a fight we should be after.

What does concern me.

It's a massive breach of security.

I don't care if it was the worst president in the country's history, I don't care what it is, but to have top secret documents turned over to a newspaper and then to that newspaper have the irresponsibility of publishing, in my view, is something that we have to first react to.

As far as we're concerned, it's supposed to get off our back, because I pointed out that we had all these documents, and we had a great number of studies, but we made our own independent study because we thought we needed a new policy when we came in.

I would just simply say, fine.

Who are these people that are talking about what we ought to do?

Vast, clever,

All the rest.

These are the guys that made the previous policy.

These are the fellows that made the previous policy.

They are the ones that got us into this war.

And I think that when people get you into the mess, you don't look to their advice to get you out of it.

Now that's what we're doing.

We're getting this war ended on a basis

the previous administration was unable to bring about.

And as far as we're concerned, we carry it out as well as we can.

We are not playing politics with the title attack of the previous administration.

We could be very legal about the fact that Johnson, for example, has before him a contingency plan.

He may not have had it before him, I'm not so sure, but at least it's kind of gone according to the papers.

and studied it quite a bit.

At the time, he was saying, in the 64th campaign, regarding Barry Goldwater, I will never send our boys to fight a war agent boy.

So that reflects on him.

Why don't we kick him off?

Why don't I kick him off?

For the very reason that...

I don't know what his motivations were, I don't know what came to his attention, but I do know that as far as this particular thing is concerned, it does do the country any good to cast great, great scurvy scouts in this institution.

Now, sir, these people remind me of this fellow who killed his father and mother and threw himself on the mercy of the court on the ground when he was an orphan.