Conversation 102-001

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I think we did a great performance.

Let me just get down to the list so we can all know who's listening to each other.

State, we have Dave Ashburn, Bob McCluskey, Mark Murray, Bob Martin, Donald Brower, Vance, Brady Johnson, Bernard Tucker, Harry Friedman.

Bernard Tucker.

The purpose of this thing is to try to get some interdepartmental coordination on

Well, if it occurs, it will of course be a very historic and very significant breakthrough on arms limitations.

And like anything of that kind, that significance on that subject is going to have considerable high profile public discussion and some controversy behind the shadow of the bat.

So in certain things, we went out with certain questions to Moscow.

The first part I do want to underline is that this is fairly sensitive and we won't talk about it here, essentially.

In the first instance, because there's no agreement yet, it's conceivable that there wouldn't be one during this trip.

And I'll go back to the drawing points.

It's very conceivable.

On the other hand, if there is an agreement, what will happen is there will be a press briefing in Moscow, and in some detail I'm sure Henry will give.

That is the basic document from which our public stance will be taken, and it will probably ride for a few days quite adequately.

I'm confident it won't last much more than a few days, because a new set of argumentations and questions will arise, as they always do, in 48 or 72 hours.

And then we'll have to be fleshing it out.

In order to get some coordination in this thing, I think it's absolutely essential, and first and foremost, there'll be no special assault briefings,

before the president returns.

That's the position that we've gotten from us.

Whether that will survive all of next week, I have some doubts.

But at least that's our initial marching order.

The second one is that we're going to try to set up a coordinating mechanism for public statements, even if it's Q&As or whatever it may be,

and try to keep some White House participation so that the coordination is done, and not because we want to play the game, or overplay it.

But that's Les Janket, who's on the NSC staff, and some press guy, who work very carefully with the departments and agencies concerned on that issue.

Now, in handling questions, assuming there's an agreement and you have a backgrounder, responses can be limited to the backgrounder, which would be given by the spokesman in Moscow, and we'll have copies distributed around as soon as it's given.

And we want to hold, as I emphasize, comments to an absolute minimum, and let that backgrounder speak for itself, and draw on it, or refer to it.

Now we have the experts in the business as the verification committee working group preparing a rationale paper

at least two forms.

One is the layman's generalist version, a simplified capsule picture, and the other is a more detailed esoteric exposition of the outlines of the agreement, if it comes to pass, from the point of departure which we have right now.

We're trying to get that as soon as we can, and get that to Moscow to get the blessing.

Because we've been told that it will go nowhere until it has been out there, until the president knows what's in it and is happy with it.

So again, I would caution anybody who has papers, and we did some additional work here two days ago, you have those kinds of talking papers and background papers, watch where they are, get them back in under your wings and under your control.

Because I like to tell you, there have been some changes to the view that we have when we go.

What we'll do then is we'll have this kind of a packet put together with a transcript of the briefing in Moscow, two papers assuming they're approved, the generalist view and the more esoteric view.

Now, I would hope that the work in the group is preparing some unclassified statistics which would be tabbed into the rationale paper.

What I'm talking about is balanced figures of

relative strengths in various categories of weapons.

It's pretty well to have already.

It's quite important that we not overlook our overseas part of this problem because it's a very crunchy one.

That means the USIA VOA will have to be guided very strictly by what I've just outlined for our domestic.

There are several possibilities to exploit this agreement as it takes place.

One is, I know Mr. Laird is going to get at the airport Friday when he gets in.

If there's an agreement and it's been announced, he's going to get hit.

So we're going to inquire over there whether we want to take a holding position and refer to the briefing, or go a little beyond it.

Okay.

Jim, we talked about the desirability of having you on some kind of a TV talk show on Sunday.

If there is an agreement and if there's room.

That's often hard to do at this late stage, given the uncertainty of it.

You can do it.

I think it would be desirable if there's an agreement.

Then we have some further possibilities for next week to exploit, which would be Jack Irwin perhaps on today's show on Monday, Admiral Moore perhaps on morning news, CBS on Monday, some canned interviews of some kind that can be put on news shows.

I think it would be best initially...

As we go strong on defense spokesmen for these public presentations, because there's really no security angle, and we are having an unsolved birthright.

Now, it's very important, and I'm hoping it's up to you here, and important that we have no

greetings for outside groups and individuals until the president returns.

We've got explicit directions from Moscow.

I have to notice some people lined up.

It's already 10 a.m. Saturday.

It's already 10 a.m.

It's done, yeah.

But let's hold on that.

It probably won't hold, that victim.

But let's, for now, be very conscious of it.

I think the Department of State has got to put some instructions out initially that they're going to have Canada ready to go to our embassies abroad, especially in Europe, where there will be some consciousness problems.

They'll be guided only by the backgrounds of the press freedom from Moscow.

In terms of friends of the administration...

We can put a pack of material together using the background and the summaries, summaries that are being worked over, assuming those summaries are pretty rational.

And then we don't get them to them.

Anybody that's in that business, I think, should make up a target list of people they want to contact.

Now, at least the department and agency

Usually at decisions, you know, I call them either think tanks or whatever you want to call them, friends or spokesmen, act as, I'm sure that they consider to be the most important.

Defense has a group of people that are important.

State, and I'm not talking legislators, I'm not talking the Congress, we'll talk that later.

But I think we should have those lists prepared.

How can you give them a package of information if you're not free?

What's the difference between providing a package of information?

Yeah, I think we do, except for the press briefing.

It's on the record, it's very simple.

If they do it on a background basis, then it's more complex.

We're going to have to do some kind of a summary from that briefing.

Which is comfortable enough, comfortable with it, and I don't have the resources to get what we need.

We'll have to stay a little bit loose on that.

The only way we'll stay the whole time.

With this same package of information, it's essentially what you can read to the national organizations.

Right.

If you can't have a package, why not read it through it?

That's right.

This is a calculation.

We'll have another meeting here tomorrow.

By then we'll know whether we've got a problem or not.

If we do, it'll be an urgent meeting early in the morning to get all the things we're talking about now finally done and shaped and coordinate last-minute modifications to what we're putting out today.

But in the meantime, I say overnight, everybody ought to prepare their target list of organizations and outside supporters

I think it's advanced to state and act to do that.

That's enough.

And then the White House ought to do it first.

Especially for the truck.

It's already based on the words.

The one thing I just want to emphasize again is that anything that's done by way of printed material, written material, or data, has got to be clear, and I'm going to make that so clear to see tomorrow.

I think we have to do that practice anyhow, because it's very green that's going on in the context of negotiations.

You said before you wanted to listen tonight, tomorrow morning.

No, I have it for tomorrow morning when we meet again.

I can't give you an answer.

There's just no way of knowing.

In other words, it won't be by...

It's conceivable that it wouldn't happen until Monday, or happen on Sunday, or on Saturday.

It's conceivable.

It's conceivable it won't happen at all.

A couple of hard ducks to work out on this one.

Yeah.

And on that point of page 2, item 6, act as a responsibility, every member refers to every member of the Congress.

Active will have responsibility for ensuring that every member receives a copy of the Senate for every member of the Congress.

Item 6 on page 2 of part 2 of the legal agenda for this session.

Active will have responsibility for ensuring that every member receives a copy of the presidential statement in Moscow background.

Does the member refer to every member of Congress?

Oh, that's weird.

I haven't gotten to that yet.

Excuse me.

There you go.

I'll have those questions.

I always end with John's talkers.

That's the public affairs side generally now.

I think we'll open up the discussion on the public affairs side.

Any questions or any ideas that somebody has to make this more effective that we haven't talked about?

And who's the USID person?

Does everyone feel comfortable?

If they know what direction we're going in, how we're going to coordinate it?

The Washington-based press, they can expect to receive a press release and the text of the agreement, plus the rationale of Baker.

Roughly what time is it?

I can't guess.

I can't say.

What time is it for the people of Moscow?

No, what would happen is, if they'll do it in Moscow, they'll flash us the transcript of the briefing, which will lag the fact by probably three hours.

I'm saying in the text of the agreements.

In the text of the agreements?

Yeah.

I can't say.

I would say they also will probably lag in arriving here.

They're way ahead of us in any event, you know, seven hours ahead.

So they start out behind the power curve.

And that gives them wisdom to just say, well, we're in Moscow, but where do we get the word?

Now, you ask how comfortable we are with public affairs aspects.

I'm very uncomfortable with it.

You're telling the DFW and Colson's little group, before you're telling the leadership of the United States Senate, that you've got to pass it, you've got to do it.

You've got to do it.

What we're telling is what they say in Moscow is public.

What I'm just trying to say is we won't say anything to anybody.

We've been told not to.

That's the initial ground rule.

There won't be any briefings.

Well, then there ought to be a sock or a hole on the other side.

You have to tell the public before you tell Mansfield's side.

Now, and Stennis and Margaret...

Now this has not yet been addressed to the legislative side, and we will very shortly.

We're about to get into that.

I don't see any problem or any conflict yet.

We'll just wait until we get it to the legislative side.

General, any prediction at all on when the two rationales in the verification committee might be available before the stuff from Moscow for study, for private study?

I seriously doubt it.

I don't know.

You all have to keep in mind that the thing is still dynamic there.

Even what they're writing here today may not be right, and then you have to send it, and they're working all night long.

I just think we're going to have to take a little bit of heat.

You know, on the congressional side, I'm less worried, in some instances, because most of them won't be here.

That doesn't solve your problem.

But also remember, they've been briefed as we go along on this thing.

This is our versions on this all the time, and as they let on like they are.

Am I right?

They've been briefed 30 times.

Has Matthew Scott and Gertrude been briefed?

No, they've not been solving the four-needle.

They had a briefing.

They had a briefing right in here from the president of the United States on this subject.

He made frankly a reference to solve this before he left for the Senate.

But Tiny Tom's point is that that notwithstanding, it's certain regardless of where they are in the country, I think that can be gotten to.

That's right.

Yeah, well, now the president can return to Obama.

I'm going to tell you exactly how they want this done.

Yeah.

for specific instructions from Moscow.

I'm going to tell you that right now.

So I think it will answer your question.

If it doesn't, then we have to go back to the president.

That's the only answer.

Alan, may I ask you one question?

Yes.

If I understand what you're saying, the only thing we're going to have, on the public affairs part, is that it will have been signed, and there will be pictures of the signing ceremony, and there will have been a background picture held by Henry.

That's right.

There will be no press briefings?

Nothing else.

There will be no statement by the president?

Well, we don't know.

There may be.

No message from the president to the American people?

There may be.

That may happen.

And again, I doubt that it will.

You know, I'm just giving my own press judgment.

I think they'll have an agreement in text and a briefing.

And a few brief reports by people who are commenting on the agreement.

And that will be it.

Perhaps an unwelcome comment.

I think the additional impact on this is going to be absolutely critical.

And if...

If the president, if the dignity of his position in some sort of message will be brought to people with some device, either exclusively with three senior nets or something, doesn't blanket the time, I can't conceive of how it will be presented except that there will be pictures of the ceremony.

Some references to a background that won't be attributable, and then a lot of pictures of the opposition saying what they think about it.

And your first thing back to a large part of the public is going to be Senator Jackson, Senator Newelwater, and other people saying what's wrong with Pete Greenwald, and then you put it earlier how the National Court of Rights was sold out in Moscow.

That would be a disaster.

On the other hand, if the president did lend himself through some device to a message to the American people on this historic initiative for peace,

Apparently it was a 30-minute time lag.

We blanketed the tube.

Between the pictures and the coverage of the ceremony and the president's time with their TV stars, we've got the tube blanketed and the first impact on the public mind is ours.

Well, I think you made a hell of a good point.

I wouldn't contest it.

I wouldn't contest it on the other hand.

I understand you propel a man when there's a need.

Yes.

I can't reconcile the fact that we're excluded from a domestic press briefing that we're throwing at guys on television and on the media, which is the equivalent of a press briefing.

I mean, how can you not have a specific briefing to say on Saturday, again, you have somebody on the same talk show, and two people on the Monday talk show?

You're doing, you're doing, in fact, the same thing.

That's right.

But what you're doing is, you're letting the briefing in Moscow be the sole source of the main ride.

Now, that may or may not be good enough, but by Sunday, you have several key administration officials using the rationale which has been cleared, and the ability to test their own

Assessments against the fact that there are no press releases.

And then they add more.

The one thing to remember is that we've got a massive press corps sitting in Moscow right now, and the main leads are all going to come out of there, just like they had been on these other agreements.

I told you at the outset, I ain't very comfortable with holding for a week without any press talk yet.

I don't think it will survive, but that was the initial directive we got, and we're just going to have to stay a little bit loose until we go back and say if you really need us, which we'll do, and until you have a 24-hour period.

You certainly will survive for 24 hours.

No doubt about that, but I agree with you.

I think you're exactly right.

And I agree with you.

It would be very helpful to have a good, strong presidential statement that we can help to carry for a period.

Just to give you an argument.

There are a lot of newsmen, an argument to use, I mean, an argument to use.

There are a lot of newsmen in Moscow.

It's his crew.

There are a hell of a lot of newsmen in this country.

This is going to be one hell of a big story.

And they're not all going to sit on their hands until they come to tell you they're in Moscow.

And if we don't blanket it with our story, do you know where they're going to get their story?

There's only going to be reactions.

There's only going to be one source.

That's operated.

And so they're going to have a story from Moscow, and then they're going to have a story from the state of Washington, and a story from the state of Arizona, etc.

That's where they'll go, but there won't be anywhere else to go to.

All anybody will do here is stay with a briefing in Moscow.

So your initial impact is going to give the maximum possible coverage to the opposition.

That's a point in a lot of words sharing that, as I see it now.

It's not my vision anymore, I'll get out of it.

Well, I think we've all expressed our concerns.

Now, let's turn to congressional affairs, because this is where the platforms you're concerned about is held on, and this is the real...

touch the problem of the whole show.

And it's in an ordinary position, and here again, on the public affairs side, it's essential that all legislative contacts be coordinated and centrally controlled with Dr. Greger, because otherwise you've got a disaster, you've got a double kill, a triple kill,

Again, all breathings and activities on the hill will be coordinated and clear here to ensure that everybody is covered and recovered in a consistent way.

It's the wrong way.

Now, these briefing papers, these rationale papers we're talking about, should provide a basis for this.

They'll need some twists depending on the target that we all have to do.

We have this Dan Blake group that some of you participate in, and we'd like to just stay on top of this thing

Gregor, right?

Try to perhaps state the date of tomorrow, I haven't seen you.

That is the same room.

11.30, I think, tomorrow night.

So I have essentially the same number of memberships as well.

Now, what happens is, we have been told from Moscow that there will be no congressional briefings or consultations until Tuesday of next week.

That happens to be what we've been told.

Now, the only way around that is to make some telephone calls to keep people so that they know that they're going to get free.

And by whom?

Now, that's the way I think you have to handle your leadership.

Like, I don't know how else to handle it with the mandate we've got.

Uh...

You know, this is totally unacceptable, and I think we have to go back.

I don't want to factor them back there now about problems that may not exist.

We're pressing under the pressure now.

But as soon as we know there's an agreement, I would suggest we go back and say, look, start with the four leaders that got there.

They have a little special treatment.

You've got no problem in the house, thank you.

It would be great to have...

affirmative, informed, supportive comment from senior senators and leadership types as soon after the entry into an agreement or publication in Moscow of the fact of the agreement as could be obtained.

That would tend not to eliminate

But rather diminish the impact of the Jacksons, the Goldwaters, and anybody else who are wholly negative.

You can get Mansfield Scott, full right to sentence, to say, hooray, this is great.

That would be a big, big blow.

So that's the problems I see.

Well, let me make a task for you, if you're comfortable with it, just to get launched today.

I think if everybody comes tomorrow morning, state defense and state of the act to coordinate on their target list, but make a target list of who you feel you'll want to get to on Tuesday for the formal coordination

And then if your son, if you feel, must be at least telephoned tomorrow, yes, or wherever they may, and that may be at their home in Hoboken or wherever they are, make that a list.

So a surgeon must call that surgeon briefly.

Does that, will that help you tomorrow to at least get an idea of what happens with the coverage, yes?

And keep in mind that I'm not at all remiss to have gone back to Moscow when we know we're over the substantive problems, and then harassing them on this subject in a very serious and important way.

I don't think we could also do that if it wasn't for our colleagues here.

I think there's one thing to keep in mind about the presence that you hear.

He intends to have a leadership meeting the day he gets back, or the next day, or June 2nd.

What I think he wants to do, he's very much the guy that talks about what's been done and what's been accomplished.

That's awfully hard to do if you get too many detailed readings.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting detailed readings.

I'm suggesting about four points that they might select to say...

why they support this.

There will be plenty left for the president to tell us in terms of the detail workup, and they'll just be so eager to hear from the president about this that we wouldn't be stealing any thunder from them, but we wouldn't be getting over this.

I think it would be helpful to have us see what the acting teams put together.

You have four or five points to Henry to dictate over the public.

I'm sure one or more of these will appeal to you.

We'd appreciate it if you could incorporate it into your supporting statement.

We'll do that in our place.

We'll have those, assuming it all takes place, we'll have a few actions.

When we have those soon after we have the fact that an agreement and a

the transcript of the text of the telephone call, and then what they're going to take from the briefings.

But you know the basic point, Sam?

We know, we know.

We could get some of the stuff down to be useful to have ready to use.

That's essentially the simple thing that you're talking about.

That's what I'm saying, but these, you know, I think one guy wants to hit one thing, one guy wants to hit another.

So we have a little variety in what our supporters are saying.

All going to be the way we hold them.

We could do that.

Actually, we could do that.

We could shut this down for a minute and have a look at what's going on.

Okay, now, here's a problem with legislative people.

We don't have an answer yet on when we're going to send the final text of this agreement to the Hill.

You know we have a treaty and an executive agreement involved.

And the ADM tree will be information only to the house.

Accompanied by a request for an endorsement from the executive agreement by a joint resolution.

Executive agreement handling the offensive weapons side.

I think we ought to get some thought to this on how we're going to manage that kind of approach.

To get a resolution to support the ABM treaty, that's the House problem.

The response should be...

I think the House really should start to be talkative.

They have had you through.

So, I mean, it's going to be their job, and we know better than I do how to handle that.

The resolution supporting the treaty.

Wait a minute, you talked about the thing.

The treaty, which is securely centered.

That's securely centered.

And then we want to have a request for an endorsement of the executive agreement by a joint resolution.

Approval is the word that's used every time under the act of legislation.

Now we would like to have, in addition to the joint resolution approving the executive agreement, it would be very nice to have a house resolution supporting the ABM treaty.

But that's why I say you're going to want to talk over with the house leadership and see whether they think they can deliver and whether it's the best thing to do.

Is there any precedent for that?

Well, it comes under the same amendment, Mr. Mayor.

It would probably be fine if the states are accepted.

It's an approval by both of, by the Congress, which makes this a full house, of any agreement, limiting or reducing.

Pardon?

Well, but excluding treaties.

Yes, well, this is a...

It's put the other way around.

It says that if you enter an agreement of limiting arms, it must be approved, either by treaty or by affirmative legislative action.

The Congress.

And the resolution was custom.

So the last part of the resolution is just one that you're saying something.

That's right.

Something we need to have.

We need to have.

Most of them are gifts.

What's that on it?

That's my freedom.

Look at this here.

What is it?

I think it's one of those weather things.

I think it's here.

It says freedom.

Freedom?

You're supposed to put all the shit in the water.

Can I come in here?

Eh?

One of these closets.

That closet here is a projection booth.

You can open that door and project.

There's a projector.

Projectors set up in it.

A man comes in from the other side and projects out of the screen they set up here.

All the units you see on the ceiling up there.

Maybe you've seen some of those, Larry.

These brown things right above your head.

No.

Fire detectors.

Pyro alarms.

Pyrotronics.

Yeah, I've heard of fire detectors.

They're extremely sensitive.

But you need smoke or fire to have them set it off.

They're all over this room here.

And when that unit goes off, when that unit set off the fire alarm, the little neon light light makes sure it would light up.

None of the other ones would light up.

You get a fire alarm again, and you come in here, you see where it was, and you know, of course, in here, you know where it was.

But say in a large area, where it's all under one circuit, one great big room in a warehouse, you get a fire, it says, it says a north building...

You go out and run around the building, and you just start looking, and you can see one of the, what do you see?

That little neon light glowing, or one of them.

You know the fire is in that little area.

Oh, yeah.

That thing's extremely sensitive.

If you lit a sunbeam torch in here, that thing would go off.

It didn't unhand at times.

They didn't.

It just didn't work.

Come on, last year.

But this crawl space is all through this place.

You can crawl over any place in this building.

Come through different trap doors and get up in it.

Anywhere you see one, you can crawl through and put your wiring in.

Can I go down this way?

All the way?

All the way around there.

It's a lot of work.

One electrician will take care of that tonight when he comes in.

One electrician's duty is first thing in the morning to check all lights and make sure that everything is ready to go.

Make sure that everything is ready.

That's a pretty thing, isn't it?

You have to go around and scrub that crystal.

And wash that crystal with only water.

No, the guy sits up in a little rag and very full of the top of the waist, all the way down.

He goes around that thing, it takes him a half an hour, an hour.

They steal him from those great big gigantic...

It's huge.

The guy sits up there and he washes it down the thing.

It takes hours of a scaffolding.

And they tell him to leave it there.

Oh, they don't tell him to leave it there.

I don't know how they do it now.