Conversation 153-058

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Did you call me?

Yes, sir.

I had placed a call and then I canceled it.

Bob had left.

I just wanted to get a feel on today for the Sunday papers.

Oh, I see.

I see.

Well, actually, I am actually spending the morning dictating.

I'm dictating.

No, just

general reorganization plans and so forth.

You say that I'm dictating some reorganization on reorganization plans.

Yeah.

And also that I'm dictating some directives with regard to budget cuts.

All right.

That'll stir him up a little.

All right.

But reorganization plans, and I'm doing some dictation over it.

At 10.30, I'm going to go back to Washington.

I have to go back and pick up some clothes and

and so forth and so on.

We'll come back here tomorrow afternoon—tomorrow night, perhaps around 5 o'clock.

All right, but you will spend to tomorrow here in—or today in Washington?

Well, from about 11 o'clock on, yes.

I'll just be in Washington.

I won't be going anyplace.

All righty.

Yeah, see.

I won't be going anyplace.

Just say I'm going to—I'm just going to Washington on a—to

I don't want to create a... No, no, no.

I've got to handle this so it doesn't... Well, no, no.

I'm just... Actually, Ron, I'm just simply going back because I've got to pick up some clothes and things.

I've been here for four days and I forgot to bring a couple of suits.

I'm just going down and coming right back.

Let me see.

Why don't we just say that we're going for...

I have no meetings.

I'm not going to see anybody.

Let's see.

What do we say?

so that you don't create anything.

Well, why don't you say, I'm going to be in Washington to have dinner with the family tonight, and then we'll return tomorrow.

How's that sound to you?

Right.

How's that?

Right.

How's that sound?

Then you say that there's nothing extraordinary about it the President's own, except he decided to come down to the White House to spend the weekend here.

Yeah.

I'm coming down to have dinner with the family tonight.

with family, and then you'll return.

Yeah, and I'll return tomorrow.

Just say I'll return to Camp David tomorrow, that I have a full schedule of appointments Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Why don't you just say that?

A full schedule of appointments.

Then they'll say, will you meet with Kissinger down here before you leave?

No.

No, no, no, no.

I have completed the meeting with Kissinger.

I will not see Kissinger while I'm in Washington.

Just say no.

No, that there will be no schedule today of meetings.

I've really seen him, and I don't want to go into that.

It's just a no that I've completed my meetings with Kissinger.

And also, you can say that one of the things I did is that I have completed the dictation in the morning of the instructions for—that I've completed the instructions for SALT.

Oh, good.

You can say that, that the president

been working on the instructions for SALT.

He's executed that and also has been working this morning and will continue work with regard to the negotiating positions for the Paris conference that Kissinger will be taking off.

However, that I will not meet with him.

I've already met with him, but I'm working on the negotiating positions.

And those positions will be cabled to him.

See, he leaves.

cable to him—well, will be delivered to him before he goes or cable to him on Sunday.

Should I say you'll be in touch with him by phone?

Yes.

You'll be—you don't— Yes, I—but you'll be— Yeah, we have no—we have no meeting scheduled.

There might be a meeting that I—probably be by phone.

But then I'm now—I'm really now doing the paperwork.

Right.

And then I'm working out the instructions on SALT.

And the negotiators.

And the negotiating position with regard to Vietnam, and then I'm working on that.

And I had to go to Washington to get some materials together down there.

I just say I had to go to Washington to make it business.

I had to go to Washington to get some materials together and to complete those things that I—to talk to members of the staff and so forth and so forth.

Right.

Did you say staff members and as far as that?

and uh i wouldn't mention the dinner thing if i put the social thing in you know that is i don't that is already the reason for going back see how's that because i'm really going back to frankly pick up some clothes and i am going to be working on both the salt negotiating position and the other one when i'm down there all right and i just want a little change of scenery because i all right should i say you'll be do you plan to spend the day at your you'll be office of course yes i'll be in the uh you know

No, I'll spend the day in the White House.

I'm going to tell them I'm going to work in the Lincoln sitting room.

All right, that's not bad.

I'll tell them I'll be working in the Lincoln sitting room getting out the final negotiating positions for the next round of talks in Paris and for the SALT, which begins the 21st.

Yeah, which begins the 21st, that I'm working on that, and I'm going to work in the Lincoln sitting room.

Good.

They said, why isn't he working at Camp David?

Well, because I had some materials down there that I wanted to get to, and I also wanted to—

so that I can call on people if I need them when they're there.

Put it that way, that I want their staff members that I may want to call upon if I need them as I'm working on this.

I want the materials put together.

How's that?

That's perfect.

That'll give you a good ride.

Then you'll be returning tomorrow for?

Tomorrow afternoon, right?

And that the president is personally on this, is personally doing the, on both sides.

particularly on the Paris thing, that he's personally—he considers this negotiation of critical importance.

I just say that, of critical importance.

And he's therefore—well, of course, I don't want to get him down the others, too, but he considers this of critical importance, and he is going to spend the whole day on those negotiating positions.

Leave the SALT thing out.

Does he think that adds?

Oh, I like the salt, too.

All right, put the salt in.

Right.

He thinks in the second round the salt is important, and so he's going to spend the whole day in Washington working on those two things.

Right.

Is he going to meet with anyone, though?

He plans no meetings.

Yeah, well, no, no, probably, but I mean, as you know, gentlemen, he will have, he'll be on the telephone.

He may meet, yes, depending upon how the thing goes, but as these positions develop, the papers and so forth, the

He will, yes, he wants to be there where he can call on people if necessary.

Right.

But there will be no published meetings, John.

Yeah, right.

How's that?

That's fine.

It's going to be hard to pull him away.

I want to get your reading right on this.

It'd be hard to, even if you don't meet with Kissinger, they're going to say, if I mention these things, that you will be conferring with him.

Oh, yes, I'll be in touch with him.

Oh, yes, I'll be conferring with Kissinger, right, through the day, yes.

You don't mind that?

Oh, yes, that's fine.

I'll be conferring with Kissinger during the day.

Right.

That's right.

Yes, I'd just say I'll be conferring with Dr. Kesture.

Hell, let him think we're meeting.

That's what I mean.

Fine, fine.

I'll be conferring with Dr. Kesture.

You don't mind if I come in with an impression?

That's right.

Okay.

That's right.

Okay.

And other members of the staff on technical details.

The president feels the technical details now are of very, very great importance.

And consequently, he's working personally on the technical details because we want to be sure they're nailed down properly.

Why don't you put that in?

All righty.

These negotiations were really done to

so much major substantive differences, but there are some.

There are substantive differences.

But there are a lot of technical details which could be enormously important later if they aren't nailed down.

And the President wants to be examining every clause in the agreement so that when Dr. Kissinger goes to this meeting, it will be an agreement that the President

personally approves and backs in every respect.

Put that out.

Okay.

All right.

This is good.

All right.

Very good.

Thanks, sir.

I think the, uh, I think the stories on the reorganization and the activities yesterday are moving well.

And, of course, the announcement of the, did you ever get anything worked out with Rogers or are you waiting for Haldeman to get the, as to what we announce on Rogers?

I have not had any discussions on that.

Laird, of course, has already said it, but I don't want to.

He's already said it.

We're not ready, but by next week we'll be ready to announce some changes and new appointments.

Okay, I'm putting together my thoughts today on how to get it out, how to proceed.

But I've been working.

You might say that the president at Camp David has been working—

I mean, I've been having very, very long hours, you know.

Right.

I'm putting that— I've been going out—been up late at night and so forth and so on and working on these positions and particularly on the reorganization plans and so forth and so on.

Right.

I'll refer to— Well, somebody has said—you know, I was—my wife was saying and I said that she and the daughter that they were concerned about the fact that the impression out of the statement since the election was that—

We were being very cruel and heartless and so forth.

That's all the income, Mr. President, that we created in bureaucracy fear.

You don't see that.

I don't think the country feels that way.

If it does, I don't give a goddamn if they do.

My impression, sir, is that a clean move like this is good.

It has without question.

shaking up the bureaucracy and shaking it down.

So they're squealing.

They're squealing, but the peep is more the postal star.

That's right.

The people who are insecure, you know, are the ones who are squirming around.

But in terms of the impact on the country, they simply see, well, the president's moving to reorganize.

That's cool.

That's right.

I think people...

He's grabbing ahold of the damn killer.

That's right.

People in the country react positively to change and to reorganization.

I think yesterday...

where you had a number of cabinet people and a lot of activity up there softened the story somewhat.

It shows that you are consulting and have, now as we said you would, one cast member.

You've got to point out the reason we didn't do it before.

We had to find out what we were going to do.

That's right.

I had to make the, I had, I had, not what we were going to do, not make the decisions.

But I was working on the reorganization plan.

I have a very intensive reorganization.

Yeah, I want you to say every department is going to be reorganized.

You can say that today.

Every department is going to be reorganized.

The president's insisting.

Reorganization.

That is, not in terms of what we submit to the Congress, and it's within the Congressional guidelines.

We won't go any further than that, but we're going to have some reorganization, not only changes.

It isn't going to be changes of personnel, but there will be changes in the way of doing business.

Right.

This is the point I've been trying to focus on.

It's very difficult, of course, for us to think of anything else but, you know, the human or the protract thing.

But I said that you're concentrating on the form, the reorganization.

That's right.

How people work together.

That's right.

How we can work better with the, yeah.

One thing you could get out of this, well, I don't want, one thing I don't want to do, Chuck Colson is concerned that, and everybody sees it in his own way, that when, you know, half a dozen are leaving like wine and finishing Rumsfeld and the rest, he's concerned that he goes, I mean, when he goes, of course,

It'll look as if basically he's being fired.

Well, this is a part of the thinking I'm doing today.

Do you think it's true?

I mean, to a certain extent, it's true.

His enemies will say that.

But what the hell?

Out through the country, they don't know who the hell Chuck Colson is.

And also, when a hell of a lot of people go, they go.

Or what do you think?

Well, I agree with both points.

I think we can take certain steps into next week to eliminate that concern.

For example, you have asked, as we have already said, for the statements of attempt by the...

on the part of the staff.

Do they want to leave?

Do they want to stay?

Do they want to be re-assigned?

And give that personal individual consideration.

I mean, this is .

This is the question.

This is the point is that each member of the staff, some want to stay, some want to be changed, some want to move.

And each one is being handled.

I want you to say this, that each member of the cabinet is being handled on a personal, individual basis.

That's why we're not making any announcements.

Okay, we'll have some fairly big announcements next week.

And about changes, I'll shake the bastards up.

All right.

Right.

We, uh...

Uh...

But I don't want this heartless thing to get out of you.

You've got to knock that down.

You've got to say, on the contrary, everybody that members have welcomed the opportunity, you know, to really take a new look and recharge the administration, you know, to get some new life, new ideas and so forth.

This is the only time it'll be done.

If it isn't done now, it'll never be done.

Right.

As I say, the session yesterday went a long way to...

You mean just meeting with them?

That's right, the activity.

We had met, you know, we've done it in an orderly way.

We met with the Vice President first, with Connolly second, with Rogers third.

Then yesterday, we just went on.

That's right.

Have you announced the ones for next week?

No, we haven't yet.

I didn't announce those.

Okay.

I think that's a very good story today.

Don't you think so?

If I could get that out.

Yeah, I just put those out.

I'll put it out tomorrow.

I think there's another story.

Fine.

We're going to see this and that and the other thing.

We're going to see Monday.

And basically, since they're going to be up, I just announce the Monday schedule on Sunday and the Tuesday schedule on Monday.

Oh, you should also point out that several members of the cabinet are away.

I mean, they're out of the country, for example.

and others and that Romney, for example, and that you can say that the order of the cabinet officers calling up depends upon their except, of course, to a certain extent, your treasury defense and so forth.

But from now on, the order will depend upon availability, for example.

should point this out, that Kleindies is out of it, is away, Romney is away, Volpe is away.

See, I think that's very important so they don't feel that they aren't being called, that we're calling them up.

The president is trying to see them all just fitting in with their schedules.

There's no order.

Nothing should be interpreted in terms of who comes first.

The point I make is that when you're seeing them, you're seeing them

about the reorganization.

My point is let's make very sure they understand that the order is in terms of the fact that some are awake because they're going to likely seize on the client each time.

concerned about the heartless aspect.

The fact of the matter is that, you know, we can take steps in the announcement and the activity yesterday contributed to soften that type of thing, but the fact of the matter is that when the announcements are made, when it's put into place,

That won't matter.

You see what I mean?

Sure.

A lot of them.

Of course, half of them will be staying anyway.

That's right.

And it'll be put in perspective, and the impression will be that the president moved quickly to reorganize and reform.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not one of heartless.

Right, right, right.

I think we should have that in mind when we approach the problem.

Fine, fine, fine.

Okay, good.

And I will be working on Washington or up here.

No, I'm in the office.

How's the trailer working?

That's great.

Were they pleased?

Incidentally, I hope you tell them that was my idea.

No idea.

I walked by, and I saw them standing there in the cold, and I said, for Christ's sake, get a trailer up there.

I remembered being up at Wilkes-Barre, and I said, why should the press stand out there, you know, looking for us?

And it forms a nice little briefing room, too, doesn't it?

Yes, it does.

And everybody, they like it.

Covered any of them remark about it?

Not yet.

I was up there yesterday, and they're very pleased with it.

Good.

The story that moves that Mr. Nixon ordered the trailer installed Monday after he noticed reporters shivering in the cold while covering his arrival by helicopter could not retry.

Right.

All right.

Good.

All right.

Fine.

Very good.