Conversation 155-001

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If it's you, incidentally, it might be a good one to ask about.

Ask him about.

Okay.

You know who he is?

Yeah.

He was the chairman.

Flew him about.

That's right.

Yeah.

What does Haig think?

Well, Haig's gone now.

That's right.

But anyway, we just got—I think Connolly's judgment is the best on this.

I think you ought to get Connolly on the phone if you can before I see Richardson tomorrow.

You could reach him in Texas.

I mean, down there in that island.

And this is it.

Say, now look, we're going to move Richardson into defense, but we've got to have a strong man in there.

But we've got to be sure that Clements will not go for the 3-3-3 business, you know.

You know, one-third, one-third, one-third.

You know what I'm talking about?

Right.

Yes.

And that he will be willing to make the tough decisions of cutting and so forth and so on where necessary.

that he will not be a prisoner of the admirals and the generals and the rest, that he will, on the other hand, recognize that he has another function.

Right.

I want to know whether he's up to that.

That's really what it gets down to.

Okay.

Because I think that's important for us to know before we move on him.

Yep.

Well, I don't want to belabor you with the hand restructuring, but I'm as

I was disturbed by it because of the substance.

I didn't give a damn about the horseman and how he likes women and so forth, which of course was shocking for him to talk to anybody like that that he doesn't know, really.

It really is.

It's just shocking.

Oh, he's still entranced with his own stuff like that.

It makes him look like a big ladies' man and all that.

In ten days out of this White House, he's going to be a ladies' man for five minutes.

That's right.

That's all.

He's going to have trouble getting a five dollar whore after that.

That's right.

You know what I mean?

That's the way it works.

I mean, wherever he goes, it's all over, all over.

But this is not one of those things that's just a flippant laughing matter.

I mean, his failure to see the substance is what concerns me.

Well, I think he did see it.

He didn't mention it, but I think he was obviously more worried than what he was talking about or he wouldn't have called.

Well, we're not to back off the story at all.

Don't back off it.

All right.

And we'll get to—and if you could have your talk with Colson, with Chuck, say, now I've worked it out.

We'll announce that he's going to be here that much.

He's going to stay on that.

And as I said, I have no objection whatever to his being—having his office physically in the White House if we can get somebody else to leave.

Yeah.

Do you think Finch might pull out earlier or does he want to stay through the 20th?

I think he's going to go earlier.

Could we find out?

I've already had my talk with him and we'd like to make his announcement fairly soon.

Tell him that would be a very good one to get out of the way.

You might call Bob and ask him when would he like it announced and as of what date.

tell him that it would be helpful from our standpoint if he could say make it January the 1st so that we could get the transition worked out for the others, but that we'll take it to the 20th if we want.

You know, don't force it on him.

Okay?

Yep.

Now, do we know, have any idea yet, what, about Rumsfeld, about— Nope, nothing.

He hasn't talked to anybody, huh?

Not as far as I can determine.

Well, I thought Schultz was going to talk to him.

Well, then I'll have to see him alone and go through our— Oh, no, we'll talk to him before you see him.

out what the hell he wants to do.

I'm not going to arm from a cabinet position because I can't—I'm not going to have anybody in there for a month or two—arming for six months and then leave to run for office.

That's bad, you see?

Right.

So that's just out.

And I don't think there's any—we need to do it.

Do you?

Now Schultz may have talked to them by now.

Yeah.

Now Schultz's other assignment, of course,

I'm leaning very strongly.

If Chuck can get Fitzsimmons to accept him, I think I'm going to take Brennan for the labor job.

I have reasons for doing this that Schultz will not like, that I like, because Brennan wants to cut the guts out of the Jewish clack over there, see?

Yeah.

That would be great.

And I want them to control that and that's better than having somebody else in there.

And that opens up, you see, commerce and it opens up transportation.

Both of those can be rewards for people that we want.

I assume Colson made the point to you that he made the other day that labor really doesn't want a labor guy somewhere else.

They want him in labor.

Well, yeah, I had the impression that they wanted, you know, from my conversation— Chuck raised the point, you know, earlier of putting the labor guy someplace else.

I know, but I understand that's now changed.

Changed that.

Right.

Makes the point they want him in the labor thing, and that's where they want him.

You want him looking for their interest, which is theirs.

But you understand, now that transportation—if we keep Brennan, if we can get Brennan for labor, fine.

Then that doesn't mean, though, that in transportation and in commerce, I think it should be—my two candidates are the woman

My woman is the first choice.

I just think it would be a hell of a good signal to the party.

It's a good signal to women.

It's a good signal to the business community, the hell with the business community for once.

I mean, you'd have to dress it down to John Kendall's throat, but it doesn't make all that much difference.

I just think it has a hell of a sound to it.

She'd do a good job on anything.

And she'd be a hell of a salesman for us.

And she isn't shopworn.

We've got to have a little flair, a little flair.

She's really got it.

You know where she'd be good?

National chairman?

No, Secretary of the Interior.

Well, I don't think so.

I'm afraid it's—I think it's—she might be, but with all that oil and stuff out there, I'm not sure.

I guess she could be.

We might try her there.

But Commerce or Interior?

then we could have Callaway and have the two of them.

That's not bad.

That only leaves us then—that would mean all this, however, would only work out provided I could go with the scally at the U.N. Yeah.

And then you go up the wall and we just brutalize him.

Yeah.

Because he's not been—now Bush, when he comes, it's my intention to—and Schultz has got to brace up and be a man here.

to offer him the deputy's job over there.

Right?

Yeah.

You weren't in the conversation with Shultz.

I understand he was not too excited about that.

Well, he didn't have anybody else.

Anyway, let's just point out we've got to have a political man in that job.

Tell Ehrlichman to work that out with Shultz.

Because, see, I can't see these guys tomorrow without knowing what the hell I'm going to offer them.

Right.

Bush has that.

I don't want Bush—but I don't want to push Bush up to the Cabinet.

Although, if he didn't take that, he is another possibility for the Commerce job.

Do you agree?

Yep.

But who would be better, Callaway or Bush?

Callaway.

Callaway's more Southern, isn't he?

He's more Southern, and I think he'd do a better job.

Yeah, I'd agree.

Okay, that gives us some things to get to.

I need some of these answers for everybody.

I don't know what to be able to tell everybody when we get them in here.

Okay, thanks, Bob.