Conversation 193-028

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Yeah.

Because he could do everything about it.

One thing about Peterson would be well prepared.

He'll do a good job.

Incidentally, I was interested in your reaction to that speech thing.

I don't know whether Bob told you, but I had told him, or I had read it, and I did my part.

And I said, Bob, I just read this thing, and it's just too damn euphoric, I think.

But I said, see what Henry's reaction is without telling you what mine is.

And yours is exactly the same.

I said it before.

And the point that I'm concerned about is that why is it our speechwriters, after they have worked on speeches with me, you know, every one that I've made, and I keep thinking about it, why do they always come up with the same stuff, Henry?

I don't know, you know.

Yeah.

In other words, if I were just to follow it, I could go off and read this.

That's what most people would do.

It'll sound nice to the Rotarians.

And it'll say, gee, things have all changed and the world was different.

For example, I would have thought that any speechwriter would have put in when they said how much the world had changed.

Let's also remember, however, that the Third World has not changed in certain respects.

Our philosophies are very different.

We have very great differences.

You know, I mean, you've got to put that in.

And there are realistic people on both sides who have a different view of the world.

And just getting to know each other isn't going to settle these agreements, isn't going to assure it.

Well, you know, I mean, it's just one of those things that it's...

It just shows you too, Henry, that on all this stuff we've just got, in the foreign policy, we've just got to watch every word.

Because all of a sudden it'll slip by and some jackass statement will be made that we shouldn't or don't want to make.

As you say, this speech is practically one that we never could make.

Huh?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I'm not sure what the four vote was.

There was 19 against.

They were thinking 20 to 25.

I thought they were going to have 40 against at one point.

No, 19.

And no Republicans.

Oh, that's good.

If Hersey said he was going to vote against you, then he must not have voted.

That's right.

He may not have been there.

He may not have felt they wanted to vote against him.

Osiris was there and voted.

Hersey may just have felt that he didn't want to come out and vote against the president at this point.

There could be a little risk at this time.

It could very well be.

When will Schultz come out?

Right now.

Today?

Right afterwards.

I just got it.

The higher education thing passed, but I don't know any details on it.

Whether it was in the snow or it was the conference.

The water down.

Bussing, yeah.

But I don't know.

That's a tough one.

Yeah, they're both tough ones.

That one is my welfare.

It's not, God damn it, we've got to cut someplace.

What the hell are we going to do?

It's, uh...

I don't know what my name is currently.

I forget what my name is.

Sure.

I thought Henry's feeling, of course, is exactly the same as mine.

What I can understand is that after they...

speech writers or who have seen what we've done with the others and told them why they don't work it in.

I talked to Ray.

I hadn't read that.

I didn't get a copy.

It's not bad.

That's what it sent me.

I talked to Ray afterwards and said, how do you feel about it?

He said, I think it's pretty good.

It needs some work.

It's a good basic speech.

I said, well, on balance, do you think you ought to give it?

Do you think it's worth doing?

He said, yeah, I think it is.

It's a good...

Rotary International is a good place to appear.

You have people from all over the world.

The idea of the big crowd and the Astrodome and all that appeals to me.

Now, Coulson's argument is exactly the opposite and basically coincides with Henry's.

First of all, that you're at a point... You can't top what you've done.

That's right.

On the other speeches.

That's right.

You can't...

The Russian speech and the Congress speech...

We're both pretty good speakers.

And he says, on the soft side, you said everything that you wanted to say the way you wanted to say it in Russian.

On the hard side, you said everything you wanted to say the way you wanted to say it in conference.

You're not going to do better than either in this.

So all you can do, Henry's argument is, all you can do is come out even.

The best you can do is come out even.

You may lose some by this, others by that.

Coulson's argument is, that's being the national audience.

Coulson's is a more pragmatic argument, in a sense, which is, what the hell is the use?

You go down there on a Sunday night,

So 60,000 people all clapped.

So there'd be two lines in the paper on Monday morning saying 60,000 people clapped for the president, which won't mean anything more than saying 600 cheered him when he arrived to keep his game.

And if you go through all the work of it, as far as those individuals are concerned, Rogers really, as far as the individuals are concerned, what difference does it make?

Sure, Rotary's influential, the people are influential and all that, but those people, I would assume, Rotary-type people are going to be pretty heavily pro-Mixon anyway.

They're not going to win many.

Have you got Rogers tentatively scheduled on it?

I'm inclined to think they're right.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, I have some concern about the Astrodome.

Especially something like this that's not under our control.

It's like the DFW when we went and did their thing and they didn't fill the hall.

We can't force these people to fill the hall.

We don't control it.

They say they have 55,000 to 60,000 people.

Well, that just barely fills the Astrodome.

If they come short, which they easily could, you could end up with a not-filled place.

And even if they fill it, you've got that huge football field that's empty.

And for a political rally that we staged, I can see using the Astrodome, because then I'd block it off with a band and a 5,000-voice glee club up there.

Now, they have great ideas.

If they got back, they're going to make a hell of a thing out of it.

If you come, they're going to have mass bands and, you know, all the pageantry and so forth.

Make a big deal out of it.

Colson's argument is so what?

It won't get on TV.

Maybe a tiny blip on the Monday night news, but not likely.

Nothing on Sunday night.

Being Sunday night, it won't even make the Monday morning papers to any major extent.

The only thing Colson's overlooking is the fact that it's a good way to look at it.

But I just wonder if it won't do you any more good as far as Texas is concerned, really, than the VFW did when you went to Dallas.

This is not really a Texas appearance.

We ought to try for the Astrodome.

I think we ought to do a Texas thing in the Astrodome this fall.

Oh, yeah.

I agree with that.

I think it ought to be a Nixon.

It ought to be one of our big rallies.

It ought to be Connelly's Texans for Nixon rally.

And it ought to be done up in just maybe even our finale.

Instead of doing it in Madison Square Garden, you do it in the Astrodome or something.

Something like that.

Well, I'll tell you what my feeling is.

I kind of lean against the speech for the reason that I don't really have anything to say.

You know, and I've always said...

In a campaign, you've got to do it.

You've got something to say, you've got to do it anyway.

But when you're not campaigning, I don't believe that you should go down if you don't have something to say.

Now, I have a hell of a time going, and I just don't have a... That's right.

And you can't...

There isn't anything you can say.

There's nothing you can... Now, you're not saying anything...

It'd be great for you, and it'd be great for the few others that go along with you, and it'd be great for the crowd that's in the auditorium to be, no question, it'd be an exciting event.

But nobody would know it except that little bunch that was there.

We don't need it to prove to the press what your claim is.

There have been times when we needed to get out to people just to prove that you weren't... As a matter of fact, the JCC thing was served that purpose.

That's right, we did it, you know.

Jardim Loops.

But you don't need Jardim Loops now.

I don't think we need a public plaudits at the moment.

My feeling is that you're in serious doubt about an event that should do it.

I agree.

I just feel it.

I mean, particularly when we're...

I think it could be a...

I think it would be a damn good speech.

Plus, it could be good, but...

It's also a big area of work.

And it will take that, as it were, three or four hours of my time tomorrow to try to get the goddamn speech in the shape that I'm comfortable with in general.

i don't think it is that's the point if you have ever sitting around here i think his people don't know we don't have anybody from the nfc staff you know to get the soft stuff out of there well even if it were

It's not going to make any news.

No.

Well, there's no news in it at all.

That's the problem.

And you can't make any news.

You really can't be in a position to.

You don't want to make any news on track that you have right now.

You want to go just the other way.

But they have been told, Rogers, anyway, so they are not going to be terribly disappointed, are they?

They'll be disappointed.

They're hoping you'll come.

They understand that.

Probability that you will not.

He's good enough to give to Rogers.

Or is it too euphoric for him?

Well... Yeah, I give a...

Except that he talks about Kissinger's trip in the speech.

He doesn't talk about Riker's speech.

So that paragraph would have to be, you know what I mean?

Take out the fact that Kissinger is going to Japan.

It just hasn't been mentioned because he's going.

I don't know.

I think Bill is likely to do better.

Better to do it on his own?

Yeah.

I'm just a little think better.

He'll do better himself.

He's got to be trying to do better, you know.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

That's decided.

That's it.

Good.

Colson's fight is really...

But he doesn't think it's worth the effort or he thinks it's a risk.

No.

First of all, he thinks it's not good.

There's no plus that he sees for me because he thinks you're in a position now where anything you do in the shark hole here is going to erode the position rather than enhance it.

And that you don't need anything.

Henry basically coincides with that in the point that

You're already at a point of supremacy, don't put it to a test.

And Chuck's other argument is just a practical one, what's the use?

Even if you could gain something, there isn't that much to be gained, because you don't get coverage, and nobody's going to know you were there anyway.

Really Bob, the point is we don't need a speech now.

And we shouldn't make speeches unless we need them.

Especially not now.

And this goes back to the Connelly thing too, although he said sure, a couple things like this would be good.

His argument was don't get into the thing where you look like the other people or look like you're programming like the other people.

Chuck doesn't want you in a crowd for that reason.

He doesn't want you standing on a platform with a lot of people cheering.

I'm not so sure he's right about that, but there's an easy point.

I think you get enough of that, actually.

I think you're absolutely right.

In fact, there's a few people out to meet you when you go to Jesus King.

It's the same story.

Or at the church.

See?

That's right.

I don't think the president is going to say that the president isn't popular at this moment.

Oh, hell no.

They're not going to say it at this moment.

All that crap that they've written for so long, they're not saying right at the moment, are they?

They're just the opposite.

And there's something to be argued that it looks like a cheap shot in a way, that you made this thing and now you're running out to get the applause for it.

And you haven't done that.

You've stayed on a pinnacle.

Maybe you could, too, stay there.

There's something to be said, too, for sort of the feeling of mystery and withdrawal, in a sense, because, you know, that damn Moscow thing was a hell of a lot of mystery and withdrawal.

I just don't think that, I just don't feel myself that...

Being so available, that's why I didn't want to do those hand cutters.

I really just didn't want to do them right now.

That's right.

You're running out to the county officials.

You're just huffing and puffing.

I'm working in a different league than these other guys.

That's what candidates do.

That's why the county officials especially line up everybody and parade them by.

Why should you put yourself in the catalogs?

He's got money to talk about.

Well, you let them know then.

Yeah.

It is disappointing not to get, you know, any kind of total, but... We disappoint people all the time, don't we?

Yes.

And that's not the way to look at it.

The way to look at it is that we please some people by going to some things.

But you can't...

There's no way you could even begin to do all the stuff they want you to do.

Bring in all kinds.

Life is a big group.

Exactly.

Well, you've got to look at that you've done that over so many years and that somewhere that equity has got to, you're going to be able to cash it in rather than having to keep on putting more of it in the bank.

You're totally right.

I have done every day of the day.

I kind of think so after so I just drove

You've really got to have the bass man on because they're likely to put it in that McCormick place and have one during the full, you know, any allegiance.

I'm sorry, it's just like the VFW, you know, loud and proud.

Yeah.

You agree?

Yep.

Yeah.

What you're doing here is distinguished guests in here rather than going in there.

We've tried that.

No, I mean down there.

They have a distinguished guest in there at the convention.

Oh, at the convention?

Yeah.

You see?

Well, let's try that.

That's the leadership system.

Just say, I've got to be a true Republican.

I think they have that the first night, too, rather than the open session.

See, the beauty of that kind of thing is that first you get all the leaders to begin with.

The second thing is that there aren't any empty seats.

You don't have to worry about them.

I think they have a good reason to be here.

Yeah, we really do.

The Republican convention, they get an awfully good basis for this.

But I don't see how they can... Oh, gosh, maybe I'm afraid that... No.

Then it always takes place at the first of the convention.

Well, if over Monday night, before the Super Public Convention opens, then you...

I just don't believe I should do something right before the convention.

Well, you can't compete with the Republican Convention.

You shouldn't be doing a big public thing like that when they're on television trying to...

I will take a look at it soon.