Conversation 210-013

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Matt Hickey, please.

Bring me over the Kevin Phillips, you know, political reporter.

Yeah, those are out.

There's this story in the Post this morning talking about three big national contributors.

None of them I know of.

But it's interesting because one of them, the McDonald hamburger guy, the guy named McDonald of the McDonald hamburgers is a big McGovern contributor.

Maybe that's just the way the news plays.

Well, they are.

So are your offers.

Well, except the GAO report.

There's more question on ours than there is on theirs.

But I don't think, you know, that's a fine line.

I think we've got that confused.

We're arguing about whose is the worst violation.

We're in pretty good shape.

Well, they are.

You're satisfied.

You're satisfied with the Chopner operation.

That's all I want.

No, I'm fully satisfied with the Chotner operation.

I think we can do more there.

Okay.

Talk about that.

We might put a younger guy.

Well, I was thinking about, you know, maybe we ought to move a Dave Young, a guy that's a little bit straight and younger in with Chotner.

Yeah.

Because Dave knows where all the bodies are now.

Yeah.

Come back to another thing.

Bob.

Another argument I have for Connolly is this.

You know, in an interesting way, in a perverse way, he has a hell of a lot more stroke in the country on foreign policy than Agnew.

Agnew's trips have been considered to be kind of junk to me, and frankly they have been.

Connolly is considered to be a guy that speaks up in the National Security Council, who knows his national defense, and I have another reason.

If we can make him a very, very effective national...

I don't know what this is doing, but I don't want...

It would have that effect.

I want him to be built up as the guy who fights the national security mission.

Yeah.

I'm going to do it on the broad basis of the, uh...

Both the, uh...

And he can talk about when I was here and when I was there and what they said to me.

Would you call him today before the meeting?

Or do you want to wait until tomorrow?

I don't want to raise him in this meeting.

No.

I want to raise him privately so that he can call it over.

I think I'll call him today.

Make his own decision.

We'll get the speech written.

You realize we haven't had Conway out much since the first evidence we announced.

That's another reason to do it.

It's a good way to give him a big national stature type boost, make him a spokesman.

Then it sets him up to do some other things, to do other speaking.

I'd call it.

The way I see this is that they, the governments, we need a bigger than me.

I don't know what you're calling them.

And then the foreign policy that he's going to draw from the world, you know, and the fright that it's going to put in the world.

And the third part that he's going to bug out of

And the Board of Departments positing inside, in the years ahead, would be one sitting on the inside of the question table.

All of this related to the fact that the Democratic, it violates the tradition, the bipartisan tradition.

The Democrats, and ironically, the Democratic Party has been the international party and the strong defense party.

It's the Democratic Party.

It was the Republicans that used to be the isolations in the evening.

Staking the Democratic Party down the road during the last elections.

Something like that.

God damn it, I wish we had a writer.

It's so obvious just how that thing I can see it in my mind right now how to write that speech.

I'll say the weakness of the speech didn't catch you.

You never got a soul over there you couldn't put back to.

Farmer, write that.

Again.

Let's see.

I give that to the NSC crowd, too.

Maybe he should make two speeches.

Maybe he should make one on national defense and one on foreign.

Not one week apart, but one day apart.

Three of our national events were on board, but we have not one on board also.

I'm afraid I can't get it in, jam it into one speech.

You'll have a pretty good field to see, you know, you get...

half hour speech won't get a very big audience we know that but you could give a half hour speech that plays out the whole thing and then give three five minute speeches one on each of the three subjects if you could get enough into five minutes five minutes is where you get the audience because they have the

Try that, too.

Well, another thing is to make the speech and then to boil her down to five-minute segments in front of this commercials.

Do you know what I mean?

But don't say you're doing this commercial.

Say, I'll be making the speech.

You've got to really redo all this five-minute speech.

Redo the five-minute speech.

And then he says, I'll make a five-minute speech.

I'm going to do it this.

I'm going to hit the announce.

Cover this whole subject tonight, but it's complex, and then

Good way to kick him off.

Conley's the man to do it though.

Much the better man to do it.

You have no problem in having him say it, you know.

And saying it well, you have no problem with cuties either.

You know, he won't, he won't, he won't.

Well, and he's got a different

He's considered to be a party-burned pro.

Connolly's speaking to Democrats.

And he said, I want to tell you why, as a Democrat, we have got to put the whole thing, it's why we have to put country above party.

That's the theme of his speech.

Why America must come before party in the selection.

It would be good to talk about with that group is this

idea of the of the commission or whatever it is to review the watergate unless you just don't want to get into that at all the reason being i talked to klein games and he just burst out laughing and i said what's so funny and he said that's been my idea for three weeks but john mitchell pisses on me every time i i start to raise it he thinks he won't even listen to it

He said, my thought was, rather than getting a commission and getting all wallowing around and having to have a staff and everything, he just asked Tom Park as an individual, without setting up a big apparatus, to review this stuff.

It's a commission, too, but he doesn't care a whole lot about it yet.

It's a commission.

And it is pretty important that we turn this off.

He completely agrees.

He thinks we're in good shape on it, except for how we handle the white bush.

And he agrees that his coming out and saying we've done, you know, 300 hours of depositions and all that crap just won't, won't eliminate it because that's, it's self-pleading.

It would be a lot better than Mitchell's on this.

Mitchell was so hot.

I think Mitchell has kind of swung over to this thing anyway, right?

Commissioner.

You're looking at those kind of things you talked about.

I wonder if this group is big.

This is the right group.

I mean, they're on to the better right.

We're all sharp political champions.

Well, this is one we were going to have Brownell in.

or or or or or or or

but not to sit in a group like this.

You know what I mean?

This kind of a group has got to be gotten that button down.

You know, you just can't go around and say, well, see how they breed cattle in South Dakota or something.

That isn't what we're interested in.

Hurley was better than sitting with the PR group.

That's where he's good.

Hurley couldn't do it.

How much do you make with judgment?

as to what you do or don't do.

Hurley's advice is often for me when it comes to coming to suggestive to examining a dead-ass program of PR and say do something.

He is very valuable

One area that's interesting to me about him is that he's somewhat weak as it is, and that's because his staff is so much different as he is.

He's a domestic counselor, as I said, for a couple of times.

He's not getting any writing, that's it.

I guess we've told him often enough how he's going to have one life, and it's going to be worth it.

I've got to say that every day, everywhere.

Do you?

All the time, yeah.

I don't think we'll ever have toilet time.

Because it gets dropped in the instant.

As soon as you finish saying it.

Well, they work fast.

They have to get something done.

They just get done.

But they keep running into trying to do details.

It's a collection of dull words and an enormous detail.

And they explain it and then they crack it up.

That's for a crisis week.

Crisis week.

In terms of getting anything out of this.

The English will be good.

Yeah, right.

Well, and any serious policy mistake type things will be avoided.

Right.

Oh, yes.

Big loopholes.

That's pretty important.

That all matters, too.

But in the process of that, you also kind of lose...

It makes it absolutely hard each time.

Yeah.

It's hard to look back over the price of trucks and put and find any time they put a...

right our kids just their show I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

You should be sure that that's interrupted Ehrlichman's attention.

You see, John and Scott, this Domestic Council Passport

You know what I mean?

We're all talking about what we're going to do in the first hundred days and all that kind of bullshit.

Now, my point is that we always do is cut back.

That's what I agree to be talking about.

There's basic change, but I've been kicking a lot of asses out.

I don't want a lot of... That can be as exciting as...

I don't want a lot of the programs.

You understand?

I don't want to tear up the D patch.

I really don't.

And I want John to know that we're not for...

A lot of experimentation in schools and all that.

Interracial experiences and all that bullshit.

No, sir.

I'm still talking about the 60s.

We've got to rebuild our cities and we've got to do this.

We've been on the campuses and that's what they want.

It never occurs to anybody that we can't rebuild the cities.

Only the people in them can rebuild them.

That's right.

And they're only going to do it when we quit trying to screw them up.

I don't.

And maybe New York City shouldn't survive.

Maybe it could be.

Maybe you should go through a cycle of destruction.

That's interesting.

That's a very interesting point.

Now, is it exciting or more exciting 100 days?

Well, 100 days of return to basic

We may have to get to some awfully hard, hard choices in the foreign people.

Very hard choices.

Because really, it may come down to a very tough thing with Henry.

You have to realize that Henry would, first of all, nobody worth his salt would be Secretary of State.

Never gives up on him.

He doesn't really.

Even when they kick him into the ground?

He gets angry.

Where does he go?

He always goes back to the pseudonym.

His heart really isn't in it.

And I really think, you know, thinking about him, that he's probably better off to go off and write

But not put it out while I'm in.

It's going to take you four years to write it up.

See my point?

Four years to write.

I really shouldn't be sitting down on our own people, but I've seen enough of them to know that there's not having quite the... Somewhere out there, there's a young guy, I guess, maybe there's a young guy.

He has to be more in tune with the way I think.

I think that's my basic problem.

Maybe there isn't a smart guy that is into it the way I think.

That's impossible.

Could be.

Out of 200 million people, somewhere there is.

But we have to realize that there are people who are really not that much into it.

They're valuable in a lot of ways.

I think I went through a crisis today.

God almighty, imagine my sitting behind him and Ray Price writing my book.

Or, you know, really.

And he's the best we got.

That's right.

This thing, like a garden that lay not gold.

You've got to get some new guys that are on our side up and down the line.

And also that they wait to

We've got to close down.

I mean, that's some of the stuff we ought to seriously consider implementing the reorganization program even if Congress doesn't pass it.

Because you can in fact do it.

Interior.

Now there, you've just got to shake a lot of deadwood out of it.

Agriculture.

A lot of deadwood's got to be shaken out of it.

A lot of people that aren't our friends in that department are in agriculture.

Out they go.

But you see, we mean, apart from getting the Congress, we've got to take the executive and shake the living shit out of it.

But you understand.

a lot we can't shake because we don't have any appointments but those three thousand or so jobs that we do have all have got to be changed those that we shouldn't allow you know this argument of well he's a good man even though he's on our side well also i know i know but how can we be sure how the hell can you be sure that a man's a good man yes he owes his job to us you put it but you also put it to the test before he gets the job of whether he reads

says well not really but I know the point that I got I might have to get across to them and the fight that frankly that John has got to put to his domestic counsels people is candidly are they the old establishmentarians if they are they don't belong with us you understand that's the kind of people we've had in the domestic counsels no use to fight around about it that's what's been happening right

I said cold sure well I'm or or or or or or or or or or or or or or

all that has to be done in the white house we should have nothing and we shouldn't make any votes about it we keep getting we apologize oh yeah we have a lot of people that don't agree with us and that's plain stupid we should say you're goddamn right we don't have anybody the whole point of our being here is to get done what we think ought to be done and the way you do that is with people who agree with you that it ought to be done well the white house uh i'll tell you we went into that you know

One thing about winning, if you have a 51%, is this.

We don't have to worry about it.

Don't we have to get a Democrat?

Screw it.

We'll get a Democrat.

If he was for Nixon.

If he was a Nixon Democrat.

That's right.

But the other time, remember, we said, oh, we can't take anybody unless he's a Humphrey Democrat.

Screw it.

I want to do a government Democrat.

Including Humphrey.

We started out saying, why don't we get Humphrey?

Well, we try to bring the nation together and show unity.

That's right.

Now, you don't show unity at all.

You show power.

No.

We're the new majority, and we're going to play it that way right up to the executive.

And we're going to bring in, frankly, some labor guys, some hardhat types, some Italian types, some these and those types.

I'm going to cram them right down their throats.

As far as blacks are concerned, I'm only going to bring them if they're total loyal.

I don't give one damn.

There ain't going to be any black in there without the cuts.

That also comes to how we run the District of Columbia.

Any of those people?

Why the hell would we have a relationship?

And she came to everyone and saw all the people come in and she'd go out to Georgetown that night.

Now, God damn it, that's wrong.

We're not going to do that again.

Kennedy Crowe didn't do that for us.

I mean, some of the things.

We should have abolished OELD.

Now we've got even Jerry Orchard.

We've got a good one in Grand Rapids.

If you want somebody to go up there and forgive.

Jerry, of course, is so easy.

He's the most limited phone.

Try to send me my clue.

50 to 1 ratio or something.

So I'll, they go, and then you can redo the good ones.

We can make, if there's a good one somewhere, you undo the program, but you reform it into something else.

Yeah.

We go through, Allie Mary raised an interesting thing yesterday as to what

Are they supposed to resign or stay on or be given?

Exactly right.

It would be a traumatic experience for everybody when we start ripping the place up.

I mean, there's people around George County that have to be just squealing their goddamn heads off.

It's just got to be done.

I mean, it's hard to see what's going on.

I mean, you can find the ambassadors in the society.

There's a lot of brilliant ambassadors.

They're not friendly to me.

You've got plenty of lousy, insignificant folks to move to Foreign Service people to, you know, to get them out of the audience.

You're making them bastards and bastards.

Get some credit for stomping on it.

Well, the other thing that is related to this is Colson's mission in New York and the whole attitude toward the private and the press and so forth.

Now, we've got to, as you, of course, are aware, the client office has got to be abolished.

Are you agreeing?

Absolutely.

And half of those people have got to go and so forth.

The point that I make is that we have got to start in the blood.

I think we got rid of most of what's wrong on the planet.

We just left mine on top of it and put it as a particle of some kind underneath.

And what we have to do is to get stuck to trying to reward our friends for us to the extent there are any.

And I'm sure we've just got to do it.

And I hope you have your heart-to-heart talk with Sigrid on the times and folks to be done so.

Yeah, he understands.

and have the Chicago Tribune there.

God damn it to hell.

Why?

Why do you have reward on paper?

Why in the hell do we do it?

Well, pools are not a reward.

Pools are a sign.

It's a reward for the paper.

No, it's not.

You get a better story in the first hand story.

No.

Because the guy has to give his whole story to the rest of them.

But where any of our people want to pool, we've got to give our friends priorities

Some of them, you screw a guy by putting them on the pool.

Let me put it another way.

I don't want them in my presence.

Let's just put it as cold as that.

That's what he doesn't understand.

It's a personal matter.

That's why the pool is a reward.

As far as I'm concerned, it's uncomfortable to have John Osborne on a fucking pool.

You don't put him there.

Even though you're a concrete warden.

You see what I mean?

Or anybody from the poster.

Thinking of that, I mean, yeah.

God darn, we could play games with those people.

And you know, when you stop and think about it, it's stupid to have a restaurant in the water with a white house.

Or a crock raise that money.

Is that exactly right?

Why shouldn't we have that?

And the members of the public.

Oh, no.

He is the Lord.

We don't have to pay a grand to an enemy.

No more.

No enemies come.

Period.

You agree?

I sure do.

One reason I wish that it could happen socially.

The East Wing press side.

We've got to have somebody who understands that.

Certainly.

You know, it's...

And not for the others, bitch.

It's going to be a rough season.

I'm sure it's going to be rough as hell.

They all know what's happening to them.

But what the hell do you care at that point?

Well, it's hard on the person.

It's the person.

important piece for early very important because I do not want a rebel

They want to tear the hell out of everything.

We just aren't going to do it.

We just got to undo all the stuff we are doing.

See, now, he's always said you've got to be against the status quo.

Yeah, but the status quo...