Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Vietnam peace negotiations

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You won't think it's as simple over there.

Hmm.

... ... ... ... ... ...

Thank you.

You know, you hit a cat.

You see, a little of the controversy, a little excitement is all right.

And when they say, well, let's leave the poor people alone.

Are they quit kicking us?

You know what I mean?

You agree with that?

Absolutely.

Remember what they did to Herbert Hoover after he hit a big beach?

Yeah.

What they did to Goldwater?

Demolished.

What they did to me?

Demolished.

You remember?

After the closest election, you know.

Troubles.

Blackouts.

Christ, they were doing their God and that was to kill us all.

Sir, no double standard here.

No double standard.

That's a report from Henry Hayes.

They had a five and a half hour meeting and they're meeting again tomorrow at 3.

No progress.

Well, at least they're going on.

Al, Haig and Kennedy tried it.

This is just the phone reporting them out.

They just got out of the meeting and didn't want to say anything on the phone except they were sending a report.

Kennedy said, from his tone of voice, and from the fact that they're going, that they spent the time today, they started at 10.30 this morning, broke for lunch, and then went back at it.

And the fact that they're being followed, and the way I'm talking, makes it, you know, there must be some movement today, because they wouldn't be long if they weren't.

And, hey, I mean, Kennedy had a call very late last night from Joe Green, who said they,

Understood.

They were working hard and all that.

And, uh... Good.

That is so good.

You know, it may...

It may bring something.

There is a feeling here which is...

However it works either way.

I'm not...

I don't know whether Conley should have said it or not, but that Henry is writing a very emotional, very emotional, high-wire attention.

I mean, it's a, and I will have to consider this, we must do that, so we can rally the people before he's making a speech rather than, but that's not entirely unusual for Henry.

I mean, that sort of is, he responds to things sort of that way.

He gets very, very cranked up in those situations.

We've got the poll.

I don't know whether it means anything.

Oh, Harris never calls.

Well, our thing, it's interesting.

We had specific proposals in a little different way than Harris did.

The U.S. should sign any agreement that can be worked out regardless of the consequences of Vietnam.

Just end our part in the war, get our POWs back, and withdraw our troops.

38 approved, 52 disapproved.

There's some support for South Vietnam.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

In other words, the crisis is up to 38.

It's up to 38.

Just on the basis of that, yeah.

Then we said another approach is that we stop the bombing and mining and military action.

North Vietnamese return all POWs free to a ceasefire and a supervised election in South Vietnam.

But North Vietnamese troops continue to occupy those areas in South Vietnam they now control.

On that basis, 44 approve and 39 disapprove.

So you've still got 39 that disapprove a settlement that leaves the North Vietnamese troops.

And Harris, of course, was putting it directly that he didn't want to leave the North Vietnamese troops.

Well, we get it differently that way, too.

He said...

Q has said that the U.S. should not make an agreement unless all of North Vietnam's troops are withdrawn, even if part of the terms are agreed to.

Should the U.S. approve a settlement that leaves North Vietnam's troops in South Vietnam, or should we continue military operations to all of North Vietnam's forces?

Approve 33, wait until North Vietnam's out 47.

So it's basically the same thing.

47 would say stay in.

33 say get out.

That's when you just hang on to you.

That's when you hang on to you.

Then we say another proposal is U.S. should continue military operations until North Vietnam agrees to a settlement that gives the U.S. and South Vietnam the things they want.

Approve 30, disapprove 55.

This confusion is what this says on what people want.

On other things.

Now, we also get, though,

Although there are many factors involved in selling the war, consider just these four.

Return of U.S. POWs, removal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam, ceasefire between North and South, and supervised election in South Vietnam.

POWs with Northern troops out, ceasefire, supervised election, those four factors.

Which one of those should the U.S. insist on before signing a peace agreement?

Obviously, POW 66.

Vietnamese troops, 7.

Cease fire, 12.

And supervised election, 5.

Then, which one of those four factors is least important and should not stand in the way of our signing a peace agreement?

Supervised election, 49.

Removal of North Vietnamese troops, 20.

Because the removal of troops is more important to people than the supervised election is.

Are you ready?

So, that's where that comes in.

Well, it's encouraging in one sense.

The president is still here, and he also gave approval of the way the president's handling Vietnam as 59-31, which is what it was right before the election, but that was the highest it had been all this year.

That's right, that is pretty high.

It's 2-1.

with the president of the 64th.

That's Gallup's Gallup.

Gallup hasn't heard of it, no.

His procedures are so difficult.

He'll be out in a week after the election.

It's a strange time period.

He's going to a month after the election tomorrow.

I wondered if you would work out, starting January 20th, what a thousand days is.

And then let's say when there's a thousand days in, I don't know what it does in three times.

It's less than three years.

That's where the county was assassinated in November, so it has to be less than three years.

I thought they may have figured from his election rather than his inauguration.

It's mid-November somewhere.

What I'm doing, and you may want to do something with this and you may not, is I'm making up a calendar, several things, a desk calendar kind of thing.

It's a monthly calendar, but it shows each day starting with 1,000 on January 20th and 999 on the 21st and so on.

down through the thousand days, the thing that you might want to use as a thing to give your key people or something.

You know, an inaugural commemorative or a Christmas thing or something like that.

A thousand, and it'd be kind of a good story, you know, that we're looking at the thousand days and what we do.

Excellent.

It's a great way to look at it, though.

It really is.

To say, we lost today.

Today went by and nothing happened.

Now there's only 939.

You've got to figure that today went by.

You've got to figure, look at your person every day and at the end of the day you should think, what the hell did I do today to move the sticks a bit?

And if you didn't do anything, or if you lost your act, you've got to say, I've got to get my ass off the floor.

I've got to double up tomorrow.

It puts that relentless thing on there that, you know, that day is gone.

And you see, it's why I'm pushing all these people.

I was undersecretary of defense.

I don't want to see everybody in the government, but I should.

No.

No, I've got to charge them all up, they say, John said, but I'll... No, I can get them in.

And those departmental jobs are the way to do that.

You agree that should be in the cabinet room, aren't you?

Oh, yeah.

I'll be running to the department.

That's a hell of a day in the first place.

It's much more impressive to those guys to sit at the cabinet table instead of sitting at the damn conference room in their department where they sit every day for a staff meeting.

It shows a proper relationship we're bringing back in rather than going home.

Also, it shows that you are looking to your people who are those events.

do your work.

You're not going to be sucking around the employees.

I want my people there, too, and not any of the assholes.

That's right.

Well, there aren't supposed to be any assholes.

Well, we'll probably get them to kill a few, but they will all take the loyalty test.

Well, we'll keep some in.

Some, they're less sensational than others, but there shouldn't be any that aren't your people.

And that's especially, you asked about the Schedule C thing.

And it's kind of interesting.

We've got that.

We are finding some good men outside of Harvard Jail.

Oh, yeah.

Alex has got that.

I know that he has a vent for them, I believe.

The vent is his only weakness.

He understands the other people.

That's an inevitable weakness because it is where you're going to get a lot closer to those people.

It really is.

I don't know any of the best people.

Because we know them.

No, but Ballack isn't good.

I know we know them.

Oh, he isn't?

Okay.

He really isn't.

I mean, isn't that bad?

If there's somebody good, like I was talking to Dr. Whitaker today, if there's somebody good that has, I don't know what, I don't know if he's a professor or not, somewhere to go to school.

He says Harvard.

But he says he's concerned.

He's right.

John.

I said, why don't you go to Oklahoma State?

Or the Texas School of Law.

Yeah.

Or Texas Aggies.

Or these.

I said, those are schools.

I go to schools that are at enrollments of 25,000 to 30,000, Texas A&M.

And they're for us.

And they've got to have bright people in those schools.

And God damn it, Bob, get these people off their ass and get them out there.

And we're not doing enough.

We're just not doing enough.

You can't tell me we are.

I know we're trying to.

Those are, I don't know if you got that.

On the, you can't break Roger so he gets back on the scale again.

No.

On the, we've got two other secretaries.

We're at a point to settle on Commerce.

ATW we don't have.

On HUD, we talked about Jack Sheehan.

You know, the Fed, the point's made that if Sheehan

feels that he's very valuable over there because he's running the Federal Reserve System.

He's the manager of the system today.

And he thinks that his persuasive powers are very valuable to us in getting decisions with the government.

So we've got to look at someone else.

Unless you want to move Sheehan over.

The point is that two roles are about equal under Secretary of HUD.

So we're back to the

There's a lot of them who've gotten that.

But commerce, the guy he's recommending, this is the guy Malik's recommending, to go under Dent.

And what he's after here is a guy that can run the thing and that has some international business community stuff and some presents.

And the guy he's recommending most strongly is a guy named John McMahon, who is...

At age 42, Irish Catholic with eight children, orphaned at age 16, worked his way through Hofstra University, worked his way up in Monroe Calculator Company and become president at age 35, and did all their international market manufacturing contracts in Western Europe and Japan, negotiations for Monroe.

And then went to Baker Industries, which is a $50 million conglomerate, a fairly small conglomerate.

He got there two years ago.

He's raised revenues 70%, profits 150%, quadrupled the stock since he's been there.

Did he support us?

Oh, yeah.

We found him by the scouting around, trying to find a good guy.

He's from New Jersey.

I mean, he's in New Jersey now.

He's 42.

Sounds good.

That's a hot shot.

Sounds good.

He's a graduate of Hofstra College, Long Island University, and then he moved to the Wharton School of Business.

That's good.

That's amazing.

The second choice is a guy named Jim Cleary.

He's a little older, 47.

NYU Knight School graduate.

He's at Eastman Dillon.

He's a hell of a guy.

That's right, you know that guy.

And because I know him, I would tend to take him over the other one.

He's the second choice, and the reason being that he likes the management record that Maine's had, and he has no international background at all.

But he's a hell of a guy.

He's a hell of a guy.

So Jim Cleary would be the second choice, and then they would go down from there to...

You guys don't do anything politically.

They do have a woman, if you want to consider it.

No.

But she has to go to the other guy.

No, no, no.

Cleary would be fine, and so would the other guy.

You prefer Cleary?

Well, see, that's the problem.

I know him.

He was directly helping during the campaign.

I talked to him on the phone afterwards.

He's Irish and Spanish, big.

The gore.

Captain, the jury will

Maybe the other guy, because the other guy is too.

Let's look at, maybe we have another place for the other guy.

Maybe we want to use both of them, because there are two top candidates.

Or I think Perry could be something.

He'd come for secretary, but I don't think he'd come for under.

Well, check with Colson on both.

All right.

Check with him on these appointments so that it gets beyond just you and John, all right?

You see?

We are, most likely.

No, he's been in on them.

He put them all in.

That's for sure.

AGW, they taught us to go outside because you've got a cap running and we at least can go outside.

But what you need is a guy who will take a hard look at the stuff and whack, you know, follow the cap.

You don't want a guy that's going to fight it.

And the first choice there is Arnie Webber.

and bring him back, and he probably wants to come back.

He is not committed that he can take it, but he's interested in it.

Will he fight it?

Yeah.

More than anybody else, probably any more effectively.

The second choice is a guy named Matt Gorka, who's now president of TransUnion Corporation.

He came up on the financial side.

He's been president for 10 years.

He's a Bill Clements type, outspoken,

the kind that could work well with Weinberger, he's to thank.

And he said, I think because the department is so big and so difficult and complicated and the rest, that Weber would be the better man if he would do it.

Whether it be, he'd leave the place to Weber to run it, that's the point.

He knows his way around that.

Carlucci is a possibility.

Oh, but he's not.

You know, again, it's the wrong place to put that kind of amount.

We could use it better elsewhere.

Too much heart.

And the bottom of O'Neill from over at OMB, but they all feel he's better to keep over there to run the... No, they keep over there.

Uh, Pettidelli, uh... We have to go with Webber.

We have to go with Webber.

What they're doing, just so you know, on the Schedule C thing, we're talking about several positions, and they've divided them.

And there's 1,700 policy or program management positions that earn over $24,000.

Those are the key folks.

They're the ones that are the main concerns.

The other Schedule Cs are the confidential assistants and secretaries to the appointees and that sort of stuff.

But they're under $24,000, about $900 of those, and they're of secondary interest over there.

The only thing I'm going to say, and I won't say it again, all of the Schedule Cs don't have consistent numbers.

There must be.

I mean, all of the Schedule Cs, if you take them all in,

Seventy-five percent must come from the south and the west to the far west.

Seventy-five percent.

Twenty-five percent.

I don't get the damn figure out there, but you know what I mean.

I guess not, but I just got to get it.

There's where it is.

Seen him in.

Reasonably not.

That's right.

Qualified people, they don't get a chance.

Who the hell would have known Crow was a good man unless he came in here today?

That's right.

But what they're doing is they're running an evaluation through him.

on this with all the presidential appointees and putting through termination things.

They're in the process of that.

Now you've got some done, a lot underway.

Then they're establishing the personnel shops in each department that are assigned to work to the White House personnel office, not to the departmental.

They work for the secretary, but they work crosswise.

And they go through the non-career

personnel bank on the terminations promotions and transfers and then start an evaluation of the 9 000 super great career executive executives which is your other real problem can we but we can't create a change no well yeah we can move them around or wire around them but we cannot fire them no but we can force them to quit in some cases and uh

What they're doing with the personnel office is they're changing the organization structure in the department so that the offices report to the White House as well as to the Secretary first.

And the White House retains removal rights on them, so they know that where they get fired is from the White House.

They've got to be responsive.

Second, they've developed a manual.

How have you done that with the State Department?

With the State Department?

Well, we've got...

We've got a problem in the back of the state with the CIA and FBI.

That's right.

Well, and defenses, too, to understand.

Okay.

But then they've worked out a manual on organization procedures and criteria for how to work this stuff around.

And it's done procedures for neutralizing hostile people and that sort of stuff.

Okay.

The candidate list for the personnel events is complete.

They're taking them all from either White House staff, advancement, campaign organizations, either 1701 or out in the state.

In other words, they're a pure political people, these people willing to come.

Oh, yeah.

And they'll have that finally done this week.

Then they're starting a, they're running a one-week training course for these people about, and his crew will conduct on the whole thing of how to, how to go in and do this.

And it's a solid week dose of all the details.

You get the research types in to give them horror stories of how this goes.

I was just talking to Gordon Strong this morning, who's now over at USIA.

And he said, you are completely wrong about your, this stuff you keep talking about, about the disloyalty of

civil career servants and all that.

He said, you're 100% wrong.

It's 100% worse than you've ever thought it was.

He said, I've only been here two days and it's just unbelievable.

He said, the career people here make a point of the fact that they want bad performance ratings because they know that when Kennedy comes in in 77, the people with bad ratings under Nixon are the ones that are going to get the promotions.

And the people with good ratings are going to get canned.

Yeah.

That's what he said.

He said, you know, I heard all this stuff we talked about at the White House, but I come over here and I couldn't believe it.

He said they want faster progress.

Hershey says the same thing.

That's one of the things they...

When we're out, one of the things they...

The election must have been a horrible pressure for them.

They've got to write it out.

They've got to wait four more years.

That's right.

We just freaked out.

But anyway, that program is on track at least.

That's another reason why John's suggestion of my rushing around to all the agencies and making little speeches to cheer up is pure bullshit.

They'll laugh at you.

It's just like that.

You've got to cheer up your people.

And I think we do the same at the meetings.

We're going to have our loyalists.

I'm just going to play the loyalist right to a team.

There's no point in banging with the rest.

So, we're, I don't know yet, probably in a way, we're doing our best.

I've got, I first cut in ambassadors, and I don't know whether you want to get into that.

Or how you want to get into it, or what.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

You know, there are 118 ambassadors now.

Have you picked up the little zoo to the UNESCO and to that one over in Geneva, the OECD, and every agency of that sort?

I want to be sure they picked up every damn thing there is there.

Yeah, marvelous places like Bahrain, Chad, Cyprus.

I know.

God.

All the violence.

Can we start with, say, who the bad guys are?

Do we have any lists on that?

Yeah.

It's guesswork.

Yeah.

It is guesswork.

No, we've got a list.

Well, we've got to start a list.

Good.

Johnson and Sully has declined protocol, so I think we might as well go with Jim Reynolds.

Or did P.K.

take something else with him?

I don't know.

I've got to find out.

How about putting him in, uh... Yeah, that's right.

Let me find out why he didn't take protocol.

What they've done is run through the classification.

You think Reynolds has not come on too so hot that he's sort of a little bit of a bore?

A little bit, but he'll do what he's told.

And you need a guy who will gladly hand these folks to take them in tow for you and run them around the country.

We only have 24 on career now.

So we're going to go up to 44.

And I think we ought to push for more than that.

We can go up to 40 without any problem, I'm sure.

Others have.

And we can go beyond 40.

Other than that, we should.

And we need to post.

Stanzas submitted 60 names.

We're not committed to those, but those are for consideration.

But we've got some non-career that they're recommending that

that we retain.

And maybe it's worth, you want to take a quick second and run down those to see if you have any thoughts on them.

Humes in Austria.

He's been there three years.

They're talking about leaving him.

He's our man.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Three years.

Just say that's all there is to it.

He used to go.

Strasse Bay.

Keep in Belgium.

He's only been there nine months.

He should age.

Rossadair in Ethiopia.

He has to stay.

His cross is paid, as we told, though.

He's true in two years.

Now, see, if you can promise, if you can accidentally tell his cross to pay, that he's true in two years, and then promise...

We're doing all these on two more years.

Let me tell you my point, though.

You can promise to the people that want investors that you don't give to it this time.

We will have one for you if we make a promise in two years.

Two years.

Right.

Yep.

These are where we go.

Tell Stossel today we're going to appoint you for Dewey, but then we have somebody else with him.

Right.

I know, Brent, you do want to move out.

Out.

Annenberg, we leave.

Irving and Iceland just got there.

He said, all right.

All right.

And Moore in Ireland has been there three and a half years, so we ought to out him out.

It's a wonderful post, but he should go now.

You can talk to Dick Morris as to whether he should be in that, whether he's tough enough to do a permission.

Ingersoll in Japan will leave, and Ribeiro in Spain will leave.

Ribeiro should go, though, in six months.

You see, he hasn't been in Canada in six months.

No, of all people.

I looked at him, and he's showing age.

And I just feel that in Ingersoll's case, that we would like to stay one more year.

We should like to make a change, say that we wanted to stay, and it was understood that we should go, and we would like to make a change.

Yeah.

I'd say one more year.

Because he was put in, but the understanding was... We have a commitment for the post, but we have delayed it for a year.

We're not going to stay for a year.

Now, Shelby Davis in Switzerland has been there three and a half years, but Mitchell pushes, pushes hard that we've got to leave him.

Or move him to something else.

Stan pushes him.

Mitchell backs out.

He loves that ambulance.

Where are you going to just leave?

Leave them.

Okay.

Can't we tell him he's out in two years?

Yes, absolutely.

Nobody is getting anything beyond a two-year shot.

Right.

You've got a marvelous chance here to make a double appointment.

Right.

Okay.

Tony Marshall and Trinidad and Tobago should stay.

Tom Malady is now at Uganda.

Well, he's only been there four months.

Well, all right.

And now we'll change.

All right, all right, all right.

OECD is vacated.

They're recommending vacations.

Toscan.

No, there's a possibility there.

How about putting, if he would do it, could, would our friend, uh, I've been thinking of the economic community job.

I told, uh, I told, uh, early, I told him to see if Hutch would take that since he did not the other one.

You understand the other one?

Yeah, I hope so.

Uh, you know the one, the economic community.

I'm taking that fellow out there because he is not my man.

And it was not promised when it was about the other job, the European job.

Now, if they replace him, they're saying he should move back to OECD.

Well, they're just starting these off in good.

All right, but then my point is that the other guy that we ought to take a look at is the fellow that is our special trade representative.

I mean, Eberlin would be a hell of a good man.

and over there, okay?

So Everly would be my, if Hutch doesn't want to, they ought to check on Hutch right away to see whether he would like to take the European Union.

And then if he won't take the European Union, see if Everly would fit.

Okay.

Now, another possibility.

Because he's certainly considered to be totally loyal to Everly.

Yes.

I also think that, I also think that if you want to do it, I would think that, do you think Hodgson's coming up here?

No, Everly's better.

He's a businessman.

He's a German man.

Say Everly's a German.

All right.

Okay.

Of course, he's a German.

Those posts.

If that guy is that good, I've heard so much about him, I've never met him.

Who's pushing him?

Schultz, funding, and history.

I've got to get more.

I've got a general reading on it.

That's all good, but I'm trying to get some.

I think you do a tight peak when you get a trade on it.

Okay, that's not career posts.

I heard Remstad at NATO in Geneva.

Now that is one for just a good, sweet, dumb guy that has good manners.

Afghanistan, the thought is to move Newman out of there.

He's had enough, been there long enough.

He's been in government long enough, too.

He's had to share.

They have the suggestion of Albert Fay for Afghanistan.

Texas.

Argentina launches out.

Now, they're suggesting Farland there, just because he's good at Latin American affairs, but our thought is to put Farland up in the State Department.

We may need him for the committees.

You may need him for the committees.

You may need him for... Farland could do the committees.

He could also do Undersecretary for Latin America.

He could do Latin America.

I think he's basically...

in Spain, which changed the chairs around a little bit.

We borrowed it back in the 50s.

We're finding out early whether borrowing is what we want to do.

It's a tough line going in.

Walter Rice in Australia, out in the blue, and their suggestion is Harold Scott.

Worked full six months in the campaign, full-time, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce.

I don't know.

You've got no objection to that?

No, no, but that's a huge, huge, easy appointment for a rich guy that can't do anything else.

I mean, I just want to be sure that you're very wealthy.

What about John Robbins?

He doesn't want to.

Then we're going to try to get him into the National Commission.

What the hell will they do?

He's had all the reward he wants, and he doesn't want to be invited in.

Yeah.

The Al Schmidt in Canada should be out.

Recommendation there is for Conner.

Who's had a physical career, folks?

Do we have to?

No.

I think we ought to wait and see.

It's a good American business.

It really would be good there, too.

One of our good businesses.

That's going to be a business operation.

McComber is too much of an establishment state department.

I don't think we have to get into that.

Well, you said something about Pentagon favors, battle, and all that.

Talk to me, Bush, about McComber.

Well, all right.

McComber is the guy that you think...

You don't have to tell Kenneth, but you would give him another embassy, right?

He has never been to the ambassador.

He's in Denmark.

Columbia, Leonard Sanchio is a career guy that should be included back, too.

He's done a poor job.

Here, do we have any Spanish-speaking telephones in Texas?

David may want to be the ambassador.

Have you talked to John?

Which is my colleague with regard to whether he's got supporters.

Mexicans, I want to point at least a couple Mexicans to ambassadors.

and my other friend Henry Ramirez.

It's a waste of time.

What's that just made of?

Mount Peterson.

I'm sure that's committed to John Green.

And he does.

If he committed it, he can agree to wait until after the election so he can describe it.

France, I guess, is going to be a great solution with Tosca.

The other guy, I don't know where the hell he put Tusk.

You might ask Henry whether he did the videos.

I have more confidence in Tusk than anybody else.

No, I think he did it through ProEra.

Well, his recommendation for Greece is John Safer, who is one of our super fundraisers.

Denmark is vacant, and uh, beautiful culture, suggesting Crow, the Bolins are asking, they're backing Crow, being moved, he's in Norway now, but I don't know why we, well, particularly in Poland, so, spend their three and a half years, and all we saw, we're gonna have to hunt him, except he gave again, you know, let's try it.

Henry Caddo should be dropped from El Salvador.

He's got a hell of a throat.

They've got Wiley Reynolds.

We've got Wiley Reynolds.

They're away in there now.

He should be moved out, but I think they're committed to another post for him.

Yeah, he's doing a lot of that.

And also, he really is.

They're talking about putting him, he wants to go to Norway, and that's what they're talking about, putting him in where Crowe is now.

And the candidates are Roy Carver, president of Mandate Corporation in Iowa, and George Cook, the president of Milwaukee.

We've got a career guy that it's time to move out.

And the cutting guy, John Louie, is Johnson Wives' heir, president of Combined Communications in Mexico.

Mark's a board we've committed to with Marcus.

Mexico probably shouldn't be moved out.

Pardon me, I don't see, you know, we don't need a good appointment there.

No, no, I'm not going to do that because of the reason you mentioned.

We don't know anything.

We do need a Mexican speaker type.

Could Sanchez do it?

Maybe.

He'd come for the American businessman.

That's what you've got to be sure about.

I'm not sure he's strong enough.

Well, Ben Dorsch should get out of the Netherlands.

They had George Cook as a candidate for New Zealand also.

It's a great post.

I don't care.

George Cook, he's fine.

Anyways.

Pakistan.

What about our Jews?

I thought we've got to get a Jew in here someplace.

Three of all that money.

I think we'll get some here.

Augustin Henry Tosca, they're suggesting.

We are.

And the one that's vacant, they're suggesting Wode Miller.

From Mars.

I don't know who Wode Miller is.

Hines finished his term, his career.

He's out.

He's been there three and a half years, too.

That's right.

They're suggesting Len Farris, Donner, and Jack Hines for that.

South Africa, I heard about a guy named Daniel Terra.

He's president of Water Chemicals in Chicago.

They had Einstein as a professor over there.

A career retention post.

Just quickly, we went through Bahrain,

Maybe you don't even care about it.

I don't know these people.

I just want a goddamn chapter and verse on them.

Should I run through the names just to see if you do know any that are bad?

I'll go through them fast.

Bahrain, William Stoltzfus, Bangladesh, Herman Isles, Barbados, I think Donovan, Bolivia, Ernest Siracusa, Botswana, Charles Nelson, Brazil, William Roundtree, William Lee Roundtree.

I remember.

He's had enough there.

I want a stronger man in Brazil, a businessman in Brazil.

Robert?

Where am I?

Edwin Martin.

Robert Yost.

Edwin Martin.

Yeah.

Is that the same one?

Is that the son of a big member that I said before?

Is it?

See if he isn't the one that didn't have that thing down there in Argentina.

And then they tried pushing him off of the...

someplace else and so forth.

I don't want him.

Robert Houston.

I think he is.

I've both heard of Robert Moore, Central African Republican, all the men from Saan, Chris Van Hollen, Chad, Ed Mulcahy, Chile, Matt Davis, China, Walter McConaughey.

We're going to change that.

Costa Rica, Byron Becky.

He's a good man.

Cyprus, David Popper, Czechoslovakia, Albert Scheer, Dominican Republic, Francis Molloy, Ecuador, Finley Burns.

Dominican Republic is a good one for us to pick up for one of our own.

That's a good post.

Easy.

Ecuador, Finley Burns, Equatorial Guinea, Robert Moore, Ecuador.

Go ahead.

Gabon, John McKesson, Gambia, Ed Clark, Guatemala, William Bowler, Guinea, Terence Todman, Tiana, Spencer King, Haiti, Clinton Knox, Honduras, Houston, Ryan, Hungary, Albert View, and Indonesia, Francis Galbraith, who had changed out, businessman, Indonesian, businessman, doesn't speak Indonesian, Israel, Walworth, Barber,

Ivory Coast, Jack Luke, Jordan, East Brown, Korea, Boca Beach, Kuwait, Liam Stoltzfus, Laos, Godley, Lebanon, Liam Buffum, Lesotho, Charles Nelson, Liberia, Macon, Alan Gacy, Joseph Mendenhall.

He wants to play, wants to push up.

You've got a chance for, if you ever look at this, Malik got my labor people on here.

There was a quick piece to it.

But if you go to the library, you've got a chance for a black there.

I mean, a black.

Okay, Malagasy, Joseph Mendenhall, Malawi.

Incidentally, make Sweden the black post.

I want a black for Sweden.

Okay, that's all.

This is just another black.

I have one.

I've got another one.

So get the very best black you've got and get it for Sweden.

Uh, Malaysia, Jack Weidman, Maldives Islands, Chris Van Hollen, Baldwin, John Getz, Mauritania, Richard Murphy, Moore, ETS, William Brewer, Morocco, Stuart Rockwell, Ed Powell, Gerald Lays, Nicaragua, you should go.

Go, it follows me.

Oh, that's it.

Whitewood.

Bunker.

Oh, yeah, that's both Whitewood.

Nicaragua, Turner Shelton, Nigeria, Rosewell, McClellan, Nigeria, John Reinhart, Phillips, Henry Byrode, Poland, Richard Davies,

H.R.

Williams, Toksos, Romania, Leonard Meeker, Rwanda, Robert Corrigan, Saudi Arabia, Nick Thatcher, Senegal, Ed Clark, Sierra Leone, Penrose, Singapore, Ed Cronin, Somali, Manburu, Swaziland, Charles Nelson, Tanzania, Deb Carter, Togo, Dwight Dickinson, Tunisia, Talcott Seeley,

Turkey, William Hanley, the Emirates, William Stoltzman, Suffolk, Boulder, Donnelly, Eason, Uruguay, Charles Adair, Venezuela, Robert MacLennan, Yemen, Crawford, Yugoslavia, June, Zambia, June, about time to go, because they must have retired, or what the ages of these people, if any of them are ready for retirement age out, you know, that's got to be checked.

Dr. Bush retired at 64.

I know.

Instead of that, that's what I need to know about any of the critics.

I know Galbraith, for example, is over 60.

Just, I think, faster.

65.

Cambodia, they want to move Swank out.

Congo, they want to move Vance out.

There's been a bad job.

Bali, they want to move Black out.

Blake.

Paraguay, Bob Blake.

Yeah.

Christ, we don't know what happened next.

Right.

What are they going to do with him?

I don't know.

George Landau, they want to move out.

George Landau, I thought that was the one I picked.

That's the one Hank says he's trying to make.

That's the problem.

He's out.

Yeah.

Jake Beeman.

I think he's going to move out.

I don't know.

I don't know what happened.

I have a feeling we just have got to get on top of it now.

We'll never be on top of it if we don't now.

It's just like you mentioned, you're saying to the guys in the next three years, you want to stay longer, but you can't do it.

You've just got to go, and that bird has got to go now.

Now is the time.

Out, out, out.

And we'll be on top of it.

And the two-year thing is a chance to get on top of it.

I'm sure it is.

You shouldn't ask a guy to go for less than two years because it's a movie and all, but two years is enough.

They get the experience.

They're going to get stale after two years anyway.

Now, one thing you do have is this, is the problem of the school crack.

And consequently, I would say that you could say that, I'll extend it to the point that they stayed through the school year.

In other words, you would point to their successors at the first and the second year.

in two years and they'll get confirmed for practice.

But they stay with you now, where it matters to them.

A lot of them it doesn't matter to you.

Okay, on the inaugural, we are pretty good shape, good.

They have raised a couple of questions, so I just want to be sure you don't have any objections.

I know some people would like to have some events on Thursday.

And what they're proposing is a vice president's reception at the Smithsonian, which would be a big event as far as numbers of people.

And it gives them some good kind of activity.

And I would love a salute to the states at Kennedy Center that night.

And that poses a problem.

Their idea would be I go.

It would be that you would go.

And what it would be is it would be the variety show as contrasted to the

performances.

The point of it is partly revenue.

The other part is that the city, the hotels, all that want a four-day guarantee for the inaugural.

We're only giving them a three-day, and the only way we can hold the three-day is to do something Thursday night to get people into town.

It would mean you'd have to go to the thing, though, and it would honor the governors of the 50 states, and you'd be saluting the states and their people, and we'd have the

that means you gotta go to that that night then you gotta go to the concerts the next night and you gotta go to the ball the following night all right then they're proposing a friday afternoon a filler that doesn't require you as

gives them the afternoon with something to do.

And it's not a bad public relations idea, which is a salute to America's heritage that they would do at the Smithsonian exhibit hall or something.

They've got where they can do it.

And it would be ethnic art and cultural exhibits, buffet-style ethnic food presentations, and a variety of ethnic musical groups.

And so it would be American music and folk dancing and art displays.

and all that, and what they want there is your daughters and their husbands, and administration dignitaries and cabin people to move through it, you know, and there'd be celebrities doing some of the nationality celebrity types like JaJar Gabor and Desi Arnaz and so on, you know, that you can tie in to.

And it's just another festive event that gives a lot of people a place to go and something to do.

That's already a good idea.

Good.

Then the only other thing is, well, as you know, after the oath and the address of the Capitol, the tradition is a congressional luncheon.

Sure.

The suggestion that's made is that you give the congressional luncheon at the White House rather than having the Congress give the luncheon at the Hill, which gets it under our control.

Right.

And you invite the same people that would be inviting the congressional leaders, the members of the court, and the members of the cabinet.

That's who they are.

They don't have an adequate place there.

They don't have adequate food.

Right.

That should not be given there.

That's kind of a nice thing.

I'm honoring the Congress.

My appreciation of the Congress for their...

But that's a hell of a lot easier for you if that's at the White House.

We can tell them logistically.

We can work it out there.

Well, you can't, because that means you can motorcade back to the White House right after the ceremony, before the crowd breaks and everything gets screwed up with the parade.

You get right back to the White House, and they all do, and you have the luncheon there, and then they all go out to the stand to watch the parade.

Then I have to ride down back and go through the parade.

That was the luncheon.

It would be a terrible thing to do.

There's a problem changing it to the White House.

It would be a terrible thing to reach tradition.

Well, why not?

Why not?

Why don't I ride through the parade right there to the White House?

No, I can't do that.

I'm supposed to lead the parade.

It's not it.

You could have the luncheon at the White House and then go out and lead the parade.

Let's go back down.

Let me work that one out.

It can be worked out so that I can go to the White House and back away, and then while the parade's forming up, you know, go finish the lunch, and then go off to the stands.

There's a suggestion, Lucy and Rose and Ed Nixon, that you have on Sunday afternoon, you have the church service Sunday morning, then Sunday afternoon you have the Nixon-Ryan family

perception, which would be a couple hundred relatives.

Gets them out of the way at that.

Now, you can have them to church, but then they wipe out the church service for everybody else.

No.

Have them in heaven.

They have to.

They have to serve, so I don't have to have the burden of it.

Well, that's the point.

If they know they're coming that afternoon, it takes them out of your ear for everything else.

I'm talking about trying to develop ideas for the inaugural

And this, again, Julie and Ed Nixon have been involved in, along with, you know, our crew of research types tossed in.

And the one they've come up with as their number one idea is, let the people come forward.

I've got Sapphire, of course.

Which they see as an extension of the Forward Together theme from the 1969 inaugural, and it's the

The second suggestion is the challenge of peace, which implies the hope for the future and all that.

The third is the new spirit of 76, which has the obvious bicentennial.

The fifth is a new century of freedom.

The fifth is we the people.

The others, they just tossed in, were toward a more perfect union, summons to greatness, one America indivisible, let us go forward in peace.

Out of all that, I strongly feel the one that does you some good is the new spirit of 76.

I agree.

It's a usable thing.

You can't use the peace thing.

You never know what the hell is going to be happening.

That's right.

We use them a lot, too.

And it is the need for the inaugural.

It's not brought in.

The need for the inaugural is to let the people come forward as the typical sapphires, you know, throwing them back to the, you know, and it gets back also to the gobbledygook stuff.

I think the spirit is, the spirit of 76 ties in every,

right way it's a good year 76 and it's it's an executable thing that can be done in all kinds of good forms the other thought was the new american majority but that's not political too totally political wrong spirit of 76 i like the american majority of course but i i know it's too political

Spirit of 76, Bob, has a nice touch to it.

But I'm not bringing it up.

The plane's name, what do I call it?

They asked about the new plane.

The new plane should be named the Spirit of 76 also, shouldn't it?

Sure.

That's my view.

I don't want to put a new name on it.

Hell, I'll explain the Spirit of 76.

Why not call it the Spirit of 76?

Throwback.

You look back and forward.

Yeah.

I think that's good.

If they want the word, do it.

If it's all right, I understand.

I don't care.

But I just, I don't know if it needs to be added.

I think it's a very simple distinction.

That's all I have to say.

That gives you the guidance on those things.

I don't see anything else to do.

Obviously, it's very irritating to me.

are not, you know, just going along because he's got, frankly, almost too accustomed to we recommend something and then we do it.

But he's wrong on his reading of the American people and how to deal with them.

He's just as wrong on that as he was before the election.

Before the election?

Before the election.

Before the election on China?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, everything we've done, we've had to fight him in terms of how you deal with the people.

And he has not realized, well, he's constantly talking, basically, to the kinds of people he has dinner with at night.

The kind of people he has dinner with at night are not going to agree.

Let's face it.

Well, two things.

They are wrong, and they approach things the wrong way anyway.

But they also have no sense of what the American people think.

It's inconceivable to them that a hard hat is a good thing.

thing, or that wearing a flag in your lapel is a good idea, or that, you know, any of that kind of stuff.

They think that it's just a different world.

It's beyond their realm of conception.

Well, he's obviously having a hell of a time.

But I won't send any message to him until tomorrow.

I don't want to get this

the thing he talked about before.

Only when you know he's on the way.

Send it to the plane.

You'll have plenty of time.

You don't want to get that into the next town.

Don't get him all stirred up before he...

It may not be necessary.

He may be getting something put together.

Something may happen.

I don't know.

Ray's hopes are going to dash either way.

But the...

Well, you know what they are, don't you?

Yeah.

Oh, and on and on and on.

Like that world report thing he's going to get into.

I'll lay you money, it'll end up 200,000 pages this time.

You know, words.

It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

We've got to face the necessity of that change.

I told you after the Moscow Sun.

I'll try to build a...

I think maybe that's true.

It would probably be useful in the conference.

And then...

you

Well, it's the up-and-down thing, as far as Hague is concerned, plus the overriding ego.

Persecution.

The reverse persecution thing, where he has to persecute other people.

In other words, brutality.

Yeah.

Personals without ourselves are recognized.

Yeah.

And the total insecurity and instability of others.

No.

He's got a monumental ego, but he doesn't have monumental self-assurance.

He does not have self-confidence.

He doesn't know.

He does intellectually, but he doesn't beyond that.

And he overcompensates.

Not to give him a lot of psychological emotion, but what it boils down to is that the guy has ups and downs.

He has times when he's in great shape and times when he's in bad shape.

And how, when he subscribes to the Psycho Theory, he says, you just gotta ride out the bad, the bad times.

And to participate in such a great event.

You know, it's such a, you know, changeable.

Congress raised hell, you know, there's,

to get too much of the editorial flair up.

Well, you know, his estimate of the time of May, we had to be prepared to put these troops around the White House.

He always overdramatized.

And Cambodia got to it.

It didn't even happen then.

Cambodia, he said they would burn the cities.

They did.

And May, he said they would start in the White House.

We had to put troops on.

And the White House.

And he got her open all of a sudden, you know.

was trying to order the troops out.

In fact, they had started to do it, and I canceled the order, because that was what would have gotten people excited.

The point is that here, there's a much more, well, it's a much more, that's a much less admirable factor without his really probably knowing all we may know.

And that is that Henry is on the limb for no reason other than his own statement.

And he made it in the best of intentions.

But he went out in a statement, he did it twice.

He went out in a statement, pieces of hand, and then he proceeded to tell Ziegler this is gonna be the last meeting.

Now both are stupid things to say.

One more meeting, three or four.

days or whatever he made the one more meeting thing about because he said he wanted to prove he was right all the intellectuals like to prove that they were right all the time they never want to prove they were wrong now he's come again and he feels that if we don't do this then he will be discredited and he feels that he's reaching for a straw and he's going to get a mechanism but he's the president

We'll rally the American people, and we'll see this thing true.

And rather than having me and Registrier punished, the people who will be punished will be versioned.

The left wing will be the persecutors, and Hanoi and Saigon will fail to go along with this.

In the end, they will be the ones who will be punished, because it's solutions.

bombing of the North and then a settlement with the North that would flush the feud.

It's really a shocking goddamn thing.

It's really what it comes down to.

It doesn't end up any less.

Because his bottom line, what he would do with all this agony doesn't mean peace with honor.

It means a bug out for prisoners.

I was thinking last night after getting back up to Camp David.

You didn't say you were going to come home today.

I'm sorry, I sure didn't.

And I really thought that even more strongly, again, as I told you, top to top, if a fellow would have something so

badly organized as that.

It was almost incredible.

Ron said it was really, almost incredible.

Really?

Ron's thing?

Yeah.

He said it was just kind of all, you know, it was a beautiful dinner, and he said your thing, they really appreciated it.

Ron's thing said it all, that, well, you did a beautiful job, personally.

part of it.

And a spectacular job of lobbing Finch in without ever saying Finch.

The employee, you know, was set up completely in that.

Couldn't have been better.

And they had a good time.

They had good entertainment.

The entertainment was very good.

They have, incidentally, we might want to use this guy, the one, that bearded guy.

What was his name?

Brooks.

Yeah.

Brooks.

Yeah.

What does he do?

What he does is a thing where they introduce him as a guest.

And the tap driver got up and he said, before we go to the next thing or something, I thought we'd like to hear a few words from Phil Brooks or whatever his name is.

His daughter, Terry.

Russ Brooks, yeah.

So he gets up and he does a thing where he acts like he's a little drunk.

And he starts to give a speech and he gets all kind of screwed up.

And apparently, Ron said it was really one of the funniest things he'd ever heard.

And he said the guy would be, if you wanted to do it at a stag dinner or something at the White House, the guy just, you'd do it at dinner and the thing where you call on people around the tables, you know, you could call on a few people and then call on him just as if he were the Canadian Deputy Finance Minister or something, you know.

He said he'd get up and he'd just completely break the thing up.

The guy's so funny.

And he works up a routine that he doesn't, it isn't a sloppy drunk type thing, you know, but it's just, he kind of gets a little, has trouble with things.

I guess it's pretty funny.

And then Jonathan Winters did his baseball routine, a standard thing, which is pretty funny, but it's pretty old.

And not, then Tap gave a little speech, and Finch gave a little speech, and they presented these things.

They gave, I've got one for you, they gave these gold coins.

to the honorees and silver coins to all the other guests.

And they're, it's a coin with a, you know, they show it to you, your face on the front, and then the back has the state of California.

It's a dopey thing to do.

I mean, I shouldn't say, you know, it's a matter of fact, but it really is.

And they stay on and organize.

Ron didn't know.

They left, and he thought it kind of broke up.

I think they may have gone back to their hotel and been there.

That's what it happens to do.

But anyway, first of all, there were a hell of a lot of nice people there.

Like the usual pitch crowd, he had mixed in to have us in action.

It never helped, you know, but he always does, you know.

He wasn't really a solid, you know, tightly knit bunch of people.

Well, he had 40 seats and he decided to fill them.

And as, you know, Ed Carter, who was one of the hosts, couldn't be here.

So he filled his seat with Cliff Miller or something like that.

But anyway, it was nice for him.

But the only thing that I would say is that I still wish

Well, I do too, Bob.

Really, it was strong.

You would have upstaged the host, and that would have been an insult to them.

I think he's wrong.

I think it would have been the highest possible compliment.

I know you were here, and you're here, and you want to do this.

It's a racist occasion.

Stand there.

Move along.

brain band is playing.

You just can't do it, right?

And I leave and say, no, John, there's a bus outside.

I'll take you over there.

We should invest, and I've got to catch my bus to Camp D. Well, Bob, Bob does not, well, even his sex is guessing that I moved from table to table and sat and talked the shit out of you.

It would have been impossible.

Those tables were... You couldn't have talked at the table anyway.

I went around and spoke to each one of those people, and each one had a chance to say a word, which was

And then you speak to the group, and you give a very extensive speech to the group.

And they all felt that, my God, they did a hell of a job.

They were the most important people in the world.

And that's what matters.

And how they feel about it.

Sitting at the table with them would not have done that.

Because then you have to talk to a group of ones.

You can't talk to individuals at the table.

Except the one on the home side of it.

Oh, yeah, I saw that.

It was titled Bill Smith.

Bill's not going to talk to us.

Forrest Shumway.

Does he?

Forrest Shumway.

He had some power there, some good people.

And, uh, he had the August County Common.

Did he go to San Diego?

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

The church or what?

Yeah.

I don't know that.

Well, it's all right.

We, I am so used to doing things in a somewhat unordinary way.

but I don't like it done in a disheartened way.

I suppose we should not insist on there being disorder when people say we do.

But I think people like things that are orderly.

It comes off better if it's done that way.

If this was fine, then it would have come off better if they had been in the White House and could have, you know, been in the border.

Bob's argument is they've all been in the White House.

Bob, you know, that doesn't matter.

And being in the White House

Everybody can walk in that door.

That's the biggest thing in the world.

I love going over to the White House, and I've been there more than all those people put together.

I've gone there pretty many times.

If you walk down to that first floor of that blue room, there's just something about that place.

The whole thing is just kind of brilliant.

It's a hell of a place.

Fantastic.

feeling of greatness in it.

You don't think that's anywhere else.

No.

It's an excellent place.

Blair House is nice.

It is.

It's a nice house.

But we were right in that I think that in the future we will not get ourselves sandbagged into where I do anything of that sort.

I guess it's all right if I drop by and talk to you about where I get so involved.

It's kind of my party.

You've got to control them.

And it's a favor to control them.

It's like the advanced man, you know, put them on the ground.

And usually afterwards, after all the notes, it's a broken body and everything.

I'll say, gee, I'm sure glad you put it back.

I do thank you so much.

Yep, because it came out better than ours would have been.

Much better.

They didn't always.

Because it's true.

People don't realize it until they...

What would you think we client ought to do?

I understand, I don't think, not to do it, but because it'll help us.

I think client's a goddamn good property for somebody.

I just think somebody should, should we speak to him?

Bob has.

Wow, Bob.

No, he has.

This is one hell of a thing.

They've got me moving around, talking to some of those people, fast moving around, hot boxes, pushing a few buttons here and there, you know, something will come.

If they take it, they'll get it.

Well, in any event, there's no skin on our back.

He just stays, and we're just not going to pay attention to him.

That's all there is to him.

We're going to run the shop right.

That's not ever hurt his feelings, socially or in any way.

But in terms of operations, Bob, we're just not going to have him in charge.

So he'll go.

My inclination would be to be brutal on him like that, and that's the wrong thing to do.

I would have just hung hard on him, just said, you can't stay.

But I would be wrong doing that.

But it's equally wrong to let him stay on forever.

That's right.

What's got to be done is he's got to be constantly eased out of the way it works.

That's right.

All right.

All right, go ahead.

You saw them shivering in the cold.

There's a place to get inside.

We put coffee in there this morning.

I made it clear that you weren't doing it because of the time, right?

Did the time say there wasn't any coffee out?

Oh, I didn't see it.

We'll get coffee and sugar.

Good.

I, uh, about all that you said, what you covered this morning, we covered, uh, Peterson.

His, uh, his special assignment.

He announced death.

He announced, uh, what's staying.

and we announced that Simon and Morgan, then I moved the wires into the networks and shake up stuff across the country.

That culture department must be revitalized to be responsive to the problems of the farmers today with today's methods, not the assaulting the base problem from outdated methods.

We didn't believe in the bugs.

The nominal kind happens, though, and it just .

When we leak to the Tribune and when we leak to the L.A. Times, it does not get back.

And that's the importance of establishing the star.

We should do it.

We should do it to the star.

Two days.

My view is as much as you possibly can.

Maybe it means a lot to them out there.

Oh, absolutely.

That's why we should do it.

So do it to there.

We don't care.

And then we'll make the announcement.

Sure.

It's May noon.

That doesn't bother me.

But the main one we're trying to screw is the post.

That's right.

That's why.

So therefore, leave it to the star.

That's right.

To the star.

You've got to have a talk with somebody at the star.

Well, maybe he wants to cover this big story when we start doing the... No, he's not a reporter.

He wants to do the organization stories.

And he's, uh, you see what this...

Well, he is.

At this point, I don't care about his loyalty.

I mean, he's with us because he realizes there's a chance to beat the post.

I can talk to him about it.

He's with us for that.

He's with us because he knows on the foreign policy thing that we're doing the right thing.

He's basically with us there anyway.

And he's with us because the ownership of his paper is with us.

That's right.

And he knows that also.

That's the main reason.

That's the first reason.

Okay.

The U.P.I., this person's going with a story out of La Paz, Bolivia, La Paz, Bolivia, with pictures of you holding two blue-clad girls back in 1958 in the U.S. in La Paz, Bolivia.

And they're going with a story that their mother indicated at the time you were there to the mother in 1958 that you said when they become old enough to go to college,

that you would arrange for them to receive a college education in the United States.

So the question is, how do we deal with this?

It's going to be a big spread, a big layout for UPI with pictures of you back in 1958.

The State Department can, without problems, any problems, arrange through the cultural exchange program.

Education.

Scholarship education for these kids in the United States.

I talked to Glenn Garman about it.

Well, I think what it may is very likely is, as I hope, you might see if the girls qualify, if they're bright, you know, and all that sort of thing.

It would be nice to see, particularly most of them, left-wears.

Right.

And see if they can do it.

Are they in college age now?

Right.

Yeah.

They've been very smart Bolivian parents, because they handled it extremely well.

They kept it quiet until the time they were ready.

And in La Paz, Bolivia, UPI's picked it up, and the mother and father, the father's actually who would make $75 a month.

And they have quotes on the wire saying, it was such a wonderful thing, and that we need two little girls that worked and planned for this since that time.

It has all of that.

Are they Bolivians?

They're Bolivians.

Yeah, sure.

That's a Spanish name.

How about the Indian?

The Indian times.

What do they look like?

Their names.

Their names would be Spanish, but Bolivia's an Indian country.

Judith and Ruth.

Lea Nortini.

They're not Jewish.

I didn't tell you.

What's exactly what I was going to try to find out is that they were Jewish.

They're Jewish.

I don't know if Jewish might be something I don't understand.

It sounds all right.

That's better.

The mother worked in the home, and it was reported at that time that you indicated to them that you would see them when they graduated high school, they would receive a scholarship as close as they could.

Try it.

Get this one, but we have no more scholarships up in this room.

You can start to move some 300,000 people all over the world.

I haven't done that.

Oh, Campbell Drivers in Afghanistan.

I got the picture.

Yes, sir.

I've got the whole thing going.

I hold it in both.

Yes, sir.

It's good.

It's a nice cover.

Sure.

It's fine.

I didn't want to lose it before I checked.

Good.

They've got the picture of us.

We had something to go on.

I'd just like to say that the presence of certainties will be arranged for you.

I won't make a big statement or something.

I'll just tell you who you are, the presence of certainties.

I recall that.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I don't see any problem.

You'll need to think it through.

That's better off to do it than not to do it.

You're trapped.

You might have that little human interest that you might mention to the press that I called Eddie Cox to congratulate him on passing the New York bar.

He just got the news.

You still wondered though?

Oh hell yes, I wondered.

I waited and waited and waited.

Mark number seven.

Tomorrow, what do we got to go with?

Well, we got a bunch of... Will he say anything after his meeting with Peter?

Don't think so.

That's the plan.

Here's his chance to get out there and pop on.

Well, there's going to be a meeting up here sometime, too.

That'll be the brave of Bush, then.

Well, we won't announce Bush tomorrow.

Well, we may have to.

If we get Dole locked, we may have to.

We won't announce Bush anyway.

But it will happen.

The way the story would come out, Dole would come out and say that he's checked around the country and found the overall choice.

George Bush is succeeding as a full-time chairman.

It's disgusting and brilliant and brilliant.

very reluctant to have him leave the U.N. but he's uh, the president is uh, he has an object with Mr. Bush, uh, with Bush and we'll do it that way, and he's agreed to take the appointment of the committee in Houston.

And as it's meeting, that's the way it's arrived.

Call Bush, one of those here, and just, you know, come out and do it here before cameras are, well that's what I think you should do as well.

What time's he due up here?

They want to do it fast before the boat finds out.

Sorry, I promised Wolfie.

Yeah, I mean, he's in good shape.

I've been talking to him, and he's, you know, he's a little dry.

Yeah.

He's in good shape.

Good.

That's my problem.

Well, the other one's been overriding.

Yes, it will.

But, Mr. President, the only point he has made in every speculative story is that it's not going to be a surprise at all.

Right here.

It doesn't matter how many times we'll have that.

We'll detect it at the best of the time.

Okay, well, that's interesting.

What about an examiner that doesn't have a... Well, Kirst, we're going to get Kirst to justice and the FBI.

Oh, good.

We'll cover that one.

That's good.

We were thinking about... You talked to him about it the other day.

Yeah, we'll leave one hand, we'll leave one hand Thursday or Friday to New York Daily News.

Good Friday story for you.

And we would then announce that on Saturday.

That's good.

It's coming up there and so forth.

But we're not telling one hand we're leaking it.

We tell them to go around and tell our people to start leaking.

We've got the Tribune in excellent shape.

When I talked to him about, you know, I don't know if the President understood what I was saying the other day, but I made the point to him regarding Matt O'Ganty that there was no question of my kissing her ass.

At the point I said that he might not have gotten it, but I told him that I was not at all sure what I'd find if I raised her skirt.

I said he got it, Matt.

Friday that we would do justice.

Saturday, the CIA, AEC, that we would leak that to me.

Oh man, I'd love to do this.

It would be great.

Give it to the story.

Well, because that's a big Washington story.

Well, but hasn't that pretty much discounted it?

Not where he's going.

And not his replacement.

No one knows that.

Slesinger, I thought you said.

Slesinger, which has been around.

It's been named in speculation.

But it's where Helms is going.

Why don't you get out a leak to the effect that Slesinger is going to take a sub-cabinet coach.

That's right.

We were talking about it.

Think of a good, on the bad side.

Let's see what we can do.

That's very good, very good.

And then we'll announce that there's going to be a second president, and Schlesinger's going to be the one.

The CIA will move David over to agency.

That should go at the same time.

Yeah, I'd like to know.

Now, we can't correlate to the star of the trip.

Now, it's good to link them to both places, because you get the byline on them, and they get exclusive.

The bar service does feed one another, but this one, they get it on their own, and they don't conflict with one another.

Right, right.

But then Monday, be sure to get down to one of these, just include the Detroit.

I've got Detroit.

He's got a whole league schedule for just a league schedule.

It's more complex than an announcement schedule.

Listen, I'll tell you, this is the most wonderful thing.

Go.

Is it impressive?

Oh, they snapped up.

They really start to follow that.

Act like they should.

And it's a good way to control them.

Then I thought we'd give...

I thought we'd do the U.N. thing, do one to ABC.

If we go direct it with Scallion.

Give it to Bill Gill, it's a big story.

Let them break it one day.

I was talking to Secretary Rogers the other day.

He raised a question about help to Iran and Iran.

on the ground and he was C.I.A.

's friend.

Bullshit.

He's turned front and told me he's going to do it.

Well, and also because he wants Farland to stay there.

We know the plans for Farland.

It's all right.

We just got to do it.

Bill is trying to, I don't know why he's trying to block Helms.

That'll be there.

Maybe they just want to go to Florida and go to the State Department.

Anyway, screw it.

Okay.

Some may raise it like that.

The latest Henry stuff is gonna go on another day.

I got a call from Paris when I was briefing.

Five hours.

They're really planning some stories.

We've got that movie going right now.

He's getting instructions right now.

They're really plenty.

I said to you last night that after talking to the astronauts, you want to relate to the night receiving tables and sending instructions to them for today's meeting.

And I said, we're going to break the launch today.

In fact, what's going to put the responsibility on me when the thing doesn't work?

That's all right, too.

It may.

It may apart.

But it's very likely, too, to be played out.

But that's all right.

It just makes it clear that I'm staying in touch.

You could be, see, that's the way to argue, that if it doesn't work, you could be instructed to come to King.

That's right.

See, you could be instructed to be more.

Have you had a chance to do any more of the King of the, of the two cables you read?

What are you going to change your mind?

All of it seems to be leading in the direction that I would go with the next line.

I'm sorry, I thought about it more on time on my suggestion.

I just don't think that there's a need for you to go on television.

Why not?

Well, how can you come back?

How can you have Henry come back, have the talks collapse, and have the North create its last wire?

I was over here before this morning, but I don't have the word.

But it's, what he says is that we gotta face the facts of life, that we may wanna peddle up the, you know, this is just a break, and things are going on, and all that sort of stuff, but what's really happening is gonna be told by both Vietnamese, North and South, that the talks...

Both are gonna piss on us.

Both are gonna say the talks broke down.

The talks are still here.

North Vietnamese will attack us, and the South Vietnamese will attack us.

The South Vietnamese will say the talks broke down because...

The north was entrenched, so that would be good.

They'll place it that way, and we will never examine it, and so forth and so on.

And the question I had is, Henry's point is that he got around to the circumstances, and I must go and explain it to the people why the talks are, and rally the people to support the continuation of our bombing activity until we get a security in some way.

Are the people going to buy this car?

I'm not.

I'm only throwing up.

I'm only throwing up the trailer.

All of it.

It's not changed.

Well, I have to put the strongest argument here.

Let's see what you think.

My view is, first of all, if they break down, the best possible situation would be to create a depression and we stand ready to talk if it talks or not to come up.

You hold out that hope.

You hold out the hope at this sad point that you have to say this.

No, not quite.

That's where you're running me from, Andrew, because they will say, screw you.

Henry's point is that the way it's, and of course, let's understand, Bob, that he's doing a little wishful writing in this respect, too.

Regardless of what they can say, he can say, well, they have refused to talk, and so that's going to be more.

You know what I mean, sir?

And also, the way he handles how it breaks off will determine how they break off.

That's the point.

If he had that, that's the point.

That's why we cut the message to him.

And North Vietnamese, well, carrying that thought out, the North Vietnamese can walk out and say, we will not talk.

We're going to continue war for 10 more years until we let our fight for freedom.

It's how we posture ourselves.

My view is that it would be a mistake for the president to go on nationwide television and do another

speech, the American people talking about Vietnam.

I think the points that we want to make can be made.

On that point, may I say, the credit is gone, is that basically I've just been to that well almost once too often now.

Isn't that really it?

The people are sick of the goddamn war.

Am I talking about I now want to report to you again on the war in Vietnam?

The American people went to the Johnson

period of that.

We've gone through four years where very effectively the Vietnam policy was explained through that process.

I think we're at a point now, particularly after the victory, as substantial as it was, that we're on an upswing here, on an upswing here, in terms of, not on an upswing here, a very high point where you don't have to go through that type of dramatic move to rally the people.

They're rallied.

And

points that Henry refers to in his cable can be made if by others in the president and by different methods in the president doing it on the tomb.

It can be made by Henry and it can be made by well-structured, structured remarks about the body.

Well, they're weak points.

They're not points.

Let me suggest this.

Because of Henry's uncertain psychological

uh, attitude, really what his, what his problem is here, and I agree with him on this.

He feels that, uh, first he made a mistake in a piece of his hand, then he compounded it by saying, let's wrap it up in one more piece.

He made the second mistake in order to call, uh, confront the first one.

Now, he, uh, raised his own hopes and thought, well, this is it, we're going to get it done.

I, I talked to Doug, and we've already done that thing here.

Now, having gotten himself to that position, Henry cannot bear to come back and face the press, knowing that they're going to say, hit him hard.

He likes to fight, but he doesn't like to fight.

You see, his fights usually have not involved things he has done, mistakes he has made.

If you look back, if you look back when Henry's gone to the well,

Those guys, he's explaining this policy or that policy, the rest of it.

He's been able to attack the North, the Vietnamese, or the Contra, or this and that.

He hasn't had any questions.

The only other time he had a similar situation like this, he went through a similar psychological trauma in Pakistan.

Remember, he was from India, Pakistan, and he damn near cracked.

And I think what shows that's his problem now.

My feeling is that what he really wants here, and he would not want to admit that, didn't he?

He'd be horrified if he heard he was crossed.

psychoanalyze and psychoanalyze and say, this is your problem.

What he really wants, he's afraid to go out there.

He wants me to go out as the blocking pack and clear the way.

And for me, I have to associate myself with him to take responsibility for it and say, now, my good friends, my fellow Americans, let us join together.

We will step up the bombing and we will continue the military activities until we get our prisoners back.

That's the speech.

because the South Vietnamese and our Vietnamese will not transform all their groups.

Now, what's your reaction to that?

And my analysis of Henry is somewhat bullshit.

I think so, because I think Henry recognizes, and I don't mean to color this in the wrong way, if the talks break tomorrow, next week, or whenever they break, there is absolutely no question about the fact that the initial interpretation is going to be a defeat.

The expectation has built to the point to beat for the administration.

For peace.

Because the expectation has built on the pieces of hand statement and the basic optimism that has surrounded the talks.

If they break, it's going to be a letdown.

It's going to be a defeat.

Also, another thing is, before you go into the meeting, another thing is hope to create things that we've tried to get Henry to avoid.

We have to recognize that will be the case.

On the other hand, this goes to the point I made yesterday, I have in the field that the statement, we will only sign when it's right, is a stronger statement than pieces of hand.

The piece of hand is a hand statement in that whole syndrome.

will lead to a problematic interpretation that we did not achieve what was set out to be achieved, that there somehow there was a breakdown.

We would explain that, of course, by saying that they were going to be at peace, and this is a case I guess we must take, which reverted to their position of intransigence.

And that will tend to solidify our argument that no matter how you talk this, I believe we're in a stronger position to stand on, I will not sign an agreement until it's right.

The intransigence point

the North Vietnamese attitude, I will not sign it to the right.

All of those points that we need to solidify our position in this can be made by a very direct, firm statement by Kissinger, or by a very firm, direct statement by the spokesman.

I think it would be a mistake to put the president in a position where he is addressing himself to this in the first person.

Because the moment you do that, you escalate it to something that it's not.

We have only 24,000 troops in Vietnam now.

People aren't dying in Vietnam now.

And it's Christmas time.

And no one really gives a damn about it.

People still think we are bombing North Vietnam.

People still... To Bob's point, which I always will, and should learn very important, they don't show those horrible pictures of poor Americans with their ass shot off on television every night, do they?

No.

The TV doesn't show the war every night.

The TV shows Henry Kissinger and the Black Cat.

That's right.

Now, there's no question about the fact that the folks who run Big Banner, the bombing of the North Reserves, the New York Times will swallow the place down.

They'll think I've got to go on television.

Walter Cronkite and those guys will come on, and it's never going to end.

The war is continuing.

The bombing is resuming.

Nixon fails and so forth.

The government will attack.

They'll attack.

That's not going to make, in my view, the deep penetration of the public attitude toward this war, toward this situation, unless it is elevated to the first person, the President of the United States, who's dealing with it, confronting it, because my view is that most people will say, and this was shown and was important for the President in a lot of other things, he's doing his best to bring this thing to conclusion, and I've got confidence in my President,

and doing what is right.

And that is the strongest position I think we need to have.

And in the long run, it's gonna be shocking.

But in the long run, I think, the American people, although they, some segments will complain, they will, our critics will be after us.

But in the long run, from the standpoint of the overall support of the American people, it's my view we're far better off not moving to a

The only problem with that is that's so unusual.

Henry's come back, he's given a briefing.

And if he doesn't...

But it could be a combination of things.

I really firmly believe this.

But Henry's briefing on not to be on television and radio.

Not to be in the real brief.

Well, I don't...

I'm afraid that he's got to have... Well, he hasn't always had it.

Well, he has within the last four or five times.

But that's...

Either way we want.

My view is that when Henry comes back, he has to walk out there

Not with his liberal, not with his, you know, emotional, I've got to explain all of this type of thing.

We should walk out real with a strong, brief statement.

And it is only a position of strength.

And a positive, authentic position.

Gentlemen, we have had, gentlemen, we have been, we have had long negotiations.

We have narrowed some of the differences.

We still have not reached agreement.

We are, the agreement, the agreement,

Negotiations now are, we're in negotiations now.

We're now consulting our principals and we're ready to negotiate whenever the other side is.

I can't give you any time or any date, but talks and results will let you know.

I can only say that we're going to press if we get negotiations and we're particularly pressing because we want to get our POWs back as a first priority.

And then don't explain the air activity.

Just air activity.

Don't think it's going to make that big a story either.

It will make a big story, but it's a story that's been running over and over and over again.

Also, it's a story that a hell of a lot of people don't like.

Particularly if you said a lot of people don't like the fact that these are intransigent bastards.

So what do we do?

Do we just sit back in our cave?

I don't know what you're talking about.

The president just ordered bombing to the north.

He has to understand he could come out of this position with a great strength.

He could walk out and say, gentlemen, when I made that statement, and he doesn't have to go through all the details.

Gentlemen, when I made the statement, the pieces I had, it was that after 10 years we were close to agreement.

A number of things have happened as we began to seek clarification.

And they backed off.

They reverted to their trenches.

We are not going to sign the settlement of this war.

That is not right.

That is our decision.

Well, that will lead to another war or being just a temporary peace.

But as we've made absolutely clear over the years, as the president has made over again, and then the air power or the action that works is effective, backs it up.

Absolutely.

And on the air power, no matter what you do,

If one F-104 goes in, or 50 B-52s, the same type of story is going to be written.

And he gets raped or something.

I mean, eight.

On the aircraft.

That's why I always say you give a claim.

You get blamed for it, whatever you do.

And it is no blame, as you say.

For a lot of people, it's credit.

And the doves have been petrified at the box office.

They don't want to do it.

Then we're going to cream them.

Then we're going to hold those fire.

Anyway, we shall wait and see tomorrow.

Another report.

It really doesn't do a hell of a lot of good in terms of our own situation about Reed Henry's continuing reporting all this stuff.

He's got to sort of win unless he needs instructions.

He doesn't.

We just can never report on the day's operation.

It's already 9 o'clock there.

And then he goes again tomorrow at 3.30.

It's 3 o'clock.

Well, they must be talking about something, I would think.

They have to be back on some kind of possible track or whatever.

I don't know.

Maybe just wishful thinking.

Maybe they're just making the records so that each...

There's the one thing, you know, in the cable to me, Henry said, if we can't get this settled in 48 hours, which was a clue that he was going for a second day.

If we don't have this settled in the next 48 hours, let's face the facts.

Well, okay.

Nothing more today for me then.

Uh, incidentally, you can run up to these fellows and say goodbye like you're the one for the rest.

All right.

And then we'll put there, uh, and other people of that sort to meet.

I have great, great news.

Put her on the sidewalk.

We don't have a man yet.

We're going to try to finish up down at the bottom.

Stuff kind of rolling in.

I don't mind, as I told you, doing the three days of the inaugural.

Let's just make that the best goddamn inaugural we've ever had so that everybody has the feeling that we participated and so forth and so forth.

So the variety show will be that night then.

The gala then.

Can't we repeat some of it for them?

Oh, sure.

We would.

That would allow us to use more stars that way.

That's right.

And are we getting harmony or not?

I just feel I can't be in a position of seeing only one-third of harmony when he comes.

I think that would be a hell of a problem.

Well, I think we'll stagger the time so you can see half of it.

You can survive that.

We can start up at different times and you see half of each show, right?

We can see half of each show a little later, have theirs be later.

And you don't have to see very much of that.

You have to drop by that one.

You won't be able to stand it anyway.

No.

You can catch a couple acts of that.

You're sure we're right on the right time?

No, not sure.

I think we are.

Could I suggest one white time event?

That's what I was thinking.

It's the ball, that's what it should be, the white tie.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't want, I don't want all those people to have to bring them.

No.

Let's have a black tie.

That's gala.

We have to do a little checking.

People may want to wear a white tie.

Let's see if the labor guys and all that maybe feel that white tie.

Maybe, maybe we'll check with just the people that want to wear it.

No.

Or check Colson.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Just to check some of those, you know, people that,

People that always wear a white tie, it may not be as big a deal to wear a white tie as the people who've never had one on before.

See, we're gonna do a white tie dinner some day, come on, no later.

What do I do with the ashtray mountain?

It's not gonna go through that.

I think I'll just have men shake their hands and have a picture taken.

But I'm not gonna have dinner with them this time.

Fair enough?

One of them's a bachelor's and he had two other kids.

I don't know if it's the last call, but I'm interested in that one because I've never eaten the last go.

They're the biggest crowd down there tonight for the shoot that they've ever had.

46,000 people.

I'll collect black tie, white tie.

We can have something that's white tie for maybe, I don't know.

Are we having any illegal things at the White House?

Is that the diplomatic reception will be white tie?

Oh, yeah.

And white tie medals and the dinner should be white tie.

At this point, the dates, they change.

Including ones for prime ministers.

Anything that's not at the White House in the wintertime will be white tie.

And I think your idea of the diplomatic reception of everybody coming in and sitting and having the entertainment and then finish the end, not too long entertainment.

So I'm going to call it a salute to the ambassador.

I'll go ahead and receive the blue one.

I think I should do it at daytime.

That should be all for now.

And now it's very early, so the family will come.

All right, I see.

On the European trip.

When, do you see that in March?

It wouldn't have to be before that.

It would be good to do it, frankly, over the Lincoln period.

Early February.

That's just two weeks after the inaugural.

Or you could go to the country to thank people for their support in that period.

You've got to do that sometimes if you'd like to.

That would really be kind of better, to do the out to the country before you go to the aircraft.

Yeah.

Go to Europe, do everything kind of right on the bounce from the main dog out.

That would be nice right after that.

And come back to Europe a week or two later.

In Europe, do you think we should make it a two-day or a three-day stop in each place?

Maybe two in the capital and one in an outer city at least in some of them.

Okay, okay.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Vietnam peace negotiations

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Also recorded on December 6, 1972

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