Conversation 249-015

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John, I wanted to be sure that you took a look at the suggested comments on surveillance and other things that Buchanan has gathered justice for this editor.

Have you looked at it yet?

Well, no.

Yeah.

Well, let me say, I know you've got a lot of other things, but this is your field, and maybe you'll do more.

you just take a quick look at them and see what they have.

I don't, of course, as you know, as you probably see there, five times as long, I'm not going to be able to answer it, but I'm going to cut it down a lot, but the general, the general propositions tend to be in there.

There's many good ones to be made, but I don't know if there are about 30 seconds to make it, but we'll do it.

It seems to me that, frankly, we ought to sort of

cruel the idea that everybody, you know, they're being watched.

Second, we've got to, not that we're doing less than others, but also remember that a hell of a lot of people want to see that the bad guys are surveilled, particularly when they're bombing things and that sort of thing.

You'll recall that after Oswald, everybody said, why the hell does the FBI watch?

I mean, when Muskie talks about Earth Day, I mean, if they ask me what I say, well,

There's surveillance right in this room.

Every time I make a speech, any place, any time I travel, there's surveillance.

There's surveillance of public figures.

There has to be.

And there is, if you know.

Or, Rennie Davis is there.

So there, they're always tailoring him.

And Black, the other one, real bad.

I mean, the guy that's the head of the Revolutionary Blacks.

There were two there.

Sure, they were on the platform with Muskie.

Who else?

Sure.

But, nevertheless, the point is that the President, they did surveillance just to be sure, but there are all sorts.

We live in a day of letters being written, anonymous letters, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.

That, of course,

Totally ridiculous with a picture of Washington Post this morning of cameras in the White House.

Now, what in the name of God are they talking about?

Hell, there are cameras in San Clemente, and there are cameras in Camp David.

And otherwise, you've got to have men up there in the room.

Yeah, what do they want?

Men up there with guns?

Huh?

The whole purpose is to have the cameras there to see them.

They've got to walk up with a bazooka and a lot of shell in it.

Huh?

What do they want?

Well, of course, there's all that.

The other thing, though, is that there's quite a bit on here.

I don't know.

It seems to me to be about right.

You've got to be able to stop justice.

I think more of us looked at it.

But you may have some views.

As I say, don't add anything.

But if you think there's a point that ought to be made or one that ought not to be made, why should justice...

The other thing is that in terms of the economic stuff, I'd ask you to check with Schultz to give you some more of it.

It seems to me that this is a good time to just emphasize the pilot.

I mean, yesterday, in the days that, you know, we talked about the industrial production, which is always a laggard, especially when it comes to this presentation, it's not always as good as it used to be.

It's come out today, yeah, at 28 and a half.

What about retail sales?

Did that come out today?

That's a better story.

Incidentally, see if Schultz or somewhere in my crack can sort out the March figures from the rest.

You get what I mean?

I guess the March, I'd like to, for example, March automobile sales probably had the biggest lift of any year, of any month in 10 years over the previous month.

You know what I mean?

You see what I mean?

It's that kind of thing.

If you just look at two or three or four good examples, the way it is, the way that McCracken presents his stuff, or at least the way that McCracken gets it to me, it says retail sales are up and interest rates are down and so forth.

That doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

the Laotian operation, what we, in the middle of it, when I said 55% of the truck traffic is cut or reduced.

Now that bite, see, everybody said, well, gee, that's something they can do.

Then if you just say the truck traffic is going to do, that doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

So I didn't know the GNP story was coming out tomorrow.

I mean, it wasn't supposed to be leaked.

Talk about it.

We have a crack after that.

Good.

Bye.

Good.

Bye.