Conversation 261-049

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I made a couple of very small changes to this part of the text, okay?

The other part is, if you're going to move right there, you have to strap it right after.

I'm not going to do that.

I'm just going to take it off like so.

Some part of that just doesn't come off well.

It's too, right?

They're too cute.

Precious, you know?

And it just has to be right there.

There you go.

I may be right and wrong because I,

I'd love to just take a breath and not have to worry about anything, but I just don't think it feels right.

Listen to this.

To many Americans, these specific goals present a full plate.

But I would suggest that even after we achieve all these goals, after we clean the plate, there will still be a hunger in all of us.

Good God.

That repels me.

It turns me off so quickly.

I just can't stand it.

It's a strange kind of...

It's like what they would say.

I couldn't say.

It's a dark issue, isn't it?

I guess, I don't know if it's even that, but it sure, it ain't what you want it to be.

Was there anything immediate to do, or just about, regarding your conference?

Roger's going before the press today, but we didn't have time to get on TV tonight.

Mitchell was put out of state.

First of all, I talked to Conley and since the group that now both together was basically in accord with Conley's view, which was his immediate reaction was for you to continue to stay away from the issue.

And he said, if you do it at all, if you make any statement at all, do it in Kansas City, don't do it now.

You've already missed the point of...

immediate reaction to the Corp, the fact that that was last night, you know, and nothing's lost now by delaying further.

We should never have done that.

Right.

He's not arguing you should.

His point is the only area you're doing it sooner would be that, and that is valid.

Also, you should have a quorum.

If you're going to speak at all, you should not speak only for that purpose.

You should be somewhere for a reason that was already established and then use that as the place to say this.

He says everybody that he's talked to so far down there is outraged at the court's opinion.

He thinks that'll be quite a strong reaction, at least in Texas.

If that's Texas, that's soft.

He says he doesn't see any need for the president to do anything.

We want to be damn careful not to confuse the issue here.

The president should not defend the papers.

And he should not defend the classification of the papers.

The Johnson papers, that's right.

Also, or the newspapers, either.

That's right.

But the only point that you want to make, really, is that newspapers that receive stolen goods can't be the judge of declassifying those goods.

They said, you don't need any presidential statements to do that.

We ought to be able to get that point across without the president.

Then he said, if you're going to say that you've got to do it as previously planned for, then you should just deplore the fact that a man from St. Louis recommends another paper we publicize and publish.

And you should deplore, not attack.

If you do it, you should not go on live TV.

You should escalate it to that.

We should sort of say, you're sorry you've reached this point, and we should be in a scholarly, thoughtful manner, deliberate, calm, not in anger, not even criticism, just kind of disturbed.

The attitude has to be changed so that we can't survive the flaunting government's ability to act.

And so he said, if you're going to do anything, the way I would do it is at the media briefing in Kansas City.

I would make a statement.

I would allow television.

television film camera to cover it so they'd get it on the TV news, but I would not ask for time.

I would do it live.

Live.

I said, I'm not sure.

Do you actually want to do that?

Now that, as it boiled down, came out where you all came out, where the group came out.

I talked to, I called Olson on getting out the unemployment thing tomorrow.

He told me that, briefly, because of what you were doing.

That's the...

And I think we can ride for a couple days to see what we really mean on the basis of that.

Yeah, but I'd look at another thing.

I had my last thought with Henry all day, actually.

And Bob, when he comes back, there will be an announcement with some sort, it will be quite dramatic.

It's going to wipe this goddamn thing right off the front pages.

They'll say, what the shit was, why don't they trust this president?

See what I mean?

I'm not so sure that we want to come driving around right now.

I'm not so sure we don't want to build up a little, let them whine around, say, what are we doing?

Are we having peace in Vietnam?

Are we doing anything?

Why is the president so silent?

Why doesn't he leave?

Well, that begins you.

He argues that we're being damaged on three grounds.

That we're being portrayed as repressive for attempting to hold up the documents, political, because we're trying to cover them up, and ridiculous because we've been ineffectual in trying to do it.

That's the first thing.

Secondly, and more important, American support for the war effort is being seriously damaged by the troops.

Well, you can make a pretty good case that there isn't any sort of war effort anymore.

That's right.

You and I know that.

There really is private polls.

Nobody wants to put forth a war.

And third, the whole question of lack of trust in government is being used by us against, as well as against Johnson, and we have to build a wall between the two administrations.

Because we can't take into consideration the fact that Russ was running on and Johnson may go on all the way.

He says, on the necessity side, we have to get clear of the fallout from this, and on the advantage side, the Times and Post are vulnerable and there's some mileage to be gained from speaking out on them.

Gary's the Times.

Right.

Of course.

Okay.

We're not going to divorce ourselves if the Times and Post are at their crest right now and the President can throw them on the deep defensive.

The President, I totally disagree with this, the President, by being unanimous to LBJ and JFK, the American people suspend judgment on the basis of a biased report.

It would cause all those people without losing anything.

That's wrong.

We want LBJ and, frankly, JFK to be screwed.

They're going to go down.

Well, most people think...

I think that's overreacting, because he concludes, he says, nationally, there is an ongoing orgy of self-flagellation.

The country is beginning to think itself guilty of the war in matters to be put into perspective.

I think the country is...

I don't think there's an orgy of self-flagellation.

You don't?

I think there's a declining level of concern, and I think that's exactly what we're on.

Well, the categories today are quite similar. 21.

And I told Colson to get that out of it.

He said, Cal, this has got to be working.

Well, you've got that, and tomorrow you've got a ton of employment to fill in the gap.

And you've got, in a couple of weeks, a major announcement on Henry's trip.

And you have just, I don't know.

I really question whether, I still think, my point is out, don't do anything.

Why not wait?

And that'll be out when I close it.

So basically, there is what?

Keep your mouth shut unless there's a hell of a lot to be gained.

Yeah.

But it doesn't, it is apparent that there is at this point.

If we take that approach, then our options are open.

We can schedule Kansas City on the basis of the timing, so that if you want to do something, then let the camera into coverage if you can, or if you don't, you don't have to.

And nobody will ever know that you know that you're scheduled.

I don't think in Kansas City we should do a block, though.

I think everybody feels that.

That should do Kansas City.

You can put another camera in if they want to use it.

It's fine.

All right.

So that gets us out of California.

He thinks he's talking to Buzzard.

He has not talked to Elliot.

He was a little reduced in his determination after what Elliot said.

What he would like to do, but he wants you to know he's doing it, but he doesn't.

He'd like to take a following that I find.

but on the grounds that there's a story coming out and that the guy ought to have the chance to learn, so...

It's ordered.

It's ordered to be.

He has to do a volunteer effect.

Oh, I know.

I want him to ask me.

Just to say, look, we're doing this, but he should tell Elliot that we want to clear the record, we want to be sure, we want a polygraph.

Good.

Excellent.

That will satisfy me on that.

He says that has two values.

One is to find out if the guy...

But far more important, the word will get out that he was following them.

And he says it would be a beautiful deterrent around this administration if we start moving on some of these things.

Now, this is a must.

And Elliott used to do it.

And he used to say that, I want to do it in order to protect Elliott.

But I believe Elliott.

But I want to be sure it will be a covered basis.

I thought it was right for you to do it, but you think you let it go?

Buzzard hints at it much more as he's convinced this guy is what you think.

And Mitchell said the same thing you did right away, of course, which was

So he didn't violate any law or regulation in showing the cables to the guy, but why did he show the cables to the guy?

He didn't do anything wrong, but what was the right reason that he would do that?

Why should he show them?

When he knew the predator was taking a different view on the matter.

You were taking it down because the cables were on your view.

The cables were from Bunker telling Sam what was going on.

He thought it was the right thing to do.

And they did plead.

They did plead.

They sure did.

So, as a result of his action.

That's right.

So therefore, he's responsible.

That's right.

Okay, well, we'll have him do a... As long as he's willing.

That's right.

And if he doesn't want to, he can resign.

He takes a polygraph and resigns, Bob.

That's all there is to it.

And that's the way that I think we ought to handle that one.

He should go over it, and he should have tough problems, very, very tough ones, with Elliott and say, look, we're not condemning him.

I think that we've got to be in a position to answer the craze here that we have really explored something within our own midst.

You've got to do this.

Alright, here it is.

Okay, we're on holographic.

We have to break in there.

You've got something on there.

You've got to know what you're doing.

And that would scare me.

The way it would scare me is to tell the truth because I think it isn't going to come out that way.

It would show that because I'm scared about it, it'll show the wrong way.

It's like a heart.

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

That's a good job.

I thought this was a good meeting with these guys in here.

I think they now have their message, and I appreciate what I was saying.

And they got enough work to keep them busy a long time.

I think that's a good point.

So they can, as we were rattling around in the intelligence community,

Reduce the number of people who get it.

Stop the RAND corporations.

Stop the then Brookings Institution, you know.

Well, we've already had the word on RAND, obviously.

But I want you to follow through on Brookings.

I want Brookings.

Be sure to cut off.

I don't want any son of a bitch Brookings having anything.

We know what they are.

When Lou Harris comes out, the week of Thursday, the 8th, President Nixon continues to rise in his standing with the American people, and for the first time in eight months, even 50% of the public is in positive arms in his standing with the President.

This is current 40, 58, 50, 48.

percent positive rating reverses a 4750 negative rating scored by the president in May and is sharply improved from a low of 4156 before the 9th of March.

That's Colson, that guy, he started talking to me.

Colson, your son has put the carrot out there, the guy who's doing it.

Although I think Rob, that he may be right about this.

He may, it may be we have too much sun.

What do you think?

Well, it may be we have too much.

Our poles don't show that.

But our poles show a more solid thing than that.

But it may be we could have pulled the margin down.

The book says two opposite trends appear to be in the making.

Standing on foreign policy and moving up aren't particularly vital to the breakthrough in our relations with Russia and China.

At the same time, he's not registering any progress at all on their standing in the domestic economic situation.

What do you expect?

That's all right.

The coming business figure tomorrow will be part of that story.

Handling of Russia has gone from 45 to 42 to 45 to 51.

You've got an inherently positive starting January 28th, February 27th, April 35th it shot up and then now it's 26th which is the lowest it's been.

Yeah.

I don't want it to shoot up anymore.

Well, people are getting better and better.

It's all good.

So, I have a specific question.

Okay.

That's not bad, personally, it's all good.

Yeah, continues to rise and ascending with the American people, that's pretty good.

Now, in regard to our project of who was in charge, did you meet the guy that, uh,

All right.

Anything else you've heard from him?

No, he's just dying.

He was reported missing and we're recommending he leave his cell phone location before the meeting.

Do you think they have a private meeting or not?

No.

I'm back with everyone.

NSC, I think we just do that on call right now.

You see that several assault allegations were present at that meeting at the security conference, you see.

And I didn't just let them go.

I was trying to serve over them, and this distance that I'm doing may not turn up.

I don't know if you can see it.

We've got to decide whether we want to do this off of Yosemite Henry now.

We've found that we can't do it on the 20th.

We can on the 19th, which is the day that we're shooting for.

We'd have to stay a day later to work out some point.

We'll do that.

What they're pushing is a very, it's a big dinner, you know, a heartless dinner, like an Eli Vistae dinner.

Big, big, yeah.

For all the people who, everybody who's anybody in that whole area, it's a way to get back over to people with an interest.

And that will be running for the possibility of a lot of radicals moving in.

Yeah, but I'm not sure that's bad.

That kind of thing, because the Yosemite Park belongs to the people, and they know it does.

I don't think they will want it.

If you get all the power out of us, head forward on that.

Let's do that.

I'll do it.

I'll take it.

He waved you across the window in Chicago in a front page story, a picture of her.

Who is she?

A high-rise hello neighbor greets Nixon.

Mr. President stood at the window of his hotel sipping coffee and peering down Michigan Avenue and found himself face-to-face with a woman.

Her name is Mrs. Ralph Hunstetter.

She said she was looking ghastly like the elephant in the morning.

She had taken her own coffee cup and gone to the window to watch for a glimpse of the President.

I waved, he waved back, she said, and they blew kisses at each other, laughed, and clasped hands like Victorious Christ fighters over our heads.

And the President left his window and walked to a phone.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell of the Kunsthatter apartment rang.

President Nixon had called Ms. Mary McMichael, a secretary on behalf of Governor Ogilvie, and had asked her to pint the lady across the street and give her a hint that the presidential seat on her for being so friendly.

It made my whole day, Mrs. Kunsthatter said.

The President was just like a neighbor.

He was so cute, it was just a scream.

The whole building was just thrilled to death.

Quiet, she waved.

I wanted him to know someone was on his team and make his day a little happier, she said.

The only one who was disappointed was Ms. McMichael.

She's never met the president.

By the time she got back from her errand, you know, he left the hotel.

So we sent her another man in.

Here we go.

It's a nice blue car.

It's a nice front page story.

She got her picture with the lady holding her hand to the front page.

Yeah, it was on the front page.

And they got her holding it.

Also got a good wire service, right?

It's a little bit like that.

Well, okay, let's keep our heads up.

All right, brush around.

All right, I think we can very well just be...

And I think if you were looking to the president to get into this, that's, and I just don't think it's, it has to be a presidential.

They're looking to him in Russia.

That's what you can't, oh yeah, he's going to go to Europe and study for everything.

And everybody here is obsessed with the Times and the Post.

The country is not all that obsessed with the Times and the Post and all those things.

And you're going to have all this other stuff now.

But you had McComber and these people doing a hell of a job last night.

Well, Rusk was going to come out.

Yeah, Rusk on TV.

That's going to make a difference.

Get Rogers on it.

We have General Lewis on it.

All of those over a period of time.

Maybe better than the President was.