On September 8, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 10:06 am to 11:40 am. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 274-028 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I don't think it makes sense.
One is it becomes basic.
When you finish meeting the Emperor, it's midnight in Alaska.
Good night.
He leaves at 11.40.
That's 2 a.m. Pacific and it's 5 a.m. You might as well go today all the time.
Can you do this and stay in Alaska?
Sure.
It just doesn't make any sense to leave.
No.
There is...
good facilities at the base there.
You don't even have to go into town or a hotel to see right at the base where the meeting is.
And because of past business on Monday, because Sunday's going to be a horrendous day just on time, body parts and everything, I think what they do is spend the night in Alaska, get up at a decent hour in the morning, get on the plane and come back for one.
Sure, it's going to help.
Do the stuff on the way out.
Now we can make some hay on a Saturday and Sunday.
This is the time to do Montana because of weather.
So let's get it done.
If we wait any longer, Montana's gonna be cracking.
But we can go in there, go from here to there.
We should go from Washington to Montana and take Mike Lewis.
What he wants you to do is the Hungry Horse Dam.
Yes, two dams.
We knew it, but they had to wait to do it.
And they can now do it though.
They can get an airport crowd where you land and you have to helicopter 20 minutes to a place that plays your national park.
You can do that at midday on Saturday.
It's a good day to do it.
Then, Mikey would be go to Portland rather than San Francisco.
They're going all the way down and back up.
Hey, this is a Northwestern trip.
Go to Portland and close the media briefing.
Saturday afternoon.
Saturday's a better day if you need to do it anyway.
They can fly in.
Some of them are going up to Alaska because there's an editor's conference in Alaska on Sunday.
So some of them are going up anyway.
Well, throw the pool of our money in if you have money.
It's too late to say go up early.
Now, there's another...
You close out Portland, then you either spend the night in Portland, or go on up to Seattle and spend the night.
There is a... Any other possibility would be to go to Seattle.
It isn't going to work.
I don't think there's one remote thing.
The state of Washington has a high school convocation once a year, where they gather something like 30,000 high school students.
Maybe.
It's done on a weekday normally.
Maybe it could be done on a weekend.
And they have asked for an administration spokesman to address it, which we would, of course, provide.
That might be a thing to run you into.
It might be that you can do it on a Sunday.
Of course, the governor's going to be in this afternoon, and we're going to talk to him.
He's here anyway.
We'll talk to him about it.
It's the only other thing to do that makes any sense at this point, from their viewpoint, unless the government comes up with some more stuff today.
On Sunday, well, on any time in Washington, there's a major cross-state highway, which is a very important economic thing to them, and they suggest you dedicate.
That's a pretty bad shot for a president.
That sounds like a good one.
Really cutting.
The dams.
That's different.
And it's Mike and it's the West and all that.
Not a highway.
Highway just doesn't make sense.
The other thing could be just to skip Washington, just not do Washington now.
And another possibility that I think we ought to at least consider is to go into Alaska early and let Wally Hickle give a reception for you.
in Anchorage.
One hell of a coup in Alaska.
You like to do it?
Oh, yeah.
And you're kind of insulting Alaska to arrive there.
We're spending the night.
We'll help some, I think.
Sir, I don't mind arriving earlier in Alaska, that's no problem.
Well, I noticed that we didn't want to at first, but now he wants to give a reception.
It might be a thing where you could arrive, let him give a reception for you in Anchorage.
So you arrive, get your own airport arrival in Anchorage.
You drive into town, we can get some overkeep, then you don't have a hell of a turnout.
Do the reception of vehicles, then go back to the base.
Well, time to get ready, then meet the Emperor, go through the Emperor bed, then go to bed.
We should spend the night in there, that's right.
It fits, it looks like we know what we're doing this way.
The other way it looked like that really, uh, slapdash set of things.
Well then, if we spend the night, and we get, uh, light packs on the six-and-a-half bar, I checked, you know, seven out, seven-fifteen out, six-and-six, six-and-a-half pack.
So, you win.
And what time will we get back to it?
Ten, five, five hours, time change.
So it's eleven and a half, call it twelve hours.
See?
Well then, if I could, is that a, is the other thing a medical thing?
You know, a bigger thing?
I understand it is, but I'm checking it.
I want to be sure.
Well, if it is, I should go.
I mean, I've got some things to do.
I go, but that way, we won't go so that manner.
No, if it isn't men and women, there's still no reason for you not to go.
Are you going to let the president come in so it's all women?
That was the AR.
It was all women.
He went.
Yeah.
Let's do that, and then let's have me have a ride late, right as the program begins.
We're in the middle of God damn time.
We're in a line.
We'll be in a line all the way from the last, back from the last bit of the taxi.
Why don't we get up on our ass and get there at 6 o'clock to one of their drunken orders?
I think we should drop by and watch the fight at the end of the town.
Yeah, at the end.
They are expected to come in at 9 o'clock or something like that.
Big drill in the road, big so-called 30-30.
Yes, that would be leaving at about 9 or 9.30.
We'll find out when they're leaving at about 9 or 9.30.
We'll find out when they're leaving at 9.30.
Well, we have to have time.
We should spend the night in Alaska.
But let me ask about the high school complication that you had to be done with.
It would be, if they could do it on a Sunday, it would be an idea.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
You can't do it Sunday morning.
You need to just forget Portland and go on into Washington.
I agree.
I mean, go to Montana, exactly.
Tell her she can do what I was thinking of doing in Montana for me.
Do you agree with me?
Or, and then do, uh, do, uh, do Washington, uh,
Washington High School Friday, and there's a media briefing, and, uh, in Portland, Saturday.
What happened tonight?
Just went to California.
There's no problem.
It's funny, because the last time I was home, you know,
The bad that you've gotten out of California can't be any more than the bad you would have gotten at the same time in Washington or anywhere else.
It's the people that are going to take the shot.
and say that you can come here and ask me to do your work.
Hard work is hard work.
It's hard work.
Well, that's the truth.
But it happens to be also understood.
How about trying to do two days out of the band?
Or if you did that, you'd have to stay in Detroit.
You couldn't go out.
If you do Detroit Thursday night, then Montana Friday would make sense.
So the 9th is right.
No, no, no, no.
If you do Detroit Thursday, yeah, you're right.
Yeah.
Yeah, Detroit, that's right.
Detroit Thursday.
And then why the Montana Friday?
Why the Montana?
Do it Friday.
Friday.
And then on to Portland.
And, uh... Or on to Seattle and do the high school thing.
I don't really believe that that is not even worth screwing around with.
All right.
I, uh, would be if you tried to do two events on Friday.
If you wanted to do Montana and Washington.
I think we ought to shoot for Washington on Saturday, though.
Do it Saturday morning.
I'm sure as hell I'd be more in on the way to do it right now.
Well, and then shoot down there Saturday afternoon.
You know, the high school kids ought to be Saturday morning.
That's the way we get TV.
Do the day on Friday.
Montana.
Montana.
and go on into Washington Friday night.
Right.
Well, you're trying to think, where do you want that?
Where do you want the Montana media briefing?
You want it on Saturday.
Oh, do it Friday.
No, that's right.
That's right.
Do the media briefing Friday.
You're right.
Go to Portland.
Friday afternoon.
It's just for the birds, anyway.
Montana Friday noon.
Yeah.
Media briefing.
In Portland, Friday afternoon.
You don't want any media coverage on that anyway.
No, sir.
And overnight in Portland, then.
Make it easy.
Right.
And Saturday morning.
Oh.
So we get too much time, all right?
Saturday morning, late.
There's another way.
Another way you could do it with me to do.
You mean, let's start doing it all on Saturday.
Go out and do Montana Saturday afternoon.
Do, uh...
Do something in Portland.
The best thing is to do something in Washington on Sundays.
You've got a hell of a lot of time on Sundays.
That's right.
The best way to do it is to do Montana Saturday noon, do Portland Saturday afternoon, and overnight there, which wastes more time.
Then Sunday morning, get up and go to Washington.
And stop there and do something there Sunday afternoon.
Well, forget about the high school kids.
Boy, do the high school kids forget about the TV?
They would get totally wiped out if they do it Sunday.
That's the point.
The high school kids will.
So what's the use of doing it?
What else in Washington?
You go and just go up and visit your brother from the way to Alaska or something like that.
It's only a good bit of Washington.
There really isn't anything to do in Washington.
We all, everybody makes us a wipeout.
Or it might not be.
Still, we'll do it later.
Maybe they can find some other thing for us.
And you'll at least get an airport arrival Sunday.
It's a good day.
People come to the airport.
And the idea of being there and go.
I think the best thing to do, though, is to go and spend the night in Washington.
If you do the media briefing in Oregon and Portland, then let's go spend the night in Washington.
At a motor hotel, I could have always made it a motor hotel.
Not the right time.
Oh, what is it?
I've never heard of it.
Seattle, the Everett.
Oh, shit.
It's terrible.
You know, they came out of New Jackson.
Well, them too.
I don't know the actual problem.
Close to me, breaking out of reception, they get on a plane going up to Washington.
Yeah.
Spend the night, Sunday night at Washington.
Could we make the Montana thing a little bit earlier?
and I can't even tell you the next story.
Well, we'll get the media briefing through so we can get it to Washington in time for an Asian airport arrival.
The way to do it, you say, is to have the airport arrival Sunday morning, but I don't like to do it.
You've got a little bit of a problem out there.
On the road, you've got a little bit of a problem with what you're doing on Sunday.
But I think you've got to go to church on Sunday.
You know, we close, we can be in Portland by about 3 o'clock.
Close the D.C. agreement.
You get up, you know, 4 or 4.30.
You get up to Washington by 5.30 or 7, which is still daylight.
It's a good time.
Especially for the airport arrival.
Do the airport arrival and just go to the hotel.
Hold up.
Sure.
Because it's late.
Boy, 9 o'clock by then anyway.
9 o'clock.
Go to bed.
Sunday morning, get up in Washington.
Do the church.
Church.
and then see if there's something, maybe, Sunday afternoon to do.
How about doing something different?
Rather than Washington, it's just so important that we're thinking about what the church put on us.
The church is doing something about that.
The church is providing us.
A lot of people cry, that will be like something like,
I would go to Alaska then and get an airport arrival from Manoa, but that's all of a sudden
Oh, hell yeah.
We go there.
Oh, we get an airport arrival in Greece.
They'll come out to the airport in Alaska in the middle of the midnight.
And then go to Walleye, of course, for a reception.
Good.
And then back to the base.
And how do you mean get time to go back to the base and take a nap?
That's what I will do.
It'll be nighttime then, so it'd be a good idea to go back and get a couple of hours of sleep before the end of the mission.
You know, you've got to relax and back out.
And while you're still arriving, we'll spend the night at the base, like that.
But you get a hold of those women now.
Can you do it so that you can get it screwed on tight?
With radio even?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Either you or one of our people rather than coming.
So it's screwed on very tight so that you know the exact time.
Good.
Oh, it should be done in the one day.
It should be done on the Saturday.
I think we've got too much time on the line.
Yeah.
I think reaching for California on this one is just too much.
Well...
You can cross the door.
There's a tier there that makes sense.
California, you remember, we can do it.
It's a long time, but we can just fly out there any time.
We've got something to do.
You've got to go out there for the Thanksgiving.
It's a long time.
Medical time.
We just make Bible happen.
We go to the medical center again.
Well, it was spent a couple days then at the end of that to meet a few, get up to San Francisco then.
And just not spend the night.
Just go in to San Francisco and do the thing.
Yeah, well, yeah.
I think spending the night and also when an Air Force base, I think it was ever a blue man in San Francisco.
God damn, I can't believe this.
It's not getting to the city.
It has to go up and land up in Santa Rosa or something, you know, something there.
Or land over, or hit something in the valley on the way up and something.
Maybe San Jose.
Yeah.
Well, good.
But that's the hell of a trip.
We want to get back to San Jose.
We will.
That's a long time that you don't have the weather problem there.
It looks a lot better sipping into Alaska than doing the emperor and sipping out.
Well, I don't know if the Hickle reception, we've got to figure that out.
He worked, he acted.
I think so.
Stans has been talking to him and we've been trying to play it kind of carefully.
Now, there's another possibility, which we might want to do, and they're also checking out, which is a pipeline announcement.
Probably we'll be ready.
And in checking on the question, Mitchell thinks it'll be a hell of a political coup in Alaska.
And he thinks that we either ought to announce it ahead of time so that you get the credit for when you arrive, or that we might want to figure a way to announce it at the right time.
So that would be another thing we could do.
We could do that at the airport when you arrive, or something that we tie in.
And you could tie people in there somehow.
He started it.
you know, the great credit he deserved.
How it works out, his book is coming out in October, you know, just shortly after that, and it's, Irwin's got a manuscript of it, he says it's, it doesn't hurt you, it is pretty rough on White House staff, and that's egocentric on Hickle.
He promised to use himself in the second coming.
Well, except we thought of a book that hit you badly.
Yeah.
I agree.
If it treats you all right, it doesn't matter why.
I agree.
And apparently Doug says you're the victim of your stabbing to some extent, but that's the closest he hits you.
Your idea's good there.
Let's knock the three states off right now, Bob.
Then on California, we just might want to plan a California trip.
Yeah.
For just about that good reason sometimes, you know.
I just don't think we're doing enough good thinking about California, about what to go through, you know.
And we didn't want to let them.
No, that's all right.
Better places.
Or as good places.
That was a good one, though.
That was a good one.
That was a good way to get in that area.
It's about San Diego County.
It's not as much as Northern California.
Just past us, or even probably the same where he found us.
But we just haven't realized how far it is.
I like the art because I can count on the big screen.
Yeah.
Good.
Making sure to come in and hang out with us, coming to all these events, like the Japanese dinner and everything else.
I have sense of humor.
I think it's very important, looking at this schedule, particularly in October, to get hungry on those special dinners.
Yeah.
California dinner, the Ohio dinner, the Illinois dinner, New York dinner.
I don't know which ones you have in mind, but I didn't go to have a Florida dinner.
Incidentally, that should be here.
And they bring them here, and they're all out there, and they're going down there, and they have a key this game.
Oh, yeah.
And the same with California.
I fly them in again.
L.A., y'all get in the plane, get drunk, come back here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Apparently, that's the letter column between the schools, I guess it is.
No, I mean the mailing.
No, I'm not sure about it.
You're still working on it?
No, the meeting is this week, with the people there putting the whole committee together and everything.
As soon as that's done, they're set to roll.
They found the young man to go along with the 80-year-olds?
Well, we've given them a whole list, and they're going over, that's what the meeting's about.
Oh, we've got some other... Well, we've got some other, you know, a whole list of the young ones.
Good.
And, uh...
I had rule out for everybody, and that's almost heaven for everybody that's been around.
Dinner's now, this is the time to have them.
Yeah.
They come in for a break, they get a thorough break, and I just give them a hell of a nice social dinner, and the Army chorus, you know, and God bless America, and get them home.
Correct?
Yeah.
I don't stand around and talk to them.
Do you agree?
Yeah.
We really don't push it on the receiving end.
Another thing I would do, another thing I would do with that thing, I'd make the dinner with brown tables and have people around.
See what we've got to do.
It's probably hard work, but it would work well.
On the one hand, it probably is.
It's just a feeling.
I'd argue against that for most things because it denigrates the present.
I don't think it does.
Well, in the White House, I hope I wouldn't do it.
I'm sorry, but I meant in the White House.
You understand, if you had four correct troubles, you're going to miss something.
I would just shift by force if you don't care about it.
It's hard to break.
That's something that's kind of like working the fence, you know, the time to do that.
Now maybe you could do this.
I have an empty chair at every table.
And then we could have some others move around too.
We could have a cabin officer move around.
Well, we'll just see.
Maybe it's not necessary.
They'll make these dinners a good idea.
I do, and I think John agrees that they are.
Well, certainly it's good for New York, and it's good for Florida, and it's good for California, and it's good for Ohio, and it's good for Illinois.
I think we ought to have a hell of a Texas dinner, too.
Don't you agree?
All these swearing-ins we're having.
I'm not sure.
We're working on that.
You don't have to play it.
It should be worth it.
Yeah, also there's a chance to go to Florida.
And then you get to Florida Road.
So I just went ahead and said, yes, I don't think we care.
I think it went better for us afterwards.
I have my eye on this president.
I think you could talk to him.
What I ask is that I think Buchanan is a good antidote to those on the staff who feel that, of course, we have to get mesmerized by this whole idea of a precedent.
He knows the battle of the precedent comes with the battle of the enemy.
I mean, he's got the, I don't know if I can name it, but there's a portrait of it in the
Yeah, it is.
I may be wrong.
No, it is.
Because any time it takes the negative, it says, you know, he's accused of having a temper or something, they put that in to look objective.
But then they kind of lightly dismiss that.
And they say, but...
All of his associates say that he would never make a decision while he's in a temper.
He never does that well.
They face the negatives that they have to face, but then they slash a lot of white paint over them and say they don't do any better.
I want you to force everybody on our staff.
I want you to force them to agree.
No, no, yes.
Because I want them to know, and I want even people like Rory Price to know, I want the Sapphires to know, I want everybody in the Senate to know, so that we will go into this with our eyes wide open.
The more I think about it, you know, we should not be thinking what we've done this year about it.
We can take the offense and put it out there and put God in trouble over the goddamn country, but beyond that,
What do you think of, in terms of the events, what do you think of in terms of one of those eight years?
We have two in one month.
All right.
The other thing though, the wedding.
but it was about once in eight years.
And nothing has ever been quite something like, quite an experiment.
You can talk about everything that we do in terms of war, time, everything like that.
That was enough to last a year.
It left more of an impression.
And all of this will have crashed up if you have to deal with it another time.
Is that true?
Yes, sir.
Sure is.
And it will always be remembered.
All right.
Okay.
Now, in the light of that,
We actually should be doing better than we are in my opinion.
I think what we have in this, and you can say, oh, it has to do with the war and all that sort of thing.
Correct?
Maybe so.
It goes deeper than that.
It has to do, it seems to me, with the running battle that we have on the media side.
In other words, the erosion that occurs
And each other said, Mr. Dave, and they quashed the meeting.
Now, on the plus side, all through the country, you know, even for economic issues, we were rather heartened.
And I think, probably so, by the warm reception we received, we've got a hell of a lot of strength.
In other words, our 50% is, I think, doing pretty good.
A lot better than Perry had 100 years ago.
The general of Alabama is what you want.
Part of it is the president.
The other thing is some support.
The idea that our support is very thin, you know, and all that.
I think that's true.
I can't believe it's true.
Do you believe it's not?
I think that may be what's changed.
That was true.
It can't be true now with China and the other thing.
I think you've given the people that want to be with you, because I'm going to be saying, well, God damn it, we know why.
And I think you've
You've given people who don't want to be with you some reason to be if they don't want to be with the other guy, too.
They've got a choice between you and whoever it is.
China and some of those things may make more of a difference than they do now.
It could make a great difference, particularly if you get some orders.
But what I'm getting at is,
It's really true, I mean, I know, isn't it?
I've told figures several times in the line, and you'll smile, that we have the worst press coverage in any president in the century.
Now, there's no question about it.
You can talk about Hoover, you can talk about all the others.
They at least had some very strong supporters in the press.
We had almost, you can name them on three fingers, correct?
The strong supporters.
That's right.
And they aren't.
The other problem is our strong supporters are not significant.
They're not important for us people.
They aren't Scotty residents and, you know, we're a studious guy.
Now we come to the point, though, as to what we do about this.
I think it's a...
I'm guessing Colson proves something.
He works on it every day.
And also, let me say, thank God he got it.
He got it.
He's on his toes with regard to the part of it.
The part you call the TV.
He's working on this now in Alaska.
That's yours.
of the newspaper associations from Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Utah.
That's what that newspaper means.
You're meeting in Anchorage on Sunday and Monday.
On Sunday evening, Bob Adler, the publisher of the Anchorage paper, is having a reception.
That could be expanded.
You could drop by that if you wanted to.
I think if Hickle wants to do it, it would be better to have Hickle do it.
I don't know if you're sure about that.
No, but I could do both.
Yeah, I could do both perceptions.
That's what I would do, but I think Hickles should be the big one.
I think Hickles should be basically a big public perception.
You know, let him have 500 people shake hands and then drop by Atwood's first when I'm not so tired and then do the other.
You know what I mean?
But I wouldn't see any reason not to have both.
Meeting the publishers is more important than Hickel.
Meeting the publishers is more important than Hickel, but Hickel is symbolically important.
Getting back to this business here, he's zeroing in on that, and he's zeroing in.
The wire services, I must say, we do pretty well on.
Do you agree or not?
Yes.
All right.
Yes, we do.
We've got to keep working at it because we don't, you can't help it.
But the wire services, except there's a shed or two here and there, but generally, and especially the ones that cover us regularly, try most of the time to do
They don't get glowing stuff, but they're fairly good.
They'll cut loose with a glowing thing every once in a while because they get impressed.
They do glowing stuff on your performances on some of the things that other people don't see.
The little ones, when they see you do like the Woodrow Wilson thing, one of them really got a lot of the snapper for them.
That was Pierpont.
He just completely smashed Pierpont with that one, and he got very low, which is great.
I was thinking, for example, how the wire services would probably handle that in Chicago tonight.
I mean, that was an amazing touch.
It has encouraged me.
Well, it's been fun, then.
Yeah.
Anyway, you keep bread on this, and then, and particularly, I just don't want it to be... We've got that.
You've got to keep memory of that dessert and get good people in.
They're right.
They still do.
You know, we're always like that.
They just don't buy the...
But you're going to win them.
They just feel, you know, it's our fault.
What it is, Bob, is they all come in and say, well, it's our crushed relations that are bad.
That's what's wrong.
That is not true.
Well, that's bullshit.
As many things are too good, our crushed relations are bad.
Well, for Christ's sakes, we kiss their ass all the time.
They can't be bothered.
They ain't gonna be kissed anymore.
When I go to Florida, after the, this is,
So it wasn't the next week we were going, yeah, we just go, I'm just going to go up, I'm going to say, God damn, where did the man, not an hour, I'm just going to get my day half-heart, because I stood up for him, I said, I'm going to go to Florida instead of campaign three.
So that's the, on the hatchet man thing, maybe, maybe here, we need to kind of, kind of get the candidates' understanding.
He's developing that a lot.
As a result of the way we focused in December then, are you reading it now?
I haven't.
I saw it yesterday.
We've changed it a little bit.
They took a stab at changing it.
I like it there.
It'll be interesting to see what you think.
But what they're doing, instead of separating TV from the stories and putting them together,
but they put the feature on the TV.
Now, a couple years ago, we had to force them to separate TV to pay any attention to TV at all, but they now are very much dominated by the television, and it's the thing they react to.
They get much more disturbed.
Buchanan still gets very disturbed by what America and human events, I don't know, National Review, the reporter, not the reporter, I don't know.
Those still...
And there's some reason for that, because those do affect the broadcasters read those.
The TV commentators read John Osborne to find out what they think.
So there's some merit to that.
And you've got to look at it for indications of what's going on.
But they're focused very much on the TV.
And it's interesting, now that they're combining, how much the TV dominates.
Is that right?
The overall news story.
In other words, when you cover the TV, you've got to go in because the TV news is not completely down on the laws.
What about getting in?
What about getting in hatchet men?
What about getting rid of hatchet men?
We've got Dole.
We've got Goldwater.
Those are only two I can think of at the moment.
And we have, could I just urge six hatchet men
The way we've been screwing around with this, and every time I do it, you know, I had that horrible meeting, I've had two horrible meetings, one with the senators and one with the Congress, where they bring in 15 guys and told them to make some oil, and they come in the ditch.
You know, that isn't what we need.
I agree, I thought it, but they're wrong.
What you really need, they're just a couple, three or four, we have total Nixon men that are sons of bitches,
The problem is, you say you're the next loyalist, and they immediately think we're the strategy planning committee that have got to tell the president what he's doing wrong.
It's the same thing you get in the staff.
You know, you could equal your set of
And it's right, you don't want everybody just blindly thinking.
I don't doubt a question.
Well, I know, we've got to get them.
I want to do it.
I want to have an all-manning chance to meet with you guys.
It's true.
I've got to get them a little stuck on high now.
Just to be with them.
That's part of it, you know.
They've got to be charged up.
Here we are charging up the cabinet, the sub-cabinet, about leaving us.
Why not our own people?
You know what I mean?
Our own people have to fight a little bit to battle sometimes.
Now that they've got to go to war.
Federal Queen.
that does a meeting Friday.
Now, he's, the quadriads currently had a
session yesterday, and George wanted to talk with you, and he said maybe you don't want to take the time to do it, but what he wanted to talk with, what they wanted to suggest is that on the consultation process looking at Phase 2, that there should be meetings, separate meetings, set up with four groups, a labor group, a business group, an agriculture group, and a congressional group, and that they have natural resources.
groupings that make up each of those they think you ought to meet with each of those groups with the across the living council members in a what is billed as and conducted as a listening session in other words you ask them to come in and talk with us about what they think their views on phase two uh and uh i thought that if you wanted
to follow this process, that you would gain a lot of mileage by saying in your speech that you were going to do so, and that we could set up difficulties.
We shouldn't really call it here.
I told Price last night or whatever this whole thing, I said, talk to Shultz.
Correct.
Is Shultz the ass?
I said, if Shultz wants that in, put it in.
I talked to Conway about it last night.
I mean, the thing is, I don't see why everybody has to bring it here now.
God damn it, why do you have an editor?
I said, Price, I said, go over there, and I said, I think in paragraph, he's concerned about whether you want to do the process.
I don't give a goddamn what it is.
You know, I don't care what the process is.
If these people, if the four of them agree, I'll do it.
And I understood that the four agreed, and if you can get Arger, Ernst, and Schultz, and Conley to agree, I'll do it.
See, wouldn't that be a problem?
Or does he think...
I think he says they agree.
All right, all right, I'll do it.
The question he's concerned about is whether you want to get committed.
Whether you want to get committed to meeting with those groups.
That's better than meeting with the cabinet.
Hell yes.
All right, my point is, we don't have to.
You see, the cost of living council bothers me.
Of course, the cost is big now.
That's part of the vision.
He wouldn't have the whole cost of living council.
The idea would be just to have certain people, have a couple of representatives of the council plus you.
They want to have meaning, Tom.
What do they want to have?
Well, probably an explanation.
I could, but I told Price to go talk to them.
Okay.
Let me follow up on that.
Well, Price is supposed to be able to let them talk to them.
A paragraph all worked out.
And the price has got to go to that.
I'm buried on it.
So I'm going to get the speech handled by 5 o'clock.
I don't want to wait.
I'm fine.
I'm all for it.
I'm going to catch a speech.
He thinks it's a good idea.
And he's got the room set up.
What he's thinking is if you're going to do it, we've got to contact the groups today before the speech.
So that you can then say, I am going to be working.
Forget it, forget it, forget it.
I told Price to go back.
He probably didn't.
I'll see whether he didn't.
If he didn't, I'll call you.
We'll develop a contract.
And then I'll have Price go and work on the program.
But not meet Pete.
No, it would just be an issue.
It would be an issue.
Good idea.
And his thought is we can cover the other things by, you know, just asking Virginia and Oliver to consult with the consumer groups and the vice president and some of the governors and mayors.
You should be with all of these.
They can look at labor, management, farmers, labor, business, agriculture, and Congress.
I don't know.
They will only want to raise the question, which is Congress.
Well, Mansfield has sent you a letter suggesting that you consult with Congress and suggesting who you consult with.
And it's not the standard leadership.
It's chairman and ranking members of specific committees.
But we're all the same way.
No problem.
I understood that they wanted to meet tomorrow.
Could I suggest to you that in terms of the time, I'd like to keep just for my own, this is sort of a different thing on the schedule, I just want this weather to be good.
Well, yeah.
Actually, for
What?
You want to try to do this every day?
Well, no, no problem.
Probably.
Maybe once a week, maybe twice a week.
But I've got to have the days cleared because five times out of six, something's going to happen and I can't do it.
You want to keep every day clear.
That's right.
Keep every day clear.
By the first of November, forget it.
Because I will do things until now.
But this is a pretty good time to be out there and be serious and get there.
And also, because of the weather, we've just got to keep a careful time.
We'll just do our scheduled stuff between 11 and 3 o'clock.
And there might be some people down there for 10 o'clock.
Kevin, if you could call them all, I think.
Do they know they're going to have one?
Yeah, one of them.
That'd be cool.
Billy Graham's mother is providing insurance this Sunday.
Yes, sir.
Oh, I see.
Thank you, man.
Thank you.
I don't think Billy's coming.
Schedule 7 on TV.
I thought this would be marvelous.
His mother, he wants his mother.
But we have a provost and minister.
Oh yeah, we've got a guy from Chattanooga, Tennessee that Billy recommended.
Great.
Billy has two ministers he wants you to have.
One's a black and the other is his Chattanooga.
We've got the Chattanooga guy this time.
We'll give it a black later on.
He's figured he wanted to start the season with a black.
That's enough for two reasons.
Yes, sir.
I put another one on the 10th of October, right?
Maybe another one on the 23rd of November.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Just take that one section and submit it to us.
We've asked you yesterday and it's a lead story today.
What's the price for it?
The price for it is another dress code.
Watch.
I was talking to Dave at the very time, and he had a little bit of a delusion.
He had a little bit of a delusion.
He had a little bit of a delusion.
He had a little bit of a delusion.
never had
What I'm just about to say is that we're talking about all kinds of things.
But what I can say about it is that he managed to get over the separation somewhere.
He did.
He was trapped into something, something like this.
And he did get a hell of a mess.
Hang on, I'll wash it out.
I didn't make it.
I'd rather do it, so.
But, uh, he did this in Korea, and they do it.
If it's going to come, it will come.
It isn't going to come because we're talking.
See my point?
That's what I'm getting at.
To them, talking is attacking the wind.
To us, talking is attacking the earth or the grave.
try to explain that to him.
He doesn't quite understand it.
But in that particular reaction, I don't, just don't.
You and Al had a little talk, and I said, I'm going to figure out how to build that.
And he said, Paul, I want to see you man bond on.
He said, he can't do this.
I don't want him trapped, you see.
They're coming along, so...
Now, as you know, the troop announcement, we do make it.
We do make it.
We have to make it.
It's going to be a TV thing.
We're just going to make a final announcement in December.
The following, however, the Soviet announcement, I will make an office press conference.
So, clear the 11th.
Have the 11th cleared.
I think that's a hell of a good way to do that.
I'm just laughing at Joe.
I don't have anybody in contact with Detroit yet to see whether they're open for that meeting in the hall or that sort of thing.
If they can't do it by Thursday, I can do it Wednesday.
I can also do it, frankly, Tuesday.
We've got Thursday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
The problem is which, is what part of how big it makes the economy, but that's 2,500 members.
If you know they'll all come and all want to ring again, you can get a pretty big haul.
The other way to do it, which is better, seems to me, from our viewpoint, is to go with their executive order or something, which is 500.
No, I don't think $500,000 is on the clause.
$2,500,000 is fine, but I don't want $40,000.
$40,000 is bad.
$10,000 is bad.
A crowd up to $3,000 is a pretty good crowd.
Well, they go to the panel.
They have a procedure.
They write.
That's right.
They send the report.
Sure.
Just like the common law.
Yeah.
And they write it off.
Yeah.
And then you post that draft.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
What club do you consider, Rob, to get into New York, if you want to go to New York?
New York, even, I don't know.
I don't know if there's any other club.
I don't know if there's any other club.
And Detroit's a Detroit club.
Certainly.
As between Detroit and New York, you know, all of the groups.
All of the groups.
New York, that's more, that's raising the question.
They don't want to do it.
Well, they think the idea is great.
They raise the question of whether it's a good idea to go into Detroit because of having done as much as we've done for the automobile industry, whether it looks like we're, you know, laying it on the management of an economic club in Detroit and all that.
I just, I don't think it's going to come through that way for them.
We are always, never lose anything.
take credit for something we do, like, for example, do something for Catholic schools.
They don't want us to go out and brag about it.
You know what I mean?
We've got to be flexible.
They were just raising it as a point to consider, and I think it is a point to consider.
It is a point to consider.
I'd like to get to Michigan to be a better leader.
So that's the thing.
It's by far the best way to get to Michigan.
It's the best time to get to Michigan and spend some time in Michigan.
I'm not going to hatch this thing.
That's what he had lined up today to see what happened.
And then the desert happened there, right?
I was there with our own people.
Do our PR guys, are they still with you?
Must be if he got home yesterday, that's the question.
Must be, did he?
Where?
On a press conference?
Yeah, and they... Has he had a press conference every day?
No, he did have one yesterday.
Where did he have it?
San Francisco, I guess.
What happened?
Well, he kept...
They served in on busing, and he walked away.
And he said, well, nobody's come up with a better idea, including President Nixon, than busing.
And he tried to go with the law of the land business, and tried to keep both sides happy with what he did.
And he made the press mad.
It's a pure, it's a musky, grumpy type of approach.
You know, they're trying to walk both sides of the fence and they go off in opposite directions.
What do you mean?
They criticize him for equivocating answer.
At least I don't equivocate on muskets.
That's right.
And boy, you're, as Earl was saying this morning,
thought at the time maybe Wallace was doing us some harm on that but he thinks and looking back that Wallace really helped us.
Why?
Because at exactly the right time he made the issue important and gave you the opportunity clearly to establish without any doubt across the land what your position was on Dustin.
There can't be any question really now and they all jumped on you which was good
as to what your position of blessing is.
You're opposed to it.
And that's exactly what you wanted.
I didn't think we were helped also by Chief Justice.
Yeah, but that was substantive.
We always thought we were helped by that.
But the question on the other side was whether we were not hurt.
We were hurt by Wallace.
Wallace was incarcerated probably.
I'm waiting for a chance to recognize George Shultz.
George Shultz doesn't need to just talk to me.
He's doing the right thing.
I'm going to work on the speech now.
Let me get to work on it.
You just tell Ray.
Now, Ray, they've got this idea that I want it in one paragraph.
And I want it very precise.
And the need is to sit down with Shultz and Connelly.
I want Connelly to be
i can't emphasize about how much connor's ego is involved he has got to know too once you agree with him that uh just run the paragraph by him too and not say it's clear it will show him he said here's what the president wants to say if you agree with him say that i still want to i
that I've already lifted the curtain on tax reform.
So we've got to put something in on it here.
Find a way with Connelly to say, well, I heard from Connelly last night.
He told me he had something with George suggested.
And the reality is that we need it.
We need it for the speech in order to have something in the way that we're doing.
And we're working on an issue.
The thing that I was going to say about the... Are they...
Did it appear that Muskie will finally come down on the side of being for busting or not?
Or is he against busting?
He comes down pretty much on the side of being for it, but not enthusiastically for it because
But it seems to be the best way to accomplish what the law requires to be accomplished at this time.
And there probably should be a better way, but he doesn't exactly know what it is.
And what are our people going to do about that?
Well, I mean, we'll ask them all.
We'll keep doing what we've been doing.
We said we are.
I would not get credit for it.
I would not blast him.
I would not blast Muskie the way that I did last year.
He doesn't take the position.
The more effective way to blast Muskie is to say that he has taken it.
Yeah.
But it's
that's going to irritate the hell out of people to see.
His frame, all Muskie has to do is get the Democrats to vote for him, and that means to say nothing.
Therefore, whereas I, as a Republican, did not have that much, I had to win Democrats, I had to say something.
It is not to our interest to say that Muskie, to leave him there and say, well, we don't know where he stands.
Understand?
Don't you agree?
You've got hip muscles, right?
Straight in the ass.
And say, God damn you, where do you stand on busting?
And I would say, I'd get a busting, I'd get a hold of Dan.
Where the ambiguity hurts him is with the press itself, because it makes the press unique.
You think the press really is?
Well, he got that impression of the thing yesterday that it annoyed him, and they kept, you know, he would say, and as you know, they do.
when they think they're getting a run in, and should they get upset about it, give them a bad time.
And that, the more the press becomes disenchanted with Muskie, like they did with Romney.
I mean, they pressed one at Nell, you know Dan well, pressed one at Romney rather than you.
And yet, they became fed up with Romney, and they tore him apart.
out in the West.
I think that's right.
From our strategy, we ought to take the position that's unpopular and say that's his position and hit it forward for our religion.
I'm on the end and call it.
I want you to call it.
I hope you do it.
Why don't we get...
Get Connelly in any time you can.
Say 2 o'clock tomorrow, for example.
2 o'clock tomorrow.
Or he has the Japanese cabinet people, of course.
Or just say any time before 3.30 on Friday, okay?
You call him.
Well, of course, you're in front of the person.
Do you think though that, do you think our group is, well, let's face it, let's put it.
Scallion, that's not.
Yeah, they were, no question.
Colson?
Colson.
You're canning, of course.
You're flying.
plain, understand it, keeps trying to, I don't know.
And Scali is somewhat that way too.
It's hard for Scali to have to accept that he's more and more excited.
But he knows that it's there.
Let me say, I don't, I think it's just a question of being sure we've got some that understand it, that will pop up, that's all.
So I don't think Scali will, I don't think, except in certain cases.
You've got to say, who is the person, I guess Colson.
Colson's the one.
He just calls on the inspector.
That's the best thing we do.
Why don't we get Connelly any time we can?
say two o'clock tomorrow for example two o'clock tomorrow or uh he has the japanese cabinet people of course or just say any time between before uh 3 30 on the practice okay
Do you think, though, that... Do you think our group is... Well, let's face it, let's put it... Scallions, man, that's not... Yeah, no.
Yeah, David?
No, David, no question.
Colson?
Colson.
You can, of course.
Fine.
Plank understands it, keeps trying to, I don't know.
That's all right.
And Scali is somewhat that way too.
It's hard for Scali to have to accept that he's more and more excited.
I know.
But he knows that it's there.
Let me say, I don't, I don't, I think it's just a question of being sure we've got some that understand it that will pop, that's all.
So I don't think Scala will, I don't think, except in certain cases.
You've got to say, who is the person that I'm supposed to?
And Ron works on the required level and the zero-g level.
Ron likes to get into that kind of fight.
That's kind of what I've defined.
You always want to pack him up.
He likes to fight first.
Yeah, when he's running.
He likes to move in and jump around.
Which is great.
But...
Well, you have a very, very good team.
The press secretary should do that.
That's a good part of his role.
Just only when they're totally, when they're wrong.
They're already wrong.
And they get knocked their brains out.
They're already wrong a lot of the time.
They get a synopsis.
Well, mostly, I would say this.
Most of the stuff in the book, and I have on credit, is the ambiguous kind of, you know, who the hell is going to say what, or who is going to characterize it, and you're going to read one way or another, and you're going to say, well, that's just the way I saw it.
But if you're forced to say this is for or against, it's clear that this is either for or it's against.
Something about Nixon that you say he's devious, well, I'm not really against, I'm for it.
You say he's hardworking, that's for it.
I'm not against.
You say he's hardworking, but devious, then it's good.
I think that's another thing that kind of makes it understated.
Hello, I'm Peter Washington.
Well, there's no question about it.
I didn't get to deal with that problem.
It's not a given to Washington.
That's the only thing that matters.
You know, the Democrats had their congressman there last night.
They had all the congressmen last night, but that was another thought.
They're getting a lot of problems with it.
It's just very... Well, last night was the congressional preview.
They invited all the members of Congress and the diplomatic corps.
And then they had to admit in the story that very few of them came.
They sent their staff assistants and people like that.
Yeah.
Of course they came.
Well, some did.
Even they... Why wouldn't they come?
They won't come unless you've got a person there.
There's a lot of them.
A lot of them figure, you know, the hell with that.
A lot of them will go tonight, probably.
Got an invitation from some other way, and they're going to do it tonight.
This will be the day.
But they went...
He went through this Lundry Bernstein business again, you know, this annihilation thing.
He was crying.
He put the show on again last night.
He was crying again.
He went down to the stage and kissed everybody again.
It's become a routine.
And tonight, I'm sure it'll be, you know, it's a...
It's awful.
He went up to the stage last night and kissed everybody again.
And the story... Yeah.
The story today said he kissed everybody he could get a hold of.
So apparently they were trying to get away from him last night.
Well, I think they're doing it because they want to.
It's like, I've talked to some of our people who were there last night.
They were senior type people.
They said, you know, what's it like?
And they said, I don't know, but I think it was terrible.
Why did everybody go out and listen to each other?
Because it's the thing to do.
And it's, what it is, it's awesome.
Somebody was saying that it's sort of like a combination of Jesus Christ Superstar, this rock opera, you know, and hair with clothes on it.
What they do is apparently they perform the various steps of the Mass, and then when they get to the prayer, they each step in the Mass.
Instead of a prayer, they come in with a Bernstein musical, with ballet and singing and all that stuff, is the prayer.
In other words, it's a modern musical prayer.
and the prayer segments and everybody's supposed to like it because it's supposed to be a thing like everybody's supposed to like modern art well if somebody said you know this is brought to church up today somebody said this is uh they think he was hungry was there he was crying through it and they said did you cry he said oh my goodness yes of course because it's the thing you do is to cry here that's all i've said it's basically very boring there's long very dull period in there
There are some very spectacular numbers, some very rousing, loud, kind of big kind of stuff, putting a lot of staging and a lot of atonal kind of music and that sort of thing.
I don't have good loud music.
That's what the kids like.
They like it long.
But it's, it lasts apparently an hour and forty-five minutes with no internet.
I've never dealt with some of them quite, quite, you know, just to see them.
I'm sick of them tonight.
She isn't coming out of it completely.
Well, she isn't coming out.
It's still free.
I was going to sit here and do it.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
All this math stuff, you know, they screwed up the reception last night.
You know, and another good item in the story is the Kennedy family insisted on three of your tickets for tonight for the Kennedy family.
They said they had a divine right to the theater.
You know, that's what Gregor keeps saying.
He won't call it the Kennedy Center.
He calls it the National... What was it again?
Which is what the Congress originally passed the bills on that got perverted with the Kennedys.
They ordered 300 tickets for the Kennedy Bank for tonight.
And the thing in the newspaper says today, the center officials admit that very few of the 300 tickets have been picked up.
In other words, the family isn't using the 300 tickets.
It is an unthinkable.
Yeah, well, actually, how was the morale of the Congressmen when they came back?
They didn't pick up anything.
They talked to the Post last night.
Well, no.
You know, you've got to have them.
They fight all the time.
And so does McGregor.
McGregor feels pretty good, doesn't he?
Very good.
Well, we've got one cheerleader in the cabinet now.
We've got McGregor now cheering on the Congress side, as good as he sure is.
He's a cheerleader.
He's a cheerleader.
He really is.
He's an enthusiastic person.
Oh, for example, when we have a Russian son, he'll borrow.
That'll be a big deal for him, don't you think?
Oh, yeah.
But the little things are big deals for him, too.
Are they really?
Yeah.
Well, that's good.
You know, Stigalli basically is a very enthusiastic man.
That's good.
One of the reasons you like to have him around.
You've got to have a kind of location to get started.
Because, uh,
having done what we have done.
But actually, it's better off than we are.
What's your feeling?
I think we should, and we would be if we had, if we were fairly important.
And it, you know, thinks the country was currently for it.
It's just the administration.
Yeah, I know.
I think what you mean is people just get done at the square.
But I don't think, I think we've got to work in the real world.
You understand, you understand about it.
We don't have a hell of a lot of our big, big things, bombs and programs.
We've got the two trips, but they are just trips, you know.
I think the trips themselves are going to have more effect than the announcements do.
The announcements affect the intellectuals, but the trips are going to affect people, because they're going to see you night after night.
They're going to see you in China.
They're going to see you in Russia.
And they're going to...
It takes more saturation.
The announcement is an intellectual exercise.
It's not a habit.
And the fact that you're going to go is sure, so he's going to go to China, and that's a big thing that people will understand what it means.
Sam will be true brothers.
Right.
Mary is going to have an elephant back.
And also, I don't think you're going to get any.
Those will give you some big pushes.
If we could just keep going.
Well, the point is, I see very little push to give us a push.
Okay, except the balance of this year.
Unless, well, except the economy should get better.
People's personal situations should get better.
The economy should get better.
The economy could get a little better, but it might not.
The war should get better.
Now, last night, CBS reported that for the first time in six years, the Defense Department yesterday did not release any names of people killed in Vietnam.
Yesterday, week in and week out, for the last six years, they've been, I mean, not on this particular day, but on that day, there were no notifications the next weekend, which is really what they released.
They confirmed deaths, you know, they notified, they listed names.
They didn't have any names yesterday.
We've got it.
We had 16 killed last week.
The number's down.
It's down to kind of 16, you know, until it's gone.
And they made the point the other day, and there's a big story, talking about crime in New York, making the point that more people were shot and killed in the streets of New York last year than in Vietnam.
More Americans.
More Americans were shot and killed, killed by gunfire, in the streets of New York than in Vietnam.
That's last year.
That's last year.
This year you're not killed anymore.
I personally have a feeling that we've got the National Rifle Association and we're ready.
to be against all handguns.
I don't think anybody should use a handgun.
You?
I don't think so, but I don't think you're doing that.
A lot of people think they should protect their own guns.
Well, I know, but why not a rifle?
Actually, I've got rifles for the purpose.
I don't know what you mean.
They want the handgun case done for the purpose.
A lot of people keep pistols by their necks.
Including Justice Burke.
Including Justice Burke.
Well, you know, there was a story a while back where somebody came to his door and he answered the door with a gun.
That's why this gun law, you know, even Schweitzer in Pennsylvania ran on that issue.
The fear thing is,
It's a horrible thing.
Just a lot of people.
More people, kids under their kill, with guns around the house.
I wouldn't have a gun around the house for anything.
I don't.
We've never had a gun in our house.
Right.
Anything.
A shotgun or anything.
My father used to have a shotgun.
My father used to have a shotgun and a rifle, but we would never have, we absolutely never have a gun.
I mean, I don't even know what a goddamn pistol was.
No, but we lived there, and our car was just eight blocks from the black area, six blocks from the black area.
Everybody around the neighborhood had guns, simply because we had a gun.
We had a gun, but it would become a house anyway.
Absolutely, because I'm bound to lose.
I'm not a good... You're going to lose.
That's right.
They'll kill me.
That's right.
Because in my place, I don't even know what ethical reaction I have to this subject.
Rose had read something straight out.
She said she was going to, her brother had told her, she had to buy a gun.
Now, Rose has got her goddamn mind out of a gun in her mind.
You know, somebody come to her door sometime, something dropped.
She's crazy.
Ridiculous.