Conversation 275-015

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I ended up 372 today.

17 minutes.

1647.

Friday.

No, but they said that Friday Rise was due to the anticipation that you were going to announce something.

They were talking about your Labor Day speech, but you didn't announce anything.

Uh-huh.

And also a lot of people had a chance to think of whatever they were doing.

And a lot of these programs and advertising around the country are very, very successful.

Good stuff, huh?

This is next.

Good.

A bunch of pictures of her.

opening letter and it makes the summer that shook the world, which is a good line.

They're using it.

It's all the stuff that was discussed in the summer, which is, they quote Time Magazine saying, the durable myth of journalism, the summer dover, which is dissolved, the President Nixon's extraordinary actions and the truism of major events are blinding the calendars.

The chief executive is in full command of the new spirit of America, carefully planned designs for our economy, stability of all, and full generation of peace throughout the world.

If our people would just use some of this, this is pure.

You know, you take Bob Leonard, it's the idea of the new prosperity, the full generation of peace.

Hell, even the media is beginning to pick it up.

And if I were a congressman or senator of Christ, I'd be talking to a fellow who's running on a lot of goddamn cotton tickets

was echoed in the roaring approval of the enthusiastic Americans as history's traveling as President took the Nixon administration to the people of 24 cities and 15 states June through August to touch base and clasp hands with those most concerned with his husbandry of their national trust.

It's, you know, Jesus Christ.

It's to discuss in a center that was alive with relief and hope for all of us.

You know, don't you agree, though, that's the end of writing?

Hell, yeah.

It's the kind of stuff that I'd just love to hear.

President Obama pledged to reverse the deteriorating trend in private parochial school availability and a vigorous action plan to make older Americans full partners in the life of America, a legacy of parks for the people, smashing clothes to international drug traffickers, tough new legal teeth for the war on crime, a long overdue resurgence of people power, and efficient new systems to replace the sapping power lines of horse-boating bureaucracy.

Workfare, human dignity, and peacetime prosperity will stay at hand against man's destructive march on his own environment.

The adult birthright of the young, the signing of the 26th Amendment, the dynamic balance between tomorrow and the city, the realism of equal rights laws that define the product of our American conscience, the new alliance of generations.

President's Fires Bill of Rights, the mutuality of resolve not to forget the more than formerly invented and to serve in the armed force that generates the most in the world.

As it shook the world in a summer of well-earned content for a courageous president and a people who had redeemed their national spirit.

People read that and they get all excited.

And if the damn speaker chooses to get out and say it, people might cry.

One thing with the administration speakers that I commend to you, normally I don't commend to you, but I commend to you the paragraphs on the page, so it would be fine.

Maybe Mark, how about Mark, how do you feel about that?

What about Mark?

Mark, you have to say, I would suggest this is a damn good line.

Gregor sent it to the contrary.

He might send it to him.

I should have come up with it.

to the nutrition people.

Gregor sent it to the crushers, and Dole sent it to the nutrition spokesman.

How's that?

Yeah, good, Martin.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Different technique.

Pat Nixon, he's got some little pictures of you on the back of thumb strips.

And a special on Pat.

The thing that says, astounding, is how those quotes and italics can begin with.

Quotes from the Washington Post, New York Times, Time Magazine, Wilberville, and Mike Mansfield.

The economic design artists were heading for a world that's a vinegar of bad news and disillusionment.

Who wrote that?

Good.

and the thesis there.

But to me, it's so hard because these aren't stunning or electrifying at all.

They expect it.

It's not that you can come up with their heart and hands and throw them.

And this is, you know, this is an excellent hand picture here that you can, yeah.

Oh, man.

You know, that kind of dirty stuff.

The first Monday,

They may allow it to a much bigger list.

This is the far west.

Actually, the price is directed toward the Detroit version.

The idea that she herself wants to stop racing is going, stopping, changing clothes, going on, all that kind of thing.

I think it's best just to run.

What is the price?

Seven and a half dollars, I'm guessing.

Well, there it goes.

There is this problem.

They're better organized there than anywhere else.

I mean, we have more of them there.

Stanford, San Jose, San Jose State.

We've got a selection available.

If they can't do nudges on the end of that, I think you're going to tell them you've got to find one.

Come on.

It's not so bad taking one going in and out of town as it is if you're spending the night there and have time off to get out and talk to them and a lot of stuff building up.

It's really an easy briefing there, but it's not a public event.

It's a closed event.

You go right to the hotel and do it.

Everybody expects it.

I hate to schedule a lot of stuff, you know, that day, too.

You probably need to be screwed up, especially with your wife not here.

Your wife?

I hate to schedule a lot of stuff on that Monday after this Japanese thing, because... No, but bring over my calendar.

It's a decent deal.

Yeah, they took it out of my book.

They took it out of my book.

Well, I'll be tired.

I'll be tired in a little bit.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I did, you know, one, two, three, four, and let's finish it out.

Did you want to take down?

I tried.

Hooray.

I will do less myself.

There are no chair lines, so I don't know which ones you have.

There's the fifth draft.

The one he gave you this morning was just a darn other one.

He's not supposed to give you that one.

Let me see the one.

This is the one he gave you this morning.

He sent a copy of it because he asked me to.

Yeah.

I think there should be women in government, cabinet wives,

I'd rather think it is, you know, for nothing else for them.

The idea of, do that as a follow-up to the academy, I think the idea is that you'll have to throw cotton into that.

Somebody's got to be over there to get one of them.

Crack it.

September the 20th to October 10th

We've got the whole list of possibilities.

Were they ever, I can ask Ray about it, were they ever able to find that Sayer book that I asked about?

Would you...

I mentioned to you that I follow up on Johnny Rose's on California, on government.

And just you came in and asked, you know, $100,000.

The state could make a difference.

Oh, yeah, yes.

Just $100,000.

And they didn't have all the power we've got.

We've got a lot of people to get mind-boggling involved in that, too.

Very people.

People put out letters.

A lot of trying to...

Right.

We haven't been reading that record.

I mean, the two speeches.

Yeah, I mean, Claremont was the same style.

He's not as brazen.

You can try to get a pitch on him on getting the guy...

What are we going to do about Camp David for the astronauts?

You were originally going to go to Florida after that.

You can't pay the dinner so we can give it.

I mean, after the last dinner so we can give it, you can't pay it.

Now you're- Where are we now?

To the 16th.

September.

I don't think you could go to Florida that weekend.

What were you originally going to do?

We went to California as a matter of fact.

That's right.

You could still do it.

No, but if you just got away with it working, we can't do it anymore.

So I think you want to come to Florida on the 17th.

You don't need to give the, my view about the astronauts is only give it to them for a night.

You can have it for dinner, then they go on a backpack, they just go on a backpack for dinner, spend the next day, so that we don't have to sit around and talk to them.

Yeah, spend the next day and the next night.

Friday night, awesome.

Sure.

And then I'm free to go to Camp David if I want, Saturday afternoon.

What about Mrs. Gandhi?

Have you ever heard of Camp David?

Well, I understand that you want to go somewhere.

Geo, yeah, it makes sense they went.

And that is the formal, formal visit with her, I don't think.

Oh, yeah.

Get to dinner.

I don't know.

I thought we had that one.

It's just that, yeah.

Yeah, well.

The way it opens, right?

Yeah.

or just like you were talking about, you know, where you just, the last minute you decide to go to Florida, you just go?

Yeah.

But then, but then going up to Camp David, you know, going up, you know, to the airport, how was that for you?

At nine, you'd be down there at midnight?

Yeah.

That's not a great day anyway.

Yep.

Not a busy day.

Yeah.

which is another possibility.

How about staying, going, rather than going to California, going to Detroit and going someplace else and spending the night.

And Detroit.

That's right.

So it's good, probably makes every night so.

They say we can't, but they're still trying to work it out.

You can do it in New York and Chicago, but you can't also do the West Coast because you have to, the ion difference is such that you have to keep them there for six hours or something.

I think actually that that's too long anyway.

Oh, that's because of the telecast.

You're exactly right.

The problem is, I got your name.

Also, keep them there.

Oh, that's just not triad, okay?

That's just not triad.

I don't want to have them there for six hours and I, they've got to see the damn live telecast, you know.

that's basically you're right the new york people would have to arrive early for the reception and then the telecast would come and that still isn't right i still think that was their argument that they were meeting with the with the dinner people i guess today why they can't do

Well, you can't do it because of the fact that the telecast is simultaneous.

That's right.

So three out of that three, you're doing the telecast from Chicago.

Yeah.

And those poor goddamn people most likely just gotta wait four hours for you to get out there.

Yeah, that's the problem.

See, and you just can't do that.

I mean, they can't see the telecast at the beginning of their dinner or... Well, let's do it.

But I do think you could do New York and Chicago easy enough, couldn't you?

There's no problem with that.

I don't want to do just one.

No problem with New York and Chicago.

Let's do that, then.

The only problem there is New York wants you to speak at the New York dinner.

You have to do...

Your telecast would be from Chicago.

Well, I speak to them while they're having their food.

I mean, they're all there.

Let's see if I can have a shot.

I don't need to do the two anyway.

It looks pretty .

Two is fine.

Go to New York.

It'll help them.

I think we need it in New York, of how it shows the East and the Chicago.

Our guys could get into the problem of the Ford Foundation's support of Brooklyn, if you've heard about that.

I understand that Ruggles House has two mammals in Goldwater.

Two mammals.

The guy that did that, you know, he got that foundation.

Asked if we were going to use the Vice President and then backed off of it.

It's still there.

It's a hell of a bomb.

Wait for somebody to throw it.

I don't know.

We'll see what they do.

I'm sure he can do it.

Why not?

The question is whether he still wants to save it.

Have the Vice President do it.

Put the Vice President in another act on the establishment.

I don't know.

They were there.

Reagan did it by phone.

Buckley was there.

Reagan did a loaded thing.

They put out, they've been putting out some stuff about the fact that it was, you know, there was all of it.

And, you know, just the purpose of it.

I don't think it's gotten enough play that it's worth building up.

I'm kind of afraid that we could at least start launching anything.

Well, I do think probably the VT should hit him.

Just hit him with a letter and then blow the sheet.

Yeah.

Probably a good guy to put on the college circuit.

That presentation is correct.

Those people like to look at it and raise the problem.

Yeah, you get some of the people that's across the country to make some waves out of it.

Right.

College circuit as well as the relevant thing is

Well, there's a story out today that Jackie has said now she's changed her mind.

She's going to come after all.

But the magazines have all...

And the Sunday stuff in the local papers, a lot of big stuff on Kennedy Center.

And it all says things like President Nixon graciously turned his box over to the Kennedy family and we'll be attending the concert opening.

How delighted the symphony people are that you're attending all that.

It's all played positively.

The closest to a negative is in a review of the Bernstein piece where it talks about how weird it is that some suspect that that also may have been a factor in President Nixon's decision.

I'll say it's weird.

Oh, Jesus, the thing that was absolutely sickening last night.

Did you see it?

No, I didn't go.

I went tomorrow night.

Oh, you're going to see the show?

I'm with you.

Oh, you're lucky.

Yeah, I did watch it.

I just think some of us better be there.

They don't want to give a story out that it would poach out.

And there'd be quite an ounce of people capping.

Sure.

They've already had it once.

They had a preview, general public type preview last night, and tonight they're having a congressional preview, and then tomorrow night is the big deal.

The thing last night,

It was absolutely sickening.

They said the audience, at the end of it, apparently is dramatic as hell, very, you know, quite a bit of theater.

It isn't so much moving as it is exciting.

And it's, at the end, they stood and cheered bravo and applauded and everything for ten minutes.

And then they turned toward the box next to the presidential box, which is where Bernstein was seated.

They started cheering for him, you know, and he sat there with his head in his hands, sobbing.

through all this ovation.

And then he finally got up and wiped away the tears and waved to the crowd, and then left the box.

And they kept on cheering.

And he appeared on the stage.

came out on the stage and embraced and kissed every member of the cast.

Men and women, you know, went around kissing all the men.

And everybody went on cheering through all that.

And then Joan Kennedy took the hand of the person next to her and everybody in a spontaneous movement joined hands with everybody else and they left the hall.

I don't think it's going to happen.

It's getting as much bad stuff as good stuff.

The bad is on the architecture, the exorbitant costs, the delays in putting it together, and the contracts with the other departments.

The departments are no liable for it.

No, they're no liable for the other two things.

Because I don't have to put so much money in the day without a private subscription.

Or I don't actually see the Godhead.

That isn't even suggesting that I might.

So, I don't know.

I mean, I don't believe in shit.

Then, I'm happy that you are going to be able to have the reaction of everybody.

Everybody's going to be cheering and sobbing and everything.

And so there's, and the focus will change from that anyway, because see the, after, after tomorrow night when it hits the official opening, and it'll be reviewed, and there'll be a big fuss out of it, then the symphony will open in the other hall, and then it moves out, and a, you know, Gianna Stara opera moves in to the opera house.

And then it runs over the weekend.

And the ballet theater opens.

And, you know, there's just enough of a jumble of things that it's, after this initial orgasm, this next couple of days, it's lost to me with all that's going on in the community.

It may come on, Bob, for me to go see it.

But, I mean, it's an opera.

No, it's a mass.

It's a week.

sort of weird thing.

In fact, it isn't even finished.

He's still composing the prelude, and he has two endings.

He has to decide which one he's going to use.

He's already given one performance.

He's got another one tonight.

They don't know which ending he's going to use tonight.

The side after the thing tonight.

They're building it up with all this combo down there.

They set up a way to capture the side after tonight, which they're all going to do that on later.

And it's...

They call it a mass, but they've got a ballet company and a voice choir and a couple of choruses and a chorale and a symphony orchestra and a huge augmented percussion section, apparently.

And it's weird.

A lot of it's in Latin, but some of it's in Hebrew.

All forms of music, classical, liturgical, rock, pop, country, has all kind of jumbled together.

It's a great effort to get the old Kennedy thing out of the country.

Yeah, sure.

The center is getting, because it's the first opera house, the first really decent theater in the capital and all that sort of stuff, a certain amount of culture will play.

I guess the theaters work well.

It really is.

Compared to, for instance, the LA Music Center, when it opened and just everybody was ecstatic about it, this one has gotten

at least as much bad stuff, a lot of stuff like stones architecture and how the place looks like an airline drum roll.

And Dave, there's one article that compares it to the Johnson.

He writes in one of the magazines at the time, I guess.

Both of them, he says they're both lousy monuments, and they shouldn't have been built so soon anyway.

Monuments.

A man's established his place in history.

Now look, they call it that.

And they're talking about both of them as being examples of lousy architecture.

Yeah, I agree, and it has been a problem, but it has just been asking me to go over it for a performance.

that they were pushing behind the scenes and says, but not the public at all, or past it.

They were pushing very hard for you to come over to dedicate the bust of John Kennedy and employ him.

You're all wrong.

And when you come over this afternoon, do that.

As soon as you became president, strongly supported it.

Nobody's got any complaint.

We've got an ax over it because they need money to keep it running.

From inside, they're just doing backflips to make sure nothing...

There's something else that... Christine is overshadowing Kennedy, really.

That's what's happening.

I think it's startling enough that it's Kennedy mass.

No.

Mass is what we call it.

And Bernstein's getting all the adulation on the Kennedy.

It said that one of the magazines initially made the point that the opening, that you had graciously offered your box to Jackson Kennedy and Jeffrey Nassus, and then she had decided not to come.

And so, you know, it was too bad, but it really...

It didn't make any difference because the star of the evening was going to be Bernstein's past, not the people that were in the audience anyway.

Jackie did not come.

There's a lot of people in the audience.

But I think Gregory packed up there.

In fact, we said something about a C at the Kennedy Center Wednesday night, and he said yes.

I said, why don't we get together for supper afterwards?

In fact, I said, no, I can't.

Roger Stevens invited me to a reception afterwards.

I mean, Kissinger's just furious because he thought he wasn't invited to the reception, and that they were making it a Kennedy thing, and just inviting Kennedy people.

Well, as it turns out, he is.

Everybody's invited to the reception.

I know they'll have a reception in Miami, though.

Afterwards, you are going to do a small reception at intermission or something.

Oh, yeah.

I don't mind.

It's going to be a white elephant.

No, it won't go on.

Oh, it is a white elephant.

That's what I mean.

How the hell can it make money?

That's quoted in the paper, too.

And that's another one of the negatives.

Like, they say, how is it going to make money?

Well, Roger Stevens says, well, it says, Roger Stevens admits...

that the only way they can break even is if they have 960 sell-out performances a year.

Well, that means three a night, three a day, which means all three theaters have to run every day down there and sell out every performance in order to break even.

What?

The theaters don't sell out every performance and they don't run every night.

You can't have 960 sell-outs.

You know, if you get esoteric opera and, uh, stuff in that, that would get, uh, probably out of edgy, for sure.

And the ballet stuff, they won't fill it, fill it for all of them.

They will for the good families, when they get the big name, but it doesn't cost what I thought it would cost.

I don't know how the hell I'm going to do it.

I mean, none of them make money.

L.A. needs to send a camera.

Nothing makes money.

stuff that does make money is these, the derby shows.

They just populate each other.