Conversation 295-014

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Well, the reason I want to make that video is that it's really amusing.

It involves a bunch of little shit.

As I told you, sir, sometimes .

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we want to we want to get it done

It's got to be done basically before the end of the year.

In fact, when he gets back, regardless of what his plans may be, there should be some private meetings.

And what we want you to do is to take over the secretary's job.

Now, as a secretary, I think this is a good thing.

I've done a lot of work with it.

First, I think we need you more at this time out front as a spokesman rather than as an inside man.

I think you're doing a very good job in the business community.

You're doing a very good job in that.

the Connors spot was the place to implement your ideas, and I said your ideas, the ideas that you used, and I didn't know a soft, personal staff at all.

On this whole bit, I said, Connors is really the place that ought to be.

The problems of

Uh, and of course, there is a, there is a, there's a problem with the delay.

Um, uh, I'm, of course, I've had to cross over from here.

It's difficult to do, in fact, that the advice here, as much as I know this is the case of presenting this in public forums with Congress, and in public forums with the Secondary of Congress, you can do it, and as a citizen of the President, it's very difficult to do this in public forums, and it's difficult to do it.

This isn't good, Michael.

called upon, they, for a different reason, should not.

This is for a different reason, should not be said.

You could go out in public, you could not leave, you could go to some.

If he raises questions, go right in with him, go out in front of him, go out in front of him.

Another thing that would allow you to do a test, another thing that would provide a method whereby you, then, could do tests upon him.

He's been in on that.

It would be, it would be Pete's, so that McGruder can't do it, and Pete can do it.

So this is what we, what our plans are for you.

That'll take you out, one of the reasons that, we had this, I had this in mind for a while.

We couldn't say anything about it.

Stance does not know.

Yeah.

But, but I think a, the,

take you out except except to the extent that secretary of commerce should be happy to be out of the line of fire which is you well know that c is something that is almost impossible

It will put you in a line of fire and it will be watching you.

You're very aggressive when you do a stand.

You try to do it and it's failing you.

Not doing it all the time.

But you may be able to do it better.

of getting more effective representation in the United States of America.

Now, that's a cranial fight between the state and Congress, and Rogers just broke right up the wall every time he was mentioned.

He's still got these goddamn incontinence abroad, you know, in the economic and legal industries.

He's gone parallel.

He's been gone four times, except he's gone four times.

What I'd like you to do on the mean time, first of all, this is all because we've got a way of staying in full time and so forth and so on.

I'll tell Mitchell, and I'm sure he'll know about this story.

But in the meantime, I think you ought to work with George and John.

Make a quiet check as to what you want to do.

What do you think about how you want to handle the situation?

Work with your staff.

You're going to have to stay in touch with your staff.

and at some point he will go up but i don't think this is the time yeah well basically it's a good i i would think that you would want to keep him to do this but after all it's hard for you to come here but on the other hand

I think you should try to think of how you want to pay for the department.

Basically, you don't want to talk about it for a year.

But the thing I particularly am interested in is, well, I'd say, one,

I want you to have somebody else run the department.

I would like for you to take on the responsibility of this book.

You could be a hell of a spokesman about the economy in this period of time.

You know, Congress has a lot of important figures.

For example, the history of the U.S.

The U.S. has a lot of important figures.

They are at the library, and there's a lot of people in there, and there are very few business members.

That's why most of them are waiting for the next thing before they get themselves out.

Now, that's the how.

As far as the subjects are concerned, what I'm really interested in is getting, having you take as a primary responsibility, getting out of the business

I want you to take with you, out of your present office,

But, you know, you're amazing with regard to the, you know, financial and all that.

All that really belongs.

That's a Congress job.

It's a business job.

It's probably not all that.

So you've got all that.

But over at Congress, you'll have a hell of a staff to do it with.

And a big staff.

A big staff.

And there are probably a lot of good men.

You can just go ahead.

I know you supported the idea when I met you several weeks ago.

I would hate to see our council on your national day on the clock, but instead of taking at least two weeks off, but...

Well, there has to be a White House.

There has to be a White House.

I'd ask for a repeat understanding of going to Congress.

You will respect the Council.

Whereas, most others have a lot of interesting things.

And a lot of you may have.

I know Pete has been interested in social development.

But as far as I can think of, perhaps the best aspect of government in this is the National Bureau of State.

have political issues.

I hear about them.

They're a very old guy, and they're sort of looking away, but they're very high quality people.

Are they?

I don't know.

Somehow or other, they're managed by AEC, because they have enough law enforcement to be made out of them.

That's just something that nobody thinks I would be.

I mean, when I say you're taking that part, I hear you taking the accuracy.

It's the accuracy that is needed.

This project .

And during the next year, we're going to really need to get a kind of picture of effective spokesman.

I think this is something we need to be aware of.

We need to be a good witness before we make a good spokesman.

More business to the strong enough to make a good spokesman and a very good match.

But I think we're starting to see.

about the scheme, the chemistry, about, that's right, big talk, upbeat.

We need positive, upbeat, fighting kind of talk, if you're young, which is good.

But what I'd like for you to do is to begin directing your mind to all this right now.

Now, that is a meaning of good, and we continue to entertain all of you in our lives.

So, direct your mind to this now, and be ready to go, so that when you step into this thing again,

How do you think we can work that through?

I don't know.

I guess we can't do anything until he announces it.

If we can get our budget review session to go in after we prepare a book, and it's the department that's going to announce it to the government and so on, and without anybody doing it.

Let me suggest this too.

Why don't you and John, between the two of you, if you can,

spent too thinking about what you think the Congress Department could do.

You know what I mean?

How, you know, rather, you mentioned Bureau of Standards, and what a new secretary coming in, you know, with the fresh idea of what he could do for the department.

Now, Maury has, Maury has been a very loyal, hard working, stable fellow.

And, you know, he's been very, you know, he's been around so well.

So don't hurt yourself with that, please.

I'm very fortunate that we've done that now.

There are just a lot of others with Congress.

You know, you always look back to that job and you see what Herbert Hoover did with them.

And Congress does need to be just over there with one of those beautiful buildings.

Well, the research and development for us is something that everybody is working on and is empathizing with.

Then we have the proposal for a department of the United Affairs, which is where we're going to get on as far as this session happens.

to improve the quality there.

Yeah, that's going to make a 33 and a third percent error on the GNP.

I can understand 5%, 10%, but not 33 and a third percent.

The figures can't change that much at one and one.

You've got 3.5, 3.25, 3.5, 2,000, 3.

The video rate of growth is 5, 10, 5, 3.

Yeah.

They had it at 2 and 9 tenths.

Now they go to 3 and 9 tenths.

Really?

Yeah.

They should be between three to four, and then what do you figure is the growth of a third?

A third or three added to it.

Yeah, there's only so many directions.

And the first figures are the only ones anybody pays a goddamn bit of attention to.

The whole first figures are what everybody said the economy was doing, and you never hear about the next one.

When that thing comes out Thursday afternoon, I'll bet you it makes the back pages in the course of that.

That's all you can do.

Well, that's something you can't correct because the statisticians always lie.

Well, we've been after them.

They don't lie deliberately.

They just want to lie on the low side for us.

Well, we've been after them on the DNP because it is so difficult with these early figures.

They're in a nation that's very complete.

and saying, well, why do you go to that kind of building area?

It doesn't make sense.

There's very much information.

So first you get on that, and then you do what you can do.

But it was very good.

So why don't we just skip it?

Good.

And wait a little bit.

Well, we're in a tug-of-war between our physical policy group and county office people right now.

But there are a lot of things like that.

Let me say this.

While we're talking about this, we've got a few questions.

In the cabinet today,

We have a lot of very good, but for the most part, bland men.

I mean, and the reason that Connolly stands out like a shining star is not only because he's quite a politician, but he's a ballsy, outspoken, and frankly, he says something else.

He takes people on, and he takes on the courage of people, and so on.

Now, there's a very, there is a need here

That's why I say I don't want you to be a manager.

I don't want you to be just a nice guy.

I mean, there may be a time when you've got to be damned combative as well as you've ever been before.

But believe me, the worst thing that can happen to anybody who is a cabinet officer or a potential government is to be non-controversial, because then he lacks color.

And the thing for you to do is to get out and think of this.

See, the thing I liked about your whole proposal, you know, your briefing thing, was that God damn it, you said something.

Now, what are people agreeing with when they're not sure at least saying something?

And you've got to get out and do this.

Now, one of the disadvantages we've had in George's case, George was a very effective advocate because, you know, he knows his stuff.

He sticks it to him.

But you pull him over here in the OTN, and he's got to kind of put on a little bit of the role of, you know, being fair on a partisan position.

Right.

So, now you look over our campus at the present time, and you can see your opportunity.

Your opportunity, because I think, and I think John would agree, I think he could be fairly good on television.

They could be very good at university campuses.

I think also, I think also that he would be very good before the Congress.

I think you could not do very good on the reorganization, for example, which I don't understand.

But even on, like, some of the other things, if you go down there, you can do some about the statistical stuff and all that.

And it means you're going to leave the other position, and we've got to do some thinking inside as to what to do there about the other.

My thinking about it is .

Realize that, as you know, whoever is in that international community is causing a murderous crossfire in the state, in the commerce, and in the trade, right?

You drew us all from another side.

The NSC.

Huh?

The NSC.

Oh, of course the NSC.

Somebody who doesn't get a word from them.

It might be, it might be, basically, it might be that we're bringing in a new man, it's so difficult at this time.

I mean, somebody who doesn't know, we know his way around.

We're blending in the way we should.

The fact that you know is the output.

I must say, when I look at the, when I look at what we've talked about earlier, when I look particularly at bureaucracy, at state, and how we have to fight those guys, I don't know.

Poor David Kennedy.

He really had a belly full of it.

It's a rough line.

And that's going to be the fight, but we've got to fight that fight.

I'm not going to let the State Department take confidence in it.

There's such a response over there.

Take it to the block.

One thing I want you to know, Mario is, of course, very hung up on the East-West trade thing.

There is, there are some possibilities, and the possibilities are not as great as you see.

That's perfectly right.

There should be some other man.

The thing I want you to do, though it is true, is to keep very close to Kissinger on that.

I'm not saying Kissinger for a reason there.

It's one of the few things we've got in the international situation that we can give that they want.

And we're going to give, but we've got to get something for them, too.

So that's one thing we want to do.

All the businessmen that come and hang out for all this trade.

So it's the Russians that we are paying for it.

And that means we have to damn them to bargain.

So I've got, I haven't given Maury a decision.

We know what we want.

We know it would be great to have four of you to tell us we're a great reference, but don't get that way.

That's what you have to do.

I don't know if we can have the council come and study this and then Maury's able to do it again for three years.

You're available to do it.

Well, I'd like for it to go up, and incidentally, after our meetings, I don't think there's a hell of a lot from the Chinese market, but after our meetings, you may be in a position to be frustrated after a meeting with the Russians.

And as the war reaches a conclusion, we may see some ships upward in trade, and incidentally, particularly with the settlement

The Eastern European, I mean, of course, as you know, they're more advanced than the Russians in many respects, the Czechs, the Americans, and so on.

But we can't do a lot with them on some commodities because of the war-prone heritage.

I mean, what do you call it?

Comcom.

That's where we stand on it, and I just want you to get prepared for it.

Don't tell anybody.

Don't tell your staff or anything.

We'll have to be ready to go.

And Marty gets back in 17 days, right?

Nobody has left yet.

He gets back, we'll talk to him, and get a date for him.

He'll be back in about the 5th of December.

Yeah.

My guess is that Ari will want to stay until the 1st of January.

Well, I think it's important to make a change, to give the new man a chance to run the darn shop.

As the new Congress comes in, too, you know, or he's moving in.

Yes, he's going to become the Republican National Ambassador.

That's his choice.

It's fun to do, and it's great to go back and do it as well.

He's prepared for that, as I understand it, I thought.

I haven't talked to anybody about it yet, but you know, you always think about it.

You know, I'm really excited to know all about it and the direction that it's headed for.

I've already talked to Mitchell about it, and already, they've already discussed it, and I was going through it for you.

And the press is already doing it for you.

Well, that'll be...

So that's where it goes.

I worked with Jim when he was very close to the new secretary.

Do you like him?

Yeah, he's a liar.

He's got a lot of, it seems to me, a lot of balls.

He's got the new assistant secretary of the department.

He's a good person.

And the assistant secretary is quite a good fellow.

His name is Al Scott.

He's an international therapist.

The statistical one, what I'd like you to do there tonight, you coming as you do from the White House staff, we're not going to have this meeting, and you're standing here, and you're cut up, and all that sort of thing.

You know how to work for her, and you work with her, and you know how to work for George.

On the statistical thing, Pete,

And actually, when you get over there, try to work with these guys.

Because you know they're not trying to cut you a kind of pumpkin.

That's why the reason I said I want you to do this job is that you're the ideal man to do it.

To work with us on that, with the staff, and all the rest of your team, including the cabinet officers.

But nevertheless, I think in your case, in your case in office, but in your case, it's ideal for us.

And I think it's good for you to do this.

And I think it's going to be very good.

You'll have to go down to the business council and hold their hand and thank your wife.

You've probably done it before.

You're an Australian.

Was it the governor's wife?

Ambassador's wife?

Yes.

Ambassador's wife?

Yes.

Prime Minister's wife?

Prime Minister's wife.

Well, she's better in her pictures than she is the person in my picture.

You've seen more of the vaguely old items looking at her.

You know, you were working the head for her.

You could see that in her dress.

Putting her foot up for the next step, and then a part of her dress broke in.

Yeah.

It really was something.

Something quite strong.

Yeah, she... Well, it's good that's got a straight line.

She would have probably worn nothing if it would have helped.

I'm sure she won something.

It would have been for their country.

Brokerage.

We have to play in this whole... We had to wait until Connolly got back from the Center for National Monitoring, and we're waiting until the end of the week so he can go to a chance to go to study and all this stuff, and so forth.

It's important that he, the in-off of the takeoff, he was in-off of the takeoff, he's got to be in on the landing here.

So don't be concerned about that, but I'm sure you know we've got a very delicate situation.

I haven't talked to Bernie.

Still haven't met him.

And I haven't talked to everybody else.

Everybody who's working for the United States except me.

So I'm ready for the price to go.

You see, I do want to raise the price to go, but I don't want to get back to the Confederate world.

I am all for raising the fraction of the... Look, if we can raise the fraction of the gold, it's just a dozen among us.

And, uh, Joe Henry today, and Tom, if we raise the fraction of the gold in that way by all the fraction, I hope we get something back.

What the hell are we going to get for it?

I don't know what we're going to get.

Well, I have a bunch of...

I have a bunch of as far as...

I don't recall it, but let me tell you what his answer to that is.

He has just visited with all the prime ministers, I guess, and he wanted me to give you a message.

Right.

The message being that they're all disturbed.

Yes, besides that, that Italy has got this serious labor situation.

I'm sure you have, Maria.

We have, yeah.

Peers and perhaps communism, et cetera.

But it's a very bad time for them to take a move that labor will see as making a less competitive thing.

We agree that.

Heath, of course, is moving into the county market.

Labors against him there.

The thought of his taking a re-value instead was seen as a bad time.

Pompidou, you may remember, de-valued within a few months after he took over after Gall said it was unthinkable.

The pitch from France says they can't do it because it will make Pompidou look like an ass.

De-valued and now re-valued.

So they wanted to message you on how important it was.

So I said, well, they want us to just go out and surcharge and quit.

No, no, what they say they'll now do is accept a change in the price of gold without affecting their earnings.

And what it gets us is an extra five points on me.

on the exchange rate alignment, which gives us about $4 billion on our balance of trade.

So I said, why aren't you willing to do that?

Well, there are really two reasons.

One is the design channel.

Convertibility issue.

And I said, if you guys want to discuss convertibility, I can't imagine the President being at all interested in that for any reason.

He said, well, I think maybe that's negotiable.

Maybe there won't be any convertibility.

He said that?

Yeah.

I said, that's a major issue in anybody's name.

But the second issue is obviously the public opinion and political effects here.

If there's not convertibility, you've already admitted it's economically irrelevant, because if you can't convert, it's just a political game that makes us all okay.

And at this point, I took them through some of the political problems in the United States, and they have the feeling that it's very easy to do.

And they said, Henry Royce was for it, and Krossmeyer, and I said, well, what about Kennedy, and Muskie, and Huber, and some of those, and you've got to be aware of the demigod.

He said, like what?

And I said, well, Franklin Roosevelt was the last one.

But what you get for it, if we do not convert, effectively, is a terrible place to stay.

is an extra four or five points from these countries well that means it's about eight hundred million dollars a point on our balance of payments the reason is present is that france italy and england will not go up but they would let us go down five and leave it there which has the same effect so what you get out of that

is $3 to $4 billion more on your trade account than you would if you don't change the price of oil.

That's the deal.

What about other areas of the world?

Trade, then.

First, Europe's argument on trade is that we've got a big trade surplus now of $2 to $3 billion in favor of the U.S. And they've got a list as long as we know they need from us.

On the other hand, they're very weak on agriculture, as you probably know.

And I, Bill, I wrote it over there now.

I think they'll talk seriously about agriculture in a couple of hours.

They will, but you can't get that negotiated in a hundred years.

But there are a few specifics you can do now.

The best burden sharing in Germany, you know, I'm talking about that offset deal of 970 million.

It's not like you haven't found out that you can't make a little bit, a little bit for a decision.

I don't see any merit in saying we'll change the right to vote even without the results until we're sure we know what we get for it and we've been able to play out the politics of the system.

There may be a way of doing this where the IMF takes action and you don't have to do anything for a year to get you by the election.

But I don't see why we should send any signal now that we need to consider it until the times, you know, until we're really sure.

that we know what we get for.

But it could be four or five more points on the exchange rate, which then enables you to stand up in front of the public and say, we've now taken actions to free this thing, and if they're right and they don't free that, then you see all the averages come down.

Because the Japanese look at the mark, and the mark looks at the frame, and if the frame won't play,

then everybody gets moved down a certain number of points.

So the difference of three to four bids, and you remember the numbers that John talks about, 13 bids, swing around, others say nine.

It's a pretty good step along the way, if you're sure you get that.

I don't think so.

Do you think Muskie and Humphrey, and some of those more relevant operators, and Royce, I don't know whether they would be staged to get aboard this plane or not.

If they would, it might make a difference.

Saying that the United States got a lot better deal, we've now more or less solved the equilibrium problem.

It got us next to four or five points.

We got some traded defense stuff.

And that fortune was now, you know, turned us down things that sit around.

So it was making a lot of money.

So I think it was a sentence that we didn't have to deal with.

So there hadn't been any kind of way to work it out.

And in fact, we're all set.

We're going to have to jump on that.

We're going to have to do it.

Of course, that cuts those ways, you know.

You need a bigger exchange rate change to the results.

At the same time, it cuts the direction of your work.

The point-sending exchange rate is better than it was a while ago, if you haven't traded in concession already.

that she would undertake this.

I want you to tell her, or she must get along with White House staff, and she will do extremely vital, especially along with Congress.

And I want you to do that.

And I don't want to prolong because, you know, National plays a role in the rolling thing.

But it's fake.

I'll have to say it candidly.

You may have to enter up in a magic chair position.

Unless Rogers gets somebody over there.

I've been in an adversary position, I think, since the day I got here.

You're suggesting this is a change in my role.

It's been six months since we agreed on that.

Yeah.

That's the problem.

Oh, there are good people.

There's a fellow named Jack Stevens.

He's their counselor.

He's brought in.

There's a few that he's brought in from the outside.

And Jack, he's an old friend of mine.

But he's concerned because he says the State Department isn't in on a lot of things that should be in on.

And he says there's a perfectly good reason.

I wasn't going to do this either.

We leaked like I said.

He said that?

Yeah.

And so he is taking after the State Department.

He said you're going to leak?

We're doing the leaking.

Because he says if we can't stop doing this, we're not going to be part of the action.

And he's tormented by it.

He's going to ask why.

Bill never does.

You know, that's the point.

Bill knows that he never wins.

He has known everything.

No, there are, frankly, no, it's not the way, whatever it is.

Because the Defense Department also declares that, well, I discovered something one day about a telephone conversation that you perhaps know.

There's somebody listening in at the calls, and there are notes, and the state notes of the telephone calls get immediately routed to several people.

And it's kind of an eerie feeling to think you're having a one-to-one conversation with Bill and finding

You know, two other guys telling you what happened an hour later.

So I suspect that's one of the... Well, it's a...

It's a little rattle.

It shows you.

But that would expect me to have a case that doesn't state it as that.

They did not get rid of the people who were in there, the assistant secretary, and bring in new people.

There wasn't any other food department in the country.

And that would be about, as an empty box for young, bright guys.

This is Greg.

What's his department?

Well, he did it with the White House fellows.

He was here.

We brought him in here.

He's now a deputy undersecretary, I guess.

And he's got a liaison with the business.

And he pulled guys out of major corporations around the country all along.

Maybe they're in the 1930s.

He's got advertising guys, and he's got financial guys, and some economists, and he's got a survey unit, and he's got Dean Dennis in there.

But I would just like to write for him.

It's just a great opportunity to use him.

Make that department just a tremendously effective public opinion.

First of all, it wasn't the one job you got.

It is the Department of Congress.

This is something that doesn't move.

It doesn't move.

It doesn't help a lot of people in the country.

Business at the present time doesn't have a very good rating in public opinion.

Labor has less, but business has a very good rating.

And by God, it's talking to all the American people again on such simple issues.

why profits are good rather than bad, and business is not all bad, and all that sort of thing.

You can do that.

I talked to this bunch about that, about our problems, and offending the interests of others.

Offending business is not popular in this country.

You take a hell of a load on yourself.

Now, that'll be one of your jobs.

But I can't emphasize too strongly, though, that I really want you there as an advocate, you know, within the cabinet.

and outside, and so forth, rather than a man is the damn thing.

Don't get your hands all ruffled on that, but the clerks will do that to you.

We're coping with this damn water quality bill right now that Muskie put together and is sending our way.

This is a terrible, this is a terrible piece of work.

Is that from Congress?

No, no, it's an environmental thing and it came out right out of Muskie's office.

It got through the Senate and went 90 to nothing.

And so we had all Republicans in the House Committee and the House side of the committee down today and we were trying to get them to defend against this thing.

And Cronkite wasn't trying to say we should come into hearings.

It was all about Congress.

He said, no, I don't have any business with Congress.

He said, no, Craig, no.

Well, that's it.

No, it wasn't.

No, I'm afraid not.

Because we need every, you know, every horse we can get.

And that is Congress's fault.

They have no credibility.

No, it's because they've taken such extreme positions.

And nobody believed them on this subject anymore.

and uh that's that's bad yeah i guess you point that bit clever okay uh george i want to go over a couple more things

I want to go over this HFL thing so well.

What Chuck feels is still what we ought to do.

I frankly just, I don't know, I think we can do it all right.

I'm not concerned about having a way to make an effective call with a good reception with a few of the nuts yelling.

But on the other hand, the real question is whether you just want to do a labor commission at this particular point.

particularly due to the fact, I mean, it's been so, well, when he's been so, his rhetoric has been so, I'm not standing up for the office enough, you know what I mean?

There's so much you can take from it, so much you don't take.

I talked to the chef about it, and I think that he made that clear today.

I don't think that he's going over so well with his second file.

That's what Chuck's wondering.

He says he's over his head.

I know are telling him that he can say whatever he wants in general, but, you know, they want to get along with him right now.

So he's going to have to go to that.

But it's the start of the freeze.

And, uh, there you go.

So Colson's view is that I should go and speak to the balance of them.

Would you come down on that side to do it?

I'm concerned about the communities.

personal I'm just wondering if the president is going down.

The president has very much expressed that he has gotten everything that he has wanted out of the three federal and state and the office of president.

And that essentially he's going to run everything.

I think that if you go

In addition to the things you don't like to hear, and they're coming up in the records, it's important to say a few things to pick them up.

I think it's a pretty close question.

They haven't been taken out of the way yet.

But also quite enough to my appreciation for their having stood with us on some very important national security issues when they're not nowhere to be found.

I think that to want to see life arise and God created and so on and for that, and therefore that,

The labor program of the administration is a program for the working man.

It is not a good program.

The themes of yours, the work on the one hand, and the research and development and progress and so on on the other, are very appealing themes to them if you remember.

And when the Positivity Commission meeting goes, we're very warmly applauded by the rest of the people.

It's also true that they're a little leery of the environment.

And if you want to say to them, I really should go to that hospital.

Or even when you're in that new place.

They're waiting for you to come by.

You know, I think what they're...

looking for is, yes, we have to improve the environment, but we have to go about it in a way that we don't want to have to get out of the process.

Well, tucking's a very strong case also for if you go, you should do it for the same.

I completely disagree with Roselle's argument that you shouldn't go to Thursday because you need to speak on Thursday, and Roselle's argument that you should speak on Thursday.

That means it's better to speak on Thursday, but more importantly, because it's the opening day of the convention, and if possible, you should speak before me.

You should open the convention, by the way.

So if you can't speak before me, speak after me.

But either way, even though you were coming to speak,

that you get on before the Democrats get down, before all the equipment takes place, before all of them, and if you wait until after they've been kicking things around for three or four days, then it looks like you are coming down hand in hand and trying to patch things up.

You go down from the beginning and you're strong.

There's no problem with coming down and making good, strong peace.

I think Shepard's right about that.

Oh, I would say, Friday morning, all of us have been in service.

They have all been down there for a good week, except for I guess the next day.

We want to hear it the same day, the Democratic candidates, because that would not be proper.

And you may not be able to believe that because they're going to filter them all in.

You never know when they're going to appear.

But you sure don't want to appear, not currently, with a guy who's announcing his candidacy on that day.

It's a statement, Carr, that we all allow you to set up your vacations in Florida.

See if you can help your strength at work.

You have to have broad support, including over-support.

I don't see that you're gaining anything by it.

There's some real hazards, and I don't see if everything went just exactly right.

I don't see what you've got that you don't have right now.

You'll get a good reception.

I will, that's right.

Yeah, no tear.

I always have.

So, what have you got?

Quite a surprise to the press.

Quite a surprise to the folks.

And the laborers against me.

And who the convention is making appear, that way.

And me, too.

You see, the idea of the confrontation and the fact that organized labor is against the president is not a good idea to have around.

I know we can all get terribly excited that it's bad to have the blacks against us, but we're not going to get any black votes anyway.

It's not good to have any party against you.

The Jews are against us too, but it's not good to have it all advertised.

That's why we treat the Israelis nice, the B'nai B'rith and all those ones.

It's not good.

We're not getting votes.

We're not.

So it is with labor there.

The difference is

that the 18 million people in organized labor would get 40% of it.

So, how does that end up?

Why do we, in other words, why would everybody recommend that I go do the NAACP and do the NAACP, not do the NLCIO and put in Clayton?

Clayton, huh?

Is there an argument there?

You wouldn't do any of it, huh?

Not unless you can come out on that bus on it somewhere.

What's your net plus on Whitney Young's email?

Oh, I think there were big net pluses there, not with the blacks.

Maybe, but no, I had the same argument, though, with labor.

I wonder if there aren't more people in the country that care about the working man, who includes, incidentally, a hell of a lot of blacks.

and who care about the blacks, period.

They do, but it seems to me the problem is in how to do this and still be presidential.

Well, that's the problem worries me.

Now you're getting to the point that I'm concerned about.

If you go down there and you get cheered, you've been cheered because you're president and because it's arguable.

At the same time, you have gone to them.

You've carried the fight to their battleground.

More and more, I'm hearing that we, this thing George mentioned, that we've given later our shirts.

That's right.

And now, on top of giving them our shirts in Phase 2, we go to them and ask them for support.

Needy's cracked you on your foreign policy.

I know that that's bothering me.

and uh all right let me ask you this the president how does pop how does how how would the hopper thing fit in with that if we have to do that i don't know

I don't quite get the relationship.

You mean you would go there and announce that or something?

I don't get the connection.

No, no, I meant, come on in.

I meant the argument.

No, they're completely different incidents.

Did the argument you make with regard to doing meaning apply also to the doing of Papa?

You look upon the Hoffa thing as a human presidential thing, not a non-presidential one.

I think there would be a lot of accusations of deals and whatnot involved in the Hoffa thing.

I don't know enough about that, really, to know what the implications of that would be.

I'm just concerned about the president turning a little hat in hand to an element of society as to which it can be argued you are already inordinately dependent.

Well, all right, then you cross the root of cotton.

You go down and crack them, which it seems to me is the other alternative.

That's a fundamental political decision.

You can go down and neither hat in hand nor crack them.

Go down and...

Congratulate them, you know, express your appreciation to them for support on the Cambodia thing, one of the trying times of this administration when they were statesmen where many people in this country weren't and marched with the President.

and then make the point that now it's up to them to be statesmen and want another sacrifice.

That there was a great prosperity in 68 because of war, because we were killing 300 Americans a week in Vietnam.

Now you're asking them to make the sacrifice that said, I don't want us and those 300 guys in accepting the posture that we're trying to bring about in the new economic policy.

Then you don't go hat in hand, you put the challenge to them.

You say it's up to you now to shape up to this challenge the way you shaped up to the... Let me ask you to do this.

And I know you can do it.

Let me ask you to do this.

Let me ask the three of you to talk to Tulsa and whack around.

We talked about it.

I've got to decide the dance.

If I'm going to do it Thursday, I have to work on it tomorrow, because I don't intend to read any dance tutorials.

So would you do that, John?

I know you're accused, and I'd like Lee, frankly, not to do it, but I could do it.

The procedure for doing it, John, would be quite different than you.

I would go in with the silly little speech that they will have prepared over here in research.

I mean, it's not because they're silly, but because that's all we've done.

Getting the laundry list that we did this for mine safety and this for that.

All are great things, but Hodgson, that's Hodgson's speech.

I have that, and I flip it out to the press in advance.

i'm not going to read it to you i stand by it the president i look at that and put it aside now i want to talk to you straight from the show i don't say i want to let's understand one thing about off the bat i i when i come before you i i think

I am quite aware of the fact that it has been widely reported to the President that the great majority of the people here have opposed me and do oppose me.

The great majority of the people here oppose my party.

And so when people say, why, when they're not for you politically and not for your party, do you come?

I say, because you're for America.

And I say, I remember that when we had the Rio crisis and so forth, it was a period of time in regard to whether people were coming to March 4 against this country.

And March 4, I'm aware of that, and I'm frustrated, and I'm frustrated with you.

And I want to talk to you about what we have to do now, and go over to the jazz club face to face with a lot of them.

That's what I want to do.

You want to take me out on China?

No.

No, I wouldn't mention China.

I wouldn't mention China, and I wouldn't mention the Soviets, and I wouldn't mention Cuba.

I wouldn't get into foreign policy with regard to the future.

I'd only talk about the agony of what we have been through and how they stood up, and on China and the rest.

No, I wouldn't take them on on that.

That's not the thing we want to do.

The China debate is one that Meany is fighting pretty well by himself anyway.

So that's the way.

So you all, the three of you, I appreciate the four of you talking.

Colson has a strong view about going, and you have a strong view, which, and I think John understands the reasons why the presidential thing would concern you, but if I go there, don't worry, I'm not going to go at hand, and I'm not going to go in a way where I say, look, you fellows are really being labor statesmen and all that on everything, because they haven't been.

And I would have to take on another thing.

But I don't know.

I don't know whether it's worth it or not.

I don't know whether it's worth the effort, but we'll see.

The other thing, George, if you would, if you could go over what I want you to talk about.

If you would talk to John, who's on the third, these appointments, this appointment with the council, I think that's very important, and the appointments to the Fed.

Now, I'm damned well that we're going to play a hard game at both of those.

So if you would, I don't want to talk to you about it today.

I want you to just talk to me.

The other thing is that I want to ask you, don't you think so?

Don't you believe that the Quadriad meeting, and I talked to you about it.

I am not inclined to think we're quite ready to do one right now.

What do you think?

Is there anything, any good to be served?

What I'm thinking is that on the international thing, if you would.

I don't know.

I don't think so.

It's important for us to do that before we have another question.

The way things are right now, we just have to think of spending all of it and try to keep it basically repeated.

Repeated the same argument.

Right.

Well, your thought is that you and Kissinger and Connolly should get together and have a call.

I don't want to have it any broader, because if you do impede it, then you've got the problem with Archer and all the rest.

But even the three of you could talk.

Do you feel that we're in the same...

We may have meetings with the...

European heads of state in the month of December, and we can't go to those meetings without having something to say on this problem.

And, frankly, not something to say on this problem.

We may not have enough demand to get out of the meetings.

Maybe we're not ready.

Well, I think, well, I can talk to the gentleman about it.

He thinks they aren't giving anything, that nobody's given enough yet.

That's the way he feels.

Now, will Paul McCracken be able to make a deal?

No, they don't.

He thinks this is the time to make a deal.

As long as we don't give up on convertibility.

Never.

I'll never give up on convertibility.

Never.

We already have done a lot in the other 15 states.

bear additional, you know, be nailed down without giving away the basic element in the international monetary structure.

Well, don't concentrate so much on the monetary.

John is right about one thing.

We've got to get something in the trade equation.

I agree with that.

And incidentally, one thing, Henry, that I want you to get across to John is to quit haggling around about the goddamn offset.

Now, with the Germans, we can haggle around for $50 million more or less on Ofsted, whereas we might be haggling about $500 million more on something else.

So that one's got to get out of this thing.

We're going to give them that just like we're giving the Japanese everything they want in Okinawa.

But beyond that, I'd like for you and Connelly and Kissinger to meet.

And then we're going to have to bring Arthur in for a bit and be ready to roll it.

Because Arthur is playing without question the game here of working all over town and all over the international community for it to go back to convertibility.

Is he not?

That's all we hear.

Well, he says he is, but raise the price of gold is some form, a limited form of convertibility now.

You can't tell me you can have that without being a little bit crazy.

I mean, I know enough about it.

I know nothing, but I know that much about it.

Isn't that really true, George?

I think that's true.

At the same time, I think that it is important that we can get

Instead of everywhere, right?

and have a sort of a surcharge without giving away anything on convertibility.

But that would be worth doing.

Now, how much, what can be done in Japan?

I don't know.

We've already got the textile agreement that measures that.

What else can be gotten there?

I don't know.

They've already been valued again, and I'm saying, you know, a lot.

How about thinking rather in terms of 10% of the trigger of knocking five off?

Why do we have to think of the whole court?

That's the first step.

What I'm really getting at is this.

I think what is really needed here, George, is not a settlement.

What I need, that I think is needed, is an indication that we're going to make one.

That's what is really needed.

You're not going to get a settlement now because, Henry, they're not ready to come on it.

Check it out.

They're not ready to come on the goddamn thing.

I think if we don't get a settlement very soon, it's going to be...

an organized reaction against him.

Of course.

I've had a letter from Brocio today, who you know, who doesn't write like this.

He sent me a personal letter, a personal appeal to me, to say that he had never seen the U.S. Union in this world.

I think, for example, the Germans were heading into a recession when they stopped voting after a while.

And...

So I must say that it depends how many things we want to wrap up in the interim settlement.

I agree with Phil.

But an interim settlement is what is possible.

Now, I think if we talk about a total settlement, we'd never have a total settlement.

Well, as long as we don't give up on infertility, we already have a major thing open.

I agree we shouldn't give up on convertibility.

And I don't want to get into the details because I'm not confident enough to write my recommendations on the details.

But I'm really...

There might be points.

Well, I think all I can say is what I hear people say.

It's always the blind face of the blind in this field anyway.

But...

I am really very concerned about the way this is taking up politically in every one of these countries.

In Italy, if there's a recession, there will be another campaign on an anti-American platform.

In Germany, if there's a recession, it's going to start floating.

Now, how do you answer that and say, well, we've got to deal with our own election?

Well, I cannot judge.

and that our election is affected by the wrath of the people of today.

Here are the people who came in, complaining about us, and the collapse of NATO and the disintegration of NATO.

They're going to teach us, they're going to Moscow, but Japan is in a mess, the rest of Europe is in a mess.

They've given up our friends who are enemies.

I don't know whether that makes me accept any political lies, but that's an argument that can't be changed.

From a standpoint of our own economy, the situation of wheat economy abroad and its growing economy here is very difficult in our case.

because our strong economies set imports in inevitably, whatever the exchange rate changes may be, and we can't export to their economies because they're weak.

I believe that that is the explanation, plus the dock strike, for a large share of the big shift in trade in the first half of this year and through the first nine months.

There's been a basic change from

from the year and a half preceding in the relative rates of growth and movement of the economy.

It impacts of our own expansion.

In fact, one thing we have to realize with all the crap about the fact that our economy is supposed to be sluggish, the reason that we're importing a hell of a lot more now is because when your economy is expansionary, you import when it does the other way.

That is by way of saying, though, at the same time,

But from the standpoint of having our own expansion be really strong, it's an advantage to us to have strong economies abroad that want to import ourselves so that we don't have this big

sort of hemorrhage out of our DN, potential DN negro, this big negative item, the so-called Maddox-4-5-1 DN table.

Wouldn't we have a big deterioration?

Well, let me suggest that you have this meeting tomorrow, and I will not schedule a quadria this week, because basically the problem with the quadria, I'm sure, is putting in quite a lot of use of the hand.

It's carrying a lot of burden.

And it's the care and treating of Arthur, not only on this issue, but we've got to get him off of this badass on the monetary level.

See, Milton, I've talked to, I had a talk with Arthur after the quadrillion meeting, you know, the night, well, after Monday, Monday, July, he said, oh, I've got to see you right away.

So we went out and spent an hour and a half arguing about it.

He told me not only was I wrong, but he was still treating me with doubt as well.

So I called him.

And he talked about, I don't know what that says, that he wrote, he's written a new one, that he copied Arthur, and he's written Arthur.

Well, giving him hell for the erratic behavior of the money supply.

Basically, he's saying, on average, as of now, it's all right, but it's very erratic, and if you continue very much longer in the path you're going, you'll, you'll, uh, you'll abort the expansion.

It's interesting that he used the same thing you did, that you'll just repeat the mistake that was made in 1960.

How about I be Milton's chairman of the county?

Well, why not a controversial man?

No, sir, he's good.

At least he'll speak up.

You know, one of our problems, and I love the man, one of our problems with Paul is that while Milton knows everything about everything, Paul, you know, is such a humble man that he never indicates that he knows a goddamn thing about anything.

And consequently, he's not an effective advocate in those beliefs.

You know, Harvey Rosen.

Okay, run for him about your gymnasium economics.

Are you going to explore that with Milton?

It's going to be interesting.

What do you think of the idea, John?

Milton Friedman.

I'll tell you this, it would have a hell of an effect with a lot of conservative businessmen around this country.

It would send a very interesting signal around about how long phase two is going to last.

Yeah, it doesn't.

One more day.

No, no.

I'm against phase two.

I was against phase one.

We all know that.

But the whole point is we had to do it for other reasons.

But on the other hand, now that it's in place,

At least Milton is a B controller rather than a controller, and I am for B control.

I'll tell you, I think having a vigorous, articulate fellow in there, I think Milton coming to the council and Stein in the Fed, we can circle ours, we're pretty good.

Now think a little more vigorously, George.

Don't be so responsible.

Camadon said no and can't go.

That's nice.

What a brave fellow.

That's his wife.

He's not well.

He would not be able to... His wife is... How about Thayer?

That's...

He says no.

He hasn't given up.

Well, we're not going to keep Meyer tonight.

That's for sure.

Right.

I'll send Julian to him.

But...

That's a great plumber, son.

If I were left to be an ambassador, I'd do it.

Flanagan has another candidate.

Who, Alec has?

Flanagan has.

Who's he?

Wrenchard?

Bill Wrenchard?

Yeah.

That's impressive.

Oh, not that crazy guy out there in Illinois.

No, Bill Renshardt.

Bill Renshardt is the chairman of the chemical bank.

He's a great dear friend of mine.

Why?

Because of horse's ass.

I sat next to her at dinner.

His wife is a horse's ass, but his wife, I must say, is the daughter of an awful nice guy, the former head of the Riggs Bank here and a great Republican fundraiser.

She is an exact... Why?

What does she do?

Well, she drinks.

She drinks, but she's just obtuse.

I don't know if that's any drop in.

Well, I'll give you a rap.

Rap chart is a big...

I wouldn't worry about his wife.

They don't pay much attention to women in Japan.

They really don't.

And it can't be worse than that.

It admires women.

They'll take all American women.

That isn't bad, too.

The Japanese don't like their own wives.

Why do they have to like our wives?

You know, I'll tell you one thing about Japan.

It's a man's country.

Okay, you work it out, George.

Bob?

That's right.

Bob?

All right.

What do you feel about that?

We've really got to decide this damn thing.

Yeah, the L-C-I-O thing.

John's antennae are looking very good.

If you like, those are intuitions.

And usually he's for doing things, but he's against it.

The question is whether I go speak to the AFL-CIO.

The nays are obvious.

One, the opinion has been so wrong that it looks like it's going down, you know, in this district.

And the other, it isn't the convention, I'm afraid, but also the feeling in the country, those that are pissing the ass of labor when labor seems to be getting too much out of place.

I'm not quite sure if you do it or not.

I always understand when something unconventional that shows courage, you know, that's going into the line.

That would be the argument for it, particularly if we do it over the line.

Yeah.

If Chuck's readings are valid at all, there's a very strong reaction.

of oppositions and meetings kicking the president around.

There's a hell of a lot of those people who don't want peace to exist.

And that are basically behind the president on some things, even though they may be against him on his economic policy.

And some of them are against him on the economic policy.

I'm not sure you'd be kissing labor's ass if you went down there and said, I want to talk to you about things, too.

I know it's hard for you.

Do it on the sacrifice basis.

So then they're concerned.

Go talk about it now.

Chuck makes the other argument that you're not going.

It's not a wrong argument.

That not going is disappointing in a different sense.

It's a little teeny scary off in effect.

But that is an invalid argument because nobody thinks you're going to be in there.

So nobody knows you did go to that point.

You only know if you take the positive after going.

What did Larry say?

Denied it.

He said he hadn't, we were going back and forth on calls, he said the reason was that he couldn't pay them at all, all of my son at all, because they had been tired of going to Jesus' family and chewing their asses out.

Those sons of bitches, I'm not going to tolerate this.

We are going to clamp down on this stuff.

I will not let these men do this.

Apparently they made his story out of Saigon.

This works much worse, he said, than in that time story.

And he went on about this, you know, I told him we can't do this.

He says, I'm going down to the press tomorrow morning and I'm going to straighten this out.

The irresponsibility of the press taking these figures and expanding them on no basis.

He said, this is the new journalism here.

It's clear.

Well, let him go to the press tomorrow.

No source on this story.

They just made it up.

The North Vietnamese may be canceling our meetings, but we're going to do it tomorrow.

There was two months' announcements due to not completeness, because they had expected there to be a final announcement.

They've already, on Hanoi's radio, attacked the fact that you spoke about other channels, and that this is a dirty trick, so that maybe you said it's a pretext.

You know, they suppose... Well, if they can't hold a meeting, then we look at it as a trick.

They may have considered it public.

That's right.

Well, they may put forward any number of... On the other hand, we have some indication that these are totally different ways.

So, uh, next week... What's that?

On the other hand, there is an indication that the doctor was coming back.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to hear you worry about it.

Go ahead.

We've played the negotiations right now.

That's all we can say.

We may have made a mistake in our proposal.

On the other hand, if we didn't give them our proposal, they refused to meet.

They wouldn't be there.

Giving our proposal was essential.

And everything we've done has been essential.

The thing that threw them off, I think the fact that you talked about secret channels.

That isn't good.

That's a pretext.

That's never a pretext.

That's a pretext.

The fact of what you've said

discomfited and know that it's true.

They reacted quite more violently than to any other state.

Because they apparently were all set to give a deadline and then they were gonna go off to the next state.

I'm not allowed to say on campus because I don't know.

He resisted.

We played string out very well.

They canceled the meeting.

I don't think the negotiating office is so dated.

If we say it's March, then people say, well, it's January.

Oh, no, no, no.

January will be the time to go public.

I'll wait.

And we won't say anything.

We won't tip Rogers or anybody else.

But it's January.

We'll just decide we'll do that.

Or they may delay the meeting and come up with a proposal.

Your thought that they have got to take a good look at their whole card as well as take it.

And if the Chinese and the Russians or anybody has indicated anything, if we've gotten any signals to them, they know damn well they're running some risks here.

And as to them, if they are running risks, if they cancel the meeting, we have got to bang them a few times.

The Chinese know about that, you know.

I mean, the Chinese speech yesterday wasn't all that comforting for them, because they did not put a deadline.

They did not put a chance to cover them.

The only point I'd like to make on the international economic context is Bruce, I've got to speak about it, but if you get a final deal, I think that takes time.

But when you get an arrangement which requires that particular corporation to make go, I think, I like John, and he's the best man in the entire cabinet, but he... And really, we offer this job to Peter C. Churchill first.

Yeah.

Nobody knows what he's doing.

My worry is that, uh... My worry is that, uh...

I didn't ask for it, just to get his sense of where we are.

I don't want to go to your book, but remember that it's very important to us.

I think that Connolly must be handled extremely delicately, because I cannot lose his support.

I called him this morning, and I didn't ask him for anything.

I didn't make any criticism.

I just told him I wanted him to know that I thought he ought to open up to this court, just as you said last time.

I'm not going to say probably not at all.

I think, you know, I've got Schultz, Schultz coming around.

I'm going to leave this whole country off the track.

You'll come and Schultz should leave.

And then I'll get into the thing.

And we'll have to find, Senator, we've got to have a position before we leave those Europeans.

And actually, when he says that I'm ready to make concessions, he can't, but I don't think we should wrap up.

If we do only a first round settlement, we've still got the competitive conflict to hold over the second round.

Can he ask you one thing now?

Well, you'll have that report in the morning.

Very early.

Middle of the night.

But let me tell you, I'm not concerned either way.

We're doing the right thing, Henry.

We're doing the right thing.

I read what you said.

You did refer to other charges.

But that's the problem.

In connection with prisoners.

That's right.

Connection with prisoners.

Oh, that's right.

They aren't going to do it on that basis anyway.

You know that.

They may want another two weeks.

They want to not talk.

If they don't want to talk, then you and I are going to sit down and go with our bull card, too.

And it may be that we've got to go on a three-day strike, and we've got to be tough on the person to think.

Be ready with the final announcement in January, you know what I mean?

If the negotiations are dead, Henry, there's no sense in screwing around.

If the negotiations are dead...

And they say that then you know the guy started the campaign.

I take it on.

I think you're better off taking on your opponents early before you're going to keep them.

And I take them on.

I call back Porter from Petters.

I back them.

I put the record out.

And I say, now that's the record.

That's what we've tried to do.

Now we've got to go the other way.

It's necessary for the vote.

Yeah, we would have to, of course, I'll let you know.

We'd have to let them know.

Of course, there would be some trouble with that.

The negotiations failed, but on the other hand, we'd make one hell of a case for how hard we negotiated.

And we'd offer everything, and of course, we'd blame God.

Well, under those conditions, you can even say that you offered to resign and not be a candidate.

That's right.

We put the whole thing up.

So, I think we have... Don't borrow trouble.

Let's wait and see.

It's hard enough to see what it could be.

It has to be a connection to the media, because if it were anything else, they could do a number of things.

They could say, we don't go home to you.

In this case, I don't think I would go.

They could say that they want to delay the meeting, or that they can cancel the meeting.

Or they could just issue a warning saying, there's any leak about this meeting.

They'll say, well, it's a challenge.

But I don't think there is concern about that.

They may think that we are diabolical.

They did say you come with a dirty trick.

They, you see, you are to them a part of the nine, because every time they can pick out you on their own.

We come up with something.

You come up with something different.

You've never, you've been so transmitted to the target.

Now they, their game plan, I'm telling you, was that you give it their line, this piece, and then they go on for their negotiations.

Now you haven't done that, so they have to go back to the drawing board.

Now that's why they put the meeting until after you're announced.

And they have now, we have come up with a new threshold.

So you've given them a totally new kind.

That is the big change.

And they may not be ready for it.

That, I think, is the real change.

I think Mr. President, if they proposed the 27th,

A replay that we should say two weeks later.

I don't think we should say two weeks later.

Oh, that's right.

At this time, you've got to, as I told you, you've got to wait.

You've got to wait.

They won't be till the 30th.

On?

On.

When are you going to tell it from her?

I have to tell it from her.

She's not going to have to go to that.

That's what I mean.

Now, Brunt has agreed to the 28th.

28th and so on.

I think we ought to set it only to 40, 40, and 40.

I don't care about things.

It's a little more time.

You see, there is something to be sophisticated, but the only thing that really troubles me about this whole thing is when the appeal doesn't end.

I agree with you, not to make an appeal at all.

What the hell is there for us in ideas, but on the appeal of everything it does, and certainly I don't know what the hell we do about the appeal.

That's to show that these kinds of pictures are holding out people that have come through this and just don't bother us.

You should tell them that, though.

That's what I mean.

You should tell them that we're going to have to take strong measures, not directly against you.

Well, they told Walter this morning, but they're not prepared to talk about the data.

But the message we gave today was that we have to know about the data.

Thank you.

I like you, you see.

I think it's unpredictable, but I can't believe that the Chinese would do anything to pull forward.

I know they don't.

They screw up everything, don't they?

Inconceivable.

If they did, they'd have to do things that are inconceivable sometimes.

But if they do, you can go a little higher right there, too.

Oh, it does seem to be changing.

Unless they have some kind of problem with the government.

So how can they, they have got to have us against the Russians.

They're going to end with a trip, Mr. President.

That speech yesterday, this goddamn State Department did, they had to make a programmatic speech.

What the hell else could they do?

They couldn't let the Russians go down and vote and so on.

So they, the Russians have said the same thing.

The Russians have said exactly the same thing.

No newspaper has played the same.

And Bush is going to make a statement as soon as he gets back to New York and so on.

share the bill.

But don't escalate that record.

You don't have to be being on television to do it, if it isn't on television.

Correct.

Well, with our, let's just hold his hand, but be very tough on this business of convertibility and so forth, and just say that that's our question.

Will you do that?

Absolutely.

Okay.

But I appreciate the crude reports of Peter Connolly.