Conversation 299-019

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That's all right.

Yeah, yeah.

Bill, how are you?

Welcome back.

Sit down, sit down.

Did you have a good night?

Good night.

You're not quite used to flipping around.

I figured I'd start my speech in Chicago at 5 minutes to 12 Washington time.

That's good.

That's all right.

Good night.

They made their money.

Hello?

Oh, that's right, I'll call it.

Well, you're a fast trucker.

You must be tired.

Oh, I had to shift.

When I left, you had to put down a few of those.

thoughts on that European thing on paper.

Good.

I'll just give that to you because I haven't given one to him yet.

I'll let you do it first.

Let me just read it.

I don't want to get into your offices.

This is important.

Along with everything.

So you don't want to go there.

It's close to the Marshal era.

But he went on to Cambodia.

And then Thailand.

Then he went up to Laos.

He's a civilian.

No one knows where he went to Laos.

He was living right there.

He stopped in Japan today.

The situation in Vietnam with President is in much better shape than I imagined it would be.

The one who was in charge, and all that crap about the election, and you know, it turned out we didn't want it that way, but it turned out it was better, because what the hell, they understand it, don't they?

Well, here, they may not understand it, but there, the people, the government, the young ministers, and I mentioned them all, the young ministers, the high ministers, they're all good men.

Not all of our schools, except for the one that has 11 schools, but they're good young men, they're tough, and they look upon the school's election and the selection process as a great mandate.

And... Well, well, well.

The communists have elections, there's nobody running, and it's a mandate.

Well, I ain't sure they look at it that way.

And also, they had .

They could have decided to boycott, but they didn't.

They were destroyed.

That's what I meant by boycott.

.

That's a very, very good .

Militarily.

The military region one is very, you know, the military region four, the south and down there is very good.

Two is coming along, those three in Michigan, two of course, and they're not, two of the three in Michigan.

Two, the light of Michigan, maybe after this year,

to replace them with one division who would support an efficient position for him.

We paid $300 million for those two divisions.

I don't think we had any money.

We got that .

We were in a hurry.

they are not as good a division as two would like.

And eventually, he would like to have one more division in the military.

What Mel is talking about is a very interesting point.

He's down to three divisions.

I didn't know that.

He says that we've been paying $300 million all of the year.

Theo, Taylor, May, and then Clark Clifford.

And if two would like to have the $300 million,

He would like to have another position for the next year, 72 or 73.

He would like to continue it.

He is not even urging that too hard.

He feels that we get held up for more money.

Let me ask you this now.

Isn't it easier in terms of getting the money?

subsidizing Koreans and subsidizing the Vietnamese.

Now, that's the question that worries me.

I don't tell the Congress that we're subsidizing Koreans.

I can't.

But I'm asking questions.

True, but where does the 300 come from?

What I meant is, getting the 300...

The 300 comes out of a massive program, and it looks like it's part of the South Korean, the South Korean security group.

We tie it all in with that report.

It all leads to that month.

Now, this isn't anything we have to do now.

But he raised the subject.

He raised the subject.

He would like to have another division there.

Division that's in the division.

They said I think the Koreans lost any connections at all.

Well, they're not moving very much.

But the South Koreans and the East aren't moving.

Well, I know they're losing.

Their plans for their military operations

in the next six months on a good note.

Tommy, I noticed their casualties at a time that ours was as low as the level we're on, 10 or less.

Their casualties were still running 90 to 100.

Yes, up to 195, something like that.

But anyway, how are they losing all of what's happening here?

That's because of their actions or because they're out doing the patrolling and so forth, the search and destroy missions that we used to do.

They're doing that.

They're moving.

They're... Don't we want them to do that?

Yes, we do.

Oh, yeah.

And they're doing that.

I don't think, if you go back to the Green Division, they can replace them in 72.

We've gone over that 65 times.

Well... At the end of 72.

I think we could probably go through all of 72.

The point was, too a lot of new approval and other conditions came into place.

I didn't do it while I was there, and I felt I should have discussed that a little bit over, and I know General Abrams is a staff member, and I've said this in his recommendations,

And so that'll be something we won't have in places.

The thing that I'm concerned about now is, you know, getting the money to subsidize South Vietnam is going to become as hell any way we can bury other places.

I have the very best guarantee in South Vietnam.

That's the way I got it.

That's in South Vietnam.

I don't have it in the Korean thing.

No, you understand that.

I have that buried in South Vietnam money.

The 300 million already?

The 300 million is there now in the massive funding.

It is not in the Korean section.

Well, that's like...

I don't know.

I think you ought to look at that in terms of... You see, it's where...

It's how we get the money that I get.

I mean, look at this.

There's these neighbors that we won't make because of the Korean.

We had no political sense.

We cannot support the Koreans next year.

On top of all this growth, I don't know if you can stand over this.

Wait a minute.

All right.

I understand.

We've already got to create a new division for MR1.

And that's coming along.

We have all the equipment there, and we have the leadership.

As soon as that MR1 division is formed, then we should go to the MR2 division, and then we should let the Koreans go.

But until that division is completed, the Koreans would not be permitted to go.

Well, that's right.

Well, let's remember, Melvin.

Let's take that.

We've got to just be sure it survives now.

I don't want us to come down this long road at this point.

Believe me, what a heartbreaker it would be.

And then to let the damn thing go down in two.

You know, we've fought too many bloody battles.

I have no problems as far as the military situation.

I was not confident about the economy.

I was not confident about the military.

And if Abrams is about the military, he has never been this confident.

The Joint General's staff, General Benham all the way down and some of those younger generals serving on the Joint General's staff, have never been as confident as they are today.

How are the Marquardtians now?

How are they doing?

They're weak right now.

But there's no reason that they can't take some action.

They're in condition to do that.

It's beginning to pick up now.

But not in any massive numbers or nothing like that.

I have all those figures in the report.

The projections as to where they'll be now, whether they'll be six months from now.

I think it's pretty well done.

This is about the information.

Oh, yeah.

We have to continue that.

As far as the prediction campaign is concerned, the

South Vietnamese are prepared to do a better job in their mission this Friday.

They will be doing these short missions, which they believe they can do even in a month.

They were very successful in the last one, in the operational .

And the casualties, which were suffered by the

I am sure from actual pictures that they are well over the top.

Jesus Christ.

And they've done well in that operation.

And that really was a bad thing because they were getting ready to do any of that.

So I'm sure you should free them.

You've done a good job on that.

The situation militarily is bad.

Now, this, for the first time, I went out to the distance base

and it would be retrofit prices where they're redoing the works for their airplanes, doing it themselves.

So they're doing every step so the retrofits don't change to trucks and everything else.

When I was there last time in January, the helicopters, which the South Vietnamese had, they were only able to operate on 40-hour weekdays because they didn't have enough mechanics and enough maintenance people.

to be able to operate with more than 40 hours a week.

Last week, the orders went out to operate their helicopters eating all of these things.

This is just like doubling their helicopter force with this one.

This required 3,500 more mechanics that had to be trained and ready to keep that helicopter force up to that degree of readiness.

I went out and looked at that maintenance operation.

I was briefed on it thoroughly, and I had good experts with me looking over that situation.

And the progress that has been made there is very substantial.

We talk about 3,500 mechanics that support people for aviation in that country.

and hands up, he and the team are trained and ready to do it.

Move them in.

Double your time flying out of the helicopter.

It's quite an amazing operation in this country.

This has impacted me all throughout the logistics and support program as part of the program.

How was his pressure against the election?

He said that the people out there, the same thing as you, the people out there

they think we won a hell of a victory in the election.

They think we have a mandate.

Yep, the mandate, the mandate.

29, 30-year-old cabinet officers and all the rest, they just busted their butts.

Now that's good.

I spent four hours with you.

I spent four hours with you, and we was divided up, and then I spent time with you.

and I was minister, the finance minister, the defense minister, and these people are- Can I ask you one?

Do you want me to interrupt you?

What about Keith?

I'm just wondering what's going on.

Did you see him?

Well, no, I didn't see him, but I think, too, it's probably because everybody's involved in that, and everybody's, everybody's, and he's not going to have anything to do with it.

If he can't do it, this is the time for him to do it.

He was stopped, but he's not vice president.

No, he's still not.

He was a supplemental service.

Okay.

I had him as a device for us as an old school teacher.

You had him last year.

He was the prime minister.

He was the prime minister, yes.

That's about it.

He's probably a decent man.

He's that old.

And the prime minister, isn't he?

Yep.

He's a good fellow.

What's Big Men doing?

Big Men is sort of in retirement.

Good.

I saw the draft on it.

What did you do on it?

So all of a sudden, all these people are coming around.

Joel is coming around.

He questioned the information coming in.

Bunker, he stated it was Bunker, and he did.

Bunker said that he just didn't believe the changes in the quality.

He said, you know, it was not bad for a couple of days.

The first time I went to Vietnam they were talking about a mass vacation program that stretched out over 30 to 90 days.

Now you go in and you ask those who want to go out there

They lay it out.

They lay it out for the whole year, and then they show you what's going to happen for the next three years.

The planning is really quite a change.

We'd be impressed if they had a four-year program on the fabrication, which is rather unusual.

Of course, operation is going well.

Red Lion has taken over.

I think it was all right because he was a military man, and there were some problems with that as far as- What if we knew about the, you know, about .

Do you have a recommendation that he would go to Savannah and that White House would replace him?

Good.

Of course I do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like .

They need a burger tire.

I don't know what the process is right now.

Okay, good as done.

We'll put it down.

That's fine.

I'm not sure.

The South Vietnamese don't have several operation times.

They're going to get requests.

I like this idea that they're not waiting on their own to undertake anything.

That I want to be sure.

And now the other thing that I was concerned about was the point Collie raised.

What you were, I don't know about what you were asking, but I heard it from you.

And he says, for God's sake, move everything over there to the crawl.

There.

Now, are we really going all out and leaving the equipment so that those people don't have to run out of their areas?

We really need more.

A lot of the equipment that was raised by Mrs. Marcus, I forgot to tell you, is here.

But they want some of that equipment to handle their own.

We've got anything that we could bet the Philippines have.

Or should we?

I don't know about Paul.

I would look at the political side, but I'm just wondering, is there, I can imagine, and it's that way, I'm thinking of Saharville, too.

Saharville.

But what I'm thinking about, so now you, we all know there's a hell of a lot of surplus equipment.

We all know that after wars it's all wasted and rusted and all that sort of thing.

And God damn it, I've really been out there with these people.

I mean, I'd like to see the heart of them.

You know what I'm saying?

So hard do I know if I've said that and not managed to get the fragment to go off.

We have got to help Sahara.

Connelly will come back, I'm sure, with a response.

If it isn't Connelly, it's true.

Well, the problem right now is that we've got to remember that we have a lot of excesses to try to manage.

Could we have a study made on this matter so that I'll have an answer the next time?

And I think we ought to have that thing kicked around.

And listen, let's kick it around in a very close circle.

Let's keep that thing.

I know Kyle is going to raise it because he's...

You know, he's just practical enough, and he's good enough, and he's hard enough.

And if he can't do it, I want to know if he can.

And let's beg, borrow, steal, lower the price, you know, everything.

I was just talking to Jerry Ford.

I wanted to talk to Craig.

His implementation knocked out.

So, you know, he'll have the same constraint.

Right now, I mean, before that, he didn't have the solution.

But, you know, that's...

So I'll take care of that.

That's just ridiculous when you become junk.

Oh, absolutely.

There's junk all over the world.

Man, everybody puts all these big values on it.

Man, well, just for the moment, we might as well use it.

And I think we can

You know, I think, for example, of the Billa, the 1950s group.

The Billa group has been all through this, and we've had thousands of troops, you know, retreating, and so forth.

We, first, our first priority, I mean, so far, I mean, of course, is to stop doing that.

Yeah, actually, they were going to cancel it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Third, we had to rejoin them.

We're going to battle them now.

This is the decision.

made about the circuses, but is that just something that's been done in the Pentagon, or have we ever backed this thing up?

Well, we have a very good national organization.

Oh, I know you have, I know, but I'm thinking of the, I'm thinking of the very, I think it's a priority, it's not exactly the right thing to do.

Vietnam and Cambodia first, Korea for other reasons.

And let me say, and then he just sticks in my mind, that frankly the national organization, I don't know, they're sort of

Do you think the Philippines should be considered?

Well, if the Philippines want... What do they want?

Well, she didn't talk to me, but she brought me a cane.

I wasn't there.

She saw the cane, and when we got the cane, she gave it to me.

And the item that she had in the hat was a Ferrari and a little hat.

That's because she wanted the X-16, right?

Henry, one thing while I'm thinking of it, we've got another analysis coming up.

I noticed they got back around the election again.

I just don't know how involved it is.

We haven't had anybody go there recently.

We have a good ambassador, Byron, right?

Let's get a hard note to the judge.

And when Collin gets back, I think it would be very useful for him to sit down and give us his feel of the heart of the community.

You know, you're great for it.

So I'm all for the energy.

Well, listen, let me ask you a question.

Let me say that I want you, within the administration, to push like hard on the side.

I'm not pushing hard.

You will.

Well, and in public meetings, I mean, in our meetings in the NSC, because this is why we have a constant battle of martial law.

You can't have 1,000 miles of island with no dam equipment.

You can't have no dam model.

No, I ain't going.

There's no problem.

It's a hard open park.

And to have a talk with me, I mean, I should give him a little blessing anyway, and he'll appreciate it.

Let's do that.

Let's get there.

You bring your brain.

Let's win more, of course.

And we're all just going to find that.

And tell him to give us a real report on that.

That might be a short report.

Indonesia is a big prize.

It's a big prize.

You know, we don't think of that energy very often because... Well, that's not true.

I'll report to you.

Go ahead, go ahead.

We were worried about the economic side of it.

The economic, well, even as they were in a state of shock when I got there, you see that just as the Senate voted this stuff, well, we're in the economic system.

When we sat with the last president in 1971, when he made the change in Korea, we were going up $1.5 billion a year.

the very first year of the Eisenhower administration.

They were ahead of the inflation rate of 130%.

These people this year have held out an inflation rate of about 10%.

Our couple of those, of course, as you know, just really are very critical.

We're fighting like hell, one, for the continuing resolution, and two, for getting some amendments in the Senate.

And of course, when that Senate takes from the big two up,

And when that Senate local legal system thing goes over in Congress, we get that goose up, so I'm better happy.

Yes, you will.

Yeah.

But I'm never going to... You're going to get the military goose up on Florida.

I think the Senate's going to have to do that.

Is there anything we can... Is there anything we can do to get him out?

I would say that maybe we talk to every person we can.

Percy talked to him.

Percy may do things like that.

He supported us all the way around the way he was speaking.

And the rest of it is our audience.

to tell Percy that mental assistance is essential for our continued withdrawal program.

Would you do that?

I want you to tell a few of the Republicans about us.

I look here for our future withdrawal program.

We have got to have this military assistance, or otherwise the parents may have to slow down the withdrawal.

What do you call that?

Don't you think so?

No, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know who said it, but I wanted to say it.

You know, they will see what I said in Chicago, and I just wanted to know that.

God, I'd love to do this.

I can't let that thing go down the drain.

By that I mean, basically, we don't get the economic assistance, right?

We've got to take a hard look at what's wrong with it.

There's an absolute necessity for the withdrawal program to continue.

If you get the technical of it, it's hard to get it to them because we've got hundreds of them there.

We've got all of them there this year because we've got that bill set up so we've got $2.5 billion in assets.

Well, tell me that's just the economic system for Vietnam.

Well, it isn't the end of the humanitarian part of the bill.

It's been going on for quite a while.

That's what I mean.

That's what I'm talking about.

Anything that's a security decision is what matters.

Just so we can get along and not build cesspools for the Afghans.

But we can't get along and not get on the ground right now because of COVID-19.

So that we have to do something that we can make and be transparent.

We don't want to go to anybody.

That's a lot of our massive program, but I just don't like to market that around this town.

Do you think we've come a long way now and all of us would feel ready to look after all of the weak and true and in this war?

We've gone through Cambodia, we've gone through Laos, we've gone through Australia, we've gone through the rest, and it's with me.

Now, everything's on the line.

If it fails now, because of just that last test,

What a great credit you've made.

That's why the handbook is so important, too.

The handbook is doing well.

We've got to talk about it.

Yes, I have.

I had part of it was important.

Yes, it was important.

I got together and I just said it was really important.

Henry, when we have the NSC meeting, I think there ought to be a little bit of time now in the market, a half hour, and there's a capsule list for the meeting.

What do you think?

I think it's a good time to have it.

I think we might all have another meeting next week.

I'd like to look at, I'd like to look next week, for example, at the, we ought to look at our, at all of our, we take a little, if I, I think we're concerned about this anyway, Connolly would be back.

We'll let Connolly talk, Mel talk more, talk him an hour today with the NSC, because I would rather have Connolly talk to that group than basically the entire cabinet.

He can talk to the cabinet about, you know, revaluing again, but I don't want to get into this stuff again.

How does that sound to you?

The second meeting next week was fair enough.

Wow.

I did agree to, right now, about $40,000 to $60,000.

And I know there is a program there.

And I agreed to go along with your offer to go $1,100 to $100,000.

We're not at that level.

So I hope to go ahead and have the additional $30,000 to $40,000.

The next thing

They got them up in the MR-1 or something like that.

Where those other tanks come across, can they handle them?

Can they handle the Russian tanks?

They can handle the Russian tanks up here.

That terrain, those tanks aren't going to be, they're nice to have up there, but you're going to have to get rid of those tanks that are on the side of the aircraft.

Because the tank-to-tank fighting in that terrain is going to be nice to have.

It could be a comfortable catapult.

An old tank commander was a pet.

He had a lobster in the evening.

He was great for tanks, but he does have some civilization in the National Valley and some of those areas up in there for massive operations.

The other side uses a normal tank.

So they got the lobster and the catapult and the lobster and the catapult and they operated it and had some stuff in there too.

They didn't do very well with it.

But they're there.

They're operational.

They're keeping them in good shape.

It's important for them to have them.

If they were in good shape, they're all directed to the campaign and they're in great shape.

We're reinforcing their artillery.

We're putting in and turning over

We want to transfer more of that, but in order for us to do that, we're going to have to stand down some of our engineers and give them at least 45 days to get their program in shape and turn it over to the south.

That's all the program is involved.

That's the goal.

That logistics program, Henry, has to do with marketing.

There's just a lot of questions about that program.

It's got to be well with some people.

I was concerned about the inventory techniques and so forth.

But that's really pretty well handled.

And it's good to be able to get that over with.

It's important to be able to do that.

There's no question that they will try to break the calendar yet, and I'm proud to be in an October lecture.

I think we should have their product in a little bit.

the fact that they might try to raise more pain based on the United States election.

And I'm confident they will.

I assure you that we will have two chariots available.

We have our air power on the sidelines in good shape.

We will be able to surge to a higher sorority level in the fall of this last year if we need it.

In other words, what you assume is that there was a lack of a negotiated settlement, and the sorties will continue for a while, and they will certainly continue for another year.

and that there would be a capability there for longer than that.

I told him he had the capability.

I didn't tell him he was going to fly.

I said, I'm going to start with you because you're going to be shut off.

I don't know if that's going to be throughout Europe.

I don't know if that's going to be independent on a building.

He couldn't do it.

So he knew.

And he got out of his Air Force suit.

He was coming along in good shape and transcurating a bunch of soldiers

they have doubled their SAR fees since they're five and as far as any country is concerned they will be able to handle all of the country's funds for the last few months especially in all of the countries that are involved in advocacy they'll be able to do more than they can with the next 20-30 years of training there's one thing

but who is not doing that, I think, should be what I think.

That's the other side of the problem.

It's not possible.

This is the time of this great mandate that he had when he denied the killing of the South Korean people.

He wanted to kill the South Korean people.

He tried to unite his political base to the greater extent that he can.

He ought to do some of this right now.

As far as being a climber is concerned, my last year, I should be a climber.

Many years, I should be a climber.

that can be done.

My report emphasizes the difficulty in keeping that and you're getting on that if you go on a short period because

As we move towards a lower level in time of stand down forces, particularly support forces, it has to be announced that those units have to be pulled throughout the campaign.

Sure.

The program now is to be between 50,000 and 60,000 units.

He had that all well worked out and there was no question in his mind that he could be there.

And if necessary, he could go more than that.

He can.

I told him I didn't think it was necessary to forgive him.

It was, he can do it.

He's that confident.

As a matter of fact, the morning that I was coming over here today, I had a cable coming to the stadium this year.

I asked him several questions because he didn't

He purged very strongly that it would go six to seven months because he couldn't keep the lid on these horse limbs.

They would leak out eventually.

The difficulty with that knowledge of these, the difficulty with that on here is that it will not fit in what you may want to do on the other side.

Everybody knows this anyway over here.

They will, and all of us.

They can never be sure what they need.

And that's a very important point.

But we have to let Aiden, I think, that we can go on a shorter basis.

Because right now he's got programs in December for about $25,000.

He's got programs in January for about $20,000.

He's got...

And if you go out and announce what really are all programs and goals there in a three-month period, what I hate to get tracked on is the chance of accelerators in the next announcement.

Because everybody looks at these things and what's going on and wants to agree.

Oh, we don't announce anything.

We never can.

I hate to get tracked in this business of

Because if you get down to $50,000 or $60,000 in the plan, the structure that we have, there will be fewer people coming out in June than there will be in the early part of the year.

Now, I know that there's certain advantages to having an announcement that will take you to 72.

And in my proposal, I suggested we make an announcement until the 1st of July.

And then, without saying anything about it, we make another announcement.

In April, I suggested that we continue with the election period so we don't have to have any announcements in September or

The problem that I do have is that this is trying to leave you.

You don't know how hard you've tried to keep.

You live out of where we're going to be.

The only problem that we have is that we're able to go on with that at a time, at a certain time.

The problem is

Here's what they were supposed to say.

This is his operation file.

He can do this.

He makes no laws that he can do it.

But he does not want it to be a condition where he has to promise that he can keep the security.

I'm not sure we want to decide on whether or not we're going to be able to do that.

due to other factors, you know, that are not related to this.

He had no problem with it, meaning that he would be below $124,000 on the 29th of February.

He would be below $124,000 on the 29th day of February.

And that amount is $60,000 per month.

His only problem is that... What's he talking about then?

What's he talking about?

Increasing the rate from about $430,000 to $19,000?

Well, he's going to $20,000.

He's going to $20,000?

He has $20,000 in his plan during this particular time.

He thinks that's about $5,000?

But his average doesn't work out to $20,000 if you go through to July 1.

Right.

And the big problem is that people will reject this and they'll know that we'll be down to 50,000, between 50,000 and 60,000 by June.

I'm sure.

They're projecting it now.

I mean, they're projecting, you know, even if they support me to be down to 50,000, whatever you announce, it'll be...

It's easy.

And my report I've written is...

Well, let me say that the problem we have now, if you give six months, or seven months, then we really will cut off the tuition.

Well, I don't think anything's going to happen to the situation.

It may not.

But I think we have to...

It's as hard as it may be.

And it may go six months.

It may be.

I can see the argument for it.

But that's the thing with the big decision we have to make.

If we decide to rub it out at $50,000, then we just may as well go to a shopping fair.

If we want to nuts it now.

I mean, if it doesn't, then we go.

What's your view on that?

It makes no difference to two.

As you'll see from Bunker's wire, I never had a conversation.

He talked to Al, and Al was in there, and he told him, he called it a conversation.

that made no difference to him.

As a matter of fact, he figured that we'll be out of it by election time.

He said, you'll be down to zero by election time.

And I said, except for the iron wall.

I said, well, Mr. President, I don't think we will be at zero by election time.

And here I am telling him that no, we won't be at zero by election time.

He said, well, we're going to be able to handle it militarily.

The problem you have now is that you don't have that much research.

What you've got is that the election time or not, the fact that you're out of there, the fact that you're still doing air search, is it still going on?

Right.

How do you look at that?

It's still going on, but the election time is present.

The air source heat will be very low because the weather is bad during the afternoon, but it's filling.

And there won't be, unfortunately, a very wet, rainy season.

And, um...

I think that the air force is going to be in a hell of a spot.

In what?

Even if we still have a fourth day of the night.

Of course, it would be good to move into the negotiator's office at the end of the second.

Well, the only point, regardless of how you come down, whether you go up to the $124,000 that Aiden says that we had on him, this is no effort for him.

He could go more than that.

Right now, we've got troops over there that we don't have a whole lot of money to do with.

I don't know.

We'll be sure.

I'll see if he needs some attention.

Now, that is gross.

Well, with that drug problem...

And I know that's not what that is.

When people don't have enough to do, that's when they go on drugs.

Well, we're trying to get programs formed to go to school.

We're trying to work out things to keep them busy.

But that's going to be a big effort.

We need to keep them busy.

And I would like to know if your allies are going to put more football on there.

Our forces need to be more games a week now.

Great.

And a few things like that.

You've got to do a few things.

You've got to watch for that.

What do you think?

What is this?

Because we're coming pretty close to the time.

Do you think you might do on a shorter announcement that maybe you could do an announcement that's around 20 minutes?

20 is no problem.

And he says as long as he

for planning purposes, and plan for seven months.

I've got to keep planning ahead for seven months.

He doesn't care about the announcement, but he's got to be able to keep his plans going at least seven months ahead.

Because it's a small area.

We can't let that happen.

You may be able to plan, but you can't be assured of it.

We have got to.

I can't believe you're in it, because if we don't,

There is, frankly, still an open negotiation.

We've got to see.

He could go down to Watt, so it's the maximum.

We can go farther than that.

I don't think, if you're going to a stream like that, we're going to go anywhere from there.

I just don't believe you should set up a rate that's higher than that at this time.

If you're only going to go three months, I would not set up a rate higher than $124,000.

$124,000?

$15,000.

Oh.

Which is $20,000, no?

$20,000, but I hope we keep away from the average of $20,000.

Because I hate to have to make a ceiling in here.

Right.

So if you can stay there for $121, that's your decision.

I don't see a major problem in it, dude.

I don't know.

Nathan's glass was $60,000.

He doesn't believe it.

He said he'd make this a pretty high thing, dude.

Yeah.

I mean, it's worth $60,000.

Right.

You know, you've got to afford it.

You've got to do everything you can do.

We can't do better than that, and this message today says we can do better than that.

This is going to take care of the military requirements.

This is unusual for the military commanders to be talking this way.

This is the first time we had this withdrawal.

If we didn't have the Joint Chiefs with us, we didn't have... We didn't have any of that for 35, for 40,000.

Well, then we've got...

Oh, I see the ballpark.

And, uh... Now, I don't know what the situation is, but I understand there's some plan to have Rodney come out.

And, personally, that resolution of me coming out, I don't know, or I'm yet to determine how to do it.

It's going to be so low-key at this point.

Well, it would just be with me that, uh...

If you go to the $30,000 route, this is just a fraction.

I mean $30,000 is pretty much $1,000.

$40,000 is about $25,000.

The separate thing is that all these Rudy Alts, we have a Rudy Alts program in the Army right now.

These Rudy Alts for Christmas,

all come into this early part.

He's actually got, what, 25 in January and 20 in January.

25 in December.

And 20 in January.

Yep.

I thought that it would be a low-key sort of thing that I would recommend to you, Mr. President, that you make an announcement and that this may be short-stated.

I have

No, we won't make a mistake.

But I just feel that this is so important to this administration, this program, that it must be used.

Yeah.

You've got to do it one way or the other.

You can do it now and then.

I don't think you ought to do it in the State of the Union.

You know, I would take everything away from it.

If you go to three months, this is the three months.

That's the three months.

And I've got the other laid out in there with the idea of going to January and July.

But then there's a statement overtaking it in April.

We'll do the July one.

Yeah, I see that.

Well, let me just get some thought to see what the hell the score is on that.

Whether it's worth doing the July one.

I think we're going to have to do a more limited one at this point.

But I'll know in a couple of days.

Today is Wednesday, so it's Wednesday.

I guess I already know what I'm gonna have for the day, I should know by Friday, whether or not I'm gonna have something out there that might come to the attention of, you know, some of the other people.

I don't want to give you, uh, half of your head in support, but I'm gonna give you half of your head in support.

Well, I...

Well, let's see.

I worked on that before.

I think I had it in there.

But you've got to have this announcement thing, you know, so you don't have to.

So you could go six months, you could go three.

We've all had it.

There's no problem with it going either way.

We can do it either way.

It's the easiest, and we haven't left, and it doesn't have any problems.

We don't have any problems with credibility or anything else as to...

I just don't want it to be doubted.

We've held it pretty well.

There's going to be some activation.

We're going to stop the speculation.

Oh, sure.

It's going to be more...

Separate.

Well, Henry, I sent you over what I said.

Separate...

We've got to make what you're saying.

God, I hardly like that kind of thing, but it's the same time.

If we're going to try this, we have to be in trust that we should be doing better.

Nothing will set us apart.

Except for the loss of the country.

The economy.

Well, let me say it.

We've got to win.

We've got to do it.

There's no question we're not doing it.

These people are doing well.

The organization is working.

I got it.

The enemy is weak and that's the important thing.

It was well with the bank of the law, it was the bank of the capitol, the bank of the law.

There's one other argument.

Sure.

I'm sure they make children up.

That is, I was a kid once and I was sent from there to college.

And I'm going to have to move like they attacked me.

Oh yeah.

I've kept Dave on, I'm sure he just has to go.

And I want to make these changes, and they're all changes within our team.

Now the one that may cause you the most difficulty is one that I have a commitment on.

If you want to overrule, that's certainly what you should do.

And that's for this car.

For this car, I brought him here from Lawrence University.

Yeah.

And I went to Curtis and to his wife and we got a call over here at the White House on draft Selective Services.

And I promised Curtis that he'd take that job for a year.

What do you want to put in it?

I want to make him Undersecretary of the Air Force.

Why would he want to do that?

Well, that's what he wants.

He wants to go back to the Air Force.

He was on the 7th and 7th Air Force.

I want to move over.

You can have that.

He's a very, very good administrator.

He's a good administrator.

Well, he's been good.

He's a tough administrator.

He's responsible for our Apollo program.

He was the guy responsible.

He's very good.

That's the one that worries me.

I'll have to look at that very hard.

I have no confidence in him.

He's basically not for us.

He's a good McNamara type technician.

And I don't think we'll put him on the job.

I've got to go over and see Roger, so that one I will not buy.

What about those others, Mr. President?

The others I'll take a look at, but I won't buy Seaman's.

Well, it's awfully hard to find one, Mr. President.

I took that list.

The other car doesn't bother me at all.

He's a very popular guy.

He basically can work with us.

He's a real funny guy.

All right.

Thank you very much.