On January 13, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, White House operator, James D. ("Don") Hughes, Ronald L. Ziegler, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:34 pm to 3:41 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 314-001 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I take that as Steve, or I guess it's Alex.
Never, never lie to yourself about fiction.
By putting something on for 10 minutes, you know that it's a half hour.
Now, in the case of the potential meeting with McElroy, there was no way that could be true in 30 minutes, because they brought in Santa's daughter, the vice president from Mount Merritt, and he took it.
We had a monologue.
15 or 20 minutes, such of an hour.
The result was that for the time, I was over a half hour late at that time.
And for the time I got in, poor old, the very important people, Bob Anderson and the other, they were down 15 minutes.
But they were, they came in a quarter after one.
I knew I couldn't rush them out in 15 minutes.
They hadn't sat in their asses out there for an hour waiting on me.
So I had to take 45 minutes with them, or 35 or so.
In other words, they had to come and call me.
You see what I mean?
I could have done it in 15 minutes if it had been done before lunch in the restaurant.
But I know what happens.
Henry here, of course, is the worst offender.
But John is too.
John Irving is an offender.
Bob, don't let them say something that's five minutes or 10, 15.
Don't let them say on something it's a half hour, if it's an hour.
I mean, we just got to really get, what I mean is, I don't mind, I'll spend the hour.
I'll spend an hour, I'll spend two hours, and put it down that way.
It's about marrying, don't let go of me.
It's about marrying Ann Eggman.
Both.
God damn it, you can't.
McElroy took 15 minutes, and then tell you, this was sometimes I delayed a meeting by my talk.
I did, then we were talking to the McElroy meeting.
I was just listening to Agnew, Ditch, and Merriam, and of course McElroy.
And John said, you know, get out of the track.
By the time I got through the goddamn thing, I went, what the hell had happened?
Nobody had briefed anybody.
I thought the purpose of it was to give him the signals.
All of a sudden, shit, they were all opposed to what we were doing.
whether it was on or off the tracks, irrelevant.
The main thing is, staffers should not tell who has set up the schedule.
Bo?
No.
Who doesn't?
David Parker and I.
Well, let me say, don't let them lie to you.
Don't let them lie to you.
I don't like to be late to appointments.
I just hate it.
I hate to keep people.
Also, when you're late, you feel guilty, and you give them more time.
See?
Particularly if it's an important person.
Correct?
Don't you value the same thing?
I do it all the time.
If I'm on time, then they know goddamn well they're in and they're out.
They know there's another appointment.
Should have I kept them waiting all that time.
But I don't know.
I think this is just a case of...
They all mean well, obviously.
They just didn't have it planned.
So I had to run this and everything.
And they thought, well, you're going to get another crack at it, so we better get this in.
So they told the partner of the River of the Christ personal, some boy down there, well, it's only a half hour, but they do god damn well with an hour.
They said 20 minutes.
We extended that.
I know.
I know.
Well, let me see.
You can't say more than that.
I listened.
Before I got a word in, for over 30 minutes, we got out of that group.
And I didn't understand.
I understand that sometimes from my own conversation, yeah.
But I knew it was a tight schedule this morning, and I was anxious to get the hell out of there and get to work.
But I just had one hell of a time.
You know what I mean?
You sit there, biting your nails, thinking everybody's waiting for you.
And it's like, what the hell is the matter here?
Too many good moves.
I get received a couple of offers.
What in the Christ can he do?
Because he can't cut off.
You see, the Vice President's very goddamn sensitive.
He walked in while he was talking, and I paid no attention to him.
And the Vice President looked up and said, oh, do I have to go?
I said, no, no, go right ahead.
Well, Steve knows better than that.
Get the hell out of the room.
You can't do that.
You see, well, we do pretty good on the scheduling, but the main thing we must never, never,
Never, never do.
It's a lie to ourselves.
We lie to them, but never to ourselves.
In other words, you gotta tell them that it's five minutes, or 10 minutes.
But to us, we know it's gonna be 15.
Let's say so, the same with Henry, you know, when he, you know, he says, I just need five minutes for this guy to say hello, for him to present his history of that inning.
Not that I bother, but it's gonna take 30 minutes.
It's gonna take 30 minutes.
And let's figure it.
You ever given him this lecture, huh?
Yep.
You going to do it?
Oh, yeah.
It does sound.
Okay.
It does sound.
Yeah.
Also, I learned in the course of the day, and I guess this is Tom's problem, Dave Mahoney's supposed to be discouraged because he doesn't have any support.
So, for Christ's sakes, get a whole little garment of River of the Hells in charge of that club to cheer up Dave Mahoney.
I'll leave for Camp David.
We'll leave for Camp David at 11 tomorrow.
All right.
I thought he'd had it.
I thought he'd had it.
Yesterday morning, he had a call from me right after he talked about it, you know, saying he'd like to predict exactly the words, because I'd made full notes.
I don't know if that was quite the theme he was developing.
You stay down here.
It's back to 530.
Tonight?
Yep.
It's almost worth driving if we can't leave.
Why can't the helicopter part of the way then drive us miserable son of a bitch?
Get used to the bomb.
Say, I want a helicopter as far as we can and then take the car.
Goddamn, these helicopters can fly that far.
You're absolutely right.
I've got to get out of here without you.
I hadn't thought about that.
Other than that, we're going to get in the church.
But not today.
Shit-ass little scheduling.
We shouldn't have to discuss certain things.
You've got to ride an awful strong curve with your staff on the spot.
Of course, John should have had this better.
Better program.
Well, this one... Oh, God damn thing.
It was a horrible mess.
I had to get out of the car all the way along.
You know, for the question of being there, not being there.
Canceled and back on again.
What's that?
Yeah, the last I knew it was canceled.
Then I got the folder last night, and then it was back in.
So they all filled in again?
Yeah.
You know, I missed the opportunity, and so, uh, especially when you're going against the state of the union or something like that, they can't hear you.
Mine's the last chance to get that in.
I'll call you back.
Well, uh, you're going to meet Kessinger, I mean, Mitchell at three.
And then Mitchell and I are meeting with Mr. at 9 o'clock in the morning.
And again, by 3, he wants to work on the report of John.
I am raised in the center of the columns by the rest of the New York Times.
Incidentally, he's now an author of a bit of a press conference.
We decided we shouldn't have an alcove last night.
We thought it was a very bad idea to back down.
We think it's not a good idea to even do the printable at this point.
But it would be an ideal compromise if we get into a thing where it's a good way to carry on.
And I'll believe that the place to have an alcove is in the world of Portland County.
Of course.
If we can't pull out of this cycle, then I think that's right.
That's the problem with jumpers and getting camp data and understand there's no way to get up there between now and the long way.
All right, how close can we jump her out of here?
Is the problem here or at the camp?
Here.
That's clear.
Then how far, how close can we get to Camp David?
Can we get there in one hour or something like that?
He does need to go.
He's very anxious to avoid the driving all the way across.
Right.
Call me back.
Thank you.
I agree with you.
You're absolutely right.
I can't beat her when I'm in a situation like that.
I know that.
We can talk to her.
Victor, please.
And I shouldn't.
I shouldn't.
I mean, I've either got to write a statement or not write a statement.
You better tell Steve.
Don't tell Steve anything, because he'll tell Ron and the whole goddamned, and I'll be in the press.
No, no, no.
Tell him not.
But you've got to tell him.
I've got to tell him this evening, but if I know about that press, that's your fault, Ron.
Yeah.
Hello.
Oh, how was the press handling the news today?
But I mean, as far as they know, that's what I was talking about.
Are they doing it well?
I don't know.
They're expecting bombshells.
All right, back down here.
All right, I want that out.
Did it hurt or something?
I don't know.
Or not.
Let's see that somebody, see that, see that Ollie's there for Christ's sakes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a very easy thing.
Give up the tasks.
Things like that.
Second point, with regard to the kids, they're going to run a little story on that.
Yeah.
Get a little, get a little picture.
I want to be sure that the kids...
The main thing is that they see her picture in the paper.
All right, fine, fine, fine.
I didn't want to call them at all because we might have a resident registrar to turn him off before he notified them anyway.
That's my point.
He notified the family now.
He didn't notify them.
Not notify them in April, which is what we find.
I was pinned off not to say anything until I told them that.
You already did.
It's already over.
It's already done.
I told them to do it now.
We've got a bump here in the home building.
Their convention is in the Astrodome Exhibition Center with 5,000 people, not the Astrodome itself.
I won't go.
I think you should.
No.
I'm not going to go, no.
It's still a big crowd.
No.
And a good group, right?
No.
No.
And anyway, I'm damn busy right now, damn busy.
Just say that I'd love to, but how are you going to turn it down on the ground?
Is it too small a crowd, or just that I'm too tied up with, say, some thing to come up?
I'm just not going to deal with it.
Well, set a meeting.
Which one of those meetings can we put in there that you've got?
I think Colombo will.
It's better not to put a meeting.
It's better just to come up.
But he has to return to Washington sometime.
So you've got the Vietnam announcement and all that stuff coming up.
Next week, we can make a play.
Too bad he can't stay in Florida.
I mean, he can't.
I can just say that he doesn't.
And even though I don't go there, what the hell's the difference?
We've done a lot for the home builders.
Have they announced I'm coming?
I don't know if they have.
Oh, damn, you see, that's our problem.
We get angry, we go...
I do think some of the men's going to have to read on that paper.
Not for them, but they read about the paper and stuff.
I really want to go to Florida to study.
Well, I always come up sometimes, you know.
No question, I'm quite sure of it.
What do you do?
What's your do?
I can't tell.
How are we going to do it without making a fistful of man?
You see, the point was to get a big crowd.
Sure.
What the status of it is, the current program and all that.
It's probably not part of the program.
In fact, they come up Monday or something like that.
I mean, they don't know.
They don't know.
They say it's more important policy than they come up with.
No, I'm just going to say that.
I know.
This will give you the chance to make your decision.
I was thinking of gathering Florida in.
That was my point.
Monday in.
Yeah.
How close can you get if you can't get an eternal death?
It could clear in an hour.
Three minutes.
We may have to go five.
We don't plan to.
Sir, why don't you go over to four?
Okay.
He says it's closed in at Vermont, Frederick, Hagerstown, and everywhere.
Not even good at levels, so what he's saying is that Vermont is supposed to lift at 4 o'clock.
He's got a weather point up there now so that we can get a reading.
He's got a helicopter on 5 minutes notice here.
At 4, if the thermon is clear, you can get on and go right on into the thermon.
If you want to take a stab at that, we ought to send a car up to the thermon.
I don't know, it can't be that we send a car down to the thermon.
How long?
How long?
The house, 4.30.
Part of 4.30.
Oh, here we go.
Maybe 4.30.
It's coming up, but then it blows back down.
Push, push.
Wow.
Yeah, it's not.
What he's going to do is to set a time now and leave at that time, either by helicopter or car, depending on whether the thing is open.
Now the question is, is 4 or 4.30 a better time to set?
4 o'clock.
4 o'clock, because the thermon opens, it'll close back in again.
Right.
We can open it, you know it, here at 4 o'clock, so you can leave by charter.
Yeah.
And if not, we'll go by car at 4.
Oh, okay.
Yes, sir.
All right.
I'll get on it.
I'll see you both later.
You're absolutely right, I shouldn't be when Henry gets back.
I think it would be, yeah.
Steve?
Uh, to change the signals, the President will leave, and the family should be notified at 4 o'clock, as planned, either by helicopter or car.
He says the thermon is scheduled to lift at 4 o'clock, so if it has, chop her up there.
If it has, they'll leave the helicopter here and chop her to Carlin and drive up the hill.
So they can send a candidate of car to the thermon.
And if it's not clear at 4 o'clock at Carlin, then they'll leave by Carlin and drive up the hill.
OK.
I think it's worth the drive up.
Oh, I just got to say, you know, it is a long drive.
It's an hour and a half, particularly when it's foggy.
It's just a son of a bitch going up that hill.
I don't enjoy it.
No, it's a little rough.
But on the other hand, it's much better if you love to rub it and stay here.
And to have Henry's descend on me right in the midst of some writing, a threat to resign or something like that.
I think it's just better to let us work that distance thing over without you around.
Why the hell did he change his mind?
He's changing his mind on everything.
That's the cycle he's going through.
It's a vacillation back and forth.
That's what Al inferred to me that Henry was up and down all the time.
Depression to satisfaction.
Henry, at the present time, thought he was sick.
No, he's not questioning that.
He thought he was mentally sick.
And Al says that he is.
I don't think we are because he's done it before.
I think maybe what's happening is we aren't breaking him.
We saved him for three years.
I don't mean we broke him.
I mean they're breaking him now in this crisis.
No, no.
No, he's been up and down.
He was pretty bad a couple of times before.
You remember when I practically had enough of him once?
Or twice, I guess.
Twice.
Twice.
And there have been several times some of the rest of us have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a real security risk there.
I guess there is, though, isn't there?
But we've got to do something in a certain way.
What Hank said, he's worked out how he was talking to me about his operations, that he was going to change that substantially.
He said he's shifting things to where he's going to run a lot of stuff without any routine things on.
Because, see, there's been all kinds of other problems.
The paperwork was just stacked up regularly.
And he hasn't been tending to them.
So we've got stuff like these foreign visits and stuff like that.
One of those has been sitting there for a month and five days on his desk.
It's a long time.
It's a long day.
Actually, it would be better for him if he'd come up here and eat with us.
Why the hell do I have to come here?
Why don't I have him come meet me at the White House there?
Do you think we have to have it all to build him up to have him come here?
That was too far.
Come back up here.
See, they're going to put up a little social people and introduce him to Congress and some of that cool stuff.
Or that day, or the Congress won't be here yet.
They come back in the evening.
This is the 24th.
About the social things in the evening.
I'm just trying to think about what Bill had in mind.
Yeah, you see him at about 11 in the morning and then have lunch in the morning.
Then you fire, you know, two hours.
I didn't have the social things and then come back this evening and call it an hour and a half.
He'll come back.
He was back that night, Monday night.
Monday night.
As a matter of fact, he's in bed with me, so he'll fly back up.
Exactly.
It's not as good an excuse for the, uh... Oh, hell, they're taking off.
Just couldn't have said that.
Sorry, what the hell?
I don't know what to say.
My first thing Friday morning, I said, you're gonna want to come back Sunday night anyway.
730, eat at 8, finish at 9, speeches until 9.30.
You could leave at 10 p.m. and end by 12.30.
What's going on there?
No, that would be a black line.
Good, correct.
That's all right.
We can change quickly.
I think we should go down that path.
Down that path.
I think the uses are going in.
That's fine.
We can.
And it turns out it's fine.
And I can give them to have them over one night for dinner and then move out or move in if they want to stay.
It works out beautifully, because as it turns out, their son's going into the service on the 19th, just a couple days before.
And so Betty's going to be, Don feels Betty will be needed.
And then Don leaves a week, 10 days later.
So it's a very nice place.
I had Rose, and every weekend, a Rose like that.
I talked to Rose to see if she thought it was a good idea.
And she said, it was.
And she said, do you want me to talk to Don about it?
And I said, sure, why not?
So she did it, because it's personal.
It's fair for Rose to set it up.
I want Rose to go on this trip, too, for the reason that she's so close to God.
I'm glad to be out of Dallas or Houston.
I just tell them I can't come, that I have to be in Washington that day for a meeting with a new, I'd be quite specific.
Don't you think so?
The Secretary-General of the U.N. is trying to come up in relation to this whole thing that makes it necessary.
Yeah.
The Secretary-General of the U.N. And then, would you check that and see if you could offer him to...
So you just looked at that and it went 180 degrees off the reservation.
John came out and changed his head.
He said, I've got to talk to you.
There's some things.
Come on, do it.
I fell for John.
His body and soul was on the project.
I think it was supposed to be foreign.
He was.
He was smart.
He was a scholar.
He was poor and depressed.
He was a goddammit.
Agnew and McElroy were as active as he was.
He was very smart.
I'm not a scholar.
Today, we should refer to him as this crazy goddamned fellow from Chicago with no creation or help.
In some way, one of John's fellows must not have touched basement and followed him to Lincoln.
Very fond of the man.
So, Lincoln.
I like him very much, but I don't think he's a gentleman.
My dog may have gotten agnoed, maybe just, you know, feeling his bones and strutting around a little.
He's just got to get away from that.
He's getting in all sorts of things wrong.
Boy, I've got to, I'm going to kill, I ought to kill that... business about labor.
Shit.
There's no business going into that.
Absolutely no business at all.
Agnew has no business calling that damn meeting without informing somebody.
He's not, he's not the chairman of that committee.
Apparently he is.
There's either one out there.
I'm the chairman of all committees, Bob.
Of the Catholic Committee of Economic Policy, I'm the chairman.
Listen, should we go ahead and put this in the back of your eye?
I promise it's fine.
Okay.
I'll make a earth-shaking check.
It's a good question.
I have an idea.
We have talked about landmines, and I'm planning to do it.
What about that dollar we've already got there in every language we've spoken?
Everly is pending for him.
He'd be all right.
He would very much like that.
If he wants to be a staff man, I don't know.
Well, maybe.
He's already a staff man.
I like Everly.
I like him.
And all the rest of the people now are arguing strongly with him.
You've got to have a separate guy to negotiate this stuff.
He's got to be out of the country negotiating.
They don't want Everly to come.
I just want to get a feel of what you would buy Everly if that turned out to be the best thing.
Well, Everly I'd like to have around the shop, because I think the magic is interesting, and I think of all things.
Everly, you know, is a big common cause guy, and all that, but I think he's got it out there.
I think he's got it out there.
He's done our game now.
Common cause is going to increase and collapse.
losing money and great dissatisfaction with John Gardner, people would start to see him in a way really great that it would cause people and all the implications of this.
He starts organizations by doing good work and giving his staff publicity money.
They've come way back from the fundraising activity because they don't have the money to raise the pot of seed money and to raise the other money.
on their ass and all that stuff.
Well, they're probably both.
Well, that's the thing.
If you get into political gear, people are going to go for candidates, not for some sort of esoteric cause.
I think it's fine.
We've got this call that was brought in right with Dick Allen.
I don't know.
I don't think he's backed up enough.
He can't run it, but can Peterson take him over to Congress?
Well, we could use the account to use him in the campaign.
In the campaign?
Yeah, that's what he wanted to do in the campaign.
That's an attack man on the foreign policy side.
If the other people are going to go about it.
Mr. Little?
I just want to thank you.
Sure.
I want to turn to you, Senator Wiley.
no matter out of the way.
You're talking to Len Barman who was after him.
I propose that you say that Andrew Wyatt was the second.
When the time comes, sometime in the future.
Tell me of all the American portrait presidents, people that the president would prefer to have Andrew Wyatt do it, but that he plans to have, he cannot spare the time, and does not plan to have anything until after he leaves office.
that Andrew Wyatt is the president's personal first choice.
I'm just saying that.
Sure, if Andrew Wyatt, the president, thinks that he's the man he would like to have do it, and leave it open-ended.
Well, he may be dead, and I may be dead.
In any event, I never want to sit here about that.
It's sometime in the future.
No, but just say it.
That he will not sit for any portrait?
No, that I will not.
I have a matter of policy.
I will not sit for a portrait while I'm in office.
Do it not spare the time.
I'll have to be up and planning it after I leave office.
Put it right that way.
But that Andrew Wyatt is my choice.
And Andrew Wyatt will be his choice at that point in time?
Yeah.
Andrew Wyatt is my choice.
Just say that he is my choice.
He is the President's choice, the President's great admirer, and why I'm in his paintings, his work, and as a man, he feels there needs to be a relationship between loyalty and tenderness, and compatibility, and such.
And he, therefore, would be very honored .
The other question is quite timely.
The timing would be after I leave office, I cannot spare your time.
That's beautiful.
That rationally eliminates all of the confusion, because then that gives you a reason for the confusion, which is there's no question about the portrait painter.
The question is a matter of when he is under no circumstances.
I'll have Glenn call them, or Wyatt, and tell them the reference.
Correct.
Because if somebody was a lawyer, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's not a lawyer.
It's probably just a voter.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
Well, it's a good shape now anyway.
I hope they did.
I hope they did it for their sake.
Watch the expression.
I'm sure I'm great at that.
I just don't know.
As many want to be poets, some of you want to be present.
Some of you want to be funny.
Some of you want to be naked.
Some of you want to be cool.
He is so much better on it than Edgar Crespo.
I'm only going to have to know him.
I've never been in a picture of him more than one picture.
I'm going to give him that sponge for it.
And you're going to come in and take the McElroy and A and sit in that goddamn chair and fire the bird and use jackasses all sitting around.
That's what all of this is for.
They want to use a picture, they want to use it.
I also want to keep the person out of the way.
That's all I want to do.
That was Larry did very well in expressing that.
No, he was fine.
Yes, he was very good.
He tends to follow the line.
Well, the 70,000 had to be effective.
Sure.
Nobody can bet you about it.
Some 70,000 should be higher.
I don't know.
Why should they?
I don't know.
Particularly doing it now when they're having an offensive .
And Laird did say to me, I told him to get one line across and say, this indicates our confidence in the Army, given the event itself.
Were he talking about the spectacular thing, the whole process of what he had said before?
American combat.
American combat for old Spaniards.
You let it be.
Talk about that part of what our bombing is concerned with.
They said we wouldn't utilize our air power.
In the end, as the President said before, we feel it's necessary to take care of it.
Thank you.
It's a better thought.
I just keep talking.
Henry, you want to go to a press conference tomorrow.
You need to rest a little bit.
What time do you want to have it?
Well, my judgment is the best approach in the whole history to make this more important is to forget about it.
Or even just to...
Is that the word?
The word, let me ask you a question.
Is it that big an issue among all the press?
Of course not.
It's Reston.
Reston's going to piss on the China trip because, you know, he was over there and they brought back a lot of what the dog was doing.
You remember when I cut him and I said, no, I didn't say anything about all that before.
I mean, Reston's going to piss on it.
So does my dog.
And who the hell cares?
Do you think it makes a lot of difference what the New York Times says about all of our stuff that they're going to start trying to sear about?
Everything we're doing is a good television show.
The only thing that we would mean, I mean, the only thing that would result in another press conference on this, any discussion on it, will focus attention on the crypto.
Fact of the tale.
Well, but also the issue of...
It would be on a, it would be a defensive posture.
Henry called me the other night about it.
I told you.
He called you.
Right.
And I was like, right, does he do it for work?
Well, I told him, I didn't want to, I wanted him to relax.
I told Rob that I don't think it is.
I think we should just...
Call a stop to it now.
We're trying to leave the background on it.
We really need to discuss it.
It's in.
And tell them, Henry, you're doing a lot better than you think.
That's what I'm trying to tell them.
Henry's doing very well, but it's... Christ's sakes, look, they talk about his credibility and the rest of it.
If Henry Kissinger calls any kind of a background, it's going to be like Rasta.
The press will be there panting and writing.
And they know goddamn well it's true.
Looking for the contradictions.
There's no right about the contradictions.
No, no, no, but I meant, he doesn't say anything else.
Henry says, my credibility as a breafer is destroyed.
The press will never believe it.
I think that's pure bullshit.
Or do you agree, Ron?
It's not true.
His credibility is not destroyed.
It would have been affected in this thing.
From the very outset on this matter, we just wouldn't have...
There's no need for background reports on this.
It was not that big of an issue.
Anderson doesn't have that many people in the press in the Middle East.
Well, of course, there's prints and papers.
Let me suggest something that I want to do.
India and Pakistan ain't that big an issue either.
India and Pakistan, you watch.
I mean, I watch the TV.
And news-wise, the goddamn thing's better than Kelsey's nuts.
Right?
There's Bangladesh stuff now, but it isn't the Indian-Pakistan war.
It's Bangladesh.
Most people don't know what the Christ is.
I bet if you walked out and you asked if we supported Mujib or not, the massive would be sold.
They wouldn't know.
Whether or not we sent somebody to meet Mujib at the airport, whether it was a ship.
Absolutely not.
Not one particular ship.
They're not going to.
Well, of course, they didn't do it.
But my future will be spent on writing the statement and writing a report about it.
It's grateful, James, because it's partially true.
When we came back, it seemed as though we stoned them this morning.
Walt's never debated on that.
Right, he couldn't.
But they did?
Oh, yeah, because then they always said, well, that's the way the president is.
He knows we can't make it.
That's the way he is.
He's right.
He considers it for the last time.
Well, they thought I was thinking about that.
Well, they didn't at first.
I decided that three weeks ago.
No, they didn't at first, Steve.
But we said you were working on your statement.
They figured in their own minds, well, this is what the president does.
All of every four major decisions, he reassesses them.
I see.
That's good.
Let them write it down.
How'd they take your aid?
Pretty well?
They accept it, understand it.
They understand it's a hell of a lot.
I think you should say we negotiated from 20 up to 80.
You said it several times.
I said it eight times, more or less.
Then what kind of government had to stay in China?
I said this was a substantial increase from the initial figure.
One jackass thing that you've got to knock down immediately is that due to the fact that while I'm in China, I'm supposed to be out of communications.
that they're going to have Laird be the commander-in-chief, all right?
We did that.
Why don't you point out that there's going to be a command, basically?
And Laird says to the secretary, Laird says to the secretary, Laird says to the secretary, Laird says to the secretary, Laird says to the secretary, Laird says to the secretary,
They don't realize I'm going to China, should I?
I might be held hostage in Maine, but not China.
Well, I could be held hostage in India.
He went there last year to the poor South.
From three countries.
Somebody might have grabbed me.
Irish nationalist.
I was probably on more unsafe territory than the place we've been.
One of those bastards could have come on.
Really, that's true.
Or one of those.
One of those.
But we should be more content in their state than our parents were in.
Your general reaction to Mrs. Cho and the Nixon show then was all right?
It was all right.
Darla, were you all right?
I thought it was not so bad.
I think she was more...
I think she was uncomfortable in her own mind.
She was more relaxed.
She was so wooden.
And she knows this in her television.
When they ask her questions, you know, she sounds like all women do, and virtually most men and kids, like they're reciting.
for the class.
But she's more conversational now.
Much more than she used to.
And she does a great thing with her natural stuff.
She says, now you're going to tell us, what was it, something about?
Would there be a woman?
Oh, she said, do you ever think it would be possible for a woman to, what's the problem about women holding office or something?
And then she said, well, we don't have enough women who run for office.
And the reason we don't is because women don't support women who run for office.
Lenore Rodney told me that women didn't support her.
And that was her problem.
She had counted on it.
But I think the time will come when a woman will hold any office.
And she said, and then Barbara Wallace started to interrupt, and Pat said,
Including President.
I beat you to it.
But she has a great way where she smiles and so forth.
At the end of the night, she just cuts through everything.
The people forget what she said because it's very warm.
But her answers, the way her style of answering was just...
5,000% better than I have ever seen her do on an interview.
But I think one thing that she called me, she said, no, it's not true.
She was so pissed off.
She said she's so used to being treated gently by the press, fairly, that she just doesn't know how to take it when somebody like Walters is sticking the needle in her.
Walter, I thought you'd stick the needle in me.
She hit her exactly what she wanted.
And Pat fielded them.
She knocked everyone out of the park, including the Ms. question, which she did.
She was a little puzzled by it, just like you were.
Well, I told her about that already.
She looked a little puzzled.
Then Barbara Waller said, well, a lot of people feel your husband's old-fashioned about women.
And Pat put a twist on that, which was beautiful.
She said, I wouldn't agree with that at all.
He's always felt that women are...
are terribly important.
And he's always been very proud of the things that I've done.
Oh, she just launched it.
I'm sure she was up for it, because she told me on the phone.
She said, you know, I was very angry.
But I think that's what got her up.
And therefore, made her come this year.
You didn't see that.
There was no sign of anger at all.
relaxed, she laughed, you know, kind of slapped her in the arm the way she was supposed to.
Oh, it's another way that our, that must be coming up this week in the story, in fact, that he knows who's leaked the matters of the papers, and if he's the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, he'll be able to charge that.
So let me say it's not true.
No.
But if he charges that.
Remembering my good friend, Joel McCarthy.
That could be a fatal mistake for us.
Fatal mistake.
Sure could, but we got to be, we sure got to handle it right.
Got to make it ourselves today.
Agreed.
Yes.
Here I would get Rogers on the side of us, and I would really bluster him.
Whoever in charge, we should just go out immediately.
Go out at the evening to the television.
Call for the camera.
Now, order up the cameras, go before the doctor, and say, I deeply regret to have to say that the United States Senator has lied to the American people, and there's no foundation, and he knows it.
There's no foundation in any way, shape, or form to what he has said, and that's all I have to say.
Who did it?
Tell him we don't know.
Muskie proves it, not us.
That's my point.
My point is, for honesty, it's based on innocence.
We have a goddamn good idea who did it.
We think.
It isn't anybody at the high level.
We can't prove it.
That's the simple truth of the word.
The only two guys who can prove it are Soros and Anderson.
And unless you bring Anderson in,
which I think everybody would agree would be a fatal mistake.
You can't bring a newsman in.
It's like, you know who really did the Ellsberg thing?
Unfortunately, it's not Ellsberg.
Bill never did it.
It's that goddamn Sheehan.
We had him cold turkey, he and his wife, froze through a window, this we know.
We can prove it, and we're going to do it immediately after the election, not before.
He broke through a window.
Up at Cambridge, there was another set of the papers.
He pulled the papers out.
That's the story.
That's why the papers didn't jive.
That's what I say.
I've got that Max Frankel transcript in my drawer, and I just can't wait.
That's the NBC transcript.
I can't wait.
Someday I can pull that out, and I'm going to nail Max Frankel to the wall.
That's the night where Neil Patrick was quizzing him, and I've mentioned this before.
I just don't think that the press, I've read this stuff, they're trying to make a lot of the latest Vietnam offenses.
They always do.
There are going to be more of them.
hell, by the time we go through the State of the Union.
This Vietnam announcement, of course, will add something.
They'll have a few battles.
The Arabs will lose some.
They'll win some.
There'll be problems in this and that.
By the time we take off with China, it will sink that without a trace.
Or do you agree?
I agree.
Today.
Who's going to be thinking about the analysis of democratic movements today?
You mean the 70,000?
Oh, sure.
In other words, that's the news continuation of what you said.
I'm out of your head matter.
Head on down.
Okay, thank you.
Part of the problem here, and Henry is going to prove this comment, Bob, is that both Hayes and Ziegler have been gone.
Henry doesn't have confidence in Warren.
Warren is perfect.
He's fine with that.
And of course, he has no confidence in anybody who's on the job except me.
And apparently the weather can always goddamn hand.
And that, however, brings me to the end of, to a point, very, very serious that I want to do a lecture with my brother-in-law.
So I'm going to get this out of him.
I've mentioned it before.
Maybe, Bob, we just have something to hang right here in the sickness that we'd better goddamn well get rid of now.
I can handle China without you.
Well, I think you ought to underestimate Haig.
Henry says Haig makes mistakes.
Let me tell you the truth.
He doesn't make many mistakes.
You don't know how many of Henry's mistakes Haig has made.
Also, also, also, Haig
is the kind that would never have walked, as Mitchell, in his quiet, sardonic way, said yesterday, well, you said this, Henry wouldn't have this credibility problem if he hadn't walked back to the airplane and said what he did about the Russians.
About the Russians.
And there's truth to all that now.
Don't you realize that?
Henry knows that damn well.
Nobody asked him to go back there.
That was, you know, Ron told him not to, as a matter of fact.
And he went back, certainly.
Because he'd heard that Rogers had briefed him.
There's the reason.
Rogers had briefed him.
And he had to go back.
Then he had to set up his briefings with the AP and UPI to undo that.
That's when he lied to Rogers.
He told him he hadn't briefed him when he had.
Oh, he lied to Rogers.
But now let me tell you, Rogers, did he tell Rogers that I told him to lie about that?
He didn't say he told him to.
But on that, I didn't even know he was going to brief him.
No, he did on that.
I told him to brief the ATV.
No.
Yeah, I think you did tell him to do some briefings.
I remember when you wanted Scali to set up some briefings.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I agree.
I agree I did.
But I didn't tell him not to tell Rockwood.
I told Rockwood to tell him.
But what he did was he had the briefing.
Rogers found out about it.
Rogers said, Henry, we agreed we weren't going to do any briefings.
Don't you think that's the right thing?
Henry said, yes.
Rogers said, you haven't done any over there, have you?
Henry said, no.
Actually, you haven't had any briefings at all?
No.
No, I haven't.
Well, now, what does Henry say?
I just called him back ten minutes later and said, Henry, I know damn well you had a briefing.
I've talked to the reporter you gave me.
What did Henry say?
Henry said, well, I had to lie to you.
I was ordered to lie to you.
And I will never lie to you, Bill, except when I'm ordered to.
Now, this is Roger's show.
Uh-huh.
henry didn't lie to rogers because i didn't tell him nothing i didn't tell rogers how the christ would i tell him to tell rogers that he hadn't briefed when i knew rogers to find it out even if you you made very well and see both that you said just go ahead and set up a briefing don't get rogers all upset about it don't call him just go ahead and do it i mean we often do things like that but that is an order to lie to rogers that's and
instruction to do the briefing without an informant.
I hope you'll set Rogers straight on that.
Of course.
Rogers doesn't believe him anyway.
There's no reason to set Rogers straight.
He doesn't buy that.
And that's what Bill said.
It's so stupid to lie to me about a briefing when the goddamn thing's going to run in the paper the next day.
There's just no way to deny something like that.
There's something you can lie about and get away with, but to lie about whether you ever have had a briefing is impossible.
So you better consider fighting the Henry vote now.
Yeah, I think, I mean, we can say it'll be hard, and it depends on what Henry will do, but I mean, the point is, he is sick.
Let's run it out.
He was sick.
I don't think, if you did it now, I think what you'd do is force, you'd move the situation so that he went.
You don't fire him.
Oh, I actually kind of don't fire him.
I love him.
He likes to go on the base.
Thanksgiving is one of the opportunities.
He can be nudged to go.
Samaritan, if you decide to have him.
Now, if he, that, the act of doing that might solve the problem.
Once he sees, finally, he can't be blocked, he might shave up and come back and get the work done.
Because I can't conceive of any reason not to let himself get shut out of China.
That's why I say, if you look at history, let me say this, though, that after he gets through China and through Russia,
Henry will then be in a total driver's seat.
That's what I'm trying to report.
I cannot have him go.
In the campaign, they'll be charging and countercharging.
They'll come rushing in and raising hell.
And that's what we cannot have going.
We just can't have it.
And we cannot, we have it in the back of his mind that he's been able to do a great thing.
He's done for his honor.
I think we've got to put it flatly to him.
He's got to make a commitment.
He stays now through the election.
Well, he gets out now.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
All right.
All right.
So anyway, I don't want to have them.
I don't want to have them come.
Just leave the crap here.
What is it?
It only bothered me from now on the stuff I have to sign, if you will.
That's not a cigarette, sir.
Oh, I should have.
I approve.
He's stuck to the judgment.
And now, incidentally,
I've got to talk to Earl before I get further on as to what the hell we've put in now.
He's got a whole goddamn section, the guy you had in the state of the union.
And now that it's screwed up, what do we do?
He and I were supposed to meet with Mitchell now.
I don't want to see him on the phone.
The thing that I was going to say, too, is that I did talk to him.
Okay, I'll tell George this is
I don't want any more telephone calls.
Don't send anything in.
I can't do any more birthday calls or that sort of thing.
All birthday calls, I will do none between now and, I mean, just don't send any more birthday calls in or anything of that sort.
It's crap.
Mayor, I'd probably put that off until after this.
I'm calling after the State of the Union.
You understand?
Yes, I'm not going to be making calls.
So, this is for Walter Jordan.
It's from Wade.
And there's somebody else you had to hear.
William White.
Jarrett Jerome Holland.
Thank him for meeting me at the end of the release.
Don't have any FYI stuff coming?
Anything between now and the 20th could be stacked up that has a bunch of relates.
What did they do now?
On the direct, let's follow up.
They're asking for authorization to proceed with a 60-day study on drug use and medicine.
Why?
They didn't want it done.
You want the National Security Agency to do that?
I know what you're talking about.
I already got that.
How about the economic report?
Well, I'm not going to have a break.
I don't want to take a break.
You know what I mean.
Stack them all up and I'll read them out.
Friday night, you just stack the whole thing up and I'll read it all.
You see what I mean?
I don't want to be distracted.
I don't want to be distracted.
DeWitt Wallace dinner.
They cannot get Fred Warren.
Fred, he's got two friends.
But they could get Jack Benny.
I think his fashion would show any way that you think he's suitable for that.
He fits into that 50-year thing.
Well, if DeWitt Wallace would like, he'd hire one.
Because I like Jack Benny.
He's one of the world's greatest entertainers.
He'd do a little violin stuff and a little comedy stuff.
No.
They could do the highlight songs of the past century, but could we have Benny and the Connop Singers?
The Connop Singers sound pretty good to me.
Are they good?
Are they good?
Yes, sir.
Well, why do they do the old songs?
Do they do the old songs now?
Sure, that's good.
See if they could do a 50-year medley.
OK. You'd get them fine.
If not, have Rose come, won't you?
She is the entire charge of this thing, the entire charge.
Is that clear?
It won't.
Exactly.
And so she used to call Mr. Wallace and see if there was any .
OK.
I'll interfere with it.
All right.
Thank you.
In the area, two dates, two performances that .
That's terrible.