Conversation 321-021

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There are still, Mr. President, this wide division of opinion, as you may know, on when to release the bus tickets.

And John, earlier on, well, he

His opinion is that we proved that out by a statement yesterday.

I don't think it's anything we have to decide on now.

But we'll do it anyway we can.

I might finish today.

See, I made the point yesterday that we're not releasing the report before the primary election.

Now, what I think our options are that we could go Tuesday,

Or, you know, late in the afternoon.

Or we can go any time that week or later on.

The point is, it's also thought by some that I should loosen up a little bit the impression that you are going to have a decision made when you determine the campaign.

Now, I think I can do that very easily.

by simply saying that in your discussions today and yesterday, you have asked for additional legal research.

We don't know if that will be continued this weekend.

We would hope to button it up at that time, but that is not the key thing.

Definitely.

Now, in my briefing, I used Luke's language anyway.

Excuse me, Jeff.

Luke told me.

Oh, sure.

So the question is, should we loosen it up a little bit?

I guess we can.

Yeah.

What about the data?

If we don't do it today, what happens?

Well, there seems to be a feeling on the part of some that it should be delayed a week.

There's a feeling on the part of some that it should be, I'm still not too clear.

And then there's a feeling on the part of some that it should be done the same week as it would have been.

I've discussed it at length with John and others.

Apparently, the Attorney General

And I think Secretary Connolly, I'm not sure about Secretary Connolly, but some wanted it to be done before the Florida government.

Well, which is out of the question, I guess.

Well, I don't think it's the right thing to do.

They may have that judgment because they want to protect Florida, frankly.

Well, then I don't know.

My view still is, of course, it's out of the question.

I'm not...

The Board of Primary made the major of the problem.

The Board of Primary your efforts on this are related to the fact that we already had the major of the problem.

What you're looking for is a solution to that problem.

The fact that Florida has it on their ballot as a referendum indicates it's a problem there.

I think you might say there's a national problem, and I do not want this, I do not want .

which is one of the states, of many states, where there's a very controversial issue.

And I want to present this in national terms and not in regional terms or in terms of the issue of one state.

I think that's not a bad position.

Now actually, we don't go to the, I can see some reason for not

I can see some reasons why we're going a little bit later than them at the end of the week.

Except they have an influence on opinion makers, but in terms of masks.

How about whatever you would say

Now what the hell they were trying to make?

Yes, sir.

Now, let's see.

Let's see.

One, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

That's funny.

We'll be dead by the 18th.

We'll be dead by the 10th.

We'll go through this week.

Friday we have a big story.

The baby of a parish child.

We put up a channel for it.

We'll show it on the news.

TV news story.

It'll roll up.

It'll be it.

The only thing we have ruled out is getting it out before the bullet.

Which I think is correct.

I think that would be considered to be a late, despite what I'm sure of, late bullet.

Okay.

get on the right side of that issue with the law and the law and the other goddamn candidates on the bus and the doctor and the board.

It's a great message.

It has a mighty effect.

So, you know, the primary, you know, who's going to do it?

Ag for the bill.

Big deal.

That's it.

That's why John thinks I can loosen up today, and I can loosen up without any problems, and then we can just make the decision like on Monday.

See, the impression I left yesterday, it's very likely, I said, that you can make the decision before we have to return to Canada.

I can loosen that up a bit, based on your call for additional legal research.

No, I still think you can say that the President is on Monday, has made his decision now, and has turned the problem over to legal advisors to draft the appropriate language to carry out his decision.

The President has made a decision on the basic issues and has drafted them down here on the morrow.

The, uh, not the basic issues, but the, uh, the providers of the purpose of drafting and appropriate language to implement that decision.

The language is very important.

What is the Constitution and the legislation?

I don't know.

He's made a decision already.

And you say, you really protect yourself on all behelves, as I am on each side of my feet.

I mean, just the language that we might screw around.

They probably won't use this word or that word.

Sometimes it takes days to get language involved.

See, we still have that option open.

Today, I said, we have most of our options.

We have all the options open.

And today, I said, we're working on it.

Well, you say that the president is working on it.

It's all traditional research that he's had.

He's had it very differently.

The research will be at the end of his government committee on Friday.

He will continue to study over the weekend.

He hopes to make his own decision.

He hopes to be able to reach his own decision, make his own decision in principle on the matter by Monday.

I think that's a little cool.

And one thing they say, if you reach a decision, suggest you've made a decision in principle on the matter.

And it is now directed as we would like to prepare the appropriate language to carry on the decision.

The drafting process will take several more days.

Just leave it that way.

No, I don't see any reason to.

I've got enough information.

I'm not going to call for additional information.

I've got information.

I'm going to decide it.

I don't want it to appear after the murder.

I want it to be able to be said, to bear out what you said, that I completely agree to be said.

that I was not going to be informed by the primary, and I wasn't going to try to inform the primary.

So it quite is, I will have decided to inform the primary.

And now the drafting is going forward, and it takes several days.

Okay, good.

Nick, we'll just listen.

We can do it Tuesday, we can do it Thursday, or we can do it the next week.

You mean Tuesday, the day before the primary?

That's right.

By this position, we can do it.

The only thing we can do... John's no time to do it on Tuesday, the day before the primary.

Oh, damn right.

I don't think he holds that position now.

I think he feels that... We've compromised him.

No, but we've tied ourselves up to him.

We'll carry it into the next week.

Oh, not true.

Not true.

From this point on, we'll choose to merge the next week.

The thing is, this is well to get it out of the way.

Perhaps I have other reasons that I'd like to get it out of the way.

Is Friday all right?

Thursday's a little better than Friday.

It is next Friday.

Friday's pretty good.

Saturday papers are still good.

You've got the Friday night TV and Saturday papers.

It's really what I'm shooting for at the moment.

I'd like to get it done next week, so I have a plan for something else.

Also, I think it's as well to come to have that, to make it all, you know, at least as far as the business, the Sunday newspaper, the weekly newspaper, and all the rest, we'll have, let our, let our decision on busing override then how the laws came out and how,

See, I think one of the things that it forces some is that we know that the vote is going to be overwhelming.

Vote, all the guys vote.

Sure, I'll be voting.

Vote for the constitutional amendment.

Sure.

Wallace will be out the other day.

See, see, they did what I wanted them to do, and how the president's going to find them, and how he's going to do the statement of the president.

I think I would probably say that if you did it on Tuesday.

I think so.

I think you could say that if you did it on Wednesday.

I think so.

And he probably says that if we did it before the prime minister, well, we'd finally got him.

Before he was doing it.

No, but our position is going to be different anyway.

But I think we say the president has reached, has made the final decisions on the principle.

And now it's, you know, it's good.

It's good.

I don't want to do it two days after the quarter time, but I'd like to do it Friday.

For your sake.

I'll try to sell money.

I don't know what I will do.

He said, this is an outrage.

He said, I'm sitting here, the committee here, supposedly looking into the qualifications of the nomination for Attorney General.

You are trying to

described me.

And he said, this is an outrage.

I won't answer any of your questions.

And he said, if you're telling me I've answered them, because they finally kept repeating the question.

And on one, I said, well, I guess they were asking about the delay of the submission of the justice case to the Supreme Court.

He made it quite clear that he went along with the play, or he decided on the play, just because the court was going to protect him.

But, you know, that's an issue that we're wondering about.

But I sense today, a little bit, if they keep this up, they're going to turn it into a farce, which would not be bad.

Just by this type of...

When you have Kennedy and Tunney

trying to force something out, trying to drag something out.

I think the public tends to tire of that, and the water services this afternoon, they don't seem to sort of like the .

I think that hasn't built to that point .

was the settlement influenced by improper activities?

No.

And three, if such activities were they improper?

The answer is no on all three questions.

And they didn't got any, was the settlement fair?

All right, that's a matter for lawyers to debate about.

Some of it was, some of it wasn't.

But second, was it improperly informed?

And that was no.

Flanagan said no.

McClaren said no.

No.

The third point was, was there an intent made to inform, basically?

And the answer is, well, looking at it, even at its worst, the answer is no.

It was not an improper action for the sheriff and hotel to offer money to the city of San Diego at that time.

I know we're actually part of the time, I guess, to raise the question, you know, to say all that.

It's incredible.

It allows recruiting to impact the fact that the administration is a little bit different.

But I think it's not focused at all on the White House or on the presidency.

Not yet.

There's another president in a certain extent.

People around him.

I have some doubts about whether .

Why did he talk to me about it?

He actually wants to know.

I understand that.

I'm not concerned.

Well, it will exacerbate the relationship with State.

I'm not so sure of it at this point.

It is going on.

I read his background.

Just a repetition of that.

I mean, that's just going to help us.

It may show that he doesn't really want to press it.

Of course, he would have, that would be the point of it, he would have, the only way for it to be a success is if he would drill himself, force himself into concentrating on the achievement of the president.

Henry Kissinger could be on television talking about the achievement of the president, how the president conducted the leaders, what his relationship was with the leaders.

Yeah, but Henry has that mystique about him.

But what I meant is Rogers understands that, and President Henry gets up there and lectures him like a professor, and he does a brilliant job, and it shows he's good, but he doesn't reflect on it.

He doesn't tell him a thing about what the president did.

Because Henry went off into captivity now and then carried over some of the indicators, so he checked over the word, but Henry knows he went far beyond that.

He didn't mean to kill him.

carried away by, you know, the three tears and let us look at it from their standpoint.

Let's look at it from our standpoint.

They're a third-generation communism.

They're a third-generation, which is all routine, very sophisticated, but not made for those guys, but very impressive.

And, well, the key to Henry's success in doing television, I think, should be short.

And I think you could probably

those aspects of the president's involvement.

That is what people are wanting.

That's right.

They want to know what happened behind closed doors.

They'd like to see him or Kissinger say, talk about the...

He's got to describe the mannerisms of the man.

That's right.

He's got to describe how both men were compelled.

He's got to talk about, he said, no, look, this is a very lenient man here.

They never met each other.

They're different backgrounds.

Here they are, meeting, and he heard me.

He said, why did you take him on?

He said, he's got to get away from himself, and he's got to, and now they're worried, and they're meeting.

I didn't talk at all.

Nobody else talked.

Or even the line, but he could take it back in terms of the PK history.

What you said in the home is missing too.

The PK initiative.

They talk about your obsessions that you had.

I've heard him do this, and how that he would cable back and so forth, and how he would do it every day.

But I mean, he would not hardly cable.

In fact, the fact that he could say, no, I prefer to grade my papers so that they take the practice better.

He says the president has an unusual practice.

He does not use them.

He reads them all, but then he

He takes up his own approach.

It's quite different.

Quite different because he adds his own experience to all of it.

And then how the two go back and forth.

That's the kind of thing.

And he would have great credibility in giving that close-in view.

So it was very successful.

He could make an agreement with him beforehand about how the interview would be structured and say, I would only do it on that basis.

What he wants to do is to get you inside of it.

What went on behind the scenes?

He's willing to do that, but he's not willing to get into it.

What went on behind the scenes?

I don't know.

I don't think everybody wants to hear it.

It's part of our profession.

I mean, it doesn't feel like it.

Then there's issues that we communicate in the whole thing.

They're part of that.

I don't know.

Just that little thing that...

told Bob, which he told Luther, without a brand of amusement, when you came down to the tunnel, and the premier said, where's the plane going?

I said, Mr. President, I didn't even request it.

This is an operation.

And therefore, I know they've had special submissions, so I don't have to complain.

But they could jump on that just like a grotter going after a piece of raw meat.

I mean, that was, you know, an

But that's the only little interplay that is really out at this time.

There are a lot of, I think, inside the type of relationships that contributed to the meeting.

And I told it to me.

And everyone senses Henry being there.

and make an agreement with CPS.

What you ought to do, really, is get a little Lord who may have some understanding of what kind of things you can say.

Harry is not a very strong person.

Remember, and it goes directly to Baldwin.

He's not a...

He's great on substance, but he doesn't...

He's not a color man.

But the color that would make it his, the color, then it would be about Joe and Nixon rather than about Henry.

See, his background is about Henry.

Don't you agree?

I read the whole thing, it's not prepared in it.

And the whole goddamn thing is about, well, Henry Kissinger understands China, well, a lot of other people do too.

That's his eulogy.

The other thing, for example, walking down out of the Great Hall of the People, Joe and I showed the President Mr. Nixon in a car.

And the rest of the journalists were standing there in total awe, shocked.

That had never happened before.

This was the third day in.

Which indicated to the people on the scene who had observed Joe and I as the leader, the report of the President had been able to build, which was so important to the other people,

Well, on the other side of the coin, I held him on his coat.

I held his coat over the door in the most awkward way.

And when it was snowing, I said, it's our custom to come to the door.

But he could weave in all of that to build up to the outcome of the talk.

A good interview.

Sending him on the mission.

Moving to the meeting itself, the inner relationship, how things were behind the green door.

And then into the... Also, he could say, let me tell you how this is.

a little bit of a feel on him.

And as far as we can go, we are very much, of course, very totally different men, but quite interested in style, very interested in, there was never any shouting or hardly heard of the, you know, we made the job as a model of something cooler, rather than the clarity of that spirit.

Sure.

I don't know.