Conversation 363-016

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Hi, how are you?

All right.

You've seen the letter McGovern wrote you?

No.

About the briefings.

The old dealer?

Yeah.

What's he saying?

He doesn't want her?

Well, he's now saying she would like to visit him.

Won't he?

He's going for assistance every day.

Uh, well...

Certainly not for me.

I mean, that's, that's wrong.

It goes without saying.

What the hell's the matter?

Why does he say he doesn't want to repeat?

The ISA residents, of course, there's no doubt that the man is a scum.

He does, in that sense.

He's an unpatriotic scum, right?

I mean, for this, why should we make an issue about the negotiations, for example, while we're going on with it?

Uh, after he put away the whole coat, you still have a campaign issue.

Do you see a problem?

I'm sorry?

Yes, sir.

Uh, so...

These guys are now out of the government, butchering all out of time.

Of course, and they're starting on me now, too.

And, I don't know, what about raising money again?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

a star campaigner there who offered me to live in Vietnam.

You know, he's just preparing.

And, you know, that Vietnam is my biggest favorite.

You know, that's fine.

That's fine, because I'll take it for granted that I'm back from Moscow.

And that they have triggered me into the campaign, which is what I wanted to get into the campaign anyway.

But I just wanted to wait until I came back.

And in the meantime, I was .

And then, you know, until then, I projected the direction of .

But I just would like to have to make enough of a record so that I can be the guy who's .

Yeah, but then I'll go back to the question.

I'll come on with this one.

Why doesn't he want to?

Well, then we didn't give them the data.

Johnson didn't give them the water.

The system, the water didn't take them.

I think myself, Mr. President, my recommendation is

to write him a very cool letter, because he obviously... No, I won't write a letter for me.

No, no, I would say... No, no, no, no, no, I will not write a letter.

No, no, I will.

Somebody writes it for you.

I will.

Well, I say you.

The president has asked me to.

And he's asked me to point out.

Yeah, that's right.

No, as a matter of fact, not even you.

I think you're too big a name for it.

Have Hague write it.

Well, let's screw that.

Let's put it down to the level where it's halted.

I think it always has to take it out of my office.

That's right.

That is, some executive assistant would halt it.

That's right.

So that it doesn't look as if we played politics in my office at all.

What do we say?

We say...

In making this proposal to you, the President was guided by the President, so every meeting is the President who can't take the greetings with him, and the greetings were, without exception, given to the candidate himself.

Since, however, your schedule doesn't seem to permit this, because he's referred.

And once it's been washed, make sure that you rub it in well, because it necessarily comes with water.

I would say they'll initiate clearance to see if he's put in immediately.

If he gets in touch with General May, he needs to get into the office.

He will arrange the appropriate.

to have Hague as a help.

Don't press charges.

I wouldn't get Warnky.

No, no, but Warnky particularly.

Now, with McGovern, you at least have expected, since he made, to think of becoming president.

Warnky is a good class guy.

I believe myself that Warnky has had much to do with the Pentagon, but he's a tough guy.

I understand.

I think you're right.

He's a father of Clinton.

uh i can't maybe we're just better off to say screw that because then they'll publish it if you refuse and that it is possible oh well no no no we can just say why not just say i don't i don't even refuse and just say that the precedent here is that the candidate should be free to well understand that there's reasons available and you want to thank you very much well let's understand let's see if we don't have to say anything um

We don't understand anything for 48 to 72 hours.

We don't understand anything.

He says he's too busy to receive a briefing.

Well, he says, it's our understanding that I'm aware of the arrangements of this kind.

I appreciate your offer to keep him currently in court, but I don't know if he's cleared to do that.

I'm aware that arrangements of this kind have been made in the last several presidential elections for the privilege of the president.

a campaign to be careful with victory or defeat, but without an intuition found in the context of the crisis.

As I understand it, he speaks exactly the same without prejudice to the freedom of action provided by the Senate.

That's all.

If the incumbent undertakes no obligation to consult the opposition party, then the challenge accepts no restriction on her trying to speak out on the issue, but will make use of information and advice that she may have made from an independent source.

This is, of course, especially important in a year in which national security matters will play a common role in the campaign.

On this basis, I welcome and expect you all to facilitate regular, secure communication in the context of the next campaigns that you have.

I would like to inform you that we call on the appointment of the Supreme Secretary to be my representative at the briefing session.

You see, that's why you're not going to answer the letter.

That's right.

I agree.

I don't even think Peg should answer the letter.

I just wonder if I could do it at the lower level.

I think Hallman's an awful big name.

You know, why get him in this thing where Hallman refused it?

Looks like it's political.

Let me think of somebody else.

Butterfield.

I have Butterfield.

That's good.

Butterfield is my, you know, right next to me.

That's Butterfield's special visit to the president.

Are you saying it's under I.T.?

I don't think they think about it.

You put it up to Holloman.

And it makes it Holloman, the son of a bitch, and I've got to follow him.

No, it's my recommendation.

Of course, it's not their views.

It's my recommendation.

No, no, no, no, no.

I don't want Holloman even to say that we won't have you there.

My recommendation is to make an echo that we've offered it that he's the first candidate, not to accept it to another track.

But however, we are, because of the importance of the issues, we will see that Mr. Warnke is briefed, and that he will get in touch with, if you have anybody lower than A, we'll get in touch with A, and then we will arrange the briefings.

All right, but people will say, hey, that's not, I'm not so sure he should either.

Who can we get in here, and who can we trust now?

Haig maybe better go up.

Haig is tough.

Haig knows more.

But incidentally,

But I wondered if we shouldn't keep Helm's office.

I would keep Helm's office.

Because Helm was part of that whole establishment.

And to be in one case well-known in the social circles here, I would give them no right to go to any department.

That's right.

Oh, but listen.

Now, wait a minute.

Right to go into department?

Hell no.

I didn't get a right to go anyplace.

I didn't get a right.

You don't believe me in any place at all.

I got a briefing period.

I know what they gave me.

They gave me a border, but nothing to border with.

That's what Bill... No, I can guarantee that that's what would give him...

I'm in a way that he... Because I didn't know, really.

If he had been smart, he would have seen me and asked me questions.

That would have killed me.

I mean, that killed me.

Good.

You're right.

All right, good.

You're out of it.

And that, uh, that hate that we can say if the candidate, uh, we have no sense of vision in August.

I mean, here we are on August 8th.

If this will go to 15, you could say that it's our state that you can't pay, you know?

But even the first briefing, he doesn't even want that.

You know what?

He's also afraid he doesn't want to be in the position of, uh,

But I don't want you to do it.

I don't want you to see Warren.

Oh, under no conditions.

Don't you agree?

I think, Mr. President, if I see Warren, first we build this son of a bitch up.

It's much too high a level.

Haig is already too high, but Haig, at least, we can trust.

And he knows enough.

I will not talk to Warren.

He's forcing it.

Let's see.

How do we get Pounce out of it?

Just get him out.

There's no reason to do that.

All right.

Let's keep Pounce out of it, because he's part of that social circle, too.

I would not let anybody except Pounce out of it.

Keep State out of it.

Keep Defense out of it.

If you ask for State and Defense, say, no, that isn't customary.

We'll be glad to get the information for you if you don't have to run up the park.

No, sir.

He's not a shitty thing.

If that guy goes as wide as I think he goes, we ought to break off the talks in Afghanistan.

They're a hell of a lot better than any kind of long-distance talks in Afghanistan.

Yeah.

We'd break it off, make the record, and say it's because of his incursion to Hanoi, and we'll renew the negotiations and end the war on November the 9th.

On November the 9th?

But not surrender.

But there's the old record.

Say, the impasse that said we were doing this,

And here is what we did at Inchley.

We should do this before there was a stand and they completely attacked.

We'll have to think a lot about that.

We'll have to think about it.

We'll have to play it later.

I have another problem.

Which is really a way out, a way way out.

Before I go into that though, at the leaders meeting this morning, you didn't have a national meeting, did you?

No.

Which is, which incidentally, is, uh, got an opportunity for a better deal whenever we have a leaders meeting.

where the damn leaders may bring up anything.

One of your guys should be there.

Never you.

You should wait your time at the damn thing.

But you know, I didn't know there was a Jesus meeting until the time when I saw a lot of cows out there.

I said, what the hell is going on?

But anyway, it was a lot of domestic matters.

But then the letter had it.

Good point.

They brought up this house.

vote on the anti-war resolution.

He said, maybe, based on Jerry Ford, you know, it means that if I can talk to five or six Congressmen, maybe I can turn them around.

They were very, very close.

The only time I can talk to them today, I don't know whether I should or not.

I've just had serious doubts about doing it.

Uh, but I've had an affinity run off there at Camp David, so, uh, who would you talk to to see who handles it?

Who handles the cook house?

Now, do you know if, are you aware of this problem?

Yes, and do you think I should talk to, would you, or should you, or what the hell is the situation?

You know, we didn't talk to the Senators.

It wasn't anything good there, you know.

The Senators, I think, were gone.

You know, you really worked that whole region open, you know, rather than put that on the table.

You know, but I tried it before, you know.

I'd like to know who defied Congress, you know, and if you concur or not.

I'll get it to you.

Yeah, Mr. Richard Cook, where Dr. Hitchens was going, on those lines.

I'm so disgusted with Republicans.

They're only 15 in the whole Republican House.

Out of 180, they're defecting.

So it's a pretty bad thing.

I was at the Senate.

Bill Wright wrote me a letter.

He said they're treasonous.

Well, the conduct of the 11th, and they're treasonous and irresponsible, not only for Michael Tyler, but for a lot of the other invention programs he's actually doing.

They should be having Brooke as a keynote, and they should be.

Don't they have Brooke in them?

They should be.

Well, they have him.

Donald, my ears are terrible and terrible in front of the door.

What do you think?

Oh, it's terrible, Mr. President.

And it's one of the most irresponsible things.

I was the other day at Javits' house, and I really grieved him on this vote.

He said, we've cut off all the President's feet at the fire, at Jack's feet at the fire.

What do you mean?

Do you think he needs another incentive?

Do you think he needs a senator to vote?

And to my judgment, Warren Havis was...

Warren Avis, the former founder of Avis, because it's all Avis.

And he's basically a dead man.

He should well know that Chad is dead.

Not that he does any good in the past, but the guy who really turned me up is Mr. Avis.

The second point is, it's got the leaders being an outrageous one.

Don't put it the other way.

I was talking to the president here, and Terry Ford told him this morning that he should go to five congressmen, and that might be quite important.

I would be trying to determine how important it is.

Do they leave on Christmas Day or not, particularly?

if that's what we wanted to find.

Well, that's what is a concern of the president.

The president, as you understand, is willing to do it.

How does it look?

Good.

Excellent.

Thank you.

He said he was against it.

He said he's an old troublemaker.

And if you see him, the world will get around that you have to be flaky to see the president.

That's my point.

And like the 11th, you know, I have seen this son of a bitch Matthias twice.

And he said, we're going to do it on the house.

We're going to do it without it.

He thinks he can't.

Yeah.

And he says, at any rate, we're just going to give those guys a platform.

And when our progression of guys don't throw you in, you know.

And I said, they're very good, but I think, you know, like on the Senate thing, I'm not going to put in so much, but do you think I can help you?

And he said, well, after you had said it.

And I said, well, if they don't come along now, there's no problem.

And I said, there's no problem.

But I really wondered about this country, Mr. President, and how we can manage it.

Well, what are you wondering?

How we've done so far.

You're actually going to make it.

I'll talk to Senator Cable after studying a sentence that's going to become his proposal.

He thinks it's the beginning of the grave.

But of course, with him in government... And as soon as we get this election over, we'll be out of the warhead.

The enemy is no longer to be encouraged.

I have a bug.

Now, this is a very, very common thing to do if I don't even want to jump out of the window because I'm just a man.

The idea of a bombing hall, as it were, a ship that's been tried and found alive, I mean, it was only helpful, as I've said, in 1968 because it was a great way of getting something on an appreciating time.

There is something that is...

If three weeks before the election, and if we could last very long enough before that...

If we, on our part,

They flew it along for three weeks.

That's what happened.

The staff, what?

Called by me.

You know what?

I can tell.

You know what?

I can understand.

I don't see what good it does us if this happens anyway.

It just stops our, stops the war, if I were to say.

I think it does what it does anybody else.

I don't mind doing any projections for the track.

I don't want to be notified.

Why don't we do it?

What good is it to us?

That's what we need.

Yeah, but they're stopping them all over the South.

There's no reason to... Well, the point is, if you just say we're going to stop them all launching on fire, you're stopping them.

Why do you say we're doing it?

Well, we could do a strong thing if we stopped them from negotiating.

But we'd say they're stopping it because it's not their fault that they're negotiating.

And we don't want to punish their population.

We find these negotiations cannot go forward because of the fact that the enemy's negotiators have hope of, they're basing their hopes on a victory by those who will surrender to them.

I use the word surrender.

That's what this is for.

We will have a record of that.

I'm not sure, I hope the record will set forth ahead of the previous time.

We have to be, we'll have to look at it at the time to see.

But at the minimum that I could, Mr. President, we've got to be talking to .

If the cap should be closing, say, to 3%, well, if it doesn't, I'm just giving the case.

I don't want them in the position where they can break off the negotiation and push you over the threshold.

I think... No, no, I guess the air war.

That isn't going to happen.

The air war.

But I think what we're going to have is... We will have a negotiating record that... We won't attempt it.

We won't move McGowan, but...

help if we televised one of these press conferences which I explained directly.

And that's a question for another thing we could consider doing.

I'm just thinking of how I could do that.

Supposing we bought an hour or an hour, which I explained for 15 minutes, for example, and then I had the question to produce that so that it would get it free without just

All I'm saying is, I've killed them every time I've gone out.

I've always gotten us two or three weeks.

And that's the time to spend the money we left at the bank.

The fact that I wanted to spend it in August was just so that it could be spent in September in August.

Who the hell holds the negotiations as well as I do, Mr. President?

I mean, it isn't a fresh season.

It's a question almost of pure democracy.

I mean, by the time I get through explaining what was said when and what was said on one time, what was said on another time, I can make any of these guys look totally incompetent.

I talked to a thousand kids.

I talked to a thousand students in the state department, but there were some interns, but there were a lot of long hair.

They're awful.

Some are interns.

They're all against us.

And so I got one standing away from the other.

Tell me what you said.

And I said they're all against us.

My youth brothers, that's not true.

They say we don't.

A lot of the questions were against us.

How did you handle some of the things you did?

Well, the UN is one of the toughest groups in the world to handle.

One of them said, why wouldn't these countries be better off than the communists?

So first, I said, it's very .

I said, before you answer the question, you have to.

I didn't make any communists.

I said, do it in three parts.

What interests?

Does the United States have an interest in peace and stability in the world in general?

Does the United States have an interest in particular areas in the world in whatever form of government they have?

And thirdly,

Our country is better off under capitalism under any conditions, and they are not an outcome.

So our first plan is to do a historical analysis of what happens

when peace and stability is spent on a global basis, then I expect what the United States, very provisional, is going to do.

Then when I got to the third question, I said, now, let me tell you something that I went through in 1968.

I visited Prague in May, and I wanted to establish the students who were defending against the government, and they were talking about the establishment.

They were saying things about the system,

And it was a rather impressive thing to see.

And then I came to talk.

And I talked to Doc, too.

and they thought I was reporting events of a bunch of madness.

They couldn't understand that anybody in their dry mind would accept voluntarily Lenny's time.

I said, every year before that, I had gone to the Prague Music Festival, and I had a price for tickets.

That year, I could get as many tickets as I wanted because the students and everyone else was saying, oh, trust the list of the people that you can take.

You have to go to a communist country to know

what it is like to talk to this head.

And at the end, they just got up.

They wouldn't let me go.

They were applauding for five minutes after I was out there.

I'll answer that question.

Did you have Vietnam questions?

Vietnam?

A lot of Vietnam questions.

How do you handle them?

I said, there's one issue and one issue over there.

A lot of people, I'm not saying that we didn't, that there couldn't have been this or that mistake made.

I'm not saying that I can do justice in three minutes.

It's very complex.

and the situation, but at this stage, there is one issue and one issue only.

Does the United States and the whole world, in which it has lost 50,000 people, not by withdrawing, not by handing it to Obama, all of which we have opened, not by permitting a free political process, no matter how it ends, but by joining it and to defeat it, that is the only issue.

than to defeat the people who have presided.

That is what the presidency was fighting for.

And I said, now, I know, he connected everything to myself, I know what he said, and I can't be surprised.

Answer me this question.

If he is such a pragmatic politician, and if he knows that we have done this divine issue, that the opposition can just barely scratch up, why doesn't he settle it on any terms?

Or is it perhaps conceivable that he is the man in principle, and his opponents are the tacticians who are stuck in nothing?

I got another trim.

Oh, yeah.

That's very good.

I was there.

I told him.

And I was very tough.

You didn't crack around.

I didn't suck it out.

I said, Bill, I'm just laughing.

I said, I want to tell you.

I said, I don't know why I'm here.

I used to be on the White House tour.

as an example of the test human depravity can reach for student groups, but you can't get enough into the White House, or if you wanted to have it out, you would see.

So I went right in there and said, I said, this is the situation we found in 68.

This is what we did.

And I said, I said, no, I haven't talked about Vietnam because it won't be the most important.

That's what we did on Vietnam.

Now, were you able to get China and Russia?

Oh, yes.

That's what I talked about.

I talked about Vietnam.

How did you handle that?

They must have gobbled that up.

Oh, yeah.

How did you explain that?

Well, I said, what we found, the escape line, that's still there.

When he came in, I said, you know, we've had the best of interest.

The senior officials came to the president and said, you're going to impact on our directors beyond description.

We'll do a little bit.

And I said, Russia, you know, all the things people told us, we must do it together.

We must.

And I'm very confident that I will get some of those things.

But my assistant would never see me as a student before.

We have disruption coming in.

It's 5.

You'll just need to see it for 10 minutes.

In fact, it would be counterproductive to see it go on.

Are you ready to go?

Yes.

And let's go.

Right after you.

Thank you so much.

Maybe for just a minute.

I'll be there if you go, but I can just get to it if you don't go.

Would you get the people, please?

If you hadn't suggested it, I'd stay overnight.

Yeah, why don't you do that?

At that time, you might go out with me.

I'd stay if you could go out in the morning.

You'd get the right time.

Right.

All right.

We have room for people.

He's going to be over there in a minute.

If you want to take somebody up and talk to him up there, we might spend a couple hours.

Yeah.

Order the helicopter for 515 because we want to cut off time for this minister.

He comes in five and I'll go over now.

I've been to him a few times.

Hold it, hold it just a minute.

Uh, Bo says he thinks the manager's coming in by 15.

My schedule says 5.

Well, Henry's here.

He says his schedule says 5.

Well, I know, but, uh, Kennedy, he can come at 5 or, uh, well, which?

You don't know which time?

Well, we don't know.

Just a second.

If you want it at 5.15, that's where he's scheduled now.

Don't change it.

If you're sure, that's when he's coming.

Henry's paper says 5.15.

That's probably by his staff, and that's probably what they're talking about.

That's fine.

Okay, have the helicopter then at 5, have it there at 5.25, 5.25, 5.30.

We want to hear it come in so we can put the meeting off.

Yeah.

Then, well, just 530 the helicopter, then he'll hear.

It'll take 15 minutes.

Is that all right?

That's fine.

Right, right, yeah.

You've got another, it's only 10 minutes before 5.

I just wanted to do a few more codes, and then I can leave you like that.

All right, fine, fine.

On this thing of governance, we're not going to be in any position where you didn't reform.

The hell with it.

You are not going to reform.

You don't get sucked into that under any circumstances.

I think we ought to put into that an immediate decision.

Yeah, that's what they're going to do.

They'll start a big clearance procedures for that.

I ordered that all these be revoked, you know, after the Quikert thing, remember?

Let's be sure that it has been revoked.

I'll have Abe's office checked to see whether it has been revoked.

If it hasn't, I'm going to fire somebody.

I really am.

I'm relieved because if the guy had played it smart, you know, he could have put us into an entirely different position.

But on China and Russia, you were starting to talk again.

You explained the things and so forth.

Did they respond?

Oh, I had a very good reception of them.

I've got a blog, I've told them every answer.

I've got a tremendous collection at the end.

And you can deal with it or switch it.

I've got a goddamn tire of these guys, the Republicans, frankly, the Republican does.

I really am.

The Republican does.

Acting the way they are now is totally irresponsible.

The same thing that he's had to do, he even does, with what we've tried to do.

Henry, we've broken our ass to get this war over.

If we had taken rest, who stepped up to it?

Remember, who stepped up to it?

We can't believe it.

It's November 3rd, Cambodia, Laos, May 8th.

That's why we're in as good a position as we are today.

If we survive this damn campaign, which we love, well, we better.

I think we've got to move these guys out now.

That's a deadline.

By cleaning them out, I'm going to clean the whole goddamn State Department.

I'm going to clean out that Defense Department.

I'm going to clean out the CIA.

That's what's going to be happening.

And I think... You agree?

Absolutely.

And I don't think any of these guys...

Those guys, they aren't gonna be in the White House again.

I really mean it.

They're gonna be ostracized.

Correct.

Absolutely.

But I think the government is not... Well, it's hard to get off of me.

Okay, I'll see you at 5.15 in the office.

And let me say, I'm not going to say much to them.

Shouldn't I just say, give Brezhnev my best to hope his health is good?

No, that's, you know, just say, remember you today, and say, this is another example of cooperation that you think is only to get them to go much further.

But I'd say no more of those.

Now, if you want to stay up there tomorrow, you might sit in the sun a little while.

Take a long time.

I might stay a couple of hours.

Take a couple of, take a second prayer if you want.

I have to be back by lunch.

All right, fine.