On March 7, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), White House operator, and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 4:15 pm and 5:50 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 418-002 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Bubbles over.
I could imagine him, for example, sitting in a leadership position.
It's shocking to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Rogers has some of those same qualities.
Rogers, of course, has always been optimistic.
He's flying over to Nelson West, too.
He's more restrained than Nelson.
But if he's distracted, his attitude is that way.
Did you ever check on that Charles Gill thing?
Yep.
We think we are.
It's an amazing thing because there was no rumble at him beforehand at all.
He obviously saved up and decided he was going to pop it on to you.
We've got our friend in here.
They may have one.
The first place she has headed is she started at some incredible figure like $26,000 or $28,000.
She's now at $32,000.
Which is the same level as $10,000 more than any other secretary in the place gets.
It's above the level of any of the staff assistants or deputy assistants or any of that type of people.
It's below the level of the
by a senior special assistant like Carmen.
Carmen's at the top, but she's below Buchanan.
That kind of thing.
But she's above all the Steve Bowles, Dave Carters, and anybody of that sort.
And we can give her a raise.
That's true.
No, I mean, you shouldn't.
She's paid way too much now.
But if it would help solve the problem, then I think it's worth doing even if we do.
It's not true that she hasn't had a raise, though she has.
She hasn't had one for a couple of years, but, you know, I haven't had one at all.
You know what I mean?
Don't get rid of it.
On the other side of the road, I would like to demonstrate
I don't even know what Manolo's take or how.
I think I'd pay some of it.
I don't know how that works.
I mean, I think we could pay something, too.
I would see the photo of the, you know, the mother's bridge.
They never asked.
But I think they're on the right stuff.
I don't think I'd understand.
But I should take one over from them.
Or I should be able to get them.
I just don't know what else to do.
Maybe on the resident staff.
But he isn't totally on the person.
He isn't totally on the person.
He works all the time.
He works, apart from when he doesn't repeat, he's already working on the government.
I think a little raise there would be a nice change, right?
I wanted to be sure that we got the POW thing nailed for another reason.
I don't want their celebrity value to be put away by their parents and all that sort of stuff.
Of course, everybody's trying to make money.
Yeah, we do.
And the people, their caretakers, feel very strongly that we should announce your event right away.
but that it should not be scheduled until mid-June, which is 60 days after the last one should be back.
And they say you're going to get into, there are going to be more that are less well off.
And they're also, you're starting to see now the guys after they get over their exuberance are asking themselves to go back to hospitals and spend some time and get back in shape and all that.
The first few days is if they've got the goose, but then it all sets in.
And what we were toying with is June 14th, which is white today.
If you want to tie it to a patriotic occasion and make something out of it, you're going to have to see it about the right time.
Well, OK.
I've argued that we ought to go earlier, that we ought not to wait that long.
And they say over the past 50 years, I have to say they've done a hell of a good job on everything other than that.
It would be very unwise to try and do something out of that.
And even that makes it a little early that they understand that in a deeper time, they agree it ought to be announced now, and they think they can keep the lid on any bill.
A vent type of stuff.
Another thing I was going to say, well, then would you tell them to keep the lid on events?
Yeah.
The other point is that I wonder if there is, and the one thing that kind of bothers me is a call from somebody like Denton.
Once I say, I don't like it, call Reisner or Denton.
And they both are dispersal.
You know, I'd like to get the deal of that.
I'd like to talk to these two guys.
You know, I would agree to take the terms of asking.
I had, speaking of that, I had never seen such a rash, grubby bunch of kids as those BFW boys from the Democracy Watch.
They're embarrassing.
I don't know why they're embarrassing me with it when I look down.
I did have a...
They overruled me.
They were too careful.
That's amazing.
If you think that he had done it, he would have done it better.
It's not right that they ran that way.
They should have worn the same kind of clothes.
They're going to see the president.
They should have come in like that.
You know, like those future farmers and the kids like that, they always wear their blazers and their neckties, and they don't look comfortable.
But at least they will.
You know, so do the scouts.
And the boys' scouts always wear their outfits.
So it's that coral boot that you had in.
You know, we're going on tour.
We're all dressed up.
Only little boy and kids in the boys' clothes.
Steve doesn't notice those things.
I don't know why.
Maybe it's not his job to do it.
It's harder to do it.
It's going to get him through it.
I believe in shaping people up.
I really do.
I think that's what you're seeing with service guys.
Service guys shouldn't look like, you know, unkempt, strong, strong, dirty.
You know?
Maybe they think of it that way.
Unless they look more like people
I've never seen them before.
Because basically I've always been there.
There they are with us.
Thank you.
Well, there you go.
Wow.
I don't want people to think they've got to relax.
I don't hang out with congressmen and senators.
Kids, of course they do.
But kids, a group of them, they think they're not supposed to.
And the White House, too.
Well,
but wasn't perhaps there this time.
I mean, the heart is not used to the place.
It's a small heart.
No, but it's important.
And it's a very awkward thing.
I've been in some of those situations.
Also, people that have not known what to do.
And they've been there.
And they're overawed.
And I know to break the ice.
They want to respond to this.
The way to do it is to clap.
You know, break the ice.
But there it is going to break it.
Looking at the .
I would have no objection.
I understand the idea of the stag to meet some of Kendall's people who are not big for your time.
So you mix a whole group together.
Although your tree is probably well-to-have, one is pretty much.
But some common tie, you have to have something to tie.
You've all got to be supporters of the stag.
There's a certain element.
The stag dinner, to me, is one element.
Like I say, it's a lot easier for me, Bob, than other ones, because
The minute you've got the wives and the people, and I've got their horses around and that sort of thing, you've got to break them down.
And I've got to talk to them during the day, which is horrible for them and for me, frankly.
What about a second year with women, too?
We have women in their own right.
You don't have spouses.
That's still not so good, though.
Men like to sit around as most of the time.
I don't know.
They're doing...
But they're more qualified than blacks.
Much more.
And more than Mexicans.
And more than Americans.
Right.
Not close to Texas.
There's a lot of the same.
We're...
The women we've got, we're doing pretty well with them.
We haven't had any real disasters.
But when you make a note, you're right.
We've not had good veterans.
We've had... We've had... We've had... We've had... We've had... We've had... We've had...
I don't even look for it while I'm on the radio.
For me, you know, that's the point.
I think we're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
We're going to do better.
Robert Mueller has added something to his, you know, he's, he has compromised some of his building and so forth.
He hasn't done very well, but he's good.
But he's added something that is interesting, which is, like, what we're doing, Robert, what we're doing, and that is, he has to, he has to defend the death penalty for what he calls organized crime.
I want to be a shocker.
Okay.
We're going to have a very legal group in Postman.
Do you call?
No.
Now, John, that was over.
He knows that this responsibility matters.
He's a chariot only so far, and he's got a dog underneath.
Well, bye.
Make a date for that, remember.
There, there.
And how's it now?
Could we wait that long?
That's your question, or do you want to try and do anything in between for that?
Well, on an overall basis, to respond to the question, you've got all these questions.
Well, you've got the question to the Sandy Davis thing.
You've got the Vietnam veterans, the Vietnam veterans business, the armed forces, whether you do something on Armed Forces Day, which is May 19th,
this year, particularly Bay Street, to the Stephanie O'Rourke, our Enforcers and our Veterans, and moving to the Volunteer Enforcers in the future.
We've got Memorial Day, which is May 28th.
Question whether we can do some honoring of the Vietnam dead or something like that.
I suppose I can attend the parade in order to do a television performance.
Well, another thing I can do is do radio talks anytime.
Yeah, but rather than doing some masked armed forces type thing or something, you're getting good young men that way and officer corps and good people.
They don't have one.
They don't have one.
Well, they say now they may, they don't think they are going to do something based on the MIA or something.
I don't know what.
But that won't be for a while.
And on the, on the thing here, what they're talking about is, is doing it as a, well, one suggestion that they raised, I think as of now, we just announced it as you're gonna have a dinner, go over to the dinner club.
One thing they raised was the question of, of letting them win their families.
And I don't know whether logistically that just falls apart or not.
Well, I didn't mind whether their faculty do something entirely different.
Would be to have something for their kids later.
And have a big thing on the ground so that their kids can come and I go out and meet their kids.
Well, that's what we're...
I don't think with the kids there, this is... Bob, you've traveled with the kids.
They've been paying hands.
Now, let's face it.
They say they want their kids there.
No, they want to go see the other guys.
They want to meet the wives of the other guys.
They've sat there for six, seven years, four, five years.
I don't think they want to see all those brats.
Some of those brats are not going to be well-behaved.
Some of them are going to be offbeat.
You have those problems.
I don't think so.
I mean, you also have those logistic problems.
It makes a hell of a lot of people.
You have 400 of them.
If you have the wives, that's 800.
If you have the kids, that's 2,000.
Another 1,200, 1,500.
I just don't know.
I don't think so.
It should be the man or the wife.
But the kids, I want a party for them later.
And we'll tell them at that time that their children are all invited for a special Christmas party.
So we like that.
That travel probably gets all back in.
Well, I can say that any time your kids are here with a special tour of the White Cross, that's what I'll do.
Whenever they're MIA kids, I'll make them quite shake their hand.
Very easy.
Any time they're here, I want to welcome the children to the White Cross.
Am I important?
Let's just do it that way.
Let's do it that way.
No, the kids didn't.
It's not your kids.
Sounds great when it's wrong.
What they'll do is they'll come back and bring their kids in sometime.
That's great.
And they'll go ahead and see you when they do.
That's great.
I think that's better.
Yeah, I agree with you on that.
all the recommendations that you may want to display.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
And also, not for a drink.
If it's a group of 100, you have only for a little booze.
But 40, 35, 40 people can be in the cabin room at 5 o'clock, 6, perhaps.
Yeah.
And for them, it would be a big thrill to be in the cabin room instead of over in the social space.
It adds a reception.
So coming over, coming into a thing in the cabin room where the big shots gather is going to be, I don't even have a better idea.
I don't know.
If it's something that's more than you can do that.
That's right.
If it's something that's more than you can do that.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, those guys, last night and tonight, they have a stake in you.
They feel that.
They feel that they had a hand in it.
Wait, what?
I didn't know that.
So it makes that feel good, and that sets a good boundary.
The man comes first anyway.
So they introduce the man, and the man is saying, this is Justin.
If there's something to say about the woman, we can put that on the card, too.
This is Johnson with your state general in Iowa.
He walked out and called Keith.
He is, they are going on another show, but they're not sure when, but he said that wouldn't be who was picking on him.
The Sario cast and the other thing, he'd like to do it.
He said, I'd come back and I'd have to be there for a couple of days anyway, and they're giving me a chance for an event.
And so we set it up, set it up on the phone, and I had to rehearse it.
And it sure goes on and on.
What I would do, Bob, if you can, I would consult him.
What he said is,
Yeah, your other guy said, we've got our people out, you know, and he said, I don't know whether George pushed anybody else in, but he got a, he'd come off a lot better, you know, if he did the action when he started that.
So, right.
Julie, he's a Christian, he's a man, and the whole thing.
Right.
So, is that, and he loves the action, doing the, the chugging, he's broken hearted, but there isn't one in.
Well, we're doing later.
Yeah.
And is that, were we able to get the other girl?
No.
They're afraid to take a chance on her right now, and we can't get her apparently anywhere right now.
That's the case.
Paul thinks we can work on that, but it's worth taking a chance at some point.
Well, we're going to get to that country next to this show, which the show folks say we can't go over.
It's a polished show.
Right.
The LP.
He'll do the old one from Muskogee, which is his big number, and some of the other guys we've known from Patriotic.
Well, it's American business on that.
Oh, yeah.
Paul had good ideas for various shows, you know.
Paul had a great idea on the Irving Berlin thing.
You know, we were talking about the problem.
When you get the stars, you can't get them to just do it short.
What he was going to do was he had a thing where the show was going to open, where you gave just your opening remarks.
to introduce the show.
And then they start with an overture.
It's sort of an Irving Berlin overture.
And it's just a quick sort of pump for you.
And then the orchestra goes into a medley that lasts for 35 minutes, one number.
And in that medley, you weave in and out.
It's just one continuous medley of the Irving Berlin great songs.
And you weave in and out the singers.
And you have Fred Astaire.
Pebble Herman, Bing Crosby, and I've forgotten, somebody else.
The four big stars that they're best associated with, and they have hand mics, and they just come on and do their numbers and come off, so the thing keeps going, so they can't do encores and hang-up types.
Then, at the end of that, all four of them come on, and there's no business like show business as a big browsing phenomenon.
Everybody thinks that's the end, and of course not.
And then as the applause dies down, the Army chorus from all parts of the room, singing very softly, God bless America, come in and converge on the stage, coming through the audience, singing it softly.
As they get to the stage, they sing the Ethel Merman and that bunch join them, and they sing the chorus, and then they have the whole audience join them and sing God bless America.
And he said at the end, I know I'll never forget that production.
And, uh, see, that's, now, he says, there are all, that's the thing we don't have over here now.
He says, one of the things we're investing with one of our great supporters, he says, you don't realize how far he cuts across the board, is Jack Benny.
He says, the evening with Jack Benny is absolutely marvelous, because it's classical music.
He plays the violin with the ethical orchestra.
He plays and does some good straight stuff, but mixed with it some just hysterical comedy-type music.
Even at the station, I heard.
He said, just great stuff.
And Lucille Ball, he said, you don't realize the appeal she has to the kids because they all are watching the rebounds of the old Lucille show.
That's true.
Our team is my team.
Lucille Ball loves your team.
She does.
Great.
He said, we can do a big thing with that.
He's all excited about it.
It's a great thing.
The evenings are a very inexpensive way in terms of, you know, a lot of time for us to take care of it all.
And for people to have fun.
One time we didn't have our own.
And to be in the line-ups.
And it's a way for them to be in the line-ups.
And really, for an awful lot of people, it's a lot more fun than a dinner.
Because the dinners,
He said he saw a big deal.
There used to be a big deal because people weren't used to eating that well and having four courses or five courses and three different wines.
But now virtually everybody does it at some time or another.
They're fuller.
Really?
Yeah, even the big hotel banquets now, they're getting bigger wines and all that stuff.
It's really kind of... You didn't get to pray again at first time when I was returning.
I've been all over the place.
The dinner is a big dance.
You listen to Drake.
The evening is your fun.
People can have their dinners around the town.
And after Sandra and I talk to each other, we meet the president.
And then we just don't matter.
And then they can stay and dance.
And they do, sure.
And some of the entertainer will move around and dance with them.
We'll get a jam session type thing going.
We can pick up some of those.
My first big reaction to the jackpot today was that it was not a good one.
It was based on the first piece.
I read the second one.
I read a lot of it.
The press was good.
I read a lot of it.
Ron said it was correct that he got a general positive press.
Including in the Washington Post.
I heard that.
I mean, most stories are very good stories.
You may have a situation where you post their notes.
I mean, now they can't get a lot of it in the Post.
You can't flatten it out back and forth or something like that.
OK.
But the Post also, you know, Sammy Davis is so in that it would be hard for them not to do a job.
They have to say Sammy Davis was good.
They can sort of make it in spite of the fact that he was in the White House.
But they didn't.
No, he hasn't done any of this bag time that I want.
You don't have to worry about the coach.
No, you don't have to worry about what you're saying.
What I meant is, it's a kind of thing when the president, everybody's a little tired.
You've got to get a big stuff going for you.
The guys have a hell of a good time in the Army.
They yell after them.
They yell after the road demands a way.
That's the kind of stuff that goes down through the air.
They want good policy.
Well, the men want that kind of music.
Men like... That's what it is.
The women love that...
Girl, I'll drink some.
And I've heard anything like that too, but I don't think they respond to it the way they do to their women.
The women do.
I think the strolling strings emotionally need more stuff.
The women get more out of that than they do out in that center.
It's romantic.
That's good.
What's your...
General Plotman, there's a few visits.
Do you see any kind of ceremonial?
Oh, yes.
I'll close that one.
In other words, an arrival?
Yes, sir.
What do you do?
Have them arrive?
Out of the airbase.
Are you going to go out to the airbase now?
Oh, sure.
You'll go up to El Toro?
Oh, yes.
I should go to El Toro.
Absolutely.
And ride back to California.
Put the parade on there.
Put the parade on there.
Keep it up there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
that nothing after that is quite what it is.
Occasionally, I bring him over to the top of my house.
I don't know where we're going to have to stay.
I'm going to get him a house.
I'm getting him a house so he doesn't have to be able to do work.
Get the best house available out there and put him in a house.
much better than that.
Right there at the same time.
That's right.
What I want to do is to walk in and just read the citations, not speak for all of them.
I would like to do it with the department, which is very, very free, just to be there.
But you plan to attend the dinner?
Oh, yeah.
I want to attend the whole dinner.
Okay.
Now, if they were planning, the village was planning on having a reception ahead of time.
I'd like to attend it.
Well, why don't you have the reception instead of the village?
Let me give a reception.
They're doing the dinner.
Why don't you give a reception or the guests to the dinner?
The room has a capacity of 1,300.
Yeah.
Well, you'd have to have that mall.
The board would never stand in shape against that mall.
I don't know.
But usually, wait a minute, you start shooting after 13 minutes, that's two and a half hours.
The other problem is if you cut it down, you're laying it down to the film institute, your trustees and stuff like that, you don't want to do that because some of those aren't all the right people.
It's the friends and board that, which is mostly going to be there.
What do you do if you're never receiving money, not receiving all of it?
Task drivers have argued that you should do the reception.
Let them have the reception that when you go to them, you just arrive at the dinner and let them play you in.
I didn't need any driver.
After everybody's in and seated, you come in last.
You sit down, have the dinner.
Then I have no opportunity to do it.
Now you can think, well, there's the dinner.
You can do it.
You've done another of those dinners.
You just get up and once you've sat down at the table, get up and run to the table.
Get off.
Don't knock the seats at other tables, but just get up and move around a little.
Is that good?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
I think people would really appreciate that.
It's an easy way, like you did at the economy, where you cover the whole table, you know, without having to cover everybody.
All right.
Good.
As of now, it appears the CBS is going to take the thing and run a special...
the following Monday night on it.
But it is, which is sure to impact them.
Sure.
And their plan is to run some, they've produced a film on John Ford's career.
They're going to run excerpts from that film.
They'll have excerpts of John Ford films in it.
So he started with, you know, a recap of some John Ford films.
And then we'll have a marine band
How does Pat like that?
Yeah, that's great.
Ford has put out that he's getting a medal of freedom, so that's great.
And everybody is very happy.
It's a good idea.
Super cool.
I would be glad to do a little of a reception.
Maybe that's the way to do it.
Maybe what you should do is just do the head table.
We could work on the dais.
Provided it's a real good head table.
Why don't we do that?
They should have a hell of a big head table and let me do that.
And then I'll reach the table out.
How's that come to you?
And the other thing you can do is you can have a head table reception and then add other people to it.
That's a way to set up a... Tell them that I'd like to do it.
I'd like to shake hands and fortify themselves.
They love it.
That's also a way to get a few pictures.
I just don't want to get us trapped into the board and all that.
But also it's a way to get a few pictures taken and all the scars and so forth.
It's basically what you want to do.
You see it's a way to see the problem.
We're doing a hell of a job with these people.
Okay?
With regard to schedule this week, I think what we ought to do is to schedule the tomorrow Friday afternoon.
Friday afternoon.
Do you want to schedule Friday afternoon?
Sure.
That would be my view, though.
Well, I'm trying to get out of here.
Well, I suppose I could go to Camp David, but going in the afternoon is not much.
Wait until 12 to 5 for dinner.
Schedule it.
Well, schedule it a little earlier than that.
I believe at 4.30.
Okay.
At 4.30.
I'm going to give John a chance to know if they have something he needs or wants or maybe...
Incidentally, I'm always glad to see people up there, y'all.
They're in-house people.
Good chance.
I understand, Henry, that you need to see her.
You don't need to see her.
He doesn't want to be done in the NFC.
NSC is unsolved.
He doesn't want to report to the captain.
The captain?
I don't want her to take the whole damn time with Ernest Jordan.
He's not coming.
That doesn't matter.
Cancel.
Well, no, let's see now.
Oh, Brennan can't be there.
And the whole point of her in Jordan being with the NSC was to...
So what are we going to do?
We've got to get him, don't we?
We're going to make it on this whole surrogate plan and get you to get off gas and so on.
I'll tell them a little about the ATV at Tom and that sort of thing.
You can let Bill do a little bit of it.
I'll let him do that.
On the thing that killed Still, I think, doing yesterday, what did you do?
Killed Still on the phone now.
Telling him that Friday after the ER, I referred him to a meeting person and that he'd take about 20 minutes.
20 minutes.
And also to give them who was charged an ATV at Tom.
A couple of quick things.
Wanted to get together with you, you know, get a rundown on the conference and all of it.
And wondered if Friday afternoon would be convenient for you on that.
And so, do you want to make that about 3.30?
Okay.
And also, he wondered if you could plan on giving a 15-minute overview on the thing to the cabinet on Friday morning.
and focus it on the pitch for aid so that they get the story out of that.
The basic thing on the county is going to be domestic.
They're going to get on the surrogate program on the budget.
So you want to get the background on the need for aid and then establish troops so that when they're out of speaking they're aware of that.
All right?
Okay.
I guess mine.
The reaction was all just sensation.
You know, well, that's it.
We've got a pretty good case, and obviously you've got it through.
And the reaction was very solid.
That's a good way to make that point.
It's absolutely true, and they understand that when you put it that way.
Great.
Here's a note about the fat cats.
He said, I love fat cats.
He did very well.
And he said, I found an interesting thing that I use with them, and I use it with a lot of these groups.
He said, when you see a man closely all the time, you don't realize how he's grown.
And he said, I realize it because I get out of this country and go over to these conferences and come back, and I know what position the president holds.
I don't think people in this country really realize the stature that the president has in the world.
You know, that's a line Bill just doesn't help a good job.
He is a leader for peace in this world.
His line to these guys, they were all very, very high on it.
And I realize this, too, because his memory is important to me more than anything.
Henry's dead.
But Henry doesn't solve the problem.
He does not solve the problem.
The other thing Bill said, and that's very true, and Henry sure doesn't understand this, he goes after him again.
Bill kind of laughed.
He said, you know, they're not, he said, you know, they're not, it's funny, they're not really very bright people.
And he said, they ask these sort of stupid conservative questions, and when you give them the answer, it just completely melts away the things they're concerned about.
What did he say?
That's how, see, Henry gives them an intellectual answer that probably doesn't know their way, where Bill gives them a simple answer that's used in their simple mind as well.
So we have to realize that they are using the simple mind.
They don't know.
They don't understand the complexity.
Well, he does this.
We have to realize that that's an asset that's very, very important to us.
He pushes it.
He pushes it.
He pushes it for blatantly.
He's not a bit ashamed to say that.
I was there.
I thought through that a little bit better.
And to think how the parents would count it as just a stick.
But it's all good.
Yeah.
If you have layers, you watch it for $200.
You don't give them money.
Because you'd like to give me an insult.
He talks with us, and he tends to get at meetings.
He tends to say, that's a better way to get at leaders' meetings.
And he advises us on strategy with the Hill.
How does that sound to you?
Here, I ask you.
I'd like to see it.
I'd like to see it.
that puts you in a kind of embarrassing spot and it's totally out of the question.
I think maybe you understand it better than anybody else.
Why don't you just come up and say what you'd like to do with it.
It's just something that while you're around here, it's just going to be enormously important to us.
As people spend time on the radio, I don't know if you can advise us on the strategies and tactics and all that sort of thing.
You know, the President feels a need for him to come and sit down and be there and give him value from a company standpoint.
You see, you get Mel away from his dance, one of the best things, where he's better for his own thing.
He is, as you know, one of the most skilled black and white directors in the country.
And his great, his strong forefathers are not military.
It's always been the best.
You might do this, run it by Harlow, you might say, brush with him.
He said, well, maybe you won't throw it when I find it, maybe last year.
That's going to give you confidence to be honest.
Another thing that would be impressive to Congress to think that we have a guy, one of their guys around here who's really new.
They don't, let's face it, they don't
I think we need to eat enough.
That would not hurt.
I find it
I don't want to be too hard-nosed about that property appeal.
That sort of thing has to be done.
The reason it takes, the reason you can't go by is the price.
And they have to come in.
You can't get them in on the price.
There's no way.
There's no way.
That's the reason.
They can't go by.
You've got to be gracious.
You've got to be gracious.
It is worth it very often.
I don't, it's certainly not worth it.
That was worth it.
Only because we had a problem.
And what about the management?
It is.
Somebody told me that everybody was supportive.
Steve, afterwards, he said that's when he opened the thing by saying, here's one that Bob recommends against.
But the number of people think you ought to do it.
And he said, we shouldn't do it.
All right.
Let me do it.
Very clearly, because I knew that was when I had said no.
But I didn't get a credit on it now.
I think what I'll do is I'm going to send them in.
Where I feel, where I know it's going to go, I usually don't send them in.
But sometimes there's a lot of people who think it's a good idea.
I love it just because I think you might think, well, I'll tell you what I like.
There's another reason.
You ought to indicate you feel strongly I should have put that word in.
And that would trigger me.
And I may still do it.
I usually, I try to put a reason why I oppose it.
I don't have to say, oh, I said I oppose it because it does no good or because it's too repetitious or...
Okay.
I have no idea what I do.
Well, you look at the...
I try to go back to sort of the basic things that I'm trying to do.
Sure.
I'm trying to pin down...
As far as health is concerned, none of us has succeeded.
We've done a lot of talking about it.
I said, what the hell?
We really, our goals really are.
The other thing I was going to say is that I think we need three or four people, I mean, including our ABI.
But we've got to sit down and determine what our PR goals are.
We sell our country so we win votes in the Congress and all that sort of thing.
I don't know.
It's very hard to boil down those opinions.
You can't take those people's views.
What you really come down to is that you've got, first of all, the overall biggest goal, long-range PR and substantive.
The thing Bill Rogers talks about, the world statesman for peace, or Nixon the peacemaker, or the international leader, the world leader.
And that, all of us feel, and I think all of the external analysis indicates that that's a thing that you've got.
And the key here is to preserve it.
But you notice an interesting thing about the fairly potent
I'm sure the kids would come to you loud and clear.
Kennedy would accept when they finally forced him in his third year on a civil rights issue.
He was already talking about it when I had to whip him.
I had to make him a dash.
Believe me.
You notice that?
Yep.
He was right.
It's always been my theory, too.
When I go around the country, I don't go around the country talking about, well, we've got a terrible problem on the international monetary thing, and how do we balance the budget?
I always talk about the big picture.
Like when I talked to these guys last night, I touched very briefly on that.
I talk about the big picture, China and Russia, and that's the national spirit.
What do they want to hear about?
What's the crime that they want to hear from me?
They don't want to hear those other things, do they?
I think that's
and world leaders.
But you know, Gunner realized right at the present time, I am in a stronger position than that in Eisenhower.
Because there's nobody else in the film world.
But you've got to have a stronger position than Kennedy.
Because then there were some other people who hadn't done it on that.
And that was stronger than what he got.
Because Johnson never understood what Kennedy did.
He failed that, too.
What Kennedy tried failed.
But it makes sense.
He could have held on to it.
But the fact of failure was still there.
And the fact that failure didn't come through totally in his time, but it sure is now coming through now.
Sure is.
I keep peddling that 13 Great Mistakes book.
That's right.
My book's out of print.
Yeah.
It's absolutely fascinating.
That book was published in 1968.
It's out of print.
Unobtainable.
I finally got a copy in the public library, the Washington Public Library.
The copy I got, which is also kind of fascinating, is the only copy they have in the public library.
It was published in November of 68.
It was checked out in, I mean, it was published in the summer of 68.
It was checked out in January of 69, right after the election.
It was checked out again in March or something like that of 70.
Again in March or April of 71.
Again, I think it was May of 72.
And then I checked it out in February of 73.
It's been checked out once a year.
And that's all.
The publisher, yeah.
The publisher, does he ever come?
I don't know.
We're trying to track that down now.
Now the second part, what about the writer?
You know who wrote it?
Malcolm Smith, Jr. Somebody in our space.
Checked with the board.
I don't know, but I'm trying that down, too, because that's a book that now should be rebranded.
He's not a good writer.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
But on the other hand, his books are dynamite.
It's fascinating because of the subterranean...
Again, it's like all of those.
I read it.
I read the book, and I read the very book.
Because you can do it.
You just sit down one night, you're dead tired, and read, and read, and read, and you won't be able to do it.
But that book, it murders the bastard.
It may have worked.
I think I was in the news week, I was interviewed, and we got into something, and the book was on my desk.
I said, have you read this book?
And you know, true, it's a fascinating book.
but he's, incidentally, and I think Henry's right, the guy is totally told on your conceptual approach to foreign policy, and it's just fascinating to buy it, and once he's going to do a book on it, write a book on it, I told him that now that he's got the White House assembly, he's the guy that ought to do, he ought to take a stab at a book on not just your foreign policy, but the consistent law
the Nixon Second Monopoly and look at it in that context and get kind of intrigued with that today.
But I said, have you read this book?
He said, I've never heard of it.
I said, I didn't think so.
And he said, I don't know whose book.
Nobody has.
Yeah.
And I said, if I ever had it, it would be better to run it in your broadcasting system.
And again, it's a lot of stuff.
And a lot of this chapter, the first chapter, is just fascinating.
It plays out the whole Vietnam basis in about four pages.
It covers the .
But this made the point that Kennedy went out to his big first televised press conference.
He said, we will not let Laos fall.
And then he got in the Rose Garden and whispered in his ear and said, we're not going to allow you to take Laos by force.
And did all these brave things.
And then Harriman said, we better let it come home again.
what's his name, take over.
And it just kind of, with all this brave talk, I want to find Smith, but I don't really know him.
He was probably a cashier out of the businesses that were in this book.
He was private.
I will bet you that the book that Dick Kennedy's bought, the entire ring, and probably the plates, and maybe the publishing company.
That's the end of the talk.
If we get...
That goal, as a PR goal, I think that overrides.
I think that's the one that, in the first place, we've got.
It's a matter of keeping it polished and up front where it belongs and moving.
Then you've got the other one for history, the long-range, the PR goal.
What do they write about Nixon?
It's something that is still a little nebulous, but it's...
The new FDR, or it's the Mixonian politics, it's mixing the politician in a sense of the man who restructured the American federal system.
The man who came in and changed the socialistic trend towards always bigger government taking over more of everything.
Turned it around 180 degrees and started eating it the other way.
Started turning it federal.
and the federal government are doing help to the state.
They're just tying in that whole, the new federalism or whatever you want to call it, but not in those terms, but in the more personal terms of what the man's concept and the boldness of moving on these things.
You've got some interesting stuff to play off of on that in the concept of a Republican taking the steps, saying it's the Republican going to Nixon, the anti-communist going to China, Nixon the Republican moving the controls in, but then
Definitely not just burying the nation under the bureaucracy of a controls mechanism, but putting on controls and then definitely taking them off and moving around and all that to get the work.
And then the leader of men.
Just pure leadership story.
The man, sort of.
And on domestic programs and stuff, I don't think there's any legacy at all.
I don't think you want to try to
First place, I think you'd be ashamed of whatever legacy you leave.
Either way you go.
Except maybe crime.
Well, maybe.
But that is...
I don't think you're going to be able to settle.
I think that's something you want to do the best you can.
You want to turn up.
But how are you... You can't build yourself a line on crime.
On the attitude towards it.
On the federal lifestyle of crime.
There's a hell of a lot more than that, you know.
So it's all social issues.
You want to remember there's something deep down on that.
It's there.
You mean that on all of us businesses, giving power back to the people?
I play that.
I think that's one.
That's one you've got to go back to.
Because that ties in with the majority and all that.
But you do it just on that basis, not on the... Energy's a big fat now.
The environment used to be.
You can't make a nickel on either one of them.
I don't think it is.
Energy is becoming a thing a lot.
You can't.
Because nobody gives a shit about energy unless it isn't there.
Unless the oil man cares about it.
Well, the oil man cares about it, but I mean, they've got the person to do it.
The people don't care.
The energy thing.
Unless they're prioritizing it, it'll go on.
CBS has been trying to give up and nobody's doing a shit about it.
That's right.
It isn't even, doesn't even have the drama that the environment does.
Because the energy crisis is totally negative.
There's nothing, there isn't
No interest except on the energy bills.
If your lights go off, then you get pissed off about the energy crisis.
When they go back, like, you don't care about it anymore.
And that's the end of energy, right?
The taxes ties to the whole new federalism business and all that, the economic thing.
But you're not going to get that, except in broad strokes, you're not going to get, I know a lot of others have it.
Broad strokes, you can't.
We are in this vision.
So reorganization only in terms of turning federalism around.
Reorganization, per se, .
Nobody cares whether you have counselors and all that.
Whether you have counselors, or whether you change the Catholic departments to four or 34, or whether you increase the White House staff by 1,000 or decrease it to two.
It will make no difference.
But whether you take some leadership does.
And that's what they'll argue is that you've got to show, you've got to do some of those things.
But you don't.
And you've got to, well, so what do you do to carry those out?
I don't know.
I think on looking at what we do for the next year, maybe two years, is there two things that you've got to spend your time doing other than
the foreign policy thing that makes it, you know, leadership in the world.
And that, sort of, we can't do much scheduled planning on, except in broad strokes.
I mean, what that relates to is seeing, dealing with crises as they come along.
And taking some positive steps ahead.
Your idea of the African tour probably, I think, is a good idea in Latin America.
Latin America is, I guess, essential just on a negative basis that you can't not do it.
the European thing, and back to Russia again, and maybe back to China someday if they come here.
As opposed to Japan, I don't know if that's a problem.
Probably.
But what do you do here?
Well, you only have, I think, two big things to work on here.
One is the battle of
getting government off your back and out of your pocket.
Fight the spenders.
Fight the spenders.
Fight, you know, no new taxes, no increasing taxes.
That ties into building up revenue, sharing where it works, and hacking away at the improvements and needs where it's not, and show how you're moving power back to the people and the new majority.
Thanks, and tie into that.
The other one is just trying to build the country.
And I think that's a terribly important role for you to take, because you, I think, are the symbol of the reestablishment of faith in the country.
The POWs are a big boost, and China was a big boost.
And the square value stuff, mystery is the social issue, too, the recognizing the basic institutions, the family, the police department, the armies.
And the volunteers that held in America is sort of the fundamental values of religion and faith in the country, pride, self-help, moral integrity, sacrifice, and all that.
The stuff that's the purest method, which you're sort of the symbol of.
And you're the symbol of it in the things you do and the way you do them.
And I think you've got to maintain that.
And I guess, too, I think you can as a guy of the recognized square America by it.
stuff where we argue strongly and completely concur in everything we do we've got to recognize the squares and by non-recognition to be the best majority type or to establish an approach talk to the herman cops and ignore the you know the other side of the Georgian half and you know that we've got to approach scheduling and
And the effort, I mean, it's all broad and negative.
That's what I'm talking about.
It doesn't get down to the right things.
Another goal, if you're thinking about it, another goal that we've got to look at, and maybe slam everything towards for a while, and that's the question, that's the strategic question you've got to ask, is the 74 elections.
How much do we care about 74?
If we care, then we can do without it.
We don't have to say we care.
But if we do care, we can.
And we've done some research to try and go at it.
We can do our scheduling approach and the things we do with that thought in mind.
And we've analyzed the races, the 74 races, to figure out where what races.
Senate, governor.
Well, it's really the state races are about all you can look at.
Yeah.
The House is the only place we've got a chance.
Okay.
Okay.
Then you've got to wait until we get those target districts worked out and then go on that.
As you see the Senate, we know what the targets are now.
The House, we don't.
You can combine them.
You can look also to try to cover a regional balance.
You can also look to do you want to try to cover the entire United States?
Again,
in the next term.
We want to try and get all of it to stay on track.
And if you want to tie that to specific things, if you look at the regional stuff, there's some pretty good possibilities and some that aren't.
We can work towards events that exist.
I'll do that.
I want to go to South Maryland.
You're committed to the DFW, and that's in New Orleans.
So you're going to be back in Louisiana.
Okay.
I guess you've got your real estate thing.
And after that, you're going to be back in New York.
There's a big Uber birthplace thing in Iowa.
I was going to tie something to that.
Well, it's ours and his, but we can look at who we want to try to help and where we want to try to go.
Try to... Then... Look at...
I'm going to try to keep you above the little battles and on the big plane and then force our other people into the little battles.
When we get to this budget thing, then keep you on...
something that highlights your interest and doesn't get you into fighting any particular issue, you should go on with a veto.
Because if anyone vetoes this, then you probably should go on with a statement of wanting your veto in some way to some level at some time.
We have to angle what you have to do.
You were concerned about the thing.
You have to let those out.
They're not horrendous.
You start through the year and it's, well, there is a bunch.
Marsh is already settled.
April, we're starting to look at it.
Lock in.
You got the question of whether you want to leave on Tuesday.
We ought to decide that fairly soon.
because we ought to get the invitations out of it.
I'll be here on the 10th of April.
Which is, Matthew's right, Easter's not until the 22nd.
And Drotty is the 17th of the week after dinner, and Easter is the week after that.
All right.
You can have two steak dinners.
Not steak dinners, no.
What I would do with you, if I were you, is have a steak dinner.
And let him speak.
Because he's such an interesting guy.
Let him speak.
I don't know.
She isn't that great.
She may not be, because she's on a lecture, not a social.
I'll have the press cover.
I'll be not.
I think you'll be able to.
But the way I have the press cover is to invite Howard K. Smith and Roscoe Drummond.
And Joe Alston.
I agree with you.
I'd like you to ask him to give a talk, to give your guests his view of the world situation, as we've seen from one of the world's lesser known, but more astute saints.
I think I have a pretty big, whatever we have.
What do you have?
The new establishment.
I'd have friends who are people you want to build up as leaders.
And I'd get them.
That's why I'd have Howard Smith.
And I'd have Don Kendall and a half a dozen of his businessmen.
I'd have a couple of the, you later, as many of the university people as we can find that were with us.
We've got quite a few around.
Those little letters.
That's right.
And I'd get some of those in from obscure places, you know.
the Texas State-type people, and all that.
And I have all the labor guys you can dredge up.
And a couple church-type people.
Just a cross-section of various types of people that are interested in foreign policy, that have met with us on foreign policy, that are the types that we're trying to make the end people and screw the other people.
It's the kind of dinner that the elite would expect to be invited to.
So I wouldn't invite them.
Oh, I've got it.
And just invite the nuns who are the rule.
Sure.
Have a little noise, you know, I'm sure.
You're a little old.
But don't have to have a drink.
Of course not.
Our friend Mike Flynn from the New York Daily News.
Well, I admire 233, I believe.
Yeah, some of those challengers that I've, Joe Bird, and there are two, three guys like that.
He has been great.
Checked them in.
Two of them look pretty good.
There's a possibility they could bring in.
I'm certain those have dollars in them.
Right.
But it's that kind of thing.
You just, all right, some people around that would survive it.
I like that.
If he was as fascinating a guy.
No, it's the way I support him.
And we might not.
We just might not make it through.
I think it's better maybe not.
I would think not.
I think it means more to these people that he feels he's free to talk.
And I say, you're free to do this.
This is not me.
I'm not going to have an objection.
I'm going to talk freely here.
You were right about it.
But that's it.
Now go ahead, sir.
I think that's better that he's not as constrained.
And the goddamn press isn't farting around, you know, wanting to be a host of just negative privacy issues.
It's a different kind of thing.
Then the next week you have the same thing and you see we're not doing it correctly.
It's not working very good.
Or if you feed it on too much food.
But I put out the guesswork.
It's like a cross-section of America.
You can ship it.
You always enjoy talking to the Prime Minister.
You may be interested in your movie at this time.
You were up on the standard on Saturday night.
You were up on the standard on Saturday night.
You were up on the standard on Saturday night.
You were up on the standard on Saturday night.
hoping to keep his cane and then hoping to finally keep going.
So that he can stay as long as you want him to.
And if you want to, in a letter to him, you know, accomplish this out until, for a week or so.
So you keep that clear.
Then you come back and you've got, uh, really nothing.
You've got, and Tanaka was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
Where do you come out of that?
Do you want to try to do that before the Russian visit?
Right.
And if so, we can work on it from here in June.
We have no state visit in May.
We don't have the black box.
We can move the black box.
We haven't locked in because we were waiting until we knew when the Russian came in.
We were afraid to send the others down.
I put the black in, but I'm not going to go get one in May.
Right.
That's what we had in mind.
And then...
And the rush is at the end of June, and that's the end of the state visit.
Business in the center is July is clear as far as any block demands.
There's nothing.
Somebody wanted to come to the center.
Sorry, sorry, go ahead.
The FWM did the 20th of August or something like that.
The latter part of September, the summer of September, we begin on the Europe trip to Mexico City.
And the Japanese, the emperor, I guess, is in October.
Well, you better get him locked in the spring.
Well, it's not locked, but it's...
I wonder if it's really worth going to the country to get shared.
I think it is, but I don't know.
It isn't worth as far as I'm concerned.
It's a witness against one of our, our oppressors and others.
So we ought to do something first.
Well, you've been cheered pretty well.
I mean, we hear that most of the field up here is cheered so big.
That's right.
That's a big crowd.
And, you know, you've had one, let's see, let's say you've had one motorcade, you've seen them all.
Yeah, but I, you guys...
keep reminding him.
But the time to do it is as soon as you start, either when we predict you will see or when you actually do start to see the people going back down again to the president that's aided in the country or can't go out or is hiding or whatever.
We need to nip those before they hit us.
He's made a point, though.
He said, you know, it's just tragic that we aren't
He had exactly the point that I wanted to talk about.
It's not only how you put on a big show, because we have put on some big shows with people like that, and you're professional enough, but how do you get any mileage out of it?
He was saying, you know, it's just a shame that you didn't like that Pearl Haley, which it has to be.
Now that, with her chair, with her chair, and the way you played back and forth with her, and the way Willie Braun did, and...
That whole thing would just have to be just a thing like, the development thing was.
Well, they got a big play in the press, but nobody actually was able to sit through it.
That's a thing that would make a superb half-hour of television.
I don't think people would have been able to watch it.
Well, his point was, I think, if we can work out how to film those things, not running them live, but filming them so that you can cut the thing.
And then make it available later.
He said, then, you know, he said, we've got these cycles where the president is active, and he said, it's inevitable.
You've got to figure out where you're at.
You've got to hold up and get the problem.
I've heard of that where it takes an hour.
I've filmed that damn thing and made it available later.
It's frustrating now because it's hard to focus it when you go on.
It's hard to get a...
Okay, now you get into sort of the specific objectives and things that have to get done.
We've started the battle of the budget, whatever you want to call it.
We've got to win it.
What do we have to do to win it?
What we have to do, or most desirable thing, is to avoid having the Congress pass budget-busting legislation.
That requires majority vote, and one has to be killed.
The second thing is to avoid the Congress overriding your veto on such a big offense.
That requires a lot of clarity.
What do we do to get those votes?
You don't do that part of it by working with the Congress.
Most of that you're going to have to do, or we're going to have to get done, by getting equal pressure on the Congress.
And that's by getting our surrogates and everybody else to hit all the time on the write your congressman, don't your congressman know point, rather than any other mobilization.
But we really ought to push people on to send 10 letters, you know, get 10 people to send letters, and then each of them to send 10.
There's nothing you can do for your country.
That's right.
And yourself.
The President said, and I'm looking at you for myself, the first thing you can do for yourself is have the government take your money away from you.
And in the process, you're giving something for your country, and no one says no cause is wrong.
The other thing
Congress.
The other thing we've got to do is make sure the food infrastructure piece, we've got to get the enough.
And that one, I don't think you do.
That's just the opposite.
You never get public support.
You can't get public support for that.
That's a sophisticated argument.
It's got to be made man-to-man, little group to little group, with senators and Congress.
What do you think of women?
All the feds, in general, cannot make an answer to it, but it is something to be specified, so it maybe can be made.
Do you think Mr. Provolko should get married?
No, sir.
That's the answer.
You didn't think that through, Manolo.
No, you didn't think like that.
If he goes to bed, he can't go to school.
He has to die first, and then we should take him to the other team.