Conversation 449-001

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T-Y-T-Y-T-Y-T-Y

This is what we're doing, just keeping the old block going.

You see, I've been, I've been pursuing this on a QT with Buzzard over there.

Now we're discovered.

Good morning, I, what is your, uh, hot point for the last, uh, second?

I've been playing a little game with the General Counsel over at the Pentagon, and we're putting out an extricated version of the Pentagon papers, you know.

I've got a couple of searches on him, and his orders were not to release him.

And he's very upset about it.

Of course, he wasn't in on the play at the end of it.

So I'm going to have to get us straight about it this morning.

I'm going to just double check with you to see if you knew what was going on in case Henry came by us again.

What's his objection?

What he feels is the issue has been the gun papers again, which we don't want to do.

Which he argues we don't want to do.

Why?

Well, he feels very sensitive about it.

He feels, he thinks it should, it should all be hushed up.

It should go away.

He would like we should not have any pen and dot papers anymore.

We're moving just the opposite direction, which was, you know, in your instructions to give.

I would have done all right.

It was half out, except that somebody leaked into the post last night.

And so the post is out with the story this morning.

And Henry got with it last night.

I talked with him, but I didn't... Well, why don't you... Did you have a... Did you have a chance to talk to him?

You and Colson talked to him about the politics of the thing.

Okay.

Have a little kind of chat and say, now, look here, this is something we're going to do, and then we're going to keep him out of it.

All right.

That's what it's...

I think he's deep down, he's very worried about that.

Right.

Do you think so, Bob?

Probably.

Yeah.

The other thing is that if the problem is the Vietnamese elections, I can see a reason to wait until after the election.

In other words, so that we don't have a riot or some damn thing as a result.

I mean, so they can't pin it on that reason.

We can do that.

I mean, that's only two weeks.

We can do that.

He hasn't raised that as a final objection.

He just doesn't want to depend on papers.

That's it.

He just re-graces the whole issue of Vietnam.

and all this stuff.

Do you agree?

Well, no.

I think our strategy is to keep that top boiling.

That's the way that we can.

And this is a hooliged-up version of the paper, so the Times is already wrong.

That was his other argument, I guess, is that there will be a discrepancy between this version and the Beacon.

There's a publisher that's going to come out with deals for, well, I don't know, I'm not reading it.

And their argument is that by a process of elimination, you'll know the difference.

But these are the bell papers.

These are the New York Times papers, basically, that are cleaned up.

Well, let me say that they've got to be about the time they do not.

This is kind of all good.

It's all good.

Well, I'm here in anticipation that we'll be hearing from Henry.

Well, sir, I'm not going to talk to him today.

I'm busy.

Good.

And I think you ought to say that I'm just tired of the domestic, but why don't you have a little fun with it?

All right.

You and Colson go ahead and talk about the political situation and set Colson up on it.

You've got to keep this thing alive.

And this is something the Democrats are trying to sing.

So the only argument that I think he can give on the other side is, well, first, he could be concerned about himself.

Second, he could be concerned about

raising the issue of Vietnam.

The issue is raised.

I don't think, I think it is raised this way.

It's going to be raised other ways.

That's right.

Or do you agree?

No, I think we have to keep going the way we're going.

There isn't any way to unring the bell.

The fakers are already out.

They're trying to get them.

There's even a story in the paper this morning about how the Japanese opposition is using them against the platform.

So they're out there.

We're not going to add very much to it by this publication.

And this is only the beginning.

We're going to do a lot worse.

Well, then you've got to give the order to Helms.

I've got to see Helms.

I'm going to see Helms tomorrow.

I have a partial list now.

I want to know exactly what there is so that they can't hit Missy Cree.

And Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs, and the assassination.

The assassination is taken.

We're just...

I've been used to coming back to finish it on him.

We'll get all the facts ready.

Now, these are things that I have not, when I talk about it, I am not really so concerned about doing it now.

You understand?

It's happening.

It's the timing.

We may want to show it.

that may be going to do it in January.

Henry's point is way to the anchor, but we're not going to send him.

We're going to make this an issue, come hell or high water.

The Pentagon Papers have to be an issue.

Hell, we got into Vietnam, right?

Because they got us in, and we had not a god damn thing to do with it.

That's my point about it.

It's that side of the story that hasn't gotten out.

Well, that's not the other stuff that's getting physical, is it?

Well, physical is actually the other job, which is the record.

Okay, that remains to be seen.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know how deep the waters are on there.

I can see it's already going down.

You know, uh, how does your, how does your reading go when Henry's listening to you or talking to you or anything like that?

Does that make you go, uh, yeah, at all?

He seemed to be, when we were talking about, you know, the fact that he's negotiated some of the trushes and so forth, and how he's standing in the polls or something, very important.

I said, well, I'm not sure who he is.

He said, thank God, I'm sure there's 46 or something like that.

Yeah, he didn't get into that.

He didn't raise it last night, and I didn't want to get into it at all.

But I do want to find out what his, I don't think there is this.

I mean, I think he's, he may be, well, I don't care.

The point is, if there is, it's something that can't, it's totally inconsistent with the way I saw it.

It can't be, because they haven't taken one down in a week.

But needless to say, on the more positive side, though, that it's the trial evening.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the businessman.

Yeah.

Good God.

Oh, I kissed her, you know, blast all over town.

It's good for him to have, isn't it?

Yep.

And we do give him this.

that he could use that we haven't put out.

The main thing is to talk to him about it.

Yeah.

He's a great talker of the gossip.

The whole discussion last night, after Henry got there, got to the how you put together a planning and then stacking mechanism on the international economic

which Connolly has now said he wants done at the White House.

And both Connolly and Henry have now said that obviously the person who should do it is Peterson.

That's where it belongs.

It's his responsibility.

Both Connolly and Kissinger feel he can't do it.

I feel he can.

And the only conclusion that any of them come to, the conclusion that all of them come to, is that George has got to do it.

He's the only one that's been staffing.

Although I think I acceptability is running low with the brains and the one with the button down is a lot to do with that.

George?

That's why I feel that because, interestingly, George, on a substantive basis, would give his life and money to do it.

He's absolutely fascinated with the subject.

He feels that you're on the brink of real history.

To him, this is as important, I think, as China is to him.

You guys want to hurt Peterson and so on.

But he says, I don't see how you can do it with Peterson here, and I don't see how Peterson could say, if you put it on me.

Well, Henry comes up with his diabolical approach to it, which is that

You leave it ostensibly in Peterson's counsel, but you actually, what you do is you program outside of Peterson, you program finally Schultz, McCracken, and Kissinger.

The four of them meet separately, agree, and then when they get into the council, they move on the decisions, and the council will never, if those four go together, the council will never go together.

I haven't made the same note.

So instead of a strongman or something, I have a common man.

He does too.

Connie Schultz, Kissinger, Connelly, Schultz, Kissinger.

Well, Kissinger wants to be in it.

Cracking for economic expertise and because that side of the council.

Good.

I wrote that right down last time.

I got it from a piece of paper.

And it's exactly the plan.

Now the problem they had was that Henry was going to talk to Connelly because Connelly has asked Henry how to do this and asked Henry to do it.

And Congressman Henderson talked to Connelly, he said that Connelly agrees with it.

Then they look at Schultz as the lead guy in staffing.

And that's the problem.

Schultz has, has, has, in, in Connelly, that's good.

But now, all of us do exactly that.

All right, let's take Connelly and Schultz.

And, uh, well, no, I don't think, they don't want to get in with you.

They don't want to get in with you.

They'd better just move on.

I'll get you all set.

Yeah.

I'll get you all set.

How was the, uh, how are you going to come on?

You got the Detroit name worked out the way I want it now?

Yes.

It is going to be radio on it, that, that ontology.

Don't you think it's a good idea?

Yes.

Are we going to do it?

Do you guess it?

Rather than actually losing a little bit of coverage potential, we always use coverage.

That's a really nice coverage.

You'll get, uh, there'll be, uh, you're not going to get all the coverage, that's true, but, uh, Detroit.

Should I just get an inbox, a regional, a live coverage?

Well, are they ready to cover live?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

The only way to set it this way is if someone comes back with a really good kind of proposal that we might have to consider.

Now, not the proposal, which we always get from our friends.

This is my .

She, incidentally, she took the Maurice Sands approach, and she's worked with these people last night.

I don't think she's got a really cranky life.

I do not want to be pressured by the TV people to say, well, we've got enough to tell them.

Yeah.

I mean, we either do it, or we decide, or we don't.

We're going to let you know.

Well, filming Portland won't do us much good, because there's no Sunday morning news.

Saturday evening, there's no late Saturday news.

So what the hell is this going to do?

Well, you get the 11 o'clock news and then today's show is morning news.

Well...

So you would get some for one minute.

Yeah, that's the problem.

You're facing one minute, one question.

You know, we've been through that.

And we'll get more in two.

Well, so you get two minutes.

Have we been through this at all before?

Yeah, and I don't think it's worth it.

That fiction, you'll still get the answers.

That's okay.

All you're losing is the fiction.

They've got it, Frank.