Nixon, Haldeman & Flanigan on Presidential Appointments and Economic Policy

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There are a few questions that get on the line.

You don't already have a line.

Our criticisms are going to bother you.

All right.

The advantage of it for a bus is simply that you can spy on the State Department.

I think you may have raised some of the, the, the blind knowing that if you go over there, they will let you be a spy.

And, uh, I don't know who else you can get to be a spy.

We sure as hell haven't got anybody to look at right now.

The state is going to really try to throw its weight around on this whole economic thing.

And whether it falls or .

And whether it falls and fails or succeeds will depend greatly on the state.

You know, they get their fingers in every damn pie.

So there's the oil committee, there's the world trust.

nothing about anything, they just screw it up, usually.

If you could handle that.

The problem there is whether or not in that bureaucracy they let you being the outsider and just putting the right hand there.

So, I agree with the conclusion that it would be best for you to stay here from our standpoint.

I mean, I think you can handle, in other words, continue to handle all that kind of problem from this area.

It's got a lot of very major problems to solve.

What do we really do about the foreign investment?

Sure.

way back before it was on the side of the United States.

Yes, sir.

It's as cold as that.

Now, the other possibility is this.

Actually, I think that it enhances you over there.

Is that a possibility?

If you had somebody else you could put over there, we could control.

That's what we need.

I mean, San Diego's is a pleasant fall.

He's awfully smart.

He's smart, but he doesn't know anything about practical politics.

That's right.

But I like Stangles.

I like him.

I've been very impressed by him when he comes in.

He's very heavy.

Well, I think, you know, what Bill wants is an infighter.

He needs somebody to fight the battles over there in that bureaucracy.

When he lost this battle here on this international financial policy...

Or he wants, and he thought, well, the way I get back is get somebody who's got some in with the White House.

And I understand what he's trying to do.

Whoever goes over there, he can certainly approach the financial, international financial things on it.

in a way that's more helpful to us.

But I don't really think he'll, from that point, he's ever going to get into the guts of the State Department in the other areas.

I think that Irwin and Roger and Alex Johnson will have... Yeah, yeah, I agree.

But I think that who might go over there first is Matt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I told George, and I hope he told you, that...

If you wanted to do it.

Whatever you want.

We had the only time we really had a man in the State Department who was on, well, at the highest level, was sort of a rejecter.

And, you know, of course, Dallas is, you know, as far as I think that's, I mean, you're trying to disband this.

So, you know, I'm going to be around this year.

There's no way.

Elliot was good.

Oh, I know.

Elliot was.

and he's basically, we're in a loyalty situation.

But it's a terribly difficult thing in this field.

You need somebody to apply your battles to, I don't know, I have mixed emotions about it.

I don't know, you might go over and then come back.

It's not so easy.

I really think that the opportunity, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

He's persistent, but not very strong.

Lifting.

Right, lifting.

I mean, he had a frankly, he said, Bill really wants you because you've got some balls, and I think he knows you can win a fight.

And those people that have got balls, you can't tell which they are.

That's true.

Isn't it awful?

Well, they invite for themselves over the country.

They're just fighting each other all the time.

You know, they spend a little paper, they sit at the table, and there's a lot of meetings, and a lot of messages cleared with what, and he wrote about that, and he heard what they were arguing.

It's awful.

But they're so bright.

You've got to have a broad perspective.

You go around to these guys in the Foreign Service and the rest of the meeting, you'll find a guy that gets away from quite a nice law.

You also have to say that when they put forward a position, they have probably researched it better than any other department in the government.

No question about it.

They're much better than the defense.

Well, at least we're getting an accomplishment.

Jim Landry, you may not know him.

Well, I know him.

He's very good.

I met him at Connors.

The fight with Morris, I think, was fatal.

He's very good.

Actually, he's right.

But Landry, I think, is great.

He's got a lot of character in him.

Yes.

He is good.

I don't know.

I must say this is a terribly important area.

This is Bob and I talked a little bit about it.

I mean, I didn't raise it with you because I don't do it.

I'm giving you the code.

You've got to look for yourself and see what you want to do.

You could be all you've got over there.

The other thing is that we first need you here in terms of not just this morning, but I'm expecting all this other stuff we're going to have along the way.

The Ash Council report apparently is the only way to do it because that not only allows you to appoint the fellow, he's your guy.

He's the only guy there.

He doesn't have to fight with the Mary Gardner gentlemen.

Oh, yes.

There's no way to change that.

I'll tell you the business community would jump up with joy.

That's the only thing we could get with on that one thing.

You'd scare them to death.

Assholes, I think they can control the president's...

Well, the other side of this is, putting it quite candidly, is this.

I hope I'm at the advantage of having you there, and then moving you to the undersecretary.

But what you've heard is what we wanted Roberts to do in the first instance, and he wouldn't do.

I remember what the advantage of that is, that that is the place where you can, where you can move directly into the cabinet position.

That's the natural.

Well, I must tell you, I'm going to get early and start on Roger's mark now.

Roger's just going to kiss the ass of all these environmentalists on that Alaska pipeline.

The rest he shouldn't indicate in advance if he makes us not worth a damn.

I don't know if it's worth a damn or not.

Wait a minute, Pete.

Mr. President, we've clearly got to get that oil out of there, the right way to get the oil out.

It's a pipeline.

It's a pipeline through Canada.

Oh, I think this is wrong.

We're going to have to start to know this.

I think Rock is saying things that satisfy the press.

I'm going to have to say things that satisfy us.

Get that one filled for me.

I use that.

Yes, sir.

We can't give it to them.

Because if we do, we'll lose the state of Alaska forever.

We have 11 of them.

Oh, they're dying for it.

Because of the job.

Because the road is not through the middle of the state.

So we have to stay away from them.

We have some help.

Martin is losing the state forever right now.

Either way, he just says it.

He says we want to be behind the pipeline.

Because it had fire in it, you know?

Good God!

That is not a good reason.

It's like saying, you know, SSP, because we have fire.

That is not a good reason.

Can I have it then?

I'm so sick of the confident environment, I could die.

Well, let's see, who was it, Bill White, somebody today, didn't they?

Well, part of the environmental system, you know, here we go.

The truth of the matter is we're going to have both pipelines in time.

It's a question of which comes first, the one down to Valdez or the one down through Canada.

But the Canadians are now pushing the one through Canada.

My real feeling about it, I'll do whatever you want me to do.

I think I'd get over there and be on a side track with all the things that you're worried about and that Henry's worried about going down the main track and not being able to do anything about them.

And in the economic thing, where of course it's important, the real action there is going to be handled by Peterson.

And should be.

It's got to be out of state.

I could be helpful, but I don't.

Except that I'm able to make Russell a fashion.

If that Shakespeare's man out there, he's done enough for him.

I quite agree.

The guy's a disaster.

What was his name?

Branson.

Kenneth Branson.

Branson.

From Texas?

Yeah.

Why is he a disaster?

Because he just hasn't, according to the State Department, according to McComber, I reviewed all of our people and they've been... McComber's a good man.

That's right.

He says that this fellow just hasn't caught on, he doesn't know what he's doing, and he's completely inept at the job.

He's the number one guy they think has been a disaster, and they get very, very flattering about most of the others.

Probably the right kind of a guy to those people.

Yeah.

I think he'd be all right.

And a wife, you know, really, because he's a long way away.

That's fine, he'll love them.

I wrestled with him a long time ago.

I don't know what he was saying.

Yes, sir.

He's still on the go.

You know what?

I think if a fella doesn't measure up, he's been given his chance.

That's what he was after his $100,000.

I've been having a little trouble with Shakespeare because of your friend and mine, John Shaheen.

It's all taken care of.

He finally agreed.

That letter was withdrawn.

Clark McGregor made the call.

To Shaheen, that now in the...

I thought that part of it surprised me.

That's not the problem because that's a purely technical question.

My responsibility is the president's relations with the Congress.

And I have to tell you that you're jeopardizing his relations with the Congress if you put this up there.

If we put this up there.

And I just don't want to do it.

And he said this has been unanimously checked here.

I'm afraid we've got trouble with Bill Casey, too.

I'm afraid Bill has been too much in swinging kind of financial deals.

I don't know, Mr. President.

We asked him.

Specifically.

That's the amazing thing.

He says on this lawsuit that he says he forgot about it.

Well, he might have, but there's just so many others.

What do we do with Grover now, man?

Does he get out?

Oh, I think if we want him to, he'll withdraw.

He won't get sick.

That's right.

He'll be unhappy, but I think he'll do it.

Here we go.

But that's his fault.

I really do.

I'm on both these guys.

Well, why don't you pick up on that?

I still like, I still think that we're missing a veteran being on some of the former chief executive officers.

Now, for example, Bert Cross is retiring.

He's head of the 3M.

He's a friend of mine.

Yes.

I don't know a moment.

Oh, you bet.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

See, that's exactly not it.

See, one of those guys, they just go through life, and they do a television show after five years.

Sure, they're 65 years of age now, but full of memes.

They got it.

They really got it.

And they know how, you know.

They're politicians.

I know you love to do it.

We've got a great job to offer to one of those fellas.

Great job.

He only has to be a good, tough negotiator.

We have a good job for somebody who's smart but doesn't want a full-time job.

It's six weeks in Geneva at the World Radio Conference.

He owes us a full ambassador.

Takes a couple weeks at either end.

He negotiates for that period of time.

Joe McConnell did it last time.

Don't have to know anything about the radio.

He's got to be a tough negotiator.

He really wants something.

Look, now let's check this one out.

This don't have food as old Joe and all that.

Let's really get through the names of the 100 top people who would like to, you know, be buttered up for something.

Somebody wants to be asked to do something.

I was shocked the other day at Martin Earl Blake.

I haven't even been invited to the White House since we've been here.

God, he would have been horrible.

That is awful.

It's terrible.

Remember, in the 60s, you can do a great job.

And Earl West, he's a fan of this.

And Bob, there's something wrong with our system.

We miss a man like him, really.

What was it that he wasn't acting in 68?

Yeah.

And so he doesn't come in on the outside list.

He should come up on Rosen's list because, you know, he tells you he worked in the old Frank Coles brand.

He's McCarthy.

Jesus Christ.

Well, guess what?

There's a guy that we, I guess he's 70 now.

What a guy.

Good fellow.

What a great guy.

The other name he had on there was Texar, who is...

If you want to do something for him, he'd be fine.

Just great at it.

I have thought of Bill Marriott.

Well, Bill wants him.

We've done a lot.

That's one way to get him off our tail.

But I can't get him out of here all together.

Yeah, he's such a bore.

He's a great call.

So give him the job.

He's a good negotiator.

Mary, I don't know.

I don't, I don't know.

If I was, as between, as between Barton and Mary, there's no connection as to who'd be best.

Oh, Barton.

Please.

I think Darnold would be great at this job going over there.

He'd be great.

As ambassador.

And he's, uh...

I don't think Darnold's looking great at the moment.

I'm sure he's looking for something full-time.

Is he?

I get the feeling that he is.

Dr. Royal O'Brien, text with...

He's ready to get out of the business, Pat.

And he'd like to do something.

He's only 58 or 59.

Garvin is in that age bracket.

He's in that same age as I am.

He'd be it.

If you're looking for someone to take that spot, that title.

Garvin would be great at that job.

When you look at his career, he's had four successful careers in the flag.

He's a... You bet.

I think that's good.

Not a thing.

You get all that kind of technical support.

And Earl Blake, I just want to invite him to just put on some commission.

In one of your things, high-level things.

Not a permanent thing, but he just sort of honored

Thank you.

Roy Hatch is here to talk to you and see whether talking to you makes a little bit of this undersecretary very complicated.

Is that all that you want?

Is it under?

It's not now.

It's got a race.

It will race.

It will.

The understanding would be, we'll put it like a selection of the race, but the understanding would be while he's assistant secretary, the rocker would immediately treat him as an undersecretary.

He's a deputy under at the moment.

But for our purposes, he's undersecretary.

He'd be here, and I would insist that he be at all those meetings that we have with the leaders of the committee and everything.

We've got a view of a businessman in on that, too, see?

He'd be great at that.

He'd totally outweigh it, wouldn't he?

Oh, he'd be on our team.

He'd see it from our point of view.

Then you see you've got a guy up there who also could go to Canada, right?

You like to have people at that level around.

That would be a hell of a good, uh, potential.

Transportation, uh, and with the Congress, the Tate Congress is great.

And one of the, hey, why don't you have some, anybody in the audience that's sick or something?

We've got, we've got lots of candidates, but I'd like to just put it in there.

You know, when you come down to it, after all the vision about economy,

I have to say, Mr. President, that I was appalled when it was first announced, and I am just as far on the other side now.

He is superb.

The way he handled that 130 businessmen that night, he said, I'm not going to preach to you, and of course he was just preaching like Billy Graham, and they were...

Imagine each other and saying, yeah, that's the way we do it.

It was, it was, it was.

And what he did to the New York Times when they thought they had him.

Just put it right back.

He is.

Well, he's so current.

You see, we need in the cabinet, frankly, we need a couple of other guys who are potential presidents.

Yes, sir, but we need some salesmen.

That's even more now.

That's what a presidential president is.

That's right.

He's got great work.

Sure.

There is a man that I don't think is compliant work.

When you look at our political team, like Bowlby and Romney, they're fairly good salesmen, but they're not really consented to be heavy.

That's right.

We're talking hands-in-cheek.

That's right.

On the other hand...

I think with his colleagues, I think he does that job exceedingly well.

That's right.

You know, there was a fellow, the past chairman of... Mr. Robert Tyson of the United States Steel Company, New York, please.

This guy, you know Bob, he did an apology for the U.S. state government.

He got rid of a lot of coin around here.

You know?

Oh, that's good.

You bet.

He's a little bastard.

Nationalized president.

He wanted you guys to be much stronger than Roger.

Roger, you know, sir.

Roger.

There was a... the past chairman of General Motors was in here the other day and he said that he had heard the... Did you get the other one?

The other one was sent out to be repaired also, Mr. President.

Sir, I'm Robert, isn't it?

Yes, sir.

That looks so good, but they're very dark.

But you have a very thin point on here.

You got a fine point.

All right.

Mr. President, the one I've enjoyed in one way or another is that every subject I've had has been here with one exception.

They've all got us over, honey, except the consumers.

And that is without a doubt.

They've given her to me.

Give her back to me.

But we have a problem.

Sorry to put this to you, and I'm sure you don't want to read a long memorandum.

The question is in product safety.

We have to have a product safety.

We have to have legislation on this subject.

We're going to be rolled on it.

And I've taken the position that rather than trying to outdo the Congress, because we're never going to get credit for it anyway, we'll be responsible.

business community is not going to castigate us for what we put up.

We'll be able to come up with what we say is a good program.

But one of the elements of it is consumer product safety.

We've got to have some legislation to try and assure that the design of lawnmowers and all that kind of thing is safe.

The question is, who runs it?

Most of it is currently run in HEW.

Maury wants it run in his shop.

OMB thinks it ought to be in HEW.

They would take it in commerce.

While I have great concern about the inside of HEW, I think the logic is HEW.

The point is, it's all crap in any event.

We're not going to win on it.

If you put it in commerce, we're dead ducks.

We're putting it in.

We're frankly having, it's like having the judge investigate himself.

Correct.

Sorry.

But under that, in ACW, but with the bill, not to be abusing the bill, with a lot of free market clearance and all that kind of business.

Would you knock that out of the department, Bill?

Hell yes.

All right.

We'll go on.

Arthur Burns is, and we're going to take a little time.

I'm going to let him get a comment in one, but we're going to have to trim his sails a little.

Arthur.

I said, Archer comes in and he moves, moves, moves.

And you were, what do you read about Archer's number, basically?

And I read that Archer's number on something.

It was on the Penn Central.

And he walked out of here practically ready to be sprayed in the cave.

In other words, he cracks and cracks us.

He's too much better than the Jews in New York, as you know.

He's terribly affected by the, you know, how they are.

They're all in this.

This is the beginning of it.

Second one.

We come down to this thing, and Archer,

The first thing, well, the forecast, well, if you read it carefully, it's all right.

But he's smart enough to know what the pressure's going to pick up.

And it puts him against us.

However, he says the problem is not money, it's confidence.

I think it's inexcusable.

I think that he should have been up there saying the same thing that we were saying.

That's right.

How are you feeling?

Great, great.

Oh, and you know, I'm like you, the more the pressure, the harder time we get.

I always say to my friends, the tight, you know, hard time guys, remember when we used to do a little politicking, Bob, I have something I'd like to have you discuss with Pete Flanagan if I want to raise it with you myself first.

very important negotiation which has to be conducted in Geneva.

It'll take a couple of months.

And we don't want to go through the State Department because those people wouldn't want to do it.

We want a top businessman.

And of course, whoever does it would go as

as Presidents, Ambassadors, and so forth and so on, it requires, it happens to be in the field of communications, but it does not be demanding or sending about communications, it's mainly associations.

Now, I was sitting here talking to Pete Blanton, and we were going over the teams, and we haven't, it just came up this morning, and if you would consider it, and next time don't tell me what you would do,

I would like to have Pete give you a ring today and talk about it, if you would consider it.

I want you to know that I would like for you to do it.

This is not, let me explain, I wouldn't even suggest it.

It has nothing to do with cosmetics.

This is a very substantive, tough negotiation.

It's one where we, the Americans, are strongly negotiating on our side.

We'll develop, of course, we'll help develop all the positions and the rest.

And the main requirement is the top business exactly.

That's what we're really looking for.

So could you consider something like that?

P, right.

Yeah.

Sure.

Well, no, no, no.

Don't even consider it.

Talk to you about it and then chat around the whole thing and give it your best thought on the thing and then whatever we come up with, I'll understand it.

You take it.

Fine.

If you don't, why, talk about whatever the name you might think you're doing.

How's that?

Good.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, things are going all right.

You know, in this whole business, you've just got to keep slugging away.

When you pick up some of our papers and you read about Southeast Asia and you think things are going well, you've just got to remember that we're doing what they are.

They are things that we could have done four years ago.

That's right.

Right.

No, I don't worry about them.

The more they correct me, the tougher I get.

But anyway, that's it.

Well, they will, man, because before, when it really matters, it'll all be over.

Right, right, right, yeah.

I sure will, I sure will.

And people can come to you sometime this morning.

Will you be where I reach you?

Good.

Well, he'll be...

I'll get him a ring.

He'll call you within, yeah, within a half hour.

And now he's gonna be called ambassador for the rest of his life.

Uh, then you get, you say, well, what about the other name, blah, blah, blah.

How could you not do anything without having heard across the... Alright.

That's just throw a word across his name.

Alright.

Okay.

Alright, let's do, uh, let's say, do stay here.

Let's find a name, but, uh, on Barman, shall we wait?

I don't know that we should approach that through Roy Ash, or whatever the other name is called, Barman.

Alright.

Okay.

I will go through Roy.

No, I don't, you don't want Roy asking, speaking for his boy.

Yeah, and Roy might do that.

What do you think?

Personally, asking Tex to do something would be a damn good thing to do anyway, simply because he has had the being that he started, because of his ties with Johnson, that he sort of don't like it when he's a Republican and all he does now.

Why don't I ask him if he would...

if you would consider it.

All right.

Why don't we do that?

Yes, sir.

With the caveat that I started this out with, I'm here to do whatever you want me to do and to do what's best for the industry.

I thought it through.

I think that there are too many irons in the fire.

I'm politically invited.

You're good at that.

You ought to do it here.

The Department of Safety Department.

I don't know.

To me, for me, it's a great suit.

I think you've accomplished most of what we need over there.

And I think you can be way too good.

You've accomplished

If you can't get into the rest of the guts of the defense, you never, nobody will ever hide the truth.

I think you have to be in the screen in order to do it.

You can't be, have a position out of the screen and inject yourself.

You don't think this is in somebody in there that wants to know.

You look at what happens with Cruz-Eisen and Samuel and those fellows, they're just out until they're given that job, particularly if the secretary doesn't want you in the screen.

You've got two other undersecretaries that are doing it.

The political and the organizational stuff over there.

I just wonder if undersecretary for economic affairs is something that a company would consider.

It's a problem particularly when you don't have it.

You'll remember it used to have that title.

I know.

And they downgraded it because they wanted two undersecretaries, two other undersecretaries.

Undersecretary?

No.

No, the State Department by appointing a political undersecretary.

The question I think really is, how long do you want Alex Johnson?

How long do you want these two?

Are you talking?

Well, first, I think what you might do is to call, uh, uh... Go on and say you're talking to Bill.

I can call Bill and say he's talking to me.

Bill, then I have an idea that's way out.

I have an idea that's way out.

I think, however, that's an enormously important position.

Or maybe I could raise it with Bill.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'll let you go.

You can call him to Bill.

Uh, is that right?

Does he have to tell the devil you're not going to kill him?

Well, I can tell him.

You said you preferred to keep me here.

And I can tell him kind of frankly, you know, we've just got a lot of things in the field and appointments and so forth, so many balls in the air.

I want you here to handle all those that I just pitched.

We just haven't got anybody on the screen at the moment.

that I made is way out of the things that I made.

That I would be a power.

I'd be really mean going for a big player.

Bill is the kind of guy that's been going for big players, generally.

I was starting to be a powerful man.

What the hell are you crazy with?

I'd crap around naked in front of those little idiots.

He'd be like, how about Dexar?

He'd be an opposite number.

And, uh, sure.

If you ever want an operator, if Bill wants to get a guy in state, you can send that to him because he sure would have it in front of him.

That's right.

Rogers, please.

But I'm going to get Tom in here today to see if he can come over and do his convenience.

Well, I thought about it.

Arthur is, Arthur has such a, it's the same people you know.

It's awful.

That's right.

Look how I treat you.

You've been awfully good to me.

Well, good God almighty.

I picked him up.

He hadn't had to jump in the first place.

You know what I mean?

We've done all that.

We fired him up around his house all this time.

We have been so socially oriented.

He's a lot better than his predecessor.

the impression, God damn it, he's creating a lack of confidence.

That's why that kind of statement.

He's not attacking the issue in the political direction.

Arthur, he's too hard on us to know how his statements would be interpreted.

And you need to see when the word is said, the problem is not money supply, it's confidence.

What in the Christ are they talking about?

Confidence in whom?

In the President, of course.

You know that's what it means.

That's a fellow in that team right there.

You've got to talk in a ballsy way.

Fine.

Assuming that he did well in World War II, he screwed up the economic thing.

Except for the fact that he had an aura of confidence which Pearl Hoover could not protect.

That's right.

And then, when they had 15 million unemployed, that's what he did for the country.

He sundered the spirit of the country.

Now, God damn it, when ours returns, or any other jackass in this administration pops off instead.

Now, Maury is a problem in this respect.

Uh, let me, have you got it?

Yeah, I've been walking Pete on that thing, you know, Pete, uh, let me tell you this, uh, this can't do it.

I think he did an excellent job, and I think he'd be, you know, a great asset.

The problem that we have, frankly, is, is that Pete handles over here all of the

at the end of that agency, he handles the appointments and all that's going to happen.

Frankly, it takes a man to stroke and knows the big guys and all that sort of thing.

And I just feel that we can't spare him for that because I thought, for example, when you put him over there, we can handle him from there.

That won't work.

You've got to handle him.

But, so, you see, now let me ask you this, so I understand that I got nothing for all three of the theaters.

It seems to me

You might have an opportunity here if you want to try it.

This is way off.

I don't know whether they're going to be able to go or aid one of these business genius societies who could come in there and

who would be operating the position, who would give State the, you know, the letter of duty to all these negotiators.

Now, here's a name.

Tex Clark.

Before you say, yes or no, here's a fellow who's my age, your age.

He's made four fortunes.

He's considered to be, of course, the closest to Johnson, but he's always a supporter of mine.

And he has indicated that he's,

would be willing to do something.

I mean, I just had a chat with him.

He's here for the business council.

If he would take such a thing, it would give, it would give, it would give a, it would give a something to this position, and it has never had, it's never used.

It's basically like a packer for Indian City.

That's just the name that occurred to me.

Does it have any interest?

Now, the way we would have to do this is to deal with that.

We might have to do it on a personal basis, but he could go.

Now, the only problem we have here is that some of these people that you work with, you know he has money or anything with him, right?

Yeah.

Well, of course, he's, you know, he's prepared.

Yes, he's a...

of course, Texas, the chief executive, but Texas, the state, is one of the ways to get these American Americans and all that sort of thing, but on our side.

And he is a great, well, that's great, but then it appeals to me about you as Secretary of State to be bringing in a man who you consider to be, frankly, a very big man.

You know, the head of a big dollar corporation, and who's willing to give it up to come in and do his job.

I think it would be a tremendous asset to the military.

On the other hand, you could say that that would be the situation in fact.

Why don't you put it back a little bit faster?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, Samuels is a superb man.

I've always been impressed by him.

But if you had a tournament, this would be something.

It would be a exciting guy to have around, too.

And he's one of us all as a team player.

He knows everything.

He was here.

Yeah.

He does such a fine job out there.

And his mother wrote me a letter or something, I don't know, as far as I can rely.

And so I just want to thank you very much for your good job.

And we hope you'll undertake other assignments.

Yeah, well, if anybody has a design understanding, it's probably the CIA.

Joe Alsop was there with his wife, and they were saying, what a great, even else, what a great person this White House was.

And I said, yeah, I'm glad it was.

So I could all calm and thank him.

That's how he came and scurried out.

I'll just check.

Yeah.

Well, I'll just chat with him and say that... What is it?

They don't think they're going to get a succession list, except that in his case, we might be able to have one on our side.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'll have Pete talk to you further about the, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll have him talk.

I don't know what the, of course, this is the small group, and it just takes you a long time.

I don't know where you can pan it together, but...

But this all would be a coup for the administration to have him on this, you know.

Because these things, these problems, I mean, he's the kind of guy, for example, Bill, that when you admit he's oiled, instead of sending Irvin, which was fine, you should find out he could have gone out and handled that off the back of his hand.

I mean, because he's a, he did, he did.

What I meant is that it's very hard to take your undersecretary of state and send him gallivanting around on a special mission.

Did it go good?

Yeah.

Great, great.

Yeah.

Oh, hit it off well.

Good, good.

Conley's a, he's got a great sense of humanity.

His wife, she's attractive.

You know, she has a lot of influence with John.

And he's not a man that sees what he has for us.

Yeah, she's the one that really rubs off what would otherwise make him just another Johnson.

You know, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Sure, I assume that.

I assume that.

Well, I see you.

That's right.

I just got the Jewish defensively in the league to quit burning up the Russian cars.

I wish they were talking about it.

I think he's talking.

He's talking.

He has a golf game with Rodgers, Laird, Blonde at 1215.

Do you want to know it?

You know, Nellie, Nellie Connelly, when she was up here for the ash-canceled dinner of her sitting next to me, she's just great, but she spent most of her time telling me how delighted she was to finally be in private life, how she was going to keep John right there.

So you...

I said on the other side of her, she said the rest of the time telling me how John Connelly wanted to do something with the president.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

She's a hard gal.

She's great.

No, we'll let them go on.

I'll just call Bill and tell him how flattered I was that he talked to me about this.

Right, right, right.

Actually, let's be sure to get something, though, that really is worthy of this.

I think, in other words, it's a question of not simply going to... Did he show any confidence he could get this through the Congress?

There's 300 secretaries in one department.

I just don't know if that's the only reason it fits 50.

I just hope we can make it something else for Thurman.

The reason is that it expands our stroke to get a Thurman who is basically considered to be kind of Johnson and that sort, but who is also leads to us, and it's good to have a Thurman.

And rather than just going back to our same people, I mean, I don't want to reward our same people, you know,

You know, the Casey thing is disturbing.

I got them.

Bill Casey is smart enough to know that.

Or maybe he isn't smart enough to know.

Bill Casey is brilliant, but he's also absent-minded.

No, he really is.

He's done something.

He was warned by Proxmire that he was going to bring up a certain thing in the hearings.

And damned if Casey didn't just neglect to do his homework and kind of compound the error.

It's not a terrible thing.

It's just one more brick in the wall.

Well, how long does it take for me to decide what to do about it?

Well, I'm kind of going to decide today.

I thought I'd talk to John Mitchell, who knows him, too, and get his feel of it.

And then probably have Bill...

write a letter and say he's sorry.

The real problem is not having a good, tough SEC chairman.

I don't know Crosswell enough, Mr. President, but it takes, it's not just a good business executive.

It takes a different kind of objective mind.

Well, he didn't do it very well.

That was one of our problems.

And to think that that fund goes in, well, first

Well, one on the top of the board gets $100,000.

No, but I was on the board.

One of my meetings a month, I got $12,000 a year.

It's rough.

It's terrible.

Crazy gets $100,000.

You know, he's a sweet, nice guy.

And strong.

He thinks, well, hang on, I'm very smart.

With all the friends in the world in the house.

That's what they're after.

That's how we got them.

Everybody knows.

It's who he knows.

Now, who the hell's got them?

I don't know what they're after.

If we wanted a tough fellow who could do the job, you probably don't know him, a fellow by the name of Jim Hargrove, who is the financial assistance postmaster general.

Good, young, smart, tough guy, and he knows the securities business.

I can't cross.

I mean, just, he's the right age.

That's the point.

Right age, he's about, you know, he's a, he'd have enormous prestige.

Does it make any difference that he's the head of a company that's on the board?

No.

I mean, there's always got to be something about him.

In three inches, it's pretty pure recognition.

Yes, sir.

I don't even know a thing about securities law.

I don't think a big company president knows a thing about the law.

Why don't you find out what his background is?

I will.

If he's an industrialist in the real sense of the word, I really don't think he's the right guy for it.

Well, you've got a guy.

You can't take him out of our firm.

Probably the best guy that I know is the czar.

You take him out of the big Wall Street firm.

I've looked at it.

Morin.

Chuck Morin.

The truth of the matter is Morin looks good.

Morin's problems are he has represented some mutual funds, etc., which doesn't bother me.

But the truth of the matter is John Mitchell said that if his name was put up, he was going to come to the president to try and stop it.

Why don't you hear John?

who never called back for you emotionally, but inspired you.

But John Alexander, he just said, think of all the balls, and who would be the best guy to be head of the SDC.

He's done an enormous amount of talk about the security subject, the federal power, and the SDC.

But there's a problem, Mr. President, and let me tell you what I think the problem is.

We went to that kind of a guy at the FTC.

We got Kirk Packard, who headed the ABA study, and he's a great lawyer.

He doesn't understand our problems.

I don't want him to change his rulings for us, but he's got to remember that this is a political world, and you're going to be up for election in two years.

And he just lightly goes on doing what he thinks is right for the FTC instead of saying, what is the effect of this action?

We want a fellow who understands that he is affecting... Well, that Marne would be all right, and that's why Casey would have been good.

Oh, you remember I talked to you like that.

I'm really glad to go back to it too, but...

I know that Mitchell is afraid of it because, frankly, Bob, the guy was a registered lobbyist in a mutual fund bill up here.

He was registered as a lobbyist in a mutual fund bill.

That means he knows his way around here.

How about taking George McKinnon off the court and putting him on it?

Wasn't he on the SEC point?

George McKinnon.

What?

George McKinnon is on the circuit court.

I know, but was he down here?

Was he in the... What an idea.

When you were vice president, wasn't he down here as a...

I mean, second chair?

In Congress?

Yeah, he was down there.

He and I were in Congress together.

But he's a total politician.

He was the host counsel.

Well, he's older than that.

He's 63 or 63.

That's all right.

64.

He's about the right age.

But he's a hell of a guy.

He's a lot older.

And maybe he'd like to do...

He looks older, but he's still strong.

Is he tough?

Oh, yeah.

He's tough.

He's so political, it's unbelievable.

He is...

If you want political control of that place with a guy with impeccable credentials, the guy McKinnon is...

Ideal.

He's totally honest.

Ideal.

Absolutely.

He knows a hill.

He's, uh...

He's a...

He'll...

In that case, things are definitely...

He was counseled for ideas, was he not?

You know, counseled for the front.

For the front.

Yes.

Right.

But George McKinnon is a... free bearcat and all this stuff.

He didn't handle the Congress.

He's a hell of a guy.

And would clean out the staff.

If he'd be one, George, if you're down that line, he'd do anything he wanted him to do politically.

Oh, that's... Well, I don't want him to do anything politically.

I just want him to think politically.

How long was his position for?

Five or six years.

I think maybe seven.

Is it a big discretion of the president?

The chairmanship is a discretion of the president.

But the term of the commissioner is not.

It's not what I'm asking him to do to give up the lifetime gunship for this, isn't it?

No.

What you do is put him on this and then move him back off of it.

He only has to do it for three years.

Put him on for three years and then move him back to the court.

Can't even guarantee that.

He knows he's political enough to know great wins.

Politics can change, but maybe George is kind of there to do it.

You can put him on and put him back in the court.

Well, this puts him on this for seven years.

It puts him on trial.

Five, I think.

Five.

All right, five.

Still does it.

All right.

Pass your time to time.

I mean, rewinding...

I don't know what the court pays, Mr. President.

This pays, I would guess, as Chairman.

Forty.

You know, Mr. President, this right now is as important as the appointment that you've got.

The one thing the American economy has that the others don't, they've all got big markets, they've all got technology.

The one thing they've got is the ability to raise capital.

None of the rest of them.

Japan, Europe, England, they're secure as much as no good.

This one counts.

Do you think he's going to have to put a... Are you convinced of it?

I'm 90% convinced.

I've got Dean upstairs now.

I'm going to talk to him and I'm going to talk to Mitchell and my guests.

Okay.

All right.

Then you lose the country law society.

All right.

I think we're taking a risk with Bill and I don't think we ought to do it.

Up with the stance and everything else that's hanging around us.

That's right.

As soon as he got it.

Morey.

He's good with the business people.

They believe him, too.

Totally loyal.

That's right.

He's good.

But has somebody talked to him about this underling of his who disagreed with our figures?

Because I'm having lunch with him today.

Somebody's supposed to have lunch.

Why put it on my list?

I don't know.

I will talk to him.

Oh, I understand.

But I put it on every day.

I remember about four days ago I put it on.

I said, God, man.

I spoke to her about it, too.

I will check it down.

Yeah, well, if you're excellent, you'll be sure.

That we cannot have that.

Here's what John says.

John says that Maury believes the Congress Department owes as an obligation to follow its own independent line with regard to what it thinks about things.

It has bullshit.

He's under example by the idea that Maury, of course, went out and was not the right thing to do to make a speech saying, well, you have to have more trade with Russia and Eastern Europe.

I know he believes that.

He didn't want to give it away for free.

He seriously, you're over it.

I mean, in that speech, Seymour's not very smart.

I mean, I love it.

I mean, he's loyal.

But when it comes to that, God damn it, he knows better than that.

See what I mean?

Every business stands for that.

Everybody wants to trade with the economy.

Of course they do.

But God damn it, you don't give it away for free.

Because whether he's right or wrong, he made the point to you when you told him, I'm sitting here, that we have to move slowly in this area, and you should have stuck with him.

I do.

Well, don't race with him now.

I'm John Hogan.

Don't even bother calling John.

He features in the Morgan Ventures.

I'm not sure.

We didn't want to bother him with it now.

But you went and raced with him in St. Maureen.

He considers me his friend and supporter.

In St. Maureen, nobody here in this administration is more loyal.

And then I start off with Arthur Bergman.

That was a silly man thing for him to say, to use the word confidence.

And your thing indicating that you disagree with the figures is going to make the Congress Department look good if their estimates are too high.

But what the hell is this?

That's what all these economists all they care about anyway.

What we're concerned about is not making the Congress department.

We're concerned about saying those things that may turn the confidence around, and you've got to talk confidently.

Marty doesn't talk confidently.

Kelly hasn't told Barry that, damn it.

I think, frankly, even if you shouldn't be fired for that, someone should be fired if they're going against the administration.

He went against Stantz at that time.

So this ought to be as against the administration?

Yes, it's against the administration.

Really, Bob, it's very important that you fire somebody.

If you fire Nick, why doesn't somebody want to be really done?

But we ought to do another one with Pete.

Somebody on the line who gets out and makes one of these statements.

That's why I want that gold sign fired or moved, you know, via us.

I sure do agree with that.

Okay.

They're so independent.

Well, he may be right on his fingers, but just to stand there and say exactly the opposite of what the Secretary of Labor has said is inexcusable.

Okay.

If the Secretary is wrong, you should write an item on the amendment of the Secretary saying your statistics were wrong this morning.

That should be the end of that.

Okay.

Hello, Henry.

Thank you.

You can call when you have an audience.

Hello.

Hi.

work because of the position.

What do you think?

I agree with him.

I don't think it's high enough.

I think that the trouble is, no matter how important his deputy, undersecretary of control, is, most of the work he has to do, he can't work because of the position that he's in.

You get the change first and then you can't get it while you're following something that's not high in the position.

The purpose of that is for an inspector to get that kind of a guy unless you change the position first.

That's right.

Maybe I should suggest that you get the position changed.

Sure.

We're talking about undersecretary for economic affairs.

You can't get a heavyweight for a job for a deputy undersecretary.

You don't want to get somebody who wants a job.

Okay.

Is Samuel sleeping?

No, he wants to be with somebody who can be more political.

I just think it's important to have more rights.

Stannis is right.

He doesn't have any laws.

It's not our fault.

Our fault.

It's the government's fault.

He really had it.

There should be.

Somebody gets out of the cab.

I don't think so.

Maybe we can get Marty Martin to get out and put in that job.

I don't think Robert's going to be getting much of a headway in that job, Bob.

I think he'll get both of you out if you aren't in that job.

Both of you?

What's he talking about?

How would you make it?

Nothing.

It should be done.

Pass it through to the back.

You're going to have to kiss the boat for a long day.

But he wants to

The other problem is that the guy won't be in the downstream so he won't be able to cross around the bowels anyway, which is, with the value of the plan, it would be to get a white house spy in the safety department.

He'd be kept out on the fringe where he'd never be able to break through the crust anyway, so it'd be counterproductive, or at least wouldn't be as productive as keeping the planet in here.

My idea is that the planet would go over there and just be used and submerged.

Unless...

If he could have been made undersecretary, he would have been...

That looked good at the end of the Irwin.

Yeah.

Now Irwin's what he could be.

Not Irwin sleeping at night.

He's not far.

And now Bill is finally realizing that he needs somebody who has some confidence in the White House.

You see, he knows I have confidence in Irwin or Johnson.

And he said to his workman, he would be a great asset to Rogers.

A huge asset.

A great asset to us because he played our game.

Rush would have been good.

Right.

She impressed me on this negotiation I'm doing with her, and he's really superb.

When we get going again next week, that's really working.

I mean, we've got the mechanics of it, and nothing will ever show on that, because we have to repeat it in society.

I have one chosen Elmada that Bob Ellsworth has been bugging me that he wants, well the way he puts it is he wants to leave in June unless you have an overwhelming reason in some other job to keep him in the administration.

He wants to leave Brussels, he didn't say.

He said his decision is to leave

Leave government?

No, it's to leave government.

And to make some money.

But if you want him, he will, of course, listen.

He wanted to do that before.

And there's no hard feelings.

And he's done a good job over there.

It's very, very...

That guy's got a lot of energy.

He's trying to do it all the time, sir.

It's not easy.

Salvatore was fucking me at the dinner, but Mr. Husbandry, they should be made ambassador to Italy.

Oh, God, he's a great ambassador.

Yeah.

Ambassador, yes.

I don't think it's part of the disaster.

You can trust him.

They love to talk.

Yeah, but the Chinese guys, yeah, but it's not easy.

The needs of Joe keep being considered by people like Columbo as a very lower class.

What do you mean?

South Italian type, yeah.

And since there's no foreign policy business, what you said this morning, Mr. President, you may not realize, had a profound effect on Italian domestic politics because Moro is really the strong man in the party.

And by putting your own personal weight in the direction you did,

These guys, that's the only thing these guys are interested in.

They don't give a damn about foreign policy, and they don't understand that a domestic policy is, they play absolutely for blood, like a group of Florentine princes.

Yeah.

And they... One thing I think is important is, you and I talked a little to the Martin before, and he's been talking to us about this.

He said it would be helpful to say something about the...

So the important thing, Henry, as you know, is to do what I'm sure is not done enough by Martin or Bill or any of the rest.

I always believe, in any particular area, is that when they come in to see whoever is the president of the country,

If we don't get into that nitpicking crap about this party, that party, who's this, and this, and that, and the other things.

But you've got to take them to a mountaintop and say, here you are.

What do you lose?

The Italians are the best Europeans still.

Remember, you have to rest all your lives.

The Italians are the best.

And then you know that the others have other things to try.

And I said the others have other things to try.

They all have that.

That's all.

The impact of giving a laugh.

That's what was so powerful when you said that the bad guys won because the good guys wouldn't work together.

That's exactly the Italian situation.

And when you said that we are looking to the Christian Democratic Party, that's exactly the problem.

They're divided.

Their left wing is really as bad as Frey was in Chile.

And Moro is playing a very complicated game.

He's the most, well, not the most, he's one of the most devious men in Italian politics.

I can see it.

Well, he wants to be president, so he's going to play a comforter.

President?

Yeah, they have an election this December.

And Morrison will go for president?

Yeah.

President in Italy is... Why won't anybody want to be president?

Because the party is being divided into two parts.

President against Prime Minister.

The president has tremendous power.

He can pick the Prime Minister.

He can play them off against each other.

Incidentally, this was requested by State.

This was requested by State, Mr. President.

This didn't come through.

I realize we have to have them, but with these countries on it.

And no others, no exceptions, none.

Not Portugal, not Spain, not Greece, nobody else.

They're only the big ones.

The U.S., that would be England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Nobody else, no Latin American country, no African country, no Asian country of any kind.

I will see the British foreign minister.

I've seen the God damn German for a reason.

I see the British because he's a friend.

But I'm not going to see the attacking foreign minister if he comes along.

Don't bring him in.

See?

No go.

There it is.

And I will honor no such chance to see the Japanese foreign minister.

Never.

I'm refusing to take calls from his side again.

They're picking up quite a few cashes now.

They've cut all the roads except the one that goes through the center of the country.

And on that one, they don't have a supply system.

It goes into the open.

It only had 50 trucks on that road, of which we have four large battalions on it.

Do you feel that this kind of meeting is the best thing ever is to take them up a high plane?

Oh, I think... Mr. President... And they can't do anything with it when they come home.

The Italian prime minister, really, of these two today, Moro, is by far the more influential.

Oh, yeah, Colombo is prime minister because the big guys couldn't agree among each other who should run the government.

So Moro, Manzani, and so forth are out.

And then Prime Minister Colombo, who is a nice fellow.

He's a hell of a nice guy.

I've known him a long time.

But he's not very strong, and he doesn't have his own apparatus.

But you gave them something which, when they come home, they can quote.

And in Italian domestic politics, the president is tremendously important.

things with Ford and Henry stuff.

Now, but it's earlier than around today that you said the YR is at 2.30, so maybe he might be prepared.

No, I don't know.

He's got to come.

Yeah.

Well, he had to get before that, but he could come in.

He could come in and he could come in while Henry's here.

As a matter of fact, I'll come in in 10, 15 minutes.

Can you do that?

Let me check.

Yeah, see what it's doing.

Let me check.

We'd love to.

But I just thought it was a good idea.

I thought that was a good idea.

John's available.

He has to be at 1.30.

An hour and 15 minutes.

So he didn't want to take that time.

I called 30.

He took the range and called again, and I've got a few other things I need to work on.

But you thought it was, I mean, you still want to figure out a 4 o'clock quickly, or do you want to trade?

Yeah, 3, 2, 1, 1.

Let me think.

I think 4 o'clock.

You'll get the link in order to all that suspension that we will not be going around, would you?

By 4 o'clock.

Just say 4, and then if I change my mind, I'll put it up.

Okay.

You know, you ought to get out if you can in some way.

You know, with this story, Henry, about the influence on foreign heads of state that's not gotten out at all, all of it's been bugging me about it.

You're the only one that can get it out.

How can we do it?

Well, when I have luck, I've got to do it.

Let's do it outside, but John will turn up at some time.

But I've had others, you know what I mean, on some TV, so I...

You see, it's something that is the hand on the forehead of the first man in the world to be able to answer anything.

It's very impressive.

It's got to start getting across.

It is a fact, we know.

But the important thing is the ability to sit and talk to these clowns.

Every, different ones, different days, do it without a note or anything.

I mean, this is a, they can press conferences or something.

This is something that you know very well.

Nobody, there are no other presidents that have been able to do it.

Absolutely not.

They've always had their secretaries of state in there.

You know that.

All right.

Okay.

I think that's a good point to make.

Why I meet with them without secretaries of state.

I don't need anything.

And that I'm not because I'm smart, but because I work.

I don't have to do it all.

You have that light experience, Mr. President.

You've been in these countries.

Foreign leaders.

It's a nice thing to think.

Let me ask you, getting back to the other thing, how did you feel?

I was reading the grizzly reports today about the damn CES cut.

Oh, they must be wanting us to move so badly.

We're stuck.

We're stopped cold.

I just got sick of the CES thing.

Terrible losses.

The morale of our people in the middle

and the GIs up there are having low morale because of the North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

He's getting the beer first.

It was the worst goddamn reporting I've ever seen.

I see.

Now what is the matter?

I talked to Motor about it.

I think one problem is

Well, the trouble is they're not letting them in.

They're sitting on our side of the frontier.

If they had gone to my rifle company during the Battle of the Bulge and interviewed these guys, everyone would have thought the war was lost.

Because G.I.s always bitch.

We know them.

They bitch about the food, they bitch about the officers, they bitch about the annuity.

And they don't have a clue to what's going on.

The North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese have cut three out of four of the major roads.

I think that's true.

That is Bob Scali, you noticed it, put it out.

Put it?

John Scali.

Yes, he did.

Bob Scali is a good reporter.

Also, I had him in and I showed him the roads and...

I sat there and I showed them the top secret map because there's nothing on there except the end time.

I said, that's where the units are.

You see for yourself.

It's my own map.

We've cut the pipeline.

We're picking up lots of supplies now, which isn't the primary service.

But yesterday, for example, they got 110 tons of rice.

Which is... And you also pointed out that the fires and the pipelines... And on top of it, they're getting... What about these troops?

What about the attack on the northern flank there?

You told me on the phone last night that the Argyres had handled themselves well.

That's right.

Now, they had heavy casualties.

But on the other hand... Sure they had heavy casualties.

The North Vietnamese must have had fearful casualties because they were shell...

Under tremendous artillery fire, they've had B-52s on them, they've had tank air on them.

Those B-26s out there, are they still being repaired?

They are being repaired, that's what I understand.

Look, can I just get a date?

That's all right, that'll fix it.

Tom, the President specifically wants a date.

When can the first B-26 start dropping bombs?

Get it for me today.

The idea that the other thing that ran all through the news report was that our military were distressed, discouraged, and so forth.

You've got them.

I've got to quit saying that.

Who's saying that?

Is that that person you're talking to?

Who's saying that?

I think the public information policy out in Saigon is a disaster.

And I told Haig to get together Ziegler and text him.

Immediately.

To get a clear line.

They have to say the hell with how deep in we are.

We're not...

If you want to, I'll get to the map and I'll show it to you where they are.

Why don't I just get it?

Because it's ridiculous.

I know where it is.

I know this is a VR element.

Somebody's got to send those PR guys out there.

The next road worth cutting.

Now, that's not a USIA.

Is that USIA?

No, it's DIO.

And we've got to do better on that.

From defense?

Yeah, from defense.

Well, good God.

Don't tell me.

Of course, but of course our press is out to kill us on this too.

The thing that's driving them all crazy is when Harriman says the North Vietnamese can't afford to lose the war.

Hell, last year he was saying the South Vietnamese couldn't help but lose the war.

If people start worrying now about the North Vietnamese losing the war, they must be... Our press, our press, my friend.

I can tell it's almost hysterical.

And the reason it's frantic and hysterical is that they're afraid this son of a bitch thing will work.

Exactly.

That's all.

But you take the worst possible interpretation of this, assuming not all the roads are cut, assuming they're just cutting supplies by 40%.

Still, if you ask yourself what these two divisions could be doing now that's more useful than killing these South, these North Vietnamese, and choking off these supplies and picking them up, I don't know what it is.

Well, actually, let me say, having said all this, I am completely resigned to the fact that the press is going to bang us and it's going to be, you know, we're going to have this and that.

But the point is we're going to have some losses there.

There are going to be battles that are lost, but we're going to win the war.

That's what we're getting down to.

And I know this.

I've decided now we're not going to lose it.

And I mean, we are not going to lose it.

And that's why we're going to start bombing here and there.

Of course, we're going to bomb.

We're going to bomb.

We bombed North Vietnam last night.

We went out to some sand sites that you authorized six weeks ago.

There were a lot of explosions.

They knocked out.

And that's a good signal to them.

And I think...

the North Vietnamese, all these units that are now fighting.

— 1 min 9 s with no transcribed speech —

So I think that the North Vietnamese were going to move those units that they now have fighting north of Route 9 into 1st and 2nd Corps in September.

And that they won't be able to do because they're going to be eaten up.

And also we've got a

The report here from a Japanese news correspondent who has traveled in North Vietnam, he says, a Japanese correspondent stationed in Hanoi from mid-67 to September 1970 has stated that food shortages, especially in the southern provinces constituted North Vietnam's most serious problem.

The second major problem was the general low morale of the populace and the growing unwillingness to continue the sacrifices for the war.

They were worried in case of an Allied landing in Vinh that the population wouldn't be able to fight.

Other sources have also reported morale problems, who destroyed in the southern provinces, while rations for most of the population are fairly adequate.

They are definitely in trouble.

It really disgusts me to the extent that we were assuring the Chinese that we had arrested... Gibraltar, it's not authorized.

Gibraltar, oh, Henry, I don't think we assured anybody they couldn't be.

They could get the tone of what I said in the newspapers.

You know, we're not going to do too much.

Keep it a little leery.

Now, Bill isn't doing this, but there's some people down there out of the mood.

Well, you, actually, Frank, will be pretty well turned around.

He wrote a very good article yesterday.

Did he?

Saying?

What did Rasmus wrote about peace?

Yeah, and Frank was saying, remember, he's talking to two audiences.

He's talking to Hanoi and he's talking to the United States, and this was addressed to Hanoi.

The news conference.

Reaction to that has been generally good, isn't it?

Very good, and you can turn all these screaming, bloody murder, which is a good sign.

And, uh... And the Trump press, too.

They respect that kind of talk.

The President of the United States is right now only terrified that you'll succeed.

And I could see from Humphrey, he just thinks foreign policy is a loser for them.

He said, however, that one thing he pointed out, which we've known, is he said the pressure the senators are put under by congressional aides is unbelievable.

He hadn't realized that until he came back.

with lefties or all that.

Well, it's like your stand-in.

You know, I just go home and I say, yeah, I really felt for you.

You have to get right people.

Because you do a lot of work.

Now, most of the right people are left-wingers.

Because their professors are left-wingers.

Isn't that a horrible thing?

That's a very insistent thing, isn't it?

And you seldom have a guy that you can really count on, can you?

How many can you really confide in your staff?

Not many.

Hey, who else?

I don't know.

I'm a cold one on that.

I don't trust any of these elections.

I respect them, but I never trust them.

This fellow Halpern, the only one that I've had that can hurt her is Lake.

Halpern did no damage.

But Lake is a solid state.

She's not strong.

But Halpern, for example, now that he's gone, we let him go in July.

Let him go up there.

He's where he ought to be.

He ought to be up there guarding that gun.

Well, you know, even though it's a small little group, we do have some people that have been quite good.

I mean, you get the Alsops and Dick Wilson, and, you know, they're highly respected guys, even though they don't like them.

I mean, the fact that they're married in a brewery and others get up and have an orgasm about the...

The potatoes he's getting.

Oh, yes.

Joe's getting to him, and Joe really, Joe's a believer, and so Stuart, I mean, all these things, and I don't know which one of these things would be, but on this thing, I think they have, they're trying to tell their press record, and they're in the fashion section.

Roland, Roland, oh, we have.

Yes, of course, Roland Evans is basically with us on it.

He hasn't written yet.

Well, to be frank with you, he's a fashionable subject.

I think he started seeing that, my God, maybe there shouldn't be so many of these people

We just may turn a few around.

As I said, as you said, of course, if we should happen to survive the 72 elections, they'll turn.

And when they turn, we'll get them right in the ass.

Believe me, we're not going to build on this.

They're not going to come crawling after the 72 elections.

No, they can crawl for the rest of their lives.

They're going to crawl for the rest of their lives because, Henry, you cannot build on morally corrupt people.

I don't mean that they can't have been against us from time to time.

She says, Joe Ossoff has written some vicious things about me.

I understand that, because he was so strong for Kennedy.

But you know, that love affair ended quickly.

That was purely social.

But I don't think he's got any respect for Kennedy.

He would never say it.

Oh, he says it.

He says it.

Well, he didn't tell me.

Now he has...

I think the Kennedy myth is dying because this...

I talked to the Harvard professor yesterday, chairman of my department, he's one of the few decent guys.

He said, you may not realize it, but you bought yourself time with laws.

They were all set.

They've got a peace treaty, a draft peace treaty, which in effect says coalition government fixed their life for withdrawal.

And they were going to get a lot of universities to sign that now.

Doesn't make a damn bit of difference except it builds a little heat.

Well, now they're planning to have this stuff signed.

Now in March they're going to concentrate on Laos.

And in April and May they're going to concentrate on getting that peace treaty signed.

I'm getting endorsed by university faculties with a big state of withdrawal and so forth.

Well, if we get this Russian thing on the track again, we'll be serious.

Do you have some other questions?

No, that's all right.

Thank you for your time.

I think you're going to find a barrel of enthusiasm.

You want to say it?

No, no.

I want you to go out and say it.

Listen, no, I will educate you.

No, but I was going to move something straight up.

When you go in, this is mostly domestic law.

That's not what it was.

Nothing that doesn't matter.

Except this.

Oh, this does matter.

I think, Henry, it's very important to be sure that Peterson feels in.

He's a lively thought, and he wants to be, and he's ambitious as hell.

And he can be.

I think the way to bring him in, I think we've got to have you, Schultz, Peterson, early.

I want you to get them all together, John.

Maybe you are in.

I want you to take the lead so that it comes.

Take the lead.

Get the four of you together socially.

to have a little chat.

And then, now and then, with all of them, you're basically the big five of the staff.

You might throw Flanagan into that pot, just so I think it would be good to have him in it.

So the six of you sit around and have a discreet accord.

I wouldn't put in McCracken.

I wouldn't put in David, the science advisor, those others.

How does that sound to you?

I think it's going to be a good ball player here.

What do you think?

Or do you?

I can't tell you, but he said that he's not into some of my problems, but some of his business.

Good.

We'll get an invite.

Everybody in a brief.

What I want to do is to set up a job.

We had some kind of goal.

This thought of a little inner group.

And that is the group that I should make.

There's only one other that I can think to be in, and that's Conway.

Now, the reason I would suggest Conway is that he's a total politician and a son of a bitch and a duck fighter.

I do not suggest Mitchell because I want Mitchell to do some other things.

I want him on the partisan side.

I like the questions that Peterson is asking.

I mean, I like the way he's approaching his problem.

Tell him you like it.

Yeah.

Don't mind it.

Impress him by it when you do that.

Right.

In other words, let's get him.

I don't...

Here's what's going to happen.

Everybody's going to try to capture him.

Particularly states that are trying to capture him.

Don't let the state capture him.

You're right.

I like Sankos.

Sankos is fine.

I think he'd be fine.

Matter of fact, we may run it around the other way.

Sankos may start playing to us.

I've had a good talk with Peter here yesterday.

You see, Henry, so many of Peterson's problems that are in province will lack over in New York.

I mean, let's suppose he gets into the cooler thing.

That'll lack over in New York province.

But let's suppose he gets into the, what the major oil thing, of course, does, the Rolls Royce thing does.

all the time.

Remember the last time when Kennedy wanted me to call with our Chancellor every three or four days, and you said no.

So what you have to do is that you have to play a political role.

If I were you, I would leave the economic role to him, mainly because I don't want, and I don't leave it to him, I don't want to waste, I don't get myself involved in it.

I would like for you to look at this thing the same way I do.

You look at it like the political men and sort of be my, what we call my, surrogate on that.

What I want you to do is to come in on every one of the Peterson Committee recommendations of getting a political analysis.

He had some interesting ideas on the governance of payment and on the international monetary system, how he wants to approach it, which would take into account the foreign policy and domestic policy.

The other thing that I want to add, I do want to agree to do this, that this, to me, is just a shocking statement by Stanton.

with regard to trade with Eastern Europe, perhaps, throwing away the nation.

I put it to John.

I don't want to throw it away, but I don't want, we don't want to raise it with Spence.

Well, he's a bloody junkie.

He's a loyal man, more loyal than Spence.

But the difficulty with Spence is that he believes this, and it's popular with the business community.

We cannot, though, have Spence.

about something that we're trying to trade with.

If we get this thing loading again with the Russians, then we can do something.

It will load.

I think it will load because they're not doing it for us, they're doing it for themselves.

But Henry, I really believe that the Russians

Well, they've never given any indication that they like it, that they are interested in this economic stuff that we put out there.

They're terribly interested in it.

They want credits.

They want trade.

And we'll give it all to them, but for a price.

We don't give it away cheap.

That's what they fail at our time, right?

Absolutely.

How's that grieving case, for example?

God, this is the reason that it's not...

I'm sure Schultz, for example, favors the trade for the East.

I know every business man does.

Peterson won't favor it.

I favor it.

But, by God, we're dealing for Petersons, and it's an evidence of business.

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Set this back, please, in case you have to do it.

We're losing into the Swiss.

$70 million down the drain.

And we refuse to grant the license that I still haven't signed with the Swiss.

They keep keeping it open every month for another month.

So we can keep that open in March or April.

I don't think that within two weeks of this exchange of letters, we are limited.

It's the old question of the stance of policy fidelity and just having these guys understand what kind of health policy is.

And it's a daily struggle that keeps on happening.

He knows what a policy is.

And he started, as you said, I believe it was his response, though, to speak for the business community and carve out his name.

But this business, you know, okay.

policy committee meeting next week and we've got an advance of what they have put out and they're coming up with wall-to-wall regionalization as a counter to recognition and there's a lot of things

So I thought I'd broach that over here and say, yeah, I know what you're coming out with, and it's more of the same.

Yeah, next week, or why don't you just say next week the Democrats will come out and just say that the press is there.

The press isn't there.

But some of you want the press there.

Well, we'll get it out then.

We'll get it out.

But I want to get it out of the way to say, your honor, we'll get rid of that next week, the Democrats.

of wall-to-wall regionalization.

This is something we considered.

It is not an answer.

It's simply compounding the errors that have happened.

And, of course, that's another way of government.

Another way of government, and again and again, is that it cuts the state legislators out of the appropriations process.

I'm sure I got home and used the way of the government.

And so I thought I'd travel in, relate to that, and I'll make sure there's coverage.

It's a lovely day.

All the others are going off to play golf.

Well, you sure blanketed the television last night.

At least we brought the physical fitness thing.

Athletes and YRs.

They had no tolerance at all, but we got comments about how she played with the animal coat and the name was Levin.

And it got very heavy stuff.

And of course all the business with the athletes was covered either with you on talking about jogging or with the silence and commentary.

It was a job space.

And he thought that stuff was good.

And I was like, I sure do.

I sure do.

They sell it on the cover.

I do it every day.

Yeah.

Why can't I get some tomorrow with my nice job?

And there was a little old man in there.

He said, great, how about it?

Just think of it.

No comment.

It was silent.

It was good.

And one of them, a friend, I don't know, 30 seconds, just the guy's hands.

And while they were talking to him.

And the commentator was

It's a lovely day.

All the others are going out to play golf.

Well, you sure blanketed the television last night with these physical fitness athletes and the YRs.

Who would they be if they told you to say no?

We've got comments about it.

She played at the end of a golf game.

She let them.

I don't know what they were concerned about last night.

And it got very heavy stuff.

And of course all the business of the athletes was covered either with Yuan talking about jogging or with silence and commentary.

It was just massive.

And it does some things good.

I sure do.

They sell it on the cover.

I do it every day.

You know, Mike's going to get some tomorrow with my next job.

And then the little old man in there, he's a great help.

Just think of that.

No comment.

It was silent.

It was good.

And one of them ran, I don't know, 30 seconds in just the guy's hands.

It was very interesting.

And while you were talking to him, and the commentator was talking about what he was going to do and all that kind of stuff, laborers.

Are you saying that we would get the president's all over network television?

Yeah.

He's just never around.

We just, this is what we get.

We do those all the time every day, you know, sometimes.

Sometimes they go, and sometimes they don't.

It depends on what else they've got that day.

Well, that, and the Consumer Price Index, and two or three other things.

By the time I turned that first page, of course, it was CBS and those.

Cronkite had that little twist at the end, but it better be around again.

But I don't think that's a worry.

No, it might be not CBS.

The war stuff was bad last night, but the rest will be good.

It's going to be bad.

Sure it is.

Because they've got to prove it.

But the other stuff is good, and it gets across a little tonight.

Did anybody pick up the Wilson bench?

Somebody did.

Both of them did.

Bob Pierpoint was very good on the CBS morning thing.

No, no, that was it.

And that was the CBS morning.

So today's show, Terry, you ran some footage that you actually talked to Pierpoint, did a commentary on that.

One of the best speeches you'd ever made, and you'd worked hard on it.

Well, I work on the part they use.

That's because it's personal.

Is that the name of this one?

Edward Davis.

You've got to get him in now sometime.

It must be done.

Screws.

I'm tired of that.

It's not going to happen again.

He's trying to reach you by phone today.

No, sir.

He ain't going to read it to me today.

I'm just down.

I'm serious.

I read it in.

I'm not going to let him.

He's smart enough, John, to know, when he gives testimony, how it is going to be interpreted.

Now, Paul McCracken is not.

Paul wouldn't know.

Maury Stanton, Maury didn't know how something was going to be played.

But Arthur is smart as hell.

And he knows.

Let me tell you what's going to concern me about this.

He said, Paul, as he was speaking to both sides, when he said the problem was not the money supply, it was confidence.

What the hell does that mean?

He's kicking us.

Where does the confidence come from?

Confidence in the administration.

He's got to say, I am confident.

And I just feel that we've got to get people talking, or you get the impression.

I don't know.

I had a terrible, very bad impression.

I thought it was exactly what he was doing.

And his answers were very slow, very short.

The questions were bloopers.

I was in the transcript of the stuff I saw on television.

They were soft questions.

And there were curses going on, so I had to have said something.

Well, I've tried to get a copy of that.

It's gone.

We're going to be on this.

I'm going to get a copy of it.

You and I and Charles are going to have a talk.

Now, he is sat there yesterday in the quadrant and kicked the living Jesus out of his own side of the way.

So, Charles, too, has said so.

Told you that in a nice way.

But Arthur is going to get his comeuppance.

I'll tell you why.

We hate Arthur.

Arthur, second, is not as brave as he thinks he is.

And also, Arthur forgets that I have a memory.

and arguing all over the lot.

I mean, I'll never forget how he came to the state, Michael Lee, in the time of the Penn Central.

And I know that one time he was against controls, the next time he was boring, and so forth and so on.

He, the start of the proposition is, he's defeated.

He says he is infinitely better than McCracken.

He says he's better.

So Carter is trying to carve out a niche as David Gray and his whole business succeeds with all that's going to get to the president.

And he came out again with a wage price board.

God damn it, I'm not going to have a wage price board.

He shouldn't come out for it.

And he's sick of those.

And we're going to start building somebody else up.

I'm not going to have one.

We don't have to call him anymore.

But I'm going to get a call in a month.

Call me away in a month.

He's going to work on it.

We're going to be trying to work on him.

He's out of his league with the company.

He's always sleep with me.

He's been well treated.

He's been treated socially.

We have a son of a gun every day.

I'm just god damn tired.

I hear him.

Peterson said it.

I heard him.

You know, this old business of ours has been working on us, but he's always number three man on the international delegations, and he thinks he should be number one man in all of us business.

He'd just walk in the door, how do you do, sat down, and he started working on Pete.

I think Pete Peterson, if we handle ourselves

I think it was good that I had him sit in with the fortune thing.

He got a chance to go and see a little of what you think he got.

He can have enormous press credibility.

He's the kind of guy that's trying to bridge the diversity.

But he's got, in my view, a shrewder sense of salesmanship than anybody we've got around except Conley.

And

uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh

to hear me talk to them and show some understanding how to make it on things she can't have.

But you can actually get just sitting here and reading stuff.

But hey, but Peterson, Peterson is going to be quite a lot of new life skills.

Yeah, but we've got to kind of line him up to cut Archer.

We're going to cut Archer down to size.

Now, Archer only understands power.

The way to do that with Peterson, I would suggest, is not you, but you or George or both, sit down and say to Peterson, we've got to cut Arthur up.

I wouldn't pick the battle with Arthur.

How'd you do it?

Well, before you go over there, I tried to get you to the players here and where Arthur was.

He wants to be programmed.

Yeah.

What the background of Arthur and this battle over at Monaco.

The president's got enormous respect for Peterson.

But the way he's got to do it, one, he's got to work with him whenever he's a player.

Keep hanging on to the economics.

But on the political side, I mean, his judgment is infinitely better than his.

I mean by political, you know, it's on the internet.

And better than anybody else's.

The tank will not just be for the foreign countries.

It'll be for us, too.

The State Department will be disastrous.

You know, he's talking about a player.

I didn't even know he had a problem yet.

I think having flagging is a good idea, too, because flagging has a lot of dirty jobs to do.

It's very good.

We can track the program, because we keep at it.

Before HCI overreacts, and then I just make it.

I've heard his testimony, and I think it's okay.

But John, I make HCI in order to make it better.

I don't do it anymore, because I know how the line lines.

I don't do it very often, like you said.

Well, I bet Arthur knows.

He's been in this town for 20 years.

Do you agree with him?

Absolutely.

He knows exactly what we're talking about.

I would like to assume that we can talk to Arthur about the devastating implication of that line in the past.

And so he's, it is, it does not refer to him.

Why don't you, I'd like for somebody to return this call.

I don't, he said the White House staff doesn't let your, my views be known through the voting that I see him use all the time.

He just puts it on the paper.

I'd just like him to know, well, I could call back to you.

The president is, he's been working very hard.

He's uncandidated, not taking any calls, which he's getting on his world report.

But I must, I think you, I must only care to tell you he was very distressed with this report.

He realizes he probably said that the whole testimony, but it seems that it was no.

Maybe you can tell him.

You don't have to live with some of the bad change.

What do you think?

Or should it be done?

It should be done.

Yes, sir, it is done.

Quite trustfully, the rank was apparently to return it, but out of that, he says that he can't.

I'm sure your testimony on balance probably covered any.

But for you to suggest lack of confidence, that is that.

And the rest of it was that it led inevitably to an interpretation of the split.

And frankly, you've just got to realize this president is not going to stand for this.

Give our enemies the thing they always have.

And I'm not going to stand for it, and I'm not.

Frankly, I'm just going to fight the federalists.

All right, this is fine.

I think that's kind of the next alternative here.

I think you should do it, Bob, rather than George.

George, of course, is an adverse party.

I think it's better to fire him than to have a unit.

That's right.

No, you're going to fire him.

But he's a tentative job, aren't you?

I know you're trying to reach him, and he's going to be there in his exclusion.

The rest is, you know, he's got 60,000.

We're all reporting this, but I'm not talking to him.

All right, all right.

I guess all he dared to touch was really hurt and distressed.

He saw what you had said before, and he just nodded.

My God, I think it all...

And then if he wants to come in and see me, he said, Arden, we'll see you.

No, we're going to have a quadriangle meeting next week.

I'm not going to see him alone anymore.

Do you agree, John?

I do agree.

I think you're at a serious disadvantage when you see him alone.

That's right.

And just say, no, Arden.

I'm not going to see him because he comes in and then goes out and broke his neck.

And he has no right to see me alone.

He wants to be independent.

He's got to be independent.

He's got to go through that quadriad.

Well, I think it's good discipline for a while.

Chop him off some of these socialists.

Kind of freeze him a little bit.

Make sure he gets here just on the quadriad.

And let him know that there are cookies when he's a good boy and not when he isn't.

One thing I was going to say, John, I guess this is your problem.

I want you to keep Roger Spartan from hitting the NASA himself.

Now, on that Alaska pipeline, it's pretty hard.

On the Alaska pipeline, he shouldn't have said that, in my opinion.

I understand that that pipeline's got to be built.

Is that true?

Yes, sir.

Southwest, he's got a plan that says it should be built from Canada.

I don't know, somebody.

But for Morgan to get out there and say it's going to be a long race and so forth, he was...

He's brown-nosed in the press.

What's your reason?

I've tried to reason.

I've talked to Bob Kidd, who's his overeater on that.

Bob?

Yeah.

And by God Almighty, did we have to do anything?

We've got to get back on our feet.

Bob Kidd, he's sweet.

I mean, he's a lawyer, but he's in the state administration.

I know that, but if you don't keep on watching, you get hit.

This is not working.

Really?

Yeah.

And I thought it would be better.

I had a very interesting call last night from Wally.

And Wally had been called by the New York Times and the Post and a lot of people for comment on this.

And he said, I issued a very noncommittal statement, and he did, a very, very soft reply.

And he said, I didn't run it right.

He said, I was just calling to warn you that Martin is getting out behind the

they're going to make trouble for it in the long run.

And he said, you know, the ancient history.

So he said, I don't have to tell you where I stand.

But the point is, in fact, I'll first face it on the pipeline and accept it.

And John, I know we've talked about this

except that in this field, and I've got to watch more than others, I'm not going to have him get out there browning those in these environmentalists.

You've got to know your view that we're going to get an audience that we don't have.

I don't want the audience doing that.

There are ways to do it, like some of that .NET barge now.

We can have these two challenge each other.

I have a lot of other issues, so I don't want Morton going too far.

Uh, now, I have a meeting set up with Ruppershaus on this subject.

And, uh, I would have one this morning, just to make sure that, how do you express yourself to them?

How or why?

No, how.

Do you, do you have a, do you have a, do you have a, do you have a, an undersecretary who basically could do some of these things?

Um, why do you have this one?

He does.

He has a whole crew of them.

We've got an interesting thing going over there that I should talk to you about.

And that selection here is under secretary.

Um, Mel Laird, do you know about what Mel's done?

No.

Mel has gone to Raj and said that he, Laird, would take it as a personal affront.

It's less than you would have made the Inter-Secretary.

Well, I wrote to the Senator real crudely.

I would think that Laird would want to get rid of me from the Bureau.

I would have thought that too.

And it took me off to this and said, what's behind all of this?

All right, tell Kissinger, tell Kissinger to talk to him.

Well, I tell you, I don't think that'll work.

I think the better way to do this, if I could suggest, would be for us to make an appointment with Morton to come in and see you Monday morning.

And for you to say, I understand your interest in the solicitor.

I think it's an excellent idea.

Let's agree.

All right.

And freeze Laird out of the action.

Because the way it's like now is that Laird has an appointment to see Morton Monday afternoon.

And if you've got Martin in, and you could also invert to this if you wanted to, this pipeline thing, just say, let's not kick our friends.

But the important thing would be to say, let's go on Schlesinger.

I agree with him.

Let's lock it up.

And if Martin says, well, if a player has something he wants to tell me, you could throw that off and say, well, I know there are a few hard cubes there, but I think this is a good thing to do.

Why don't you just call him on the phone and say that now?

Say I'm running over, he's in an alligator looking at the airways.

Mark, Jesus Christ.

Everybody runs out and chases those obligated animals.

Alright, you can arrange that.

Is that all right with you?

Sure.

Let me ask you now about another thing.

You're a protege for Crosby.

Yes.

Crosby is teaching me, which is not me, but so forth and so on.

No, it's you.

He's not very...

His head is true, I agree.

I understand his name.

But I have an idea there that I don't know if you've seen it.

No, I haven't seen it.

And it's good.

Somebody should have had it on when we started on the ride this morning.

Do you think we called when he got out of the car?

Yeah.

It all says.

We talked about this yesterday.

Yeah.

Do you know what to do about it?

No, we don't.

We haven't come to a conclusion.

I don't know what to do about it.

It won't work, but it will have a good effective ability.

That's a right, too.

I can get 50,000 names on a recall.

Well, that's exactly what we talked about.

The problem is, of course, there is no such thing as a recall of a congressman.

That was our first move.

That's where we're at.

We're advised that there is no recall of a congressman in the state of California.

Recall is under state law.

I'm sorry.

What?

I've done a little checking on that, and the Reagan's guys have begun a plot to redistrict McCloskey and throw him in with Goobser.

Goobser.

Goobser?

Goobser.

All right.

Well, but the Goobser thing is so huge that they've got to make two out of that.

Well, we will, but McCloskey and Goobser will end up residing in the same new district.

Goobser.

He's going to get clobbered anyway.

At the present time, his colleagues are taking him on.

But at the present time, I think, let's make sure he tackles her up and all the right-wingers.

Let them get him a date.

a change or call a recall for our condemnation.

A demand for resignation.

Anything.

And get $50,000.

He's betrayed the voters who elected him.

Get a huge...

I just think that's a good idea.

You'll get a hell of a lot of people signing it.

Yeah, I think you would.

You'll get a hell of a lot of people signing this thing.

We don't want a recall on the courts.

It was a recall.

But I think people have got to... You wouldn't get a recall because that district would... Well, he passed up the win on you.

He passed up the win.

Yeah.

Well, in light of the policy vote, all right, let's go.

Let's have Tom get something, get it done, get the young Republicans, get it on, recall.

He has called for the impeachment of the President.

That's the way I'd say it.

Don't talk about the war.

He's called for the impeachment of the President.

We condemn him for this.

He does not represent his district.

Figure out something.

Okay.

He's betrayed the trust of the voters who elected him.

He's called for the impeachment of the president.

I mean, so that it's an up and down deal on the president.

Well, I think...

What gets him off in this kind of a kick?

He's a funny guy.

He's, uh... For one thing, he's not feeling well.

For another thing, he's absolutely hit on Vietnam.

He's got a blind spot.

And he's the kind of guy who passes the recruiting office and goes in and signs up.

And what do you think about the Vice President?

I talked to Colson some about that.

I talked to him, I've gone through this all.

He would do anything he's told to do, he'd have to work with the Vice President.

How about planning to do it?

Well, I did a thing yesterday afternoon, just a matter of curiosity.

I walked over and went in the Office of Winter Government Probations to walk around.

And we still have the same three guys over there running that thing that have been there for the last two years.

You're still there?

Yeah, I'm still there.

And somebody named Culture and somebody else.

And so I'm starting to, you know, in perspectives, you think of a man with a job.

I don't like to feel that they're going, that for their sakes, they're going somewhere.

They must know they're not doing it.

They are.

See, they're not...

The Office of Intergovernmental Relations has nothing to do with the Vice President's project for dealing with governors and mayors.

So I thought literally... You heard my credit right here.

Sir?

You heard my credit.

I tried to build it up.

Building the Vice President up.

I did it with both the sports people and the young Republicans.

I said, you know, I just told it all.

I'm sorry, Vice President.

Did you know this, John?

He wouldn't go speak to this young man about the leadership thing.

I did it every year as vice president.

He wouldn't go, what's he thinking about?

I got first there and then for a second.

He could go to any party where he could.

He's not yet.

Right?

Right.

Something's wrong with this gentleman.

Now, good or bad?

Good or bad.

I guess what I said was that I said the Vice President, you know, he's very busy.

He's out summing up revenue sharing.

And I said, as a matter of fact, he does more in real substance and foreign policy than the Vice President.

And I said, the reason you don't know is that the only time he makes news is when he hits the press or hits a golf ball.

I talked to the governor this morning, and I said, what is those votes going to be?

He said, until John Mitchell gets him a judge's job, he's not going to budge.

And I said, well, Roy, he ain't going to get a judge's job.

Somebody's going to have to judge him.

Oh, hell no.

Why?

Well, because he doesn't consider him competent.

Jesus Christ, is the former governor anybody to be a judge?

Well, John doesn't look at it that way.

We've got a lot of problems, honey.

Now listen here, on that one, a military appeal, I don't mind that.

That's what I mean.

I got that stuff.

Have you talked to him?

Did you follow up yet, sir?

What kind of reaction did you get?

It was just tickled pain.

What did you tell him about it?

And he said that he would like to think about this.

And I said, now, in addition to having your input, however, we will actually have input from the Department of Justice.

So he didn't think that he was going to make the inquiry.

Also, did you call with him?

Yes, but I haven't been able to reach him.

He loved to hear that.

The president was thinking of a way where we make a new breakthrough that entirely didn't feel.

We've got another new breakthrough in an entirely new field about to come up.

What's that?

The first black admiral.

Admiral?

Admiral.

Could I ask you to do one thing about the replacement for the black girl out here?

There doesn't need to be a black girl.

And this is something that's rather difficult here, I don't think.

Does it have to be particularly common?

No, we've got the girl.

Oh, Christ.

You've already decided.

Let me just say it.

We've decided, but we can change it.

Let me tell you what you need.

And the little girl's fine.

I mean, I know that she's a very good snorkeler and she drinks.

Second.

Yes, sir.

Let her be pretty.

That's very good.

And you've got to have smart.

Except the way she comes into the office, she gives that to the highest people who happen to walk through there.

It's terribly important who sets out in the President's office, doesn't have to be particularly pretty, but a personality type, okay?

So who's that?

Who's that?

Terry Decker.

Who the hell is that?

We won't do anything better than that.

That's a very good looking gal.

Very nice.

And she knows her way around.

Oh, she's about 19.

Oh, Christy's too young.

So take a look first.

I don't know who it is.

It's on your birthday or that anniversary time when we brought the oldest and youngest secretary.

Oh, yeah.

Rose was the oldest.

This one was the youngest.

Oh, God.

Rose will go out of her mind.

That's too bad.

That's right.

She'll go out of her damn complicated mind.

I don't think she will.

No.

Rose has got her attention.

And Rose is a gross woman.

I presume so, but I'm not sure.

Oh, sure.

That doesn't violate our laws, does it?

That's right.

They're in different departments.

They can't work for each other.

And that's all.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

No, that's all right.

I'm going to go back to my black.

I am appointing the black here.

I'm going to go back to my black here.

That looks like the best choice.

Good.

And it's good that the case wanted to get him on some circuit court.

And it can't.

And so I talked to Mitchell about this in order to be sure that we had the skid streets.

And Mitchell said, hey, this may work out four or five different ways.

So Mitchell was going to talk to Brooke and suggest this guy.

Well, I'll talk to Whitney.

I'm telling her that the President has been enormously impressed with Mr. Bergeson.

And the President considers this to be a more important appointment actually than the District or Circuit Court thing because it's a new area.

See that's where the radio came off.

I guess it was a black seat.

I just think it's great.

That was so nice.

Now those folks, we've been standing on one foot or another and I really wanted to meet you.

That's where I have to get his resume.

We've paid him for two years.

That's right.

I think we've got to talk to the vice president.

The vice president's got to do this.

Yeah, that's all there is to it.

But now let's talk to the vice president.

Who the hell are we going to put over there?

If you don't lose Colson, I agree.

Colson just needs to do this.

Yeah, I mean, Steve just wouldn't have his heart in it.

He just...

He'll work on the inter-government relations follow-up stuff, you know, and all that, but he's really, he's got so much going now, and he's doing so much of it so well that it's kind of productive to pull him out of that into something else.

In fact, I think what we've got to do is move more strongly and overtly than we have on the Klein thing, and push that harder.

I wouldn't talk to her, but...

What do you mean?

Well, you know, I had my first talk with him when I got dozens, but I mean, that's the final one, supposedly.

And he hasn't bought it.

He's still, you know, he gets out on the road when we can get him out, but he gets back as fast as he can.

As soon as he comes back, he starts running the office again.

And I'm just going to tell him directly, you aren't running the office anymore.

Chuck Colson is.

and say we're changing that because Magruder's going to be moving into politics more and more, and we've just got to change the whole thing around.

And I'm going to tell him that the option to that is, if it doesn't work out with Colson, that we're going to go outside and bring in the best PR man in the United States and have him do it.

And if we do that, then that guy will have to come in as Director of Communications.

And that Herb's, all of Herb's self-interest is in playing our game this way on it.

The State's Director of Communications will give Rob Odle to carry his briefcase, because we've got to get him out of there too.

And Rob Odle, he's a little fellow they have in the office who programs things, and always gets distorted in life.

Well, it sounds like a nice guy.

He's a nice guy, but frankly, the reason that I have reasons in that brief is that the YRD was because we're all going to do this.

That was a screw-up.

Oh, yeah, no question.

But I was so shocked.

So, at that time, it just came to me as a...

I was really... Well, Steve didn't know.

Patrick, I was supposed to see where they had the briefs.

I don't know.

So, I asked the president, I said, are you having a blue-zone friendship?

So we'll move the departure time to about 2.30.

Well, I think my service is going to have to fight that.

Do you have some extra minutes?

is going to be common, and I'm going to stay around.

He cannot, in good faith, and I, I, I, I, I really believe that he is drawing some, I don't know what I mean.

It's really, I, it, I want to bet, I don't, I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,

It's not a serious problem.

It is.

He is proving to be.

It's a problem with Sam.

And facing the Sam situation, making the rest, whatever the situation, apart from the campaign.

The campaign was, he could be a great assistance for, you know, the campaign.

you have to prepare yourself for what else, so that you don't get a hell of a runoff.

But on the other hand, apart from that, you've got to defend the fact that whoever is vice president can be president.

You've got to, damn it.

Hague has got to shape up on some of this.

He measures up in many respects, but he doesn't measure up in respect to this family.

That's the biggest part of this damn job, being able to work with people.

I don't need to work with people.

Is that it?

He is a local politician type when it comes to staffing.

He staffs himself, it appears to me, with crony type people rather than with people who will either challenge him or who are at his or superior level of intellectual and administrative capability.

And he's very buddy-buddy with his staff.

He's very buddy-buddy with his Secret Service agents.

Yeah.

He'll have the agents in for a drink, you know, and they'll sit around and laugh it up together.

And it's a funny combination between that and this sort of arrogance that he also has versus, like, us or something.

You know, if I referred to him in a memo as Agnew instead of the Vice President, he'd send half a dozen rejections back.

You're set to go.

He thinks it's a bad idea.

Yeah.

Why don't you give Pat a call?

I know we're going to leave at 2.30 and see if she'd like to invite the Johnson's up.

Tell her to get her up and enter the meeting one way or the other and whether they can go if she wants to.

Okay.

And tell her to proceed on if she wants to wrap.

She isn't here today.

I don't think this is a good time to wrap it up.

It's good to be here.

But I really think we've got to, it just comes down to we've got to stop looking at those staff and just love them for their kind of stuff.

I don't even know what we're going to do.

Well, we may break our picks, but I think we ought to try.

And frankly, I think you can talk to me on a head-to-head basis.

in terms of the presence that's been mentioned.

In other words, he's got to do himself a favor here.

Show some bias and show some awareness and, I don't know, this isn't an American idea.

What do you think about this?

Now, Connie raised a point with me that I want to discuss with you.

I think we ought to evaluate whether we may be pushing the bits too hard and throwing in too much energy now on revenue sharing and the rest, having in mind that this is a long, long battle.

And he said, I think that the, he says, your staff people are doing a great job and so forth, but it may be that they're pushing too hard, too hard to get everybody in, put everything out, and so forth and so on.

He said, let us find ways to work on these congressmen and senators and so forth and so on.

And also, he makes this point, he says, now let's face it,

When this gets through, it's going to be compromised.

We must never give it away in advance.

But it will.

But the most important simple objective is I'm going to dedicate myself to those people who, whatever passes that, conquers this election victory.

So he's really thinking straight.

Now, the point that I make is I...

This gets to his mind about selling the brand name rather than the product.

Yeah.

He said, just sell the brand name.

It's got to be in the program.

He said, right.

And he went out.

I wouldn't keep him out of sales planning, but into one of your sales tools.

in terms of the plan.

Who else would sit down with Connolly?

Now Connolly has got a fine hand here.

McGregor.

Let me tell you though what George did.

Colson told me about this.

He spoke at the AEI.

George Colson.

American Enterprise Institute.

They had their board or something for an election.

George spoke to him.

And his whole thing, every point he made, he put in terms of personal characteristics of the president.

He took them one at a time and banged them through.

The president's hard work in doing this is what he did.

The president's courage in making this did this.

The president's deep convictions of concern for people did this.

And he did the whole thing that way.

And Chuck said it proved so conclusively the point that talking about the meat of a program is ridiculous and talking about the president is what they want.

I'd like you to read John's speech to the Lincoln Club in L.A. because it's just too personal.

They're doing exactly that kind of thing.

You've got great acclaim as a result of it.

And you were a little concerned beforehand that you had to give a substantive speech instead.

I can't explain.

I can't say too often.

Okay.

Well, Jack's all George used in his speech, and it worked.

Now, maybe more than that.

Excellent.

And Sapphire, he did incredibly.

It wasn't, Steve.

It wasn't, but the only thing he used was a hammer.

And a hammer that I just had to throw on.

And that wasn't in the speech.

I said, that's it.

Why?

There's not Sapphire for all of it, but I put it in.

But it's the kind of thing that, Ray, Sapphire, you can't.

None of them ever submitted a speech.

Not just personal, can't even.

But you've got to tell a little story.

You've got to tell the little story, then you catch him.

You know, it was interesting.

I threw the business in about tearing the building down over here.

Oh, did you?

What'd you say?

I said, we've got to tell the story.

About how you and all of your arms, and all this stuff, and about how he went by the end of the day and said, you know, well, at least we've got one big gun around here.

And when I gave that line, I got not only a big laugh, but a big bunch of applause.

Because the anecdotes show that you were fighting the bureaucracy, and that you were persevering, and you were backing up your staff, and all of a sudden, there's a good admiral.

Yeah, well, I didn't have it quite that way.

You put it in good personal terms.

He said, I made the mistake of going to the Army-Navy game on the Navy train.

And he talked about the ranks.

At first, commanders and assistant secretaries descended on me, then admirals and undersecretaries.

But that looks like, oh, that got a pretty big hand, by the way.

It's a good story.

It's a good speech.

But it has qualities of the person.

And that we have to work harder to get out.

Substantively, it's a totally insane thing.

It's a total thing.

Basically, it was done for Kennedy.

Nobody talks about what Kennedy did.

They always talk about what he was.

And they didn't do a goddamn thing.

Except that the company was in trouble, of course.

That's pretty true.

And Connelly's made this point.

That's the whole common line that Connelly's held when talking about the program.

There's presentations that John makes today in the economy.

Shouldn't have some meat in it.

But, just enough meat to gloss it over and have a little of this business.

This is a great crusade, you know.

You have the new American Revolution in there.

Now we're for something.

The rhetoric, that's what this kind of reviewer views that with pressure.

It's mainly, these people have got to feel they're in something bigger than themselves.

Something bigger than just the day-to-day nitty-gritty of this, fighting this kind of rule.

Just don't fight over bills.

Pay no attention to him.

I'm going to have to get over there.

I'm not ready.

Well, we'll get together with Connelly and talk about this.

Plus, that sounds to you to grow deep.

Yeah, that's fine.

But what do you think we are?

You are even coming wrong.

I suspect he's right.

We have a feeling that we're pressing too hard.

My only concern at this phase, including the first 30 days, I want everybody to connect you and revenue sharing as a household word.

Well, and you wanted to miss the story.

But you want the feeling to be, and we've done that, you wanted the feeling to be instantly the presence of just pushing the bejesus out of them.

Now you don't, you've got to only do enough of that to sustain the momentum.

You've got national media attention, and to the extent that the national media has...

recognized and carried this.

I think we made where we were on that.

Why don't you say this?

Why don't you have a hand?

Well, I'll hand it over.

That'll be a chance.

All right, there's one.

Then we talked about the regional things.

And I really think that's the way you cap this space.

You do four issues, some.

I don't know if four is a magic number or not.

You do some and get out and impact it.

The president takes the issues up and down.

Bang, bang, bang.

Then we can pull back off this thing and shift into the congressional phase where it's head-to-head, it's individual, quick, wild.

But you've got to get the citizens' organizations and the grassroots stuff mobilized.

Because that would happen forever.

But that would happen, that kind of thing, you want to spread out.

That's the kind of anti-economy's right on time.

But you've got to be doing the state work.

Because the top of our government ordered to do it all.

They did very well.

They sure did.

I saw where some Democrats even traced it.

So we're going to get the counter-reaction out of the labor people and the health and welfare professionals.

I don't care.

I get that.

I don't know why.

Colson's not here to assist it.

I'll get him in later after you leave.

But I decided that on the labor, we may have to fight it.

They are taking us on and everything.

They're getting political assailment.

They're going too early, in my opinion.

We ought to make them the scapegoats of this damn thing.

And by God, I'll go with this.

There's an interesting column by Alfred Friendly in the Postal Department.

He's proud to deliver.

And there's a very interesting parallel.

And I pushed it all the way through.

There's total labor irresponsibility.

I know that later a bunch of people are going to figure it out.

But he's losing his resolve.

He sees an enormous clash.

Subject to the reservation that labor may not be as tough as they're talking, and they may fold in the last hour or so.

Well, as you know, it's by a thing.

That's cold since they're here, but it's hardly wishful thinking.

We're going to give them, by God, that thing to speak.

It's got to be done.

But that's a tactic.

In terms of a strategy...

It seems to me that there may be a possibility of tying America's and England's problems together as a phenomenon of a phase in the development of, well, before we talk to Colson, what do you think our mind is?

That's my view.

I don't see any way around it.

You'll never buy it.

We can never give them enough.

Their natural instincts are against us.

That is for the leaders.

Because they say, fight labor union leaders only.

All leaders only.

Leaders only.

And I can see a rapid rose of hope type speech where you go on the stump and you say, a little group of narrow...

to a self-perpetuating assassination are driving this country to the brink of economic disaster, and I will not permit them to do that.

Well, I'm going to do that on a day's stay.

I'm going to get that on.

I'm going to just do it on a day's stay in a low posture way, unless you seem to make it out that you're doing something important.

And we've got to take these people on.

They are good men.

They support our country on a board of

do this, they cannot raise your cost of living.

Well, then you have to wedge them away from their union members.

And they knew that excuse, you see, that their members won't permit them to do the right thing.

Then we've got to find a way, symbolically, to plate the rank and file so that we don't cut ourselves off from the working end while we're cutting ourselves off from the union.

You can cut our way from being older than you believe.

We have to do all the things that belong to the Ls, the T1s, the glucose line.

That's a tough one.

That's a real tough one.

Well, this gets to the point of why I want to get Herb and his clock out of there.

Just like, frankly, Agnew's in the way of this negative reorganization.

Alright, goodbye.

Farewell.

Good luck.

Have a good weekend.

He's coming back.

Am I going on from there?

No, I'm going home.

Good.

You raised the point of how does he spread himself so thin.

He does a superb job.

of having everything that he has to do.

It's the thing I'm trying to do, and I'm trying to watch the way he does it to figure out how to do it.

Everything he has to do, every responsibility that John has, is covered by somebody else.

So that he, at any given point, never has to do anything.

And therefore is able to do what is important to do.

And he's got a superb ability, therefore, not to be concerned with the urgent and to work on the important.

Because his diversion is covered by his other people.

And we ought to do that.

That's right.

You know I do.

Of course.

That's one thing.

That's your whole skill.

And I think that's a very good point that I never...

He saw Johnson running around frenetically about every problem.

I've been involved in a little problem, so I can call him.

He doesn't like that, but that's important.

Or you don't get involved in it.

You cover it with one of us and forget about it.

Then you let it get done.

The tendency is to get done, which I've done too much.

Like when the Ed Morgan thing isn't rolling, I start calling everybody in and doing something about it.

That's the wrong thing to do.

You've got to make the other people responsible and make them do it.

And John does.

You've got to be prepared to have a lot of things slip across now and then when you do it.

Because it's inevitable.

People just don't get everything done and done right.

But it's still a better way to do it.

I'm trying to get that quote out.

Who's Dixie Rose in here?

Uh, Mark Call is your new sponsor, but actually he wants to spend the rest of her life.

Oh, I won't answer the first question.

Uh... Let's just not give her a quote.

What criticisms of her have brought you the most trouble?

Oh, that she's, uh... Oh, the idea of, uh... Well, the idea that she's basically a square... Not a square, you know, that she's, uh...

It's good to be true.

It's good to be true that they criticize her for being, they criticize her because she happens to have the virtues that are no longer functional.

Happens to have.

That is an orphan at an early age, worked her way through school, great character, determination.

But the impression of her being sort of a mellow, plodding, both have grown.

It is essentially the opposite, actually, in terms of if they were getting very looking in terms, it's true that she doesn't, that she,

doesn't make a fool of herself in public.

For example, her refusal to make a fool of herself in public.

But this sort of thing is a very impeccable conduct abroad and at home and very difficult circumstances.

Really is something that is indispensable in the first place.

And also the indication, because her conduct is impeccable, that she doesn't have war.

Okay, terrible.

For her sake, you wish you hadn't run into politics.

Was there ever a moment when, for her sake, you wish you hadn't run into politics?

Oh, I'm sorry.

They give you one.

It's very much harder.

And also, a woman comes to duty and is released more legally.

I mean, but it comes to your hand.

And if he is aided, it becomes harder for him because of a high IQ.

That's true of Helen Kerr, but of our two daughters.

They struck the defeats of mine, the two abduction defeats, much harder than I did.

Because once a woman becomes committed, she's much more loyal than a man.

I love that.

Much more loyal than a man.

Men are, men tend, in politics and in life, to be, to be less...

I guess once a woman believes, she begins to believe the cause beforehand.

And therefore, but I, and also a woman takes much harder the criticisms of her husband, the wife does, and the he does.

that criticisms do not bother me.

I just consider it, I consider it part of the, I don't know, I have the word, I have the most unfriendly impression, any impression in history, or something, a very friendly impression that has never bothered me for one moment.

But it usually, of course, bothers me.

dollars because they see it in personal terms.

Whereas I see it, I mean, it's amazing.

I see the press totally in personal terms.

Hold off, please.

This little one is not a problem I'm using, which I've always used.

Secretary, you've got a case.

Yeah, sir.

This person is not a worker.

His family has a general friend who has multiple sclerosis.

And then David Shriver, who's cousin of Sully Shriver.

Originally, I was conducting a mine, too.

I just thought he could hate, perhaps, my claim to anything.

He's just running him through on the tours.

He doesn't know about it.

Uh, David, come in.

Right away, we just have to meet for a minute.

Stay where you are, John.

Bye.

Just running in now.

I think the idea is that once you've got a good story, like we talked about in the United States, and it's done, but it's undue for all of his life.

He just never stood on the protocol.

He takes it to the mark.

He'll give it to him.

The mark of a big man.

He's just willing to talk.

And he's very impressive when members of his cabinet or a congressman or senator will ask for a direct email.

Well, come right in here.

Can I ask a question?

Yes, how are you?

Nice to see you.

Well, let me see.

This is Bob.

Well, how are you?

Nice to meet you.

That's good to see you.

Let's go over here and get a picture.

Come on over here.

You stay there.

That's right.

On this side.

There we go.

Good job.

Look out there, T-Bone.

It's just a lab.

I'm couldn't even forget.

You don't.

It doesn't matter.

All right.

Well, we're glad to see you.

Thank you.

You're an anchor, sir.

Yes, sir.

We're involved.

We're ready to mark.

We're all here.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

Who do you give this call to?

No, no.

See, that's the reason I don't give any more calls.

One of the things we're talking about doing is we've got this guy, remember Van Chum Lake in California?

We've got him in now, and he's doing a hell of a good job at planning stuff.

But what we're going to do is get another, this is the thing we've been talking about, is getting another

Chuck feels we've got to get four more, but we'll walk before we run.

We're going to try it first.

And I think the next guy, if we can do it, ought to be a TV guy, or a guy that at least has ties to TV, but that can plant that kind of stuff.

A guy that can move it.

Now, we've got already, of course, a lot of people who can and do do that.

You can't just use one or the other to plant it.

That's right.

So if you've got to talk, you've got to beat and press a little button and say, please stop.

That's exactly right.

Or what you have to do is say, here's the line you have, and here's what we want to do.

Or this line, talking to secretaries, is a very, very important line.

I've always done it all my life.

And also, it will shape up some of the goddamn candidates who come over here and want to ask what time of day they want to talk to me.

But it's also a damn good insight into the man, which is... And I've done it all my life.

Congressman, I call the Congressman in, well I'll talk to your secretary, and I give her a message, she comes in, where is the top of the man?

Where is AA or whoever else?

Conceit is conceit when an individual insists on talking to the top man.

I think it's the ultimate conceit put at that for an individual to insist.

and insisted on talking to the, about talking only to his office of government or the top man when he can just as well accomplish the objective by talking to the administration.

And I also chose to respect the Secretary of the Ministry of the System very importantly.

And it's not a fact, very impressed that the people that are most impressed with me that I know

That's why he's so important to me.

We were talking about the Vice President's thing, and I think you're right.

But we've got to get another man in here, Bob, and I don't know if I ever needed that.

Well, one thing John and I talked about is that we can, I think, and somebody else agrees, is that we can get some

substantial help from Harlow in dealing with him because he's got a rapport from the outside.

Bryce can be very helpful when we're starting out.

Bring Bryce to see me Monday and you and then Bryce and I will talk about this problem and say, now Bryce, will you work it out?

Because really what is involved here is a vice president's survival.

Yeah, it is.

He either is going to start to shake up or I can't do it.

I can't do it.

Well, the other thing John and I... And we were going to do it this afternoon.

I think John and I have got to do it.

We've got to double team it.

But it's for the two of us to see him without his staff and basically level with him.

The head of the embassy...

He's got, from our hemisphere, the one that sat in the American side when I met with Colombo, I've seen him in Italy.

It's very impressive.

Is he at DCM?

I don't know.

He's not at DCM.

I don't see him to help.

This is a bright young guy who's sort of 18 and all the rest.

Big horse face, but just very, very upbeat.

Very impressed by him.

I'd like to find out what other languages he knows, for one thing.

He sat in with you?

He sat in.

He sat in as the translator running that Colombo.

And Colombo had his translator.

I'd like to run it down.

Who is he?

What is he doing?

And so forth.

And basically what I mean is he seems to have the right chemistry.

He's got enthusiasm.

And Frankie is a hell of a translator.

You know, I can use him a little bit.

Well, he didn't take a note.

So he apparently is one of these who has a photographic memory type of thing.

Who was in charge of that?

I hate to know who it is.

Yeah, yeah.

Who was the translator that sat in with me in the Colombo visit?

Was he a State Department fellow?

I noticed he'd been in Italy.

Is he in the embassy in Italy, or is he in the embassy here?

I'd like for you to run him down and see who he is, what languages he knows.

background is, left, right, and so forth.

He's very impressive, and he didn't take a note in the night.

He'd be at the mental conversation to see if he did a good job.

And getting around, I'm telling everybody, this guy, I didn't want to bother anyone, I understand the world perfectly.

This is a, this guy at ABM property, he looks to me like a young Walters.

Yeah, did you meet him or talk to him yourself?

Sort of a big more space guy to me.

Yeah, but a very pleasant person.

I'd like to do something else.

I'd like to use Blair House.

That's not the State Department's house, isn't it?

Doesn't that belong to us?

What state do we live in?

All right.

When we bring entertainers in, like Jackie, please, I'd like for him to stay at Blair House.

And I'd like Bob to stay at Blair House.

And I think we can do it.

Bob would stay with us, but I don't want to leave him with us, you know, because he'll stay with all my help.

Jesus Christ, I can't stand it.

But I think having Bob, having him over at Blair House would be great.

Early in the evenings at the White House, let's use Blair House and have him stay at Blair House.

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

Yes, sir.

And the big old scat over there, and then when I press out, you know, this is White House, and they all turn back right across the street.

They can bring them there, you know, three or four of their staff will be able to feed them.

So if you arrange that.

Yeah, Nick really runs that.

Yeah, he'll really love it.

Well, we got the other thing going, which is another interesting asset, which is Chapman's guy.

Chapman's friend, the guy he refers to as Chapman's friend, who he's got back working.

I can't remember his name.

He's a Jewish columnist that Murray, we used him in the campaign.

He did a hell of a job for us.

He traveled the country and reported everything into the New York Times.

He used the code name of Chapman's friend, Dewey's friend, which he would use.

He's back writing a column for some obscure New Hampshire baby.

Yeah.

Well, he'll say anything we want in the column, for one thing.

He also attends all of Muskie's things, and he'll ask any questions we want to ask, you know, or anybody else's for that matter.

He'll do anything we want.

He comes in with some interesting kind of poop.

He's the guy that gave us all the stuff I told you about the headquarters set up and who was in what office.

We also have to tell you that...

Muskie says that we, very, very upset with you.

Good.

Do we have any, does Teddy think that Muskie's putting out this terrible drill that's coming out in this horrible Chicago picture?

They don't know, but they think so.

They think they do?

Yes.

Do you think maybe the teddy is gone?

I mean, Muskie is certainly capable of it.

It is just the latest addition.

The latest addition has been all through Kennedy's office.

I do know that two of Kennedy's top people have told third persons that they thought Muskie was behind it.

Uh, there's some feeling the federal was demoted because of... ...the jurors.

Yeah.

Certainly.

Ah, it's a shame.

That's literally not as much trouble as they need to be.

No.

When you take off, let me put a V in your bonnet.

I think I understand the truck from the curtain, but the TV does.

It's drawn from the front of your voice.

It's beautiful.

Our recommendation is to not do a television thing.

I've never seen it in the world.

It would strongly feel as if you could not use up your prime time energy to go on with something that has no reason.

They point out that there are a lot of options and other things you can do.

For instance, you can sign a message to Congress for pictures on Thursday morning.

And then, the thing that you get the most out of it is that at the conclusion of that, you can say to the press, you're in for the signing.

You may have some questions regarding this message.

I'll be in the press room in 15 minutes to take your questions.

Go into the press room.

on camera and with microphones.

Take some foreign policy questions for business.

See, they will have given the thing out on Tuesday.

Press a little bit briefed on the report.

This is your brief on Wednesday.

And with safe defense.

All right.

They don't want us to use my conference.

It was recent.

It was the President of the United States.

If you want to announce a decision with the government, if you want to hold a press conference, if you want to announce a new government, if you want the government to argue on one side or on the other side, I'd like to ask you to get out of the way of my argument.

This is the other side of the time.

I know we don't make that argument.

That's the real problem.

Now, the other thing you could do is you could also read

for a camera, a 10 minute summary of the thing or something like that, which could get us to do it.

We might get five on this.

We've got a little more stuff.

Other options would be to hold a live television press conference.

Go on for a press conference, which was our original plan anyway.

Or also a

whether it's a foreign policy and a foreign policy report.

Do you discuss it?

No.

With the SAFAR?

No, but I don't think your decision should be based on one hand or the other.

Oh, okay.

Well, I...

I don't...

I mean, I would like for you to do that.

Where are you going to... Are you going to hand it over to the SAFAR?

Do you discuss it with Henry and the SAFAR?

Say, look...

You know, you can read the state and district radio and let them carry it live in case you need it.

How about doing a live radio broadcast?

At noon or something like that.

We've done that before.

Or how about a live, how about a live TV broadcast?

Do that on the day of the crime, all right?

You're good?

You're good to go.

All right.

You go listen to the live radio.

We're going to do the whole thing live.

We're going to do the whole thing live in the middle of the day.

And that night, they picked up.

And if you don't have questions, then you just have the president.

Why don't we do it live in the middle of the day?

Oh, that's not true.

See, there's lives up here.

That's not true.

I can't do better.

I don't think it's really top-of-the-art, but the question is whether you want to get the audience to this kind of thing.

See this.

It's top-of-the-art.

It's fascinating.

Very much like a person.

I'm not sure, I'm not sure maybe going for radio is a good idea.

Radio at night?

No, radio at night.

So that it rides all day through the traffic.

Now radio, you could have been a bigger audience if you do it at night, because I'll replay it.

That would be good.

Radio at night, traffic at night, radio at night, radio at night.

600 words to be read before they hang up so we can leave.

We should not do the whole thing.

Erase it.

And then the radio thing will be repaired and fixed the next day.

It's really more of a release the radio thing.

No, you sell it out.

I just want to hand it back to the second man on the way back.

That's a question for the second man to do.

I wish you the best.

But you agree.

How do you feel about it?

You know, I'm a television host.

I just want to be able to write and read.

When I go on television, I actually need to be on a press conference.

But I don't need to be on the foreign policy report.

I can do it.

I can get ready to do a foreign policy television press conference.

I mean, that's probably the only other reason that the 15-minute foreign policy statement is no, but I'll just come back again.

The other thing is not to do with the press conference at all.

And simply this week, right with the press conference next week, that's the foreign policy.

The press conference will overwrite the report.

That's a good question.

Our aim this year is to get this very thoughtful report and talk a lot more about how you're not making the airport restaurants in this week.

That's, I think, what we ought to do.

And if we don't do this, I think we're going to tell a lot of restaurants to follow through.

And maybe on this time, let's make it on foreign policy as a follow-up to the city of Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you for your help.

I think it's good, it's good.

I don't want to say it's good.

on domestic policy on Friday.

So we have a domestic thing and then do a foreign policy call to the next week.

Do the office thing on Friday domestic policy on so we are right over these this week.

All right, that's my argument.

But I don't think, I just don't think there's enough oxygen.

That's it.

When you go on nighttime television, there's got to be a reason for it.

There's got to be oxygen.

Oxygen.

I do not like it.

If you did, I'd do it on Wednesday rather than on Friday.

Well then, you've got much more policy to work on Thursday.

It's not just on Friday.

You do the domestic press conference on Thursday.

Thursday's a better day for the domestic press conference.

It is a better day so that it arrives more after the weekend rather than the weekend.

I mean, they're messing with the governor and all that crap.

You wouldn't have to worry about it.

I don't think you need to do it.

You just need to do it.

This is the only policy thing out there, which is, in the following week, you'll be pressurized.

And then I can go on, and I can do it, and I can make that your deal.

I can tell you, I can pressurize you into the stand center so that you can do a lot of work.

We ought to be on TV.

Yeah, we ought to be on again.

We're on quite a bit on the news.

We've got a lot of news.

this week, but on the other hand, the use of the office press conference is very, very good.

I didn't knock one of those off.

You can use a lot of the crappy things before going on, but they tell us, you know, it's fine.

I think there's something to be said for doing the domestic press conference this week.

They're in the office.

The Auggies are in the room.

I don't know where they're coming from.

I don't see them.

I don't know where they're coming from.

I'm very safe.

Then one a week.

Why are you doing one a week?

Oh, 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, 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, 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

You know, let's go off and get the governors in the early part of the week, the day of the week, the last part of the week, and then go for a TV press conference and follow it along the week.

I think that's the thing to do.

But how about making the TV press conference and following the event just on or off?

I just think there's something to be said to say that whether we want people to do that, yes, there's people who are going to run.

Next week, I'm going to do a press conference on the board of policy, on the investigation.

We're going to get rid of it.

There's so much out there.

I don't think we're going to do it too much.

I don't think we're going to do it.

I think we're going to do this regionally.

Nixon, Haldeman & Flanigan on Presidential Appointments and Economic Policy

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Also recorded on February 20, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Flanigan on Presidential Appointments and Economic Policy

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on February 20, 1971

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Cite this conversation