On February 24, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Henry A. Kissinger, Ronald L. Ziegler, Virginia H. Knauer, Lewis A. Engman, Elizabeth Hanford, White House photographer, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:19 am to 11:35 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 457-001 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hopefully that water policy, the water policy.
He's looking for one more.
We've got one more guy.
Where did you say he found that?
Anderson's working over here.
That's better than, he's about twice as good as he, he is non-substantial, he's twice as good as he is on preparing remarks.
Just as the part of it may be because of his having worked with us, or having covered the event, he's working from the press, I don't know what it could be.
On the other hand, he's got a sense of,
temporary, off the date.
He started a quick whip.
We said earlier, like I said earlier, we came up with, way back, Andrews and Young, and that young guy, and John knew he was bright and talented, and Zicker was looking for a young guy.
Just as a, really as an agent, is all it was, and that's how it went.
That's like my, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a phrase.
He really is a good person.
You know,
We had to do it before they also ever really got it.
You know, a pretty good chunk of business for us to do it.
A lot of people who had to work through it.
Yeah, and I just, I almost had a goddamn sleep state getting back to work.
And Alex, you know, he's not going to be anything wrong with the Foreign Service, but he's, Bill said it's just incredible.
Alex, on this one, he doesn't even let a, he does all writing work on those guys himself.
He keeps the records in his own office.
He was in direct communication with Bunker on, you know, how each one had been doing out there.
And
in other words it is one he just has a personnel office report on it's one that he he's you put it and it's that's a damn good thing to do you know he that day he had alex in here and he just put it directly to him and it was okay his thing was in the ring and so he knew he had to do it you want to get into consumer bills
I was going to do a reception for Buckley yesterday evening, perhaps.
And all the old people stayed.
But the matter is, all the old people used to be members of the system that we had.
Very rejected by the lads.
And they didn't like it.
Well, he's a friend of mine, sir.
Oh, that's a good one.
How are you?
I'm fine.
How are you?
I'm fine, sir.
I'll get you a picture.
Right, right, sir.
I'm a good friend of yours.
How are you?
I'm fine, sir.
I'm a good friend of mine, sir.
I'm a good friend of mine, sir.
I'm a good friend of mine, sir.
So this man, if you stand here, and let's see.
So he could be there, and he could be in the intersection.
Kind of like that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
There's yours.
There's yours.
It's all in a box.
It's all in a box.
It's all in a box.
It's all in a box.
It's all in a box.
I believe in a very good prayer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm going to ask you a question.
.
.
.
But I would constantly get back to the fact, I refer you to the statement on where he said that they have to fight here.
It will be a hard fight.
But with the, I think that's what I said.
Always do it that way, rather than, if you can, rather than saying, it doesn't matter, it's something new.
The line up here that I hope that it's interesting, it's been developed particularly by Henry Hamm of the New York Times, who's a left-wing son of the National Playback.
I used to know him, he's a horrible bastard.
And then CBS also picked up the line and said that we found new, that for the fourth or fifth time, we find new reasons for being in there for the fourth or fifth time.
The administration is overoptimistic and so forth and so on.
It is claiming successes.
I would simply, on the claiming of successes, simply say that this is the purpose of it.
This is an operation, you know, you gotta get it in a reasonable way, or you don't, you need the claims, so that they can't quote you as claiming successes, or as predicting victory, or as expressing concern about defeating yourself on the center, say this is bad, they have, it's gone.
We're reporting the progress.
We're reporting the situation, but just the idea that it's just going along, this is,
Up and down.
South being the means of fighting well.
North being the means of resisting.
Very, very hard.
The day-to-day, trying to play down the day-to-day.
The day-to-day, the day-to-day operation.
I know that I'm not recruiting for what Laird says.
The day-to-day operations should never be changed along the sides.
But the idea that, for example, John Chancellor Henry had something in the factory,
The plan called for the South Vietnamese to go into Laos for 50 miles.
Now, that is a goddamn lie.
Nobody ever told John Chancellor or anybody else.
In fact, no one might have ever said they're almost 32 miles.
That's as far as all that's dependent.
Has anybody ever used the word 50 miles with anybody?
Call him on it.
What he's shooting for is Route 23, obviously.
Right.
Who would ever set 50 miles?
But Route 23 would almost be enough that way to defend Laos.
Right.
No, but we talked about disrupting supply lines, so we can extrapolate that.
Just pass the component gadget.
But actually, they're not moving.
I have a lot of .
Just say that IK is the worst .
It's going to be incredibly bad.
The rationale has changed.
Well, they said the same on Canada.
I can't believe, of course, that the rationale has changed.
Is it worth it that we are claiming success?
The whole point is we don't expect the day-to-day to ration all that bunch of bullshit.
Of course, the idea, if you recall, that I'd say in here when they said that the, you know, Kansas, the only reason I mention it here now is because it's picked up in the networks, that they, when I said in here that there was no,
that this action would save America.
It's later than next year because these forces
were poised to move into the northern part of South Vietnam, just as the Cambodian exercise cut off those who were poised to move into the southern part.
Do you recall that?
I want you to go back and read it again, and I have this, and I won't see it.
Yes, and, because, you see, that's, I don't think they said that President Chu gave a new reason for this, that the North Vietnamese were planning to attack the northern part of South before Fort Robinson.
Of course they're planning to attack.
That's why we're doing the goddamn thing.
see my point for sure i just think it's a it's probably a piece of uh i don't think it's a case actually running all of the briefers to come to think about it i don't think i think the briefers are all doing quite well but it's a question the point is that you've got to realize the press is deliberately starting every other thing they're saying and this is the thing
I remember when I was briefing on Cambodia, they used to say, no, that's only 30% of the close.
I remember as late as March or July 1st briefing, they said they had it.
One of the things, as I mentioned yesterday, that exists here is that people who are communicating this, those who are reacting to those reports are frustrated, cynical, and against this war that they've been reporting for six years or so.
And they deal with emotion.
They feel they've been lied to, you know, back here in the U.S.
I want to move the agency reporter, the name of the agency reporter, covering the labor operation.
I particularly want to see if it's the same agency reporter, or if he is in that area, to agree to cover the campaign.
And I know it's filed with her.
Well, I understand that I'm not greatly concerned about all this, except for the temporary reactions.
Except that, I guess, if you, Hank and then Blair, and all the rest of the country, put your grief and prayer together, go get me in the shootout.
I just, just give them God at that.
Just give them a little, little grace.
Don't blame anything.
Don't say anything else that's going along.
on the one hand, that a matter can happen to one of them, at least a fellow.
Sure.
They have a vested interest in disease.
So that's one.
There's never been a period.
Crawford, his thesis, of course, has taken you into the problem.
Crosby, no, his thesis has taken you into this problem.
They've both been circulated.
And Dennis, and Dennis, and Dennis Weiner.
All three of them.
All three of them.
I hope we get through it.
I hope not.
No, we're going to, we're still...
We circulate them internally.
We're going to mail three of them out to all editors, publishers, everybody affecting reporters.
I'm still trying to figure... We may have to just do it out of the National Committee, but that isn't the best way to do it.
That's what I was saying.
Get some...
Well, you're right about the frustrated people.
I know that it's the frustrated people in the establishment.
I don't say that in a positive way, Mr. Prescott.
I'm saying that they are frustrated because they have been proven wrong.
I don't know.
Very good.
Then he didn't answer half the questions because he was sitting and chuckling to himself.
We've got one or two seconds.
Partisan.
Partisan.
Partisan.
Politically motivated.
That'll read those back.
Our friends did not vote for him.
Did you say the hardest experience?
But obviously, all you have in order to treat it is violence.
What is your point about St. Paul?
Yeah, about that's what I wanted to ask.
But this guy, what was his office?
But he used to work for and he's now... Oh, working, working.
Yeah, and he's one of the key advisors of .
I said, well, I'm glad you got one of my .
He said, well, he's a very nice boy.
He's not very, he's not very...
He suggested that he wasn't a very high-level guy.
He said that he was very anxious to meet me.
He said he wanted to have me over for a drink at his house and could be done very quietly.
I have no interest.
In fact, I won't do it unless you want me to.
And I just wanted to mention it.
I mean, I've got nothing to do with any counterproductive.
No, I don't.
Did it be counterproductive?
It's all.
It's not the only reason I won't do it.
I've been through it many times.
No, I won't do it.
That's why I keep saying I won't do it.
That's why I keep saying I won't do it.
When you get down to next year, after they've got a candidate, then we should set up formal briefings once it goes through all that.
I, uh, I don't have nothing to do with any of that except it was you and, uh, uh, so I'm just going to go on.
But I thought it was interesting that he, uh, that's right.
No, we have nothing to do with it.
So I can't reach him.
Well, I'll turn it off.
The money's been up.
I told him I'd direct the visit and he should call me sometime.
He tried to make himself sound very tough.
I mean, he was trying to get way over.
The Democrats have been involved by the end of the Congress for Christ's sakes.
What the hell does that prove?
They don't know what they're going to get off of that.
On this, Mr. President,
I know he's going to trust agents, but I've studied enough military history to know that when a commander makes a plan, and then it doesn't work exactly as he's planning, he gets obsessed with it.
And I feel it easier to take a look at the damn thing fairly soon, because I know Laird is violently opposed to it.
And maybe everything is going great, and I'm not worried about that fantastic thing, because that has happened.
But they, they are just jumping, I don't see any, uh, now they're thinking of jumping into Chiffon with an aircraft.
They love the North Vietnamese airport.
I don't see the obsession with Chiffon personally.
I don't see why they don't cut the roads where it's safer to do it.
I know it's dangerous to second-guess military operations, but I also know that a lot of battles have been lost by generals who got overtired and got obsessed with their original plan.
And everything, it is no problem.
That's got to be done.
That's got to be expected of many things, whether they fight or not.
That's it.
You're saying they'll still be doing that, right?
And I had a colonel who was out there briefing me of the JCS, and I said, now you tell me, Colonel, what do you think?
These units on the roads, there were more trucks on Route 914 yesterday.
They told us for two weeks that 914 was cut.
I've been putting the word out that I get the sense of indication.
It's, it lacks.
It looks like a broken plane very often, which on a football field isn't that they're not doing what they're saying they're doing.
In the Cambodian operation, whether they get their brains beaten out or not, I have the impression that they're dominating the situation.
This operation, and I do not say this to anybody else, I owe it to you to say it,
In military history, you'll see these generals in World War I, they get an objective in their mind, and then they keep pounding away at it to prove their original plan.
And it seems to me, I don't think you can order them not to go to Japan.
That would be a dangerous thing to do out here.
But if we could get a feel for somebody, how they're from somebody who's got some experience, what would they do?
They could go up to the first floor.
He could talk to combat officers up there.
He could give you a fair assessment of what the hell is really going on and whether some of these people are overtired, are losing their grip.
You are the one that will have to pay the price in blue skies, sir.
And I know the theory that the theater commander is supreme is all very well, and maybe slightly sharp, but I don't exclude it.
If you look at a map of the aircraft in there, and again, I wouldn't recommend that you cut it off, but I'm glad that I get a morning briefing from a general from Volkstead.
And I don't start with any preconceived notions, but one day they'll show me every road cut.
Next day, these battalions are nowhere to be found.
Then they show another road cut.
Then they show me, then I look at the sensor information, I see the road is still being used.
And there again, the impression I'm getting is, when you see a Montreal football team, even if they lose, they look good.
And in this one, why we haven't lost anything.
In fact, that fire base is tripped, and that would happen if the thing were going superlatively well.
That's not the part of it that concerns me at all.
And of that, it involves more.
But I don't see this as a teaching concept.
But I think now the fulfillment of the plan has almost become an end in itself.
They are about fifty days behind schedule of the original plan, but that isn't so important if they were cutting their own salvage in any regards of that.
As more than whom I asked yesterday on the personal basis, what he thought also makes him, well, of course, a regrettable that had to screw things up on his own, and he may, he didn't impress me during the camp organ operation with this theory.
And you know I was always for the daring move during convoying, and I generally am.
Observe, for example, that no convoys have yet moved on Route 9, even to the point which we control.
They've just airdropped another two brigades.
Ten miles further up the road, it's deadly completely dependent on air support.
The units that are now fighting us, where they knocked off the fire place to move over on this mountain, there, we don't have American artillery to cover it.
There's no fire plan.
And at least, it seems to me, we're not as invigorated as getting those two brigades knocked off.
Or, at the worst, what is Haymer?
Well, I used to learn what to use.
Well, if Haiti comes to the conclusion that they ought to shift their gravity further south, why can't we have some from here?
What's Haiti going to learn in the spot that he can't learn just as well here?
But also, I think we ought to get some sense how well these South Vietnamese are actually fighting.
But then, what do we do if they aren't fighting?
That's what we have to consider.
Now, pulling him out, I think, would be, is something that ought to be considered at very, only in the absolute extremity.
We are very far from that.
But there are a lot of things that I don't understand.
He's got 10 manuvas in Japan.
He's sitting there.
He's doing a goddamn thing with them.
You mean in North Vietnam?
In South Vietnam, there's reserves.
He's got a whole division.
He's just not moving to the authorities that he did in Cambodia and that, that the other guy is moving, that tree was moving, and the truck landed.
The truck landed over the roof ahead of the other truck.
They may get their brain speed now, that's true, but there's no evidence of it, and I'm not even saying that.
I can't tell how it's going in lava's face.
They're digging up big caches.
They've got about 800,000 pounds of rice by now and 150,000 gallons of gas.
It is a success.
I'm not fully at ease about it.
They fall behind every objective they set themselves.
Oh, yeah.
Do we have any?
How's our B-26s?
I really need to know, getting this to date, that's all I want.
When are they going to leave?
I called every single summit that day.
I need to know.
Where are they?
When are they getting out there?
Let's get something out there.
They're going to need it.
They need close-knit support.
Who stayed out of the picnic?
And tell them it's lost or something.
I want to be clear about that.
There can't be no question at all.
And in that area, for example, where they attacked the fire base, there just hasn't been, for no reason, these attacks the rest of the week.
So it isn't that they can just dethrone them from one thing.
Every time they launch one of these attacks, they have to rest for a week or two.
And if they wait for another week, they'll get ready for another one.
And Moore tells me they should have their lunch from the last one in the spring day and then fast.
They, uh, the South Weedman needs, since we don't have air controllers on the ground, and we, we're not as well coordinated with air support as we were when they were in action, so there's something magic on this truck.
We'll come back with a report that everything's going pretty well now.
How about that?
How much, uh, do you think this points you?
We're going to have a meeting on Friday.
We'll get a briefing and then after that I'll send a hit.
Is that about right?
I think we can do it.
That doesn't appear too precipitant.
It's just the abnormal reaction.
I think the meeting will give us a day.
I'm all right.
I'm all there because I'm over here today.
No worries.
No worries.
I'm getting a mortgage on account.
I walk in person when I get a report.
All of the kids in the club.
Oh, but hatred's bad.
Oh, if I had, that's why I said today, if I had Laird over, I wanted to look like, Laird's having his press conference today, let's leave him alone.
I think it's going to happen in two days.
Oh, no, if that isn't the, uh, that is why I think I can still send Haig.
I just wanted to be sure and know what the rationale is.
I think you could put it on the ground that you've only used him to, to avoid the hatred's position.
Yeah, we need somebody who's been there that can come back from on the spot and speak with him.
with confidence.
I mean that.
But for example, some of the, everything that I have told the congressional leaders, for example, i.e.
I got from Abrams or from the Trump chief, I know this morning I saw that Ruben L. Lutein has not been cut, even though they told me about that, that he should have been cut.
He's not been cut at all.
He is cut unless the roads are around him.
Was it cut for a while?
Did somebody in some units reach it or something?
You couldn't prove this from the census.
Now, what may be the case is that the census...
Show it only up to the drain and don't show, show the ones you might have.
And he sent one, he had to go back and say, 9-14 shows this isn't cut.
Why did you do that?
We should get that, I have to agree.
We've all said, I said 9-14 was an unhealthier year this week.
He said, now that isn't a big deal if they told us what they're doing.
We had no position to know when they should cut what's wrong.
That's right.
It is this military productivity that they get their mind focused on an objective, and that becomes a magnet that draws the men.
In the Truman's visit it went down, the David of Stalingrad, the British made it into the Battle of the Sun, and it's always been our best combat command.
He never gets things together these things up.
And also, he knows
It's a different kind of award.
That was one where we were fighting to win, so that's where he would go after he heard that and saw this case might be.
We can do it, we'll have it on Friday.
We'll get it, we'll get it out on the weekdays.
I don't want to, I just want to straight out report it there, just what the situation is.
I'm, I'm, I'm not sure.
Fifteen minutes in the mid-east, just to update.
I don't think it would bother me.
I mean, with, uh, with, uh, kind of the town side, it would bother me.
Okay.
I'll give you ten minutes.
And it's just very, very brief.
And that would give us an opportunity to get money to try to do it.
The numbers of weapons, for example, they're close to 2,000.
You can't believe it when they say they cut 914.
How can you believe it when they say they cut the weapons?
See my point?
I don't know.
I don't know whether to believe them or not, but that's what you're getting down here, is whether or not we believe the zombie enemy, maybe the zombie enemy did what they were doing.
Or, yeah, receptively.
You see, that's the problem, isn't it?
Except we ought to be supplying them, so we ought to have some rough idea of where the hell we're coming to supply them.
That's it.
Then they had two battalions of one, or they had two battalions on an extension of 940, and they were making noise to get ready to chuck the bridge at home.
I would like you with all the conflicting reports, because some of it is adhering to a balanced situation.
That's exactly right.
But I've watched it now for weeks.
And they said they must know what they're doing.
And I know.
I wouldn't follow the temptation for more small ones to share.
But I must say that it is solid.
And he's a great contractor.
And also, his two field commanders are very, very good, too.
And there's no question about the legal of that thing in moving.
That, that Cambodian country, that, well, it was only one day, but they made a big advance again yesterday, and they're doing it, they're giving the North Vietnamese a new problem every time.
Now, Laird was saying correctly they were massing to hit them, so he just jumped over them.
I don't know.
Haig, for example, tells me, I don't know the tactics, but he said if he were a regimental commander, he'd have to get his airmen behind him.
Now, that isn't happening, is it?
Because there's so much anti-aircraft fire, is it?
Because these guys have... Where?
In Japón?
In the Japón area.
But not in Japón, in that northern part.
He would do it in Laos rather than Cambodia.
He'd do it in Laos.
In Cambodia, they are.
That's what I meant.
He started doing it there.
He did it in these other taxis.
You keep, if you don't move with the North Vietnamese, he says, you're in trouble because they're masters at this head battle.
I thought we were.
But he says that.
That's what we want, to fight in this head battle.
Well, we want them to concentrate.
But it may not hold in a way that Abrams was husbanding all of this for a knockout, though this could also be the case.
I brought these maps into the staff meeting and he suggests he has maps and I don't make them up.
And they show these three dots on the road.
And next to the manhole, there's not anywhere near that.
And there's no lighting and I'm pushed off.
Well, they said General Clegg, who was a Marine general, who was on both staff, and he's a good man.
They don't lie.
The breakdown is here.
They tell us what they know.
The border's gone, but there's more on the ocean than there's on Puerto Rico.
Oh, man, this man's really not supposed to be coming.
I may want to take a look at it myself just alone.
Yeah.
I did not get a vote.
Both got it all.
Isn't he the secretary of the Joint Chiefs?
Basically, he's the executive.
No, no, no.
I can get bullshit about optimists, but he won't lie about where they are.
Hold on.
That's all I want.
I want to know...
Since you're asking us only where they are, I'll tell you where he gets to that.
I know.
It's the personification that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, he wants to go on with his own land.
Well, he was reviewing a plan that would have made it a plan that would have pulled some units off the roads.
to land, and to go over land to put artillery in place so that they can land in Japan.
Now, I'm not taking that.
We have a responsibility to say that you shouldn't do that.
That's right, we have not.
So, uh...
Roman, I'm going to respond with you.
My intention would be to, but keep saying it goes to Chabon and head back to the unit center, Chabon.
Cut the ropes to the south and you only rope take any time until it goes through Chabon.
I'm going to try to cut it a little further south.
This is going to be a hell of a problem if that goes really out of time.
Take that, Chabon.
Yeah.
Why don't we get to the border, sir?
Why don't we call Malachi Thompson?
I can call him here, yeah.
Malachi Thompson.
Malachi Thompson.
They're looking for...
Uh, why did they say so?
Well, that's what they told me for the first time.
They said that they used them in 62 and 3, and then it was a big scandal because they were overhead used.
It makes no sense.
What they now said to me, they were going to send 28s, which are probably playing the soap line, instead of they're not going to send B-26s.
Well, they were going to look at alternatives.
Uh, I'd be on the phone with them every day, two days before the race.
What are they doing?
I guess they're pressing crack or act for their ground support.
They're really not.
There's no question that they need an attack bullet to fly 700 miles an hour over a ground position.
It's nuts.
The kills they're getting are from C-54s.
Gotcha.
Do you understand what I mean by C-54s?
Exactly.
That's the same speech.
Eighty percent of the drug kills come from the, from planes that were never intended for them.
So we know that that's the only thing I'm suggesting.
If there's someone who's safe, don't worry.
They're not going to use that.
They're going to use that.
That's all we need to know.
Bill Rogers went through this.
Yeah, yeah.
Must be seen like other senators.
He's now crossing bridge.
Better watch out for this cop.
one of those insoluble things.
It's funny, he bounces up and down.
He sort of bounced back.
He was better than it was.
Maybe he got a nice sleep.
I don't know.
He's obviously tired.
We all get tired.
We have no right.
Nobody has the right to come in this office and never be tired.
You know what I mean?
That's the whole point.
I know people who don't have the strength to come and watch me in here.
I spoke to Conley last night.
I told him about that.
I want to arrange his name for him.
And so I gave him the, uh, whatever they're going to say my plans are.
I want him to go over to my name and say, what do you do then?
We go, you just have that name.
It's Laurel.
Is that right?
Sure.
They use Laurel, right?
And use, uh, Carson Campbell.
Sure.
I'll explain it to him.
Let me just talk to him and tell him how it works.
I'll just say that how it works up there is that the president uses that as a way to get away and what he wants to do is make it available for you for the same kind of purpose.
And if there is a set up there, there's a separate lodge for the guests and your meals are served over there.
They'll take care of you.
They show you movies in the evening.
There's
The bowling alley and the 30 signs and...
Ski shooting.
Ski shooting.
Anything you want to do.
And, uh, the camp staff will take care of you.
Oh, that's very good.
Thanks very much.
They use both, uh, beacons.
Both beacons.
They're both extremely nice.
They're both extremely nice.
Beautiful.
I was just saying, you know, it's not second to none whether you'll be there or not.
Yeah.
But you are there to be concerned about it because you just kind of lead your own life there.
You can lead it as you see fit.
You may ask them to drop by for a drink or something like that.
Oh, for dinner.
Yeah, drop by for dinner.
Or a movie or something.
We just play it so that everybody has a feeling that he's coming.
I figure that we can do that and it's much better than they had to do it in the very last guest operations.
Either way, it gives them a freedom.
They don't have to wait for you for breakfast.
It's an absolute freedom and we always thought, for example, we have a plan that everybody eats whenever they want.
We don't eat together.
You might invite you over for a movie.
That's the only thing you get.
Or we can put them over on the other side.
Those are, they're perfectly out of the cabins over by Laurel.
Did he indicate he wanted to do it?
Yes.
I think you want to get into the habit of having cabin officers up there when you're there.
It doesn't bother me.
It's a problem with most of them because most of them you aren't going to want to have over the dinner or something like that.
You're going to worry about the guy being there and I don't think you should do it as a matter of routine.
I think once in a while having him come up right to us is a good idea.
Yeah, I agree.
I like all that now.
And we just made it clear that, you know, when you're there, there aren't other things.
But the question arises here, you had to go over some things with them.
And it must have been because you wanted to work with them on congressional plans for revenue sharing.
We will want to use that place, too.
Now that we've got these two cabins, we cannot use it for... To Laurel, up there this summer.
They are not leaving.
Because Laurel is...
It's falling apart and they've got to do something to replace it.
They're going down below it.
where it could be completely out of sight of your place, but they're building a much more well-planned lodge that'll be used for the conference facility and all that sort of thing.
It's not going to be fancy, but it'll be very nice.
That's right.
So if you do want to have a meeting up there, you can.
It'll make it more useful.
And they'll be able to serve the food better and all that.
And they have, they have a problem now with military aids and all that.
Have to use a little too, so it gets a little...
The man right there is a hell of a good man.
He's the best.
Dead by.
He sees so much better than that last guy.
That was his name.
He was a nice guy, but he didn't have any... Any imagination.
Imagination or steam.
This guy is, uh...
Yeah, I mean, you know, he's really working on running that place instead of just sitting up there for two years.
That's damn right.
He's put in all kinds of, you know, just not big stuff, but just he's got the walks mixed up right.
He's got, you know, he's fixing the trees and putting a little planting in here and there.
He just busts his tail to run a damn good camp.
The other guy figured he was, you know, I don't know.
It's a little further away.
You know what I mean?
In case you're there, then we're there to clean the other sites.
Is there a chance to do anything?
No.
That's good.
That's just that the other one has not been broken, and you can say that we should entirely move it.
It could be the first yes.
and so forth and so on, and they conserved breakfast and then from the kitchen and asked them to answer the phone.
Well, the governor's on the way from the area.
Yeah, I've got a problem for you today.
I've raised it.
Besides those damn blacks, your whole staff crew feels that you've got to not let that go by, and I've raised hell on letting us have the meeting scheduled.
We were happy to say that.
Well, it was, no, I'm not sure.
I don't think it was government.
I think it was a combination of Finch, I mean, not Finch, Roseman and Romney and Bob Brown and Morgan, because they were, it's a meeting on briefing the black leadership on our principally revenue sharing.
They've got Finch covering all what we've done on black colleges, and they've got Shultz giving them a pitch on the black .
No, sir, not at all.
It's practically over.
They start at 10.
They feel that having those guys in the White House, though, you cannot let them just come and go and ignore them.
You should stick your head in, give them a little charge, say you're glad they were here, and that's all.
You should not sit in anything, definitely not take any questions or get any discussion.
Give them a little bit of your good deal kind of thing and get out.
And you do it just, if you will do it, we should get somebody who's in the meeting out and get a reading of where it is and when you can do it.
I've not committed to beating you.
I do not believe that it's a good idea.
I don't either.
I mean, it's like, I guess, the idea that people are supposed to come out.
Well, I got people kind of upset this morning.
I just really helped.
Because we had these college editors in, which was probably my fault there.
I just...
I don't think it did any harm to you.
No, it didn't do any harm at all, and maybe did a little good just by having done it.
This, if you do it this way, will also do a little good, actually.
But what bothers me about this is that what it is is scheduling by stabbing in the back rather than by planning.
And for them to sit there at a meeting this morning and say the President's got to do this, or it'd be, you know, a
being up front, it'll just create another incident.
They're right, it will, but the point is not that.
The point is, how the hell did we get those people in here to begin with?
The meeting, when it was originally set up, was supposed to be in New York, which is where it should have been.
It's where the blacks are.
Romney was going up to New York to meet with them, which would have been the right thing to do, but somehow it got shifted down to the White House.
I'm tracking that back, not because it matters on this, but because we don't want it to happen again.
this kind of thing, just, we're getting the problem is,
You know, everybody's driving to get this program going, and everybody, they're running, pushing me and everything, and all their things.
Well, it's like planning to do the same thing, though, in this business group.
That's right.
That really wasn't the right thing to do.
I'd seen every one of those guys, every one of them in the last month, and I had to make them the same kind of speech, and I fell ahead of my pace.
Their argument was you'd seen these lobby groups when they'd been in, so how can you not see the blacks?
My argument was, the question is, should he have seen the lobby groups, not should he see the blacks?
Exactly.
And how much?
No.
What is the best thing to do?
Go in there or bite them in here?
No, go in there so that you don't get stuck with them.
By the way, you've got to get in here and start asking questions.
I mean, you just say, I'm in a meeting with him.
I guess you're on national security or something, but I did want to...
I kind of want to say that.
Okay.
He was talking about the war.
He said it's a bad thing.
They don't expect to see it.
I don't think you're going to get that.
I think...
All right, I don't want to talk to anybody in the Senate.
Just find out if there's somebody there to beat me up.
Just get oracle-y, oracle-y, bunch of United States ambassadors.
And who's sitting there with them now?
I'll have to find out.
When they start at 10, they won't be through for some time.
They'll be through it.
They're supposed to be through it now.
And that's probably the time to do it.
How do you feel about the governor's thing?
Uh...
i apparently we did it pretty well yesterday afternoon with them do your thing most of them likely direct approach rockefeller was just beside himself he got me in the hall last night in the corner and said that he said you know just you know he's so enthusiastic already he was his fist into his hands just he couldn't have been more right so that was
That slated all the rest, you know.
They were trying to shoot up these balloons.
And he said, this cut it all.
Couldn't have been better.
We hit it just right.
We've got the thing covered.
And he was just, you know, bouncing along.
He said, we're cranking now.
We've got these guys lined up.
We're going to have problems with them because we're going to have the partisan thing where the Democrats are playing their welfare game.
Some of our guys are concerned because they want to try and get everything they can get.
And that's something I think I may be wrong because we're going to get the subject, but I think we want to consider it maybe.
getting our Republican governors, or at least a little crew of our loyalists in them, in for a real nut-cutting thing, probably not with you, but maybe with you, I'm not so sure, that says very cold-bloodedly to them, look, you guys, we're going for this program.
This is the one we intend to win.
You've got to help us win this one.
Don't try and pick up all the marbles.
Play with us on getting our game done, or you're going to end up with no marbles at all.
Because like Ogilvy is an example, as I understand it, who is playing art.
He's all out for us, but he's also all out for federal takeover of welfare.
at the point somewhere, somebody, and I guess it isn't you, and I sure as hell isn't you, it's who it is.
It's Conley and Schultz, probably, or Conley, Schultz, and Ehrlichman, all three together, so it's the total power of domestic policy.
Who says, look, fellas, that ain't in the cards, so don't start playing that game.
You ain't gonna get it.
But just tell them cold-bloodedly what they, you know, it's this or nothing, so now, and put a little pride into them.
And then tell them to get out and sell that.
Now, the vice president did that a little bit too hard yesterday, I guess.
He's at Milton Schaaf at the meeting.
Because Schaaf won't let him in there.
Are you sure?
Well, the beat hit in yesterday afternoon at Chapel.
Start peddling this line.
And the beat said, that's counterproductive.
What you're doing is, you're going to do this, we're not going to get anything.
You can't do it in an open meeting with the Democrats there.
And you can't do it to a Democrat because they're playing a logical partisan game, some of them.
Well, the general feeling at the dinner last night seemed to be very close.
Very good.
Oh, yeah.
Very good.
And that you did exactly the right thing on the toast, giving him just the BS about the ladies and not getting into the substance.
It is, though.
That's...
But the damn wines love that, you know, when you put up that stuff like that, and boy, they go home and they talk about what a, isn't that person wonderful?
They know you mean it.
Flowers are...
I thought his conclusion, did you see?
Conclusion was great.
Conclusion was superb.
And that was what matters.
I'll tell you though, the guy is obsessed and I still think people like that are the equivalent they're ahead.
I think he ought to come down.
He ought to come back once a year for a big benefit or a big deal or something like that.
Yeah, basically.
He's become a senior old pilot.
He goes on over and over again in the same audiences, and he can't use some of them.
I'm sure he'll use some of those.
The stuff he used last night is the same stuff he used here last year?
It's the same stuff.
Oh, he really appreciated it.
That's what matters.
He mentioned that several people wasn't, you know, happy, so it was great honor.
That was perfect.
And everybody got a kick out of that.
And they put George Wallace next to Nellie Connell, which was a damn shrewd move.
A lot of her work on him, though.
He looked alright.
I didn't see him.
I thought he looked...
He is getting fat, but... You didn't see him?
Yeah.
I didn't notice him.
I talked to him for a little while.
He's in great spirits.
Did I notice him?
Wasn't that the Mississippi girl at my table?
I don't know.
Well, I said she was from Mississippi.
Maybe it was Alabama.
I don't know.
I don't know that voice in there, so...
The whole thing that we've done, we won't do it the next year, you understand?
I will not do it then for the next year.
I believe you're going to sue the Democratic government.
This was an excellent year to do it with all the new governors, too, because to the new ones, as Ernst said, being in that house, he did damn well, I thought.
He trapped him into it.
He had to.
But his point of the great honor of being in our house, going off of that, was...
And it is.
And he introduced well on the executive and the governor's side, too.
Now, the idea is they're off the record.
There's no doubt about it.
It's better off the record.
Right.
Absolutely.
A couple of them squealed about it, but they said they couldn't underwrite it.
But it's much better for them.
That's made the point to them.
I was able to talk gold turkey like they didn't have it otherwise, and they were appreciative.
Maybe not about the signal.
But we need to get someone out of there who's been in it too.
And I'll take care of it.
Yeah.
I've been in it through the whole meeting.
He's the best I can catch.
No.
No, but they're talking about...
This is Ron covering it because he's concerned about the press coverage.
From his viewpoint, he wants to be sure we don't get negative zap time.
He just said a brief handshake would be the thing to do.
The meeting is going well.
Ron's going to brief and just say you've gone by the meeting.
And that's a very quick one.
All right, why are we doing this?
Because those are our own people.
Yeah, but they're all, they're our own people out in the regions.
And this one, boy, I don't know anything about this, but the guys who do, the Rumsfelds and the Schultzes and Hurwitz, who deal with them, they're... Well, I will say... ...regional consuls of our country...
around the house, and it's pretty close around here.