Conversation 459-002

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that would bring on children.

Trisha and Julie both agreed to eat with the young people in this sad mess.

They've indicated a desire for the young people to come in and watch their fathers receive those words.

So I'm not reattending the party.

What the hell, Jim?

And, uh... You can't do it in the room in the East Room, Mr. Brown.

You have that thing.

The question is not what some of it are sitting on.

Okay.

I agree.

All right.

Just that you want to look.

Good.

I think people would like to see them come in.

We wouldn't have a table set up with them, but we had one sit where you were sitting at the head table, one sit where, three sit where the astronauts were sitting, had the Vice President get up, Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury, Dr. David, and Deputy Secretary Packer, who we know, to have those people get up and give their chairs to them.

to the young people coming to the stage to witness the event.

They're the senior people.

They stand up or sit down at the stage?

Well, they stand up, or we could put them there.

The point is to give their cheers to the young children who are there only for that period of time, maybe three or ten minutes, and I don't think they're going to applaud their coming in.

Then you could begin to miss any golfing thing now.

I don't care what outfit it is.

Sorry, I don't care about the hole-in-one club.

I'll make up a hole-in-one club.

Let's see if you're not going to have to have your golf club and club and ball into the crowd.

Well, I'm in the crowd.

Well, not really.

You can't actually do that.

That's what you'll do.

That's that.

I bet anything, just so we know that horse getting it doesn't really make all that difference.

If it doesn't work out.

Let's get the person taking it in the old and new club and don't make that, forget that club, okay?

Fair enough, good.

Just get the person taking it in the old and new club and don't make it go on to another White House.

And then turn it to the presentation of the awards.

But just prior to presenting the awards, it would be the most appropriate time to use it.

And then your remarks, and then make a note of the awards.

The awards would be the remarks.

Incidentally, the citations are very short.

They're only six days long.

I thought it would be a good idea to have Bill Andrews, who is on here,

And the vice president would be standing there, having given his chair to one of the satirical analysts.

And that would conclude that demonstration of the study of the children.

Like the children upstairs.

They're really not all children, too.

These young ladies are 19.

But the others are under 12.

Yeah.

So that would sort of get them on.

Good.

That's fine.

So we can leave right away?

Yes.

Good.

All right.

What is the situation on this place?

I had a place to go to.

I was with you last night.

What is it?

Can't do it.

You've been there?

No, I've not been there, but they're planning this.

They're going to have a sign in the summertime.

Got it.

So it's that follow-up.

You told me.

I don't know what you talked about.

You said it's...

He's slightly going down and very, very rough.

Very rough.

What do you have to do to get it ready?

Send a crew out there?

Yes, sir.

Turn on the water and... What about the beds?

The sands, I prefer the sands.

The water is hot.

Well, I haven't seen the pictures, you know.

I haven't thought of the fact that it's being closed.

They don't have bedding, I think.

I don't know how they're getting there.

Well, let it go.

Let it go.

I think I won't bother.

I don't think it's worth all that effort at this point.

I'll try.

I'll go up later when you're done.

It's all set up.

You'll have a week to plan it.

It'll take you quite a bit.

Okay.

I didn't have news that I was there.

I didn't get any report if I left the box.

No, no, no.

I'm just talking about the box.

If I had to go anyplace, I'd probably stay here.

All right.

Okay.

All right, sir.

I think it's too much trouble getting everybody up and betting.

Yeah, we can take a look at that later.

Well, what's the... Should have got away last night.

The thing he should have done is just leave yesterday afternoon and gotten on the plane and gone to Florida.

All right.

Really good.

That's what we ought to do.

We can't do it.

Pat's not here.

Go down there and it's got to even out.

It's only a day.

You've got two days.

Come back tomorrow night.

Would we be able to clear it on you, Mark?

No, because we're on a trip.

Oh, that's right.

We could have gone right from Florida to... Well, I thought of an actual...

If I thought of an assignment, I thought of this.

I thought I'd like to do something different.

I don't know why I thought of... You're right.

Sometimes you can think of that as a two-day trip to Florida.

It's an excellent idea.

And that's the last thing.

You just pop in the water and have a go.

The weather's good down there this weekend.

Yeah, it's just getting bad.

Copy that.

Warm weather, you know, it looks like it's east of London right now.

And there, you see, there's no preparation time.

The beautiful job that everybody's trying to do.

Right, right.

Come on, we later.

Don Hughes just called me.

He's on stage.

He's out there now.

He strongly recommends that you do not go because right now she can't do that.

Yeah, that's all.

That's all.

What are we doing next weekend?

Well, next weekend you've got church here.

The plan would be to go to Camp David and get back to Rochester and just go.

Next weekend we're here too, aren't we?

Well, the problem is we can't go to Florida.

We've got a quarter to issue now.

It's all over the place.

Yeah, but it's, you know, I'm crying for stuff out here.

It's just, this is one of, we ought to look for this kind of thing, because that's your retreat.

And that's not any problem with getting a family and working them all over and getting them all in the right attitude and so forth.

They go down and have these great Catholic taste buds.

They're just getting the goddamn thing.

That's the best to go back.

You know, that's your job.

You should do it.

Yeah.

I thought you were through with what?

Five or six or something last night?

We could have left right then.

All right, I missed it.

After I finish with this anesthetic, I'll come up with another one for you, okay?

What else is new in your shop today?

Another one.

Do you want to get a picture of Asya?

No.

Why, is it a book?

He's done all his research.

The only thing he wants is to get a little stuff from you on the hour to what you saw before, how you saw the office and decision-making in the early...

and what you have to do, and then he has specific questions on that, and then he just wants any guidance you want to give him on what you want to say.

And he's presented as a pure or anything that I'm saying.

And I'm also trying to get right to the 10th member I know.

But there's always questions.

I still have time on that.

The fellow off California.

The jury.

He's not finished, you know.

No, the sooner he gets it, the better.

I know.

Well, I'll think of a couple of people I will look at anyway, sir.

After I finish this, depending upon what I hope to do on this next day.

Good.

Now we'll make my new last meeting tomorrow.

One thing they suggested that we might do is that next year marks the 50th anniversary of Reader's Digest.

the prophecies you might want to give at dinner in honoring Doolittle Wallace in January of next year.

I will, Lord Allah.

But that we might want to tell him now.

In other words, we want to publicly announce that Doolittle Wallace, right, that you want to do this, that he could be thinking about calling today a very nice thing, calling today, because he might die before then.

I've got a lot of questions.

Right, we should.

I'm going to go to honoring two of them, Mr. Anderson, that Bullfong founded it.

I don't want to present the Medal of Freedom.

It's a nice thing to do.

And God damn right, so be the Medal of Freedom.

It was really, that's what it really is.

Of course, it's called something completely unique in America.

Unique and also very unique for the things we believe in.

You had said you wanted to have the walls set at night, so that'd be the night you had us setting that in the way.

Good.

I want to see the boats.

They are trying to inflict a massive deceit on us, is my question about it.

And so it's going to be the turning point one way or the other.

If this outweighs the measles, then that's important.

It's good to know.

How are you?

There's something on the jury field this morning.

It's, uh, I get that they're grieving.

I understand what they feel.

Well, what they feel is, uh, they always say it's fine, and I think it's all right now.

I think Abrams has now gotten a grip of the situation.

He's faced the fact that this Airborne Division isn't very good at moving it out.

I'm a lot more confident now that he's moving these other units in and is reinforcing it.

And I'm encouraged by the fact that on Hill 31, for example, they're not just caving, they're fighting there and they keep inflicting these casualties on the North Vietnamese.

I think that it's going to bleed them very badly.

And clearly these divisions that we're sitting in there, we're going to go into first and second floor later on this year.

And the TACS will be achieving an objective that isn't exactly the one we started out with.

But I think it will be important.

We'll have enough months in this connection.

and the news broadcasters are, of course, trying to kill us.

None of this is new.

I consulted Freeman last night, and it was straight Berlin.

He handed me a piece of paper on Vietnam, and I did an oral, which was, in effect, what they had said the day before.

But he said, what really worries him is an invasion of North Vietnam.

And he said, look, we understand loud, but North Vietnam is a socialist country if you actually go in there.

So that in the South, in the Cambodian operation, they're continuing to do spectacularly well.

They've killed

At a minimum, 200, and some news reports say 400 North Vietnamese who tried to ambush us.

And they've counted 200, probably.

When will, apparently, they'll be moving in those Marines into the airport to replace the airborne?

That's going to take a better thought of next week.

It's hard to disengage units when they're in the middle of combat.

I guess when they're in person as far as the movement up.

Yeah, that will be that going forward by tomorrow.

They're not even there yet.

You don't know what road I'm talking about?

948.

No, where you said they had their...

I know, Mr. President.

I know exactly what you mean.

It's south of Route 9, and it's supposed to go along towards Chippewa, and they were going to put two battalions in there, which were...

then called in at 5,000 names, and they were supposed to be done.

These movements, this has been one of the aspects of his operation, which if you get briefed every day frequently, you'll see things never happen as quickly as they tell you they're going to happen.

So it will happen during the next week, but it will not happen in the next day or two.

Right.

Fine.

Next week's fine.

I think it will happen by the middle of the week.

Yeah.

Next week's fine.

but they are beginning to position themselves toward it.

Most important thing is not to show any concern about the fact that the stiff body is going to be bloody for a month.

We all covered that in the beginning, Henry.

Absolutely.

That's it.

Everything is expected.

Nothing is unexpected.

Sure.

I wouldn't say.

Their lifeline.

Absolutely.

They're fighting for what they need to do to avert their...

They're fighting for their chance to win next year.

They must take fantastic casualties.

So, Mr. President, when you consider... That in one area where we went in after B-52 strike, we found 192 bodies.

Now, even one out of five of these 352 strikes hits it through base.

We hit, for example, in Northam House, the six 352s from the 316th Division, and they've withdrawn it from the front line.

Now, we're obviously not hitting every time that these things strike, but they're pretty heavily concentrated now.

So I think

If they can hold on into April, and once the Marines are in there, that Air Force Division just isn't designed to fight extended engagement.

If they hold on into April, then the North Vietnamese are in bad shape.

The meeting in the television press is expected.

Because they, they smell blood and they want to win.

They, they hope that maybe they're right.

This time we're not going to let them forget it if we turn out to be right.

I think we've got to go.

I think they have, they took a free ride on you last October.

On last October they took a free ride on you.

But the great thing, after October 17th.

Oh!

But except for those three weeks, they have done nothing but harass.

I didn't know that.

I just.

So when we had breakfast, for Christ's sake, we were all goddamn Democrats as well as all the Republicans.

Earlier in the game, they had the same goddamn greeting, gay Republicans.

See?

The public minute's straightening it out, I tell you.

He was almost in Korea, and he was almost beside himself.

When he said, how can the president justify going to a sovereign country, I said, do you remember, Scotty?

how you used to tell me if the president hadn't gone on television with Cambodia and had just done it, everyone would have been quiet.

Besides, we're not doing anything in Laos other than what we've been doing all along.

What should the president have said on national television?

And he said, I'm just sick of the whole thing.

But what I find interesting, the European press, I don't know whether Brandon talked to you about the two-hour session I had with them at noon.

They are ecstatic about the world report.

They think you're doing it right.

They think you've got to succeed in Vietnam.

I don't know whether Brandon had a chance to go into that.

I don't know.

But that I think if we hadn't gone into Laos, they would have gone another way.

I think they are now determined, if they give you a reputation for thoughtfulness in one area,

And then that raises the presumption, yes?

Yeah, I'm going to try to calm down now, which is better than turning down before the hell he is.

Let me raise a wild suggestion.

Why don't you, when you finish this meeting, go to Florida?

And then go to Des Moines from there, Monday morning.

I'm just careful.

He was going to call you Thursday.

He said it's the best weather they've had down here in weeks.

85, no wind.

He's done it.

You can go to 11, but there are two in the afternoon there.

Afternoon E tonight, all day tomorrow and tomorrow night.

Leave from there at 8.30 when you land.

I don't think it's not going to land.

I just think it's a couple hours work on the plane on the way down.

A couple hours work on the plane to Des Moines.

No, I don't think it's, I don't think it's the right time to go.

I don't know if it makes sense.

Okay.

Good morning, Mr. President.

Should we ask Kate to take notes?

Steve, you want to ask Kate?

Kate, come here.

We have to consider whether maybe we should

Good morning.

I'm going to get over here.

We wanted to take a very brief time this morning.

What's the Christian business secretary?

I don't know.

But it may come to, maybe I'm dragging it out of this, and I guess everybody, we have a lot of standard questions.

We had all three of you yesterday and so forth and so on.

And I think the major problem, well, there are several major problems, but in addition to what the president stated, I think the other problem is the one that Bill mentioned.

And that's what the thing's all about.

Now, on Thursday of this week, and this is totally in the room, I don't ever announce these things,

It's probably what I want the television tech to do.

And Bill, I'd like you to follow it next week.

I'd like you to do an open press conference.

We had one last week.

I don't know if this week, Bill, if it goes next week.

All of us are on the same line.

And we have it on the same lines.

It's not a sensitive effect.

We've changed the objective.

But we expected no opposition.

and this is a bloody fight, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Of course, it's a bloody fight.

It is expected to be.

It's brought us a con.

There are, of course, positive things that come out of it.

The difficulty is that getting our story across is difficult.

And one of the problems that comes with this is one element that we have today.

You see, they know how to tell our story.

So, that leaves it pretty up to us.

I think, Bill, you agree with Alvin.

Now, I'm just going to put the big guns on and explain.

What do you think?

Sure.

And I don't think, I don't think any of us should get across here to Charlie.

I don't think you can go in any direction.

You, myself, and Bill, correct?

Alright, so what the main point is, what about all the deals we lost yesterday and what's the situation?

Are we ready to bug out and so forth and so on or not?

I think I know the answers, so quickly tell us.

What has happened overnight in the last 24 hours?

Up and down or sideways?

Up and down or sideways.

All right.

I'll break this away from you.

This operation out in the south of Camp Woody is, as you know, there was a very heavy fight right here at Donnelly.

Well, the 200ers, they came in with two of them.

Very light heavy, just on the part of the southeast east.

The operation was contained on schedule.

You know, sir, this operation to go the 1st of July, and then making a delivery of the thorough account.

John, with regard to that operation, could it be fairly safely said at the present time that that decree has not, to an appreciable extent, reduced the effectiveness of the verb in the operation?

Oh, yes, sir, that's quite true.

In other words, they were able to change the man

We had one report that some of the senior commanders were upset about this.

On the other hand, what they want is contact this day.

And I'll go right back to this very topic.

They already asked this question.

Because Stonewall Jackson, instead of marching those poor bastards across that,

So, you can go around and take it from the rear.

Go ahead.

Yeah, well, I wanted to describe to you, I can't phrase it because I'm back to the shuttle this evening.

One is, as I told you, when I'm reading on this plan, I think we have the idea for the frigate to move prior to this time of year, 9.4, that's why they're ready to come across here.

They are grouping the tanks now so that they'll have their whole organization in tanks.

This is what these movement lines mean as they move the first and the third grade up into position.

As you know, they've already been there.

The reporter described this road operating along this road, and it's now a bomb-free area from here, down here.

We're not bombing it.

That would cause the audiences to patrol that road.

Uh, next, uh, other people have put in quite a bit of comment about 5th and 4th base, uh, 3-1 and 8th and 9th, all a deal with everyone.

There's been some, uh, very heavy fighting in this area.

This is a battle still going on and they report as follows.

That the South

and OVP may have had a part of the deal.

They are still fighting.

I did, in the vicinity, the bank had reported 250 OVP dead, 100 along, right on base, in the center of the base, and another 150 or so in the vicinity, two kilometers to the east.

They reported another 200 dead.

And I think Rachel this morning was talking about the paralyzed mothers of North Vietnamese kids.

That's the first time I heard anything like that.

And that's right.

But there's been a series of attack tank fights.

They saw their friends.

Army tanks and the North Vietnamese tanks along this road 92, just at dusk, which would be daylight this morning, where there were three North Vietnamese tanks destroyed and one South Vietnamese tank, for sure.

So, the issue is still mixed up there, but I think the significant thing is that the South Vietnamese are staying in that fight.

As you know, they brought the armed reinforcements out here,

And then there's two or three flammables from the group of northeastern, south-eastern dug-in right adjacent to this position.

And they're still diving.

And I think that the fact that they are still there and holding on under this intense situation, there's an indication that they are certifying well.

The canyons are very heavy.

on the North Vietnamese side, and I'm not sure which of the South Vietnamese and most other can't choose.

But the, in other ways, I think the most contrarian part of this is that they didn't break and move away from those people on Hill 31.

They had been the survivors of the other Hill who lost and moved in with them.

So that operation was the back of the other.

This was the second operation.

What they did, if you're quite correct, was 39th attack and the first action that you were supposed to be showing up was 23rd.

Yeah.

But they were not related to this accident.

Now, with regard to General Abrams' plan to replace the air bomb, is that what they're going to be here?

Yes, sir.

I think so.

If you look over here, you'll see where these greens are.

You see the green indicates the position of the south east media.

Some of them may be here, some of them back in the infantry.

They'll be going forward.

But he'll get a look at that in a few days.

I'm pretty sure.

And then, again, also he wanted to bring out that one brigade, which will be moving.

And he had to replace that with that next one, which comes across.

What about the balance of the reserves that he has in South Vietnam?

He still has, after he moves to the East, he will still have a lot of new reserves in South Vietnam.

But the point that Mel raised after our meeting yesterday was that they were very definitely listening to our opinion.

to make a major effort to cut off those that are weird and are for the zombie enemies forces that are on Route 9.

Cut them off.

Is that, is that actually, what is our intelligence bill in that respect?

Well, the intelligence report, there's two directions for moving almost directly south.

Right.

On the...

Uh, just down the line.

Well, that's right.

Uh, as you know, the, uh, we were just punishing them there.

Yes, sir.

We would do more of that.

We were putting out patrols.

Now, of course, when they get over into the, uh, southeast east side, then they are against the U.S. forces.

But we have, right here, a very large fire support base and we have artillery.

And we are covering this with 20-mile tanks.

All of them, generally you can put that in all the intelligence.

And, here again, there may be some enemy fire, but I think that

Mr. Helms and Manny, I've killed for the first time in a long time.

We have the North Vietnamese who are willing, apparently willing to commit as a place of attack, which they haven't done in a long, long time.

What the North Vietnamese are obviously doing is committing to major action.

It's not that we're not trying to serve their forces, it's not fighting the Chiaotash.

They're going all out to break the madness.

That's correct.

Did we get any intercepts with them, or do we have any?

We didn't get any.

No, we didn't.

That's what we got.

Air Force, as usual, does not have the capacity to know how to get such an aircraft.

They moved one place to another.

All right, a tough operation, we did pick up the head quarters, lay out the defense, two fighting fields in the morning in the head quarters area.

What I think is concerning in our intelligence people are saying that our intelligence was inefficient and had to have been bad.

And that's the reason we are running the more resistance than was expected.

Mr. President, this is precisely what we expected.

It's been there, we outlined it before this matter, and so they both quote, a high official said.

But if that high official doesn't know, when we were in here briefing you long before this operation kicked off, we identified all of those units around on the map, and we thought it was possible to find a high official who so said.

That's about it.

As I was saying, of course, it's night over there now.

They'll start in again the first thing in the morning.

General Abrams reports that General Long was very resolute.

Now, one other aspect of this is a sense of indications during the last 24 hours, which is apparent, but we talked about yesterday, I think, in the sense that if you look at what's happening on these highways, you see on 922, which is a...

route in through this area.

611, the traffic is down to 9 trucks and

which, of course, is the one that they have tried again.

It's, uh, well, they've got zero yesterday and, uh, two northbound, five southbound.

Uh, today, this could have been, uh, uh, we do know that there's some, uh, uh, we do know that there's some, uh, uh, enemy woods on this road, and so these fire trucks could have been, uh, mostly contained.

And he's married to, uh,

on the route 99, which goes on to the south, whereas we had a trip four days ago at 86 and 80.

Yesterday we had 14 trucks.

And some of them were knocked off by air.

Very important.

And only 30.

Then you go to Route 914B, which is the one we've all been so interested in.

The one that comes down here.

Yeah.

This was... 25th Avenue.

That's the Kissinger Trail.

The 23rd was 100th, the 24th was 84th, yesterday 28th, and today 17th.

And so I think that overall, there's no question about the fact that he has flowed his ideas.

And I just had a reading on him, but through the passage at one time,

Very little figure is still valid that I can draw.

The rest we can get on and so forth.

I've never seen so many trucks before this began, so many now.

These are things people understand, right?

Only half of them is up.

I've got to give you some better.

But that is what I said is the source of confusion.

If you read in the paper, somebody says it's a lot more traffic.

Now what it is, it's traffic in but not out.

But what you're trying to do is cut it off.

And the traffic below Chippewa is greatly reduced.

That's right.

But that, if you read sometimes, you read the paper, the trucks are all gone.

That's all.

He's just wrong.

I mean, there's no question about it.

But I'm thinking in day effect with the AA groups and watching the timing of these operations, and they're making inclement air moves, and I'm sure that they're going to go right ahead.

And I think that, again, the very thing is that the Oregon showed that in the worst kind of environment they were willing to stand in line.

On Hill 31?

Yes.

On Hill 31.

Thank you.

So, so be it.

Demand, they fought.

But the other side doesn't.

That's apparently what you want from Canada.

Why can't anybody do this?

But times are tough.

I have a question regarding the DMC.

The major purpose, of course, of the statement in which we have the deliberative that was about the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, and the North Vietnamese.

The purpose of that, of course, is not because they're going hard.

We all know that.

They can't go without our support.

But the main purpose of that is to tie those forces down.

It's not true that they have a free shot.

They just move everybody out of there and come over here.

As you see, they have not reduced

The total number of forces, at least as far as I can tell, is right on the BMC.

How many Americans, how many Americans across that section are facing the BMC across the country?

Well, then, there we have the 9,000.

Thank you, 9,000.

That's American combat troops.

American combat forces, right.

Right.

But they do know our friends and support people, and they ask people on K-sign to talk to them.

K-sign, did you hear that?

Total K-sign.

They're across that whole bottleneck of the DMC.

There are only 9,000 American forces.

About 9,000 are combat, or all Americans, I mean.

We have about 9,000 in this block.

What I'm making is not to do with how many combat military or anything like that.

It has to do with how many Americans might be vulnerable in the case that the people are going to be .

Now, is it 9,000 combat or is it 25,000 or 50,000?

The Americans are going to have combat.

Get that thing to go all the way down, and pick a way to stop it, President.

Can you include all of them here, please, in one?

Fine, I'll look at every one.

That's great.

Just hit me down there.

That's great.

That's what this is all about.

Now, the second one, I said, with regard to the, with regard to the whole thing, it's the only part that's important.

Uh, it, uh, we...

And we all know the purpose of that is solely, just like your little recognition, your vote up there of 5,000 Marines on Sunday afternoon for a few of the votes of the rest is to keep them worried over there and at least tie down a few of their people so that they don't come running around over here and get these guys.

Is that true?

Yes, sir.

We were expecting maybe to go

PT, I think, once more this week.

And we've been watching those past areas up here and getting the best kind of intelligence that we can from CIA, DEA, and working closely together.

There is a substantial amount up there, but I think it would be worthwhile

Maybe, I didn't think it was going to be this weekend.

Because...

But we don't present that, so we're not going to talk about that.

It's still a charity.

that can have the effect of tying most people down.

That's all.

infantry will be sent into Vietnam and under the direction of so forth.

And Bill Rogers, I don't want to say you, but Bill's father, that you know, I must say John Cooper, he said, well, of course we've got to go in and rescue people.

But the point that I make is this was necessary to say that we were building a rescue tank just to leave it there.

But it's too late now.

But I always thought we always said that.

We always said that.

Well, you said that in our testimony.

Bill said, why didn't they do the presentation?

Why didn't they do the presentation?

That's exactly what we said.

That's a new thing.

Who said it, though?

They were asked the question at the briefing whether we're going to continue search and rescue missions with combat forces in the missions.

Yeah.

And we've always said that we would do it.

Only for that purpose, not for going in there.

It's a rather interesting thing, though, that it was picked up by the press.

It's nothing new.

Was it on the press release?

No.

Where is it set?

It's the same quotes he used before the porn characters.

No, no.

No, I didn't suggest it.

It's something that's very hard to get across to a press man.

Because the press man always wants to come out with a press briefing and have the guy say, he doesn't see this briefing.

It's only a good briefing.

It's not a good news.

It's only a good news.

For example, when they ask about what is the American decision about supporting North and South Asia, he says, no, I have nothing.

as far as our policy, it will be solely dictated

in terms of whether or not to subtract to our forces in the south, and that's true.

We all, which really is in effect saying that we won't, and then somebody did ask a question, said, well, what if there were such an operation and required a combined thing

and so forth, what would you do?

And I said, well, of course, we have no plans to do anything like that.

But you see, the point is, Melvin makes news whenever a press secretary, and he does a good job, whenever a press secretary asks him a question and tries to give the answer directly, rather than telling the son of a bitch in the press.

Gentlemen, I refer you to the secretary's comment on that.

What's the next question?

Yeah, but that's not new, sir, because there is nothing new.

If you agree, though, it's very tough when I say that, but that's what it is.

I do it all the time.

I used to have this.

The reason I have this problem now, and I know from long experience for years, it's very, very, you know, this kind of thing.

separate the Vice President from the President and I from the Vice President.

Bill knows.

I never got in trouble once in those terms.

Because over and over again, whether it was through anything,

I said, well, as the Secretary of State said, this is the situation.

And they said, well, what?

And then they go out and grumble and get mad and furious and so forth.

That was a very poor reading.

That's what we want the cops to understand.

The good news is that the good news is to beat the press.

And the way to beat it is not to make any news except our news.

but whenever you can whenever we can on this operation

It's terribly important not to make anything new about it, because the moment that you say it, and I told Robert, I said, the moment that you answer a question directly, and it says, the White House today announced that,

I just found out two weeks ago, he said, back in our town, why are we there?

We do have opposition.

There is heavy fighting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It was all covered two and a half weeks ago, right?

So, now, the best of the best, I'm not, I have no desire to leave.

We're not going to lie off the facts.

We're not going to cover anything up.

That isn't the point.

But what we have to recognize here is that you have, as I said, a press corps, which, first, because, one, they want news.

But two, because they want the operation to fail, since they opposed it and predicted it would fail just as they did in Cambodia, who will seize on everything.

And you, can I ask you to say something?

Yes, sir.

What you all understand, the press is your enemy.

Enemies, understand that?

That's the...

you know, treat them nice, you're just lovely, you're trying to be helpful, but don't help the bastards, ever, because they're trying to stick the knife right in our groin.

Now that's the situation, I know these people, that's the way I handle a person, I treat them real nice, I don't give them anything except what we want.

Now we don't, that's the way to handle this operation.

I think if the guy was out there, and hatred was such a forthright goal, he would sit there and answer your question.

which in a way, sometimes in a case where this is something brand new, John Williams expressed concern.

Of course he expressed concern, but he expressed it before we ever went in.

So the battle royals back and forth.

Hills are lost.

Hills are regained.

People are lost.

People who are on their side are lost.

And so it goes on.

And the battle goes on.

But the PR side of this is so important.

That's why Bill's suggestion, which you and I talked about briefly, I guess it's terribly difficult to not find out.

But look, let's start with the President.

Ted Williams is the most unpopular guy with the sporting press of anybody in America.

And he's a guy more beloved by his players.

He gets more out of a bunch of goddamn people that shouldn't even play for L.A. until last evening.

Like a softball.

But why?

So what does he do?

He won't let the press in for 30 minutes after a game that they've lost.

Why?

It's news when you go in and you get a screwball like that and you're playing, he'll narrow the ball.

You're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're playing, you're

And then you trot off on the press floor.

I don't mean trot off, but they do.

You allow them to be exposed to key damage.

We go up to them, and we go up to getting objective coverage of this thing, not to let it go too far.

Now, I don't mean with that.

Now, good offense, good defense, and all that.

fly across, believe me, flying into every place in South Vietnam.

Urges them to go to the South Vietnamese on their helicopter plane.

That's fine.

If they want to.

Would they just do it?

That would have been a neat story.

But as long as they're going to sit there, the 150 there on a tree, they're going to go in the office clubs and have a couple of bells and then write an interactive note, which will make them points for the time to go in the Pulitzer Prize.

Now, if you didn't understand it that way, I have no illusions about what it is.

The press is chopping us up in this thing.

I have heard about it in the law.

But in the short run, it also hurt.

Mr. President, I think it should be said, though, that by oppressed people here in Washington, I think we've done a superb job on this one.

This has been the best operation ever since.

I know that, Mr. President.

You may be taking some lexicon.

I think the way the administration is hunting down and taking the same lines as some of these administrations have done.

But I think all the oppressed folks, I mean, your people and Bob, you know, this is well organized.

And about these things, the only thing that really counts, it's unpleasant to be going through, the only thing that counts is if it works.

Everything else is beside you.

You take some heat while you're going through the next couple of hours.

If it works, that's all that counts.

Yeah.

You know, the other thing is, I'm trying to charade them for shooting, but they have a better house.

The salvia that means you just rip one cheap one.

Just a cheap one.

Take the staining out.

Get it.

Bring back the first one, don't you?

Anyway, I'm sure that's all been brought up.

Well, they've done that all along.

There's a conceding, a police conceding prison for killing a 250-to-5-year-old.

They don't believe those things.

There's no sign of any demoralization, deterioration of the South Vietnamese system at all.

That's the point that I'm worried about.

I think we've got to be sure that everybody else is ready to give us a sign of it.

We've got to get out of them right away.

The South Vietnamese demoralization is terribly important.

Yes, sir.

Oh, we recommend that.

I think we get it.

What do you think?

That's right.

Northeastern is having a rough time.

Southeastern is...

stand their ground, that the operation would run out just so it would unveil to you when Mel came back from his trip.

That they'll stand and fight and we can really power them and so forth.

That I take losses in men and that they take losses in supplies.

Right, right.

Let me say, don't forget the point.

I think there is, and I've heard it say, there are some free arms.

And I've lost these free arms in a very long and a very great heat.

But there's not one suggestion.

Always.

Fall back.

Oh, rely.

Never give up any news.

Okay.

Just say, that's already been covered.

I agree with that.

That's the answer.

But where is it?

If you repeat it, don't repeat it.

Never.

The moment you repeat it, it's no news.

That's the way to handle it.

Okay.

Well, actually, to cover everything, there's no reason to say again.

That's right.

Well, also, the idea, for example, of the operation changes.

Of course, it changes.

It changes.

You're running from a resistance here.

You're moving in another direction.

The idea, though, I think the great objective of this was to capture a component.

Of course, that got in the dialogue early, but when you really went down to it,

Everybody in Washington, at least, was talking, due to the disruptions.

That's one thing we had all agreed on.

There was no press force, we never used the virtual phone.

We said disruption of enemies of blood, basically 604 and 607.

Well, the thing that they do, the department, is this.

And I know something, this one.

I called, I mailed it to his person.

I said, I was the one who gave the mail.

And then Mel said, well, they're trying to throw up to me or something.

And he said, come out of the White House.

Well, I called Henry.

And I said, Henry, he said, I didn't say anything.

And then Henry saw the, when he had to say the word or something like that, he took a bit of this question.

Some guy said, well, Secretary Laird said something or other.

The clerk had not said it, but I didn't hear it.

He said you had said he was going to go 50 miles to the town.

Yeah, very certainly.

And nobody, nobody had said it.

That's just a trap.

Those press guys do that to trap you every time.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's pretty good, isn't it?

Yeah, this is very good, Mr. President.

It's very good.

Okay, so this is what they're causing.

I will get your back up.

No, you're in support confidence, but just tell us the facts.

Yes, sir.

Well, we've been looking at you for five minutes.

I know.