Conversation 460-023

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

How are you?

Thank you.

How do we sit over here?

I think it would be more convenient.

It would be more comfortable with this hour of the day.

Are you going to give me a coffee?

Or a Coke?

Or anything?

Matter of fact, this, and they have to know that I'm still here.

See, I don't like coffee, actually.

It's a funny thing how we are growing up, or as anybody in the service, but particularly in the naval service, you know, the manned coffee here in Baltimore, and we've got this habit here in this country, as you know, that every time we have a media, this is like, man, I see this one, and I can't believe it.

And a coffee you're drinking.

And by the time you get to your right, you eat the cups.

And you get that brown taste in your mouth.

And so forth and so forth.

And then tea.

Tea for our blood has the same amount of stimuli.

It has a little deeper taste.

And so it happened.

And I got a little used to it.

I was thinking the last time we met, it was way back in 59 or 60, you were doing a book, doing a piece on Gold for Candidates.

Yes, that's right.

We had met.

No, no, no, but I remember we had met.

Yes, we had met.

I don't know what has happened since then.

Let's see, six or seven, 11 years ago.

It must have been early in the 60s or it was in late 59.

I was trans anyway.

I was also, at the time I met, I had to ask both candidates the same questions.

Not only to take pictures, but also to pose with me.

And you were the one who asked to pose.

Oh yeah, the pictures.

It was pictures too.

Oh yeah.

Who did the pictures now?

I don't know that.

Are you, are you going to do, are you going to write a book or something?

Well, I'm very serious.

You just don't know me?

No, I... Book writing is such a chore.

I didn't know any of that.

I was finished when I sent it in earlier.

I don't know whether you saw the outline.

I gave you the outline, too.

I mean, just in general.

You gave me an idea.

That's all right.

This is probably the most exciting period.

I mean, I've been here in this country for over 20 years.

Over 21, it'll be 21 years from our first event.

before I wrote this.

You've been through some.

You say it's the most exciting time.

It really is.

Why?

Because of the internal problems in town.

Rather than the external problems.

The borders would always have problems.

But the internal problems.

And then you see, in those days, the foreign policy was far more black and white.

At least today, therefore, decisions were easier.

I always said to President Truman, these days, we'll be the wrong man.

Yeah, yeah, all the time.

Maybe not.

Yeah, yeah.

It would be terribly difficult for him, because Truman thought very simplistically.

In that way, in retrospect, I can say that I happened to be the right man for that time.

I couldn't disagree more with him on this.

We'll look at each other.

Thank you very much.

Well, you see, look, I used to, he used to report on us and I used to report on him a little bit.

But looking at it, it's a terribly difficult decision to make to not go into the Korean War and re-interrogate the program, the marching plan.

And frankly, I mean, this is, it must be the hardest of all, the loss.

It required a very difficult time.

At the present time, his office requires

who can think in complex terms about enormously complex problems, and who inevitably, because he will be making

in those terms, and whoever he is is going to be charged with being devious and inconsistent and so on.

It's so much easier to leave.

And if you speak, you speak in terms of, for example, all of us speak in terms of .

To all of us, of course, in this country or in the world, the great action of leadership in this country was courageous because it was rallying the people in great cause.

On the other hand, there was a similar problem in terms of leadership.

It took a bit of a man with his guts, charisma, and all the rest to do it.

It was simple.

He was weaker for a team, but just a man.

Just a man.

Problems.

And, uh, at this time, uh, because of all the problems that

the urgent problems of Vietnam and the Middle East and the more important problems of the two powers, East-West relations, and further down the stream, the Pacific, China, Japan, etc.

It simply requires an ability day to day to watch the situation, to have certain principles of guide,

There are certain things we are devoted to.

We all are devoted to basic freedoms and guarantees.

But we now know that in terms of power and use, there has never been a time when it is more important

to recognize the limits of power, what it can accomplish, and its sophistication, which is, as I said yesterday, not too much, not too little.

That's the most uninspiring thing you could possibly say, but it's right.

The British would understand that better than Americans, because while the British, they've been here a trillion times, one thing, go back to Napoleon on these days, that was another thing.

And I would say World War I was probably a pretty straight up down the field after you got in.

Looking back over British history, there have been British leaders, you know, from South Europe, right, pretty in their 40s, kind of, they had to be, I mean, Britain didn't get where it did by simply blindly following a, you know, order.

I would say at the present time, it's generally going to be very difficult for Wilson to be president.

Wilson, who was our most brilliant president in terms of the election.

Not simply because he had a vocabulary of 67,000 words, which is twice as much as any other president.

A possible exception.

I'm joking.

Anyway, Wilson, Wilson,

did think of the dumb terms.

Roosevelt did not.

Neither one of them.

You think of T.R., a man who said he'd lead the charge on that and on that sort of thing.

Well, true.

After he left the presidency,

He led a global movement against cash, and then he, of course, was fighting for American entry into World War I, and wanted to leave the division and all the rest.

He was Wilson's encounter, and it was necessary that he do between black and white.

But Wilson, as the president, was a very subtle, complex man.

That is why he, while he was known and praised as a progressive and as a liberal when he was president in the 30s,

And those who, and some of them I think quite unfairly, were defuncting him.

They turned him on as a grocery actionary who was just amusing the people.

And then finally, in a syntactic way, he began to put it back and say, well, here's what I follow.

So he was, he was decontaminated.

That's what I'm talking about.

You have to take care of people.

That's what you have to do.

I'm talking about an attorney who could consider you a mentor.

There are guys who really, you know, do nice things.

Oh, of course.

I've mentioned how you guys do it, but I'm sorry.

We have some on the Foreign Service who still haven't confessed since your conversation.

But it's a tremendous amount of exercise.

So go ahead.

Who is the mentor?

You know, it sounds like you're fine.

Are you fine through today's work?

Who really?

Who has ever seen a world quite like this in the 50s?

Uh, for example, I was saying to the immediate retiring chief of the British Air Force, our naval forces, you know, I can't hear all the commands that's being made.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.

I was saying to him that in the 50s, I was a strong supporter of what we call the Eisenhower-Ross policy.

Then the policy of, and it was, it was, it was derided as breaking the GF, as it was derided also as a massive retaliation against, but it was a viable policy.

that when the United States had an enormous nuclear advantage, the United States could save the world.

If any place in the world, one of our allies or a country whose interest is similar to ours is attacked, we will use, we'll consider the use, and might very well use our nuclear superiority to deter the attack or to answer

that Europe could rely on, that European defenses could be built with Russian arms.

Today, and this has only happened to them in the last eight years, but between 1962 and John Kennedy,

and the Cuban Missile Crisis, even though it was, they felt at the time, I understand they felt, even though they felt there was a danger, and there were, I know, I know, I know, and so forth, the danger really

was only great if there was a madman or a completely unrealistic leader in the Kremlin.

And there was no madman there, certainly in that period.

And one thing you can say for our communists, they are enormously pragmatic and subtle and never listen.

But at that time, when the United States manages to say, well, I'm going to do 10 to 1 over the Soviets, at that time, the policy would say, well, if you do this, get out of Cuba, or do you want to act?

And the Soviet energy action, of course, would be not obeyed.

The nuclear equation has been mounted over, you could say, either side can claim certain areas that it has an advantage.

We have an advantage in sea, we have an advantage in air, they have an advantage in throw weight, and numbers were roughly equal.

they have an advantage in terms of the conventional forces on the ground.

So, the D, in terms of what it needs, they have what it needs.

That's why I said this, because they have a great land property, a different kind of a military mix, I mean.

That is why land works for them are sanctioned for the transcontinental river and sea works for us.

But anyway, the day of the liberty equation might be this.

The NATO will be current.

It's not credible.

without a, without a conventional force.

It does not need to be beaten with that.

But it must be strong enough that it will discourage adventurism, nibbling away, pushing, threatening, et cetera.

And that it would be

A few years ago, the conventional force was necessary for other reasons.

It was necessary for the Europeans to see it there.

They had the assurance that the Americans were there, and they were going to stand to get it.

And therefore, as long as there are those many American divisions there, then my gosh, we'd be pretty sure that the American nuclear punch might be used.

But now, it's a different game.

That's what it in terms of the So we did a greater, or we say a more believable, conventional term in Europe.

And that was the case 50 years ago.

And certainly, it's a case that we set up probably 25 years ago.

Then, without going into the, the change of the,

and what was once the monolithic character of the communists were between Soviet and Chinese.

But the aberrations, although they're not nearly as great as some would say, but they are significant.

The aberrations in the Eastern European countries that were being induced a lot, bumping under the surface even in countries like Poland.

On our own side of the equation,

The fact that, we just talked about American leadership.

A Europe that was poor, as well as the Nazis.

That was one thing.

But a Europe that was rich, and were museumically on its feet.

And the

But a capacity for defense, a capacity for the reality that he used to have is something entirely different.

So that's why the concept of partnership we could talk about 25 years ago, now it becomes B.

Does it mean the partners are all equal in strength or well-being like that?

But certainly...

When you say who is the man, I can say that it's very difficult to look back in British American experience and find a time when the world was quite as complex as it is today.

Certainly, certainly we can say this.

Churchill, at the end of World War II, did see great new forces evolving.

And he thought that he would return.

It's really essential that we return to the military.

And he was right.

I'm not suggesting that we did it wrong and so forth, but Churchill was right to see that it was a new situation.

I hated this.

I would say that at this time, for everything else, rather than being a man out of the past, it needs to be, it needs to be some, the individual who watches this is a, has to be one who can prepare, can prepare himself, and has prepared himself to see the world as it is.

and whose mind is open enough that he can change his past views that the situation has changed, who will not be locked in to preconceived notions.

He must have, he must have been down.

And a very, in my view, particularly to lead this country, he's got to have some basic idealistic concepts, because this is a very idealistic country.

I mean, as you know, we're, we are, there's no aspect of foolishness, but the Americans are suckers for humanitarian causes anyplace in the world.

I mean suckers in the wrong sense, but you just ask us, I mean.

whether it's or whatever the case might be, we'll help.

If they had a new trend in China, a communist trend, we would help if we could get the opportunity.

We also, in terms of peace, we go overboard in thinking that problems of peace and so forth can all be sadly be, could probably be,

It's all either a conference or in the United Nations or by discussion, et cetera, et cetera.

We combine that with idealism.

The idealists are always ambitious.

That's the weakness of idealism.

And the idealists, being impatient, therefore, destroy the very thoughts that they so deeply believe in because they become impatient with the international organizations, impatient with the slow process that is required to any kind of an alliance or any kind of work.

So I would say

a sense of history.

Second, a knowledge of the world as it is.

Third, an enormous capacity to keep up to date.

to regulate time so whoever's here can frankly think about the problem, think about it.

And by thinking about it, this is another important thing, not get tied down in the day-to-day debt-picking,

Irrelevant sometimes.

Well, they may be relevant, but they're not very important.

Arguments that go on in this place and that part of the room doesn't matter.

Having the ability to recognize what is, what the priority really should be, what has to be done.

Keeping the eye on people.

And I think what I say, we can't find people in the past century that we

There are people who kind of, I would say in terms of the American president's mind, I was in the business as well, and all night, due to my mother's influence, I always had a tremendous admiration for Wilson because she was quite her passion.

Even though Wilson got us, not didn't get us, or led us before, I thought that he was a man of peace and so forth.

But as we look now at what the world may do, probably T.R., as compared to Wilson, be more pragmatic and possibly just as idealistic.

It would benefit this time.

When you get closer to our period, it's harder to judge.

I mean, I think you were very courageous in deciding to maintain the agri-trips at Crystal Desert.

You know, I was a believer that you had an enormous contribution to lowering the temperature.

It's been very gradually realized.

And it will be lowered still.

We've got it now.

Quite a lot.

We, again, and that's the other thing, perspective, perspective.

We constantly keep talking.

We had a Security Council meeting this morning, and people were worried about the wire service story, and they saw last night about this, and they had an anger.

And that would be...

It is a difficult time.

This is an enormously difficult war in Vietnam.

And any American involvement in the way that we must

perhaps a tribute to our peaceful world, which is very difficult to follow, but it's being done.

So, the Laotians, the Laotian operation, just like Napoleon operating on that, I would never have wondered if I were thinking simply of the shark.

In fact, it's so easy, that's the great temptation.

great temptations to sit here and things are going pretty well.

Nobody's really excited.

And if you look down that road, you see now where we'll be next year.

That again is the reason why it was necessary for the leader

to keep respecting details.

I know that they're, that the business president wants to decide whether your mom should be in the other .

What's going to happen today?

Turn the bullets and so forth.

And all those things, all the experts on that.

One thing is to try to keep this perspective.

Once the ocean thing was finished, later in the spring, then we could not understand it.

And that would be why it's true as that, as far as we're concerned.

See, this is the reason why I tell so hard about the jittery of how many Christians have already died.

You were jittery the Bible can't believe it.

Now you're jittery now.

Yeah.

The important thing is, how is it all going to come out in the end?

It may not be bad, but if we have made a decision,

is the right decision based on the facts that were created to us.

And everything that we have done will assure our being able next year to look back on a successful end of the American involvement and the survival of Vietnam.

How long?

That's up to them.

Now, in terms of the European thing, let me say, I think one thing I should emphasize to you.

When I talked to you before, I would never have said this.

I didn't believe it.

It's true now.

It's true today.

When Kennedy and his inaugurants said that we would fight any place anywhere in the world,

That was an appealing lie.

It frankly did.

It was my, had been my view.

That is no longer possible.

And it's not only, it is possible for the United States to do it, but the American people will no longer support it.

See, that's what first Korea and then Vietnam had on to it, has done.

Now, both actions, I think, once they are, once we complete this,

I think this one, just like Korea, looks much better today than it did at the time we were going to be hanging in.

So this will look better later on.

But the important thing is that, as we, what I was trying to say, is that the American people then were outward-looking.

We welcomed our role in the world.

We were proud of our role in the world.

We had, of course, a potential opponent, a monolithic communist bloc that Americans would say in 75, 80 percent, well, we'll keep stronger than any of them.

We'll do what we can to defend those who want to stand for freedom around the rhythm of communism in Asia and, of course,

along the great lines that divide Europe and, of course, the developing countries of Latin America and Africa.

Today, there is a new isolationism.

It's interesting enough, the strongest among those who are great Europeans

for the Washington United States.

I remember them so well.

As I saw myself as an expert in the American community and the rest, the majority of Republicans were in that group.

But we, along with the majority of Democrats, were a majority of the Congress, and it was a good thing that we worked.

But now, those who supported the strong American role in supporting the European policies and approaches

in the 40s and 50s, the support of the U.S. government, the anti-terrorism world, they slowly peel off.

Until now, there is a tendency, and there are other reasons for a tendency, versus the solution with the world, getting involved in a war with a small country, losing so many people, not understanding why or how or anything like that.

There's also the fact that Americans are terribly concerned about their problems at home.

See, that's the thing.

We had problems along the 50s.

But they weren't in the service.

I got a picture of a race model, you know, we had a little rock.

It's just a little pillow as we went back.

I said, we were out in the mountains today.

I can't remember what a certain cause, but we had a race problem, a student problem.

There was no student problem.

There weren't many in the late 40s or 50s.

Even during the Korean War, you saw Hawaii.

People were discouraged about the war.

It was one of the factors that you saw the United States win.

On the other hand, now, you have a turning number here.

It's the same turning number.

It's an interesting thing that you have all over Europe.

The French turning, the Germans turning.

The British, he comes along now at a very interesting time, and I've got to admire his guts.

His guts are doing the right thing, and I'm sure the British people will see now that they should support him.

any more than the American people may see now.

Why?

I don't think we have to continue to play our role in Europe.

There, in continuing to play, you see, the next stop, and why it is appropriate to be a method of getting out of Europe is really a method of staying in.

The only viable way we can stay in the world and play our own age in this matter is by expanding our courses.

last message to the whole world, the only way we can do it, is for Americans not to be the do-it-yourself world, but to be a more normal world, not be the do-it-yourself themselves.

Again, very complex, sophisticated approach.

Now, I understand the journey of it.

I understand, as we can picture, you can picture all the rest

and also as they see the utter horror and unacceptable development of war in the computer age.

War had increasingly become, for our world, an unacceptable instrument of policy.

World War I, World War II.

I knew Gary, it just, I thought it was awful.

And so, he said, why didn't I get engaged for you?

And also, there's nothing in it in terms of glory, manifest destiny, all those great terms from the early 19th century, out of the marriage group, no more.

These are the days that Wilson saw the termination of race, that it's all flowering to around the world.

Nations insist on their independence, they insist on

a charity that won the course.

Oh, they won the whole thing, all that.

They won a charter of courses.

That's the way it is.

So, what have you got left?

What you have left are your problems at home.

And I think, therefore, what we have is, in all the developing countries, I'm sorry to say, well, they've been almost generous about maintaining our courses.

They'll do it.

We'll do it still here.

The jury will still vote for an act of national defense.

If you begin to make the case, are frustrated about it,

...adventures in the world.

...about the problems at all.

Why should we go out and help the Africans?

In Africa, why don't we help the Negroes in the United States?

Why go help the Indians in India?

Why don't we help our own American Indians here in the United States?

It's just selfish.

But it's a, which sometimes, which I suppose, well, it's very kind of ironic, but see, the old isolationism was bitterly gagged by many as being totally salvage.

Selfish in a sense by your isolation if you want to help the Europeans, if you want to support 2.4 and 4.8 and all the rest and share a lot with the rest of the world.

So you're selfish.

And the new isolation, you see, has a very different motivation.

Yet it is.

We don't follow those others.

abroad, because there is a higher good, a higher goal.

In other words, we turn our ideas inward to help people here.

It isn't that we don't help them.

See, we don't want isolationists to be accused, perhaps quite promptly, of not wanting to help other countries because they just want to keep it open or small as they want to expect.

No isolationists are not that way.

They're deeply concerned about people, but they say, our people, not others abroad.

Now, my approach is quite different.

It's, here we have, here's what we get to all those mixes, which make it all horrendous.

And probably what you guys, most of you different people want to know, what is that?

You've got to be bold.

I mean, if you count Latin America, Africa, and Asia, two-thirds of the people in this world, leading up to Japan, Europe, and the United States, you cannot even sit there without assistance, help, and so forth and so on, because over a period of time,

as the world gets smaller and smaller and closer and closer together.

And that will be neighborhoods.

Those are the ghettos of the world.

And so at the present time, too, when you look at the real world, we still must recognize that despite the fact that we are turning camera, we must not have the impression that

Despite that, although it can be said that the Soviet Union has changed, the Soviet leaders have changed, and they have their differences from the Communist Chinese, and possibly even they have changed some, but nevertheless, their attitude toward the world has not changed in one respect.

It is still expansionist.

Expansionists certainly, without risking any reward,

if they can put it, but still there's patience because they have a deep, they have a deep commitment to not only a part of the world which is now a communist country, many communists, but to the extent that they can, consistent with their own national interest, they can support those movements in the world which would bring other nations

into that same orbit.

Now, this is not a cool orbit, because it's quite, it's very different from one of those activities, but the leaders are different, the men are different, not all of them.

There's, shall we say, for our business, quite a smooth, pragmatic personality.

But nevertheless, with the world, as long as that situation exists in the world, that is why, again, coming back to our central basis, what is, and that's Western Europe, which is still the most important

hard to learn as well in terms of the most left relations.

You know, the salt talks, one of the major problems in the salt talks is what happens to the corporations, et cetera.

But we simply have to retain this overall strength, because by the end, we have to realize that one of the reasons, I think this one,

Europe is turning, the great European nations, because their colonial experience is now finished and they're frustrated and tired and so forth and so on.

The United States is turning.

We also tend to say, what is Soviet doing here?

China, not just China.

Also now, I think China.

But, for a different reason,

There is a reaction, a very pragmatic reaction to the power that was developed that we have leading to their failure to succeed.

It's true.

Once a vacuum was formed,

any place in the world, they will fill it.

Which, I guess, is what I would be trying to say, is that communism, or Marxism, call it what you will, whether it's the Soviet variety, the Chinese variety, even though it's an older philosophy now, and more mature, less adventurous,

It is still a revolution.

Ours is not.

When I speak of ours, it's Western.

Western civilization.

That's the truth.

So what we do is to not go out on our hands and say, here are a bunch of revolutionaries that are our enemies and so forth.

What we do, on a hurry, on an active basis, is to say, all right, they have certain interests, we have certain interests, and this is the case as well.

We have certain interests, you have certain interests.

We are very blessed to reconcile our interests and recognize that the stuff

It is vital for us to maintain various strength in all parts of the world now, not to allow vacuums to evolve in which the revolutionary police may move within the area.

And that expanding regimes

Which should be very, very nice.

That was marvelous.

I mean, maybe you could talk about it now since the operation is closed and it ends successfully, but...

What will allow us to take advantage of what he does if you're promoting a position?

You know, at that time, it was, was this human most anguished decision so far?

But there were two.

The period before my third speech, I had to go against the advices of my most associate senator, rather than asking him to control or this or that or the other thing.

Say, why are we in Vietnam?

Why are we intended to see the truth?

And so if I had to do that, that was done along the way.

And voting was just a one-sided decision.

And by the way, I'm not going to tell you which one is true or which one is not true.

That's the one advantage I have.

I didn't let them all speak frankly.

I told them it's not a big issue, because we moved in size, and they didn't say anything.

But, but, but he has a name.

Cambodia was a natural, just as Laos was.

Laos, not as difficult, because we're all Americans, we're not involved.

You see, the reasons, there are two reasons why Laos hasn't reached as much love as Cambodia.

First, the Cambodian work.

So therefore, the Hell Riders figure, you've got to wait a while.

The second reason, of course, is the ground forces.

So that makes sense.

Otherwise,

As far as Cambodia is concerned, all the reasons for not doing it were tremendously persuasive.

The fact that there was, would be, a great public honor here, I knew that.

That's why I came to do what I'm calling it.

Because I could tell from the way that it seemed about two, three months before.

And also, another reason, there were dire predictions, estimates by me,

that if this communist student fought in the race that we went into, that our major American community had suffered a thousand casualties a week.

So I didn't do that.

The other side of it was that there's only one good reason for doing it.

That was, if we didn't do it, I could see that it would be worse.

worse than the public opera in this country, worse than the canyons of Eden Sutter, would have been the fact that the North Vietnamese would have extended its banks, their sanctuaries, probably toppled for handling the government at that time, because it was very weak.

A whole lot of people, you know,

and therefore completely disrupted our program for an orderly withdrawal.

That was the reason it had to be done.

And so I put all those reasons down, and all those on the other side.

I'll leave this one on this side.

He wasn't in Camp David.

Both times.

I always believe that when it's a very difficult decision, if everybody's a little different, you know, some people like to have a secretary.

They like to have their advisors around.

They like to hold, you know, I don't know how they hold, so that we have lots of discussions.

and so forth, then it comes to a moment of truth.

And that is essential for whoever makes a decision, at least for me, as a decision maker.

It's essential for me to get away from it.

And then I sit down with my boss, my yellow pants, and I write down the reasons, summarize them all, and think about it.

Or you don't want to.

I did the same thing at the message decision.

Or like the other day, with the problems poor Cheney discovered, what do you think the people of the state is facing actually?

You know, meeting them as compared to the top ten.

But on the other hand, the sub-topics, you know, the state, the power of the political department, the trade unions, the legislation was very dear to their hearts to what,

We had to put an argument there until I finally had it decided.

I just cleared the room.

In this case, I didn't take a couple of days.

I didn't have to.

I had to about an hour to get it decided.

And since it goes back, I suppose it goes back to when I was in law school, and we talked about lawyers and about the different kinds of people.

In law school, we had fellows that loved both things.

Some of them were very good students, but the way they used to like to determine how they prepared for an exam, they'd sit around and talk about it for a long time.

and then take a look at the examination and do very well.

I did, I've heard, I've never sat around, not when I think closely, well I would have both sides, sit in the classrooms, have a little lively discussion and sometimes discuss the case, but I always found that I think more clearly when I think in an orderly way.

I hear every point of view.

I encourage everybody to speak.

I cross their sand.

I'm pretty good at crossing sand.

I don't know why.

I know what questions they're asking.

I'm good at listening.

But once I've heard it all, then I've got to sit down and decide.

I've always done that.

About half a few years ago.

And so I...

I'd say that was a good, a good strong two days.

Two days, not much.

And the same on November 3rd.

It was about two days, two days.

You know, I just stopped to think as I thought I was probably going to finish very well by the time he was reading and preparing for these receiving the Adams portraits and rereading some of the standards.

He went like, God, get from what you think of what he went through.

You know, no doubt that he was going to put you through this and I don't know what you did with that.

But on the other hand, I suppose the problems are different then.

They're different then.

So you've got a war, you know.

Now you've got a war, you've got to do something else.

I can see how Johnson on frustrated he must have been.

A man, basically quite a strong man.

But he sat there, and you know, he's the kind of personality that I'm talking about.

Johnson loved to have people around him.

He had those damn three television sets going, all three of them.

The pickers would be going to the bedroom, I sat in the kitchen room, the secretary would be going in and out, call him, get this and call that when he'd hear it.

Every time the press briefs him, I mean, he'd have them read them off the ticker, but they said, call him, he'd get a report, and I'd raise hell on him.

I read it in that stuff.

Except at the end of the week.

Well, I know everything in a sec.

I have a news center I see every morning.

But I believe in reading it in a way that the reactions are almost totally normal.

And I do.

The worst decisions are those that are paid.

And I feel that my greatest responsibility in this particular life that I've been through in this call is to be told about the question.

It's not easy to finish the call, and it's easy to trust it.

Particularly in these days, we see that there are colleagues

It wasn't all on television.

It wasn't all on instant communication.

It wasn't people.

Nowadays, people would be

The real question you see about the problems is who will be here.

It has cooled off quite a bit.

I think that any history encourages this administration.

I don't know.

First, the war .

We have done that.

I think we have a pretty good environmental program.

I think we're going to get you some kind of a half-assed or maybe a very good welfare program, a good one that you can take hours and a big one for welfare.

I think we're going to have a good one.

and a great improvement in health for us.

And I think we're also going to get something, some major step to revenue sharing, and if we don't get it now, we will lay the foundation for a massive government reorganization in the future.

We always have to start four or five years early in these things, but we've got it.

Perhaps the most important contribution that we've made, and it will not be something because we want it not to be, but for reasons that are all supposed to be, is to get this country, the people of this country, in that period of incident to

everything of looking color, including blood on the screen, to get this nation to think in cruel, reasonable, mature terms about our problems at all and about our role in the world.

I do not know whether it is possible, I do not know whether it is possible

But, I do know this, at the moment the madness on this starts to blow.

You know, I take, I go to the press conference place, and I'm trying to be centered, and somebody says, my God, Iqbal said, he said, he talked to me, and he said, I'm going to give you a Purple Heart for that one.

Well, that's kind of crazy.

Of course they are.

But that's the machine.

I mean, they...

But the important thing is the president can be cool, unflappable, frankly, not exciting.

Exciting in terms of certainly a revolutionary new program of returning government to the people and welfare reform and health reform and cleaning up the air and water and so forth.

Maybe that.

a cool, mature sense of perspective.

This nation needs that now.

The real question is whether America can, after two frustrating wars,

And after an enormous internal agony, whether we can grow up to a sense of mature leadership.

And by leadership, I mean leadership in the subtle way that I described in my talk yesterday.

That's the real question.

And any of you who have grown up and commented on it, if you wonder whether we can, let me say, this is just America.

A lot of, many European countries are going through the same traumatic experience.

The youth problem, you know, is not limited here.

It's a, but we, but it must pass.

It's got to pass.

And because the, with all of our talk, this is not my, the world isn't that bad.

And this is really quite a good time to be alive.

And when we think about some of the things that you went through in your life and I went through, my God, we're lucky to, you know, even working in these offices, we're lucky to be where we are.

But perhaps it's education that has something to do with it.

Perhaps it's the fact that, but first it's education and also it's education.

Now, one of the things that saves me is that I'm a reader rather than a looker.

I never look at television.

But you know the way I handle the television?

I read in the summer.

I read in the cold time.

I can tell, I can tell from reading.

In other words, I know, like I said last night, Tom Carroll and Eric Severo, I know.

It's very important to know that because television is what affects the reading.

I've got a lot of people sick, but

But individuals, I think that's what I mean, in any period, and maybe it was a better period, a more concentrated period, in a period when people thought more, read more, perhaps decisions.

And the difficulty now is that in this decision, whoever sits in this office, if he doesn't watch out, I mean, I kind of got hurt, and I'm pretty well, you know, I've been so locked down, seeing people, doing things, and if he has all that, he'll torture himself night after night looking at the television or reading his press release.

He died.

Oh, I read my press release.

I'm here.

You know, I think very more often than people of vision, because I'm perhaps just a third, you know, and I don't want that.

I don't.

But I've come to think that it is for me more important to watch the others come to have a touch, so that I know how the next one sees you, rather than be in the strong direction, because that's only a small group.

Correct.

And...

You see, I think that it will create a better atmosphere.

That was really quite important when the question was so, it is very hostile.

And I don't think it is hostile.

We followed that, though, with the three-on-one.

It's a nice formula.

We could use that.

We'll have a general press conference in the future.

You've never covered one of these in the office, have you?

No, I haven't.

I figure what I'll do, I'll, don't, for God's sake, tell anybody.

I'll have a figure the next time I have it.

I'll have all those in about three weeks, and after a week, the next July, I'll have, I'll have one of those, and I'll give it to you.

They're very different styles.

You know, he said, you know, through your talk, I'm going to contemplate it today.

You can't be contemplating that.

First of all, you ought to see the question and the answer to it.

There's answers around here.

I said, look here, folks.

In 28 minutes, I'm supposed to answer at least one of your 25 questions.

Now, when you figure the time of the guy that asked the question, it's usually going to be 15 to 20 seconds.

That's about 35 seconds of an answer.

Now, one of the answers is going to be in a minute and a half to two minutes, usually the first or second.

So what is your policy there regarding RPA parks?

I can't.

But when you get to how it's at, it's like you want to be passively in secondary school.

I mean, try this for a sign.

If you want to get rough, just cute, or something like that, the press conference becomes totally a show, and not all the time.

And so the trick here is to get the press conference around to the point where

Press everything for 35 seconds, and that's five minutes of exercise.

It's fantastic.

It's the single written question.

It's good.

Yeah, with the follow-up question.

Yeah, well, I've told these folks, like, we're in here, we've got to follow up this from 40 to 50.

Well, if you've got 390, you've got to follow up because you've got to make, you've got to make one that I can't handle, and then 300, and say, why did you answer my question?

You know?

I think all that worked out well.

He just spoke for 30 minutes and then took three questions.

That's right.

Once a year, I tend to do a bit of it.

You've seen those, haven't you?

Yeah, I know.

I saw one.

I saw one on television.

What if I made contact with you from Vietnam?

Remember, what happens if you withdraw from Vietnam?

You're influenced all of a sudden from that dimension.

Except one thing.

What are you doing on your system?

There'll be an alt package.

Like Thailand, we have great influence in Thailand.

We have great influence in the Philippines.

We have great influence in Korea.

So we'll have standards.

But it withdraws.

It does.

It can't be reduced.

I agree.

That's another reason why they want to be in France.

Go ahead.

Do you then foresee the development of third forces?

countries as a consequence of the election, which would be like what?

Like second or third or fourth country, or Thailand, or possibly, you know, like 10 years' time in general.

But I mean, the real point here is we do not want a relationship of dependence.

We don't want a relationship.

You don't want one.

The British don't want one.

Good God, it isn't going to work anymore.

These countries can't develop the capability, right, of being able to maintain their independence.

and irrelevantly neutral stance, that is certainly a goal that we need to be serving on the core of it.

However, that this is taking time, that would be a very dangerous thing for them to try to do.

Right.

Because they just don't get it.

Wow.

But is it who's, if you, if you said, if you said, if you said, if you said, if you said, if you said, if you said,

But you see, they have to let us know.

But since both were down, let's suppose, let's just suppose all we've got is the old American prisoners.

So we've got a residual force of about, who knows, 39,000.

I don't say the number, whatever it is, but that whole part.

And they say, well, we'd like to put an RV in the main street or something.

We're going to have to move something out in terms of .

We could deliver it.

Unless, of course, it's time for the prisoner.

The prisoner then, of course, is the .

But once that is out, and then we're out, then they .

We don't see the future of South Korea, not the way you see the future of South Korea, which you were destined to maintain as you came to Korea.

Put it this way, if we could get South Vietnam, if we had South Korea in total control,

that we would not have to be given our emotions because we, as a ministry, as all of you in the meetings, can defend their, defend themselves.

But it, it, it, so, so, in Korea,

Different types of circumstances.

Of course, you have the Chinese involvement.

You have the elite of the South Korean press.

Of course, we are now beginning to reduce that presence.

Take a little time.

Because the South Koreans have a hell of an army.

Now, the question is, in regard to the South Vietnam, might we be honest when they have the resolution to control the control?

Wherefore control the control?

on a human basis.

If they withdraw, then we'll get out of here quickly.

Now, the evidence is already available, because there doesn't seem to be any lack of settlement.

There doesn't seem to be any protection for our people on these two withdrawals from the House.

But, by the way,

I don't want to be completely bearish.

They have problems.

They're on three fronts.

They fight in our discussions.

They don't have the friendly waters that they used to have in South Vietnam.

South Vietnamese are not quite like White House.

It's been quite remarkable what has happened there.

It's hard for me to believe, I know, I've been to Vietnam so often, I know all the presses, not all the local presses, about the iron, about the Soviet, they're corrupt, they're inefficient, they won't fight.

It's changed.

That's the thing we have to bear in mind.

Well, Constance says this.

He's not a bad observer.

It's...

So, yeah, what was the challenge?

Is it, would it be possible if you were imitated by the neighbors of the Kissinger?

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

and give me a hand with my book and the book name.

And would it be possible maybe in six months' time to put it in another meeting?

Six months, right, yeah.

I'd like to be more cooperative, but as you know, these guys out here at Raysville, I saw one of your colleagues working for Bernie.

You know, he's around in Calgary, so of course I saw him in my eyes.

He was a good guy.

He was a hard worker.

I mean, he saved me.

But we understand.

We'd be glad to do it in six months.

But Henry, I'll be glad to hear if he wants your approval.

And you know, he's fun.

He's fun.

I like him.

I just finished my talk with Henry Brandon and I told him that we would cooperate with him and that you would.

So in six months he should come back and touch base again.

So I'll have you go to your office now.

We've got an interview with him.

Who are you with?

No, no, no, he doesn't want to talk to you now.

I just thought you'd just stop by and say, well, maybe I finished, but I just wanted you to know I approved the procedure he said he'd talk to you about.

All right, fine.

Thank you very much.

Well, it's a complicated word.

Maybe in six months we've got better news.

Yes, well, I think he probably will.

Oh, I think so.

Well, the legal should then stop.

I think it's going to work.

It may not be what it says.

Oh, it is going to be great.

It is going to be.

It did nothing.

Nobody expected it.

It's a destruction activity.

Just like Canberra, nothing finishes anything in the war, in the modern world.

The only thing that would finish is to go in and take out Hanoi.

But those days are gone.

Those were the easy days, aren't they?

Not that we want to do it, which is good to say, but we need it.

Oh, you're going to ask your people in London if Abraham wants you to come?

Yes.

Thank you.