Conversation 462-002

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

I was going to, I heard you don't have a staff meeting today.

Yeah, but I thought I would just pop in and see it.

Give them a little loose signal.

I told you one time I would.

Okay.

They're fine.

They're here now.

Yeah, they just drove from the... See, they have one meeting in September.

That's just over.

All right.

Oh, the senior group has just got into my office.

You want to come in and wait about five minutes?

All right, wait a minute.

I'll see what that sounds like.

Good night.

Good evening.

I guess we could have gone to Rogers.

I'm not sure.

But I think it worked out this time.

We got out of the venue and it didn't feel like going.

Because, you know, I mean, I just didn't want to have a lot of public interest in it right now.

Well, that said, there was no reason to have a problem.

And I don't think anybody thinks we believed we screwed off.

It hardly even has been reported.

and it just went away later.

One network last night said that you had canceled your trip because of severe weather conditions.

That's all they said.

I think we're out of it.

I think there might have been some problems up there, and I think... Well, it's much better to just let the repercussions bounce, and not go through out there and have them all throw rye.

Which might or might not happen.

Well, it's like we threw a big shot at Cambodia with Steve, which was fine for two days, and then they shot a few people in Kent State, and all hell broke loose.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

She said that was great.

She said, look, the thing that she thought was good, I think I gambled very early there.

Did you notice?

As I said, it was a blind order.

It had a price.

But it does, it does.

It may not work.

They may see why you have to do this.

It did climb.

But when I looked across there, you don't have a right to turn.

Yeah, I've met members of you folks on the phone who've seen it.

That was more effective than anything I could ever do.

They made the point that way too.

They said, you know, over the heads of the reporters and right to the people.

You know what I mean?

And they said, you know, it's been the toughest charge.

It's not been recorded with any rancor at all.

It's just been the toughest charge or something.

Coach taking force of the press since I made his attack in Illinois.

Well, I didn't do it so much that they were honest, but I didn't at all disagree with that.

I said that would be worth it, and you heard it right after the night.

Well, they were wrong.

You've got a damn good setup for it, because Marty Schramm asked such a stupid question and stood up there going on and on with it.

He never got to, couldn't be honest.

The question was, he got caught up in it.

I don't know if it was Marty Schramm, but anyway, then I came on, and then the home country started making speech.

I was waiting.

I thought the first one you'd give me the option.

It was better to do it in the middle.

The first one started good, but you were better off making your case then.

If you had hit it then, it would have looked like you'd kind of stayed.

Believe it or bear it.

Yeah, I could give a few things sense when those things were right.

It bothered me when you didn't wing it on the first one, because, you know, you could find it.

You could have hit another one.

Yeah.

One, I was afraid you were going to miss it.

But, boy, you sure did.

That...

That question in that area, that answer which was in the second half, that it's what's coming through, I think you get the ending.

I told Rocketballer to come down here today and let him, or maybe we can have him shut up and chat or something.

Oh, right, I didn't know.

I thought it would just be a good idea for him to jump in here and say, call us.

I told you that I didn't need to call him.

That's what I did.

All right, after that talk, he went and plays for the conference and he was with Bill Haley at Mike Coles.

You know, that's...

Why do the Colson's people make very good calls?

How do they come out?

Very, very well.

I don't know.

I have a quick bird's eye.

If you give me a bird's eye.

The thing that the comments that came up, the comments that came up most frequently were that

over and over, the thing that you made in the press, that it was a darn good thing that they tied it always into, or most of them tied it into, and make the Cambodia lawless comparison.

See, that's the other thing that you just, in that same answer, just extremely effective, was to really hit home on Cambodia, and then say, you people were saying that was a disaster.

You made that point that we've been trying to make, and that we've had call-ins, and all that has never gotten through on TV.

I mean, it didn't cut it.

The action is happening differently.

Now, you're making the same point, and it is going to cut the will of the man.

But I think doing it with grace was a thing that was very different.

Nobody can say it was me.

That's really a problem.

If I had done that in the press room, they would have said Nixon accurately denounced the press and his contract in his office.

You might find that.

Sure.

You'd leave it out of rank of the Harris balls.

They can't do it.

They can't put their adjectives in.

And that's because the people saw it.

Saw it.

Got it.

Well, as I mentioned last night, I think you also hit the press just terribly effectively by total indirection.

I don't think anybody consciously realizes you did it, but I think the point came through.

When you talked about, many times, quite a few times, referred back to what you had said in the last press conference, to be honest, but that didn't...

You know, that you didn't say it, you didn't report it.

You recall it.

I'll say it again.

I'll repeat it.

In effect, the second question was that.

But you did it again.

You did it a couple of times.

I know, I know.

I can't remember that I said it at that time, but I'll have a chance to say it again or something.

You didn't say it, but what came through, you think it did, subconsciously.

I don't think it subconsciously did, but I think you've drawn a little thing there where people say, ah-ha-ha, you don't tell us what really goes on.

Which is what people think anyway, and the press credibility is a damn good thing to jump on, because it's...

They got the shots last night, in a way that they had a hard time answering, which is very important.

I said a great number of you in this room.

I said a great number.

I didn't say we matured, but a great number was left.

I think that was the thing.

You never saw it, night after night.

Don't you think that was good?

You would see the drum, it did not allow us to sit for the last three minutes.

The drum beat of...

The thing is, if you're playing right to it, the viewer knows what you're saying is true, just like you did what Agne was saying.

Actually, it's the most responsive, according to his thing, when he said about the instant critics, you know, they're always going right afterwards, tearing him apart, and they knew that was true.

And they know this is true.

And the other view of it is, just as I just did, is what it does to the future.

Because as they get home tonight, tomorrow night, next week, talking about what's wrong with laws, a hell of a lot of people are going to remember back and say, you know, the president said this is what they're doing.

Another thing is that

A little point about, which I think I've gotten more, cutting that truck traffic by 55%.

And even throwing in 200,000 rounds of ammunition, 3,000, 2,000 guns.

A number of our tanks aren't going to be killing Americans.

A number of our people, a number of the calls we have said that.

I said they liked the way you had all these statistics in hand.

I think your thing with Roger, you don't know how many times he's sold it.

499 times, 167 times.

Well, they liked that.

Yeah.

They said, you know, that complete commission kind of thing.

And he had this fax in his hands.

But it was a fact of silence.

They said, Jim, I'll give you some of that.

It may not make any sense.

But Corolla said it.

Corolla was just ecstatic.

He likes to look at the ring.

Especially in the United States.

Somehow they get a shadow there to make them take sound and smooth it out.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You home?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll give you a ring.

I'm just talking to Bob now.

All right.

Okay.

Bye.

Maybe this will not go to the staff meeting.

I've got to get some Bob to drop today.

Come on.

I didn't say the question.

This was my whole answer.

The purpose was to stop burning the sail car and increase the abilities up.

That's the way these things are.

That was pretty good.

Increased the ability that they had hacked.

That got through too.

That allowed us to leave.

All three of us were being served.

200,000.

And the hat is the end of the phrase because he knows some people he knows very best.

They met the very best and the comparison begins.

Before we were with Michael, they could do it.

But before now, they're doing it alone.

They can do it.

And the fact that you have the same people who are encouraged to do the same thing.

And then I said,

I realize that you're under pressure to tell us about this issue, but I cannot.

I've said that.

You did that more effectively.

You said, I hope for the sake of America that I am right.

I hope for the sake of America that I am right.

What you say won't make any difference.

You said, I hope for the sake of the country that I'm right.

If I am right, then what you say won't make any difference.

It's easier to tell when you've seen him before.

He likes it.

He thought this was better.

He thought we came through better in Russia because of the family.

You know, an interesting phenomenon of this one was, I don't quite understand this at every level, but we know it's interesting or something.

I talked to my wife, right?

She said, she particularly liked the two long answers, the second question and the Cambodia question.

She said those were just great.

And you really set the thing out now.

See, one of those, you took three minutes on one of those.

I took five.

No, it's three minutes and 51 seconds, actually.

That's all right.

It was exactly like what Joe said.

What I especially liked, though, was that this time he answered so many more questions and getting things through so, you know, one right after another.

And so you might be interested to know that he answered less questions than he ever has in any press conference.

It was the fewest he's ever answered.

Where'd he get through?

16.

No, 16 was my second.

Where'd he get through?

This was 16.

16 was fine.

That's fine.

He had the feeling that you'd answered more.

In other words, you held the interest and it kept living.

When you gave the long answers, they were long answers that needed to be long answers.

And they weren't, you made a little speech, I can't believe it, it was a speech that was, you know, nobody had thought it was a speech that could never slow down.

It was going, but you followed up on the press this afternoon, you said that the jury's still out.

And we'll see what happens.

I can't believe you're talking about that.

Well, they were, they were, you know, right around the corner.

Yeah, but they, I don't, I, you know, you...

That enormous power of being able to go right to the people, literally, as she did, right over their heads, is, uh, they don't.

And they're afraid to take it on very high, too.

They won't want to pressure us for a while.

Now, let's try to move on.

Let's try to move on.

I don't know.

I really was thinking I should do the big ones.

That was the one where .

I see all these people.

The one in my office is .

And Kisinger.

Whether it is people you generally see.

Yeah.

I was trying to see Kisinger now.

Will that disrupt your .

You never know what happens.

The interesting thing also, and it probably will stay in work every one of the time,

and said their wives were just

you know, ecstatic about the press conference and said that it's the best one you've ever done, you know, we're all charged up about it.

And I think you may have gotten a lot of mileage with women on that.

Because again, it's that, well, you keep talking about women are, well, women don't want people to be kicked around.

And I think you may have a bite hitting it strongly, and yet I don't think you can possibly have, in there, got a glow that would have glowed willis or hulk, cheap shot.

Don't you think?

Which it was, and which it's generally felt to be.

Around here, you know.

Of course, it was good because that had been escalated somewhat in that North News last night.

And, uh, so the people at home on television did know something about what you were talking about.

I wonder about even getting into that because, uh, in general, out in the country, I don't think anybody knows who brought in the Kissinger.

Well, I have an idea of what it was.

I don't want to do it in the morning, I want to do it in the morning on sports because we should not run at night.

The day show is in the morning.

What I meant is the sports I want to do in the morning, yeah, but the women's thing I want to do with her is at night.

I wonder if you would like to do a special on domestic and women in general.

Now, I understand that.

to be run the night before her birthday.

And when I do that, and I'll do the women's press also for advance, for the AM paper so that they can all get into the society office.

Now, where do I have mine?

Clearly it's only a very interesting thing.

and tell him he's not bad in any field of PR either, I guess he should, but he has some background there apparently, huh?

He said, you know, the greatest reaction he got on that thing where Peter called him on the show, which was a comment about, he said, you know, wasn't it nice, the person who gets his wife, and the other person that he served first, rather than himself.

which tells something about being nice to women, but also says, look, I'm not such a big hot shit.

That hasn't occurred to me at all.

But I think you did it enough.

I was thinking of just going on generally about the role of women, how tough it is, you know, how much they add, how they are really different, you know.

You know, we want to reach the women's audience, Bob, that's the way to do it.

Now, I don't know whether the morning show will go.

A hell of a lot of women see the morning show.

Yeah.

Maybe we should piss it away there.

I don't think we should do it with three.

It should be one-on-one.

And I think we should do it with her, because I think she wants to do something that is, in other words, where we can guide her so that she gets into the things that are really interesting about wives and women and the role of women.

How is it for a wife in politics?

What do I think, you know, of the role of women?

You know what I mean?

And things of that sort.

I think basically the way to do it, and also another thing that bothers me, I wonder if you could add this TV press thing, that is, that I'll do a little press, and I'm going to sort of keep it going.

And you're right, we've got a little smack room, as I said, when I read the Wilson and other reports from our, there's going to be nothing there.

We did the Wilson thing, we did the Adams portrait, we did the Wilson thing.

You get one of these things on TV.

Another thing, a conversation is something I do well.

I am quite believable in conversation.

I think that's what it is.

Do you think that's true?

Very much so.

That's what I've said.

That's

Did he like this better than the last time you saw him?

Better than the last time?

He told you to handle this better.

I don't know why.

He had a better feeling about that.

different types of things.

I don't think he can say one was better or the other was better.

I think this one, I think he got them.

I think it was good.

That one was a lot of questions going fast.

And this had controversy.

It had the whole range and a lot of controversy.

This was recording and reading on a single subject, Laos and Vietnam.

The single subject of it, I think it's all different.

Even though people may not be interested in foreign affairs generally.

Everybody's interested in Israel.

Everybody's interested basically in disarming it.

Everybody's interested in communist China even.

That even is an interest.

I don't know much about it.

But it was good for me to handle it to show that I knew what it was about.

and especially on the China policy and the rest, you know, and also they had the chance at follow-up for the first time.

They had three or four, and I thought about it when Lars came back and got off him again, and I said, yes, boy, he hasn't answered.

You know, they got back on China.

Haley came back on question.

Capo came back on one.

There were several, but they all faced follow-up.

But he thought this is what he got the cure for.

Yeah.

Give me your hand.

I would think public reaction to this one would be good, unless public reaction allows is so negative that taking it on will be negative.

You see my point?

Yeah, I don't think it is.

I think the public reaction is not a high-level negative.

I think it's a low-level negative.

It's a disappointment.

It's a disappointment about public reaction.

God damn it.

That would be very interesting to see what our gold shows look like.

Over the weekend back to my job.

Okay, not get much better You pick up some I don't have the results again for you We did our and we do our own telephone call right after those kids are TV event this just start we do a random center Andrews

Who?

No, I said let me have a break.

What do you mean?

They, uh, throw all four results in one side.

Yeah, right.

All right.

Oh.

Uh, it might work well, too, you know, if there's a reason I didn't take the calls when I come back up.

Thank you.

Those, I think, are the last talent we got.

Okay, I'll call in and check.

What kind of thing is this?

This is, remember I told you, we use our crew here, our own staff, and they call, they set up a random sample right from here to call the safety.

We have a colleague from our, did you see the press conference?

We asked her, you know, just describe your reaction to what the president said.

How many you saw?

Out of this one, it's, let's see, about 38%.

Which is about what we get.

It's always low on this.

About this, but we get a bigger audience than that, don't you think?

You think we only get 38%?

No, I know we get it.

We get a bigger... Oh, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

This is 38% of the people you call.

Oh, well, that's not surprising.

We get a bigger audience than that, though.

We get more than 38% of the people.

But we asked on the very favorable, somewhat favorable, so on and it was 49% very favorable or somewhat favorable, 30% very favorable, 19% somewhat, 13% somewhat unfavorable, and 4% very unfavorable.

So the favor was 49, not favor was 17, but the interesting question we asked was, we just asked a straight question.

Do you believe the incursion into Laos by the South Vietnamese army will shorten the war length and the war make no difference?

36% short in the war, 22% under the war.

40% make no difference.

The point there is that's a radical change from all the holds that we've had before.

I don't know what validity it has to that.

I just don't think that it's an indication with these people who saw the press conference.

I don't think we really hit that question so hard.

The point is, either shortener made no difference.

It's 76% before it was strongly that it was the other way around.

The other thing about Gallup, Gallup having 2-1 against Laos and our showing it even.

There's something goddamn funny about that.

You remember?

Yeah.

The Laos question.

Yeah.

Well, we'll see you later.

I like the idea that I just like to go on and talk about women with somebody, and I think she's pretty good.

Or do you think she's pretty good?

Barbara Walters.

Yeah, I think she's good, right?

I don't know who else there'd be.

Well, if I do that, you wouldn't want to do that.

Vickerson isn't.

She's the wrong kind now.

I don't know.

I was just trying to think if there was somebody, a more homemade type, that is the celebrity.

Well, it is the TV type.

That's what I meant.

Or...

It's got to be an interviewer, though.

It's got to be a skilled interviewer.

You know, the others don't know how to do it.

Yeah.

He can come in.

Okay, Bob.

What is that?

What's that Rocky?

I don't know.

because I think we should have a meeting with Rocky and various people on revenue strategy and so forth, not everything can.

I mean, people from the Hill,

Which I think is a good idea to count.

I think we probably ought to be there, finishing up now, as I fall off on this thing.

We probably ought to be able to pass the film club on Earth, or at least, you know, we were going to be able to push on this earth.

But, you know, 30 seconds or so, we'll get the news on it.

We'll see what we've got.