Conversation 466-015

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He'll sit there.

He'll sit right there.

What are you going to do?

That's right, I'm still here.

Oh, you're right here.

All right.

Save.

How about you?

Is that fire too warm?

Oh, yeah, Frank Sattler's in here.

He had a couple of days ago to be on CBS today.

And he said, before he was chairman of the USIA advisory board, he admired the way he did it.

He said, you know, I got to go back and read that.

He said, you know, it's a deliverance.

He said, no, it's not a deliverance.

It's the atmosphere, isn't it?

I don't know how many fireplaces there are in the warehouse, but we have, I must say, we have tried more than we've tried before to find something that would work.

We've got one down there.

Oh, as you know, John,

He makes very good coffee.

Pat says she loves coffee.

She's just curious.

She doesn't.

I don't like it.

I grew up in the Navy, but I can drink it.

She actually has something to say.

I'll hang it for you.

It's coffee that she has.

It's a dessert.

It's made with a...

I mean, she has a question for you.

You want to take a picture?

Why don't you take it now?

This is just for your own use, sir.

It doesn't matter.

That's one of the things, you think of the little things, the first thing to do is one thing, and that's to curse.

It's just, coffee needs to be good.

So, you're in this room, and you serve gallons of it.

You don't make it in the burglary, but it's made by these kind of special kinds of people, so you just make a cup out of it.

Yeah, I agree.

It's important.

Of course, she's a German detainee.

She uses a colloquium call.

I'm afraid you don't like that.

So I got him in the police.

He did not make this.

We, as you all know, we Americans do not think too well.

And it's because, you know, we leave him here.

I like to eat the pot first to be sure to

Order tea at a restaurant is the most horrible mess when they bring this lukewarm water with a teabag floating in the greenish way and you're supposed to take it out and squeeze it out.

I don't know.

You don't make any midnight drinks on the icebox like for your predecessor.

No.

It's not going to last.

Like most men in public life.

I think this is, I don't think this is a problem that one man to the same extent would do.

You have the problem of how much cholesterol

Well, I don't think that really makes a lot of difference.

As far as whether you're trying to have a heart attack or not, that's my profession, medical.

For example, President Eisenhower's cholesterol was very low, and yet he had a heart attack.

And that he had some, but it's fine.

It's fine still, you know, without your symptoms.

probably within proper limits, but on higher limits, higher set of limits, but within reason.

And so they said, don't engage, and all that sort of thing.

So the channeling station, I followed by strictly on that story.

Yeah, I mean, it was all the same.

But nobody knew either.

I don't even know.

I have my hand, go to practice, I have an egg.

And he always has it.

So, the Chinese speaking, you know, it is, it is easy.

He, uh...

I find, clearly apart from the business about cholesterol, that a very low-fat diet, apart from weight, a low-fat diet, it keeps you in better shape.

It doesn't mean every individual is different.

But, you know, I love pastries.

And I love spaghetti.

And, you know, some of the things we grew up with, spaghetti and pastries.

rich desserts and all that sort of thing.

My mother was a marvelous pie maker.

And we used to have, we were married and she loved those pies.

And she baked them and sold them and stole them and helped put them through law school and college too.

But nevertheless, many years since then, I have a, just another history.

What do you think is the greatest quality of this mixture?

What is the thing that strikes you most about it?

You've already asked a lot of questions, tough questions in the sense that they're not very hard to generalize and answer.

Probably, uh, it's a, if they know some songs, I'd appreciate it.

Great strength of character.

Santa.

Uh, I'll mix the two together.

I think there's a part of that.

You know, you see her, and see her for the first time, and I guess she weighs 100 pounds, 700.

When I first met her, she, she used to weigh more.

I think she used to, she used to know her best size.

You must not be able to see her.

I think now she weighs an eight to a 10.

And when I first met her, she wore a 12 or, and one time even 14.

Would that be a long run?

Well, that's how you have gotten to fire them and they've made the best out of the smallest things.

And I didn't know all these things because it was always so good.

And in my trips abroad, some of them I took the plane and she was not.

I knew the size, but I didn't know quite the right thing in terms of what she would like.

She looks quite frail.

She's very thin.

It isn't because she doesn't eat.

She eats the desserts.

I don't eat the kids.

I don't eat the bread.

I don't eat the desserts.

What do I have?

She eats every day.

And I had like a... Did you really get your coffee?

Oh, yes, yes.

I don't come very often because I have found that country cheese is easier for them to fix it around here.

And so they put pineapple on it.

They gave pineapple and country cheese.

Well, today, for example, you'll be interested in this.

I had a meeting with Secretary Connolly.

And then the helicopter came in and was ready to take him off.

And he was still here in the room with the other assault squad.

And he still had something to discuss.

And I said, Manolo came in and said, well, you haven't had your lunch.

And I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do anything, but I got to sell you five o'clock.

So I said, bring my lunch.

Can you run this?

Really?

Very.

It must have been, for them, discouraging.

Craig.

Cottage cheese and pineapple and glass and all this.

And Ryan Kersh.

And the Secretary of State.

Do you eat that every day?

I eat it every day.

Thank you.

Despite the fact that she has a, she appears to be fragile because she's thin.

She has a great physical snap.

And also, that stamina carries over emotionally.

She does not blow because of the stress.

This is one of the reasons why, whether it's in campaigning or whether it's traveling abroad, whether it's in all the terminal

It was possible that anybody who is the wife of a political man must, I would say, probably she does so very well.

And I would say that as I look back over the time we have been married, it is quite remarkable that

My health has been excellent, but hers has been bad.

And I think that has enabled her to undertake very heavy schedules for a long time, hanging in means, which generally can be

quite difficult for women.

Now they stand on the edge of their life and it's not just physical, but it's mental and emotional and very disciplined.

That comes out of youth, I'm sure, of the training.

You know, her mother died when she was very young.

And her father died at this age.

Her son, she purchased her a few years before he died.

And after that, she married her brother, at least.

And while she was doing the work in the college, she made herself available.

And she became a, she therefore had it all in the person.

very, very inner strength in order to, in order to deliver.

That's what you all are.

I mean, what does anybody know?

Unless you, unless you go through it when you're quite young, you're not going to have it when you're older.

So, and so we, and I know that we all on the plane, we look back at those days.

I look back at it with questions.

What are you going to do?

Are you going to go to the gas station?

Are you going to pick beef and all that?

Others?

Because my wife goes back to perhaps becoming more of a, how do I say, more sparkly existence than I am.

Because both of his father and I are just essentially Christians.

And so that develops sometimes.

I mean, like... Well...

to young people.

Jay, you know, if you could have only been through the hard times, we were even better people.

See, that's the argument which, in effect, I may have made just now.

I do not believe that is true.

I think that, I think true that it's to her, to my wife's great credit, and I must say it's a question of mine, that despite the fact that

that they have been raised in a somewhat long, certainly because of the session that we had in the political body, and we read it well.

That he still runs very carefully.

You know, the budget is tight.

He is

As a matter of fact, in my view, I think she wrote too hard.

The fact is, it's always the attitude, and part of that is probably the fact that I am not there as much as I would like to be.

She is very strict.

I think that's the reason they may have developed some members from all of these themselves.

But I don't know.

I don't know how the test will come.

Julia, of course, is primarily in this case.

I can't stand it.

I don't want to hear it.

I'm sorry.

Do it now.

Do it.

She said, now, Danny, did I end it?

Did he say, I end it?

I said, no, she was all the way through the press.

I said, all right.

I'll let you try to put it out to her.

And I said, yeah.

She was, they both moved.

Without harm, you know, when you have the strains of what you have to go through in sickness, sometimes even the benefit of the death, hard times, losing a job, taking the air from oceans, these are all the things that determine what you've got or what you haven't got.

And these are things that,

I must say, I think it is more difficult for a child who grows up with everything

to then face those times when some things may be denied, and it is for each other that grows up the very little that has to fight.

Having said all that, I've got all the children in this country.

I don't want them to grow up like we did.

We want them to have the opportunity not to have to work their way through the schools and all that sort of thing.

I think of the hours that I spent

working in the library at Duke when I really could, and reading some good books.

That's it.

Mr. Reynolds, you were watching any good books on the ladder?

I was finally able to go.

But I wasn't working in the library all the time.

You were all watching the ladder.

I worked in the library.

I worked for the library of Ms. Culligan.

She had her influence on my life.

She's dead now.

Mary Culligan was the name.

Unfortunately, it was harmless.

There were only three or four jobs in the library.

I had one of them.

And, you know, we put the folks away.

I learned all how to work the cart, how to log indexes, and how to fix things up, and so forth.

Four or five jobs.

I mean, I'm a good librarian.

I'm a librarian over there.

Could you gain more by learning that than you do by reading a good book?

Could be.

Now, your wife has been quoted as saying that you are a convincing parent.

I think that's inevitable.

I think that is inevitable.

Inevitable for two reasons.

You want to remember I grew up in a family of all boys.

And so I remember my father how

How he disappointed me was, my youngest brother, you are my youngest brother, and he was quite a boss, you know, when he was in college, you know, working.

I'd say, my father was hoping so much that he would be a hero.

And my mother, you know,

So even though we have only daughters, the other point is that I do not have the opportunity, when you do not have the opportunity to do the things

your children that other parents do, you overcompensate them.

So when you come home and they say, gee, I hate to be talking about this or that, you say, yes, I am, and I must say that I am.

Mr. President, do you think President Nixon might change the role that the White House has changed all the time?

I mean, look at it this way, she would never have rung the bell.

And would never have started.

Which does not mean that, if you use the term, life the office, the answer is any lady who is first lady, likes.

The First Lady, I don't care what they say, they don't need you.

You might need Christmas.

Because, well, I don't need Christmas.

See, I thought, I don't know that much.

Anybody who will go to the end of the campaign must like it.

If you ever want to talk about that, sit down and find out about her.

Find out about Mrs. Nixon.

I think I can answer the question.

She likes certain aspects of the decision more than others.

First, she has, as you all know, a great passion for privacy.

And so she dislikes the fact that so much of the activities must be called out.

For example, one of the things that she misses the most is the ability to go to the beach.

That she can just walk through California and smash it together.

Or that she can go

We used to win the shop.

We did even in the years I was out of office in New York.

And there we could do it pretty well, although we were recognized by a few.

And she likes that.

She likes to win the shop, to go along, to move along.

And she said, she said, something like that, Ann Lindbergh.

That book would be great.

I think it probably catches her as well as anything.

In that respect, she doesn't look funny.

On the other hand, I think that she likes what you can do in an office.

Let me go this way.

She doesn't like First Lady because she is First Lady, but she likes First Lady because of what she can do as First Lady, which is a very different thing.

Not for the position, but for what the position allows you to do.

And one of the things that has come true, and all of you recorded very, as you've seen, fairly completely, is her insistence that in that house, that

All people are treated the same, regardless of their background.

For example, we stand on those receiving lines after the church service.

We stand on the receiving lines every evening to the widest.

There are scores of others that she goes over there and shakes hands with hundreds of people, thousands, and for that matter, I miss the word thousands when she gets to sevens.

And I remember through all of our campaigns, whether it was receiving one or whether it was going to the medicine care for him, he was the one.

She always insisted on shaking that last hand, not simply because she was thinking of that bullet, but because she simply couldn't turn down that last shot or that last person, whatever the case might be.

I heard their days, you know, and I say, thank you.

I just kind of don't have the time to stand any longer.

She always insists.

If anybody comes in that house, they are to receive absolutely the same treatment.

She likes that.

She likes, I think she likes very much her activities abroad and at home and her volunteer activities.

I heard her to Peru and her trips with me all the way, but those aspects of her trips were just second schedule.

I didn't even know.

She had built with me and said, you know, sort of go along with this excess baggage and not just rip off the dents.

And she must have done that too.

But starting tomorrow, first year of 1953, which I read what you covered, because I was one of her shoes, pretty sure.

But her dress was there on 69 nights.

And we had changed that dress a little bit too.

And I wore the same black tie.

I mean, one, to nevertheless, in 69 nights, to visit hospitals and children's homes and to go to Egypt at a time before air conditioning, I mean, you're in the tree.

Listen.

For her to do that was an enormous, enormous amount of wear for a woman that was hardly a man.

But is that part of the job that she does the best?

Is that part where she, it might be, where she acts on her own?

I think she does extremely well.

As the White House, and actually I'm the president on this, and as the hostess, she handles the, she's graceful, and the guests, and the planning for dinner is, you know, coming down the grand staircase, and making, you know, all that kind of thing.

But, she, in her own right,

when she travels abroad, when she travels in this country, when she has her own receptions, et cetera, then I think she demonstrates her quality perhaps even more.

And it's that part of the job that I think

And I'm not sure she would agree with this, but the right hand that she made light the best, not because a lot of glory for it, because usually Mark Lee is a reporter as well, and because she's doing it rather than my mind.

It's no comment, I'm not complaining about the reporting, it's just the way the news falls.

But the other hand, the impact, her activities abroad.

It has been enormous.

I find, for example, when I meet world leaders today,

My neighbor, Matt, who I came into contact with in our trip back in 1903, they can remember what she did in some hospitals she visited, some children's homes, some other things.

Because at that time, in 1953, it wasn't done very much, you know, like the way that she did at this time.

Mr. President, let's go back, all right?

Go ahead now.

You came to the White House in 1916 instead of 1960 and had those eight years through doors when they were teenagers.

No.

Well, that's it.

I think that the answer to your question is probably yes, from a personal standpoint, as well as maybe from some other standpoints.

First of all, every individual feels that he gets wisdom as he gets older.

I'm not sure that he does.

You may lose something that turns us down.

The other point is that I didn't really have an opportunity, which I would never have had in those eight years.

If I had been in the White House, I really never would have known.

I really never would have known.

The two girls?

Oh, two.

How?

Describe how.

So, Julie is extrovert, warm, very outgoing, gregarious.

She's always got to be in motion.

She's doing something all the time.

And Trish, on the other hand, is a pervert, introvert.

Trish is a very curious combination.

Trish is extremely effective, whatever she has to do with the problem.

But she doesn't want to.

She doesn't, in other words, she is not one who enjoys the spotlight.

She is not one, I'm not sure, I'm not sure that, I'm not saying that you will enjoy it either, but I'm sure that in Tracy's case, if she had her preference,

She would prefer not to have had a show on CBS where she's at the White House or go out on the campaign trips and whatnot.

But she does it extremely well.

And I think Julie does it extremely well, too.

So they both have the ability.

And that, I mean, they are training the rest.

and my mother, and they both had the ability to be gracious, and I didn't think about it, and Jeremy, as they go out on their, in their public positions.

But, to one Christian, a Christian would prefer a life which was far less of a public spot of life.

I'm not suggesting Julie likes a life, or wants a life of a public spot of life, but to Julie, it's not as much of a problem.

Well, everybody's trying to figure out which is like which, and of course, I can't claim who's who, but whatever the case may be, it might be.

I think there's a, you know, I think it's rather than taking after either, it's probably both or throwback to grandparents.

Because I think both of them in this mission are, I mean, I am, as has been reported, am somewhat unusual in political life because I tend to be more of a, more of a,

that he's less prepared, frankly, than the average person in this position.

Mr. President, if we promise not to tell, will you tell us what you're going to do?

We won't tell.

Let me help you.

The birthday is always celebrated on the 17th, and we always have.

As a matter of fact, that was the day we always celebrated.

That was the only day that I ever knew it was a birthday, and I always let me know where it's at.

Now, I go back in some family history.

You see, her mother is German, her father is Irish.

And her mother named her Dawn Catherine.

But she was born on the eve of St. Patrick's Day.

And her father came home from the mine and gave her that and found this little girl with him.

And it did all, it must have been quite a lot of work for the IDC.

She's St. Patrick's Day in the morning, and he always called her Patrick from the time she was born.

And then after her mother died, then my wife had Patrick, and it's always been only Patrick.

Now, so actually, while she was born, on the eve of apparently, I don't imagine, I don't know what time, apparently during, in 1916, her birthday was celebrated on the 17th.

As far as the name, not tonight, today, this time, we're going to celebrate it on the 60th because you see the Irish coming over, the Prime Minister, the Irish Senators.

And so it kind of made that very difficult.

And that's why it's a very personal project and what we just invited you to do.

We couldn't invite all of you to it, but we will do it in a second.

I hope you have an easy time.

Mr. President, what kind of duty do you and Mr. Nixon make to have some private time because there are two of you to yourselves?

Are you able to do a few things?

Yes, we really do.

Yeah.

For example, we may do a campaign.

It's, uh, I don't say it, but when you go to Canada, when you go to Canada, I work a great deal.

But, uh, we take them bowling.

And we go over and do some bowling.

And we do some walking together.

And in Florida or in California, we walk.

Uh, I've been trying to get her to take up the

Because out in California, there is a three-hole golf out there.

So I don't need to tell you what's wrong.

But in terms of private times together, can't they hand-employed?

We are very, very strict about not inviting outside people.

It's always people who are sort of battling.

Like last weekend, we had to hear the council of friends from California, and Roger Johnson sometimes, and Deborah Moses sometimes, and Laura Bobbitt.

I mean, he needs a portion of that.

But there was more private time than you would imagine.

Do you ever consult Mrs. Dixon on any decisions?

Or ever sound her out?

This little appeal to women's lives, this little appeal to women's lives, if you say yes, but if you say no, then we'll leave.

Yeah, if you think about that, there's many, many other appeals to women's lives, and I'm not an expert on them.

David knows a lot of these, and I'm asking about the books.

Thank you.

to study this in the moment.

First, you know they prepare me big books, reading books, every now and then it's interesting to know

that the biographical sketches for world leaders are always contained in our books.

It's also interesting to note that the biographical sketches of the lives of those leaders are just as long and in just as much detail.

In other words,

Our people, and I am sure that when we travel around the United States, the divided national sketches and miscegenates are just as much detailed as they are about me.

So our State Department people, our total military countries, obviously believe that the wife of the leader, political leader, whoever he is, the Prime Minister, the President, whatever he is,

could very well have some effect on his decisions.

And my view, as I look around, and I have perhaps known a hundred world leaders of either the head of state or head of government, because some passed along, and a solid majority of cases, I would say, the wives of those leaders have very great influence on them.

I'm not going to take the chapter first, because that would be too personal to indicate those wives.

I mean, that wouldn't want me to start on a topic.

But the women who are, and they don't really receive, you don't even see the coverage of what are they wearing, and how they look, and how they walk, and all that sort of thing.

What really matters is their brain,

their character and the influence they have on that man.

And I can tell you that as I look at the members of the House and Senate, as I look at the government, as I look at all the political men that I have watched, that I have seen in my career, they're wise.

in different ways at a very, very long time.

Now I'll come to your specific question.

The specific question is,

Does the house influence work?

Does the leader ask you, like, what would you do about this or that decision?

Some do.

I know.

You see, and there's where you miss the point.

That may not be the most important thing.

So the individual says, now I'm going to go home and I'm going to ask my wife, my daughters, for example,

What do you think?

What should we do about the next troop of 12?

And so their opinion will be worth your opinion, or their opinion may or may not be worth yours.

On the other hand, their influence

can be in areas that don't involve issues.

Too many people who write about politics and political men

become absorbed with the issues and forget the man.

Forget the person.

What matters is not the program, but the person.

Sure, the program matters, I mean, true and all that, but I mean, if you really want to study, you've got to study the man, you've got to study the person, and in this instance, I think that the...

Some of the women, for example, that you...

Back off.

Take Mrs. DeGaulle.

I do not imagine that General DeGaulle ever discussed, I don't know what the case was, a major decision with Mrs. DeGaulle about the letter he issued.

in a sense of security and stability.

It's an emotional, kind of almost mystical relation, which is very important.

I look back, for example, on the first ladies that I've met at this stage.

You know, before I ever met a president or saw a president, I saw first ladies.

The first one I saw was Mr. Trosico.

I never saw Brian in New York City.

And of course, that's before television, so I only heard him on the radio.

But when I was in the Pacific, down in the South Pacific, wandering around Little Caledonia, from Kuwait, from Tuntula to Nemea, T-O-N-T-O-U-T-A, which is a marine base in Nemea, which is, of course, the county of New York.

And one day, I was driving a jeep home.

The next one I noticed,

Oh, sorry.

Before I met Mrs. Rosenbaum, I met Mrs. Hoover.

I was the youngest member of the Florida Junior College.

I was in college.

I came out of law school in 1939, 1917.

I went to the Florida Junior College.

And who came on that board?

Lou Henry Hoover.

who, of course, was a Quaker, and devoted to the small colleges, to many other big colleges.

And I remember what a wonderful person she was.

And she had all of the ability to communicate, to be warned, that Mr. Hoover had his heart, but found it so difficult to express.

And so I could see how Mrs. Hoover must have been very good for him, as well as a great asset to him and the Rylance.

And now I remember that the next first lady that I saw was Mrs. Truman.

And there's, we think of Mrs. Truman these days, it seems so many years ago, it was more than years ago, of course.

But when I saw Mr. Truman, when we visited and took out a piano up to him, and he had got to describe

When you see, when you see her, you can see why she was very different.

She's strong.

She's like, just like Peter, she's so, she's very, right down her, she's basically a good, strong character.

And I imagine that when Harry Truman was having a thing,

and he'd go home and I'm sure the rest of the children stood there like a rock.

And at the same token, I think Mrs. Eisenhower was a great, she complimented the general very good.

He was a great, a great outlaw.

As a matter of fact, individually, he was quite a man of dignity and reserve, because of his enormous respect for the office.

And so, making out is an honor.

And the very fact that he called her name is an indication.

She was a good balance driver for the general.

I never called her that.

But that was because of the, I suppose, my respect for that.

Did you call her name?

I did.

Oh, we had a terrible time.

You know, she comes to the house, to the White House, and

I always refer to her as Mrs. Eisenhower.

She says, now then.

No, no, no.

She says, Mr. President.

She doesn't ever call me that.

I said, well, you keep it.

I said, you don't need to do that.

She said, you've got to call me names.

You've got to call me names.

And I try, but it's very hard for me to get it out.

And I have the same problem.

I had the same problem with the General.

Of course, I didn't call him that.

There was no problem.

He understood that.

Did you call him General?

I called him General.

No, I called him Mr. President.

I called Mr. President always when he was President.

And after that, you and Mr. President were General.

But I tend to be...

I don't tend to be a first-name.

I, or basically, as you know, or shall we say, to the mayor.

That's my nature.

He tends to be his own way.

I don't have any objection to people at all.

So I tend to be somewhat more formal.

Mr. President, in light of what you're discussing, would you say what you think Mrs. Nixon gives you in this job?

Uh...

And do you discuss specific problems with... Do we?

Yes.

Well, I'll tell you what we do discuss.

The kind of things that...

Her... She's a very good critic.

A critic of, you know, restaurants, or speed, or something of that sort.

Nobody is a better critic than the member of your panel.

They're not.

Because they'll be perfectly honest and generally fine.

And generally they tend to be on your side, which is not, that doesn't mean that the criticism therefore is as objective as it ought to be.

But she's quite objective, and she's also, she has a very good sense

and both the girl and the daughters have truly they and their understanding of the younger generation and she and her understanding of the people generally they have a very good sense of what people understand what they don't like i'll finish the press conference and i'll come back for a speech and uh their judgment as to

Whether I was able to communicate to flying is very important.

You see, it's very difficult for the President to ask members of the staff, this might be the question, because you know members of the staff, they're generally the first ones on here.

It's quite honest, actually.

But I'm realistic enough to know that you're not going to go to the very best.

And of course, I was at the benefit of the EU

And I agree.

I agree.

And I have a very different attitude on that than some of my friends, let's just say some of them.

I am never concerned about opinion, criticism, or anything of that nature.

He didn't like how he looked, or how he sounded, or his attitude, or his position, or whatever it is.

The only thing I ever, the only thing, however, I have a very hard time about is an actress.

And, of course, something that I might just, like, make or just make a statement of, regardless, is a total, uh, foundation fact.

And so, uh, I had to be corrected.

I don't care.

I don't care whether anybody at CBS, NBC, or ABC says Nixon is wrong on ABM.

That's fine.

If they say that Nixon expressed doubts about ABM to a group of people,

I'm not leaving her to her place, then that has to be corrected.

You see, that's what I mean.

So I allow a little lie.

I think that sometimes, sometimes that's not, I call it a lie, that's what I'm saying.

Because after all, a man just probably has their own information.

I mean, that's, I'm always very charitable to my patients.

What about Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Kennedy, the other first lady?

Did she use them?

Well,

Oh, I've got to say something about children.

You reminded me of this one earlier.

I think one of the really, one of the great assets of Mississippi is sensitivity among people.

I don't, we can't do, I do not tell the story.

And this is an indication of her sensitivity, and I would trust, maybe, perhaps my grandmother too.

But the way that she had the visit of Mrs. Kennedy and her two children to the White House was really

to curb sensitivity, and only a sensitive woman would have handled it that way.

I think Mrs. Kennedy was surprised, relieved, and enormously pleased when there wasn't a fire in the place.

When none of them believed.

Until Helen Thomas got up about 8 o'clock.

Well, no, seriously.

But what I meant is, here, it was a very difficult thing, you know, for her to come back to that house, and for these little youngsters

And when you were asking me about the picture, I was thinking of those two young children.

And they had spent three years in that house.

And then, of course, they had to go away from it.

That would mean that if they had spent

that those years were bad years.

Because you can talk to Alice Longworth, and there's another one about the first name.

I never called her Alice.

She's Mrs. L. It's not, nobody else calls her Alice, and she likes it.

She's not familiar with it.

She doesn't like it.

I always call her Mrs. L. Mrs. L. But anyway, Alice Lomer, who we'll tell you later in the line, also has its points.

That we needed her children.

But I saw these two young youngsters.

sensitive, intelligent.

And I was so glad that Mrs. Nixon was able to bring me back.

And feel very much at home.

And feel that, as I told them, I said to them, listen, this is your house and you are always welcome in this house.

And Trish and Julie took them on a little tour upstairs.

And they loved having the dogs come in.

And so did I.

And that was one thing, that's a lot of ones here.

The one thing, and this next one, she's great.

She's, what do you want the name to be?

You call her Sundowner.

You know what that means?

Just use that term without distracting you.

Some daughters, some daughters are very strict.

She's very strict about keeping the place clean.

You know what I mean?

Believe me, she's still got a copy in the drawer.

She's been out there, you know, scrubbing it.

It's like a German mother.

And, you know, we come in with the muddy boots and so forth.

I mean, Jesus.

She's really there, and in the White House is saying she will simply not come.

And that's why she just, my party wants a place to be safe and clean and so on.

So, for me to arrogant those dogs on that second floor, that was almost impossible.

I sat there and said, well, I'd like to see our dogs.

And I said, gee, I'd love to.

So we got three dogs, King and Piper.

And they, at the most wonderful time of the day, love to walk over to the carpet show.

And nothing happens.

They're very, very sick.

Well, they're all walking.

No, but there's always, you always think, but you think this can happen under the house grapes.

So maybe you've got a big dog, you know, you can scratch the verge.

Absolutely.

And, uh, or an assay or a nice little dog.

Well, we've got, we've got a big dog.

He is, uh, he's such a marvelous dog.

Well, let me say it.

It was the first time they were invited with her consent.

How many times did they get there alone?

Not much.

I think that, I think it was above the, Manoa brings, has brought Gene back down to the Lincoln City Room.

He brings him up and brings him down there.

Sometimes very late at night, you know, but if I'm just, you know, on a relax event, I'll kind of go out and get involved.

But the main secretary of law, the king, is the victim.

And the families, I would say that this is the first time they've ever been in a hole.

How about Mrs. Johnson?

Well, Mrs. Johnson, she's a very strong woman.

Let me say something about the first ladies.

The interesting thing about them,

are the first ladies of this country, the least of the ones of the United States.

Mrs. Roosevelt, Mr. Truman, Mrs. Eisenhower, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Kennedy, we're all very strong.

And Mrs. Nixon is in that tradition.

By strongman, I mean they had to have character.

When you talk about it, I don't want to give an impression of Japan.

that the woman's ideas about the issue do not matter, I will assess issues.

What I am saying, though, is that you zero in, people zero in too often on the influence that a woman or a man has on an individual, so does an issue.

Sometimes the question is,

How would that man ever feel when he alone has got to sit there and make a real tough decision?

Does he have around him people who are standing with him, people who are strong, people who aren't panicking, people who aren't throwing up their hands about what they heard in the television that night, or the lousy call from one of the terrible cartooners, or somebody that brings serenity or calmness and strength into the room?

That makes a great deal.

to divide.

Did you ever meet Mrs. DeGaulle?

Yes.

A marvelous woman.

Don't you think?

Yes, Mary Parker.

Oh, she was a marvelous woman.

Now, Mrs. Johnson was a very strong woman.

And if I was a member, and also Mrs. Johnson, I think she's strong.

I didn't know her well.

And I think of her activities and her beautification just like it.

I think my wife will probably be able to remember this as far as her public activities, more of her travels abroad, and after the volunteer activities, particularly as we have our gatherings and dinner.

a week that I, you know, we're going to launch him, you know, we want to do something with him.

Mrs. Johnson's activities in the beautification thing, well, is a real, a real tendency for some people to say, ah, beautification, you know, I'm going to do tansies on my freeways and all that sort of thing.

But it's not.

Because the, the, you want to remember that, the, uh, that, that, well, let me, let me go back to this.

I just think of the impression of myself, here I was,

I never forgot the time I met Mrs. Hoover and put her on the board.

I never forgot the time I saw Mrs. Roosevelt.

And I remember the time that I saw Mrs. Truman when we attended the Young Congress in Manhattan.

Now, none of these were present.

They were first ladies.

It wasn't just because they were celebrities.

Each of them had certain qualities.

Don't underestimate it.

ever, the enormous impact that the wife of the president, not just because she's the wife of the president, but because of her own character, has in what she does individually.

First, she helps the man.

She compliments him very much.

And all presidents, some have had more problems than others.

All presidents have had very great problems.

And the white has to be the stronger partner.

It has to be the stronger partner?

Yes.

You will find, if you look at it with your eyes, that the white, you will notice, of course, I was going to say that if you look at the whites, they carry

But you will find that the lives have always been very, very strong.

very, very strong people.

When I say the county situation is different, I don't mean that because he's dead.

You didn't have the opportunity to see what would happen.

Mr. President, on a sort of philosophical note, I don't mean this in a flippant way, but if you could express a birthday wish for your wife, that's serious.

Absolutely.

walk the beach.

And I thought that had brought a sense with, uh, with, uh, the nose, you know, that hair, the hair, the hair, the hair, the hair, the hair, the hair,

Although she does, she's like Trisha, although she does the public events extremely well, she is not the one who wipes me on stage, which is an anomaly.

And for that reason,

She liked the privacy, it's very interesting, you know.

Now, so if I were to express a wish, it would be to, and she, she loves the water, and she loves the water, but the moment that there's a camera there, or somebody watches, or somebody like that,

I've got to shape up.

In other words, she feels like we walk the beach, even a California beach, and I say, let's go down and take a walk on the beach.

She says, well, I can't go looking like this.

I says, of course you can.

Well, you can, and there probably is.

And she's probably right.

And she always wants to look nice or look proper.

When somebody's around, you see that's why she worries a little too much about that.

My view is, well, I'm a little bit a part of it myself.

You know, I don't go around in my sports shirts as much as people in their shoes and so on and so on.

But on the other hand, there is a certain responsibility in this office policy for men and for the First Lady.

to managing the day to do the office.

She does this.

But what she'd like to do is to walk along and say, well, I guess, with dark glasses maybe.

Or another thing, you know, or walk the beach.

I'd say also to go to New York or out on Ocean Boulevard in California and walk along back to the old days, look in the windows, wander in the shops.

and just be like anybody.

You have said that, you told us about some of the difficulties or the things maybe that, for instance, you and Mrs. Nixon don't like in the White House.

What is the most difficult thing for you?

I mean, privacy seems to be an overwhelming thing to say, right?

I mean, what is the most difficult thing you have found?

You mean about the White House?

Yeah, she's been here, I think.

Like it all.

Well, as a matter of fact, I have very few complaints about it.

You see, I'm a fairly disciplined person, and I therefore do not allow the details to burn me down.

I'm also very disciplined in terms of criticism.

It doesn't bother me.

I read it all.

I mean, I particularly explain it to the person.

But I know it's not part of the game.

And so you have to play the game.

Play it out.

But the other part is that I think that I have been able to not get that feeling of just being overwhelmed with a crushing burden of paperwork

all the things I have to read, all the people I have to see, and so on.

I just determine on my own mind what is important, and I spend time on what is important.

Now, if you were to say what I would like better, it means that I would want better if I could find it.

And I need, and I've got a recommendation here for Congressmen and Senators.

I was thinking about applying back to the Supreme Court today.

Because I thought of how life went through those times, that is, up until perhaps, well, even through T.I.

What I would like better is more time, which is my time, just to read and then

I think every man should have, every colored man, a couple of days a week, but he takes time for golf.

I don't want him for golf or going to the movies or any of that sort of thing.

I like to see movies, you know, and baseball games.

But what I mean is to read the thing in a philosophical vein about the enormous problems that he has to deal with.

And I do more than that than many of my predecessors, only because I discipline my time in such a way.

But I wish there were more time for that.

I advise congressmen and senators to discipline their times, not to spend as much time as they did.

You're writing every letter.

You're making every speech and all that stuff.

They talk so much, they think too little.

That's the problem with politics today.

We're all talking, yapping, we're having press conferences, we're on TV, we're making speeches, and we aren't thinking enough about it.

And that's why there are so few great speeches.

That's why there are so few great things.

It isn't the people who are less capable.

We have an enormous number of capable people.

And it's that that I think is the need.

And so I would like to see today, and the Congress actually,

did not meet here, so that the Congress would have time not only to go home to talk to their constituents, but wherever they would get time to perhaps to go home and talk to their constituents.

The Congress could be out this time.

All right.

We've gone over an hour.

Oh, I know.

I'm one of those, I guess, the rare people who never thought of presidency, even when I was a congressman or a senator.

And it was actually a surprise when I when I was a senator, as I was elected as vice president.

Tom Dilley was the one who first referred to it when I spoke to the committee.

And so he suggested to me, I read this.

...considered the vice president.

Are you kidding?

He wasn't.

Mr. President, you've heard how Nixon feels strongly about issues like that.

What's that?

That Nixon feels strongly about national issues.

Oh, yeah.

She feels strongly about them.

She never speaks on them.

No, and she won't.

And I think that's a proper position.

You see...

I do not think, I do not think you can have two voices in an official panel.

And I don't know, as far as the children are concerned, that's terrible.

I mean, Trish and Julie, I urge them, David, to speak on it together about what they think about it very soon.

Because that's, I mean, that's terrible.

But as far as the wife and the husband are concerned, I do not believe that on any issue that you can have the wife operating one way and the husband talking the other way.

But what I meant is that she would never do that to everybody.

But she has very strong views about both foreign and domestic policy.

Then I'd be giving it all away.

I would say that generally speaking, she shares my views.

But there are areas where she might take a different position.

But on the other hand, we are very careful.

I would say in our country, we do not have that kind of disdain.

We have a lot of argument on the issue.

Because we all know that we will have discussion about problems, how people are thinking about problems, how the country is moving, how we have got to get ourselves across, how we have got to get something across.

But we are not, in terms of the issues themselves, we all sit down and have a family conscience, and then I go off and determine, well, that's what I'm saying about anything else.

And I don't sit and hold the cap, I don't hold the cap.

Nice to see all of you.

What's that?

What did you say?

No, I don't.

No, I didn't know a lot.

But I always think that when I get up, when I wake up, I just think I'm always quiet.

Okay.

Yes.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

You got something?

Oh, you got what?

Oh, the engagement.

Oh, yeah.

I didn't know about it.

Thank you.

Well, we hope you have fun.

Did you join the club?

Yes, I did.

Did you have any blood?

No, but I did have some blood.

I had some cheese that was very good.

Oh, was it all right?

Yes, I did.

He turned up for this election call on automation.

Wow.