Conversation 476-008

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I present you with gas money.

And instead of trying to present you with gas money, I'm selling it.

So, I don't think there's one.

In regards to Paul, I don't think that John's situation is correct.

First of all, from a personal standpoint, I would not want to

You have not done everything we expected you to do.

He's an honest, decent man.

Yeah?

Is he in?

Hello?

Are you in your office?

Yeah, come on over here in a second.

Or the personal considerations cannot be dominated.

There are other considerations that are, you know, must be considered.

I just have a feeling that if our plan on the economy, if we have confidence in it, then that's what's going to matter.

Well, selling it will help to have confidence that we just, if we can't go out and call a consultant, the thing to do is to have other people go out and do the selling.

But they're not making an effective move by sending him, like, right back to Michigan and then have some other guy come in and then have the economy move up and say, well, we've got to get rid of that poor guy called McCracken.

You know how things are.

Another thing, too, I think if he were to go, there would be immediately a signal to the effect of, well, McCracken, as John said, I haven't thought of this, but they would interpret it, well, we could.

The real reason would be that we've gotten practice going on because of his policies, but because of his lack of salesmanship.

That is the way it would be interpreted.

They would say we let him go because his policies were wrong.

Right at the present time, I feel here, just like I was doing in Vietnam, the thing to do is to have a steady course.

Don't swerve.

Don't let it out of the damn flag and bother us.

Now, we've been doing that all the time.

The only thing we spurred on was this construction trade thing, which apparently is or is not going to work.

Thank you.

I want you to do a little checking on one thing for me.

I noticed a piece by Karen Smith.

You know, that son of a bitch from the New York Times, I mean, kind of his red boy, that's the one.

I used to sit by him, I saw him out of it.

And, uh, I was there with this guy, Richard, when he was 67.

He's a smocked-on little brat, you know, just, just bad.

I mean, one of the worst.

I mean, he's not one of, he's not a good reporter, but he's a little spanker trying to work his way up top.

First, I want to do a little

what his need is here, so to see who the hell is putting that out.

Is he going to stay through, sir?

Is his need to stay through?

Is he going to stay through?

All right.

Get ahold of Marshall Green and say, I want somebody on the carpet right away.

I want to know who talked to him.

Is that what you mean?

Yes, sir.

And I told him I had to have the report by 10.30 when I finished this.

Will you do that?

No, I'll say 11 o'clock, if you know.

Now, second point, I say, Marshall, we've really got to know for the other thing.

This week, this goddamn leaking of this search, they want to let you tell me.

Tell the New York Times.

Second point is, let's get a report from Ladd.

I don't know whether you had anything laid out and so forth, but he's obviously gone over there and sucked around and is trying to write a negative story at this time for obvious reasons.

Will you check it out?

Yes, sir.

I do tell Henry, of course, you'll enjoy that assignment, won't you?

Very much so.

Yes, sir.

Well, it seems to me that we ought to just, I'm going to ask him to say that he says, Solomon, fine, last morning.

That's all there is to it.

Very well.

Second.

All right.

Now, regarding the...

If you find this a conversation, if you think...

that I could be helpful.

I mean, just call me down.

I'll be right there.

Sure.

It may be that...

I've tried to be sure there's only one secretary of labor.

I've also tried to say there's only one chairman of the council.

There are a lot of newspaper stories about...

I'm supposed to be influential on economics.

It doesn't come from me, and it isn't because of any public posture that I've taken, but to the extent that it's made trouble, Paul, why, you know, just put me in the background.

Thank you.

It really is what they believe eventually prevails, and it's not prevailing.

I have a, as I said yesterday, I was beaten to death, but my intuition about the economy is not bearish.

God, it's going to go up.

Do you think so, Lord?

Mr. President, this thing is really going to go, I think.

Just today's papers had more of these reports.

Did they put it with my lifeblood?

Particularly the sales end of things.

What is it?

What about there?

That's a move down, is it?

Or is it behind you?

See, the lake sprang, I know.

But you see, that's another factor.

Here we had a bad weather, a very cold weather, a late Easter.

And how about the lens moving now?

It may move in April, maybe a hell of a month.

Well, the reports had to do with things like that.

I don't know that I remember exactly the figures, but Sears sales for the month of March being something like 6% over last year.

And last year we had a much earlier Easter.

So if they didn't get any of that big Easter surge, then one could expect auto sales are really going boom.

And not just GM.

Not just GM.

They're booming.

GM is in the lead.

Well, the American Motors is the only one that's...

I'm surprised it's still around.

But anyway, that side of it is looking good, and I think that the lack of a build-up, in fact, the decline in the first two months, and that that represents a lack of confidence in the business community, these sales,

will perk it up, and then they'll have to build those inventories, and that will tend to give it further a shot in the arm.

So the drone seems to be able to think pretty well.

Of course, the Federal Reserve has drawn very strong on the money supply, beginning in early February, and I think

To the extent that any of our thinking about the money supply is right, the way they were going, you couldn't expect the economy would go anywhere.

But once they let go a little bit, things have turned around.

And they're a very strong Federal Reserve Department.

And we, if anything, they're...

So I think that's right, and I agree with what you say about Paul.

Things are going to pan out, and he should be around to share that.

Yeah, I think you're going to have to work on it to get him to say he's going to come in, I believe, with the notion that he's promised to go back to the University of Michigan, and they want him to go back, and that he's been through all these economic reports, and they are not doing a hellish job writing those reports each year.

But I think that he's persuadable off of the conversations that I've had with him.

All right.

I'll work with him.

He says he's going to go.

I'll say no.

I'll ask him to delay it.

Delay the decision.

He's been under rough attack.

He's going to work out.

That's what I feel.

All right.

Thank you.

Things change.

There's nothing that affects the mood of the businessman like a good profit statement.

Is that right?

Once they start to, of course, they give themselves all the credit for a good profit statement.

I suppose that's as it should be to a certain extent there.

The chief executive is a nice stand or fall, but when these things start to move up, they'll start feeling a lot better, more cocky.

I think it will help a lot.

Yeah.

And I think this notion of steady as you go and that we're looking for the long-term health of the American economy will be the most confident booing thing that one can imagine.

Well, we were talking about the

the defense reprogramming you mentioned, this ABM resolve agreement.

John told me a little bit about this thinking afterwards.

Here's what the situation is in a nutshell.

I'm not sure if you've ever heard it.

By the end of this summer, and we will know then, yes or no, by the end of this summer, we will have an ABM agreement.

And also, we don't know whether we will have, coupled with that, and of course this doesn't affect us, unfortunately, but it will affect the Soviet, a freeze on their offensive deployment.

It's a very impossible move.

This is something that we have preserved.

We're not talking about these damn doves.

See, they're all talking about, let's just have an APS grade to put out on Sunday.

In a very private way, I've sent a message.

Nobody knows it, since it's a property, but nobody else.

It has to be in private, because it's maintained.

But I've sent a message.

We're making a deal for APM on APM right here.

I hope we don't have to go to the Washington site and maybe just finish the ones we've got over there.

Plus,

That, of course, means that the ABM line does become available in future years.

So you can just put that in as a contingency plan, in other words, with the ABM and without ABM.

And that's what I want you to know.

And you'll know, and you'll have plenty

at the end of next summer.

We may know, for example, within a month, whether or not the deal will be made.

We'll know it privately.

But we may not be able to say much about it.

It's a real, it's a big card we will play, as you can imagine, Tim.

The effect of that on this whole situation in this country could be great if we could have an agreement between Russia and Nixon in regard to not, you see, you see where the, where the U.S. and the U.S. are making a terrible mistake, is to constantly say, let's just agree on what Greece needs to be having to do with Russia.

Well, that's a, that's a, uh,

Just one for us and two for them.

Because that means it's just lead offensive with the lid off.

And then we had to go down a few years.

We got to look at our old car and find that they've got a two to one advantage over us in offensive weapons.

And so then we'd have to rebuild those damn Polaris's and all those other things.

And that's cost a hell of a lot more than ABM.

See what I'm talking about?

So we had got to tie.

ABM was the only car we'd got to get them to cut the crazy offensive.

As they indicated, they had problems apparently.

They'd like to treat, they'd kind of like to get this down.

If we pull this, this will be an enormous effect on us.

It will have a psychological effect on the world.

It's going to have an enormous effect here.

A side benefit is that it will have a modest effect on your budget.

I know it's not too much.

Well, I guess it is in years ahead.

I'm telling you, it's part of these things.

So you can figure that out in your future budget plan.

That's the other hope, too, of the defense general.

I don't get in the office a lot in terms of, you know, we get to, we get to be, you know, if they're being harassed, we've got to keep up with them, that's the main thing.

We have a pretty good prospect here.

He said publicly that, well, I hope over the long run, but I haven't, I don't want to be out here.

That's got to be the public stance, or it will, the whole thing.

That's why we can't even tell our own people I can't tell Laird because he's leading and I can't tell Rogers only because Rogers would have the responsibility to respond to the Senate and he goes up there and I don't want him to know I can't say it.

I don't have the responsibility to tell him.

I'm not going to do it.

Our part of making this deal and this is telling me why later on we'll talk if we do it.

It may not work but there's a chance now for the very time.

I'll get that for you.

What John told me was that you wanted to get some sort of a reading on how much money that would involve and try to put forward some domestic money.

I realize that it may be that our money problem is so serious, budget problem, that we're just going to have to put this in and say, oh, well, there.

But be prepared.

Remember that if we have a agreement, the Congress will all come up with their initiatives.

Let's be prepared for our position in the event that we get this.

So that we say, all right, this money must be used for this purpose.

And that's how we account and go back to the defense department.

That's another thing.

Unless, well, put it this way.

Unless there goes a pay increase in order to have our

In terms of reprogramming, there are three types of things.

There's hardware, which in the long run we need, I think.

Yes.

There are bases, which we have a special problem.

We've got a lot there, but that has to be in front of us.

And third is the force structure, as John said.

how many people you have.

That's the place where the hardware, you don't save much money immediately because those are all small dollars now, large dollars in the future.

The quick savings are in manpower and bases.

Manpower particularly has a genuine, has a real military aspect to it.

But those are our functions also related to our...

It is.

We have a lot of that, I guess.

The bases have reached out of that, too, and they have their community, immediate community, over to them.

But even so, at some point, this year, two years from now, that's something that will have to be done.

They said that this...

There's a real chance for this to come off.

It seems to me it must be very much related to things like your Cambodian move.

I don't know why people have such a hard time seeing that this is all one seamless web and you can't act as though this is all isolated.

You see it.

Now, in terms of the, this thing here, the reason that they painted this is that they feel that they, see, the Cambodian laws both disappear in the heart of the undeads and the undeads.

But I want to turn right.

See, now those were right, were right in blood, turning right.

And they, of course, look, they know my record very well.

That is, if you use this phone, they can consider you in common stadiums on the bench and so forth and so on.

Now, I don't try to disabuse them of that.

That's why I'm not controlling a little bit about doing this or that.

You know, it's really tough.

All private conversations are very tough with these people.

I don't want you to do what you want.

We're going to do this.

Now, with that in mind, the Russians, and they go to their situation.

Now they can look at it two different ways.

They can say, well, we'll do everything we can to see that we can get rid of them so we get a soft end there next time.

So if this were next year, I'd say there was no hope for them, right?

But they still got me around for another year, eight months.

And that year, eight months, you see.

Also, they have another risk.

They have the risk.

that they don't make a deal now, but it would be helpful to us.

And they have to look at that.

They refuse to make a deal, and despite their not making a deal, they do the bail on their entrance to defeat me next time.

And what do they do?

They have a terrible problem.

Because they have a hard right guy that they have opposed, who has nothing to think of politically, as would Colonel and Secretary Crosstown.

There are the same arguments, of course, or why the North Vietnamese now must be thinking a great deal about negotiation.

And foremost, forget it.

We have to forget it.

We cannot totally forget it and knock it off all the way back to China.

Except in relation to the South Vietnamese elections in October, because we don't want to do anything that's destructive there until they don't make any public announcement.

What I'm saying is that the North Vietnamese have got about four months left to negotiate.

Then there isn't any negotiated power.

You know, it's a prisoner issue, which, of course, we just leave somebody over there.

And so under those circumstances, if they want to make a deal and get us out sooner, which they would very much desperately like to do,

which would give them a better crack, they think, in taking on the Soviet Union.

They've got to sit down right now.

Also, they want to stop the draining of their own resources.

See, they're losing that.

They're losing equipment.

This war costs them.

And there's no hope for them at this time for that to win.

They're going to be ready.

So maybe they need, if they're really thinking, if they're thinking as smart as the Chinese are, it's possible.

The protracted war theory, which is what they really argue now, what they argue is pause, catch a draft, have a truce, and try to come back again.

I don't think they will succeed when they come back, but they take it in mind.

That's the difference.

So I think the way their mind is working is that there's a chance they might negotiate.

Now maybe if they are, they can't do it due to the fact that they have an internal problem or whatever the case might be.

Or maybe they aren't reasoning the way I think.

But if there is any chance it will be there for four months and then it's gone.

The Russian side's all been there.

That's for different reasons.

And very little related to Vietnam.

Except the past, the Vietnam story tells us something about the .

So what we have to do is to continue to be extremely firm, extremely firm and tough to them so that they get the message that they better not risk.

You see what I call the risk it is for them if they do not make a deal with us now.

And if we have an election and I should win,

They're in one hell of a spot.

I have no reason to make a deal with them.

See?

No reason.

You know, all the doves go to hell.

See?

So, it's a close, it's a tough game.

We're just gonna have to play off this, play off this train, but in terms of your own planning, I would say that there's a chance for the other

It might just work out.

There's no other course, you know.

You gotta figure it all out.

Fine, fine.

There's no other way to go.

Okay, we'll see you later.