Conversation 476-013

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I say, he has a 75-piece, 75-pound rock.

Tell him that he's going to present, sir.

We'll have a picture taken and move it right out.

Ah, sure.

Mr. Bethany.

Well, come in Dave.

Being like you are today, we'll send you off again.

I hate looking at that.

Where did we go?

75 pounds.

How long have you lived?

I can't even live 50, Doc.

I'm used to it.

Now wait, is there something you're dropping on Steve?

Yeah, sure.

Put it on his chair.

Put it right on his chair.

Okay.

Oh, well, he's all right now.

He straightened his back.

That's why he straightened his two feet.

That's true.

Yeah.

Oh, that's in the new territories.

That's right across that territory.

Then this one, then they gave me one like, what is it?

He said, now that was brought from Chihuahua.

Now he can do, he said, an old, old, old, old, and the worth of it depends on the number of lives lost.

I want to borrow this from the

Oh, you can get a picture of our house tomorrow, and then I'm going to put it up on display in museums.

All of us could go on the evening tour.

Right.

And we have to cover a couple of things.

Yeah.

But tomorrow, we're going to go.

All right.

See you out there.

I just wanted to, oh, hello, I'm Calis and I'm here in the department.

Yes, I got it.

Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

I just want to say a few other things.

First, I want to say that you're a few weeks out.

That's good.

I said, well, that's the best delivery I've ever seen you have.

I don't think I've been able to listen.

I came over to you and speak to you from the heart of it.

We had, at the time we were speaking, dinner over at the F Street Club.

Mahon was there, also Lawton was there, all of our old ones were there.

Box, no, Box was not there, but Jimmy Burns Mill was not there.

But we had the committee create one.

John Connolly was in his honor.

Oh yeah, there was John's.

And we had the, you know, our first song.

Our first, yeah.

Our first was like our, we had to, let's say, cut together.

At least I only did it for 18 minutes.

I did it for 18 minutes.

Go ahead.

And how did you survive in a busy place?

It's a busy trip.

It's all going.

You know, do you have a plan that you, you know, I don't really know about that.

It's a whole lot.

Are you able to take a nap?

Because I will take a nap on the plane.

The more I sleep on the plane, the more I sleep on the plane.

But also, who knows what that might be like.

In fact, it's great America for you to eat.

But you feel all right?

Oh, sure.

The arrest I was going to have in the valley turned out to be the most difficult arrest I ever had, where a master came down, despite the cases and everything else, and the ministers came down to brief me and to take me to monkey dances.

Well, it was from seven in the morning to eleven at night.

Listen, it was a good deal, because the Indonesians need our love and compassion and affection and so forth.

And they need a lot more money.

Go ahead, let me tell you about the first homecoming.

I had to play a little bit of time with Harold Lee and Lyndon Johnson.

How'd you like Harold?

I didn't like him.

I thought you had him.

Lyndon Johnson's a nice guy.

He's had less time, but Lyndon doesn't have any.

I mean, he just could have been... Harold Lee is very sophisticated.

Well, Harold Lee, he really hooked me.

But I hadn't, and he's a hard one for different Chinese people.

You know, he had... Great.

It was terrific.

But wasn't that one of the most educational songs of all?

Oh, sure.

And on top of that, I had Sir Kenneth Fung, the banker whose night had just recently finally came.

and see why it can't come.

Another thing, I'm impressed with the Consul General Osborne.

We all know him.

Yes, sir.

I don't know him.

He knows Vietnam, too, and the economics side.

And they have a good man by the name of Drexler who follows the Chinese as their CEO of the...

And he briefed us, which was very helpful to me.

And that fellow Drexler I think is worth watching too.

All right, let's give it a watch.

Now, Vietnam was not at all what I expected.

No benchmark, but I did take with me Jim Ingalls from the State Department, who is a reasonable person, and who had served there two or three times around the world, but he

He had been there in June a year before, and I asked him to make comparisons, to be on his own, to see what he could pick up.

And his report is interesting, and I'll put it in detail because it is a comparative report of what he saw a year ago and now.

The city of Saigon being painted up, their roofs repaired,

Absolutely no sign of battle anywhere I went.

I went down to Mekong Delta one day.

We made it.

Half a dozen or more stops.

In other words, when you say it was a surprise, I think it was a lot better than you expected.

I expected from the American press you'd think it was an unsuccessful 1-1 complaint.

I expected to see the city of desolation.

I was going to see the old sanctuaries and temples just destroyed.

Well, there was destruction.

There was a barbed wire.

But they were repairing the temples, and they're not completely gone.

They're coming along.

And the houses, you see the new that we provided apparently, or whatever the title is.

But you also see now the bathtub, the tile, you see the rebuilding.

You see much less destruction.

You saw 10 years after, when you go to Kelowna, or Kelowna or anywhere else, they rebuilt it.

We also saw in the Lincoln-Undelta going back to the farms, which was important to me.

They're coming back and taking up their land and starting to plant rice.

The day of the tour I had was to show the show places, Hawkinsburg.

and a chicken farm, hatchery, and shrimp.

I had an impression.

They were pretty good.

Well, they were.

The thing I liked about them...

I should not have yelled at them.

No, I don't have problems.

Well, I've seen them on the job.

They send me through that cylinder.

I couldn't care less, because I don't know anything about them.

The thing we liked about them was that instead of a demonstration farm, we're just not continuing to play.

They informed me, and they're privately owned, and are making a profit.

That's true, and I have always checked them out.

That's what matters, of course, in every case.

That's true.

It's agriculture, yes, sir.

It's really good.

This hog farmer, he told me that he'd sell.

And he's selling his hogs.

The chickens, the hatcheries.

He'd say, that's all good.

And you see the farmer's tough, but they're legally French.

and they run it.

They can see where the change in exchange rates is only going to be back in production.

They keep an eye on it.

Now, Bunker was the most important, the most helpful, the island of East Place, and the Honorable Tom.

He went out of his way to explain it to me.

I had a long session with Abrams, too.

He's a hard-hitting...

Pretty objective sort of guy.

He didn't try to gloss over when I talked about morale, and I think he does have a morale problem.

I mean, they're all in their suitcases ready to come home, sure.

And he says that you can't keep an army at steel strength unless you're fighting.

He says that's about the hardest thing in the world, and I think he's right.

But you've got the same thing in perhaps a greater degree in AIB, and there is a cutback in place there, but it should be doubled.

and pull them out much faster than we're doing.

I told those guys to cut that back and they haven't done it now.

Get Dan on the phone.

I already did that.

Go on and cut that AID back.

Unless, Al, there's a problem with you.

Do you want those people out there?

He wants the military, but I don't think they ought to need people.

I don't think either.

You see, it may be that those are the guys that are not in our policy, too.

They're all over the, in the heavy military, they were all over the place.

I saw them in every building.

Now, some of them are apparently helping in agriculture.

Some of them are doing pretty good.

But most of them, they aren't.

I agree.

Good.

How do you feel about it?

Well, I think it should move faster.

There's no question about it.

It always stays in huge presence.

Well, at least let's take a hard look at that.

My only concern would be the psychology of Q.

No, no, no.

That's it.

Check with the psychology of Q.

Here's what I think.

If you cut that back, you need something else.

That's what I mean.

I don't want to cut back the money.

I just want to get the Americans to go out there.

I talked to him about this.

He says that with the Vietnamization of the army, that has given them strength and it's helped.

Now he feels the same way on the economy.

As long as we're doing everything, why should they?

He says that's saying the right words.

I suggested that you had committed to help them in this field.

We're not yet running.

We're going to see this through.

And each of the ministers wanted to know the amount and how long the duration.

And I kept emphasizing, our Congress and so on has an annual look at all this.

And you can get a larger amount and for a longer duration give these things your progress.

that they aren't actually doing the things.

And that's when, too, he said, well, if they think in my ministries everywhere else that you'd be preventive hiccups, check, we can't get self-reliance, and he believes in self-reliance, he says.

So I think you've got a visualization in the economic side as well as the military.

And that could be handled, and I'd like to talk to you more about that.

I would rather get, though, Al, the number of AID personnel out, because I'm not comfortable with what they will say.

I'm not very comfortable with what the military will say either.

But then put more of the hardware, more of the things that will really help is what I think is question built.

And I'd rather transfer, don't cut back the amount of money, get the personnel moved out and put it into other instances so that she knows he can get them over.

See what I'm saying?

Yes, sir.

Now, Duke, would you buy that?

That wouldn't have any more problem to get that kind of people out.

No, I think he would.

That would be great money for these little whippersnappers running around knocking our policy.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

I had a long talk a couple of times with Sir Robert Thomas.

Oh, is he out there?

Yes, he's a hard-hitting guy, too.

He's still there?

I know he's been there.

He was there when I was there.

He's very honest.

He said with Camphor and Box has given him a longer time than Abrams or anybody saying he has.

He thinks it's a lot of additional time.

Mark, the mayor, said yes, and now he said he didn't.

We've seen how fast the Northern can go back.

But he's very honest.

And that's necessary to strengthen the economy and do other things.

And he's very honest.

He's not much of a dental police in terms of security and transferring over there.

He said a cooperation of two in his ministry there is about 100%.

He couldn't ask for anything better.

So I thought that was very good.

Now, while I think of 2 as a, at this stage, at the stage I was in, there are no oppositions.

They only expect a key, and they only expect to be men and so on.

But at the time, they were not.

My old vehicle isn't too musty, but I don't know where he's turned.

We don't have him.

Gotcha.

We've got to help him without getting caught in it.

Now, Tu is going on leave after settling several times.

She's very much impressed.

I talked to the Japanese ambassador.

He's purposeful here.

He's smart.

And he's smart.

He's been with him a few times.

He says, I've got all the news.

We're getting a political savvy.

And it's helping to build a nation.

And that, to me, was important.

If they can build the communities and get strength, then there'll be a common and blessed chance of some.

By that same token, it's quite clear that two doesn't want any action.

It shouldn't have any that upset his chances in the economy.

Now, they've taken the actions in October and a few while I was there in the morning.

And from what their reports have provided,

but the feeling is common and they turn their emphasis over to the outside in the ministries and in the community.

Now where I did find the real wrongs is to replicate the mismatch in customs regulations

the black market, so part of it can be corrected after the election by a single exchange rate at the appropriate value, or in other words, the value that you would go for.

I wouldn't do it now, and it shouldn't be done like it was done before, because they argued in the Congress.

I said, Carl, boy, you've got to bend a little on the side.

Two understand that.

He says that we've got to find a better way, and he's a burden to the punk era.

But the American community is frustrated.

People say they're not as strong as in other areas, and there's a truth in that.

Most of our contractors in the U.S. govern when they're trying to find a way to sit in there.

But I had breakfast with them and lunch with them, and I met with a dozen of them individually.

And they have lots of rights about the way they're treated at the embassy, and they're looking through people to get a lecture, instead of any help of getting a machine out of the customs to go to a place where they need it.

And they're responsible for the customs, for example, with the licensing and the payoffs.

And I talked to the governor about this, and to

and to recognize that it doesn't make a lot of administration changes.

Asia is beautiful.

That's the experience that I have.

Let me ask the final question.

Do they need to reform?

Remember when there was an economic czar like we did for Korea or someone like that?

I have a lack of memory possibly.

I remember being like the Korea that years ago did a hell of a job.

A lot of use of Joe Dutch and the pen.

I should have said Jodah.

Jodah is exactly what I meant.

That's what I'm getting, and I need in Indonesia too.

Now when should those people go?

In other words, you don't really have anybody in this field department who is taking over.

I mean, even they've got to take over.

They've been in many past positions.

Some of us have been in many past positions.

Those two places, more than any other, I've had great prestige.

Someone that the government will trust and you can get things through.

Now you've got a self-hunger.

I talked to him and he's opposed to it.

He's friendly with Cooper and they're having a relationship there.

And this has to be done.

Cooper came in under a cloud and so on and he's got problems in...

Well, I've heard the other areas work on it, won't you?

But listen now, I agree to decide this in my own mind.

We're going to do it on our own.

So you get the papers ready.

And then, you understand, in both Indonesia and here, Indonesia's got to be subtly done.

But we've got to break some chains.

And I want an economic man.

Look, Chodak is, look, there are two places we've done it.

We have Chodak in Korea.

I mean, it's Japan.

Yes, sir.

Japan.

career and hard-headed, tough, economic guys.

Now, you might take this phone, for example, like a, like a, well, like a sledgehammer.

He'd break a hell of a lot of channels.

You know what I mean?

It's a hell of an assignment.

That's what I had in mind.

And I really believe that we just cannot run the risk of going the wrong way.

I had great confidence in Bunker, but you see, Bunker's got to be the usual safety first way of doing things.

That will not work any more than the usual military way of doing things.

It will work some time.

Right now, he cannot be signed.

And that's the main thing I wanted you to find out.

You think that he could fall like a Joe Dodge?

Let me ask you this.

You give us four or five names, all right, who you think could do this?

Who would go out there?

He's got to be a guy.

Maybe he's a retired chief executive officer.

Maybe it's a fellow like, well...

Oh, Bert Cross, the head of 3M.

Could he do it?

Bert Cross is yet retired.

He's vigorous.

Somebody could give him a year or two.

Bert Cross is the head of a great corporation.

He could probably go out there.

And they listened to him one day.

They were listening.

They sell a lot.

They're good people.

But they need someone to hold their hand.

And Cooper is giving him...

But it goes the way Americans are, you know, he's forcing it.

And he's not going to be knocked out of his office, I'm pretty sure, because he's abrasive.

You don't need to do that before October, though, not before the election.

I would do it right after the election and carry through.

Do you think, too, that he would accept a poll he would love?

You can catch him in the embassy.

But I would like to have Bunker on our side.

We'll get Bunker on our side.

Bunker will do what we want.

But we'll bring him back and tell him.

But it ought to be done in such a way that it's not an emotion for the people in the South.

It can be done.

We'll transfer them in there long term.

Now what about the Indonesia?

They will accept him.

Well, yes, I got the logger sold on us when I got back, and then I got Marshal Green in my hair, because he thought I would be critical, and that's his baby.

In fact, the week I made a mistake, I was talking to Bill, I mentioned it to him, and Marshal got outside, and I said, well, I was going to tell Marshal, and I called him in, and it looked like, you know, a person or something.

Well, they're making some changes there, but they're sending a young man who's a technical because, you know, in Indonesia, the government people, they're all members of the, virtually some years before the Trumps, and they're very important.

You see, they need the rest of the people to speak.

They know the technical issues that they need to rebuke Father Peter Johnson in his life.

Right.

They can't believe, you know, what he's got here on the board.

Look, now, Dave, you look over your names, understand?

I think the former chief executive officer, or, uh, uh, or against Lester Thompson, but the former chief executive officer appeals to me for other reasons than giving them their names on comments like PM.

or they are reused into a product, where they have respect for them and where they understand the problem, to get some changes made, and that they will communicate with the business community on a sympathetic vein, like the Japanese actors.

We don't have it.

Those are two things we'll look into.

I know it's going to be a bit, you don't have to worry about your relationship with Marshall.

I'll work that out.

This is my idea.

It's always been me.

That's one of the things they say when they're over here.

We have got to check up that national safety department with regard to the economic status around the world.

They're too weak.

You know what I mean?

Oh, we got it.

We're turning to economics.

I think that economics is the game, and the game is genetic.

And the New York State Department officials, instead of being all political experts, have got to be economic experts, in my opinion.

They've got to have a strong background there.

Most of them have.

Most of them are very good.

Also, most of them are not pro-American business.

Most of them have grown up in the Eastern Ivy League damn schools, and they're against business.

Now, that's really the truth.

A lot of you find that you talk to these little guys and they're way, way insane.

They're not pro-pride and enterprise today.

Well, there's no question about that.

I picked up yesterday this memorandum from Bill.

Bill presides on the meeting he held yesterday.

And it first came out saying he'd been in a chart show and that he was back in Japan.

about everything in their relationships.

He said, he made a comment.

If you move to San Diego, you might see the Japanese in the latest observation continue to put their shoes on one at a time, even this morning.

Which is an indication that there's no problem with the Japanese.

Yeah, but he's strong.

He's as strong as can be.

But that Gerson, he knows it.

He's not a good presentation.

The only trouble with it was that it should have taken an extra half hour.

He should have rushed it.

But it's good.

It wasn't his fault.

But I'd like to hear it again, wouldn't you?

Sure.

Was that a hell of a presentation?

You weren't there, were you?

No, I was not, but I was aware of that.

Well, I had told that I want the whole White House staff to present a version of that.

And if you get some of your top staff and the council advisors and the budget and the OEM, that would be a good thing to see that.

Now, I have a question.

Cooper wants to hold a big meeting of all the agencies that come up with a plan for the non-management of the election.

I would discourage that at this stage.

Everyone knows there could be something else.

What is the question?

I don't know.

I think it would be a mistake, and I know what the state department thinks of him.

I think we've done that already.

You know, and I know what the United States Department thinks of him.

They've been looking at it, and there's a difference of views, but generally accepting that change.

I would not be on that stage.

I would get the man that's going to be in this and have him start working on it just around the election time.

I went to Thailand and the audience was very interesting.

to get in front of the press, among his people, to push it out of crisis.

And then I had an hour and a half with the Capitol.

We're working on that one.

In a way, they've got a point, and I need some substitution there.

I'm sorry if we've got a mistake or something.

We can't help them.

Because I think they need some help.

Now, in Indonesia, part of what we've already talked about...

In Indonesia...

that's the kind of picture his support comes from the military and that's the reason we used to go to America

And he's concerned about it.

He wanted to leave when I walked out, but he doesn't.

He said, get to the president personally.

He said, we need you to come to the military.

That's what he said.

So that's just what we've been talking about.

Yes, sir, we just had a team over there.

We're going to .

That's the principal thing .

This is a fighting game.

Let me tell you, though, with .

Frankly, the White House is saying, not Bill, but it's Marshall Green.

Marshall Green.

He wants to just let them sit there and do nothing.

And we are trying to insist, have you ever been in military?

I think he does.

Everything I've done, everything we've done in Indonesia today has been done at my insistence over Marshall Green's.

And Bill, Bill just sort of naturally doesn't get Bill Rogers, we'll do what we want.

Marshall Green has been a veteran in Indonesia.

He's now insistent saying, oh, he really, he thinks one of the reasons we're going to get him the hell out of that job and put him in Japan is that we've got to have somebody that will play the game the way we want to play it.

The whole embassy staff there, they were a bunch of incumbents.

I never saw such a square again in Indonesia.

And in fact, as a comment, oh yes, we've talked to Rex Beach and the others, and he's really involved.

And they're partially good on that.

Well, what I saw, the one that I did, the Verrilli birthday, I thought I wanted one evening, it was Menorah's birthday, and I was trying to get dinner along with the classroom staff.

We turned down an invitation from the embassy staff that night, and we've taken no invitations since that day on site.

And down back, they didn't come in here to see us up there.

We'd tell them off and try to push them out.

That's the kind of manners they had.

I mean, they wouldn't leave.

No.

We turned it out that they're homeschooled.

They had dinner with us, if I'm not mistaken.

That's for sure.

That night, just two of us in the same room, we did it right.

All right.

Well, this is the bathroom.

Now, if you have one toilet, I'll get it out of the car.

It's not that important.

Well, they're not craving the independence that we're hearing in this country.

And, of course, I met with the Marianas, the Marshalls, the Carolinas, and Johnston, the Marshalls.

The others are in favor.

And our whole group is sitting on the mountain, the side path, in large measure.

And we've been forging them here from most of our troubles in Peace Corps.

Boy, we get a little bit of fire in there.

God damn that.

Now that's something I told that Blacksburg to cut.

That B-score guy.

He's got to be cut.

He's got 2,300 of them.

Now what in the name of God are they doing here, Al?

All right.

Very clear mandate.

All right.

I want it to be cut.

I mean, he's to cut it.

Cut it out.

I mean, just get them the hell out of there.

I don't care where they send them.

Send them to the Congo.

Get them the hell out of my cage.

They're the ones that served us up.

All right.

God, I've got a mountain of time.

I've got to get to Congress and everything else.

I think everywhere I've seen them, they've come to Congress.

Again, friends, you know, you keep calling everybody.

Now, I reported this to the big Taylor Rodney Warden, and he said, now, I hope you'll tell the President.

He said, well, he told me.

Now, he used to tell Rod, he used to start bitching about the Peace Corps, too.

I did a batch for his job.

But he said, Rod, you've got to stand up.

Look, he expects us to take the email.

Rod, he's the Secretary of the Interior.

The Peace Corps is...

Well, a year ago, remember, I heard you talk about this, sir.

Now, what have they done?

I'll have a report today on that.

They'll say they cut back, and they'll say they cut out the trouble makers.

It's true or false?

They have come back, and they have to make some changes, and they've tried to park it, but it's still there, and it's a big item, and it's a bad item.

And the main thing is, the way they really drove off the road, they just cut it in half, and they've got half the trouble.

Well, aren't you the reason?

Yes, sir.

I've never seen any place where I don't know if East Florida is where it's at.

I agree with the kids.

Mine gives them a nice little trip, it's a millennium, but I have never seen a lot of 40 of them protest.

Sure, that's why they're against the United States.

Sure.

They need to take a very good look at it.

I told Roger, I told him, it's his job.

And he says, you tell him.

I did.

I said, he said, well, what are you going to do about it?

What are you doing?

I said, you're the secretary.

And that's good for us.

And you finished with me today.

Roger called me.

And he just mentioned this personally to me.

We'll put it on in here too.