On April 12, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:10 am to 10:33 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 477-001 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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 may have to step out.
It's what I had hoped.
They are both in good shape.
It was right on our boat, like we've seen carried on the sea the other day.
I don't remember if it was somewhere that they carried it as a proof of the war, which is good.
Yeah, it's not what you said.
I don't know whether that's what NBC said, because I didn't see it.
No, it was a boat.
I saw that.
I heard it.
It was not what the boat said.
Sunday Star carried it.
I didn't see it.
I don't know what the boat said.
But it wasn't started?
No, it was put out by ORC.
That's what they say afterwards.
They don't say, they just say that they, nobody has to ask.
They can take, they take photos just like Gallup does.
Great.
So they're, and they put them out.
So they don't say anybody sponsored them, they just say everybody's national.
Then we pick it up.
You see, we pick up their release on their letterhead, and Bob Gold sends it out.
And there's some people and stuff like that.
And if any of you are interested in the latest ORC polls, the release comes Sunday.
I think we'll get caught up eventually.
And even if we do, it makes no difference.
We've got to talk about it because, you know,
Well, they'll figure it out that it only comes out when you go up or something like that.
The thing to do is not always have a person that's popular or anything like that.
They put out other stuff because they release pieces of other folks and they put a kind of encouragement in doing that.
Some of you have other kinds of things.
I don't know.
What do you do, Carter?
I don't know.
There's enough foals that it keeps it confused enough.
Because God Almighty, I mean, everybody, everybody, I'm trying to go all the time.
Well, this thing, I'm not.
Let's see.
Let's see if it's right.
It's right.
Right.
I'm trying to see if it's proper.
I don't know.
Do what you want.
We won't say anything by that sort of way here.
They particularly said to us, should we put the wire service guys on the panel?
And I'm not sure it would be.
Well, that press conference hasn't yielded a little too much.
That basically is the feeling of being a press conference.
They don't care too much about editors and two wire service men and reporters.
Yeah.
It's down.
They were probably already done with this movie.
The number of hours and the amount of time I spent on GLA over the years.
I mean, it's been an hour with the College Network Accommodators.
An hour one-on-one with a reporter solstice.
An hour one-on-one with the College Accommodators.
An hour with the Women's Press.
And our installer and commentator press conference.
They have our press conference with the press conference.
I ended up .
OK.
What I'm getting at is that, yes, it's Nebraska, what we want there.
Half hour every two weeks is an hour long.
So then put the hour of the ascending, well, that comes in the quarter months.
That's April, see?
Yeah.
So in terms of our own, in terms of sort of the idea, well, if you have a question and answers, a question and answers on the record, the answer is yes.
This is part of anything I do.
Victor Lasky, Alan Curry, other people who were writing books, you know.
This is all on the record press conference.
The press is currently working on it.
Yeah.
Was that done this year?
It wasn't.
It was.
What do you think else it should be?
PNR?
Was that done, uh, was that done...
Depends on whether it was done in January.
No, it was done, it was done at the time the astronauts landed.
Because he was in here today, the day of the slash thing.
Well, what an incredible issue.
That Christmas, and I'd often watch it.
I hadn't thought of that.
That was on the record.
That was on the record.
That was an honor.
to just make use of something.
Now, I want Sigler to get in that decline, and Scali, and others who may, you know, who do meet with the press, you know, and for that matter, other too, who rather than just, like I said, when I was here,
I would say, well, but we don't, but what about these press sponsors?
I mean, well, this is our, our scheme of trying to find ways of having direct, you know, direct, you know, in-depth follow-up questions and so forth and so on, right?
Yeah.
And we're getting, getting credit for that on the, on the interpreting type stuff.
Yeah.
The, the, I haven't seen it.
The, the, the, the, the, the, the,
in a comment, you know, commentary.
Making the point that these are different ways, and saying this is good, but you should keep trying to do it.
A couple of the unfriendly people have made this point.
And I think Sigma Do, Kai, or one of those, you know, called me a journalist reviewer or something.
One of those that made the analysis.
There's also that the agency managing editor just puts out a monthly bulletin on presidential
Press activity and so forth, you know, they made the point that this is very commensurate.
It only goes to the press corps, please.
Good.
Well, I'd like you to get that and see if there's something else.
Yeah.
That's in Congress.
That's the only function of the press office.
Our insistence now that we have Uber exactly where we want it, that the staunch defense of it, the attitude that you've taken, the phone call I made on your behalf the other night, I gave to the client base.
public statements, Mitchell's backing and everything has gotten Hoover to the point where he is completely, as Mitchell says, completely in our hands.
And he said that whatever now the president wants him to do, he'll be happy to do.
He told me that.
He wants a resignation.
He said, I want to see you when it's up in two.
He said, whether you end or the Attorney General.
I'll step aside.
I will.
He cashed that and decided, no, we're not going to do it anymore.
We did it already.
I said it was the worst thing I've done.
I really believe it.
You know, you think of the states.
That was the thing that was the most cowardly thing to do.
I did it under a name because I was trying to get on the people.
I put old man British head of the block there.
What the hell?
It wasn't worth it, was it?
It didn't help.
It certainly didn't help.
Mike really said no.
No letter.
He said, why didn't you open that?
Why did you throw him on the block?
For what purpose?
At a hotel.
There was no relationship.
It was all about him.
He could have gone.
Now, he should have retired years before.
Should have.
Got into the right circumstances.
I should have just thrown him out there and told him I got a piece of red meat.
I'm not going to do Uber that way, but I'm going to do it again.
I wonder if you would talk to Rogers today?
I want you to, uh... Well...
Uh... Because I think that I had to talk to you myself, but I don't know what... What he's prepared to do without my...
I mean, just...
See, Rogers has got this phobia about the Board of Service and the defense all the time.
Now, we have Yost, you know, you may not recall, Rogers picked Yost and wanted him to meditate with him, etc.
Now, here within two weeks, I think Yost leaves, and it's only stated in the department, two weeks.
He comes up and says he is always yanking about getting out of Vietnam and so forth and so on.
And then there's this fellow who's tattooed the T-A-T-U, and we find this twice now.
But I was talking about Cambodia.
The point not being whether he's stuck exactly is the point being that he doesn't have a say, and he doesn't deliberately put it out to him, understand?
And it should be put out by an assistant secretary, a secretary of non-knowledge, you know, his spokesman.
This adds up to two things.
One, I think it's imperative that Rogers step up to the mat and say something in support of the art and to be a non-politic poet.
He hasn't said anything else since then.
There's a loss.
He's only been up all these days.
In fact, what does he, what does he, what does he reveal now?
He said he, he should say something.
He has got to say something about, about Yost.
In other words, I have nothing.
We can check the White House files.
There's nothing in here from Yost.
The Washington State Department, the House of Representatives, all of them have said that there's nothing specifically from Yost to me.
Now, Rogers, I think, has got to take this into account.
I don't know if your main goal, one, is to get him to say something publicly about Vietnam.
The President is right.
He's got to say it.
Second, I think the second point is, he ought to put yours down so that I don't have to do it Friday night with the editors.
Because they're going to ask me, I want the Secretary of State to have said something about that, that he disagrees with those.
That's all he has to do.
Don't give us the old shit that he'll build it up.
He's going to build it a lot more up by himself.
The third point is, what do you really think?
What about this?
I want you to do this because I don't want Henry and, you know, ruffling around and getting involved in this sort of thing.
And you as well, don't you think he'll be receptive to it?
Yeah, sure.
I don't know whether you've talked to him about it before, but he must know, he must know about it.
You know, he doesn't want to think that, you know, he constantly says that most of the people, there are four of us there every time.
Yeah.
They're just lying in the bushes.
Don't you agree?
What was your reaction to Yosef?
I thought it was just unthinkable.
He has a career in the Massacre.
That's like being a five-star general.
We gave you the goddamn job, you know, for no reason at all.
We still wanted him to have it.
We gave him all the prestige.
We backed him.
I defended the son of a bitch.
But this Dr. Rogers, when they took him on, I guess he was one of his, uh, if he didn't contribute to his defense model.
They were cracking the shit out of him on that.
And uh, always figured that some courtesy was always in the White House, and so forth and so on.
Just had a feeling that we were going to be on this one.
We just all said that they, you know, just get a picture around Monaco.
Yeah, I sure do.
I don't think anybody has any...
There's no argument the other way.
Sorry.
Well, he has a way back into the Council on Foreign Relations.
You know, he's a lot in service in the establishment, but he always believed that he was useful.
Yeah, but it's a very, the way his article is worded is very, you know, so completely self-serving.
And I had nothing to do with any of this.
I was never consulted.
Well, for Christ's sakes, he's not supposed to be consulting with the fliers.
He's probably, as Henry points out, he never hesitated to send in letters about what he thought of the Middle East, but he never sent one in about what he thought of Vietnam.
We didn't, Henry didn't find one, did he?
I asked Henry to search.
Get that out.
Just have that leaked out that he sent in eight letters in the Middle East.
We've never seen one on Vietnam.
I recall that I suggested that, do you remember Omani and Mahoney and O'Doherty?
Yeah.
That one of them was to be appointed to something.
Was that ever done?
I'm sure one of them was.
I mean, several were.
If you want to be sure, there was an appointment made.
That's when some president in his second term should have lost.
It's a horrible thing.
It's just a disaster now.
I guess it was a great thing.
Yeah, well, it was a small but personal day.
The FDR started it somewhere.
Everybody was just in short.
It's just a mob and they make a mess and they have to clean up and do stuff.
I think he's going to be fine.
I mean, that comes true.
I think, I think, see I, see Henry, he'll never be free.
Henry's always been on that number and saying, well, at least now I can do something that stands up.
And Bill hasn't said anything about Vietnam.
Henry even doesn't give Bill credit for the fact that Bill did say something about Vietnam very well.
And not afterwards, I agree.
There was no reason for him to.
He had no reason to even look for anything.
I don't think he could.
Yeah.
I understand.
He has gone out of his way to talk to us.
He might hold the sequoia for me.
My first thought was to do the August thing the following week.
Now, you say that the, uh, you say they're gonna have a march on Florida.
That's good.
Tibetans' one is supposed to be the 19th.
But maybe that's not mobilizing driven on September.
You're not sure?
The, uh,
and write ink of what was actually okay so sleep next week we come today okay that's the name of the ars here that's right okay the uh the big march where they're talking now about half trying to get the biggest march in history and all that kind of stuff which is just fine so far
They started running ads and trying to build stuff up on it now, but the common cause is really involved.
Who's in it?
It's the People's Coalition for Peace in Vietnam, and Randy Davis is involved.
It's the whole range.
It is a coalition of all the old groups.
Each one of these is a whole new thing, you know.
All right.
The names on it are new names.
They're not the people we in Mixner question to.
It's supposed to be on Saturday, the 24th.
Okay.
That's a good time for you.
A week from Saturday.
Again, Camp David.
The thing to do then would be to go to Camp David Friday night.
Come back Sunday.
Just your normal time.
Why not?
Why not do it impressionally?
Before you go again.
Or Saturday morning.
The market won't be as quiet.
Yeah, of course, you know, it'll be, they gather Thursday or so ahead of time.
The whole focus of, even on Friday, the whole focus is going to be on the march if it gets off the ground at all.
And then it'll run all, start a little diddle through the following week and then it stirs up again starting May 1st through 5th, trying to crank up.
There's a separate organization called May Day.
that's pretty much run for the weathermen.
And their whole thing is, they're the ones that want to bring the government to a halt.
That's good, that's good.
Well, so far he is probably wrong.
Because it's, oh yeah, we'll tie it all together.
It's all part, because they are sort of going together now.
They're promoting somewhat doing that.
and see what we get there.
But the other thing that Mitchell has done very heavily on you is to go to the Republican Governors Conference in New Hampshire.
which is the 18th, 19th, and 20th.
Now, I'm not going to give you a crisis.
He feels it's very important for some reason.
He said he was going to send a note up on why I haven't seen it yet.
That you go to that.
I think it's, he doesn't want to get a, let's see now, there's a reason behind it.
Once you go and speak in an open session with press coverage, and there is no behind-the-scenes thing that will put the kibosh on any internal maneuvering or something, there's a question on revenue sharing.
There'd be an open thing on revenue sharing or something like that, but just go on the issue.
So this is politics, so it isn't behind the scenes.
political.
I did the written assurances with the governors.
He knows who died in arms play when I did it before, you know.
He doesn't think that it was all the governors.
There's a reason that he's got, and I'm not sure what it is, because he said he was sending it out to me, and I haven't gotten it, so I'll check back and take it.
But I don't want to sit down, you know, he doesn't believe I should sit down and have a major session.
That's what he doesn't want you to do.
What he wants you to do is go in and state something on the record, you know, and go out and say you will have met an address to the Republican government, you met them to a Republican government, but not him.
I just don't like that at all.
You know, they're all there.
Well, you may be right, though.
His idea is to keep their, keep their enthusiasm.
Well, and to blunt our side.
But to do it only on, on our terms.
Not to go in and, you know, get yourself into a backroom session with them where they start, start all their individual problems with some other way to do that than you did before.
They meet all the time, don't they?
The graduates meet all the time.
Yeah, I, I don't understand what is happening in Weston.
They met one hour in the session.
And that was the National Department of Public Governance.
It wasn't a regional one.
I thought so.
The one action was that.
I guess that was three months ago.
I don't know.
I guess it was quarterly meetings.
I'll be glad to know.
18, 19, and 20, right?
Yeah.
That would be a day for them to do Sunday evening.
Yeah.
Get it out of the way.
You have a White House church on that Sunday that's already mad at church, so you're shutting it down that weekend.
You don't think that I don't think there's any harm in doing a press conference on the morning of the 24th, even though they are here.
Why doesn't that be the news?
It's what the press will ask you about.
Of course, I covered it with one word.
That's the easiest answer I've had, you know.
Look, I had no comment on it.
You know, I think that's the, that's, that's, we'll go right on to the other things.
The press isn't likely to want to write a little while about that.
In my opinion, I don't think they will.
You see, that means that if you could hit that weekend, you'd get another weekend of hitting the press.
I just don't think we should.
I think we should get back to the demonstration routine that people have had.
That may be the end.
What do you think?
I don't know.
I don't think so, maybe.
See, if it'd be good, then we'd go to the market on the 24th and go up to Kansas.
I don't want to support it, use it all for this spring, except if I accept, I mean, it has to be by specific permission.
Will you do that?
I mean, how is it?
Well, the Republican governors is fine.
I do not want to meet them in any kind of a thing where some call and go out and others and say the president is speaking about politics.
I don't want any politics.
I think Mitchell's point is that it ought to be a
Or most of their sessions aren't.
So yeah, let's do it that way.
And no Q&A, of course, because you won't be able to get anything.
Yeah.
What's your opinion about, here's my opinion about who we are.
I think we ought to be able to retire on the 7th, January 1st.
Now, the difficulty is that the heat will build up.
I'm going to talk to Mitchell about it.
Mitchell and I will work it out.
He and I will talk to him.
But he can't retire right now.
Now, do you feel that if we wait that long, that maybe the heat will build up so that there will be, well, what do you think is going to happen?
That's what I was going to say.
What you can do is make a decision.
between the three of you, that's what he's going to do.
And then watch for the opportune time to announce that that's what he's going to do, and do it whenever it comes, which is as soon as the heat's died down.
And then, you know, you wait a decent interval, and get a resolution from Congress praising him, and they get a resolution praising him, and...
And make the point at the time he announces that you want him to have a hand in picking a successor.
Absolutely.
Which is the point that Star is a part of, is that he should not get out.
What we can have him do is play an active role in picking a successor.
According to Star, it's going to be whoever is picked the next president.
If I don't happen to be the next president, throw him out.
Yes.
Tamara, you should get rid of him right now.
And he will.
And he will.
If there's any questions on that, we'll never be clear on who he's electing.
Which is why, after he dies, it's probably the best time to get out.
Just put in somebody we don't have to worry about.
And then right after the election, to put another one in, that hopefully he will survive.
Yes, but he will never be able to build himself up.
He'll never be able to build himself up.
I think that's right.
I don't think whoever you put in is going to survive.
Did you survive by the Republicans?
Oh, I certainly might.
Even that might not.
And don't we know, when you're talking about the price on the DAR, the Chamber of Commerce 2009, very briefly.
I think we've said 2000, 2000.
The Chamber of Commerce, 2000.
The DAR, 1500.
But they would notice on the Chamber of Commerce, don't use the occasion in that cheap way that usually the intellectuals do.
Use the foreign in the purpose of kicking the group around.
You know what I mean?
I'm preaching to the DAR about
Well, now, you ladies ought to be more concerned about young people and so forth.
You understand?
Yeah.
Virtually every God-man chief politician does, and I've never done that.
Now, on Christ's note, don't prepare it that way.
Speak of the decent things that they're for.
Praise them and, you know, some of the things we're for.
Yeah.
Hey, do you feel that, uh, the government has this too?
What about the radio talk?
Where are they going to get started with the operating?
Well, there you have it.
That's not going to be the main purpose of the sale.
You know, I'm convinced that if you go here, or someone in Baylor is hiding, or somebody might be out there, there's a boy in one of those papers.
So we're doing it here Saturday or Sunday, and don't do them for the radio audience.
I mean, the radio will blame them, not to.
Fair enough?
Yep.
Well, gentlemen, let's get it going on.
Let's get one to you, and I'll answer it then.
Well, I know it's the first resolution.
Well, then may you finally use something that is already accomplished, and immediately go out and get it done.
Thank God I'm not out there.
David, at the conference here, that's a task for an OI, and all the conferences need to start from now.
So why don't you sit down now, you the freshman arrestee, and get me an establishment list, Bob.
Now, do you know what you buy that for?
Use that White House for that establishment dinner.
The 50 top guys that are the goddamn establishment.
You bring in two top, two or three top editors even, you know, like a Preston Wolfe.
They have a Dale, that bunch, the whole group come in and they, you give them a little something that's a real special deal.
In some occasions I'll talk a little and maybe I'll answer a question or two, you know.
But, you see, I don't want to get any questions when it's in a finance center.
Right.
Otherwise I will.
They feel real good.
You're getting the hell out of it.
See, at that dinner, the stone dinner, I had, I didn't get trapped like I did at the stands there.
I let everyone shake hands with everybody.
That's the best part.
They want to meet you and say hello and remind you when they rode the train from Austin to this and that.
It's all sorts of little things with my daughters and Sarah and Duke.
It means a whole lot.
And I would love to do a half hour of that before the dinner and probably a half hour after the dinner and then spend half an hour to 45 minutes probably
Just yacking at the dinner.
And I'm the only one.
It's the president's dinner.
See what I mean?
Or sometimes I might put a tab in it and I like to hide under a little canvas or something.
See?
Yeah.
I'll stand there.
What was the situation with regard to that?
The general opinion was that it was all right, except for that.
Except for the crack part.
Well, I was the briefing before him, yeah.
And then that wasn't bad, it just wasn't good.
Yeah.
He didn't repeat the crack.
Right.
He is just dead.
Sure.
But he says that you can't change him.
You can't change him because then it looks like you're crying.
policy now.
And I noticed that you had a strong picture of the advantage of the House of Grant already granted, but not balanced economic support for square figures now.
Well, I think we're not over building those, I trust.
We haven't built them at all.
As I understand it, I'm going to read about them.
But I think they're going to be good.
And we ought to be able to tell them that we're going to be fair.
Some of them will be, some of the specials, but I mean the JMP figure is only 29, I think, or 28 or 29, which is a little short.
It should be compared to the 1065, but it's the first quarter.
It's the first quarter.
Now there's something good happening.
I have a, I don't know why, a strange thing about spring.
I think it's the fact that we came late and all that sort of thing.
We've gone through the FN with Laos.
the rest.
But I think that the, for the first time in a long time, the economy may start to cool down just a little.
What do you think?
I think it will.
I think people are going to be a little more confident about the economy.
They've got to get more confident about themselves.
I think past winter, they start, you know, the construction work starts again.
Jobs start picking up.
Yeah, for sure.
I don't feel people wait so long.
They'll pick them up.
Thank you.
We are coming along, it seems to me.
I kind of feel it when I talk to quite a few people over the weekend.
You know, starting Friday, don't you get a general meeting for all of us?
They grudgingly think it's getting better.
Nobody's willing to say finally that everything's fine, that everybody in this that ensures health is turning well.
They're pointing to the fact that our emergency zone is officially proclaimed a recession.
Well, anyway, whatever it is, it's been about an actual recession.
The narrative of that, I mean, not short, but not deep.
It's just the best publicizing it is, sir.
That's what it is.
You stop to think, Bob, of what the agony of recessions and so forth.
It just isn't there, is it?
Well, except among the scientists and engineers.
Well, there's been a little, yeah, some personal agonies, but the national agony has not been there at all.
It's not been there at all.
There's no actual accreditation.
How many times have you heard the witness, sir?
There it was.
Yes, sir.
You got a fairly good, you got a fairly good rip of the John Irving and George Shultz.
Someone says, can you get a sales plan for our rip and share?
Yeah, I'll get that.
Let's get, if you get that, I'm going to talk to them about it myself today.
John won't be here today.
Well, he won't.
He's back tonight.
Well, I'll figure it out.
I'll figure it out.
Maybe you should give that to Skywalker, huh?
I have.
Good.
That's the only reason I didn't get that appointment there, Bob, is that I...
I get Price's gang.
Tell Price.
Plenty of our friends raised the question.
I don't understand it.
I think they just don't understand it.
We've been working a lot on the technical basics, which you had to do with some people.
But if we can't stay with that, we've got to stay and move with the simplified stuff.
You know, moving forward.
Yeah.
What about the...
Margaret Smith is coming out as a big thing defending you on a galley business apparently today.
She checked over the weekend to be sure you weren't planning any further action.
She didn't want to go out and say something and something was going to be done right away.
She said it had been on the basis of not interfering with the system.
Properly.
The next thing we've got to do, we've got to get some real washing going.
It's on 8 p.m. because we're going to be back in town.
I'll call you again.
Where?
Well, I guess in this appropriated house zone, which goes to the center.
Yeah, house zone.
Yeah.
The vote that he asked, what the vote was, he never got an answer.
And we've got to keep pushing on that.
We may not know.
We may make it hard to understand.
Yes, don't hurt.
That's one thing I've got to be very, very clear.
I'm going to get Henry in a three-day afternoon.
Don't breathe, or jump, or shout, or say any possibility of what we're up to.
Now, there's a reason for this.
I'll cover it, and it's important for you to make the point to him.
He won't say anything directly, but he implies that these people are not nearly as dumb as any thinks they are.
As soon as he starts boring in on what day, they know God, and he's got something in mind.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Just tell him not to ask.
Let me ask about it.
Fine, fine, fine.
I get it.
You see, what I mean is that Henry's the... You're right, Henry is the accused, not so.
He sure is.
And he thinks he is.
That's the worst part.
He thinks you're being clever.
Yeah.
And he thinks, because he's so arrogant, he thinks everybody else is stupid.
And that they're not clever enough to see what he's doing.
Even McGregor, who he doesn't think is very smart at all, is damn smart.
And when you hear Henry saying,
Would it be by the 13th or by the 14th?
They know goddamn well it means something's gonna happen on the 13th.
I will handle that.
Would you, uh...
I'll let you know.
I'm cool with Henry off on McGregor.
Don't worry about that.
I agree with you that, uh...
I told you last week that I think we have to get our guys to stand up.
I mean exactly that.
You have to have proof.
And it's not a kind of suggestion.
The O's things are proofs.
It's a game plan.
Sure does.
I hunted that U.N. twice.
I suckered on that son of a bitch.
I didn't remember the dinners he got.
He said most of it is delegation.
You know, I kind of did.
I went over twice across the street and spoke to his delegation, and I farted around with them.
We treated him with the greatest of crushing and tender, tender-loving care he's ever had.
And so he pisses on us.
I'm just not going to have people around here.
If they aren't with us, I want them out of here.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
Now, with regard to McGregor, I have a different feeling.
I think McGregor had taken a hell of a liking from the Congress, and he was passing it on.
Timmons was passing it on, too, you know.
And Timmons was a little stronger than Clark was going to be.
Timmons, well, Timmons, Clark waves, there is no question, but Nunn, he waves, but Clark doesn't know.
What kind of is this?
Because I'm watching a harder line.
What's the thing in here?
Well, it kind of has thirst for attention.
Doesn't it stand by this?
Attendance is a, as we get realized, this is a topic about that.
This is sound.
This thing's a hell of a lot tougher than the others because there's less support for what we're doing.
I mean, for example, if I had put that ending of that speech on an elaborate third speech, we'd have had the whole nation open up.
You know, it was on 80%.
You're not kidding.
That's right.
The country was ready for it then.
putting it all in this bank, did a hell of a lot.
It did more than anybody agreed.
Don't you agree?
Yeah, but it did it more in terms of stabilizing than it did in terms of ginning up.
There was nothing we could gin up.
I mean, we knew that, but we never...
Although, although it did, it did, it did, I'll put it this way, it did more at stabilizing than we had any reason to hold to.
That straight-out speech, I mean, if you made it one...
And that's how hard it was to count.
It wouldn't have stabilized.
It wouldn't have stabilized.
I mean, you're getting, I just think you're getting exactly the right question.
You're getting an awful lot now of even the baddest bad guys having to say, well, you know, he's got the courage to stay with the plan.
So how's he planning to outside?
But at least he's
laid it out and he's carrying it out.
You gotta give him credit that he's brought it home and he's cut down the casualties and all that.
He's too damn bad about that 11, 10 or whatever it was.
They got another big chunk, yeah.
They got a helicopter and then they got the rest of the crew to land.
10 or 11.
I heard 11 on the radio and some 10 in the paper, so I don't know.
I didn't see that this morning.
It was on the news last night at some time.
Probably Saturday.
And I do have that.
That's less than 32.
So I'll put it at 38 or 33.
I think that was 38.
No, it would be 33.
You're right.
I'll put it at 88 actually.
That's all right.
Oh, we're going to take some jumps off now.
We're going to move down around 50 inches.
And it'll be lower, actually.
Where is this?
Cambodian.
I saw a Cambodian.
I'm not sure.
That's good.
There.
I do think this, that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday should be there.
Except for the both networks, and I don't know how much I've read it, but a gory story of my host in Luzon, there's about 35,000 men in Luzon from all coasts of Vietnam.
I mean, automobile accidents, stabbed in whorehouses and everything else, and the ones that have been died.
Despite that, despite that,
The war stories have cooled off a hell of a lot since the speech, would you not agree?
Yes, very definitely.
And it's what they're doing is, they're going to have to start a high-end strategic story, type war stories, high-end, and then two days in a row.
But it's, I don't know, if they just don't have a war to report, it's like what they used to have.
We've got a hell of a tough thing, but my point is that on McGregor, I come back to him.
He's a good man.
He's reflecting what he runs into.
You're talking with him, however, and you're going to have to do the same with Scali without my being present.
Well, Colson can do it with Scali.
Colson helped bring Scali in, because Colson is not his nails, not his movement.
But he just got to stay located out.
Was Scali at your meeting this morning?
No, no.
Was that me?
No, not yet.
But I got in Colson, was that me?
Because he eats with Colson most of the time, most of the time.
Well, I think Scali should be able to put Scali in the general planning.
Yeah, I don't think you want him in.
All right.
Yeah, at least.
Good.
I just want Scali and then, and just basically if I, I want him in meetings for a hundred years.
I want him in almost anything I can.
But this Scali, he's got a ghost now.
And his job, of course, is to reflect everything that he does.
But remember, he's now on our side.
And I think that's what Clark was understanding.
How is Lars Merau?
Did he get picked up?
I don't think so.
He did very good and he moved like he was in this morning.
You say he was old and he was picked up?
I don't think he was carried along by them.
What do you mean, picked up?
I mean, he didn't get into the lift.
Oh, by the Wincy speech.
I thought you meant the Wincy group.
I'm sorry.
Oh, the Wincy group.
I thought you meant the Wincy group.
Yes, very much so.
He was not part of the Wincy group.
He was very much picked up by the Wincy speech.
He was...
You know, as Henry was concerned about, he was making the point that because of the thinker thing, we were going to have some people, we were going to have trouble keeping in line.
He was looking for the ways to do that.
Now, he was in this morning, though, making the point that we've got a chance now to move when Congress comes back with a really domestic program going now with, you know, our rejuvenating and effect arts initiatives.
Just the point you were talking about, directly sharing, you know,
Talk about economy and crank up the economy.
Plus we've got some battles coming that we've got to be ready for.
We've got a tough battle on military appropriations with the draft extension and the...
He also said, it's kind of interesting, Carl Albert, on this Asian Congress deal that you've said you want to do, he suggested that he'd like to co-host a meeting at the invitation to read the President and the Speaker and invite you to it at the White House reception at the White House.
Yeah.
Which is, I think that's kind of a nice thing to do.
And we have to include everybody, all members, all the members, all those who served in the Asian, who are still there.
Right, and I think that's a good point, a good touch that Carl's saying.
I'll respect both sides.
Well, and this business with Boggs, you know, there's been, there's a lot of blood over the weekend on that, and that must have really, pretty well, we don't want that.
Well, it may be impossible to keep it from him.
Why?
Because the guy went way beyond where he should have gone.
We've got to try to keep the fight going with him, but keep Boggs in, we've got to change him.
But he's not going to be able to put up on his claims, and they're going to jump on him off the back of jackals, I think.
That would be the time to get into Hoover now.
We could just get in.
I think they ought to have a resolution of confidence in Hoover.
Let's vote that out.
One of our guys is to resolution of confidence.
Or a letter of confidence.
A letter of confidence signed by members of Congress.
A resolution that the Congress will never bring down the foot box or the torch.
But what about a letter of confidence?
Getting everybody to sign for Edgar Hoover.
And get two members of the House, you know.
And call Hoover's office.
They'll know the best Democrat.
The Democrat's never called any.
and go right on the line.
If you do that, then it's done.
This is a goddamn good political issue.
And the Democrats who don't sign that, they're screwed.
Now, let's get that going immediately, would you?
I do not have that done through McGregor's office.
Maybe that should be done through, uh... Justice.
Why not through Justice?
They're on their congressional agenda.
They're working on it.
So it is not like that, so... Well...
I don't know, but just plant the idea that a couple of guys stand behind, for example, and then get somebody on the other side and start a letter immediately, a letter to the President of the United States.
We assert our confidence in you with the attack that's been made and that have come from the House, and I will frequently use that letter.
We have to take care of them.
We love them.
We care for them.
I don't care if we mess it up.
Well, you know what I mean.
When I say don't get in the letter, I am sure you can't.
Good.
And I'm doing the editors the way we planned them.
Nobody knew you were gonna do any of them.
I know they all don't know how to do TV.
Just don't run, you know, just start hollering.
We don't put that stuff out, but we try to keep our options.
No, as I understand from Ron, as it turned out, he had already, you know, run the preliminary exploration on network time on it.
And they had come back and asked if the White House would consider doing a network radio instead of network television.
So it just happened to fall in perfect.
Yeah, good.
You know, they, in person, pick up, you know, Friday night news.
We won't worry about it.
This will be good.
This will be good.
That's alright.
And I can't be quite a drama on these guys.
I can't on members of the press.
Just, well, we don't know how I think you can think about keeping the possibility of the press conference Saturday because of your preparations that you've got a chance to get it done without having to give any more thought to it.
Because I'm not at all sure when you get up against the atmosphere, if the demonstrations take over, that we want to go and call the press in and talk at that time.
Also, we just might want to go back and practice the demonstrations.
We don't know.
We don't know.
I think we always change the demonstrations.
We may not now.
Oh, I don't know.
Your poll shows that, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Of course, they're trying to, that's the folks.
The demonstrators, demonstrators are trying to make a, that's why they call it the People's Coalition.
But that still sounds like a communist problem.
There's still, they've got Madame Bin and all those people who are encouraging them.
So, you know, you can tie all that.
Well, we have to get a real propaganda thing about kind of communism and about everything.
It's just such an easy way to do it compared to having to start over again the following week.
And I think the time is going to be more with you.
Yeah.
This weekend.
How about this?
This is too much.
How about doing the press on Monday or Tuesday?
Well, we're in April.
I mean, to let the weekend go, and then maybe do it on Wednesday.
That's what I mean.
Wednesday's free.
Which gives you a shot at hitting the weekend again.
Gives you a shot at hitting the weekend.
And I just think it's only on before the goddamn demonstration, which is kind of that.
I just kind of think myself often, hitting the two together is a little...
I remember I sort of felt that way myself the only time.
Now, the only problem that I have there is
Uh, when do we think we'll go over to the, to the Taliban's press conference?
The following?
The 29th?
The rest of last September, yeah.
Okay.
Why don't we do a press stand?
You see, we've been in a crusade with the Seventh.
We want something, and maybe some more ways is all right then.
Well, what, if there's a settlement, would it be, well, is there a possibility of anything?
Maybe, maybe, yes, yes, it could be anywhere.
How about then, let's just plan then to have the next press conference on the 6th.
May 6th.
Fair enough.
Well, yeah, unless that May Day business that week is something.
Well, so why don't you, why don't they tell us the difference?
It's going to be over the 5th.
Yeah, that's what it should be.
You see, that's a month after the crew's there.
That is a month's there.
Okay?
Now here's what we're talking about.
Got that damn drum out there.
Let's go to the EOD.
It's very bad right now.
I think he's calling you here.
Who can help him?
The rest of the money will go out to both the Easter eggs and the kitties, but nobody knows.
If you see two sides of the other, why fight with a lot of people?
Thanks, Minister.
I should have told you.
But the only thing that's missing is all that's left.
And it's a great thing.
You didn't guess what the name of it was, did you?
I don't know anything about it, Professor.
There's one thing we don't need, and it's an impression of difficulty and not a lot.
You'd rather go to Bali?
Yeah.
Did you see the staff meeting me for it?
Well, every time you're out, is that your age?
You're out, aren't you?
It's the home of his parents.
He goes, what's the problem with that?
Well, they're not letting the helicopter, no, 38 casualties last week.
That's a 38-yard, that's an unaccounted standoff.
That's an unaccounted standoff.
That's 34 years.
Less than half.
38, that's great.
I knew it would be... What happened, it wasn't...
I already used that 50, and I said it would be... Well, I thought I was prorating it ahead, but as it happened, there were no casualties Saturday and Sunday, so it stopped at 38.
These are going to go down.
My God, they're going to go down.
It's just like Cambodia, Mr. President.
Yeah.
District 10 will factor it up to 48 next week, perhaps, huh?
Maybe.
Might not.
Might keep it at 40.
Yeah.
Well, I just said that...
On your feet.
On your feet.
On your feet.
But, uh, except that if you check our files, I don't have a call alert that's on our desk.
I'm checking the files at the time.
Yeah.
Now, if he wrote a letter, and I'm going to make rogers knock him down, I'm not going to do anything.
But if he gets a roger, claims that he's a saint, rogers, and asks your God, and he's going to have to knock him down.
Mr. President... Bob, you can deal with it as long as I want.
I just...
I'm really irritated about your... Oh, that's... that's outrageous.
But even if... if there was a letter in October 69, where the hell was it?
It'd be in October 69 and February 79.
Why didn't he resign?
Why didn't he send us memos on everything else?
Why not Vietnam?
Yeah.
Oh, by the number of memos he sent us on other subjects.
That would be very good.
The president received memos.
We'll leak that out.
It's just backers.
It's not the son of a bitch out of the park.
No memos were sent to us.
I think he really proved why you got rid of him.
Yeah.
Let me say this.
Did you get to be sure that George Bush...
I just talked to George Bush and he sullied it enough.
He said he's willing to go on the record attacking...
yours up there but he wondered whether he should because it was only in the Washington Post.
Stay out of it.
Stay out of it.
He has nothing to do with this comparison.
He simply says my views are different if he's asked.
But he's got a damn good idea.
First of all, he's meeting with the board of directors of the AP tomorrow and he's had a whole series of background that he met with Time and Newsweek at his last week after your speech and indicated that he was 100% behind it on the background basis.
And he's meeting with the board of directors of AP tomorrow, but he's had a damn good idea, which I'm having researched right now.
He says that Charlie Yost appeared before the Democratic Platform Committee in 1968, and they have said if the bombing would stop, he knew that this would lead to fruitful negotiations.
And if we can get that, then... Well, I said that these arguments are so ridiculous, because now it says, you know, I just know that this would happen.
One small thing that I've asked, uh, asked, uh, if I could do something for Holmes to check.
It's not that law of insertions.
Did you see that?
Yes.
Four battalions.
Have you heard about them?
Yeah.
Is there something?
Or is this just an old story?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
That's four battalions of Pate Laos are deserted.
That's a strange, God damn thing.
Mr. President, the tragedy is that except for our God damn domestic officials abroad, we're doing very well.
Have you watched the Chinese thing?
Shit.
They're all over us.
Well, but that's going to do us more good with the Russians.
Uh...
This week.
This is a good time to do it.
Uh, fire base six.
Fire base six.
But we are not there, Mr. President.
Why not let the South Vietnamese fight it?
But if we pull out of it now, their player is a major defeat.
Whether we pull out or get run out, it doesn't make any difference.
They've lost about 2,000 men there.
The North Vietnamese have.
And the longer we can keep them fighting there, if we yield there now, they're going to go to some other place.
They're going to have... Oh, yeah.
They're taking a terrific feeling here.
This man that law all things, be sure Helms knows I want to know.
And let's, let's be sure Helms is standing up.
Is he?
I don't know.
He should stand up after my speech.
Oh, yeah.
That's all.
He's not going to talk today.
I know, I know, but I just want to say, we know we can.
We should have him.
Right.
We should have started yakking about what happened.
No, he's the highest tension today.
The Bob House.
The network's really stretched it along.
Friday night, they had the weed storage, $55,000.
They didn't get it on.
Fifty times now.
In the end, the guy was like shots and water bottles and everything else, you see.
From all causes.
From all causes.
Isn't that the kind of thing?
Yeah, it is.
Another fact that they did, you have to speak in comparison with Vietnam and Korea now, because Vietnam has now passed Korea.
So that's their big deal.
And they go on all causes because in Korea, we had a different casualty counting system, where in Korea we didn't count as battle casualties those who were wounded and then die later in a hospital.
Now we do.
The Korean battle casualties were way low and the non-battle casualties were way high because a gun got shot here and then went to a hospital and then died two weeks later.
He was a non-battle casualty, non-battle death.
Because he didn't die in the front line, he had to die around the battlefield in Korea.
And Korea was only a three-year war.
Right.
On the Kelly thing, you nailed that properly.
The main, I guess, the main way, the main thing you thought there was...
I think that Cameron did very well.
I mean, where he said sometimes he was doing exactly what he said.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's...
Judge, and Bob Tapp, did anybody think to call Bob Tapp and thank him for that statement?
You didn't?
Yes.
Chuckie said it.
Chuck, you sure he did?
No.
Okay.
Mr. Tapp, he's got to know that when he does stand up, we appreciate it.
He's been pretty good at sending them out.
Keep right after him.
but the cavity uh the uh there's no question that if we ever did anything right over here considering the pressure first we kept the steam right out of that thing and second you notice the walls are trying to do three calories and just on the wrong side of it too late too late too late a little too far because they don't want to bring in that
I'm not going to make a public statement if that's what they want me to do.
This is a statement of the release, you know what I'm saying?
Oh, the release, fine, too.
The only question is whether you want to see it.
No, I don't want to see it.
It's fine.
It's not embarrassing.
Yeah.
Oh, sure.
The Chinese radio had an exuberant broadcast about the reception of the American ping-pong team and newsmen.
Who are the newsmen?
The communists?
No.
No, okay.
I heard of him.
Two guys from NBC and one guy from AP.
No, I don't think...
I really think...
Check them out.
Check them out.
But I think they loaned a signal to us.
Now, another thing.
I want to know about Yahya in Pakistan.
I want to be sure that we're not caught in a crack here where a statement puts out a whole lot of stuff that they've done.
Now, Bill has not said that he wants us pinned by Pakistan.
No.
That's fiscal.
No, but his, his outfit out there, that DACA confident, is an open rebellion.
I understand.
Okay.
Then, can we, I want to go and respond to it.
We're going to eat.
Mr. President, we're going to wind up on the worse side if we start backing a rebellion there now.
Bill, we did not back the rebellion in the after.
We've got to have a hell of a lot more reason to wind up.
There are less people in the after.
That's the reason this morality becomes... Look, there aren't very many Jews in Germany.
Just, was it immoral, was it therefore not immoral for Hitler to kill them?
That's why he's going to throw them in the BF and survive.
I know, but the Catholics, they care about the Catholics.
The President, if we get in there now, we get red pockets on turns again, and we get the Bengalis are going to go left anyway.
They are by nature left, their moderate leadership is in jail, maybe they shouldn't have been put in jail, but that's the way it is now.
I don't know.
I just want to know.
I'm going to get Bill over and drop that.
Is that in the West Bank?
Yes.
Why don't you wait until Wednesday, Mr. President, when we have a meeting, and then we can get a paper to you.
Because I am afraid in the presence of the State Department, if you interfere too...
I'm not going to interfere.
I just want to know what he thinks.
Well, he's going to submit a paper to us, and then you'll know what he thinks.
Oh, he's going to submit a paper?
Yes.
That's gonna do it.
You sure you know who I want?
Oh, yeah, he knows who you want.
Yeah.
No, he's still is all right.
I just gotta know what the hell they think.
I mean, I'm not currently, but I just, I think if we get in the middle of that thing, it's a hell of a mistake.
It's a disaster.
No one else is doing it.
Let's face it.
The people that bitch about Vietnam, bitch about it because we intervened in what they say was a civil war.
Now, some of those same bastards like Cadell want us to intervene in Vietnam.
Some of those same people want us to intervene here.
Both civil wars, real civil wars.
What are we talking about?
They want us to cut out the economic aid to West Pakistan.
For what?
What reason?
It is...
pure doctrinaire reasons, because India is screaming.
But India is screaming in turn because they're scared to death of their own Bengalis.
Deep down, the Indians don't really want an independent East Pakistan because within 10 years of that, the best Bengalis are going to start bringing pressure on them for autonomy.
It's a classic situation for us to stay out of.
There's nothing for us in there to take sides in this.
and for us to cut off aid will infuriate the West Pakistanis.
The red is matter of the engine here.
Don't be concerned about the demonstrations.
The demonstrations will happen.
Our real concern right here is the fact that we have the erosion that comes from a longer war among our own people.
Now, we have stopped that to an extent, but that's all we can do.
We're fighting a delaying action.
We must have no illusions, though.
that you can whip these people up into a... Mr. President, if we can...
It can't be done.
But if we can get three months, we can change the discourse, because I think this Chinese development is going to force the Russians.
They've got to get you to Moscow now.
And...
They'll get you to Moscow.
Particularly if we now announce our trade listing, they'll think that it's all orchestrated.
And...
Oh, yes.
They're that suspicious.
Certainly they are that suspicious.
They are that suspicious.
I don't think they're that dumb.
so that if the communists take your political...
I think we can hold it.
My point is that we'll have some bad votes and that sort of thing, but I think we can hold it.
We haven't realized, though, that we shot an awful big gun on Wednesday.
That was as much as you can put any more emotional.
I mean, we did the best we could there.
And you can't say, well, go out and make another speech like you did Wednesday.
I think you shot all the guns you got on Vietnam.
I agree with you, Mr. President.
But you see, Roland Evans was in this morning, and to him, the Chinese saying he chose
Well, have you guys been doing something?
I said I've told you time and again.
There's always more to what this president does than meets the eye.
Well, but is this true?
Is the Chinese...
He deferred the Chinese thing before Roger to report on it.
Over the opposite of the State Department.
And we've been sending the messages through Yaya, through St. Denis, through Kurchescu, all in the last...
But even in the last few months, we've sent some to them.
So it's just...
This Chinese thing, to the press people, is going to be very intriguing.
See, they owe it.
It already is.
They're pro-communist, you see, the press is pro-communist.
And so you're going to have this announcement on this lifting of Chinese restrictions before Friday?
Well, let's make it.
Let's say, Richard, we've made it.
You want it out of here or out of here?
Here.
Yes, yes.
Why the Christ should we ever understand?
My point is, it'll look like I'm not doing this.
Or do you disagree?
No, no, I, uh, they should, of course, want to make it, but they... No, we're not making it.
They weren't, they weren't rushing making any, uh...
Right.
You can make the general announcement and they can put out the information.
I think you need to sit with me for a few minutes.
Yes, I'm going to sit with you.
No, really, no, I think it would be a very interesting moment.
You know, those two people have...
Some fascinating, significant credit press corps, too.
It's just one more way to puzzle it out.
What the hell does he mean with that, John?
I don't know.
I haven't had to try it.
I mean, the court can tell you for sure.
That is true.