On April 22, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:01 pm to 1:43 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 486-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yes, sir.
And it's still in a mortgage-rich event.
It's like a month in a row.
They were down to figure it out.
Speaking of the economic side of it, I need to note how that market last couple of days down a bit.
Who would ever have thought that that market would be at 941 today?
The fellow was just up there speaking in New York the day before last time.
He said, it's the difference between today and even a month ago.
He said, those guys, they're all feeling good.
They think we're doing the right thing in the economy.
And because there's funds there.
Isn't that interesting, too?
He said that the police spoke to him.
their stocks are up and uh of course there's been some good news that gnb equipment even though that some of them try to knock it down the store the retail sales automobile sales housing starts uh and frankly we were lucky in that last consumer pricing index that damn thing turning out only two tenths i was afraid it would be more but uh you would figure
But we have won a good quarter round in the next quarter.
And the point is that at least the economy has been substantially accrued by Washington.
And now what we've got to do
continue to continue a policy that moves it.
How do you feel about this thing?
How do you feel we ought to be doing that?
But I, you know, we said, remember, we talked to Harper, and I said, Harper, now don't say anything more about tax reduction, all that thing, until we look at the figures for, I told him, for April.
All right, well, we'll be looking at those figures in three or four weeks.
The feeling is that we
It's a little too much of a damn thing now.
Do you have any other vision?
None, whatever.
I feel very strongly we should not.
And the problem you're going to have, and I think this, without being critical of it all, I think some of this will come from the CDA.
Council.
Yeah.
But don't be carried away by, and I know people, by them trying to insist that they achieve the 1065.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you don't have to prove anything.
I agree.
I've got to hang a note of it, because I think they're going to feel that they're professional.
Sure.
Yeah.
That they're professional.
And I just have to fire a 10-50.
What?
How about you?
Absolutely.
Now, the piece of the matter is that one of the models, strictly a monetary basis, the First City National Bank, the First National City Bank, which is their model, which is a monetary model,
Yes, about $10.50, $10.55.
The first quarter, right on the nose.
And they say, this time, with $10.50 or $10.55, they say $10.50 that you can have on the front.
the best thing i don't do that but i'll tell you i existed you know i really broke a little turn around here in terms of the
the whole welfare issue down there.
And I said, now look, and I spoke to the governors.
I said, I don't want to talk about how much we're going to help the poor families and all the rest.
That's all in the bill.
Let's talk about the work requirements.
I said, people are sick to death of these dead welfare go-bears.
And I agree that we struck a nerve there.
I think people are sick of them, no question about it.
And don't you think that's the people who want a little character?
No question.
And I think in terms of our own situation here, if you go to unemployment, it is too low.
They're just going to have a bunch of people sitting on their butts saying, ah, I won't work for that.
You know what's going on?
I'd like to work for it.
It's not a healthy economy when unemployment is down around 3%.
It really isn't good enough.
Absolutely not.
It creates lots of problems for you.
Another thing, too, you want to realize is that whatever the number is, about half of it is teenage unemployment.
These are kids that are in and out.
Maybe they're wanting a job.
Maybe they aren't really in the workforce.
That's what it is down to 6%.
But I imagine, hey, the difference between 4 and 6 is just the teenage kids.
In the last, in this quarter, the number of unemployment, the amount that they've been unemployment.
adult categories has been absolutely stable, hasn't gone up a bit.
In other words, it's slightly coming down, and working is going up a bit.
So actually the guys are doing better, John.
We've got to move just the right way.
Just very steady.
Schultz is right.
He's playing a hard game.
He calls it, as he says, steady as you go.
That's not a bad line.
That's a good one.
Don't panic.
Don't panic and help.
Now look, if we get wrong, believe me, we're doing everything there is.
We'll break the goddamn China around this place and get everything done that needs to be done.
But right now, I think confidence will be
will grow as we continue to indicate we think we're on the right track.
I really believe you'd be making a serious mistake doing anything other than what you've done.
You're sick, absolutely.
Absolutely sick until...
Certainly we should see April and probably May.
And I'm not even sure we should wait.
Now, Wilbur said to Charlie Walker, I'm not going to do anything.
You all make me a commitment that you won't do anything until July on this investment tax credit system.
It looks like we don't do anything that way.
Look at that.
He'll play that game.
All right.
You see, he sort of got out there.
Well, of course, Harkner got out there, too.
And we've got to keep well out there.
But Harkner is really the best.
I assume he got back from here.
I had lunch with him yesterday.
He had a good week.
How's his mood?
Great.
How's he feel about the time?
Good.
Is he, is he, is he, is he talking, uh, doesn't attack her at all?
No.
You see, part of the problem here may be
And Archer wants to talk that way in order to let that be a little bit more restrictive.
I'll continue.
Whenever you feel a meeting with Arthur is in the cards, you call.
I think basically the best kind of a meeting, as I've said before, just you and Arthur, not Arthur.
He doesn't, you know, he doesn't, he likes Jules, correct, but doesn't want him there.
All right, you, Arthur, and I sit and talk, and then Arthur will feel he's in the sun.
We probably do.
That's correct.
We probably have a lot to do that, uh,
But nothing happened particularly.
He handles himself well, of course.
And he calmed the central bankers.
I have no question about that.
And he's good.
He talks their language.
But he'd like to give you a report on it, I'm sure.
He's a fine, fine, fine man.
He isn't as negative about the economy.
About a month ago, Arthur was really worried, so he had a little confidence factor.
A lot of people are.
I didn't worry so much about it.
Not that I don't want to make that decision over it, you know, most of the time.
I have a feeling, in some way, the psychology of this country is a very huge, massive people, 200 million, that it is probably...
a hell of a lot more healthy than we realize.
And as the spring comes, and as people begin to feel things are going to be all right, and they see the war finally coming to an end, and all that sort of thing, and start moving.
What's going to stop us?
What the hell is going to stop us?
That's my feeling.
I don't know if this is a good question, but I'm just, frankly, maybe I'm overly confident, but I'm just as confident as I can be.
I just don't think you need to do anything else.
I don't even think it's safe to do anything else.
We don't want to go too fast, no.
The negotiations have taken too long.
All along I assumed that when we finally came to you for a final answer on this,
That we are telling you that Lockheed and Rolls-Royce had negotiated their agreement.
That Lockheed and their airline customers had negotiated their agreement.
that we had a firm agreement with respect to the $150 million additional that has to come from the banks, either directly from the banks or through the airlines.
So that these things would have been a fait accompli before you had to reach a decision as to whether or not you wanted to go to the Hill.
Now, it's taken over two months.
These things have not yet been done.
Progress has been made on all fronts.
We've had internal meetings with everybody.
The progress has been made.
The relations between Lockheed and Rolls-Royce are good.
They have a basic understanding of what they're doing.
But there are a lot of little things that they never have wrapped up.
They have a basic agreement with the airlines.
But there are a lot of little things that they have wrapped up, and everybody is now sitting and wanting the last look.
In other words, Rolls-Royce says, we will put in the additional money, $200-plus million, $250 million.
Provided we can be insured of the survivability of Lockheed.
This is a condition.
Okay, who's gonna give them that?
The banks are not, the airlines are not.
The airlines are now saying to Lockheed, okay, we'll agree to pay an additional $555,000 per plane.
We'll agree on the additional progress.
We got it down to that $550,000.
That's not bad at all.
They've made some real progress.
The bridge has come.
It was $2 million the last time.
The bridge has come a long way.
And there, the British now are willing to pay all of the research and development costs, which they estimate to be 90 million pounds, over $200 million.
And they think that the planes, the engines are going to cost them, the plane set, which is three engines, will cost them in excess of $1 million a plane.
But they're willing to bear the cost over and above roughly $575,000.
So they're taking quite a bite on that.
So they're putting a hell of a lot of additional money in.
The airlines are not satisfied that Rolls-Royce is going to survive.
They're not satisfied completely that the Heath government's going to support them.
They want to know how they're going to be financed.
I said, well, go ahead and go over there and ask them.
I said, you all got people.
You got financial people.
Go over there and see them.
They have no problems with respect to the engine.
It's going to be all right.
But none of them really questioned it.
The day before yesterday, we met with Easter.
And that's Charles sitting here.
We met with Floyd Hall.
We met with a man named Turner, a man named Haas, who have ordered just two planes.
But they were even in the meeting.
So was Delta.
Charlie Dolson was sick, but his man Davis was there.
We met with Hawkins and the bankers, all of them, for two hours.
And the data of it is available.
They agreed.
Among them all, the banks agreed to put up an additional $50 million with some additional collateral, but with no guarantees of any kind pending outcome of legislation if there is.
They know they've got to sustain Lockheed during this interim period.
All of them do say that the government, this government, ought to settle with Lockheed on the Cheyenne.
Lockheed takes a position that the Defense Department owes it roughly $28 million on the Cheyenne and $10 on the ship, on the ship contract.
And I think they do.
And I think they hold it up and these lawyers hold it up because they think they're going into receivership and if they pay them with the knowledge that they might go into receivership, that they'll be criticized.
So it's one of those key initiatives again.
uh but uh the airlines and the banks and everybody feel that if we decide to go if you make the decision to go to congress then then we ought to also uh say to the defense department clean up your affairs let's get it in order let's pay what we owe this will help on the financing uh i think it's reached the point where unless now you move
First, somebody has to move.
And it's not particularly advantageous.
And I said to them, I said, what y'all always said.
I said, we have no stake in this except an indirect stake in the impact it'll have on the economy.
And I said, y'all are always sitting back, and I told them to their face.
And I said, every damn one of you wants the last look, and you can't all have the last look.
And I said, I think you ought to have these contracts in order by May the 10th.
I said, you just had a deadline.
I said, as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to recommend to the president that if he wants to go forward, that we do it on a conditional basis.
So y'all can't lay behind me.
I said, we're not going to the Hill unless, and I looked at Charles and I said, unless we've got your all-out support on the Hill.
And I looked at Floyd Hall and I said, we've got to handle ourselves.
We can't let the newsmakers come to you and say, now, what do y'all think about this?
Y'all sit back and go, well, we don't know about this.
I said, you give that kind of reaction either to the Congress or to the newsmakers.
We're dead.
We're not going to do it.
So I've got a firm commitment out of all of them, the banks and all of them, that they would go, that they'd do everything they could to help.
But you're going to have to, frankly, I think at this point, step out and make this decision.
You can make it on a conditional basis.
You can say that I'm asking Congress to guarantee $250 million in bank loans to this company and for all the reasons conditional.
a satisfactory and proper arrangement being negotiated and completed with lock, between lock, Lockheed and the British government, and rule for us.
Conditioned on Lockheed and the airlines, finalized with their agreement within the next few weeks.
So I'm now just saying I would conditionalize it.
Senator, do you think we should get them all in and tell them that at the time?
Yes.
Well, again, the whole, we've got to get the whole group on the table.
I'm sure he is, and I've decided this.
How about having a...
We've given a lot of thought to this, and we think, at least in Treasury, and we have not cleared with Clark and Clark and Clark and people over here, we think banks need currency.
Now, we've looked at interstate foreign commerce, and we can probably get it in there, but first of all, we know, our people know, banking currency is much better than that.
I get your point.
We're bringing to our own people.
Well, we're basically shaving back the currency.
We've got Patlin who's not going to help, but the hell of the rest of the people we know and we think we can get a lot of help out of.
You understand inside, the real bad actor you've got is Proctor.
But Adam Horatio called up and he said, he'll probably come to my subcommittee.
I'll be all out.
He wants to get well.
Oh, yes.
And he said, he was very frank with me.
He said, I...
He said, I've got cuts on this SSG thing, and frankly, this will give me a chance to get back to it.
And he said, we've got to protect these workers.
Tony is ready to wait for Washington because McDonald's puts heat on these.
McDonald's out there, messing around.
They don't want this, because if Lockheed folds,
Hell, McDonnell is going to pick up all of these airplanes, and he'll sell them DC-10s instead of the L-1011s.
And so it's his economic interest that this not pass.
Now, they say, well, you know, we'll pick up, and this is part of Dave Packard's arguments.
They said, well, Larkin said that McDonnell just can pick up all these employees.
Well, they're not going to do that.
They don't do that.
Hell, he just stretches out his production, and the 10,000 people that are now working on the L-10 Electro are out of a job.
And the 16,000 people that are working for the Flyers are out of a job.
And also the symbol of Lockheed was broke.
it's just this is what this is what now i would have seen him so we can give you some of the evil we've been up saying to some members of the congress a few i said john walker jim smith and i have talked to a couple and i said now we haven't we have made a recommendation i said from what the president's going to do but if he decides to what do you think about this
Strangely enough, we got a lot of favorable reaction.
Much more than Charlie and Jim thought we might get.
Carl Albert told me, he songs like, I would have talked to him, he said he'll help every way he can.
and on it.
So I think we've got a good run.
I think we've got a good run.
I think we've got a good run.
I like to see you losing him.
But this one, I think you've justified it.
It's not clean.
Hell, you know, we're rescuing a sick guy.
And it's a many other after SST.
We're saying in the business, we don't want to give up a part in supply.
Well, Lockheed's got a great tradition.
I remember that the Condor used to be Air Force One.
That's right.
I flew around the world with that thing in a 53.
I mean, that's crazy.
And they are, after all, the world's largest supplier of military weaponry.
Now, they say that, well, all that, keep on.
Surely keep on.
Under the hands of receivers.
But you can bet you a bottom dollar those costs, the cost of that military equipment and weaponry is going to go up astronomically while Lockheed goes through receivership.
No way, I feel that way.
I just feel that way about it.
I'm just not going to see this damn company go busted.
Right now, too, I think the shock waves the economy has.
If we were way down, I'd say better go.
But when the economy's starting to move and so forth, the hell of it.
We're not going to do it.
It's like getting Perot to save that little company out there.
It was worth it, but it wasn't for sure.
He did it.
He finally comes through.
He got his loan.
and then all teams are in good shape.
There's one other business that I'll set up for me, and you'll be here all next week.
You're not going to California?
Friday.
Friday.
I have to go Friday morning.
Well, we'll try to set ourselves up Monday or Tuesday.
Yeah, Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday.
If we can't, that's fine.
That's right.
I like that.
One other thing that I think is good, that I talked to some of the OACD Republican House members,
I had to have a breakfast.
I haven't had a breakfast with these Ways and Means members in a good old time.
Encouraged the others this week.
I get to talk to them every morning.
Well, I'm with you.
I had a breakfast with Larry.
I had a breakfast.
But, uh, here's the point.
It needs to be made to them.
And I told Jerry, well, go on and come see him.
And I will.
I'll go see Jerry.
You perhaps ought to make it.
You make it more effective than anybody else in the world.
Here's what happens.
Nothing new again.
It's a question of analysis of the situation.
There's no leadership in the Senate.
No.
On either side.
Mansfield has no leader, and Scott has no leader.
I have no leadership in the Senate.
In the House, the Democrats have new leadership.
But it's in the right.
It's in terrible shape.
Hale is a sick man.
He really is.
And he's going to continue to be sick.
Now, they have no way to get out of this problem.
No, apparently not, unless he quits drinking and plays with people.
And he's not going to do that.
Now Carl is very unhappy with me.
He wants to begin with, and I took him as a lesson from the Eagles, and he just told me yes to Carl.
He said, this is a hell of a job.
He said, God have mercy, Scott.
I ran all these errands, and he said, I worked like hell for John McCormick.
He said, I didn't know that.
He said, I just get the opposite.
He said, I just get in trouble all the time.
He said, I never tried to do my job, but he used to.
So, the House Democrats said, and Carlos made some mistakes.
He didn't back up Wilbur.
He didn't back up Maynard on two major bills.
But the net of it is the leadership, which looked possible in the House in January, is not working.
Carl Iverson used to have to use it every hour to try to hold the damn thing together.
Also, Carl, as you know, he was a man.
That's right.
That's correct.
I've watched him, and I've told him a couple times, don't you let him.
Another thing is that he hasn't yet learned something.
We should talk to him about the discipline of this.
He sees everybody, just like I do.
He's the speaker now.
By God, he's got to do the big job.
He really should, you know.
But he's not doing it.
He's just seeing every speaker that comes up there.
So they're split in three camps, Jeff, and they're going to be fine.
Ford does.
Now, what Jerry Ford ought to do, what the Republicans ought to do in the House, in the House and the Senate, you know, have the leadership there.
But Jerry Ford, if he'll take hold of this thing now, if he'll get Johnny Marsh, if he'll get Frank Lloyd, if he'll get these committee chairmen with him, and his own leadership with him, and he can, if he'll talk to them right, he can instill some discipline in the ranks of these Republicans down in the House, and hell, they can get enough Democrats to go with them.
For lack of leadership.
And they can run that House now, if they will do it.
Well, because the Democrats are in disarray, right?
Basically, you know, that's exactly right.
Like in the old days.
Two years ago, even after the old tag, you know, just the old issue back at the time.
Sure enough, after splitting the Senate.
Absolutely.
Because he was such a commanding figure.
He got the Republicans together.
Absolutely.
He did pretty well.
If Jerry Orkin, if he was a discipline in the Republican rank, he'd back down.
He wouldn't do that, absolutely.
I think you get enough of the Democrats because they're not going to consolidate.
They tried to have a caucus yesterday morning.
Nobody raised the question of lack of a quorum.
They didn't have a quorum.
So they turned.
So then all of them said that they were part of the caucus just so they couldn't pass a resolution demanding to get out of Vietnam by a time period, you see.
So then all yesterday afternoon they did not a goddamn thing except have quorum calls on the floor.
Just everybody's mad and everybody's irritated.
Carl was just all frank.
And Wilbur was trying to have a Ways and Means Committee, and he was mad.
And so now this is what you're going to have the rest of the year.
The problem is that, and what I tried to tell these Ways and Means Committee members this morning, what I'm going to tell him, the average person in the country just plays the Congress.
They don't know enough about it to know whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans.
And if the Congress fails, you have to whip the Congress.
Well, you would say the Democratic-controlled Congress, all right.
I doubt it.
But, nevertheless, I said, you know, the election cards of the Congress, hell, I don't agree.
I said Democrats.
I said, unless you fellows start exercising some dissonance, or if you have any defense, hell, I, listen, we run against the Congressmen to be the Congress the hell over, sitting in the Democratic Congress.
Why do you make the Democrats mad?
We've got to work.
Look, if in the Senate at the present time we didn't have the likes of John McClellan, John Stantz,
and some of those guys.
Unfortunately, we lost Dick Russell.
He's not a jerk, but he certainly hasn't been so far.
We lost Spencer Collin.
We got another guy that, you know, isn't standing up.
John, without those Democratic senators, we'd be dead.
That's right.
You know, everybody runs these guys down, but by God, they stand up.
That's right.
Burr, you know, they all stand up for this.
More than, more basically than almost any of the Republicans except for Haraska and Curtis.
Curtis, whether it's Haraska, Curtis, Spann, you've got about 10 Republicans and 15 Democrats standing there.
The rest of them all wobble over their heads.
So believe me, we're not going to run against any Democrats.
Well, but I think you've got a golden opportunity to make these folks see a bill of leadership.
Thank you.
I have.
The ones I practiced with this morning, 12 of them are sitting here.
Great, and good.
Well, now raise the chair.
The chair is...
Jerry is a great stand-up guy.
His major problem is that he feels he's got to talk to everyone.
Now, there are some of his committee, ranking committee members that are senile or ineffective.
But you name the guy, the guy seems to get in.
Johnny Burns is a good, strong man.
Frank, oh.
You know, there are about a half a dozen guys that say, well, look, fellas, let's have a little tea.
Les Aarons, of course.
Here we go.
And then they'd be surprised how much they could move and shake.
And then what they do, Les is the guy that can go over and talk to George Mahon.
And, you know, there are a few of those.
And Mahon is a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a,
I don't know.
He should have been a speeder.
Because George has to.
He's not safe.
He has to judge.
He has to wish.
He's just smart.
But he's just reasonable and smart.
He's an enormously capable man.
No question.
Does he just want to be the chairman?
That's all he'll do.
He just led that way.
Has he led that way ever since I've known him?
Three years.
Well, thank God he's where he is.
He's an important man in that committee of appropriation.
I agree.
One other little thing I want to mention to you, and I don't think it's appropriate, I don't think it's important that you worry about it at all, or appropriate that I even mention it at the table.
I just want you to know that I am deliberately, and I'm not playing around, I'm serious about it, I am deliberately harassing, I guess they would term it harassing, but I call it putting pressure on the State Department.
That's good.
On a number of things.
And another place is Turkey, and we're going round and round in Turkey.
I understand they've got a new government, and I'm not trying to create any problems.
Hell, I know that Turkey is important from a strategic standpoint.
But the problem is, Mr. President, and I'm not being critical of Bill Rogers either, because he doesn't know about this yet, but I told Jack Irwin yesterday,
I said, now Jack, I said, I don't want to be in your hair and I don't want to cause you problems, but I said, I kid you, but some of these things come within the jurisdiction of the Treasury.
And I said, when they do, I said, I'm going to be very fortunate in telling you how I feel about it.
And I said, you just better be prepared for it.
And I said, I'm not trying to be critical.
I'm not trying to cause you trouble.
But I said, now, in the case of Turkey,
I said, we want you to tell that new governor over there that as of June the 1st, you've got to give a year's notice to their farmers that they can't plant any down open in June of 1972.
I said, now y'all have got a bunch of cables going back and forth here.
He said, well, let's start up a plant in two counties.
Maybe we ought to ask them for too much to begin with.
They said, well, the president gave his instructions to the ambassador last fall.
And I said, I've read the synopsis of the president's instructions.
And I said, the biggest problem we've got in this country is the dope problem.
And I said, it comes from Turkey, 80% of it.
And I said, why in the hell do we have to take the position that, well, we've hit Bernie enough, but we have all the old guys in the world who are just going to be cut off.
We'll just give them stuff all the time.
What did he say?
He got 40.
Well, he said, I understand that we have went through times where we've never, we just, we're not going to never on this.
There are times when we don't see things like it.
So I wrote Bill Rogers a tough one.
I got a tough letter yesterday.
Send it over to them.
How much is the OPM stuff worth to them?
It isn't worth that much.
I don't think it is to the government.
They've got a problem.
They're planning in four provinces now.
Like four states here.
And our people, we haven't even talked to them.
But we trade ourselves down.
That's my point.
Had it made me have to negotiate with them, Mr. President, we might want to agree to let them plan in two provinces.
I don't know how important it is.
I'm not going to be talking to them.
But in our tangles between ourselves, between the state and our ambassador, we've never talked to a single one of the men in this Turkish government, but we've already convinced ourselves that they're not going to agree to completely eliminating it, and that we ought to permit them to grow up in two provinces.
This is what I don't agree to.
Now, I'm not trying to make a decision out of you.
I'm just saying.
I thought that they had a decision.
I thought they were supposed to.
We're going to be talking.
I'm out of practice.
No, I haven't.
No, sir.
All right.
No, sir.
Now, we've got Japan.
We've got a problem with Japan.
I can raise an L.A. State Department about that.
Oh, Christ.
All right.
What have we done?
We caught them now.
We think.
We want to conduct an investigation.
on dumping of taxable catalysts.
Burlington Mills came in with a complaint.
Under the law, we can give notice.
This really puts them, this really suites them, because this acts their import.
But they said, oh, don't do that.
And before they could be left, Gene Wilsey called and explained it to Tony Jurek on Friday.
what we were going to do.
We heard no word back.
Well, after Dave got off over toward Manila, we got word back, well, don't do it now.
Hold off.
So I sent a strong message, and I'm not complaining.
We'll hold off.
I'm just going to hold off.
You say, why?
Well, my view is that we ought to put the damn sanctions.
Their view is, state's view is, that, well, he's going over to conduct a delicate negotiation with the Japanese.
They haven't done a goddamn thing for us.
I said, okay, so what?
I said, it looks to me like he would strengthen his hand and negotiate it with them if he were in the Treasury Department today.
This would be on an anti-dumping, on an anti-dumping ground, against the African-Americans.
You know, the Calvary is such a state that handles these things in a way that we never strengthen our own hands.
I know that.
Well, all I'm saying is that I constantly give them hell.
So I sent a message today akin to myself.
And, well, they come back, and the ambassador from
when Japan comes back.
Both crises were, he said he thinks this will complicate our negotiations.
And to me, it's like negotiations.
What are the crises he accomplished?
Nothing.
Nothing but a kick in the ass.
The hell with them.
That's my idea.
The hell with them.
I am for a tougher line.
I think you're right.
It's not somebody's place in the world.
I might get hired even in the government.
We found a few to scare out of us.
I couldn't agree more, and I'll allow both of them to lose myself.
Well, I'm not complaining.
I just want you to know what I'm doing, because you may run across my tracks in several places here.
Just kidding.
You're good.
Let me ask you about a couple of others I have in mind.
We have an opportunity for a great strength in our administration team.
Paul, because you just heard this, because it has to be interesting.
This is it.
The only other man who knows anything about this, and it has to be an absolute confidence, is Mitchell.
It will be, because Mitchell is sort of my, you have to get and watch that.
Let me say that after our conversation over the UOP, I said, I said, God damn it.
and I said, why not?
And I said, there are certain places that we save defense.
Moving on those at this time would not be wise.
It would not be wise because you should move at a time when, right after you've had a .
So, but there isn't any question that we have to move another time.
I was talking to, so Robert, come on in.
It won't take long.
I was talking to the secretary of our cabinet promise, and I thought we should talk in comments about three things we have in mind.
So, we have to, if you go down the line, first, Satan's advanced enough to move, change, and should we change at this point?
Third, Attorney General must say as it is at this point, that will change.
uh at a time i mean uh and that's about what we should be thinking there i don't know what it is do you know what mitchell is thinking about about his successors uh
I don't know.
Now, coming off the question, that's something that needs to be coming on down the line.
That's what his mother said.
And Martin just died, so we've got to keep him.
And probably Jim Dunn-Martin can be at the end of this.
Martin won't attack anybody.
No, but he'll go out and say he's for the horse and the cattle.
He'll build up the president and the progressives and so forth.
He's better than that.
He's positive.
He's very positive.
He just hasn't got the stomach for a fight.
Now, can't you change?
Because he is, frankly, outside would cause trouble.
Inside, he can't trust me.
And Romney, in his own, you know, bumbling way, will do all right.
And we know what Romney can and can't do.
And that's the part that's going to do it better.
And that part is impossible to run into.
It's full of blacks.
It's a horrible part.
I don't see how they always sense it.
I don't understand the smell of that place.
Mulkey is a good-hearted guy who spins around, but he's a good positive salesman.
And he attacks too, doesn't he?
I was down on the attack piece.
All right, when he believes in it, he's on the wrong side of most things.
He believes in it, so that doesn't happen.
Where he's good is in that he's kind of embarrassing to anybody with any sophistication, but he's awful good at pure emotional...
You know, he's almost as detectable as anyone.
And he goes too far.
So it's not so believable.
All right, but it's still, as long as you don't crash, it's fine.
Would you agree with any of these?
Would you disagree with any of these?
I don't agree with any of these.
Oh, he has internal.
Oh, internal.
That's impossible.
I have my whole perception.
All right.
I'm perfectly willing to.
He's got a problem, isn't he?
They all know I see you today, and they all saw it, which is earlier.
I saw Mitchell yesterday, and I saw him at breakfast with Larry, and I saw Steve Rogers, and so forth.
And so naturally, some of them say, you might as well not have to come in.
It feels that way.
It feels that way.
But boldly more than any other.
But anyway, I understand that.
It's just, even then, let's forget it.
We easily got those wrong.
Now, Richardson should not be changed.
He has, well, I said Brown's department was wrong.
Richardson is the worst.
That's a goddamn mess over there.
All those, even having an open part, one of his auditoriums, all these marches taken out so that they could all have their smoke-ins and pots and whatever they were doing over there.
They always do that.
Either that or they would take him over.
Exactly.
But Richardson has been fine, reasonable.
Have you found him good to work with?
I have not worked with him that much, but I would sure agree with that evaluation.
First place, he's smart.
He's got the potential to lock down.
And he's got it tough down in the park.
He's not a good salesman.
You look at the cabinets at the salesman.
He's not good.
He's not all the same.
He's a square.
Yeah.
and soft, but when you get a niche, able, smart, fellow with the right credentials in that job, you better keep him.
The general manager needs to keep all the troubles we had with ATW in the first place.
He does a beautiful job.
He's got welfare, education, health, and all these horrible things.
Anyway, let you come on through.
and become a sans.
Now, sans is totally loyal, totally, I mean, speaks to the administration and all that sort of thing.
It's my feeling with regard to sans.
If we had a more ballsy, strong man in the Congress Department, he could be a better salesman.
Now, do you agree or not on this?
Okay.
Listen, I like Maury.
Everybody, we're not... John, listen, I like Mitch, but I go on to this.
I'm a secretary.
The reason I raise these with you is that we're looking for men.
Who is the best, vigorous, final guy that'll be for us?
A salesman who can go out and say positive, upbeat things.
You know, Congress has the figures and statistics they put out.
You could have a guy that'll get out there and sell us a new tank.
The only salesman we've got on the economy is you.
Shoals is next best.
But Schultz is, you know, still a professor.
But Schultz is, Schultz now leaves the head, leaves the head of McCracken.
McCracken gets up and he says, well, this is not, this is moderately encouraging news today.
You know, when you've got zero unemployment, he'll say, well, it's moderately encouraging.
Because it may get worse tomorrow.
He's a wonderful guy.
He's a great advisor, but not worth a match to the sales minister.
So put your mind to that.
We ought to be thinking about who that guy is.
We have no candidates.
How do you make it solely on the basis of the sale itself?
The Commerce Department, anybody can be Secretary of Commerce fully.
Anybody.
And much of it, you know, there isn't much to do over there.
It runs itself.
Or do you disagree?
No, I'm very helpful.
He's got to be acceptable to business.
That's right.
He's got to be pro-business.
Business.
Pro-business.
He's got to be a fighter for the business.
But he's got to be above all that's boiling and that can get out and sell.
See, get out and don't keep yourself out of the way.
We're doing the right thing.
And attack.
Well, if there is another businessman to do that, it remains to be seen.
I don't know if some can, but not so much.
You might not want to divert him, Mr.
Governor.
You're going to hear it right now.
Peter Pitcher.
I don't think so.
He probably loved it.
That's right.
He probably loved it.
You know, he loved it.
You know, and he knew what the hell he was doing from that spot pretty well.
He talks good.
Does he good talk?
He's tough.
He's smart.
He makes a good appearance.
He understands salesmanship.
Also, that opens up the other job, which is more thoughtful.
Yeah.
All right.
Now...
I thought we talked about one that you haven't even got to.
It's a young fellow in Texas.
He may not want to in Texas, but I heard of him.
B. K. Johnson.
Elton K. Johnson.
Who I think would have jumped at the chance to be Secretary of the Army or somewhere in defense.
He's a very good looking fellow.
He's got a beautiful wife.
They're both rich as hell.
He's 40, 40, good.
One of the really tough young fellows that I know.
Now look, Army is good.
We need it.
We've said it.
We've got it.
We've got it.
We've got it.
Look at this guy right away, look at him right away.
He's got to have had some sort of service record or something.
Is there a reason why you said Army men?
Is he an Army man?
No, he mentioned it to me one time.
This was way in the last year.
He mentioned it to me.
But he's loyal.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
See, his problem is going to be to have to handle my leg cases and all that stuff.
Well, this is a real tough, you know, he's not experienced.
But he's got courage.
He's tough as hell.
Yes, sir.
He's hard as nails.
We don't care what he does.
No, he's a graduate of Cornell, I believe, at Stanford.
Cornell and Stanton.
Stanton's here.
Well, Stanton's been through it all.
That's good.
This guy's conservative as hell and tough as hell.
Now let me come to one of the strangers.
Now, well, excuse me.
He married Frank Zock from Corpus Christi.
Frank Zock is a partner of Bill Clements, and that's one of your strongest supporters.
How do you make money?
You're a financer.
You're a finance man, boy.
B.K.
White and Frank Stocksville, and Christy, both of them.
See, the Texans do the same.
You were complaining about the establishment.
The Vanderbilt's and the Woodby's all intermarried, and the Texans do the same.
I hope they do.
They're both making a rich sale, good-looking, really good-looking, really smart.
Excuse me, that's all.
That's right.
Now, the next one is, in other words, think about the business guy.
The next one that Peterson and I think is...
Let's come to the agriculture.
It's almost impossible to be a good secretary of agriculture.
I mean, I'd have to satisfy the farmers.
I mean, medicine was, for someone not growing up in a year, a month, that freedom was.
And this fellow, Hardin, is one of the nicest men, the most decent man, lovely wife, and has sort of juggled things in a way not to be everybody mad at him.
But on the other hand, he is not basically the biggest salesman.
The question is whether or not...
He's been offered the presidency of Purdue, which of course was his school, and he was farming on the back.
That, for anybody in his field, is the act.
Purdue is the great agricultural school, you know.
He would like to accept the Purdue post, but it's reluctant to leave the president unless, you know, so what we gotta do is get a signal to him.
And on that basis, he probably- Now the question is- I have two questions.
One, would your daughter and second?
Yes, sir.
You wouldn't?
Yes, sir.
All right.
You wouldn't?
All right.
The second part is,
It's a matter of right.
Armed Services still marking up the military event.
Our bill voted this Senate, Armed Services.
Voted 12-3 for a two-year draft extension.
Voted unanimously in support of your position on that.
All right.
Now, Wyatt, tell me your analysis on Hartman.
You were looking for Wyatt.
Well, Wyatt, first place, he's a real nice guy, and I'm sure he's a hell of a fine college president.
But the characteristics that make him both a scholar and a college president are precisely what you don't want as a Secretary of Agriculture.
That's right, exactly right.
Now, coming to that point, what kind of a man should we have in Secretary of Agriculture?
Who the hell can we get?
That is a position where I think getting into a man, he could go out and rip around a bit and fight like hell for himself to help him through that hard time.
But he ought to really come from the Midwest, or the Plains states, it seems to me.
I mean, sort of have a little dirt in his feet.
You know, he ought to be a farmer, because we... Yeah, I said once I was going to appoint a farmer.
You know, or somebody from agriculture.
Well, you talk about a farmer.
The only kind of a farmer you can appoint who could qualify would have to be a very rich farmer.
See, you can't take a farmer that's poor and put him in Secretary of Agriculture, because that means he's not successful.
Well, he probably doesn't want to go.
Well, that's true, too.
Boy, this is one that I think we've got to agree on.
I couldn't agree more.
I would go to Colorado, I think.
I think you have two different groups.
Would Love do it?
No, I wouldn't take Love.
I think so either.
No, he's not a farmer.
I'd go and look at the past for us.
It's the American National Cattlemen's Association.
I'd look at this fellow, and I don't know about that.
I don't want to get all mocked at.
There's a guy named Monter who runs one of the big packing houses in Denver, Colorado.
It's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
That's Monty Monter.
But there are a bunch of these fellows who have been former presidents of the American National Cattlemen's Association.
That's one place to look.
I don't know anybody.
Well, I don't know anybody in this town else, but you can go back to Texas again.
He's smart as hell.
He's from San Antonio.
And really what you want is somebody from Colorado, Wyoming... Midwest, basically.
Midwestern mountain states.
That's right.
Midwestern mountain states, which basically we... See, I've carried every one of those damn states two times now.
We just don't want to lose none.
There is a fellow that George Smathers can tell you about that's in the horse country named Ed...
I'll say Carpenter, that he did.
He's president of the horse council.
He's from Kentucky, I believe.
But he is one hell of a sailor.
He is one hell of a guy.
I'll give you, I'll give you a dozen names.
I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind somebody from these.
If you weren't tobacco, I wouldn't mind somebody from one of the border states like Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Missouri.
Missouri would be excellent.
Missouri would be terrific.
You could find a Missouri.
That would be great.
Let me look at these brief associations.
All right.
I believe I should stay away from the farm.
The farm would be better.
Well, I don't know what you meant.
Stay away from that.
Farm Bureau, National Farm Organization, grains, and so forth.
They all compete with one another.
And there's not a cowman in the country that doesn't also farm.
So they can't say he's not a farmer.
The cowman sons are our community.
They've been our friends.
Those cattlemen, you know, we've been there.
I mean, people, you know, you can call it a cattleman.
Everybody likes to be called a cattleman instead of a farmer.
Most of them are farmers.
Now, there's a guy named Farr from North Dakota, I believe.
He just saw out.
He said, uh,
as part of the American National Capital.
But I'll get you to those meetings.
Good.
All right?
Good.
Now, we have one other job.
This doesn't sound exciting, but it is a hell of an important job from the standpoint of getting somebody
other than a secret who will go out and, except for you, and of course John Mitchell, if John doesn't proceed with this again, be sophisticated in national security matters and be confident in talking about it.
Lincoln is a good professional.
He ain't worth a damn as a salesman.
Not worth a damn.
And he's not going to have him.
I'm going to leave him.
I mean, I'm going to let him go.
He doesn't know it yet, but we can do that any time.
We owe him time.
I don't know whether you know whether there's any, no comment has ever been made to him, sir.
We just picked him up.
Now, we need, that office doesn't, it handles disaster.
So from that standpoint, it's important in terms of the public relations of disasters, which we've got very damn poor on in Texas than they did for the California earthquake, mainly because there's no Moxie or people that are in it.
So we need a guy that has got a little public relations sense.
However, from the standpoint of a job, it's a hell of a job.
Due to the fact that the guy doesn't have a hell of a lot to do, and he sits in the NSC, he's a statutory member of the NSC.
See what I mean?
Statutory member.
So we're, we're looking for a guy there, kind of as a purist vote, and then he's after us, and now there's one guy we're thinking about there, that we, whether we, whatever happens in our German negotiations, if they come up, we sort of have to deal with them in the best way we can.
who is a very intelligent, top-flight naval follower.
Totally loyal.
President of the Carbine.
President of the Carbine.
Ken Rush.
Ken Rush.
Lawyer.
Lawyer.
This is really quite a follower.
Another one that occurred to me, if you wanted to go to the military side, and I, this is an interesting one,
Had he not been a Marine, he would probably have been a selection for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as Chairman.
Now, Chad was in his late 50s.
He used to go out of his common land at the end of this year.
I could pick him up and put him in there.
Now, he's made some damn good speeches for us around the country.
You see, he retired.
So you see, he's, I mean, at the unhatch.
What I meant is, he's in a position where he could talk.
And I think he has a flair for politics from what I have seen.
Good Lord, if you don't hear what I'm saying, what are you going to do about it?
I've heard him speak.
No, I've heard him make one speech, which I thought was damn good, but I really have not heard him speak.
It wasn't in a certain sense before he was really trying to speak.
He was talking about it.
You see, here's a guy.
We need a guy, you know, as we come along here, you know, where the war is and where God and all these things.
But then by God, we need somebody out there talking about it, you know, bragging about it, you know, saying, you know, well, you may not want to shift him and maybe other reasons, but I just thought that George Anderson
Andrew Langston.
He's a fine looking man.
He sure is.
He's articulate and he is tough.
Oh, you're right.
He's him, right.
He's our ambassador in Portugal.
He's a big, tall, you know, I've never heard about him.
Andrew Langston might be, wait a second, that's not a full-time job.
Well, but I just...
You know, one thing about it is that he'd be out there rip-roaring around like that.
You know, he's tough as hell.
You know, that's a good suggestion.
you could keep rushing at him, you could look at him too.
He might be the man.
And it's better, but you see, Chapman, that's the kind of a guy that you're looking for.
You're looking for that kind of a guy in that job.
And now you get a spokesman, that has to be a good spokesman.
Oh, yes.
Was he your secretary?
He was your chairman.
He was your chief of staff.
Yes.
So he came in when I was about halfway through, see, I was already working, so I finished his term.
And then I recommended Joe Adams to be the C.O.,
But he is articulate, and he is smart.
Does he run a good job?
I mean, you'd want to satisfy yourself if you could really control what he says.
Oh, well, that's all right.
He's a tough guy.
Well, it'd be good to have a good hardliner in that scene.
He is a hardliner.
You know, there you go.
Just speak up there.
He's huge, I know.
Yeah, he does sometimes, but that's the best part for him.
He's related to that character, isn't he?
Is he?
I don't know.
I think his daughter is married to Abshire.
Well, that's what I'm looking for.
That's a good suggestion.
Do you agree that these sound a good thing?
Yes, sir.
They sure do.
The same thing.
Yes, sir.
Not a problem.
No, I can't do anything of it.
No, you can't do anything of it.
All the places that I think you can move now are ones you can then even, agriculture, you know, agriculture, commerce.
Jim Hudson, I suppose, is doing a good job there.
But I don't know.
It can't be.
He's the Secretary of Labor and the spokesman.
No, he's got to represent the Democrats.
That's right.
I think he does a very good job.
He does, yes.
And you've analyzed correctly the others, the HUD and the AG government.
Well, Opie, you can improve your situation there in transportation.
You can do better there.
Yeah, we could do better, actually.
Opie wouldn't do any harm on the side of the front.
No, because he'd still be with us.
The only question is if we could make him something else.
I'll make him faster, actually.
Oh, he'll be jumping.
I mean, people say, I don't know if you can listen to the joke, but it doesn't make any sense.
I don't care who's the ambassador to Hillary, but here you've got all the transportation you see.
You've got a lot of Susan B. Clausen, you've got a lot of this kind of stuff.
And basically, John, much as we love John Paul Peter,
isn't really considered to be a heavyweight.
No, no, that's cool.
I'm very fond of him.
I was in all the governor's conferences.
He's a decent guy, but he doesn't give the impression of being a heavyweight.
That's always for a good reason.
No, that's right.
He's not.
Isn't there no way?
Thank you, sir.
Oh, John, let me say this so that you know, any time you and Kelly want to come to one of those, you know we play a very loose game on social occasions, but if you want to come to one of those religious things, you come and ring somebody up.
Because, you know, he missed the Texas event, but he was gone.
I said what a big hit they were, they were terrific.
But many people consider them the best thing to do at the Black House.
They love the Constitution.
It only takes a half hour, a good way to go to church.
And it's nice to hear a wonderful choir have a sermon for 15 minutes and shake a couple hands and take off.
And the other thing is that I brought you up on the can't pay the thing.
If you would like to go up and use that every time, you be sure to let
It's volatile because we would love for you to get out there any time you can.
Like we're hiring a telephone, you really ought to go out there.
Because you have a whole run of the place.
You need to get out because you're eating them all hard.
And don't hesitate to ask.
The trouble is, you see,
Frankly, they both will be.
He asks every day.
Every time I see him, he says, I don't know about this.
But you won't ask.
God damn it, you ask.
You understand?
I would ask.
No.
No, really, I won't be.
No, you shouldn't.
Oh, oh, at the end of the day.
Boy, you're old folk.
I just used to be a little folk.
Yeah.
Yeah, and have you ever been on it since it's been fixed up?
No, sir.
It's a beautiful thing.
Well, that's available.
If you want to dinner some night for a small group or anything like that, take it.
They have a great Navy mess.
They serve steaks.
I can wait until they like save it.
And you get out on that river.
And it is beautiful.
That's the thing.
They like saving it.
I don't understand.
Yeah.
So don't hesitate.
Go to Colorado State.
They don't understand.
all of your colleagues do it, for God's sake, do it.
Well, I can't ask, understand?
All right, sir.
All right.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
It's really helpful to...
Well, I think it's a Peterson idea that's intriguing as hell.
Peterson is going to get frustrated at the job he's in.
He's not a staff man.
No, he isn't.
No, sir.
That's something we've got to learn.
Presidents of corporations aren't staff men anymore than governors are.
It's just...
It's going to drive, he's going to go nuts eventually.
He'll be great.
He'll take care of the car, work everything out.
A staff guy has got to, you know, pull every, you know, everybody else is above you.
And you've got to approach it that way.
And that's hard to do when you've been used to having, you know, he didn't be a commerce secretary.
Dan Ryan is a salesman.
He can talk about the economy.
And he knows the international side of things, as well as the .
He said he can do his present job.
He could do 90% of it as public secretary.
He wouldn't really lose anything there.
He'll be .
.
.
I think he'd be at a tower of strength in that job.
But the question is, would he be a good spokesman on that side?
Excellent, excellent.
Hardline, National Defense, all the way to Sydenham, Rogers, and Largo.
I'm almost sure that his daughters are in the state adventure.
All right, but at this time, you know, that's better than the Rush thing.
The Rush thing is a little, they just want to pull them out of that thing.
Peterson, Anderson.
And then there's the agriculture thing.
He just knows, we've just got to move hard.
That's all there is to it.
He's the right man for the job.
He was there a while.
I have not raised that with Bill Rogers.
I'm glad to do it.
Who has talked to you about it?
Richard is the one who has a strong feeling that Hardin would respond favorably to a Dutchman.
Maybe you just have a look at what you're doing.
The whole point is that... No.
That comes from me.
But, I mean, it should come from you.
Yeah, maybe that's just as well.
But Bill's more subtle with it.
The way that I look at it, just the way that I look here, we think he's done a good job.
The Secretary of Agriculture days are always numbered.
He's got this situation that might be well distributed before he comes under the political fire, which will be murderous in the campaign.
He probably even got fired from the job.
And we're not going to ask him if he wants to stay.
Of course, he's going to say, oh, I have a chance.
But he really ought to go.
Why don't you just talk to Bill about it and see if Bill wants to?
Talk to Bill about this China business.
It's very interesting.
He was defensive at first, and then he jumped back.
And right away he said, I can't align my press conference tomorrow.
There's no problem.
He set that straight.
He said, but God damn it, when the president puts out a statement,
announcing his China initiatives and all, and makes no mention of the Secretary of State, he just cranked up the press to start asking, and then our people over here do this.
And he said, if I'm not neglected, then these things won't arise.
And, you know, he goes through all that.
Well, but here's the point.
He said, why in the world, in the press release, did you put in at all who recommended to the president what he should do?
And so I said, we did.
He said, yes, you did.
He said it came from the Undersecretary's Committee.
Well, I checked it out, and your press release says, I asked the Undersecretary's Committee of the National Security Council to make appropriate recommendations to bring this about.
After reviewing the resulting study and recommendations, I decided on the following actions.
Yeah, I made that point to Bob.
I said, well, you're undersecretary, John.
And he says, yeah, but this, what you're doing on that stage, this is the National Security Council.
So, and he said, I sent the recommendation over to them, and they studied, and all that.
So now the press says Rogers is cut out again.
Well, he went through that, and then he called me back.
Now, see, that's one place where I probably should have watched Henry.
Constantly puts NSC and that sort of thing.
It's a useful sentence in here.
Well, why was I in at all?
All you should have said is after reviewing all of the studies and recommendations on this subject, I decided you don't have to stay in the U.S. in the main area because we're liable by the memory.
And I think that is where our problem is.
I see.
Well, I announced the announcement there was one man, and I didn't even know it was in the statement.
Then he called back and said, let me make it clear that there's no one in the Foreign Service today that doesn't support the President.
No one.
Number two, all the recommendations that have been submitted by Charlie Olsen, all the recommendations submitted by the State Department or unanimous, there's no one here who doesn't support the President on China.
The release covering the NSC,
Three problems, and the reason the undersecretaries of committee got into this is because I and Rogers sent recommendations on this line over to them.
And this doesn't look like I played any part at all.
He said, I think the decisions are right, but if you single out the procedure as to how you got to them, you should have covered state policy.
He said, now, Marshal Green and everybody here is out giving credit to the president and so on.
Now, I said, well, that may be, Bill, but somebody is telling these people that the State Department deserves all the credit for this.
And they don't make it up.
He said, no, I know that, and I'll correct that, and Prescott was blocking me out.
Well, basically, you know, now, in fairness, Henry ought to be not doing that.
That's a god damn, you know, it's just a word for it.
And every speech he prepared for me, you know, has got in a paragraph about the NSC system.
And I strike it out.
It doesn't mean anything.
The people don't give a damn.
Undersecretary's Committee, it shouldn't be an oppressive, people don't give a damn.
Robertson said, now he said all of what people think is that this was a recommendation of the Undersecretary's Committee, he said, Bill, that's ridiculous and you know it.
There's nobody in this country who even knows there is an Undersecretary's Committee.
And they don't think that.
The people think the President did it.
But you're letting somebody in your low-level Foreign Service bureaucracy try and hammer away at that.
And that's what's going on.
Now, in our demonstration, the Chief Justice ordered the arrest of the demonstrators on the Supreme Court steps this morning, which is his prerogative.
150 of them went up and set up a noisy demonstration on the steps of the court.
And he ordered their arrest on the grounds of obstructing the business of government.
And he called Chief Wilson and said arrest these people.
And Chief Wilson sent police up and they arrested them.
We went out and notified them that they were in violation of section so-and-so and that they must disperse.
And they didn't, because obviously they wanted to be arrested.
They were sitting on the steps.
So they sent the police out.
Fortunately, they all, there was no object, no resistance.
They all, they were playing those.
They put their hands behind their heads like a prisoner of war.
Yeah, and then they didn't have to be, they walked voluntarily.
The police wouldn't come up and say, they took all this when they watched it on television.
Two policemen would come up to the man, he'd say to you, and the guy would stand up, put his hands behind him, go down, and he'd ask his name, and I'd put it in the wagon, and I'd take him off to the plane.
The charge that they're in under is not disturbing the peace, which is a $10 bail, but obstructing the business of government, which is a $500 bail.
Which means you've got 110 arrested.
There'd be 110 guys in the clinic that ain't going to get out of the problem.
There's not much we could have done about it.
The exercise is prerogative of the court.
They were up there to appeal to the court to reconsider.
Now, we're still doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing.
Justice is negotiating.
We're in a tough situation in that we have a court order that we requested, sustained by the Supreme Court, but we are not enforcing it.
And we're maintaining the semblance of enforcing it.
But the problem we've got is the circuit court judge, Hart, who is a bad guy, who issued the order at our request, is threatening, apparently, to vacate the order, which will then collapse the whole thing.
And he will vacate it on the grounds that the executive branch is not enforcing it.
And that puts us in a non-law in order to try to get us in a position to arrest him.
Our problem takes place at 4.30 every afternoon because they're allowed in the mall until 4.30, but they're supposed to disband at 4.30.
And they, of course, will not disband at 4.30.
They don't want to be arrested until they're in those situations.
They're in those areas in California.
All of our little planning group suggests that we go right on doing what we're doing.
All right.
That if he vacates the order, no matter who the hell cares, we can overrule that.
The Supreme Court can overrule the order vacating the order.
Sure.
we can say we are working to enforce it by all peaceful, by peaceful process.
That we are not sending police in at this time to enforce it, and then we just leave it at that.
We've still gotten what we, in a way, didn't want, which is policemen arresting veterans.
But they are the raddiest looking people in the world.
And the news story says, you know, the demonstrators shouted at the Supreme Court, one, two, three, four, we don't want your ad-blank war.
Makes the point that for several, I suppose they did that, it might make the policemen sob, sob, sob, mad at the Supreme Court now because of it.
The veterans, most of them in rag-tag clothes consisting of parts of military, you know, and many wearing beards, had said that if arrest came, they would go off peacefully, but like POWs, hands behind their heads.
That was the scene intended by the protesters to be seen by Americans in the newspapers and on television as they were arrested at the court and escorted to waiting buses to be taken to police stations.
There was no immediate definitive words whether the government would continue to divert its eyes from the camp out of sorts on the mall at the foot of Capitol Hill.
The Justice Department said late this morning that its attorneys and lawyers, its attorneys and lawyers for the veterans were in consultation over the situation.
And that's what we put up.
On Saturday, anyway, that demonstration went golf, this one.
One double amputee in a wheelchair was refused arrest in spite of his insistence that he be taken in along with the others.
...landline explosion.
Has to be arrested, and Chief Wilson said Kirkby, who is subordinate, we're not arresting him.
The TV at noon today replayed that Texas lady saying, why don't you go out and get a job?
Get a job.
God knows.
In fact, all this has nothing to do with me.
They're getting a hell of a play, which is too damn bad, because it's so totally out of proportion.
They're getting a play on television.
That's what I mean, yeah.
Well, it's because the television is frustrated by not having awards.
They don't have any big battles to report, so they're playing this.
I just climbed on top of one of the statues and swanked the court steps and broke the toy machine guns that they were carrying over the head of the allegorical figure.
Is that a thousand?
No, it's...
I believe that there are these people seeing them on television.
Have you seen this or heard of seeing this?
The Chief Justice has ordered that they hear it.
The order should be executed.
You know, I mean, arrested.
If I may have, we have no support for it.
Just roll over and play dead.
Building a damn good grounds, the fact that we're still talking about them all, and that the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the others, leave us in pretty good shape.
We're trying to work it out.
If they don't work it out at some point, I mean, that's the very interesting thing, this thing about Rogers.
That's the issue, though, how everybody agrees every damn week that they
Did you know that was in the goddamn statement?
No, sir.
How about you say they're in there?
But what in the name of Christ did Henry put it in there for?
I mean, what in the name of God did he put it in there for?
It's a meaningless sentence.
Irritating, but too meaningless.
Well, don't lose to it.
It doesn't do you any good unless you tell it.
It just kind of hurts feelings.
Don't tell it.
No.
I don't know.
Or does it?
I mean, on the Lockheed thing, where they're all in, I don't know what I should do.
I don't know what I should do.
Can we wait and do it in California?
It's a damn good thing to do out there.
Well, I assume we could.
But I'd like to go to California.
It's one of the things we were hoping we could do a week from Monday.
I announced the decision there.
Go to a week from Monday.
Or I could do it that Friday.
I could go to Monday.
It's better to do, you know, another day.
Yeah.
I found this for the news, guys.
Monday.
But tell him to ask, tell him, tell him, tell him I'd like him to come on Monday.
I mean, he feels like, all right, it might be a good idea to get Burns involved now.
Let him report to me if Burns is asking.
Burns and John Connolly for a half hour.
Before you go.
this week or you know just something that if we have time this is a pretty good week to get up and watch and that's done on a day i don't want to come on another day we've got doctors coming in at three prison today he's coming in again i don't think he'll get into this we've covered the hour but he'll cover his trip which i'm very anxious to talk about and he's doing his press conference tomorrow so you know he's still
He'll be gone in two weeks.
It's a... Tamera to Henry, and of course, if he says anything like I said to Henry, let's be sure that we say that it was neither State nor Kissinger nor NSC who did the China thing.
The President did it, you know what I mean?
That's what they all kind of started thinking about a little.
What the hell?
Oh, Bill, why is that?
Bill says, you know, I don't know anything about who did it.
The point is the President did it, and that's what we've all got to say.
There's someone else that's going to start taking credit than I am, too.
That's one.
He says you've got to reconsider your decision on the Lodge commission.
You've got to see him.
That's one that Lodge says you told him you would see him.
that the real problem is that their report is a good report except one problem in it, which is Chinese representation.
They think the UN representation should be changed, although they also put great stress on membership maintaining Taipei.
And his argument is that the embarrassment that would stem from this element of the report would be greatly augmented if it were coupled with recriminations based on hurt feelings, and that you have too many press and congressional people who can get
It's a big commission, but I'm not going to spend more than just receive the report and thank them.
That's what they ask for, actually.
A lot of them are good people with feedback on this.
I know, I know.
I'll see them.
I'll see them.
Okay?
It isn't just totally one-sided, is it?
You know?
Henry Green, he brought that on himself by that goddamn phrase in there.
Undersecretary's Committee of the NSC.
Now, by the name of Christ, did he have to put that in there?
That's what irritated the city.
He thinks that gets any credit, Chip.
Just send it to the president, Chip.
It doesn't get any credit.
The undersecretary of the state just sent that to the State Department.
He said, here, that a bunch of men and underlings recommended this.
Nope.
Rather than what's his, though.
I would rather than say that Bill raises a few ideas and say, Henry, I've been taking a little on this over the second level of the state, and I find that this is the thing that set it off.
You see what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
And that I realize I'm just catching the moment.
You know, no use to irritate it unnecessarily.
Just say, the president did it.
It doesn't add anything to the release.
They asked you about bringing plumbing in for a minute, but I said it's always fine.
Aging should only be better any time you want.
You've got a lot of work done this week.
Yeah.
What would you think about, in California, Monday or Tuesday, starting that week, that you deliver on radio, live, your farm speech?
That's our week that ends with the Salute to Agriculture at the end of the week.
They'll have a farm speech ready.
Or they will know, like today, whether they want to go Sunday.
All right.
For Monday.
I'll go Sunday.
All right.
But I think we ought to do those speeches Sunday for Monday.
Right.
And get started.
Is that it?
Good.
I'll do it.
The Lockheed thing, we can work it out.
It might be a great way to do it.
But they're out there on a different kind of basis.
Would you want to consider bringing some California, no, China experts in?
Like the China and the Ecuador?
Okay.
Oh, there it is.
I know it's good reason for yourself to go there.
But say that there are other foreign policy considerations here, I just don't want to...
I don't want to overplay it.
Overplaying it will hurt Scott.
He wouldn't realize this.
It would hurt the Chinese if I appeared to be slaughtering them.
You know, if I play the gesture, I'm going to play it right where we are.
And we'll do our best to get our story out to a second level.
We'll start to try to calculate more options.
Okay?
I'm afraid all of a sudden we're all going to come up.
That's the problem with Chinese columns.
That's the thing they're all after.
Sure.
They don't see it.
They would never see this as a case.
I think he would probably.
That's what he was trying to say to us.
And I just thought that we've got to send him away.
That Rogers, I speak to Rogers about it.
He said, hello, John, hello.
We can do it now.
And then I can go, I can put still in on that.
He wouldn't want to come back now because he's broken his ties.
We've got another Italian, we've appointed another Italian Southern Gallagher, a better Italian chick now than anywhere.
But in that vehicle, I'll understand, although we lost our Italian doctor in this.
But I'm going to say, in that field, the one thing that we don't want to do, and this is when we get too much out of the shells that have already been shot,
He's a man who would just do a good job.
Yeah.
I just don't want a good, solid, plodding, if he's General Lincoln.
No, if he changes to General Lincoln, that's a good, solid, plodding job.
Although, John Mitchell thinks he's not so damn good.
I'm surprised.
That's not the oil.
Yeah.
But be that as it may.
I don't want a plotter.
I don't want somebody to run the department.
I want a salesman.
I mean, a man that is considered to be a little half-stroke with the airlines and everything else.
I hope they go there to leave it and ramble around.
I think that there doesn't make any difference.
It doesn't make any difference.
He's all right.
It doesn't really make any difference, really.
It doesn't make any difference.
I hope he doesn't do any harm there.
Right, yeah.
I don't know how much it means to the Italians to have Italian in the cabin anyway.
I don't think it means that much.
I don't think it means that much.
There are Italian things we can do, and you have an Italian in the cabin.
Or if we had a boat, we could use it for transportation.
We could do that job.
He wants to sell me.
He's a salesman.
He understands the need to sell.
He's a chief executive.
They started shitting him right after we brought him in here, but that could be down.
It's not really in there interrelated.
It's not that much on the ship.
He moves.
Top staff man in position.
It's these demonstrations or something.
Oh, it's, uh, I think the TV.
The Federal Air Force incident.
I'm sure that's why they're down there.
As they could find him lying up there about yesterday afternoon waiting for the arrests.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Idiot.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
You sure had to do this?
Wisconsin Legacy, now they built the war up that caused them and then you did.
So that was that.
No, you didn't do it.
That was a huge backlog.
Well, it was, you know, looking back on him, though, it must have been hell for him, because his own party was coming up.
And the other reason it was hell for him was because of his personality.
He was such a pain in the back.
He was a vain, terrible, vain, arrogant man.
And if you imagine him sitting in this office with three toleration crimes, and they bring him in, and they have a kicker in that other room now, and he runs over and rips it off.
How did he even recall him after the brief?
I guess he understood it.
I guess he understood it.
Well, I think that's why Johnson, when you saw the last 30 seconds of his pleasure, that's why he must have looked so terrible.
He just must have been ready to float.
He had the press secretary's office vote so that he could listen to his briefings and make sure he was saying the right thing the right way.
Let's just talk a moment here.
If you'd like to push the button and listen to what was going on in the office.
Boy, can you imagine the press secretary's job of never knowing when the president's sitting there listening to him?
Yeah, but listen.
See how much he wastes his time.
That's how I'd like it.
Yeah.
Time, time, time.
Of course, I missed one there, though, in that damn little release.
There, now.
I really feel on that one.
That's been set for it.
That is your problem.
I know.
Your problem release.
Who should have went with that?
Shouldn't, shouldn't, well, Scali should have.
That's what should have happened there.
There.
He wouldn't have caught it.
He wouldn't have caught it.
Heads up now.
He wouldn't have been sensitive to the problem.
Well.
I doubt it.
I think probably all of us would have just said, well, it didn't seem like it.
It didn't mean a thing to us.
Except that I would have seen it.
I would have seen it as the moment I saw that is that I know that Henry puts in every speech the NSC system or the NSC process or working through the NSC process.
We did this or that, which is basically saying working through this.
That's the real time.
And I don't appreciate that one gun in bed.
I have to do it.