On April 26, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Ronald L. Ziegler, Stephen B. Bull, John D. Ehrlichman, George P. Shultz, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:57 pm to 4:12 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 489-017 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Paul Sturgeon.
I was going to say, this problem with him, of course, he doesn't know what Colts are used for, how close they'll be, whatever you want to say.
This memorandum of dues doesn't give a considerable understanding of the issue, and they're working hard all over the country.
But what I want you to do, you're going to have this meeting with him.
That's right, ma'am.
Put that kiss into your hand.
or I'll get Scali on this one.
Don't you think so?
He should certainly have ideas as to what ought to be done.
Perhaps he should be brought in after you, after Kissinger, because Kissinger's going to have something important on the subject that is as to what, what Mr. Shannon Parrish is doing.
So he can hold the line, if he can.
You know, and again, I think that they will come up to this point, and I think that they can realize that there is hope.
And the damn thing, they sort of wonder, maybe they'll get the boys out, but there's no guarantee we will.
Yeah, not a goddamn bet.
We have no indication.
We're Vietnamese, so we'll get ahead of it.
We always know that's the situation.
At this point, that was a time.
That was true a couple years ago.
At this point, it's just a question of seeing through the end.
That's all.
We'll get our, we just want to start playing properly in the role of a hell of a lot more skilled than we have.
And building things different, not doing anything different.
I'm not going to let him go to Paris once, amen.
Maybe twice, but to steal on that, you're going to have to, you know, call or call, and he'll be okay to answer, and I'll be okay to answer.
Except for the fact that we want to keep the, we gotta, we gotta parlay whatever we do with two.
The council appointment, frankly, it comes, in my opinion, by about the 1st of July.
And there ain't no nothing more to negotiate about except prisoners.
They're not going to sit down and negotiate and do this thing because that negotiation, basically, in my view, they're
We talk, and you say, I've got to talk that way, but the reason I'm talking that way is only for the purpose of allowing us to kick the shit out of them militarily until it's all given to them and they're ready to handle it themselves.
They go to the nation, I don't throw it, and there goes my brother, I throw it, and suppose it doesn't get caught in then.
Now, there comes a time, now, the idea that, well, if you will, you see, here's the point, if you get your stance to reason, suppose you're down on your knees,
What the hell are they going to negotiate about?
Except prisoners.
Now they're going to negotiate about how many you're going to have left.
Are you going to have residual force?
Are you going to have bombing?
I'm not sure.
We'll negotiate about that.
But when you're down to that, there comes a point when we've got to announce and we'll announce that we are going to get out of control.
That's my point.
And when we completed with a straight-out exchange for prisoners, no ceasefire, nothing.
That's why these congressional resolutions, while they're premature, say that we will withdraw nine months after we get our prisoners, it's just too bad they have to throw them in because they're just about, they're just a little early, but we have another
But we can't fight it off that soon.
We have to have one more popular negotiation.
See, what we want to do, our deal is something slightly different.
It is something quite different.
At this point, it will be true for a couple of months.
The communists was marked up, you know, too.
We didn't have much time left.
I mean, they're not done.
And, oh, well, it's temporary.
But what it is that we're saying,
We'll be out by a time certain if you'll give us a ceasefire and prisoners.
That's all.
We'll be at the time certain.
Now, what they have the opportunity to do is to go crazy.
What's in it for them is a time certain rather than a time uncertain.
A time uncertain ain't very uncertain.
But what is in it for them also is the Brazilian voice.
That is the only thing we can do.
That's true.
That's true.
We have a 315 meeting.
It was delayed.
It was at 3, so... She's meeting, Trisha and Mrs. Mixner are meeting with some people on the cake and so forth, so we're... Oh, yeah.
Fine, fine, fine.
How'd you get along with your line?
Fine.
I just located.
And, uh...
A little bit, Helen Thomas asked the question of, what's the White House reaction?
It's a normal thing, and I repeated the line as we discussed it.
I didn't give him any quotes as to the president was pleased it was peaceful or anything.
I kept going back to the president's general guidelines.
In other words, to approach it in a way that would not bring about violence and understanding that people have a right to express themselves, a line we've been using all along.
I didn't deviate from that.
They tried to get me into a little bit about the Justice Department action, and I said we bridged off that line again and said it was left to the various departments, and it ended up in a way that there was no confrontation on the mall.
They were leading me back to the mall.
So I don't think I gave him any new news as such, and he quoted what would be old quotes.
It's absolutely the best way to do it.
You're right.
The key word is betray.
I don't think people around here ever understand.
So as I see it, there's so many things.
I use the word please, gratify, or any attitude, or like that.
I made your point about the Woodrow Wilson speech.
Your objective is to reduce U.S. involvement in South Vietnam.
toward and the proceeding of that policy.
I pointed out, I referred to your last speech or referred to what you had said then.
And getting it in a way that will not be done or a little bit of the China thing on Mao and discussed it as
We talked about it here, got a little bit of the open world in, the president's opening the communication.
Yes, the president did say, as a matter of fact, before AS&E that someday in his life he would like to.
He's long had an interest in Chinese people and Asian people.
Good.
Very good.
Oh, Ron.
Yes, sir.
We decided at 4 and 9 o'clock that a car would be in the house.
Oh.
Mark.
Mark's in the room.
What's going on?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I understand that you've been talking to the Attorney General about these antitrust cases, and I wonder if you've had a chance of seeing a lot of those on the ITN team.
Do you understand?
The Solicitor General had already got the opinion, or whatever the hell it was, the file or something.
He had already filed it.
I hadn't filed it, but I'd heard it, or I'd known it, or I'd put it out, or something like that, so something had been done.
I said, what do you think?
On the other, on the other, no change of signals.
The main, except I said, don't do anything now.
But,
Maybe I'd want to be sure.
He had apparently, I think, misunderstood what you said, Troy, because I thought I was very clear.
I want those goddamn networks to .
I absolutely am, and pretty soon.
But not now, not now.
That's right.
But he said that he's got to say .
I said, hold on.
Not after a damn life.
I said, our only purpose is that we cannot do it right now.
We'll be right after the five-minute sign of the Pentagon.
You see, John, the network, and that's something that indicated the movie industry.
That's something they're very interested in.
If you're a guy that likes it, I want to go out to the network.
But the ID city, Grinnell, he's gone ahead then and filed his jurisdictional shell, whatever he's done.
Do you want that to be prosecuted then?
Of course, sir.
Not particularly, no.
I have no, no, no, I prefer the nominee, actually.
But he's got it now.
He's, since he's satisfied with the bureaucrats, I just let him do it.
He says he has no, and oh, he also said that he, I said we have to have this meeting on these cases so we can have a moratorium on these, apparently he said, he said yes, he understood that, but he said no, I don't know, apparently he didn't have a meeting as soon as possible, and throw that in the hopper, not along with the rest.
Is that about ready?
Yes, it is.
Let's not have that too large.
You know, the only people I want present there is, I don't want to, I prefer not to have my friend, I don't want anybody to talk much, but I want to talk to some co-apolitics.
I'll have the Attorney General.
I don't want McLaren.
I'll have the Attorney General.
I'll have Connolly.
It's you two, that's all.
It's policy and politics.
I don't want to stand in the presence.
He hears all these cases, too, you know.
He knows about it, you know what I mean?
or any of those people there, but Connolly is deeply involved.
You see, he's in airlines and all the rest, and he'll keep his mouth shut.
See, nobody's to be debriefed.
make it very small.
Now, you can have a larger meeting first where, I don't know, I don't even like that.
I'm very much afraid of a larger meeting prepared to declare and go back and debrief all those goddamn left-wing lawyers.
I don't want anybody debriefing.
Instead of me, where can I get into this thing?
Which I certainly, thoroughly intend to do.
I want it done on a political basis at the highest level.
Absolute secrecy.
That's why I wanted McCracken, because he had to go back and tell Stein and Al Tucker.
And they tell each other, you understand, guys, and then it's out there.
You agree with me that that would be the group.
I would like something.
Connelly understands it.
I don't understand it.
And Attorney General.
Finally, yes, you can come.
You and George will, George can advance.
Let's have a real standing inside people.
See, you know, it's a curious situation, because the... You talk about the...
I'm very skeptical about what the anti-crime... You've got it in your speech.
I read it, so that's why I said you should read it.
Here's the thing that I think John has hung up on.
He has started down this road.
He's got his people all working on these cases.
They file three.
I mean, he's approved the damn thing.
And then if he gets it, if we stop going down, I stop it.
The shock waves go all out through there, see?
Now, on the networks, though, I just want to be sure he didn't get it wrong.
You mean that he doesn't have any idea we don't want it?
I said there's no question at all about that.
As I told Flanagan, I said there's no doubt about the question.
On the networks, you're going to be prosecuted.
I'll call in and make sure that that's clear.
I think that's, he said that he had the impression.
And I think the thing, I thought we had talked before, was, he said that he had a black mask.
I said, John, it's a question.
I said, I don't think you ought to do it.
He said, well, I said, well, the solicitor came up with signs and glasses.
Maybe we should have never appointed him.
He's a whore.
Uh, I know a great lawyer and all that.
He's in the law school.
Was I the host over?
I'm not sure.
Who?
Dean?
Dean Griswold?
Oh yeah, sure.
He's been solicitor general for 15 years.
He's a very able man, I know.
He succeeded Archie Cox.
Right, Archibald Cox.
And Cox lived about more years, something like that, in the Kennedy.
No, the problem is, you see, when you get it in that little window, the Attorney General has approved it, apparently.
He says, he approved it.
That's his problem.
He says, here's the problem.
That's where we have to go and do our best.
I think the idea is to be in that tunnel.
I don't think about the merits.
I don't want to get in the merits of it because I can't get in the merits.
Somebody will say I'm going under Harold Janine.
I don't know whether Harold Janine, we hope you're not.
We're doing it for other reasons, isn't that correct?
Well, I don't blame Griswold on this.
That's a good Solicitor General.
You see how far they've gone.
This is not McLaren.
McLaren is used to prepare the kids.
It's gone with the Solicitor General at that time, and they just make the arguments in that way.
I'm not sure that that's the case because this was only the intersectional body.
This was not the briefs on appeal.
Well, let me put it this way then.
Why was the listing generally handled?
I don't think it's at all candid.
I think he's being used as an excuse here.
That's what was told me to do.
Right.
Well, I think it looks like a McLaren lie.
A McLaren lie.
If he quits, it doesn't bother me.
Understand?
But if Griswold quit on this issue, it would bother me.
It wouldn't bother you.
See, that's what I mean with all the lawyers and everybody else.
Because Griswold and I are respected men.
I swear.
Well, it's a, I don't want to be in a job, you know, but I thought I understood the posture of the case.
And maybe I didn't.
Don't get into it too deep.
Let me put it this way.
If he's got it in the box, the court will solicitor general everything about it.
If it's going to be a solicitor general, Peter's not going to be attorney general, but in the White House, he's going to be.
He certainly did that during lots of those Catholic cases.
That's a different thing.
That's a different thing.
That's a very different thing.
This involves money.
This involves money.
This involves who has stock in 1903. Who knows Harold Jeanine?
All that kind of stuff.
See, this is a more sensitive thing, John.
A hell of a lot more sensitive.
There's an associated matter, and that is that Fred Gordon called me this morning to say that it's not him at all, but he objects frivolously to the Lockheed arrangement and feels that we are being pitches to the British, that the British are forcing us, that there's no merit in picking up these guarantees, and he's going to blast us.
And he's been invited to testify, and he's going to come down and testify.
So he wanted us to know ahead of time and understand what his process of reasoning was.
Well, his real reason is he's got the best of interest in the client, and I'm going to tell him because he's a competitor.
Well, sure, G.E.
and, uh, G.E.
and, uh, McDonald-Nicholas.
Well, he says so.
McDonald-Nicholas is a cranky fellow.
G.E.
is a cranky fellow.
Well, he got newer and hungrier for it, at least for all people.
At least partially, right?
Well, he's very cranky.
There's no question of what he's a competitor, and the answer to that is interesting.
But he says that the root of this is the use of their exit ban.
in Britain to finance this thing in the first place.
Does he want to, he just wants us to let Lockheed go under it?
No, he thinks that this thing could be saved by making this a completely U.S. deal.
Let the government get in, but let the government guarantee, let the government stand behind our airlines.
Well, let me suggest this, why don't you tell him to comment about it.
I say he's the devious one.
Somebody's got to be in charge of the job.
This will have a
It ripples all around.
I caught this out in Chicago from Bob Ingersoll, who was a very strong...
Yes, he sure is.
Well, he immediately inquired into it, and he just couldn't see any merit at all in bailing out Lockheed.
Lockheed or...
He looked at it more in terms of Lockheed, not so much British.
On that, we have to be, we'll have to disagree with him, just...
That, we must bail out Lockheed, I'm not, what is the British name?
Maybe they tried to be Pat and John.
Well, I don't know.
His idea is very simple, and that is that instead of our guarantee, the Lockheed commitments to the British
We can simply guarantee the airline's position in this thing to Lockheed.
And that would be Lockheed to go forward.
The company will know whether that's feasible or not on this thing.
Right.
You heard your doctor right away.
He's been in the hand of Uber.
He's like this.
He knows Scorch.
He had him.
Well, he probably doesn't convince Scorch.
You know, let's face it, a lot of people have other reasons.
Well, Porch is not.
Porch is not.
I don't know anything at all.
You know, it's a... Well, we need to get into it shortly.
That would thank God we stayed out of this one.
We have to get into it because it wouldn't work out the way that it could have worked out at one time.
We've got to find a way to deal with it.
We've got to deal with it on the first try.
We couldn't quite.
It's a delicate day.
That didn't work.
I have a couple of items to report on the business of general revenue sharing in mills.
I had another go around with mills and also with John Byrne on the basis of now a talking paper that
spelled out some things and takes a formula and shows how it affects this state and that state and so on.
John is able to, yeah.
And this morning's discussion with Mills, I would say he's on a hook.
He, I believe, will go for this approach.
I've put it up in terms of a possible new title in H.R.
1.
That is a title on fiscal relief.
where there would be very broad objective set, that is our special revenue sharing objectives.
There would be a fund distribution with a pass-through and so on, just like the general revenue sharing.
And that is one in which states that have an income per capita below the average
get an extra increment in the formula.
This is responsive to the needs, putting the money toward the needs.
Well, it helps Arkansas a little.
Anyway, after we got through this morning, he asked to keep that piece of paper.
I said, sure.
And he regards it as, at least he says, something off the record that he's
interested in.
John Burns is enthusiastic, and Mills, although he's on the hook.
Mills is on the hook.
Mills has bought it.
He said, this looks like the kind of compromise I can support.
John Burns, I talked to before Mills last night.
We're very polite.
He's tough.
It's hard to discuss anything briefly with him.
But anyway, he is more interested than he was, but still a little lukewarm.
He counseled that it would be a mistake to try to put this kind of thing into HR-1 without hearing, because if it's a good idea, it might wind up getting shot down just because it hadn't been adequately heard.
And Mills was sort of responsive to that and gave me a little impression
that he might back off the reporting of H.R.
1 right away and hold a short span of hearings on revenue sharing with the idea that this would be the end point and then go ahead.
But anyway, he is now going to come back to us with what he thinks at this point.
So that's where that stands.
I would say this morning that
Mills was very tense this morning.
We spent about three-quarters of an hour together.
I thought he was much more tense than just you and Bill Gifford, who I took with me.
Very direct.
He has real problems with HR1.
There's this business of the whole harmless or federal participation in state supplements.
and the business of requiring state maintenance of effort, all of which he is against and which we're against very strongly.
You've spoken against.
And he's holding firm on that, but he doesn't think he has the votes at this point.
So this revenue sharing, I put up to him in that context and say, here is a way to do it because this does help the states and the cities.
And you don't have to do it by the welfare bill, which he now agrees is not the way to do it.
He seems a little preoccupied to me with his presidential business, although maybe I'm over-interpreting from your reading, but I noticed sitting out waiting for him are a couple of guys with mills for presidents, ribbons on, and he got a call while I was there.
He seems to take his calls when I'm there.
And I learned from that that he's addressing the Texas, a joint session of the Texas legislature on Thursday.
So he's moving around.
And nevertheless, I think he's playing this thing fairly straight with us.
And I think he's feeling the pressure of cities for, and he's looking for a way out of this appeal to him.
turns out to be reasonably favorable, gets really interested in this, and burns to come around, then it seems to me a good move might be to have them down here and have, so to speak, an agreement that, all right, this is the program.
And if it comes out that way, because it needs to be clearly something they participated in, but your program
It would take that.
It would have a good effect, it seems to me, in getting something accomplished.
People are pretty well persuaded there's a need.
So there's that.
On the budget, as we're moving into the fiscal 73 budget, even though we're nowhere on fiscal 72 yet, and losing, to some extent, the battle on keeping the full employment balance,
but I think we're still firmly postured as holding to that.
We're starting our fiscal 73 hearings and there's a DPRC meeting going on where the defense budget is coming up.
As I'm asked to make statements about what the overview looks like, the posture that I'm taking and representing you as believing is
that I think it would be very unlikely that you would want to send up a budget that was out of balance at full employment, let alone out of balance in an actual thing.
So the people must...
feel that their options are constrained by that fact.
Right.
And after our reviews and so forth, we would expect, I've said, to be coming to you sometime in late June or so to have a fairly lengthy review of the budget outlook we did last year.
One of the options that we should be able to put before you is a budget at full employment balance
with the current tax system.
Now, the pressures are all above that.
And the defense budget is now, they're talking about a defense budget of 79.6 billion outlays in fiscal 73.
And the JCS pressure is that that's too low.
Of course, that's based on the assumption that they will wind up with 76 this year.
In fact, we don't know.
So they're sort of on notice that to the extent that we have options that carry us above full employment revenues, those have to be options that carry a tax change.
That's sort of, I think, clueless.
I think that probably that's right, as we see.
Now, I believe, too, we will know whether we're going to get a solid agreement.
I don't know.
The best indication I could get from Henry is that the solid agreements, in any of their conceivable forms, will bring us very, very little cash realizations to our money.
Sure, that's true.
In terms of pistol 73, I know because you have to finish the safe cards.
So the first real bite that you get would be late 74, 75, 76.
Throughout, George, I wish you well.
I think that, uh, Mills, uh, Mills has, uh, has got to come off with something here because he's, uh,
He has every right to be like Dick Russell was in 1952, and he wants to be the southern debate for the Democratic nomination.
He can never be nominated.
He thinks he has reasonable chances of success.
That's his game.
Now, in order to do that, it cannot be done in a way in which it's torpedoing or it's not cooperating in some kind of action on the programs that are forming up each department.
But if you're sure it's held revenue, the other way is.
They have a lot of, a lot of care kin makers.
So, his printers, his senators, his, there's all the rest are hitting him hard to come up with a favor to him.
He's doing one to us.
It's both ways.
It's both ways.
But we're in the driver's seat on this one, in my opinion.
In the sense that, that he, until he gets another plan in charge,
He's just opposed to doing anything except more money for welfare, right?
More money for, I think he's right.
If he doesn't have, if he doesn't couple welfare reform with revenue sharing, he's sure as hell going to get a welfare reform bill with some accurate provision, you know.
That's what we have.
We have been,
We're trying to get people to be strong against this morning's meeting when the congressional liaison people brought this up.
I guess you're going to have a meeting this afternoon, John, to emphasize that point.
I see this happening the first thing in the morning.
How is this happening?
What do I mean?
It's all about health.
It's all about health and health care both just sort of catching me for the first time.
The grapevine from the Hill staff to Bill Gifford taps into them every so often.
They see Long's staff quite a lot.
They say that the recession to welfare reform will be a lot more cordial, despite what Long in the Senate, despite what Long may say.
Right.
Well, I think Bill Ely could blog quite a lot on that.
We've rewritten the damn thing.
We're in line with the method.
Me and this person haven't blogged about these things.
But the thing is, the thing is, the thing is, of course, family systems.
So now we're low-key, but we have to do now.
We're getting the votes.
We're getting the votes of people that are for reform and not just for more.
The tip-off is that the liberals are not promising and want to plan that strategy to oppose it.
I know, I know, but they're going to have a hell of a time proposing it because there's a lot of them for them, too.
I mean, in other words, how can you be against manly solutions?
Well, they're for more.
All we have is, you know, so if they can't get more, I'm going to oppose that.
I'm going to oppose it.
I'll give you that.
Nelson, very funny, this morning on the minimum wage, he's proposed a $2 minimum wage.
but she is trying to justify saving money on the welfare bill because people will get more money from their jobs.
I said, well, that's all right, Mr. Chairman, if they've got jobs, but a lot of these people are worth higher than $2 an hour.
They'll be unemployed.
And so he said, well, I've been in Congress for I don't know how many years, 30-something years,
I've always wound up voting for increases in the minimum wage, but I've never really been for it, and I've never introduced one before.
I don't know what brought it to make that confession.
It feels very badly about it, I think.
There's a lot of pressure for it.
Oh, sure.
Secretary of Labor is going to testify very soon.
We'll be pushing on it.
What is it, not 160?
160, yeah.
Before that, will you make some exceptions?
I think you might be willing to talk about a youth differential, but it's...
I think that's the sort of thing that tends to...
be talked about for a while and then drop out at the last minute, particularly with the 18-year-old vote.
I imagine people will be saying, well, gosh, you're going to have a lower wage for the 18-year-olds in the first year that they can vote.
They're going to, I don't know, maybe it can go for 16- and 17-year-olds, but that would be about the extent of it.
Basically, I want to tell you, John, I've got a pretty tough schedule tomorrow, and it's obviously a sloppy thing.
I haven't seen anybody.
If you find out, Senator, you're going to do a very good job.
I'm going to retire.
Martin, they just had this about a year ago.
I know he's got a lot of work to do.
And that is a strong input that Elmer wants to make on this health thing.
We'll have him upstairs and take all the jobs and then bring him down for just a few minutes with you.
And the only reason we put it on is because we thought you were in a position to turn the ball over to Carson.
Sure, sure, sure.
Well, he's a very intelligent talker, but he'll take a long part in a few minutes, but do your best.
Well, we thought we'd hear it out.
Well, I'm sorry you have to hear it, too, but he'll have some good ideas, but a lot of them won't have considered everything.
He'll repeat everything when he comes here.
Getting back to the colony thing, though, if I could strongly urge...
If there's anything I need to do on it, if I can see it, or have it be modeled on it.
Well, I don't know if it's necessary.
See, we have to have somebody take this thing around.
And he has done it.
He has worked on it.
Worked with the Brady, worked with Lockheed, worked with the airlines, and worked with the banks.
That's my understanding.
I felt that I didn't know there was any counter view until this morning, of course.
I felt that in view of the problems that arose in the Penn Central effect that probably it was best that you not be
involved in making, and I saw that earlier and I agree.
And then he'd just go out and make it Los Angeles and then come down to see me, right?
That's right.
I agree.
I'll get him in tomorrow if it's necessary, but it may not be necessary.
He probably has taken all this into account.
And then of course,
I mean, as I know, it's a divine thing, as I understand it, but you'd expect a competitor to do it.
Well, I'm glad you can fight in my kelp.
Well, you know, George, that's a really good deal.
We must have a pretty good deal.
Well, I think there's been a pretty good amount of pressure.
The mayors and some of the other Democrats, really, apparently cut into Albert and Mills and others.
That's right.
That's right, and it's combined with the fact that the Democratic leadership is very weak in the House.
That's right.
I had a, as I say, I, of course, doing exactly what I did with the governors, I took it on with the, probably wouldn't put the Chamber of Commerce to the end, you said we're for welfare reform, but it is the annual
income, it's actually, it's something else, you know, it's the, that's, that's, it's code words, you know, you just get away with it.
But it does provide a, you know, a minimum for every family, dependent family with children, which of course you've got to put it, and then people that want to overstate it say that it's going to put a lot of new people on welfare just sitting out there eating off the taxpayers.
Well, maybe it will.
That's, that's again, but we don't know.
We can't tell what human behavior will be
but at least we try uh you know speaking of romney i don't know whether he he was in manchester state before and so i asked the thought the head of the twin way what do you cover his way he said he was very strong he spoke about welfare for a reason but most of the time talking about monopolistic labor power
And I thought, Jesus Christ, you know, I thought, George, he gets obsessed with that view.
But here's the thing, they're very close, they're very close to what I used to think they were against, rather than sharing the chambers.
But very, very close.
George didn't get in there and pump it hard alone.
He could have maybe turned it around, but well, I'm glad.
He talks well.
He believes it.
He says it with great enthusiasm.
But they probably weren't listening when he spoke about that.
In this trip to Chicago, the business people that I saw there, the general tone and attitude toward the review and the administration, I thought it was very positive.
Which day were you there?
Thursday.
I saw the report in the news.
The only questioning comment was, more or less, along the lines of, the president's doing a terrific job.
Why isn't he getting more credit for it?
Why aren't you selling it for it?
And so it was like that.
On the content, they were...
We're very complementary in terms of all the things that they do.
They do it a little better because things are a little better.
Well, the profits are coming in, relaxing.
Oh, the profits are good, aren't they?
They're up.
Productivity's up.
Productivity's up.
They're beginning to think that there really is an upturn coming.
That helps.
All right.
Let's not talk about they're beginning to think.
What do we think?
We think there is, don't we?
I do.
Ezra Solomon has been talked to by McCracken.
He talked to you about it.
He's an economist at Sanford.
And I think he's going to come.
Good.
And he's coming next week with his wife, and we're going to try to help him find a house and stuff like that.
Good.
With regard to that, the retail sales figures for April will be very important.
Thank you.
Because you see, the spring is still late, isn't it?
You notice how cool it's been even now?
The last, uh, auto 10 days, I gather, is not quite as good.
It's mainly a General Motors swing.
The General Motors said they didn't have a shovel.
They had a shovel that you pushed to leave before.
But you don't look at that temperature every 10 days, do you?
You keep looking, but you don't change your mind.
You want them to go high every 10 days.
There are some other things that have been moving up, I understand.
You're almost talking about airlines now.
Airline stocks are doing great, guns are not out of the market.
The point that was made to us was that airline sales of tickets are going up, right?
That's people are riding passenger to passenger, right?
That's correct.
People are probably getting to ride airplanes again.
And, you know, the customer man, the company man, the businessman, the lawyer, and the rest who are saving money before beginning to do it, they need something.
American Express, that's how they're doing.
That's always the fair deal with it.
I inquired into the, my host out there was the head of Montgomery Ward for a long time.
So I was asking about his sales, particularly his mail order sales, which are really, there's no salesmanship in that.
It's just somebody looks at the catalog and writes in and says, they do a tremendous value.
And that is apparently picking up.
Apparently that's the case with Sears, too.
Peterson, I discovered the other day, and Bell and Howell.
Bell and Howell did a big mail-order business.
I didn't realize that.
And he says that that is always their best leading indicator.
But just because it's not stimulated by anything except the person, what does that mean?
It shows an uptick.
Over the last month or so.
I think this view that we have had that March was really rather different from January and February seems to
That's in accord with the sort of... You mean March began, even though it was a cold month, began to be better?
Is that what you mean?
It's as though we're talking about the first quarter, as though it's a homogeneous economic time.
But if you spread March over the first all three months, it would be a lot better, is that right?
You had a rather...
sluggish January and February, and you had a pretty good zippy March.
And, well, we don't know the figures on April.
The feel of April is pretty good.
Figures will start coming in.
Got a little, one rather biting comment from Dan Searle, who's the head of the drug company that bears his name, that
He and his company had been out on the West Coast trying to recruit scientists to come and work in Chicago for them.
They just couldn't get anybody interested.
Well, that's a hell of a damn thing.
He says the reason seems to be that, this is his perception of it, it may not be accurate, but no doubt it's partly because they don't want to come to Chicago.
but also that they've been accustomed to working in fairly large groups in a rather more plush kind of setting than the private industry is willing to provide.
And they're going to have to come in and roll up their sleeves.
and work a different way when they do get to California.
You've seen some of those complexes.
You've seen that Ford thing, that Ford-o-matic, whatever it's called down there.
You've got the most magnificent complexes for scientists and engineers.
I mean, they live on campus.
And they have beautiful things and beautiful homes and schools and all the rest.
It's a real life.
No, I think, but they're like anybody else.
If we tell the person on welfare that he needs to do union work, by God, the scientist could go to Chicago.
So I think there's probably a place to live anyway.
There's vitality there.
There's strength.
I mean, what's the matter with these people?
They don't survive unless you live in the Northwest.
Yeah, I know.
They ought to live their own way.
Oh, two things.
The point is that there's a transition.
process that people are going through.
There is a certain, isn't there, a refreshing vitality about Chicago still?
Well, I've always liked it in Chicago, just because it is so.
The country is a lot more primordialized, too, isn't it?
I think we're going to see some of that break loose.
They're getting to the end of their employment compensation.
You know, the activists have got to make, they've been resisting the thought of picking up and moving.
And now we've given them the means to move.
We've given them these grants.
to take a trip to a different place in the market.
And we've made it easy to go that way, and harder for them to stay where they are.
And I think some of that's going to be in the ship.
Well, you know, on the economic side, I'm glad it's all beginning, it's coming.
Because we do need to, oh, to spark a little bit.
Paul Weissenstein does extremely well when he's on.
Stein writes a better speech.
Solomon gives a better speech.
I see.
They're very good.
Especially for a radio writer, you know, and his wife, too.
But anyway, I'm going to say that on the economic side, it's been amusing for me to notice, even as you were here, I guess, last year, that Paul Sanderson told a letter about some of the concentrated guys that don't count on running for the economy.
Interesting.
Oh, yes, I know Sessions very well.
He was on the MIT economics faculty for 12 years with him.
Well, I think he's decided maybe things are picking up.
He's looked at the tea leaves a little bit too.
But he's changing his mind.
He's really
put on a surprising performance for a guy as able as he is.
He really is able?
Oh, he's got, he and Milton Friedman have the same,
intellectual quality to them.
They're both...
Does Friedman think it's going reasonably well now?
Well, he thinks the Fed is going too fast.
He thinks the economy is basically beautiful.
Listen, don't dare tell the Fed to slow down, because they will.
He's writing in letters, and he sends me a copy, and he's writing in Newsweek.
Incidentally, he is going to be in town on Thursday,
And he's going to drop by to see me about 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
It's a bad day.
Bad day, because I may be on your press set that night.
Oh, yeah, I said that.
This Friday?
No.
Breakfast with Harold Wilson Friday.
And then go out and welcome the Marines back.
Do you want to go out and welcome the Marines?
I'd love to.
I have to stay here with the Productivity Committee for me here on Friday.
Well, we kept that...
Apparently you can't do it.
I asked Bob about that.
No, the problem is the ceremony is not my problem.
The ceremony is a minute or something and I have to leave here.
I'd love to do it.
What time do you need me at?
Ten.
Too late.
If you were done at nine, I could do it.
Keep talking.
Productivity.
But on the economy, George, if we pull that one off, they say we just stick to our guns and it works.
People are beginning to appreciate, on a great variety of issues, that you do have a strategy in what you're doing and what you're sticking with.
Even the people who disagree with you violently on the war,
In Chicago, one or two of them said, well, at least he's got a plan.
He's sticking to the plan.
And the same with the economy.
The same with welfare reform.
The same with so many of these issues.
Things like that.
He's going to reform on 4th of August.
Yeah.
I'd like to check with the visitor, have him come in any time he wants before the parks be there.
So I should see him before the park opens.
Well, uh, look, all we can say, he'd have to come in now, he's gonna come in, because I know the son of the Farm Bureau, of course.
All we can say about that is, good work.
Well, we get blamed.
All right, all right, all right.
I've got to say, as long as you're visiting groups, I'm the one that I can hear small groups of 50 or so on the record talks of the
The people are very friendly, Warren.
It's hard to...
The academic people are cold, it's certain, but the business people are...
The academic people, oh, they don't care at all.
Well, when the war is eased, maybe they'll get better.
I'm wrong.
I think so.
No, I think so.
That's their main thing.
I don't mind much.
They are the environment.
I don't intend to understand them, but it's an environment where we're all based on that.
We're in great shape on the environment.
And of course, I think, too, they're concerned about the, they're concerned about the youth.
Both are, you know, that's a war we're in.
That's a war we're in.
The youth thing is almost with us.
I think we're going to have, I just miss mom.
bomb warning for 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
And I was just 50 feet from the place they said the bomb was going to go off.
And I didn't go.
But they checked how many it was sent off.
So I didn't know what the difference was.
So I turned and went off at 2 in the morning.
Blew the ceiling down.
Really?
Yeah.
This was last week.
They were, what they were doing, we were in the annex of the President's office, the climate.
The President, he had just said that there would be no more nonsense on this campus.
No more sit-ins, no more traction.
We're all in this place like an educational institution.
So they announced that by the Louis C.
of his building in the president's office.
Well, I hope he stuck his gun.
Oh, sure, he's fine.
I think we must not give in.
Now he's a damn good man.
He's going to turn that place around.
Can he do it?
I think so.
Still time?
Oh, yes.
Yeah, they're reasonably in good shape in their faculty.
Well, that's his strong suit.
See, he was assistant, or he was provost or something, and he's got a lot of struggle with the faculty.
So he's their character.
Yeah.
He said now he's got a thing there about a very, very small outfit on campus.
And he said, I'm going to crack that and take it on.
I sat next to him there.
I had the same kind of reaction George did, actually.
I had an off-the-record question-and-answer thing.
And mostly alumni and faculty and fat cat types.
Very warm.
Well, look, let me say it.
The winter discontent is over.
Now we're in the spring, not so to be.
There's some, except the sun's shining.
And the war problem wasn't going to be over.
You've got half a dozen months to see through it, though.
So, I don't know.
That's that.
What the hell are you going to argue about then?
I mean, once it's been said, once people know, then what the hell?
When you go to California, I'm going the other direction.
To Europe, I'm going to Prague to this UN meeting on the environment.
Oh great.
For three days.
I've never been to Prague.
I've never been there.
My interest is to see the old Jewish cemetery.
Very high, high.
Really?
Yeah, alright.
It's one of the greatest sites, and of course the university.
It's sad that they haven't come because it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Oh.
churches, espires, built something there.
And did you know that they had the highest per capita income in Europe before we were too bright?
No, I didn't know that.
Chuck's the lock-in.
Well, it's good.
Sure.
Because the high industrialization is a small place.
They were hired, at least that's what they tell us, right there.
They're very proud of the fact that they had that.
or they were higher than the French, I don't know.
Anybody else?
Now they're, there they are.
Oh, I see.
Are they the government?
Yeah.
Well, have a good time.
Take your ride home.
I'll see you in the parking lot.
Be quiet for a minute.
Are you leaving today?
No.
No, he's on his drive in a couple of weeks.
That is.
Next week.
If I didn't go out to meet and visit the Marines, and they're afraid that the young people won't like it, so they're both not coming out.
That's a good story.
If you don't have a problem, you don't have to go to the Marines.
If you don't have a problem, you don't have to go to the Marines.
I haven't met anybody on the staff.
Go see them.
Oh, I may be on vacation, too, but I'll hop over from Palm Springs.
I'd like to go to that.
And I think you ought to do a patriotic speech there and not some of that stuff about re-elections.
of free elections in Vietnam.
Well, I have to speak five minutes about it.
I'm very proud.
And America will be proud of you.
I think we're going to get this all through, Mr. President.
Well, I decided to follow.
I mean, I did exactly what you told me.
I said this.
Yes, well.
No.
I told him first we...
He's in the car at 4.30.
4.30.
I have Henry Ford in my office.
If he doesn't get out by 4.30, I'll send Hagen.
I'll send Hagen in the car because Corbin used to be on it.
He's a great guy, though.
I'm seeing him...
I know Corbin.
I'll worry about him.
I'll worry about him.
To sum it up, I said with...
I said in one about the summit, we think that you must be suffering from a mis...
I said you must suffer from a misapprehension.
The summit must reflect mutual interests, or it isn't worth doing.
So we've talked to you about it for a year.
As Snow said, your foreign minister said, let's not have fencing matches.
We seem to be having a fencing match, but the president has said he's got a need making his plans.
When you are ready to have a summit, you let us know, but don't come to me unless you're ready to set a date and announce it quickly.
They said, oh, no, no, we're planning on it.
September, of course, we're planning on it.
I said, well, that's all right.
You come to us when you're ready.
They said, oh, we are not.
It's just a protocol.
So we left it at that.
Then I had worked out a resolution.
They don't want to announce it for two reasons.
One, they want to show
that Bretton had negotiated this thing.
He just took over second.
They're thugs.
And they always try to pick up some loose change along the way.
And they just ran up against the wrong guy.
You just didn't give them any loose change.
Secondly, I had worked out with Barr, who was up in Woodstock, and with Russ, a very intricate way of handling the Berlin problem, which I don't want to bore you with, but which I really think now has a chance.
And which has the other advantage of putting the control in our hands.
It's to take out all legal phrases and just talk about the facts, who will do what, but not on what basis.
And this has the great advantage that if they don't play ball, we just tell Rajna to come to any meetings.
So I put that to him.
And certainly I went to Seoul.
I said, frankly, the President wonders whether we can work this out, whether there's any sense in having any further talk.
And I said, here is the fact you are asking us to tear down what we've built as the first step of a negotiation.
How can the President go to the Congress, leaving aside his convictions, and say the Russians are dealing with us in good faith, we're doing this
So I said, either you take out that sentence, or we'll put in a sentence and the President's reply is saying we disagree with it, in which case it's pointless.
Also, we must have another sentence in the new letter that says, they had said they will discuss simultaneously the freezing.
I said, you can't just discuss it, you have to agree to it.
The limit freezing of offensive weapons.
Now that second sentence, he agreed to immediately.
He said, we're willing to conclude that.
On taking out the Moscow one, he said he had to refer to Moscow, but he thinks he has an answer by the end of this week.
And I said, also the president wants to announce it if we exchange these letters.
So we could announce that probably I...
He was really chastened.
I didn't joke with him this time.
I said, Mr.
Ambassador, this and this.
And I think we're going to get it.
And I think we should then announce it.
How would you initiate the letter?
The way it would go is you initiate the letter.
The first letter is yours.
And it's a fairly short one.
They come back with a fairly lengthy one of details.
You lay out all the principles.
They reply, and then you write a very short, confirming letter saying you accept their reply, and you are instructing your ambassador to proceed immediately.
But it's clear that you initiated it.
Yeah, good.
How the hell are we going to get that across to the Rogers and Smith?
How are we going to get all this done?
I worry too much about it.
We just do it.
Well, what you could say, Mr. President, and this has a great advantage that Rogers is gone,
You could say the Bremen came back and said they were ready to make some progress.
The time was of the essence.
So you were told, but you told me, in Raja's absence, to write, to give him this very short letter.
The first letter of yours has a lot of love in it, but Raja showed it.
They came back with the other, and you concluded that he won't like it, but it just has to swallow.
Well, Smith is getting what he wants.
as much credit as he wants.
Well, he'll get the credit for everything.
You can build him up.
I'll say that this is a lot of negotiators and so on.
Now, that's coming to Vietnam for a moment.
I am going to have a press conference for Thursday night.
That's for Boris.
And what's that?
That's from the point of view of the deadline, for Boris and Fred.
Thank you.
No, I mean, you'll be pressed on the POW issue.
Oh, on all issues.
I don't care.
I'll be pressed on all issues.
But that's what I want.
I want some sort of initiative on POWs.
Just so that we made this offer and we're waiting for a response.
And we're willing to, you know, just fuzz it out, the fact that we are trying to make progress.
Nobody knows we've made any offers or anything of that sort, see.
So I don't want to have too many, but I'd just like to have something that has the appearance of being new.
We'll have it for you tomorrow, as a matter of fact.
I've got to work on it.
I've got it.
Exactly.
That way I can get off that question.
and go on to something else.
No, the, uh... Then if things strike right, we can have this all either next week or the week after.
Or the next week.
Well, I would, too.
Well, when he gets back, I'll simply say, look, something's going on here, right?
At least, you know, he won't... By the time he gets... What may happen, Mr. President, is that we'll get it so late next week that we can't announce it next week anymore.
We'll have to announce it the first or second day he's back.
Well, I think it's so close they're either going to do it now or not.
There's no more than that.
Yeah, yeah.
Except the key point is whether or not they are willing to take out the sentence with regard to Washington Omen.
Correct.
They will be.
They will be.
But he didn't have the authority to concede that.
No.
But I just cannot conceive them challenging you directly, particularly, even though I didn't say so to him.
They know we can screw up the Berlin negotiations so fairly well.
That's right.
We will come back to the situation regarding the ending of the meeting.
I don't think we should do it with him.
Because, first of all, you can touch the domestic situation, whether if you hit North, we can untouch, while these bastards are in town.
If they tear up this city, as they may anyway.
I agree.
If you can't hit... No, I agree.
Anyway, if we get them two weeks, we're conscious as well, and if they leave, we'll hit them.
Besides, to hit them two days or a week after we had asked for a private meeting with them,
After the meeting.
Yeah, but you see the reason we have to do it.
We must have an audition.
We have to do it.
Well, this meeting you had with Sabrina will get back to them, too.
Oh, yeah.
I think, don't you think, that the tone of that will get back to them?
Oh, I was really tough.
You have to be.
That was the toughest since Cuba, and his reaction was exactly the same.
Since the time I hadn't been here?
No, since the time on the Cuban missile.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll say that they're tender out of there now for three months.
Put a right to it now.
As far as the summit is concerned, you let us know.
I think that's...
Pursue the Chinese as hard as you can.
I talked to Walter today.
He cannot.
That's one thing I wanted to check with you.
He finds it hard to get to the Chinese.
But what I would like to do, with your permission,
is to ask Santini, who is a good friend of the Chinese ambassador, to get Walters together with them.
Better.
Okay.
Good.
Now, there's another.
Now, the third one is that you...
He may have that thing really humming.
Did you notice that Mao told Edgar Snow?
Unbelievable.
I think it's terrific.
Yeah, but it sounds, it's a broad hint.
It's all easy.
Liz, this doesn't help us yet, the domestic opinion, much, but it helps us.
The intellectuals must be going up the goddamn wall.
They are going crazy.
They don't know what the hell to do with it.
And I've noticed that this week, for example, Saidi has another long article where he makes, look, Osborne has a superb one in the New Republic about you, and while no one reads the New Republic... People read Osborne.
A lot of people read Osborne.
Aren't you along with that?
Oh, Atchison is strong for you.
He's very much opposed to the Mideast trip.
I know, I know.
But you know that.
What's he big?
Well, he thinks the Mideast, as he said, should be subjugated by the United States.
Well, he thinks... Let's come back to that.
But Atchison on Vietnam, you know, I know he doesn't approve Cambodia and those things.
He says he agrees with everything you're doing except the incursions into Cambodia at large.
But the basic policy he agrees with...
And he thinks we've got the same program.
Oh, yes, he thinks it's shameful what is being done.
Oh, two things he told me.
One, he said he wasn't a dissident, so Alassane Kersen and Alassane went around the table asking people whom they voted for them again.
Everyone said you was one exception.
Well, uh, you're letting Gordon come out there.
I mean, I want to be sure that this guy's got about 35 minutes, or let it go for 10 minutes.
All right, so I'll take a second for a moment.
No, no, no.
For, yeah.
Ask him to be delayed 15 minutes.
All right, sir.
And then I have to address you by the 13th second.
And we are going to take a long time.
The wife says she's not going to let the same patient begin this.
And another thing I just said was that against anyone except Jackson, he could vote for you.
And he said again at that dinner yesterday, which had a lot of Democrats, they all thought you would win.
Well, I'll tell you one thing.
I don't know what the hell it could be, but maybe... We don't give a name already, but in the kick end, we won't do anything.
I don't know.
They may say that.
My own view is this, that I think that they're in this position.
that it isn't a domestic thing now.
We use that as an excuse, and I've done it myself.
That used to be the case.
It is not so now.
I think what they're looking at is this.
Well, we're going to get out anyway.
What the hell is in it for them?
No, he had to work it out.
And I think they figured, why the hell do we sit down and sign a piece of paper?
And then he, you know, that's, I can say this, Mr. President, I have not, if you would play your game.
Okay.
flawlessly of leaving it open that we'd keep $50,000 there indefinitely, then they would settle.
Well, we've said we'll keep $50,000 in there as long as they've got prisoners.
But that, if they, if they, that's the only thing that will keep them from settling, the point you've just made, that they figure you've got to pull them out anyway.