Conversation 490-007

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I was thinking about Vegas now.

I understand that Bruce made his move.

Yes, sir, he did.

They changed it a bit at the last minute, the two requests, and they split it between the two delegations.

So instead of the U.S. making all the proposals, two were made by us and one by the Senate.

I know that you have that prepared for me now.

Yes, sir.

I had a company want to just send in that, which modifies it.

It just modifies it, so you say our side instead of the U.S. Now, with regard to the questions of lightness, sir, we have one troublesome thing we're doing a Q&A for you on right now, sir.

Madame Bin made a reference to the fact that their forces

would stop shooting at our forces who defected or who turned themselves over to the MN.

That has gotten into the press as a passive ceasefire offer, which, of course, it is not.

I'm just trying to say we're prepared to discuss a ceasefire period.

We've laid out a proposal.

No, no, no, I don't believe it.

He prepared to do it in public for client meetings.

I'm just going to say that.

Yes, sir.

You know, this is the phony thing.

Oh, yeah.

They're just trying to arrest me.

What was the other thing they said?

Didn't they say something about Bob Holden said there was something else?

They reiterated the conditions under which the POWs would be released, and those conditions were the same rigid one.

But actually, didn't they say something about the fact that they were rigid?

I don't know.

No, they did not pick up.

There was no reason for the press to pick up any steam on that.

So all they said then, the only thing they did was the last thing they said.

He's fine.

With regard to the deal, again, what did they say?

Well, they listed the conditions, and those conditions were total U.S. withdrawal and fixed state.

No, but Bob said, Bob said, what the press is reading, this is fine.

They said that they would be prepared to negotiate the date if

You didn't get that?

No, sir.

I'll have to look at the ticket.

You better talk to Solomon, sir.

Right.

It isn't so much what they said.

I'm going to hear what these people, of course, may ask about if they decide to call this morning.

But if they ask about something, I need to know whether they've changed their grounds or whether they have looked into ordering that in any way.

How being said this morning that there was no change in the

the pow issue and in their position they reiterated their whole line now that may be being picked up in a fight apparently he doesn't have any information in terms of this uh you said that they were going to negotiate or something like that we'd said there was no change in the matter same with the wire well that's the point

But now they're saying North Vietnam offered today to open immediate negotiations with the U.S. on a date for an unconditional withdrawal of all American horses.

A proposal made by Swanton was the first to offer to negotiate a withdrawal date.

Previously, they've always demanded that we unilaterally set a date before now.

That's the funny thing, is that it's true.

They offered to negotiate on a date.

I have to check that, sir, because they didn't change their position.

And then the other big play that they're making

Yeah.

I have to verify that.

Yeah.

in the AP League out of London, which, you know, made it pretty clear.

And he said, well, that isn't what he said, and it wasn't what he meant.

What the point he was trying to make was that our intention was not to create any rift there.

If that happened, it would be something that was between those two parties.

Now, he used the word dividend, which was a mistake.

He understands now.

The other point is, what about the State Department guy who made the statement?

Can we get him to shut up?

And I raised that.

He asked me if I would please call Jack Irwin.

telling him the same thing that I told Bill and I was going to get very good.

I told everybody just to calm down and be quiet.

And Bill then made the point of, he said, I won't have any occasion to be talking about China from now on anyway.

I said, the point here is to just play it very cool on any China talk that there shouldn't be any more escalation of the rhetoric on China in any context.

Nothing should go beyond what the President has already covered the S&E.

between the two of them, as a matter of fact.

We do not want to have a conflict between the two of them.

I put it to get his attention at the beginning.

I said, if you were Bush, you would have to say that you were sure that this wasn't what the secretary meant.

And he said, it would be better if he didn't say that I didn't mean it, but rather just said that it was obvious from what the secretary said that he

I'll say to the secretary, I'll say that I will say that the, and his, as I read you, his text, and as Al pointed out, it's clear when you read what he actually said, they pulled the, they pulled the gun on him.

But nevertheless, the word dividend was a bad word.

The dividend ain't got him and the sons of bitches picked it up.

But, and that was a comment, he says, but it's not our policy.

Nobody carried that.

But it's not our policy.

Director didn't say that.

He said specifically it was not our policy.

So police say that, that our policy is not designed to cause friction, but if it happens, it's going to be effective.

You see there, the game we're playing now is too important, and it's that way.

I got an idea.

Why don't you call the brain on me?

I'll tell you what it is.

not heard in the press on them.

But I think just as you all have said, we need to listen to Krause for a second, and the President himself wants you to know that we've talked to the Secretary of State.

He said he did not, and he said that is what the press is saying, but he says the President, the Secretary of State, said specifically this is not our policy.

And he urges the Secretary, he urges Mr. Brady, and actually you'll be listening to the President.

I think the question that you raised is going to take on once and for all.

The China thing is simply directed against them.

He said, it's not our policy.

Why did you do that?

It's a cheap job to get it.

Yeah, but they watch these stickers.

Yeah, but you didn't say, look, I know you say, I have a message from the President.

He wanted me personally to convey to you personally, he's talking to the Secretary of State, that this was a misinterpretation of what he said in Paris.

He did not say that.

You made him laugh.

And what he said specifically to McHenry, this is not our policy.

That he was really commenting upon the other.

That the president, if he's asked, is going to name the president.

Therefore, the president must be sure that we don't know whether he will be asked or not, because he can't tell.

But if he's asked, the president will find a way to name him once and for all.

Because the president feels it's extremely important that that not be an exchange.

He said he won't be able to solve it.

This is not our policy, the president himself.

Do you think that's the right thing to do?

Yes, I do.

I think that, in the first place, his own personal stakes are in jeopardy here as an ambassador.

Well, it looked like we're playing at the pools.

And you say, no, no, we just want you to know.

And I don't think that cools.

You see, I've had Henry D. Burge online with him the last two times.

That doesn't cool that too much.

No, sir.

No, the only thing I would be afraid of, and it would be that we look too anxious, but the fact that they've picked up now.

Well, fine.

Don't look anxious.

I have a guess that you're saying is that we're just a little key way that there was something that the president called his attention that we find, uh, well, maybe you don't want me to call it his attention.

Maybe you call it his attention.

I think that the water service report you find was a second story.

I urge you to listen to the president's news conference tonight.

If he's asked about this, he'll nail this.

How's that?

I think that's fine.

I'm sure the secretary of no intention to pay exactly the option.

We just want to be sure that he and his government did not misinterpret the secretary's comments.

How's that?

I think that's fine.

I think it will help him.

He's probably already been hit on it.

All I really need is to see whether that is something.

Well, if it's playing, we have to have something for you, sir.

Yeah, it is playing that.

For the first time, they're saying they will negotiate.

Whereas at this point, they say we must set it.

That is a change.

You see what I mean now?

That's right.

I mean it already now.

Well, they have said they were willing to discuss that, too.

Well, it's not a big deal.

See, the press always gets any God-handled message, too, when actually they haven't studied it enough.

Well, good.

We'll talk to them a little bit more.

All right.

There's nothing else that I need to... No, sir.

I said...

Very little demonstration activity today.

Not many of them showed up at AGW, which is where they were supposed to concentrate.

And Abernathy and the Christian leadership had a thing on the Capitol steps, and they only had about 100 people there.

A total crowd of 100 persons at the wedding.

Frankly, Saturday was a pretty day, and all the jackasses were down here.

Because where you will be when you stand at a hardcore, and now it's not at a hardcore, at a hardcore, they may be just, I want them to do something.

God damn it, we don't want them to.

I think they will if they get, they'll wait until next week, because they still, their rock concert and all that will build a big crowd over the weekend if they'll then use Monday morning.

But if that, if they get frustrated then,

get somewhere.

They're committed to a big thing next week.

What are they committed to?

To stopping the government on Monday and Tuesday and to stopping and demonstrating national strike type stuff on Wednesday.

They're out on the line for next week.

They don't have anything on the line this week because all they said was they were going to go around and talk with people.

That's all they've done.

I'm going to let this guy take this picture because I thought you'd tell.

to do something on this, and I think it's important.

All these photographers, you know, are all having a sense of, you know, each one of them has a different idea as to what the hell that picture is.

Let's let him do it.

Let's let him select one and say what he thinks is worth a damn.

Let him set it and touch it up.

You see what I mean?

You tell them what we need.

You tell them that we need primarily a good smiling shot, not 2-2, and whatever we want.

You know what I mean?

One that we can use as a formal portrait.

And then we don't get in a situation where, you see, you get others into the deal.

It's awfully difficult for one retargeter to say that another man's work is good.

I know my knowledge stuff, the news stuff, is the best in the world.

And this guy's, I'm sure, this guy's probably better than Portrait, so I can rather see the way he makes a set and everything.

You know, he's watching little things, a lot of little things.

The wrinkles in your suit.

Everything, and the cufflinks, and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, that's really important.

He just gets every damn little thing, and he's watching it.

Whether the head's tilted properly, he makes that, and says, now look, you get the wrinkles, and you put your head down.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is another thing, of course.

That's the other thing I was trying to ask you about, our tolerating producers.

I think that Arnfield, for example, is excellent on sets.

So you walk in and the crowd begins to write and he shows me a little chart and so forth and so on.

The point was, I'm just wondering, I don't want too much of this, but I'm wondering if he knows anything about, I mean, how to have a stand or whether you have a little more, you know what I mean?

He's not getting the content of the stand.

I don't want an intelligent person deciding anything about that.

But do you think they know?

They do.

I know I've been reluctant to get into that with you because you talked about it with Carruthers.

You didn't want people telling you to wave your hands or fold them and all that.

He'd be glad to do a little critique on it.

I think maybe writing a memo is a better way to do it.

He can do it in the abstract then in the abstract.

We do not want to try to eliminate whatever veritable secrecy side.

That's part of the man, see.

You can't be out there as a cardboard man, or others.

I didn't realize that.

That's what I'm concerned about.

I don't want to be out there like Ronald Reagan or Bob Hope or that kind of thing around me.

I've got to do it my own way, see.

Absolutely.

And I'm not going to worry about it too much.

And brothers feel very strongly about it.

That's why I don't want to stab.

But that's why TV is different.

It's like an Ollie picture, because it keeps moving.

You don't sit and study it.

The portrait, you sit and study it.

The portrait hangs on someone's wall for five years, and the more you look at it, the more the flaw comes out, and you focus on that.

It's got to be perfect.

The other perfection would hurt it.

If there were anything that were bad, he would have

spoken up on it.

I don't think he feels that.

I'm sure that there are some things he could cover in a moment that he would suggest as ways of saying he makes a little better picture.

More of that is that he makes it better.

He's not just better when you look up at the camera or down at the person.

Not when you look sideways or something.

A few of those things are not I mean are not too bad to mention.

Which is exactly what you want about making you

conscious, self-conscious about technique when you should be worrying about the substances.

He's absolutely right.

Substances matter.

I said, I mean, everybody, because you're delivered, you're comfortable, your delivery's going to be good.

Everybody talks, everybody talks, you know, they all talk about the fun speech, the goddamn fun speech.

It had nothing to do with Deb Rogers.

I mean, I could have, I mean, checkers could have produced the goddamn fun speech.

because of the substance, you know.

I knew that.

Well, you did it.

Your presentation, if you couldn't have staged it, someone else couldn't have staged it, it didn't make any difference.

It didn't make any difference, though.

There, everything that you could have done there may have set all that crap.

It didn't make any difference.

That's right.

Not one bit.

For the first man, yes.

But after that, see, it's like you caught every other one.

That's why everything really is so important, too.

We tend to think too much, and it always goes back to the first debate critique, but there, too, the problem was not, it was really one, there was, there were some problems, there were some very serious problems on production.

I mean, lighting was bad, I mean, people would look at it and say, but I got pasty, and I was, you know what I mean, more pasty than I needed to look, and it was because the suit was wrong, it was a dark suit rather than a light suit, you know,

And the reason for that is that Rodgers didn't know a hell of a lot about it.

You know, we thought he did, but he was not an expert in production.

He was a good guy on shows.

Well, Carruthers is, Carruthers is a little of both, but he's more production than he is show.

I hope Rodgers had a good trip, do you think?

He's in Turkey.

Sorry about that.

I didn't go very much on that.

I just said because of the way things are going now, it was very important just to low-key the whole China thing and for the next few weeks just not to stir anything up.

It came through fine without having to say there was something specific that happened.

And also being on the phone in Turkey, I didn't know what signals that we sent up.

You know, I think those aren't programs.

It's easier to do something wrong.

He didn't do anything wrong.

Not a damn thing.

Except for the press.

And actually, he really did mean what he said.

He did mean what he said.

That's what I think.

I know.

I think the same thing.

But it was a slip to say it.

That's right.

You know, if you want your work to get

Well, if you put it in the house, you can put Beanie in his cabin, and then you can put it in Captain Mom and Julie's house, and you can put it in the guest room, and you can have the bus first.

Okay.

So this is bad for some reason.

It's always been that way.

You could, well, I never told you that.

You might have told me, but I think it was just something that I'd deal with in the spring.

I really think it looks much better open.

I don't know if that wanker or something looked good, but, you know, I looked, and she's cracking it.

You don't need to have it.

It's going to be fast.

You don't have to have it.

It's a plus.

You don't need to have it.

It could be anywhere in the way very well.

I don't think that's a big problem.

In fact, it's pretty sticky.

You know, that's another thing that cools them off, the weather.

Bad weather, it really does.

I think, too, this day, maybe down there, they may be hitting the dome too hard.

Well, that's what they were reporting, that they're in trouble getting up in the morning.

Something next Monday and Tuesday, aren't they?

Yeah.

I think so.

I think they have to.

They publish this stuff, and they're on the hook.

They claim a lot of stuff.

You see, if they don't, the problem is that then the soft-headed liberals in the press, some of our own white house, they will say, well, see, not what we were writing.

I don't see how they can avoid doing something like that.