Conversation 490-012

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Should I talk with McGregor about not getting into this?

Because he likes to go over what ought to be done.

Well, talk to them a little in terms of saying, versus, if it's totally for their benefit, let's start with that proposition.

I don't want any member of the staff ever to figure that either Captain Meade or Leo's meeting is for my benefit.

I don't need to hear that crap.

I read it all.

I know what they're going to say.

But if they need to have show and tell, well, have show and tell.

I need you to do

Okay, what's your name?

Yeah, so I can't read it because I don't see any signs.

I'm going to have to show it to him.

Okay.

Read the paper and sign it.

Okay, I'm ready to respond.

Okay, minus 30 grams.

I mean, it's just great.

And feeling good.

It's all together.

You can't see out of it, unfortunately.

But sitting here, it's just spectacular.

Oh, I turn around.

And so when you come into the room, you just have a totally different feeling.

Well, that's miserable, isn't it?

I never could have happened.

Well, what is it?

Oh, it's a small case.

I'm standing here, you know, around your staff today.

I feel pretty good.

Sheriff, did you have a meeting?

We didn't have a meeting.

and then march on the Justice Department.

March that, that meeting in the park for the press conference will be committed as soon as they start marching to the Justice Department for the press.

Good.

Well, Kerry Ford, I heard it was word, he always says he's back in his district.

Everybody there says they want to be sure to confirm the stand.

They've got that across on the demonstrators.

Yes.

The Washington Post editorial this morning just smashed them.

Did it?

Yeah.

On what ground?

On the grounds that trash hurt the cause of the war.

Well, in the sense that it's wrong to trash a period of time, they did it on that.

They did that.

Good.

Their point was that this is, you know, it's fine to protest, to demonstrate objections, but that trashing

of sharpening Capricorn is not permissible.

You know, they have a very strong line.

It's totally irresponsible, and they go on and on.

Very bad thing.

They said they also demonstrated by doing this, totally failed to show what they would suggest that President Nixon do above and beyond what he is doing in disengaging U.S. troops from Vietnam.

You know, more than that.

So they agreed with what you're doing, but they sure

But nobody was showing, coming up with any better idea.

I think they did the rough stuff.

They cited the examples of the rough stuff.

And I think that's what you need.

And they commended the place order.

complain about.

They'll get to it.

This is civil rights types.

We'll get to them.

Start scooting about.

They should have been arrested charges and all that kind of stuff.

We're out now.

We've got about 15 round them up.

They ordered to clear the streets.

They didn't clear the streets.

Get them back on it.

And then starting again.

Then they'll start at the beginning.

Start

Well, I don't know.

This is really kind of the test of how much militant, real militant force and strength there is.

Because obviously they'll want to.

Because they've been frustrated.

They've got a crew.

They've got some balls.

And the only thing they can do is go ahead and have a final act of their own.

that when the sort of do-good type kids and peace demonstrators and stuff that don't know the difference, probably won't do it.

It's a lot of trouble mobilizing those things.

So what you get will be the hard core.

I try to get the leaders to get the line.

I try to get them to break the peace and so forth.

They never get very good lines.

I got to talk to our others.

Colson said that he was...

I think maybe what we were trying to do, Bob, was to get the idea that we were being goddamn firm with these people, you know, without being migrating to Russia and swallowing our arms.

I can't do that.

But I think that's not very impressive.

I mean, that's, you will realize, I'm not talking about takeaway, it's all hard work.

No.

Which is really very interesting.

There was no, well, everybody knows that.

that, of course, your praise of the police played really big because Wilson used it.

He did it dang well.

I mean, the guy must be a hell of a guy because he used, he fired up his troops.

He did, he used that as the, you know, the locker room halftime talk.

He said, he cited the thing, he said that it was the president had asked that he issue commendations to all members of the police force for the outstanding work they had been doing and so forth.

And then he concluded, he said, it is the president's desire that the government's work, that the government, you know, not be stopped or something like that.

And it was, it kind of raised a lot of questions about the way he did it.

He went, he currently went on their communication radio and said this to all the police on the police radio.

I'm sure that I can't help but feel a lot of discipline.

hurt the demonstrators, hurt us, and helped us.

I don't think the war thing, which Martin Allen's saying, indicated, was...

I mean, you just don't know, you know, how you see the whole state of the state, everybody being broke, they're having to be against the war.

You needed some of that to dramatize it.

I don't think you would have had to dramatize the fact that those people were in your demonstration.

I think that they were bad people.

That's right.

In other words, see, everybody's commending the police for their restraint and all that.

In other words, it's clear who the bad guys are.

It's not even like Chicago, where the bad guys were the police for a while.

And the way the media played it certainly was that way.

And the people, the people's conclusion was the other way even then.

Even with the media making the police the bad guys.

And that's when the media aren't making the police the bad guys.

The stories are on the basis of the...

Good job, the police here.

You know, there was one, uh, somewhere in the post at a time or something, I'm not sure, maybe what's her name, Greenfield, who lives in Grinchville, Virginia, and, uh, Georgetown, who was, uh, talking about how the police were beating up on the demonstrators on that street, uh,

And she said, and she and her neighbors were all out watching what was going on.

And she said, she came in and she said, we all concluded after it had moved away, the police had done exactly the right thing.

Her views were great, restrained, the way they did it.

But earlier in her column, she talks about how they were gloating sometimes.

But obviously, they got it.

They were in the column, so to speak.

And we love that, though.

I mean, the news stories are all on the other side of it.

When they march on the Congress, it'd just be great.

You get one shot, and then it leaves all the other things looking.

It'll be nice to see what they do at the Express Congress.

Because, of course, they don't have her any day that she's been there.

It's going to be great, man.

I think we won.

This is hotter, tighter stuff.

It has at least more vivid impression in your mind than the metal was.

It was compelling emotionally.

This is her credit.

Unfortunately, the veterans were raggedy-looking people, too.

And so they looked like the same kind of people as these people, even though they did not look the same.

But what these people have been doing is pretty bad.

They've got a lot of stuff on how they're pushing cars into the intersections and dumping.

Just like Greenfields, I was looking out my window, and there they were dumping my garbage on the street.

I did the only thing I could do.

I got my garbage cans and put them in my living room.

Because I knew if I brought them back to the weather, they'd just take them out on the street again.

She said there was one amusing sideline to it, which was that the gay group were pushing cars out in the street, too, and every time they moved a Volkswagen out to block the street, they'd all embrace each other.

I've got some pictures of that.

Yeah.

The bags out there, embracing each other.

It's a full costume.

Drawing boards and nails in them, and the roadways.

A lot of stuff that just, it really did turn into kind of Halloween.

I told Sir, I said, I gave a little French run of Packers to you.

They don't look like they're on us, but they're very interesting.

So I said, no, this might be a good idea.

Mm-hmm.

We weren't positive since we were trying to do the right thing.

That's a very sharp point to make.

One of the coldest things I thought we'd make is smear the bastards.

Goddamn smear them.

They deserve it.

It's discovered lately that it's the wrong way.

It's kind of a good friend of the muskie for instance.

He's a great modern hero.

Here he is on the platform, the guy who's now been arrested for deciding to run it.

I heard it last Saturday.

Was he on the platform?

Did he go on the platform?

No, he wasn't on the platform.

At the time, he was actually on the same platform as Earth Day.

But he was, he was, he endorsed, he endorsed it.

There was one guy who spoke up for it, and, uh,

and Rennie Davis was a key factor.

I think you can tie up, you know, people, Rennie Davis symbolizes that you can tie to Rennie Davis, and it's kind of a good thing to do, instead of just trying to find a lot of bad people.

You've done pretty well this time in getting out the congratulations from Adam Binn and all that sort of stuff.

The fact that the Norfolk Indians are all for it.

Yeah, you've certainly got a couple of legacies to agree with in helping Adam Binn out of it.

They did at the hearings.

It's just an incredible thing, you know, people would, that kind of stuff is good to get over, too, because you've got a little group of legionnaires that are not here, not looking to come, but that's, we're trying to get some hard hats that currently moved in yesterday on the demonstrators.

Some guys on a construction project.

got fed up with what was going on on the streets.

They're trying to move down and just bustle them out.

But the car is not going to go home.

A lot of people are shooting at them.

Now we see, and I guess a lot of citizens were, a lot of people just, you know, I was talking last night, there were apparently a lot of incidents where people just, you know, just got fed up.

It was great that the NBC can come

The cameraman was close to it.

I was the cameraman.

You were the reporter.

Yeah, but it still symbolizes people see it once the cameraman is just as bad.

He said, I'm a middle American.

Yeah.

That's a smash scene.

And the camera just went right over it.

The film kept going.

It's got the sky going black.

Just right where we are.

I'm glad we're going ahead with this.

We were worrying about whether we should do the agriculture today because of that.

I think it would be great if they decided to kind of screw this up.

The evidence is that they're going to still try to make the effort tomorrow.

Good luck.

They've got a man to follow after that name.

That's supposed to be his name.

Bobby Seamstown.

I got a damn game I'll take all the time.

Nothing's happening.

I don't think we're gonna get any more of them, really.

I suppose it's a problem that people, we talked about kind of being kind of having a blend of it, you know, anybody can put on this.

You could have any number of volunteers and a guy called Michael Rudd in this thing.

Any lot, you know, any big man, he's then got to, got to be able to produce the press office, the whole business about, yeah, it's a terrible thing.

People love to participate and consult when they get the apartment and the rest, and I suppose that's part of the thing.

but it's Congressman Sanders, so you might make it sound bad.

That is the way to run it.

She should have a dictatorship, which is probably true.

Dictators are just benign, but that won't work either.

But I must say, I have a lot more efficient, decent, well, these meetings.

Mr. Mayor, you have a conference here.

That's all I was going to call the big thing, wasn't it?

Some conference on you.

Well, I would think that this is the time...

It's hard to do