On May 4, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:14 pm to 3:06 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 490-022 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I talked to a lot of them on the plane on the way back.
The real reaction is,
They understand it had to be dealt with the way it was.
A few of them in the briefing this morning, they've sent their civil libertarian point of view on the arrest of the 7,000, the Constitutional Rights Act.
One of the district judges here mouthed off, but I told them in the briefing this morning, when I was asked what the president thought about the thing, I said, just very quickly and curtly, I said, I repeated what you'd said before, and I said, the president felt
The matter was handled very perfectly, very well by the District of Columbia's officials and by Chief Wilson and the men of the- That's right.
That's right.
They didn't want to clear the streets.
The country this time was on our side.
I just didn't know Christ.
It was not real.
He did a musty this morning.
Who did it?
Scott.
Where?
In the briefing.
What did he say?
He said, I'm doing this on my own.
It was a personal view of it.
He was kind of helped by his questions.
But he said, there are many up on the Senate, he said, prominent men who were praising guys like Rennie Davis.
And today, he said, where are they now?
They're pushing violence and so forth.
And they said, are you referring to Senator Muskie, Senator Scott?
And he said, well, it's more than a coincidence that you raised his name, and now that you've raised his name, apparently there's some reason that you could do that.
And he said, the record's clear, and he did a good job.
Then they asked him, he handled this very well.
He said, well, did the president express that in the meetings?
I'm giving you my personal views.
As a matter of fact, they said, Ron, I don't even think that
Rennie Davis' name was mentioned this morning, wasn't it?
I said, no.
It was good.
That's right.
We covered that.
Then I referred to your... See, Pete Wilson used the content of your phone call the other day.
I referred to that.
And didn't back off at all on this.
You know, the Muskie and Humphrey and Teddy...
are all in a spot on this because they all, either directly or indirectly, supported the other demonstrators' turn.
Having done that, it's that hard for them to separate from this one.
Lesh, Ball, too many of the candidates.
Lesh, their opponents separate from the demonstrators.
You know what I mean?
You've got to hang their...
You've got to hang it right around the neck and just keep pushing the law.
Just like they let you deny it, say, and then call up the nut and just keep making the charges if they never denied it.
That's the way to do it.
The only way to do it is to keep making the charges if they never denied it.
You know, that's what they did with us in the first.
You know, they're hitting us and hitting us as if we never denied it.
And then they'd say, well, what about it?
What do you think about it?
Just keep talking about the issue.
Keep them talking about the issue.
And finally, if you could, you might get this across to the people.
I mentioned it briefly for Colson there this morning.
But the way our people should handle it is to keep charging, keep making the charge, but never, never say that they've changed their minds.
Just simply say, the Democratic candidates, by the name,
Put them all against.
McGovern, Muskie, Kennedy, and Humphrey.
McGovern, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kintzel, something like four.
Have all supported the demonstrations.
And then let them say, oh no, not me.
He's the one who supported the demonstrations.
Don't let them just say that they, and then condemn them for it.
calling them to repudiate the... Oh, no, the civil liberties.
I'll tell you why they're...
They're not scared because of civil liberties.
They're scared because we're oppressed people.
They're concerned because they realize this...
Sorry about that.
murder on the war end, right?
Likely, that statement must be others.
Well, this was too bad, the other governor said, because this hurt their cause.
Now, calm down.
Does he mean that if it hadn't, if it had helped their cause, it would have been all right?
See, they don't address themselves to the bottom.
No, no, sir.
It's because it hurt their cause.
And I think we've got to say that they refused.
I think they got to be even harder.
The violence
It's wrong, period, whether it hurts or helps your cause.
You can't say, well, it hurt their cause, and therefore don't be violent, but if it helps your cause, you can cut it.
They really ought to keep on the offensive in a few days.
What did they do about Lockheed?
No, they said that the leadership encouraged the administration to take it.
And that...
They gathered from discussions that you would do that.
That played well.
Interesting, the Swedish thing, you know.
That really played well.
Yeah.
Really, really blown down as well.
We want to keep it right.
We want to keep right on it.
We're waiting for you.
We're waiting.
Well, the fact that we've offered and this has been offered, and it gives you a chance to repeat the offer that was made.
It was quite outstanding.
In Paris.
In Paris, anybody can investigate the camps.
We don't care.
Sure.
International Red Cross, any other nation, any other body, anybody can investigate.
That should be pointed out.
The investigation of the camp, the fact that we have, we now no longer, we don't say that it has to be the International Red Cross.
They can invite in anybody.
I made that point just now.
The other point is that they...
that on the exchange, and the prisoners were giving up the 507, we're doing it unilaterally.
Now, we've done it before.
This is all of it.
Every sick and wounded that is there, right, is being turned back.
Of course, the poor little brats shouldn't want to go.
Remember that.
They say they're being turned back.
They're going to be turned over.
I want you to get that one across somewhere.
Oh.
You get a hold of Scali.
He's working on this.
And see if he can think of a way that those working under Higg and Chadley James, that those prisoners can be dumped off with pictures.
Do you understand what I mean?
I want television pictures and cameras taken when they take those visitors and dump them on them.
I want something visual done on them.
Now, you follow that.
What is it, sir?
Don't you do it.
I want you to give that to Skelly as a sign, see?
And say, all right, he should get a hold of the fence.
And the rest of the five of them,
which we were evacuated across, symbolically, we gathered across, take 507 of those bastards that we'd done, and have, I want pictures of them being loaded into whatever they're loaded into, planes, or I think they take them up by boat.
Or they take it to the D.C.
Some they take it both.
Some they take it across the D.C.
But I want it all done pictorially.
I want the press invited to cover it.
Put a crew of ours on it.
Any of it.
Make sure the pictures are demonstrated.
And get pictures for ourselves on here.
And I want a picture story made out of it.
500 seconds.
I'm the president of the D.C. And those are the ones done about the Great Revolution.
I saw her at a list of our companies, and I said, here's a message to the California.
I said, I don't know.
I said, I don't know.
I said, I don't know.
I said, I don't know.
I said, I don't know.
I said, I don't know.
The press conference is always, they'd send people a thousand miles to the press conference, 3,000 miles.
And they had a hell of a lot of meetings on Monday morning before.
And there they were, sitting back here.
The guys at the line must have felt pretty good about it.
Oh, they did.
They did.
They got a couple of lines loose.
That's where you're going to disappoint the press guys.
They can't squeal about press conferences for a while.
No.
As a matter of fact, they haven't been squealing about it quite as much.
Yeah, they'll never hear what you mean.
Oh, well.
And it made a good point to them, too, that they really didn't cover it.
That was a good way to do it.
We've got to think of some way to get somebody to make some moves this week.
Well, if you do the locking tendency this week, isn't it?
Yeah, but you know, it's not very all right this time.
Well, it'll still be a big story when it's done, but primarily in the West, which is where... Yeah, but we want to get it hard.
Um, the other one is, uh, is a story on that western shipbuilding thing.
Right.
And when that happens, I don't know what we ought to do.
I should have hauled that one to see if it worked out.
This is gonna be a nice show, isn't it, Bobby?
This is the agriculture thing.
Yes, sir.
You know, it's really going to be, you know, with all the history.
And then the firemen put me on my walk before.
You know, it's got to fire with you.
But this is going to be something like a, you know, like a plumbing contest.
And you're speaking for me.
If you just say something on Sunday, and there's no news, you can always get in.
It's the same thing about the radios.
It hypers it because it's an event.
It's better than just releasing the signal.
It has to be an event.
I was wondering about the, in terms of the news, as to whether that, at least as far as the West Coast is concerned, whether, and I'll talk to Earl about it, whether we can get it regulated.
I hope so.
Well, you know, it's been day-to-day.
They're trying to get the contract.
Well, here's what I want to do.
I think I will.
Oh, man.
Let's fly in some people.
I mean, to make the announcement here, the California people, you understand?
Sure.
I'd get in, head of the shipyard, head of the union, head of the union, head of the shipyard, and I'd be raving like, you know, I don't know.
Well, let's determine it.
Maybe Copley, he got down with that Copley paper.
You know, I thought, oh, Bo Lewis made the point.
He says, I didn't realize what a great paper that is.
It's such a pleasure to read it.
Can you get a bunch of paper, please?
That's right.
He had to read his time on the catalog.
He had to read his time on the catalog.
That's right.
It was just a pleasure to go home at night and read the paper because they'd just queue up the other guys.
They'd just sort the news so that everybody else looked bad.
That was just great.
I'll tell you.
That's right.
Attorney General.
request permission to defer his 3 30 meeting he's under assault assault over there and right already he just thinks he ought to stay over there in case he had to make some fast decisions also may look as a fear of reality comes over here i tell them that uh on the attorney general thing they can yeah postpone the meeting not have it today
I turn a knife to all events, and I already go round.
It needs to be a scholarly responsibility, further, which I should have thought of myself, but further if you don't mind.
It would never occur to you that the way to get that story out about the fact that we're returning 507 prisoners is not to get out.
Get in the goddamn camera crew.
Take the sons of bitches up there.
Load them on, show them loaded on the plane.
Show them loaded on the boats.
Show them dumping them on the shore.
And clip the bastards aboard.
For sure.
That's the purpose of it.
Yeah.
Let somebody shoot it.
Get the press in.
Don't do it.
It's quiet and all that sort of thing.
This is all a prompt and end exercise now.
You've got to put them, those people on the spot.
See?
So Rob's going to work.
Tell Skelly, I'll give you, that's a good thing for Skelly to work on.
You ought to be able to, sure, kick him in the ass a little.
Just let him see what he can do with the stuff.
Hammer cruisers.
Bite them all.
We'll see.
Bite the press.
If the press doesn't cover it, cover it with our own.
If that's something for us to see.
All right.
Tertullo Rogers, he said, he said, Israel won't help Pharaoh.
Oh, he just went from Lebanon to Pharaoh and Sarah.
and uh let's hypo anything that he does out of there
He was really pleased with himself.
He said he had a good time, a good stop in Georgia, very good, yeah.
He took the helicopter to the airport.
The king blew the helicopter.
And Bill was advancing.
He said the king blew the helicopter.
And then he said in Lebanon they have tanks and troops out all over everywhere to protect him.
And he was on a tour of the city.
I hope that we can get some attention to that part of the world.
He's got pretty good coverage.
He's got good coverage up and down, but he needs to eat it, and then...
The Jewish person will give that a hell of a lot.
That's all right, too.
I don't care what they do.
He'll get a very good mileage.
This is Tuesday.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, that will be in Israel.
And Saturday, he'll be in the Vatican.
He goes to Spain.
Well, tell Bruce that he's still getting hold of Hague.
Tell Bruce he gets to hit again.
On Thursday, the fact that the International Red Cross is operating, stick it right to these other people on the other side about that.
We have repeat again, each return 507 or whatever we're going to do.
Find a way to just keep the heat right on.
Talk about no other issue.
The demonstrators, you've never heard of them, complied with traffic regulations so they haven't arrested them.
Every day, you have to go in four arrests.
The late arrest was 685.
They were disrupting.
They were disrupting, but the group that gathered at Franklin Square and then went to the Justice Department, they were going to gather for a parade violation, but they walked on the street.
They're walking on the sidewalks, four arrests in order.
and they're assembling peacefully at 10th Street at the Department of Justice right now.
The MPD is there in large numbers.
They estimate 4,000 of them on the route of March and or on the sidewalks of Justice.
They've requested permission to proceed on to the reflecting pool area with the contingent of the Southern Christian leadership.
Justice is refused to admit those are men.
Motion.
Demonstrators will be permitted to remain on the sidewalks of justice as long as the crowd remains peaceful.
All right.
They found a live bomb under the Taft Street Bridge, which used to be activated by the military bomb squad.
It's out.
It's out.
I don't know if it's a good eviction.
It will be, I'm sure.
Well, they put them up there.
Are they?
Yes, sir.
That's good rock.
Why the hell didn't they let it blow off?
That's, that's the thing.
They should have taken the bridge.
This is the opposite.
We always struggle with de-activators.
I know.
That's right.
Make a big thing and don't let the guy hit the ground all the time.
Sirens and everything.
Yeah.
Stir up all the television crews and let the goddamn bridge go up in smoke.
That's right.
The deactivator shouldn't have gotten there.
It'd be worth the price of the bridge.
Bridge.
I didn't, I didn't know what that was.
The process was one of the pressure of trying to get after the civil libertarians about the mass arrests of the five secretaries.
Oh, skew it, Morton.
Sure, they were on top of it, too.
I know.
They cannot, they cannot take this.
But the key is, the key is, McGovern must answer that, or just he'll let your mouth fall open.
I don't think that's the idea.
He was serious.
Yeah, sure.
I just, well, I said, for Christ's sakes, what the hell are you talking about?
I mean, just because he said it, it's part of his belief.
But you take the hard line with my respect.
I did.
My line was hard and tough.
And I thought we're fair.
Everybody's going to get a fair trial, but they're not going to disrupt this government.
That's what the line I took.
And I'm glad they rested.
I think we did.
Yes, I did.
And you focused on it very perfectly.
Good.
It's kind of good operations.
Good for the police to do something like this.
It's incredible.
Damn right.
Damn right, sir.
I mean, for police all over the country, not just... Well, oh, I know, I know, I know.
Stand up for your local police.
Get a few signs on a carriage or something.
If you've got that right, well, I think the virtue of your argument is for everything.
I agree.
Support your local police.
Support your local police.
Stand up for all women.
Yes.
You know, I think we've got to break.
This is going to make all the demonstration.
Because when we were at San Jose, it would have come out fine if they hadn't had that bad production on that last store.
We were fine.
The, you know, in California and so forth, the conversation you get is, gee, those demonstrators, isn't that awful back there, you know?
They do lump them together.
Here, you know, everyone is just so close to a common area.
Two weeks, which there has been.
And it's all the same bunch of people, and they've gradually escalated into a worse and worse mess.
Yeah, well, when I was on the phone with somebody else, I don't think you'd hear somebody say this.
It'd be real terrible there.
It's not bad.
I think we look awfully good not letting something like that bring the government to its knees.
I think it's absolutely right, and that's what's important.
You know, other governments, this difficult time, therefore the war can't go on because they stopped the war and they stopped the government.
They're hell of a
It's the same thing in terms of how people react as they would if the Vietnam thing would end in a way of treatment.
The same reaction to this.
If demonstrators would come in and intimidate or disrupt government or stop government, people would have the same reaction.
My God, the whole thing is falling apart.
underestimating the government's commitment to prohibit us from doing this.
He didn't think, apparently, they didn't think we'd go as far as... Lenny Davis misjudged it.
Then he also misjudged the reaction of the people working in government.
They thought that most people would be sympathetic toward it, and therefore would not support it.
The Washington Post misled them on that.
They read the silly-ass poll a week ago, Sunday, that's right, where they said 67% of all Washingtonians interviewed approved demonstrations against the war.
Yeah, see, that misled them.
That misled them.
Well, that's a dishonest poll.
We know.
Oh, sure.
Is it?
No way.
Those, they thank the government employees for all the things that work because they go over to HGW and find a couple hundred of those records.
Those are the records.
And I didn't realize that most government employees are cowardly.
They didn't write it.
They didn't take it to their jobs.
I don't know.
That's what it's called.
And we have fired their asses.
Believe me, if any of these government employees won't show their asses, I don't know the other way.
We had more people that worked yesterday than we normally have on Sunday.
More people who came here.
Apparently, and we, some people did take it.
Well, you think there's an element of pride, too.
You know, you think of the guys in the various departments who, whatever they do, in terms of worrying about fisheries and so forth, in that particular surrounding, they didn't want to be the guy who faked out and couldn't come.
I think you're right.
I'm sure that's true.
You have to agree that I think you should say that I just particularly wish to commend the number of workers who are refusing to be intimidated by this small minority.
And that they, in fact, they were on their jobs in even greater numbers than usual.
It's a high tribute to the, to the, to their education and duty.
whatever their political views or their views and so forth, they believe in the peaceful process.
I'm sure that they're committed to peace.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I said, what are you going to do now?
He said, well, we failed on this demonstration together.
The whole thing's failed.
And so now we're going to have to go underground.
We won't leave Washington.
We'll be staying here.
We'll operate underground and undermine the government that way.
You know, that may have looked real good, too.
Yeah.
i wouldn't be surprised i would think the frustration level would be building up they were also trying to get all get people inside of the guy was saying this is a terrible thing they've got those people in the stockade out of kennedy stadium and they're gasping they gas them every hour and you know trying to make it sound like the jews and auschwitz or something most of them are anyway
Most of them are out there now.
Oh, but 1,500.
1,500 are still in, and they refuse to leave.
They won't comply with the process they have to go through in order to get out.
They won't do it.
If they start putting the food and water in there a little less frequently, they'll be rolling out of there pretty soon.
Just move back outside and let it get cold again tonight.
That's what I do.
I don't think they'll probably do that capital thing, will they?
I'd sure like to head and do that Capitol thing to see how those people up there deal with it.
Because Senator Scott this morning, although he did handle Senator Muskie well, I said, Scott did handle him well.
But his immediate reaction this morning was, oh, they're not going to come up there.
He said, Jerry won't let them.
But I'd like to see them up there and see how they do.
But the ones that sent out and stopped are the ones that brought them here.
The peace people go out and tell them to control their own radicals.
These are not our radicals, they're theirs.
If they go up there, that might be a pretty good approach for some of our people to take on the floor.
Yeah, in other words, some of the senators could stand up and say, we'd like to elect a delegation.
We call on those, we call on those.
You know these people.
You support their views.
That's what you do.
You support their view.
You know them.
You work with them.
Now it's your responsibility to your colleagues.
It's your responsibility to your colleagues to go out and reason.
You're the ones who can say that you know them.
You support their views.
You supported their demonstration.
Now it's your responsibility to go out and reason.
Say it that simply.
The way they get left dressed, like I said, I remember they usually do when they want to.
And go around, don't ever admit that they've changed their minds.
They announce and just say, those who support, support this.
And they...
They'll deny it.
They'll deny it.
They'll say, why not me?
I didn't mean it.
They must be tired.
I think you need to have this succeed.
There you were.
You wanted the government to be brought to a halt, didn't you?
Some did, yes, sir.
I'm talking about the 1993 story.
Sure, well, stop the war.
I want to make a real event out of it, Bob.
Bring in the, uh, maybe the Times.
Let's make it a San Diego story show.
Or the Times, too.
Okay, well, Irwin is here.
Bring him in.
And it comes with a TV out there, Craig.
You could get a George Putnam or somebody, but he's in San Diego.
But I want to build this thing up in this California-Spanish market.
This isn't just a San Diego survey.
It's a Southern California survey.
It's Todd's Shipyards in Long Beach has given some of it, too.
Good.
We ought to bring them in, too.
Right.
Bring the shipyards out to San Diego.
It's the biggest of them.
Todd gets one, too, and we ought to bring them in, too.
The thing is, what I'd like to do is bring in some people
You know, I've got to say, no, they're not pretty senators.
No, I've never looked at those backers in this office.
Neither one of them.
Neither Cunningham or Cranston.
Now, they have, they, and we're not going to let them get well on this one team, too.
They, they didn't, we would accept their support.
No, sir, they, they voted against this SSG, so they come out with this script card, then.
What do you know?
Bring Wilson in, bring in the California Congress, the Republican.
Skip the Democrat.
Just do it ruthless as hell.
That's the way to do it if you bring in Congress.
See, play it absolutely ruthless.
Don't let the senators in the place.
Don't let them in.
I wouldn't bring them in Congress.
I'd just do it as a White House deal.
As a White House, let's see.
press and one union guy from each yard, if you could just bring on a head of the union.
If you could bring them the, I don't know, maybe they didn't want to come back or something like that, but if you could bring them the, and see if the governor had, you know, if you want them.
I think it really is.
Well, we do.
We have Alan Lito here who handles LATV and that.
That's right.
Cliff Evans who handles the independents in Southern California.
The networks do.
I'm talking about in addition to that.
You're making too much coverage out there by the network stations.
The networks here are filming.
But in Southern California, we're covered by Metromedia, who has a guy, Westinghouse, who has a guy, RKO, who has a guy.
Golden Western has a guy, which covers just about all of the independent stations in Southern California.
Life has a man here, who we would bring in, who covers COGO down in Southern California.
Wait, is there not anything else we can help to speak, or anybody thought of that?
I don't understand.
No.
Agriculture.
Well, we do.
Sorry, agriculture and then the school, then the guys.
Squish, push the P-O-W and then push the, oh, this is funny, the school, then our, then I don't, it's a bit kind of, not cool.
I hit them this morning.
The school, I'll put you, I'll put you in a facility on my right.
They asked for it.
They asked for it.
I said,
These guys don't have this thing, and I can tell you, you just need more money at the present school system.
I said, you know what?
The people wanted taxes to change.
I could read the letters from the heart.
That's true.
They thought, well, damn it, it's true.
I said, support these Catholic schools.
Public ghetto schools.
You've got to save those schools.
They're as good as they used to be there.
On the hells, you and all the nuns, you're going to have the maniacs start rising.
Good.
Let's certainly save those schools up at least.
Did you hear this?
You heard this story about the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the story about Big Al and those with no energy?
Are you kidding?
Big Al?
You know what you're calling him?
I don't know.
Big Al?
Yeah.
But one of the reasons it happened is that, uh, I think that he told the story.
And, uh, he said that it was back, back in the gang interface in Chicago, apparently, or something.
You know, these kind of gang generals, bad generals, and so they get shot.
And, and the leaders of the gang went, but everybody else had to go.
They had to show or else, and so, and so on.
And this paper guy was covered with these generals who got on them.
Big cars came on them.
All, all the wreaths were there and so forth.
and his hoods were standing around, you know, and the general parlor, and so forth, with their wreaths, and I recorded one of them.
It's the most beautiful girl, blonde, young, package.
I couldn't understand what he said.
He said, one of the, one of the, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said,
Ariel, shh.
Come on.
Nobody dies in my room.
Dude, you give it a big ass.
You know, apparently, those Berrigan letters, the exchange of letters between Mr. Elizabeth, of course, it was in the Chi magazine, the clear implication was there.
They didn't get into the part about where he wrote about her beautiful thighs and so forth.
So, I think he was telling me about, you know, some of the
contents of that letter, which Time Magazine apparently got a hold of somewhere.
But they didn't print the part where he referred to her in more detailed terms.
But they did say in Time that there were more letters which revealed in more descriptive terms their association between Father Berrigan and Sister Elizabeth.
I'm sure you must be mighty proud of that.
He might have some ideas on that.
I talked to him about it yesterday again, too.
He was .
He looked at the rockers.
He didn't check to see what rockers were going to do.
And word of his faith.
He said, hey, we're going to have some rockers with us.
But he can take a little bit here and keep us out of it.
And then Rooks Kelly can be in touch with McCloskey and all the rest.
And just give the god damn thing as much of a ride as we can.
And that P.O.W.
thing was just a good little ride we finally got.
Also, Scala may have an idea about that, as I said, about that pitching deal.
He'll certainly know how the hell to get it on me and get on the networks.
Don't you think that's good?
I don't think anybody knows, because I know so many people ask me, why don't we just turn loose our prisoners?
And I say, God damn it, we've already turned loose more prisoners than they've got.
Did you know we have?
We have already sent across the border more prisoners than they've got of ours.
But nobody knows it.
See?
They will not print it.
Well, they print it.
You don't put it on TV.
It's gross.
You have a feature story going with somebody on that.
Well, a feature story with Bob.
Once on TV, once on TV, you show those people coming across the DMZ.
That's the kind of thing.
That would be a dramatic picture.
There goes the helicopters and the justice.
See?
No, we don't gas in the air here, apparently.
That's not Reagan who does that.
I guess it's quite when Reagan got in the way, he asked for this car, didn't he?
He kept it going to stay on top of his car.
Oh, really?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's gone.
That's where it jumped on the hood and went right up onto the top of the car.
It was jumping on the top of the car.
Clark saw that the TV camera, there was a real camera over there, so Clark just opened his newspaper.
I hope the driver, if the guy was on top of it, was in traffic.
Yeah, the driver tried to start fast, and he couldn't because there was a car right in front of him.
He pulled out.
The guy fell off the car.
Did he?
Because that's the time you just trump the gas.
That's what he wanted to do.
He said that's what he wanted to do, but he couldn't.
There's a car around and he couldn't.
These drivers are funny.
One of them told me the other night, he said, you know, he said, one of the fellas, oh, jeez, they're all servants.
Oh, they detest him.
One of the fellas told me, he said, a hippie type guy came up to him and he was at a stoplight asking for directions, Georgetown, and he was just laughing because he had sent him, you know, five miles in the wrong direction, the wrong way.
You know, I think they did underestimate the government employees with turnout and help, just like they did
The way they believe that this society is as sick as they are, and that as they think it is, they don't understand that most people in this country are the most, well, they believe all this crap they see on the top of their head.
Also, if they read the Washington Post, and the Washington Post brings up the whole Senate, most people support the Washington Post, to give you the impression.
Nobody supports the President and all that sort of thing.
And God damn it, they find out it isn't true.
You know, that would irritate your friends out here in the press room.
They just can't stand it, you know.
They think they run the country, and they don't anymore.
Not even now.
It's kept her down in the woods, but on any great issue, once we get the word, we'll be there looking for a future son of those people out there, because they're on the wrong side.
The way of the future is not the long hair, and it isn't all this spice, and it isn't all this decades of stuff.
I don't mean the way of the future doesn't include a lot of immorality, and it's always been like this, but these people glorify it.
That's the point.
That's where they're wrong.
They are not going to win that way.
This country is going to go that way.
I don't think so.
Please hold on.
This is one...
Your answer at the end of the day, I thought, on the marijuana thing was because, you know, very clearly you said, well, I don't think it's for the good of the country and for the good of the young people in this country to legalize marijuana.
But then going to the penalty aspect of it is the commission.
People respond to that very clearly.
Marijuana is good for the country and good for the young people.
In other words, you understand.
Those who are...
you know, move in those circles where they smoke marijuana.
They say the same thing.
It was interesting.
Do they?
Yeah, I'm a friend of my daughter's who's a kid that's been around our house all through the years.
This year, a couple weeks ago, a couple days, has been on marijuana and on hard drugs for a long, last couple years, down at SC.
And I asked, I told him I didn't see any legalized marijuana because
If we don't, we're tolerating all these demonstrations and stuff.
We sit down and at least stand there watching people smoke marijuana and don't do anything about it.
And therefore, there's no respect for the law.
So don't kid yourself.
Just keep it illegal.
It's the only way you'll ever control it.
Because as long as it's illegal, it keeps some kind of a damper on it.
As soon as you make it legal, you're never going to be able to control it.
Well, they refer to this fellow down in Texas who you have to have sympathy with.
They found a poor guy with one stick of marijuana in his pocket.
They sent him up for what?
Twenty-five.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty years now.
And put him in prison for the crime of homosexuals and all that.
No, now, he may have been, you know.
There must have been another charge, but you couldn't do that at all.
Marijuana was just a fucking other kid in New Jersey at the time.
first count that they'd sent him out for 14 years or something like that.
And actually locked him up.
They didn't suspend the journey.
They put him in the plane.
There was a first offense.
And it was possession, not use.
Here, they got him by the thousands, using.
Right under the policeman's nose.
Marijuana, LSD and everything.
Are they using LSD too?
Sure.
No, they were announcing down there, don't use the red acid.
Don't use or anything like that.
LSD?
No.
Yeah, but it was acid is LSD, but they had some that was bad that had strychnine in it.
The LSD?
Yeah.
I thought it was...
They inject LSD.
Dropping acid.
I thought they put that on a sugar cube.
They do, but they inject it into their veins.
I see you can take all kinds of it.
I didn't know.
You just put it in a coat.
It's a little bit...
The kid was at a party in Stanford, had never taken any drug in his life, didn't smoke, didn't drink, complete square.
And he had a coke at a party, someone had laced it with LSD and he had a bad trip, went out of his mind.
He's in an institution now, totally irrational.
He's just completely lost his mind, really recovered.
They don't know what, they don't have any hope that he will.
It's horrible.
The court, the judge commits suicide all the time.
He can strap them.
Well, my cousin's, my cousin had a son.
I thought he was having a COVID, I farted.
He didn't intend to take the LSD at all.
Never, he wasn't scrambling or anything else.
Some funny joke that somebody played on him.
I'm, uh, you know, I've had no objection to it.
They want to change it.
or part of the time of the meeting or something like that.
It just wastes time.
That's why they don't do it.
I know that.
It does take more time.
You have people with a full focus.
So whether there is something to be said for this day, particularly if you get burned or all the curfew can't manage the curfew where it's set in the curfew, I don't know.
I'm just thinking.
The more you go together, the less useful it is.
Well, it's not useful at all, except that it's your idea of the pep talk.
In other words, you get the staff together and they can sit around maybe once a week.
When I think of the fact that that's for the congressman and the candidate, that's all there really is.
They need me to go down and stand and sit in for a half hour or so, just a half hour and sit in.
Somebody just give me a little, a little lift and say, God damn it, get out and buy some different drinks.
I called the comrade who was at lunch.
And I said, yes, I can do that at the State Department.
I got in there, fell out of his chair.
He says, oh, that's just wonderful.
And I called and said, there were two guards from the State Department.
One of the guys went out with me.
And I said, do you think that would do us a fine?
He said, well, tell your counsel.
I don't, I don't really get around that department.
And that's, I thought it was a good thing to get a guy with balls over there for a change.
McConner is, I don't know, but he's one big, uh, he's a better hand.
He's strong.
He is.
He's down.
He's, he's, he's great.
He's straight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's, he's, he's a, he's a, this is...
The, the, you know, and it's not like I'm, you know, I personally think Cisco is too, I don't buy, uh, energy.
I think energy is important because he doesn't want us to use our Cisco, the patriotic, our electricity, and that's how it's done.
And I don't know what you want to ask.