Conversation 492-007

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What were you about to tell me?

Well, they decided that it was such a hassle, they decided to give it to Steve.

Markets at 147 today, 939.92.

Apparently, John Harlan made the rest of all the demonstrators.

It's not time to pay.

They had about 2,000 in the area of the capital, and they were ready to move to Augusta.

Now, John Irwin tells me now they have.

Three members of Congress, including Absoke and Dellumson, tend to speak to him.

Senator Kennedy has announced that he's planning hearings regarding the federal government's handling of the demonstrations this week, and his staff has indicated they feel it would be useful to encourage a meeting with the demonstrators.

I'm looking forward to that.

Sure.

Uh...

And he's being happy for breakfast on Saturday either, and he's leaving town then apparently.

Hello, Dr. Chasler.

Yes.

I was calling you just to thank you for the letter you wrote to me when you were in Vietnam, and to tell you that I think the example that you have set, that you're involved, you're working in Vietnam, or in the United States, in fact, that you have to be in these children who you take care of,

Thank you, Ralph.

And then to see, too, that beyond your three of your children and your boys and ROTC, I think this is a splendid example for this country and the most great example.

Correct.

Well, I appreciate it very much, and I hope that everything goes well with your family now that you're back.

And in the end, of course, we'll handle the situation the way that all of you are worthful and really worthwhile.

Anyway.

Direct message, I believe.

3-1-2-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3

I wonder if, uh, the purpose of the call is not a harsh response.

But it seems to me a letter like that should be, I don't know.

Is that what I'm hearing?

The thing you should do now is somebody else should call him up and say that you were, you know, you read his letter and, uh, maybe not even know that you had called him on the last day, I suppose.

I just say it'd be very inspiring to a lot of people, if you wouldn't mind.

I was going to say, it's hard for them to get people.

I tried it today between two and a half hours.

That's remarkable.

Here's a copy of the letter I just heard.

It reads as follows.

I will read it out for you.

Next slide, please.

Let's talk about the letters themselves.

They're terrific stories.

I don't see why we couldn't call them on a very understanding basis and just say your letter was so inspiring to the president and people here that we just wondered if you would want to give it to other people.

Well, at least discuss it with your counsel.

This play is about a discussion with the company I had with the judge.

It was a couple of months ago.

Well, they, uh, some of those guys have, they've recorded a vote against

The guys are campaigning against us and that kind of thing.

They voted against it.

They have a...

If we can figure out the rationale, we've got an opportunity to say that the situation's changed.

Then I voted against it, but... And then it went different than all of the houses, actually.

I don't know what, but they're... Or the consequences of it.

Either the last time or the other, they could say that now that the house is back and it's on a concrete floor, that they could take a walk.

That's the point.

The original switcher, it bothered, it just bothered Jesus.

He didn't expect it.

He didn't think he was going to live.

He doesn't, he doesn't break the wheelchair.

He didn't do that.

I don't know whether we did our good job down here that we didn't probably have our seduction going on, but the only else that we did, and Luther is the first guy who was running, they said that, but I don't know.

Maybe he did a good job on the PR side, you know, he's a good one.

Maybe, you know, counting those aside, it's a different game.

I'm not saying that.

Could be.

He may have done both.

The house guys told me there was no problem.

Jerry told me he didn't think he had any problem.

Told him he'd be flashed.

Yeah.

Jerry, as you see, he and his mom, his mommy, he carries about 30 of those.

He's got everybody's newsletter in his pocket.

He's all the guys he's gonna do it.

He's doing it with Joe Wanker, who he takes back.

He pushes them.

And I wrote Jerry, which I call my parents' war.

I think it was a very important war.

I believe it was a very important war.

What is the report on the, uh, the little friend, the animals upstairs?

Well, they, uh, a couple thousand.

I'm up at the Capitol.

They're still there?

No, they're in jail.

All that I understand, Bob, is that you, your report's in the chief's office.

Frank Kennedy was going to have a hearing, what, under what kind of a committee?

He did this before.

Uh, he's got a second committee of government operations.

And who the hell is the Republican on it?

I don't know.

That's what I would find out.

Here's a chance for the Republicans to become famous.

As a minority member of the committee, you can just filibuster, gag, reject, raise hell, raise questions that can't be justified, and I'll force you to gag a little bit.

I'll make a real money.

Call in Chief Business.

Well, they will call in.

You know, he did this to us once.

So, um, this is just, uh,

More grandstanding.

Grandstanding or not.

It's time now, John, for us.

I mean, there's a certain amount of money in the house and probably in certain houses.

But, you know, we've always done it.

The feeling is that Kennedy is getting himself out on the wrong side of this issue.

By doing he doesn't need this.

My name's Michael Kennedy.

I mean, it's like me trying to get off the verge of death, right?

But the crime's pretty good.

Yeah, it's good to come out.

Yes, it's good to be a goddamn fool to come out for it.

Well, we'll eat it up.

We'll eat it up.

Right.

And also, let's get musky in that wisdom.

Musky and hungry.

Lovely.

Yeah, they did.

After the last busload rolled away, about 90 or 100 came from nowhere and busted through the police lines and ran up the steps toward the entrance.

And the police were chasing them.

And I just came over the radio, the Secret Service radio.

I haven't got a report as to what's happened since.

But they were very peaceful otherwise.

And they just sat up there.

And who arrested them?

The D.C. police or the Capitol Police?

I don't know.

Must have been D.C.

They've been prisoned by the Capitol Police.

Call them.

They brought the buses.

Call them away.

You'll reach on.

Yeah.

Wilson went to the mat today.

He said to the press, I assume total responsibility for the arrest procedure.

The decision was mine.

I think it was correct.

I think it was necessary in the protection of private property and the public safety of Washington's citizens.

And I have no apologies for that.

I couldn't forget.

You might have a guy who'd be the next head of the FBI.

Well, that's a good suggestion.

Remember, we need a guy.

Well, that's a good suggestion.

Here's a guy.

I'm not allowed with a high school education.

That's just great.

But he's just done.

Well, we've programmed him to do this since March, and he did better than you could possibly program him.

Well, we've got people around here.

Why does he need that?

This is amazing.

Well, I don't know.

There's hardly anybody around in this country that would do that.

Well, we asked him to.

I don't know.

Nobody else does.

I know, but he has never let us down yet.

Well, he also never steps up to it.

How old was he, John?

I would guess about 45.

Oh, God.

He couldn't have done it.

He was married 15 years, according to the newspaper story.

Today is Anderson's.

And you ought to call him.

It's his wedding anniversary today.

His wife said I guess you will come out then.

Thank you, buddy.

Take me to the sandwich with two candles.

I'm not going.

Oh, good.

Good.

Yeah, they've, uh, I don't know, uh, they've got about 30, 20, 30 guys in there.

Yeah.

Well, see, they have surveillance all over town called into there.

So the Secret Service knows.

Well, because they need to, they need to know well that anything is coming this way.

They need to know what's happening outside the sheriff for the protection of the vice president.

And so they have to keep track.

And they've got nothing else to do.

They have to sit and wait until someone comes after you.

They're sitting around waiting.

They then will better know what's happening.

Well, they also have responsibility for the embassies.

If there were a march on a South Vietnamese embassy or something like that.

The other thing is that they have a good source of information for us.

It really helps us if they keep track of what's going on.

Oh, Miss Wilson, I wanted to congratulate you on your 15th wedding anniversary.

I don't think your husband will be at home, but if he does, why don't you tell him that we think he's all done a splendid job down there and with the whole of the city, and I think the nation's very proud of what he's done.

Bye.

He really set the foundation stick right down.

It's all looking pretty heavy this afternoon on this whole business about constitutional arrests and all that.

And he was able to say, oh, I don't know who, but, you know, the mob.

And he was able to say, look, the chief of police has made a statement on this, and I just don't have anything to add to it.

And that was it.

We're going to make a decision.

Don't give an inch.

Bye-bye.

I want you to keep this.

I said, nobody is going to get out of this way.

I said, I ain't seen anybody.

I said, the whole God damn staff is fired.

You know what I mean?

No leaks, no concerns.

People around the president are worried.

If anything, I think we should have a public email order package.

That's my attitude.

It's very important that we show no, we show an absolute united front all over.

You know, just if they don't agree, just keep up.

You know?

We've got a very good, strong position right now.

That's right.

Yeah, that's like Sam Irving.

I heard that he said something.

And, uh, you know, he's the first to come certain on a constitutional issue, but he said that he was certain that he thought that the thing was handled very well.

So, uh, I think we just hang in.

Kennedy, I think, was the first president.

Yeah.

I mean, responsible person.

He's, uh... How's he trying to appeal to...

Well, it may be a reflex thing, because he did it before, and he got a little mild with each other, but before.

And his staff may be...

It may be the staff.

Maybe there's an entire group now that's trying to capture the left from the Democratic Party, which is musky and wobbly.

And Humphrey, of course, is playing, you know, a little too close.

So Kennedy tries to get the left.

I think he has some credibility with that.

Oh, yes.

These kids that work in town, they think Kennedy is a sellout.

Oh, no.

Really?

Yeah.

Kennedy?

Yes, sir.

Oh, no, they love him.

Well, not the one in that tub.

Who do they know who they love?

Montgomery.

Oh, Christ.

Kennedy doesn't answer.

How do they think Kennedy is so remote?

Because he came out so late on the war.

Oh.

I see.

Because he came out so late.

That was always the case.

Yeah.

Humphrey was in it.

He's a switcheroo.

They had no... Humphrey just isn't there, even if he were with us.

Humphrey is basically an ultra-liberal.

But he is nice.

Humphrey is closer to him than any other.

But he's the old-school, battling politician.

Let me let you in on something that I do not want to discuss with anybody else in the stand.

They're not talking about the record.

They don't want them to know this.

They're going to work on it.

Now, this is a serious, common suggestion.

I love the SST.

It's a conference.

It's simple.

The board feels very, very strong.

And I think it's just fine.

I don't know what senator to switch.

That's the only problem.

Connelly, you have to be better than him, because he's going to announce bargaining.

Connelly feels that she can get a couple senators to switch.

Yeah, bro.

Maybe.

That's one thing, though.

And the other thing is Tony.

Tony.

He's taking a lot of gas.

And the Jews, you know, the Jews supported both of them.

That's right.

They said they did.

This is a good time to put that on the map.

He just told us we could have delivered.

I mean, our Jews.

They supported them, too.

That's right.

They're good guys.

They just go right on.

I had a lesson with Frank Boe the other day, and he was on this, and I said, uh, I would never suggest it, but if they agreed to it, she wouldn't tell you.

Jerry's a growing soul.

He doesn't want to reach this conclusion on his own.

He's going to go.

I knew they were counting.

I think he'll hear it.

I think they were ready to forget it.

They'll have a big, great shot at it.

It'd be great if they still had him in the House.

Yep.

Just to have him here and stuff.

Well, you get it through the House.

You realize.

A conference is a conference.

Well, they'll go to the Senate first.

Hmm?

Oh, I don't know.

The appropriating side of this bill has already been to the Senate.

That's true.

And they're coming back now.

This is a bill that's coming back to the House.

It started at the House, went to the Senate.

They deleted it.

See, that's coming back.

That would be my guess.

I don't know exactly the posture of it, but both...

...seem to think that they had a fighting chance at a conference.

Well, there's the point you see.

The difference has to be resolved.

And then the other way goes on the Senate.

They have to put a vote on the Senate approval of the conference report.

And you have to call the fight together.

But that would give these left-wingers who voted against it a chance to get off the hook and say, well, I couldn't vote against the whole appropriation, so I had to vote for the report.

Otherwise you kill, we don't kill, we just, we have a lot of legislative chaos.

So yeah, the appropriations bill, it's the most irresponsible vote an individual can cast to vote against the appropriations bill.

This appropriations bill is in its, what, 11th month of a continuing resolution?

And it's about to get it done before the year ends.

Anyway, let me say this, I think it's coming up at a better time.

In a better time, we will.

This demonstration helps us.

The Lockheed war is off the front page.

That's the point.

They think it's Lockheed who's going to have to vote.

But Cantrell has to be for Lockheed.

Cantrell will be for Lockheed.

And Magnuson and Jackson have stronger trade in stock now.

Because the fellows who have Lockheed have got to come to Magnuson and Jackson for votes.

And uh, this is where you make your deal with, with uh, both the California senators.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's how you get Frankston.

Yeah, as well as, as well as Tonya.

We need a tree.

We lost one at five.

Yeah.

Oh, that's, that's great.

More Frankston, Tonya, and Dan Brown.

If so, yeah.

But didn't we have one in Frankston?

Yes, there was another one.

There was one in 82.

Well, it was Clint Maddison, who apparently never understood what the hell was going on.

And the feeling was that Jackson had really held his arm.

Jackson usually programs him.

And there's one that you would ship.

You've only got to ship three.

Right.

She's got it clean once on and out.

That's the other thing.

A lot of them are clean.

They're gone now.

They're not in the House.

You see, almost everybody said, John, that if the House had voted for it, it would have passed the Senate.

If the House had voted against it, it would have made it out of the House.

Right, John?

Right, John.

The Senate just doesn't stand in the pocket.

Now, if the house moves forward, and these guys... That's theoretically important, too, because if that would turn around, then the B-1 and all these other things would have a much better climate.

Right now, you've got an eroding situation.

At this time, you have a better climate.

Governor, in this... Oh, well, I... We'll accept second place psychology.

I'm on board, incidentally.

This is one time we're going to play a role.

If there are Republicans down there, we'll do it against them.

We're, uh, when they just heard a few of them up here and all this, I'll say, God damn it, we've got to end it.

I mean, we've played a lot, but we've got to wave a cherry against them.

He doesn't want to give them too much notice.

He doesn't want to serve.

He doesn't want to drop them.

But I believe, absolutely.

So you'll have time to work on the Senate.

I mean, you've got to get it done also, but then I think the Republican side or some of the leaders might have showed up there.

Yeah.

That one happens like Thursday.

Please not to arrest the crowd.

That's nice.

152,000 demonstrators have already been arrested and wrote.

There's a meeting at St. Stephen's Church tonight with the May Day Coalition.

Churches of Rainy Days, a group of University of Maryland students, will attempt to block traffic on Route 1 in the vicinity of College Park, Maryland.

Well, that's what they did the other time.

Yeah.

That's good.

The thing that did well, their big deal was to stop all traffic in the districts, and now they can block out of College Park, Maryland, and they don't care.

Secret Service is planning to resume normal operations, removing all barricades, extra guards, etc.

at 6 p.m. What was it?

Were they not planning a big deal with Martin?

Not around Newton.

No, there's no intelligence of it at all.

They were planning to stay at the Congress forever, you know, until they signed the peace treaty.

I haven't heard that.

Not lately.

They were trying to get him to comment on whether or not the president regretted the violation of people's constitutional rights in the arrest process.

And he just went for it.

I regret it, Jesus Christ.

He didn't say he didn't hear them.

No, he did not.

He said he hung very tough and he said they mad and went away just mad as hell.

That's right.

I think we're better than cheaper.

That's a good question.

No, I, I, well, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

I'm really concerned about our ability to get some of these other technological things through in the future.

Once they start to hire us, bro, that's right.

The argument was, you know, you vote against the SSP, you can't very well balance your position and be for the B-1 because it's going to pollute the atmosphere and all that stuff.

The B-1 is basically a military version of the SSP.

Well, no, it's a very fast military bomber.

And it's the same speed.

No, I don't think it's as fast.

It's not as fast as the SSP, but...

All right.

Rather than a two-minute screening now.

Yeah.

Wow.

I told the president she came in and apologized.

I called Mrs. Wilson.

Congratulations on your 50th wedding anniversary.

Your husband's the chief of police.

He's the big red neighbor.

Yeah.

The whole city and the nation is proud of what he's done

Well, sir, let's go in there.

I was, uh...

Well, Pierpont got it going.

Oh, well.

Actually, I've just gotten into Pierpont.

He's making, what did he try to do, Ratner?

Bacchender, Bacchender going after you.

He used to be irrational.

He's not very smart.

That's right.

He's emotional.

Very emotional.

Oh, I always said it hit me when I had a kid in my home.

That was because they needed you.

What they were going after was in a quote, and they were just dying to get it.

I go through Steve, and they come back to it.

Yeah, I go through some of them, and they come back to it.

And I really want you to quote.

We're looking for a quote which said that the president regrets that the constitutional rights

Some of those who were arrested were violent.

Oh, okay.

Well, if I say that, does the word regret mean regret?

Well, I can answer all that.

You know, sometimes you can cut it off, and then there are some questions that are so legit that if you don't, you know, strike it back at them, then that spans the impression I was intended to.

But you just kept repeating that I thought they got a hell of a good job.

Not a competent, appropriate job.

Over and over again.

And I said, not only the police department, but the U.S. foreign troops that they drive an actual job, and the city officials and so forth.

And I said, I don't want anything I say to even lead to the question that there's any doubt that the president

And then I said, you have to keep in mind that this was a very unusual situation that occurred here where people came to town to stop the operation of the government through violence, civil disobedience, that in itself is something that probably has never occurred here in Washington, you know, before.

All right.

Good.

That's right.

We'll dance around it.

Well, I think it's a good thing with the reputation of this town being a tough reputation.

So that they...

But you can't get up on here and kick us around.

That's the point.

I mean, that's us.

We'll leave.

Chicago will leave.

I don't think David ever arrested that guy, did he?

No, I don't know.

He just beat him up.

We must be up pretty close to 10,000 now.

They busted another 1,200 this afternoon.

They did.

That's what I'm saying.

It was constitutional law.

What?

Aren't these some of the readers of... Oh, sure, sure.

Yeah.

They're pissed off.

I was in a wheelchair.

I was pulled into a picture.

He said, I'm going home.

I said, why?

I thought you were staying until the end of the piece.

He said, I did.

I came here to stay until we had a piece of Vietnam that had been arrested three times.

I'm so tired.

I'm on a bed on my head.

I've been busted three times.

I've been busted.

I didn't say this for the president.

I said, look,

I had with a guy, seven guys with a guy who was a .

That's as far as I went.

Then went back and repeated the horrid lie.

I was trying to turn it off at that point.

The camera came to me afterwards.

They said, listen, if we were out there getting the press passes on, I said, you should arrest those guys where they had their press passes, where they were arrested.

He said, all we had to do was show the press passes.

You know, this whole thing about those guys purposely didn't do anything at all.

They wanted to be in the house.

What, you know, the question is, there's one of them.

Yeah.

This whole episode reminds me of Germany right after the war.

Nobody was a Nazi.

Everybody had been against Hitler after the war.

Here, everybody was just walking down the street.

You don't find anybody who was arrested that was doing anything wrong.

Well, the only one I've heard of.

Yeah, I was just walking down the street and I was busted.

Well, that's something we can do.

It's hard to predict.

There's somebody, a congressman, somebody from Texas.

His son got arrested.

His 15-year-old son got arrested.

It was yesterday, I guess.

His father brought him into the house barber shop this morning at opening time.

He took the gift in the door and said, cut all his hair off.

This is the last time he's going to pull something like that.

And the barber cut his hair off.

I have William D. Ruckelshaus upstairs, who's coming to get wood shed, so I better get up there.

Anything he says is bad.

Everybody says it's a tall point.

It looks good.

He's not seven, of course he is.

He's doing other tasks as he is, and he's here as well.

No letting through any of our friends.

That's why he's coming in tonight.

That's it.

That's true.

Well, I didn't say he worked at OU, but it's to be, it's to be.

He will make the announcement and he'll, I think that there's been so much interest in the Navy that I don't think John has any reason to do it.

But he says he's, obviously he's got to say that I approve it.

I think he can come here and talk to me and go out and make it out here.

But even then, I don't agree with him on it.

So you work it out with him.

You've got to find a division for your region if you think about it.

Well, anyway, why don't you just want to leak it to the Times?

I'm sorry, Mr. Secretary.

I think we'll get another big play on your secret leak to the Times in the air, I'm sure.

We'll just leak it.

I'll just say it.

Say that the president has an appointment with Secretary Connery tomorrow.

Well, at least he doesn't do that.

No, no, no, no.

Well, oh, oh, you said that I haven't.

And it's a similar kind of discussion as when I discuss Lockheed.

That's what he's talking about.

I see.