Conversation 500-010

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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 called to bring him, Mr. President, to the District Department.

And I put it on the ground that Smith was...

I said, I need your advice as a fellow bureaucrat.

I said, Smith is getting me back to go tonight.

I had to keep him here.

What do you think?

He said, there's no problem.

He said, let him go.

He said it's...

He said, this is such an important thing that Gromyko can't do it on his own, even the announcement, and he's probably going around Moscow checking with the 405 key people.

He says, there's no problem.

He thinks there's no problem.

It is in the box that until he gets the word, he can't say yes.

But he just doesn't think there is an issue.

I just don't want to speculate, Mr. President.

There may be a hundred reasons why.

It seems to me I can't see why.

I can't see one reason in a thousand why they're going to do it.

I can't see any.

I can't see that they said one in a thousand.

If they had wanted to stop it, Mr. President, the easy way to stop it was last week to tell us our proposal is unacceptable.

To get an agreed text and then at the last minute, we've got too many things hanging over them.

China, Berlin.

There's nothing he can do to find out what the hell is going on.

No, he said he sent a cable last night.

He said it's too early for him to have heard today.

Too early, huh?

Well, there's a two-hour transmission time.

We need to go.

We need to know.

Well, I think I have to cancel.

We go Thursday.

That's the plan.

And I can't look Smith for now.

And you might consider canceling.

Canceling your architecture.

But, uh, in concrete.

If some of the pitch should turn back on us, this would be, uh, we just can't.

We can't.

You are, you are, you are 1,000.

If there's even one chance in 10,000, why make ourselves look bad?

That's right.

Well, it doesn't help anything.

That we'd give away the game without getting it for us.

Yeah.

So, uh...

But we've kept the Smith appointment with you for three.

Yeah.

If we haven't heard, we can say you got locked in the, uh, congressional battle.

Yeah.

Uh, I'd like to get him out of town, quite frankly.

Would you think you... Yeah.

Of course, we can get him out of town without telling him anything.

I think I'd get him out of town without telling him anything, and then... And then he'd come back and call the good evening.

Well, we get Farley in and have him tell.

Why don't you get Farley in?

I think maybe you've got to get Sam out of town.

Yeah.

Then I just have to make sure that Simeonov doesn't say anything to him and I can handle that.

Well, this damn meeting was a... Goddamn, the whole bunch of Dominic.

Of course, he's a weak one, isn't he?

Oh, good God.

Mighty weak.

Typical, you know, he's grown up and he's been at the Brevin and, of course, the Norris Cop, China, and they said, well, they want to have some of them that they can vote for.

Goddamn the hell.

I don't know.

I mean, how much stronger did you make the case?

I mean, we put it to them there.

But I talked to Humphrey last night.

He's doing one of the things I don't buy as a matter of fact.

Yeah, but I don't care at all.

Well, Humphrey is willing, if they took out the word, the Messiah's Amendment without, there are ways to fix up the Messiah's Amendment so that it wouldn't be bad, but... Take out the six months deal?

No, the six months would have to go, and then the injunction to the administration and the second thing to negotiate with the allies to reduce forces, if they put in the, made it and said the Congress requests to establish forces,

so that it isn't consistent with other, you know, something like that.

I'm not sure that it will look like

like such a Mansfield defeat.

Well, anyway, that's what we're trying to do.

It isn't beating Mansfield that we're concerned about.

Hell, it's beating the attack on the executives.

That's what's involved here.

And on our European policy.

And I think after this old announcement, which after all we'll have to deliver it.

Oh, Mr. President, I cannot...

If they negotiate for four months, make that many concessions, and then kick it over when an agreed text exists, that would be so unconscionable.

They pay such a price for it.

They also, they have a truck plant they're negotiating with us, and I arranged for Peterson to see their man on it, and now we're holding them.

It can't fail.

This is just a tariff with bureaucratic government, Mr. President.

I know, my thing's about to come, but I, uh, my point is that I'm just taking, I'm just taking that extra degree of caution that I ought to be dealing with this.

You're a thousand percent right.

Dealing with this.

I mean, I don't know.

Oh, yeah.

What a bunch of lily-leathered, weak sisters those are.

What do you think of those?

Well, it doesn't surprise me because I've been talking to them all week.

But here they are talking to them after having the establishment come out against Mansfield and all the rest.

Here they are still slobbering and sluttering around.

What in the name of God are we out here?

It's true of Vietnam.

It's true of everything.

The President, without you, this country would be dead.

Well, that's why this SALT thing is important.

We're going to ram the son of a bitch down their throats if we get it to them.

You know, I laid the foundation for that today.

You know, if I say, you know, now that it's SALT, if we didn't have ABM, we wouldn't have anything negotiated about it.

I noticed that.

Just as well.

And this whole idea, too, of hitting them hard, in fact, you have two goals.

One is to reduce their cost to your men, and the other is to have peace.

You can reduce the cost and increase the danger of war.

What the hell are we talking about?

This is horrible.

These people are being so totally irresponsible.

It is unbelievable.

And they haven't got one spine.

All they're thinking of now is this week.

This weekend.

And how they're going to look.

Yeah, but what they don't understand is how good they could look if we get the announcement first.

There must be something wrong with the way we're solving things.

I don't know.

There's something wrong with our leadership group now.

There's something wrong.

And if you were such an unusual type in terms of the American political scene, if you didn't come from the healthiest realm of our society, Douglas Dillon, and Nelson, much as I love him,

He would have caved from Vietnam.

He would have caved from this.

He would have caved from ABF.

He would have caved from...

He'd never have started ABF.

Because he would have taken a poll.

You know what he would have done.

He'd also put in polls.

Nelson would have been like you, but...

But it's goddamn disturbing, though, you know.

We're just working our brains out and butts off.

They're trying to say, oh, it isn't discouraging.

There's no president who speaks so long, but therefore also... Jesus Christ, as I said, you can't read the Lincoln period without realizing it.

There was then, there was a...

The only difference was Lincoln had some supporters.

There were three differences.

We've got Chicago.

He had no choice but to win or lose.

Exactly.

He had some supporters.

He had no choice but to win or lose.

And he didn't have television.

Yeah?

Uh, we have this problem that every night these bastards are beating our brains out.

God, I can't get over Tom.

He was whining to me before you came in about, uh, about the railroad thing.

Well, some of the senators... No, I heard that.

What did you think when he said, oh, Senators didn't bring on the strike?

I heard that.

No, but what about the flying?

No, I just left to call the president.

Of course they didn't bring on the strike.

But for Christ's sake, the Senate should be there.

And she can come back from these places.

They can travel all over the world.

Our guys ought to fight harder.

They ought to kick these guys in the balls for being away.

Blame them for it.

Don't you agree?

Jesus Christ, I thought that was supposed to happen.

I'm inclined to think that if we ought to let Smith go tonight, if we haven't had an answer, because if the thing is... All this, and you've got to secure it all the time.

Yeah.

I'll get Farley in and let him worry about having Smith.

Farley won't give us any...

It also gives Roger something to do.

Yeah.

With Farley.

Well, I tell you what I would do.

I would, uh...

I would... Where's Smith going?

I just don't want him to stand on the platform with you.

No, no, no.

After I make the announcement.

You're right.

Nobody's going to stand there.

Absolutely.

I'm going to be a writer.

I'm just going to be a writer.

Because as Scali said to me yesterday, that if you had put this proposal into the bureaucracy, they would have all accused you of sabotaging the salt talks.

It would have leaked all over town.

Because we really did something on this negotiation.

We pulled away from our own proposal on ABN and cut an offensive link that

It's a hell of a job.

Mr. President, if it fails, it cannot fail.

It cannot fail.

If it fails, we're going to start pulling the house down ourselves.

If it fails, I don't see anything else to do but to fight on everything.

We'll have to go out and the Russians turn this.

We're going to have to go out and say the hell with elections and the rest and build up American forces.

It can't be.

They are not that stupid, Mr. President.

If they wanted it to fail after having made six major concessions, for them to let it fail now would be nuts.

If they didn't agree to it.

Oh, no, they are not.

The freedom officer knows.

This is why I'm so confident, because the freedom, if he had the slightest doubt about the day, would tell me there's a problem.

All he is telling me, what he says is Gromyko, he says Brezhnev was out of town.

Gromyko can't set the date alone, and he's now going around town talking to the senior government officials because they don't want to call a new government meeting.

That would be too time-consuming.

And I can't... You know what, sir?

I'm going to get you to the point where I get the government of those people's scholars.

We'd rather come to your office...

He's a decent fellow running for office.

Poor old cop.

He's too old.

He can't leave.

He'll never leave.

He'll hold our right to leave.

And, uh, I'm not going to spend his time.

And, uh, Dominic.

I mean, I'm not going to spend his time.

You know, he's, of course, Dominic.

He's Colorado.

He's Eastern.

You know what I'm saying?

I just couldn't understand.

He was fine here, but he...

He's gone.

What's happened to him?

I have noticed, Mr. President, that after a big operation, some people never are the same.

For example, I think Abrams, after that gallbladder operation, has never been the same.

Lost his head?

Something went wrong.

And, uh... Let me tell you one thing.

I watched Michael closely.

I never see any signs of...

deterioration.

I'm never going to stick around and make decisions.

I talked to Scali, incidentally, about getting out the word that you took out this fight before you, when you thought it was hopeless, on NATO.

And he already... You called me on the phone?

Yes.

In New York?

He's already talked to Lissacor along that line.

Well, do any good shit with Lissacor, do you guess?

Well...

Mr. President, the way you have kept putting in the history of your period, however, now in the history books it will get through.

The way you...

I thought, if we get the soul thing, this will really make these bachelors look like college-achieved politicians.

That's why it's so important, Mr. President.

That's why we've got to get...

I wish, I wish Frank really could have even...

I know I was the one that wanted that word change, but...

I don't think that's the thing.

I, or, or...

I think the pre...

I don't think Romico has...

It may be that they, however, they could be...

The only danger we have is this.

They could be looking at the...

They have people look at their comments...

They have an American section analyzing American opinion.

They also have American agents over here.

They've got a little like Joe Kraft, who's a slimy son of a bitch, constantly saying Nixon can't get along with the Russians.

Now he just made you, they decided to... That is what could move them, those great historical facts.

Yeah, but if they do that, they also know they won't get a Berlin agreement.

Well, if they know that... Mr. President, I'm going to do a memo for you, summing up what we did on Berlin.

Because if you think this is... We'll flush it.

Oh, yes.

Listen, don't worry.

There ain't going to be no doubt about flushing it.

The president said to me last week that I'm the toughest fellow he's negotiated with since he's come here and he said his government is just up a tree because I fight over every word.

Now, basically, you know, I'm sure they're irritated with me.

On the other hand, that's what they respect.

That's what they do.

They fight over the word.

I don't think it's that word, Mr. President.

Maybe we shouldn't let it go.

But I think for them to announce what I am afraid happened is not the word.

Basically, that announcement, which they drafted themselves, is a mistake from their point of view.

The word is nothing but the announcement is where they made their mistake.

And I'm afraid what happened is that Semyonov came back to Moscow from Vienna, saw that announcement, and said, you idiots, you gave away too much.

That's what worries me, because that announcement gives us more than we asked for.

Even I didn't have the heart to say, to use the word agree, agree.

That's the... Well, I think, I don't think they did.

I don't see how they can pull off from an announcement which is repaid in the text they gave us.

That's not, I didn't change a word in the announcement.

Except put it into English.

But I'd work that out with his own man, with, I mean, with the premium.

We'll have it.

It's too far down the track.

If they were willing to go ahead and... Well, I know what is going to happen here, Henry, is that they're going to pass some amendment in the Senate.

It's quite clear.

The count indicates that.

And he's got... And Greville and these fellows all want to vote for some amendment.

And I took a hard line.

There isn't anything they can pass.

Well, isn't there one you can give us?

I said, no.

I just couldn't believe my ears when I heard this stuff.

It was funny.

I asked Bill, Bill had his group, and he said he didn't give an inch on the amendment, particularly the Matthias amendment.

He said, well, he wanted, as Bill pointed out, it was a piece of department reporting every six months.

It was that, he says, where it says that we should negotiate with them and they go or something like that.

In order to reduce forces.

Well, for Christ's sakes.

In many ways, Matthias is worse than Mansfield.

Try to get Humphrey off of it.

Can you do that?

Yeah, I've got Humphrey.

Humphrey is willing to sponsor a change in it.

If it looks like passing, he'll, uh, to make it more responsible.

And I told him I won't discuss it until it's time.

Well, I don't know what you're up to here.

But, you know, we're, this is just a, these legislative meetings are the most miserable thing I do.

The cabinet meetings are hard enough.

But these things, to deal with,

with mindless and competent people.

Hell, the only good man in there is Ford.

Yeah.

Really?

That's right.

The only man that shows any goddamn work.

Of course, Laird plays a funny role in these things, too.

Well, he was all right.

He was all right today.

Hmm?

It's okay today, but you can never tell what he tells these guys when he meets with them.

I don't know what the Christ he's saying to them.

Because he really wants to cut forces in Europe.

He wants to cut forces everywhere.

Laird's basically in isolation.

Yeah.

Wisconsin La Follette.

Basically, that's what the hell it is.

There's no question about it.

It's really the irony here.

Here I am.

I am the Quaker of California.

God damn it, I don't know more about peace than any bastards have ever learned.

That's my election on that, but I'm just as social.

Well, the minute I hear it, I'll get to you whenever you want.

Well, by this time, one of you will have heard.

No question.

Hey, Justin, can I not do this?

We will have heard.

Why?

Oh, you can't tell.

We'll have heard that they'll have all denounced it on the first day of practice.

Well, you're probably right.

I just... And if they say no, then we know.

But we're up against it.

We're up against it.

If they say no, then we know.

We're dealing with an insane government.

We've got two of three.