Conversation 506-013

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Um, the boy had to change his mind.

Yeah, that's funny.

They didn't give me a cent.

That ending will be soon.

I think we should take a bow.

Well, I would like to change it, though.

Oh, why don't we have the end of the American rules?

I say the end of the war.

I don't, I changed it.

Isn't that a good thing?

Yeah, I would say, but I wouldn't say that ending will be soon.

I would not now say that I'm going right over.

And I think you have a paragraph about what Vietnam is.

You think that's true?

Well, our thinking is that some of them are going over their family, is what we said.

I put it here.

It doesn't matter if I'm on a big boat.

You see, this is my chance to be like this.

See that?

This comes out, and then down that goes to the spice, and I think that's .

Well, let's try to pick one of those.

Oh, yeah.

It makes it more appropriate.

It makes it totally unnecessary.

Another thing I was going to say, I'm just going to say, I'm just going to say the truth is that maybe he's supposed to be a year old, period.

I'm not talking about the back of the future or what's going on or something like that.

The truth is that he's supposed to be a year old.

I mean, he's either 200 or 300.

On the diner, I recommend it slightly toning down.

I saw that.

I see it.

A beginning to me.

I think he did a good job.

This is Andrews.

Well, I gave him the album.

Oh, is that Andrews?

Is that Eric?

He first had a speech.

It was almost Vietnam.

It was excellent.

But I missed it when I got there to talk about Vietnam, the defense of Vietnam.

But I think talking about after Vietnam is very good, don't you think?

Does it feel all right?

It feels excellent, except for these very few things.

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

We've got a man here.

Oh, yeah.

Very interesting.

I'm sure he might touch on any of these things.

I'm not sure.

People are good.

They're trying to get you to meet Peterson.

You know, they're doing some, it's kind of tempting to be written thinking, Peterson, this is early, I thought this was goals.

And he wants you in a small group.

But I told him candidly, and I told John and George, I said, look, you can have Henry if you want, but I don't want you to take him away from what he's doing.

I don't know.

All right.

I'll try to give as much time as I can.

Well, if you understand, if you act, if you do it on the basis of what you consider to be the priorities, it's a very important field for Americans.

Peter's just turned down a very good deal.

He's a much stronger man than I really am.

That's right.

Maybe he's learned.

Uh, there's still a little something else.

Correct.

I think it's pretty good.

Now, let me see.

Let me see.

Now, maybe this could come out in about 70 countries and so forth.

Or do you know what I'm saying?

I've thought of the last 10 years as both worlds.

I've said it many times, but maybe it should be said again.

But trust in one of the nations' words.

It's a very personal thing that you should be saying.

Because it's contrary to what the intellectuals are saying.

But it's the truth.

It's what I think of as the truth.

Don't you think so?

I thought it was down in Alabama.

It's a good line.

I said, just think, girl.

What other nation would you like to have this about?

So close my shoulder here so you lock this.

This is pretty good, isn't it?

Is this all right, one arm?

I thought that was excellent.

I don't quite agree with that, but then it leads nicely to the rest of the avalanche.

It's a good grip.

It's a crack.

I did that by means of contributing to a more peaceful world.

I didn't have a mind.

You're wrong.

You're right.

I just can't be religious.

You're right.

Three.

It's not bad.

It's just that it's street work.

It's not bad.

It's just that it's street work.

I think that it's worth keeping it, don't you think?

Yes.

And I think that last page is excellent.

Well, this is one thing that I want to get to learn.

This is better.

This is what I want.

And Mr. President, for a national leader in the book called The President to say this is very important today.

They're going out into a world where all the media, all the intellectuals near it then look down on them.

They are asked to risk their lives, and when they see their commander-in-chief affirming this, the Fulbright won't like it, but they won't like it.

They did like the West Point Station.

You know, when they come down to it, I've heard you made three liberals now.

This will be the third one.

I made one out there at Colorado Springs.

I made one out of Annapolis.

At Newport.

That was a nice speech.

That was a beautiful speech.

The only other thing I have, Mr. President, is you know the Soviets have put a tender into Cuba again last week.

But the tender alone, I left that.

Now they put a nuclear submarine with missiles next to it.

and they are a bunch of thugs i bet that's their prize so i think you ought to hit it you ought to be tough on it if you ask the question at the news conference you'll just sort of say they don't just know the understanding and they know the consequences they're cruise missiles they're not yet they're only 300 mile range but

I wouldn't go into it.

I wouldn't say what the ships are.

I'd say, you're aware of it.

You won't comment on every ship that appears.

But if the understanding is violated, they will know the consequences.

Well, if they keep something, that shows that they really are either very divided

We are impressed by her, Mr. President.

Now, we have shown them.

I'm even wondering whether there might be some advantage, not of protesting, but of just calling to freedom and saying, we just want you to know this.

We don't want to say anything.

We've been praying and saying, oh, we don't know what I'm going to say.

The President said, tell me wrong about me, and the President said, well, I'm going

But don't, don't, don't do anything about it.

Don't think about those holes.

Hold on and get them.

Because I believe you've seen it.

And I said, now that's a success.

And I said, now we're in a situation where the rest of the center will be tied in the other direction.

But I said, and keep everything here as cool as possible.

And I said, I think that we had to put, I want to be sure that no decision would be made or announced until after the end of the last 28 months.

I mean, all that is very interesting.

And I know we probably received a few.

You know, I mentioned the fact about the economy.

He and I didn't even suggest what we ever had in mind, too.

But he was sort of jacking in and said, well, he hated to see us get Vietnam back in the news.

Well, it's in the news anyway.

I said, well, we've got to know why we made it.

That's how we got the $100,000 issue.

That's right.

Right?

Exactly.

I put it earlier.

I said, when Funke was here, you made the commitment.

Yeah.

But...

But that's what it was.

He made the point, and I guess he started throwing it off on Larry, that as far as the ground combat thing was concerned, he said that if any indication were made that there were combat goals coming out of the enemy, there's already, there's a test about appropriations and so forth that would end this summer.

That's right.

That is true.

Well, lay it.

No one believes lay it anyway.

Right.

Or we just go with that simple statement and it helps something greatly later.

Exactly.

So it just as well.

Exactly.

And we'll see.

And we are ending it.

We are ending it.

And we are ending it.

I did a little excursion.

You guys can't compare the two.

Yes, that's the best.

I'll set it up.

I'm going to spark them all out.

Don't do anything like this, Chief.

I don't want that.

We can handle their art of speech by making it as low-key as possible.

He's got to say something.

I think the rest of the session...

I think it's better than .

That's what, as long as it closes in.

The reason that I think the testimony is better is that Leach just gives it a hell of a high call, and so forth.

He goes on a testimony, and he's quiet about it.

And he says, well, this is our view.

And he commiserates around it.

That's right.

And that way, it doesn't make it sound like a very good departure.

The hearings are scheduled anyway.

And, uh, that may be the next one.

We've got plenty of time.

We're gonna find real time.

We're gonna talk on the way back.

We'll know if anything, what if anything has happened.

We'll know how they've got somebody.

So, after a day's fight at you, Mr. President, we invite you to reply to it.

It isn't a readout.

Oh, fine.

I really didn't get it.

Bruce has turned out to be quite a writer, but he's very good.

He has some of Price's, uh, citrusy things.

He's got them.

Yeah.

Do you think so?

He's got some things I like.

He's cute, actually.

I have to clean him down.

And he tends to go for the big play.

And Price...

Price is so poetic.

Do you think this is all right?

You going up?

Um, no, I don't.

Oh, is West Harlem going with me up there?

Well, who the hell is holding me?

Nobody to count on.

Meet you there.

There's probably West Point alumni from the, uh, will be there.

From your staff.

You have, uh, six West Point alumni.

Where's Hank going?

General Hank.

Oh, great.

I thought he was going to come.

Yeah, he is.

What about Secretary?

No, not Secretary.

Not that son of a bitch.

Is he going to be up there?

No.

I don't want him there.

He's not?

Okay.

No, it's just you and the White House.

You've got, there's six or seven West Point alumni.

General Hughes, General Hague, General Lehman, right?

Colonel Strife or Sife or something.

I don't know.

Henry?

I said, take off five minutes, okay?

How come he gets five minutes out?

That's a little bad for you.

What does it do around this town at times?

Sorry to put you off, but I have to go to the domestic council.

They shouldn't get through.

First, we're all right.

We're getting off the first subject so that we don't spend any time on it.

John and I only love what you've done with Blackjack, so...

We'll lose another 500,000 votes if we go ahead.

I know I have the problem.

I guess the law requires us to do it.

No, it doesn't.

As far as I understand it, you'll make a statement first, though, and then you'll announce the blackjack thing afterwards.

So we'll put the damn thing in context.

This, Mr. President, is in the court with the statement that's going to be recommended.

You're going to make a statement first.

That's right.

This is in Missouri.

I don't believe so.

I think that Romney's come a long way around.

Romney said, well, they could really send the light and make good speeches.

I don't know who the hell wrote to me about that speech.

I was trying, I still can't remember, and I tried to find the paper, and I think it's probably over here.

So that subject is out of the way.

I figured it.

Trevor Mitchell always invites me to do things legally right, but politically damaged.

That's one of the difficulties of having an attorney general who's shot.

Well, this isn't really that space as well.

It's something that's a good case to be on that side.

This will allow us to come out with a harder statement, which the public's going to see.

The public will see the statement.

This is just an incident of it.

Oh, it's an incredible case.

Where they changed the rules of the game afterwards.

Well, the other thing I want to ask you about is on the tax thing, is that sort of a game we want to play on those things?

How can we play it there?

And in these damn other states, do we have both the name and the other name?

There's quite a few of them that you have to.

They've changed some of the laws.

Wisconsin, probably.

Wisconsin, yes.

Florida.

Florida, too.

Florida.

Then there's a few others that are playing around with them.

Alaska.

Alaska is the first one, yeah.

Alaska's been beaten and injured down there, hasn't it?

Down there on the 25th of February.

We'll, I'm sure, take care of that because the poor old saps in the party up there are probably the ones that will control the votes.

We've got a lot of people working on that.

Bob Devaney and some of the rest.

They're more conservative.

That's correct.

And they're the party people.

So we'll have some stroke there.

Somebody said it was going to Siberia or something like that.

Say, this is a rumor that's going around, and I wondered if Bob, if you'd hear anything about getting Hickel an appointment or something.

Yeah, well, he wants an appointment to Siberia, literally.

Well, God damn it, we don't have any relations with Siberia.

No, but there's some special that has to do with the Trans-Siberian Pipeline or something.

Oh, right.

Well, John, who has been talking about this?

Because I saw Ted Stevens the other night and he said this would be a good idea.

He didn't get into this.

It was to get Wally to take some appointment.

I thought somebody was kidding.

He said, you know, he wants to be sent to Siberia.

Maybe they aren't kidding.

The headline would be, Mason's sent to Siberia.

No, I think it would be nice to get an appointment.

I have no question about going to that.

I should be in the dam.

Then we'll be following up.

I can't remember.

Follow up with that.

It's not always a good idea.

On the tap thing...

Is it your feeling, or was it your conclusion that basically that's just the best we can do in Ohio?

The fact of the matter, Mr. President, we couldn't get him to stop.

He was going to do it anyway, so we got him to put it in.

Well, is he going to play our game, though?

No question.

I don't believe that he is doing anything other than, number one, trying to get control of the party out there, away from Jim Rhodes and John Andrews, and number two, of course,

Uh, gonna be waiting in the wings of, uh, your bum bag, no?

Or, uh... Yeah, is Frank Dale or... Or is doing this?

No, he was not for it.

Frank was the one we used to program the questions at the news conference that brought out the favorable side of it.

And he answered the questions right the way he's... How about our friend in Columbus?

He probably hates it.

He hates that.

The whole business community, or not the whole, but 90% of the business community is down on tap down there.

But on the other hand, we are... You see, the way it's positioned now, you've heard...

Well, what has happened is that the party out there knows that we tried to stop them.

uh through bliss andrews we talked to all the finance people and saxby sandivine all the rest of them so the party knows that we're not party to building up tabs and uh this is important because we need that other fraction of the party other factions i should say this was

We can't walk away from the kooks like Lukens and Ashbrook.

We've got to continue the support of the state chairman and John Andrews, the state chairman.

Well, uh, this is another thing.

We've got to sort these things out just before you bring them all in.

Yeah.

Oh, on that, I forgot to tell you.

Would you tell, uh, Andrews, uh, uh, that, uh, uh, that I've approved a final draft, and we'll all finish it after you get some hammer on time?

Would you call, uh, and tell him that the draft is, uh...

We'll be ready for his getting on the press in the morning if he wants.

If he has somebody that he very much would like to give it out, you know, to have it in advance, he can have it tonight, this instance, like the news magazines, if he wants.

So you tell him, okay, and all you do is just type me, read, copy, and that's all I need from you.

But basically, the only problem that we would ever have with it was whether or not it upset the party out there.

I see.

And because we were all trying to stop it, well, the party isn't going to be mad at us.

Good job.

What do you think we ought to do?

I have a feeling that you don't have to decide this now.

I just have a feeling about these primaries.

It's very difficult to understand.

You really ought to do a goddamn thing right now.

And by that I mean, I believe you should get an organization.

I think other people would not have known and so forth, but I think as far as my concerns... Talking as far as you're concerned?

Yes.

I see they've been, we were talking, people have been trying to get me to go to Wisconsin for a cheese fry and, you know, various things.

And I just think Oregon, Nebraska, I've been there, of course, Florida and so forth, but I think, frankly, that except for...

I would go to Wisconsin for other reasons, because it is a key state.

I would go to Florida for other reasons, because it's a key state.

But I'll be darned if I think we ought to go to Novo.

Of course not to Alaska, or to Oregon, or to Nebraska, or to the Navy, or to anything else.

I just might be wrong.

We've just had a meeting of the...

And I don't believe that there's a single primary state, and I face this in the sense of all of us there talking about where you would have to go anyplace to do anything, with the possible exception of Oracle.

And this all depends on how we pull the players together out.

Because what we're talking about is Republicans.

And then if we can't organize New Hampshire and Wisconsin and Florida so that the Republicans are for Richard Nixon, there's something wrong.

Wisconsin, they crossed the line.

Yes, but you're going to have a hell of a Democrat fight out there.

They're not going to be one across the line.

The other thing about the vote, of course, in the end and all the rest of the time, the only thing is that the Democrats have a fight.

They'll all pull bigger votes than we pull from the Republican Party.

And I just wouldn't be worried about it.

I discounted all of the pens.

I'd say, actually, we expect them to get a bigger vote than me.

Exactly.

I think that she can piss away more money, and those primaries, she really can, and if she can ever.

And if I start, I think that we can, John and I, can stay above this battle right up until the time of the convention on September the 30th.

Which was good.

Ubers let it out of the bag yesterday.

You see, he said they were going to have their convention in July.

We've got a reading on their convention.

In July 9th or 10th, 9th or 10th is what they're shooting for, for the old convention.

They'll get out and start romping around.

There's another factor in this, because it's actually primaries.

this dam on election law goes through up there we may have two buckets that we might have to spend one of them in connection with primaries and one of them in connection with the general election election so that so that you could do a lot of things not you personally but you put up the billboards that last all the way through and you spend your

run television or some of your direct mail, getting your literature out there.

So, whatever.

Also, John, especially with these groups, a lot of the production costs and so forth, you could pay your advertising agency.

I just put the whole bundle right in there and do it manually.

So you could buy the whole advertising agency, all you reach for, just give them a contract, get the money.

This is not finally set.

We have got that contribution limitation out of there, you know.

We got it out through your old friend Dick Danner working on Howard Cannon.

How do you get it out?

How?

By getting the used people to tell Mr. Cannon that it was in his interest not to have it in there.

So with the majority that we had on the commitment,

No, I suppose they'll try to put it on the floor.

They may not.

That's for sure.

It hurts them.

It hurts particularly, as I said, it hurts if a gunner kills him because he has only two or three inches.

I don't think they will, Mr. President, not in the Senate, because I sat down and talked to Fritz Hollings about it, who's chairman of their Senate campaign committee, and he saw it right away.

He went out and testified with Clintons against it.

Did he?

No.

Prince is a pretty good guy.

If he let up on you in Texas.

We might do something in Texas.

Don't you dare let that Kennedy and your free traders, Peterson and the rest of them, go over there and screw us up with a Jap, because if you do, you're going to go right off about half the South down there.

I'll tell you what they're doing.

They're taking, when Kennedy goes, he's going to take four Texan people with him.

Well, I think that's a great base, because the damn Jap business, none of the ones that are doing all the negotiating is for making those fish locks, too.

I think he got his stand as a politician.

He probably does.

Harry Dent got Harry Dent.

But if Bob Peterson listens, he got to Harry Dent, not Tom.

They said, all right, let's get it repeated.

He's done all the actual legal.

And yesterday, they agreed to send a delegation of four to go with the other delegation, with Kennedy.

When Kennedy goes over to these four, I'll be right along.

And they all said, there are the moves.

And they all submitted everything to him.

And they all said, boys, what do you think?

That's a good move.

It's a good move.

Thank you.

Peterson.

It will be as free trade as you want it to be.

Sure.

Or you want it to pull back, he'll pull back.

He'll do more than what he thinks he's supposed to do.

As a Democrat, he's politically smarter than most of the Republicans in here.

That's cut up our business community out in Chicago a little bit, that appointment.

Peter's at least two left right now.

But they'll get over it like all the rest of them.

He'll help us, though, with a certain group we need.

He helps us through the jackasses like Percy.

Well, and he's more political than some of our right-wing Republican types.

You know, John, there's one thing that's on the plus side here that we have, and we do have something like this.

But one thing that certainly gives interest to me is on the plus side is that the good folks are going to have a little draft or something like that.

Well, just this whole thing with these Senate votes, you know, that have been going way more

We were expecting to lose the huge handle and T even took that by a solid thing.

The very good point is that what's happened is that these guys are all scared to death because they started to realize that they've gotten themselves way out somewhere and that he's got a lot of stuff in his bag and he keeps pulling these things out.

like the salt thing and like the nato uh business and the rallying behind him on that the china thing and all that they finally realized they they better get back off that look at that's interesting because that's the consensus of uh peter dominic bobby griffin brock and uh you told me to

I was telling Bob, it came through very good.

They had a good screen set up, and the people in Texas, I guesstimated, talking to John Tower, a third of them were Democrats, and God, you got standing ovations of

Uh, it looks good.

I thought it was good.

I was thinking of John, another thing, the Johnson, the show with Johnson.

But that was a good thing to go to.

No question about it.

We did.

Did you get a good reaction from him?

He played it nice.

He did it nice.

I was thinking a lot of things.

He's the way he's talking.

He's talking a good game.

He's going to, I mean, he's going to, whatever it could be.

When you think about the Democrats and kicking them around, it's going to be hard for Johnson to get to bed.

Well, in addition, this Barnes Tower tradeoff is going to mean that they are going to focus on that statehouse in Texas, which is their last foothold to hold that.

And they're not going to be too active in Texas.

a national campaign when you have some of these little webs around.

You know, hasn't this now shown that, uh, shown John Power to get comedy as one of the bad ideas?

Conor pulled that deal.

Oh, I know that.

He just got him in.

I think he just got him in.

Shut him up.

He just said, you know, Terry, this is what I think.

You need Tom.

He says, I don't like him.

He said, first, he didn't say that.

He says he's got some personal issues.

But he did it.

And Tom is our supporter.

And John said he'd leave.

Well, they had a little other, I'll just tell Bob outside, just a little tremor about some of the financial transactions that Chris Barnes has had.

They don't want too much of that.

Yeah, you won't do it now.

You would have done it this time.

Good, good, good.

What is the situation with you and his people, Kerner?

Are you going to do anything out there?

I believe we will, but we've had some indictments.

Well, I don't know about Daley.

I don't know anything.

But I think that Kerner and Sofa, because...

I'd like to see you ready.

Well, I would too, but for a number of reasons.

One, I don't like to see these bastards sitting on these courts, because they have just killed us, this political court out there in the Seventh Circuit.

Oh, they just killed us.

They were the ones that started our wiretap problems.

They're the ones that held this Chicago conspiracy trial.

Hell, that thing should have been resolved, you know, nine months ago, and

On and on and on, all this politics.

Now he's out talking about his Kerner Commission report.

He shouldn't be keeping his damn mouth shut as a judge.

Kerner, this son of a bitch coming in to talk about that was disgusting.

I think your friend Milton Eisenhower is just as bad.

Oh, he's a jerk, sure.

He's a jerk long before I got my text.

Call for a racial... A what?

A racial war in the city.

You have Lenowitz propping off on it, you have Eisenhower now, and some of the rest of them, you're just going to talk them right into it.

The Illinois situation, we indicted a fellow out there this past week, which is pretty high up in their structure.

He was the one that was the bag man for the fellow that died with all the money.

They said it was the largest fundraiser the Republicans had ever held in Texas.

They had it in Dallas at that new Fairmont Hotel.

And they had somewhere over 1,200 people there.

And they came from all over the state.

Which surprised me.

Excellent.

Just as solid as can be.

Fabulous.

Really fabulous.

I never had a guy, I mean, I star in a story and his will give you a story.

You know, he hated Bill Jenner.

He hated Burroughs.

He hated Jenner only because Jenner had that General Marshall whom he revered.

And when Eisenhower came to Indiana,

And Jenner, of course, dreamt of me.

And Jenner hung on to me.

My first eyes are never like anybody to touch.

He's a gentleman.

People who have been to this sort of thing.

He said he always can.

He always had the greatest.

He always dreamt of me.

And he took grabbing me by the arm and pushing me out of the pictures and all that.

Well, one, I started to have some sense of a little lost out there.

I mean, when I turned around, you know, you'd get to the wall right there behind me.

He recruited his wife up, bringing his kids up, getting in the pictures, walking me out to the car, walking over to talk to the people.

He was really playing with the camera, being generous.

Was he really being gracious or playing up to the camera?

No, he was also being gracious.

He was so cooperative out there.

There was no, like most states, you get a terrible bitch, the governor wants to ride in the car with the president.

Well, Wallace understood that and didn't create any problem on that at all.

He wrote back, you know, with some of the other governors.

And he was really very nice.

He'd stir it up like when you brought him up on the stand to introduce him, you know, he'd step up and then he'd step down and let the other governors step up and he'd make sure he was always there.

But then he had a great line when he started just talking about he was the president-elect.

of the Tom Bigby water project, so the president referred to him.

According to the newspaper, that was a pure accident that he hadn't thought about.

I'm sure it was, because he lost it.

At first, Wallace couldn't figure it out for a minute.

He was kind of confused.

Then he realized what he had said.

He says, I didn't mean that to be a joke.

Well, I'll tell you this.

All the accounts I've had from both Texas and Alabama have just been fabulous.

That's

I was out here on dinner Monday night, and Harry Bird had a dinner out there, and a lot of them, about half the people had been down to the ranch, and they were all just talking about it, and how great it was, and how transitions in this country run so smoothly when you have these high-principled people and all the rest of it.

He wasn't high-principled, but he was got to save his soul.

Well, you know, it was very nice.

He deserved it.

Yeah, it was very nice.

He was nice.

Wow.

To television.

One of the pyramids.

Say, did they play that television straight?

I saw a news clip there when they introduced Agnew, and he got a hell of a hand.

Sure did.

Or did they rub up the decibel?

Oh, he got a good hand.

Did he?

Oh, yeah.

He did.

He got a damn good hand.

Very, very, very big.

The biggest name was the president, John Connolly.

They really went on.

I mentioned John Connolly two or three times last night during my talk.

Good.

I told them Martha couldn't be down here because she's been down there with me because you hadn't heard up here teaching John Connolly the Republican liturgy.

And then, of course, I tied in Tower, which we've worked out in advance with John Connolly.

We'll be helping the president work out the administration's economic problems and sending some banking and currency committee.

Same thing with all of you.

That's the same group.

They have no money to contribute.

John, as you know, that's one of the reasons why I'm here today.

I don't want to use the word Republican at all, ever.

And I don't need to.

This is the time to talk to the people, to talk to the Democrats.

And I have to get up there and the rest.

And that's the other thing, too, we have to have in mind is that I, and Bob, which is going to be tough today, but I have got to avoid this situation.

Now you have to take a whole couple of candidates up on that platform and mention them name by name.

I'm not going to do it.

I think you've got to just have them up there and say, I'm proud to be here with all these candidates, period.

They can be introduced.

It doesn't matter how you start on that laundry list.

It takes five minutes.

Introduce them before the president arrives.

You're talking about candidates.

You won't be doing very many candidates.

I would think not.

And you don't want to be, you know, this running around with candidates.

First, the best way you can help the candidates is to run by yourself.

There's no exceptions on that.

Right, John?

That's how you add loops.

Can we talk a little bit about California?

Well, we have an answer.

I don't know if it's the record or not.

I've talked about everybody and his brother out there.

The governor all the way through the office holders and through his political entourage.

The most distressing thing of all is that his new solicitor is Bob Walker, who was Parkinson's right hand.

He was that guy with the Republican Associates from San Diego staff, who was our whole disaster when we were setting up the Nixon thing in 68, 67.

But the format, Mr. President, I mean...

He's making it confident.

Yes, completely confident.

And a big, you know, untrustworthy and a big talker.

And a chart maker.

The format has a sense of opinion, or at least what I've developed out of a sense of discussion with my wife, is to have a high-level citizens' chair.

Now, we can probably get Ronald Reagan to be the honorary chair, but to have a citizens' chair.

Go out and get all the business community as soon as possible

and then put the political operatives underneath it to start pulling the county chairman together and Ed Reinicke's organization and this one's organization and that one's organization.

Otherwise, with all your competing and contending forces out there, if you go into one political structure,

you're going to be fighting with another political structure.

The thought has been that Leonard Pires might be that man who, at the top, he can relate.

I'm not talking about a political operative as such.

He can relate to the governor.

He's been identified with you.

He can get along with the Tuttles and the Salvatores and so forth.

Bob points out that Lee's got too much to do already.

He's got a lot to do.

On the other hand, there's nothing more important than this to do.

And the other stuff doesn't make a difference.

He basically, the thing that's left in the hands of that is just good.

First, he's a very decent guy.

He's a good image.

I'll start with that.

Second, he also has, he's basically part of the establishment.

Yep.

Now, I don't, I mean, he's part of this long haul.

Now, he doesn't have the, I don't know, the run engine.

I don't think he can at all.

The advantage of him is he can be run.

That's the point.

That's the point, but...

He's not like... Oh, Christ, no.

He's not like Chad McClellan type who gets in the way all the time because he knows what to do.

Well, and if you start to have problems with a walker, he can go to Ronald Reagan and hopefully turn them off and turn them around.

Or he can go to Salvin.

You guys know him?

Yes, and he's very close to Tad Shriker, who is also very tenacious, and Shriker is often good at working with him.

Yes, so do I. I think he's a very bright mind.

I don't think he wanted you in here.

I would believe that Bob said that you'd get Cash Driver and Holmes Tuttle and Justin Dart and all the rest of the establishment.

I haven't talked to Ron Reagan about it yet, but I've talked to Tom Reed.

Tom Reed thinks he'd be good because of this.

Of course, Tom Reed is apparently on the outs with Reagan.

Well, let's get Reed with us.

Well, he is.

He'll do anything for us.

Thank you.

He is.

Tom is hitching to us, apparently, because he's been trying to kick out of the sack with Reagan.

He apparently lost the power struggle.

Can I ask one thing in his own regard to...

Isn't he taking an unnecessarily bad rap that he could mitigate to a certain extent on that silly tax thing?

God, they're just hitting that I-host over and over again.

Remember what I told you?

Why doesn't he get to say what I guess he can if he's coming across the bridge?

I mean, the I-host just started the paper here the other day where a group of people were going to raise hell with him about somebody.

If the governor of California doesn't pay any taxes, why should I?

I think this is great.

It's got Nancy, I understand, so mad that she's never going to let him run for anything.

It'll take a little of the edge off him.

to make him a little bit...

I don't think that hurts a bit.

Well, maybe you're right.

I mean, he needs a little of the X-ray.

Yeah.

You know, really, it was a stupid thing.

It was a lousy thing for them to do this for him.

The moment it happened, he just... You always do that.

Then the issue's dead.

But anyway, it's done.

Well, I don't have anybody watching the other problem.

Of course, it's his age and all that sort of thing.

It's a different generation.

Well, that's it.

Our real problem is get an operator who's going to be the executive director, and we might get two of them.

And it's also conceivable, as I told Bob, that it might be well to get a co-chairman with Firestone.

Somebody can go on television and talk and have a little bit more of a view and so forth, maybe out of the San Francisco area, which would help them.

But I think the important thing is to put this umbrella over all those warring factions out there.

They were in politics and they were like, we'll do anything.

I really, I, that's a kind of, it's like about 100 people I had at the time for Congress and the Senate, and Frank Jarvis, you know, and all that.

And they were, Frank Jarvis was a hell of a man, believe me, about 25 years ago.

He's still quite a man.

He helped a great deal in 68.

I had more confidence in him than I did in a lot of the rest of that out there.

At the end of that, did you see Merge Thomas getting married again?

Well, I thought he was married.

The one he was married to is divorcing him and writing a book about his life with Richard Nixon.

But he's been married to some new girl.

He likes her.

I don't know.

He's having a wedding reception over at the Watergate.

One of those.

Really?

Having him come in with his wife, I think it would be a nice thing.

Okay.

Having him come in, I want to have a picture taken.

He's appreciative.

You have no way to use him now.

Yes.

We don't want to use him now, Mr. President.

By the way, he's working.

He's working.

He's got his intelligence.

He's got his public around and all that.

He can seize it.

He's being paid.

We're using his information.

He's using his information.

and knows people through the law.

But until we get some of these players into the structures, Murray would just be doing too much manipulating.

Yep.

I'd certainly like to see the heart of California.

Something down there.

There's probably a new group up there, Bob, that just would love to get into this.

Yep.

And the anonymous, there's somebody in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Somebody in the Bay Area.

Tom Rae told me that in a poll, maybe you've got the poll here, the Weinberger thing.

in San Francisco.

Yeah, did you see the figures with the president?

You were at one percentage point, I think, back of 68 or something like that.

I hear it's going in there cold with all the problems in the state.

I thought that...

But...

The presidential thing was below 68, or what would we have it be?

California is our major property.

It shifts.

This is the one they took for Weinberg.

That's where the change is most dramatic.

I can't conceive a Weinberger that they're talking about is going back running for mayor.

He's crazy, but it seems like a ridiculous thing.

Crazy?

Who the hell wants to be mayor of San Francisco?

He shouldn't do it.

The problem is the Weinberger wants us to be attorney general.

All right.

He's always wanted that.

Let him do that.

Attorney general of the United States, I hope.

Good.

Isn't that right?

Or attorney general of California?

No, of the United States.

Oh, that's all.

He called and said he understood.

He understood Mitchell.

He stuck it down pretty soon.

He wanted to remind me that he focused on his mind.

His real calling was to turn to the Supreme Court.

Tom Reed was... Tom Reed was obsessed in the situation as Weinberger being the only one who might have had a chance to beat Aliotto.

And that it would be helpful

in 72, if he was the mayor.

I'm not so sure.

I don't see why.

In this day and age of local government, governors and mayors, hell, I think it's better to have the other party here.

That's a good guess.

Well, I'll tell you, there's one place, though, that I think we really have something going for us, John.

I don't believe that after the Philadelphia primary, we can't carry Pennsylvania.

I just feel you.

We're not...

Two times out now, we lost that county by 320,000 votes.

We will not lose that many votes this time.

Not if you'll invite Mr. Meehan to the White House.

I understand he's got his nose out of joint because he had some city councilman down here on St. Patrick's Night.

All right.

What about me?

No, Dad, good.

We'll have you to say that again.

I don't know.

This is the story I get back.

I understand that's the case.

I hope it's true.

But I will never be sure about Mr. Meehan unless we organize in more depth.

on the vote fraud business than we did the last time.

And I think that when you have the attorney general's office with the bureau and the threat of a prosecution, I think these fellows are less likely to play these games because he just delivers these votes over to the Democrats.

Yeah, well, he did last time.

I believe so.

See, Pennsylvania wasn't impossible last time.

It was $170,000, something like that, right?

If we hadn't had that horse's ass shaper up there and some of the rest of them, we'd probably have been able to organize the thing better.

Maybe you got our Uncle Shaffi and his governor.

I think we all have a question about it.

He's going to be in trouble.

Very much so.

But the condition he has left the city in.

Very much so.

He didn't just run the city of Brown.

Even Herb Brownell told me the other day when he was down here that he can't talk to John Lindsay about politics anymore.

Oh, yeah.

Which is pretty hard, because Herb always prided himself with the... Well...

Thank God we got you both there.

Speak for yourself, Mr. President.

Yeah, we got you both there.

I can never remember.

Remember, Billy Graham was for this.

Remember?

Oh, that is our captain.

Our captain was, well, that he is almost right.

The whole Ohio delegation and Jim Rhodes.

Rhodes was for this.

God, I've forgotten all this stuff.

We're really going at it up there now.

All right.

Yeah, I'll be holding up the legislative session to try and straighten out New York City's financial relations.

Our relations are probably good.

Excellent.

They're not good.

Oh, Jim is fine.

Mark and I have had dinner with him and his wife a couple of times.

He was out at Mount Vernon at this Harry Bird Center the other night.

All of those southern senators and a lot of the Fannons and the rest of those guys on the plane last night, they're all so complimentary about Jim Buckley.

He's such a nice guy.

And they thought he was going to come down and start a right-wing crusade to tear up the place.

He's been absolutely...

rational and reasonable.

And we have been able to work out this judgeship problem with Javits and Buckley on the higher level.

It helped us pull Javits out of the gutter.

So he is, in his quiet way, quite effective.

What was the situation in New Jersey?

Bill's, Cahill's polls are very high.

I forget what the last one I saw.

And he's gotten behind his tax program apparently.

He didn't get it quite so hard as some of the rest of them.

And his popularity is good.

They allegedly control both houses of the legislature, as you know.

Good.

And they've got a pretty good base.

Yeah, and Harry Sears.

Do you remember Senator Sears?

Yes, I sure do.

Yeah, he is the majority leader of the Senate.

And he's retiring.

And he has written to me and called me and told me the only thing he wants to do in politics is help with your reelection.

And he is, uh, he can get along with everybody.

He can get along with Nelson Gross, or... What is the next move?

I don't know.

I don't think it is.

We ought to write down those people.

No, the next move is Bliss coming in and sitting down with Lee, not myself.

And Ray is yet.

I've been talking to Ray about this.

But I, I, I heard all this.

They were violence.

Taff was violent, didn't you tell me?

I mentioned to you that Taff was opposed to him.

But during this

discussion here this past week this has been brought home to mr taft that he's not just not going to come in and say you do this and you do that uh taft can get a tap gets along all right with bliss but he knows that if bliss comes into this picture uh that he will he tap will not be able to push bliss around because of bliss's contract

Uh, you know better what's been going on than I have.

We tried to put him on one of the educational committees, and he wrote back and said, well, hell, unless he was the chairman, uh, and they threw off all the soft heads that were going to be on it, he wouldn't serve.

And then they had, uh, they were questioning him or Gross for some appointment.

Oh, they're saying, is he making, is he doing all right with Mr.

Gross making the move?

Yes, he's in the real estate development business and has got an office there in Columbus.

All right.

What about Illinois?

Illinois?

That's a real one.

I think that's going to pull together a lot better than we thought.

Who are we going to be?

Are we going to be our man, Percy?

I don't know, but Percy we will operate with.

Oh, he's going to be coming up with it.

Ogilvy is starting to come up, and his people are starting to work with Percy's, which is a good thing.

And here's another state where we're going to use the same umbrella theory, except you've got the downstate and the upstate problems.

And I think we'll be able to get Althoffer and use him downstate where he's got the stroke.

He still...

They told me today at this meeting, making noises that he might take on Ogilvy in the primary, but I think we can shut that off.

What is the situation for, John?

You got that coming along?

Did you get a man yet?

No, I haven't, but I've been working.

I've got the sheriff's thing.

Not only the sheriff's.

And I'm going down to speak to their convention there and get that shit.

But this fellow that went to school with Martha, what the hell's his name?

His name is John.

He's always to stay in the...

I mentioned this to you, Martha.

I know him always to stay in the big house, if you like the house.

Oh, it's a fabulous place.

Well, we have...

Yes, and that's definitely... Well, we have... John, we rent the place.

And what do you say we want?

I don't know what to say.

I just think it's going to be

Well, this is a fellow that went to school at the University of Miami with Martha, who's a Democrat lawyer down there.

His father-in-law was green and used to be the state controller.

He represents the Sheriff's Association.

And he also represents the Hotel Association and so forth.

When I was in Florida, B.B.

brought him over and we sat down and talked.

And he's been doing some work down there.

And crazy, he's got these people all lined up already.

And the governor doesn't seem to be particularly unfriendly, I must say.

Ask him.

No, I wouldn't think so.

Neither is Childs.

Both of them are making a lot of headway down there.

And they're working together.

Then we've got Manny Garcia working on her.

And we've got our people in the Immigration and Naturalization Service rushing the...

I've been in touch with Jimmy Stallman all the time when we correspond.

Now Jimmy Stallman has

about three pitches.

Number one, of course, he pitches to begin with and always has and always will.

Number two, he doesn't like our IRS regional director down there because they're giving him some tax troubles and he claims that it's not ours.

I think when we get the new man over there, we ought to transfer this guy out of there because he's working with that ex.

And three is that Jimmy Stallman says that Howard Baker's in great problems.

Really?

Well, Howard has some problems down there.

And, of course, what Jimmy Stallman is really saying is that Howard Baker has placed footsies with the National Tennessean instead of with Jimmy Stallman's banner.

And Howard has made some deals down there.

Are Howard's problems the banner problems?

Yes, that and the fact that he hasn't been able to get back down there.

And now when he goes down, well, you know, he's leaving, what's her name, Joy or Floyd or whatever it is up here, and it's a problem.

But she's pretty bad.

But Brock, Bill Brock, thinks that this can be pulled together.

Brock is getting more popular day by day.

He is, and I think he's one of the smartest guys.

I just think that guy has got great talents.

He's got extreme talent, and by the way, I don't know whether he's had a reading on it or not, but it looks like President Sherman Cooper is going to go back on that prospective deal and not only stay in the Senate, but run for another term.

I haven't heard that definitively, but we had him down for lunch with the other senators yesterday getting this election bill straightened out, and he sure was talking about it.

I think he's lost his marbles.

I don't think he remembers from one day to the next what he says.

He can't remember from one hour to the next.

Probably not.

A sweet guy with good conscience.

You see what has happened in his case, John.

It's a sonata he had stuck in earlier with us at some place.

I've seen it happen.

I saw it happen to Gene Mulligan.

You remember him?

Yeah.

Great senator.

Great tax man.

Yeah.

Oral changes.

All the niggers got seen out.

It was all conditioned.

And John was this man.

You can't hear him.

Two things, to wear a hearing aid.

But he didn't have the hearing aid on him.

This thing isn't working either.

And he had a decent fine man on him.

It's just a goddamn crime.

But what can we do?

Louie could be a hell of a power for us up here.

Is there any eventual impossibility of his trying agriculture?

I did.

You didn't want to just tell me.

What about him?

Should we try him?

Well...

I really don't think McCartan is an asset.

I just don't think he is.

I don't think he's liable in that job.

I don't think he's either way.

I'll tell you what we need, John.

We need one conservative in the cabinet, except for you and Conley.

You're the only two.

That's what people talk about.

He's a good... Well, that's the guy that's left standing, of course.

You can also use an external politician.

Yeah, well, that's what this guy does.

Great.

Here's what I'd have you do.

I'm speaking by concern, I don't mean on the right.

I just mean basically Senate's better.

If you go down, Schultz is considered to be last.

Then if you come up to the cabinet, Romney, Wolfrey, Richardson.

Now Stan, nobody hears about him.

He's in Congress, Rogers.

But Rocker's a liar, both of them a liar.

Rocker's more of a misconsidered to be all right.

But he's sort of able at it.

But really, I told you about him.

He is an extremely able guy.

Is there anything relevant to be done about him?

I don't know.

Didn't somebody tell me he was going to Purdue?

Well, if this Cooper thing falls through, Louie Nunn is going to go back and practice law, or go into Lexington to practice law, and he said he'd be available to help in any way he wanted.

Well, we know he'll give you a lot of help.

Can't we get outside?

Who can talk about the heart?

Can't we get at it?

Isn't that really the only capital change you can seriously think about?

It's hard.

I have no feeling as to how a switch from a partner to a nun would work out with your committees and agriculture and so forth.

Well, I know, but they create the impression from which the

The public draws its conclusions.

I think none of the standpoint in agriculture would be ideal because he's the back end.

He's in cotton, in corn, in wheat, in horses.

That's everything that could happen to me.

He sort of talks like those people.

He's one of those.

Louis Nunn's smarter.

He could learn all that juggernaut dialogue where whose interests are in a very short time.

but what it will do to your... We have no idea, though, what Harden wants to do.

No, the last list of indications he wants to say.

He just bought a new house.

But now there's another possibility.

You could put another in that OEP, John.

I'm not sure he'd take that.

That's probably a good job, John, but not because of OEP, because of NSC.

It fits in that.

Well, I don't know for sure.

He, I think I mentioned before, has got this very lucrative offer from this firm on $200,000 a year or something.

He'll do well.

Damn right.

And that horse country down there, he'll own half of it in the next two years.

I guess the deal's made with Whitney.

Yep.

All right.

He knows me.

Good.

You do well there.

I was quite impressed the more I saw of him, and... Well, sending Spanish ambassadors is a damn good thing.

You know, nobody's ever talked about that, John.

He really wants it.

And he's being Spanish.

Oh, yes, yes.

And owes them all over there.

He had a Spanish ambassador down at the Kentucky Derby.

Very good ambassador, John.

And Hill goes out and runs for governor.

Yeah.

When did you say Bob Hill was coming back?

He'll be here next week or the week after.

He wants to come home before school starts.

He has to be home because of his son this fall.

So it's not long.

Well, that would fit in very well, I think, with what Whitney would like.

Whitney could go early fall.

Mr. President, we've been playing this game

of keeping Hoppe in jail for the simple reason we can't do anything.

For the simple reason we can't do anything about getting him out except wrapping a presidential partner around your neck.

But we're letting Fitzsimmons believe that this is through design so that he will have the throne, the free run.

I think this is the best thing to do because Hoffa would get out and he'd tear up the place.

Well, I don't think that we should do anything else because it's too big a bite to take.

This would be my belief.

And he's moving slowly to clean up some of that union.

Not a hell of a lot of it.

Well, a lot of them are getting their time in jail.

One other one that's...

One of the things that confirmed my opinion was when I was down in Atlanta talking to the police down there last week,

There's this big story about how the National Committee woman, the Democrat, had invited Muskie down there.

The state chairman wouldn't go near him and referred to him as that shabby character, shabby-looking character, and they had a hell of a blow up in the party.

Now, if they do this with Muskie, you know, it's going to be twice as hard to do with the others.

And one of the things that it's hard to assess at the moment, but which has changed measurably, is the way this Democrat

the convention's going to be structured.

Yeah, how's that?

Well, they've opened up the procedures for the determination of delegates to the point where you're not going to be able to get the labor unions and the rest of them and control it so much.

They're going to have those wide open, but actually we'll have, I guess, a huge role.

I think there's certainly going to have a hell of a lot of blacks there raising hell with the whites.

That'll turn it off even if Jimmy Carter turns it off.

Well, some of them would like to try, but they've never been successful because they won't stop.

They either go over the top of you or knock them down.

They were just as friendly as the whites.

And I know that.

Blacks along the streets, you know, were shouting and jumping up and down the screen just like the whites were.

Couldn't have been worse.

Blacks were that enthusiastic.

They really were.

What I'd like to do is find a couple of million bucks and give it to Scoop Jackson and let him build up enough strength so he could have something going into that convention.

You'll have it.

Maybe a good one.

I think so.

Maybe a good one.

If Boeing aircraft was a little healthier, they... No, but I didn't mean it.

I mean, labor is going to support Jackson all the way.

He's the only one there who's going to support him.

But I say labor means labor.

That is the answer.

I don't know if you were starting too early.

I was battling that yesterday.

He just can't stop talking.

But, you know, if you have to...

Wilbur Mills with a few delegates.

Scoop Jackson, what's up?

Hello, gorgeous.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Oh, I think I'm tired of looking like that, and I'm not sure I like looking like this.

Well, it's wonderful.

You're going out.

You've got big things.

I have a client found out.

Hang on a second.

Oh, she is?

With Julie.

I'm her client.

Julie said she couldn't get in touch with me.

What did Julie talk about?

Anything else?

While we're here, you mentioned briefly when somebody else was here about those television and TV lawsuits.

uh this is the time well uh you indicated that you thought it might be and i didn't want to talk to you about it because other people are here i think it's a little premature

You know what I mean?

He's getting away.

What is it that a city has to do?

You know, that deal with, you know, they've been, you know, they've been spying on, you know, the FCC, the small group.

No, sir, went the other way and had to go to a vote.

And Birch had to miss the meeting.

And so there were two Democrats and two Republicans there.

And they came up with the worst decision for CBS that they could have come up with.

And I'm totally screwed.

No.

They voted it through in exactly the opposite of what CBS wanted without Birch there.

So he was in a completely clean position.

I don't know.

I figured they lost it anyway.

But it was not too bad.

It went the other way, which is very good.

Now there will be an appeal that will be a long time.

There was a birch in one Republican vote, and it seems the birch controls the...

I think it's a good plan we've got to meet with those policemen next week, don't you, John?

Yes.

The editor said he's going to meet with them the day before our program, and I think he will.

And I called him this morning and asked him to check with you about it.

I just think it's a good idea.

And that prepares the way.

Well, he's got control of this organization.

I was kidding him the other day.

He just moves around and puts their head up and arms down.

I'm not sure it's the best thing in the world, but at least it's his organization.

Thanks, John.

Thanks a lot.

Yeah.