Conversation 508-013

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They're generally

Generally, very much not that good.

Get a few.

That's a real Indian.

They start getting scared.

They want to get out.

They're selling insurance to their friends.

Yeah, they start getting scared.

That's all I thought we had.

This isn't even an official visit, I don't think, is it?

We just shouldn't be able to do anything for him.

I mean, we just shouldn't have him.

Because if it hadn't been, and Henry had already agreed, or somebody agreed to have him at 4.30, I would have had him at 7.30, you know.

I'm just trying to cut it down.

Yeah, I guess we'll have another dinner.

I know.

Just dinner.

I know.

Jesus Christ, Stan is barking around down there.

He waited three quarters of an hour in the cabin.

He's not going to let us in.

Well, he's done that.

They got the huge gaps and they decided to

Oh yeah, the Medal of Freedom.

That's great.

That will overwhelm me.

I don't have to say anything else.

That's all I can say.

What I've got to do is believe.

There's a fact that's all I want to know.

I believe this because it makes the divine right.

I'm listening to the church and everything.

I'm listening to people.

And that's the way they really look at it.

I couldn't believe it when I was in high school.

I worked for the Air Force during that early part of the war.

And Jesus didn't know that.

You had to take your sick leave and your annual leave, accumulated annual leave, and annual leave, right?

I understand that.

I didn't think that through at the end.

But you got that A3 on at the end.

Yeah.

But that was nice.

But the idea of sick leave is malicious.

It's at night.

You kept working.

You know, you've got to use up your sick leave before the end of the year.

Well, that's interesting.

And I hope it doesn't re-enact.

It's really tragic.

Oh, well, not too tragic.

They've got an old one.

Yeah.

But it'd be unique to be able to do it.

It'd be unique to have it out if it worked.

I say, though, she's got some great shot.

That look is just great.

Yeah.

That cover was so different.

I think they were smart to place it like that, like a little...

Very clever.

Because the standard thing would be just this big blob of blood.

It stands out more.

I noticed on the newsstand at the airport the other night, the magazine jumps out of the newsstand where all the others, which is a sensational picture, but it just kind of blends into all the magazines there because it's a full cover picture.

All those things came off today.

Well, let me just see.

I knew it.

I didn't check back on it, you know.

I didn't check on it.

I didn't take to know it.

This is when I was a candidate, I think.

When I was a coach, I was a tech partner.

We'll have one of those since you can't say the details.

But I was using the portable because it was easier.

Okay.

You got the other, the other came off.

The one that he found out was not excavated.

Okay.

Boy, that's frustrating.

I did that.

Dictated a whole tape of it.

Julie, it's little short memos.

And the girl got it on the thing and there was nothing on it.

I, you know, I cleared my mind and everything.

I sent it on an airplane.

I know.

One thing if you would do it is to take a, I think I ought to get in those portions, but just write emails sometimes.

Who's in charge of Melvin County?

And he's got a second, he's got another second guy, and they've got several gals.

They've got, you know, Humes, the Humes girl who's back with his son.

And, you know, that's what it should be.

Can I ask the prices of those on that one?

I can wait a little bit.

See, you just sent that memo.

I didn't.

But you're using the whole business.

Yeah, well, he'll see the price, but you know.

Yep.

He'll see the price.

He thinks he's leaving for California tomorrow, so you ought to see him today.

Okay.

And he wants to see you, isn't that right?

Yeah.

I think I should see those male people.

You want me to wait a while?

I kind of think so, but let me talk to Ray anyway.

And get up.

Because he's been doing some joking around in there.

And the thought now, I think, I think we're moving out of there and into, on an interim basis, into the Bill Hopkins role.

But I'm not sure whether that's a bit more of a task.

I don't know how we're going to compare it with previous administrations.

I mean, that's been checked out recently.

All the way along sort of thing.

Yeah, and I think we don't consider it very important.

We're putting more people and high-level people against it than anybody's ever done.

But we're also doing a hell of a lot more mail than anybody's ever done.

We don't handle nearly as much routine as the business credit cards.

I now got the report of that Snula operation.

And unless our guys are completely lying, what happened was that on May 25th, before the action started, and before there was anything going on, they ordered a withdrawal because of the rain season out of Cambodia to positions inside South Vietnam right near the border.

While they were withdrawing, the North Vietnamese attacked them.

That's their normal tactic.

According to this, the North Vietnamese lost 1,200 men.

The South Vietnamese lost less than 100 now.

That may not be right.

But they inflicted enormous losses.

Apparently, they considered it one of the most successful operations in which they were engaged.

They lost 19 damaged vehicles.

And they were not forced out.

They were going out.

I had a feeling on this one.

I saw that there was a delivery.

But I just think that why does it have to be handled in a way like that?

We don't have, it shouldn't, it shouldn't even get close to the White House.

I mean, we don't, we shouldn't comment.

Absolutely.

But it shows how that damn press out there, it's, uh,

Hmm.

But it is amazing.

I recommended that you stay away from it yesterday when you asked me about it and I did not believe the fragmentary report.

But it is astonishing how these guys otherwise the message from the Pakistani hasn't come in yet because he comes by

Then they have to decide whether... Yeah.

...because he sent it in code.

Yeah.

I sent a summary to Funker of what went on, and he came back.

He thinks the six will be all right.

And he came back saying that it's...

I don't want to mislead you.

I think the probability is that they'll turn it down.

But it is the first time in the negotiations that they've put themselves into a posture where if they want to, they can talk seriously.

Up to now, all they have done is make demands of what we must do.

And this gets us into a position where we will know clearly by middle of July, at the latest, whether this... And if there is a negotiation, it is now so set up that it almost certainly will conclude this summer.

Oh, sure has to be.

If there is a negotiation, they will not drag it out.

Oh, well, we won't drag it out.

But even they...

The curious thing is their major incentive is to get it done before the Vietnamese elections.

That's one of the big incentives.

So the thing is actually working well from that point of view.

I've got the British squared away for the visit, and I've accepted the 25th with the two days that will be in today, but that will be around the 10th.

So it all plays together very well.

Of July.

We offered.

You offered the chance.

Yeah.

Well, I offered them when I thought I was going to Korea on July 1st.

Oh, yes.

It's got to be on a weekend because I've got to disappear from Islamabad for a day.

And I'll say I'm going up into the mountains, which is indeed true.

It's too bad you're not there.

No, and we'll keep the airplane at the airport and offline in Pakistan, thanks.

so it's too daring for anyone to think that it could be, particularly with the plane sitting there.

I'll be back.

The ambassador will go to the president's palace.

The president has a summer house in the mountains.

He'll go there and take phone calls.

The president will say, I'm going to his house in the mountains.

That house in June has been an area close to foreigners.

so that no one can follow us.

And there's an airfield on the other side of the border.

No, I'll go to the airport.

Yeah, there's an airfield nearby.

I'll go to the airport, but I'll go from the airport to a military airport, which is close to Florida.

And hop across the Himalayas.

It's only an hour and a half left.

Good.

What he said, it meant that his father did.

The only thing that they'll have is... You think he's not going to keep his... We know the ambassador's going to keep his mouth shut on this.

Mr. President, they need us so desperately, and we've kept them from so much disaster.

Without you here, we've kept the Indians from attacking them.

We've kept the State Department from cutting off their economic programs.

He's that fellow who was in Panama who hates the State Department.

He's your man.

He owes you the job.

We forced him in.

What we would do, what these ambassadors proved, though, is the crucial importance of having you a man.

Fallen, rushed.

We could never have broken the preventive deadline without Rush.

That's right.

He made it possible.

Bunker in Saigon.

He isn't technically your man, but he lives.

Bruce in Paris.

Bruce is going to be called.

Nice to meet you.

So Farland owes everything to you, and he's got no place to go in the department, so he has been cutting him up.

His consul general in Dhaka has been

was none of that smart-alecky thing of they did in the Laos operation.

And I think you came across in a very, as all the commentators also said, even though that.

The problem, they think we may know more than they do.

That's all.

That's why we don't tell them the goddamn thing.

Exactly.

We're not going to tell anybody anything.

We're not going to tell certainly that, I mean, that Brzezinski thing is

first Democrat.

He's playing his line.

Not because he wants a job, like you suggested.

More because he's trying to get the idea planted now.

You watch.

They're going to build it up with the Democratic nominees and so forth and so on.

Make us do it.

It'll have to go to everything we do.

They want to be participating.

That's why everything we've done, everything we've said has got to be said before the goddamn Democratic convention.

Oh, yeah, but that's

That's good.

That's easy.

And, uh, well... Well, Mike Johnson, that's not a very good call, so I'm calling on you.

Would you please, Mr. President, appreciate this?

I don't know.

I think that by next July...

I don't believe anything happens after their convention.

I have something to say.

I'm an analyst.

I agree with President Johnson.

That's a beyond that effective point I made last night, actually, on the prisoners.

Yeah.

We've been around that track before.

I said President Johnson agreed to have a bombing.

I agreed to stop the bombing and return to discuss the patient.

We've been discussing for two and a half years.

We're not going to make them the same again.

That's goddamn true.

That's true.

Another advantage of death commissions.

It's got to because next year there will be murder otherwise.

They'll all leak like crazy.

But we do even two-thirds of the things that are now running down the trip think they're going to happen.

It's been happening up to now.

A little slower, more slowly than we thought, but

essentially along the lines of the game plan.

Quite crazy, Mr. President, if this, by any chance, if this should all happen, if you should bring off the two summits and the negotiated end to Vietnam, which I don't even dare to dream of, but if by chance, at the end of the summit, you should have succeeded in negotiating an end to the war in Vietnam, you would have broken the establishment.

Because no one can

The bureaucracy sabotaged you every step of the way.

It's been an extraordinary performance.

After the first six months, the state has in effect sat on its hands on Vietnam.

We don't get any memos.

They don't really sabotage us.

They just stand aside.

They haven't done a damn thing.

The press has been vicious.

Intellectuals have been vicious.

And the Council on Foreign Relations group.

has been, well, that is, I don't know if it's Vietnam.

We get a private note on that.

I've not contributed to the tone.

When they want to help, they do what they did on NATO.

Then they can chin up the editorial sets when they showed what they can do.

I know.

We realize how strong they are.

I don't know if they're always against it, but you are.

I'm pretty sure now I'm getting really quite confident because there's just too many things moving.

Well, look, the fight isn't.

The China thing is going home.

The Soviet thing is the only real solution.

Not all the others have to bear the war with them.

We have to get the war with us.

Let me suggest what I think we have to, might have to do.

One intriguing possibility for P.J.

might be, the point is, if we've got, if you say to them, look here, we want you to wind up in Sweden and so forth, so we have a great deal with them, that's one thing.

I'm very certain we're gonna get a goddamn hard smile on them.

You remember the Russians?

wanted to play a part in the India-Pakistan thing.

They set up that damn conference.

I said, I remember that.

In Russia, though.

Remember that time?

Oh, yeah.

I remember that time.

Now, the Chinese, if they really wanted to move big in the world scene, they've got to be Swedes.

It's a very, very dangerous game.

I want to play this.

You know what BP means?

We can see how it works.

We have to play any game that's necessary in the war zone.

that it goes to the other extreme, that these people turn down this offer.

The next meeting is the last one, Henry.

The next meeting is the last.

Unless there's going to be an agreement, I'll tell you why.

We cannot be hamstrung in terms of bombing them.

We cannot be there.

We can't go this summer and not go.

No, I agree with that, Mr. President.

We'll know the next time.

If they're moving towards an agreement, it can't be the last one because they cannot settle it next time.

Yeah.

You can see what it means to them.

They realize we've never hit them as long as they're doing this.

Well, I think that's their motive.

They are not hurt enough by these occasional raids to make them the difference.

Well, if we hit them twice in a year, it would be more.

That's all right, but they don't know that.

I don't think that's their motive.

I think all the intelligence we get is that they have a morale problem in the north.

That they have a massive supply problem.

We got an intelligence yesterday that the hospitals in the southern part of Vietnam are still jammed with wounded from the Lansan operation.

And that they're having big problems with medical supplies.

That Lansan operation

It really was a meat crime.

Now, do they want to hang on for another year?

at the end of which they may not be much better off.

This is their big choice now.

And do this in an environment when they don't know what we and the Russians and we and the Chinese are doing.

Because they might become a sideshow.

After all, as you are more successful, look at Kraft yesterday in his commentary.

Kraft in his commentary on your speech on your press conference.

said that he couldn't fault you on it.

There was no credibility gap in the press conference.

It was well done and so forth.

Well, he no more would have said that two months ago, when you said exactly the same thing.

Now, when you do well on China and Russia, I know with the public it isn't a home run necessarily.

But with these writers,

They can.

It's implausible that you totally screw up Vietnam and do well everywhere else.

And in that sense, I'm looking at it from Hanoi's point of view.

The reason they could set up Johnson and what they've always tried to do with you is to put you in the position of the ogre, of the man who everywhere in the world is creating tension.

I'm giving you the view from Hanoi now, not the election view.

So let's say, look at it.

They have a tougher problem than this yelping around here.

Well, the other thing is this.

Johnson was not believable when he was saying he was for peace.

Everybody knew that he was a mean, ruthless son of a bitch.

People know that I'm ruthless, but for the most part, I'm a peace agent.

Due to the accident of my birth,

It's pretty goddamn hard to fault me, you know.

I always rub it in with that average person, too, he can see.

I mean, people sometimes, I mean, there are people like me, I don't know all of them, but I've played their mother and grandmother, and that's a goddamn truth.

They were absolutely violently opposed to my energy workforce.

Hell, everybody else in our family were crutches.

God went into the war.

I was the only one in the whole damn family, nine children, and that means about 100 grandchildren that went into the goddamn war.

You know, another minor straw in the wind.

I had a phone call five minutes ago, just before I came in here, from the publisher of the Saturday Review of Literature.

They want to do an editorial praising your foreign policy.

Now, that's not going to elect you.

It's very important.

But the Saturday Review of Literature is run by Norman Cousins.

That's right.

But they want to do an editorial praising you.

And I think that's all the announcement from that point of view.

I don't know what it does in terms of public opinion, though.

We've got those things pretty well positioned.

It's all an announcement, too.

We're playing just the right way.

We're not promising anything.

We're saying we have a commitment at the highest level to work toward creating it.

It's still very hard.

We can't guarantee it.

But this gives us greater hope than we had previously.

I hope, though, that the Russians have had all the say in the agreement and we have had all the say in the agreement.

And we don't get unscrewed.

We're going to China.

That's just as cold as that.

And if the Russians don't go, we go to China this year, too.

We may have to.

I'll tell you why.

I think you've got to make big plays now.

Big plays have to be made and they've got to be done.

Demagoguery is mine and all the rest.

This is the time.

If you don't, if you don't go to, uh, I don't want you to take any big bite that screws up the game, whether it's throw a bomb in there, set it in the past, or lose it, but, uh, in the present time, present time, you don't have to settle that because I think we'll get to that in a moment, but,

You don't get any progress from Vietnam.

What you gonna do this year?

That's going to be awful rough.

You see, you've got to figure that game out, too.

Because this is the year, this is the year we must come off of this year higher than we are today in the foreign policy issue.

Then you may want to go to the UK.

I'm thinking only in terms of you getting in all the directions.

If you have a channel like this, when the guys asked last night, why don't we announce that we're going to quit sending draft teams,

That's right.

It's about the lovely training and all the rest.

Goddamn.

November 15th, you can do that.

Huh?

November 15th.

All right, fine.

Fine.

November 15th.

That's a hell of a long time.

But if you get sold, if you... No, I'm saying, let's suppose you do not get sold.

If you do not get sold, do not get anything with regard to Vietnam, then what the hell do you do anyway?

That's the point.

That's right.

You've got to make the big play.

You've got to gamble and risk like hell.

If on the other hand you don't, you get one of the others.

China goes over.

That's the way it is.

If you fail on everything else, you cannot sit here and let them chop you up.

The other thing, basically, what I mean is basically, in my view, a divergent reaction.

It's either a divergent reaction this year or an enormous, enormous, which it would be,

after the climax next year.

Exactly.

Because I would prefer it to last due to the fact that it would mean much more to us.

But this year, it would mean a hell of a lot on the China thing the way I would do if we do all that.

We'll know on the summit.

We'll know on the BMP.

It will be done.

In a month.

All right.

Then, then if you go to China.

Your opinion, what I thought what I would do would be to go in November, but I don't see

Announce it in November.

Announce it now.

The problem with the Chinese, frankly, this is a funny embarrassment.

It'd be easier to get it for November.

They will, the best, if it turns out we're getting Vietnam and the Russian summit, then I think what we should do in August

to China, and then after Bruce's trip in November announced the summit to Peking, if we get the Russian summit, because I don't think we should jeopardize the Russian summit by a Chinese announcement.

I agree.

On the other hand... Tell the Chinese now.

Oh, yes, we'll tell the Chinese it's done.

On the other hand, if we don't get the Russian summit,

negotiate, but they're salivating at the idea of getting it announced now.

They want to announce it now.

Hell, I'll guarantee you, if you instruct me to come back with an agreement to announce it within two weeks or

But we may do that if the Russians... You see, my client...

Many of my hesitations would disappear, Mr. President, if I now tell the British we must know on the Sunday.

If the British don't understand, then the Russians have no reason to complain that we went to the Chinese, we gave them the chance.

Well, we played the Russians' parents where we said that the...

It's crazy down the middle.

We've given them credit and that's great as well.

I have no plans.

You did it good.

No, I'm going to invite the people in for a lunch later this week.

When?

Friday.

This week?

Yeah.

I'll save it.

Get it done.

I agree.

It's just got to know.

Actually, I've got 30 feet, but I'm... Dad, you're young.

How old are you?

I'm 48 now.

Oh, he's got a birthday.

I'll fire him in the front of the door.

He's 48.

I have much younger than I am now.

How do you like it?

It's good.

If you drink so much, there's no others to do this, to discuss.

It's all very obvious, you know.

He doesn't think every line will run the piece through his head.

He's stuck with every hard decision.

It's just going to be harder to keep the track of the world on a sandwich tree.

We've got two hundred and three grounders.

How to get their hands through, do it, and how to keep the rest of the track, it's going to be hard.

You know what that is?

A rugged surfer hanging.

This next cycle is going to be more tough.

Those people afterwards read that as, I believe it's announced, Mr. President, and also on the radio.

No, no, no, no.

What's it going to bring us, huh?

One of the commentators concluded afterwards that you had said you wouldn't be visiting Vietnam before the election, which confirmed that you would be going over right after the election.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw that.

Congratulations.

This is the most advantageous, the last of this, sir, that I'll be doing, you know.

I'll come for a rehearsal.

Let's start it.

Let's go.

We're all really bad at rehearsing, aren't we, sir?

Uh-huh, sir.

It's mostly security that's going on.

It's all going to be done.

It's a good thing.

It's not the song that you're going to sing all day.

I'll do it.

What is your point after analysis?

that we walked into the press, the thing that fascinates everybody here, and it is likely to be a punishing point, I can't understand.

There was one neighbor over here, an old guy, never spoke to me.

I think he had drugs.

He had drugs.

It was a, it was not, it was a press conference where the press, I wrote Joseph and I ran it for purposes of your next little seance.

Your press lawyers, clients, they were,

Scott, and Cass, did it occur to you that this was the first restaurant that said so?

It was, quote, a good sport, end quote, and that the White House scores won.

Oh, they were, you know, they're obsessed with that, which is just fascinating.

You know, and, you know, put the questions in there.

I can't think of any more.

You're not getting behind all of this.

And I know you say, Scali, it doesn't really mean that.

It just means that we've got a strategy.

But don't let Klein, Scali, or any idea that being a good source, the only way to handle the press is with cold contempt.

I just believe we were more right in the beginning than we've been late.

You know, in the beginning, I played a goddamn cold game with those bastards.

Do you remember?

I didn't have any parties for him.

I didn't do one goddamn thing.

You know what I mean?

We were just cool.

He's a pastor.

He said that also we cut off the time, you know, from the post and everything.

We didn't.

Not as effective with it.

I don't know how it really worked.

Should we have, uh, should we have no adults?

That's correct.

That's, uh...

They didn't give me the opportunity to make some of the points I wanted to make.

They just didn't do it.

But you got the opportunity to make two points that may make more difference to us, and that's the DOE point and the demonstrator's point, the law and order point.

As far as people are concerned, those may make a hell of a lot more point than it may be.

You know, if I think about it, people don't understand, so they don't understand China.

They don't understand salt.

They don't understand .

Those three subjects, all poor, all .

They don't understand the ILO.

They don't understand the .

They don't understand .

He may have read about it intentionally.

The only way to understand it is somebody that is sad there, because I did.

Of course, I know him, too.

He was a man of labor to me.

Sad as I did.

George made me raise all my problems with him.

I know it's a bunch of white bastards controlled by the communists.

That was a superb answer.

Who the hell else, Matt, who the hell else being up there would have studied enough to know what the hell the answer is?

I know.

I'm actually not sure of the answer.

That's true.

He wouldn't know.

Well, he said some bureaucrat or some government guy that's been working in that particular area.

But I think that's irrelevant.

As I say, he didn't get the opportunity for

the opportunities for, I didn't know back there whether his comment was right or I didn't know.

Of course, he says that about all of us.

It's his general line.

And that's a, you know,

But you know, that burns their butts, because they know that they want to drag me into that.

I know they can't answer for every damn thing.

You can't put in those goddamn answers.

And I shouldn't.

It wouldn't make any point for me to have to spar with them unless they come Saturday.

Now they just say, it's a lot like my last press conference.

Senator, I've covered it up.

The President's press conference is not an appropriate forum to discuss politics.

That's the question.

In a way, it was good that it was in a McCloskey question rather than a Muskie or Democratic question.

I mean, his court, sir, completely eliminated that vote.

I don't know.

Whatever way that was your... That's really...

The interesting thing is this press that you'd think would have died down, but it became clear last night.

It has this press obsession with the May Day business that

the rest of the demonstrators in there.

Uh, they just ain't with the people.

I've generally been saying this morning, the mayor of Washington told him that he gets a standing ovation at every group that he walks into now, regardless of what it is.

White, black, mixed, business, labor, social, anti-social.

Oh, God, no.

No, sir.

Nobody was.

Sure.

Yes, sir.

I didn't worry.

And I understand that.

Let me show you why the press is obsessed.

The press should be the guardians of civil rights, equal rights, and American rights.

Lunatics about this one.

This one, they're crazy.

Because what the hell is the option?

To let the goddamn government be stopped.

On their own, sir.

Nobody's rights were violated.

The whole point was their rights were protected.

The fact that they aren't being convicted is proof of that.

And at that point, he says, well, he's going to reduce them.

He said, the rest was legalized and true lawlessness.

Well, in Europe, this whole picture has always been, you know, that nobody has a constitutional right.

I was tempted to use that, but I knew that would be a tremendous headline.

And we processed three times as fast.

They processed the cases three times as fast with ten times as many cases as they did in the Pentagon thing, you know, five years ago.

Working of the process rather than any

everybody felt that a general meeting was happening that they had made a strategic error without knowing the press side because of their obsession with this thing they kept putting it in the only argument and it's interesting the guy who made it was schultz

He said, the one thing that I wish he had done on about the third or fourth question there on that subject is I wish he would have gotten mad.

He said, sometime, once in a while, he's got to get mad.

And there was the perfect opportunity.

They were rising to something that didn't make any sense and it didn't to the viewer.

He could have just kicked his fist on that thing and said, look.

I've answered that question.

I've answered the question, do people obviously disagree?

I feel this position will help the jury out there put the money in people's pockets.

Does that help their seniors?

Do they want their kids torn up by the looms and vandals?

Or do I want the police to exercise this kind of...

I hear, of course, there's a difference, you know, in this analysis, you know, of those that are on the land, present.

I mean, they talk about the strength of the muskie, I mean, and so forth and so on.

I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure that now and then

now and then, and that they don't want you to step up and show a little temper.

It's a God.

And it's human.

It's human.

It's a God.

Now, I'm a little pissed off.

You're just, you're just, you know, the other problem is you look too mechanical.

You look mechanical and cool and good tempered and so forth, but I didn't hear it.

I think the same thing.

Yeah, that's what George said.

If he'd done it, they would have written, you know, Nixon loses his temper and

I wouldn't have lost it the first time.

I think he's got a point.

I could have said that's enough of that.

No, I think it wasn't one that had any particular assignment.

That's the trouble with the conference.

The press all was happy with themselves because they were... Have I... Did he get up?

I don't select the questions.

Now, let's say they ever get this across.

I've told him a hundred times.

I don't have any questions.

I have any son of a bitch's hands up.

I don't select them.

I didn't, for example, I didn't call him Clark Polamoff last night.

I just went down the line.

I just called him who the hell is that?

21 of his own bitches.

I don't think we're getting enough out of that.

I don't think we get enough out of the fact that there are no other questions.

This is on the hearse.

There are no, you know, oh, Christ, forget it.

They are going to write it.

They will let us go.

Forget it.

They will write it.

I think about the fact that there are absolutely no questions on the rest of your affairs, except on the last hand.

The one question, plus, you know, housing.

Blacks, nothing.

Nothing.

That's right.

Everybody just shakes their head at that time.

There they are, working their ass off on these things.

You can't, you know, I mean, two-thirds of it was on the domestic issues.

One-third was on the foreign policy.

Well, and he's not doing his sorting right on what questions might come up.

I don't know.

He had to cover the domestic issues because...

He figures if I went into their question, that my point is two-thirds of them aren't in the field of domestic comparison, because those are the questions.

And the renderer asks, I say, Ray, Ray, it's not fair that you can pinpoint the point of policy, because more than all of those ideas are very simple.

They're solved.

There are only a half a dozen things they know enough to ask the question about.

On domestic, there's an infinite range of things they can do.

grows on the picture of a leader changing the heavens and the earth again.

We've got to be sure that that decision is not making Mark good alone.

He's a good boy, but he's just, you know, he's the hired end.

Does he make the decision about camera angles and all that?

No.

He works, he and Carruthers worked out a plan.

Okay.

All good, let's just check it out and be sure it's done the way it's done.

I think he's fine.

I mean, put it this way.

We've got Carruthers because he's supposed to be the best producer in the business now.

We've got to make sure they don't pull the kind of thing they did on that morning show where he said...

couch or you know what i mean yeah and your idea too about that is very good maybe we're using a roster maybe we can find one that looks better that isn't black maybe one that shows that seal a little better you know i really think there is something to that i'm sure that we've gone to the book we've proved our point with the naked mind now we can sit up there and

And it works fine because they get a camera angle when you come in.

It shows you have nothing in your hands when you're walking in, and it shows the back of the roster, so they see there's no paper in there.

So there's, you know, any question anybody might have about notes is completely eliminated on camera.

Yeah, but...

Although nobody's even raised their questions, so it's not a...

I don't think it's a question that matters.

I wouldn't care.

I have a question.

Please.

If you're going to take a toll on the pool, I'm going to suggest that you do sooner.

Leave off the China questions now.

Don't ask them.

The China questions.

I think if you want to have, what can you run at?

If you run approval, vice president approval, approval, vice president approval, you probably need to press conference reaction.

Uh, we were going to get a SALT reading because we haven't done anything since SALT.

Now let's find out if we get any, if there's any recognition.

Have you heard of the Presidents of Asia?

Very deadlocked with arms.

Limited.

You see, SALT is what really screws it up.

Hey, you can't say salaries.

I don't.

I never do.

I don't know.

It was like last night.

You said your arms.

Well, here's what I have in mind.

I would put in two really meaty questions.

If you're here at a press conference, and you could ask this of any, in his press conference, the president took a strong, took a strong line supporting the police, police arrests of demonstrators, of peace demonstrators who

uh, who, uh, engaged in acts of vandalism or who broke the law, you know, who engaged in acts of vandalism, you know, who tried to stop the government, put it that way.

But don't go to too much, but just enough so that we, so that we know and approve of the action, right, and arresting demonstrators who, uh, uh, who we are in all right, these demonstrators who, uh, uh,

I don't know if you can get a different reading on it.

They don't prove no wrong reason.

In a curious way, we got across two points that are more important than revenue sharing or government reorganization or welfare reform.

We got across points that really cut home for the average guy.

One is corruption.

One is goddamn long-haired, dirty, filthy demonstrators.

And one more, they aren't those people.

They're not smart as they think they are.

They have this terribly distorted view that they think they know what the people do.

If you have a mechanic that can't do nasty letters, and if you mourn sorrow and anger or hate next to them, and so forth, I wish you could just give it to them.

Only the real bastards, not the journalists who got the word.

I'm going to go forward in the end with a basically this conference, but a domestication press conference.

If I do that,

I was thinking that I might do it Saturday morning before going to Arkansas.

Would you do it?

I would.

Yeah.

There's always not much of a... Let me tell you why I think I should do it.

I think you might as well do it because I have... First, it's a way to dominate the news.

I mean, to be on the evening news.

I can't.

Second, I've already done the work, and I can do it.

Friday is better in the sense that you have a much bigger audience for the evening news, and you have three networks instead of only two.

Saturday is better because you get the Sunday papers.

Friday is better because you get the magazines.

You get more in the magazines.

I can climb a bit, but on this one,

It was absolutely different.

First of all, we cannot announce it in advance.

Did you see, like, in California, we announced it in advance.

We put it on the radio, remember?

That's what we did.

We had a limited press corps there.

Here, here, you announced it in advance.

You spread it all over, and I had to go over it.

Correct.

Yeah.

Second.

We can do it.

If you want to take it to the satellite and ask me in advance is to do it by the system we've talked about, the pool.

Well, I've seen it all the time.

It's the one who suggested it.

We're following an airplane on a pool we're in here.

I think it's a hell of a big pool.

It's different.

It's a different way.

How about doing it out there?

Pressure.

and those were thrown into an exhibitor.

I didn't have an announcement in that just yet.

I did have an announcement.

That's not what I was trying to do.

That's the radio audience.

But the hell of the radio audience.

What you're really going to get here is that the radio will play it all the rest of the day.

The radio will play it the rest of the day.

The television will get their clips and so forth.

They have all of their goddamn cameras set up out there.

And, uh, right there, out there.

And the Secretary just says the President is flying home with friends.

That's not a thing.

The housing thing.

I'm George, and I agree with this.

I don't want the housing thing to be a big survey.

I don't want it to be the only survey.

It will undoubtedly be the lead survey.

But I can't stand to have that housing thing come out Friday and have the restaurant and the school at the same time.

See, my wife had a hell of a lot to do so that that isn't the only thing that

I'd like to find out.

They're all worried about China and so forth.

You've got to send a big help.

Nope.

They're doing good.

And here we are.

It's all been really good.

It's some.

It's a very wide range.

I agree that the news centers, if you read them, they talk about, Henry says, that there are questions from our perspective.

It's sort of bullshit.

Your reason.

So how?

How?

Day after day after day with negative stuff.

That's what folks are saying.

Crack it up.

Sure.

Why are you engaged in the immoral war in Vietnam?

Why are you unconstitutionally arresting people in the streets of Washington?

Why is war on in Vietnam?

No, no, no.

I don't mean about the question.

What I mean about what's on, what's been on since assault has been basically negative, not positive.

Goddamn little positive.

We've got these guys now forming this veterans for us.

He's with the justice.

We don't want to get to see you yet.

We don't want to work.

Well, it's this guy.

He's got a beard, one of them.

And the other guy's a Navy officer who just got out yesterday.

Who's a real sharp-looking guy who is more articulate than Kerry.

He's not as eloquent.

He isn't the hand that Kerry is.

But he's more believable.

And he was on both networks and a big story in the paper this morning.

And this guy says, finally, this Navy guy, who was in the same Navy unit Kerry was in, said, I was in Vietnam for over a year.

who was in Vietnam saw Americans commit atrocities.

He said, I'm sure there were some committed, but I didn't see them get hit.

And then he said, I want to understand that they mobilized 1,000 veterans and came down here.

That doesn't speak for the veterans.

We have 5,000 members of our organization now already.

We just started the last couple of days.

And we represent the great majority of the 500,000 veterans who have joined the VFW.

And we represent our Vietnam veterans.

And we represent, I'm sure, the great majority of the two and a half million who have served in Vietnam, including a million who are still serving in the armed forces.

In other words, if they don't all run back out of Vietnam and get out, a lot of them are still serving.

And he goes on in a positive way.

He says, Kerry doesn't talk for us.

Our president speaks for us because we are too busy at our jobs.

This guy has this great line.

He said, we weren't here demonstrating because we were working at our jobs or going to school or a million of us are still in the service.

So we weren't, we didn't have time to come down here in the mall, but we want to be heard.

And the person who speaks for us is the President of the United States, as he speaks for the majority of the people in this country.

And it's just, you know, this guy just zaps a little.

And they're telling, Colson put this together, NBC and ABC, NBC and CBS, both years, gave him a good chunk.

That's all that matters, what they do.

On the air, where, how do they have the press conference?

You know, the press conference.

And see, we've got them scared to death in this.

NBC used a minute and a half.

CBS used two minutes and 15 seconds.

Why do we have them scared to death?

Because of rainwater demanding equal time.

See, that ploy has got them all shook now.

And so when these guys call the press,

and move around the country.

And this is all put together by this kid, Mel Stephens, that we had, you know, the veteran we had working during the veterans demonstration.

We hired him to be VA, who is just a hell of a little firecracker of a guy.

He was just real cranked up.

And we're getting some of this, though.

And I didn't read the basic, I wrote some of the truth press conference interviews.

I just want to ask you a reason.

What in the hell is this Donaldson thing?

This what?

Donaldson thing about General Donaldson.

You know what?

General Donaldson, they're going to... Is he the fellow who shot from the air?

Yes.

I know what it's about.

Well, what in the name of God did they allow him to go on?

I didn't know what it was about.

Is this Laird again?

Well, no.

Is he an army?

Army, yeah.

What in the name of the mess you've got now?

Or basically was he shooting people because this is an area where they've been, women and children have been, blowing up our people.

I mean, I just don't believe this.

God damn war crimes.

First of all, it happened when he was a colonel.

Second, I just want to indicate, secondly, it was in one of these gray areas, in an area where the people had been in one of these combat villages.

Well, that's sad enough, but they preferred charges so the Army couldn't squelch them.

I went to Westmoreland myself, but they preferred charges.

I don't know when it comes out today.

I don't know when it comes out.

It's been in Time magazine already.

Of course it comes out.

Westmoreland is a disaster because then they get on their high horse.

And there's great morality.

I don't know whether a strong Secretary of Defense and Army couldn't have squelched it.

We're all wrong about all these things.

We just made changes.

That's right.

My name is wrong.

Our failure to build up the fact that I was until this press conference and I was sort of arresting demonstrators is wrong.

Deserve to not realize I didn't play.

Maybe he doesn't.

I saw it.

You see it.

That's the whole point.

Nobody sees it because, you know, I know.

I know that what happens is that they press doesn't want us.

The mistake the press made in that conference last

They thought they were making points for themselves.

Getting the president's order.

And every time I went up and told her, I said, Julie, she's a very sensitive child.

I said, Julie, I wish I'd asked 10 more questions about it.

I said, every time I could repeat that I was with the police.

Can't you see the people that are for the police around the country?

That's all it is.

Everybody else is.

Somebody else wheeled them up.

The fact that we tried to go on a raid, but 70 of them failed.

Well, everybody else got on the law and order.

Everybody else got on the law and order.

And what the theory is that we didn't draw the issue.

Well, we didn't draw it all down and call it out.

They were later, I should have made the main speech much earlier.

It should have been done more properly.

And it's, of course, a minor portion of the issue.

I can't blame you.

But we have to admit, with our issue with writing, it's still writing.

Because basically, the American people feel that way.

You know, it's a curious thing.

I talked to George Ellen Rogers.

I told you he was terribly shamed by Colgate.

Terribly shamed.

Because he's very vain and very proud.

He'd gone to this stand and let's see what it's like.

These are great football teams.

30 years ago.

Remember?

Andy Kerr.

He kind of played Duke once.

They expected to be national champions.

Duke beat them.

They were great.

But anyway.

Here's Colgate.

Bill Harkness goes, the god damn president of the university, 15 minutes before Radin turned completely around after he said that the development of Victoria was not going to have a confrontation.

No.

Rogers, I told Henry last night, mistakenly, was not really going to hand you the Johns Hopkins.

He should have walked out.

He would have become, for the first time then, a really strong Secretary of State.

That would have been amazing.

The bill sat there, and he was pleased with the fact that at least, you know, some of them came for his person.

He said, he said, he said, good, glad you came, glad you came.

I said, there's my file in the stand.

He said, but he said, I, he said, I must say, I was terribly disturbed and distressed to see the people there.

They were wearing, some of them were wearing red pants, headbands, no coats.

And he says, and he says, they were looking awfully weak.

weak, and suffering, and disgusting.

And he went on to say, then he'd gone out here to the memorial and he said, you know, I think we ought to do a Westland.

We ought to do more events where there's patriotic music and so forth, where we stand up.

What the hell was Westland?

Oh, yeah, no, Westland was a great place.

Was it played properly on television?

Yeah.

It just played.

Oh, there we go.

I was amazed.

In fact, I thought they would try to play it down and emphasize the piece.

I saw the TV Saturday night.

I went to Europe Sunday morning.

And I thought... We've got to be on the side of

Yeah, the young people are all for recognizing China.

Well, that isn't the right reason.

They asked about the polls last night on the Chinese election.

We're not going to make our policy part of those polls.

We're going to make it because of our interests and the interests of our friends and our allies.

Period.

Well, Henry, the idea of saying there's been a significant shift in the attitude of the U.N. on this issue, we therefore are consulting with the Republicans and our other third countries on this problem, and we will have a position.

And we'll make a decision in six weeks, which gives us a running room.

And also, the idea being that puts change in the position.

put Chang in a good position, it also slows down the state.

They had a paper over here by which they wanted to announce it on June 20th.

No, I told Billy to do it.

I know, but it didn't filter down yet, and that was just for speaking.

See, speaking is kind of rejected, no matter what we announce, which is all right, but we ought to see their cards before we make any announcement.

No, I'm going to say, and I'm going to build on it.

The way I'm going to do it, of course, is this.

is that I'm going to tell Bill, I want you to do it, and I don't want it done before we meet with Chu.

I want you, because after Chu, we're going to need a policy story from Bill and him.

There's a mixed blessing in this one.

A mixed blessing.

He says it's an overplay because we've got to make sure that on the picture,

that also gave the impression that you're careful and deliberate.

I don't know.

That doesn't help with folks.

Well, what helps with folks, I don't know whether, I don't know, it's the general impression they get whether you're on top of the situation.

And also those damn newsmen.

I think it trickles down after a while.

Well, I thought, for example, yesterday, the way they asked questions on foreign policy, they were very respectful.

They did not date you the way they did.

They're on their guard on the foreign policy.

They don't know what the hell is going on.

And they've been so wrong.

They've been trying to reach something new.

They're trying to reach something new.

Well, to get your craft to say on television that so far your policy on Vietnam has worked is unbelievable.

You know, I'm going to have, for the first time, a question planted in the next evening conference.

I'm going to have it done.

I don't know how.

A war question.

I got to get some long-haired bastard ass to kind of answer it.

Last night, he wasn't.

There was some kind of question.

I remember the question on the file, man.

I don't know.

Well, if you consider it a real question, it's morality, and that's it.

Then I answered, and I said, well, I grew up in a tradition where I consider all wars immoral.

And I said... Wasn't that part of it, Aston?

No.

Was somebody sitting behind a war...

Or Jack Marner.

I don't know what Jack Marner has to do with it.

Anyway, I said I feel that Jack Marner has something to do with the P.O.W.s.

The fact that they only 13 had agreed to go back.

You know, it was well to remind that press corps that that's exactly what happened to the Korean listeners.

Remember, they wouldn't go back.

They wouldn't go back.

That held up the negotiation.

Hell of a problem.

It also gets, if anybody wants to draw any conclusions, why isn't the Khrushchev want to go back to communist countries?

They never want to go back.

Thirteen only want to go back out of 570.

But the moral of the story is, it's got to be him.

It's got to be him.

I didn't want to do it last night because there's not time.

right across the press conference, and it's going to be a little bit of the first of tomorrow.

I said, but I went to World War II.

I said, after World War II, I visited Germany.

I stood on the top of a building in Essen, and for miles around, everything was flat.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the American army.

I saw the same thing in Berlin.

I saw the tragedy in Dresden.

In a sense, I think we could all say that, one, the bombing in World War II was immoral, and two, that the war was immoral.

But would it have been more moral to have Hitler conquer Europe and leave the world?

That's the question we have to ask.

And then you go on to talk about this, the real Russian morality is,

We talk about the bombing.

Bombing, which is significant in Saudi Arabia.

Yes, it's a tragedy for anybody who's a citizen, a citizen, to go to war.

But on the other hand, it is certainly informal to send Americans abroad,

I think the moral war thing is one that you just got to get on the basis of.

I got into the point last night, of course, as far as the morality is concerned.

Would it be moral, for example, we talk about the morality of trying to stop communism, would it be moral to allow communism to take over?

And to have the bloodbath in South Vietnam that they had in North Vietnam, where 50,000, according to the Catholic faith of Benang, were murdered, 500,000 were starved to death and were slaves.

and more immoral than most wars, or than any war we've ever fought, for the single reason that we have been unwilling to commit our resources to win it.

His argument is that the Democrats never enter any war unless you're willing to commit everything you've got, or everything that's necessary, up to everything you've got.

You don't think I mean what I'm saying, but I know this, that if we don't get the Soviet, if we don't get any Soviet virtue, we don't get the Chinese, we can't get that ensemble.

We can't do anything on Vietnam.

The situation is deteriorating.

About November of this year, I'm gonna take a goddamn hard look at the whole card.

As long as we've still got the air,

I'm not talking about bombing passes.

We're going to take out the types.

We're going to take out the power plants.

We're going to take out the bomb.

We're going to level that goddamn house.

And I think the American people would understand that.

But the point is, we're not going to go out and bring it.

The question of the ages.

Did you know the most brutal war was the Civil War?

What Sherman did going through Georgia, if I were a southerner, I'd hate the North for the rest of my damn days.

It was horrible.

Raid.

Burning.

Looted.

Horrible.

And Sherman said war is hell.

They made animals out of their soldiers.

They made animals out of their soldiers and they were great.

Now the point is, but however, did you say Lincoln was in war?

Yeah, a lot of people did at the time, but the point is, would it have been more moral?

To have the country divided?

And slavery.

And slavery existing?

That's the question.

I'd like to know this moral war thing.

Let him give me one more whack of that, and I'm going to knock the shop and break it down.

There's one other thing you can say.

Before you get to that part of it, you can say, first of all, your record proves that you have reduced

the uninhabited areas of Laos.

These people talk as if we are slaughtering civilians.

killed that many and how many they started to death.

Now, God damn it, we know what happened.

And we're going to say it.

The second point is how many civilians they killed in South Vietnam.

I need those figures again.

The best of all the figures that we can lay out.

And also, I want to give you the...

I want one other point.

I want to know how many Japanese died in the nuclear bomb bombs.

How many?

In the atomic bomb bombs.

I already saw you in the race.

I think I know the number.

You know, if that was a search, it would be a true bunch of parole.

In fact, it did.

I'm not sure.

The only sentence that was tried here, did I know?

You know, the way the criminal justified it, the way Eisenhower justified it... You could say it's one American lie.

At least to many Americans, when it died,

going into the Japanese homeland.

No question.

That's the only question.

And would it be more horrible to have a million Americans die or go to Japan?

You know, this crap about morality, of course it's not right.

The basic thing is war is immoral because people are immoral and they're aggressors in the world.

Hitler was a vicious son of a bitch.

And so I had to stop him.

Right?

Absolutely.

That's exactly the kind of moral and argument we need for bastards as the state of the state is in Washington.

The moral question is, you know, do you arrest them or do you let them tear the city apart?

That's right.

I agree with you.

is that we actually, most of the bombing is in uninhabited areas, so that we don't feed this idea that we are killing civilians every day.

It is true, though.

But these bastards, who in 1968 were saying, shift the bombing to South Vietnam, now we have an empty bombing of North Vietnam.

I just talked to Scali when you called.

Oh yeah, I showed him the report.

If these casualties, the figures are right, if they really did kill a thousand North Asians, then they suffered a hell of a blow.

But let me say, I'm going to just say this thing.

You've got to know we've got a hell of a car.

I do not intend to preside here and go out there.

We don't, we haven't done a goddamn thing right around this place in terms of accomplishing anything.

The domestic scene, we haven't fired the right people.

We're still screwing around and permissiveness.

a welfare thing, and we're giving more food standards to loafers, and we're doing all the things that are wrong.

And we're just running the chaos a little better.

And it's about all we're going to be doing.

On the foreign policy thing, we're running the chaos a little bit better.

But unless we get these breakthroughs, we've got to be fine.

And we've got to be fine.

We don't get to go angry.

The one last thing we're going to do is, if I walk as I have breath in my body, you talk about turning right.

It's no idle threat.

Before it was.

Because you knew we had to hold.

Right now it isn't.

Right now they're not a goddamn thing to lose.

Nothing to lose.

We're going to turn right.

We're going to get a bomb to live for Jesus' sake.

That's what we need.

It's awarded on these Vietnam talks.

And if you then turn right with the defense program and the bombing of the North Sea, you're extricating the forces.

But by God, you're not going to let them be chopped up.

You'll have the record of having offered a ceasefire, plus the troop withdrawal.

You have the record of having offered assault deals.

I think we're going to have to... Then you've got to go to the country and arm them against the Soviets.

You could go to the country and drive the liberals up the wall, but they're against you anyway.

He just might mobilize a big chunk of the country.

I don't know.

I think this country is not ready to be taken by the Democrats.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

This is very, very, very easy.

50% of them are still with you then, despite everything that's happening.

Yeah, but they haven't, anybody said 50% against what they would like to see, which is the millennium.

I am a conservative.

I want them all to understand this.

I'm opposed to these goddamn liberal plans.

simply against them, and all I get in front of me is some other liberal initiative.

The environment, all that bullshit.

We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on food stamp programs, that consumerism, all that old crap.

It's wrong.

We're playing a game in which we don't get a goddamn thing.

And we have done the wrong thing for the country.

Oh, we say, oh, we're keeping the issues from them.

Bullshit.

As a matter of fact, the whole revenue sharing thing, I think, is wrong.

I think at this point, it's very cold-bloodedly.

All it is is going to be to give more money to inefficient people to spend revenue sharing.

Oh, that's what I mean.

That's what I mean.

Yeah.

Raise taxes.

Yeah.

We're telling them, hold up your taxes.

You get more revenue.

Sure.

You're saying the country at this time needs to hear it.

And also, it's what I believe.

I'm so goddamn sick of these liberals.

I'm telling you, they're a crib.

They can walk.

And they hate you, Mr. President.

There's nothing you can do.

Oh, but the president...

Whenever we stood to them last October, they were on their knees.

They were crying all over the lot about our dividing the country.

The minute they got a little, their head above water, they were chopping us to pieces without mercy, without any thought of unity.

They want power, literal wants power.

The conservatives, we just do right.

Now, John Rayford's got to learn that he can't, he's got to cut this shit out, huh?

Now, we agree, and the existence is about them.

He's not a liberal.

John's a conservative.

He's a conservative.

The only thing he's ever on is that goddamn environment.

He just forgot the clean blue waters of the Seattle Basin.

started thinking of folks, he realized the issue isn't where it's headed.

Now, I hate to tell you what's going to come in on the issue, but I had a long talk with Ben last night on our, you know, other activities, and he said that thing shows, he said it's the most incredible thing he's ever seen, and it's high, 90%.

He says, I said, I don't believe that.

He said, I don't either.

But it's absolutely there.

It's something.

He said, it's a phenomenon of the media and the pressure.

He agrees with us.

He thinks it's not worth a damn.

And I said, all right.

I said, well, all they're concerned about is air, right?

He says, no air and water both.

But why would Lincoln and Omaha be concerned about, or Lincoln, Nebraska be concerned about air pollution?

They don't

but they read every day about it not happening in any other places.

They're concerned about that.

It's a factional thing.

It's a thing that's been caught on.

He said, you've got two enormous pressures going.

You're going to have a hell of a time.

One is the environment.

The other is consumerism.

He said, the consumerism thing, the air gas business, they are.

And he said, the end of the business is going to be, we've been, they've been a faithful business over the years.

And he said, this is just a steady decline.

With respect to the business, that's the median for business organizations and everything else.

He says, this is for individual countries.

We go to the top 50 companies, and then we do it for business as a whole, and everything else, and it's just awful.

I'm not married to business, so I'm not taking business.

Well, that's his crusade.

He's telling the demo better.

He said some people used to take, he used to buy a car and there was something wrong with it and you'd go get it fixed.

They don't do that anymore.

Now they scream and holler that the car should have been smaller.

I don't always follow those mistakes.

I may not follow this.

I know you may not.

But you've got to look at it as if, as, you know, and decide whether or not it's welfare.

Do you have that in there?

Yeah, he didn't give me all that stuff.

I just jumped on him before I asked him about it.

He hasn't, he hasn't done it yet.

He hasn't released.

It won't be done until the end of the week.

I don't want it to be given out to this, this, this, whether you have to give it out to this crowd over here that have the...

and domestic counsel.

I don't want them to go crazy on this environment shit.

You know, I'm not gonna do it.

There's nothing in it for us, not a goddamn thing.

So you see, uh, I'll talk to you after that a little bit.

And hold it for me.

Just hold it for me.

Why not?

It's a ticket to the devil.

Yeah.

Oh, all right.

I will determine, Bob, what gets, what gets out.

You understand?

I'll give it to him.

I don't know.

Take a look.

Why don't you and John get together, but I don't want that to go out in a bunch of strange years.

Go ahead.

Two quick things.

On the study of the position of the United States on the Republican Party and on the organization, the study will be completed in six weeks, but we're not necessarily going to announce that in six weeks.

Yes, that's correct.

We will announce that our decision at some time after that one.

And as far as the six weeks are concerned, this is not a study of consultation.

It's consultation I said at the beginning.

that I've asked them to try to complete it in a six-weeks period.

We hope to.

And we, within two weeks after that, within two to three weeks after that, we'll announce our decision.

I can just say within two to three weeks after that, that we will then make, we then will call on the U.S., we then will announce our decision.

It's the end of July.

It's the end of July, early August, that's clear.

Okay.

Do you want me to get into, in any degree, all the questions of the Mayday Arrest Procedures, or just leave it where it is?

I know they ask enough about that.

I don't think so.

I think one thing that the premise of these questions is truly wrong.

I just did a morning on this where he said they're being released on the grounds that they were probably

Oh, he's got me.

Incorrect.

There's no case against him.

No, no, no.

You arrest an individual.

They are not being released.

It's really true.

They were not properly arrested.

That's why it's too complicated.

I thought, you know, I just wanted to say that I just told Bob that you and Scali and Vine and the others and our press people who constantly said, well, go to the gridiron, go to the White House Correspondents and be a good support for these guys, act better.

I've never seen them more disheartening and disrespectful than they were last night.

That was a pretty shabby performance on that front.

Didn't hurt at all.

It was the, I think it was the

demonstrated once again the weakness of the varsity question board.

No questions or assumptions on any major problem.

It doesn't accept the three or four policy questions.

Is it conceivable that they did not ask about the manpower, manpower, manpower?

Well, forget manpower.

They understand.

Did those two men serve majors or public service jobs?

Public service jobs.

Oh, that's all right.

Well, it's OK then.

I don't care.

I think that I looked at the tape again this morning.

I think it's a great, great press conference.

I mean, it comes from where it came over.

They say this.

I think if you did it in the May Day thing, you could go on and say that the president's really astonished.

Well, I guess that's it.

the President pointed out, well, I should say that I pointed out this.

I didn't comment that the premise of David's question is actually incorrect.

That's why I don't write back to the main point.

The main point.

I have a tactic, of course, that everybody uses in the present time.

I'm always falsely composing.

But whenever anybody asks a question like that, rather than saying that isn't the question, an argument in the gallery.

You never argue the law.

You argue the facts.

In fact, I just came right back to the point that, well, if people come in and do demonstrations and so forth, if we leave the government in charge, that's all people remember.

No one remembers whether or not these press guys are going to get into that.

I would say that the president supports the constitutional rights.

I don't get it whether they provide that satisfaction.

Of course, they do.

Well, those were going to be my first ones.

We're not going to litigate this.

We're going to litigate this.

That's the premise of that question.

are found innocent, but are found guilty, who were arrested.

The Constitutional guarantees know that it's the arrest that's innocent, and the court, I mean, the applies to the court procedure.

We don't want to get too much, that's right for you to say, I don't want to say, we don't want to get too much of that.

We don't want a bunch of people running around and arresting people.

Why don't you say this?

The president recognizes that most of the members of the press are

Arresting those who came here with the express intention of stopping the operation.

His responsibility is quite different from yours.

His responsibility is to keep this government active.

That's a concentration responsibility.

He intends to meet that responsibility.

As he indicated last night, he will take the same strong...

He totally disagrees with you.

He totally disagrees with those senators.

I don't want to keep this going.

I thought I would read it.

I said, gentlemen, most of you were out of town.

I said, gentlemen, to put this in context, let me just read from the manual, the May Day manual.

They have two paragraphs in there.

I approve this plan.

I support it completely.

And we will do it again.

We intend to meet this kind of illegal action designed to stop the operation of this government.

We need it again.

We found the right combination of firmness and restraint.

I'm sure of it.

They say, well, the disconstitution is wrong.

First thing, you see, Rob, the reason this...

Most of our liberals around here, I will tell you, and they're not quite a few, this is not a constitutional motion.

As far as this is concerned, on this issue, we are on the right side, but we have to do also a side of the folks, for once on that,

Keep talking about it.

Let them win over us.

Let them win for us.

Keep making other leads.

President, the Department of Defense.

If they come again, we're ready for you.

We're ready.

We're ready for the moves.

Now, this country is not going to be ground to a halt, this government.

It's not going to be ground to a halt, the U.S. government.

It's not going to be ground to a halt by people who come to Washington with the express purpose

publicly, uh, uh, politicized of, uh, the topic of the operation.

It's a police society, and I'm afraid that's it.

Why has the president received this warning?

It's a way of overwhelming support.

Every single one.

What are you doing about this telephone post?

That's a good question.

I think that's a good question.

And other countries as well.

There's either another war or something.

I would simply say, well, gentlemen, this consultating process will take some time to complete, and I'm not going to indicate when it is.

It will be done in an orderly way, in proper channels, at the appropriate time, and will be working.

Absolutely.

Orderly way, proper time.

This involves a very important decision.

When Secretary Rodney returns, we, of course, will be meeting within our government to further examine the American position, which we've already developed to further examine.

And then, as far as timing is concerned, we're not going to disclose the timing.

We're not going to disclose the channels.

Or the forum.

That's right.

I wouldn't say disclose.

We won't.

We're not ready to talk about it.

We're going to proceed in an orderly way here with consultations.

We're not going to talk about the channel.

Disclose implies we know it.

We should say we're not ready to talk about it.

We're not going to talk about it.

I think he should say we're not ready to talk about it rather disclose because disclose means we know it.

Oh, I see.

Right.

We're not going to discuss it.

Or the travel thing.

That's a single problem.

The problem with travel is, if I just want to be sure, there's no credibility problem.

Because we may have another Midway.

On the other hand, he said, you go out of Vietnam.

I said, no.

There's nothing in what you said.

Midway is in Southeast Asia.

Midway is in the United States.

It's certainly not Southeast Asia, Mr. President.

You handled it perfectly.

I said, no critical.

This, it's really amusing, isn't it?

Rob, why are they on the side of the administrators?

Why?

Don't they ever report to their Congress slash?

Do any of them live in Georgetown?

Do they give a comment when the government keeps running?

Do they believe that that rabble, that that rabble really represents the best interests of this country?

I can't hide the Saturday morning.

I had no idea.

The place is running around here.

I don't care anymore.

People running around naked here and all of a sudden screw you and fuck you.

That's probably a bit.

I doubt when somebody comes in and breaks the law, he needs to go to the jail right now.

President was saying that one of them was trying to explain this concern to him very passionately by saying that you weren't in Selma.

You don't remember the civil rights marches and how the southern police washed people up in the

Have you a little check?

We're trying to go complex among many, and I want Vietnam.

You know Howard's best background on this, don't you?

Yes, I do.

Is his son dead or not?

Terrible, Andrew.

He was very badly made for life.

He was shot at for two solid days with rifle fire from the trees.

One thing you will find in Bush is this.

What?

Chuck McGill once.

Only one of the little sons of bitches has ever went to the endowment.

There was only one.

Yeah, they've got to give the commencement address.

I feel terrible.

We've got two people.

I'll try to have them.

And Bill Saxby, whose son is out there, probably.

But only one.

One.

All sons and daughters of members of Congress.

And there are one hell of a lot of them.

And they're previous class.

Thank you.

They're also afraid that you might succeed.

It's a very interesting website in terms of questions.

You can tell the newsmen and you can tell those who get entangled emotionally in their things.

Fire service was fine.

Bill Tyson's question was fine.

They were asking, you know, kind of, you know, things are on the upswing.

They're trying to look behind the green door.

Which is legitimate.

Now, then he got, then he got to Bill McGann, sometimes, who asked, Mr. President, how long are you going to keep sending draftees to Vietnam?

Well, he's the guy from April 1st.

When I briefed the press, Mr. President, he proved how objective

Because it's good enough.

It is good enough.

But see, this is a totally emotional question.

Totally biased.

Not a neutral question.

Then you move to Morgan.

Again, on the south, on the right.

Emotionally motivated question.

Then you move to Sarah Clinton, which is just, because of it, it's just nothing.

But then you have to go to Marion Means.

Well, Marion Means.

But then you go to the fellow WTOP who asked the moral question on Vietnam.

Totally.

WTOP.

Who was that?

Totally.

I thought that was the Washington Post.

But this...

What I know about that, and what type of question I ask in the briefing, you can tell the legitimate newsman, Bill Tyson, the legitimate newsman, sure.

Turbos, I think, last night.

I don't know what happened.

Well, Tyson's was an odd question, too.

Tyson is related to travel and...

No, he really isn't, but he's a nice man.

He's not a nice man, not bright, hopelessly liberal.

Right there, he was in huge rapport.

Not all, he was trying to be perfect.

Not all wise people, not even some say they would do this or that.

Like he and I, we say what we are.

Johnson came up, his came up.

Rather than Johnson, most of the emotional is he was totally stupid, self-motivated, trying to make himself up.

at the standpoint of trying to hurt the president, which they were trying to do.

It's a question.

You know?

That they couldn't have made a greater mistake than to keep that alive.

I wish I had 10 questions more on that.

I really do.

I wanted those questions.

I loved it.

You know, people said I was irritated with them.

I was deliberate.

I had to show a little irritation.

Those pastors don't know.

They're asking the question.

They're leading to our strength.

And the ship did.

The moral of the war.

Well, it's horrible that the North Vietnamese chop up people.

What do you mean?

The question.

Well, I'll ask your answer next time in World War II.

Do you want to hear World War II?

No, sir.

I was there.

We just bombed.

We killed them, the civilians, by the hundreds of thousands.

We craved the goddamn place.

We were terrible.

We were five years old when we started to end it.

We were terrible.

Henry was in the war in the Third Army.

And it's not a deterrent.

It's a hell of a schlop.

Horrible.

Before the war, and after the war.

But the point is, we did all these things.

Now the question is, here I am, where?

It was the moral of the long journey.

It was the moral of the irrigation war.

And he said, no.

It was also the American army created some horrible atrocities on the war.

They were the most powerful.

And you know, American soldiers of tradition are pretty god-natured.

You don't want to think of the little Indian babies in the Indian wars.

They'd pick them up and bash their brains out on the rock.

That's what they did.

They still do it.

I know there's crap about morality, but if you really get down to it, it's this.

Getting down to the word of origin.

And there's the other side of it.

Moral about the German cities.

Where did it get more moral?

The left Hitler Party or perhaps the word?

What do you think on that?

That's the point.

That's the question of morality.

That's the question of morality in Vietnam.

It's maybe moral.

Is it more moral to send America

Is it more moral to allow the communists to take over the South Vietnamese and have a bloodbath in South Vietnam?

What is moral?

It's too bad we live in a world where it's unbelievable, isn't it?

ocean they're children you know that before children the world war ii i'm telling you what's what's robert say about that i know how his feelings are well he'd say that world war ii was a i don't know a moral war was a moral war and this is an immoral war why because we were fighting communism one time in fashion then

people get a point there.

One is the question if you're gonna be against them.

We're a conference, right?

As cold as that.

Oh, I agree.

The other was a moral war, because we did everything we could to defeat the enemy, and this is an amoral war, because we don't, we sit with our guys being killed without that.

We'll have fun.

Okay.

I, uh, to, uh, don't let it get you down.

You'll take them off, let me say, and keep right on that side of the demonstrations.

Their performance on the local questions, on the domestic questions has got to be filled.

I don't know if I'm going to work out some time.

You know, it's unbelievable.

I may do something cranny on this, but I'll let you know.

This is the second time in a row that we've had an engineer

about the seal thing.

It's an incredible performance and that's the second time they've done that.

And the ILO question.

Who is he?

He's a fellow from the Post.

He's a labor reporter.

He had asked that ILO question in the briefing two days ago.

And I haven't given him precisely the administration's position.

Even you.

He's not as strong as I am.

As I said, we're not going to go back to that kind of conversation.

Well, you.

I put it a little in English language.

You do.

But I'm not gay.

Well...

On these events out here today, we're not using bogeys, we're using the mice, because the picture will be the thing in the middle on it.

I have two questions.

You look at the, uh, look at the, uh, I don't have a card.

No, you handled it beautifully.

That's one reason why we shouldn't...

I don't exactly what you're up to, but I mean the point is that we as a result aren't going to have Roger declared.

That's one of the tangible results you could announce at a summit meeting if Sol shouldn't be at it.

Secondly, two other things.

Hadley Donovan called yesterday.

And he wants to invite a number of top executives from New York and present our foreign policy.

No, no, no.

I'll tell you why.

That's one for him, not for you.

Now, I'll tell you why.

I don't want you to do it.

Henry, we've got to put a tight end to the fine line.

The benefits are cut and suffered, please.

Now, let me tell you what he's up to.

Henry Donovan is having you as bait for his advertisers.

Just as Jim Shadway had me for that little group they'd taken around.

Don't you go.

You're too late.

Well, I wouldn't do it without second.

My point is, I wouldn't mind your going up and going to the top executives.

Let Planting and Biden head to the top executives, but not Hedley and Allen.

Don't give the son of a bitch an answer.

He came back, thoroughly discussed it.

He said, all I was was a goddamn shill for them to have their commercial benefits.

The purpose of that is to use you for the purpose of their advertising.

And don't you go.

I don't go under no circumstances.

for years, this old friend.

They still stick us, but not with Hedley Donovan.

And he's working.

It's just a chill, for that's what it is.

And I had no idea.

I hadn't thought of it.

Look, if you went, I wouldn't care at all if you were to go up for even Nora Cousins.

That wouldn't bother me.

Not Hedley Donovan.

Pure business proposition.

I thought of it, but you are absolutely right.

I thought that this was one way by which

behind our foreign policy.

His purpose is to be, his purpose is to dazzle his advertisers with horrible people.

And the Times wants me to come and meet with their editorial board.

Yes, I would do the Times.

I would not do Time for this reason.

We have sucked around, we've kissed their ass, we've done their pictures, we've screwed around with them, and they've kicked us in the grog over and over and over again.

Time magazine is part of the John Gardner establishment.

The New York Times, again, just as it has always been and will continue to be, except you may need to go over to that and go out and dazzle them a little.

But by God, the main thing is that they're strong.

It's kind of a weird thought.

Do you care if I skip the Somoza, then Antonine?

Oh, I would skip it.

Hell, yes.

Now, incidentally, I had a good first season in the National Community.

It plummeted down, but we noticed you weren't invited.

Go ahead.

Just one more thing, I'm sure.

I'm going to meet you guys.

I'll be probably asking you about your saying issues.

He'll say, well, does this mean until 1972, or what's that mean?

What I think I'll say is that the president, just as he stated, doesn't intend to use the presidential press conference.

And we're talking about politics.

I do not intend to use the presidential press conference in any

What do you mean?

What?

In the press conference?

I don't know.

I have a memory.

on politics will not be used, except where the press can get at on politics, if we decide to do it, it's like at an airport, you know, not a cold press conference, but at a press availability, or whatever you want to call it.

I wouldn't get into that.

I'd say to say that, but I mean, that's where you're down the line.

When you get down the line, and you get into campaigning, then it's a candidate's press conference.

It isn't a presidential press conference.

You see my point?

I hope that ever gets to be happening.

Yeah, just say it.

You just won't use it.

I don't know.

You're just going to stick with it.

Just stick right with it.

Screw it.

I wouldn't say that.

I just wouldn't use it.

That would be enough to do it.

You're sitting there.

I want to ask all these questions.

I don't get any questions on that.

It doesn't help us build up the other people.

Are they squealing about that?

What's he going to do?

Why can't we have him?

Don't you ever respond?

You can say, no, I'm not going to respond.

I can't answer that question.

It's political.

There's one issue that he's going to raise, which is the $100,000 to Corrientes.

Excuse me.

This is one of those things I really don't know how to use.

It's his 25th year.

It's a gracious thing.

Oh, it's a nice thing.

He's a good friend of ours.

That's right.

He's a goddamn dick-picker.

He's finding a way to continue it, which is disgusting to me.

But what the hell?

Rather than having a... No, I... No, I think it's the right thing to do.

Having the dinner is the right thing to do.

See you later.

Yeah, I got it.

It's a very interesting one.

He says, looking the pole over, the whole taking over view, and there's a lot of questions I haven't reviewed with you.

It's absolutely clear to him, and he has no doubt whatsoever, that there is no factor affecting people that matters except the war.

That's what we think.

It colors everything.

to rank you as a family man, diplomat, statesman, and all that kind of thing, you come out fine in most things.

The worst thing you come out as, and it's very, very low, is military strategist.

He says that's a factor of the war.

It goes across the board.

You read it into all the different things.

And he says the other thing, which is basically the other side of the same coin, is that there is no thing

or anything that comes through that this is not a positive basis for this administration at all.

Nothing.

Except the strength of the president.

A man comes through, but that's all.

So he thinks that that's probably the opposite.

put John on some of these polls without giving him, because basically, doesn't that bear out the point that I think we just gathered?

Yeah, and that also, how do we give John that drug and law information, or where do we get that information from?

But I want John to know what our problem is on that.

See, I don't think he will, I think he'll be very surprised if he does figure.

He's been in the service.

Yes, because he thinks that when you look at your standing as a man, as an administrator, as a politician,

Those are all important factors that you come out on.

That's right, that is the single most important factor.

In the ideal present, that's the highest thing.

It's hard working.

And it's the highest thing that you score on.

And all of those things fit together.

Now, the personal stuff,

Conversely to what we've been concerned about, we've come to a better point in time.

Well, where we haven't.

I said it's the administration, the likes behind the president's administration, and we don't stand for anything.

You've got to get two or three things and hit them.

It's a team.

And the law department has got to come back in, Bob.

That's right.

We had last, I bet you told her last year we had a law department.

We don't have them now, huh?

No.

Three yards.

Fighting issues.

And the erosion on the war on the downside of the president because of the war.

The economy also comes up very big, but he says that the war is still, just so it's so much more pervasive, the economy isn't going to do anything.

I said, geez, that is my feeling.

If you look at this stuff, if you have any breakthrough kind of thing, if you get a solid agreement or if you get these things they're talking about, if you can open a trade to China or any of those things, that's going to have good asset effects, really, otherwise evil.

Does he need pressure?

Aren't you feeling good?

Can you discuss that?

Uh, we can't ask questions.