Conversation 509-006

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I was the L.A. guy.

Do we get Eisenhardt as our president, or do we get Nixon as our president next time, and so forth?

I was going to repeat it.

For the first time, I'm not sure if I said it, but they all got the point in that press conference.

They said, hey, I'm going to thank you for what I said in that press conference.

They didn't have anything to do with it.

It was arrested and all that bullshit.

The best thing that happened to you in that press conference is the controversy that's arisen, because that's finally the fact that the press, they don't realize it.

And still, I don't think that they're making a mistake.

And thank you.

It's great today.

The American Civil Liberties Union has got a big blast against you.

And they're going to think it's terrible that you've said you'll repeat this process again, that you urged other states to put it in feedback.

Because if we can keep that controversy going, we can keep your position established and reestablished instead of just letting it be another blip in the nightmare.

We're not even worried.

I don't want it to be because we may have to do it again.

We're going to be in that position.

The cops are out.

It's all a risk to us.

Now, that's one issue that we know from our polls, Bob.

Well, you know from the polls that you all sent up, you just, Jim, got a reaction.

You know that's...

Polls confirm what you...

But everybody's got to show that polls are worse than we know them.

You'd think that I just don't mind if that's the rule or anything, but I'm just overplaying it.

I guess my name's pointed out to the press.

I didn't, I don't know.

I'm not, unless you have a really strong feeling about a president, I might be with you.

Unless I have a president, I'm supposed to be able to deal with the general sense.

Yeah.

Unless you have a strong feeling, I'm not inclined to, you know, go out and make it again.

Uh, the, uh...

They think it's bad because they think, you know, you can't

Refuse to talk about political things.

You've got to answer, you know, how are they going to get their questions answered about political things?

I'm not an answer.

This is too bad.

That's right.

But they're, again, I think they're playing their own biases, and they're totally blind to the people.

They don't understand that the people, there's nothing the people would rather have you say, and then I won't talk about politics.

That's right.

Talk about the presidency.

You know, if you're a candidate, talk about politics.

No, on the politics thing, Rob was not the only answer on that.

He won't.

It's a good answer.

But they're talking about it.

I said it before.

I said it.

That's right.

I said it.

Remember when I was with the commentators that night?

I said, look, I handled the campaign.

This is the president.

Gilpatrick made a point.

He said, I don't know why you're so upset that presidents have always taken this position.

He said, going back to Roosevelt, when reporter

Robert Post of the New York Times asked him if he was going to run for a third term.

And Roosevelt blew his top and said, you get the dunce cap and stand in the corner.

He said, that's a very bad question for you to ask.

And he put him in the corner.

And four years later, somebody asked him if he was going to change vice presidents again.

And he put him on the dunce cap thing.

He said, we can talk about that.

Don't hold positions.

They're just trying to get me embroiled apparently in the goddamn universe.

It's about all these political things.

Then Phil Patrick does get off the track, but he says that the president did answer a number of political questions on civil rights and this and that and the other thing.

And that's just totally, of course, everything you do is political in that context.

So obviously you're talking part of the partisan political.

The question is whether it's political.

or whether it's candidate.

You know the question is Democrat versus Republican.

I didn't answer any questions on an individual.

That's what we're talking about.

It's Democrat versus Republican.

I will not answer any questions.

I won't answer any questions about the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee.

I won't answer any questions about campaign.

And I won't answer any questions regarding individual personalities of candidates.

That's really what it is.

There's a real difference there.

Speaking of political dough, I was asked if he could see you either today or tomorrow morning back from another district around the country.

Do you have a chance to report to him or do you want to?

Sure.

You've got a time section if you want to.

And then that fills up the next press conference.

You know, the next callback press conference.

I don't have a strong feeling about it.

What I'm getting at is that if we, it's a real question as to whether or not we want to sort of dominate the news with these more things.

The difficulty is, I mean, despite all of our protestations, we cannot, I don't think we're going to get many positive things to say.

You see my point?

I think it's basically a defensive kind of a thing.

That's right.

I think you've got so much positive stuff about to come up.

You're going to be dumb if any, you know, fall enters, the whole track starts bubbling.

You're going to be dumb in any of this.

Nobody's ever seen you for a while.

Well, I won't be for long.

That's...

You know, in Vermont, anything in June, the boys start July, August, September.

You know, the idea of politics, what the hell do those people expect me to do?

I mean, there's, there's where Buchanan was off track, you know, all these actions he suggested.

They really expect, the minute I get down into the ring with those bastards, first of all, I'm going to get the equal time.

We're still, you know what I mean?

Second, I am the president, sir.

I'm going to use this press conference to take on McCloskey.

Well, that's the point.

I'm going to use the press conference to take on McCloskey or anybody else.

I will talk about the problems, whatever.

I'm going to talk about politics, sir.

People don't want you to.

They've hired you to be president, and they don't want you.

That's right.

Looking around, the people, yeah, they need to tell you.

Oh, they're going to come in, sir.

They're going to come in, sir.

We should never care about columns, anyway.

I expected I would end up in the lead when that works.

That's how smart he is.

He's Westmoreland's own hero.

He's destroyed the army in the process.

I've got to say, he's got to take control.

He's Westmoreland's own hero.

I'm going to try.

Second, I should...

When we got needed, we started to argue.

We got an unemployment figure that didn't have any value.

The rough figures that George Sheridan looked at, he had about a quarter of a million increase in employment.

But a bigger increase in employables.

And the operations.

And the jugglable definition.

I don't know.

I thought that was fun.

Right?

Paul and I are never, never, never talk politics with each other.

We never answer political questions.

And it's true of all of our people.

We don't need to answer.

Which is an answer.

I guess that's all right, too.

say, oh, you know, he'd been there, that's the early version.

It was obvious from all his conversations, probably even talking politics all around over the years, because not much came out of politics.

His big lead came out.

Well, it did.

You know, Mitchell was going to lead to run the campaign.

You're not going to do that.

You're not going to get a Bob sign.

That one wasn't really Bob's call.

Ehrlichman told him to tell him that Ehrlichman would not be Attorney General.

Because there have been a lot of do's and don'ts for what the name of God would do.

Have we ever had anything out of that?

Yeah, but you get it only from a hard-line guy who goes into something better.

Alright.

You can't go in, the problem is Bob goes in to try and answer their question or something.

You go in that way, you can't get anything out of it.

The only way you get anything is if you've got some line you want to get across, and you go in and go over your line.

I was thinking about this issue, this police thing.

I had never seen so many of those guys at all that came up.

I mean, apparently the press conferences have been far more newsworthy in terms of things that were said and interesting and so forth, in my view.

Did we misjudge them?

They got a point.

Well, then the press has built it up.

Well, then they built it up on the TV.

The fact that they gave you that opportunity to repeat.

Oh, yes.

They did.

I don't want to focus on that, but on the normal question.

And the question was about, in answering the questions, they look so good.

Yeah, I mean, I was just mad I didn't film that.

I thought that was good.

Come to think about it, I think I was right.

I mean, I know comics do encourage this dress.

On this one.

I think it was probably right not to crack them.

I think on this issue, to say, oh, I've had enough of that and so forth, I think it got across to the other three or four.

I think in the future, on another issue, when they come on something, to crack them would be a better thing.

I think I ought to start hitting them a little.

What is your view on this?

Or do you think we may have a safe option on this one?

Not necessarily on any of the two.

Well, would you like to talk to, uh, should we talk to Ziegler, uh, if you want to talk to Ziegler a bit about this?

Yeah, we can go on.

I don't think I'd bother with Scali on this one.

His judgment would not be, Ziegler's would be the best on this one.

Oh, it doesn't do any harm.

Yeah, it wouldn't do any harm at all to get Scali and Moore both in there.

Moore from the public side, Scali from the press side, and Ron from the snakes in here.

I'm not doing it for the benefit of the press, so that they know that I don't have to prove that I can have press conferences, and I don't want the press to say, look, you fellows didn't have a chance to ask all your questions, and now I want to give you another chance.

I want to come down for it.

He's in California.

Yeah.

He wouldn't necessarily.

But it may be that this time.

It may be that this time.

I think, yeah.

I don't want to do the same thing this time.

Having done it in California, it may be the best argument not to do it.

That's the point.

It looks like we're going to set a pattern.

Maybe this time.

I think here's another problem.

We can do it this time.

Say, why aren't you?

What happened to your follow-up press conference?

Because it's become a tradition.

I think maybe that's a strong requirement you've got.

That is a very strong argument.

Because that's the way that anything like that, you know, you do two things the other way around.

I tell you, it's much more controlled in California.

Maybe we'd save this for places like California.

Do it next time in Florida, too.

Do the press conference in California, and then do a follow-up if you feel like it.

And if it looks like you could do one before going to California or Florida, I'd like to do one in Florida sometime.

Let them come over here.

I'll get one out of the way down there.

I think our next press conference after the convention should be in California.

And I think it should be at 8 o'clock.

Let's hit the California audience right square in the nose.

Mums versus 31, the time before, 37, the time before that.

And that's, summer is a good chunk of it.

You get into daylight sickness, isn't the summer, I'm sure.

But 27 million is a lot of 50 million people, isn't it?

Yeah, it'd be 55 million people.

I don't know, just, I don't realize the power of this thing.

I don't know, about 55 million.

Rather than farting around, I don't know.

Even there.

Anything else?

Just anything else?

Yeah.

You just are hitting people.

No way.

8 o'clock, sitting on the wall in order to support the police.

Having the police today have that controversy over the other one is good.

And the fact they brought it up, I just went right out and said, by God, we're going to keep this city going.

We're going to stop these things.

And the Boston police chief said, well, we're doing the same thing.

He's a Democrat, of course.

It's all right.

They aren't going to let this issue get out to them.

Well, they've been kicked around so much by so many politicians, and while they say they're cutting elections, they kick us around.

Yeah.

And I said, no.

And they get down in late September, and everybody's with them for a month, and riding in police cars and wearing American flags.

And I haven't seen any of those Democrats with an American flag on since.

Did you know that?

Yeah.

Not about them, right?

Yeah.

Even Mike.

Mike Mansfield used to came in during the campaign.

He wore one.

He hasn't worn it since.

That's a pretty goddamn funny thing to do, isn't it?

There's a government in there.

I don't really think we're going to get it yet.

I hope so.

But we don't get somebody else.

I really feel the government's just got to speak.

That's the one answer.

There's a lot of tough things we can do.

There's a whole business of foreign aid that, what's his name, on the Hill is saying we shouldn't give aid to a nation that

Doesn't abide, you know, the pedals, raises marijuana, raises opium, strips it out or something.

Things like that, maybe we can't get through that.

We can make a fuss about it at least.

It makes some difference.

On the marijuana thing.

I mean, just the flat, opposed to legalization.

You get the chance, you should say that.

That was repeated by someone.

I mean, your calls are on the cover.

They picked it.

Were those the only two things they picked up on?

That made, you know, a little boy, a little child, the four of us, I guess, each other.

The only one that really came through.

He really agreed with you, though.

It was great the way he stood firmly and demonstrated.

Well, and the way it is, because Dan Kress is standing there, and every one of those people thinks you're wrong.

And these guys are going to go out and say it.

uh, should leave you without peace and security.

Okay.

Are they ready to enter?

Yes, and this is, uh, Corrine Ridge is coming in first, just before, uh, the engines.

And these people are not ready.

Uh, they're, they will be ready.

They've just been holding off the oil.

I know it's just a little obvious.

On this briefing, the Attorney General is to leave this briefing to the President, and I'm sure he'll be happy.

All set.

I see it.

Great.

Are you ready to enter?

Yes, sir.

Fine.

And by the time that we're finished with this line,

Can I get you to hear something nice like this?