On June 3, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:40 pm to 1:57 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 509-009 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Well, yeah, I thought you were just having the sitting members.
Well, of course I was.
They aren't now, apparently.
These are called honorables.
Everybody knows what I used to do.
We haven't borrowed a van.
It's a little bit expensive, but you can buy it.
So that's 80, that's 80.
One-hour compact.
Now that's three-eighths or $240, what the hell.
In other words, a compact for every wife and for every man.
You see, we've given them, most of them have got cuff links and all that crap.
I checked there, I know a nice thing.
You know, you make a little joke about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that needs to be more liberal, so that's a bad thing, yeah.
That would get, uh, great.
It's all in the end of life.
Yeah.
They use, they can use the compact, but not anybody.
I'm going to get a picture of it.
What time is it?
8 o'clock, actually.
See if you have it on here.
It probably is about on here.
It's a nice little thing to give.
It would be good if I had a church, too.
It's going to be very painful to the wives, you know.
Maybe you don't have it, otherwise you don't get anything.
I don't have anything to say.
Not on something like this, you sure don't.
All right, so.
You know, ask your first year organization about it.
They didn't, they didn't turn it down.
They disapproved the disapproval resolution by 54 to 29, which one was it?
Action agents?
Voluntary agents?
So that's the end of your discourse.
.
.
.
.
Let's see how they look.
How many of these do you have?
How much are those?
$1.60.
Wow.
$1.29.
That's not bad.
$1.60.
Good.
One of the things that you can do best, Mr. President, or you should do best, you should do best, just each and every day that comes.
He is in time very much to see you.
And Henry's recommending that you see him.
And if you can't see him this week, he's going to come back in the middle of June, hopefully, to see you.
Now, apparently, he's going to be somewhere else in the country.
The other title to this is that Henry is also recommending that you see the former minister saying Mrs. Gandhi wants to send him to see you and Rogers.
Well, whatever.
It has to do with the India-Pakistan refugee problems.
He argues that you should see him because the IAS ministry saw you, and she's using this to try and ease the pressure on India taking more direct action on Pakistan.
The drawback is the Pakistanis, but Henry thinks that's not a problem.
At this point, if you see he's saying the Odyssey, that's another reason to see him.
I don't think he should feel that he's got a separate pipeline.
That's right.
And you can turn, as some of the things come up, so you being with them, just say, you know, you'll want to talk to John about that and all that.
Oh, I don't know.
I was kidding.
He says,
I remember he was furious with the press.
He drove him up the wall, drove the press corps right up the wall.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, we took, we had the nerve to take police chiefs out to see him.
I said, what do you mean by that?
He says, they don't like Americans who come out and talk to them.
I said, excuse me for shouting at you.
I said, I'm going to shout at somebody whose message made me so goddamn mad.
And he was just...
I think you scored some zings on them that, in a sense, they don't know it.
But there's no point letting them... And you did it on TV where you wanted to.
Well, he gets it every day, but I don't know.
We'll just let him spoil.
Mr. President, do you want to see him after we're done?
Sure.
I just wonder if they don't, if they aren't reacting now that we're rubbing their nose in the May Day thing, which I think is just great.
The more they overplay it, the better off we come out.
Where's the issue again?
I think so.
They'll ask all you because they think it's bad.
They didn't hear you when it sounds bad.
I didn't hear you at all.
Thank you very much.
Because they have their keys.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Never say anything for the country.
Never say anything for the military.
Never say anything for the police.
That's true.
Ronnie's right.
Let's see what we really want to do about it.
I'll see what the court should do.
I guess we could see him.
He could wait.
It says he'll return in the week of the 14th.
That's when the foreign minister's going to be here.
So obviously, he's going to be here at that time.
He could wait and see him then.
Well, I think, actually, I think that's a little better.
He wants to see him now, and I'll see him in the week of the 14th.
I've got free time now.
I'll see him.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
You unfortunately before apparently said next year you wanted to bring your wives.
I'll bring the wives, but I won't go.
You know what I mean?
Yep.
That's fine.
They have tea and they can have anything they want.
I'm not going to go.
I'm not going to go there and shake hands with them.
Homebuilders have asked to see you on Monday.
They asked a couple weeks ago and you couldn't work it out.
I'll tell you that they've taken a formal position supporting you on general revenue sharing and reorganization over .
That's one of our lobby type groups.
We could move him.
No, we can move them up early that morning.
Friday morning, the 18th.
So you would go where then on the 18th?
Go to Rochester.
University is closed down from the 6th to the 28th.
They don't start center school until the end of June.
All right, let's do it.
Or I will get a downtown crowd in Rochester.
Okay.
I think so.
Everything in Rochester is closed.
At the hotel, he closed and he agreed to it.
And then I think we're going to have to go ahead and set up that mayor's meeting.
You know, that's the other thing we postponed up there.
That was the feature that you could open that and then leave for Maine.
That was going to be a conference of mayors on revenue sharing or something.
Isn't that the group we just had in here?
No, this is a different group, but I think we probably have to do it.
I don't want to go in the same group twice.
Well, the only reason for this, we've cut him out of the other church, but the only reason for this one is because of the postponement.
Okay, that's all right.
Go ahead and talk to the director about the house.
We've not approached him yet.
Scally, people like that group all, it's interesting, and I haven't gotten quite a reading from Mitchell, but all feel very strongly that going to Maine is a good idea.
Somebody doesn't, but most everybody does.
And going to New Hampshire in any form is a very bad idea.
even if you go into Portsmouth or anything else.
And showing the flag in Maine, somebody thought that was a bad idea because it looked like you were unpolitical too.
But if you're going to a friend's home for the weekend, you have to land somewhere.
I don't think you get the name problem.
What do you do?
You just go there because you have an airport crowd.
That's all you do.
At the airport space, which is in Maine.
And you chopper that to town.
Chopper from there to the island.
I think you get a crowd that would be, you know, Friday afternoon.
Our boys would get the crowd out.
Okay, check.
Go out to the island and you spend Saturday and Sunday on the island and then come back Monday or come back Sunday night, if you want to get Sunday night.
And then what do we do?
Then we can do the medical person thing.
Or we can do the medical on the way down.
It's Monday if you want to.
I don't think it's one of those.
I think it's better to come back here and go back and do the medical thing.
I'd rather do it Tuesday.
All right.
Give me a day to think about the man.
Okay.
We'll go to Atlantic City on a Tuesday.
Yeah.
First conference that Thursday evening.
That's the Hokey Dinner.
The question is whether we want to cancel, you know, on semi-salvo in the Hokey Dinner.
We've never told them yes or no.
Somebody wanted me to go in there.
Some did, but I still, as I said, I'm finally commensurate.
Everybody else thinks we should.
I think you're right.
It's just no matter how you go into it, it looks like you're going into the primary.
So we just don't go.
You just don't go.
You aren't going to get another 5,000 votes.
Why didn't you come back to New Hampshire?
Why didn't you come back?
Boy, the man is a neat trick.
If something real comes up, why didn't you come back?
Right?
It wasn't there in Canada.
and so forth.
The case is another where I would not get there.
I did that when I prepared the mask.
We either leave it away, or there's Atlantic City.
I won't be long to see, but I don't think there's a lot of people who would remain there.
Right.
You kind of feel out when you get there, but you might, you may not want it, and then you get stuck there, because you don't want to get the hell out of there.
We're running the person forward here.
See that?
I'll turn it back to the press conference thing.
I, uh...
Rochester's good.
Maine, that's good.
I'd say we've got it balanced.
Rochester's second.
The main .
I'm afraid you're right.
I'm afraid you're right.
I don't think you can apply to Indiana to do it.
If you wanted to do it, there's a reason to go to Chicago on the 24th or 25th.
which is the American Association of Retired People, which is the regional commerce.
They've been strongly urging you to do one of these old folks things, and this is the one we should do.
They're the ones that are most for us.
And it would be the chance to make a major kicker on the old folks.
And they're meeting in Chicago on the 24th and 25th.
So you can go either...
The best way to do it would be to go and do the retired people on the 24th, then do the Huggy Dinner and come back.
Do it all in one day.
The best way to do it would be to go on, if you want to do that, on the 24th.
The best way to do it would be to go to Chicago before that.
The retired people?
Yeah.
And then on the floor?
On the floor, yeah.
Or?
Well, I'm getting on the press conference.
I'm trying to get that in line.
Do you want to do the press conference in Chicago?
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
You see, we got another Chicago shot with the milk producers in September.
And in September, if all these other things fall into line, you're going to have a better, better climate for cranking up people.
Yeah.
That's what you get.
But going to Chicago in September, that's a little bit...
I think that's a better time to go for the night at all.
Let's go with the, of course, you should probably go Chicago twice, but I don't think that this is a... You can do the press conference here Thursday night.
Yeah.
And then Friday, just go to Chicago, do the retired people, and go on to Florida.
Yeah, I agree, but it's not an inappropriate decision.
Just go to Chicago, or you might go twice to Chicago.
Twice, you'd be going for the group, not for the city.
Yeah.
He's doing the retired people now.
We need to lock in some of our potential strength in the old folks.
And we've got that at HLM.
Let's hold the money for it.
For our press conference.
It doesn't seem to do the stuff that's going to happen.
Yep.
It's not a great thing for a spunky business.
It doesn't at all have it.
Now, is it your thought that if you go to Chicago, go to Florida, then, or should you go on out to California?
Well, if you go to Florida, then you can't make a difference in the parking lot.
It's been a pretty good stretch from now on in July.
We had the press conference with Flores on Friday.
The main news would go right after noon.
It would be the morning.
We're curious.
And not do the retired people.
No, I could do that.
Go out there and do the retired people and go from there.
That was not a bad thing.
We come back here on Wednesday, April 1, when we go to California.
Go to California on, oh, we have to be here, but all the way to the 3rd.
See, that's why you don't want to go to California.
That's right.
That's right.
All right.
We're going to California on the 4th on Sunday.
Mm-hmm.
4th of July.
Sure.
And then we go from there to Midway.
To Midway on the 5th.
We're going to be in Midway on the 7th.
Yeah, but you come back that night.
Stay in California.
Stay in California right on through that.
That weekend, the following week, do your TV press conference on the 15th.
Yep.
Around the 4th of July, you draw the attention away from Congress.
Draw attention away from Congress when they come back in.
That's the time to be gone, I think.
Get some work done out there.
And the national committee meeting.
And we saved it on appeal.
The Patterson problem is a dilemma, and it really depends on what you want to do.
They were only moving 40 or 50 people .
Turns out it's 2,000.
It's a big unit.
And what they're planning to do is move it from Wright-Patterson to Florida.
Why?
Because if they keep this operation at Wright-Patterson, they'll have to build substantial additional facilities.
The facilities exist in Florida, King Kennedy.
And so one is an underutilized facility.
They move it to Patrick Air Force Base.
It's been talked about.
It's been discussed.
And Bernie is pushing hard, of course, to move it to Florida.
And Saxby and the Ohio boys are pushing to leave it at Wright-Patterson.
If we leave it at Wright-Patterson, we will have to...
Spend some additional money to build it.
The budget-type people in Ohio couldn't care less.
I mean, it's a political college.
Who do we want to gain the?
Ohio is more critical.
You gain more mileage, and you keep more mileage in Ohio.
They're more concerned about losing it than Florida is about getting it.
We were part of it before.
The problem is it would cost us some money to keep it in Ohio, because we'll have to build it.
We'll have to use it under over-equalized base.
Right.
This is a movie, 2,000 people.
Just as many ideas.
You probably already know it, I just found out, that the Justice and the Security Basically Mitchell won't go for their bond, you know, posting bond for demonstrators.
They don't think.
It's one we can argue.
I just wonder if they want to keep using all those.
Is that being laid in order?
Yeah.
And you can make a constitutional argument either way.
It's an infringement on first right, first amendment rights, in a sense.
On the other hand, why don't we ask for it anyway, which is what people want done, and let someone else decide.
It's unconstitutional.
Well, that's the main question.
I'm sure that's what John's thinking, to make the issue well understood.
We're going for the bill.
We're going for a supplemental for $4 million or something to pay for the damages, and that'll make the point valid.
Which is maybe a better way to let this go.
I think we're hitting the issue, we're hitting the issue of elections.
Lemon, you may have raised with you, has raised a point with me that he feels it would be unproductive for you and for him if he were to have a regular meeting with you.
He does have a shelf in afterwards.
And we ought to shift around to just kind of eliminate that 3 o'clock meeting and have John start coming in in the morning.
Uh, any time, on a regular basis, any time you want.
Yeah, from time to time we'll put Schultz in when, uh, when he needs to come in.
But, John has a feeling that things that you wouldn't be able to discuss that you aren't.
Also, there's somewhat, because we know there's a meeting, there's sort of a lot of make work comes in a little bit, too.
You know what I mean?
We ought to finish up Michael's, too, for some kind of a, like, mayor's thing.
So it's, you know, often he has stuff.
That's what you want to learn.
You've seen CBS and ABC, you haven't seen NBC, and I thought they didn't want to come.
They did.
Sure.
Yeah, one way or the other.
It's kind of a proposal.
Yeah, and it's put some trust with the stuff he's doing and his game playing with equal time, and he's putting him off his own schedule.
And, uh...
I mean, I don't think it requires, it's automatic on that.
I mean, I don't think he's bringing it in, you know, just for, you see what I mean?
Yeah.
I think his, about every two weeks is enough.
Commonly, I think, requires him to leave.
You know, just because of, that's a common thing.
I'm asking if you will drop by, do the five-minute thing on the White House briefing for,
the chief state school officers, which is the 50 of the education system in each of the 50 states, across the federal education programs, on education revenue sharing.
What he proposes is a White House briefing in the theater.
This is the group that's meeting in Washington, anyway, at an annual conference.
And there is the audience, Mrs. Bischmeyer.
I agree with you.
I think it's a good thing.
I approve of it.
I really am.
And I mean, I've done all this stuff.
I've raced it.
We never really talked about it.
Whether you want to do it or not.
On his retirement from the cabinet and launching the postal system July 1st.
To participate in dedication ceremonies at the post office.
I don't know if you want to do that.
I think...
Personally, I believe that's a bad issue for us.
The only result of our great reorganization is that the price of mail has gone up 30%, 40%.
Service is worse.
It'll get better, but it'll take five years.
It'll be something they can talk about a hundred years from now, but it ain't going to be worth anything to you during your time.
We want to use that as the occasion to have a cabinet dinner, just a stag dinner for the cabinet or something like that.
Just to do a closed cabinet that we haven't had one since January in six months.
But if you had just a cabinet, we'd take it someplace other than the wilds.
That's a place they use that for entertaining.
They use Decatur House.
They use Taylor House.
It's a little different twist of maybe just a cabinet.
I guess we could have 100 and have a cabinet.
A cabinet with the top people in it.
Maybe we want to go into any agencies in the office and stuff like that.
It's the VA and things like that.
Sort of the official family.
Yeah, the official family.
Cabinet, undersecretaries, and top agency heads.
Top agency.
People talk quite a lot.
Thinking if you get the cabinet, there's too many.
kind of an assistant, kind of an under-secretary, a few agency heads.
The VA, the GSA.
He's not a political guy.
It's an excuse to do a thing like that, but it would be a good thing
Just purely out there.
You want to go to Wisconsin?
No.
We've got a damn good way to do it, a new anyway, which is the National Association of Counties.
All the way down in Ohio.
National Association.
of our revolution and those people.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't see a better response to Wisconsin if you want to do it.
Because nobody would make that political.
If we don't want to go to Wisconsin anyway, then I wouldn't.
The county's thing, I don't think the county's thing is working.
So it has some merit in that it's just one more person fighting for his programs.
Yeah, got that.
Would you be interested in doing the state annual international dinner of the Knights of Columbus?
I'm sorry.
Knights of Columbus.
Where?
In New York.
Oh, it's the international dinner of the Knights of Columbus, 2810.
You would be the only speaker.
Yeah, I do that.
Because the problem is that it hits at the same time as the VFW in August.
That's all right.
But we could probably do both.
We could do Dallas and then .
That's a pretty god damn good thing to go for.
It's very obvious that you're doing .
It's obvious as hell.
And so what?
That's right.
This is delegates from all 50 states and Canada.
Yeah.
I didn't think that would be considered .
Put in another speaker.
To hold the spot for you.
Just find the formularity situation.
You can just say, we will give you this speaker.
The president's, the president's schedule is uncertain at that time because of, you know.
What about a concerts in the Rose Garden idea?
I don't know.
This is one I'd like to turn down unless it gets to that.
Well, when someone has come up, I have a feeling it's Lucy.
I think it's Lynn Garnis and Lucy Winchester.
No, it's Lucy.
It's Lucy's idea.
Nothing can be done outside.
All right, he has a 30-minute concert as a showcase for young undiscovered artists.
Oh, shoot.
You have 300 invited guests who sit in the Rose Garden.
and Sir Crofty afterwards.
I mean, the first, and let me just say, no, hope it goes away.
The main reason against it is the place, you can't have a concert in the goddamn Rose Garden.
I mean, even when you have these choirs out here singing, it's hot, it's muggy, and the voices float out, and you can't hear the applause or nothing.
I don't like these outside events.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Just like I said with the scouts yesterday, it was a fine thing, but I just thought it would have been double in intensity had you had it as if I had gone to the hotel.
What do you think, sir?
Well, these Polish kids, it would have been a hell of a lot better for you to go over to the State Dungeon and let them sing on the...
I don't want these outsiders.
They are not good enough.
I've noticed it on every occasion we've walked in.
Now what do they want them for?
They say, well, it makes a television show.
It makes a better television show than the Suns, I think.
You know, it's faces they want.
Everybody's seen the goddamn Rose Garden movie.
Oh, listen.
Everything's too nice and terrible.
I agree.
Huh?
It's handy for you.
That's about the only value.
Tell us just as you walk over.
Two minutes.
Two minutes.
And there's fire contained inside, claws there, lights are right up, plus they aren't standing outside the window, they're sitting up and traveling around the church.
It's also not the Rose Garden at all for you?
Yep.
Now raise one that I know the answer to.
Jerusalem?
No.
Almost the same.
What?
The Catholics.
There's a group in New York that would like to give a dinner in your honor as the central event of their 50th anniversary.
This is the Council of Foreign Relations.
Henry is just absolutely determined this would be the greatest thing that could happen to you.
David Rockefeller will even invite you himself as chairman of the board.
I just can't think of anything worse for you than being just like, no.
Okay, I will not go out of the doctor's mind.
Well, fine.
No, from his viewpoint, he's right.
But from anybody's viewpoint, who the hell are you going to win?
Who the hell are you going to win?
When is the goddamn thing?
Is that his point?
There's no date.
They want to do it in the fall of 71 or the early winter of 72.
Because that fits their 100th anniversary.
There'd be 500 people attending.
Why should you go to a left wing, a left wing oriented outfit that ain't going to be with us?
I don't care if we get all of our in the industry.
Am I stuck around?
I mean, they're against us.
Let them go.
You know, you're honoring that group that way would be red.
180 degrees and all, by the people we've been talking about.
The conservatives, exactly.
The conservatives think it's a communist coup, you know?
I remember in 60... Oh, and 62, remember that?
Oh, there's a many of us across New York relations.
Yeah, I remember.
Yeah, and every night they all say, how is it?
Huh?
1962, particularly.
We had to fight it by saying Herbert Hoover was a member, too.
A fellow at Elm Post or Elvis.
Yeah.
And General Eisenhower.
I'm not going to go general with Barclay for pissing on it.
And Henry, if you're not raised, I just say that it doesn't fit our pattern enough to pass.
Are you?
It's just dramatic.
You've got to get it before we get to the fact.
Yes, sir.
I took a deep breath in the mountain.
It's very nice going up.
Don't do that.
Get mad.
Well, I didn't get mad.
No, I was just talking.
You know, don't be a bit concerned.
Oh, is it?
I didn't even announce the Rochester visit this afternoon.
Okay, fine.
Is that me?
Eighteen.
They were asking nice little questions out there this afternoon.
Like, $50,000, isn't that an awful lot of money?
For what?
For Mr. Biden's family.
I said, no, not when you take a 23-year-old officer who has maybe 10 children.
What fortune.
And then I went to the coaching aspect.
who only received, because of the variants, received in Los Angeles $90,000 to support a family of 10.
And I said, that's not very much money when you look ahead.
And then one other fellow asked a real sweet question.
How much does a serviceman receive if he's killed in Vietnam?
Well, I'm telling you the flow of the questioning this morning.
I said I know of the families of survivors that had insurance and had a quick compensate.
I don't know what the fear is.
But they really got hung up on Murphy.
I've just talked and talked to Commissioner Murphy from New York about being there.
See, Murphy's up there spouting off this morning.
Up in New York.
You're saying that he was insulted that he wasn't invited to the largest city in the... Well, we had somebody from New York there.
We had the state police, Kerwin, which I referred to, and then the fact that the superintendent of police will be at the meeting on Monday and Tuesday, and I sent it to him.
President, his meeting with the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI had asked them, asked the Director to put together a representative list of major cities, and I referred to the cities in the offices.
Chicago, Los Angeles, we always had New York.
We didn't have Philadelphia.
Well, no, but I'm... We didn't have Philadelphia either.
We didn't have Philadelphia, we didn't have New York, we didn't have Boston.
We've given that down.
But that gives them a little
that gives them a way to get away a little bit from the story of support.
Oh, Pitches.
I'm glad Pitches was there, because when it was all over,
Someone yelled from the back, who instructed you to come out and tell us about the, as they were walking, they said, Ron, can we ask you a question?
I said, sure.
They said, who instructed these police officers to come out and spontaneously give a statement of support for Mayday?
I said, well, Sheriff Pitches was there, because it would be more credible.
And he stepped on the podium and he said, that is beneath the dignity of any
member of the Eater Association to respond to, to suggest that we came out here having been instructed as to what to say.
He said, I have never in my public life been instructed as to what to say.
All I'm telling you is that we supported the president in his actions
It was great.
I knew he would respond that way, and I thought it would be better to me from him.
But having pitches out there was good for that reason, because he said it was beneath the dignity of responding.
Who was it?
No, that was Bill Gill.
Gill?
Screaming from the back.
I'll tell you, sometimes you listen to this tape of this briefing.
It's really bad.
What's the matter with Bill Gill?
Why is he mad?
They have a thing going, you see, that they're trying to prove to one another.
It's just like a group in, let's say, a platoon somewhere.
One guy does something, he tries to show the other guy.
Do they realize, though, that they played into our hands with this?
I think they're beginning to realize it.
But, you know, we want the issue.
Oh, of course.
Why didn't you hear that?
The president was delighted.
Why didn't you hear that?
Incidentally, did you sit in that chief's meeting?
Yes, sir.
That was the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best.
Oh, and they came out of that briefing, they came into my office, and they said, well, I mean, we're for, not for the use of guns, but we're going to send you for the briefing.
They said, you don't do that every day.
I said twice a day, but they're really not generally that antagonistic.
Well, anyway, it bugged me about May Day.
Oh, the other amusing thing to me, John, is that they're bugging you.
about the, what makes the guy who views you as perfectly obvious is by my refusal to talk about politics in the presidential press conferences.
You know, what president has to refuse to do that?
I can never do it.
Roosevelt never did it.
When you get to the campaign, they all did it when they wanted to, but they all do it when you want to.
But you said I'm not going to answer any political questions.
That presidential press conference answered what I particularly want to do when it's on television.
I said yesterday, I left it open-ended.
I said, I don't think you'll ever use a presidential press number.
That's right.
You're right.
I took them into 72.
They said, well, where are we going to have a chance?
I said, when the time comes, you'll be aware of the form.
That's right.
No, I said I'm going to talk to him.
Basically, I'll tell you what.
First of all, why do they have any chance any time?
Why, they have no right to speak.
He doesn't have to speak on the political side.
No, I said you ask any question I want to ask at the press conference.
I don't want to ask a question.
I'm not going to respond to the question.
I'm not going to use.
This is a very strong one for us.
Don't let anybody kid you on it either.
It's a very strong one.
People do not want to see the president up there answering McCloskey or attacking Muskie.
Or Humphrey, or a candidate.
Well, perhaps yesterday I could have said, well, obviously he was referring to you when you asked about a candidate.
But I thought if I limited it in any way... No, not at all.
And don't go again.
But you can say this.
You can say this.
Obviously, the...
If the campaign decides to have a question-and-answer session about a campaign, we'll have one.
That's what it really is.
In a campaign, as a candidate, we'll have one.
But, if he wants to.
Even then, I don't think you'll want to.
I don't think you're going to want to take on your opponent.
You're not going to want to try to find another guy to just leave him where he is.
And we don't have to get tied down to everybody.
Then they're going to keep you out of the campaign, and you're going to have to press charges, aren't we?
It turned out to our interest.
Right?
I mean, if you have a press conference, you will take questions on the issues, but you're not going to say, my opponent is arguing this and that, or I don't know what they want to get at.
Like, for example, by that answer, you see, I get off.
But what about me?
I'm not going to comment on the ticket.
What about Senator Kennedy is against Senator Muskie and so forth and so on?
Who's the strongest Democrat?
I'm not going to comment on that.
What do you think about this or that or the other thing at the primary?
I'm not going to comment.
What about the, yeah, supporting Governor Reagan?
I'm just not going to comment on that.
I could have gone through that list yesterday, but I'm not going to comment.
Just leave it.
Right where it is.
You don't have to.
But it's too bad that it's been all your time and you've taken it very well.
I am.
But listen.
I walked out of the briefing.
At the end of the chief's briefing, I said, I'll brief in 15 minutes.
He said, no, we want to ask you questions about Commissioner Davis.
I said, gentlemen, I'll be back in 15 minutes when the president's finished and the rose gardener's done.
He took his thing and threw it down on the ground.
I saw him afterwards.
I said, Jeff, the president was out in Rose Garden.
Did you know that?
I wanted you to have an opportunity to cover it.
I said, I don't think that Meredith is throwing your notebook down like that, is he?
He said, well, I apologize for that.
I was frustrated.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it's a godsend.
You know, one delightful thing, one of the best things, this thing, these fellows have never really had another crack at being a member of the Deaners.
They were running at the gridiron.
Not the White House correspondents, not the radio correspondents.
They're going to be treated with the contempt they deserve.
No, really, Ron.
I mean, it isn't just because, but it's because they're acting like children.
They have to be.
And they're just going to be treated that way.
It's almost perfect.
They knew none of that.
They don't play that.
Well, of course not.
They think for Christ's sakes.
They think about China, about salt, about the babies and so forth.
They're all major news stories.
They haven't even gotten that sense.
Well, I don't know.
I'd rather it took mud on them than that.
You know, mud came on and said there hasn't been any news.
And rather it came on in the next newscast and said that some people have contended that there isn't news at presidential press conferences when this one was full of it.
And it started down all the news-making items.
Which is kind of intriguing.
There must be a war going on in there.
The CBS network is full of a lot of self-centered intrigue, and they're all fighting to become Walter Cronkite.
There's no question about that.
That's why Rather, for example, that's why Rather was trying to come on as a reasonable man.
Not all POWs.
Oh, I particularly appreciate it, Mr. President, because it gives me an opportunity to follow up.
Oh, is that for Christ's sakes?
I hope you noticed what I said, that ridiculous idea that I denied them the chance to follow up.
I don't know what questions they're going to ask.
I was asked about that.
I was asked by one of the journal people, the press journalists, what I thought of the follow-up.
I said, the president, mind him, he likes it.
I think it just goes to prove that if the press want to, they can follow up.
It's been the case all along.
Yeah.
It's up to them to do it.
There's one bright conference item.
They all have their own questions and they go off on this and that.
How the hell does the president know which one wants to follow up and which one wants to ask it?
Yeah, I know that's why.
But which one wants to follow up and ask it?
Please hold your hands up, boys.
They're more interested in how they look and how they get the news.
They, of course, look at that.
They did not.
You notice how much he's gotten for 407 in Wisconsin.
That finally got treated.
We haven't gotten treated before.
That got treated.
That's good.
Maybe because... Well, you get a pretty good balance.
Well, it's a funny thing, Ron.
We were saying earlier, Bob was showing us some bullying.
He's seen 70% of the people who've been uncovered in press conferences, I would say, today.
We're going to focus a little bit.
These guys should focus and continue to talk about it.
We're participating on the constitutional violation right now.
I don't think they'll sell out the books.
We know.
You know, it was an interesting thing that Davis of Los Angeles was pointing out.
He was going through all these market surveys and so forth and indicated 51% of a vote for a pension fund of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Those areas that fear, where fear exists,
which is in the ghetto, but the majority of people, the blacks, the Mexicans, voted for, voted for, but that is... Because as he was going through that, and he referred to the Jewish people voting for him, but mentally, the Jewish community has a,
You know, they don't, they're afraid of, but they're, they're, they're, they have fear.
I think it might go on another one of these follow-up in office press conference, I would think, this time.
It then becomes almost a
Inevitably a pattern.
In other words, so I do it, and they said, and next time they'll say, well, what about doing it this time?
You get my point?
We did it last time.
Remember, we had a press conference.
We followed up two days later with another press conference where they were allowed to, they were not allowed to do the words.
Now, the time that we could set aside to do it in the morning, we want to try to do it instead.
It doesn't matter if you do that the next time on.
You go one, two.
Rather than this time, you go one, two.
You see, but then we will have this.
We will have done it twice, I'll say, every time.
We can't have it next time and so forth.
But we want it.
Do you have any answer to that?
I don't see it.
I'm just trying to think about the advantages.
The other time we did it in California, there was a good reason that Berkshire was highly controlled.
And it was a good reason to do it, because I wanted to crack a little on this when it was coming up, and hit a few domestic issues.
There were several domestic points that you wanted to hurt him at the end of the match.
That's right.
And I got him on.
I got him across in good shape.
In this case, it seems to me, in this case, Berkshire all the questioning would be basically on what I call negative issues.
If they raise revenue sharing, it's what's the matter with the window in there.
If they had the job cut off sharply, of course, that would be easy.
This is a feeling I had before I came in here, so I don't want this to sound like I'm reacting to what Bob said.
I don't think we have anything to gain from it.
I don't think it should be done.
I was thinking about this this morning.
Well, I just...
I'm open-minded.
I just don't think that there is...
I can't see anything that they would ask that would be positive from our standpoint.
Let's say they ask about public service jobs.
Our position is out on public service jobs.
That's right, revenue sharing.
They probably wouldn't ask about revenue sharing.
They ask about unemployment or they ask about the economy.
We expect it to get better.
Of course you would cut these things off too, but they'd get back into the Mayday thing and cut that off.
They'd get back into, they'd probably go to this Davis thing today.
That's another argument against it, is that if they've been particularly vicious today, and they were rough yesterday too.
Yeah, on what?
On Davis.
Excuse me, the New York fellow, the commissioner.
Murphy.
Murphy, excuse me.
The fact that they were rough on all this stuff, it looked like you were trying to classify that tough reaction.
And the other thing that they may attempt to do, they're in a smooth now.
There's a poison to them, more so than you generally.
They may try and, I'm not saying it wouldn't be handled with firmness and very well, but I just don't, I think they are of the mind that they may try and really make a run tomorrow.
And why should we, I mean, if you anticipate that,
I'd rather have them make a run on national television.
I would, too, see.
Right.
Because then they, but I don't think they would.
I don't know.
They make a run on me.
I want to do it just like they tried this last time.
Damn right.
No, they did it in December last year, and we came off very well, you know, in eight or two runs.
But no, they make a run next time, I'm going to hit them a little.
Right.
See, and we can put out the energy message tomorrow, which is the nuclear clean.
We're going to do it here.
Oh, you are?
Yeah.
It's a presidential statement on the... What about the housing?
I'd like to get that out the same day you put something else up.
That's not ready today.
It can't be ready until the next Thursday.
Put it out on the day.
Understand, I don't want a big story.
You've got to bury that housing.
I want that buried in something.
Put it on the day when I...
Declare war.
Anything.
It's a lousy story.
That's one of the reasons I haven't done it.
We're just going to have to take our reps this time.
They couldn't have a very big round anyway.
There's no economic thing.
We're going to have one or two for a while.
But you know, in regard to their poisonous movie, I don't see why they wouldn't be in one particularly.
They are treated with great courtesy.
It's a pattern.
When they see
It's the mood.
What did they think I was going to do?
Blow up?
Was that what they were going to do?
Well, they'd love to get, of course they would love to get the President of the United States to blow up or recognize him.
Or to say, I agree, I disagree, or I regret it.
Just like they'd like to get any spokesman of the White House to blow up, just like they'd agree.
But I think that they sense an upswing.
They don't know quite
what's happening.
They're not sure.
And therefore, they're somewhat frustrated.
And they've been that way in previous administrations, as I understand.
But they're in a funny mood now.
Now, I don't think it's a mood here, though.
Of course.
Oh, yeah.
That particular issue.
Well, I just sort of stuck it to the policeman today.
That's just amazing.
Two weeks ago, sir.
A week ago.
We followed after you.
That's right.
It was a good meeting.
I don't use a name on it.
I think I have to.
To just give a general report on the fact that it took place without a lot of details on it.
So we don't steal your story.
We can do a bill to start it tomorrow.
It's not ready, really, but I'll be ready for a week.
What I did today in the briefing was to say, when talking about English, I used Johnson's 50,000 versus 5 million Vietnam era.
When you look at the overall, less than 1%,
And then I said, when you look at the overall, it was pointed out, when you look at the overall number of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia and in Europe, the percentage, it is a problem, but the percentage is very small, I said.
And what we are talking about, what the president is talking about, is a comprehensive program to deal with the drug problem in our society and then rehabilitation of those returning to society.
These veterans guys he's been working with, the young veterans, Vietnam veterans on our side, saying this came out voluntarily apparently, they didn't understand what all this dope thing was about.
He said there was very little, several of them said there was much less use of either marijuana or heroin in Vietnam than there was in high school.
I think part of it is that they think this is something that somebody just blew up.
It may be that part of this theory is just because of the war.
You know what I mean?
That's my point.
Part of it is that.
However, the statistics show in the recent years, in the recent quarter, there's particularly heroin use in the first quarter of this year is going up by half.
Yeah, but it's not like it's just going up by very little.
Very little and not very much more than that.
everybody's son who goes to Vietnam comes back to Dothan.
Which is what the impression you get now.
The American mother would be very well justified now in saying, I will not send my son to Vietnam, because then he'll come back to Dothan.
No, but the program, which the president announced, will cut out right away.
Well, you have to send rehabilitation and prevention.
Well, you know.
Well, we won't do it anymore.
We'll go on with Tulsa and so forth.
I understand.
Well, they have some stuff going on in the radio.
Yeah, they're ready.
We weren't going to do radio this week.
Well, you'll have Tulsa for Sunday.
Tulsa, Tulsa, and the radio Sunday for Sunday.
So, uh, not here today?
Not here, sir.
Oh, yeah.
Ah, okay.
Uh, let's see.
Why don't you sit on that desk in there, please?
I'll just sit there.
Since Radio and Speech is ready to go, he was suited for the, well, the problem.
See, he doesn't want to go outside.
You know, it's a bad, good time.
Would you do it from here at Camp David?
Could do it any other place.
Can you do it from Camp David?
Mm-hmm.
Camp David.
They'd have to run a line up there, but we haven't.
I think we could do that.
Well, it takes time.
Take the goddamn thing.
It's better to do a line if you can.
We could do it, run a line up there.
That's easy.
Yeah, but they'd have to run a loop in, you see.
Well, that's very easy.
I'm sure they've got huge communications.
Absolutely.
The moment they feel that there is any way
Getting to, or getting to the White House.
Particularly the President.
6.2.
What was it?
6.2, 6.1.
It's a fact that it's the highest level.
Do you understand one of the main things about this, having been 6.2?
No.
No, that also was a story.
Just have those at the right time.
It reached 6.2, then dropped to 6.0, then moved up slightly in the last 6.1, not 6.2.
It's a new high, though.
No, it's not a new high.
It is a high of equal to the previous high for this year.
December of 6.2.
It was quite too big earlier.
It was in December.
In December.
And it dropped to six.
It's not bad.
I think what it is, it's like Vietnam Cavalry is the highest in three leagues.
It's sort of a classic line.
It's in three leagues and the most of the five leagues.
What will happen if you get a single big accident type thing?
Well, in this helicopter, that one rocket into the bunker is big.
This is not big.
This week's figures included, it's 48, which includes the 31 in the bunker, so it was only 17.
The 48 was announced today.
It's to be announced.
Yeah, this is Thursday, yesterday.
Two years ago.
Three years ago.
Three years ago.
Thank you, Mr. Brown.