On June 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, Frank E. Fitzsimmons, Alexander P. Butterfield, Adele (Langston) Rogers, John D. Ehrlichman, White House photographer, and Linwood Holton met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:43 am to 11:05 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 511-001 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
It had to be between now and late 19 that men go up by two or three even to get the final figures.
But if it is 19, it would fit as always into the Super 20s to be 1965.
Didn't we get one of 16 if it wasn't so?
No, it started at 16 but went up to 24 before they constructed it with that figure.
Up by three this afternoon.
piece of, which is bad good news, that is, they're going so fast on the goddamn Berlin Agreement that we're gonna lose it as a regular.
I mean, you can't, uh... Well, Rush, now that he's so close, is going too fast.
Yes, I'm going.
Writing about the year of negotiation.
Yeah.
Tragedy is.
What we've done on Berlin is really
We really actually are getting them a good agreement now.
The Russians are making major concessions on that new formula.
You want it gone for less?
Yes.
Up for that, there's my hand up for that coin.
Billions are going more and more in the direction of what we could have predicted at last year, the predictor.
Let's hear it.
Come on.
No, sir.
You're not.
Well, on the Delta, I talked to our commander, David, who is one of our few good ones, General Goodman, when he was here about six weeks ago.
And he said there's slightly more enemy activity, but actually that the situation is under good control.
And him I tend to believe.
I wouldn't believe a word Adrian says anymore.
I know.
And all... You're going to go directly to the local order, man.
Except for Cushman, he's put second raiders on his corps commander.
Okay.
What about the second?
You had a conversation last week with Bruce Bunker, in which he outlined his plans for after the election.
And he said he could move some of the troops that had been active in the Delta into the more threatened areas because they had cleaned out the base areas.
I don't think the Delta is our big problem.
Our problems are I-core, and with that incompetent they put in to replace three, it may start acting up in three-core again.
What about the other points?
We talked about that yesterday.
That's absolutely, we're going to do that.
Absolutely, and I agree with you on the other point.
One of those things.
Sometimes it's not particularly present in terms of the war situation, but they're actually reflecting what the attitude of people are.
Because at that time, when that attitude is going to budge us, but it will
I talked to McGregor this morning about McGovern-Hatfield.
He thinks we cannot, it would be a mistake to try to talk it to death because it would kill the draft.
He thinks the vote now is 52 to 40 in our favor.
On McGovern-Hatfield?
On McGovern-Hatfield.
And he thinks the McGovern-Hatfield one is easy.
In the draft?
The draft is all right.
Our draft would be the same as the Matfield one that somebody comes in with a
with a substitute resolution, but if one of those substitute resolutions, we shouldn't, we should hardline it, but it's, to say they took the, what is that, Cook-Stevens one nine months after they released the last prisoners, we wouldn't want that, but...
So, we are...
But he said he's actually quite confident, McGregor, and you know he's usually soft on this.
I told him we can't have it now.
He thinks it's possible if we absolutely must, if we line up Mansfield to get it delayed for a month, but then signals would go up all over the Senate.
Well, I'll tell you what we'll do on this.
I think you would have called Ruggs.
He's perfect.
I'll look at it.
We are going to ask you to hold on for a week.
Remember the last time we asked you to hold on, we came up with a stall.
This time there's something going on.
We can't guarantee it.
But we want you to hold up.
If we need it.
If he's not ready.
Huh?
Brooke, you mean.
Brooke, right.
And let Brooke talk to others.
He's influential with those guys.
But actually, I had a good talk with McGregor, and he's amazingly optimistic on McGovern-Hatfield.
It's pretty a crime, of course, the war.
And the whole, it's a combination of two things.
We tend too much to land all on Laos, but all that hurt badly because of the people.
And this, what was played is the people.
But also, it's just time, time, time.
They were cranking this up anyway.
But time also wears you down.
See, right at the time of Laos, the polls dropped 10%, and it didn't ever recover.
And that's just part of the deal.
You know what I think is amusing?
I know that some of our radio presenters are squealing about the fact that you're just going to answer political questions in press conferences and this kind of business.
I don't know what President Cooper did.
Well, they did put him off from the president.
Hell, I haven't been doing it on television in a head.
Do you have those passengers equal time?
Mr. President, I don't think the country wants the president up there saying, well, what do you think of McCloskey?
Well, I don't like the way he's acting, or I do like the way, or I think this or that.
What do you think of Muskie and Hathaway, or Muskie and the governor and so forth?
How do you rate them?
And you say, well, I think this or that.
Well, you know what I mean.
I'm not even going to get into it.
I'm not going to take the finding of them.
I'm not a candidate.
I agree.
I think you should be above this partisan thing until you are a candidate or close to being a candidate.
And, no, the collapse of our leadership right now is really awful.
So, Mr. President, by any halfway rational standards, you ought to be given credit for having conducted a great foreign policy.
To get out without a misstep from Vietnam, I mean, this guy...
So far, we are getting, but at the precise moment that we are getting into the trickiest period, which we've always known would be the trickiest period, these bastards are making life hell.
And they're making life hell for the cheapest of all reasons.
If they thought you would be in there with 100,000 men next year, they'd keep quiet.
They're making life hell because they know you're getting out.
That is what's getting them.
They know about that.
Well, you're going to be down to 50,000 next year.
All right.
They can see that by reading the numbers.
They know that we cannot reduce the number.
They know that.
That's right.
And you know, much as we say we'll try to keep it open, we try to keep the trade open, you and I know that there's no way under the sun you can just say, all right, we're stopping withdrawals.
What price did the country go up in flames?
That's what's... No way.
Because they know that, that's why they're taking a cheap ride on...
No, they see another $100,000 coming out.
But I think we've got the position that whenever we surface some of this stuff, they can be made to look like, yeah.
Well, I have a position.
They say we've got one, we need, we've got a three, we just need one more.
Mr. President, this Berlin thing, the Berlin... No, no, but this guarantees the summit.
You think so?
Yes, because the Berlin said that
They've got to make major fractures on Berlin to have the summit and they've got that now.
It's a...
I feel sort of sorry that Berlin is important only that the Cockney Sandy are going to have to shut up, you know, again.
The crafts and the climates and that's not going to bring you up in the public opinion polls.
But it's going to give all of these guys another choice and keep them... keep them quiet before we plug them.
I am...
I'm practically certain that there'll be a summit.
I mean, if I were as certain of a summit as I am of anything else... We want something to happen.
That, the major thing that worries me is... To not let this happen before the summit.
It's that they don't get so much before the summit that they can afford to get tough again.
Well, we at least got action at war.
It went with us.
We'll have made the progress on salt.
Even if they are deadlocked in Helsinki, we can break the deadlock at the summit.
Well, keep at this thing and keep at the...
I'm getting information out.
Don't... We are fighting the losing balance of our...
and I thank you all again.
I'll give you the story of Trinidad and Trujillo Bar is going well.
These guys are getting a little afraid.
I'll tell you the line I think you ought to take.
I think you and Higg and the others ought to start taking up the line.
But you call us in the press.
You're very interested in the pressure, very interested in the, you ought to put this to Monday.
And I'm not going to jackasses the assholes who talk and put dashes and say, look, the whole establishment is going to be destroyed unless
start to get off to, this is working.
It's going to work.
I can't tell you why, but there are things going on.
It's going to work.
These guys had better start getting on board or they're going to be destroyed.
Let me tell you, I don't care whether they get on or not.
They're going to leave us alone, so it will work.
Henry, we will destroy these bastards.
I intend to destroy them all, and I'm not going to have any.
I want to do one thing, which is very difficult for you, as you
You may go to the floor, but now it's time.
I'd like you to put a towel back on the floor.
It's a board house.
It's a five-year board.
31-1.
We decoyed before because of the lips of the law.
But now that we're moving on arms control, I want you to say, we need a man in there who gives hard line.
That's a pretty weak group, really.
I mean, you know, you take that poor fellow who's like Walhart, and let him.
I think it's not bad.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Rockefeller, he doesn't pay any attention to it.
Gardner is old.
I mean, you go around the room.
It really is.
I'd like to tell her for other reasons.
He was my friend.
He was Rockefeller's friend.
He's one of the few.
I need a signal to the right.
The right needs a signal.
Can't we add somebody to that board?
That's one thing.
I'll get it done today.
You call it.
I want him to be off and then give the cannon call.
We've got to do a couple of things for the right wing.
They all trust Hunter.
They think he's the one who wants to drop a bomb on our menagerie.
He doesn't.
He's a very reasonable man.
Oh, I know him very well.
Well, he's got an idea.
He's got lots of ideas.
He's an admirable guy.
And...
I've seen it on the church hall from the lips.
Huh?
Yeah.
They are monsters, aren't they?
But I know that any chance, first to your settlement thing goes out the window, that China and Russia might go out the window.
And all that is bad enough that it's too high a price to pay.
But the other thing, we have to realize that we allow, we allow this situation to build up too much.
And we have destroyed, we just invite the, we invite the left to take over the country and just subvert the country.
Right.
You know, they're out there for us, you know, because of their, as I said, you read through weekends of the summer, you know, it's a piddly little stuff.
Why doesn't the president talk about politics?
Why doesn't the president?
They did a great job with Kennedy and even with Johnson.
Frankly, I might forget to add to Johnson about the fact that he stretched his ass all the time.
He was a little bit crude, which didn't bother me.
I thought it was the way Johnson was.
He always did that.
But my point is, they don't take me on on personal matters, but it's kind of,
Crap.
Ain't no better.
They'll appraise me for saying the president was right in not allowing national televised press members to be used to take on his political enemies.
If you had done that... No, you know why they wanted me to take them on?
They knew it hurt me.
Well, and if you had taken him on, then they would have said that the Democrats or the opponents ought to be given equal time that the presidential news media shouldn't be...
It used this way last fall.
They attacked you for becoming partisan, for not standing above the battle.
Last fall, I was out on paid airlines on my own, so I had a right to be partisan.
Apart from that, what are you going to do?
Either way, you can't do it.
No, they want to get at their questions.
They're going to get the same answers.
Well, gentlemen, I know you disagree.
I respect you.
What's the next question?
It gets them, Mr. President, you are not emotionally part of them.
They can come bleeding in here all the time.
And your whole approach, I mean, salt on the one hand, the other.
They worship the intellect, Henry.
They worship where they stand in your class and so forth and so on and so on.
They worship your ability to, you know, to handle yourself.
And, you know, with, I may not have the best syntax, but mine is, right, if you read it next to the press conference in Paris, Kennedy press conference is infinitely better.
You know what I mean?
But they were not, they were, they didn't, they didn't, I didn't, nobody's gone through them as I have.
Nobody really, nobody ever did the work.
Oxfam couldn't go on the course.
But Kennedy didn't do any work.
Well, his press conference was weird.
He had some skillful sellers, but that was about it.
The reason they worried that I were behind them...
He says, how can a guy, you know, live in this goddamn church?
So God says, you shouldn't be part of these no-knows.
He said, I promise.
In order to call you to God, they have to all worship them.
So fortunately, they've seen me.
You see, they like to think that all their opponents are dumb, like McCartney, who was not dumb, but nevertheless not well-educated.
who was not well educated, you know?
And they don't like to think that any of their opponents are quick.
Look, Henry, I can take, believe me, and it doesn't say it in a sense of right, I can take a whole room full of Harvard professors and decimate
No question.
And you know it.
No question.
And they know it.
And they know it, which is even more important.
And I can tell you that these people, this whole business, you know, they go back to the debates and again, it had nothing to do with it.
That was purely a jury showmanship.
Anybody who listened to it would have read it and realized it.
Well, I've talked to people who said they heard them on radio and they thought that Kennedy was taken to the cleaners.
You mean the 60th event?
But an unfortunate set up in the first meeting.
The first meeting was bad.
But in terms of basic intellectual governing, they know that I can handle it.
Then they go from there to say, see, that destroys their theorem.
Their theory is that a man who is educated is a beach neck, a left winger, you know, a liberal.
When a man is educated, it's not that he's a worshiper.
That's one of the reasons they have such a terror about them.
Not Jim, but Bill.
Bill is so well educated and so smart and so great.
And all of a sudden they say, Jesus Christ, what happened to him?
Do you agree or not?
Oh, yeah.
That's why if you don't, I mean, why do they turn on me now?
Because I don't betray you.
You're in exactly the same position for the reason that you were one.
You went to their school and all that sort of thing.
They can't understand.
How the hell can you be loyal?
Because all of them would be disloyal.
If I walked around these cocktail parties and started weeping about what an agony it is to work here, but I'm doing it
That they would understand.
But they have to be destroyed, Mr. President.
They have no sense of patriotism.
When I saw Vietnam go wrong and when you saw it go wrong, hell, I went to Vance.
I said, what can I do to help you?
Uh, and made all my videos as good as...
I defended the content in England.
I mean, some men were backing around Wilson's office.
He was there that night.
I defended this son of a bitch.
This is in 1966.
It was in 65.
In 66, you know what I mean?
Oh, when the Americans were behind it and the Europeans were not.
And I said, well, of course we have to be there.
And I explained the reasons.
Isn't it great?
Now, that bastard Vance is coming here with a group of lawyers.
He was deputy secretary.
Well, they're lobbying the McGovern-Hatfield, but that bastard who was part of the negotiating team, who knows, whom we wanted to send to Moscow at one point to negotiate a quick end of the war.
It was an early scheme we had.
Sure.
Let me tell you about that, that he just parts, quivers apart.
These, but they're all part of a second group, a second group.
They're all, they're, Sunday was in on Friday, Sunday.
Oh, he was one group.
Yeah.
And by the way, once again, let me say this, though, the only reason I mention the New Sun Treaty is that those, that's about what the Sun is.
It's tough.
We'll write it through.
That's my favorite bit of the time.
The way they glorify this fellow Kerry.
They glorify McCluskey, the guy who got hit in the head in Korea.
He's a little off his rocker, but he says, man, it's a believable guy.
He lies all the time.
He says, we've doubled our bombing in the house.
For Christ's sake, the bombing is half what it was in the house.
I wish to Christ we had doubled it.
I really do.
It's...
It's an outrage, and the refugee figures, and of course the bureaucracy, part of the bureaucracy is in collusion with them.
And that's another thing, after the election... Oh, it can be done.
It stayed with the brutal man at the top of the election.
There's only one man who would love to do it, and that's Conway.
Richardson will never do it.
Richardson would be a good man for an interim period now.
He'd want to die, but a man in the state would rush him.
Would rush?
No.
He wouldn't go either way.
It's too much for an Asian institution.
No, what you need is a goddamn son of a bitch that will go in there.
And he's got to know where the bodies are buried, too, Mr. President.
He's got to know where the bodies are buried.
You can have the best intentions in the world and not know how to get to these countries.
If we get a chance, we, of course, will work for that chance.
Work for the chance because the country would not agree if we don't get it.
We get the chance.
They're going to rip the hell out of Spain and a hell of a lot of other places.
Defense is going to be torn apart.
Defense has to be torn apart.
The military is sick, terribly sick.
I'm not looking for the likes of that fellow Zumwalt either.
That's the wrong military.
That was a mistake.
The thing to do is to turn to the hardline guys, the square guys.
Particularly, we've got enough intellectuals in the country.
We don't need a guy like an intellectual to achieve a naval operation.
We're luckily mortared.
They want to say something and I won't speak.
I thought I'd bring them in after or before the meeting this afternoon.
What do you mean?
At three.
But any time you want them, you can have them over this morning.
All right.
All right.
Well, don't you get discouraged about the whole sentiment?
I'm actually very optimistic.
Except for those facts that's real big and you can't reach.
There's a great collusion evolving there.
Oh, it's a collusion.
But it's actually relied on this month.
It's brought in July, August, June, and September.
All this stuff that Bill was saying in Europe, that's been approved in Spanish.
None of us have ever heard it.
Well, none of the planners have ever heard it.
He's commonly worried about it.
That's what I was worried about.
He thought it had a national, international trade organization or some kind.
I've got to check Connelly.
Peterson had never heard of it, and I had never heard of it.
We may want to move that way, but I don't know why the hell he's saying it without doing some checking.
But the international trade thing, I wondered, because that involves a hell of a lot of people.
No, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been checked with anybody.
Okay, fine.
So they said, what else?
The stuff last week was what?
Well, what he said last week was...
He has this incurable disease of shooting for quick headlines.
What he said last week was on the NBFR, but that's getting so mixed up that no one knows anymore.
Oh, yeah, we all have been together.
He says what?
I know there are four messages who got in bed and sucked it.
I think it would be best to vote the NBFR so that it can come out of the summit as one of the results, rather than we don't have to peddle it now.
The main thing you've got to emphasize, and I challenge you to bring it in, is time is the essence right now.
Not only on the announcement, which we want to do in our time, but more important, on these subjects, God damn it, we've got to have the subjects and we've got to take care of us to run the thing.
Or else, it's all restored.
Frankly, my worry is that...
I'm not going to find an end to our problems, having announced that.
You cannot meet the Chinese and not announce something with the Chinese soon after.
Thank you, sir.
My idea is, Mr. President, that the tentative schedule would be to announce the summit around July 15th and then to announce the Chinese thing around August 5th.
Jesus Christ.
Well, we can pick the day.
I'd have to have the day before I met the Chinese so that we can synchronize it.
Thank you.
You know, you know what I said about the big play.
The big play is that if we don't get the sun, if the Russians turn us off, then we go to Pekin this year.
Now, that was tough to talk to any of us.
It's rough.
It's gamble.
No, no.
But you see, we've got to have a big play this year.
I've accepted.
Two out of three have that.
Do it the goddamn please.
So we've got an 80% chance of a Soviet summit in September.
It's just got to be from their point of view.
Sure, they must be.
Unless the Middle East blows up this summer or something like that.
All right, it's going to come.
The Middle East is going to stop.
Now, with Berlin hanging out there and a few other things, and China, we're here.
Okay.
It's not good enough for the Russia to slow down.
It's a ridiculous thing.
All right, all right.
You will advise Keller to be a member of that board and give it to the right wing.
I'll do it.
I want the right wing to know that Keller should be a member.
I don't see any of you knowing about it.
I'm just putting it to him.
I invite him to be good.
We have one right, left, right.
and all those, and all of that.
That's great.
You call that, and you also call Buckley and Collins.
Now, look here.
His associate, Collins, knows that Collins is the most prestigious influential board.
It's the only one the president meets with every month.
Let's get a little of that.
That happens to be the only one.
You stand here.
Don't tell Buckley that.
Buckley's on your other USIA.
Well, that's right, but I see him individually.
Okay.
Okay.
He asked if that's a damn good symbol to put him on there, and the whole board isn't paying me ass anything.
No kind of ass to me.
The main thing about Tucker is he sits in there and raises questions that ought to be raised.
Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
All right.
If there's any matter, get Simon's ahead of me for two, please.
Two.
Yeah, I got both.
Whatever, Andrew, I love things.
Keep these schedules goddamn white.
All of them, not all of them.
There's no reason to have a heavy bottom.
There isn't anything that we do that's worthwhile.
to truly work our time in terms of how we produce our chance to get our time back on the ground up.
Some of you said international news.
American committee on protected migration.
Now, what in the name of Christ is that?
Isn't that the bipartisan leaders?
I'm sure they're going to be off.
Are they going to be on again?
We're not ready for that.
No, it's back, well,
We're going back and forth on what tools they think they've got.
They're working on a way to mine with a toning down.
We have one to talk about in a second.
Well, the thing they're concerned about is that he creates, he submits the problem, but he hasn't submitted an answer.
Everybody gets up and finds his own answer to the problem, correct?
But the thing Ehrlichman didn't know is that he'd already known the 55th accomplishment, Republican accomplishment, Preston Hill, and so forth.
Well, I think sometimes we're talking about problems isn't a bad idea.
As long as it looks as if we're, what he's got to say, he's got to come into the conclusion that we are letting you in on the beginning here because we're going to have a major program in this field.
That's the way I have it, a major program.
And it's by far as an initiative.
We're going to be calling on members of the Congress, members of the people, leaders in the country, and we want to give the Congress a preview of the problem, and then we're going to come out with the other.
That's the way we're going to do it.
We're going to figure out something like that pretty soon.
I think we've got to go ahead and do it.
I don't know why he's on here.
I'm just going to ask if you know the population.
A picture of that ambassador is all right.
He should come in.
It's a picture given now after the crisis.
I don't want to have to sit there and talk about it.
Bob Schneider, some other guy.
Only the, uh, all Senate meeting today, the secret session, will allow us, you know, to sign these things.
They say that they're going to talk to us about it.
There's a big grunt on our illegal activities and all this.
I've just raised a point there, which they're researching, but it seems to me that our people should simply continue and openly refer to that as the Kennedy-Harriman policy.
And every time they talk about they should say the Kennedy-Harriman program is on record such and such.
Now they're quibbling about whether the main force of it was under Kennedy or under Johnson,
started under Kennedy.
And it's called Kennedy, so it is Kennedy.
There's people trying to defend Kennedy, not ours, but some of the jackasses are trying to do it.
That all of them, it's Kennedy.
But that, it seems like it's in your notes.
Yeah, but you raised the question of whether it was Johnson or Kennedy.
Yeah, but he's checking it.
Yeah.
And we've got to be careful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Henry, I was just talking to Bob.
My memory is absolutely infallible.
The Laotian thing started under Kennedy.
I remember it very well, so God damn it, let's not fool around about that.
Yeah.
I know the bigger build-up occurred there.
It started under Kennedy.
Just call up the Kennedy Air Force Program.
Is that clear?
Is that what you called me?
Hello?
Mr. President, I wanted to congratulate you.
I followed the papers, and apparently everything went very well.
I kind of feel I had a prelude because it seemed to me you thought you were going to win when you converted my office here.
Thank you.
All right.
How do the people, how do the members feel?
Pretty good spirits?
Good.
Good.
Wonderful.
Good.
Well, you know, you're now a member of an exclusive club.
You and a few of us got to form a union.
What do you think?
All right.
This is a union where there's no dues, but a lot of obligations.
All right.
Well, congratulations.
And to all the other, you tell the other members of your board, congratulations.
Well, where is that?
Oh, it's at the tent.
Let me tell you, there's a major problem at the tent, which is I do it, and I do it for a minute, except for the fact that I will be traveling at that point.
I can't tell you where or anything.
You wouldn't want to know anyway.
But if you were a week earlier or a week later, I could do it.
But I know you can't change the convention.
Let me ask you, of course, next year's election year, that would be good.
But is there any other kind of meeting there?
Would you be having a meeting of your executive board or anything that I could do?
Well, I'll tell you what I'll do, because I know I can't do this.
I've got this, I've got something I can't tell you about.
You won't hear about it for two weeks, but then you'll know when I talk about it.
And then you'll see the reason that I couldn't tell you.
But let me say that I'd like to come to the next meeting of your executive board where, you know, it's a convening.
How's that?
Is that all right?
And you can, and I will send a message to this, and it would be,
worthwhile, and is there anybody else that you would like to have on our side that we could value?
Any others?
How about John Richards?
He's a pretty good boss.
He's a pretty good management, strong management.
Yeah, yeah.
I just love to do this.
It's the only time that happens.
The first, I tell you, from about the 4th of July until the 14th, I'm dead.
And it's just one of those things.
Right.
Right.
Well, we'll send a message in a second.
I'll come to your next executive board meeting if it's a time we can both work it out.
Fair enough?
If you can do that, that'd be great.
See, my problem is that between July, August, September, and so forth, it's a difficult time for me, but if it fits in the right periods, I can do it.
I want to do the DFW convention in August, but I'm just living out there, and I have to take other trips.
Okay?
Fine.
All right.
Well, congratulations, and good luck.
A number of people know he's here.
I'll be glad to have this meeting with some of the people.
Let me suggest this is a better time for me and not for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
No, they're covered.
The plants can be.
You can't just come in for five minutes.
In other words, if you end up here, they'll have got that hoax, and it's a hoax.
So I've got to see it a third of the time.
We're at Ingram City.
We've got the governor here with me.
Don't you'd like to... Take him away?
See, he's here visiting with me.
I don't know if you'd like to hear some of this discussion.
Why not?
Why don't you tell him that?
See him a few minutes before.
Yeah, tell him.
All right.
Now I'm preparing for a meeting.
I mean, a meeting at home, but a very short meeting at 11 o'clock.
He can come in about 10 or so.
We'll have a chat.
We'll have a picture.
The two of us together.
Talking about things and then...
I don't think we'll break up the schedule.
Would you honor our other man here with him, sir, when he comes down?
Sure.
Thank you.
Well, if that gets to be a rash of death, it gets people started.
Whoever did it is conceited.
Well, you're right about the ocean, man.
It can be here.
It's not.
Apparently Russell will take all this under control.
I'm a scientist, maybe this tennis can't do it.
The suffering of the others is sure, I know how strong that is.
Now I'm going to start the situation.
You have no doubts about my feelings?
You know, in our conversation yesterday, having said that, you know, I was very suggested adding a hell of a lot of important things, you know.
That being said, I have never been that satisfied with the telephone call operation, mainly because the individuals who are go-go's, you get added to your calls, and they overload me.
And calls that really ought to be made, like, I forget the examples, but the Macintyre one and home oil, those were important calls.
And there are many others that are not here to support me, you know, that are interested in buying some money.
I just didn't let them have their shirts on that day, and I called them.
But I can say that I can really see Bob that you could make a call on once the view comes.
I always call him on, a lot other than Jack Mouser, for example, for you.
Like the other day, I called, I called, uh, Pastor Rick and I'll see him for an energy message.
I just did it on my own, because I always wanted to see him on it, right?
Big deal.
They were both going to make speeches on the floor, but they haven't.
Oh, the Brant's side of dinner got screwed up.
They told Alex that he had not gotten the message.
Apparently Henry hadn't gotten it.
They had dinner with 28 people, of which 14 were State Department, 14 were Brant's people.
I don't want any working banners.
The banners should be as many of the big chairs as they got.
62 or something.
62.
Okay.
That is the banner from now on.
And we go ahead and make it formal.
And I have to talk to them.
And that is that.
Bob, isn't it a goddamn foolish thing to do the other day?
Yeah.
Working banners.
Nothing is accomplished.
Nobody says what he really thinks.
It's a horror or a god for me.
I'm not going to do it.
And it's more of a compliment for the guy to be in that state county, you know, with those sort of things.
So that's where we'll be.
But now, they're getting a wonderful opportunity to get in a few not-yet-gathered brothers.
Incidentally, do we have any problem at the Pledge, though?
Tad was saying that he had not indicated whether or not he'd regretted the wedding, and she'd been wondering if he'd regretted it.
I mean, she'd worked so closely with him.
So, I mean, you know what I mean?
Everybody's asked me to come.
I just wanted to be sure we weren't kicking him in the tail about something.
Let me find out.
There's, I called about what he would have regarded as happening, so.
I think it's, I'm delighted to hear that people can come because it does save us an enormous amount of time.
You know, I mean, maybe he's going to be gone.
So that's it.
And nobody should take it.
Nobody should come from Chicago anyway.
There's not a lot of people out there.
But my point is, there's been no, nothing that I've heard, let me check on it, just to be sure that we haven't screwed something up that, I don't mean we haven't, he's probably the opposite.
No, because there isn't much.
You know, like the end of the news story on Saturday, he went to Tyson and said, nobody has said he shouldn't have.
That's my point.
No, we're not getting any.
We haven't gotten anything on any of that kind of stuff.
have, you can prepare for me.
On a very unusual basis, they just keep the 17th clear of what's gonna happen or anything.
Relating with the local, with the regional press.
You understand?
Now, I'd like to have actually
if you could sort of loosen up the 17th, and you could have it for me the evening of the 16th when it's, when it's clear, even clear.
I don't want to work that long.
I, I, well, he doesn't make it.
At noon, the 16th, you have it ready.
How's that?
And keep the 17th as clear as you can.
Gotcha.
Well, you're busy at Cornell, I understand.
Oh, I see, fine.
Well, I had nothing on my mind except to call you.
I was at Camp David yesterday and tell you we were all talking about your party, and everybody just thought it was great, and they particularly loved you.
You did such a fine job at your own remarks.
And I said, well, I got your smart.
I said, you should be speaking all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they're...
They've gone through a banter before, haven't they?
They just made it good, good, good.
Yeah, the reason that we didn't come, I didn't think it was right for us to be in line.
We'd back in the hall and go through the handout, and it put them around the center, which is the right...
Right?
All right.
Well, you, you were just a great dog.
We didn't want you to know it.
Okay.
Go get brainwashed up there.
Okay.
Bye.
She's a nice, you know, she's warm up.
She has all the capability of being one hell of a gal.
She's got the brains.
She's got the brains.
She is a very nice girl.
She's got a tremendous character.
She's just an awful nice person.
She's a lady.
You're pretty well decided on that, aren't you?
Very easily, come in late at the end of the dinner.
Do the dinner and then go on up to Chicago and spend the night in Chicago.
Do the action, come into the dinner late.
Yeah.
At the very end of that, catch the program.
at the end of the day, or say, I've got to take off to Chicago, sorry, right?
You can do it as just a drop-by, just a gesture.
And the fact that you're in Chicago makes it all right.
The thing that bothered me was going up to Indiana just to be going and having to go to Chicago.
In Chicago, what do you have the next day?
You do the retired folks in the morning and then leave.
For Florida.
For Florida.
For Florida.
It's goddamn good.
I'm gonna go down and walk the car.
It's a little something just to make your own news and find some place where you can walk.
Stay in a different hotel.
That's good, yeah.
Well, I think we ought to stay in a different hotel, don't you think so?
Yeah.
We're always in Blackstone.
We have a good hotel.
There's another good one, the Haller House, for a chance.
It's a great little place, but I always used to like to stay there.
There's a mansion.
Stay there.
Probably at the Hilton.
Well, they don't like it.
It's awful.
It's awful, but I don't mind.
Actually, that suite up there's not bad.
I don't mind.
Look, it's always best to be at the convention.
Wait a minute.
The convention will be there.
No, it's not.
It's not.
If it's that kind of thing, it may not even be.
It may be at the Park Place or something.
I don't know.
So we don't have to do a hell of a lot of talking
God, let me pick my people and my people.
I want Mark Mitchell, for example, right?
And just get some... Actually, I don't... God, now there are a few of them.
I'm going to put Mrs. Rogers by me for once.
Rogers to Collins.
Great.
Mrs. Westfield, what'd you do to Mr. Torres?
Oh, Rogers, now they are the random ones.
and then have the others scattered around through the place.
But that's, I want 100 people, I don't want a crowd, but maybe 102 people with round tables.
And let's have a little entertainment afternoons or summits, you know what I mean?
Maybe they don't sit in the chairs, I want a movie for a change.
No, that's too long.
That's one, because it's just the inside panel, and we could go to something a little different.
That's what I was thinking.
Okay.
People will think in terms of the press thing, in terms of keeping open 24, having in mind the fact that that's the hubby dinner.
See, there's your problem.
If you're going to waltz into that, I don't have a point about the hubby dinner.
It's just not the call.
At the present time, we say that it appears unlikely.
And then if we decide the first of the week, we can go drop by.
Fair enough?
Yeah?
How's that?
Don't you think that's a good way?
If you just like to drop,
I don't see there's any reason why we shouldn't have like a... See, if we do that, I want you to have the road in the pocket quietly checked.
and see whether or not we could have one camera.
There must not be more than one, is that clear?
You know what I mean?
What we would plan on an office camera, where they could shoot it for Q&A.
It just isn't worth doing anything unless it's on television.
Do you agree or not?
I absolutely agree.
It just isn't worth it.
This is the main house, guest house, useless cottages, tennis court.
Doc here, boat house.
There's the house.
There she's down at the beach, it's a rocky beach.
She's walking.
Oh yeah?
There she is, on the porch.
That is, it is rustic there, you can see the deck door.
It sounds more like a car, which is that kind of thing.
It sounds like those are both split-edged rooms here.
That's the whole studio outside here.
It's embarrassing for me.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Oh, no, no, no.
You're fine.
Just what you did.
Okay.
Fine.
I was hired.
How do you like the room?
I thought we were getting in the city.
What's that?
Yeah, the smartest one I've ever seen.
He's the first governor of this whole one, isn't he?
Yeah, right.
And he's the one there.
Yeah, the word gets passed.
There's three more of them.
No, I feel like if you would like to just put a box on the security here, I've got to meet the National Association of Homeowners.
You can sort of see what they're up to.
You've got a lot of home building in your state, haven't you?
Yeah.
This is the finance office.
I'm sorry, but is that all it's going to be, a half an hour?
Oh, yes.
I mean...
It's got to be because I got an appointment at 11.30.
I have 12.30 months and I'm supposed to... Oh, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
No, no.
I can do that just right.
You see, I can factory right now.
No, no, no.
When do you have to leave?
You tell us.
If I could go in here at 11 and leave at 11.20, I'm in good shape.
11.15.
11.15.
Right.
Right.
That's good that you can say that you've been there to that to help.
Well, let's face it, this is what I say at home.
I don't talk to older people about that.
This is one nation.
You know, they want to feel that.
That's why the guard is going to handle us on problems and quit giving us up in the nuts.
Let the South have this problem.
It's got to handle it.
Well, here's the thing about me.
I can't stand the living night.
You know, most of the people that I know in New York that are constantly signing manifestos about the South are people that send their kids to lowly white schools.
And you know, they're cheating.
This is what I'm saying.
They are cheating their youngsters by doing it.
Your kids are going to the Black Lives Matter.
Well, I don't know.
Well...
They're 4% white, and one of the schools where two of us are 8% white, and the other one is a pastor.
And the great thing about him, Mr. President, he could go to the basketball games.
He could go at it for minutes.
These kids are three minutes.
And when you talk about 10 years from now, now we've got 410 of them.
Let me tell you something in 10 years from now.
The, uh, we've got, we're worried about Biden and stuff like that, but, uh, we've got to get rid of him.
I had a John Curran from Green.
Did you know that in the last week, April, August, as far as the schools were concerned, integration has stood still?
Twenty-eight percent of black kids in the class have been in the arts and go to majority white schools.
As far as schools are concerned, in the South, there's been a very quiet
in terms of 38% of the black kids in the South were majority white schools.
And this took place from people, had to be white people, generally, who totally disagreed with the proposition, who feared it, but who put obedience to the law at their fingertips.
And that takes one hell of a lot.
Now, in the North, let me say, the North has lived with them all the time, the blacks.
So the North finds their ways to get around the thing.
And, of course, the blacks have been .
But the Southerners, their handling of the situation has been quite remarkable.
And there are still a lot of .
Last year when I sent the kids to the schools, I went over there with one of them.
In the newspapers, they had an editor of Houghton Walls.
This year... Waffles.
Yeah, that's a new verb.
It means, I love it.
This year, I said when the Attorney General said the client was approved by a report that went on the ground because it had a bad racial effect.
I said, well, right now, I'm going to write another one and comply with it.
This isn't a lot of money.
Now I'm going to yell at them.
Damn, we're going to do this.
And I've kept it.
Ten years from now, when those kids get married,
You're not going to have any damage all by itself, or they're going to say, well, hell, those people are friends of mine, let's deal with it.
And that's the way to handle it, not by any force.
I don't like the way you handle it.
And we must not force it, though.
That's right.
And one of the reasons that I don't get high marks with these terms,
He said, I don't get up at every press conference, every time I make a speech and damn the South.
I'm not going to tell you, the minute I start damning the South, the South, the South, the white, the proud white Southerners try to get up and say, well, I don't want that guy.
That's right.
If he doesn't do something, he'll do it.
You know, at times, I'm very curious about the quiet revolution in the South.
You know, I think there's a lot of credit for it.
Well, it's worked out beautifully, and yet it did that because the Sprout White Southerner said, okay, we're longboarder types and we comply with the law.
That's a good thing.
Let me tell you a cute story real quick.
James and I had been to Europe for two weeks.
We got back a couple weeks ago.
Walked in about five or six o'clock in the afternoon after that jet lag and played with the children until about 9.30 or 10 when the bed
About 2.30 in the morning, out of a deep sleep, the Capitol Police was knocking on my bedroom door.
I said, Governor, there's a major shift.
You must evacuate the mansion.
I had a bomb out.
And he wants to conduct a search.
I said, you tell him there will be no evacuation.
He can conduct all the search he wants.
If he wants me, I'll be up here asleep.
In the next morning,
We were down at breakfast before I got out, and Woody was my 11-year-old son.
And he said, Dad, Mother told me what happened to my son.
And I think that was a pretty nerve of you.
But if it should happen again, how about waking me up and letting me make my own decision?
And that's all you check out in 10 minutes.
I just say, if that's all right with you, tell me if you want to do it.
I'm sure you'll get a chance to talk to John about it.
I'm sure you'll get a chance to talk to John about it.