Conversation 514-018

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

We're in great form, Mr. President.

I thought those guys, they never had locked up.

They had never had.

It was fun.

That was his little speech.

We can do something about it.

He was trying to say, I'm sure we can answer this.

It was marvelous.

But I sit there.

They know.

These guys have got to know.

They watch their programs.

They watch these press conferences.

And everybody, Rockwell, put an article that these reporters should buy.

Go in the press room.

Ask that press man.

Talk to Bill White.

Talk to Neil Scott.

Talk to John Scali.

I would sit there.

I don't know, they all agreed.

And so, and I just sit here and act as if, well, everything is fine, falls and so forth, falls.

But they kind of code, the thing that I was, I thought it was effective, it was a gift from cold steel, you know, because I could sit there and just talk to them quietly, and they knew that I was just getting going, getting up, and not, I mean, I'd have to wait to be done, but it's not, it's not, it's not.

I watched the instructions, and I'll guarantee you that Walter Scott couldn't look at you while that was coming out.

He's a gentleman.

I like him.

He's fine.

He couldn't look at you.

Julian Griffin was looking at you.

I don't think he was believing what he was hearing.

His hand was crumpled.

But that's exactly the effect that these folks reacted.

That's precisely the tone they understand.

I just am so thrilled we did it.

I mean, they said, oh, it came through.

They passed it through to the others.

Oh, thanks.

I got that.

That just rocks us, guys, because they're arrogantly proud of their cowardly.

The point she made about we've never used the economic leverage.

You're a reporter against what I stand for.

They're against my foreign policy.

They're against what I do with other fields.

I understand that.

They were against what I did in Washington.

You saw it.

I said, I said, just as long as I, I said, look, if I had to be a interpreter in the country before you were a reporter, I wouldn't be here.

But you gave me a chance to go to the people.

Oh, that, that, that just made me feel.

When I left here, I couldn't wait to get them out.

I wanted to run in and tell them, oh, what a fantastic job you've done.

I've been searching for a way that they could better understand the connection between the experts and the reporters.

And nobody could have done this as effectively as you did.

You did it in a way that was not, that they can't take offense at either.

Because what you did is to simply say, well, you fellas can't do anything about it.

And I'm not holding you accountable.

I understand that's the way it is.

And they're biased.

I'm sure they're biased.

And I understand it.

And I mean, we can do about it.

The point you made about the point you made about their credibility, they attack your credibility, we'll have to begin to talk about the kind of credibility they have.

Well, yeah.

Well, they've got us sitting here.

Sitting here saying that we attack our credibility.

And I said, well, of course you attack ours.

What do you expect us to attack yours?

I mean, you're pointing out the far line to me.

which they ought to take it down.

You could present facts that you would make up your own opinion.

Or you could present facts that would support your opinion.

Now, it's the way they're going to do it.

It's the latter.

They do it the latter way.

They know goddamn well they do.

And what's most important is they know, you know, and aren't going to tell us if we're good.

And if we're very cruel, we're in line.

We'd probably die.

There it goes, don't you understand?

Well, the psychology of it is so perfect.

I guess you do know Julian Goodwin.

He said, when I went to see him in a New York lesson, he had one thing on his desk.

He had an inaugural note of yours.

The only thing on his desk.

And they are arrogant, but at the same time, they're cowardly and secretive.

And you just rocked hell.

He is going to be...

Super sensitive to his coverage from here on out.

Super sensitive.

And that will go down through the organization.

And with the slightest evidence, they know that, you know, I did it in a way that they can't go to their reporters and say, President, you know, I said, look, you're biased.

I understand it.

I don't mind about it.

And also, you know, it's in the back of the bag where the rest of it is.

I think it's a definitely, though, I think Agnes should lay off the damn thing.

He's doing it in too broad a brush.

Do you agree?

Oh, well, he knows.

He knows why.

He's become a broken record.

He even knows.

Yeah.

Even his own constituency, he's lost his credibility because he's so insane on that.

There's a deal he has.

Oh, there is.

I'm all for him.

I agree with him.

And he's right.

That's right.

That's why we pulled Dole off.

I want Dole to lose his constituency.

Comes a point when you've made your case that you, and it's also very important that I never take them on.

I must say I was greatly tempted to

I should have taken on reporters when they asked the question in the demonstrations a third time.

In retrospect, they've not.

There will come a time, another time, when they'll do it again.

And a frustrated question, asked a third time, repeating the answer a third time, finally got that message home.

Don't you think so?

Absolutely.

They were helpful.

I could have asked you that question again, but I'm overjoyed.

But I think Bill White's mind was like, I should have kind of read him in half.

He said, I should have liked you more.

I said, I don't want to hear you ask that because I'd answer you.

You disagree with me.

Let's go on to the next question.

Then you would have lost the, a lot of people had suspected the way you just stayed very calm.

I think you'd have lost that thing.

And before that, you never know.

White thinks that you're getting something back.

Short and low fire.

Were you sure of the determination?

You said you were very serious.

You didn't try to brush it off.

You just repeated yourself.

I'll tell you, these guys have never had cold steel like that before.

I didn't understand what I was doing.

You know, you're crucial.

You're gesturing.

You've got to treat the totalitarians.

That's what they are.

Just cold steel.

Very calm.

Very quiet.

You know, listen, I deliberately talk to

very low voice, and so forth.

You know, he was smiling at me, and he said, oh, I understand.

I mean, we're talking, and he was like, well, Sam, look, let's not kid each other.

Let's be honest.

I mean, I don't want to be honest.

I don't want you to look upon me and say something I don't believe.

I just don't believe it.

I'm just going to give you that crack.

You know, and that gets them, too, because they know very well I'm being honest, and that they're not being honest.

You know, and they, I'll tell you, I think they're,

And they at least will report that conversation around their drinking clubs in New York.

You had a question.

You did it with the executive order.

And Goldman in particular will react very sensitively to that.

He'll be conscious of that for a long time.

He's head of the news out here.

And he's basically a newsman.

He is very, very biased and self-righteous

objectivity and coverage.

Well, NBC is the most biased of the networks.

Also, CBS has been worse in the water and more effective.

NBC is more biased.

NBC has been very tough on us in the economy.

But NBC, well, like CBS, they'll go through phases.

You can tell when they're reacting, when they're sensitive.

Well, I just decided to bring it up because we talked about it.

I was on their side on advertising.

I am.

I think it's silly to give equal time on advertising.

I think it's silly for the FDC to do it, of course.

In fact, it's silly to do it, Chuck.

It's wrong.

That's the wrong approach.

Would you see if that meeting is going to go on at 5.15 or whether they're going to be delayed enough?

Well, the FTC is out of our control.

Sorry to add, but my point is, we're not going to do anything.

I did it wrong.

I do think our television, I've seen all the foreign broadcasts, they aren't worth a damn.

I think public broadcasting is a disaster right here at NET.

I told Paul to drop it over the side.

And we're changing the people in that.

Well, I don't want to change the people, Chuck.

I think what we need to do is to get rid of the goddamn thing.

I mean, how the hell can you?

How the hell can you?

And we've been changing people there for years.

I'd rather get rid of it.

You know, we've been increasing it again, but it has to make some sense of its own.

But I want to be sure, I know, you follow up again.

I spoke to Hall and I said you would follow up

But they screw us every time they go on.

They put fire in the ground, shooting all those goddamn clowns on there.

I have a question.

That reading will probably be delayed until 5.20 in the early days.

I believe, also, in particular, we spoke to you earlier regarding a photograph of you when you were taken by the flight of Max, which I have the schedule for.

I thought we were going to be recording it.

So it's closer to the time of the waiver of 10 minutes.

We want to be 10 minutes later at 5-10.

So now that I was over at 5-10, I have a picture taken.

I just want to take you on a walk.

You need 10 minutes for the photograph.

Well, let's be sure I want to be in a good picture.

So find out how long they need.

And as much time as we need, I'll take these.

I'll be sure to give her a call when she needs her picture.

If you want us to try to get it, excuse me, come here to see what we have.

The investigation.

No.

Hell no.

Why should we?

I'll explain it to us later.

All right.

Well, they were obviously livid.

I can assure you.

Yeah.

You just say it.

You can talk to them and all that.

When he does talk to the president,

You know he's an independent agent, St. Julia and this and that, but he's very interested in this thing.

Keep us posted, you know, give him a little bit of bullshit.

Call all three of them, Tom and I.

We'd like to keep you posted on this thing and so forth, but we've got to work.

We've got to get it done.

But I've made a very good deal of this, just look at that.

They might do a little something worse if they've got a friend in the business.

They have.

I don't have a friend in the goddamn business world.

They're there every half a year.

The thing that's killing them is the demands of conservationists for time.

They ought to put a fellow like Borlaug on their damn pools.

They've created this ecology issue by putting on these crew balls.

Really.

They ought to put some people on and say, look, the cost of this, when you want to go back, man, is natural state.

Jerry Reavers, though, you know, is that beautiful little model we have.

People met in their natural state.

Christ, it's terrible.

That's fine.

Oh, you did that superbly.

I just, I was sitting there.

I got that in actual conferences a lot, so I had a lot of practice.

It was just, it was such a perfect crew to do it with.

You drove up to him for a whole while preceding him.

It was such a, a very low-key idea.

And you gave him the opening and he took it.

And I thought he was going to squirm with this complaint and have you say, well, let's just, I'm no way to do that.

We're sorry.

We won't do it.

If he's the president, I'll stop these people from doing anything.

And he stopped all of it.

I mean, frankly, cancer, hell no.

I'm not going to pledge my faith.

I will.

Let's not get ourselves into that question.

Well, once you've got that space, you don't know.

It's going to take time.

But I know he's going to run through it.

He knows how he's going to do it.

Now, they screw us.

And in a sense, he's helpful because he has that wire source, which is good, but he knows that the networks are wrong.

Oh, I think Scali is a great client.

He's getting the president done his point.

He's been very, very helpful.

And when he has a plan, it's only a plan.

We do get to the big international stuff.

We may not.

But Scali will be absolutely indispensable.

Normally, he would be much more effective in the Savior because he knows the issues.

The Savior does not scour the works of the family.

God, he'll love it.

Did Bob, speaking of the biases, did Bob come and tell you about the place of nation on Sunday?

We had our young son, Leo.

No, the young veteran's son.

And we took him home.

He and Tony went down to two Vietnam veterans in Arkansas.

We're on.

But George Sherman, Bruce Morton, CBS, started burrowing in so hard that halfway through the program, they stopped and apologized.

They said, we want to be sure that the people realize that we're not against the American soldiers just because we keep asking them these tough questions.

Oh, crash.

But as soon as it was heard, Mr. President, these boys, if that appeals at once, the American fighting hand in Vietnam supports the President.

He said it 18 times, and he talked about the success of the organization.

There were no war crimes.

Gosh, he was starting to become one.

And he looked.

And he looked just once.

We've got him on the Kevin show.

We've got him Thursday night.

We've got him on the Today show.

I try to just get equal time.

Well, why not?

You know, another thing that I expect from these networks, those backers are trying to lay the foundation for getting equal time to the Democrats.

The presidential press conference.

And I put it to them, I said, now you treat them the same way you treated us.

And they got that signal.

I want them to know.

You went back to them?

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

They said, yeah.

But you know, then they went on to say, well, next year it's going to be hard.

I said, yes, it's going to be hard.

But I said, did I?

And I looked at Greg, and I said, you know that I am very careful.

I said, if I ever take a man on personally, or if I make a partisan point, you owe the team time.

But I said, I'll never be so stupid to give you that chance.

Thank God for that.

Thank you for that.

If they got that point, and not to, that'll come back to me.

In fact, it would be.

The newsmen, they don't, you know very well why the newsmen are trying to force me into television.

The newsmen know the minute I start, one, it isn't good for public politics, for media, but second, it raises equal time.

I don't have any questions.

I don't have to respond to any questions about my cost to you, or my government, or half of you, or anybody.

Just not gonna say a word.

Well, of course, the reason I want to paint you in that corner is because giving you the partisan image is hard to do.

That's right.

They'd love to throw you in there.

They'd love to throw all of us in there.

But that wants to do it very quickly.

I will say one thing about ABC.

They have been fairly consistent legally.

CBS has given us the greatest difficulty on this.

Final question.

ABC has given us terrible trouble on one occasion.

And these things, as you well know, the question is not time.

No, as you well know, the question is approaching the eyebrows.

The question is, you know, they all said you ought to see our news programs.

They don't want me to look at their news programs.

And I don't really see the bias, because they do show their bias of how they look and stare and snarl around.

But I just read it, see what I mean?

And for that reason, I have a very detached view.

And that's the fairest way to treat the numbers.

to read what they're saying.

Absolutely.

I've asked you to cold hot words.

I hope that he calls me and he'll ask me, well, what does the president talk about?

Because I have examples that he can't challenge.

And I would just say, we're doing it if you're asking.

The fact is that when unemployment goes down by two-tenths of one percent, we get 30 seconds buried in the program.

When it goes up by one tenth of a point percent, it's a three-minute lead, isn't it?

All right, let me give you a bit of a chance.

This is this lead that I agree with.

The first capture stage, obviously, must be 19.

That's the lowest since October 1965.

In other words, we finally wrote a plan for the first half of the total plan.

19, Chuck.

Now that...

These sons of bitches have run headlines and everything else.

They said the cash was highest in three weeks, you know, maybe even some proof of that.

Now it's the 19th.

I'll lay you a money deal.

We'll drop that out of the news.

We can drop it off or just put it to the cliff.

But the point is, on this one, I've got a real record of money, and I've opened a scallop.

I already got it.

You should go to the scallop.

See how Scali can get that.

I want that hit in the networks.

I want to get it compressed, compressed.

But here, the president can prove right.

He said casualties would go down as the models they have.

Get my point?

Yes, sir.

That's a great figure.

19.

It is a great figure.

You see, last week, it would have been about 16.

Exactly.

What happened?

The week before, 24 was.

All three of them were scared of the 24-feet because they didn't get much play.

This one they should get some play too.

about this, and I don't want to lay it to the bench, because I don't see any reason not to do it, but I think some guy should do it, hit it in the floor, and call two of your dead best guys on the floor, if he had just got straightened out, and that didn't close, you know, five and a half years, as the president said about, also reduce our casualties, and rejections, and that,

The Vietnam issue is fading now, but maybe some.

This is all the way from the war.

Hard to keep it alive.

And they're putting out a big push this week to get Ted Field and McGovern passed.

How are they going to pass it?

Well, Maxfield says that they haven't changed a single vote, and they won't.

And I don't think they'll pass it, Maxfield.

We won that by 16 percent.

We had just completed this venture, Jim.

How?

This is going to be our most incredible meeting of the century.

The NBC.

Who won?

Well, the question is, who won?

Who?

I mean, it was just, I broke it up a little now.

And I said, you know, the president called over to call me.

And he said, let's talk a little bit about this repression business.

Repression?

Of the network?

No repression.

You know, the administration is repressing it.

Holy shit.

What do you think?

I know you're biased.

You people are all biased.

Your words don't understand.

They impose you on the world.

They protest.

Oh, look at all this shit, man.

People kind of miss each other.

I mean, how can a swine be needed in a country?

Oh, whoa, thanks.

That's good, dude.

I think they're inquiring.

We're in debt, of course.

But anyway, that's a cool sale.

I don't know where you're going, but they never ask.

They never ask.

They're really not such ideas.

They really didn't believe in us, but it was a duck.

They could see as I sat there that I didn't give a damn.

Which I don't care about.

I don't care about their reporters.

I don't care what they say.

You can't do anything about it as long as you give me an answer to the law.

I don't care what you say.

I don't say that.

That's the reason about these bad guys.

They would like to occur for me to be like Johnson.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I mean, because the other people are biased.

I don't know.

They can't help.

What did they, did they respond at all?

That's not true.

Goodman's right hand was trembling.

And as the president, the president said, he said, even though I understand you can't be, you can't be advised, he said, I'd like you to be profitable.

Goodman said, he wished we could be profitable and advised.

And I'm sorry, I did want to know.

And I said, I said, I said, look, there's nothing to tell you.

If I had had very much upon what you're, what the press,

and how they would drive me to the country, I wouldn't be here today.

I would often take a 52 and often get a 56.

I would never survive for this time, only because I've been able to go to the people through television.

You may read that same thing in Time magazine, because I said it to the Time people who are doing this.

They're doing a cover story on communications or some damn thing.

You made the same one.

I said exactly the same thing.

I said, what in the world do you mean?

I said, I mean exactly that.

He said, well, let me be sure I understand what you're saying.

I said, yeah, you understand what I'm saying.

I went through the whole thing.

I said, I used your line.

I said, it's perfectly understandable.

I'm not criticizing law.

I could, there's the, you're,

group are basically dedicated liberals who honestly believe the opposite of what the president honestly believes.

So I can understand why you're against them.

I'm not criticizing you for it.

I'm really stating a fact.

The point of the president's government was wrong.

He said, we've never used the economic leverage of government against you.

And we won't, of course, but...

That's a good deal of blood running through my veins.

But I think what was happening more than anything in the last century was the style of it.

It was such, it was absolutely, for Texas, it was an absolutely cold admiration as if I just cut a piece of meat up.

And that's why I told them, I told them I could show a bit of temperance.

See, all those lay the hand on the tongue.

That's another reason they mentioned it.

They, they know they've been through something.

Those guys, they walk out of here.

Well, they'll squeal and whine.

Wrong, not wrong.

Herb will worry.

Herb really believes the press is on fire.

Did Ruben Frank respond at all, or did he just sit there?

What the hell did he do?

He said they're just here.

He was a little bit of disbelief.

I didn't believe anybody there telling the truth.

I said, I want to be perfectly honest with you guys.

We understand that.

People call me sometimes and say, let's do something.

Why don't you call Sarnoff?

Don't bother us.

They can't do anything about it.

They're just helpless.

Did you notice when you were handing out the

because he reminded Goodman of that lunch that he'd had with Necklace three or four years ago, which just hasn't been six years.

And the president said, I never thought I'd be here then.

And Goodman, just like a little boy, said, I did.

He's just a goddamn anxious dude.

That's the typical New York, but that's the way they do.

They all bend down and drop your pants and let me kiss it for you.

But I will guarantee you that they are headed back to New York on their corporate jet tonight

will be in those offices looking at their logs and their time and their calendars and who they've turned down from the administration for coverage and who they haven't.

I got into another interesting thing with the time guy.

He was pushing on why is the administration so always accused or reported as being so public relations-oriented.

so many public relations people.

And I said, well, first of all, that's ludicrous.

There's only one public relations man in the whole White House area, as far as I know, and that's Bill Safar.

And he's not really a public relations man.

He's a political man.

And he said, well, what about Colson and Dick Moore?

And I said, well, those two both, you happen to have hit pretty badly there, because they're both lawyers.

He kind of looked surprised.

He said, is Dick Moore a lawyer?

And I said, yeah, he's a lawyer.

And then he was a television station president, management man.

He's never been in public relations, never had an I.O.

to public relations.

Chuck Colson's been running a law firm all his life.

He has never had one day of public relations experience.

And I explained to him, he's an advertising man in public relations, man.

He went to all the J. Walter Thompson people and I said, that's a lot of bullshit.

In the first place, those people were J. Walter Thompson because I met them in a political campaign and hired them.

And they only returned to government.

They're here because they're politicians, not advertising.

Because they've been involved with us in political campaigns and it's so outstanding that I took them into my company.

Secondly, advertising men are not public relations and I explained the difference in that to him.

And he said, well, why do they say that?

I said, I honestly believe that the only reason is probably because it's a convenient way of explaining why the president has been so tremendously successful without giving the president any credit for it.

And it therefore satisfies the need to admit to success but not give any credit for succeeding.

And he didn't write that down.

I said, why didn't you put that down?

And so he said, I will.

He wrote it down.

had no image making at all.

It's absolutely true.

We don't have any image making people here at all.

The image is made solely by the television press conferences, by the public appearances, period.

That's it.

Nobody goes out and pimps the line.

Then he said, well, what about Ray Price and Herb Klein and Pat Buchanan and all those people?

And I said, well, you've hit it again.

You've named three newspaper men.

None of them have had one day of public relations experience at all.

I'm also all over not writing on public relations.

None of that has anything to do with public relations now.

No one ever comes in and advises you on public relations.

Nor does anybody else.

There is nobody who advises you on public relations.

That's right.

Never will be.

Where has he been?

There's been a few that have tried.

And he's

I'm all ecstatic about how great you are at press conferences.

I don't know whether that's what he's showing out to me or whether it's going to be in the archive.

You and Bob, you would have enjoyed this.

We have put these people to the sore.

I would have enjoyed it.

I would have loved to have been here.

You'll be here.

Just be sure you don't back up any.

Because the point is, I know exactly what I was doing.

And I had to do it.

I didn't want to have the three networks go through without them on it.

They're all this repression and all the crap.

I said exactly the same things I don't want to say on national television.

But boy, this is guilt test.

Boy, it counts.

Boy, they were, when they got through with it, they knew that I had been nice to your class, and I know that if you can't do anything about it, you're going to continue to be, and we're going to continue to be.

Yeah, he said, he said, I don't see that your people are ideologically opposed.

He said, I don't hear about it.

And I don't think that's the worst thing.

I want to raise your attention.

Of course I can do something about it.

Yeah.

We can't.

He said, we do the trainings.

These are professional men, and they are trained to be objective.

Now, you saw that.

Good for this guy down here, sure.

I don't need to admit it.

I could have said, well, Capo is a subjective thought.

He is, except in civil rights.

No, sir, don't do it.

He is an objective in civil rights justice, Capo is.

on civil rights.

He goes completely overboard.

He can't speak.

He's blind.

He's very objective on other things.

I think sometimes we don't talk quite as much.

I don't think the way they do it is the way they do it.

He doesn't whine

But the whole point is that they, we sat there and we just looked at them and dissected them.

They got through a battle.

I couldn't believe it.

I was just sitting here.

I kept watching.

Every time you tore in, it's right here.

I think it sounds a lot better.

I don't watch that character.

They all don't.

Nevertheless, I don't want any of these people, the art members, to think of fighting

I don't have any plum puppets.

I don't have any, but I've never, I've never had one.

I'm not giving too much of anything because I've never had a person in this whole time.

Here you go.

Rob, I'm trying to work.

Yes, sir.

Yes.