Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam negotiations and Foreign policy management

5:46I just wanted to check with you in order.
6:06Do you want to say that you're in your office this morning?
6:08Sure.
6:08Looking forward to the day.
6:09And I looked it over and so forth.
6:10Got a little color for him.
6:31The President, uh, Li Dazhou, is on the way west.
6:46He's snubbing and peeping in Moscow.
6:51He's allegedly going to these German party conquerors.
6:55He can bet you Falun Gong will appear.
7:01He's not at the meeting.
7:04He's stopping in Peking and Moscow.
7:21This is as close as Lee Ducktoe never shows up.
7:26They may say no, Mr. President.
7:27You think he's slow, Mr. President?
7:29Certainly.
7:30Almost certainly.
7:32Eighty percent.
7:32If not, he'll show up there to give them instructions.
7:35It's very good that he's going to Peking.
7:37But he is going through Peking and Moscow.
7:44Lead Octo is the third man in the hierarchy there.
7:47The only man who can take independent decisions of negotiations.
7:51He travels only when there are crucial matters.
7:55He was there for the bombing halt and he was there
7:58He was there for the early discussions with, until the fall of Plymouth, and then he left.
8:10You remember those meetings we had in the spring of 70?
8:13We have.
8:14And he is formidable.
8:18Yeah.
8:18Yeah.
8:27Yeah.
8:28just thinking of the public that we have.
8:49And you say Johnson was fine compared to this, because Christ Almighty, at least he didn't have it within his administration.
8:52I mean, while Gardner left, he never said anything.
8:53He was the secretary of EGW.
8:54My God, we've got to do no well.
8:54But the way these people are rushing around, I think it's unbelievable.
8:56Yeah.
8:57But I actually think that Clifford... You don't think it's getting through?
9:02No, Mr. President.
9:03I really believe that... What's he up to?
9:04Is he trying to work, trying to re-furrow the wire?
9:08Is that it?
9:09Yeah.
9:09But, Mr. President, the North Vietnamese will bleed their toe on the move.
9:14Sure, they're trying to draw blood, and they're trying to see whether they can trigger us into making concessions before he gets there.
9:26Very good.
9:27He does not have anything.
9:29I will bet my bottom dollar on it that he has nothing of any significance.
9:34He may have some Delphic hints by some low-level guy.
9:43Doesn't they don't do business that way?
9:54The possibility that they're trying to do, if they are going to do something that they don't, they want to do it through somebody else
9:58In other words, not let us do it?
10:02There's always that slight possibility, Mr. President, but even then, we're not in a bad position because we can say on May 31st, we made this proposal.
10:15And we've got him out blanked that if they're screwing us, you can say,
10:23that whenever you decide that this thing isn't getting anywhere, you can decide on May 31st on the highest level.
10:31We made this proposal.
10:34While it was under consideration in Hanoi, we were forced and Clifford came in with his variation of it.
10:46You can use it either as an example of independent negotiation by Clifford or as an example of
10:54of Hanoi's treachery.
10:59I think we've got them outmaneuvered, but my impression is with the prayers, I saw Henry Hubbard and Schecter yesterday, and I took a very tough line.
11:09I said, I reminded them that on March 23rd, after hours, when they were all sneering at us on the patio of my office in San Clemente, I expressed your conviction and my conviction that
11:25There might be negotiations this year.
11:30And at that time, everyone was saying negotiations were senseless.
11:34All that's left to do is to get out.
11:36I said to them, do you people really believe that we're missing a bet?
11:41Do you really believe we don't look into all these things?
11:44If you do, I said, I admit it.
11:45We won't give you any facts.
11:47We won't confirm or deny anything.
11:49And if you're right that we're missing them, it even helps what we're trying to do.
11:55so you just go ahead and write it.
11:58I'm not going to negotiate publicly with them.
12:02They were really shaken.
12:03They didn't know what to do.
12:06Because, on the one hand, they had this, I mean, after all, it isn't plausible that we who, no one has talked more about negotiations than you or I in my background is here.
12:21This is not a Johnson phenomenon.
12:25And I don't think they're going to, they haven't hit us in the press very hard.
12:28In fact, they haven't hit us at all.
12:33Even the Washington Post had a very ambiguous editorial yesterday, which for it was really quite moderate.
12:42They said both are wrong, both Clifford and we.
12:45Well, that's pretty good for them.
12:48Why is he moderate?
12:51Well, because he...
12:52was implying that there was a solution without giving it.
12:57We were wrong by refusing to recognize that there may be movement.
13:02Hell, if there's movement, we produced it.
13:04We will be able to show that this phrase of swan's wee about you was a direct outgrowth.
13:11You remember I spotted it before they even saw it and told you that this is an answer to what we said to them on May 31st.
13:23I really think we have a fighting chance now for a serious negotiation this summer.
13:31Lee Doctoe wouldn't be there unless they really wanted to look it over.
13:35He may say no, as he did in March.
13:38Suppose it does start to open up, what do you do?
13:41And you put it in the Bruce channel?
13:44Well, then we have to decide how to do it, Mr. President, whether...
13:48I really believe... No, no, I can't do it.
13:52That's... Well, I've worked out... No, no, the choice we have to make is...
14:26I might have to go once more, most of the time, to get it done.
14:35The question we have to decide is whether we should let Bruce surface it or whether we should get you to write a letter.
14:44My strong instinct is, Mr. President, that if there's...
14:47I agree.
14:47...that you do it.
14:48This is what I meant.
14:49That's the decision we have to make.
14:51All right.
14:52I'll let Bruce do it.
14:53Well, that's why I think, Mr. President, that as soon as we know a serious negotiation is starting, you have to get out in front and break the deadlock, or do something that breaks the deadlock.
15:16And that can be easily arranged.
15:22I think that's better than just letting it trickle out in Paris.
15:32I think, Mr. President, that if there is going to be an agreement, and there is, it will come this summer.
15:39That's the funny thing.
15:42Well, I've always had the theory, but I think the Vietnamese elections are helping us.
15:46What's your view of the Big Man Key deal, I don't see?
15:52They actually made a deal.
15:59They said that they had made a deal.
16:01I don't know.
16:02Maybe it's true.
16:05Well, my view of this is...
16:06This is well put over there, but I want them to really ride our animals faster than they're going to get anything.
16:09But my view of the Big Minky deal is that it gives the opposition to chew a viable combination, but that chew almost certainly prevents.
16:19I suppose they will.
16:19I'm not sure.
16:21If Key is actually a friend of ours, Key behaved with great dignity on the occasion that I saw him look to an office.
16:36Big men and just a gun.
16:37Big men and just a front man.
16:40And so I would think that if we get our deal, and if that Jew is defeated in the election, so be it, it's...
16:51to make the thing, but I don't think that will happen.
17:08But it does happen.
17:09What is your, one couple of others, what's your, any judgment on the Cambodian action?
17:16I was there trying to build that up for some time.
17:17Well.
17:17How significant is it?
17:18Well, it's significant in the sense that.
17:19Not significant to the present?
17:21No.
17:22But it's significant in the sense that the stamp, that the death of the tree obviously kept us from knocking them out in that area.
17:33And that might have been the worst loss, because we did gain in Lansdowne 719 60 to 80% of what we wanted, but at the tree's death, as I told you then, that Cambodian Arboration Trust peed it out.
17:50I don't think they're going to topple the situation there.
17:53What they're trying to do is to create, reconstitute the sanctuaries based on a northern supply route this time.
18:04And that's, that I think they're in the process of.
18:09But another problem, of course, is, another, one reason for it is that Hugh is economizing his forces now because of the elections.
18:19after I didn't have too many casualties.
18:30You know, one thing about it I can see is a problem there because while our casualties are down, they're running between 200 and 300 every week.
18:38Our casualties, I didn't want to tell you, Mr. President, but our casualties this week through Thursday night, we only had four deaths.
18:44So unless they are going to use this to carry a few more missing in action, and unless on Friday and Saturday they went away...
18:49They run through Saturday, then they compile them Sunday, we get the first thing Monday.
19:01But they're not... Well, we might get it around 15 if the present trade continues.
19:07Well, they were so good to happen to come out on the day of the China thing.
19:10It was on the two networks.
19:15But I think we can ride it next week, Mr. President.
19:21Does Hank know who that jackass Westfinder is that made a big ass of himself by going over to Stockholm?
19:41Did you see that in the picture?
19:42I didn't see the picture.
19:43The picture of a Westfinder who left his artillery unit in Germany with his wife and child and went over to Stockholm.
19:45And you may not have heard of Westfinder before.
19:48He said that he did it before he was in the army, before he first went.
19:51good.
19:54What the hell was he in it for?
20:01But that's just one of those exceptions.
20:02There are bad question marks.
20:03Oh, yeah.
20:03I think, Mr. President, we have the one thing.
20:05I hate to keep bringing it up, and I'll write you a memo because you don't want to discuss it now, but the Middle East really is again getting screwed up, and I think they've done a
20:16too many things that, in my view, will produce an explosion, and they've cut off now.
20:22The airplanes are being cut off to Israel at the end of this month, which is going to produce an explosion among the Jewish leaders here.
20:35And all of this for no discernible objective, but you may want to address that later this next week.
20:40It's not something... Well, Mr. President, what they've done on the Suez is just screw it up in such an unbelievable way by...
21:01What I didn't count on was the vanity of these people in state.
21:05They went over to the Egyptians.
21:08Instead of presenting the Israeli plan and forcing them to react to that, they never presented any plan and started dickering with the Egyptians on their own.
21:20Then our charge in Cairo submitted a written plan.
21:23Burghers.
21:24Burghers.
21:26Submitted a written, unsigned plan which the Egyptians have now adopted, which in effect
21:31instead of an interim settlement, ties the interim settlement to the Israeli's withdrawing from all of Sinai, which they have already rejected in February.
21:40The Israelis don't know yet that we've submitted this piece of paper.
21:44But as soon as that surfaces, which it will because the Egyptians have already proposed it, we'll be at the same deadlock as we were at the end of February.
21:55And then they're going to come in here and ask you to cut off economic and military aid to Israel.
22:01But I don't, the thing we need for the next two months is quiet because we don't want to get the Russians lining up with the Egyptians and get everybody steaming up with the Pygmy East crisis.
22:14And I think we should just slow that process down a little bit for the next two or three months.
22:24Not get so much out front.
22:27Frankly, I think we have two ways.
22:29We should have done it either the way I suggested, by working out a game with the Israelis, or to do it together with the Soviets.
22:40It has to be brokering around without objective and floating plan after plan which puts us right into the middle of it.
22:50It's going to...
22:52The problem now is to keep the Middle East from blowing up until the end of August.
22:57If we can get the other things going, then they will play back on the Middle East.
23:04Yeah, of course.
23:15In terms of trying to... Our Soviet is concerned very much, probably.
23:18If they come back, you know what I mean?
23:19I'm speaking of the Senate.
23:19If they come back on that,
23:22have him come in and offer it to me.
23:40Yes.
23:41Well, the summit is easy.
23:41It's easy, because when he just comes in and says, I have directed my government to invite you, and I just tell everybody, I'm just going to do it that way.
23:45It should be.
23:46Sure.
23:46And that doesn't involve me at all.
23:47Well, it doesn't have to be done.
23:47What I mean, I mean, you would suggest that we did that.
23:48Well, if you go over and suggest it to the state and so forth, they would call me up.
23:50They do it over there.
23:51We have no control over the man thing.
23:51He'll get fouled and oppressed.
23:53I guess what you do then, I think, is your thought is that when you're there, you should send a message to the branch for you to have a meeting with.
24:23You see, we, how do we get, how do we get Bill for us?
24:48Without saying what, how, right?
24:49Right.
24:49And then, then, you know, just say I,
24:51improvised everything once I got there.
24:57My impression of Bill is that he doesn't give a damn what I do as long as I don't get any credit for it.
25:09For what we could still consider, it depends on what the Russian game is.
25:18If the Russians don't have a summit,
25:21Then we would just announce a Chinese summit, and we wouldn't have to explain how it was arranged.
25:26We would just say, as a result of high-level contacts, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai has.
25:35I think you could tell Bill about it.
25:36Yes, you could say that.
25:36We can tell Bill, but... Tell Bill, I think you could say that when you were there, you saw the Chinese.
25:39You don't talk about seeing Zhou Enlai or anything like that.
25:43I don't think that Bill cares, as long as we don't let it out.
25:47And we've now proved to have solved...
26:18You know, there's not that much going on, that's the problem.
26:23If we don't have the summit, right away then we can announce a mission of Bruce and have the summit emerge out of that.
26:34Or announce in principle that we are accepting the summit and sending Bruce in the interim.
26:42We have a Russian summit.
26:43There's something to be said not to announce a Chinese summit before you've been in Moscow.
26:52We've had a ruse there before.
26:54No, my suggestion would be to wait.
26:58Have nothing announced?
27:00No, no, we have to have something.
27:01I don't think the Chinese are going to stand still for that.
27:02No, no, they'll insist on announcing something.
27:05Therefore, my recommendation would be that we announce, say, early first week of August, that as a result of high-level contacts between the Chinese people to the public, you have decided to present and pass it approved as a
27:22Special Envoy to P.K.
27:36And Bruce goes in the middle of October.
27:39I will have it all arranged with true and lie for whoever that after Bruce's return, which would then be the first week of November, announced a summit.
27:51Now, if they want more than that, which they may, then we may have to say that they have invited you to Peking.
28:00You have accepted in principle.
28:02But in order to pave the way, you're sending Bruce.
28:07It'd be a little better if we didn't drive the Russians straight up the wall, if there is a summit.
28:12We'll worry about it.
28:15Bruce alone is going to worry them.
28:19Through the Russians.
28:21are not aware of the fact that we could turn towards the Chinese.
28:32They must be aware of it.
28:32They can't possibly be aware of the magnitude of it at this point.
28:34They just wouldn't believe it.
28:34Mr. President, what we are doing with the Chinese is so daring on our side and on their side.
28:41What they've been negotiating, Dupree then told me, you'll see it in the memorandum that's coming in to you, Dupree then told me that their ambassador there
28:51never sees anybody higher than a deputy foreign minister.
28:56They've had an important negotiation going on for two and a half years.
29:02I don't think any Soviet person except Kutsikin has seen so in life in two years.
29:09So the idea that you might go to Peking and that we might have talks at this level cutting through all this stuff
29:18Dobrynin asked me whether Korchesko was carrying a message for us.
29:26I said, I didn't answer it that way.
29:28I said, you know, Anatole, you're an experienced diplomat.
29:33What can you really say to a third party?
29:39And he said that's right.
29:42He doesn't believe you.
29:42But that's never a lot.
29:43It's good.
29:43You've just got to worry it.
29:45And I sent a half-assed message to Kuchersk through Kuchersk.
29:50That's in order not to make the Romanians lose face or wonder why the hell we've suddenly dropped them.
30:00But the Chinese are really rough.
30:01They've now published a communique strongly supporting Romania and Yugoslavia.
30:07They're really kicking the Russians.
30:09I see.
30:13See, the way this might start out, the Russians could continue to put it to us because of the upcoming election.
30:29I have this in mind.
30:29And not want to go forward on a lot of things.
30:30If they do, then we turn right on ours.
30:31And we also make a straighter deal with the Chinese.
30:33And we play it right out.
30:34That'll give you some pause.
30:35They see the United States with the hundred million Chinese.
30:39That'll scare the livers, but Jesus saw it.
30:41The main thing is we have to keep the Middle East quiet as fast as the Russians are concerned for the rest of the summer.
30:47If you see the pressure, and if you then make a deal with pressure, which we both enforce, that's one thing.
30:55But we can't piddle it away on the Cisco level and have a premature crisis.
31:02And, uh,
31:05The Russians won't dare to turn you down when it's all said and done.
31:10Kosygin gave a fairly hard speech.
31:12But Gourney made a very gentle one.
31:16Dresdenet made an even gentler one.
31:18They both, Kosygin didn't make much reference to the salt that both but Gourney and Dresdenet did.
31:27See, Kosygin dropped one notch in the hierarchy, and he may be wanting to line up the hardliners.
31:33against pressure.
31:36It's a bunch of, you know, everyone always said he's a soft line.
31:44Yeah.
31:45But they're cut loads.
31:53They're using whatever is available.
31:54Getting back to this Clifford Gardner, et cetera, I know this Gardner was on.
31:58Yeah, I just... Gardner, he is as petty...
32:00He's not an admirable person.
32:00He's an effeminate...
32:01I mean, after all, he does not know a goddamn thing about Vietnam.
32:08Or about anything else.
32:10At least education has given some thought to that.
32:13For him to say that you might still be there ten years from now, that is so...
32:18I told these guys yesterday from the press, I said, we've withdrawn steadily for two years.
32:26We've never lowered the withdrawal rate.
32:27We've never stopped withdrawing.
32:29What do you really think?
32:31I said, no, you know, you know damn well what the situation's going to be next year, don't you?
32:43I said, you're our opponents now.
32:44They just want to get on board.
32:45That's it.
32:46They know damn well where we are.
32:47I see now, Mr. President, why they couldn't come to the meeting.
32:53Because he's on the 20th of the 13th or the 20th.
32:59because there's the East Truman Party Congress from the 14th to the 23rd.
33:04So once we undoubtedly will be there to talk to the doctor.
33:15And so the 26th is the earliest they could possibly be there.
33:24So the reaction of this Cambodian thing is, are we doing adequately there?
33:27Is it part of the problem of clarity?
33:29holding back.
33:33Well, the real problem is that McVie is just not on top of its job, either because Laird has a private deal with Abrams or because Abrams has just quit.
33:46They're not making that extra special effort, Mr. President, that makes the difference between success and failure.
33:55I think that is one of the major problems.
33:59I think that is one of the big problems that we have touched on.
34:23It'll be easy after the next announcement to bring here and so on.
34:26I mean, just so we're finished.
34:26With what we have left, there's been no deal.
34:27I can't talk about it.
34:28I just have an instinct that we...
34:35I don't know whether we'll make it, but this is as close as we've ever been.
34:39It's less...
34:40It's still far...
34:42It's at best one in three, Mr. President.
34:44I don't want to mislead you, but...
34:51There is a chance.
34:54So we'll see.
34:55We'll see.
34:57If we are ruthless enough, if we don't let them get off the hook again,
35:20Because that's the mistake we made after October 7th.
35:25Now that I look back, I was part of the mistake.
35:30We shouldn't have made the speech, but instead then of wallowing in their approbation, we should have reminded the country that these were the guys who were rioting against us, who were encouraging them and against whose opposition we got to them at that point.
35:46You're still working on the five point summary of that prayer?
36:04Yeah, that's going to be done by Monday morning.
36:05That'll be good.
36:06That'll be good.
36:06And by God, as you speak in Christ, I just say people don't know what to pray for.
36:08You know, they've offered everything there is.
36:09No, it's the defeat wish that they have in their hearts.
36:11And not just defeat, Vietnam's defeat for us.
36:12Oh, yes.
36:13But if one compares, Mr. President, the situation in April with the situation today,
36:16I just feel that the press is uncertain.
36:21I'm worried because it's been made uncertain, not like this, but like China.
36:25But China and salt.
36:27Salt, sure.
36:29They must worry lousy dirty bastards.
36:41There's just no reason.
36:43Why should... You know they're worried.
36:44The point is, is after this lockout, it started with those NBC people lying there.
36:46They're all colored bastards.
36:47By the time I got through with them, that's what delighted Colson so much.
36:49They sat there, and all of a sudden, instead of the usual AK, they get...
36:52I said, look, let me tell you something.
37:15This is what I hear.
37:15I said, do you realize that
37:17In every place I have, over the opposition, 90% of the people are the working press.
37:36I said, but what do you hear?
37:37They said, I have counted your support in six days.
37:38God, they're really stuck in line talking.
37:39Nobody ever had it through.
37:40This is the real thing that worries your fellows in the press.
37:42You don't ever get the impression that they're really thinking about the country.
37:43They aren't.
37:44Oh, they are a little.
37:44But basically, they're thinking more.
37:45They have more of it.
37:46have a logical fear that we might do this.
37:52Oh, God.
37:52That's what it is.
37:53Oh, that's it.
37:53They would rather see me, Evan, me lose than see the country win.
38:03Oh, yeah.
38:03I believe this.
38:04I believe this very confidently.
38:06Don't you agree?
38:07Oh, for you.
38:07You talk to them enough.
38:08For you.
38:10To succeed, I mean, you didn't run into Saltok, who disregarded every single success, who behaved toughly, who went into Cambodia.
38:24If all of this had culminated in success, they'd be wiped out, not just politically, but intellectually.
38:31I mean, then...
38:32Anybody can go to the undergraduates.
38:35And isn't that then, too, the problem that they have when they come whining in here and saying, look, we've left the church.
38:47We want to share this responsibility.
38:48Why doesn't he share this great burden when it falls?
38:50They never want to share it when it's tough.
38:52They only want to share it when it's good.
38:54That's right, Mr. President.
38:54Which is basically a letter to the bureaucracy.
38:56That's right.
38:56Senator Mitch Bundy has written a letter.
38:57I'm sending it in to you because there are a few quotes in it.
39:00which we can use against him, in which he's sort of oilily flattering you for your historic achievement, but saying, unfortunately, no one goes along with it.
39:10Therefore, you should make a partnership with Congress.
39:13I'm just letting you see it.
39:15What achievement?
39:18In Vietnam.
39:20Fundy is just positioning himself so that he can get an appointment in a new administration.
39:27Not yet.
39:27Not yet.
39:29We survived this.
39:31Listen, they take control of us.
39:43I mean, I've got it all set up, too.
39:47I'm having this mellon work like crazy, and this whole bunch of people are melloned, too.
39:49And I mean, I'm not going to be, if there's any doubt about where they are, and that includes the business types.
39:52These business types that have sucked around on the wrong side of this side, out.
39:54Perhaps all the rest, you've got to build a new establishment in this country.
39:56It's got to be done.
39:56These people have lost their
39:58I agree.
40:04You can't work with them.
40:04You can't do it.
40:06Well, Mr. President, if we bring off...
40:10Yesterday, Harriman, for example, testified before some House committee, and I saw the testimony.
40:17We're just going to wipe them out because he praises you for your China policy and for some other thing, and he criticizes you for screwing up the Berlin negotiations among...
40:28We're going to have those solved in three months.
40:33And they literally will have nothing left to talk about in foreign policy, unless the Middle East blows up on us.
40:42But if we do these other things, well, we can overpower the Middle East.
40:48Well, they make no mistake about that.
40:56They're the motivational press and the Democratic Party and some Republican politicians.
40:59Oh, they're their primary obsession, sir.
41:06Destroy you.
41:06And they cannot abide the fact that we are succeeding the China thing.
41:09I mean, they all have, they can't knock it.
41:11But they all, but they all, they'll be goddamned, uh, exalt to help us if this is happening by, with the Kennedy.
41:20They'd still be talking about salt, Congressman, talking about it.
41:23Mr. Drescher, they wouldn't have known how to get from here to there.
41:27If they had wanted to do it, they would have stopped A.B.
41:29Adams.
41:32If Halloween had reached this point, you would have seen them up there talking all the disarmers and saying, what a great achievement, this was, this was great.
41:40They said it for one day and then they shut up.
41:43They said it for about two weeks in their defense.
41:46Nothing like the Hosannas that they would have given to Kennedy.
41:54I don't remember anybody coming in.
42:24Come on.
43:31Sweats, please.
45:04Yes, sir.
45:38Thank you.
49:15One of us come after us, and it's kind of an interesting thing.
49:18ABC wants to do an hour special on drugs, where they want to do a handheld 16mm camera coverage of the administration's initiatives that, you know, and the ambassadors meeting and all that.
49:33We've got them working on seeing how much control we get of it.
49:36It could be a spectacularly good piece.
49:39And, boy, I've been...
49:41I need to do some more, but I'm getting it.
49:48I'm getting more arched than I made her image on.
49:55But you look at the other one, I haven't really gotten into the other one.
49:58The other one doesn't tell you very much.
50:01But I'll tell you what this one tells you.
50:04A lot of clear, to me at least, is the single greatest opportunity we have by a
50:09A thousand mile margin is drugs.
50:11Is it?
50:13And I'm just totally convinced that the more I look at it, it's what bothers people.
50:17It cuts across all the segments of the population.
50:21It isn't controversial at all in the sense of there's nobody who's for drugs.
50:27Nobody.
50:28It's a nightmare.
50:29It's really a hell of a lot.
50:31That's why the marijuana answer was good.
50:34Let's face it, you know, if you were to go to our people now, if you could hear again, I'd show you, I'd show you there's about 20% of all people that would go that are, they overlooked it in the drug field.
50:52But if you go down the eastern, I mean, if you take Garmin, Price, Sapphire, so forth, see, they'd be living in New York.
50:58New York is probably 8% of the legalizing in marijuana.
50:59Because, you know, it's a thing.
50:59Yeah.
51:00Well, I don't know a lot.
51:00You know the industry.
51:05Well, I'm not going to put any other stuff.
51:09Let me come around to the intellectuals.
51:10Take the IDP schools.
51:10It'll be 50%.
51:11Okay.
51:11It's another thing because our kids have been exposed to it.
51:24Now, they had fought.
51:41Now, that's my point.
51:43That on this continent, we're right on that issue.
51:44We've got to be hard.
51:44You can't screw around.
51:45The trouble is, Bob, if we were here to screw, we'd all be right.
51:46The trouble is, I know you're right.
51:47I mean, it's a chance to do something.
51:48You know you're doing the right thing.
51:49You know the drugs are wrong.
51:49Fight it and do something about it.
51:50Fight it hard.
51:50And you fight it, you're fighting organized crime.
51:51You're making exactly the right enemies.
51:52The mafia, the dilettantes, the Bay Department.
51:53State Department.
51:54That's right.
51:56But you can't do it on the bill.
51:58See, Bill is just scared to death on this ambassador's meeting.
52:00He might offend some of the God-manned countries.
52:02We can't offend them the first time around.
52:06But I think we've got to, at some point, be ready to offend, suspend diplomatic relations and banter, go to war against them.
52:17That's right.
52:17We have to.
52:18That's right.
52:18This compares it's really interesting.
52:20Bill's problem is being secretary of students.
52:23I'm trying to reflect on him.
52:39I think that he has an enormous capability in intelligence and everything.
52:46And yet, Bob, he just can't help but think only and almost, earlier when I was talking about it, earlier, and he's become, to me, that the Secretary of State must not be the deputy of the
52:53Bill just can't bring himself to come around.
53:00You know what I mean?
53:00Everything is a, well, how are we going?
53:02I mean, it's a goddamn thing, isn't it?
53:10Those guys are good at buttering up.
53:21In your little air secretary, if they can figure it out and capture it, man, you know what they have when they come over here and they try to evade them.
53:25They know that I'm getting away with it because I treat them with a little bit of contempt.
53:27That's the way House Johnson sits in here and all of the Foreign Service is dedicated to you, Mr. President.
53:30He has been going through the intelligence stuff and the cables and what's happening and all that.
53:59at a point where he's concerned that he doesn't think he knows what's being done.
54:06He probably did, but he doesn't think he did.
54:12And he thinks we're Henry's allies.
54:13He's talked to Henry about it.
54:20He's been after Henry on it, too.
54:22No, Henry's talking to Henry about it.
54:25Well, John has raised it both ways.
54:26And he asked for the meeting with Henry yesterday, which I was only a couple minutes up, and he was pumping Henry on it.
54:29And hey, his point is that the Jewish community here, he argues, has been told to lay off of us on Vietnam, and they have.
54:47And that they can really get rough if they swim around, and he's afraid of that, point one.
54:55It's his opinion that it's been obvious from the beginning that the Middle East situation was a born loser, no matter how you went at it, you couldn't win.
55:05How would the Jewish people know?
55:08Who?
55:08His argument is that the whole Jewish press, the Jewish-influenced peddlers and all that, have not pushed hard on Vietnam.
55:17I'd like to know which one.
55:21Except for Jawasem, who's on our side anyway.
55:22I mean, I just don't, I'm just not sure that he can make an argument.
55:27The Jews, the Jewish community, they're supporting Teddy.
55:37They're supporting Muskie.
55:37They're supporting Humphrey.
55:41All of them are kicking the hell out of me.
55:43They're supporting Tom Collins.
55:44They're supporting Klosky.
55:44Now what the hell was he talking about?
55:45Trump knows better than that.
55:47I mean, there may be other arguments.
55:48Don't tell me that the Jews are supporting us in Vietnam.
55:50Do you know about Henry's meetings with Rabin?
55:58He's not supposed to have them.
56:01Well, he is.
56:04Henry's meeting with Rabin every two weeks.
56:08And he claims that he single-handedly, by those meetings, is keeping them from totally blowing apart.
56:18And that
56:19That he's keeping his finger in the dike, that he's staying out of everything else, but just putting the pressure there on the basis that that'll keep him from going out.
56:34I don't understand all this.
56:36I haven't read any of the cases.
56:39I don't get it.
56:39It's necessary to know.
56:41But Mitchell feels so strong about it, that he's got to sit down and talk to you about it and make sure that you know what he knows, at least in any, and obviously you've got to make decisions.
56:50To me, his argument now is that Roger says this out of the ballpark, that we've gotten to a point now where there's no Russian squeeze on Egypt.
56:57We are squeezing Israel.
56:59And what he's scared to death of is what's going to happen when the aid germinates.
57:08And there we sit.
57:18Dobrynin apparently has hit on the question.
57:23Bergus has given the Egyptians an American plan, which the Egyptians said, yeah, I know we tried it on Egyptian paper and gave them back to us as an Egyptian plan.
57:38The Russians know it and can't understand what's happening.
57:47So,
57:50I think maybe he should.
58:06But he's skilled enough to say, look, I've got these tables and all that.
58:15Let me do it in terms of this.
58:17He says, Bill, he says the president is keeping Henry as a geologist.
58:32Man, can I get that clear, Bob?
58:33Don't tell Rogers that Henry is sitting Rabin, right?
58:34Because Henry shouldn't be in every game.
58:35He should not be in this game.
58:38He shouldn't be sitting Rabin.
58:38He's not holding Rabin in check.
58:40I just don't believe that.
58:43But nevertheless, then he can go in and say, now, where are we?
58:44You better have this in our arguments, Marshall, pretty much.
58:47We'll do that before we sell you any one of our guests to learn what our records are.
59:17And the other point is that you should not get into all this wishy-washy stuff.
59:25He says the problem is that there's no one in the White House, nobody looking at it for the president.
59:31He thinks you've got to get someone to monitor it for you, not let Rogers make foreign policy in this area, which is what, in a fair way, foreign policy in that area was.
59:41Basically, no.
59:42And John would argue that.
59:42He says Rogers should not, you should, the president should not allow
59:46Well, foreign policy, but it's a foreign policy.
1:00:02The Secretary of State, Bob, does make foreign policy in other administrations.
1:00:04That's the problem.
1:00:07And he really is getting down to it.
1:00:07He doesn't have confidence.
1:00:08He doesn't have confidence.
1:00:08Yeah.
1:00:09Is that true?
1:00:09I don't know.
1:00:10But that's sure what he gets to.
1:00:10Thank you.
1:00:11Yes, I'll see.
1:00:11I'll talk to him.
1:00:12Suppose he tells me all this, then what do I do?
1:00:19I just say, Henry, get all the Middle East down and have a hell of a blowout?
1:00:21No, he understands that we're going to have a hell of a lot of problems.
1:00:26Bill, I mean, did you...
1:00:27I couldn't believe it, though, that he...
1:00:30I'm getting started with you.
1:00:31Maybe you better check Scallop and Henry's pathological attitude.
1:00:34He says it's state, only China does.
1:00:38sent over a thing that was consistent with the Senate, acting on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, the President has, has, uh, has hereby announcing the change of the channel.
1:00:59The guy was in here when he told you that.
1:01:00He goes, well, I can't believe that the state would be so stupid to send me over that.
1:01:02I mean, they know God damn well.
1:01:03But first of all, I can't.
1:01:03Well, now wait a minute.
1:01:04Let me completely leave this out.
1:01:05I, I started the whole thing.
1:01:05I told them to come up with the list.
1:01:08Uh,
1:01:08They could have said that his list has been approved by the Secretary of State, but they had to say commerce, too, and events.
1:01:18Everybody was an amnesty.
1:01:19He was the Secretary of State.
1:01:21But I just don't know what the hell's going on, how the situation is.
1:03:02Are you sure that what information you're getting on all this is right?
1:03:14Yeah.
1:03:14He said, no, I'm not.
1:03:15Can't be.
1:03:20Yeah.
1:03:21But I have to feel that what the president's getting is at least not completed.
1:03:25Thank you.
1:03:26I'll be glad to see it.
1:03:26But Tom, put it this way.
1:03:27I think you'd be the broker of the bill if you say you'd vote.
1:03:30Mitchell was very close to it.
1:03:31this whole situation because it isn't our connections.
1:03:48And of course, you know Bill, he sits on the 40 committee and the other things, and he's the president about it, but he thinks that he, Mitchell, feels he ought to talk to you about it first.
1:03:55This is a delicate situation because we are not, the president is not, is leaving this to Bill, and is not doing it, you know,
1:03:59basically reduces your operation out of it.
1:04:14See?
1:04:14For reasons that he's aware of.
1:04:15And, uh, say, now look here, uh, Bill, how about having, uh, you and Mitchell have a talk, and then you and, then you and Mitchell have a talk with the president about it, just so that he's aware of what, so that Mitchell can express his concerns, express it to you first.
1:04:26How's that sound to you?
1:04:27Now keep Henry the hell out of it.
1:04:27Don't let him be a synonym.
1:04:28Don't let, uh,
1:04:29And don't mention the fact that Henry can see for me.
1:04:35That's the kind of thing you see.
1:05:08Did you ever show Rachel our coal and the Jews?
1:05:21I showed 20.
1:05:25And he knows we have no Jewish support.
1:05:27I mean, we've got to talk about that.
1:05:29He thinks we've got some, but no, he doesn't.
1:05:30He's got faith in us and all the rest, but we don't have any Jewish support.
1:05:31This is the reason, in my opinion, because I thought we had a commitment to the fact that the Jews are impressed, and therefore we are.
1:05:34But the question is, what Jew in this press corps is supporting us?
1:05:37Name one.
1:05:37Except Al-Saad.
1:05:38I just don't understand Mitchell's argument.
1:05:41He said that some of the Jews in the press corps aren't getting into his argument.
1:05:45That's right.
1:05:46Not so much the press corps, I think, as the press establishment.
1:05:51They have not launched an all-out attack on us that they would do if they... What do you think you ought to do about Rogers, to be honest with me?
1:06:05You really come down to the snap cutting, don't you, Bob, on this one?
1:07:52On that note, I don't want him to sit there and just think that everything he's getting from Henry and Ruben is the gospel truth.
1:08:07There may be something on the other side.
1:08:09See?
1:08:09And Bob, you've got to realize that Henry is not balanced on this side.
1:08:13Well, I do very much, because he comes out to me on it.
1:08:15I never pass it along to you, because I don't think he is balanced on it.
1:08:19It's clear to me that he isn't.
1:08:21No.
1:08:21You just hear it.
1:08:21He's an advocate here.
1:08:24Hague bothers me more than anything when Hague gets to work.
1:08:28But also, what I mean, Hague always goes in and tells me, Henry always says, you know, if you don't do this, we're going to be in war by next Sunday.
1:08:34We've been in war for six months.
1:08:36He's been saying it for six months that we only got two more weeks and we'll be in war.
1:08:43That signal, that really bothers me too.
1:08:45You know, we got that signal from three different places about the $5 million for the campaign, you know, that
1:08:53Yeah.
1:08:55So I'm convinced that that was pure blackmail, nothing else.
1:09:00I hope you told them that we didn't, as I told you, that we are not to take it.
1:09:03And so we've gotten it from somewhere.
1:09:06We got it from someplace.
1:09:07But they were told not to take it, okay?
1:09:12Not for sale.
1:09:14What they said is we're going to raise the outmail, and they always talk firm to them.
1:09:20That's right, that's right.
1:09:34Because of what I've done on the Israeli and the Americans.
1:09:42And you see, they get the gun.
1:09:42God damn, they are a vicious bunch.
1:09:43They're gonna play that with me.
1:09:44First thing is, if I was a...
1:09:44I'm gonna work it out again while he goes to Europe and handles himself well and so forth.
1:09:46I'm more concerned about him now than I've ever been because, and that boat ride last night really, or the other night, really bothered me.
1:10:00He's becoming defensive, a blind advocate of anything faithful versus the world.
1:10:04And when he becomes that unobjective in that department, he is a real problem.
1:10:11Yet he took on, he took the correct position on the clicker proposal.
1:10:18Yeah, it's very interesting.
1:10:24He's taking a very hard line for some reason there, and his POW line is... Actually, that's what I meant, that POW line.
1:10:35Yeah.
1:10:35The whole Vietnam thing, he's in on it.
1:10:37State servant, POW, and all that business.
1:10:38What's changing there?
1:10:39Probably a conviction that you're right.
1:10:41Maybe they made the word, but it's not going to work.
1:10:42It's like anything like China.
1:10:43He wants to be sure that his Secretary of State worked this out.
1:10:48And he's, as he sees it, he's always done that.
1:10:52Whenever he sees, when he saw Cambodia working out, he was all for Cambodia publicly.
1:11:00But not at the beginning until it worked out.
1:11:04November 10th.
1:11:05There's never been for a lot of us.
1:11:05It's looking pretty good now.
1:11:06Yeah.
1:11:07It's less than 20.
1:11:07Yep.
1:11:07But it doesn't show as much.
1:11:08Clearly.
1:11:09Well, if we can't, if you'll mention Scali again, there's got to be a dozen speeches now.
1:11:17Give it to Colson, he'll do it.
1:11:23Colson and Scali, you have to get it.
1:11:25Get it to a few columns and so forth.
1:11:27Nixon's right again.
1:11:28Look, you've got a nice little pattern, the Cambodian pattern, the stock market pattern, the Laos pattern, see?
1:11:41Well because of the specifics, he didn't realize
1:12:09that some of the people that he was hitting as individuals were State Department people.
1:12:14We'll go back and check that.
1:12:16And then I think Erland dropped one hell of a money shell on Bill that he never will figure out how to uncover from, was with Alan Johnson in Thailand.
1:12:27When Erland said, we'll go to the dope thing, one of your State Department men who was there said, hit the other countries, but don't disrupt the basic economy of Thailand.
1:12:37And Rogers couldn't believe what was at stake.
1:12:39I said, who was that?
1:12:40And he wrote, wait a minute, said Alex Johnson.
1:12:51Alex Johnson's record in Thailand is something less than... What?
1:12:56Alex Johnson's record in Thailand is something less than spectacular anyway.
1:12:58Well, you can't blame him.
1:13:00Thailand is a terrapossum, yeah?
1:13:01You can't let Thailand down the drain.
1:13:02God damn it, I must say, we can't let the drug problem down the drain.
1:13:04It's a...
1:13:05We're not getting to know what the specific thing, what the Christ should do about Rodgers.
1:13:22It's really a terrible problem for me, because here it is.
1:13:25I got this thing, you know, I had to go through that goddamn assault thing with him.
1:13:27And now you're going to have to deal with your channel and me.
1:13:29And you're going to have to go through... Well, it was maybe a Vietnam settlement.
1:13:31A Vietnam settlement.
1:13:31I think it could come off all right.
1:13:32Yeah, I think it could.
1:13:33I think it could do a letter or something of that sort.
1:13:35The Russian thing does not concern me because I'm going to have to bring and ask to see me and to come in and present some proposal.
1:13:43And when he comes in, I'll ask Bill to come over so he can participate.
1:13:52And I'll have Bill and Henry both together.
1:13:56And I'll say we're going to stage it and have it done publicly.
1:13:57And I'll say, all right, we accept it.
1:13:58We'll make an announcement.
1:14:01So that's about me.
1:14:02If we go to a summit with the Russians, if we don't go to a summit with the Russians, there's nothing to work out.
1:14:09On the China one, I'm so daring, I don't think it's going to happen on that.
1:14:26I said, fine.
1:14:27We'll talk about trade.
1:14:30Right on that basis.
1:14:42Now, I think Bill is going to get suspicious as hell when we go on the entry trip.
1:14:49Yes, true.
1:14:49He was looking at the wrong hole.
1:14:50He was looking at Vietnam, I think.
1:14:51Why shouldn't you take a trip when you come down to it?
1:14:53Here's the, again, that's the policy and answers, Brad.
1:14:55Well, channel the security after that, Brad.
1:14:57So he starts to take a trip.
1:14:58Once Bill comes to Midway, if he wants to go, if he doesn't want to come, he may want to.
1:15:01Henry is wrong.
1:15:12He says that Bill doesn't understand this.
1:15:15I don't, I think he does understand this.
1:15:18I think he tends to sometimes not want to go into it in depth because he likes to listen.
1:15:21He goes for the cheap shot, the quick, the quick, because he's smart.
1:15:24He's as smart as hell.
1:15:26He's just as smart as Henry ever was.
1:15:30I know that.
1:15:30And he's got a good depth.
1:15:31And I guess Bob, the problem with those cases is damn vanity.
1:15:35I just can't think of anything else.
1:15:37I think the State Department people are such experts at sucking up to them.
1:15:42They know how.
1:15:43Well, they're the public experts at sucking up to everybody.
1:15:45Yeah.
1:15:46But you think that's what's wrong?
1:15:47He's unfortunately the worst kind of guy.
1:17:27Anybody who's ever in this chair that's had reason behind a smutting on him, that's redemption.
1:17:47And I'm not, you know what I mean?
1:17:49Actually, I've not accepted, I'm not pro-Israel.
1:17:50And that's the only difference.
1:17:51I'm not going to let Israel's pale white dog come on.
1:17:52That can be done.
1:17:52I always give you the argument, well, this is fun.
1:17:54Two months, then.
1:17:55I want you to ask me about it.
1:17:55When is it?
1:17:56It's all going to be.
1:18:02Oh, shit!
1:22:14You get Rex in the phone now right where he is.
1:22:17Tell him about that possibility.
1:22:18How long?
1:32:17I sure wish we could.
1:32:28Goddamn, could anybody?
1:32:31Now there's one thing where I don't think we have a good enough staff, if I can say so on the press side.
1:32:36If only we got some long-haired son of a bitch that could go out there with a press card and say, John, just doing a little interview.
1:32:39How long have you been in the friends meeting?
1:32:40And so forth and so on.
1:32:41You'd find out some interesting stuff.
1:32:41There's a hell of a lot of these people, Bob, that are new to Quakers.
1:32:43Yeah, I'm making it up.
1:32:43How about it?
1:32:48I don't believe in the Quakers being a haven for draft debate.
1:33:01And any Quaker's got a perfect right to keep out of the war, because, you know, you're born that way.
1:33:05But goddamn it, they should have joined the Quaker church in order to avoid the war.
1:33:11Huh?
1:33:11To avoid military service.
1:33:12I'm a scientist.
1:33:13Perks.
1:33:13We're all on board, Connors.
1:33:14But here's where we go to have a couple of long hairs.
1:33:15Can I suggest that that's one mistake we may be making?
1:33:17Do we have three or four guys
1:33:18hire long-haired, dirty-looking bastards, you know, and, you know, tell them, we do this, as a matter of fact, nobody knows what we do.
1:33:30We've got a couple guys out that are good.
1:33:31I haven't got around here.
1:33:32We've got about, ask somebody, ask some people that have our comments.
1:33:35I mean, get some long-haired, bearded guys, and let them move a monkey.
1:33:37I think they could be juridically advantageous to us.
1:33:38We have, you cannot, we have to get over here, of course, and where it's fit in this respect, because he puts up those crew cuts.
1:33:46Now we had that time, college time, just out of college.
1:33:52I think actually, actually I'd like to see on our, this is a very, very major, I think I'd like to see a group of long hairs for Nixon and beards for Nixon.
1:34:07You ever see my point?
1:34:09Of course, why not?
1:34:09Let's get a few of those, you know what I mean?
1:34:10Let a few of them come around.
1:34:11Joining our side, there are a few, you know.
1:34:13Sure there are a lot of them.
1:34:14I saw some in Florence and some not in Florence.
1:34:21Well, there are a lot of them.
1:34:23The long-haired thing does not prove that the kid is a dope fiend.
1:34:26The whole conservative group that my son's in there, they have just as long hair as the little children.
1:34:35The conservatives are strongly pro-Nixon.
1:34:37That's their whole debate is defending the administration and their balls out.
1:34:42What do you think of the Rogers family?
1:34:47I just think of this, that I, you know, I know that it's difficult and everything, but we cannot allow this nervous foreign policy watch to be diverted because of this picking of these goddamn persons.
1:35:06We weren't doing anything.
1:35:07We were just kind of coasting along and, you know, maintaining ourselves.
1:36:51You're telling me the bad news that I would not do with the Council of Foreign Relations.
1:37:06I didn't tell you this.
1:37:07Yeah.
1:37:07Or if the thing sent it back.
1:37:09Oh, yeah.
1:37:10Oh, I thought you said you'd discuss it with me.
1:37:11No.
1:37:11I thought I had to watch it, but I don't think I did.
1:37:12Well, I just want to be sure.
1:37:13You know, Henry, he says a bit about this, too.
1:37:14He comes in one day and says, we must put these people to the sword.
1:37:16The next day he says, speak of the 50th anniversary of the Council of Foreign Relations.
1:37:18That's a hell of a way to put them in the store, isn't it?
1:37:22Well, you might win some of them, or there's some way to get them.
1:37:25Bullshit.
1:37:26The ones that are going to bear with us, they'll be with us.
1:37:28We've got to go in before they're out.
1:37:30Is that educators?
1:37:31No, I will not do educators.
1:37:34True.
1:37:34They want to get to a higher education.
1:37:36School administrators, the president of the University of Illinois, the president of the University of Connecticut, all of those are fine.
1:37:41But the lead figure, and it is the president of the NEA, no, I won't see him.
1:37:46And she, it's a woman from Spain.
1:37:48The argument is that they have a national convention coming up and they're making the pitch that you have such a disregard for education that you won't listen.
1:37:59And that you should be with her and a small hand-picked group of educators to eliminate the criticism.
1:38:04Every state chairman of NEA signed a letter requesting that you see Mrs. Vane.
1:38:10She's against us on everything, including revenue sharing.
1:38:15She wants to meet the President as a matter of prestige as the leader of the largest professional organization.
1:38:21She does not want to come to the desk.
1:38:27They say we're uncomfortable with the idea of the President meeting with her alone and to accommodate that concern they've worked out pulling this group together who are supporters of educational revenue sharing.
1:38:36and not oppose to the President's approach, and kind of wrap them around her, and then she can't go out.
1:38:44It may not be a bad idea if we have to do it at all.
1:38:45It's true that I'll do it, but just tell her that I have taken this advice on every occasion, and on every occasion it's proven wrong, but I'll do it if he says so.
1:38:58But put the heat right on him, okay?
1:38:58Do you remember the groups against the environment?
1:39:01They don't come in.
1:39:04They piss on us.
1:39:06Of course, this is a more constructive...
1:39:11They're not asking anything.
1:39:17They bring in the board of the NEA.
1:39:18They're letting this one thing in, surrounded by a batch of people that are with us.
1:39:20Let's talk about revenue here.
1:39:21Discuss education for a few minutes.
1:39:22Well, I'm so sick of education, believe me.
1:39:24Incidentally, I can't tell you how strongly I want you to follow up.
1:39:26That's not going to be...
1:39:26I have an intuition about that.
1:39:27He called me yesterday.
1:39:29Oh, he did?
1:39:29To say that...
1:39:33He had mentioned to somebody, talking to somebody, my call, and that somebody had told the paper, and the paper had called and said, could they tell him that I had called him?
1:39:48And I said, of course.
1:39:51Yeah, good.
1:39:51Did you find a way to circulate it yet?
1:39:54Have you got any reactions yet?
1:39:55No, I just sent it out yesterday.
1:39:56Good.
1:39:57I might just send it to about 100,000 people.
1:39:58I can get a reprint.
1:39:58I think you ought to.
1:39:59Why don't you do this?
1:40:00I'd like to get his full reprint.
1:40:02Why don't you get it?
1:40:02Okay.
1:40:03No, but let's get something.
1:40:04an outstanding person who, to reprint it and send it to 100,000 people, you know what I mean?
1:40:17Let's make this guy famous.
1:40:22Who could that be?
1:40:24Some friend of mine, somebody associated with me.
1:40:28On television, what is it?
1:40:30Maybe some Cole Lewis or...
1:40:32No, Bob Attenall.
1:40:39That's the kind of thing.
1:40:43Bob Attenall.
1:40:46He's never done anything like that.
1:40:49He's a square, middle American type guy who made it.
1:40:51Yeah, that's right.
1:40:52That's got Bob Attenall to it.
1:40:52And it's really not really hitting the list.
1:40:53I left the idea to get in the West Coast.
1:40:54Speech up to Hughes.
1:40:55I don't think they understood really what I meant.
1:40:56Now, we've shifted that around.
1:40:57They're doing it through their service magazines and the rest.
1:40:59That's another way to get it.
1:41:00You look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are being invested in a television coverage
1:41:30It's terribly important that someone who knows something about it be getting that done directly.
1:41:43What I meant is that I'm just simply making the case that if I were on this show, I wouldn't have anything to do with it or anything.
1:41:50I really wouldn't.
1:41:50I just don't think, I think they are too unstable to run it.
1:41:52Now, we have gone one step too far, and I guess unless you can turn it off, I want you to do it.
1:41:54It's a kind of thing that I've got to keep emphasizing the fact that we are at one of them.
1:42:10I met that Mrs. Spain in here.
1:42:10We had a picture taken.
1:42:11I mentioned the fact at that time that she was getting disappointed in the Civil Service Commission.
1:42:15She was not agreeing and I had to swear her in.
1:42:16I mean, isn't that gilding it too much?
1:42:17Or is it not?
1:42:17It was a quick throwing in ceremony.
1:42:18That's it.
1:42:18I just sort of feel sometimes that if we have to have the voters or something and secure
1:42:23Do you think they care?
1:42:34Yep.
1:42:35All right.
1:42:35I do.
1:42:36That just, I've seen dissipation for the good process of more than probably women's women.
1:42:41The way that the whole world of women, I think, ensures that love.
1:42:45Maybe.
1:42:46It's an interesting thing.
1:42:47They were saying, I don't know if you saw the thing that just started, but somebody pointed out that, I don't read it, but there's a very interesting thing that appeal of weddings
1:42:53There's a TV series, Father Knows Best or something like that.
1:43:00It's been a good series.
1:43:04In one episode of it, one of the kids got married and they did the wedding as part of the thing.
1:43:10It had by almost double the biggest audience that any program in the series had ever had.
1:43:15Is that right?
1:43:16And then there was another series called something else that got into the same thing.
1:43:22when it got to the wedding it went way up the point is people and especially women have a very strong emotional interest in weddings wedding ceremonies and just the idea of a wedding is a very big thing and then
1:43:37that this, the focus on this wedding, because that is going to be enormous.
1:43:43Now they've sold CDS, we checked it out, they got an hour special, they had an hour special last night.
1:43:50How was it?
1:43:51Was it alright?
1:43:52I didn't see it, I don't know.
1:43:53On the wedding?
1:43:54An hour?
1:43:55Yeah.
1:43:55What the hell are they talking about?
1:43:56I have any idea.
1:43:57Getting ready for the wedding.
1:44:00From 10 to 11 last night, and tonight they're having an hour special from 6 to 7, which is the earliest, you know, that's as soon as they can put it on the air.
1:44:08They sold spots in those, and their total revenue from, they sold six commercial spots in each of those hours.
1:44:19Their total revenue from that is $350,000.
1:44:21Income.
1:44:21That's all.
1:44:23Well, that's fine.
1:44:25They're selling spots.
1:44:28That's not program sponsorship.
1:44:29That's just spots.
1:44:30Oh, I see.
1:44:32And then their cost.
1:44:34on this, they figure it's about $100,000.
1:44:37So they're making $250,000 a quarter or a million bucks on their coverages.
1:44:43Now that isn't being really true because they would have made money on selling that time anyway.
1:44:53No, I think it's called...
1:44:54It's one of those institutional sponsors, news event sponsors.
1:44:58There's a couple others, there are a number of people that are, I don't know.
1:51:28You know what we did on the Steinbark game?
1:51:41Freddie died.
1:51:41Yeah.
1:51:41He died last week.
1:51:41Oh boy.
1:51:41And Sunday.
1:51:42We sent Jay Wilkinson as your personal representative.
1:51:49And they put him as a, he was, the service was Darryl Royal and Jay Wilkinson.
1:51:56He was, of course, he's an initiative.
1:51:57Yeah.
1:51:58And they put him in the service as the present representative, and Jay's going to write you a note, but you know, he called and talked to Dick Moore.
1:52:11Dick Moore sent this up.
1:52:13Ray, who was standing in our office.
1:52:14Jay sent it.
1:52:15And we had a letter of you at this time, our family, that he took with him.
1:52:18He said taking that out was the most touching experience of his life.
1:52:20He had run up there the night before the funeral, spent an hour with the family, including 15 minutes alone with the parents.
1:52:25He said he simply couldn't convey the depth of the impression which the President's gesture made on the parents and all the family.
1:52:32He noted that the previous letter tooth-ready from the President was framed and on the wall in the House.
1:52:38And they talked at length about the President and his kindness and interest.
1:52:43And, uh, Jay was just, you know, overwhelmed.
1:52:44But this, and that, you won't, it's in the, in the paper, even in the Washington Post, there's a big sort of stagmark buried in Denver, eulogized as a gentle boy.
1:52:54It says that, led by Coach Darrell Brown and Jay Wilkinson, I became a special envoy for President Nixon.
1:53:05And your opportunities on those, I guess, was one of the reasons I want to upgrade that.
1:53:09Commendations, letters, you know.
1:53:14I sent you a longer memo than you wanted.
1:53:20But you do have adequate people, that's all I need.
1:53:23Well, I don't want to know about it.
1:53:24If I ever get into it, then I'll be wasting my time where I should do that.
1:53:26But believe me, what you need is a guy like Chapin, that type of person, just like you.
1:53:33You know, right?
1:53:34We're doing the...
1:53:39What we're bringing in, I know it says it, but we're bringing in a guy who is just a real hot dog to replace the State Department guy.
1:53:53And this guy is not a drag.
1:53:55This guy won't be able to write telephone letters.
1:53:58And the State Department guy is doing a job.
1:53:59We're moving him.
1:54:01He's doing the Bill Hopkins job.
1:54:04On a temporary basis, we think he may turn out to be that good for the long haul.
1:54:09There isn't any question that he is, he's just a hell of a good, he's a marauder, a little flitty fellow, but I don't care how flitty he is, he's good, that's a hell of an opportunity.
1:54:22So what you're bringing in a guy that...
1:54:24So there's a guy, Roland Elliott, from California, who has won 15 awards, national awards, for his direct mail, that sort of things, and all that sort of stuff.
1:54:30He understands this.
1:54:31Ray had originally interviewed him as a speechwriter, because he's a very good writer.
1:54:37But he is not eloquent in the State Department sense.
1:54:42He is eloquent in the middle America sense.
1:54:45He won't be able to run the flowery grass at Highway Selassie.
1:54:49Unless you want outstanding good stuff to Freddie sign on.
1:54:53That's what we need.
1:54:54What about...
1:54:58And we're expanding the office and dividing it in two parts, one to handle routine and the other to handle opportunity mail.
1:55:16Opportunity mail, that's right.
1:55:16But to get it back to McGinnity, he called, are we, you're going to see, don't let them push it back, push it off the top.
1:55:22I'm not sure he should be hired, but I think so.
1:55:23That son of a gun can write.
1:55:24And we need that, we need his ideological bent and that writing staff.
1:55:26One guy that's just conservative as hell.
1:55:28I gave his article to Ray and I said, I found your man for you.
1:55:38I said, I can talk to Ray about it.
1:55:42Well, Ray's on the side of Grady.
1:55:44Ray can see the flows.
1:55:45He's got a view in any way.
1:55:46If Ray doesn't want him, put him on some other capacity.
1:55:47You know, you could put him in the, what shop?
1:55:50Colson's shop.
1:55:52That's what I would do.
1:55:56He's a great guy.
1:55:56Play dirty games.
1:56:00I didn't know about the Colson.
1:56:04I noticed Mart Allen's comments for the effect that the cabin sure was loaded 3-1 against us.
1:56:09They had him watching it.
1:56:11Apparently in all of the, I don't know where the Colson's been working on the cabin.
1:56:17That's every season.
1:56:18Yeah.
1:56:19But, uh, sure we had, that's where we poured, you know, we had the huge platform.
1:56:23We forced one of our guys on once.
1:56:25Forced them to drop out a few weeks.
1:56:26We've been at a running war going to the cabin.
1:56:28That's what Allen's referring to.
1:56:28I see.
1:56:29Wow.
1:56:29It's a losing war.
1:56:30Because it's a losing war.
1:56:36We aren't winning a running war, but we get a saying, hell, it's an accomplishment to get O'Neill on it at all.
1:56:44Normally, Kevin would have had the other three people.
1:56:46He loads the audience and puts older guys on it, always.
1:56:49But our guys are good enough.
1:56:50They hang in there.
1:56:53Now, we can't see the O'Neill effect.
1:56:54You're the ones to put it.
1:56:55You don't want to put a cabinet officer or a guy whose position is going to be
1:56:59Mark, do we have anybody that we ought to put a cap on?
1:57:19Open it right about some of our young.
1:57:20Is he just a left-winger?
1:57:21Is that the problem?
1:57:24I guess so.
1:57:24Is he Jewish?
1:57:25It doesn't look it.
1:57:25NBC is, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're goosey right now.
1:57:27They just keep goosey.
1:57:31That's a cop crime.
1:57:39You know what I mean?
1:57:43I know a cop crime very well as a person.
1:57:47And there's, Bob, see, I think you've got to be, I think the actual approach is running sports, and I think it's trying to line up people against the press.
1:57:50That will not any longer work.
1:57:51And it's the wrong thing to do.
1:57:52It makes it appear, you know, you don't want a bunch of know-nothings.
1:57:56My approach is very different.
1:57:58And when we made our point, it was necessary to mention, I'm not sure Colson got even, but my approaches are different in this way.
1:58:10I say to them, look, I want my press to be interesting.
1:58:12I want it to be controversial.
1:58:13I want you to have opinions.
1:58:14I want you to differ.
1:58:15I want you to criticize.
1:58:15I expect you to.
1:58:16I know you're going to be loved.
1:58:17I know you are.
1:58:22All I say is that I'm aware, and you should be aware, that there's nothing you can do about it.
1:58:28But all we ask is for a fair shake.
1:58:34You should present the facts as fairly as you can.
1:58:38Having in mind, in fact, most of the time it's going to be loaded.
1:58:43The point being that you put them on notice that their whole establishment, by very definition, I said, I know when you go to the colleges you can only find people who are not allowed.
1:58:51So you've got to hire.
1:58:52I understand that.
1:58:52Good.
1:58:52That's what it gets when you know, you take deep into their own business and say, rather than complaining about it, say, well, I see you've got a hell of a problem.
1:59:03You can't have done anything about it.
1:59:04You're screwing us, but we're going to defend ourselves.
1:59:07See, that's the way to do it.
1:59:11And they don't know what you're going to do.
1:59:13What they really know, who deep down, Colson sitting here, probably will screw them economically.
1:59:18Or by playing their competitors.
1:59:20Or by some other method.
1:59:23So it's the best we can do.
1:59:29I think it's a great mistake, this business of, I think, of buttering them up.
1:59:34You know, like, as I said, the kind of thing I don't want to get into again is the White House correspondence.
1:59:41I mean, they kick you around publicly, and you've got to get up and start a good sport and be a good sport.
1:59:47I think then they lose some respect, just an edge, just an edge.
1:59:53I mean, Herb and all the rest, they wasn't that great scally that I was such a good sport.
1:59:58Not great at all.
2:00:00I should have been placed in a position where I had to be a good sport.
2:00:08The best thing with the press is to treat them.
2:00:09I get away like I don't.
2:00:10They try to grab me up because we came out of the thing.
2:00:12I talk, talk, talk.
2:00:12Pat always does.
2:00:13She can't resist it, so that's fine.
2:00:13I won't talk to this goddamn press woman.
2:00:15I'm not going to do it.
2:00:24Good for you.
2:00:27I will show them.
2:00:27Except when you've got something you want to see.
2:00:28I just threw out a line.
2:00:29I said, well, Mrs.
2:00:29I, Mamie and I are going to have, we're going to do that.
2:00:31She's the only one I'm going to dance with tomorrow night.
2:00:32Everybody knows she doesn't dance.
2:00:33So that fixes that.
2:00:33And we just talked about it a little bit.
2:00:34Yeah, that was the line.
2:00:35I was trying to think.
2:00:35I knew you were going to use that line.
2:00:36I just said, I just talked about it a little bit.
2:00:38Which is a great, you know, a little light touch.
2:00:45But you see, if you get in, and one of the reasons I'm in a perfect position to do that is that we've done all, we did the women's press thing this year.
2:00:53Now, none of them could say, you can always point to that broker for the rest of our time.
2:00:56But you agree.
2:00:56Yeah, we've done firewaters.
2:00:57We've done her.
2:00:58So you say, well, we've done that.
2:00:59What the hell do you want to do now?
2:01:01But you've got, Tricia's got the right theory.
2:01:03And it's quite different from Julie's, but each does damn well.
2:01:13Julie believes in being outgoing, kind, and sweet to everybody.
2:01:15Julie can't be any other way.
2:01:16She can't be.
2:01:17She's such a kind person.
2:01:19She's such a kind person that she can't do it.
2:01:24Tricia, on the other hand, believes in mystery.
2:01:25And that is the point.
2:01:27With me, this, frankly, I'm more on Tricia's side.
2:01:28Tricia comes out better in the practice.
2:01:29I mean, she does keep inks more.
2:01:34She really does.
2:01:35I play it in her heart and mind.
2:01:38Julie comes through as exactly what she is.
2:01:42And that's great.
2:01:52Patricia, sir.
2:01:54I'm glad you're saying that.
2:01:54But I do not think, I think I've told you, once the marriage is over, the marriage is over,
2:02:09I'll tell you one thing that will keep it up is that the harder people do something bad,
2:02:24I'm going to dance with her tomorrow night.
2:02:33Everybody knows she doesn't dance.
2:02:34She's so bad.
2:02:35She fixes that.
2:02:35We just talked about it a little bit.
2:02:36Yeah, that was the line.
2:02:37Only two lines.
2:02:39I was trying to think.
2:02:40I knew you'd be using that line.
2:02:41I just said, I'm just talking about it a little bit.
2:02:42Which is a great, you know, little light touch.
2:02:45But you see, if you get in, and one of the reasons I'm in a perfect position to do that is that we've done all, we did the women's press thing.
2:02:49This year.
2:02:50Now, none of them could say, you can always point to that broker for the rest of our time.
2:02:54But you agree.
2:02:55Yeah.
2:02:55We've done fire awards.
2:02:56We've done her.
2:02:58So you say, well, we've done that.
2:02:59What the hell do you want to do now?
2:03:01But you've got, Tricia's got the right theory.
2:03:04And it's quite different from Julie's, but each does damn well.
2:03:14Julie believes in being outgoing, kind, and sweet to everybody.
2:03:16Julie can't be any other way.
2:03:17She can't be.
2:03:17She's such a kind person.
2:03:18She's such a kind person that she can't do it.
2:03:19Tricia, on the other hand, believes in mystery.
2:03:23And that is the point.
2:03:23With me, this, frankly, I'm more on Tricia's side.
2:03:28Tricia comes out better in the practice.
2:03:30I mean, she does keep inks more.
2:03:35She really does.
2:03:35I plan in her heart and mind.
2:03:38Julie comes through as a, as exactly what she is.
2:03:52And that's great.
2:03:54Patricia, sir.
2:04:00I'm glad they're saying that.
2:04:00But I do not think, I think I told you, once the marriage is over, the marriage is over,
2:04:12I'll tell you, one thing that will keep it up is that the harder people do something bad.
2:04:28Hmm.
2:04:28Could be.
2:04:28Could be.
2:04:29If people were at this wedding, they said, you know, good luck with the wedding, and we'll be ceremony.
2:04:33I'm not going to a visitor watching some hardware.
2:04:34I'm not going to give it up.
2:04:35Well, you sure shouldn't.
2:04:35You can.
2:04:35You can.
2:04:36I'm here to go.
2:04:36It was bad enough of it that Samantha Jules was there.
2:04:50He can't do this stuff.
2:04:53And they said, let me say, why not do it after the war?
2:04:54There's no reason.
2:04:55No time.
2:04:55They broke their pickpockets.
2:04:57I looked at them this morning.
2:04:58I said, I wouldn't go up there.
2:04:59I said, where?
2:04:59I told them, the Eastern schools have had it.
2:05:00They did not.
2:05:00I mean, they had it.
2:05:01And we've got to, that's why Melancholy's got to get out and not just, he is, and feed Peterson more names.
2:05:09Peterson comes in always with Eastern names.
2:05:10We've got to get out to the West and the Far West and not get the selfies out of the West.
2:05:15There are a goddamn lot of selfies in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Minneapolis.
2:05:19a few even in Chicago, but also there are a lot of good, square Americans out there, Bob.
2:05:25Well, frankly, people like Bob Aplinoff, a little smoother than he is, but there are a lot of guys that have made 100 million bucks, right?
2:05:32Or 10 million bucks, right?
2:05:35And God damn it, that's the kind we want.
2:05:39For what money?
2:05:39I mean, it's made enough that he just... A lot of us guys don't care.
2:05:44Malick is a prime example.
2:05:45He just made a million bucks.
2:05:46Now he's screwed.
2:05:47He can make money.
2:05:48He doesn't give a damn about making...
2:13:45Right about the states that they are made in order to revoke that boozle bill, because they're ass kissers and praisers and sucker hunters, and they've come up that way.
2:14:10You know, for the ass kissers.
2:14:11Because you see how phony they are.
2:14:26It doesn't mean you want everybody to come in and tell you that the sky's going to fall down.
2:14:30That's the other thing.
2:14:30There are a hell of a lot of people that get a vicarious kick out of just coming in and saying, geez, things are terrible.
2:14:33And people like us got to tell the president that he's just dropping his goddamn, I mean, telling you the obvious.
2:14:36We don't allow that either.
2:14:36But actually, that's here for no purpose at all.
2:14:37It's here for no purpose at all.
2:14:39And people do like to do it.
2:14:41But on the other hand, we don't allow people to just come in here and suck around.
2:14:57I mean, that's the... Well, you don't have the craving for that, but... Well, we hope you do.
2:15:01It's hard all the time, too.
2:15:04It's helpful to have your spirits buoyed up about that.
2:15:05That's why I tell you to put it in an editorial now that it's good.
2:15:06Because it's good for me to see one.
2:15:07I don't read that one, but they don't seem to have mine.
2:15:08But that's the difference.
2:15:09You should be aware of what
2:15:11you know, the positive results of what you're doing, but that's different than...
2:15:19I think it's really true.
2:16:17But you look at it cynically, which is the right way to look at it, which is that if you do something good, let's get some benefit from it.
2:16:29Not because it makes you happy, not because you like to read all the papers and say, Vincent did a great job last night, but because you know that it helps us work.
2:16:38One thing you ought to get out of one of your meetings with the press is the fact that I do not allow the pandering editorials to come in here.
2:16:43You know what I mean?
2:16:44Yeah.
2:16:44And I'm actually the criticism, but I... We've made that point.
2:16:45Yeah.
2:16:46That's pretty true, you know.
2:17:01I don't ask them to send me a whole bunch of things.
2:17:02Now, I'll add an old French or something, right?
2:17:03Something I write about.
2:17:04But I'm looking for a bunch of angry, constant editorials.
2:17:05Yeah.
2:17:05And ask if there's... Oh, yeah.
2:17:06At that point, I think it's pretty clear.
2:17:09I think it's...
2:20:27Has Pat raised with you going to the opening performance at Wolf Trap Farm?
2:20:42She has not.
2:20:42You shouldn't do it.
2:20:43You shouldn't do it.
2:20:46Well, I'm sorry.
2:20:47I'm sorry.
2:20:47I'm sorry.
2:20:47I'm sorry.
2:20:48I'm sorry.
2:20:52I'm sorry.
2:20:54I'm sorry.
2:20:54I'm sorry.
2:20:54I'm sorry.
2:20:54I'm sorry.
2:20:55I'm sorry.
2:20:55I'm sorry.
2:20:56How do you do that?
2:20:58All these cultural things are on their ass and they want you there because it helps to bail them out.
2:21:08Academy Center or something like that.
2:21:12How do you do that?
2:21:12Because it's a national, like robbing and all that kind of stuff.
2:21:15Does that?
2:21:15Well, he knows.
2:21:16He knows.
2:21:16The president's done enough in this area for the time being.
2:21:20And it is.
2:21:21He's right.
2:21:21You can overdo this stuff and then
2:21:22Doesn't look good either.
2:21:29Don't ask me that one either.
2:21:31In this whole area, don't be concerned about Jews and Negroes now.
2:21:33I know you've got them.
2:21:34Recently, you had us on the Black Caucus, and Jews come in with other people.
2:21:37But did you see Mike Mansfield refused to meet with the Black Caucus?
2:21:39No, did he?
2:21:39They demanded that they meet with him, and he said, I don't meet with groups, I meet with digs, if you'd like to talk to me.
2:21:48Representing the Caucus.
2:21:48He knows who that is.
2:21:49Why not?
2:21:50Yeah, the man's gone here on $60,000, $1,000, $50,000, so 50% increase in taxes to help all those other people.
2:22:09Is that what you want to do, folks?
2:22:11Don't worry about it.
2:22:11I'll get it on total.
2:22:11Okay.
2:22:12In that poll, you come, we come to, the administration comes to very well on helping wives.
2:22:16It's not good.
2:22:17Yeah, it's...
2:22:17It's well enough that I don't think you want to come through any better.
2:22:21You don't come through well with blacks.
2:22:22You come through well with whites.
2:22:25That's all we want to do.
2:22:27And we just don't do well with blacks.
2:22:30But you've got to watch.
2:22:31There's a line somewhere.
2:22:32I don't know how far you want to come through it with whites.
2:22:35I know, because there are a hell of a lot of whites that just said you didn't do something.
2:22:52We don't want to do so damn well with blacks.
2:22:53I mean, we can't say the blacks just aren't going to move.
2:22:54We've got to get our 10% or 15%.
2:22:54That's about it.
2:22:56What are we getting?
2:22:57About 10% to 15%.
2:22:58Or a little better.
2:22:58A little better, I think.
2:22:59Maybe.
2:23:00You can't do like Goldwater Bomb and get none.
2:23:01That's something.
2:23:01What you do is you try to get 15%.
2:23:03There's probably only 25 Christians, which you can't... Oh, if I could, that would be something, but I don't... You will.
2:23:15You're going to get more blacks than Jews.
2:23:17Oh, yeah.
2:23:18It's the damn Jewish thing.
2:23:20Jews are against you on everything.
2:23:21Everything.
2:23:21Including the Middle East, but on everything else.
2:23:25Whatever you're doing, the Jews don't like it.
2:23:29That's because basically they're in the liberal world.
2:23:31That's...
2:23:33our sample of Jews is not big enough to make it an important thing.
2:23:38But I asked Ben about that, and he said it would make a difference.
2:23:42He told 10,000 Jews it's sort of the same thing.
2:23:47It's big enough.
2:23:47There's only 100 Jews in it or something.
2:23:48He said it's big enough.
2:23:49Sure.
2:23:50Because they fall in where they fall.
2:23:51And he said you won't, percentages won't vary more than 10.
2:23:55See, the Jews are going to say 80 to 20 on virtually everything.
2:24:00And he said, so maybe it's 70 to 30, which is going to be different.
2:24:07We polled at exactly the right time.
2:24:12We had about, this is on approval, he had approval of 48.36 on black and white.
2:24:26And Gallup was about 50.37.
2:24:28And our west telephone pole was about 55.34.
2:24:29Well, you see, we're probably a little better now.
2:24:30I mean, we're at the time of this poll.
2:24:31My guess is, don't you think so?
2:24:34Slightly better?
2:24:35We've got some salt.
2:24:35You've got some salt, we know.
2:24:37But I mean, assault is basically a second wave thing.
2:24:44Take a lot of the Russian, the Chinese thing is a second wave thing.
2:24:50You get it twice.
2:24:52Take the cop then.
2:24:54Take the standing up against the crime.
2:24:56And law and order is the other thing you're weak on.
2:24:59And that's what people are concerned with.
2:25:02Those two, I'm just, are stopping pollution.
2:25:05You don't, you break pretty well.
2:25:07And I think that's one where you maintain the status quo, but don't put the stroke, but boy, put the stroke in the dope tank, and we'll make a lot of money.
2:25:21Dope, and we continue to stand firm in the police.
2:25:27Dope, and help save the cops.
2:25:31I just don't think they sell over there.
2:25:45I don't get it.
2:25:45It's absolutely clear.
2:25:48I hope you show us the big more.
2:25:50I have to shut up.
2:25:51What I want to do is get all this spoiled out.
2:25:55and make some points, I don't want to just give them to you.
2:26:05We've got a lot of people that think we're over-planning this thing.
2:26:10We are on the White House staff and the Washington Post editorials and the press corps.
2:26:12They're on 90% of where we stand and are against it.
2:26:14But what we need is they're seeking out against us more often.
2:26:17The more they talk about it, the better off we are.
2:26:22That damn press conference helped on that.
2:26:26Maybe because it was controversy.
2:26:34Controversy.
2:26:35Fighting somebody.
2:26:36That's what they bring in about his piece.
2:26:40That's why Ray will not like it.
2:26:41Ray does not believe in division or confrontation.
2:26:45He just doesn't.
2:26:46He recoils on it.
2:26:46And he doesn't realize that it has to be.
2:26:49There are just some people who don't agree with us on these things.
2:26:52We've got to stand up.
2:26:55You get to the rough stuff, the politics has got to be an additive science, not a subtractive science.
2:27:04That makes sense too, but only to a limited extent.
2:27:07You can't hope to add everybody.
2:27:08No president's going to get elected by a 100% vote.
2:27:13You want to add, but you want to add your goal.
2:27:18The goal would be to get 16 to 65%.
2:27:23in a two-way race.
2:27:25That would be a monumental landslide.
2:27:31And you know he's 59 and 31, 41.
2:27:36Johnson v. Goldwater, it was only 60, 40.
2:27:38You realize those are the two great landslides of this.
2:27:45So you're 80, 60 percent.
2:27:49Nobody's going to get 60.
2:27:50We're talking about a margin of 52 to 3.
2:27:52Okay.
2:27:52So if you're talking about 60, what you're saying in effect is that if you pick the right people, you can afford to make...
2:27:55We're totally going to act out of 40% of the people as long as that gives you somebody else in the promissory.
2:28:14I'm impressed a lot with this.
2:28:15I'm convinced that the intent theory is better than the suck up theory.
2:28:19Yeah.
2:28:19Do you agree?
2:28:20I agree that it was suck enough at the time.
2:28:20It was fine.
2:28:21It's not like we did it in January.
2:28:21We just did enough.
2:28:22And that's it.
2:28:22And we see...
2:28:27They have their bag, the gun arm bag.
2:28:39Yes, they can.
2:28:40They can do it.
2:28:41If they get a start order by July 1st, they can have it completed and operational by April.
2:28:52Furnished, finished and everything.
2:28:53In other words, they can get the hard construction done before winter and then do the interior finishing.
2:28:57And then be ready by April.
2:29:09How much noise is it going to be?
2:29:10How much is it going to get some motives in them?
2:29:11During the spring and summer.
2:29:12They gather through April and all the next summer.
2:29:13Basically have a current campaign period.
2:29:14Right.
2:30:19He can build it and he'll do it.
2:30:21He just, as Don always does, you know, he'll do, he wants to be sure we recognize the potential problem.
2:30:28He said we could get, how much is it that you're talking about?
2:30:37Five and a half million.
2:30:38That's too much.
2:30:38Let's go up to the committee guys who are, it's the committee staff that he works with and that's where the power is.
2:30:42He can sit down with them and say that we strongly feel this ought to be done.
2:30:46It really affects whoever's in the next administration.
2:30:53Badly needed and all that.
2:30:54Will you go with us or won't you?
2:30:57If they say no, then we won't do it.
2:30:59If they say yes, we will.
2:30:59Which is not a bad approach.
2:31:00What you might do is take them up there.
2:31:01You ought to helicopter them up and show them the problem.
2:31:07That the other places got these problems and so forth and so on.
2:31:10And that it ought to be that the recommendation is to cave it down and move this down here.
2:31:12You know, and so forth.
2:31:13And...
2:31:13Actually, this is so that we want you to understand.
2:31:25He can say that this is not something that's going to benefit the present incumbent.
2:31:32It's really something that's for the next administration, whoever is elected.
2:31:35He can point that out.
2:31:35He can say, well, we'll be ready until the spring of next year.
2:31:37Am I fine?
2:31:37Yeah.
2:31:37And he says, no.
2:31:38Therefore, it's a bipartisan decision.
2:31:39And if you want it, fine.
2:31:39It's something that will have to be done eventually.
2:31:40The question is, do we want to do it now?
2:31:43It's a great story.
2:32:01It's amazing how interesting that is to people, that whole story.
2:32:08Yeah, it shows that one man against the world can do something still.
2:32:12Yeah.
2:32:14A lot of our guys use drugs, and you know, it was the first one we developed and started using it, and then speaking on the job for it, and we had such a big play on it that a lot of people have used it in speeches now.
2:32:35It's the kind of thing that makes good speech funding.
2:32:37Also, that we're trying to do something, and we need more of that, where we just say, like on cancer, we're taking charge of the damn thing.
2:32:39On this question of drug, we're taking charge of it.
2:32:40We're putting it on some of the bitch in charge.
2:32:42Could I suggest that you invite a drug, one hand to the drug meeting,
2:32:45Let it know that we're having this drug meeting and that I thought it better.
2:33:10I'm just like Henry Handler with Bill, it's triple A.
2:33:11He changed his mind and she changed his mind.
2:33:12I think he's going with him and then peel off what he wants.
2:33:14I thought he was going to accept it.
2:33:26He may have changed his mind.
2:33:28It doesn't make a difference if he's going the other way.
2:33:31I think it's better to let Henry handle it.
2:33:32Just do it routinely.
2:33:33If Bill raises a question, I'll be prepared.
2:33:35He's going over it.
2:33:35Bill may raise it with me without saying he's going over it.
2:33:37It means we've got the two meeting.
2:33:40And while he's out there, he's going to bounce around.
2:33:44He's going to...
2:33:50He wants to go on around.
2:33:51He's going to get some of this Vietnam stuff wrapped up.
2:33:55Without any press.
2:33:56God, isn't that terrible?
2:33:58The bill would have to be concerned about that.
2:33:59He doesn't mind if Henry does it, provided he doesn't get publicity for it.
2:34:02And, you know, he was beside himself.
2:34:05As I told you, he was deeply emotionally disturbed when he hauled me over to the State Department after you told me about Saul.
2:34:12And his whole obsession was, I guarantee you, Bob, you will read in the paper tomorrow that how many meetings Henry Kissinger had with Dobrinich.
2:34:22And I said, I'll bet you won't, Bill.
2:34:24And he said, well, I'll bet you anything you want.
2:34:29I said, if you will.
2:34:29And then when he did it, now he's, you know, he
2:34:31After three or four days went by, there wasn't a squeak in the paper anywhere about entertaining with anybody.
2:34:48All of a sudden, Bill was positive about it.
2:34:50Goddamn way to run these.
2:34:51Foreign policy.
2:34:53Resistive to Bill would make things really much more enjoyable for all of us.
2:34:55You know, in a sense, you know, like we were, I was thinking back on that little boat ride somewhere.
2:34:59God, we had Conley there and everybody else there.
2:35:01And he wasn't being too damn helpful to help.
2:35:08We know there's a little controversy here, but Connolly, you notice how skillfully he raised his points.
2:35:12And he slipped them in there, and then he backed off and filed them.
2:35:15He's a simple operator.
2:45:40We got good press play, too.
2:45:44The press really treated us very nicely.
2:45:53They, uh, what I told them was... My wife saw it on TV.
2:46:01My wife saw it on TV.
2:46:04Yeah.
2:46:04She said it was nothing but a big plus.
2:46:07Oh, they told her.
2:46:07Oh, you never can see him.
2:46:08You see, you can't be unkind to a couple getting married.
2:46:10I'll see you tonight.
2:46:10Oh.
2:46:11Thank you.

Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam negotiations and Foreign policy management

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Also recorded on June 12, 1971

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