Conversation 519-014

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He, uh, we didn't get hold of him until about 1.30.

He decided to catch a plane and he missed it in Chicago and about 1.30

Thank you.

Well, we have to fill in with a conversation lesson I had with the speaker after we talked to Clark this afternoon.

The speaker is against any limitation, period.

He wants us to

He said that he would not support any amendment unless you talked to him personally.

We tried to analyze the votes and Les and I got

I think the best information we can from the Democrats, if they say 116 of them, we're trying to support Betsy Whalen.

And it's our best judgment on our side that we might lose 50.

I'm not, frankly, I think this is a possibility.

So that's 160.

Well, it's a hundred percent, yeah.

We had thought about this alternative that, I guess, Henry's office has worked on, which is sort of a reaffirmation of what you've been saying and what we've been doing.

The boiled-down version.

Right.

It matters.

It matters best, indeed.

What did they find?

Did they get something?

It was legible or reasonable.

Yes, sir.

It takes the basic course to bring out October 7th.

It is extraordinarily brave.

It's less than one full page.

Well, as I see that point, you know, wanting to, I mean, it feels like to be something.

Let me say it so that you will know where we stand.

Let me tell you exactly, let me say it so that you can get it properly.

I told John Sherman Cooper when he was in here the other day,

But I think he would.

But I said to him, John, I said, we need your help because you have credibility among those who are going to have restrictions.

I said, no.

He was quite completely candid.

I said, as far as negotiations, I said, I had never held out for a whole certain negotiation or even raised false hopes about it.

I said that we would continue to try, and that of course is what that was.

And I said, as of this time, right at this moment, it can't be said that there is a chance for negotiation.

I would not rate that chance as a great chance, but there is a chance, and you could say perhaps a reasonable chance.

Now, that chance for negotiation is extremely important because if it can come through by negotiation, then all this talk about dates and so forth and so on, and BOWs, et cetera, becomes very, it'll look pretty irresponsible.

Now, the chance for negotiation will be

It passes anything, anything, which is interpreted by the enemy in Paris as being restricting.

Now, that doesn't mean that people, so, and the Congress under these circumstances would have some responsibility for destroying the negotiating, and I will have to say that.

That chance will run out pretty soon.

When it does, I'll tell you.

And when it does, we'll make an announcement.

But as long as that chance exists, I've got to run it out.

Now, I'm not going to tell you, you say, how long?

30 days, 60 days, 90 days, just saying you'll run out pretty soon.

My point is, I'm not going to tell you that a year from now we're going to be talking like this.

I'm not going to tell you that six months from now we're going to be talking like this.

Because it's just thanks to reason that as we reduce our portions below $200,000, what the hell of an incentive do they have for negotiating?

Also, as far as we're concerned, we're going to move.

Anyway, what do we have left to negotiate about except prisoners?

So, on the other hand, there were...

That's why there are other factions that are involved here.

Put yourself in their position.

They see us talking to the Chinese.

They see us making a joint announcement with the Soviet.

Forget all the gobbledygook that comes out of the Soviet.

They're leaders at this time.

Nevertheless, handing over is the back of the Soviet-U.S. understanding with regard to working toward a solid agreement.

the limitation of strategic arms has been committed by both sides.

Now, under these circumstances, this has, this of course creates conditions which might improve the negotiation possibilities.

I cannot tell you, I do not tell you that there has been, at Bruce's level, and I've explored it right now

there has been any breakthrough.

I know there have been a little but I do know that at this point my own conclusion is that we are now at the stage where the last reasonable chance for negotiation is at hand.

It will either come about or it will not.

Probably not.

That would be my guess at the moment.

Possibly it might.

So I have no choice but to ask all of those who want to end the war with negotiation, which means ending it on a better basis than ending it true.

Well, we'll get out on December 31st.

The hell with everything else that happens.

What happens to the Valkyrie?

What happens to the POWs?

What happens to all the rest?

You see, the difficulty with the congressional resolutions is that you can pass a resolution and say,

But in 30, 60 days after we get all the POWs, we will withdraw our will to this and that and the other thing.

That's just lovely.

Put yourself in a position to answer what's he going to do.

So I can say that we will, we have another problem, too, that you, from a political standpoint, this Carl, as being either a statesman or he's not doing politics, is

vigorously as some of the others.

These guys are petrified of the possibility, our opponents, that we are going to end the war, and we will.

I can promise you.

It will be ended.

You well know.

I mean, just look at the numbers.

Look at what is happening.

Of course it is.

But they're petrified of the possibility, and they aren't in one of these.

So what they're trying to do, remember when we got out of Cambodia?

I said at the time of landing, we'd be out in 60 days.

And then they still had to screw around with the Senate and pass the Cooper Church.

Why?

Because they wanted to make it appear that they forced us out.

They knew it was a success, and they got very, very jittery at the last.

At this point, from a political standpoint, the reason that Muskie, the reason that Teddy, the reason that Hubert are all coming in on this thing,

is that they want to make it appear that the Democrats have won.

They said, brought it out.

They forced the president to do something.

Let's look at the facts.

What are the facts?

Who got us in this?

They did.

Who's getting us out?

We did.

You know, you read these stories in the New York Times about it.

If you want to be pretty cold-blooded about that, let the record show that that is going to be in the

That report was made by a Pentagon group in 1968.

And if anybody asks you about it, you can say that the president, when he came in, ordered a completely independent review.

Because why should he take the opinions of those who got us into this war?

That's out here now.

Now, at this point, who are all these people that are chirping around?

Muskie, look what he used to say on the other side of the Senate.

You've heard what he used to say on the other side.

Look at what Teddy used to say when his brother got a sentence.

Now, we had never played that game.

I, up to this point, never played it.

But at this point, what worries these folks on the other side from a political standpoint is that they know very well that our withdrawal will continue, that there will be an announcement at an appropriate time,

that they get, frankly, a part of the political credit and that we don't.

On the other side of the card, we're not doing this for political credit.

The part is, the reason that I'm just giving you the reassurance, I'm just telling you what I think motivates that.

I know that an awful lot of your guys, our guys, frankly, are sick of the war and they're hearing from people at home and they say, God, can't we be for a date?

And all their phones show that people are 70% for getting out.

I don't understand all that.

The main point is they're going to look good.

We're going to make our guys look good.

I've always said that, and we will.

You guys are going to be able to go into the next election looking damn good.

I assure you of that.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that, well, by the next election, they're going to say, what's he trying to do?

He just told them this bad thing over so that we can go to the next election.

Of course not.

We'll do it tomorrow if we can.

But you see, what is really involved here is that we now have the last reasonable chance for negotiation.

And the question is, does the Congress want to be strong?

If so, the blood's on their hands.

And the blood of 17 of the sophomores remains.

That's it for me.

Now, I can assure you that, and I think that our folks will be very interested in finding out

Why doesn't the President say what he's going to do?

Who the hell has got this now?

The casualties, for example, last week were 19.

This week we're only at 19, 23.

And that drove us crazy.

The war is ending.

From a standpoint of combat is now fired on yesterday, 10, probably 90% of the ground combat is now undertaken by the Soviet Union.

You can obviously see that within due time.

It will all be there.

But it just happens.

It's always like it is at the end of a race.

The runners get tired.

The guy that just has an extra little burst wins the race.

And at this point, I know it's awfully hard for you to get up and tell these fellows and say, well, gee, there's got to be some force on the address.

And the point is that I'd like to say, well, let's let them pass.

It wouldn't be bad to pass this and that on the resolution.

I can think of nothing at all.

Nothing except that would be anything but harmful because anything that indicates any lack of confidence in what the president is trying to do and lack of confidence in his negotiating position can only have the fact of destroying that chance.

There it is.

And we're really talking between us and the president about 90 days.

As soon as I am convinced the negotiating track no longer is a dead end, then we'll be ready to talk about something else.

But it hasn't reached that point.

It's right now at the point that we may reach the destination.

And that's where we are in a nutshell.

Do you think, Mr. President, these rumors

It could mean something.

Even though they don't come to us at the highest level, are they somewhat indicative of the thing about my monitor?

All those who have observed their negotiations in the past know that, for example, before the bombing, this same kind of rumor stuff went out.

I mean, this and that and the other thing.

Now, that doesn't prove that it will happen again.

It does indicate that when they are about to negotiate, they usually put out a bunch of them.

But what I'm getting at is, let me put it this way, there is movement, there is some sort of movement, but to be completely honest also, there has been no movement that I consider significant on the part of, at Bruce's level, at the end.

But they know, and we know,

that we now reach the moment of truth.

It's here.

But until we've gotten it right now, because look at what it would mean if the chance didn't at all.

But if it did, look where it's going to put these people in an event.

That's another reason.

You see, another reason that the Democrats, Vance, and these other calls, are talking about a deadline is that they're trying to destroy the negotiations.

And I'm charged with that.

They know that if they set a deadline, they'll destroy the negotiations.

Now, they have said, they have charged with what we've tried to do, Teddy Kennedy said, and what we're trying to do is that I don't want to settle this issue because I want to settle it now.

But what they're trying to do is to destroy the negotiations through second deadline.

Because they realize that that completely destroys every investigation, every attack they made.

We've been saying right along that we have to, that don't think, we've said we must have a so that we can continue to have a chance to negotiate.

There's where it is right now.

Well, my information last was,

We can't do anything different from this fundamentally, which is this alternative thing.

And I think we'd have to not have .

That's the one about South Vietnam.

That would raise some hackles.

I'm of the feeling that we ought to fight it out.

I'm trying to make you look all the way in the view.

If I were to receive you this morning, at this point, I would be delighted.

Because, look, it's supposed to go into negotiation.

It might not work out, but it's going to be finished.

You'll have it announced at a good time.

Plenty of good time.

All of you.

The moment it's announced, it doesn't make any difference, honey.

They'll all be out at the moment it's announced.

The whole damn issue's over then.

Finished.

I think we're going to win this thing regardless of what procedure we follow.

But I'm trying to still stay with the original position that we just beat down everything if we possibly can.

I'm flexible.

I'll do what has to be done to make it look good or better or whatever it might be.

Jerry, I agree with you.

I think things do just bite the thing right down the feet.

Kyle Albert was of that opinion.

How strong he'll be, I don't know.

Hale Boston said he will even speak about it.

I wish Kyle would.

I don't know what he would do.

But then we have the group on our side, and I would say they are in that minimum mobility, and that they just want something to hang their hat on.

Just something to hang their hat on.

They don't want to be for the Nessie Amendment.

They don't want to.

They just want something to hang their hat on.

Now, in the words of that effort, that's the whole point.

I don't like to see our guys.

They don't want to pose what you want to do, Mr. President.

A lot of our guys, they're just, you know.

They hardly look good, are they?

No, they're not, and that's what I tell them.

I say, you have them all in a bag, and I will.

You understand, on this issue, on this issue, all of our guys are on the same bank as the others.

That's right.

Including the 12th Senate.

That's right.

Right on the tube.

Paradoxical to the story, right?

There's not going to be any fooling around.

This is a paradoxical, but the Senate appears to be stronger now.

I worry you're going to win by about 10 or 12 votes.

I don't know.

Well, we hope to, Jerry, although Bill Young...

short of that situation.

Half is dead, five more years to go.

What's he waiting for?

Sir, he said he won't support the 1231-71 cutoff at the end of this year, but he said if they made it six months later, then he'd have to rethink it.

That was the story of the Ohio paper this morning.

You see that problem, isn't it?

So it's six months later, what the hell does that mean?

Yeah, well, what's going to happen?

So six months later, it's like that mayor's committee that said by the end of 72 or earlier, well, now what the hell does that mean?

All they're trying to do is to get a board.

That doesn't happen, right?

Does he want to be a leader or a jerk?

Sir, I should say that this is a... Well, I have this paper report that was telephoned to me from Ohio this morning, and I haven't reached Bob yet, so maybe it's an erroneous report.

Well, the point is that Bob has got to realize that he has...

Two people, yeah, because he deals in Ohio.

And his position is not going to put off everybody.

Because I cannot have no choice on this.

I hate to do it.

I hate to do it to our own people.

I know how they feel and the rest.

But we've never let it down yet.

No.

And that's what Carl always said that to you.

And look, it's loud.

It's a tough one.

You know what they were last week?

Just a year ago at this time.

This was interesting in our discussion with the speaker.

The speaker said, I couldn't turn my back on a president who promised us that he was going to do this, this, and this, and he lived up to everything.

Isn't that what he said?

Exactly what he said, yeah.

He kept his word on everything.

So, the speaker was very firm.

I was in the line.

And the fact of the matter was, if you put a deadline on it, let me say, if it didn't, for example, ever pass, I would just have to call Bruce and knock on the door.

Right immediately.

How do they ever expect to get any of those POWs back that way?

In vote for any of these resolutions, the vote to bring all the ambassador groups to the meeting to break off those shady talks.

Supposing that was said, I don't think we'd want to say you said that.

No.

It's your interpretation of what was going to happen.

It would destroy the negotiations a lot.

And I can see why it's quite clear from the discussion that this is a struggle to process.

It's a tough, but you'll find it through the years.

And this is more difficult, among others, because of the .

But all of the wars that you get through the end, there's always a picture of the world once you get the picture of .

And the world will get .

And everybody was talking about what should be done.

And one day, it's over.

On this one, we have a different situation.

We know it's going to be a visit.

A question like World War I and II, we had to wait for the enemy.

We're getting out.

Period.

We're done.

Now, what the hell?

Why don't they believe it?

Makes it get out sooner.

What are we talking about?

The difference of, what, six months, eight months, or nine months?

Who knows?

You know, God damn well it's going to get out.

So that's really why I don't see how it's where they're going to be.

I understand that.

We've got a little problem tomorrow, you know.

Our conference on this starts at 10.

We've got this other matter on confirming HR grows for that committee.

You ought to be up there, Dan.

I'll leave it at that, Mr. Hill.

We'll do it, sir.

We'll do it.

Let's have the leaders an hour and 15 minutes from our time.

That's something out of the agenda.

Well, just people set up a schedule.

Well, what I meant is that our agenda may be too long, but it's more important than to get up there and have this conference of his for us to gather along here.

And I think somebody ought to be up there right after that conference is over, say, a quarter to 12, and we have to get off the house floor so we can just bring you right up to date, right to that minute, and see what's the development.

Whether or not we can just go bang through or not.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

Let me say this.

You guys are going to

of the job and all that.

It's just tough as hell.

You had a fighting battle over Gatlin.

And when you saw the media and how it responded.

Can you imagine, Jerry, if you remember that his case, my God, that we sent his to the pen for perjuring himself about delivering a few papers to Chambers.

Well, of course, the papers, of course, were well within the context.

But the New York Times published literally

of secret, top-secret documents.

That's getting into the ads.

What the hell do you think of that?

And everybody says, oh, well, we don't like this anymore.

It's a strange thing.

The same media, however, who supported this, supported this kind of thing.

Because, in other words, getting information to a communist is not, to a communist, to serve a communist cause, is not reasonable.

That's the way it is.

I think we can win.

I'd rather be on the side of taking a tough approach.

We're going to have some trouble with John Anderson, who thinks we ought to have an alternative.

I think John will support us.

If there was any... Well, the reason we wanted John down here is to work on it.

If there was any way tomorrow that you might take a minute or two with him,

telling him, much like you told us, I think it would be very helpful.

Jerry, couldn't the President do that generally with all of the leaders?

Couldn't the President make a forceful response?

Well, most of the leaders go to the Senate side and the House side of the living room.

Yes.

I say, most of the leaders, both Senate and House, are with us on this.

I don't know that either.

I don't know.

I checked him out.

He's all right.

Is he?

He's going to vote with it.

Yeah, about that.

Good.

Well, Bob is the only one I was worried about.

I don't want anybody to walk out and say, in fact, look, we're going to have a negotiation.

The problem is that I can talk quite candidly to you and say this is the last reasonable chance.

That chance we will soon know.

We'll soon know.

And I don't say how soon.

Soon as it's either going to happen or not.

And then after that, we'll tell you.

You know, naturally, you don't think for one minute we don't want to get the political benefit of getting a lawsuit every time possible on that announcement.

Hell, we're going to announce it just as soon as we can.

As soon as I know that we will not hurt the negotiation, that we will not be struggling.

As soon as I know the negotiation, if we do it, if we do learn this, it is going to work.

We'll make it happen.

Even Gene McCarthy is against the term of the day.

The term of the day.

Yeah.

Sure.

Why?

Because it's giving away one of the things we can negotiate.

The Christian Science Monitor is a very complimentary editorial on the basis of Gene McCarthy's statement that we shouldn't set a term of the day.

Gene said that the term of the day was not included in the term of the day.

Well, it is.

But he knows, of course.

He's just honest.

The purpose of this, if you go to them that hide councils of the Egypt Democratic candidates, you would find that they know what they're, they're petrified at the thought

We will end the negotiation with Kell and even the other, the longer we're with them, then they even don't want to answer the other question because they'll say it.

Then you've got to create, you know what the argument is.

They've got us in the war, we've got to stop.

How the hell do you want to be in that position?

So they're trying desperately to get aboard.

That's what it's all about.

They want to prove to their friends that they forced us to do something that we weren't going to do otherwise.

Because they ended the war.

Would you agree?

Sure.

There's no question.

Mr. President, it goes back almost to Hoover's days.

I mean, when they said either the Democrats win or let the country go to hell.

And that's exactly what they did.

Right through the Democrat National Committee with Charlie Michelson and all those people.

They built the case.

went to the country, and they said, let the country go.

They just didn't care.

As long as they could win the election, they're right back at it again.

I'm so mad at that guy.

I could choke.

I cannot.

He's too many.

Oh, yeah.

I've got some of these quotes.

Yeah.

Well, what about Larry Bryan's statement?

I'm a little surprised at that one, too.

Larry Bryan said there would not be an issue next year.

I don't know what the... Well, it's not that long.

Yeah.

It's probably going to be on.

He's going to do it, isn't he?

Look, he's going to do it.

Sure.

But the point is, we don't want to indicate that we're going to do it just because it's on.

We're going to do it as long as we can.

First of all, look at the numbers.

Yeah.

Well... And that is another...

You can't handle that.

I think it's better to be on the negotiating track, let me say.

Even six months ago, the chances for negotiation were less than now.

Mainly because, mainly because as you get to the end, they're either going to negotiate now or they're going to be ending.

Now, there's something there for them to negotiate, too, see?

Because if they get something, sir,

or if they cease fire or hit the bombing hall or something like that.

You know, a lot of things.

So you see that they've got to think long and hard as to whether or not they want us to stay in there and continue to bomb or whether they would like to have a cease fire negotiation.

Fred, I kind of feel the power out there.

I'm pretty sincere on this thing from the very beginning.

Even though he felt there.

Well, we start tomorrow.

I don't see how we can vote for late Wednesday or early Saturday.

We thought it would be strategically wise to wait until the Senate voted down Governor Hatfield so we'd get the psychological benefit.

particularly if the book looks as encouraging as you are indicating.

We'll keep a close session on it, Jerry, during the course of the day.

Well, you won't.

It's another way.

I wouldn't indicate that the book looks that good.

No, we haven't.

We haven't.

and say, oh, we're sunk.

You know, we're going to have to put her, her kind of all of us to sleep.

And also to make it appear that they did much better than was anticipated.

Now, I just beat them.

And then that's, that's, that's the idea to beat them.

And then, as I say, Jerry, just tell your guys, for God's sakes, they're going to have something good around here.

I mean, they're going to be weird.

They, they, instead of, they say, well, we want something to vote for.

What's really going to matter?

how they move it here, or what happens.

What happens is going to matter.

Whether this administration keeps its commitment to end the war, we're going to keep it.

I said, look, we're doing it.

Right.

And I think I did it right.

I'm sure about that.

I hate to have you imagine that.

Well, that's the opposite of what it means.

What the hell does it matter what it's all like to have a crisis you've got to fight?

I was just going to say that, uh, my, uh, I'll check the reports everybody's talking about.

I think we might have to stay up on this thing because, uh, there are other things we can do in Ohio and we'll kind of run the states.

They're all going to check with us tonight and get back in touch.

Just wait a while.

Let them talk about it.

It'll take three months from now.

Four months from now.

Yeah.

I don't know how they could have any options for that.

They would not have settled down with the right people right now.

Well, in today's day and age, if you look at that out there in the town, all the groups going off for missions out there, getting on the train, and they can't have managers for the state at all.

That's 38, that is a very big manager out there.

And he's down here.