Conversation 527-012

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Thank you.

Go ahead, John.

Have some fun.

Bye.

This is the best time of year.

It wasn't too hot.

Miami was out there during the day.

It probably wasn't hot.

Keep a scan of Miami.

It was up here at 85.

It's a good night.

Here he is.

The water's 89.

All the way to John Cumming.

He understands your point, and he's trying to figure work out

as he sees these guys away to get, uh, several of them to, to move in, but he's, he's a little concerned about whether he'll get, get, uh, the other girls up there.

But he understands completely about them not, not gathering for chit-chatting, where he understands the plan and all, and just, you know, is making a suggestion, approaching it from the other way, because that's the way it's supposed to be done, so.

I don't know which one should be the best.

But obviously, get Chet Chet.

We could get a hard guy or two.

That's what he's working at.

And we'll try to do.

We'll know when he gets out of this session.

That's cool to know.

How's it coming?

What are they doing?

I just spent an hour with them, and they're very, very interested.

They're very constructive.

What did you talk about?

Oh, I talked about crime and drugs and the newspaper bit.

It was about the New York Times.

Yeah.

I gave them the, you know, I said, and they all want to know about politics, and we talked a little bit about that.

Tell them how good things were and so forth.

John Connolly was in before I was.

And then John Mitchell.

Kissinger's in.

That's good.

And it's basically just giving us people that are old something to tell them a little.

No, I'm surprised they're all sitting there taking notes.

They all feel they're going to charge out of here as surrogates and advocates.

Peter's doing a good job.

The approach they're taking, and Pete's put it very squarely to them, they know they're here to become advocates.

He's also, it's very interesting on this thing, you know, you want to do expanded and we start to program the academic thing.

And Schultz said the academics, and Ed David, actually Ed David did more of it, but on exactly the same way that they did the business.

In other words, we want you to join this if you're willing to do it on the basis of being an advocate.

And he's got a hell of a bunch of guys that he, Schultz, who was amazed at the response that he got, that, you know, raising people like Howard Johnson, who he didn't think,

wasn't sure it would do it.

Even George Figueroa, he knows his force, he thought, why not?

Are they coming to accept that?

They won't be here tonight, but they have both, they have both, because they couldn't, they were, you know.

You've got Ben Davis, at A. Garrett Harvard Medical School, Duke at Chicago, Killian,

At MIT, Fred Seitz, the Rockefellers agreed to come on, but couldn't come tonight.

Steve Carnegie is, Carnegie Mellon, Wallace, Alan Wallace, who is coming, as soon as he's back.

Milton Friedman, Howard Johnson, and George Stiglitz, those last three will not be here.

But we should have a few friends.

These guys are all willing to be counted for something.

It surprised the guys that were calling.

They thought they'd back off and say, oh no.

What is the latest, John and Jason?

Are there any more Laird Rogers that they stopped?

They stopped.

It turns out that the meeting was set up by Rogers.

Because they had a request from Albert.

has talked to you, Albert, and Albert's perfectly happy not to have a meeting.

So there's no problem on that end.

The part feels that if at all possible, you ought to have a talk with Mansfield at some time.

Well, isn't the president going to have breakfast with Mansfield?

Well, I asked you that.

It was off.

Is that on?

Yeah, it's on.

Okay.

Well, if that's on, that's fine.

Thanks a lot.

We better get a paper if you want.

Basically, I don't need a paper.

Mansfield wants to have a bipartisan select committee to hear the issues all raised by these papers.

And your position is to say, fine, you'll turn 47 volumes over to the classified.

That then will block

all these efforts by people to get these things in the congressional record and to do all that stuff and he'll then go back and talk to Albert and they'll control both houses and make sure that this is done.

I think he would take that as a question.

Because it really plays to the whole matter of security.

And he's had a long talk with Clark about the whole problem of legislative executive relationship.

And he sees this here in the procedure

as a way of healing the breach and bringing everybody closer together.

He tells Clark anyway, and so on and so forth.

And he sees this group that he would be forming as the top people in both parties in both houses as kind of a continuing group that the president would have a liaison with when a national crisis arose and this kind of stuff.

And rather than a retrospective inquiry or, you know, a congressional committee on the conduct of the board, on the conduct of the president, on the conduct of the president, is that what your heart says?

Is that what he's going to announce it is?

No.

That's what he's going to come and talk to you about.

And get a card, top him off of that card.

Well, Mr. President, may I suggest that this can be put in the proper concept

I think it'll do what you want to do, and that is for you to release these documents.

That is the one of this inquiry.

And if you're with Mansfield and you're restricted to this particular area where you can announce or Mansfield can announce tomorrow after the breakfast that you are releasing these documents to

This select committee, or whatever the hell they're going to call it, they keep referring to the type of committee that Russell convened us to inquire into the firing of Douglas MacArthur.

These particular documents, and of course, say under such conditions or terms as may be worked out with the committee, that you will now be put into the posture before the termination of this litigation of having released these documents.

or being agreeable to release the documents to the committee without screwing up the lawsuit to the extent that that's necessary and putting it into a committee that will act responsibly on it because you'll have Scott on it and Mansfield and Ford and Albert, I guess, and so forth.

and you will cut off the McCluskeys and the Abzug's and all the other resolutions.

So what about my telling Mansfield that?

How does Albert feel?

Albert feels all right about it because Clark's already indicated to him that you have had a long-standing date with Mansfield and that Mansfield intends to talk to Albert after that happens.

I think Albert would like to discuss the issue.

And as usual, he'd like to duck it, I would say.

He'd like to duck it.

He'd like to have an action.

Albert is probably, you see, the difficulty with all this, Clark wouldn't understand this because he's too nice to follow.

Man steals against us.

Totally.

I agree.

He steals his man, but he's totally against us.

Albert has never voted against us on any of the war issues.

Well, I would hope that Mansfield's honesty and sincerity could be used in this particular case.

I just want you to know that I have doubts about it, but I'll be glad to give it to you.

My enormous category of public relations advisers up there look forward to these hearings on this kind of a theory, that sooner or later, in the course of these things, in the big caucus room with the television lights up, they will get Robert McIntyre, and they will get...

Clark Bundy, and they will get Clifford and some of these guys.

It will probably be in the fall.

Thank God I aren't dead, sure.

But it will be rust.

Poor old rust.

And they will get these guys on the spotlight.

And for days and days and days leading up to some of the primaries, you will see the Democratic Party just shred it.

Now that's their, you know, that's their heart.

They're too smart to do that.

That's what you want out of them.

Albert's too smart to do it, but not Mansfield, because he doesn't give a damn.

He's against the war.

He cares much more about the war than he does about the Democratic Party.

You feel better afterwards, you know.

What do you want to say?

A muskie's calling for him to be a witness.

I saw that.

But somehow we've got to protect him from that, don't we?

Oh, that would never happen.

He could just refuse to come.

They can all refuse a little harder.

Why, because we wouldn't carry out the process against Johnson.

We'd carry it out against him.

They disobeyed him.

I know they disobeyed him.

They were the ones that had to get him out of the United States.

And we were harassed by him.

Absolutely not.

I do not think it would be proper for the President of the United States to appear before the Congressional Committee.

Period.

That's the way it has to be.

We can't put him up there.

put him in sackcloth and ashes his term.

And he deserves it, but you can't do it.

You can't do it.

Okay, well, so that's where...

But this should be very carefully programmed, so it's put in a posture where the president feels...

The main thing is to program the statement.

All right, so this should be issued after the meeting.

It should be a statement, which I think is iterations.

And your statement says that the President has to agree on the date that the President has authorized the transfer of these papers to a select committee and so forth.

you know, whatever language you want.

Have them work the language out tonight.

And I'll just, and I'll close here and at the end of the breakfast and say, fine, here's the kind of language we want.

I want to see them alone.

I don't want to have anybody in the room.

I see no reason to have anybody in the room.

It's on the basis of the president's offer, not that man still has.

Because of the interest that has been expressed by various people, I believe it's a procedure of selectivity for people to be free to get involved.

Be curiously involved during the Kennedy and Johnson administration.

I used that term inside of these people, and they just came right up out of the seats.

They caught it immediately.

Just the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The actions of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

I don't know.

Maybe it goes back, though, rather than I guess some of those guys are here.

Not in these tables.

I can understand the whole story of the posers.

Redner.

The headline tonight, the star headline tonight says, Secret Vietnam War Began in 61.

That's good time.

And that's on the basis of the Globe story.

That's Kennedy.

Colson tells me that the Boston Globe tonight, the evening edition, has a large picture of John F. Kennedy and then four different

Stories.

They ran four days.

Stories on one edition that just murdered Kennedy.

That's the same as they had in the morning paper.

Assassination at the end.

Did they get the DM?

Great.

Well, that's right.

That would be all of the country, you know, because the Star picked it up out of the globe.

The DM thing is the most important part.

That's really what set this whole horrible chain of events.

And it's not I on the right side of that.

I criticized it at the time, and I criticized it at Jackass Lodge.

I think the important thing is that it's a language.

I think it's going to be all right.

I want to be sure that Gregor tells Albert that he knows that Mansfield is going to race.

It's been done.

It's all set.

He's going to have to do the workouts and select the days of the process and so forth and so on.

I don't know how to quite get that paper.

I've been thinking about this and here's a statement that I'm going to ask you.

I may ask you to come in with a class to work a thing out.

I guess that's best.

If you've been handling the thing here, is the question just liaison?

Can you use the cover legitimately that John is going to look at this because you don't want to affect this litigation that's going on?

That I asked, that I talked about to you about it, that you would talk about it in terms of litigation, so you come in and get this.

and that you will present this statement.

You don't have to say there isn't a crack.

And if you're presenting this statement, you'll give it to say there isn't a crack at the conclusion.

Why don't I bring it with me and just say, in anticipation of me, I drafted up something here, and I don't know how it fits with what you gentlemen have been talking about, but here's a point of view for us.

They don't know he's been had.

Oh, he knows.

It's just what he wants.

It's what he wants.

I know.

That's why you buy it.

Yeah, the more these stories come out, the more people will say, why are we trying to keep them coming out?

The trick here now is to keep this from slopping over.

and make clear that the community, you know, that these two presidents are so generous and that their wrongdoings and malfactions and all that are theirs and not yours.

That's what you get out of hearing, is to distinguish from newspaper stories.

Right.

They're certainly sui generis.

They're certainly sui generis with regard to the involvement in this war.

That's it.

That's the regard I'm sharing.

Hell, I wasn't there.

I wasn't there.

I was there a whole lot.

I must say that I defended these clowns all over the world.

What are those hearings do to the two elections?

Nothing.

If he doesn't, this isn't going to happen.

I had all two White House staff here yesterday.

I thought it might be relevant to this, what I said in the briefing.

Oh, you finished the briefing?

Oh, fine, fine.

How are the Lions today?

I make the point that Secretary Blair's statement was responsive to a direct division by the President on January the 15th and I went out and threw the line which the lawyers took in court today that the Director called for a study to enlarge the public's right to know and make more information available and look to a broader procedure, declassification procedure.

and a continuing review of existing classifications, and indicated that because these particular documents, the 47 volume documents, have been compromised, that the 47 volume documents would be accelerated into the process of review to determine which ones could be declassified, not being harmful to the national interest.

And then I also made your point, and I think this was made in court today publicly, wasn't it?

47 of the documents that the New York Times have.

are not what we consider the 47 volume final study.

Rather, they have some different documents that may have been the preliminary draft.

That wasn't his job, was it?

Yeah, it was.

That's been on the wire.

Well, these guys don't know.

So I tried to force that.

But I reflected the fact that

We still looked at this material and the material that the New York Times has as highly classified material, which we would assess in accordance with the study and make the point that this material was being responsive to this January 15th.

Does defense understand that?

No.

Maybe I'll explain to Hankin what he said.

Did you get to him?

He won't return my calls.

He's hiding from me.

Now, the court also referred today to the task force, didn't it?

Being set up.

Oh, that's in here.

No, but that's the statement.

You mean I'm missing?

Right.

Sure.

The task force will conduct the study on an expedited basis and will complete it within any reasonable time.

That has not been published before.

No, it's a secret document.

Yes, sir.

That's all right.

I said I normally don't refer to what NSC directives say, but you had determined in Key Biscayne over the weekend that because the public interest on this that we would make it known in court and also that I would make it known that this study was underway.

Although we normally don't do it.

All right, let's just take another minute here.

You've got Larry and Roger's turn now.

They don't want to make any difference.

I could even match the amount of this statement that you made based on that.

We turned them off the other end.

We turned them off with Albert.

Did they know I was meeting with Mansfield?

They know that you are.

I left it very loose.

I said you might meet with some congressional leaders.

You might meet with Mansfield.

You might put out a statement.

We might write a letter.

Because I wanted to stay very loose.

Sure.

Keep it loose.

I didn't want to read it.

Is that why Laird's burning up the wires, trying to get a hold of me?

Trying to find out which one.

Laird's probably getting out there.

Chasing me from... Now, I think what he's doing, he's trying to fix an allegation, because he said you are the one that authorized him to make these statements to the press.

You must be killed.

You remember John, don't you?

You remember when he said... Don't get me...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Shut up, man.

This thing is a, this thing is quite, I mean, we have the unfortunate situation where, because of the media always banding together whenever they think that they are under attack, we have the unfortunate that they actually, we had to take completely obscured what the issue was.

And as a result, everybody thought that the issue was, they got under a bunch of, many people confused about police registration and they lost sight of the fact that they stole the documents.

So they had sort of a vague idea that they involved secret documents, but it was so old that it didn't involve secret documents that caused any problems.

our great Judge Gerfein used the word titters in describing our actions on it, which I thought was something I'd listen to.

Of course, I'll be convinced I'm a good John every time.

Rockwell or Chaz.

You must be kidding.

Tom Dewey talked to you about it.

That was Dewey's law partner and friend.

What's it about him?

If you ask the American people, have you seen, read, or heard anything about the New York Times and other newspapers publishing material from a secret Pentagon study on the Vietnam War?

Have you seen, heard, or read anything about this?

Just ask that question.

And just to give you a frame of reference, on the Cali case, when you asked that, 97% yes, 3% no.

on a normal presidential press conference or presidential announcement, it's about 75% or 80% yes.

Something like that.

Yeah, I'll kind of figure out a word.

That gives you an idea.

Now, with that frame of reference, what would you expect that the yes would be on this?

Why don't you just follow?

No doubt, yes.

Yes, 51.

No, 49.

49% of the people have not seen her, and the people that know her don't get it.

And of the 51%, they were asked, how interested are you?

And 50% were interested, and 50% were not.

Only 51% were interested.

When was this in the field?

Last night.

When we had the...

Well, we have, but the answer is very interesting.

The difficulty is, of course, you go down through the whole damn thing, and it depends again on if you ask the questions, or if you can ask the questions in a way that you could have asked.

Read the last two questions.

You find some questions where it was stated, well, the government should put it out, the newspaper should publish it, or it's all so goddamn confused you can't tell.

Do you think the press should publish top-secret government material once it comes into their hands?

Or should it be withheld until the government decides publication will not, until the government decides that publication will not be on national security?

14% say to publish it and 76% say to be opposed to it.

See, if you make the issue... Now, that's just if we make it to their hands.

Then, do you think freedom of the press includes the freedom of a paper to print stolen top-secret government documents, or not?

Fifteen yes, seventy-four percent no.

But you've got to put the issue simply and directly in his lap.

Did you get that?

Yes.

Well, that will begin to appear when the criminal

Okay, here's another thing.

This is of the people that are aware.

In this whole situation of publishing the secret Pentagon study, who do you think is most guilty of doing something wrong?

the person who gave the study to the New York Times, the newspapers that published it, the previous Johnson administration, or the Nixon administration, you have a choice of four people, four parties that would be wrong.

Who do you think is most wrong?

39% say the person who gave the study to the Times, 10% say the newspapers that published it, 30% say the Johnson administration, and 10% say the Nixon administration, and 19% don't know.

I don't know.

Anyway, where do we go?

If these decisions come down tonight, I'm not worried about today, I'm worried about tomorrow.

I guess it's getting to be nice.

A normal process would go further as a continuance order, a restraining order from the justice in Harlan or Berger if it's Washington.

If we're split, we don't have to do anything.

Well, the Washington case is a better case, so we should stick with that one if we can.

Do we have any restraints on that now?

Because this may happen in the middle of the night.

Thank you.

It comes down adverse to us.

Adverse?

In Washington or both of them.

It's my thought that the Mansfield statement of tomorrow will get you off the wicket of suppression, get you split out properly.

Yeah, yeah.

And so the question is whether you then proceed to go to the Supreme Court or whether you get a federal election to release Scott Jones.

All of that occurs when you are going to receive criminal penalties.

Yeah, there are a lot of... Well, you talked over the public relations aspects of that apparently.

I mean, let's look at it.

It's a public relations problem.

You all know that now, right?

Of suppression, as I look at it or understand.

That's the way you look at it.

Of suppression.

And also, when it comes to public relations, the negative.

My general feeling is that we get scummed.

in both courts, that that would say, well, we have proceeded our legal remedy and let it out of the service, that's all.

In the appeals court today, banning the Washington Post's death rate from publishing the secret statement in the paper.

That said, the ban would last until it decreases.

The government's claim that publishing the document would harm the nation's security would just happen.

Well, that just means that they've done that until they've come to a decision.

And until they, in other words, they're still considering keeping the stay in until they consider it on the merits.

How long are they talking about it?

I would believe that they would act quickly on it.

I don't see how they'd do otherwise.

Then why did you say this?

Well, I mean, let's see, they went to a closed session to hear the government's appeal for reversal of the Justice Court ruling.

Uh, evidently what they've done is simply to keep the papers, say, and we're going to go back to them, because if it expired by its terms, then they'd be there.

They'd still, they'd make the decision.

As a matter of fact, didn't it expire at 5 o'clock today?

Yeah.

And that's the reason this is going to be repaired.

Second point.

What about the public relations point of the looking at this thing of now dropping the case?

In other words, not pursuing it, John.

We talked about it on a talking phone.

Mr. President, if both of these courts come down with a decision that relates to what facts were found,

I think we can get off the wicket by saying the Supreme Court's not going to review the finding of these facts.

And then I think we might be able to get off the wicket of not appealing.

I think if it's a question of law as to what the First Amendment means vis-a-vis classified documents, I think that we could be roundly criticized if we didn't take the appeal.

How long should I take the appeal?

One never knows, but the Supreme Court is in session.

It is through hearing oral arguments.

They're winding up.

They expected that they might get out this past Monday.

They probably will have the last day for opinions next Monday, and they're through.

So I would think that they would hear it and dispose of it this week.

What did the argument say to the president?

But depending on what our motives are, I think our motives are truly opposite.

Our motives are secure and fair enough.

I think we have several motives.

One is to get this information out.

We don't do that by getting temporary restraining orders all the time.

On the other hand, John, if I can interrupt you for just that moment, we really are not getting the benefit of these documents out of the newspaper story.

like you would through this Mansfield hearing.

All right, all right, all right.

Let's read that.

Look, it's counterproductive to keep G.R.O.

's back all the time.

Number one.

Number two, I don't know what a poll would show about what people think about what we're doing.

They surely know we've been in court.

We've been in court a hell of a lot, and all the headlines have been about court actions.

There shouldn't be anything to try.

In certain parts of the country,

Well, sure.

Your colleagues and mine at the bar will know every nuance, and they'll probably have read all that oral argument and all that stuff, but the average guy has to be just as good as we've been in court.

Let me put this up.

Forty to thirty-nine days' proof of seeking a court order is not published.

Yeah, but then there's, of course, the degree of black people of the white town.

Then, in taking it to court, do you think the government's trying to censor what the press have published, or is the government trying to enforce the law as it should?

41 censored, 35 enforced the law, 12 both.

Even with that kind of big question, if you didn't get it, there's no question.

to suppress information that the public should have.

62, yes.

28, no.

That's more than the government's time to cover up the wrongdoings of the previous administration.

47, yes.

40, no.

It's a bad wicket.

It's a bad wicket any time the credibility of government or their motives comes into play because they vote against it every time.

It's a cover-up.

And yet, they were against it.

They're against newspaper publishing.

We're not in that phase.

That's the problem.

We're in the suppression phase.

And I think we should be arguing that the quicker we get in that phase and move on, that's my feeling.

My feeling is that I don't think we can get a lot out of it.

Get him slapped onto the Supreme Court.

Yes, sir.

The other thing, a public opinion on the EGALI is, is that did the Times break the law and publish a secret material, or was the publication legal?

26 broke the law, 48 it was legal.

And the other side of it, even if it was illegal for the Times to publish a secret study, do you think they did or did not do the right thing in bringing these facts about Vietnam to the American people?

61 did the right thing, 28 not.

They were really liberal and moral.

Right to know overrides the law.

And here she comes with the ambivalence in the very same verse that says, I was against.

I don't know that he is, Mr. President, because these are the half the people that are aware of the against the documents is of everybody.

And it may be that the people that aren't aware of this are the ones that are putting all the weight against it.

They couldn't do it.

Yeah.

I have a request.

I have a job.

I'm going to have to report it.

Basically, it's all personal.

Copy.

Yes.

And I think the sooner we can move to crystallizing the issue by having the New York Times guy in the dead of night going to the copy company and showing his White House pass and all that.

That's right.

That's what we need here.

We've got to get the spies out there.

That's right.

The cops are out there.

They're going to be here.

The legal ones.

Liars.

The legal ones.

Liars.

Mr. President, I don't think that many people are paying any attention to what the hell is going on in the courts.

I really don't.

You know, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so forth, and the legal writers here in Washington for the Star have this... As long as it's in the courts, that will be the story.

When it's out of the courts...

Then, I mean, as long as the injunction is in the courts, that has to be the story.

And they will play it.

When that is out of the courts, then the story becomes the story.

And that's why I like to get it the hell out of the courts.

But I'm talking about the story about the courts.

It's only back here in the affected papers throughout the country.

I don't know.

I haven't seen it, but I would doubt it.

Yeah, they're going to tell you.

This story, as you tell it, is a pretty interesting story.

Former wife and all that stuff.

That's great.

That's as good as the pumpkin papers.

Yeah.

Where are we coming from?

The Grand Jury?

Well, that's... Now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

I don't want to go to jail.

Boy, we got stuff on the hit screen.

It was hard, but we did.

Don't worry.

Of course, if I'm going to jail, I want to go in a hurry, so I might get a pardon.

You better.

You're so talented.

Well, I believe that.

You're a smart officer.

Let's see.

We did a good job down there.

You're going to get some stuff.

I don't think that wasn't easy to explore that diaper.

It worked.

I was worried I was lying on the top of that morning.

It doesn't mean to say I'm telling it.

I thought about opening the door.

It was kind of a cruel touch.

There is one thing we have to keep in mind is that Jimmy Hoffa may have more political effect on that union than Frank Fitzsimmons.

Yeah.

Jimmy Jr. Well, he's getting 60,000 a year or something.

Well, these guys all around the table were...

It was not lost upon him that no president since FDR had been around the place.

The pictures at all.

I know that I was there.

I didn't know anything.

First, and he knew they were all Democrats and that they'd all work the other side of the fence.

But they stood with us unashamedly here.

The foundation mattered.

Boy, those guys were great.

It was making him honest for us again.

I'm not a very strong guy, so I like the looks of it.

They're crooked as hell.

Oh, I like the looks of them.

I've never been to Matthew D., and now I know what it looks like.

And there it comes.

I'm just having a good time.

It ain't really a rugged area.

He's the worst of them all.

Was there a lawyer from St. Louis there?

Yeah, they had more lawyers than they had executives.

Everybody around them.

Counselors.

Yeah.

Counselors.

I sent a cop with a nice, a junior with a nice looking hand.

He's a fine guy.

They need me in this to be the second largest city in Seattle.

Dave McStay.

You know that I've had to cut off a grand jury in New York until after this election's held down there in July?

Again?

For Christ's sake, we're indicting them right and left.

Don't worry, I get clearance from Fitzsimmons.

I like Fitzsimmons.

He's a great guy.

He's about as straight as a corkscrew.

But I will say that every commitment he's ever made, he's lived up to.

Has he?

Yeah.

Well, sir.

John, I have a feeling that we ought to get the thing out of this man's Supreme Court.

I mean, out of the courts.

Let me go to this one.

The cards, as I say, the cards are comics.

I just don't think pushing this prison card is useful.

We may get a split vote in one of these courts, or three or something of that kind.

And it may be on a question of law.

Well, I think John's got a good question.

If it's a split vote, it looks like it would go to the Supreme Court, and the court would, but I don't know how the Supreme Court would handle it.

Well, they would be trying to take granted, but probably the Telecorp would assume that you would be able to take granted stay.

Either that, or just like they put this order out, tell us it is appealed.

Now, of course, if you do that, if they do that, it's not appealed.

You look like you've lost your marbles.

Well, you'd want to look at that, too.

Well, let me say this.

What is the next move after we have to get some to the Supreme Court?

Our schools have to get in there, too.

God darn it.

I'm not quite sure.

Mr. President, I don't believe that's necessarily so.

Look at the line of Berger, Blackmun, White, Potter, Stewart, and Harlan.

Now, on these security matters where they've been for the court, Whizzer White and Potter Stewart have been very strong, and so has Harlan, so that you may have an entirely different approach.

I know security matters is one thing, but the first matter confused Potter Stewart's thought on that subject at times.

But he said it's a good thing to get out.

What I'm getting at is this.

I'm looking at it.

I don't like to see you, and that's what it really gets down to, you, John Benjamin, get turned down by what is supposed to be our court on this issue.

Now, I don't mind that.

I do mind getting turned down any time, but I think that New York's, I think that all those New York Jews are going to New York.

There's a certain court up there.

I think you're in Washington.

It's the Washington Times.

I don't like to see murder coming out against us.

I don't know that they will.

Let me point out that Potter Stewart wrote that opinion in the toughest case against the newspapers that's ever come down.

That was at Murillo, whatever her name was, where they... John, suppose the situation is one where it is...

Get it off that basket.

Let's argue the public relations side of the other.

You see my problem.

My problem.

On the other hand, you've got the question of fighting the truth.

The newspaper's been filled with stories that no matter who loses, they're going to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Yeah, that's true, too.

I suppose there's no real categorical answer to that.

It depends.

There comes a point in a lawsuit where people who know anything about a lawsuit say, they're just doing that now to harass the papers.

They've taken a look at it twice and nobody's agreed with it.

They're strung up with facts, and it's just nightfall to go on with their doing, because they want us to screw the Washington Post, and so on and so forth.

That would be one set of facts.

Another would be a real close call to your foreherses, and where you get a strong dissent, and the courts say, on the law, the government's right on this.

I think it really depends on how it comes down.

I feel that it comes down unanimous.

If it came down unanimous on a question of facts, I'd agree with you that the Supreme Court's not going to review the factual findings anyway.

If it comes down on a question of law and you've got a split court, I think that we're almost, you know, almost obligated to maintain our credibility.

You know, if it's a question of law, if it's a split decision, then the Supreme Court really ought to speak on the damn matter.

Let us know what the law is, correct?

I would...

You may have to, depending upon what time this comes down.

They print.

You will.

How long is the court meeting now?

They're supposed to make a meeting tonight.

There is, in the chambers I gather, a conference as well.

Both places I gather.

The biggest case is the case.

People will never have this tingling out of church.

No.

They're always tingling.

I never would have promised any person who is a Jew in a civil rights kind of case or freedom of the press kind of case and get even a 10% chance.

It can't be done.

It's just something that you've got an exception in the case.

Basically, who the hell are these people who stole the papers?

It's too bad.

I'm sorry.

I was hoping one of them would be a tent trap.

They were all walking out.

The three Jews, you know, the three suspects, the other column, all Jews.

I go clear back to, as I said, the whole damn communists.

What really screwed us in that thing was the fact that the testimony was the whole damn thing.

Merle, Lee, Crescent, Nathan, Silverson, good God, they ran a whole Photoshop.

They ran off tons of documents and turned them over to the communists.

And if you think things are bloody now, you should have seen how bloody it was then when they were in the Soviet Union.

Even though there was unpopularity, Winston, McCarthyists and so forth.

See, McCarthy's charges against McCarthy all started against me.

He just was stupid.

He would have got killed.

He made the mistake of making that speech down there.

I said, Joe, you can't say that.

You can't say that.

I said, there are more than that.

But don't use a number.

Just say there are in the State Department.

Now, anyway, what I'm getting at is this.

You have the problem here.

And it's, I say it.

It's part of the background, faith, rest.

We'd probably be that way if we hadn't been persecuted minority, concerned about the suppression, police, state, etc., etc.

And they always come down that way.

Almost always.

You just can't find any that don't.

Well, at least the Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the Jews couldn't get into our golf clubs.

Is that right?

The Jews are going to come down and harass the Russians, you see.

Well, that's nice.

Free the Soviet Jews, you know.

That is nice, that recommendation.

Mansfield passed 57-42.

Some of this, they had it pretty well locked up, but it ended quick-seemingly.

Stennis put an amendment on it that said that they had to release the prisoners within 60 days following an act, or else it would nullify the amendment, and that lost 48-51.

Then we asked for, we moved to reconsider, and the reconsideration carried 50 and 49.

Then they re-voted as Dennis carried 50 and 49.

So they got a reversal.

So they had this Dennis Amendment.

But then Mansfield moved to offer his as a substitute.

And Mansfield carried 57 and 42.

Well, they explained he was on the left.

What does the Mansfield, this one, provide?

Well, it is the sense of the Senate, right?

That's the order of the number.

It's not a restriction.

That's the sense of the Senate resolution.

It says to get out of the war in nine months.

It declares it's the policy of the United States to terminate military operations in Indochina within nine months.

and requests the President to implement this policy by proclaiming a final date of withdrawal, not later than nine months, negotiating with North Vietnam for an immediate ceasefire, and negotiating with North Vietnam for an agreement providing for phased withdrawal of troops in exchange for a phased release of Pico Dovias.

What the hell is he?

We're the most idiotic.

And it's all in the October 7th speech.

Yeah, so the Senate's finally on a victory.

Ross actually said something, didn't he?

Why don't you get the sense of the house that it's the other way?

It cannot be.

Well, this isn't an amendment to the draft or anything like that.

It's an amendment that it declares it's the sense of the Senate.

Where it's the sense of the Senate where you are just trying to get a board.

It is an amendment, but it doesn't carry with it.

It doesn't have an effective law because it only declares it.

It's the policy of it that doesn't.

Not a plan made or a fund cut off.

It's not a mandate or a fund cutoff.

That's your home.

It's a declaration of policy and a request out of their census.

Of course, this sort of thing is happening often.

We don't want to get our policy too much in our program.

While it's in there, he gets his policy in our program because it is what it is.

I know what it is.

They do make their decisions based on other things.

They deep down all the others.

They deep down the Cook-Stevens.

Well, all the others were much more dangerous, including the one in the House, because they were mandatory.

That's right.

And this is going to be the second one.

And request that the President implement this policy by seeking an immediate ceasefire.

Well, first, we're claiming a final date of withdrawal.

Second, negotiate.

and third, negotiations for an agreement of phased withdrawal combined with phased release of POWs.

We are negotiating for a ceasefire.

We are negotiating for withdrawal of what they say?

Phased withdrawal of troops in exchange for phased release of POWs.

In other words, you let out, we take home 100 troops and you let out a POW.

Yeah.

When you proclaimed your withdrawal date, how did you get the rest of it?

I'm not sure.

Yeah, why would they negotiate for anything?

If you said you're going to get out, it doesn't cost anything.

They won't tell you how many prisoners you have, so how do you know whether you're going to pay us?

Coming back to this thing here, if you would like to assess us when it comes down to it, shall we say I'll be available?

And if the damn thing happens during this dinner, we'll be at a high sign.

We'll just, I'll just, I'll just get out.

I'm sorry.

I'm just making a conversation.

Just excuse us.

We'll never expect the hell out of you guys.

Oh, well, I don't want to come back.

Make it permanent.

Let's talk a minute about what time is it there?

7.30.

I don't think that he wants you to serve him.

If you're proud of Peter's mining and stocking paper, you'll have to know all about Gideon's army.

All right.

Gideon's army.

He's getting a little by for Gideon.

How much did the stock market finally wind up today?

I don't know.

It's going up when he came back today.

Oh, very big.

I'm not quite sure.

That's right.

Apparently, George had some misinformation.

It's dropped off too much on a small volume.

It wasn't a huge volume, was it?

Not the way it's been on the upside.

Look, on this thing here, though, you don't understand.

We aren't going to leave this alone.

We're going to make these bastards pay.

I'm not referring to this mansion, but I am referring to this issue.

This is the issue that we have with property.

We've got to get just three or four of those documents.

Admiral Galen.

Galen.

has specific documents, specific parts of documents where it says, for instance, we intercepted having transmissions and so on and so forth.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

And this tells the enemy how we get information and compromises on the information gathering system that we have.

This is how promptly it works.

And this is in half the data that the Justice Department was going to use in court.

How do you think it gets out?

I don't have as much confidence in the select committee as you do.

I don't think they'll have confidence.

Well, I imagine that you will have on that committee, you'll have Scott, Ford, I would believe.

Isn't that what McGregor says is going to be structured as, John?

Scott and Ford, Lansdale and Albert, so forth.

Yeah.

So if you get such a committee, you know, they can call anybody they want as witnesses, as a minority, and insist on it, and program it.

I don't like Mansfield as if he's the chairman of it.

He's going to fight very hard.

All right.

A message to everyone.

He's got to get a reaction to this thing, and Bob, what are you going to do on that?

Reaction?

What did you get on the stock market?

It doesn't have anything.

What about the reaction on that?

I mean, I think we're going to have to put something on that.

Yes.

Well, that's what I think, isn't it?

Well, that's pretty good.

Oh, you got something, Jerry?

That just opens up the same old fight between the President and the Congress as to who's running the foreign policy and the national defense.

It went down after going up.

Isn't that interesting?

I got you.

I don't know why they put a quotation mark.

Uh, uh, Jerry Ford called Clark to say that he hoped we could make some announcement on the documents in Congress before it was in the March so that they could stop.

And I told Clark he was going to meet with Mastu.

He said, well, after that meeting, give Clark a chance to call Albert before we release anything to the press so that no reporters come to Albert.

Sure.

You better also program Ford and Scott, because your Scott has been holding off according to somebody's understanding, talking about the litigation and so forth.

So they're all covered.

I don't want to call them.

He asked me some big questions.

I said, no, it was just going to be Mansfield.

Nobody else was going to be there.

I think dealing with all five is not a good idea.

No.

I think this is much better.

Mansfield had a box there, and this is an eccentricity that I don't think you want.

He's got his own views, and he didn't do a big mishmash.

Oh, yeah, I have trouble with Albert, too.

I've had more trouble with our people if they're not appropriate.

Yeah, but... Well, it's just a nice thing to do with Albert.

Our people need to be told.

The good reason Scott doesn't... Scott is trying to go back to England tonight.

Oh, is he?

Yeah, he was just here for 20 minutes with the boat.

He interrupted his holiday.

Thanks.

Thanks for letting me get up there.

That really is a tiny bit of Senator's law.

That is none of it.

I want, I think you've got to get something for Ron in the morning.

You might talk to Senator.

It's not a significant event, you understand, for the reason that the, naturally that the, you know, the sense of the Senate and the, and the fact that we're already doing it.

You might, you might get, get the facts from Henry, but get the, get the, get a statement that Ron, you know,

That's the line we were going to take.

This is the sentence of the Senate.

It is not the sentence of the House.

That's what it is.

Of course, it's not sent to the House at this point.

It's actually a race.

The resolution speaks of issues that the President already has spoken to.

And then you get to October 7, the ceasefire throughout all of China, the withdrawal of Americans, prisoners,

and the withdrawal of American forces.

And that we have already covered that.

That is exactly what we really believe in.

And it is exactly what we will continue to negotiate, but just as strongly as we can.

Somebody ought to be smart to figure out something to say.

to the president's order of declassification.

The statement they were using in the court didn't mean a new initiative.

It was a general process.

It didn't mean that Laird was... Oh, I see.

It was a general process of gradual declassification.

I see.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you for your time, Alan.

See you tonight.

Is this the end for us?

Yeah, see you.

If anyone wants to come in, I'll permit it.

I'll get this guy shot.

He suggests either Bob Anderson or Regan.

Or Ed Morgans, Howard Morgans, I mean, Dr. Gamble.

Yeah, or Carter.

No, Carter Christ, not Carter.

Okay, that's right.

Oh, come on.

I think Regan's all right.

Okay.

Let's see if we can keep it tight.

But they really must say that it's not just part of their battle, but, you know, we went through a little bit of this, and so on.

The sense of the Senate, that was the point.

You know, where they squeal around and say, well, they're expressing themselves in the sense that we're not consequences.

Well, actually, the one good thing it has is a ceasefire.

Well, it says we should see the ceasefire.

What the hell do they think we've been doing?

We should see a withdrawal and, accompanied with our B.O.W.s, what the hell do they think we're negotiating about?

And it says that we should set a date.

You've got the words on that.

Is that a general suggestion with regard to what you want to say?

I think it's been a wonderful statement.

Those are the points I've made.

No, I think we should say it's a sense of the Senate.

This is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh,

It's contradictory, wasn't it, because setting a deadline is totally inconsistent with achieving ceases with the ceasefire that we want to negotiate and with our POWs.

The enemy is ascending for negotiating about POWs or negotiating a ceasefire.

is, uh, totally withdrawn.

So, therefore, what we, but, however, we respect the, the sense of the Senate on the other matters, we, we initiated discussions, and the other people, everybody, and our office, uh, have been pursuing through all channels of the Senate.

That's all I wanted to say.

Yeah, I would just say we know, I would just say we know that the House has voted differently.

Yeah, well, whatever the end of that is.

That was after they had already done it.

They've got to get on.

They can't just straight go by.

They can't do that.

They just want to be served.

They force the president to do what he says that he is doing.

That's all they're doing.

And I'll tell you, the Republicans are going to have to do what they're doing.

And you've got about 57 years to do this.

Well, it's a disgraceful period in American history.

It really is.

We've offered everything in there except its precise date on May 31st.

And while we're waiting... On May 31st, you said, well, you can go shaking.

I said, we will give them a date.

As soon as they tell us that they would release prisoners...

If we give them a date, that's all I ask.

And then I said, we'll give them a date, and they can then discuss the date with us.

So that meets point one.

That sees fire with point two.

And we've done all of this.

It's all done.

And if they turn us down, I think you ought to consider going public.

and saying, this is what I've had to put up with after I made my offer.

The first place I've been.

Well, I'm going to say that I offered this, and now we have a pandemic, and the enemy has turned it down.

This has been destroyed by the Senate.

That's right.

Well, thank you really, sir.

That's the time to do it.

I'll say it now.

Now I can be told.

I've warned the Senate.

I've got to warn Nancy tomorrow.

I've got to warn them.

I know I'm saying I might.

Nobody else does.

I'll be too sure you may not still get some.

This is why I tend to become more raucous.

I'll just play it hard and tough, Mr. President.

If they mention Mansfield, I'll tell them.

We'll see you in Austin until January 1, 1973.

Every other one of those other members had the force of law.

Every other one of them cut off funds or force them.

This one has no force of law at all, which is the only way it could be passed.

And that this is a bunch of people who want to get on a bandwagon.

Which is exactly true.

They can check that through any way they want.

I wonder whether we should say that those who voted for this have to bear the responsibility of something.

I don't want to say it now.

I think we should downplay this.

Downplay it in terms of saying that there's an entity that's setting a deadline, of course, is inconsistent with the authority already doing these.

The only thing that's good is setting a deadline, of course.

They won't turn us down until after I've talked to the Chinese.

They just can't risk it, I don't think.

If they turn us down, I think you should see if you think you should be going on television next week.

And saying, now, gentlemen, this is the record.

On May 31st, we made the following proposal.

And on June 26th, in the interval, the following events happened.

Clifford, the disclosure of the papers, and the Senate resolution.

And then they turned it down.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily, but this is why we fought so hard.

I think we could devastate.

All right.

So could you back up that you were, you make people wonder, Jesus, he really was trying to do all this, and these guys screwed him up.

That's right.

I think it's going to put a great restraint on them for next...

It will stop this endless harassing.

Nothing will stop that.

These people will only go for the short term.

They'll only go for the cheap shot where they're... Well, if they won't turn it down, I think what they will do is ask a series of questions.

And I think they're going to stall for that trip to China just as we really...

None of this makes a damn bit of difference if we can pull off something with China.

You think the Chinese can do anything with us?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Of course, it depends.

We will have, Mr. President.

And I hope I have made this clear.

You know it anyway without my making it clear.

When we start playing the Chinese card, it will take strong moves because the Russians are going to have a real consideration on whether they won't kick us all over the world.

I mean, we may have about three months of hell with the Russians after that.

The good of the country will help the Russians might be exactly what we need.

It's unbelievable what we have.

And we have everything going.

I'm not discouraged, but just to think what these bastards have done with this meeting going, with this China thing coming off.

The Russians.

And the Russians.

It's awful.

Well, you've got to look at it, however, as to what this is and what it is not.

But I don't know that Hanoi understands that.

Hanoi will read this as a further weakening in our position.

The newspapers and the television commentators, they are not going to explain tonight on television that this is just the sense of the Senate.

They may.

Is it possible to get out of the fact that we've already, who are people, should we ever get out of the maritime lakes and say that we've offered to cease fire?

We're going to end the debate on this today.

They were going to make all those points, man.

I'm sure they did.

But you won't hear that.

They didn't make it through.

We haven't seen the markets, so I don't know.

That was very much... Well, Mr. President, assuming that the other side accepts this, assuming the other side...

Assuming that what happens in Paris this weekend leads to a negotiation, we have an obligation then to make clear that it was triggered on May 31st and not by anything that these bastards said here.

So don't worry.

Don't worry about that.

If we get a negotiation, all this crap is not going to be any... Well, they're going to go around next year and say that until they... You can make a great story out of the secret negotiations and all that.

Okay.

Well, you've got to play out the game now and see what happens.

Sorry to be late.

But it is a disgraceful period in our history.

Not like that, Mr. President.

Never has a president had to put up with what you've had to put up.

No support at all since Lincoln.

Not since Lincoln.

But they didn't have television every night.

And he had a civil war which some people just had to fight.

There was no way you could avoid fighting the civil war.

Well, for sure, I'm a Democrat, and I'm voting for this subject.

But I do not and will never be reconciled to the Republican Socialist Party, particularly after they were told.

I'm going to be a weak, weak bunch of assholes.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

They've justified all of us since the Senate came.

Oh, I suppose.

Is that the area they gave you?

And what are you going to take me for doing?

This is not what it's supposed to be.

This one day, Mr. Bartlett, they argued with me mostly about the proceedings, and I thought you already knew.

I wonder who we lost.

We thought we had 45.

Don't worry about it.

Don't tell me now.

I don't want to look like that.

I think I should stand and receive these guys.

I don't know how they got worked out.

I don't know these fellows well enough.

They're pretty good puns.

I talked to them.

Oh, they are good puns.

It's sensational.

They're very bitter.

I think you should come in and let them go by.

Don't you think so?

Yeah.

I talked to Shakespeare afterwards and I said Frank

Just let me make a point.

Ninety percent of what you had the time to cover in there, first place, what you wanted to cover took more, obviously took more time than you had.

No, he took only 30 minutes.

Yeah, but he started on stuff like, he started late, because I said, you're in.

I got in at 20 minutes after he finished at 20 minutes.

But then he didn't get done.

And the point of...

He'd gone 33 minutes for that time.

And I didn't say a word.

I just listened.

Sure.

I said 90% of what you covered would have been just as well and most of it better presented on a piece of paper because you were giving a country report, country by country, and a bunch of things like that to the president.

Yeah.

The president would have gotten a much better response by looking through a piece of paper.

Then, when you come in to see him, he could ask you a couple of questions about the points that he considered pertinent.

Or you could raise a couple of personal points that you wanted to raise, personal points about that kind of thing, on things that could be discussed that would be productive for a two-way thing.

But if it's only going to be one way, it's better to do it right, because you can read that hell a lot faster than you can talk.

Is he in effect really, he's a great guy, and they all do this though, but is he in effect really came in and proceeded to give me a travel log like science and all the other places, the places he visited and the meetings he had.

I think what it is, Bob, he isn't going to do it the other way.

It's a man's ego.

Apparently they feel they've got to come in and read something to you.

What do you think, Henry?

That's right.

I often sit here and think that the best thing these visitors could do for you and the way you remember the most is if they said, look, Mr. President, you need the time to think or relax.

I'll leave you alone.

There they sit with their long sheets of paper talking faster and faster.

They should know that the president can't react to all of this.

Well, Shakespeare's way of doing it is he has to just try to get the walk as he comes in and he puts down his fingers back and thinks,

you know, you look at it, you know, from how God, then you start, I'm sure you did the same thing I did, you start trying to figure how many pages he's writing, and how many minutes per page it's taking to get through it, so you can see how, what he's going to make of it, you can't help it, and he says, he's referring to the one being,

He talks about it.

He says, now I've raised the question of Mr. So-and-so.

He says, I'll come to him later because I want to get back to that point.

I'll come to it further down.

And then he'd go on and say, now I'll get into more detail on that at a later point.

And he'd think, my God, you know.

I feel for him, because I knew he was a friend, everything, and I just thought, oh, God.

And I just realized this, and he automatically turns it off.

As soon as you say, I'm going to come to that later, you start, you can't help but go, and I think, Jesus, how are we going to get him out?

rather than figure what's even coming.

I remember the hotel pier when Chuck Miller came in with the long report.

Oh, he read it to us.

He read it to you.

And if I may say so, you made one of the few mistakes.

He mentioned at the beginning he'll tell you about the Indian-Pakistan raid, and he skipped two pages.

And we thought we had gotten rid of him, and you said, well, what about Indian-Pakistan?

I forgot that.

I'll tell you, there's still a hell of a lot of support in the country for us.

We've still got a lot, you know what I mean?

The problem is that these...

that if it's the war or if it's the media, we've got such an irresponsible bunch.

But just suppose we hadn't fought earlier, we wouldn't be in any place.

But we've got, I think, Mr. President, one lesson is we've got to fight.

Because the tendency of saying, we're already doing this, gives our opponents the ground.

It's, we're not dangerous.

Mr. President.

Sorry, did we want to say anything on tonight to make the news and the morning papers?

I don't know.

Basically, I'd say we should call attention to the fact that this is a sense of dissent and not a law.

Well, also, I think we want to make the point that it's not the full legislative process.

This expresses the views of senators.

It does not express the views of the House.

That's the whole point.

First, that's the president's opinion.

Secondly, it is all of the amendments in both the House and the Senate that would have restricted the president from being defeated.

It would have managed, on a mandatory basis,

This simply expresses to you that you should, you know, write down the notion.

And third, it should be pointed out that the amendment, that is, of course, and actually the President of the Senate, he will take that into consideration.

However, he should have to point out that the, that the, that the, that the amendment passed presently drafted is contradictory because

On the one hand, you cannot tell the enemy that, set a deadline for the enemy in which you will withdraw.

And on the other hand, have any negotiating position left with regard to the ceasefire and the return of American prisoners.

The president will continue to follow the negotiating track without setting a deadline.

as he has since October 7th.

We are negotiating for ceasefire half of the return of our prisoners.

I'll just put it that way.

That's the way we're going to talk about this.

And today, particularly the last one, we'll continue to put you out.

We're going to continue to put you out.

We will not.

We actually will not set a deadline because that would destroy our negotiating position on the ceasefire.

In other words, we cannot make gains in terms of negotiation if we grant you a lateral concession.

Yeah, I don't know whether we want to.

I think we state that quietly by saying this.

The resolution is inconsistent in setting a deadline.

And calling for, calling for negotiating a ceasefire and return of prisoners, because

So I don't know whether we should get into a substantive debate with him tonight

Oh, you've got to say something.

I think what you said at first, Mr. President, what you said at first, you want to point out that this is a matter of the Senate, not of the Senate, that's of the Congress.

And secondly, that none of the mandatory, the things that...

All the mandatory restrictions, this is simply that it had been defeated in both the House and Senate.

And then finally, the President will continue to, in his present course, negotiate for a ceasefire and for return of prisoners and for withdrawal, as set forth in his October 7th speech.

Without setting a deadline.

Yeah.

Well, I said it for him.

I said it for him afterwards.

Without setting a deadline.

I said it for him.

Because setting a deadline.

Setting a deadline.

Would destroy any chances for negotiations.

Absolutely not.

That's a good statement.

They'll say we're disturbing, disappointing, and like that, but this is a pretty, the, why don't you say this, it's not labor to produce a mouse.

Just put it out that way.

I don't know.

Why not?

There's something to be said for that, and let me tell you why.

It is a mouse.

The mountain later produced a mouse.

Well, it took it into a... You mean you kicked Maxville too hard?

All right, let it go.

Give that to one of the opponents, sir.

That would make the news.

Dole or Stennis or somebody.

The bodyguard is with us.

Well, in Paris, I'll just break him out.

I'll just...

I'm not...

I thought I wouldn't because I'm going off tomorrow.

I've talked to the crew, but I'll be glad to come if you think it's okay.

I've already met with them for an hour and a half.

Oh, very well.

The only mistake I made, how I could really give them help, was about the New York guy.

Oh.

The only mistake I made to show you their temper, I said, in addition, there's the simple question of personal justice, the point that Rogers was making.

Well, some of them are so right-wing.

They want to kick Johnson.

I said, we don't give a damn about Johnson.

It's all to our advantage.

But what's happening here is, where are the great civil libertarians, you know?

What do you mean by you talk to them about it?

I show great confidence.

Then I talk to them about Vietnam.

I said, we'll finish it.

We have negotiating processes, or we'll do it the other way.

Then I talk to them about Soviet relations, the reasons why we thought they were more easier to deal with now, and then about Chinese relations.

And I said, our biggest problem, I want to know where that is, is for the president.

I'm sure that in four or five years people are going to wonder, what was it that made us all throw bricks at this moment?

But we are building a new basis for foreign policy.

We have every reason to be optimistic.

Our biggest enemy is at home.

The only people who can defeat us is ourselves.

It's a gung-ho group.

He's scared.

Now, you know, I mean, just fight harder.

Well, for Christ's sake, I've been through these things before, these bombs.

We're out here.

One day, we'll have our day, and we do.

Let me tell you, we're going to change their balls off.

There ain't going to be no fooling around.

They don't... Oh, yes, they do.

Some of them do.

The chance will come, and nobody knows how tough I can be.

If I had to be, you know.

I don't think Mr. President... Look, if I had to be in California, you're going to hesitate to kick these bastards in the balls?

The disgusting thought about it is that I believe that some of them are doing a different set of training than succeeding.

The Democrats.

They've got to be guts.

They want to be in on it.

They just want to be in on it.

Oh, oh, oh.