Conversation 534-002

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Well, it's a dope day.

I got the, uh, I got the, uh, I got the, uh,

Before you say a word about him, let me tell you one thing I want you to know about Eastern people.

I don't like to go into old history, but in his case, Bob, the major problem I had was that his came from such a nice family.

He was the boy chosen at Johns Hopkins to be most likely to succeed.

His family were just beyond reproach.

One of the best, one of the better families in the whole country.

And he was graduated from Harvard Law School.

James came from a bad family.

That was better and it was made over and over again.

I don't hear this standard shit anymore from anybody.

The guys from the best family are most likely to go off that arrogance that puts them above the law.

So let's keep that.

They all are that way.

All these harder people.

All they put me on.

They just can't be wrong.

Okay?

What's he say?

He's all right, he's not going, no?

This is precisely what Larry said he did.

He showed the cables from Ellsworth to Ellsworth across.

But he did this, and then those cables were later put back.

This was a case that came up, as Larry said, it was when he was at the State Department.

He was Elliot's assistant in Vietnam.

He knew Chow, as did Ellsberg.

And he showed the cable.

They were going to bat for Chow.

Showed the cables.

The cables that he showed Ellsberg were later printed by Jimmy Goethe on the stock.

Washington Star story.

Why didn't we catch Ellsberg back?

That's a very interesting point.

Rogers, at that time, was very concerned about it and ran an investigation.

Found that Cook had shown the cables to Ellsberg.

Ellsberg was a randy.

There was no security violation in any way, shape, or form.

He had not given them the cables.

He had shown them to him.

When it was leaked, when the leak appeared in the Star, when Doyle's story appeared in the Star with the cables, they started checking on this and said Cook volunteered

that he had shown the papers to Ellsberg, and that, in his opinion, Ellsberg could very well have been the leak on it, in which he had indicated his distrust of Ellsberg.

On the basis of that, the State Department took a role in that grand cooperation.

To make the point of the problem with Ellsberg, by then, Ellsberg was already gone, and Elliott can't remember whether he had been fired or his story had left, but he wasn't at Rand anymore.

So State dropped the case because of that.

Now, Elliott is not going to stand there and tell us

that Cooke and Ellsberg, that Cooke didn't know that Ellsberg would do such a thing as to show up for the stock.

Now, oh shit, when it really got to Cooke, he also tried to, John and one of the leases who were there at the time on the investigation, they also found that someone else in the State Department, a girl, actually later, after Ellsberg knew about the cables from

got to another contact and saved a girl further down in Woodburg and got the actual cables from her.

He called Cook in last night.

Cook says that he has not given or shown any other information to Ellsberg, nor has he had any communication with Ellsberg since this night.

As to the question of whether he had a security problem with defense before he left, he says he

is not aware of any and was very surprised to hear that there could have been any because he was given a leave from America.

He was on the faculty at either West Point or the Air Force Academy.

He was in Larry Lynn's group on Vietnam Special Studies in early 70s.

He's been at ACW for over a year, about a year.

And he's

Elliot's at ATW.

He has been listening, moving around.

He was working with Elliot on developing the ceasefire initiatives.

He is very moderate in any personal opinion type stuff.

He's not done anything in public.

I feel very strongly.

Do you need a hard hand?

What's Elliot say?

He's a nice guy and he's sorry.

And we're sorry I did this.

And we'll watch him closely.

Is that really the upshot of the whole thing?

No, the upshot of the whole thing is he feels that Cook did nothing at all that he should not have done.

There is no case against him at all.

Ellsberg at the time was a trusted member of the

Napra, Ellsberg, we're in the middle of bureaucracy.

Just screw us on the board, policy matters.

But he didn't know that.

I don't know if Henry disappeared or anybody else who was talking to him.

Your conspiracy, that strange, transparent call game.

I love the message yesterday.

He was at a football game in Los Angeles, a Rams game, last October.

Two people sitting behind him were conversing.

By the conversation, it was clear that one of them was a member of the business executives who moved for peace, who I think, that's Wilkins, who were financing McCloskey.

And there was a demonstration coming up, and the one man said to the other, are you and your group going to participate in the demonstration?

And he said, no, we've got a bigger project underway.

As the conversation developed, it became clear that the bigger project, and he spelled this out, was next summer, we're going to leave

the papers about the war that we've got set up to go out.

We've got a man in Kissinger's office who is giving us the material.

And he didn't say it.

That's my point.

I think there is one.

And there are two men in the White House who will quit next summer and will bring out this information and denounce the war.

And that all was covered in a conversation last fall, which

Francis didn't have to have a signature letter.

He just left and signed the letter.

Any response?

I don't know.

He just doesn't ever catch on.

If he told you anything about this conversation, I'd love it.

No time to try and find him.

Just say that this is just a comment.

Okay.

Let's go to the source.

I see our turkeys have a good play.

Turkeys have a good play.

Yes, the FBI has a good play on all of them.

On even a spot of all of them.

Yeah, both, two different stories.

You've got both the turkey story and the...

FBI story.

They made a big thing out of your defense of Hoover, and a big applause after the, uh, he's never served a, he's always, he's never served a party, he's always served his country.

And, uh, they ran, they had applause after that, they had applause after the end of the year of permissiveness, and, uh, the, uh, Good.

Good.

They're running it on a date.

Howard Smith had a, what is it, a pretty good thing on the establishment.

And he said, you know, people are against the establishment.

He said they don't understand the establishment is the New York Times and all those people.

And the leading anti-establishment figure in the country today is the man who sits in the general office.

The kind of guy who sits in the, the people, the anti-establishment figure is the kind of guy who puts ketchup on his cottage cheese.

And the leading

Now, uh, could you talk to her?

I talked to Colson.

I've done a lot of thinking last night and I'd like to do some more this evening if I don't have to do something on that July 3rd.

I have a feeling that we have held an opportunity here.

Now, uh,

You won't get that from anybody else there, probably, except about Colson.

Of course, he's not done everything.

That means nothing.

But here's why.

This is a conspiracy.

It does involve these people, and they are not on very good ground in many cases.

Also, we now have the opportunity, really, to leak out all these nasty stories that will kill these bastards.

I don't know what he even noted this morning, but even the Times, to my great surprise, gave a hell of a wallop to the Kennedy event.

I don't think this is the time.

I don't think that I should elevate this.

I don't give God a name about suppression.

I don't mind being known as a suppression for a while.

Now, that's because there isn't anybody that believes in suppression and anybody that mentions it already.

Now, that's my view.

Also, I think further down the line, and this is really where it comes down to, if we can get a break, do get a break, and I can make something else on the 15th.

Now, what is the argument?

How many people want me to rush out and make a statement before a bigger group today?

How many want me to do it on the 6th?

How many want me to wait?

What is the deal and so forth?

All right, so you is the only one I really have at this point.

Nobody else has really come up with a few.

And John still holds to his that you should make a statement on the 6th.

Why?

He wants to, he thinks he does.

He wants to, I just filled it in on all this stuff and he started trying to sort it all out now.

He's got so many other things.

No, he's writing this, but his inclination is that you still should make the statement.

I'm not sure that it's on the suppression of the dentist.

I'm not going to make a statement on it.

I just don't feel right about a statement.

I'm not winning.

Gullsburg is coming up for trial.

I don't want to get in the back.

I don't want to get into the suppression thing, the news, the court spoken, and then we go forward.

I don't see it in him before, and I want to have a talk with Colson, particularly, to get his views.

But John tends to want to step up.

Always, you know, he's a great one to go step out and hit things.

I'm willing to step out, but I never want to step out at the wrong time.

The other senators are trying to wait and get, and maybe this is not the time.

What does it target him for?

Does he have any big other things?

Do we need to say something to clear the air or something?

I think he thinks that you will give me, by you now putting the whole thing into perspective, making the case of why we have to protect the governments

I wonder if you could have a meeting with John Colson, with Moore.

I think you ought to have him.

It's the regular group.

I think he ought to pull his crew together.

What I'm getting at is that you can have a little discussion about it.

You know the district review well enough does.

It is basically so emotional about the... And to a certain extent, Bobby's correct.

You know, you just shouldn't allow, you should not allow the fact that the papers have been printed to... That cannot be the basis for any last

John is quite opposed, I think, to the idea, to Laird's idea of releasing the papers.

He, in his quick reaction, at least he was sympathetic to Henry's view that we should maintain our continuing position.

Also, he is, thinks we should go on the criminal route against the Times, as we wrote out.

Here's the other thing.

Don't get a message from this.

It doesn't make sure we'll not be able to see it.

I mean, you've got a good group there.

It may be here that we can use Laird.

I'm sure you will.

Laird has the biggest spy apparatus of anybody you understand.

That's bigger than the FBI about things like this.

The FBI won't get to this sort of thing.

They don't have them.

They do not have them.

No.

I think you've got to take Dick out on the mountaintop and see if he wants to handle us.

You said that you didn't think he was the right guy to know somebody that counted on him or something.

Because he's too... Dick doesn't think he is.

Dick out on the mountaintop.

And he'll come on the short term.

We can get Allen in right now and get him pulling some people together who can't do it.

He doesn't need really to come to Peterson right away.

Yeah, but, you know, we can use Allen.

Here's what happened.

I had a project that I wanted somebody to do.

It's just like I took this case and the Bentley case and the rest.

And I'll tell you what this takes.

This takes 18 hours a day.

It takes devotion and dedication and loyalty and

Devotion is such a thing you've never seen before.

I've never worked as hard in my life, and I'll never work as hard again, so I've never had any energy.

But this is a hell of a great opportunity, I'll say what secret it is.

I'm going to crack down on you, if you breathe on it, and leave there it is.

And, you see, and here's where John will record, and I don't, probably we all have to tell him.

You probably don't know what I meant when I said yesterday that we won this case in the papers.

We did.

I had to leave stuff all over the place, didn't I?

Because the Justice Department would not have prosecuted Hoover.

He didn't even go up there until I believed him.

It was one in the papers.

John actually doesn't understand that, sir.

He needs to go to IRB.

It's hard to him.

What I mean is, we have to develop now a program.

A program for leaking out information.

For destroying these people in the papers.

That's one side of it.

And it would get out of the conspiracy.

The other side of it is the declassification.

Declassification.

And then leading to or giving out to our friends the stories that they would like to have, such as a Cuban congregation.

Let me tell you about the declassification in previous years.

It helps us.

I'm sure you know.

It takes the eyes off of Vietnam.

It gets them thinking about the past rather than our present problems.

It defines

Yeah, absolutely.

And as a matter of fact, these papers, in a sense, well, in a sense, well, while they are about the Pentagon war papers and so forth, it was too confusing to be the war, in my opinion.

That was another day, and there was other administrations, other cast of characters.

So what I mean, I think that it was about the war, but it is not about what we are doing in the war.

That's right.

It's not about what we're doing.

You see what we need?

I hate somebody.

I hate really, rather than work, I'm interested in a personality type, a whole life of whatever, who'll work his butt off and do it honorably.

I really need a son of a bitch like you who'll work his butt off and do it dishonorably.

You see what I mean?

Who will know what he's doing.

And I want to know too.

And I'll direct it myself.

I'll think, I'm going to play this game.

And we're going to start playing it.

this son of a bitch cook in my presence.

I don't trust him.

I don't believe that story at all.

Do you understand?

I do not believe that story.

You see, by the way, did you know that putting the Chow story out there, that was not the end.

Talking to that elder, he was working within the bureaucracy against us.

You see, Chow is a communist.

Do you understand?

Or to have him here.

He's on the left out there.

It's rough.

It's true.

You don't read?

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I've come so deep.

Mark, why do you worry?

He'll turn on you.

He'll turn on us.

Don't ever get the son of a bitch in this White House.

Now, the other point is, I have done a lot of thinking about the times post-freeze.

Now, I want you, again, again,

That is on, period, exactly.

And there must be no deviations, ever.

And that means nobody in any pool, no calls for e-return, no backgrounders, no social events, nothing, exactly.

I want to prove this law.

Now, has that been worse than it gets on both neighbors?

That's what we've ever done.

All right.

Yeah?

It's absolutely amazing.

I mean, people, you know, Shell has said the other day, he asked me yesterday if it's still held across the board because the economic guy, a good guy, Dale, was hounding him on wanting to talk to him.

I said, no, it's still hold.

Just don't be able to take it again.

I'll get around to that.

On the road.

that we cannot talk to any time reporter except on the record in the presence of other reporters.

Is that clear?

On the record, in the presence of other reporters, and that means at regular briefings or press conferences.

That's true of the Times, that's true of the Post.

There will be no off-the-record background, personal interview, anything, at any time to a Postman, ever.

Or he's often listed on FYI as staff.

I hope that understood.

I want you to get that old solar price.

I want you to get that department.

I want you to get that satellite.

You see people like that over there.

See, they would, they would, they would have changes.

No, they don't.

They don't.

I know they're wild.

I think they'll, I think they'll hang tight on it.

They so far have.

I talked to Colson already, especially about using that thing.

You probably don't realize what a massive public relations story that can be.

It doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

It probably is a combination of whether it's been a little or not.

But if it hasn't been any, then it wasn't as high as it looked before.

And it isn't as low as it looks now, sir.

Exactly.

They have to have balanced the seasonal adjuster over the year.

So if they go too high on one month, they have to do a compensating

lower point than the other one.

And his point has been, and he's been saying this all along, he's been saying the figure is too high because they're over-adjusting on the seasonal adjustment.

But don't let it worry you too much because they have to statistically come out, the seasonal adjustment has to work itself out over the year by definition.

Whatever they add, well, whatever they add

in the seasonal adjustment in one month has to be in some other months subtracted.

In other words, over the year, the average figure has to come out to the same figure that it would have come out if they had not adjusted it at all.

So if you adjust it up two tenths this month, then some other month for over a period of months, you have to reduce it by two tenths at some other time.

And he says they've been adding it all along this time too high because of technical fact, not dishonestly, but because

weighing the factors off.

But their whole process requires them then to do the compensating lower, downward adjustment at some other time.

And they're caught with that now, where it's gonna force them.

He said, he said, don't worry too much about it, because somewhere, they're doing this unseasonal adjustment now, and in the process, they're gonna have to help us at an exactly balancing rate.

And that's why he says now, this, why did they get Mr. Bigelow to do it now?

Probably because June is the month where the seasonal adjustment, it's where the college students come into the market hall.

There's always a big jump.

So they were preparing for a big jump that didn't happen.

In other words, their seasonally adjusting would have normally cranked it up higher than it was, and it did not send any kids here in March.

They may not have come in as much, or maybe the ones that came in got jobs or whatever.

But it didn't happen as big as it would have been.

You realize what a story has to be made.

I told Colson, he's got to get on NBC and kind of find out what to do about it.

Right.

And knock the lid of it.

Jesus, I don't know if they don't play this right.

And the papers and everybody else.

Get them beforehand and get it played right.

And then release it first thing in the morning.

It's got to be in time.

And all the BBC, their technical experts, have been very supportive.

We don't want to get in the face of the White House and Charlie and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so much, but at least just to get out there and figure out, well, it may get over, but I guess you're right.

Get it played right is the more important thing.

But if it isn't played right, this is one time.

We've got to get that retrofitted, that short hair change.

We did those things yesterday pretty well, didn't we?

That's right.

That's why they played it.

It is not bad.

I'm sure they think that they were trying to repression it.

All that kind of stuff.

Well, they've got to Mitchell on that, don't they?

Mitchell?

Yeah, because he kept on the repression thing.

He said, well, he's out of social life.

John just, you know, just can't take this.

You know, he just gets it all the time.

And he listens to the dog when he's depressed.

It'll pass.

Don't worry about it.

It will pass.

It won't be repression now.

and those forklifts were unbelievably annoying, and there was just too much shit and garbage.

I don't know, man, is there any good historic evidence?

What do you guys think?

Those old bars shouldn't stay on there.

That's how we got out of them.

Believe me, there's nothing more important that I can see on the domestic front in terms of winning in 1972 than getting a crack and changing the record.

We could have opened that up by September 9th.

in the 40s, 45s, that's why Paul is a good one, who can stay there and both conserve himself.

The court's a disaster.

It is a disaster.

But look at me.

You've got a senile old bastard in black.

You've got a dented old bastard.

The name's the son of his dad's.

You've got an old fool, a black fool, and that through your marshes.

Then you've got in Brandon, I mean, a jackass Catholic

Who is just fake leaders, he's got a crew, he's a liberal every time he turns around.

And then White, Mr. White, well, what's your, pretty good, he's on the balance, very good.

But looking at the Republican side, you have this fellow there, this fellow around there.

He would like to review this.

Review this morning, sir.

He came in around 9.15.

No, I have a meeting with just your, I don't know, what's he like, sir?

He's not that, that's a good answer.

Yes, sir.

I've got to get in on this thing.

You go talk to this man.

All right, if you want to write it without me, you're not.

All right.

You know, I've got to get in on this.

I'm just supposed to be waiting the night.

I'm just waiting for this bullshit to end.

You know, what are we going to do about this?

You're going to have to veto it or anything.

I don't give a damn.

I don't listen to you.

I don't make a deal with you.

to go back and read the

The original statement that I made was about some kind of blue room, which has been widely reprinted.

Remember that one?

Sure.

Oh, blue is the rest of it.

But it's kind of the thing about it.

It's probably what I want to make again.

Maybe we can get some of that into the pen, though.

Maybe we can get away from this.

You know, plenty of land, and land, and land, and earth.

Plenty of land.

Plenty of land, and land, and earth.

It's not going to be some other loose land.

You might look at that, and if it's good, say it again.

See, if that was good, you're giving us a, on this one, I guess Michael read it out.

It makes a lot of difference right now, doesn't it?

You just want that word.

You know, it's out there.

Oh, Christ, man, you just better read it out.

You got that thing done right there.

Do you think it makes that much of a difference?

No, I think it's, it clearly is better if you can do it the other way.

But it's not, not if you can.

Not if it doesn't, not if you don't have the time.

It's not that important.

The difference is not such that you should give up.

I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that.

I know I can't see for you.

I got to write this out in a speech.

Oh, that's too much.

It's OK.

Mr. President, I think our press response ought to be we just won't make any further comment about negotiations.

We won't negotiate it in the press and imply that something's... No, sir.

And, you know, if it goes on, we'll say, sure, that's fair to apply to a proposal we made to them on May 31st.

Well, sir, what exactly did they say?

Well, they published the first two parts of the...

You better build him in very briefly on that.

Thank you, sir.

We had a report from one of our investigations who had a football game in October, a Rams game at the Coliseum.

And sitting behind him were two men who were talking during the football game.

How the conversation was cleared was a member of the business executives for peace saying that, you know, it may have been Will, because he couldn't identify the men by name, but they were talking.

One man asked the other if his group was going to participate in the demonstration that they were planning, and he said, no, we have a bigger project underway that we're concentrating on.

We have a plan for releasing...

getting released a lot of secret government documents about how we got into the war that we're going to get released next summer.

We have a man in Henry Kissinger's office who is working with us on it.

And there are two men in the White House who will resign next summer, blast the war, and release material.

So the only purpose is not to get signed into the decision.

There's almost nobody, you know, of my very immediate entourage.

There are only about three or four people who have this stuff.

I think if they start linking White House stuff, we should just publish all our details.

But most of the stuff we're keeping secret is these stuff.

And we don't have a hell of a lot of stuff.

Sure, we made some contingency plans once for a blockading high farm, but so what?

We didn't do it.

That would be known to more people because that involved what you had to do to get a record.

You know the story.

I'm a cook now.

I'm not telling you.

It's completely different.

Well, the same.

First, back to our surrounds, they used a kiss I'll never forget.

They said, well, this came from a good family.

He went to John's house and he contacted his mom and he talked to her.

He just couldn't be bad.

His father was an anchor.

I can give you that.

All right.

Here's what he did.

He admitted that he did talk.

He turned over to him.

He went over there.

He saw Ellsberg, who was in Iran.

So therefore, it says this was not wrong then.

And he showed him secret cables with regard to the shop.

When they opened them, remember the shop case?

Oh, yeah.

The letter.

I know the one that was locked up by two.

The Suncovich.

Yeah.

And that later, because those secret cables, those stories were printed in the Washington Star by Doyle.

That's how the Chow story came out.

Rogers became concerned about it at that point.

You know, we remember.

Oh, yes, I remember that very well.

Rogers became concerned.

I don't remember.

Rogers became concerned until then.

They checked with Rick Rand, and Rand then at that point, apparently, moved on to Ellsberg.

Now why the hell we weren't told about that, I don't know.

But the point that disturbs me is that Elliot Richardson defended this man because he didn't do anything wrong.

Now my point is that Cook should go to the precinct

He was not just an author as people.

He was working within the bureaucracy.

And that's what we are for.

And he hasn't been working on it.

He was his assistant.

He was fired from Folsom.

You remember the guy, Pete Spartan, who pulled up the same person over there, Charlie?

Every three months.

Now, one other thing.

What would you do with a woman in these situations?

I'd fire her.

Huh?

But, Mr. President, I may have had... No, that's not enough.

That's not... You see, he didn't do anything wrong legally.

No, that's two separate issues, Mr. President.

He did not do anything illegal, but there is a need to know.

Now, what need did Ellsberg have to know the Chow case?

The mere fact that somebody has a clearance doesn't entitle him to be thrown down here.

I have made wrong judgments in hiring people, and in retrospect, I regret some of them.

But when I caught somebody, I had a man called Davids, whom I caught in May, on May 14, 69.

On May 14, 69, talking three hours early about your speech to a newspaper woman, and I threw him out the next day.

Cook, in my judgment, Ellsberg had no right to know this information.

By that time, he was known to be a...

But I think that there are two issues.

One is...

Did Ellsberg have a clearance?

Yes.

And the answer is yes.

We all know that.

I told you everything was legal.

But secondly, the second point is, did Ellsberg have a need to know?

Secret information is given only to people who have a need to know.

There are many that have a clearance, Bob.

A million.

You go take it to your secretary.

Why did you take it to him?

That's my question.

Except to screw the administration.

In our position on this, that's all.

Everybody who knew Ellsberg at that point knew he was a fanatic opponent of the board.

That's right.

Anybody who showed classified information to Ellsberg at that point... ...knew that he was playing, he was doing it for the purpose of getting Ellsberg information to get the administration right.

Now, there's more detail on this, and we'll go back to that, but he makes the point that at the time that the Chow thing came up, some of those who knew Chow went to bat for him.

Cook was one of those.

That was not our policy.

Ellsberg was another.

That was not our policy.

Bunker was another.

Yeah, but Bunker didn't leave stuff to the press.

Neither did these people at the time.

Yeah, but if Cook gave that information to Ellsberg... What the hell is the difference?

Showing it to him is giving it to him.

That's why information is not even supposed to turn paper when somebody walks in the door.

Bunker talked to you.

But that's the difference thing from here's what they were trying to do is to work through Ellsberg and the press to put pressure on the administration.

I don't believe in that.

I do not believe in that.

Okay, just don't let them come in, honey, those sons of bitches.

Now, that's all.

I just, I'm just not going to let them do it.

Now, you get up.

When you get to Irving now, will you please...

I want you to find me a recommendation of the man to work directly with me on this whole situation.

I've got to have one.

I mean, I can't have a high-minded lawyer like John Irvin or Dean or somebody like that.

I want a son of a bitch.

I want somebody that's just as tough as I am for a change.

Just as tough as I was, I can say, in his case.

Where we won the case in the press.

These goddamn lawyers are all whining around about, you know, I never regret it.

They're also worried about the men's case.

I know there's actually one of them.

You've got to let some mix in the press.

These guys don't understand.

They have no understanding of politics.

They have no understanding of public relations.

John Mitchell's that way.

This is technically correct.

Do you think the crisis in the New York Times is worrying about all the legal niceties of sons of bitches are killing?

They're admitting God by leaving the trust.

This is what we've got to get.

I want you to shave these up around here.

Now, you do it.

Shave them up.

Get them off their goddamn dead asses.

Say, well, that isn't what this is talking about.

We're up against an enemy, a conspiracy.

They're using any means.

any means.

Is that clear?

Did they get the Brookings Institute ready last night?

No.

Get it done.

I want it done.

I want the Brookings Institute, say, cleaned out.

Can't have it cleaned out in a way that they need somebody else for here.

Ask Peg about Dick Cook.

If Cook gave a classified document to Ellsberg to read, he did it with.

It's one thing for Bunker to talk to you, but you... What he gave him was the cables from Bunker.

I want... John!

Yeah.

Honorable people.

But Bunker was doing a lot of these things for the record so that we could say we had made an effort.

That's right.

Listen, I sent a message to Bunker saying, do everything you can.

In fact, I said, treat Joe, treat Joe well because he's a potential martyr.

Oh, yeah, I remember them, but the fact is that anybody who shows a paper to Ellen...

Does it with, with, with easel and fence?

John's got a name.

We're going to be at this until 11 o'clock, at 11.30, and he can interrupt any time.

Okay, now with regard to the publishing version, it only means, it doesn't mean anything in terms of American public opinion, it only means something in terms of

for us to deal with that.

It just shows that either they can't control them or they don't keep their promises to pass.

They promised me they wouldn't.

Well, they didn't publish their offer to me.

What they publish is a seven-point program.

It's actually, it has very many conciliatory aspects.

It doesn't mention coalition government at all.

It has a December 31st deadline.

It, for the first time, links... December 31st deadline.

Prisoners.

Right.

No penalties for it.

So what a better thing to offer to get out in exchange for prisoners.

Well, can we send up, our people will send up on that, I guess, won't they?

I think we'd be better off, Mr. President, if we just said we won't say any more.

We will not negotiate this in public.

Well, they didn't present this to Pumper, did they?

Yes.

To Bruce.

To Bruce, sir.

Sir, you can...

It just happened today.

Oh, I see.

That's right.

I see.

They did it at the session today.

I don't think you should see them.

You should go back to them.

Well, on the one hand, that's the temptation to cancel the meeting.

No, no, no.

Not about Pete.

Not the other.

Because I don't think that they're really doing what you put in the way that it means anything.

I think they're just using this for the purpose of going their own way.

No, I think they're doing this just to build a little more pressure on us.

And they may have a little...

I think if we had a year, if we had nine months, then I would say the best thing is to cancel the meeting.

Under present circumstances, I think I would go to the meeting, blister them, tell them at the next leak this channel is closed.

Yeah.

I haven't seen the actual text yet.

No, no, no, they didn't have to discuss.

They've made it last.

I think it'd be impossible, Mr. President, to end a war with which we lost 40,000 people.

We know that.

And we've got a lot of points that we need to know.

I don't have a point.

I don't have this problem.

Because of the fact that some will say, why don't we do that?

POW wives, perhaps.

See, they're planning to do that.

They may have talked to Heron, perhaps.

He says, get this out.

Very clever.

Response.

Roots has responded.

I haven't had his report yet, Mr. President.

All I have is they released it immediately to the press, so the press is ahead of the report.

We can hang back on that, can't we?

Okay.

Do you understand that?

I fully understand that.

And they say, well, why don't we?

You might seriously consider, Mr. President, that after I'm back, that you just announce what our proposal was on May 31st, say this was said and done,

I'm glad they're making some progress to it, to add a ceasefire to it.

Coming up now.

And that kind of thing just gives me this, as to who went first.

Well, in response to their offer, we are adding a lot of conditions

to not let people run to the hills when it comes to this one thing.

You tell Haig on your own strategy, he is to call that a fine dude.

You know what I mean?

He needs wiretaps, just to be sure we don't have a couple of them walking out.

Only those that matter, understand?

There must be three or four.

You just never know, Henry.

You never know these days.

I don't trust anybody in the whole of Sanford.

Except Holman, maybe.

No, Holman you can trust.

That's right.

There's no one you can trust.

I mean, there's... No, I think you can trust your own people.

Even what I meant is I don't trust them because I...

Yes, they decide as a matter of judgment.

They know better than I do, or anybody does.

You've got to watch them, you see.

But they still wouldn't go to the leaking, and nobody on your immediate staff would... No, Mark, no, never.

I mean, the people who've been with you.

Never, never.

That couldn't happen.

I trust their will, not their judgment.

No, their judgment, that's a different matter.

Yeah, you should.

I'll be damned.

When we came in, I deliberately took a few of these liberal lawyers in in order to give ourselves some protective coloration.

Sure.

I thought I got rid of most of them.

You probably did.

But what I hadn't, what I never frankly considered was the lengths to which those bastards would go.

I thought that when they observed their usefulness, I'd get rid of them.

It never occurred to me that there'd be a wholesale theft of government documents.

That just never crossed my mind.

And as I look at the document thing out of the way, here's what my plan is.

I'm taking charge of it myself.

These boys are going to play this game.

And it's going to be played with the press.

You see what I mean?

Yeah.

Mitchell, Christ's sake, is talking about it.

And he, in fact, I was really surprised yesterday.

He was so, so really overwhelmed by the repression argument.

We don't want to be repressed.

I didn't get a goddamn repression.

Do you?

No.

I don't think that they were losing it for a soul, and if we knew it would come back, but let me tell you what I'm going to say.

Henry, I wasn't in this case.

Let me tell you what happened.

I was against it.

Clark, who later became judge in Supreme Court, Tom Clark, was the attorney general.

It's a good man in action.

He was against it.

before a grand jury in New York was told to give out the fucking papers to the grand jury.

I refused.

Risky contempt of a grand jury because I wouldn't, I said, I won't give it to the Department of Justice because they are out to clear his conviction.

I played it in the press like a master.

I leaked out the papers.

I leaked out everything, I mean, everything that I could.

I leaked out the testimony.

I had his convicted before he ever got to the grand jury.

And then when the grand jury got in there,

The Justice Department tried desperately to click and couldn't do it.

The grand jury did.

They indicted me.

And then a good Irish U.S. attorney, Murphy, can only click.

Now, why did I do that?

I did that because I knew I was fighting people who had power.

I didn't go into the FBI and play with me.

It turned over.

He didn't play with me until after they got me indicted.

And you just read that story of his case in Six Crisis again, and you'll see what I mean.

It's true, everything, bottom line, the word is.

Now, how do you fight this?

You can't fight this with John, a globe of events.

You appear to be, now Ervin is going to go forward on this same client, on this same basis.

He's going to go forward on this basis of the pushing of the,

just an orderly investigation.

He opposes the Larry plan, so that's good, and I've got him in charge here.

Second point is that beyond that, though, I am taking charge of all of this, and I am going to have it done by somebody other than Ervin.

You mean like the Cuban missile guys, isn't it?

I mean everything.

I mean, we will link, and we're going to link up bits and pieces

First of all, two different things.

The conspiracy.

All evidence that we find regarding the conspiracy is going to be leaked to columnists and the rest, and we'll kill these sons of bitches.

This Cook, I'm going to get him killed.

Let him get in the papers tonight.

I frankly think he ought to be fired, Mr. President.

Cook admits now he gave it to Ellsford, but he says Ellsford was working for the Rand Corporation, and therefore it was not illegal.

And that Bunker also was for children.

So when an elder knows that Cook admits that he gave the choke papers to Ellsberg and then they appeared in the Washington Press.

All right, that's the thing.

I've got to get these things out.

I've got to get this out now.

No, that conspiracy thing.

I'm going to go after the conspiracy, and then I'm also going to have to leave some papers.

But the reason we do that, we just kind of let the press be talking about other periods of time for a while.

It may give us a chance to play our own games.

Here we go.

I must say, Mr. President, it's inexcusable.

He ought to be out by the end of the day today.

And...

I'm not satisfied with this sort of thing.

I personally think you should be out.

I will not talk to Elliot about it.

You try to work it out any way you can.

If he does not want him out, then I want you to find a way to get the story out of him.

Now, you understand what I'm talking about?

All right, get Coulson in, get a story out of him, and get one to a reporter who will use it.

Give him the facts, and we'll kill him in the press.

Is that clear?

And I play it gloves off.

Now, God damn it, get going.

The president also mentioned to me that he heard from some investigators who were in a conversation saying that somebody on my staff is cooperating with these people.

And the two on his staff who resigned this summer, Lee Mordoch and his friends, NSC and Solomon, bless the Lord.

Now that is not for this conversation to occur.

All we want to say is that you've done this

Now comb that staff with a fine-tooth comb.

See that nobody has access to anything.

You have any doubts about it?

I mean, test them.

You understand?

Well, the really hot stuff is in.

No one has access to it.

Well, that's right.

Keep the hot stuff, you know.

Well, let's get it.

How could anybody get it?

You get your stuff.

We're going to lock up that machine.

We'll keep it.

That's kept on this side.

On the other side, who could it be?

I don't know.

What is the other side of it?

Well, in the executive office building, there are a lot of guys doing analysis, but I don't know what good an analysis is to anybody.

Okay, we understand.

Okay.

Will you look over the tab while I'm gone now?

Yeah, I understand.

I understand.

Everybody gets the feeling he just sees a cottage under the bed every day, and you don't want to get that way.

But he's just, well, maybe a little cautious now.

That's all I'm saying.

An intellectual is tempted.

and put himself above them all.

That's the rule that I've known all my life.

And anyone can particularly watch what schools they're from, if there are many Eastern schools or Berkeley.

Those are particularly the potential patterns.

Is that what you understand?

Yes, sir.

Well, now I'm getting off of this thing here.

First of all, I'm getting into what is

Just a question, what Saver says today, how do you fight this proposal for the next two weeks?

I thought they would offer the straight out exchange for prisoners.

We would have set up for it for a month.

In Paris, I just talked to Sullivan.

They want to go out right now and say that this is not a carte blanche agreement for the release of prisoners in return for a fixed date.

It's conditioned upon a political agreement to topple the cheaper people.

Oh, is that in there, too?

That's right.

Well, that's easy.

Oh, that's easy.

That's easy.

Well, that's easy.

Well, the sons of bitches just put out their whole program.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Tom, Tom, this is just another...

This is their old program, prisoner of choice banning and so forth.

We'll get going on an attack.

That's easy.

Oh, that's easy.

I thought they were smart for once.

Well, I'd like to go back and tell Sal when they hit this.

All right, go back.

And tell Zeke when they hit that.

Yeah, and they can just say, well, this is simply a repetition of their previous program.

But he doesn't want to be totally negative either because they have some movements.

Well, there is some movement.

But they have one condition.

I thought I'd also try to get in the press.

We do not think this negotiation should be in the press.

Now, I have read this book, and it's really a brilliant job.

I thought, Mr. President, we'd be working on it for three weeks.

I know.

Now let me give you just my own views of some nuances.

First, I know that a lot of you that you have in here have done all the assumptions that have been made in the public domain, and therefore we want to be sure it sounds right.

That's good.

On the other hand, with that in mind also,

There are a couple of places to settle, but the three-point place where I'd start pushing the position would be starting to kind of work across.

I'd like to suggest that this change needs to be occurred.

First, with regard to, with regard to such a talk, while I believe it is very important because of the nature of the Chinese and so forth,

or the historical background with respect to the Chinese religious institutions was dangerous.

You've got to watch the development very closely.

You've got to think in terms of time.

And we prepared to cut that very, very, very sharply.

The reason that I was trying to, and I know that in talks like that it's so difficult, and the Chinese are somewhat different, but not only that, there's still a lot of action.

That while a lot of that blabber

is some kind of useful, that it is never really, to these pragmatic people, convincing.

I think it's good because of their high degree of civilization and so forth, its ability to put a lot of, to put some of it in.

I would cut it, actually, because I think it's good to get to the nut-cutting ceiling level.

for me and the rest to get to the cold turkey talk very soon.

In other words, I would tend to reverse the situation here.

I would tend to take this stuff at the end of your opening statement and put that at the beginning.

We're prepared to talk about this, this, this, and this, but before we do so, let me put it in there.

Let me see where we are.

But in any event, do not take.

I wanted to feel right from the beginning that this is no nonsense.

No nonsense.

I'm not sure.

And then, on the other, I would make it sound, I would convince them first that we are very sophisticated ourselves.

We respect them in the right way.

But if it were just on its own,

And very pragmatic in that we're here to do business.

And that we got some cards to play in as well as they have.

I think that the... Let me give you one.

uh explanation why this first statement has so much philosophy in it i have read every statement of true and lie over the last 10 years of conversations to get a feel for it to get a feel for his cast of mind and i have found that when he talks for example to the pakistan ambassador he wants he has a tendency to go through a lot of theoretical explanations

of the nature of international affairs.

Now what I wanted to do is, I'm the first American that this guy has seen in a long time.

And I wanted to give him the sense that you had a picture of the world in your head.

Let me tell you the problem that I see, but only that, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm bored at just questioning how money ends up where.

But here's the problem that I have.

Henry, my problem with party leaders, whether it's an art or corner or a Greek, uh, uh, revolutionary, uh, or like I saw in 47, or with, uh,

Naturally, the Khrushchev levels are good, or the Mikhail Mikhail level, or the Kozlov level, and like that.

I've seen a few more, for that matter, with that dear son of a bitch Castro.

Very good.

They always like, they love to talk the dialectical material.

They love to talk philosophy.

On the other hand, they have enormous respect if you come pretty directly to them.

They want you to talk a little about it.

But what I don't want to do is to have a great, nice, philosophical talk here.

Oh, no, no.

You've got to get down to the one reason, if at all, I was effective, have ever been effective in my talks with the communists.

It has been because I'm a very different kind of a person than the kind they had usually talked to.

And like Brother Chichester, I don't bark around.

I say, now look, I'm very nice to them.

But then I come right in with the cold steel spoon.

Now, this is Dick.

We appreciate all this.

We think you're very sophisticated, very civilized.

We're very civilized.

We appreciate it and so forth.

But remember, you're not going to sell it one day.

He knows other bastards and he's a bastard.

And that's what it is.

You've got all the other in.

You've got the cold steel in, but it may be too much.

That's all I have.

In the opening statement, it isn't enough cold steel.

It comes perhaps later in the individual book.

And also, I would be prepared to move from your plan.

Don't have it so that you've got to go by the book.

if he moves in one direction, move quickly to another.

In other words, be in a position to move very flexibly, so that you don't say, well, no, no, no, we've got to take this, this, this, and this, and come back to this, and this.

Keeping them off balance, hitting them with surprise, is a terribly important thing.

So be very flexible, and don't worry about whether we cleared it here.

If you think there's something outlandish or something, just throw it in.

The communism thinks in very, very orderly terms.

and very predictable terms, as distinguished from the present American revolutionaries who don't think at all.

You know, they just go out and say, you know, four-letter words.

You see, an economist thinks that way.

That's his strength, but also his weakness.

His weakness is that because he makes such orderly terms, when you take an unexpected order, he is thrown off balance.

He doesn't know how to handle it.

See what I'm saying?

Amen.