Conversation 534-005

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All right.

.

Well, he can, but he's, he has just ascended, uh, uh, more, uh, closer to the other side.

Oh, it is?

Are you bringing him in?

It has to be gone.

Well, he just, he just descended from that side.

Yes, it has to be gone.

If that's the case, you ought to get into that.

Early on, I want you to have a talk with Early on with regard to his feeling.

He wants me to make a big statement on Tuesday night.

Tuesday, no, Tuesday afternoon is when I get out there to Kansas City.

I think he's strongly against it, but I'm willing to see him in Kansas.

They're against it.

Who's they?

Scali.

Scali, Moore, Ziegler, at least, are against it on the basis that... Not ready.

Well, not ready.

They're against it for another reason also, which is that if you're going to make a national statement, you shouldn't go to Kansas City and talk to a bunch of hick local editors about it.

And it ought to be done.

It's right.

It ought to be done on national television.

It's going to be done.

Where else are you going to do it?

You've got to go back to Washington, don't you?

Ask for time here.

Do it here.

You can do it anywhere.

You can do it in Kansas City on national television.

But it helps to me.

That's why the hell are you doing it from that Kansas City?

Yeah.

May I hear you?

I don't see why.

That to me is a bad argument.

What the hell?

Churchill made his...

Great speeches.

You can make it from Kansas City to Howard, Washington, but it has to be on prime time when I do it.

The trouble is, all you would get on Tuesday, you'd end up with news shows.

But then you'd call it.

You just do it live in Kansas City at 6 o'clock, which is the news time.

You go on live at 6 o'clock in here.

You get the news on.

You get the prime.

Let's forget the time and that.

That's all beside the point.

The point is whether to do it or not.

And on that, I have grave doubts because of my concern that, first, let Ellsberg unfold a little more.

I don't want to be in a position where I'm getting into that.

You see what it means?

That's one of the reasons I'm not going to have a press conference.

I don't want to get in a damn thing about where we trot over the line there.

And we've asked, and we have other things to look at, as you know.

This is the time we'll just move along.

I just don't have a good feeling about it.

I don't know, at this point, having in mind the fact that we might have some other announcement on the 15th, you know.

The other thing John has put together is what he thought ought to be interesting, and as you can working on putting just a quick look here, and I think we ought to see

what he has in mind, because maybe there is some argument for it.

I sure don't see it at this point.

As I told you last night, Mr. President, I think it is better to wait until you have a forum

But the forum, we can produce.

I can produce the forum tomorrow night.

Anytime I want, I can go on and cover it.

I don't have the right, I don't have the feeling that it is the right time.

Whether it's the right time to say something about these papers, that's the real question.

It's the time.

Forget the forum.

When anybody argues the forum is simply dodging the issue, you say, well, I wouldn't do it now.

I'm in a displace.

The question is, should we do it?

That's what I want to impress themselves with.

My own view is that we should not do it.

Because I think there are, you can just as well let it, understand, I don't feel that I should, there's any way I can do it without sounding kind of defensive about horror and answers.

I want to answer the question.

I want to explain to the American people that we're really not repressing the press.

I'm not sure that's exactly the way to put it.

Well, that's what he's concerned about.

Well, maybe it is a job.

I don't think it'll be Buchanan.

Buchanan?

Buchanan.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Oh, I see.

You know, I'd like to have a recommendation for 1 o'clock on the day.

You probably might say, man, it just fits that.

Well, it must be a man.

It must be a man.

I can call another.

I want to counsel anybody with me.

I'm going to run this thing.

We've got to have this done.

One thing that we came up with is John talking about children.

Yeah.

Did it really?

to me is the way we should do that so that we've got a practical means of doing it is to get a congressman.

And you've got a couple possibilities.

You've got three new congressmen, one of which might be the right guy.

One is McKevitt, the new guy from Denver who was a former district attorney.

Freshman congressman.

Very sharp, tough, feisty young guy.

Another is Russo, who no one will know about.

It can't go that far.

I've given you the solution.

I cannot have Russo have a direct contact with me.

No accomplishment on this should have a direct contact.

What I need, though, I want a man in this White House staff who's full-time on the two things.

Now, maybe, why don't we just get you some factors?

I can think of anybody else.

Well, we probably can't, but is he adequate for it?

I don't know.

That's the problem.

I need a man.

You can.

You can do it, but you're only half the time.

Irving's half the time.

Colson's half the time.

Everybody else.

I need one man directly responsible to me that I can recognize.

I know how to.

This has got to be one of the bottom of the speakers.

And at the table television.

Now, see, the difficulty is all the good lawyers, Dick Moore, John Irwin, and of course, Michael Lee, but more so, are always saying, well, we've got to win the court case.

Screw the court case.

We're screwing the court case.

As far as I know, I don't want that fellow Ellsberg to be brought up in the election.

I mean, just let him be the son of a bitch in the press.

That's the way it's done.

I can't emphasize too much of anything.

Nobody ever reads any of these biographies.

Go back and read the chapter on the Hiss case in Six Crises and you'll see how it was done.

It wasn't done waiting for the goddamn courts or the Attorney General or the FBI.

I bought all of them.

Everyone had to get through it himself.

That's a waste of time.

And we have got to get going.

Now, if we get the right guy,

in the complex where he can work with his immunity, and it's still safe, it's hydrated, it's kept in a moved position and all that, don't you have a better chance of getting it done?

If you get a creep like Houston in the woodwork, is there any other creep that we get in the woodwork here?

What can he do?

He can't do what you did in his case.

He can't move it to the papers.

I'm not even talking about the blue papers.

who's going to go out, for example, and pull this, spread this conspiracy to get it.

I mean, Larry's got a lot of some piece of it.

There's some spirits, and Kittler's just got some stuff.

Everybody, who is pulling that together in one place, not with one of these goddamn things that'll come up six months from now?

Who, for example, is going to look over the, is going to be in charge of looking over the Patagonian Papers, not the Patagonian Papers, but the papers on the Cuban Civil Rights, on the Bay of Pigs, on World War II,

And Correa, who the hell is those men?

And pulling out everything that might embarrass members of the establishment.

See, who's gonna do that?

That can't be done by John Roosevelt.

That's got to be done by, that's what I mean, Bob.

I need a man, a commander, an officer in charge here in the White House that I can call when I wake up.

If I did, I was having two o'clock in the morning, but I can say, I don't care.

I want to do this, this, this, and this.

Get going.

See my voice?

And a guy also who will have the initiative to go out and do a few of these things.

Now, we don't have the setup at the present time.

You've got, you've got in this place, you've got at least 10 magnificent soldiers and no captain.

Everybody has an idea.

They send me a nice little memorandum, this and that.

There's no captain of them on this store.

Somebody's got to pull this together.

John can't do it.

He's got too much to do.

You know what I mean?

He's got to go back.

We've got to decide whether we're going to pollute Lake Erie or something like this.

Or what we're going to do about the educators.

What we're going to do about all of which are important.

But you need to see for better or worse, he could do it, he needed nothing else to do.

But I need, I need somebody as capable as Erich, or closer for that matter, who full-time will recognize that this is his job.

See, that's what we do, what we need.

But all of us, again, put in our colliding gifts.

Now, you need a guy in the Congress, I agree.

Bruce will be fine, he's right, he's mean, tough, Bruce, but he'll lie and do anything.

That's what you need.

The other guy might be McKevitt if he will do all those things.

I'm not sure whether McKevitt is conservative or not.

I guess it's possible.

The question is, is he conservative?

I don't know.

That's the advantage of Johnny.

You know he's conservative.

He's a virgin.

He's not conservative.

What about that fellow Crane?

Do you know him?

No, he's a talker.

Do you think Crane is too much?

I don't know.

He's a philosopher.

He knows how to do it.

What about Ashbrook?

Is Ashbrook there?

No.

He's not reliable.

He can't trust Sashbrook.

He can trust Russo mainly because he wants to try to have him.

Well, you could use both Russo and Heather for that one.

You see, you've got lots of games to play.

Russo, I think the guy in Denver would be more incredible when he gets up on the floor and makes a speech about something.

But you aren't really worried about that.

If the guy's saying sensational enough stuff, it's trying to get it stirred up in the papers.

You're waiting on McCarthyism business.

He's right.

He wants to go to the other party.

Is there a senator?

No, no, sir.

There's no one.

No one could have done it if he were still there.

Is there another goal?

Brock might come closest.

Brock is not coming out of the left, Senator.

I don't think you get as likely of a senator doing it as it seems to me.

A congressman has such a great opportunity with this.

Yeah, that's right.

Bob's right.

If you take a pitch with Governor McKevitt or Russo that nobody's ever heard of, he could make himself a senator overnight.

That's right.

He could make himself a senator.

Well, coming back to the point, though, especially guys who are, I said, that's right, I said to you, Bob, I said to Bob a moment ago, that's a,

at least Colson's prediction about the pendant.

The last time I asked him on the phone about it, the Congress said that, about the coverage and so forth.

And I said, I wonder how they're trying to play this.

And I said, I don't think they'll give the candidate a ride.

And Colson said, they have to.

You were right.

They already gave it a hell of a ride.

Is that worse?

No.

They've got to pick it up from the paper.

They don't have the stuff, theoretically.

Yeah.

That was really juicy stuff today.

There is.

That's not a one-day story.

That's a continuing thing.

The end.

Kennedy decided to go forward.

And it showed that Kennedy was the one who got us into that war.

We've got the Kennedys in this thing now.

A left-handed man with six brothers being alive.

He walks.

He's trying to say just where he is.

He said his brother.

He told him he could go out and snap out of the plane.

He thought it'd help him.

Dropped some holy water on him to escape when kids did.

What about him?

Well, anyway...

I come back to the proposition that I need.

You see what I mean?

I need an officer to charge Allen.

And I, I just, I don't, I just want to, it's actually, it could be you, it could be Colson, it could be Irvington.

You're the only ones in the White House staff that have the, the, the, the, to be Dick Allen.

It, yes, Allen could be him.

I'm, I'm just not sure.

We just don't need him more and more for this.

If Allen is willing to play, willing to do it,

But another thing, it's got to be a guy bottom.

This is the other problem.

And it's totally trustworthy, because I've kind of talked to him very frankly about things that we want to do, and everybody wanted him to make a big record, who I'm glad it was, when the president ordered it.

You know what I mean?

Well, that's why Houston is awful good, too.

I think Houston would die before he drowns.

And Houston knows more than anybody we've got around about where stuff is.

Yeah.

He gets the other issue, gets the word out.

Well, he can use other people to do it.

That's the problem with Houston is, well, the justice won't talk to him.

Probably defense won't talk to him.

That's their very problem.

Would they talk to Allen?

They would, wouldn't they?

I'm not so sure.

He would know how to get it done.

He could force it.

They don't have to talk to him.

If Houston can't do it, they can do it in my name or in his name or close to him.

What I really like, basically, is Allen and Houston together.

I'd really like the two of them to come in.

If they would work together and say, all right, let's get to work here.

And let the two divide and screw around.

Here's Dr. Branson.

Let's get my point.

Getting back to Obama, I want you to sit in with me.

Whether we do something consistent.

I just have a great...

I'm very grateful to St. Kittredge about going out now and popping off about these damn papers.

I, uh, I'm not, uh, I just don't think it's, uh, I mean, I know the answer.

The country needs to hear it.

The country needs the leadership, et cetera.

I don't understand all of it.

I just wonder if right now, since you're in a country where we care, how many of these other countries want you?

Not on the issue of the administration of the press.

That I don't think they care about.

Yeah.

The papers are all going to be running.

Yeah.

It's going to be a whole lot more serious than we thought.

We've only got four or five more articles and all the new papers we've got.

Well, then you have all the interpreters that you might have.

A lot of people with an M.I.

Does anybody have anybody in Congress who went Johnson?

He told Bill White that as soon as the Supreme Court made its decision, he would speak out.

Why don't you call White and see what happens?

Maybe he has something to do with it.

He is very much in our interest right now.

Oh, sure is.

We'll pull this right on in then.

Dean Rutsch is doing a one-hour special tomorrow night on, I think it's NBC, on this subject.

Maxwell Taylor is on one of the Sunday talk shows this weekend.

Oh, that's good.

So that's a compliment.

That's a superb job last night.

Oh, my God, he was good.

Everybody is.

After he teaches, why didn't he do the job?

Rogers didn't want to go on while the case was still going.

He didn't know what was going on.

That's the program that Larry was talking about, that he didn't go on.

Martin Hayden was on representing our viewpoint.

Oh, he was great.

He was very articulate last night, which he isn't often sometimes.

But McCumber, at one point when they said, but doesn't the government over-classify it, McCumber sat back in his chair and he said, that's exactly the problem that President Nixon addressed himself to in January.

It just went right down the line.

He was superb.

He really did a bang of jet.

That's great.

Great.

I'm sure he was called.

I will call him.

I saw him.

I called him the other day.

He did something, you know.

just say that we just around here in this job we were sitting the president sitting in his staff meeting just that they were they all reported the president had to see us and that's really great remember the flag is and said thank god we've got one more time well coming back to whether i say anything

Bob, you can also check the floor options as to whether he thinks I should say anything.

Bill Rogers will have to judge him on this and see whether he wants to say anything.

Based on what you said last night, Mr. President, we're checking with Rogers.

He's up on the Hill testifying this morning to see whether he will do a couple-minute statement on film before it works.

It might be some advantages to that today.

I think you still want Rogers on the, you know, the

Well, there's only one point, so we want to make sure .

There's only one point that really at this point in time, and that is that the government discharged its duty by taking this case into court because it had the responsibility to do so.

It did.

The court acted on the evidence presented in this case.

The court held that a heavy burden couldn't be met, period.

The court what?

The court held that a very heavy burden existed, which on the evidence presented,

in the two circuit courts in this case could not be met.

The point of saying that on television, nobody knows what the hell you're talking about.

What do you mean?

The court didn't hold them.

No, Berger was great.

Berger's opinion was, of course, sensational.

The best.

By far the best and the best written.

The point is, really, that they did not vote that the government did the wrong thing or doesn't have the right to do this.

They simply held that there's a heavier burden than there normally is.

Because of the presumptive.

Right, because of the presumptive.

The presumptive.

You got my, the one line that I had, I gave you last night in the conference.

Yes, sir.

The report has said that the newspaper has no responsibility to create anything that does not do irreparable damage and cannot be enjoyed.

Now the question is, does the newspaper have any responsibility?

Is it standard to be, we'll create anything that does irreparable damage?

Or shall it stand to be we will only ground those that sit in print?

And it's a very important point, and this puts those Scots, Jesus, it puts them on the spot.

Oh, it sure does.

Because you don't have to, they get up when they're high and mighty horses and say, we've got to be fair and all that.

So it's irreparable damage, get this point into those Scots, to every speech, it's irreparable damage to standard that the American press was proudly,

to hold up the moral coordination of the world, is that it?

Irreparable damage.

We'll pray against it unless it does irreparable damage.

Damage.

Damage to the nation.

Understand?

Unless it does irreparable damage to the nation.

We'll print something.

But the converse of that is we will print something if it does damage to the nation.

But we will not print something only if we are against it will do irreparable damage to the nation.

See?

That's a hell of a thing to do.

That's the point.

You're putting on the press the idea that they are not interested in anything but their own circulation.

Well, and whose judgment is what is irreparable and what isn't?

Well, even all that outlawed.

Let's assume that their judgment is irreparable damage.

But see, the press is on an untenable position here that they will bring anything.

It's irreparable damage.

So they will damage anybody.

They'll damage the mass reputation.

They'll damage the security of the nation.

But if it's not irreparable, that's true, too.

They will, you know.

They'll do all the damage they can as long as they can't get sued.

Well, that's the spot the lawyer for the Washington Post got in when he was asked whether if this would delay running the POW zone, would they still prime him?

He said, that's the price of the First Amendment.

He said that in the court.

He said it.

He didn't answer the question.

That may be the price of the First Amendment.

Jesus.

And this destroys these negotiations.

That's the price of virtue.

That's the price that they are.

The point of the price of virtue, well, it had a little more pulse.

It wasn't a great performance.

It had a little more pulse.

And it's a harder thing that he should have said very, very well.

If this means that the death of American men, crystallizing American men,

That's what's involved here.

Hayden did it.

He made that very point beautifully last night on television.

Yeah, you get that.

They quoted the Times editorial back to them a few years ago when they watched it.

Stuart Elson.

What did they say to that?

Max Michael was there trying to defend it, and he just couldn't defend it.

He said, well, I don't write the editorials for the Times, and a lot of times I don't agree with them.

Maybe he won't get earlier than that, and he'll amend it with these people.

He's a Canadian.

I would guess it would be about finish.

They could go on forever, but it also...

It might be good to catch on the bounce from that and what we're doing from here.

All right, Charlie, we have to come at 11, so it's probably the 19th minute or something like that.

So it's 11 o'clock, and you two stay here.

The three of us will chat about it.

Your boy, O'Neal, debated Kerry last night.

How did he?

I haven't seen it.

I'm told it's occurred.

He did it on the Cabot show, but insisted his ground rules.

He had half the audience, and I'm told by people who have watched it that this is a superb job for us.

It was O'Neill last night who debated Kerry for the first time.

I'd say he took tonight.

Yes, sir.

You've written it down so I can run through it fast for you.

We've been working hand in glove with him for several weeks on this idea because he's going to be the lead man.

They had worked out arrangements for a Vietnam fact-finding trip.

The NSC guys agreed several times on this.

Kim asked Chuck to arrange for Sullivan to brief him.

Chuck said he would do better dealing with Kramer on the NSC staff.

And he insisted on getting a briefing from Doolin and Defense and Sullivan as well.

so let's say if this was kemp who insisted on these parties

we had given him six different speeches one of them was just

Marvelous prepared buddy.

I said we can't expect you to get them.

These guys don't have time to read their senior constituents.

They go home, their wives are fidgeting with them and so forth and they don't have time to do it.

And also they don't have the discipline to do what I did when I was a congressman.

I got it done one way or another.

I did all the work.

but you would have got to write it for them and don't give them too much about it you could be more right everybody around here sends it too much stuff that's that's our only problem is we we've got to give you enough

Let's have that as a format in the future, where these guys are going to go on, put yourself in the position of a board congressman who can't at one time agree on this, and say, all right, here's the stuff, here's the policy.

he's good he's he's just going to be

We got half the orders.

We insisted on the tickets on that process.

I'm not sure that you can't do it again.

Tim Buckley's organization in New York really turned him out, plus these Vietnam veterans.

Have you talked to him about, you can't go to Vietnam?

No.

If Rangel asked you, though, why we should send Kent to balance it, the White Party will have to do it.

Well, Rangel's complaining that on the basis of a conversation with you, the White Party.

Tony was going.

He said, you know, I need to go to Japan.

Oh, for Christ's sake.

John, it was mine.

It's Japan.

Well, we'll turn him off.

He told me he was going.

I have no objection.

Well, we do.

He goes to Japan.

He just screws up Japan's mission.

They don't have a congressman standing there while Japan is in Vietnam.

Right, right, right, right.

So he said that he wanted, he was going to Vietnam looking for the dope problem.

I said, that's fine.

I just told him, anybody in the apartment, go to Vietnam.

We can't keep the apartment from going.

We ought to help him go.

It's good to help him go, but not with Jaffee.

You have to be a good boy.

It's a good combination.

They could go to New York State.

Well, we are saying that both of us make a lot of camp and what we just did on that brand deal is.

And we can sell out the brand on the basis that we want camp to get a real inside start and we're happy to have you go along with the season.

I'll have the two go and that's not a vote though.

That's good.

I think going with what the other guy was just doing on because of his schedule.

Yeah.

Good.

Well, that's not a lot of camp.

There's a question on how deep Laird should go in this declassification of the 47 volumes.

And he's assuming that he should hold back roughly 25%.

Now, we have a basic list that we submitted to the court.

It's a good list and a hardcore list.

And that's four volumes plus about 80 additional documents, which is a little over 10.

That's what Laird was talking about last night.

He was objecting that it ought to be just the other way.

We want to go back 90% now.

Go ahead.

Wow.

Laird talked about something else recently this morning.

I know.

I told him I'm on a sleepwalk.

You weren't having meetings.

Good.

That's what we were talking about last night.

We had a meeting with Laird Razor.

Now, let's talk about this a moment.

Is this a good time?

Fine.

Yeah, fine.

And first, Washington is brilliant.

And they say, well, look, it's just, well, the documents are gonna come out anyway.

And second, we don't want to be repressing, many of them coming back, repressing, repressing, repressing.

And so, now that the court has ruled, and now that the documents have already been compromised, we will declassify these documents and give them to our friends, as well as our enemies.

Now, the danger of that is a fatal one.

The danger is that any time your classification system is compromised by a debrief and by publication, which does not do irreparable damage.

I just said a moment ago, John, that we have a press on a very, very bad way in here.

When the lawyer for the Washington Post had supposed the disclosure of these documents

Mike jeopardized the prisoner of war things.

He says that's the price of the First Amendment.

There's another question which should be asked.

Our neighbors, suppose the disclosure of these documents risks the lives of American men because of our infiltration, which seems to be compromised.

That is the price of the First Amendment.

Get that?

In other words, our people should not doubt that the press now is for their right to make money, to profit,

publication of stolen documents that they have a constitutional right to profit, take this very carefully, from the publication of stolen documents under the First Amendment, and that that overrides the right of an American fighting for a country to live in.

Now, that's the kind of stuff, Chuck, you've got to get into some of this material.

get it, and keep hitting, and reading, and letters to the editor, embarrassing, you know, send dirty letters, poison pen, and so forth.

I don't want to see this.

And that's exactly what the Times is saying, and what the Post is saying, right?

It says we don't care.

We don't care.

We don't care whether a chapter happens.

Now, John, you've got to set this up, because if we do have some announcements later this month, they're going to be about something else we can point out.

This couldn't have happened if we'd have had that rule.

Now, the thing that I'm concerned about is that, given the kinds of occasion that follows unauthorized disclosure, that follows like, that, that, that, that, that, uh, Richardson insists on keeping this code, and he did.

Everything was perfectly legal.

It was against the law.

That was perfectly legal.

He was trying to get a story out which would hurt us on the ceasefire for one thing.

He opposed our position.

That's perfectly legal.

He leads it to the press.

That's perfectly legal.

In terms of Cho, the Cho case, where we were very embarrassed.

I had a private communication with Bunker.

I said, Bunker, get the two of you your very best and tell them to cool this thing.

Cho said, good.

We had a certain kind of discussion.

He took those secret cables to the State Department.

He took those secret cables, coming to the Ellsberg, who had a few players, because he could ramp up the race, perfectly, get those goddamn things cut off the net.

Are you doing that, Richard?

The ramp up, I told you, I told you, the ramp up, every outside group that has a few players, this has gotten to heaven.

Cut off, John.

We cannot have it.

Brookings, Brookings has got tons of documents and states over there.

I want out.

We have got to start protecting the security of this country.

Brookings and Rand.

Goddamn it.

Hank hasn't done this.

Because Henry is, Henry Welch, you know, he's a little afraid.

He's got some friends at Brookings, I'm glad.

He said publicly, told me he was for it.

But he's Hank's friend.

We have got to get this done.

Rand and Brookings.

John, you're in charge of that.

And I want it done today, and I'd like to report it.

But let's come to this.

If the precedent, if that is the basis for declassification, the declassification system, declassification system, is destroyed, then you could, or do you, maybe not in the wild.

Now, the other side of the coin is this, is to have Laird put out the documents on the ground that, well, since some papers already have them, we're simply releasing the documents.

in this instance, through other papers that are in the public domain.

Now the difficulty with that is, doesn't that declassify?

You see, Senator, you tell me what you want to disallow.

In the first place, it's a hardcore list of documents that I should never give up.

I agree with that.

Secondly, it seems to me very reactive and willing to

Accelerating the declassification.

Sorry, the week after the Supreme Court decides, why all of a sudden... Well, they're accelerating declassification.

He's talking about immediate release.

Oh, no.

That's right.

On the ground, on the ground, that they're going to be printed in.

No, no, no.

I don't think the government should join to join the New York Times in complying with

Just look at the constant.

There's 3,000 newspapers that are going to make 3,000 copies a goddamn day.

The point is we've got a system.

And we're going to make the system perform.

Or, you know, there is also a message, you know, that he's going to give every member of Congress a backup, including Seth.

No, I have no idea.

He's reproducing 500 copies.

Because that is a declassification.

That's a little bit...

I know.

It's not a declassification.

It's a hell of a thing.

Why would he do that?

Because he said he would.

Apparently, he'd be a good gun in the hills.

They asked him what he should do.

Now, look.

Tell him to change that by saying, because of the very physical costs, the costs of physical problems, he will put them up in the Congress, and any congressman can come to the... We did that last week.

That is the way it's going to be.

Coffee, please.

This got cold.

Some more coffee, thank you.

Is he... No, but he must... What I mean, what he can do is to add a couple of... A couple of sets.

All right.

So that congressmen don't have to line up.

Say, I'm going to put four more sets, but I'm not...

where the Congress was formed in 35, but I put four more sets in the room.

You can hold it.

So it comes in the hand.

That way he saves his face.

And it's just physically too much of a problem.

And part of the reason I would come to the Congress was because I was with 47 Trumps.

So it's a box.

47, where the hell is it going to put them?

You know, that room is on the other end.

It doesn't take that much.

See, the riser is only, you know, that big.

But the...

It seems to me very basic that 45 days ago now, what appears to be just declassified is relatively innocuous, and it amounts to just about what has been published off the surface.

Now, I understand from John Dean that the newspapers have stipulated, and apparently this is not known, they have stipulated that they will not print a number of these things in this confidential media website.

And, uh, uh, this was alluded to on that television show last night.

I would not do that.

You see, Mitchell, Mitchell was a stupid ass to allow that.

Let me say why.

Let's end off with a question.

Sure, it was on anyway, sir.

You don't say.

Let those sons of Mitchells look at it.

God damn, that burns me up.

That burns me up.

The, uh...

There is this January 15 missing declassification group that's studying the problem.

And they're about two weeks away from coming to any kind of conclusions.

Well, now that's the question.

You see, we can be embarrassed by

They're coming bouncing in with a bunch of conclusions.

Well, I want them to get, in view of this case, I want them to look at it much deeper.

I want them to give recommendations with regard to what can be done about World War II, what can be done about Korea, what can be done about, I want, and incidentally, if I don't give the Cuban confrontation, and I give it, remember I told Dave Weinstein, this goddamn thing hasn't come in here yet.

Now, where is the Cuban confrontation material?

It's the Kennedy Library's got it.

Where's Pearl Harbor?

High Park has got it.

Now, they're just ridiculous, John.

And these are things that will embarrass the previous senator.

Here's my suggestion on what to do with this group.

It seems to me if you met with them and gave them this additional charge, you've got on there an assistant attorney general and some assistant secretaries and whatnot.

Give them this additional charge, but without the list.

No publicity and no content.

Would you want it known that you had met with him?

And the reason I think that might be dark is that it was... No picture.

No picture, but just the fact on your schedule that you're meeting with the NISM January 15th?

January 15th.

See, that ties us way back to January 15th, and it takes you up out of this trail, demoralized trail, this kind of thing.

You see, John, I want them to take my call a lot of my time, but will you get them in?

Sure, if anyone's ready, man.

Sooner the better, sir.

And if that guy ever gets let down, July 3rd, he's got to be down tonight.

Now, you don't think it looks reactive the day after the court decision?

Well, I don't.

Because this... First of all, it's a blip.

But it makes the record.

that we are continuing to work on.

Now, you are the guy who would get in aggressively and under color title to exploit this stuff.

I don't suggest it, but let me be sure, let me give you more of what I'm going to do.

And I'm all for you to go to 6th crisis and read the biscuits.

Read the chapter again.

And read it very carefully.

Also,

Read the speech I had on his case in the House of Representatives about what I was on the case.

You will find the case was won before it ever came to you.

Before it ever came to the courts.

Because I wanted to press.

The reason it had to be done that way was to prove Tom Clark and Alex Campbell, the assistant attorney general in charge of the prosecution, and J. Edgar Hoover, even.

I pretty likely was there.

would not help me.

And I had to do it all by myself.

And when they heard how I'd been treated, they were really strong against me.

And I found a little old fiend gag on me.

They played it loose once.

They leave something.

And it appeared in a column in the Scripps Hour column.

And after the Justice Department read the prosecution, that story was leaked by the Justice Department the day after Chambers had turned over the publicist papers to the Director of the Chiefs.

And they need that.

Because they had tended to, they were terrified by that thing.

They didn't know what the changers would tell me.

Now, let me point my point out.

What we're up here is an enemy worse than a communist, because they were viewed, they were geared up against people like this cook.

And this cook did all these things.

What is that like?

That is, well, we've got to defend him.

Because he's a dead guy, his father was an animal, and he went hard.

That's very nice.

Now, let me tell you about him.

The son of a bitch is against us.

He's an ancestor of the war.

He was for the ceasefire.

He was for the show.

Did Ellsberg need to know this?

Why did he take secret cables from Rucker on this case and show them to Ellsberg, who no longer is the governor of Wind Ranch or Albright or something like that?

But did he need to show them?

You know why he did it.

He did it in order that Ellsberg, and this all focuses on the conspiracy within this here.

So Ellsberg,

Could then go around and do some brokering.

That's what I did.

He had no reason not to know that Ellsbury was a commandant when I worked at Ellsbury.

And Ellsbury did exactly what would be predicted.

Coach said, well, I was surprised when we came off the Washington Star.

Sure, he was surprised.

They're always surprised.

And so you got him over there right now as Elliott's top man, top competitor.

He'll rattle.

Now, I know.

Nobody's going to do it.

They're going to keep him because poor Elliott says, I've got to keep him.

I predict, I predict this son of a bitch will rat on you on the domestic ground before the election.

That's all there is to it.

You've got to start getting tough around here on these people.

I know.

That's why, Bob, I don't agree with you when you say let him stay.

He didn't do anything illegal.

Nothing illegal.

But you ought to let him go because of bad judgment at least.

Bad judgment.

I think it's worse.

I don't know what's going on with this group, this de-classification group.

They've been working without a staff, but they've got a powerful charge into that mission.

And it occurred to me that if we find the right guy, he ought to become sort of the staff director of that thing, or give him a way to get into the woodwork there.

Maybe that's a different problem.

That's fine.

What I mean is...

I do not want to be restricted, John, by what a group like that will do.

They want to do it all with a book.

Now, the way we win this is you cannot have a book.

We've got to do it underground.

And also, we've got to get another guy who's going to do J.J. Edgar Hoover and Gabe Malware and so forth until we find out who the conspirators are.

And then we leak it to the press now.

Now, a story's got to be leaked to them.

You get the dope on that one.

I don't want a story leaked to me, son of a bitch.

So will we do it right away.

Cook.

And then let Elliot Richardson defend him.

Let Elliot Richardson defend him if he wants to.

We've got to raise our own people up.

I have never even seen a Capitol officer come in here and say, I've got a bad apple.

To the prisoner's credit, he had a hell of a lot of bad apples, but he fired some.

Anybody else fired any apples?

No.

Uh, now go ahead.

I agree that if you could get the proper director for that, that would be good.

But I still need a man, an inside man, to work the regains.

Do you agree, Postal?

Do you agree?

All right.

Now, with regard to Larry, you're going to tell him I've got enough, I think.

You can tie him.

This is what we thought this over through the five trunks and so forth, through the five boxes and so forth.

Buchanan is still cranking on a draft statement, which will be available for you to look at, whatever you decide.

Well, let's talk about that as to the inheritance, as to whether it's good or not.

Now, let's forget where, I mean, the ideal weather is, and when.

You know, we've got a lot of time.

We want to make a statement.

I mean, tonight at half start against week, Pat argues that we should wait until next week, that it ought to be sooner, and I'm wrong.

He wants to make a statement.

He thinks he should make a statement, and he thinks it should be soon.

And I said, well, I was not in point of view on that.

He said he's medicine, but if you were asking for a recommendation, that's what it would be.

And so I said, well, I don't know entirely, except he feels that we just have advocated the public opinion influencing to the opposition.

He said, we're just not showing up anywhere.

We're having it all our own way.

And he said, it just seems to me that we've got to get out of this.

You don't fix it.

I think he's right in the sense that the newspapers have had their field day, and I don't think it's a lasting gut issue that hurts.

And I think there are dangers in drawing you more closely into it, which you have not been so far.

It's been handled very efficiently by the Department of Justice.

To bring you in at this point, I don't see the logic of it.

I don't see the gain of it.

It puts you back into, it puts the issue right on your lap today.

If you really believe it's been handled efficiently by justice, that sure as hell has to come through.

Well, what I'm saying is the experience has been handled very inefficiently by justice.

Okay, I agree.

I use the wrong word.

I have to agree with that.

I use the wrong word.

I agree also.

But it has been a Justice Department going into the court kind of a situation, and for the first time for you to come in on it the day after, I question what value we get out of it, Mr. President.

Moore has a different slam on this, and I think, summarized it is, that really not everybody's following this thing.

I don't think they are.

And it's a sort of a cognoscente group that's following.

And of that group, there's a reaction beginning to say, as evidenced by the hostility toward the Times and the Post on that show last night, whether it's an old, all of the panelists were very hostile to them.

McConner did a superb job.

Everybody said he was great.

Jackson was good.

Jackson was great.

Yeah, he was terrific.

What did he do?

He was on the panel with McConner.

He made all our points also.

He was on our side with McConner.

Terrific.

He said he agreed with Mr. McClure.

Jackson?

Oh, and he agreed with us going through the injunction?

Yeah.

And he agreed with the court in overruling any other drug?

Well, yeah, but that effect was very supportive.

And he bored in on Bradley and some of these guys with very good voices, I thought.

Anyway, that's Morris' view.

And his view is that we ought to let that back wave build up now.

And then you can't have a chance to want to make a statement every five minutes on everything.

You've got to get out.

You're losing your name and all that sort of thing.

It's always been my experience.

You never make a statement when the most eager ones want to.

You may make everything.

You may miss it, but there will come a time.

You may make a kill come a time when the wave is moving and you just step in and crack it when people are listening.

in general, what does the station say?

I don't know if it says something.

What do you think he ought to say?

I think if he says anything, it should establish the point that we're glad all this stuff's coming out as to these bad guys in the former administration, and that our role in this whole thing has simply been that, forcing a law that the Congress passed that is about

And that may be something that says that we depend very heavily on the classification system and its integrity is going to be preserved.

Let me say it again.

In fact, they get them.

You know, they're devilish.

Sure.

Well, it's funny.

It's rough.

I mean, this is all negative and everything's bad.

We're all going to hell and a half.

In fact, they've had us in hell and a half.

It's never really that bad.

Well, Mort Allen is one of the probably only 10 people out of the 200 million people in this country who see it all, see all of it.

That's right.

Well, he's great.

Yeah, he's great.

But you can't go on his judgment because there is nobody in this country except Mort Allen to see this all.

Well, I don't think, from what you just outlined, John, I don't see where the gain is to us.

John, don't look at myself that short.

John, I don't know what you're going to write, and let me ask you to do this.

I think we've got to get some advice on this.

Bill Rogers, judge, you can go.

And I'd like to get Bill Rogers, judge, on this.

I lean against it, but that's only a gut reaction.

I do not think that the repression in the press is all that big.

That is not the issue.

If, on the other hand, the problem is that they think this drags us into the war, that we're trying to cover up the war, then maybe we've got to go on.

On the other hand, if Dean Rush is still involved in an hour-prime time, if Johnson's going to go on, let them, let them struggle about this.

And God damn it, Colson, at least you can get one of my senators to start it off with a scat ass and say something.

If we hadn't gotten one to say that this doesn't involve us, it doesn't.

Oh, yes, yes.

Bob Dole did it well.

Gordon Alex did it well.

There's been a number.

We couldn't get some more.

We couldn't.

I believe that one's come true.

It really did.

Mr. President, the president called.

He has a message for you.

Could you talk to me about your phone call to him?

but which these people say he must read to you.

It's a very warm and friendly message, appreciating your warm gesture to them.

All right, okay.

To them about the death of the Cosmonaut.

All right, fine.

Is he here now?

Well, he isn't here.

He wants to do it on the phone.

On the phone?

Yes.

He just wants to... Fine, tell him that I'm in a meeting at the present time, so if he could, if I could, I'd like to make the call to him.

Can I call him at 12 o'clock?

I'll call him at 12, and I can break it off at 12, so we'll call him at 11 o'clock.

All right.

Is this nothing of any consequence to the initiative?

No exception, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, just a little energy change in the balls.

It's such bad stuff.

Good luck, Henry.

Henry.

Did they progress the rescue all right?

Did they get in those words that I gave them?

My strong recommendation, Mr. President, is to be very enigmatic.

to say it has some positive elements and some unacceptable elements.

And they should be discussed in the conference room and not in the press.

Because if we start nitpicking individual points, we're going to be arguing with Congress.

But we have that phrase in there that what they're really asking us in another way, again, is to turn over the country to the Congress.

I mean, 70 million people to the Congress.

Okay, John, why don't you get together

See, the three of you, plus, let Buchanan present his view to the three of you.

To get Rogers' view separately, he will have judgment at least on the thing.

Don't ask Mitchell, don't ask the player.

I know what their views are.

The way they read the judgment is not good.

So, Rogers will have good judgment.

After that show, when you thought Rogers...

could do a much better job and nothing to be gained.

His point was that there's nothing to be gained by your assignment.

But then what about on the 6th?

He was against the 6th anyway on the grounds, the wrong grounds to develop it.

Kansas City is not the river.

I mean, we can go on a prime time for Kansas City as well.

We can replace us and I can do it at 9 o'clock from there.

Or I can leave, not do it in Kansas.

I can wait till they get the stand behind me and do it on the 7th.

You know, and we can do it at the 9th of the 7th.

I was just going to say, the reason I mentioned to you before, the press conference, when it comes, the opportunity to do this, is that you do get to the people, but you don't make a special occasion.

I think making a special occasion out of it, any time now,

raises the question, why would you get out of doing this?

If you go to a press conference, you've got no control over the areas you've got to get into, and there is no way to avoid getting into the Ellsberg thing, which you don't.

Well, let me suggest that you might depart from the format and take a sitting.

If you're going to do that, do it at Kansas City.

You can't say you don't get the ratings.

It's different, Bob, in the sense that if you ask a client to go on to discuss this issue, you're escalating this issue.

If you treat it in the normal course, and perhaps to begin with, a press conference, and say, I know there's a lot of questions, and I come to the others, and I want to make three points, and then not address any of them at Kansas City.

Say what?

Call it a press conference.

All right.

That's the same thing.

Yeah.

Spread out and keep it in a couple of...

Senator's waiting up there, and I'm probably better get back.

Sure.

I wanted to tell you about CRLA.

Our Reagan thing is settled.

Well, that's great.

And Reagan's very happy.

Good God.

I talked to him out there yesterday, and so we did some research.

What did you do?

I did the John R. Lipsy thing.

John's everlasting credit.

Good God.

He worked it out.

He went out there and said, I'm the governor, and they hammered it out, and they screwed the legal assistance guys.

They did good.

Carluzzi took it like a man.

He's in bed with Reagan at this point.

How about taking Carluzzi out of that job and putting him in this one?

He'd be damn good.

Here's a tough State Department type.

He wants to get ahead.

He's mean, ruthless.

I mean, he's a...

He's a Rumsfeld without Rumsfeld's solace.

He is a guy who has been told to do something, and he's done it.

He's done it superbly.

He either has, under extreme difficulty.

Why couldn't he be the guy in charge of my old classification and so forth and so on?

Here's a guy that's from the hills.

He delivered for him.

I didn't know what he was looking at.

Yeah, he knows what the body is.

and your meeting would be with three of you, with more, I have more in this house.

I'll let you, if I get Roger's view as quickly as you can, after you have finished your meeting.

And who else did I say?

Holman, Colson, Buchanan, Herman, and Moore.

If you can't, incidentally, have him in to present his view, then you should leave.

Because Buchanan does not like to participate in meetings, and it's not effective.

You don't even have to have any presenters.

You just have to write it down.

You've got to write a speech plus a rationale on why it should be done.

He said he might be ready late today.

So, well...

Maybe, well, he had a speaker, but I'd like to give you a memorandum by one o'clock today as to what he wants to do about why we should go on.

Well, it may have already given you that.

We've advocated, as he said, obviously, this is a draft.

He's got, once he can get an idea of what he's trying to say, just a draft.

We don't need to publish.

But, John, before we leave, so I can be mulling over a bit.

What do you mean by that?

I know that person.

The press is all talking about Pentagon, Baker's administration, and saying, I agree.

So what does that mean?

That's it.

But nobody said the administration hasn't said anything.

I haven't heard any evidence of a call for the administration to say something such a brief.

It's carrying on the radio and so forth.

The White House had no comment.

Right.

So what's the point?

Do they have no comment?

I don't know.

I think what's the point?

I think Pat's main point is the one that you made, that he and Alan are sitting over there.

These waves of...

and nobody is making a clear statement of our lives.

How about having Rogers make the clear statement?

That would be nice.

This is Rogers' band, and I think he ought to do it.

He's leading the program, rather than putting me in it.

Also, Rogers loves to listen.

This is a...

He had agreed to do it following the decision.

He's the ideal.

He's very articulate.

He's former attorney general.

It's the perfect way to get the administration case in focus without involving the .

.

His line, which he played last night, which I thought was pretty good.

Scali wrote it, he said.

Oh, did he?

Yeah.

And Brewster.

Who did it?

Scali.

Scali Brewster.

Great.

Well, Scali, I think all rockers can see.

Sure.

If you talk to rockers, they will, you know, Scali can work on it and so forth.

Well, I must say, that's good.

Scali, high marks for that.

Scali, great job.

He doesn't do it.

I am not averse to going on anything.

The real question is, what is in it for us, for me to go on?

Here's the problem, as I see it, if I go on, the positive is if I go on and explain

Well, now look, this doesn't involve us.

It involves the previous administration.

We, however, have an obligation to enforce the law.

We've enforced the law.

It is important, I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, we've got to continue to classify things because that's the only way we can conduct government.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

That's going to be a hell of a speech.

That's going to be great.

People are going to be really reassured of that.

Now, the other option, I think this will go on.

There is the other argument.

The disadvantages of that are, they'll say, what the hell?

This administration is really involved.

Why is Mexico trying to cover it up?

So they may think that already, but I'm not sure.

When you pick up the morning paper, for example,

I know a whole ream of stuff about Kennedy.

Now, do you have him arrested?

Is that a promise?

Yes, I do.

Now, the target cover-up's all over with.

It's now not being covered up, so nobody can argue about why he didn't get the cover-up.

They can go back and say, why did you target the cover-up?

Nobody's going to give a damn.

Now, they're going to give a damn about why Kennedy murdered Deanna.

Now, you think Johnson escalated the war.

You think it's your best way with Russ going on for an hour?

What?

Russ?

See, that's the end of it.

Russ is going on.

Maxwell Taylor this weekend?

I'm delighted Russ is going on.

Also, you're going to check.

He's got all the details going on.

He's awful good.

He's always good.

He's a hell of a gentleman.

That's a lot of talk for a big person.

Yeah, we'll get him on TV soon.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, sir.

We'll get him on TV.

On the TV side, that's how Russ is going on.

Rogers just might love the opportunity to step up to this thing.

He's got a good speech.

Okay, take care of yourself.

He's got NSC documents.

That's what I'm saying.

And they're moving that out this afternoon.

And he wants something from us, so we're sending him out this morning.

That's what I'm saying.

That's going to be bowled over by the, and he may be right, by the Buchanan.

And we go on.

I think, by the way, I'm correct, that his tendency is always to

You don't want to lose momentum when it's an issue that you can gain out, but I don't see the gain out.

There's a gain on this, and the question is whether you gain it by our whole men or whether you gain it by letting the opposition... Oh, I...

The gain is the same.

The gain is...

I just don't know.

I'm not the one to judge it.

No, the gain is...

The gain, long term, is letting the issue of the Democrats being unable to manage this government, the power elite from Cambridge failing, falling on their ass, and let them fight that issue.

That is our battle.

They, this is the McGeorge Fundies of this world have finished.

They no longer have this arrogant, infallible superiority that they can govern better than anybody else.

They just got it.

The papers in the New York Times today kill them.

Falls right into what we're trying to do.

Because this building is an anti-establishment thing and that's fine as long as it's clear who the establishment is and which he does.

We don't want to be a... And that the most anti-establishment guy there is is a guy from the local office.

The anti-establishment thing?

He said it is a building that's an anti-establishment thing.

What's he mean by that?

No, I'm not saying that's...

If it does go... No, I want the establishment on my own.

The only one that really ever beat the establishment was when I beat them in the Hiss case.

Of course, I beat them on the fun and a couple of other things.

But in the Hiss case, beating them in the Hiss case was a deadly wound.

They had never been beaten, and they had never been beaten since.

See, McCarthy's sin was...

There's only one line, Mr. President, that's very important that at some point he made clear, and it can be any time, it doesn't have to be the day after the case, and that is that you brought this

case, you had every reason not to, but you brought it to enforce the law.

Because that's your duty to do it, and that's what the law required.

And that's really- Well, I just have Ziegler say that.

What does Ziegler say?

He's saying no comment, which I think is, it's- All right to do.

Yeah.

Well, then have Rogers say that.

Rogers, you see, can make that case.

Yeah.

As well as anyone.

Not to cover up, but to enforce the law.

We have nothing to cover up.

This does not involve us.

But it is our obligation to enforce the law.

We have brought the case.

We have now carried out our duty.

Now we will comply with the law.

Right.

And that's it.

We will comply with the law.

But, on the other hand, we're going to continue to protect secret documents, secrecy of communication, because that's the only way we can conduct diplomacy and avoid war and the war array.

That's it.

And the speech.

Very good little speech.

I shouldn't make it at this point.

I wish somebody else, I think somebody else should at the moment.

Russ will be good.

We're still getting the substance of the papers, and that's fine.

And that's exactly what we want.

I mean, that controversy, to the extent that bill is held.

But he'll also get a classification thing, I'm sure.

If he has to believe in that.

Who's he going along with?

I don't know, sir.

I just heard on my way here this morning that he had agreed to go on.

I'm sure it's CBS for an hour.

Probably Duncan.

I hope he's doing well.

He'll do well because he'll be sincere.

He always came over well with me.

I always respected Russ every time I saw him.

He's a low-key, fine boy and sincere.

What's the person saying?

Not a word.

He disappeared from the face of the earth.

Not a word.

All he said is that he had a set of the documents and never let them out of his office.

And never read them.

This must be tearing these fashions apart.

It's coming to me.

Sure it is.

Let's not assume that it is, though.

I'm sure it does.

The first man on the floor yesterday, Huber Humphrey, saying, what a wonderful day to release all these documents.

Yes, he has gone 540 degrees twice.

God, he's...

He says, what a great day.

Yeah, a great day for Merck.

Well, now, wait a minute.

Maybe that tells us something.

He is trying to make it appear as if the administration is trying to cover up

He has a peculiar problem.

He had to, after his initial statements, which were a disaster, he had to get himself on the side of being for release of everything because it's his administration whose credibility is... Well, it is true because he's also releasing his memorandum to President...

He's releasing a memorandum from him to President Johnson so he can get out of the water.

Thanks.

It's a hell of a life, too.

Like Arthur Burns, I'll bet you he wrote one the other way, too.

He's the guy you remember who said the fox and the chicken coop when he went out and opposed the coalition government.

You were hungry minds.

Like Arthur said, we're on both sides.

We should come to Texas.

We should.

I've got my brand on both sides.

I know he's mad.

Tell Bill White what he's gonna do about it.

I'll find that out today.

And we'll get after that.

In the meantime, you get up there and as they say, continue to follow up on what I just said.

It's near permissiveness.

Don't let that die.

Get people to follow them.

Call some Congressmen, some Senators.

You have no chance of that.

I want that done.

You can.

You can write a little speech on that.

You can.

It's excellent on that.

It's near permissiveness.

Near permissiveness has come to an end.

And then what we've done, the fight.

See, you've got a speech on that.

You've got quite a ton of stuff.

That's anything's a lie.

Okay.

Second point on the unemployment figures.

All right.

I want you to talk to Skelly about that and see how he can help to get that arrived.

We want it arrived.

We don't want to be just bitching at them when they don't ride it.

I particularly want to talk to them.

I mean, they've been bombing us every month when they went up one-tenth of a point three months in a row.

Now, all right, what do they say now?

They go down six-tenths of a point.

They'll say, well, they're your technical factors, Chris.

No, they're technical factors going up.

Why didn't they say that then?

You know, as I noticed on the market today, you know, these goddamn left-wingers, right?

Those call them so beautiful.

The market was at nine points.

The market was at eight.

It was at seven.

It was at eight.

And they said they should check with the directions.

Every time it went down.

They quote this broker, that broker, that broker, a lack of confidence in the next administration, a concern about the war in Vietnam.

Not technically, which of course it was.

This whole dam drops a technical correction, you know.

And the market cannot go up, a bull market, you can't have a bull market where the market goes up 320 points without interruption, without having it drop back at some point.

Because the bears are going to make money.

The normal correction on that is 50% of the rockets.

It means it should have gone below

What triggered it was a lot of indecisive talk, and then Conley went out and did what he did.

I just put everybody right there.

Absolutely.

The beauty of it is he didn't go out and say anything.

He went out and said, we aren't going to do anything.

He just said it again.

But he removed me.

That is the thing that kills you.

They may not think we're doing the right thing, but if they think we know what we're doing...

Is it important enough that we take Chuck off of everything else?

I understand.

I can't have anybody do this out in the street if it's important enough.

It can't be done if it's just out of a hip pocket, because I know this is everything, and it's the most murderous killing in Congress.

You look at the price you pay.

If you get somebody who could run a ghost house, you know,

You could get somebody who could put the 18 hours a day in and Chuck could put six with it.

And the other six, I don't know.

There's ways that I don't want it done in the bureaucratic way where there's some faceless guy that comes in and is doing this.

I want some guy that is living and sleeping with it that I can call in and tell him what the cops and robbers games are and what this thing is done.

See my point?

Is it possible that the best way to do it is to bring Houston in, put him under check,

That's what I was, in a sense, that's what I was saying.

Getting out of it.

Will that work?

I don't know.

What do you think, Joe?

Do you understand?

This is a, I don't think, I don't really understand how, how important, how tough this is.

You can't fight it.

Deadly battle against the bureaucracy.

You see, Blair's got a CIA, I mean, an accountant.

Everybody who wants the FBI, they will come home to God, man.

They'll just go up in the trenches.

The tumor's already turned on.

You get it?

Is there anything political that gets...

I can quote.

I can put you over a bit, and I can get something out of it.

But Laird's got a whole intelligence network over there.

And Laird will play every day, but somebody's got to... See, Houston's that D-line, because that's where he's from.

Houston is a lieutenant, the D-I-A.

I know, therefore, Houston is not.

Go tell the general, the D-I-A, what to do.

But Colson, tell the general, if Houston can post that in Colson, I want to speak to him.

Houston, Colson isn't the best...

The only thing I worry about with Houston is

He picks the things that look good to him, and you can't fudge him if something doesn't look good to him.

That's tough to get into.

There's one guy on the outside that has this capacity and ideological bent who might be able to do all of this.

He's a very close friend of Jim Buckley's.

He spent 20 years in the CIA overthrowing governments.

He's hard as nails.

He's a brilliant writer.

He's written 40 books on the Sudanese.

What's his name?

He scrambles.

His name is Howard Hunt.

He's here in Washington now, just got out of CIA, 50.

Kind of a .

50.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

I need to do it.

I just don't have the energy.

Ideologically, he already is convinced this is a big conspiracy.

I'd like to get Houston in and use it.

I mean, I agree Houston is difficult, this and that.

But we'll order the son of a bitch to do what needs to be done.

You can order retention.

Not very long.

Houston, he really is, all right.

Because he's great on the stuff he wants to be good on.

And he's an arrogant bastard.

We'll take you half an hour telling you why you shouldn't do something like this.

It's driving you up the wall.

All right.

There must be people lying around.

We can get there.

Well, let's see.

You know what?

Dick Allen is convinced there are.

That's why I'd like to talk to him about bringing Vernon Walters back.

I was just thinking that myself.

He mentioned the CIA.

He's a spy type guy.

I'm going to put him in that job eventually.

I'm not sure.

I think Walters knows enough about this stuff, and I'm not sure he would play it.

Well, he would play it, but I think he might want to... Look, I don't want some guy that's going to try to second-guess my judgment on this, because I know more about it than any of them.

I've forgotten more than they've ever learned.

This is a game.

It's got to be played in the grass.

That's why Mitchell did it.

It's impossible for him.

uh you know he said he you know he knows the

outside business and the inside.

Well, basically, Bob, you and Chuck talk about setting up a procedure.

I don't want a committee around this.

I want one man that's responsible.

Maybe it's Chuck.

But you do need guys that need that responsibility.

There are two different jobs.

One, there's a declassification job.

Maybe the thing that John talks about, putting a guy in charge of that.

Then there's the work on this conspiracy itself.

That's another job.

That's another kind of job.

Yeah.

The declassification job is important .

Yes, sir.

.

I don't want to be a non-person.

Are you going to be a person?

No, I've never been a person.

All right.

Well, I don't understand anything.

You're not going to get it.

I do.

You're not going to get it.

Thank you, sir.