Conversation 535-023

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Oh, God.

You're so kind.

Great house.

Thank you, Steve.

Yes, I came to read your decision.

So I'm going to read a part.

One commission.

Three, four parts.

And doses.

about eight or 10 at that time when somebody was leaving the national security staff.

And they brought their children.

But now the problem is, for every one of those there are, there are probably 100 others that probably ought to be in ahead of them.

And you can't, you just don't, you just, but you just see as many as you can.

I've seen probably more than I should, but we do want to know.

One, I was going to ask you about something because it was a confidential contribution that I made.

Mr. and Mrs. Ray and Nolan are here.

And they gave Raymond Nolan, M-N-O-I, and he is the special representative for the president.

But they didn't go, they didn't want Shea Cantor.

Actually, she wrote me a little handwritten number saying that.

Well, they should.

I met them the other night.

Anybody that's in that bar, we should just come in.

If on this side of this you want to fight, I see them there a minute or two, that's Shea Cantor.

Because she said that, I don't know what happened, they gave their money to the senator.

And she said in her note that when he decided to go, you know, that they would like to deal with me.

But I don't know how long they're going to be here.

Well, if they're here, for example, you should have got them in the day.

Well, I didn't know you had them in the day.

Well, you can always do it about any day at Roundville, you know.

They're running all sorts of people here, you know.

So I thought I'd see when the next one is, because even if they never gave it to me, I can't change it.

And they drive a beautiful thing, made of, I guess, color shell, flower thing, for Mrs. Nixon.

And I thought, that's what I'd do.

I'm so sorry.

It was too late today, but then I did leave her.

They called me, they were like, you were finished up then.

So I'll keep, I don't know how long I'll be here.

Yeah.

Well, that means a lot.

It will in the future, but I'm not sure.

Yeah.

I didn't get Tony Russell that I got from the other dollar there.

Their plant is down out where they take their vacations to, so he said he could maybe work it out anyway before.

Well, they haven't, they probably aren't doing much.

Probably anyway, they're working, they're probably working on them.

I don't know, but he said, well, you know.

Well, I just want to, I'm in a hurry.

I know.

That's the way I got it.

Yeah, I got it.

Before she came they had

a buffet dinner outdoors.

Luckily, I was at the people's table that was under a tree, so we didn't get wet, but it rained quite hard, but there was a big crowd.

The building's quite unusual.

You would have enjoyed hearing some music, as I haven't had one for early, though.

It's built so they can have

And then way back up high, they can have some trumpeters that come over there and some singers over here.

You know, it's really built so that it can be used beautifully for good music.

How do you work?

Well, I gave them a memo, but you see, I just, I just knew today that they were here.

Just, just whenever you want to be doing, I can't, I've got to leave it to them because I don't.

I can't do it every day, but about twice or two days a week, they all be running for an hour or two.

But I don't tell them the reason why.

Never.

And today, they might turn it down.

That's why I... Never.

Never.

Let me just say, though, this is... You know very well that there's somebody that I should see and say they should come by.

Is there an old person in front of me?

See, because that's...

I have an old person in front of me.

It's an addition to everybody else.

We do a lot of, you know, like, for example, where we, we, uh, and Marge had her brother, and since we do that, I didn't know they were coming.

You see that it's, uh, it is relevant to, you know, I mean, everybody around here, what you'd expect, but my goodness, when you have somebody out like that, they ought to get in it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, Marge's sister-in-law said she was at Portland at the time of the closing.

Let's get you to, you know, tell me.

Yeah, I hope you do that Leo charm.

Every time I look at that, I like that one.

I like that so much.

that was not really clearly developed it was good almost the last picture taken

We got one good picture of that thing that was done.

The one, unfortunately, it's not a smiling picture, but it's very good for a new one, you know, that will be available.

And they go out, you know, we send them that way.

Yeah, this is a nice one.

I don't know if you have any outruns on the internet.

Well, what's the, let's say, the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 7th.

Well, this would start some holes, even.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you mentioned it, too.

Bob, for the new pictures, be it ready.

The big, new one here.

Rose, you know, she's got a hell of a lot of stuff.

I don't know.

Check and see, but I would guess fairly soon.

If not, we ordered it.

Good.

Now, you have a copy of it by any chance?

But I don't want the books out in the background.

Because I think you've got to go for it.

This is a great picture for autographs and books.

But it does not have the .

Could you bring the picture you selected you have here?

How far away is it?

I'll check.

Well, far up.

Uh, the thing is, this is a great photographer.

He's got books in front of him, and all that jazz.

But what you need to move off is a good, mousy, strong, smiling picture that doesn't... See, the ones Ollie took had a distortion of the right G. Now, that's only...

I mean, he's... That's what any photographer does not set it up to compensate for that.

We'll get to that.

This guy has seen that.

You know, it's not his work.

So let him take this.

This is the best new shots of anybody.

Those wedding pictures are fantastic.

Fantastic.

But we do need the portrait.

He is the portrait.

But he is not a dead father.

This fellow took this picture 15 minutes.

I've always been trying to do a picture of me.

He doesn't get like...

He gets it all done, sheets a lot of pictures, and every one of them has your code.

Yeah.

I like it.

I know, I like it.

He does it, so he has to watch it all.

That is not always bad.

Therefore, it catches better expressions.

But they are not right before.

It just doesn't work.

That's not great.

That doesn't work.

The albums and stuff that he's done.

The wedding pictures will be, they're sensational for years to come.

Oh my.

The most beautiful pictures.

Did you see one of the dancers?

I don't know who the hell did that.

But there are two downstairs with Helene right in front of the door.

Do you see it?

No.

Right, right.

I don't know how she got it.

I'll have to go look at it.

You see the one?

No.

I haven't studied it.

But the last time was a beautiful, beautiful picture in one of our cars.

First time on a car.

everything was like a ballet at that wedding

everything oh yes and i don't know if you've seen your fyi david mox who was not here at the wedding but who is uh you know the story yeah but it was the most beautiful thing he called me and the most dignified and you know all of them he has the unfortunate distinction of being the uncle-in-law of ellsberg

Oh, well, I'm sure he hates them.

Oh, they do.

I'm going wild.

See, this is his second wife.

His first wife is just fighting against him.

This is his second wife who's a hippie.

It's unbelievable.

Oh, they have been.

But you know, if anybody's watching, this isn't my category, and I made your name, but when we've been watching that Tony legs and seeing those deer, I mean, did he take a lot of Xerox with him?

Not very much.

Because he's right in front of us.

Must be.

You know, we think of people who learn and come here.

They're kind of a year over.

He kept thinking, well, what he said,

He couldn't, he said he knew that a lot of these people that he had were doves, they were liberals and the rest, but you know, they were intelligent, they knew how to work.

But he says, I couldn't bring myself to think that they were doves, that they would break the law.

But for Christ's sake, so I said, Andrew, so I said, these people who are doves, these intellectuals, believe in the higher morality.

Their morality.

You can almost tell, look at Tony Lake, that he thought he was so superior.

In knowledge, too.

Oh, listen.

That's such a weak-looking little guy, too.

Listen, I know all these people, but you won't trust me.

None of them.

Tony wasn't that bright.

No, he wasn't that good?

But he thinks he is.

Some of them have that.

Larry Landon.

Yeah, Lynn was brilliant.

Yeah, they were bright.

He's got a brilliant style.

Alpert was.

Alpert is a genius.

And so is this son of a bitch that stole the box office.

Everybody says that.

I mean, I think probably Hitler was a genius.

Undoubtedly.

He sure was.

So was Judas.

Sure.

But that doesn't make what they do right.

Yeah.

Well, we'll wait.

We can hold requests if you'd like to.

I'll keep moving.

Here's someone else.

The ones that you're using, use with people.

But if you've got something that's really special, send them a nice picture.

I have people who the hell requested a picture.

I don't know whether they get these.

So many ask me when I'm on a program.

But don't take a request.

Tell them to send me a note.

I know, but we never have an agent.

The agent comes out there and says, all right, we'll send you.

Well, the pros are right to know him, because even then, you get the right spelling.

And they shouldn't ask you any questions.

But, speaking of pictures, does anyone have a picture that Brent Harlan is waiting for?

Do you, do you, Blake, have it in here?

No, I don't have pictures here at all.

I'm not signing the pictures.

Why?

I know, but when we took out the pen from Andy for you to sign them, you never had time to sign them and went out from your office.

Well, we'll tell him when he gets back.

We'll be waiting for him.

We've got him in this place.

We've got to do what we have to do.

Send it in, and I'll sign the paper.

Well, I was with him, and I thought, I'll get a new one from him.

I was going to go ahead and do it and copy yours, but I can't find the pictures.

I saw you doing a sort of dance in the wake of this.

Brother, it's any more important than you do, because what saves me time.

No, really, most people can't do things that saves their time.

They add to my burdens.

But any time you can sign that sign that you do and so forth saves me probably half a day.

Every day.

You don't know how many minutes.

No, I mean every day.

Hours, hours of very horrible work.

And so I wouldn't have time to do it.

Well, if a president had to do what people expect him to do now, it's fine.

We're saying...

It is ridiculous.

It helps people, but... Of course, it's more than it should be.

No, except that every time somebody gets a picture, a little mouse, a kid gets something, their whole family...

I know it's a big deal, but what I meant is, it's more than can be done, so we just have to fake it.

I'll never forget as a congressman, as a congressman, I went by one day, I had a constituent with me, and I went by the speaker's office, Brant Braver was speaker at the time, and he had an old battle axe sitting there, and he met his secretaries, and, you know,

She's just her age, as a matter of fact, but a very common woman.

And I came by and put this important inspection on her.

So they said, you know, we should just say hello to her.

And the person asked for an autograph.

The woman took it off.

one of his pictures, and she signed his name and handed it to him as president.

She did it, right?

Yeah, I know it is.

And I heard that, and I glowed a little.

As a congressman, I signed all my names.

I said, oh, I'm excited.

That's the only one I got to do in the Senate.

But when I was a congressman, I didn't want to sign my name.

I gave it all.

Yeah.

I gave it all to foreign leaders.

I didn't have anybody that could do it.

Remember, we had Bill Harlow at that time.

Is he still in it?

Yeah.

When did he die?

Is he still in it?

I think he died in the war not too long ago.

I think we sent flowers, we sent a letter to him.

I'm going to give you a list.

You've lost a lot of friends, Ben, but I hate that you tell me that all the time.

I know.

You know, Charlie Jones died.

People like that.

Charlie Jones died?

Les Hoffman died?

He did, but he died.

Les Hoffman?

Good heavens.

Former Senator Martin?

No, no.

I saw that.

He was 78.

Now, he was smart and retired, and they had beaten him anyway.

That's amazing.

What about Swanton's dad?

I don't know about his dad, but I agree.

All of them, he was a strong, vigorous fellow.

Playing golf, he looked like Justin Dart, because sometimes these great athletic types just bust off and look in better shape than Dart.

I'm losing my mind.

Dart's more of a dissipator, but Hoffman never dissipated, as far as I can tell.

He was a genius.

That's probably Joe himself.

Because, you know, he had that, he was the first one with that Bill Langford.

He even made that set up.

I remember going up to his house in Cedar.

Seems like a generation ago it was.

I remember going up to his house out of the Benaturgs and placed once.

You know, he lived out in Benaturgs, in that area, and I go up there in the hills, and I'm like, why don't you see him?

I'm pretty much there from downstairs.

Did we run into him?

Oh yeah, we ran into him.

But I guess, too, don't you think that, too, that anyone who really, the ones who write it and then take it to an appraiser for an evaluation, only want that for money for later?

So they don't really deserve your offhand.

There are people that are close, long-time people or something.

Oh, he doesn't do that.

Those are worth the money.

Those people, those will never get sold either.

They're afraid.

I will never, that's my point.

I'm never going to sign an autograph or anybody wants to sell it.

No, but if anyone writes that paper and I tell them, they write me after because it's an authentic signature.

I agree.

That's the thing that I've heard for 20 years and I've changed it because it's authentic.

It was probably mine.

You just got a Richard Nixon letter up his waist.

Very nice.

Time and time, Rose, they've got us going through some procedure on this, like this business is smart and quality and we're seeing so forth.

There's someone in the Philippines in town who made a major contribution to the test.

And whether he'd be in town next week or not, I don't know.

That would be described by a fellow dealer.

And it should have.

Whenever he requests one,

We don't want to indicate that it's that kind of thing, you know, being contributed or so forth.

So set up a procedure whereby she can get names in to be included in any kind of a will or deadline.

Or a rule or something.

Yeah, and she just says special plan.

Just put a special plan.

Sure.

And she says she has a memo on it and so forth.

But she's got to don't put it this way.

Don't ever justify them.

She'll never justify them.

Just to be sure that she knows, you tell her, you don't have to justify this.

That this person is a special friend.

I don't mind standing.

I think this thing today with Malik's people was all right.

We did 35 in the front of the planet.

And I think they stood there and I said, we appreciate you doing what you're doing.

So they were all anonymous.

You know, we couldn't do the job without you.

You're not going to get any credit except that what you know that I know.

Here's your little golf ball.

Thank you very much.

May I have it?

No, I don't really need it anymore.

They've got a picture.

They've got a golf ball, and they leave.

I think that, and you can ask me, but it is not a golf ball, okay?

Because I feel that that's not the charge for people to, you know, to come in.

They get a picture.

They get a, you know, through a Senate, they get a little present to confidence.

I do think it's worth doing that.

It's a question of whether it's five minutes or...

And this took only five minutes, maybe eight.

That's about five minutes, right?

If I sit down with them, you can't sit down for less than 20 minutes, right?

I've tried it and it just won't work.

Well, and that gets to that marginal income thing again.

Yeah.

80% of the value of that is accomplished as soon as they walk in the door and touch your hand.

Yeah, I got you right.

Another 10%.

15% is accomplished by you saying a few words to them about what a great thing it is that they're here.

Only 5% more would be gained by sitting for another 20 minutes discussing the merits.

They would say, it's like Don Kendall and others would come in and say, gee, he was only supposed to shake my hand, but he gave me an hour and a half.

Now that hour and a half, to the people that Don Kendall saw, was only worth 5% more, in my opinion.

That's right.

And anybody that pranks about being an hour and a half is that kind of person.

And I just don't think we get along with that.

All we're after in this is an identity with the president on the part of these people.

And you've got that now.

And so when they go back home to Pittsburgh or wherever they came from, they won't have to say, geez, I was in Washington for three years and I never even saw the president.

Well, isn't too, and I think you can go through the government, isn't the picture the only thing?

Yep.

Good God.

You know, I had a picture of Eisenhower once where I was in the office.

They didn't do it in those days.

But they come in, they get a picture, and they hang it on the wall.

Right?

With Les Bush's property autographed.

And that's good from our viewpoint, too, though.

I think it's good to have those pictures around in the offices of this government.

It looks like the damn government of your people.

That's right.

It wasn't that way, even in the embassy's address.

That's why with the embassies, they should come in and not have a clock.

You know, they stand up and have a picture of Bush very well, and this is great.

Thank you very much.

Right?

No, I'll tell you, we, I hope we are getting a few pictures around, good ones around the house.

We are.

Yes.

Lots.

That's awfully good.

The guy, that, that's something that, you know, it says nobody can ever argue that you've never met the president because there you are standing with him.

Well, if anyone's afraid about you, he's going to hit you at lunch today.

the state waited till henry left and sent a paper over on sending cisco to israel to negotiate the they want to send him over and have him negotiate the extreme positions that they're now in hal said he thinks this is a tragedy and he doesn't know how to prevent it except to suggest that you say that you want to hold this until

we get out to San Clemente and we have a chance to have a little review of the whole thing, be sure that's what we want to do or something.

But Al says the problem is that because of the purpose flag and all, we're now persona non grata in both Cairo and Israel, and that if you send Cisco out, it'll stir the water up and put the U.S. right in the middle of being the negotiator, in the middle position, which is where he thinks we don't want to be.

Also, he feels that we should try to hold off that visit

until after Henry's China contact is announced, which will have an enormous impact on the Soviets and will put us in a hell of a lot better position vis-a-vis the Soviets in the Mideast.

So his point is we ought to try to find a way to get Rogers to hold the thing safe that you want him to get into a little NSC.

Could you talk to him on that?

Oh, Rogers, if I'd like to.

Of course, I want to take off six days out there.

Well, then it has to be past that six days.

It would be after Henry goes back.

That I'd like to do is to see if we could cool him for, so that I can have a talk.

No, not because I want Henry back.

I'd like to have him at Cisco.

If we could have a talk about it before that, if we could wait.

And I feel that...

I'm uneasy.

I'm just a little bit uneasy about it.

I don't think Roger should touch me too much, Bob, because I'm not going to sit with him.

And I wouldn't think he would either.

I think he probably can, if that's what you want.

That's what he would feel.

He could do it on his own initiative.

He could tell him, I think it would be better for him.

I think it would be better to say, look, he thinks this is possible.

He probably would really like to have a chance to talk him over with you and so forth, having in mind our congressional and other problems.

.

I said, it's one guy.

Someone had already done that at Congress.

And also, the boy said, too, that it was good news, but it was cheating from Cincinnati.

It wasn't that good news from Paris.

He said, look, I've got a job.

They sucker for everything before it comes on.

They don't even look at the whole thing.

They play it all as they're going to let the POWs out.

They don't look down the thing that says you're also going to collapse the coverage.

It works out pretty well, though, on that, with Henry having been there last week.

Which you can say later if you want.

He's there last week.

On May 31st, we all told us.

We offered as well.

And he was there and met with him.

God damn, we have a problem with Tony Rogers over there.

I don't think so, man.

What do you mean?

Why not?

Because Channel overrided.

Hmm.

We have a problem with Tony Rogers about that.

No, I don't think so.

Why?

Because I think it's, you know.

I think the groundwork's laid for that.

And of course, Rogers is really, he can be rational about Henry, but rational about his own role.

This is the only way to handle a China contact.

We can't send them.

We couldn't send Rogers over to it.

It's too open.

We've got to see what, we've got to test them.

It's my feeling of testing the water.

We're testing it privately and quietly and secretly to see whether we want to go further.

And that's the way to do it.

Well, it's really too bad we can't get them.

I agree with this.

What a flamboyant thing to say about Bob.

It's a great repeal.

It's kind of embarrassing.

It's going to have an appeal.

The congressmen are reacting the way people are going to react.

They're going to say, gee, that's good.

We're making some progress.

And if we can keep it in the context that Mansfield did, Mansfield and Outer were both brave.

Marvelous.

And if we don't get any brave...

It doesn't, actually, it doesn't hurt much.

I know it's got them all stirred up in Henry's office, but it's...

Regardless, it gets stirred up.

It doesn't hurt to stir it up in Henry's office for other reasons, and some of the reading are not rational, either, because they think, well, these are all secret links, and they shouldn't have broke the secrecy and all that sort of thing.

That's the way the game is played.

I've told Henry a hundred times, and he's going to play it very carefully.

Remember, I told him, when I came back and speaking, I said, Henry, they're going to put it on.

He says, no, they promised me.

He says, I told them to close this channel.

I'm like, shit.

You know, he always gets the idea that if we close this channel, that's a big threat.

Well, shit, I don't threaten them.

They know perfectly well if you want the channel, you open it.

If you don't want it, you'll close it.

They don't.

I mean, there's what they do.

And their head gets hurt.

Now, in all fairness, they're going to do a hell of a good job of negotiating at this point.

That is, that's not the way, but you've got to assume in negotiation that the other folks are trying to screw you up.

Henry does not assume that enough.

He knows it's hard to negotiate, but he doesn't realize it.

That's why he is surprised at an Ellsberg.

You're not surprised at an Ellsberg, are you?

No, I'm not surprised.

I'm not surprised at a Lake.

I'm not surprised at a Halpern.

I knew they were bad bastards, right?

Throw you a mix.

I was thinking that I might close that July 3rd speech with the John Brown thing.

What do you think?

The thing that I noticed, for example, that the writers and I've got together, I know it's going to be good.

First of all, I don't think Ray is a strong enough editor.

Now, he could really have taken out that business of, Ray agrees that the play, he agrees that those are bad, but he thinks I should take them out.

That's precious.

You know, precious.

Well, that's the Jewish tradition.

I think Ray has a feeling that a sapphire is sort of a special thing.

Well, a sapphire is an equal, as is sort of Buchanan.

They have a, they're, they're finding that he's not privileged yet.

My view would be that, and I'll teach you about it, what Ray should say is that I have doubts about this, this, and this.

Yes.

And then have Ray signal me.

Otherwise, I may put something out that I don't really like.

Yeah.

He can just go through it and put a red line on a piece of paper.

I'm not worried about you.

Thomas, I don't want to edit it, because maybe I'm going to leave it in.

But let me say the other thing.

they must not be afraid to repeat exactly the words that I have used.

Even Andrews doesn't do that adequately.

Like, for example, if you've said something about, you know, the era of permissiveness is at an end.

Let's keep repeating it.

That's what you can say every time you say it.

That's right.

And there was another one I had in this that was really

getting back let's see imagine yourself in the archives and so we present all this and we talk at the end about what is the spirit what our attitude should be whether we should say there are many at this time there are too many voices in this land that say this is an ugly country because of our what is wrong with America they don't they're blind by because of what they see what is wrong they're blind by what so much is what is right that's it and then John Brown

country.

He could say that on his own death in the country of a retired party.

Certainly we now can say this is a beautiful country.

What do you think?

I think it's, you see, I've never, that has never been used.

As you know, we did that speech at the JCs.

They did not use that on the news.

That was not used.

What they used was the applause.

The only thing that

and it doesn't matter really, I guess it's only a technical matter, is that John Brown doesn't fit into the... No, no, no.

Into the Bicentennial and...

Except that it fits into the point that the Bicentennial is the time to talk about the beautiful country.

Is that girl's graduation address got anything in it you could use that way?

I don't remember whether her rhetoric was eloquent enough, but the grammar of reading from the

Commencement address given by an 18-year-old girl.

Send it in to me.

I might find something better.

Ties into the 18-year vote and all that stuff.

She's the only problem is that I don't write about that as her determination.

You don't have to say that.

I just don't even know.

I don't use your name.

It's just your name.

It's not identified as that.

John Brown, it has enormous emotional impact.

It really does.

And it's never been used.

That's the point.