Conversation 536-010

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I think we've got them working.

They're good men.

They're good men, but God damn it, they, I really believe, and I don't, I think George has learned, or Jim has taken time, I really believe that they've made these sons of bitches ironies.

They did.

They don't have.

Did this convince them?

I don't mean that I convinced them.

Weren't they convinced by the God damn release?

I had them, I got them all in there at 7 o'clock and read them the statements.

We had done some digging all night.

I'd had a,

one of my staff making phone calls to BLS people and recording the phone calls.

And I gave it back to them.

And when they saw what the BLS people were actually saying, they just caved in.

They know now.

There's no question they know that they saw it.

How did you do the phone calls?

It's a Time magazine.

I had one of my men call this time.

And who did they talk to to get the names?

Couldn't get the names.

Couldn't get Billstein.

But it was very clear from talking to these folks, which I

Every one of them.

And every one of them said, don't listen to anybody in this business except Goldstein.

And when I told them that, that did it.

They had a problem.

You know more of them?

Well, more wasn't there when I told Schultz.

They don't listen to anybody but Goldstein.

Listen, they all choose Goldstein.

Every one of them.

Well, a couple of exceptions.

Oh, gee, my wife.

Gortowski and Levine and Yuska right down the damn list, they're

You know goddamn well they're out there.

I mean, they're out to kill us.

Now, the trouble is, this son of a bitch Moore is sitting there this morning saying, well, I don't know whether these figures show improvement or not.

Well, hell, I don't know.

Schultz and Hodgson, and this fellow that works for Schultz, he's a smart guy.

He's a little lefty.

Now, Julie Shiskin.

He's Jewish also.

Well, I don't know if there's anything good to it.

Well, he's got one on our side.

He's like, yes, there is.

Yeah.

Hello?

Yes, hello?

Yes, how are you?

I just called.

I think you're getting married today, aren't you?

Hello?

Yeah, July the 3rd?

Well, I just wanted to wish you our very best, and your bride, and to tell you that having seen my daughter get married about a couple weeks ago, I know what a great thing it's going to be for you.

Are you going to have a good Irish celebration afterwards?

Yeah.

Irish whiskey?

Ah, listen, you can have my share.

Fair enough.

And I just wish you the very best.

I met your girl.

Did I meet her?

What is her name?

Oh, my God.

Can you keep it all in the family, don't you?

That's right.

Thank God.

Well, you give her my very best.

And we are so delighted, Mrs. Nixon and I, we feel kind of like them, okay, as a part of our family, too, after our wonderful visit over there.

And we just hope you hear of the school, aren't you?

Right?

Well, your father is enormously proud of what you're doing there.

That's a good service.

Well, we wish you the best.

Have a wonderful night.

Tell them all Kay's son, you know, he got married, he's getting married today.

I think in addition to a letter, he ought to get one of those, get something.

Oh, you're telling them a bird?

Yeah, he does.

I don't know if they're birds, because I don't know.

Now, they aren't.

They're going to be in the bus.

Come on.

Two months to do it, but we'll get it done.

Come on.

The only one that isn't a nice guy is Conlon.

He's right.

He's mean and wants to get the dead done our way.

We had Conlon.

Conlon had Goldstein's ass.

Last time he called me, wouldn't he?

Yes, sir.

I really think he would have.

I don't know any better, but I've already seen him.

Marty Stans, you know, we have not had a bad press release out of Congress.

The difference is that Harold Passo over there, who's a fine guy, an economist, and a conservative Republican, comes over here with his press releases.

He'll come over and see me.

He said, now what are you talking about?

We never run into this problem in Congress.

Those figures come out.

They're good.

When they're bad, a pretty good light is put on them.

We haven't had any bad news out of Congress.

You know, the way the Times played this, it didn't even come out of the headline.

I'd like to call Julian Goodman about NBC and Haley about CBS.

I know what the answer will be.

The answer will be, well, your own damn press release put us in a bag.

So it's hard to ditch when they do it to us.

What are your opinions?

and how it came true.

He said all of it was bad, as I thought it was.

No, because he thinks that some of the good news got through.

Yeah, he doesn't think that's the point.

He thinks the point is that we should crack down on these facets and prevent this.

But how does he think the news is going to get through?

Generally fairly good.

Well, that's good.

Now, I think, Mr. President, people read headlines.

I went home last night at 9 o'clock, and my wife and son said, gee, what great news you had today.

They didn't let the second headline.

It said, idols go unfamiliar.

No, they see that big drop in the rate.

And Chancellor was not there.

Chancellor came on and said it's the biggest monthly drop in 20 years.

Are you getting across the story?

You're going to keep back to the catching story.

That's a telling story.

That monthly figure is the biggest change.

You know what I mean?

And also tight allowances, as the president predicted.

But we'll stay up to that.

The Vietnam indicators, let me tell you, I looked at the last, it was over 100 last month.

A year ago at this time and this week, casualties were out.

Today they're 21.

Another reason.

A week, a month.

Well, if you put it this way, the casualties last week ended this month.

Less than one week later.

In a month, we're less than one week.

Yeah.

Sir, you got it.

The monthly cash will be biggest.

that haven't actually come out of what we used were the four-week figures, but the monthly figures will be made in a major Pentagon announcement on the 15th for the month of June.

15th of July, they will put out the month of June, which gives us a second good story on a monthly basis.

Yeah, will you get me into that way?

I want to listen and don't give me the full text.

Will you get me into that one short paragraph, the colony and who it was that you told me about?

I have a picture.

I can just read it to you in sentence.

Justice DeWitt said, let me know what the question was.

Supposing information was sufficient that judges could be satisfied with the disclosure of the link, the identity of the person engaged in delicate negotiations having to do with the possible release of prisoners of war.

Let's say that the disclosure of this would delay those prisoners for a substantial period of time.

I'm posing that so that it is not immediate for the legal aid.

Is that, or is that not, in your view, a matter that should stop the publication and therefore avoid the delay in the release of the prisoners?

Bickel, for the New York Times, was reported at one instance.

It turns out to be Bickel.

Bickel goes on and he says, well, I can't imagine that happening and there are a lot of reasons for it.

Then he concludes,

if this was it even if this were the reason give it can you give it because he got it i think mr justice that is a risk that the first amendment signifies that this society is willing to take that is part of the risk of freedom that i would certainly take

I want to hear 100% of what he might have said.

I only saw, when I was on the phone with him tonight, I only saw portions of it.

He was very lucky.

He said where we made our fatal mistake was that we underestimated the capacity of the North Vietnamese to suffer casualties.

We underestimated the will of this country to hold firm.

The North Vietnamese see us divided and trembling.

They wouldn't, no way they would have this war in a reasonable basis.

In effect, blaming the divisions in the country.

He defended us.

All I saw were portions of the very late news.

What is your, what did you have no chance to analyze?

He's got it on paper.

He seems to be rocking along about life, we thought.

Exactly like we thought.

If anything, in my opinion, the press aspect of the controversy has died out faster than I thought it would.

I agree with that.

Scott had a... Let me say, I didn't mean with the pickle thing.

Hell, this way, as I think, but I think you've got something here to go with that.

Very often, but this is one of the simple points I would make.

I want to comment.

I think I'm going to address myself briefly to this thing with regard to the issues as it commands much attention from members of the press.

a government official and clear violation of the espionage act in the United States.

There are top secret papers regarding the decisions of Johnson and Kennedy administration.

I don't know, actually, the press that

Uh, this administration, uh, is often in joint favors with the president.

That shows me personally.

Uh, I've been asked, why?

Why should we do so?

Uh, and due to the fact that the decisions involved were those involved in the previous administration, why do we try to stop it?

Because there are higher issues.

because I took an oath to enforce the law of the land.

The law says that government shall determine what is and what must be classified to protect national security.

No government law, no iterative, and no president is above that law.

The court is now held that an editor who gets possession of papers that have been stolen

of the law, secret papers of evidence on violations of law.

As the right of the president, the real question here, however, is whether the press, whether the press under certain circumstances should exercise that right.

I do not question the Supreme Court's decision.

The question is whether it should exercise it.

I'd like to press myself to that issue.

In any case, he was trying to put his story as counsel for the New York Times, whether or not the, and I'll paraphrase, whether or not the top secret information jeopardized negotiations, which might accelerate or .

whether it should be done, and counsel, in the alert time, replied that is one of the prices of the first amendment, or was that a second amendment?

Eric redones, but we've undone this.

That is one option.

That is the standard.

That is the standard of the atmosphere.

That cannot be the standard of the President of the United States.

At the present time, I am negotiating on many fronts.

On Vietnam, on the Soviet Union, China, the Middle East.

The purpose of those negotiations is peace.

There will be no chance

My obligation is to enforce the law.

I'm going to enforce the law.

I shall keep that.

Anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted.

is the wise of American men.

And they return to our position.

If secret negotiations are needed, if the protection of secret negotiations and secret papers is needed to accomplish those goals, I shall protect them.

And if the choice, if I have the choice between

You could say, I understand, I will understand how newspapers have to go after the facts.

And scoops are the, I mean, that's the life of our circulation.

I have a choice between our circulation firms and the life of just even one American man, or the return of one POW.

of the incarcerated in the same North Vietnam prison.

And I shall put, I must put, my obligation to that one American and to that one V.O.W.

about the understandable interest of the newspaper in a scrutiny to which we sell our newspapers.

Or another way you could put it is a choice between

even if it ain't a story, would sell a million market speakers, I would put the life of one American on the return of one field above that.

That is my obligation.

I believe, I believe in the people's right to know.

I have nothing to cover as far as the past is concerned.

I was not here before you.

an obligation to the future, an obligation to peace, security of the Americans.

I shall meet that obligation.

And I would hope that responsible editors would also.

I recall that President Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, President Eisenhower told me, after he left office, of the fact that never only was the Supreme Commander of our allied forces

released information that was secret that might result in the deaths of Americans.

They had a right, but they did not exercise that right.

I hope the editors are kind of going by that same thing in the future.

I recognize the publishers.

political security of an individual or party rather than the nation, rather than the security

kind of thing as we're said.

Untold.

In other words, zero in on just the pickle thing.

See, that isn't good.

Zero in on the pickle thing.

It'll put the tires in one hell of a box.

Well, you've got a marvelous line there.

If it's choice between selling a million newspapers or one life, I'm going to stand on the side of one life.

See what I mean?

That's a hell of a strong line.

If I could do that, I would say to me, I'd just get it out there and do it 630 or so on the news.

And then say, thank you very much, and get off the counterpoint.

So that's what I'm thinking about as the alternative.

In other words, not get into the fact business of whether you should declassify more papers.

Not even into the fact as to what this, but just putting it in cold, tricky terms.

on the issue of this, too.

We see what we're getting at here.

I'm not arguing for this in particular, except we say that, as we put it, some people will know that what happened here, the first you're getting across, an individual broke the law.

Individuals, I was going to say certain individuals, wrote in clear violation of the espionage law of the United States, delivered cops, stole top secret papers,

and he delivered top secret papers to the Pentagon.

Stole top secret papers from the Pentagon and gave him two of those papers.

In view of the fact, you see, and I get at the fact that it was about a previous administration, why the hell did I do it?

I get at the fact that because I have an obligation to enforce the law, the law says in the

No government employee, no editor, and not even the president is above the law.

Can't put himself above the law.

The court is now held, the Supreme Court is held, that if an editor gets possession of a stolen top secret document, he cannot be, he has the right to print it.

That's what the court held, that if he gets possession, he has the right to print it.

However, in the great tradition of newspapers, that a newspaper should print only the news that's fit in the print, without quoting, only the news that's fit in the print, should it be protected, so to say, right?

And I want to address myself to that question.

In the New York Times case, and in the case of this column we took place,

That could be a standard of the Kremlin.

That is a standard of one of the nation's greatest figures.

That cannot be the standard of the President of the United States.

I've negotiated on many fronts.

And I believe these things will be destroyed.

I've been on the road to defend and enforce the laws I'm going to keep going.

And by the rumors, it will be omitted, it will be prosecuted.

My only vision is to fill lines with Americans and so forth and so on.

And then somebody, if I give the choice, if I have the choice, circulation, I understand the desire of those papers to get information.

both for the purpose of informing the public and increasing circulation, but at the choice of increasing circulation by a million.

They were selling a million more newspapers and risking one American life.

I have to be on the side of that American life.

And I believe in the people who write, you know.

I am not in the cover as far as the past, but the future is in the story of this administration.

I have no objection to that.

But I am not in the cover as far as the past.

I owe an obligation to the future.

He's reading a couple of his books.

I think maybe the Eisenhower case is a bad candidate, but it's really true.

I'm all for it.

I recognize the opposition.

You could put it this way.

The newspaper had a right to do it, but wasn't had a right

The court has told the newspaper he had a right to publish these documents, these top secret stolen documents.

The question is, was it right to do so?

Is it right to do so?

That's a good way to put it.

The court has told the newspaper he had a right to print these top secret stolen documents.

The question is, is it right to do so?

There's a bigger question.

great tradition in the American press that newspaper should print only those things that are good to print.

No, it's a, I mean, what I'm doing here, I think is taking them on frankly, which I think has to be definitely the same at all.

I don't think you can screw around with all that stuff.

I, uh, it might be worthwhile to do it.

In any event, if I didn't know this was the kind of speech, so much time.

This speech should be given, whether you give it or not.

It's a marvelous scene, Mr. President.

And the people would support you on this.

There's no question this scene would...

It breaks it off in the press.

Yeah, the only danger is that I see at the moment that it puts you in the middle of it where you haven't been.

And I'm not sure that the...

The government versus the newspapers has become much of an issue as far as the public is concerned.

What's being revealed is becoming a hell of an issue.

Everybody's talking about it.

I can't find anyone who doesn't... How long am I doing this thing, this stupid thing, rather than at a very lower case deal?

I'm simply writing a letter to a editor of a small daily newspaper and putting it forward.

He writes you and asks you your views on all of this, and you answer him, and how it goes.

Yeah, he's been great this week.

Well, I mean, they don't see me saying it.

It's a horrible, it's a horrible goddamn statement the way it's been written off.

This is.

Very.

My feeling, Mr. President, is that... We may want to get in it, but maybe it's worth kicking it and having an interview right now.

Well, you're going to, the next time you go on television for a press conference, you know you're going to be saying these things because you know damn well you're going to be asked that question.

You can't avoid it.

So you're going to have the opportunity to communicate.

That's going to be a long time.

Yeah.

That's all right.

It may not be the first question, but it sure as hell will be asked.

So you're going to have a chance to make these points directly to the American people whenever there is another press conference.

The question I would ask is why necessarily do it Tuesday?

It may be that a letter to Hayden would be a damn good way to get your views on the record and then make your points directly to the American people when you are asked a question.

getting justice seen.

This is a very good thing.

Very good thing.

Pickles left himself wild.

Oh, sure he did.

He cried the heads of all over the place.

But he ended up saying it might be one of, it would never be the only reason.

He said it's probably only going to be one of 17 causes.

But even so, that's what we had to do under the first amendment.

It's a hell of an answer.

It's devastating.

Well, the earlier question that Stuart had asked him is, we could do this if a hundred men's lives were involved.

And he said, my own compassion, human compassion, wouldn't permit me to do it.

Then on the release of the POWs, he got sucked in.

Anyway, get that written up for somebody to use in a speech.

You work that stuff.

Why don't I get Buchanan to draft for you, Mr. President, some remarks that...

I'm telling this not for me.

I don't have anything to do with that for me.

You just say I want that.

Well, yes, the President, I mean, he's so hard-line to make us think, well, I'm sorry, I'm grappling with it.

I may not use it.

But Buchanan is a guy who can write.

You've got to notice.

He wrote this the best, I think.

Yes.

You've got to get it.

You've got to take all that fickle, that fickle sewer thing and boil it down to its essence.

He was asked this question, and he replied this, this, and he replied that.

You know what I mean?

So make it very brief.

I'm going to take a couple of minutes.

I can't think they're too damn comfortable, Judge.

They're not, Mr. President.

They must be.

You still hold your view that they're going to get on the phone line?

What do you think?

I doubt.

Are they still worried?

Yes, over there.

Yes, sir.

Very worried.

I think you're going to see the controversy as far as the Democratic candidates just intensify.

Each one is trying to get out from under it.

Scoop Jackson was taking this line the other night on television, which just drives that wedge deeper.

It's got Muskie and Humphrey right at the tip.

They're releasing the documents, but at the same time... What does it mean he's down on Muskie about it?

Well, he's always been down on Muskie.

He thinks he's weak.

He's down on Muskie because J.

Love's down on poisons.

Meany on Musk.

Lovestone thinks that Meany, that Musk is a softie on the communists and is a softie on the Middle East.

And as Brennan said, on many occasions, Meany will belittle Musk in public, I mean, not publicly, but in groups.

Pete told me yesterday, he said the only Democrat who can get labor solidly is Sue Jackson.

He said this is just true up and down the line.

on the conservative side of labor.

He said half of labor is conservative and half is liberal.

See?

Oh.

Al Barkin.

Oh, yes.

Because Coates will be against you and the communists are right.

And of course, so will Woodcock.

Woodcock will say.

Woodcock is socialist.

But we get out a lot of workers.

Oh, you'll find out a lot of locals that are just...

Wallace notice.

That's where Wallace did his great strike.

The auto workers in Pennsylvania are all working for us.

That group that came in this week have been the state auto workers.

We're meeting our real bull here.

There is.

The teenagers.

I'd like to try to pick up some of the machines that are in good tongues.

And another one is that we might use the rail ones.

They're too far gone.

And they're too small.

Are they?

They don't announce that much anymore.

Or announce it now.

Well, that's broken down into about 20 years.

The changers are...

They won't get revealed.

Yeah.

Your strength, Mr. President, will be with the longshoremen.

That's small, relatively.

The teamsters, which is $2.2 million.

The building trades, which are $3.5 million.

Some pockets of the auto workers.

Not much for the steel, not much for the machines.

Retail clerks will do very well.

Health suffrages.

Outspoken.

Oh, and the what?

Yeah, and the government workers are running.

We can't go for the goddamn big government pay raises again.

You know, I can't sign them.

No, but you have something going for you there, and the two biggest unions, the presidents of both of them are supporting it.

Yeah, don't they have to go against us if we go against their pay raise, the blue-collar raise?

Depends on how we do it, how we handle it.

Griner is a great...

great admirer of yours, and I'll call Ken Lyons, who was in here.

He's a firebrand.

He's all 100%.

He's signed and bought so that we won't do this.

The one thing we can do is keep them from being Milliken for the post.

And you've got on the postal workers, you've got Rademacher, who's controlling that union now.

He's back in the driver's seat, and he's promised to...

publicly support you.

And we don't have to worry about the fact that whatever happens in our negotiations, none of our kids have business now.

That's right.

But he's absolutely in our corner.

We're an awful lot better off with labor than any Republican presidential campaign.

Well, we always get 35% or so

That's right.

That was Jim Buckley's margin in New York.

He got 49% of the blue-collar vote in New York State in a three-way race.

Hugh Scott in Pennsylvania got 28%.

Now, that tells you quite a story, that that vote won't go to the liberal Republican anymore.

It goes to the Buckley kind of guy.

Catholic had a big part of it, probably, with Buckley.

Vandell, though.

Vandell got it to 45% now.

Isn't that great?

We've got to beat that son of a bitch.

Terrible.

I really feel, Mr. President, that the

The liabilities are all on the other side.

They really are.

As we look ahead, the things that drag on us are going to be better.

And as I said to you before, to be where you are in the polls with all of this is just bound to come up.

And the other side has an insurmountable, not an insurmountable, but they have one hell of a problem.

Let's look at their money problem and the fact that they're going to be divided all the way down through those primaries.

It'll be a year from now before they can possibly put the pieces, try to put the pieces together.

And I don't see how the hell they'll do it.

You know, people back in those days, you know, people would be overcrafted.

And they'll come out and shake up.

they're going to be petrified because they don't know that we're going to chop them to pieces.

And I mean it.

We'll chop them back and fry them all.

You see, the words of the election come.

I take this on the bench.

I took a tricky presentation this morning.

I sent Goldstein to a leader in charge of the office in Seattle.

Just like that.

And everybody squealed for three or four days, and then that's that.

That's the end of it.

That's the way it has to be handled.

We have another problem.

You have a problem with that.

giving the enemy, that it might, it might allow them to show up the, to, the only reason, if I don't want more, you know, will this happen because we were, the administration wanted to deny the victims, you see, we don't want that story.

On the other hand, we've got these people shaking up, they're going to get into the plant, they're going to get,

Then it did shake, shake when you hear the conversations that you recorded.

Now that was very difficult.

You said it was time magazine caught.

And they all talked.

All talked.

And every one of them said, talk to Goldstein.

He's the only fellow that really understands all this.

Talk to him.

Every one of them pointed back to Goldstein, which is what shook these guys.

Not you.

He was, his phone wasn't answering.

And his top assistant's line was busy all night.

I'm sure that was off the hook.

But we got him.

three other assistants and the public information here.

I will nail this, Mr. President.

I don't think you... My instincts would have taken that resignation this morning also, but I think it's smarter... No, no, you've been wrong for the reasons I mentioned.

I didn't want to...

But we had to go to the brink... Well, you made the point.

...in order for that to develop into real nonsense.

By God, I expected something, you know, and as I said myself, at Labor Day, it takes that long.

But Labor Day, you know, George is a work of mine.

God, he's a strong one of the two.

He'll come up with a plan.

He'll say, now we're going to do this and that and the other thing.

And George is an honest man.

He's honest and decent.

And I think he feels put upon by these people.

Well, he said Hudson held this morning.

Hudson, last night on the phone, told me that he had approved that release.

And, uh...

At 7 o'clock this morning, he told Schultz he hadn't.

And George just jumped all over him.

George said, my God, he said, you would let something as important as that be handled by the bureaucrats.

He hit Hudson very hard.

He wouldn't do it in front of you.

No, he shouldn't.

And he shouldn't, but he did it.

Hudson is very shaken up.

He'll cooperate.

See, he would never show us these damn releases.

Hudson?

No, I tried to get to him.

He didn't want to interfere.

and wanted to peer with him.

Just to say to Matt, he's going from now on, he's just agreed, I'll read those releases before they go up.

We've got U.S. News giving us a special article.

end of your permissiveness on crime statistics.

Oh, really?

We expect we'll get some columns on it this week.

The main thing is to get that there were police.

That's a good line.

Oh, terrific line.

Your letter was very well received.

We sent that letter out to 12,000 police people this week.

After your meeting here.

Oh, is that right?

How did it go?

It went very well.

Murphy

made some snide remark about it, but around the country it was well-received, published in quite a few places.

Murphy's a man.

Everybody thinks he's a horrible bastard.

You need an enemy like him.

I'll get you a can of delicious wine.

Oh, I need to try that.

There are a few good gigs in my area.

It's a damn good thing to develop.

And I'll stay on top of it with Brother Hodgson.

I'll see that this...

I'll see this happens.

We'd have him working all night, probably.

I just can't see why Hodgson, after all we've said, after I had those people in there at that meeting...

Why he, what's, what's, what's his problem?

Why don't you just, is he, is he just weak?

I think, uh, yeah, I think like everybody else, you put a man in a trap like that, and he, he gets protected with his own steps.

Yeah.

But it's, it all depends on bureaucracy.

That's right.

That's human nature.

They just have to be shaken out of it.

We'll do it soon.