On July 5, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, Ronald L. Ziegler and Stephen B. Bull and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:03 pm and 6:15 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 537-004 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
It occurs to me that they have that kind of purpose for really living around this place.
Even the Dan Prescott at the end of that thing.
Did they?
Yeah, the cynical bastards, they should have.
They did, though.
You know, there's some times that they even kicked through to some of them.
Well, they all sang it, but they believed it.
Well, and they're so enthusiastic.
God, you know, they...
just so charged up when you came in, and the response to that, and your first segment of your remarks.
Talking about our strength.
It's good.
And of course, whatever you heard, but I never know what tolerance would be used.
We had several good shots there.
It was three.
It was good to have one black, I think, because it was awfully, it was mostly because we had a few blacks in the crew.
It was all right.
The black came up nice.
He was trying to hit himself.
It was a good mix.
And afterwards, they got some great shots.
They did.
shaking hands with them, they want to use that.
They can't all, most of them have to, they don't know, in order to run about the 21 carols, what they're gonna do, and so on and so on.
And it shows that there's not a, that basically when you have this office, that you have a enormous clout in reaching anybody, but reaching young people particularly, aren't you?
Young people are, in one sense, they are turned off by office.
But they're all just a little bit off in the presidency.
You get into the White House.
It was setting the whole thing up.
I mean, for those kids, most of them have probably not even seen a helicopter.
To see that coming over the Washington line, that's a spectacular sight, looking out there, watching that thing come in.
And then to see you get out of the way through a Montana, big dog.
Then to go in and be in there.
You know, they're running through, they're taking pictures in the Marine Band, and taking pictures with social aides, and you don't realize that, you know, they were just ecstatic that they got one Navy lieutenant over there, and the kids were opposed to standing by him and having other kids take a picture with him, and all that kind of stuff, you know.
I had a look at the refreshments, and they do it beautifully.
Yeah.
They're all lined up, those cartels with the beautiful punch cookies.
It's good punch, too.
Yeah, that wasn't... that's a pretty crap, too, about people in their homes cooking.
It was just supposed to be cooked to your feet by a switch, yeah.
There.
And, like, do you notice how few have been here?
Yeah.
Of course.
Why would we expect that many?
Yeah.
I was amazed at how many of them were here.
And I don't know what I meant.
I didn't expect any more than that.
I suppose 50 out of the 500 had been.
But, my God.
I do think what a thrill it is to go there for the first time.
When you're under 28 days, this thing is a great experience.
They don't worry so much about where they stay and how their food is and this and that.
But actually, the Washington Hotel, most of them, most of them, you see, we've been to the best hotel, but for most of them, for probably six of the Washington's, it probably isn't a matter of how they've ever been to the most famous hotel for a while.
Just the fact of staying in a hotel is exciting.
I know it was for our kids when we took them in the first year.
Just the idea of staying in a hotel and it's a big deal.
That's right.
And in Europe, what the hell, they won't care whether they're probably, they're probably going to get hungry as hell.
They'll eat their lunch.
I'll bet you that group does go to the oil industry.
Oh, they can't help it.
And apparently their concert is just starting with the instrumentalist.
I understand they're a band in the arts.
There's a concert band and a symphony orchestra and a 300-member choral group.
That's, you know, they put on a hell of a show.
When they come back, I really think, not because it's them, but because they're so goddamn good.
I wonder if there's a way we can have that.
Again, the outside isn't good enough.
It all blows out.
You've got to have that inside.
They've already signed the Constitution all that way.
Can I be centered?
Might be open then.
And one of the inaugural concerts.
I think we probably have.
I mean, I don't know.
They've done this apparently every year.
I mean, for about four or five years, they've come to the White House every year.
No, no.
I mean, they've done this trip of at least assemble this group.
They're some music school type of thing tied to some college that pulls, runs competitions or something all over the country and gets music
major type kids.
How was it that these kids were sold non-radical?
Why were they missing major?
Because you are pretty much oriented for the radical stuff.
I don't know.
The artists.
I don't know.
And I don't know why these aren't.
And I'm sure there are some, there are some men, sure, but I think the, I meant though, you could have a very solid number, you know, if you're raising an elder.
Oh, you know, when they start doing it, when they do behaviorism, you know, I love when they get out of it, right?
You got to screw it, man.
This is great.
The historic thing is great.
I'll remember that.
But just being in the White House is a... Well, it was great to have the 26th Amendment, the Chapters and Dez, and even the venture.
And I said, we're good for them to hear about our idealism of youth and how much they've learned.
And this one was purely taken.
It was
You know, looking for a way to sign this thing and discovered that they were singing this concert last night.
Put them together.
It's a hell of a lot better than having a formal signing ceremony.
A formal signing ceremony, that's right.
Which, incidentally, however, we do have a question of doing on the public service job scheme.
Which they're suggesting you do tomorrow.
I'm not sure.
I'm just not sure.
Frankly, I vetoed it last year and I'm signing it this year.
I just don't think so.
That's what labor is.
It's kind of labor to keep the story normal.
It seems to me that's, as your people are pointing at each other, pointing at, we're doing, let's do something about it.
I'm just not sure that's, no, no, sir, that's not, I just, it's kind of dissonance.
I don't know.
Well, I'll tell you, as a real fellow, you know, we're here for this game.
You know, the thing was, it's good, too, that they were, uh,
And I said, I noticed the great difference between this group when they were inside and the group of Eagle Scouts when they were outside.
The noise.
And you would have had the same thing with the Eagle Scout.
Eagle Scout just had incentives.
They started clapping, and then the kids, they started going on and on, and they started yelling, you know what I mean?
And then Jim had to get it done.
But you see, outside, they don't do it.
I've never seen an outside ceremony that was word of God.
They haven't.
You've just got to get courage.
You've got to be quick to knock those off.
Well, the rose garden's not worth a damn.
Probably the people's guts have been too many hills.
What I meant is, in terms of getting any enthusiasm or anything like that, don't ever put it outside.
Don't worry about the picture.
The picture isn't all that important.
enthusiasm.
It's the living.
I'm sure.
I sure do.
Take care of this thing, John.
Just close up to those kids' faces as you came in and all.
I saw those kids there in Mexico.
Not just the little Mexicans, all those kids that, you know, just started on the excitement.
I saw one.
All the way through.
She cried when you came in.
and she got it pretty well dried up and then she when they started the battle when they approached she just started crying because she was crying at the end of the battle with the republic tears were running down his face tears went down then when they finished he had he turned away kind of wiped his eyes it's a great moment for kunze he spent
He's a damn good gun.
He's a slob in a way, but he's a slob hell.
He's an arsehole.
I was worried about him being a huge gun guy.
I don't know.
He's tough.
He's tough and loyal.
And he's a stand-up gun.
And he plays politics.
Do you know what he did to Gilligan?
Well, there was a big race for which state would be the last state to sign him.
He was trying to get a wife.
Oklahoma?
No.
Well, no, not really.
Oklahoma was trying to get him.
But he just didn't want anybody to get credit for it.
And so Gilligan went up Ohio.
They ran them through the Ohio legislature.
And Ohio became the 36th state or whatever it was.
So they got the credit.
that Gilligan himself had an airplane standing by.
He grabbed the Ohio bills because Kunzig has to collect all the bills and then confirm that's what the certification is.
He collects them in the state legislative acts.
So Gilligan signed it, jumped on this airplane and flew to Washington to run and deposit it because it's when it's deposited that counts apparently or has some factor on it.
So Kunzig
Sends a little old lady clerk from the GSA out to the airport.
When Gilligan gets off the airplane, she says, I'll take it.
Let me check it.
She grabs it and leaves.
And that's the end of that.
No photographer ever got a picture or anything else.
And Gilligan just got left with his bill hanging out.
Pennsylvania College.
So Gilligan never got in a picture.
And Ohio got all the credit.
If you go there, if you can get the play.
I'll be very curious to see what the hell they do with it.
I will, too.
What do you think?
I think they've kind of given a pretty good play.
They don't have anything else to do.
I'll look at the trial.
There's a riot.
There's no news today except probably a rock festival somewhere.
Fireworks.
They're after the news at all.
It should get a good play, and it's got a sensation on television.
It's human interest.
It's the kind of thing that if the networks were with us, they would run 10 minutes of it.
They would.
I guess they would if they were with us, because it's a historic thing.
And then they could run it a little.
What do you think about the 18-year-old?
What would they do with a bunch of themselves?
Certification, you know, stories, things, science.
three young people with us.
I said, no, thank you.
I am glad we did it.
It would have been nice if we had not.
I understand.
I don't think there's anything in it for doing.
If you said it or not, they didn't catch it.
They'll say it.
Well, why not?
It's like television.
They all got blacks.
They run into black and turn.
And also, it's a very cheap price.
a little gesture that we can make.
Just like Sammy Davis.
I'll see that the black is there.
The black's all of us.
You know, he gets hurt.
Well, he's not against.
He's trying to be there.
And that's just the right way to play the black business.
Just do it that way.
Figure nothing is going to get out of it, but that you're just trying to show that you're there.
Don't waste any time substantively.
Just keep the figure and prepare yourself.
Why did you put that on the television?
Yep, it was.
Get a lift out of that car.
The kids, oh, you say, see the helicopter come in.
And then going in and getting out.
And then they say, I never felt better about being four hundred minutes away from that.
And suddenly I was glad that they let me keep those electronics.
Oh, that's exciting.
That was a great thing to do, because of it being the signing ceremony.
I just need 88 cents.
It's all they cost you, 88 cents a piece.
God damn, it's a good investment.
Who do we get those from?
Who the hell will sell them at that price?
Why don't I just give them myself?
Parker would give us all of them to do one with Jim.
Yes, Mr. Zegler, please.
Well, I'm trying to think of ways to get some...
I was sure of getting very high visibility for younger people.
I think, I think, you know, in our crew, you know, when we meet and so forth, I was thinking that I wanted to point out to you to sort of raise some of those and set the thing up.
Does it ever occur to you, Bob, that a year ago we set up that, not even any of that, who's that guy that built Bumblebee?
Oh, the, uh, Amherst Police.
Remember that?
That was terrible.
That was terrible.
Remember when I had a chancellor?
They heard.
They heard, kind of.
Remember, he had his office over here, and I met with him, and they came in, and they wanted to have a monthly meeting, and I could have a weekly meeting, and I said, oh, I don't know what it means.
They don't have anything to say to me.
Okay.
I would think how much things have changed in that year in that respect.
They really haven't, I think.
Remember the university presence coming in and coming up and down.
There's a crisis in the universities that goes far beyond what they say.
Oh, it's a fundamental crisis in the whole university system.
That there is no new law of preface.
That the whole university can politicize.
The whole university can politicize.
You know what I think?
You know what I think?
You know what I think?
Try to change him as much as possible.
me but you think so i hated what happened the contributions went down you know went down on a variety of reasons i think the hell a lot of people got turned off by their lousy commencement addresses you know they got the fact that you remember they didn't get involved in the campaign well then they began some of them started stepping up to running their schools too they began to realize the public was against them
Their alumni were against them, their trustees were against them.
The only people that were with this were the students who'd come and go, and the faculty, and they had to figure out a way to deal with it.
And they started figuring out, because they're, they got pushed against the wall, really, on some of that stuff.
I think that the money dried up, but also opinion dried up.
Well, that's why the money did.
People were fed up with it.
But you look at the riot incidents after this last year.
What the hell?
It was very small, wasn't it?
Very small.
Much less, if we had had the kind of things this last year, if we had the things we actually did have, if they had happened five years ago, they would have been considered monumental.
They're small in comparison to what happened the year before.
Yeah.
And it's fading down, but there are still campus flurries.
Yeah.
But they don't pay much attention to them anymore.
No, they don't do that.
The kids don't.
The campuses don't.
But they sure as hell weren't politicized, all that crap around it.
No.
The whole campus community is politicized in there.
Yeah.
I'm just sick of hearing that stuff.
Well, that was great, wasn't it?
Fantastic.
I think Bob said that he had some of the simple values of the press corps clapped for that.
They did?
That was one of the great things.
I've seen the best that's ever been in that room.
I mean, musically, I'm sure it was excellent.
Airpoint's down there fighting for four minutes.
Well, he should.
You know what?
If there was any network that had even a glimmer of wanting to beat Fort Horace, that's a ten-minute feature.
It's a lot of great ten-minute features.
Did you see that?
I don't know if you noticed.
He's got a little girl behind him crying.
Oh, the big little Mexican girl.
I think she's Mexican.
I couldn't decide whether she was Mexican or Indian until you gave your status and she said, and she knew it.
She nodded.
She got the right of way.
Several of them did.
I noticed several of the white ones did too.
She did.
She got it.
She nodded, which made it obvious she was Mexican, not Indian.
That was great.
That really... What did you think of it?
Just honestly, what did everyone think?
Well, he said, sure.
Anyone had to be.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
You know what's great?
When I walked in, what did you say?
I said, even I jumped out.
Well, there was a spirit in those kids, and that's what came through us.
You know, when I walked in, they all cheered.
Oh, yes.
And here, you know, that's a lot of other things.
They cheered.
We hadn't gotten able to get in until about the 4th of July.
The 18-year-old.
The idea, of course, that, well, that all the 18-year-olds are
are going to be against the president and so forth.
But what they forget is that the presidency has a tremendous cloud of young people.
Sure.
And you had a good 45 seconds about a very compact, toward the end, statement about the ebb and flow and the fusion of spirit and so forth.
That's right.
It was a good portion of what you said.
they can refer to to set the tone to that.
It was all right there.
Well, you know, they got that, and they got the hand clapping, and they got the hand cheering, and the signing, and the signing.
They got that marvelous singing, which they could just put on at the end.
And they got the, when they got cooking, they wanted a little bit of home cooking, which they probably used, and the pens.
Just the faces of those kids, they may do five minutes of that.
You know, I've given away 50,000 pens.
There's no 500 or 500.
More joy than that.
I mean, everybody does.
These kids, more of them say these are modest facts.
Good God, you can get one of these things.
You get one of the Jackass Congressmen, it doesn't mean much.
It was even the Jackass Congressmen, strangely enough.
That's the greatest thing that's ever happened to these.
That's the greatest thing.
He's walking through the press room saying, that is the greatest thing that's ever happened in history.
Even on wheels.
We have to point out that we called Julian on our first day in Athens.
And we could say, I just relived my life.
In what a way, you know, we could...
Well, we just had a son we got to certify.
He would have come in and had a picture taken down for a reality, or a source present.
But just doing it and having those three kids, sir, is great.
Absolutely.
He was a nice little boy, nice kid.
He was a nice looking black kid.
He was, and they're all good looking.
And really black.
You notice that the black kids were rushing up to shake hands just as much as the white kids.
They always do.
It was just like when we went through the sound deck.
I had to dig a booth who were as excited to hear more so than their lives.
Boy, how they sang that song.
Wow.
The high notes are much better than the older people.
That was a better offering than
In the cathedral in Salt Lake, the Mormon choir is beautiful.
But this is better.
I couldn't say that I've said that the Mormon choir is better.
The only thing that approaches this is the Mormon choir.
The Mormon choir, probably a technical musical thing might be better.
I'm not sure.
Because this obviously is a hell of a direction.
But this all had more work with it.
It's raw materials.
These kids haven't been together, but what, a couple weeks at the most.
15 to 18 years.
And to have them in the room that way.
In other words, they were, well, that's right.
Well, they were probably, they would range by sections.
That, of course, is just a change.
But you see, the rooms, the smaller the room, the more impact it makes.
It's like tuning up your hotline in a small room.
It really blasts you out of there.
I tell you, if we'd known we had them, they would have been the thing in the archives the other night.
The 500 of them, masked in that thing, all the way around the road.
They would have pushed that road through the damage.
Wouldn't they have known?
Yeah.
It's great.
The army cars was good.
Oh, sure.
I heard this thing.
This thing would have been, Jesus, you're actually on that thing.
We're on rockets through there.
Really, it's, honestly, nothing has been really quite like this.
They were so fresh, young, happy.
What did you tell them?
From what girl got sick?
I was there.
I saw that.
I took her down.
I took her down.
She's a consultant from Boise, Idaho.
I said, we're going to just go right up by the office of Athens.
It's interesting to talk to you.
I said, very good.
You're going to see this.
I said, I should bring her out.
She said, thank you.
She's literally the little kid she was.
I saw her with Kasha, and he said, she's just, there's nothing wrong with just a little heat and, you know, wind and everything.
Well, kids do tend to faint, you know.
Fainting is something I think is more uncommon among young people than older people.
It's because they're, they get more excited.
Well, I just hope they get a, if they are going to get something, I think we're all free there.
Yes, sir.
All the locals.
We had 10 gang members there.
And they were all impressive.
Yes, sir.
I can tell you.
Who was there for NBC?
Kaplan.
Yeah.
Even the chaplain would have been impressive, wouldn't you?
He sounded particularly emotional.
He is with kids of Larson and Hertz.
Typical Jewish attitude toward kids.
Permissive.
Yeah.
With this kid?
Yeah, he is.
I don't know.
They're very close.
They're very close.
And the bar mitzvahs and everything.
I went to his son's bar mitzvah.
All the Jewish bar mitzvahs I've ever been to.
All the Jewish bar mitzvahs.
Close.
But there's just this strange malignancy and all that seems to creep him up.
I'm a radical, isn't I?
I can imagine how...
The fact that Ellsberg is in this must be really terrible, like hand to pieces, or karma.
Just like the Rosenbergs and all that, that just has to kill you.
You feel horrible about it.
Couldn't be a good idea by doing that.
All right.
It would have been a Rosenstein that changed his name.
It is right.
It's always an Ellsberg.
Ellsberg, you're an Ellsberg.
But there are better.
This was my journey.
So that proves something.
Very interesting thing.
So a few of those who engage in espionage are Negroes.
Very lucky, aren't they?
Very good.
As a matter of fact, very few have become communists.
If they do, they're like they get in the hands of the neighbors.
They're more of an activist type.
And they throw bombs and this and that.
But the Negroes, if you ever asked, the grand Jew Negro spies, they're not intellectual enough.
They're not smart enough.
They're not smart enough to be spies.
The Jews are intellectual enough.
The Jews are born spies.
You know some of them.
They're just in it, up to their necks.
The basic deviousness that also inherits.
Americans, that's what makes us, that's what makes us.
He puts himself above the law.
Other than spying on the paper, I'm talking about the spies that do it because of ideals.
You know, on Saturday, I rebranded the tape of the NBC special where they had Max Frankel and the news panel.
Did you see that on the Pentagon Papers?
I'll tell you, Kilpatrick creamed that.
Max Frankl, he was just crazy.
And Ben Bradley.
Max Frankl kind of said, Tony, I knew it would come to this.
You finally called me a trick.
I expected it all along.
You finally called me a trick.
But he really did box him into all sorts of traps.
And his questioning was very firm.
He said, did the New York Times pay for this?
Frankl said, no.
He said, how did, did you assist in obtaining the material?
No.
We sought it, but we didn't get, well, how do you, you know, justify those two statements?
You sought it, but you didn't find it.
He just really wrapped him in the, in the circle.
And Frankl came off very badly.
And so did Ben Bradley.
Did he?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Ben is not very smart.
I'm surprised that Frankl was very clever.
He's very clever.
Frankl's smart, but he's emotional.
But he, he, he did not come off well on this at all.
Well, Kilgore was a,
Oh, Ruth, it's nice of you.
And Ken Crawford really went at him, too, in his own kind of nervous way.
But, I mean, he doesn't come off as real on TV.
Ken is not as smart.
Killable is very nice.
The only problem he has is he drinks.
When he drinks, he's not quite so good.
I was with him once.
Kilpatrick.
But when he's sober, he's just as shrewd and tough of a questioner as there is in this country, believe me.
I don't want to be up against him.
He'd murder any of them.
He's a terribly honest guy, you know.
He's just... Also, he has an obsession about the court address.
He likes it.
I mean, he likes the law and loves to answer it.
I bet he was up on the laws.
Yes, sir.
You know, this was a very good follow-up, if they run any of it tonight for our Saturday night shows.
You see, because I came back to the same themes again, which we've got to do is keep repeating the goddamn thing.
Eventually, it begins to sink in.
The idea of the wealth is not as a thing in itself, but because it allows us to do good things.
So that's good for kids here.
They don't want to be, I don't have to do good things to make you wealthy.
How the hell are you going to be able to keep the peace unless you're strong?
Our kids, when they hear from the goddamn professors, that strength is evil, wealth is evil.
Okay, so if you don't have strength, then what the hell are you going to do?
How are you going to do good?
Then someone who is stronger does that wealthless stuff.
They're playing around.
Use it for good or bad to either help you or clobber you.
Yeah, they say it.
Help the poor earthling people.
End hunger.
How?
With what?
Now, these kids out there, they have basically, they have a great feel for ideas and things.
Kids, do you think so?
Or do they, what do they care about?
Jobs?
No.
Ideas?
They don't.
See, that's the thing that we're getting to in that thing that Haynes Johnson, whatever Haynes.
Haynes Johnson.
Yeah.
In the Washington Post this week.
We're getting to this.
We are in a, in a, in a.
changing thing here that's coming out of you go back to just basic psychology when you get past the level of sex and food and start getting up to another there's a basic animal in us and start getting out of a place where you get to discretionary needs and then you get to spiritual expansion and moral expansion and all that kind of stuff and i think we're we're
in general as a society we're getting to we're in that era and we're starting to pay the price of it let's face it all we were trying to do is to survive get enough to get enough to have enough food and not clothing enough education et cetera to get by now have you reached that point we've got to look up and see now what else
And we're not prepared for it.
We're past that point, and we don't know what's ready.
We've got to be prepared.
That is what else.
And that isn't just the kids.
It's the housewife.
She doesn't have to wash. She doesn't scrub clothes anymore or bake bread or anything like that.
The person said the other night, the question is, you know, what will we be 10 years from now?
This is what's on people's minds.
Where are we going?
What is the future?
What are we doing?
What is the stability?
And those are hard questions.
The easy questions are, how am I going to survive until the monorail?
What's your understanding about the thing tomorrow, the media thing that you, Bob said you want to make, or want to get made a statement on the state of the state?
Well, when we were discussing this, we were mentioning this briefly in your office the other day, and we talked about it.
My feeling today is that you should not
Because I think the specials on TV and what has been written and so forth have pretty well put the thing in Secretary Rogers' statement, which played a lot.
A Gallup ran a poll today that showed 55% aware, 45% unaware.
Really?
Yes, sir.
You still only have half the people who know that it got no service.
This was a field poll taken last weekend.
How the hell did they do that that fast?
They ran it fast.
He could have had a few more while last week.
Yeah, they were out.
Before the Supreme Court decision.
They've been running fast.
Before the Supreme Court decision.
The way I read it.
When was the decision?
That was last week, last Wednesday.
55% not aware.
But I noticed that he had the same poll that the majority of the prosecutors, but a majority of the people who reprinted it.
Well, of those away,
Of those, 55% thought the paper should print.
But that was on the base of 50 out of the total universe.
And those people who would be aware would be those, my judgment at least, who would be of the intellectual thought process.
Well, our report was about the same, except not much awareness.
But our report was a week early.
It's been written about and talked about more on TV by a factor of 100 to 1 over Kelly.
100 to 1, in my opinion.
We spend the money.
What I mean is, because we're on day after day after day, we spend the money.
And much more money is given to us, of course, especially when we're writing.
That's good.
The barber we needed that you might wish to see today or perhaps tomorrow morning, he's available both times, right?
Well, let's see.
Where's he here now?
No, sir, he's not here now.
He's at his home.
He was standing by.
He did this afternoon.
Yeah.
I'm asking what your barber needs.
I'm not going to give you a TV, sir.
Unless you do TV.
It's better not to do it for TV anyway.
Well, uh...
Well, all right.
If he doesn't mind, say 5.30 today.
All right, sir.
That gives you time to come in.
Yes, sir.
All right.
Well, on the thing, if you will have awareness, and if I speak on it, you're going to borrow it.
The way I can serve allies, and it's this, I think you have a situation now, or the opposition,
is desperately trying to do two things.
One, as I pointed out to Bob, they're desperately trying now to say the war in Vietnam will not be an issue next year.
And our people can't be so stupid.
Poor Jerry Ford, when I started talking to him on that, he said, isn't that great?
I didn't say it.
No, it isn't.
I didn't say it.
But we want it to be an issue.
Because it's our issue, not theirs.
The way that we did it, it's like our stupidity in the lobby that went off on the issue last October, because what we wanted to do was just say, the Democrats got us in, Nixon got us out, and he got us out, in spite of the attempts of the leading Democratic candidates to set up a march, every effort to get us out.
That's a murderous deed.
We were running that damn war for a long time to come.
That's one.
Secondly, they now are going, very quickly,
to say, I think, and Skips Howard picked this up, they wrote their own opinion, which shows that they're actually right.
Because when these things first started to come out, all the Democratic candidates privately indicated that this was the Republicans who were leading this.
They said, yeah, well, this wasn't true, but they were trying to get off the hook.
Now that it's shown that the Ellsbergs did it, what they're trying to do is to say, no, this really hurts the president.
The purpose of that, of course, is to take the spotlight off of themselves.
Now, what do we do in this instance?
Well, we can, if we get into it, we tend to, I don't, I think there may be a time to get into it, but it's my expression to get that idea out of the way.
I would get into it tomorrow if I thought
I'll get into it tomorrow, if I thought there would not be another chance to get into it, because I want to say something that I've had some time.
But I haven't hit this any time.
And a better time probably than it is, an enormous course of press coverage, which probably won't happen, during about three weeks, two weeks or so, the question will come up, and then it will accrue, and somebody will ask the question, and I'll abandon it, and I'll say, I believe the life of one American
to return one POW, the chance to succeed one negotiation agreement that would bring peace is worth more than a certain condition of circulation that may have been written to the speaker.
I don't know if I'm correct in this matter, but that's my standard.
Vendors obviously have a right to have their standard.
What's your next question?
All right, on that commons, that point can be made at any time.
The point is, you should never let an issue go by and you're gonna miss it or dismiss it.
We're not missing a boat here.
You can hit it another time.
Just a little bit of an exception point is that, however, we have to keep this issue running and where it belongs.
Colson, of course, is working on that day and night.
But we don't have many bright people down here.
the House and Senate are going to write on it because they don't know how to do that.
And we don't have the press, of course, anxious to help us.
See, here's the point.
The press, the presenters of these papers, for the most part, the ones that have the disclosures, want to hurt us.
They do not want to hurt the Democrats.
They don't want to hurt the Democratic candidates, you understand?
Whereas the press that did not print the papers are either neutral or on our side.
I don't know, did you read, in total, did you read Mark Davis?
The total editorial is, he said, it was in the morning news, but somebody cut it out.
It's by far the best that I've ever read.
By far the best that I've ever heard.
He said, he was editorial, but it's by far the best that I've ever read.
Anyway.
My point is that our major goal now is one, to keep the war issue and keep communism in the United States.
And to keep finding out that everything we're doing in secret is for the purpose of bringing peace.
Everything they did in secret ended in getting us into war.
Now that's the way the issue's going to be drawn.
What these papers are about is how the United States secretly got into war
What we are doing is how the United States secret is doing everything we can to get us out of the war.
You can't vote in for a secret.
It helped to get us out.
Law is a secret.
It's helped to get us out.
It's not a casualty.
This week, 23.
So, are you on or not?
What the hell?
That's the point of no return.
You can't get any lower than that.
They would get a week to come and sell out of them in the end.
So they'll lock it and shut it off.
They locked it and shut it off.
For this week, they locked it and shut it off.
They had two of them in yesterday.
For the four days before Sunday, they didn't have any.
You see, this is the story.
And we've got to enter that home better than we have.
The fact that, just as I predicted, here, the full amount, after the full amount of the children, was less than a week here.
What did the president say?
He said, act a lot.
The result will be to reduce American casualties.
Has it or hasn't it?
See if I'm quite right.
That's the thing that has to be made.
Can't we get some of these bastards to do this?
Well, I guess they try.
You know, it just occurs to me, Martin Hayden will be there tomorrow.
You could in some way walk right by this.
in that group by saying something about, you know, that a number of papers have expressed their views on this, and it's bad to single-handedly do that.
Yeah.
No, I'll tell you.
I'll tell you what I think.
My view is that I ought to say something or nothing.
The reason is that I think if I get into that, they may need to go and search through the editorial and say the president endorsed what they said.
I'm going to tell you, but my view at the present time is that, why should I talk about it?
I agree.
The only thing I need, in a very tangible way, I'm going to give a little bit of time about the fact that we are working many, many channels for a more peaceful world.
We have negotiations with the superpowers.
We have negotiations on areas like the Middle East and so forth.
It is essential that these negotiations be conducted in a confidential way.
Because that's the only way to have a chance to succeed.
That's the only way you can have the kind of communication that you want and so forth.
I didn't mention the papers.
That would be the lead for two reasons.
The fact that you didn't mention the other... No, no, no.
If you say that tomorrow, I don't know if you'd refer to the end of China on that, but if you say that tomorrow, that will be the lead out of the story.
It would be a good positive lead, and it would goose up the fact that
A lot is being done, as you said, and would remind people of assault.
No, but in this context, in this time, the wires are take after take on Kissinger's trip, and then he's not saying anything.
Henry's not saying that, but it's take after take on Henry's trip and the whole thing.
How many minutes he spent with everybody?
It's on the meaning of it.
Something is happening.
In other words, there is a... We wonder why, for example, and I'll have Rogers with me, the Secretary of State, for example, why it is that we...
We know that there are some matters we need to discuss.
The Secretary of State has had conversations in Europe on a number of matters, and on the Mideast and so forth, and other conversations.
We are providing advice that we know.
And I was starting to get the number, and where we, did you get the number of heads of state?
It's, if, yes.
And I can say that I've had conversations since I have been president.
I said, you never, I said, they have had the most freewheeling, candid conversations ever.
The reason that they have been is I have not agreed to anybody.
Unless we had a joint agreement.
And as a result of that, we do so.
And as a result of that, we've made progress.
See, this is a very important thing.
I have had a secret conversation, and that happened, and we're going to continue to see that.
In the environment you step in tomorrow in Kansas City, in other words, the mood that something's happening, you're going to be listening for every subtlety, and you can turn it any way you want.
But if you take this line, it would get a lead because of the fact that they're looking for something to indicate that there is something big going on behind the scenes to prove it.
Not to prove it, but to enforce their thought on it.
And also, they would tend to then, on their own, relate it to the publication.
88.
88, yeah.
88 conversations.
Or what is that?
You have had conversations with 88 foreign heads of state.
That's right.
But not all private.
Oh, yes.
I've had private.
No, excuse me.
I mean, not all.
We'll keep them.
We're alone totally.
Don't set up transfers.
That's right.
No, no, I always have transfers.
I don't do that.
I have one of these.
Well, then if I have anybody with me, I don't have to record them.
That's the point.
That's right.
The state doesn't have a record.
Anyone who's under service, not one, they're going to get money.
The thing that makes up this fairly long is the White House dinner for Chiefs' sake.
Cut that note.
But a lot of those that you haven't had actual conversations with.
So I asked for conversations.
What he said is that you have met.
I don't want to meet.
I've had private conversations.
Get it moved down to maybe age 70, whatever it is, or 65 or 67, so we have a good number.
Because you see,
That's easy.
Well, I know.
Hell, I've met the prime minister.
So I've met two presidents of France and two prime ministers of France.
There's four right there.
I've met two presidents, two chancellors of Germany, and one president of Germany.
I've met, of course, I've met two prime ministers in England in one week.
I mean, you go right down the line, and I just met them right and left.
And I tagged them.
I said, I mean,
And that's it.
You get to a lot like in Romania, you met a president and a prime minister.
Thailand, the king and queen and the prime minister.
And I had a private conversation with those, the king and the prime minister.
A lot of those countries you did.
They include the Pope in it, too.
I'm not going to say that these conversations were private.
They will remain private.
And frankly, as long as they will serve, I consider that they should remain to have been inserted in our purpose of building a structure of peace for that purpose for as long as we can serve.
They, of course, should be classified, but not too long.
Berger mentioned an interesting thing to me.
He said, you know about what happened to the Constitution?
Ben Franklin, at the Constitutional Convention, said to check this out.
That was his recollection.
That the minutes of the convention would be sealed for 40 years.
That was the only way they got agreement on the Constitution.
Because they figured that by 40 years, all the living people would be gone.
Otherwise, they could not get a greeting.
They could not ever get a greeting on the Constitution.
The minutes were sealed for 48 years.
Check it out.
I think this is the case.
I haven't seen anything.
I've got crazy questions about how they did that.
Of course, this is a double stack.
40 years wasn't long enough.
50 and 60, you could... No, no, no.
That was under the Declaration of Independence.
Oh, that's right.
Constitution...
Both those guys were dead by then, I think.
The Constitution came 15 years later.
The Constitution was 76, 86, 90.
The Constitution was about 90, so both Adams and Jefferson were dead by the time the Constitution was 50 years old.
And I mean 50s and 40s.
They got 50 years after the decorations.
They were 35 years after the Constitution.
They were about last.
But let me tell you, the times, of course, where he drew the bloods, like putting back that column when he took the ensemble.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
What a sticky double standard they had.
So it's terrible that a president can't have a confidential conversation with the minister.
Times has completely ignored that, haven't they?
Of course they have.
I wish TOEFL had taken them off.
You know, they did.
Well, how'd he answer?
Oh, he just mumbled.
It was incredible.
Didn't give a logical answer.
Tell you, he sure did lie through his teeth, though.
I can't wait for the day that comes out.
I'm going to just nail him to the wall with some breathing, frankly.
Live on the TV?
Yes.
I mean, when the record comes out of Sheehan's involvement in this thing, he said, no.
Oh, Kilpatrick asked him about, did the New York Times, your representative of the New York Times, even assist him in the draft cost?
No.
Did, you know, went all the way through.
I mean, he is slapped on the record within a period of about five minutes of lying.
And these guys come out here and, you know, raise credibility.
I do.
I've got it written down.
Someday I'm going to use that.
The way to do it is not to wait.
That'll be a year from now.
You see, Bob, you haven't followed the instructions I've given you.
I want it leaked now.
God damn it, if Mitchell or if, you get this down.
Because Scott could get it.
If they have the information that the New York Times did, as I understand it, the GM did go there.
I want it leaked now.
You leak it first.
See?
And they'll deny it again.
Then you get them two ways.
Now, who the hell was supposed to do that?
They didn't get out.
Did Colston forget it or what?
I don't know.
They may have a lot of... See, we get all these thin rumors, and then they start to knock off.
Just a call, and I want to know, do they have the information?
Get Uber in.
I don't want to do it myself, goddammit.
You tell me.
But get Uber in and say, now, do you have such information?
And if necessary, I'll look at it.
And then leave.
Don't wait.
You see, Ron, if you wait, hell,
Six months from now, people have forgotten.
You've got to get it leaked right now.
That particular one, would you particularly follow up on?
No, here's what.
You get it from Hoover.
That's the best way.
You say, I agree.
Did they leak it to me?
Did they participate?
I want to have, tell Hoover, I tell him, no, no, no, I'm going to tell him that the president would like a report on their investigation today on the involvement of the Times in this faction.
Just give it to me, a private report.
If you get that for me, I want to see that thing.
Just briefly, on that particular point, about Sheehan's involvement and so forth, and conspiracy aspects, I want him to give me a report right now.
Fair enough.
Also, I want one from Laird.
This way, I'll force those bastards to get it out.
I know what's going on here.
They don't, they don't.
See, they're all waiting for the court.
They're waiting to put it in court.
That isn't the way.
What we're carrying, we're giving us the public opinion.
Yeah.
Get it out.
We can start, we can kill our men, you know.
That's what we kill for love they have, man.
That's what we use our accomplishments for.
I did it right to kill for love.
I'd say, here it is.
And then he could say it in time, so I'd call upon them.
They gave a bare-faced lie.
You know, Ron, you're actually going to kill this fella.
In the meantime, the free stays all the time.
That's going to be effective.
I see.
Well, there, you see, they will begin to realize.
They'll never squeal to me.
They'll begin to realize.
They've paid a hell of a price for this.
Now we've got to fight.
And they ask for it.
They will never get into another background session.
Ever.
Period.
The way to really put the freeze where it hurts is what we're doing now, but at the appropriate time, when we're ready to do a little backgrounding on foreign policy instead of Rick Smith getting a story from State or somewhere else to make sure that the guy from the Tribune gets a story.
the story breaks that way, or even the L.A. Times, because they get all of the syndicated services into their shops, and that's what we'll begin to tell.
That's right.
That's the thing to do.
Play the L.A. Times.
I don't care, really.
The only two that I've got on this list, I don't care about them.
We have Irwin now.
We have Irwin, and I would like, the guy who I would like to, at the right point, to start breaking some stories in this town is Don Irwin.
Is he fair to me?
Not only is he fair, he's a supporter.
He is?
All right.
He's at least fair.
Well, I got him.
Let's do it.
Irwin is an intimate friend of Semple's, but I think...
Mr. President, when it comes to the competitors, and the other guy, too, is Aldo Beckman, I call him Aldo, who is a friend.
You met his father-in-law, which sent his father-in-law into orbit around the town.
I introduced you to his wife's father when you came out.
Matt, they'll talk about that in Chicago.
I mean, his father-in-law was really good.
Oh, yes, sir.
Good driving reporter.
Well, you get it.
All right, we'll give it to him.
We're also going to give them, when we start releasing some of the stuff of World War II, I'm going to give that to the trip.
They've got to have that, because, you know, they hated Roosevelt.
So let them screw them some of the World War II.
Give the L.A. Times some of the Kennedy stuff and see if they print it.
And they might surprise.
They might.
The Kennedy thing, you see, is the part of this.
I'd like to see what Goodman does.
It's really going to rub off.
He's deeply involved in the death.
What I'd like to do is to get on how he got into Laos.
I mean, the Laotian thing, you see.
The 62 Accords opened the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
We'll get that one out.
Well, we can't do that for a while.
Well, anyway.
I'm going to show you that before you get out of the next term.
So that the record is...
before you leave.
I don't know if we're gonna do it before we get out of this term, boy.
Don't worry.
Not gonna take any risks on that one.
No risks.
Just gotta get out.
And also, even the guy I gotta have at all to play with me, whatever happens, I'm gonna have him.
I'm gonna have to get on with it.
Whatever, even the stuff we don't put out, I'm gonna have him.
Gee, these guys have played a game.
You know, the thing that burns me, and the reason I really voted on Hay today, and I forget all it's got so much to do, but I asked him to have a list of outside people, non-government people, who have queried some of these votes about Trump.
I said, I don't understand that.
People, I said, first of all, you're going to limit every contractor to a queries for only his specific position.
what he needs to know with regard to that contract.
He doesn't need to have the Q clearance.
The Q clearance knows everything.
You do have the Q clearance.
And then I said, I'll look out.
For eight years, a former vice president of the United States didn't even get a CIA briefing.
I wasn't cleared for anything.
I was the former vice president.
You know?
I had nothing.
And I refused CIA briefings.
I stuck that to those little boys over there, you know.
I know they don't ever ruffle back into the CIA.
And both Kennedy and Johnson turned it off, and I know it, and they know it.
Now, that having happened, why does Bundy have a clear job?
Why the hell should he?
Why should any of these former people, and I'm going to get that Council of Foreign Relations, you're going to chop those bastards off right at the neck.
That's all there is to it.
We've got to get our enemies out of the clearance business.
I ran.
That was a good move.
That was welcome.
Don't you agree?
Taking them on.
Let them squeal.
I'll tell you how ridiculous it is.
When I was manager at the Los Angeles office of J. Walter Thompson Company, I had to have a clearance, as did all officers of the company, because we handled the advertising, because it was aircraft company.
It was a
clear federal contract.
But the point is, the stuff we dealt with was stuff we were going to write up and put in ads, print in newspapers and magazines.
We didn't deal with secret stuff.
We had a state in the office with a Navy guy used to come in and inspect every once in a while, make sure it was all locked up.
There was never anything in it.
We never put a goddamn piece of paper in it that this guy would come in and inspect it, make sure our state was working in it.
And I had to fill out those goddamn papers every year to update the clearance and all that stuff that was updated.
It was ridiculous.
But we're going to get this.
That's the best thing we're really doing is to chop off these outside clearances.
And we've got a perfect excuse for it now.
Perfect.
Right?
And boy, just wait until those little bastards don't get their hits on this stuff anymore.
We're going to make it mighty tough to get stuff done.
We're going to do...
system here we've got to be able to the only way to do it is not telling about anything it's a terrible thing because he really can't anymore really can't it's an awful couple of rockets because he's he's got a terrible problem with the state department yeah
Price has got Father McLaughlin in here today.
I wonder if you want to meet him.
Yes.
12-2-5.
Okay.
He's on.
We brought him in.
He's working.
Oh.
Good.
I'm getting it.
Is it the one that did your suggested remarks for today?
Well, I couldn't use this stuff today.
No, no reflection on it.
But I had a different set up.
But it related to something else.
Yeah.
Mature feeling around us and just let it go tomorrow.
My feeling is you should not say anything.
I think that you're right.
I think if you do what you did in Rochester and Birmingham, and then do, as you explained in the rundown on the agreements need for privacy,
That would be the lead, and it would focus attention on the fact that we are, you know, the talks do start in Helsinki again, and it will remind people of the initiative already taken there.
And I think it would further put out this impression that, yes, a lot is happening on the foreign policy side, and it's a result of a lot of effort that has gone in in the last two years in this administration, and posture that very well.
And I believe that would be the lead out of the session tomorrow in that context.
You can work in any way you .
Well, it doesn't have to be.
If you don't put overemphasis on that, I think the lead could be that the administration is involved in a number of highly sensitive
diplomatic efforts and approaches to accomplish a number of things in various form you know areas of foreign policy relating to the relationship between the superpowers the arms talks and all the rest
Let me pick this up and then I want to change it.
Does Bob raise with you my view about cameras?
No.
In the session, even what you have decided now, you don't address yourself to the other thing.
In watching the two media presentations in both Rochester and Birmingham, I felt it was too bad that some of that was not on film.
because they would use it on the networks, and I think the presentations are so effective that I raise for consideration the possibility of doing that on this basis, not with a bank of cameras, because that would change the environment.
But there's a setup in the particular room that you're going to brief in tomorrow where there's an alcove where we could put
one local camera and one network camera, right behind the thing.
You would of course have to, you would know the cameras were in the room, but they would be closed off
People would not be aware of the cameras, and you could just proceed as you have done before.
The lights, the effect would not be great at all.
There would be two lights on each side, and it wouldn't be all lit up for film.
You don't need that for film.
The lighting intensity would already be there when you went in.
We could do this in an actual way without the networks expecting something big because they have, of course, said, gee, it would be great if we could get film.
What happened in Rochester, we simply didn't have film to give them, and therefore we were hurt on the network news that night because they are under pressure to get on, and they'll go get a demonstration story, which I don't expect tomorrow, but like they did up in Rochester.
And if we give them that type of film, I think it could be to our advantage.
All right.
We've got to be sure we go on.
At 3.30 we're going on.
That's 4.30 Eastern time.
That's pretty damn late.
I don't think we do much good in the East, is it, on the networks?
We've talked about it.
We got a little bit up early, right?
If you, any time beyond 3.30, we're hurting, which is 4.30 here, they all have good stations in Kansas City that they can switch out.
That would be better.
That would be four here.
That's what people... Well, they could... That's what we have at that.
It's just three.
Three-thirty.
Well, three.
Three-thirty.
And you go on at three.
You're right at the hotel at two, and you go on at three.
You're right at the hotel at three, and you go on at three.
You're right at the hotel at three, and you go on at three.
That's 4 o'clock here.
It's finishing at 4.30.
And everybody, let's go.
You're going to take a peek right now.
Take a peek right now at the Kansas City.
And you finish at 3.30.
4.30 Eastern.
Yeah, we've got to start off.
We'll finish at 5.30 here.
All right.
All right.
We'll go to 3.00.
And I'll finish.
Just proceed the way you did in March of 2014.
I'll just make this one point.
You can be as soulless as you want to be sometimes.
It'll break.
I know.
I can't end it.
Yeah, because the moment you begin to come in more, even more,
even more because of Henry Strill.
Yes, sir.
Anything you say on foreign policy, the moment you move from domestic policy to foreign policy tomorrow, they will be looking for every innuendo, every subtlety, every suggestion, every change in voice tone, every change in word, as a signal, as a meaning, which is their natural tendency, of course.
It's good that they would take that kind of a show and not knock it.
Well, you know, they can knock anything.
In a sarcastic way, they can say, well, there was a program that didn't say anything.
Something like that.
A lot of talk and a little action.
It wasn't anything cool.
Well, NBC was, too.
I didn't mention that, but I watched the NBC sign-off and wrap-up, and they did it.
They did a great job.
NBC did the best job of the three.
in the way they had to carry the model and the dignity.
Kaplow just did it, I don't want to wrap up, but he did it as a very big historic event, which was the launching of the Bicentennial Europe.
And that it was the first of a course of events over the next five years that would culminate in the celebration of the 200th birthday of the nation.
Speaking of the Bicentennial Europe thing, after meeting the commission, I wonder if we don't have the strength in that commission's arms.
I don't know whether all of them were there or not many, but could we just, you be sure to check the list to see that we have enough strong people.
The membership of the commission doesn't really mean a damn what is in the staff.
It's really following the staff.
It's got a good staff.
I understand they have a good staff, and I'm trying to think of a way.
I'm trying to think of a way.
For example, I do think that the commission should mail out the staff.
Yeah, the three speeches.
Don't you think so?
Yes, sir.
Leading with your... Yeah.
The president... And I skipped what I said at the beginning.
That's all right.
What I said at the beginning, because that was just the introduction, and certainly the speaker, and so forth.
So you don't just give them the whole program.
Sir, don't you think so?
Yes, sir.
But may I have all three?
And I saw the book that was done in the bicentennial here on...
I think that's fine.
It's happening in Elbride.
It's interesting that we're running a press conference, which is kind of that thing.
It's good, you know, when they get enthusiasm because they'll convey a little to the other comments out there.
Well, we have lots of good things going on.
And some of it can't help but have some good effects.
You know, we talk, it's an interesting thing, you know, we talk about the leadership thing and so forth.
We fail to realize the times are just so different when you stop to think like that.
I know some of the great ones that just ask me almost sarcastic questions.
It's like leadership at the most.
You can have radio talks, and they rose it up to four at the most.
So that's leadership.
And that's considered the greatest act of leadership in presidential communication history.
That's right.
I mean, for as far as I know.
It still is.
That's right.
Still today.
And everybody thinks of it every week.
Fireside talks for history of the nation.
That's all.
If you went back now and asked everybody in this country for a sample who was alive in this country over 45, how often Roosevelt made his fireside talks, most of them would tell you something like once a week to once a month.
I don't think anybody would tell you he made them less than once a month.
Four times a year.
But that's what people, people don't think that.
Oh yeah, he was on almost every week at Nightmare.
About once a month.
Part of the reason was that there wasn't so much other news in the center.
Yet they had news.
Four times he was the most he made of them.
They had news.
Sometimes they made two.
They had news.
What the hell is it?
What the hell is it?
He had news times every week.
I know he didn't, but I meant radio news.
I was talking about what the people were hearing.
Radio news.
They had radio news, didn't they?
Oh, sure.
So they didn't hear the president on.
He was never on news.
They never had the president live on news except at a public event.
You know, you'd get to hear if he'd made a speech, but he didn't make all that many speeches either.
The present time, I mean, we're on one hell of a lot more, just when you start to think.
Every day, what the hell are we going to do today for a news?
So it really isn't, I'm not sure, and so is everyone else.
Isn't that the problem?
Everyone's on hell.
Well, I just think.
I don't, well, maybe try to, maybe just in the opposite way.
Maybe we get back to how it's like.
Don't let them dominate the dialogue with
I mean, you're out all the time, listen, talking, talking, talking.
I just don't know.
I don't think he should be.
Things like this, now, if this is on the news tonight, this has to be good.
Yeah, and I think it's worth, worth twice you going on and making, you know, a formal speech here, or a candid answer in the press room about something.
But then, you know, they, you know, signed by us.
Even like the drug thing, I announced the drug thing.
Although that was pretty good.
Well, that was good, yeah.
But I need an armor camp announcement that doesn't mean a hell of a lot.
We need things like that where, you know, you can do what people can get excited about one after another.
You've got to keep doing it.
You've got to, there's a,
Big sponge there that soaks it up, and it all goes away.
You're right, it has no lasting life.
It doesn't get remembered, but it has to.
The vacuum of not having it, they think what's happened to him can be a problem.
But, well, we also have to remember that we have the opposition.
But you need ups and downs, too, I think.
The opposition's whammy all the time.
I mean, I have some doubts in terms of amount of exposure and intensity of exposure and every type of exposure.
I think people just can't take it all the time.
I think it's very good just to lay low for a while and then not hesitate when there's a reason to bang it in every night if we've got some serious things going on.
I think one of the best things we've done is not to do a press conference on the 1st of July.
I don't think you needed it.
Oh, yeah.
We would have kind of heard out in the wrong time.
All these papers.
Yeah.
They were all bored.
Half the people would have been bored.
Half the people wouldn't know what they were talking about because they weren't aware of the problem.
It would have been very bad, very low energy.
But Harris' poll is coming out Thursday.
It was taken before the papers.
We'll show you how screwed up that whole thing is.
and how distorted a view it will give the public, because what the people will read is, ah, as a result of the Pentagon Papers, Nixon went up.
That's what they'll think.
Unless they read Harris's copy where he'll point out a mistake before that they won't say was gone.
They don't read when it was taken.
All they see is the thing that says Nixon's going up.
He came for the papers.
That's what they'll think.
The people that are aware of the papers at all.
If you'd gone on a press conference, it would have been a half hour on the Pentagon Papers with one question on the Middle East or something.
Why is Helmsley in Israel?
No question.
And that would have been about it.
And then one on why is Henry in Saigon.
And they would have been boring and from every side.
And we would have gotten all kinds of bitching afterwards about people saying, why didn't he talk about something besides those stupid papers?
We get that all the time, don't we?
Why doesn't he mention the domestic issues?
Oh, you know what?
What you said is not for anybody except for domestic issues.
What do you say?
Nobody else says that.
Really?
Yeah.
Editors will say it.
Well, Conley says it.
Well, but he's a domestic issue.
He's a trial.
You know, basically, we have John Conley, Secretary of State.
He wouldn't be saying that.
I talked to Conley, incidentally.
What did he say?
He laughed and he said, well, in the first place, he said, I don't know.
He's so infectious.
And I said, well, you told him what I told you.
And I said, you just want him to know that, you know, not to be concerned about him, because you certainly weren't.
You just want him to feel if there's any problems.
He said, I'll tell you something.
If I ever get worried that there's a problem, I'll tell the president.
I'll tell him if I don't do something about it, but I'm gonna talk to other people about it.
And he's just thinking about it.
Don't worry about it.
How does he sound?
He sounds good.
He obviously was, I thought, I had a lot to worry about.
He had just come in from someplace and he's pressing around.
So I didn't get into a lot of conversation.
That's just all right, though.
But he knows that you didn't want him to think.
He says, I'll probably get around to reading the papers tonight.
And I said, don't bother, man.
It's predictable.
We had that Kovar growing.
All these guys, Malay and the rest, have been writing that the administration is seriously considering a change in policy.
Now they have to prove they're right, that the administration should make a change in policy, right?
Yep.
All right.
So we didn't do it.
Now they're saying we made a call and we saved it, right?
And Arthur Burns is feeding it because he's trying to do it.
I'll tell you this.
Connie said, what did they say?
And I said, what did they say?
And just to sum it up, what they say is that everything you've been doing is wrong, and they're very upset that you're going to go on doing it.
And it's really loaded at you.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
And anyway, this is all malarkey.
In the acceptance, it may affect public confidence.
public comments go down 10 points as a result.
Yeah.
But it seems to be political.
I don't understand that at all.
Do we have any clients?
I marked them.
We ought to check this flyer to see if that sounds true.
I don't believe, to you, the stock market.
It didn't.
It probably had other factors, but nevertheless.
No, it may reflect the districts.
Well, here's the economic factor last week.
As far as the market was concerned, it did go up on the day of the unemployment.
No.
But it did on the day of the economy announcement, the economy announcement.
Well, as far as the unemployment day is concerned, no.
Generally speaking, the market drops on Friday before long weekends, Bob.
Well, that's right.
This is a long weekend.
You see it.
So it held its own.
It went down two points, right?
I think it was that week.
But for the week, it was up, what, 13?
Yeah.
or more than in 1950-something, 70-something, 50.
But we are very...
There'll be a time for one.
We'll know.
Yeah.
And it won't matter.
But I swear on it, I am completely grateful that I've got it now.
Well, he hasn't worried Henry with that Pakistan and all he will be passing everything on to him, that Pakistan ambassador's concern.
Oh, Henry will love to worry about that.
I hope he's right.
I'm sure.
I would bet he would.
The reason he told you about us is because Henry told him to.
Is that right?
I'm sure.
That's good stuff for Henry to know.
That proves that that story was terribly important.
Let's see how you do.
Well...
And maybe it was.
And maybe it will do some work.
But I'm a large student.
I'll mark my words.
But if I repeat that story, if that story knocks that negotiation out, then it wasn't going to stick.
It was too tenuous.
Too tenuous to stick.
You just can't do anything.
What the hell?
I mean, one little story in the paper indicated that.
It wasn't picked up.
It hasn't been uplifted.
They know damn well how it's going to be.
They're so sophisticated and all that stuff.
They're just probably not going to be sure.
They may want to use it.
It does give them a little thing to put the screws on a little bit.
They may have something on them that's more of a consequence.
But they do, Henry and Hank, like to worry about things like that.
Well, they're right at once.
They need to be attentive.
You can't just think they're so terribly, terribly irritated and stupid for doing some shit and shit.
And I am, too.
I mean, you know, one thing that starts to show that Henry's right, we should, we are right and not, I think we told Roger he needed to talk.
I'm glad we haven't told him anymore.
But you agree with this, isn't it?
He's suspected enough, as it is, that he doesn't know, so he can't do much.
But I just don't think
Probably, in this case, Bill, Bill, I wouldn't put it past him to tell somebody.
And having been there, if we told him, what do you think?
And having said that, he was there.
And he's got a pretty good cover of it.
He's getting it.
Thank God, because the Vietnamese, the North Vietnam parasauker has put so much focus on something happening in Vietnam.
that nobody's paying very much attention to India-Pakistan.
Of course they will when he leaves Vietnam.
They won't say anything.
But they're not going to make the stir out of that.
Nobody cares about India-Pakistan.
The State Department does.
The New York Times doesn't bother me.
Nobody cares.
We've been through this before.
Nobody.
India-Pakistan.
Everybody said, what about the refugees in Pakistan?
They flood.
We haven't had a whole lot of time getting people to contribute to that.
Most people don't know what, you know, they don't know that India and Pakistan are two different countries.
I think they're all just a bunch of yellow bastards.
I got y'all on the ground.
So you heard what I was saying?
Okay, thank you.
Do you want to support or copy and mine those notes that actually show the film?
I've got that.
This is just from, and here are the folders for the stops and all.
You have a basic quota of domestic food.
Unless you want me to step in and head out, I'm going to close up the house because everybody else is gone.
Well, that's good to keep away unless you've got a strong gut reaction.
Many times I go against the crowd.
I'm doing the thing I hadn't thought about.
The point you make is that the most valid reason for not getting involved is that you don't have to because you are not losing an opportunity.
You have a chance.
And that's why, if you had that right now, that is why, that is why I didn't feel the art pulling this weekend.
It's about to turn out you've got to yell.
Of course, that's what I said.
before the court decision, but it's a week after our poll, and it says there's no change.
Well, none of that matters.
Of course it doesn't do presidential popularity.
It will.
I do very well.
They take popularity on camera.
They haven't given it to us, but they've got it.
They obviously ran the other stuff through fast in order to get it out for this Sunday, for the fair money.
They don't poll popularity this Sunday, but they didn't have time.
They put it in, apparently, because they say in the
In the report on this, how this affects President Nixon's standing will be the subject of a later report or something.
I think they throw the popularity thing in every time they go into the field, and they use it in some way or another.
It hasn't got any credit on that.
No, it probably doesn't.
What if your guests don't show?
Same.
You don't think it'll show at all?
I think there's been enough up and down that I would guess it isn't going to make any change.
And then Gallup has settled in now.
They've gone for months on an even deal.
The papers, I don't think, are significant enough to jar loose.
If there's a China announcement, that'll jar loose.
I don't think the wedding is significant enough to jar loose.
No, I agree.
It's just solidifying your friends.
Yeah.
And it gives you a residue of food will in an area that helps.
Let me say whatever it shows.
It shows me now.
What the hell is it?
It doesn't matter.
But I don't think it could be down low.
It could even be up low.
I don't think it would be.
It wouldn't make sense for it to be up.
Because basically we haven't had anything positive.
But I don't think this comes out as anything negative.
And I don't think it will show that.
They might have.
That's the other thing, because they do have a problem.
As long as you stay even, they've got no news in the thing.
That's what they do when they lose their jigger.
I think there must be a couple of ways.
We've noticed in our own comparisons about it, they had a drop that didn't make sense, and they had a rise that didn't make sense.
They did make sense.
And while Harris has got this steady rub, it doesn't make sense either, but I think that's pure, I think that's just part of the reason.
I do.
I think they're just more excited on their way in.
Well, he's right.
And that's fine.
Let's do it.
Or be right on fire.
But let's, my proposition is this, if we had a cold this weekend, suppose we started to drop 4.5 points in the polls, so you know, 3.45, and something like that, lowest and so forth as a result of this, then what do you do?
Do you rush out of that and have a press conference?
Not at all, that's just the time not to do that at all.
See, that's where it escalates the issue that caused you to drive.
That's where I, this is where I think,
canon analysis falls because he hears the things we have heard.
He begins with that proposition.
Second, if we begin with that proposition, then he thinks that we've got to go out and stop and stanch the blood.
Well, that isn't the way to do it.
I'm not on this issue.
He's fighting on their ground.
Isn't that it?
Assuming that he's right on it.
He's right.
Yeah.
No, his premise is, in a sense, the best argument for not doing something.
Especially if you buy Gallup's low awareness level, because all you do is escalate the awareness of something that is essentially negative to you.
If it is, I don't think it is.
I think in the short haul, the whole paper's business is neutral to you, and in the long haul, I think it's neutral to you, damaging to the opposition.
The long haul is damaging to the opposition.
Is that right?
I don't get it.
There's...
I don't get it, bro.
I see the veterans are in a better place.
You don't.
Yeah, well, there was something that changed.
What gang is that?
I don't know.