Conversation 539-001

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Thank you.

Who feels stronger than I do, than I do, on POWs, on ceasefire, on end of the war?

Carlos says we might even get on tomorrow.

I might even get on five years ago.

Three years ago.

You see my mind?

That's the problem we've got.

Now, I don't question it.

You'd rather have nothing.

You mean you'd rather have no bill?

No matter.

I mean, I'm going to do it.

And this is the point you put in.

By spirit, you see, to get any bill, you're going to have to vote Trojans in.

I don't think you can get it done without.

And I voted for Trojans myself.

And I told all my colleagues, some of my colleagues and others,

but you can't get those people out of Mansfield that need his passive assistance.

You cannot get over his opposition.

It just can't be done.

So I think you come to the question, what's the minimum you can yield?

I'm not saying the Senate bill has a limit.

What is the least that you could possibly live with?

and at least avoid man-stealed opposition and get a bill.

So ultimately, the question is, how many of these need a bill?

A draft bill?

And I think we've got to have it ourselves for two years anyway.

We can get just this treatment cost.

We can get that nine-month treatment.

We have two things we don't care about.

There's only one thing we have to hang up on.

And that is the word, the final date.

I've been hanging up on that, John.

I don't know what exactly he said.

That is not useful.

That is not useful at all.

Well, I think the word is, let me push it.

The second thing we...

Mr. President, there are really two serious objections at the moment, even with those two things out.

One, the resolution makes it look as if our objective in Indochina is the release of the prisoners of war.

In other words, it looks as if we've been fighting all these years and killed, had 50,000 Americans killed in order to get the return of 500.

Now, that's not our objective.

We've almost achieved our objective.

This last week, I can tell Senator Petty about this.

Last week, we had the lowest number of casualties.

We've had six years.

We had 11.

It went down from 300 and some odd when it first took office to about 11.

So, and I just heard the radio report this morning, there's no fighting going on in Vietnam.

So we don't want to give up everything that we stood for all these years to just get the prisoners of war back.

We don't want that to appear to be what our objective is.

The second thing that's troubling us now is that anything that Congress does at this juncture,

which indicates a lack of confidence in the president, could have a very serious adverse effect, not only on the vision, but on the possibility of a negotiated peace.

You know, make some jammies right now.

You, if you get a man to deal with this, talk to him.

I think he'll change.

Well, let me put this in here.

Well, let me say something to him.

Don't say anything to him.

I'm done with this.

Yes, sir.

I did, when they threw the voting in the House, I opposed it.

And one's a right to go in a conference on Chattanooga, I'm not free to go in.

But the Senate and the House are against it until they climb it and climb it down.

What I did when I went in there, I was a little convict, a little legend.

I said, I'll give it.

I'll buy a man's suit.

I'll take it with the men.

Now, we've got that date out.

But if we hang on that one, those two words, they go to date.

We finally, finally, finally, finally, we tried to do a sort of small thing and call it, uh, a special housing with something we could have specified.

Finally, period.

D-A-T-E is the name.

I don't want to see that at all.

And now we ain't got no name.

And that's the way, this is, I don't talk about the house side.

This is the position, the definite position of the house, and it's not going to change.

unless one man tells him to change it, and that's you.

And John knows this.

Mr. President, I would like to suggest we've had some discussions with Senator Mansfield just recently.

In view of this trip and so forth, the situation may have changed, so let us take another look at it, and we'll be back in touch with you.

And I'm not even asking me.

I'm not talking to him.

I'm not suggesting that you fucking bring him to Mansfield, man.

Wait a minute.

Sure.

All right.

If you're going to redo this,

We'll see what the situation is, but the situation has changed drastically.

Nobody wants to screw up this kind of thing.

All of us can do that.

Well, Henry, in that comment that your friend chose, if you were to read it, well, right after this,

Also, let me say this, can I put it quite interestingly enough?

You've also versed against strong figures and so forth.

Those that would like to get out, do you realize that the impact of this president

Congress takes a stronger line with regard to not tying the President's hands.

It could have the public enormously agnostic.

That's the question.

Remember this, that the House will pass anything I bring back.

That's a deal-fix.

Right.

Yes, John's got a big problem.

He's got to have some help.

I'll tell you, he just got two soldiers like you.

You keep on being dumb.

The hell with you.

Now listen up.

I can't thank you enough.