Conversation 543-006

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Oh, I did, but I'm going to let you, I think I'll, I think I'll, I think I'll, I think I'll, I think I'll, I think I'll, I think I'll,

I found this allusion to your motorcade.

Car communication problem.

Yeah.

Manage your car.

I don't want to talk to you.

No.

It's a little radio box thing.

It sits right in your car, right by you.

And I can talk to you.

You can push the key and talk back to me.

I'll get it.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's go.

Uh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

And still we're joking about Julia Simon.

Oh.

It's not a true decision.

You said that you didn't know her.

No, I knew her.

He knew her.

He can't deny that, does he?

During the campaign, she was on the campaign.

She used to work for Mercury.

Is that right?

She did it one time in New York.

She used to play sort of the devil's advocate type.

She was on the campaign plays, you know, one of the things off and on during the campaign.

Where is she now?

She was always all down on the short skirt.

Oh yeah, always this real short skirt on.

And we had the price.

I remember the price.

And we took her out the next day.

Take two.

I'm going to do it.

Well, Mr. President, I think the trip went along pretty well.

I was there at the time that the Japanese Kevin changed.

So my first meetings were with the Nagasone, who is the Director General of the Japanese Defense Agency, and my last meetings were with the new Director General of the Japanese Defense Agency, who met with Prime Minister Sato and met with all of the other

top officials there.

I spent time in the country by going up to Hokkaido and reviewed the 7th and the 11th divisions of the Japanese Defense Forces.

These divisions are about 14,000 men in each division.

the 7th Division passed in review, which is a rather unusual thing.

It's the first time in a corner they were seeing the Japanese Division since World War I. Oh, really?

Were they impressed?

They were very impressed.

They put their whole, all of their mobile equipment, it took about two hours, and they put the tanks through awfully fast, but you can see the

when you have several hundred tanks coming by, and they were all old tanks, very old World War II-type tanks, but they were maintained well.

I don't think I've ever seen a division pass that way in Germany or in the United States where there was not a single breakdown.

In Germany and in the United States, we always had some equipment breaking down.

They didn't have a single piece of equipment to break down, so they do maintain it well and do a fine job that way.

But they would be no match for any force in Asia because of the obsolete character of their equipment.

I did try to urge them to improve the quality of their equipment.

I think this is something we can sell to them.

They're buying now $95 million a year worth of military equipment from us.

We're sending the Department of Defense each year in Japan $500 million, U.S. dollars, to support our forces there.

And I've had the opportunity to enter into an improvement program.

Not to improve, not to increase the size of the Air Force, which is 300,000.

There really has to be...

The size of the force should not be increased until they modernize the forces that they have.

This is also true with the Air Force.

The Air Force will be improved, though, because we've gone into a co-production arrangement with the Japanese now on the F-4 Phantom.

And the first F-4s will be delivered to Japan this year.

And then we will start producing the F-4s with about 70% of the equipment being produced in the United States being assembled in Japan.

so that they'll be able to go forward with the modernization program there.

And that will increase somewhat the purchases as far as the United States is concerned.

I think that the main elements of the 13, which set forth your policy as far as Japan and this administration are being adhered to in the programs that are being developed there in cooperation with us,

The Japanese express willingness to help out in Southeast Asia through an economic stabilization fund, which they're working on now.

I think that they are willing to go forward with that program prior to that.

the Japanese and the South Korean-Indian conflict cools down and we're out of there.

I think they're ready to go on that within the next few months.

And they're moving now in Cambodia.

I think last week they announced the rights.

Next week they'll be making some other announcements on aid and economic assistance and some stabilization as far as the Cambodian currency is concerned.

So they are making that.

So let me ask to interrupt you a minute to raise one question.

It occurs to me, and I haven't thought it through yet, but it occurs to me, I see what people think at this particular time as well, that the courage of Japanese to be pretty goddamn strong.

What do you think of it?

I think it's helpful.

I think it's very helpful for, you know, without ever, it's just,

With regard to our Chinese friends, it's just as well for them to be alive if they need another friend.

Stronger the Japanese, the more attractive will the Chinese be.

Yeah.

They can be helpful in this area.

What are they?

Do you find them desirous, willing to build it up?

The Prime Minister is.

He is willing.

Sadowa?

Yes, Sadowa still is.

They've gone forward with an increase which they're rather proud of, but they have to have a larger increase.

They've grown from five-tenths of 1% of their gross national product to 1% of their gross national product in a new four-year defense program.

But that still is very insignificant as far as their forces are concerned and their conventional capability.

And that's all we can be improved.

And I think that we should encourage

I fortunately, in my talks with the Prime Minister and with everyone, I started out by explaining just once again the Nixon Doctrine and the fact of how important the partnership was, how important military strength was during this period of time as we moved towards negotiations throughout the world, and that there were these three pillars of art.

And fortunately, I was using them to form policy statements.

As far as Asia was concerned, the sections of Delta and China, I didn't know about the Chinese thing, but I did... Well, I didn't see you, or saw a camera, or whatever he told you, but if you can imagine, nobody knew about this.

And we regretted that when we finally knew that it was for real, and I said, well, we've got to tell whatever.

I was in Japan.

The day that I was meeting with Simon, the day that... We didn't trust one soul.

I would have been in Taiwan.

Oh, God.

If, of course, Henry asked me when I got the word to cancel out of Taiwan and delay the trip, and I quit the trip two days later.

It's just that we were just glad it turned out, although we didn't, because we hadn't farmed Agne, of course.

We hadn't farmed Agne.

But on this thing, that worked out all right.

Well, ironically, too, I thought it was heavy to say that

Joe was quite aware of Al's state in Japan, wasn't he?

I can't really say that he got it wrong.

He got the report that you were using nuclear weapons.

You know, while he complained about it bitterly, it didn't do any damage because it put up a little warning flag.

Kept him loose.

Kept him loose, so I...

Oh, you know, that's a strange thing.

Within their military there, you see, they have a strong undercurrent that they should go nuclear.

And so they are the ones that need to, as I was taught, I never talked to anybody about going nuclear.

But their Navy has a proposition to go for an ABM, a ocean ship-borne ABM between Japan and China.

And they feel that under their constitution, it's a defensive weapon system and therefore allowed.

But if you fix the warhead a little bit, you could say weapons can be an offensive weapon.

That was done deliberately by some of the people in the North and the South of California with some of the reporters, which was all right, isn't it?

Well, Japan certainly must be feeling frustration, and they...

This is going to be watched dead carefully, but I think Henry, that our actors

are disturbed by having the Japanese not just roll over and be an economic giant and the military a big thing.

Don't you think so?

I think the Japanese have to conduct a serious foreign and defense policy.

Otherwise, they're going to lean on us in all of those matters and compete the hell out of us economically.

We are free for them.

And since they don't have to pay a price for it, it becomes safe.

I think it's healthy for them to play a big defense role.

And they're taking on increased responsibility.

In 72 in Okinawa, they're taking over the defense responsibility, self-defense for it.

And their forces right now, from a quality standpoint,

are just inferior forces.

The men are inferior.

And their maintenance is really excellent, and the capabilities of the men...

They just don't have the equipment.

It doesn't make any sense for the third largest industrial nation of the world to be protected by another nation, primarily.

We can provide our new holidays to say that we're in that piece of new world that he said we could not.

He just couldn't know a nation.

Well, that was his whole theory.

He says, no nation can depend on some other nation for its defense.

It must have a capability to defend.

And he's damn right.

Well, as far as the Japanese are concerned, certainly our relationships with them in this area are very good.

And they understand that they've got to do something in the humanitarian area.

And I was the prime minister who was very forthright in that, as far as...

He's going to have some trouble with this, but he realizes that he can't have a free ride on this.

He has a problem with it much longer, and he still can't reap all the benefits of the economic consequences of putting these resources in his budget right now.

give to him.

Fortunately, you know, I had your statements of Kansas City on channel.

And I used that with the prime minister that day, too, so he got me.

Although I didn't know about your visit, he thinks I knew about it now.

Because I used those statements.

You know, I'm using them as part of the...

The interesting thing was that I made the Kansas City talk, and as it mattered, it wasn't really new.

I had already talked that way, and I had spoken at the same point in Rochester, New York, and to a certain extent, Alabama.

But I made it without any reference to this.

It just was made with just my general gobbledygook that I put out, you know, to her.

But it did show that, because it was working towards an association out in this area, so it worked out.

But I met with the Japanese ambassador, got in touch with Bill, and Bill asked me to see him today, and I did see him.

the last two days about the China thing and how it relates to the military situation in Japan.

So I did see him this afternoon for a while after I got back to testify.

But I don't think there's any problem there.

There won't be in a week or two.

He's just, he had to say that he could

China yesterday.

He was available to go to China too.

And he had to kind of handle his questioners.

I do feel, though, that

This couldn't have happened even three years ago, of Secretary of Defense go to Japan without any, all of our countries saying there's no problems at all.

They were the first time the Secretary of Defense had ever been in Japan.

Is that right?

Never been one.

Very good.

Never been one.

Let's see why.

I talked with the embassy team there is rather weak.

I think that Meyers, Meyers the ambassador is stronger than the people that are supporting him.

Some of the people that are supporting him

Well, I'm just not sure.

They're just so hesitant to even talk about Japan doing anything.

And they kind of, you know, when you talk about how you've got to improve your quality, and when I talked about when he was purchasing $95 million where our military forces were spending $500 million in your country, it kind of shakes them up a little bit.

But I think the whole embassy has to be just taken right down to the troops.

Well, I think that they, you've got to, you've got to go down into the, into the embassy itself.

I think that's what's going on there.

Going there, when the ambassador, the grandmaster seemed to have more guts, but then he'd always, he'd always hound them away, and he'd kind of back away then.

But he'd always, he had the right idea of structure.

You've got to back away from it, finally.

So I do think that a change there eventually will happen.

This is just the opposite, of course, of Korea, where you go into Korea and you have a strong investor.

And you have a strong military leader there, Michael Kalis.

He's a strong man.

It's probably the best country team that we have any place in the world in Korea.

They're strong.

They're good.

They put the United States' interests first.

And the atmosphere is good.

You know, one thing that makes the difference, though, is the involves the ambassador.

Ted Porter is basically an upbeat, optimistic kind of a guy.

He's a leader type.

And I think that affects the whole group.

If your top guy is not really a ballsy leader type, the whole group serves.

That certainly is true.

They're really a great team there.

I'm glad to hear that.

They've done a good job.

And now that the modernization program is going forward, there's really, the Koreans do not have any questions about our intent to carry through our defense commitment.

And that program is going along well.

The Koreans have certainly, they're

overstate somewhat, I believe, the North Korean threat from the ground.

They're probably right in their assessment of the North Korean Arab threat.

But the South Korean ground forces with this modernization program are certainly far superior to anything the North Korean police can put against them.

And that program is coming along well.

Now, if they take this brigade out of Vietnam, they're going to take it out of their force structure and keep 600,000 men.

One of the things that I think that we really can speculate about, my guess is that the Chinese, what have the North Koreans said in the meeting about the Chinese visiting?

Nothing.

When I arrived in the country, the Chinese put in two top negotiators that hadn't been there for a period of two or three years.

because they have bigger fish to fry.

Hard about at least the North Koreans against South Koreans.

Do you agree?

I don't believe it.

They don't believe that either.

Even President Park, in my conversations with him, they don't anticipate that.

And they're much calmer about it than they were last year in Hawaii.

where Dave Packer had a very difficult time.

The defense minister said, well, almost, well, he got right out and said he went back to the country under these conditions.

He'd have to commit hair and carry.

And right at the meeting, they, so it's a different situation than things went along.

How many people do we have in Korea?

Well, right at the present time, we have 38,000.

And we have no mandated program out of Korea in fiscal year 1972.

I think we can take some more out in fiscal year 1973 based upon the increases in the modernization program.

Now, we're giving them $400 million worth of assistance this year.

We're giving them $100 million worth of equipment.

that we're transferring over because of the pull-out of American forces.

This is good, modern equipment.

Then we're accessing into them another $100 million worth of modern equipment that is accessed to our needs in the Southeast Asia area.

And then we're supplying them with grant aid

of about $248 million.

So this is a big program this year, and they're very, very happy about it, and they will be in a much better shape after we finish this next year.

And we've got to keep an air presence there, a substantial air presence, and I think perhaps increase one more F-4.

Scott's useful.

Another squadron of F-4s.

The ground force commitment there is not as important as the air commitment that we might have.

And rather than take those F-4s

You know, some are programmed to go to Taiwan, and I think we ought to get pulled down in Taiwan a little bit, and rather it's going to be Korea.

This would be 73.

This decision doesn't have to be made.

Right, I think it's fair.

There's no need to do anything for nothing.

There's no need to be thinking that they give it or do it anyway.

Sir, they are prepared, the South Koreans are prepared for no reduction in 72 fiscal years.

But they are prepared that there will be some reduction in 1973, and they will have no problem with that, I can assure you.

Because they know now that we are going forward with our modernization.

So they may have some questions as to whether we would.

They didn't think that supplemental would pass last year.

And then when that passed and the program got started, there's no problems with that at all as far as the Koreans are concerned.

I was really very, very impressed with the way that program is moving.

I visited there with the Korean forces, went out and spent time with them, visited all the American units, and went out and spent time with them and talked to the

There's no drug problem in Korea.

There's no drug problem in Japan, thank goodness.

There's plenty of sex there.

There's plenty of sex, yeah.

There's a lot of trial marriages.

That takes place there.

Trial marriages?

Trial marriages.

That's pretty consistent.

Well, of course, they got it.

They married the protesting abortion.

Right?

In Japan or in Korea?

Both countries.

A portion is in Japan, of course.

Both countries.

So there is no, that particular morale problem there isn't as serious as it is in other places.

And the drug problem is handled by the government.

It's their job to handle it.

I'll tell you that.

Those two governments are.

are very, very tough when it comes to that.

They just don't monkey around with it.

That's what we were up to.

I had been in Korea since 1955.

And to go up there on the DMZ, one becomes quite aware of the conflict that could take place and the fact that North Vietnamese Air Force is just three minutes away from Seoul.

It's a little different feel for it.

The South Koreans, of course, aren't involved in that arms discussions.

It's the U.N. negotiators that are there.

And someday the South Koreans should become involved.

There should be a South Korean involved up there in those negotiations.

Zhou Enlai said we had just put an American in charge of the Korean armed forces.

What the hell is he talking about?

Well, the Korean Armed Forces, the U.N.

Forces, were in America.

And they always had to be.

It always happened.

There was programmed a change in that, that we would withdraw that three-star general at the time that we withdrew the division.

But we did not do that.

We kept him there.

And we agreed to keep him there through 1972.

This year, it's no change.

And it was there with General Rogers.

He's been relieved that the new general has taken his place.

And they were yelling about that on the loudspeaker on the other side.

As a matter of fact, when I was up there, they were taking me on in the loudspeakers across the DMZ, and also taking this general.

But he's a UN.

He's under the UN flag.

And that's always been the situation up there.

But it's just a new general without a division.

We have no division.

It used to be that division on the DMC has been withdrawn and replaced by the .

You say that the morale's OK?

Morale's fine there.

It's interesting, right?

Sure, the kids will still go places .

I don't really have a lot more to say.

I think it's good to get out there and talk to our attendants and talk to the audience.

The meeting has to take place every year.

Have you had a chance, Mel, to talk to

Because, John, he says he came back.

Did he report to you?

I met with him in Hawaii.

In Hawaii.

Before he met you.

Well, I was very glad to hear him put that duck drug thing.

He said, first of all, they planned it.

If you listen to Walter Cronkite, 50% of all of our guys are on heroin.

So we planned for 10%.

And he found, at the very highest, that only four people had even been exposed to the damn stuff, to heroin.

So in other words, the drug problem, in Vietnam, it's one half of what we've learned, one tenth of what the networks have led on.

And I think it's goddamn important to find out that our dogs aren't just a bunch of depraved drug addicts and so forth.

I think there's a problem because, gee, a lot of them are still smoking the grass.

That's it.

But hell, they smoke the grass here.

Oh, sure.

Well, there's a... Don't you think it was... Oh, yes.

And he...

I was a little concerned at first about...

His attitude.

But I think he changed something when he got out there and got around.

He told me the problem was just very different from what he had expected.

Well, Jack came, and I spent time with him.

We spent about two hours with him.

Good.

Before he came back to make this report to you.

Good.

Then he asked you to do one other thing that I think is very important in terms of the Vietnamese thing.

Would you find every way that you possibly can to leave all the equipment and supply of ammunition and whatever the hell they need in South Vietnam, having in mind the fact that when we move, that is, we want to have it there, having in mind the fact that they have Congress that's not likely to provide it,

I understand you've got a pretty good supply list, but if you would just examine, you know, everything there is so that they can believe me, just turn their eyes the other way and leave it there.

Everything will possibly happen where we're going forward.

I sent over a directive yesterday that grew out.

You told me before I left that they had two years' supplies, and I checked it out with Abrams, and they do in most categories, but in ammunition and a few other things,

Just be sure you do, because we have a way to accelerate our bargaining position.

Well, we believe it will be greatly improved.

What shall I say?

Our bargaining position will be improved if the more we have their right hand.

That's right.

And the point is, if we should wind up with a settlement that puts some restrictions on the amount of military aid that their stockpiles are creating,

Well, I'm concerned too, Henry, that we ought to leave it there, because I don't think we can fund it as easily in such a good way.

Exactly.

It'll make them feel better and so forth.

Let me ask one other thing.

It seems to me that Packard's morale picked up some when I talked to him, you know, on one of your comments.

I think it's had anything to do with that.

Oh, yes, sure.

He had his ups and downs.

that he's going out to Paheeman Grove.

Henry, are you gonna be able to get out there?

He's going out to Paheeman Grove.

This will be good for him to spend a week there.

But he's very great guy.

Oh, absolutely.

And I just don't think you've got anybody to replace him with.

Well, it's awfully hard to get somebody to come in and sell all his stock and do every other darn thing he has to do in that time.

I talked to him and

when he was on the West Coast on Friday.

He was out there.

Yes.

And he said that, well, he still would like to go at the end of the year, but if the president wants him to extend into the spring... We're going to extend it.

And hell, if you get him into the spring, his conscience won't let him leave.

Well, I think that's right.

I think it will be helpful to him.

On Vietnam, Mr. President, we've got some problems there, and I don't know, Henry, whether they briefed you on it.

Things like Firebase Marianne, we had some command problems there and were able to change some officers.

That base, it was overrun.

That was really a fault of ours.

Which one was that?

The fire base Mary Ann about 60 days ago.

Oh yeah, they killed 31 of them.

Right, and I was ordered to have an investigation.

There was an obstacle here and I had the investigation.

The investigation is damn bad.

And I've got a problem there that I think this doesn't come out.

But... What is it?

Well, we had a violation of the Geneva Convention there.

We had four North Vietnamese that were burned by American forces.

They were fired from their bodies.

And it's just one of those damn things that... No, they were dead.

You see, you're not supposed to do that.

You're supposed to... Oh, I'm worried about that.

Well, I know the general how they do things.

Whatever hell, a lot of violations of the Geneva Conventions and Guadalcanal.

Well, I know.

You know, when the Marines went down that road, they killed those Japanese.

I know why it was there.

I think it concerns Abrams very much.

He still doesn't know that the DMC and he would very much like to hear this.

Yeah.

Well, I've got a quick rundown for you to read.

I mean, they've got 18,000 out there.

But a year ago, they had 22,000 out there.

Now, I'd like to hit it, too, but I think this isn't the time to hit it.

If we hit it now, and then cash is going to go up after, I think we're going to have cash fees below 11 this week right now.

It looks like we're going only three for the first four or five days.

And it's going to go up for every time.

Well, actually that, I think, and the fact that the South Koreans are really doing the fighting.

I mean, the South Koreans, their casualties are not as much.

But I think if we could just delay a few weeks... No, no, I think, well, there are other reasons too, but you know, we don't want to... We went out and took the southern part of that road out twice this week with B-52s, right in the DMZ, where we can, under our present authority, we can go into the lower part of the DMZ.

That's no problem.

And so they're not going to tell us that road in there.

They've gone up there now.

We've put in a hell of a lot of sororities.

I hope they hit something.

We've put in probably 60.

Tell me this, can we spend a minute?

What the hell is the situation in Laos these days?

Well, the situation in Laos...

I mean, I'm supposed to have been lost in Cambodia 10 times, and I haven't heard them.

I haven't heard the network squeal about it.

I don't think it was the bunk club or something.

He's almost across the plain.

The important thing is to quiet it down a little bit right now.

You want to quiet it just a bit right now.

Why?

Not the hell of it.

I mean, he's got so many losses that he doesn't need to have.

He's got the whole Plain de Jarre already, and that's almost too much because the other side had proposed a ceasefire in the middle of the Plain de Jarre.

He's gone beyond the ceasefire line, taking the whole Plain de Jarre, and now he's heading into the mountains towards North Vietnam, and that's just too much.

How is Cambodia coming?

Cambodia is coming along pretty well.

This next six or seven months are awfully important to it, but they've done much better than I thought they would.

Did you notice those convoys?

It's Cambodians.

They've got those convoys.

They're now on the right and they've not been in the last two times.

Is that Cambodians or the other way?

Well, that's Cambodians.

Well, maybe they'll work.

Who knows?

Lung Kian and now Lung Pao is almost back to where he was two years ago.

But in Cambodia, you remember the goddamn networks that have had Cambodia lost at least 15 times in the last year or so now.

They had lost, you know what I mean?

Non-pedants around it, Cambodia readily the false capital of the state of care.

Now maybe it will be lost, but I must say, somewhere the boys are doing a little better.

I think this, I think the North Vietnamese know about hellish problems.

I think we've got health problems.

I think Laos, or Cambodia, or up to hell, we just can't have been dropping all of their bombs for the last four, three, four years without doing something.

Well, it's a good job this morning, Mr. President, because Dennis, on the signing, he put a commitment to put a limit on...

I heard it was good.

Well, I just tried to use the theory that this is not the time to start putting it on the table.

is quite a possibility, but there is a possibility there for negotiations in the area.

And if you start putting limitations and telling the enemy exactly what you're going to do at this time, you're just taking away an opportunity.

Absolutely.

But, uh, write this down.

I can't.

Matter of fact, I can't read it.

It's a little better.

It's rather good for Mel to be a little bit more hawkish than I am.

You've got to have something.

I agree.

I agree with all of you.

Mel was terrific this morning.

I was a hawk today on his ABM, too.

I got into the ABM thing.

Mel, I've got a good vote.

I haven't had a chance to tell you yet on that Canikin test.

There's an underground test which all the peacemakers are trying to stop, which we need.

We have two votes in the Senate.

If we carry them all, they're going to be blank votes.

I was just concerned about that because there's one thing I'm having trouble on, Mr. President.

I've got problems in the manpower area there, not only because the draft thing is going to hurt,

But the reductions that they're insisting on making, based upon the fact that our Vietnam strength is lower than we said it was going to be, we should be getting credit for that, rather than they're taking the bodies away from Vietnam right now.

The other thing, right now, with sort of the euphoria which grew on the China thing,

That's a good line.

Oh, I'd give them hell on that.

But I've been before the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee on both of them.

I have to do the testifying on it.

Because, quite frankly, the Army, during this year, in defense of their budget, has not done an excellent job.

Now, Corky's got a shake there.

Amaral's just shot the hell out of him.

He is a disaster.

He's washed out.

He's thinking about when he was commander three years ago.

I really think so.

I think we've got to get the hell out of there.

He's retiring in June anyway.

Well, that's it.

Yeah, but that's a year from now.

Well, I...

There's nothing we can do about it.

I think he's useless.

Well, it's bad because it affects the morale.

staff right now.

Well, I don't think we can.

You get into such a hassle doing it.

I just don't think it's right.

Well, I mean, you can say anything bad about our wives.

No, I didn't.

I want you to say that our age and their age are better than our age.

You know, I felt sorry for you, because I know in front of you, you got into the rest of it.

But you know, when I followed that statement, it's your price, isn't it?

It doesn't help with the redneck.

It doesn't really hurt the redneck.

Because they think it's a good thing.

They don't all think this is bad.

You never get your foot in these waters with a redneck.

It's pretty good.

So, can I spend a moment to tell you what?

It'd be very, very good if Nelson, if you'd greet him.

Oh, yeah.

I thought I could see him a little bit.

I was wondering if you could kind of be seen.

Maybe you could talk a little about how this was really done and all that sort of thing.

The second thing is, I can just simply say that

I kept telling him for months, I said, now Nelson,

Don't listen to your liberal advisors.

You are going to look good if you stick by it.

Well, he never had quite the guts to stick by it, but he's never really attacked us.

He's been better than any other liberal.

Well, he's never said anything again.

I know.

And I don't know.

And I don't know how you're hearing from all your liberals, you know.

And then I say there's more coming, Nelson.

Now you can't tell me what, but there's more coming.

Well, we draw a broken flush.

What the hell?

We draw a broken flush.

Then next time we get a streak.

That's the name of the order.

Mr. President, if these guys were really confident, they would have canceled the meeting next Monday.

For them to see me now, if they wanted really to show that they weren't shaken, they would have canceled the meeting.

And now that I think of it, I'm not sure they want to waste it.

Because if they really want to brutalize me, the best way to do that would be to cancel it and ask for a two-week delay.

My ideas on that is that we've done a hell of a job on it.

If it doesn't work, fine.

We'll just go out on our own, Dan.

Actually, from some points of view, from some points of view, there's something to be said for just getting out on our own.

It hurts some more.

And to get out on our own, but then put out a whole record of ten meetings.

That's what we should do on that occasion.

When you announce it, you say, this is my secret, sir.

We've tried everything in negotiation here, as said, I could.

And now negotiations are bad.

And now we're there, where are we trying?

The other thing about Nelson, I would state that Nelson is a political scientist.

Now is the time, as the president starts up again after taking this meeting, how about giving us a lift?

You've got to take the leadership.

Do you have anything specific you want him to do?

Mainly, he talks to a hell of a lot of people.

He ought to rev up the New York community, the New York liberals, and his fellow governors.

Oh, I can't.

I don't think that's our thing.

I don't think it's a good thing.

But Nelson's a big, he's a talker, and a big influence in the world.

And he just ought to say, by God, I think this is great.

Praise the president, but have a little of that.

And of course, if it's a campaign, he would not sit on his hands if he...

But he's all steamed up.

He was babbling away on Saturday when he told me.

It was almost interesting.

They all are.

I get letters.

One interesting letter I got today, which I will get to you and read to you.

The man who brought in this group of Harvard professors.