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Yeah, I called you last night, but you had retired.

You went on and on and on.

He's absolutely... What time did you call me?

Mr. Alsop.

Stuart Alsop.

He's in the hospital.

Do you have his number?

Yeah, I used it, sir.

Thanks.

Let's do the call.

I'm talking to you, sir.

No, I know who he is.

He was here.

He was still at the Times.

He only got in.

All in.

Why isn't that the truth?

Well, Nelson is just beside himself.

He's the only thinking now of your second term.

He says you're in.

You carry New York State and you keep it.

That's the third presidential election.

He's in focus of that.

Yeah, but, you know, to me, but to me, he'd be honest.

He's never said that to me before.

No, no, no.

And he said it's, uh, uh, spectacular.

Well, he's speaking to the Republican National Committee today at Dole's invitation, and he showed me he's going to have an introductory paragraph about your foreign policy, and the concluding paragraph saying we all have to stand behind him now is leading us towards peace, and, uh, and... Good.

He's going to get him.

He's got that committee.

Goldwater apparently gets the National Committee on that.

In his talk with the National Committee, he gets the conservatives who have contracted you on this and says that they should keep quiet on the chief.

We've got an intelligence report that the Chinese Nationalist Intelligence Office has put out instructions to make you and me the focus of attacks.

And I, that I'm a communist agent and you that you're a traitor.

Although they're crazy, you were there, Jeff, when all is said and done.

It's true that no one would have had the guts to do what you did.

And they got the arms from us.

We gave them every arm they could.

Well, but they can.

Oh, I can see what he is.

He just is living there in another age.

You haven't been here yet?

No.

Well, he lives in another age.

He said that again yesterday.

But these...

He still said he's going to China.

He's never going back to living in England.

That's not going to happen.

But Nelson is also...

There might be a change in China, but it won't be with China.

You see, he's too far away.

Well, if there's a change, it won't be from the Kuomintang.

I think after this present generation dies, which they also do more or less simultaneously, that it's just likely to die within a five-year period of each other.

Mahalo to China, Joe.

And Joe and Cynthia, they're all over 70.

There isn't one leader they've got who is under 70.

So within a 10-year period, certainly they're all be gone.

It is quite possible that there are major changes coming.

Well, we don't give a damn.

I think just as well they have the right attacks.

I think that's right.

They have the right attacks.

This will help us with P.K.

And the kind of people that John can stir up now.

But Nelson was on the David Fraud Show.

He told me and he's sending me the transcript and he said for an hour and a half he was raising about you and what you've done.

how Vietnam has brought about changes in China.

That's good.

Oh, I didn't have to do any selling.

I said, now listen, Nelson, I don't know anything about domestic policy, but at this time, don't give us the impression that you're sniping all the time.

I don't know what you're doing, and I'm not aware of it.

But I said, you can keep sniping.

and he claims that he isn't doing it, and that he's trying to support you, and I don't know what he's doing.

Hello?

Stu?

Well, look, I just heard you had a bad break, and I want you to know what you're thinking about here, and I'll be out to see you one day.

The main thing is keep an old spirit up.

It's tough, but it's easy to sit here and say that.

But by golly, you know, I was just talking to Henry a few minutes ago, and I was talking to him.

I was trying to reach him, and he said, you know, he said, if all the sons of bitches agree, you ought to be out there, and here's two else out there.

us you know uh through those hard days uh believe me you know so it's terribly difficult times when you do well we always we were trying to do the best we could you know you you gave us you gave you you gave us the breaks you gave us the breaks uh you know what i mean you gave us a chance to get in a fair shape and the rest and of course now a lot of people are

sort of saying, well, this China thing's a good thing.

And whether it is or not, people, only time will tell.

But believe me, we know who are, who've been our really, really good friends and who have really helped when it was, when we did it, and also who did it very objectively.

And I just want you to know that I'm,

Well, let me say, let's see, $100 million.

I'll double it.

If money will do it, we'll do it.

And, of course, the kind that this thing is the one that has a different prognosis, you know, which, of course, is able to pay you probably before anybody else.

And we will...

We've got a little more time.

No, seriously, let's see what we come, see what we get through here.

And you sure have.

And you're in the best place.

Apparently, you're very good.

Let me tell you this.

I'll drop off a few one day.

I know you can have visitors.

And I'll drop off once we've got a little more information.

And we'll have a chat.

So, well, good to talk to you.

Just think, that's a terrible thing to learn.

You've got leukemia.

And he was...

He's hard enough to know that it's a question.

Maybe he's got a ear.

But that's all.

He knows that he can't do anything.

Not a damn thing.

He was, you know, I had dinner with him three weeks ago.

He was playing tennis Sunday when it started.

Yeah.

Come off the couch.

Maurice Stantz has been waiting to see me for a long time.

Maurice Stantz, he wants to cry to me about not going to the Soviet Union.

In fact, was that gun we need kept by people like a whole head?

I think we did wear it a little bit yesterday, you know, and we would have told him.

Oh, it was perfect.

It was good.

It was more pleased, but nevertheless...

But on the other hand, Laird in his devious damn way at times will do a flaring game.

And that's the sort of thing he appreciates, anyway.

He didn't complain.

No, he appreciates us clever bastards.

I'll go to them next time.

Well, he's done it to us all along.

He does it regularly.

Joe Alsop has a comment today which is his speculation of what Joe and I talked about at the exchange.

troop dispositions with the Soviets, which isn't true.

You know, which really drives the Russians out of the war, drives the Chinese out of the war.

Well, but he makes it clear that he's trying to guess what went on.

Yeah, but he makes it so...

He says if you were there 20 hours, 2 hours could have been spent on certain things, but you'd be there 18 minutes.

Well, it goes that way, and then they say, he's spectacularly spot-blown, and it's over.

Cut the stuff after a few days.

Yeah, yeah.

Joe will never run out to look at it.

But he knows what this is all about.

Oh, he had too much.

If that's the trouble, he's too close to the fire.

Well, anyway, but you said you told Nelson I was trying to get the downhill, get it down to the grass, don't I?

I have the impression that Nelson...

He didn't say so that I could do it.

He didn't say that he had to do it.

I mean, not for now.

I mean, the police, the police.

I mean, he didn't say he should.

Well, whatever.

I'm not recommending him.

But whatever.

We've got lots of things to go over.

It's not as we've often said.

The world is a hell of a lot different.

today than it was just a week ago.

I mean, eight days ago.

I'm all your liberal friends.

I think the best reaction of it I had, the best indication, is that Bob got our young people in the Stanford School over in London.

They were very naive about this.

They didn't prefer

or he's excited about the fact that he didn't have a negative piece of this in a chair, well that means Nixon might win a second chair.

That's really what liberals...

But the interesting thing is that... That reaction is the reaction of most liberals.

Most liberals really just die.

No, absolutely not.

Because they think it might cause the war.

I mean, on the other war.

Crazy Harriman ran out yesterday and said that people have got to stop speculating about what the effects of the President's trip are going to be.

And then he spent 20 minutes speculating on what the effects of the President's trip would be.

Kind of that.

There's no question.

All right, Dan, I'm going to go off on a policy.

At least put a good little stretch.

Let's see.

Okay.

I don't understand.

He uh...

Tony, he had talked to you about the, uh, the, uh, Earl and the mancing thing that, that he announced.

He's right.

I plan on that.

He wants me to talk to John about it, which I guess I should.

Well, it don't need to.

There's no Dan and Irving.

I heard you.

I heard you talk to John, because he's, uh, starting to move into taking over the, uh, uh, plan to, uh, he's in planning.

But the, the devil called Henry is right.

I just can't make it appear that, uh,

You can pick out, I mean, John is no longer just a White House aide.

He is the domestic counsel guy, and it looks like we're doing it.

I think the guy to do it is Walker, is to do it in our usual way.

And he's just sending an advance man to us?

At a very low key, and I think just spending with Henry and get it done with.

I don't want too many people rushing over there, sucking around in it.

And John can't go without any questions, kind of the two top presidential advisers, the domestic counsel and the NSE counsel over there at the same time.

I think that's right, I think there's two trips.

There's a problem doing it from here too at that time.

I think here, and that's why I was kind of concerned.

I told John when he raced it the other day, I think

He builds out very strongly as the guy that's on top of and running the goddamn domestic stuff.

If he pulls out and starts playing with the team, then it looks like we've abandoned him.

We don't care a damn about it.

We'll stay in the middle of the domestic thing.

We don't mind.

I think we just better have John.

He's just got to work on it.

That's what he does.

It's too bad.

But I think love to do it.

But I think it looks like we are rushing off.

That's because they don't take other pluses on the other side.

I think that in any event, the threshold involved will be so enormous.

For instance, we've got to work this out now.

There's a question.

The networks now want to move in.

All three networks.

NBC's already moved on.

I'll be 15 minutes right after.

Networks want to move in and build ground stations in China so that they can mount television coverage by satellite.

Now that's a monumental enterprise.

That's what you talked about.

Well, they may or they may not.

China may be delighted to have John.

But that, it's those kinds of events that are starting to pour in and they're going to keep pouring in for the next six months.

I think the case, the case of John's thing, it escalates it too high and shows too little interest in that.

And I just think we ought to do it.

Much lower key.

And I think what ought to happen is just have Walker as the best one, not Chapin.

Well, I think Chapin is the more obvious man.

I mean, I have Walker as really the best advanced man, Bob.

Don't you think?

Well, Henry feels a lot more comfortable with Chapin, and Chapin does a superb job at advancing.

So let's see.

I'm not sure.

I originally suggested Walker and Henry.

But I don't know what the job's going to do.

It's too bad that it builds up too much.

What I wanted to talk to you about is this.

I talked to...

on the OED thing.

It seems to me that, I mean, I've also talked about having Peterson do OED things.

Now, attention to OEP.

I just think it's about ideal.

Okay.

I mean, it gives him something to do.

It'll tie him down.

And then we'll just read him and talk to him.

I like to talk to him when he can't go running off to California all the time.

It's screwing around and that.

But he's got to cover the whole country.

What do you think?

I think so, and I think you can build, he can build, instead of being a two-bit, and I'll talk to him pretty, I can talk to him pretty bluntly about this part of it.

Sitting a two-bit politician in California, he can be out there running the disaster program, emergency preparedness, national security council, stockpiling, and he ought to take a couple foreign trips tied to it, you know, on the stockpiling business and all, I mean on the preparedness business and all that.

He can...

Thanks a lot.

I think I want you to talk to Rodgers immediately about Kennedy for Japan.

I've decided that all the businessmen just don't know enough that Kennedy is the best man.

Rodgers will fall, maybe, due to the fact that he knows Kennedy doesn't like Stig.

But I just feel that he's the choice.

He has my total confidence.

And he's a big man, and this and that, and he has earned the confidence of the business community.

And he'll do exactly what we say, exactly what I say.

I suspect that Bill will, for the wrong reason, think it's a good idea.

I think he'll be delighted to get Kennedy out of his hair as ambassador.

All right, fine.

That's what we want to do.

Rumsfeld, I've offered to, you know, and he's certainly interested.

The real question I have there, he said he'd been doing some things for Mitchell.

That's right.

And the real question is whether we ought to take Rumsfeld out of the White House and put him in the campaign full-time.

Very candidly.

He isn't much to us here, and I'd like to get that damn cabinet down good.

Not that it's much, but I wonder if he, not as an assistant to Mitchell, but could he be the head of the citizens or something like that, you know?

Sure.

He could go out as chairman of the citizens.

Chairman of the citizens.

He's young.

He's 39 years old.

He's a hell of a spokesman, you know?

And maybe he could be a spokesman.

Let me say this.

He's been doing some good political stuff for Mitchell.

He's hanging over the cooperative.

Hanging over his...

NATO is fine, but it pulls him out of the politics.

And frankly, in the politics, and maybe he's very good too, I think Rumsfeld can be more valuable even in politics because he'll do what he's given him.

He'll program better, and he is a better operator.

He's an operator.

Now, if I could just say one thing, I think we've got too much on Colson's back.

And I know that sort of...

to find that that young thing was falling completely between the stools.

But the point is, we started on it about three months ago.

It was one of those things, it proves you can't see.

Colson thought Minch was doing something.

Minch thought Colson was doing something.

Colson says he knew he was being counted up for action on it, but he was making other things more important.

But I think Rumsfeld doing

Brunsfeld building, frankly, two, two, two people.

Suburbian and young.

It sounds awfully good, you know.

Now, with the young people, there's only one issue, basically.

It's the issue of forgetting the environment and farting around with the old folks.

I mean, the Negroes and everything.

But I think right now, there has to be organized.

I want to get something done on College Hill, Big E.

and I want it done for this fall semester, and I want it done with regard to the whole China thing and the end of Vietnam.

Now, we might as well get to college, and that'll help us with the

It'll help us with all the mock conventions and things like that.

Now, I would like somebody to take some responsibility here on this.

God damn it, I just don't want a paper.

I want to follow it up now.

We've got it.

I think that you ought to do is take out the staff a little more on things.

I don't want people on any of these things, like I mentioned Ohio and several other things, and nothing ever happens.

They've just got to get it on them.

Got to work with Mitchell on it.

If you start undercutting him, you're going to have a real problem.

All right, then we'll have to get Mitchell in and talk to him about it.

But we really have to look.

But you see my point of view is time's a waste.

It's got to start this fall.

We've got a time to start.

Start it.

We've got a good way to start with it.

But we've got a guy who's turned out to be a hell of a good guy, who's James McClain, who has been working with us, and we can pull out a hell of a character.

He's a hell of a good organizer.

All right, start something, get somebody in every college, get Charlie McCorder in it.

Whoever knows anything about our organizing college, you get somebody on every major campus now who's going to be the next person, next for peace or some damn thing.

Next to the next generation.

Get a plan.

Get it executed.

Now, is that clear?

I want it done.

Now, let's get that used.

Then I want the blue collar used, too.

That's something.

They've got the guy for that program.

All right, he could just start one.

He's on full-time on staff.

If you were somebody on this, then you could... Maybe that's something to put somebody like King on.

I know.

Put somebody on we could depend upon.

I mean, everybody works for my stuff, I know, and I'm important.

But God damn it, let's get somebody to work on stuff that, you know, would back me up.

James McClane was a guy on it.

He's a beast.

They...

He's the best in all of you.

Full confidence.

He will be the White House guy responsible on you.

All right.

You better together have a meeting.

Have a meeting in the next 34 days.

And then we know what the hell the meeting is.

The problem is Finch.

The problem there is Finch.

See, he can't.

You're buzzing it up again.

You get things to the hell out of him.

You're going to run wild, okay?

Tell him that you're out of use now.

Sure, sure.

I'd put him in OED.

And just to watch him, I mean, like he's out of volunteers, he wants his ideas, but we don't hurry up.

We have no operational response.

He can't do volunteers anymore.

He can't do youth anymore.

Like a volunteer, he's got to have another guy.

The other guy's got to do the job.

You know Bob.

Everything Bob does becomes like a sponge.

And that's what's happened here.

He just wants to board in on him and get him to take the OEP down.

Yes, he should, right?

That's better.

Bob would die in Mexico.

I didn't forget about Kevin, but that's a valid point.

He can't get back.

That's too important.

Kevin said they moved Maureen in her last year.

And also, Bob would die in Mexico.

Unless Carol wants to go to Mexico, which I don't think she will.

Just say OEP is the name you should take and take it immediately.

Now, it's one thing to say it's a 2-D election, one thing you could likely do, but I don't think we ought to do, is to let it still be a good counselor to the president and so forth.

I think it should be OEP-NSC.

And then how will this cap, right?

I mean, I guess how will it cap?

Well, except, let's wait a second.

Well, it doesn't cost you anything to leave him as counselor to the president, except when he sits at your table.

Okay, once a month.

Okay, fine.

I think he ought to stay in that.

I don't think he ought to be...

Okay, kicked around again.

Let him stay as a counselor for the present, but he takes OEP.

Fair enough.

Let's get that done.

And tell Henry that we're doing that.

Just tell Henry, I've ordered it.

Don't screw around and say, well, Henry's going to come on.

The hell with him.

This is done.

And the Grumstow, I just think Grumstow, I don't know whether Grumstow could stay on.

Now, he's talking about he's thinking of his own things, and he'd like to sort of a rolling ambassador for Latin America and other places.

That's Henry's objection.

See, that's, I think, is wrong.

There ain't no like that tantric things of Europe.

It's silly.

Well, there's no he in Latin America.

There's, well, the point is, none of that at all is silly.

Listen, let's face it, it's silly.

It doesn't help us at this time.

I'd like Rob Stowe to be a political operator.

I don't think he should be a political operator.

Well, you know, he could stay right where he is and become the White House political guy, because Dent really doesn't have the super class to do it, and Rumsfeld talks with Mitchell better than Dent does.

Does he?

Oh, he does.

Well, let him be the White House political guy for everything in the South, and let him not have the South.

How's that?

You got a mid-westerner, which is good.

That's right.

He used to be the finest political guy in the Midwest.

Let me talk to him.

It might be better for him to go out and become the citizens' chairman.

That might be a better talk to him, but let's get it done.

I had one other thought, Mike.

You've still got that thing set up, I think, for...

So if we wanted to do the grill, we could, but I wanted to go out and do it at 4 or 5 and a half.

Okay.

I hadn't thought about the pole situation.

Instead of looking on that football thing.

You may not like this, but it's the eye of the feeling.

Ride the parade?

No, sir.

You should go into that, make your little talk, and leave.

You should not stay for the presentations or anything else.

It's true.

I don't think you should be...

Lombardi's presented.

No.

I think you could just come in, either at the beginning or end of it.

What if it's an anniversary or something, or is it... Why do I go at all?

Well, because you've been invited because Lombardi is being put in, and you can talk a little about Lombardi as sort of epitomizing the grief of all the crimes, and then just get right with it.

The problem is, they're presenting.

They're putting in seven guys.

Each guy has a presenter who makes a talk presenting him, and then the guy makes a talk accepting him.

I can see it taking an hour and a half, those speeches.

If you could not say that I can come, but that I've got this date in Iowa, and I've got to leave, and you just drop by, just drop by, just like I do at the interweaving, and I'll get you.

Now, the other thing I was going to say is that I think if you can work it out,

It seems to me that we ought to put out, particularly in terms of the group of things, we probably ought to put out our poll.

I'll tell you why.

First of all, I would use as the benchmark the other poll, the Sanjay poll.

Because that was taken at April or whatever the hell it was, right?

The 48.

Right.

The 48.36, which makes it look as if it sounds like yellow.

Yep.

Fine.

Yep.

All right.

And then, in a word, a lot of people confuse the two, too, and then say, next up, since April, you get my point.

And then you get 54.32 pounds.

I think it tends to say, and I could also put in,

Not the comparison of people handling foreign policy.

You can't do that.

That's definitely to Rogers.

But a couple of the China questions.

But a couple of the China questions that they approved the president's leadership or the president's trip.

Now, that will get in the lead.

That will get it.

In other words, everything is about China.

Nixon's popularity ups as China.

Nixon approves the China question and so forth and so on.

Moves from 48 to 54.

Get my point?

Yep.

Now, if you'll meet Gallop, Gallop won't be out until...

I think he's playing Monday.

Monday?

Well, let's get this Sunday.

Can we do this?

Could they get this ready?

Let's do this Friday, maybe?

Yeah.

Unless you can't, Bob.

It's no use.

And we can service the race today.

What?

Well, why don't you get a hold of them immediately and see if they can get them out?

Because Gallop will come out basically with the same figure as I actually am.

49 or 48...

It always just knocks you quite off.

You never know.

And I think that, let me explain.

You've got to have as much as you can.

I'm feeling the momentum out of this thing.

You've got to have, everybody feels it, correct?

And if they don't hear it in the polls, they'll think they're wrong.

And you never know how Gallup will rise again.

And also, I think Yelp actually is lower than he should be.

I don't know what reason it is, not on this individual poll, but on several of these, because maybe Harris is right.

Harris says they're overcompensating now, as he always did for blacks and youth, or whatever the case might be.

But what, what jury will vote on that?

I think they should.

Let me, I think, yeah, I do.

Because the kind of thing is, we'll, it won't get much play.

Ours may not get much play here, you just never know.

But we can put it out.

I got it.

I remember Conley's on television Sunday.

He could refer to it.

Yeah.

If you get some kind of question, you can say, well, that's true.

I'm certainly impressed by that.

But the point is, we can get it.

We can get it, Bob, to people that count.

And this is why we're, you know, Colson and his operation and so forth.

Again, I think we're putting too much on Colson.

I didn't think you could have added somebody to him.

We haven't, Mr. President.

Yes, we haven't.

We haven't.

A lot of people sometimes...

that he doesn't get things done because I just give him an attorney because I don't know anybody else around who's supposed to do things.

He's getting the things done.

He's got a good crew for doing it.

And that's, I mean, if you follow your theory, you've got to have a few people you turn to and then they've got to have that ability to follow along.

But I get this one out.

And as a matter of fact, I think if we get out of Sunday, we don't just get it out, mail it out in the day, and then take it out in a hurry.

We can go faster with that because we don't have to mail it out.

We can...

Hey, you run this stuff off right here.

We've got a good system where they can have it off here.

Now, don't take the morning to find out what question.

Just pick three questions right away.

Tell them we've got to have these three go out, pick out the other, and say, could you just do this?

Now, this is an honest thing.

They have the other bolt.

Now they've got this bolt.

They should just put it out.

You may be using a 48.

You can use a 50.

Because we've got a telephone pole and 50.

Why don't you have that?

I'd like to use the 48 because it ties right to Gallatin 50.

It ties pretty much to Gallatin 80.

All right, fine.

But the 48 is a bad man.

It's still a bowl, a bowl that they have and so forth, a major field bowl and so forth.

Now they've got this one.

I think it's a very smart thing to do.

You know, I just have a feeling myself, and you're all, there's a, there's a better feeling in the country.

I mean, there's a, I told Bill up there, they're doing pretty well in America.

I mean, but I think there's a better feeling that people, you know, that, I think what we're seeing really is the better feeling in the country, intellectually, don't you think so?

What's your guess about it?

I think we are.

I think we will continue to.

I agree with you.

We need to keep the appearance of momentum.

Yeah.

Well, this totally, we all expected a lift, and we do not have that reflected yet.

I don't approve of what we do.

That doesn't make any difference.

approval and a lot of other questions, but it doesn't.

The approval is what counts.

If the China thing has to live, it's going to build into it, especially as the visit comes and all that.

Well, the China thing will build on it later rather than now.

The China thing will build into it.

Well, if you want to create the kids, that's the only thing.

But the college kids and the rest, because they're...

But the China thing will build, mainly because it builds with the intellectual types.

It really disarms the bastards a hell of a lot in the foreign policy field.

You just can't get in the cracks.

And we've been having fun.

And that's, you get the establishment, and that, the filter-down process, which I hope is going to have to take place there, too.

One part of the analysis that you might have taken in this poll is, for example, the breakup.

It's whether those who, what happened to those who disapproved the China thing?

on approval and disapproval, whether or not they had that.

If you got that, that would be an interesting thing to find out what happened to those who approved the China thing on disapproval and approval.

You might find a very curious reaction.

But I think both of them would be very interesting.

What else is in the news this morning?

The big thing is the 11 American dead.

And the coup in Sudan.

John Patton Davies and Robert Service.

And that's about it.

Four of the 11 were missing in action, so we finally confirmed that one of them was that wounded who died.

Wounded earlier died this week, there were only six actually killed this week.

Okay.