Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on National Economy and Textile Industry

5:27Well, on the textiles, the rumbling tide, they're having a meeting at 915.
5:31I talked to Pete, he's up in Maine, and he'll come back down if we wanted to.
5:37He had a long talk with Mitchell last night and with Peterson, and Peterson's calling everybody together this morning.
5:47I thought I'd sit in that meeting rather than be with him.
5:51Yeah, Kissinger, Rogers, he's got everybody in it.
5:54Which maybe is just as well at this point, because everybody basically is lined up on one side except Mitchell, and possibly Stanzu isn't here, so he won't be in the meeting.
6:05But Mitchell is the sole holdout apparently now for the economy that has changed his mind.
6:10The economy refuses to vote.
6:14Conley says not at all.
6:16He's indicated to Peterson and the planning that he's not so solidly convinced that using the national security thing is a very good idea.
6:25But he's officially asked to be recorded as not voting.
6:28He's in trouble.
6:34He's just saying he felt he should come back down, but then he ran into transportation problems.
6:42And so I told him that.
6:46But Mitchell doesn't buy what he's handled.
6:52That's what ultimately boils down to.
6:57And Mitchell's pushing for a decision by tomorrow because there's a textile industry meeting tomorrow, and apparently Peterson or somebody else indicated to them that we'll have a decision before tomorrow.
7:11The only thing I'm worried about is that the president may decide to go with the national security thing and may not realize the problems involved in that that were already in the oil thing.
7:21I said, you've been very hard about that yesterday.
7:24Mitchell was basically pushing back down on this.
7:28That's exactly that.
7:29Also, why not call the church?
7:32That's true.
7:32Mitchell has told them to keep him apprised of everything.
7:41to look out for the political interests of the other.
7:45Nobody agrees that's a political problem.
7:48I would go for that.
7:50I'm a political character.
7:51Now, Peterson's waltzing in with another approach, apparently, that they're going to talk about today, which is Roger talking to McHugh.
7:59McHugh doesn't think they're going to let go of me.
8:01I mean, they're going to try that, but it isn't going to work.
8:06But they should go ahead with it.
8:08It's just another thing to say we're doing it.
8:10What Peterson's raising is to go for re-raising his other kick, which is the import duty and export rebate on everything approach, which would hit steel and autos and all the other things at the same time.
8:26That won't solve the textile problem, apparently, so that isn't an answer.
8:30I just thought Peterson's better off on that.
8:32I don't want him to know what we're talking about.
8:36He talks too much.
8:37He's the one who's talking.
8:38I didn't know he's got a...
8:41and I can tell that he doesn't hold to the government, and that's fine, but when I'm ready for something to be talked about, I'll follow it up with him.
8:54He's talking him up, and I'm aware of what his views are.
8:57Then why is he raising it in relation to Texas if it doesn't solve it?
9:00He thinks that it would be a best solution.
9:02You sure wouldn't tell him, huh?
9:10That's where that is.
9:11It's another real gracious point that I don't know what it's delicate to get into,
9:28Apparently, this trip of hers is being advanced.
9:30God is having women run out and advance it.
9:33Some of the kids from her office, they cannot do advancing on a trip.
9:38Can we ask?
9:39I talked to, well, when I talked to, I think Rose was talking about it, but what I'm getting at is, I think they would accept a man long, you know what I mean?
9:53Let the woman do the...
9:56Well, she's got at least one gallon, maybe two.
10:00Who are very good.
10:01They've been overworking with Ron Walker, going through the whole thing.
10:06Ron's worked with them on several issues here and how to go at it.
10:11And they currently were, they want the lower key kind of advancements.
10:16We'll let them do the, you know, go all out the way our guys do.
10:19When we get a campaign free, we'll just have them do it other ways and we'll work around it.
10:32by having men work with women.
10:33Women should go, you know what I mean?
10:40I don't care if you have some, you can't go along at all.
10:44It's fine on this trip.
10:45I don't mean to change this.
10:47I meant just for the future, looking ahead.
10:51You're not working on this anymore.
10:54I think what you need is a man
10:56there to help in the advance.
10:59And, but to stay out of the scene, out of the way, one pass there, let the gal do the, absolutely, moving her around, and, and move it.
11:07There you got it.
11:08Right in the background.
11:09In that context, the local provider that just kind of sits in the background and makes sure.
11:13Somebody who, for example, works with the local police and the signal service and that sort of thing.
11:18That's not a woman's job.
11:19You haven't been involved in this thing.
11:21You haven't been pressed, been policed, been secreted.
11:23That's not a job.
11:24That is not a man's job.
11:25It's not a man's job.
11:33I don't think it's not easy.
11:40We've struggled long.
11:42I don't want Peterson to in-run anybody.
11:46I mean, come in.
11:48which he does, he just comes in with a whole bunch of views, or he doesn't do it.
11:52Kissinger is scrupulous in saying that every goddamn view is presented, you know.
11:57He is really scrupulous.
11:58He pushes his own damn hard, but, and Peterson is learning.
12:05Henry pushes his own, but as soon as he sees you're going with it, he starts making sure you really thought about the other one.
12:11He is good at that.
12:13He's an option man, basically.
12:15which is fine, but I'm not really sure.
12:18I may have to lose an excellent bunch.
12:30Well, Flannigan also makes the point that the key, Mitchell's argument is that the textual people are going to feel you haven't pursued this vigorously.
12:40Flannigan's argument is that the time for them to feel that is about a year from now rather than right today, and that
12:48If we get something, I think they may still be able to hear from them.
12:53Here again, Denton and I have all spoken up, talked strong enough, I think, to the types of people.
13:02Now maybe they have, but I guess Harry takes it very strongly.
13:06Harry speaks up very strongly, too.
13:07Harry is very good at advocating their cause in here and advocating our cause out there, and he does do that.
13:16but he and that's why he's good out there is because he's in here fighting hard for him in here and he will be on every
13:40Well, oh, well, Harry, Harry's wife was not a person.
13:44That's a whole fine line coming by the staff mess.
13:48Saying hello to these guys.
13:49Now, what in the hell crotch would that be?
13:51That's just terrible.
13:52You know, I can't do that.
13:54That's not what the president ought to do.
13:56He stopped by and said, well, here's a bunch of old farts.
14:00I'll have it every second for him.
14:02And I don't think of that.
14:04But I'm not going to sit there and listen to that.
14:07You know, when we're around, that's what he wants me to do.
14:09Isn't that true?
14:11A lot of people stand up and represent the points of view.
14:13Well, now, Mr. President, you shouldn't be doing that.
14:16What he's doing, of course, is the easiest way for you to just...
14:21Show your face so that they can say they've seen you.
14:23Oh, I'll do that.
14:24That's the way to do that.
14:25You know, I'll put them up here.
14:27I'll put them through this room or cocktail or basically the best thing is to give them a drink.
14:30And then let them go to the staff and that's when I screw around and talk to them.
14:34Come over to the library and have a drink first and then, you know, that's the way to do it best for them.
14:45It's easier for you to drive.
14:46Everybody thinks that.
14:48That's why they keep pushing for these little drop-in.
14:50You know, when they do that, it's easier.
14:53Some of them it is.
14:54Some of them, both of them.
14:55I don't think that's the truth.
14:56I agree with that.
14:57And the Roosevelt rule or something, maybe I can do that.
15:00But I think with a group like this where they have to be a little bit more, they wander in the officers.
15:13One other thing I had to ask you about the half-race media.
15:17Well, that was without all the past people who have really got to coordinate some way.
15:23I don't have a rule with them in any lower echelon, just with you, with regard to things where it follows me, you know what I mean?
15:31It's like, she's asked her about, she thinks I'm, has me down for coming to the band, but she's got back giving a reception for these women, and also wants you to come to the band.
15:41And it's really big, and well, Pat found that she has had agreed a long time ago to do something at Philadelphia, or something big.
15:52I think that reception was your,
15:55Your idea to begin with, I think that's what we tossed on this as the...
15:59I can do it, too.
16:00No.
16:00It was the idea that instead of you doing them this year, that Pat should give a reception for them.
16:04And I'm not going to do anything for them.
16:06That was the plan, in fact.
16:07Christ, Black expects you in the band.
16:10We've told her that you're not going to give them anything.
16:14She doesn't expect you.
16:15She's working on it.
16:16She can't give them.
16:17Well, maybe we ought to give them back.
16:21No.
16:22Maybe it's just a problem.
16:27I don't know what really is the case.
16:29The best thing to do so that they do not go home irritated is to do a 10-minute drop by kind of a crack event.
16:34You know what I mean?
16:37Surprise.
16:37Yeah.
16:38That kind of thing.
16:39Another thing, you can get a creation for that or actually either one.
16:41You know?
16:42They're good.
16:44They can go for it.
16:48They have to have something good.
16:52but they should, it would seem to me, Bob, that they are asking for relief, relief, the extra drop of blood if they want to have to do a reception and then come to the van, because she'll need a reception.
17:04Would you not agree?
17:05Yep.
17:06I don't think she could do both.
17:12Do you?
17:12No.
17:13Do you?
17:14It is, does Connie accept these?
17:15Does she take these?
17:17Does she charge them?
17:19with requests.
17:19She coordinates with us on all of those and, well, just so that she would know, sort of guide them so that she doesn't ever do things.
17:28The old story, everybody makes that about something.
17:37Yep.
17:37Just figure it out.
17:45It wasn't funny.
17:45I had accepted, because Mrs. Shouse had asked me to go to the World Cup.
17:48I had accepted her.
17:49You know why Pat had me going?
17:50She had a group.
17:51We had a group here from the White House, and they're young people.
17:55Yeah.
17:56She says they're nice young people.
18:00It's a good thing to do.
18:02What's kind of funny is I just figured out that what it is is exactly the same program that we sat through at the L.A. Music Center last year.
18:13So have you.
18:16That night we went up for the Buck Chandler dinner and they did that cavalcade of musical light opera, musical comedy.
18:25river this is i think is exactly the same thing because johnny green's putting it on and it's uh they say it's musical comedy from from way hard and very little up through here so i think it will be the same show i'm sorry it's light music
19:08Um, because it's Kay Johnson and Wolf Trap, it's probably good for you at some point to go out there.
19:14It's quite a spectacular success, I guess, that she's put together.
19:19She's done it all single-handedly, the old guy that's gone out there.
19:22This is the old woman?
19:23Yeah.
19:24About a 90, was she?
19:26I think so.
19:28Oh, no, 80 anyway.
19:29No, she was 80 in the 65.
19:35Perfect.
19:36I'm sorry.
19:37As she said, she's just been determined to participate and send her together, you know, for the performing arts.
19:45And she's done a hell of a job of it.
19:46It's a pretty good operation.
19:50Excuse me.
19:52Henry, let me suggest this.
19:54You worked for me.
19:56You stood in that textile meeting, which is at 915.
20:02And...
20:05Let me cover briefly what I have.
20:06And when you finish, you and Irvin and I will talk about Eastside.
20:12We go out at 11 o'clock.
20:14And I will be in front of the story page for the reason that I'm going to let him indicate how we are going forward on our declassification and how we're classifying.
20:28This is kind of the idea that we're classifying .
20:30I wanted to check with you to be sure you're all right.
20:34I gave it to him yesterday.
20:38But I wonder if the two of you could come together with Essen as soon as you finish this meeting.
20:49All right, I'll just sit in this one for about half an hour or so to state my view for the time being, because I've also got to get something started on that defense meeting tomorrow.
20:57Well, on this one, I guess Peterson's got a whole manned government here.
21:04He's got, you see, he's got Rodgers.
21:06He's got everybody.
21:08Rodgers, I guess Stanton says it because he's out of town or something.
21:11The only reason, and I think it's just fine, the only reason it would be useful for you to be there a little while would be to mention all the little things he wants you to do.
21:24You see, they all, all the political people, and of course, I feel just that way.
21:29If Mitchell strongly wants to
21:32He was the national security man.
21:33Because of this problem, it has devastated people.
21:40He never called me and said that I was the only one that I could give him any convincing argument.
21:47Mitchell was going to listen to Robbie.
21:50So he's going to listen to Peterson.
21:52He may listen to you.
21:53I think he could hear your views on it.
21:55See what I mean?
21:55I prepared him a little bit for it on the boat.
21:57Did he talk to you about it?
21:59Yes.
22:02Mitchell.
22:02Mitchell.
22:03He didn't prepare him very far because he's absolutely adamant.
22:07I know.
22:07I didn't.
22:08I prepared him for my views.
22:09I didn't prepare him for, I don't.
22:10No, I hear what you're saying.
22:11I don't think he can.
22:12He's like Harry Daniels.
22:14I'm not saying anything else.
22:17They say we should have built him.
22:23We just can't build him.
22:25But is Kennedy in here too?
22:30Well, this is good.
22:31Don't you agree this is a better way to do it?
22:32They all should sit down.
22:34They shouldn't come into you.
22:35They're all coming in, each one.
22:37Mitchell's been, he's had hit me on it.
22:42Peterson's hit me on it.
22:45Stan says, everyone separately, and that's not the way to do it.
22:49They should definitely not come into you.
22:51You can't arbitrate a series of individual positions that are brought into you.
22:55Moreover, the issue is fairly clear, and
23:00I mean, it's the political problem against the foreign policy problem, but also on the political side, if we pay a heavy foreign policy price, that will balance itself off, too.
23:14It's going to be a price in terms of other commodities.
23:19Exactly.
23:21It's hard to see how you cannot apply it to steel, have profile detection without applying it to steel, and how a lot of other commodities that are a lot more sensitive as far as national security are concerned.
23:36And you've lost your protection then because you've applied it once.
23:38It's hard to prove why you're not applying it.
23:40Well, you've done it once then.
23:41I don't have any problems with that.
23:45What?
23:45On oil.
23:47On oil, of course.
23:52This goes back pretty far.
23:53And also, I don't think anybody questions oil.
23:58Well, that's right.
23:59And also, you've created a hell of a lot of problems, apparently.
24:04I don't know anything about it.
24:07But that's Pete's, Flanagan's concern, is that the oil exchange has been so bad that doing it with anything else would really be unfortunate.
24:18No, I think we'll have major problems.
24:21You wouldn't mind saying that?
24:23No, I'd be glad to say that, and I'll do that.
24:25Let me say this on this other thing.
24:26Just let her, this was let her go forward for three years in this place, and I think she's going to say that the policy is not to protect
24:42to do a better job of protecting what ought to be classified, and thereby we are not going to classify as much.
24:48We started this, of course, in January.
24:49We're going to work with them.
24:50As far as the President is concerned, he has set up for matters involving his own people.
25:01uh, matters that involve his paper, his special system on classification.
25:05I just wanted to go through it, uh, and that I've given him as a leader.
25:12I said that either, where it has to be, that he, that we have two rules.
25:18One, no xeroxing.
25:20And two, principles only and no debriefing.
25:23I want to get a, I want to get something
25:27flattened out through the ages.
25:29I think of, for example, December here today, and somebody put out the fact that Rogers had called the Pakistan ambassador and raised hell about that call.
25:39Now, God damn it, that was not the way to do that.
25:42Absolutely not.
25:44That's exactly what I mean.
25:45And then they put out another story that we're going to cut off all aid to Pakistan, which was flatly different from what you had said.
25:55these lower-level people.
25:56I'm just wondering, then he's going on to say that we're proceeding with the declassification of the whole document, but that nothing would be as best declassified as a compromise of source or any current negotiation.
26:05And I think this is a funny time.
26:06We're working on World War II now.
26:09We're going on to the other issues of war and so on.
26:15I wonder if anybody has written anything.
26:24Uh...
26:25The thing that worries foreign diplomats is, no one is going to be concerned about World War II, but what does worry people is how quickly does what they tell us get printed.
26:39Now, a lot of things may not jeopardize our national security, but they can jeopardize their domestic position.
26:47I think I've covered that one, so it must be.
26:54And it involves current individuals or current problems.
27:01Well, I'll be through with this meeting by 10, so that gives me an hour to talk to John.
27:05I mean, I'll definitely talk to him.
27:10Okay.
27:11Anything else?
27:14No, but there's an accidental war that will surface within the next few days.
27:19You've got that done?
27:21Good.
27:21Of course.
27:22We won't get a damn bit of credit for it.
27:25Smith is going to prance around.
27:30I've thought about it.
27:31I think you should just show up to the signing ceremony.
27:35Hell, if you can show up to Intel's, Rogers would sign it, and Gromyko would sign it.
27:42But...
27:43He didn't want to show up.
27:47Well, we can leave it open.
27:48At any rate, I wouldn't leave...
27:55If you could show up for a feedback, I don't see why you can't show up just to preside and say two or three words.
28:03On accidental... Yeah, I think you should show up.
28:07You go over and drop your sign, sir.
28:09September 30th.
28:15September 30th.
28:17The breakthrough is going to happen tomorrow.
28:20And then we'll sign it September 30th, give or take a day or two.
28:27I think you should be over there, Mr. President.
28:29It's the first significant treaty.
28:34I'll just set it up that way.
28:36I don't see why on national television.
28:41They don't even know it's done yet.
28:52I think the big game for the next year has to be to keep striking new leadership in this field.
29:00We get nothing out of Roger signing the thing.
29:03He'll sign it.
29:03He'll be on television, too, so he doesn't lose anything by it.
29:09The signatories would be larger than Gromyko.
29:11You'd be just there to say a few words.
29:14Right.
29:14Helgrustrup was there when the test plan was signed, even though it was signed by Harriman.
29:22Right.
29:22I forgot the date we had put down for Peking.
29:26February 21st, wasn't it?
29:27I think 5th.
29:285th.
29:29No, then you said you didn't care about weekends.
29:37Yeah, we didn't care whether we arrived then.
29:43No, we were going to arrive on a Monday in, in, in Moscow.
29:56In Beijing.
29:57Well, I'll tell them any day you give me.
30:0025th is a Friday, yeah, I think that's what you said, and you leave on the 21st and spend a week in California.
30:13Yeah, that would get us back by March 3rd.
30:17I don't think that's good.
30:20I don't think you only have two days over the weekend.
30:23All right.
30:23The 21st is your weekend.
30:27All right.
30:27Monday, all right.
30:28And you use the preceding weekend.
30:30I think it's better to arrive on a Monday and have our business on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
30:36Right.
30:36That's the bigger television audience.
30:40That's fine.
30:40We can do it any good times.
30:42Good.
30:43So it's February 21st, March 20th, May 22nd for the Russians.
30:47Good.
30:50Now, the Queen is going crazy, pleading with me to give them an answer tomorrow.
30:55I'm going to hold off until Tuesday, saying we just can't clear the schedule that fast.
31:01They let us wait for weeks at a time.
31:03Okay, I'll be back in March.
31:07And also I want to be able to tell the Russians in good...
31:10the Chinese in good conscience that we don't have a date.
31:13I just thought, look, we're working on it, and why don't you just give it this much, and then we'll just say it should be in late May.
31:32We're having a clear discussion on it.
31:34Or whatever you want.
31:35No, if they can't do it on February 21st, I think we'll have to go to March 22nd.
31:41since the Florida primary.
31:43What the hell was that account?
31:44I will have to go to March.
31:45I don't want it that far away.
31:47March 20th.
31:48On a Monday?
31:51Yeah.
31:52The 14th.
31:5314th is Florida primary.
31:56I was worried about the Florida primary.
31:59I wasn't worried about it.
32:00If you steer clear of the hamster house, you can go right after.
32:04You can go to 13th.
32:06That's because the 13th.
32:07If there's a 7th, that was all right.
32:09Then the next could be the 13th.
32:11Okay, and particularly if we've offered the 23rd.
32:13Offered the 23rd to the 14th.
32:1513th.
32:18Let's make it the 14th and catch their superstitious trick.
32:22The 23rd to the 14th, right?
32:25Not the Chinese, the Chinese, the Americans.
32:28Yes, Paul, 13th.
32:32Yes, it is.
32:35All right, 14th, that's good.
32:39With the Russians, what was the date you figured?
32:45With the Russians, May 22nd, which is a Monday.
32:50On the green, what do you think is right?
33:00And they kept us waiting for weeks when we were really eager.
33:04But he didn't press me for the day.
33:06Oh, but he called three times yesterday.
33:08He said, now, get me an answer, Mr. President.
33:11Well, I didn't have one, Mr. President.
33:13He said, he said, he sent a message home that you were on the run and that they shouldn't give you a clear answer and that you may not confess.
33:21Then you go to P.J.
33:22and he goes, and I think they told him now, you cannot leave on vacation until you go to someone.
33:34Because he is absolutely, absolutely, I told him yesterday that I wanted people to stop talking about summits since we've been talking.
33:42I gave him the name.
33:44He called back and said, it's not the country.
33:53This has been the best.
33:57I haven't seen the brain.
34:00And this is, of course, where they're going to kill these liberals again.
34:07You've done everything different from the book.
34:11According to the book, they should have been all over us now.
34:15Oh, sure.
34:15Laos.
34:17Cambodia, Beijing.
34:17And the Caucasus, which we didn't.
34:22Roll over and play dead.
34:23There you go.
34:24That's what I told him earlier.
34:25I said, wait, you should explain all that.
34:27All these people, our negotiations are made infinitely more difficult.
34:31They had some confidence that we would protect the security of the communications.
34:43That's why we had to fight it.
34:48We don't care whether the summer's announcement is on September 15th or the 22nd.
34:51No.
34:51No.
34:51No, it's not.
34:52So I don't know.
34:57I personally would like to get the summer announcement off of an earlier date, the 15th or the 22nd.
35:11Well, but that's another reason to wait until Tuesday, because, Mr. President, if you see it melting away, we will be able to announce that, I'm sure, before the 10th.
35:22Well, if it breaks, the probability is that we can't see it.
35:31Now, I tell you, if I were Illinois, I'd go crazy.
35:33Now, what can I do?
35:34Get off the Trump pages.
35:42Well, did you?
35:44Yeah.
35:44Good.
36:18Get out of the way.
36:53She's got to bite that bullet before.
37:02You can't go on for an hour and a half.
37:16and go into this and can't hate them unless she's got some confidence in the person.
37:20And I must admit, I don't know who else the hell she could have.
37:28My dear, I have no candidates.
37:29Well, if she doesn't do what she seems to be, unless she's kind of cool on that other one, Helen Smith, but what she ought to do is just divide the thing back up, let Helen Smith handle it for us, and Lucy handle the social, and not try to put in an overall thing.
37:46It's going to be screwed up.
37:50It's going to be screwed up.
37:52Because Helen's Connie doesn't want Lucy anywhere.
37:57Well, she runs a good part of that, or some part of it.
38:03Well, here she goes.
38:03But it's up.
38:04Yeah, what I mean is that they don't.
38:07They do have a problem finding a travel in the line.
38:09Only the real point is who handles her schedule.
38:14That's what Lucy's fighting for.
38:16She wants to, uh, Lucy.
38:19And that would be, uh... To determine, do you mean her schedule?
38:22Oh, for Christ's sake.
38:27I couldn't do that because that's where the struggle has been as I've been standing there a while.
38:32Oh, I see.
38:32That would be recently happened.
38:38Definitely will become, you know, a huge problem next year.
38:46And a very important problem for us.
38:50It may sort out as we move along.
38:59Class, come back.
41:02We thought if you still want to do stew outside today, it would be the day to do it.
41:06In fact, if you were, I was going to suggest you do it after the press conference if you were going to have one.
41:15Yeah.
41:16We'll see how that goes.
41:17The other thing is, there are a couple other things that we might want to get out of the way today.
41:30They'd like to run this Harold Passer, the Department of Commerce economist, but he's agreed to defer his retirement and stay on.
41:38He's the one guy, as you know, the guy who's a decent spokesman.
41:44All right.
41:44And he's good.
41:46All right.
41:46Have you, thank you for saying that.
41:49Bill Rogers and the congressional group have urged that you take a few minutes to see Doc Morgan this week.
41:56He's going to the hospital.
42:00next week for an intestinal operation.
42:01He's very concerned about his health.
42:03And he is, said that you've got to see him because of the young liberals on the committee are trying to pressure him and he needs to have a feeling to hear.
42:15With him on the pen and all that so he can read.
42:19And though a lot of people coming with him.
42:25With him.
42:30They're urging a private signing ceremony for Sonny Montgomery and Howard Baker on the Veterans Benefit Bill.
42:35Which is their bill.
42:42It's Montgomery's first enacted bill.
42:43All right.
42:45And we can kind of put these together in, what, 3 o'clock in the afternoon and just run them through or something.
42:53Get them out of the way or do them this morning if you want to.
43:01If you want to clean up from tomorrow, we could get the interns and Arnie Weber out the way that we were going to do tomorrow.
43:05Then you won't have to worry about it.
43:10Or maybe you'd rather keep today.
43:12And I don't know, after this meeting, you can't just see Peterson or somebody and think this is a problem.
43:19I've got to keep something up here for that.
43:22I've got to hurry on something.
43:26Must be.
43:27I'll say I've got to get back to Schultz.
43:29We've got to come up a lot more.
43:33He's supposed to come.
43:34So I just want to keep it very free.
43:37What are the interns?
43:39Yeah, that we were going to do tomorrow.
43:42I don't have to talk in that room.
43:44We're glad you've been here.
43:48Just come in the office and stand up.
43:54We can go tomorrow.
43:55They finish flying tomorrow.
43:56We can run right after the NSC and just run by.
43:59I would like to have a weapon.
44:02I thought I had one.
44:03I'll have one tonight.
44:03Just to say goodbye to him now.
44:06All right, get in today.
44:07Do it all at once.
44:07Here's the call.
44:15Just take an hour and a half.
44:25That gives me plenty of time to smarten things up.
44:40Okay.
44:40We had a question.
44:41All right.
44:43You had told Rose you wanted to point it here, point it to the UN.
44:47That was your thought.
44:49Well, there's a problem on it in that it can't be confirmed.
44:52Well, we can get it confirmed, I think, but you only have four appointments.
44:57And we've already got Pat Moynihan and Alan Shepard and Art Fletcher as the three men, and then the fourth one was going to be a woman.
45:06They were either going for a Mexican woman or for Gladys Adano.
45:08I'm going to argue for Gladys Adano.
45:10I think we ought to go for a conservative Republican woman on this one.
45:15Yeah, particularly in Mexico.
45:18Yes, that's all set.
45:19That's enough.
45:24But the question is, if this is a commitment or something we need to do for sure, then we just won't appointable, but I think it's a mistake to have an all-in on the delegation.
45:35We've asked for your word and promises to my name.
45:41Yeah.
45:42And I'm told.
45:44This is the point, whoever made this up must have had his head screwed on tight because Gordon Shearer
46:12In Ohio, he's been my strongest supporter every year, every year, every year.
46:16He was put up last year, and Young, two years ago, turned him down at Old Park.
46:22I just want him appointed to something.
46:24You know, if he can't do this, then he's going to get an absolute commitment for next year, I guess.
46:33We don't owe Sheppard a goddamn thing.
46:34Can we put him on?
46:35We can, yeah.
46:41Well, he's been told, I guess, about it, but see, maybe we can't get something else.
46:44I just want you here to get some of the pregnant in you.
46:47Okay.
46:49Because he really isn't a friend.
46:52That's all.
46:53Now, confirming, you're going to get the dinner for the Japanese economic institution, is that correct?
46:56Yeah.
47:00They're proposing it's about 85 people.
47:02Yes, sir.
47:04That's what I prefer to pay.
47:05All right.
47:07All right.
47:11That has to be the 89th or 10th.
47:15It's September.
47:16Do you want to get committed to the 80th?
47:20It's early on it.
47:21And what about the 10th?
47:22Does that get into your Vietnam announcement?
47:33The 80th.
47:34Which would give you a reason for not going to the 10th and Center Road.
47:42Hopefully you don't need it that way very well.
47:44We've got a total positive story on that man.
47:47It's been thoroughly covered.
47:55It's been suggested that you invite Jackie Anastas to attend with you on the second opening night.
48:00I think that's a cheap shot.
48:01No.
48:02You give her your box on the first night.
48:04No.
48:04No.
48:05No.
48:05On the second night, you ought to be your own partner.
48:07We had the next door here to the White House.
48:08Now, we've done enough with the goddamn candy escape, but everything for us, nothing anymore.
48:12We've done all out about it.
48:16The county's not that big a thing anymore.
48:17I don't think you get that much.
48:21I've got to say, on this other thing, I've got to keep the rudiment there.
48:29The knife probably is the safer knife.
48:31Well, that's the man who goes to the Kennedy Center.
48:42I've got to see whether I'll have to wait to leave because of...
48:53Make an attempt.
48:56Seventh is, uh, it sure does some advantages.
49:00Because all the congressmen are, as they get out of here now, they're all shooting their shots, musky-headed, and all this stuff.
49:11Well, it's ridiculous.
49:12They're all sensing the same thing in the country, which is that people are saying, you gotta do something.
49:18So they all want to run in and look like they're doing something.
49:21That's why we, that's why one of the others said hello, one of them said hello, one of them said hello.
49:31Ten is a good day.
49:41Okay.
49:43Yeah, I got this.
49:53You know, I'm saying this to Henry, he really has a right to feel pretty damn proud of himself.
50:06He's worked so hard, he's thought these things through.
50:12He really does, and it's exciting, and it's, especially for a guy like him, it's just hard as hell to have all that excitement and have to get excited yourself.
50:24Secrecy isn't just bank.
50:30And yet it's drawn off a couple of the biggest secret operations in history.
50:38Maybe three.
50:39The war is not an issue now.
50:58Make sure it doesn't get lost in a positive issue.
50:59That's one of the reasons why I keep this in that video.
51:07And I'm not famous.
51:08The Democrats, I got close to them.
51:10So I came along and I said, let the Democrats get off the issue.
51:13They cut the appropriation for the investigation.
51:16They're quitting talking about it and so forth and so on.
51:22He said, all right, and I told her, he says, we're waiting because we're getting on the elections, and I told her, I said, this election's going to be done, and it's just not here.
51:32It's all there.
51:32I'm not there.
51:32All the others are going to go to the back and tell them what they did.
51:36Actually, they do.
51:41I'm going to show them.
51:41I don't miss that show.
51:42I'm going to wait with them.
51:55They're a policy in the arena, right?
51:56Oh, the Turks, those two Turks, you can't get out of the arena.
52:00The war, too.
52:00And with you with the upper hand.
52:04I mean, the Turks are...
52:05The Moscow Turks are going to have an enormous impact on taking people.
52:21Well, China will have, I still argue China's going to have more of an impact on the average guy.
52:26No question.
52:28Because there's more Michigan, so more likely.
52:32I got a, it's interesting, the impact.
52:34I got a letter yesterday, long handwritten letter, from the guy in the American embassy in Bucharest who,
52:46You may recall after you went choppy, he was a translator.
52:49He did some translating for you when you went into town after we left the...
52:56Belgrade.
52:57Belgrade.
52:57After we left the tomb, or that unknown soldier place way out, and you said you wanted to go into the city, and I said yes.
53:05He came to my body and was giving you, you know, a long-lived American family friendship, and then when we got back to the palace there, he came in and was giving me some...
53:18Phonetic.
53:18You sat down with him and talked with him for a few minutes.
53:23He had seen a picture of me in Life magazine apparently, some old issue, and it reminded him of me.
53:28He wrote me this long, four or five page handwritten letter, just saying that there's a new movie now.
53:36that's being circulated there that's a half hour movie on the Nixon visit to Romania to Yugoslavia and he said that movie and seeing my picture reminded him of the visit which he considered the high point of his life and that it always would be the high point of his life and the fact that you came in and sat down
53:57and immediately picked up the Serbo-Croatian pronunciations and had this great grasp and feel for their culture and the tremendous gesture that you made and the impact that it will have forever on the people of Yugoslavia of going into town that night and getting out of your car and being enmeshed by the crowds.
54:18It was a very emotional letter.
54:20He said, I hope you'll forgive me for posing on your time, but I just...
54:26I'm sure if you'd like any of this, I'm sure that the visits to the other countries have left that same kind of engine.
54:32That's what our vice presidential visits, we never got, of course, quite the credit for it.
54:38First, I'll cease it.
54:40Yeah.
54:40But I've got to take this in my dreams.
54:44I'll let you hear a couple of native people in Spain feel that way.
54:48All these places we've met.
54:50India, Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia.
54:52We've shaken hands with fruit packers and everything else.
54:55And Agnes really, at that point, bothers me to gnash itself.
55:01Yep.
55:01He's absolutely continuing to say that...
55:03Well, at least a typical American big shot who gets over and won't talk to anybody except the vast majority of people.
55:06Isn't that stompish?
55:07He says, how can I go in and talk to the president of the country without embarrassing me after shaking hands with a pig peddler?
55:10That's a terribly arrogant, stompish thing to say.
55:11Well, that's an un-American approach.
55:25Right?
55:25It may be that my approach is insane.
55:26My approach is not even there.
55:28My approach is what they expect Americans to be, but I don't do it like Johnson.
55:32I don't go down and grovel in the dirt with them.
55:33But you know, going out and shaking hands, showing your interest in their people, their culture and everything.
55:41Well, anyway, that's it.
55:44I really believe these trips have done in your hearts a lot of good, and I think the China-Russia trips will do good in person-to-person.
55:53Of course, I downplay them.
55:55I think any individual, because I don't want anybody to think that I think that's the main purpose, which most people think it is.
55:58The main purpose is high rural politics, that's all.
56:02Which we have a portion of here that we keep pretty much, that's a portion of history we'll carry on for.
56:10It's interesting to see what happens in China, especially when we'll be able to get to the people there.
56:14I don't know.
56:19I didn't.
56:26You may be able to do it when you get out of D. King, which is fair in arguing for doing another city.
56:36You probably can't do it while you're with Joe and Lyle.
56:38Or Lyle.
56:40I guess you don't go out in public with Lyle anyway.
56:48That's the wrestling thing I was trying to get recall yesterday.
56:51It's a very odd ending to his interview.
56:55What he said is, would it be inappropriate for me to request an opportunity to see the chairman?
57:02And Chilamai said, it will not be possible for you to see the chairman at this time because he is preoccupied with other matters.
57:10But, of course, when you return with the president, there may be that opportunity.
57:16And Rustin said, no, I don't believe I'll be returning with the president.
57:19I will keep an eye on him.
57:23between now and the time of this visit, and once he gets here, it'll be up to you.
57:26Another excuse.
57:34I agree, especially Henry, all the harm, because he'll be slaughtering all over the city when he gets back.
57:43I'm not letting you see Rustin.
57:45Don't you agree?
57:46I sure do.
57:47Don't elevate him.
57:48Don't elevate him.
57:49Don't say a word.
57:49Incidentally, Henry did give you, I've read the whole thing now, he gave you an unfair meeting on Rustin's thing.
57:57Rustin.
57:58He gave the impression, certainly gave me the impression at wrestling and going on and on about how you lacked courage.
58:04He didn't.
58:06Cho said you had courage.
58:07He said, yes, courage.
58:09But what Nixon lacks, and he had written this in an earlier article that Cho was referring to,
58:15But Nixon lacks just the boldness of de Gaulle in withdrawing from Algeria.
58:20De Gaulle looked at Algeria and said, we've lost, therefore I should get out.
58:24Nixon doesn't have that boldness in looking at Vietnam and saying, we've lost, therefore I should get out.
58:29It was that context.
58:30But he said that he is withdrawing troops and went back.
58:33And then he went on to, you were very forward-looking.
58:36He had some good stuff.
58:38And he did waffle on it.
58:40And he specifically said it.
58:42I did not come here to criticize an American president, and I would not do that.
58:49I'm sorry.
58:49I'm not arguing for getting him in here at all.
58:52Not at all.
58:54And there's just incredible arrogance in his thing.
58:58And there's a lot of stuff about how the New York Times has led the...
59:01You know, they talked about the Pentagon Papers, and they talked, and he said how the Times performed a great service in publishing those, and that the Times, and particularly Resson, had led the fight to get us out of Vietnam.
59:14Oh, I cannot point out that that is unpatriotic.
59:19Oh, it is.
59:19No question.
59:21And I've got to be kind of, it's interesting enough, also,
59:24Buchanan, when I got back to my office after the session we had in here, there was a memo in from Buchanan underlining the Breston interview saying, with a note saying, this pick-up man Breston, Breston will of course insist upon an appointment with the President immediately upon his return.
59:41Before the President decides to see him, I hope he's aware of what Breston has said while he's in Buchanan.
59:48Should I put it in?
59:48No, I wrote it.
59:49No, back to the fact that Pat had caught the same thing as it was already.
59:52We were cutting the tires off.
59:54I mean cut them off.
59:55Now, about 10 minutes, I've got to read.
1:00:00Incidentally, also, so you know the staff doesn't miss on everything.
1:00:03The killer roof phone call thing was waiting to come in.
1:00:07As soon as we broke, you had already put the call in.
1:00:11They put in the old roof, so.
1:00:14Well, I just, they hadn't seen it live the night before, and that was when I went in and they fascinated me.
1:00:19It was fine.
1:00:24We were going to buy it.
1:00:29Hmm.
1:00:29No, they do a very good job.
1:00:30Well, I must say, the excursion with Lindsay yesterday wasn't... Sure was.
1:00:33Got an enormous play.
1:00:35Tremendous.
1:00:35Partly because it wasn't in English yesterday.
1:00:37No, true.
1:00:40And he's sort of a glamour boy.
1:00:42Well, it's an interesting story.
1:00:44I got to thinking last night after we talked that it wouldn't have any impact.
1:00:52And it kind of scares me that he might do it anyway, so you can get Sam Yorty bouncing the other way, so you get the two biggest city mayors, one going one way and one going the other.
1:01:04That overall thought of it, I don't think it's done very good.
1:01:07Did you see Georgie Meaney's crime?
1:01:09No.
1:01:09Because in New York, I had to leave the jury practice.
1:01:11I told you that.
1:01:13He said he's done a pretty poor job of running the city.
1:01:15I don't think he's much asset to either party.
1:01:19Meany's comment was, I think this is good news for the Republicans and bad news for the Democrats.
1:01:24That's all we have to say about it.
1:02:51She has a cartoon showing just the horrible mess of New York City and the garbage and the traffic piled up and everything.
1:03:01One housewife is in the street talking to a housewife up in the window.
1:03:05She says, now that we have a Democratic mayor, do you think things will get better?
1:06:54Try to kill some 350 Americans every week and just say, all right, what are you talking about?
1:06:57Period.
1:06:57You had 6% of unemployment without unemployment with Jack Kennedy.
1:07:00Or a period when you had less than 6% of accounts in the war.
1:07:06You've got what should be democratic prosperity, 6% unemployment without war, less than 6% with war at the cost of war.
1:07:17We're trying to go without it.
1:07:19I just, I try to, I'm trying to get that across to them.
1:07:21That's the weakness of the,
1:07:28I don't know why they don't.
1:07:32I don't know why they will not do it.
1:07:38But every time I read their stuff, they just sort of throw it around and it's a troll.
1:07:45You start with that and you get the same.
1:07:50They won't do it.
1:07:53I guess in a way because basically they all supported that.
1:07:59I hate to do something.
1:08:01I could have missed out.
1:08:10All of those.
1:08:10Not that.
1:08:11You just got to get a service.
1:08:11That's right.
1:08:12Get up here.
1:08:32Get out of here.
1:10:12But, you know, they're always whining and so forth and so on.
1:10:16And also, they feel, I guess, they have a compulsion for always pointing out the negatives.
1:10:22It's carried to its extreme.
1:10:24You know, some of our people, even the staff people like to do that, too.
1:10:31Well, they do it because they feel that I may not know them.
1:10:35But also, I can't emphasize too strongly that while they wouldn't like to, they would never admit it, but they get a vicarious kick out of it.
1:10:48You know what I mean?
1:10:49People like to do that about people of.
1:10:50People basically like to bitch.
1:10:52They like to think you're telling them to die something that nobody else is telling them.
1:10:57They like to warn.
1:10:58They like to wreck the doers.
1:11:00That's really what, that's a human...
1:11:03trade that is very, very abundant, and it's particularly the trade with conservatives.
1:11:08Now, conservatives are that way because conservatives take the pessimistic view of life.
1:11:14I know that.
1:11:16The difficulty is that the reason that so many conservatives are worried about that as leaders is that they aren't.
1:11:25They can't.
1:11:27camouflage their pessimism.
1:11:29They don't understand it.
1:11:30Tell them to say, well, hell, rather than whining around and bitching about the problems, you've got to do something.
1:11:36You've got to beat the opposition.
1:11:39Beat all of them.
1:11:39And our people are pretty bad that way.
1:11:43They're pretty bad.
1:11:48It couldn't be more right that I could visualize what those feelings are.
1:11:52I would no more watch one of those things and have the spokesman for the group say, well, in Iowa our problem is why aren't we supporting Lieutenant Governor over the governor?
1:12:03What's the matter with the common hawk ratio?
1:12:05Why about these rural golf clubs?
1:12:07What about the busing plan?
1:12:10are exclusive.
1:12:11You know exactly that's what it would be.
1:12:13I have yet to be with any of these people without having them race.
1:12:17They're completely nonsensical.
1:12:19They should not be racing with me.
1:12:22And they don't need to come in and say, look, everything's hockey-yard or something.
1:12:27But they don't need to come in and tell their colleagues, well, boy, things are tough.
1:12:31You see, that's, boy, things are tough.
1:12:33I want to warn you, things are real tough.
1:12:35We've got a health plan, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
1:12:38All that is really wrong.
1:12:40They can talk themselves into it, too.
1:12:42Yeah.
1:12:49Well, I tell you, I wanted to wait until I... Is Erwin going to do this?
1:12:54Yes, sir.
1:12:54He's going to do this at noon.
1:12:57Oh.
1:12:58Well, I...
1:12:58I want to talk... You're going to read also?
1:13:04I'm going to go at 11.
1:13:05I don't have much, but I just want to check a couple things with you.
1:13:09I want to talk...
1:13:09I also talked to Erwin before he...
1:13:11I don't know where he is.
1:13:16Right.
1:13:16He's preparing himself this morning for the briefing on the declassification.
1:13:22Good.
1:13:22I think I'm pretty well postured on everything.
1:13:24I don't think there's a need to get into the busing thing anymore.
1:13:27That's pretty well.
1:13:28Well, I think your statement is right on all fours.
1:13:32And when I go to the new summary, as they summarize it, it's just exactly correct.
1:13:41The idea that we oppose anything except minimal busing,
1:13:48ATW, Stan Pottinger, later on in the day, found the written directive.
1:13:58The state has called two times this morning on the Irish airline matter, which they're going to announce today.
1:14:06And...
1:14:09Right, and PETA's out of town again.
1:14:15Okay, I know what it's about.
1:14:19They simply wanted me to determine whether or not you had addressed this with Flanagan, and I said, I'm sure you had.
1:14:28What they're going to do is cut off the rights of the Irish airline to land in New York because they will not allow us to land in Dublin.
1:14:41I know that Flanagan's judgment on this is right.
1:14:46No, no, not really.
1:14:57They just have called me twice.
1:14:59That's all.
1:15:00I'll call Flanagan on it.
1:15:02Be sure he's aware.
1:15:04I'm okay.
1:15:06All right.
1:15:11Then on Sir Matak's statement about the Cambodian offensive to retake the territory, I'm simply going to not get into that at all.
1:15:25If they raise a question about U.S.
1:15:27This is what he is talking about.
1:15:32It's a peril.
1:15:33It's something clear in the countryside.
1:15:36Right.
1:15:38The question would come to me, of course, on the air support, and I would just say that we have made known the President has made – we would not discuss any future operations, and the President has made no commitments on any future operations.
1:15:53our position regarding air support in Indochina has been stated, then there's no change.
1:15:57I'd rather just put it that way.
1:15:58The last thing... And not say... Our position on that...
1:16:01I have nothing to add to what we previously said on this subject.
1:16:05Right.
1:16:05And then about the development... And it just wouldn't be driven off...
1:16:09There's nothing new on this subject.
1:16:12There's nothing new on this subject.
1:16:17All right.
1:16:17I think that is the question.
1:16:18What is the old version of the function?
1:16:20I'm not sure.
1:16:21There's no commitments to it.
1:16:26I'm just saying it's not going to do anything.
1:16:28All right.
1:16:28We don't want to give any impression that we're not going to support it with air.
1:16:35All right.
1:16:35It goes without saying.
1:16:42We want to leave it at that.
1:16:43You want me to arrange for John to signate?
1:16:51I believe he said a meeting at Texas or something.
1:17:07I'll get to you.
1:17:11You're not going to breathe to 11, are you?
1:17:14No, I'm going to breathe to 11.
1:17:15He's going to breathe to 12.
1:17:17Fine.
1:17:17Well, we've hit you in before.
1:17:19I'm waiting for him, Tom.
1:17:20Come on, then.
1:17:22Mr. Brown's breather is distinguished from the client's.
1:17:32He's still got aftershocks.
1:17:35There's nothing fuzzy.
1:17:47I think Bob's saying basically about the very awesome race car.
1:18:04Well, I'm interested in McKinnon.
1:18:06He's still right.
1:18:07He probably figured that we'd be spying around Rustin when he got back.
1:18:10Rustin would come in here and tell us about Joe and what he said.
1:18:13And he's not going to tell Henry either.
1:18:15Now, you've got to keep Henry from seeing him.
1:18:19He must not.
1:18:19There ain't going to be any reconciliations in the middle of town.
1:18:23He's not going to go there.
1:18:25All that happened there is a night in the back.
1:18:27Well, I have a lot of problems.
1:18:38Well, let's just say it's good to go off.
1:18:42It's all set.
1:18:44It's all set.
1:18:44And also, Joe Lyon was awfully good.
1:18:46He would think how many things he's talking about.
1:18:48Not a goddamn thing.
1:18:49And we don't even think how many things he's talking about.
1:18:54So that's good.
1:19:01Anything that he has stored in the record with,
1:19:12I don't think you can change people, Bob.
1:22:13You just want to take a decision together.
1:22:19I think he probably sees very wisely that the key is not a substantive one.
1:22:24It's political.
1:22:24And he just, when it's partisan political, it's purely a question of buying on these guys.
1:22:29And that's one that's got to be decided by someone else.
1:22:37Sure.
1:22:38He did favor the national security thing at first because he was joining the Stansons.
1:22:43And Mitchell, he's not all out for that now.
1:22:47Apparently, he does not.
1:22:48Well, the implication is that he basically does not have doubts.
1:22:51Well, Schultz said that, but I've got to watch out.
1:22:53That's a comment that I mean, Flannigan got the same reason.
1:22:56Of course, he complained as opposed to it, too.
1:22:58Yeah, it's terrible.
1:22:58It's an effective news expression.
1:22:59People are looking at it as news.
1:23:12When it started out, I called the company and asked them what they were doing.
1:23:18They were telling them about their time.
1:23:20They were telling them what they were doing.
1:23:21He's got a lot of other things going on with his price line.
1:23:23This is one we're just going to have to look at.
1:23:32Maybe we'll have to lose him.
1:23:34I don't know.
1:23:35We'll call the business.
1:23:36I'm expecting it.
1:23:37It's a damn smart move for him.
1:23:40It's not going to be easy.
1:23:44That's just interesting to know.
1:24:25I only want to see him when he gets out of that meeting.
1:24:42Because I think we ought to tell Steve to let him know that.
1:24:49Because Henry may not tell him.
1:24:55Wait a minute.
1:25:04This is your, I don't want you calling.
1:25:17And he doesn't wait to be caught.
1:25:25He just gets in the way.
1:25:31He invades our attention.
1:25:45He's got a lot of things in his mind.
1:25:50He gets pretty, pretty ambitious about work.
1:26:53The curious thing about that is if you think about the playboy photos, except for Vietnam, it's a jackass issue that kids are interested in.
1:27:04Environment was first.
1:27:05Well, let's see this.
1:27:06Well, they're supposed to be all cranked up.
1:27:07They're searching for something to get cranked up about.
1:27:10That's the one that they're giving them the kick on.
1:27:15Environment, though, basically is, rather than being pro, is an anti-system issue.
1:27:21That's really what it's about, the environment.
1:27:24We just don't like this system.
1:27:26We don't like it.
1:27:55I think we're in progress on finishing Ron Snow.
1:27:59I guess basically we give up.
1:28:02Ron Snow should stay where he is.
1:28:03Keep Ron Snow where he is.
1:28:05And I think pretty much that's true of Mitch.
1:28:11How do we do?
1:28:13Well, I don't know.
1:28:15That's Bob's view is he should stay where he is.
1:28:17Mitchell's view is that Bob should stay where he is.
1:28:20Mitchell makes it a disaster.
1:28:22I guess he's right.
1:28:23I guess he's right.
1:28:24But he says that just you're buying too much.
1:28:27This is just totally disorganized.
1:28:30He's likely to make some horrible moves.
1:28:34Isn't that really what he gets down to?
1:28:40Well, in an area where a voodoo could be very clean, where he is, where he is laying his leases.
1:28:46Well, we can still look for another guy.
1:28:48I know who you mean.
1:28:49They've got a garage building.
1:28:50It's still there.
1:28:52Son of a... No.
1:28:56Peterson.
1:29:00He needs a bigger staff.
1:29:01He needs to really align operation, you know what I mean?
1:29:07He'd run it extremely well.
1:29:09He's a good speaker.
1:29:10He needs to be in the NSC.
1:29:11That's the kind of thing.
1:29:13I still think Congress is better for him, though.
1:29:15Yeah.
1:29:16We don't know that that's going to open up.
1:29:18Well, that's pretty good.
1:29:20Have we heard?
1:29:21Yeah.
1:29:21Combox had another session with Stanton.
1:29:24Stanton's doing the state work now and talking to Mitchell and working here.
1:29:28towards it, and I think he may do it.
1:29:29And that's the place for this fall.
1:29:33This would be perfect for him.
1:29:37And then we can let him from there run.
1:29:38Yes, I'm going to ensure it.
1:29:40Martin, you've just got to wait and hear from him, right?
1:29:44Yeah.
1:29:46Martin feels that Martin's going to the country is an excellent idea, and he suggests that the Department of Agriculture go to the country.
1:30:04That would be a good idea.
1:30:05Kansas City, maybe.
1:30:06You know?
1:30:06I think it is.
1:30:07I think you get the goddamn government out of Washington and try to get right out of there.
1:30:10Hell, you get the Congress Department out of the country, too.
1:30:14All right.
1:30:15And you'll say we're going to operate from here for a month in the regional office.
1:30:19The Secretary of Congress is there and he goes in and out.
1:30:23He's a big, he's a big dude.
1:30:23Well, I love that.
1:30:24Rock's done a beautiful job.
1:30:25Rock is just perfect.
1:30:26Not only has he put himself in Denver, but he's set up this Cloverleaf pattern where he's touring the whole, he's over-covered the entire West.
1:30:34and damn solidly.
1:30:35And he senses, I'm sure, that the West doesn't like the Eastern Secretary of the Interior and all that, and he's making himself a West Senator in his own way.
1:30:44And he sounds like one, talks like one.
1:30:46Looks like one.
1:30:46And like I've mentioned on guns, I don't want to bark around asking 18 different people about guns, because...
1:30:58The moment you get into that, the electrical next thing I know, anybody else.
1:31:03What we really need there, what we need, is a politician.
1:31:11I thought about putting a third farmer in there.
1:31:13And what you buy there, obviously, when somebody wants to tell you, tell you what we've got in programs.
1:31:26There aren't any.
1:31:27That's what it feels like.
1:31:28Did you read his scenario with the chance speeches?
1:31:56Yes.
1:31:58What do you think?
1:31:59Isn't there good?
1:32:00Yeah, I think they need some tightening up, but I think he's closer to being on the right track than he usually is for this kind of thing.
1:32:08Now, one thing I may have given the wrong impression when I said he should write, I don't really mean that he could.
1:32:16He'll never get enough.
1:32:17It'll take him three years.
1:32:19What he should do, I think he could do one.
1:32:22Andrews would do one.
1:32:23But what you should edit so that we finally get a subreddit.
1:32:27So you can't have, for example, Sapphire, you can't have the one because their styles are so reckonsome.
1:32:31But if that's what you get by Price is True, it's really not just Price is True, but I want Price to do some tougher editing on these so that they become basically mine.
1:32:43See?
1:32:45But I think that he did good.
1:32:46I think that you were telling me that if I got to cover the other things that they didn't want you to do, you were telling me that I eventually, this morning, I didn't want to leave the impression that I expected him to write every word that I wanted him to.
1:33:00I wanted to use this to particularly cook the other call.
1:33:03Maybe the priest can write one.
1:33:09You know, I was trying to tell him, in a subtle way, to stand up strong and knock him down.
1:33:23That catches attention to people, and that's what gets them excited.
1:33:31That's the political way.
1:33:36No, just that the radio speeches are, the press is going to say, what the hell is he doing about that?
1:33:44They won't understand it at all.
1:33:45But I think across the country, they could have quite the effect.
1:33:53With people.
1:33:54They won't get good press by all of them.
1:33:57I'd be pissed off as a matter of fact, because what the hell is this all about?
1:34:02That it's down in emulated fires, out of jets, and so forth.
1:34:04But what it is, the way I see it, as a way to publicize it, is it's a series of speeches on the bicentennial, if you know them, the American bicentennial era.
1:34:17And that's an overall title of what is America, or what America wants to be.
1:34:24But we are what we want to be, and we want it for some damn thing.
1:34:28I don't know that one.
1:34:31I can still come back to the point that you mentioned on the kitchen.
1:34:35In this whole two and a half years, which it should have been three years, we have yet to get a...
1:34:47I didn't like it.
1:34:50Peace Corps, right?
1:34:53Job Corps?
1:34:54Upward bound, head start.
1:34:55Can't be, I couldn't even name our helicopter or something.
1:35:03Is this, maybe it's just out of the question.
1:35:09Is this a, you've been around track on this, haven't you?
1:35:13Yeah, over and over.
1:35:17You know, Earl, his crew went around again, trying to put their thing together for next year, and they stopped.
1:35:26That didn't do much.
1:35:28It was all right.
1:35:30Well, it did.
1:35:31It gave us a kick for a while in that area, and it still gave us a kick.
1:35:42I saw it in another place.
1:35:43We're only throwing off 3.5 million babies a year now instead of 4 million, and that's a hell of a drop.
1:35:50And his point is different.
1:35:52All our trust was build more schools, train more teachers, and there's some interesting sociological implications that he doesn't draw, but they're clearly there, which are, for instance, that the teacher class, when we were in school, and even up to the 60s, was old.
1:36:08Because the last time there was a big surge in teachers was in the 20s.
1:36:13And so the people that became teachers in the 20s were still the teachers in the 60s and were old people and believed in America.
1:36:20He doesn't say that specifically.
1:36:23Then what happened is if you had a hell of a lot of people going to college, you had, as it was all debated in the late 40s and the 50s, in the late 60s they'd been in college.
1:36:39If Selena, 5 million, had become teachers, the teacher population now is very young.
1:36:47Much younger than it's ever been.
1:36:50Because there were so many college graduates, not only was it a big baby boom, but the percentage going to college, of course, went way up.
1:36:58And there wasn't enough need for college-educated people, except in teaching, to capitalize on the other side of the baby boom.
1:37:06So you've got a lot of young teachers now.
1:37:09And that's one of the problems you're faced with.
1:37:12And we're still breeding a lot more teachers than we have the ability to absorb.
1:37:17And we're breeding a hell of a lot more college graduates than we have the ability to absorb.
1:37:22And the other pieces he builds is the terrible problem of capital formation.
1:37:28And he gets into the jobs question.
1:37:31because of the productivity, but it also makes the point that the real key is capital.
1:37:37Because it takes a lot of capital to produce a job.
1:37:42And the higher level the job is, the more capital it takes to produce it.
1:37:45And the more college graduates you have, the greater the need you have for so-called higher-level jobs.
1:37:50It takes less capital to produce a job for a digital engineer than it does for an accountant or a computer operator.
1:37:59So he's making a point that we are going to have an enormous need for capital, and if we don't generate it, we are going to have a very long-range unemployment problem at a high level.
1:38:11And then he goes to productivity and says the other problem you've got with productivity is, and this is probably perfectly obvious to the George Shultz who is very funny, productivity.
1:38:21There's nobody who has proven that the productivity of high-level people has increased at all.
1:38:29The productivity of laborers, you can measure.
1:38:32They produce more bricks per hour or more tons of steel per hour.
1:38:36But a school teacher doesn't produce more knowledge per hour than she did 50 years ago.
1:38:42Nor do most others.
1:38:45people in that category.
1:38:46All services are all lousy.
1:38:48All services.
1:38:49And that's his point.
1:38:50First of all, you can't measure productivity in services.
1:38:53And secondly, to the degree that you can guess at what it is, it isn't increasing.
1:38:57And yet those people, the white collar and so-called, they should be paid more than blue collar.
1:39:02And as blue collar productivity escalates, and therefore their wages escalate, the white collar people will stay on top and have to go out without any increase in productivity.
1:39:10And they're in monetary problems.
1:39:11Thank you.
1:39:14And he doesn't deserve much of a solution, except that you've got to keep working at the productivity side of it.
1:39:23And you've got to recognize that the population balance shift is going to have to do with the time.
1:39:31This is the thing that Peterson's been scrapping around in the actions of.
1:39:35You've got to find a new alphabet, a new order for the Americans.
1:39:46the potential capacity to produce in here.
1:39:49The war is gone, and the space thing is down, so that's why you gotta do space programs.
1:39:54You gotta have a move, that's where the whole applied scientist thing is called extended foreign trade.
1:40:02Give this to, pass that article.
1:40:03A lot have actually seen it.
1:40:06I agree with you.
1:40:09But I'd like to have the council,
1:40:15I mean, economic advisors, uh, I mean, I haven't commented upon it yet sometimes.
1:40:23We'll all fool around about it.
1:40:30Peterson also.
1:40:34It's a real problem.
1:40:35Shultz, those three.
1:40:35And, frankly, the Domestic Council.
1:40:38The Domestic Council, uh, Peterson's Council, and the CDS.
1:40:47What about teachers is so true.
1:40:49There used to be a, there was a time there was a teacher shortage, now there's a teacher surplus.
1:40:52And that's a hell of a problem, isn't it?
1:40:53Yes, it is.
1:40:55And what are you going to do with those people?
1:40:59They're going to become revolutionaries, aren't they?
1:41:04And they are all, so many of them are so young.
1:41:08You don't have a good balance of ages.
1:41:10You don't have...
1:41:12enough of the good old line teachers to, I've seen it in our kids' schools, I haven't really been aware of it.
1:41:22And there are a few of the old types, and they're just sensational.
1:41:25Like I was saying all of a sudden, there's one old English teacher that's totally good.
1:41:29The old school type English teacher, you know, who stands there with a ruler and whacks them in the head and, you know, makes them parse sentences and figure it all out.
1:41:38But I've gotten that when they're done, and no English, kids can read and write and read and write.
1:41:43diagram a sentence and understand how to write all the diagram sentences.
1:41:47That's how I learned how to organize a speech.
1:41:49That's why you have so many people who have come in, the younger generation,
1:41:54IQs and modernity that goddammit can't put a sentence together to help themselves.
1:42:00They really can't.
1:42:00They aren't organized.
1:42:01They can't be organized, I mean.
1:42:03Well, the schools don't train to be organized because they're a variable cycle of creative impulses.
1:42:07That's the new then.
1:42:08And everybody still is disciplined because of them.
1:42:11Free hand painting, they call it.
1:42:14Yeah.
1:42:15Therefore, that's what it is.
1:42:16That's what it is.
1:42:17In art, they, Christ, in art, they give them a piece of paper and all these different colors and they say, just slosh it on and do what you feel.
1:42:23Where it used to be in art, the discipline was to learn perspective, learn how to make a, to receive in the distance and all that sort of stuff before you started being creative.
1:42:36In music now, don't learn cables and finger drills anymore.
1:42:41That cycles, you know, takes all the interest out of it.
1:42:44Now you sit down and learn to play rock and roll right away.
1:42:48Of course, anybody can.
1:42:49You can take a simple melody and play it all in the key of G and learn three chords.
1:42:54And a one-figure melody, and you can make it sound like something on the piano with one lesson.
1:43:05G major, C major, and D7, and you're ready to roll.
1:43:06You can play half the songs there are.
1:43:08I was reading a part of it in the book.
1:43:10But too much emphasis on the form and all that sort of thing.
1:43:23It stifles creativity on the other hand.
1:43:35I don't know if he looked at any of the, I assume they were in an air house, any of the paintings that Mrs. Dreyfuss has done there, just absolutely god-awful in there because she doesn't have any technical skills.
1:43:48She's obviously, someone told her to be creative, so she sloshes this stuff on.
1:43:53And there's no reason, well, I guess there's some economic value, but there's no color.
1:44:01thing to it, and there's no structural thing to it.
1:44:04It's all just a mess.
1:44:09But the expression, I bet she's got a messed up mind.
1:44:11I think so.
1:44:15Looking at the paintings, that would sure think so.
1:44:27Let the mind and spirit soar.
1:44:30Don't tie it down and all these other things.
1:44:36And there's something, too, that, you know, we have too much of a grudge.
1:44:41I mean, the teacher made too much of a grudge.
1:44:45But they have to learn that the mind can't soar in a shoe.
1:44:50A shoe builds some wings.
1:44:51You know, learn how to fly.
1:44:52And they don't, they just, they just, they just leave that out, don't they?
1:44:56You're just supposed to sew around there.
1:44:57You need to acquire a few fundamentals first, and then you can sew it.
1:45:02Whether it's music, or painting, or writing, or any technical thing.
1:45:07Thank God you got us out of that horrible Kennedy Center opening.
1:45:17I don't sit through that mess.
1:45:21They're not going to run it the next night, are they, the same mass?
1:45:24Yeah, but at the other theater.
1:45:26You won't be at it.
1:45:27It runs ten performances.
1:45:27Oh.
1:45:28But there are three theaters.
1:45:30There are only two of which will be open.
1:45:32And I'm going to open one.
1:45:33You're going to...
1:45:33They open one the first night, and they open the other one the second night.
1:45:36Then on the second night, when they're opening a concert hall where you will be with the symphony, they will also be doing a second performance of the Bernstein Mass in the Opera House.
1:45:44The Opera House will be using it?
1:45:48Yeah.
1:45:50but there's not a hell of a lot of difference.
1:45:53I would think the concert hall has to be pretty big and underdone.
1:45:56It's pretty big and they've done a spectacular job.
1:45:59Is it nice?
1:46:02I think it's pretty well done aesthetically, but it's spectacularly well done mechanically, technically.
1:46:11The concert hall is patterned after the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
1:46:17It's a long, rectangular...
1:46:21Narrow hall.
1:46:22Well, it's like a kind of small box, which is also the same thing.
1:46:25It's a long rectangular hall with an orchestra that goes all the way back, and then a box section that goes all the way around it.
1:46:34It put the presidential box at the center in the back, which is where it should be, instead of on the side where the D.A.R.
1:46:41is.
1:46:41And it's technically big.
1:46:48I think it's absolutely sensational.
1:46:51We struggled with building theaters out in L.A. and never got one right.
1:46:56I think they've got all three of them right.
1:46:58The third theater is the Eisenhower Theater.
1:47:00It'll be for plays and night productions.
1:47:05If they ever get around to opening that, you probably ought to go to the opening of that, too, because of it being Eisenhower.
1:47:14They're going to open that with Ibsen's Dollhouse.
1:47:17The Dollhouse.
1:47:24All right, let's go.
1:47:44One of the reasons why you're actually right, having these folks be first is the length of that meeting.
1:47:52They've been an hour and a half, and they're hacking around.
1:47:54Oh, those meetings are unbelievable.
1:47:55I made the mistake of going to one of Ben Schultz's office on, oh, that one on desegregation on the school bus scene.
1:48:00They just go on and on.
1:48:01That one where they had Ben Schultz and all those important people.
1:48:04They all talk, and they're not, they're so-called unstructured, you know.
1:48:11God save me from unstructured meetings in the sidewalk.
1:48:17Board.
1:48:18And that's when they all know the issues and they're all clear.
1:48:20I don't know what there is to talk about.
1:48:22All know the issues.
1:48:22What somebody ought to be able to say, now look here, I split it away all perfect.
1:48:25Here's the problem.
1:48:25You've got to do this or that.
1:48:27What do you call that?
1:48:28Fifteen minutes of goddamned ambience.
1:48:30You know, they'll hang a rope around each face and call a long speech about things that are obvious.
1:48:36It's this, this impulsion of people to get up and star about things that are obvious.
1:48:40That's probably the Congresswoman's interest.
1:48:46They want to get up and tell you about things.
1:48:48Father.
1:48:49Why not dominate?
1:48:51Son of a gun.
1:48:53We should have gone with you.
1:48:57Well, we've got to keep, but I don't hear any manners.
1:49:02Well, they've done this.
1:49:08I've got to see.
1:49:09He'll shift.
1:49:09You'll see that he's on the wrong foot.
1:49:11One day, everybody else will shift, and he'll be a lot done better.
1:49:21I thought we had much worse backlash from the right.
1:49:41because it's been so symbolic to him.
1:49:50We're making very big plays in this.
1:50:08We've got George Olsen.
1:50:10thinking in positive terms with regard to the need to win the election.
1:50:13I just put it to him, I said to him, George, you can't do anything to this thing, else we're around.
1:50:26They're running.
1:50:26I said, so, that's the overriding argument.
1:50:33I said, forget everything else.
1:50:34Don't do it.
1:50:34And, uh, right then, I started the initials argument on the textiles.
1:50:37True, but the point is, uh,
1:50:40He's absolutely right.
1:50:40We live in a world of textiles only, but we live in a world of textiles and steel and automobiles, too.
1:50:43Now, what the hell do we do about those?
1:50:46That's the point.
1:50:48And to argue, well, we didn't make a pledge on those, but God can't do that.
1:50:53Pledge, no pledge.
1:50:53We fought the battle of Texas, and also what counts is what happens next year on it.
1:51:07We'll put an appeal, but how are they going to do it?
1:51:11What could the nanograms do in the future?
1:51:16I don't know if they'll shape themselves up.
1:51:17I don't think they're gonna do anything that we do.
1:51:22Incidentally, I hope that you are.
1:51:26You do bring him in a lot, Bob.
1:51:28You know, after all, he is conservative.
1:51:31And is he brought in with everything so that he can participate enough?
1:51:36He's just not around enough.
1:51:38Now, consequently, he feels he's out on things.
1:51:40I don't want John Rickman and those folks to have the impression that they're a little glee.
1:51:45And, you know what I mean?
1:51:47You've got to watch any arrogance in staff.
1:51:48You must watch them carefully.
1:51:52Because it's always like Harry is purely sensitive to it.
1:51:55They've got to have him on their way out there and wheeling around.
1:52:00So you just be sure that Harry is, it's a continuing problem.
1:52:02I think you're probably right.
1:52:04They don't intend it, but they've got to remember that Harry, he's keeping our lives under control, a lot of Southerners, but others, and bring him in.
1:52:14Whenever you have a political discussion, bring Harry in, you know?
1:52:19I must say, I thought, once we got Tyler out of there, that we could solve his problems.
1:52:22But he still feels he isn't in enough, I guess.
1:52:25I don't think too much of his reason.
1:52:27Well, he didn't mention me at all, but I just sort of sensed it.
1:52:30So I just didn't want to do that.
1:52:31I was a little bit down.
1:57:01But there's a lot you read, these criticisms of the president being isolated, manipulated, and things like that.
1:57:08With the wrong kind of president, that can be so easy to do.
1:57:11It's true of all leaders.
1:57:14So easy to do.
1:57:15A court, a palace guard, and a true little Prince Joseph.
1:57:17And they are the dependent and top positions of leadership.
1:57:21They only have you.
1:57:23They have their friends.
1:57:25And consequently, the people that are able to do them have hope.
1:57:32The difference in my cases that I have, frankly, I don't talk to anyone.
1:57:39I don't accept anyone.
1:57:41You take, for example, if you've given all the rules of your prosecution at all.
1:57:49It doesn't depend on the trial.
1:57:52And that's an ice and harvest influence, by the way, John.
1:57:56It's very weird.
1:58:02I have, but there's no question Henry is, of course Henry Marlowe is a great strength, and most others would call him a great weakness.
1:58:11I mean, because they, the way that they're taught in business school and in college and so forth, it all seems to remain the way these guys are trying to make business.
1:58:19You sit around and talk about it, and they look open, and you say, well, that's what we're going to do.
1:58:24That isn't the way to do it.
1:58:25That isn't the way to lead.
1:58:27And no great general doesn't read the history of war.
1:58:29If he does, he gets his ass beat.
1:58:31And no political leader who's worth a damn doesn't.
1:58:35You've got to find out what the facts are and just track it.
1:58:37You've got to talk to a lot of people and spread your mind out there and so forth.
1:58:45You can't.
1:58:46I must say the
1:58:47But I had to make these decisions on China, decisions on Russia, decisions on Cambodia.
1:58:54I made the decisions.
1:58:57I mean, the idea that it's so ridiculous to think that Rogers or Laird or anybody like that came in.
1:59:05Henry, it would influence him, but he was great, great.
1:59:08He put both sides of it.
1:59:10Well, he influenced you as a technician, didn't he?
1:59:13Also, he made sure everything was there.
1:59:16We never said no.
1:59:18You're not susceptible to being, you question too much anything.
1:59:25You don't accept things at face value from anyone.
1:59:27You don't accept them from Henry.
1:59:29And that's really where your strength is.
1:59:31And it was basically Roosevelt's technique, FDR's technique was different in doing it, because he intentionally played them off of each other.
1:59:43And got a sadistic joy out of it, which you don't do, but you do play them off each other in your own way.
1:59:52Without their knowing it, without their feeling played off, which is the hell of a better way to do it, to come up with a second result.
2:00:04And if you do it, it's not to worry about the low, low decisions.
2:00:07Let someone else decide.
2:00:10So that you can't worry in depth over the big ones.
2:00:16And that, most people are still going to understand and really can't, and probably never will accept, I mean, to them.
2:00:21The big ones, each one is a big one and they can't understand why you don't become totally involved in one.
2:00:28On that petrochemical thing, Keith Langdon had written a seven-page memorandum.
2:00:31He said you had to read it.
2:00:33I said, Pete, you just have to put it down on one page, say who's on which side and what you recommend.
2:00:41And let it go at that.
2:00:42Then if you feel that he has to have the seven-page thing attached to it, you look at it if he wants to.
2:00:48He came out late and said, well, you were right.
2:00:50He didn't even read the one-page thing all the way through.
2:00:53And obviously there was no need for part two.
2:00:56No, we already decided it.
2:00:58We made a deal.
2:00:59We had to keep the deal.
2:01:01So I said, what's the least cause to get it done?
2:01:03Why screw around?
2:01:04Why don't we get involved in all that crap?
2:01:07No, they should.
2:01:07They should.
2:01:08That's what you have to stand for.
2:01:10They're supposed to make all those things true.
2:01:11Exactly.
2:01:12But when that stuff comes into me, I go through that stuff fast.
2:01:14And the reason is that I look at who signed it, who sent it in, and I just sign it.
2:01:19Well, and the other thing is that on any of those that are close cause, you probably are right if you decide either way.
2:01:29You really are, like the petrochemical plant.
2:01:31It probably, actually doesn't matter which way you decide.
2:01:34Because you're screwing some people one way and other people another, and affecting some one way and some another.
2:01:46The need to keep the mind free of detail, to stay and hear and make your sense of the situation is still in that need.
2:01:55All right.
2:01:561120 is the best time for kissing your girl.
2:02:01Okay.
2:02:01Together.
2:02:02Sure.
2:02:03We couldn't get the girls out of here.
2:02:31And that, most people around here still don't understand, and really can't, and probably never will accept, I mean, to them.
2:02:37The big ones, each one is a big one, and they can't understand why you don't become totally involved in one.
2:02:43On that petrochemical thing, Pete Langdon had written a seven-page memorandum.
2:02:46He said you had to read it.
2:02:48I said, Pete, you just have to put it down on one page, say who's on which side, and what you recommend.
2:02:56And let it go at that.
2:02:57Then if you feel that he has to have the seven-page thing attached to it, he'll look at it if he wants to.
2:03:03He came out late and said, well, you were right.
2:03:04He didn't even read the one-page thing all the way through.
2:03:07And there obviously was no need for it, too.
2:03:10No, we'd already decided.
2:03:11We had it.
2:03:13We made a deal.
2:03:14And he did.
2:03:14So I said, what's the least cause to get it done?
2:03:18Why should we get involved in all that crap?
2:03:21No, they should.
2:03:23David, that's what you had to stand for.
2:03:24They're supposed to think all those things through.
2:03:26Exactly.
2:03:27But when that stuff comes into me, I go through that stuff fast.
2:03:30And the reason is that I look at who signed it, who sent it in, and I just sign it.
2:03:35Well, and the other thing is that on any of those that are close calls, you probably are right if you decide either way.
2:03:42Sure.
2:03:44You really are.
2:03:44Like the petrochemical thing.
2:03:46It probably actually doesn't matter which way you decide.
2:03:50Because you're screwing some people one way and other people another.
2:03:53You end up hitting some one way and some another.
2:04:01I need you to keep the mind free of detail.
2:04:03To stay accurate and make sure some of your son's situation is still in that meeting.
2:04:10You don't sit in meetings every week.
2:04:1211.20 is the meeting for two of us.
2:04:16Alright, 11.20 is the best time for kissing your girl.
2:04:19Okay.
2:04:25Oh, my.
2:04:27And the people aren't here anymore.
2:04:33Stand down.
2:04:55One of the signing passes said that the president signed this bill.
2:04:58He tried to get it.
2:04:59He tried to reach you, but you were already out of the city for the signing ceremony.
2:05:02But he thought you would like to have the pen with which he signed the bill.
2:05:06He said,
2:05:23You're not going to be able to write a lot more than this.
2:06:51Now this is one that's a hell of a big deal and of course I should go.
2:07:12Yes, I do.
2:07:12Very much so.
2:07:14I'm all about that ball.
2:07:44That's one where it's worth your getting.
2:07:46You know, those ceremonies do get television coverage, and it'll get you on TV, tied to this horse that you ought to be on.
2:07:52All that, so it's, it's a good thing to do.
2:08:02trappings and the set up and all the billheads versus what Conner's got.
2:08:06I was just appalled going over that treasury.
2:08:09Conner?
2:08:09Yeah.
2:08:09I know what building you mean.
2:08:11Yeah, well, in that crappy office that he's got and, you know, no... Of course, this place, it wasn't much.
2:08:18It still isn't.
2:08:18It wasn't much at all when he came in.
2:08:20Except this room.
2:08:22This room is spectacular.
2:08:23And the building, the basic building is spectacular, but it was ruined.
2:08:28It's now back to being pretty good shape.
2:08:29Charming.
2:08:30Charming.
2:08:31But it's, uh, that was a lot, that was not what a nice office it is, but it's not done very well.
2:08:39Nothing in there was.
2:08:40All those offices are terrible.
2:08:43There's big EOB type halls that they, you know, want to rework.
2:08:47But then you go over to Bill's and my God, you go through six anti-rope, beautifully paneled and carpeted before you get to Bill's office.
2:08:56Nobody in them, just acres of empty rooms.
2:08:57Sorry for my bad.
2:08:59It is.
2:08:59Just around here, the best thing we did was to clear the press out of that room.
2:09:05It was a disgrace to the living.
2:09:06Highest order of disgrace.
2:09:07It was.
2:09:08And people come through that.
2:09:11This is the plan.
2:09:14And it's very nice now.
2:09:14It is damn nice.
2:09:16The press out of a damn good course.
2:09:20As we're getting around, it was worth it to get them out of there.
2:09:22And it's, uh, certainly...
2:09:27That's why I'm so interested about that rub-down room.
2:09:34It's so unfair, you know.
2:09:36For Christ's sake, this whole journey was used for rub-down rooms.
2:09:40There were two goddamn rooms.
2:09:41Two.
2:09:41There were three of them.
2:09:42Three rub-down rooms and a sauna in the goddamn place.
2:09:46Separate shower facilities.
2:09:50It was nice.
2:09:50Bicycle riding.
2:09:52Sure.
2:09:52A whole jam.
2:09:53Plus the swimming pool.
2:09:55They got rid of the gym and the swimming pool.
2:09:58They had three rubbers.
2:09:59Now they had a women's section as well as a men's.
2:10:03Two men, a women, and a sawdust.
2:10:05And, uh, what was it?
2:10:07One of Dave Longer.
2:10:09I'm just looking up the son of a bitch.
2:10:16They've got, they think, uh,
2:10:20just be for our own satisfaction.
2:10:22Apparently one of those staff guys, they think they got on a rape charge in Roeville.
2:10:25Where?
2:10:27Woody Roeville.
2:10:29Who'd he rape on?
2:10:31A rape charge on him.
2:10:33Is there anything around here that's breathing?
2:10:35Apparently it's been suppressed or something.
2:10:40It may not turn up.
2:10:41It might go through my eyes.
2:10:42I don't know if he kind of satisfied them.
2:10:45He might have killed them.
2:10:52Oh, that's not sure he's a little nuts.
2:10:57He is a little bit screwy, isn't he?
2:11:06He's been good on a lot of things.
2:11:08He's hit hard on some things.
2:11:10We wanted to hit hard and stirred up some things in the direction we wanted, but he's had to drive it.
2:11:17He's dramatic enough.
2:11:18Well, he wants to make a big...
2:11:23I'd like to see the Democrats switch.
2:11:30Why would they have to already switch?
2:11:31Well, he might, if we were not, if we didn't.
2:11:33We might be able to get it to him if we wanted it to.
2:11:37What would we have to pay if he wants to be something?
2:11:45Well, he knows what he wants to be is Secretary of Defense.
2:11:48Or Secretary of State.
2:11:50He's not a leader of
2:11:53Instead, we could probably be investigating each other.
2:11:56Oh, shit.
2:11:56We probably have a long line.
2:12:04I suspect that there are several candidates.
2:12:12One thing we could be sure of is that after that comes,
2:12:19It will not be a career mistake you are to make, Lieutenant.
2:12:29I am not going to trust those bastards ever again.
2:12:33It would just make them over-knowingly present.
2:12:34They are going to have them all by now.
2:12:36That's not where we should be at.
2:12:38If you do it, you should be at Nixon.
2:12:42Solid Nixon, then.
2:12:43I will wait.
2:12:46I'm working for them for all of these years.
2:12:48I understand.
2:12:55Well, he's never sure whether you're kidding or whether you're sounding something out.
2:13:09So he assumes that it's serious.
2:16:11Well, when I say nothing, I mean, they're on retirement.
2:16:14I don't know if they have a Senate retirement.
2:16:20Will they contribute to that?
2:16:21Yeah, but that will not take anything because he hasn't been in office for that long.
2:16:30What I'm going to say, you see, is when he leaves, there's no secret service.
2:16:40There is money.
2:16:41Well, yeah, that's right, but he's got a job at $500,000 a year, doesn't he?
2:16:45Because he can spend a couple hundred thousand on it for staff and limousines and all that, and deduct it so he won't be able to keep his money.
2:16:53He'll do all right.
2:16:55He'll do the tracking that I do.
2:16:56Just make the money to live well.
2:16:59He can't save it anyway.
2:17:03He'll move more.
2:17:06Or to capitalize on.
2:17:08I don't think he'll have a part in this group.
2:17:13You know, I think they just will play a shot.
2:17:18I just can't.
2:17:25All right, you talked to Mitchell.
2:17:27He won't be thinking about a political thing down the road.
2:17:31I don't think he'll.
2:17:35I really don't think that when he pulls out, you know, he'll be here as a public, political candidate.
2:17:39He really ought to get his shoulders and maybe even beat him in the press.
2:17:45Because now he can do the next one.
2:17:53It really could be quite something.
2:17:55He could be a real hell of an impact.
2:17:59More than he has his vice president.
2:18:14So on the city road for us, too, we have to be a little effort into making sure we have the right stuff every day.
2:18:24But it would be worth it.
2:18:31More people in the management side.
2:18:49Do you think you would have actually been horrible to watch your talk if you hadn't made a hollow adage like this?
2:18:54Yeah.
2:18:54It's horrible to embrace a question.
2:19:02Yeah.
2:19:11Okay.
2:19:11What time is it?
2:19:12They've already done it, haven't they?
2:19:14Wow.
2:19:15It's not raising a point.
2:19:16It's just saying, well, the first, there's no point in worrying about alternatives unless this other, you know, it's the first step is due.
2:19:27It just may leave Bob with a resignation that is too hard to pull.
2:19:35Well, it may be, but it may not be.
2:19:37It should just be, certainly, he would be better to resign and stay in there and be, you know, the most fortunate.
2:19:45and be driven out and finally be able to say, I choose not to run.
2:19:47See, if you're going to say, I choose not to run now, then it's a lame duck, and you should get the hell out.
2:19:53That's what you should do.
2:19:54If you have every empty name, you have to keep it.
2:21:17Well, I think that's, well, Washington Star had a good editorial defending him last night.
2:21:21They did, you know, just slamming Newsweek on their cheap shots and lousy journalism.
2:21:28Good.
2:21:28Oh, man, Newsweek did print the ambassador's letter.
2:21:30Well, I didn't say anything.
2:21:33They just ran it in the letters to the editor-in-comm to get rid of it.
2:21:45The star hit, uh, the star went quite as strong as the drugs.
2:21:48I knew it was going to give cheap shots that hurt.
2:21:52You know, they hit him one by one.
2:21:53They stared at him for pronouncing Kenya wrong.
2:21:56They said, so what?
2:21:57Everybody called him Kenya.
2:21:58Yeah.
2:22:00But you know, that isn't worth getting chomping on.
2:22:03And they spared because they gave him a monkey skin robe.
2:22:05And I failed to point out that that is the highest honor that a Kenyan can bestow on somebody, is the sacred monkey or something.
2:22:13In fact, it's equivalent to the robes.
2:22:18They reserve them for what?
2:22:23that he and his pretty red-headed secretary watched the rhinoceros populating at the hunting lodge.
2:22:28They left out the fact that there were about 20 other people there, including high government officials, and that they were watching the animals at the waterhole.
2:22:36There were a whole bunch of them, of animals.
2:22:38And Dr. Kissinger and General Cavalier did some of this.
2:22:45Yeah.
2:22:47Oh, good.
2:22:48Did they get it back within 20 minutes, or 2 hours, or 40 minutes?
2:22:52They didn't get it back.
2:22:53Well, fortunately, they should have.
2:22:56That's a straight lie.
2:22:58See?
2:22:59What happens is that the substantive meeting was on the 15th, and that's the 8th, and that's the 10th.
2:23:03So it's almost a lie with some substance in it.
2:23:17You're going to go on at 12.
2:23:25Yes, sir.
2:23:25Before we do that, though, so that I want to be sure, did Chels talk to you?
2:23:35about the South Carolina bus.
2:23:38I just came out of a meeting that's going on right now.
2:23:41Yeah.
2:23:42All right.
2:23:42I just wanted to be sure that, I mean, he came to me and said, can I say that you approve it?
2:23:47And I said, well, check it early to be sure.
2:23:49I don't know whether he's on too.
2:23:51We've got with Mark, we've got the Attorney General and the ATW people up there in all the maps.
2:23:55And we're going over the things.
2:23:58There's no lawsuit.
2:24:03The fire department is not involved.
2:24:07And why do we have to say that we approve what?
2:24:09See, that's the point.
2:24:10That's what I asked George.
2:24:11He came back and said that we approve this thing.
2:24:14Well, I don't believe it.
2:24:15We're now developing a line up there that I think will result in our saying to the school board, you folks do what you've been trained to do.
2:24:23Look, he didn't hold it yet, and Mitchell got it very well in hand.
2:24:27He's not supposed to.
2:24:28Good.
2:24:29Good.
2:24:29All right, so he's stuck.
2:24:30You see the truck.
2:24:31George actually comes after him in this because he's supposed to be the chairman of everything.
2:24:35But, John, he must not, in this field, make a man run as Mitchell.
2:24:40I understand.
2:24:41That's all right.
2:24:42It's through back.
2:24:43It is a problem.
2:24:44And he's got it under hand.
2:24:45Right.
2:24:45All right.
2:24:47What we have here is a strategy, so that you can know the political strategy and then we can do anything you want with the outline.
2:24:57The political strategy here is very, very important to us at this time.
2:25:00Because we do not want to remain in regard to the Ulster and other cases that will happen at the end of these elections.
2:25:09It's very important for us to keep
2:25:16The Democratic High, this fall, with regard to the Pentagon Papers, now their strategy has not become very clear.
2:25:24They have cut down to the minimus the appropriation for the investigating committees in the House and Senate.
2:25:32They don't want it.
2:25:33They have instructed all their candidates, for granted, not all the guns, they don't talk about the Pentagon Papers anymore.
2:25:39They're frightened to death of the duty.
2:25:41It's very much in our interest
2:25:44to have them in a position.
2:25:45Now, what we are doing for your information is this.
2:25:48We are setting it up so that after these elections, after we get past 10 o'clock, that the, that then we play ball here
2:26:05But after that time, having the Armed Services Committee of the House and Assembly come up with, together, they'll have some hearings about the, how the damn thing happened and so forth, and the stuff can be serviced.
2:26:22The main purpose is to bring jackasses like caravan in and arrest and ask them whether it's true or not true as to what they did.
2:26:30The purpose of this is simply to, to,
2:26:33to get a proper position with regard to what we are doing in this whole field.
2:26:37Ron sent questions to me nine times about it.
2:26:39I just want to have the text clear and I just want to comment on it myself.
2:26:45And so there, I think first, we should pause and decide, so that we can actually discuss all the discussion issues and so forth and find out
2:27:01and it will cover these various events, but with certainly a very strong, a very certain principle is followed with regard to what will not be classified with regard to sources, with regard to governments, you know, where I live.
2:27:21people that are currently on the national security.
2:27:30Actually, we are not going to declassify a goddamn thing.
2:27:33We think it's going to be hard for them to do.
2:27:39It's hard for the British and the Japanese and the Germans to do it.
2:27:43The purposes are...
2:27:45to let them worry more about what we've reclassified into a name.
2:27:49The other thing is to indicate that this government, and particularly the President, has set up a new classification procedure with regard to the matters involving him that is to approve our name here.
2:28:01And that's extremely important in terms of all of us, how we're going to have a future.
2:28:10And it's also important to
2:28:13who allows them to nail the press for their full responsibility in this thing.
2:28:22As I see it, what we have is a situation where if materials do leak out, the press is now certain of us, the court is upheld, and the right for them to set themselves above the administration in determining what should or should not be published.
2:28:39In view of that rule, we accept that it's not the whole line.
2:28:43In view of that rule, it is our responsibility to classify less and classify better.
2:28:46So we classify less and classify better after the President's communications.
2:28:51The President's communications are going to be handled on a, whatever it requires, on an annual basis.
2:29:03I just want this to be, I don't want, I think it's all set up.
2:29:07I have two.
2:29:23One is not relevant because there the decision has already been made, which is basic strategy, what we want with Vietnam.
2:29:31My own instinct is the worst thing we can do to Hanoi is to keep them off the front page, even with news that's favorable to us.
2:29:40And as long as they're on page 50, they've lost the battle.
2:29:44Let me say, with regard to the Pentagon Papers, what John is going to talk about is not the Pentagon Papers.
2:29:52He's not going to talk about that at all.
2:29:54That's the whole point.
2:29:55Anything about Vietnam can be put off after Vietnam is settled.
2:29:59Because...
2:30:01What he is going to talk about is the, which is really our issue, the other Pentagon makers.
2:30:09That's what he should release on.
2:30:12The second problem is, let me talk about the substance of this outline.
2:30:16I think on substance that presidential classification system is a good idea.
2:30:21I'm not clear that what we gained by telling the press
2:30:26But we have a special system because it just tells them where the rabbit is that they've got to go after.
2:30:32And it will set up all sorts of...
2:30:34I'm sure we should have that.
2:30:35I think I would not say there's a special system.
2:30:38I think the way I first gave it to John Scatter, the same president, that the Qatar-China issue indicated there are occasions when it's essential to have absolute security.
2:30:48Of course, it's a personal charge.
2:31:00seeing to a declaration that he would be secure and independent.
2:31:08He is following two rules with regard to matters that have to be secured.
2:31:12One is that only principles will be informed and there will be no debriefing.
2:31:17You have no problem with that, do you?
2:31:19No, as long as I...
2:31:19I'm saying that there will be no zeroes.
2:31:22I think that's just a goddamn good thing to get out.
2:31:25Well, the phrase will classify less, but classify better.
2:31:28I think that's a good phrase.
2:31:31On the no Xeroxing, my worry is that it will be impossible to maintain this.
2:31:38There's just too many.
2:31:40Your own papers, that's easy.
2:31:42I mean, things that really, literally only concern you.
2:31:47But even there, for example, I mean, you take the conversations with Joe and Lyle.
2:31:52We've got to have two copies.
2:31:54Now, we can either type a copy or make a Xerox.
2:31:58If you apply it literally...
2:32:00It won't work, and that's the part when Hague feels the same way.
2:32:11Now, the phrase that we are setting up new security procedures which classify... Now, another thing that is safe, we engage in off-director sessions with the press.
2:32:27in which contents of classified documents are disclosed, that as a practical matter is almost impossible.
2:32:34The contents of documents are such that, for example, I practically never read anything other than classified documents, so that when I background, I draw on them without ever mentioning them.
2:32:50Now what shouldn't happen is that
2:32:52They leave the documents, or refer to documents, or anything of that kind.
2:32:57You see, Henry, the press has got to be, they've got to be kept on those services.
2:33:05Absolutely.
2:33:06You've got to set up a big reason why you're not going to talk to us when you come back, for example.
2:33:14Why you're not going to talk to us.
2:33:18We've got to set up the procedure whereby we can run this government.
2:33:25Well, you can say they cannot background top-secret documents or something like this, in which they say, here, I've got a document, and on a background basis, I'll give you the substance of it.
2:33:34That they cannot do.
2:33:35Well, leave that out.
2:33:36Absolutely not.
2:33:38It's probably your problem.
2:33:40It just takes the press on.
2:33:41Part two is good.
2:33:43Part three is good.
2:33:44Part four, except for that one point, eh?
2:33:46Take out the stuff about the press, the background, because also the difficulty is that it's...
2:33:54I take out any reference to China as such.
2:34:03There's no problem saying, as recent negotiations indicate, sometimes special secrecy is necessary.
2:34:12Everyone knows what you're talking about.
2:34:14Well,
2:34:19You can say it without...
2:34:21I don't want to trigger the Chinese into saying something.
2:34:25And then the Chinese...
2:34:25I'm not supposed to ask a question on that.
2:34:29Well, gentlemen, you can draw your own conclusions.
2:34:31It was certainly important to keep it... Just like I'm going to comment on it.
2:34:34I'm going to comment upon it.
2:34:38And when it says the Chinese... You've certainly followed the things about this, and I don't know if they did, that the China trip was jeopardized by leases, even though it was by one, but not the Pentagon Papers, but not the State Department.
2:34:52You can say, well, the State Department's already covered that.
2:34:55We were worried about it.
2:34:56I'd say the Chinese had no problem.
2:34:57I just dropped them.
2:34:59Otherwise, I have no problem with that.
2:35:02The only other problem I had was where it says that he, the president, had to press for injunctions.
2:35:08I wonder whether we shouldn't dissociate you from it a little more.
2:35:12The government had a place with the administration.
2:35:15Well, I think it's a very good point that we did fight for and will fight for the security of our communications.
2:35:26Otherwise, people are not going to talk to us.
2:35:32Well, no, no, I think it's a good point.
2:35:35I just wondered, since this will get a sort of confrontation with the press, whether it's better to say the administration rather than the president.
2:35:45The substance, I think, is good.
2:35:47And that's what we said earlier.
2:35:55So actually, my only concern is the elimination of point one of point four A.
2:36:01I'm dropping the reference to the Chinese in point 14.
2:36:04I'm dropping three on page two.
2:36:10Now, on this basis, I think it can be, I don't know, Ron knows the pressure much better than I do.
2:36:21I'm told on Xerox that we are going to develop documents that cannot be Xeroxed physically cannot be.
2:36:36And so we will institute the use of that kind of material.
2:36:41I think probably we should not say anything about that at this stage.
2:36:46I think the less we say, I'm just afraid that they'll, we ought to do it.
2:36:50I'm in favor of almost everything you have in point one, except there's just some things which we need for your files.
2:36:58Go ahead.
2:36:58Well, I just wanted to say, the matter, Mr. Roxy, just John saying don't be limited to
2:37:07That's a cool problem.
2:37:08I would put it this way, that we're going to classify less and classify it better.
2:37:14And one of the ways we're going to do that, as far as the president is concerned, particularly, where he has had conversations with 75 chiefs of state, and nothing has ever leaked out of anything yet, and the way the president has stated it,
2:37:37And he does that, and the rules that he follows are very simple.
2:37:40He tells people that they need to know only the principles of it, and he does not allow anybody to read it.
2:37:46Don't you think that's a good thing to say?
2:37:48Because that'll be a little message to send to them.
2:37:52because they know they don't hear what they want to hear.
2:37:54Well, the fact is that nothing has ever leaked out of the... Out of any of these conversations.
2:37:59Like, you know, we say that a whole lot of things when we're talking to these guys.
2:38:03Right.
2:38:03Absolutely.
2:38:04Nothing has ever leaked out.
2:38:06Or any of the contacts with foreign governments that have run out of this building.
2:38:09None of this has ever... Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to go further.
2:38:12Because I was perhaps too much in your conversation.
2:38:19Well, you were saying, as far as the
2:38:22White House is concerned.
2:38:24As far as the president and his staff, and his national security, he also said he was concerned.
2:38:30How does that sound?
2:38:32That we have, that we have, we have screwed it up.
2:38:33We've just had a, we've had a tight rein.
2:38:35And the way that we've accomplished it is through all the principles on a need-to-know basis and no debriefing.
2:38:41And that's not all right.
2:38:44Exactly.
2:38:44Or limited debriefing.
2:38:46I'd say limited debriefing.
2:38:47And limited debriefing on a needed oasis on it.
2:38:51Where it is on a needed oasis on it.
2:38:52You can't say no debriefing.
2:38:55Because then they'll say... You know, a bird meeting at the end of the day, as I must say, I picked up this morning.
2:39:01Somebody walked out of that meeting and said, Rogers called the Pakistan ambassador on the phone and complained about that phone.
2:39:09What in the name?
2:39:10I said, it's a cheap shot.
2:39:12It's a cheap shot.
2:39:14What was the purpose of it?
2:39:15To prove that we were...
2:39:17I told him a portion.
2:39:18Remember what I did the last night?
2:39:21I said, you should tell him, but let him do it.
2:39:26And don't make a public issue of it.
2:39:30I swear to God.
2:39:31And our strategy, really, we cannot suck up to the Indians on this.
2:39:35We've got to play a little bit more with the Pakistanis.
2:39:40Now, with these changes, is it positive?
2:39:41No, with these changes, it's positive.
2:39:43The reason for it is, let me say, is to keep them out.
2:39:47No, with these changes...
2:39:48I want them to be on.
2:39:51Let me say it first.
2:39:57that the President can be trusted, and that his staff can be trusted.
2:40:02And I want the Chinese to know that Russia is already in one, and that we have made a hell of a record.
2:40:06You see, that's, frankly, the back of this as much as anything else.
2:40:11And it's important, it's a point that you can make, that the state and foreign governments are afraid we will leak all over the place.
2:40:16The President has nothing to do with it.
2:40:19I think it's well to get off the plus side of the issue of being an open administration.
2:40:25That's why we're going to be classified as history.
2:40:28It has no relevance to present events or present figures, present men, you know, present leaders.
2:40:34We're not going to do anything.
2:40:36It's not our rule that are done.
2:40:38It's not our case.
2:40:39Extremely, we just have to call the shots ourselves.
2:40:43We're not going to embarrass the British or the French or somebody.
2:40:47There's some present kind of British government who's involved in a paper.
2:40:50We would pay to put something out until he dies.
2:40:56That's the way it works.
2:40:56Third point.
2:40:57The, we really want to respect the fact that
2:40:59that despite all the rules, none other, that shows that we are open.
2:41:05So, what we want to start is to find out that this government in the national security field can keep the secret, not only on China, but on other issues, and that we have a system, we're developing a system to do so.
2:41:23And fourth, we want to leave a clear implication that the press
2:41:26despite the Supreme Court saying that the press overstepped its rights, as far as the news was fit to print, in making the judgment that anything as to what was national security sensitive and what was national security insensitive.
2:41:51Paul in the back, he said, well, we got our hands caught in the cookie jar and we brought a mask, so we should have done all that.
2:42:00That's the present feeling about it.
2:42:01Also, we cannot let the press get away with this.
2:42:05And we cannot let the Democrats get away with something that is a deeply divisive duty for them.
2:42:10That's why I don't want to... Well, Mr. President, as you know, I thought...
2:42:15at the time that we should go on the attack.
2:42:19No, no, no.
2:42:20No, because other things happened, but I always felt that in time we would be able to use, to turn the Pentagon papers to our advantage.
2:42:30Whether this is the time, I can't judge.
2:42:38But I think John, as the man who is in charge of this, he's in charge of this thing.
2:42:44He's just briefing the press.
2:42:45If he does it on a positive basis, if he wants to explain what operates that in progress, is it?
2:42:50It's a progress report.
2:42:51Here's the point.
2:42:52I was prepared if I had a press conference to go to.
2:42:58Let me say, I do not want to get into the Pentagon Papers in a press conference ever.
2:43:06See my point?
2:43:07I want to stay out of it.
2:43:09I realize we might go on the attack at an appropriate time.
2:43:12We know when that time will come.
2:43:17But then that attack has got to be made.
2:43:19It ought to be made by others.
2:43:21I've got to be gracious at a time when we've got those bastards looking down the gun barrel.
2:43:26I don't even want you to make it.
2:43:29John, what I want you to do is...
2:43:34You know what I mean?
2:43:35So he goes up and says, I'm going to give you the progress report on this.
2:43:38He does it in a positive way.
2:43:39That would be very helpful.
2:43:41Is that all right?
2:43:42On that basis, if he isn't looking, if he doesn't look at it, we are now suddenly out of the true picking and fight.
2:43:48But John in charge of the class.
2:43:50We've had a study going since January.
2:43:52It isn't finished yet.
2:43:54We want the report.
2:43:58Just in terms of, gentlemen, there have been questions about this, and there have been, right, Ron?
2:44:04Yes, sir.
2:44:05And you can say, I'd like to get you a progress report on the study that has been in January that you and your other duties have been in charge of the situation that you have.
2:44:18Right.
2:44:20Well, you can say that one, but I do have a progress report here and so the press will know what our policy is.
2:44:30And very possibly, you say, first, as far as passage is concerned, we're going to declassify
2:44:36And you can say, for example, there are 100 million pages of documents, 100 million documents from World War II that are still classified as a map.
2:44:54All right.
2:44:56Second, as far as the... Second, with regard to the...
2:45:06As far as this thing is concerned, you want to bring 300 men in more, covering 1946 or 1954, and we're going to be going out for funds on those, right?
2:45:17And the purpose of this is to do it in an orderly way so that we will not have the situation.
2:45:26I would like to back up.
2:45:28The air is coming up again.
2:45:29Senate gentlemen, with regard to the whole matter, here in view of the way this case has evolved, it is, in this year of negotiation, it is essential that security, that we have security.
2:45:44as recent events have so rather sort of vividly demonstrated right now that's one of the reasons why the administrative department of justice sort of did have to prosecute the cases and but but but now at the present time on the administrator's side and what we are doing we are having a policy rather than institution policy of classifying less
2:46:12That's fine.
2:46:12That's perfect.
2:46:13Now, let me ask... That's all right.
2:46:16That sounds excellent.
2:46:18Let me ask on page two, Henry, I'm here to top that reference to a party that we've been negotiating for 25 years.
2:46:26It's obviously so explicit with you.
2:46:31Yeah, I thought that would be... All right.
2:46:35Take out any, Henry, just take out any one, because it's only, that's all we're going to get across just this much.
2:46:42I didn't read that.
2:46:44Don't put a thing in you, there's plenty there.
2:46:49Right around.
2:46:51No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
2:47:08Of course, don't get into the China thing.
2:47:10Don't get into the Pentagon Papers.
2:47:11I'm not going to do that.
2:47:13These are cases that the President will get into.
2:47:15I'm not going to comment on that.
2:47:17But we're going to say what we're going to do.
2:47:21We have to, but one thing that we must do, the President is essential, and we must do it.
2:47:27Foreign agents, foreign agents, foreign agents of state, it must be.
2:47:31know, have assurance that they can talk to the president or members of his staff.
2:47:37I thought another good occasion would start this discussion.
2:47:41I'll get into that.
2:47:43I thought I would take the Pentagon Papers of Life by talking about the, as you did yesterday, dilemma of the press, the great temptation of which they're going to try to publish something that comes to hand.
2:47:53And I certainly am not so sure.
2:47:56And as a good press man, Andrew,
2:47:58responsibility to get a story, that I understand.
2:48:01But on the other hand, once they get the paper, then actually it's news.
2:48:04On the other hand, an administration has a responsibility to protect papers that would not be in the national interest and so forth.
2:48:12So therefore, we recognize the press's responsibilities, but we are going to do a better job of meeting our responsibility, and so the press will not have this temptation.
2:48:21What would you say to the press's dilemma is that they have this temptation to print,
2:48:27And as has been recently demonstrated, they can't possibly know what's going on.
2:48:34And therefore, they create a risk by their act of publishing, of which, as a matter of intent, they're innocent.
2:48:44And another point we can make is that there are some documents that may not threaten the national interest of the United States, but that could jeopardize the position of foreign leaders in their countries.
2:49:03And if they feel that their whole political future is hazarded by what they say to us, they just will not talk to us.
2:49:13You see, this will put the school in a responsible position.
2:49:16Now, this could be a statement like, what's the progress?
2:49:19That's what I'm talking about.
2:49:21And then, like you said, if you say the right thing, it could be a platform to pick on some of the Democrats.
2:49:28I'm not sure what it is, though.
2:49:31Okay.
2:49:33Did you get your bus today?
2:49:36Well, uh, we'll... Henry, did we, did we finish our everything?
2:49:41Uh, yes.
2:49:42I, uh...
2:49:43Right.
2:49:44We finished it, and I think the way to handle it is to have a memo come forward to you rather than have all these guys come in and look at... Yep.
2:49:52They are preparing a memo.
2:49:55It's coming.
2:49:55Good.
2:49:58I can't say that he's taken Mitchell very much.
2:50:03He just puts it on these political grounds, which I can't judge.
2:50:07My temptation would be to say...
2:50:09Yes, sir.
2:50:10What do you think?
2:50:12I don't think that the political case has been made.
2:50:16And they were going to try and put something together for you after that meeting that was made.
2:50:23I frankly...
2:50:26can't swallow some of the political assertions that are made there.
2:50:32I also wonder about this, Mr. President.
2:50:35Their argument is that if we don't do it, the National Security Clause, that then Mills will take it over.
2:50:42Now, Mills can't get a better agreement than we could.
2:50:46Then they'll say Mills can pass quota legislations.
2:50:49I don't see why we can't preempt him, propose quota legislation, say we will veto if he adds anything to it, we'll veto the thing.
2:51:00The only thing you're willing to sign is textile quotas.
2:51:05And if he adds other things to it, then he's the guy that's wrecked it.
2:51:11And he can't very well take the position that he will
2:51:15not make it at this mystery but it's a matter of fact it's a tough one but i think they're they feel strongly about this but john and all these people tell you we've got all sorts of people of course from the agr everything from there to there we have fought this battle in practice we fought for these special people and now they've been unreasonable as hell throughout well that's my example
2:51:35You've jeopardized your foreign policy in four countries.
2:51:38And I'm just going to do it now.
2:51:40I think we just go to the legislative group.
2:51:42I think you can make the case that you spent two and a half years trying to get a voluntary group.
2:51:48And if Mills makes a Christmas tree out of it, he's the guy that... And the national security thing cannot be justified.
2:51:55It cannot be justified.
2:51:55If it can, everything else can.
2:51:58Now, every dollar you have to come to the Intelsat, you've got to pick it up.
2:52:03And I've talked to Phil about that signing ceremony, and he's thrilled.
2:52:08He is?
2:52:08Yeah, I just told him that I thought you had to be there if you...
2:52:11I put it on the ground that if you went to Intelsat and couldn't go to this, if you could go to the seabed and couldn't go to this, there'd be something wrong.
2:52:22What did he say?
2:52:23He said he agreed with that.
2:52:24Yeah.
2:52:26So he'll make a proposal.
2:52:28But it's already worked out with Sabrina, so I... Good.
2:52:34Okay.
2:52:34That will be September 30th, October 1st.
2:52:37It will be announced, sir.
2:52:39It will be announced, yeah.
2:52:42He said it's funny they came in today and said, yeah, that is initial.
2:52:52We'll get through it this weekend.
2:52:54We'll get through it now.
2:52:57Get some easy battles, we're good.
2:52:59Don't get too good.
2:53:01They're coming in for the last couple of months, I agree.
2:53:03Yeah.
2:53:06Yeah, that's what we can do.
2:53:08All right, thank you.
2:53:13Tommy just called.
2:53:14He said he's going to come back up this afternoon.
2:53:17He thought perhaps he ought to talk with you on the phone before he leaves Dallas.
2:53:22He said we had a bad day yesterday.
2:53:24We're having another bad day today.
2:53:26And he anticipates a really bad day tomorrow.
2:53:29And there's a long Catholic weekend coming up in Europe, which may make tomorrow an even worse bad day.
2:53:36The uneasiness continues in a lot of countries.
2:53:38It's deteriorating daily.
2:53:41And he's just focused on all the figures he'll send over.
2:53:43He's available to come over and brief you or anything you want.
2:53:47But his inclination, he says, there's no panic.
2:53:51But it's getting worse and worse, and we are steadily losing the initiative.
2:53:56And his view now, at least, is that we probably ought to move now.
2:54:04And today or tomorrow, today he's thinking of.
2:54:09close the gold window today, and then he thinks you can wait until Monday to move on the domestic front, to move on the international today.
2:54:19But he says, when we do the one, when we move on the international, we've got to show that we're, we've been doing a lot of planning, but this isn't just a hasty reaction, it's a programmed operation.
2:54:33Anyway, that's his thinking, and he's in San Antonio,
2:54:37Waiting to get a plane in the minutes coming up.
2:54:41Because he feels he ought to be here.
2:54:45Probably won't get here until about 5 o'clock.
2:54:47And it would probably be a good idea to talk with you before he left, since he'll be out of touch for the rest of the afternoon.
2:54:58Send over the figures of MMO and reserve assets and all that.
2:55:01She'll have to make sure.
2:55:11John tends to react to that.
2:55:15The other problem he got is the one we kept raising before, which is that you really can't move unless you call a cop.
2:55:24You can still file, is that right?
2:55:26They determined that.
2:55:27If you're going to go for the domestic stuff, you've got to file.
2:55:33If you're going to go for an import quota, I mean an import tariff, tax,
2:55:39You've got to file it or make it effective as of the day you announce it, otherwise you're going to have a spell where they come in under the tax.
2:55:52But John, when I raised that before, if you recall, he and you both thought we couldn't file even there ourselves.
2:55:59Well, I know.
2:55:59I don't know if I checked out.
2:56:01He was going to have to check that.
2:56:08In a national emergency, he called the conference back.
2:56:33Oh, shit.
2:56:33I called the conference back.
2:56:34Interesting.
2:56:34But he's coming back with a bill.
2:56:37If they have a plane in the area, they'll pick him up.
2:56:39Otherwise, he's going to take a commercial that leaves at 12 his time, which is when we have a plane.
2:56:43We may not have him down where he is.
2:56:45If not, it's faster for him to get on a commercial.
2:56:48There's a commercial flight at 12 o'clock, which is 1 o'clock our time, an hour from now.
2:56:53See you.
2:57:07You can actually call him on the phone right now.
2:57:09Well, he thought it might be a good idea to talk with you, and, uh, just put him in before he left, because he'd be out of touch then, until he gets here.
2:57:16Yeah.
2:57:17And, uh, I think he should.
2:57:22I think he'd kind of have to talk to you.
2:57:29Yeah.
2:57:29Yeah.
2:57:29Yeah.
2:57:29Yeah.
2:57:39That would be the other thing if you're going to do anything, if you want to get shelter.
2:57:42Yeah, well, I've got it in practice now.
2:57:44If we do this, we can.
2:57:53That actually is very possible.
2:57:56We can do Mars.
2:57:56Anything else we can do Mars?
2:57:58Yeah, I may have to go and test that.
2:57:58There's such a joke about successful and such a deal.
2:58:00Well, I have to knock it out.
2:58:01You know what I'm saying?
2:58:03They say you can't have anything wrong.
2:58:05Easel is not our insurance.
2:58:07You can scratch the rest of it and just work around it, I think.
2:58:22You can't do it without your simulation on the air.
2:59:14Hi, John.
2:59:16I understand you feel you've got to come back.
2:59:23Yeah.
2:59:25Fine.
2:59:26All right.
2:59:27Fine.
2:59:27Fine.
2:59:27Well, once you get in, I'll still be in the office, so you might just drop by here if you could.
2:59:33And, uh, in the meantime, I'll, uh, I don't know what to do.
2:59:38It's sunny here.
2:59:40Here I am.
2:59:41It's a little sunny.
2:59:57Yeah, let me ask you in terms of what we do here, if the, just in terms of whether the timing, and your thought is to, would be to consider at least moving on one apart from the other.
3:00:34time to do it then on September 7th, the whole deal, it might hit.
3:00:37All right.
3:00:37So I thought it was totally okay.
3:00:39Let's consider that for a moment.
3:00:43You could move on the domestic front.
3:00:49And, you know, our school was the one that even put it.
3:00:53You could move on the domestic front.
3:00:59And then...
3:01:00Of course it would solve anything, but then the international thing would be, then you have a negotiating position for negotiating with the international.
3:01:15That would be one way to look at it.
3:01:18That is, let's suppose, for example, that we announce that we're going to have a wage-price freeze, we're going to have an investment tax credit, and the other things.
3:01:29Or, as a matter of fact, if you just announce the wage-price freeze alone, that's one thing to do, without going into the others.
3:01:36Let me say on that, son, so you can think about the plan.
3:01:40I talked to Schultz, and he thinks that there is a possibility that we can get a legal opinion to the effect that that can be done without congressional approval.
3:01:51It may raise a legal problem, but my view is that we ought to just do it, because if we have to wait for congressional approval, they can screw it up fairly well.
3:02:01See, they can put in exceptions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
3:02:06So, right?
3:02:08Now, on the wage price then, you could do, well, the wage price then certainly should be done without the pressure for that.
3:02:13Now, so we announce that, you could announce that alone.
3:02:16Another thing you could do is to announce the wage price then, plus the import tax alone.
3:02:25Now, those two, and then,
3:02:28Now the import tax, this, I was talking about the wrong subject.
3:02:32Of course the wage price could be done on the non-progress route.
3:02:35But the import tax, according to the charge of gift, it is one that applies to those things that were involved in the Kennedy ground.
3:02:43And of course that's what we would want to apply to rather than depend on, of course, the raw materials that's to our advantage to get in, as I understand.
3:02:51He said if you do that, he believes that you can make a case for doing that without having the Congress approve it.
3:02:58You say, but the Congress, that is, if that can be done administratively.
3:03:04I said, well, let's find some lawyers who will say that.
3:03:08And if they do, that would be very good.
3:03:09If, for example, we could announce the wage price freeze and the in court
3:03:18Then we would wait.
3:03:19Then when Congress gets back, we could then submit to the Congress the things on the revisions of the budget and the investment tax credit and the acceleration of personal income and so forth.
3:03:37But that's not the way we can do it, right?
3:03:40Now, if that were done, that would buy, presumably, presumably, doing those domestic things at this point, would buy the time, and you could either start money or debt, would buy the time for you and everybody else concerned, between now and the International Monetary Committee, to either negotiate something or decide at that time, at a later time, to float
3:04:06Let me put it this way.
3:04:08Looking at it from the standpoint of, and I just want you to think about this as you come out of the plane, looking at it from the standpoint of what affects the country, psychology, and so forth and so on, in my view, the thing that would have the most damage in the background of psychology because it's so uncertain
3:04:31is the closing of the gold window and the floating, because people would say, Jesus, my dollars aren't worth as much.
3:04:39Now, as a matter of fact, it really doesn't affect it that much, if at all.
3:04:44But on the other hand, the uncertainty is something that could create sort of an actual sort of panic attitude.
3:04:51Now, what I was thinking was that possibly moving, therefore, to frankly straighten out our own house first and then move on that at a later point.
3:05:06Now, if we move to the wage price increase and import tax now, I'd like to get your judgment, Mr. Regent, as to whether you think that might have quite a salutary effect on this international thing.
3:05:26Yeah.
3:05:26Yeah.
3:05:27Now I know the cleaner way to do it is to do it all in one bundle, et cetera.
3:05:32But if we're going to have to move our timetable up and
3:05:36I've tried to explain all this and, you know, that's a hell of a hard thing to explain to people.
3:05:41And maybe we want to do it two different ways.
3:05:42For example, one way we could do it would be to have you announce the, you know, the when, the go, the go, and everything in a low key way.
3:05:48In other words, as low key as possible in this routine way.
3:05:54And I'd have to announce the other two.
3:05:56And then, of course, the third step would be to come up with the, when Congress comes back, with the tax measures, which, of course, should be presented to them while they're here, and not announce in advance that we're going to do it, because that'll be two weeks or three weeks when nobody's going to do a damn thing, waiting to see what the Congress is going to have to do.
3:06:19So now, what's your third, what third way are you going to suggest?
3:06:27Not first.
3:06:30Yeah.
3:06:35Yes.
3:06:35Yeah.
3:06:41Not first.
3:06:43And, and, uh...
3:06:47Well, the point that I was thinking was that the moving on the domestic front, John, and I'm not convinced, but I raised it with George last night when we were talking about we're still keeping this tight, you know, we're not there.
3:07:03But I said, oh, look, we move to the domestic front first.
3:07:06At least that is a positive story from the standpoint of the national psychology, a positive story, right?
3:07:12Now, the other story, and probably later, the people would take it easier.
3:07:19And also, particularly the other story that comes, maybe you work here sort of in the arms of earnings, an area whereby you might meet with the, after moving on this, then you meet with the international bankers or whatever they are, and say, now, what are we gonna do about this?

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on National Economy and Textile Industry

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Also recorded on August 12, 1971

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