Conversation 571-010

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I'm sorry.

Now, look, I just got to get that nail-down comment when we get back.

Now, they've gone after Billy Gray, and he didn't know it.

Now, here's the point.

Please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big Jewish contributors, the Democrats.

And remember where I used to go.

All right.

Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers?

That's all.

Well, look at it.

Here, our IRS is going after Billy Graham, too bad, you know.

Are they going after Eugene Carson and Blake?

I just, you know, what I mean is, God, man, I don't believe it.

I just don't know whether we are, frankly, being as tough as we are.

That's all.

Well, I know we haven't been up to now because we didn't have a man.

Sure, we had a man, and

You see that this guy that's in there now isn't supposedly, purely on the basis that he'll do it.

But he mentions how he is.

Yeah.

You call Mitchell.

I mean, Mitchell could get us tickets to all sorts of things.

Tell him about this.

And then after Graham, say, how long are we going to go after some of these Democrats or not?

They've gone after Avalon.

They've gone after Obozo.

They've gone after Caldwell.

They've gone after, you know, every one of our people.

Somebody told me that Muskie used Frank Stocker's plane.

I don't know if you've heard of that.

Some.

Maybe we can investigate that.

They don't plan to put it on the airport.

I wanted to tell you that Sands, you are going to come on press once again.

A remarkable job of having his business prepared.

We accomplished more than an hour and 20 minutes in that.

Of course, it probably would have been easier if there had been more discipline of people in almost any meeting.

But he got through three hours first night.

And then he had each of them.

And then he's not right there.

He was the one that had each of them speak.

Each of them had a chance to speak.

They got across the whole damn thing.

And that was a damn good job.

It occurred to me that that sands of

Some of our people who put on briefings to Kendrick might learn from him all that.

I think we did, John said.

You know, the dry run deal, apparently what he did was put those kind of dudes, people right through the dry run.

And they did a hell of a job.

But at the same time, we got right down to the neck of it.

We didn't catch around.

It was terrific.

Well, let me put it this way.

You're going to take the president's time.

It's really a compliment to the people involved.

They want to feel that it's been a success.

Make it useful, you know.

And you can say, all right, let's come in.

We've got another amount of time.

Let's have a talk.

And we'll have each one of them in one.

I think we should do that for every meeting that I have and that I don't have.

You know, send it to my brother.

When you get it done, we'll talk.

I'll say it.

I can hear about it.

I really love hearing it.

Okay.

You told us to always set the chair across from me and the vice president's chair on my right.

The person I've got to ask is going to have to turn and talk to me.

We usually do that.

You're gonna help me here today, you know?

Try to let me know.

It has a lot of kinds of material, and it should be hit immediately, but it's an excellent study.

The PR types like Sapphire, Mohr, and Scalpel in particular, they ought to read it and get it out.

They got to pitch their stuff on one page, and that wasn't the real kind of debate there was without a television camera.

The kitchen was set up on television, which is, I would show you, how your guess about China is correct.

The only thing that was on television was that, and of course they got a few little pictures on our reception of that television, and that was history.

My, uh, my all-in conclusion is that it's a real problem.

I'm thinking, I mean, taking all that away, should we have to check?

I don't know how we would check.

Bryce already, Mitchell has already talked to Bryce.

I see.

I'm ready.

Now Bryce won't say anything, but... Come on, come on again.

We've got to get someone settled and locked in within the next three or four weeks, then, for the most part.

He doesn't have to go to any good sign.

No, he's a good guy.

Ignition.

New glow.

i do you mean together at this time they've got to leave the thing yeah the other suggestion is that if there's a question of breakfast and also to uh

They've got a big House effort to defeat the Conference Report.

Not to defeat the Federal Employees' Papers.

And they'll see if you go on a wall here, moving on.

And they thought it might be a good idea just to have a talk session.

We know whether it's an open question at some point.

But it's figured it's going to be so much.

Let me be sure.

That's not what they feel.

That's fine.

for a catapult.

I want you to wait until we get to that.

and Monday is Thursday.

Back here.

Talk to Tom about it.

He's going for that kind of thing.

It should be on TV.

I said, all the rest of us are going to be put around here for weeks and weeks and weeks.

We can't have them.

We can't do a bunch of the buzzers.

We can't have them one after the other.

All that we got to do.

Let's go.

There's an enormous power there.

You've got to keep using it.

He should be on there every couple of weeks.

He ought to be on there every couple of weeks.

It's in every couple of weeks to a half.

I think he would, I know he would off the paper more often rather than less often.

Would you?

No.

You wouldn't?

Not in my time.

So that's where the lady goes.

I just think you can overdo that.

Yeah, if you don't let me say, let me say this.

Don't overlook my idea about the news time.

I think that's a perfectly legitimate idea.

I don't think you're, I didn't deny that the right to listen to that song, which frankly is a very clever thing to do.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Less audience, lots of Western audience.

That's right.

But if you have a problem, I think it's frankly, if you're going to get it, it's better to do that than do it.

So there's no question.

Why not get $30,000 or $30,000 or so in it?

You get $20,000, you get $20,000.

Yes, sir.

Apparently about $10,000,000 last night.

I thought that was pretty good overnight, right?

Oh, yeah.

Apparently they got about a 10 million audience.

You just make it 10 million people seeing that.

And I think it was just pure propaganda from our viewpoint.

I thought it was.

I mean, there was this comment that the only governor in our country,

The only one who was with McCall in Michigan, Oregon.

I've got to admit, it didn't bother me.

You wouldn't expect a governor of Minnesota to use an aircraft.

Of course, Reagan was anxious there.

He was very anxious, and on the California campus.

But you know, no, he should have come.

He should have.

He should have come.

Especially when it was a federal land grant to the state, to the people of Michigan.

There's more reports of Rocky.

Oh, that's a murderous evil.

There's no indication of any ongoing repercussions, and no intelligence of any further black uprising or anything.

This might help on help.

It's hardly very likely.

They talk all day long about the radicals.

You know what?

I was about to tell you.

Remember Kent State?

Did they have a global effect that Kent State didn't?

Sure did.

Okay.

Second thoughts?

I think more so with these guys.

They're hard and critical at times.

It's all we're going to understand is what it's really doing.

There's a lot of Christmas by force here anyway.

You don't run it by good will and happy powers.

They're in it, they're not the bad people you can deal with.

Right?

They wouldn't be there to be in it.

You know the whole purpose of it is to show that you're spinning around like a top and doing an E. Remember?

I don't know that it has that effect.

Do you recall we, remember when I had those revenue, remember the revenue sharing tax in the first of the year?

Well, immediately it has an effect.

Remember I had all those breakfasts and I had the afternoon meetings and morning meetings and so forth.

I'm not sure if it would be helpful.

What do you think we're working at?

Yeah.

I'm sure we're not.

Somebody got criticized for overselling, for launching a super sales campaign.

If you didn't do it, you've been criticized for not caring about your program.

You know, I agree with you.

I think that thing last night was propaganda for us.

Just propaganda.

Unliberated.

Really.

I think we could have hired, you know, Frank Shakespeare and all those experts and

and spent $100,000 producing a documentary, couldn't have come up with a better program.

Now, if we've done it, we've come up with ones that are not nearly as good.

They had better film.

They had better production.

But they had more history in their film.

They had better production.

And I thought, as I said, I thought some of those scene shots were just good.

You know, it shouldn't have been so big.

Some of the art that wasn't

My room, that was a great setting, the way they were against the green wall.

And then I was standing in the patio against the flowers.

All right.

Yeah.

You're okay.

No, it's all right.

Don't move.

And we had that hard big dog split away over the weekend.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

How old was he?

Fifteen.

Icon.

Dalmatian.

What was he called?

Scuttler.

He had kidney trouble on his feet and his muscles all went.

Now his legs wouldn't work.

His muscles deteriorated and his legs would just slide out from under him.

It wasn't any particular pain that they must have endured.

They started working on him and they tried to treat that and that got him into kidney pain.

He said, you know, if you had a, if it were a human, you'd put him on an artificial kidney and he'd be fine.

He said, yeah, we don't have those for dogs.

We have three dogs still left.

Oh, yes.

We've got enough dogs and a great lot of dogs.

But this has been around a long time.

All right.

I don't know if you can see that.

It's very close to the head.

If you get it across in the back, a posse story on her.

She's her, you know, she's never had, she's gotten enough posse shows.

She's had some pretty dark, a couple of really nice TV shows.

And some of the, some of the wine stores, they did the wine stores on this last trip over there.

She, she did this.

Is she your friend now?

King.

King?

King was mad that you weren't there.

Well, I did.

I did.

A little coffee.

Did you see him?

King was mad.

King.

King was mad.

I shot him.

Yeah, he looks back at it.

But he doesn't.

Oh, boy.

She's set up a dungeon.

We don't let our junkies know it yet.

But we don't actually have her.

Matter of fact, we have her, but we can't be certain.

It's very cheap out of midnight.

I mean, the Johnsons.

Of course, you should have the notes and the records on the floor.

I know you.

No, sir.

Sir.

Friendly.

We'll just say you're off.

I'll just say you're probably not.

I mean, it's yours.

I don't know.

Well, I'll say you did.

And free.

Remember that?

You know, you look at that film.

That was pure propaganda.

One solid hour for us.

It was a sour ending.

The ending is beautiful.

You know, Doug Ellis, who was a young Yale member that we kept, was with a lot of his...

Yes, sir.

We're keeping him.

No, he's back at school.

No, sir.

He...

He was going to go to Harvard Law School, and he decided he'd rather stay with us.

Good.

He can't stay with us.

No, but I knew him as one of the law schools, and he said goodbye to it.

That's right.

Well, he's good.

He should have stayed.

He's interested in politics.

He should have stayed.

He has Steve Webber.

Well, he's a marvelous kid.

He's a very unusual fellow.

He's great credit.

Oh, and never...

There were a lot of opinions in that one, and seldom in depth about anything.

And his ideas are wild.

Some of them, they go from... All that kind of thing.

But an amazing mix of very liberal ideas on some things and very conservative on others.

But a very imaginative...

He had a lot of his...

as he put it, bonds or a friend who went for dinner last night at his house.

Oh, and he's got that time.

Yes, sir.

I would have paid you.

He knows a lot.

And he sent me in a number.

It's just it's a classic.

He said, we began, he said, the group began.

But after 10 or 15 minutes, everyone shut up and started to listen.

When the President came on and answered the question about what he admitted Nixon wanted to do after they left the White House, talking about the difference between a man's view of public life and his wife's, I couldn't believe it.

Two girls, both of whom I heard argue the President should be tried for war crimes, were nodding their heads up and down and saying to themselves, that's right, that's absolutely right, he understands.

Worse yet, they admitted after the show that despite all their prejudice against the President,

that they had been attracted to him for the first time.

Then Halep puts in, personally, I'm sure, not politically.

But he said it was a good ending.

Yes.

No, no, no, no.

He didn't do that to me.

Whoa, whoa.

Okay, okay, okay.

All right, all right, all right.

That's good, coming from hell.

Right.

I know it turned out they had to turn on the old for you to tell us yet why this is the way it is.

It's over.

But also, if young people, young people like it, that's very surprising to me.

Because it's very square.

The whole thing is square.

It's such a good sport.

That all comes through, you know.

You get up in the front hall, flapping the volleyball, and jumping on the stagecoach.

And I think the... You know what?

Two things.

Of course, actually, probably the wiring, actually.

Yeah.

I thought your comment about going through a receiving line, it's more important to make one person feel that they have talked with the president for the first lady event at C-500, plus the comments that you made about what Mrs. Nixon would understandably like and the difference between a man and political life and the role of a woman.

That's very sincere.

That's the kind of thing that kids do.

Kids respect that.

And it makes the point that they approach the individual, which is what they're all hung up on.

It also makes another point, the difference between a man and a woman.

And also, these women, you talk about women's living and all the rest of it, they all want to be wives, basically, or mistresses.

Or both.

Some of them.

I thought that...

The rating is a little higher than 10,000.

I sent in the note to you, and I didn't bring it with me.

Oh, yeah.

12 million people.

12 million?

Uh-huh.

The rating is...

I have perhaps another eight minutes of film that you've got to make.

And she said, you know, we had a terrible time cutting, but she said, I was determined that this, and my producers agreed that this should be, we wanted to use it all, and I told them I'd use any one.

I said, I don't know, cut anything out of it, but I am determined that this, we must not have too much new because we wanted to have this to be about this, which is very, you know, right?

Very often.

They used just enough.

That's right.

Any more would have been too much.

That's it for that show.

Of course, that footage can be reused by ABC.

They'll have occasions when they can use portions of that again, I would think.

And maybe rerun the whole show, if we could figure that... Why don't you say we'll rerun it?

It's the kind of thing that does...

It's timeless.

I mean, it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like Chris' evening at the White House.

They ran that again for the first time.

And this, I don't know, in the beginning, Pat did a hell of a good job on the decorating the White House, too.

Instead of all this phony crap that Jackie was going through swinging around there, Pat was obviously interested in the history of the House and the... She knew what she was talking about, you know, the Chandeliers and the Rolls-Royces and how they'd gotten in all this stuff.

Everyone was much more believable than Jackie Kennedy's.

It was kind of an interesting contrast time-wise.

We didn't plan it that way, but an interesting look at the Nixon family compared to the Kennedy family and the radicals.

Last week, yeah.

Of last week at the Kennedy Center, which is just, that second wave of reaction is just now beginning to set in, right?

Yes, sir.

Which means possibly?

Negative.

I think you're right about that.

I think probably we read it better.

Yes.

Now, and even the news, like, for me, it turned me off, let me say, totally.

It turned me off totally.

My name is Ernest High.

And that's about, like, a few of what happened in New York.

A gentleman, an innocent of a bitch, was put on a party with black men.

It just didn't look very good.

You heard about what happened?

Yes, sir.

There were two people, seven guards, murdered, eight, eight, eight or nine.

And, you know, two Puerto Ricans, seven of the culprits, one of them castrated.

God damn it.

Instead of Rockefeller's right, he has not given an answer to that.

If he'd given an answer to those people, we may struggle a little bit stronger.

That's a gruesome story.

That's going to be a bad story.

It'll be a big story.

It'll be a big one, though.

Big one.

The leading arts that Tom Wickers is in the world will be out.

Well, it's the Kent State.

Good thing about that.

We were just talking...

This afternoon, how we might react to the federal prisons, whether we should issue instructions to tighten up or toughen up or... Let me say this.

If we ought to issue instructions, I don't know, but...

No, I think this is going to have a hell of a salutary effect on future prison riots, just like Kent State had a hell of a salutary effect on the Caucus.

They can talk all they want about the use of force, but that is the purpose of force.

I hate it.

Can you imagine a Rockefeller wall paint person using it?

But who are you reporting to?

Why is that guy in jail?

Because he shot somebody, or raped somebody, or robbed somebody?

Sure, sure.

Why are these four, why do they have seven cars with knives in their hands?

Some of them were killed, apparently.

Before?

Earlier?

Oh, is that right?

Yeah, they were.

They think some of them have been dead for quite a while.

Yeah.

Rob Carr said they were going to come back soon.

Well, let's see.

It is, it's kind of, that story is going to play very high.

Sorry, no.

You're going to go to her house?

No, no.

Going to her house.

I'm telling you this, it's not going to make people that are for busting and a lot of these other permissive things to go to her house.

No.

I agree with that.

I agree with that completely.

I asked her, I said, why is this all totally black?

But I can't understand it.

Why do they have all the blacks in one place, whites in one place?

Do they say they're going to be in the prison?

I wonder.

I don't know that it's all in one place.

It is that...

The blacks are the ones that organized the revolt, though, as they did in San Quentin.

It was all white guards.

They killed the white guards.

It was all white guards they held at this one.

But they don't have white guards, don't they?

I don't know.

They do at some.

And I don't know whether they do at this one or not, but it was all whites they got.

I think it was a black rebellion, really, among the prisoners.

I think that's why they... Oh, was it?

I think so.

Rock was there for four days.

I watched a little of the times.

For four days, it's negotiated.

He made concessions.

But he says, I couldn't grant it.

I was surprised.

The other thing, I was surprised he didn't.

I was surprised he started doing it.

And personally negotiating, he refused to do that.

Well, because he had a name.

Which was also a smart thing to do.

Well, naturally.

What they'd like them to do is free them all because they're all prisoners of unjust separation.

Sure.

It's the system that isn't free.

The crimes they commit.

Well, that's all the legal left apologizing for the fact that he really was a victim of the system.

Correct?

Yeah.

What the crisis?

They're out there and they killed that poor victim.

Is anybody ever crying in tears for that poor judge?

For the two guards?

What in the hell are they talking about?

Is anybody going to cry in tears for these seven prison guards?

Yeah, I think they will.

They will?

They will.

Why?

So there goes one.

Because there's a lot of feelings about that.

Yeah.

Because that killing is one thing that really does...

Even though they're prison guards?

Yes, sir.

That'll get...

A lot of people will be very emotional today.

That's a pretty gruesome thing when you think of that.

Well, I think the governor's conference has turned a little partisan.

I don't know whether you've had any reports on it, but the Democrats have been trying to put a resolution of their own across an economic policy, but it looks like the

Well, they're either going to drop it or have it beaten, which turns out being a good story for us if we do.

On the economics?

On the economics.

The Democratic government has met in Miami and decided to try to put a consensus resolution of their own together, backing the individual tax cuts instead of business tax cuts.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

They've been left out.

They will be left out, which, in effect, is the next best thing to getting a resolution through, which the vice president has decided we can't do now, endorsing yours.

But beating theirs will give us publicly, we hope, similar effect.

Well, I guess they're all going to take off in the partisan sense, right?

Yeah, it's an election year that started all day long.

for us to be part of the government?

Yes, sir.

President, all the people, let some other people be part of it.

The, uh, must have got a pretty poor reaction out of the government.

I was told that they only had three or four of the governors who were very enthusiastic of the Democratic governors.

Do you understand?

No, he speaks to the governor's office tomorrow night.

But his people were trying to get statements of support out of governors in Miami.

They did very bad.

They got Governor Curtis in Miami.

Two or three others in South Carolina.

The rest were all noncommittal.

Both news magazines today gave reasonably good play to his remark about a black vice president.

And

Yeah, Bob told me that Time mentioned if I had done that, I would have killed me.

That's what Time said then.

Time said that if you had said it, it would have been a public outrage, but Muskie said it and was forgiven.

I won't be forgiven.

That'll be good.

Now, our new alternate delegate to the United Nations is about to speak on the subject.

Bless you.

Good.

We've got a hold of him today.

How can he do it?

Oh, he can, without mentioning Muskie, he can comment on it.

In fact, it's a terrible thing that any man running for high office would fire anyone for race, religion, color.

And the governor of Massachusetts has kind of had something to say about it.

It'll say a lot of things.

Bob Brown's black friends are doing a little organizing just to keep the issue going.

What the hell is that?

That's what we were talking about yesterday.

These are the militants who just want confrontation.

They're the only people who are educated for busing.

They tear things down.

Natives-type people.

Some of the blacks.

Some of the... Why do you think we should continue, though, despite this partisanship, should we continue our sort of non-partisan stance?

Well, I think you should, Mr. President.

I think for support of the country, the bipartisan committees, and the left...

Well, I heard the advance on his testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, but I didn't see that at all.

He was arguing the tax issue.

Sure.

The best to be expected.

This was his day to go before Ways and Means.

All the editorials, he puts it that the Democrats are in this dilemma.

It can't just go along with your program because then they're giving you your program.

It can't do less than your program.

So they've got to do more than your program and try to get credit for it, which they won't get.

They'll do more.

You'll get the credit for the good part of it.

You can also turn around.

If they do too much more, turn around and blame them for the effects of having done too much.

Well, I think you should stay above it.

You're on a plateau right now, Mr. President, in terms of leadership, in terms of a very activist posture, and in terms of leading the country in a bipartisan call.

Stay right there.

And that's where you belong.

But I think that others in the administration, it isn't going to happen on the Congress if they're just not newsworthy enough.

But from time to time, others in the administration are going to have to take the gloves off when we're under attack.

The presidential campaign has had an awful, awful early this year.

I wonder if people won't tire of it after a while.

You know, you're right.

They're not going to tire of it because we started, uh, well, we're not going to tire of it.

We started too early.

And in my own activities, I was extremely careful.

You know, I didn't say a goddamn word in 1967.

And I lived until October.

And then very little.

And then finally, I went up to New Hampshire in January.

But then after each framework, I took time off.

Just got to give them relief.

I just don't want to see you go.

And the more, I think, the more you're just president, you're in a presidential bench, and they're down kicking each other, and you... Well, I think people, I think it started to worry this year that people did tire of it.

I think they're drying up with money.

It's a reflection on people just not wanting to pay for politics over a year ahead of a political campaign.

And he may very well do that again this fall.

People can get sick of that.

It's a long way off.

Well, I think you get stuff like last night.

Just think, you know, think how we can think of it.

If we were out, you know, at that hour special on Lady Bird Johnson, you know, we can't get anything on it.

That's the position they're in, huh?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But it's pure, poor, Abigail Muskie, whatever her name is, I can find it all then.

Fine Jane.

Jane, yeah.

You're real.

We may benefit, actually, from it.

We may benefit by contrast if the Democrats get too partisan too soon.

They're showing, like soup cats, they're showing every indication of becoming transparent and partisan.

Very transparent.

rather than discussing partisanship.

I don't understand.

Well, but the poor guy pulls out those polls and finds himself at 4%.

I've got your son to get up to 5%.

Yeah, he made a mistake, though, because that was the one area he had carved out of the separate identity where he could still get moderate Democrats behind him.

You mean the war?

Well, the fact that he was a strong defender of

of a strong international and foreign policy, defense policy.

He hurts himself with the...

I think he can take that position.

He hasn't lost that.

He may just decide to go all over the doves.

He'd go to the doves in Vietnam and still go for a strong defense.

He may go for a strong defense.

Charlie Seldon's right on that.

The right is disingenuous in Vietnam now, too.

Because we are going to get...

I worry about him only as number two on the ticket.

Well, the number two doesn't always, doesn't make that much difference.

Well, it'd be, especially if they put him on, but he wouldn't be able to stand the guy.

You know what I mean?

Play his game for 50 days.

Teddy would be the logical choice.

Yeah.

And that would be a logical ticket.

But usually, in general, a vice president is good for carrying his own state.

You can do that.

Johnson did that for the 1960s.

You didn't expect to carry his own state?

No.

We didn't carry it.

No?

We didn't carry it in the 1960s.

Oh, God.

That's a cool category.

Well, I suppose it was something else.

Yeah.

I was mentioning how various people have commercialized on the freeze and on your, I don't know, did you see over the weekend this Safeway?

Oh, great.

That's great.

And they're now putting this in all their tours.

That box there below the sign is a quote from Richard M. Nixon, August 15, 1971.

And it says, the president's wage price for each order, you know, immediately after the order, safely pledged its unqualified support.

And they're using the same logo that we're using on stickers.

It's really, well, it's just, it's one of...

Hundreds that we've been getting in, but I just think we may end up trying to pay it right away.

Unfortunately, we've got the public support of the wage price thing, and then, of course, some half-assed pay-to deal because of the tax thing.

It's going to be damn hard to get through in any responsible way.

I think it's going to be very hard.

Do you agree?

Well, maybe we'll get some help.

I don't get the induction tax credit.

Well, you do have to review it a lot.

Yeah.

It doesn't seem to be too much that you'll get it.

The question is whether, how much you'll have to take with it.

You may have to take a consumer tax.

Got it.

You know, it's an interesting thing to note, though, that these business guys we met with, they are these bastards, and it should be.

They are really turned on at the present time.

Totally.

They all talked about this.

They all, of course, naturally talked about the speech on Thursday, you know, that's just the right thing.

We need to hear that sort of thing.

A lot of times.

And they all...

But that, Mr. President, is a reflection of people's attitudes.

That speech had a...

They want to hear it.

And that speech had a hell of an effect.

And the only places you had any criticism on it than the

the very local media who said, well, it's the old rhetoric, the appeals of jingoism.

Yeah, but that's only because it hurt him.

But the reaction of the fellows you have today is very representative of

what you get around it.

Well, when we talk about number one in the United States, you talk, you know, it's pretty foolish.

That's what people want.

No, no.

The media doesn't.

They want us to be number two, or worse.

Or they don't really care, small letters.

They don't think it matters.

No, well, I think they think it's no longer the thing to aspire to.

It's a different set of values.

Aspire to greatness.

Greatness is... Greatness is...

It's a different set of values.

You notice that one of our liberal media friends has fallen.

Frank Stanton is out.

Is he really out?

No, he's out.

The deal that apparently was cut was that Ireland would have the

full executive responsibility.

He's in... Stan is in an operating role, but... What do you know about him?

Yeah, I've done a very thorough check on him.

He's very tough, very hard-headed, very pragmatic, non-political.

He's not...

He doesn't have any idea... No?

No?

He's a non-ideologue, completely.

He's a very pragmatic finance...

So totally finance-oriented.

Yeah, that's good, because if he's one of them... Well, the first column is out on it today.

John Chamberlain has just distributed his column with respect to the... Oh, what's he say about it?

Well, of course, he praises it and the vice president for tackling the credibility of the Netflix.

And he supports everything she says, but he gives it a pretty good advertising booth.

You've got people looking at the world's gallery to find out about this book.

He says he doesn't think we're going to be very popular.

We don't want to get any major coverage of this book.

Well, he was doing the broadcast at the time the book was coming.

No, but you've got to follow his line of reasoning.

His reasoning is that ABC turns up in the book.

It's the worst.

And he said, ABC, now you're one of the best friends.

So he said, you can't praise the book.

You can't praise the book.

I would say that in terms of the, in terms of the, I mean, we really finally got to get the truth out.

It was true at 60, and it's true at 68.

Right.

Yeah.

We've got to get that out, and we've got to destroy the credibility of this in the future.

I'm sensing Jim Keough is in, getting affectionate on some things for his book, which he says he's got his manuscript basically done.

And he's doing a lot of accuracy checking and polishing.

He'll have it out early in the year, which is good.

But he said in the process, he went to Nashville, to Vanderbilt, to that tape library and watched all the tapes on Cambodia.

to follow up stuff with Cambodia.

And he said, you probably think that the coverage after Cambodia, that our coverage was really bad, that it was hysterical, you know, that they got all carried away and everything.

He said, you're dead wrong.

He said, it was 10 times worse than you remember it as being.

He said, it's just an alarming experience.

Cambodia or Los?

Cambodia.

He says, it's an alarming experience to go now, knowing what you know now and everything, back and look at that coverage.

He said, it just, it really jarred you.

And this is, we've got to get some of them, you know.

That's right.

You know, the thing is, how the hell we survived that, I don't know.

Well, the fact that we survived was 55 to 57 percent of approval all through that campaign.

You know, one of the devices that occurred to us, and that, you know, they killed us night after night.

And we were trying to get in trouble.

Bryce Harlan went over with a couple of congressmen.

They tried to go out and get the type of calories and bullets or something that we'd picked up.

Yeah.

We tried to get out the story about this, and Henry was trying to...

It was a moment that's totally inept, and I heard you.

True.

On our part, because, not because we didn't try, it wasn't inept, and our part, because...

It was totally inept.

True.

No, totally inept because, not because they wouldn't use it.

Yeah.

It was terrible.

Go ahead, for USAID.

Well, I was just going to say that the fact that we have been able to survive that kind of a barrage, the fact that you would be elected after the media did this, just shows that the average citizen out in middle America doesn't buy what he sees coming over that two-piece.

Well, let me look at it another way.

Richard Nixon, in August of 1968, came off with that Republican convention after the disaster of the Democratic convention.

He came off with at least a 15-point lead over the last five.

And our campaign was a well-run campaign, superbly conducted.

But it was an inept campaign, bubbling through, totally in the best, screwed up at every turn of the way, lousy use of television, lousy... Are you ready to handle it?

It was superb.

You and I used the television.

Great stuff.

And we didn't get any yet.

One point.

We lost.

Well, no.

It was more of a finish.

Okay, they think that's right.

We were 43.

That's right, 28.

I think the vote would have been on Sunday, we would have.

Well, she's also a registered member of the Conservative Party in New York.

That's all right.

She didn't used to be.

She used to be a Democrat.

Huh?

Listen to this.

The point is, President Nixon had his own chair at prime time.

But the point is that the network of reporters and editorials were virtually unanimous in absolving the mind, the morality, and the character of Richard Nixon.

That's right.

The network of reporters and editorials of democratic liberal politicians portrayed Hebrew countries as talking democratic saints studied over the years.

On the other hand, Mr. Chenault, the human beast, was a demon out of the liberal elite.

I've always thought that she's got, that's what's so great about this, is she's got it in her conclusions, those, those, uh, sparkly phases that are great.

That's a nice, imaginative, special part of what we're looking at, except America doesn't have a timeline.

I was a liberal man.

I'll be involved in the charges.

That's Neil Freeman's operation in New York.

It's been very helpful to him.

Well, I'll tell you, we should catch him.

Oh, well, Phillips is coming.

And he's got a better jurisdiction, too.

Oh, Kevin Phillips is?

Yeah.

He's just over and in with it.

So, so, so.

Yeah.

You know, one of the interesting things... And also, Kevin Phillips may, may...

He's got a lot of ideas.

He'll swing around and he realizes where the videos are going to live.

They all do.

That's what they mean.

Well, he's convinced we're going to win.

I think that's why he's being critical.

He's just trying to push you to the right, and I thought we were in any danger, but I don't think he did.

He's with us.

Oh, my God.

He thinks he's doing you a favor, and to a degree he is.

I mean, a little thunder on the right isn't so bad either.

One of the interesting things, Mr. President, on the TV address to Congress last week, it's the first time

It's the first time, I think, in two years that the Democrats, on one other occasion, when they haven't asked for equal time, they have not made a request of any of the three networks to answer them.

And they...

They still can.

Well, they can, but the attitude of networks now is that if they don't do it in the next couple of days, it'll lose its timeliness.

And they won't give them the time.

But they had a very legitimate claim to it.

As would the State of the Union.

More legitimate than the State of the Union, really.

Yes.

Wow.

Yeah, more legitimate.

Because you were up.

The State of the Union, you're required to do.

Right.

You're not required to get on TV, but you're required to make the speech.

Just from the standpoint of the way the law is in the fairness sector, they could have gotten it.

It's tactically significant.

They didn't ask for it.

They put it to them in terms of paying...

or who they put on or what they would say that wouldn't make them appear partisan i think they wilbur mills would have been the guy to do it and he

He'd have been a disaster.

He'd have been a disaster, and he would have hurt himself, and I think he realized that.

And they are about to put all their bills on.

And they're about to put all their bills on.

So they had a lariat line going on.

It would have been a catastrophe, because that would have put the President of the United States calling for bipartisanship, and the Democratic Johnson coming back.

Are we starting to assault them for partisanship?

The Vice President did it today, and every speech we cranked out of here, we hit him on being selfish partisans and putting their own political futures ahead of the country's best interests.

We may come to the point, Chuck, where

We may have to make labor a living by here, too.

I hate my hell to have to do it, but, you know, by labor, I mean certain selfish labor leaders.

If it comes down to it, if they do not play, if they choose not to play, we're going to have to go right with that.

Well, you have a very, very important distinction.

You can make certain labor leaders living here.

Certain selfish labor leaders.

Selfish labor leaders.

that you don't make organized labor as an institution of the whipping boys.

That's the difference between what Taft did and was re-elected with, despite what the unions tried to do, and what Bricker did.

Bricker went after right-to-work laws.

That's going after the union organization.

But there you're challenging their survival, and they'll, labor rank and file will close its life.

But, you know, there is a fascinating...

thesis, which I know I've been over the last year and a half, the greatest advocate of cultivating labor leaders.

But there's an interesting thesis, which Dave Bradshaw, I haven't told Bob, but Dave travels around.

He is a Democrat.

He's building trailer camps around the country.

Talks to a lot of laboring people.

And in every state, universal common.

Thank God the president has balls.

Thank God he was tough enough to take on those bastards, me and those fellows that have been bossing us around.

There's a thesis, there's an argument that can be made that you win the support of rank and file by hitting the bosses whom they don't like because the bosses have been taking their dough and they don't think they've been getting anything in return.

I don't know how deep that is, and you'd have to really...

It's a dangerous thing when an outsider can come into a family and try to split the old man off from the kid.

That's what you can't... Or do they, you know, they hate each other inside, but when trapped from without, do they come back together?

That's right.

That's the very hard question to answer.

The real thing you have to find out is, which we could find out in a poll, is how much

support does George Meany really have from the rank and file as an individual?

We've got some.

Well, George Meany is an individual we don't have.

But that's a different question.

We have some stuff on labor leaders in general.

Oh, yeah.

They don't.

That's what he means.

He makes a pretty attractive enemy in his own way, too.

Again, because he's not a likable guy in his big Cadillac and his big black car and his fancy offices and his expensive car.

Publicly, he's a marvelous enemy.

Kind of like John M. Lewis.

Yeah, and his age doesn't help him.

The fact that he is an old man is better than the rest.

On the other hand, the hell will follow.

I just read that Christ grew on our side.

He ought to be.

I just read the transcript of the press interview he had at the breakfast session with a lot of reporters.

He was as skillful and articulate in answering the questions as Connolly.

I mean, he just is.

Yeah.

He really does.

That mind, it's fantastic for a man that age, just like this.

Let me say, when you've got that bomb, you've got to use it at the proper time.

Well, I think once you... Yeah, very.

No, I don't think so.

Well, they may.

I don't think...

After another couple of days, they won't get it if they ask for it.

But... You can see their problem, though.

So it's over.

So who gets together to decide to ask for equal time?

The congressional leaders or the party leaders?

The Senate?

No, but you...

The candidates?

But in the past, it's been a reflex reaction.

They haven't... Oh, O'Brien has gone in the past, but I'm sure they've whacked O'Brien.

They're mad as hell at O'Brien.

Califano.

Califano, after every broadcast, I don't care what it's been, press conference...

Far as the telegram off to the three networks.

It's just been a routine thing.

This time...

But it's got nothing.

No, internally.

Well, internally.

They want all the exposure they can get for their people.

Did they ask for equal time after August 15th?

Yes, sir.

Yes.

Yes, they would turn down on us.

They asked for equal time after that.

Let me be sure I'm right.

I didn't hear about it.

I didn't think they did.

I'm almost certain.

I'm almost positive they did.

I'll tell you, the reason I think they did is I've had people watching at the networks when they file these things, and they were surprised because it's been almost routine.

It's been totally routine.

I'm sure they've

It seems to me they did it.

They waited several days, and they didn't do it right away.

I think they did ask for it.

Earlier, Mr. President, whether Ireland would help or hurt...

It's bound to help because if he's a dollars and cents man, the story is that that's why Paley got him in.

He's interested in the balance sheet.

He isn't going to want his combination.

Well, I think he's dollars and cents, but he's also an ideologue.

He's also a committed liberal, for sure.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

No question about it.

And he fancies himself as a great intellectual.

Sure.

And he's a pompous, arrogant son of a bitch who loves his power.

This fellow, I've talked to some people who work very closely with him at IT&T, and he's a very solid, tough partner who's

no-nonsense businessman.

Well, that's... that's good.

Also, there'll be a period of uncertainty with the news director, you know, so I will be unsure of myself and Cenk, so they'll be very careful.

This boat is going to have some effect.

Scali's reaction is wrong as far as we're concerned.

His reaction is understandable and understandable.

Yeah, I could have written this, sir.

Yeah, understandable.

As far as the words, we have, we just have, we haven't, we haven't seen.

You know, it does have a sobering effect on the individual, Mr. President.

Every time there's been

some massive attack on them they they backed down and just very quickly the cbs extremely careful ever since they've done over backwards with a few exceptions they've done over backwards to try to be balanced i know it's certain to do it but

Right after the attacks.

Always.

Of course, it's just too damn bad for her.

But I think it's going to be helpful to have a whole lot of people watching him in the campaign.

We've got to keep this book group churning out and throwing it around right up through the campaign.

Every woman's group.

Boy, that's where I went around.

Every one of these women's groups, you know, they call on the home and raise holy hells.

You know, about the scholarship.

Because we ought to really push to get, like, the League of Women Voters.

That's done where they have some, you know, they start stopwatching the newscast and calling their stations when they, you know.

This guy has done a project that women could now take up.

It's a great thing.

You can do it at home.

Anybody can do it.

Sit there with your stopwatch and log the orders.

I don't know which works and which doesn't.

They can figure it out.

But I'm starting trying to figure out if that makes them aware of it.

Then they start bitching about it.

Hell, anybody who's listening for, is that for or against the president won't have any trouble figuring out which it is, because it's all against.

Oh, and people... You say that, you say that, that our, that, uh, Camilo said that, bad as we thought Cambodia was, it was ten times as bad.

He said, when you look at it now, it's just, he said, it's just unbelievable.

They were hysterical.

They were beside themselves.

And they just, you know, they were screaming, the communists, the Chinese are going to attack us, and we're trying to defend the Cambodian government after it's already fallen, and we're going to kill all our men, and the president doesn't mean what he's lying to you, but he's not going to pull them out in two months.

And on and on and on.

He said, it's just, it's hard to believe how bad it was.

Yeah, I remember the Kent State coverage.

It was just awful.

Yeah.

First, the Laos thing was worse because we didn't get the first jump there, heading to that great natural audience.

Uh-huh.

The Laos reaction wasn't as hysterical.

No, but it was rough.

It was a slow...

It was steady and hard, and they played on it a different way.

And the network sure gave us a feeling on that.

A lot, Mr. West.

And I'd like to get those tapes and take a look at them, because Jim said it's really fascinating, he said, to look at them.

Oh, I see.

Well, I know you don't, but... Well, you know, it's one of those things, we've just got to... We have a constant battle here.

But we shouldn't let we have the big guns.

That's what they don't have.

And you know... People are a hell of a lot more conscious today of media bias than they were three years ago.

A lot more conscious.

You know, when Edward Newman threw George Jessel off his program,

NBC just absolutely deluged with letters.

Now, they claim that the letters were running 3 to 2 in favor of Newman.

Oh, I just don't believe it.

But they had literally bags full of mail coming into NBC during that.

People do react now a little differently than, you know, three years ago.

They would have accepted something like that.

Now they just get mad as hell when they see it.

This book is going to make the nerves, which you are, to the extent that it gets...

Well, it'll get 150 bad reviews, which is...

It needs to get hit and debated on television.

Sure.

Somehow, how do you get the TV people defending themselves against the charge in the book?

That's right.

You can play exactly Scali's reaction, in other words.

Make them defend themselves.

Yeah, just like they did when Cronkite went ape after the Agnes speech.

ran on to the Chamber of Commerce and wherever he came from and was falling all over himself?

Well, I would think they would be...

I would think he could almost force them to debate it on television.

It's not controversial.

Do you think the press will look back at you?

Oh, absolutely.

The press, of course, will because the press is as bad as it is.

Well, they all consider themselves part of the same institution.

Sure.

Any challenge to one.

But then when they start seeing it going, if you watch, they don't pay the right press to turn on the television.

I think there's a chance on that in this, too.

They don't like the television, guys.

And you get, Listergore does like Radley, because Radley gets all the attention when Listergore does all the work.

I mean, he's smart.

And he is smart.

One of the things the industry is planning to do is to start, I don't know when they're going to do it, but they're well along in their plans to start a self-policing board for bias in the media, much as the British have, yes, sir.

And CBS's lawyers told me that they had

They had the plan pretty well developed in the three networks in agreement.

Well, they're reacting mainly to Harley Sager's attempt citation.

They think if it was a secret ballot, they'd have lost that three to one.

And they would have.

Being realistic, they want a mechanism that will protect themselves.

I think, tactically, they're making a terrible mistake, because they are calling attention to bias, and they're also giving a forum for people to complain to you about everything, which they will, all the way from the left to the right.

This book gives us, it seems to me, the legal, or at least pseudo-legal, basis for FCC and or congressional hearings, and the whole subject, because he goes right to the law.

She goes right to the point of the law, of the FCC regulation, Bernie Stockton, objective reporting.

The whole thing, and she creates a challenge that they cannot overlook.

It's a scholarly challenge.

They've got to hold hearings and, you know, talk about it.

Boy, boy, they do that.

I'll tell you, if you and I start to do those hearings...

He doesn't want to knock you down first.

He wants to go out.

He's going to have a new senator from Vermont.

If he's 90% settled, it'll be Bob Stafford.

Can he go to the market?

Oh, I have today.

Any market, sir?

Well, Bob, no.

Dole was very concerned about him.

He came into the Congress.

Yes, sir.

And in 68, I had Bob.

Bob and I have been very good friends for many years.

My wife is from Vermont.

She knew him, had known him for a long time.

I had him almost

persuaded to support you in 68, and he was very, very complimentary about you, and then the split in the Vermont delegation, and he went with the Rockefeller group.

But Bob, you will find, is, no, Bob is kind of down the middle.

He'll be with us on some issues and not with us on other.

He'll be a little bit like Proudy.

I would, but he's, but there's one characteristic which he has that Proudy did, if he gets any help from us,

He'll feel he owes us something.

Is that right?

Yes, sir.

Is it going to go away?

Is he completely underage?

No.

Well, he will be until he's elected.

In Vermont, there's a curious law.

This has really some national implications, because the general election will be January 4th, and...

Well, what they do is the appointment is only good for a certain number of days.

Secretary of State has ruled that October 6th, the petitions have to be filed, and the governor can then set the dates, the tentative dates, for the primary on November 16th.

I think, frankly, they're better than Mike Starr, who needs to be in the Senate, because hell, he'll win, or any Democrat can beat him.

No, but the other thing is, he would win, even if they appointed, if Dick Snelling, who's the conservative, were appointed, Stafford would beat him in the primary, so...

We might as well get the credit for getting him.

He's not going to run in the primary?

Yes.

He wants to be the senator.

He announced that privately...

Does he have to run again in November?

He runs in the... January?

He runs... No.

Then he goes...

The rest of the primary term?

The rest of the primary term.

So he gets January.

Seven years.

Well, he has five years.

Good.

So he'll be all right.

He's... And so what the hell is happening in the month, then?

In the what, sir?

Month.

They're just waiting it out.

Yeah.

God, I would think that those people would... Somebody...

It's better for us to spare the chair.

Oh, I don't want anything done about it, but I just wonder how those L.A. people... Well, no, we could get it done before the election.

They can't get it done.

They'd have to get it done now.

I mean, and it wouldn't... We have a Democrat.

No, as a matter of fact, they're going to have to...

They're going to have to...

And the sheep just sit there and say, the hell with it.

And the only way they can get them out is to impeach you.

That's right.

They won't be on their government.

They'll never impeach you.

There's already been a Republican trial or announced that he was running for that seat.

When does he come then?

Up this year?

Months up this year.

Yes, sir.

Oh.

Well, Christ saves us.

He can't run.

Obviously.

Oh, nice.

I feel like I'm warning you that your congressional liaison people and others have concluded that you conduct a meeting with Senator Halleck for a few minutes after the leadership meeting tomorrow.

What about this goddamn military, you know, draft bill?

He is, uh, he told me.

McGregor and Allen mentioned that men still confer this morning.

During the dinner, McGregor talked with Allen, urged him not to take the lead in tabling the conference report.

Allen said he was committed to support a motion to table, but he would not with a motion that Cranston or Gravel would do so.

Later, Allen spoke on the floor and reserved the right to offer a tabling motion on Tuesday.

Later this afternoon, Laird phoned Alec at McGregor's request.

Alec remains adamant, claiming the new conferees could meet and almost immediately agree on a new pay raise compromise close to the language of the original Alec amendment and the Gates Committee recommendations.

Alec tells Laird, McGregor, and others that the President supports the Gates Commission and doesn't disapprove of Alec's current efforts because the President hasn't voted to sign them.

And the realities of the situation are, if we lose the draft vote, we lose it.

And we're going to have trouble because the other side won't go to another conference.

And Alex is just being blind, apparently, in seconds.

He is a blooper.

You've got two there, Gallup and Jack Miller.

Yeah.

They're unbelievably contentious and small about everything.

God damn, it's a hard thing to deal with.

And it's a shame, because Gordon did not, he wasn't that way before.

He was, in the 50s, he was a pretty good guy.

He was a fighter.

I heard he was.

I always thought he was.

Oh, he used to love to take on Jack Kennedy and battle him on the floor.

He was a good

partisan senator, he's just gotten kind of prematurely seen now.

I don't know that he is.

He's old enough to be, to act like he does.

You know, some of them.

And I watch their faces, you know, down there.

Something happens to them.

Of course, I'll have to see them.

It's a

It's a total waste of time, Andrew.

Better find out.

Have somebody write me a brief thing to tell him.

I don't know what the hell we're talking about.

The late Army, David and I, and Margaret and Les, both in Whitman, all of which dealt with the screws good.

With all of our problems, let's recognize this.

Well, I think since the China announcement, Mr. President, we have been going for it.

And if the economy works as every indicator tells us it's going to, that issue is done.

I would hate to be on the other side.

I don't know what I'd be trying to build a campaign set here.

Or what I'd be trying to do it with.

I agree.

Because I think there is a tremendous...

And when that starts rolling, it starts mulling.

And when it starts mulling, it's going to go like hell.

Every indication.

Now, when it starts to show that it may not be this month, maybe not next month, but it's going to come.

It has to, with a savings as high as they are.

Sure, it's going to take some mighty little factor to stop it from happening at some point.

It's amazing.

It has really moved farther and faster than it has.

Well, every pole, every little dinky pole, regional pole, city pole, state pole, it's people all over.

It's almost like we're on housing again.

Nothing else.

Just on housing.

We build all this housing, and you've got to put roads on those floors, and you've got to put chairs in there, and you've got to have an icebox in every kitchen, and a dishwasher, now and today, and then it's automatic range, and you've got to...

All that stuff that just has to go away.

A couple television sets, half a dozen radios.

Yeah, that's two million homes.

That's a hell of a lot.

That's a big market.

People are going to replace their cars as you sure as hell.

The competition is starting to crank.

The car dealers are cranking up now.

You hear the radio ads now.

They're all saying, you know,

Don't get stuck in the lousy stuffy one.

We'll give you a stuffy two at 71 prices.

You know, this kind of stuff.

Well, finally, there may be businessmen.

They are down.

And it's about time.

They may be starting to be a little bit more competitive.

I don't have to promise.

They're going to start going for volume.

They recognize this.

They're buying parts there.

They put it down.

You know, maybe $10 a year.

I don't know.

We may have to prep.

It's a pretty great thing.

Thank you.

Well, that's it.

Realistically, do you mean psychologically?

Well, I... Because realistically, it's all right.

They're moving down some, but not as much as they should.

The bankers are... A lot of people are still betting on the bankers betting on inflation.

Now, they're absolutely right that the money supply being what it is, the demand for money being what it is, there's no damn reason for interest rates to be where they are.

They're only there because people aren't loaning money because they're betting on inflation.

They're not pushing it.

They're loaning the money, but they're putting it at the higher industries because they're putting building and the inflation in it.

We may.

We could find a way to get the bankers.

I have a very low confidence in bankers, even in domestic orientation.

If anything, less than in businessmen.

Yeah.

Oh, watch this.

Because this man, basically, is more of a... And the banger is a soft-headed bastard who's sitting in there, you know, on a job in a place that is cold and greedy.

Very narrow.

They're narrow.

They're the most... You ever get 10 bangers from me?

They're the most narrow, miserable bunch of bastards.

Grub.

They should inherit me.

The people that go into banking have a sad life.

They really are.

And, uh...

He started coming in, right?

I hope for a little bit.

He's hanging on to the last.

He said we were doing the right thing.

Too bad we didn't do the right thing.

He's right.

We were doing the right thing.

I think it's going to come anyway.

That's what I think we have going for us.

See, I am not of the view that this new policy is what we're going to do.

No.

This new policy was necessary from a psychological standpoint on me.

The new policy, in our terms, was very important.

The leadership, essential leadership.

The man that worked with me in innovation on island and handled the jail order.

I mean, maybe that's leadership anyway.

What they need.

And there's a third point.

The balls.

That's right.

And there's a third point, and that is that when the good results start coming in, it's because of what you did.

Oh, that's right.

And in a little way, it's because of the economy.

It's not true that it is.

We'll think that sort of thing.

If there are any good results, Chuck, we're going to brag.

You get all the benefits.

And if there had been good results before, it would have been, well, we would have had these a year ago if the president had done something about it.

I mean, it wouldn't.

Anything that comes good now.

That's the advantage of the sweeping move.

And it's the advantage of being up front.

And if prices come down, it's because you...

Internationally, of course, the...

We really need it there.

We need a new bargaining position.

Well, let's work.

We've come a long way.

That giving away all the chips line.

God, I don't remember that.

Oh.

Oh, it's dozen times.

Even kids understand that.

Yeah, everybody.

Kids play games, you know.

They give everybody a stack of chips like in the Monopoly game or something.

And you give everybody else your money.

That's the thing my family was talking about.

That's buying the chips.

It's vivid and it's illustrative and they understand it.

And that had a hell of an impact.

When Graham came through a standing line, an old man came through a line, I'd say, holy, holy, perhaps it's God.

You know, after a bold few researches, you call that old man.

Well, you know, I mean, it's not a young man.

Billy said, you know, you often ask me where I got all those stories.

I said, all this phone does is give me stories to put in my talks.

Now there must be, in that great big research shop over there, one person who loves the little story.

You know, it's frankly a button down, James Young.

Yeah.

I can't emphasize too strongly about this.

In every damn speech I've made, that what people remember, you start, what the hell do you remember about that speech?

You remember the little story.

You remember the story about the chips, right?

And every day you remember the big old ones.

because it was an unusual story.

And the story about my old man in the later days.

And the letters you received from people.

The letter I received from the person in Texas.

But it's the little stories, it's the illustration that people...

I still hear people talk about your mother.

The family story is very, very, because everybody thinks of, at least at our age, you think of your own mother and father, things they did to you.

So what we have, the other great story for sure is the whole thing.

But you just go back and it just takes somebody to go read history about it.

Read the mail about it.

God, the mail is rich in stories.

God damn it.

I used to get virtually all of my illustrations that I used when I was, did all my own work as a senator and congressman out of my mail.

I read the mail, and I answered it myself.

And God damn it, I said, that's a hell of a man.

So I'm like, here's an illustration.

I got a letter from a woman who said this guy here,

I think we have it.

I don't think we have it done.

We've got a better guy hanging on the mail now, too.

We've got a promotion-minded guy.

Well, Elliot is the third man we've got on the mail.

I think that's going to make a difference.

Roland will see you.

Good.

Be much more aggressive in looking for opportunities.

Noble, as the State Department titled it, was superb at making sure it was graciously responded to.

They didn't have a did-or-should idea of what to do with it other than that.

That's right.

Yeah, they've been pulling some good stuff out of there, out of the mail lately.

Yeah, but they're not giving enough of it to the President.

But what I want is a great effort in every speech.

Instead of my having to search my damn mind for some, you know, some manager to put in, they should just submit it here for him.

And what they were worried about then is that the president was snicker and said, Jesus, the president's got his name back out again.

And it could be better.

Yeah.

If every public appearance you make, you said, you know, I've got to, every time you get up to talk, you see that line, there's a letter here, there's a letter here, you know, that aspect.

Now you can write stories and you can make a corner.

It's nice.

Who was the most, who was the greatest storyteller in American political history?

God, yes.

Story, story, story.

I remember he says, and that reminds me of this, he says this, you remember after the Gettysburg Address, it wasn't, it wasn't speech when he was saying it.

It was, it was funny.

So, he said to his biographers, you know, I'm afraid that speech won't scour.

And what he meant by that is that that's a global term that only farmers would know.

It's a term that we use for a plow.

A plow in a wet field will not throw mud off.

When the mud sticks to the plow, then it doesn't scour.

I don't think that speech is scouring.

But my point is, you've got to use localisms, you've got to use expressions.

The difficulty with most of the things that you see in the later, what I used to call my father, I had to live.

And, you know, stuff like that.

But let's tell the people, remember about that.

Now that, I mean, the point about, the point was well written about the dignity of work and all the rest.

That everybody, but I think there's that.

What the people remember about it, they remember that my father was a carpenter, and an oil worker, and a trucker, and a, you know, a streetcar owner, and a farmer.

Now that, they remember, right?

But they may not remember that it's about the dignity of work.

And they know that you don't think that any job is too menial, that it is only menial not to accept work.

There are 80 million people who work.

You can't lose you.

He just had to say that, right?

His constituency vote, right?

I thought those four lines, if you don't submit it to Columbia, well, they're going up 52%.

And hell, that's the way we run this day, huh?

What the hell's in that list?

Why don't we let them come in here and pick up their welfare checks?

There's only 2% of employment in the city of Washington.

That's the thing I never can understand.

There's 2% of employment in the city of Washington.

And all kinds of jobs are going baby, I'm sure, for household work.

That's true.

And there are more welfare.

Now, what kind of household have they?

What in the hell is in trouble?

I mean, who is in charge of this?

Let's put somebody in there.

If there's any reason for people around here to do all of their things, tell them to come take their chance.

Don't you agree?

I agree to the point that I just sold my home in the district because I see the handwriting on the wall.

Five years from now, you won't be able to afford the district.

Taxes?

Well, they've doubled.

The income taxes have doubled.

Income taxes?

Gone from 5% to 10%.

And you can see the trend with welfare.

All I did was get up where they are everywhere else.

Well, I know, but... Well, anyway... No one wants to do that.

Anyone in crisis.

Anyway...

and say, yeah, you did it.

We all used to register our copies and everything else in the division because of it.

It used to be great, huh?

Yeah.

It didn't change.

It didn't have such a big impact.

I can't emphasize too strongly that they used to have those.

That's what I'm saying.

Johnson used to have it, but he did it in such a gross way.

He'd pull the goddamn letter out and read it, read the whole thing.

What you do is to take

Take a little nugget, you know, a little nugget, put it in your head and use it.

You have a great knack for using that thing today.

You do it very smoothly.

If you use it in an illustrious way, it is enormously effective.

Only every good ministry's a storyteller.

Norman Vincent Peale's a storyteller.

Billy Graham's a storyteller.

All the great ministry's are storytellers.

What the hell?

Read the New Testament.

It's a collection of parables.

And in fact, they don't do it like our speech guides do.

They don't write the parable, the transitional paragraph and all the rest.

If you read the New Testament, you'll know.

He just starts off and tells, and the man went into a far country, you know.

There was a father with two sons, and Jesus came to a well, and one of them was there a week and a half.

And boy, they did sin.

And that is the great weakness in present spirituality in this country, among at least the, what we call, our type of people, intellectuals.

I mean, our type of people.

They, in some way or other, are self-conscious about it.

Isn't that it, Bob?

Aren't they self-conscious about those stories and the rest?

I think it's in the people of the emotions.

Of course it is.

What the hell do you think makes people move?

Your point of the overriding problem that we haven't looked at, and maybe never will, is that they are unable to get away from writing for the lit word as a construction of the spoken word.

They write the speeches that read one, rather than speeches that talk one.

And they do.

You read your stuff, you know, in text form, most of it.

Well, no, that isn't really true either.

A lot of it is pretty bad reading, too, because the person's terrible at writing.

But the final product that they work to is one that reads well.

That's right.

Where, if you look at, and a classic example is you talk to those people over at the State Department.

At the State Department.

No, at the, uh, in the, in the, in the business, uh, consumer group, uh,

You read that and it doesn't read well.

You would not allow us to take that and print it out in a booklet and send it off the way it was written.

You'd want it edited for reading, for printing.

Would you hear me?

Quite right.

But it talks dang well.

It's enormously effective.

And it uses some non-sentences, which you've got to do.

That's right.

You start them over.

That's what you have to do.

You repeat.

You use sentences that don't have verb sentences, that don't go all the way for a purpose.

That's right.

But the point is, there's a happy medium in between, as I've said.

There's a real need for a speech doctor.

A speech doctor who goes over a speech and gives reason in terms of frankly taking long sentences and writing them down and bang, bang, banging things.

And also a speech doctor in terms of taking a sentence

where you've got a potential line of material, and laws, and rewrites, so that you make it, or make it sane.

Now that's, I did a lot of work on this speech at the Congress myself.

So we had a price to the basis, a price to the basis.

At the time I got through the damn thing, I had, I had knocked virtually every two lines that was in that dull subject.

It was in there.

And then when you delivered it, you cut off a hell of a lot of shoe lines that you could have had.

Yeah, that's a pretty good technique.

Do you agree?

I don't like it.

The best thing about the personal stories, Mr. President, to the extent, I mean, you can't overdo it.

You can do it once in a while very well, but

is that people associate in their own experiences the same kind of, in their own background, the same kind of thing you're talking about.

And that's the way they identify personally that there almost is no other way for people to do that.

The letter from somebody does that kind of thing in a way, too, because the president brought that letter, or brought that piece from that little girl up in New Hampshire that was so good that he talked about it on the television.

Then, that told the people that Bob, and he might have a say.

I don't know if he had to say that more.

He did more on that.

He could check letters.

He's an anecdotal man.

He's another man.

And, uh, and, uh,

Also, you know, you can use great current actions.

You're going out and you're seeing crowds of people come up, little kids asking for their safety nets and so forth.

That's why there's a campaign.

Of course, that's what Boyd was quite good at, because the area that he would find, he'd make me follow lines and crowd comments, and he'd say, I'm going to see all of those kids.

He'd assign them, and we'll actually know what happened.

I'd like to get a great guy like when we were in Illinois right after, I mean, Ohio, Indiana, right after the wedding, one little, one sign that says, Mr. President, you dance good.

Well, I need a hell of a record guy about that, believe me.

Yeah.

Huh?

But nobody was sent to go to the show.

You see what I mean?

That's the kind of thing a lot of people look for.

I can't, I'm busy in the state of Kansas, but there must be a lot of that kind of stuff that I think, uh, that, uh,

So, for example, we have these people come in.

More strongly than God, I'm sure.

So, in addition to the...

I'm not a speech guy.

They're awfully good.

They're great.

Now, interestingly enough, the Agnew speeches are basically without an Agnew show.

They're basically species in a river.

So we were saying something shocking.

All right.

But he has a different buzz for effectiveness.

Yeah, he's a different style.

He couldn't pull off an anecdote very well.

No, he's good.

Yeah, he's got that.

Very stiff, but very penetrating way.

Although his humor lines have been better lately.

Humor?

Yes.

He's standing good.

He's ready to give a place.

He's great at timing.

He's just superb at toast and that sort of thing.

He really is.

He does it without attack, stiff, and welcome you home and so forth.

That's damn hard to do.

He's technically weird.

And then, of course, he has one advantage.

He's got to have a lot more time with her.

You know what I mean?

Well, he's got nothing else to do.

No decisions.

He's got nothing else to do now.

He's beginning, I think, to organize a little bit of his own constituency.

You think so?

A little bit.

I wasn't able to get him to turn the app off.

I couldn't get him to denounce or decline the app support.

I tried three times.

Just kind of got put off.

And I gather the report I got from Al Abrams at the Governor's Conference was he was lobbying the Governor's very hard to get the line of communications back between him and the Governor.

Oh yeah, I know, but it was a, the article was a pretty accurate article.

Well, we should get a copy of it.

I mean, it wouldn't, he wouldn't pick it up, but he's picking it up now.

He's fighting hard to get it, to get it back.

He's written a resolution down there, which they'll present to you when they come out on Thursday.

For the Republicans.

The Republicans.

To the governors.

To the old governors.

To have him be the liaison with the governors again.

That's what he's trying to do.

One thing I don't want him to do is to come up with that jackass idea of he can start meeting with the Republican governors again.

I would waste a lot of time on those dumb bastards.

The answer to that is you want to be the liaison with the governors.

You need to look at them.

I'm trying.

That's the way you build yourself.

You don't build yourself by being appointed director of the presidents.

Correct.

I don't know whether that will take it.

I mean,

Well, no, the Reagan movie.

Reagan's got a mention of it.

And so does Rockefeller.

Well, those are special, kind of special cases, aren't they?

I don't think you want to.

I think you want to get all wrong, Mr. Reagan.

I don't think you want to.

And you've just got to understand this.

I'm a slave of the Reagan and Rockefeller.

They should put up on everything.

It's better than that.

There you go.

At times when it's been harder for them to do it.

That's what I'm talking about.

That's right.

Okay, the Reagan was hard.

Because Reagan's got a more hard-line constituency in Fort Owls than I do.

On the Yacht Convention, Reagan called down there and said, if I don't back up, support the president, he's doing the right job.

Okay?

Accepted their nomination and flicked it.

And if you start talking about it, it's 15 minutes.

I've been through it three or four times where he will start talking about, we've got to do something long range about the

academic, the intellectual establishment, the media.

He really does...

He's wrong.

Of course he's wrong.

He couldn't agree with a woman.

I told Kevin this morning, and I don't know if you ever believed it, but this is the first time I have, except in the way, seen myself on television.

They didn't.

They didn't?

They didn't.

I don't think anybody in that group would know.

I haven't seen myself.

I haven't seen a press conference.

I haven't seen a speech.

I haven't seen one goddamn thing.

I never would.

I don't believe it.

I'm not going to let him down.

I'm going to let him go.

I've never seen the news.

I've never seen it to that extent.

That's a very good idea, Mr. President.

Of course.

You know what it does?

It keeps me cool in my head.

And they know it's true.

They know it's true.

And I think that's right.

that I didn't pay any attention to them.

Well, a hell of a lot of them try to write for your attention.

Oh, yeah.

They write something because they hope you will read it.

As far as I've got to tell you, I'm not trying to read those at all.

I mean, all I do is just take a quick look through that news sign and I feel stupid.

I'll give that a little better.

You've got to read it seven times.

They said, why didn't you watch the network TV news?

Because it's the worst possible way to find out what's going on.

That's right.

So I used my time.

I've got the time.

So there you go.

I've never seen it.

That's a very hard job they have.

They've got to swap together in a half-hour newscast and no time to get it all through.

But these people, you know, I mean, everybody else I know, I know Connelly, he goes on, he goes and watches this stuff, and all the Rockies, the Laird guys, they've got to get on season two, so it goes on.

Well, everybody's different.

Well, they're in a different position.

They don't have the self-confidence that you do.

They don't.

Well, Connelly has.

I'm not so sure.

He's on a bigger stage than he's been on before.

He doesn't need to worry.

No, he doesn't, but he isn't sure of it.

Yeah, he's very, very conscious of himself.

Well, I'm unconscious of myself.

The main thing is, I don't want to make them more conscious.

Make me more conscious.

Those bastards I know are the enemy.

I know they're out to screw us.

I know they're out to get my goat.

I'm not paying any attention to them.

And that's it.

Just cold as ice.

I want to know if they write about other things, but when they write about me, screw them.

I mean, they can go on and on.

They can talk about the rhetoric, the speeches, or they say, I don't give a goddamn what they think.

I don't know if they've ever seen what the country thinks.

Boy, that beer takes the shit out of them, you know?

Of course it does, because you're going over their head.

Well, that's also because they're not getting into my gut, which they are.

I mean, that's why they write.

They think they know what he's doing.

You're proving to them that they can't do to you what they did to Johnson.

We don't know something.

Johnson would start raving mad if he'd gone through what we have here.

Oh, God.

We don't know about what he went through.

It was pretty bad.

But if you don't want to be in that period of crime, you should take a chance.

Nothing.

And believe it or not, the huge moratorium in the rest of the year when Johnson was here.

Johnson had 10% of the hostility from the press that maybe 20% of what we've had.

and the presence of Copeland.

But he was just obsessed with it.

You know, I try to get clients.

They would agree to that, but they don't.

They have to be prejudiced.

I think Zegers is a little more realistic about it than Klein.

Listen, these guys, these disperse,

I like to say the press.

Of course, you separate it off to the people writing the press.

I mean, you've got a few guys that are okay.

The wire services aren't bad, usually.

You know, they write it pretty good.

Because they have to.

They work there a little every day.

When you don't talk to the general, the columnists, the editorial writers, the rest.

Jesus Christ.

I mean, you die if you've done that stuff.

And if you look at television and see them snicker and whine and simper and

raise their eyebrows and so forth.

Now, the best thing about it is to get in that NBC crowd and just tell them, they'll never forget about it.

No, and every network executive in New York knows that story, just like the back of his head.

I started to tell it to Frank Stanton because I wanted to use it as an example.

He said, Julian told me all about it in detail.

You can be sure they met afterwards and took us.

I must really believe that.

And the answer is, I should.

Every bit of it.

You see, this is the thing, John.

They, they, they, they, they, they, they, uh, they like it, and I get it.

They're, uh, they're against me.

It's like they're against McCartney.

But basically, they're much more against me.

Much more.

For a very long time.

They hear me on it.

That's exactly right.

Just as they were, just as the old, the old McCartney days, the Prince was vile against McCartney.

But their hatred for McCartney was nothing compared to their hatred for me.

And it was always that way.

Because they feared me more.

Just as cold as that.

Well, they were, they had never forgotten.

They were able to discourage me.

They wouldn't discourage me.

They were able to destroy Manhattan.

So they'd come at it.

They'd come at it, come at it, and they didn't come over.

And I tell you, it's quite a drill.

But a lot of these press guys out there wouldn't like to admit it, but that was the God's truth.

I went through it all.

You were there.

Don't you agree it was true?

Yes, sir.

Absolutely.

No question about it.

Yes.

A lot of them admit it.

A lot of them.

We'll talk honestly about it.

I just don't like this son of a bitch.

It's fine.

The only thing is that, and this is the one advantage, another advantage I think we have in hypo-grad, which of course I should have.

I've got to have been over others too.

There is none that irritates those bastards more than the feeling that they aren't getting to you.

And there comes Salem True.

I paid no damn attention.

You know?

I agree.

Absolutely.

But next year, when I don't go to the gridiron, when I don't go to the White House Correspondents, when I don't go to the radio and television Correspondents, when I do go to the photographers and they didn't do that, I can just give you another little indication.

They're home.

I have the bets that we now are in a position where the battle has begun as far as they're concerned.

They're out.

Huh?

Absolutely.

It's a remarkable thing.

They gave the play they did before China and the other stories.

The reason it was that they were so too big for them not to.

They would have lost all credibility if that was their problem.

Right?

Right.

they had no they had no choice on either of those they had i guess they had a little more choice on the economics and on china but they because they kept that god that was a sustained for two weeks that works in the front pages

And fortunately, you know, as it turned out, I didn't think so at the time, the Congress was out of town.

It was better to go that way.

It's the old theory that you had, you know, about, you know, don't go out when the Congress does.

Stay in town.

When they come back, leave town, go on a trip, screw them the other way.

Take the press with you.

Take the press with you and make the news out of Missoula or someplace.

Well, we'll take a whack at these people.

I'll try that stupid Alec.

Get him around here and get him to whine about something damn he wants.

Or, um, he should.

He should be more in Colorado.

Oh, he'll tell you about unemployment in Colorado.

I really, really don't like to talk about it.

The more loyal those soldiers are, the more they expect that you are.

And so they have to keep going.

I know.

Well, we must be thankful that they're on here.

They are on here.

I don't think too many of us were there.

I mean, actually, that'll be a very terrible job.

I'm not going to say anything.