Conversation 575-002

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Chief Justice called John this morning, and Black is sending you a letter saying he resigned to the pleasure of the president.

He will notify the court at the same time.

Berger suggested that you sit tight on it and not announce it, because it will cause trouble.

Mitchell and I both feel you've got to announce it, because there's a lot of rumors out there that they're checking it.

He's telling the whole court, so Douglas or somebody like that is going to let it out anyway.

I think at 4 o'clock, right on this briefing, she simply said that the president has received it.

I don't want to make a murder of Mr. Justice.

I want to let Mitchell handle the burden.

Now, beyond that, Berger is meeting this afternoon at 4.30 with Justice Harland, who has been transferred from Bethesda to another hospital because of his problem.

And it's Berger's strong feeling that at that time, Harland is going to tell him his intention to do what it was.

But we don't want his resignation, but we have a need to start one of the first men on board him.

The bar won't approve.

He's never practiced law.

At least that's possible.

Now, Mitchell wants guidance from any guidance from you that you want to get in on.

I don't want any policies you just want to get through.

I think the bar about now is not going to have a reason to want this thing.

He's a member of the judiciary.

John says we need some real thinking in the political area to figure out where we get the most credit, where we can do what's obvious under the current president.

He's got his walls coming down the first of the week to review, talk with, and not to the Supreme Court, but just a general discussion, because he didn't know anything in the southern half.

But he wanted to know whether he still were interested in William Franks.

And you might consider him if you want to play the Jews.

I gave a little commercial for bowling afterwards and so forth.

Well, dropping one in the gutter is bad, because there are not even bowls.

Oh, I didn't like drop-drops on rides and all that.

But there is all of us that tend to walk over and roll a strike.

That's great.

Tom, you know, I'm pleased with that draft.

I'll say it.

It's just maybe to show the country it's as bad off as we thought.

Well, we made our first part.

We put a lot of work in it.

That's not a big challenge.

We struggled with it.

Manseel needed it.

He did a tough job on it yesterday.

And what he said is that he called the next war several times.

We're not going to stand for Nixon's war.

We're not going to stand for it.

You talked about the nun thing.

Yes.

He still thinks that the nun is the best bet.

We would have to wait until after the... You wouldn't want to do

He said, his viewpoint is, he said that he doesn't buy Harlow's argument that the guy needs to be a farmer, so he won't do it.

He said, what you want is a guy who can sell your programs the most effectively.

Not a guy who understands agriculture, but a guy who understands how to pitch to agriculture.

And what you want, therefore, is a salesman and a politician who understands the farmer rather than a farmer.

Fine, just show how difficult it was and what you did.

They asked me to roll the ball down there.

They knocked down some pins because they couldn't get a picture of all of the pins going down at once.

They wanted to go down and have the strike.

Well, I tried it five times and it didn't do any good.

And then Ed, the amateur bowler, knocked it down four times and he couldn't do it.

And then finally he knocked them down.

The champ.

Because they wanted to get a picture of all of them going down.

Great comeback.

That was a pretty good show.

Yes, sir.

The wire services went over there and hit that one of them, and it was a perfect strike.

Yes, sir.

It was great.

It was really great.

But the wire services...

I must say,

I couldn't do anything.

A hundred frames never ended.

A hundred games were the only ones.

But what really happened, I was leaning over.

Oh, yeah.

I couldn't touch that.

But that worked out great.

The wire services were just like, my God, this is greater than VitaBoo.

This is greater than VitaBoo.

They were running across.

But the president walked up, and he was just a great man going out.

Did you hear about the next comeback?

He just said there was a, he made a first-preface speech, which is not in character for my impression.

And he got a clobber out of the boat.

And he really had his fang with him today.

That was after the cold.

Oh, yes, sir.

Did they realize about that?

Oh, yes, I walked up and I said, you were in the boat, it's a clear country.

Oh, yes, sir.

What the hell, yesterday we thought we would lose it at 11 o'clock.

I don't want to go south on you, there was an asshole out there.

I really put those guys down to the map today on the Democratic caucus line, you know.

Finally, Bailey said, yeah, that's right, you guys should call more, you know.

We've got to that point.

I see people call all the time.

Request information, you know, contact and so forth from the staff.

Apparently, if you don't know...

We didn't back off.

But I said, I didn't have an official comment to give.

Well, can you verify the report?

I said, I don't have an official comment to give, but I think Mr. Safar has made it clear in his head that the report was circulating that a Democratic senator had said this.

He suggested to a couple of guys to check that out.

Now, you fellows know, I said, are calling here all the time.

You're asking for more information.

You make contacts with us.

You encourage us to call you.

It's an absolute fact.

The only thing I do is follow.

I wonder if all that's on the floor, I wonder if that would, if I would have changed, I would have got a full of senators eating.

And what do you mean, next to the floor?

The Democrats got us in, and next to the floor is getting stopped.

Why doesn't somebody ever start singing?

Do we ever give them such lines, Chuck?

What was the very end of your meeting at Bob on that subject?

Chuck's regretting it.

Yeah, he is, and I regret it, too.

Well, so...

We're supposed to step out of the record by the time.

It's not what our people did.

We can't sue you.

He is a harder one than anybody is.

The Democrats at the moment are making themselves look like people because their attacks, they're not able to sustain them.

I think we ought to get over the idea that they are being partisan and obstructionist.

They are.

They are on national security, and they are on this war scene, and on the economic side.

I was asked that question today about the... About the... No, no, about the... Mail he asked.

Would... Like I said, I think the president was very clear in his remarks yesterday, and I don't know if he did, but he made it clear that today, no man, because of what he described,

I don't have a problem.

They have a problem.

They asked me about the DM thing too, and I said the president stands right on this remark.

I have nothing to add to it, you know, in the terms of the overthrow, the complexity of the overthrow.

Just say, John, I read the time, I read the time on the papers, and then you've got to go to the DM.

This is what we have to see, because our low-key guys show us, and all the rest just don't know how to handle it.

I mean, the Crocs flyers and all the rest, everything's on the record.

We may just let them babble on, I'm not saying anything.

Yeah, well, that might be the best idea.

Let's say we're here to listen to it.

This is particularly in the wide range.

It's the way the governor's saying it was yesterday.

Mills and Burns aren't coming down again.

Well, the rail is really a strong stand against.

Tom Lee has been raising hell over time.

He probably would have a lot of money if he got in that suite.

Bankers are a good ability.

Just like labor, you can't hit your center.

That's right.

Roger J. Robert Thompson used to handle the American Bankers Association, and they had one hell of a time, because any study you do, people dislike most.

I think bankers are bankers.

Bankers have insight.

But there's great impressions from all groups that we have met with.

The business group, including the business group, the labor group, the business group, the agriculture group, and the government group, while they were in the house, history governing, was efficient.

We always talk about Mexican things and so forth and so on.

On the other hand, you read the history of, let's say, warfare, particularly as I read it, and some of the students in World War I, World War II, and so on.

It is sometimes a mistake to just say, well, I'd like to be our people and do everything.

Sometimes you have to figure, you've got to make a decision on something that works a hell of a lot better than something else you don't believe in that are less effective.

Now, the real question there is, when you come down to this office press conference, people watch on Bailey in the writing press they like.

But, do we lose so much in terms of television?

You lose in terms of the president being there saying it himself.

You lose in terms of the immediate reach.

But, I don't think there's any question right now that what you said yesterday in the office over the period of time in the newspaper, radio, television, collectively, all of that, your message is very clearly out.

It didn't get out as fast, but it was out.

There's no question about the fact that what you're

A hell of a lot of people listen to the radio, listen to the local news shows, listen to the regional reports, and all of this accumulates and so forth.

But I doubt that you... You cannot go at all of those two, plus...

There's no question about it.

No question.

We all want to get the others out of the argument.

I don't think that's what I agree with.

Of course, the ultimate weapon is private technology.

That cannot be used...

We can't use this time at any time.

There's no reason we can't walk into that goddamn news time and make a cover because of whether you're not interfering with the guy's usual, shall we say, relaxation.

Well, I think now...

Thank you.

But the time that I said to the extent that I had to get rid of all that stuff, spend time thinking about major decisions, and preparing for major press conference decisions, do it.

Now the other thing that's all there is, when you come down here, the only advantage of the office press conference, my standpoint, it does not take...

as intensive preparation as the others, because it does not require as a high-intensity contraction of answers in very, very brief periods of time, which requires a lot of preparation and a lot of discipline.

So the August conference I had to do pretty easily, all the way to

You say no.

I say that until you've done all the television you figure you can do, that you shouldn't go to an office.

And then after you've done everything else, if we've saturated, if we've reached a point where we, whatever judgment you follow, people with TV saturated, that you can't do any more TV, and then having reached that point, you still feel there's a reason

We weren't at that point yesterday.

We could have been on TV.

There was a good argument not to be on TV, which is that you're going to be on next week.

But we don't know what will occur.

In terms of your attitude, is whether you want to put your own commercial, late commercial interests ahead of covering one of the major things that's happening in this country, the economy, and so he's going to go back.

But I think in this regard...

If they doubt it, it's all right.

It'll be covered regionally.

Yes, it will.

I think, I don't quarrel at all with the importance of television, the reach, and the effect of it.

But I think in all of this, when you consider the in-office press conference, the TV press conference, the conversation, and even the

I think one element in terms of assessing these guys as our enemy, which they are, I think that this enemy can be manipulated very, very easily by manipulating your attitude.

And I think a part of moving their attitude is this contact.

Not always contact by you, but, you know, how we assess inside here, I think that they're never going to be won over.

I think they've been manipulated, kept off balance, and moved.

Not always to write totally what we feel we should write.

There is a point you said about, there is the feeling of an intimate contact with the president.

I don't think too intimate, though.

Right, but I'm not suggesting

I'm not suggesting that you let them in too close.

I'm not suggesting that you become buddy-buddies with them.

If we look at the objective for getting the best press we can get,

which is part of the communication, communicating broadly to the American people, I think this is an element we cannot and should not overlook.

There isn't any question that as far as even the television press are concerned, they are enormously complimented by being invited into the office, and they much prefer the kind of a conference I had yesterday.

Correct.

All right.

My point is,

Do you think that affects their energies a bit?

I think the limited degree affects it, yes sir.

I don't think, I'm not suggesting that all press conferences should be done in the Alliance, but I think it very definitely has an impact on the press.

They were, before this press conference for example, yesterday.

They were moving into one of their periodic, every five month, very religion attitude.

And it was deteriorating.

This morning, yesterday afternoon, bang, they were up 100%.

Now, this affects what they talk about back there.

And it affects what Dan Ravage says on the evening show, because Dan Ravage, Bob Pierpont, Tom Darrell, and these guys, Kurt Kaplow, feed off of the writing press.

And this influences actually what they say.

What they cover.

Well, that's the other side of the coin.

You can do some more.

This kind of thing is very effective.

You don't have to do it for 30 minutes each time.

You might call in for 15 sometimes.

My view is that it's such an inexpensive job in order to get a lead.

That is what we don't have, apparently.

It would be such an accomplishment

Let's face it, we breathe together.

Because they don't know how.

They either don't know how or they don't have the balls.

Correct?

Very well said.

In terms of really affecting public attitudes towards you and the administration,

The president is the key to it, and even though we would like to see the other guys do the press conference, or that headline today, or that word news show last night, I should say, Bob, I think I have two minutes to do the show.

I think I have two minutes.

Well, if it's not now, no, the time, clearly, the time today, I don't want to stay here, so...

I don't give a damn about the key points.

It's the presidential leadership in here.

I didn't see the news, so I don't know what he said, but Dan Rather out there saying that, and they always play it, because they downplay it, an impromptu news conference in his office makes it sound like he just happened to run into a reporter and asked you some questions.

That's right, you can't depend on Dan Rather for general leadership, absolutely not, that's why it's important for TV.

But the other on the TV, with Dan Rather asking his stupid questions, and the president not listening to him,

The other reason is that

But the other reason, I think we're on for it, isn't too bad.

But the attitude of the people in the press, or I wouldn't say this, I don't know if it goes to an election, the attitude of the people in the press is important.

I have no idea that they're going to be nice to us.

But I do have an idea that...

Kennedy would frankly have the brains to handle the situation.

And Muskie would sound kind of very pompous about it, but he wouldn't do it.

And honestly, he wouldn't do it.

So then they know that this kind of thing, I think, is, my guess is, my guess is, at least, of course, the television press conferences are pressing to these bastards.

It does have an impression on what you do and what others of us do.

I just know there's some days...

The other thing you have to keep in mind is that these guys, even though their attitude is what we know it is, deal in news.

And when they are kept this, when they are right, when they...

You know, when they're involved in it, they don't have time to think about a column writing about, you know, the negatives, because they're reporting on the president, what he's doing, what the issues are around him.

I'm not concerned about the columns, except for the TV guys.

But the question is, maybe even the TV guys.

I mean, you know, like yesterday, one of the TV men got a question.

Those guys have a personal vested, salty interest, which goes to some degree to their pockets.

And they're going, they are fighting and struggling and digging to get on the air in any way they can.

And you can tell their attitude at Pierpoint is perfect bellwether.

Because when he's on the air, he's going on fire.

He is the happiest, friendliest, he does the best stuff you can think about doing.

But when he's slumped, when he's in a slump, when he's not on the air, when that little extra 200 bucks is coming next to him.

I don't know if he's regressed.

That's right.

That is a factor.

Let's try it.

You've got to do that now.

The next office thing we will do

But I think with the film, I'll let you see how much we got on the evening news with the film.

My guess is you get three or four minutes.

At least you'll get three or four minutes.

I know the film is about three or four minutes.

Yeah.

Unless I make a very arranging sound.

Yeah.

I remember when we did that, I don't like to put an agent in here, but you are forced to carry it.

We were getting to, we did one or two around these times, several, I think two.

They were all moving to the point where they were going to delay the carrying of the press conference until after they had done their regular news show.

They all met on this.

I don't know if you were involved in this discussion or not.

They became very...

They were moving back...

They were on the verge of doing that.

Now, I think they could be pressed for maybe three shots in that way, but then they'll back off.

If we ever get to that, we've got to really be careful.

The worst thing that could happen to us is to get into a pattern where the networks decided to carry your...

I think we've been very, very happy.

You see, look what we've done.

We had all three networks on July 3rd.

We had all three networks on July 15th.

We had all three networks on August 15th.

And that's all in prime time.

And I think we had all three networks, of course, not in prime time, but in the middle of the day, which means nothing with the state of the huge business.

Followize the news conference.

Yesterday would have been a mistake, if I heard it.

Absolutely.

God damn, I was telling you.

And also, we've been on the news a couple of times over this last three months.

I'm sorry to be jackass if you've been doing my speech to the region.

But the question... Oh, we'll see.

Let's try that again.

We're going to dig it back.

Tell this, I'm never going to do it again.

A live television conference in the evening.

Whether or not I do it, it will be smacked.

It isn't worth the minimal television audience you get to do to prepare that.

If I prepare a televised news conference, live news conference, I'm going to do the goddamn thing.

If you're talking about doing it once a month, once a month or less, I would argue you should do it at prime time.

If you're going to do it more than once a month, then you've got to do it a minute's time or something.

I think it would be a good splash.

I don't know how they're going to

I think it would be good to have... Look, we don't want to see... We don't want to hit the hole that the regional country fell in or something out there.

We don't want to just think for a minute here.

You see, I may decide, if we do the trade, I may decide to do this kind of thing, and some other people might do the PRT, and I'll be gone.

It's good to have something on when you have a good enthusiasm party inside your tree.

I'm just wondering...

This presents a terror, it presents the evil of time, but I don't have any questions.

It's good to have something on when you have a good enthusiasm party inside your tree.

I'm just wondering...

I think the A is it.

What is the best event?

Rather than taking an hour, that's what we want.

You see, it concerns me to have an hour of private time on a new train.

Taking it out of the movies and everything else.

I'm not so sure it's a good idea.

Yes, but I prefer fun.

I know.

This is an hour.

See, the first hour tells the advantage that it's a half hour.

It doesn't bother me.

The ASME was so good in that type of format that I think this has to be good.

Take it.

But so does anything you do on television.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Tape makes a better presentation than film.

My point is, if you guys, the Detroit Economic Club on television, it will also be replayed pieces of it all the time today.

Sure.

No question about it.

Multiple stations and networks and everybody else.

It'll be on the CBS Morning News, it'll be on the Today Show.

And their panelists.

You see, the panelists will be down out there, you know what I mean.

When I say down, they'll ask probably all the church economic questions.

Well, their questions will have been submitted before they go on the air, and the panel will have worked out their questions and divided them up, and they'll have it so they have a good range of questions.

All I would have been to suggest,

Here's the point.

The Q&A format is an enormously effective format.

Ok. Ok.

And it's an exciting thing to have Q&A.

It's a modern thing, too.

That's what the talk shows are all about.

Q&A, Q&A, Q&A.

Now, here, that's why I even suggested we ought to have an actual talk on it.

I still think it's already possible that it's not going to make it one.

Maybe we answer the mail on television, or anything, any day of the day.

Maybe we do something in it.

We don't have to go to a prime time audience every time.

You don't have to do it.

We have to do it.

Look at the shit-ass things we do for audiences of 1,500.

I mean, I go out to, or maybe, we say, God, wasn't it great?

We had 30,000 at the airport in Canada.

Wasn't that great?

Sure, that was great.

I might say an interesting news thing, but the point is that we forget that anything you do on television is a rally of 5 million people, even in the middle of the day, that I do, correct?

5 million people you're hitting.

So if I do a Q&A in the middle of the day, it's 5 million people.

Not bad.

We talked about this before.

Press conference.

I know you're not referring to Q&A all the time.

It's press, but press conference in Chicago.

over a period of time, the impact of that, in other words, you take the televised press conference out of the East Street, the same old people, the same old format, and you move, you go into an area for an event or something, and as a part of that, you have maybe 20 minutes, or 25 minutes, with the press conference.

Fantastic.

It would depend on the time zone.

I would think that you would maybe want to do it in prime time, because most of the regional area would cut into the network programming to carry the president's news conference in Chicago live, don't you think?

It wouldn't pin up internationally, it would, no doubt.

I would think prime time.

Well, that was, that's easy to say, but I'm thinking of doing it on a much broader scale.

Why not do it?

There's much to be said.

I love the local guys asking questions.

They're all there, the guys that are going to help or hurt us a lot, too.

I'm sure the national network shows are very effective.

As I said, it took us months to get to do it for two years, and we had to see George Pond.

But I would think, I would think if you did this...

You would get extensive, massive regional coverage and good network coverage on any of those you did at whatever time you did it.

They have to carry a lot.

You know what I mean at first time?

You allowed coverage, they'd have to carry it.

They couldn't not carry it.

In the networks.

Well, I agree, but... Well, that's what I'm talking about.

I understand that.

Right.

As to other things we can do on a much more frequent basis, just to keep them on the line.

We've got to keep them on the line.

We've got a very, we have a problem here with it.

And it's, as I said, it's a very common thing.

Possibly, yeah.

We've got to pick the right side of the music, right?

We can make our case.

And we've got to try to put ourselves together.

I guess you know that the waste of my time, absolute waste of my time, except for that that we have to do something of the goodness of the heart, is to scrap the office.

I mean, it is for the birds.

Sitting in there, holding the hands of people, and giving a hug to her couple of nights, and all the rest.

And they say, gee, they loved it.

Of course they loved it.

Why wouldn't they?

I mean, how good does it do us?

A few now that will come in to help us and so on.

Generally speaking, we have done all that.

We've done that for the rest of our years.

I've seen the business people.

I've seen that.

And I've met them.

They were out of our ears.

And I can count off this hand the number that today we call on and say, look.

What is that?

It was...

Why didn't he force the election?

I mean, once, but not before seven.

But okay, I'll do things.

That was true before we had...

They bring them in and are interested with a plan in mind to get out of it.

But I think in all this thing, we've gone too far on that.

I mean, I know why, because we are terribly bad.

And they say, well, I'm the president, so I can be with them in our cottage group and be with all that.

We've never seen the way that Rob says that we're supposed to cover for the rest of it.

Well, of course, this stuff doesn't get through.

Recently, a follow-up can...

That in my view was a total waste of my time.

I mean total.

They were very important people.

I had had most of them before.

Either there or someplace else.

There wasn't a god damn reason to have that meeting.

Not then.

In terms of our efforts, yeah, we did a good job.

Now, what we really have to find, I compare that opportunity

I'll just sit and think.

Or take that hour for the purpose of preparing for an office press conference.

Better use the time, right?

You agree?

Yeah.

Well, there's where we have to go.

Now we come to the other thing.

You've come to the fight, so luckily you do.

But there's always, as all of us do, going to get blackmailed into doing some of that kind of thing.

Some of the things you do aren't worthwhile, but they have to be done anyway.

Well, you take the bullet and some low-level staff have to bring the spotter in.

There's actually no good at all for anybody.

You've got to do a few things like that.

Because I haven't talked about that.

Everybody's got to do that.

But what is it that you can tell them about?

It's like telling you where to tell cats.

If you're going to get a bunch of important people to pinpoint you on your health and stuff, that you, somewhere you've got to slap a little...

That's the coverage I would have gotten before it took place.

I would have felt I would have gotten some coverage.

Right.

Even projected massive coverage, that's what I could get for a long time.

They can't make the impact, even if they have to.

Of course, there are ways that...

You have to be very cautious, I agree, particularly now.

And I'm getting a little of this, you know, from the pool.

But for example, there are ways to force them into news time, which is not calling a press conference here in the East Room.

You have a news conference in, where's the two-hour time difference?

Cincinnati?

Two-hour difference, isn't it?

One.

Matter of fact, this is the same.

Ohio's an Eastern time now.

Cleveland's Eastern.

But go ahead.

Chicago's one.

Well, even as you move west.

If you had a press conference in Denver at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, or 5 o'clock, it would force America to have a loose time in the east.

Then you would go west with almost as much coverage on the later feed-ins to it, and on the local live and regional live.

That way they wouldn't be forced to pick up the president of the press conference in the new show.

And they wouldn't rebel.

They couldn't rebel.

Well, the whole Kennedy period, you know, he did not use that.

Only occasionally.

No press conferences.

Occasionally he did.

I think maybe three or four.

I have no idea.

I recall that he did a few, but over the whole list, which we broke out, 12 and 4.

That's right.

He did the press talks more frequently, every week.

He didn't have to rely on us last year.

But he was doing it for a different reason.

He didn't have to rely on us as heavily as we do, in that he wasn't using us to go over the heads of the press.

He was doing this as part of his overall program.

I wouldn't, Mr. President, as

You have to pace yourself.

Pace the appearances in prime time.

Depending on the issue, the need, the mood.

I wouldn't do it anyway.

Don't worry about the equal time.

They've never done it on all three networks together.

They never will, because legally networks won't give you that.

You or anybody else on one network until it just won't get an audience.

That's why we follow it.

Therefore, if there's a prime time opportunity next week, in the format you're best in, we should push like the difference together.

And you're not overexposed.

Do you think that?

No, I don't think so.

I don't think there's a possibility of being overexposed.

I've heard that in a session.

But the other question is, following that line of thinking, if you proceed that way, does that mean you don't use television at other times?

And I've always thought that we do benefit every time you walk before an electronic camera.

It varies in terms of the degree, of course.

Well,

That was one easy 15 for me.