Conversation 575-007

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

I don't know what kind of day it is.

It seems awfully cold in here.

It's, uh, I think it's fairly hot.

It's, uh, it's especially cold in here.

Det er norsk.

Det er norsk i stedet for de antike norske støy.

400 feet to the headquarters.

I start off with perhaps a stronger band.

You've got a couple of hard-on's to go, though.

Yes, all of them are always right, and you can catch back on the whole track.

But then you've got to be honest.

Within the next year, or at least fair, you get at least one more out of Douglas and Marshall.

Takk for ating med.

Stavros!

Stavros Stavros Stavros

Stavros, stavros!

Teksting av Nicolai Winther

Ok.

World Wide 1 hit six months ago and he would have been in office just asunder the bench.

I think I could possibly do it.

Would you tell me?

Work out the nerves, I'm sure you would.

Work out the feelings.

I guess I did have it.

I must have had it.

Well, it was because of the way Nils and his friends played it.

I don't know how generally it was felt in the country that way.

I don't think it was.

Not that kind of.

He goes to Iran.

And the question is a couple other stop reasons, and he, you had agreed in principle to Greece, and he wants to make it a short trip with only a couple of stops.

Rogers has suggested he's going to Brussels, Nigeria, or Liberia, and Salon, and opposes Greece unless the Greek government wants to normalize their political structure.

And Roger Steele's trip to Greece should be balanced by a stop in Turkey.

Henry recommends that you let him go ahead on the trip to Greece.

It will get some domestic criticism, but it can't be done.

He's got to go to the Polish vice president.

We've got to let him go to the Polish vice president.

That's the whole point.

Another thing I would do is that I want to get a hold of Henry Tosca.

I could have the Tosca to have the Greek government arranged to do something while he was there.

See, what he says is Tosca's most recent meeting with Papadopoulos has suggested that any imposed preconditions might make the visit unacceptable.

Discussing the problem candidly and without preconditions will increase the probability of convincing the Greek government to take some additional step toward restoration of arms.

And I don't think he has to go to other countries.

Well, Henry says about the turkey thing, which Bill wants to be used to balance.

He says timing isn't ideal for that.

But he agrees turkey should be included if it's acceptable.

I think it's four.

And then three countries enter.

Why doesn't he go to the sunset countries?

So that's what they're suggesting.

Well, what they're suggesting is just that.

Iran, Greece, and Turkey.

That doesn't agree to those.

And that the alternative for turkey would be Brussels.

All right.

As a fallback, no, I don't know how it works.

The boss of Turkey won't accept it, right?

It'll be okay.

He says there's no reason to go to Nigeria, Liberia, no, no, no.

And he recommends, you've got to go and bring it down to Liberia, one of the delegations.

And I don't know who the hell will put it in the head of the men.

Would you know whether I, would you try to find out whether I wrote a letter to Tolbert?

Congratulate me.

If not, I need to remind you that I'm a shit investor.

You didn't have a raise price from the very last year, did you?

Yeah, but I asked to be sent to you for six years, and I haven't seen it.

I'll talk to you tomorrow, I hope.

I'll be sure to get it.

Yeah, any letter, obviously.

We decided to try and

We have a very bad bill coming out of the Senate.

It's going into the House.

Now, the question is, do we want it cleaned up, which we could probably get a pretty good clean-up job on.

Or do we want to veto it, bearing in mind that since our previous discussion on this, we have the new economic policy, and we're taking the pounding on favoring business to the detriment of the low value.

And whether there is an issue building there, which...

changes our previous strategy on this.

To add to that, the fact that at least one newspaper man has a tip that we're trying to get a bad bill from.

Probably somebody who's leaked out of here.

No, I think Jerry Ford.

Or that.

Well, Alex Queen's been damn good about this.

He says if you want me to, I'll roll on this and we'll try and get you the worst bill we can.

But he said I would get caught at it, number one.

Number two, you know.

I agree.

I have Mr. Justice Black's letter here if you'd like to see it.

In our opinion, it's effective immediately.

He's a little ambiguous.

I hope he raises his opinions better than that.

No, it's...

Well, I don't know who they have.

They told me that they can't have Paul because the bar will clear it.

What the hell does that mean?

Well, that's a question you have to cope with.

If we're going to stick with this business of who the bar will clear, that cuts down the list pretty substantially.

It's a judgment call as to whether you want to be bound by that.

The

There's only one person that I know of that you're going to have to persuade on this, and that's John Mitchell.

He doesn't want to buck the Bar Association.

He doesn't pop.

I think he'd like to have pop.

I think you should start the proposition that they should make one exception to their rule of practice in law, and that is 10 years of service on the Judiciary Committee of the House of Senate.

That's as bold as I got to wrestle him, if he were God.

For Christ's sakes, he did a good job, though.

Wouldn't he?

Yep.

I thought he wouldn't ever practice.

That's the plan.

That's what they say.

I don't know.

He probably was an assistant district attorney for six months, and then he ran for county judge or supervisor or something, and then the next thing he did was go to Congress.

Thank you for watching!

That's right.

It's a political thing.

If you all call the Judiciary Committee, it's a goddamn good lawyer, isn't it?

There's only one person that I know of that you're going to have to persuade on this, and that's John Mitchell.

He doesn't want to pop?

He doesn't want to buck the Bar Association.

If he doesn't pop, I think he'd like to have pop.

Well, the Bar Association, you told Mitchell at the start of this, I think you should start the proposition that they should make one exception

to their rule of practicing law, and that is ten years of service on the Judiciary Committee of the House or Senate.

Now, let's just put it that way.

If that's my belief, and I've got a problem with that, and they want to fight me on that, fine, I'm going to fight you.

I'd go pop you if you'd get the goddamn job.

That doesn't mean anything.

That's off your practice law.

That's the point.

That's what they say.

I don't know.

He just ran for the Congress.

Yeah, you know, he probably was an assistant district attorney for six months, and then he ran for county judge or supervisor or something, and then the next thing he did was go to Congress.

Well, let's look very, very hard at the other conservative.

I don't know where he is.

I mean, we have this fellow in California, right in the sky.

French.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

But it's nice to have this kind of a problem.

It sure is.

It's a great change.

Yes, sir.

It's a great moment.

But we've got to have a man.

I want a guy that's frank with me.

between 40 and 50 years of age.

Not a guy 60, quite a 261-year-old man at this point.

That's not good.

That's trouble with John Barr, says he.

I don't want to look at that.

Well, on my list, there are two names that appeal to me.

One of them probably not confirmable, and that's Weinberger and Spiro Tiaga.

I don't know.

It's a strong question in my mind.

But it's a hell of an intriguing possibility.

God, that's really ripped things up.

Talk about your blockbusters.

They're all sick.

What's that?

He would be a good judge.

I think he'd do an excellent job.

He'd be articulate.

He'd be highly principled.

I'm sure he wants it now.

I'm sure.

You think he wants to stay vice president?

No.

Well, maybe.

Or does he want to get out and fight it out?

You know, he loves his social stuff.

I'm so surprised.

The movie star business.

He likes the movie star business.

He could do that, though.

Out from the court.

The justice can lead the social life.

He's got a good social thing.

He's got all summer to do it.

He can go to California and spend the summer.

May to October.

at the same time he is now enjoying a sort of climate of

That is probably temporary before the storm.

And at that time, he'd get so cut up that probably he could never pull us off.

Of course, the Senate would have a golden opportunity to do U.N. by refusing to confirm your vice president.

Oh, Christ, that would be awful.

I don't think we can give them that chance.

By the way, we want to put a line builder in there.

He's an arch-conservative.

He's a good lawyer.

And he's from California.

And also, basically, he's considered a Jewish.

Sure.

He is a Jewish.

And he's apparently part Jewish by inheritance, but not totally.

It just means he is Jewish to a lot of people, only to Jews that he is Jewish.

Yep.

He'd give credit for it if that's what you're... My point is, he'd be a hell of a good judge.

He'd do a hell of a good job.

He'd be tough as hell.

What is hell?

He's no great conservative on social issues.

No.

Well, I'm not so sure.

He's conservative on economic.

Yeah, well, criminal, criminal social issues.

He is tough.

He's a hound on civil rights.

And basically, I don't want somebody that's conservative, soft on welfare and civil rights and things like that.

Boy, he's not soft on welfare on the budget side.

No.

No, on civil rights, basically.

I don't want a man on the court who's a racist.

You know, frankly, I just don't want one.

I don't feel that way myself.

I mean, we could cross that goddamn bridge.

The only thing I would have to have in it is an understanding.

And where it goes on is an understanding on busing.

I'm not going to put anybody in that thing just because my team is on busing.

This sense, of course, is a... Well, look over the country, John.

I'm over it.

Where ever you might find a rag-a-linge, it's not a damn thing.

It's a guard.

It's anybody we can pick up at the center.

Want to pick up at the center?

How about Robert from Berger, West Virginia?

Have you had a memo from me on the antitrust television network suit?

Oh, you did?

Okay.

That's what you recommend?

Yes, sir.

What if you touch Colson?

Yes, yes.

And they say go?

They say go.

I did suggest that we ought to really talk to the network.

Absolutely.

Tell them, look, it's here, we've been sitting on it, and let them know that we're here.

That'll be part of the gang plan.

And also to talk to the other people and say, here it is, we've got to try the case.

This is not against you, no, that's going to be played fair.

That's right.

Okay.

The only other thing I have is a business index from the state of California that you may have seen, I don't know.

It shows the first several months of this year.

Uh,

Way up, the July reading, up 10% from the November low.

And the chart shows the last half of 69 and all of 70 practically level with little wiggles, and 71 just going up like a skyrocket.

This is business.

This is all of the business activity indices for about 43 of the state's 58 counties.

I think it will.

It says the business index is composed of seasonally adjusted...

This is the Security and Civic National Bank.

Yes, right.

This covers finance, trade, industry, employment, building and real estate activity.

Just numbers of transactions and volumes and all that kind of thing.

Something must be done.

Reagan has a feeling that there's something wrong with the numbers.

I mean, he says, God damn it, because these numbers on the planet are all that bad.

He says, well, it can't be this way.

He's got to just choose.

On the planet, he's got to have a sampling survey.

It's not a...

It has no... Jesus Christ.

I'll leave that with you if you like.

I'll give it back to you.

Look at that.

Have you ever asked about him?

Well, no, I just went.

Yes, I fell asleep in a corner.

Well, that'd be a blockbuster, all right.

No, I just was bugging Bob to be sure this was moving along, because I know this congressional thing is still coming.

Well, where it's at now is everybody agrees it's time to do it, and the Attorney General says she doesn't know it yet.

He feels the person has to do it alone.

I agree with that.

But the editor is primed for it and ready to go.

Only if you say so.

He is primed to do whatever you feel is best.

You say it's best for him to announce now that as of January 1, or as of his birthday, he is stepping down.

Why do you think this is the blockbuster today?

That'll be a big one.

All right.

When I'm ready, I'll try to say it tomorrow.

If he'll be able to get his personal files, that'll be a good thing, too.

He's reputed to have a file on Lyndon Johnson that...

I already found it.

Something.

Really?

You mean about his first Senate day?

Senate days ago.

Yeah, fascinating thing on Lyndon Johnson.

Did you notice Lyndon at the whole second house?

Hopefully he finds a hand in the Pentagon.

Yeah, yeah.

He sent Rostow out to say a few little things.

Sure.

Bill Gill, from ABC, who is from Texas, and knows the Jetsons well, of course, accidentally ran into Lady Bird in Austin at the airport, and both got on the same plane to Washington, so he flew over in a three-hour plane flight, chatted with Lady Bird.

He called John Scali afterwards to tell him about the conversation.

And he's got, Gil says, Lady Bird told him, number one, Lyndon supports the president's foreign policy 1,000%.

Although lately he's been bothered by the presidency's tendency to be, quote, tricky as a two-bit whore about where he's headed.

He can't figure out whether the president's listening to bad advice to always drop blockbusters, or whether he's improvising as he goes along.

The directions he's set are good enough so that Lyndon doesn't think the president has to be so damn mysterious.

That's why 1.2, at Walt Rostow's anniversary party a week ago, Lyndon said to all assembled, it's too bad the presidency couldn't be split in two, with Nixon taking the foreign policy and Lyndon the domestic policy.

Quote, Nixon couldn't find his ass on the road map in domestic policy, but he's got good instincts on foreign policy.

Close quote.

Third point, Muskie will have to be caught diddling the Pope's wife in public in order to lose against Nixon.

He thinks Muskie's going to win, which is kind of interesting.

Number four, Lyndon was much interested in whether Stanley was happy in his White House role, whether the president was listening to his advice.

Gale said he understood he was.

Lady Bird said Lyndon had always wanted to name a man to watch where he was going, but that, quote, as you know, Lyndon had a personality problem.

Quote, quote.

Scaling says, I believe it's an accurate report.

Gil is a native Texan, being a close friend of the Johnsons, and see, the language sounds up.

God, I was surprised she used that language.

It's interesting what he says about Muskie.

How he's been into Muskie.

Or to lose against Nixon.

I wonder if it's to lose against Nixon or if it's to lose the nomination, and if you get that mixed up.

Well, based on some of what the lady first said in some of those interviews,

She's capable of saying that.

She's been around that long enough.

Yeah, she's a tough gal.

Yeah, she's very tough.

Well, next time we go to Sean, I'll see what we can do.

They're cheaper by the pair.

We can work that out with Mr. Justice Harlan.

I'll probably work with Harlan.

Send him out there to be confirmed at the same time.

See where Johnson basically is coming from.

He tells Billy Craig and others he's going to support him.

But basically, he's a Democrat.

He's his only state, and us is going to be a non-center property.

We've done everything for him.

He's me.

I ain't no more.

You had said a while back you wanted to look for a way to get him up here for some kind of local thing, but you don't want to, and I think not.

Hei, hei, hei!

And a suggested thought that might be worth at least taking a run on is that we offer John Scali to the Vice President's traveling party.

I think the president liked John Sculley.

Well, he didn't.

He thought Sculley was trying to do something, but then he changed his mind, and Sculley started to salvage him.

Mike, we could do it on, you know, just would you like to take John Sculley with you?

His knowledge of that area and all might be very helpful to you, and to deal with some of these press products.

You're welcome to do anything you want, because he is international.

But I'm trying to...

Push anybody off.

Say, let me level with you.

Just say there was some talk that you were trying to push Harlow off.

We weren't trying at all.

I can't be very blunt.

You'd like to have a scallop.

You don't want to swear at the U.S. delegation today.

Well,

I don't have to.

You don't have to at all.

I don't think there's much in it.

Is that the reason?

No.

The question is an alternate.

The delegation now is...

Well, Diggs, Charlie Diggs from Michigan, and Derwin Steele, I don't want to have anything to do with it.

The one hand are the delegates, and you've got Alan Shepard, Art Fletcher, Gladys O'Donnell as the holder.

And the only, Henry doesn't think you should do it, but he put it in, I guess if y'all said it, no.

He said if you want to do that because you're not going to the UN, this would be a way to show interest.

I don't think so.

He didn't think he could do it.

I don't think so.

No, no, no, I don't think so.

We're doing the biggest job of the night.

On the trip west, we're planning to take Griffin and Ford to Detroit.

They're both members of the executive board of the Economic Club.

If Park asks, we'll take him too.

Although we won't.

They won't push it.

He's on the board also, so we'll pretty much have to if he asks.

How do you anticipate him?

Well, he will.

But I don't mean to ask him.

Don't ask him.

And he won't know that we ask the others if it can be in favor of us.

Now, the question arises in Detroit, do we meet with the state Republicans?

No recommendations, no.

You don't care about them anyway.

And I want this to be totally non-void.

Okay, good.

Then, on the Montana trip, Mike's asked that we take the delegation along.

I think we should.

And then the question is being with city Republicans in Montana.

Now that's another question.

I don't know.

We probably should, because we won't go back to Montana.

But it gets a little sticky, because you'd have to do it at the airport if you had a couch towel.

After the tour, you get that old kind of vision.

Ok, meet with them anyway.

Yeah, they're kind of aware.

It's the only time we're going to get in there.

There are people in Ireland.

You go out to meet them, they want to meet you, so they come and shake your hands.

We may have to do it on the airplane, or on a terminal, but over time, the airplane is fine for a group like that.

Then on Oregon, we won't take any of the Oregon delegation with us, but we'll invite them to meet you at the airport.

Some of them will, some of them won't, probably.

There again, we meet with the Republicans, and there you're spending the night, and I think you've got to... We could do it after the media briefing, where if you had a little reception for them, then we'd just slap a reception for the Republican types.

And Washington will invite the congressional delegation to meet the airport, meet the airport if they want to.

And the question there is whether we meet with the state GOP's there, but you'd have to, again, be at the airport.

We're in Washington.

Yeah, Washington State.

I think so.

It's a Sunday afternoon.

We just have it at the airport.

I think we better get it over with.

In Alaska, we'll have them do the wall vehicles reception.

That'll take care of it.

There we have separate vehicles reception to be for the press to...

I don't know how much it's going to go well in Alaska.

I love us doing this.

You're a weird guy.

You've got an interesting possibility that just came out of the blue for West Virginia.

In Elkins, West Virginia, on Friday, October 8th, they have their fall Mountain State Forest Festival, which is the celebration of their fall coloring season business.

And it's a big deal in the state.

They have 50,000 people.

It's a queen crown, in fact, a festival queen.

You could work in Albertassi.

In that, which would get us a hell of a lot bigger car than if we cranked up a phony Albertassi event.

You could do it by helicopter right from here.

It's a Friday afternoon.

Good, good, good.

And then you can shop with him there on the day after.

It's a nice thing to do.

And you can announce at the time this is a 50th setting.

Make one hell of a thing.

We'll get him earlier that week.

We can piece, piece.

God has fixed that.

Please stop.

Does he have a home over there?

Apparently so.

And it's all right.

I don't care what kind of home it is.

I assume that he lives in terrible places, but apparently he's got something anyway, and he's just decided to buy his dinner chair and all kinds of stuff.

It just solves all sorts of problems for him, and it just...

Yeah, he's delighted.

And we hope, well, it's the greatest thing we can do any time, and, you know, all we have to do is do it.

Yeah, excellent.

What is the situation on Alan's cancer thing?

Now, we've told him I'm not going to do it, so, or how are we going to do it?

They're totally not going to do it, but they'll do it.

And Richardson's on it.

But then I'll fly out and do it.

I think this is ideal, because hell, he's going with the democratic, he can't be political.

Well, let's see what we can do with Albert Hesse.

Well, you know, you take Albert Hesse along, and just say this is the one time he went, the one safety visit that he didn't take you to, of all the 50, was his own safe or something.

Make a twist out of it that way.

Well, why don't we take the plane?

All right, we're flying.

I don't know where we land, but we'll find a way.

I think we should.

Okay.

Then we can helicopter away.

I hope we're not doing press interviews.

There is one question of whether you would want to do a farewell interview with Doug Cornell as you retire after 32 years, A.B. ?

I can't make any exceptions.

I have, rather than, I have another one with a post, you know, the follower of Thomas Roberts, who's retiring too, he wants a farewell interview.

And it's, I've got all sorts of things, and I just am not going to do it, I'm not getting interviews.

Per hell, he might want to let Ron just bring him in to say goodbye or something, when he does.

But that's just an interview.

God damn it.

Well, I don't know.

I don't want to do an interview.

We don't need to do anything.

No, I'm just mine for him.

I know he belongs to everybody else.

I might invite him.

She did it over at the House of Representatives.

I might invite him.

The White House pressed the thing in for a little cocktail for a while.

I'm going to get a little bit older, and then he'll be here, and so forth.

I'd say a few words.

Just to know he's a nice fellow.

I started to have him saying farewell to everybody.

No, but I know him right there.

I know that they have us in the house.

He's the only man that I know.

He was the one who got very interested in fairness from the mother next door being on the scene.

Munn consisted of his name, really, on the housing.

He had one name beyond the building.

And Carnaval was from Sturgeon, but I read it.

So he named it the Munn-Nixon Bill.

Oh, really?

That's right.

How did he do it?

When I first got my interest in Nixon, it was the Munn-Nixon Bill.

When the communists at UCLA were demonstrating against the Munn-Nixon Bill, the whole thing fascinated me.

Registered Congress, that was all.

The American Youth for Democracy had a big organization out there at that time.

They were marching down with fun next to them.

I remember seeing the demonstration.

It was a rare thing on campus in those days.

Well, another Q&A possibility that we talked about before you talked about me doing, was that National Conference of Editorial Directors, who are meeting in Pittsburgh.

Well, that is one I would not do for television.

I do it for their own benefit, I guess.

I don't know if you want to do it or not.

I don't know if this is worth it.

I've thought about it, but I'm not thinking.

I don't know what to think.

It's $500, so you're covering the best of the right of the terrorists pretty widely across the country.

You addressed them once in Oklahoma City when you were vice president.

And I shared everything.

And answered questions.

The difficulty is how the hell they could do that without having it on the record and all that.

I didn't see editorial writers.

You can do it as a background briefing.

About affecting people.

Editorials affect people, I guess they do.

These are editorial writers, but they're not publishers and editors.

Editorial writers, editorial page editors, editorials affect people.

And small paper editors.

I don't know.

I don't know either.

Another thing we could do, as long as they're having this meeting, is we could do it like our media briefing type thing.

In other words, we could send a briefing team in, and then you, for an afternoon session, then you would close.

I think, actually, while I've been doing that, that we...

I can't say that, even though it's more work for me, it's not more work, that...

The Q&A format is so effective.

It's frankly so effective to me that I just ought to use it more than I have.

To find the thing.

I understand it isn't all that easy.

But I can find the thing that if I try to keep up the speed so that I don't have to go down to the pit every time to get rid of it.

See, doing it once a month is harder than doing it every week.

Sir?

Because you have to send it every week, and do it every week, and end up more than once a month.

But the once a month thing is quite an exercise, because I've got to cover a whole lot of water.

That's why I'm on the press conference.

Stakeholder has a good point.

He really does, and I didn't want to.

I mean, I don't want to give the impression that the mood or press is not important.

It is, for sure.

And they, it is true they're against us, but they are, they can be viciously against, or moderately against.

There is any question, and they can change it, you know.

There is absolutely a huge total agreement.

And frankly, they're up to that.

They're confident.

And it does make a difference.

And you get better stuff.

And also, well,

Also, they're a little impressed.

They're quite impressed by this sort of thing.

And they figure maybe writing this sort of conference may have more effect than we think.

I think that's right.

It may ripple around, doesn't it?

Yeah.

You take, for example, Kansas City.

Back around this little part of Kansas City.

That was picked up quite broadly.

Sure, well, Kansas City has lived a whole lot of lives, and we've lost time, kind of.

Think of all those places, Bob.

You don't really feel, in a way, we shouldn't, because it's a mean question, but you feel a little sorry for Johnson, don't you?

He is so obsessed with himself.

Unfortunately.

And from a political standpoint, you didn't get the thud until we were here.

In other words, the inflation was on the way.

He wiped in the inflation, screwed up, threw in all this, got off the programs that you can't get untangled from now.

That's what we were saying.

Okay, popular programs.

Yeah.

What do you think of the popular programs?

Permisse?

What do you think of the poverty program?

You know, help, help schools.

Why they don't have water?

Si.

Like on this country I don't speak English, sir, I know of one they don't have water.

You know, I'm glad we've got it all worked out now.

And Rob, wasn't that a ten strike you bought?

No, I think you did.

I said, I'd like to take credit on Rob's house.

But he just took a little pinch of it.

You know what it does?

It builds him up in arms.

Of course it does.

Which is a good thing to do.

It solves the problem of all bringing them up in Memphis.

It solves the problem of didn't run up those dinner people without having to get in here.

And it does Delaware in the best possible way you could.

Gets out of screwing around in the square in Wilmington, you know, or something like that.

Or in the well over there.

People, and then, and Elkins is a nice touch, Bushmere is beautiful, Paul Festival, that's it.

What I want to make points with there is Bob Hurst, who had Senators proposed, Senators, Senators, Senators, Senators, Senators,

But be sure that Bob knows on a private basis that the president wants to know, particularly whether he thought that you, just say that you're checking, just say, look, I want you to call him personally, okay?

You could say you were going for the schedule of the president.

Slaggers had suggested this, he's a wonderful person, and we just had, he'd worked with me, and I said, well, I just don't know, but would you ask Bob Bird what he thinks of it?

I'd like to hear his recommendations.

And then if he leans against it, he would sort of lean and look the other way.

And if Bob Bird says it isn't, well, don't say anything about it, but we want you to go, we'd like you to go down, this could you go, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay.

We're going to go on Monday, Mr. President, with the maximum effort, everything that flies in a stretch of 20 miles north of the DMZ.

They've been asking for it.

Oh, yes.

Oh, I think you know the domestic heat we're going to take, but the way we're going to do it, you know, you can judge it better than I can.

I think the way we're going to do it

Se if we hit what is Monday morning there, that Sunday night here, by the time it's Monday morning here, we will already have announced that the raid is over and there'll be no other.

We'll just say this completes, this is protective reaction and violation of the understandings that filled the road across the DMZ.

They've been...

In shooting at our planes.

And endangering, and endangering our forces as we were drawn.

That's right.

I put that quite, rather than the picture, endangering our forces as we were drawn.

So, we'll have a...

I don't think anybody has a complaint about that.

No, you didn't really.

About 400 airplanes.

Okay, but they didn't accuse Henry about that.

The people, the press will know, but when they write it, it still comes out as, they think we're bombing all the time there anyway.

So it's essential because it's in terms of what you said to the Romanian this morning, which I thought was superb incidentally.

Well, did he get the message?

Well, if he didn't get the message, he ought to be fired.

You said it in this nice, quiet way.

He said, I just want you to know

My patience with these people is very thin.

I don't want you to be surprised by what happens to us.

After all, this is our...

Now, with this thing happening, I had... We did it.

We did it.

That's good.

So, they're going through a tough phase now for a few weeks.

I kind of feel the way of the bull of the draft today, which I'm just as, of course, we were all pleased with, 47 and 36.

It was another example where everyone told you...

Well, told me at least.

I don't know what they told you.

Oh, we were behind seven bulls.

That it was lost.

It was like the Mansfield thing.

And when you said this, man...

They didn't tell us that because it was 45-45.

No, no.

Seven bulls behind all this money.

And they said they're not four bulls behind.

That was in that book.

We needed seven bulls.

And we said, now we gotta get out.

And that's the start.

And that's why I called out.

They said, remember, it's before three o'clock.

And they said they had six bulls.

We had to pay.

We had a low price to go to, son of a bitch.

We had to strike close.

And that was the difference, because you won by eleven.

Well, you could have lost by one.

I hope so, but I don't think we would have won at all.

I think you had the precedence at all, too.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

The pressure?

Yeah.

The pressure that you put in the press conference.

The point you made about Dan Ryan, because it put a background against it that made it possible for a guy to switch his boat.

He said, well, you know, I was going to move against it, the president's going to put it back on me.

I think Tapp, for example, almost certainly switched on that basis, because I called him yesterday morning, and he said, well, I'd like to, but I'm so committed now, and I have said so.

He voted with it, yeah.

I'd like to think that it was Richard, but I... No, no, I think...

I said I want you to know the president really would like it.

But then when you spoke in the afternoon, I think that... That's what I mean.

It enabled him to say it.

Well, that kind of thing is better for you to do than calling up seven senators.

I wasn't there asking, saying, I wish you'd vote for him.

I think coming in and just hitting the president and saying, let's vote for him.

All these senators ended in a quiet way of working on this matter.

I hope to get Munker's assessment now of the situation.

Tomorrow.

I cut it out within half an hour.

We put it out.

We said this is not simply for your information as a press conference.

This is now a directive.

And all of you people are expected to follow this as a directive, and not just as a general statement of presidential concern.

Good.

We've got some of the other things, too.

Oh, yes.

A lot of things that were said before.

Actually, this AP-UP meeting this morning is very critical.

Bill Durst, unfortunately, is coming out with an editorial on Sunday last week, too.

He talked to Key's man.

Is it worth my while talking to him when I'm on the west coast next week?

No, no, no.

He comes out first.

It's too late.

Is his editorial already printed?

His editorial is printed if I can keep him from following it up.

Well, I don't know that the west coast man will do it.

I've still heard it himself.

Is he out there?

Somebody told me he was out there.

If he is, then I'm sorry.

Otherwise I can see him in New York when I go up to meet with Howard Stein's group.

God damn it, I'll call him on the phone.

I'll call him.

I'll call him today and say that I want you to meet him, and that we understand his position on the whole thing.

But now look here, you've been our strongest supporter, and will you please hear our case?

You know Jackson was stunned by what you said yesterday.

He thought it was aimed at him.

Ja, and he said he's releasing a letter.

He is releasing a letter he wrote to you, which is in effect saying the same thing.

That's releasing him.

What do you mean?

He's releasing a letter saying how you should fix the election and get another.

He said he never wanted a success overthrowing to you.

Oh, he denies that?

Ja.

Well, you didn't name that again.

You said, he said specifically you should withdraw, withhold foreign aid if they don't have a pre-election.

He didn't quite say it, he said he wants to reserve it.

At least he kind of responded.

And that's one of the great advantages, Mr. President.

If they are responding to you, that's a hell of a lot better than if we are running around defending ourselves against their nitpicking.

That's really kind of the difference we're in.

We're on the offensive, and they're having to swing back instead of the other way.

McGovern looks like a horse's ass.

He does.

Wow.

Well, he says they're softening their term the same way that they're hardening it.

He says you can get...

When I explained to these AP and UP guys this morning what they mean by a ceasefire when they offer it,

They said, well, how can McGovern do this?

I said, well, I know him.

He's a very honest, very honorable man.

He just didn't study this thing.

We live with it day after day.

He doesn't know the strict terminology they use.

You don't want to admit that I think that he was an absolute shock.

Did you hear about the shopping inside that?

Yeah, I carried a couple of shopping bags for Christ's sakes.

You know, in all my travels abroad, I never got caught in a storm.

In 1967.

Throughout that period, never had a picture shop.

Never.

Well, his treatment of you... Well, I have the report of his conversation, and it's really the incident.

He walks in there and says, Of course, I want you to know I've always been against you.

Now I demand an apology for the treatment of your police.

I mean, if a Vietnamese senator... You know, if a Vietnamese senator came in here and said to a president...

I think Mansfield, to his credit, handled that well.

He said, well, if a senator goes abroad, he's not expecting it.

He started his nose up on that place.

Remember that asshole Percy did that month.

He was out there and had a pinch of down.

Oh, that pinched Percy with me.

Do you remember that picture?

Oh, yes.

Well, he actually got under some sort of fire when he was at the... You have a picture of him with a pistol, that picture, and then the picture of him back here at Freedom City.

Do you remember?

That was the other one.

No, I didn't see what they had to do.

Oh, yeah.

He's a bit closer.

He was hammering the sticks in at Freedom City.

He was hammering the sticks.

But a picture of the person sat with a pistol, something probably in the one end and the other, sitting there as if he's...

Well, you certain Nelson called today just to say how much he appreciated the jury.

Really?

Well, I can respect with him.

He's apparently really taking a lot of ease in New York.

Is he?

Well, he's not giving hands.

Absolutely not.

No, no, he's been on television every day.

Good.

You'll win.

Fighting back.

He's, uh...

But, of course, his staff is probably having heart attacks.

Oh, sure.

They are all bleeding hard.

His staff is not nearly as strong as ours.

No cars and problems.

But I mean, Nelson's kind of like an imagine.

A bunch of damn liberals were probably just ready to climb the wall, because they wanted to love everybody.

John Ehrlichman would be on the radical right of the Rockefellers.

Sure.

But anyway, just, you know, another thing, too, on my sticking into it, it made him stick to his guns.

He has to stick to his guns on this weekend.

He's a person of corruption all over here.

Max Lerner was in today.

Was he?

And he says, you know, as an old liberal, it's hard for me to take, but he's going to go down as one of the great presidents.

Lerner said that?

Yeah.

For Christ's sake.

He's written good things over the years.

Well, no, I just told him how...

But he's been writing good things.

Well, no, because of China, because of the economic policy, he says, you are following, you're the only one of Gaul's dimensions, you're operating like the Gauls.

You take big bites, and then you keep silent until you have another big bite to take.

And

He likes the big bike, you know.

Oh, yeah.

And he said, and we have to face it, it's Kennedy who really started this current revolution inside this country.

And he's an old-line liberal.

Oh, yeah.

He's from California.

And I didn't know that.

University of California.

Yes, sir.

Great, well, I've always enjoyed reading, and Artie hasn't been with us, but I've heard one thing.

I need to learn, it's honest.

I don't think Reston is.

I'll tell you something.

There was never a better put-down than when I read Reston.

Huh?

What did you think?

I thought that was...

I bet it didn't carry the times.

Well, it's interesting, neither the Times nor the Post has mentioned that DM thing.

But a girl who used to work for me, I don't think they have it in their news stories.

Well, that was a very important time.

And you keep revving that one back.

You can be sure.

I want that, that we're not going to have to murder a kid.

I think just remember the rhythm of it.

The murder of DMs got us into this war.

The way to get out is not to murder Q.

The girl who used to work for me when I worked with Rockefeller is now an NBC producer of documentaries, of specials.

And she just wrote me they're doing a special on the Kennedy role and the DMs.

My cap was just a stupid executor.

He was doing what he was told to do, and I had to have the name for that.

The benchmaster looked at the ambassador and said, besides, the ambassador has what he's told.

And he was so eager to get a job and to have it, and it was his first assignment.

He loved it.

He worked hard.

I saw him four times in five years there.

He had a love for being an ambassador.

Jeff loved it.

He's a big man, you know.

Oh, he was pro-consul in a period of expanding American commitments.

He was...

He didn't exactly kill himself.

He took his map from...

I didn't realize that, you know, until I was there.

He'd be up early in the morning, and he'd do this and that, and he made a great pretense for that.

But the cattle is not a very strong physical man, I think.

I think he just basically doesn't have much.

There wasn't very much he can do.

John, what's he doing?

Is he strolling around in Argentina?

I don't think they'd like that.

For the life cycle, apparently.

I'm sorry, but Francesca is a...

I guess...

Oh, is he doing something?

Playing around?

It's all right.

What do they call that?

It's a...

A pretty great woman.

She was good.

What is the word in Spanish for big balls?

Grandes grandes.

The best expression, certainly, in some terms, says, oh, the guy has pojoles grandes.

I mean, you know, he's got no balls.

And have another expression, when a guy is so big.

He had a suit of cojones, you know.

He said something that is not good.

Yeah.

When I was in Venezuela, you know, you remember, and Lima, Peru, and I had been to Estonia, and so forth, and I should have met with these people, and so forth.

The great compliment was after I was on Herboso City, listening to the...

He said, they said, the lightnings, he said, call this the lightnings.

Call this the lightnings.

The other thing is macho, macho, macho, which means, you know, macho, macho.

Anyway, you know, all I've learned, I believe, is that it can be that kind of thing in a practice.

Ja, ja, ja.

John Irvin, I don't know whether he has checked with you yet or not, told me a very disturbing thing.

Again, the group are involved in the whole Pentagon paper things.

Paul, that's his name, brought us up.

Warning is in the deep.

Oh, one key.

No, that would be a document.

I never...

Everything that he really did, because this is much deeper, looks more like a guilt, is the guy that did.

And the warranty is, of course, and it nips us somewhere.

I just told him, I said, I can't believe this.

But I don't know that the guilt was involved.

I don't know the guilt.

I knew it.

But you know the FBI is acting now, as a matter of fact.

Well,

He was a student of mine at Harvard.

He never worked here, incidentally.

That's why I don't know how.

But Halpern was working with him.

Halpern was the CEO of this town.

He always had a call.

The actual guy that did it at the time was Gil.

Boy, that sure gets you back to a little time.

Houston and Dick Allen were operatives.

About what Brookings had over there and about Gallup and about Hubbard.

Well, anyway, forget that.

It's not a... Getting back to Johnson.

Don't you think he just terribly, must be terribly frustrated at the poor son of a bitch?

If you had been in office, if we had done Cambodia in 1966,

We had done Cambodia in 1966 and Laos in 1967.

The war would be history.

And with the victory.

And with the...

They couldn't have taken that, plus the bombing in Hong Kong.

You might not have had to do the bombing if you had done Cambodia and Laos.

On the Monday, yeah.

We did it through there.

He knows that...

No.

He should.

Probably not.

Probably not, just as well as I did later.

I'm going to come to say, well, it's a routine matter.

I just, I wouldn't play the whole thing.

Well, I should call them tomorrow and say...

I just say, look, you ought to know that we had an enormous build-up in the DNC and trapped our horses.

We've had some silver, so we've ought, the president's authorized us, one, you are trying to take out the stuff so that we aren't going to have some casualties.

I put it on that deal.

Okay.

I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll do it.

I think it's better.

But you see, Henry, in terms of your diplomatic game, coming back... We must have it.

If we are going to...

I feel it.

Now, the little remaining, you know, he'll wire that tonight.

Oh, yeah.

That's fine by the way.

And then, what you told me, you left that hanging over at the summit.

Oh, that.

I warned them.

Our experts.

So, I warned them at every meeting.

Stump is built up north of the DMZ.

They've been firing from north of the DMZ.

And we're getting a poop sheet together in case the public reaction gets bigger than we think it will.

Good.

To get it around.

And... Can you hang that on violation of the DMC?

Yeah, sure.

Violation of the DMC?

In terms of the diplomatic game that we are proposing, it's essential.

It's highly important because it enables the Russians to say things could get worse.

I'm giving you two memos for this weekend, one a fairly lengthy one that lays out the whole scenario, all the choices, including unilaterals, the prisoners, and where I think we are, and then a briefer one for the NEC.

I think, actually, Mr. President, the NEC meeting ought to be very brief.

Yes.

I think we should just get a little briefing from Helms, maybe get more into a little one on the military situation, and then I think the last discussion, if you just could stress that we need to, whatever we do, Q has to be now preserved, and that the speculation about withdrawal strategy must end.

The only other one I think you should talk to before the meeting is Agnew.

And Connolly, don't you think?

Oh, Connolly, of course.

I've requested an appointment, and I've already covered myself.

He's all right, but I will cover Connolly.

And Agnew, I would simply say to the Vice President, we need you to speak up.

And we have enough counterarchers already ready for that.

Rogers will play all against Laird.

Right.

Rogers knows what the hell we're going to make a decision.

Oh, I have to say, you know, Rogers has played the game in recent weeks.

In recent weeks, he's been fine.

On this, at least, because he's got that luxury.

We went through those options.

There is no option left.

What the hell else can we do?

Who else is there?

If we rat out of there, Mr. President, we'll have to negotiate with two successors.

We won't even get to talk to Hanoi.

We'll have to talk to the South Vietnamese to get out.

And...

You know, also so much of a plus side of it is that Jack Kent was in.

He said, you know, he was up in IACOR in 1968.

He says, God, you couldn't go anyplace.

He says, now you can go everyplace.

You can go all over.

He pointed out, he says, that McGovern had the iron in his joint with two shopping bags in Saigon.

He said, he could have done that in 68 at all.

He said, this country has changed.

This war has won.

That's right.

Yes, but he's in Bangkok, and he won't get to Vietnam until the 29th, but we'll get another report.

We'll try that, yes.

But, for example, you know very well, Mr. President, if they could launch a pick-offensive now,

They have it on the ropes, and the fact that they are not launching a big offensive shows that they just haven't got it.

Laos used up this year's supplies, one way or the other, because they expended them, or because they were destroyed, but one way or the other, they couldn't launch an attack even in Eichhorn.

Every other year they've had an attack in the highlands in the summer.

This year we figured with the elections coming up, they'd certainly have an attack.

They did.

And they haven't had anything as yet.

No, and the argument that could be made that they did do that is because they were just having talks with you, you know.

But no one thinks they have the forces there.

No, I'm just suggesting.

Yeah, you could say that.

That's true.

That's possible, because we have been restrained.

You could say that.

I don't agree, but you don't think that's the reason?

I don't think so, because their usual tactic is not to do that.

Their usual tactic is to hit you while they're talking.

That's right.

So is ours.

Although I did warn them that...

If there were attacks.

Well, all right.

We're going to do this.

Incidentally, this has to be done anyway.

Because looking down the road, I think it is dangerous to have this building.

Do you not agree?

Oh, yes.

Well, Abrams urged it on me when I was there in June.

He was pleading for it then.

Well, here we give it to a man.

Incidentally, won't there be a bigger target now?

Oh, that's a big deal, yeah.

There's plenty of stuff in there.

Oh, well, he wants to hit it for five days, but that we can't.

That's more than enough.

That's five days worth of attacks in there.

He wanted five to ten days, but that would create too much of a fear of anything.

I think the best thing is to have it done by the time...

All right.

What is this?

On the side?

Yeah, bring it right here.

All right.

That was the...

...concert, Henry.

Henry's going to the Mass.

Henry's going to a piano concert with Princess Irene.

Yeah.

That's right.

There'll be a Lamp of Greed, Len Garman, and the Postman.

I didn't like him.

I don't know what he does.

I don't know what I was getting into.

Len Garman called me.

I thought he was a champion.

That 88 piano concert is really dope.

Piano with orchestra, I can tell you.

This isn't just piano.

The whole thing is no orchestra.

You're kidding me.

It's a piano recital.

Now back to the show band too, and that is the worst.

No, Mozart.

Mozart's worse than Schumann.

But I thought that chamber music was unbelievable.

But I didn't put anything to put down on the piano.

No.

It's anything.

He's, you know, hand-delivered by messenger to each of them.

See, this Edward Dorado is probably too old.

60 years of age.

He's a good man for going to the district court.

You know, what I feel is that we have to... You do get, as we were talking about... You don't just press and you do...

But you also get a small amount of your own troops.

Every time they do that, they give it in.

That's what I mean.

In the office.

Now, that requires a lot of work for me to prepare them, but on the other hand, it's good for me to learn to go over some of those things.

Before I think of it, I may just have to take a hard look.

Maybe we haven't used enough of the power in that respect.

I mean, that's what I mean.

by parsing it out.

This whole business of leadership, leadership, you've got to be out there leading more.

I do know this, I do know when you're sitting in that goddamn cabinet room, it doesn't lead.

You know what I mean?

I'm just convinced that cabinet officers and leaders meetings and meetings with labor and all that sort of thing is for the birds in terms of leadership.

It's all now about in the public arena.

I think so much more, and the country does, and I had to answer a few questions of the press.

You know what I mean?

And you do it.

Yeah.

If you look at it, really, that's basically the only device Eisenhower used to lead.

That's right.

It was his weekly press conference.

He had a press conference every week.

His cabinet meeting didn't do any meeting.

That was an exercise in internal development.

The security council was saying it.

Yes, she was saying that, I mean, all this moral, this press conference just didn't make one have a lot of news, really.

Well, except that you can't, they can't, the, the compared president can't have a press conference and not make some news.

Yeah.

And, uh, we make enough.

That's right.

He didn't use it.

Speech advises to me, the least I can.

I just have a feeling it's the least I can.

Don't you agree?

I didn't sell.

I'm running around.

You don't get, a speech has to be put together in such a way that it doesn't really accomplish what you're after, except under certain external speeches.

A speech that Congress did, it had a purpose in it, and it did it.

That's different than the usual speech where you go out to a booth and give a talk.

Well, thank you for your time.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Today.

Oh, I'd love to do that.

I wrote a personal handwritten note.

I told him that you intended to do that.

I did.

I presented my hand, and I also wrote a personal handwritten note in addition to the form I was writing a personal handwritten note.

I love to see him run out there and break the walls.

Oh, I should have walked out there.

I said, when the leadership meeting lasted, at 2.24 until 3, whatever the time was, I said, when the leadership meeting was over, the president received a personal letter from Associate Justice Black, and they all began to write, and I said what I was to say.

No, I didn't.

Sorry.

I didn't think I should...

They said, did you have any indication of it?

I said, no.

Then they said, well, didn't he talk to Charlie Ryan about the Supreme Court?

I said, he didn't know about it then.

So I shut that down.

Isn't that funny, though, the way those things...

I think you hauled Charlie Ryan in for a totally different purpose, totally different time.

Mr. President, I didn't realize he was going to be here, but Gene Richard, EPI, who's covered us from the beginning, is leaving to go on an even fellow thing.

Would you mind shaking his hand and having your picture taken with him before he leaves?

Just take a minute.

I think it'd be a good touch.

All right, fine.

Well, where are you going to leave?

That's where you're going to go up there, you know.

You go to Harvard.

Well, that's great.

Come on over, let's get the standard pictures of that.

You know, since I've seen this picture, you've never seen that before.

You've got to have it.

This is what it's about.

Tell me if you go to Harvard.

No, I didn't.

No, I didn't miss out.

And I went to Citadel.

Oh, it's a great school.

And down there, I was there with Mark Clark.

I saw him there when I was on the board of the...

Yes, and he invited us all down, and we saw the Citadel, and they were terrific.

It's a very good Citadel.

All right.

Well, look, you know, I wish you well.

It's a very good Citadel.

Can we just spend a year there?

It's plenty.

Thank you very much.

Is he a whore?

Yes, sir.

He is the best looking one.

I'll tell her you said that, and she'll answer it in a year.

You're golfing?

I am.

You're golfing?

Oh, let's see.

What else do you have?

I know you're good with goodies.

I've seen them around.

I think you ought to have a paper.

What do you think?