Conversation 587-007

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He would not give me any of the DM stuff until he had an opportunity to talk with you.

He said that his relationship with past presidents had been such that he would not feel comfortable about releasing some of his very, very, very left.

to anyone without first talking it through with you because he was sure that when you became a former president, you would want to feel that whoever was at the agency was protecting your interests in a similar fashion.

And I said, well, nobody's going to see this stuff except the president and me in the first instance.

And he said, well, this is an incredibly dirty letter.

And he said, I just wouldn't feel comfortable about it without talking with the president first.

So I said, well, I'm sure that he'll see you.

Now, on the other side, I asked for a lot of background material, a lot of nuts and bolts, cable traffic and internal memos and stuff.

He didn't give me any of that.

He gave me only summaries and postmortems.

What he gave me is useful stuff, but we've really got to have the internal stuff.

So, he said... Let me ask you this, uh...

Uh... What the hell's, uh... What do you mean?

Can't anyone know these things?

Johnson doesn't know these things?

Who the hell is it?

I hate to go over there.

Everyone wants to know what they're self-executing.

The point is that, what do you think, they ran to the back of their own bike?

You can be goddamn sure if a Democrat gets in this chair, they're going to get everything that we've done.

Sure.

Everything.

From down right inside it.

Right inside it.

Somebody will then run the direction.

Yeah.

No, I think the thing he wants to say to you is that, in all fairness to Kennedy,

this stuff shouldn't be spread all over the newspapers.

I agree.

And so he's going to want to get some kind of guarantee from you.

Well, I think you're under terrible pressure right now to declassify historical documents.

That's right.

Some of this stuff is terrifically sensitive.

You don't feel comfortable about just giving it to Colson or Rehnquist or somebody and have them go through it, or me, and have them go through it and say this should be declassified and this shouldn't be.

At the same time, you can't just simply answer your critics by saying, well, the CIA says it shouldn't be declassified.

So you don't really have much choice except to get a feel for the situation and make the judgment as to how things should go.

Now, Helms pressed me very hard for some kind of a guarantee that the CIA would always have a veto on declassification.

I don't think any person can be in the position of...

delegating that decision to the director of the CIA.

Otherwise, the CIA becomes a sort of self-perpetuating power in the government that nobody can ever get at, anything it ever did in ancient history.

He gave me something which I've read on the Bay of Pigs.

Well, but it's illustrative of the problem.

The CIA was split right down the middle by that Bay of Pigs thing.

And when that comes out, a lot of guys who are still in the CIA are going to look stupid as hell.

He doesn't want that to happen because that makes his agency that much weaker.

Much less able to function.

Well, if you ever do...

Don't replace him from inside, would be my advice.

That's it.

Every one of those guys is on one side or another.

This is his problem.

And he's got to try and self-perpetuate his agency.

What I'd like to see come out of this is that

I could have anything that I request out of the agency to be reviewed for you and for your eyes with the understanding that you and you alone will make a final decision as to what becomes of it.

Well, that's fine.

You and I will make the decision.

And I'm not going to put anything up.

I'm not going to try to embarrass the Senate.

I don't want to embarrass the Senate.

I don't want to embarrass the former president.

But I guess, well, I'm not going to have it.

There are people there that do leak out stuff, and I'm not going to have one side leak and might not know the other side.

Now, I was kind of mysterious with him about why you were doing all this.

And I said to him, look, the president has got some very heavy negotiations coming up in the future.

And I didn't imply that it was important for you, for instance, to understand the whole background of the Cuban Missile Crisis because you're going to negotiate with the Russians.

I didn't say that in so many words.

But I said, this all goes to the president's preoccupation with careful preparation.

Well, but why do we want to do that?

Oh, the DM?

Well, you're getting hit with that all the time.

It came up, fortunately, you mentioned it in your in-office press conference just a week before I was over there.

And I said, this thing is on the front page now.

And we cannot go on blindly without knowing what the actual facts were.

Who did what?

Now, that doesn't say we're going to put them all out, but you've got to... Now, at the same time, Life magazine has their tongue out on Miles.

They'll do a special issue with a cover on the assassination of DM.

They're probably going to do it anyway.

That's it.

Helms is scared to death of this guy Hunt that we've got working for us because he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried.

And Helms is a bureaucrat first, and he's protecting that bureau.

I was pressed very hard by him in a very low-key, skillful way to give him all sorts of commitments and protections, and I ducked them all.

The way I've got to get at the M is just to say, look, you and I will talk before anything is done.

I think that's veritable.

Well, but examine this.

Supposing we get all the M stuff, and supposing there's something that we can really hang Teddy or the Kennedy clan with, I'm going to want to put that in Colson's hands, and we're going to want to run with it.

I think what you will say to him is that you have to make the decision in the last analysis.

And you have a perfect right to.

That's right.

Well, that's an unassailable position, it seems to me.

And you can say, look, I'm sensitive to your problems.

I obviously wouldn't treat anybody in any way that I wouldn't want to be treated myself.

Exactly.

organization that has ever been

Well, let's try to take Mitchell for a special office.

He's the building manager, and I have to take Hoover home.

The thing is, though, you have to be careful.

Hoover can turn on us.

That's right.

And he can feel that right wing in a way that nobody else in this country can.

We just can't do it.

I don't want to take Hoover forever.

Well, I understand that.

You've got to come on and take it.

You have to have that thing happen.

I understand.

Mitchell and McConnell, you've got to get it together.

Yep.

Let's start over.

They're listening to each other's trance songs in the nightclub experience.

They let them just sit down and talk.

You can see their underlings are fighting.

But these are two big men and they just have come to sit down and talk.

We've got to decide if the Uber has got a problem.

You know what the problem is.

Well, you have the same problem.

The Uber has the same problem.

We have developed our techniques for operations on this, what is it, D-I-E?

Defense.

That's part of it.

That's part of Dick's family.

You're right.

Well, I guess you're in a better position than I am to say on that, but I gather that Hoover isn't playing ball.

Well, let me say that we have cooperation there.

I'm going to get it to you.

Yes, sir.

Oh, of course, John.

This is very awkward, extremely awkward.

But it seems to me I'm probably the person who's going to miscarry the best.

Because who?

And, uh, the, uh, I think... What do you think?

Would you play John?

I doubt it.

Because of the institutional problems.

I don't know.

What do you think, Meg?

I agree with John, sir.

I must say that it's much more important in these days that the way he goes down in history is his image.

And so he'd be a lot better off going down in history as a top president.

play that extra season.

You know, I look back on the great sports fellows in the rest, and the guys, like Ted Williams, how did he bench?

Hitting a home run.

And other guys dribble along, go back to the minors, and the pitchers get sore arms, and the hitters are just a shade too slow, and the fielders fall down.

I mean, I don't mean that.

The person should have to always...

life of baseball equipment is hitting over 300.

If it was baseball now, somebody hit 300.

In America today, it's an unusual amount.

One of the great, uh, creative tech, the FBI was the internal discipline over the years, and now the Larkin Institute, but now it's broken down, and when that starts to go, you know, it's time for you to go on it, John.

Let me, uh, let me come to this delicate point that you've been talking to John about.

John has talked to me about it, and I know that you've been talking to him about it.

And I think maybe I can perhaps put it in a different perspective than John's, even if you probably wonder what the hell it's all about and why we're interested in all these things.

I mean, operation, politics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But first, with regard to the interest, it depends on the item.

In terms, for example, of the Cuban Conflict, it has to do with events that will be quite clear

That is, I just want to be sure that I am totally aware of everything that we have ever dealt with the Russians in the past and what they did and what we did and what was promised and what was not promised and so forth and so on and how it worked, the purposes.

For my information, I need to know on that point.

I don't plan on writing books here.

I'm glad to know.

Negotiations that they didn't take before.

I don't know if they will at some point.

They will next year.

I've got many men.

When they do, I just want to be prepared.

That's what that's all about.

I don't think that's a problem.

There isn't, but it's interesting after a while.

Now, when you get into the Dirty Trash Department, which is the department you're really concerned about, I know what happened in Iran, and I also know what happened in Guatemala, and I totally approve of both.

And I also know what happened in the planet of the Bay of Pigs, and I totally approve of both.

I remember the CIA at that time.

I remember because I knew damn well their fault there.

I remember talking to Kennedy the day that David was writing this room, the only time I was in.

The only time I was in, actually, in the eight years I was not in office.

Kennedy got up and prayed and ran and talked to people, and I would have, too, visited people at this level and so forth.

And the problem was not the CIA.

The problem was that your plan was not carried out.

And you had a goddamn good plan.

It would have been backed up at the proper time.

If you had just flown a couple of planes over that damn place, I think it would have worked.

But be that as it may, I also know the CIA had a bad list of them.

I mean, that was the reason.

There were some in the CIA, just as there were, of course, the majority in the state, who wanted to go down that thing.

There were others who wanted to carry out the...

plan, the president approved, and you, I know you've operated on that, and didn't, and loyally didn't, but that's all, that's all stuff that I'm not, that my interest there is not the internal situation, despite what the CIA and so forth, the interest there is solely to know the facts in the event, in the event that

As time goes on here, as we get to the next heat-up, this becomes an issue.

You see, the problem with the whole Pentagon Papers is not the fact that there's a lot of papers they've gotten, that only half the story they've gotten, that people were there for harm.

is that it impaired the whole security system of the United States.

And of course, whether the appetite of every goddamned scandal under Tom on everything else, they say, well, if you're going to tell the truth about what happened, what Johnson's secrets were, and why he bombed, and did he lie, or didn't he lie, and so forth and so on, why don't you tell the truth about everything else that happened?

And I always reply something like, well, what about me?

And we've got a lot of men.

Do you know about the men who strikes?

Do you know about the...

The things that we try are probably, in this field, we try things that haven't succeeded.

But that's part of it, is that we should have never lost each other in the election.

And we should have, once we got to the point that we did, we should have done something more effective than we did.

That's all right.

What I want to do here...

Guard.

I do not want any information that comes in from you on these dollars, any sense of these dollars, to go to anybody on the staff.

You see my point?

I don't know these people on the staff that work on this thing.

I don't want anybody.

It's for my information, and you will, early on, will be my ears when we can.

It's my opinion.

The second, with regard to

I need it for a defensive reason.

I need it, well, in the one instance, for negotiation.

That's what I'm trying to do.

In the other instance, I need it because it is a miserable amount of paper, and it includes the fact that we know that at the end of the war, we didn't know who shot John.

Is Eisenhower applying?

Is Johnson applying?

Is Kennedy applying?

Is Nixon applying?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

May become, may become, not by me, but may become a very, very big procedure.

If it does, I need to know.

what is necessary to protect, frankly, the intelligence category and the emergency department, and I will protect it.

Now listen, I've done more than my share of walking in protection, and I will do it, and I believe it's totally right to do it.

On the other hand, if I don't know, then what's the point of you having to have this kind of a situation?

I don't believe to say that, well, the CIA, whoever's the director of the CIA,

The heir and his successor has an obligation to, that he is the only one who is to know what happens in certain circumstances where a president is approved.

And that the president's successor is not to know.

Even though the president's successor is in a position where potentially he may have to come up against.

Now, you do have this problem, my dear.

You can say, well, the president's suggestion might be a political son of a bitch that's going to cut us up or cut up his predecessor.

That's possible.

But let's look at it the other way around.

What about this?

CIA is successful.

Either that or they're going to make 14 vans out of there like they did in Cleveland.

Well, here's the thing.

I think the real problem is that I think you need to have a real thing you need to have.

I mean, this person, this person, I don't know, I don't know.

Because it's very important to stay on the lead during trips.

I think you've got to do it.

As we go into this trip, not only with the Chinese and, you know, with the Russian and Burmese, we don't know what's going to happen there.

And I'm going to keep you very well supposed to know what's going to happen.

But as we do that, it's going to become more and more important because all over the world, there's going to be a little Vietnam probably or the rest, but there's going to be the God and man as much of, you know,

I want you to talk to Henry about it, not to say to anybody else.

I want you to strengthen your inner.

in that area where we were in elections.

I think it's going down.

But can I suggest that I think that's what I believe.

A intelligence gap is terribly important, sir.

But I think that we're going to have to get in with somebody other than the United States Department of School, who frankly, frankly, first of all, is the Secretary of State.

But we have got to be in a position where the Russians or the Chinese are in a particular little country terms.

We have screwed up too.

I think, and we do not agree, we could have won the challenge.

That's not a good thing, but it was a good thing.

You know, we just, you know, we, I mean, he just died.

He said, well, he gave me, he said, he was afraid of the state.

I have a message, Mr. President.

Why do I want this?

Now, the second point is, I have a lot of affairs to say.

I will defend it.

They haven't asked me about defending it on papers lately.

They will.

And I will be in a position to be very tough, most hard, most about it.

You know, I haven't taken Johnson on yet.

to have David Kennedy on there, whereas I had to pretend to.

Or, after all, because he could go over there badly.

On the other hand, I got to be in a position, I got to be in a position where, with regard to some of these things, I have knowledge.

I have the knowledge as to what happened.

And I think the president has to have it.

I think as far as that knowledge is concerned, that it should be between him and the director of the CIA.

I did not ask for this knowledge for the purpose of giving it to him.

In fact, he's not going to get it.

Is he my rightful?

I don't think he would.

I don't think he would, but he might.

He might.

It's a very, very challenging.

I don't ask it for the purpose of giving it to anybody, his dad, at home, and so forth.

He would know cataracts and the rest.

But I think in this field, in this field, that I really got to know.

Now, on this whole, the other thing,

There are all sorts of stories that you well know.

I've heard part of them from Kevin's life.

I've heard part of them from others.

I've read the book about a woman, you know, pretty good.

We also know that I'm not sure if there were

Whatever was done was not a respectable deed, but which resulted in the position I am in.

At this time, it is not my purpose to raise holy hell in Vietnam at a time when we're trying to sail through the thing on a hurricane.

If others do, I have got to be in a position

There's a great many questions I've got to get into positions to know.

I'm willing, but I'm not going to stand up there and say nothing happened and know that something did.

If I, on the other hand, know, then I have a way of covering it.

I'll say it's not a national interest, it's not this, but I need to know.

That's what I need to know.

And all I ask in your case is that, and I think the way we ought to do it is to set up a method of communication whereby

You and I, and John, who you can trust implicitly, because I had him in, not as a domestic counsel, but as my lawyer.

And he handles all of these things.

He handles Uber very well.

But anyway, if we could have an understanding that only on the bottom line,

Be as cooperative as you can, I mean, with others, because I don't want to be bothered with any work.

Something that you consider to be very sensitive, I feel that I need to know.

And you can rely on the fact that John is the contact.

but also rely on the fact that you and I will talk if something hits the man.

I repeat, you've just got to remember, I have fought this miserable battle in Vietnam.

We have gone through the agony of Laos, and the agony of Kent State, and the agony of I can't hold it, and now seeing it through again for a purpose.

and now condemning Kennedy and Johnson and Eisen and everybody else that got us into this war, I don't believe, however we got into it, it was necessary to do what we are now doing, to abandon an honorable and decent way.

You know what we've gone through.

You know how goddamned of a support we've had for a state of a lot of this stuff, too.

I know you guys and I appreciate the same thing,

My view is that what I'm really trying to say is that I do not talk to you as basically one that's out to get the CIA, out to get Henry, out to get Johnson and the rest.

I think it's very harmful to the presidency as an institution to make it appear that we're going to apply or something like that.

On the other hand,

It's a political campaign.

It gets long.

It's a political campaign.

Because he's got that gas on paper, he did get out of there.

So much he did get out.

Because people do run around, spill their guts in magazines and so forth and so on, that I have got to be, I, the highest level, have got to be in position to know what happened so that I can feel it.

So I'm not asking, in other words, to say, well, gee, I did this for Kennedy, or I did this for Johnson.

That's what I'm telling you.

It's this way or the other.

Tell the next president.

Because I expect you, if you, if I should not be here, you cut the television.

What we did in Paris, I'm sure we did the Chilean thing, we did a few other things.

My God, I hope we can do some more.

Sir, we only have one place to go tonight.

We need to walk as much as we can.

Yes, sir.

I'm so interested in this.

Do you see what I mean?

Now, you'll have to understand, too, that we've got to watch this thing very carefully.

This is explosive stuff, and the reason I think it may come up, it's cool now, the reason I think it may come up is that

It's not so much the Republican side.

But there's going to be one hell of a fight on that Democratic side.

And those guys, like, you know, for example, I was so surprised I saw Humphrey, you know, who's very curious about the peace and all, right?

And everything's on Teddy, you know, something Teddy said about the POWs crawling and the rest.

You see what Humphrey's up to.

You've got George Meany in the way.

To, uh...

On the other hand, tell these people, we'll do what they need to do as Johnson.

There's a lot of stuff going on here.

It's going to be a good game.

We should operate.

I wouldn't.

Sir, as a matter of fact, the reason that I wanted to speak to you, you said everything, but the fact that I was going to ask of you to accept this thing out in this way, the reason is this.

When John came to me and asked about these various documents, it was turned up in the agency of documents I didn't even know existed.

And I'm not told about it, to be honest.

It was a review that John McCone asked to have made of the ZM period.

Was he there?

Yes, he was the director.

And you were the director?

No, I was down the line.

I was in charge of the operations.

John Carter was the deputy director.

But I got a hold of this document and I went through it.

So when I saw this document, I thought to myself, this is the kind of document that I would be rather irresponsible if I didn't go to the president and tell him what this document was before I handed it over to him and why it's so sensitive because it's composed of a whole lot of chips.

I've got it right here.

A memoranda written by John McCone, with me as the president and secretary of state.

It's got extracts from the State Department.

Hey, about Sean, I know you're making notes.

Defense Department cables, everything under the sun.

And it's such a claptrap of odds and ends, which doesn't really give a balanced picture of what occurred, but it gives a whole lot of positions.

A lot of people took, including President Kennedy, and his blood hot and cold, and then some house and all the rest of it.

And I just wanted to explain that don't take that back because it's a gospel.

Well, I understand.

But I meant that also, if I had not spoken to you about the sensitivity that I have, I would have felt that you would have very reasonably, but if you left office, I would be so very responsible about you.

And that's not my thought.

I want the president to have everything.

But on the other hand, I want you to understand this is not the kind of thing I came up with.

Let me tell you this.

I will respect you, and you've got to do it.

The president needs to know everything.

He really does.

But on the other hand, I think that the main thing you need to be reassured on, you need to be reassured on is that I do not sit here as basically an enemy of the CIA.

I'm not an enemy of the Detroit Department.

And also, I do not sit here as one on this critical issue of the war.

that believes the public interest is served by uh making somebody a goat on helio i do feel i have a responsibility to protect my own flags and be able to know so that when i stand in i think before a press conference if as i say if i have to

Lying is a bad word, I should have said, but I meant to dot something.

I've got to know what I'm dotting.

I don't want to be out there saying, well, this lady, for example, I think, I think it was probably too bad that Adlai Stevenson went through, he did what he did in the night of the U-2 thing.

My own view is that,

I think it was probably too bad.

He should have known, or he should have had a job.

In other words, people didn't have that much confidence in him.

He had to be told enough so that he didn't.

But that's a cult.

But if I thought that about him, I think it is indispensable with regard to the president.

I don't think the president can ever sit there and say, well, there's an agency over here that is above the presidency.

That's what you really get down to.

That they know things that I can't even, that I don't know about.

And therefore, I am not in a position to do this or that or the other thing.

See what I mean?

So I don't regard myself, you know, really as working entirely for you.

Anything I've got is yours.

That's the day or night.

That's really the case.

But I want you to know that we're not, that I'm not asking for this for the purpose of spreading it out.

On the other hand, we have you well aware of the fact that stuff does kick around.

And what we will do, and as we go along here, we'll talk about it.

I don't want to get into it all the time.

It's better the best that I don't, but you and John, and that's all.

We've discussed this whole classification problem.

on nobody else's defense.

I think it's so about the men.

Well, first you've got the rear-back stuff.

You say, oh, you've got the time for a few interviews.

But on the very important stuff, I think it's the two of you can talk, and no debriefing.

No goddamn debriefing.

That's an innovation, because you shouldn't either.

Well, I was young in the agency.

I gave up this idea.

As a matter of fact, the years I've lived in, I've run into many things, I guess.

I just say what is necessary to the troops without meeting his own men.

I'll go with that because, you know, it's an extraordinary thing, but times change.

President Johnson was very explicit about not wanting notes and meetings and so forth.

And yet, he was out of office.

And when I happened to be down at the taxi line, he said, didn't you used to write some notes about those functions and so forth?

And I said, no, see, you were very explicit about it.

I never wrote a word ever.

He said, you didn't.

I said, no, it was your order, wasn't it?

He said, yeah, as a matter of fact, it was, but I didn't think it taught you to think.

Well, I said, I did.

It's a letter.

I don't have a single note of any of these meetings.

You know, unfortunately, I don't either.

People still get to make objections.

If you look at this document there, absolutely fascinating, from the 10th or the 12th century, it was a rather sorry aspect of all that.

When you see the differences of the way this thing sort of took on in the ZM era, you will see how terribly wise your decision about President Hugh was.

Just take with you.

Yeah, but you think myself?

Oh, you think myself.

That's not right, is it?

Maybe when you read this and see what happened, how unstuck it came.

Yes.

Ooh.

Fantastic.

Shall I turn this over to him?

Let me see it, I'll just get out.

I'll get you out of my way.

And don't worry, I won't lie to you.

And then I'll... Let me talk to you about it.

No, on the Tuesday.

The reason I told you this...

The way to get out of Vietnam is one of those places to get rid of... Yeah.

The way to get out is not to get rid of you.

That's right.

It is good to get a fever.

The old guy said that.

But we, uh, this is an understanding of what we in America have.

John, do you have any problem?

No problem at all.

Because I'm totally at peace with what John said.

We're not trying to, we just want you to know the word.

I'm going to make a claim on Vic for some additional material to round out the stuff that he's given me.

Particularly on bad pigs, if there is anything.

On the same basis, anything that you think is highly sensitive, just talk to John about it.

And I will not, but we want you to go.

I really do.

But nobody knows, you know, for a place like that, because our money seems to be fine, and it's nine dollars a crack.

I mean, it's really a horrible job we're not doing.

And we're really, really, very sorry.

I'm very sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm a little teary-eyed.

And, you know, at the end of the day, we're not going to do that.

We're not going to do that.

Well, that's like, I've been reading memoranda, but this is a book that's been around for years.

Well, I understand.

We are now in the position that we are... We've got a long way to go.

Yes.

Well, two or three seconds left, that'll be the...

one thing is this meeting with you to give strength because we are being interviewed uh i had a talk with tony who's in japan i heard about it he's had a full discussion during the day and tanaka says they are going to have a game they're about six sticky items yet four of them

Two of them we couldn't give on and keep our textile people with us.

And I said, I don't want to go into trouble unless they deliver the package.

When would you go, Dave?

Well, I may want to talk, but I've been waiting long because they're going to give me the signal to move in.

I said, tomorrow, the following day, not tomorrow, one day after.

Now, he's supposed to have... God, you can't go out there...

I've called your old friend.

I called him last night.

And I said that you would not receive Kishi until the agreement has been made.

You see, Dave, you and Pete should know that I'm working on another track here, too.

We're backing you right to the hill.

The goddamn State Department, I understand, is part of the expressions.

I can use that kind of word sometimes.

Well, they're not there, but they're always so concerned about the other side.

Pete is going to be totally informed on that.

He's just as scared as you are about it.

So don't worry, we're all together on this.

The problem is...

Everybody would only understand, you know what I mean?

You know, they were people, people,

I said, why?

Because he's too tough.

I said, what the hell?

I said, that's the way to get a negotiation.

You made two people in the rest because you were tough.

You got this far because you were tough.

They said the same thing about Connelly and all that.

And I think Connelly took the right position, didn't he?

Now we're starting to talk.

And now you have a bridge.

Now, the problem is now is that we are down to the point where, frankly, I don't want this ever agreed, but the trading with the enemy would be very bad.

You've got to hold it out.

Therefore, we're in a position where we've got to find a way to make this deal.

That's where we are.

So, uh, so...

You're going to fall.

And we wouldn't be close if David hadn't pursued the tactics he did.

Why should they do something that's unpleasant for them as long as they can hold us up on the basis that nothing will be done that they don't like?

I think he's responsible.

I had a teacher here two years ago, and he told me that we gave him a job, and by God, we shouldn't have given him a goddamn job.

All we got was a promise, and we never got it.

I was responsible.

No, no, no.

Well, we had a deal.

We had a deal.

Well, Frank, we thought that's why we're back.

You could just say it's all the way, and the Japanese are damn well gonna come through.

But the trick of the enemy, they're just speaking of ourselves.

I don't think we'll have any use for Mr. Wilson.

I think they're gonna give.

I think they'll give.

Oh, I'm sure.

All we need right now, we think, is two.

Two pounds.

And we got time on it.

If we can keep everyone quiet.

If we can keep everybody quiet, I think we can get time on it.

One of either Japan or Korea, and then a spread that you can use two of four, remember, which I think is far less than what's from the Philippines.

Well, we could have had Korea without Alex Johnson.

And I add to that, I'm sorry, what can you do with Korea?

Well, he talked to Neil Foster and made it quite simple that he was coming to the White House and softened my position, put it back in diplomatic channels and all that sort of thing.

It was just as clear as that.

Have you seen this letter here?

I still think we can get Korea.

I'm not discerning even that.

I still think we can get Korea with a hard line.

I haven't given them the eight-pack each.

That's still in my pocket.

I haven't given them the little bit of cotton.

Now, Tony is meeting, Tony Church is meeting with the church today in the past.

And if they know that we have an effect, or feel we have, they'll move fast.

If they don't, if they think there's any weakening of your arm,

Have we done everything we can then, Henry, in your view, to, on your channel, to make clear that on the Japanese thing, they've got to come through?

And that there's no, nothing past the 15?

See, I set that up, but then, he says, can't we have a little delay after the 15?

I said, no.

No, I talked to my fellow last night, just to make it complete, and I talked during the day, and I called Alex Johnson to say that you were, uh,

determined to do something just so that he would lead it back to the to the Koreans.

I said it in great sorrow.

I said you were just totally inflexible talking to you about it because on October 15th you were going to do it.

And then I called the Japanese and I said I just want him to know

That we will cancel the Kishi visit if there's no agreement by the time he gets here.

That you will not see Kishi unless there's a textile agreement in hand.

I never thought that you... That may have made it worse for you.

It's a doubt.

and they love that.

It really always is a world power situation, but the way you use that as a carrier, it will help.

I'll call him on that political side.

What is this?

We'd rather you not vote.

That's what I thought of it.

I don't know.

In this case, this is something that we may not be able to deliver.

Mr. President, this year I'm clear.

You are willing, if we get two of these countries, to use that agricultural act, which says that if you have a multilateral agreement, that's where we started to remember originally, you can impose the deal on the remaining countries.

I want to be sure you understand that we don't have to use the trade agreement.

That's right.

We would prefer not to have to throw it down the Japanese throat.

That's right.

If it is the QO2 agricultural thing, I would think the markets would go on that.

Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely.

I think that's what the market is.

I might tell you that.

You've got the market.

In fact, Mr. President, I think we have now so much submitted our prestige that could do nothing.

It would be a good idea.

You have the same credibility as the Tories.

Now, the other thing we want to protect you on is we have deliberately looked for smokescreen in trading with the enemy.

Oh, that's fine.

Once we get the deal on the 204, what we intend to do is say, well, you know, I don't think anybody in this team has ever used that system.

We're trying to communicate it to this other person.

I just want to say, some of us have thought that up.

Somebody got confused.

I put it that way.

Somebody got confused.

Well, why?

We don't want to be in a position to put on the Japanese that much.

Now, they're sensitive.

I want to be tough on them.

But I suspect we'll get the agreement and then we don't have to put in...

I'm not ready to do that yet.

Absolutely not.

Oh, absolutely.

That's what we want.

Well, that has never been in the discussions with Tanaka.

He separated the textile issues.

Well, we can offer that to him or something.

We'll do it later.

I think we have to drop the surtax on textile.

That's the one thing.

We dropped the surtax only on textile.

Can we do that?

We can.

Yes, yes, we can.

There's government-to-government agreement.

Great.

And then we think we throw that in as a face saver and then they look as though they may be conceiving.

See, we've denied even doing that.

But I'm told to knock on the side because he's getting the take.

He has to save his face a little.

That's great.

But he can be man in this office and we'll give him.

No, I don't see how we can maintain both the suit and the... All right.

And then we'll have another advantage, Henry, across the board.

I agree.

Yes.

on a most major nation's basis, because that would indicate that we're not just against our building up.

Oh, you mean the tech side of it.

That's right.

And that's what the Treasury, that's what Conley's office is thinking of.

Conley, you're going to be useful.

I'm sure I'll be useful.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Our press point is to have rooms say that this meeting was devoted to textiles just for the cause of the incident.

Let's let them come in and take the press.

I think it's a good press statement.

I think this is very helpful.

I think it's a good cause of the incident.

I don't know.

It's a good point.

It's a good thing.

Also, I don't think they're going to do it recently.

I don't think they will say it soon, too.

I don't think they'll do it straight away, either.

I want you to know that this job, we think you're going to have a good job.

And Henry's hurt me and Peter's hurt me.

I don't mean that Peter hurt me.

You know, it gets a god damn mad when somebody comes into this office.

They did it to you and they also did it to the person you were with.

They did it to the commonwealth.

So they're trying to undercut me.

And if I got that, I'm not going to let it happen.

Three people.

We've got to stand firm behind our people.

The campaign in the State Department is not against me.

No, it's against Henry and against, uh, Brown and Conrad.

You can't see them, because they're saying that Conrad and Henry hit into very sensitive areas, and I don't know about that.

How are we doing while we're waiting on them?

Well, were we able to do anything?

Uh, I thought they, uh,

Well, I saw their foreign minister at the embassy when I didn't stay for the post and left for the dinner.

I told him that if they went through with their procedures, that there would be very strong action on our side.

He said,

Will you let us complete our procedures?

No, no, no.

This one in a way, yeah, that was Valdez.

Now this son of a bitch was worse.

He's a foul.

So I told them.

Now they put out stuff that I said that I was silly, sorry, but that's total nonsense.

I told them.

The thing he asked me is, he said this.

Because it was only a preliminary determination.

That we should let the process be completed.

Yes.

It's getting meaner and meaner.

If it goes, if it goes, if it goes across the number five line, you're going across the back of the road.

I don't know how you do it.

I don't know.

Well, I thought we had to be part of the weekend for it.

I think I'll go over first, though.

Burn here?

No.

Are you there, Jack?

No.

You go over here.

I always say people are the nice ones.

You're all good.

He's a real trickster.

I like him.

But one of the things that I think the Japanese strength is obvious, given that we're going to say this is a very important meeting, and we were discussing the Japanese in that election, in particular in Texas, is right, you've got to look the right way out of it.

And it was a headache to start a meeting in an hour, because I've been reading a lot before this meeting, we've been in hours reading with Secretary Kennedy,

One of the things that's very important here, if we do get rid of Japan, which I think now we will get,

And we've got to turn that somehow to our advantage in the press here.

And I've asked Ron Zeke for a term to apply.

Yeah.

We'll coordinate that through the White House so that we get a good job.

That's right.

Otherwise, we'll get a Washington Post editorial about this as we've had in New York Times.

And I don't mind their explanation.

I want to see what they write in the Charlotte Observer.

Okay.

The other thing I want to make clear is that we, in this office,

Frank, we've made the deal.

In other words, let's give the credit today where it belongs, the deed.

Fair enough.

But it just isn't fair to have the damn credit for this thing on this.

Or the nails.

Correct.

And credit means something on this.

The other thing, though, do you have any industry servants?

I think we're in very good shape with them.

If you let us know, we may not get quite everything as I raised this question the other day.

Harry Dent was in it.

And John Mitchell, who has said it all on your side, too, just braced me this morning.

He said the State Department's under cut and paid.

And I said, Dan, I said, I said, I said, Don Kendall was in this morning and he said that the Japanese were told by our embassy that you welcomed the agreement with Mills because it would get you off the hook.

Jesus Christ.

That's the way it is.

These rumors just keep hitting us in the field with just, uh...

Although I don't know if we can ever show it.

How the hell do we do this?

It isn't just here, it's in other things.

Of course, in other things.

If we went less than... We can't do it before 72, but it's, uh...

I mean, we can't scare it off.

We're doing a few things, so it's surprising.

Oh, we're doing that by not letting them know.

Pete came to me the other day and he said he's now come to the view that you've met it.

of not telling anybody and doing it alone was the only possible one.

He had his doubts when he came in.

I said, he said, he volunteered it to me.

He didn't flatter you about it.

Well, you'd love to insult, but it won't work.

I just love to do it.

You'd delete it by yourself.

Yeah, particularly if you were insulting the people who, in their bureaucracy, and people, you know, we had, we had a couple hours, and it's not the same.

They're always coming.

And they're from bills.

Mills met with the Korean ambassador, and he said he heard that you were thinking about trading the enemy, and that, of course, would be very unacceptable behavior.

And he heard he was going to come up with their own voluntary deal.

He thought that would be okay.

So he's out there helping us, too.

We're getting a lot of help.

One of the things, Mr. President, when I'm here, Taiwan bent over to do this.

They went around for what we had before.

and a half percent growth.

That's only a half percent more than our guidelines, and if the industry doesn't take that, I'd say that, oh, hell with the hell.

They want me to tell you personally that they were the first to do it.

I got it.

I would tell them.

They had been marvels.

The other point that they've gotten is marvels.

The other point that they want, and I don't want to state something that I haven't checked out, is a submarine.

And I haven't promised them anything.

They asked me if I would mention that.

A submarine?

A submarine.

They said it's being considered in the department.

They said the timing could be well after your Peking visit or anything.

Now that's what we're doing.

What we're doing is...

So?

We're training their crew now.

They can't do anything with the submarine anyway.

Sure.

Until they get the crew.

What is this?

Is this a conventional submarine?

This is a conventional submarine that's being... Why shouldn't they have one?

That's no good.

Well, it's a bad time to hand over the submarine to themselves.

They don't have to have it today if they know it's coming.

Well, they know.

They know that we're training their crews.

We've just agreed to see if we're ready for this.

But they'll object that we can't give them a veto of everything.

But it would be a bad thing to do now, if you were there.

All I have to do is mention it.

I don't have to.

But you can mention to them.

Are you going there again?

I'll be seeing them, yes.

I don't want to strictly drive it by faith.

No, absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

Did you understand that the rule of law has been approved?

Obviously, yes.

There must be a next question in time.

They'll know.

Mr. President, we've had three paybacks from Japan that ought to please you.

One this morning from Don.

At Don Handel, we've had two others.

But they are now prepared for a major yen recalibration, which was unthinkable three months ago.

They are now ready to turn on the trade specifics that our little coordinating group is working with, you know, and a variety of other things.

Anyone who can talk about defense of

So there's some more defense purchases in this area.

It's the third time we've heard it.

So, they plan to do it.

Another chance.

What the state people don't recognize is that when you inflict something painful on the other fellow, he's going to scream and try to drive you off your course.

That's, that's the whole point of it.

You know, it's a funny thing.

It always happens in business.

Sure.

It happens in the law.

You know, when the lawyer should know better, he doesn't.

A lot of the state lawyers don't even understand this.

The lawyer always knows.

Laborers understand.

They're not prepared for their cold.

There was no way of negotiating the revaluation short of some pressure.

They had no conceivable incentives.

There was no incentive if we had sent somebody over on the grounds of abstract fairness.

They'd never have done it.

And the surtaxes are so important that here's the knock on the ear to say this face politically, which indicates the message is coming through the public as well.

I told this European business group yesterday whether they could tell me honestly that without the shock effects, whether there would have been any progress.

I think you've got to do something besides that because you just have the same old thing.

Were you always this way, Dave?

I never was.

I was never a son of a bitch before.

I'd be getting discouraged.

You're doing fine.

Tomorrow, Mr. Carter, you are.

Listen, you didn't...

Tomorrow, you didn't go out there and discover all that place, huh?

Without being very strong people.

That's why we sent you to the job, Dave.

Just to know that you keep doing it.

I just swear now and then, you know, that's what I do.

I know all the words.

Well...

But the leadership you're showing, the domestic field now, we're not going to win.

This will be all right.

This leadership here is, the people are behind you.

Anyway, tonight we've got George Means in all fields right now.

And the labor people, if the worst comes to worst, I don't want to do it, but we're going to have to take it right on.

That'll blow it, that's the problem.

George shows the rest of the world.

President, I'm glad to write a signal from your state that you might now get involved in these negotiations on post-August 15th, you know, on the trade and that stuff relating to the exchange rate alignment.

I assume you want that under, uh, Trade Registration.

Has to be.

It has to be.

Well, I have this motion.

They want to handle the trade and defense part.

And that was the best.

Never.

And that was split off the responsibility that we had.

So it's all going to be one package, right?

That's what we need to begin discussing at the right time.

But there's got to be one guy at the top that gives this care for that state.

Right.

Absolutely.

Well, with a little bit of luck, I'm early.

Good luck.

Bye.

Well, we appreciate you.

That worked okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, bye.

Bye-bye.

Oh, yeah, he's done a good job.

I thought that would be the end of the day.

I did finally get to see him again.

I was David Rockefeller.

I had invited the Egyptians.

I had a good talk with the Egyptians, but we can't move until they stop this tragedy.

Rampage.

They've again, they've now started a big initiative without checking with you unless they checked with you privately on the Middle East.

They've asked for Egypt to send a negotiator secretly to New York and Israel to send one in Cisco.

It's going to run in between.

The Russians are going to consider that a complete double-cross.

The other problem is going to be the Israelis are going to break it off and then they're going to come in here and ask you to squeeze the Israelis, none of which is necessary.

I mean, that's what's going to happen.

But if you do this, get to the marina right away, and I'm telling you, I'm not paying no attention to this.

You're going to see double pains all the time here.

The President has made commitments to how to handle this, and that's true.

I may tell the marina to tell the Egyptians not to slow everything down.

That's good.

Because Sadat is going there until we have a chance.

I'll talk to him tomorrow morning.

It's not even the slightest speculation on the first day.

And I went over to the other thing.

That was a lovely thing to hear.

He told me he was very pleased, he was very moved by the fact that you came.

I think that speech yesterday was, you know, I don't follow the details, but I thought the position of leadership that you now have is...

I think it was very carefully written.

I thought it was well delivered, too.

Well, and David...

David Rockefeller to whom I spoke two weeks ago about the monetary situation he said he had to see you thanks for heading for a crisis said there's no sense seeing you anymore because you're doing exactly what he would have recommended and you know he's not you are

Yeah, he's talking to Mrs. Overstreet today, you know, that wrote the book on the FBI.

And a guy does against Hoover.

Oh, Sullivan.

Yeah.

Overstreet's book was against him.

Oh, it was.

He was lost.

But the problem is, I know Sullivan, and unless he's flipped his lid, he's a very decent guy.

He is, but who just fired him?

He's hired Calvado, and he's starting to file a lawsuit now.

Well, he didn't.

But when I knew him, I haven't seen him all the way.

Yes, sir.

But Sullivan, I knew as a dedicated, devoted man.

Yes, sir.

Who must have been harassed beyond endurance to reach this point.

Yes, sir.

But Sullivan...

I happen to know Sullivan for many years, and I need him to do it.

I'll let you talk to him.

But I'd be glad to do it, but I don't know.

I think he's done it.

You know, he's... Mitchell, maybe it will fall off.

I know this, don't we?

That Sullivan was one of the candidates for succeed Hoover.

He's no competition.

You know, he has no political ambitions.

He's violently anti-communist, totally on our wavelength.

And I don't know how we're going to replace him.

Always give us advance warning of things that are going on.

We have a very busy team.

Well, anyway, we work on that.

You'll find it.

At least you'll get to see those.

But, you know, Henry, as I read title of the last part,

We've made a hell of an effort.

Well, it could go, but it's...

Even if you used to say we'd get two out of three.

Yeah.

We've got two out of three at the moment.

That's right.

It's pretty hard for you to let me jump off.

The minis?

Just don't bring it on.

Don't be slow.

I don't, you know, I really, on the minis, I personally can only lose getting involved in it.

But I think we might finish it and get it out of the Middle East and have you do it.

All right.

Anything else?

There's nothing.

No problem.

How about, uh...

Oh, Mr. Pakistan.

I'm sorry.

Good day, sir.