President Nixon met with his senior staff, including H. R. Haldeman, Henry Kissinger, and John Ehrlichman, to coordinate a strategy for countering Congressional opposition to the foreign aid program and to manage the administration's public relations. The participants discussed the necessity of adopting an aggressive offensive stance against partisan critics who threatened national security initiatives, while also planning for a future Cabinet meeting focused on the 1972 campaign. Furthermore, they reviewed internal personnel shifts, including potential changes within the Justice Department and the FBI, and aligned on the timing and messaging for upcoming Vietnam troop withdrawal announcements to maximize political impact.
This clip was extracted from the full tape recording by Easy Nixon.
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Position in tape: 04:10:47 – 06:35:48
part C, 5:59
609a.mp3
609b.mp3
609c.mp3
609d.mp3
NARA Description
On November 1, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Henry A. Kissinger, John D. Ehrlichman, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:25 am to 1:30 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 609-017 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 609-17
Date: November 1, 1971
Time: 9:25 am - 1:30 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.
William P. Rogers's schedule
Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon's forthcoming trip to Liberia
-Announcement
-Timing
-Ambassador
-Henry A. Kissinger
-State Department
-Ronald L. Ziegler
Ronald W. Reagan's schedule
-Forthcoming dinner with Indira Gandhi
Kissinger's schedule
Reagan's schedule
-Governor’s conference
Foreign aid program
-Clark MacGregor
-Possible continuing resolution
-George H. Mahon
-White House strategy
-Congress
-Cooper-Church amendment
-White House strategy
-Public relations
-Separability
-Robert H. Finch's forthcoming trip to Latin America
-Kissinger's view
-Possible continuing resolution
-Views of MacGregor, William E. Timmons, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Charles W.
Colson
-Robert J. Dole
-John C. Stennis
-Previous Senate vote
-The President’s view
Show the rest of the log (702 more lines)
-MacGregor
-Kissinger's view
-Responsibility
-Kissinger’s staff, State Department, Agency for International
Development [AID]
-The President’s view
-MacGregor
-Kissinger
-Hugh Scott
The President's schedule
-Congressmen
-Gerald R. Ford, Leslie C. Arends
-MacGregor
-Scott, Robert P. Griffin
-Rogers's schedule
-White House press
-John A. Hannah
-Mahon
-Reagan
Administration staff
-Colson
-Role in White House
-George H.W. Bush
-Edward M. Kennedy
-Bush
-Rogers
-Rogers
-The President’s view
-John B. Connally
-The President’s view
The President's schedule
-Reagan
-Florida
Rogers's possible press conference
The President's schedule
-Frank F. Church
-Troop announcement
-Rogers
-William McMahon
-Arrival ceremony
-Possible press conferences
Connally's schedule
Foreign aid program
-Administration's possible actions
-Kissinger’s view
The President's schedule
-Cabinet
-1972 campaign
-John N. Mitchell, Spiro T. Agnew
-Connally
-Gandhi
Alexander P. Butterfield entered at 9:40 am.
-Cabinet
-Robert J. Dole, John A. Volpe
-Political operatives from Departments
-Agnew
-Duration
-John D. Ehrlichman
-Transportation
-Connally
-Frederic V. Malek memorandum
-Leaks
-Reagan
Haldeman talked with Kissinger at an unknown time between 9:40 am and 9:47 am.
[Conversation No. 609-17A]
People’s Republic of China [PRC] announcement
-Timing
Ehrlichman entered at 9:47 am.
Forthcoming Cabinet meeting
-Colson
-Dole, Peter H. Dominick, Mitchell
-Agenda
-The President’s view
-Leaks
-Forthcoming Cabinet meeting
-Firing of State Department employee
-Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT]
-Removal of Defense Department employee
-Firing of State Department employee
-Rogers’s position
-Political effects of 1972 Presidential election campaign
-House Resolution [HR] 1
-Revenue-sharing
-Tax bill
-Agenda
-Forthcoming foreign policy report
-Forthcoming Defense Department report
-Request for reports from Cabinet members
-Rogers and the State Department
-Speech material
-Timing
-1970 campaign
-1972 campaign
-"Issues and Answers"
-Herbert G. Klein, John A. Scali
Cabinet
-The President’s view
-1972 campaign
-Mitchell
-Volpe
-Sons of Italy
-Elliot L. Richardson
-Bush
-George W. Romney
-Finch, Rumsfeld
-Rogers
-Contrasted with Connally
-Relations with press
-Connally
-Relations with press
Bush
-Relations with press
-Haldeman’s view
-Contrasted with Charles W. Yost
-UN delegation
-The President’s view
-[Matthew J.?]Harvey and John N. Irwin, II
-Richard F. Pederson
-The Foreign Service
Cabinet
-1972 campaign
-Connally
-Finch, Rumsfeld
-Richardson
-Agenda for meeting
-Volpe
-Romney
-The President’s view
-1972 campaign
-Ehrlichman’s view
-Richardson
-James D. Hodgson
-Clifford M. Hardin
-The President’s view
-Colson's view
-Possible allegations
-Leaks
-Lack of leadership
-Lobbying failures
-Previous Senate vote on foreign aid
-Kennedy's view
-George D. Aiken's view
-The President’s view
-Richardson’s previous speech
-Forthcoming meeting
-Rogers, Melvin R. Laird
-Bush
-Mitchell
-Connally
-Agnew
-1972 campaign
-Mitchell
-Jeb Stuart Magruder's memorandum
-Public relations
-Colson
-Dole, Scali
-Klein
-Scali
-Timing
-Rumsfeld
-Rogers C.B. Morton
-Richardson
-Southern school desegregation
-Transpo '72
-Connally report
-Phase II economic program
-Peter G. Peterson's statements
-Maurice H. Stans
-Romney
-Rumsfeld
-Cost of Living Council [COLC]
-Schedule
-Rumsfeld, George P. Shultz
-Government reorganization
-Romney, Volpe
-Hardin
-J. Philip Campbell
-Frank C. Carlucci
-Volpe's airplane
-Coast Guard
-Federal Aviation Administration [FAA]
-National economy
-Rumsfeld, Shultz
-Stans
-Stans's statements
-Peterson
-Romney
-Forthcoming meeting agenda
-Scali
-Relations with the press
-Connally
-Joseph W. Alsop's column
-Possible Cabinet jealousies
-Agnew
-Richardson
-Public recognition
-Agnew, Connally
-Mitchell
-Laird, Rogers
-Rogers's activities
-Public recognition
-Morton
-Volpe, Stans, Romney
-Richardson
-Hardin, Hodgson
Stewart Udall
-Son [Scott Udall]
-Desertion
-Canada
-Press
Draft dodgers
-Unknown man's letter to the President
Cabinet
-Forthcoming meeting agenda
Butterfield left at 10:25 am.
Secretary of Agriculture
-John C. Whitaker's contacts with Roman L. Hruska
-Mitchell
-Clayton K. Yeutter
-Earl L. Butz, Donald E. Johnson, Bryce N. Harlow
-Stans
-Clarence D. Palmby
-Johnson
-Butz
-Selection process
Cabinet
-Appointments
-Morton
Secretary of Agriculture
-Yeutter
Stans
-Possible departure
-Hardin
Mitchell
-Possible departure
J. Edgar Hoover
-Possible departure
-Mitchell's views
-Taiwan, Republic of China
-Princeton University Conference
-William F. Buckley, Jr.’s column
-Effect
-Timing
-Confirmation of successor
Mitchell
-Possible departure
-Confirmation of successor
-1972 campaign
Stans
-Possible departure
-The President’s view
-Peterson, Richard G. Kleindienst
-Peter M. Flanigan
-[Unintelligible]
Flanigan
Peterson
-Connally's views
-Shultz's views
-Kissinger
Richardson
-The President’s view
-Possible role in government
-Warren E. Burger
-The President’s view
-Stanford University
-Harvard University
Supreme Court
-Possible vacancy
-Richardson
-The President’s view
-Timing
-1972 Presidential election
-William O. Douglas
Cabinet
-Richardson
-Morton
-The President’s vie
-William T. Pecora
-Robert J. Hitt
-The President’s view
-Mitchell and the 1972 campaign
-Possible departure
-The President’s view
-Possibility of a leave of absence
-Possible criticism
-John P. Sears, Colson Robert F. Ellsworth
**********************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 1m ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
**********************************************************************
Kleindienst
-Possible role in government
-Mitchell’s view
-Possible confirmation as Attorney General
-Ehrlichman’s view
**********************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 2m 29s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
**********************************************************************
Attorney General
-Kleindienst
-Robert C. Mardian
-Mitchell
-Kleindienst
-Possibility as Secretary of Interior
-Morton
**********************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 10s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
**********************************************************************
Kleindienst
-Possible role in administration
-Secretary of Commerce
-Peterson
-The President’s view
-Confirmation
-Mitchell
Finch and Rumsfeld
-Finch’s plans
-Kleindienst
-Rumsfeld’s plans
-Possible role in administration
-Secretary of Commerce
-Housing and Urban Development [HUD] Secretary
-The President’s view
-Kleindienst
Mitchell
-Possible departure
-Confirmation of successor
-Richardson
John V. Lindsay
-Environmentalism
Attorney General
-Confirmation
-William H. Rehnquist, Will R. Wilson, Johnnie M. Walters
-L. Patrick Gray, III
-William D. Ruckelshaus
-Mitchell and Kleindenst
Kissinger entered at 10:49 am.
Foreign aid program
-Kissinger's forthcoming meeting with agencies
-John A. Hannah's meeting with Jacob K. Javits
-Humanitarian aid compared with military aid
-India, Pakistan compared with Vietnam, Cambodia
-Kissinger’s view
-Israel
-The President’s view
-Separation of military from non-military aid in the Senate
-Foreign Relations Committee
-The President’s view
-Armed Services Committee
-Foreign Relations Committee
-Kissinger’s forthcoming meeting with Rogers
-Rogers
-George W. Ball's efforts
Justice Department
-Kleindienst
-Egil G. (“Bud”) Krogh, Jr.’s expertise
-Staffing
Buckley
-Column
-Possible meeting with Kissinger
Hoover
-Possible departure from Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI]
-Ehrlichman's discussions with G. Gordon Liddy and Krogh
-Reaction of conservatives
-1972 Presidential election
-Edward Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy
-W. Ramsey Clark
-Richard A. Falk [?]
Ehrlichman left at 10:55 am.
Foreign aid program
-Separability
-Previous Senate vote
-Possible White House response
-The President’s forthcoming trips to Peking and Moscow
-Vietnam
-Cooper-Church amendment
-Kissinger's possible efforts
-Javits
-Possible continuing resolution
-Ball
-The President’s view
-India and Pakistan refugees, Africa, Latin America, Third World
-Mahon
-MacGregor
-Mahon
-The President's schedule
Haldeman left at an unknown time before 11:40 am.
-The President's schedule
-Rogers
-John N. Irwin, II
-Rogers's possible actions
-Statements to the press
-The President’s view
-Negotiations with North Vietnam
-The President’s view
-Rogers
-Nguyen Van Thieu
Buckley
-Possible meeting with Kissinger
-US Information Agency [USIA]
-UN vote on Taiwan, Republic of China
-National defense
-The President’s view
-Forthcoming meeting with Soviet Union
Democrats
-Kissinger’s view
-Stewart J.O. Alsop's column
-Cooper-Church Amendment
-Previous foreign aid vote
-News summary
Haldeman entered at an unknown time after 10:55 am,
Foreign aid program
-Possible continuing resolution
-Mahon's views
-Views of Gerald R. Ford and Carl B. Albert
-Effects on the Senate
-Possible House money bill
-Mahon's views
-MacGregor
-Hannah's meetings
-Separability
-Kissinger's forthcoming meeting with agencies
-Administration approach
-Vietnam
-Popular opinion
-India
-Pakistan
UN vote on Taiwan
-The President's efforts
Possible ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]
-David M. Kennedy
-Rogers
-The President’s view
-Foreign Service
-Connally's conversation with the President about the State Department
-Report from Edwin S. Cohen
-Philip H. Trezise
-John Robert Schaetzel
-Yost
-Kissinger’s view
-Walter J. Stoessel, Jr.
-Kissinger’s view
-Charles D. (“Tex”) Thornton
-Possible role with the administration
-The President’s view
Robert Strausz-Hupe
-Possible role with the administration
-Possible confirmation
-Ceylon
US ambassador to Japan
-Connally’s forthcoming recommendations
-Kissinger’s view
-Foreign Service
Previous Senate vote
-MacGregor's efforts
-State Department
-Hannah
-Responsibility
Press coverage
-UN vote on Taiwan
-The President's forthcoming trip to Moscow
-Newsweek
-Support for the administration
-The President’s forthcoming trips to PRC and Moscow
-Kissinger's forthcoming trip to PRC
-Previous Senate vote on foreign aid
-Liberal Democrats
-Dole
-Mansfield amendment
-The President’s view
-Previous Senate vote on foreign aid
-Peter Lisagor, Marquis Childs
UN vote on Taiwan
-Buckley
-The President's reaction
-Bush
The President's opponents
-Attacks on timing of Kissinger's trip to PRC
-Consultation of allies
UN vote on Taiwan
-Impact on public relations
-George Sherman
Ziegler entered at an unknown time after 10:55 am.
Mrs. Nixon's forthcoming visit to Liberia
-Timing of announcement
Foreign aid program
-Previous Senate vote
-White House statements
-Reduction in American forces abroad
-Nixon Doctrine
-Cambodia
-North Vietnamese military
-Josip Broz Tito compared with Gen. Francisco Franco
-Unwillingness to compromise
-Separability
-UN vote on Taiwan
-Kissinger’s recent trip
-Timing
-Consultation of allies
-Criticism of delegates’ conduct
-Popular opinion
Ziegler left at an unknown time before 11:40 am.
Ziegler
-Sears's views
-The President’s view
-Compared with Klein
-Cambodia and Laos issues
Foreign aid program
-Previous Senate vote
-Press reaction
-PRC, Soviet Union
-Forthcoming announcement
-Rogers's schedule
-Irwin
The President's schedule
-Possible meeting with Latin American leaders
-Brazil
-Rogers
-Emilio Garrastazu Medici
-Rogers
-Laird
-Vietnam
-Negotiations
-Le Duc Tho
The President's forthcoming conversation with Rogers and Kissinger
-The President's conversation with Tito
-North Vietnamese
-Soviet Union
Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
-Conversation with the President
-Soviet Union and North Vietnamese
-Conversation with Kissinger
-PRC Communiqué
The President's forthcoming conversation with Rogers and Kissinger
-Kissinger's conversations with Rogers
-Vietnam negotiations
-Memorandum
Vietnam
-Forthcoming troop announcement
-Timing
-Possible continuing resolution on foreign aid
-Ziegler
-The President's possible statement
-Content
-The President's conversation with Tito
-North Vietnam
-Content
-Troop withdrawal rate
-Residual force
-1972 Presidential campaign
-Draftee announcement
-Timing
-Rogers, Laird
-Troop withdrawal rate
-Christmas
-Announcement
-Ziegler
Kissinger left at 11:40 am.
Kissinger
-Liberal friends
-Recent visit to PRC
-Press coverage
-UN vote
-Ping-Pong team visit
-Rogers, Stans
-Possible impact
-Trip to the Soviet Union
Public relations and Presidential trips
-Soviet Union
-Romania
-Yugoslavia
-Poland
-Latin America
-Africa
-Latin America
-Timing
Public relations
-State of the Union
-The President’s view
-Domestic Council
-Television appearances
-Messages to Congress
-Effectiveness
-Congress
-The President’s view
-Political opponents
-Edmund S. Muskie
-Haldeman's possible conversation with Ehrlichman
-1972 election
-State of the Union
-Value
This recording was cut off at an unknown time before 1:30 pm.
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That was the problem with Bill.
He has to get back to his mom.
But he told me that he was going to stay through Monday and I said fine.
That's what he told me the first time.
I said, no, he was just going to go down and come back.
I said, I'll talk to him and come back.
But he said, obviously, I was going to stay.
I don't know what he accomplished.
If he gets back tomorrow, he's going to be in the office a little bit.
He's going to be in the office tomorrow.
Did you get a date on it?
Her past couldn't be announced today.
Did you follow up on that or not?
Yeah, I think it's today.
If they put it out, they should get it done today.
Or tomorrow, but...
What's this, my manager?
I just put it out in the big story.
But they've got to tell the, they've got to tell the ambassador, you know, yeah, just call it.
Have the, what's his name?
No, man, the Warren State Department.
What?
The Warren State Department.
They know, they know.
I mean, Ron's still working on that.
All right, fine.
I guess, Ron, I'm sure the ambassador knows that we're going to announce it today, you see.
On Reagan, he will come any time you want him to.
He had said that the best time for him to come would be on the 16th or the 19th.
And raise that question.
We have not raised the question of the dinner.
Now we can go back to it.
If I could get a senator to suggest that you'd like to have him come to the Gandhi dinner, maybe it would work out for him.
He could come in for that this weekend.
Why don't we offer that?
I think it would just be well enough.
The other things are, if it's not that one, then I think the...
Yeah.
I think that would be a good question.
Does Henry leave on the 19th?
No, he doesn't leave until the 20th.
He has to be here.
He may be back a couple of times.
All right.
But I think the 19th is better than the, yeah, I think it's better than the 16th.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
and they're trying to pick up the pieces this morning.
The way it goes is it becomes
really almost automatic, unless there is any real option, which is to go now, because there's nothing you can get done between now and 15.
To go for a continuum resolution and go for 120 days instead of 90 days.
Then, now, one problem there is Mekong is apparently talking about 30 days.
And then, to hit the compass pretty hard,
That's the important thing, really.
The substantive initiative would be to do that and then go for submitting our own program.
Again, whether it's the old one or a revision of the April reform program.
But whatever it is, we go for that, submit it, first thing when the new Congress comes back, under heavy pressure, and go for trying to get it passed before they take a selection on it.
I've got a lot of things behind us.
Well, you don't have to screw around with one of the ingredient factors on this, which was all in amendments.
We want to be a mountain, and a man's good mountain.
And a man's good Cooper Church.
Well, Cooper Church is still here.
Yeah, people can't vote.
But it's still there.
It's not going to be used.
But that would be the substantive strategy, the PR strategy,
which, or political strategy, which may be more important at this point, is that the feeling is that we should go on a strong attack on the point now that the President has launched all these initiatives in the effort for world peace and development of a broad-based foreign policy and so forth, and that Congress, for capricious partisan reasons and all this kind of crap, has undercut the basic thing, and then make the point that nobody
likes foreign aid, or a lot of people don't like foreign aid, but the point is that right now, like it or not, it's an essential underpinning for getting done what needs to be done, right?
And that it's time for Congress to return to sanity, to quit their mission-making, and get down to taking some responsibility and getting this passed, and then to solve it.
So they sit pretty hard.
Yeah.
They bounce around.
They have no questions.
They have no responsibility.
They bounce around.
So it's the only way you do it is to fight it out in that way.
Well, they're sensitive to that point, too.
That's why they're going to crawl back and say, we'll give aid to Israel, we'll give aid.
Well, that's the other thing.
We're attacked on the general basis.
It's not because it's defending military aid versus economic aid and all that.
They just take the whole thing as a bundle.
They're trying to rack the other part.
They're trying to rack it.
They're trying to get back to the right hand.
They're trying to rack it.
There's a corridor problem which needs a fairly quick decision, I think, which is Finch's problem with the timing of his trip.
He's concerned about wandering down to Latin America.
Well, he's been cut off.
He can make the point that we're fighting for it, but when you get across the border here, the U.S. government sees the U.S. government.
They don't see the difference between the president and Congress.
Henry thinks he ought to go ahead and, uh, I think so.
Bob's a little shaky about what he should.
Well, I'll tell you until later in the week or so and see what we get out of the resolution.
You're not going to get it.
We'll just have a vote and see what happens.
We'll get it in front of a lot of people.
If anybody's interested, we can ask them.
Nobody thinks you've got it in the week.
Yeah, they think you might be able to get it in the meeting.
They think, look, they're saying it's in our relation to Gregor.
and Timmons, and that's what I'm talking about.
You've got all the congressional type people that have a feeling that there's a question in there now, and Colson has assumed too, that they realize they've sort of wet their beds here, and that if you had our bill back intact and on the floor today, you might get it passed.
What?
And had the full sentence pressed.
Yeah, you're right.
Because we lost a big chunk on absentees.
The absentees are us, aren't they?
Yeah, but even...
It didn't change the result of it, did it?
Yeah.
Well, we...
But we heard the back.
At least half of us are English.
We know the whole sentence.
People like that.
If we had called and asked for English, and if we'd known, we would have been able to listen.
Yeah, yeah.
In retrospect, I think that we just can't put any plans down.
They put it out on their handstand.
What was that again?
What happened?
It's the boys have been fighting all week and just were tired.
It's like football.
They let up and they intercepted the pass.
But I'm still on hand with us.
These are brothers.
I said, God damn it, we won every vote.
And what do you think we're doing out there?
We're fighting all the time.
And that's not fair.
It's not fair.
Well, listen, you can't just make the verdict, sir.
I mean, Enrich's people dropped the ball.
They never dropped the ball.
AID sure as hell dropped the ball.
They're the worst.
They've got more people than we have.
And where were Enrich's people?
I mean, the whole point is this.
It was a thing where the European analogy is absolutely right.
The whole team kind of
We're really fast.
We're in the fourth quarter, and all of a sudden, at any stage, I have to realize that we're in a period, Bob, and it's not only in here, but everything we have out there, every domestic thing will be the same way.
There'll be silly events.
They'll try to hang on to this or that or the other thing.
They'll fail to pass an appropriation, a big government choice, anything, you know.
But if they can get away with it, so I can just get to the top and fight it, or whatever, and it's very important.
But don't, but believe me, I'm not putting my mind on McGregor and those guys.
I mean, they've done a hell of a job.
But they take a good chunk of it.
They know it.
There's no need to put it on.
They know they've got it.
Let me put it this way, though.
It's not them.
We've got to remember that State didn't have to stop everybody else.
It's just as much responsibility.
And they can't just sit here and say, not what's McGregor going to do?
You know, put those things up.
They say, all right, boys, get it through for us.
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
That's not fair.
Oh, and he worked for it, too.
He sure got his phone.
They have a full time.
And they thought they had a Saturday one.
He was gone.
They thought he had a Saturday book.
And he was gone.
And he was gone.
And he barely did it.
He couldn't.
Apparently, it wasn't Saturday.
Now, what do they want to do?
What is our schedule this week in terms of meetings?
Do we have a legislative meeting?
It's not good.
Gordon Harris has asked
urge that they have a, just the two of them, have a meeting with you just on a legislative program review.
And Clark says that's the only important legislative leader's meeting.
You don't need a leader's meeting with the group this week.
There's a question whether Scott and Griffin are being included.
He's checking that out.
But what they'd like to do is do that tomorrow afternoon rather than tomorrow morning.
So today, no, they're currently out.
The problem is, tomorrow is election day, and they could be on the, yeah, well, they could be back in the afternoon.
We could do it tomorrow, you know.
We haven't planned, but let's do it tomorrow.
The idea was to do this at 5, 5.30.
Now, my thought on a part of the, well, that's, that's,
What about on the PR side?
I had one thing, I had to go out and talk to the White House first about what we're going to do.
But that's on now.
We'll do that tomorrow.
We'll have Rogers come in.
It's true.
It's better to have Rogers do it than anybody else.
I guess there's nobody.
Yeah, it would be good if he isn't affected at all.
I don't know.
We don't know where we stand yet today.
I don't know.
Meaning?
Now it gets to 9.30 a.m.
Okay.
Better be after that.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Later.
We have up this week.
and all that sort of thing.
The regular coming in is not quite the right thing.
Okay.
Just let the folks say bye.
Either day is all right.
I think it's slow.
I don't think it's before the governor's time.
You're not thinking of doing anything on the 15th announcement?
I don't think so.
Okay, make it 60%.
That'd be a little bit better.
Is that hard work?
And basically, uh, you know, after they put a talk in here, they, they, they're, it's, we gotta expect this sort of thing.
We're, therefore, we really want to avoid it as much as possible.
We also have to expect, consider it a political attack, and our own people have got to do that.
Uh, you gotta say Colson did a good job, lining up, you know, his little toys with Bush.
We've never done that before.
God damn, we just did, you know, we've done it for two years and never had any of that sort of going, you know, except when I was paying him.
Right across the board from the Charlie account.
They're shaking their heads up.
He's really good, though.
It's a very good job.
I guess what you mean, we did a good job.
To every question, we ought to keep that in mind.
You're saying that.
Absolutely.
It's hard.
He's got to be, not be partisan.
There's a way to handle it.
My guy, he's, uh, he, uh, he doesn't have to be totally, you know, the thing is, the thing is, you've got to say this for him.
Rockers could really be, be tougher than he is, as you know, but he just would.
But, uh, he's, uh, Dolch used to be, you know, get him a good kick in the ass and they, uh, well, uh,
If a bush shark's getting tough, you give him some credit for it, it'll get around to a little tougher, too.
Well, he likes it, of course.
He's just considered to be a heavyweight by then because of that certain
You know, it's not just because it's a nice guy.
You know, he's basically, they read the column and he gets much favor.
You know, he's apparently, he's too tough and superficial, et cetera, et cetera.
But he's there.
He is a factor.
And they know he's a factor.
And when he's a factor, he has to be contended with.
And in Bill's case, he sold him his room.
You know, he's always great.
He was a nice fellow.
Very courteous and all that sort of thing.
But he gets considered, he gets considered his position.
Who the hell is he?
That's the point.
There's a steady push.
Push it from that point.
Yeah.
Distribute it.
Play the rhythm on it a little.
It comes to come in.
Let's give it this balance.
This is going to give us a little bit of a young life.
And we're going to get it forward as we prepare for the second round.
Do you want anybody down there?
No, I don't.
There's no need to.
No, I couldn't hurt her.
So, Rush, this is not going to be at 6 o'clock tonight.
I just need some loose anchors.
Should we try to get him to come in earlier?
So you get an afternoon shot at him?
It's only 9.30.
He could be here by then.
1 o'clock.
What do we want?
I don't either.
I kind of hate it just as well.
As long as Daddy's good and he let this baby screw her out.
I don't think he could, I don't know what the hell he could go out and say today.
He goes out and they question him, what are you going to do?
What is your reaction to this or that?
He may not know.
Yeah, we need to do a little more dirty dirty.
No, I think we just better, better let her go.
Better let her go.
Okay.
Well, I've been planning that, that, uh, on this, uh,
We got the church this time.
We have the 14th.
Okay.
In the 15th group announcement, you're just going to release something, is that right?
You're not going to make a statement and go on TV or anything?
It's a present time, right?
With Rogers, are we having him tomorrow?
What time is the plan?
11?
10?
Roger.
Well, you're not going to have a rifle, sir.
No, no.
Oh, that's right.
The man has an officer that does an honor guard for him, but no, you don't go outside.
930 for Roger Judson.
We'll need a car because we've got to go to the office.
Okay.
And then Roger should go out and get the question tomorrow.
Okay.
Oh, it's Kevin.
Yeah.
I, uh, have a son.
I'm here to see if he's okay.
He's gonna be okay.
Connie, I told you to return after 11.
Now they're saying it may be to 14.
So I'm not sure on that.
You can get outside.
I'll be there.
that we must figure him for anything that we can.
We can put, we can put quite a bit, whatever these people can afford.
Well, that's the part we would, that's the general feeling.
You can't follow Henry's way, I mean, uh,
of getting out and, you know, going to that level.
He said, we don't want you to do it.
This is one, oh, I want to sit on it.
I want to talk to you.
Sir, you've got to feel it.
This is Kevin.
This is the man I always expected.
I just can't think of a better man.
Or a person, or stuff like, for a full meeting.
Or even a Jedi.
I could have a Jedi expert for that transportation thing.
I'll tell you what I have to do.
First, with regard to the subdued man thing.
I cannot meet, I never want to meet with a guy with a subdued man thing.
I just don't want to sit there with him and have that bandied about.
I'm kidding.
Then the way to do that, I want to make sure they have that man.
I don't want to have him there either.
I think it's better.
I just think it's better.
Well...
No, he could be dead.
I think he could be dead.
Let him be there in Versailles as a political man.
I think it would be good to have that meeting first.
I don't think it's fair to put a comment into that position where he's directly a partisan commentator.
I think you ought to have a commentator on the wrong side of this.
It was kind of funny, those two, but I think they get into the basic political nut-cutting question without the...
without a doubt, but the VP should be, and now, I think you ought to have that soon.
I think next year, next year, the Vice President should preside, and have it here, and have it here in Canterbury.
Now, the previous opportunity is Friday through Monday, because it's tied up, we're not here.
Well, Friday might be a good time.
The point is, you know, I'll be here, I'll be here, but I'll be meeting with Mrs. Connery, so you can have a campaign in Canterbury.
Well, I do not want to stay and live in the tent.
I just don't want to get into the tent and go and all these people will come up with stuff that I don't want to stay out of.
See, I just want to stay out of it.
Or rugby people, no rugby people tend to do that.
If they sit around, if they're not changed, well, if the NMR doesn't discount, then often there's a command for violence.
And they'd want to include this political fellow from the department, too.
And the tie to this one is that that is exactly the year before the election.
So that's the weekend before, you know, the year before the election.
So we launched the election.
I'm wondering if you think that I'll stay and I'm not going to be there.
Is that correct?
I wouldn't say you aren't going to be there.
I just invite them to be a part of that meeting, and I'll come in and hold them and say, I'm going to go meet with you.
And that's what it would be.
See what I mean?
Now, you don't see her till 11.
I'm not down.
I've got to go prepare for it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Half an evening, 10 o'clock, something like that.
Right.
Good.
Well, what I meant by that is that I, I, I give you a second to speak.
It's too late, sir, sir.
I, I was simply, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,
I think we ought to tell them to be a fairly long meeting.
Yes, a two-hour meeting.
A two-hour meeting, yeah.
It just has to be.
Well, but you have to, but this is only a political agenda.
This is, but get a car from the town.
And let me know if you can.
Unless you want to.
It walks, at the beginning, it walks through that, uh, transportation stop and go out of the way.
What?
It gets to where he goes from where they're meeting.
Let's let them get into reason and crap around on something else later that I'm trying to fix today.
Okay.
Uh, I think that then, the next meeting in the cabin after that, should be a concert here.
Right.
And then have Conley get a report, and I tell you so, and then get that transport ration there, you see.
Uh, fair enough.
And, uh...
I got a little bit of that.
But the problem, at least, that's if I could do it, would that be right in the political game?
It comes off that malice memory.
Yeah, yeah.
Won't take long.
I tell you, the political meeting is just part of the same thing.
Well, no, it isn't really.
No, I think the political meeting should be pretty much on that subject, yeah.
An hour and a half to two hours, isn't it?
Yeah.
And then pick up those little... See, the transfer thing also doesn't need to be long because all the undersecretaries are meeting on that.
Well, they have a problem.
Well, they do have a problem.
You know, that's the... Make it on the...
I don't want to get, I don't want to tell you in the middle of the week because I haven't retained that in case I want to go in there and press something at that point.
That would be when I would do it.
Let's see what else is coming up.
Oh, we've kept, we've figured possible pressing on the 18th.
Yeah.
We're putting right on the 16th now.
Yeah, that's right, right on the 16th.
17 quid.
But we also keep the 11 as possible as we see fit.
Now we want to do one or the other in the past.
We want to do it one time at a time.
20, 30.
What's the date of the Chinese New Year?
23rd.
What time is it?
4.
Okay, we haven't had that confirmed yet.
Okay, thank you.
Right, thank you.
That's not confirmed.
That's confirmed with very probable forethought.
Hi, John.
Hi.
Hi.
They do well to know most of these people are... Let me say it first.
The weakness of the account that it is, is the failure to have, is the failure to have Colson on there.
You've got to have somebody else on that account.
You know what I mean?
You'll have Dole in there, and you'll have Dominick, does he come in?
No.
Not Dominick.
Well, you have Dole.
You have Dominick.
Yeah.
I would, could you not talk about the Senate?
The House can't such explain the desired relationship between the Department of the White House and the Republican Committee at the time and the manned campaign committees.
Oh, I see.
Let me say that this meeting is to be held.
I really want it organized so that it's down to, so that you decide in advance what you want the cabinet officers to take out of it.
See, what you want them to be thinking about, what they can do, how they can help, you know, and how they can help in their departments and so forth and so on.
I'm not sure that the legal thing should come in.
The legal thing?
The legal thing.
This is a political meeting again where I will not be present.
And I'll open it and get out.
Well, it's important to know that we don't do it then.
We ought to do it two weeks from now, then.
I like that you're doing it in your absence.
Yeah.
I think it might be a verb.
If you do it in your answers, you could say that.
There's a lot of problems I've asked you to discuss this morning.
One is the weak question, the other is the political question.
So that they know you know it's being done.
I hope that sounds good.
You know, we're firemen.
There's one guy in the state on the basis of assault.
I mean, we might have caught up, but you've got to do the best you can.
Well, there's a fence guy on the left.
He bailed out.
So, jerking his classification, which is the only way we can reach him.
The second guy was supposed to be a conservative.
He's a conservative, but he's also a very bad jerk.
And he's a jerk.
After reading the file, there just isn't any question.
His judgments are a lot better.
Bill doesn't want to go to trial.
I don't know that he doesn't want to do it, but I know that he has laid a foundation for resisting this by the things that he said in his press conference.
So, anyway, the people that leave, the State Department is clean and so on and so forth.
We're going to lose.
The moment of crisis.
That was a long time.
Nobody even wanted to talk about it.
Well, this was a piece that I was right at the time.
It continues to make me think what we can do without saying it.
The State Department is just saying we have moved in one piece, and we are prepared to move in others.
And out there, the Department of Justice is responsible for their assistance.
and just lay out this sort of pyramid response so that we can expect that this is going to happen and so forth and so on.
I wouldn't want to have a whole that big that was in red and embarrassed and all that sort of thing because it's, you know, but you've got to, we've all got to know that we expect to be done that time.
Well, it ties into this concept that we're moving to the political right.
And every year before the election, now we do now, everything that we do that's not going to be a political issue, because there's nothing good that we can do with it.
They must get a vote, and all that stuff is subject to the same law.
And everything else is going to be that way now.
H.R.
1 is screwed.
Revenue insurance is screwed.
You know, why?
You know, well, that, for example, would mark around the tax bill and so forth.
Why?
Right?
Now, I had this thought.
And this exercise, this is all these people can do it.
This year, of course, we will have a board policy report.
which in which they will have an opportunity to speak of their issues and so on.
Now, give me a second.
One of the areas where we have really been taking a bad breath is the many, not only positive initiatives, but positive accomplishments of this administration and the domestic community.
And that we know that around this table there's area after area after area where we've done things.
There are also areas, and that's where we say, here's what we have accomplished.
And then, second, here is what we can propose.
In other words, what I'm going to add is, and I would like to add, I think that in terms of their getting a good speech ready for themselves, getting a good speech ready for good speech material for people all over the country, that they should prepare by
not on a mass basis, but on a tiny, recent, hard-hitting, one, two, three, simple basis, they can have a lot of facts out of the church.
A paper as to what the department, if the department of agriculture has done any good in the crisis, let's find out why.
You know what I mean?
So they'll say, yes, we've put money in, we just have to try it.
But no, it's all right.
It's the point.
They've got, in that sense, there's, you know, all the positive things that have happened.
And that happened.
At UC Rockhurst, for example, we did well trying to look for people who were forgotten.
We got rid of biological warfare and all that nonsense.
But there's a lot of people who probably have had it.
We did a few of those.
I was on it last week, and circulated it to a lot of people around.
Maybe what I'm saying is, if you remember last year, we did sort of a quarter, but it came off fairly well.
A half a dozen of them did make report.
It got fairly good for us, you remember?
Now, the time that these must be available must be in the period before and well before end of period.
So they get right after Christmas, you know, before the version of the year when there's a dead spot in the news.
Every one of these guys should have a report.
They should be well-programmed, like they did last year, but for the three years, too.
Not just for the year.
I always have a three-year report from the Catholic people.
And they take personal charge of this, and their search, and all that sort of thing.
What do you think?
Is it a good idea?
Yes, sir.
I'm able to think of it.
Maybe we'll learn some things.
There'll be a way.
Yeah.
We've got to meet on a separate day, though.
We've got to meet on a separate day.
Maybe we have to spread it over longer.
Well, we can take it from here on.
Because of a lot of things that happened, it took us about two weeks to get all the time on the last time.
And I guess that's okay.
We'll work it out.
So that's it.
and find ways to present the facts to these reports this time.
Maybe we can get them on the television, on specials, on issues and answers, on, all right, et cetera, et cetera, rather than just trying to go ahead with the newspapers this time.
Have a client, have a, you know, some, have a scholar, at least we've heard of people, and they are, rather than just in terms of, well, I'm just going to put all the papers in the AMs.
All right.
I think this gives a positive because when you really come down to it, as far as these kind of people who send it out into the country, there's politics talking about that.
They're reading on it.
They'll make a speech.
I mean, when you come down, they're not speaking on it.
What can they really do?
Why can't you really get down to the top of politics?
They're reading on it.
It never hurts except Mitchell, who, of course, is not a speaker.
I mean, I'm bold to say that we can't go over Massachusetts and stuff like that.
So, I can't, but only, we just, we, all you do is go ahead and go talk to the sons of Edwin.
You know, just hold their eyes against the other ethnic type groups.
That's right.
All the folks, not only all the ethnic types, but what I'm getting at is we have to be quite, quite candid in knowing that as far as this has to be concerned, they're only going to be worth a damn in terms
of, let's face it, Frank, each of them has got a building you saw about them.
They're just not going to be worthy to have.
Well, the whole point of this meeting, though, one of the things was to try and push them into a way of thinking as a group so that they will individually have taken the, some of them taking the attack, which they can start.
And Elliott did it.
And George Bush did it.
Okay, but we can make that point.
We can get George Bush from the high and mighty post-United Nations can do it.
Then George Romney sure as hell can from the left.
You know, the guy has to get the people with him.
You can't pinch Russ on that deal.
Believe me.
You come right down to it.
I was saying about one of the problems with the Cavs at times when they don't relax.
I was comparing Rodgers, the way he gets across, the way that Conley's gotten across.
And Rodgers, of course, if you were to ask the press which they like the better, Rodgers would be 10 to 1.
over perhaps Connolly or any other under the capitol.
But if you ask who is the big man, it's Connolly, number one.
In other words, this whole business of going out, being clever, and so forth, although Bill is good at timing, but his whole thrust is that he judges every press congressman carefully.
Did they like me?
In the heart.
I don't think that's a judgment in terms of, did they like me?
The question is, how did they cover me?
Did I get my point across?
Do they know what I mean?
Now, those people, if you ask them, they will gradually say, well, it was a natural performance, but they hate his cuts.
Am I correct, Dr. Drew?
They have the same reaction.
His cuts, they have mine.
They don't like them.
We're the man.
George Bush on his prop show yesterday,
He just threw his ambassadorial plan over the wind and got right in and made his point.
And that was the fact.
The whole process made himself a better ambassador.
That's damn right.
You get a good example of the kind of things that go through your ears.
George was doing that.
And here's Charlie Hill's bank.
No wonder we didn't get any out of the U.N. when we went up there, you know.
We got a bad cold recidivism all the time.
We really didn't know why.
I didn't know why.
It was the goddamn people that we had up there.
The whole delegation's against us.
I don't mean our people.
We're the point.
We're just the center of the temple.
People like to do their butt in the boots, so they can have it.
And see, my point is, the party has been out there for a long time.
That permanent party, there's a bunch of them that went masters.
It's the Pedersen types.
And they're all obsessed with all of them.
They're all, you know, the booing of the service.
They're part of that.
They're worse than that.
They're part of my law, not just the foreign service.
And they're the foreign service.
And they're totally the same as the United Nations.
It's just unbelievable.
Well, I don't know.
I think you're going to get more success out of John each time that I push him on the positive side.
You can't tell a bench or a rock star to attack.
They aren't going to do it.
But you can.
Maybe I'll let you know.
What thrust do you think this political piece of the cabinet should take at least two hours?
That's what he did.
He just spent your time.
So he gets down to the point where he's talking about why do we have more intelligence in the Supreme Court?
Forget it.
Or Rob, he said, why don't we do more for Household?
Forget it.
That's what it's all about.
See what I mean?
I can see this as a total waste of time for them.
Except, in fact, they love to talk about it.
Have you had any thoughts?
What do you think has come out of such a meeting?
What are the issues here?
I think a lot of them are reticent to do what LA did this weekend and whack our enemies.
And I think you could release from that reticence through just giving them that signal.
But I should, no, you should, I should be given, they should be given this point in your name.
And they should be encouraged by Nellie's example to go out and pick a target and wham.
And I think now, if you were to ask Hodgson or you were to ask Hardin or some of these guys, they should do that or not.
I'd never do that without clearing up with the White House.
And it is just that right now they all get the impression that when they take somebody off and somebody squeals, we're going to be worried about, listen, there's anybody in this whole administration that's taken somebody off, any member of our staff who gets a bad press that is backed up 1,000%.
The only ones I wish about are the ones that don't do a goddamn thing, or the ones that are stuck around in the press.
Some of them are not inclined to do it by nature, but I think there's a certain...
Yeah.
Constructed the rest.
That's right.
But I think under the point of saying, you know, we've done three years of building and now we've got one year to sell stuff.
That's right.
And that we've got to also make an appointment.
Yeah.
Make an appointment.
Yeah.
So the rest will be extremely helpful to him because he's got so much thinking about this.
And then they appoint that.
We are now in the political season.
Everything that we do is dirty.
You just don't know how bad it's going to be.
You're going to have to make your department just loyally unlead, so let's take care of that.
You're going to have a situation where the press and everything we've done is going to be forgotten.
They always say, they say this here and this administration are more reforms, more nations than any industry, and they say we have a hard hand, right?
No leadership in the foreign and domestic fields, correct?
They say that we haven't, that we aren't pushing our
We are an economic program.
Christ almighty, what the hell is the rule around here?
And then they use this over-selling and over-marketing merchandise.
Over-selling and over-marketing merchandise.
Over-locking, you know, they talk about over-locking for the president.
They were under-locking us.
They're doing that on this one.
But this morning, first of all, he didn't care.
That's his line.
He didn't do anything to get it.
And his line is, you lost it because you overloved it.
That's right.
Because we set you on your own things.
We told things that they weren't happening, which we did.
You played a hard one.
But just think, in all these, you know, sort of these four balls in the domestic side, here they are.
Some of them are out there in their Cadillacs and all the rest of them.
But, you know, really, they've got big offices and all that sort of thing, but they know they don't amount to a goddamn.
Now, they can amount to something.
They really can if they get in and fight.
That's the point they have to realize now.
But they're going to take some heat if they fight.
And they've got to be big boys.
Correct?
Yeah.
We have some examples.
Just so, just so.
and here we won't bruise their feelings.
You've got to exclude Rogers and Blair.
I said, of course we understand that in defense and in state there are special problems.
On the other hand, I would then go on and praise Bush.
See my point, Grant?
I praised Bush and said, one of the effective things is what he did.
He did it without being partisan.
But he talked specifically about that.
He accused the others of partisanship.
And we got to it.
The message made very suddenly across your audience.
I am not kidding, my son is.
But his sentence, even though he was an attorney general, Jesus Christ, he never did this.
But then Hector then says, the attorney general is just going to go and take some responsibilities here.
Would you agree that John is going to find an idea of Hector unattended?
And then Hector presides.
Sounds good.
How's the idea?
I think it's very much a job.
Just say that one of the things we talked about, I think that we have a great record in the domestic side.
We've got to go out and prove that we have.
Also, we've got to, we've got to, we've got to defend ourselves.
We've got to.
And the way to defend ourselves is to attack the other side.
They're your responsibility.
We've got to get a gender front.
Did you read this attachment for that memo that, uh,
And they signed for John Mitchell, but I think Ed Magruder wrote it.
It is the format for this meeting.
So they've given him a lot of thought.
We ought to get a sample format in and go over it ourselves.
Well, here's my biggest story.
Oh, I didn't know him so much.
Boyd Preston's in our home.
I would cut that down awful long.
The plan to get that is don't go into the business about how you load absentee and all that bullshit.
Forget that.
That's irrelevant.
I mean, these guys, this should be totally a PR operation.
Agreed.
The whole venture should say, here's the committee for the reelection of the president.
Don't have to carry plans about that.
He's fine.
He's fine out there.
He can't do it.
He can't do it.
I don't think you want to go into any detail at all.
Thank you.
Well, it's a good idea to let me knock it down to this, but I just have a feeling that they're just wandering on and on and on.
Well, there's no need for them to have all the details.
They're in the department.
They're all structured and, you know, all set up and all that.
You raise the closest question.
You've got a real problem there, as you know.
We haven't got all of it, but I'm actually...
Well, they don't have to come.
Well, he's got to be there, but he shouldn't have a lead role.
That's what he's got to do.
But it's a different way.
And who's going to cheer him up?
Who's going to be positive?
Well, I think we can train him.
Positiveness throughout the day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go for it.
That's the way it's done.
I've got to try and get gold.
What about scallion?
Can we slice the scallion in this?
Well, that and then also the, look, there are an infinite number of ways where you can also present this stuff.
We're going to work with your PIOs and we're going to imagine your vitality and version.
What are you going to do with the client?
I don't know if it's true.
Well, that's partly what I had in mind.
We would use Scali as kind of a consultant.
Right.
That's an awful idea.
Well, you've got to have heard of it.
We've never heard of it.
I've had to do this every once in a while.
It's a really good job.
He just does not, well, it is not inspiring.
That's my point.
It's just not.
You can say, oh, the person's asked his consultant.
Now, I could talk to you.
He's on the outside.
He's seen it from the other side.
He can give you an idea as to where they know we're going.
That's a good idea.
That's a good idea.
Maybe quiet.
I think maybe he could be out of town on this one.
No, really.
Because he has sensed himself.
And he will not have an end to have.
So we get him to talk.
We get him to talk.
And he'd meet with the P.I.O.
ahead of time.
And we can do this, I think.
What date is it?
It's going to be the 5th, that's right.
Why does it work like the D.I.O.
does anyway?
Anymore?
He works pretty much alone.
Yeah.
Rumsfeld can speak enthusiastically.
He's one of the few.
Rumsfeld?
He can at least speak enthusiastically.
Oh, in the program?
Yeah.
In the program, he says, Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld?
He won't attack.
Of course, Martin will.
Rumsfeld?
Martin will talk for himself.
Rumsfeld won't talk.
He hasn't taken anybody off.
Oh, this is a stamp.
So that schools the segregation money, and the higher education, and a complicated legislative maneuver, and he's caught in the middle between us and the Congress, but he's right there.
He will learn.
That's the way to get ahead in the world, too.
Well, then downstream, we'll do this transpose 72.
Another two weeks.
Now, we're taking the heat off that with the intersection.
With the intersection, yeah.
But we do need a 10, a 10, you know, at some time.
Oh, before the, no, that's two weeks ago.
Yeah, yes, sir.
That's a couple of weeks.
That's all set.
Just send it to me for the 15th.
And have, that's Monday the 15th, that you told them about it.
Conway reports.
See?
Conway's reports.
That's what they're doing.
That's what they're doing.
They could say some things even sooner than that.
Like what's said this morning, just look up and don't say anything.
Don't program us to answer questions.
Keep it loose.
We made a mistake in trying to get some speakers out explaining what Phase 2 is, because we don't know what Phase 2 is, and that it's wrong to have a guy out trying to say what it is, because no, it's better not to say anything.
That's right.
And they tried to... That's why I got away with it.
Pete Pierce made the point that he just, he just, he just says, I'm international, I'm not a policy.
I don't know if he's avoiding me.
Yeah, we may press for it at this point.
I don't want to say that they said things too seriously.
But I think he said it too.
See, Sam's going around saying one thing, and Ron is saying another.
And if Rumsfeld could just get up, he's going to hit them across the living council.
Well, let me ask this.
Well, let me ask, why don't you tell Rumsfeld that we're also going to meet?
We're going to be meeting all night.
Yeah.
Well, why don't you put up?
Shall we say, tell Rumsfeld that we're going to meet?
They hit the meat right away on that.
They do regularly.
They still go out and cover it.
They still go out, you know, once or anything else.
No, I don't think you need to do anything on that.
Actually, you know, we handle it on an individual basis anyway.
Just like this reorganization thing that I mentioned to you, we're going to have to have Volpe and Romney, of course Harlan's gone, but we could have Campbell in and let Carlucci, which has done a near presence on this, on supporting the reorganization thing.
What does that leave Volpe with his character?
Oh, no, he has an airplane as long as he has a coaster.
That's what it does.
He has an airplane.
And if he doesn't have it there, you have one in the FAA.
So he'll have an airplane regardless of what happens.
But those things can be handled either in smaller groups or I thought if you want to do something...
I don't really know what I'm talking about.
It seems to me that that's what Rumsfeld and Schultz are all hoggiest to do, because they're whacking away at them on a regular basis.
And every time Stan says, here's what they get on him, here's that that's it, you really aren't talking to the country, you're talking to the individual.
Why do you think Stan should have gone in and out?
It's not possible.
He accepts speaking days, and then he goes out, and when you stand up, you have to say something.
And he has to look, you know, they ask me questions, and he can't say, I don't know.
So he says something else.
It creates confusion.
It's tough.
Nature, of course, back you.
Well, it's tough.
I understand.
But he should be crazy.
Of course, I'm going to drop it there.
He's got to say something once you do it.
Peterson says he's an international, which stands for Secretary of Commerce.
And of course, Romney will say if anything, he's in debt.
He's in debt.
He's later.
That's a problem.
That's right.
That's right.
Just give him the whole thing.
But that's something that has to be brought up in this group.
Well, this is, that means we're here for Senator Romney, right?
And I think the idea of getting a program now for the other system leaders is just right.
It's a good thing, and it's really, it will serve our purposes too.
But they've got to think that that's on the policy side.
And then somebody calls them like scouts.
Scouts are going to hit somebody.
You've got to say something to make an impact.
And I should be, you just use the line, look, you get it.
to be popular with the press doesn't mean it should affect him.
You know what he should do?
He should say, now if you take Conley, you said it exactly, so he isn't here.
But he, if you were to poll the press as to his popularity, it wouldn't rate very high.
But on the other hand, he's enormously effective because he strikes hard, you know, defense and so forth.
Would that be a good idea?
Uh, we're not sure about revenue as much.
Like, uh, Alisop's caught today and so on, but it's commonly up.
Whether that's exactly the psychology he's in.
Yeah, those are the drivers.
I don't know.
I just wonder if people are jealous and so forth.
Well, that wasn't jealousy.
Could be.
Could be.
Well, we don't want to have any.
Nobody's accused me of having figured out how to successfully purchase a cat, psychologically.
I didn't lay a claim to that.
Johnny, we'll, we'll talk about it.
Or maybe you won't talk to me.
I can keep that up to you advertising fellows in a hundred of these things.
We're all positive, you know.
I understand the common name may be just too wrong with some of the laws of college.
I also am sitting there, and I am sitting there too.
So I think the common name won't work.
But there are other examples.
The common name is a good example.
He says something.
Vice President.
He's got a way of saying it all.
You see what I mean?
Most of them won't see him.
They'll go, he's terrible.
Yeah, you've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
They do drop down so far that it's almost beyond the summit.
And you come down and you hit Mitchell.
Mitchell's higher than the others.
And Laird.
And maybe Laird there is lower than Rogers.
Rogers is behind Mitchell.
Rogers is behind Mitchell.
Rogers is down there in Laird.
And then the rest of them are just... Well, the point is that on the Laird, on the Rogers, the one who should be up there with the instructions
He's curious.
Secretary of State is always welcome.
But there's a rocker's problem.
It's not that he doesn't do it.
It's about how he sees people.
He travels all over the world.
He's active the rest of the time.
That's a curious thing.
It really is true.
You know, he has done more than you.
He's just about all the time.
He never misses out.
He'll go before the press if he feels it.
It's benign, isn't it?
It's so true.
It's got to be harsh, you know.
Narrow.
Mid-line.
Morton.
On the other hand, it's almost.
No, Mr. Goldie, though.
Even though Mr. Goldie didn't ask him to turn.
Morton has done.
Popey has done.
Stanton has done.
Romney has done.
That's right.
Christian has done.
It's just a little man-church.
It doesn't bring much.
Cardinals, I should.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Absolutely not.
Well, I guess that's a weekend sign.
Not necessarily, so...
Speaking of cabins, did you see that on Udall this morning?
Oh, yeah, I did.
Udall is a cabin in 3.1.
He has an army deserter assigned who is in cabin all the way from Oregon.
And he introduced me to the press.
there on High Street.
And the guy is an immigrant.
He's on the plight for citizenship, if you haven't had any captain.
And Udall said, I have supported him in this throughout from the beginning or something of that nature.
And I'm going to check, but I think the desertion must have overlapped his term of secretary of the desertion.
It's kind of an interesting problem.
Well, it's so, it's such a tragic moment.
I feel, I feel for the poor bastard.
You know, you've got to see some of the letters that come in here from some of these kids that are rushing to Canada.
I can't really tell you how to see, but most of them are, are wrapped up.
Oh, of course.
This guy's a deserter.
Oh, he's a deserter, yeah.
Oh, Jesus.
Oh, this other guy's got a letter that I have to draft out here.
It's so funny.
We should be talking.
Well, we've been around several times.
It's worth trying once.
Oh, yeah.
And we haven't done it directly on this basis.
But now we're in it for a long time.
Yeah.
No, at all.
It's just the PR.
It's also the substances.
They've got to get control of their department and look at the decision-making.
Everything's got to be considered, not in terms of anything prior to that.
That's what I heard.
I know we are asking the desk.
Okay.
We're asking the desk.
We're going to have those guys finish the job.
Do you have the opportunity to state this more effectively?
Yes.
Do you think the 40-year-old will go well?
I can't wish her, I can't wish her toe-dance around the problem of wrong harassment on the basis of mental consideration for the committee.
Harassment is very, very relevant.
It would be much better if it indicated approval than what A. and Tina had, because it was finally very gradually indicated to us that it was going over to the committee.
Whatever I think, whatever Tina thinks, it would be very difficult to get her ushers enthusiastic support from this guy.
Well, we've got a problem with that guy.
He's got no...
No farm knowledge.
He's completely a farm statistician.
He's a farmer.
Oh, he is a farmer.
He's a participant in Washington.
Okay.
And he's a P.A.G.
in all the subjects that you take to be a farmer.
Well, that's the main part.
He is a farmer.
Well, anyway, this deserves closer scrutiny, but our list is still the same.
It's Butts, Johnson, Harlow, and West Johnson.
He's bland as hell, and you're not going to get any pluses for it.
You can build a slot.
And Johnson, yeah, and he probably run that department.
Although I don't have him on my list.
I just don't think he's a viable alternative.
I think Johnson's a sniper and will fill the space.
But, uh, I said, he's coming in.
We're getting him in on the pretext, uh, today or tomorrow.
Yes, what they're doing this week is running a thing to try and put, get some more input on Johnson, Butts, and the young guy at the department.
The young guy at the department in Washington.
Yeah, the young guy.
Mike, I said this is not a smart thing to do.
I feel like I'm going to sit down in the room and just chat with him about this.
And,
I've got a feeling that you might remember that all those jobs that we get are hard to get, sir.
The ones that are easy to get them, to win them, important.
Aren't we the name?
That's just what we're up against, aren't we?
Well, if I get one in the morning, why don't you just tell us the name?
We've got some, man.
I know that we've got some people.
You know, the 40-year-old guy...
To me, this guy's an anchor in this.
Fascinating.
Ridley Hughes.
Well, that's right.
Do we have any answer to that?
Do we have any more conclusions about what Stantz is going to do?
Well, I think I'm pretty damn sure what the team is going to do.
If we have them, what Stantz is going to do, what we're going to have is, what is he going to do?
The other thing, though, is that if we could get this famous thing on track soon enough.
You know, we have to do something for Harding or some sort of thing.
My thing is that then we can do two.
Two at once.
Well, eventually it's not great yet.
I don't think many people this year.
It's too early.
Apparently it's too late today.
They need to change the way of their job.
Uh, well, look at this.
Talk to Bob.
All right.
You don't get that done before.
Well, with all these Taiwan problems, the other problems that he would like not to force the issue on us, and particularly with the Princeton business now coming out as it is.
And I can see that.
You've got to let that ride.
But I think also, you have to let the Buckley problem subside some.
You don't want to exacerbate it, certainly.
And the most good thing our company makes is that even if you were to replace him right now and take the responsibility for taking back the hero, we couldn't get the damn thing done by November.
So we'd be responsible for the mess.
So it's better to leave him in all the way through?
It's better, at least at his tenure, to go until after the election.
And then it just becomes a question of what you're going to ask.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is a question of opportunity.
When you get a call, and when you sort of left this right-wing problem,
level himself out, because that would give us some right-wing stroke.
If Hoover were to announce that he was going to retire on January 1st, 1973, or, you know, have the qualification of his successor,
is a, in other words, a new president who's, in turn, taking a successor between November and January.
Yeah, my point is, you get the word out that the new president is going to appoint a successor and confirm that.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's one of the words we're answering, because we're scared of hell.
Yeah, we're scared of hell.
Take your finger out of that.
How about, uh...
Well, I'm a little concerned by the confirmation that the successor, Coe, has written.
Maybe he can do it without me.
The battle flags are already flying.
I'm not at all sure he can run the campaign and the department.
Maybe he can do both.
I guess the confirmation thing is, to me, it's the same problem.
I don't believe it.
But you've got with me.
Stay close, though.
The reason I raised the question is
Now, Spans on the other hand, there's no asset to us in the administration, is there?
No.
And if you don't lose Mitchell, that makes Spans much easier to do.
If you were to break both of them in the Senate, that kind of thing, that would be awful.
Well, I think Spans, well, am I right that Spans is not an asset?
Or is he?
Maybe I'm wrong.
He's an asset at the margins.
at the Marshals, but I will only say that he's totally loyal, that he's, he'll say anything, but he's not certain in that job.
We could do a whole lot better.
What is your candidate, Peterson?
I've got two candidates, Peterson and Planting.
Huh?
You got a problem with Planting because of the changing of the name?
No, no reason to go for a cousin.
Peterson over there.
No, I've been Planting.
No, Peterson, Peterson.
Yeah, okay.
That's what I am.
Planting is a guy who's a waste of commerce.
But he would be damn good if Peterson dropped.
Peterson can be confirmed easier than Plank.
I think not, but that's just a hunch.
Politically, I would argue it would be better.
I don't know, maybe Secretary of Commerce has got a good podium.
Peterson would and could use it more effectively than Plank.
They're both good.
They're both able.
And I like that he's buying into that situation here.
I think that gives him a portfolio that he's needed.
I think it was just sort of a left.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's no problem.
Very awesome, right?
We really need somebody in that Peterson job, frankly, that we can put things in.
He has no confidence in Peterson now.
Does that make you wrong?
But on the other hand, even George, in all his inarticulous fairness, has reached the conclusion that Peterson is
matters like this.
And if you're going to be on track, Peterson is his man.
No start of defense.
That's my point.
What I meant is it's very difficult for anybody, if you imagine him becoming somebody who's his man, saying, I'm strong.
Unless he's written on hand, correct?
Well, that's an actual thing.
We're all that way.
You don't like to say it.
I definitely am not, because I know you have to do it.
So if you're going to get invited, it might be that we have to end it on that note.
Let me check it out, which I think is small.
Down here.
Richeson.
In terms of, quote, liberal in court, he's the only one I would consider.
Now, if something should happen to Berger, you've got to figure it.
Remember I told you to figure out the options.
I put this down in the back of your mind.
If something should happen to Berger,
Oh, you know Richardson, you know, he's the man that we need to take justice for.
I think it's a good idea that he would end up in the Senate of that court, and everybody would be hanging on the left.
No radicalism.
And here's the guy.
He wasn't just first.
He was first in Harvard.
Now, oh, oh.
How do you like that?
I think he was first, or was he second?
He was probably first in black and white.
But a man who's got such class that he would be one of the, he would maneuver it to become one of the towering chief justices of history.
Well, let me say that if we get another big incident before the next year, because my view is that we have a conservative line just about right.
I think that we have an impossible problem of confirmation
With somebody who's a target, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
But Elliot is.
They could be turned down.
They need sales.
And you have one hell of a guy on there.
One hell of a guy.
I hope it's after the election.
My career doesn't keep getting better.
Well, listen, some of us will hang on until after the election.
No matter what.
You know, we'll have to hang on.
He's precisely where we need him right now.
In fact, when I think back on your idea of moving him over there, that was one of the really good ideas you had.
A lot of changes in the capital have been better than our selection.
Except that I must admit that I'm very smart in this position.
The damn system doesn't give me any time, you know.
I think he's holding his own right now, but I think what, unless we watch very closely, he's going to make a fine metal mistake over there one of these days because of the way he operates.
Who's his undersecretary?
This guy, McCora, who's...
That's the one.
I don't think anybody can do that.
Thank you for a minute about the concept of a leave of absence.
I don't know if there is such a thing for cabinet office.
But it seems to me that there is something in his symbolically removing himself from the department on a temporary basis.
I don't either.
But I know we're going to just take unsure criticism.
And he has all the dossiers and he has all the, you know, enforcement.
We've got to pass him all that.
That's the other possibility.
Sacking up wrong.
— 1 min 16 s with no transcribed speech —
That would solve another problem.
If Clanky just went out and did that.
Because as you're a lying clown trying to cap Steve Mitchell, you're pretty much forced.
Clanky, shut up and drive.
Well, but what would you do if he went out and did that?
You'd have to promise him something.
Okay, you could promise him something, but at the same time you could put a damn good Deputy Attorney General in there under Mitchell that would sort of steal that off so that you wouldn't have to put him back in there.
Mitchell doesn't think he ought to go up, does he?
Well, I gather not.
I never discussed it straight out with him.
He just went like this, but whether that was because you wanted to keep him over there or what, I don't know.
But, uh, I think we're headed for a real crunch now if I need some confirmation.
Jesus Christ, we can't go through that.
— 2 min 30 s with no transcribed speech —
There's a third option you haven't even raised, which is someone else that's attorney general.
Oh, I see.
Well, okay.
But the implication of that is my niece will resign.
Unless the president says, Dick, I want you to settle after the election, in which case he would say...
But then the problem is that all the guys in there, like Marnie and some of the other guys in the woodwork over there, are Clinge's people.
Because Mitchell pretty much turned over the organization of that department to them.
He just moved Clinge's to...
How about getting a question from the Secretary of Commerce?
Not as good as Peterson.
No, we don't give a damn.
Who cares?
My point is, if you're trying to get some of the claimants, that would be a nice way to move it.
So we want to avoid this thing, so we need the Secretary of Commerce.
We'll hear confirmation from him there.
The Congress?
I wouldn't take it.
He's got a lot of friends up there.
He does have a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer.
You feel that it will make a lot of sense.
You have to take climate change.
You have to take climate change, unless you get it from Canada, which is what you're asking.
You have to be subject to commerce, more agriculture.
That's good.
Well, being a lawyer sounds...
Where's the bird mayor?
Where's the bird mayor?
But that's a, that is a hush.
The president is certainly repressing.
Now we're pushing it.
Uh, it's fake.
Rumsfeld will not stay on this council for the present.
Forever.
I like it.
Thank you.
Stayed right home through your successor.
But you still earned a job out of tenure.
I love that.
That was a weird time.
Yeah, I had such a good time being a top kitchen chef.
I think it was a very useful advice, dude.
Sure.
As long as you don't have to take word out of your own pocket, as long as you don't have any illusions about it being productive.
I think it's a perfectly sensible option.
No pinch it to the state, to the electioneer, to the campaign, and then you'll leave right after.
Rumsfeld would
Leap at the opportunity to get out of it and anything that, given what he thought was more statute, which means it can't be closed.
He won't snap at anything else, and he'll probably leap out to the election and go out and run for something, too.
Were we thinking of Rumsfeld or the Congress at that point?
No, I thought...
It's not about Rumsfeld or the Congress.
I started thinking in a different way.
It's just a little dumb question.
It moves over to cars.
And we bring, uh, blindies over here.
Oh, you're still getting shot, right?
Who the hell?
This is the whole purpose of this, is to get, uh...
It's allowed.
It's allowed.
You still gotta line somebody to get confirmed.
Exactly.
How about putting hell in there?
We don't want to lose that.
As you notice, John has discovered something.
The environment is not a good issue.
The police are at the prison.
John is trying to get to the people when he runs.
Very amusing.
Which is the great thing.
I guess we would.
Somebody out there says I'm a fireman.
I'm a policeman.
I said, you know what?
I said, well, you were a police.
Well, I would think we could find an AG.
That could get confirmed.
That could get confirmed.
It's all funny.
Yeah.
What are they here?
What are the citizens of New Jersey?
Well, let's see.
Randolph Wilson's gone.
Walters is gone.
Pat Gray is who took Rumpelstiltskin's place.
I wanted to ask you guys one thing.
Uh, we'd better get all the agencies to deal with foreign aid together this morning, so that everybody sings the same tune, and I've asked them to come to the Situation Room, and I can change it.
Just to...
I understand, for example, that Hannah has spent this weekend working with Chavez on... on saving the humanitarian aspects and doing away with the military.
She's very lucky to do that.
Of course, and that's, of course, totally the opposite.
But that's the part Canada administers.
And that's the opposite of what we need.
And we can do without India and Pakistan aid, but we cannot do without Vietnam and Cambodia.
Mr. Mayor, in fact, the Israelis are no problem.
All they want is to buy the damn plants.
But they're not getting them anyway.
Sure.
The Asia is not all that horrible.
So our border policy requires the military, sir.
Exactly.
One thing that's very important to me is that we've got to read that, because we got sucked into a very, very bad position in terms of allowing this whole thing to go to the foreign exchange committee.
That is now absolutely clear.
Now, what the argument, of course, before is that they had to have, in order to have it true, they had to have the military side
in order to carry the other side.
Now, it's the other way around.
It's the other way around.
Although I'm not so sure that the other would go without the military.
That's not so sure either, as you know.
It's a combination of factors on the other end.
What we ought to do is to separate out military aid in the future and send it through armed services.
I agree.
And separate out other parts and send it through the foreign relations.
That's the way the plan should be for next year.
It's another thing.
Dr. Rogers, tomorrow we've just got to put it on that basis.
The two must be considered separately.
One will not carry the other.
One will not carry the other.
That's right.
And then you fight it out, uh, right down the line.
If we took it, if we took military assistance away from him, his exploded, he's now alone.
He's responsible anyway.
All right.
When are you going to have your book bought?
11.30.
Good.
Now, also, I wanted to get you guys...
I've got so much ball working, getting a group together.
But I wanted to... Let me leave this up to you.
Consider the...
Consider the...
to find each operation and so forth.
I think we've got to consider it very fast.
The program's got a much better feel for the internal working program and what our options are in the event.
I don't think it's a terrible department.
You can't change it.
But it's already pretty well torn up.
Truly, truly.
That's the other point.
So you take off two times.
Let me talk to him.
Let's see what his reading on that's like.
If he hadn't had it all out and he said two times, what continuity do you have?
Well, they're going to have to replace three guys right now.
at the second level.
Yeah, sir.
Third level.
I'm going to take a reading and I'll get back to you on this.
You have to do what?
You have to do what?
No, I'm satisfied that you're correct, that we've got to wait until things calm down, right?
And I think you see Bucky's call.
Yeah.
And the news magazines have a big piece on Buckley Brothers today, and the thing's very much stirred up.
So it just isn't the time.
Buckley is in town, and that's what I'm trying to see him today.
Sure.
But I do think at some point when it's coming around that side, that we ought to go for that delay whenever it's possible.
You're right about that.
Yeah, I have.
And what do you think of it?
Everybody thinks, well, it's a very sensible approach.
Just be sure to plug it.
Oh, well, that's a lot of things that will have to be done.
No, I have not discussed the prophecy, but I have discussed it with Lydia and Crow.
That's enough.
And they both think that it's very working.
Particularly there.
I just don't think there's any other way to deal with it.
Well, Bob's point, I think, is a good one, and that is you bring the right along.
They've got to support you to make sure that whoever is the next president that wants the right kind of guy...
Those, they can assume that anyone, because obviously Hoover's going to have to retire during the next president's term, but if it's out, then that's what he's going to do.
It just puts it that much more blatantly in front of them, and that puts a great impetus on the right to make sure you get re-elected, to make sure you appoint Hoover's successor.
Because it would scare the shit out of you, and that's what someone else is going to do.
Yeah, particularly a...
Well, they know the Bobby Hempsey history over there.
Well, the right section of people would be Bobby Hempsey, if he ran as a clerk.
The head of the FBI, that would be great, wouldn't it?
And then he'd start giving that repression in exactly 180 degrees, and then waiting for David Richard to call.
It incidentally would scare the guy who doesn't think our lives would be worth a damn.
All right, let's let that set in for a while.
So you will let me know, yes, sir, further.
I would hope on this.
Right.
Thank you.
Now, the line I was going to take with that bureaucracy, Mr. President, but I wanted to get your thinking first, is that we ought to go on the attack.
We oughtn't to say we will discuss individual items.
We will say the line they ought to take is you are trying to build a generation for peace.
The foreign aid program that we had was designed to keep the free world strong to give us the best negotiating positions.
and the Senate has irresponsibly knocked it off.
I think if we do it any other way, if we say, well, we're willing to restructure it, then these guys are going to come out and say, well, that's what we said all along, and they finally listen to us.
I think we ought to get these fellows on the defensive.
What's warning you of foreign policy when you're going to Peking and Moscow, when Vietnam is coming to a crunch, all of these things...
And also they're concentrating the same amendment.
They must have had the Cooper Church Amendment in various forms up now three or four times.
The second question on which I've wanted some guidance, if you agree, Mr. President, is to find out how much you want me to try getting the establishment turned on on these things, on this thing.
I'm afraid they'll only turn it on on the Janus line.
That's my problem.
Well, I think I can turn them on by saying that it's total irresponsibility.
In ten days, you can't redesign the foreign aid program, which is when the present authority runs out.
And, uh... Paul, for example, agrees with us.
Paul is willing to go down.
Well, I think we arrested you to get them on that case.
But, uh, as we well know, you could have sold our lease.
The national security of the United States is not going to be affected by anti-Apacian refugees or by the programs for Africa, Latin America, and the third world.
And that's what these bastards are going to try to show us a lot.
So we've got to get ahead on that.
After the policy bureaucracy, of course, we've got to give them a plan.
Well, I think the first plan has to be to push for the continuing resolution.
McGregor was doing it this morning.
I think we can get, we ought to be able to get May.
We talked to him from here.
We will talk to him from here.
And you may not have to do it.
I'd be glad to.
I'd be glad to.
Just bring him down.
If you attack Jet, why don't you go ahead and attack town with them on Mainline and see if it's desirable for me to call him, too.
Yeah, yeah, so we get this thing going today.
We've got 120 days.
We just have to get over there.
Yeah.
Well, I guess, Ted, that's not so easy.
No, it's heavy to tell this group at 11.30.
If that's on the track, then we've got something specific to have him for.
Exactly.
That's the principle.
Exactly.
No, that's the principle.
These calls may be in a box here.
They are in a box.
That's what I think is wrong is we don't become defensive.
Both tracks can't be defensive at all.
I think it'd be, let's see, stop together, try to hold my bets and get a few more.
Start right now.
That's right.
We've got to do it with Robert tomorrow.
That's true.
I'm going to have him in tomorrow morning at 9.30.
This is to get him to see the people we watch.
They believe in us, too.
So we should have a peace vote.
Who's sitting on this room here today?
You know, from State?
Irvin.
Good.
Well, just talk to him.
Oh yeah, and they'll do it.
They just want to have the line.
Right.
Absolutely.
And not make any compromises either.
He usually
I understand.
He's got a slug.
This is about the Russians more than anything else.
Absolutely.
And if he slugs hard enough, he'll make it.
Every time we've had something set up for the North Vietnamese, they've cut the ground out from under.
Well, I don't think this is, if they argue, this will be the reason.
No, but it's over.
It's over.
I agree that the race is more difficult, but I think we must rationalize by... You know, the Legionnaires are moving along, and we're not going to find a reason to settle it.
No, they've seen us in trouble before.
That's right.
And, uh...
We have planted words around the world that they're going to be tough as hell.
Oh, you don't get that?
No, I don't think it's really a problem.
We've indicated we're going to make a fight, and Roger should make a positive statement that we are going to have a program.
I noticed the chief's name went all right.
Very well.
Oh, actually, the North Vietnamese propaganda is very uncertain right now in the internal instructions they give to their people.
He's here for the USIA meeting, and I think I ought to see whether I can quiet him down a little bit.
That's what I'd like to find out, because I can...
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
You know, when one sees how the Democrats are behaving, how any conservative could run the risk of this gang getting into power is unbelievable.
Here they are.
Stuart Alsop has a stinking comment this week of the absence of any moral responsibility on the part of the Democrats.
This is all his fault?
Well, he did it on the Cooper Church Amendment, and then he just threw in a paragraph, obviously tacked on at the end, about the foreign aid vote.
But he said, here are these people asking us to force our allies to surrender by cutting off economic and military aid.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
He said they can't bear the fact that your publicity has succeeded.
It's a very tough article.
Sure.
Well, as you go through the news summary, it's quite clear that they're... Our friends on the other side are...
They say it's Frank that caught our people, but I'm not sure.
What's the go-ahead?
Do they know yet?
Yeah.
Macron's position is adamant.
He will go for a continuing resolution only to the time of the Senate guy adjourned.
He will not go beyond.
Jerry Ford and Crowe both agree with him because they want to put maximum pressure on the Senate.
They don't want to let the Senate off the hook by giving them a continuing resolution to March.
they will, if in dissent or just before adjournment, they haven't gotten action out of the Senate, they will then go for a continuing resolution carried beyond.
And he may not, will not go for the 120 days because it will take the heat off the Senate and screw those titles.
Maybe that's correct.
Carl feels, Albert feels very strong on the subject, very strong for the...
There's no wavering in his part, and Port, of course, does too.
The other thing they're going to do is, and they have agreed, but not very strongly, is to go for, in the House, to go for a rule to consider the warranty money bill.
without waiting for the authorization.
And the argument there would be that it would be good psychologically to show prompt House action on the foreign aid money bill as another way of kicking the Senate face out.
Now, Maynard has already adopted that strategy on the defense money bill.
where he's going to go for a rule to consider that without the authorization.
And so they said the same logic applies to Mornay, and he's not enthusiastic about that.
There's a greed apparently.
That's Albert Porter pushing that.
So we've got that strategy basically set in the House.
Clark says he meant it.
that Anna was in there for some session or two, and that they made the point, evidently, that we would not separate the humanitarian stuff from the military stuff, and that... Yeah, true.
Well, my meeting will be very brief.
I just want to make sure that all the agencies seem to stay in tune.
Great.
If you were to ask a country
Oh, no question.
No question.
At least the ones I've called.
Yes, we've gotten in touch with all the senators.
All right.
But those who, whom you called into vote with us, may not be... All those who did vote with us.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Oh, Kennedy has left the Senate.
He wouldn't.
Won't do it.
He'll do it only until the summit, and that isn't really it.
Well, we just can't take a career state department.
Oh, I talked to Conley, the senator who went with me the other day, and he was talking to me about a report that was called in one of these unsecretary's meetings, Mark.
Trezai was sitting in, you know, Trezai, his fan favorite stage partner.
He says, Cole came back, the old Cole, you know, the old conservative.
He says, he was really shocked.
He says, he says, I thought that I was having a hell of a lot more problems with Trezai than I was with the Europeans.
There's no question about that.
What the hell is he going to do?
He's going to set us on a call.
He's going to set us on a call.
He's going to be with us.
Or is he?
He'd be like Yost.
He won't be like Yost, but there is a professional.
Yost is an ideologue.
It isn't Setzel they want, it's Stoeckle, the fellow in Warsaw.
Setzel would be totally wrong.
Stoeckle is a good gray unimaginative.
He isn't our man.
He won't work against us.
He isn't like yours.
But if somebody like Tex Thornton would take it, it'd be more reliable.
He had a whole list of, you know, touchstone types.
I know the thing is, it's the question of really learning, knowing the bureaucracy.
And it's a goddamn hard thing over there.
You know, that's not an easy job for somebody to step into for a year in.
That's right.
I think your idea of going off is fine.
Somebody who could do it, but who...
would never pass the Senate or the State Department, if Strauss would pay, because he actually would.
He'd actually would understand.
If he'd never pass the Senate, if he'd never get to the Senate, the State wouldn't let him.
No, the State wouldn't let him get there.
Well, they're trying to move him into some other post and get him to do that.
Oh, really?
He did a good job in Ceylon.
Yeah, they're trying to move him up, because he always promised a European post.
Yeah, that's right.
They won't.
I'm the new Japanese ambassador.
That's the other call.
I'll probably come back if there's a recommendation on that.
It wouldn't be a question.
Well, there I definitely would not send a foreign service officer.
There it would be a big problem.
Yeah, I think we'll get through it now ourselves.
In fact, this is a media problem.
I think that you've got to realize something.
It's very easy to fall in greater trouble.
I don't fault them.
I don't fault them.
I think they, until Bob, they worked their butts off.
They were very, very helpful.
Very, very helpful.
Very, very helpful.
And I say very, very helpful.
Very, very helpful on the top.
It's the military.
And they were bushed and tired.
As I said, offside the football team.
They scored three times.
They let out and threw their sanctions.
And that's what happened here.
What happened here is that it slipped by everybody.
We didn't know down here.
I don't quote them.
This was beyond anyone's imagination that this would happen.
No, the point is now, in terms of your, in terms of the PR side of it,
It's inevitable that, uh, it's inevitable that we're going to take a whack.
You know, they're the dictator of, they're seizing upon everything to blame the sports women.
It is amazing to see how they...
They take the whole change, for example.
You know, they were praising us for a surprise earlier, and now they're saying we shouldn't have surprises for politics.
Well, they know goddamn well... Well, to think that they've kept the UN vote going for over a week.
when they couldn't keep the Moscow Summit going for two or three days.
Two days.
Two days.
And they were dying.
And the news magazines this week don't even mention the Peking trip.
They just, it's all U.S. Newsweek literally doesn't even mention it.
I don't worry about it.
It shows what we're up against.
It's not surprising, but they were dying.
And when they support us, they do it only out of necessity.
And that is one clear lesson one can draw from it.
Every time they come around, we think we've changed their mind.
That is absolutely not true.
We will never change their mind.
Sit down now.
This is what I've learned.
When they support us, it is because we are so overwhelmingly ahead of them that they don't dare to make a feat.
China was that way, and so was Moscow.
But the point is that the reason they let Moscow down is they know they didn't want to build it up again.
So there you are.
And as far as you're saying it was China's experience, it wouldn't be.
They weren't going to put it in.
They weren't going to play it.
They made their command decision.
They thought it was not due to the fact that it'll just be television, but they'll hate it.
They've got to do it.
But they're not going to try this.
In fact, they were hoping at the time, you know, they had all the stories before we announced your trip that maybe it was good, maybe it was trouble and all that.
Oh, yeah.
And now at this point, so they blame on them.
That's what they did.
And they blamed the board.
They blamed the board.
They had a combination of certain chances because of the...
Mr. President, I can't find one senator whose vote could have been affected.
The people who beat us on foreign aid weren't the people who would be affected by your statement.
They were the democratic liberals.
I mean, if you go through the list of those who were against Dole, had voted against Foreign Aid, I would go for 13 straight years.
Sure.
He's considered.
If you go...
So if you go through the list of those who voted against... That's right.
I don't know what it is.
Could it be... We don't need to act like that.
We'll fight on that anyway.
That's the only...
The only answer to an attack is the offense.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't get in the background.
It's a trap.
And I'm not concerned about it.
Look, you remember the Kett lines and the weak, bad stuff we took when they...
Yeah, this is the immediate problem.
I think that you've got to realize something.
It's very easy to fault the greatest crowd.
I don't fault them.
I don't fault them.
I think that until Bob, they've worked their butts off.
It was very little help from the state, very little help from Hannah, very little help from, and I say very little help, very little help on the top of the military in the group of church men.
And they were bushed and tired, as I said, offside the football team.
They scored three times.
They let out and threw their sun.
And that's what happened here.
Now, what happened here is that it slipped by everybody.
We didn't go down here.
I don't hold them.
This was beyond anyone's imagination.
The point is now, in terms of your, in terms of the PR side of it,
it's inevitable that uh it's inevitable that we're going to take a whack you know they're the dictator of they're seizing upon everything to blame the sports women it is amazing to see they know they take the whole change for example you know that they were praising us for a surprise earlier and now they're saying we shouldn't have surprises but they know god damn well you think that they've kept the u.n vote going yeah but over a week
when they couldn't keep the Moscow Summit going for two or three days.
Two days.
Two days.
And they were dying.
And the news magazines this week don't even mention the Peking trip.
They just, it's all U.S. Newsweek literally doesn't even mention it.
I don't worry about it.
It shows what we're up against.
It's not surprising, but they were dying.
And when they support us, they do it only out of necessity.
And that is one clear lesson one can draw from it.
Every time they come around, we think we've changed their mind.
That is absolutely not true.
We will never change their mind.
Sit down now.
This is what I've learned.
Do you hear that?
When they support us, it is because we are so overwhelmingly ahead of them that they don't dare to make a feat because...
The point is that the reason they let Moscow down is they know that they didn't want to build it up again.
So there you are.
And as far as you're excited because of the Chinese experience, it wouldn't make a difference whether we had these men over or not in that period.
They weren't going to put it in.
They weren't going to play it for two, three months.
They had made their command decision.
They thought they'd come due to the fact that it would be just a television show.
But they only hated it.
They got to do it.
But they are damn well not going to try this.
In fact, they were hoping at the time, you know, they made all the stories before we announced your trip that maybe it was good, maybe it was trouble and all that.
Oh, yeah.
And now at this point, so they blame on them.
That's what they did.
And they blamed the board.
They blamed the board.
They had a combination of certain chances because of the...
Mr. President, I can't find one senator whose vote could have been affected.
The people who beat us on foreign aid weren't the people who would be affected by your statement.
They were the Democratic liberals.
If you go through the list of those who were against Dole, that voted against foreign aid, I was told for 13 straight years.
Sure.
He's considered.
He's always voted against.
So if you go through the list of those who voted against.
That's right.
I don't know why it is.
Could it be?
We don't need to act like that.
We'll fight on that anyway.
That's the only answer you can account for is the offense.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't get in the background.
It's a trap.
And I'm not concerned about it.
Look, you remember the Kett lines and the weak, bad stuff we took when they passed the Mansfield line?
And they forgot us in June and July.
Oh, yeah.
It was awful.
Massive defeat.
Massive defeat for the president.
Insanity.
Defeat for the president.
Remembering every one vote after vote.
They said it was a surprisingly narrow victory for the president.
Trying to sweep the job.
What I'm getting at is this.
This is just one of those things where the establishment, Terry and Titus, you know, just love those.
One of the typical examples, if you read this thing, when you've got guys on the list, they go, all right, Marcus Charles and so forth, you know, what are they saying?
Well, this is because of the, this is after the other thing.
Of course, they blind us, and I thoroughly expected them to.
The only guy that saw the bite of it was Charles B. Knox.
They said, well, this is...
This is because of the President's very, what do they call it, his temperate remarks, his over-fogging temperate remarks.
Back in the day, it was a damn temperate.
We said we were going to continue to support the United Nations.
We were going to continue to support a foreign nation.
And the Congress went back, went back, went back.
And it's definitely no different than what happened down there.
You wouldn't even have halfway in the dot after he said it.
Nor did you attack the boat.
Nor did you attack the behavior.
No, we didn't attack the boat.
We said we'd sell the boat.
We lost it.
Instead of pushing it, we kicked it out.
But what I'm getting at is that
You've got to get the, you've got to remember that they are attacking on any bolster of any kind.
Now, for example, they're attacking on any of the time they use them.
They don't need the time to understand.
They don't need to believe that.
They know that.
They think, well, why do we, this is a terrible event.
Why don't we consult our allies?
They don't need to consult the allies at the time of the event.
Not really.
But they got to attack.
There really wasn't any other time to take the trip.
There was no other time to take the trip, and there was no waiting.
Of course, if we took it now, we'd be in worse trouble after losing the boat.
I'm positive.
But I'm just telling you that this is a game.
And we will take it.
And believe me, you have people saying, oh, this is a terrible blow.
It didn't pass.
It didn't pass.
Oh, I don't think, I think it's a sort of, in three weeks, no one will remember what all this was about.
Two weeks.
It's, uh...
Right.
Yeah.
This kind of thing is, yeah, I think it will, it will all go away.
The thing is significant for...
I mean, for me, yeah, the U.N. will stick around.
The U.N. will keep busting this car, right?
It's been opened for, I don't know, it's been moved.
Part-time, your tenants are closed.
Sure.
Well, you have to continue to try to be the arrival of the Chinese delegation and their idea to ensure their first vote.
No, but I mean, I can't follow the board.
That is not something that has a lot of understanding in the country.
Well, that's, and it's not all...
I've got to get a look at that guy.
I don't even know who he is.
I've never laid eyes on the man.
It's only important because he's here.
I didn't know he existed until that article two weeks ago.
He never called anybody a bug, I know.
But even that, I just think this, don't, just don't let the foul people that you're going to talk to are about, well, you've had a bad week or a good week, it doesn't mean you're bad or good, ever.
Just make a difference.
That's the way you have to play it.
That's your character.
We do hear it on that announcement.
We've heard it.
My great-great.
Mrs. Nixon, what's the timing of that?
When we come, we do it today.
Fine.
Why don't you do it at 4 o'clock?
At 4 or 5?
At 5.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Yes, sir.
I just want to ask that very quickly.
Sure.
We've got some important business we need to discuss, but there are no changes in that, so...
I'll just book you in.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Well, the only thing I would say is that we express confidence that the responsible members of both parties in the Senate and in Congress will come until the responsible son has prevailed, will prevail.
I think you've got to give us confidence.
You've got to have confidence in the reason that after this is an action.
Now they have to be responsible members.
This is an essential program for the building of the...
Right.
If it's quite too late, it may be...
Right.
I would keep hitting that until... Yeah.
And I...
This is essential for...
Well, the other point is that this aid program is essential for the purpose of carrying out the President's policy of reducing American forces of war, of carrying out the Nixon Doctrine, of needing others to help themselves, and reducing American forces of war, which it does.
Take Cambodia.
They spiel about Cambodia.
They've got a hundred Americans in Cambodia who have no cash.
See what I mean?
Cambodians are an excellent example.
We are aiding the Cambodians to aid themselves, to aid the Cambodians to defend themselves.
The warped morality of these people is unbelievable.
Seventy-five thousand North Vietnamese are in Cambodia.
No one says a word about that.
They're communists.
It's important for ourselves to be at the seventy-five thousand.
In Cambodia, we're communists.
Do you understand?
That's the double standard.
It's hard to understand what we are, because you know, he's here, everybody sees me drive, his father, his mother, and he's so sorry, though.
And there's a hell of a lot more freedom in Spain, you know that, than there is in Cuba's long, you know, that's a much more attractive country.
But Franco's a fascist, and he's a communist, so he's a nice fellow, and he's a bad fellow.
Now listen, it's all, we all know what he's talking about.
I think it came off well over the weekend, don't you think?
Yes, sir.
We expect that this season, honestly, for all these points, I'll continue to push for a continued resolution after the election.
Yeah, at the end of the resolution.
And we don't agree to any compromise, you know.
Right.
And it has weakness.
No, you'll manage to get it.
This is a fact.
It's a necessity.
It's a balanced program, and it will not succeed unless the balance is destroyed.
And if the balance is destroyed, you cannot build it out in one part, but these walls are tied to another part.
OK, thank you.
I think the idea, Ron, that this was essential to the purpose of carrying out the President's program reduces American forces, Ron, helping others to help themselves.
This is what our aid program's about, the military aspects of it.
But that's what you've handled very well so far.
Actually, what you have to realize is that this is inevitable.
I mean, there's a crowd all the time in his crib, and if that hadn't affected the U.N., it wouldn't have affected the U.N. at all.
And now we should have informed our allies about China.
We should have, but we couldn't.
Well, maybe we should have criticized the contract with the U.N. government.
They didn't have to expect it to hold.
But the point is, they have to take this on.
It's a nice time, huh?
That's good.
It's a good issue.
Most people are against for it.
Don't worry about it.
You know, I think one of the more stupid suggestions of your secretary, John Sears, is that
He says that we really ought to change press secretaries and get somebody who has more credibility with the press and say, it's good.
Good.
Great.
He never puts a foot wrong.
He does exactly what he does, and he stands there.
He's cool.
And he doesn't build himself at the expense of you?
Never.
Never, never.
He is a tough customer.
And if you tell him to take us to Lacking, he's out there day after day after day?
He's out there day after day.
You know what's tough?
He's got to get out there.
He sticks his chin out.
He's out in the really high-level development.
Imagine what they do to Kline on a week like this.
This, of course, hasn't been as hard as some of the others.
We put him in Cambodia.
Kline would have crumbled.
We would have crumbled.
He would have gotten wounded, basically, inside.
He would have been defended.
Cambodia laws.
Hell, I mean, compared to what we've been through, there's just going to be nothing.
It isn't.
I can't, don't you agree?
This is a, this is a zilch.
Look, compare this basically.
The foreign aid, the U.N. vote, it's trying to interrupt.
Well, Jesus Christ, I mean it.
And that's going to start dominating it on November 23rd, when you make that other announcement.
Yeah.
And, uh... Now, with our meeting tomorrow with Rogers, I don't think he will consent, and I, my truth is one, I think we ought to get him programmed to go out here if he will.
If you want, you might suggest that.
If he will, we're not going to question him, because if he doesn't, if he drives in that car, then he doesn't do it.
If he will, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
He'll be so defensive.
The other thing is, I think that I've seen with him,
We ought to get in his head and setting up the Latin American thing, and I think if you, that must be done by Rockings.
He's got to do something where he's, you know.
Oh, I couldn't care less.
I know when I met this letter, I think, I think Presidio or something like that, that's probably the same situation.
For you to go down there.
The Medici's coming up, you know, in December.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm meeting the heads of government with the Latins.
You know, where we breathe them on before our trips.
And some of them are Latin American friends.
That's correct.
Brazilians, they only claim public safety.
I should have them here in Miami or something, but they would want to come here.
Keep working on that.
So I'm going to raise that subject for you tomorrow.
The other thing is, I thought I would tell him that, uh,
I'd say, now we're meeting with Larry this afternoon, I want you to argue something.
I'd say, we haven't told you anything about the pure thing that I want, but I haven't told him the reason.
I'd say, do we have just received a note that we don't feel we'll be back on the 20th?
They're correct.
They've asked for a meeting on the 20th.
I'd also like to, as we have just learned, I'd like to tell them that Peter would have cried in conversation with me.
He said,
the russians now are have spoken because i'm just going to leave them there so we've got to get him totally off of the way of saying well gee the view of this whole everything we can only come up with another announcement now uh that person and we got it and the way only way to get him off the way he's got to be convinced that there is a chance
for some progress on the negotiating plan, and that that chance is at the 23rd.
So you just, you just stand there and look there blank.
Well, that's what I was going to suggest you to do.
And I was going to throw in the Tito thing, so, and he told me, and I'm proud of him, he took me aside, spoke to me in English, and said the Russians, I don't know what it means, so we're going to find out.
I really have to bring him swearing, because I told the president, as I told you on the telephone,
He said, what sort of a communique are you planning with the Chinese?
I said, we have two versions that we're thinking of.
One is a global one, and the other one is a bilateral one.
He said, I bet the Chinese want the global one.
I said, I can't tell you who wants what.
But if I could write this script myself, I'd make it very restrictive.
The only trouble is if the war in Vietnam is still going on, we both have to say something about that.
We can't say something about that alone, so we have to bring in everything.
So he said, well, I promise you we're going to try to talk to them.
Because what they would love is to sort of communicate out of China that we're already gone.
And then a very sweeping one out of Moscow.
That would be a useful...
It sounds exactly right.
He's known everything about this.
He knows about all this.
On the Vietnam, our bookkeeping is now straight because whenever I've been there, I've shown him
a slightly sanitized version of the memo to you, but it looks to him like a copy of a memo to you, so he thinks he knows everything.
And it has the essence of it in it.
It sometimes has a few references.
So since July, he's been right up in step with it.
Of course, he's always figured it wouldn't work, how he'll behave if he thinks it might work.
Isn't so sure.
Well, the most important thing is that I've got to tell them that I think they've got to get a chance, and I will.
And that's got to be put right to us in what we're going to do.
I think my thought is to go forward with an announcement.
I think we'll have to do an experiment on how the strategy evolves on this resolution.
As little as possible this time, and then shoot everything in the next one.
Oh, I understand that.
At the end of the day.
Oh.
The day.
It's probably the day.
You go early.
You don't need so long to build up.
Go late.
They can't do anything anymore.
No.
What I'm saying is, if you go early, if you don't have these arms to build up, I mean, then I would find one else.
Right.
That's right.
So there's something to be said by going before the weekend.
This weekend.
Not the following.
Oh, before the following, that's fine with me.
If it's before the following weekend, that's great.
That makes no difference.
15 is Monday.
Well, then I would like to go before the weekend.
Why do you need before the weekend?
If you make your announcement before that weekend, yeah.
If you cut down on the speculation...
Oh, but I think, yeah, no, I was thinking of going a week before.
I think that's, that has something to be said.
Well, it has to be weighed against what these pastors might do in the Senate then, in the end of all.
And... Well, which way would that go?
Well, I understand you're trying to preempt their building up to the 15th.
On the other hand, supposing you pass something on the 8th, or you come out with something this week or next week, and then they all start emoting in the Senate with a terrible disappointment that says, and this proves that the Senate... Well, that's the reason I said it.
If there's some chance, that's what we have in the House right now.
I don't know if there's anybody thinking of continuing the resolution.
If there's a chance of continuing the resolution, it could get through.
It could get through.
Before the 15th, I'll wait until the 15th.
I think there's a chance of getting through this week.
Well, if there is a chance of that, then I'll wait until after the continued resolution.
But if the continued resolution, I'll be sticking around anyway.
Then the best thing is to go wherever.
That's my point.
That's right.
That's why I say the strategy of the continued resolution will affect the announcement.
And I think we can be flexible.
I agree with you that on the announcement, we just have to say we're meeting.
That is, I'm going to think we're able to announce 40,000.
And...
And then... And then we'll have... How many months?
He just said the other month.
So I'll say it's Rogers and Jackson or... You can do one of the things you can say.
No, no, I wouldn't say December.
I would say before the end of January, you will make a full report to the American people of where we have been and where we are going.
That would be one strategy.
The other is to say $40,000 for two months.
You're increasing the withdrawal rate?
I don't think it will report anything.
I don't know, it will worry people.
And it will, it plays into with what you told Tito as far as North Vietnam is concerned.
It's a deadline on everything.
I don't know what they can do to preempt it.
I don't quite agree with you.
The concern is not that
Not that it concerns the line which is full report.
You see, that's great for the sophisticates.
But I'm sure that we'll report how we negotiated.
You see, we know what we're going to say and that sort of thing, and maybe that's
It sounds bad to me because it sounds like you're recognizing the adequacy of your November announcement and going for that light at the end of the tunnel kind of stuff.
Yeah, but that's what it's going to be.
I know, but why say so?
Why not just announce it?
I just think in this case, I'll have another announcement.
He's got another two month announcement sale.
Another announcement in January.
Another version of this.
I don't think the full report is it.
I just have another announcement in January.
I'm inclined to think that's a little, I think that's what we're talking about.
I think that's what I'll have to do.
Another announcement in January.
We're going to do this $40,000.
No, they might multiply some 40,000 and see if you can allow them.
First thing they'll do is extrapolate.
They'll go out to 20,000 a month and then, uh, eight months, nine months.
Nine months for everything, but if they... Nine months, they won't be able to...
They'll take a residual four, so they'll be down by June to the residual four.
You'll see.
I mean, in the past...
What I meant is, that's also, that's a step up in rate, isn't it?
That's a 30% step up in rate.
Well, the main thing is that nine months, nine months of $20,000 is a total withdrawal for the election, correct?
That's in effect what that's, that's right for when we have the $40,000 from January.
True.
Now, as a matter of fact, we are going to have a total withdrawal.
That's right.
Unless we get a agreement.
And that's why I saved the draftee announcement until January.
That's right.
No, I agree with you.
The draftee announcement, there's no reason to throw it out.
Not that it's general rules.
Save the draftee.
I don't even discuss this with Bill at the time.
Nor does Leah.
Why me?
I have been.
Well, why do you get the draftee announcement that I read last night in January?
Why?
Because you won't need it as much then.
No, if in January, if... Oh, if we have the negotiations.
That nothing matters.
That nothing matters.
If we don't have the negotiation center, we have a residual force and at the same time no draftee.
You've got to have something at least to say.
The extrapolation of the $20,000 a month will be all you need in November.
I really think it will.
December, January, February, March, April.
May.
June.
July.
August.
Get everybody on by the end of September.
August.
August.
The end of August is the way it is to be.
Count end of September.
Nine times.
There's 184,000 left.
Well, they're nine months.
By the end of August.
End of August.
End of August.
End of August.
How about just consider a lot of other possibilities?
You know, the Christmas thing always appeals to me just a little bit.
Is there any way that we can maybe have a bigger one in December?
Oh yeah, that we can do.
No, no, I mean announce it that way.
I've announced today that we will have a, maybe we'll grow 25,000 in that and then 15,000 the next month.
Okay, that doesn't make that much sense.
I don't think it's really just 20,000.
Well, the way we can do it is spend it out the month and then have defense and put out
At least 25,000 of those will be on for Christmas.
25,000 will be on for Christmas.
All right, that's the way we'll do it then.
That kicks in.
No, it's all right.
It's 25,000 on for Christmas.
25,000 to 40,000 will be on for Christmas.
So it's under ID.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
We couldn't make it as part of the total announcement.
No, no, no, no.
We can make the one up later on one of those.
Yeah, but let's see.
Let's see.
Let's see.
For your information, gentlemen.
The next day.
Either the next day or the next day.
Oh, I just want you to know that.
Oh, yeah.
That the radio recommends that this is.
This is up.
Oh, there he is.
He's really learned his thing about me.
Yeah, he's the real friend.
You know, he must, he's really sure of it.
And he seems bruised at this point in his time here.
He's a little, you know, brought back to nature and hard to use.
And he, uh...
It's just, it's old stories.
It's old stories, I guess.
All they had to think about was the fact that people wanted to eat those.
Bob, he doesn't want to be in there, but if he was in a football team, then I don't know what he'd care.
You see, that's the thing is, if anybody doesn't realize his joy in their products doesn't mean a damn thing.
And that's why there are receptions that way, too.
I know you know it's going to be a very big thing after that, Bill Rogers, or how far his stance goes, and nobody will pay any attention to that either.
Like going to Russia, at least.
Yes.
I mean, that doesn't concern the Capitol office over there.
It's just a flood of crazy coverage or anything.
If I go home, it's going to be a big story.
I mean, it's the first deal, you know.
I mean, we can't go to Romania to get them.
We've been there.
I think, as a matter of fact, going to any country, I mean, Greenland's wiped out going anywhere now.
And fortunately, the cycle has worked just right, where you're stopping at the Soviet.
But after that, you go to the Soviet, I mean, not the Soviet, you go to Poland, or some other Iron Curtain country, it's not going to have much of a lift anymore.
Because you've done a lot of that, but the lack of an iron is all you have.
And after that, you don't want to do it.
I'm not going to do it.
Latin America is going to be a big thing, except it's necessary.
Yeah.
For appearances, basically.
December for Latin America, so it's up to you in total.
Any time?
You really ought to get it done with before saving.
It's only a couple of days, one way or the other.
That's a lot of interest.
Well, I have some different thinking about the studio.
I may not deliver it this year.
Now, I know that I've been on the wrong side of that issue in terms of the judgment on choice, but this time I think I'm pretty close to being right as to what we want to do as a television, what we want to give, I expect, an equal time on and so forth.
Let me explain.
First of all, it may be that this is one of the equal time problems in all the rest of the world.
Go ahead now and measure with me whether or not how much law you get from the Congress and so forth and so on.
It just isn't worth the candle.
You know what I mean?
Now, what I must say, our domestic council perhaps will bow.
I haven't done so in the office in this term.
But there are other ways to get across that program.
You see what I mean?
Sure.
And one way to do it would just be to do it through a, I sent a message to the Congress today and then go on here at the desk and read it.
Read?
Read what I was sending to the Congress at the desk.
Or don't even read it.
Send it today and go on tonight or tomorrow night and tell them what was behind it.
Yep.
And go a little, no, no, no, no.
I wouldn't read the message, but I got to read it.
What I asked was, I sent a message to the Congress today
I want to respond to you.
Or, the best thing, the better thing would be to say, I'm going to send a message to Congress tomorrow, I'm going to go to the House, so that those bachelors don't have to bird fly again.
And then take my little speech, 15 minutes, see?
I don't think you can do that.
They could go through all the traffic tracks and so forth.
Whereas what I would do here is .
The idea was that the congressman had been up there the last couple of times.
Also, I had had three appearances before the Congress.
See, I've done my economic thing.
And then what I would do is after the Congress, something like that, I might go up.
But I doubt it.
I don't think that we ought to play to the Congress.
The Congress, I'm not sure, is all that good a forum for us at this point in an election year.
Look, I can't hold back with the canons and the muskets after they get a chance to grab some of them.
I knew she'd better start living the other direction.
But now, I said, don't throw this out.
It's bureaucracy.
I don't have any lines that I can even talk to John about.
But I want to be lucky on that.
Because I thought this through very merrily.
And I feel that this is not the year with the attitude of this argument.
These people are very, very, you know, they're going to be just as political as hell are.
And our guys don't realize this.
They have the truth.
but as much as I have at least.
So they're all taken with this great spectacle of going out and looking at Congress.
It is a great spectacle.
We've done it.
It's not.
But isn't all that great?
Well, not really.
It has, you know, there's something to it.
But you've done it.
People see you do that.
I don't think you have to do it.
It's like sitting in breakfast, sir.
In a sense.
I've been down there three times.
Well, there you see it.
I mean, you've done it.
Then you did that, you know, no exceptions deal, too, the economic thing.
I've been out there three.
So I've got 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
Oh, I know the way to handle it.
Also recorded on November 1, 1971
608-004 8:03 AM · 25 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, Stephen B. Bull, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:03 am and 9:25 am.
609-014 8:03 AM · 22 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Marjorie P. Acker met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:03 am and 9:25 am.
609-015 8:03 AM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:03 am and 9:25 am.
609-016 8:03 AM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:03 am and 9:25 am.
013-052 1:30 PM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 1:30 pm.
013-053 1:46 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:29 pm.
302-019 1:46 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:29 pm.
302-020 1:46 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:29 pm.
Conversation 609-017, November 1, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/609-017 (accessed November 14, 2026).