Conversation 613-012

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I think the news stories are wrong.

The people are bargaining, and the business people have put forward a proposition that's basically pretty generous, but doesn't

at least as yet, give the principle of the contract.

But I think that they're going to do that.

They're in the process of bargaining.

The problem is that the press has picked up bits and pieces and distorted them.

And what they do by writing this up is

to get the labor people stirred up when they go back into the meeting.

In other words, it's the sole business of promoting a fight.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is for them to ensure it goes out.

As a matter of fact, there's a report on that issue.

Really untrue, because I had, I sat with Matt, the team should say in a meeting, he told me everything that happened.

There was nothing like what was reported.

George has had reports.

I gather you've got some on my side.

What Shore has done is just what he did during the earlier period.

He's created a type of relationship.

And he was picked up by Porter, which Porter did last time.

It's the same combination.

And then they, in effect, are doing a self-fulfilling prophecy because everybody goes in this morning mad at each other because they watch the TV every day.

Well, what's our strategy?

To, uh, do everything we can to see that the board continues to meet.

Uh, with that, all I can understand is that it's going to work out and that they're going to come to some kind of agreement and I think there's a real probability that it'll be, it'll wind up being unanimous.

You think there is a chance?

I think there is a good chance.

What about if the probability is stronger?

Oh, no, I'd put it up in the neighborhood of two chances out of three.

Now that would be tough.

Chuck and I have tried to stay in very close contact.

That's got to be the thing in the background.

Let's look at that in just a moment.

Let's see whether we want this to work out.

What about the idea of just extending the freeze 90 days?

George is a legitimate warrior.

The two things I would worry about is doing that.

One, the freeze is beginning to unravel.

anyway now it's hard to hold and to hold this notion that it is working and everybody is having equal sacrifice it would mean for example that the teachers who didn't get their pay raises and so on would still not get them for another three months it would mean that we bump into some big labor contracts like the auto contract

that has a 3% increment, and the unions have promised to strike.

This is a great viable option, but we should talk about it.

You see how it goes, Chuck?

We need to talk about it.

We'd love some in order to put the heat to them.

It's a great threat, because it's a threat.

What the hell else can we do, though?

We can't let people, and we have a pay board.

I mean, we have a price, a public board that sets it out, and then we go out and pick a couple of selected contracts or areas,

the uh well what the business people are getting ready oh yes i think there's a good

It says that you can take an 80% weight increase and keep the GPI at 3.

An 80% weight increase.

That was their judgment before.

That's because that's on the assumption that there's a big expansion and

a large gain of productivity.

Well, if you stop to think of it, George, if we come to the ballpark of 6%, which is what I'm, rather than 5, because if they have offered 5, they may get 6.

That's exactly what they have.

Okay, you get 6%.

For God's sakes, with the CPI going up to 3, and you've got to have a 3% increase in productivity, heck, it's not complacent, Eric.

Average earnings aren't going up all that much higher than that right now.

And I think that I'm more and more convinced that the net impact of this program will be to raise wages.

Wages will be higher as a result of all this than they would otherwise have been, although that would be a big shocker.

You put out a certain percentage for next year.

Then all of the people who are struggling around, what are we going to raise our pay with this year, who probably would have gotten less than 6%.

We'll have to get 6% or there'll be a pull in that direction.

I think that is the way these things generally work, and I think we're pretty well aware of that when we started in.

So if you say, what is going to be the impact on inflation from the wage side, if this thing were to blow up, I think the impact will be negligible.

And if anything, probably we'll have a little lower wages.

On the other hand, it doesn't give you the stance of working out.

That's the thing.

I think that we want to hold this together, and I think we have a pretty good go at it.

Weldon Lapis, who's that, you've met him, he's that big bruising guy that comes in with Fitzsimmons.

Oh, yeah.

Great pick.

Yeah, yeah.

He said there always are agents that are coming.

No, no.

He said there is the end of him.

Then he put down on August the report.

He said he thought that the Woodcock formula, which he was going to work on last night, would be bought, which is 6%.

Plus there would be recognizing the principle of the sanctity of contracts.

He said maybe he would buy that.

This told me, and I felt very strongly about this, he said, if the president holds up the one-eighths card that you throw at either a parade or the three states, he said, nobody really would like to live with that because we would get blamed for it.

Don't worry.

And if they did, they don't worry about that.

Because if we do that and go through all that hell, I've got to go on an actual television and break it off and labor.

I mean, this labor here is my will.

It'll be the goddamnedest thing you ever saw.

But the point is that there are two forces at work in those media groups.

And all that Dan Shore did last night was what he has done to us before.

That is to create a crisis so that he has an exclusive and he can go on television and babble.

I don't think it is accurate, except that it may exacerbate the situation in the room.

But the feeling I got out of there was that they were moving very well.

I think it seems to me that you had a very low level of influence on the call you made today.

Yeah, so far.

I thought you said they were going to transfer it.

They were going to try to move into another room.

There was a way that the cable TV could work on them, not on others.

No, because they're in the cable business.

It's the one and all of that.

It helps him.

It helps him and the person.

Wow.

George, coming to Mark Bussett's subject, I assume that Mark Bussett's a cluster.

Maybe you want to give me a crack analysis that you say moderately encouraging, but don't pay too much attention to it with regard to that wholesale price.

I thought it was pretty good.

The wholesale price is actually working.

Definite, clear statement that the freezer's working.

The effect of it.

Yes, I think I always maintain that one thing that won't work is a short freeze.

So I think it is clearly working.

The continued decline of interest rates long term

They continue to go down.

They continue to go down, and that's a very clear indication that the financial people's expectations about inflation have been altered.

You know, for the first time I saw a possible surge in the European economy.

The box on the top showing the auto sales, the biggest sales in a month, is the base of cars.

Biggest they've ever had.

Biggest in the country, too.

Who put that on?

He has one of yours, of course.

No, I'd like to take credit for it, but it isn't.

I guess it was just a fact.

That's it all.

They couldn't suppress it?

Was there no one from Carrollton?

They predicted it.

A lot of companies predicted it last week.

It made the comparison.

The Times story, however, immediately counterpunched by saying there hasn't been any impact on the plane.

But it might just prevent some unemployment.

Isn't that rather nice, that in Monarch, that there will be a slight decrease in unemployment?

Oh, as I understand it, it's only as the stock market increased yesterday, according to the Washington Post, it was totally a technical correction.

I understand.

The problem with unemployment in the 518 was a technical correction, correct?

We don't like that.

Yes, we do.

So I think it's a statistically significant change.

The thing that I am interested in about that is the fact that employment went up as much as it did.

When you brought up that seasonal that Chuck told me last night, that that was purely seasonal.

I don't think so.

Do you think the employment didn't go up?

The actual employment went up, but the seasonal adjustment went up to 320,000.

Go ahead.

Well, the seasonally adjusted rise to 325,000, that's a big monthly increase in the number of jobs.

And that's the previous month, too, George.

Now, if you take the last five months together, seasonally adjusted, you've got a million and a quarter rise in employment.

That's after seasonal adjustment.

So something's happening.

So that's big.

And that is, I mean, it's the private sector moving on jobs is the way in which this thing gets solved.

So I tend to look at that more.

The unemployment rate, which gets all the publicity, is sort of the interaction between the number of people in the labor force and its employment.

Those are two great big numbers, and the unemployment is small in it.

has much more tendency to jump around.

But if we get a strong rise in employment that continues, then that unemployment rate is going to come down.

Now, I wouldn't have to go back and say that all of the structural analysis of the economy, I believe, shows us sort of poised and all set for a big little

But I just tremble at this money supply picture.

And I know Arthur doesn't think it's a problem.

He tells me Milton doesn't think it's a problem.

I called Milton yesterday and asked him what he thought, and he thinks it's a big problem.

And that we have this picture of the Fed going to one extreme and then the other extreme.

And, of course, Milton is also of the view that the freeze is beginning to hurt the economy.

And I think I've mentioned this to you before, the very few days in which it... Well, I would just put this in the context of, say, extending the freeze another three months.

Then I do think it would slow the economy down very badly to do that.

Flanagan, he used to get every Jewish broker he knows in New York to start calling firms and raising help out.

Now there's Gus Levy, there's Bonnie Lester.

We're going to have a real program on that.

I mean, so it doesn't appear to be real.

I don't know why Carson has a memorandum of that.

I'm terribly concerned about the money supply.

I hear they're going to have services and so on and so on.

You know what I mean?

All right, we'll never admit it, but people will change it.

By knowledge of that, we conducted this kind of a campaign.

All right, I know.

Well, you planned it, didn't you?

Well, you're going to get those two people, Mike said, for sure.

I'm going to get some people that don't even know what money is in there.

There was an article... Brian, read back.

My God, that's what we need in a fed.

There was an article in the Times yesterday by Leonard Silk, of all people, that called attention to the money supply question.

I've put it into the minds of a few people, and I think we're going to be seeing a little writing about it.

If you would follow up, as many of your friends as you know, get sacked off.

Don't regard your own good, Harry Collins.

I've just got to say, not that the administration is concerned.

Wall Street people, the rest believe that Byrne had created the respect for him, and he is kicking the screws off to the time of the money supply.

Well, I know the people that can call me.

All right.

People anywhere, man.

That's great.

Actually, they feel it.

I mean, I don't care if they feel that way or not, but if they do, it helps.

But they've got to get it out there.

This is purely a program of propaganda with a son of a bitch.

He's got to start playing ball.

And he sits there with that pompatical attitude about everything and knows everything.

And then, God damn it, he doesn't play ball.

He's got to start playing ball.

We'd better get going.

The money supply goes to Georgia, or is there going to be a boom?

There's certainly a boom.

But you're not going to get a boom.

We now have four months of no growth in the basic money supply.

That's a long time.

And the internal Fed forecast that we have learned about, what does it mean for ourselves?

Leonard Silk.

He's a guy who's always writing against us.

S-I-L-K.

Right.

In the air traffic department.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Well, Silk, let me give you a suggestion about...

about that if I could.

Well, no, if you're going to write something to him, what kind of thing might that be?

Silk, in his article, was partly sort of enjoying himself, that having Arthur concerned about interest rates through this committee he had has riveted the Fed's attention on interest rates.

which is exactly what the monetary school of thought does like.

And with interest rates going down, the money supply is not expanding, and the monetarists are in a great state of alarm.

And isn't that funny?

That sort of, you know, silks line.

The point is, it isn't funny.

It's damn serious.

You know, the other question is, with the wholesale price index going down and holding steady... What?

With the wholesale price index going down and holding steady and the CPI coming down, Arthur really should feel pretty good about his inflation size, but he shouldn't be worried about... Oh, well, he oughtn't.

He isn't.

Chuck, I believe Arthur and I should know about what happens this week or this month.

He's going to hear this until it runs out of his ear.

We'd like to do my most of the day, George, by the way, to cut George's journey down.

I know what it is.

I'm giving a talk in New York at this Catholic Bullock Forum this afternoon.

That's off the record.

That is not covered, thank you.

That's off the record.

Uh-huh.

What do you mean, you love George's story?

That's about later than breaking up.

Don't worry about it.

I think this is what happens.

The nasty kind of breakup that comes down when I called and said, I'm going back to saying on this one, and just laying on God damn hard, because he, I talked to him a month ago, and he said, we'll take care of it.

We'll do, we'll straighten it out.

And he says, we keep getting, once a month, he trips.

Then, do you think that...

Well, we got the freeze, and it's working.

It was an action we took, and it has produced a pretty obvious consequence, so I say, well, that's a great credit for it.

And at the same time, as far as the

inflation issue is concerned, I think that we're positioned pretty well, no matter what happens.

But we're fighting it.

And if the labor guys kill it or somebody else kills it, we can be mad at them.

And we're also going to get the inflation to keep coming down.

So I think on that side of the issue, that you're positioned quite well now.

What's happening to the economic expansion?

That's right, that's right.

That's really where the payoff is.

That's right, that's right.

Oh, oh, oh, the expansion's over.

Well, I think, as Chuck and I have talked about this before, that's the number one thing.

Take everything by that.

Your Earth and I receive you concerned by a story in the New York Times by Leonard Stowe.

I realized at the outset that he is not particularly a supporter of the administration's policies for climate.

But as I read the story from Sargent, I could see clearly that he was willing over the fact that the money supply had been

had not been rising for a disease.

I believe it has been four months now since the supply has gone up to a substantial degree, close to the current season.

And then he proceeded to point out that one possible reason for this phenomenon was that I had made the mistake of

But you're in charge of the Committee on Interest Rates.

Very good.

Obviously, anyone who is concerned primarily about keeping interest rates down is not going to be interested in letting the money supply go up.

Very good.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that I buy Silks' analysis entirely.

Very good.

However, I would be less than honest with you if I were not to say I have been flooded with calls since the meeting at the Quadriad from people in Wall Street for whose judgments I have the greatest respect.

with regard to the Fed's policy of holding the money supply down for too long a period.

In fact, two of those who called me from Wall Street without an accounting on my part pointed out that this is exactly what happened in 1959 and 60.

As you recall, you came into the office

and criticized the affairs of marketing.

Basically, you know, he treated the little too tight and thereby helped him to trigger the unemployment increase, which was probably the decisive factor in our defeat in November of 1963.

I know that you are

I'm completely convinced that your policy is not only right, but it's a long-term interest of the economy and of our goal of attaining to and of our goal of assuring the success of this administration's economic policies.

register with you as strongly as i possibly can my concern that what really determines the result of the election is not interest rates or rises in the cost of living the unemployment statistics around election time

Many candidates, many elections in this country have been determined because of an increase in unemployment, which resulted in the voters turning out the party in politics.

I cannot think of one election where inflation has had an effect, whatever, in determining the result.

This does not suggest that we should not be concerned about inflation, not only for the long haul, but even for the short haul.

However, on the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind, whatever, that if the Fed continues to keep the lid off with regard to increases in the money supply,

And if the economy does not expand, as you, along with most, virtually all, along with most other respected economists have predicted, in 1972, the blank will be put squarely.

on Fed were holding the lid on too long, just as it was, in my opinion, very partly on Fed in the 1960s, 30s.

I have studied the charts at the level, and I have a great respect for the point of view that you expressed on this subject.

circulating this letter.

I am not sending copies of this letter to anybody else in the quadriad because I think this has to be used between me and you.

Period.

As a matter of fact, I'm not going to discuss the subject properly.

Period.

But I do want you to know that there is nothing that I feel stronger on than this money supply problem.

the percent of complaints that I have been receiving, not only from the New York connection community, but from other places in the country.

For instance, I received calls from Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago, and Atlanta, just to mention a few over the past few days, expressing the same concern, close to everything.

That you owe it to yourself, as well as to our goal of getting the economy to move smartly up and hence ahead.

You're reevaluating your decision with regard to holding the money supply down.

and to take some action to move it up before we get a lot of the bombs, and then have to move because they urge us rather than on our own mission.

It's not just this, he's got to get him out of the army.

He, uh, he's got to bring them all up, as soon as he gets on a campaign, he'll sweep up his farm and the rest of it.

But Dan Arthur is sitting over there like God, and he is not God.

In your letter, the section on everybody knows that if you contract a money supply, you'll reduce interest rates.

That is true in the long run.

In, say, the short run, in the space of a month or so, it's the other way around.

And Arthur would point that out to you.

I've got a question.

You'll get the point of that without any question.

I just wanted to know.

I don't care about the technical side of this.

It's only for the purpose of knowing.

And you've got to listen to the president.

The purpose of this is not to question about silver and money.

But the purpose of this is that they are here.

That's what we're here to be blamed for.

Okay.

With his...

I think this is very important.

With his deal with Mr. President.

And he has that kind of letter.

It weighs heavily on him that, like, next year, you know, the President realizes how important this is to his election.

Well, it won't be that easy.

It's not a record.

It's a plot.

Did you see George?

Right on the record there.

There it is.

Well, anyway, as I was saying to Chuck last night, I called him about it.

I think, well, poor George and Hodgson had to go out and lie about it.

They were engaged.

They think that the figures are all right.

Nor did Ben.

It's a good set of reasons for it.

I'm terribly excited about it.

On the other hand, whether it was the market going up, which of course is still at the market, but on the other hand, wholesale pricing and that's the retail credit thing, which you get applied to the automobile station, so you get applied.

And the unemployment.

You can't snip it all off.

This economy is moving better than we think.

Don't forget the department.

Don't forget, Mr. President, the trade deficit, which international trade is one of the three lights in your suit.

The trade deficit turned around last month and became a surplus.

You now see that prices have stabilized during the freeze, so the freeze work.

You do have unemployment at least for the last two months in a row now, because last month it dropped one tenth, first month two tenths.

That's not bad.

If there's 200 points extra discount, we just get it right.

Let me say, unless I'm talking here in the room, I have total confidence in your judgment.

Because I know you're an honest man who's been talking for a long time.

The rest, I think most of the other people who think emotionally or don't have the guts or get like hard to say something or don't have the, frankly, the guts to say what they need to do, they think otherwise.

But in this field, we've just got to call it coldly and toughly and fight like tigers.

And this is not something where we, you know, college exercise.

This is it.

If you deal with this money supply, we've got to increase the budget or decrease the budget or anything like that.

We've got to, by God, we're going to do it.

I mean, everything rides on this.

Everything rides on it.

And so we just play a ruthless game.

Just a ruthless game.

made Cap unhappy when he finds out about it.

I discovered about $100 million worth of construction projects that we could have pushed this year that we were holding back on.

So they're left going.

I think the third quarter figures are going to be revised up

My guess is they're going to be revised up by the time they get through by at least $4 billion.

$4 billion?

They can't be that much longer.

Somebody's lying.

Well, the retail sales figures for August, the revised figures, show an increase that's so large that it must be wrong.

You just can't believe that.

And that's the second revision.

I told you about one, Mr. President.

So one of the things is we're paying a price for the fact that the statistical budgets were starved during the Johnson administration.

I see.

And the retail sales series, which is very important, is just now beginning to come in.

Well, anyway, statistics means so much to us that we pay money for polls and everything.

Let's be sure our statistics are right.

We're making tremendously important decisions on this.

We're pushing on that.

But anyway... You know, one guy, if I may say that, I have strong feelings could be very helpful in this field.

We could re-uker him out of that university to Alan Wallace.

He is so honest, so conservative, and so bright that I think he just might tell the truth.

Alan will be here tonight if you're going to be dinner.

He's going to stay over at our house.

Well, you know, he is expecting, hoping to come in and report to you on his commission on statistics, which has completed its report.

And if you think of it as he comes through the line, you might say that you're looking forward to it.

I think he is a towering figure in this field.

All that falls.

But go ahead.

Well, the retail sales picture for August is much more than they thought when they put out those third quarter figures.

the inventory picture for September has finally, we have a good plus figure.

They didn't know that when they put the third quarter out.

You know, we've been saying all along that at some point we're going to start getting an inventory kicker.

And it may be that that has started.

But at any rate, the September figure, which they didn't know about, is pretty good.

There is this trade turnaround figure that Chuck mentioned that they didn't know.

And

The net export line in the GNP figures has been a killing figure here, in the second quarter particularly.

And if that spun around, as for natural reasons it's almost sure to do, that's another increment in the picture.

So these three things together make me feel that they're going to wind up revising that figure up quite considerably.

15.9, I believe, was the...

I mean, the third quarter, it all looked bad.

Well, the way to really judge it is in the rate of increase in real terms.

And I believe that was 2.8.

And that's pretty disappointing.

You need to get up better than 4%, in fact, well above 4%, to really be attacking the slack in the economy.

And we had about 5% in the second quarter, which is pretty good, although that was revised up from 3.6 in the first published estimate to 4.9 now.

So that shows you the range of errors.

So what will this end up in?

Well, my guess is it may get up somewhere near 4%, but I don't think it will get up above it.

It's not as bad, though, is it?

Well, it's not as bad, but it's...

It's a time when we should be seeing a buildup.

It should be getting better each quarter.

And of course, you can have a drop back, and everything just doesn't go along smoothly.

And as you know, I've been very optimistic about things.

I would be glowingly optimistic if it weren't for these money supply numbers, which are sort of in the background of a policy input that's very

Uh, contracted.

That, that, that.

The, uh, the biggest, the biggest cloud, uh, cloud.

Actually, the retail sales for this was almost a billion dollars.

Revision wasn't good.

Anyway, let me say this.

You're in.

You might.

Yes, sir.

I had done some work on the Finch trips that you asked me to do, but he had it less subtle than he is going and so on.

I did talk to Rockefeller.

And also, he did talk to, you know, to, uh, if you wouldn't.

I never write letters, but only for the record.

But that's a very good one.

Don't think he won't pay attention.

This is one of the history books.

Well, they have to be, don't they?

I mean, people worry about this in my home, but that led to something that's a good question.

My friends in New York, we're having these dinners, you know, and everybody's calling in, and my sales going.

It's like, all right, for all it's going to be, I'll pay it all in, as much as I do, but I thought we're not going to let Parker squeeze us down and make himself look good.

Well, I thought if he's crazy, I saved the dollars and lost a lot.

To hell with it.

We're not going to do it.

Let me see if I can't get Milton to go ask for the feds.

Can I ask you something?

Tell him, Milton, we were talking.

I'm very distressed about this, and I would agree with you personally.

I'm not surprised.

It's a conviction.

Tell him it came.

I'm right in line with this.

It's a conviction.

All right.

Okay, we're close, we're close.

I have to say, I did a great job on this car deal with the Russians.

Is it gonna work?

We talked to the license at midnight, and we're still going.

Well, they're gonna do it.

No.

I, I, we're taxed now.

No, I think they're gonna.

Uh, all right.

Okay.

We'll know by the 7th, we'll know everything.

Who are we testing?

We're gonna have to be great.

We're gonna have to make it possible.

That's the real fun of this.

Now, George, uh, not to balk you with something that's a train that's right there.

There's other areas.

But this Canadian thing, who the hell is on top of that?

Yeah.

Broker.

Right.

I told him, I told him, I asked Henry about it.

I told him he was Peterson about it.

There's a lot of Canadian things, so we're ready to move on the Latin American front.

The day comes, get back.

Do they work?

I don't know if we'd be that ready, but I'll do a little better from it.

Well, let's set that as we all have, and maybe do it a year from now then, you know.

Okay.

Well, I would say the end of November, but all right.

All right.

and you might reach one that's possible.

All right, I get the message.

Okay.

Bye, sir.

You want me to let you know?

Is it possible for you to, uh... Do you think it's possible for you to have... How are your relations with Clark and all that?

Excellent.

Could you go talk to Clark and say, look, we've got a hell of a problem here.

We can't write it.

We'll give you a suit when we do.

That is the parole order.

Be ready to get off.

We don't want him to come next year.

The problem is with the president, because he's met now all the things, and he agreed to stay out of the labor movement and all that sort of thing.

He's got to be paroled.

And the president's under arrest.

Presently, we ought to beat him to the punch and do exactly the clemency thing.

because the president will be laying control over the children.

Now, look, he may not buy it, he may just take it anyway, but I think there's something to present to preparing a fellow like that.

Oh, definitely there is.

You see, he wrote a book, which is coming out in a month, which talks about how you really crack down on organized crime, and he doesn't want this to destroy the credibility.

What are we, what are we turnin' around at?

Yeah, I don't know, the camera, I guess they want to, we were, you know, responding to that thing.

You understand what he said first?

The fog is because we're gonna, we're gonna, it's gonna be a very high part of the stage out of the labor movement.

What stage is it?

The stage out, the stage out of the labor movement for now.

And, uh, we're gonna need to go back on it.

Again, we're, we're, we're really, really negotiating like hell on this thing.

Well, I could do something else with Clark.

I could call Clark in and say that I need his advice, because point out that the parole board clearly will let him out next time.

But rather than have an election year, here are the problems.

How do you think we can handle this?

I think it's very hard.

Will it help some?

Yes, it will.

Will it help some?

Oh, yeah.

I didn't...

I didn't tell you, but he did go up to New York on his own.

Apparently he wanted to get discovered.

And it fell flat because he can't answer the question about the money score.

And he did not do a good job.

He did the calvary floor four or two weeks ago.

Peter's trying to set up this dinner for him.

And he's trying to be successful.

The attitude up there, we don't really care about listening to.

That's what Peter discovered today.

He called me this morning, early this morning.

He said, I'm in New York and we don't want it.

Well, because he didn't do very well last week, basically.

He couldn't answer the difficult questions that they put to him.

Well, sorry about that.

I can get a good campaign up in New York.

I mean, not riot.

You don't have to riot too much.

It looks like we're trying to stop something.

That's the one thing since last summer that Stanton has said he would do and has delivered.

He's delivered on all the other two heads.

I'm afraid he probably doesn't have the ability within CBS to deliver, but that's some of the bits that should be out of there.

God, we've got those, those things are going very well over there.

The thing that could kick it off is some jackass like Shore

saying how bad it is and then you know he starts the people fighting because they watch him they all think he knows something they don't know ah

We'll get three or four days of good economic news, and that's it.

That's what's happening.

very considerable chafting going on.

McGregor said yesterday that we should not be distressed by any of the press reports that Fulbright and Manchin are going to fill about this one day.

We knew that they were going to fill about this one.

And we're going to be pulling it through, I think.

Bob, is it the conclusion that Black

that there is nothing quite right about public broadcasting.

Is that correct?

No, that's not correct.

Uh, that, uh, in other words, you just don't need to ask people.

We've been seeing art expressing things and so forth, on and on and on, but nobody raising any help.

I haven't seen a word raised.

I've never seen a word of criticism that's gotten out of this kind of shows.

Now, what is correct?

What is correct is that there is

I'm still trying to figure out the way that you can get some results in changing it, which down to the last strokes on a plan now, which involves the cutting the bungs.

Yeah, cutting the bungs is the lever that we're going to use to try to get them to change some of the personnel.

And force, force Bates and Macy both out now.

He got Bates out there.

He said, what?

Bob was planning to get both Bates and Macy out.

Macy, who runs it, Bates is chairman of the board.

We've just finished yesterday compiling a whole dossier of all the abuses that they have had on the air.

We've cut that down plenty.

is to call in Pace, and Rather, and Cole, and lay it all out to them, and say this is what you'd rather.

Jack Rather, who's agreed to fight on public, on public broadcast against the congressional attacks.

I mean, divide any wild son of a bitch at all.

It's horrible stuff.

Give him the stuff and have him start watching.

Ask for an investigation and a committee.

You knew that?

Yes, sir.

We've had a little bit of it.

It hasn't made a big, big impact.

I know we don't want to play with him, but maybe this is going to get Bill Shirley going on, because he's the kind that will... Good.

Sure.

Yeah, that's right.

He was the one who took up the battle.

Nobody else would.

And, uh, that's right.

I want to thank you for your start.

Thank you.

Because I think that he's a man, he's a bad man.

That kind of happens with what he's with, but... You'll see it in the dark away.

It's all right.

I hate it.

But the thing hasn't been dropped.

The problem has been the money this year is all committed.

There's nothing you can do about it.

It's actually been given to them.

It's committed.

It's gone.

It's done.

Out.

There.

So all you can do on any immediate changes is to try to change the personnel.

You know, here's the thing, though, of how poorly organized we are here, in one way.

It was, to me, utterly shocking to see the Russell train

has made a statement against the national security in the name of the environment.

Now, I'll let the environmentalists get the tin cans and even screw up the auto industry, but goddamn it, they're not going to screw up national security.

And that was a shocking thing.

And I don't know how the hell early on, or whoever's in charge of that, or is that Whittinger, would have let that goddamn story get out.

The court shut it out, and they had to find out, but they don't quite know how to even write the story down.

Ready in the first place.

What's wrong?

National security.

All national security hurts the environment.

So, but if you don't have national security, you're not going to have any environment.

We'll do it at that point.

If you don't have national security, you won't have no environment to worry about.

Or these goddamn environments with some sand.

How do you feel about this, Charlie?

I think it's ridiculous because it's just the same thing to begin with.

It says that it might do something.

Well, I haven't seen anybody say that.

And obviously it might.

It's like everything else.

Mercury and Tinnitus might be powerful.

Everything we do might cause some harm.

I mean, how can a flying airplane across the country, it might crash in Chicago and kill a thousand people instead of people flying airplanes?

As I told you, it just got chosen.

And even I split my phone.

And I said, well, you know, we've got a couple of figures here.

I said, it's the one you were cracking, the chosen one.

I just said, well, I don't know.

We don't have to go out and lie.

I said, well, these are moderately encouraging figures, but we could not be getting many of them.

They aren't very good figures, you know, like how it's going to be next month.

But it's good to have a good one for one day.

But they'll get some wholesale pressure there some way or the other.

I don't know how.

The letter that I should send to Dan is actually a figure by Lee yesterday.

And who put out the six and two?

Now, I can tell you there's been a race all the time.

The fact that actually there were states where there's four of them and ten of them.

But that's the pattern every week.

That's always true.

So that some, you're never catching up with yourself.

We don't get much on the news, so it's one in eight stories otherwise.

I think you'll see us present some good stories.

Well, when they revised the gross national credit again to the court, I think you may see it.

Mr. George said that the division is in order with that.

You mentioned the money supplies.

The president just put our interference very much on the spot.

Thank you, sir.

We've got to get some credit.

You never know when those economists are at least as good as Lampard and Schultz has gotten.

He's the only one who has been right on the nose all the way along.

He's the complete and the next one that we've seen Schultz's money supply theory in the monitor.

And he's in the depths of depression now, Lampard and Schultz.

As long as he's brought his drive up, there's no chance.

Turn off the light.

Turn off the economy.

There it is.

Obviously overreacting because he's trying to change it.

They're making an open plan and it's got to start any first.

Everybody in this planned show has got to start planning.

They've got several others there.

They promised that I wouldn't bother with his sentence.

You know, he is such a pump-up, pump-powder king, and he, you know, he laughed in New York.

Don't even integrate that, and everybody knows that he fell flat in his ass.

But he couldn't answer the last of my questions.

I wrote a note to George Alton.

I mean, he loves the Kansas City Chiefs.

And he said to me, he said, no, he didn't give it to anybody.

He said, don't even bring it.

He said, I'm a small man.

Get someone to ask about it.

We can't do that.

And I said, you know, I am.

And I stood in front of him and wrote him a note.

Well, he overheard it.

The White House, you know, showed me.

I didn't have those in me.

It occurred to me that one way to do Texas might be to have the Mexican president very diffusely.

What do you think of that?

I mean, the state and everything, you know, the Miami one for France, and the vectored area for Houston, I mean, and they put on an L.A. logo for the goddamn street and have a parade and everything.

And we did a Mexican state dinner.

It was in San Diego, I think.

It was a hell of a lot different, you know what I mean?

And, uh, we've had extroversion here already in the state and in the White House.

It is good anywhere else, and we ought to do, yeah, ought to try to do something.

It isn't as nice to the visitor, but it's true to the visitor.

It's not.

It's great for our political people.

Yeah, screw Washington.

It would get the hell out of Washington.

Put that down.

I think in terms of Mexican vote and the rest that have been there, there's no reason to respect the state at this point anyway.

He's been here in the White House, so he's taking the use of it.

Check it out if it's possible.

And I'm just thinking, what a way to get to Texas.

What a better way to get there, Bob.

We can...

I'm sure he'd realize.

I've laid out my mind on Teddy White on that track a year ago.

And, uh, the other thing that I was telling him for a while was, oh, shit, I don't talk to him about the day before.

Well, that's the only way I would work out a plan, stage the bejesus out of me.

Because it really does, if Ron was not except here, I think he would cut out on three fingers to go.

That's right.

And he needs to.

The way I'm going to play that string out, I want Ron to talk.

The president has learned from unimpeachable sources that a meeting was held in the timeline this fall in which a command decision was made that they were going to be early if they could.

This was early in the fall for the NDP to debate Nixon.

It was led by Jerome Hall and supported by his don that we're quite aware of this timeline, which is

And that under certain circumstances, therefore, we're going to take a pledge from the timeline.

Now, incidentally, this has been a great report around its heart.

But I'm not going to take a pledge from the timeline.

And nobody else at the time.

I see no reason to.

Let me put it this way.

At this point, that's my view.

But at this point, I think maybe, God, you ought to freeze time and news for 30 days.

What do you think?

Now you look at the unbroken strength of the last four weeks and it's been pretty vicious, has it not?

And it's been nothing positive.

No, there's nothing positive about it.

All right.

So, well, when they got the chance under the slot, they jumped hard on the negative strength before we were.

Well, the court, they were on negative.

Last week, they were negative.

The other day, I was telling the court, they, they melted, which concerns me that, you know, every negative drop on it, but they also played all the fun.

How about freezing them off?

I just wonder if you don't freeze one rather than both, but that freezes either one.

It's maybe worse in time.

When I say freeze them, I don't mean for a freeze to go there.

I don't.

Who the hell is he seeing?

Henry Hutter?

Garrett?

Whatever.

At least an active reporter.

They don't really see him.

Well, yes, they do.

When he's working on a story, he'll move in.

But shall we just freeze the newsweek out for a while?

Maybe you should.

But on time, I don't want to do anything for them.

I don't.

Everybody in this family is stuck up for those people when they were down here, you know, their national affairs people.

I didn't like that.

I really didn't like that.

After getting the kid, I asked her, you know, after he was talking to me about what he was going to do, he didn't take them on in this court.

He didn't?

No.

And this is the approach.

And I hollered certainly not.

And as he was saying, the order is on.

The fact that we should apply the freeze to the media, well, of course we should apply it.

You know why we couldn't see this next year?

You know why the fucking news magazines want the freeze to apply to the media?

They want to apply it to their goddamn pay costs, Bob.

They don't plan to raise their prices at the moment.

It just hurts my butt.

They tell you that John will get taken in without it.

I didn't say anything about it.

Jesus Christ, they have to lose weight.

Goddamn, I'm not going to sign that.

Well, see, they've got to build, they don't worry about pricing, because they've got to build an escalator, and they have to track it.

Well, they put it at the end of prices, and their rate, their pay rate, is a function of circulation, so they don't really care that the freeze doesn't apply to them.

And the newsstand price, they're not going to use that as an insurance anymore.

They've already cranked that low, yeah.

But what else is new?

They were gone through the morning and they were not really ulstered.

Probably could go.

Let's see this afternoon.

Tomorrow morning.

You don't need to plan it anyway, do you?

They don't want you to do anything.

What they're trying to figure out now is that they can't have their scooper chairs.

What our guys are talking about is that what we're going to have to do is figure out some way that they include Cooper-Jurchin in committee bills so we can get a bill out of committee with the understanding that we're going to defeat it.

That we're totally opposed to it, not in agreement to it.

In agreement to leave it in with the understanding that we're going to have a bill in the Senate.

Yeah.

Senate committee.

So that when that comes out, we will have told them we intend to defeat it on the floor.

or in Congress if we can't beat it on the floor.

Does anybody think we ought to step up the withdrawal of aid?

No.

That's a very important question.

There has to be any point raised on that.

In fact, I think if we step up the withdrawal of aid, it could be a negative, due to the fact that they could piss on it and say, well, this proves a necessity for Cooper Church, see?

This isn't enough.

I'd rather love it, and it's going to be more.

As of now, the argument is that you should not do anything.

And, you know, there's been...

You know, raise the men's field breakfast again and all that, and there's a strong feeling in part from these people that you should not go down there.

It will do no good, never.

You shouldn't call anybody.

You shouldn't do anything.

But I just urge one thing.

I know you're goddamn busy.

It's hard to figure out what you should do.

Would you jump on Mitchell again on younger men?

Lance, when I was 72 years old, because he's our chairman of New Hampshire, was there any young men on the committee?

You know?

Yeah.

Well, it's okay.

John's very conscious of that.

He's, okay, all the committees he's setting up, and what's his name, that's why he even considered me Undersecretary of Agriculture.

That's why we're considering Peterson for Commerce.

I want nobody in the cabinet that's owed this old sign.

I really don't.

I want young men all around.

See?

So you make sure the one you're covering the high end too.

And you're going to, the one guy isn't going to sell.

And they're going to sell.

All right, fine.

And it busts the stool.

Well, the answer is butts.

And that's the one.

They had him in.

Everybody is really high cranked up to East Nelson, 64.

He's old.

If you stop to think of one problem, you have a man.

His name.

It was Mark.

You know, I don't know if you've ever called it.

Butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts.

That's all they've done.

So they all want him.

How about Harold?

Frankly, it's a fallback position.

It would be a fallback position.

Why don't they bust him?

Because he's very enthusiastic, very articulate, very...

They seem to be able to talk with him as a good deal of the political realities.

Okay, fine.

And then, you know, he'll do some good because of that.

And that's, I think that's what they're going to come up with.

Tell them to say that butts are harmful, will you?

Maybe, maybe it ought to be harmful.

Where's Byron?

You're over there.

I like butts.

He knows a hell of a lot about it.

Okay.

Anything else?

Thank you.

Keep working.

I mean, no, well, I mean, for Christ's sake, for one day, I'm hoping that these people will, you know, I know it's tough, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these cases, and I'm going to go through these

He thinks he shouldn't.

What?

He thinks he shouldn't run right out and talk to all these media people.

He's really burning on this.

He thinks he was set up on this U.N. vote, and that affects everything.

Blind.

I'm going to talk to Hayden.

This is not true.

He was not set up in the U.N.

He died tonight, John Donahue, higher than that.

You know, he's acting like a child, you know, he's one of those childless periods.

But it's all personal, like, you know, like,

Yeah, but it shows the relative perspective there.

I'm not sure.

Julie came in just as he was starting to enter on that.

But he has some reluctance, and he says he thinks he ought to wait until after everything simmers down.

Huh?

We're all going crazy.

He was much better than anybody.

What's all this?

Nothing more after this.

After what?

After the rock.

After the, uh, Mountain Troop announcement thing and that, Chris, you're gonna, you're gonna do all this dissenter stuff.

I mean, all this, this bouncing around, there's gonna be a hell of a lot of action.

We'll be butting out a couple of people coming in here to corrupt you.

It's like Colson, you look at your white horse, and I'm just crying.

Huh?

Gregor's ahead.

Gregor's all right.

Goddamn right.

They're basically upbeat, but they're confused.

They can't quite figure where they're at and where they're headed.

Rostov is upbeat as hell.

He's got a great baseboard and a great, I don't think it's all this maneuvering on the price board.

On the weight board, it's a great price board.

It's maneuvering on weight, power, and country.

Oh, not as well as we should be, yes, because we've got to get some specifics together on these.

It's very hard for us to come together since we have no evidence.

At that point, I had a very good memorandum.

I had a class .

Well, on one question, I need to ask you pretty quickly a portion of this.

Bob, could I ask you to do one other thing?

Henry, if you go to Florida, do you want to go or not?

If you like, you can give us a date house, would you please?

Oh, yes, terribly nice.

Can I let you know this evening I was going to go or this afternoon?

You go tomorrow afternoon.

Oh, 12 I can't because I'm going to this...

Well, he's not going to come.

I know that he's not going to come delayed.

I did think it would be damn good for him to be there over there.

I think you're taking him over the water.

You know, you get completely away from everything for a while.

You get a total rest.

That's why you should call him to it.

He thinks it's, you know, he says you do take these long trips.

He thinks it's just good for people to have one break if you do not have to run to New York to do their list of men.

And that's why I want you to come.

Do you want to go to the hospital?

Maybe I should go to the star now that they've got it all set up.

I understand.

But if I can come later in the afternoon.

Sure, you can come at any time.

If you'd like, I'm down there at any time.

Get him a place.

And if he wants to come, could I suggest this?

Could you bring Haig with you or does he have to stay here?

No.

Then you see Haig.

Let's do the work.

We can go get around.

If you want to meet him, if you need somebody there to show me your line, it might be good for him to have a... Do what you want, by the way.

I think you could have Saturday, Sunday, and Monday where you're going to start moving away.

All right, gentlemen.

If you want to, I'm not asking.

No, no, you'll be very generous.

No, no, it will be very kind.

I don't think you should go.

And I think we ought to do, and I think this is good for you.

Because we've got some good panels here.

I only need to talk to you about one important thing.

I've got a small town scholar.

There's no change in the plot.

It's just the timing.

Right.

Now, if I can go in the afternoon, I don't think I could cancel this lunch.

I think that would be a good idea.

I don't mean bullying me, but if you want to come down, I think you might be happier.

What do you think?

Is it a big house or a big one?

A big house.

Okay.

See, the reason this message is not going is so I've got a reason to have this message.

You don't have to do a band to that.

When you're there, you don't have to do a band to that.

You can go out and count.

And those of us there, when the private health is feeling strong, we should go.

Yes.

I'll definitely, I'll go if that, I'll be glad to go.

In fact, I need a, I'd be good to have a break.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...

All right, do the, uh, I'm not sure.

Put Arthur Brown on the lead.

And then Don, so I have Henry.

I thought that the attacks had publicly already offered you the collateral to withdraw.

No, no.

What you are in a position to tell Mrs. Scandi, which is new to her, you can tell her that the supply line has dried up, that we have... Secondly, you can tell her that...

Yaya has agreed unilaterally.

Now, what the Pakistanis have publicly said is they will agree to a mutual withdrawal.

That is to say that if the Indians withdraw, they're willing to withdraw.

Now they have indicated to us they're prepared to withdraw even if the Indians do not withdraw.

She does not.

They choose mutual.

Exactly.

Thirdly,

I can tell her that they've agreed not to execute the man.

That she knows, but it doesn't do it telling her again.

And also Yaya has said that he would agree to meet with a thankless ex-leader.

So that's the end of the prophecy.

What's his name?

Munchi?

Yes.

Well, I wouldn't, at least he'd be willing to consider that.

Yeah, I'd consider that.

As it happens, could it be true, could it be said, we are not bound by humanity and by treason, but we are bound by moral commandment.

We have great ideas.

We have progress and peace.

And we have a great interest in the independence and in... No, but it is true.

We're not bound by treason.

That is right.

But isn't it?

But there is a...

We could even say there is a higher risk.

You know what I mean?

I'm trying to get the old bitch out of here.

No, you get the end.

I think that you said that the progress and the dependence of India has always been a major American objective.

Now, I've given you a paper, Mr. President, in which I listed the things we have done.

I got that.

In famine relief, international relief, present civilian governor, amnesty, really lack of withdrawal.

But on the other hand, Mr. President, I think you ought to, on the

Stern aside, you ought to point out to her that this arrangement with the Soviet Union has raised serious doubts here about India's non-aligned status.

Let her protest her.

And secondly, that a war with Pakistan simply would not be understood.

You want me to say that?

Oh, yeah.

Now that's in the State Department thing, too.

That old rocker's called your dad some three months ago.

Goddamn, I don't want two voices.

Yeah.

Well, I hope he won't be well.

He probably will.

Ah.

No, he'd be pretty firm on this.

Yeah.

She won't see him anyway until tomorrow afternoon.

Change the rest of the world, free world combined.

The rest of the world combined.

That's right.

God damn it, why don't they give us any credit for that?

I wouldn't be too defensive, Mr. President, because these bastards have played an absolutely brutal, ruthless game with us.

And the one point we might get across to her is to say to begin this process with the release of Mooji is just impossible.

That would be political suicide for Yaya.

Disagreeing with the Chinese.

Goddamn, they talk directly on it.

Oh, the Chinese are a joy to deal with compared to these people.

I was at a dinner last night at Joe Alcott's house and Scoop Jackson was there.

Yeah.

He is just livid about the other Democrats right now.

Is he?

Yeah.

He knows that well.

We're right.

He feels guilty now about what he said in September about Vietnam.

Oh, he says it's nihilism.

It's left-wing total irresponsibility.

Oh, he's violent against all of them.

He says Musk has got a brain in his head.

He's a small-town politician who did wills all his life for $10, and now he wants to be president of the United States.

He's really, on the foreign aid, he's completely on your side.

On foreign policy, he's completely on your side.

He spoke very warmly of you at the hearing of Stuart Alsop, and Stuart is totally on your side.

You would convince Joe that we're not disarming the country?

Oh, yes, Joe is all right now.

I saw him this morning.

Joe says you're the only hope for the country.

He says if you were not president, he'd emigrate.

He'd love to have heard me talk to foreign Americans with him.

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes you ought to give them a feel of that kind of talk.

Do you ever do that?

That is something, aren't you, saying, well, if you tell me I can do it, I'll do it.

You don't have to have the 30.

You can just say, how many of the presidents have come to Congress?

I can't tell you.

Or the wildest bastards.

Talks, talks, talks, talks.

See, I can't do this politely for the reason everybody said, well, I've been too tough.

I'm proud of you.

I'm a tough son of a bitch.

And also, you've got to get this across.

And regarding how I talked to Tito, Tito has never had a less consistent talk to all my kids.

And in substance, you've been very tough.

I understand.

It's so fantastic.

I wrote it in four or three.

You know, look what we've got to do.

They've agreed to an international review process.

They've agreed to the AMC.

They've agreed not to execute Moshe Moushi, I don't know what his name is.

They've agreed with the civilian government to revise the military government.

They've agreed, of course, we'll cut off arms.

I want to tell this to him and he's also agreed now privately for a unilateral withdrawal on his part in case he will give me any kind of an oral commitment which he has then a right of course to deny if she wants to if she feels that they... She said I could be extremely tough.

I would tell them that they've trusted me circumstantially.

And I'm going to tell her what is the option.

I said, the option is not yaya on somebody better.

The option is yaya on somebody worse.

The option is not this situation.

The option is the deal that you were suggesting, some sort of big talk or accommodation.

The option is an accommodation or a war, and a war is won.

The war is not a win.

The ending is a win, no question about it.

But then what do they do after they end this job?

Of course, they hope to smash West Pakistan, too.

All right, fine.

Then take it over.

Take it over.

Shall I tell you, shall I ask you, should we break off our efforts

So I asked her that.

She wants to break all the records of the magazine.

Yeah, I would.

Who knows?

Isn't it true?

The IHOP goes to large streams on the way to the command point.

Oh, yeah.

And she has, of course, unleashed a vicious press campaign against us.

Against us?

Yeah.

Well, she ought to have tolerated it.

No, the thing to do is to stress the need for giving up brains.

Now, I want you to be, I think, publicly you should be extremely nice.

And also, I'd be in general very warm to her, but at the key point, where you know how to do that to her, there's always a few risks.

Thank you.