Nixon & Haldeman on Melvin R. Laird and Vietnam War

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So I think anybody would have gotten to look at that timeline.

They've got a basis for it in the agribusiness.

I'm curious, what we were worried about was if we could get us another academician.

And they haven't taken on that.

Yes, sir.

Who's that?

It's John.

Bill Young.

No, I told him.

I think people think he's a little silly.

Fortunately, he's likable, so he gets away from the assassin kind of thing, where the assassin was sort of repulsive.

You know, people sort of like him.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

That was just unconscionable.

I refuse to talk about the residual force.

I refuse to indicate what the line is.

And then he goes on to say, well, that a week before, they had decided that this is the way it was going to be.

He said, for Christ's sake, try and get the credit or something.

What do you think we ought to do on this son of a bitch?

I don't know.

I mean, we frankly have a problem with both Red and Rogers.

Rogers isn't as bad, though, on this thing.

Is he?

Not on that kind of thing.

Rogers is, Rogers doesn't, you know, stop, get into it, because he's intimidating, he's sabotaging me like that.

All right.

I should be the one just to defend this government policy.

They ought to be out there doing it.

They go up and suck her on and try to prove it there further.

But, uh, what do you think?

Do you have any thoughts?

On Larry?

I don't think it would be good to have Henry brush him off.

I don't know.

I honestly don't think it's no good.

That's a ridiculous idea.

Unless, unless it's the only hope, the only...

The problem with an alternative is it's going to be harder to help them get somebody.

It's a whole big job, an important job.

Well, and it's the hardest job for a guy to come into because he has to sell everything.

They can't get away with that.

But that thing is, do you think he just ignored this?

I don't think he can.

What do you think?

I mean, really, if Laird will boil his way around, you know, say that he didn't do it, it was bound to leave, and somebody had to cover it with day drums, and they quoted it directly, or it probably came out of Saigon or something like that.

But it didn't.

It came out of Washington.

We know that.

He'll say that it came out of Saigon.

He'll say that it made it out of the States.

He didn't know anything about it.

But the point is, the direct quotes in there,

And they seem to be in a version of me where the dad or anything else obviously came from.

They've called her down too, Bob.

They don't mean this awful goddamn thing.

He doesn't know how to handle people.

And he doesn't realize it.

No, and it's hard to deal with.

Because he just walks out.

And he can't sit.

All he has to realize is that he doesn't know how to sit up.

He can't sit.

He's not very good at the same thing.

I heard, of course, you could beat people by the hands.

Block both of those things.

It's very, very hard.

I don't know whether that's the way to do it or not.

I couldn't mention.

Well, like, he's never going to outplay them in the future.

It's a blow to the negotiations and all that bullshit that's come up too often before.

It still leaves the doubt.

All it really does is what anybody can do anyway, which is gas, multiply them.

Thematically, it's right.

Whatever he does is to say that we're going to have doubt.

It indicates what we're talking about, the waivers, the enforcement.

The other thing is that it was unconscionable to say that a week before the announcement that they had decided on election.

That was like, that's what they pissed off.

and we gave him a cold treatment for a while.

He is just an unconscionable bastard.

I told him to die.

It's almost a reason to get rid of him now.

I mean, he is so bad.

He really is.

But you can't get rid of him right now.

I mean, we have two people, Bob, that ought to go.

Roger and Larry.

I think Roger should, too.

Don't you agree?

Yeah.

I don't know.

He might have said that he might have these good things, but kind of these good things aren't good enough.

They are.

I mean, these good things are only what you look for.

I mean, you look for good things, and there are some you can find.

That's right.

But they don't stand out.

It's not like you don't have to look for good things.

They hit you in the face.

And then Robert Scholes wants to be praying 18 times a day for some damn thing.

And he's going to do it as part of his job.

It's not him that they actually picked up, or eventually the same old man in the cabinet would fight.

And that's true.

Spaniel is a, it doesn't have it, basically.

I mean, there's nothing there.

Colby is a joke.

And Robbins, you know, although he's basically, you know, he's not kidding about it, he's going to be an advantage.

He's four.

Morton's four.

Richardson's four.

Oh, Richardson's

Uh, actually, uh, .

But, you know, we're gonna go down the line.

What the hell have we got with paper fighters?

Have you ever been to anybody on?

Ever?

You know, have you really, really been inclined to take anybody on?

You know, Ziggler does.

He does.

Perhaps he felt like a key, Mike.

So?

Not too much.

Not much, though.

There's a lot in this game.

He believes in being positive, not being, huh?

Very much so.

Yeah.

Overriding.

Oh, well.

I think I'll just try.

I just, that read, for some reason, I don't know, Hunter Sterling burned me up and punched me out.

There's a lot of, even in the magazine, even in the news magazines, I just read a summary.

All that indicated that this had been handled very skillfully.

And I was absolutely, they were very complimentary.

Of the style, too, you know.

I guess the style got this general praise.

It was on TV, too.

Unfortunately, this isn't going to get any further.

All you're getting is that Reed is in the New York Times, because it's true.

But after this, to have him go farting around now, it's just unbelievable, isn't it?

I can sit down and talk to him.

I don't think he ought to think that he's just done and gotten away with it.

I think someone ought to hit him.

I think you might have talked to them.

I didn't have anybody to go, but just say, look, you're in charge of the legal department.

You could just say that.

And that we had to do this.

And what the hell do you mean by this?

Why put that out?

Entertaining Ron's son for the 28th, which is good.

That's the week between Christmas and New Year's.

And Papa Deuce said for the, he had given us those four days, we're taking two of them, 12.

And so now they're going to Heath on the 20th, 21st.

So we're going to ping, ping, ping the week before Christmas.

All right.

Nixon & Haldeman on Melvin R. Laird and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 16, 1971

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