On November 17, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:45 am to 9:55 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 620-001 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
He says that we are going to the city.
That was what they told us.
He's not a person.
In other words, he's telling us that we're all out there.
We're not.
We're too many.
He's too brave.
He's too brave.
I'm waiting for the breakfast.
Okay.
Let me ask you something.
How much do you owe the business?
$100.
Yeah, Colson hit Alex very hard as he's hit others on now because he's trying to move very strongly into politicizing and rightfully politicizing the use of our goods.
He was very distressed because at a couple of dinners,
left out some people that would have been very valuable to us to have had there, and had some people that were harmful enough to stay out of their privacy, who they were versus someone else.
So he had pushed Alex very hard, well, we've got to take control of this list.
I mean, they had a working agreement that Colson and Rose would redeem the list, and Rose did it on the Tito dinner, and Rose did it on the next two, and that's where we got into a flat.
On the other side of it, that second paragraph, Alex had
from me back in September after, at your construction, I think.
Remember where you said at the Japanese dorm that there were too many cabin people coming, and let's ask the cabin guy if he will not just not come and let his sub-cabin people come.
So we started to talk about it, and then it was all related back, and then we never got a turnoff without a problem.
We did the roads, but not without a problem, I think.
He had talked to Chuck, and Chuck said he had talked with you about the concern of this thing.
Well, not necessarily with me, but he had talked with you about the...
So this is what Alex was playing off of.
He made a strategic error, which he recognizes.
He said he won't question anybody for it.
I just think it's just, I just can't emphasize too strongly how all the people over here, Rob, Alex, and Jacob, and all the rest of the people have got to be very careful about that.
You want to see what Alex said?
I wish I had all 70 of the other notes I've said here in the last couple of weeks.
I don't know.
I don't know.
They are trying.
The West Wing is terrible.
And the East Wing is an impossible gun.
No, we get that.
But the women are hard to handle.
They are hard to handle.
They're not impossible.
But there are going to be guns.
This is what I was going to say.
I was going to say, those that have been delivered to the bench.
These are the bad, bad.
That I had talked to her about it was absolutely wrong.
This white man looked at me and said, I had talked to her about it.
No, I was the kind.
And she didn't.
And I was the kind.
He was right on the first paragraph.
He was wrong on the second.
He was using the occasion to pick up both.
He made himself the best.
That's what I was going on.
And I don't want him to.
But to lose this and it falls from here.
But I don't know.
She's got that big of a deal with it.
She won't talk to anybody.
I think she's here now.
She's here now.
She's probably had it.
And she's making it to be here now.
She's going to get it.
She knows that you weren't going to make any crap of her.
I take the vacation.
He says, well, she's so busy now.
I said, Rose, I'll be busy later.
He's busier later because you've got to drive.
I've gone around this track a hundred times.
But Walter said he, Walter should do it and try to add what he has.
Now, basically, if she goes, she still takes it.
She won't take March.
That isn't good.
She ought to leave March here.
Right.
Because we do need somebody here who can do my stuff the way I want to do it.
Right.
Marcia will take a vacation.
Last night she had Marcia, but she wasn't on vacation.
She was kind of covering her face.
A vacation, you don't take somebody with you.
You just leave.
She's not going to do it.
You know what she'll do?
She'll come up and bully me.
About the time I'm not getting money for the state of the union.
She'll say, I'm just going to take it.
She'll take it then.
She always thinks, well, that's another little problem.
That's all right.
We've got to get out of there.
I guess it's just going to have to be Marge, but I'll get somebody else to rely on this stuff.
If you use Marge, in fact, I used Marge.
She's also got an L who can do a pretty good job.
She's good.
She's nice.
It's her time, and after all, she's bad at marketing.
But she's not as used to it, so she can't help.
But she's terribly reliable, so I don't want to tell you that.
Reliable, and also she's a... She works, you know, like a...
She doesn't have no time at all.
No time at all and no emotion.
She's marvelous about it.
She really is.
She's not like old enough.
I don't see her as old enough.
She's very feminine in her own way.
But she doesn't blow up.
Yeah, she doesn't.
She rides through all the crises.
She's been around the White House for so long and she's seen all this constant crisis that she's learned to live with.
I don't know if it grows as peace that we don't have a...
I understand in this case she was right.
Sure she was.
In other cases she's...
This is only...
But she was right in this case.
She was not right in raising the problem.
She should have gone in now and said, I don't understand what the hell this is about.
Because the president just told me the opposite and then we could have checked it out.
It's not the kind of thing that needs to...
Well, I didn't know that the captain of the people had already been covered.
I mean, we had to cut an air sub-cabinet on our ears the last few years, Bob.
He was going, and the reason we did this is we took the captain of the people off by the plane we started in September of, after the Jesse was there.
That's what I meant to say.
But you're therefore not going to remember.
Because she had already followed Powell on that one.
That's right.
She had followed those last two years.
And that was about the right thing.
And he had the wrong signal.
That part was my fault.
Because I thought I got the other signal to her.
She didn't go to that one.
She won't talk to Colson.
She doesn't know who these people are.
She's just dead wrong there.
She doesn't know who your old friends are.
But Rose is totally not a problem.
Who's an old friend?
Who was this with us before?
She won't go for the new people.
That's right.
Colson.
No, I like Colson.
I like Colson.
I think one of the best things Pat did was to take, you know, she's, she's in the bottom of this, but she will not allow blinds on windows.
And she's totally right.
Like this.
I think it's great.
Oh, that opens it up.
Remember, that is those fuzzy white curtains that have been on here for years.
Look at this, this view.
Secret Service had those out, and I think it's over there.
I pulled them all off.
Look at the difference.
Oh, it just changes this room.
Look at how it looks in the room now.
That's great.
You've got to give her credit.
And she does get this.
That's the White House.
She's got a better go-to over there.
Well, it looks like she was talking about their landscape in the fountain that there's a substitute building on the side.
She's the landscape in the fountain.
First, they never had the water at the later time before.
That's right.
Second...
They never, they never, they always had that ugly ground around them.
So she's got that done.
She's got the White House lit.
She's got the, those rooms all the way upstairs, and how it looks like on the, on the upstairs.
They look like a god in the dead.
And they're not really very, but it's a very personal thing.
So many of those have been done over now.
The back room will soon be completed.
The red room is just a magnificent room.
And I get the lack of reaction, you know, there's got to be,
There's nothing special to do.
There's no way you can make it really what you want, but she sure got it a lot better already.
You can't really...
I know they're really great enough.
You can't really...
It's really unbelievable what marked Jackie got up for what she did for the goddamn thing.
And so much of it was mediocre.
It was really mediocre.
It was an improvement.
It was a change, but it was mediocre.
Why don't you just look?
That would be it.
I'd gone through Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and I just couldn't help it.
None of their wives had any sense of Mrs. Eisenhower.
Couldn't get off her casket or anything.
So they did nothing at all.
Just kind of sat there.
Mrs. Roosevelt was never here.
That's what kind of wiped it the way it was.
I don't know any better.
Ms. Stockinghart knew better, but she just never thought it was her home.
You know, this was her attitude.
She just, she felt the balance there.
Now she couldn't stand a thing for the house.
When she, I don't think, because of the interest,
I don't know if she has any understanding of it.
I mean, she may have an image, but she has no real understanding of it.
And she's more of a bridge.
Yeah, I'm the Army White type of person.
You ever been in the White House, an Army White?
Yeah, that's one of my careers.
Never, because they don't, the first thing, you can't blame them for that.
They never stayed in the house at the time.
That's pretty true.
That's pretty true.
It's the White Emperor.
They just move and live on their own.
Just live with it and learn to, learn a lot here.
What is the situation?
We'll talk a little bit about that later.
Oh, I read the speech, and I, just so we get to one starting point, Cook got the wrong idea, probably.
I probably have a huge, huge opinion.
Oh, I haven't talked to him at all.
He got it from Colson.
Well, Colson had it the wrong idea.
The whole point is, if I did a speech, I mean, if I put anything out, I'm not going to put out what I'm going to say, you know, and that kind of stuff.
I've got it there.
I would never have gone to the press.
Never.
I might say some of it.
And I got disappointed in all I thought when I got there.
But what I want from him is a totally dull, totally dull, rude, and all kind of a speech like Hodgson, thinking about, we have done this for that.
And I don't have to do it.
You know, you have to think of it.
Because we've got to make a decision about what we're doing.
But since I ran over this man, I heard the news this morning.
I must say, it's a very, very close question.
All we're doing now, to the extent that a vote is worth anything, is that everybody now is in favor of your going.
Ehrlichman, I don't think so.
Ehrlichman's view is that he's conditionally in favor if it can be made unmistakable in what you say that you have not in the past sold out the labor, which is the case, but it has not been told.
In other words, you're rewriting history in the presence of labor.
I don't really feel like it.
If somebody accepts it, it's a very good idea.
I think it's a question of the girls before swine thing.
I don't...
I think there are other later inventions we can do to begin with.
That's the other thing to be prepared for.
I mean, I do the NFL, CIO, and we've got individualists.
But, I mean, the difficult, almost massive mistake, and I'm sure you just can't.
We don't have it.
George Brown.
George, meaning his, never faltered in his commitment to America.
The failure of this American worker is a long and difficult war.
He stood fast for a chance in Los Angeles.
He entered Jordanian and stand in the light knowing that he helped the brave.
He's been steadfast knowing that the brave are supposed to mention the light.
Ah, I didn't know.
Well, they have known, but it's not their fault.
It's exactly what it happened.
Any Democrat, most Republicans have been involved before that group.
It's what Eric would be afraid of, that I might be able to go down and slobber over the son of a bitch.
You don't do that.
But you see, that's the problem.
I think even if I go down and don't slobber, there's no way it's going to be interpreted right.
I don't think there's any way it's going to be interpreted right.
Putting it again, I would say everybody except Colson comes down
On the electronic side, on balance, it would be that he ought to go.
But nobody, I don't think, has any burning passion for thinking he ought to go, except Chuck, who very strongly does.
Apparently, some of the people on Earth did quite a little checking on him, talking to Austin and Usry and some people around.
In addition, the more he talked, the more he came up in favor of your going, rather than opposed to it.
the more you come out on the basis that you have a chance to make the point that we haven't sold out for labor.
I mean, your record is damn good on the position we've taken, the good things we've done for labor, and that you can do in the tax-type speech.
And then if you went to your challenge, you ought to stand sacrifice now based on that here.
The way that they stood with you, I can't believe it.
He says if you would give that speech, though, if you would talk the way you talked yesterday, that cigarette you would take, he'd be in favor of all of you.
He is working on it.
I've got Alex working with him.
I've got my fraudster recruiting base beyond me.
I have the weight is against whether I should, whether there's been more valuable use of time than staying here and talking to Connelly about a few things.
What are they saying?
It's going to take me three days, two days out of my time.
I mean, the day of preparation, the day there, do the goddamn thing.
Is it worth it?
That's the whole point.
I'm not sure it is.
And do it.
It's worth it for an important occasion.
Is it worth it on the day of our march?
Yeah, Friday is.
Or Thursday.
Thursday would be the best day.
I can't go on Thursday because I have a great day and I have to.
What in the heck would they suggest I repair the middle of Thursday?
The rest of the day?
Yeah.
It's a long way down, I guess.
Thursday would be the best day.
Friday would be the next best.
And beyond that, you shouldn't come.
What's going to happen on that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
You noticed it was postponed the other day?
Yeah.
I have a vote yes or no.
Can you give me what they have scheduled, what your man has catered over here on this past schedule?
Parker, Dave Parker, Parker, some of the events, it's very important to get those events passed that you can get around here, you know, learning those one week or so.
I'm not sure how much he is doing, because he's, you know, whose schedule is that?
That's the point.
It's the picture of the events that are supporting now, putting over those things like they've done for Julie.
We've been doing, Julie told Dave that Pat was going to talk with him.
And, you know, that's the way they wanted to work into it.
She has not.
He's ready.
I don't think he's doing anything, if you ask me.
get some of the medics and see if they can talk to her, rather than talk to her in a creepy way.
And that'll work out.
I talked to Colston, he's emotional about it because of his time at work with these fellows, but he doesn't really give a damn, he prays a lot.
His judgment is not good on this sort of thing.
We might still be looking at Schultz and the rest.
What do they see in this?
An opportunity to talk to later.
No, not really.
An opportunity to do, in a sense, the unexpected.
Make a strong move.
To do.
Just going is going to be a surprise.
Going and
not sucking around in a way that would be expected or that the others would do, will also be.
And you're playing to a group of, you're paying attention to, recognizing that statement that, you know, it's important.
That it's important.
It's not, not the legal leaders, it's the legal leaders.
and you've got a lot of people in there that want to support at least some of what we're doing.
They're rallying on teamsters and clerks.
They're not their construction types.
Teamsters don't go on teamsters.
They're not there.
The clerks are and the construction people are.
Oh, construction people are apparently.
That's what they're playing with.
And he goes to knock fire against me on his own ground.
In the fact that you're getting a good reception, if you have one, say thank you, Will.
Recognizable risk is what we call the risk of the moment.
That's the point.
The main question is strong, but really it's interesting.
The reading is a chance to rewrite the history.
He's concerned that there is a feeling about that we have
on the Phase 2 that we gave them the letter?
Well, not just on Phase 2.
We haven't been in more minutes than that apparently.
I don't know anything else.
I think he's over here.
I think he's over here and as a result I haven't heard on Phase 2 probably.
But I haven't heard any other single thing that we've done anything for later.
Not one single thing.
Well, we haven't moved hard on the strikes.
I mean, that's a lion.
We let the dogs try to go on too long.
And we let them get a good seal settlement.
That's great.
We've got an arm.
We've got an arm.
I don't know.
It's due to a Friday now.
I just wish that I'd like to know the option.
Do you have a disadvantage in Friday?
It's not that they will hoard in sockets a few times.
Disadvantage in Friday is that you don't, you aren't the first one to bat.
There conceivably could be other public figures, and maybe he's going to go tomorrow, which I don't believe.
And there may be other, you know, some of the Democratic Senators, Cougars down there.
And Scoop Jackson is going on Friday, as well as going to Tallahassee, as well as presumably announcing his candidacy.
If he doesn't do it at all, I wouldn't go so late as to lose the TV coverage of it.
This will have to be totally redrafted in terms of a boilerplate kind of a speech, you know.
And, uh, the, uh, I don't understand when I say, you know, I'll keep
In other words, it's not compared to the kind of speech that they would expect to be delivered.
So maybe don't bother them about it.
They'll never be able to get it done.
I think they can't because they don't know what they've done.
See, that's the result of Colson steering Cook for what he wants.
I don't want, for example, I don't want him to throw anything.
It can't be a work car, I don't want that.
Well, I don't want to put it in the building.
Don't want to take all the tools and stuff out.
Tulsa.
In the midst of them, my wife told me to.
See, I'm not going to go down and read that kind of stuff to her.
So that's about 50 word comes out.
About 1,000, 1,500 words max.
I don't want to, you see, it's close to my line.
For them, it's a totally, totally, uh, this is the type of stuff they usually write for me.
That's what I mean.
This sort of thing on a totally blind business about this administration is done for labor, you know what I mean?
And a little on phase two.
See what I mean?
A little crap on phase two.
and so forth.
Leave out the dignity of work, leave out labor support and the un-interventional affairs and so forth and so on.
You see my point?
It's easy to get something done on that.
I haven't worked on that in any event.
Be working on it.
In case I decide about 3 or 4 o'clock, I may go out.
I may decide not to because I have too much to do today.
Okay.
I'll certainly also have to be signed today.
I'm so happy about that.
Peterson, one of my great citizens, he's my boy, Peterson.
He's been around for a long time.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
He's a great man.
No.
He's got to be strong in this one now.
He's carried it away with all that's in there.
He's got to be loyal.
He's got to speed up and so forth.
Right?
He talks.
Do you know that?
Keep talking the right way.
Keep talking the right way.
And we're having a hell of a time right here.
He's sensitive now about his control of the helicopter.
He comes back and he's offered this thing to Gnostic, who's the manager, and I said, John, he couldn't be the solicitor.
What, for a manager?
Because Gnostic can't run anything.
He can't even run a second jury.
I said, John, I guess John is just using Gnostic as a raiding point.
I said, no, no, no, no, John is totally against Gnostic.
He wants to go as far as possible.
It's impossible to enforce God that way.
We should get in.
Plus, he's dead, but he will hear what he does.
He does a valuable job on the publication side.
He would be dead on the publication side, but not bigger.
He's not bigger.
We know he's not a manager.
He's a loner.
You know, we know something was here.
He's basically a loner.
That's right.
It's like putting a new candidate in charge.
He would be a better disaster in charge of anything.
Yeah.
And that's quite similar.
It's exactly the same thought.
Quite similar.
Reagan knows that better than anybody.
He has a problem with him.
He was his press secretary.
Apparently Reagan is on hold.
He's way down in the public.
Is that what it is?
Yeah, that's being publicized and everybody's leaping up with glee.
And you've got, it's funny, the inevitable, the inevitable stuff, the economy and the tax business, you know, everything that happens to your governor.
But just the fact that he ever gets unpopular, I think that's a good part of it.
He's had to do some unpopular things.
Also, there's been, see, his big issue, the big thing that kept him up,
He was his enemy, which he's now sort of lost.
He doesn't have the rights on the campuses to get people cranked up about him.
So he doesn't be dragging the fight, so nobody needs the night anymore.
And that's a part of it.
The other, the kicker, I think, that kind of knocked him off his pedestal was his naming contacts.
But when they discovered he had a big income tax.
And that, I think that was just perfectly legal.
But he wasn't.
He didn't look right at the shining back thing.
He was not confident.
He should have published his damn income tax and said, well, I didn't do it.
Then he handled it wrong when I did.
He has a very good advice.
Fortunately, it was a state income tax crisis.
He'd be up here bleeding, blaming us, you know, complaining all over it.
We're the federal.
It wasn't the federal state.
Thank God.
Because, you know, he's such a great baby.
We would have had all sorts of problems.
He would have said it was a flop to get him in the presidency, you know.
I'm surprised it wasn't.
You know, his name is made right in particular.
One, he lost his essence there, but it was a positive thing.
But more than that...
He's played this, I'm above politics line, I'm a knight in shining armor.
All of a sudden, the knight in his clave, he has to be, but the big thing is he's never had a positive night.
And that's no loss.
You see, that's the danger.
It seems to me that's the danger of a totally negative approach, which Reagan's was.
Reagan was against us.
Okay, so you're going to have in regard to this thing, tell them I don't have to put, even though Hodges used to tell them, a laundry list, didn't I?
That is, that I call to the attention of the leaders of organized laborers these things that have been accomplished over the past three years.
They didn't have to put in a laundry list.
If I do it, I'm going to use that term.
And, uh, that the, uh,
We've got all of those stuff put in the laundry list about what we've accomplished and asked for the support of labor in phase two, but in a low-key, not demagogic way, no purple or everything.
Well, I guess that's what we're running into with him then.
I mean, we've got one hell of a problem with all the three states with governors.
Indiana, we'll survive that one.
but ultimately it was a real disaster.
John was telling me that they had outvoted, I mean, deterred whatever it is, Christian people, and that neither of those shows that, uh, as you can imagine, sometimes, and, uh, we lead all, all, over all three, but that, uh, oh, there was 25 point percentage points we had in science.
25 percentage points in science.
But Jesus Christ, He is not going to cover that.
You know, you can't, you can't turn it that far back, can you?
Not as an incumbent, not far behind.
Unless you get, a challenger could move on, but he can't.
You see, a man who is known, who is 25% behind, cannot turn it around.
A challenger can be 25% around.
He's going to look the other way and turn it around.
No way.
No way.
No way.
And I think there, if that's accurate, it would be tough to, in his case, just rush him.
It's not being an attractive call.
On those other two, Cole's short of running away behind where he ran last time.
He made a suburb in his strong areas now.
Still running ahead, but much weaker than he was before.
And if he can't carry those...
I know he's going to be in there, I know he's going to be in there.
Percy will help.
Hopefully he'll hurt.
All you can do is hope that Donald's out and that you carry it out here, huh?
I don't know if he got that well, sir.
Unfortunately, he's not up.
He's going to be in there all night.
Maybe we wouldn't see him.
Oh, he won't be a drag in my opinion.
I don't think Reagan will hurt you in California.
The thing that Bob keeps getting upset about is that Mitchell is relying on Reagan to help him.
I don't think Reagan will help in California.
Oh, Christ, Reagan can't help.
Reagan has no support that I don't have.
I mean, there are a few downstairs.
Yes, a few.
But Reagan can't transfer the nuts either.
The only way down, right?
Well, he can't transfer them to you.
I mean, if you're on the types that are going to dump Nixon, Reagan can't get down forever and ever because they're dumping you on other self-accounted communist grounds.
No, I think you're right.
The only value, and it's enormous and great, is not letting it rise up as a rallying point in silence.
Bob, totally.
Miss Heather, that's absolutely vital.
Because that's the point of Bob Messes.
In Reagan, he loves it.
He says, what do we make?
We can't pay this.
We can't do this for Reagan.
For Kelly, I think he's right.
I think Mitchell, Mitchell is seeing that very clearly.
It's like the way we play the conservatives in New York.
What the, well, I don't know.
That's one person there in the country.
It's big.
But in Reagan, well, the conservatives will help you.
Yes.
In Reagan's case, it could be more right.
He is the really viable man, big man, that did not swallow it.
And then the there you go world.
He's the only saleable, only, only viable rallying point that God, if he, if he lets himself be put up on a pedestal, he would bring about, he would gather around enough people that would have heard of him.
Surely a comment call would be...
before an officer sees him there.
No, only, I was going to tell you, this is very hard on him.
Yeah, I know it's hard on him.
That's the way he's playing.
All right.
All right.
I'm very excited about that.
If you go down there, do you want him to come down this weekend and see you?
I guess he leaves for some of it.
Saturday.
It's good work for me.
I'll find out so that I know what his problem is.
Maybe we're in peace.
Other than that, Rosemount, let me suggest something.
I love that you're a better guy.
because of the very personal problems of all of her.
Damn.
She said, you can still do it, Mom, but I don't think that Alex can do it now because of how she is.
You haven't gotten her in a position where she's so totally, I think she's so totally controlled.
But you know, it's just a passing problem, and we haven't got much more to do.
Last time I told you, Alex was all disturbed about it.
So don't worry about it.
We're talking about one dinner plus the front dinner, which would be that that's a different case anyway, because it's a basically localized operation.
But after that, we really don't have any.
Now you'll get through the whole question of Christmas evening at the White House and any other evenings at the White House, but those are a different kind of problem anyway, and the Christmas thing can go basically personal, but it's basically a roses bunch anyhow.
The rebel, of course, they've gone and they need a line to take charge, so they've got
so that the NSC people would not make up for a schedule that they presently are doing, as I told you last night.
Not because they're trying to apprehend it, because nobody else is.
And Henry probably thinks that's what his job is, so he's got to mark the right line.
Closing to make both homes together, he can call me and mark the right, and sit down with him, and work out the schedule, and talk to her about it, and so forth.
I told her yesterday that Brennan was going to be the only one around.
Is that all right with Brennan?
Yeah, it is.
We had to knock the moss back, or so the thing was.
Yeah.
We had to.
She doesn't respond to that.
Well, I'm sure, because he's not...
at the same social level.
That's the problem with the Mossbatter.
If you've got to treat him as a Mossbatter, you've got to treat him as a sap man.
Yeah, the Mossbatter.
That's right.
You've got to treat him as an equal.
He's got to be with you.
You can call him Bill and say, really, do this or that.
You can't say that to the Mossbatter.
That's one reason to be useful in any of our trips abroad.
You know what I mean?
I mean, he really is good because he's just there to help you find your things.
You're right.
What's the difference, son?
He's the kind of guy you need if you're doing a superficial trip, a goodwill trip, something just for show.
He's exactly what you don't need if you're doing the work.
To set the appearance forward, in fact, he's the one in the work.
to work, to function instead of you receiving people and running around the country and having parties and keeping things going in Washington and all that sort of stuff.
How do you guys do that?
I'd like to get into the camp, David, and going over to the firehouse and, you know, all of that.
Just being nice to those people so that you don't have to spend all the time with them.
I've heard everything you guys have been through.
Kachor has seized power in Thailand and the Revolutionary Party has declared martial law.
Who will be the Marshal Tana against his power?
I don't know why they did that.
To solidify his human position in the government.
That's a military coup.
They don't know exactly what to do with, I guess, and have to be moved in some way.
So if you have that, I want to give you a call.
So I put the mention of the problems on his hands.
He said he had a problem when he first came back.
He admitted it first.
He said, sir, you've got to get laid in.
I assumed that he meant one of the things was that I would not be able to find a reason to get laid in.
I'll go down the whole list because we've got stances, questions, and then I'll go on the stand and I'll go on our budget committee where I have finance.
I'm going to have finance and I said, look, when I said, John, you're not going to have, don't let stands have this ending coup politics you heard today.
You can't have it on the budget committee.
You just can't do it.
John said, don't worry about it.
I want it in the campaign.
John, John's smart.
John can handle it.
Bill?
He would give me a cure and something.
That's what I thought.
He remembered more.
He did different things to bring in his memorandum.
Oh, God.
I saw him in 1922 in California because I had to go down there every day and work through that with him.
He had those ideas.
I remember he'd come into you in his newspaper.
I'd say he worked them himself.
ideas of how the campaign, how the stuff ought to be done, a system going over the view.
Sort of like Henry Salvatore does a great bailout at Homestead, but asking for a contact way.
But Maury was deemed good in 68.
Maury would not raise the money on a state-oriented campaign, and Maury also would be very good now.
See, with Peterson, I really want you and Irving to take a hold of him and point him out.
Oh, it's funny, no trips abroad.
He sure does understand there ain't gonna be no trips abroad for him.
See, but I want the whole cabin to have that.
And here's what I can say to you.
We will take trips to the United States, correct?
Since he'll want to take a world trip, sure as hell, you know.
We haven't had him on one yet.
Well, what we ought to do is tell him that you want to work the U.S. and then, at 73, you want to produce a lot of ground water.
Start to start.
It's not that they can't work it, but ground water people are.
I think that's what we do, is just hand a lot of care to everybody for 73.
We don't worry about it.
We'll also give you a couple, like both of you.
We'll give you a couple of inches if you have a cousin who wants you to spend a lot of money.
See, Bob, I didn't raise you that can a whole bunch.
I mean, the only one I think really that is worth saving is probably, probably worth saving is Peterson.
Okay.
Would you agree?
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a chance this is strong enough.
Peterson, we'll see.
He made it all to men.
He's got to get himself organized, buttoned down.
His wife's got to behave.
There's a whole hell of a lot of problems that he's got.
And if it doesn't work out, I feel that Robert's entire disaster is coming down.
I wish we could do it now.
You know, your theory was a very good one.
I think most of them are prepared for that.
I think they're looking at it that way.
And I think travel hope isn't.
I'm not so sure.
But anyway, whatever works.
That's it.
All we should raise is we need to build them all up and give a thank to every one of them.
They're stuck with us.
We're stuck with them now.
We've got to thank them for everything we can.
We've got to motivate the hell out of everybody.
Every leader, everybody.
Absolutely.
And then on November 8th, I think, you know, we just get word to them that you'd like a letter from all of them.
Thank you.
Immediately.
And then we just go all the time on a super recruiting campaign.
program to get the best men in the world into the job and dangle a hell of a lot of them on the basis that we're, you know, the second term's going to be a den of torpedoes.
And also banging a hell of a lot of them on the
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
to start that deal that the cabinet meetings are having with the vice president.
And the president sees you not as a part of his planning committee, but as a department head that he is looking to to run that department.
And run it without bothering to put it that way as long as possible.
Yes.
And that will appeal to a lot of people.
To the kind of guy you want, that's appealing to.
What you say is, I want you to run the department.
We'll tell you what the policy is.
We won't get into your execution.
You carry it out.
She said, well, you've got to answer to carry it out according to policy.
This is what's to be gotten done.
You're a doer.
You've got to figure out how to get it done.
And you're going to get out of a subtle line.
You're going to look at it.
You're a political appointment.
Because there you're going to be going for, not for re-election, but for accomplishment and impact.
A lot of luck, because then we can quit running slug hats of all the people that we shouldn't have to be wasting time with.
We run the same thing, too, which we don't have much of a problem with respect to.
We've gotten this out of the staff and the harvestry.
But I run the same thing with the assistant secretaries and staff members.
And we shake up the whole staff, too.
And that's the other kind of thing.
I would shake the hell out of the congressional leadership, too.
I'm part of it, and we'll have it done when we need it.
Otherwise, it gets too often.
You know what?
They'll do better.
They'll do better.
And even all the big leaders, they all say the same thing.
We talked about Gregor yesterday with Mitchell, and I had to call him and inform him about the common amendment.
And you know, Henry was standing there, and he was saying, you know, he's doing a kind of, he's got a bench set up, and he's doing a hell of a job.
I said, he fights.
He has ideas, but he fights like the victims.
He doesn't bother me.
And Andrew said, yes.
He says, I have to say, he's doing better than Harlow.
Better than that.
And Bob, he's about 50 degrees better than Harlow.
Of course, we've got to realize Harlow, much as we love him, was a problem.
Well, Bryce had a different kind of approach.
He had a title in here this long.
But Bryce did everything in its own terms.
And his battle had to be won.
He never looked at the war.
He only looked at the battles.
And you look at each battle on the basis that you've got to win it and you've got to expend everything you've got that's necessary to win it.
And that meant get the president into it every time.
And keep everybody happy under no circumstances.
Price is a sweetness in life guy.
Under no circumstances must you ever call everybody.
Be sure you get everybody in.
Be sure you make every telephone call.
He wouldn't hesitate, for example, to call Jerry Forbes, for example, and I should call Margaret Heckler about that silly bill that's down there.
If I'm going to call Margaret Heckler about that bill, an earlier one, maybe I should call her, or maybe they would get Conley to call her or something.
But if I had Margaret Heckler, and now she'll know more about it than I do, that's the kind of thing that Bryce has me doing all the time.
And McGregor is just, I think McGregor is just absolutely great.
And I think Simmons is too.
The two of them are a hell of a team.
Well, they know what's going on, which Bryce didn't always know either.
Bryce got caught by surprise.
McGregor will be a good cabin officer.
He's got the capability of being one if he wants to be.
He's probably smart enough to know what this is.
It's more interesting here.
But nevertheless, I'm not so sure.
He's sort of, I don't know, he might be a big man.
He just may want to go down to Tampa.
But he'd be an awfully good man if any he does.
That fellow's got class.
He's got class and stature.
So did George Bush be.
Oh, yes, George Bush is a natural candidate.
You can see a few of them coming up right now.
But they're, you know the main thing?
No ring-a-dons.
No ring-a-dons.
I promise all I want them every day, I'm sure you know that.
This whole crap is going through the governor's lap, we did.
Look at the ones we've got the most trouble with.
Hickle, Raleigh, and Goldfield.
Huh?
He doesn't want to be a ambassador under John.
I asked John.
I don't know if that's true or not, but he would be, and totalism, he'd be disastrous as a cabinet officer.
He has to run something.
And also, if you want to be in Carleton, Reagan is the number one, you know, his only political career has been as a governor and chief executive.
He couldn't swallow the other men.
He's got to be the star of mine.
That's why he's been a real problem to Nelson.
He'd be a very great problem to the cabinet.
You know, if you're gonna put him in, it seems to me he'd be infinitely better at defense than at safe, for just that reason, because defense you can let him.
He wants money, right?
Well, he'd find people to run it.
He'd be good at safe because he'd clean it out, which is the other, the argument for that, but you'd have a problem.
He might want to be informed, Paul.
He might, he might not.
No, he'd want to run the form halls.
And if he got it, it's impossible.
When you come down to it, Bob, if he really got it, those two, Laird and Rogers, two impossible people.
It's going to be tough to handle Laird.
What worries me is that the worst of what's bad about them is going to come out in his next year.
He's got his finger in Roger's very special blood cell.
Maybe that he's reflecting Henry when he wasn't there at the time.
He must have Roger's problem.
Totally wrong.
And he says he is.
And he's feeling that.
One of the worst he has ever seen.
It's worse than Henry.
He says, oh God, yes.
It is because there isn't it.
Henry's got the ego, but he's got all the other stuff too.
You do have an ego problem with Henry.
He's hard to cut out.
Henry's rising out of a different kind.
His is a personal insecurity, but a great confidence.
Roger's is a lack of confidence.
And so his insecurity has got more reason.
And Henry's is personal, not intellectual or professional.
You think Roberts is a little insecure about his own accomplishments?
Sure.
I don't think he thinks so.
I don't think he thinks I do things.
He knows everything.
He's smarter than anybody else.
But I think he thinks that, on the surface, that I think there's an insecurity.
Plus, there's an obsession with Rodgers.
Henry's ego, I think, is looking for the record.
We've talked about that before.
Henry wants to be sure he's on top in the history book.
Rodgers wants to be sure he's on top tomorrow morning's headline.
And Henry doesn't like the headlines either.
I don't know.
I'm just curious.
I don't know.
I just can't believe it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Did he interact with us yet?
He didn't.
He wouldn't.
I wouldn't think so.
I don't think he...
I think it was just right on.
He said, I don't know.
I think he's going to hit the surface of the engine.
I don't know about that.
He said Roger was calling everybody.
He called that engine.
He called that engine.
Well, see, part of the problem there was that Rodgers wasn't in the first part of the meeting.
Rodgers missed the setup for him.
So he only got Scalise, and without getting your praise of Boish and Richardson for attacking him, you're only... See, you and Laylee Gunn were beautiful, because you would have said they had a double cap.
Yeah.
I'm trying, because they were so good.
I'm good.
Scallions flying off of it.
That's what Rogers saw in one of the Scallion issues.
You know why Rogers had bothered to interview him?
Because it's true.
You know, he's got to know it's true, for Christ's sakes.
He's got to, and then he gets to decide, you know, it would be horrible if I made his house.
But, the guy in our captain was a fellow captain.
A Nazi captain.
Well, I agree he was.
Except for Dulles.
Except for Dulles.
There was not a strong man in the cabinet.
And Bill knows he ain't no Dulles.
Bill knows it.
He wasn't.
Bill knows it as Attorney General.
These riders did not make the mark.
John Mitchell's making it as Attorney General.
He knows it.
He's here to meet you.
He was part of the Eisenhower cabinet.
Bill would only open his eyes and see why.
If Bill didn't, because he just played up the big man, huh?
And then if he did, well, and if he played your game, instead of trying to cut his independent slot, he could be, you know, he could be a part of, he could be a part, you could, from a public viewpoint, you could build a transport of you and Henry and Bill putting this great, we've tried, revolution and foreign policy together.
I know.
He couldn't have every opportunity.
And that meant he couldn't become good at his degree.
And Henry's coming back in.
He doesn't play that way at all.
He still was always trying to pick on some little Carter.
He led the president to this.
Or was he not Henry that did this?
While the state had sent him on that, he won't stand up to him over there, which is the other part of this.
I'm trying to watch it backwards.
I don't know, I'm not interested in the quality of the knowledge
a little bland, I have to think how kids go after their first draft, come to do that, take out, I don't know how to send a first draft, take out any elements about the dignity of work, any praise of me, Mr. Kahn, all praise of me, that means as a person that is going overboard, they're all over, I'll see Mr. Kahn, and it's simply reiterating, just to go down the line, Mr. Kahn,
As I come before this, I want to show what we have accomplished for labor.
Labor is important.
And we now need your help.
I ask for your help on Phase 2 and what Phase 2 is trying to do.
That's what they need to do.
Thank you.
If you also attempt to see, I need to know, in terms of economy schedule, if he's going to go off, I will have to stay here.
Or, I mean, I'm sitting there right now.
And, uh, oh, can we, can we decide to get out of the game?
I guess we have to.
Can we, uh, no?
Thanks, good.
Why don't we have to do that?
Can we decide?
I think, I think that we'll close the game.
Okay, but I think we, I don't want to announce it until Monday.
Secret meeting, sorry.
Uh, so that we don't get called.
They don't know what I'm talking about.
Who goes?
As I told you, I'm going to do 11th and Secret Service, two Secret Service.
I have no staff people.
I don't have any staff people.
11th and Secret Service, a guy who carried a pen, or whatever the hell that is.
Or if you have to have one, have one.
One, no, but not two, right?
And then the other thing is I would have, do nothing to the press.
Instead, we can't get anything to the press.
And in terms of who goes down there,
I just don't want to get too much into the drill of Bellman, of course.
Bellman and Dollar I think are the ones that should go.
and just check very discreetly to see whether Belcher and these other people are going to be there to see if they want to go down again, as far as who sits with me, as far as who sits with me, if you make a decision, you don't.
Albert and the governor, and Belcher, and Hattie Andrews, and frankly, he doesn't rank with us.
I thought it was to wait until Tuesday to announce it rather than Monday and just line up very much.
Do it on the basis.
You see, if you do it, you're on the same track.
My concern about announcing is that with all the things that are going on, they say, Christy's going to go to the football game.
The thing to do is to do it right at the last minute.
And it's not that you're going to the football game.
It's that you're going to stop at the football game.
I don't want to do the...
to do the dedication for the Eisenhower Hospital over the Thanksgiving weekend.
It's a weekend, everybody's closed down.
So I'm also going to go to the dedicated hospital.
I don't know if you can participate in my dedication to the hospital.
And I have announced that I have to keep pushing them off until Tuesday afternoon.
I want to make sure.
So we might have to change our minds.
Yeah.
Would you say we don't know what your plans are for that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they can be here, right?
Right.
Be sure that Connie knows in the West Wing that we do not know if she's Thomas next week.
We think we're going to go to .
Our plans are not yet made, except that we are kind of excited for the fact that we will be in California standing.
Thanksgiving Day, we don't know until we see what happens in Congress.
Always have a secret to build her in on things like that.
We can all handle the questions for the race, right?
Okay.
What?
30 minutes.
Okay.
We're getting California.
What?
30.
Fine.
5.30.
That's good.
Our pitch is going up.
No, sir.
It's doing some.
No, sir.
They're all going to go to their own parents, and they've got to sit up and watch here at Christmas.
And so it's all about death.
It's all about death.
I will not go to California, of course, at Christmas.
I will do whatever I can to move here.
Christmas in the White House in Florida afterwards, that's fine.
I have to be there for a promise.
And I think I will just stay in Florida then, and be able to grab that.
Pat will be on her trip, too.
You're going to have to come back up to see her off at that point she made, I think.
Oh, of course I'd like to do that.
Which is in the beginning of that New Year's weekend.
Then the question is whether you can go back to Florida or out to California or just stay here to work.
Work that week, really, on State of the Union.
Get that thought about.
We're not picking up any time off in there are we?
Well that's the time to take the time off as well Pat.
That week Pat's gone.
That's what I'm saying.
And use the week before as a Christmas week and work out of the state of the union.
Try to get it done and do brown in the state of the union that Christmas week period.
I am inclined to do that.
Stay here right after Christmas.
And not go anyplace.
Get the work done and take the week off after she's gone.
This is the idea that I had to use for my own part.
Pretty good.