Conversation 623-002

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It'll be in tomorrow, won't it?

Yeah, we can do it tomorrow.

I thought you said Wednesday.

All right.

Well, let's shift it.

Let's watch the ship.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's try it out.

If you want to do it the Wednesday, you'd better.

It's supposed to be.

Yeah, that's the point.

I would go out there and catch it.

Well, can we even have a reason why they're there?

What's the discretion?

I don't know.

But they are in the park.

Yes, Steve.

And how will they go out there?

I don't know.

One thing we just saw.

You were down in that piece.

Just what he is.

And then we can get a reading from him and just say that, for God's sake, don't tell him.

Say, don't tell him.

Because we don't know.

It probably won't work.

But we were just, we don't think we're here.

I mean, we were smiling at him.

But again, we should have invited him to come out and say hello to the team.

But the situation is one in which it seems to be so hard with anybody.

How about if you could kind of get a copy of the letter going out on the floor?

Can we, uh, one minute, keep up with you?

This breakfast is fine.

Can you get the, uh, the sign of the law for the White House if you've got questions on another issue?

I think the chances are very, very slim that we can win.

On the other hand,

I think we could do better than get a dissent, put the pressure on those people, select them out, and before it goes, okay, it's this.

Now, what they want here, you know, is for business people who might benefit their business constituents from the car dealers, the car dealers, the investment tax credit people, just raise what we have on this.

that this would jeopardize the idea that, yeah, I will be known.

Because we want to.

We do want Mansfield, and also we haven't called him to the session, because Mansfield wouldn't hold him to the session.

Because he's a pretty loose guy, so I'm going to say that he recommended that we don't.

But this game has got to be played as hard as it possibly can.

Last week when we were trying to crank up organizations, that was the big problem.

They said, well,

We're not really too worried about it, because we know damn well you're not.

But you say the president's using it for the argument.

You say the president's not.

Let it get out.

God damn it to them.

You've got to keep them out of it.

If you say that, that won't work.

It's got to go the other way.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's going to kill the bill.

You don't understand.

They are not going to get the House to leave.

It's the House over here.

I don't want to have to leave the House.

You've got to let them know that, well, this camera doesn't hear Bill at all.

Well, the House will pass it again.

Don't be so sure.

Listen, you can scare the hell out of these people.

The President likes it, for example, in the Chamber of Commerce, which could really help us in particular.

So it's a little help.

You guys are going to be through this just because of that camera.

You can go down.

You sit down with them and say, all right, I've got some sad news for you.

Bill's not listening.

Sir, you're scared.

The President's looked at it.

He just can't take it.

They can't put this out, but that's it.

Yeah, that's right.

But I want just to goddamn get somebody else.

What the hell does the goddamn honors department have to do?

Can't they do this?

Where in the hell are they?

It's fine.

Get them to work.

What about Brownlee's department and Boeke's department and others?

Where in the hell are those people?

Every time they have a vote here, they have huge congressional relations people, and we can't do it all out of the White House.

That's my concern.

The problem here is this one.

The real problem, and this one maybe came up, is that this is a treasury we'll manage this time through Congress, and you've got a company gone.

Where?

Because we're on the east coast.

Leaving tomorrow.

Leaving here today.

To go to town.

Well, I've got a company today.

Now the other thing is this.

Is it possible at all to get some kind of effective stuff out against it so that from a PR standpoint we veto it?

Isn't all that bad?

I think you could get a hell of a lot of the drumbeat here if they really...

Somebody's got to get at it and get at it.

What does that silly burly do?

Get him to work on it.

People like that.

We could, we must have some orders.

It's the collapse of the constitutional system and all that sort of stuff.

We've got to get down right now and go up there and keep going.

All of the boys in here, just like Richardson's in on the class line, and Bussing, and this, and that, and that, and this bullshit.

On this, then, when it's done, they'll squeal, and the Republicans, and the rest, and the final analysis, people forget.

They're like, we should be guilty, and you're both.

It's insane.

I think that all this excitement about it, why are all the boys so jittery around?

I'm sure I'd like to have a little

support.

But if we don't get it, let's just face it anyway.

Yeah, let's do it.

Is that the best way to do it?

Yeah, the best way is to have the house selected.

That's the first best way is to have the house selected.

I think the second best way is to have the house selected.

But I'd have serious doubts that you're going to get anything in the way of us.

I don't know.

There's been a fair amount of overdose for real.

One of those rare supporting people.

You had a beautiful

Very well written.

A curious combination of people have posed this, and I think they now see the serious possibility of it becoming a good war.

We might be able to... Well, I wanted to give you that, because I told the reader that I'd mentioned it earlier, and he's not able to answer it.

Why not?

So I said, all right, we're going to get the wires.

You want us to do everything?

Well, I know.

We do do everything.

God damn it, what the hell happened before we were doing this?

We didn't have, you know, in the first year and a half, I was never turned up anymore.

Because, remember, Bryce was the race at the point.

And that's why Bryce, I mean, we get chucked in.

That's right.

Remember, Bryce, Bryce, all of a sudden, we're going to get some wires and everything.

But this time, the other thing, he was right.

But he didn't know how to do it.

And now we, because he was busy, you know, getting the boats, now we've got at least some wires coming in.

Remember after November 3rd, we started getting a few.

But we didn't, we didn't.

We think it's more than they ever mentioned.

You know I know that.

From the Republicans this time, there shouldn't be need one for that.

Those Republicans are voting against us on this.

It's got a goddamn hole in it.

See, that's one of the preferences, President, on the, uh, on the leaders' pitch to you.

The leaders' pitch, they actually see the inquiries for that.

See, I can follow them, too.

But we, see, we never asked you.

When I took off the Reims veto, we just concentrated on the key Democrats.

And they, we know they were

Get heavy with mail, I'm obvious.

But you're zeroing in where you know you have to, which will do the same.

And there's good old advice.

Well, they're impossible.

That story plays like a fine violin.

You've got to listen.

We cannot worry about polarization and all the rest.

Good, good one.

No fight here.

People get no argument about what the other standard makes me look like as I was against the blacks.

You look up here against busking, which is what 80, 80% of the people in the country are against.

And the other 2% isn't really talking about the Democrats.

They're not trying to move on that.

Now, what happened before I see Collins is they, uh, their signals are the same on that thing that we talked about, right?

I'm not going to have Schultz in here.

I've got to have Coffey for an hour alone first, and I'll have him at the end of the first hour.

And what is it, Burns at 12?

No, Burns is tomorrow.

They don't want him today.

Coffey will be gone today.

He'll probably be here.

I don't know if it's Thursday, but Coffey will be here tomorrow.

He'll probably be here today.

I just want to be sure Coffey's with him when I see Burns.

They don't want him today.

Okay.

There's something.

You want to start, because I think Conley's thinking about having shows in the beginning.

Captain Griffin would have turned up about... Yeah, the line, I think.

They said that was, you know, I mean, I've seen both of them, so I'm enthusiastic about anything, but they were, they know the writing.

The, uh, I read the new sign, and I think that, uh, perhaps the place, the only place that I think we, probably the, uh, where we...

They'd get across to us in the news magazines.

And we didn't.

I read it last night.

I said, yeah.

They told us in the news magazines.

I didn't say it.

Scott, please come out to Miami.

But I said, the place we didn't get across in the news magazines.

I guess it just didn't make any difference to me.

The reason is, I was the son.

I was the one there.

And we had to run to him.

Well, a couple of, a couple of... What do you mean?

Well, they, they, it is.

No, I think, I think what was perfect, Scott, perfect was time.

I mean, and I, I described it in the summary.

Could be that this week was not only, they said, they laughed at the person when he said that the, that the, uh, they had been a success in spite of the evidence, the statistics that showed he was right.

And then said with only a 1% rise in the white, the point was so solid that all of us should realize it.

The statistics and so forth don't mean shit.

The point that he then made was the fact of the going down there, there's been a courageous, tough, strong thing.

That was what the politicians appreciated, of course.

And that was the thing that I... You were at the Jetson this morning, huh?

Yeah, I read it.

It was the way the press was going down.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you've got Haley of the Boston Poll here to get this around.

Well, it's all coming around this president.

It just is.

across the country this time.

See, the out-of-town newspapers, we don't catch up with here for about four days, but I've talked to people who say this, but the local press has just got a grumpire going on.

I'm backing you, and I mean, what's the situation?

Well, I haven't updated what I mean to get to.

Yeah, they're doing those letters.

Oh yeah, you told me about them.

Breaking up the convention.

Huh?

They're all down at home.

Yeah, I understand that.

I told, I told these guys to make a point out of the fact where the hell are the Democratic candidates, why they run off.

Can you get a little story out of that?

It's on the wire.

It was picked up this morning.

It's posted.

Yeah, the Democrats ran out.

They'll go and get them again.

This is the perfect thing to bring a man down tomorrow.

Yeah, it is.

Perfect.

Make the order.

This morning there was a full page head in the Miami morning newspaper saying goodbye King George, go home, stay home.

Apparently the feeling in Miami is... Who then?

I don't know, a bunch of citizens.

We didn't have anything to do with it.

The feeling in Miami is they couldn't get out of San Francisco.

They were being booed, they were... Well, I hate Scott and Arnold Slayton.

I said they didn't tell the president directly.

I said that the attitude of the public can no more be tolerated from George Meany than it could have been in the 20th century that we could tolerate from Commodore Vanderbilt in the 19th century.

You may not remember the Commodore Vanderbilt.

Oh, yeah, but it's very cool.

He said it too.

It's a great bird.

The public can't.

That's the point we want to get out.

You know, the other thing the meeting has said twice is that what's good enough for George Manning is good enough for Richard Nixon, which almost caused Charlie Wilson to be thrown out of Washington.

He said what's good enough for John Higgins is the public demand attitude.

The president says that we cannot tolerate any leader of unity or business.

The attitude of the public demand.

You've got to be touching this up.

You've got to wait for the convention.

You've gotten here.

You're right out of that.

That's exactly right.

To continue that, put that part in us.

Well, everyone will ask.

You can tell them I'm reading the Humphrey thing.

And the rest is to try to say that the president was scared and nervous and so forth and so on.

You know what I mean?

It's still the same.

I mean, that's Humphrey's line.

I don't know why he figured it out, though.

Well, that was time's lead.

That was what was bad about time.

They said that you arrived nervous, and then I went on to say, understandably so, considering the two beds and hospital.

Well, that was a pure goddamn thing to do.

That's where I said, well, I didn't think I had a scally there at my home.

You don't think so?

Well, for Christ's sake, all of the orders there would sell, and the rest never did, right?

That's right.

Where did it come from, then?

That's a typical thing.

Kind, snide, jive.

You can add 300 people.

No, but I'm assigning... Well, that part of the nervousness is, but I agree with Bob.

That hasn't really been a very big impact.

That still says, Mr. President, that not only the 20 million people would see that network,

But all the local stations that carry that around the country, everybody saw that and they know god damn well you weren't nervous.

I know, well I know.

I just meant that you, if they say it's the thing that we at least jerk up and let them invest in that, all these things you must not assume are just going to go away.

They are.

You've got an enemy here.

I mean, the Scythians and the rest of them continue to pound it.

And they make it part of the mythology.

Bob, we've run through this in press conference coverage.

John?

Yeah.

Well, I was delighted to see that Colin had all three networks.

That was a big five to seven minutes.

Great.

And that was the plus thing.

Today, that was the big plus.

Shows what we can do, right?

Not once a month, but when Colin's got it on.

Well, that's just about been his base, and it's been just about right.

Since August, he's had four majors.

You've got to have a reason, and you've got to tie it to something.

Yeah.

Because that's how you get something.

I think in all the other ways.

I had a radio take-off last night, and I was just tearing the hell out of Captain.

It was just easy.

Just such a joy to see him.

Time is...

We do get early, but we get busy.

You know, the attorney general, again, I know Chuck, about intervening, and he's got that bussing cases.

I've pushed John up.

That's one place where he really drops the ball.

He's got his left wing sons of bitches over there, and he has to do it.

I'd like to get the Department of Justice to intervene in everything.

We've got to get the bussing issue up front and center.

Do you understand?

Also, see if they can, if there's some way we can start busing in Chicago.

I made this with John before he went to that one commission.

And he said, you know, he's about to check somebody over there.

But I want everyone to know how strong I feel about this.

I don't give a goddamn about the law.

I want to intervene in the busing cases.

On the side against busing, wherever we can.

Use opportunities to intervene.

And I'll raise them, actually.

Two of them.

The earlier one, who does he work with at all?

This one, I think.

See?

Over there, it works from the top end.

You ran out your pole today, didn't you?

Tomorrow afternoon.

Yeah.

Right about this afternoon.

That's good.

I took him last night.

He said that on Saturday it was running very strong, and then it began to taper off a bit.

He said it was one of those

very strong emotional outbursts, and then people begin to come a little bit.

That was a strong outburst.

Very solid.

Well, that's interesting that you didn't get into the wires, which is that 80% of the American people approved

now approved with a freeze and waived with a succession.

That's a hell of a time.

I think that I am no doubts about the success of the Miami venture.

I just can't emphasize too strongly.

Watch every minute this evening.

Well, the big time, the best communication of it is like the time treatment.

You know, pick a little time.

You think it's that bad somewhat, but I haven't read the time.

Yeah, I keep forgetting which one is which.

One was much better.

I think the big thing now... No, sir.

Who talked to him?

Sapphire?

Sapphire talked to him.

It's all, you know, it's all quite hard for those news nighties, because some guy sits there and edits what comes in, even edits what Sidi sends in for the news column.

See what Sidi does with his presidency editorial next week.

That may be more

So what is the problem that we have here with this mind?

Bob, would you please get out the order again that nobody on this staff is to talk to the President of the New York Times, and they are to refer all such calls to Ziegler?

Now, there's a time she's trying to do a job in this business of moving to

White House was able to stir up support for the president and so forth and so on.

So a couple of people and a couple of clients offered up and the client's office returned the calls.

I got that.

I thought that was clearly understood.

There were no calls from any of our tenants, supposed to be.

All right.

It's in absolute order.

Just return all the signals.

All calls from that.

I got that.

Is that clear?

And that moves out of our...

I don't want to go over this.

Yeah.

There were any of these people who researched out...

Don't these fellows come to present with the orders?

Well, they need to be reminded every now and then.

And I just had all my gang in this morning to tell them once more the need for this.

They forget.

I mean, time passes and they...

Forget that.

Oh, you can't forget that.

I don't forget it.

I mean, it's, you know, at all levels it is.

No, what they do is after the thing is over, they think, well, I'll get back.

They know these people and they think, oh, well, now it's okay to talk to someone else.

No.

There's a long, big strategy, which is how do you handle every Richmond bomb?

I mean, you've got to do it all orally.

And it was, and I gave you the order, and then you covered it with every, you know, if you cover such a level, you cover that line.

Yes, sir.

He understood it.

Yes, sir.

Covered with everybody who and anybody else reports, and everybody who reports to me.

Know what he's trying to do.

Hand it to Evan.

I swear I didn't hit him.

Well, look.

I have a look at the signings paper to see whether he did it.

Well, I just meant that I don't give a shit.

I expect to hand it to John.

That is possible.

I will not give that up.

But the problem is we've got too goddamn many people here on the staff.

That's really it.

Cut the number of staff people.

And they don't have us people talking.

So the guy calls it, you know, you've got Scallop, you've got Moore, you've got half a dozen in client shop and the rest, and they all are students.

They're all on those men.

So they call.

That's what happens.

I really feel strongly that you can't control this.

You've got the number of people that the press has access to.

Goddamn it, why do they talk?

Well, you take Scali and Moore, they don't.

They're clever enough.

I mean, you really have less of a problem there than a junior guy who wants to impress somebody in the news how much he knows.

That's where your problems are.

Yeah, I know.

You think it's your junior gun?

I think it's mostly that, plus a few, a lot of sapphire.

You can't have talks with someone who thinks they're smart enough to do it.

Well, yeah, and who thinks they're doing something wrong.

You know, they're doing it for a purpose.

They're either planting something or cutting something.

But they're going to have bullshit.

Tell me how it has been.

kind of moving around the staff a little bit for me.

He diagnoses the problem as junior and senior guys that he or I even know who just try to impress everybody with how important they are, and they know that some of the things... Well, those are the obvious parts of it.

And they'll get them to say it, because they can hang their story on them.

Because I said, we know Agra.

We had a goddamn silly statement about McCloskey, and I don't like to say that about him.

That's what Reagan said.

What Reagan said?

He said he laughed like hell.

I thought it was a good case.

Why did you walk out of that Chicago thing?

What was it all about that made you worry about it?

I haven't seen the column yet, but I don't think so.

Have you seen it?

I have it.

I started easy.

I'm finished.

Starts out bad.

Too bad I don't have a lot of confidence.

It was hard to get him to tell you that, you know, whatever he said yesterday.

Hot!

He can't break it.

No.

He doesn't like it very much.

Oh, it didn't go well yesterday, I think.

I know, see, you got it.

Puffed him up yesterday morning.

Went out of here and did very well.

Yeah.

He's willing to say tough things, and he knows what's effective.

I think the line that needs to be pushed very hard now everywhere is that you will not countenance the public be damned attitude by any business labor tribe.

Get all of our fellows to take that line.

It takes it.

Ships away from the Pacific to the general, which is much like this.

It's right in.

Oh, it's perfect.

All right.

And that's clearly what the people feel, I think.

Any special interest.

Any special interest group.

Ladies or gentlemen.

Oh, I've wanted to know these things.

Maybe you don't have to do it.

I'm talking about all this.

How do you do it?

with individual bases as well, and as well as others.

We have our key group in our staff.

We deal with them as a group.

We deal with senior guys individually, and then have them to go to their people.

And that's, first it's got to hit the domestic council people.

Well, that's not it.

The domestic council people are one of our services, isn't it?

Well, they're all.

Some of the liberal types do.

Yeah, really.

They've gotten really close with the other types.

Yeah, the liberal types believe you can be sure.

Yep, the conservative, the believer types believe either way.

Yeah, I suppose they do.

I'm sure you can come up with something.

Yeah, I think there's something there.

It's actually not so sudden now in town.

It seems to be more conservative than any other group we've got.

You see, the price is the last.

Yep.

I'm sure every president and every administration has had it.

I just don't know how you... Oh, I know that.

It's the most frustrating thing in the world.

I don't know how you get at it because you never can quite pin it down.

You've got to remember also that with a hostile press corps, they know how to...

We don't have a group of people that are all that smart in the PR office.

They're smart in there.

And I accuse them.

I accuse them when it comes to PR.

They're pretty goddamn dumb.

They don't know what somebody's coming after them.

They don't ask for a read.

It just takes time.

All the press guys do a monumental job.

Butts fell right into it.

He's been around town all this time.

First day he's out of the camp, he does an exclusive interview with the Washington Post.

Oh, Christ.

Well, it's funny.

One hit, you know, before anybody even had a chance to stand and talk to him.

And so you jump on and on, why in the world did you do that?

Well, the guy said he was going to do a background story on me, and he wanted to give me a chance to go after anything that I could, so I did.

Got a PR guy with him right over there.

He realized right afterwards, but it's...

Jesus Christ.

You don't have to be young enough in order to get caught.

I guess you're right.

Well, we're doing this just to remember that we don't know a hell of a lot better to be used than Sheridan because we've got a few operations here.

The hardest thing to get anyone here to do is to say, I don't know or I can't talk to you.

That's right.

Jack Horner, good old, lovely little Jack Horner, called me.

We tried to be helpful to him.

He called me and said, we were going to talk to him.

So I said, fine.

When do you want to meet?

He got me on the street.

He said, I just want to get an inside rundown of my whole background on how the political plans are shaping up for next year on the primaries and all that.

And I said, geez, Jack, I'd be glad to talk to you about it.

I didn't have to be helpful to you.

I was like, that's something I can be helpful on.

I've got nothing I can say to you on that.

That's right.

And he said, well, when can you?

And I said, I probably won't because I'm not really involved in that.

I don't really have much to do with what's going on there.

I'm interested in watching what's going on there.

Well, Jack, he was a little annoyed.

He said, well, you know, I know you're involved.

And I said, well, I'm not in a way that I can be of any help to you on it, Jack.

He said, okay, I got it.

But that's, you know, it's still nothing to do if you'll just do it, but you've got to make up your mind.

That is exactly the right thing to say.

Well, sure.

But the temptation is not to admit it.

You know, the temptation is, I know a few things I could tell you, and there are things I could tell them that would be good for us, but as soon as I start doing that, then you're down in the tubes.

That's the argument they all make.

They say, geez, if I talked to them, I could get a few of our points across.

I could tell them what the president's doing or isn't doing or whatever our line is.

It's a great medicine syndrome, too, that I think we've got to get turned on.

Great.

It's true.

They're going on a big cover story on Henry.

They want to do a cover story on me.

And so I go to all these people.

I know a cover story.

No, no, no, no.

It's served no purpose.

It's served no purpose because they are not in our interest.

It all gets me on pretty well.

As soon as it comes off, I don't do the story.

I agree.

I agree with the story.

That's all there is to it.

It's too busy.

But the point is, here...

was one of the principals in the Ellsberg business.

This guy, he pleaded with me about the involvement of Creston.

Well, that means I'm getting these advice of ours.

It's ridiculous.

And I'll tell you, once the client's out, he gets back to you and says, oh, he's been sat on before we went.

All right.

There's not going to be any crowd.

That's all there is to it.

We'll survive it, man.

You don't have to think of that, Sean, man.

i think we've been i think we've been overriding it very well that time cover story was interesting i may not need to say at all

Well, I think the cover story says that.

Well, we know about that, but I was going to say that the way they were doing it, their base soldiers were picking up the bit that they could on the negative side, and it just shows that

I'm not sure it's worth working on Man Foods magazine.

That's what I think.

We have tried it several times.

What do you think, Bob?

I think it's absolutely worth it because, hey, if you get this done, that's great.

You're done.

One way or the other.

Yes, it's worth it.

The impact was great.

I read both kind of news requests.

The impact was not negative, certainly.

It's not.

I see.

It just wasn't as good as we'd have liked to have seen it.

And it might have been lower than that.

All right.

That's right.