Conversation 632-011

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Talking to George Bush, he's a refreshing guy.

He's a mighty, mighty guy.

We're going to have a press conference in a minute.

is aggression is wrong.

And the fact that a country is bigger than another country doesn't justify it.

The fact that one country is a democracy and another country is a dictatorship is not justified.

Aggression on the part of a dictatorship is wrong.

But aggression on the part of a democracy is wrong.

That is what the UN and world order is all about.

And if once that principle is compromised, we're finished.

You know, we've got a hell of a moral case there.

Yeah.

He says that you've got a combination of circumstances with all the little countries in the world.

They don't want to have the principal recognize that they have any internal problems.

That's the way we can justify people marching in and cleaning up houses.

I kind of keep him in, how I like to keep him in most of the matters that I know are going to be controversial as hell.

So that Bill, he told him about me.

He said, Dan, Bill, I'm trying to help you.

I mean, trying to help.

I mean, well, I mean, they're just good politicians.

They like to fight.

They don't mind fighting.

Very positive guys.

I mean, you know, they'd be shocked if they'd see some of the performances of a fellow mechanic.

Frankly, yeah, some of our other cabins.

What I'm getting at is that what I'm trying to say is that

I'm just going to do a white hug in Christmas for CBS.

That's a good idea.

We're going to throw it all out.

Oh, that's all right.

I think their market is so big.

She said that she was in Memphis with David that they were going to run their show at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon.

The producer liked it so well that he changed it to the prime time.

So I know that whatever they do, they're just great stuff.

And we have the kind of shit that's on top of it.

See, the CBS Christmas thing, for instance, you can only do it at Christmas anyway.

So you've got to do it now or you've got to do it.

It's going to get harder to get that kind of thing as we get more of those.

Now, they wanted to make Julie the honorary chairman of the youth registration drive, and I said, no, because I don't think you want her to be a political figure as such.

No, no.

See, that would be the Republican youth registration drive.

Well, never.

Yeah, they're trying to make it an instant youth registration drive, and it will, but it's so obviously that it's not.

I don't think that's right.

I mean, I mean, I'm just, you know, I ran around on it a couple times.

And, uh, let's put her to the political.

She should be part of the family.

She should do the kind of stuff she's doing and not be an activist in the sense of saying, get out and register, vote for my father.

And that's what they wanted to do, see, as, as chairmen, is make TV appearances and things on, on, uh, not so much voting for my father, but getting out and registering.

But I don't know.

We all want to do it selectively.

And Julie can't do it.

She can't get down to individuals.

So it's a different technique.

Good.

Skelly wanted to talk to me.

I've got a message here about it.

He's been working with the NBC people.

They've reviewed two-thirds of the film that they had last night.

They're sky high.

I think it's the best one they've ever seen.

And the president thinks they have a prize winner and all that sort of stuff.

What they're trying to do is decide whether to go to 90 minutes or to stick with a 60-minute program.

And Scali was going to argue and say, no, we've got to get to 90 minutes.

But I don't think he agrees with it to an extent, at least, that maybe we're better off with 60 minutes.

Because for one thing, a 90-minute program, any 90-minute program, drops audience in the last half hour.

See, it'll be interesting, the 90 minutes to about a million and a half political science types.

And we'll see it all.

It's a great fascination.

It's a great document.

It ought to be done.

They ought to take, I mean, 90 minutes, frankly, they're running in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

But boy, I think the prime time of the, not even an hour is maximum.

I think, but I don't know.

I think so, too.

They do have, I'm sure they've got some tremendous

Oh, they've got his own here.

They should realize they have.

And I think Scali now can see why they're one of the directors in the room.

That's what makes it.

He said they have enough good film to do an outstanding 90-minute program, but regardless of the subject matter, a 90-minute program may be too much.

And I think it is.

I think it's one of those things where you're better off to go off the air and people say, God, why didn't they run more of that?

And they have to go off saying, Jesus, that was pretty thorough coverage.

Six minutes, one hour.

That's okay.

A couple of points you're going to make.

You're going to make it all 60 minutes.

And it'll get forced in to tighten it up.

You're forced to edit it.

It'll be a faster paced day.

It'll pass a little bit faster.

But why don't you tell them to do this?

Tell them that they might want to take some tidbits and use it for other purposes.

Well, that's the other thing.

After they run the 60 minute, we might start a big thing of, we understand you film the whole day.

Why don't you run tomorrow?

And maybe we can get a Sunday afternoon two hour special.

Like the wedding, they won't get a lot of interest in it.

I don't know.

They won't have the emotional interest in the wedding.

No, it isn't.

But I just wonder if people want to see it.

Yeah, that's it.

They just don't know anything about it.

They just took out that programmatic.

I think we want to see.

I have a feeling it may be that you may not want to see it.

So get our point over.

I think we get .

This is a good use of television.

This program is a good use of television.

This is better than having an interview with John Chancellor.

He's got a little bit of everything at the end.

But beyond that, I think it's difficult.

I mean, everybody's on talk shows these days.

Everybody, you're going to be doing it on Sunday after the crash in Rome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, did you realize that maybe that's the people who are going to retire from the Trump show today?

I mean, so here's something different.

Julie said something different during the White House debate.

That's why Pat's going to do it during the White House when she gets it done, I understand.

But Pat's thing was so good, though.

Her ABC show was good.

Because it moved.

It was a, you know, it was a... Pat Nixon in action, right?

Pat Nixon sitting and talking about Barbara Walters, about what he did as being psychoanalyzed, you see.

And remember I told you I wanted to get Hallett's judgment on this.

He's the guy who's a great believer in the one-on-one.

Yeah.

Well, the one-on-one is a hell of a good thing.

And I think I've got to do some of it now.

Yeah.

At the proper time.

Well, let me say that I don't know how much the audience, how much the audience thinks on it.

And we don't know what the hell that's going to make an opinion, do we?

No.

We just don't know.

We just do everything.

We don't seem to move one way or another, do we?

We just sort of stay where we are.

Yeah, but I think that's not doing everything.

That's for us to see where you go.

Because everything really goes on just as if you're doing all we can.

You get a chunk of pieces.

Yeah, right.

I think that's what happened to Johnson.

He just allowed himself.

He backed down the hatches.

Well, but he didn't have a hell of a lot of choice, because he couldn't.

In a day in the life of Lyndon Johnson, would have scared the bejesus out of the people if they put him on television.

I guess television is going on.

If they'd done it real quicker.

See, they never would have done it real.

You know, their day, in my case, was very accurate, too, because they're virtually everything that I do.

I mean, except take off a little more time than I did take off hardly any time.

But there are days when I don't take off any time at all.

When you add something.

But it was legitimate that you drank.

Because you added the other thing to it.

Like having a drink.

I normally do not.

I did exactly so exactly for that dinner when I normally drink.

I don't have a drink when I have a dinner.

I don't go over and do that.

I go, take a shower, get ready, go to the goddamn dinner.

It really is a crime.

quite a day for them.

And of course, what really they fascinated by were the things that we heard in those birthday calls and stuff like that.

Not as many as I normally met, but three or four.

And they got, they liked that.

And meeting the deaf, the black deaf kid, you know, who was a sprinter, meeting the five women generals and talking to them a bit.

I mean, that sort of thing was good.

And, of course, sitting in the meeting in the morning, sitting in with the legislative leaders.

I've got a little child, Julie.

A little child, Julia.

It's Henry, of course, coming in.

And I guess the dog didn't work very well.

He came in and got up on the couch.

Yeah, I put him up on the couch.

I have a feeling in the present time, you know, I think, you know, thinking of your polls and so forth, that... Come on in.

Oh, you're lighter today.

Good, I'm just getting ready for my brief.

I talked to Bush and got a report.

I asked him for his analysis as to why the vote was so overwhelming.

And he said it wasn't an anti-Indian vote, it was just an anti-aggression vote.

That basically, this is Bush reporting, that basically the, that whether a country is a democracy or not,

that the relative size of a country, that India is much larger than Pakistan, is irrelevant.

And as far as that, most of the smaller UN countries consider that argument, which has been made in some of our columns here, as being totally immoral.

That is, whether or not, because

You cannot justify, you cannot judge actions in the rural community on the basis of the relative size of the country and being on the winning side.

The second point was that in terms of the Indian government, this was not the type of government

the idea of being a democracy, in fact, as the president of the military, is not wrong.

It is because the invasion of another country is wrong, whether it's under his, is wrong.

And the type of government that a country has, or the size of that country, the number of people

does not make it less wrong.

It's wrong for a dictatorship to invade another country.

It is also wrong for a democracy to invade another country.

Fundamentally, this is what the UN General Assembly vote was all about.

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly indicated that resort to aggression

because it's not justified as a matter of settling international disputes.

Now, I'll tell you about the question of Bush in Vietnam.

He would say, well, who's the aggressor voice?

And I understand that, but where's somebody responding from?

That's exactly where, that's his forefront again.

That's, he got a good vote there.

All this bullshit was the effect that, you know, kind of did its, Bush was telling his,

The establishment is on this saying, well, we're betting on the wrong horse because India is so much bigger.

And also, tomorrow's saying, well, but India is a democracy.

In fact, it's a dictatorship.

So if a democracy invades a dictatorship, that's right.

Well, that's what you're saying, you know, right?

That's the line.

Don't you run into that with some of your press people?

How do you handle that?

Did they ask you that point?

He made somewhat the same point.

That's Bush's analysis of the vote that even he was somewhat surprised at the size of the vote and that the purpose was not to condemn India as a country, not to condemn its system of government, not to condemn its people.

It was not a combination of the Indian people and not a combination of the Indian system of government.

It was a combination of the act of aggression

or the use of force to resolve the conflict.

This is the fundamental point of both of them.

The United States is overwhelmingly on the side of the world opinion.

Excuse me.

The world opinion is overwhelmingly on the side, not on the United States.

Yeah.

Overwhelmingly.

You see what I mean?

You didn't want to put us in the middle of it.

I have nothing else.

Well, I'm going to, I'm not going to get into that.

Right.

I don't want to open that up.

Then we have detention legislation today, which we're going to send a message up.

Well, actually, the part about the vesting of the

Pension has a lot of emotional appeal, though.

It's a good one.

It's one that could be made over a period of time, but it's something people are going to understand, if I can say.

Sure.

I mean, not only investing in pensions is important, but allowing a deduction for the self-employed and others who are on the pension system, for them, to file their pension plans is an enormous form of

law needs in this country.

It's wrong for all of them to have to be a member of a labor union to work for the government to be entitled to a pension.

Now, any person can get one.

Well, at least for these two.

We did this in a story message.

Anything else?

That's it.

We're going to announce gross pay to Brussels.

I think we're going to get it confirmed.

I think there's a deal made.

Oh, is there a deal?

Let's throw somebody else out there.

I don't know.

Yeah, to NATO.

Is it?

But we're not going to announce it today.

They're in the process of going to the NATO and so forth.

Is Kennedy over there?

No, he's not going to the NATO.

He's not going to the NATO meeting.

I mean, the NATO meeting.

No, this is true.

But it's...

The Roberts is checking it out with them.

Right.

So we're going through that process now.

What else in the next few days?

Everybody except to go to the 80s owners.

Right.

They're going to have to stay in barracks, which is fine.

Barracks?

Right.

Well, they have hotels.

They have 46 rooms on the island.

Hotel rooms.

That's all right.

They're lucky.

French press have to stay on the ship.

The cruise ship.

Was he coming in a ship?

Well, no, but they're bringing a ship down.

He's flying in a supersonic plane.

We may go in a 747.

No, no, I don't know.

Not you, the president.

No, the president.

They don't take a 747 crew in hand.

I've been trying to do that.

They tried, they didn't want to.

I don't think we like the idea anyway.

You don't?

Right here.

I think the French are trying to go there.

We wanted to try 747 at some point, but we won't on this.

I think it's kind of to our interest to have the French one on this anyway.

That's right.

I can say I'm going to say I congratulate them.

I said I only wish that we had done it.

We'll try 747.

You won't do it.

Actually, you won't see it because they arrived before you.

You say this.

If the question arises, the President said, well, I congratulate the President.

I'll do it.

I wish that the United States would have a good judgment to go forward with Arnold, but the French deserve credit for having a big imagination to go forward with him.

Okay.

There's a boy who really takes it day after day in an unfathomable way.

You know, he does his, you know, obviously a good job.

And it's not easy.

You know what?

You have a situation.

You have, for example, a scallion.

They're trying to reef that breast.

Jesus Christ, he's going to get blown up every 10 minutes.

They're going to be new.

Try to do his best.

He'd do a hell of a job.

I don't think Skelly would do a hell of a job.

He'd be impossible to live with.

Skelly is a faggot.

He's a faggot.

And he's better than any other guy.

If I'm using him, I'm better than any other guy.

I'm not using him.

He might be my boss.

And he may be my son.

There are several ways I think of an angry man.

But I think that we may not really script him.

And I'll write that in the head of the guts.

He hadn't mentioned that God that minute until last night.

Well, of course, why shouldn't he?

But to him, those things are terribly important.

Yep.

And now he's going through all the emotions, too.

Why and how he screwed it up.

And he cannot admit that maybe we did something wrong.

Or that it was impossible to think about it.

That's the point.

It was impossible, that's it.

That's why he used to admit that it's impossible, that our diplomatic entry in Paris has failed.

You know, we have been frankly hanging on, hanging on, hanging on, and now someone's waiting for something to go diplomatically.

Father, it's never been going to go.

But really, and it was a real blow to him when he, that day, we got killed.

It wasn't that good in Paris.

It was very, very long.

The blow was greatly increased and hurt him more because he could not in this instance find a legitimate excuse.

Now that's the point.

He couldn't blame the Congress, he couldn't blame us, the President, or any, you know what I mean, or any of the wrongs that they started to report in the right direction.

Dr. Rogers hadn't said anything, or, you know, nobody had screwed anything up at the moment.

And Cambodia, we hadn't had to go to Cambodia, or Russians, or, you know what I mean.

It was a weekend, as I told you, there were some voices back.

There's more here.

No, but he had that time in California, didn't he?

Didn't he?

He'd take awesome time out there, yes.

We'd impress him hard out in California, didn't we?

I mean, he had his kids out there, you know, it's very easy.

So...

I heard you, Rick.

He's...

agonizing on his world, you know, as he comes to the world of business.

But he hasn't really gotten down to work on that yet.

So he's not, he's got all these people working.

Yeah.

But I mean, he hasn't gotten into the, they agree with himself on it yet.

He will actually first year.

He's got us another hopeless maximum.

Oh, it's part of it.

It's going so well now.

It's a chain of the arms.

Of course it's a chain of the arms.

There always is, and there always will be, and everything is always going to go well, and we're not responsible for it.

That's the other thing.

We're not responsible, isn't it?

We're just in control, and we don't care.

We care a hell of a lot, but you can't avoid every goddamn crisis.

Praise God.

Let me put it in one example.

Better than one instance, if we look back at the whole record, where Henry was acting, and Steve thought we shouldn't get involved, and everybody was going to say that the blood of the Beatrice was on our hands, and so forth and so on, and State wasn't doing enough.

And Riles, of course, was playing a neutral on it for other reasons.

And we were under pressure there from Goodell and all that bunch.

And she was called Henry on the Biafra.

Riles was right on that, Bob.

We were right on the Biafra.

It was too bad.

Too bad that the goddamn blacks killed each other.

But there wasn't a thing that we could do about it.

Our stated policy is that we aren't the world's policeman anymore.

We're going to solve everybody's problems tomorrow.

You're going to talk to Hager a little, I guess.

Yeah, she better.

I don't think it's her.

But we're on all these.

Gosh, she's probably happy.

I really don't have anybody else that I can trust.

I didn't think about his hate.

I wish I was the worst.

He won't be as good if you don't trust him enough.

I can't handle it with other people.

I'm just going to do the internal staff what I want to do.

I'm just a complex problem sitting down with others and negotiating these, you know, in order to fight.

He's really very, very good at it.

All he would have developed in the case.

Paper no references.

Chinese.

Yeah.

They're all one-shot deals, but virtually all that can be done now.

Right.

But it's going on.

It's going to get harder and harder.

Tablets are going to get more and more very interesting and streaming on their lives.

I think that's apparent to the more backhanded that this is.

They've got no argument when you go on to make an announcement on national policy, but I do have some, or a question on some cases.

They can't agree on it.

National policy, we're going to do it.

They don't have a real argument on it, even on this, because people have always looked for insight into how to look at what the president does, what his family does, and all that.

It's a legitimate thing.

I don't think we have a problem with this.

about leadership.

When you look at the, I was going to say before Ron came in, what the polls seem to indicate is that, take Humphrey and Mexico for granted last time.

Humphrey doesn't do as well as either Muskie or Teddy.

Why did Muskie and Teddy do better?

Basically, how do you tell if they're new?

They're just against the old Christ.

Humphrey is well known, but people say old Christ, not Humphrey again.

That's between Humphrey and us.

That's the real test insofar as we're concerned as to where we are as against the man you beat before.

I mean, well, we beat, we do very well against Humphrey, I think everybody would agree, correct?

As against the other groups.

It's a problem.

And the reason is they have the enormous advantage of saying, well, things are in a hell of a mess, which most people agree, and we'll change, which most people think ought to happen.

Don't you agree with that?

It's a natural problem.

It's Connolly's point.

You've got to run against the system.

It's goddamn hard to do, isn't it?

Well, in some ways, it's impossible for the president

trying to dissociate himself from the system because people, not consciously, but they just, you're there if something's wrong.

It's the present.

You ought to be doing something about it.

Everybody comes in at a certain age, and you're just around when you're actually alone.

And age is supposed to be bound to it.

What I'm getting at is this, isn't it just as well to let this thing maybe boil up and get over, maybe.

Now, when he does, though, I only come in to see him, because he does better.

We've got very big fish to fry.

We've got to decide, fundamentally, we've got to decide, does Henry want to go to be king of Moscow?

Yes, sir.

Or any more thought.

That's the key there.

Any more thought, believe me.

Thought that he could do those trips and then he'd quit.

Oh, for Christ's sakes, he's out of his goddamn mind.

That's what we need.

You see what I mean?

Yeah?

So we would be, well, that is really evil.

It's worse than riding a truck.

We'd say, well, I'll go through the trips and then I'll quit, but I'll go out and campaign for the president.

Now, bullshit.

What the hell does he think that's going to look like?

You can't do it.

It's impossible.

I think he's very honest with me.

He thinks he's serious about it, but I don't.

You know, I think he knows down deep that he doesn't think he wants to call me, but he knows very well that he has to go to China.

He also knows that I can do the Russian thing alone if I have to.

You know what I mean?

I wouldn't lie to him.

But it's very, very, I like, I prefer to have Henry Lee's picture because I don't have the confidence that Roger's supposed to do it.

I know he won't do it.

God damn it, he cannot do it.

He cannot do it.

You know, it's a curious thing.

If you had Connelly in that job, in Bill's job,

This is with our regard whether he come up with the right thing.

I've had confidence in him.

He knew actually once he gave his orders.

But you know, apart from that, I know that he would sit down and work and be tough and so forth and leave all the options and come down and make the very best possible deal.

And he wouldn't be doing the, you know, the little things.

He wouldn't be taken in like Bill is by the flattery and trying to, you know, play with his bureaucracy and the rest of it.

Well, Bill, I guess we all are this way.

Even more than others just cannot abide by the fact of not being liked by everybody.

So we've always had to be nice to people.

to reach out to the law office.

Bill has generally been pretty good up to date, except when we come into a crunch like a troop withdrawal or something like that, it's bad news at all, but that's about that to say.

Sir, John, other people in the rest of the assembly

It seems to me that the only dinners that should be held at any place in town, in the market, will be Korean.

One of those political dinners that I spoke about, you know, getting into halls, state booths.

Cold turkey, Bob.

I see no reason to have a dinner for the court, to be real.

Well, there's one

arguing for other times.

Should I have a dinner with the final president?

It may be, it isn't a hard thing.

I think we can hardly stand it.

We'll just have a quiet dinner.

Well, it might be nice to have, you know, as you've done traditionally, maybe you do it at the cabinet, the January 20th type of dinner.

Maybe you give it this year.

They give it to you each year.

Maybe this year you give it.

Yeah, let's decide that.

I don't want them to give a dinner.

I'm going to get up to the couch and keep honoring the retired members who were removed by any other retired members.

That's not a bad idea.

By all those who served in the cabinet.

The other thing for the court to say, and the dinner wouldn't accomplish it, is that one of the strongest, and this is

I think as a valedictorian, one of the strongest things you've got in the minds of, certainly the conservatives, and a hell of a lot of other people, really, is the court.

And, uh, the, uh, there's a few many quotes.

No, probably doesn't.

Really doesn't, no.

Very few, only very few people understand the court.

It sure means a lot of lawyer quotes and people, you know.

I think people understand that there aren't very many of those.

Well, so,

Another thing, did I sit there and kill the thing?

It probably doesn't.

That's kind of the thing.

That's why I said it.

I don't know.

Yeah, because it does.

And so what are they right about?

What did the women wear?

Was the violence with her back?

Yeah, or Justice Douglas' wife.

Yeah.

That's right.

And I really believe that the goddamn thing is only good for the people that are there.

I mean, I don't think... You know, we found...

The whole story at the dinner last night was that you caught both of them before they fell.

You caught the...

Mrs. What's her name?

And then she, you know, front steps before she fell, and he fought the little girl before she fell on the piano or something.

So that's the story of why Mrs. Medici was sleeping.

Did they tell you that?

Yeah, it was the police very well that, you know, you would very quickly see her.

And she tripped on her dress, I guess, is what they said.

She had a long dress going on the steps or something.

I'm still doing the movie here.

That might be a good idea, but he has a very interesting point.

He says, don't do it for a while.

Because first, what I want to do, and he wants you in this, and I'm not sure that's a good idea, but it might not be a bad idea.

I want to do in California a big, several hundred reception to introduce Julie and Tricia and their husbands to the young people

in California, he puts the young people, what he means is the young stars in the business, the TV stars and the rock music stars and the people like that that we can get on our side.

He says, I wanna get them lined up first.

Then, when you have the movie dinner here,

I want to be sure that it's at least half, maybe a little more half, the modern stars, instead of going all to the old-time greats.

Because he said, we make a mistake.

We need to keep them tied in.

No matter how much you love Cesar Romero, he is today's star.

Clint Eastwood is.

And it's more important to tie Clint Eastwood than it is to Cesar Romero.

Early on, I wasn't trying to think like this.

I don't have any idea.

I don't know if I saw that.

I think Dave is the same or something.

Is he?

I don't know.

I know they fight and bleed over these invitations.

I know.

I say out of the best thing I do, I'm sorry to get in the way of those people here.

You put your input in, and she works around that, goes in as best she can.

You can't satisfy everybody.

There's no way to do it right, and you just have to recognize that.

It's like appointments.

That's right.

If people here criticize Rose on the list, you cannot criticize her.

She does awfully well.

She's going through the list now.

She says, I've got to go through that.

Everybody that's been here, I'm going to take them all.

They're going to come here.

That's a good idea.

That would mean more energy for my school.

No, but I meant it.

I don't see any, I don't see any dinners in terms of, I see nothing to be gained by any more diplomatic dinners.

In other words, I'm not going to have a dinner for an ambassador or anything.

I just think in terms of what it does for us, it's nothing.

It's a zilch.

Do you agree?

Yeah.

Hell yeah, with the ambassadors, absolutely.

Well, so there's already an answer for anybody.

Well, that does a little bit.

It's a hell of a good, you talk about fundraising genders, that stuff's a hell of a good way to, it means an enormous amount to the people who come.

It does you no good outside of it.

We've pretty well done it.

I think we have.

We've gone through the goddamn list right down to the bare bones, practically.

We've missed a few people, but only because they haven't been able to come or haven't wanted to come.

They've been invited.

No, no, we did that.

I, uh...

By God, I would certainly have, whatever, I'd give some medals of freedom to some old-time greats if we could find any damn way to pick the ones up.

And then make it like an Academy Award kind of thing.

Have the people in there and have it covered with people coming in and have them shoot an arm.

That's the way I think you ought to do things at the White House.

Have a salute to Hollywood.

And then in the economy.

and have an academy award and have it running for an hour and people would have that son of a bitch.

I'd have, as a bachelor, I'd have Frank Sinatra.

Yep.

I'd have Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope and

I wouldn't have all of our people.

You just have to pick them up and tell them why you couldn't have this or that or the other one.

That's the problem, of course, which is a lot of good friends would get hurt as hell if they weren't invited.

We finally were doing the celebrity thing right for the first time, I think.

You're still keeping my friends in on you about that woman?

Oh, yeah, but we're not relying on her anymore.

You know, just the little crony bunch.

What he's done is he's gotten a young guy who is out of that...

law firm that handles the movie people.

There's a film opening, and by the way, it's gone over to the other one that handles all the big acts and stuff.

I know.

It's a special talent type.

And he's taken leave from the law firm through the election now for a year.

That's going to work as the guy to pull this thing together.

And then he's gotten a casting director for the highest level casting guy at each of the major studios.

who is on our side, who is working with us and identifying the key stars and then making the approaches to the stars and all that.

He's really going at it within the profession.

There's an old patent.

It's like the Jewish fundraising business.

When he gets going on something, he just doesn't let loose.

And he's intrigued as hell with what he can do there.

He's also moved into the whole convention.

planning business.

He doesn't have a half garage, does he?

No.

No, and he's arguing, he's saying, and he's the problem with it, our political people are doing it, that you've got a political convention that has nothing else but a television show.

You finally got the chance to do it that way.

And he said, don't let them get pictures of people picking their noses.

And they said, well, how can we do that without interfering with the right of the press to cover it?

He said, it's easy.

You don't turn on any locks.

You light the stage, and you only have on the stage what you want pictures of.

And you don't like the audience.

Then they can't get a picture.

And we have a master lighting control.

And when we want audience reaction shots, we can turn up for that.

But you don't leave it open all the time for these guys to wander around with their cameras getting people over there.

You know, they're all .

He's got a lot of .

He's got a guy who was the guy who wrote Nixon's The One, apparently the top

promoter guy in television, who now runs Madison Square Garden, and he thinks he's going to get him to come in and do the third.

It's good to get a new person in this.

I don't want to get down to .

Paul Keyes or somebody.

He's got Paul involved, but Paul cannot do the whole thing.

Paul is basically better, much better as an idea man than the producer.

I think that's really true.

He's got Paul involved, but what he wants to get, he said, they've got a good producer lined up to do the basic production, but

tasks that you need more than a producer, you also need a guy who is an executive, that'll run, not just produce the show, but run the operation, so that you get, so that what you're staging is the show you want.

And that's what he sees in this Madison Square guy, and he's thinking, possibly not, and he makes Charlie Ludorno donate the guy to the, to the bank, and... Should I pay off on it?

Should I?

Okay.

picked up some of that, but he's a lot of the more repulsive people that I've ever met.

He's a lot of the more repulsive people that I've ever met.

He said, the other deadly thing is interviewing all the damn politicians.

He said, everybody, they all want to be on.

He said, the way we'll do that is set up a remote taping unit and let them come in and be interviewed by celebrities and commentators and all that.

We'll provide that.

But he said, we'll just never quite get around to getting the dull stuff out and onto the air by the time they realize it, it'll all be over.

And we'll feed it back to their home stations, which is what they really care about.

And don't have

You go for visuals and for the stuff, getting our story across.

He also said don't go for professional talent.

Don't try and stage a show.

He said that isn't, people don't watch this to see a musical.

You'll do a lousy musical and they want to see that, they'll watch a good one.

So it's entertainment, it's not a game.

Because they don't, they're interested in what's happening.

Yeah.

A young, young county guy got over the loop.

Well, he's all up for that.

And he knows, he knows our roots there.

And that's why a celebrity idea is good, to work for the ones that appeal to the young people.

Because they're working on it.

How do they work around it?

Ray, for example, is going to be a perfect man.

He has to.

Well, he'll be all right.

He'll make a speech.

He'll make a fine speech.

He ought to do that post-governor welcoming speech, and he'll do a good one.

That's true, but I imagine he'll want to be in other things.

I think he's got to realize that he does that.

Well, he'll be all right.

At least he'll have a fine actor.

I'm pretty sure.

It's not as bad as the people that are really bad are the...

are the Bob Wilsons and the Jack Millers and the tired politicians who push so hard to get out.

Or even Jerry Ford, who you'll have to do something with.

I know.

Well, he'll be in jail.

So that's that.

But it just isn't... No.

I know.

...sparkling if you were casting it by choice.

We don't have any capitalists who support it.

I can see what you'd like to have, this is George Bush.

There's a Bush on the first line.

Well, let me see.

Yeah, George.

Now, George is going to be, he's going to help you in charge of it.

Yeah, well, Sheridan has a little crisis.

He already had one lost.

But, you know, this is a hell of a vote up there, Bob.

You realize that only the Communist Party's vote didn't want to vote for me.

Now, Jericho's pretty good on a lot of notes.

See, Henry's whole deal here is so, so falls down on one fundamental point.

I mean, not just what would we do now that we're in there, but what would you have done differently?

He said, well, did he manage, did he finally come up and say we should have squeezed the Soviet president?

But how?

Did he say what?

Did he recommend it?

Did he suggest it?

Hell, we were in the Soviet Union.

Not to get involved in this damn thing.

Henry told her to bring it.

She wasn't there all the time.

We should have threatened her.

We did not.

We infected her.

We told her.

We shouted at her.

We called her already.

Wouldn't have infected her.

Wouldn't have done a damn thing.

We tried to reply.

We called her already.

Well, coming back, a movie interview.

The other one, I don't know, I was mentioning, you know, about the sports field, I guess, I don't think I'd bother.

Well, you may have done enough in sports.

Well, we can do some more on the sports celebrity side of things.

I'm sure I'll make up for what they've done on drugs.

That's one thing I've thought about.

The drug one, boy, that's one that I just, the reason I'm driving them on over, that there's, that's, I'm convinced, that's the country, but in every whole, all the whole data we've got, it's the issue of greatest concern to people, and it's the issue we come out doing the worst, looking the worst on, getting the least credit on drugs.

And we've gotta get more mileage out of it.

It's a matter of doing more.

I don't, it's a matter of how we, how we, you know, how we got a job.

You're in quite a bit of trouble.

I know, but we've got to keep hammering at that Sunday afternoon and get it, get on top of it.

Demagogy.

All right.

Because it's, there's a lot of gold in it.

I mean, the people are, it's, and it's one we're, we're legit, too, and we got to be really strong on it.

Bob, do you think of anything else besides the salute to Hollywood?

Now, we don't need to salute Bob for this anymore, Bob, or that.

I've done all the hearty stuff, but don't you think you've done the hearty stuff enough?

Yes.

And there's not much left in that, is there?

I mean, Len Garland and Nancy Hanks run around, and they'll do their best to...

I mean, you always thought that meant more than I ever thought it meant.

I think it does sound good, but I think you've established that I think they pretty well know what you're trying.

And of course, the record is ever known, he had the best entertainment that this White House has ever had.

I mean, just a dang high level, generally speaking, right?

And a great range, yeah, a great range.

He was a great one.

Was he last night?

He was a great one.

After violence, he's better than us.

He's better than us.

I just turned real, I think he's older now.

He's your god damn right, he's better.

He's crippled now.

He says, yeah, oh yeah.

Strong, strong hands.

In terms of the standards, I see nothing to be gained by the others.

A few.

We'll be on call, so put it in our house.

Something for sports.

Do you think anything else, really?

The court, I don't believe a minute will add to it.

I think the speech maybe is, oh, what the hell.

I can't over-plug it.

The next court, I don't think I should go down and just swear to the man, oh, sir, that's not good.

I think they can come down and I can congratulate them here.

Well, there's a certain, you know, decorum for that.

Chief Justice brings his two militantias down.

Formal presentation of the president.

Makes no sense.

And then they have to do some swearing in some people and stuff like that, maybe, before we have some.

You mentioned that Peterson had probably preferred this.

He really can't possibly do that because Peterson, when we talk about something he's just going to be told that nobody who has been the chief executive officer can ever, after that, be an aide.

He's got, you know what I mean, he cannot step down.

I think he realizes that.

He is a chief executive officer, and that's what he writes and everything, and he's done a manageable job to try to adjust to a different relationship than he can.

I'm very worried that he can't do it.

He'll be all but good secretary of Congress.

He'll be around to make those speeches.

He's up to being loyal and so on and so on.

He'll be happy to.

We were not given really all that business he'd been working on as an international.

He just put it over there.

That's where it belongs anyway.

You know what I mean?

About making America more competitive and all that sort of thing.

It's difficult.

I don't remember none of the White House.

He didn't come up on Santa's movement in his meeting.

He didn't give Mitchell a crack on getting that done then.

I really think he was.

That is ridiculous.

That was not a show for legal.

The fact that it was on 100 diplomatic wire is bullshit.

I mean, that didn't have anything compared to what Henry's background read.

This was on every wire of every kind, public, private, and everything else.

He was just taking on a speaker from himself.

Because I think you have to let it ride through now in order to have the relationship.

But when it cools, don't hit it when it's tired or warm and so forth.

Just set it back as it goes.

Put it back up and on heel.

And when it's all finished, and if he doesn't, then we just have to protest to it.

I understand.

That's the way of the lost attitude we've got to have.

We cannot, even the difficulties that may be, we can't let the world go forward without a relationship.

I mean, that's what he's got to understand, or with me, or with anybody else.

You know, he's got this indispensable man there, and he'll find out.

Maybe we won't do it as well, but we'll do it.

He also must realize it.

As far as the China thing is concerned, and the Russian thing, they're not doing it because of Henry.

They're doing it because I'm here.

You know what I mean, Dan?

And he's a skillful cop.

He's a skillful cop.

Absolutely.

He's taken the property and manipulated it beautifully.

And for the situation that that is in Cleveland, he should actually put out a situation and have it done.

And then I think we've got to say, no, Henry, it's all over.

And we're going to have problems, and we've all got to just join hands here and fight these battles and not...

He says, well, I can't manage this crisis.

He says, I can't go through it.

I can't do any stuff.

Probably can't do the minis anyway, but I can.

The guy that's smart and basically so insecure is always close to a breaking point.

He's very close.

He's a strong man, but he's busy because he can almost work.

But emotionally...

And you read his past, some of these stories about it, where they've interviewed people that know him.

Apparently, before he came in here, he was just super insecure.

I mean, this job has apparently been an awful lot for my father and his ability to be afraid.

He was very interned, very afraid of people, afraid to, afraid he was going to get hurt, you know, so he never let out at all.

And he's apparently undergone it.

Quite a radical change in personality.

And, uh, afraid to lose, I would say.

Afraid to lose.

Sort of the typical persecutor do kind of thing.

One side, the non-pushy side of it.

Well, super sensitivity.

Real property here.

But he also has got to appreciate what we've done for him, and I don't want Henry Everett to get away from that fact.

Don't you think so?

Yes, and he knows that.

And if he does, then that's why he's got to play the game.

He's got to play the game on the rest of us, you know what I mean?

And then his arrogance sets in, and he begins to think, yeah, he's contributed more than he's received.

Yeah.

I think he really knows that if this is true, he likes to think it's making the case.

Yeah.

I think it's about the same.

Maybe it's slightly different.

The Azores is the same latitude we are.

I see.

Well, you'd have to be further apart.

It's a lot further apart than that, but I don't know.

It's not the center.

It's pretty close to it.

I'm trying to think what I could do that damn near, you know, crush things.

I don't know.

What I want to do in the middle is scan each other.

I think I may have a good office.

All of it at first.

That's a call, and it is this.

That I, too, would like to, I'm just thinking of trying to get my own energies conserved as much as possible in this period of time.

I just don't want to take off two days, but I've got to do it sometime.

But maybe I'm going to be looking at a little key basis.

It won't take quite as much energy.

And maybe that's what is called for at this time, rather than

I was wondering if you wanted to consider a series of mini press conferences only on the subject of the meeting after each of the meetings.

Which would give you the credit for the press conference would focus on the thing they're really interested in.

Avoid getting into the other stuff and avoid any need for preparation.

You mean after you return?

Yeah, two days later.

A day later.

It might be just to call in and do the White House regulars.

You know, they're right here.

And have them all just come in.

with the decorations or something like that, and I'd say, look, we're ending the year, and so forth, and it's all on the record, and ask any questions you like, in a very informal way, so that they, in effect, have a conference about it.

They're having a press corps reception on the 17th,

That's not the best, that's the best I can tell you, is about 8,000 people.

I'm not speaking of that.

I mean just, you know, like late in the day here, just about 4 o'clock reading and so forth.

Come on, Boston.

Come over here.

Sit around.

Maybe not over there.

Maybe here in the office.

You know, another thing about Florida, well, no, is that take the press that are with you in Florida.

Which time?

Once the city comes out and the AHRQs go to Florida.

Stay down there.

Then, come up the morning of the 18th.

Saturday morning.

Just call and press in when you get here.

If you're coming up to pick up Mrs. Mixon, go on in the office.

Do I have to go decorate?

Go ahead.

Alright, decorate.

You do that on the 18th.

Good morning.

You know, if I came back on the dates on the 4th, what I would do, what I would do would be to, I'd go back the 14th, right, and be there for, well, be there for about an hour and a half.

Right, sir.

And I had to stay the 15th and the 16th and the 17th.

Well, and the time magazine.

But you'd do it there.

Or you could move into the 18th also.

Well, what about coming up the night of the 17th?

I must give you much time down there.

It's worth it.

One night, two nights.

Well, as I said, I'll have two full days there, which is really all I need.

You're not going to know.

I'm thinking actually after Bermuda, I'm taking the two full days of Florida, the 22nd and 23rd, go directly from Bermuda over to Florida, spend the 22nd and 23rd, and then be here.

I have to be here the day before Christmas, and then come up the night of the 23rd and see you.

See, what I was thinking of was go out on the 21st from Bermuda.

I can probably be in Florida in an hour, hour and a half, two hours.

It's almost two hours.

It's almost as long as five.

I say, okay, well, I need that.

So the meeting finishes at noon, doesn't it?

Well, it looks like you're going to have to be pushing them after the session, man.

Both times.

You mean the night of the session, the 21st?

Right.

Then I get in Florida that night.

Which is what I do anyway.

Early, late afternoon.

Well, I'll stay that night, probably.

Get the board that night.

Then I go all day the next day, which is fine.

I sleep that night.

I sleep all day the next day.

Then at night, the 23rd, come on out and see.

And I'll be here the 24th or the 25th, which I should be.

I should be here the day before Christmas.

I like to be around.

In fact, I come out at the time for dinner here, the 23rd.

I fly in the afternoon.

After it's...

So I get a couple days with Laura on the 15th.

16th?

16th.

Now, I'd argue you could stay here the 17th.

Come up the night of the 17th.

Yeah.

Do your interview on the 18th.

They only want 45 minutes.

All right.

Or they might want the floor.

Which would be all right, too.

except the last of you up in Florida.

Although if you do it in the morning, it's not bad.

I'm not sure if I want to do it each time.

I mean, in Florida, I don't have to.

I've got the 15th and 16th folks.

Then you can come up, and then on the 18th, you do your Christmas tree.

Then go on and do a press conference.

Just call in the press that was down in Florida.

Now, they missed the press reception the night before.

Yeah.

Because they were in Florida.

That's one of the reasons I was going to argue not to come back up until the night of the 17th.

You bring them up then, then you say, you all missed the reception.

I'd like you to come over and see the directions, the decorations tomorrow morning.

Uh, and, uh... Just the Florida press?

Yeah, which would be the White House regulars.

And then the others that have to be around?

Anybody who happens to be around here on Saturday morning, which won't be anybody.

And then let them do a press conference type of thing that morning here, here.

Go ahead and then do your Christmas treat and then go on up.

You don't have to go to New York until later in the day, any one day.

And you're not, or do you have to get up there early?

Oh, the Christmas treat then.

I'm on the wrong time anyway.

That's this week.

Well, that's what I thought.

Oh, I'm free for 30.

You do the Christmas treat before you leave for the ALI.

I can do the time magazine interview.

Yes, sir.

We've got a little something, but we can do it at the agency.

They just want it before the party.

I can do the time magazine interview and then go over and do the, and then do the, and then invite the White House regulars to come over that afternoon before I go over to New York just to circle up the things.

sit around and chat a little while, and talk to them, and let them have an hour, you know what I mean?

But I would not in this instance, I would not in this instance, but have no, would you?

No, no.

I mean, all of a sudden, just sit around now.

No, sir, I don't want this guy to push us on this one.

What do you think?

Like I did, make it look like you like to have questions about a lot of things.

Let's just sort of, you can...

Well, the difficulty with it, Bob, the difficulty with it is that they, sadly, when in Christ they're going to write the goddamn thing.

You see, they've missed the Sunday papers.

Better be able to try to buy Jim Barclay, huh?

For money more.

Sure.

Which gives them, that's a courtesy to them.

It gives them the time to write it and file it for money, for money money.

I watch you out on television because Monday evening you have your Bermuda stuff for the TV.

I'm not interested in the television.

We don't care about this.

The purpose of this is to do the other side of the press, right?

And to say that I've done it on a different basis.

And why not do it on Saturday and say this is on-the-record press coverage.

On-the-record.

On-the-record, however.

It's a bargain of money.

It's a bargain of money because it's not hot news.

It's a lockdown.

It's a lockdown type.

It's on the record.

You can ask anybody you want about anything.

And we'll take, and Paul will take an hour.

It's the end of the congressional session.

Yeah, and we'll take an hour.

And we're in the middle of these things, and you just, we can talk informally.

Congress is over, you're in the middle of your cycle of head to head state consultations.

The war will be pretty well focused by then.

For sure.

I see, but I'm trying to have a pretty, by then it'd be pretty close at the end.

Rogers would be back from Mayhem.

I had, what I had to do would be to get my stuff bound so I could study in Florida for the 17th.

Yeah.

It's desirable for you not to be here the 16th and 17th for the press corps reception and the Christmas revival.

And there's some real merit to you being in Florida then, eh?

Yeah.

So I could be there the 15th, 16th, and then the 17th study.

But I don't think I should, I'm not going to make an effort to

Study like hell, I taught all these on this one.

I mean, it isn't that kind of thing.

So I'd be more relaxed and contemplating the athlete.

In fact, that's the way it ought to be prepared.

And I get the 18th out of the way and go up to the English church.

Then I ask the Bermuda, how about going to Florida for two days?

My husband's trying to keep that stuff up.

And come up the evening of the 23rd.

Yeah, later.

I think you could do that.

I think coming, waiting until the 24th does kind of hit you.

You're going to stay here the day before?

All day.

I just come up the night before.

You know, people leave here.

Everybody leaves work and then they're gone.

So there isn't much going on.

So the evening of the 23rd.

And you're still thinking about the day he's going back to Florida this year?

Christmas?

I guess so.

You've got to be up for a round on Tuesday, so you might as well.

Well, I thought, yeah, I've got to think about what they're saying around here.

They're going to have a Christmas.

Yeah, unless it's football games that day, and you want to stay there and watch the kids go down on that night.

Christmas.

I'm actually on the next thing.

Oh, yeah, there might be down there, but I don't think I used to go down.

Well, so there's the present.

We go down the morning at 26.

Be down there from the front.

And what do you want to do?

Yeah.