Conversation 643-013

TapeTape 643StartMonday, January 3, 1972 at 4:44 PMEndMonday, January 3, 1972 at 6:00 PMTape start time01:47:44Tape end time03:09:50ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Mitchell, John N.;  White House operator;  Rogers, William P.;  [Unknown person(s)];  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob");  Butterfield, Alexander P.Recording deviceOval Office

On January 3, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, White House operator, William P. Rogers, unknown person(s), H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:44 pm to 6:00 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 643-013 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 643-13

Date: January 3, 1972
Time: 4:44 pm - 6:00 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with John N. Mitchell.
[The recording began at an unknown time while the conversation was in progress]

     Yeoman Charles E. Radford
         -Removal
         -Relations with Jack N. Anderson
         -Unknown chief petty officer
               -Indebtedness
         -Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS] participation in White House infiltration
         -John D. Ehrlichman’s forthcoming meeting with Mitchell

     Anderson
          -Possible litigation
               -Timing
                      -1972 election
                      -Statute of limitations
               -Possession and publication of documents
          -JCS
               -Contact with Radford
          -Source of story

     Radford
          -Reassignment
                -Office closure
          -Anderson
          -Possible revelation of admirals’ activities
                -Delivery of secret material to JCS
          -Office
                -Closure

     Radford
          -Options
               -Melvin R. Laird
                    -Plan
                          -Ehrlichman
                          -Impunity

     The President's need to sign documents

     William D. Eberle
          -Performance
                -Trade negotiations
                -Compared with Peter G. Peterson
          -The President’s view

     White House staff
          -Performance

     John B. Connally
          -Relations with White House
               -Daniel L. Schorr’s story about Azores trip
               -Preston Smith
                     -Maury Cohen [sp?]
               -Mitchell's conversation with Ehrlichman
               -The President's and Mitchell's law firm [Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and
                     Alexander
                     -Unknown suit

[The President talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 4:44 pm and
5:15 pm.]

[Conversation No. 643-13A]
[See Conversation No. 18-13]

[End of telephone conversation]

     Connally
         -[Forename unknown] Gallagher's [sp?] letter
              -New York
         -Relations with White House
              -Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander
         -The President's schedule
              -California

[The President talked with William P. Rogers at unknown time between 4:44 pm and 5:15 pm.]

[See Conversation No. 18-14]

An unknown man entered and conferred with the President at an unknown time after 4:44 pm.

     Manolo Sanchez
         -Location

[End of conferral]

The unknown man left at an unknown time before 5:15 pm.

The President conferred with Mitchell at an unknown time.

     Robert S. Ingersoll
         -Possible ambassadorship
                -Japan

[End of conferral]

[End of telephone conversation]

     Appointments
         -Ambassadorship to Japan
              -Fredrick M. Eaton
                   -Rogers's views
                   -Age
                         -Appearance
                   -Conflict of interest
                   -Rogers C. B. Morton
              -Morton
              -Ingersoll
              -Morton

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[Duration: 19s]
H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman entered at an unknown time after 4:44 pm.

     California
           -Political situation
                 -Leonard K. Firestone
                        -Position
                              -Finance chairman

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     Ronald W. Reagan
          -Conflict with Elliot L. Richardson
                -Mitchell as arbitrator
                     -Ehrlichman's advice
                -Richardson's prerogatives
                -Concessions
                     -The President's concession on Medicaid
                           -George P. Shultz
                     -John N. Ashbrook
                     -Reagan's possible response
                -Welfare reform
                     -Reagan's planned press conference
                -Concession
                     -1972 election
          -Refusal to compromise
          -Office of Economic Opportunity [OEO] legal service issue
                -Compared with Nelson A. Rockefeller

     New York
         -Rockefeller
              -Tax package
                    -Work with Mitchell
                    -Conservatives

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      New York
           -Republican Party
                 -Conservatives
                         -Nelson A. Rockefeller
                         -John N. Ashbrook
                                -Primary
                                -John N. Mitchell’s previous talks Conv.
                                                                   with J.No. 643-15
                                                                           Daniel    (cont.)
                                                                                  Mahoney
                                       -William A. Rusher

      New Hampshire
           -Primary
                  -The President’s filing for candidacy
                         -Timing
                                 -Edmund S. Muskie
                                 -Meeting with Eisaku Sato
                                 -Afternoon briefing
                                         -Ronald L. Ziegler’s confirmation
                         -Letter
                         -Other primaries
                         -Letter
                                 -Ronald L. Ziegler’s confirmation

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    Raymond K. Price, Jr.
        -Schedule
              -[California]
        -State of the Union message
              -Drafts

    Connally
        -Administration's support
        -Smith
             -Investigators
                    -Los Angeles Times
             -Cohen
             -Attacks on Connally
                    -Reasons
                         -Ben F. Barnes
        -Mood
             -Golf in El Dorado
        -Investigation
        -Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander
             -Suit

    Trade negotiations with Japan
         -Eberle's presence in California
              -Kakuei Tanaka
                     -Maurice H. Stans
         -Stans
                 -Henry A. Kissinger
                 -Past performance
            -Eberle
            -Stans
                 -Presence
            -Dinner
                 -Tanaka
                 -Kissinger’s view
                       -Stans compared to Eberle
                            -Tanaka
                 -David M. Kennedy

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     New Hampshire
         -Primary
              -The President’s filing for candidacy
                   -Timing
                         -January 7, 1972

     Ohio
            -Robert A. Taft, Jr.
                 - “Second choice” position on state ballot
                       -John N. Mitchell’s opinion
                             -Preference for unnamed national committeewoman
                 -Relationship with Spiro T. Agnew
                 -Delegation
                 -Supporters
                       -John N. Mitchell’s opinion

**********************************************************************

     Indiana
          -John A. Schneider
               -Position with administration
                     -Frederic V. Malek
               -Background
                     -State treasurer

     Deputy Secretary of Defense
         -Schneider
         -Necessity
     -William P. Clements, Jr.
          -Finances
                -Compared with David Packard
     -Robert C. Seamans, Jr.
          -Conservatives
          -Background
                -National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA]

Appointments
    -Conservatives
         -Defense Department and Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
              [HEW]

Defense Department
     -Expenditures compared to authorizations
     -Secretary
          -Barry M. Goldwater
                -Timing
                -Impact
          -John G. Tower
     -Deputy Secretary
          -Legislation to split job
          -Goldwater
          -George H. W. Bush
                -Qualifications
                      -Loyalty
                -United Nations [UN] position
                      -UN
                -Possible political ambitions
                -UN position
                      -Prestige
          -Peter M. Flanigan
                -Confirmation
                      -Relations with Congress
                            -Joseph D. Tydings
                -Loyalty
                -Legislative programs
                -Peterson's job
                      -Possible downgrade

Commerce Department Secretary
   -Peterson
   -Helen D. Bentley
         -Letter from Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to the President
               -Mitchell
         -Language

Martha (Beall) Mitchell
     -Position on list of Top Ten Most Admired Women in World
           -George H. Gallup
           -Ethel (Skakel) Kennedy
          -Shirley Chisholm
     -Cover photograph for unknown newsmagazine
          -Replacement by Angela Davis
                -Martha Mitchell's reaction

Defense Department
          -Flanigan
                -Confirmation
                      -Laird
                -Role
                -Qualifications
                -Relations with Kissinger
                      -Washington Special Action Group [WSAG] meetings
                -Qualifications
                -Confirmation
                      -Tydings issue

Eberle

Malek
    -Job performance

Eberle
     -Position
           -Performance
           -Peterson’s position
           -Testimony

Flanigan
     -Possible position with Defense Department
          -Clark MacGregor
          -Kissinger
                -Previous relations
          -State Department
          -Kissinger
          -Qualities

Kissinger
     -Breakfast meeting with Mitchell, January 3, 1972
          -Kissinger's relationship with Rogers and State Department

Gerard C. Smith
     -Meeting with the President, January 3, 1972
           -Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT] negotiations
                 -Vienna
           -Rogers's presence
                 -Kissinger's view
                 -Rogers’s knowledge of negotiations

Kissinger
           -Meeting with Mitchell
                 -India-Pakistan War
                       -Rogers's and Richard F. Pederson's actions
                            -Backgrounders
                            -Effects on foreign policy
                                  -Democrats
                       -Leaks
                            -Kissinger’s possible handling
                       -Middle East
                            -Back channels
                       -Soviet Union
                            -Forthcoming summit
                            -Rogers's dealings with Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
                       -Kissinger’s talk with Haldeman in Key Biscayne
           -Possible resignation
                 -Timing
                       -Moscow Summit
           -Importance to Administration
           -Rogers and Laird
           -State Department

Alexander P. Butterfield entered at an unknown time after 4:44 pm.

     The President's schedule

Butterfield left at an unknown time before 6:00 pm.

     Kissinger
          -Return from Azores
                -Statement to press
          -India-Pakistan relations
                -State Department
          -State Department
                -Radford
                      -Anderson’s columns
                           -Reports from others
                -Rogers
                      -Foreign policy

     India-Pakistan War
           -New York Times task force
                -Kissinger
                -Request for interview with Rogers
                       -Rogers's response
                -Kissinger's cooperation
                       -Ehrlichman's reaction
                             -New York Times' report on Anderson and his sources
                       -Reasons
           -Public interest
                -The President's interview with Dan Rather, January 2, 1972
     -New York Times task force
          -Kissinger's cooperation
                -Reasons
                     -State Department
                           -Leaks to Marvin L. Kalb, et al.
                -Rogers's meeting with Haldeman, January 3, 1972

Kissinger
     -Relations with State Department
          -Self-defense
          -The Administration’s foreign policy
                -Middle East
                -Soviet Union
                      -Dobrynin
                      -Forthcoming summit
     -Talk with Mitchell
          -The President’s interests

State Department
      -Rogers’s conversations with Dobrynin
           -Notification of Kissinger
           -Compared with Kissinger’s conversations with Dobrynin
                 -Briefing the President
      -Middle East
      -Rogers’s conversation with Dobrynin
           -Briefing the President
           -Substance
                 -Kissinger’s view

Rogers
    -Relations with the President
         -Kissinger's view
               -Conversation with Haldeman
                     -Meeting with the President and J. Edgar Hoover on plane
                           -Birthday cake
         -Dinner with the President, Hoover and Charles G. (“Bebe”) Rebozo

Kissinger
     -Relations with the President
          -Kissinger's conversation with Haldeman
          -Meetings
                -Tone
          -India-Pakistan War
                -Kissinger’s press conference comments
                      -Talks with the President
                -Responsibilities for Rogers
                      -Consequences
                      -Kissinger
                -Kissinger’s talking paper
                      -The President’s meeting with Indira Gandhi
                     -State Department

     Kissinger
          -Relations with the President
               -Kissinger’s view
               -Niceties
                     -Calls from the President and Nelson A. Rockefeller
          -Relations with State Department and Rogers
               -Kissinger's possible action
                     -Consequences
                           -Hawks’ departure
                           -Dove
               -Leaks

     Radford
          -Kissinger's views
                -State Department
                -Meeting with Mitchell, January 3, 1972
                      -Possible firing of Adm. Thomas H. Moorer

     State Department
           -The President's forthcoming trip to Moscow
                -Structuring of activities
                -Kissinger's views
                      -Rogers's responsibilities
                      -Informing Rogers
           -Middle East and Moscow
                -Memoranda

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[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2014-033. Segment declassified on 05/28/2019. Archivist: MAS]
[National Security]
[643-013-w013]
[Duration: 4s]

      Department of State [DOS]
            -Middle East and Moscow
                    -Memoranda
                    -Richard M. Helms

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     Department of State [DOS]
         -Middle East and Moscow
              -Joseph J. Sisco

     Rogers
     -Relations with Kissinger and the President
           -Candor
     -Performance
           -Leaking
     -Loyalty
     -Cambodia
     -Relations with the President
           -Vietnam
                 -Bombing
           -Possible talk with Mitchell and Haldeman
                -Kissinger, the President
                -Discussion of problems
                       -1972 election
                       -Personality conflicts
     -Trip to Soviet Union for negotiations
           -Kissinger
     -Kissinger's view
           -Publicity
                 -Kissinger
     -Qualities
           -Foreign affairs
                 -Knowledge
                 -Public relations
                       -Compared with Kissinger
           -Balance and self-confidence
                 -Kissinger

India-Pakistan War
      -Inevitability
      -US policy
            -Kissinger
      -Soviets
            -Lack of cooperation
            -The President's meeting with Soviet Agricultural Minister [Vladimir
                  Matskevich]
            -Gandhi
      -Rogers's possible views
            -Possible talk with Haldeman
                  -State Department

Kissinger and Rogers
     -Contrast
           -Concern for historical compared to immediate image
           -Concern for “editorial page” compared to “front page” image
           -Long compared to short view
           -Rationality and self control
           -Rogers
                 -Composure
                      -Conversation with John A. Scali
           -Manners
Cabinet
     -Kissinger's views
           -Rogers
           -Laird
     -Responsibilities
Kissinger and Rogers
     -India-Pakistan War
     -Leaks
     -Value
     -Loyalty
           -State Department

Kissinger
     -Relations with the President
           -Kissinger's view
                 -Trips to Florida, California
     -Attendance at forthcoming Japanese dinner
           -[Unknown person]
     -Calls from the President
     -Talks with Haldeman and Mitchell
           -Rogers's retention in office
                 -Kissinger's views
     -Possible resignation
           -Timing
                 -1972 election
                 -Soviet Summit
                 -Possible announcement
                       -June 1972
     -Middle East
           -Kissinger's background
           -Kissinger's view
                 -Talk with Mitchell
                 -Talk with the President
                       -1970 elections
           -Kissinger’s meetings
                 -Promises
     -India-Pakistan War
           -Rogers
           -Kissinger's responsibility
                 -The President’s view
           -State Department
           -The President's orders at WSAG meeting
                 -Kissinger’s view
     -Relations with Rogers
     -Cooperation with New York Times
           -Reasons
                 -Justification of Kissinger’s role
                 -Kissinger's importance vis-a-vis the President's
     -Relations with the President
          -Announcements
                -Troop withdrawals
          -The President’s interview with Dan Rather, January 2, 1972
                -Kissinger foreign policy suggestions
                      -Prisoners of war [POWs]
     -Honesty
          -Press treatment

The President’s schedule
     -San Clemente
          -Possible instructions to Rogers and Kissinger
                 -Contact with press
                      -Anderson
                      -India-Pakistan War

New York Times
    -The President's instructions
          -Pentagon Papers
                -Kissinger
    -Kissinger
          -Interviews
                -Ronald L. Ziegler
                -Haldeman
                -Talks with Haldeman and Mitchell
                     -State Department
                           -India-Pakistan War
    -Possible leaks

The President's trip to California
     -Mitchell's schedule
          -Talk with Rogers
                 -Haldeman's presence

Kissinger
     -Possible talk
     -Possible talk with the President
          -Complaints regarding Rogers and State Department
     -Possible talk with Mitchell
          -Rockefeller
                 -Relations with Kissinger

The President's schedule
     -Recent meeting with Rogers in Florida
          -Rogers's interest
     -Dinner with Rogers, Hoover and Rebozo
     -Plane trip
          -Meeting with Hoover, Rogers and Adele (Langston) Rogers
          -Haldeman's meeting with Rogers
     -Meetings with Rogers
          -Kissinger's presence
           -Meetings with foreign leaders
                 -African leaders
                       -Upper Volta
                       -Kissinger's presence
                 -Kissinger’s presence
                       -Georges J.R. Pompidou
                       -Manner
                       -Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
                       -Kissinger's notes
           -Trip to California
                 -Mitchell
                       -Talk with Kissinger
                            -Timing
                       -Talks with Kissinger and Rogers
                            -The President’s instructions
                            -Anderson
                            -Investigation
                                  -Ehrlichman

     Kissinger
          -Relations with the President
               -Hypothetical relations with Connally as President
                     -Kissinger's tenure in office
                     -Rogers's tenure in office
               -Contrasted with other Cabinet members
               -Cambodia and Laos
               -Pentagon Papers
               -Encouragement

     The President's trip to California

     Unknown matter

Mitchell and Haldeman left at 6:00 pm.

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.

I would think it might be a good idea if this is still the game plan to get him out of here in good style in a place where he's going to be away from Jackie Anderson and some of these friends that have gotten to him.
There's one particular chief petty officer who he served with who has loaned him $1,000 in the past and seems to have a pretty good hold on this stuff.
He's the one that's
telling him not to worry because he's got the upper hand with all the information he has about the Joint Chiefs of Staff participating in this.
So, I think that's what ought to be done with it.
So,
That's my recommendation.
I guess John's talking about it.
It is.
Son of a bitch.
I would just like to get a hold of this Anderson.
Hang him.
God damn it, yes.
Well, listen.
The day after the election, win or lose, you've got to do something with the son of a bitch.
Don't you?
I would.
I did.
Sure.
Statute of limitation won't have run, will it?
Won't have run at all.
He's guilty as hell, isn't he?
No question about it, as much as admitting the possession and publication.
You really feel robust about Chiefs too badly?
I do, yes.
There's one other factor I guess you're aware of, and that is that the Times has got an investigative reporting team that work on where Anderson got this stuff.
That's one of the
better reasons for getting this yeoman out of town so that they don't get onto him.
I don't believe so.
I don't believe so.
I don't believe that Anderson will disclose his stories.
You see, what has happened from the ministerial point of view is that the office that he was working in has been closed.
And so he's just reassigned to another duty.
I don't know how Anderson could get at this without disclosing that he's his source.
He thinks he has the upper hand.
Well, what he's talking about is
busting loose the two admirals who were sitting over there with him, taking this material out of channels, taking the material that didn't belong in the communication channels of the Joint Chiefs and turning it over to them.
The office, of course, is already closed.
So I don't know if you have any other options.
All right.
I think that's good.
Well, Laird will be back to John with his plan.
And as I say, I don't think it should be curious.
I had to sign something here.
It reminded me of a program.
Everly is a goddamn impressive father.
I watched him on two meetings.
The crazy thing is, by God, he's more buttoned down than Peter Stewart.
And just as articulate.
And he's really a hell of a father.
I would agree with it.
And tough.
He's a tough guy.
I mean, he looks sort of like a smiley type.
There's a lot more to that man than I realize.
I'm not insulted by it.
Do you agree?
Yes, sir.
From everything I know about him.
I don't know him too well.
Well, you've got to read the property and just put that in the back of your mind.
Yeah.
There's a lot of pawns to move around.
Oh, one... Well, the thing to do is first all to watch the men that really have the good ones.
Because, you know, when you look around for people, you're in a position to find them.
And you want to see them under combat conditions, which makes a hell of a lot of difference in some reputation they've brought from some other place.
That's what makes the difference.
Just an aside on this John Connolly business.
There has been quite a campaign that might have been calling your attention to really put a ship in John Connolly.
I saw, not a ship, but I saw that goddamn shore city have a big fight in the White House.
It didn't like the age or the green room.
That is pure bullshit.
That's all I'm going to know.
Well, it's all pure bullshit, but they've been... Who's behind the game?
Preston Smith, and he's using Roy Cohen in New York.
I talked to John about it again today.
What I did was have the law firm get out of that lawsuit down in Texas.
So that there's no handle upon which these people can start these crimes.
So that, well, now wait a minute.
We're maybe talking about another thing is Preston Smith is behind this business and the company is...
No, no, I was talking about the...
Guess what it is.
That's right.
There's been the Gallagher's letter in New York, and there's been dope stories, you know, in some of the columns that we were out to get Conley, and it was being done through the law firm.
Oh, yeah, that.
Yeah, I saw that.
But there's no...
It's better than I thought it when I was in California, I'm sure.
one thing to you.
Manolo Ghosn is the answer to this question.
I was trying to say that
or I guess you or somebody has reported that Fred Eaton now wants, will take the job.
Well, I just wanted you to know that my view is, for reasons that have nothing to do with the conflict, that he is, I don't, I agree with you, you know what I mean.
On the other hand, on the other hand, I think that,
It's got to be handled very discreetly, and I would hope that you would, for the effect that you've made the check, and then we'll, we figure there's just going to be a call to fight, and we think we better not do it.
How do you think we can do it?
Because, you know, I can easily see, maybe you don't, I can easily see that, uh, you just wouldn't, you're just just a man for the job, uh, the age and everything else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've checked it out.
And I don't know what happened is that he decided that all of a sudden he's convinced he wants to take it.
Maybe he went on the mountaintop, but he had a great idea.
But my God, and it's funny, it isn't really quite that handy, just because there would be a hell of a fight, I mean.
Yeah, and we just think that it would be, we just decided the fight's going to be too rough and that we need somebody there now and so forth.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
And also that there are very important things going on right now and that we need them right now and quickly.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
You can say that immediately afterwards.
But I think that we have no problem at all.
And that I think that I would like to think that also, because after that, we would hope to have a mandate.
But that we wouldn't have these fights.
These fights always occur.
They're going to occur in the election year.
And we talk.
You don't want to reveal the source, but we talk to the people we have utter confidence in.
And it's that.
Yes, he's a good man.
Another one that occurred to me was the Peterson trade thing.
Oh, the UN.
I had forgotten that.
I had forgotten that.
And you're sold.
He's the difficult one.
He's not the strongest man.
He's a good man because his father was a strong man.
He's a hell of a father.
This guy's a sweet guy, a really wonderful guy.
Yeah, I'm not, and I just got a, I just like a little feel, I don't know, I think Pete ought to check out with a few tough Illinois types to see how great, how tough he really is.
And there was one other, did Pete mention you?
I mentioned another name.
Jewel?
Forget it.
Forget it.
Well, Hanger Saul, take a look at Hanger Saul.
Can you do that?
Because we could consider him something else.
He is a very good friend of mine.
He's a hell of a fall.
Now, another one of ours who would be great is Gallup.
The difficulty is that I think that John Mitchell is sitting right here.
I think we want to keep him in Illinois.
John, isn't that correct?
Yes.
How about that?
Let me ask John.
You know Hanger Saul?
Yeah.
Could he do Japan?
I think so.
I think so.
I think so.
I think so.
I think so.
No, no, not the best.
There's no conflict of interest, and they probably don't do, I hope, much business.
It's a good company, though.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that'd be fine.
Fine.
Thank you.
But promise him something afterwards.
Tell him that I would very much like for him to consider a post afterwards.
You know, he'd be good for Nathan, you know, or something like that.
Or something else.
He didn't impress me very well.
Did you see him?
Well, he's smart-faced, and frankly, I think it's his best face.
It's just between us.
Those are my reasons.
And Bill Reed, which is Bill, I never knew he didn't know who the hell he was.
Yeah, well, Freddie was pretty well on here.
But he's 66 years of age, and he looks 76.
Yeah.
And I just thought, well, if I go into this case, you know, whatever it is.
Also, he does have a host of possible contractors.
He's represented a number of firms, Japanese firms, American firms, and all the hell of great ones.
Well, Morton worked on it pretty good.
I know he died.
God, God, Mark.
Which Mark?
You're sure?
I'm positive.
I'm positive.
God, he'd be the best.
Because I like Mark so much.
I'd like to have a man.
Well, I know him.
He's a good friend.
But you're sure Mark won't take it off?
No, he's working here at home.
Okay.
Okay.
Mr. Holloman?
Yes, sir.
Going on to another subject, California.
The political situation is
falling into shape out there, and Firestone was not a finance chairman, and everybody's happy you get through holding hands with them, except for our old problem with the governor and Elliot Richardson.
And I don't want to bore you with all of it again, but John Ehrlichman decided that I'd better try and broker this, so I've been back and forth with Richardson and Reagan today.
Richardson's getting a little persnickety about it, talking about his prerogatives under the statute, and how if it were known that he was directed to do this, thus and thus and so would happen.
So I will continue to try and work this thing out.
Their differences are not far apart, and I think Richardson has just got the gill on this, and it can be structured that way, and I'm going to switch with him.
That's right.
Just say the space is too high.
By God, he's got to give.
I gave him something.
What the hell was it?
Something to help him today.
An albedo cake.
Medicaid.
Yeah, 31 days.
I told, I just told Schultz to call him.
I told him that I was going to do what Richardson wanted, so give him that.
But God damn it, he's got to make the deal with Reagan and get off and just do it.
That's all we've got.
We've got to just say we've got a hell of a problem out there with these, and I can put it this way, I'll let you talk some coal politics with me.
We've got these right-wing groups in Asheboro out there.
That's what I've been doing.
This thing, and
He was all set to hold a press conference today to blast the hell out of the administration until I bumped into him.
I bet he took off lunching out there and got him off the wicket.
Great.
Yeah.
On the welfare.
On the welfare.
Yeah.
No, not the welfare.
All the welfare.
Yeah.
Not that welfare.
This is his hang-up.
We just got to get rid of the subject.
Okay.
Done.
All right.
All right.
But there may be some plaque come back out of region.
It's got to be done because just say that, Elliot, this thing has reached a crisis, and I hate to do it, but Jesus, just do it and do it as low-key as possible and get it done.
All right.
Well, he should understand that, but he's getting pushed by Reagan so that he's got his dander up in him.
Reagan, of course, is a mean bastard on this, too.
He's mean and also selfish.
selfish, just like he was in the OEO legal services.
He's selfish, single-minded, and frankly, you talk to him, he doesn't give one goddamn thing.
He isn't.
And he's bad.
And he doesn't talk the way I do.
And boy, there'll be a time when we won't have to deal with him.
I hope not.
I would hope that that would... Now, really, I mean, I don't think he's... You've got to save a Rockefeller.
He fights like a son of a bitch.
But Rockefeller actually makes a deal, doesn't he?
He's reasonable.
I've been helping him in the last two days to put one together, and I think we have getting the conservatives to support Nelson Rockefeller's tax package, and you don't think that's been quite a job.
I think it's really put together.
But it's good, because we've got the conservatives working with
with Nelson Rockwell, and this will do a lot to heal that party up there.
Well, we can't let the conservatives put Ashford on the ticket to New York.
Well, that could be avoided, John.
Oh, yes.
I don't see that at all.
I don't see that at all.
There's not the desire, and I don't think that the party structure as such will hold still for it.
I've already talked to Mahoney, Dan Mahoney, about this two or three times.
And as they point out, read our closely what we said.
We're just suspending support.
We're not part of this.
This is Russia and so forth.
I would feel that would be the case.
In New Hampshire, we still have a problem with this date.
Well, I would ask, I and Clark Johnson said, I think we saw, we talked, the thought was to move it up earlier.
Even earlier, Dave.
Michael kept it over quick.
Michael, the fifth?
Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Hell no, we can't move it to the fifth.
It must be the fourth.
Yeah.
Hell no.
All right.
What about the 7th?
Even though you have this out of, huh?
Even though you have this out of that, the other thing we talked about was the 7th, at the afternoon briefing.
Afternoon briefing, sir.
Well, let's see, that was too late for you to do an entry, though.
At the afternoon briefing, I put you laid out on the coast.
Yeah.
But he could just go ahead and do it in New Hampshire, and then Ron could confirm that the afternoon briefing finished.
Because, yeah, I'm worried.
Let's just do it.
We just send the letter back, and we file it.
And Ron says, yeah, we did it.
And then Ron just confirms it.
Just do it as low key as that.
And then I have no damned announcement at all.
So I'm not going to say anything.
And Ron would say, yes, Kevin, you filed two letters.
We filed a letter.
What about the other primaries?
Yes, he will letter the other primaries.
I think you better get a little stopping paper for him.
What about Kevin?
He's already covered that, right?
I can get it out of the way with regard to the other primaries right now, so there isn't a new announcement every now and then.
Don't you think so?
Brock can say yes, he's responded to that.
When we enter other primaries, he will enter the other primaries.
He's authorized his name to be entered in all primaries.
Is this an announcement that he's authorized to be a candidate?
Well, we've got to work something out here.
Oh, please, Boston.
How do you do that?
Well, you have to let her go, then have Ron confirm.
Is Ray Christman going to stay here?
Is he going out with him?
He'll be here for now.
Well, because he's working on it.
He may be coming out on Wednesday or something.
He'll be here for that.
Well, we should have those drafts later today or the first thing in the morning.
He's working on it.
As John Connolly is, as thoroughly as he can be, we're supporting him on that damn thing.
Yes.
All the way.
Yes.
And he's got some of the worst possible crooked investigators trying to dig up the stories and sell them.
Well, they even sent one of them out to see the Los Angeles Times, but apparently they didn't print any of it.
Well, he's the one that's putting it out all over the dope sheets.
They sure now do, and...
Preston Smith, I'm sure, feels that if he can destroy John Connolly, he can destroy Barnes.
That's the gambit.
Oh, God.
But John, who was out playing golf in El Dorado, didn't seem to be worried about it at all.
How did he sound to you today?
I never got it.
He said, oh, hell, let them dig.
They can go all over any place.
And he said, I've got nothing to hide sort of approach to it.
I hope that's so.
Well, anyway, if they come out with grace and truth, that's what we ought to do.
Well, the fact that the law firm has dropped that litigation ban here removes the real case for tying in
the Attorney General and the President and so forth to go around the back door trying to snipe Conley.
And so they'll have to be doing it on their own now without a lot of guys.
Secretary Isabel is going to be there, as I understand now.
In California?
Yes.
Well, God damn it, they set it up there today.
I mean, everybody's there because Tanaka's going to be there.
And he's the trade representative.
No, sir, Stens is there because Tanaka's there.
Well, Stens isn't supposed to be there.
Henry said, you know, he doesn't know his ass first base about the trade negotiations.
The guy that's negotiating the trade is not Sands, who, you know, basically he's a wonderful man but cannot negotiate on trade.
You know, he screwed it up twice.
Everly is the one that they're negotiating with on the trade, Bob.
So he's got to be there negotiating.
I said, we can't have him do that.
So I don't know.
I'd never be able to knock Sands out before he told me then.
Oh, well, we can't hurt Sands.
He wants us to have everybody sit in, too, but not Sands at the dinner.
Sands doesn't come to the dinner, but I don't know where in the hell he's going to put... Because Tanaka comes to the dinner.
I don't know.
Henry went back and forth.
there, not everything.
Tanaka is a cabinet minister.
Well, of course, of course, of course.
Well, there really isn't going to be a dent, so we're going to have Tanaka there.
And then you've got to find a place for Kennedy there, too.
We cannot have him not there.
But if we can, I think maybe we can.
That's what we've got to try.
It's going to be pretty hard.
We can't hurry for Christ's sake.
It's going to be pretty hard.
Well, let's...
Anyway, we can skip... Go ahead.
Skip the dinner.
No, no, no.
Skip.
Go ahead.
Well, let's solve it on the 7th, then, in New Hampshire.
All right, Bob.
All right.
7-5, I mean.
Get it done.
In Ohio, we're having a little trouble with Mr. Taft, but I think that...
He is the only one that's vision of the situation, and the rest of them are all pulled together.
He is...
Favorite son?
Well, I've got him off that kick, but they have what is known as a second choice in the Ohio ballot, and he wants to get his name on that.
And I'm opting for the National Committee woman out there, which I think would be great.
Get a woman on there instead of...
Yeah, instead of that, and then, of course, it eliminates the Agnew problem, where you don't have Taft in a direct conflict with Agnew.
Yeah, which he would be.
But I think that is working out, will work out all right, because Taft is trying to push it alone, and I think that
force him to take care of it.
He's trying to screw up the delegation and everything else.
Well, he's got a lot of ambitious young punks around him that are giving him all these bright ideas.
In Indiana, I think the deal is made where Mr. Schneider is coming out if we can find him a job, and I will get at Malick in connection with that.
Have a job.
See you later.
I don't believe he is.
But...
He's a pretty capable follower.
I think John Snyder would be a pretty good bureaucrat if you put him in place after all he was state treasurer for years.
Right.
Pretty good follower.
We can work it out.
Should have had...
Probably would have been a better candidate than the other ones.
He would be deputy secretary of defense.
We don't have another secretary.
All right.
Thank you.
What's the name of this fellow that the Conservatives have been pushing from Texas?
Is it Clements?
Clements, Bill Clements.
Bill Clements.
Somebody looked at him?
He have all the usual problems?
Main problem is he has money.
Mm-hmm.
Anybody with money or not who doesn't qualify for that job, unless he wants to be a welfare inspector, he has more money than plenty.
Pretty hard to give up everything for the last year.
For a year, yeah.
He might do it.
Maybe it must be pushing Seaman.
I don't know.
We've got him off the scene.
Well, I think Seaman will again erode our conservatives
support.
He's one of the wizards, isn't he?
Well, he was there long enough to be one of them.
Oh, yes.
He's part of that established intellectual bunch of headmasters.
He was national.
I know, but he's still the same kind.
He said, yeah, I can imagine.
You've seen him around.
Well, he's not one of our type of persons, sir.
That's why I wanted that job.
Well, the last analysis was
conservative wing, you get down to defense and welfare.
And the defense spot over there is quite important, because somebody's going to find out that we haven't been expending money at the rate of our authorizations in the national security interest.
And this is going to cause some problems.
So he came up with the wild card line.
How would you like to put Barry Goldwater in there and make him secretary?
later next year.
Well, God knows you can't control Barry Kilgore.
Yeah.
It's the air that helps people.
If it were John Power, I'd say yes.
But you can't.
It's not necessarily opposed to Kilgore.
It's
Well, in addition to that, of course, they've got that legislation up there, which apparently is going to pass, where they split up that undersecretary's job.
That's right.
And you have a special act to do it.
What about George Bush?
He'd be damn good.
He'd be damn good.
He's loyal.
The U.S. is a pain in the ass anyway.
He likes it and does it well, but that doesn't mean he'd want the defense.
That doesn't mean he'd take it.
He'd take it if he thought he was going to do something else later.
So the U.N. job has a hell of a lot more.
It isn't as important, but it has more prestige.
Do you run Peter Flanagan by the present?
Is that your production?
Fine.
You get it confirmed.
Do you think he could?
Or do you think Pete thinks he could?
Pete thinks he could.
I don't know.
I haven't taken a reading on it.
Pete says that he's now dealing with all these people on the Hill, and they just love him to death and all that stuff.
His problem up there is Tidings.
Tidings is gone.
Pete sold his vessel, so...
Well, you'd be a goddamn good man.
Total loyalist.
And he wants the job.
Trying to lose it here.
I know, but we can lose it here.
Well, for that job, for that job, I could lose it.
Peter's argument is that hell, all of my legislative programs have been put together.
His new thing would be the Peterson job.
Well, I hold that thing.
Well, that's just got to be downgraded, isn't it?
Sure.
Weren't you going to downgrade that?
Yeah.
It depends.
It's a fair game, Jeff, or either that.
What really ought to happen is you ought to have Peterson continue to be active over his commerce.
Wish we hadn't promised him commerce, I'd give it to Helen Benedict and a woman in the cabin.
That's what she wants to see me about, huh?
Gee, that's a toughie.
Did you ever hear that woman swear?
No question about it.
No question about it.
You didn't see that?
Martha has moved into the, they have this list of the Gallup, which are the ten most admired women in the country.
Martha is now number eight in the world.
In the world.
When did this come out?
A couple of days ago.
Did this come out?
Yeah, it came out Friday.
It's been printed in magazines this week.
Oh, is it?
Yeah.
She replaced that at the end of the year.
It was dropped off at the end of the year.
That will make her doubly happy.
Doubly difficult.
That's right.
Well, anyway, Shirley Chisholm.
Shirley Chisholm.
Shirley Chisholm's number 10.
I'm glad she's number 9.
I'm glad she's the head of Shirley Chisholm, because last year when they took all the pictures to put her on the front page of Life or Time or some such thing, and then Angela Davis bumped her, I thought she was...
I thought you were going to clear the magazine apart.
Well, I wonder if you're serious about Peter Flanagan, that that shouldn't be checked out.
Why don't we check it out?
The confirmation aspect of it.
Check it with Laird.
Senator.
I think Peter can handle that job, and I think he'd be a good guy over there for this crunch year to look after the store and look after the secretary.
Look after the secretary, and also he'd be one hell of a good guy in Henry's Watson meetings, you know, where Andy, you know, has all the...
Ralph manipulates, and Henry needs somebody to watch him.
He really does, so stand up for him, and Pete would, wouldn't he?
Oh, it would be good to stand up to Henry, and watch him spatter all over the wall.
He has the meaning, but he stands up for him.
Because he has the meaning, yeah.
But Henry, Pete would be good with him, even with him, outside, outside of him.
I would think that that aspect of it would be good, because it'll...
I said Pete would be good, just try it.
Yeah.
I agree with you on that.
But I just don't feel we want a hell of a confirmation.
A little one I don't want.
Not at all.
I would think the Deputy Secretary of Defense would be...
Wait, why don't you take the mic and tell us about this one?
Well, uh...
You can't tell what they might find that they'd like to take him on.
I don't think there's tidings tankers in this country.
I don't think there's any fraud anyway.
As I just said to John, we really missed a better era than we've ever missed.
Taking trade jobs wasn't as important here as well, but he's a first-class farmer.
Malak is a genius at finding people.
He doesn't take that same job.
Alex doesn't have a hell of a job.
Well, every job is mine to take that same job.
It's a lousy job.
He stayed in it.
He's doing it.
He's just terrific.
He could move in into the BFC job.
Yes, exactly.
Oh.
He would be perfect for it, and then leave, and then I would still continue to be a judge.
Well, there's one thing.
We already have one, but there's a lot of young ones out there, and there shouldn't be any, because he hasn't testified, but he was working.
That's it.
He testified on the charity draft, and then I testified on the system draft.
Oh, well, and then there's a special period where he's going to be in and start supervising some other judges.
That's the lesson.
All right.
Let's go.
I mean, plans will go, John.
Well, it's the best I've thought of them.
And go to McGregor right away and say, now, where are you trying to stop?
I don't believe you ought to take it up with him at this point.
Don't you agree?
How does Plannigan and Kistinger get along over here?
It depends.
I don't think they've ever had any trouble.
that kind of problems.
They don't really deal with each other.
I think he's important.
And then before Peter or other things, like he was sworn for the same job.
He's the man you can trust.
And Henry figures that he can handle it.
He knows he can trust Peter and would figure he can handle it.
Okay, done.
Sure, he's right.
He's not right.
He's not right at all.
He's not right at all.
I'd like to take a couple of minutes on this unhappy subject of Dr. Kissinger.
I had breakfast with him this morning.
This was approached on a political basis.
This is the new approach.
This is all now in your hands again?
The Kissinger-Rogers business.
Kissinger-Rogers.
State Department.
In the past, Mr. President, I haven't been really as concerned about it as I really am now.
When I had to, I didn't.
Jerry Smith came in to go off to the...
I told Rodgers to come over, too, because I thought he was going to be here.
And he violently objected.
He said, well, Rodgers is trying to take credit for the assault.
Well, that's, that's, that's, that's irrelevant, really.
Rodgers had to be here.
He has to be here.
He's got to goddamn well at least know what I'm telling Smith, because Smith's going to go back over and tell him what he may have told him before.
So that was right after you had breakfast?
That's correct.
I heard, but Henry makes the point, which is valid to be addressed, and he uses again the illustration of the Pakistan-Indian situation, where you had one program that came out of the White House,
as he claims Rogers and Peterson and some of the rest of them were over there, given backgrounders to show how the administration screwed up the Indian-Pakistan situation and points out that this, of course, is deleterious to your foreign policy and that it just gives fuel to the Democrats that are going to start to cut this.
Now, you also have Henry at a point
where he says that he is no longer going to take this being cut to pieces by the people in the State Department, and he is going to the leaking operation in his self-defense.
And then, of course, he fuzzes it in with some rationalizations to the point that if they follow the back channels and get
the Middle East screwed up again without advising you and Henry, you're not going to be able to pull off the Middle East in Moscow.
And if they don't stop dealing with Dabrinian and so forth, they're going to screw up the summit in Moscow.
Do you have a lot of privacy to Dabrinian at all at any time, in any matter?
Well, that's not the way to put it to me.
He's moving around.
He's covering all of us.
He hit John.
All right.
It was exactly the same thing.
He hit John.
Go ahead.
Do this again.
Well, this is basically, Mr. President, I don't want to force you.
It didn't come in.
What is it?
This has been three weeks.
It didn't come in with the tri-weekly demand to resign.
Yeah, that's it.
Well, let's not go after Russia because he was lying to the state due to science.
Well, I think maybe we have to let him go.
We may have.
We've got a situation.
Green Ocean.
I, I, I, I know it's safe.
I don't know about this, but it's safe.
Green Ocean goes to the very bottom of the mountain.
That's good.
I want it.
I know I want it.
I just want to put it down.
The real answer is his concern about what happened.
His realization, I think, ultimately, of what happened.
He blew it.
Coming back, he blew it back with his breath.
And maybe some students say, would you do it again?
He says, no, I'm just going to do it again.
And I am doing it.
and his, and then, of course, finding that every time he could have been embraced by anybody, anytime, anyplace, he dug a wall in his right city.
Henry was not, I believe, one bit concerned about the owner.
I don't know.
His only concern was in relationship to the bank.
And then when the last man, when Anderson called, he said, well, we know that's where they came from.
He told me, you know, what state is doing, what the writers are not doing, the state is doing.
That building on the Anderson Scott building, that's his line.
It isn't true, though, is it?
No.
Dave Young checked out by Keaton today, Anderson Scott, and he's still out of the same cycle.
Yeah.
Oh, and he says that they're building on buildings.
It's about the same time.
Having said all that, I mean, I realize that there are two sites.
You know what I do about the rockers.
And, uh...
And both are active in the field in that way.
But we've got too much.
So it's just an immediate problem on it now.
Just that thing, the New York Times has got a task force doing this, one of their big super reports, you know, on how did the South Asian thing come about and what is the true story of this versus the true story of the Pentagon and so on.
They approached Bill Rogers and said they wanted to interview him and key people at the State Department to get the information.
And Bill Rogers said, no.
And where did these people escape?
No.
He said, we were not cooperating with the New York Times on such a story.
So then Henry said, yes, you are.
No, he's not going to Rockwell.
He is going to.
Then...
John called me and said he didn't want Henry to talk to him about a match because the Times is also trying to do a story about how did Jack Anderson get the information for his comics.
And John wrote that he doesn't want Henry to talk to the Times about the subject he tried.
And Henry said to me on that, I won't talk to them about that, but I will talk to them on Salvation.
And I said, you can't separate it, but Jack Anderson's subject is Salvation.
This is about getting to the whole purpose of Henry's talking sometimes about consolidation.
You have to realize, John, this is self-justification, right?
Do you agree or not?
Well, that's every initiative that comes out of consolidation from now on.
But, Bob, it is self-destructive for Henry because he was to get back at what the State Department leaked out to Martin Kalb and the rest of them.
So Bill came in to see me this morning and said, I'm concerned about this thing.
He said, I don't know what I should do.
I've now found, after I've issued orders, that we're not talking to you.
And I said, well, then who's going to talk to you?
He said, I can't keep our people locked up with different pictures to pull off and talk to them.
So I'll go back to that meeting.
But that, you know, you have to wait and see.
All right, well, let's see what's going to happen.
Well, his proposer, as I just mentioned, are you talking about the interstate SOPA?
He, of course, wants to defend himself, but in the protection of your foreign policy, he feels that you have to have two things.
Number one, that they not go ahead and screw up the Middle East any further.
and that they not move without the clearance over here with you, and that the same with the Bremen and Moscow, that there be no communications that are not cleared through this particular office, so that those initiatives are not screwed up before you ever get there.
That's really his two basic factors.
My question to Henry was, what the hell do you expect the President to do all about this?
He said, going back to his interest of the national security,
national interest and the political interest and all the rest of it, which he justifies.
They're talking to me with that approach.
But these are the things that you need to protect yourself against the State Department in your upcoming initiatives.
And that's, I think,
Well, since Henry does tell you, that's his argument.
And I'm inclined to agree with Henry that the State Department is perfectly capable of screwing up the Middle East so that you won't be able to work it out in Moscow.
And then screwing up your approach.
I'm always on that.
And I always do the right thing.
I must say that he doesn't talk too great about any of the matters.
I said, Henry, can you see that?
It's disgusting.
Henry, that's what apparently happens.
They'll bring it over where the power is.
See, Henry, he was convinced Rogers should really work with you over the weekend.
I said, well, yes.
I thought, well, Salim Rogers isn't seeing him for talking.
He said, yes, he flew up on the plane.
I found out Rogers changed his plane to blow up on the plane.
I said, that's right.
The president spent 10 minutes with him with Jacob Gerber and a goddamn birthday cake.
How much evil do you think got done during that?
But he's just an avalanche of people.
That's where he really is.
And I saw Rogers.
I saw Rogers at dinner with, you know, J. Edgar Hoover.
J. Edgar Hoover.
And he reminded me of him.
We saw a movie.
We had, uh, a goddamn gun case, and Ms. Rogers calls you up, and the partner gets all these things settled, and all this stuff.
This one on that still is basically right.
Dr. Spike is not basically right for coming here and harassing me every goddamn little day about this juvenile attitude of his.
And he said, I know, that's a problem with me.
He said, but that's my nature.
And he said, it's a weakness that I have, and it's the way I deal.
This is the part of the fact that he comes in.
I mean, I know all this stuff.
I know this shit, but...
Let me tell you something.
When he makes that boo-boo one up on me, and I know it better than anybody else, I have never mentioned it to him.
He's talked to me about it at least 30 times, saying it was really the right thing to do.
And I know that he knows it, and I, you know, he really does make boobers, but then that thoroughly frustrates him that you do.
his wife on the Middle East, not on the Middle East, on South Asia, he says that what you did was turned over to Bill Rogers because you had the energy on the other things and all this, and that you could build something to do.
So you turn that over to Bill, and then Bill screws it up, and he says, when you turn something over to Bill, like that, oh, and then...
Bill moves unilaterally and refuses to tell.
Now, he has no objection to Bill having responsibility for an area or a project or something like that.
He will deal through Henry so that he knows what he's doing.
And he's, I think, you know, he's probably wrong.
He is rewriting history.
I think he is.
For Christ's sakes, we hit the whole thing here.
And he knows God.
Well, it would be a crisis on him about two or three months ago.
What the hell did Bill do three months ago?
Henry Kissinger wrote in the talking paper.
He himself, when I met him, I was a guy who was practicing big, pretty goddamn songs.
And he says, yeah, but we don't want to give her an excuse.
And he wrote about it, and he knows that.
He admits he was wrong.
And I asked him, yeah, but he, you know, he wrote that.
He says, you didn't act strong enough.
And I said, what did the president fail to do that you wrote it?
He said, that wasn't the problem.
He said, I failed to tell him.
Now, he also, you know, on that, on the salvation, he's dead wrong.
Now, his other thing, his other complaint is, and this is purely a personal one, is that he is highly insulted by the fact that you have made an effort to be nice to him.
He says what he's doing there is he's taking it seriously.
He then says it's a petty personal thing that can be handled by personal, you know, being nice to me and keeping me involved and all, making sure everything's all right, keeping time off.
And he calls the Rockefeller, calls me and tells me everything's okay, and all that kind of thing.
And he said that makes it worse, not better, because that papers over the substance with, you know, he watched it coming up.
Well, he has done that from time immemorial, but my concern is that he may be at a point, at the breaking point, if you lost Kissinger vis-a-vis the State Department, then again, well, then again, your hawks, the hawks have called it Kissinger, and they look at the State Department as all it does.
Secondly, that's the problem.
Secondly, I'm concerned that Kissinger may take out after Rodgers or the State Department.
Kissinger will admit that a lot of this is done down the box, not Bill personally, but that Bill knows about it.
If it's done at all, we may get into a...
I heard a lot of what Bill doesn't know about it.
Bill has something to say about it.
Well, Bob, don't you think there's something to say about it?
I see that Bob, you do not agree that Henry didn't give a shit about the armament.
Yes, that's right.
He did not really.
The day he came over, he was very absurd and everything about it.
All the rest of it.
Not about the owner.
That didn't bother him.
I mean, he was really rather sorry to hear it.
Because it wasn't a safe environment.
Well, he had a little different approach to it when I got after him this morning.
Let's get rid of him.
Pardon?
You still want to fire him?
I want to get rid of everybody because I...
taken and violated their oaths and they're crooked and so forth and so on.
I don't know what the answer is, Mr. President, except it seems to me that for the future you might give some consideration in connection with your Moscow trip.
restructuring the channels of the activities of the State Department.
I think that might be in your own interest.
Is that what Henry is for?
What does he want to get Rogers to do?
He doesn't want to get Rogers to do anything.
He wants Rogers to work with everybody.
He doesn't want separate projects.
He wants everybody involved and determined on the same thing.
And then he doesn't want to tell Rogers what he's doing.
And of course he makes the argument that whether it's in the Middle East or anything else going to Moscow, that they could screw it up.
It's quite possible they could.
I've read the record on the Middle East, and the State Department just calls lies in their memorandum and so forth.
I've heard...
They're telling us the tapes and so forth, and this Cisco is just capable of lying straight out.
You get erroneous information in here.
So there is some justification.
I know.
Well, huh?
I think that one factor that's been missing in this all the way through has been your record can't really go up.
I don't think Henry's ever really been candid with him.
And I don't think you have, because I think you've tried to keep the thing from focusing into a conversation that's perfectly proper.
Well, in addition to that, Bob, there's a hell of a lot of things that the president can't do candidly.
That's right.
He can't do that.
Bill, on second, when Bill hasn't told anybody directly, he's got instructions that he knows are valid.
To my knowledge, he has never violated them.
And he has never put, he has never leaked anything or told anybody in the department anything that he was told not to tell.
He's known some of the most sensitive notes ahead of time and handled them well.
He is of power and strength.
But if he can't be with us, at least he can just not show up.
For instance, I can't hold you.
I don't think you can fall.
You can fall if you're as angry as you're not standing up.
But you can't fall if you're leaning or undercut, because I don't believe you can fall.
You've been hurting for a couple of days and you thought it was going to go all right.
You got stood up.
You've been very good at the bombing.
That's right.
And he wants to be, he theoretically wants to be healthy.
He wants to be healthy.
He wants to be healthy because he wants us to play his own glorification.
Well, he doesn't want to lose.
That's right.
That's right.
You know what's right.
He doesn't want me to lose inside.
I think, what I suggest, I think, I think maybe you can handle it alone.
Or I think maybe you and I can handle it together.
I can't do it alone.
I think you and I, or you or I, or some...
First of all, a combination of people other than Henry and other than the President ought to sit down with Bill on a very, very anti-fix basis and say, there's been a lot of stuff in the past.
Maybe there's been some problems.
There's been reasons for them.
But let's try and sweep that out and we'll get too much to say now.
I think it has to be tied.
It is what you see in the elections.
They ask for their money to feed the world.
And they hope that if the world was involved, personalities are going to destroy it.
And they're not going to help the people about it.
And if a person can't change the personality, if we've got him there, he is a sentient being.
He is a sentient being.
You know, essentially, then a fellow wanted to get in that business.
You know, he was always trying to get front and center.
And he was a lot to say, well, I have to go over to Moscow.
You know, he did that.
He said, no, you can't do that.
I said, what the hell?
Where?
He's not going either.
And on the other hand, we, I don't know, we have a problem with every little job.
You have to realize this.
So, you know.
He believes, he believes quite a lot that Bill Rogers is a call who is totally self-centered and who seems to listen to a map of his life.
Well, you've also frankly described Henry Kissinger's
In respect to that point, he's self-centered.
He's self-centered.
He's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh,
only have one.
Because Bill is smart, and Henry would be well-listened to.
For example, in the area of public relations and foreign affairs, he's twice as smart as Henry.
Henry's done so.
I don't think Bill is the kind of a guy that likes to sit and sweat just like he is.
I'm sorry.
No, he's...
But that's fine.
You can use Bill for what he is.
Bill is us.
We are just his...
That was the original problem.
Henry has utterly no PR.
And also Bill, of course, is a great man.
And as you have said, I can describe him in a very different way.
Now, the difficulty that Henry has is that he does not have Bill's balance.
married, and all that sort of thing.
It's a great little self-confidence.
It's all a man.
Henry Kennedy has very... His confidence is very strong.
I don't mean his confidence.
It's Bill.
No, Kennedy has an inferiority complex.
He has his insecurities.
Now, for example, Bill would never...
It was inevitable.
It was going to happen.
There wasn't a goddamn thing we could do about it.
And we tried to do as much as we could.
And what we did was worth doing.
And every so is more.
You know what I mean?
What Henry ran up against there was something he didn't expect.
That was a very tough Soviet war.
He thought the Soviets were cooperating.
They didn't cooperate.
After I met with the Soviet agriculture, we discussed it.
24 hours, it was, I remember, the next day, and it wasn't something the Soviets were cooperating.
They couldn't deliver Mrs. Kahn.
They didn't want to.
This is that.
But in this, but in that,
So much for that.
That's him.
Bill would not write something and say it, and rewrite it all about that.
He tried to justify what he had done.
Sure, everybody knows that.
But he wouldn't be frank with himself, naive, or even that much, truly, regardless of his opinion.
He would say, well, he would tell Bob that, well, the space department really screwed the whole thing up, and I finally had to get in and try to save him, and so forth and so on.
I thought that was just not true.
That's not true about him.
That's not true.
describe both of them with that name, except the one there was.
Henry's is all related to history, history book.
Bill's is all related to Tomorrow Morning 7.
In fact, Bill has no interest in the history book at all.
Not at all.
He doesn't even know there are any.
That's our Henry.
Lips and headlamps are his burning obsession.
It's with the history graph.
There's another one.
Henry is a whole lot more interested in the editorial page than he is in the front page.
That's right.
Mill is more interested in the front page than he is in the editorial page.
That calls something about him.
Another thing you can say about the two of them is that
Henry takes the long view, perhaps too long, a little turgid at times.
And Bill takes a very, very turgid view.
Bill is basically super big.
Henry is sometimes even horribly profound.
The only time I ever saw Bill lose his cool was when Scali was lecturing him on that.
Whereas Henry, Henry, Henry, that's, Henry, that's so glad he's so old now.
He's a ill mannered, bad mannered, and all the rest of the government might as well be.
He is a cost to any country.
He's an insult to everybody else in the country.
Coming back on the major problem that John has got now is that we cannot continue to have a situation in which everything is destroyed.
We cannot continue to have a situation where we can't save it.
Rogers did nothing.
Blair did nothing.
This man did nothing.
And so forth.
And he only had the courage to do nothing.
I agree.
I agree.
I've got the other Catholic officers' things to do.
We've got to do it.
And I got it off my heels.
I mean, Christ, he was having me sign every goddamn thing that was.
So I've got to talk to you about it.
Very, very quickly.
And try to concentrate on some work.
Other than he used to come and say that he would come and try to rewrite the history of the Black Sam.
but getting into this whole deal of, uh, of, uh, police and so forth, who, frankly, uh, thought about Hogan, his brother's eye, and started being his own.
And that's, and that's right.
He was, uh, Henry is not, uh, I mean, let me say this.
If you have issues between Rogers and Henry today,
Because Henry knows more, and basically Henry, deep down, is more loyal.
Deep down, is more loyal.
Rogers and his way is more loyal.
Rogers lives lower and lower.
Let Henry pass it over to you, because you and Henry are on the same side.
This is impossible, because you'd have to work through Rogers with the State Department.
Yeah, I know.
And I know that.
I know that.
and whatever he may say about how he's being treated.
So I don't think he doesn't like it.
He likes to go to court.
He likes to go to California.
He likes all this kind of stuff.
And we've got to still get him on his job.
Where's he at?
He's at his job.
He wasn't going to be at the job.
He's at his job.
It's not our fault.
He has to die.
He has to die.
I didn't ask.
He claims he did.
Who the hell put him on?
He didn't.
He now says, you're welcome to ask.
Well, that's the problem.
I would rather have... Yeah, but you know what?
I am curious, though, as you said.
I like the part of the fact that I called him when he was sick and all that sort of thing.
Let me tell you, if he wasn't called, he'd be worse.
Oh, yeah, I think what he's really arguing there is not that he didn't like the calls.
He wants to get down and have a talk about how you can take drivers out of the government.
That's what you're doing.
Oh, I put that to him.
I put it to him, too.
I said directly, that was my first question.
I said, okay, let's figure out how we get our boots out of here.
That's obviously the only solution.
He said, no, that's not a solution.
You cannot be a driver.
He said it.
I would rather have Henry Kissinger rewriting Kissinger after the election than I would before the election.
Oh, yeah.
And I think that... And the danger is that he might decide to write it before the election.
And firstly, he's raised his jackass before the election.
He'll say, I'll do this for you, son.
So he's going to resign.
He's going to stop right now.
He's going to announce now that he's going to leave next year.
He's totally directionless.
Let me tell you this, sir.
I come back to one thing.
You've got to remember, very fondly, I know that on the Mideast, the greatest son of God is Jewish, and secondly, they're wrong in two things.
But the Jewish, as I call them out to be, I call them out to be despite what he says.
The other point is, I'm not convinced of that.
Well, let me say, as far as I'm concerned, I buy it for the other reason.
Because in our discussion in the Middle East, he
agreed to discuss the scenario which would roll him out.
It would roll him out of the election, I know.
But I, uh, let me put it this way.
I had to step in before the Senate came out.
I said, right after the Senate election, he said, uh, uh, let's see.
Right after the Senate election, I thought.
That wasn't even good policy.
But that's his gift.
Understand, the reason that I support the Jews is totally different.
What I think is, is his relates to mine, but he is also, he was committed, make no mistake about it, he basically did not have a religious reputation.
And that affects most of them.
It has to.
It has to.
The other thing is that because he meets a little more with the people that you know, and promises more than you think.
Now the other thing is that
With regard to the immediate problem here, Henry, on Indian Pakistan, what we have to realize is that the thing was bound to come out the way that it did.
And Henry is concerned because he feels that what we did failed.
And he knows that he's partly the blame.
He blames himself too much because I think whatever we would have done would have failed.
That's what I think.
And of course, I go back to that.
look back and stuff, and forget it.
It isn't always an issue.
Well, it's one of those things.
He's worried about the history.
It'll look back and speak enough on it.
He said, we had so many good things going, we've done this and that, and now they speak the perfect spirit.
But Bob, he is rewriting industry and history, and in fact, you know that goddamn thing.
What the hell he had me over there at the last of your night, that's when I told him all off.
And I pulled them all off and said, all right, follow up when I send it.
And he stepped up and said, now we've got a best solution.
24 hours will all be done.
We've scored the greatest move.
I'll have to end on that one.
We've got to pull up and say, well, they're talking about the problem.
We are here in front of you.
The problem with rocket society, I think, along the line you suggest.
But what I can simply say is,
Don't underestimate that that will solve the problem of Henry.
No, it won't.
Because Henry's problem is a deep emotional insecurity.
He is going to see the New York Times not because of his trying to get at Washington and not because he wants to justify Henry's decision to run.
He isn't going to shit about me in this case.
Not really.
That's right.
Not really.
Family is just a huge role in this.
And that's what he's trying to do.
That's the dangerous element that has grown at a fairly rapid rate through these crises.
That's the part that worries me more about this one.
He now has reached the point where he's a little bit ahead of the president.
That's important.
That's right.
And three, he believes in a two-wheeled return.
That's right.
He believes that he knows everything.
He's guided everyone.
And frankly, in terms of, I even had to call him, in terms of the
You wouldn't believe what he writes.
has some questions for me to answer to those four of us, but instead of God, maybe Jesus.
But in advance, he realizes what they're doing.
You know, he's an honest man.
Except when it comes to Henry Kissinger.
That's the question.
Here we've got involved a deeply emotionally disturbed man because of a defeat.
He cannot take it.
And the reason he attacks him is one that he takes personally.
He thinks that they're taking it all on him personally.
And so, therefore, he's trying to justify it.
Well, now, you're going to have both Rogers and Kissinger in San Clemente.
Yes.
Well, why don't you lay down the line?
Because of the Anderson story or anything else, neither Kissinger nor anybody in the State Department is going into this any further.
Maybe if we get the India-Pakistan thing behind Henry, where he is shot at and he's not shot and shooting at them, then we might be able to... Henry cannot talk.
I told nobody.
I told him frankly where it became on my order that nobody...
Well, he won't do it.
Bob, you've had the same conversation with Henry that I've had, and he justifies it on his rebuttal on the basis that the state is doing it.
This is the time to shut them both off on any attacks, and they'll be out there where they won't be so susceptible, hopefully.
And if anything leaks, we'll know who did it.
John, are you going to California or not going to California?
suggestion for you and me to have it on the block, which is good.
However, John, that's a pretty good look.
Yeah.
Oh, now I...
I know this is a new format.
You know, every other time I've been talking to Rogers, I've been beaten up on it.
This is a negotiating session to get this thing started.
So I think it's a new format, and it's who the hell is going to talk to him against him is the same, too.
I shouldn't.
And I do.
And I do.
What Henry wants to see, and that's what he's objecting to, Bob, what Henry wants is to come in here, to sit down, and take three hours of my time to talk about some of the big robberies in the same department.
That's what he's objecting to.
It's just, I think, John, I think I've got a broker that's the same thing he's got a broker of both ways.
Yeah.
And in Henry's case, Mr. President, now that, uh, well, in addition to that, my friend, Nelson Rockefeller, who's always in the picture, and we make it, like, he wants, Nelson wants, he's going to be down here this week, he wants to come in and say to me about, well, I can get Nelson to turn around the other day.
He understands that.
I think we might get some help from him.
business about Rogers down there.
Well, I didn't have a leading job, but I was employed.
I didn't see Rogers alone.
I saw him for 10 minutes before getting on the plane, not with you.
Well, it's a lust of his ego to think that he has to stay in every time you talk to the Secretary of State.
I know.
Well, I mean, yes, but on the other hand...
some foreign minister from the upper boulder, the resident by God, he's hammering.
He won't come in.
Now, sir, he makes the president talk to these ass-masters.
Prime Minister O'Hare says he's apparently the most important man in all of Africa, and then he sends one of his... Actually, actually, it is better.
It is really better than he would not be.
The reason being that he is a disturbing force in the meeting.
Now, that is not true.
That is not true.
The meeting has possibly been wrapped up as co-courting, not a negotiation.
The count is speaking, Henry, so that is not disturbing.
He's just terrible.
The case is much better.
Also, Henry doesn't take good notes.
Well, I guess we'd better go to Calhoun.
You hold the line on
There's a crossfire out there.
It's coming.
Oh.
I think so.
I'm going to pick it up when we're out and then we can get back.
You've got to come out there to talk about this.
I should.
I'll see you then.
You won't be coming back tomorrow.
That's better.
I wish you'd come out there.
I know.
You can tell them that or you're going to tell them not there.
There's no problem, Bill.
He doesn't want to come down.
Well, I'm sure he's going to tell him, isn't he?
Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about.
I don't know.
Well, you can tell them that you've talked to me about this Anderson.
Yeah, that's a good decision.
And we've got to find a way to get out.
Well, that's the thing.
What you've got to really kind of run through, you've got to find a way to use them all.
I mean, a lot of the men are actively reporting to people who are used to turning to each other.
It's quiet.
And if Henry has any idea, as I said to Bob, I asked him, I brought him in, I said, how long would Henry have watched John Collins' show?
I'm going to drive you home.
where you're sitting there with all the God-man, the bearers of the nation, the world, and the children, come in and cry about these problems.
You don't do that.
I mean, other cabinet officers don't do that.
I mean, the cabinet officers and staff people, their purpose is to help the President, not to answer his God-man purpose.
I had to hold it through the Pentagon Papers.
I had to hold it through this.
The trouble is, John, he's a hell of a problem because he comes in.
He's so terribly depressed about these things.
I've got to build him up.
Isn't that true, Bob?
It's just unbelievable.
And he's just really upset.
He said, the rest of us have been out here.
I know.
I shouldn't walk in here.
No, we're going to take that.
We're going to have to take that and take care of it.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
You want me to have a little detail?
Yeah, thanks.
No, I don't know if you're seeing that.
Yeah, let's hear it.