Conversation 651-012

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Let's see how the speech reads.

I don't know what to do with the volume right now.

I don't know what to do with it.

Just put it on any time.

The left, you'll see the bar there at 1 o'clock, too.

That's the only thing.

That's all the time.

Okay, great.

And they're waiting.

I just got one.

I got one of the previous drafts of the speech.

So we've got...

If I could get this out of you.

I don't know.

Hey, hello.

They said, well, I'm sorry, they said it was supposed to be a little rainy today.

Well, they are saying so.

Oh, no, it's because Jake is in his bag.

Oh, he's in his bag.

Please, sir.

I've been waiting for you.

I've been waiting.

Ha, ha, ha.

She should be very happy.

I was very happy.

You know what happened?

She was gone.

You know what happened, friend of mine?

My son said, and another friend, what's the matter with you?

I said, I'm in bad shape.

What happened?

My wife brought me the remote.

You are here for this?

His remote is over.

Why don't you take, uh, take it with you to the bar.

She's going to be my hero.

She's got a little cold.

She's very good.

You tell her I asked about her.

Thank you.

I told the police he's going to have good economic figures.

Did you get the report on that?

Why?

Well, he's going to sign the Council of Economic Advocates.

I said the figure's good.

GNP is his fourth quarter.

GNP is going to be out Friday, I guess.

And it's up 7.7% seasonally adjusted.

That's a hell of a check.

Damn good.

Almost $20 billion, 19.7.

That must leave the year a little better than they thought.

Then he says, the most important news about this is that the rate of inflation fell sharply, and the real growth rate rose significantly.

The rate of inflation was 1.5 at an annual rate.

So it's real growth, which is way less than the 5.4 and 4.2 in the first two quarters.

And the lowest is the third quarter, 65.

which is, of course, the freeze.

The real growth rate is 6.1% when you take the inflation and inflate it out.

And that was the thing that I was expecting to see.

That's the best performance since the second quarter of 68, excluding the recovery from the GM stock in the first quarter.

Growth rates of this size will cut into the unemployment rate.

Essentially, the confirmation of projected figures.

However, they are added to the third quarter figures, which were reduced.

It's the third quarter going down.

Yeah, we do that now.

But he's got to feel pretty good.

Yeah, he's got a couple other years to hold.

They were talking about something on the economic message or something they wanted to do at the staff meeting this morning.

He said, simply let us know neither

all-encompassing fatigue, nor complete diversity of opinion will stay our hand.

I'm very proud of you.

We're right on time.

Oh, sure.

And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't deadpan all the time.

Those things come out as if they were economic pronouncements.

He's a great defender of speech.

Yeah, I'm sure he is.

Paul, absolutely.

Yeah.

He's very pleased about that.

He's got some other...

I don't know what the hell it is.

He's got some other... Dungeon came out with that, which is pretty great.

Dungeon doesn't mean much.

He just needs, you know, next word.

Maybe he'll get some good things.

He likes it.

Except for the bunch of drugs.

He can't do a goddamn thing about them.

We've got one sticky wicket.

I guess you're going to have to go through to try and figure out how to avoid it.

For a second, yeah.

We've had a problem with Paige Belcher.

You don't do anything with him.

But they wanted you to call him on the phone.

And then McGregor felt you should.

And Whitaker and Harlow wanted to see him first and try and get him straight out.

He's mad because he hasn't seen you even though he's carried the water on the mark problems.

And he decided he was going to send you a letter.

And that he was going to release it to the press.

And they wanted to turn off this letter.

Was he asked to come and see me or something?

Why didn't they have him heard?

Telling other people, like, I wouldn't mind it.

Well, I don't play directly, but, you know, I always...

They see Belcher calling.

He did work with me on a lot of things.

He's been on the plane.

He's been trying.

But he signed a contract.

He says, I haven't signed a contract in three years except for a quick talk on Air Force One on the Tulsa trip.

I don't think he cares who his friends are.

He forgets his old friends.

Oh, shit.

And he promised if they produced a farm bill, he'd have a golf game.

And I said, no golf game.

And I went in.

Quaker said, Belcher is just, you know,

He's just in a bitching mood.

And they self-ricensed him when he came back with him to try and undo this.

And Belcher wrote the letter, and Harlow got him to give it to him rather than to send it, to agree not to put it out.

It's a mean, nasty, silly letter, and run off.

Belcher has said to Harlow that if he will personally deliver the letter to you, and you will read it and then burn it, that will take care of the things for the moment.

And if you don't, he thinks he's going to walk out of the fire program and blast you.

So I said, your question is, why did you steal it from me?

Well, I said, no, at this point, he has to give it to me.

And I said, all right, I'll hand it to the president.

You know, when you said the brief talk, I wasn't happy about it, unfortunately.

You said it was a long time.

That's the way they are.

I think they...

Remember I told you, don't put them on that plane.

Everybody says this is irrational and all that.

They're just...

There, and I don't keep them on the reservation.

Aren't we really part of a terrible life?

I mean, these people are the worst ones.

Oh, no.

Not 99% of them.

With Jack Miller, yes.

With Paige Belcher, maybe yes.

Although I think, well, yes.

But an awful lot of people, we get it.

They're just being on there.

They don't expect to talk to you.

They don't want to.

I still think we shouldn't do it.

I still think it's better for your state of mind if they're not on there.

That's really what matters.

That's right.

Let's just not do it.

But we don't have reasons.

We tell them in advance, and they expect it in advance.

The problem is you're nicer to them than we've set them up to be.

Then you get rum-soaked water theory sets in, and you spend it.

Then how can we just have them not go?

There's no way.

Because, you see, we're going to be having to go to the country a lot in April and May.

March and April.

I mean, I'll be going.

They have to go.

I mean, you've got to take it.

God, it's a pain in the ass, though.

Isn't it?

Well, maybe we don't.

I've gotten out of it on some of the trips in some ways, because I could say that.

We can suggest they be out there ahead of time, give them separate transportation.

Advance plane, or they're already out there anyway.

Or you're coming from another place.

That would be easy for not going just from Washington.

That would be easy.

I think what we should do is go to Florida.

It's the planned version.

Every trip we take from Florida.

Go to Florida for the weekend, then leave Monday morning and go someplace.

There's no way to avoid the bringing them back, right?

Usually.

But you're going to have to be prepared sometimes.

I've got Dan Percy in Chicago.

But Percy's a case in point.

Percy can give his life not to be on the plane because he merchandises it.

He doesn't.

At this point, he's on there, so he'll be able to do his own.

Your point about Bryce is that he'll come and bring his own.

Why don't you give it to me tomorrow night?

Well, he could.

He's around here now or today.

I haven't thought about it yet.

Wow.

So he'd get, I think it'd be better if he gave it to Belcher yesterday and he'd call him today and say, I went in and got it to the president.

It's all taken care of.

Yeah.

A little bit faster.

No, I don't play golf.

I don't play.

He knows that.

It's me or him.

It's McGregor telling such things that I don't play golf.

Yeah, we played once.

You know, we played with the hoop hole.

Yeah, pretty nice holes.

We went around a couple times on that Dutchard golf game.

I'd forgotten where we left it.

You know, we... You talked to him about it once when I saw him on the phone.

If I ever play, I won't play.

And then you almost set it up one time, and then we didn't.

I'm not sure where that stands with him.

I'm not sure.

I mean, he's pretty old, 73 or 74 years of age.

I don't have any pictures like that at the moment, though.

As many as we've got, there's less.

I just hope so.

And the few that we have, apart from the other guy's handle, like the American Press, most of the time do it.

And some of you just write off.

There's some people, there's no way you're going to satisfy them.

They're just crying pictures.

Where is Bryce?

I think he's just right now with Bryce.

I just haven't handed you the letter.

I'm sorry you had to handle this.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

If Harlow's in the building, he's got a letter to deliver to the president.

He just come up and bring it in.

If he's not in the building, he's due here sometime shortly, I understand.

Don't have him.

Don't call him over.

Just see if he's here.

That's a good call.

He's not going to run out and make a little call.

Did I mention that?

You mentioned that, yeah.

We gave you Rose Bowl tickets to a guy again this year.

They gave you the tickets.

We got a great story out of it.

A 19-year-old Long Beach City College student who volunteered for...

He had pulled an unconscious deputy sheriff from a blazing squad car.

Pulled what?

No, I heard it in the room, George.

Is he?

Yeah.

Well, this is the guy.

And he had done that back last April, and he was in this Pete Pitch's recognition program, you know, and he'd saved the life of this deputy whose car turned over first into flames during a pursuit.

And they had warned him that the car was going to explode at any moment.

He kept working at this stuff during that.

I got official connotation for heroism.

And the White House called in and asked if he'd like to attend Michigan.

And he went to Stanford, apparently.

And so they took him in.

And it was mentioned on the TV.

And the attorney general introduced him at the kickoff, the luncheon, at a standing ovation, and all this kind of stuff.

It's not a good little game, but, you know, we do.

I want to tell you that we do talk a lot about those things.

We just hope they get through.

Of course, flying in the bowling way is something a little shorter than you've got it.

A lot of it must get out.

Did you ever get out?

Did you ever get re-agglutinated?

Did you get anybody to follow up on my thought?

I think I told them the story, right?

I mean, I told them the call story because I know what they're going to do.

You know, I wrote you a memorandum on it.

Yeah.

I don't know, but maybe it was either Poseidon or somebody or Thomas or somebody like that.

I'm sure it was.

Well, it's the same kind of thing.

Who did you give that to?

That's what I'm trying to remember.

Let me check.

But you do have somebody here.

A lot of people.

We kind of move them around.

We'll give you a couple people to see.

Right.

One guy will score on one.

Well, it's not a...

Not a, you know, frustrating thing, but it's a very nice story sometimes.

You get good stuff out of that.

That's right.

Don't you?

Well, then you never know.

That's the thing.

You get one that all of a sudden makes a big story.

I don't know what else.

What is the situation?

Let me get a couple of things later.

The situation with regard to the conversation with Henry is that they can't do the call.

Well, apparently you can have all day and all night.

It's working from present to past.

And it's

while Rabin's in.

Again, he told me he's seeing Cisco today, again, which we haven't been notified of.

And Rabin has now told Henry that he can't hold out beyond Friday.

And on Friday or Monday, at the very latest, he's going to agree to start negotiations, this negotiation for proximity business.

And I read again that Henry says having the negotiations

aren't necessarily bad if they can be strung out.

But the later they start, the longer we wait to start, and the longer it takes to do them, the better.

Because otherwise, you're going to get the thing off the Soviet summit track.

That's what we're saying.

He's not worried about the negotiations.

He's worried about the Soviets.

Cisco has completely linked the plane delivery to the negotiation thing, and Rabin says, there's nothing we can do.

We've got to agree on negotiations in order to get the airplanes, and they won't give us the planes without the negotiations, so we're going to do it.

The other thing that worries Henry, he says, there's no problem, no real problem, but they're talking to Rabin because Rabin comes to tell him what they've told him.

But as soon as they get the Israeli agreement, which they'll get here Friday or Monday,

Then they'll go to the Egyptians and start dealing with them.

And we don't know what they tell the Egyptians, because the Egyptians won't tell us.

But the Russians will know what they tell the Egyptians.

And he's concerned about that.

And his point is that somehow, now, let me say, in Henry's behalf, that in spite of this

you know, screwed up attitude or anything.

He went back to it again this morning.

He still sees some of these plots and some of these problems and his psychopathic reaction.

But he has, with considerable self-discipline, made this decision that he's going to stay and that he's going to live with whatever the situation is while he stays.

And he said nothing now is going to change that.

You will never hear for the rest of this year a...

He said, I reviewed all the negotiations.

He said, I'll tell you perfectly frankly, I was not satisfied with the way you and Mitchell told me about how you were going about this.

And that was what decided me to resign at the end of January, which was my decision on Friday.

And then over the weekend, I went through all of this and talked with Allen again and reviewed it and all that.

And on the basis of that, I'm going to say, he says, I know I'm arrogant.

I know I'm impossible to be.

It was really quite a...

Humble sort of thing he went through, trying to make me understand his position, but he, you know, I'm difficult to deal with.

But, the clear thing here is that I only act in the President's interest, or what I perceive to be.

Excuse me, Mr. Harlow has already, has departed.

He's getting a presentation at the Madison Hotel.

He'll be returning at 12.30 this evening.

It's on the road south of Tennessee.

Would you like to see him about next time, sir?

Yeah.

If he's around, I'm still around.

You just let me know.

He's basically right.

He says, I know he'll get some way.

I know I'm no problem.

I'm sorry about that, but I guess that's the way I am.

So he goes around on that.

Then he says, somehow the president's got to get a handle on this Israeli thing so that we do at least control the pace of it.

And there's a further complicating factor.

The state has now brought, it's gotten into the Israeli political part because they've asked Diane to come in now.

And they're seeing him on February 1st or February 3rd or something.

And he says, you know, have a handle on it or do whatever you want on it.

But...

Uh, somehow you, you gotta get on top of it.

Well, he, he is singing in his desperate psych, you know, psych state.

He's, he's really, I think, kind of quietly enraptured.

He doesn't know how to deal with the problem.

He doesn't know how to deal with it.

That was today's thing.

Well, yesterday, we had a, a flap that we, that's come and gone.

But I think it probably had serious implications, which was that, that, uh,

Well, the Indian press ran a story saying that Jordan had sent 10 F-104s to Pakistan.

And the State Department

Then, Alice Johnson came over, this was day before yesterday, and talked to Hague, quite lethally, said, we've discovered that the Jordanians sent planes to Pakistan, and this is a violation of the law, and there's a serious problem, and there's going to be a big press inquiry on this, and a full crowd of people are going to be investigating it.

And there's a serious problem here because

When we cut off trade to Pakistan, aid to Pakistan, by law, that requires anybody who were aiding not to aid Pakistan with our stuff.

Something that's a complex thing.

You probably know this.

Well, they got the story in the paper.

So there was one that we had at Liberia or Nigeria or somebody, whoever else has planes that we'd sent down there.

And that's clearly shut down.

We didn't even know about that.

And we really didn't.

It was one that happened.

You're in Liberia, are you?

No.

Somebody, one of the African nations had some planes that they also provided here.

We weren't in it.

It was a bilateral thing.

We didn't even know about it.

We went through that thing last night.

And then got Rodgers very shocked.

And then Rodgers, with Henry, went out of the room, came back, came and got Mitchell and me, and got back into the outside column business, which is really driving him up the wall.

He's absolutely convinced that Henry did that.

And he got very emotional about it.

Well, Mitchell doesn't think he did, and I don't.

I don't think he did.

That's not the reason.

Alsop says, you know, he's got, he says what his sources are.

He said he's told me where he got it, and he's going, hey, very good.

He got some of the quotes and stuff from a guy in health insurance, somebody in the state department, and, uh...

the quote on the fact that the CIA documents were conclusive as to the intent to invade West Pakistan.

Well, that's true.

He says he got from Helms.

Helms says, I can't tell you what they said, but I can tell you that they were conclusive.

Okay.

Well, at least, well, Bill knows that's true.

Bill doesn't read them.

You know what they were?

They are the only source of that in the Indian camp.

Well, that's what Helms said.

But, uh,

But if Bill's upset about that, what's the problem?

Can you see now how Henry would be upset and shut the trip by other comments about Henry?

Yeah.

This is one of the few that, every once in a while, starts panicking.

Yeah.

I have a little bit of that way in the back of my mind, because at the time...

Henry was rumbling around out there in San Clemente.

He said, I'm going to strike back.

If nobody else is going to defend me, I have got to defend myself.

He may have not gotten Elsoff himself.

He may have had it done in some other way so that he could say without lying, I did not talk to Elsoff.

He says, finally, I did not talk to Elsoff for three weeks.

He hadn't talked to him for three weeks.

But then Rogers gets into his big diatribe about Elsoff as the laughingstock and the cocksucker and all this.

I think we've got to send a memo from you.

I asked Rose to type it out.

I talked to John about your and he said, no, about the, I read the memo to John and your kind of suggestion of how to .

And he urged very strongly that you not do so.

He said, you should not be in the position of putting yourself, in effect, hostage to them.

You shouldn't be asking for understanding.

They know, Henry and Bill both know, we're in a crucial foreign policy year and a crucial election year.

The request you're making is totally reasonable.

I get totally cold.

Well, it's not totally cold.

It says I know there are problems involved.

I know they've been fairly discussed.

But I also know that you realize the critical nature of this year, and we've got to go after it.

All right.

You may want to change the wording, but he urges that you not correct her.

You've got to ask her to correct her.

Rosie.

Ask Rosie to correct me.

And I don't need it right now.

She's doing the same thing to me while I'm watching you.

Bonnie, Rosie, have you done that?

I'm on the Rogers, isn't it?

Come on, nice and early.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah, go ahead and finish that, and we'll get it sent to you.

Okay.

Bye.

I think we ought to get it.

You're talking about getting it out as well.

It just gets Rogers to, well, it gets to this one, because what Henry's concerned about seems to be probably about, maybe it's not, I'm not sure what it's to, is the green gets back to him.

And we still are in a position where Rogers has said he will not abide by the Kissinger Directive, which in effect means he's saying he won't abide by his agreement with Mitchell and Meade, that he'll keep us, keep you posted.

Now I think we've got to get back on the track of you getting notice of meetings that he has with Doreen at least, and hopefully with Levine.

And, uh,

before I act.

And we're not getting the story.

We know we're not getting the story of Rabin's because Rabin's telling us.

The problem is we won't know what we get or don't get from the Green and from the Egyptians.

I think you will from the Green.

Go ahead.

It's a hell of a note.

Conley with his suspicious mind and his contacts found out something that we didn't know.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Jesus, I don't think somebody should have brought that in from here.

We have the NSA thing.

Could I suggest that you pick that up with Haig and tell Haig that he can get, ask Conley.

Okay.

We have access to all the NSA thing.

Tell Haig.

and ask, what is our procedure here in the White House to see that I get such information?

You see what I mean?

Yeah.

Or is such information available in the Treasury?

I don't think it is.

Well, the House of Commons was a mistake.

It should have been written down in tenors, so they

I'm not sure he could do it.

Alsop may have decided to fight him.

That's right.

Well, I can't understand.

Too much jealousy coming from him.

He's legal, isn't he?

Well, let's take his character back.

No, well, hey, it's not dishonest.

Hayden's quite a bit, quite disturbed about this.

He's convinced it was a plot over there.

And both Mitchell and I had to agree that it looked like there was something.

Our argument was that it was obviously the Cisco or something like that was moving something here.

But then I understand, yeah, because he knew more, he knew so much about it.

I mean, that's what we, Hayden, was saying afterwards.

It was incredible, right?

He knew more about the whole thing than we did it.

And yet, he knew all the specifics of the law.

He knew exactly, you know, he...

It's Bill.

Basically, it's all Bill.

It's Bill.

Because of his own manner, he might be allowed that.

And it's hatred of Henry to blame him on this thing.

I think he is.

We called Bill.

While we called Bill, they were in my office.

And John said, well, we've got to get Bill in here.

We can't go over there.

I said, come over here.

So I called him.

said, I was here with John Mitchell.

We had had something come up.

Wondered if he could come over and join us.

And he said, yes, it'll be a few minutes.

And he shouted, hold the car or something.

And then came back and said, I'm going home.

I just got home, but I've got to stop the car and come right back in.

I said, oh, no, don't do that.

Mitchell said, no, we'll meet in the morning.

See, this was at 5.30 last night or something.

So I said, no, no, come on in the morning first thing.

We'll go over then.

He said, no, I'll come right in.

And he was about to not be with us.

So he drove all the way back in.

Mental is very good.

He senses me now.

He's extending the word well.

It's all clear now.

Yep.

Very good.

And he hits, he's dangling with Henry because he just hits it.

You know, Henry will hit something, and they just say, for Christ's sake, Henry, you're out of your breaking mind.

And Henry's just right straight at it.

He just flaps it back.

And Henry backs off of it.

The problem is that we're all on both sides of this one.

That's the reason why I let Elliot get on the other hand.

The other hand.

I mentioned to you that... My concern about the...

I know that going into Henry's shop, just hypo something.

When you read the whole news somewhere, it doesn't bother you as much.

I'm inclined to think, Bob, that you've really got to have that.

If you talk to Pat, you have a discontinuance day by day.

You have to write the memoranda, frankly, to me.

That's over with copies, too.

Well, I wouldn't.

Only, well, we don't indicate copies.

We don't indicate copies.

We push copies only to you.

Do you want to turn the copies around?

Ron and me.

I think you and Ron.

And the gentleman.

And you.

And then what you do is basically you get a good view of what it is.

Otherwise, you're going to get into a situation here where...

I mean, this is where I get too, frankly, emotionally involved.

And Pat's overreacting to this issue and that issue with the other one.

You can see what I mean.

On the other hand, I think his analysis is invaluable.

Invaluable because he will look at it in terms of, he'll see some problems under the bed.

He always does.

But on the other hand, it comes up.

It would have been better to do it a couple times a week.

You send this in to Henry.

Did you notice this one?

We want to send it.

I haven't seen it.

I've just got it.

I've got it.

I have to do something.

I don't have the time.

I've written a new part of that.

Oh, I see.

Here's the ancient pictures.

Henry knew about the recent thing.

This didn't go to him.

Well, the reason they don't know it, I mean, it's past analysis.

Yeah.

You see, he says, if you can't lose something, then it's a very, very mysterious thing.

Now, that, I think Henry should not see.

Yeah.

We've got to protect him from that kind of thing.

Well, Henry is aware of that possibility, too, though.

I mean, I agree with you.

He won't understand.

He won't.

He doesn't see us.

Of course there's that possibility.

He reads every tidbit about himself anyway.

But I think that I don't want him to build up in his own mind the idea that the White House bad people are worried about Henry and aren't standing by him and aren't saying, you see, and that's what needed to happen.

That's how it should have been.

That's what I'm saying.

It's not Buchanan's fault.

Buchanan has written exactly as he's teaching.

I think that's a great thing.

I'm pretty sure Pat knows that this is a hell of a good job.

It's a damn good job he does.

And it's a great, frankly, improvement as far as, I think, twice a week.

It's the time to do it.

You can look at it, say, Monday night, you know, after... You should try to get it in Monday afternoon so that you can consider it before the leaders meeting.

If you raise it, the leaders will create an address.

And the other, you should try to get it in Thursday night so that we can see what the hell we want to get for the weekend stories and prepare people for the talk shows.

It's perfect, isn't it?

Rather than getting in the next morning, yeah.

I think so.

That's good.

Yeah.

He can do it.

He doesn't need to see what the Monday night TV does.

In other words, he can just cover the weekend.

And he doesn't need to cover the Thursday night.

It should be Friday morning.

I should say Friday morning.

He might as well get the Thursday night TV and go ahead and make that up.

Sure.

perspective.

You're correct.

And the 31 pages will have everything in the 3019.

God, what a job you've done.

I knew you were going to come today.

I was sweating your stuff with the price and such.

And, you know, it was a good thing in a way, because that way I could work with Sapphire, gentlemen, and speak without having Henry read about anything.

Essentially, Henry said this morning, he read the sci-fi speech, and he said, it's a very good job.

He said, I was very impressed.

There's only a couple minor things that I've had any objection to at all.

He said, of course, this is the way I would have written it, but I think it will probably be better for television.

But he just, of course, it helps.

He put a few on it, and then he

It does make a difference.

It does.

He wouldn't take it from anybody else.

He wouldn't respect him.

But Sapphire is so smart, and basically Jewish, that he gets along with it.

And also smart.

If you ever read it, too, which I want you to do at some point, read that person.

Catch me trapped in this thing.

You'll see what I mean.

But it is one of the best.

It is unbelievable, that person.

And our answer there is to continue to hammer away our need for somebody.

The only guy actually that we can work with in the area is Sapphire.

Which makes me agree that we have to reconsider.

I want to talk just a little bit about the staff in the Chinatown.

Frankly, I think Sapphire can do the job.

I mean, if there's anything in a cage or other kinds of writing that you're concerned with, you can work a lot closer and faster with both Henry and Rogers.

It can be a bridge between two steps.

This is not Christ's station, Kitty.

We weren't going to take Sapphire.

And also, it's not Buchanan's.

Buchanan can't take something from one person to another and put his own views on it.

It's a very real problem.

Maybe we're already told.

I don't know if that's true.

We told Buchanan, and he said to tell us way back, that we'd, uh, take Henry.

We did.

Right.

We did, actually.

Yeah, right.

I noticed here, as I worked on this, I said, I'll go and talk to Henry, and I said, you've got to go sell up the Rogers.

And, uh...

That's what I was.

Kissinger didn't offer anything.

All you had to do was wait.

The U.S. made the offer.

Yeah.

He's under pressure from CBS on what to do on this request, you know, for doing a special event.

I told you we couldn't do anything like it in China, and we considered it.

Why?

Is he laughing at me now?

Well, he's going to give an answer now as to what he does do.

And that's what I felt.

He wanted to be sure that's what we wanted to do.

And I'm sure it is, unless you have any doubts.

I think what he should say is...

No, sir.

What he should say is that we look favorably on the idea, but there's no way that we can make a commitment now that he will not see.

They wanted to do the thing before time.

No, sir.

That's odd.

And he does say that he can't do it before time, that he would consider the thing after time.

He obviously can't give them an answer on that until after we get back, because that will depend on the whole situation as of that time.

and just put the H-12 in there.

Now, they've also asked him to do a 10-minute opening piece for the first special that CBS does on China.

I told him under no circumstances could he do that, because that's giving one network a...

They're all going to be carrying specials, and he can't do CBS.

They're not going to have it.

We cannot build Kissinger up.

He's got to...

Well, that's what I've said, and I'll confirm it, but I just want to be sure that's the track you want to be on.

I don't want to see you on the open trail or something, but we don't want anything on this.

I mean, we may want to do something after the jumping.

I just got to watch it.

I have to watch it awful carefully.

Thank you.

Maybe don't give it too much, but just say, you've got to look at this in our own interest and see whether that's the best offer we can get.

How much program control do we have?

You know, a lot of them in jazz and so forth and so on.

Actually, I think probably we'll want to do it.

I think it could be a hell of a good thing, because they're talking about a half hour or an hour prime time, nighttime interview kind of thing, where they get into what

What does it do to the projects?

I think we've got to start, to some degree, at least hardlining some of what's going to do to the projects.

I think we've got to do what's in your interest.

And then I may as well not even have got to broker that with Dustin.

That's my conviction, too.

I raised it for you on there shortly.

That's one of the things that drives Henry up the wall, is your concern about what something like that would do to Rogers.

He said, what the hell is interested in me?

The clear thing here is that you can't let Rogers, that one little man, get in the way of doing the things that need to be done to get what you're after accomplished.

We can hear Rogers.

Sure.

I don't have a question.

Roger, John.

All the programs you want.

In fact, we will want to do both.

My view is that I'm going to have a result out of this that most of what there will be to talk about in terms of accomplishment will be Roger's to talk about because it will be the cultural stuff, the trade stuff, and all that kind of stuff.

Well, why is that bad?

Let Roger talk about it.

I'm all for it.

And let the other thing just say we did exactly what you intended to do on the political front.

You wanted to open a conversation and start talking.

Correct.

In one sense, Bob.

I think with regard to the riders, all they have, only if something's in common, that the lines have to be

I can't be concerned about that.

Yeah.

Now, on the other hand, I think you have to agree with me on the copy.

It's a very definite exception.

Yep.

He is the one man that we cannot afford to lose.

We couldn't afford to lose anybody else.

Roger's left.

Anybody else is going to make a hell of a lot of difference.

You know what I mean?

Yep.

It walked out.

We've got to...

And we've been going through this whole planning thing, which is going to be hard to put together.

I mean, all of these have turned out to be separate, and that may help or may not.

But, well, the problem is, I think you're going to want to do it.

Well, he never did want to do it, but he'll do whatever needs to be done.

The problem is going to be, and Pete's talked with him, and I've talked with him following up on it, is going to be the rest of the people in here.

And really, the basic problem is whether we're doing the right thing in putting Conley out into the position that he's in.

There's no question of the value and rightness of Conley being the economic spokesman, international economic, domestic economic.

There is a real question as to the feasibility of Conley being the economic policymaker.

And in effect, and I've been trying to think this thing through as to where he's got the policy.

Well, it's crazy, but it overlaps with other people, too, that he can be the final decision-maker.

But as you work towards arriving in policy, see, you put him not only on monetary, you put him on trade.

You said you wanted the trade guy to report to him and, you know, nothing on that.

So I've been pushing to try and see what the problem is.

The problem is not the announcing of policy but arriving in policy.

The problem is if you tell one cabinet officer that he is the guy and it becomes clear that he is,

You've got a problem.

How do you enforce that?

For example, how do you enforce Connelly's authority and trade policy?

Rogers won't take that.

And as soon as he realizes that that's what the direction is, he and the State Department are going to start putting out the fact that that's been turned over to Connelly and then start sniping him from under other people's planning.

And he's touching it with the ROTC.

Well, there's a lot of items pulled together.

The question is, where do we all check into the different planning?

Well, that's my point.

Yeah, because that's what the purpose of that council is.

In other words, you should make the policy.

Well, I'll make the policy.

I'm going to go to the company first.

Because I frankly have more respect for the county if you judge me on that.

Please, I'm not judging.

As far as judging, that's fine.

But the point is, the question, no department is going to believe that its view has been considered if it thinks it's submitting that view to another department.

That goes back to the thing we talked about when we were structuring this to begin with.

Remember we talked about we were going to take each problem and have one department be the lead agency on it.

And the others, whatever that was, the others would report to that department.

It won't work.

Now, there's a difference here, as I see it, which is part of it is what you're turning to the Treasury Department and Conley has its head to do.

The other part is what you're delegating to Conley as John Conley, not as the Secretary of the Treasury.

And there you get to the position of, in effect,

Not in reality, but de facto.

I mean, not in appearance, but in reality, in effect.

You're making Condi, in a sense, the deputy president for international economic affairs and for domestic economic affairs.

You're turning to, you're delegating to him, assigning to him your responsibility in that area.

That's what you said.

The problem is that if that were all he were doing, if he then...

If you did that too, if he were in flying as well as you did, if he were the head of that council, there'd be no problem because then he would be the president's man working the departments.

But he is also the secretary of the treasury.

There is a problem in that he is now not carrying out the duties of the Secretary of the Treasury because he's so swamped in other things.

He's not accessible at the lower levels for the kinds of things that need to be done.

That would be all right if he had a competent staff in whom he had confidence and on whom he would rely.

He doesn't even have the staff.

As he pointed out, he's lost, you know, a whole batch of his staff.

Also, he's carrying the cost of living council, which he is not performing his role as.

And then you get to the question of what you really end up with is a make-believe council on international economic policy.

And it's argued that you can't get away with that, that as soon as you have a make-believe council, it will be no instantly.

The other alternative is to say,

that you've changed the system, that you're not going to have a council, make-believe or otherwise, and that you are moving this authority to the Secretary of the Treasury, which may be a way to do it.

But, you know, the problem you get there is you get the guys who have a whole bunch of argument.

You get the guys like Shultz and Ehrlichman who can't, it's hard for them to do anything on your behalf because if they have to work

under county which they're perfectly willing to do if he's available it doesn't work because he doesn't have the staff or the time available to them to do it and he really is he's overworked so you do have a problem there and uh shelson making sure we got our problem with shells in this regard not on a personal basis and this is not a thing where you got to worry about him on therapeutics it's the question of is trying to determine how he's supposed to work

And he made the point today that he realized yesterday how disconnected he's become from you and that Congress-State decision, whatever it was, that came up yesterday.

You gave him a lot of thinking of yours that he didn't know that if he reports an economy, which in effect he now will do,

Connelly doesn't know that either.

And Connelly is, their concern is that all this about, he didn't have to talk about this in hours, about the need for, okay, a relationship between the two.

Connelly, the thing that concerns your people, and I have to admit it concerns me to a degree, is that Connelly doesn't have your depth.

He doesn't have your breadth.

And obviously he doesn't have your own responsibility.

Therefore he can say and do and think things that you can't.

Also, he has built into him a very strong antagonism against the White House staff.

He is a bureaucrat.

And he is, he will not deal with anything that fills the White House.

And that's why I think you're going to have a problem with him.

And he does go off on his own, like the gold statement in Rome, where he makes a unilateral decision based on his own staff work.

where he doesn't take any input from here.

And you can argue that the president needs some people in the White House that are his own people that tell him what's happening or what they think, only on the basis of the president's interest.

And they've got to know what's going on.

And Shultz, for instance, now has no knowledge of what's going on in international trade.

Now, that's fine if you don't want him in, but who the hell is going to tell you that you trust what's going on in international trade if you're going to get it all from Connolly?

It would be fine.

The White House has got to take this responsibility.

We need somebody to do it.

Peterson just was too worried.

But I'm not sure Connolly's going to accept now, if we're down the road or something like that, the way you positioned it doesn't really put Plank in that position.

Could you join Plank in the meeting?

I think that's important to see how those things are going to work.

the time he wants to spend.

We cannot allow the situation to evolve where Connolly gets the feeling that the White House staff is out there.

That's right.

He has that feeling very, very often.

As I said, except for you.

Well, that's just it.

He has that feeling about the other producers.

I think I'm just fine.

I don't know.

Partly it's me.

I don't know.

Partly it's just me.

But maybe they are.

Well, Conor doesn't like anything he likes.

And it's wrong.

I don't think he probably liked the process we went through on the county decision.

He had a very strong view.

He said, pardon us.

We sat around calling lawyers, advisors, and all that.

I don't think he thinks that's the way to do things.

I think he thinks you should take the bit and run.

And I think the White House staff frustrates you.

I know they do.

It gets in your way.

Well, you know, times when good people keep relying on you, but all the time you recognize it as a value.

Well, you recognize using this for input, too, on the basis of that sometimes your first, you recognize that your first decision on something isn't necessarily right.

I'm not sure it finally has that kind of scope.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Well, I was having this discussion yesterday with

In fact, a reconfirmation of the judges.

Because God went through all that in the period of Leo Roosevelt.

And that was decided in this country.

It can never be raised again.

And then he went through the forcible retirement.

Well, Franklin Roosevelt went through that in his court packing.

Well, the forcible retirement is, well, Franklin, Franklin, Franklin could have got away with the forcible retirement if he hadn't had to pack the court.

And I think, of course, a little recovery is something we have come to.

I mean, I think an event like this is more viable.

Certainly, it's very, very anxious.

The difficulty with it, though, is that it raises such, so much trouble that people begin to immediately argue the word of the house and the Senate, because they're beginning to, everybody from Austin to Madison to John, they have amused God to, you know, everybody that I could possibly think of.

No, I know that.

But you've got to finally fix up to one kind of thing.

Economy is very important to us.

Absolutely.

The question is, how do you protect him?

Because moving in this kind of focused economy,

not only prevents the ordering process of getting stuff to you and deciding, but also will automatically build up antibodies.

And it already is happening, and he's getting it without any reason from Romney and some of that kind of people.

You don't need to worry about them.

But you do need to worry if it starts building up antibodies that have affected people within the bureaucracy that are going to start moving around.

You can say that's up to Flanagan to handle that.

There's no question whether we can.

I can ask some of these questions if John could comment on that.

I'll make the point.

One departmental guy, Eamon Cotton, can't wheel another department.

For instance, trying to put this dope peddler thing together has done a very potent job of wheeling departments.

Probably got traded with it now.

Connelly's gotten off the reservation.

He's going to go back and put it back.

But the point there is that Connelly could never have put that together.

Because Connelly couldn't go over to justice and line up all the attorneys general, the deputy assistant attorneys general, and get them lined up as early as they asked.

So it's a...

I don't think we have to give confidence in what we're doing.

I'm giving my all to this.

It's really what I'm saying.

The thing I want is, as you're maybe going with it, Peterson, to be finding ways to keep Pete from being abrasive, you know, organic, et cetera, that Pete is, that Tommy is Pete, and Pete can work with him very well, and that's the way it has to be done.

Connelly, Cat Connelly has got to do this so he must not be in a position to be out in front of him.

That's really what we're talking about here.

Even to the man.

For example, whenever I see anything I sign on this building, there's some statement about a budget limitation or something.

To be perfectly frank with you, I am more interested, Bob, in Connelly's final judgment as to the political wisdom of a certain statement that I am in St. George Hall's list.

I mentioned that George's and others are trying to, as to whether or not it's going to help or hurt the economy.

He knows ten times as much as I or the economy have ever learned.

But on the other hand, he's talking about the other side will not be good.

So I need, but another thing, we also need his support.

Now, let me say this now.

But here's the question.

If Connolly is going to take on...

I don't want anything public on Connolly.

No, no.

We talked about it.

It has to be decreed.

Internally.

You know that's all?

You can't keep it unpublic in the sense that the people, the operating people are going to know it.

And the question is, how will Conley handle that role?

Will he use the CEA as an advisor to him?

Will he use Schultz as an advisor to him?

Will he use your backup staff?

Or does he try to do it all by himself?

Or will he use his treasury staff, which is capable of it?

And how do you wheel this other staff?

Now that's, you can say that's what planning is about, but that's a, that's a tough role, tough role to do.

Yeah.

So what do you suggest?

Well, let me put it in a different dimension.

A lot of the toothpaste is out of the tube on it, too.

I bet you can't shove it back in.

You said something to me that I think we've got to look at.

He's prepared to be a beast.

He knows what he can and can't do.

He doesn't want to get shot.

He's very desperate about it.

That's the part that kind of worries me, because if he does, if we set up some of these things, and they do, if the antibodies build up, if he does get shot, if the bureaucracy starts running wild, I'm afraid that I'm going to tell him anything.

And then let me take it on.

You see what I mean?

What I really want to have in this place is my close associate advisor and so forth on these things, Bob.

He's got to be honest.

He's got to agree.

He's got to stop.

And on the trade, and here, you see, basically, he's getting all traded politically because he's a free trader.

You see, that's fine.

Or in our years, it's disastrous at the present time.

We can't go that line.

So Connolly, on the other hand, is probably going to get one day out of the way or another, except he knows that protection at the moment is the moon and the hill and the moon and the country.

And also Connolly has to have a heavy handle on trade.

For the reason that Connolly is negotiating a monetary settlement over the objections of State and Schultz and everybody else.

made the Monetary Settlement a hostage trade, you know.

Everybody's still about it, but he was right.

Politically, Bob, that was very important.

Now, if you see it coming, now that you've agreed to attend the Monetary Settlement, we're not going to get a goddamn thing on trade.

We don't give a shit.

You're, you're doing something to him.

His image is wrong.

Yeah.

Can I find that?

Spain undercut him on that in London.

Remember, he's very angry about that.

Now, if you get this to a, put this in a different dimension, which you, uh, I had not intended to, uh, to mention, and I don't want you to make any notes on it, at all, and you're not to mention it, to be honest, but I had quite a problem with the Commonwealth of California.

And he came in the first night we had dinner and said that he felt that he had finished his job and wanted to resign and he had a month.

And I talked to him in great length.

And I tried to get to the bottom of it.

The bottom of it was that he thought that he had done a lot of things in the second 50 years.

But the real problem is that he had noted over the past month that he was, he said, you know, I didn't want to come up here.

And I said, I was willing to serve the country.

I've done it.

But he says, the real problem is it's my name in the other department.

She says, I think the Capitol presents me.

I think the White House staff presents me.

And she says, I'm aware of all these stories.

And I come to know I must want to do so and so on.

So I worked on it that night, and then I got it back the next night before the next night.

I had a Japanese dinner.

That was the end of the conversation.

I had a very personal message.

I said, first, we need to leave.

And the other side of the crime is that basically you don't even have to say that I need you because I'm an anti-racism cabinet strong man.

That's a much more important truth.

Nobody else will be judging me.

I really have confidence in him.

And I said, I'm speaking for the policy and I'm speaking in domestic policy a lot about whether I've got somebody I can talk to.

And I said, you're the only peer I've got in Canada.

And that's about the absolute truth.

I can't say that about George Shultz.

Much as I respect him and the rest, I consider him in certain areas

uh, very important, you know what I mean?

But, but George's, uh, basically is, just has to live, live as long as Conley and I have.

That's what's got to be done, you know what I'm saying?

And I can't say that about Rogers or Laird.

Uh, Mitchell, I can say about him in a certain tactical field.

But Mitchell doesn't have to be here.

He's going to be over on the campaign.

Well, anyway, that's

Just before he died, when he was dead, he agreed that, well, he said, I'm doing this against my better judgment, but I cannot decline the request.

And he said, you just put it on that basis.

And I put it just because it was a judge conversation.

But he made the decision with no question.

He talked it over with his wife.

They had a term.

And he also brought a status.

He had some very strong social status.

My buddy took out his ranch and put it all the same.

He said, no, he says, of course I can put it all up.

I can lose the money and all that.

He says, I just can't stand up here and be shot at.

He says, I can't either.

He says, basically, the Democrats are all shooting at me.

He said, second, the cabins, the jobs.

He said, you're not going to show.

And he did.

And it will.

It will show in subtle ways for a while.

And then it will show in some pretty blunt ways because some of them will cut it.

And it'll happen.

And then the other is the White House guy.

I said, well, I'll say I can control this guy.

I said, I think he's wrong, basically, on the White House side.

The White House guy.

I said, I just don't believe that White House guy and so forth.

And I said, that's when I got down to it.

He has comments.

And you, that's, you, you're the only one.

I don't think that he has that.

I think he's probably had some problems earlier.

which, again, come from within their arms.

That's right.

He's had it with Schultz, which, again, come within his own yards.

You know, quite a piece of the rest of it, so forth.

And there lacked, perhaps, both Erwin's and Schultz's sensitivity to the

critical importance of the economy on whether it's been paid in price.

On the other hand, the economy is smart enough not to want to get out there and get shot at more than necessary.

So on this thing here, he can't go in like a sort of, you know, a bright little Wall Street boy who's standing for his evil and all that sort of thing in what is like a position that it won't work.

He's got to do it if he wants to.

Either that or I'll just put a, I'll get somebody like, you know, somebody out of the staff here, Chapin or somebody like that.

No, I was just an errand boy.

And to let it go, because I cannot have, I cannot run the risk at this point of having a company pick up and say, hell with it.

I'm sure you are.

Well, realistically, you know what you could do, which may not be a bad way to resolve it.

Yes, I'm here, Patricia.

Refining this to the answer.

It's just to let Dick Allen, you say, put an air quote in.

Let Dick Allen become acting director.

Don't send him up for confirmation.

But let, he's the deputy director now.

There's no...

That's right.

Well, even so, I would still make him acting director.

He has another stature to be the director of, but you could make the deputy the acting director.

He knows what Peterson's been doing and all that.

He's an air toy.

He's an egoist.

Yeah, but if you told him his star lay with rising with Kami, he low-fought trying to do a Kami and rise with it.

Pete doesn't give a damn about rising or something like that.

He also had to do this.

I'm afraid I don't know if it's true.

Well, how hard can I go in putting it to Pete?

See, I've said in effect that he's got to do it.

He will.

If you tell him that he has to do it, he'll probably do it.

I think he should do it, provided Connolly is satisfied that Pete is the man he wants.

Well, he may not be.

He may not be if he doesn't.

Right, sir.

And, uh...

He's in the West London, sir.

He'd like to see you.

All right, right, sir.

Yeah.

Uh, I'll just, I'll just give you a buzzer, man.

All right, sir.

looking on this thing.

Why don't you sit in the meeting and just say out words to him?

I was thinking before the meeting.

He didn't develop enough.

It's hard to get over to see him now.

You could say, John, you know, our president has simply told you now.

It's about this.

If you forget the conversation, if it ever comes up, you are not going to not

I don't want you to talk this to Irving or anybody else because it will never stay quiet, right?

I agree.

Never, never, never stay quiet.

This is part of life.

I know that everybody can say this.

I don't know how it happened.

It came from the hill.

It comes from here.

I know that.

Just don't tell anybody.

I don't know, I don't mean from top people.

In some way or other.

Well, there's no purpose served by saying it.

Now, the point that I had with John, somebody said that I, if you were thinking about it, I just want you to be perfectly candid that I don't want to force Peterson into this.

He's planning to get along with him.

And would he feel more comfortable without him?

who's less saturated, and so forth.

I simply want, what I really want is a man who can work with Conley, and carry out, and he has total appeals, totally comfortable with, in terms of loyalty, and so forth.

And it will not cause him any additional problems.

One will take some problems off of him.

That's really what I'm trying to get at.

He sees it that way, Conley.

And if he wants out, I'm going to do it.

It may be that he thinks that Flanagan is just too much of a pal-star, top of Bracey Hall.

You know, Flanagan has his history of Bracey Hall with the oil people.

Maybe Flanagan, he's got that in the back of his mind, too.

You never know what John's thinking about it.

I see what happened.

Can I talk to John a little on a personal basis?

Yeah.

Come in.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Good to see you tomorrow night.

You're one of the speakers, aren't you?

No, you're one of the speakers.

Okay.

All the old...

I've got it all.

No, two minutes.

Three minutes each.

You, the old miners, my hand...

Is he coming in?

Yes, he is.

They're flying in from the left.

I think you can get all the others.

Just do our own thing.

Our two counselors.

Don't you think though we ought to get more agents?

Oh, sure.

The two, the two that are just regarding.

We could your honor them.

Yeah, we're honoring Morgan.

I love that.

Thank you, too.

Fair enough.

It seems to me like I should have come now.

Good.

I was going to have to have about three martinis before I could do that.

I haven't played golf.

I played once in California with Bob Cole for money, you know, for his charity.

But it's just that I haven't played any golf since I saw Paige.

That's my problem.

Well,

The only reason that I submit to you is because you have to be able to tell him that this was done.

That's right.

That's the only reason I want you to talk about it.

I'm terribly concerned.

I consider you a very good friend.

And that actually, on the golf thing, that's frankly a question I just haven't been able to get out to.

And I tell them, I played with a lot of hope out there.

There's a lot of young guys in our center, and I haven't played here.

I've just done a rough look.

What I do, if you'll be my first uncle, is... Well, he is... That's a dangerous situation.

That's right.

He's not very well.

He's feeling sorry for himself.

And he lost his sex first.

That's right.

He's just feeling kind of bad.

That's a good balance for him.

And you know, he's as vindictive as him.

He's a mean guy when he gets back up.

Now, he's threatening, actively, to send him to this one of your farm programs now.

And he can't afford that.

He doesn't like the bus.

He can't afford it.

Well, oh yes, he likes that.

He just says the bus won't listen to him.

In other words, both of those guys are very, very articulate and they like to talk.

And Page wants to hear it.

We could have really hit Buzz.

Page is an obsessive talker.

That's right.

Buzz is just going to sit there and listen and bite his tongue.

He's going to do that.

I hope so.

Page is listening to the story.

But I think that, if I may say so, I think it would be very useful to you, and a terrible bore, but very useful to you, in the space of the next quite long while, to have him in.

over to the place across the street and just sit there and put your feet up and lay over him.

Can't let him get off the ledge.

He's the only dependable, powerful instrument in agriculture you have on Capitol Hill.

I want to win again.

Would you have me call Butts?

Yes, sir.

And ask Butts to come in in about 30 minutes.

Actually, this is the idea.

I'm talking in terms of an hour.

It couldn't be less than that.

So I think it's urgent because there's an awful lot of rides on his active support.

Well, we might have, why don't we have you come in with it?

That might be a good idea.

Well, certainly I would enjoy that.

Nonetheless,

I think if you had 30 minutes to talk to him.

It's just so damn important to him.

You know, his reverence to a brief shout on the airplane going up to... Yeah.

I think that was about an hour and a half, that brief shout.

An hour and a half.

Well, that's great.

An hour and a half.

Just like Tom Steed.

He still...

He had three hours.

Except he never stopped talking.

He drove right up to the wall.

The two longest-talking people I've ever met in my entire life are Tom Steed and Pace Robson.

They had no way of terminating him.

And so they, and I say ignore it, and not to have done just this, except for the fact that he is in critical condition now.

He's trying to prove what he says.

So you've got to answer a chat, get into a chat, but without you, without anybody, 30 minutes and have you hear a bus.

And two minutes.

Do you have a bus?

Yes, I have.

Do you have greater than two?

No.

Well, I think probably not.

You and Earl, and another 30 minutes.

He likes it.

He knew it, of course, earlier.

What do you think I should say to him?

What I would say is, Paige, the first thing I'd do is dismiss this problem.

I'd say, Paige, the greatest cross the president bears, almost,

aside from the burdens of the presidency for the nation, is the oppressiveness of the child from the standpoint of his best friends.

My best friends are the ones most angry with me always, because I had to see them the least.

And I have to expect the most of them to understand it.

And so I see, and I know it's a bias, it's a bad thing, but it works out this way inevitably.

All across this country, all over Capitol Hill, my closest friends are always busy because they can't come and tell me what they think.

Because we have to talk about the people that we can't talk about.

That's right.

And this is true of every president, and it's a sad thing.

And so I'm just cross you have to bear this office.

And I'm sick about it in connection with you, who've been my closest friend and man of respect for many, many years.

The problem is there are 19 standing committees, each with a ranking in the House alone.

And there are 12 more in the Senate.

That's 31 by itself.

Each of them with a claim to see me at any time.

And I just respect it.

And then just let him wander.

And he, I don't know what he'll say.

He might be uptight.

He's real pale.

So, thank you very much.

I'll try it for you.

No, I can tell him.

See, I'll tell you if I didn't do this.

He'll say, did you personally get it?

And I'll say, no, I didn't get it.

John or later or something like that, if I hadn't done this, given this to you by myself.

Oh, sure.

Well, say if I hadn't.

Sure.

I'm trying to find who's in.

That's it.

No.

Someone else is going to have it.

It's the palace guard.

I understand.

The palace guard.

Thanks.

But you would suggest seeing...

Maybe the next three weeks or perhaps two or three weeks.

As soon as you can.

I mean, as soon as you recently can.

I'd do it within two weeks.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Or the length of the period, for example.

See, this is the 20th.

We haven't done much time.

See, these guys down here, they go off on the 8th.

That's right.

They work very hard up there.

Yeah, for an hour every once in a while.

They don't get paid enough for the work they do.

All right.

I'll work it out.

All right, gentlemen.

Does he grant it?

Yes, he does.

I didn't know that.

I'll see you at the end of the grant.

Yes, he does.

I know he does.

I forgot about it.

I didn't know it.

He's got your word, and I think it's expensive.

Okay, thanks.

I'll see you tomorrow night.

All right.

Thanks very much.

Thanks a lot.

Chris, good to speak to you.

I don't know.

It probably is.

I don't know who the hell we've got around here.

Oh, yeah, the farm guys can't.

But see, they have whatever is talking about the hour.

They've got these new guys that they're working on, and Bryce moves into trying them, and the old-timers say McGregor from the straight congressional thing.

Once in a while, one of these boils up to this kind of a point, I think, where the guy just...

You know, he becomes irrational on the point of it isn't.

He isn't trying to accomplish anything.

The only thing he's after, no, hell, he's been carrying the water for you on all your programs.

He isn't.

He wants to see the president.

The issue is, can I see the president?

Not what I have to cover with.

That's the point.

Mitchell feels very strongly that there should not be a

You should treat the two of them even handily.

Don't expect Rogers to do anything you're not expecting Henry to do.

That's why this is a hell of a both of them.

But I expect, in my case, to put Rogers in the back and say, well, now you're going to let me know about the conversations that Henry has with Verbeen.

And I'm going to say, you're going to let me know about the conversations that Rogers has with Verbeen.

That's the answer.

The answer to that is that, as Phil agreed when we talked with the Attorney General, that you will make sure that Henry keeps him posted

on all of the things that he's doing that Roger should know about.

You've got to put a qualifier.

And Roger's agreeing that there's got to be a qualifier in here.

No, there's some things he doesn't need to know about.

See, the concern with putting a promise from you in there is that as soon as that promise gets broken, which you'll be sure to find,

Yeah, an instance of somewhere off.

And then that, you then abrogated the old preview.

All right.

This is here now, sir.

That's .

Yeah.

All right.

OK. On this, though, I want to have, obviously, you deliver a camera and say, this is what I saw worked out.

And if he starts to bitch around about it, you're going to show me, does it come through my office and all the rest?

No problem with that.

I've covered it.

John and I have talked with him about that.

Henry's in full accord with this.

He's realized now that this is not a riot.

It's not to come through Kissinger so that Kissinger can keep the promise.

See, that's the point that Henry has moved off of.

What Henry has said now is, I realize, you know, I've fought for the system and tried to get the things done and all that.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

All I'm going to do is whatever gets things done this year.

In other words, two years ago, he was looking towards building something that would work right every day.

Now he's saying we've just got to keep pasting together until we get past the elections.

In other words, he recognizes we have an impossible situation.

I want you to get a person in the garage and say, no, I have to do this.

And then Rogers will say, well, now how is this going to work?

However you want it to.

Send the mental director to the president if you want to rule it through me.

So I cannot get an indirectly to him.

That's my job.

I don't think we should set him up to work a Maggie-Uncle-Rose-Lewis channel, because I think you do create a problem that Henry will not have confidence in.

No, no, just say that you want him to, and that the President said this, that if you want to send a directive to him any time,

Send it to you, and then try to see if I get it.

And if you have sent something through the NFC system, and if it isn't getting it, let me know.

I'll call you, and you'll see that it does.

I'll see everything.

I've told him, and I can, I'm almost willing, I can't prove it, but I'm willing to...

All right.

Yeah.

You say we work this thing out now.

That's not good.

And it's not good to have her talk about it or a confrontation about it or anything like that.

And if you're going to take it, I put on you the responsibility, the personal responsibility to see if this damn thing works and if we're going to make it work.

It's better to have a

So it doesn't scare the Jews in it.

That's why through China, because it doesn't matter that Bill, I think you've got to tell him, you should tell him, I don't find it common to have this, but that I have it.

The two problems that I found at Intercept, we did the Intercepts over here, Bill, are the fault of, I think, the wine crop in the State Department.

They're going exactly opposite to what I, I know that my views and I know that are his views.

In other words, we do not, we are not going to renegotiate with Chile.

without, certainly without my approval of the damn thing, at a time that they are, that are lost.

Of course, Bill doesn't agree with that, Paul.

He agrees.

He just wants to suck up to all these countries and do it.

We're not going to do it.

Back to the country proposition.

We don't need the representatives of Chile or Cuba anyway, do we?

Just leave Cuba out.

Just leave Cuba out in Cuba.

Well, you can put Cuba in.

That would be important in all matters relating to it.

But then, needs with representatives, you don't care about needs with representatives.

We have a need for representatives in Cuba, that's true.

But we'll leave the subject, leave Chile in there.

Leave Chile in there.

What does it say on this, getting back to this Conley thing?

On the Conley thing, can I get into, with Conley, the question, just on the basis of operations, that I'm concerned about how it will arise out of the Flanagan meeting, that I'm concerned about his position in this, that he's getting himself

into a post where the racist antibodies point everything.

And obviously, when he gets out in front like this, he is going to run the problem.

The counter-office is coming up.

How can we mobilize here to make sure that doesn't happen?

Well, let me just say that I started the conversation by saying that the president is giving you absolute instructions in the

views here and to see that the White House staff voted in conformance and that you can carry that out.

But we want the staff to be a help to him and not a hindrance.

Now we want to know, quite honestly, whether or not Pete's planning an operation as one he likes.

I'm not sure that he can tell you whether he thinks that.

I don't know.

He doesn't think so.

We don't have to do anything.

I don't want to force him on.

Would he prefer him on?

We've got to keep the organization.

I think you've got to get into that.

Then you can move from there to how do we do this trade thing and the rest.

But I realize that I can't have him.

He's presiding over the Cost of Living Council.

He's having the International Monetary Bank.

He, of course, is going to handle these.

credit operations like the children that we have.

He's going to handle this situation with regard to trade.

You know what I mean?

I'm going to depend upon him.

And also that the President wants to be very close to everything else, very important national security matters under these circumstances.

How can we, how can we, how can we help you staff-wise?

How can we be helpful?

We don't want to burden them.

Who is a man you totally depend upon that we can clear things with so that we don't have to clear things?

Like, for example, there's a statement on the budget here, the budget seat.

I'm not sure Congress should bother with the damn thing.

I mean, who do you have here?

Who do you want us to talk to?

Who do you treat?

Who is your hold of them or something like that?

It's like asking that.

Then you come back to the, let's look here, the mining operation.

If you feel that he's too much of a self-starter, that he's going to take too much into himself, we don't want to impose it.

We're not trying to finance what he wants, but it will help with Alan being back in the city.

And if you say you've got a man over here, he's done no hell of a lot about it, but he's bright and loyal and ambitious and, of course, and conservative.

And it would undoubtedly be my career.

And maybe that's a better way to do it, if it is.

But my whole purpose would be to have a planning operation that is to let anything to bother.

In other words, we have two different modes of operation.

We have what we do.

There, Conley and I must make the decisions.

And this I clearly understand.

Connolly and I are going to make the decisions on monetary matters, on trade matters because whenever they're involved, on matters involving expropriation, on matters involving these loans and so forth.

We're going to do it on the other hand.

That's the way to go.

That question is how we do it.

And he and I will have our conversations and so forth, and our personnel.

The question is how we know that it is not, of course, to his interest to be out in front of all that because it will break too much track with other cabinet officers and so forth and the like.

And so what we want is to have all the White House staff basically a man who will ostensibly, you know, be doing this, a man who will broker these things.

but who will know, basically, when he hears from me or from Conley, that those are his orders.

That's really what it gets down to.

Conley is not one that goes off on his own very much either, despite the gold and more or less.

He asks, he thinks, you know what I mean, he wants to do like that.

You know, he always said, well, I'll do whatever the president wants.

I don't want to be in a position where he'll then say, well, I need to just do God and I'm struggling.

I'm going to take this crap and so forth and so on.

I don't want to be in this fight.

See, I think he's in that kind of mood or was.

And I don't want that mood fed off at this point.

That's why I think you'd better get to it rather than

rather than Flanagan at this point.

Flanagan just is quite solid on what they've been handling.

This is not a situation where Flanagan can go in and say, look here, John, I'm sorry, this is equals.

Flanagan is not his equal.

He is, but he cannot talk that out.

He's got to talk in terms of how he can, you see, you see what I'm getting at?

The thing that that leaves open, which is what I kind of like to explore with comedy, is you and he make the decisions, but who does the staff work for you to lead to the decisions?

And on the staff, whether we lead to the decisions, the curator, and so forth, I think that's where I think the planning office or the album office would be very important.

And who does the wheeling of the other departments?

Yes, and in terms of brokering some of these things with other departments, I think...

I had a lot of them.

In other words, Broderick and Peterson, who was an eager beaver and a self-starter, Broderick had a stand with Rodgers.

I said, I think there we ought to take that key off of him and have it done from the White House.

In other words, we have two men.

What we do, how we make the decisions there, he and I, together, he's the guy we'll depend upon.

He, in fact, will be the man to exert a lead on that.

Then second, how do we carry them out?

and a person that is saying that we make decisions.

And so, in order to make a decision, we want the very best standard for it, and they will prepare and air that for us at least a minute.

And then second, how do we implement those decisions?

Sometimes we'll have meetings, sometimes we'll have just programming around and so forth.

That's where you can use the council.

Let the council sit there.

I don't mean in the media, necessarily, but as an entity, feed their input in.

And sometimes they have good ideas, too.

Rogers may have an idea.

And certain Peterson will have it.

I don't think that would be related to the Peterson announcement, though, if he had nailed that.

He cannot start with the great big guy in Port Colette here, Bob, that we hear.

He's unable to meet.

And also, he cannot start with the idea that he's going to be sitting in here telling you that he's got to work the world, just like other cabinet people.

Correct?

And if Flanagan, that's another good reason to have Flanagan, because he'll be a good brother for him.

I'll see Peterson if he's in a mission that he can talk to.

He'll have some input on ideas, but

You can't get in a position where you can't work unilaterally.

You cannot work with cabinet officers one at a time.

It just doesn't work.

Well, everything they do hinges on others, and that's what your staff is there for.

Go around the thing way back at the beginning.

Maybe you can lead down on this, and I'll pull the other departments together.

It works.

I'm going to take you down to get the haircut first.

Would you bring me, and then I'll be up in a half hour to look at this, but I'll need a page of the copy of Rose's prepared so that's tested.

I have an exam, one of the earlier exams.

Did you know that?

But that's what I do.

See, that is not a, that's not really a question.

Oh, is that a question?

This is what she, this is the, oh, I see, this is the reading.

No, it isn't.

Well, it isn't.

Okay.

That's exactly the way it's going to look.

If it's not, I bought one cage from you.

That's the way it's going to look.

You know this won't be any good for the state of the union.

Why not?

Because you can use that room.

There are people who are worried about you.

There's just these people that I don't need them.

I'm sorry.

I see that.

But one of the things these people want to do, because this is what's making a difference now.

I'm sorry about that.

They had as much as they could get last time.

They had one burned out, too, the Gallaudet, I think.

You remember?

There was some problem there.

But at least if our guys, if our electrification could get up, the other guy had as good a light as possible.

Yeah, that's all.

I didn't pay much, and I thought they were going to put our employees on the table.

So just to leave that as well.

All right.