Conversation 657-001

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They said that these boys were going to be impressed.

Well, one of them wrote a good story.

Hope the other wrote a good story as well.

or the power of speech or something like that.

But anyway, the Hanoi reaction is... Oh, it's pretty predictable.

We said this yesterday.

They haven't really absolutely turned it down.

They said we've broken, we've breached

Promise to them by publishing it.

Well, I don't know what else they can ask for.

I think we should just pull ahead and say we want to negotiate.

Do to them what they did to us with the seven points.

I have no doubt that they turned it down.

Well, the argument, though, that they will make that we've reached an armistice and so forth, I don't understand.

They will say... Oh, that I've answered already this morning.

Did you?

Yeah.

I said that they were using a secret talk, despite the American people accusing them of saying that our public and private positions were totally inconsistent with each other.

They weren't answering us in the private channels.

I'll tell you, I think they must have shot him somewhere.

Well, they have lost it.

They're just confused right now.

Are they?

Yes, they are.

Oh, we'll get it.

But we expected this, Mr. President.

Well, I know we did.

I know.

I'm just thinking about taking the offensive, you know, and, boy, just hit it hard.

I just let Porter keep it in it.

Porter is prepared on hitting it very hard on tomorrow.

Oh, yeah.

He's just going to hang in there.

Well, it's going to go like the ceasefire.

I mean, there's no question.

We've never had any doubt about that.

Like, of course, like the ceasefire in 1978.

We knew it would go that way.

Yeah, but this time we ought to stay on the offensive.

This time we should just scream, these guys want an all-out American surrender.

They want to surrender to the Hong Kong government and serve Vietnam.

And even that we are willing to let happen, but we are not going to put it in.

People in South Vietnam have got to make that determination.

That's right.

But I think, Mr. President, I don't know, maybe that has been a tremendous plus.

I think so too.

And we just have to keep it that way.

I think what you have used in making this to give the orders to the boys tomorrow is not a whack-back in Hanoi,

Like I said, attack God damn it, attack Hanoi for their party around.

I'll get a message off also to Porter saying just be sure to be positive and tough.

This is the way to settle it.

So forth and so on.

Now let's talk about this.

Bunker sent him an enthusiastic message.

Did he?

I sent him a message on your behalf thanking him.

I mean in your name.

Yes, of course.

For everything you had done, and he had done, and how we couldn't have done it without you.

Oh, and to the answer.

I think, I'd be interested to see, I think that like a good person could tell you this.

Sure, I know I will turn it down.

Well, then we say, what are our enemies saying?

We have to accept every proposal Hanoi makes.

In other words, surrender.

I think we ought to go on the attack now.

I agree.

Meyer said that we've gone as far as we could go.

That's right.

That's the line.

And we have.

There isn't a hell of a lot more

We literally can't offer much more, if anything.

Listen, we can't offer another goddamn thing.

That's right, that is right.

We're not going to.

That is right.

It'll be interesting to see the polls and the Times tomorrow.

What way they'll find it.

The Times didn't miss out on this morning.

They didn't have an editorial?

Yes, they did.

Did they?

Yes, they did.

What did it say?

Very reasonable.

You're going to be, are you going to be substantive, or are you going to be above sorrow and anger, above...

One thing I want to start with that would be of interest to you.

I know that McGregor told me there's something about a Tulsa hospital.

It's $40 million.

We've been trying to get that until last May.

Well, it means something to get it.

Oh, hell.

It means a lot.

You know, it's been a long time to get that through.

I think they're meeting McGregor.

I'm going to see what's going on.

I just talked to the clerk out there, and I talked to Tulsa about ten minutes ago.

And I think they're signing the papers now.

But I've got to give them a long time.

Well, they have to.

If they can get the doctors to get them the word on high right now, I'll have them call Tulsa and tell them.

Well, he's already come to us.

The clerk has already...

Yeah.

Have you called Tulsa yet and told them that they're to go ahead on that thing?

You haven't called yet, but you can.

All right, well, I'm sitting here with Paige, and you called Tulsa and said the president was meeting with Congressman Belcher, and we've made the decision.

They're to go ahead, they're to sign the papers, okay?

Fine.

You know, Barry Higgins died in there.

Yeah, I know that.

That's the best thing you've ever done.

Well, she's a wonderful girl.

She was a supporter of you.

You know, when the Democrats came in after you lost the government election in California in 1962, the next morning, the next morning, the Democrats came in, you know, and said, why don't you throw that damn picture out in the window?

He said he'd be present some day.

He'd be present some day.

And oh my God, he told the press like that.

He cussed out the press, and he told the press, and he went right again.

He'd be present some day.

I'll just keep that picture up there.

I told Pat that, and she said, probably the only person in the whole world that would say that that morning at that o'clock.

I wouldn't have said it.

But you know,

She was interested in science.

What was she?

She was trying to ask for science.

She said, I know I'll be president someday.

I know I'll be president someday.

Just don't worry about that.

Ah, I see.

Now the next morning, after that, she said, he's my boy, I can give him the president someday.

And every time they'd see that picture behind their desk, you know, a lot of people would just say, well, sure.

He said it.

Yeah, he said it.

And she'd always come to her finger.

He'll be pregnant some day.

Yeah.

I said, hellfire, he won't run again.

He won't run again.

I said, she said, he'll run and he'll win.

When did she get the damn cancer?

Oh, about 15 months before she died.

My God, it was horrible when she died.

She went away about 150.

And she went down to the 70.

She just looked terrible.

When I talked to her, the Christian scientists have a wonderful philosophy.

She was just wonderful.

You know, after you stopped talking to her,

The nurse came in and she was crying.

She said, Mary, why are you crying?

She said, I just talked to the president.

She said, why are you crying about talking to the president?

Well, she said, he's a great friend of mine.

He called me.

And he said, he's a great friend of mine.

He's been a great friend of mine for the last 18 years.

She was really a crazy girl.

Everybody loved her.

She could do any damn thing and manage it.

She was a top assistant.

I thought she could do it.

She would get contributions and everybody else.

Everybody said that she was the best candidate.

She's a pretty girl, too.

Very attractive.

He didn't flirt with her.

I'm sure of that.

Everybody loved her.

Men and women.

My secretary Rose liked her.

She liked Rose, too.

Of course,

I think they're, I think they're pretty good together.

Yeah.

She wasn't married.

No.

She wasn't married.

I told her, I told her.

This is Rosie.

That's Mary Higgins now at the White House.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, let me tell you that I want you to know that I'm glad we were able to get together, because speaking of friendship, there's been no better friend than I've had at Page Belcher.

And I know that, and I just thought that we ought to just get the record straight.

And another thing, too, is that I want to have him come in until we finish and have him talk.

But I want you to know that as far as Buss is concerned, that any suggestion of any kind of a deal with Buss and Harden and that sort of thing, I mean, I know you had some concern about that, but...

Absolutely is nothing to it.

Buzz is a high-class man.

He's a fighter.

He's like you.

He's a fighter.

And I think he's on your side on a major issue.

But if he isn't, I want to bring him in here and find out.

I know, because he's got to have you.

I was a supporter of Mr. Katniss all the way through.

You had to support her.

I was supporting him all the way through.

And I sort of, or a bus turns by.

I don't know, one hour after you, the scandal came out.

I sent a telegram to the chairman of the action committee.

I sent seven telegrams, one to Tad, just one hour later.

I went up to the Alamo Country Club.

And I spoke at a hundred dollar dinner up there, the same night that you spoke on the TV.

And they brought a lot of TVs in there, and they listened to that program of yours.

Then I went in to the dinner, and I was the main speaker, the only speaker.

And we just, they all turned down, sort of, down, country club down.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

Opa Pat, you know, came through then.

He was the first senator.

He came right through.

He was a man of great character.

You know, even though I support Eisenhower, he knew that.

But by golly, Pat was a man of very great principle.

He said, all members of Congress and senators who many times have refunds for the purposes of their managers and so forth.

There was one thing wrong about that.

They just tried to make them understand it.

But Mike wasn't a...

He got scared of the farmers.

He shouldn't be scared.

People out here are scared of the farmers.

They spent five, half a billion dollars just trusting him.

I can't, I can't, I can't help you.

Who are the fellas that we can, in your opinion?

Well, besides yourself, what other people have we got?

Aiken in the Senate?

Is he okay with me on this sort of thing?

Or, I don't know, is Aiken pretty far out?

No, there's no Senators in the whole damn Senate.

Very good.

Nobody has supported you all the way through.

Nobody.

Jack Tanner was against you the other day.

...today... ...today... ...today... ...today...

The only four votes, I guess, for that reserve bill.

That was a terrible bill.

You'd have to veto it.

If it comes down, if it came down here.

You'd have to do that.

Well, just kill it.

That's the best thing to do.

Because if it comes down here, you just have to veto it.

It would cost a billion dollars to buy it.

It would cost 250 million a year to store it.

My God, you didn't go home with that bar.

My God.

What happened in the house on this day?

Well, I was up in New York, and they went through the house.

Oh.

I got killed.

You didn't come out of the committee?

I didn't come out of the committee.

And then it went to the floor.

And 24 Republicans voted for that, and it came out 12 votes.

And I didn't speak for that vote.

There were still vows up in New York, in the medical center up in New York.

I wasn't in the House at all.

Listen, I put my cards face out on the table.

I remember I told him, I talked to him about this yesterday.

I said, I can't help you.

You won't take my advice at all.

And he said, well, I will.

I said, you didn't ask me about those half a million dollars.

I was just as close as your phone.

He said, well, I was terribly busy.

Where did you get the information?

You didn't get it from me.

Let me ask you about one other fellow that I've asked you on what comes in.

How about Ty Murray?

Well, I think it's important you recommend him.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

What I'm trying to do is to... Who is the fellow that I hate?

He called me twice a week.

You just tell me what you want.

What you want.

Do you want us to call you?

I want to work with him.

I understand.

I want to work with him.

You know what?

I don't need it.

I'm just trying to take care of you.

You know what?

You just want to farm where you can.

I put that damn farm bill through.

It cost three and a half million dollars.

And I sold that to the White House three and a half days off.

They were down about two less than three.

And I said, if you do that, you just cut it all out.

You'll even lose farmers anyway, so why don't you just put it on weather?

And I took 15 hours to sell that white house down here for about three and a half million dollars.

He put it up, half a million dollars just to have it.

And so, I live on with some of that.

You know what?

The people down here are scaring the farmers.

They shouldn't be scaring the farmers.

You don't think so?

No, hell no.

You'll lose five votes in the cities forever.

Won't you get any in the country?

Five of us in this state.

You know, I... You don't have this pride about the farm?

Jack Miller is practically petrified, of course.

Oh, well, hell, you know, he wants to be a senator.

And he's scared.

You know, I don't get scared.

I've represented the rural district 60 years.

I thought it was a different kind of farm because it came up.

I keep on waiting.

You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

I love him.

I play a lot of golf with him.

He's very good.

I played golf with him years ago.

He's a good golfer, but my God, you know, he can't take care of Jack Miller at all.

I got it.

Well, we should try.

Who is the, who you got over there?

Not a damn thing.

And who are the barters?

Who are your good housemen?

I just like to know who the players are.

Besides yourself, who do we, who can we sort of count on?

I don't mean the whole commission, I just think the guys that...

I think you can go along with Henry Belton.

Well, Henry's a good man.

Henry's a good man.

He goes along with me most of the time.

He told me that.

Thank God, they have spent ten million dollars on farm bills if they could come out.

All right, you have to be sensible.

How about your leadership in the House?

Oh, well, Harry Ford and Les Herons and Myra Cox, the whole leadership in the House is all right.

They're with you.

Oh, they're with me all the way through.

They're with me all the way through.

When Merle Best came up and he said, leave it on the page.

If you can get along with the page, you can get along with us.

Everybody said, well, one thing I'm going to do, it may not be the next...

I had a leadership meeting just two weeks from now, I don't know.

But the next time, we were doing something new, like today, because I wanted to leave, I wanted to talk about my Vietnam offer, peace offer.

I said, well, let's have a wildfire now, and so I invited Barrett.

He'd never been to a leadership meeting before, you know,

I thought you were a better friend than I. I've been down here once in the last three years.

I was down in the island administration every month.

I last in that staff room almost every month.

Almost every month.

I have tried to talk to you for three years.

I couldn't even get through to you.

But I could talk to you.

I talked to him probably 20 times.

I played golf with him.

But, you know, I don't play for you.

Well, I'm going to hurt you.

What I do this summer, if I put it, I'm going to put it.

You should play.

This summer, I mean.

You know, I mean, about ten years ago, I said that.

How often do you play?

Oh, probably twice or three weeks.

Twice or three weeks.

To me,

I played in South England.

Oh, hell yes, my God, my blood pressure went up to about 175 over 100.

You know what it is right now?

128 over 70.

That's great.

128 over 70.

Do you think the dog helps?

Well, the doctor said it does.

The doctor said it.

If I had to stop playing golf in the wild, just as quick as that.

What do you play with usually off deck?

I play with a lot of people.

I play with anybody.

Unless they're in front of a police car.

Less errors, please.

Oh, yeah.

Less...

There's a lot of conversations.

A lot of others, man.

A lot of lobbyists.

But we'll have a game by the day.

When I get to it.

But I don't know.

I want to support you.

I'd like to do it for other reasons.

Hang on, yes.

You should do that.

You know, I'm older than you.

I'm not about that.

I would have died ten years ago if I didn't take exercise and take care of myself.

But I appreciate that.

He said, you're in good shape.

You're in good shape.

But he said, I want you to play golf.

I want you to play golf.

So I went down to Florida and played nine days.

I went up to the Air Force Academy.

And I walked 234 holes.

Walked.

7,000 feet up.

I know where it is, Jim.

Colorado Springs.

No, no.

The Air Force Academy.

That's 7,000 feet up.

I want to help you, but I can't help you if you don't talk to me.

You've had it for the last 30 years, so I can get through to you.

The thing is, I...

You know, I don't need your support.

No farm bill would help me.

I lost $15,000 majority in Tulsa last year because of the farm bills and jerk bills and everything else.

$15,000 majority.

Well, I'd be a hero down in Tulsa if I killed a farm bill.

And I could kill, talk to Jerry Ford, I could kill every damn farm bill that comes out.

Just like Jack Miller goes along with it.

Mel Young plays politics, and I won't play politics.

I could be a hero down in Tulsa if I killed someone else.

I've wanted to hear something for the last 16 years.

Then when you start to run, then I took care of that all the way through.

I don't know Merle Butts for a long while.

He's a good, smart man.

There are more offenses than Merle Butts in the first week than there was in his heart in the first three years.

Nobody wanted to fire him.

Now you remember what went on under this?

A hundred Republicans wanted Mike to fire him.

Only one congressman, a Republican congressman, wanted him to resign, Bill Shirley.

And he's reading Tracy.

The only one that wanted him to resign, he didn't ask you to fire him, he said resign.

My God, that's never happened before in the last 50 years.

Earl Freeman, many Democrats want him to be fired in the first six months.

You get by the farmers.

I know exactly how to campaign the farmers.

I've been campaigning them for the last 55 years.

I know exactly how to campaign them.

55 years I've been campaigning farmers.

No!

I've been campaigning partners.

I was a campaign manager in Oklahoma.

I was a campaign manager in the 8th district.

And I started campaigning for my father in 1916.

I've been campaigning for him since 1916.

What did your father do?

He was a county assessor.

And I was a judge, and I was a court clerk, and of course I was named in Washington State.

And so I know exactly how to maintain farmers.

But my God, I couldn't sell that to anybody except the farmer.

I couldn't sell it to the investor.

I couldn't sell it to a marketer.

But I sold hard on that.

That's a good farm bill.

136 Democrats voted for that damn thing.

The Speaker supported it.

Carl Albert and the whole majority of the side supported it.

The majority side supported it.

They all supported it.

86 Republicans voted for that damn thing, and the last time that it came out, 5 voted for it.

81 voted for me.

136, uh, Senator, my father, he said, this is a bad thing you're doing.

How can you put this pressure on the president?

for all one heart.

You introduced it.

I'm going to make it.

Put the pressure on Harden.

I kept him out of a lot of trouble.

We both introduced.

Five parties, they all went through.

I got everything in the amendment that the White House wanted.

I got everything in the amendment on the sugar bill that they wanted.

I got everything on the pesticide bill they wanted.

I got outvoted 25 to 6 on pesticides.

And I turned it around and taped it.

25 mistakes in the committee.

And it went through on the floor, 3-1.

Let me say one thing about Hartman that you may not know.

You know why I said that, don't you?

I said to him, Cliff, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said,

He just felt that if he did not move at this point, he might have a very difficult time at a later time.

His age and everything and so forth.

Whether he was right or not was that, but I think you should know that it was his decision, not mine.

He told me that he, I didn't say Cliff, you ought to resign.

You know what I mean?

Somebody sold you a bill of goods.

That was a trade.

You don't want what I want.

That was a dead trade.

Well, a year ago, he said he will have to go.

I said, no, no.

He's a popular secretary.

Then when that corn rush went down.

Yeah, which is a temporary thing.

Hell, that was completely temporary.

It would be good.

They really got scared down here.

And they talked to our boss.

And he could get a job.

And the boss could get him a job on the arena.

You think so?

Hell no!

You think that happened now?

Well, don't you think it happened?

Well, the first time I heard of it was when I heard that you had said it, frankly.

Well, you know, you know, I've been around here a long while.

I have a lot of friends around here, all the way.

I was a friend of ours, and he was a friend of mine.

I can't forget that.

He was a good man.

He didn't talk to me before he was confirmed.

He didn't talk to me at all.

But when he came in, I saw he was a good man.

And he said, I want to work with you.

I said, if you want to work with me, I'll take care of you.

i know exactly how to take care of it and so he worked with me we had 20 there's 27 meetings with the committee and the higher officials in the

In the cargo bag.

Twenty-seven minutes.

Six months.

Oh, I know.

And the thing of it, they got three of them.

They just called their first name.

How long was the number of the tog?

Oh, hell, you know, the tog liked him.

Yes, and he likes tog.

Everybody likes tog.

Oh, yes.

And so, I was there.

Of course, I haven't talked to him.

He had a lot of tog sometimes.

But I could agree with him, because he's honest.

Is he?

Oh, yeah.

He's honest.

I don't know.

I've been with him for 21 years.

I know exactly how he thinks.

Yes, sir.

When we agreed, I don't have this signature.

He goes along with me all the way through.

He said, I'll go, it's all right with me.

And I tell the same thing to my folk.

I said, I'll own this.

We've been together for 21 years.

John was a gripper.

Yes.

We never signed a story or anything else.

We just make agreements.

And he gets nasty sometimes, you know.

He just has to get that through.

And then I cussed him out, and he gets mad for about two hours, and then he called me back, and he said, well, I was mad, and I was mad now, and why don't we sit down and get it together?

And that's all they've done.

Two of you really run a committee, don't you?

I don't tell anybody else.

And I have worked trouble with Republicans more than the Democrats.

Why does it matter?

John Kyle, Bill Shirley, Bill Shirley, hell, they're all crazy.

They're all crazy.

I think he served us a good head in the football games.

No, I think he had a flat head, and then it was the same thing again.

You know, I'm surprised at why I thought he'd be the man.

Oh, no, he's terrible.

What's his trouble?

Oh, I don't know what it is, but he's a liar.

Ha, ha, ha!

Well, it's good.

Let me ask you to do one thing, though, with Miller.

We need you to help him.

Talk to him damn tough.

Let me tell you what happens is, you haven't been here...

God damn it, I talked to Miller.

The trouble is, it's always the case that they make the man sitting here talk to the people of the government.

John Hoover, Miller...

at least people all the time, and I get that in charge of it.

So I'm glad we've had this talk, because I...

I can take care of all of them if you just talk to me.

And you can work on that.

That'll be our deal.

I can just knock those heads off.

But who down here?

Who down here?

One second, please.

One second.

Yes, he's an officer.

But, uh...

I can work with John.

All the way through.

All right.

Well, how do we want to work it out?

What is your...

I think you should...

Between you and me and Whitaker.

All right.

That's your understanding.

I'll take care of you.

You don't have to.

I'll get John, and I'll say, now look here, John, go down and talk to Paige, and see if we can't get her murdered, and I'll shake her up.

And in the meantime, though, the main thing is that apart from the foreign thing, we want your help and advice on politics.

You know politics.

I know politics all the way through, but I can't do a damn thing for the administration.

I don't... My wife was a secretary in this department.

When he was born, before I met her, she was secretary of Bryce Harlow's father.

My wife was a secretary of Bryce Harlow's father.

I knew Bryce, and of course, he was a really great man.

I think he lied to me.

I think he had to, but he lied to me.

We'll work this out.

I think he'll work this out, you know.

My father said, well, you go along with Peggy's, whether you make it or not, whether you make it.

Now, I've been knocking heads down here for three years.

It didn't do me any help.

I was trying to take care of you.

Nothing happened to me that I don't have any.

God, I've hurt you.

Yeah, I've hurt you.

I've hurt you.

I went my own way.

Well, let me say that we'll rectify it.

I just, I got the word, and you know I keep my word.

Yeah, I know you do.

I know you do.

I'll thank you for that.

What do you want us to do?

Why do you want to stay with us when you're in here?

Well, that's why we talk about bells.

I talked to Earl yesterday.

And I really mocked him there.

I did that part.

Let me, let me, I'll start to give him a couple of seconds.

You're a quarterback.

What are you a quarterback?

I don't know what I'm a quarterback.

A quarterback?

No.

A quarterback?

No.

A tackle?

A tackle, yes.

How are you?

Is Wenger here?

Well, the thing that I wanted to say...

which I think Earl and I want to be sure you will be willing to share it with us.

You can give your letter to Don, and I like to say it because, after all, you've been working for Page for a long time.

The thing I'd all get to hear is this.

Page and I have worked together on a lot of that one, and good things, too, for many years.

And Earl, I want you to establish, you've only two, of course, for many years.

But he's the man who can wheel that committee.

And when we've got stuff in this barn, you know, there'll be people down here who'll say do this and that and the other thing, and...

Frankly, what I have to do, I have to go to my secretary of agriculture and say, what do you think?

And I want you, whenever there is anything that comes up, I want you to check the page so that I can know what his view is.

And now, because one thing about it, he's a team player, too.

Page has carried a lot of stuff down there that didn't help him work at Dan and Tulsa.

And you're new, of course, new in this job.

But I think what I want you to do, Earl, is to establish the same relationship that Page has looked at.

And I hope, you know, you start out, and like, for example...

Page was raising the point of that $500 million increase in the budget and so forth and so on.

He said some of it was all right, some of it, in his opinion, was not.

The main point is that we should have talked to him about that.

And so in the future, what I just want to have clearly understood, and there's a check behind, you of course have a close relationship down here too, right?

Yes.

Fine relations are here.

Yeah.

But the point is that I think we've got to, now, Page, you see, is also, he can do things with code that others can't do.

He also, Bart, can be very effective with our friend Jack Miller, if anybody can be.

He's got more time to spend to listen to him than some of the rest of them.

You know, I knocked his head off ten times in that conference.

Was he in the conference?

Oh, hell, he was in the conference, and he said three days, and he said he can't carry him.

God, he just brings up everything.

Carl is so worried about his election, and my God, he's going to beat the hell out of us.

When you get scared, you lose.

You should get scared.

Listen, if I were scared, I wouldn't be here.

No, that's not good.

No, the thing that I'm honorable about is this jerk is a kind of politician.

And basically, you're conservative at this stage, and this am I.

We also know we've got a problem with some who are nuts, like Shirley.

He's come in, I've had breakfast with him.

Shirley is, and he's an old Jesus.

Well, let's go back to you.

You have to listen.

Talk to him.

No, Bill, we love him.

We like him to fight on our side.

Next year he'll get the help.

Next year he fights on our side.

I think we're both in a little better position.

I think Shirley is going to make a pitch for that tomorrow.

But if you or Jack Miller are calling for us this morning, this building here, I'll call Jack this afternoon, and I'll say, if you get that announcement, I'll go back and change it right now.

All right, yeah, if you do that, Jack, Bill, I'm sure that'll be all right.

I'm sure they'll get it off the ground anyway.

Well, you know what?

Speaking of that, you got that Tulsa Hospital thing working?

Yes, sir.

Mr. Gardner has said that...

We saw a president that said...

The main thing that I want to do, I mean, not to leave pieces, but the point is, I want to be sure that Gardner knows that Paige Belcher is sitting, that we talked about the dark thing, you know what I mean?

We would have done it anyway, probably.

The point is, did you get that point across?

I said to myself, and I said, the president is meeting on Congressman's page in Belgium, and the president just called me and asked me to direct you to sign that $40,300,000 guarantee, mortgage guarantee, for the St. John's Hospital.

He said, well, I didn't think I was going to do it.

A lot of Catholics do.

That's the Catholic question.

Thank you very much.

John has the responsibility, here you know, on our agriculture side.

John and Paige work very closely together.

So, John, if you will remember what we're trying to do here, and be sure.

Another thing is that when Paige has got something that he feels has got to be brought to my attention,

You get it down here, or you do it.

You see what I mean?

But I want to be damn sure that in this election year, because of his political sagacity that we hear, that's your job.

That's your job.

And you just tell McGregor, right from the minute.

Clark, one other thing.

Yes, sir?

I don't think that the next meeting will be ready for it, because I don't still have a farm on.

The next time we have got...

I've been in on agriculture at a leadership meeting.

The wild card would be Belcher.

Yes, sir.

I'd like to put you in one of those leadership meetings.

But what I want you to do now, Paige, when you come, now this is history between us.

I don't want you to talk about the farm.

Goose up those people and say, my God, that's fine.

Give them a little watching time.

That's what they need to hear.

Barry was great this morning.

Wasn't he great?

Gosh, he just, I had to talk to him.

He had a lot of guts.

Well, Barry was fine.

It was good to have an extra voice there.

Mr. President, Page's got a wonderful expression that would be very good to use in some of those leadership meetings.

Page has told me this many times before, House of Representatives.

I never saw a football team win if the guard pulls out and tackles his own quarterback.

Yeah.

Yeah, you heard that.

I was down here, and I thought it was attacking my own quarterback.

Yeah, but you were aligning.

I thought you were... No, I thought you were... You see, I had the idea of a quarterback because of that story.

No, I was...

I didn't tackle it.

It was a quarterback.

Yeah.

Less than... How much time do I have?

I don't know.

I need another thing.

I talked to Carol yesterday.

I need 108 cattle.

Our people are on that page.

108 cattle.

Quarantined.

Quarantined for three years.

Why do you know that quarantine is not wrong?

No, it's not.

Everything is different.

Quarantined for eight years.

Malcom's disease for the last three years.

Don't ask me at all.

I haven't heard about this.

Yeah, you haven't.

Yeah, I think the first time I talked to him, I didn't talk to him before.

But that's 100% true.

I'm talking about that cabbage pot.

I'm not talking about everything else.

We got a violation of the law coming in.

What was it?

They've been quarantined for three years out there.

Where the hell would they keep them then?

I don't know.

And we did a little stuff, not as bad as it may have been.

I met with the National Wigdorff Association in Denver.

That's the militant group, it's the Democrat base in Denver.

Sure, that's it.

They had a strong influence, yeah.

And they were strong for this 25% increase in price in the mall rates down here.

I said, I know your position.

I respect the reasons for taking it.

Let me explain why I didn't take it this time.

I came out of the winter, I think.

Did you?

Yeah.

I handed it down to me two weeks ago, and Henry says I've spent 20 copies in Oklahoma.

I want to tell you that this park was popular.

The farmers had a reason to be satisfied down here.

I talked to the American Farm Bureau, and they said the farmers ended up happy.

But the entire time it comes out, my firm's intentions are fine.

We're going after a 38-billion-acre reduction in feedings this year.

We're putting about $2 billion into that.

I know Shell's a patient of Shell.

To me, this program is not the end time.

If you recall, when I first talked to you about taking this job, I mentioned that that might be a little short.

I was happy when our voice decided that we were going to make a little change in the mechanics of this thing.

Percentage is what we asked for to set aside.

But I told them that my position was that if we really needed those things to get clear to our destination, I'd have almost got 15 miles short.

If I didn't have a million dollars, I said, I've discussed that with you and with Georgetown.

They don't think we're going to need it.

But we're not sure yet what that intensity will be in the market.

Even I can't see that until it comes out.

That's something that you'll find out from the markets.

That's right.

That's what our intentions are, you see.

And if their intensities look like they're going to demand more, then we think we'd better buy a little more to get it out.

And maybe we'll have to raise the price and the mechanics of this out.

We're going after the first 25% set aside, which we pay 80 cents a person for.

That there is an additional 10% that's voluntary, for which it would make only 52 cents, I hope so.

That's the reason I discussed this with you last November.

If my boy didn't produce that, that 52 cents wouldn't be quite enough to get the participation we need to get to 38, 99 years old.

In view of current developments, in view of the defeat of this bill that's coming up here, and not landing the expectation in front of them of 25% more, I wasn't sure if it would change from 25% required and 10% required to 25% and 15%, which means that you put a 40% package in and write one decision.

And that's where we left it.

I'm pending that this intensity report tomorrow.

At the moment, it looks like we won't be coming for more money, but this intensity report goes different from what we think.

But my position is, I don't want to end up 15 months short term.

I agree with that.

When I first went down to the White House, they wanted to spend less than $3 million.

I said, if you don't spend more, you just...

I think the page feels this way.

It satisfies me, so you don't have to even refer to it by your understanding on it.

And your shoulders, all the work that's depending on what those intentions are, we get them hard.

But we shouldn't spend too much, because...

You lose five votes in the Senate.

I hope you can't say anything about this at this point.

It must not go beyond this ruling.

But, long range, I can assure you, I think I can give you a very high hope that we're going to have a very substantial package that I'm going to be able to negotiate with the Russians.

Good.

Yeah.

A very substantial factory.

Now, they can keep that in the back of your head when you hear about it a few months from now.

It'll come about the right time.

I'm dragging my feet on it right now for some other reasons.

I don't want to give it to them for free.

See, I don't want to give it to them for free.

I don't want to give the Russians for free, because even for the farm code, I'm not going to destroy the border policy.

I'm going to get it in.

We've got some very ostentatious work on it.

And I'm working on it through another channel.

And we're sort of nagging a few other things around.

But I might boost it up a little bit, and I think I can when I have a question.

So this is something you can be thinking about for the future.

That's the way to do it, too.

Sell the sale.

That's the whole page.

I had lunch at the request of Al Cui and Johns Watkins.

I had lunch at the request of John Watkins this afternoon.

Without my prompting, Hal Cui said that he has spent the first two weeks of January in his district to visit every county.

Farmers have never been in better spirits in the entire town that Hal Cui's been here since.

That's March of 1958.

I said, he went to... Well, what does that mean, Hal Cui?

That's not...

It's primarily dairy, but think of...

It's a gas diverse climate, but dairy is strong.

But his point was, not only did he go to MMO meetings and farmer union meetings and found generally in...

Good friend of mine.

But he also said that the strength and length to their attitudes towards you, and John's walk was kind of a complaint.

He said, I must say, Clark, things are pretty good in my district.

Now, Clark, one other thing I want to say in the presence of age here, and this has been frankly my fault, but it's also the fault of our congressional age-son people.

Did you know you, and right before you,

God, I've seen congressmen and senators run out of my ears, but you're always having me see the guys that aren't with us.

Now, this year, it's a different cup of tea.

This year, by golly, I'm going to see some of my friends, versus good for my morale.

You understand?

That's where that second, rather than hauling in, you know, the guys that I had to, you know, like with Page, I never have to ask for his book.

I know that, but you know, I said, I know what you're trying to do, you're trying to win the damn post, but whether it was Carswell, or Hainsworth, or Lansing, all of these guys, you had me see all these guys that we thought were going to win, but just remember that I think we can do better by picking a few guys, page is one.

Where they wield a power behind the scenes is very important, but they're not going to be able to wield it this well unless they see me in front of them, see the point of service.

And that's why I had to go to St. George.

I had to go to St. George.

Also, the other thing, Earl, his assistant, but Page, he's not one of these guys.

He'll say, well now if you don't take what I say, I'm just going to go take a walk.

Page has supported more crap that he didn't like.

Because he didn't like it.

But you have.

And so I find it is, if he gets a signal, but the main thing is, you cannot say to a fellow who is our friend, you cannot say, well, hell, he's our friend, you don't have to talk to him.

The thing to do is to be clear with him, and that he can take some, you know, crappy thing that he's got to do himself to somebody else.

Now that's what you're, that's your part of the party.

I don't, I don't, I don't want to take an old friend for a new one.

I'm not trying to take an old friend for a new one.

That's a good rule.

Everybody has a sporting degree for the last 40 years.

I didn't use any sport.

I had just two cents to really get off the general subject.

There's one bill, and one subject that's going to be of eminence and of importance this year is this rural development.

Yeah.

Well, but I'll take the moon dog with me.

You can carry the flag.

You can't, you can't, you can't.

I won't, uh, uh, help you.

No, we're going to take the flag.

We're going to steal his campaign.

Well, what I'd like though, Earl, if we could get Page to carry this, you know, I mean, if you'd re-hide it, it'd be a heck of a thing.

Well, Page is the only man that can broker the situation.

The committee is darkening our control already, aren't they?

Yeah.

And that's just openers for what the Senate will do when they get this kind of legislation.

All right, we've got the signals now, mister.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Don't give page two bad stuff to Carrie, because maybe it's some bad high shit that's important, you understand?

Right?

And you feel real talk about it, but, you know... Let us know.

Well, you will.

But we won't ask you to do something that, you know, that... You've asked me a lot of things, but then...

Mr. President, a little way back in the best days, Hayes marched on the team that was a popular secretary.

Mr. President said we wanted Hayes marched on the team, I'll say that.

That's right.

Our only friend in the whole United States.

That's right.

The other Republicans were against this all the way through.

I appreciate your coming down.

We'll make a little good medicine.

Thank you very much.

You have a money clip.

A money clip.

You don't have a money clip, do you?

No.

How many secretaries you got?

Oh, ten.

How many girls?

How many men?

Nine and one.

One man and nine secretaries.

I'll show you what we give.

Trinkets.

Nine of those for the girls.

And one of these for the men.

for the girls for that, for the

For the others.

So they can have a little drink.

And Moneyfoot, he gets all that stuff.

He needs it.

He doesn't have any money, but he needs a Moneyfoot.

Moneyfoot is a very, very nice name.

It's a new name.

God, it's the president's deal.

And it's worth a lot of money.

So, it's only for...

I got a challenge.

Don't you dare.

I just gave one to a prime minister.

So, thank you.

That's a gift.

Tell them not to get the spirits because Hanoi turned it down.

We know they were going to faint, and now we've got them on the spot.

Jerry, this one, the speaker, would not sign.

I'm sure you don't.

Jerry, he said I'm good.

He said, Mark, I've never seen the speaker speak English before the president.

But he said his position was all right.

I understand that.

I understand that I don't agree with it, but I all have.

The other thing, old McCormick would have signed it, I'm sure he would have.

In fact, it might be a good idea to be designed.

We might try.

Another thing is to get the genocide, the human fusion, to be able to get a majority to Senate.

Thank you, Bob.

Thank you for your time.

Your report is for Mr. Alex as a nomination for you, sir.

I wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Oh, they got it.

Yes, sir.

It will be set up.

The only thing I want to bring to your attention is that if you want to phone first, we will wait about one minute till I answer.

So that as soon as he picks up the phone, then you can have the line.

Oh, yeah.

He's a good friend.

He's done all that.

He wants a lot.