On January 31, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), Ronald L. Ziegler, White House operator, Abraham A. Ribicoff, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:28 pm to 3:12 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 661-001 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
his strong interest in welfare reform so we put it out on our own in our own terms uh it's been an interesting meeting i've had labor and h.e.w benjamin and richardson what do i say i'm for i'm for the original proposal you say uh i was well god damn it he's the fellow who changed his mind well is he supposed to say i disagree with what he did no he's in a bind
And he's running for cover now because of the deficit.
Because when you cost out all of his amendments, they just obviously are not admissible.
So he's running for cover at this point.
The only thing you call and say to him is, look, I just want you to know direct from me that I very much want welfare reform and that I'm still behind it and that I speak out on it every chance I get.
and that I just didn't want there to be any room for confusion.
What does he mean by the idea that I'm still wrong?
See, that's the flag he raised.
He said, well, here's what he said.
He said, I'm dropping this, and the reason I am is that it's obvious the president doesn't care anything about welfare or community.
Well, it was in the State of the Union.
It was in both the written State of the Union and the State of the Union.
That's exactly right.
See, he's using the pretext to get himself
But then he's going to want to come down and do this, right?
He may say that.
Well, if he comes down, then he's going to brace you on pilot projects, and he's going to brace you specifically.
And then he's going out of here and say, I sold the president on pilot projects.
The problem I see here is that I think he, knowing our situation, he isn't going to miss the opportunity to say, well, look, I'd like to come down and try.
say fine uh we'll certainly schedule it just as soon as we can probably be better if you came after the after the hearings uh are over so we've got the whole thing laid out before us you can finesse that and you'll be off to china well but the point is
You have to appear open-handed about it.
The thing you might say is, fine, why don't we have a meeting with Long, Bennett, and yourself at some early date to talk this through?
And you say, I'll have Elliot or Irvin or anybody you want come up and see you.
Now, I ain't going to go see Long this week.
But what's happening here is Elliot...
is now for a two-year pilot program.
He sees a hand right now.
So we've come a long, long way in terms of wheeling our own troops on this.
And absolutely, if this thing comes a cropper, it's got to be then.
I'll just say that I know that you are here.
If you would indicate it, I just want you to know Abe, I'm all for it.
And, uh, uh, and I would suggest that, uh, maybe I should take the initiative to suggest that we have a meeting on the gun thing.
Well, that's all right, but be sure you include Long and Bennett.
Yeah, Long, Bennett, it's, uh, it's obviously hung up in the Senate.
Long, Bennett, let's see if we could have a meeting of the minds.
How do you say that?
what we're looking for.
Can you delay the goddamn thing like a giant?
I think so.
I think so.
You can just talk long and bad and they'll say, we don't think we should leave now.
I understand.
I'm just trying to figure out what you want.
See, if you're telling me he's a loser, John, there's no other way.
He's getting off this for not just the budget.
Family and assistance is a loser.
It is a dead loser as a political issue.
I mean, I know the polls that were taken right after the speech.
It's a loser today.
I'm not going to listen.
Nobody wants to add people to the welfare movement.
So, therefore, I'm not so interested in having Zingler and Galen go out and satisfy all the liberals in the press who are saying the president has called Mr. Rivkoff and reaffirmed his total support of family assistance.
That's a worry to know.
You don't have to say that.
He should say welfare reform.
He shouldn't say family assistance.
But beyond that, Rivkoff is getting calls.
from the Muskies and the Humphreys people, saying, you're giving the president too much help on this.
You've got to get up.
Because he's our strong advocate in the sense of your bill.
And that's why he got off of it?
He got off of it because he added up what his proposals were going to cost.
But now, are they, since he's made his second proposal, are they still giving him hell or giving the president too much hell?
No, they just made it Saturday.
But he's been under, he's been under pressure from two sides.
I get it.
And this thing has apparently added up.
To be done.
I can't pretend you're trying to get my brother Donald and Jack Anderson to talk.
I think I probably got it at work.
You know, John, just take a second.
This is shocking.
Somebody waiting for me?
No, sir.
No, sit down.
It was a shocking thing when I called Bob.
Thank God I didn't call myself.
Because I knew there were some procedures that I was going to get through.
I'm sure the White House operators get that on my calls.
just finesse them all to, I don't know if they'll all finesse them to, I was talking about, I think we ought to finesse them to her combat, what do you think?
And I think what has to happen, John, is that her will should go to say, God, I want you to know, I'm, the president has now designated me as his private lawyer.
No, no, I am his lawyer.
He confides in me totally, I can do anything, I can do anything, but let's keep everything away from that White House.
murder it gets right there and watch it you better don't know your lines may be tapped in all sorts of bullshit don't you regret it all right but under the circumstances you just got to talk to him because i got to keep him we're too busy here i don't want you to be bothered well too i tell you about all these copyright schemes but they're crazy well this these marlins are all nuts willard marriott i talked to willie finally found him in texas this morning and he's the one put down up to this
He said, why?
He said, Jack Anderson told me, he said, I told Jack what a fine fellow Don was, and Jack said, well, I'm glad to hear that.
That's different than I understood it.
I just like to sit down and have a visit with him.
We'll get this all squared away.
Jesus Christ.
We're all so stupid.
I mean, when I say people like Murray and others are stupid, it's like, well, you know,
It would all work out.
So we invited him to dinner for a big oblong, which was a stupid goddamn thing to do.
It was pretty good.
Well, in the case of Don, you say, what is the next step, do you think, to get him?
You see, I cannot talk to him for the next year.
Do you agree or not?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
The kind of things he brings up.
He just has so many flies on him right now that you shouldn't even get into.
But it is worth noting that our hunch with regard to his previous problems, remember when we had him bugged and all that out in California when he was associating with these Hughes people?
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
Well, that guy Meyer, remember, that he was in business with and so on?
John Meyer is probably in the woodwork in this whole Irving Hughes biography thing.
And he's not an actor.
And this may be... Well, as a matter of fact, the Sunday papers mention him as one of the guys who had access to the computer where all this information was on Hughes.
And the theory that is going around now that has some credence in the Jack Caulfield set, for whatever that's worth, is that Mayhew is at the root of this whole thing.
As a revenge.
Maybe he lost his job.
And he's...
It's a way of getting at you.
He's really shafted now.
You know, Mayhew now has Mayhew now has shoes right where the hair is short because he has
refused to appear, the state Supreme Court has now held that Hughes will be a default if he doesn't appear for the deposition, which of course he has to do.
So that's the point.
How can he get a service?
Well, they have a service by substitution statute in Nevada.
So he's really on the path on that.
Go ahead, Ron.
That's all we're going on.
Well, only one little thing.
He said, Rob, he said, I think that he had been using his words as Snowball's chance in Haldun.
He said, I'm set up with my whole speaking thing and going the other way to Italy and the whole thing during that time.
Good.
I said, okay.
So, let's do Michael now.
He was very happy that we had him under his indeed.
Yeah.
To link to his perspective.
Yeah.
So, it comes down to... Oh, yeah.
Now, we do have, I heard this reminds me of this,
We do have a request from William Buckley to go.
That's off your USIA problem, Ted?
Well, that wouldn't solve the USIA problem.
I don't know.
Well, Buckley will write.
He'll cut the shit out of the Chinese.
Yes, for sure.
The question is, would he do more damage to us by being there than he would by bouncing off the list?
Because he's just a tight-minded person.
Well, Buckley, at least, Buckley is not likely to, I mean, he's again, like Gilpatrick, articulate on television and the rest, he's not likely to come back and deliberately try to
Focus.
He is pro-Taiwan.
Far more influential with the conservatives than either Alexander or White.
You don't have any other columns?
Unfortunately not.
I mean, they're there, but...
But McGuigan, why don't you ask Ben Hempstone?
Screw the Post.
He's a comms.
He's got 60 papers.
And he's a goddamn good writer.
He's one of the few that writes decent conservative stuff.
And you've got one that appears in the Son of a Bitching Post, and another one that appears in the Star.
Smith Holm Anstone is the Post's, is the Star's primary political writer.
And Bastion Craft is the other one.
Better write to him.
What is the U on the 60 paperage on that thing again?
Well, I'll tell you what it would be.
White?
Yeah, that's right.
I would white people about it.
That wouldn't bother them so much, would it?
What do you mean?
Bill White.
Is that what you mean?
Well, I was going to say, I think, boy, that's white.
It would be better than Smith-Hemps, but just too far.
And then it comes down to Buckley
He really did.
I don't know exactly.
I think it's something around 60 or so.
Buckley has.
But Buckley could go either way.
He could turn into just dynamite for us.
If he went out on a loop, he'd come back here with his explosion.
Buckley came back.
He goes up this way.
He could cut
Yeah, and unfortunately,
Don got into that Air West deal.
Hillings was in there on that Air West emergency mission.
And Don never did get any money.
Hillings got quite a bit.
And that could very well be what Andy has at this point.
Oh, I don't know.
Marriott didn't know.
I asked Marriott to find out.
Oh, yeah, he's got something new on Don.
That's the reason that he met Marriott.
He said, you know, that he had a deal with Marriott that he wouldn't run anything on Don without letting him know.
Oh, that's what it is.
And, uh,
So he's going in a week or two with something new.
And... What do you think it is?
Well, that's the only thing I know of, that it could be either that or... Maybe Johnny Myers?
If this Johnny Myers connection comes out, then we get in the whole business of that trip to the Dominican Republic and all that sort of stuff.
And he'll get a fair run on the Johnny Myers line.
But it's pretty incredible.
I think actually we've been done something of a favor overall because the huge loan thing now is, I think, a dead issue.
Anything to do with Howard Hughes.
People are getting sick and tired of hearing about Howard Hughes.
I don't know.
Oh, I think so.
If they're sick and tired of it, the media is certainly misjudging their level of interest.
Well, I don't know.
That's just a hunch I had.
Well, if they have something on Don, it's in the middle.
It'll run.
But we've got to keep him away from here.
And Don?
Don, he hasn't been running around doing things.
And the best move that Don must not be making money is doesn't have anything.
That's what Marriott said, as a matter of fact.
That's what Marriott told Angus.
Yeah.
Marriott claims, the elder Marriott claims to have some kind of influence with Anderson.
And I said, well, if that's so, you can sure do us a magnificent favor, because he sure cuts the president up all the time.
Why don't you get him to lay off?
And he said, well, I've been trying.
Yeah, don't you see Anderson?
He's smart.
He's rich.
Marriott's an honorable man.
Anderson plays both sides of everything.
Very good.
on someone else who used it, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
It's very opportunistic.
Well, I've got a lot on my head about Don's.
Good.
Because Johnny Meyers said, what are you doing?
He didn't do anything with us on the air.
That was before.
That's right.
No, you don't need to.
What else?
Don't sweat it.
I think the thing is just to get Herb in it and let Herb take the shock waves on it and filter it out.
Stanley, we had a good meeting with the Vice President this morning on this secrets, official secrets thing that he wanted to work on.
And he now has a feel for the dimension of the problem.
What does that do?
Nothing.
He just, he now sees the problem.
He thought maybe it'd be nice to have a one-on-one on television on the problem.
And we persuaded him to wait until we had something concrete to talk about before he considered that further.
Excuse me.
He's obsessed with it.
He's very acquainted with what he's saying.
He says,
So this whole subject's in abeyance as far as he's concerned now.
That's right.
Absolutely.
He asked me if I would square it with merit, and I said I would.
That's why I called merit.
Don said, well, I'm going to sue the bastards.
He said, they keep writing about the Hughes loan.
He said, I'm going to sue them.
I said, Don, you're not going to sue anybody.
You're going to keep your head down and lie low.
Well, that's what I meant.
He said that?
Yeah.
You told him to keep his head down, huh?
Yeah.
It's all there, but it isn't true.
I don't think the story is regarding not getting that big deal.
No.
No, I don't.
And I say, anything connected with Hughes now has an air of incredibility about it.
Noah Dietrich's book's going to be out in April.
That'll get a little blip.
What's his book?
What a bad guy Hughes is, how he was mistreated, and all the wrong things he did, and so forth.
Well, he's the one that's wrong, too.
Yeah, he does.
But basically, see, he's already...
used his story on the lawn two weeks ago when this thing first broke, and as we carried the whole thing, it's done.
And now a lot of you can do more with it now.
I wonder why it's all coming out now.
Maybe they didn't find it.
Well, it's in the book.
It's in the perfect version.
No, they're coming up with reasons that have to go beyond us.
You know, you would think they tied it all just because of the Hughes Loan and Billy Bean Loan and so forth, but that isn't it.
That's, that just is not a position.
Yeah, and I think the, uh, the Mike Wallace interview of Irving is what, uh, brought Paul out a couple weeks ago.
What effect did that have?
Well, because he went into the, he went into the Hughes Loan at that time.
And, uh,
That was when Irving said that Clark Clifford was the intermediary and so forth.
Would you even upset Clark Clifford?
Would you even upset Clark Clifford?
Yes, I did.
You think Irving really saw it?
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
There's still some more pieces in this.
Yeah.
I'm surprised Jimmy Golden hasn't turned up.
He will.
Oh, he stays across his plate.
The only thing he adds to the general story is that he called you or came into your office, I forget which, and he talked with you personally and warned you that you were getting into a problem, that your family was getting into a problem.
and you are, he reports that you replied that your family was more important to you, that it would create political trouble for you, and you said that you put your family above politics, or the welfare of your family above politics, implying that, that, he said you didn't care about all the political issues.
He said it was important.
Apparently at the time that the loan was being negotiated or something, he met with you at all, or talked to you on the phone.
Orders thinks that Dietrich may say in the book that Dick Johnson was the broker.
He did.
That's absolutely true.
Dick Johnson did.
Dick Johnson went out to...
When I first heard about a water storm when I was in Florida, I could not be more shocked.
I called Johnston.
He said, how are you?
I said, well, what in the name of God can you do there?
He said, well, I figured we ought to throw the workshop on the water.
It was then that I got them to put up the service station under security.
Water through coals, that part.
Yes.
I did that, Jim.
I'm not telling you.
You didn't.
Or I didn't.
They didn't.
I don't believe it.
They were too generous.
Jim, it's been thoroughly worked over.
Your inchoate interest.
My inchoate interest.
We think that it's a follow-up.
It's almost like the Beatrix are there to at least not point out that there was some security work.
Oh, I don't think it's in use to try to even make that point.
What do you think, John?
I guess we have it.
It's been made, and this one has been very hard to make.
Better than before.
John, it keeps getting picked up as the thing is rehashed.
How do they make it?
In terms of the present value of the property.
Well, what do they say?
The property was turned over to satisfy the law, and its value was, what, $265,000 or something?
In any way, the one-star asset is the present value, not the neighborhood of $300,000, according to somebody or other.
That's problematic.
It's stupid.
Now, Walter says he thinks there's an active offer on it right now.
And around $300,000.
Well, it was still a man's home at the time of the loan.
Oh, yeah.
The property was only worth $50,000 or something.
Yeah.
It was worth a lot more than that.
But it was appraised at $13,000, of course.
Well, but that signed proof.
I mean, the supposed market value would be $52,000 if they had raised the $140,000 market value.
Yeah, but Bob, that was unapproved, and the covenant was that the service station had to be built out of a proceeds of the loan.
That made the mortgage a better mortgage and probably doubled the value of the property.
It wasn't a very fancy station, apparently.
But they built the station on the proceeds of the loan.
That's right.
It's awesome.
And the rest of it got piddled away in the restaurants.
I'm curious.
Boy, you were so right.
Just keep down the leash.
Herb has to do it, but he's there.
Yeah.
Right?
And you've got to keep down off these White House phones, don't you think so?
If possible.
Well...
We don't know who's listening to these White House songs.
They keep a log here that there's nothing we can do about it on incoming calls.
It can't be shown.
There's no way we can cover up that log.
Who could get it?
Herb will see.
We've got to be like C.J.
Dwight at this point.
If he wants to do it, he should have it or something.
He has to do it after a call.
We'll have to call back, but he should have a place to call directly to the White House.
That's just the way I do it.
Okay.
That's a good one.
Good one.
It's pretty quite true.
Quite true.
He'll blow up.
No, he takes it.
You know, it's interesting.
When he calls you and I call back, there's never any question about it.
before he saw.
Usually we get upset that he called this one.
A lucky call.
He knew it wasn't right.
He knew he was headed for disaster.
He was just scared.
Poor guy, though, he just doesn't have the strength to say, no, I won't do it.
Well, and of course, Mary was going to call this one.
But the fight was on this one.
This one.
He said they'd control it.
Anderson, Pearson were partners.
They're snakes.
You don't talk to him.
It was funny this morning.
He said, well, you know, he said, Don is a nice guy.
And he said he makes a good first impression.
It's just that he can't do anything.
He can't do anything.
He's a good bill seeker.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's too bad.
I don't know.
I'm just telling you that.
keep him on as a kind of a signature.
You were saying that you thought that he had paid his people some way.
Oh, I think he has.
I think he has.
He brought business with him.
He brought airline business with him.
And the Marriott organization is smart enough to exploit that.
Well, whether he paid his way or not, it's something the Marriotts can do about it.
Oh, and they've explained to me that it's coming.
He's
And they're going to take a look at it as a tax deductible bill.
And it's a service to you, and they know that well.
It's a little different in regards to the income.
You don't find that with others.
I was wondering in the terms of that, I thought you were working with Kambach.
What is really needed there, and a way perhaps to handle it so that it is not, my interest actually is not in capital.
My interest is in obtaining from
foundation, from the sale of these papers to the foundation.
And I think this could be worked out for my life and for my pet's life if she survives.
One, the maintenance of the Santa Clemente home, which they ought to do.
In other words, I do that and they do that because that's the president's home.
The foundation does that.
You see, that's something other than just something.
And two, the, I would say, the maintenance of an office, the office, and if I retain it, if I retain it.
Third thing is, and I'd rather have it done through the sale of papers and a gift from the foundation,
A staff, staff for myself, which has grieved me on that crap, but also staff for the house.
Do you understand?
All of this would otherwise have to come out of my salary, and I did not possibly afford it.
You do get a male staff, but it's not a male staff.
I'm not believing it, as far as the officer practices and additional answers, I haven't got the money.
But what I mean by that is that in terms of getting something out of these papers, otherwise I'll just burn them.
I mean, I'm not gonna just give them to the government and pay taxes on them.
But the point is that as far as that, and particularly the personal stuff, I will never turn that over.
Never unless I get something for it.
But in terms of personal stuff, you see the personal stuff,
is something that could not normally be taken care of.
So I want them to take care of the household staff.
They've got to pay the household staff, they've got to pay the gardener, and of course they've got to supplement the office staff, which is provided by the government to the extent that it needs supplementation.
I don't know that it will, maybe, but that's fine.
The government will provide more than $50,000.
The President provides a crescent of $50,000 to take care of roads.
You understand?
Right.
But the way we're paying salaries around here.
Well, I mean, to that level, we pay so much that it's not either, it's not the budget.
I can't think of any reason why we couldn't structure it that way.
I will contribute in consideration to the papers.
I will make them.
And in consideration that the foundation on its part as payment therefore pays for the maintenance of the house.
I'll make all the payment.
I'll make the taxes.
They should pay it.
I don't mean to fool you with nothing like that.
They should pay for the household staff so that I can entertain the property.
They should take care of the gardening, which of course is for public purposes.
And they should provide for, say, let's figure out, say, $100,000 a year for office staff or whatever number, $1,800, $1,800, $1,800.
I don't know what the government provides by that time, but the government will provide.
You see, we'll leave it.
But that could easily be worked out.
I don't want to pay more.
I mean, I just want, I don't want it to come to me.
But I want to, I just want the damn money.
Well, yeah, I haven't had it.
I want some foundation that should hire people that are gonna work for me and my staff.
So that won't do.
I would have to get it.
Yeah, the trick here would be to avoid paying tax on that as it is, but have to write it so that it's tax-free, because to the extent that they pay your necessaries, theoretically, that's taxable.
So we can reconstruct that in such a way as to make a tax break.
They pay that.
Can't you let it to the chair of the country?
What do they do?
Somehow.
Well, I don't know.
But they pay for household help.
Unless they are paying...
Well, I think it can be done.
Not necessarily.
Not necessarily.
I think it could be done.
It needs to be done on the basis that it's getting done for the purpose of maintaining the house.
Let's face it, it's maintaining the goddamn house for people to come see them.
That's right.
There's another thing you might want to consider.
What about the foundation taking over the property?
like the gigs where people then rang back to me.
Yeah.
But they're maintaining it.
We're not securing it.
It's not just applying.
Well, we could figure out a few things like that the other day, I'd say, from the... And then we will keep a few.
I'll determine what other things I would want to keep.
But I can assure you one thing.
The more I see of the intellectuals,
the less likely you are to get any of my papers.
I mean, I gave all the credit papers, but I've got another.
Well, you gentlemen are off on your travels.
I thought I would go down and look at the LBJ setup and see what can be learned from that.
Well, he's just released 95% of everything, allegedly.
And that interests me.
I'll bet he didn't.
That's what the publicity says.
So I thought this would be a good time to go down and talk to the archivist down there and get a little feel of how that thing works.
Well, you know, there's so much you can do.
The other thing, you may want to use a lot of this information.
You may want to...
It ought to be set up so that you can and that you have the help.
Yeah, that's for a period of time they'll never get it.
That's for sure.
Because I don't want somebody else falling around for it.
Johnson must feel under some pressure to get this stuff out.
I don't know if they're putting out stuff, but I think it's very doubtful.
Likewise.
They're putting out their oral history stuff, and some of it is pretty, you know, it's got...
staff members talking, like Douglas Cater, talking about his new swimming with Johnson in the pool, and other staff people talking about how Johnson used to kick him around.
Well, permitting these guys, in effect, to capitalize at the expense of the president.
Sure.
I mean, Cater was very self-aggrandizing.
He would have.
He said, Johnson called me in and said, what we want you out here is to thank.
And Cater said, what is that, Mr. President, to thank?
He says, thank, thank, T-H-I-N-K.
Isn't that awful?
Isn't that terrible?
But why would Johnson let that stuff out at this point?
It doesn't make any sense.
It makes no sense to me.
Unless they're black with it.
I think he's just under a lot of pressure.
What kind of pressure would it be?
Rostow and those people that are down there are probably telling him this is the right and the decent thing to do from the standpoint of historians and to vindicate his place.
Well, the judge is obsessed with this damn history business.
I know.
And his book got laughed around.
His book got laughed around.
Yeah.
It's totally discredited as being that it was so well.
I don't know.
No book is so well.
did so well but it also didn't it might have given you why he did another crocodile show the other night i thought those were all done unbelievable that he would and unbelievable is now on the radio and television talking about the tragedy of lyndon johnson sort of his
That would be funny.
That would be funny.
That would be funny.
Well, anyway, I think on this thing, we can learn very much from Johnson.
I would think we need something like that.
But you see, the thing we have to remember, John, is that most intellectuals cannot be trusted.
Let's begin with that, Professor.
It'll be it'll be interesting to see
who makes the decisions down there and how they're made and how much involvement Johnson really has in the process and how much they're cutting out of it in terms of what is and isn't released.
I suspect that, well, I don't know.
It'll just be interesting to see.
I've got some hunches about it, but... Yeah.
Yeah, I think things are being done in his name that he just really doesn't...
He's not as...
I mean, this oral history book.
How does it really help his place in history to get it out now?
Does it?
Now, he should wait.
After 10 years, people will mellow a little toward Johnson.
Right.
Just like they did toward Truman.
And who?
Johnson, there's people who still... You know, the strategy of Johnson at the present time, as I was saying, Bob's mentioned to you too, or maybe one of you mentioned to me, not one Democratic candidate has gone soon.
Huh?
Not one of those bastards.
Not even the courtesy of dropping by.
Can you imagine that?
The former president of the United States, I would assume Jackson, probably a caller or
I wonder.
But there's a scoop.
But Muskie, but the big ones have it.
Muskie has it.
Humphrey, Muskie and Humphrey, both of whom Johnson made in that one city, which of course proves nothing except that it's always that way in Parliament.
I want to remember.
And I, but I imagine it kills him.
Because he knows he made them.
He knows it.
The correct...
For me, it's going to be...
Excuse me, go ahead.
No, I'm sorry.
The trick for me is going to be to get in there and ask questions without having him take me over.
I'm going to try and do it at a time when he's not there, if I can find him.
Somebody, I forgot who it was, somebody from here went down there.
He leaked out from behind the bookcase.
Two days later, he was still talking.
That'll be the problem, because you're just tied to the world of blackness.
And he does, and he does, believe me.
It's advancing for an hour, and then after that it gets boring.
That's what I hear.
Because he just goes, ah, ah, ah, terminally.
And he's so obsessed with himself.
Oh, jeez.
I'm going to try and pick a time when he's in another part of the world.
He'd be home watching his fellows on television.
Yeah, he's the man began in Mexico.
You know, you figure our problem with Don.
Poor Johnson had a hell of a problem with that stupid man.
He was worse than Spade.
He made a higher price, but he was able to do that in 10 minutes.
Give him a constant flow of whiskey and get him drunk.
Tell the agents to keep an eye on him.
Just keep him drunk.
Don't ever let him sober up.
Kept him there for years.
That's why he's gone so dumb.
I guess he hasn't been too bad in the last year or so.
You never know all sorts of things.
That's the problem.
You don't know all sorts of things.
Just keeping track of what he's up to, because he keeps turning up places.
He turned up in Greece and had dinner with the generals, and nobody knew he was there, and that kind of thing is the problem.
I don't know who Tom Pappas is today, but I guess so.
I'm going to go look at a preview of your Tivoli Gardens over here.
They're probably ready to show you the model on that.
They think they're gonna work.
Well, I don't know why.
They say they like it.
It's a good thing.
Rod's just very high on it.
So I said, I don't know.
Take a look.
I don't know.
See whether it's ready or not.
Probably Ray's the only help.
Well, I'll suggest maybe we just cancel it.
I'll, uh, I'll try and screen it up.
Don't do anything that you don't have to do, John.
All right.
We've done our job.
Our part for the Blacks is super important.
I heard Jordan was in this morning ahead of the Urban League.
Said it was a good thing.
And, uh, uh, thought that, uh, he and Morris Hanson thought that, yeah, very proud of them.
See you later.
I'm only standing slightly first.
White can't go either.
I think it's an indication of how bad we stand on columnists, I'll tell you.
See, both Kilpatrick and White
four months, five months ago, had expressed a desire to go to cover their bases.
And I hadn't raised it with him since then because we, you know, we weren't tutors anymore.
Just talking to William S. White, he's delighted, but doesn't feel he could do it from the health standpoint.
He's going to support it all the way, he said.
I'm not surprised.
He was going to call for that at Christmas.
Well, I said, as you were walking out of your street, you didn't make it all the way.
Well, that's why I wouldn't check.
Yeah, no.
Because he had an indication.
So that's...
I'll get it all resolved, yeah.
OK, or Buckley.
I'm afraid Buckley.
I think Buckley is such a goddamn bomb thrower.
Well, I asked Henry what his view was.
And he said, there's nothing that can happen there that will make him cut us up more than if he wasn't there.
But he said he is a little bit leery about what the Chinese would think.
Because Buckley is very clearly a hardline Chiang Kai-shek supporter.
He said, if you want an expression of review to the president, he said it would be not the concern of, you know, cutting us up.
He could do that anyway.
But he said he would be a little bit leery on the way the Chinese would act.
Yeah, but he could cut us up a lot worse having been there because he came back.
And in that bawdy way of his, I sat there in the great hall of the people and saw the Germans sell America and Taiwan both down.
Right, right.
Great power.
That'd be a whole lot different than just sitting here saying, this is a terrible thing to do.
I've got a letter from Buckley, but he doesn't fall into the...
I think Holmes Alexander, is he very good at making tricks?
No.
You know, it gets down to the fact that Holmes Alexander is the only guy who's been coming up after the briefing saying, sure, hope I can go.
That's as recent as two weeks ago.
There you go.
Good.
Boy, that's a shame.
If we've not caught anybody, that's the only thing I know.
Here we're back to the... Is it worth bringing the question to Buchanan, for instance?
I called.
I talked to Buchanan.
Well, Buchanan... Buchanan went through, you know, White, killed Patrick, and he mentioned, you know, Buckley.
Incidentally, I misled you.
Buckley has 365 papers.
I was absolutely wrong on that.
I told you 60.
Well, I don't think so, and he's not present.
It's kind of a joke.
But it comes back to the fact where you could say...
I don't think Joe would go, as a matter of fact.
I mean, in this, you know, pontificating way, he... Go back to what happened to Alexander.
He said, well, he said Holmes Alexander, quite frankly, Ron, doesn't have that many papers.
He doesn't have that much clout.
He said he's old and he's getting ready to retire and
And so he went through the same process we did.
He went from Alexander to White to Kilpatrick.
It's unfortunate when you think of this.
Then you drop all of a sudden to Victor Lasky and Maury Ruskin.
That's right.
Now, of course, the other thing is we screw Holmes Alexander and then cover the Dallas News and balance it.
How do you justify it?
You could balance Wilson, attempt to balance Wilson against Kraft.
I don't know what his medical thing is.
See, you get down to the fact that we really haven't had that pressure from the columnists except to Kraft and Wilson.
Oh, yeah, he's died.
All right, let me do it this way.
I think you've got a point.
Why don't you balance Wilson with Grant and take the Dallas news?
Because Wilson, put Wilson on, that's a commons.
Fair enough?
That'll work.
Yes.
Because Wilson is known as a dean of commons, but he wants him because he's conservative.
What about the little guy, the Christian scientist?
Sheldon?
No, no, no.
John Roscoe.
John Roscoe, John.
Well, uh... What's the matter with you?
He hadn't been pushing to go.
I think a lot of these columnists face the money side, which is what William S. White got down to sending by.
Well, that's what the problem is.
Well, it gets the help and, you know, the whole thing.
Oh, there you are.
There you are.
I think so, too, because he's been in bad shape.
And I think the, I think, how about Claremont Roaster?
No, he's not.
Do you have the influence anymore?
I don't think so.
I just see Jeff died, Roscoe's kind of floundering.
All right.
Let's go Wilson with that.
And then that leaves DuPont.
That's one.
We filled BLA.
Wait a minute.
Since we moved Wilson out of the press thing.
No, you're still talking.
It opens one slot, which is the Wilson slot in the press cork, which you can fill with the Dallas News.
We're eliminating Holmes out of Tandon.
What we're doing is filling the columnist slot.
Insert the Dallas News for Wilson's paper.
And then Wilson goes to the columnist.
All right.
That's it.
Don't be embarrassed.
That's what we're doing with Monarch, too.
If Wilson's going to the columnist, that's an issue, right?
I would have been surprised if you could have gone.
Those guys are afraid to get over there if they're in bad health and I don't blame them.
Boy, poor John's, you know, probably gonna have nice, I guess all of our people have, you know, gone through the years, you know, through chores.
Yes, that's perfect.
Roses, you know, we run her, run her, all of us have had it.
We run everybody's got a hand at it.
Finch, you do that.
I have it.
John has it.
I have the most one of my couple babies, that's right.
Don gets Don to each one.
Well, Earlman's better than any of the rest of us at it.
He's got a better kind of touch than any.
You can't...
There's just a right way to deal with Don.
John has a pretty good ability to handle fit.
And both Rose and I are not.
That's right, that's right.
You get it.
We're doing all right.
We get on and John is stealing.
John the boy's getting him mad.
I don't know how the boy does it.
You just can't do that.
Well, John was so used to it.
Well, for one thing, he wasn't around earlier, which helps.
I mean, he doesn't get all... John has only the presidential aura where both Rose and I have, the olden days.
It's just, it is too bad because he's not a man at all.
He's a wonderful guy in his own way, and I just recognize his own limitations and live with them.
Yeah.
As most people do.
Most people who track him, he has a limited... Don has got the impression, you know, that he's got this phobia, which...
He has one of the problems.
He's got a very dumb wife.
I was going to say, Claire Jane isn't... She's very little stupid.
And she pushes.
She gives him a tough time.
Like, you know, I mean, well, that's not right.
That's not right.
Well, anyway, part of it is that...
I think that an inferior brother always has a problem with his wife anyway.
If he bothers Claritaine not to have her husband be what Matt's husband is, it's the Jack Brown problem.
That's right.
But nevertheless, in Don's case, he's got this feeling that if, which of course is completely, 180 degrees wrong, that if only he didn't have politics
and other politics, that he'd be a roaring success.
Don would be lucky to be selling the hamburgers at a Howard Johnson's, believe me.
He really would.
And that's about what he can do.
Or maybe, run a grocery store.
Don would be a good sort of root salesman kind of guy.
He can slap people on the back trying to drink and trying to die.
But you see, he would be nothing, Bob.
He would be nothing.
If his name were Smith instead of Nixon,
He'd be like a 19, 15, 20,000 trucker.
That's all he could ever make.
I mean, because he has no manicurial capabilities.
And he's just a dad that's living in a nice 50,000 front house.
And I'm sure that would be about it.
And that's all there is there.
Because he not only doesn't have the brains, he doesn't have the persistence.
He doesn't know how to get down to work.
It's a hard position for him.
He's that kind of guy, and there's lots of people who always see a pot of gold somewhere, and they think, you know, all I can do is this one more thing, and I can get to it.
And he's got a piece.
He doesn't really want to always have the deals.
One day or the other day, it's a telescope, and the next day, it's a land deal, and the next day, it's something to clean the oil out of water.
Yeah.
They're all people that get to him, and he's a little dumb, and he thinks this is the most greatest deal, and if I can only get it true, then people will understand, and so forth.
And there just aren't any deals like that.
If they are, they've been discovered and used by people smarter than he is long before.
That's it.
I don't know.
I understand.
But on the other side of the coin, though,
It is a disfavor to him that I am in this position.
Because he would have been totally happy if he didn't have the expectation traits.
You see, he would have resigned himself to what he's capable of doing.
But now, it's like this thing we do to the blacks.
We raise the damn expectations.
And they can't live up to them.
As that thing turned up, I think that really sort of satisfies doing the black thing.
What do you think?
You can still want me to do something else, but... Yeah, he'll still want you to make a speech, I think.
But... Make a speech?
I mean, we're helping everybody to go to the top and all that.
Let me talk to him, say.
He still will want you to do something.
I'm not sure.
I don't mind.
I don't mind.
I mean, frankly, it'll help.
You get another 2%.
It's worth it.
I was going to read him a speech.
He's not so much.
No, no, he is looking at it.
He thinks there are some he can get in his son.
Harry thinks so very strongly.
Let me suggest that the speech might well be made in the southern state, where we'd like to get a much better reaction from southern neighbors than we will.
The one place it should not be made is in New York.
New York may grow.
Detroit may grow.
Los Angeles may grow.
are basically radicalized for a mile or, I guess, it's really most in the northern county.
I think you could do Richmond.
I mean, why not go to the southern state of Richmond or Atlanta?
Maybe Atlanta, go right to headquarters.
See that, they go right into Atlanta.
Well, that's what I would consider is to do that.
But let me suggest if I went, I'd do a Negro event.
And I would do a white event, too.
I don't want to just do a Negro event.
Make a Negro event.
An evening event.
A white event in the afternoon.
Get the news out.
A white event.
Well, the Negroes are going to get a big deal.
It's got to be rather than a Negro event.
On this week, now, we're moving into dropping the NSC today.
Henry, very much...
asking him to be on Wednesday rather than Tuesday.
Apparently got something on Tuesday.
He's got something lined up, but he says he can't cancel it.
All right.
We've got these, uh,
the uh raven and evans on the dock yeah uh dark strike yeah at three o'clock then we'll do the ns no but no and we won't do the nfc tomorrow we had a year ago it was a year ago it's hard to get a lot of scouts in here recently maybe there's a different about that it was there and the problem with this thing is you are by law oh i know i just wanted to
So if we can do the NFC on Wednesday, we can do it Wednesday morning and get it out of the way, maybe.
Unless it runs into testimony.
You understand?
Well, that's right, Conley.
It's Conley's schedule at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
Sir, grab a car, please.
Sure, if you don't work, I'll be here all day Wednesday since we knocked the press conference off.
Let's get the bullshit out.
I'm pretty well this week.
I'm pretty well out.
The one I read, I'm starting in January.
I already started over the weekend.
I'm going to read every night.
Thank God I got this weekend for it.
Thursday, after the reception, Thursday on.
Now, on now.
Yeah.
I was wondering if you wanted to consider that.
I can go for it twice in a row.
Twice in a row or next week?
Next week's an awful good time.
I think you can go on the grounds that you're studying.
You know, you're getting ready for the
for the thing.
You have to be back Monday night.
Oh, no.
You have to be back.
I wouldn't say that long anyway, right?
You could go Thursday.
You have to be there early.
So, I just wanted to tell you that I have noticed that there's nothing here about that, sir.
I know also that from a practical standpoint, we've got the problem of Russell, Russell Long, and of course on the Republican side, there's going to be there with Ben Therese.
I just want to suggest, if you think, well, that is, and perhaps we won't wait a few days to set this up and broker it with the others, it seems to me that if Russell, Ben, you and I can sit down and talk, that possibly we could work out, it may be a common ground.
If not, at least some way to get some decision.
Now, I'd like to ask you what your suggestion is.
Got it.
Curtis under abandonment, right?
They're both open hands too, of course.
Got it.
Pretend to be taking a napkin.
Which of course we are, I remember that.
It's better than we want it to be.
I know.
Sure.
Sure.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Well, you heard me do that.
It is a... Let me say this.
If you're moving in that direction, that's a direction that probably, possibly could be discussed with the law.
and think of it as this.
It seems to me that for us to just, and I don't know, I thought it was the day of the cancer thing, but we didn't get to discuss this, but he, it seems to me that for us to just run into a bitter confrontation, a committee that would likely sing it again,
And if we can work something out, I don't know, but what you have just described, that has a possibility.
Let me ask you this, Abe.
Because he has to wheel a lot on the congressional part of the Congress, I was wondering if you would have talked to John earlier.
go over this whole strategy with him.
He was in this morning right after he saw Elliot when I was seeking his issue.
And then let's see what the situation is.
I, of course, want to...
I have to maintain my present position because I'm supporting, if you know who's been in this, you've been on the opposite side of yourself as a secretary.
So we'll support our position.
At this point, on the other hand, when I read your speech, I got a little over my head this time.
And I said, well, since what has happened here at Clever College changed, let's have to do the rest of that.
So I'm glad we had this talk, and what I will do is this, I'll have John, he'll give you a greeting, and I'll go down and see, maybe I'll hear from him on the letter.
And then you record, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
All right.
Give them your best views and then tell them what you think about this meeting thing.
And then once it's worked out, then before we make a final decision, I would like to talk with you in other words and we'll bring the others in.
He doesn't, he didn't disappoint.
With the others, it would be helpful.
He raised shoulders, and I said, I said, well, I'll come back and talk to you about it.
You heard what I said.
On this, uh, athletes thing, uh, they're asking if you would come over and open the conference at 2 o'clock, or the briefing at 2 o'clock.
They're giving them a briefing, and then you're going to do a reception at the end of it.
They're...
It is.
Well, they've got a hell of a show that they're doing all this.
They get early in the
Bill Rogers is doing diplomatic strategy and international supply.
Miles Andros on domestic law enforcement.
Jackie on treatment.
Go ahead.
Army drug program.
And also the reception.
The argument for you, you're opening it, is that that will get you the publicity on TV, whereas the reception will get you the thing you were after, which is to thank the guys for what they're doing with their wives.
Okay.
And you got it.
speak for a couple of minutes at the opening and, uh, put, uh, film coverage of it, so we, we do mind each other.
That's the opening that we have for Thursday.
And, uh, I would suggest we just keep it that way.
Yeah, I'll, I'll talk to people, like, where we call up, and there's nothing else urgent.
And I, I think that we're getting people in the habit of just keeping these things.
But then you can tentatively, if you want to, it is, I checked the weather, it is good weather in Florida this weekend.
You could go down after the reception Thursday evening.
They give you all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Come back Sunday night.
So that is a possibility.
The question of going down there really depends on whether you can work on China down there or whether you'd rather just go up to Camp David or something and grind away at the boats.
You will find nobody here who will argue with you on that,
You see, who argues, you know, that the key thing here is for you to be... Feel good.
Feel good, be in your best possible physical, mental condition, and, you know, just ready to go.
The guy, that's going to count more than anything else.
Well, I have a sore left foot.
Well, you could do some reading down there.
I always do.
But you have the chance now to get a few others in the afternoon who also want to do the farm work.
We'll keep it open so that you can do that in minutes.
This is the last prayer breakfast.
I want us to prepare something for each of you.
And now we will say the prayer breakfast.
And don't you regret, unfortunately, you're done getting all of what you hate to be.
But also, I'm very, and it's just an amazing reaction, just watching them go into something like that.
It's what you are.
It's a thing where they, they just don't let you out.
Which I guess that's how they sell them.
That's how they get where they, where they get it.
We've got a, on the China trip, the question of gifts.
Well, we've gone through a lot of things, and the recommendation has, this is Henry's office with, you know, going through everybody else, trying to put stuff up.
We've gone through a lot of suggestions, and what they've come up with is the most appropriate principle gift.
is a set of very large beamed swans.
It's one of these beamed birds things, but it's 50 inches high, over four feet high.
It's a huge piece.
One of the largest porcelain works of art ever produced.
It's very, very great.
Well, in a way, but in another way, it's taking, you know, being this better than anybody in China, in this kind of horse one, is it?
Oh, yeah.
And it's two adult and two young swans.
They're only two sets in existence in the world.
And Mrs. Bean has offered you one of them for this purpose.
Well, this would be the...
Yeah, let's see.
Shoreline, of course, is the leader company.
For Mao, they suggest just the large mineral-mounted Accutron clock as a personal gift.
The swans go to Mao also as a public gift.
That's a gift, really, from you to the people of China.
But you've got a pair of swans?
No.
Cho gets the big clock.
goes to Mao.
The swan is a public gift to the people of China.
Mao is the head of the country.
Then the large, minimal-mounted clock to Mao is your personal gift to Mao.
The smaller, bronze-mounted clock to Zhou Enlai and to a couple other senior government officials.
And then
One other thought is, as a people-to-people thing, is a gift to the Chinese zoo of a trio of live musk oxen.
I don't know where that came from, but... Good.
That's very good.
I think we ought to do that, too.
Very good.
Very good.
They have been inquiring about buying some private sources that you would give them to them.
Now, the delivery, we wouldn't try to deliver them when you're there.
You just tell them you're giving them to them.
They'd be delivered later.
Then, I want some books that are great as well.
Well, I want a set of books.
They have a set of photographic color prints of national parks in a very beautiful presentation box apparently that they've suggested for other principal leaders.
Then, Parker Penn has made two special presentation sets.
made from metal from an Apollo spacecraft.
They're suggesting that for the heads, the mayors of Shanghai and Hangzhou.
You know, you have to do something.
And each of those cities...
I was going to say, those pens are doing good things together.
Well, every time.
We also have, now Mrs. Nixon's going to take some bean birds and some Gorham silver flower arrangements for women gifts, and some viewmasters for children at the hospital sometimes, as she does.
Then we have 175 titanium Parker pens and boxes with the President's seal, which are very nice, very good pens.
that they figured for lower-level officials, the tertiary government would get them.
I think we've just got to take all of this stuff.
Because the Chinese, and you know how the Orientals do on the goddamn gift-giving business, and they'll apparently give everybody at the party gifts and all that sort of stuff.
The other thought was to take some redwood saplings to plant at Hang Chow Park.
California redwoods.
It would be a permanent record of your visit.
The Park Service has a sapling that will grow there.
It's good if they're willing.
And we have to ask the Chinese.
We'd ask the Chinese to advance on those and on the muskox to be sure they accept the monetary.
But I think they've got a pretty good array of gifts, and then we've just got to go with the whole shot.
You know, I'm glad to be ready with Ron and the Voice of America.
I think we're the real Shakespeareans.
Everybody's been hitting on what happened to Shakespeare, James Metzner, and the old Lewis.
And I thought, boy, you remember the Voice of America.
God damn it, they would go hit it.
It would crush them all.
It would crush them.
Well, it really would.
I think they've been totally blind.
I mean, of course it doesn't do us any good here, but there is something to do within the bureaucracy, and it would have been totally blind on our part not to take the voice of America.
Well, plus, if you follow this formula, the one organization that fits in totally is the voice of this USIA, because they are always on all terms, always cover every event.
They cover everything you need to hear.
Well, of course he does.
They always point that they want to send a big group first.
Well, the hell with that.
It is Tom coming to it.
They send a representative who will coordinate the use of wire service material and all that.
Very well.
You know, that Thomas thing is just fine.
Dick Wilson's fine for the conservative crap.
Isn't that something?
Isn't it?
He was a sucker for basically a Jewish college, isn't he?
Am I right or wrong?
No, you're right.
He's an utter sucker for George Brown.
I'm doing that mainly for him.
I don't think that he crapped the buses or the dams, because crap will turn on the city.
So does Ron.
Ron sees it only as a bargaining point with the industry.
I do it only because Henry is so sensitive about it.
We'll do it.
Now doing it, you'll get some good comments out of it.
Actually, which won't do us any harm.
But it sure won't do us any, be of any value a lot later on.
Do you have a deal with that kind of schedule or do you care about it?
It's just the general plan.
I don't know how much you heard about it.
Okay.
I don't mean in any detail.
It's the general concept.
the detail schedule, you don't need to be bothered with it, because actually we have to keep it fairly flexible anyway.
You know, I do want to say this to John, I don't think that people are going to shut up whether I talk to you or your boss about it, or your bar, or the rest, you know, I really think that's a, they're probably jumping on the balance sheet,
It's supposed to be the overriding concern.
The only thing to take care of that.
Well, it may be from a bright 250 fan, but Irving's book is now.
Well, and there's no sales yet.
Well, I think he probably did, but his book is...
I think it'll build it up because it's built the interest in Howard Hughes.
If Dietrich gets his book out before Irving, you know, he'll scoop up, people won't know the difference.
A lot of them think it's the Irving book.
Why do you think Irving wrote it?
I'm not exactly sure.
I know the rear end of Junction or something.
The statement, the details of that, I don't know.
There you go.
That's not true.
I tell you though, the folks out in the country must be reading.
It's like reading, you know, on movie magazines.
They all know who Leonard Turner's sleeping with and all that.
John says that everybody's bored, but he's been totally wrong.
I think he's wrong.
Totally wrong.
Not people who...
I'm bored with it.
I mean, I'm bored with that sort of stuff.
But I think that the average person just laughs it off like cream.
Like the man's a murder truck.
That kind of stuff.
I mean, it's...
It matters.
Sort of.
Yeah, fascination with another world.
The interesting thing, to show you the power of this incumbency, is that, of course, we can't come at a critical time because of the speech last week, but it was interesting to note that for that audience, very, very,
They will have that, you know, in too many times.
All right.
If there's any question, Marshall, of the business audience, even with any group, even if it's a group who don't like it, the fact that the President of the United States came to whatever it is they're doing, it's not a hell of a big thing.
That's why we've got, you know, a lot of them who run through the cities and the water gates and the rest of it.
That's why we've got to go to the country now on that piece of paper.
The press has to be reminded that there's still a lot of people who like the president.
We don't have to tell them to look at any president.
But the point is, it's true.
It's true.
We've got something going on.
The other guys, they won't come out for somebody who doesn't have a question.
It's the same thing we've been talking about.
Mr. President, uh, he says that he was meeting with Al Bain right now.
He said that he was, uh, at a meeting.
I don't know what he's, uh, earlier than 4.30.
He could have been away at any time soon.
It was all right.
Yes, sir.
All right.
I'll, I'll, I'll probably go.
Well, I just wanted to make sure.
Thank you.
Most circuits are, you know, like, you know,
I was glad to pull them out of the hole.
They were there.
I didn't realize the place.
Where was it?
Almost totally blind.
I thought it was a funk.
But there were maybe people who could get on the goddamn phone.
Sometimes you just gotta do things for your own people.
I think the point that Chad and James made, that he was pleased that they
Now Bob Brown is, he should have made them.
Oh boy.
He's a big man.
Because he had made people about you come in, because that was a hell of a thing for him.
Yeah.
But I have great value in him.
I know, I mean, he works so hard.
And then you putting, putting the thing on top of it just... That's a hell of a thing for him.
Yeah.
Interestingly enough, the timeline is better than the Newsweek one.
Although it was the timeline he was worried about, the Newsweek one, the Newsweek zings him a little bit more, and it also, it zings both ways a little bit more, and it picks up, they've got some State Department, which is the only thing Henry's got some State Department speaker to believe about that.
I suppose that means Newsweek will break.
It's just, that's the only thing he saw in the whole band, I think.
They both.
But that didn't become very common, did it?
Oh, hell no.
Oh, hell no, yeah.
They'd always find him.
They'd always have to wait in Europe to find him, but his antennae are keeping me attuned to that.
Yeah.
Or be rappers, you know.
We just can't find anything good to do that.
Yeah.
The other one's fine.
Tomlin came out, I think, very well.
They both come out well.
They both...
Do they go in there?
Do they go in there?
A little bit, yeah.
They go into the, you know, some little town that drove some kind of a car to some private house.
I said, but that's not bad.
Oh, I agree.
I was hoping that, yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, if the thing doesn't work, the thing to do is to, you know, all that.
Show off whatever you want to show off.
And both very much make the point that is having caught the press completely when they're asked, you know, that he got away with this all these times.
They both make a big thing out of the swinger business.
The broads run all the pictures of the girls.
He's eaten it up, though.
So we need to proceed over.
Well, they kind of make that point.
They all refer to it as paranoia, which is becoming sort of a... That sort of makes sense.
Back to life.
And it's better, Nick.
complexes and all, but they make the point that it was very clear that it was Nixon that was making the decisions and Kiskew that was carrying him out.
That was the only thing that worried me about it was whether they would come out trying to play the Jew with the puppet.
He was the master with the brains behind it, and they don't.
It's all the Nixon plan.
Both covers carry the Nixon secret agent.
They both use exactly the same words.
The other pictures have that Nixon secret agent in a little slice across the top.
And it's like himself.
The time gets a parallel in the substance.
and very straight with this.
It's been covered.
Did Henry get out or did anybody get out on any of the preparation of the speech or in the career of the State of the Union?
That's a very, very good question.
Yeah.
That probably went very good.
No, no.
I mean, he was talking about it.
It didn't mean as much.
I don't know what he was saying.
Sapphire talked about it.
He was, I forgot who he was.
You look at January, as the Post kind of did yesterday.
It showed you on the TV all the times you were on television.
You weren't on too much, but you were on, they picked up some of your other stuff as well as you were on.
What did they say?
Well, you were on the State of the Union, and Rather, and this.
You were on with Rather.
You were on with this.
But then they had also the...
He went to the newsroom on Sunday.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, and also, you know, you got the truth.
Yeah, they, oh, the return of America.
I couldn't go on.
I never even had that as one, because they were, because I was, but anyway, they're, they're, when you add it all up, you have some pretty damn strong stuff on, on that.
through the month of January on TV.
Now you go into February and you've got no way you can avoid it.
It's a pretty spectacular television for a week.
It's going to be interesting.
Yes, repetitive, I'm afraid, over the first three days.
I will, a little.
But I think there's going to be enough fascination with the whole thing and what's really going on that, you know, people are used to that.
Like, you get the national conventions get repetitive, but they sit there glued to them.
And the Kennedy assassination weekend was repetitive.
The moon stuff is just boring as hell.
People look, but they sit there and watch it.
It's part of the sense of being there when something's happening.
It really won't be completed because you've got to go to some of these, visit some of these places, you know, and that'll be different stuff.
Go out to the wall.
Yeah, that's right.
It should be a very interesting picture store.
With the talents, I guess, it's sort of interesting.
Well, of course.
The first meeting with Jill and I will be a great picture story for the first time.
And surpassing that will be the meeting with Masatake.
Yeah.
What'll happen is there'll be some things while you're there that'll be interesting, some things that you can't anticipate.
He says he's here through the .
He has a very active schedule in the process of being here.
They sure do.
Because, see, they've got, they use him to crank up these continuing prayer breakfasts, and they try to, you know, set up in the departments, and all around, so they, they keep him running.
It isn't, he isn't just sitting in a hotel room waiting for the prayer breakfast.