Conversation 665-006

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I don't think it's a deli, come to think about it.

It's probably better if we can't have it work here because I don't think there's enough stuff.

I'll give it to him and let him.

I'll have to see what needs to be written down.

You know what I mean?

And maybe I've got to look at that stuff first because I just wondered if there was

He just went, oh, he's trying to get all the time.

He's great.

He's ready to go.

He's great.

And I must say that on that kind of thing, when it's a question of getting the summary of talking points and so forth, the Emory shop now has gotten extremely expert.

They get a calendar just for this and another.

They have difficulty doing that.

So he found me.

I read a couple of books already.

Rose, that's a memorandum to Rogers, but I'd like you to type as fast as you can to get a copy in to Henry, because I've got to get it approved so that we can get it over to him this afternoon.

And I want to cut him to take a look at it.

And then I'll mark it up, and you'll find the copies that you can find.

Yeah, it sure looks glorious.

Oh, it's so much better than getting a new copy.

Yeah, all right.

You know, accidentally, on that note, you will talk to Yates.

I talk to Yates, yeah.

Yates is funny.

She is, and I'm sorry.

And then I really think that's a good one.

She can do it.

She can do it anyway.

But I'm not sure that I want anybody to go out and buy a lot of dance clothes for me, because I don't want to see nothing kind of in my clothes.

Well, Tony said the only thing that was really under your, the thing for the Walt would be a stadium dress for a collar.

Could you wear one of those Chinese coats?

No, I don't want to do anything that puts me like them.

I want to do my own.

I want to wear my own stuff.

And I don't want to see all of the rest of them dressed to be stuck around.

And that is none.

And I don't do it that way.

I want to dress like my life in America.

Well, that makes sense.

I mean, I'm telling you now, don't look.

You know, he could find a stage and quote me, but I wouldn't want to go.

Does that have a hood?

I'm going to start calling.

I'm going to have to have a hat.

You're going to have to start on your own.

Well, the hat, which, not a hat so much.

It is in the head that controls the ears.

Well, the head does, too, there.

So he's going to look and send it in.

The other thing, if you wear this, is to wear one of those, one of those hats, well, for a hat that has the ear flaps that come, you know, it has a, well, you get somebody to figure out a hat or something.

It doesn't come in a legend or something.

You happen to be in the office.

Do you want Henry to go in there or anybody else?

There's no reason to do it.

I don't know if he does, he hasn't.

If he's in that state of the world, he'll always think it's all done, so he probably doesn't have any

Yeah, I already got that.

You can count on that.

Good.

Do we have anybody over here that could voice everything?

Let me introduce you to these, just to say, maybe so-and-so with the doctors, or so-and-so with the hawks, or, you know what I mean?

Who could do that?

And you have, you know, Kennedy, Herzog, you know what I mean, rather than some of the 12th March that...

Have we got a good reaction to this?

Do people want to come to the stand or not?

I don't know if this is a good idea or not.

And they're having a good attendance or not, you know?

Yes.

And it's especially good, I mean, including the wives, which, you know, makes it...

I understand for these guys.

And they're putting on quite a, it's practically a dinner.

They're putting a very good buffet on.

So it's a thing.

It's more than just money by having a drink.

Are they giving it a buffet?

Well, it's good.

But either a light buffet or a heavy hors d'oeuvres.

And the coffee's at one of the lines.

That's right.

It was very good.

But yet, to have a drink and stand around and talk to each other.

And a lot of them are very serious about this whole drug thing and feel this is something they can do.

and to help out.

Is there anybody that needs a nail?

The only one we got around here reaching that stage is Schultz and I don't think you have to take him down.

No, I don't want to have to talk to him.

That's the thing.

No, I don't mind his going, but if he could stay in the big house, I would understand.

Why don't you just give him some time off?

Well, the only thing, see, the symbolism of who goes with you has something to do with that.

I don't think you should be going down on a budget guy or a management type stuff.

What people think you're doing is getting ready for China.

And I think you just going down with your pile of books and just saying, I'm going to get

I don't have time to study by myself.

I don't want to be like, well, I don't have anything.

I just want to be sitting there and keep this game.

You can go on a little walk.

There's work over there, too.

There's an office over there.

Study?

Good.

So I think you can go.

I've got a problem tonight.

Rather than I go down tonight, do you want me to come down?

I would, you know, tomorrow, I would easily hand it if you want to.

I would roll it over and have it next time.

I warned the H office that you might be willing, so they're, you know, they get, as far as I have, told them that it'd be, you know, it's going to take me to a trustee.

They may have put Manolo down, but I told them not to.

I told them we'll leave him in here and have him go down with you.

Because they can, whatever set up they can, they can do.

They don't have to have Manolo down with them.

They'll be bugs to get down against.

But I wasn't sure you were deaf enough going, you know.

I think it's a good idea, Bob.

I think it is.

I think I'll do better there than I will at Camp David.

I don't think there's any kind of, you know, I mean, I, but if you were worried about the two-hour flight, you know, you can, I can do better.

Read on the flight or sleep or whatever.

There shouldn't be 10, so it'll be cold a couple of days down there.

At least there'll be some sun.

There's none at Camp David.

You know, I casted out our own.

Oh, and cold there means 70.

So it isn't too bad, is it?

It's warm at Camp David.

It'll be 30 probably.

You know, the goddamnedest thing about that stock market is not the movement of the volume.

It's only 24 vast shares that's even just, just coining the money.

24 million, 20 million, 18 million.

Yeah, but they now talk about 24 million as, you know, heavy trading.

They don't get excited about it anymore.

It's just, it used to be very, 24.

The American Stock Exchange, the high flyers of course, and the curve has a high of two years.

So what it means is that little people must be getting in.

If you know the funds, institutions don't buy .

Well, they don't buy the curve at all, but I .

But I wonder if various institutions .

Probably not.

If you look at most of those portfolios, they tend to be loaded with the big chips, big companies.

We've got, we're getting a good unemployment balance tomorrow.

Good.

5.9.

Correct.

Which will, oh, 10.1.

Okay, but it's two tenths off what they were still.

See, they originally said 6.1.

For December.

For December, then moved it to 6.0.

For the bachelors.

Did they move it yet?

They would.

And we're always moving, but we don't get any months out of that.

And then all we'll get is the one point drop.

We'll push the other side.

That's the good public news.

The significant news as far as workers, I won't mean anything publicly, is the new jobs, because it was 300,000, which is an enormous job increase.

And that, to the inside guys, is an indication they're getting work.

Yeah.

In the public, we don't get any credit for new jobs.

We only get credit for unemployment.

But that many more employed, they figure it's a... Well, I don't know.

It's hard to figure out.

Stein, of course, didn't try to be as cautious as McCracken.

Schultz, too.

They're all scared of that, these economists.

Of course, Schultz plays it very solidly, though, that it's, well, like I said, it's always slow down and worry about the money.

Now, you're probably aware I wrote a shaming letter to Archer last week.

I'm glad to see it go down to a tangible point.

It's still high.

Well, they can't.

They'll probably say it's down payment virtually unchanged.

But you get it.

Let's say it's dropping, a small drop in unemployment.

They have to, you know, if they take a one-point rise as a rise, they've got to take a one-point drop as a drop.

Unemployment down slightly from a rise slightly.

You know, let's say something like that.

Down somewhat.

They may just say down.

If we have our brothers, though, I'd rather take a one-point drop each month.

I'll take a four-point drop and then come back up again.

Let me cover, just at a time, cover a couple of points with you while we're getting that number in.

The Kennedy thing, Connolly thing, have you been able to get a hold of anybody yet?

I think we've got a company at 345.

Now,

I wasn't, obviously.

I mean, I mean, if you can handle it better.

Harry may not be aware of this, but since he's here, I don't plan on him there.

You saw that point, didn't you?

That's it.

Now, it's about that family.

He could talk to, I mean, Harry, who I was going to say, because he did talk to this other fellow.

And the thing to do was, and he understands.

Yes, sir.

The thing is, he can handle better than Plank.

It's just that what an ambassador is, and that he has no authority, never has authority, except that he is given from the President, and so forth and so on.

Fortunately, it is true, we did discuss with Plank about this, about him doing this damn job before he was done.

But Kennedy's just putting it too goddamn hard.

That's the whole question.

He's just putting it.

He's a very relentless guy.

Fortunately, he's a hard-line guy who's relentless on our side, which is no delusions about the State Department and some of that stuff.

The thing that we would have convinced Donnie to do is to talk to Donnie about the Israelites on our side.

There's no question about the chain of command here.

He was not given.

And Henry was in the meeting.

He was not given a goddamn thing at all.

And then I think Henry does have to talk to Kennedy and tell him that.

Yeah.

That we have a very, we can only have one voice.

And only Henry can do that because

He's the one that makes the deal.

He has a lot of time to tell him what he wants to say.

And that we are not going to tolerate this problem.

We are not going to tolerate this.

It is too bad.

It's really a hard line.

It doesn't make a guy a hard line.

Friends can be more difficult than your enemies.

The difficulty is here.

He just damn well wants to carve himself out a little empire just like Peterson.

And he's not going to do it.

He's just not going to get away with it.

It's shocking, man.

How'd you come on to him?

Well, certified bits and pieces of Peterson and Flanagan.

Roger is the last man in the world I ever expected.

He's never said it.

I may be wrong, this may not be the touchstone, but I have an opinion it is.

That there was something here that we didn't, that wasn't one of the points we were dealing with.

That there was something here that we hadn't found.

And I think it all makes sense.

I can see how it would.

I'm going to try to get on the International Economic Show.

We're not one, and I'm good.

He used to do what he's told, he's an investor.

And obviously, as an investor with some form of economic experience, other investors, of course, give him some .

He says he's going to be the spokesman for America and Europe.

Oh, shit.

That's the thing.

So he's sitting there with the committee of 10 and all that kind of stuff.

I think that's what bugs me.

We've just got to say, how do you want it handled?

And it would be done that way.

We've just got to tell Kennedy that's the way it is.

You can't separate a committee from a cabinet.

You know, we've already screwed up, too.

I mean, we'd like to have a member of the cabinet, an ambassador, and so forth.

I just think it would be too much.

We need a strong man.

And when you know about whenever you beg anybody to take a position, you always make a hell of a mistake.

You always make a hell of a mistake.

Don't you agree with that?

It's a higher price.

Any questions?

I think the guy didn't want it.

I don't think so.

If you call naked, I'm going to be down here about 8 o'clock.

If you want me to tell you what I said, I don't know.

Well, it'll take an hour, but it's quite a crowd with their wives.

It's probably going to be more safe, so it'll be 8 o'clock.

It'll be 8.30.

It's 6 o'clock in here.

It's 8.30 by 10 a.m. in the house.

It's really better to have dinner there.

It's a better thing.

I don't know.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the Rogers situation.

Those articles many years ago burned the hell out of Rose.

life.

It's sort of a cover-up.

and in which they, you know, she was burned because he took a lot of credit for everything I had done, you know what I mean?

You know, it's, I understand, it didn't bother me a goddamn bit, because I, you know, I mean, I just figured they were trying to get in the middle and said that he was the right guy, I was the dumb guy, and so forth and so on.

On the other hand, we have had,

some of the first law, as you know, in Combs and so forth, and what Henry has said, I mean, I have attended this one, that when Roger goes over, he says that, you know, he was responsible for the China interview, and they thought it up long ago, and kept me from doing this or that in Vietnam, or tried to avoid the mistake in Cambodia, you know what I mean?

I doubt it.

Now, it just may be that we do have a situation that is more difficult to be realized, having in mind, in fact, that Henry is pathologically, or paranoically, or whatever you are, sensitive on the issue.

He is, except that Henry has lied across his reasons.

You see, I agree.

I disagree.

Yes?

Andrew's attitude is a very different one than it was.

Well, Henry has been willing to decision in his own mind.

He's thought he had an alternative to this, to dealing with this problem, which was to quit.

And he has, he built up for a long time, as we know, built up really over a long period of time, in his mind, the thought, I'll quit and that'll fix the son of a bitch.

You know, there they are and all that.

And he's crossed that now.

He has made up his mind he can't leave.

He knows he doesn't have the option.

He doesn't have the option.

And therefore he's got to live with whatever the situation is.

He's also basically faced the fact that the situation can't be changed.

There he is, and here we are.

And I really feel this, that Henry now is much more rational

Although he gets upset and still comes in, you know, and says that he apologizes now.

He says, I'm sorry to come in with you because I don't have any solution.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Let me just talk about it for a minute.

And he talks about it and realizes, nevertheless, that those two kisses you're covered, I'm sure, didn't help him.

And he said that with Rogers.

And that isn't Henry's fault.

And that points out, and in those articles, he is, and this has always been the case, he is meticulous in his, what he says about the State Department.

And the credit he gives to that.

I'm sorry to add, the State Department has done it.

Well, the thing that bothers me is that it's so simple.

If you take those real objectives, which is personal glorification,

He could achieve it within what's given here so easily simply by taking credit for what Henry does and not fighting Henry but working with him.

If Rockers became a part of the Kiss-Dear-Nimson team and became a three-way team, he wouldn't have to contribute anything if he just keep quiet in the meetings.

and go along with the things, recognize that he's dealing with two guys who know a hell of a lot more about this than he does, but that he can be an effective spokesman for those two guys and work that way.

Then if he'd go out and do that, he would be looked at as a great Secretary of State.

There's no way, and this is what may be our real problem as the bill now ceases, there's no way he can pull himself out now.

If he drives Henry out, he's stuck.

If he hammers Henry down, he's stuck.

The only thing he can get is personal satisfaction and then he's flabbergasted about it.

And it just doesn't make any sense at this point.

Now Henry said, sir, this is Marshal Green.

He saw you at the dinner the other night and Green said, I've finally been let out to where I can come over to your meetings.

I'm sorry I haven't been over there, but I'm not allowed out and I'm still on a very short leash, but I've been given permission at least to come to the meeting.

And they said, you know, just put him off.

I don't know what you're talking about or something.

And Winston said, I could only say it, but it weren't so serious.

It would be a laugh if it didn't matter.

I think that's what he's trying to do.

Ideology.

Well, the point is, he's in a position where, let me put it this way, he could end it just by becoming part of what you and Henry are doing and being supportive of.

But he's obsessed with Sanford, and I think Henry's right on that.

All that is to do, gets us a memo from him,

Now he's going to try and one-up Andrea.

There is a problem.

I've been dealing with Roger's vanity and Henry's really psychological unbalance.

And now the people are going just the other way, but Henry's gotten back into balance.

And I'm not terribly concerned about Henry mentally.

I was for a while, but I think he's past his crisis and come out of it and is glued together.

He'll have a lot of space.

He's not tearing himself up with, what should I do?

He's accepted what he has to do.

Bill, I think, is still tormenting himself with, you know, how do I counteract this?

And just flailing about, really.

And he's not doing it for the national interest.

Henry, to a major degree, was, even when he was all screwed up.

He was screwed up for the right reasons.

But Henry also has always been totally, totally loyal in terms of trying to build the president up and so forth.

Oh, and I don't think Bill, Bill is not one of those.

You know, he made a fine on his public appearances up in Alaska and the rest.

that the President is the peacemaker and all that sort of thing, the moral statement of peace, but on the other hand,

does have this idea which is unbelievable.

It isn't conceit.

There's so much vanity.

Vanity is the better word.

That's what Menchel calls it.

And I think Menchel is correct.

They have vanity, which is much worse.

Ego is one thing.

Vanity is something else.

Vanity, you can have a general reason to ego.

You can have, when you have a reason to have, ego to an ultimate degree.

And Bill has vanity.

It just makes it all.

And I was concerned, you know, it can be a problem if people who are our enemies, like Kay Graham and Bradley, are seeing that there's some... Bradley made the comment to Henry, he said, one thing I just pray is that this man isn't going to stay on in that job.

And Henry said, well, I can't believe Bradley would talk that way to our enemy.

Yeah, but he...

You know, he may not want to see that kind of a problem.

Even so, he probably likes Bill.

When did he betray you?

Yesterday.

When did he see you?

Yesterday.

He saw Bradley here before he left?

No.

Well, I don't know.

He had lunch with him yesterday.

And then what happened?

Bradley told him that they had this long meeting.

I may be wrong, it may have been two hours, but it was the DK program that had a long meeting with Bill.

At the same time, I mean, Bill had called him.

And he had gone through quite a bit, just making this, what Bradley, as Henry reports, it was quite a kind of a shocking pitch that, you know, he personally, he said, I have done this.

He never said we, the administration or the president.

But I solved all these problems.

And Bradley's problem was, I don't know if Rogers did well to accept that.

No.

Henry believes that... Henry has believed all along that Rogers was sick in his own way.

But I don't understand.

I'll get to that sick point later.

But Henry...

Henry said it was from Bradley.

Bradley didn't.

Did you get the impression from Bradley that he didn't think Rocky was so smart?

See, that's the point I don't buy it with Henry.

No, I think he was smart, but that he didn't know very much about water policy.

And he wasn't, that he could not have gone in and solved all these problems.

He is, he just hasn't met the man that I ever needed that counsel to come.

We knew it.

We know that he wasn't able to.

He couldn't have gone in and solved all these problems.

He didn't know anything about it.

Now some of that can be Kissinger embellishment, of course, because that's the same way Kissinger very much believes and wants to believe, wants to hear.

But I pinned him back on that quite a bit.

And specifically, because in a way that's, because you're talking about an interesting point.

And what the hell was it that Cade Granger talked to somebody else?

Pete Peterson.

Kate Graham had come over to see Pete Peterson, or had called him or something, and said the same thing.

She was very concerned, or maybe it was at his dinner or something, I don't know.

She was very concerned about Rogers.

Now, I have not followed that line up with Peterson, and I'm not sure I won't do it.

No, no, no, we won't do it at all without the source, and Peterson will then figure that we're trying to undermine Rogers on the road.

He was not in the area.

But now, frankly, he felt that Rogers was, now was in the business of his sickness, basically unbalanced.

That he was, that he was, started going through a pathetic kind of exercise, the Captain Queen type of stuff, you know, where he was convincing himself of something and making this case to others that, if he were thinking clearly, would know the others wouldn't buy.

And it was not a saleable case.

And Bill acts kind of odd when he gets going on those texts.

He is emotional about some of this.

He is.

I mean, very uptight.

Yeah.

God damn it, no man should be up there.

Here he is, financially independent, at the top of the world.

Here he is.

I mean, he'd hate himself.

God damn it, if I had taken him to keep us in, I really would.

But I'm not going to have him there, and then have some damn thing that he raises, and he dropped, and raised all of Henry and everybody else.

You guys should take them both away.

You think, no.

I don't know.

That's as good as we can for you.

I think you're better off to take your books and I'll hold on.

That's a small case in point, but Bill's got to keep doing it.

He called me last night about it.

It was an Irish foreign minister coming in.

Thought he could make a statement in the press, and then he just threw it in offhand.

And he would then, you know, he'd take musk on Bill.

And I said, well, I said, did you, what did you tell him?

I said, well, it would embarrass him.

You know, this is the result of a conversation here.

And he said, well...

This is one in the public area.

really almost no pressure for the U.S. to take a position.

I think everybody sees that this is none of our goddamn business.

Well, they have to be touched.

One has to get a card.

But the point is, Bill is foreign secretary.

He should be the last person to come in with a goddamn ticket.

Gonna race off the bridge.

And walking out with the Irish foreign secretary.

He's depressed.

He normally won't do that.

But I think he wants to move us away.

He knows it's, you know, I think that's it.

Sure, he sees it.

It's not the wrong story.

He walks out of the corner and uh... That's the way to make news, and then tonight if Henry's not in, it's the way he can be a hero like that.

I just wish that we didn't have the, you know, the time that Bob's going to be terribly hard as it is anyway.

They're tough bastards and don't read and everything.

But believe me, that happened.

Brokerage in Rochester.

Didn't you?

In fact, here's one of them.

He's the son of a bitch.

And in Russia, we have our children there who don't want to read.

And then it's sort of an irrational, as you get more and more frustrated, you lash out more blindly and wildly, I guess.

Where have we even seen it?

And, of course, to a great degree, and everyone, we're all a little bit swayed by it.

We all like to be, you know, recognized for what we do and what we do.

Bill is really so patent and almost a fag.

or recognition and praise for anything that has happened, you know what I mean?

You know, other than, you know, for example, if you see me on television now, if you see that article or if you see that press conference or this or that, they never mention it.

They're always pleased if you say something about it, but it's never a...

I'll take this to him, but if you want to look at it, and if you have a question, I'll put it in the comments.

Henry, I have dictated a death special memorandum to Rogers.

No, but I have dictated one, and I'm having a rose.

I bring it around, or she'll have another one around, and you rig it, and as soon as you can, as soon as you're ready to come in, and we'll make the changes that we, that needs to be made, and ship it over this afternoon.

But whatever you're doing, this comes first.

Okay.

Thank you.

You know, the thing is, and I'll tell you another thing that tells you about your election so well.

They eat their young.

They're cannibalistic.

They'll turn up.

They're savage bastards.

Well, if they will, probably next.

But Kay Burton and Ben Brantley are two wonderful friends who hate Nixon with a passion, which they do.

Try about that.

And we'll be with him against history.

He's wrong about that.

Because even between Rogers and Nixon, they might be with Nixon if Nixon had power.

The electorate is totally power-accessed.

That's his problem.

Plus, they like Trill, too.

And there can't be a way to moderate some trouble.

They're starting to win the hand of time.

That's another side.

They have no qualms about who they screw.

I mean, they're not going to defend Bill.

I agree.

But I thought I managed.

Bill is going to find that he has no friends among those that he sucked around, just as he found he had no friends among those he sucked around after he finished his attorney general.

Well, in his own establishment over there,

is likely to turn on him and eat him up from inside.

What they see, they've used him as a way, as a counterbalance for State versus NSC.

They use Rogers against Kissinger.

As they see, Rogers can't effectively handle that.

Or as he becomes

sort of pathetic in his ways of trying to maintain his posture in front of them, which is what you get a kind of a groveling of in this Marshall Green.

Because it is ridiculous.

Rogers said they've been having working group meetings on getting ready for the China trip.

Rogers won't let them submit any of their papers.

Now they won't even let them come to the meetings.

That's that meeting he wanted you to come to, you know?

He said, of course he was welcome to sit in at any time.

And his solution to that was, don't let his people come.

So he ordered them not to come.

Now he's let them, as Marsha said, let us out a little bit.

We can come, but we're on a very tight leash.

They're told not to provide anything and all that.

That's terrible.

That kind of game, like his state of the world thing, he won't submit anything, you know, for the state of the world report.

He won't.

Apparently virtually none.

He's got nothing from state of China.

He may have today, but he hadn't yesterday.

Supposedly he's coming in.

And then they're pulling, you know, you get all the little bits now, I didn't even do the thing, I didn't raise it, give it, and so on, you kind of have this in the, all right, possibly in the sense you get a thing where, with Ingersoll, our Japan, and, you know, our ambassador.

Well, apparently, he proved it, well, yeah, but then what did they do?

They told the guy that Ingersoll, they told him to, he had a request for an interview from the Japanese press, and they told him to give him.

And they also, there was something else.

There was a couple things within themselves.

They just started letting down a criminal's pack over there, and said, oh yeah, go ahead and do it.

That'll be fine.

We fortunately found out about it, and I think Scott, oh my God, they had told us.

We were talking about doing something on the hill, too, or something.

I don't remember, but they had named him at two.

Very bad directions.

They don't want a businessman in Japan.

They want a foreign serviceman.

That's right.

It's all just never stops.

And I can see why it drives Henry to a point.

Because he's in that kind of thing, he's so

How rebellious though he is, he's still straight arrow on some things.

I mean, to him, there is an area of black and white, and in that area, it's just got to be black and white.

And he really plays it that way.

And he can't understand why they don't.

When it comes to the question of the presidency, there's no doubt in his mind.

He'll do all kinds of things to get something done that he thinks ought to be done.

but never, there's a moralistic black and white area where he can't cross the line, and then he sees that that doesn't apply over there, and that's what bothers him.

That really, and that's what, see, hate exists, too, because hate is, I think, has felt more strongly, really, that there was a real problem with Rogers than Henry has.

What kind of problem?

I think it's a masterpiece.

No, I wouldn't change a word.

It's very successful with the Chinese.

You're making every point.

When I used it last time, you were sort of surrounding it.

I haven't one word that I would change.

No, no, I, no, no, I...

This is a good line.

Move away as much as possible.

We can't do anything more than generalities.

We've got to go our own way.

What's wrong with you?

Well, we wanted to see what...

I mean, Mark...

I just saw the plaintiff for 15 minutes so that he knew what I had told to say so that they wouldn't start.

I think this is an absolutely perfect

I think we had Keating in good shape.

Apparently Nelson took him up on the mountaintop and told him he wants him back in New York State.

And he wants him to pay him back.

That's a good sign.

I think so.

That's good for me to put in there.

Incidentally, I did not share that you were saying it's Peterson.

Yeah.

The trade with the Soviets is a good thing for us in and of itself.

The trade is far more important to the Soviets than it is to us.

I'm surprised somebody said it.

Excellent.

A few bargaining chips we have.

I think we've got a mid-East position call nearby.

You go ahead and discuss it with them.

But I've told him that I believe we don't discuss it with the Russians until we find out what the hell the other's doing.

Of course, I think the Egyptians are going to turn down this scheme somewhere.

It's not bad.

I think it's outstanding.

It's not bad.

It's also, there's a real advantage to that, you don't have to waste your time on it, but there will be no doubt in Roger's mind that that's you not from the university.

Yeah, that's the rest of my stuff.

That's Nixomian and E&L.

You know, they come from

Well, he's come to know how this is.

And it isn't just breathing.

It's what I...

I just like it so this coffee can go.

I don't put secretaries under check phrase.

Or just say, just put eyes only on the top of it, you think so?

He won't show it.

I don't think he'd put eyes on it.

I think, as I say in the last paragraph, he has no reason to show it.

That's enough.

Okay.

Well, I wouldn't want the leggings part to be out, so he won't show it.

I'll tell Eddie it's coming, and then it's for Secretary Owens.

Okay.

Yeah.

He has no reason, whatever, to show it.

You don't think so?

We're going to have so many people wanting to get their hands in that Soviet pocket.

They're going to stay the hell out.

I think it's almost more important

for you to get credit.

You've already got credit for the China thing, no matter what we do there.

Oh, yeah.

That is clearly yours.

But what is important now is that they can't play off Peking against Moscow and say, well, Peking was just cultural and all the heavy stuff was done elsewhere.

And there was an editorial in the Star yesterday tilting towards Peking, which somebody must have given them because the Star isn't unfriendly to us.

Well, the fact of the matter is, Mr. President, that by truth first, our real problem is going to be how to reassure the Chinese, not how to...

It's not going to be how to reassure...

But what we will do in China in...

in moscow in terms of headlines it's all middle east and i i do not exclude that we can get something on vietnam that i do not consider certain but trade we got practically in the bag that held oh that's right well but still it adds up to a lot of

And that's easy.

It is important.

But believe me, the trade will be a big story.

Saul is a big story.

Those two we're sure of.

That we're sure of.

Well, we're sure.

Now, what are the other things?

How we can get Saul tomorrow if we make a concession, which isn't a concession of not having somebody on the spot.

On the other hand, I think it depends on other events.

And I think we'll have to screw the Israelis, but that's no problem.

you're giving them in effect 18 months after the summit in which to organize themselves for the settlement

A lot of things can happen in that period.

We're also providing the ring to support you with that.

Just a second.

It's a tune.

You're exactly right.

I can say this.

Basically, I'd add this one.

The second thing is to say that our goal really is to see that every child in America gets a fine education.

Now, the Brown versus the Board of Education, the famous 1954 Supreme case,

the court case said that legally segregated education was inferior education.

And we believe that.

That's why we have removed the last vestiges of that.

In other words, we've entered a dual school system in the south.

On the other hand, I think you could also say that where younger children particularly are concerned, that where there is excessive busing, that also is inferior education.

And therefore, our goal should be, how do we get a superior education?

And so we begin with two problems.

One, there must be no legal segregation.

Two, there must be the freedom of every child to go anywhere he wants to school.

But third, there should not be no artificial force busing beyond normal limits, beyond the neighborhood schools, because that makes education inferior.

See?

Sort of along those lines.

Okay.

Fine.

I think I will come to Florida tonight and have you in.

We'll see.

All right.

Bye.

With this Russian poet this afternoon, Mr. President, I'm not getting into politics at all.

I'd ask him what he notices in the mood of this country between the last time he was here and now.

He's a sort of a... What does he think?

The psychological, the spiritual problems are...

He's a sort of a...

He won't get it.

There is no chance, whatever, that he'll get it to Vietnam.

None whatsoever.

I met him at the dinner that Jarvis gave for me.

He wants to talk to you.

He said it's the greatest thing that happened to the young Russians.

It showed them that adventure was possible.

He said it was the greatest excitement he had had.

He's a sort of a semi-opportunistic intellectual.

He's enough of an opposition.

He's an opponent of the regime enough so that he's interesting to outsiders, but he stays close enough to them so that they're using him.

And that's what the liberals here love him.

And it won't do you any damage.

No one expects a Russian to be for Vietnam.

Of course not.

And it shows a certain interest.

Is there any part, is there any book or books that you kind of enjoy, that some of you prepared that you could give him, that he could breathe down for me?

He's a great breather, you know.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, if you have anything that you could give him to breathe down for him, we can't give it to him.

That's what I would say.

The other one, of course, I have concerns.

He's going on the basis of breaking both Biden and Tuesday night.

We'll, uh, uh, ought to be, uh, calm enough to do something.

I may decide not to televise or whatever.

I'm not sure that's the best thing to do at this point.

I have a, I have a feeling about television these days.

It's, uh, I get goddamn tired of seeing some goddamn big politicians all over and over and over again.

UK on television is a hell of a lot of stuff.

I still don't know if China's gonna be nasty about it.

The whole thing?

The Chinese?

I just hope they're going to make a decent stage.

I think if you just told TK and me, it's going to be great.

But if he's on national television, he may figure he'd better throw in a few of them.

But he's on world television.

He's going to talk to them.

Nobody in China has watched his TV.

Well, don't worry.

I'll have him.

He toasts first.

He smokes, I'll serve him.

You know?

And I swear.

I mean, if he knocks the American very little... Is that the only thing?

Well, I don't care.

I'll show you the toast he made for me, which was very sweet.

Yeah, yeah.

It sort of played off my...

All our people are dropping like flies over there.

Sick.

One more than half of them.

Four more copies.

Sick now.

What about snagging him sick?

Well, the first guy to go got pneumonia and we shipped him out because we had a plane leaving anyway, a cargo plane that landed the satellite stuff.

So they took him out, and he's at Guam in the hospital.

But now we've got Coffey and three others, who what they think it is, is influenza, the flu, but in an advanced state.

But we've got another plane going in, and I think we ought to put a doctor in there.

We've got all those people in there.

They ought to have a doctor with them.

But they must have brought them in, but they couldn't incubate them.

I don't think they did.

We've had the flu here, but see, if you hit it, if you're running it with them, and that hits that weather change, and the time change, and all that.

Oh, it weakens you enough so that if you have it lightened, it would come out.

I think what it is, you, as much as the weather changes, the time changes.

Yep.

The horror, and also the wear and tear of that long journey.

Listen, you're just goddamn fagged after that time and that long journey.

Mr. President, if they're going to televise the first banquet,

I'd better get a message to them and give them a rough idea of what you're going to do.

They'll get the point.

I'll say that the President will make a very... You know, this doesn't ask them to do anything, but just says the President's host will stress the friendship of the people and will not go into any contentious issues and will not make any assertions about our position with respect to contentious issues.

They'll get that.

That's a good idea.

I think we just...

safe-sided that much, because if we can get Joe on there with one of his charming toes, that will be just that much class.

I'm just afraid they will use that to make their position.

Well, we see out there all sorts of blind minds around on the way in there, the way there, and the rest.

But the whole fight is to just figure that the opportunity is when the thing is.

It's a hell of an event.

And it's a hell of an event.

Believe me.

And Mr. Bishop's going to override.

And I need a candidate.

Bob, you can't let her.

We are people, we all excited about this or that or the other thing that happens.

I didn't know about it.

I go to Lansfield this morning and I heard the kind of stupid some of the Democratic critics.

I said, you know, they all crap around about what we've done to Japan, what we've done to India as a result of this, how it's worried the ties.

I said, we do all that.

Of course it's going to worry.

It's too bad.

We're sorry.

But on the other hand, we think this cost is where it had to be done.

And that's the way to handle it.

You know, I think it's really a worry in general that, like, the new center is Buchanan and Co. Loads of them in this way.

But, I mean, they are all bringing back.

It's not just about...

Not just about Taiwan, but it's about the trip, generally, that we jeopardize our relations with all three ages by going, here we have.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's really all.

Well, let's just tell them.

They really are all, frankly, people who we've detected and realized that virtually everybody is a person of the best of intentions.

They are always a crying wolf, borrowing trouble, and want to agonize about it and say that things are in a hellish state.

Mr. President, I'm on the page.

I'm on Vietnam.

What did the Japanese complain to you about?

Sato wasn't saying, it's a pity you got out of set.

What Sato was saying, it's a pity you kept up from getting out of set.

He said, we wanted to be the bridge, and now you are the bridge.

They would have done it to us.

Is it one damn thing the Japanese know that they're having to get open to China?

And that what is, they want to do it first.

And they know damn well our commitment to them remains secure.

What do you mean?

Well, in a way, Mr. President, I...

In India, I couldn't care less about their attitude.

And, uh, I mean...

It's true.

They respect you more for it, Mr. President.

All this screaming and howling, this gives us an option.

The Russians have a... Well, listen, Henry, the big thing about China, as we all know, you know the damn reason I did it.

I didn't do it because of Asia at all.

You didn't do it?

And everything the Chinese do for you, the Russians will double.

So whatever good is we get in China in terms of reception, we know the Russians will improve on.

So it's a good control over the Russians then.

But I'll get that message out to the Chinese.

I won't do it this minute, but I'll get it out safely.

But it's, but the press, everyone is all steamed up about it.

I, everyone one talks to is, oh yeah.

And I sort of hope, in a way, Mr. President, if there's got to be an offensive, there's got to be an offensive.

I'm not even sure it would be such a bad thing if it hit.

It'd be page five.

No matter what they do, who gives a damn about play coup?

The North Vietnamese are in a difficult spot.

This isn't 68.

They're not dealing with a president for whom this is the only game in town.

And to sit and predict it, and suddenly, out of the blue, they launch an attack.

We've been predicting the attack for four weeks.

You're going to China.

China's going to be on television 12 hours a day or whatever, at least long stretches of time.

That's what people are going to be interested in.

You're going to be making peace speeches there.

Who's going to say you're a war monger while you're going around?

Everything you do is hell.

Oh, and you've got the groundwork playing awkwardly at this last TV show, too.

Mike?

Yeah.

My feeling about the press thing, Bob, is this.

I think the press thing Thursday should be just, frankly, to the state of just getting one out of the way.

I think we really should do something.

And I think we should do it here in the office.

I believe that on TV, that we don't have the problem of equal time.

We don't have the problem of a whole hell of a lot of things.

Now, they're going to have a hell of a lot of times that equal time for China.

Like the other cat.

And the...

I'll say, we had something big to say.

There was nothing else to say, but I think we're going to have the press going around about what about Muskie's criticism of the peace plan, and what about the budget, the deficit, what about the doc strike, and what about the company.

I can almost participate in the questions, and I can see that that's a great big thing to put on TV.

That's a rough thing.

I know that I've always said, let's go on TV more.

We could have a couple of hours next week for me, whenever you are free, an hour here, an hour there, to go over my suggestions of how to handle the meetings.

I mean, I'll give you talking points in time, but I think, contrary to your usual practice, on two or three occasions, you might consider making a sort of semi-formal opening statement.

For example, early, you ought to give your analysis of how

They're encircling, the Russians are encircling them.

I play on that Russian thing, and how we are interested in them.

And I'm going to write it out, but I'll pay you.

They sort of expect it, and you have to remember that Joe and I personally put this stuff over.

And he has wanted it.

He wanted it to come down.

I think I... Or I'll say next week.

Next week, and I might...

Be able to do it.

Yeah, I could do it next weekend.

I've got to check.

Now, next weekend would be easy for me to do.

You really should.

You'd get stuff wrapped up before if you used it.

I won't let it be true.

I've got this out.

I promise you.

I know.

And I want to take him out and have him go to the office and face out in the face for a day.

Then I'll be ready to call you.

Well, I could come Sunday if you go.

Yeah.

I don't have to come today.

I'd come Saturday afternoon.

You know, Bob, you are right.

This is going to be edition by the...

There's going to be one hell of a ton of coverage this time of year.

Huh?

Oh, God.

You agree?

Yes.

Hell, Barbara Walters was in last week, and she's, you know, it's just one hour and 16, or however many we're taking.

She's just drooling, and everything is positive.

I mean, they're not pissing on this in their mind.

No?

No, I have yet to hear one of those, man.

How about briefing the press?

I think that would be interesting.

We have a massive problem about that.

I think I should brief them in Hawaii about what to expect, just to give them some of the flavor.

I think there we have to be very careful that the Chinese

uh but i could sort of give them the mood at the end of each day here's a place where we can't get bill again that's right he hasn't been in there and uh he will he cannot get up and give them advice about what it is you just gotta understand that what i must do is when we release the communicate that's when i should give a full-scale briefing of what

what it means.

That's only in Shanghai.

You're going to have some stuff that Bill can do separately, aren't you?

I'll cut the Chinese drill.

At the first plenary session, I'll have a little outline of what you might say, and you'll propose topics.

Joe and I will reply, saying this is so much, I recommend that our foreign ministers deal with this.

And Bill can also cover some of the stuff you're covering.

It doesn't make any difference.

Joe in line won't pay the slightest attention to him.

And his foreign minister has no real influence either.

So let those two talk.

But they'll come to some agreements of things that Bill can talk about too, won't they?

And the point is this, Mr. President.

We've got the agreement all set on culture, science, and so forth.

Those are the only things that come up.

of a concrete nature.

Now, it wouldn't be right to just move up and say, I earned this off of a clerk.

My name shouldn't appear at all.

Well, my name is.

That one, what you should say is that you, you really should say that you and Secretary Rogers and I know how to say the whole thing.

You should say it.

You worked it out, and the others worked out some technical subsidiary details.

Well, the problem, of course, is reading the press every day is going to be involved.

What are you told?

Well, I think we should tell the press honestly in Hawaii what we can and cannot do.

You get the mood, and we'll tell you what we can, but it won't be much.

The meeting place looked like how many hours the meeting was.

The Chinese will respect you so much more for that.

You know, I could even do that for the press in Hawaii.

I could just give them a little of that crap and then leave, and Henry could answer a few questions.

Probably would be a good idea.

I could say, John, you see, I could go in and I could say, now, look, I want to tell you a little bit about how this is different from others.

And I can say that we do not have, as you usually have, but we can give you billions as we do on our other summit meetings.

I said that we have had that today.

It's a different situation.

As long as you don't do substance in Hawaii, you have to stay away from anything you answer.

Just mechanics.

That would be very good.

No, I don't know why would the person go out.

I don't have any other thoughts about that.

I just want you to figure that our future will be this, and the other thing, we're going to be trying to have as little as we can.

But the most important thing is to have this first communication.

ever between these two governments, the first visit of the President of the United States ever to mainland China.

It must be handled properly, and we're more interested in the day-to-day stories and seeing if we can make some progress in the course of the talks.

Therefore, if we do not,

You will understand.

That is the reason.

On the other hand, that means that you're going to have to find your source.

You see what I mean?

You could elevate them a little bit if you wanted to, too.

I think it's part of a great, great job.

And did you, because we will be...

Granted, in these long talks, you're going to be out and around in China.

And how you conduct, you know, and I say, well, you're all, you are the Americans.

And I was going to say that, you know, I, like the rest of you, prior to this trip, read a great deal about Chinese attitude toward Europeans and toward Americans.

And I said, some Americans and Europeans conducted themselves like, well, others have not.

and the impression you want to realize that you read is terribly important to us.

Well, that's right.

That's right.

That is, the birds make the contact, and a lot of what they do will depend on their assessment.

I can say that.

Then I walk out.

I think it would be better than if I did it.

Go ahead.

uh i think this would be better than trying to do anything here before we leave oh not be a good idea i mean i was thinking about you know maybe if you want to have a farewell party or hawaii you should not do that i don't know why it would be the place to do it part of the reason for not doing here is so many people aren't going that you just you're rubbing their hands we've got to be very careful about okay fine

You didn't see that bullet, but if you saw it, that's when you avoided the Rogers problem like that.

You go over there, and the first crack out of the box, Henry doesn't read it.

Rogers goes up the goddamn wall again, you know, and Rogers is not confident to read it.

So I'll go ahead and throw it in there.

I was going to talk to you about it.

Don't you agree?

This is exactly the pitch I was going to make.

Right.

Well, but you have to.

But he has been very strong against that.

How do you do it?

The president can't do it.

That's why I remember I looked over at him and said, gee, that's an interesting idea.

And I said, well, I just don't know.

But he was a great associate of mine.

And, yeah.

But you do, you need to set the tone for this mission, and it's got to be, it's important from the press's viewpoint that you're in command of this trip, not any Kissinger.

And there's going to be an effort by the enemies, and maybe by some of the friends, to portray this as some Kissinger's journey that takes you along.

I think that would be the first impression, I don't think that would be the first impression.

I can talk to him about the situation, how it is.

We want to set that up so he's got a good time of the day.

But I've got to be in command of the thing, and also I've got to be out there at the end.

I've got to be out there learning how to do things, too.

And Henry is doing this to the best of intentions, he just can't.

It's basically right, but he's very, he can't possess this little thing, and he's afraid that nobody else can handle it.

In this instance, he's riding a rocket, he could not.

How damn shame about Bill is after this lady.

Mr. Sondheim, he could be kind of the credit for every salvation thing that you say.

Not credit, but claiming participation in it.

As a team leader, he will not participate.

He could be sharing the credit.

If he were actually playing as part of the team, he could share the credit the team gets.

And it could be this great common, instead of this battle between Rogers and Kissinger, it could be this great combination of Rogers, Kissinger, and Nixon, and what they're getting done.

You need to get up and start up.

Oh.

I'm just goddamn curious about why, as a Washington Post people, stick that to Henry.

I think your reason may be closer to mine.

My horses, they don't turn on their, the elections don't turn on anybody if they think they aren't going to have power.

But the other reason is the Prowling Law.

They're trying to irritate Henry.

And they're having hundreds fight.

They feel, you see, that

But you said that Bradley said that he went on subpar and said he holds Rogers as non-secretary of state.

What the crisis do you mean by that?

I think he was talking about a second term.

At least that's what Henry talked about.

Henry said, I probably said it wasn't going to take half a day at all.

And then he was just kind of smoking in and out.

Yeah.

Sure.