Conversation 670-013

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Yeah.

They do these once in a while.

I think there is a way of getting people

Monday said a good thing here, too.

They picked up a lot of stuff in the campaign.

His own stuff, not what you said.

What he said.

What he said might affect us.

He said something.

the President would be a disservice to the country.

He said, sure, it would be nice if we were all dealing with it as a problem in a classroom that has no impact on our national policies, but we don't want, by anything we say, to jeopardize the talks.

And at the headline club in Chicago, he said, he would not engage in peace negotiations for the purpose of appearing to give you a frank, honest, open answer.

Would you rather have a frank exposure about what's going on in Paris now, or would you rather have a ceasefire?

Has anybody thought to get that out?

Oh, sure.

Exactly.

That's what Monday does.

That's the device we use.

No.

Then they pick it up and say, this is broader coverage.

Then they use, they will take bacteria.

That would be an option.

They pick up the next 68 statement also.

Look at it.

She still looks so terrible.

I have here the attorney general's resignation.

See the back desk over at the residence.

Did somebody stop the pictures?

I thought these were food, those damn pictures.

Bro just came and said, you haven't got any pictures to autograph.

But we have food.

We've got an old one, so I think that's an alley.

You know, drawings.

But what was the trouble with this?

There's something.

I threw out the wine.

I guess somebody should show me.

Well, I can see that coming, but it probably wasn't good.

It did make it come off, right?

Yeah.

Something wrong with it?

It was just...

It was definitely even other than from your family, but that's fine if they were all bad.

I thought they were going to end up the one serious one, huh?

Let me find out.

I hear somebody who just went over there.

Get in the chassis, if you do you want to make it up.

Xavier came in this morning and was very curious about the position that I took on.

I didn't mind his suggestion.

I don't mind his suggestion, but I didn't think that it was your destiny.

There are two problems that I'll mention.

But the reason it concerns me, he says, well, it's the press, it's the Nancy and this and that, and he wants to shoot with great humor and so forth, and he thought it was just a movie, but that's not true.

What's true?

What in the hell is he talking about?

What is the press, Nancy?

They're supposed to have news every day about China.

Is that the problem?

I don't know what he's trying to get at.

I said, well, Ron, I've got a brief, and I don't know why, but I'm not...

You've got to hold all that for me.

Or I think that I can keep talking about it.

Okay?

I don't have the same hope that that's about it today.

But if you put Henry in there, you are inevitably going to have questions where he will, you know, move over to the substance line.

And also, I do not know what it's going to be.

It's going to be Henry's, your problem.

It's going to be too much.

Yeah.

That's what concerns me.

The argument for them was simply, but Ron's concern is, I think, a valid one on the long haul.

When we get there, not his now, which is that you're going to have, when we talk about this way back at the beginning, you're going to have a very tough problem with the press corps because they aren't going to have, it's a huge news event with no news.

And so there they are, and they've got their house.

They're singing.

Somebody's singing a huge pile of dough to get them there, and they're going to wonder, and they're going to say, where the hell is your story?

So his only thought is that we need to keep that in mind to avoid getting into a thing where they all become totally frustrated.

And so the way to do that is to tell them .

No, no.

And he said they're .

I don't see why we have to be so defensive.

I agree.

I think, what's he concerned about?

No.

I don't know what's wrong with him.

I was so sure he could have seen the rocks everywhere he was going.

Well, they're not here to go.

I don't know why.

I think he's concerned about when he gets there, how they're going to keep them.

We have stuff going well, but they can't work better.

We don't want them to work better, which is the other part.

We want them to go around traveling around.

So we've done a lot of that.

What have you done in regards to the environment?

And what are you talking about?

What are you talking about?

I've talked to him.

I've talked to him again today about it.

Has he gone?

No.

I've talked to him again.

He has this automatic Boolean thing on Scali.

He backs off of it when you talk to him about it.

I think he's got it.

Now, one thing is that I need it by the second.

I have ordered it.

You haven't done it.

And you are there.

I want you to get it.

And you to look over it so it doesn't come over in church and crows.

Or, Pat has got to have it.

I mean, Pat.

You see, he is going to be out.

He will be exposed.

The press will come up and turn it down.

And the Chinese will come up and say, what did you think, Mrs. Nixon, of our school?

What do you think of our home for retargeted children?

What do you think of China?

How do you like China?

Et cetera, et cetera.

Now I don't make bullshit about this.

I want them to sit down, et cetera, you know, on a crash basis, and give her a few points that she can have.

Now why can't we have none?

We've ordered them.

We haven't got them.

We haven't even got them.

We asked you about them last night.

And I said, well, I thought you might be sure.

And I ordered them.

I guess they're busy with everything else, but, you know.

He showed up.

He said, yeah, all the time.

Yeah, terribly.

Of course, he wants to think about it.

I haven't made him talk to him about that.

He said he sent one book over to her, and that he was doing...

I don't want this book.

I want you to examine the book to be sure that the goddamn book is, you know, is at least readable.

See what I mean?

So that she, and not a book, just a few pages.

So we asked Janet to work with him on that, you know, too, because he'd be working with her over there on things.

And we had...

I'm not sure that I asked for it ahead of time.

so that you know who's to fight against the state and who's not the state.

Sure.

What is the next question that you'd expect her to be asked?

You know, she would normally be able to take place with the Chinese, but then it's goddamn difficult.

And this is one you specifically, when we asked for it, you wanted, you didn't want Henry to do it at the finish line.

You wanted Buchanan to do it at the point that you would have a press conference answer at that point.

It was a question and a...

Doing things to say, things to avoid.

You know, what not to say, what not to do, what not to do.

Just a few little guide points on that.

But not too long.

And we get to the psychopedic, you know, about the doubt, about fear, etc.

We have to learn about her.

And I've had, frankly, you've got to tell the individual what they're scouting Christ emotionally.

You know, maybe they can work on this on their specific scale, and that's what you're looking for.

You want to say something that's totally down to the paper.

What did you find on those ambassadors?

I haven't talked to any of our partners in the same way that I've got a lot of journalists and attendants in the other ranks.

I haven't gone over them with Henry.

I talked to Frank.

He said that if Henry had originally adapted it on the basis of just getting it done this year, especially a brush, it may be.

I want to purchase a giant one and the other one.

I want to purchase a thousand brushes if you can.

I know the brand is fine for me.

I'm afraid we can't depart.

The original car on the Iran had this smooth, uh, solid wall.

With regard to this movie, is there some purpose in that that I'm not aware of?

Just to give you something to do.

But no reason.

There must not be a reason.

It heavily gets to the business of saying, if you do what you're going to do, you're going to go where you're standing, you know, and just be sure to be safe.

Or do you agree?

Yeah, I do.

Which is a problem.

And they're going to push and press, and they're going to crash at the canyon, you know what I mean?

We don't really care about the advances of our decision, I think.

Well, I was trying to make people look for, did he have somebody else be the, you know, watcher of the movie?

I don't even see a need for one.

Probably gotta explain it to the hell of people who are in Chicago.

There's no sound.

And Jake can do that.

I can say the right thing.

Jake can go.

He landed in advance.

Yeah.

Jake landed in advance.

And he knows, like, here's the mouth of the wall.

And when you go up there, you gotta wear rubber track.

It goes to the...

And don't, don't, don't, don't instruct them how to conduct themselves in the Chinese.

You couldn't think that this is the person, that's this individual, and here's Joe and I, and here's, here's David and all those names of the others.

I can't get my smart head to use or whatever it is and so forth.

The danger.

Or hate.

Hate is getting more of the substance to them.

You want to avoid it.

Actually, it's a good project.

It used to just be a ziggler show where he just, he runs a movie for him and tells him what he wants to tell him.

That keeps it completely at the press level instead of getting the...

I go to the first, yeah.

The darn fact that the reason he couldn't come to the dinner tonight is because he had a speaking commitment at Williamsburg.

Now he's asking him if he already gets somebody to substitute for him at Williamsburg, and he comes to the dinner.

Sure.

And not, not Shalia, not him.

Not Shalia.

Or Henry, if you will, if you will be able to fuck it up.

Slim's going to be here.

I'm just wondering if you really want Scallion Smith.

I was going to say that Lee's got to do something about him, but that's kind of the problem with not Scallion.

Right.

That's why we're just going to drop him.

They've already asked them.

They haven't.

I didn't realize.

The other day they were saying that, but they didn't want to get better.

It would be a big deal for John.

It doesn't just always come down that way.

I mean, there's other people who are...

I had a lot of friends who spoke with these very old men.

You're posing the question because I'm starting to see each other.

Okay.

Do you prefer to have some emigrators or do you think there's a problem?

I think maybe we, it often has to go from here.

Just for that reason.

It's often good that it has an emigrator.

Yeah.

What a jerk feeling that I should have the office.

He doesn't want it.

He says, you know, he says resignation refers to a discussion with the president.

I will have met with him and I will see him on Monday so we can all assume that the discussion took place at that time.

I talked to him this morning before your meeting.

He had nothing he wanted to talk to you about.

He said we don't need to bother with anything.

And he said...

that I'd rather keep it disconnected now and let this story get over and get done than, you know, go on from there.

He'd like to announce it tomorrow.

The 15th is stated tomorrow.

And it'll be effective March 1st, the following two weeks.

Announcement to effective date.

And he's putting out a short statement

out of the Justice Department that just says, you know, he should be able to vote for the election.

And that we should send up the nominations so that the whole thing is in motion.

But he strongly feels it should be as low-key as possible.

And so this would be about as low-key, and I would suggest we all keep it in that context.

White House announced the resignation of the president's attention to the nomination.

He released his statement.

He said, if you want to release the letter, that's fine.

I think you think you should.

And so it happened.

But on the other hand, you and I get out some sort of a YouTube right and have an Instagram without writing him a handwritten note, but I will not put that on the public.

And I have this fan, okay, for a very nice little note, you know, about his, what is his name, I don't know.

I have him particularly in this, in this video, this is where he's a law enforcement chief, he's the president.

First of all, that's a monster.

My idea is to try to make a case about the change and the attitude about law.

You know what I mean?

Respect for law.

It's a historic change and I appreciate his assistance.

That tells somebody that's really smart through that letter.

I didn't think you'd see it.

But I would have hammered those in half for his father.

That's it.

The lunch date is for the 50s, not the 70s.

Yeah, it's a mark.

Do you wear the X mark often?

Yeah, a little more.

Thank you for that.

I, uh, I think you should say that, uh, it's unfortunate, you know, that the President has to commit before you that you could come on the 22nd, but I was not weak.

And, uh, if you'd be really glad to come, you can't come on the 15th.

I don't think that you could be weak.

You should be in a position of handy now that you've done it.

I agree.

If you permit me, Mr. President, I'd like to move it to the weekend, rather than the 20 seconds or the 15 minutes in the middle of the week in the Wednesday.

And it's harder to be away secretly.

All right, then move to the other.

That's right.

No, no, to the latest.

That would get us the 18th and not a 19th.

Yes, but she can't come on the 15th because she could come in the evening.

And how would you put it in terms of their operations?

I would say, of course, it has to be clearly understood that

It is an offense that the United States cannot negotiate under Turez and have a major, I should say, a military offensive.

There is an increase for a...

I'll show you the note.

We haven't gotten there yet.

Because Walter Sweet has a code which is only used by him and us.

So he has to code it himself.

But I think it's a tremendous success.

It's a hard thing to figure in the IAEA.

Well, I think they have done better than that.

You're getting re-elected.

Why are they re-elected?

Well, you remember, Mr. President, before this, before this move, I said that I forget that they would make a move between the Peking and the Moscow Summit.

They didn't want to settle it before the Peking.

That the Peking, that the Peking move did it for them.

And they probably don't want to be in a position in the Moscow summit where you and Brezhnev conceivably pressure them.

That Brezhnev letter to you last week was extraordinarily mild.

In fact, it didn't give them any support.

It just quoted what the North Vietnamese were saying, but it didn't say that the Soviets endorsed it.

You remember I said that before this.

And therefore, my calculation has always been, one, that they'd make a move between the two summits.

Secondly, that there was something like a 50-50 chance that they'd settle before the election.

In fact, the way I put it to myself was, if it looked as if you would probably win or possibly win, they'll settle before November.

If it looked as if the other side would probably or possibly win, they'd certainly not settle before November.

If it was a stalemate,

then I would guess they'd still try to settle me for an event because it's too risky to have you back in office.

How could it be?

And what you've done in the last few weeks is strip away the secret association to attack your domestic opponents.

In this respect, what Bob did

was tremendously helpful with Hanoi because it showed we were going for a probe at home, that we're not just going to sit there and let ourselves be trapped.

And this massive movement of air power.

And we moved 35 B-52s to Kuala Lumpur.

We've taken off... We've put two more aircraft carriers on the station.

And we only moved one out there, but we thought they always had one on leave.

And we cancelled all leaves.

That's how the news hit about the one coming back from Hong Kong.

Oh, we only had one on there.

Well, we had, actually, we had one on station, one being repaired, and one on leave.

And then we had another one in San Diego.

Now we have four on station.

Well, they're gone, yes.

But we will have one more, sure.

But we have three on station within another week.

So I think this whole combination of events, their fear of the treacherous, it isn't just that for the first time in our dealings with them in two administrations that they have asked for a meeting.

All previous meetings we've asked for.

But also that they've asked for lunch.

I know, Mr. President, I'm not saying they're going to settle.

I'm saying if nothing else happens except that they invited me to lunch,

It means we have a month of no offenses, almost certainly.

It means that it is good that...

The probability is, Mr. President, that this is not going to be the only meeting.

We have never had such one meeting with them.

So why don't they find things, you know, that they may be doing for other reasons?

They may be inviting them to launch with the hope that we will lay off our preemptive airstrikes.

They think you're getting ready to plow the North Sea.

No question about that.

No.

I'm not sure we want to wait.

No, I wouldn't.

We can wait until the 8th.

You can't wait too late because then you'll have to... No, but Mr. President, you're coming back on March 1st.

Presumably you'll report to the nation on the 2nd or 3rd or something.

I don't know what your date is.

But you wouldn't want to doubt everybody that week anyway.

So we are talking about a week or two.

That isn't a fixed deal.

I don't understand.

I'm just trying to see what would go through there.

I think the second thing they may be thinking about is that they're inviting

They must, in other words, you've got to assume that their purpose is not to invite you to talk.

Their purpose is to keep us from doing something else.

On the one hand, they're afraid we're going to hit the north by and accomplish that purpose.

But we will tell you more than 24, 48 hours anyway.

I know that, but what I mean is, what I mean is that that's the purpose that...

The other thing is, if you put a drill on this defensive thing, I can't believe that they would have you on the other side of the coin.

I'd be wrong.

They would have you for a private meeting.

And then proceed to kick the hell out of us.

prior to that time.

Almost inconceivable.

How could it?

Because that's why I think you should put the conditions.

Absolutely.

Because if, for example, let's put it another way.

If you accepted the meeting, and then they kicked the hell out of us, and then we canceled, we're in a bad way.

We should warn them and thank them.

Right?

That's right.

Mr. President, you've been very tough with them.

You know, we canceled this Thursday's meeting.

because of the Versailles Conference.

And we're just, we have to look at it through their eyes.

They must think we are looking for an excuse to kill them in the north.

They know, oh yeah, the last few times we canceled meetings, we then hit them for five days.

I believe that our December strikes did a hell of a lot more damage to them than our idiotic air force will admit.

Because if they hadn't, they would have had people there looking at their holes.

If they didn't amount to anything, if they hit the open fields, if they hit peasant houses, if they wanted the French to protest and then the French said, let's look at where the damage is, they refused to show them.

And we had another report that in Finn particularly, they inflicted enormous casualties on some troop barracks.

Now, I wouldn't place this report in the absolute cut that it fit in.

I didn't put it in here because you don't want to bother with these things.

So they are more efficient.

You may go for broke against them in the North.

And then they want to stop.

On the other hand, you and I know that you weren't going to go for broke against the North.

So what they're going to do is stop.

is not something we wanted to do.

Secondly, they are terrified that when all is said and done, Beijing and Moscow are not going to let them screw up the whole detente.

Do you think so?

Yeah.

After all, I must say, when you read all the records and show the lines of comments and so forth, I mean, you can read a little of the things that I know, and all the rest of it,

It's a hard-line goddamn thing.

Well, it's hard-line, but impractical.

On the other hand, on the other hand, they know that they are susceptible to being a little bit, you know, they always say, we don't make the promises, we can't keep, we never do this.

Again, their behavior in India-Pakistan thing is goddamn timid.

That's right.

They talked about the Russians being tempted and they were tempted.

After this, they had this, Joe and I told you in July that they would not stand heavy lie.

And they went on, and I was stunned.

And afterwards, they made it clear to Joe that we let you down.

Now they know what the hell they did.

Oh, exactly so.

But also the North, actually with respect to the North Vietnamese, you have to read the whole record.

What they do is they're asking cutely for the things they know they're going to do anyway, like troopers draw them.

They've never done much about the political conditions.

So the Chinese are building up a field record on those issues which are not contested.

And they have been no help to the North Vietnamese.

They killed their seven boys by having the announcement of your visit on July 15th.

So that the North Vietnamese will not forget that.

I believe that they did make an effort to get them to negotiate

because for about six weeks after you were there, after your announcement on July 15th, the North Vietnamese press was beside themselves.

Then in November, after I was there, for another six weeks, the North Vietnamese press was yelling at them.

Then Sam Van Dong went to PK, and in public speeches, never declared complete identity of interest between the two countries.

It's only in the last few weeks, as we are going there,

that Peking has been making some noises.

But even so, when I proposed that if Li Dachou was in Peking, that I was prepared to meet with him there, they sent back a very mild reply saying, we are not going to meddle in the Vietnamese war, which you can really read both ways.

And the reason I sent that message was so that if the Russians came through with an invitation to meet in Moscow, we could then go to Peking and say, we already do you first.

The other hand, I believe the more we can get the Russians to press for a meeting in Moscow, which they want for their reasons, the more eager Hanoi will be to have the meeting in Paris.

Because Hanoi will under no circumstances, in my view, settle in either of the other communist capitals.

So the reason I'm going, I'm going to see Dobrynin tomorrow and I'm going to put it to him again that I'm eager to meet them in Moscow, I'll bet it's a poker, it's a way of friendship.

I already know they proposed a meeting in Canada.

There isn't a chance of a snowball in hell that they will accept a meeting in Moscow.

They've already rejected it in October, so they're worried.

But if Moscow proposes the meeting, it's to them a sign that Moscow is eager to settle.

I'm certain that Moscow is playing such a big game that they are not going to let the Hanoi screw it up in May.

So they're up against a whole series of deadlines.

Then they see you.

When you look at the facts, say, look at Times and Newsweek this week.

It's a little player to say that the world's report is positive.

But above all, it's China.

So they know for the next three weeks, both of them have special supplements for China.

Well, for the next three to four weeks...

But they told me you were going to be on the cover when I asked them to take me off two weeks ago.

After they put you on, they said they couldn't do that.

That guy must have had a lot of fun.

You followed him and he's got more fun than you.

Yeah, I understand.

He's very much free.

That thing that spoke to him.

That was a pulsing.

That's a stink.

That wasn't bad either.

But at any rate.

Well, what it turns out is just what we thought.

It's Noah Dietrich's book.

Jimmy Phelan.

They stole his stuff.

Phelan wrote Dietrich's book.

That has now come out, and then something got screwed up and they got Phelan's material.

They got Phelan's material and tried to write his own book, using Phelan's material for the Dietrich book.

and make it appear to be an autobiography.

I just don't see how he got away with it.

He thought he could get away with it.

He thought he got 650,000 bucks is what he cashed in Swiss time.

I don't see how he got to get those materials.

Oh no, they traced that to their ceiling gave it to a literary agent to play somewhere.

That literary agent turns out to be a close friend of Erdogan.

But you get back to the other stuff.

So there are off-day headlines for three weeks.

There'll be off-day headlines for three to five weeks when you go to Moscow.

The Moscow Summit significant hasn't sunk in on people yet.

Because while this one has color, the other one will have agreements.

I mean, you come back with a salt agreement, a big train agreement, possibly a Middle East agreement.

We have seven agreements all set that both Sabrina and I agree, leaving out the Middle East, can be signed there.

We have two major things that cannot be signed there but can be started there on scientific strength and environmental things.

But we'll have a space-stocking agreement, we have a health agreement, we have, they're not all of a tremendous order, but this all,

I'm thinking on that.

We'll talk about it later.

But I'm thinking on that.

We ought to try to work out with the Russians so we don't put it all out in one bag.

I'm inclined to think that with the Russians, they'll put some of the crap out.

And all the day of the day, we agree on that.

There's one real problem.

That's the problem.

We've really got to address ourselves to

Ziggler's race, and some enemy races way back at the beginning.

Talking about the problem they presented to the yellow, they depressed.

They're going to be over there frustrated, mad, cold, and proud of what went in the right field.

You understand?

Even though they're fit well, even at their brink, they are not going to believe, not going to be happy unless they get stories.

And we can't give them stories.

I mean, because we can't do it.

Now, the only one that can do it is 4-0 Ronald.

And he's got to walk out there and say, well, we met for eight hours today.

The president had a cold or some goddamn thing.

That's a real great hot stuff.

He's prepared for that.

That's what he's got to do.

He's got to sign off.

I know.

There's all he has, Howard.

And they used to lose time.

We've got to figure it.

Is there anything else you can do?

The president, I think, would be a mistake.

I think this communication we have is really

particularly if we explain whether enunciation of force between the two countries is a statement of principles, I think there are a lot of cultural and economic, it's got a lot more than any of them are predicted now.

You haven't got that in the support administration, the enunciation of force?

Yes.

In fact, it's always the one that you gave me.

It only has the country by country one in the background.

Oh, oh, oh, I see.

The other part of the communication.

I'll give you the whole communication.

I don't know why.

No, no, no.

I just want to see it.

We're not seeing the horse part.

I know you're working on that.

Well, I tell you, we'll do our very best to try

You see, the only way you can keep, which I think is terribly important, the only way you can keep Rogers and Green from talking to this and that is for you not to give them anything.

I have no interest in that.

I tell you, my point is, then you don't give me anything.

You're the best person to give me.

They'll all want to talk to you.

Then they'll, the back of the hand, they'll be utterly frustrated to be over there.

The end of the show, I hear an 80 press man tell me, and Ron Ziegler comes out and tells the others that today we met for ten, eight hours again, and we discussed nothing.

I told every newsman that there wasn't going to be any.

I think we made a mistake and have them all go.

Because I think the more we have, the more of a problem we've got.

And Ron is getting a little jumpy about it.

Ron has just several aliens in his country.

I mean, this is the key to everything we are doing.

It's the Chinese move.

It doesn't really matter.

We cannot screw it up.

This is what we have over the Russians.

It's the thing that has made everything... We don't want, of course, the Chinese story to be a dud in the United States.

But I must say, I haven't talked to a newsman.

Every newsman I've talked to, I've said there'll be no news.

They say that's fine now.

I think Ron's right in being concerned about it.

The first thing that will come out of the media is there will be news the day we arrive.

That's right.

And there'll be news the day they communicate.

And that, I think, is it.

Otherwise, no.

There'll be news the day you meet with Chairman Mao.

That's another thing.

It's just because of the fact of me.

And there'll be a picture.

And it will be, and then you'll have good picture stories, even though you consider crap under the wall and to the forbidden side.

Well, that's right, Mr. President.

I think the first night you have, you have the backward stories.

They're going to be on television.

They're going to be on television, and they're going to leave profound significance into it.

Then you have the opera one night.

I mean, that's not a great news story, but it's colorful.

Yeah.

Maybe the next day you have Mao.

You may have Mao at five.

I think there's going to be enough in the public shop that...

I think you're...

I'm making sure of that.

I don't want you to get in any frame that I do not think this move is about the Vietnamese, that I'm not aware of.

It's enormous significance.

I think it's enormous significance.

Except that Henry, you and I, and deals with the Chinese and the Russians, you have to remember this, and I say this after calling to Mauro and all the other friends,

You've got to realize that we're dealing with a bunch of, with the Russians that are just plain thugs.

These are civilized thugs, but they are condemned to, I mean, you really doubt the ones you're dealing with.

They only cut off the breasts and the heads.

They take it for a mouse, the tongue you use, because you can't cut off...

They had their second wife, who was a pretty one after the other one, and the father of their daughter, and he turned her away.

And then when he met with Tang, there was an icy look in his eye and so forth.

After Christ's sakes, if he thinks that we think that the Naxals were cruel... You know, you've got to have wisdom on the question.

To your eyes.

But my point is that we're dealing with repressing

It's just a whole bunch of cold people.

Now, therefore, I guess that's the point here.

There's no question about the whole thing.

It's terribly important.

They're doing something because of something we've done.

I'm just trying to not get trapped.

No, but that's the matter.

We don't want to be trapped.

We need to then buy something promised.

But maybe they're not buying something.

But if we look back to the secret talks, we've gained a hell of a lot more out of them than they have.

Yes.

They didn't keep us from doing one thing we wanted to do by these secret talks.

And you've completely disconcerted their campaign for this spring.

I mean, we've had them on the defensive for four weeks, assuming nothing happens.

I think the minimum that will happen is another meeting.

It has never happened that Lee Docter came to Paris for just one meeting.

Now, supposing nothing happens in these discussions, if they become public, it will drive another nail into Musk's coffin.

Yeah, of course, that's all.

Listen, if you love to put your fingers on the head, of course, if you go to this meeting and it stirs up, then you can blame it on us.

Even the mere fact that there's a meeting, here the Democrats are yelling, we've made an unacceptable proposal, and these guys for the first time are inviting us to a meeting.

And we've got to be leaning back down because they can't, the Democrats can't take any credit for this meeting coming along.

So I think we are strategically in a very, in a very good position.

They've all said nobody's going to talk.

This is not a community thing.

Yeah.

I mean, look at that.

Of course, that's what we are.

So that's a very good thing.

They have to because they are asking for the meeting.

This isn't the meeting we are asking for.

I mean, what's the sense of having a meeting with them?

But why for lunch?

No, no, but why did they invite us for lunch?

Because I've been meeting with them every time I met with them.

It was always from 10 to 3.

They've never fed us.

They would give us a drink of tea and a few cookies.

Well, Mr. President, these bastards do everything in a little symbolic way.

Last summer, up to this time, up to last summer, we always met like this, on two opposite sofas.

And so they did on May 31st.

Then on, when Leader Koch came back, they took me into another room which had a green cupboard table.

And I still maintain the discussions last summer

were more productive than any others we have had.

They didn't get us an agreement, but for the first time we went through a program point by point.

And after all, we were in great faith in faculty.

We could say we had settled six out of eight points, and no Democrats would contradict us.

We could say, supposing they had just rejected everything, we would have been in a much worse position.

This way, we could say,

There are only two contested points, and once the Democrats are raised, they don't happen to be part of them.

So I think they're not, I'm not saying they're going to settle with the president, but I think they're going to come on with an offer.

And I'm not, almost certainly we can't accept the offer.

But in the position which we are now, if we can't get a settlement,

if we can get time.

That's another event.

What appeals to me about this is that it may avoid the attention of the National Guard.

And Mr. President, it piqued my interest that under the plan, the period of demonstrations should be March 25th and April 13th.

Now, it would certainly amaze if we had for my trip to become known by just getting through to Andrew at the right point.

although we are better off having at least the first meeting, because if we get it announced, everyone is going to give us this idea of what should be proposed, and then if it fails, they're going to blame us.

No, no, that's what I mean.

The demonstrations can be made in retrospect to work in our favor, because the Democrats will undoubtedly say things

They will not disperse the demonstration.

My argument, Mr. President, is not that they're going to settle.

I see nothing we're going to lose and a lot that we can gain.

If we don't get a settlement, we can completely discombobulate our opponents.

But they're going to come up with an offer.

On that I'm willing to wage it.

It's not going to be acceptable, but it's going to be an offer.

They don't have to call me to Paris to tell me that they're rejecting our offer.

That's not their style.

That's what they can do now that we've made it publicly.

They can do it in a public session.

They leave nothing to gain by calling me over.

And supposing they do call me over to reject our offer.

It still doesn't help them very much, but Lee Doctoe has never shown up without starting a series of meetings.

He's never yet come in there for just one meeting.

For him to come all the way to Paris,

to invite me to lunch.

I mean, if they wanted to do that, they would say, let's meet at 10 in the morning.

They have never, it's not only me, they have never had a meal with an official American.

Now, they are out to kill us, Mr. President.

I have no illusions.

And there is nothing they would rather see than to have you destroyed.

But apparently they haven't quite figured out how to do this.

If they had LBJ at this time, in 1968 LBJ was going crazy.

He was moving entirely at their initiative.

I think this overture by theirs, one has to say they blinked.

And I think it's what the sequence of events that started January 25th, you're taught

Oh, that's right.

The bargaining lady sent them.

Then the going public, the porting of military force, the tough news conference last week, they all helped.

And you said there's not going to be another concession.

If you had taken the line, we're going to be flexible.

And we said this this morning before we do anything about what they were going to say.

If you were taking us offline, they would have had to say, all right, we'll wait another month to see what is going to come up with Max.

And the two summits are sort of boxing for men.

Again, the Russians are playing, I don't believe.

The Russians don't mind them having an offensive now.

But don't forget those two letters, the joy and lie and depression, including a copy of your January 26 speech and warning both of them that you'd suffered nothing coupled

with the poor and the poor.

On balance, I think what we're giving to the farming of the North is what we don't really want to do anyway, which we're doing only for psychological reasons.

I mean, we're doing the farming of the North to convince them that we would be farming the North consistently.

And...

You couldn't do more than two or three, one or two-day strikes, and all hell would break loose.

I mean, I'm totally really curious.

What does this do in terms of our continuing strikes in the South?

Not at all.

I wouldn't.

I think the strikes in the South are another good warning.

Oh, yeah.

I wouldn't stop a thing in the South.

We have never lost with the Communists by keeping up the pressure, never.

Now, the Chinese have to be treated slightly differently in manners, because they are human, but not in substance either.

I have one question I want to raise with you, Mr. President.

We are announcing today, as you know, the relaxation of trade with China, which is a good move.

Now, the Breeden is very eager that we make some sort of announcement of the continuation of the trade negotiations.

You approved the agriculture and a few other things.

I think it would be a good move if, before we went to China, there'd be a good signal also to the Chinese and would balance things out.

As we just, say, on Wednesday afternoon, made a low-key announcement that an American delegation will visit Moscow in March.

to continue the discussion.

I think Peterson can be controlled.

On that I think he can be controlled.

You do your best.

Well, Mr. President, I don't particularly... You know what I think about it.

You want to remember that Maury's hand is a natural line throughout history.

Maury always put the presidency first.

Peterson is a man who's going to pan for the publicity and get rid of sophomores.

I just put that down for 12 years.

The point that I made is that you've got to tell Peterson in advance so he can have a crack at it.

I don't buy it.

Oh, no.

There's no such thing.

This would be a continuation of that he would have to take somebody from agriculture alone for the grain field.

Actually, Peterson is taking a more restrictive view than Sand said.

He doesn't want billions, but...

I'll do my best, but I agree with you.

They can take butts.

They've got an equal right.

Great symbolism.

Well, we can take out the butts of the undersecretaries.

Butts is a damn good political asset to us.

If he's just back from Russia, he can really clunk around about how he's opening markets for the U.S. farmers.

That's fine.

In fact, Mr. President, I wanted to say, I mean recommend to you, but I mentioned it to Frieden this morning, and he says in Moscow at the time of our foreign trade ministry,

Let's just say it's handled by both of our people.

All right.

Because we have both.

Let me check with the not seeing him for lunch.

And then we're going to have both.

I'd like to have two, though.

Because one is really divided.

Yeah.

I think we should go along and plan an interpretive mission.

I don't know if there's anything to do about it.

But I think this is a fine idea.

I can't get a bus over there with Peterson.

It's very good.

It is a marketing point.

It's a marketing point, so it's almost indispensable that we need buses.

We've gotten around the farm area saying we're doing something with the farmers.

But Houston can get along great.

Houston can talk about computers and buses and talk about corn.

It's fine.

I think Peter has a lot of stuff to be sorted out.

That didn't go well.

Well, no, he had his problem.

You mentioned it.

No question about it.

But I think for the time being, I can keep him under control because he's been somewhat changed in terms of experience here.

Well, his trouble is he's got all these...

He's friends.

He talks a hell of a lot with his friends.

That's fine.

But I think it'd be a good announcement to get out before you leave for China.

It's sort of a warning for the Chinese.

Oh, and one thing, that's something that's very funny.

ambassador thing uh we've tried we've tried out on the air we haven't done anybody and uh the question that i raised is this uh this is the only one

He didn't have any problem with it.

He didn't raise it all.

But if he did, he said it.

He said it would be very out of that.

He said, I want to live there.

He said, well, I just want to live there.

Yes.

Now, you understand, his argument there was, Henry, he's not, he's not, but he says the problem is, the problem is it's just awfully hard to train.

This is what he said was Russia's line.

He also said you could put an inland grant in with the understanding it's only for this year.

That's right.

He said that we could never have come to a good end deal.

That's the reason I was here.

And, uh, Kellogrand, uh, it was the understated.

I think he was.

First, it's got to be somebody with a little stature.

Second, he's a businessman.

I can't go to school for him.

Third point is, I didn't even control him, Frank.

No.

You can't.

He's a total fucker to himself, you know what I mean?

As it happens, his life is pretty tough, sir.

When he was there before.

In most ordinary, he knows a hell of a lot about it.

But as a 6th and 2nd... What do you mean?

What do you mean?

Think about it.

What do you mean now?

Well, let me review what may come up.

If nothing comes up that involves the Soviets killing Grom, it's no problem.

It's just going to be hard to get rid of them once you've got them married.

No, no.

Roger's made that promise.

Roger's made the promise that says, I know you've got to have shotguns.

Award the people later.

And he says he'll agree to take it, you know, for years.

I said, where can he go from Germany?

That's the problem.

How?

This fellow's father is available.

Well, that's the other question.

Whether you can take Parma out of Pakistan.

He's determined to leave Pakistan.

Can you tell what he's taking on?

Yeah.

I think with Bhutto in there now, it doesn't have to be for us.

Well, let me check it, Mr. President.

Hill and Grant certainly...

I don't want to fire our ambassadors.

The only thing wrong with Hill and Grant is that we really learned that where we have our own ambassadors, we could do business.

Let me see what else you have to do with the Germans.

Let me see what else.

I just think it will prove to be not practical to get Hill and Grant out and...

I don't think you'll want him dead in a second.

I know.

I know you don't mind, but I did not make it like this.

When you said it's impossible to get him out, the hell it is.

Look at my morale.

The head's going to roll around here with the floor covered.

Scott is a great judge.

He wanted that pretty much, you know.

He's done.

He can do that.

Don't worry about that.

I don't think there's much he can screw us with in Germany.

Do you have a new man for Europe?

I don't know.

Well, see if one of them has got any other names to leave, because I don't know any other.

Hagerty.

Hagerty and one other.

Hagerty's got a high man.

He's taken up hedges.

Turned to the other guy.

Hagerty's got a high man.

He's got his mother next to that.

You know, when you're trying to put her in a deal with your friend that you know,

That's why I think it's such a significant move, and the North Vietnamese know this.

The only thing is we shouldn't let on at all, because if they know we're going... Because if we get anything at all, they're going to come out with their own peace plan, and if we don't adopt it, they'll blame us for this meeting, sir.

No.

I couldn't agree more.

It's absolutely not satisfactory.

This is all a first.

That leaves until the first day of proposal.

Well, if you hate some people, what's the age of none of us?

Mr. President, it is.

We can twist it, Nick, and twist it into another.

It's a time of real weakness.

That's less than four weeks after you kicked them in the teeth.

Less than two weeks after you poured poison in there and less than a week after you had said there'd be no other American concertions, they asked for a meeting with us privately.

Six years after we'd negotiated with them and they had never asked for a meeting.

I mean, that is not a sign of strength.

I mean, if we wanted to play it rough and just announce it now,

It would be stupid for us to do it, but there wouldn't be anyone who wouldn't consider that a positive step even if nothing happened at the meeting.

It would be a mistake to announce it because it would raise hopes.

It would give our opponents a chance to organize against us.

And to say what we should offer.

It has to be sent to delegations, senators, along with consultants.

Yeah.

In the unlikely event that we do get this thing wound up by July, I think we should crucify them.

I think basically the strategy of attacking them with all this squealing is that I'd run because

No, but I think it's the right strategy, because for the first time they're talking.

They're defending themselves.

Clifford, it doesn't matter what we do.

If we have to himself, please just kind of calm us more.

You know why people squeal?

Because they heard.

Sure.

What are you trying to tell them?

Well, the answer is sometimes they can squeal to me.

Well, fine.

I'll let them know then.

And, as I said, this is a trying to kill these disgusting people in the press corps who are, you know, they're here in the opposite of the nation, so we've got to find children.

We'll be proud and we're going to do it no more than usual, I thought, but we've got a little more to do.

Thank you.

They get it, so you tell them.

It's incredibly flexible, and they go on thinking that's the degree of it, the degree of it.

Christ Almighty.

Just don't fail to understand.

Of course, do it ourselves.

I don't want the other people to have no understanding of it.

We've got to deal with the price.

They always want to kiss their ass and suck her out.

And the way you're going to handle them is always crazy.

But you can't get through.

You cannot try this.

It doesn't mean you've got anything.

I've told the leader of this a hundred times, and he does it better than most.

The rest of the time.

Let's do it outside the finale for this meeting, quickly.

not too optimistic about the negotiations, but he also says the biggest leverage you have is they feel that you're getting re-elected and having a free hand.

That will be read by them too, and that's a useful thing for them to get into their head.

And after all, the previous question to me, how do they know you'll keep an agreement you made after the election, was another significant question.

Well, we shouldn't get our hopes up about any treatment.

That's another different thing about it.

But I think we are in the game.

Well, then I know we might be, but I'd like to see them delay their offensive.

Well, then I think... You see, if they do, we're going to get credit for that in another way.

People think we did it, and we should buy a bomb.

A bomb?

Damn right.

See, they were about to have an offensive, and we stopped it by cracking it.

Well, I think we have a better than 50-50 chance of really being infected.

And if they don't, we have another letter to come, then we can say, look, we accepted a private meeting with the defense.

Well, you may have to go to the private meeting, even if they have an offensive provider or something.

You probably have already.

We had the water.

I had it.

Don't worry about it.

We already had it.

We should give up.

Okay.

We're going to run that technician ambassador in for another four o'clock.

We'll give you that one.

And the only other thing is before the trip, the question whether you should do anything visibly with the vice president before you go.

No, absolutely not.

And the question whether you will end up with Barry Berwater before you go.

No, I can't.

No.

Well, it's up to you.

We have a record of that.

And you know, you can come to the leader's office.

I mean, I don't know how many of you thought about the vice president standing here today, but that was not what you, I wouldn't have said.

What in the hell was the purpose of meeting with him?

How did all that happen?

I'm not going to tell him about this this year, all you brothers and sisters.

I'm just going to be sure, you know, he's fully informed of this.

And I, I, I was on the phone with him, and I was like, man, the team treacherous, I mean, they're calling in before he went.

I said, look, I've got to tell you what to do.

I'm talking about listening to all the tricks we've done before.

How many years has this been happening?

And I had food go over in the breakfast.

If I ever want anything more expensive than that, I really would walk around the office.

It's higher.

I don't need marks.

It's easy.

I don't have to read.

So I still want to hold that line.

I stayed in the breakfast until last Saturday.

I'm going to do it again.

We may even lose some of it.

The purpose is not to get a snack.

The purpose is not to get like that.

Do it when you want.

All right.

Okay.

I have a really good memory of this.

Oh, this is one thing I've heard a few days now.

This is news.

I thought I ought to have a weekly dinner.

On the 25th.

Well, I'll start the next one off.

which he should have turned around and said, all right, that's a great idea.

But I do not believe that he said there was a lot of debate in the White House.

What in the name of Christ haven't we done to the businessman?

Did Martin do any good?

I don't know.

Oh, sure they did.

Good.

Each of them does some good.

But this is the wrong stuff.

You have the guy on this side of the street, and you have the guy on the other side of the street.

And because you had this guy once, he's come to think that he ought to come to the White House for dinner every year, not just once in four years.

And then after you've had him every year, he thinks he ought to come every month.

He's a bad guy.

Yeah.

I think he's, it's the personal default, it's really the Johnson type of stature that I, so he can do a little bit of this in my travels around the country and dropping in and doing a few, right, a few, a few, right, he's going to move as far as filling

That's all right.

But I'd be God's man if we didn't.

I mean, having to go down and get dressed night after night for a black-eyed dinner with a bunch of businessmen.

Well, we'll see.

Of course, I would consider it a deal and do what I can.

I have another thing.

I had my heart to do what I could.

I have a feeling that

And maybe part of the common problem is his wife.

You know, she's gone back to Texas for the war, and he said he didn't think they could go on down there.

They were going to Mexico.

I talked to him about Florida.

He had to get back to do some work on it.

Well, I think that's legitimate to a degree.

Because he's got all those branches and all those interests now.

And he's been, you know, his form has gone.

But I don't mean that she's a problem in the sense of being alive.

But I mean, she doesn't have to be very that happy about it.

I don't know, I should have done more of a problem like that.

And they have, they have.

And they'll keep doing that, but they don't.

You know, Washington is her kind of place.

I think she likes to, just like Johnson, you know, you get up to his ranch and you can see that's such a totally different world.

And if you like that, well, they let us sit around and talk, sit around in the rocking chair by the old stove and, you know, run on the porch under the pity and sip lemonade and fizz and sip bourbon and water.

Well, my hunch may be wrong.

Swap stories, drive around with the cattle.

What caught me like going before I left, excuse me, he loved to see the ranchers.

He said he might, he wants to get down to Texas City.

He said he might, he still might go and come back there.

He ought to come back two days in a row.

I mean, I feel like it's better than three months.

He said, I mean, I think he's got a way to go.

Thank you.