On February 15, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), Rose Mary Woods, Ronald L. Ziegler, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Dwight L. Chapin, White House operator, Tricia Nixon Cox, Henry A. Kissinger, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:12 am to 12:47 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 672-002 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Just as a matter of guidance, ABC News is pushing Scali very hard on an hour-long prime-time documentary on Mrs. Nixon's visit to China.
And they're asking for, they do it about a month after the trip, and it'd be a wrap-up of her travels, plus any comments and reactions she wanted to make, if she wanted to, because of Mrs. Nixon's China.
The question is, they would like to know beforehand, they'd set the crew up on a basis of doing it, if we agreed that they could do it.
The question is, in our minds, do we want to give ABC News or anybody any segments of exclusivity at this point that we'll maybe regret later?
My view is that we don't, that we say we'll look favorably on all of these things, that we simply cannot commit to any of it, that they should make sure to choose the .
The difficulty of giving NEC or anybody else an exclusive is that you run into a situation where first,
we may decide that, you know, they never know what's going to happen.
Maybe a complete bust.
You know, that they can screw her up to the point where we just don't want that.
That's right.
It won't.
The second point is, I don't think that's what the second point is.
It may be, it may be so good that they may want to have a way to get, I don't know how she can do three networks, but I... She might.
If we run tight, they might want it so badly that they might do it.
But I don't know.
I don't think they can do it that way because they...
I think the best way for a senator actually is through...
through documentaries.
I mean, they've got to present pictures and so forth.
Maybe she would agree to narrate a documentary, which she could do from a script, you see, rather than... Yeah, all that work.
Maybe so.
Well...
My view is that we shouldn't give anybody anything, and just like we won't commit to CPS for Henry, we're saying this sounds like the main disadvantage of committing to ADC for a documentary, then they're going to want to get into special positions and everything like that all the time she's there.
It's like committing to doing a picture cover story for life, and then driving them nuts, and then you've gone to the other people that are along, and they give you a cover story to see.
But we have our own film unit there.
Those are the ones we should give the preferred position to.
Then we can give that film to anybody we want to afterwards.
How good is our film?
Very good.
We're not using the Navy unit.
We're hiring a student.
You can't use the Navy unit?
This is the best Navy unit in the world.
This is not the Navy unit.
We've gone through a whole thing of...
getting the very best cameraman, the best sound man, the best lighting man out of the whole documentary business, the commercial people.
But we're hiring them.
We're contracting them through the Navy because they have the protocol.
Then what we're going to do is the film that they shoot, we'll make it available at cost to anybody who wants to use it, including the Nixon re-election committee or the Democratic National Committee if they want it or anything else.
And that film will be, and to the networks.
Some of the networks will use some of it?
I think they would, because it'll be behind the scenes stuff.
Some of it.
Sure, it's like all these pictures.
That's exactly it.
It'll be like all these pictures.
For instance, on one leg of the flight from Guam to Hawaii to Guam, we're going to let them fly on Air Force One.
They'll get pictures of Bill Rogers and people working around on the airplanes and that kind of stuff that nobody else will have.
It'll be part of the...
Totally controlled.
It's our panel.
Whatever we want to make available, we can.
Whatever we don't, we throw away.
And it'll also be, you'll have the full thing for your archives.
Well, it's all scalloped.
Those of you who have not heard this, we look very favorably on the idea, but we've had, we've had problems with others.
We've already turned on other people, others, you know, as a matter of policy for everyone.
I'm not concerned and so forth, but we're very favorably doing it.
I'll give you the journal, and the things, and see what the times are.
So, what will we participate in?
Well, we've got very little time, but I, we can't have an absolute commitment.
Right.
I want you to be under a good time.
All he's saying is that we give a go-ahead so that their crews can have the project in mind while we're there, and so that our own documentary unit will have this as one of its goals.
Our documentary unit will have this as a major goal, so we'll bring it home.
And their crews could look at another sort of thing.
Oh, you're absolutely right.
I always thought when we made these commitments, we have some regrets from them.
Yep.
And we don't have to do it.
What I mean is, we don't have to take away.
We were absolutely right on the hard line.
As it may, as it might have turned out, they all gave their shots, but they have to keep it as bright as possible.
And they all used to be, he used to do it in his own way.
And that's what they're gonna have to do on China.
And you know, they'll argue, well gee, if you don't tell us ahead, we just can't commit to doing laws.
If it's any good, they'll do it.
If it's not good, we don't want them to do it anyway.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, you're absolutely right.
They said that.
We just hard-line them and said, well, we understand perfectly.
We can tell each other that.
We can tell each other, too, that we are a show now.
And frankly, it's just as much in their interest as ours to do this.
If it isn't in their interest as well as ours, it might be worse if they don't do it anymore.
But I've been very friendly about it since we've been, we like their ideas and so forth.
But we cannot, and I actually have a policy on not letting anybody in.
And that's it.
I think that's the way we've got to do it.
And if we commit?
Yes, if you commit, we'll have a thing.
Say that if we commit, we'll have a thing.
And I'll be allowed to participate too, which is great.
Let's see if you do it now, then they're going to say, well, gee, we're doing this special on Mrs. Nixon.
The president's got to give us 15 minutes.
We can try standing on the wall, but we'll land back down.
Mrs. Nixon's got to give us a little exclusive here in the nursery as you're coming in.
There can be no exclusives off the wall or in the commune or this or that.
That's what they're going to want to ask all the way along.
Right.
Yeah.
And now we've just got to hang tight.
Everybody gets it or nobody gets it.
Except for our documentary crew.
We're playing it like we do all the other work.
I need you to do something.
Yeah.
That's good.
On the post-trip plan,
The way we kind of left it the other day was tentatively figuring out a leadership meeting Monday afternoon after we get back, and then keeping Tuesday and Wednesday clear for Camp David and Thursday for a report of some part of the country.
Friday a cabin meeting in the morning and then leaving for Key Biscayne for the weekend.
and then getting out into the country the following week.
Is that a rough pattern?
All right, because we ought to start figuring out how to get out into the country.
We don't have to lock anything, but we've got to start figuring what we want to do, if that's the pattern we want to follow.
Now, at one point, you had talked about wanting to get moving instantly when you get back.
And Henry just said, again, not in this context, but he said, you've just got to, having done it twice, and Dwight says the same thing, having done it twice, that you come back, it really is hard on you.
You know, it takes three or four days.
You're not missing a cold.
Well, but I mean, before you really feel like you can do anything.
Maybe we don't want to do the brain office then.
I'm not sure you do, but I think we ought to, my view is that we ought to leave the rest of that week clear, but with this tentative plan in mind.
In other words, we ought not to plan anything that you have to do until the following week.
But keep in mind that if you want to, you'd want to report to the nation that first week of the press conference or something.
And you might want to do the bipartisan leaders.
And the leaders was a total no problem.
Oh, I'm not sure we want to meet with the leaders Thursday morning.
I'm having a hell of a rhythm.
Well, I don't know what the hell we can tell them.
We're so damn restricted at the moment.
We're not telling them the present thing.
They're going to ask the usual stupid questions that we don't want to answer.
Are we going to do this and that to Taiwan and so forth and so on and so forth?
I just don't want that to be the way it can start.
I'll set the context with them that just there aren't any commitments.
Well, I know.
I mean, we tried.
All I want to be sure is that you don't want us to crank up some stuff that first week.
If we're going to do that, we ought to get started on it.
And I would urge that we not do it.
Pat's got to go out west that weekend after we get back to Florida.
Yeah.
Oh, that's when I'll be in Florida then.
But I don't think you want to go west.
Oh!
My other son thought of where you wanted to go, but that's a problem.
She's playing under some rating that I don't think you want to get into anymore.
No, I think for me to get on an airplane and take five, five and a half hours to California is about what I need, like a whole night.
You should go to Key Biscayne that weekend.
I should.
And I want that cleared out at least three full days.
Yeah.
Everybody's pretty well geared to that and that's where we're scheduling on that basis.
They understand the point.
sure i'm trying to i want to get them here to that i don't want them to be sitting out here on the lawn when you get back with 30 different meetings that they think you have to have because they think the other way there'll be no problem if they think that way then they can get into the problem well i'm just trying to think that i know this
It's like you're talking to Earth from the outside.
I have major feelings about it.
I do know that we have, particularly after our strong World Revolution, time to be pretty good by coming back and not being an advantage of a high peak.
Well, we disappeared for two weeks then.
Well, we didn't know how to handle some of that.
That's right, we didn't know.
I did tell a lot of things, but we didn't know how to get money out of it.
We didn't know how to get money out of it.
They went in there, signing things, crapping around.
This kind of thing, we can see that.
We can cover that.
Huh?
We can cover that.
Well, and if you get back and you feel like you want to do something, we can move into doing things as fast as you want to anyway.
Without having to be locked in that head of time.
I don't know that I'm important to the nation.
That's the other thing I think we've got to look at.
And I don't know how the coverage goes, but maybe if you don't want to do a report to the nation, maybe the rabbi and the way they handle the communique and all that in Peking, maybe that's the way to leave it.
And we want to remember, too, that... Or some remarks you make when you get off the airplane.
Oh, I have to ask.
I think you probably, if you haven't arranged it, that arrival time has got to be changed so that you can be online all the way across the country.
I don't want to come in in the middle of the day.
I don't care to share about me on the news.
We want to be online.
Is that right?
Well, you can be online.
The middle of the day, they're all open.
That's my point.
We found that in July, it's always in the middle of the day, Bob, forget it.
So maybe we have to change the day someplace.
Maybe we, I don't know about California, someplace else, but you see what I mean?
I think we should be, that's because the arrival statement doesn't mean something.
For me to waste my time with an arrival statement that hasn't come back in the middle of the day is no good.
Well, they're going to cover it live as sure as it's sure to proceed.
You know that.
Oh, they'll cover it live?
No question about it.
We don't care then about it.
I mean, we must not go in the middle of the day.
If we're going to get live coverage, you see, we couldn't assume that would pack it back from Africa.
Of course, you didn't get live coverage.
But we don't know.
Well, we're going to get live coverage when we come back.
We move it back to 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock at night.
Noon is wrong.
Noon is worse than 10 hours.
You see, you're planning there.
I know why you did that.
Well, we didn't actually get a crowd out of the airport.
No, we did it because of the time you leave Shanghai.
Oh, I see.
Stay a little while, Shanghai.
I'm back with Irving once we go.
So you leave Shanghai at 9 o'clock at night.
Now if that's the point, then that's the USA project.
You leave actually to be in Shanghai at 10 o'clock in the morning on Monday.
Now what you do is spend the rest of that day in Shanghai.
If that's not a good idea, you can then.
How about the night before?
Well, they have a dinner and a cultural show that night.
You can leave after that.
If you left with Shanghai at, uh, Mobile Island, now you can't see the parks there.
The difference is, you get here two hours after you leave Shanghai.
The time difference and everything.
on the same day.
Well, how about staying, spending the night in the basin?
That would be the easiest thing.
And maybe it's not a bad idea anyway.
You get to Anchorage, well, you're gonna have a hell of a hell of a lot of land that's all that money.
It's just awful.
What is it like?
Must be, what is it, 18 hours?
Something like that, yeah.
Oh, you leave at 9.
Right.
Well, 9 p.m. Washington, your departure from Shanghai is at 9 o'clock Eastern Time.
See, that's a good ceremony, too, on television.
That would be Sunday night.
Then you...
It's eight hours to... Anchorage.
Eight and a half hours to Anchorage.
And another seven hours here.
Fifty-fifteen hours.
Fifteen hours on a goddamn plane is not a good idea.
Well, why not?
You know that you can stay around at the base.
You've got comfortable quarters there.
It's only a couple of nights away there.
Yeah.
When you did Erolita.
Be that house where you met with Erolita.
Which is a good setup.
And it's right on the base.
You'd arrive in Anchorage at midnight.
And, uh, you could not then cut off both of the other people on either of the parks or something.
That is not a very interesting and important mistake.
Well, then let us come out for the departure.
Not the arrival at midnight, but for the evening.
Anchorage then at about 9 or 10 in the morning.
Anchorage time.
And get in here and, uh,
Hard times with your feet.
That's what I want here to just pull out of shame.
I don't just want to get here as fast as you can in person.
How much is the arrival here?
It's the report information.
That's what I think.
Do you feel like doing that much of a report to them?
You would never think that.
That's my old nation monster here.
The nation doesn't want to hear me get a song.
Oh, you're right.
Five to ten minutes.
Well, we had a wonderful time.
We met a lot of interesting people.
I hope it's a step toward peace, and God bless you all for your prayers.
Thank you very much.
That's a hell of a lot better than having to see my face dropping around about this thing.
You know what I mean?
Well, you might be a hell of a lot better off to have gotten off the airplane for eight hours.
Got into a bed, had a shower, and a good meal, and all that stuff, and got away from those engines.
And then get back on the plane and have a still seven-hour flight, which is a long damn flight.
Can we think a little bit more, too, about whether we are missing something?
We're not trying to find vision.
We're just thinking about what we're in control of.
All right.
No problem.
Good.
Good.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
It's looking at our business.
I think they got to the feeling, they got to have the feeling that I'm back in charge in Washington.
I agree with that, except that I'm not so sure.
You're not gone that long.
See, that's the thing we keep.
You're right.
You realize we'll be back two weeks from today.
This is 15.
We're back before that.
We're back in 28.
We're back two weeks from yesterday.
That's right.
It isn't that long.
I mean, hell, if we've got that conference small, then we're gonna be padding on, and now they'll be going on the Jefferson Day speeches.
I don't know.
That's if you're healthy.
And plus, if I could do the seven cents on these .
Well, I would want to go.
I know that my system will need, I think it will need, three or four days in Florida at that point.
On a completely relaxed basis, I think we'll need that.
And I suppose in California, you go there, and then you rest in California, and now you rest in Florida again.
That, I think, is a problem.
I think if you want to get to Florida, it's better to come here or go to Florida than it is to go to California.
February was a very, very long, long train.
It's not good.
Also, I don't know, I just think for national television, the arrival with the diplomatic corps in the Congress is a hell of a lot more impressive than with a bunch of people in sports shirts that nailed it all over time.
We can crank up a banger and all that there, but it still isn't .
I thought about this a little last night and I was thinking, I know on the right of all, we don't want to go to 12th and sometimes you have a strong feeling, but that's, I suppose you were thinking in terms of getting to some of the news, but I was thinking in terms of just that the rival wouldn't,
that you'd have a different report to the nation.
I can't go over to your point.
We may very well want to consider not doing any report to the nation except the arrival until maybe a week or ten days later when you have a press conference or something like that.
Yes.
But see, if the report to the nation is going to be made, I want it to come.
I want to look good to another thing.
I don't think, what I mean, as good as I can.
I mean, if I try to do it two days later, or three days after I go back to bed, I think I'll like it.
There's makeup and everything.
Chances are you're going to look more tired then than you do when you get off the airplane.
And when you get off the airplane, look, you tear out the bed.
That's right.
They always expect you to look tired in three days later.
That's what the whole matter is.
He's an old man.
You know what I mean?
No, sir.
Bases would go through if you got a little more time.
Well, the inspector will look tired when you get off the plane.
They kind of like it.
It looks like you've been laboring hard for weeks and all that.
But that's right.
If you wait a couple of days, you're going to say, geez, it doesn't look so good.
Also, if you do it out at the airport, the setting and all that, it's a new setting rather than a stage setting in the office.
Yep.
He's sure.
And the other thing you should think of is to stretch the story out a little that way.
And maybe a couple weeks later, I'll press on a little bit later.
For that, I know they'll be stronger around other issues.
Another thing that I've been here to be honest with you, and that's the way it is.
Let me say, I'm afraid to be honest here, if you're doing it in any way, instead of going and spending the night in Anchorage, you could spend it in Los Angeles on the way back.
How far was that flight?
Will you see what time Julia sent, please?
We can't make it all the way.
We could stop in Hawaii and review and go on into Los Angeles.
It would be no problem.
I don't know, but I can sleep in Los Angeles.
Maybe it makes a much difference, doesn't it?
Although it would be, it would make the difference that if you were to stop in Hawaii and refuel and then go to L.A., you could spend the night at your home.
Well, that means you're a welcome to Los Angeles, so it doesn't have to feel a welcome here.
Yeah.
All right.
The problem is, an arrival in Los Angeles is a rally.
An arrival here is an official ceremony.
Yeah.
And the level of this whole thing is such that everyone ought to come back to Washington, I think.
Which secretary would you be taking this to?
This one is, I find, about the best next to Rose.
She's a fantastic wife.
She is a super machine.
She really is.
Well, you get a few meetings around her.
It's Rose and Nell.
Those two will ask her because they're pros.
And Nell, there's no... Nell's value is that she can work across the board.
She knows everything.
She knows how to handle any of them.
She can't back up yourself.
But she's very good for the rest of the staff.
Rose isn't much good for the rest of the staff.
Discount, please.
Is there anybody to do any password?
She doesn't have a password.
Sure.
All roads now.
What roads?
Road shift.
I don't know if that'll work.
Well, we've got a couple of guests here, secretaries.
And it's ridiculous.
Roger's just out hanging around, so he won't have a damn thing for her to do.
Will you?
We're making the point to everybody that nobody has any private property on this trip, that whoever is there is there to help out with whatever needs to be done.
Not to have her down for what they're doing.
But you read, it's like trying to do your own typing, or your own filing, or your own answering the letters.
Anything that anybody else can do, even though they can't do it as well, let them do it.
Especially that, there's just a hell of a good reason for a person who's on display.
I don't know about it, but it's just ridiculous.
I'm awfully glad I got to have this garment last night.
It was a nice thing for him.
Now, they all just sit in a small room.
Well, Lennon particularly loves that, and then he used to sit with them during my role, and oh, God, it would be very meaningful to him.
Well, I mean, I think he did all of them, you know, but one of the great literary geniuses of all time, and, you know, he's... And here, I'm sure that it's...
And before you know it, another thing, I changed the CD a little.
I didn't know he had the time to put it, but I had somebody else buy him.
And I put Smith on it, Mark Smith.
Of course, Smith managed to talk to him in perfect French.
Because Smith was in, Trant was in Europe, and Smith was a hugger to Mackey.
So, which of course was the, as he did the golfs, the war, that kind of thing.
So it gave me a lot of relief because I didn't have to talk to them all the time.
On my right, you could talk to him in French.
Just a great, great idea.
Well, it was great to have Smith there, too.
He was worth a lot to us.
Well, the only thing, the way he did go to China wasn't to face the Russians.
They grew up.
How does that end?
I need to rush it.
She doesn't want to go.
I don't want to get past you.
I need to get past you.
Do you see what I will do if I'm not personally employable?
The mystery is, is we have to cut her.
I mean, that is the norm.
That's it.
Nobody's been there for so long that no president's ever been there.
No president's been to Moscow either.
But people out of Kiev, they know what's happening in Moscow.
They don't think they know what's happening in Kiev.
You can still change that pattern, can't you?
Sure.
Sure.
So, I think we've got trouble probably changing anything out of China, but we can... Oh, don't try that.
I don't think you want to spend any more time there anymore.
If you have a whole day, you might get out the night before, but I think that would be a little bit... Yeah, it would be...
I mean, we talked about that.
As a matter of fact, we wanted to do that.
I think you can insult the Chinese if you have a real problem doing that.
Because we tried to skip the dinner and leave before dinner, and that all shook.
And then the cultural show there is, they're very proud of us, most of them.
It's going to be a good thing for the Chinese.
But we can certainly change anything.
Once we're out of Shanghai, we can do anything we want.
to decide at this time.
Let me ask, if you had to stop at Anchorage and stayed overnight, you would agree that you'd have to let a crowd come in here before you see us all the next morning, would you?
Yeah.
I don't think you could cut that off.
They would feel apparently inclined.
So that's all right.
You could do that very easily.
Which is exactly what happened immediately.
He said, first of all, get a lot of courage.
You leave there.
Wait there around 12 o'clock and say, what time is it?
No, what time is it?
You leave there around 10 o'clock Eastern time.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, sure.
So other than that, you've got a health timer.
It's 5 at the health unit.
You've got a 5-hour timer in a train from New York.
Yeah, but you, I'm talking about Eastern time.
If you want to arrive here at 9 o'clock, you have to leave there at noon Eastern time.
It'd be 7 o'clock bedtime, 2 o'clock.
Yeah, that's right.
You'd be early in the morning there.
Yeah.
So, so it was, you won't get live coverage, but it was got a, it was got a nice radio story all the way.
He was in love with the DMV kids.
But I would have to be very careful not to say the name there.
I wouldn't say.
And on a departure, you know, it's easier to get away with the departure thing than it is with an arrival plane.
You can get off the plane, you've got a problem.
But when your car comes up to get on the plane, we just have a... You don't have honors and fans and trooping the line and all that stuff.
You just let the folks come out, wave and cheer.
I need you to get away with that.
I have to say a word, though, to the microphone.
I have to say thank you very much for coming out to see us off at this early hour.
It was good of you.
See, that's how you kill it.
You're back in the United States right now.
That was why we were going all the way through.
It was just going to happen.
A closed deal at Anchorage at midnight.
So close.
Yeah.
We can't.
Keep it closed.
You know, there could be some people out there in mechanics and stuff like that, you know.
What I meant is, though, you could do it from a wave.
It would only be a wave kind of a deal.
No microphones.
Maybe that's the deal.
What harm is there in that, stopping an anchorage that most people don't think is in the United States anyway?
You know, they don't think of that every time.
And you just hear, here we are, and he's on his way, and that's the shot.
Not say a word.
I think he'll think if you say a word.
Shake a few hands, I think you have to do that.
But you're finding me to arrive here at nine o'clock Eastern, huh?
Well, if you're gonna go for television, you might as well.
Am I wrong?
Do you believe that it's a good live show in return?
If you're gonna say something, yeah.
to say something.
I'll say something in the internet.
They walk out there and somebody gives you a welcome home thing and you get up and say something.
You always do that.
We thought you'd be tired from the flight, you wouldn't want to get the maximum TV.
You'll get a good spectacle shot on the news.
Of course, I know, it's not the same thing that's coming online.
No, that's right.
It is.
A lot of people would tune in and go, how do you get the weather?
Because people would be in the pattern of watching you at odd times anyway.
At odd times.
But you won't.
There's no way you get anything while the audience you get at night.
Well, let's think about it.
Maybe we're camping on something that we can't, so maybe they wouldn't cover the line.
It's not a possibility.
They've had so damn much and so forth.
Just arriving home.
Now, if I could do it as well, I wouldn't be able to check and conceive, but I just can't conceive that they wouldn't cover the line.
He said, he would.
I said, I sure do.
And there's no question they would cover a lot of the name.
That's, listen, that turned me on.
I mean, it's like the state of the union.
30, 40 letters.
You can't get a bigger audience than you have in the state of the union.
You know what I mean?
It's not much of a problem.
No, this is maximum 10 to 12 million.
This is against 60 to 70 million.
Well, it's kind of tall, plus the middle three rounds.
Plus the middle three rounds, which is another 20 million.
At the maximum outside, you can get close to half the people.
That's half the number.
Hi.
Hi.
I'm sorry, buddy.
He went in a small pipe with a heart.
Oh, okay.
So, let me get to one thing.
I think that just from a physical standpoint, we should not fly all the way from Shanghai to Washington.
I just have a feeling that that is too goddamn hard.
I mean, we'd live in on that airplane for 15, 16 hours.
I don't think, the more I think about it, that a stoppage in Anchorage is really a...
I just have a feeling it's going to kill the Washington sub.
I may be wrong, but I just don't think it is.
And the one thing we could outsmart ourselves, if they didn't carry the arrival lot, we'd really screw ourselves.
Because you'd miss the news.
Because you'd miss the news.
The noon thing, you know they carry a lot, and you know they have a big chunk of it on the news.
In fact, they'd probably carry the whole thing if you spoke less than 10 minutes.
That's what I would do.
I would plan that.
And then I'll have him, you know, the scouts, the professor's office, isn't there?
Yeah, the scouts.
We've got to get him cleaned up and washed.
Go ahead and say that again, please.
And the scouts, let's say they come there too, you know, a big deal for him to be.
Yeah, well, you know, Mr. 13, I'm awfully glad you love him.
It was very good to lead him on and make any difference at all.
He's with us now.
He's not ABC.
And who the hell cares?
Who knows anyway?
You know, that is one way to reward our friendship.
We all like to spend the day like that.
Right?
Well, that's kind of the dinner that Howard Smith will never forget the rest of his life.
And that's where he seems to forget a lot of stuff.
A White House dinner is just another White House bomb.
They were very effective, but this is bigger.
This is bigger.
Said to a guy like Smith, this would be much bigger.
I would thank him.
I'm sure it would be.
And to a guy like, to a guy like Scala.
It's those things, scouting, we've done some damn good stuff for her.
You know, that, being in Perino's that night after the signing of the announcements, you know, all that kind of stuff was... Did you notice that the LA put a hell of a play in the news speakers about the district who was living with China's restrictions, Scott?
Yeah, oh yes, there was a hell of a play.
I don't want to call it even negatively known, but yes.
Yes, it did.
China was big yesterday with the schedule.
China had busted.
You totally doubted the news yesterday.
Both sides.
Back there, foreign and domestic both.
And the Monroe thing was a nice little sprinkler.
I was just saying to Bob about the nicest thing he could have done for Len Donovan.
He never gets to anything.
Oh, he was really delighted.
And also for Howard Smith.
He also spoke French.
That's why I put him by my role.
And also because I put him there and learned he spoke French the moment I arrived.
And Andrew Scali.
Those are guys that don't get to events very often.
Scali's been getting to a few events.
Don't you think they got any kind of interest?
You know, the thing is, because Mauro wanted to feel authentic in his part-time, and actually get used to the tape that he had, it was just fascinating.
Didn't they have, didn't they, didn't they probably all have it?
Everyone enjoyed it.
It was fascinating, and it was really wonderful.
And your change was very good.
Somebody ought to make their notes of it.
Instead of putting it in the file, I didn't make any.
I won't.
It's time to make any notes, except stuff that easily changes people.
But we had a very easy analysis.
I'm surprised at his reaction.
He was violent against Kennedy.
He's having a press conference today, and I bet he'll react that same way Martin gets to the question.
He said he was...
Kenner told me this morning.
Deranged.
I thought it was deranged.
I thought it was Steve Carlin.
No, it's something like that.
Demented.
Demented.
Demented.
Demented even worse than deranged.
He said, only if the men in mind.
He said, only if the men in mind.
It's quite irritating.
Or he said, a bunch of women.
He said, it was women.
You see, he has been quite a can-be-eye.
Oh, sure.
John Kenner developed his book, too.
John Kennedy, I don't know if it was John as much as Bobby, you know, the woman.
He dedicated his book to her.
You know, Jacqueline Draghi.
He's a romantic, despite his duller exterior.
He's kind of a brush talker, isn't he?
He's going after the Kennedy grade this morning.
Nothing wrong with that.
Might as well identify a little with the candy grape.
Damn right.
That doesn't hurt us a bit.
But he was really, he was angry about it.
He said he was embarrassed because it was such a stupid remark.
He said he might have doubted it.
He was just deducing that because one was the most populous and the other was the most prosperous, that the two inevitably in some time in the future would, they had to get it.
It's like that.
He said even though the question does not, will not come up.
He said the question will never be raised to the Miami Bridge and its third, fourth area.
Yet even if not raised, it will still be a question that exists.
Will the Bridges section of the world assist the, you know, East Coast?
They may push it today on Bangladesh, which we, of course, stay away from.
That's all I'm going to say.
It's a dead story.
They're going to be mortgaged in China.
We were discussing the arrival and return.
I'm telling Bob that coming back at 12, in my view, is a dead loser.
So first, forget the lodge.
I mean, it's not .
I mean, you're just playing for a written story on the radio, five or six million people.
Maybe it's eight or nine.
But the question is whether or not if we come back at night,
We carry on.
The point being that the more I think of it going on, probably three or four days later, the more it's more likely that we believe it.
The report on China is going to be terribly asthmatic.
There's a goddamn thing I don't want to say about China.
I'm trying to sit in communication and say it all.
I don't need to be hedged, re-hedged, and so forth.
And we will want to move.
I just don't want to make all networks and everybody sitting there in a chair and having
report on that basic kind of trip that people are not interested in.
I mean, except for the news and disease.
In other words, what do you do about Taiwan, and what about Japan, and what about trade, and what about culture exchange?
The average person wouldn't give one ticker's bin about that kind of thing.
If we come then, and in terms of making bad news, we can do that.
If we want the leadership, we can do that in a whole variety of ways.
If we want to do something, that's where we return.
Now, therefore, I was thinking that inevitably when you return, there's always a statement made.
What we really want is to have that statement heard by a hell of a lot of people while they're still caring.
And I was thinking of coming off the plane at 9 o'clock at night and get to welcome the diplomatic corps and the rah-rah-rah on the band, setting them up there, and then just speaking.
directly to the people playing in the background.
We have returned for 10 minutes.
And so what we have basically is a total time of 30 minutes, and I have to take from 9 to 10.
We might finish by 9.20, but my point is that they would have to take turns of their hands to lose a half hour time, but 9.30.
Now, the question is, and this is the critical question, whether they would carry that out.
Well, now we can run into this before we're to heaven.
I came back from one of the other trips, and we all expected live coverage of that damn thing, the wasteland record, didn't we?
I don't know which it was, but it made quite an impression.
We thought it was live, and it wasn't Europe.
No.
The first European trip they covered... Well, on the round-the-world trip when the Vice President fell, remember?
That was the first European trip when he fell.
That was on the round-the-world trip.
They did not cover it.
The round-the-world trip, he came almost...
I know that lot, but it was daytime.
I know there was one where we came back at night and they did not cover it.
That's right.
I don't know which it was, but the question is, will they cover this arrival lot?
The question is if he comes back.
I don't care about life.
I know, but that's the thing answering Ron's point.
10 o'clock in the morning, sure they covered a lot.
The question is if he comes back.
I don't care about life.
You can find out, but I'd give you the answer now.
They're gonna cover it live.
The President of the United States flying out of China, direct through Anchorage and asking, what do you think it might is?
That's the other side.
In order to get there, it wouldn't have been direct through Anchorage.
They'd have to stop at 12.
Only, but on the other hand, remember, we would stop there, go to bed.
Stop there, go to bed, and leave at 7 in the morning.
In other words, the whole purpose in Anchorage would be no saving.
I'll tell you another thing, too, if you want to do it.
If you want to do it.
What was the time of the ride on 12th and 9th?
You should just spend nine hours more in Shanghai if you don't want to.
If you do, you can.
You take a little of the speak off.
Yeah.
Back in the United States, he's home safe, even though Anchorage isn't considered America.
Because they're liable to just go into the anchorage and cover your line.
Why?
Now, who would give anything?
Why, I know, but they're liable to take a live anchorage.
Okay, let's do it.
Here's what happens.
Let's think that through for a minute.
What would happen if you arrived in Anchorage at midnight Anchorage time?
That's right.
And it's a closed arrival.
We close the base.
There's nobody there.
Nobody.
It's 20 bullets in our way.
Everybody's in bed.
We get off the airplane, get in the cars and drive to those places where we stayed before and go to bed at midnight.
Stay there until 9 o'clock in the morning.
And get up and go out to the airport.
At that time, there would be some people around.
but you know official type of thing.
You sway a bass drum, tell the bass close, and the president just waved to those folks, and he waved to them, but he doesn't say anything.
So they're carrying it live, so what the hell?
You've got a picture of the president getting on the airplane.
I still think you do, and that's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, so there's no audience.
that you lose because you have the president leaving him and flying across the story it's all or the president is waning as well you know and it's kind of and then if you stop in Anchorage and sleep I mean you lose that let me ask you this really isn't it easy to resolve this thing
If I simply stayed here the next morning and drank, I'd have to go to the coffee room or some kind of thing.
Just leave a little later.
You have to leave nine hours later, though.
You'd have to leave, you're not scheduled to leave Shanghai at ten o'clock in the morning, their time.
You would have to stay until seven o'clock in the evening.
Now, another way you could do it is to shift the thing.
and go away at wide.
Now is that, now that's, that adds four hours of your time.
Is that bad?
Jesus, it puts you on a goddamn airplane for 20 hours.
I didn't get something bad, it's disastrous.
That's wrong too.
I can't sleep there.
The other factor is, if you're gonna go on
TV.
You want to be as good as you can be.
You're going to be better on TV if you slept on the ground, had a shower and breakfast.
True.
And then come out with only seven hours on the airplane instead of 15 hours on the airplane.
That's a hell of a difference.
My word, you can't argue with the fact that she wouldn't be more rested and feel better.
And look better.
And look better.
That is a long... You don't look good sitting on an airplane for 15 hours.
It's a long ride across there, I'll tell you.
You have a bed on the plane and all that, and you...
Take it pretty easy, but it ain't like I'm sleeping in the house.
I don't know.
I'm sure of that.
I told you I'd go to the coaching room.
I got a damn ticker.
They all screwed up.
Well, they're playing third and higher than me.
I was coaching.
I told you.
It was nothing.
We circled for six hours.
He served in the yard, and he served with Boston, and he served with Washington.
He went back and landed in 24.
This was in 1967.
He landed 23 hours in a coach.
Unbelievable.
But it was a wretched experience.
Wow.
I can see your point, Ron.
It would take some of it off, but it'll take it more off to the press corps, maybe, in a way, than it will to the people.
People don't know what he's doing because they're not in touch with him.
He's on his way back from China.
Going over, we stop for two days to spend the night.
Coming back, we stop for one.
I don't know.
I don't know.
We call it a dealing shop.
Yeah, but see, the other thing you get in there too, and I might as well talk about all aspects of it.
No, you don't.
You get this.
You've got the thing of the president's holding over in Alaska in order to make primetime television.
That's going to be said, and I don't think we should have that said.
We've already announced my return.
No, sir, we haven't.
We've left the whole thing totally loose.
It's not holding over in Alaska to get on primetime.
It's...
You come out luckily on times of the day.
You arrive in Alaska at midnight.
What do most sane people do when they get someplace at midnight?
They go to bed.
If we were arriving in Alaska at 10 o'clock, I don't believe it.
I just can't believe they're going to make that.
Because of the fact that they expect you to get some sleep before you go.
And so they say that he's going to give
Would you be willing to build up your remarks a little bit?
I intend to.
I mean, to make the blood and veins build up, because that's the other point of it, is that the President, that's the way to assure that you'll be on line for one minute, is to say the President plans to make his remarks.
There's no question about the fact that they will cover the arrival line, no matter how we do it.
No question about the fact.
So, you know, the decision about staying overnight in Anchorage and so forth,
It does not relate to the law of television.
Let's come again on the thought of leaving Anchorage out of it.
Because for us, we're moving around Anchorage.
Do you ever go into town?
I don't.
We have five months on our hands.
It isn't a hell of a lot of advantage.
What I meant is that the plane and the tire and so forth shows 15 hours, but we are in a little different situation.
Unfortunately, other people are not in it, but I will have a bed, and I'll sleep in the bottom-down bed, and I can stretch out.
When you have privacy, you can be left on your own.
Most people don't have a right to survive.
Now the point is, it's too much to see if we can get the Chinese.
I think it's worth, let me say, I think we can think of the difference between being online with 10 million and a little tremendous news.
And by being alive, it's a real arrival of 90 with 60 million.
It's worth it.
So now the question is, can we stay in Hong Kong?
I don't know what are the .
They got some other things they'd like for us to see.
Now, quite incidentally, one thing you could do, certainly, is to make your refueling stop, so that you didn't leave at seven o'clock at night, which would look like trying to get here at nine o'clock at night.
I think we could, I'd just like to send it off a little bit earlier than that, and let the refueling stop be two hours.
Yeah, the problem then is that two hours is at 9 o'clock in the morning in Alaska instead of at midnight.
Oh, I should obviously... Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't, but... Maybe he's paying us to get off the bike.
How do you keep the governor and the folks away?
Now, you're still at 9 o'clock there anyway, because your departure there is at 9 o'clock in the morning, but suddenly you get away with a wave of the hand on a departure that you can't learn how to run.
It's pretty hard just to get off.
Or let's say you don't get off.
How come you can't sit on the airplane for two hours?
You can't resolve it.
You can't resolve it.
You've got to add nine hours to the thing somewhere.
And the way to add it is to spend nine hours longer on the ground in Anchorage, which is, it turns out, it's the best possible timing you could have for a building, arriving at midnight, going to bed, and leaving at night in the morning.
If you're going to do it at all, I agree with you that it does take some of the edge off, but really, I wonder how much.
Nine hours is long enough that everybody, the press and everybody else, gets a chance to get into a hotel room and take a look at the press because they won't miss me coming in at all.
You're, you're probably right.
Midnight makes sense.
Midnight Divine makes sense.
Yeah.
You really should.
I just think too that the idea that you shouldn't, that we ought to stop stealing.
You really ought to.
rest for a little on the way back.
What we can do, if we decide on this, we can, because the only thing we've said up to this point, no departure time, no arrival time, nothing, but it's generally included that you would return directly from, you know, it doesn't say anything about, through Anchorage.
Yeah.
No one's even thought about, well, will he sleep there or won't he sleep there?
If we decide to do this, the way to cut away that other problem we've talked about, we can just begin to say, well, if they're going to do the press and come back to the average, stop their arrest or, you know, overnight stop.
So it catches back up.
It's an overnight refueling.
It's an overnight refuel there.
Well, you're making a point about the clock, too, because we're making a point about the clock going the other way.
You're making a point about the clock going the other way.
So he gets in here early evening, and let's not settle this now.
Let me talk to Dwight, because there may be some more that we don't know about Shanghai and Anchorage and all that that may... What do you mean?
Well, there may be some reason that we could make a very good case for staying in Shanghai.
I don't know.
I think though that it would take some of the edge off of flying directly back.
I think it would be the rest.
I really do.
I think we need to break that syndrome right there.
Rather than taking that emergency flight, I've done it too often, you know.
It's just a terrible, terrible dream.
Well, I agree.
You get a nice sleep, then you get on the plane, you've got seven hours flight, you've got an airplane coming back after 15 hours.
You know, all of a sudden, you still feel long.
You know, it depends.
It's not like the sleep you get on an airplane with that engine going all the way.
It's not like the sleep you get on a plane.
See, one thing that I, when I was talking about the drama and so forth, and the TV, I wasn't factoring in the midnight 9 o'clock as a natural thing to do.
If you have to be lucky, you get your time stopped at midnight.
It's a natural thing.
It's a natural thing.
So we just get off the plane, breathe the wind, and go to bed.
The problem there, of course, is that midnight in Alaska is only five in the afternoon or something in Shanghai.
So under body clock, you're not reading well.
None of that works.
But what you say, you're unwind.
You're just bugging along.
It's very cold out there like that.
What'd you say?
You didn't act.
Matter of fact, say it.
You have the nice color she's bought.
The person who's made this flight many times from Asia to Washington.
And he's off from Duke, Tokyo, to New York.
And he has known, and he's advised on it again.
all will break with at least one night of sleep on the way, and go across the international date line.
He feels that he can do it, but that after an exhausting, very tiring trip, that it just adds an extra
with attention, you know, and so forth.
And that's true of children, also.
I recommend that they shop in California and Hawaii, if they can afford the time, but always make one stop, always make one stop, usually Hawaii.
Going backwards, which most of them prefer, because it's almost far and longer.
I'll tell you the typical reason that a blogger would stand up.
But I have spent time, I have stopped at Anchorage before, and spent the night, just stopped, spent the night to stretch away and come home.
But it just happens, it comes to you.
She has the soil conservation values today.
One other great picture on the front page of the Miami Herald is Julie.
She's really got the people.
Trisha's got the majesty and Julie's got the common touch.
As I said, I think that after the drama of seeing China for days and days and days and days, the history of the course of the nation is not going to be something I'll want to do.
And of course, the other objections that I have not had anything to say.
See, everything is going to be said in that meeting.
Everything.
And to give a kind of a personal wrap-up on your arrival, that's the reason why I think
without saying anything, is to come back and do it again.
Do it when they're interested in it and they've seen it.
And then they want to get the training out of their minds for a little while.
And then let the commentators and a lot of other older out-and-out trainers, they will.
That's why I don't want to bring any specials at this point.
Later on, two weeks after we return, maybe we can hold them up again.
Maybe we want to specialize them.
Maybe we won't.
We'll see.
They're bound to run.
They're bound to run, essentially.
That's why I told them it was essential to just stay in Alaska because you can prepare, you know.
Well, you can prepare anyway.
You can stay in Shanghai and you've still got 15 hours on the airplane.
You can sleep a while with that.
You can work that out in a minute.
All right.
Preparation is no problem.
So you got it?
No problem.
You don't have it that way, do you?
The two problems of that are, one is just to find a way to get in and arrive at the right time of day.
We're just raising a question, Dwight, on return.
The President makes the point that we're wasting one of the best shots we've got on arrival by the noon at Andrews, so we should come in at 9 o'clock Monday night in prime time.
If it would be live, Ron says that there's no question it would be very live if we did.
That gives him a chance to make his report to the people on his arrival when they're interested, rather than waiting two or three days or a week and trying to go up with a report that he doesn't have any report to make.
So to get to the logistic question, assuming that Cesar will arrive here at 9 o'clock Washington time, and to do a statement then, how do we arrange it so we do it?
Two ways.
But I think you see another one.
But one is to stay in Shanghai on the last day.
Instead of leaving at 10 o'clock in the morning, wait and leave at 7 o'clock at night, you have to come in nine hours later.
It means you leave Shanghai nine hours later would be one way to do it.
Which is a problem because your arrival in Anchorage becomes a daytime arrival.
Now, the other alternative is to leave Hentai on schedule, arrive in Anchorage on schedule, go to the
quarters at Elmendorf, 10 to 9.
You arrive at midnight, which is a logical time to go get off the plane and go to bed.
And then at 9 o'clock in the morning, you get up and leave Anchorage at 9 and arrive here at 9.
I'd be impressed by that, because everybody's going to be so tired anyway.
Let's look at the logistics.
Is there anything that we don't know that makes a difference?
Like, is there a reason to stay in Shanghai for that day?
Well, it depends on where they're going to communicate.
You could conceivably have engine on that instead.
But there's no way we can control that, is there?
We don't even discuss it with them.
We wrote it right at this point.
We don't know.
That's true of anyone.
Communicate as it is now.
If you do the communicate out of Shanghai, you do it at 9 o'clock Eastern time.
It's perfect.
If you stayed over 9 hours, you'd be doing it at 2 in the morning, which would be ridiculous.
So that doesn't help us either.
So we're really better to force them to let us out of Shanghai.
at the scheduled time, because 10 in the morning Shanghai is 9 in the evening our time.
And that's our final departure from China, and that's a damn good live television show, too.
But is it more important to have the ceremony here or the communique?
Which is most important to you?
Here in the cave or the arrival here?
The arrival here.
Because the communique you can't avoid anyway.
It doesn't have any negative things.
Do it when it's early in the morning here.
And then play on to the arrival here, then... Oh, you're saying Monday night?
See, we can't control them.
Well, that's what Henry wants to do.
And there's a lot of argument in favor of doing it, communicating Thursday and Peking.
Yeah, Friday and Peking.
Before you leave for Hangzhou and Shanghai, then you're sort of finished with your business.
It adds a little to Steve not putting it out and then holding until that last meeting in Schenkenheim.
Is it kind of the last meeting with Joel Meyer?
Yes.
Yes, it was the afternoon.
Sunday afternoon.
I don't think Sunday afternoon.
But if there is a negative thing at all in the communique, or negative connotations that you would want to avoid, then by putting it out at 2 in the afternoon, which would be 3 in the morning here,
and then departing a little later on, you would avoid that strong impression, which would be made by the communique here.
I think you're right in most cases.
The communique out of China, no matter what time you release it, it's all a matter of, you know, it's going to play very, very heavily.
He mentioned earlier that it was negative in terms of the...
Controversy.
Taiwan, for example, which is a problem.
On the other hand, I think the positive features of it, like I said, Taiwan can be watched by many China watchers, but the positive features are going to be quite overriding.
You're not going to want to get off the plane at Elmendorf.
You're going to go to bed, I don't think.
I think that's going to, when that point in time comes, you're going to be going at such a speed that it's going to be very hard for you to sleep when you do get in there and try to go to bed.
And then delaying your getting there, you're going to be even tireder once you arrive at Andrews.
Am I reading that right?
Well, that's all true, but the worst time to arrive here is in the middle of the day.
Well, the other point, if you happen to just kill yourself on Halloween, because it's like going to the State of the Union at the end of the day, which we do deliberately, but we don't want to be on the night of Halloween.
So you come here and you have fire service, and you have a lot of news, and that's not the way to do it.
None of this, I agree.
I should have thought this earlier, because I had a note to go through mentioning a month or three weeks ago, but the whole plan should have been arrived here at night.
Well, it wasn't.
It was all purposely moved back on the basis of not having gotten off with 15 hours of airplane flying, and you didn't want to go out and make your flight.
But the arrival, even if I didn't do anything, should be at night, I think.
What is it?
Do you mind flying longer?
Would you rather fly longer than to get off the plane and try Hawaii?
Well, just loop past the islands and island outback.
I'd go to Wake or something and review a lair.
It seems like all the other flights have come back from Anchorage.
And there are really only two choices to meet the deadline of 9 o'clock.
Stay in Shanghai and fly direct or leave on schedule overnight in Anchorage.
You can have the best of both worlds on this.
Do the communique in the morning in Shanghai at 10 o'clock, which is 9 o'clock Eastern Time.
Then you go back to your guest house.
You delay until in the afternoon.
We just tell them that we would like to stay on.
In fact, we may even be able to come up with some little event or something that you could go see.
There's a bird's eye view of Shanghai that's fantastic, I think.
Which is not a spectacular thing.
Which is not on your schedule.
The only thing you do publicly in Shanghai is you visit an industrial exhibition that they have there.
Mrs. Dixon, while you're meeting with Cho in the afternoon, visits the children's house.
But we can do it at the cultural camps tonight.
I think they would understand perfectly what, and they would immediately read what you were trying to do.
They would know that you wanted to get in here at prime time.
No, that's bad.
Well, but no, I think they understand that kind of stuff.
I don't think that's our question.
That's going to be as obvious to them.
But our question is how many we're going to leave in.
No, they've got to delay.
They were going to delay anyway to final communicate and so forth.
So what we are doing is actually helping our press corps by giving them a chance to write their final stories and get everything in order there before we depart.
Yeah, that's true.
So we could substantiate that.
Maybe you can have the community and get that all done.
Then you have a final session with Joe to just kind of talk it all over before you go.
This is on the option of flying directly back?
Yeah.
Then you have to go into Anchorage at 9 o'clock.
Well, we still need to...
Remember, we're not working against anything here.
Because even the... No one knows.
What time the chill in my meeting is, including us.
So that's what I mean.
Well, we're on three.
So in fact, could we delay it or anything like that?
Actually, you could say that we could work it so that in the afternoon, we could go to the children's ballast with Mrs. Nixon.
He would show the next county, would show the next morning, and then do the communique a little bit later, like at 11, which would be 10 o'clock at night here, which would even be better here after television across the country.
Then let them press file, and then leave in the afternoon.
It's very late.
You got to leave at 7 o'clock at night.
Or you could take a little longer off the ground.
You could have.
How long do you plan to be on the ground now?
Forty-five minutes.
We did it very, very easy to leave in two hours.
You could make that two hours.
We get to pick up a slack.
There it is.
Well, on the basis of leaving at 5 o'clock.
Which is, leaving at 7 looks kind of odd.
Why don't you stay?
You could leave at 5, and then make the fueling stop for two hours.
I'd leave ahead of dinner, because if you caught me, I'd be in a little mood.
To do that, leave it closed at Elm Grove, but that would give you the chance, present chance, to get off and close the house, get a shower, you know, just kind of get fresh stuff.
He's right now, he's in the middle of his night.
I still think that that's...
That you can gain nothing by having a big event.
And if there's a little stir about why don't we get to see him, I don't think there's going to be that much.
They had their chance when we were there with the Japanese attraction.
Oh, I could explode the goddamn thing.
I don't know.
That's what we have right now.
Oh, yeah, but all the rest of them are there.
Oh, my shit.
Well, sleeping made us a good deal in Alaska, anyway, because whatever time of the day it is, we just went to bed.
I should have spent time someplace, but... Well, then you don't get off the plane and go shower, obviously, on that one, but... Yeah, we did.
Okay, yeah, we did.
Well, I think if you get off, you're in real trouble.
Now, this is closed.
Once he's on the plane, we say he's not getting off, but the base is closed.
Once you get there, if you're awake and you feel like it, and want to jump in the car, run over to the general's house to get a shower, or something, come back on board, you can do it.
Well, if you close the base, it makes no help about that.
By the base, though, you're sure going to have a lot of service in there, aren't you?
No, sir.
We can tell them not to come out.
You will at the end of the road.
You cannot be that.
Thank you, sir.
You keep the townspeople.
There's no problem.
You could do it.
There's no question about it.
Close the base.
But you're going to upset people.
You're going to have the wires down there just to cover the fact that the plane landed and it was going to take off and that the president didn't get off and he was asleep.
That's what you say.
That's the public mind.
Maybe Secretary Henry or somebody can go wave out the door so they got something.
That's something that don't increase the presence.
But I would much prefer seeing us do that than to have you leave at the time we're scheduled to leave Shanghai presently and then try to get off the plane and sleep or go into some general's house and try to sleep and then go back out and try to get on the plane.
Once you take off, we ought to just try as much as possible to keep going deadlocked.
Well, because it's a long span anyway.
To put more time in there is going to be, in my mind, not as easy.
He would not be as good on the television in terms of as he should be.
You just increase that whole transition.
You're at the opposite of that.
Well, I find you really don't sleep well for a day or two.
Ron...
I know that General Hagan and Henry would agree on the car act, but if you're going to stop, stop for a day, or a day and a half or something, which I know is out of the question, but...
It's out of the country, it's shocking.
It's out of the country.
We have a lot of drama going for you too if we make this change.
From the time that people get up in the morning here, you'll be just about ready to land in Alaska.
And then all day long, they're going to be hearing on the radio, you know, the president's flying across, you know, he's on his way back to Washington and so forth.
And then by the time they all get home for dinner and into their evening television, here you are.
I mean, it's been kind of a buildup that whole day.
As far as you're going to have that, regardless of what process you follow, take it back.
The other way that most of the delivery would have been during the time that they were all asleep, they would not have heard.
So the way this has to work out, basically, is to, if we want to get prime time, we have to find a way to... At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, well, there's something to be said for that.
Maybe I should...
see a little more of that town.
It's the greatest city in the world, biggest city in the world.
And there are any number of things that I'm sure that they've done.
It's really fantastic.
It's just all changes.
I mean, they talk about Peking.
All Chinese, the great cities, China.
I mean, Chinese in Singapore, the gardens over in China is the one they all pine for.
It's a great, great, great province.
Do you have any, I don't know where they're parking around, but a lot of sightseeing is a good thing on the last day.
Do the sightseeing on Sunday and meet with Joe on Monday if we can do it.
That would be
It would be better to meet with Joe at the end.
It would be sexier at the end.
Do you think there's something to know?
I'll have a formal meeting on Sunday.
Well, not really.
Is there a problem with the Chinese in staying in Shanghai through that day?
I don't know what Henry would say.
I would say no.
I would say it's not something that cannot be worked out.
But there would be a problem in asking and seeking a meeting with Joe on Monday instead of Sunday.
or in addition to what his plans are.
I think you got a good point that we ought to do the, when we go to Shanghai, we ought to really take Sunday, look around and then on Monday, we'll hit the, the,
Communicate.
Communicate.
Get out.
Communicate.
No.
Communicate.
How many people you're screwing with this or the news magazines and they don't matter?
See what I mean?
You're not really screwing that.
It doesn't make any difference.
They're past that line anyway.
What, with a communicate?
Yeah.
You're not even showing that?
No, we do it Monday as well.
Sunday.
Sunday.
And they make their bed in there.
Don't look for it.
But I mean, that's not an answer.
That's not an answer.
I don't never do any of this.
The very technical point would be that the Sunday afternoon meeting is preferable to Joe from the standpoint that, as you've probably heard, he works mainly in the afternoon, so what we're asking him to do is reverse how he would normally work, but yet he'd have to go to the airport for the communique.
It wasn't Monday afternoon.
Meet Monday afternoon.
after the communique?
No.
The communique is not something that I particularly care about as a primetime view.
It's a news story, right?
That's right.
I mean, it's very, very complicated.
So just let it be a news story with the commentators going on.
Or, as a matter of fact, they'll probably do it on prime time.
Cronkite will go on, on a special, communicate.
That's probably what the 9 o'clock would say.
I want to know, discuss this story, communicate.
That's the way they'll do it.
They won't do it in the news.
In relation to communicating, the time factor, it doesn't matter because if you release it at 2 a.m. in the morning, it's going to give as much play throughout that day and that night as it would if you didn't release it.
If you and Joe go out and jointly announce a communicator or something, they'll probably put it on live television.
at 2 a.m. in the morning.
I've let people here get up at 2 a.m. like they did the morning.
And they're just going to run and run?
Yes.
As you say, you don't have a special one, but using anything that would help.
When you meet with Mal, which will probably be in the afternoon, they'll shoot that back here live, and then they'll tape it and work on it over here, but they'll just feed it back directly.
What's the status of the
ground station in Shanghai.
According to a few minutes ago, they said that there would be no television, live television, out of Shanghai.
Well, it takes care of that anyway.
It doesn't mean live television doesn't communicate with anyone.
Right, they take the videotape to use it to begin.
But now we can, that could be argument, but that's where it stands as of right now.
They have the capability to do it live, but the networks don't want it to be live.
That would work out of Shanghai.
Technically, it's capable to do it without the ground station.
They were supposed to have capability on the 25th of doing it live, but the ground station capability is there, but the other capability is not readily put in place there.
The telecine machines, the energy machines.
So that's where they feel that apparently, based upon what you're saying from the conversation, it'd be better to fly an hour up to Peking and do it all out of there.
just call me.
Well, one thing, before they announce the attorney general, I thought you might want to meet with the client leads.
We've talked about, see if they're going to announce that at the same time.
If you want to get into some of those things first, and then some of those things right after.
Don't raise a problem.
I think that the coming back all the way makes sense.
I'll reverse that.
Second, I think we ought to try to make it mid-prime time.
Don't you agree with me on that?
Absolutely.
I mean, it's just a waste to come in at 12 in the middle of the night.
Can't the police look?
You wasted 400 people, that's all.
We work back from a 9 o'clock arrival at Andrews to a departure that said,
some solid-time element, or something like a 5 o'clock departure out of Shanghai, and figure out what to do on Monday in Shanghai, then go to town.
And try and make the fuel stop, or do the meeting in the community on Monday if possible, and then do Sunday for...
But later, if we conveniently leave Shanghai, the better.
Because those who want to contrive something about 9 o'clock would contrive it off of the fuel stop.
Yeah.
If I could just leave later.
I don't think there will be any problems staying in Shanghai.
It's 6 o'clock in the hill.
If we get out at 6, it would be pretty good, Sheriff, to stay down there.
You haven't announced that we're going to be there.
Well, we have a few hundred.
I guess they don't want us to see something.
They'll find something for us to see.
OK.
They don't know when we're leaving anyway, so we .
We're still .
Well, that's .
OK.
Yes, sir.
Or what, just one thing?
If it doesn't work, isn't the next, if you can't work that, isn't the next best thing Tuesday over at 3-D?
I think so.
And that's, we know we can do that.
So there's no problem.
It doesn't work.
I think we just, we're just trying to take a little edge off and sleep at night.
So it's better to take that edge off and get here at nine than it is to come running through and arrive at nine.
That's right.
Just one quick thing over on this subject.
You're meeting at 9 o'clock on Thursday with the leaders.
No, I haven't announced it.
I'm just thinking about the technical side.
Because the networks will either go on at 9, 30, or 10.
They'll go on at any time.
Well, you don't want to miss the walking out of the cabinet room and so forth and out to the chalkboard.
What time is it?
10 for the mangroves or 10 for the south ground?
10 for the south ground.
So ideally, we just delay that.
We'll make it about 10, 10 or 10, 15 for the south ground.
See, we don't have any problem at 10.
Any problem when we get in there.
So I just open every 10 o'clock.
Start covering then.
Well, it doesn't matter what time.
If they went on for about 10 minutes ahead of time, they should have the crowd and the gathering and so forth.
Well, a certain number will come out there at 10 after 10 at 7 o'clock.
That's fine.
That's good.
Yeah, 10 after 10.
You'll come out.
We'll go on at 10 o'clock.
Good.
That's all I need.
Mr. President, he said, I suck at piano.
No wonder he said to you, you know, at Rose's, you know, he was a pianist.
He said, you know, I want to do something else.
He said, very good.
He said, very good.
Now, my letter, again, is not to be released, however.
It is not to be released.
The typewriter letter is not to be released.
The typewriter letter is not to be released.
The typewriter letter is personal.
It is personal.
But his letter, if he wants, is not to be released.
We'll just release him out of the way.
That's what I have.
Can you do that at 11?
We're going to do that at 11.
It's a question of whether you want to catch one of these before.
Just to be sure you're on it.
He might announce it.
He's not going to go out and say anything.
On these, that's our plan to come over afterwards.
He's going to have to come at 4 o'clock before it's announced.
you know, download them to the job.
That's right.
You don't need to, from a public viewpoint, the only point would be if you want to before you send it down to the Hill.
Okay, fine.
Publicly, we don't want you to, we're not doing anything about you seeing them.
Mitchell wants you to keep the whole thing as low key as he can.
Well, this is a lot of time, I guess, on what seems to be rather unimportant details.
It's like overriding what I thought earlier, because I knew that, I knew that arrival, I said, I remember that one of ours was, was, first I know that arrival's going to do me no good.
Second.
Not if you want to cover the whole story.
If you get locked, if you get on the line, there's no question of lying.
Especially if we say you're going to make a mistake.
They have to do it live.
They've carried it all the rest of their lives.
They can't end the story on a covered basis.
the Democratic, Congress, and Senator meeting that decision was a trip.
It was.
I have some problems with communicating with those people.
Because the enormous weight of this trip was trying to do is to wash out the argument, the basing comments, and have them talk about what happened in Japan and France.
Wow, that is just...
You come to the, you know, I was, I took it back to your report with Gallop, but I, that's rather interesting that he would, I can't believe that Gallop would tell, that's the point, Rumsfeld, that he would hold a poll.
I never, because Gallop has always been, you know, said, well, Jesus Christ, I called him because I see him.
Well, he wouldn't just start a poll, but he would just not release it on the eve of your departure, is the point.
He would wait and release it next month after you got back.
I suppose.
But I don't think he's done that before.
which indicates something about his idea of the event.
But it's a feeling you've got all across the board, and I think very strongly so.
Well, we got the message from the North Vietnamese, and it's the mildest one we've ever had.
I had sent them a message on the 26th to keep them from publishing the record, in which we just said,
We've published the record that the United States signed as it said in its message of November 19th.
Go ahead.
We haven't had an arrival.
So we can talk about that briefly.
If you want to turn off.
Okay.
President, I look back here.
Return here, yeah.
The news is not when we should arrive because he's now thinking that his arrival statement at the airport may be his report to the country.
He may not want to say any more than that.
That means he may not want two or three days later to declare with some names.
and therefore he wants to arrive here when he's covered on television, which would be at 9 o'clock tonight instead of 11.
Which means we'd have to leave 10 in the evening.
Which means you'd have to leave 5 or 6 instead of 10 in the morning.
And so what you do is just put over some other additional activity on Monday and check back, which is what they wanted us to do to begin with.
You know, 5 or 6 in the evening here,
I mean, nine in the evening here, it's 11 in the morning.
Dead one there, I mean, dead one.
Well, that means we'll have all of us tonight sleep in the bed.
Well, then, I mean, you will sleep in the bed.
Listen, I've got to go to the office.
We've got to lose the night's sleep in the night.
It doesn't change that, you see.
The only difference it makes is because of the fact that the flight is 17 hours and I'm losing my sleep either way.
Well, unless it's out in the morning, in which case...
But that isn't my main point.
My main worry is to give the Chinese the sense that we're using them to stage a television thing here.
Absolutely.
After the schedule has all been set now, I mean, they will have... You can't just schedule another activity there.
I think, I mean, use it.
When the point is we can do anything there if we ask and they'll do it.
But it will cause us, not it, maybe not based, not fundamentally, you can't tell which.
Well, there, this is a point, now wait a minute, Bob, this is a point, though, that I haven't, that I didn't realize.
You mean, have the Chinese, do they, have they been over 8,000 in line?
Oh, sure.
No, 10 in line.
10 in line.
They've been told that.
Sure, the schedule...
Well, it's not that they've been told that.
That's the schedule that's been worked out between us and the Chinese.
It's for a 10 a.m. departure.
I think it's wrong to change that.
I don't have any damn reason to change it.
Except one dollar.
It was one of the things they raised earlier, yeah.
There's a reason for saying that we're not- Well, we haven't, though.
We can't at this late date.
If we'd had it on the advance party earlier, months ago, that's why- Then would it be no- Well, I mean, sure it's a problem now.
That would be the only other question.
Because they, the original thing, when you came back, they wanted them to stay to do the two days in Shanghai.
Well, but you see we said no and every time they change something they let us know you're changing the agreed procedure.
I'm sure we had said from the beginning we want to leave at six in the evening or nine in the evening or whatever.
that would have presented no problem.
Bob, that's a really good question.
I still think, is that also sleeping in Anchorage?
That's right.
I think that's the right way to do it.
I think, I think that's very positive.
I don't care whether it's Romney or maybe that would be interpreted by the American public as meaning to return to America.
Everybody knows that this is a vigilant trip, and they're going to sleep one night.
I don't think you've got any problem with stopping in Anchorage and spending the night.
I think...
You'll be sort of screwed up in terms of schedule.
I don't know how the time works out.
You arrive in Anchorage at midnight.
Stay there nine hours.
Go to bed at midnight and leave at nine in the morning.
Anchorage time.
It must be hard to go to sleep at midnight Anchorage time, because that's only five in the afternoon Shanghai time.
We'll all be exhausted.
If you're going to be tired, you'll have had eight hours in an airplane, and I would think you'd be able to go to bed.
I think this is far better.
I think the nine o'clock arrival time here is bad, but I'm very reluctant to go for that.
The reason we need it at nine o'clock here is it comes in parity with other reasons.
Otherwise, Frank, you're going to know.
Oh, I think I like the night arrival better.
I have no problem.
We, uh, I've been thinking about, you know, this idea of making a report when I return on consideration of that.
And this is that I'll get the most of the way, whether I do have the leaders down here.
It's not going to happen for him or him, but consideration of that.
It's my belief that after a massive television coverage for a week over there, and communication,
But then, when we return, then three days later, we'll go on national primetime television to report on something and cover it.
It's going to be a goddamn hard thing for us physically to get ready.
And mentally, from a standpoint of content, to say anything.
Is it going to be all that?
No.
Well, from the audience viewpoint, is there anything out there?
Is there anything more to say?
I haven't any surprises.
I haven't any news.
I have no news.
That's it.
Good.
Well, good.
What the hell am I going to find news to say at that point?
I won't say anything kind of untrue.
So what I thought was to take the cream off, skim it off, right at that point, at 9 o'clock whenever I think that I come off and I can speak ten minutes,
And, you know, as I ride, I'll figure it out all well in advance.
I think, Mr. President,
that's going to be interpreted all over the place and knock them, and they'll say, well, it was kind of a anti-climax.
You know, they're going to be full of China in a while.
Then let others start to click into China's stuff.
I think that's absolutely right.
I like it very much.
I think the nine o'clock arrival here, I like very much.
Adding on activities in Shanghai, when they have drilled everybody, I think they're wrong.
No doubt, no doubt.
So I think what we do, despite Zeta's concern, is to say it isn't going to take that much blue longer to stay and spend the night there.
Incidentally, I think we ought to...
The night there, anyway, is 6 o'clock in the morning here.
Let me ask, though, how much can we hard-nose the clothes?
I don't think you can really hard-nose them.
Sure, you can hard-nose the arrival very easily, because it's at midnight, no one's going to want to come anyway.
The next day, a lot of people will be out and out of your way for your departure.
The people are out with you.
On departure, you can get away without saying anything.
On arrival, you almost have to say something.
The departure is only two o'clock in the afternoon here.
That's right.
And we carry it.
It'll be a squib in the news.
And they said, I will be in Washington.
And I'll maybe stay there.
And I go to Lippler.
And I return.
And I arrive in Washington.
And you are as an officer.
I just want to thank my good friends at Anchorage for coming.
I think it builds up the arrival.
That builds it up.
And I'll be in Washington tonight.
And David, I've seen you so much.
Everyone will know you've been at Anchorage.
I could not miss this opportunity.
This was unplanned.
This was only a refueling stop.
But I appreciate the fact that so many thousands of our good friends from Alaska came out to say goodbye and say hello.
We thank you very, very much.
We've come here, and my first stop after being general was in Anchorage, and a little of that crap.
And off we go.
You could talk about this at Starry Pace, or this is no wonder.
Can't we make history?
We can make history.
I can't.
The last time I was in the first office in Anchorage, the first meeting between them.
I think that's absolutely right.
I like it very much.
I think the 9 o'clock arrival here I like very much.
adding on activities in Shanghai when they have drilled everything.
I think you're wrong.
No doubt, no doubt.
So I think what we do, despite Ziggler's concern, is to say it isn't going to take that much room off of them to stay and spend the night there.
So incidentally, I think we ought to...
The night there, anyway, at 6 o'clock in the morning, yeah.
That'd be packed over.
How much can we harden those, the clothes?
I don't think you can really harden those.
Well, you can harden those very easily, because it's at midnight, no one's going to want to come anyway.
The next day, a lot of people will be out and out of the way for your departure.
The people are out that you... On departure, you can get away without saying anything.
On arrival, you almost have to say something.
And the departure is only two o'clock in the afternoon here.
That's right.
And we carry it.
It'll be a swim in the news.
And they said, I will be in Washington.
And I'll maybe stay there.
And I go to that with them.
And I return.
And I arrive in Washington.
And you are as an officer.
I just want to thank you, my good friends in Anchorage, for coming on the call.
I think it builds up the arrival.
That builds it up.
And I'll be in Washington tonight.
David, I've seen you so much, everyone will know you've had a good period.
I could not miss this opportunity.
This was unplanned.
This was only a refueling stop.
But I appreciate the fact that so many thousands of our good friends from Alaska came out to say goodbye and say hello.
We thank you very, very much.
We'd come here, and my first stop after being jumped was in Anchorage, and a little of that crap.
And off we go.
You could talk about this at start and base, where this is no wonder.
Can't we make history?
We make history.
Again, the last time we were first with the plan, the first stop was in Anchorage, the first meeting we were doing.
And then whack, whack, on the plane.
We built it.
That's only evening news.
Make out about a minute and a half.
That takes the, you get back in the airplane, and fills up your life in seven hours, and I make a six to seven to ten minutes, probably six to seven minutes, and we'll kind of make a class of generalities, which will finish the trip, as far as I know.
And then I will do the impression on it.
10 days later, perhaps, after I'd had a chance to go to Florida, get totally arrested and turned around and so forth, and get acquainted with the domestic issues again.
Now, the problem we have there is going to the country.
I think rather than press for you, you might go to the country the following week and do some gag accidents.
And I said, I remember one thing I told you was common.
He said, that wasn't the thing.
That would be a nice way to catch us.
Rather than a nuisance, since I want to come and do something like that.
He makes you up on that, which is why we would have such a terrible time dragging you down.
It turns out it's not Abilene.
It's San Angelo College.
Not Abilene Christian.
No, he doesn't mention San Angelo or Abilene.
San Angelo.
Well, he still thinks that I did.
Huh?
Yeah.
Good.
Well, I like the 9 o'clock arrival, Mr. President.
My only hesitation was... And you'd also like the idea of not coming back and having to prepare a report to the nation.
I'd like that, too, because I... Nobody's going to be ready to do that.
Although I don't know what you would say to the... What we can do then is meet with the leaders.
That'll be a report to the nation.
We'll meet with the leaders.
We have to prepare...
Absolutely.
...and jackets are on hold for that.
But that's it.
You can do that.
That's up to you either that night or Tuesday morning.
You can't do it.
I wouldn't do it that night.
No, I wouldn't do it this morning.
I wouldn't do it this morning.
And it's much better.
I'd say I'd leave it on the computers and I'd do it now.
And you're not...
I'd be very busy Tuesday to get that done.
And maybe get that done on Wednesday before.
I might go back there.
I might go Wednesday before.
And then say that I've got to track down here Tuesday and Wednesday.
I may say I didn't leave.
Uh...
Yeah, I would say spend two days here.
Yeah.
Tuesday and Wednesday should be scheduled here for the jackass things we have to do.
I frankly meet with the, with the bipartisan thing.
And I think that gets away from meeting with our own leaders.
There isn't about that thing because they're not ready.
But we ought to have a cap team just because get a captain meeting.
Right.
That's good.
Get that done.
And put them on different days this time.
Leaders on Tuesday and captain on Wednesday.
And we won't be ready for an NFC meeting that morning last time.
Good morning, do you want anything from South Asia?
I wouldn't have to rush myself, Mr. President.
South Asia is going to be a bitch.
How about we eat your meeting breakfast?
Do you want to wait till tomorrow morning?
I don't think so.
I don't want to go back and talk to labor.
They're all over.
You've got to say one of the things you need to get scared to the shit out of.
I've been reading the news on it.
Colson last night told me.
Have you heard?
Yeah, I've seen him.
I've seen him.
He does a blast on the Democrats.
George, you know, when he talked to me, he said, give me the casualty figures and some other stuff because I can make some use out of it.
And he got down there and he said the president's doing a lot of that.
And he said, I will not vote for him.
He said, that's unlikely that I'll vote for Richard Nixon, but I will never vote for a man who calls for surrender in Vietnam.
And he said, they're not consciously aiding the enemy, but they're aiding him.
Yeah, he picked up on it again.
He says, they're not consciously aiding the enemy, but they are aiding the enemy.
Well, you know, somebody said, if they're unconsciously engaging in that, it makes it worse.
It may appear to be dumb.
And so what you're saying about, you know, the people that are nitpicking, what they say, the vice president said the same thing.
He said, well, I wouldn't say consciously.
I wouldn't go that far.
If you're going to back up, you should back off of aging and vetting, not off of consciousness.
Let them debate whether or not they're going to know what the debate is now about how they can.
That's a nice debate about it.
Incidentally, Mr. President, I spoke about it this morning.
If this schedule holds, Lee Doctore is going to come back to Paris about 10 days after you've been in Beijing.
Everybody will figure you and Ernst are in Beijing.
Doesn't make any difference.
It's going to look like a direct result of the Beijing trip.
Because Lee Doctore coming back will be public knowledge.
Oh yeah, that's going to be public knowledge.
You won't know why.
But, uh...
So they'll clearly think I'm getting a lot of press queries already, and now I can see them.
Kravtsov called this model, but Kravtsov called because they put out a story that they did it all with China, and it was on me, and we proposed a secret emissary.
And he called about it, and I said it.
Boy, that's ridiculous.
I mean, are you reading this paper or not?
Well, I bet I'll put it in.
There was some great talk of Pat Jones.
I bet I'll put it in.
Oh, great.
Isn't that the silliest guy that they are?
No, that's not true.
I just read somewhere that...
The president's going to be accompanied by certain people, plus the two men who put the intellectual pattern together, Mr. Marshall Green and Alfred E.S.
Jenkins.
Oh, shit.
May I say anything about your...
I don't have to.
I just wanted to...
Why not just not say anything?
I think not.
And if I were to go, you would just say, well, he just decided he was going to make his friends, so I wouldn't let him.
Well, they...
So I first knocked down that story.
They said, you have... What these bastards don't know is you set up the Warsaw meeting through a secret channel, through Yaya.
That's the first thing.
Secondly, they said we told them it was our...
It's a really vicious little story.
We proposed sending a senior emissary, and before they could return it fly, we went into Cambodia and they knocked it off.
Well, it ended.
I gave that away to Tim, but I mean, it's not what it is.
We don't go through anything when you are there.
I said, uh, they...
Frankly, we have no information where the lead actor is at, but let me just give you my own personal opinion.
Those Vietnamese will not settle this in Peking.
The place to watch is where the lead actor shows up some other place.
I do not, even if he should turn out to be in Peking, he will be there for Chinese business, not for American business, because that's not, I mean, I'm on safe ground.
I know
Well, the story tells us that he's there now and on the way there today.
Well, but there's no, we don't know.
But if he goes to Peking, I mean, they'll all put it together in their mind.
He goes to Peking before we go, we go to Peking.
And you'll get credit as one of the results of the trip just when the experts start picking away at the communique and say, well, there isn't all that much in there.
The leader shows up in Paris.
And that should happen around the 12th to the 15th.
And then they'll go crazy.
They don't have to find out that I'm going.
They will assume now whether they can find me or not.
I think we should take the position that we do not comment on private talks.
Oh, absolutely.
If we announce it, they'll start escalating it.
and keep making new and new proposals.
Oh, we're just going to stay there because I have nothing to report on.
I think it's better than comment on private talks.
I just think Zegers should do a fine.
I mean, I know that everybody is afraid to say it, and Rogers will never say no comment.
I have no comment on that.
It's fine.
Just say no.
The president's for years who said it.
What the hell is the reason why you can't say it?
So with no comment, I have no comment on that.
I have nothing to report on that.
There is a White House press secretary who refuses to comment on the report.
I just have no comment on that.
The point is, it'll be a bad next day, but he has no evidence.
When he even goes beyond that and says, well, I wouldn't speculate or I don't want to speculate, it immediately makes the story one way that just that I have no comment.
Now, it's still the best thing to say.
The bad thing about getting more people to say, I have no comment.
They've got to say, what's he think about the vice president?
I have no comment.
What do you think about what Holton said?
I have no comment.
No comment.
I think it's better to be a little bit more.
Let's go out to the arrival ceremony for a minute so we can do it rationally because it's going to be hard to do once we get on the road.
When you come back, you're doing this for now prime time.
The normal pattern is the Vice President welcomes you home.
He pretty much has to do that.
I think somebody, we ought to set up some way of telling the Vice President, this time let's not take any chances.
He always does a superb job.
That's right.
But let's not take any chances on what he says.
We ought to get in his text.
Absolutely.
So that he doesn't, you know, start summarizing what you accomplished or something.
Yes, yes.
So he doesn't start getting into tight lines.
But somebody ought to get a line down as to what we want the people to say.
Well, I think you should just speak for one minute.
He doesn't have...
Even on a personal basis, Mr. President, this is, you know, one of the great moments in the history of this nation.
As you return from your historic journey for peace, we Americans are... Well, that's why I'm probably prepared to be prepared, may I suggest, by a speech director.
But it ought to be...
I agree.
It should have no substance at all.
No substance, right.
People don't want to see him one minute or, you know, just very little for him.
And it should only be the Vice President welcomes you for very less than a minute and then you step up and give your remarks and that's it.
If this is the best thing.
Oh, no question.
I think it's the best thing.
If you wait until Wednesday or Thursday, you'll only be repeating the communique.
Anything other than the communique they'll have seen on television.
You'll be more physically active when you're going on TV when you arrive than you will be today.
Another thing, too, is that Ziegler used to make a report to the nation and so forth.
Now, we've covered that.
In a case, he's for it.
He makes little remarks when he returns, and he's talking to the leaders.
That's a report to the nation.
See, all this, they get a lot of pressure to report to the nation because it's been conventional.
There isn't going to be a report to the nation.
You report it to the nation, see?
So I just wanted to have a list.
Go ahead with your, let me just read you what I had sent them in.
Oh yeah, he told me last night and I haven't told him, so I never talked to him.
You know, it was good to tell him.
I told Colson not to do all this, as I called him.
You know, to Bob.
You know, he's an electric guy who lives, you know, he's never gotten that retail sale figure.
I didn't like your hair, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think, you know, as I always said, I said, God damn it, don't you worry about these days.
I don't know if he does, but I can hear him.
I said, you've got to figure this out.
He's a little brave.
Thank you, though.
But I think we're fortunate to have a good number come out this close to the end of January.
That's Thursday morning, I'm telling you.
So if they don't mail it today, papers will have it this morning.
At least Thursday morning.
These Thursday morning papers.
Fine.
Okay.
Let me, uh...
Okay.
I'm not going to read you what we sent to them, so that you get a sense of how soft they replied.
I guess that before you get into that, Bob was telling me that Mallory was going to see the press at 3.30 today.
How did he behave?
Oh, yeah.
He's smart enough to know.
Well, of course, he's the director of information for that.
He did not hurt the trip.
Oh, he did.
Yeah.
Oh, he'll be no trouble.
As a matter of fact, I think...
The other friend was quite...
Very nice...
I thought it was a nice touch for us to invite this man over.
This guy who knew Mao when he was 23 years old.
He, Mao, was trying to get Mao when he was 33.
You know, of course, Mao wrote a lot about Mao.
That is kind of D.C. press.
I thought it was going to be a big manifestation of the times, which I like.
You know what?
Blue State told me.
He said that it was Frank Page, when I mentioned Malraux in this office press conference, Frank Page and the Ferris wheelers loved Malraux.
Always have.
And Luce said that he was so, I realized, he said he is such a towering figure that even, particularly among young people, he is still quite a following.
I see that that's because of this Malraux.
and that he, Lou Steele, has written two or three monographs on his works, on art and everything.
Apparently, that guy has a reputation far beyond what most Americans would realize.
Oh, he is the leading French literary figure and a hero, you know.
He fought in the Civil War, the Maquis, et cetera.
No question.
But I think it was a good thing to do.
had the purpose of preventing it from publishing directly.
So I have said it is with no reason or alternative that the United States is revealing publicly the secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese.
This was on January 26th.
And then we summed up all the proposals we had made.
And then at the end of it we said the United States side continues to seek to bring a rapid end to the war on the basis just for all parties.
It repeats its willingness to consider alternative ideas.
It stands behind everything that it has said in
private discussions.
The United States is ready to negotiate on the basis of the proposal outlined by the President in his speech and is prepared to send Dr. Kissinger to Paris whenever Special Advisor Lee Duk-to can visit.
To this, they replied, Father, the North Vietnamese side has always thought that the keeping secret of the substance of the negotiations or the publishing of the report made no difference and had no importance.
The American side has often proposed that these private meetings be kept confidential.
Replying to this request, the North Vietnamese side agreed that both sides would not publish the substance of the private meeting.
Nevertheless, the American side did not hold to its commitment.
On the 26th of January 1972, the American side again proposed a private meeting between Dr. Kismetra, Special Advisor of EDACTO, and Minister Kwan Kwee in order to demonstrate
It's serious attitude in the search for a peaceful solution for the Vietnamese problem.
The DRV side informs the American side that Special Advisor Lee, Dr. Goh, and Minister Quang Huy are disposed to meet Dr. Kitts on March 15, 1972.
If this date is not convenient, they're prepared to meet on any date that the American side will decide, giving us the exact time and date of their convenience.
I mean, this, uh, I mean, in fact, hey, that makes no difference if you publish this.
Well, that makes it orderly to, uh, to, uh, to, uh, uh, to Walters that if, if we schedule it at a time, they will have it.
Well, at the usual time, they're assuming he will stay for that.
I mean, this is a fact.
You'd have to know all the previous ones.
They never told us we could give them a date at our convenience or a time at our convenience.
They always made us submit a date, then they'd check it, take a week or two before they'd come back.
And this is three weeks after we kicked them in the teeth.
And we didn't propose a meeting.
We just said we are ready to meet whenever they want to.
No, your answer is correct.
But it doesn't matter even if they call me a... Supposing they call us in to say you're a bunch of blood-sucking sons of bitches.
To what?
Muscular.
Muskie won't know what they're doing.
Oh, no, no.
We'll blame it on Archie.
We'll blame it on Muskie.
These negotiations are not right now.
I mean, they tried again, and they...
They'll say something to indicate...
The thing that I want you to particularly watch for in these next talks is any swift where they indicate that there is opposition to the war in the United States.
They always put something in there.
Oh, yeah.
You understand how important that is to us?
Well, I've got a lot of stuff in the notes already.
Good.
But if we could have some now, at this point, after our January 25th meeting, indicating that the American people do not support the President in this, by God, we've got one hell of a thing to hang on to.
Mr. President, I think if we get only one meeting out of it, and that's inconceivable.
You get more than one.
There'll be three meetings at least.
And as long as Li Dachau is in Paris, the Democrats cannot do a goddamn thing.
Because if they attack us, we blame them for wrecking the talks.
If they keep quiet, well, then we have peace at home.
Either way, it hurts the North Vietnamese.
Because if we get till the end of April, then we have until the middle of June
Because that Moscow summit, Mr. President, it won't have the same drama as China.
It is less of a historical but more of a political event.
Well, it's enormous.
Enormous.
So, uh...
But if you can't get all of them, it's gonna be so boring.
That's what I mean.
I mean, you talk about the Cotswain and the Alderman, all the rectures, and the end of the war.
This is something that, if that was inevitable, if it was inevitable that, you know, the Cotswain and the end of the war should happen, the Alderman boy should sit down and yank her arm about a few moments later.
This means a whole new direction in U.S.-Soviet relations.
And the China meeting means a whole new direction in U.S.-China relations.
Well, this is, that's what's important about this.
I mean that, you know what Malcolm said last night, it's worth dating the truth.
You know, and he's right.
It's worth dating the truth.
Mr. President, nothing, and you see it now on television.
Barbara Walters was saying goodbye this morning.
I mean, this is... Teddy White called me last night in tears.
He said, I want you to...
I know, I told him that.
He was literally in tears.
He said, let the president know this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
And therefore, that China trip, Mr. President, it's just... And it's going to build more and more and more
Now, there's one thing I wanted to say in connection with the conversation last night.
It's hard to understand these Chinese leaders because they are different from the others.
They are more comparable, in my judgment, to early Calvinists
16th century religious fanatics.
They are not like the communists in Moscow.
They are capable of great brutality.
But what other country would call a revolution in which millions get killed, a cultural revolution?
Their brutality is Chinese, not communist.
It is Chinese, and their whole structure.
And in dealing with them,
they lay enormous threats.
You'd have to read the verbatim record on principle.
Now, it's important to be tough with them.
That is, when Joe attacks, one has to hold firm, because otherwise he'll follow.
But when Breslin attacks, one has to slap him brutally.
When Joe attacks, one has to be...
firm in substance, but conciliatory in form, because they never, they will always have superb manners.
I mean, your behavior, your normal behavior is ideal for this, as I told you right after, right after I came back.
But it's important for them, they don't expect us to agree with them.
It's important, however, that we show we understand their point of view, not that we share it.
And that we have our point of view.
Now, they do not like one thing that was said yesterday.
They do not like to be told that peace is desirable.
To them, peace is not an objective.
Justice is an objective.
Yeah, I understand.
And therefore, the general words like cooperation, compromise is a bad word for them.
The way they can handle it is to say, we are going towards our goals, you go towards yours.
We are walking side by side for this stretch of the road that they can handle easily.
But cooperation in the abstract is of no interest to them.
Peace in the abstract is of no interest to them.
Totally wrong.
These are people who think in conflict situations.
On the other hand, what we can make and say to them,
is we've got two years while the Soviets are developing and we shouldn't waste them in sterile recrimination.
That they'll understand.
That's a realistic assessment.
We shouldn't spend these next two years.
We have the problem that the Soviets are building up their strategic forces.
You have the problem that the Soviets are surrounding you.
We want you to survive not because we like you,
but because we believe it is essential in our interests.
That sort of language shall understand very well.
But it must, there must be the slightest hint of what they will construe as condescension.
The way you talk to Korchescu, for example, I mean, you handle the communists better, but they are different phenomena from the Russians.
The Russians are brutal bureaucrats.
These are fanatical monks.
In 25 years, as a historian, I'd have to say, we'll probably be on the side of the Russians against them.
And the game we have to play now is like the British in the 19th century, to shift our way to one side or the other.
Whoever is weaker, we always have to be on the weaker side, not on the stronger side, because once the stronger dominates, it may become too strong for us.
And the British did it quite unemotionally, and we have to do it unemotionally.
And now tomorrow we're going to announce some Russian easing of export licenses.
We are going to announce $400 million worth of export licenses to Russia, which we've been holding.
And I'm going to try to work out... That will be announced tomorrow.
I beg your pardon?
Sorry, in fact, do you have your, what you have for the opening statements and so forth?
I've just gone over them again.
I can have them for you later this afternoon.
Then don't drop them.
No, no, I've got them.
I've practically got them.
I just wanted to do them one more time.
You were probably a lot of...
Now, I have worked with my staff on an analysis of Mao's stuff, which I've put in your book on Mao, which you might take a look at.
Book on Mao?
I've got a book on Mao in true and live for you.
Oh, is that a big case?
It's fancy what this is.
That's business communication.
All right, I go.
Well, yes, it is in the case.
Butterfield has it.
There were a couple of things that probably Butterfield or somebody said.
But on some of your memorandums of conversations, my originals, which I've marked, I don't have.
You know what I mean?
I would like to see that because it will refresh my mind.
Yeah, I have the book of the positions.
I'll give that back to you.
You've underlined things.
Yeah, the book of the positions, or...
But I mean, no, when you, you know... That doesn't bother me so much.
The positions before you left, that one I don't want to see.
No, but...
When your conversations, the memorandum of your conversations, after you return both times,
Isn't that in this book?
It is, but it doesn't have mine.
Oh, you're marking my originals.
I want to see my originals.
He's got those colored papers on.
Yeah.
We should ask him if you marked them.
Well, anything that I have marked, I want to see, because the markings have some special significance to my memory.
So anything that I have marked are China papers, except not the original papers.
I know, I remember the position papers, that's all, that's just it.
But on the Memcons, there may be some things there that I could want to take a look at.
Now you, why don't you stay then just there, because I need to go to Camp David's afternoon.
I can have it by 3.30, 4 o'clock.
Well, if you can't have it then, there's no reason to have it then.
No use to rush it that much.
Then get it to me by, say, 7 o'clock tonight.
I'll work on other things today.
Or 8 o'clock tonight, have it set up on the helicopter.
Okay.
So we say that.
That's what I'll do.
Then I'll take a look at it and be ready to talk about it on the plane.
I think if you've read this, then you might...
I have another separate book on the communique, but that's a little technical and you may not want to bother with it.
And then you might read Maximo Cho.
Yes.
The lesson she's setting up for me.
No, the lesson.
What have I had?
A big reading.
The lesson.
I already had it.
Yes, you have.
Good.
I'll read that.
You know, I'm quite aware of the...
I think I'm aware of the great difference between the Chinese and the Russians.
I mean, they are very principled people.
I mean, you've talked to me so much about your mother.
I mean, they're in a completely different framework, but they are people of strong convictions who do have a great sense of honor in their framework, which is totally different from ours.
So I have no question... We are also...
Absolutely.
And they'll respect that.
We don't have to accept that.
But we must...
The thing we have to avoid is to...
is to start giving them the impression that we want shoddy little deals with them.
If you say, here are my principles, they're different from yours, but we can work out something practical because we have some parallel interests, they'll give you no trouble.
And there'll be no recrimination.
It would be a mistake to pretend that you agree with them.
Don't sucker around.
And also, you don't come around and say, well, look, we're not very far apart and all that.
That's another thing which we try to do around, you know, and others are always trying to reassure our people that there are no differences, paper over differences.
You cannot do that.
You cannot do that.
That's a lawyer's credit.
I don't believe in playing that, and I'm thinking in Chinese, I can say and see that that won't work.
That doesn't mean you're belittling them about the differences which you've got on your side.
You can afford to be non-deleterate about the differences.
Now, you will have to expect, Mr. President, that very early, somebody is going to make a tough speech at their position, and I would make a very polite and tough reply.
At any rate, I wouldn't yield.
That is going to happen.
It may happen at the first plenary session.
They have to get their position on the record.
My experience has been that after they've made that speech, after one replies, then they go back to treatment.
What about the climate recession?
I hope that Joe is aware of the fact that we prefer to have no business down there except to divide up the work.
That's exactly right.
Well, he will make a statement, isn't it?
No way of avoiding that.
And you can make a statement.
And then you propose how to divide up the work in that zone.
Mr. President, I have no question that that's enough.
be recorded as one of U.S. tremendous achievements and that U.S. can now be held accountable.
We've almost made it.
Because I don't see as a practical matter now how the Congress, how they can synchronize the congressional and public demonstration aspect.
They can't do it while you're in China.
They've got to give you about 10 days after you get back from China before they attack you.
Then, March 25th, but Lee D'Arco will be here, will be in Paris, and while he's in Paris, I cannot imagine that a congressional, that a presidential candidate, that they'll be passing resolutions through the Congress.
Then, starting early May, we'll be in a run-up period to Moscow.
Early May will become apparent if we have the soldiers.
yeah but april my what i would propose to do as you said yesterday is to set the meeting for the 20th then the next meeting say about april 10th uh they won't uh we can probably complete us but the demonstrators by themselves don't hurt if the congress doesn't
The demonstrators actually held.
I think we're in rather good shape.
I think until the middle of June, I do not see how the opposition can mount a Vietnam attack.
Middle of June, what the hell are they going to mount?
They're going to mount a revolution.
People are thinking it's worse, so we've got a little residual force there.
But they're still bombing, right?
Right.
But I think you have made progress towards the settlement.
I'm sorry, Senator.
All right.
This is just... You're going to look too good.
That 53%, Mr. President, I don't give a damn what it does to you.
It's much better.
I mean, you compare it to your super-presidency again, but the point is it's a hell of a lot different from Johnson.
Exactly.
And that's what the Vietnamese are going to watch.
Also, the fact that...
And I don't know anything about public opinion, but it should do a little more in March.
Well, we don't know.
It could.
Well, it went up even to 55, 56 in March.
Yeah.
We don't have, of course, to depend on others to do other news, but the China thing is handled well.
The one quencher, of course, the potential quencher we have is to have the well-intentioned guys that are lying to Bob and the others to go roaring off on them.
Well, we traded Taiwan.
But I don't know.
I can't believe that that communication can reach so many churches.
No.
What do you think on that?
I don't think so.
They're going to say, it depends.
You know, I was wondering if we couldn't do something with the Taiwanese and tell them that they're to say that.
I disagree.
We've got to get everybody on board and communicate at the beginning.
But when Marshall Berlinger goes down there, somebody... Taiwan has no option.
If they, I mean, if they said, well, we betrayed them and the hell with the Americans, would it work that way?
100%.
Yeah.
But let's think of a PR on that, how we handle the problem.
I know what we have to do with it.
But otherwise...
But otherwise, the communiqué, I think, is extraordinarily good.
And when I read it, I think it's more than any of them thought it would be.
You know, particularly if you could, I'm sure you can already be sure that the press
This is not what will come out of this meeting.
I keep putting that out.
I keep putting that out all the time.
I'm putting it out.
But the whole tone of the communique... You mean he'll look better than what the press expects?
Exactly.
But the whole tone is very positive.
And we have solved the problem.
We'll have a strongly friendly statement about Japan and Korea in there.
on our part, which will help us greatly in those two countries.
And I don't think the one paragraph that gives us a little problem is it's Taiwan and you may have to take it up with Mao.
But he has an opportunity to talk to you.
So maybe I have to take it up with Joe.
I have a question.
You shouldn't do it.
I personally feel that I should stay out of the community, right?
You should stay out of it.
Unless it just becomes a matter of normalcy.
I have requested a meeting with Joe before the first plenary session.
A secret meeting.
They can handle that.
No one will know this is taking place.
Just so that he knows what he's supposed to do at the plenary session.
I know the reason for it, incidentally, that they cannot send an emissary here because they're not wanting to have anybody here while we used to recognize Highland.
That's right.
On the other hand, the appearance of the United States sending emissaries to P.K.
It is not a very little.
Let me put it this way.
The fight is, the fight begins.
We Chinese history, of course, that has always been their attitude.
They come to us.
Yeah, that's what the goddamn press is saying.
What, that we're going there?
No, no, but I mean, that's, I've read this in some accounts.
I didn't know that.
No, I was thinking of myself.
I understand the person.
Are they already raising?
Well, I've seen it in some accounts, but...
Well, your point is that you've got to do what's necessary.
Well, I think we need the semblance of active contact with them for the Russians.
That's the answer to all.
And for the Indians.
I mean, as we imagine where we would be without this Chinese option, the Russians would really be putting it to us.
I'm having lunch with Sabrina today.
I'm just going to run over, titling him along on the Middle East.
I've thought about it.
Maybe we, if he can possibly spend it, we ought to send butts over there rather than Peterson.
Tell Peterson, or tell them to let the man, Peterson, after the summit.
Well, because as I look over the things to be negotiated, we can't make any progress without most favored nations.
We shouldn't give the most favored nations until after the summit.
And this would be something we are dangling in front of them.
And since they have all gone to visit, we've had Peter in there.
I mean, we've had Stans there.
You might say Stans.
Also, I still don't kind of want to, I still don't want to abuse my Bruce over there somewhere.
And I know he keeps control, but I'm not quite sure of that.
I know what's his, what's he doing, what are we talking about?
He made a speech which they considered threatening in 1959 and they cut him off at the age of nine.
In 1959 he came there and made a speech which they considered a threat.
or which they considered condescending.
I accept this demand.
Do you realize, in person, why we do not talk about, you know, put the emphasis on peace and talking with that as an anti-war decision?
We haven't put the emphasis on peace as an anti-war decision.
Oh, God, yes, and I wouldn't hesitate saying it in a toast, which comes back to me.
But that makes no sense.
That is fine, coming back here.
Also, I will see whether we can get Joe to agree to put out the communicating deacons.
Because then they'd have every excuse to take their wraps off in Agile and Shanghai.
Let's think about it just a little while.
I know that has been suggested.
I'm not sure of taking the wraps off.
I think we could agree on the deacons.
But what I'm concerned about is that- For two days, people can mistake without being able to talk back.
For us, you see, when we get back and you're here, you'll be able to, they'll say, what about this or that or the other thing?
And you'll be able to set them right, and you're gonna have to do it.
So I mean, just the senior type of people that you normally talk to,
But we're over there for two days.
The people that didn't go, particularly, the nuts, made us start out a hell of a haul.
I think there's something to be said there that's communicating that.
But then we should do it the morning we leave out of Shanghai.
The morning finish.
Because that's the Sunday evening in America.
Yeah.
Because otherwise we'd be issuing it Sunday night, which is there, which is Sunday morning here, which doesn't do us any good.
Well, it'll be big news whenever it's issued.
It's more of a newspaper story with television.
It's a news hour kind of a thing, rather than primetime.
Well, if you think we should do it Sunday night, we can do it then.
No, just do it when it's convenient for them.
On this one, I don't think it is, but you can see what I mean about getting it out too early in there.
I'm worried about that because if we get it flat, I'll...
Maybe we shouldn't even suggest doing it.
Also, the other problem is, if we make it, it will be read back there, and we'll have to answer to them and so forth.
I'm inclined to think that also, you let us suppose that you did have an extremely negative reaction on Taiwan for a couple of days, or some other damn country had.
And we've come back to sort of a little thing.
I'd rather have as little time, I'd rather have something, I'd rather read the telephone than we can.
The morning we leave.
Well, then we should do it Monday morning.
Monday morning.
Because then there can't be any reaction, probably, before you get back.
Well, there's 15 hours of time to do it, and that's a hell of a short time.
I suppose that one thing I know that you could do,
Well, if they accept the draft, which I said they were saying, then we are in good shape.
I mean, then we can crow.
That's what you said.
I don't think they'll accept it.
On the other hand, they may come down from where they are.
They will certainly come down from where they are.
And if everything goes well, Mr. Breslin, I will be true as the authority.
But if you do well with Mom, as I know you will, I mean, you've never met a great man whom you haven't impressed.
And that was before you had power.
I mean...
De Gaulle had no reason to flatter you in 1963.
There was no prospect of you getting into office that anyone could discover.
Art now had no reason to be impressed by you other than what you are.
And...
So I...
I mean...
Joe did say to me that the President and Mao can do many things that you, that he and I couldn't do.
Yes, he did say that Mao was smart.
He was fortunate.
He said, you can be sure that, he said Mao, he said earlier, he said Mao, that the target was him.
He said he will not say, you know, that he will talk to you.
And he said that
And, uh, what anyone else stated, uh, Mao did sort of the same thing.
Mao was... he was very... he had the tendency to express very serious views in a semi-humorous way.
I don't know whether you've read his conversation with Haile Selassie.
He's had a lot of my advisors tell me that the President makes me a devil.
Why am I seeing this devil?
But it made it quick.
I can't quite put it.
He did it in a way that he gave me.
You have the copies of Memories of Time, study of Memorandums on China, and I have Mark.
I want those copies of anything.
Okay.
What I'm suggesting is that you've got to look through the file and see any memorandum that he has sent me on China.
Other than me.
Before he went, I don't want to see any book.
But like he said, I may have marked some.
I didn't mark others.
But I want to see marked things in my...
There's a background book from the state that you might want to look at.
Depositions are useless.
Dispositions are trivial, but there's a background book.
I'll send it up with you if you want to do something extra.
It's worth reading.
Gives you a lot of legal, if you have an hour, just to read through it.
I wouldn't put a lot of my intellectual capital on it.
What do you mean, legal?
Legal what?
Well, it gives you the legal background of the Korean situation and that sort of stuff.
But you don't have to get into it.
It gives you a lot of detail about exchanges, but I don't think you have to know that.
Well, I'll send it to you so that if you ask...
Henry, my recollection is that when Eisenhower took this trip, he didn't take Dulles.
He didn't.
He didn't always take Dulles.
No, sir.
Dulles was, you know, too busy.
But my point is that I don't believe we should have a situation where the Secretary of State travels every time we go.
It's just a total... You can't have two VIPs on any trip.
It's a rule we always have in politics, you know.
You never have two people now.
I just don't know how we got trapped into this.
But, you know, we really shouldn't have Bill going on this.
He should go separately on his own church.
What do you think?
What do you think, Mr. President?
Well, it's going to be a pain in the neck.
But I mean, not just this, but all.
I don't think the Secretary of State needs to go alone in the goddamn church.
I'm trying to remember.
Particularly having in mind that we're in a very different position from a British prime minister.
I mean, the president makes foreign policy.
The British prime minister has a foreign minister in the cabinet system.
We've got them in the cabinet system here as a joke.
It doesn't mean anything.
Well, if it's in the cabinet system, they're heads of administrative departments.
The cabinet doesn't decide anything.
Right.
Well, I think... Oh, we've got the problem, I guess.
Well, I think if you're a second term, you...
All these relationships...
There are not going to be any trips taken with... with captain officers at all.
Any captain officers.
I think... You've just got to understand... You've gotten through this first term by putting an unbelievable strain on yourself.
It's been too much.
And there's a lot of people who are working out for themselves and trying to keep everybody... tearing each other apart.
You're all waiting.
We know.
I don't think Roosevelt had how long at Yalta or Cairo.
Why don't you do it?
Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't.
Well, that wouldn't mean I had something to say.
Let our translator go for a moment.
Sorry, the highlights of an honorable conversation.
I thought you were superb in that conversation.
I thought you were patient.
You asked the important questions.
But I was hoping that I could get just the highlights of what he said, and get ahead of the way we have.
The father was just repeating what he said in the books.
Yeah.
He was better with you alone than he was at the dinner.
He was all right at the dinner.
Yeah.
I think it's fine.
But if we didn't get it there, it's better.
I don't think I would like to see him there.
The evening transfer, if you remember what he said as he was getting in the car.
I'd like to see if you could get that for me.
We got it.
Well, you know, I'd like it by General Galls.
I'm with General Galls.
Yes.
I think Galls would say something here, and I couldn't quite hear it.
I'll get that.
I'm kidding here.
I'm kidding.
He canceled his.
That's what it is.
Well, when you get back, I'm certain, I'm certain pleased with our decision.
I will not come back and make a report to the nation, I'm told.
And what has been the mistake?
Mistake?
I shouldn't have told them, actually, I've got to, we've done our job.
I need to go into the country, and I'm just saying,
the usual pleasantries the following week they're your problem and then the pleasantries but it's uh but i think oh you mean just traveling in the country in the united states i think that that'd be slightly i think it'd be very important no decision about that whether we get closer to it because
We'll see how things react and how people feel.
We want to be sure that we can have as much of an out-of-beat feeling about this as we can.
I think it will be out-of-beat.
If I don't see how I can help you, I mean, despite the government, besides that, there'll be people in the community who can help you as the President.
Yeah, it's unstable.
There'll be their hardship and any questions, their jealousies and everything.
But you've now established your dominance of foreign policy so much that it doesn't make any difference what the state says.
I don't think so.
No one believes this crap they're putting out.
You don't think they do?
No.
Well, that's what Ted Schultz, he doesn't believe it, but he's trying to lead us.
He's trying to lead us.
He always does.
You know, it's disgraceful that anybody over there would talk to that son of a bitch, right?
But in this country, whoever takes over state next time, they have to be told that they are only under his obedience, as they all used to say.
Loyalty to the president.
Let there be a good foreign policy.
They ought to give you credit rather than take it for themselves.
They ought to give you credit for things they did rather than try to steal it away.
That's...
I mean...
Connolly does that.
You have to say that for Connolly.
He talks about the Nixon policy.
That's right.
Well...
Yes, it is reassuring.
You say that Marshall Greene is pretty thrilled about going.
He knows.
I mean, after all, he's an honest man.
I know that this is the biggest experience he's ever had.
President, what other president has had a four-year record like you under any conditions?
And considering the obstacles you've had,
a lousy cabinet, a divided country, a recalcitrant Congress, a hostile press, a vicious press.
It is miraculous.
The opening to China, you've made more progress with the Soviet Union than any other president.
The Western alliance is in better shape.
It's not in good shape.
Certainly in better shape.
It will be seen that you put relations with Japan on a new basis.
I'm sure there's been a difficult transition.
Speaking of the Western alliance, may I ask you, what the hell did we do about flying over to Brussels on the way back?
I would consider going to Iran.
I'd consider going to Iran.
You get a tremendous reception in Iran, Mr. President.
Well, I think maybe we could consider going to Iran.
And if you picked a city to visit in the Soviet Union, a southern city, say Kiev.
Sure.
I've never been to Kiev.
You could pick Kiev.
From there, it's an easy hop to take Iran.
And you could spend a day and a night.
Well, the point is, as you know, that England apparently comes in that same time frame as you.
But we could duck it by saying, I think for you to go...
Well, and I don't see...
But if you go there, you'll be giving them a report.
Rather, rather, before I report to the American people.
That's right, and why should I?
On a Russian trip.
Yeah, probably report to the people.
Yeah, because it's a lot of technical agreements you can explain.
That's, uh, that I understand.
I wouldn't, I don't know, I'd take prime time.
I might do it another time.
But I would consider seriously saying you've promised a trip to Iran.
If you go from Kiev or Tbilisi.
What, Tbilisi?
I don't know where they want to go to, George.
Well, I can't go there alone, is there?
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
Is that what he, as I told you to say last night, of course I'll see him before you go.
You always see a senior ambassador when he leaves, but only, like we did with the Spanish island.
It's all he wants, he wants a picture.
I think you have, I consider Kiev, Ukraine, you'll get a great reception.
Samarkand is a...
I've been to Samarkand.
I'd like to go to Kiev because I've never been there.
No, they're not good.
It's a big city.
And they'll have every interest to turn them out and then I'd leave from Kiev for a day around.
And if you arrive a day around, say, one afternoon, have dinner and spend... Well, it's really flying.
No problem.
Whether you want to spend two nights or one night, I mean, it's a...
Is there any country in Europe that we want to stop?
Just Tehran, I think.
Well, if you stop in Europe, you'll get into the trouble of why not?
I was thinking of trying to understand the... You know, I think Tehran, I think just one little tail and it's all right.
Yeah, Tehran, nothing, no one expects anything to come out of Tehran.
The Shah, if he knows that we please, he'll turn out the damnedest reception.
Right.
And...
as it gets you out of the main room.
I have decided that you really have to fight with that bullet.
And in order to avoid that, you're going to have to stay on .
That we ought to lay long carry on.
It poses a great problem.
We'll plan the rush trips so that Henry can work around the grant so that the third city might be Seattle, D.C. And the third part of Russia, and then go over to Tehran.
When is that?
Well, it's about that period, about the 29th.
We'll go to Tehran on that.
And...
We still have the problem of being in the NATO area, and everybody's saying, why don't we stop and report it to NATO?
I'd send Rogers to NATO.
Which he's expecting anyway.
I mean, I'd deal with Rogers off.
Yeah, just like we're peeling green on this trip.
Roger, you go to NATO.
Because after all, I have met with the NATO heads of government, God damn it, and they would have said, thanks a lot.
See, there's no way you can...
The symbolism looks bad, and if you report it, there's no way you can duck a report and you'll be shooting whatever you wanted from the American people in Brussels.
And if you see them without giving them a full accounting, they'll feel you're letting them down.
But we may not have the timing problem.
That's the thing we ought to determine first.
If there's enough of a gap, maybe you can just come back from Russia without bothering to leave Iran?
If there is, don't you think I'll be lying to Iran?
That's a good question.
That's not the last reason.
We ought to tell Russia the names of the people who lied to us on the airplane, because we know the names.
I thought we had told them, but it was obvious we hadn't, so I'm hearing no answer.
Right.
20 seconds to the 29th.
Shall we agree to that?
Yes.
We've missed a whole week there.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
It'd be worth it.
We arrived in Moscow on the 22nd, yeah.
But why don't we get it?
Isn't it, well, it's a sort of actual basis.
Why don't you do that, Bob?
You checked Bob and Bob said that's all right with us.
I'm afraid you're going to be right in it.
I think NATO starts on the 28th, isn't it?
Yeah.
All that.
And then on that, you've got to wait.
Well, we have really sort of promised it, and I just saw a cable that he wants an obit of his ballot, if you want to say, and the one in town or the one at the outskirts of town.
I think this, that I think you ought to... That he's going to turn out at a reception for you or something?
That I'd be able to, I just thought about this thing.
I just feel it better with the chair around me.
I don't know if it's him, should him be telling this chair around him or she?
No, but to tear it off, I think nobody has to tell him because it's sad.
No, because he raised it, whether we could, he raised it, and raised the question there, and said, no, we'll tear it off after the election.
Mr. President, my concern about you going to NATO is... Oh, I won't do it.
I couldn't be bothered.
...is, A, the symbolism of going to a military alliance straight out of Moscow.
Well, that's what I... My reason is that, basically.
But secondly, there's no way you can go there without giving them a full briefing.
And why would you give them a briefing before you talk to the Congress?
No, sir.
I'll give the Shah a briefing.
That's true.
That's because... Well, but the Shah... No one thinks the Shah will do it because you're a personal friend.
But no one publicly thinks you're reporting to the Shah.
I mean, those two are not.
And the Shah isn't going to tell anybody what you're telling them.
If you do report to them, it would be public.
Oh.
And Grasso, it's just a lousy...
place to visit after having said that though i don't want you to argue about it it's not debatable well bob can tell him i wasn't in on the conversation yeah maybe bob then all right just say that uh
and set the 22nd to 29th for planning purposes, and that we approve that tentatively here.
And you, you, you talk to me to approve it.
Dabrini calls you, and I call you and set the 22nd to the 29th.
Just one more problem, that Dabrini does call you on such matters.
What the hell?
Why should you call Bill on it?
Bill's good.
Bill's going to fund this trip.
It's going to be in my head.
And if he raises that, let's do it.
Because with all trips, we're going to fund them here.
Yeah.
Well, as far as the schedule is my responsibility, the White House does not.
That's fine.
And then the other thing is that I feel like I could say, shall I raise a freshman policy?
I just really can't.
I just don't want anything to get me out of the election.
You know, I'm going to talk a lot.
Well, you wouldn't want to go as a lame duck if you could get defeated.
But if you could get re-elected, I think you'll want it.
You're not going to want it that time.
You're running around the world.
That wasn't the time.
That was the time if you were elected.
If you were re-elected.
But we want that time for it is frankly to reorganize.
That's the time to prove it clearly.
I think by June 73, the state shouldn't be recognizable anymore at its top echelon.
I'll just try that.
You can't wait for the inauguration.
It's got to be January.
I intend to make the change right immediately.
Oh, no, no.
The top man should be changed immediately.
But then all the others...
I think when you get back in, the heads are going to roll.
Oh, yeah.
That's the best...
The most strength to do that is every day after the election.
Your strength goes down every day after the election.
Your strength goes down.
Inevitably.
Andrew Lilly didn't swing anything with the country.
At that point, he didn't do anything.
The longer you wait, the less you can do.
Well, tell Bill that's it.
I think that under the name that we ought to just get this Nagel thing and farm it.
He should go to Nagel.
Yeah, that's good.
Now if Bill says, well, you can go there and then go on the NATO, he says, no, I just want to go there.
You don't give him any reason.
I'm not going to say, I'm going to be useful again.
The shot is the reason not to go to NATO.
I'm going to tell him the reason.
No, don't go to NATO is the decision not to go to NATO.
That's right.
But I just don't feel that it's better.
It's a good idea to go to NATO.
I feel he should go to NATO, and I'm going to go to see shot, period.
With or without the shot, it would be a mistake to go to NATO.
I think we should do the shot anyway.
I think it's a nice split with the Russian crew.
It gives you a great crowd, an easy day.
He's a pleasant man.
He recognizes that part of the world.
And it doesn't take much off when you come back.
It's just that the press has said, why in the world is he going to be around?
Because he has a long-standing commitment.
I had a job, and this was the opportunity to do it on the way back from the press office.
I was here, I committed to come in 1972, and this was the only chance that I'll have to do it.
It makes it a very tiring return flight, but who the hell cares?
I find it makes no difference.
A return flight is so screwed up anyway.
You still want to think about going to Ireland on the way over?
I wouldn't strongly recommend that.
With the Irish and the old ones?
Oh.
The old ones.
Does that matter?
Do you recommend some?
Well, no.
I recommend getting a night's sleep somewhere, Mr. President, because it's important.
All right.
Keep going.
And right into your question, isn't it?
Well, we've got to look a lot way down the road, because this whole boxy race, he gets more tall when he calls, and they're wild and vicious in the snack.
And it's a wiry problem.
It's a big problem in the Irish.
But that's a sort of a sign of moral support for them, apparently.
You could go in and see it even.
Well, maybe we couldn't.
There's one country you can go into without getting into the country.
It's an eight-hour time difference between Moscow and here.
So to arrive in a civilized town... Where would you stop on the way back?
On the way back, you just don't worry about it.
Let's figure that out, depending on the care.
Well, it was an interesting evening last night, wasn't it?
I thought it was extremely interesting, sir.
Very, uh, very bright guy.
Yeah.
on the way back.
That's a hell of a long fight on the way back.
This is this home porting issue with Greece.
We agreed on the concept.
The next thing we know, Defense is making a big announcement and it sounds as if we are establishing a naval base in Greece.
And this is just some press guidance to say this is an administrative thing.
It's not a new naval base.
It's just a way for us to, which it is, to get personnel over.
What do we do when they arrive?
Statue notes?
Well, we have to look at the schedule.
They arrive late afternoon or something.
Yeah, I think it's at least the second morning.
Yeah, and that gets us into Washington at night.
Because you gained about eight hours.
You'd have to leave in the afternoon to get in at night.
Well, I think coming back from there, well, you should come back around kind of there.
Yeah, so be it.
First president to visit Moscow.
So you'd come back.
Well, you have to look, I think it's about a 16 to 18 hour flight out of there, too.
Who is it then, Ron?
Out of Tehran, I guess it would be 16 hours.
See, this is 16 and a half hours to roll.
So you've got, what the hell?
No, it's probably no more than 13 hours.
13, 14 hours.
Minus 8.
It's 3 o'clock, so you want to leave at 3 in the afternoon.
Yeah.
That's about right.
That's about right.
But going over, if you don't stop in Europe, you're going to have a tough time traveling.
I agree.
Because if you leave, I mean, you'd have to leave at midnight to get there in the evening.
I mean, they'll want you to get there about 4 in the afternoon because that's when they can turn out.
The beauty of that iron thing is you can land it, Shannon, and chop her right over to, uh, Mulcahy's Floodies.
You get complete privacy.
This guy will have Mulcahy.
Or is he?
No, hell yes.
We'll tell Jack that it's got to be without him.
He'll understand.
If you got there, say, on a Friday night and had two nights there,
Get there Friday night, blah, blah.
Get there Saturday night.
It's Monday you go into Moscow.
So you fly on Saturday.
Get there Saturday night, spend Saturday night all day, Sunday night, and go to Moscow every morning.
Just one day you spend in there.
You have one more day.
You spend one day there and two nights.
And from there there's only a three-hour time change.
And about a
Five hour flight.
Great, you can spend two days there if you want to.
Can I know, work there?
No.
I prefer one day, two nights.
Can you tell Jack this is a working place, not to be there, no, no, uh... Sir, the Prime Minister would want to come over to Shannon Creek, which would be all right, but thank you so much for staying all over there.
No meeting with him.
No meeting with the Prime Minister, yes sir.
I think it's the right thing to do, because...
I don't think so.
He was so cooperative, and I think Morgan didn't work it out.
There's no way you can arrive in Moscow in time for prime time in the evening here.
Well, because you can't do it.
Because it made our time different.
Just don't worry about it.
Moscow's a different kind of country.
You can't do it.
You just...
Let it go on news coverage, or special coverage.
There is no way you're going to have any prime time on the right.
It's going to be tough, because prime time.
It's going to be late at night.
Yeah, two o'clock.
See, prime time starts at Eastern.
Eastern here at 8 o'clock.
There, it's 2 o'clock in the morning.
And 9 o'clock in the morning.
It's 1 o'clock at night here.
No way.
You should stop it, that's all.
So what you do there is they do a prime time review, the morning, early morning hours.
Prime time is from 2 in the morning until 6 in the morning.
So you just forget it.
You don't have prime time coverage, that's all.
But if you do it, you'll have prime time coverage by sessions.
They'll do gun and tape, you see.
And if you get there at 4 or 5 in the afternoon, you'll be on the team.
All right.
Okay.
We'll see you later.
That's another reason to point to everything we can get out of China, because we're not going to get live crime out of Russia.
We will get it.
Just remember, our European trip had the same problem.
We didn't get any live crime out of Europe to speak of, but we got spectacular coverage because they take all those events and run a special time here.
Best life, we'll get out of the rush, it'll be in the afternoon, but we'll get it live in the morning here.
You'll get a great woman audience, which is very long.
And we'll see you tonight on the replay.
You know, I've been doing a little more things.
From the art of birds, and also comics, I've done dinners.
And every person, of course, has got to do whatever's best for them.
And frankly, I just don't think I'll do them.
I just think that, you know, for me, the way I go during the day, you know, I don't like to have to sit around being on stage at night.
See?
And so, why don't we just plan it that way?
I just don't agree, also, either with Conley's political judgment or with Archer's.
Archer's wrong on affecting the business people.
But that he's got to have people into the White House is going to mean all that much, wouldn't it?
Well, plus the fact that one, you've got a real problem in that if you have it, there's some people you have to have and those are the people you don't want to have because they're here all the time anyway.
All the time.
Business council guys and people like that.
And it really does mean nothing to them.
They think it's their right to come in this place.
If you have the nine entities that it would mean something to, you've got a problem with the others.
I don't know what the hell we're doing.
The statement may still be worth doing something.
Out there too.
What do you mean, here in the White House?
Either here or out there.
I think you can accomplish almost as much by doing the thing out there, where you do a Q&A.
Yeah.
Come into their meeting in the afternoon.
You know what I mean?
Horror.
Actually, that's not impressive.
Sorry, Mr. Churchill, could I get you to sign this letter to President?
It's not that different, so I do not think you'd want me to do this.
A letter to you saying, you know, we work here on this.
going in after these, going in and ordering the dinner.
But just generally speaking, as I've often said to you, I do not like to take meals with people.
I mean, it's just a goddamn bore for me, you know?
I don't enjoy food, and I don't enjoy sitting around and gasping about it, and I don't enjoy small talk, you know, with people.
So under the circumstances now, this is a problem, but an individual doesn't like it.
God damn it, we shouldn't put it in truth.
I think the way to do it is not do a dinner, not have a dinner, have a... maybe even act a dinner.
You don't need to check.
No.
Here's the issue.
No.
Because that's a waste of time.
There's nothing to do in the night anyway.
There's no point in waiting.
All of a sudden, you do it in the late afternoon.
The thing to do is 5 o'clock.
Yeah, 5 o'clock.
Or you can always go ahead and it's a Q&A.
They get to go home and tell their wives at dinner and so forth.
Well, I just had about a very interesting talk with Bruce.
At about 5 o'clock, I'm going to start the Q&A.
And then at the end, have a receiving line shake hands with them.
Then you leave, let them have a drink, go on home when they're ready to.
That way they get the feeling they've chatted with you.
They've got the Q&A.
It's better to do the Q&A first.
Or by all means.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
The receiving line wears you out.
Yeah.
Just wears you out.
You won't be able to come right in and do that.
Then at the end, they tell you, well, gee, I didn't mind.
They did like that, which they will.
That's what they will like.
Then we'll have just some more dirts and cocktails.
Just send the receiving lines over.
You wave.
It's all right to see y'all.
Go on up to your room.
You're good.
That, I think, can be just as enormously effective.
And you can do a pretty good size group for that.
You can do a group of 150, 200 people.
Take a couple hours of your time, and I wonder if it's worth doing.
Well, I think the amount of time, the Q&A, I just wondered if the handshake didn't take that much.
I think you've got to have the handshake.
What kind of people you're talking about?
Maybe we're talking about 100, though.
All right.
So if this would go for 70 to 100 people, at least make it really where they feel.
But the thing is, I would get it from around the state.
I wouldn't just have a gun.
I mean, you don't have to go truly.
You can have every local department, all the massive deals you've got to come in and so forth, make it to a group of leaders.
Well, what we do in each case,
is do have someone locally posted so that the blame is on him for who was there.
We give him the list.
We call him from the body.
We work it out with our single strongest guy.
And we do them.
Maybe at people's houses.
No, it's better to do it at a hotel.
It's better to go to a hotel than to do it at a hotel.
You get to a guy's house and you've got to get out of the car.
Well, you know, it's not bad to drive through a suburban neighborhood at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
Well, then they all sit in a nice, corrupt, beautiful home.
I don't know if they have enough chairs.
No, you can't get 100 in a home usually.
Well, maybe the one.
How's anything like Paul Miller's down there?
Yeah.
Well, I think the hotel is really better.
Yes, it is.
River neighborhood to the contrary, I understand.
We'll find a way to do that.
Well, you might find an exception.
There might be a place where there's a guy who has a thing like John Rollins or...
Mark Preston Wolfe, for example, has his wig on from Ohio, where he did a big group.
He's vising around the state, and that's a good thing to do.
Yeah.
This is probably better than all of the people in here.
Also,
All I've been in here for a strict political dinner.
That's what worried me about the state and your idea that it was trying to put an incoloration on that, that, uh, to distribute politics.
If I'm out in the country on an event, I just go to the state and go in there and do it.
That's an entirely different thing.
And the press will, you know, says, I'd like to get some people together to meet with people of color.
Just like while you were in Alaska.
Yeah.
Would you have their wives?
No.
Maybe men.
I sure would.
You're going to have 100 people here, a hell of a lot better off than 150 men.
All right.
All right.
Well, I have to go, don't I?
Well, you see what I feel about that, and I don't want to hear it.
I'm not going to deal with William's advice.
But no, I'm telling her to do the same.
I don't deal with her using the White House.
That's the thing.
An iron's idea, this is the word of the day, isn't it?
That the idea that, well, let's get in some business, man, and everybody's at once a week, and tell them to follow us.
You ought to have confidence in the economy.
Now, what the hell is that going to do?
We've been doing that, and Arthur ought to keep on doing it, and other people ought to keep on doing it, but you shouldn't.
And so warehouse dinners do pretty good jobs on that, and they're still doing well.
God, that's a hell of a thing to give these people.
Certainly.
And they apparently really enjoy it.
They've had some damn good sessions there.
Whatever he gets down to, of course.
A lot of these businessmen, you know, they're talking about GMI.
I know that.
I know that's what they want.
But we just have the time.
The country's changed too much, hasn't it?
And also, there's too much going on right now for me to sit and yak with those folks.
Well, if you find that you'd like to do it.
See, that's the thing they overlook.
They think it's something that would be interesting for you, or relaxing for you, or educational for you.
And it won't be any of those.
It's working out for life.
Boring, tiring, and that's about it.
You put your finger on the point.
Well, I think they got it.
They can get something out of it.
But I don't.
There's such an incredible gap between the information that's available to the President and what all those people have.
And what they don't realize is that anything they're going to tell you is almost 90% sure that you already know.
And have it in a better form than they're going to get it to you.
But sometimes it is a word.
And let me say, if I find it valuable, somebody does come in.
And he gives me a sort of a different feel for explaining things like that.
Does that almost have to be individual?
It does.
You could do it with a group of congressmen like when they came in the bus.
You'd think it was good to hear their views.
That was good.
But the point is, I do not like to mix any good in it.
Yeah.
I do not like to sit with people, eat with them, drink with them.
And you can't sit there like a bump on the goddamn log and say, well, I'm not going to have a drink or something.
You've got to do something.
You can, but basically then you're more bored in there.
The only way you can stand the goddamn thing is to at least get a little bit of the spirit of the party.
It's really the truth.
But that's a ceremony, not going to ride with a tri-diplomatic credential or a parade or a green flag or anything else, you know?
You see, to get this moved into the social context, it's a terrible burden for me because I don't enjoy social meetings.
What I prefer is this.
I much prefer to sit down with a group of people and talk to them in the office for an hour.
Just run it in, let them, bring them in, talk to them, chat with them, go on their way.
And there's no reason why you can't do that, but you do the gathering room, maybe.
That's the other thing.
Food, food's in the gathering room if you want to do that, but that is, you don't have to feed people in order to, you know.
Also, it costs a hell of a lot of money to shoot a natural cannon, you know.
I'm sure it does.
Even those, the dinners there are expensive as hell.
State dinners you don't have to pay for, but the other dinners you do, or some you have to pay on political money or something.
You have 100 guys for dinner that cost you $4,000 or $5,000.
The $20 a person.
It's $4.99.
It's about $40 a person.
Draw it on the line.
I don't have to say they've got to hire a lot of help.
It's very expensive.
That would be great.
Hi.
Are there other ways to send the other people?
Are there other ways to get them?
Well, with the copies, I heard a dancer say, gee, John's a great idea.
We're going to do it in the States.
you can go in and you can go around and just feel that there's a better connotation.
That would bring people in here, which everybody's going to jump on and say, you're using the White House when you sit down and can't pay for pure political terms.
It's out there, they can ask very political questions.
I want to be like Cesar's wife on the decision.
Is he still here as he goes to Texas?
He's going.
I don't know if he's left yet.
I think he's still there.
He's going to a radio or something.
I'm trying.
At least maybe he was coming today.