Conversation 673-003

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

This is the area for Bangladesh, and I think it would be a good thing if you could approve this.

There's no disagreement in the bureaucracy on it.

I think it's a sound thing.

I don't think it makes any sense for us to say we'll put up so much regardless of what you do.

We put up so much money.

Some of the pleading hearts, but not Cisco, some of the pleading hearts want us to say we give 33.3% of the total requirement regardless of what others do, but that would mean we might wind up giving 90% of the total that's given.

We can always give more, Mr. President.

This is a public committee, Senator.

What we are trying to do is to give others.

If they don't contribute, we can make another decision.

We may not say that.

We have said that.

That's the decision.

A couple of points that I was going to raise.

I made a note, and I wrote it out longhand, so that while we were gone, I could show it to Mark.

I don't want to have any excuse by Abrams or others while we're in

to use our strength in the event there is an offensive because of China.

So except for a strike on North Vietnam, a strike on the North, in that particular area, they're getting, he's get off his ass and hit him.

Now there's a, I just don't want there to be any question about that.

I have a feeling that that could really set us up for a,

There are papers criticizing system here.

We said that the North Vietnamese and the Chinese and all the characters that are coming there and the North Vietnamese.

You know it's true, but you know what they did right.

And then they had a hell of a fantasy that we didn't react and we didn't want to make the Chinese man out of your damn watch.

They have gone to him.

And that is clearly understood, isn't it?

That is clearly understood.

Except for North Vietnam, you feel that should not be happening.

Absolutely.

At that time.

Absolutely.

That's clearly understood.

I am beginning to wonder whether they'll launch a big offensive while you're in China.

That would really put it, it's putting it to us, but it's really humiliating the Chinese.

Oh, yeah.

It puts the Chinese in a position in how deeply you are coming there.

It's a tremendous event for them.

God, I mean, I was walking over to the San Francisco for lunch.

San Francisco, sir.

Yeah, it's not that.

It's not that.

Yeah, it's the only one convenient to the White House, and he was having a fight with David Bruce because he's been such a good friend.

I know this is how we tried to get him over there, and they wouldn't take him.

Well, they wouldn't.

Well, that was understandable, though it looked like something...

But I mean, he knows he tried.

Yeah.

Although they had to walk him home.

But people were standing in the street and saying, tell the president good luck.

We prayed for the president.

You know, this is what...

where people are used to hard-nosed stuff, and I ran into Phil Potters outside here.

Before you put anything in, I want to know what it is.

I'm not going to give you two lube bags.

I'm just going to slap you on the right leg.

But don't put anything in without letting me know what it is.

Put it up here first, because I don't want to have to take this job.

And Phil Potters said, this is the greatest event in my life.

I'm curious.

I want you to know that Teddy White saw it last night and said, I think I told you that.

Yeah, you told me that.

You'll never forget what you did to put him on the list.

So I think it's good.

No, I think it's good.

That makes it a special deal.

Special deal for some.

And you see, they're going to have it.

All these people who went are going to have a vested interest to make it look good, too.

Oh, yeah.

This is different.

The food now is in the press.

I hope, I just hope they will not be too negative on the fact that they aren't going to get little bits of decent outbreedings and so forth.

It's going to be, you know, you have, you've visited conscience centers and I have too.

I remember a 59 trip with Rucho Clarkson, the vice president of the press.

They were conserved, but they were granted the goddamn wall, except for the time when we went to the exhibition and had those bad debates.

Oh, but they have a lot of things to write about this.

Mrs. Nixon's schedule, which is going to have a lot of color.

You're going to have a lot of color.

Then they're going to have...

I don't know whether they told you, but apparently these maniacs are writing a new opera for you.

They're not going to show that opera that we saw.

Maybe I was right.

But I suggest one thing.

I'm reading the communique language and so forth, and it follows up what you said earlier.

I want to be sure what I had in mind was to get Marshall Green and, of course, Bill Trudeau, Marshall Green, get them to submit some language that will not be as good as what we get.

Have you thought of that?

I don't know the title.

I've already got that.

But they go further than I can.

I think we've got to be in a position where we've done some good through our talks.

So I just can't really say, well, we all know that.

We know that the foreign minister, he can't even go to the bathroom without checking.

But is there anything we can do in that respect?

Well, I've had to send in some stuff on trade.

Well, Marshall wanted to succeed, I think, quite honestly, if the whole thing collapsed.

Bill would think it's a good way to get rid of me.

And he doesn't much think...

I don't think he'd do anything directly against you, but...

But it can't collapse.

I mean, this is not a...

I don't know what you think of this communication.

Unless someone dies.

Yeah, but that we couldn't count on, but...

I think this communication with these guys don't match the word revolution, but... Oh, I see.

And have you seen... Did you look at the first draft they gave us?

Oh, the first one.

No, no.

Well, if I were to die in the air...

The point that I make is that the communique, the communique only poses a problem as far as it is on Taiwan, and we just got to be tough as hell on that.

I think that is the one point which towards the end of your conversation you might raise with Ma.

But see, what I'm also doing is I'm bringing a lot of intelligence information which, and that I'm willing to give them.

Now, as I understand, by 8 o'clock tonight, you will have some brief talking points for me for the leaders, right?

Yeah, I've cut them down.

No, I'm not hurrying.

There must be, and I have a tie to clear them this morning.

I have a good message, but it's 436.

So, no, 437.

But I need the brief talking points, and I need to...

I've cleared them.

On the plane, I will need to have them, some talking points, which I think actually...

that I'd like to have you...

I'm too damn busy to... No, the right ones are only 30 seconds.

I'm not going to say anything when I arrive.

But no, but I had on the press when we left, which I want that... You can pick up the stuff that we did not use.

the other day, you know.

But there are other, but I was thinking that you might sit down with Ziegler to see what he has told them.

I guess he's shown them the movie, Kevin Duncan.

He has.

But what I'm getting at is what I want to do is to spend most of the time, or at least a solid part of the time, talking about the, you know, how they're, how they want to be handled, rather than getting into the other.

And I want to stay on the substances.

They should have shown them the movies without any president.

They could have told them who the people are.

But then we've given them a little feel for it.

Well, they're all busy.

They've got shots every now and then.

Well, you can work up some talking points on the plane.

But I had written out the first part of that.

You can start with the stuff that's prepared for it.

I've got it attached, actually, to your meeting with the congressional leaders.

But I'll... Well, we essentially said some of the things.

Let's see.

Oh, I'll let that sound for you.

Well, I hate to get back to the life example, but I told them to be very careful not to tell too much about what...

their plans are going to be there so i don't see i think he's been very very staring at what their plans how they're handled there's not going to be any briefings that uh you know that sort of thing and that there may be for example did we say a category that will be a communicator i think we can say it's very possible probably what that will be determined by the leaders when they're there the president has been working toward that and if we say when we'll be

Well, that's something... That's the kind of thing which I want to tell them, rather than have them all speculating all over the damn place.

I find it very...

First of all, it's just that we've not released the communique until the last moment.

You're right.

Your point.

Now that you've thought it up, I have more leaning towards doing it in the beginning.

Oh, I know.

You mentioned it.

Do it at the beginning.

Feel the Detroit message.

God, that's great.

Then we'll get great welcomes in the other cities.

But more importantly, a big welcome to Chiang Mai and Hangzhou.

And that's why they agreed that we get back here.

And I'd rather get the communique out.

And before they're able to pick it to pieces, then we will be back in Washington.

And I'll say some sort of general things which can put the whole thing in perspective.

And then also, also, you then can do a little background.

You know, Zan, I think it's important

Very important, it seems to me, for you to do some background.

At that point, like on that very thing, we'll say, well, what about our treaty commitment?

You see, in background, you can say, well, our treaty commitment is sins, right?

We can't put that in communication.

I wouldn't mind doing it in Shanghai, but it needs to communicate, yeah.

Well, we've got to, we want to remember that you, we will have to sell that communication.

But we can explain how it came into being, not in October, but we can explain.

I mean, we can put the whole sequence that happened in October into your trip to say that you and Joe first started on October.

How do you get it all?

How do you get Robinson to that part?

Well, we'll just tell him at the end of some evening that that's what you did.

It made him feel a hell of a lot better anyway that you didn't discuss too much substance.

I mean, you'll say this, and you started with a conventional communique using the old State Department draft we had in October.

The troika said yes, and he said... No.

No.

So he doesn't know any of this, and this is what makes it so good, that this statement... Only on FOMOS.

You just can't go and say we disagreed about the race.

You've got to have something to agree on.

That was his point.

Well, that's Dan.

How did he even find it?

Well, Mr. President, for us to be able to say we reaffirm our defense commitments to Korea and Japan, to do that in Peking, is one of the best things we can sell the hell out of.

I know that.

But for most of us, they are framing it.

Well, whatever it is.

Our abiding interest in a peaceful solution remains.

We also have word friendship.

I think so, but I'll have to look at it.

But on the other hand, it seems to me that Communique does have one thing to do with the idea of what about this renunciation of force?

The state doesn't know about that.

No, no.

It's the renunciation of force.

That's agreed, is it not?

Oh, yeah.

The declaration that both sides...

are opposed to hegemony in the pacific that's right which is really the russians which is on the one hand but also isn't it it promises itself restrained by the chinese i mean i i wouldn't get my life on it but it's uh i think there's no press person that i've talked to that that expects that we will have six agreed general principles with

which stated we have, in effect, common policies in the Pacific, and we're not yet looking for it.

So the way you do it, though, is you say at the end of maybe the third or fourth day, August Rogers said, oh, I raised the whole thing with Joe, and he says he thinks we ought to have some things we agree on and some things we disagree on, and you're working on them.

Is that what I'm saying?

That's right.

He came in with a draft, and I've been working on it with his people.

Are you talking to Joe or something like that?

And I think when we please the press, we'll just move everything that happened in October into this session.

Yes, sir.

General, I'm going to point Easter here.

John, I'd like to speak to you for perhaps one moment before I... All right.

Yes, let me tell Ron to...

to make up a memorandum and get it to Henry immediately of the points that he thinks I can make in Hawaii about tactical and technical matters that he has not already made.

You know, about how they handle themselves and all that sort of thing.

Would you take questions, sir?

I would love to see the movie.

I'd be very careful.

I mean, I won't say anything now.

Go ahead, Chinese.

That's what the point is.

My feeling is that probably not, unless what I end up with is just these general things here.

But this line I'm just going to say, we will not discuss in general very much.

That's the only thing I'm very concerned about.

You'd be in trouble, really, if you hinted anything.

It's Chinese right now.

We get a note from them.

I don't bother you with it.

almost every third day, in which they are obviously making a record that they're not cooperating with us on Vietnam.

It's a curious set of notes.

But they're not attacking us.

That's the way I want everybody to ask about, and I say we're not going to discuss that.

And the way this thing is playing out now, I don't see much point really, in fact, of spending a lot of time with them on it.

They know what it is.

Totally changed the talking place on that, too, because I'm going to play it.

It's very cool.

It's not going to be rude, but almost, in terms of saying, well, this is all happening.

It's working out so far.

But I think that you know.

Too bad we have to think about handling the situation.

Let me tell you, any trips I take to the future, after we get past Russia, we're not going to have anybody but the, what's bad, I'm not going to take the government.

Yeah, it's been ridiculous.

We have a bunch of crap.

On the one hand, we've prepared all the briefings, which is fine, but then we have to get an explicated version of everything for Archer.

Just to get the arts for it.

And, uh...

But I think this trip, I mean, you have a good feel for the situation now.

It will create treatment.

I mean, I get calls all the time from people who haven't called in in four years wishing us well.

I talked this morning to an executive,

an investment firm in New York, who is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, is my note.

I haven't heard from him in three years.

He called out A, to which we ran on the trip, and B, to tell me he was at a meeting at the Council of Foreign Relations yesterday.

And he said, you have no idea how the mood has changed in the last year.

Everyone was praising the foreign policy.

And I don't know.

I haven't seen his account, of course.

And that will save you a lot of time too.

Letting it up a number.

Good.

And then give your hand to gather them.

Well, I just wanted to mention to you in this briefing paper on Clint East that I said not to refer to Clint East because it's our judgment now that it would be a very troublesome thing for Clint East on confirmation.

I don't appreciate that word in the woodworking.

I think the main thing here is that they've been pushing the White House for years to get on with it.

I mean, move back, work, establish.

How do you do, my dog?

How do you do, sir?

You must be also, you know, confident about re-election, but nominate me for this job.

I'm happiest about that.

Mitchell says you're the only man for the job.

Tell you what I ain't talking about.

You realize that when you go over there, you know, of course, I'm very close to the association, Mitchell.

Yes, I do.

And I know you're very respectful.

I think the worst thing that can happen in any kind of a job is for a new man to go in thinking that he's there.

When you go, you've got to go there as the Attorney General.

You've also...

Come on, we need to see you, mister.

on a couple of items like busing out mentioned.

He's talking about it.

But on the other hand, I think it's very important for you to assume the mantle as your own name.

You're there to be the teacher in general.

This is necessary for the morale of your staff, for your own, and all the rest.

And it'll be the best relationship here.

What I'd like to do in terms of working with the White House, you know, you always have this kind of business of, you know, departments fighting the White House, departments fighting each other, and so forth and so on.

You were a different player.

I know that.

I've been sitting with you for years.

Take, for example, when it comes to this.

comes to the business of the whole narcotics deal and there are some sensitivities here that i want to mention i want you to bend over backwards really backwards to see that you're totally into him sometimes gets you know he's receiving those kind of things

he just feels that this is it and i go i want you to still see him i want you to assume i'd like for you to after your conversation with me today he's in texas you want to call him up and say that i mentioned this that i said it was quite a bit i thought there were some problems here about cooperating tell my reason and that i that i had told you that i want him you to see him as soon as he's back and have a talk because you intend to work with him

put yourself in a position where you're going with John.

I know there's been some screwballs over there, but I don't want him to feel that they turned.

So you want to say that the president told you that you're to work with Conley on this, and that you don't want to do a thing that's crosswise with him, and that you

The other thing is, in terms of the matters that we have here... Sir, do you want me to call him tonight, and then leave here?

Let me give you a little fill on what some of the problems are.

Yeah, you give him a fill.

No, I think it would be very helpful if he'd call him tonight.

You see, I guess the President called me in a few minutes ago, and that was one of the major part of the purpose of the conversation.

The other thing is that they make their economy realize that

We're playing the game straight with him.

The other thing is that with regard to the problems that justice has that involves the White House, I would like to be a little quick, John, on an end of domestic health.

For example, if it's integrated housing,

some damn suit, if it's bussing, of course, that's practically out of work with me, or anything like that.

I'd like for you to work with them directly, and if on the bussing issue, I have designated John, basically, the White House guy, to look into it both politically and legally.

And of course, we've got a hell of a big group.

You know, Ed Martin's working on it, and John's working on it.

I want you to be, I want you to be sure that your people are truly disciplined in following what we developed.

I'll see an investor in the department where you just say you did, you know what I mean?

And get into that, get into that civil rights division.

Now, I, my, and my, I think, and I understand if you feel someone saying, well, you probably need to strengthen that, but I don't know how that would even do it.

I said what I said.

Is that we have a blindfold in charge?

Yeah.

I don't want to do anything with it this year.

He just didn't want to find us.

Well, we've had our problems to the extent of trying to get us...

Let me say this.

You, even more than John, are a pragmatic operator.

I'm more pragmatic than my friend John.

John sometimes is a good operator.

I will, you know, you know.

You're an operator, you know what I mean, and you can be perfectly brutal if necessary.

Let me say that on this issue, the civil rights issue, it is, if we talk about China and all these other things, but the civil rights, that could bust them.

It could bust us wide open.

I believe that to be true.

And for that reason, or it could bust them, or bust them, I don't know, but if we play it right, we can kill them on that stick.

So I would hope that you,

Let me say on this, John has got a lot of his chapter first up, which he has not incidentally belabored me with.

But over a period of time, I have my little notes on news summaries and the rest.

I've told him to take it up, and sometimes he's taken it up with Mitchell, sometimes he hasn't.

John Mitchell has been so busy.

You, on the other hand, will have a little more time to do the department.

I think that would be true.

That's very true.

Yes, sir.

Who are you going to make the deputy?

You may tell Patrick Gregg the deputy.

Oh, you've got to tell him that.

Great.

Well, the point is, he'll do what he says.

I think we've got to do something.

It's great to hear from you.

Oh, he and I are very close friends.

But is he a good follow-through kind of a guy?

I'm not certain.

He couldn't be better.

He wouldn't be just ideal.

Well.

Romney was practically left alone.

He was integrated by the major cities, by the major states.

And we're not gonna lie.

And, uh, do you object if I smoke, Mr. Bennett?

No, you don't smoke.

Okay.

No, I'm serious.

You're right.

John is dead.

He may not be.

I don't know what you said.

I didn't know that.

You throw them in the house.

All right.

Does the justice have something to do with this?

Uh, Mike, not a lot, but it would be awfully helpful if we had some packing.

Now, on the busking thing.

Maybe instead of having your civil rights thing, I think maybe you ought to take the busing thing out of the civil rights thing.

And maybe Dick ought to take that under his wing and handle it himself.

What do you think?

It's so important.

I would not want the Civil Rights Division to do the staffing on that.

I'm going to use our office as a legal counsel.

Yeah, he's been in on it.

The new fella has Harrison.

Yeah, Harrison.

And he was at Camp David with us in this school session.

I don't think Dave Norman should be involved in this.

But the reason that it's important in justice at the moment is that you have the most sensitive issue, politically, of any domestic issue.

More sensitive than the place in Christ controls.

And that's busing.

Busing, burning, and housing.

I believe that's the issue.

I don't have the same feel for housing that I have been involved in.

The Jews, the Jews, for God's sake, they're the most liberal people of all.

They hire an airplane over Miami, fly it over Miami Beach, and then say, that's Lindsay's six.

Can you imagine that?

Why?

I'd like to see you, or should he get his feet in the midst of this?

I think it would be great.

You've got political judgment, and also you've got the confidence.

To me, it's not a legal issue.

It's a political issue.

Strictly.

No matter what you say, it's a political issue.

I've been in the middle of this for some time.

Back on your confirmation, I'll just give up.

to carry out the law.

We've got some policy papers that you may want to read on these issues.

It'll help you.

Well, Ed Morgan said to the Attorney General six months ago, read all of that.

And there it is.

I mean, on the housing.

No, not yet.

Just for background.

I had better think.

Yeah, well, I...

I'm going to get involved in it, John.

I don't know if I want to... You'll probably get a question on the confirmation about it, because it's a very high... You better have a reading on that question.

Reading.

So, basically, the way I was going to handle it, they didn't ask me about it very simply, is that no federally-assisted housing will be...

forced upon a community against its will.

Second, that no federal assisted housing will be put in a community which discriminates.

Uh, and that means there should be the lo- it's a matter for local decision now that those fine general principles you really gotta make, you see.

Because basically that means if a community doesn't want it, it can discriminate.

I don't think they're asking about housing.

I guess they're asking about issues that we're involved in.

You're right.

Although, uh, it's, it's very near the surface for Chicago Congressman

Very near the surface where everybody's in Long Island right now.

St. Louis, the Blackjack case.

Well, you also have, it's very near the surface from Atlanta.

You know, our people down there, the congressmen.

Yeah, that's farther down.

We've got that link.

But you all did get into the Blackjack problem.

And John was in on the development of this housing policy.

Just let me tell you, I'm against integrated housing.

Okay, but it's forceful government.

That's my point.

I guess you can't say I don't give a damn what the law is going to be like that because we are dealing here with volatile issues that create reverse racism such that we've never seen before.

I'm very happy that our society has ensured this.

And that's why I'm against the busing thing.

I'm sure, like you, I have a total lack of feeling on race issues.

I couldn't care less.

On the other hand, we must realize that, at this time, it is an enormously volatile issue.

And we can't be back 200 years of history in one year.

That's the problem.

So if you could, if you could, but what I mean is that I think for the balance of this year, the balance of this year,

We've got a right.

And for the balance of this year, I would like for you to be a, I would, in your confirmation press, say, look, I'm just like, but you would be a totally political man.

Within the, within our White House operation, I'd like for you to work early.

And I don't want to know about it any time.

Do you understand?

Yes, sir.

Because then I can stand up for so long.

You don't know to consult me on this.

You see, I want to be able to deny it.

I don't think I'll have to.

But if you and Ehrlichman can develop sort of a, sort of a, on the political issue, I'm sorry, the, but like, the, like, if you give it some manner of, I guess, the antitrust thing, has that begun to cool off somehow, or how are we?

Well, I don't know, sir.

I think it has.

This one fellow's name that we set up, we decided he teaches.

Very conservative fellow who works at Rehnquist, and I have him pretty well programmed that we're going to

not do anything this year, you know, for political reasons.

But, you know, that's what I've gotten across to him, that we've done enough in the past three years.

We can talk about what we've done and not have any confirmations of 1972.

And he's pretty well primed up to go along on that basis.

It was a pretty sensitive conversation to talk about, and he understood it.

I don't...

We're going to need somebody like that.

If he isn't acceptable, then we've got to get somebody else who understands the pragmatic politics of 1917.

I don't know about this idea.

So, well, I just talked to Peter Flanagan outside.

I have a meeting with a colleague this morning at 9.30, first time I heard about it.

So it was a very secret operation out in the bureaucracy, apparently.

And we don't have anything else.

Watch the bureaucracy.

Well, I'm a collegiate, so I had him promise me, and since McLaren left, I now have a weekly meeting with him for the purpose of learning these things before they get bureaucrated out, you know, the talk where we can't

change their signals.

I will be surprised if they've got to keep copy on that.

Bureaucrats always are very clever and very tenacious and very instructionist, even in justice.

And you've just got to work around it.

You've got to remember those little fellows, they came into the government and worked their way up, and a lot of them are of certain persuasion.

So, uh, in your case, uh, you know, I can see my question there until November.

Do you think it's possible to cause your reelection?

Well, maybe.

That'll help.

But I just think it's probably right at this time, too.

I think we ought to cool this.

I don't think we should be so damn tactless, rushing around, getting at every damn fight, making out in buses.

What we've got to do is to intervene in a lot of cases to try to stop it.

I still think, John, that is an option.

I wouldn't rule out totally the Baker option.

If you could have it on a two-track basis, what I'm saying is, if you could say, here's an amendment.

We're going forward on it.

You know what I mean?

So you're saying I'm for a constitutional amendment?

Well, on the other hand, if the court, if we're going to move in the court, then if the court should move on, then we would change the amendment.

I met with Vector Brock and the president of the Attorney General this morning.

You did?

Yeah.

His one suggestion is, you know, you come back and we have a constitutional amendment that we can all support.

suits to hold everything until we resolve that issue.

And that might be a viable approach.

Well, the problem, the thing is, the way to make it, instead of going to support a constitutional matter, have justice intervened now.

And until the court decides, the problem with that is that

It's unfortunately not the Warren Court anymore.

It's the Nixon Court.

And I'm not sure.

I'm afraid we've got a time bomb there.

And if we wait until Benedict, and then we put in a constitutional amendment.

God damn it, it would be terrible.

They'd say, Nixon wouldn't even go along with his own reactionary clerk, right?

Do you know why?

I think we've got to go with the constitutional amendment.

And also, I think that could put a little torch to the anvil, just as well as I was going to say that.

And another thing, if we could ever get Muskie, who's a probable nominee, forced, as a result of the requirements of the Democratic nomination, to take the wrong side of that question.

Is he still wanting to take a position on Johnson?

He's had no voice since last week.

He has children.

So I think he's got to be there.

Well, McGovern's all over the place.

He's everywhere.

Lindsay and Scoot Jackson have set the two poles down.

One of them is going to have to pull Muskie over there just because of the requirements of the Blackboard to get that nomination.

Well, I don't think Florida will do it.

I think he must be so big as he can waffle in Florida.

I would be surprised if he pulls over to Florida.

I think he would be later.

I think he's trying to be middle of the road there.

He's got these two extremes, as Dick says.

He's trying to attack it, and I don't know if he's going to attack it in a constitutional position.

That is clear.

Well, we've got a constitutional amendment position.

It's got to be up or down.

And I say I'm for it.

And Muskie says, well, I'm not sure.

And you see, he's an impossible position.

Yeah, we've got to wheel.

That's my house.

We've got to wheel our kids on this.

Yes, and we have a hell of a time finding the constitution.

That's right.

We're going to have a hell of a time with our own blacks.

Yeah, we're meeting with them the same time.

Well, I think we're gonna, I think that'll work out alright.

we've got to just be perfectly honest about the issue and i think the state of the fact i would like for basically our statement on busing to be in the nature of johanna we talked about this when we got there and in nature what i understand everybody talks about that famous brief i guess didn't we didn't prepare the brief brown versus

Well, some of you did.

Well, let's have one on busing.

Let ours be what might be the brief that we might have in the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution the other way.

I mean, getting all the reasons why busing police would fear your education and therefore your home.

I'm about to...

But you, John, you reached, you still hold a dependence today, and we all change about every day here.

But it's not our goal what to do.

You're still holding a dependence because you've got to fight for it.

I think so.

For visibility, that's where I am right now.

And to get this effect that Dick talks about of smoking them out on an upper down and...

You're getting all kinds of people serviced, Mansfield, Scott, and everybody.

that I've seen today in this country, but now against past social men.

The best statement I've seen on the merits today was by Raspberry.

He says this whole busing thing is a lot of nonsense.

He's against busing.

And he says if the whites want to run away from the blacks, they'll let them run.

Let's not have a line of buses with a full black station.

He says, there's nothing so magic about black kids going to school with white kids.

Take the money and don't buy buses with it.

Mix up the education.

But he would also oppose the constitutional amendment.

That's a loaded subjective term to apply.

It signifies going backwards to symbolism.

It's a constitutional amendment.

But it's for that reason, I don't know what the hell it is, but it's for that reason you come up to him on these blacks and you put Muskie's feet to the fire.

And he said, look, if you're for that Constitution, remember, we're not for you.

And he knows that they have to be for him if he's an elected president of the United States.

And we don't have anything to lose by it, or very little to lose by it.

You mean our lives?

That's right.

Well, when we say our blacks, with our establishment of blacks, we don't have a hell of a lot of them in the Senate.

And as far as the category of blacks concerned, you'll get a few, quite a few of those that will support the constitutional amendment.

Or do you agree?

Inside they will.

The black leadership, the vocal ones, will vote against it.

How old are they?

90% of your blacks would be opposed to a constitutional amendment.

They're 85 now.

Not the same number that voted Democratic in 1968.

But they'll tell you also they're opposed to busing for their kids.

Yeah.

But, John, there's nothing in between.

Well, nothing clear.

Nothing that's going to do this job that you want to do.

I don't think so.

I just don't think so.

Elliott is fooling around with all kinds of laws.

Either that or they frame questions of fact so that you have to try to protect the school that's been in a lawsuit.

You know, how far is too far?

But that's his thing.

This is the kick Elliott's on right now.

We've got an expert with us.

And they get up and say, well,

well-being in the job.

It invites a thousand lawsuits and a thousand lawsuits.

Can't do much about it, can I?

You originally had a conclusion.

No, sir.

This is my recommendation.

I hate to do it.

I hate to, I hate, frankly, to take a position which puts me in the position of being anti-black.

I don't like that.

From that standpoint, I don't like to divide.

Yet I think, John, if we write this paper carefully enough,

and particularly with the farm sentences on upgrading education for all, all of the education.

In a paper carefully thought out, National Television Address, I think there's such a thing as a national television address.

Do you agree?

Yes, sir.

And it's simply worded now, custody.

That's a trick.

We've had about 10 or 12 drafts.

John, you are welcome to use, you know, if you like, you're welcome to use Cam David or, you know, it's very nice.

Well, we might read.

Although it's been discussed, you probably ought to bring George.

George.

Oh, he is.

He very much is.

He's the chairman of your cabinet committee.

And he's very much in it.

Yeah, I see.

Or he would like me to get him.

I would have no...

He would like me to put his voice out to him.

I mean, it's too far to call on him.

it's not as long as he wasn't there anyway well well uh this is this is very serious we have ralph erickson and these other lawyers

They, I don't think this is, they take three, four days to get up there and lay in the sky.

And maybe not this evening, maybe next weekend.

But I'm not telling you how to do it.

And, and, and tell them, let them come up and do it so that they also have some relaxation too.

I don't know if they're fans of a movie in the evening.

That's the word I call them, but they tell me to come up at the end of the evening.

All the evening.

I used to go to cancer.

Yeah.

But, uh, I think my niece comes too.

Well, I think that's a good suggestion, and we're going to get to the point that there's no substitute for just sitting and keeping at this for a couple of hours in a row and giving it a recommendation.

I hope you don't really need any more guidance from me.

You know what I did yesterday?

I came into it, as John will tell you, about three weeks ago after reading the long memorandum, so while we were doing it, I said, I'm prepared to do any more of it.

probably feel just as strong as anybody, but, you know, raise hell with the whole dual solicitation story.

I do think that you ought to be able to work out something in that thing that makes it so it isn't correct or aggressive.

Well, you can do it, but it takes the simplicity totally out of it, because then you add clauses and clauses and clauses.

Well, I think that's a part of it.

But just like in the 10th draft, we have a two-clause constitution that has a lot of words in it that answers a lot of questions.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's damn hard, and I'm not satisfied with anything we've got so far.

Well, we'll have at it.

And it may be that rather than my coming out for a specific amount at this point,

I would say that I believe that the constitutional amendment should be there.

I've instructed the Attorney General to testify, to work with the Congress to perfect the amendment.

And when the Congress does pass it, as a Congress passes the amendment, I don't know.

I think we've got to give them the amendment.

I think you're right.

Is that your opinion?

I think so.

Otherwise, you see, you let Muskie off the hook.

Sure, everybody's off the hook at that point.

Oh, sure.

I think so.

Well, we have to keep our own troops from polluting it at this point.

Well, I mean, the Vice President was on a Today show and said he didn't much like the idea of a constitutional amendment.

Well, this was before.

You taped this before you had the press conference.

But things of this kind, inadvertences of different kinds, can water us down.

So we have to keep putting you back in the right position.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yes, sir.

We've decided to

Absolutely.

I think that's very important.

Well, I think you're, oh, one other thing I wanted to say.

It's a small thing, but you know how I feel about women.

Of course, I mean, I'm sure men feel the same way.

About what?

Women.

You're guessing, aren't you, that women mean anything?

Or are you flooring me?

She doesn't fuck.

I want to tell you now that I want you to be preparing some intelligent woman for a high court.

I want you to look into that thing.

For this high court?

Yes.

Not an even.

We've got to have two or three ensemble.

And look around.

Find an intelligent woman who's a member of the Ku Klux Klan or something.

Maybe we can...

So it's a hard time.

Ten years now, you didn't have no difficulty.

You can buy one.

Those are dirt right now.

Yes, sir.

You just haven't heard about me.

My mother-in-law, she was a constant economic advisor.

She was living up to the gospel.

She was great.

And I just mentioned this back the other day to the head of our office.

They all married guys in class, and there's four.

I'd like to have lunch with each other once a week.

I'd like to get as close to you as you can.

You have to see me.

You come in.

But I don't want to have some revolving with us.

I don't want to have revolving with the bureaucrats in your department and the rest of them.

You've got to be in the White House.

It's the staff that are fighting and they're keeping them up here from that.

I just want you to know that we can all work together to move on.

Because you, we feel, are part of the political team.

You're part of the new group that we've had around for a while.

And you will very, very, very seldom have ever told a person here to me.

I don't know if you want to hear it or something.

Ah, okay.

Do you have any other questions?

We're already teaching college this year, aren't we?

Going back to that, what is the, what is the cap number, sir, here?

$35,000.

$36,000.

It goes up from $40,000 to $60,000.

Can you imagine that?

$40,000 to $60,000.

But you don't have it.

But you don't get it.

When do you get it started?

Maybe around the time you're confirmed.

Or maybe at the time of the swarming?

I don't know.

I'm the deputy attorney general.

I should have had you in for this last one, Mr.

Congressman.

Conversation ended.

John filled you in, but George is the chairman of the Capitol Committee.

Thank you, Senator.

On this whole, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

On the bus situation.

I was just looking for him.

Suggested that there's a conference he can't be.

But you will know, work with George in this deal, okay?

Yes, sir.

And he sees it the right way.

Unfortunately, I'm a lawyer.

I'm sure he'd find an answer.

The goddamn lawyers can't find an answer.

That's the trouble.

We're going to tell you earlier, I'm not a lawyer to find an answer.

Well, I think the matter of fact that an awful lot is...

in working your way through the problem in a non-legal way.

I agree well with the lawyer, which we're trying to do.

Well, I told John's department, we've got to make this paper one that is like the Green and the Brown case, more like the disreputation.

And that is to make it so that it's clear that our goal is quality education for all children.

And our goal is that

no amendment which would be retrogressive, that would turn back the progress that we made, that we were, that we cannot in good conscience support any kind of an amendment which would in effect say we will now stop busing and then say that large segments of large people are going to be doomed forever to have inferior education.

And the point is, the way I would put it, and maybe make it clear to you, did you do this?

Fortunately, the paper and the speech that I decided I didn't have to make on television, Dave suggested it, and I and John agrees that you do too.

But I've got to put it that the choice we have here is to find, bleed, and die for the symbol of integrated education.

cause upheaval, cause racial strife, and also cause inferior education.

Doing that, or tackling the problem, primarily, which we agree with, and that's where it is, and that is the problem of seeing that every child, black, white, yellow, Catholic, Jewish, etc., has an equal chance at any good education.

And that's really what it's all about.

And I think, too, the whole freedom of choice thing, which is really a good term that's got to be emphasized.

The fact that anybody in a lab, for example, who lives in a gallery, my buddy, he should not be kept out of the school district.

If his kid parents want to send him, you know, a drive over to school or have him walk or something, let him go.

I think that's the answer to it, but I don't know how to recommend it.

But that kind of rhetoric should be very strong.

But the choice we face is that we can be a professional liberal and fight for this principle and direction, and do, is the next generation of school children, or the next decade of school children, going to be one because of our failure to deal with this problem, which will face racial strife,

We're going to raise the level of education, really concentrate on that, rather than put our very, very slim resources in wheels and tires and so forth for a principle that wouldn't work.

There's a phrase that I've been using, talking around the people pretty well, and that is, what we want is quality and equality of education opportunities.

that down use that here use that in your confirmation with quality and heat quality that's very good now let me suggest this i think you ought to get the cabinet committee together soon i'll tell you why i uh john mentioned to me that agnew had some statement which he had made before my press conference but i think the cabinet committee should be gotten together so that they all know what our direction is

Now, they have read the papers, but do you think this is a good thing, John?

They're meeting this afternoon, Mr. President.

Oh, okay.

Well, I'm going to start.

We'll lose him.

We'll lose the attorney.

You know, Elliot, you're going to sign the job.

Right.

We're going to get a good audience for that.

What's that?

Dick could join us for that.

We're in a tent and we're going to listen to the blacks and tell us what they think.

Are you free?

Free to go.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Good.

Well, thank you.

I've got to go work a couple of months.

If you want to wait for us, Captain, we'll be right back.

All right.

Thank you.

Don't spend the money until you're confirmed.

Have you got it yet?

George, what do I have in mind?

While we were gone.

While I was gone.

Because I was expecting you and John to run the shop.

I've got Hager on the board there.

There's one of those sensitive phone calls you have in mind.

You know, many of you have, or I mean, you really presently in the country, that the vice president sort of runs things.

That has never been the case.

However, you don't make any point of the fact that he doesn't understand this.

If you have a meeting while we're gone, and it's done, we didn't have any idea.

I would think it might be not, I might, if you think all of it, John, if you, of course, maybe, maybe we should have a meeting while we're gone.

Or domestic piece of meat.

How about a domestic piece of meat?

Can I do that?

Well, don't do it just to say that.

Let me check and see what you think.

The thing is, in terms of running this stuff, you fall in front.

Now, the second point is, George, that I've been doing a lot of thinking on the economic side.

We've got two problems here.

One is what we do, and the other is what we appear to do.

Spokesmen and all that sort of thing and so forth.

Now, for example, on the controls thing, we've got Rumsfeld, who basically is now the chief spokesman on wage and price controls, is he not?

Yes, sir.

And then you've got Grayson and the judge, who also is on the top side.

Now, as far as the policy is concerned, however,

We've got to keep that here.

And what I want to do, what I mean, we also have a situation where cotton, of course, is in, as a general cost of living concept, also an international being, of course.

Now, here's the problem.

Conley is so busy with so many things that he wants to watch all these things.

He doesn't want anything done, very properly, which goes against his own positions.

On the other hand, he doesn't have the staff to do it all, like Taylor.

I asked him in Florida about the waiting, about the waiting for our support.

He said, well, I can see that he is as disposed to as he might be.

that he would probably, did he talk to you about his concern about it, John?

Yes, sir.

Yes, and he feel that way?

Yes, and welcome stewardess.

Now, what I'd like to see, and this is a very sensitive problem, I'm not worried about what you do, not what you say publicly, even like it is.

What you do must be done in a way that he,

doesn't get the feeling that we're undercutting him or going around him.

So what I would want to do with George is to have Hugh and John, who has to work with him, and other people like our colleagues and support.

Hugh and John ought to sit down together with Connelly.

He won't be here, but I'm sure we're going to.

But I'm speaking now when I get back.

Rather than having a whole lot of big groups talking about what do you do about wage and prices and controls and the rest, I think that you, after you've done some work, can talk to Connolly about the thing.

And then bring Rumsfeld in.

John, anybody else that you want.

But what we need is to develop a policy.

And this brings me to the immediate problem.

The immediate problem is the one you brought up the other day.

As I understand it, the trains will move about 90 miles an hour down the track toward a collision with painters.

And also very, maybe 100 miles an hour toward a collision on the Dockstrap.

Now as far as the Dockstrap is concerned, we cannot have the wage price over the wage order do anything that causes another Dockstrap.

As far as the teamsters are concerned, we have a very great interest in not drawing a sword on the teamsters in this meeting.

Now, I realize that on the other side of the coin, there is enormous public support for taking the elements around.

And that you get from Conway.

You also get it from Ron Solich.

I'm aware of that.

But we have, with regard to the docks, I'm convinced that despite the fact that many people will raise hell by paying the dockers more, the damage to the economy far over balances the heat we have to take with that.

Do you agree with that?

I do.

Don't you have anything about it?

I just know that if I can, I can work with Arnie, although Arnie's very, um,

And he sees the problem of the board, too.

What could they say about it?

These ways in which you get around it are helpful.

One thing is that there have been real productivity gains on the dots, to take a point, too.

And the other is they're coming off a five-year contract that had no cost of living clause in it.

So they really were way behind.

And that can be put forward.

Let me suggest that I'd like to see, I'd like to be talked to, and let's influence the board on this one.

I think we have to.

Did you talk to Connolly about it?

I did not.

I have a date with Connolly tomorrow morning after you leave, and I'll go over this with him.

I've got a couple of other things.

Oh, just find out what we're going to do about it.

I don't, let's suppose the board,

shows being allowed, what happens then?

They go out again?

They may.

They might take us.

I kind of doubt it.

If they go out, then... We have to go to the conference.

No, sir.

Then I think, under the law, they would be striking to attain an illegal objective, and we could have joined the strike.

And probably the Congress would demand that we do that rather than go to the Congress.

Oh, I see.

It's an illegal strike because of the wage war.

That's right.

They would be striking to attain an illegal objective.

But then suppose they don't go back to work in the face of the injunction.

Then you have a kind of confrontation between them.

What about signing the bill?

The bill situation is that it runs until late next Tuesday.

That's the end of the 10 days.

And we are advising you to hold off signing it as long as you can so that we don't interject anything into the processes of the union in ratifying their contract.

Right now, the executive board has recommended to the membership that they approve the contract.

It goes out for voting.

They have a peculiar voting structure where they have some 24 units or blocks that you put together in different ways.

Any one of these blocks can veto the settlement by their individual vote.

If a veto from one of the

then it goes to a general membership vote and it takes a two-thirds vote to ratify the contract.

It's a very elaborate process this union has.

We'll know early Sunday morning whether or not they approve the contract on the first type of procedure.

If they don't, it won't be until

probably Wednesday or Thursday, that we would know about the second.

So you would have had to sign the law by that time, presumably in China.

And we will have with you the law and some basic signing statements that Ray, Price, and so on are working up now under different circumstances.

Right.

We'll have to play along.

from there you have a very good voice communication yeah i don't get any questions with regard to the other george the teamsters can anything be done repetitively on that now is that or it is you just gotta wait and let let us come right up against the bow saw

There are two cracks on that.

There's the Chicago local, which has been the most obstreperous one, comes up in April.

And then the general contract comes up later.

And I think the best thing for us to do is to try to talk to Fitzsimmons on the side and see if we can get some idea of what he can take.

Maybe he can't take any change.

Or maybe he can take some.

Maybe he can take some and they can hit that point.

Maybe we can get that done.

But the payboard is militant in that they have been burned a lot in the press as being effective and so on.

And by gosh, they might do that.

And they also have a situation where two members, two of the union members, represent the aerospace industry.

Their contract got cut down.

They didn't like it.

So now they are taking the attitude, well, all right, if our contract got cut down,

Let me ask those dock workers.

We'll see what the administration does with them.

Sort of an attitude, which is a tough one.

But there is this problem about what is the right sense of direction?

Should we be trying harder to control more?

We're going to have to add to the stat in the Price Commission, I think, without a doubt, just to do even a reduced amount of things, because of the way the airport is going to be developing.

On the other hand, that seems to be what the public wants.

That seems to be what the public wants.

On the other hand, that's that poll there.

Somebody scrunched us.

Well, the Wall Street Journal poll, too.

The public will always want more control, up to a point anyway, when they become totally disenchanted.

So it's a tricky thing to get out of under this whole business.

I had a very liberal audience last night at this Harvard Club.

And I got questions about, what are you going to do to contain the Indians?

What are you going to do to them?

And they were in Washington, South New York.

Oh, I had a big audience.

Harvard had a big audience.

And, uh, they were awful damn conservative for a bunch of liberal, hard-earned beds.

On this, I think.

No, well, some younger and some middle-aged.

Just a couple older.

You get out there, a lot of those guys were in baby garden firms.

But I got a lot of this child development business and all that on the liberal end.

But on wages, prices, and unions, a lot of very tough...

conservative it's awfully hard but you know my audience the other point i was going to mention well anyway uh we had uh you filled georgia on our conversation with art uh yes some not not a lot of detail there wasn't much to it that's why you didn't fill them in got that just being a waste of time are you just running for purposes of uh

the cosmetics, I guess.

He didn't raise convertibility.

I heard he had money supply.

What else?

Oh, he wasn't bitched about the budget, and it wasn't about the budget.

I said, well, Archer, I reminded him that he butchered the other way before.

Well, I heard he stuck a toy on the value-add, I said, Archer.

Archer, that's curious.

I was wondering what you recommended for a member of the breakfast.

Oh, Mr. President, that was for a different purpose.

We were pushing very hard to get this spending up.

We had a disappointing month in defense in January.

They only spent $5.8 billion, which is still below the $6 billion level.

They're going to have to get up to $7 billion in the next five months, per month.

What's their problem?

Why can't they do it?

I don't know, but we're meeting with their assistant secretaries and the controller people and they left a message.

We're pushing on very hard.

On the convertibility, they said it was not raised.

But, uh, I, uh, you need the column.

You, uh, you can say that I have reiterated to you my total, uh, uh, opposition to the return of the vertical.

And that, uh, I say that, uh, that, uh, that Archer has not raised it, but that you'll watch it.

And, uh, the column receives things from you that you are

We just got a discipline.

Everybody here, we're hard.

You see hard times around us.

I'm sorry, in response to Court of Common Law, John.

Yes.

Did he talk to you about it?

Yeah, he mentioned it.

Well, he asked me whether Arthur had raised him.

Yeah.

And I said no, that he hadn't.

And he said, well, you know, he's

There's a letter that I drafted, hoping you might sign it to Arnie Webber, thanking him for all his good work.

I don't know whether it probably hasn't come in.

But it might help in working with Arnie if I could get a hold of that letter and get it in here before you leave.

Alex.

Why do I say Alex?

Alex, good man.

But are you ready to get that other out before tonight?

Sure, it's done.

It's done.

Anything like that, just get it done.

We'd probably better get in with our black friends of Captain Brown.

Yeah, Captain, you know his real name.

Well, the main thing here is to, if you watch this wage, you give us a, you see, I mean, keep running under control.

Have in mind the fact that we all know what we want to do, and yet it's very, quote, political in terms of people wanting controls.

And I know, for example, of the capitol in British Columbia.

but particularly about the meat price business now uh what have we done anything on that yes sir i might say there's a decision paper into you on expanding imports right uh whittaker told me just a few minutes ago to say to you that he may be able to strike a bargain at under 1300 in other words we may be able to let in less than the 1300 and still keep the

cattle growers and everybody happy, and he and Butts are working on some kind of a settlement that will keep our politics neat.

So if you'll approve the $1,300 as a top figure, then he said, frankly, he doesn't think it's going to show up very much in the prices, but it's a good story from the standpoint of the administration doing everything it can, and it's something Butts now agrees to, and they'll get the best bargain they can with all the political elements.

Yeah, but the cattle growers are the fellows that support us, and this is important.

I've been hearing from some of the people, some of the cattle growers, John's been hearing and Butts has been hearing.

Everybody's getting a lot of static.

Which way are they going?

Well, they're, of course, awfully antsy about imports.

And they've been on Connelly and they've been on Mitchell.

And so we've been hearing about it.

And so John's trying to work this out so that everybody agrees.

We'll catch a little hail, but not much.

And it'll be kind of a token thing.

And we can strike a bargain.

Now, that's one thing we can do that's cosmetic.

It has visibility.

It is an answer.

When Hunt's wife says, what are you doing?

We're letting him get cast out.

Well, we know how to get farm prices down if we want to.

It's just this whole structure.

Fire prices, of course.

And so I think that we've got to keep our prices up, but don't be so proud of it.

He's now got this little man.

I'm sorry.

He was on television last night.

Working on the costs of the middleman and wage costs and processing and that kind of stuff.

And so he's now on the new line, and he will lay off the other.

It's one of those things.

It'll pass.

It's a question of what issue we're going to have.

I will ask for the time.

Primary needs.

I like the mood across the board.

It's really generally finished.

The fish is enormously high right now.

I'll be damned.

What's the reason for it, Charlie?

The reason?

I don't know.

Of course, we have made it hard to...

to eat lots of fish like coon fish yeah this the combination of consumerism and environmentalism is really becoming a big problem i know maury stans is talking about that he's right they're about to go after sucker

But if I'm going to be a by-party next year, then I might keep getting sick, you know?

Yeah.

And we'll have a very exciting venture this year.

You know, we're going on a silly way through.

Everything will be fine.

We hope that all of you here, as I said, knock off the 730 meetings.

I don't want you to go to camp.

If you get your rent spent, that's a very important thing.

Well, I know the trade will get much better, but the main thing is that the...

You both watch this and be sure, as I said, with Connelly, remember the sensitivity there.

Just be sure he knows it.

If you want to do everything we can to back him up, that's what we're going to do here.

May I have a little help with your medicine, too?

Yes, sir.

You're a little more active than this, aren't you?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's anyway.

After all, he's got to be in this independent role, but you've got to probably be more active.

You're going to...

what kind of an economist or conditioner is a he's not in common i was i was going to talk about he's a political man well you wouldn't i tell you george and get around and talk to him all right i should have talked to him myself but he's going to get around well he's been going this week yeah i know we tried to do that but why don't you get a minute as a matter of fact i think that of course connolly's going to texas tomorrow

tomorrow or Friday, and if you could get Rumsfeld or Conway at the time, if you could pull maybe Conway to get that group in, not a large group, pull them in with Rumsfeld and talk this thing out.

And Conway probably doesn't want to have to screw the cattle growers.

That's right.

But on the other hand, he recognizes the problem with the food prices, right?

And, uh, he's in on Whitaker's deal.

On the other hand, with regard to the unions, he wanted to bat them over the head.

And, uh, we are getting along very well with the construction union.

Yeah, they love that meeting they had with you.

They're, they have a very high regard for you.

They're important to us, too.

I don't want to bat them over the head.

I think, I realize it politically, though, but it, I tell you, politically, it helps

in terms of the elitist audience that you were before.

But when you come right down to it, in terms of politics, many of those people will vote for other reasons.

You see my point?

They will vote for others.

The union guy.

There's a difference, right?

So we just don't know.

So it is right to make them the GOAT if they're not mean, or it's about a very relative reflection.

What do you think?

Yeah, I heard about it all.

And then, uh, Xavier's made a very fine steak by the breakfast when he came back, and he was pleased about that.

He's made a little nicer statements since then.

Uh, well, it's a little personal attention help.

Steve Begwell has been working with him.

He has a variety of ideas about, uh, things to, uh,

Good luck.

Good luck to you, sir.

Good luck to you.

We'll see you in the morning.

We'll leave you with questions.

All right, we'll wait a minute.

I'll go down and then come down.

Those people in there are all poor, which is the question.

I don't know how to survive.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Please, move out of the way.