Conversation 676-012

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Good morning, sir.

Are you going to testify?

Yes, sir.

Back in currency this morning.

What job?

Gold.

This is a price.

Price of gold.

Oh, yes.

Gold.

That's right.

We've already appeared in the Senate.

This is House with Patton and Royce and so forth.

I don't think they're having trouble, but they'll spend a lot of time running a lot of them and following them and so forth.

Well, I guess anybody can take off.

I've been in the trouble pocket without them.

Well, that is true.

This is a pattern of change.

It's very hard to change, particularly when I was there.

I was up for so much.

I mean, I had very little during the last three days.

And I'm sure that we had some very, very sessions.

agreed on things anyway

The gold is about the only thing that matters.

It looks better.

And I don't, interest rates are still doing good.

The money supply is good.

They came on the...

Yeah.

Well, it's the only way I can get this guy out of this.

Hi.

Is that you?

I just talked to him.

Hello.

Well, this is the only way I can get this guy out of this.

Go on.

Good, good, good.

Oh, I had to ask.

I wouldn't have to do that.

Well, so I went in the background and he finished.

I didn't have any...

and I'll see you after you're back around here to run before you go.

It's 10 o'clock, and I hope it's a good fit.

As soon as you finish that, don't rush it.

As soon as you finish it, it'll probably be 11 to 30.

Why don't you just come, you know, to over here.

Okay, bye.

Take your time.

I've got whatever you want to give us.

I've got the information.

I'm going to give it to you now.

Yeah.

You couldn't see anything.

Realistically, you couldn't see anything.

It might look a little funny if you were to fly over the area.

It's a very, very narrow valley.

I understand, but what about landing?

You have to go into Charleston, which is 60 miles from the flooded area.

And it would take 30 minutes for a chopper to get down there.

So you'd be on the ground for about...

And then you go to the area, and what is there to do at the area?

Are there people that, what I mean is to show interest.

It's a bird story.

Coolie's talking, do you have anybody with any brains to check on?

Yes, sir, anybody who's interested in that.

Yeah, what's he, I mean, political friends, do they understand what a bird wants to do?

But I mean, if the birds are going inland, I don't know what they can do, but is there any way that I can do that?

No, you couldn't, you couldn't see anything except the truck.

See, where do you see the Charleston fly down?

Oh, I see.

I understand.

The helicopter coming.

That's my point.

You see, the thing is you look into planning land.

It makes no sense to go to Charleston.

The planning land, the helicopter,

Well, is that wet or what?

Let me look into that.

Look into it in those terms, you see, because if you go to Charleston, 60 miles away from the flooded area, what could be the purpose of that?

Well, yeah, specifically, can't you land in the river?

That's the time it's got all the publicity.

He said, no, there's no way to land.

The first five weeks of this year, the M1, which is the direct money supply,

figure that we normally talk about is up about 10.5%.

So it's moving up.

M2, which is the M1 plus the time deposits, is up about 13.5% during that same period.

The leading indicators yesterday were up 2.3%.

Six out of eight leading indicators were up, and that's the strongest surge

since October, I believe, of 1968, there is a general feeling everywhere you go, in all circles, that things are going to be better.

You feel that, I think.

Oh, yeah.

Well, this technology seems to go up and down.

A month ago, our people here were jittery.

I don't think people were jittery.

I don't see why.

My people here were jittery.

And people here are jittery right now.

Yeah.

And I don't think, I don't, I just don't think it's justified.

They are because of all the citizens.

Well, what is it, this goddamn town?

It's a town.

Yeah, and they've read some stories about meat prices going up.

Yeah.

The cost of living is going up.

Yeah.

And so forth.

In the last two weeks, three weeks, the table and the price of meat, it's damn good.

That is.

Yes sir, they have some good stories in the press and the magazines.

Now they've got some problems and they're going to be tough on you.

But any time you do anything, John, you're going to have problems.

Now the polls, Chuck Colson's upset and I don't mind telling you, Chuck's upset and I talked to him yesterday.

He's written me a couple of memorandums about it and he called in all the supermarket people and given them hell about the price of hamburger meat left.

I won't do that now.

And I told him so yesterday, I said, let's just don't get too damn worked up about this.

Well, sometimes it just wasn't told.

And Lou Harris, he talked to Lou Harris, and Lou Harris said, well, they're losing their confidence that we're going to make them leave the White's control, the White's control work.

The greatest thing is,

That's plaguing us in that score is some of these wage settlements and some of these price things.

But my God, no matter what we do today, if you get another problem a month from now, they've forgotten what we do today.

Well, that's the thing you have to remember, too.

American people's attitudes are very awful when they say what we do today.

how much something cost them that day or something.

I think we did the right thing in August for other reasons, which we're all aware of.

I began to think that munching around in this economy is not good.

God damn it, just don't get too worried about it.

It's a lot better than we think.

We ought not to now, because it is better than it is now.

And also, by munching, you're creating less confidence.

That's right.

Participantly munching around and start building something more.

I'm saying people then begin to shake the confidence.

I'm trying to think that I'm going to be rather steady.

I agree.

I don't know.

Let me tell you.

We don't hear a question.

I said, I don't...

We are fed on that.

Well, in other words, everybody thrives on coming in and alarming.

That's right.

I mean, that's all that comes across my head.

It's alarmist.

I'm alarmed about this.

They're alarmed about that.

There's a crisis here and a crisis there.

Goddamn, the thing to do is to put your chin out and just stay open.

That's right.

And we generate a lot of this uncertainty by our own attitude.

That's right.

Because we appear worried.

We appear alarmed.

Then you now say, oh, Christ, why am I worried?

And then we feed it to the press, and everybody says, my God, the traitors, I'm saying, are the feds, I'm saying.

And they're really worried, and they're, you know.

You went out to your home there.

You found different entities.

Oh, yeah.

They did good.

Sure they did good.

Well, I had an hour's visit.

I had an hour's visit this morning.

I tried to cover all circles.

I had an hour's visit this morning with Tom Corcoran.

I picked him up.

He called me to court.

Age 15.

Well, we talked about a lot of things.

He talked about China.

He talked about the political situation.

He's very concerned.

He talked about labor.

He talked about a coalition government.

He talked about the spirit and the will of America and what's happening to them.

But among other things, he says the economy's all right, sir.

It's not a great boom.

He said it's improving.

People have a little more confidence in it.

So you get this no matter where you go.

Now the thing we have to do is not destroy that confidence and not exhibit or manifest a concern or an uncertainty on our own part.

Just play it cool for a while.

My God, it's a long time until November.

And a lot of things can happen between now and November.

And you cannot make a decision today that's going to last you through November.

And I don't know of any decision that you need to make on the economic process

The only thing we need to do, I think, is to give the pay board, the price commission, some backbone and some strength and some encouragement to be tough on some of these issues.

Turn down a few price increases, turn down a wage increase or so.

But that's about all.

I just don't see it.

I'm totally unconvinced that

that we've got any real problems today.

So these prices went up a little in the last two weeks.

The truth of the matter is that the food prices in January went down two-tenths of one percent.

Went down, not up.

What you don't hear about it.

But on the other hand,

We import prices.

It doesn't make a hell of a difference whether we import a billion, 300 million, or a billion, 200 million.

It doesn't make that much difference.

That's a weak skill.

But the point is, how do you do it?

And do you tell your friends when you're gonna do it before you do it so you don't slap them with it?

This is the whole thing.

We ought not to react in a panic.

Because we don't have a panic situation.

No, no, I couldn't agree more.

We just don't have it.

And the only people who are gonna create it are us.

If we have one, we're going to create it.

Well, we're not going to build it.

And we ought not to.

I think we should.

Now, the employment, the employment's not, in my opinion, I don't want to belabor this this morning, but the employment or unemployment is not going to be an issue.

Job security is going to be an issue.

And that's what's going to be telling us.

But unemployment cannot be a major factor.

Unemployment per se cannot be a major factor when you've got 80,600,000 people working.

Now, job security can be.

As Senator says, worry about whether they're going to lose their jobs.

Wonder whether they're going to lose it.

So what we have to say, what you have to say, is give them hope that we're going to revitalize it, we're going to protect ourselves against foreign competition so they don't lose their jobs, not necessarily get new ones.

Because that's going to be the big issue, and that's where the vote is going to be.

That's correct and

So you don't want it that low.

That's the truth of the matter.

We can't say that publicly.

So you're talking about decreases between one and one and a half percent, down to five or four and a half.

Well, you're talking about roughly employing another million and a half people.

That's all you're talking about.

You've got 80,600,000 employees.

So it's just that much political moxie.

What is it, Arthur, that you're still muttering around?

I have not seen him in the last couple of weeks.

I should have had lunch with him yesterday, and we got running late here, and I canceled it.

He's leaving town.

I think going to Europe today or tomorrow, and I've got to call it Easter.

He's beginning to make a lot of noises and feel very strongly about this convertibility thing, mini-convertibility and so forth.

Now, this is going to start.

And we'll have to face up to that and counteract it in some way.

But I've got some ideas on that.

But that's because he has to prove that he was right.

Oh, yeah.

What's the question?

Who's worried about him?

I don't know.

But you can't have central bankers.

It's the same old thing again.

And it's starting a little bit, but it doesn't make any difference either.

Well, they couldn't care less.

And if you get back in that truck, it's the worst thing you could possibly do.

Now, we might jimmy around and use $200 or $300 million or maybe as much as $400 million to help some of these little countries.

In Britain, I'm not doing a hell of a lot of work.

But...

Well, they're still knifing at us all the time.

And they could pay there.

The International Monetary Fund's operating.

We've got some problems in that store.

But to summarize for you, I think you can frankly go off to Florida or anywhere else and just not be concerned about it.

Because I don't think it's there.

They're not but about three inches.

in this country today uh and that's probably all you're gonna have the rest of the years and uh that make one tinker's end one is busting and the racial problem this is a very deep deep real emotional issue and it's going to make the difference

This is a great issue, not just in the South, but in the North as well.

This whole question of job security, job maintenance,

is another way of putting it.

And this involves our ability to compete in international markets.

But it's the fear of foreign competition now that's now really plaguing labor.

And it's in this whole area of job security, job maintenance.

It's a major issue.

And then the third really is an issue of conflict.

It's a pure question of conflict.

of confidence in the ability of the administration to run the country and provide the leadership.

There's just not going to be any.

When I talk about job security and job maintenance, this, of course, encompasses the general economic conditions.

But the whole cost of living will be, I'm sure, always to break out any number of segments.

But in the broad categories, these are the big issues.

And there's just not anything that I think we need to be concerned about.

And I'm no Pollyanna, as you well know.

I'm sure if there's a sensitive area that comes up, I'm always going to do something about it.

Well, that's the 1st of March.

Because somehow the man's life cycle is also attuned to the life cycle of nature.

And women have their 28-day periods.

I'm quite serious in this.

The right man's life cycle, when spring comes, he undergoes transformation.

He blooms, he blossoms, too.

The flowers begin to come out.

He begins to be able to take off more often.

So you notice that the winter is always a period of discontent.

They call it a fine winter at this point.

I don't see any really bad things to be keep up with.

There are one or two bad issues with this Longshoreman thing.

We just can't prove it.

The paper just cannot prove that Longshoreman was real, but I don't know what to do about that.

I mean, they don't approve of the plan.

We'd like to get back into that other thing that's right, but I'm not prepared to make the recommendation.

I'm not saying we don't have some problems, but they are specific, isolated problems.

Generally speaking, stock market's up.

It gets a fair degree of confidence.

Machine tool orders are up tremendously.

That's right.

And it's beginning to take off.

automobile sales were up even above last year, which is a record year, I guess.

So I just think that we've got a lot to be thankful for and we've got a lot to be concerned about.

We've got a lot of things that we can do this year, but they're primarily internal things that we need to do.

How do you see the Democratic candidates for President Johnson?

Musk is dead.

Humphrey's making his move.

And Musk is dead?

Yes.

What's going on?

Well, he just, he never, Mr. President, he never had a chance.

He can't run the course.

You mean he must have?

He got out on the bed of his truck up in New Hampshire and just bloody hell, just, you know, cried.

Do you think that was all?

Some people thought that was the way it happened.

No, of course I don't.

Why the hell did he do it?

Well, I don't know.

Maybe he just, maybe he just... Well, he has an emotional thought.

First place, he's got a hell of a temper.

Second place, he's just not real smart.

And it's going to show.

And he got up there, and it's an old story that Newsweek ran about it.

I saw it a month ago, and I thought it was a lousy story.

It was a lousy story.

Who hasn't had a lousy story?

That's worse.

And so anyway, and it showed an instability.

It showed a...

But I knocked one person that wasn't hypercritical of me.

Just very critical.

Humphrey's making his move.

Humphrey thinks he'll come in second in Florida.

Yes.

The Humphrey, yes, Humphrey thinks he can get the money.

He thinks labor now will begin to come back to him.

Jewish money will come back to him.

The Jews are talking in New York now as much as they do.

And he's been having their money.

He sure has been having it.

Of course, McGovern's nothing.

Mills is going to be nothing.

Uh, and Kennedy's still in the Williams.

Kennedy's still there.

I'm sure Kennedy's the guy that won.

Kennedy is there, uh, much as he denies it.

But you know, he's, I think he's waiting for two, for two things.

He does not want to run as a candidate in the primaries.

Right.

Which is fair.

Because he does not want to have to be confronted with Chappaquiddick in his own party.

Exactly.

Now, against the Republicans, he can defend them on the basis that it's politics, it's partisan stuff, and they'll talk about something that you've done, or your funds, or your brother, or they'll talk about some muckraking deal that they've dragged up.

So they think they can offset it, Democrat versus Republican.

They can't do it within their own ranks.

So he doesn't want to go to the primaries.

Secondly, he's the only man in the United States

It can almost take the nomination overnight from these other guys if he wants it.

He doesn't have to campaign.

He doesn't have to go in the front.

He goes right out there.

He's got it.

He's got the basic strength.

He's got it through labor.

He's got it through the Democratic campaign.

That's what I'm saying.

The blacks, the Jews.

The blacks, the Jews, the Catholics need to take it.

We're in that convention.

There must be a small majority of them.

No question about it.

So at the last minute, he can take it, or he can take it a week before.

So he can afford to wait.

He's the only candidate that can.

Now, the third point is that he wants to wait and see the last possible moment to see how strong you are, to see whether he wants to gamble in 72 or wait until 76.

Now, my judgment is he's going to gamble in 72 for the simple reason that even though you're going to look good, you're not going to look...

You know, completely out of reach.

Because he can rationalize.

Any man wants to do something.

And his friends want him to do it.

Do they?

Well, of course they do.

They want to be back.

Well, of course they do.

Absolutely.

Sure.

And then he's got the best writers in the business.

And good God, he's just in every magazine, every newspaper.

All the time.

He's keeping that.

So I think it's going to be Kennedy with the one caveat that it's not going to be Kennedy if Muskie or Humphrey get the thing tied up.

That's the only risk he runs, but that's not a substantial risk in my judgment.

Because it looks pretty much like a standoff.

Sure, because nobody, there's just not that much drive behind any one of them.

And I personally think that Muskie's going to fail before he gets to the finish.

And Muskie, and Humphrey, is not going to generate any great enthusiasm.

He hasn't.

That's the reason they've been toying with Lindsey and whichever.

Humphrey just doesn't have it.

Everybody thinks Humphrey's running the race.

Now, he may be instrumental in knocking out Muskie, but Kennedy can tell me he doesn't think the same way.

Humphrey just like that.

And that's the bad, I think, what's going to happen.

The real question on Chappaquiddick, that he has to worry about, it might be one of those things that is more of the ordinary scandal.

Oh, what it is, of course.

That's the thing that he has to worry about.

Well, let me say that I don't think he has a chance of beating him.

I think when you come into a general election, I think...

He isn't.

Well, I know, but the American people, I understand.

But I don't believe that.

I don't believe the American people elected.

But I'm not saying it won't be a race.

It'll be the meanest, toughest race you've been in.

And it's going to be a mean year.

It's going to be a vicious year.

But, well, anyway, at some other time, I want to talk to you a little bit about...

this whole political atmosphere in this country, in the Congress, the lack of leadership in either part, and what's going to happen to us?

And I don't know.

It's a tough situation, but it's pretty solid.

They're gassing around, and the House is not much better.

It's a little better, but mills are running down.

Ways and means, but it's a hard core of stability and strength, and it's in a dangerous situation of deterioration.

Mills is running for president, and you've got four vacancies now.

On the way to Easterly, my God, you've got John Burns, you've got Jackson Betts, you've got all those people already leaving that committee.

And this has been the bullhorn for strength in the Congress.

And when you consider that Carlisle's no leader, and Mansfield's no leader, and Scott's no leader,

Or as opposed to this one, look, he lacks, yes, he lacks some deceit.

Let's see what happens.

I think we can shake on the comments right now.

We're going to stop before the debate.

Thank you for coming in, sir.

Call me if you need anything.

I'll be down here.