On March 1, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, Ronald L. Ziegler, Marjorie P. Acker, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:57 am to 11:19 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 676-015 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
But is it good enough?
I'm sorry I wasn't in the buzz.
Oh, not at all.
Stay home to get organized.
I was thinking about going to Western Virginia today.
I don't know if there isn't anything to do.
Well, I think it would be fine to show the concern about a domestic problem if there was a way to do it, but it's a grandstand place, it turns out.
I can't get into the area, so what the hell's not this?
The airport's no good.
If it were land, Mississippi, I would do it, and there you are.
That's where I'm going to hold in and crowd, period.
We're 60 miles away from it.
It wouldn't happen.
We talked about it yesterday.
Bob Bird asked me about it, and I wasn't afraid at all.
I was afraid you probably would.
I want you to call in and tell him that we checked on him.
I, uh, I don't know.
I'm afraid to call him, but I did want him to know that there was some shit on it, but we didn't get to our, you know...
I don't know what the hell they've been doing, but at least what I considered, if you can get the aircraft in or get the helicopter in and all that sort of thing.
Let it vary.
You just got a gallop that'll go out on Thursday.
Headline, Nixon scores heavily over McCloskey on the left, Ashbrook on the right.
Nixon has a burn hole.
They give McCloskey 6%, Ashbrook 5%, and Nixon 83%.
Excuse me, sir.
Coffee, please.
Oh, you have a pop of coke.
Yes, I have.
It's a very different situation, Bob, than from Johnson.
You remember Johnson had, hell, the percentages were 20.5 and no extra.
But the Republicans are that way.
You know what I mean?
We've always had, it's always been hard for anybody to cut it than being a Republican strength.
This is good.
He says, the reader should bear in mind that the findings reported here reflect the views of Republicans nationwide.
Both McCloskey and Ashbrook may, of course, score higher in New Hampshire because their campaign efforts are currently concentrated in that state.
Which is, that's
It's good to have them say, because they will score.
What are your, all of a sudden you're going to Florida?
Yes, sir.
Thanks, thank you very much.
Where I'm going to take- Ross is going on the staff plane.
What most of them are doing is they're going to drop off in Orlando.
And they're going to stay at the Disney World.
They're going to stay there until Sunday and we'll run it back up.
We've got Win Lord and John Howe from...
Henry's office.
Henry's office was there.
They worked their butts off.
So the ziggers went over with Henry.
You know, the ones that worked the hardest, Bob.
That's who we're taking.
Mort Allen worked the hardest here.
Anybody else you want to dismiss?
I think you ought to apologize.
Well, you said not to, so I did have to go back to that.
Well, he may be terribly tired.
I mean, why don't you just let him in?
You think you should or shouldn't?
No, no, I don't.
Are you talking to Scali?
No.
I think you should, but you can't.
No, no, no, but Scali only... Scali may go down on the first one.
Scali goes down often on the first one.
And then he kind of keeps everybody, you know, he moves around them on the first down.
Yeah.
He has to keep his game.
Well...
Would you just talk to Pat?
Okay.
See how he feels.
If he'd like to go there, I think it's fine.
Okay.
Because he does, he puts in the hours when he's, you know, when he's here.
Okay.
If he'd like to go there, I'm sure he'd certainly want to.
Okay.
He may not want to, but he can show it to me here.
But I think Awkward Rose, and she didn't want to.
And I can see why.
But she wanted to stay here.
She wanted to stay here.
Maybe she wanted to get some rest.
You know, it's really easy to get more rest at home.
But I think the great thing is to go to Disneyland, which I haven't seen.
I might even, I was thinking, I might even pop into that place on the way home.
No, not the way down.
I can see it, too.
Really great.
You should go out and see it at some point, because they've done some different things.
And they're tied to the patriotic theme, and the Hall of the Presidents, and Liberty Square, and all that.
Ron's been there.
He and Ron was down when I was for the opening.
But you didn't have the kids.
But unlike Disneyland, it's a place where you can enjoy a five day vacation because they have this great lake and they have beaches on the lake.
They have artificial surf so that you can go surfboard surfing.
They have a thing that makes waves.
It's the only part of the lake.
Oh, yeah.
It's much different than that.
And beautiful water ski set up.
They have a special water ski beach, and you go over to it on, like, kind of on an island.
They have great horseback riding trails.
All kinds of sailboats.
So you have a lot of beach and water activity in addition to the...
If I were to think about it, I don't think I should go there and plan for it.
Oh, hell no.
That's right.
Is it a little bit of a gesture for me to say I'm part of it?
Particularly at this time of the day, they say, oh, there we go, we're part of it.
No, sir.
I wouldn't go.
You should do nothing other than part of it.
Okay.
Can the, uh, what are you, uh...
Yes, we're going to do that.
As a matter of fact, yesterday we agreed once.
And I didn't break until 2 o'clock yesterday.
Next week we'll start a new system.
I want you to do that, Ron.
Yes, sir.
To give you more of a chance.
Right.
Your briefings this year, particularly with the dog and the China-Soviet balance, the foreign deal and some of the political things, are going to be so important that I'd like for you to spend the whole morning just thinking.
Right.
And then go in there like a press conference deal and do the briefing.
And let Jerry go out and give them both.
We've already...
It's true.
And we said it's perfectly all right.
You should think so.
Yes, sir.
You could get away with it by simply saying that Warren, he'll breathe in the morning and he'll breathe in the afternoon.
And I'm moving the breathing out the door free.
And if you're moving, you're breathing the tree and the silver deadlines, and he'll breathe in the morning and breathe in the afternoon.
And in the morning, the way he handles it, he just goes out and breathes.
He just posts the record, you call it, right?
It's all posted.
He says, well, I have nothing.
And then Zegar and Ronald answer that question, et cetera, you know?
And then he ends up around a little bit.
That's all right.
What the hell's in there?
We give him too much anyway.
How many are working out in this background?
There's about 27.
We thought everybody was on there.
Well, a lot of them are here.
Like the Dudmans and Michners and Boyds and so forth aren't there.
But we've only invited one of the TV...
When you take the network people, the broadcast people, and all the wires are supported types.
So I think it would go well.
Yeah.
One thing I noted with indicating on the Scott Mansfield thing,
Actually, the idea of it is great.
I mean, leaders in the Congress was, you know, I suggested that leaders in the Congress were invited.
He selected them.
Actually, I think I recommended both.
I didn't want to say.
No, I said.
But I'm sorry.
Leave it alone.
See, what I said was that you proposed, as a part of the exchange, including
by partisan leadership.
Oh, I see.
And then I said that in the last meeting, Premier Coe noted that they had expressed an interest.
You did, that's exactly right.
Because I didn't want it, I thought you didn't want it.
No, that's what you said, that's exactly right.
That he had selected.
That he had made the decision, and I had not.
Words are words to that effect, but that's all right.
What you said is exactly right.
No problem.
That's a good short-term follow-up, isn't it?
It's a chosen term.
It's diverted away from the Kai Wong thing.
Well, Kai Wong shows concrete evidence that the exchange business is underway, that they read around it, that we're not horsing around.
We're exchanging at the highest level.
At the highest level, that's it.
It's not just a ping pong player this time, or a ballet dancer.
I think the Kai Wong thing is continuing to fade down, don't you?
Yeah, except for the, you know, the Walter Jett group, and there's no, they have to go for certain.
No question.
I'm not going to be worried about it.
I mean, I remember everybody around here was, except me, was so goddamn worried about that UFO.
I never worried about it.
I knew it would have died in a couple weeks, and it did.
You know?
It's one of those things.
It gives you a little bump, and that's that.
The Taiwan thing is so complicated.
that people can't do.
Nothing's going to happen to Taiwan.
That's the main thing.
If something were going to happen to it right away, then that'd be something to do.
I don't want you to restate, but I'm very, very discerning.
I just want to be sure that if you want to hear the story, I'll go find out every hour.
We restate our commitments, because that just irritates them.
It's just another girl.
See, the leaders carried that yesterday, primarily.
The whole Taiwan state a lot of stabilization.
Well, I think that was one of the good effects of the leaders meeting.
You know, we got like sentence and so forth, sentence.
They're short.
It's a long, long way off from where we were.
This is Wednesday.
We need to go Wednesday.
I don't know how much goes on in a week.
I'll bet the press guys are terribly tired.
They'd be feeling like we do.
Although one night soon comes along, this is sure to happen.
It'll take three or four more nights for me.
They must feel pretty good.
Yes, they do.
Absolutely.
And they're all celebrities now.
It's starting to come back, too.
And I knew it would.
Now that they're back and they sense what happened here and they're 10,000 miles away from where they were, the significance of what happened.
We were very aware of what was happening here, because we'd get those news summaries every, you know, twice a day.
They didn't get news summaries.
They didn't have any idea.
They didn't look out of that very deep, barren place, you know.
It's a crumb full of money, so this is China.
They didn't realize that back here,
People were hanging on every goddamn word.
And, you know, you went to that first Chinese dinner.
That was pretty exciting.
Then, after a while, Chinese dinners got to be kind of a pain in the ass, too, by the way, for them.
Where they came back here, and they found that everybody wanted to know, you know, people just leave.
What did you have?
You know, describe the whole dinner.
How were the dishes set up?
There's just total fascination with every mind and detail of this thing.
Okay, Robert.
Yes, sir.
Henry was a tenant for a short time.
What?
Henry's going to lose my brother.
Are you going to lose him?
Yes, sir.
Oh, then I shouldn't have called you.
No, no, that's right.
He was going to be a tenant.
Oh, yes.
Well, he's a little bit late now, but I'm going to do it.
He's always 10 minutes late.
I mean, that's his standard procedure.
Everyone recommends no one...
Ron was the younger, of course, he snatched back with her.
He's practically back already.
Well, he was two days ago.
I was being concerned about that next to last day in China, because he was really...
He sat at the dinner table.
He always was at my table.
He was at the other side of the host.
And next to last night, he sat there at dinner, and he was just kind of glassy-eyed.
He didn't eat anything, so they forced him to.
All right.
He was.
He was trying to stay on top of everything and then wander around, keeping people filled in, on track, putting out fires, dealing with bastards on the side of the internet, untangling them.
He can't give up on anybody and write them off.
He's got to keep working on them all the time and just try to figure a way around it.
I think his analysis makes a lot of sense.
I think that's to decide he was in over his head.
He was sick, but you know, as soon as he was... That's the fact that we were getting such a favorable reception.
You know, we were excited to know what was happening.
We had this thing, it was just spectacular.
Just pissed on everything.
I mean, there wasn't a thing he saw good.
You know, I was thinking about the Kennedy thing.
The other reason I'll bet Kennedy came out with that lavish phrase was as a pitch to get invited to turn.
You know, he's been trying so hard.
to get over there, and I was thinking about that this morning, my meeting with Scott Mansfield started it up, that he figured that he came out strongly for the thing that Chinese might consider lowly men.
And that you might, you know, that you might feel more favorable than I am.
support any candidates going there.
He isn't a candidate.
But if he goes, let me say at this point, I'm not as all that concerned about it.
I mean, because the DBA is going to go over there and work their ass off for Kennedy like they did for us.
It's going to be that big of a story.
It's like everything we did, like the second banner rather than the first.
What the hell?
It was big, but not that big.
The second moon landing.
Is Kennedy going to be there?
If he's there, is there such dollars and all that?
We hope that Scott and Mansfield get a certain money coverage when they go, but it won't be.
It's never the same, Bob.
No, no.
And it will be routine.
They'll see the same kind of stuff and do the same kind of thing without being anywhere near the level of interest.
It was awfully good that they didn't let anybody in before you.
That was the one thing that was hard to keep Henry fighting for, but I assured him it was worth it.
That's on now.
They might even ask the candidates about it.
They'll have pressures from the left here.
And we're just not going to have to worry about it.
That's all there is to it.
I don't think that it would be nice if they don't, but I don't think it's worth giving up anything to keep them out now.
I think it was worth fighting for before you went in.
Because they're not going to have the time to...
public bureau attention that you had and all that, and I'm gonna...
I'll treat them well, but they won't, they can't divert the whole government the way they did for you.
When is it going to take Margaret Cole?
For his weekend.
Good time.
Any questions?
Uh, I wondered if he would, uh...
I'm doing that without anybody knowing we're doing it.
I just, and that would be only for our agency.
We, uh, we, I'm not telling Mitch over here to pass the word to Monday.
about not trying to exploit the trip?
Yes.
Or do you think maybe that's overreacting?
No, well, they were planning a special insert, 8-page insert of color pictures and all that.
Well, my view is that the magazines have already done that so well that it's a waste of Monday's money to go into all that.
I think they've got to do the trip.
What I've suggested they do is have a cover picture of
you at the homecoming welcome, which the press didn't cover that much, and then reprint the text of your homecoming statement, and leave it at that.
In other words, it's too late for them to cover the China trip, but they can report the aftermath.
The Republicans ought to get the text.
I don't know why they canceled it.
Thank you for your, you know, your rocket.
Maybe this has been, I assume, I think it's routine for the procedure.
I'm not sure it's done.
Rockefeller and my mother's, you know, made fine statements, not to Kennedy, of course, but people like Rockefeller who made statements supporting the China trip.
Don't you think they owe you one sentence, or do you?
Yeah, I'm going to call them on it.
I think Nelson, for example, was, I think they should, I would just say this is,
That's all you need.
Or something like that.
Would you do something with regard to
And you say you brought back Kiss, Yip, and Don, and all that bunch.
I haven't.
I don't want to try to figure it out.
But will you?
How do you know that?
How do you know that?
Well, I didn't know whether, apparently, I guess Mrs. Nixon didn't get, she went shopping, but I don't know what she got.
I don't know what she got before.
Go ahead.
What we got was tea sets for all of that.
Yeah.
But I think you've got to give them all the same thing, so that they...
Tea set for each family.
Mm-hmm.
Fine.
Okay.
You call, or has, I guess, you or...
I told her to call.
All right, fine.
Ask her to call, to call each and say that the president, that I got a tea set for them, and we'll be sending it to them.
We brought them home with us.
We'll be sending it to them.
And that they also should, that the postcards were written, if you would, that were mailed, they could watch for them.
they should have those by now michael's curves okay if you need to do that that would be nice i think they'd get a call that'll say the name calls to them i don't want to get on the phone with them because if i get on the phone with nine and bring up other subjects but if you would call them call the distance the wives call
RJ, and then she can call the other one.
Okay, do you want Don, Ed?
And all of them, my past brothers, you know.
Vines, Vines, both Vines.
Bender?
Go.
He doesn't, he can't use a T sign, he just can't.
Oh, sure.
For sure.
Just like that, the Drowns, I thought we'd do that.
Oh, it will not be me.
Okay.
And I certainly have done something for them.
that she made.
Yes, that's a nice thing to do.
What the hell?
I suppose there are others out there that they'll take, they'll talk about it, and I suppose they may be the art of thoughts and others, and wonder why the hell they didn't get one, too.
They're a different category.
Is that one?
Do you think anybody else?
That's a thing, and that gives something.
Like Christmas.
Yeah, but these are much more meaningful for Christmas.
Now, let me ask you, what are we going to do?
Are we going to give to the contributors?
Are we going to be brought back for all that?
What are we giving them?
Scrolls?
We can give them scrolls or little elephants.
You get quite a few of all those out with these girls and things.
Well?
Do you want to have Rose make up the suggestions to who these people think should be sent to?
Yeah?
Oh, my mother said, I'm free.
And Duke, Duke Rose, who sent me this year to convince the people of our hopes.
You know what I mean?
She'll think about it.
of a group of things.
Is there little things to be sent down to the governor?
Yeah.
Major contributors.
There's a lot.
Well, it's not like what we did.
The cabin was damn good.
Those boxes, those other ones, the leadership, they were here, son.
Were they policemen?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know whether they were or not, but I was a policeman.
They sure are, because they're...
I couldn't tell.
They're very honest.
No, everything was nice.
The pickups were nice.
The comment is, he went right and he said the, he went to the department on Friday.
And the comment was, the comment on Friday was what?
They should not have paid for it.
But he constantly gets back and he's thinking about the conference thing.
He isn't speaking of comments in the presidency so much as he is in leadership of the country.
He says, I guess he agrees.
He gets involved in the conference.
He says, there's no leadership.
He gets out and certainly broke his plan because he has to go out there and fight.
You know, they get it.
You know, there's not a thing we can do about that, is there, in the countries?
Well, there's just Congress which is thinking broader.
That's apparently, talk to those guys, that's the worst overriding, the worst part of that job.
It's just crap they have to go through up on their own.
And it's no meaning, what's frustrating is that it's meaningless.
They have to do it and these guys do it just for certain sadistic pleasure.
Just being empowered to take something out of the sand.
You know, that interesting thing that Bill Rogers mentioned about wearing his flag, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I got that.
I had this thought at the time.
I thought, boy, this is quite a function.
I didn't wear one in Cambodia with the rest of the sorority.
You know?
No, it was very good.
Was he wearing it yesterday?
Did he have it on at the meeting?
I couldn't see him.
I don't know if he did or not, but I think he did.
He's about to do it.
I'm sorry, but go away there.
Indicate it.
You have to go, go, go away there.
See what you do about this thing.
You're gristing on this thing.
It's awfully hard.
It just seems stupid, doesn't it?
Did you talk to him last night?
No.
Was I supposed to?
No, no.
He called that evening and sent a note over.
Maybe he decided he didn't need that.
They were going to send a note over.
He had got a call that he should talk to Amy first.
If you were going to talk to that, I could talk to that.
I was in bed very early.
She didn't need that.
I'm not sure he called.
Called, I guess, sometime after, shortly after.
I didn't know about it until, well, it was about right after he called, after going down, that he called after the hate meeting.
I don't think I'll return it today.
I think I'll just go.
And let him think a while over the weekend, don't you think so?
And I just can't get in because Bill's not, he's tired too, you know, he's not.
And he's starting to get a cold.
I hope to God that he doesn't, there's no question to put him on that time going.
It hasn't been announced on going forward.
That's another reason for my not calling him, you see, because he might say he'd like to go and I don't want to have that on my hands again.
Ronis just told the pool, you know, that people would have to go on the background basis of it.
I don't know how to tell him that.
Well... Well, I just... Tell me, I had suggested that if you were going to call Rogers, that you probably would want to talk to Hayden.
So you'd know what...
To be sure, it would.
Well, I think Higgins-Gungstein was the best thing that had to be done before his line set.
I didn't think about Higg doing it.
That was, you were exactly right.
Before the line set, he just indicated that he was, we want to be sure we don't, based on the Chinese, at this point, I think we can compare them.
I don't know.
Of course, there are.
You know, this is, you know, that I'm not aware of this terrorist, this guy.
I've been to all this.
I've been.
See, he's never been to Russia, even.
Oh, has he?
Hell no, he's never been to Russia.
He's been in the Iron Curtain Conference.
I've been to them before.
I know the difference between them.
You know?
I think he was in the secret police office.
Yes, he was, I think.
Not that I mentioned.
Not so sure.
I guess he was in Yugoslavia.
Well, whatever it is, like, they lived in it.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I'm sure they lived in it.
But you see, Yugoslavia is not the only town where we've been used to all the songs.
I don't know why.
I didn't think those in Yugoslavia were bad enough there.
You know what I mean?
Yugoslavia wasn't... We didn't have the run of the ranch.
Anyway, we sure did.
We ran out there, motorcades raced through there, they had the crowds out, but that's the only difference.
We were tightly controlled.
Oh, absolutely.
Surrounded by secret police.
Crowds packed with the police all the way around.
I think he's saying what he honestly thinks is the right thing to say.
Of course, the building helped themselves over.
I understand that.
But it's, I think that most any observer listening would have been, well, like Ron, Ron was really shocked at it, wasn't he?
Okay.
Let's see if, let's see if we can put it, let's see if we can put it.
I think I make the right decision.
Even though it is pretty, pretty nice.
It isn't bad enough to say that it will start raining tomorrow again.
Thank you very much.
Oh, you were so right, Bill, that we didn't plan to have any events this week.
You know what I mean?
The homecoming event was there.
That was on television.
Right.
And so you don't have to go to Akron and Columbia or the other.
Columbus and Berlin have been on television so solidly for quite ages.
I know that we would see the series with that.
Hey, this is George.
All right.
Ron.
With regard to these press things,
First of all, do you see any building on the idea of reporting the country?
I don't think it's going to be the only, you know, you have, man, it's just a question of whether you're going to, and they said you should, but I think you've got to, and coppered the fact that you did.
I don't see anything, I don't, there's no,
Grants while the president is hiding something from us or something.
See the light of that.
While they communicate everything is so, so the man and I said it was no secret.
This is their boy.
That's the point.
You got on television, you said it, and it was carried that way.
There was headlines about no secret deals and all that.
And that, and there's nothing more to say.
Now the question is what should we do in your opinion about a press conference when we shouldn't have one?
We've made up our minds, maybe we should.
And the only thing is, it may be because of having been on television so much, maybe we don't want to have a meeting, and maybe I'm going to argue against my old rule of having a televised press conference.
Maybe we don't want to have to be on television and have a picture of the press factory about busking and whatever the rest of the New Hampshire thing.
What do you think?
You know what I mean?
Why did the economy go up or down?
You got what I mean?
I wonder if this is just a good picture there for a while.
I think we ought to, for a while, and kind of watch that.
What I was thinking was this.
I was thinking of having an in-office thing, another in-office thing, so that we will have had one, too.
And they said, why don't you have a tall lives conference?
And I said, my God calls it untold.
They didn't say that anyway.
Well, they did last night.
Yeah, but that was because you hadn't had anything for quite a while.
So I don't think you're going to get that kind of thing.
But we ought to do it next week then, don't you think?
Get one out of the way.
I would think maybe seven.
I don't want to get up for it.
I don't want to get up for a televised press conference or anything like that.
I'd really need two or three weeks to recover from the enormous mental and emotional charge which I'm having.
You probably want that anyway.
Well, isn't that the point?
You want to wait a little while before you get another kick.
You want to wait a little while before you get another kick.
Yeah, before we eat.
Before we eat.
Now, you've got the problem of
I wouldn't commit to any press conference in any event until after the New Hampshire primary.
And you see what happens there.
Because that, you know, I have no way of knowing how it's going to come out.
But it may be that you're getting the results that you don't want to get into interpreting it.
I'm not going to interpret it.
I know, but you don't want to publicize the fact that you're in a position on it.
But that's what we're with on Tuesday.
And then you have Florida the following week.
But then we can decide Wednesday whether they have a press conference in Jersey, can't we?
I don't think they'd have it done next week.
I don't think they would.
We're sending out a lot of messages.
Are we?
Economic news items.
Are we sending out messages?
A health message, supposedly a health message tomorrow.
Urban message on Monday.
Aging message on Wednesday.
Technology message on Thursday.
LEA message the next Monday.
Education Wednesday.
Welfare on Friday.
Commonly it's the other way.
I don't think there's anything nice about the Democratic candidates.
The Bull Muskies did.
Because of that connection.
And, you know, Connie, of course, has quick reactions on that, so you can see that.
Dad said that killed him.
He said he hadn't spoken to anybody, but she sees lots of men around her and says it killed him.
I said, well, I don't know.
Maybe some of that had killed him.
He said he didn't have much anyway.
He wasn't smart.
You know how you talk.
He wasn't smart.
He talked a lot, like, you know, it's like everybody, they have the same impressions, but he's not a very different type of person.
And Hopper really says, he says, it's still going to be Kennedy.
He says, the only thing that might keep Kennedy would be going, and he doesn't think this will happen, would be Kennedy's belief that it would be, that I could not be beaten.
He says, that will probably be a hit.
But not far enough to keep him out.
And he says, he can take that convention.
For his analysis of Kennedy's strategies, it's right on the nose.
He says, first, he doesn't want to get in the primaries because he didn't want to have to answer Jeff Quaid in the Democratic primary.
When a Republican is raised, it will be
it's a pretty partisan that's his reasoning also he doesn't need to get the primaries because the majority of the delegates at that convention will be worried the moment that he indicates he wants to run and just pick it up and he won't and then he's the nominee and he says the final campaign will be mean so forth and so on but he says that he doesn't i said you really need to check what it is
It would not hurt him to find snow, yes, it would hurt him.
It would hurt him.
I don't, I think, but what do you think?
It has to.
You would certainly pick up the enthusiasm of the blacks, the young, the Jews, and the Catholics.
It would be a terribly poor recommendation.
That would solidify your southern strategy.
It would.
But then he problems with the sound.
He shouldn't.
He didn't run any worse than the other demographic or something.
Does he?
I'm not close.
I don't think so.
I'm not close.
It's about the same.
It's a scary goddamn thing, though, to think of him being in the songs.
Oh, boy.
I think that's what would be treated.
I do, too.
Don't you think so?
I do, too.
It's a scary thing.
And if it's Kennedy, well, regardless of who it is, your theory of keeping the main focus on foreign policy just is overriding, I think.
You can't win on the economy.
You're only going to get whatever you get.
It's either going to be OK or it's going to be a problem.
It's not going to be a plus.
And when you do, the maintenance is, and that's why the China trip is so good.
And the Russia trip in its own way without, in a totally different way, will be just as good because of the substance.
Because of the fantastic agreement.
And they don't have plenty of interest, too, in the first U.S. president.
Moscow's going to be it.
The stat, candidate, and congressional people are all pretty upbeat, aren't they?
Oh, yeah.
Do you feel it?
Yeah.
Well, except we can't.
Hmm.
It's pretty down.
All right.
He's just, he's just personally, he's just personally opposed.
He's best to old people.
He is not going to support the communication.
He's asked people to say he doesn't support it.
The key is to make sure he's asked.
So the key is to make sure he isn't asked.
And I think he'll get over that after a while.
Well, it turned out it was probably just as well that he went, though.
The trip wasn't...
Supposed to have been hit from here.
No, maybe not.
It might have been worse.
No, no.
It would have been better if he hadn't gone.
Because, basically, and Buckley hadn't gone, then... Then they wouldn't have the credibility to be able to say, I was there, and I know... And also, it would have been so effective on...
Although they would have seen it on TV and it would have had the same effect, I think.
Through all that principle and all that, I was noticing down in the basement the great cartons that Pat had bought while he was over there.
So he obviously, and I know Buckley was buying stuff.
I saw him buying stuff by the car, really.
And there's a, I always got his pictures up down there, you know.
There's a big picture.
One of the dinner who began with his glass raised with a big smile on his face.
See, you know that, I had mixed feelings like sitting through that ballet.
Oh, it's a powerful propaganda.
That's all it was.
But that's kind of, that's the way the Russians do it too.
You know, I've seen it.
Their fear is not their... nothing but fear.
I must say, the swan lake is a...
I don't believe it.
Yes.
That doesn't compare the Chinese to the Russians so much.
You know, it's just that...
It's just kind of irrational.
Is the Taiwan part only?
I think that's, yeah.
Oh, that's fine.
Yeah, I think it really is.
That's what's going to happen.
It's going to be sold out in Chinese.
One of the costs we had, we had to assume we were going to pay for it.
We've been doing that all along.
We talked about it last July.
Well, he opposed the trip, you know, even going.
Very much so.
They pulled the rug out of my purse.
This is a very great mistake, and so forth and so on.
No, he actually told Henry, he says, I should like to say, it was his opportunity, but Henry asked him, we just want to oppose all the communists that are against you.
Certainly do.
We're opposing the Chinese communists.
We're opposing an irrational... Yeah, it had nothing to do with him.
Nothing to do with him.
All right.
Sorry, I don't know if that works about them hardly.
I don't know if they're so devoted to Michael.
But he's got to get over this.
That's all there is to it.
I don't even know.
Did you mention, did you offer to floor it or not?
I was just glad that I understand what you're saying.
You're asking?
Well, you see, he wouldn't be going there any time anyway.
No.
Maybe he's willing to get in.
That's another reason to get him out of town.
Okay?
You know what I mean?
She's getting on the phone right now.
What time is it?
4.30.
Right.
I heard her coming.
It's only there.
Okay.
We'll do that.
We will now understand how to give Sapphire the, give me the Soviet man that she
But my view is that I think you could take Sapphire, and I don't think Sinclair's any reason.
You could not also take Price.
I mean, if you want to take both.
I mean, I see no reason not to since we don't have a...
Except I don't want to have a crank lane to Crowder.
That's the problem.
First, you see, you have the backpack plane.
You get away from this business that everybody has a gallon on their plane.
That's right.
That's right.
One rider should be on your plane, so you have a guy that you can get to if you want to.
You can vary it.
Being on my plane is not an idle sale.
Well, being on the other plane is much better.
Actually, as far as creature number is concerned.
and enjoyment and all that.
Sure, there's more room, there's more, I understand the seats are very hard and everything.
No, the seats aren't very hard, but they use, they're the VIPs on the other plane.
So they use your compartment and all that sort of stuff.
And there's less people on it.
Because it's just going along in the back of the plane.
and there's more birds on it for the long flights it has the birds so they can sleep on there you know pat can't be in the position of the i'm saying he won't support the communication
to stick around.
There can't be anything on this.
I would be one, of course, at that point.
I think it's better to make it so you have this on the center down, so you don't lose its efficiency and so forth.
I see why he isn't sophisticated enough, folks, to read it and see what it says.
Does it say a goddamn thing that we weren't going to do before?
Deep down, that's the thing.
Deep down, he's going to the goddamn place that he came from.
And I think he's marching across the mountain.
Maybe.
Henry thought he'd done well with the Republicans yesterday.
That's what I wondered, what his reaction was.
He thought he'd done well, yeah.
He thought he'd done well, yeah.
The Tower of Heaven.
Whoever was there, Huckley.
Alec was there.
Huckley wasn't there.
Huckley wasn't there?
No, that's too bad.
Henry should report to him.
They invited Huckley.
Is Henry going to Florida?
He's coming on a later plane.
I wondered if he could.
Can't do Buckley this afternoon.
You know, I'm going before he goes.
Buckley was in national support.
One thing about him, really, is that he wasn't for punishment on us, certainly, until Jesus Christ.
He said, hey, you can talk to Ruggers.
And Ruggers gave him the door.
I didn't know.
Didn't you love Eddie when he was gone?
Did you tell him anything?
No, I didn't.
I didn't go to the dinner house.
I didn't go to Eddie.
I didn't go to Eddie.
Eddie didn't dinner.
And then maybe Rogers may then be conscious to say, no problem.
He agrees with that.
He's very subtle in the way he accepts things, too.
He'd do it in a much more abrasive, less abrasive way than Henry would.
That's right.
He'll never put an issue in order.
Rogers likes that.
He'll say, I think that we ought to watch this situation.
I want to knock it down.
Roger does underestimate the Chinese.
He sees them dragging along in the streets.
He sees them with no shit on them, with no riding bicycles, and no cars, and just walking.
Hardly inefficient and all the rest.
They're not going to amount to anything.
He wants to remember them.
He can say all about them in Korea.
He wants to remember a hell of a lot of them.
He wants to remember that it's just a matter of time.
They're going to amount to something, for sure.
They have a free society.
They do it all a lot better.
They'll also do things here that they wouldn't do in a free society.
Richard, did you get that?
Great.
Yeah, well, this thing of this, it feels kind of crumbled, especially if they let people in.
They start saying, it will someday, just because people prefer to be free.
But it's going to take a long time because those kids are, and the interpreter I had most of the time was 33 years old, so at the time of the liberation he was 10.
So all of his rational life has been under the communist thing, and the guy is
complete automaton on any of that stuff.
I mean, it's whatever.
He bases all of his thinking on what Chairman McConnell said.
He's an intelligent guy compared to the general run of people there, I'm sure.
He has to be, by definition, as an interpreter.
He speaks English.
The leader class, basically.
The leader class, that's what I was referring to.
Well, this guy's not a leader class, but he is.
Well, I'll give you an interpreter.
The leader class, I mean, down through the bureaucracy, as compared with our leader class, that's what I was referring to.
He's dedicated.
Not the average American.
It doesn't care whether the average American is dedicated or not.
But your leader class has to be, it's not only going to be dedicated, it's going to be tough.
But there's our leader class lacks, frankly, discipline.
See, they have their masses dedicated and disciplined.
Well, by machinery, well, I think you're going to have a tough time turning their masses against them.
Because they are physically better off.
Which is the first concern of any mass.
Any peasant level person, first of all.
But any of them, his first concern is whether he's got enough to eat.
And whether he's got any way to stay warm.
And they have more to eat and better ways of staying warm than they had before.
Then he gets to the question of whether he's free or not.
Well, they don't even know what free is.
Those kids don't.
And they, as they run through those drills and all, they dreamt up an automated operation that
with the chairman they've provided religion they've provided spiritual inspiration intellectual inspiration to the level they're able to absorb it they've done what the catholic church did for the masses in other areas they've got ritual i don't think i read none of the books that's why do you think so i don't i think his analysis is terribly superficial
And then this thing, this point that Henry made, he simplifies it so beautifully that you're dealing here not with a bureaucracy in the construction sense, but with the survivors of an incredibly tough elimination process, which was a lot of march in the leadership class.
They're old, but it's still there to 10% who made it.
And they've built something, but out of those old men, they've built and instilled in the kids a thing where, boy, the discipline with the kids is really something.
They can recite all that stuff by rote.
They move by rote.
You hear that in Shanghai.
They play on the public loudspeakers in the streets.
They play music stuff, and then they go to the exercise hour.
Because Chairman Mao believes that physical fitness is good.
And Christ, everybody sends her on the streets doing their sitting-up exercise while the radio calls to them.
It plays music.
It's like that.
You probably never saw it, but on television here they had somebody who did exercises in the morning at 6.30 or something.
They played music and they touched your toes.
Calisthenics.
But they do them right on the street.
They stop at 2 o'clock is exercise time on the radio.
And there they were standing there doing their exercises.
Grown men.
Let me ask you, you shouldn't have a talk with that because you're going to be such an emotional guy.
I was going to yesterday and then I got to thinking maybe I would do more harm than good.
You know what I mean?
I don't want him to get off on an emotional bend.
Because he's valuable to us.
He's extremely valuable.
And for his own good, he shouldn't get carried away or something here.
And of course, he could rationalize himself into thinking that if he were to resign, his family would create any kind of, or he'd create an issue.
He doesn't want to create any kind of issue at all.
You know, it could be one day.
They don't realize how fragmented they are, but I think they're going to see it in Ashbrook's vote.
Now, I don't think it's that vote, but I think it's voting.
No, that's going to be just for Ashbrook.
He's going to get less than 10%, I think, from the action.
Don't you think so?
Mm-hmm.
I think the points out of New Hampshire now are too cool and scary because they're good.
Our revulsion.
Yeah.
Apparently our youth effort has really taken hold.
Really just, yeah.
The Chinese may have helped out a little bit.
Well, it may have.
It probably did.
But it's apparently just a good test.
They're doing one .
Well, they're doing a good campus organization thing and good off-campus youth stuff.
They're working very hard on youth volunteers.
All of their concentrated on using youth for canvassing and that kind of thing.
And he is wanting to do it.
Apparently so.
And McGovern's the only other one within the youth organization
and we're doing better than the governor.
A little better.
I'd kind of rather it not be until after the election.
What I would like us to do is, when you do well on it, is to say it was because of the event.
Very good, very good.
Apparently the organization has done a good job.
You're sat in your things around and run so hardly.
No, they're both out of town.
Go speak.
Sir.
Sir, I think that any time you realize that another one we've got to take on the rest of the trip is flying.
Yeah.
But you again should not go in my way.
I don't care.
It's just the fact that I don't think they're useful.
They're not.
They're useful.
You know, they sit there in the plane and talk to each other.
There's a small group that works hard on the plane, and it's a problem for...
That group, which is basically my group on the logistics, and Henry's group on the substance.
And there are only about six of us that really have work to do.
There's a need to be there.
The rest of them, we'd just be a hell of a lot better off if they weren't there, because they get in the way.
Who has Pat talked to about unsupporting the community?
What have you talked to?
Zipper.
Like yesterday?
I guess so.
What did Ziggler say?
What does he feel?
Does he have any advice?
No.
But he was kind of concerned.
I want to tap off Pete's towel and go run.
No, I can't.
They've been chatting about it.
We have it on.
Ron came and told me because he was concerned with it.
I think he thought that Pat wasn't, you know, that it was more bravado than it was a statement of intention.
Mike, going to Florida, we'll do another thing.
We'll give the Spanish here another, you know, opportunity to sort of take it a little easier this weekend than we did last week.
The staff here is in pretty good shape.
They were off at the party because everyone said they didn't run at 7 o'clock meetings last week, which is good.
Obviously, for Christ's sake, don't run.
Right now, I'll keep people in good shape.
They took advantage of it.
You provided a cover so that they could pretty well vacate the place here and get caught up on things and get some vacation time and all that so we can get everybody back and going from here on down the road.
Be sure to call me if you get the first choice of Camp David this weekend.
Standing orders that he has the first choice.
I want to call though, okay?
So forth, that could be done.
And then others, let's be sure she was by.
This is a good time to let the cat have the time to eat.
What do you think?
Yeah.
We're going to be able to have a deal over here.
No.
Schultz used the, uh, uh, sanatorium over there.
He was, he was in good shape.
Let me tell you a reason I don't want to use it.
I have found that, uh, this is particularly so when I'm in a rundown.
And I'm not able to go under the ocean as much as I might like.
I've got to use the pools.
I hate to cut everybody else out of the house.
The only way I can do it is if somebody's there, I can use the pools.
But whenever I'm not there, I want that house to be with somebody else.
I mean, I don't even care.
I worked stuff on there, set up over at the hotel.
I found one for him.
And of course, going to Disneyland is a marvelous idea.
of a staff group is almost all of Fort Allen's going down to Miami because his family are over at Fort Myers, so they're going to go over there.
It's been great to get with him.
How did he feel about, how did he feel about going down?
Oh, he was, meant a lot to me.
The poor guy, it just shows you how, he really is, because he, because of the time difference thing, he was working against the clock all the time on getting those news summaries to us, and he got us two a day.
Damn good news summaries.
That was what I was keeping you posted from.
He had been planning it.
I wonder if that isn't too much of a requirement.
Why don't we cut that down?
Why don't we cut the new summary business down to it?
Well, normally we do.
The reason they did there was because of the time change.
I'm just saying go ahead and write it down.
Remember I told you earlier that we're cutting down.
We're not doing it to cut down on the new summaries.
Give us a summary of where we can.
Well, this was only while we were on the trip, so we had a current reading on what, basically what our plan was.
Yeah.
And it was helpful to have it.
But he was planning to take off next week for three or four days.
And when I said that you had suggested that we put the staff on together and you wanted him to go, he said he was just overwhelmingly grateful.
He said, gee, that would really be marvelous because we were trying to figure out how we were going to handle the dough and get time to...
I mean, thank you for getting someplace for a vacation to get away.
And he said, but I felt I had to stay here this week to get things straightened out.
And if the president was going to give any speech or anything like that, but he needs some background.
And I said, no, he's going to be in Florida.
And there's a good chance for you to get that.
He said, well, if I could, I would really appreciate it.
And we'll go over to Fort Myers and stay with my parents so I won't have to pay for a hotel.
And...
That worked out.
He was just delighted.
And it's good for Henry Scott, because Henry wasn't too enthusiastic about letting him go.
He's Scott.
See, Henry isn't, he's... Henry's the one that's even cutting us.
I know.
There's a hell of a difference.
The real problem with keeping our wives and kids happy, well, that's a legitimate problem.
This kind of thing is good because these guys are taking their wives and kids with them.
$20 a day, which is just damn good.
A person?
No, a room, a couple, or a family.
And they'll give them all kinds of, you know, they'll give them passes to the park, take them on boat rides, do all sorts of
Nice self-productive.
You remember?
Sure, you remember Sandy Quinn.
Worked for us in 62.
He's the marketing director down there.
Sandy Quinn had a little...
He was your press guy in 62, back in the early stages before Klein came in.
God, yes.
I'd almost forgotten that he worked for Reagan and he was involved in that homosexual... Was it?
Oh, he was charged with...
I don't know whether he was or not.
I don't care.
I think he was, but in any event, the Disney people, they picked him up after he got bounced on that thing, gave him a good job at Disneyland, and then when they started the Florida business, he moved over, and he's been there for five years.
Kirby Hall.
Well, I didn't know.
I knew it wasn't in my business, but I just figured you might get stuck with it.
It would be a good idea to get the tea sets for them or something, just so they've got something to...
She seemed to be in much better shape yesterday.
Did she?
Yeah.
She brought up that candy thing that Pat had brought up, you know.
She brought it up in a different way.
You know, he had all those boxes of candy, and Pat said, I'm going to give some of this to my staff.
And I said...
Well, Bob, I just told him that maybe Marge could make the calls.
Sure, Rose could make the calls.
Well, Marge could do it just as well.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Yeah, why don't you just make calls for you and my brothers and Pat's brothers and what else?
The two Ryans?
The two Ryans and Don and Ed.
The wives in each case.
Except that.
Mark and Evelyn.
I'm telling them.
They will be receiving a postcard.
They'll be watching for them.
But also, we thought we'd have a T-set for each of them.
Are we going to give any individually to the kids?
What kids?
Their kids.
You can if you want to.
It's always one of those little elephants, each of the girls, one of those little carved dolls, those little figures, you know.
Elements are, are those inexpensive?
Scrolls are less expensive?
No, the elements are less expensive.
All right, all right.
You've got an elephant and a dog, and I figured that out.
And if you think it calls, yeah, it calls 11-8, that would be about, so they know, that'll save me, they'll be expecting me to call either one for whatever reasons.
And I don't want to get into conversations about other problems.
But if you could say, I call Claire Jane, and then I call Eddie, that would be the one.
And then the rhymes, you can call your husband or your wife.
Eddie's here.
Where is he?
If you don't have working permission.
He lives here.
According to you, I think.
Well, God damn it, if I don't write it right over here, I'm sorry.
I didn't know that.
I think so.
Okay, if you could handle that, Mark, we appreciate it.
That's good.
Well, I wanted to do something they could have to keep the success.
It shows what we thought of them.
You know, we really do understand something about something.
This business has not been ended so far, but Ryan's applying.
Well, it is just now, but when I came here, she is never here.
I don't know.
Is that true or not?
She says she's always here.
I don't think she is coming in.
Is that true?
Not very often.
I think it's because of the...
But that's all right.
She needs...
It's the night stuff.
She does too much night stuff.
She's cut down, she's cut way down on the night stuff.
Has she?
Yes, as you have said.
You see, the problem that she's got, in my view, is op... is alcohol.
I think that's what caused her previous problem.
I think she cuts that down.
That's what caused her problem on the trip, too, I think.
And on the trip, what she was doing was compensating for, you know, this frustration and the rest of her drinking.
And God damn it, it's something.
I came through the whole show without gaining one half a pound.
So did I.
Not a damn thing.
The reason was I didn't drink.
That's the idea.
That's probably why you don't drink.
If you drink, I cut it in half.
But you see, that isn't enough to make any difference.
I mean, you can go that way.
But I ate, like you know what's going on at Sal.
I ate, well you didn't eat lunch though very much.
I ate lunch.
I did.
The lunches that they served everywhere were like those damn banquets at night.
They had three or four course lunches with, you know, chicken and, well like that lunch you and I had that day.
That was a typical lunch.
I ate lunch like that every day.
Plus the dinner, plus I sat and ate that damn candy that they had in the room all the time.
Well, I didn't hear you on that side.
The food's in front of me.
I eat it.
They, uh, they, uh, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they,
But there, I eat a very small breakfast and no lunch or system cottage cheese.
Then I do have a good dinner, which you always gain.
I gain a couple pounds every weekend.
I think it must be the sweet and then eating that big dinner.
Although down there, I've been now, I go out and play tennis.
And that should work some of that out.
The other thing I think is the weight.
I am convinced, though, that if you look at the moves,
All this and that.
And other than that, it's a...
I mean, it doesn't...
The way he ends is that he not only eats the meals, but he's a compulsive eater all of the night.
He eats those goddamn peanuts.
I said, why?
They just put it right down on there.
That was...
I finally, in my room, the guest house, they had that plate of peanuts.
I finally put it away because if it's there, I sit there every time I walk by and grab a handful.
I was amazed.
I thought I would have gained five pounds, at least.
I'm glad you're back.
I didn't gain.
I actually lost a pound.
I'm glad you're back.
And now, looking down, he just came and probably gained three or four pounds.
That's right.
Come on.
It's good to hear.
It's about to break.
Should we announce it?
Should we not?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, just say that I'm, that I will be going to Florida with Julie.
Julie will be going with me.
And I'll be staying with her.
And John will be staying with me, too.
But the concept of that will be that the domestic council staff, they know he's working on the bus tickets.
Okay.
I don't mention the issues.
You said John?
You just said John?
John Harris would be working on domestic, that would work.
And Kessinger's coming down later.
The Kessinger's will be coming again.
Put a working cast on it.
He will be coming down on the 4.1.
And this is next one we'll be going to California.
So make sure you call Connie and tell her we'll be going to California this weekend.
Or did they know that?
I think they've already put that out.
Okay.
So if we didn't catch that on-board, you'd leave.
That's the only problem.
But he should go on the rest of the plane.
The staff one?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
You mean, right?
I don't believe you.
There's no need to take much of it.
It wouldn't be right, because the other people would put it on the other.
Guadalcanal's nice.
That plane stops at Irvine, but then goes on to Miami.
It's going to drop the group up in Atlanta, then go on to Miami.