On March 10, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Manolo Sanchez, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, Alexander P. Butterfield, Charles W. Colson, unknown person(s), Ronald L. Ziegler, White House operator, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, John D. Ehrlichman, and Edward L. Morgan met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:11 pm to 3:53 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 682-009 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
I thought we'd have some fun today.
Which way?
Ah.
Well, they talked a little.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it actually, John.
They talked a lot about it
Basically, it was a black man's operation, and we don't buy anything like that.
He came and killed her.
That's because people have trouble with that.
That's absurd.
What do I do?
I should tell them to do it.
You know what I mean?
Tell them to do it.
I don't think so.
What's beyond that, which you should be aware of, would be what we call, which is what you called my son.
I know.
I really laced into it.
It was a very, very tough moment for him.
Which Kleindienst then went in, because he was very shook, I mean, just right out of his shoes, went in to talk to Mitchell about it.
And Mitchell came to see me about it.
Mitchell came to see me.
I said, let's settle it for this.
This is the main thing, Mr. Chief of Government.
Mitchell was, you know, Mitchell did, last night, I saw this, that he had no instruction on you, all this stuff.
And Eric prepared on it.
But the reason I called Kleindienst was...
The earlier one came, and I said, Flanagan had broken his pick.
He said, we made this decision.
He said, you've got to take it.
And that's what I did.
But not on this.
It wasn't just on his kill.
It was on the whole thing.
I said, there are all sorts of things.
You've got to get McLaren in line on all these cases.
Well, it's kind of dull to launch that.
I've been tired today.
I've had a pretty good
built up on his press conference, and he's hit the Democratic, he's hit the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which, by the way, is violating the law twice by the people that saw telephone facilities at Democratic Convention when the Democrats owed them $1.5 million from their 1968 convention and campaign.
And he's gone into the whole thing that this is a contribution
to a more than $100,000 guarantee to the city of San Diego, which has been falsely alleged to have been given to the Republican National Convention.
Said the federal criminal code, as far as contributions, includes a loan or any value.
Carrying a $1.5 million debt for four years, and then consenting to increase the size of the debt with no assurance of repayment, must be considered at the very least a loan, if not an outright gift.
And sure, there's something of value as to the possible statute.
The deal unjustly discriminates against all of us who pay our bills on time or find our phone service cut off.
That's a good line.
That's a good line.
I don't think they're going to cut off.
The wires carry it.
Call for public hearings to investigate the alleged... Oh, you can make a law because they want to keep Anderson's testimony going.
It's free to be a lie to stand because we've got a first free to break.
That's not...
You've got to understand that my call at Linnies did not relate to IT&T.
It related to the whole Justice Act.
Can you trust me?
The thing that's important here is that Flanagan put Irving on the hook.
Now, let me ask you one thing.
Did Flanagan have any connection with this law?
What kind?
The name.
That's the thing I'm concerned about.
I don't think so.
Because he was pushing hard on this case.
No, I don't know.
In fairness, Ernest John didn't mention any specific case.
He didn't matter.
He just said, we've got all these cases of injustice.
And he says, you've got to look.
And I said, well, look, I don't know.
You've got to call him.
So I called him.
Well, today they had Jack Anderson, Scott Hume back there testifying.
We had asked for his notes yesterday because he, as he detailed notes on his conversation, he appeared in his interview with him.
And they were pushing on the notes and before he pulled out the thing about mentioning the president, you know, the official said the president said the president.
So Cook pressed him hard on his notes.
He had said he couldn't give them to the reporters because he wasn't going to turn them over to his committee.
Cook pressed him hard on his notes and said that the committee would like to see them.
And that guy said, I'm sorry, Senator, I can't give you the notes, because I've turned them over to Joe Gloss of Senator Kennedy's staff.
So, Cook is now, has done now, I'm sure, has risen up in the committee hearing and said, I'm assisting that we end these hearings immediately and we go into executive session.
This committee is being used for partisan political purposes, and it's going to go into a big harangue about what's being done in the committee.
And he's going to insist on going to executive session, even though Eastland has agreed to go to executive session.
And then Cook is going to go out.
before the cameras and scream the time out of it.
But he said they've got to walk out after everything and talk to those cameras.
Cook is going to do that.
Goldwater is going to hit it beforehand.
And Gold got this whole thing before his press conference had ended.
He got it during his press conference.
So he and his press conference hit the thing that this clearly now is shown for what it is, which is a Kennedy-Anderson conspiracy.
And they're going to start telling him, I'm Lee Anderson.
But Bob, are they going to ask for the notes from Kennedy's man?
That's the one I'm sure.
You see, if Anderson's leg man says, executive privilege, I mean, the newspaper man's privilege, doesn't let me turn it over to the committee, why does he turn it over then to a senator's assistant president?
Have they made that point?
Sure.
And that's exactly, that's what, that's the whole basis on which they're blowing it up and moving forward.
Now, we've also got a fair chance on this Peter Beard thing.
Why?
Well, her memo is a fake.
A fake?
Well, it apparently wasn't written until January.
And it wasn't written on an IT&T typewriter.
She is a drinking buddy of Jack Anderson's secretary.
The memo, the original, was never received by Marion, the guy who was sent to her.
In fact, she said she hand-delivered it to her, but she wasn't even in the city the day she said she delivered it to her.
How long are they going to get that across?
Is Marion testifying?
Not yet.
But they don't want to get that across right now.
What they want to do is get it, need it here.
to get her testimony, and they think they can blow it up.
This is about the memo.
Then you blow Jack Anderson out of the water, plus all the senators.
How would she do it?
Would she admit it?
They'd admit something.
And there's a lot.
Don't get into the details.
They're working on this now.
I'm sure.
There are people out to see her.
A lot of things being done.
Lots being taken care of.
And it just may all work out.
Because it was.
It was, but how could she admit it without destroying herself?
She thinks she's destroyed now.
She is.
She lost her job at IED.
Well, she can't get it back.
That's what they ought to do.
They need a good PR director at their Hawaii hotel, apparently.
And the purpose, though, that she had to come in.
Or if she can't get in, but she may not, she's having clots and a lot of problems, she may die, which is the other problem.
And I think we'll get this done before she does.
Well, what they're trying to, what they want to do is try to get things set up so that the committee council can go out and take a deposition from her, a statement from her.
Which would be the best way to do it.
Well, let me .
Yeah, Don.
Great.
Well, that's good.
These things generally, that's going to be together, of course, in here and on the television.
But we can't do that.
These things generally, they're so wrong.
I mean, it's like the idea that the man, like this guy said, she said, the president called Mitchell and said, do something for ID&T.
What the hell would I do for ID&T?
I don't care about the God damn company.
No, it's ID&T.
We have the principle, which we worked out in the cabinet room,
And that's where Connolly got into, you know, where we all agreed that we should discontinue this harassing of business for bigness.
That was the whole deal, see.
Morris Sanders, remember, he had a great big long name.
And the Gov.
Justice Department wasn't doing it.
And that's why we gave Klein v. Stout.
So anyway, we've got Klein v. Stout.
I've talked to many.
I've talked to many.
I've talked to, not mentioned, but I've talked to the comics, the English books, and my own books.
He said, you're not going to escalate it too much then.
He says, leave it where it is.
He says, it's one of those things.
It'll pass.
He says, don't let everybody into this hurts for a while.
There's going to be more of it.
But he says, don't escalate it with a medical attack.
Not at this point.
I don't know if this happens with anyone or not.
But I believe it was a medical attack.
It looks like.
And also, you've got to keep the president in the hell out of it.
If we can keep this one going away, we've got a couple good breaks now.
You really think there's already good breaks now?
Well, they do think Colson is the area of good.
No, they do think it's a good break.
They do?
Oh, sure.
The other thing is, as I said, it's a chance.
If we can get her twisted around, that would be good.
If we can't, why don't we just... We may tell what she may.
You say, Bob, she wrote the memo in January?
Well, that's what they're convinced of, man.
See, they've got a whole apparatus going around.
They can't find the typewriter.
Why don't you give them that?
That's what it's about.
Probably because he wouldn't talk to her at the Derby.
That's my guess.
Well, that's what Mitchell says, and that's what Julian is...
The Derby was six months before.
The Derby's in May.
Yeah.
Right?
Well, the settlement was in January a lot.
I know, but the memorandum written in January...
The memorandum was apparently only written a couple months ago, and it was written... Well, then my point is, if a memorandum was written a couple months ago, for Christ's sakes, she must have gotten mad at him.
I don't know what the guy's name is.
I'm just making up a name.
He identified the name.
He said so-and-so...
Senator Kennedy spent.
And then, thank God, we had one smart senator on there.
Well, Cook has been doing a good job.
Well, he's a nut cutter.
Goldwater's hitting this, too.
He got the word on it, so he's going out and blasting the thing, too.
But he's doing it just to the outside.
Well, I think one of the kind of things we have to be talking about today is all that bullshit security thing, the busted address, and that crap around about the comics that is just goddamn ridiculous in this business of ours.
Well, that's the point.
And also, these kind of dead commentators say this is the worst scandal in our history.
Well, they've quit saying that.
A couple of them said it a couple of days ago.
Nobody's said it recently.
They haven't severally last night.
Oh, it was a big voting, but not as the worst scandal.
You don't think so?
It probably is.
No one's got the money.
That's the point exactly.
Nobody is benefiting from it.
Bill will find me.
He'll find me.
I think we did make a mistake.
It was not in terms of probably or not.
It was wrong here.
But I didn't have a chance to think about it.
You and I both agree.
They probably should have turned the money back right away.
We don't want to talk about that.
But that was probably just a mention of guilt.
See, that's why we didn't want to do it.
What do you think?
I think we're better.
I don't know.
I don't think we would have made much difference.
No?
They would have gone ahead.
Because you say that Dina Beard is a bringing buddy of Jagmeet's secretary.
Very clueless.
Call her.
Call her.
Call the secretary.
I've got guests to play around with.
I'm saying you don't know either.
How long have you known her?
You know, I mean, just the anger of it.
You see, I've heard about the beauty of a congressional hearing.
Yeah, I wish I were down there.
I agree, you see, because the beauty of it is you are not limited by the law.
You can bring in hearsay, which they're doing here, say, or remove, but also we brought in hearsay.
But the other thing is you can call a witness, whether the witness is relevant or not.
Just call them.
You've got to call that woman up there and say, all right,
Well, if we can't get Deena Beard, she sure as hell should do that.
If we can get Deena Beard, that's the beautiful thing.
And if it comes through the right way.
But on the other hand, you've got to realize the problem is she comes in and her name's on it.
They'll say, oh, you're doing it because ITT's getting off.
That's right.
So that's a problem.
Yep.
I'm afraid that's going to be worse.
Well, the thing, ITT isn't going to commit any enjoy and solemnly.
They thought it all through.
We sure were a big outfit.
That's why I said the big outfit and all those PR guys and lawyers got in there.
They ought to be doing a little better than they had so far.
And they're a decent crew, too.
I tell you the truth, you know, Janine's a decent man.
Irony of it all is that
all over the place about this stuff.
He thought we were too hard.
John Connery knew all about it.
He knows more than Doug's on it.
They made it the last day of the studio.
They did that day as well.
And then they pushed Davis and that, what was that?
Who?
Tom T. George.
And Kenny King, George Zimmer, both eventually.
They didn't like Edward.
That's right.
They got the largest
Consent to degree seven in mystery.
All right.
Could you make a couple of notes?
I had told Pete not to go to the Green Iron, not to bother going.
I think he ought to go.
They're asking him to go, and they're going to kid.
And you know what I mean?
It gives them somebody there to laugh at, Sean.
He doesn't get one damn.
You know what I mean?
He won't say anything.
I'm having Henry go.
I don't want him to appear at the administration, particularly if he's there, it doesn't show that I have no appearance.
Would you agree with me on that?
Yeah.
I just, the one I'm wondering about is Rodgers, who very much doesn't want to go, but I just wonder if it's... Agnew won't go.
I don't know.
I think we've got to get Agnew to go, but I just, I wonder, and they're going to get Rodgers too, and I wonder...
He can't take it.
I guess maybe he's better off not getting it.
He can't take it.
He's never going to get it.
He can't take it.
Okay.
Maybe I should go.
Okay.
Let me say, if I go, I'm not going to let Ryder know he ain't got the guts to go.
You know what I mean?
I don't know why you should.
Well, I don't know.
We've been pissed off so often at those things.
But anyway, Dick Wilson makes an argument that you should go, or at the very least, if you don't, that the Vice President must, for a different reason, which is that the gridiron machine kicked around by the left wing, the young reporters, the libs and all that, who aren't men.
Well, that appeals to me.
I know.
And the woman's libs.
And the woman's libs.
It's very, very strong.
I shouldn't go there.
The woman's libs.
No, she's not a woman's libs.
She's very sensitive about it.
She said they had more to deal with than you think.
Well, because Dick is fun with women.
I don't think it's a satisfying thing.
It's so bad for the limits, but... Well, what about A?
Can we have everybody else go work on that?
Would he accept the advice of the Vice President?
Yes.
That's what he said.
If you weren't...
If you weren't out there, Eisenhardt, either Steve or I, well, I went to all of them then, not Eisenhardt.
Dick Wilson said two things.
If you don't go, you should be out of town.
And the vice president should go.
In other words, if you were in town and just gratuitously insulted him by not going, that, he feels, would be harmful to the old line in the press corps if you were not the pilot.
Small chunk of that.
Yes.
That's Wilson's wife.
They'll focus on Henry and...
The Henry Rogers thing, but let me say this, Donnelly, it does not bother me.
Believe me, it does not bother me.
I can take the risk.
You know what I mean?
Because I just don't like to be, to appear like a jerk.
You know, I'm just going, as if I'm psyching around.
That's the point.
Well, they must be feeling pretty good about that.
Because I actually didn't carry out any of these meetings.
One small thing.
We've got to conserve Henry a little bit.
I was rather surprised last night when I asked him.
He said he had to go over to the Blair House to some business leader.
He says he does it every two to three weeks.
I want that knocked off.
He doesn't even read anything.
He doesn't do that.
It isn't.
It's a mixture.
It isn't just...
He's got it.
I know.
But those business leaders do not have one idea about them.
They're not going to do a goddamn thing for a certain instance.
Well, those groups, they have legal leaders, academic, you know, this is just business.
Okay.
But I just wouldn't, I mean, let me say, I don't think it's the best use of time.
I agree.
I mean, you know what, let me tell you what it means.
What's the other thing that would be a good use of time?
I mean, I brought you to it.
And now Roger's appealing.
That's the only thing.
But still, Roger's up in that way.
That's enough.
I agree Henry wastes time with Weston and a lot of others, but I do know that he has a tendency to overschedule himself.
He didn't pretend to be another.
I'm the plan.
Yeah, I understand.
And I agree, it shouldn't be a top priority thing for Henry at all.
And all of these investigations are going to be great fun.
Darn right.
It's the best kind of a committee to be on.
I mean, that sort of thing.
We've got to cook the nation.
It's all the national thing.
Somebody that gets in there and fights.
He brought up in his question in this one thing, who brought up the question as to where the memorandum was cooked?
Because Cook was pushing for it.
You see what I mean?
That was great.
And the guy just made a mistake, finally, you know.
He said, well, Senator, I can't give them to you.
I've got to turn them over to somebody.
Kennedy's man.
So everybody's leaping up.
And then Coke, you say, got up.
He had to hand it to the collective saying, yeah, in the hearings, public hearings, because the committee was being used.
You got a highlight phone call last night saying, which I don't believe, that says the president's overall positive rating is 64.
It should be up to 55.
I don't think he can go up that much.
Hello?
There's something wrong with the gallop.
Well, yeah, but this is too much higher than ours, although he goes on it.
The way his tail works might be different.
The only... Only fair.
The only fair might have moved up to... Well, no, it didn't.
The only fair might have moved to good.
And it's...
I don't know.
That's all it got on that part of it.
On the trip to China, it was 62 positive, 21 negative, which checks about right with ours.
I'm busing at 4 to 1 in opposition to busing.
He was in the field all of last week.
He was in a little earlier than we were.
He goes through the week.
We and Gallup were both in over the weekend.
He was in during the week.
Well, we should all come up with someone saying it.
Yeah, we should.
I don't think anything changed in the weekend.
It was done earlier than we thought it would be.
Oh, yes, earlier than we thought it would be.
IT&T, for example.
You're closer to China now.
Closer to China and less on IT&T.
I do not believe IT&T would have rode that fast.
I don't either.
But if it did, that's about the only other thing that happened.
The power of the strike
And we think it is.
But we think at least that the gallows is a little low.
The grounds is a little low and Harris is a little high.
So let me say, with the all being a little low, you could be more right.
What the hell?
If it's dropped next time, you know, it doesn't do it.
Well, Chuck's inclination is to try to get Harris not to put this one out.
I think maybe he's right.
Because we don't need it now.
Oh, yeah, everything but the approval.
See, Dittles is out over three or four weeks anyway.
He knows everything he's got and all that.
Put out the China trip and all that, but he doesn't have to put out the approval.
He doesn't.
He often doesn't.
And it might be better not to.
It won't go down as low as it was, probably, and then he can show a rise, but not such a big rise, and won't show a drop.
But Harrison thought this was right, didn't he?
Apparently.
This is, the Secretary got the message from Harris who was calling on his way to the airport.
This was all he had there.
And he said they were very rough.
He is convinced that what happened here was all planned.
And that it can't be.
that the reason see he couldn't understand he says he told mitchell this when his hearings ended his regular hearing ended because he said it was a complete low piece with the committee and kennedy and tony and by and all came up and were slapping him on the shoulder and they're a great guy and we're all for you and the president has every right to appoint his own attorney general and all that and they reported about you know this big low piece thing
And he said, I called Mitchell that night and said, there's something fishy here.
This, you know, it just doesn't ring right.
And then the next day or the day after, whenever it was, the Anderson column hit with the IT&T stuff.
And Klein, he said, I then called Mitchell and said, there's what it is.
The bastards have tried to set it up.
So they'd report me out on this lo-fi-do-fi thing out of the committee to prove they're fair.
To prove they're fair.
Then they dumped this stuff in the press.
And then one by one, senators will start eroding as the debate goes under the floor.
Like they did on the cars law.
They said, gee, I was foreclining these all the way, but this just creates too much doubt.
So they can gradually peter away.
And he says they won't vote against Kleine's vote on this.
Not now, but they might have.
Kleine's, part of this is his justification for putting it back into the committee.
And he thinks it was still the right thing to do, even though he thinks we are being hurt by the PR on that.
He said, I never dreamed the press would play it as falsely as they did.
I didn't believe the press was playing it wrong in the back of the committee.
I didn't either.
I didn't support it either.
It wouldn't have been thought out in as much detail as it is now.
But, if these brakes work out, we may come out with a super bus, and Coneys may come out as a martyr, Anderson may come out totally discredited, and Kennedy may come out looking pretty damn bad.
Because why?
Because he was kind of in with Anderson to do it.
On the Nissan, doing the political, doing you, really, the party, it was a political maneuver.
Cheap shot.
I don't know, it's just, I can't tell what you're going to get.
What's your thought now on next week?
Because we've got some things that ought to be done.
So I held his hand.
Hard to tell.
You've got a late price meeting you're supposed to have, I guess, with Coffey and Shelton signed up, so.
Yeah.
They were about to do it on Monday.
All right.
What's wrong with that?
And, uh, you have to get the cat in there, huh?
No.
That's not necessary.
No, we don't.
I don't think you need to at all.
I do not mind the fire without the cabin.
It's going to be a problem this year.
No, sir.
I would call them in once in a while if there's anything going on.
No.
They're out.
They're out.
NSC meeting.
We need an NSC meeting, which they now would lock down on Thursday.
uh it's time to swear in marina with i don't know if you want to do that as a spring yet ceremony we can make a well and we've gotten stories i think we have i can't get a fire stop i turned it down stein
wanted you to do it, and they were thinking about bringing a lot of women's organizations and I just think that's done.
I think that's it.
I wouldn't mind swearing her in in a private setting, you know what I mean?
Okay.
I have her in, so I'll show it to you in other words.
It only takes me two minutes.
I'll have her in with the council and so forth.
And it was an Allianz picture.
And John Connors.
And Connors coming to show us.
Yeah.
All right.
Allianz.
Yeah.
But don't make it up.
Don't make it up that we're trying to exploit the moon.
That's why I agree.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then there are a couple odds and ends on drop bodies that get cleaned up.
Also, Otto Hashman was asked to see you on the foreign assistance bill.
Henry and the congressional guys are both saying you should see him.
He won't talk to Rogers and Eric Kissinger any further about it and has urgently requested a meeting.
All right.
Because they're having hearings on it.
Well, we had Ron Burton that you were going to see that we still, we've never gotten to that.
He's your new chairman of the Humanities Council, which is the other side of the arts thing.
You ought to see him at some time.
Very conservative.
Just so he's mentioned.
And may not want to bring that guy in, Texas Tech.
It was that sort of thing.
In fact, that's it.
No, no, no.
Then question of whether if you wanted John Mitchell, you want to meet with Mitchell.
Let's get this out of the way.
I agree.
I think he'd just assume not.
Now, we've got one here that I don't know whether you want to do or not, and you don't have to at all.
They're having a briefing of the Jewish editors across the country in the White House on Monday, and they're suggesting, you know, make some drop by.
No, no, no.
That isn't, it might be anything Mrs. Nixon ought to do or anybody else either.
Now the one cabinet thing we are up to that you should do sometimes is make international, you know, the Council on International Economic Policy.
The best thing there is economic aspects of the Moscow trade and trade agreements to date.
Legislative positions on trade negotiations.
Well, what's Henry think of that one?
He is definitely... Goddammit, I don't want a personal response.
Economic aspects of Moscow trade, well I don't want that meeting.
The reason for this is to get the people in line and include by departments and agencies to actually propose for the visit and actions after.
Which is just to review the scenario.
No, but I said, we're getting, I said, we're getting, we've gotten some inquiries on the press and PR handling of this and all that.
And I said, we just, as you know, we've got to set it up with Dwight Chapin and Ron Ziegler and our logistic events group and run it all through.
And he said, oh yeah, I'll, if there's anything, I'll turn that off.
And he said, it would be helpful as you're planning if one of our people could sit in.
And I said, well, of course.
And he said, if, uh,
John Thomas, you know, who's there with us, he's kind of said, that's great.
He always works with our people.
So that's no problem.
I thought about doing this economic council on Tuesday.
All right.
Get that out of the way.
The question is whether or not you want to have a press conference.
Yeah.
If you do, you've got to knock off Henry's NSC.
Well, we can vote Friday morning.
And I've got Friday clear as of now.
I don't know what your plans are on Pat's birthday and all that.
The only question on Friday is whether you'll take the Irish ambassador for the shamrocks.
Yes.
I always like to do that.
And you've got to, if you want to, go back up to the apparently Sunday St. Patrick in New York that night.
No.
Go ahead.
You don't think we should?
I sure don't.
What are you going to do?
You've got a bunch of demonstrators outside raising hell at you.
I just started an aisle.
The vice president's the speaker, and I think we just let the vice president do the speaking.
Yeah.
Well, then we'll open the crisis room and screw up Garland.
Well, Katie asked you to do it, didn't we?
You ready to have him in that house?
What is the situation with regard to... the person?
I'm not sure if you can explain it without me laughing.
That is not abolishing that television or none.
I'll do the television in the following.
You see, that was the time before it was abolished.
What's your judgment on getting on the press thing?
Do you think maybe we should try it next week?
If I have to get ready for it, that's why I have a schedule for next week.
Well, that would keep up with this.
Maybe just foolish to think of going on in the office.
I mean, why do that?
Why not just give up television?
It's a hell of a lot of work.
It's more work.
But it isn't.
It isn't that much more work.
don't have a real strong feeling that I would opt for television and doing it next week, rather than waiting a week.
I think if you kind of throw them off balance, you get it behind you.
Of course, you would agree though that the behind each other is over with.
It would not be over.
That's right.
I think you've got to wait until Monday to see, but I think that's the only story I would follow.
If the president denies Lincoln could write a GT, right?
That's the news.
You can't do that.
That's all gotta be undone.
A lot of them deny it anyway.
Bill, Bill, so ask the question.
If we get it all, if it all gets turned around this weekend... My guess is they will not get it turned around next week.
I have a message that we can't probably do the press conference.
But then I think we have to go directly to a follow-up thing.
And I'll tell you what I would like to do in order to get it all killed up.
My view this time would be to announce a week in advance
Your advance next week, you're going to have on the telephone a televised press conference signed.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Then you're totally, then Robin's totally going to use Jack as the one-on-one press conference.
Yeah.
You're going to announce it on Thursday or Friday.
I'm inclined to think that we are going to have a televised press conference.
So if something might happen between now and then, we want to answer your questions on that.
That's always going to come up, isn't it?
And so maybe it is, maybe you don't.
I mean, worth considering.
I don't think, let me say this.
The more I think, what made me think about television, the more I think about
What Clandy said, the more I am convinced that I, personally, frankly, that this is doing something to help us, except, of course, I was just thinking to it, just to sort of spring clear to that extent, generally speaking, it's pretty much a weak application of the fact that we are killed.
Well, I don't mean to say it's a fact that they killed us.
It would not kill us, but it wouldn't have been nearly as effective if we hadn't been on television.
And also, to tell the right question, remember we used to say, thank God that's televised, because the writing press are screwers, right?
I just don't think...
The writing press on a press conference, in all fairness, doesn't usually screw you.
We usually get three or four good stories out of the press conference.
But it's like you don't get the impact.
in any television, anything like what you get on television.
And they have the chance to screw us.
And some papers, or some do, balance it.
And some do it when you're on television.
Yeah, the people have seen you then.
It's harder to do.
It's just like China.
They would have loved to have screwed you a lot worse than they tried to do in China.
But it was damn hard for those guys to do much when the people saw you there every day.
Let's do the other items.
Keep the NSC, and I suggest we throw it Friday in case we, for that matter, see.
Okay, you want to just set it Friday now?
Set it Friday, yeah.
Keep Wednesday and Thursday open.
Yeah.
Not a bad idea anyway.
No, it works fine.
With Monday and Thursday, if you wanted to get away, the Monday and Tuesday schedule will wind up.
Yeah.
Now, I'm going to turn down this year, unless you want to do it, the receiving the federal women's award.
Hell, I'm not going to receive it.
You've done it every year.
I think you can't do that this year.
Yeah.
You can do it.
It'd be a good touch for them.
I'd try.
It's a good piece of work.
I've done time and time again.
It doesn't mean a thing.
It never gets any play out of it.
Milt Young was pushing very hard to see you to...
Tell you what's wrong with your farm program, mainly to say you're wrong on the feed grain business, which Butts is opposed, and it's been defeated in Senate Agriculture.
The young wants to appeal to you to achieve administratively what he couldn't get done legislatively.
Butts, as I say, is opposed.
Butts wants you to meet with him, but he's opposed to the thing.
Butts' recommendation is, Daniel Whitaker,
Young, Gerson, and Curtis come in, debate the thing with butts, and you listen, and that's it.
Well, I'm not going to give you an hour.
That's the problem.
No, let's talk about a half an hour.
If you had three guys, how the hell can I give it to you?
I don't know.
That's one problem.
The other problem is what you do about Jack Miller.
Because it's pretty hard.
He's the reigning member.
It's pretty hard to have the other senators in and not have him.
Why not?
He's the one that's been asking.
I'm sorry.
He is going to pick one in a half hour.
You see, whenever they add the number of senators, they're going to add the length of the meeting, right?
Okay.
Quines asked me to re-raise with you whether you would
see joe dealey for a few minutes especially since we didn't include the news on that on the trip just because of his value to us in texas and uh sure uh he's the publisher yeah i mean yeah president dallas news he'd just like to talk with you about sure life in texas from you know sure fine we turned it down at one point
You don't have to make a trip just to see him because, you know what I mean, but he's, you know, he's around the town.
And you leave the time for the prayer.
He's probably not even gonna move here.
Let me tell you about the prayer.
I feel this, that if anybody doesn't know it, I'll have to do it.
I mean, I just, I don't have any desire, but...
I feel the same way.
I think you do.
Yeah.
I'll be a category.
Okay.
You talked about, at some point, doing a, the Congressman, you said to let it go and raise it later, question breakfast with all the... Oh, I'm excited to ask that now.
You said the race began at All-China?
No.
You dropped it all together.
I see nothing in the game, but... Do you?
No, I think there's a lot to be lost by it.
Yeah.
They're just gonna cover up the budget and all that stuff.
You don't need to disappoint me.
I mean, we just aren't gonna do it now, but it is the end.
There is a Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
Oh, Christ.
who would like to present to you their conference in 1971 report on issues concerning women.
It would be a five-minute thing where a whole bunch of broads would come in and their head would hand you the thing.
It's the Labor Department Council.
No, I don't think that's... That's a small... You met with them in 69.
I met with them.
I don't think that the status quo and stuff and so forth, the more I think about it, I don't think that is what does the women's vote issue.
The argument, they're meeting, let's say they're coming, I don't know, they will meet anyway, so they're from all over the country.
And the argument would be that they'd be good spokeswomen for us.
Actually, I, what do you lose by doing a, not meeting with them, but just letting them come in and hand you the report?
Stand-up deal.
Okay.
Full of them.
There's about 20.
Yeah, there's about 20.
All right.
It's like the head of the National Council of Catholic Women and the Federation of Professional and Business Women.
State legislator.
Those are the companies.
Sydney fellow, Hoover Institute.
Okay, that's two of them.
You can't just have them come in and stand up.
I think you should.
That's what they're after.
They're here for meeting with other people anyway.
Okay, they come in.
They come in and hand you the thing and go out.
Now what would it be?
That's the problem.
It has to be Thursday, I guess.
Oh, that's right.
It couldn't be Friday.
I'll just say only if it can be on Friday.
And then if it works out that we don't have any press conference, you can call them and check the sheets and everything.
The president of Lebanon would like to make an official visit to Washington, and Rogers thinks he should invite him without setting a date.
It's the first time the president of Lebanon has ever officially visited, and he's concerned about Soviet influence in the Arab world and the Great Headway, Israeli designs on Lebanese territory, context of post-US-Lebanese relations and all that.
Jesus Christ.
I thought we decided not to call it a visit.
Henry says if this were a normal year, the visit would be a natural thing to do.
The issue really is how much you feel the scheduled consent.
There is a general advantage in the Middle East, and here the show of concern about the area of Soviet penetration.
It isn't the normal year, and I just have to not want to take the time this year.
You can't do it.
They can indicate it at some time, but they know this is an election year.
I say we'll try after next year, huh?
Yeah, I'll try.
Just taking them in for next year.
The new Secretary General of CENTO wants to pay a courtesy call out next week.
The organization has had it, and I don't think he can.
They did the Ken Henry leaders.
You know, that's not an organization now.
Who's pushing Ken Henry?
Bill.
Let's see what this means.
In view of speaking in Moscow, Chairman Sendo, concerned about the Soviet intentions, reason for keeping up signs of our support, also the fact that he has been a close assistant to the Prime Minister of Iran.
So there's implicitly an Iranian aspect.
Good God, we're going there.
Yeah.
They can't figure much about Iran.
It has to be next week, which means we have to do it on your Tuesday or Friday.
Leave it to us.
Is he a darshan?
You've got to get some of them to not endorse some of these.
He's got kind of that, that one character.
Now I suppose there's some Latin American country they want to ask about what I'm on.
No, no, no more.
That's the last of them.
That's for sure.
He's got a turd.
I trust you don't have any interest in attending the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert?
No.
Can you send him on demand to report to the bank without wrong wishes?
No.
I'm not going to go there again.
I don't like it.
I really don't have a good feeling.
I've been there.
I've done that before.
It seems to me that we're going to have to do something for the service.
I'll ask you the next question.
What do you think?
What's your feel on the care service?
Well, I don't think you can skip Harry.
Well, yes, I think you can, but... Well, then you will.
Not forever.
We could still go to California.
Yeah, right about now.
We can't go to Cuba soon, but I would be on board if they were to search.
I don't think we should miss six weeks without going someplace.
Oh, that's right.
Well, that's about the right time.
It's been three weeks.
And I will have had a press conference or something.
I don't know if it's still going on.
But we'll play over here.
And then the California thing.
If we do the gridiron, my view of that would be if I do the gridiron, it's going to be a California trip.
I mean, I don't think it's...
And, you know, if you rush out there, then I just go over to the camera from here.
Yeah.
You know, it's only an hour.
Yeah.
Anything you're going to do, do gracefully.
Right.
But if any of you can't do it, I mean, simply do it if you want to.
Well, what the hell, that's what I'm saying.
I think I was the most inventive of what you used to talk about.
All right, go ahead.
Yes.
One thing, we've talked about some doing trips and political stuff, but if you want to know, is that...
It's very practical.
No.
Mayor Daley and Jack Brownlee both have mentioned to Ron Walker that sometime when the president's in Chicago, they would like to turn on a real Chicago election for him.
And Ron was making the point that if we want to play off that, we ought to do it.
Sometimes before too long.
Well, for what reason?
Because they want the daily life to be on the return end.
It's a supportive president.
If we wait much longer, it's going to be so political that he won't be able to do it.
Now, you could do something that... What's he talking about?
Just fireboats or what?
I don't know.
They're talking about the whole shot coming off the giant and this and that.
I personally don't think it's a good idea.
I don't think it's tempting, though it is.
It isn't a good idea because it won't last.
It won't last and it puts you back into a parade thing.
It just isn't.
it's a temptation because there's a lot of buses
What?
He did?
Yes.
He had his first time this morning.
Well, that's good.
That was the main thruster.
It was Lane's 459.
She talked all the time about her main thruster.
I wasn't going to check.
She just got to do something.
Have somebody answer her costume.
I'm not going to answer her costume.
I said,
I should have kept some people.
Who's got the track around?
Any one that says any people are here, you want to talk to me about that?
I just sent you a note from your group.
I just got it.
Check this, you know, and bring us up to date on where you are.
He's down in that city, right?
This is on the IT&T, and it's still going on.
Well, the jury doesn't think for the day.
What happened?
I'm not up to, they would have.
Why don't the public decide on the jury?
No, we wanted to, Mr. President.
What happened this morning?
And what did happen?
Did they go to executive session?
I haven't heard.
At 1 o'clock, they had not called for it.
I was with Mitchell.
And about five minutes ago, they were still going.
We were trying to capture the drama of the revelation that Kennedy and Anderson had been conspiring.
I didn't expect Kennedy to be conspiring with anybody.
Yeah, but I think it gives us the argument, Mr. President, which we didn't necessarily have.
It's clearly before just a political...
And Bob Bill hit it just beautifully in his first hand.
See, I'm sure he did.
I'm sure he did.
But I think the point he just made, the point last night, and Bob, this is the point that caught me, to me, is whatever we may have said,
I told Tom that we should get somebody to get those people to walk out and stand in front of the television cameras and say it.
He really thinks we can't do it very badly because of our...
I say we, he's listening to White House.
I'm not going to...
It is then, a third of the men will be eager to suppress the White House.
That's my case.
I'm not going to be eager.
He said that he made a lot of stupid points.
But if I could own him, and I wish I could, I totally might.
But the press corps that was invading his press corps is anti-us, which they are politically.
The press corps in his case was so anti,
I mean, they were, you remember, they were all for gifts, and half of them were goddamn your comments at that point.
A lot of them were.
A lot of them were.
Really were.
But I wrote through a goddamn thing, and, uh, and some of the old Carl Munn wasn't bad at it either.
But for Christ's sake, the way we did the pre-walk, I mean, that was, it was a little tough.
Boy, we call press conferences.
We move into the thing.
We move into the front of the cameras.
We crank and span.
We did every damn thing.
We forced the press to cover it.
We have an asshole out there that's doing the thing.
Those guys are seeing that on demand.
I don't swear backers in the world.
I don't think that's fair.
How the hell did we get it out then in our day?
We didn't even have to have a pumpkin paper storage.
When I found the typewriter, when I found the story of the rug, I took that stuff out so fast we had them jumping out of their skins.
Let's see what happens today, because today is the first time.
I understand.
I'm sympathetic with them because, first of all, they're all old men.
Second, they don't have a vicious son of a bitch as the Minority Counsel, which I have.
He's not a non-lawyer.
It's true.
He's mean and vicious.
And it takes a very young man to do this.
You've got to be 32 or 33 about that.
And when you're past that, you're not very good.
You don't have the guts, you don't have the stamina, and so forth and so on.
I mean, you can't tell me it doesn't make a difference.
Because the problem is that you get guys that are trying to be responsible.
You've got to be irresponsible.
You've got to be up there.
And then, of course, the net result is, I was cartooned, I was attacked, I was harpooned, and all the rest, and you were made vice president, then it's your turn to attack.
Well, of course, that wasn't the case, too.
Well, I knew, but did you see each other?
Well, that's Connolly's point.
Connolly and I are so much alike in that respect that it's just like two peas in a pod.
And I said, John, I said, I agree, but what the hell are you even going to do?
But I would have thought Planky would understand that game.
Good God, he's been around a lot.
But I think it's because of the age.
I think they're all too goddamn old.
I'd be surprised if you were.
This whole business of, you know, they lose their sin, their sin.
Do you want to get into this?
Sure.
In partial answer to that, our fellows until yesterday did not really get very excited.
They were on the defensive.
Really?
They're beginning to get better.
Today, I'm told that Bob Dole is very animated, that Barry Gold went over and grabbed the cameras while the committee session was on.
Both Gurney and Cook, I know, had very good statements to come out and read before the cameras.
And we've had this before, but we, honestly, as Bob said, it just wasn't quite... Well, we haven't had an issue.
What we've been doing is practical.
We've been defending it.
We've been defending it.
The other guys have to watch out.
I would have made an issue of it, as I've said, just a second or so.
First time it came up, all right, now what the hell did they talk about the contribution?
I demand, I demand that the Democratic host committee in Miami issue the names and the amounts of all contributions to their committee.
Was that done?
No, it wasn't done because we didn't want to admit ours.
I mean, we didn't know where we were on ours.
Well, they all shared.
I'm not so sure.
What Dole did today was better, because he has a really ringing...
I know, it's easy to second-guess it.
I do think there's been a lack of imagination.
Well, but not on this one.
They're upset over this.
Bob Dole said that after the press conference, all the Democratic senators came up to him in the lunchroom in the Senate and said, my God, Bob, what are you doing?
What do you want?
Well, he's called the public hearings to investigate the million-and-a-half-dollar forgiveness of death by telephone companies.
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
I always thought that it was the local subsidiary.
Sure.
So that you have a situation where people... You have a situation where people are saying, holy smokes, 400,000 with the Republicans and here's a million and a half with the Democrats.
What the hell?
Now this... Bob called me just as he was getting on a plane for Florida, and he said, boy... No, he's all charged up because of the reaction.
Apparently he did very well with it.
And he's getting over that hurdle.
That's a tough thing for a man.
But he said...
He said that they were all wringing their hands out of the... A lot of them came up and said, you know, what the hell are you doing?
Why are you raising this now?
Oh, my God.
Why are they raising it?
Well, I think we'll get...
I told you when it came out.
I don't think they'll write it.
It's me on the wire.
I don't think the papers will write it.
I think they will.
They have to.
I bet it makes all the numbers tonight.
That's a pretty good...
Well, he issued a legal opinion with it, a three-page, pretty well-reasoned legal opinion.
And Larry O'Brien immediately said that all... Oh, sure.
Well, he said that he'll have a detailed answer later, but it's obvious that we're trying to divert attention from the major scandal that has affected the White House.
So, I think they have.
than they've made in all their 10 days of testimony.
And why are we saying that?
Why do we think?
What's the charge?
What's the link?
The AT&T and IDP are doing this in order to get favors in the future.
No.
Well, what's the implication of those?
That's what they know because they don't see otherwise, Chuck.
They're not general cases.
Well, in this sense, Mr. President, they are making a corporate campaign contribution for the
failing to collect the million and a half, and that's because the Democrats control the Commerce Committee and they're a highly regulated industry.
Oh, good.
And, you know, that's pretty damn hard to say that, well, then, I've way let down.
What about the, what about Marble Coach?
That, to me, was a much better story today.
Oh, yeah, Ted Kennedy.
Well, I'm the one that, yeah, I call them to tell them, call the hearings on it immediately.
Just say you want to go into executive session.
Did they ask?
Yes, that's what I'm not sure.
Let me just get the wires down.
I'm sure it's out here.
Just call them.
Call them and ask.
I don't mean to jab you because I don't know what he's working on, but I must say, don't tell me for one minute that we've got many senators on there that are worried about that when it comes to seeing what's going on in Africa.
We know.
That's right.
Even if they hadn't told, we would have turned it off because there's been a lot of concern about how much, where everything leads.
Mitchell had that.
I was with him for Eastland's agreement.
Eastland's agreement.
that he would close down the hearings and not hold hearings on Monday.
Well, because they want to go into executive session and argue whether Anderson refusing yesterday to make his reporter's notes available to the committee, the whole committee,
and then revealing by accident, really, that he made him available to Kennedy style.
Who did he talk to?
They caught him on the face.
How did he do it?
Cook isn't dumb.
He's pretty.
He's very.
I mean, he sounds great, but I mean, he's a little like him now.
No, he will.
Cook kept pressing him.
Where are your notes?
Where are your notes?
And he thought Cook knew something.
And he said, well, I gave them last night to Mr. Blue for Senator Kennedy.
And then it was just a gas all through the committee.
And that's sort of what I had up there.
It was a stun.
That'll help a lot now.
The other one will not.
This one won't help.
The other one will hurt it.
But this one is more, I think now if we did it that way, if it had that effect, they'll say, well, Kennedy's got the nose.
Now Kennedy should make it public.
Well, that's the next demand.
But the sneak time, you start losing Kennedy and Anderson.
Yeah, well, interestingly enough...
I gave this to Bob to give it to you, to tell Cook, to the man, that this is a congressional committee.
They can take hearsay for the rules, which they've done now.
They can also call anybody.
They should call Anderson's secretary.
Ask her about her association with Peter Beard.
We had to go right down the line, and they'd be fine.
They'd be like, if you get a secretary office, you scare them to death.
Hell, I got the Cabinet Office, and I'm scared to death.
I'll never forget them.
I had my little son, Welch, down there.
And I said, oh, thank you so much, Gary.
He was proud of you.
Tag him on the janitors.
We had something through in the week to call local again.
But I think now, in this episode, we can get them to do it, and especially because this weekend we may know a good bit more about her role in this, which will give us a real basis of a problem.
There are two things, Mr. President, that we've been discussing that we could do immediately that would be very dramatic, and we've
There's one thing we can do, and there's one thing we're hoping for.
The one thing we could do is if he's willing to do this, wanted to call in the press this afternoon and say that I asked for these things, my nomination as Attorney General, I asked that they be re-unknown.
Because I didn't want a cloud, I didn't want suspicion surrounding my nomination.
I lay out every bit of testimony over five days, being Griswold,
Repeat his history.
McLaren.
McLaren.
Oh, he testified extremely well.
Right.
I saw it.
I had to go to the 35th page of the New York Times each day to find him.
Well, we get to this.
And he said that however what has happened has gone way beyond that.
A small but willful band of members of this committee have engaged in an outrageous witch hunt reminiscent of a McCarthy era.
Shocking display of any one known smear.
fishing expedition in which the press has been happily feeding on fourth-hand hearsay testimony to create doubt and suspicion.
And I think you should say, if Bob doesn't agree with me, that I realize that the press conference could close in on the affirmation of the decision.
No.
But I refuse to sit idle and watch this travesty continue.
The disclosure made that Senator Kennedy's been acting in shouts at the 15th.
Yes, I will say on that, I will never.
I'm going to mark it.
I'm going to mark it.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
If any makes a point, the Democratic members of the committee are asked to give one of the most discredited and irresponsible reporters a motion.
The reporter known for his unsubstantiated sensationalism in any way that it should be used.
Then he recites again what Bridgewater had to say in Macquarie, and then he, in some depth, and then he says, notwithstanding all the testimony of evil, this committee, virtually without challenge, permitted fourth-hand hearsay evidence to be spread on record, and he picks up the New York Times.
And he said, look at the lead of the New York Times, the headline of it this morning.
It was a regular story.
Remember I told you you had to turn?
It wasn't even on the inside.
It wasn't on the inside.
It was mental denial.
It wasn't even on the inside.
He didn't use it at all?
No.
I don't think so.
Well, we probably had an early edition.
I'll be careful of that.
Well, we don't know.
He used the first edition.
I don't think that's...
Okay.
Rowan, the ITP, says he's late to Nixon.
He holds up the Patriot.
There's no excuse even in the early edition, because Mitchell's denial was on the 7 o'clock news on television.
So they had to admit it.
Oh, it was there.
The Times has got to be brought up.
That's what he does.
And then he says, now what is the role that is supposed to be laid to Nixon?
It's a charge by Rick Hume, who says that he had told Hume in a conversation with Mitchell, who said that it had been offered at Sporting and Pearson.
And he says that this, I merely use this to illustrate how badly misled the public can be when a committee of the United States Senate allows its committee forum to be used for the presentation of wild, grossly irresponsible hearsay churches to find their way into sensational newspaper headlines.
It has all gone far enough.
It's gone too far.
I think that sensible, decent, honorable men serving the Senate should examine their conscience this weekend to see if the hearings at ISB resume.
and are not indeed being used as form for people about that.
One thought that's on my mind is, Kennedy was in the memories of the assassination.
He is engaging in deliberate assassination, character assassination, potential character assassination.
One of Scrooge's, you've got to get something to grab, then grab that.
And here I'll talk about the assassination of their poor damn brothers, for sure.
Let's have a little later.
It's a big shot to take.
The only other time we could do it is tomorrow morning.
You could probably do it next week.
Well, I wouldn't wait.
Yeah, you could.
No, you have to.
It would be better to do it tomorrow morning and let the Kennedy story rise by itself.
That will override the Kennedy story.
This will override everything.
That's a little variety of dole.
That's a little variety of dole story, too.
I'd do it tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow morning.
It gives you more time to think about it, too.
See how the Kennedy story arrived.
See how the dole story arrived.
And tomorrow morning, he calls the Congress, and they think it's been heard.
It's not.
You won't get as much TV.
It's, uh, I think it's been heard.
All of a sudden, it's just kind of paper, though.
What if you wake up the next morning?
And you can't play off the New York Times.
I want to play off that Times lead.
That's so good.
IT&T suit laid to Nixon.
My God.
From a drunken gal to an irresponsible reporter.
It's just unbelievable.
And this is what Dick can do a hell of a good job at.
He's got to do it on camera.
Well, what he should do is this, he should say, my confirmation curses, that's one thing I would recommend and so forth, for them to use my confirmation as a means, as a means to assassinate the President, to assassinate the character of the President of the United States.
You see, that's his assassination character.
We're going for a character assassination of the most despicable star.
Assassination of the character of the President of the United States.
The fourth entity.
And we're a newspaper that claims to have all the news that's different to be used, to inspire, and to be allowed, and to allow itself to be used.
You know, everybody has a really strong language.
It's a pretty good reading.
My wife is sitting there saying, why did the Nixon campaign accept the money?
And I said, Joe, it didn't accept the money.
She said, yes, it says right here.
And then Washington Post said it too.
I went through it all last night.
And then this morning, she was reading from the Post-Editorate.
She says, see, it did.
Well, they've done a beautiful job of building in by innuendo because they say, they don't say we accepted the money, they say a contribution in support of the, to support the Republican Convention in San Diego.
Technically correct.
Which is technically correct, but the implication is it was a contribution to the Republican Convention.
It wasn't a contribution to the campaign.
Yeah.
And that's the way people read it.
That's what they're convinced is what's being talked about here.
What does it do to plaintiffs?
Well, the difficulty with that problem, that issue, is that if the hearings do not come around fairly quickly, a lot of people don't feel that it's going to get confirmed anyway.
So what does he lose by this?
He may, in fact, help himself get nominated, which was really his point, that this may actually improve his chances for being confirmed.
If Warren Johnson is correct, who's been living with the committee all week, just there day in and hour in and hour out, he doesn't think Dick is going to make it.
He thinks they're going to drag it out.
They're going to prolong it as long as they can.
Anderson may have some other papers that he will drop.
And if they just won't report it on the committee, you'll just say, acting attorney general.
So, I'm not sure that...
I understand.
How can they not report it on the committee?
What, are they taking their long-range advisement or something?
They just don't ever bring it up to a vote, or they don't have the votes to report out.
On a public basis, I don't understand how they can do that.
Just picking on what they've had nominations, they sit on for a year.
Yeah, but not for a cabinet officer.
Well, they could.
Now, let me ask you about it.
This is John's opinion.
That won't be part of it.
That's his opinion, yes, sir.
And what about the Dita Beard business?
What are our chances there?
50-50.
You think they're that good?
I don't know what about it, Sylvia.
I'm convinced that mine was a fraud.
Yeah.
And the more evidence that... Oh.
Cook went on the cameras.
John wants to catch you on a couple of things that are not essential but desirable if you have a few minutes.
I'll see, John.
I'll let him know.
If I don't, I'll call him.
I'll answer him, too.
Senator Cook, Mario Cook, went before the cameras at 2.15 and said that there was a political conspiracy between Senator Kennedy and Jack Anderson.
They are still going on.
East 1-2 said he would call them out, but 1 o'clock hasn't.
Senator Cooper...
Senator Cook?
No, no, it couldn't be right.
It must be Cook.
Senator Cook is waiting for the right time to call for executive session.
We will know as soon as he does it.
He has not done it yet.
They should have done it at noon.
Boy, Dole is really getting... Is that called Dole?
Massive wire...
I think Dole will get something on this.
Let's look at it this way.
That moves on the wires.
So it goes to editors and to some degree in the country it goes to publishers who aren't like reporters.
And you may have a chance, some of them have to be looking at this stuff as being exactly what it is and may welcome the attack on the other side.
The question is what they do with it on TV tonight.
I don't see how the networks can ignore this.
Here's AT&T immediately answering it.
What's their answer?
They're simply saying that all transactions for the Democratic National Convention will be on a cash basis.
They're avoiding the issue.
We welcome scrutiny.
Jack Anderson said that he thinks it should be investigated.
The AT&T thing?
Mm-hmm.
That's a good one.
That's a sound case.
Oh, here it is.
They've got to play this.
Dole charges the credit extension for phone service to the Democratic National Convention of December finally coming on top of a $1.5 million unpaid bill from the Democrats' 1968 campaign violates two, quote, very clear provisions of federal law.
They've got to do that.
They haven't paid the bill, Chairman.
They haven't paid the $196 million.
Well, how the hell can't the company have the term off?
I think they are in violation of the law.
The extension of credit free with no interest for four years is a contribution.
And Charlie McWhorter has been worried like hell about it.
He thinks that AT&T is going to get in trouble.
Should we have paid a lot of proceeds?
Well, pretty well.
We can.
Pretty well.
Should we have paid around $1,000?
But it's...
Yeah, this could, this could build it.
So what about the Anderson story?
You've got the Dole story and all that.
It's just a diversion.
Coming to the fundamental story, is it Cook-Anderson story?
Do you think that would be a pretty good play?
Well, if they do, Mr. President, what we suggested to them and say that we want to terminate these hearings and go into executive session because of the irregularities of Senator Kennedy and
Jack Anderson, yes.
Is Koch asking to see Kennedy's papers?
Yes, he asked for them today.
What did Kennedy say?
Is he there?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But he asked in the hearing room.
As long as the papers had been turned over to a member of the committee, they should be made available immediately to all members.
Good.
That's a way to fight.
But I don't know what Kennedy had said.
You've got to turn it over.
I would think so.
All right.
Kennedy's in it.
I hope he doesn't.
Then you've really got something going.
Kennedy will take the papers and will not turn them over to another senator.
The trouble is that the notes aren't worth it then, frankly.
Have you seen them?
No, but we know.
He's been reading them.
He's been reading them, and we know what was said in the three-hour interview, because we've had independent verification.
That makes not that much sense.
Well, why was she mad eventually?
Oh, no, no.
She was on the verge of losing her job at ITT, had been for about a year.
Her boss, her immediate boss, wanted to get rid of her.
The only reason she wasn't fired a year ago was that Hal Janine, president of ITT, told Bill Merriam, the head of the Washington office, don't fire her.
She was staying on because Janine liked it and Ned Garrity liked it.
And she was in constant... She's quite a warrior.
Oh, thanks.
I know.
She was in constant battle.
I think there's something there.
Remember what was going on with Janine?
Could be.
I don't know why now Janine would have, I think, better taste.
I know, but she had less taste than everybody.
Well, I'm sure that she could find.
Like, picking might be a little lean on that.
I don't think you find many volunteers.
But she...
She was in a bitter fight, Mr. President, and she thought her job was going, and she wanted to get married.
And what was going on, you see, all this time, all of the evidence indicates that she was trying to get even with Miriam.
that this was a perfect vehicle, and she thought, I think, it would be a one-day Jack Anderson story.
Miriam would get hurt, and she never could... She might not see, but it would get... She had to dance, and she knows that's the quickest way to lose her damn job she ever saw, and screw it up first.
No, because... She's attacking comedy.
No, no, no, because you read that memo, and what she's saying to Miriam is, too damn many people around here are talking about the deal, and I suggest everybody shut up and not talk about it, or you're going to upset a good thing.
That's the thrust of her memory.
And she thought by leaking that, she looked like she was trying to be a loyal ITT employee.
Listen, Jermaine was bitched about the God man for you.
He bitched about the Avis and all that.
Of course.
I thought they should have done a better deal.
That's right.
Because he thought he was a great contributor or something.
I don't know.
Was he a contributor?
He was?
That's it.
They tell me he's a pretty good guy.
He's a hell of a guy.
He really is.
He's a very able guy.
One of the real ballsy businessmen.
One of the few cutsy businessmen.
I must say, Griswold was good.
Beautiful.
He did a good job.
Didn't get much play.
We found out last night that Dita Beard has been sending out all kinds of peace overtures through her son to Janine simply to get assurance that
Her job is safe, and so we have arranged it.
She will be assured of that today.
She could all grasp it when I testify.
And come back and say that she made the damn memo.
She'd do that?
If she does that, we'll turn this thing around fast.
Well, surely Kennedy would be a ticket in an Harrison picture.
It would be another huge story.
It's a hoax, Ben.
Should I just do this because I was angry or frankly angry?
Well, I've been under tremendous strain.
I've been in the hands of a psychiatrist, and I just was upset with my boss, and I saw this as a way to get even with him, and I never realized all this would happen, and I regret it.
I'm .
And I'm talking to Dr. Watson.
I'm going to say that he's .
Then I'll get into the .
And I've made substantial progress for looking for actualization and finding out when I finalize it.
And I expect to finalize it.
But don't expect an announcement next week.
Right.
And I'll leave a little... Bolton has done a lot of work soon to be done on that.
On the, you know, drafting the legal side of this.
The structure of these.
He's amazing.
Great.
Excellent people.
anybody that just put it this way, the president made it right through in his own hands, in terms of using the term, I think, yesterday, in principle, you know.
Right.
I've seen it regularly.
Perfect.
I have another meeting before we get done.
Well, I think I'll give the word back to the legal.
Is that now safe?
the president will make a statement, or decide to make a statement.
As far as what we do, these may or may not be the case.
We shall break through anything you want to say.
Okay, fine.
I would like to give you, I won't commit you to the decision.
What do you think of the way the New York Times handled us here this morning?
Well, they didn't include Richardson in the city of Michigan, you see.
Well, you see the way they handled the old president, Baldwin, and everything.
He made some of these board meetings with the patients on the board.
You might go back and read the dark time editorials at the time of the Communist administrations.
Even when it was hearsay only once removed, they swilled that this was unfair, that we should have legal procedures not supported.
Who can they do it?
Now, you get it?
Do you know if I agree?
Mm-hmm.
I tell them to just read some of the editorials back and see what else can happen to you.
Okay.
Well, Bill Gates wanted to talk to you.
No, I guess not.
Well, I guess not, sir.
And it doesn't bother you if you read the article.
There shouldn't be a double standard here.
Just tell you to go back and read your editorials.
Shouldn't there be the same rigid standards that the President followed in his investigations?
Is the President of the United States entitled to the same editorial support and hearsay that a communist is?
Good luck.
Well, do this bother you this morning?
Yes, sir.
I can't believe it, but I don't know I may be absolutely wrong to turn around these.
That would be interesting.
Well, if any of these other things turn around, if we exploit our brakes, and if we get the brakes... Well, you understand the attack on the Democratic Nation conveyed at AT&T will not turn around.
No, no, no.
The only thing that will turn around is something that speaks to this case, sir.
So maybe... Well, the bottom line is...
So Kennedy may be afraid... Yeah, that's a part of it.
That's a little... Well, I worked on it the night last night with the Germans, and I am absolutely convinced that I poured them over the coals that that memo was never delivered to anyone in IT.
So, who commissioned that?
the IT&T people that I met with last night.
They're lawyers.
And they said they didn't get a vote about that?
They'll swear.
They say they'll take a under oath or lie detector test or anything else if they've never seen that memo.
The gal who typed it, Dita Beard's secretary, said she remembers typing a memo about that time that dealt with the Republican convention, but there was nothing in there about the president or the attorney general or anything on the deal.
June 25th of last year.
Oh, sure.
What I think she did was she took a memo that she had written that was rather innocuous about the convention.
And jazzed it up last month.
Sure.
And your name and Bob Goldman's name.
Yep.
But how are you supposed to know?
No, you see, that's why...
It's the same thing you did.
Well, I was in it.
I was in it.
I'm the general.
Tell them to get the goddamn... No, no.
Okay, so that's not what she's saying.
She's not claiming that, oh, our names, your name, Mitchell's, mine, someone else.
There are about four or five names.
It just says that we're aware of the contribution.
Well, I don't know.
Which is not true, because you are aware of the country.
Well, I don't believe that.
I think I was.
Well, obviously you was.
Because this was a month before San Diego was selected as the site.
Yeah.
But I think what happened is, first of all, her former secretary is now in Canada.
We had interviewed, and we got that back last night.
But she remembers typing around, but never remembers anything about political names.
I'll throw it over to her.
I'm going to be active about it.
I'm sure I'm secure.
Well, there's a lot of other inconsistencies that show up in the pattern.
Her memory is just about what she wants to do.
Need a beer?
Secondaries.
No.
Do you think she's going to?
Yes, sir.
Well, what she said to the investigator, had there been a statement in there like that involving the president, I would have remembered that.
And on top of which, the person who Dita said she handed it to that day wasn't in the office on that day.
We've established that categorically.
That's right.
Not physically in Washington.
She claimed she walked in and handed it to him.
She described the fact that he was standing at the window, looking out the window, and she said...
In her interview with Hume.
In her interview with Hume and in an interview with the IGT.
And then at the end... She said the same thing.
Yeah, but then in the end, the three days with the IGT lawyers, when they finally said to her, but Mr. Marion wasn't there that day, she said, well, I gave it to his secretary.
That's right.
It was a complete switch.
Then they said his secretary wasn't there.
And she said, well, maybe I just left it on his desk.
And, of course, the really curious thing is that the memo that Jack Anderson turned over to the committee was the original.
Anderson has the original.
He doesn't have.
FBI has the original.
That's curious.
Well, he obviously married us 20 days.
If I got that kind of a memo, I would have destroyed it or put it in my safe.
I've been in this town 20 years, and I know better than to leave that around.
And he went into his safe and discovered all sorts of other sensitive stuff that if Anderson had gone into his safe, he would have taken ahead of this memo.
And so it's just too much that makes me really question it.
Politics, the way the agents play, are just, I think, are going to do the best they can to help.
Well, I think the one...
The one ace, Gurney's doing a great job, too.
Is he?
Yes, sir.
just to pay them to cook.
Those two.
And Russ is doing everything he can.
Oh, but he's trying.
Oh, he's trying.
He wants to be helpful, you know, do the right thing.
He made one of his statements, like, the Supreme Court needs a mediocre judge.
He did another one yesterday.
Everybody might be trying to open it.
That's not so bad.
It's true.
Well, well, well.
Well, what we need is either a very sharp, blistering counterattack by someone like Kleinbeek.
Kleinbeek's the only one who can do it.
Or, if we get a break on the Dear, Dear Testament, and if she lives... Should Mitchell's advice be sought on Kleinbeek's counterattack?
I'd rather think you can't let it go without asking Mitchell.
That's right.
Which means, Marty,
No, no, get Dick Porter.
That's right, get Dick Porter.
When I was over there, uh... Marty's got him bottled up.
Mitchell.
Mitchell kept telling Marty to shut up when I was talking, but he just keeps rattling along.
And then Marty missed.
We thought we got him out of this, but we can't.
He's gone dog-to-dog all the way out of his hands.
Where John's at, or something, though.
If you get John over here, don't go over there.
You know, Kleindies was, like, in there, like this.
Kleindies, Kleindies?
Yes.
You said Kleindies.
Are you ready to do it?
Kleindies, uh, well, I'm really going to talk to Kleindies this time.
Well, I'll tell you.
Let Kleindies wear permission.
Hmm.
Marty is the one that's on the kick of having the Vice President go out and attack the media, but that doesn't do it.
No, no, no.
I talked to Conley about that.
He thought that way over escalated.
It's escalated, of course, to have the Vice President get into an immediate attack on this.
He doesn't have any justification.
The guy that's being wrong should stand up for himself.
My confirmation is one thing, but I asked for these hearings to be reopened, and now I see that what they've turned into is a character assassination.
He says he's got a real...
They know what hearsay means.
They know that that isn't very reliable.
And if it's here, say...
They know what a 4-3 move means.
That's why you're saying 4-3.
I kind of like it.
Do you think this assassination is good, Bob?
Sure.
Stick it to a small but willful band of members of the committee in a woodshop.
I wouldn't take out if I could suggest McCartney or...
I don't know why.
Because he probably wouldn't believe it, McCartney or...
No, really, and there's a hell of a lot of people that did.
I don't think there's any need.
I mean, I didn't, but I just think it tends to be confusing.
I debated putting that in when I wrote it.
I'm not so sure.
Maybe it only works with old books, but there are a hell of a lot of people that this is reminiscent of the McCarthy era, the McCarthy-Walsh hearings.
Yeah, when Welch just, you know, cried out in agony by me, you know, I'm like, God, what are you doing?
Okay, it's a little different than the other part, the good part of McCarthy.
I don't know.
It's been bad.
I needed to put it in because that was a great clip of it.
It was so bad.
I had to go all the way.
Could we put it in?
We got to take it out.
Take it out?
I don't know.
See, this gives us another opportunity to bring Rizzo's stuff back in, which is the best we've had all week.
And McLaren.
You know, we did get a break this week, strangely enough.
We had the goddamn thing on the lead every night we had to get to that airplane.
Yeah.
I got out for one night a day and half out for the second day.
Right.
And as a lead.
They're going to start getting a little bit tired of me, which is...
You can't joke it quite as long as I think they're trying to.
The Democrats said they want 10 more, 11 more witnesses, which would just carry the name.
Got names a couple of weeks.
Where are they going to call?
Well, they've asked for only IG&T people who are involved.
We can ask the chairman to address this as Kennedy at heart.
Of course, I want Dean of Beards and Senator Lee.
Well, we think we do.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
What about the Russians?
No, I think that kind of witness might put them on penalty if that discredit is called, and she will not be a good witness for that.
You think?
For the Democrat?
Yeah.
Not if she says what we think she may say.
Even so, she won't be, because she isn't going to come through.
She's going to fall apart.
Fall apart.
If she comes back and says, I did this, and I shouldn't have done this.
It was a mistake.
I ask forgiveness, and then they try to pour in on her, and she goes to pieces.
They've had it at that point.
Be quick about it.
Very.
Don't do that.
If she's trying to go the right way, they still should get the damn counsel.
They're there now.
Have any counsel?
No, no, no, no.
I don't have any counsel.
I've got to get out and get her to sleep.
Over the weekend, before she died.
Well, she's been waiting very long.
She's been rotating.
She's got blood clots and partial occlusion.
Who would that be?
Right now, that would be very bad.
Screwed us up.
Yeah.
And she would, she would have done all the damage without us having the opportunity to come back and describe her story.
Yeah.
Let me imagine there as if her son would come out and say, well, mother told me.
Just before she died that she didn't, she couldn't let this rest on her soul.
For her daughters, I'm not able to vote with the National Committee.
Is she?
Thank you.
For Christ's sake.
Well, that's all right.
That's expected.
The weather in here is unbelievable.
Hal, she worked with the Nixon campaign.
Sure.
Sixty.
Of course, not for me.
They also want Bob Wilson to testify.
It's been a disaster.
Marty and his husband have been meeting after meeting with him.
He is a disaster.
Marty doesn't want Bob Wilson to testify.
No, the committee does.
And he says Bob couldn't handle it.
We haven't, well, none of us think Wilson could handle it.
I don't define it as crazy.
But as he repeats everything that Wilson said, it just, God, it turned into an awful mess.
It's okay, we can run it.
We can answer it.
Yeah, that's the one that bothers me most of any of it.
Because I just don't understand what they said to him.
Did they ask for him?
Not yet.
Not officially.
Not officially, but his name has come up a couple of times and they've asked questions about him and it's getting, it just gets awful warm.
I can't understand why they haven't asked for him because they know he was involved in all that fundraising.
Unless he said the things that they said.
I would think they'd be delighted to get him up there and start talking about that.
He's the biggest, he's the biggest, uh, danger we had.
Yeah, because they probably contributed to something, didn't they?
Yeah.
They did.
They sure did.
True, yeah.
That was a territory.
That was a territory.
I'm not so sure, but I guess it was.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah.
Well, we'd be so sure of this.
Well, Stanley wasn't involved, except for what a combat was.
But Gleason worked for Stanley's.
Gleason could grow a combat kit, which is another...
Compared to Janine?
It was a lot of cash.
So it wasn't ever ascribed to any individual.
Don't know.
Oh, sure.
But we will.
We will.
But Gleason... What Gleason will do.
I don't...
I don't think he'll get into that.
I know where the money came from.
And I suspect if I do, Gleason will.
Gleason does know.
Gleason has no obligation to rent.
I mean, he has no obligation to report any cash contributions.
How...
He just doesn't know.
Well, we're trying to get him out of the city, but now he doesn't want to go.
Right.
Which is what Bob and I are talking about.
He's on vacation.
Right.
That's right.
Well, it would have because he had a long scheduled vacation starting two days ago.
So it would have been
Very logical for you to say hello.
I had to get it back and get one in.
It's got to happen until it's ended.
But of course, they've got a pretty good accomplice in Anderson.
But also, you can kill people by a gunshot.
You never get them.
Well, we may have Mike Pritchard, which is another thing that we've been doing.
Some of the testimony yesterday seemed pretty well.
That's why they told me to keep Anderson going today.
But we had the vials that
The FBI gave us that they said if you pursue these questions, and if he answers in a certain way, we'll provide you with more information.
Did he ask the questions?
Yes, sir.
Yesterday, he got right up to the line, just very, very close.
And we had a whole second set prepared to go today.
Now, if we can get him on perjury before the committee, that's another kind of a thing to turn this around.
What kind of questions, sir?
Well, for example, has he ever paid anybody for an article or for information?
He said, no, except other reporters I will share expenses with.
The way in which he said it, John Dean thought he left himself just an edge.
They bore it on him as hard as they could.
It may be there.
We've got to go back and study the transcript and see if
if indeed we can nail him on, on perjury.
He's damn smart, the way he plays him.
He's gonna have a tough time.
He knows exactly how to get, say what he wants to say without being actionable.
Yeah, he leaves the committee room at just the time when he wants to go out and say something to the reporters.
The comparison between the way he operates and our game is just pitiful.
He went out there at 12 o'clock today and just spilled it all off the verticals.
On his way to the bench, him backing.
Made his points.
We have to drag our fellows up.
Although, Goal Order went over today and apparently raised his helmet.
But coverage tonight may be better.
They have to attack this way.
They don't have to attack this way.
We don't want to compete on the issues.
Jesus, they haven't talked on an issue in months.
This is what... That's why they all jumped on us.
There'll be more of them.
to prove this one a hoax, because I think it would discourage a lot of them on others, Anderson in particular, because he'll be just after us all year long.
And he's achieved what Drew Pearson never achieved.
Anderson, he's become a viable public personality.
Pearson never was, he just did it.
Not to this degree, but that way.
He has been in recent years, but he was a person when he was on the lecture circuit and the radio every night.
Yeah, I guess it's television.
He was a person whose predictions of things to come, I predict, number one, will not be realized.
The weekly long chat.
Remember that?
That's it.
His prediction was about 80% false, but he'd always catalog the ones that had been correct next week.
Skip the others.
As predicted last week.
Well, Anderson is not something exactly like Pearson in terms of the use of any London.
He did it masterfully yesterday.
He made the charge.
He backed off of it, whether he should say that or said something else.
Well, then they asked him, he said, are you convinced she was telling the truth?
And he said, no, I think she was lying part of the time.
But what she said was news.
And it's completely covered.
He isn't even endorsing her testimony.
Well, but then he made that, he made that masterful stroke of the innuendo when he said that, all I can say is that one of the biggest, and he went and answered a rustic who was
really pressing him hard.
He said, all I can say is that one of the biggest antitrust suits was being settled at the same time the corporation was negotiating a contribution to the convention.
That's a fact.
You can't argue with that.
And he said, something is wrong there.
Something is wrong.
And everyone in the Senate can see it.
If they can't, something must be wrong with their eyesight.
Sure.
By association.
Yeah.
Well, we'll move on to finding the story.
No, well, it scoops ourselves.
We may come out of this.
Yeah, I may know that, but I...
Apparently John says he does have some guidance on the busing thingy here.
Monday night, too.
Did you get the President of the Harris Board with him?
Yeah, he did.
Unbelievable.
That was a strategy.
Yeah.
I think you're absolutely right in suggesting I use him.
I think he should use the trial agents.
Oh, he uses Trout Heats.
Trout Heats and the China approval.
Yeah, he's going to have trouble not using the Heats.
He's left it out before.
Well, unless I can have, I may have some just at Trout Heats.
As a matter of fact, you might ironically remind him that he has always followed the pattern of leaving out our equipment.
No, he hasn't.
In the past.
Oh, you mean before?
Before you started talking.
Oh, yeah.
He's left, all he's done now is leave out the bad ones.
Oh, yeah.
Before that, he used to leave out the good or bad.
You didn't talk to him.
I was over with the investigators.
He called and left a message at my gale, and he was leaving for London.
Interesting thing.
You mentioned that Gallup showed an increase, but not a significant one.
Well, it was significant.
Because basically, you have to take the fact that he showed a four-point drop in the physical and a four-point increase in three-point increases in the seven.
Of course, you know, the...
The Harris Fault started earlier than Gallup.
By five days.
The real flush of China.
It started on Monday the day you were... Well, it started on Tuesday morning.
It started actually Monday.
I'm not so sure that IT&G is...
Is that just heavy?
He must recognize it.
Oh, just a second.
And he did, I mean, our old story overrides the Kennedy-Anderson story.
It's an old story.
It looks pretty good at the start.
Because it's got a play on it.
Yeah.
Good.
Frankly, it's not Kennedy.
Well, the more important one is the Kennedy-Anderson story, but I guess that isn't right.
Yeah, but that's related.
No, it's a TV.
No, it's a star.
It's 203, right?
Yeah, but it'll be on TV.
Because Kirkland did it at 215.
All right.
Thank you.
That is your recommendation as to how to use it, Tom.
Well, I think you could best use it working on a statement.
rather than getting all the mesh in the log, what do you do?
Is it all understaffed?
Yes, sir.
Okay, well, I...
It's about a minute and a half.
Oh, I'll let it go.
We'll walk it through.
I'll talk to you.
You won't want any changes.
No, I'm not.
There's a draft statement.
We'll have another draft for you during the weekend, and it will send on...
You can either look at the first draft if you want to, or...
I think I should look at the second.
I think so, too.
Because we've made substantial changes.
Yeah, I'll start nitpicking things that we haven't done.
Yeah, right.
When do you think we're going to have it?
Well, I'll find out.
We'll get it up to you just the first minute we can.
There was a fine group ahead.
The first grade got it.
The first grade had to spend more time with it.
It wasn't in use.
No, I don't think it was needed.
They're used.
I've talked to Constitution lawyers.
With every choice in there, you've got a sort of a hard line and a soft line that you can take.
And every one of those... No, that's not what you're talking about.
I don't know.
I think we must make, and I give Price those instructions, that it must be made, it must be preserved as an ultimate fallback.
It's an exact sort of fallback.
Well, that's it.
The Tankards and the Chicago Boys would have split off at that point, and so it just well wasn't brought up.
But I don't know what he's doing back there.
Well, he's sort of the opposite side of the Bickle coin.
Ian Bickle keeps the constitutional law courses up there, and one's hard line, one's soft line.
Yeah, damn good guy.
And smarter than Wick.
Yeah, he is.
He's very impressive.
And he's a riverboat gambler.
You know, he will take a chance.
Anyway, you may want to glance at that option paper and get a feel for these choices.
And I'm assuming that you're going to go hardline.
where you've got a choice, but I may be wrong on some of that.
And after you've taken a look at it, I'm going to say, I think you should, because I'm looking for a lot of clear signals.
And you can come out and say, I'm for a piece of legislation so that you can't bust elementary schools.
That's a big signal.
There wasn't at all there in the others.
Then some.
And that saves the constitutionality.
Well, then of course, if you agree, you move the book.
Well, anyway, there's that.
And I'll be on the other end of the phone if they can't line up.
Nope, no problem.
H.R.
1 has taken a funny bounce.
And I need your cooperation on something.
We're playing a game here.
I'm going to need you to write a letter, which we'll draw, to Wally Bennett.
Do tell him.
Ask him.
Tell him I'm going to be ten minutes late and then I can cut you or enter the city so you can't leave.
That would be about 50.
Do you have one of those?
Is John Irving, is he dead?
All right, I've got it.
Press the button.
I'm going to do something easy.
I'm going to press the second ramp as early this weekend as possible.
If I need it, what we want to do is take that first ramp.
Yeah, well, you can do that.
You can do that.
The letter is going to say, Dear Wally, there's some misunderstandings about where I am.
There's a lot of talk about work there.
I'm for H.I.O.I.
The reason that you are going to do that is that I think we're going to split the Senate into three immovable parts by doing that.
And nothing will happen.
and the Senate Finance Committee, except for Bennett, will be hard on the right.
Ribicoff, Labor, and Legal Women voters will be hard on the left, and Bennett and maybe... That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Better than maybe 30 others will be sunk in the middle.
Well, maybe he doesn't want me to do this.
Is that the one that was on the other end of the deck?
No, I don't know.
The one that was there that made the first hole in the deck.
Well, let's see.
I need to have that.
Let me get it.
I was just retrieving one of these because I was so worried about it.
And there's the other one.
Okay.
But this is what I mean, that's the algorithm, not Pinterest.
You can take that in the background if you want, because it may be, let's see, you know, this is a lot of stuff.
You can only read so much in this body, all right?
That's good.
That's the way we go.
It's quite as many things as it could be.
And like I said, that's just a thank you note from the bottom of my heart for the gifts we've done.
Yes, sir.
We've shot a hand, especially by my wife.
Let me ask you a question.
All right, fine.
By looking at the tree group of hands.
What happens then is that the center probably doesn't go anywhere.
It probably just lies dead centered.
And there'll be lots of pressure all over the place, newspaper, citizen group, all kinds of pressure.
It'll tie the Senate into a knot, and they'll probably table it.
They'll probably lay it aside.
All right.
I'll do that.
You sign, I'll send a letter.
We'll get it ready.
Okay.
Put it on the sign-up paper.
Now, having done that, what does that do to Social Security, though?
Well, they'll have to find another vehicle for it.
Yeah.
And they'd be hard-pressed to find that Long's maneuver then may be to split off the Social Security and the blind and the other provisions out of the welfare reform.
But he'll have to do an awful lot of backing and filling to get that result.
And he'll be fought.
And it may be that we stave off this Social Security 20% business through this device.
Well, I can hear your presentation, but...
Well, we may be able to afford to be for it.
It's a little early to say precisely what's going to happen in the Senate right now.
See, what's happening is the Senate financially has come up with their own welfare reform bill, and it's a travesty.
That's why I said in the meeting there that I'd probably have to veto the bill.
Right.
And you would if this thing came down.
It'll be kind of a mongoloid thing.
And as soon as it surfaces, and we may leak it,
As soon as it surfaces, it's going to be subject to the most intense attack from the liberal press, undoubtedly.
Then we don't know what will happen in the committee, but they'll probably report it out anyway, just out of wonder hands.
And it'll get out on the floor, and then it'll – there was a meeting last night with Benjamin of the union people and the left-wingers and the legal and the voters and a lot of public interest groups.
And they said, we can't support H.R.
1.
It's too conservative.
All the time we've got Long and the others saying we're going to filibuster against H.R.
1 and deliver.
And so we're going to try and split Bennett off from the Senate Finance Committee and put him at the head of an H.R.
1 group in the Senate.
Tie the thing up.
That's a solid position anyway.
H.R.
1 has passed the House.
It's the right position.
It's where we've been to appearances.
Can I ask you this?
Looking back on our conversation about the old folks and so forth, should we go into the numbers game and so forth?
Social Security.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
The minute you get a little bit pregnant, you're gone.
You're over the edge.
If you come back and say, yeah, if you come back and say, I'm not for 20%, but I'm for jiggering the base and changing the rate a little bit and spreading it out over more years, then all you're doing, you're not talking about whether you're talking about how much.
What do...
George is still against it.
George and Herb and John Connolly are all down hard against it.
Well, Connolly said he'd call me back, but he said, is my head changed?
Well, Arthur is loyal, true blue, and he's going out like mutts, and he's going to fight for us.
Either way.
Yeah, we've got some other odds and ends of things that we can do.
And we've got about a $20 million gimmick that we can work in.
Once you start, once you move off your 5%...
I understand.
I personally, I personally know that once you start, it's just a question, well, they won't end at 20, they'll get 30.
I'm afraid you're right.
And Long, as much as said so to our guys, when he was talking...
I'm going to be a better at building than I am at preempting this.
See, Long wants to do... Mills passes to Long at this point.
He thinks he's already preempted.
What I mean is, Long is going to take Mills and say... Oh, oh, oh, sure.
That's right.
That's right.
Long range prescription for drugs.
And they didn't.
That's right.
I was surprised.
Is there a possibility that that could be the alternative?
Well, it's sure a heck of a lot cheaper.
Well, that's what I mean.
It's too good in instead of 60.
But I don't know if that will buy them off.
I would really rather work with this Administration for the Aged and with a couple of $20 million gimmicks that are disassociated from those other two and not get you into the big money.
Try to put together a message to stay away.
I would.
I don't believe it, you understand?
But I'm just trying to think of something, John, that will give us something to talk to people about.
There are 20 million of them out there.
John Cotton has a different political view.
He says he doesn't think we lose all the old folks.
I don't think you do.
I don't think you lose all of them.
You lose the organizers, the Carmichael's guys and all of them.
Why don't we let that float?
We've gotten out of the 21st.
Yes, I know.
But why don't we let Captain Ryan... That's right.
Well, I think your advice, that apparently you agreed with Sigler, that I should not go out at this point, because inevitably the main legal behind it is you.
Right, right.
And especially after that thing yesterday, I think we were the wise in not, you know, that was, that was a mistake against you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But since nobody's strong on that committee, he'll jump in and bang that.
Well, he's hot and cold.
He had a golden opportunity today to nail Kennedy.
He didn't do it.
Well, I think he should have said, okay, I want an executive session right now.
That's right.
And we've been demanding these documents.
We've been in possession of a member of this committee.
That's an unconscionable action for a senator to take in the context of this proceeding.
Can it be done now?
Can they arrest him?
Yeah, but he's so clumsy.
He's so clumsy.
Really, Cook's the best one to do it, or Gurney.
See, they're the two that we've been betting our money on.
So I will not sit in any more of these hearings until we descend to your feet.
Well, we'll try and position somebody this weekend to jump in on Monday and keep this thing alive.
Keep it cranky.
Let's pass the agent until John McConnell calls back, and then I'll pull together what everybody's reckoning.
I don't want McConnell to be under any pressure.
I'm trying to...
Change his mind?
Oh no, his own judgment.
Now I had to listen to that.
I told him that in advance, that you were not, that you weren't wavering at all and that you, in the event that he felt appropriate, he should pitch in with his views on this, but not necessarily.
A couple odds and ends.
George Allen may be trying to get a hold of you.
I heard about that.
Seats for the stadium?
Yeah.
Okay.
Are you flooring?
Oh, no.
No.
We made him a decent offer, and they have been trying to make some money off of your money.
So if you just kind of get some of it, I'll steer clear of it.
We're in kind of a funny spot with the Vice President.
It's not a funny spot, it's understandable, but I want to be sure that I have your signal correct.
The Vice President has the impression from conversations with you that he's free to speak his mind on any issue until you have made up your mind as to how you come down on the issue.
Now, the effect of that, of course, is to foreclose options sometimes.
Well, I'd like to suggest, then, that we pass the word to him that we're available for advance
A guy this year that we've got to, that because of his, I compliment him, because of his influence and respect which he's listened to, that if he speaks out, it will tend to foreclose the option.
And I feel that there may be a time that we'll want him to go to trial, but it should be on that basis, otherwise he should simply
simply stand up for those things.
This is the best strategy.
This might sort of the necessary thing by appointing, by in fact saying, look, that was all right last year, but this year, this year, that's pretty way to go, John.
Okay.
Good.
Because the constitutional amendment thing, for instance, by his speaking out on that,
the general impression was given, and that was the way it was hidden, you know, I'm guessing, yeah.
So, that isn't too bad.
No, but it's an example.
The legal services, he's gotten out on quite a few services, you know, and it's kind of awkward.
I've got a long damn memo from Peter Flanagan to you about energy.
Oh, Christ.
And I'm just not going to burden your time with it.
We are facing a natural gas shortage in this country.
And there are some things we can do about it.
But there isn't anything that you need to do about it.
Of course not.
Sure, that's fine.
I'm just saying that it's important.
Okay.
We have to remember that there isn't anything more that we can take on.
We have to remember, too, I don't see really, John, how anything responsible is going to come out of this Congress.
Maybe it gets on the record share.
Well, on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it looks like it.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, it doesn't.
So my view is to...
I don't think anybody's told you about Jack Anderson on Hale Boggs and Carl Albert this morning.
Just brutal.
He says, Albert runs around with a Eurasian girl, and Albert takes the Eurasian girl out, and he hits the punch bowl too much, and Hale Boggs has had three fights, and he tells all about the three of them, and he's drunk all the time, and he's got this drinking problem.
and that the House is leaderless, can we get Anderson involved and get a little mad at him?
Well, I would think so.
I would think so, my God.
It might be just true that Albert Brown is a Eurasian.
Well, he steps out occasionally.
I haven't had this Eurasian girl pegged before, but if there's any question, he steps out.
She does a horrible thing for the guy who runs the restaurant.
Isn't that awful?
Really, it is.
And so, anyway, it goes to the point you're making, though, that the house is rudderless, and it really is.
Actually, we know that.
We're old.
Albert, particularly.
Yep.
He's a drunk.
But Albert's sort of proud.
Yeah, but he's also badly on the model.
Yeah.
And he has a problem, too.
You know what it is.
He's a little man.
If you take a man like that...
You take a guy down and put him in 100 pounds, same with a woman.
That's why I went and got a drink out.
Because I hate a little, you know, you put that much alcohol into 100 pounds, it's one thing you put that much alcohol into 200 pounds, it is half the effect.
I'm sure that's right.
Well, anyway.
Oh God, it was just, that's brutal.
Uh, anyway, you're right about the Congress, and, uh... You know what you ever saw, I think, on the L.A. News, and, uh, would do is, uh, either everybody was drinking public health.
Oh, God.
Ever.
Murdered a guy, you know.
Who's murdering him?
Murdering him.
He's acting rather terrible than that.
Very.
Yes, he does.
Super terrible.
Yeah.
Which I've ever done.
I've noticed, I've noticed that he's...
Well, he's out of parties, embassies, and things of that kind.
No, the vice president, he's a soul of rectitude.
He's very, very on the dignity side.
He's talking together.
He handles himself well.
He's well-spoken.
Well, that's all I had for now.
And I know that when we really come down to it, we'll be doing something quite responsible.
Well, I think we are going to be able to sell that as a highly responsible movement.
I didn't want that.
I thought it was a loser.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think the moratorium will be seen, or can be made to be seen, to be an extremely responsible proposal to take it out of the election year, to give the Congress a chance to study it, let things cool down, pull Wallace's teeth.
Everybody will write that kind of stuff about it if we celebrate it.
But I think, say Monday or whatever fits your schedule, we ought to sit down, George and Morgan, and just take down what you want to do.
We can lead you through the choices.
And you can give us your reactions.
Well, let me say this.
I want you to put yourself in exactly my position.
And then, so that I would expect you to make a recommendation.
I am not.
On Marvin, I mean, you listen to Jeremy, but on Marvin and Chelsea, neither of them has...
I'm curious.
You'll get his advice.
Schultz's political advice would not be what I would accept.
Well, I know where Ed is on these things.
I don't know.
I don't think I'd be interested in Conley's view.
I don't know.
Well, I was saying some of that for his benefit today.
John is a straight-up constitutional amendment by the truth.
That isn't the right thing to do, is it?
That's right.
Dubois just wouldn't be seen as credible, wouldn't be seen as a responsible act, that's it.
Well, if you like, then why don't I put something together for you this weekend as to what you recommend.
As to what I recommend.
You've thought about it, you've lived with it, you know this.
You see, I haven't had the time to think it all through.
I know, I know.
And I'll have some time to think it through.
Well, read some of this stuff.
But then I'll, if I can get you to do it, then I may.
The statement is going to be the thing that you really ought to make your own in this thing.
As much as I can.
As much as you have time for it.
But we don't have to get it off Tuesday.
I can't get ready for this.
No, no.
And Friday, anytime along in there, is plenty of time.
I'm a little concerned about your kind of field questions on this.
You can see how damn complex some of this stuff is.
And, well, if you want to spend the time to get up on it,
Oh, you mean to do the block of the press or something?
No, I decided against that.
I'm here just today.
Okay.
I think I should.
The point is, it should, however, probably come off before I do the press conference.
That's fine.
And I think we can, yes, and I think we can equip you to handle that.
We're going to have a press conference.
Yeah.
We're just going to give quick answers.
So you can see in my statement where I covered that.
I covered that in my statement.
Yeah.
We can do that.
So then we get the simplistic answers there, right?
And see.
Here it goes.
We'll see what they find out.
You know, God damn it, I, it's a good, you know, a good, strong senator out there.
God, with that kind of an opening today, I would have pounded the table.
I would have said, I would have stomped out of the room and said, I am leading this here.
So Senator Kennedy represents this memorandum.
He is withholding evidence.
He is.
The privilege of a newspaper man is no longer involved.
That's right.
If the privilege is there, it should not be, it should be held against all, and not just to the committee.
And not used in a partisan way.
What do you think?
Do you think this all belonged to the Littler?
Did you realize he was making a statement saying that that way?
I don't know.
I'd say I'm in touch with the blow-by-blow up there.
It was sure one of those golden moments that a guy like Cook could have, you know, really made himself important.
I'll tell you, on the basis of what we discussed, you don't need to get too deep into that bussing paper.
Well, I've got a way to look at Ray's.
Yeah, way to look at Ray's.
I know, I know what the issue is.
Okay.
I can see there.
I just thought I'd make a hard line rather than a soft line.
We're going to go over the moratorium, of course.
He said he would try to have a price draft up due.
I know it's fairly hard to process it tomorrow, but it's best to get it to work tight.
Well, he's got a pretty long first draft well on the way.
Sure.
And so it won't be too much work for him to get those same drafts in shape.
Have you stopped for the weekend?
I haven't.
No, I'm telling you, I'm sure you stopped a little.
Okay.
I don't know where we should be.
If you approve of the idea of finding these minutes to the guests, I think, Mark, we've got to get in this ballgame.
All right.
And we're not in it right now in any kind of strong way.
You think that'll get it in?
I think it will.
I think it'll get us.
It certainly has on the networks.
And, well, yeah, in the paper Sunday.
And we'll be on the offensive a little bit.
And we can use it.
Yeah.
You know, it's a little blacked out.
That's right.
The only thing, he shouldn't be blacked out.
I was just looking back.
Of course, I was reading Griswold's testimony.
He couldn't have been blacked out.
Peter, he couldn't have been blacked out.
He was ironed.
It got a little blacked out.
It wasn't on the networks.
No?
No.
One section on blackout.