Conversation 683-004

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And also that the climate seemed to be pretty good here.

So that's the president saying that too.

But I think what we'll do is that I think the point is that they have a creator.

So let's start bringing him in.

And then he can go up and say, you know, he's going to be here.

President, I'm just going to tell you a funny, very funny story.

Watson saw the Chinese today, and we had told him to keep it quiet, and not make a lot of fuss over it, but the Chinese released it to the press.

And the Chinese have insisted on calling on him Thursday at 11.

There'll be two ambassadorial meetings, you know.

They're right.

Watson saw them today, and they were calling him on a Swedish meeting.

And those were the great issues that got upgraded.

I noticed one of the stories said that it was partially before the war, and it probably was.

Well, I think the delay was part of the reason for all of this.

The delay got upgraded?

No.

Oh, I see what you mean.

I think the decision had been made before.

But they held it off?

Not for...

I don't know what we can find out about this, but I usually get swayed away from it.

I'm going to meet with Peter McClane again in a few minutes.

10 minutes.

Did Thompson talk to you at all about NaNo?

Yeah.

What's he mean?

Well, uh...

What concerned me was something you may have missed, but what concerned me was a little note in the summary to the effect that cables sent from RMC in Cambodia indicated that Bonneville was, quote, mentally and physically sick.

That's not true.

Well, the point that I made is, is this another leak from another state or something, or what the hell is it?

There was a cable from Swank.

Yeah.

I thought two months ago that Anderson got to evade him.

And that's not part of this series.

All right.

Well, we could ask Thompson to go out again, but the problem has been this.

As I told you 10 days ago, the State Department has been pushing for a separate deal.

And they have been nitpicking away at Lone Oak.

We've been trying to get them to stop, and they've stopped it now.

We gave them a tough message through Green.

And...

It's conceivable that Long Noble is trying to pat them down for what might happen.

It also leads to Roland Evans, that they have been separate peacekeepers.

And he's going to come to the story on that, that they can't go on.

I noticed in the Washington Daily News something.

editorial, and they tend to be critical of the fact that there was no mention of the Taiwan Independence Movement.

Let me ask, is the Taiwan, that source is interesting because that's more of a conservative paper.

Is the Taiwan Independence Movement is violently opposed to Chiang Kai-shek, violently opposed by the Chinese, and violently opposed by the Japanese?

The Japanese haven't taken a position on it, but it's not a significant movement now.

It is violently opposed by both the Chinese governments.

Chiang Kai-shek had locked up the leader of the Chinese Taiwanese independence movement, and he's now in this country as an exile, and we had major problems with Chiang Kai-shek when we let him in here.

So... And for the Chinese PRC.

And for the PRC.

But I've noticed somebody must be feeding that because the New York Times, which never used to give a damn about Taiwan, had an editorial about that last week, too.

The Independent one.

Yeah.

We should be in the South City.

Or could it be, is there somebody pushing the Taiwan Independence Movement?

That's a lot.

Have you ever heard of the Taiwan Independence Movement?

No, not enough to matter.

But we had another thing.

I didn't see anything in the State Department papers indicating that we ought to support the title.

Absolutely not.

Did we?

No.

So some kind of a flat law, but did Roger freeze that?

No.

Well, they raised it at the end.

At the end.

At the end, they raised it.

He raised it at the end.

He said you ought to take it over.

But he never raised it in the preparatory papers they gave us.

Never.

At the end, he did raise it among 500 other nitpicks.

Not 500.

18.

15.

But in this catalog of nitpicks, there was the Taiwan independence movement.

But our formulation doesn't even preclude it says it has to be settled by the Chinese themselves.

Nationally, the Taiwanese are not Chinese.

If they want to CC, that's their business.

Well, except that we won't encourage it.

But we didn't say we will oppose it.

We didn't say we'd oppose it.

We said we will give it no support.

And that's been our position.

We have never given it any support.

I think we ought to cancel it.

It can only do damage.

I think we've got a strategy on the trade thing, which if we let it be handled by commerce... Well, no, no, no.

We're talking about the Russian thing, but Flanagan's got other things on.

Well, I've seen Flanagan now.

I think his major purpose was to have the Russian thing.

about his major purpose with the Russians, then cancel it.

We can't discuss it at all.

I don't want that discussed in the presence of Rogers and the others at this point.

The other thing is, it's my heritage with a lot of colleagues.

You know, he's not too damn anxious, I think, to have Lannigan working in some of these areas.

Let Lannigan work more as a staffer rather than do a big meeting.

At this point, let's cancel the meeting.

I think it would be best.

Put her out of the booth on Friday.

I think I'll go Saturday, but I just can't decide.

Why would you, Senator?

Because I've got all written out so you can go Saturday and Friday.

No, well, I couldn't.

I've got all of the ideas because I need it.

Well, if you're going to be here that long, I'll help you.

You have to work with me.

I'm trying to work on the vinyl library and the bussing thing.

It's a good advice for you to close it down.

Yeah.

I think the domestic things are harder to phrase, because with the foreigners, you're dealing very often with compatible interests.

Not domestic.

Although it's interesting to note the blacks out there in Chicago, they personally came out on both sides when you had against-busting debates.

and a pretty good position.

David Rockington, who just called five minutes ago to add his, and to be good at it.

And his point was that the news meant, and of course, the news summary reflects the news.

do not adequately really know the depth of feeling about the trip, and so, well, if they don't pass here, reflecting, I'm not sure that we're, I covered this, for example, with you, Bob, but I just said it.

Part of the reason for their emphasis on the IAEA meeting, they must of course be trying to murder China.

But on the other hand, we have to realize that when you look back to our announcement on the assaults, and when you look back to our announcement on the Soviet attack, when you look back to our announcement on the conversion to China's side,

As Henry goes on, if you look back to Berlin, that's the best China.

It's got a hell of a great, let alone biological weapons and so forth.

We can figure $48, and then without a trace.

And you remember Henry, he used to say, now this will buy us two weeks, three weeks, and this and that, and the other thing.

And now China, however, has one advantage over the others, Henry, and you can get it coming again.

Tell me about what you ran into in New York.

And both of us, is it still nice?

Was the lady there?

Yeah, she specifically kissed me, which is almost more than I can stand.

She's all right.

She's a nice person.

But I had dinner with a man I'd never met before.

He was a friend from the West Coast.

They're the head of programs for ABC.

And he said,

This was the most moving event.

He said he watched every minute of the trip.

He said, well, he couldn't watch because of the time.

He said he missed only one morning show, but he missed a few evening ones.

He had taped and had played for him afterwards.

He said, the president is a great man.

And he's a Democrat, incidentally.

So this is not, as most of them are, so this is not one of our supporters.

And he has a super intellectual life.

who studied social research at the School of Social Research in New York.

So, you know, their basic direction is not favorable.

But he said he was impressed by your behavior.

And also people in the restaurant would come up and say, what a marvelous achievement.

And David Rockefeller said the greatest coup of the century.

And that sort of thing.

That's really the overwhelming feeling.

And then a vice president of NBC joined us.

He had the same reaction, the head of the West Coast.

John West?

No, Schlosser.

I know him.

Executive vice president.

Now, he leans more towards us anyway.

But this was really here.

And that sort of thing is .

We have to realize it, too.

The loose summary, which you've done very, very well, and so on, inevitably leans very, very hard on columns and on read-arounds and shows and so on and so on.

So you read it and you, and virtually every morning in depression,

The main thing is to read, not be attacked by it.

You decided this week finally wrote something about 70% of what we gave him.

Did he?

Yeah, that you did all the meetings without notes, that you and Joe were both quiet and soft-spoken, but with steel underneath.

He finally got out from under his black bomb, and thanks to you.

And that I gave him an anecdote that didn't quite happen that way, but I have so commented that why does Kissinger always have to carry a black book when he talks to me while you talk without notes?

I thought that would make it a little more vivid.

And he printed them.

And his people carried black books, too.

They all had black books.

That's right.

That's good.

Well, I'll tell you, it's just too bad that we have this.

Stuart, I'll stop for a minute.

You broke it all today in Rogers.

I'm sorry.

You shouldn't have put that column on there.

I'll send you my phone conversation result.

No, I'll give it to you.

I had it set up.

I told him to do it.

And he started lobbying because he wanted to be Secretary of State.

Nobody else picked up the next thing he did.

The worst disaster, the worst mistake we could make at this point would even be to think about anything like this.

It would be a total disaster right now.

Everyone would say that this was, that the plot was to humiliate Rockford so that I could take his job.

Oh, shit.

Well, I think, now I'm going to have to remember Adrian.

Now, let's see who else.

That's the point.

I don't think he's, Zegler makes the point that we figured that the crafts, the storehouse option, the rest of it, no, I'm going to send it back.

Forget it.

He said it's a tragedy.

His good thoughts don't have much impact on his bad ones, do they?

Well, they have an impact on the other journalists.

That's where he has a high stand.

That's all.

That's it.

Well, let me... On this testimony issue, Mr. President, my concern is, I don't give a damn about other journalists, we know that.

I think there's going to be a big attack on me, on you through me, at the center of the cult power in the White House.

If I don't testify this week, I can't do it the week after I come back because I'm meeting with the Senate people.

If I'm meeting with the White House, it wouldn't be an objection to do that same thing with the House people.

Well, that really looks like an objection to it.

And we don't have enough to set it up for convenience.

It's the reason both of them ended.

I know a lot of people, why don't we see what the greater good will come.

But, Tom, I see, I do think it's very important that you have your niece and Morgan be there, because he's our best friend in that case.

But if I get driven off this, then state will leave, because they are the people who have the right to testify, but they don't have the power.

And then they have the confrontation that they want.

That's going to be the issue.

The only reason for doing this, and doing this possible, is so that we have made the record of willingness to meet with them.

Before the attack starts, the attack is certainly to come, but I think, but I mean you already indicated you're going to be with the Senate every day.

Well, I don't know if we can put it off too big.

No, no, no.

Let me, let me say one thing I've got to do with the Senate.

Well, I think it would be very useful with the Senate if you, if we have Scott Mansfield.

Scott Mansfield.

They should be there too.

But Scott is on, they're both on the committee.

Scott Flora Williams.

He is now, that's right.

They're both on the committee, so they'd be easy.

He might add a sentence.

Well, I think Fulbright would be very unhappy.

Well, Scott and Mansfield, then that'd be a good chance to do it in the House then, because if Borden and Albert were gone, Borden, Bob's going to be able to come to the House from there.

That'd be useful.

I was going to say, you've seen her twice.

I don't care who comes.

I have no interest in doing that.

First of all, I could never stray from what Rogers had said.

That's why I told you.

That's why you said it the day after he testified.

I understand that.

We understand that.

I understand that.

Secondly, I'm not doing this as a move against Rogers.

I'm doing it to protect you when the attacks... Well, your point is...

I think what Rogers proposed about his intention is...

Exactly the opposite.

If he doesn't do it, then the attack does come.

If he does do it, it diffuses the attack.

Am I wrong?

I've met with these people.

I've met with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee six times.

Have you?

Yes.

There has never been a story against Roger Johnson.

It's never hurt him in any way, but it's protected you.

Because then they can't say, you have a little kitchen cabinet.

He is circumventing everything.

Well, we should meet with them.

I mean, and frankly, let me say this.

I think if the Armed Services Committee wants to meet with you, you should meet with them, too.

Right?

Well, I, my primary concern... Not just board meetings.

That's the point, Bob.

Do you understand?

Dean Russ, the reason I triggered it was because Dean Russ called me.

He said, as a friend of the president's, I want you to set it up.

If you don't make yourself available to congressional committees, they're going to raise a constitutional issue.

And you should do it early on.

Do you see the point?

But now, let me ask this.

With regard to the Senate, you said that there's not going to be any issue there.

Haven't you agreed to do that already?

I don't know why.

The last time I did it, I should also manage to delay it three to four weeks.

The Senate?

Yeah.

Did he?

For the last time, what he did was...

I know that.

I scheduled it, and when he heard that I had scheduled it, he scheduled a briefing for himself and that same day, so that I can...

When did you make the meeting with him to deal with Fulbright?

To Fulbright playing in set for the 28th.

Well, that's done.

That's what they wanted, right?

Well, they wanted it last week, but I didn't do it because Rogers was specified.

Well, that's what's fair.

And they can't do it this week, so we did it the 28th.

And Fulbright didn't tickle to think about it.

I'll get it.

Well, on the 28th, there was no problem.

All right, I'll get the break, and we'll work something on it.

All right.

You know what's really the sadness of this is when he's got something important to discuss, and he's emotionally disturbed about his pissy-ass thing like this, and the same is true of Rodgers.

He just can't possibly do the expression on a commentator.

Nobody can.

Nobody can have an arrogant of that sort, and then go into a meeting of great importance and make decisions and recommendations that are good.

Greener now.

Absolutely.

You say that you have heard that Rogers or State is making some moves or are making some moves on it.

and try to get into the mess of the Russian trip protocol.

Well, yeah.

They've just made phone calls wanting to know what, you know, planning is, you know, glued in, that kind of thing.

Well, we've taken care of the planning.

That was before I called Rogers.

And on the other thing, you made, see, I didn't mention the McCloskey Club.

I just did the generalities when you said, oh, yeah, McCloskey.

Coming to IADT is, I don't think I have more on that than we can do.

I read the Crosby magazine.

I noticed you even killed boys.

I guess that's one of those things.

It's a, it's a, it's a field day for the colonists, isn't it?

Yeah, well, they're not really all that caught up in it.

They haven't been, mostly they're fighting, fighting each other, which is unfair, so.

I haven't read the magazines.

They're,

cracked up on today, but, uh, separately, Kavelinis is on the cover of Time, the newsroom, the newsroom, I guess.

I haven't seen Time, and I haven't read any of it.

But, uh, we've got the question, still, that Dede Beard's been cleared to testify on by their doctors.

In the hospital, they won't let her out, but the committee sent representatives in.

And so they're cranking up on that today.

Presumably they'll send somebody out, people out today, or tomorrow or Wednesday.

If she says the right thing, then we're in pretty good shape.

We don't know, we've done everything we can.

I don't know what that error in the net is.

It was about being this way when I came in there, so I don't know what it is.

on all that at this point.

I asked one other thing.

I know that with Musty moving on the finance thing, the prayer on the stands, even somehow will become... Well, I talked to Mitchell about that.

He had talked...

His point is that we have a substantial problem if we do put anything out because we have taken our contributions on the basis that we would not report them, which we're perfectly entitled by law not to do.

That he thinks that our, see April 7th is when the reporting business starts, which is only three weeks away.

And on April 7th, you have to report the amount of money you have on hand.

And our point was at that time to also state the number of people who had contributed that amount of money, whatever it may be.

that we have on hand, and that will work pretty well because we have a mailing out, mass mailing, that we put out a couple weeks ago that will produce a lot of small contributions.

So we'll have a large number of contributors against a large amount of money.

We will have a large amount of money.

John feels very strongly that we should just straight arm it.

On the basis now, he says, I don't think anybody gives a damn about it, except the people that are talking about it amongst each other.

Well, except, well, Muskie and Humphrey said, no, that makes it clear.

Okay, but our position, well, he says that,

One answer is, first of all, the President's not involved in this.

This is a private committee for the re-election of the President.

And we have been, this committee has for some time been soliciting contributions for the President's re-election.

And it will all be reported according to the law?

It will all be properly reported according to the law.

We will follow the statutes.

But aren't they also doing more than is required of them all?

Yes.

But they're candidates, except that they were company distinguished.

That's the argument, that they've been out raising the money themselves.

They are candidates.

Of course, you can argue that you've candidated your name to be put on the list.

Except I'm not up there.

But you've only done that in order to comply with the statutes in those areas.

You had no choice, because the other, the alternative was to say you would not be a candidate, which of course you couldn't do.

John argues strongly that we just gotta, we got three weeks, we gotta ride it through.

On April 7th, it'll all go away.

And he says, I just don't feel it's possible to do anything otherwise.

He said, if you got any suggestions, that's fine.

And I'm going back to SANS again and see if we can put out any other ideas.

But if we put out any partial, then we're really subject to criticism.

Because we have to put out a whole- Why don't we have to say that April 7th we will begin reporting on the law?

That's if we're not present.

But will you have- We're not there to report.

Will you have our PR people work up a good statement so that we can get one that can be put up and stand?

I don't mean that we put up, that stands can put up.

And then that Ziegler, when he's asked about it, can simply refer to it.

You see what I'm concerned about, Bob, is that I don't want us to be in a position where by the time I get out of the press conference, I'm just going to be in an age or something, you see?

Yeah.

I realize the problem.

I can see that next year people are going to want their damn age used.

That's Muskie's problem, of course, too.

I don't know how he's worked it out.

He said he's going to report only contributions that he receives in January 4th.

and he impacted the others or something.

That's the way he used to do it.

Well, if we could say that you'll report all the contributions you've received since I became candidate on January 9, you might try that.

How would that be?

I have an honesty problem with that.

Most of what we've gotten has been since then.

What?

Most of what we've gotten has been since then.

Well, it has.

See, when Stan moved over, just before he moved over, they started a massive effort to get the money and everything in that they could before it was up.

I think it's just something to say once, but I heard everything.

Well, if you, who have you got that you can put on the writing of such a statement?

You know, Sandbark didn't stand on that first.

Good.

And a statement that he could work up with the floor stands.

And half prevention, see, everybody's got to say the same thing.

And it's enough to let me say that the only reason, I suppose, is because of the

IGT, then that will raise some pressure on us, you see, to put on who other contributors are, what you think.

Sure.

Yeah, where does that look down?

When he says, on the other hand, we have a problem tonight.

Yeah, the general feeling is just, you can just swear out loud.

Well, yeah, maintain the counterattack.

Cook moved on his executive session over the weekend.

Got a little right swing before the cameras today.

They said it should be retried.

But I hope that at least he got on.

Got on, sure.

And they're going to do a...

They think Eastland's going to go for an executive session.

If we can get an executive session, just the fact of that will help a little bit to cloud things up.

And then hopefully tomorrow they'll get Peter Beard.

Right.

We'll see what she does.

What did he do?

Well, he was part of the shell fire.

It should be one.

It's very important.

We have absolutely nothing to hide.

We're not complying with the law.

We're just setting up our machine right now.

We'll start making the reports that are required by law.

We will be prepared to enable the Senate.

In the meantime, the president is...

Henry thinks it is, I think, because he thinks it would mean to look like a state victory, but he always thinks in terms of .

On the other hand, Rodgers

I think if Morgan is available on Thursday or Friday and Henry can do it, I think he ought to do it this week.

But it still gives it, you know, a little lapse after his testimony's noticed.

And of course, the partisans are going to actuate.

I'm on your side.

I'm not going to go to the teachers' briefing or something like that.

And Bill, Bill's answer should have been, look, there are no sides here.

We're all on the same team.

But I bet he didn't say that.

All I had is Bill's story of what was said in McGregor's.

I said, I've done that part.

So then I wonder if McGregor is well advised to...

as you get further into the year to continue ahead.

I'm not so sure I kind of see how to put it.

You know, it's, you're just providing an initiative for things.

I'm inclined to think the less contact we have with Democrats at this point, the better.

I think we can do a little, well, I don't know, I don't know how.

Well, he has press there too, which creates a problem.

You know, this is just a,

It doesn't make great much of a problem as long as you've got Democrats in it.

You're going to go to the press anyway, so it's...

But it's just, you get into the kind of conversations after a few drinks.

It's like the conversation at Joe Liddle's dinner.

People left.

They heard the gridiron.

They picked the cars up at the gridiron.

What happened?

The cop told the party doctor he was dead.

He said, well, I've got a homeowner.

We've got a homeowner.

Right.

And he knocked someone off the bench and...

I guess we're just going to have to stomp off, because I can see the problem.

Also, to the moment you put out the contributors, the later you put them out, the better.

Everybody's going to pick every goddamn contributor and say, what have we done for you in the government, right?

Yeah.

But what can you pick them up?

That's exactly what's wrong.

Yeah.

And, well, plus the fact that they've contributed on the assurance that they were doing it.

By law.

Because there's nobody that's quite out there.

Maybe it was just straight to the line.

But at this point, it's just straight to the line.

We're in a different position from the Democrats.

It's their problem.

Is that what he means, basically?

Not even to get to the point that the Democrats just ignore him.

Not ignore him, but just simply say, we're just worried we can get out of the way.

I'll let them handle it their way.

There's two endowments, the arts and the humanities.

He's the humanities side of it.

A rare bird, because he's apparently very highly regarded in the electoral committee, and yet he's solidly for us.

You know, they're just going to say it's got to be balanced.

That's what it must be.

Because I didn't get to your office most of the time.

I mean, all these people walking around.

No, this is just one of these.

No, but I mean, it piles up over a weekend, and people get a chance to think about it, and they read the news.

I mean, it comes Saturday, and it comes on the 19th, 10th, and so on.