Conversation 692-007

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Picking up the fight to the finish and we intend to win it, meaning he walked off the job.

I vote the, uh, the main walkers are very good, and the torpedoes are very good, so she's good.

When I, I vote the fight to the finish, we- Torpedo and sink is up in my hand.

Yeah.

The fight to the finish, we intend to, we're gonna, it has two connotations, so we're gonna fight meeting to the finish.

Fight to the finish?

Fight to the finish, yeah.

All right.

Director of the Commission, continue on course.

Payboard was right, Mr. Meany was wrong.

All right.

Looks good.

Did Chris tell you to stay in the problem?

Is there a way to handle this thing?

Sure.

I got the damn thing down.

It's still two minutes, two and a quarter.

You may make it.

It's a big enough deal that you may carry on.

If they have a fight at the finish, that's what you do.

He walked off the job that day.

You're bound to get disappointed with that.

But I think you're advised, your judgment, to do it this way rather than what Scott, I mean, Berne, DePorter, whoever it was, said to go on prime time.

I just feel it wasn't the right thing to prime time.

You can't get in a pattern of every time something squeaks, you run out and primetime culture and then hit it back.

I can't do it, Bob.

I don't know if it gets to Congress' point of leadership.

Leadership is what the hell is leadership, right?

But see, primetime isn't the only way to lead, Christ.

Primetime, nobody, no president ever used primetime before you.

Really.

And the kind of thing that you're using.

I know, I know.

It went on after the war, to declare war and things like that.

See, we were the ones that put press conferences on for the first time.

That's right.

And that's what they squealed about, is that you've been smart on your television, that you haven't had nearly as much time on television as the other guys did, proportionally.

But your time has been on primetime, and your audience has been many times what theirs was.

More, larger primetime.

It's fascinating.

You asked about how many days you spent campaigning.

Depends on how you count them, but basically five.

You could argue that you spent six, and you could also argue that you spent seven.

One day, you left here at 4.15 to go to Florida for two-night rallies.

If you count that as a day of campaigning or not, I wouldn't.

Because you put in the day at the office until 4.15.

So I didn't count that.

And the other day, I think you have to count, was that day in California after San Jose.

But you did campaign all day.

You didn't do anything until the Anaheim rally that night that you worked on the campaign.

So if you count that, that's six.

Six working days, right?

That's right.

Six working days and three Saturdays.

And a couple meetings.

In that six working days, and three Saturdays, and a couple evenings, you campaigned in 22 states.

I wonder if you could get that to somebody, that's people who would ask a list.

Sure.

President's obligation to let me do this every year.

I don't know, maybe it wasn't the reason.

That's a good thing to have.

I'm glad to know that.

I was amazed.

I thought it came.

I knew it wasn't much.

I knew it was not worth that.

We concentrated.

But you had those days like, you know, you did Vermont, two stops in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, one in Wisconsin all in one day.

And you had that last day, you did Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah all in one day.

Two in Florida and two in Texas one day.

Two in Illinois, one in Minnesota, one in Nebraska, and one in California on one day.

You say six the weekdays and two Saturdays?

Three Saturdays.

Oh, you say nine days.

I wouldn't count the Saturdays.

And one of those Saturdays was that one you went to Maryland.

You know, it was just one shot.

Then you went to the U.N. or something like that.

Six working days and three Saturdays.

Three Saturdays.

He says, I have to see the president.

Because I have an explicit understanding with the president that before he makes an appointment to the board, he will meet with me.

And he said, you better check with George Shultz because he heard this.

Well, that's not my understanding at all.

The president's made it very clear he does not want to meet with anybody on appointments until it's been...

Throw these staff down, checked out, and you're doing exactly the right thing.

Now, he has exactly the opposite line from Malik, from what Erland said about Malik.

Because he said, the reason he wants to change his ear, this fellow Fred Malik doesn't understand that I'm supposed to have a premise on this, and he wants to appoint a man that I'm not so sure I'm in favor of.

have him hanging it around and have him calling and see what they come up with.

Hardly, he's not going to name the man.

Well, he then said, he said, I have this explicit understanding and you better check with Schultz.

And I said, well, I'll have to check with the president because it's just contrary to the instructions that I have on these appointments.

And he, boy, he backed off fast.

He said, oh, no.

He said, the president may have forgotten what he told me.

And he said, but my business is to remember.

So, I got this here.

Hold on a minute.

I just, I know, just let it stall for, I'm not ready to talk about that.

Just let it sit right here.

Do you see anything?

This is Brown.

Please.

Brown?

All right.

Thank you.

You know, it's amazing how much work there's something on paper is about, you know.

Well, anything you do, you think of the effects it has.

That's right.

It has to have.

And you know, you see, I have to put myself into it.

I think Sapphire Jump is fine, but I think what I find to come up with is that it's a lot better.

You know, if you read the first one, you see what I mean,

He always starts with, you know, I mean, he's different.

We're different people.

And people do not, I believe, run.

Like I said, on August the 15th, when I announced this and that, he started off by saying, ever since I have been in office, I have said that.

Why not say August 15th?

You know what I mean?

You're hearing it right now.

Maybe I didn't say it then.

It makes it precise.

It gets down to the point that

right and wrong, fight to the finish.

He's not going to be allowed.

He represents only 17%.

He can't allow, he picked that up, he can't allow it.

He put it so that the president has to speak for all the people.

Only 17% of American waiting on the Italian city without any representative with special interests.

That's good, too.

Call him a special interest.

Right.

I'm not at all sure you don't have going there as good, maybe a better thing than FDR had with his special interests on the other side.

Maybe intentionally.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Well, we're stuck with the alternative.

You don't have any choice.

See, my other side is hitting us for IDD being special and all the rest of it.

So IDD only provides perhaps 50,000 jobs for America, or 100,000.

I'm going to try to do this and ask lots of questions.

Well, they've discovered that, or pictures like that, or I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

Have you said anything in regard to the idea of killing?

How did you do that?

Well, they did.

What are they, retired?

Why, what did Cory say?

Yeah, Cory.

Cory, why, how'd that happen?

He doesn't know.

Oh, yeah.

He was.

I don't think that he just stayed.

I don't think that he was.

But anyway, the State Department handled it.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm not really fully clear on this, but I have to.

Absolutely.

If you didn't know what I had gussied it up to, you stuck it in there meaning it was wrong.

That's right.

Oh, Jesus, that's what sent him right up the wall.

Oh, I can assure you that he is a great man.

And I speak for all the American people.

I put that out, too.

There's something in the beginning also from getting Meany mad because he comes out and says things that are sort of grotesque.

Lou Harris just called me this afternoon.

He said, I don't know what you fellas are doing, but he said, you're certainly living right because you're getting every conceivable break.

He said, Meany's just handed you five more points on a silver platter.

Fantastic.

By attacking the Supreme Court?

Of course, Paris, you know, feels we've really lost the offensive when we had a burning wage price thing.

Yeah, well, he thinks it's safe.

Let me tell you, you know that new CPI figure?

It's a hard way to read it.

It's goddamn encouraging.

Well, sure it is.

I listen to the bigger thing.

The food companies, I mean, everything else is nine-tenths of one percent.

The program's working.

I used to play with food down here.

Good shit.

Well, I think the food has to come down.

I cautioned Conley because he was in a really funny mood.

I called him and said, be sure to make the point that we're not at war with labor.

It's just one small group of men.

Special interests.

That's a damn good one.

Special interests.

Damn good one.

But Harris says that labor leaders aren't very popular.

That's right.

They're even less popular than government leaders.

Yes, and least popular is George Meade.

George Meade is least popular.

He just said, oh, you're just getting so many breaks.

He thinks Illinois is a huge break.

What's he, oh, why?

Well, because the media said that Husky is, you mean great crime?

What's Husky's crime?

I didn't think I was reading about the same thing.

That's all I heard.

I said, you know what?

We have that kind of support in the media.

I mean, of course, we had money lost in Florida, but my God, we had that kind of support.

I wouldn't have to leave this guy alone, so.

CBS was nosy, but the New York Times editorial this morning was right on target when it said something.

Well, it said that he won a victory for himself in the quest for the nomination, but he probably put Illinois in the Republican column because the split with Daley, well, the split with Daley will...

We'll cripple it after it's, you know, it's... We'll see if it's... No, no.

Yeah, but Bradshaw says he will not do it.

He can't support Walker.

Walker's a left-wing liberal son of a bitch.

Daley cannot support him.

We're grieving against the Chicago police.

Yeah, that doesn't bother Daley.

You watch.

I think on this one, maybe Daley might cut him.

I'm proud of him.

There are ways.

He's going to teach them a lesson.

Woodcock didn't take long after your statement, did he?

Well, he got off.

I heard that.

Did he get off?

Yes.

We expected him to get off.

He's a time bomb.

He's a Democratic politician like me.

I mean, he's a couple.

Of course, that accounts for the sum of the evidence.

This is a real thing.

This is a real politics.

He is, and I certainly expect, a Democratic candidate.

He's just going to out-pair this.

Everyone is going to pair this because they've got to.

And they're on the bad side.

At the very time when the public wants controls to be tougher, Meany is taking the position that... Well, we're making a lot of progress in several areas.

The independent experts that have been working with the Bureau have persuaded the Bureau people at the working level, the examiners, the chemists,

that they were wrong in their initial conclusions.

The Bureau of People agree with this.

Mr. Conrad is an assistant director of the Bureau.

He's been identified.

He wrote the initial report to the Department of Justice.

That's gone.

It's already filed.

No, sir.

They withdrew it.

That was withdrawn right after John Ehrlich went into the town.

Okay.

It was.

It clearly wasn't.

They had done a very crude test.

uh it was very very inconclusive they wrote a very cool report because they were now they now we're making the other test and they think we want the truth you know what the damn thing is well the outside experts are convinced that it's a fraud that it was that the men agreed to fight back in america and they'll never say that the girl was on the letter to that effect

Well, what we're waiting for now, I don't think we'll get that from the Bureau.

I think what the Bureau is going to say is they can't tell by their tests, but they will not repeat the tests conducted by this fellow in Chicago now.

We're putting it through the... Is that Cheater?

Cheater?

No, this is McClellan, who the Bureau says is one of the three toughest Brits in the world.

What does he say?

He said anything?

Yes, sir.

He first said the Bureau was wrong in saying that it was tight from Jim.

That is established.

And he persuaded the Bureau working people that they were wrong.

That happened this morning.

He's gone back to Chicago to his laboratories with the samples and by tonight will conclude when it was tight.

He is at least

said it was, that it could have been typed any other time than June.

In other words, No, sir.

This fellow is very legitimate.

He's completely legitimate.

He spent three days on this, and he has equipment which the Bureau says, this is rather appalling to me, that they don't have.

Well, they had it, well, he

The people in Treasury who looked before you said special electronic scanning equipment, which completely destroyed the Bureau's chemical analysis, repeatedly.

And if Hoover really wants to cooperate, he will, and he withdrew all copies of the previous report.

If he really wants to cooperate, we'll know in the morning when the bureau letter goes up to the committee.

If the bureau letter is noncommittal, I'm delighted.

The IPT independent experts will have a press conference tomorrow, perhaps, Saturday, maybe.

That's right.

Well, the only reason it wouldn't be is that there's a fellow in between Hoover and the working level.

He's a crusty old... Conrad.

Conrad.

But John has talked to Hoover today, and he's kept him close touch with him.

So I'm gambling that the working-level people have written a draft piece, and it's very favorable to him.

And if it gets by Conrad, fine.

If it doesn't, we'll have to talk to Hoover again.

But that we will know tonight.

In any event, Mrs. Teitel is ready to go before the cameras at any time.

We pressed that button.

Was there anything that would reflect that she was the case's expert?

No.

The Bureau, she was retained in the case.

She and her husband were retained in the case to prove that a typewriter could be constructed.

Oh, yeah.

In such a way as to duplicate a document after the fact.

They never got to that issue in the trial later.

The Bureau is against any of these people.

They take all questions of exam and documents or phones because they have the ultimate wisdom.

The Bureau is all screwed up in this case anyway.

Well, actually what I tell you has been on the opposite side of the Bureau.

Any other developments?

No, none on that front.

Mrs.

Beard is well-programmed for her testimony.

I hope she's ready to testify to the truth.

She's ready to give the truth.

She also is ready to grab the oxygen mask when Teddy Kennedy starts burrowing in on him.

At least we told that story.

Well, you know, that's my chart.

Is she programmed to die at the right time?

That's my chart.

Ziegler accuses me of having programmed that, but I haven't figured out how to do it.

Oh, he might.

She's in a very hysterical mood.

This girl up in Canada has been our star and so forth, and the media have done the best they can to confuse it.

Well, they keep

fucking what she said, and garbling the reports.

Well, the thing to keep everybody pushing on is that this is another Irving case.

Irving case.

Because it has so many of the elements now.

All these odd letters, and there are three no's, and this isn't the real, and it sounds and smells just like the Irving case.

Yeah, it does.

Just start using another case.

Well, our fellows have done that, have really done it very well.

Yeah.

But Marl Cook has been good on this.

Rusk has been, Scott's been the best.

Yeah.

Scott has been superb for this one.

But if we, if tonight, I'll know from Chicago about midnight, if the final tests prove, then we will have two experts to put before the cameras.

As it is, we have one we know of.

And the only question that I've been holding... You know Bob, even if an expert told you before the camera, I don't care who it is, and says this document was not typed in June, and some other expert says it was typed in June... And the Bureau is inconclusive.

You've got to manage it, because people are going to say, what the hell is this?

There's something smelly about this.

She's not agreeing to the fault of doubt.

If you could see Mrs. Teitel, Mr. President, you'd realize how good she is.

She's a little...

wizened-up gal who doesn't smile, totally expressionless, white hair, close, creamed in, black dress with a white.

She just looks so puritanical, and she got marbles with it.

She spent 20 years in every court.

She's skilled at that.

I can't break your hand.

And she is totally convinced and has large photographic pull-ups of the letters that

She'll make a hell of a case when she does it.

And if she has the support of Macron, who is unique, if not unique, there are three people who do his type of analysis, the density of materials, very sophisticated, very advanced analysis.

If he supports her, that will, they won't have to expect it on the other side.

What does she do about it?

Divine rod or something?

No, she does it by microscope.

Microscope of the differences in the impressions.

He does it by scanning, electronic scanning, optical scanning.

She's like old Tara's perfect woman.

She does every virgin except her own.

But I think that, I think that we'll be ready tomorrow, one way or the other.

The tactics, look.

God damn it, if I were Teddy Kennedy, I'd be worried.

Oh, yeah, but he gets worried about it.

I'm not worried.

You know what, I...

He used to pull this on me, and he used to rape my staff, and everything.

It's a very small thing, but we also had some anonymous letters and things that I could start saying.

There's some that have been used in my problems.

And we're issued.

That stuff ought to be bombarded now, Jay.

He's got to do this.

Not only, yes, he is, Mr. President, but he's also had a lot of his colleagues talking in the cloakroom.

What did they say?

Well, this thing is going to turn out to be a fraud and a hoax.

And I... Law of the state.

Law of the state.

Yes, sir.

Scott's been talking about it on the Republican side.

I don't know if he's a Democrat.

Well, Eastland did.

Kennedy went to see Eastland two days ago to tell Eastland that he wanted to continue Janine.

And Eastland said, well, we've got to get at the bottom of whether Peter Beard really wrote this.

Well, there's a disruptor.

Irvin was, and Hart did.

Hart talked about it.

Hart did?

Yes.

What did Irvin say?

Well, Irvin raised questions, saying that we've got to determine the authenticity of this before we continue these hearings.

Look, he was saying we've been at it.

Irvin was planning on fraud the hoax business.

If this is not a fact, we will.

And Hart was the one who raised the...

Clifford Irving, Howard Hughes.

The point about me is this, the entire building, if just one person could get on TV saying this thing's a fraud, it's gone after that.

Then let somebody else say it wasn't.

The committee is in a hell of a spot.

They've got to prove it.

Their group is on their point.

Sure.

We could have put Mrs. Teitel on any day this week, but...

But you didn't have the document.

Well, but what we wanted was the frosting on the cake of this whole Chicago, and we wanted to reverse the FBI, which is because if they had come out with their first report...

This is an attempt to have her against the FBI.

Yeah, this way, we don't think it's going to turn out that way.

I think one meaning to get back to it, you know, I realize it's sort of being awful hard on the labor people.

I said you labor people, but my statement was currently resigned.

I said some labor.

I used several rather than many.

You know, a few other things.

I mean, quite a big change.

Well, and in the long statement we got in that paragraph about we're not going to be put at war with labor.

This administration will not accept the anti-labor label.

I think he's trying to put it on us.

Actually, Mr. President, I cannot figure out what is going through that man's mind.

And I've talked to several people today who know him well.

I bet you love him.

He's crazy.

I haven't talked to Jay.

I haven't dared to talk to Jay, but I've talked to Vic Rizzo, for example.

What's Vic's?

Vic says he just can't conceive.

Is he wrong?

Oh, sure.

And he said that he went in there yesterday.

He didn't allow any discussion.

He read his statement to the Executive Council and then said, does anyone have anything they want to say?

And of course they all stood up and saluted and said aye aye.

There was any exception.

Many of them have expressed pride in the outside.

It's a crusty old man, smart as hell, tough as hell, but partisan as hell.

That's it.

It's partisanship.

And also, he is very, very bitter about the fact that he got a foot gun in Miami.

And he wants revenge.

He wants revenge.

He's a tough Irishman wanting revenge.

And, another thing too, he's probably overestimating his own stroke.

And he's probably underestimating what I would do because of the fact that we always send George to see him.

And George is so nice and so considerate and takes him down to have a drink of mania and all that.

You see, I do not, I believe in getting the record on that, but I don't believe in letting people mis-counsel him.

When I talked to him, I never really treated him real nice, but I let him see a little steel in him.

You made a statement about respecting his position.

I mean, you're kind of lying about that.

I respect it.

It's a part of the labor.

That's fine.

It's as far as you can get to go.

But the biggest political windfall from all of this, in addition to the public, is the split between the building tradesmen.

Well, they, we've been calling them, George Bell and Jim Hudson have been talking about it today,

They are all giving us signals which say, please, don't rock the boat for us.

We want to keep our mechanism intact.

we we're not at war with you and no we don't want to be associated with you you could call them and point out that the president himself and his statement dictated the paragraph about how to do that well be a friend and say that's the statement of the christian and then the door is open here and it's open to the others to come back but uh we cannot have this situation where we need to thumb his nose to the president he knows that well after after miami

Brennan was one of the fellows who was strong as boy, and he, in fact, he publicly disassociated with Meany on that Dale Haverford point.

But the building trades, Mr. President, with Meany and ex-building tradesmen himself, that's the part of it, A, of Bill Seattle, that he has the greatest feeling for and affection for.

And if they are saying to him, you go do what you want.

They might resent the fact that I referred to the fact that they'll say, oh, it's 17% for building trees.

No, no.

They know they're small.

But they cannot arrogate themselves the right to speak for American labor.

God damn it, there is no American labor.

American labor is 80 minutes of which 17%, 20%, 25% of the very outside, which includes all the other units, are organized.

That includes everyone.

If you want to throw the tinctures in,

And out over is the pressure, you get up to about 25%, and that's it.

But at 75%, they're not organized.

Now, God damn it, you can speak for a hell of a lot of people here, and they're stuck with 5.5% in unorganized when you know they are.

The unorganized will never get more than 5.5%, right?

Only the organized are going to get to 5.5%.

That's right.

So, Jesus Christ, and you know, and being able to use that long short as an example, there was 20 other strict people.

Everybody else is at 5%.

He's wrong.

that was that was excellent i was talking about you know about you know some of the congressmen said i felt that i would go on prime time i got even busted on this issue i just i disagree with it do you agree no i think no i i thought this is just the way to do this the plan that we talked about

We immediately open up equal time for all Democratic candidates, for me and the rest to go on and blast the hell out of our disadministration for doing this and that for IT&T.

I'm going out there and doing two minutes on the news.

We'll reach a hell of a lot of people.

What the networks are doing on this equal time issue, Mr. President, is very important to keep in mind.

They are not giving equal time, but what they're doing is balancing it on their news programs, and that's almost worse.

Oh, Christ, yes.

I think one of the reasons we've had such a bad fight on busing is that they have written to the Democrats saying, we're not going to give you equal time because we have presented in our news broadcast the opposing point of view.

I think the reason you're getting it back in busing also is because they believe you've got to remember it's on busing.

They are liberal ideologues, and they believe it.

But let me say that it's not all bad.

Let the media be out there beating the drums for Biden.

That's one where they're never talking.

They can hurt us when they show the Vietnam War, people getting shot, because nobody likes that.

But boy, they try to defend Bussing, and they've got one hell of a problem.

When they defend the pro-Bussing people, that's right.

They aren't going to convince anybody of that.

But that is... Bussing is a personal experience.

People know what you're talking about there.

No, I would not have gone prime time tonight.

I think that would have been a mistake.

Well, it just isn't the right thing to run on air anyway.

It isn't the kind of issue.

And it isn't when you really come right down to it.

It isn't that big a person.

Meany... Meany threw down the gauntlet to you.

But he did it because he wanted to.

Yeah, but he...

But as far as the public is concerned, they're completely relaxed with your statement today.

I mean, it wasn't the kind of thing where a big horror or crisis

I mean, what the hell, the market would have 10 points.

I thought it would have gone up.

You know the fine clothes?

Sure.

Another reason that makes me think some of us tend to overreact.

The most important point was that the market didn't lose the fine yesterday.

That's right.

In fact, it recovered at the close.

Dropped to, what, 31?

It may also be that the market figures getting labor out of there will enable you to be more effective with the control.

It ended up 10.76.

Okay, sure.

18 million.

Pretty good.

941. 944.6.

One day it will start going up to 34 points, one day, one day.

I listened to Reed Stein, he's got the preliminary figures of the GMB.

Tom, he was quite very bullish about Stein.

I think it's very good, actually.

Thank you.

I think all of the indicators are interesting.

Even the retail sales, I was sending you a little memo that the business economists aren't agreeing with our statistics now, but there's a great argument over whether we're accurately betraying the retail sales.

And that's the only...

Well, of course, the big factor in that is the government retail sales statistics.

Well, I wrote a written order on there to Schultz and Meinberg.

What in the name of Christ has done with their program to kick these goddamn agencies, in particular the Defense Department, in the ass and get them out to do this?

I'll pick you as a saboteur over there.

What do you think?

I'm sure that's... Saboteurs in the bureaucracy that are not buying it.

You know, I don't know what the story is here now.

You have to serve your Tuckers.

You need a Tucker man.

You should earn it and start raising all of them.

You mean it's worth getting the money out of them?

That's the whole point.

It's the government.

The purchases by government are not as high as they ought to be at this point.

The only decline in the new orders in February was in the... Government purchases.

We're supposed to be purchasing mine, you know.

That's the... You got all that money and all the...

I parked it in the new circuit, but I don't know whether they follow up on that.

Yes, sir, they do.

You just, you remind Chelsea.

You remind Chelsea.

Yeah.

God damn it.

Raise holy hell.

That's what I do.

The guy that kicked is Laird.

That's the place you can hire him.

You don't know where that money is.

Right, Laird.

And Rush.

get Laird and Rush, get Rush over here, get Laird and Rush over here to get it.

You get them all.

I know this has gotten bigger.

And the response code is defense.

And I want to tell them the president now wants a report each week, a weekly report on what they're doing.

And I personally want this report.

And tell them the Vietnam report now can be made twice a week.

They can produce that twice a week.

They've been in it every day.

But I need one of this, each of them.

Okay, I don't know the price of each.

If you make this price of each,

I consider it of urgent importance that I want to see twice a week what they're doing to correct this situation.

Have Stoltz and Weinberger with you and call NIL and you bring in, and you do it, and you're the, and bring in Blair, and bring in Rush, and bring in Bloom or Sloot.

and he's going to watch it and he's going to be personally on the phone and he doesn't see some action.

I just, can you just say hello?

I said, here I go.

I mean, if you read it, the president breathes air and breathes air before it comes in.

He'll be breathing this in soft.

And that bone, that bone is going to get hot.

Okay?

I said, I don't, I think we just got too many nice guys around here.

You've got to kick them in the ass.

And you're talking about the market is passing that code.

The guy that runs my polling trust sent us his advisory service today to ask him to send me my tax information.

He's a guy I've never met.

His name is Harry Cohen.

And he's up in Hornblower Weeks in New York.

And I just called him on the phone and asked him to send me the information.

And he said, fine.

He said, would you like to report on how things are going?

I said, no, I don't.

I said, how's the market up to in general?

He said, oh, just great.

He said, but what really looks good is that trip to China.

And then he started going babbling on about the President's trip to China, and what a spectacular thing it was.

Here's some little Jewish sucker up in New York who couldn't stop talking about it.

He said, and you know, it just, gosh, it just was so great, the way the whole thing went.

Gee, I watched it all on television.

That's right, he did a lot of expenditure, a lot of the time he left China and then he goes right back to China again.

It's really, it's fascinating.

It's about whether you explore it and see whether or not you could shift the exhibit around.

I think it's a marvelous idea.

We've already, I didn't notice.

It's not as well done as the other people.

We've got to do some work on it.

It needs a little more pizazz, but we'll get that done first.

We're going to get some better pictures and follow the way they're displayed and labeled and all that apparently.

I haven't seen it.

I'm going to go take a look at it.

Put somebody on our artistry.

Yeah.

Let's get the very best.

And then send that exhibit around to various.

God damn it, they're going to love the art galleries, haven't you?

Yep.

We've also got to save gifts.

The way to get Scott on the road and into some of these places we want to, and into some television, is that he's going to travel with the ping pong team.

But he'll be in the cities anyway.

And I think there'll be enormous attention focused on him.

And then he runs out and does the television show and meets with the world at a very special luncheon or something like that.

But you're going to arrange next week, though, you're going to have him do the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, the international approach.

Congressional groups, be sure he gets up and talks to our Republican congressmen and senators.

Congressional, the sub-cabinet, the White House, the White House, the group here.

Scali, you see, has distinguished from Hanson, who I told Bob earlier, who is still the president.

Henry will sell the substance.

He didn't give a damn about the substance.

You've got to wrap some substance in it.

Well, John knows that.

Hell, yes.

You see, Henry will give all of the substance.

You see, that's the difference.

He does it very well.

He can do both, and that's why he's so good.

And he does it as a Democrat, and he's not.

Instead of as a part of the Independent Party.

No, Democrat.

He says I'm a Democrat.

This is my credit that I was a boy.

That's great.

I'm sure he is.

But he has a great line apparently.

He leads in this.

I was a Democrat.

I was a newscaster on television and with the Associated Press.

And I've observed Richard Nixon since he started his career.

I've always been impressed with him as a very able man.

But when I saw him in China, you know, my admiration went up 40 times.

And, you know, it expands as I tell you.

Emotion gets growing.

He says he can do what he wants.

He can do what he wants.

He says he doesn't want to, but he loves.

He says, let me do these things next week.

You thought that's the most important thing you can do right now.

He's got to be our request, folks.

But how are we going to do it, too?

Everybody wants to hear about that damn trip.

Talk about that rather than I can teach you.

We're busting all these other things.

You've been fishing.

It's not sufficient.

That's right.

Everybody's absolutely fascinated.

It has a lasting effect.

It's absolutely... Sophisticated people still talk about it.

They will in a year from now.

Yeah, I agree.

Right.

I had a lot of people... Jeremy was having some fun today playing with some of his newsmen this year.

inquiry into the State Department on the files of congressmen who have acted with us on proper decorum of release.

Really?

Someone inquired about that?

We've got Bill Gill and Sue Hensley going after it.

Demanded from the State Department.

A congressman this afternoon demanded the files.

And he said, Mom, I had a hearing.

No.

I had a hearing on the Marshall Green song that he said to a local congressman.

But anyway, you guys, I've been looking drunk on everybody.

Say something about what I've seen.

It's very interesting.

Well, there is a leadership spot.

Of course not, but if there is any discreditable bunch in this country, it's the guys sitting up on that hill.

When they go abroad, they are, whether they think when they go abroad, they're, as politics, they're totally uninhibited.

And they, many of them behave well, but many of them believe me, when they get abroad, first they're waking their wives.

And, you know, they're in these foreign countries, they've got these counterpart funds, they've got unlimited money.

They're treated with a great deal of respect.

And they do that again.

Well, they rush out over the embassies.

Oh, they kick the embassies around.

They're arrogant, so many of them.

And another thing, too, is that they have no sensitivity about having to do the right thing.

They go to the goddamn whorehouses without any, you know, they don't give a shit.

And the ambassador at least tries not to do these things.

So we've got that diplomatic community, the congressional immunity business in the community.

Do anything.

Apparently, I talked to McCumber today.

He said that a hell of a lot of them had been coming up to him saying, Jesus, you know, we shouldn't really be raising this problem.

He said the ones that had been coming up to him were the ones that had long records like John Culver and I over a hundred years abroad.

They had

send someone out to pick them up in the bus and carry them.

So do they.

Well, when we travel, I try to be nice to embassy people.

You know, I always apologize for our imposition, because we are.

When the person comes in, you know, it turns everything upside down.

And I say, well, geez, you know, you'll be glad to get us out of town and be able to go back to a normal life.

And they all say, invariably, they say, this whole trip is nothing compared to having one congressman in town for a couple of days.

Because we at least should have considered it.

We should have turned it upside down, but we couldn't.

I thought, for example, when I traveled after I left the Vice Presidency, and I went down, of course, with one person, I didn't want to have to have to sit around and sit down and see people.

They insisted on it.

and colleagues, secretaries, and the rest of you who will be dropping notes, I would say would be able to thank you about it.

They were so great for being treated like human beings.

They're not treated that way, Chuck.

They're not treated that way.

That's the way they are.

They're not treated that way by a lot of businessmen.

A lot of businessmen are arrogant.

But it's the congressmen that they hate.

The congressmen are really horrible.

Really horrible.

Because, you see, they are.

The thing that you've got to remember is that you, you know what kind of, you know what kind of hard times are in our sheriff's office.

They can go to many of these companies and they just pick up a bundle of money right there.

And then they spend it on the carbon.

And also they order embassy personnel out to run errands for them and pen for them and all that stuff.

That one used to be one of the worst defendants.

He'd run up $1,000 bills and gifts, contract money, bring this up.

That's what he was doing.

He was running an congressional kind of carbon.

Investigation.

Well, I raised this, because you may hear from the Secretary of State, because McCumber is very antsy about keeping files on Congress.

Well, but why is it?

It was just...

This isn't Congress.

This isn't going to say that you have this out in the White House, sir.

Oh, no, no, State Department.

That's exactly why I alerted McCumber.

Yeah.

And we have it in Congress over here.

That's right.

Oh, but a congressman had raised it on the floor this afternoon, so we'd better be ready.

Did a congressman raise it?

Yes, sir.

Which one?

Congressman Hunt of New Jersey.

I'll be able to before later.

He does it himself.

But what did he say?

He simply said there should be a, as long as Ambassador Watson's record is being made public, and he's been subject to this kind of scrutiny by the Senate committee, that perhaps all of this, perhaps the State Department should produce all of the files on all congressional junkets where there have been any incidents at all

either violating protocol or offensive to the host couple.

Starting with Senator Kennedy's night out in Paris that he saw his funeral.

He says that's right.

Well, his night out in Paris and also his trip to Mexico and his return from Alaska, when he was in Mexico, he was a really, really a goddamn animal, you know.

I mean, he went far beyond the pale and that stuff.

It was all over the country.

Understand, I don't want any of them.

I mean, I understand these things.

There have been people who go on, but they're going to pick up, they're going to kill Watson because there's one breathing episode and trying to, trying to fondle a girl on an airplane.

They're crime six and these guys got to stand up and take something.

Well, you're, we, we ought to recognize we're in the kind of year where

It's best if we give them signals early that if they want to play rough, we're going to play rough.

They're going to kick back.

That's right.

That's why I wrote a lot today.

That's why I'm sorry we didn't go do anything on that Miami Convention Club.

Well, we can't do it on a good record.

But there must be some things we've got on these sons of bitches.

The thing to do is to say we're going to go after them.

We're going to investigate their income.

We're going to investigate, I don't know, their own dough.

We're going to investigate their sex life.

Anything.

That's the thing to do.

We can keep pressing them on the AT&T thing.

Bob Dill has gotten a rash of mail on that from all across the country.

Well, Bob's going to raise it again this week, ask the FCC to investigate.

That's the issue, whether that's an illegal contribution.

Sure.

How long can you carry a bad debt?

And go on and .

Yeah.

Is that what it is?

Four years ago.

Yes, sir.

Four years.

They carried it without interest, which is the loan account.

Of course, they carried it for three years.

So what person paid that?

We paid that before we went back to ask for more.

The basic point is that we've got to let them know right away, the Democrats, that if they want to go into gut fighting, they'll get gut fighting back and

That's the only thing that keeps them loose, believe me.

That's why we put so goddamn much effort in this IT&T thing, because if we ever succeed in turning that on, they're going to look at us several times.

I wish it well.

I don't want the Bureau and all the rest to think that even if nothing comes out of the tiebreaker thing, even if nothing comes out of it, if you can't get a thing out, maybe the Bureau will screw you.

He has the furriest son that we can give to Jack Anderson.

Well, we have a whole... Let's play on Anderson's notoriety now.

What the hell?

He's a big man.

You get a whole plot contacted yesterday.

Well, how about that's what I mean.

Let's get a whole...

Even if it's not true, you'll grant it.

Oh, I get just the scheme for that.

He checks it out.

We can get into his office and type some documents in his office on his typewriter.

Yeah.

on Commerce Department stationery that are explosive, and then get them back, feed them to him, let him publish them, get the documents, and prove they were typed in his office.

Now, Bob, that's screwing Jack Anderson.

I'm talking about screwing this.

That's a great complaint, correct?

Yeah, but he looks like, why not, instead of screwing Jack Anderson, why not using him also?

In other words, giving him some stuff that would gun on other people.

I disagree.

I think he will.

I think he'll use anything that builds himself.

Make your way.

And he'd like to do some on the other side to build his own credibility.

His big plan this year is to be able to attack the administration.

That's going to get them.

Let's try that.

At least you've got to say, hey, it took one hour and a quarter.

That's right.

Take a dirty story and give it to them and see what happens.

Herb has fed them a few.

Herb has kept the relationship close to a client.

Yeah.

And they haven't hit.

John has fed him some, too.

I don't think we've had an awful lot of awkwardness.

All right.

Okay.

I'd kind of like to trap the bastard.

I think he can be... That may be the... That may be a way to do that.

We have a... We have a fellow who's very eager to try.

Did I get anything on you?

I thought there was some...

I've been doing a check on him.

You don't have a gift.

It's great to be an homosexual.

Is he married?

I'm married.

Well, the reason is that he sure looks odd.

He sure does.

Just tell us the appearance of it.

He's pretty and he's... Yeah, and the way he handled his demeanor is curious.

Well, I think Anderson is.

He acts like Anderson.

I remember years ago, he's got a strange, strange hands-on.

I think Anderson was doing a key in Anderson's room.

They told Anderson to set the cover of What a Time and Newsweek next week.

It's incredible how they built it.

Yeah.

Incredible how they're building that son of a bitch up.

Just incredible.

He was after making a name.

He did it.

Billing him up on stuff, none of which has yet been proved.

Oh, well, they had some papers, and of course he got that link.

Of course, those are true reports.

But as far as this stuff is concerned, none of the goddamn things have been proved.

One thing had gotten out.

It was either from somebody who was pissed off, or the anti-stuff that's been against him.

It was accurate.

Fortunately, let me tell you, the kinds of news we talk about as much influence as that desk, that goddamn, those sheets are gone now.

They might be weird, they don't have much.

They appeal to the media, they appeal to a certain audience, they appeal to a certain readership that it's important to fight for, but not mass appeal, man.

Did you get somebody to work on that?

Did you get somebody to work on that speech with the Canadian legislature?

I'm going to get a, you know, a substitute.

I'm going to start with a substitute.

Go ahead.

And understand, I can't do a thing on it, so I've got to have something that somebody can look over and say, here's something you can just pick up and read, and I'm able to do something.

But I don't want to have something where I've got to take off a day to write the top-end speech.

So you shouldn't, because it isn't worth taking the time.

And I'll look at it, and if it's just too inactive, I'll throw it away for us.

Plus, we're keeping the thing open.

And he's going to try to price on the other one when he gets back, the court thing.

For sure.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

That's a very good idea.

The radio speech is coming up.

It should not be the first one.

It should be the second.

Right.

Lou Harris is giving us two very good polls, actually, Mr. President.

Yeah, did you see?

He does a real hectic job on Muskie, and he did.

Well, they're both the trial teams and the analyses, but they show, they make Muskie look very bad, and published on the Thursday before the Wisconsin primary.

His editor wanted to put it out next Monday, and Lou decided it would be better on Thursday.

He's doing Humphrey on Monday.

He's doing Humphrey on Monday, which isn't,

It's negative, but not as negative.

The Muskie one is a real hatchet.

It starts out, Senator Edmund Muskie's initial troubles in the Democratic primaries were further reflected in the Harris survey for early March, which shows the main Democrat curling President Nixon's 47-35.

This represents a sharp swing from a 42-42% deadlock last January.

In a two-way contest, Muskie runs behind the incumbent in the White House by a 13-point margin, 50-37, which is a

And then he goes in and proceeds to just assassinate him.

Oh, Christ.

Well, he says, Muskie has been campaigning from the outset on, he is the kind of man you can trust, end quote.

Last September, the public agreed to this claim 39 to 20, with a high 41% undecided.

In the months between, the number who expressed trust in Muskie has risen only one percentage point, while a number reaching the opposite conclusion has risen seven percentage points.

still a third are undecided.

Even more telling is that fully one third of the voters have not responded one way or another to this political approach.

He's going down on his personal characteristics.

He really concludes by saying that people don't think anything of him.

The most telling result in the entire profile of Senator Muskie is that in no case was the majority of the voters able to coalesce behind any view about him, positive or negative.

These results can only be taken to mean it must be up to this point in time that it's been campaigning virtually in a vacuum.

Have you talked to Sinley since he died?

No, I haven't, Mr. President.

I haven't had time.

I'm sure he was so tickled to be down here with his wife.

Oh, nothing could throw him away.

He's very proud of his wife.

I don't know why, except maybe she's a good cook.

Not much else.

How do you know?

What else have you got?

Well, she doesn't look like one.

Except the consumer index of appointments, which is one of the biggest ones.

We needed a dramatic angle, and we sure got it in this case.

And couldn't think of a better way.

Positive leadership moves, things people care about.

Those are our enforcers.

I thought, here's all the drama getting beat again.

Oh, he's still with me.

All through my conversation with him, he said, I hope you folks aren't getting into my company.

He said, every place I go, it's like a business.

He said, I hope you folks aren't getting into my company.

Well, of course, people... Well, the other problem is... We somehow seem to get the best out of it.

We seem to keep getting over the edge.

We have to try to...