Conversation 700-010

TapeTape 700StartMonday, April 3, 1972 at 4:32 PMEndMonday, April 3, 1972 at 5:36 PMTape start time03:10:36Tape end time04:14:27ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob");  Butterfield, Alexander P.;  Ehrlichman, John D.;  Sanchez, Manolo;  Bull, Stephen B.Recording deviceOval Office

On April 3, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Alexander P. Butterfield, John D. Ehrlichman, Manolo Sanchez, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:32 pm to 5:36 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 700-010 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 700-10

Date: April 3, 1972
Time: 4:32 pm - 5:36 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

     John D. Ehrlichman
          -Preparations for meeting with Henry A. Kissinger
          -Speech
               -Raymond K. Price, Jr.
          -Speech
               -Price
          -Discussion with John B. Connally
               -The President's trip to Philadelphia
               -Tax reform proposal

     Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
          -Speech at National Cathedral School

     The President's schedule
          -Price
          -Appointments
                -Vietnam
          -Speech draft
                -Work

     Education representative, Sidney P. Marland, Jr.
         -Speech to convention
                -The President's greetings

     Book by Russell Kirk
         -The President's memorandum
         -A Program for Conservatives

     -[Dwight] David Eisenhower, IIand Julie Nixon Eisenhower
          The Conservative Mind
     -Publication
     -Cover
          -Title
                -Problems
     -Copies
          -Staff members
          -Patricia H. Alsop
          -Mix-up
                -Julie Nixon Eisenhower

Drug speech
     -Further work by the President
     -Hotline
     -Television
     -Radio delivery
     -Television delivery
           -Problems
     -Radio speech
           -Value
           -Drafting
     -Problem of drugs
           -John R. (“Tex”) McCrary, Richard A> Moore and Dwight L. Chapin
           -Personification
                -Myles J. Ambrose
                      -Compared with J. Edgar Hoover
                -John N. Mitchell
                -Ambrose
                      -Presence at arrests
                      -McCrary
           -Announcements
                -New penalties
                -Hotline
                      -Phone company
                            -Notification
     -Radio speech

Press conference
      -McCrary
           -Office

                       -Photograph pool
                            -Need for more film
                                 -Television
           -Problems
                -Timing
                -Meeting with editors

     The President's schedule
          -Open weeks
          -Vietnam
               -Bombing
               -Weather breaks

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 3m 14s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

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Alexander P. Butterfield entered at 4:41 pm.

     Ehrlichman
           -Meeting with the President

Butterfield left at 4:42 pm.

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 3m 17s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2

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    Polls
            -ITT case
                 -Impact
                       -Dita D. Beard
            -Busing
            -Food prices
                 -Negative impact

    Busing
         -Ehrlichman

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 11s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3

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    Media relations
        -Story on young men in administration
               -People's Republic of China [PRC]
                    -Ronald L. Ziegler
                    -Winston Lord
        -Life

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 9s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4

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John D. Ehrlichman entered at 4:52 pm.

     Greetings

     Ehrlichman’s schedule

Haldeman left at 4:53 pm.

     Busing
          -Ehrlichman's role in issue
                -Charles W. Colson
          -Clark MacGregor
                -Meeting with southern congressmen
          -Edward L. Morgan
          -Administration's position
                -Publicity in Michigan
          -Fifty cities
                -Visits
          -Moratorium strategy
                -Work with Congress
                       -Jacob K. Javits
                            -Need to counteract
                -Votes in conference
                       -Morgan
                -Impact in California

Manolo Sanchez entered at an unknown time after 4:53 pm.

     Refreshment

The President left at an unknown time before 5:36 pm.

     Refreshments

Sanchez left at an unknown time before 5:36 pm.

     [No conversation]

The President entered at an unknown time after 4:53 pm.

     Busing
          -California
          -Administration's statement
                -Television
          -California
                -Ehrlichman's visits

     Ehrlichman's visit to California
           -St. Helena

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 6
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 27s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 6

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          -Busing issue
               -Interest
                     -Blacks
               -Support for the President

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 2m 44s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7

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    Busing
         -Constitutional amendment
               -Racial division
               -Alienation of poor blacks
               -Los Angeles Times
               -Wine growers in Napa Valley
         -Los Angeles Times colloquy
               -Ehrlichman's meeting
                     -Davis
                     -[Unknown person]
                     -Richard Burkholtz
                     -Carl [?] [Surname unknown]
                     -Tony Day
                     -Burkholtz
         -Administration position
               -Opposition to court ordered busing
                     -Distinction from voluntary busing
                     -State of the Union speech
                     -Democratic principles
                           -David Eisenhower
         -Polls
               -Ehrlichman’s talks with Haldeman
               -Questions on popular perceptions
                     -Lyndon K. (“Mort”) Allin
         -Media
               -Confusion of issues
               -Editorial writers
               -Publicity for administration's opposition
                     -Busing
               -[First name unknown] Mitchell

              -Marion W. Edelman
              -National Broadcasting Company [NBC] special
                   -Edelman
                   -Howard H. Baker, jr.
                   -Abraham A. Ribicoff
                         -Busing in north
                   -Administration's opposition
         -Congress
              -Strom Thurmond
              -Samuel J. Ervin, Jr.

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 8
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 26s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 8

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    Bay of Pigs files
         -Orders for Department of Defense
               -David Young
                      -J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.
         -Lucien E. Conein
         -White House involvement
         -Richard M. Helms
         -John A. McCone
         -Allan W. Dulles
         -Helms
               -Involvement in Bay of Pigs incident

Pentagon Papers
     -J. William Fulbright hearings
           -Release of "Kennedy papers"
           -Fulbright's intentions
           -Vietnam
     -Files on assassinations
           -Television documentary
           -Kennedy allies
           -Life

Victor L. Marchetti
     -Publication of story on CIA
           -Helms's concern
           -Reasons for concern
           -Harm to CIA
     -Law suit against Marchetti
           -Breach of contract
           -Criminal suit
           -Injunction

Population Commission
     -Ehrlichman's meetings with John D. Rockefeller III
           -Nelson A. Rockefeller's calls to Ehrlichman
     -Proposals for the President
           -Treatment
                 -Abortion
                 -Compared with Marijuana commission
           -Administration's disagreement
                 -The President’s population message
                 -Handling
                       -Patrick J. Buchanan’s view
                             -Effect on Nelson Rockefeller
     -Abortion issue
           -Political opposition
           -Support
                 -Control of blacks and Puerto Ricans
     -Vasectomies
     -White House approval
           -Statement on abortion
           -Consideration of other proposals
                 -John Rockefeller

                      -Talk with Ehrlichman
          -Personal conscience
          -Support for population control
               -John Rockefeller
               -Social classes
                      -Upper classes
                      -Lower classes
                           -Lack of control
               -San Francisco
                      -Black population growth
     -Blacks
          -Low standard of living
          -Migration to cities
     -Administration's dealings with commission
          -William W. Scranton
          -Meeting with John Rockefeller
          -John Rockefeller's staff director
               -Length of meeting
          -Meeting with John Rockefeller
               -Call from Nelson Rockefeller
               -Vietnam

Declassification of secret documents
     -John S. D. Eisenhower
     -Executive Order
           -Timing
     -Review procedure
           -Disputes
                 -Resolution
           -John Eisenhower appointment
     -John Eisenhower
           -Author of a book

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 9
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 6s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 9

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              -Submission of name for position

    US Postal Service [USPS]
        -Ehrlichman's meeting with Elmer T. (“Ted”) Klassen
               -Rate raise
                     -Klassen's opposition
        -Parcel post
               -Damage rate
               -Competition from United Parcel Service [UPS]
               -Reform
                     -Cuts in work force
                     -Low productivity
                     -Overstaffing
        -Personnel
               -Turn-over
               -Cuts in work force
                     -Problems
                           -Election year
               -Freeze on hiring
               -Congressional hearings
               -Firings
               -Rate increase compared to overstaffing
               -Conflicts
                     -Hiring of youths
                           -Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
                           -Costs
        -Youth
               -Defense Department
               -Alternative jobs

               -Civil Service Commission, Agnew and Office of Management and
                     Budget [OMB]
     -Freeze
           -Jennings Randolph
                -Complaints
     -Firings
           -Top people

ITT case
     -George S. McGovern
          -Staff
                -Frank F. Mankiewicz
                -Links with Edward M. Kennedy
          -Comments on corporation taxes
                -Inaccuracies
                      -San Diego incident
                -Press criticism
                      -Colson
                      -Lyndon B. Johnson
                      -John F. Kennedy
                -Falsehood of statement
                -Question on panel Issues and Answers
     -Payment of taxes
          -Annual report
          -Security and Exchange Commission [SEC] files
                -Public record
     -Hubert H. Humphrey

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 10
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 21s ]

STEPHEN B. BULL ENTERED AT AN UNKNOWN TIME AFTER 4:52 PM.

BULL LEFT AT AN UNKNOWN TIME BEFORE 5:36 PM.

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 10

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    ITT Case
         -Beard's charges
               -Vance Hartke
                     -Use of airplane
                           -The President's experience
         -Robert C. (“Bob”) Wilson
               -Use of ITT support
               -Ties with ITT
         -Antitrust suit
               -Richard W. McLaren
               -Harold S. Geneen
               -Peter M. Flanigan
               -Agnew
               -Wilson [?]
               -John B. Connally
               -Peter G. Peterson
               -Pressures to drop suit
                     -Flanigan
         -Geneen
               -Acquaintance with the President
               -Meeting with Ehrlichman and Colson
                     -Memorandum to Ehrlichman
               -Acquaintance with the President
                     -Memorandum

                            -Alexander P. Butterfield
                            -Staff secretary
                            -Haldeman
                 -Dealings with Flanigan
                 -Memorandum to Ehrlichman
           -Antitrust suit
                 -John N. Mitchell
                       -Importance of case
                 -Richard G. Kleindienst
                       -Problems
           -Contributions
                 -Flanigan's knowledge
                 -Discussion
           -Antitrust suit
                 -Geneen's comments
                 -Memorandum to Ehrlichman
                 -Mitchell and Kleindienst
                       -Meeting with Geneen
                            -Letter to [Forename unknown] O'Brien
                       -Denial

     White House staff
          -Ehrlichman’s schedule
          -Necessity to relax
                -Ehrlichman, Colson, Haldeman and Kissinger
          -Use of Camp David
          -Facilities
          -President’s trip to the Soviet Union

Ehrlichman left at 5:36 pm.

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 wonder if John is ready for that.
No, John has, well, he's ready.
The part, he isn't ready for the speech.
He's got my name in the line, probably to take him away from the speech.
No, he has great right in the speech.
Good.
on a redo.
He's approved and outlined the specific points.
And then they're going over that.
They will have a speech first thing in the morning.
He says, as far as Connolly's concerned, he has gone over Connolly's point is, A, you should go to the Catholic youth and he thinks he's always been for that and thinks it would be a very good thing for you.
B, you should not
law, the tax reform thing up yourself.
And John says this approach means that he will specifically go over what he's got .
I joined the vice president, he's doing that for Christ's sake, National Cathedral School.
Why would he be doing that?
I thought it was National Catholic School.
Well, then it's enough to tell Ray, I don't need it tomorrow morning.
You see, I've started it tomorrow morning.
I've got to get to 10 o'clock every morning on the Vietnam situation.
And I have appointments tomorrow.
So I'd rather work on this starting tomorrow morning.
No, either.
Well, I think you better say tomorrow morning.
No, it's regular.
Yeah, okay, I'll say that on that.
You know, I'm going to be coming in by 2 o'clock.
Pretty well tied up.
Well, yes, I am.
Huh?
What about that?
Pretty much.
Well, maybe.
I'm sorry, I don't need it until tomorrow night.
Why don't I take a look at the damn thing?
Well, why don't you?
Well, you can do it.
You can do it in the late morning, which is nice.
Let's keep it on for the morning.
And then you take a look in the morning, and we'll decide then whether we've got anything that's right to go with it.
Well, you haven't accepted anything yet, have you?
No, sir.
And we don't need you.
Your education .
Yeah, I'm .
Go ahead.
He spoke this morning as the education commissioner, and he carried greetings from the president.
And they did it in such a way that you agreed to the convention, but it didn't preclude.
It wouldn't look awkward if you came, other than you didn't speak for the president.
He spoke on technical grounds and all that.
So we'll see.
I'm puzzled by your memo on the Kirk books.
There are two different books.
Yeah, but the book we sent was a program for conservatives.
Apparently, maybe he did.
Maybe he did according to... Because I asked Dave and Julie Bolton.
They said they got their conservative mind.
Well, I've got to check then, because we've got ten books.
There are two of your books, you know.
I know.
30 Minds, that thing.
This is a paperback book.
You can't get it in hardcover.
It's out of print.
And we got it in a softcover, because they have it as a textbook, in a textbook series.
And it says on the cover, A Program for Conservatives by Russell Kirk, the author of The Conservative Mind.
They may have misread it, or we may have gotten one of the wrong books in the back, because we got ten.
And I've gone back and checked with the half of those people who got them.
They got the pro-member concern.
I just wanted to be sure.
I just wanted to be sure that the others didn't get it because it's just...
Well, let me check with Julie to be sure, because she may have gotten the wrong book.
She may have gotten the wrong book, and it's too hard to go in.
Yeah.
Well, no problem.
One of the... Well, I just thought maybe I'd better check.
I think you sent one to Mrs. Alsop.
You know, you said, you know, I'll just send...
I checked.
It was a program for conservatives.
And the ones that we sent to staff people here were... Let me check with Julie just to be sure, because they may have gotten the wrong book.
Oh, on the drug speech, what's your thinking on that?
Do you want to pursue that or do you want not to?
Well, I haven't studied it yet.
Suppose I studied it.
All right.
Is that the hotline thing they're going to do on that date?
They're going to do this weekend.
And it's a question with one of the warriors, a farmer who was a man from the R&C Center, another county general.
The armistice.
Very fast, very versatile.
Very good.
Boy.
Very good.
TV young brother.
Your view would be...
That was the original idea on it.
Is there any other way?
How about a radio?
Sure, it could be a radio.
No.
I like it, but I...
I'm just not sure that the president calling for national TV prime time talking on drugs, you know what I mean?
I...
I mean, on a radio, on a radio, I'm for all the way.
Understand?
All the way.
I think I want to use more radio, actually, too, you know.
Oh, and maybe that's what I do.
Maybe we just ought to try it that way, but I'm not sure about that we can wheel the other disciplines.
How about taking him to the radio then, and I'll read it over, I'm sure he'll do that.
It's interesting, I'm getting a lot of stuff up here that, you know, we're following up on some of McCrary's ideas.
Yeah.
Getting some stuff there, and Dick Moore and Chip spent quite a little time with him on Friday in New York, going over, following up on a whole series of things, but one of them is the drug thing.
And he makes the point that you gotta personify things like this and the thing to do is to go all out on building up ambros as your drug fighter guy.
Mild ambros, yeah.
He's tough, he's articulate.
And he will do a good job.
And he says, yeah, make him a big thing.
And every time, he was dramatized.
We wanted to get Mitchell, you know, to go out on those arrests and all.
He couldn't.
And maybe it wasn't right for him here in general.
But this guy, Christ, every time they pick up a guy like Harold, he could go out and go on television and wave the thing and say, this is so much pop that you're getting.
I mean, Harold, that your kids aren't going to stick it in their veins.
And he could carry, you know, time for that.
We could spend some time.
In fact, even, that's what we did.
Maybe let Macquarie get in the act a little bit.
Let him start working on a dramatization program.
Go ahead.
I'll look at the drug thing tonight, as a matter of fact, and I'll prove it.
I'd rather be able to do a better thing on the drug thing than do it on the television.
And then I'll find ways to use Ambrose.
And...
But we can find some ways to use Android.
I was going to say, we also find ways, too, to make announcements about...
The announcement thing we've got is just this hotline for reporting.
Yeah.
Well, I could put that on the radio, then.
Sure.
That's not bad.
If you do that, you should do it during the daytime.
The phone company wants it done before the weekend, so they have a weekend to ride through the huge influx of calls.
They didn't know their own question about radio calls.
Well, they were talking about it for the LV.
I thought we were on TV.
Radio does look at quite a few.
Because they'll go on the news.
Yeah.
Craig had another interesting point on the press conference.
He had gone through your press conference and circled all the things that were good and all that and said, this shows what a great job he does, but we're not getting it through right.
And he said, you should, on a press conference like that, if you do any more in the office, let the photo pool and the real pool in for about two minutes for silent footage and stills.
so that they get some film.
He said if they had film, then you would have had much more of that on television.
Now, don't uncover it with microphones, you see, but just let them get this work around the room, show the report cards all clustered in front of the desk and shoot the president from the back and some of that kind of stuff.
It's probably a good idea if we do that kind of thing.
Well, we do, but I think there's a possibility that you're in a remote area much more than we are.
I think so.
We may have a problem.
It seems we always have a problem.
What I'm thinking, of course, is that I know you've got to go then.
the 13th, or we'll have to go make no notes on issues on media, because it's a question of going the 13th or the first or the next week, because at that time, it'll wind up one way or another.
Then we have to knock our, then we just knock out the thing with the editors.
Good point.
Fortunately, we're keeping both weeks open.
Both weeks are open.
In case I have this.
But just maybe the 13th, I think we're going to be able to go.
You know what I mean?
By that time, it might be good to go on.
By that time, we will read the latest bombing.
We may have done some good over there.
The weather can't stay bad for another week.
Now incidentally, that was also the weekend people, but we did have to get a little bit better comments out of ITT, if you may recall.
Okay.
See?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what Peter Beard, yeah, I know.
We made a chart.
That thing, you know, it's funny, all was negative, except for the busing thing, which was a mess.
I thought it was more positive than negative, but we were really catching it, you know, on that and food pricing and the rest of it.
You see, we started with food pricing.
The main thing started with the food pricing.
Usually, John, us, you know, just, yeah.
You said we're out of the, for you to take track, but yeah, just, we were, our position's not, we're out of the, we're missing some strokes and all that.
So, yeah.
that we have a thing on.
I just want to be sure if you want to.
They want to do a story on Nixon's young man in China, which would be a thing on Ziegler and...
I don't want to try to get anything in life after that last issue.
It was so lousy.
I just feel that sometimes, Bob, you've got to do something for principle.
Okay.
I love you guys.
Thanks for that.
We're partly cutting off our noses by our face, but it may be worth doing.
Maybe it is.
And then we can see if we can't work that story somewhere else.
Because to do it, we have to cooperate with them.
I mean, it's not...
It's a story that we have to work with them on.
Have you been reading life?
Yeah, it's terrible.
It's unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
I just don't think that it's worth trying to get even that much into some of it.
and all the activists.
I just think it's very important that we get our, like everything else, able to bring up those interventions
And the story in the South, I had a great prayer and had one meeting with Southern Congress.
When they get it back, they can get a few more.
I know that he's working down.
I mean, I know that Margaret's working media down there.
He's back.
Good.
But anything that can be done, and it should be with a rifle and not a shotgun, too.
uh... well uh... there are fifty cities key states where they'll be allowed to reopen and rather than to have some kind of a reason to hear we were just talking about going to the majority of those 50 cities that's right
Okay, but you got it messed up.
The other point is that I wonder what our strategy at the present time is on the busing moratorium.
Is it over up on the hill?
Yeah.
Well, our only hope for accomplishment is in the conference.
And, of course, we'll not do it right now when we get back.
And, of course, there are probably problems that you guys are trying to solve.
Yeah.
We can't have it solved yet.
We're not going to agree to have it solved.
But he may take the flight away from us.
He better have something.
And, well, we obviously can't pose openly.
But I was talking to Morgan this morning about how to get up the folks.
It seems to me there are two levels of perception of this thing.
One is the papers and the media and so on, and a few of the Congressmen, and the other is the folks.
I was comparing notes with him.
I think we're getting half the folks in the state of California.
uh...
If I got it, there's one thing we ever did.
If we dodged a bullet, we didn't just go with that damn statement for an unwritten statement.
Yeah.
If we had done that, writers would have killed us.
They did kill us.
And as a matter of fact, by the television thing, oh, they just meant that it just took them a few days to catch up with us.
Yeah.
But in California, remember what you read?
Well, all kinds of people, just folks.
And you asked them about it.
They came at me.
Oh.
They knew about it.
They knew about it.
What kind of cities now?
St. Helena by Napa Valley.
It's not a personal issue.
But three different people up there, three different situations.
One where we stayed overnight, who was a guy just in business there.
Another guy was a fellow at the winery.
And another was an academic who was visiting up there.
All three came at me.
The president was right.
The president's right on this.
The thing that I don't like about the whole thing, and of course it's another two things, from a political standpoint, there was only one good, effective way to do this, which we all did, and that was constitutional amendment.
Then we would draw this order, we would separate the blacks from the whites.
I think on the other hand, on the other hand,
that I would have had the problem of living with myself because first I would know that the, even though it would get true, of course, it would still get better politically, but the point is that if you take the Constitution and just say you can't bus for the purpose of transportation, it seems to me that you really are saying to those poor blacks, even though they may be a minority, but for the black community, we'd be one damn bunch.
Isn't that the reason you didn't do it?
Well, that and the fact that it's a blunt instrument.
You go after the evil, but you also screw up an awful lot of other things.
Go on and talk about what you read.
Well, at the L.A. Times, it was kind of interesting, because... Why did you tell me what you were trying to say there?
because they just repelled the idea of forcing kids to be adults against the will of the parents.
And they slide over into this business of we pick the school district and we pick where we want to live and then to have some judge tell us that our kid's got to go to the next town and so forth.
But not in their own lives.
It doesn't affect their own lives at all.
It's just a question of what they see going on around the country.
But this business of David's,
came out in a colloquy at the L.A. Times editorial board.
You went there?
I was there.
And I had Dodis, and I had Burt Holtz, and I had Carl, and the whole crowd, and their education guy, and so on.
And they're all their editorial writers, 20 days, and so on.
But the thing that came out there, Burt Holtz was not well prepared.
And he made a mistake.
And he put a question that implied that we were asking for a moratorium on voluntary blessing by school districts.
And I nailed it.
And I said, now that's the important distinction here.
We believe in local control of local school districts.
And what we object to is a judge...
acting in behalf of social therapy, imposing on the community, against its will, a pattern of transportation to achieve some social end.
Greatly appreciated.
A couple of guys on the board then chimed in and said, yes, that's right.
That's the distinction here.
And Burkholtz said, well, I don't see any difference.
And I said, Dick, you would be blind to that distinction as long as it came from this administration.
no matter what.
But I said, I think the other two will recognize that that's a fundamental distinction.
And I said, as far back as the State of the Union, he said that he thought that we were saying that if the local school district wanted to bust people, that they were barred by the moratorium.
Well, he had just said that in a phone line.
But I said, you'll find the roots of this back in the State of the Union, where the president said,
that a fundamental precept of this administration is local control of local school districts.
I said that's the democratic process that underlies desirable transportation.
That's transportation that people want for legitimate ends, what they agree to be legitimate ends.
And that's very at the back quarter of the question.
Now that, I think, is David's hit on, very important.
which is that this kind of thing won't be arrived at by the democratic process.
Well, anyway, I think we've got a fair penetration.
I talked to Bob about doing some polling, or doing piggyback, and Morgan and I are going to develop some questions tomorrow to piggyback on some of these polls.
and see just what sort of popular perception we are getting now that the media's had their day for two weeks and see how it affects.
But the media, fortunately, while it's had their day, they tend to confuse it.
Oh, yeah.
They tend to confuse it, we have to realize.
On the other hand, as they tend to confuse it, anybody looking at one of those media, some of the bitches, and again, it doesn't happen.
They're in the toilet right now.
They have very little time.
But looking at those TV guys, we're going to know when it's on the pitch.
We will send them now.
People see them, and they're antithetical to each other.
Some of them say more money doesn't make any difference.
Some of them say, you know, all this does, it's all right.
But the thing that emerges from it all is the president's against Buster.
I think it does.
I think it has.
You're being attacked.
And you're being attacked by the right guys.
You're being attacked by Mitchell, and you're being attacked by, you know, at least, well, Edelman, Herman, no, this woman here, Marion Edelman, the Negro lawyer.
The NBC has a special.
Good.
Howard Baker did very well on it.
But they were... Rivercock took off on that show.
Which way does he want?
He's for busing.
He's for busing in the north.
He objects to our position because it exempts the north from what happens in the south.
He's back on that kick.
But what came through the whole program more than what was the persons against busing.
And I think that that's what's... That's good.
There are a lot of things we can do now with John Furman and Sam Irwin and other people.
Sure.
It has to be done head-to-head.
Which really is a great question, but we'll make that understanding.
We'll get to that in a week or so to come.
They fixed.
We had passed the word to the Department of Defense to start moving out the files that they fixed and to do it in such a way that the White House was in no way associated with it.
So, well, David Young was doing it through Fred Buzzard, who's a general counsel over there, right?
And I felt a little uncomfortable about Koneen being a little too close to us.
So I didn't want to work through him this time.
Now, when and in what form and where it ends up, I don't know yet.
That's one of the penalties of having it once removed.
But we'll keep on it.
And they understand that we want to be there to help.
Maybe.
Maybe.
I don't know.
No, I don't think so.
See, Helms was the head of operations.
But it will not appear to be coming from hearing or will be obviously coming from the CIA.
Well, you may have noticed that Fulbright started hearings next week on the Pentagon Papers.
Well, he's in control of the hearings.
And what he's got up his sleeve, I don't know.
But there will be hearings.
Presumably, we'll go into the whole antecedents of the Vietnam War.
Now, as far as the assassination is concerned,
We would have shot our wallet on that with a television documentary.
Everything is out that we had on that, rural county people and all that shit.
It didn't make more than just one house.
We had hoped that life would run.
Life feels that it's shopworn goods now, apparently.
But anyway, we are beginning to move on that.
Helms came in and talked to you about a problem that he had with Hussein al-Shayr.
What that is...
It is one of our bastards.
No, it is a guy named Marchetti, who used to be with a high-ranking, young official of the CIA.
He's very disillusioned.
He's out peddling his story, and it's a very, very bad, compromising set of facts.
When did he leave?
This administration?
No.
Well, I don't care about it.
Well, you would because the French president is impairing CIA's usefulness.
Not right now.
Not at the jail.
Well, what we're going to do is start a lawsuit against him.
He has not published it yet.
There's no criminal action.
And the things that he has done are basically breach of contract things so far.
Because nothing's been published.
It would be great if you could bring the premise to the light.
Well, I understand.
I understand.
First thing we want is to get an injunction.
Then if he violates the injunction, see, we can get him for all kinds of things.
But you're going to see this.
It's going to turn up, and that's what it is.
Population Commission.
I know you are.
And there's a complicated factor.
Every time that I have seen John D. Rockefeller, Nelson has called me to thank me for seeing him.
And it's as if... Is he the only one?
No.
John D. is the chairman.
But it's as if Nelson were trying to find some healthy activity for his brother.
Right.
Nelson's discussed with me your great generosity and all that stuff.
Now, I'm awfully afraid of the effect on our relationship with Nelson if we tee off on this guy.
Oh, I know.
But, you see, the proposal that's coming through is that you blast him out of the water.
And I know we just treated with the kid gloves except for abortion.
All you would have to do is treat it the way you treated the marijuana condition.
That's right.
Well, except I took them off.
Oh, well, that's all right.
I mean, you could do it as long as you do it in a kind of a genteel way and say...
these fellows have put in a lot of work of course i strongly disagree with some of their recommendations but there are other things in there that deserve serious thank you and i refer you to my own population message yeah yeah you can see you can get away with this but if you were to take the uh uh we'll hurt nelson's feelings wrong here because we heard nelson's feelings that's wrong here too because
The, let's face it, the abortion question is a hell of a close one, politically.
You know, I think that's, frankly, basically the horror of it, honestly.
But the Varsha grant is Varsha, but there are not many people that are.
When I say, I'm not sure there's a majority in the major states that are that way, because the reason that, as I told you, we talked about it earlier, that a hell of a lot of people want to control the Negro bastards.
Isn't that really true?
And the border region, for the bus station desectomies.
Well, that's in the recommendation.
But I think if we just take a sort of a, as you say, kid-gloved kind of a posture.
That's what I want.
But I do think I got this kid-gloved, but I'll take it on a portion.
No problem.
I've taken my position on a portion, and I disagree with that particular proposal.
The other proposals are a very serious consideration, period.
I've talked to John Rockefeller about the fact that you would never in the world agree on that.
He understands it completely.
I think that's a matter of, there's got to be, there's a matter of conscience, personal conscience I'm against.
Now, that lines me up with the Catholics.
As far as population control, the rest of it, well, we control it.
There are.
You know what we're talking about, population control.
Sure.
We're talking really in what John Rockefeller realizes.
Look, the people in what we call our class control their populations.
Sometimes they'll have a family of six or seven or eight or nine, but it's exceptional.
The people who don't control their families are people who shouldn't have kids.
The black population in the city of San Francisco has gone from 3,000 right after World War II
to where they represent 30% of the population of San Francisco.
Yes, sir.
Monstrous white flight.
And burgeoning black population.
I can't figure that out.
Well, you know, I think because the agrarian way of life is associated with slavery.
They've got to have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, the open question now is whether you meet with Rockefeller or you meet with the commission or what you do, and I don't know where the merits lie in all of that business, but we'll come back to it.
If Rockefeller would let me get away with it, remember we tried that with Scranton, he wouldn't let me do it, but if he let me do it, I'd rather meet with him and not with the whole commission.
I'd just say that I would rather do that because of the time that...
Well, he's got a terrible staff director who's at the root of the problem.
I would keep him out.
I would keep him out as a vice-champion.
If you had to have a second guy.
It wasn't a vice-champion.
It was a vice-champion.
And I will not have a staff director.
I just think that's the way I do these things.
Can I have him in?
I'll have to get him out.
Okay, well, if that happens, the next morning I'll have a call from Nelson Rockefeller thanking him for having him come in.
I'm willing to do it.
Let's see how that goes.
I'll be back to you on that.
John D. Eisenhower, or whatever his middle initial is,
in the executive order that we had you sign the other day that goes into effect the first of june about classification and declassification of secret documents no but there is a there's a review procedure prescribed in there somebody is appointed to be the guy to whom disputes are referred when the public wants to see a document and the government wants to keep it secret
Now, his name has been suggested along with some others.
Will he be alright?
I think he's bright enough.
Oh, he's smart.
Is he?
Good God, he wrote a book.
Well, I know he did.
He's a damn good book.
Yeah, he's a historian.
He's a damn good book.
Now, he's also totally straight arrow.
On this, he would be, it's a major order for him.
Alright?
Yeah.
All right.
It's made to order for him.
Well, good.
It's made to order for him, I believe.
I didn't want to approach him.
I didn't think he was doing the job he said.
He decided he couldn't be controlled.
Well, that's so much better, in a way.
He should not be under no control.
He'll go to the numbers.
But I think that's what you want.
Yeah, it is.
Right.
Well, if that's all right with you, I'll go ahead and start to put his name in.
Right.
But I didn't want to get started with it.
You are going to hear a lot about the post office in the next few days.
I hope you killed the chance.
I did.
I did.
I had a meeting with Classen today.
It suited him fine.
But here's what he's up to.
He wants to raise raising rates.
No, no.
No, he wants to avoid raising rates.
And he thinks he knows a way to do it.
He had a meeting with all his top people here in Chicago the other day, and he read the riot act here.
Do you realize that 45% of all parcel post now arrives damaged?
It is simply incredible.
And... Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Very... Oh, no.
No, but there are a lot of private outfits like the United Parcel that are growing up in competition with the post office.
And then they get a profit, and they're operating efficiently.
Klassen says the best thing that could happen to the post office is to fire 100,000 people, or a seventh of his workforce.
He said they're stumbling over each other, their productivity is way down.
He said, my students, well, now that's the point.
That's the point.
He has a 25% turnover annually, but mostly blacks.
And he said by simply not hiring for a year,
he can cut his workforce by 145,000 people.
And I said, well, gee, I said, Ted, we're coming into an election.
And he said, he said he's very sensitive to that.
He wants us to know what he's up to.
He's put a 90-day freeze on new hires right now.
And he's coming into congressional hearings next week
And he said he's not at all sure that he can hold the 90-day freeze in the face of the congressional hearing.
But in any event, I lectured him pretty hard today.
The day after the election.
Rather than freezing him down, just firing him down.
Well, he says he's caught because he's got to go for the rate increase if he can't come down to his workforce.
He says it becomes a balancing now.
Now, he says you get into associated problems.
He said that the vice president wants him to spend $80 million hiring kids for the summer to get them off the streets.
He said, hell, I haven't got any million dollars.
He says, I'm going to show an enormous deficit at the end of this year.
And he said, these kids are no damn good.
They get in our way.
They reduce our productivity, if anything.
He said, if you want me to hire $80 million worth of kids, he says, I'll hire them.
But he said, you've got to understand what it's going to do to the damn postal service.
Well, here's what I did.
I said, on the kids, let's get together with the Civil Service Commission people and the vice president and the OMB guys and see if there isn't some other way to do this.
On trail crews or something.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to be working on that.
But he said what's going to start to happen is the guys like Dennis Randolph are going to begin buttonholing the president and everybody in sight and bitching about the fact that we're tightening up.
I got it.
Okay.
I don't understand.
Okay.
But you and I know what we have to do.
Well, and I have indicated to him what we have to do in pretty much no uncertain terms.
But he's going to be making a lot of noise in the next few weeks, and he's going to be catching a lot of congressional flack because this is going to just get tough.
And he's firing guys for dropping packages, and he's going to fire some top guys in the post office who have been around very long.
Why do they hold you, baby?
Well, in the name of God, we've got to bring in staff.
It's all kind of insane.
Well, in the name of Christ, would he, would he, would he, would he go to the gold farm anyway, step into the night?
I mean, but is he not?
Is he not?
Well, more than that, he said it's because they took a business deduction for their contribution to the San Diego Convention.
A multi-million dollar corporation could be out of paying taxes for a business, which they hadn't taken because they hadn't spent the money yet.
He had to be dumb to swallow that, but somebody in his staff had to be super dumb to feed it to him.
Well, I was rather amazed, according to Colson, who said that some of the rest were getting after him, and I was surprised.
Yeah, it was quite a bit in the paper this morning and on the news last night on the television.
I mean, you couldn't imagine what they had done to me.
Oh, Lord.
John Johnson or anything you can imagine.
Right, you know, they were ridden me off by the ground.
No, I'm not kidding.
I mean, that will stay out of here.
That's really something.
Not because, I mean, you can accuse people of banality.
me guys and see if there isn't some other way to do this on trail crews or something yeah yeah well we're gonna we're gonna be working on that but he said what's gonna start to happen is the guys like jenny brando are gonna begin buttonholing the president and everybody in sight
and bitchin' about the fact that we're tightenin' up.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, and I have indicated to him what we have to do in pretty much no uncertain terms.
But he's going to be making a lot of noise in the next few weeks.
And he's going to be catching a lot of congressional flack because this is going to just get tough.
And he's firing guys for dropping packages.
And he's going to fire some top guys in the post office that have been around there a long time.
Why did they hold you in the department?
Why, in the name of God, we've got to bring in staff.
It's all kind of insane.
In the name of Christ, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he, would he,
Well, let me say this.
To say that a corporation hasn't paid taxes.
Anybody knows, I mean, a lot of people get away about paying taxes, but what the hell cut a corporation, you know?
I mean, ICE, Boeing, St. Gregory's, they lost money.
I mean, you've got that on issues.
Well, more than that, he said it's because they took a business deduction for their contribution to the San Diego Convention.
That's it.
That's it.
A multi-billion dollar corporation could be out of paying taxes for a business, which they hadn't taken because they hadn't spent the money yet.
He had to be dumb to swallow that, but somebody in his staff had to be super dumb to feed it to him.
Yeah.
Well, I was rather amazed, according to Colson, who said that some of the rest were getting after him, and I was surprised.
Yeah, it was quite a bit in the paper this morning and on the news last night on the television.
Oh, Lord.
No, I'm not kidding.
I mean, that will stay up here.
That's really something down here.
Not because, I mean, you could accuse people of banality and the rest, but on its face, any individual would know that it's untrue, right?
Could be possible.
A little snippet, $400,000 deduction, assuming the person can.
You know what occurred to me?
He was on a panel show where this happened, Issues and Answers.
It occurred to me that maybe one of the panelists said that to him ahead of the show, and his staff didn't have a crack at it, and that he was just dumb enough to swallow it.
And the panel set him up and asked him a question, and he did it.
Well, no, I would imagine that he was in good faith.
Yeah.
Yeah, it probably came up, you know, that $60,000 didn't pay any taxes.
Yeah, hey, that's kind of sci-fi.
One of the few times they handled it, so the police got on the fact that they paid several million salary in taxes.
Yeah, from their actual report.
It was this right there.
Wasn't it all, he could have checked the end of it.
Oh, yeah.
It's all published.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I remember something about corporations.
Isn't that true?
Isn't that right?
Absolutely.
Yep.
That's one income tax return that is not in vial.
Is it income tax return of the corporation?
Well, it's in vial in its terms.
A newspaper man could go over here and get it, but it shows up in their annual report.
It shows up in the SEC file.
It is, of course, not in the Sub-Saharan Public Guard.
But I'm sure they'll reach for it.
It's...
Of course, old Burberry, he was really not mad.
He'd get away with that very nicely, but the government was too serious to get away with it.
Because they were just saying, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I was just going to tell you this.
Well, he didn't have a lot of problems, let me say.
They got it there.
It should have shed the blood and everything.
It would begin to shed the blood.
I thought it was amusing that he'd appeared.
Hardly cheated.
Treated the ICP planes like it's private airline.
And he denies it.
No, it's true.
He's a venal son of a bitch.
Bob Wilson must be shaking in his boots.
I bet he rides him home every time he goes anywhere.
Because he's a whore for ITT.
Oh, God, that's terrible.
I didn't know that.
No, he's been tied to ITT for years.
The first time I ever heard of ITT around here was in Bob Wilson.
Who put the main pressure on, I remember when you came in and discussed that case, you know, and I can recall the election.
Yeah.
Remember, well, actually, we didn't discuss that case.
And generally, you were saying that McClaren is not following our policies on it.
That's right, that's right.
And I don't know if they're right to do it, but who was putting the main pressure on you?
Jimmy?
On you?
Well, I thought it was a plan.
Oh, right here, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Sure.
It was a plan.
But that's his job, isn't it?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Did you get pressure from that, too?
No.
No.
Wilson in the first instance.
No.
Peterson?
No.
You didn't.
And so the way, but on the other hand, you were working on it because of the antitrust.
You were recharging antitrust.
We were doing an antitrust policy study.
That's right.
Antitrust policy study, and this was a violation of it.
That's right.
But let me ask you, who was putting that?
Was it Flanagan?
Yeah, Flanagan from in-house was the source of pressure.
There was one time when you apparently had a conversation with Janine in one of these PatCat deals and had referred him to Colson and me.
No, I never met him.
Well, I got a memo that asked me to meet with him.
I thought so.
I thought so.
Anyway, that was an occasion then for me to meet with Janine for the first time.
Chuck sat in.
And then I met with him a second time.
It must have been Colson then.
It's Colson probably.
Well, he was expressly asked to sit in by the memo.
And I assumed from the memo, without ever discussing it with you, that you had had some brushing contact with him at the party or a meeting or something.
Never.
Never have.
Well, in any event, Chuck and I had one meeting with him.
Then I had another meeting with him myself.
And it was always on the question of bigness as a policy question of whether bigness was actionable.
Right.
Trust me.
And between the meetings, just because the memo specifically said that we were to meet with Janine together, I'll dig it out.