Conversation 706-002

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We're free to do so, in other words, until tomorrow.

We don't have to do it tomorrow.

We decided not to.

Oh, no, I'm wrong, sir.

Oh, we are.

We give other leaders a chance.

Well, the principal good idea about it is it gets you out of having to play it next week and the next week.

I don't intend to have leaders being too often up here.

You know, I mean, they're just in for the birds.

So we have to have something to have to follow.

Okay, the leader's meeting us tomorrow at 8 o'clock.

What is the situation now?

Let's schedule tomorrow.

What about Thursday then?

We've got it pretty much out there.

Thursday is Scott and Matt's deal still.

Because they couldn't shift.

They can't come tomorrow.

Over to today.

We probably could shift it to tomorrow if you want to.

Do it after the leadership meeting.

Yeah.

No, Scott's got him in his pitch.

But why not have him, uh, why not have him first thing in the afternoon?

Do you want to do that?

What else do you have the next day?

I'm just thinking, I might go to Camp David.

They're just on the other team.

Tomorrow night, see you then.

We can do, if you want to, we can do Scott and Matt Steele League this afternoon.

Which might be better for them anyway.

If they show this idea, let's get it done by 5 o'clock this afternoon.

How's that?

That was a possibility at one point, so I would assume it's still at 5 o'clock this afternoon over at the EOP.

We could have done that this morning, but Henry's tied up.

See if Henry could be with us tomorrow at 5 o'clock.

All right.

And today, if you want a picture of that, we'll meet it together.

Is there any other room where we could meet them, where we could let people take pictures?

I wonder if we would like it that they take a picture in the math room.

That's not a bad idea.

The math room can have the map pulled down.

That's more comfortable than the library would be.

Well, the library's not comfortable.

Well, it'll be more comfortable than either, but, uh... Why don't we tell them I have a picture in the math room, and let the people take it there, and we'll have the math go down.

There won't be much of a physical picture there.

Well, that's right.

Because the map is on the side.

That describes the map, huh?

But do you think it's a good idea to have one in the background?

Yeah.

Fine.

It takes care of that.

Then, this is today, you see.

Then that would clear tomorrow morning.

No, tomorrow morning.

No.

But it would clear Thursday morning.

Why don't we have Thursday for us today, then?

Until 5 o'clock.

Is it clear until noon?

Yeah.

That's good.

That's all I need.

What do we have in the afternoon?

All you have is the undercoaster change now.

All you have is a couple shots at noon.

We can change that if you want to.

Instead, you've got to sign your tax returns.

And we've run through that with DeMarco and the White House conference on you people that present their report, which is, we were going to do it then, and we were going to just run DeMarco in just before them, so you have only the thing in there.

Aren't you ready for what goes in?

Aren't you ready for what goes in tomorrow when you do that?

We can try.

Well, the White House conference.

Well, unless you want to say you can't do it.

You have to leave at 5 on Thursday for Canada.

That's right.

We could move it to later.

You could do it just before you leave for Canada.

We could do it at 4.

Why don't you do that?

Just in case, you know, I wanted to...

I'll do that.

Why don't you redo that, Bob?

No.

present that and go off to Canada.

The taxes will take me one minute.

I'm not asking you any questions.

The other people just did a few minutes.

We can do it, get it out of the way.

They don't want to have a long conference.

You can do it and then sign.

If there's any signing stuff, clean that up and then leave for Canada.

That way you could be gone from, you could leave here any time Wednesday after 10 o'clock.

And not go back until 3, 3 or 4.

Yeah, you'll be cleared then after the leaders' meeting.

I think it's a good idea for me to do that.

I've got some, I'm doing some sort of writing things out right now.

Sure.

And we've got, rather than coming Wednesday afternoon, we can have them come up to Camp David and we'll cancel them, if you don't mind.

Well, if this is this way, we can just cancel them.

If I go up, I'll cancel them.

Well, let them come to the other people anyway.

Just let them come.

Just let them know, you know, I mean, that's just what we're doing.

You can cancel them at the last minute.

Well, just let it come and then say, gee, let her go.

Well, that's good.

It's a good idea.

As far as anybody who goes up there with me this time, just have the usual one secretary.

I wouldn't bother with a way of...

No, I think we'll finish that damn speech tonight.

I think Henry's getting his copies by 2 o'clock today.

The Canadian speech.

And, uh, but take one of your girls up there, you know.

That was very useful in Florida.

And if you go around, just say that one of them, if you've given this one girl a chance, take, uh, Mitch, and I'll go over.

All right.

Yeah.

Now, maybe it isn't well-mixed, but maybe she's very good.

She may take a little time.

Does that pose a problem?

That doesn't pose a problem, but I think it's good to mix them up amongst the ones that you're comfortable with.

Fine.

Well, you found one we have.

The more we can get that you feel you can now use, the better off we are.

I found this one, and I found Yates.

Do you want to try the other, the young one?

Or is she that terribly good one?

I've got to find out.

I don't think she is.

She's very good with people.

I'm not sure she's really good with this gal.

It's just a damn machine.

Maybe that's not the type of machine.

Maybe that's not.

We've got this one.

We've got Yates.

And Acker and Wood.

Acker and Rose.

You'll never get Acker.

A Rose without Acker.

You'll never get Acker.

You can get without Rose sometimes.

I used to take two.

And this would be one .

Well, let me see if I can finish the speech.

And I think we should, okay.

But we found one.

This is good.

This old girl is all right.

Incidentally, let me ask you something about their backgrounds and so forth.

How old is this girl?

What's your experience?

I want to know who the hell she's working for.

Is she married?

She's not married.

She is.

Is she?

I don't know.

I assume that you made the thorough check on the loyalties and all that sort of thing.

Yes, sir.

Then we'd run some, you know.

And we know Yates is all right.

Yates is basically for, works for anybody.

She's worked for Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, everybody.

She came here in Eisenhower.

I know.

She's worked for all of them.

That's right.

But I don't have any questions to, in my mind, as to where Yates...

Her integrity.

Well, her integrity, but also her personal.

I'm sure she was totally honest and straightforward with Eisenhower and Johnson, I mean with Kennedy and Johnson, that she didn't like him.

And I think she likes you.

She likes us.

Definitely.

I think she's... Would you check this girl on that score?

Yep.

I think they've all been checked.

I think she's...

I think she's very, very, could be just totally a machine.

But you never know.

Look at that goddamn little one.

And he got, you know, a little Jew girl.

Probably smart.

Yeah.

You see?

Yeah.

Well, we kind of ground on through pretty well.

You see, I think that's enough for us.

And this girl turns out, she's quicker, smarter, faster than me.

This one is.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure she touched us too.

Oh, yeah, she touched us.

Oh, yeah, she touched us too.

She's not as, the age is not as fast as Rose, and this girl is faster, probably, than either.

That's right.

I think she is.

She's the bestest one, I think, in this youth, that I've ever seen.

Both Rose and Yates are 50 years old.

And this one is unflappable, very...

Very calm.

Yeah.

Very good.

That's about enough.

Under pressure.

I'm glad we got around to this, though, because...

you know we've been uh we've been sort of living at the end of the precipice haven't we in terms of what can happen with me although always have in mind march is totally totally you have to act with whatever you want i i jesus jesus

Well, Arch has the advantage of some of the things that she can do, but this one can't because she just doesn't know the flares, so Arch knows all of them.

And Margie's got a couple other gals in there working with her.

They're typical Rose Lewis help.

She's a basic loyalist, but Rose does not hire competent people.

She won't do it.

It's funny, though, because Rose is so competent.

She's so head and shoulders.

She doesn't have to worry about competition.

She shouldn't have to worry about all that.

Also, she'd be better off if she had somebody to push her home.

And she'll always be a little better if she's got a smart person around.

Well, give me a quick run-by on the other problems that we've got.

We're going to get Peterson out of the way today, and Blanigan out of the way.

I mean, and Kahn, Kahn, Kahn.

Good.

Have a meeting with Kahn.

Have Dave see if he can schedule Scott Mansfield with Kissinger at 5 o'clock today.

He's coming out of the way today.

He's got to check with Kissinger first.

Then what we'll do is do it for cocktails in the bathroom.

That's Scott Mansfield should be invited on that basis.

You should check first to be sure Henry can make a dent.

And urge him to try to work it out.

Okay.

How did Henry do?

Hard with the staff?

Yes, he did.

Good idea.

He did it hard.

on the, he gave, you know, a little fill and he moved into the, a little fill on the, you know, sort of reading how it's going, and then moved into the sample article, you know, that somebody in the White House had.

Yeah.

Then I started interrupting Ron.

I said, as a matter of fact, that's one where it would be worth finding out who the stupid guy was that would say something like that, because we ought to move in on some of those.

So just, you know, it's locked up there.

Yeah.

But worry about it.

But go ahead.

And Henry, trouble is, Finch wasn't there.

Oh, boy.

Klein wasn't there.

Yeah, Klein needs it.

Well, I've got the talking points.

Henry, did Henry tell you that we dictated some talking points to get everybody?

No, but that's good.

I've got talking points.

I put it on two pages, and Henry's elaborated a little bit, and that goes to everybody.

And Klein needs it, too, if you know what I'm saying.

The client isn't saying the other thing.

The client is not to say, gee, we think this is endangering the generation of thieves.

The play on the war business is good today.

The public impression that you get, because you've got the South Vietnamese commander saying, we've stopped the drive.

Our senior official saying that we sound as good anyway.

There's the ones where you have a tank column that can't get out of the road or something.

That also isn't true.

So that's in good position.

IT&T thing.

It just goes on and on.

It's, it's, uh, I heard it was for, I read the told you this was a come home show session.

I thought it was handled well because they were, this charge hearing, Miriam, kind of, uh, stood around one way or the other.

He must be a clown.

Well, he, he, he, it just created all the more confusion.

And, and that's really the way it got, got played.

And he concluded, they said, how many people do you have in your office?

And he says, I have 23 people in my office and 28 women.

Broke the road up.

So he laughed and said, well, at least that's the bill.

It's awful.

How did Wilson do?

All right, I guess.

Didn't he?

He did.

Does anybody, does any one of our folks follow up on it and say, I told you I wouldn't do this, and they follow it in the questioning to ask Marion, could you provide a list of senators and congressmen?

Provide a transportation and that sort of thing.

It didn't in there.

Actually by the time he was on, only Bernie was there.

We're going to the floor watch thing.

We asked no questions yesterday.

And they're laying the groundwork.

Now today we get a favorable witness.

We get Peterson, the criminal division guy.

And our guys will work on him.

Then they don't know what they're going to do after that.

But we're supposed to finish next Thursday, the week of Thursday.

Oh, they agreed to go for two more weeks, so they go to the 20th.

But we're set to follow the tactic after today of walking out if it's not, if they don't get to remain.

The problem is, Eastland, you know, the Harris has started a thing to strip Eastland of its seniority because of this,

disloyalty to the Democratic cause or something.

Yeah.

That's nice.

And so they're having a caucus on the end this morning.

So Eastland took the afternoon off to get ready for that and turned the gavel over to Irvin to screw things up.

Yeah.

Well, could they get a start, some sort of barrage of letters to Eastland?

Yeah.

And the rest is, you're making asses of yourselves.

Colson's on it.

Well, don't get Colson on it.

But one of your young folks on this one, he's got one of his on.

He has a young kid.

I marked it in the news.

I mean, it just started to hurt.

It went out there.

And we have a business on food prices.

It's a story of life.

Yeah.

And to follow up, I did a conference in Atlanta.

It's not a good one.

to planning the invitation to testify and stating that Plannigan on the substance would have nothing to say that in any way vary from the testimony by Judge McLaren regarding Plannigan's involvement in this matter.

It would corroborate completely.

And Plannigan had absolutely no involvement in the report of

the guy who got in, and further that Flanagan has in no way been involved at any time in the arrangements for financing of the Republican National Convention.

They want to do it once, get it removed, yeah.

That's, they all, I've pushed it the other way, and they go back and reconsider it, and it comes back that this is what it's got to be.

He wants to make a statement.

And they had the statement there.

They went round again and then thought this was the right route.

Good.

One decision that we've got to make is to stop off place on the way to Canada.

Well, I read it recently today.

don't hit the poll on announce next monday i said fine okay question i stopped off the place

If you rule out Ireland, which Henry says, we must rule out.

Oh, it's a racist static.

Holy hell, what a racist.

I thought, well, yes.

Henry says we cannot stop it.

Why did he say that?

See that more than, let me, I don't know.

But he did.

I raised it with you, but, you know, I raised it with Henry.

Who, you did not.

Yeah, I said, there's an Ireland problem.

I don't see you talking about Ireland.

Then Henry came back and said, remember I said Switzerland last year?

Well, we're now back to Switzerland.

And Henry buys Switzerland now.

Good.

Henry was pushing very hard for the Azores.

But I talked him out of that on logistical grounds because... How far?

Well, it's six hours flying time from the Azores to Moscow, plus a four-hour time differential, which means you have to get to Moscow at 4 in the afternoon.

You'd have to leave at 6 in the morning, which means leaving at 5 a.m. No.

From the Azores...

which is 2 a.m. Washington time.

Will the Swiss do it?

He thinks so.

He's back, you know, he gave all those objections about the Swiss before.

Now he's turned around and says that's where it's going.

So the choice in Switzerland is Zurich or Geneva, and on that basis it sure should be Zurich, not Geneva.

I think that's because of airport facilities.

I've never been to Zurich.

I'd rather go there.

I don't think you want to go to Geneva, because you guys do many of the harsh attacks all over the world.

But it's all over there.

There's a position tax there.

Where's Zurich?

Where do you say?

Geneva has also a bad connotation.

You know?

Well, the UN, the United Offline, the League of Nations, the Geneva Conference, the Spirit of Geneva.

I just don't kind of like Geneva, if you could.

How about Mallorca?

Well, the other possibilities are Spain.

But that gets you into the protocol in Mallorca.

I'm not sure that Spain is all that problem.

Is there a Spanish base you could show you?

Portugal, which is... How about New York that I respectfully suggest?

Monaco is the other one, but I don't want to go there.

Sounds better.

I consider New York...

The Rivendell?

No.

I know it's just beautiful.

Mallorca, I know we stopped, I know it'll take a big plane, but if we'd have stopped in Mallorca, I don't mind the Spanish border, unless you're coming over.

That's a hell of a lot of other names, but Mallorca, I don't think it would pose much of a problem.

That's an hour further from Moscow than Switzerland.

Mallorca makes a little difference.

It's that far.

Spain is, but I don't think we are, but if we are, we're just down sort of a, could be closer.

That's Madrid.

This is four hours down.

Madrid, but I think we are just about a half.

I think it's four, but that's not that much further.

Zurich is only three hours.

Well, maybe Zurich is better.

I wish we could stop at some base or just sleep.

Do we have any bases?

Some basic metaphor I need to be realized.

Well, check those.

Get Bernie Walters.

So this is Holloman, did you get Vernon Walters, General Walters for me on the count?

Another thing I want to do before I go to Spain, I have to speak a little bit French up there.

I'm going to have Walters say the words so I can get my...

All right, what do you want to do?

I might have to go to Camp David, if you know what I mean.

I don't know if my mind is clear.

All right.

That's if we get the speech ready.

What, maybe have it come up Thursday?

You got it confirmed?

Yes.

I was afraid it turned you down.

No, and they got a lot of good... Did he handle himself well?

Apparently so.

I don't think he had any trouble in the hearings.

He got a lot of good, a lot of praise.

Did he?

Yeah, they made a lot of good positive statements about, you know, that he was a fine example of the skill of the professional soldier-diplomat or something.

They didn't get into this, I don't know why.

I'm going to use him on some conversations, incidentally.

Conversations, even though they don't involve translation.

Where I'm really private, because he's a guy that can sit there and listen to the conversation and make them know what happens.

What do you think?

No question.

We talked to your editor about doing that.

We have it anyway.

But he won't mind that.

So he's the translator.

He'll make that place home.

You know, you've got to hand one thing to Henry Kissinger, it's a similar kind of thing, because he drives us nuts sometimes, but he is a willing worker.

He's been, like last night, he came over and spent 20 minutes reading Pavlovsky in the Suburban Inn today, and he just did it with great skill after I talked to him.

He spent a lot of time on this Russian thing.

Then he went over and spent an hour over those PWIs.

Then he rushed over to the Kennedy Center to take his band to another performance there.

Tom Fitch is up there.

He's in here this morning, found and arrested.

You know, that's a remarkable energy.

But he has to do it.

OK. Yeah.

OK. Hi.

Congratulations.

You're legitimate now, huh?

Oh, well, I think you'll pass that one all right, if you can get your hand up.

We've got a logistic problem.

Let me get your advice on the trip to Moscow.

We've got to stop someplace on the way to spend a night and then to make the flight into Moscow.

I'm trying to think of whether there was a US base somewhere in the Mediterranean or in the European area there that would be a suitable place to do that.

Rota?

Where is that?

What part of Spain?

There it is.

Is there anything in Majorca?

No base in Majorca.

Let's just leave the account alone.

with a base, I mean, with, you know, housing facilities.

Yeah.

But Rota would be the best, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh.

It doesn't make it, other than just adequate flying weather, it doesn't matter because we get in there in the evening, spend the night, leave the next morning, so.

Aples is a problem on housing.

And I'll see you at the Italian screw-up.

Yeah.

be down or else going into Switzerland or someplace and staying, you know, in commercial facilities.

Which, yeah.

Iceland's too far away.

Just too long a flight into Moscow and then you've got all the time going against you.

We've got to get into Moscow at 4 o'clock.

So we've got to be

Germany's a problem, too.

Yeah.

Well, the Azores is too far, too.

That's the same problem.

You're six hours out.

That's only two hours from Spain.

That's only two.

Yeah.

All of Europe is apparently only two hours off of Moscow.

France, Switzerland, Austria.

It'd be what, about four hours flying time, huh?

One of the Spanish bases.

Okay.

Well, except that you have to meet with Montevideo, and then you're meeting with one of your allies on the way in.

And then you're in the middle of the NATO problem.

Okay.

Thanks, Dick.

What about better tried Syracuse, I guess?

He says Rota and Spain is the best bet.

Yeah.

Saragossa, there are three bases in Spain, Rota, Saragossa, and Seville.

So there's something to be said for not stopping at a base, in a sense, because it's rather belligerent, you know, and those bases are for no purpose.

i think i think the swiss thing feels would be the most if you could get it you didn't the sermon won't work i just think it might be better to say the market's a beautiful place sir it's a lousy goddamn city but that doesn't make any difference either well let me try that how will it be explored especially

I don't think the Swiss will mind at all.

Henry thinks they will.

He doesn't think they'll mind.

He thinks that they are very fussy about all, he says, you'll have to get clearance for everything you do.

Well, Christ, we have to get clearance for everything we do in Toledo, Ohio.

So what the hell are we going to do?

No, but I mean, to put in a telephone or to land an airplane or to drive a car down the street or anything like that.

We can, I'm sure that can be worked out.

Now, Switzerland is, they deal with international.

Switzerland's already done it.

I think we ought to go in.

It's a neutral country, which I think is a good feeling before going to Moscow.

That's right.

I knew the Irishman wouldn't go out.

On the way back, oh, we're all sent.

On the way back, there's Poland.

And you go right ahead from Warsaw, Poland and Austria.

But we should try to turn it on.

But Lucerne, if we can do it.

Otherwise, I just know Lucerne.

I don't know Lucerne.

Maybe that's the reason.

I don't care.

Lucerne is pretty unlike that.

Of course, you won't get there at night and you'll leave early, early in the morning.

So it doesn't really make you home.

You aren't going to know where you are.

Unless you want to go a day earlier and spend a day there.

You've got a rough time thing going against you out here.

You may want to...

Spend a day working in Switzerland, and then a second night before you leave for Moscow.

Well, how would you do it later?

You'd leave here Saturday morning and arrive.

You'd leave D.C. at, say, 9 o'clock in the morning.

You'd arrive in Switzerland at 9, 30 at night.

Got it.

All right.

You won't be able to go to bed very early because it'll last way, five hours time difference.

Spend all day Sunday.

Then spend Sunday there and Sunday night.

And then you leave Monday morning.

From Switzerland, you'd have to leave at about 11.

Which means leaving the hotel at 10.30.

See, if you do it the other way, you're not going to get very much sleep.

since it's over a weekend i don't know maybe it's all right maybe maybe one day i don't like the views of the news moment in that period but better we have not we'll be preparing this and everybody we're saying we're going over this battery and i don't want them to think i'm sitting you know i don't like the idea that once we started we're sitting around resting we didn't have any of that impression why no i don't think you would hear i think you'll see you say what the hell i'm doing there

We've made the point that you've got to adjust to the time change and that you've got work to do.

I've got work to do.

Conferring with Secretary Henry.

If we're going to have the day, Lucerne or Geneva is also beautiful.

That sort of location is pretty.

I wouldn't mind showing it up.

Leave it to the Swiss.

Henry said we can do Austria.

Yeah.

That would be, well, Salzburg would be where I'd love to go.

God damn, that would be great.

Well, the point they make is it would be almost impossible not to meet the Chancellor of Christ team.

Right.

On the other hand, there is a substantive argument to visit Austria, which would look like a substantive visit.

You've never been to Austria.

That would defeat your rest stop idea.

I mean, you'd be there for a visit to Austria.

And that's really not so bad.

Then you'd have covered another country on the way, Switzerland.

Especially since you do not have to see a Swiss pastor anymore.

Of course, Henry will argue that he shouldn't do another country.

But Austria, there ain't nothing to talk to the Austrians about.

I can see Kresge for a while.

The Austrian ambassador is a great friend of ours.

Yeah, he sure is.

You've got, he's in a meeting, I just wanted to step out for a minute for a phone call.

I'll tell you, I remember I suggested that to John.

Have you ever been there?

No, I've never been to any part of Salisbury.

Oh, I could not be enough to say I want to go there.

But if you could go there, Salisbury is just, Salisbury is just a lovely part.

I'm going to see you.

It's closer.

It's a non-Natal country, which is just right.

It is not.

They're so slim in Switzerland.

And that basically, well, it's a non-allied country.

We have no alliance with Russia, with Austria.

It's a neutral country, just like in Switzerland.

I need to talk to you about it.

I just feel that I'd like to do Salisbury.

We were talking about the stopping point on the way to Russia, and he's raising again the question of whether Austria is a possibility.

doing Salisbury, not Vienna.

And doing that spending two nights, as we originally planned to do, and he'd see the chancellor for a visit, which would destroy the idea of a rest stop.

In other words, it would just be a stop of a non-aligned nation on the way in.

He's just wondering if that isn't better than trying to go into Switzerland.

Just a second.

Hello.

I don't mind.

Let me tell you what I have in mind.

Just take a second.

I don't like the feeling of a Spanish face.

You know, and that's the problem with any place in Spain.

I don't like the feeling of a face or any face kind of a thing.

Switzerland is supposed to be the problem, and you're aware of that.

I haven't thought of the question.

Let me just make the case for us here.

I have always had a very close relationship with the audience from a personal standpoint.

The ambassador here is a great friend of mine.

And also, it is a country which is not a lie to us or to the Russians.

And the Russians are going to be put out.

And rather than going to Vienna, go to Salzburg, which is a lovely town.

And you've been there, of course.

Well, we landed there in Constellation last time, so I don't know if they can take this, but the Salzburg Festival, all the later money they got to move in there.

But if they haven't, but if it's, and I wouldn't mind seeing the Austrian thing, you know what I mean?

What's an hour's conversation during the day?

That's all, you know, have a little meat with it.

Yeah, oh, there.

Well, it means that they're all making their brokering money off of whatever they can reserve.

Right.

And they won't help you.

And the options would.

That's right.

Right.

You don't mind our exploring of it?

I'd like to, uh, the, the, uh, this ambassador here is, uh, you know, he's a fellow, a nice guy, you know.

He was the ambassador to Washington in the Eisenhower period.

I know him extremely well, and where I got to know him so well was in the Nigerian refugee period, you see.

And I was there, and I spent over, over ten days in Austria.

that they have the facilities, and their government would break their back, and the people would be friendly.

The people will be friendly.

That's another thing, you know.

We have no problem there with friendly people, you know what I mean?

The Austrians, they love Americans in Austria.

They really do.

Okay.

Yeah, of course, I think we should see them, but just say we can only have an hour's meeting, you know.

Courtesy calls, sure.

That is no problem because that gives us a chance to spend the day.

We do need the two nights for you to get ready for Moscow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Press months off too hard.

We want to be really up when we get in there.

And Austria's very close to Moscow.

It's the other vantage.

Well, I'll have Bob check that out then.

Yeah, yeah.

And I don't really think the way to check it is to, rather than putting it, let's just, why don't we just have him check with Gruber.

What's his name?

How would be the way to do it?

Well, if you put it in the state channels, it gets publicized right away, I suppose.

Well, that's what I do.

And there's no problem with the reference on that.

No, they do this internationally.

All right.

Well, let's go forward.

If you go forward, Rupert.

Fine.

Well, that's Rupert.

He says it's fine.

No problem.

I know.

It's been an hour of the chancellor.

I should tell you.

It's been an hour of the chancellor.

He's a chancellor by his own name.

It's easier to do that than spend an hour with Mulcahy in Ireland and have to dodge him all the rest of the time.

Well, I have an hour with Mulcahy and then you have the Irish man.

You'd have to see the Prime Minister there.

The Prime Minister would insist on an hour.

If you go to Switzerland, you're going to have to see somebody.

Austria means something in the world.

Not as much as it used to, but it still means something.

It's there and the Austrians are friendly to us.

But Salzburg is a good stopover from the viewpoint of the people and the party and all that.

It's a great place to be for a day.

They give us a good welcome there.

It's not bad, too.

Scotland place, I'm pretty sure they're a good welcome.

See, that's another disadvantage.

Remember I told you about Ireland?

I don't think we realize in this country what a hell of a stint that Northern Ireland thing has raised.

You know, the Irish are a violent race.

They always have been, it's obvious.

And, well, how rough they were on them.

That was the first time I remember that one guy that came up and threw himself in the car and broke my arm.

Well, I can say that he really cracked.

Those guys were terrible.

We just have to lay it out very clearly that it's not an official visit.

It's a layover.

You'll see the chancellor, but...

No lunch.

No dinner.

That's the problem.

That's the tragic boy then.

No social events.

And then once you go to the opera or something like that.

It's a working stop.

Of course you'll see the Chancellor on Sunday after church.

You have to go to church if you're an Austrian.

Hell no.

You want to go to church in Russia?

No.

That's one thing that came up is that going to a Baptist church there and going to a synagogue.

And going to a synagogue.

No, no, no.

And no service.

No.

Well, that Baptist church is pulling.

That's what I thought.

And my view, Billy Graham and others will say not, but just a lot of women.

It's just sort of a symbol for the people to show that Russia is not all that unfree.

I just don't believe that.

Or you go in there and find the church.

Well, that's something that may be disappointing.

The people of the United States isn't great.

The President of the United States goes to church.

He goes to the Christian church and grows his Christian even land.

Well, they won't mind, possibly.

I'll tell you what you do.

Call Willie Graham.

Don't ask for his advice and say, maybe we will not be in Moscow at that time.

He'll be more, because he was pushing for you.

There are a couple of churches in China, and he was pushing for you to go to church in China, which was not that decent at the time.

He thought that would be a good symbol.

Yeah, it's on the list of things that he suggested as a possibility.

The other thing which I think we ought to do is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier type thing, which is a way for you to get out into the city without having to make a speech to the Russians.

Unknown soldier.

Yeah, and without sightseeing.

In other words, it's a formal ceremonial event, but it gets you into the streets, which it seems to me is a desirable thing to do.

If something develops out of it, it's good.

If it doesn't, it doesn't matter.

You're doing it proper in the Russian spot with us, so it's proper for you to have it, provided they will have Russian veterans there in World War II.

Not to say they should be in modern art, so I can sit down and speak to them and so forth.

I'm sure the Germans would be asking, but that's all right.

uh that i agree with i think uh i think the church is a good possibility if we lean toward it

Why don't you just call Billy for a minute and say, I don't know whether we'll be in Moscow sometime, but what about this church, Billy?

What do you fear?

And do it better.

We have to have the most discreet thing so that if we do do it, we can play it up.

I think going to church could have great symbolism in the United States.

We're doing everything for that purpose anyway.

And they do everything for their purposes here.

With regard to the Russian schedule,

I will have to, of course, look over the events before you freeze them in, actually.

I don't know.

I'm not going to sell the President of the United States.

The events party is going Monday.

Oh, fine.

And we're not locking anything until they get back.

Well, they've locked the flyer in various places.

Well, it works out pretty easily.

If you run into Moscow,

Monday afternoon, we have the banquet that night, the Russian banquet.

Tuesday morning, you do the ceremonial calls.

And then the first meeting, Tuesday afternoon, the first meeting.

Tuesday night, probably the ballet.

Wednesday morning is queer for official business.

Wednesday afternoon is another meeting.

Wednesday evening is open as a working evening.

That'll be the night you have dinner with, right?

Right.

Thursday morning you leave for Leningrad.

Thursday afternoon is sightseeing in Leningrad.

Thursday night you'll have to do either a banquet or a cultural thing in Leningrad of some kind.

Do another rally.

Then Friday morning, we return to Moscow.

Friday afternoon, another meeting.

Friday night, we keep open.

No scheduled event.

Saturday morning, meeting.

Saturday afternoon, maybe a communique or a meeting or something.

And Saturday evening would be our reciprocal banquet.

What have you done regarding the considerations on making the speech on Russian television coming?

Sunday morning, you will go to turn to the Baptist Church if you go.

And Sunday evening at 8 o'clock, you address the Russian nation.

Do they agree to that?

No.

This is our .

The advantage of that is 8 o'clock is the time they're going to lock for it.

It's 1 o'clock.

U.S. time.

Sunday.

Eastern.

Now, you have a problem in that it's 11 o'clock Mountain Time, which is church time, but I don't think that matters at all.

It's 10 o'clock Pacific Coast, which is before church.

You think you'll get a good audience?

Yes, sir.

I think you'll get a hell of an audience.

The problem is, it's the only time you're going to get a TV audience in the States is on Sunday.

Are they going to have you there?

That's what I did the other time.

There won't be much television in the United States.

I would wonder if they would want to try doing it simultaneous.

Of course, then they can't hear you, and that's bad.

They've got to hear my voice.

They've got to go sentence by sentence.

I just want them to be able to talk to each other.

The idea is done.

I think it is.

I think it's fascinating as hell to America.

If you, if anybody in the PR shop bothered to go back and read about my visit to Moscow.

Yes, sir.

Have they read Six Crises?

Yes.

The State Department accounts are totally inadequate, as you understand.

Totally, totally, totally inadequate.

So go back and read Six Crises and look at all the nuances and feel and so forth and so on.

Could you do that?

Sure.

Have them read it.

But anyway, the idea, that would be, you leave Sunday night as your last night.

How about going on a press thing over there?

Well, we thought about that possibility on Friday night, which is the other open evening.

Was it possible press thing?

We always do it.

I think it would be good if we got a press thing done over there.

Then Monday morning you leave for Baku, Monday afternoon you're, and evening you're in Baku, and then Tuesday you leave for Tehran.

We get back here, right?

Thursday.

Thursday, Wednesday.

The 7th.

First again.

Good.

I am willing to do a press thing over there.

I think there is a time to sort of, you know, make our points with a few press people.

Let me put it this way.

We can't

You can't just have the situation.

It'll tear Henry up a bit.

But where?

Always on these foreign visits.

Someone else is bespoke.

Well, yes.

Well, basically where Henry is or Roger is a conflict.

Now, I ought to go out and ask you questions.

I know, frankly, it's more than much about it.

But at least I know the nuances better than some of the rest of them.

And you're talking about a U.S. of all the

plus Russian press.

All the press that's got press, I'll stand there for an hour and answer questions and be translated into Russian.

I think it should be that way.

We can find the time to prepare it.

We want to remember, we want to make as much use as we can

Come back on the first what day of the week?

Thursday.

Let it ride through Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

I think we ought to, have we explored the networks of 103?

Yes.

Do they want it or not?

We haven't had a confirmation.

They're very interested.

Well, they raised the point.

It's very interesting.

They raised the point that they might have to grant equal, that equal time might apply.

And Ron said, you're absolutely right.

And if John Ashbrook goes to Moscow and meets with the Soviet leaders, I think you should give them equal time to report on it.

This will be after the call morning, right?

No, it'll be before.

No.

Just, well, it'd be right, I see.

No, no, it's going to be right after.

Yeah.

So that's the problem.

So that appeals to me.

Well, no, it still can't be considered a convention.

The equal time doesn't apply to the Democrats.

It applies only to John Ashbrook and McCroskey, I guess.

But Ron, I thought Ron put it right away.

That's fine.

I want to do this as quickly as I can after he returns so that it's still fresh in their minds.

And I don't need to worry too much.

I'll find out.

So I've got Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Do it on Monday night?

Uh, I think Tuesday night is better.

Tuesday night.

That's the California primary.

I don't think you want to do it on...

I don't know.

That's too big of news.

Well... You don't... That looks bad.

It's Monday night before the California primary.

That's bad, too, I think.

About Wednesday, I could call.

Wednesday's fine.

California primary could be big news for the Democrats.

That's all right.

and we come on at the uh you're not going for news thinking on that you're going for the people seeing no i don't that's right what's on people's minds on people's minds i don't think the primaries are that much on people's minds california even california i think wednesday night's a good night they've come on everybody that's the way to turn the thing away

Turn it back to you running the world again instead of the Democrats.

Well, he's in Colorado.

He's got Knoll.

He's got his freezer.

Wednesday's the time I'll go.

It'll be 3-0-1 on foreign policy in Canada.

However, it must be foreign policy.

He understands that.

Absolutely.

Or I'm not going to go into domestic policy.

No, no.

He's putting it as part of the coverage of the Soviet job.

It's the wrap-up to the summit meeting.

That's right.

And he will not, except for a brief statement when he arrives at the airport,

No, no, I had a brief statement.

We don't come out here.

We don't worry.

Just like we did coming home from China.

That was a good one.

You should make that statement.

Absolutely.

We'll try to do that same thing.

But then, I think you've got to do that.

Yeah.

You've got to write out the trip to the American audience.

And then we'll sit there and say, what does it all mean?

It's not just the Soviet trip, but it can be the foreign policy general question, correct?

Or do you think we should look at the Soviet trip?

Not too narrow.

No.

See, you may have the .

That's all right.

We'll have things to say about the .

Well, it's the wrap-up of the summit, and that's the interest that's going to be in the summits.

It's going to be in this related to China and the whole concept of the...

Right.

I think this, in this case, we ought to go to this room.

Yeah.

You've got to be screwing around with the library and all that.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

This room is mine.

That being announced, you know, so it changed the place of the press conference very effectively.

That's the press conference in June.

I think they're in good shape on that.

That's the boys.

Go ahead and work them out.

Pat said that one thing I was going to ask you, that she said she would talk to Rob, because I put her up for Rob.

Connie, of course, wants him on the trip.

Let me say that I see no objection to not taking, you know, you're taking Klein, and it might be just as well to have

See if Connie will bother him.

She won't bother him.

Well, I want him to control the news, see.

He's better than Connie.

And he does it.

And Pat has great confidence in Ron.

You know, he's like a confidence, and that's good.

What are you working on?

That's what, now incidentally, despite Ron's concern about wanting five or seven, six or seven hundred, the Russians have said that they want a hundred.

Not really.

That's Henry's game.

The Russians have said that the working period they were using was 100 because it was a little more than the China trip, but that they have no concern about that.

They have asked Vorontsov and their press attache, have asked Ron and Chapin to meet with them tomorrow to discuss that whole thing.

I think we can keep it that way.

Why not make a few points with our own people?

I know what he says.

Well, we can let them ride the, you know, they get on the pools.

Yeah, what do you think?

That's the problem.

But we'll figure it out.

We'll figure it out.

All right.

He'll do that.

All right.

From now until the campaign, for Christ's sakes, we're conscious and concerned about our friends.

Really?

Absolutely.

Indeed.

You're going to meet with the Russians tomorrow on the press conference?

Yes, sir.

I know your view that it's all right to have four or five hundred people.

No, I don't think so.

But I feel very strongly that you can handle all of it.

I feel very strongly that I should not press the Russians too much on this.

I'd rather have now, I am currently leading for, you know, we're going to have to see this yourself, but I'm currently leading, for example, to have a press conference in Russia.

If I had a press conference in Russia, I could do it a hell of a lot easier with two to three hundred.

That would not just be for the Americans.

I'd have all the Russian international press there, too, which I did before.

Now, you talk about my vice presidential career.

Apparently, the boys, none of them have gone back.

We had six crises.

We didn't have five hundred American press.

We had about a hundred.

I was vice president.

And a hundred was just running.

They all got a feeling of belonging to the thing, they all got a feeling of participation in the thing, and so forth and so on.

My own view is that I'd like to have a leader, and the other thing is that I feel very, very strongly, and this is the one thing I, I think, two best things you've done on the China trip, where you got out of the Boston Globe at this stage, they are going to get out this time.

They are not going to go on the trip to the St. Louis Post Office back, but the Globe never ran off.

put the Buffalo evening news on, put the Dallas morning news on.

Well, we've got to have some of our friends really know.

And I don't need to do it, but just say, well, you can come in and also watch the president have a photo opportunity.

You see what I'm getting at is that I think being a little bit more obvious in supporting our friends may be in our interest looking at the campaign.

I understand.

But I'm dividing different people.

I'm dividing the right to president going on to a shift from the television to a

Wire service, it's the communist government, he's got to go.

The same true of the networks.

In other words, no argument about it.

The wire service, the networks, the radio, tell us what do you need and take the maximum on there so that we get out of it.

But when you get down to the individual columnists, for example, I'm not going to invite John Osborne on this trip.

I don't like this son of a bitch.

He is not going to go.

That's what I think about.

Mr. President, I don't know what you're saying to them.

I find, for example, that Henry and everybody who would have spent more time, like Mark in the News Center, John Osborne, he was cited, and that whole list, you prepared it twice, you prepared the list, all of them were together.

Did you realize that?

More time was spent with those two men.

all of our friends ended up together and you know that's true about it it was just true it's true everybody in this shop now that's a mistake it's the mistake haggardy made with eisenhardt and now we're repeating it thank god you're not doing it the way he did he was always kissing the ass a few different times but i think what i want you to know is if i want to really i want to be very obnoxious to our enemies i want to be obnoxious to them

And I don't think we gain a point by letting them, you know, saying, all right, fellas, you can kick us and slap us on one side and you can slap us on the other.

And this will give you a golden opportunity.

The Russians don't want more than 100.

They really don't.

Now, they'll take 200.

They'll take 1,000 if we call them.

But they ain't gonna want that.

So why don't we keep one and say, fine, fellas, we'll take another.

That gives you 25 more.

Then if you have, I'd have a leeway.

Well, look, if we have a leeway of 25 more in case we get asked to pressure them.

Mr. President, I assure you, I think you are aware of that on how to deal with the enemies.

And granted, the allowing in pools and special attention to our friends, and we will do that, is not as good as if you do have a limit of less sticking over your friends.

But if you look at the entire situation in terms of our benefit and from the benefit of the whole trip in this point of time, and compare it with the previous trips that we have taken to Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy, France, and so forth, I think we lose substantially by attempting to limit and create the impression that the list is limited.

We gain nothing.

And I don't think the Soviets will have the guts, and this was implied to me last night by Joe Breiman, they will back off all the way back to Connecticut Avenue once they know that they have to put the limitations on wheat.

I don't believe that wheat is- The Chinese have the guts.

But the Chinese situation is different because we did not have relations with the Chinese for 22 years.

I agree, too, that we should not take 500 or 600 or, indeed, even 300 of reporters long.

But having an open list, we really don't have that.

I think we're not working on it now.

I think we've probably come out with probably somewhere, this is not the foreign press, about probably 70 reporters.

That includes television, broadcast, and the religious people and everyone else.

Because there aren't that many major publications in the United States anymore that can afford to go on a trip.

I would like to eliminate New York City today, and indeed we did on the China trip.

I'd like to eliminate the Boston Globe, and we did on the China trip.

But I just think that from our interest this year, at this time, overall attitude amongst the press corps, not in the attitude of the Boston Globe, but the press corps,

that we are going to be able to deal with them more firmly and from a position of strength by not weakening our hand, by giving them the ammunition to attack us on this.

And as I said to Dobrynin last night, who was extremely concerned about this, Dobrynin, he picked this point up.

He wanted to know

He wanted to know about Romain.

He wanted to know about Yugoslavia.

He wanted to have some feeling from us as to how many would go along.

That's my view, and I've expressed that to Bob, and I've written a memo on it.

And that's the way I intended to pursue it with the Soviets tomorrow, in a realistic way, in a firm way.

You see, I have no ability to do that.

I mean, God, there can't be people who used to be ruthless with their critics.

Roosevelt was ruthless with his press secretary.

And all we do, when we have no friends in the press, or a damn few, we kiss our critics' ass.

I just don't, it doesn't make sense to me.

I don't see why, for example, when Benjamin Klein, Earl of London,

Kissinger and the rest spend hours with an Oscar, or with a study.

When they've got something out there, Evanderlyn, he's got more votes than either of those sons of bitches.

Even that goddamn little Nashville paper.

That's Tennessee.

The same true of, I mean, he's not very bright, but he's a nice guy.

Give him the time.

Victor Lasky's coverage is much, but it's a hell of a lot more than John Osborne, but he influences others.

Bullshit.

I'm just tired of this crap.

I learned talking to these guys that you don't influence.

You walk home, you talk home, what do you do?

And then the news summary takes a hey every week on what John Osborne says.

I don't care what they say.

I'm not interested.

See, we're paying attention to our enemies and not to our friends.

And some of our friends are complaining.

They're goddamn right complaining.

Vanderland does pretty well here.

I agree that we don't.

He does well.

You do well.

Let me say this.

What about Nick Timish?

Nick Timish, I see him.

I know you do well.

What about these other clowns on our staff?

Well, we move them around as much as we can.

Yeah, Timish, I think we do pretty well.

We do better by Timish than we do by Vanderland.

Because nobody's ever heard of that.

But we do have a syndrome in this town, and no question about it.

Well, I don't see the problem, just for Christ's sake.

Your problem?

I talk about it.

The problem is with our stars.

The problem is with Kessinger, Schultz, all those guys, because they want to talk to the important people.

The bright people.

I don't consider important bright people.

God damn it, did you ever read a Churchill biography?

They just kick their enemies in the ass.

You get more respect for them.

And I don't think that our press people, I mean, I think the way Edgar does it is wrong.

Because he gives the impression that all the press are against Stahler.

I don't give the impression that some are our friends.

That's the only quarrel I have with Keogh's, but the way at least it's been played, is that when the whole press is against Stahler, Keogh didn't say that.

About one-third or four.

That's the press again distorting, they're proving Keogh's point.

Nevertheless, I was glad that they paid attention to his book.

I don't say this in defense, Mr. President, but we do.

And I don't come in here and tell you about it, and I don't tell Bob about it, but we do treat people ruthlessly out there.

And we hurt them where it really hurts them.

When you get a Marty Schramm who doesn't even get close to my office for six months after that Moses thing, when Simple gets cut off and it's hurting when we talk about it.

When the networks get cut off the way they do from time to time, it has not happened.

The one thing you've got to do is to get Henry to play the game.

He never will.

He has to be very passionately desirous to show craft.

Because he can't tolerate fools.

I guess most of our friends are fools.

Rowley Evans, Charles Roberts.

He's dead.

He died.

Who?

Robinson?

No, he retired.

He retired.

He's still writing.

He retired.

You have the factor, but I'm mentioning any personality.

You always have the factor, and this I assume will always exist, of an individual who is loyal and so forth, but cannot suppress his own personal ego and desire.

It's not the desire and the fear of being disliked.

by the press.

Well, he likes to read himself in Roley Evans' column because he knows everybody else in town reads it.

It's the same type of personality quirk that makes people go to lunch at Sans Souci, read Goshen, and stand around and have their cocktail, eat their veal all oiled up, and act like they know what's going on and therefore create leaks.

It's a syndrome that I will never be able to understand.

except it's a matter of selfishness.

That's why, you know, you talk about the so-called Nixon court.

I'm always so worried about that damn court until we get two more.

And the reason is that out of our four, you can be sure at least one, and maybe two,

will be wired to dine by these sun-bitching hostesses around here, and they'll be softened up.

Look what happened to Potter Stewart.

Potter Stewart, when he first came to the court, was a good, strong, Ohio conservative.

He's now become a sloppy and sometimes drunk liberal.

And he's a social one.

And this catches at a depth.

And Warren Burger is in danger of the same thing.

Warren Burger loves attention.

What they do to Warren Burger is false.

They lose perspective of the country by getting wallowed up in this town.

Nancy went on in her... Well, I don't see it now.

Nancy went home to Kentucky in her... No, she was in Kentucky at a wedding.

Her sister's husband, who was a telephone supervisor, and her father, and he was all right there.

She said she arrived at their home, and their interest was not on escalating the war or anything.

Their interest was on the firm handling of it, and not, as you said before, and that's what people were concerned about.

Thank God we're not just sitting there letting them chew us up again.

That's exactly right.

The best thing.

they probably don't even know there's a clunky steering wheel but i don't know how you tell you one of these all right we've been around you've got the message handle it any way you can and i i think that the week changing my arm my arm and i still like my plan if it could work if the soviet would take the heat then i limit to 100 and i pick our 100 they will not take the feet i can see that they want to be friends with the press and all the rest okay but

Just do your very best to be sure that not one friend of ours is going to go on this trip.

Not one friend.

And do the best we can to find ways to get them on.

Subsidize them if you can.

Everything you can.

We'll do that.

Yes, sir.

Matter of fact, absolutely.

We can do it by Reader's Digest and things like that.

Matter of fact, I'll tell you, I'd like to do that.

There are a couple out there I'd like to do.

Some of the smaller papers you can't afford?

Well, like Bill White, they wouldn't send it to China.

We can do it very easily.

Well, have Bill White get that book to publish, which they ought to do.

Get White in on that and make a little money.

Get the television networks.

Ways you can do it.

I control the press airplane.

If anybody does, if anybody decides to do a book, of course, they're...

is their job to sell them because kites don't ever sell anything unless we help them or something.

That's a flop.

I think it's a flop.

It'll sell the rest of the year.

Is that what your plan is to try to push it up here?

The point is, they want it, but I'll add a foreword for it this time.

See, if we're not good in the U.S., that's the U.S. who's got to get the Sunday news.

And that's what people were concerned about.

Thank God we're not just sitting there letting them chew us up again.

That's exactly the best thing.

They probably don't even know there's a clunking steering wheel.

But I don't know how to get to it.

All right.

We've been around.

You've got the message.

Handle it any way you can.

And I think that we've changed my mind.

I still like my plan.

If it could work.

If the Soviet would take the heat, then I limit it to 100 and I pick our 100.

They will not take the heat.

I can see that.

They want to be friends with the press and all the rest.

Okay.

But, just do your very best to be sure that not one friend of ours is going to go on this trip.

Not one friend.

And do the best we can to find ways to get them on.

Subsidize them if you can.

Everything you can.

We'll do that.

We'll subsidize civil servants.

Yes, sir.

Matter of fact, I'll tell you, I'd like to do that with a couple out there.

I'd like to do it.

Some of the smaller papers you can't afford.

Somebody like Bill White, they wouldn't send it to China.

We can do it very easily.

Have Bill White get that book to publish, which they ought to do.

Get White in on that and make a little money.

Get the television networks.

The way we can do it, I control the press airplane.

And the way you can do it, if anybody does, if anybody decides to do a book, of course they're

is there a job to sell those kites on Arizona?

That's a philosophy.

It'll sell the rest of the year.

Is that what your plan is to try to push it?

The point is, they want to do it.

I'll add a foreword for it this time.

If we're not good in the US, that's going to be the best news piece.

We've got to get to Sunday before we get back.

After we get back, that's it.

Sunday, after we get back, before they...

The three-on-one out, Ron, we had definitely had to go for it on Wednesday.

I wanted it as soon as we get back on Thursday night.

And the three-on-one should go on Wednesday.

That's the day after the California primary.

And I want you to tell that person this will be basically a report to the nation.

And they've been covered by many in the field of foreign policy.

Many.

they're calling they're really funny they know we got them between a rock and a hard place they said is this is this a request i said we just choose this communication form that you know

They said, well, there'll be a press conference.

People said, no, this would be the way through your channel.

Why give them the interview to the New York Times or somebody else?

They said, well, what about the 315 thing?

We may have to give it to Ashbrook.

I said, well, fine.

If you can get Ashbrook to report to the American people on the summit conference he's had over in the Soviet Union, fine.

Go ahead and do it.

But this is the course.

So they're back considering it again.

And I think they're going to have to come through.

What about doing it with, and this is a bad idea, but maybe it's not, doing it with three writing presses instead of three handwritten people?

Then you'd really have, they wouldn't care with that question.

I wonder.

They only carry it with their own stars around.

See, we've approached them with this before.

They will have nothing to do with it.

We've tried having to even televise a conference with a writing press.

We'll have a chance.

And if they decided not to do it, that's fine.

We'll just do a press conference.

But limited to foreign policy.

This time, yeah, this time, we'll say an hour's press conference on Florida policy on Wednesday.

That's going to be our, if they say we'll find policy, we're just going to have an hour's press conference.

Prime time.

Don't you agree?

Yes, sir.

On Florida policy.

That's 9 o'clock.

Don't come back.

9 o'clock.

Don't come back.

Absolutely.

Don't come back with it on this time on domestic policy and all the rest.

This will be on Florida policy, the Suns, and so forth.

Press conference.

9 o'clock.

One hour.

Fair enough.

I think by this time, you see, that's as soon as I can get ready.

We'll be back Thursday night.

I think I've reached a statement there.

I need a couple of days off.

So I'll take off Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Then I'll be back here Monday.

Tuesday, I'll be back Wednesday.

We can't do it Monday night because it's for the government and the primary.

We don't want to do it Tuesday night because we'll all be talking about it.

Wednesday's just about running.

Fair enough, sir.

Would it be better?

No, we don't want to go before the California primary.

I was going to say, we could really pour the coal and probably do it Sunday night.

That'd be a better thing to do.

We should get back Thursday night.

And then on, I could just, I mean, I've been in the swim things anyway.

i'm not i'm not i'm you're better off then what happens is you do that that ends the russian trip and then you get the california army intentions back to your loss let it swing to the california primary over that weekend which is our advantage then get it back on wednesday night all right

You know, to show you, though, that ever I broke with Cameron, well, when Hardin's been weak, but to show you what you can do with making a Hardin's event, using that nothing for an event yesterday and for making a little signal about the Russians.

That may all free networks, isn't it?

Yes, sir.

Absolutely.

Did they use that part?

Did they use any of the biological weapons?

Just the part about the threat.

Indirect or direct assistance.

It looked all right.

As a matter of fact, it looked good.

You looked very good sitting there.

I don't suggest you do this, but in that setting, they had the overall flags and this very dramatic, real strong diplomatic setting.

You were sitting there.

And in a very low-key, poised, but yet strong way, not, you know, high-pitched at all, made the point.

And they sure didn't pick me.

Every one of them used the same quote.

The wires missed it on the first run.

The wires picked me back up.

And then they pan over to the bridge.

I'm telling you, those Soviets sure did slobber last night.

Correct.

I didn't even write that.

What was this?

Well, it was the Soviet wife, the editor of Soviet Wife.

Oh, good.

Is lately going to do with this company.

Good.

Well, the Soviet, they'll work with Tom very hard.

Oh, I'm sure they'll get that.

Now, I was fed up with Henry House back.

That was fairly late.

Sure.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Well, Mrs. Nixon, I should be put up.

Did you know she's leading that committee?

Ask Henry in his article to put it out.

Well, it's going to get out.

The Russians will put it out, so I think you'd better...

There, this is next to Senator Tebow.

This is to bring him to go over some of the details of the Soviet trip.

You know, this confuses our enemies with the press, but the hell won't have it.

You see, you've got this.

You've got the Rolly Evanses and the Joe Crafts in a very Machiavellian way, trying to say that Nixon has been soft on the Russians.

which of course is ridiculous.

They don't know what we've been doing.

And second,

and the crab find that maybe we really ought to postpone the Russian summit.

He's hoping for Christ that we don't have it.

On the other hand, what they don't know is that the Russians want the summit for other reasons, and either the crab or early editors will never understand.

They don't want the summit because they like us.

They want the summit because they fear the hell out of us.

What we can do to them with regard to China, what we can do with them with regard to the Middle East, and also that we can turn off the German treaty, which is the big thing.

That's the cool being here.

They sure did.

It's a game where if that thing today is in Nevada.

Bill Breeden, I'll tell you, sure did want that summit last night.

I mean, just his attitude.

I want that never to be named, but if Roy was from Moscow today, he'd go turn right around.

But nevertheless, he knew, he knew what I was saying, Mr. David.

And incidentally, he was a diplomat, so that's what...

Bill, Bill Jenner had come marching to the meetings back in 1947, 48, and he answered them on the march, and I said, well, here comes the bread line.

That's good.

Well, we'll have a Russian trip, except for the mystery of it.

will be a hell of a lot better trip than the China trip.

For the reason that they know how to handle it more, and the Russians will break their butts to get you out of it, and you'll see people.

We didn't see any Chinese people.

Yeah, you'll see Russian people.

Don't worry.

They'll let you go to the Department of Service, and the rest of those damn Russkies will be out, and they have some more feeling as to who the hell we are.

So it's going to be interesting.

we have to make your private information in case it breaks you're going to discuss with the austrians the bus will stop in salzburg on the way in that's distinguished from the irish stuff that'll be a hell of a good stop i will now have a substantive meeting of the austrian chancellor right there and then we'll have uh

Oh, another way you can handle this, which you might mention, I'm hungry, but I wanted to express appreciation to the Austrian government for the way that they have hosted, have helped host the SALT conferences, you see what I mean?

So even the SALT conferences in Vienna, which we, of course, will be discussing, and coming back, you're going to have the situation, you see,

You go to Leningrad, which is very different from Moscow, Baku, which is totally different from Peter, and then you go to Tehran, which is a great crowd and the splendor of majesty, and then to Poland, where, if Poland holds, we won't know next, I mean, we think it'll hold, but if the Polish thing goes on, they'll have hell of a time controlling their people, knowing the polls.

And so, I mean, the crowd in here, particularly at this point, will have a much more dramatic effect.

Because we didn't have any crowds in China.

It was just right.

It was marvelous.

You know, the China thing had mystery and all of the drama to it.

But this has an equal amount of drama to it.

Sure it does.

Because, you know, in a totally different way.

I don't know, but I must say...

The world may be talking about the Soviet trip in the same terms as they'll be talking about...

It's a bi-polar world of changes.

Be sure that any of our own people, people in the press, really want to know in order to get the background, read the sex crisis description of my 1959 trip, because...

He describes everything, what it was like then and the rest.

Also, it has my speech to the Russian people that I've been told was received by the Congress.

Someone was saddened looking at it because they told you about that.

They had filled it with something.

I was looking at the film.

Now the kitchen had made something.

He said it was really perverse.

They were standing back at that.

As a matter of fact, I didn't see the .

Anyway, you can .

All right.

He's probably right.

We have no way of fighting the press in my opinion.

No way.

Man, except the way he's doing it.

Except for the one, and I'll keep grinding on that one, that there is no, that they're just dead wrong on John Osborne.

I'm talking about bringing fines to waste time with John Osborne.

Can you get that across?

Ron did not say anything.

react to that.

I don't even want Sidney to be seen, but why Osborne at all?

Sidney, there is at least a valid argument for seeing him in that he does have some relationship, but Osborne doesn't even have that.

If you've got a chance, take a look at that.

That was there.

Oh, you were there.

I heard it.

You might read it.

You might get a speech test or something like that.

Well, they all we really don't worry about that much.

Of course, the greatest problem would be making the dynamic speech.

Has somebody talked to Crowell, or should I write him a little note?

Cashin has talked to him.

There's been a guy dealing with him.

So he's totally out of control, and that's why we can't contact him?

I don't think he should write a note.

I think it's better not to.

Well, no, I just wanted to thank you for your support.

We'll send a presidential message to the dinner.

Yeah, I can thank you for your great good thing.

I'm sorry I can't be present at each dinner.

I wish I could be here to honor and look forward to seeing you before I leave for my trip to Russia.

Why don't you have some tea, then I'll burn it up like that and brew it till the end.

How much do I appreciate it when you enter into production?

Thank you.

I shall always remember that.

Wonderful reception you've received.

My interception.

I'm not able to come to Philadelphia on Sunday.

Is that an appropriate passage for you to read?

I look forward to having this with you before I leave for Russia.

Do you want to say that?

You don't want to say it again, do you?

Yes, I do.

Well, the hell is, if I go to Poland, I'm kind of... Oh, I see.

Sure.

Good job.

Before I go to Russia, and particularly to discuss the...

The final agreement has not yet been reached for the entity.

It seems this, at this time,

It's very likely, it seems quite likely that in a week, a moment can also be made.

You know, it's quite true, Bob, that the media is ignoring it, aren't they?

Or is trying to, except for the trip to Campbell, or Campbell, which they thought was going to hurt him.

Well, they didn't give us the irony when you were playing.

Oh, yeah, they did.

Because he hit the ball there.

I didn't see it.

I'm sorry.

I was surprised they gave him more of a play than I thought they would.

It was not a front-page play.

It wasn't a front-page short.

It was a big, insubstantial play.

Well, I don't know, because there was only one network on Saturday night.

They did carry it.

Right.

The CBS was on and they had it.

Right, right, right.

Okay, good.

I take it back.

All right.

It was a fairly major Sunday picture story.

time she was going to do the Mike Douglas show, go to the tennis matches, go to the space job that's good.

Space job is good because that's a big television show.

That's about 1 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, so there'll be a hell of an audience.

She's running.

She's, I don't mean tennis, ping pong actually.

Ping pong, yes.

I told her I wasn't so sure about that because it's basically the tennis crowd here on the 11th wing.

And for the most part, sort of a gay crowd.

They never read French.

She said that the worst time that she and Julie ever had was when she and Julie, they went over to some goddamn tennis match and the crowd was cold as ice.

You gotta expect that.

Isn't that interesting that the tennis crowd generally is left wing, tends to be homosexual,

Or do they go back to the total days or ?

Well, it's kind of like the opera.

It's sort of like operas enter the theater.

It's the social sport to go to.

It's not the masses.

Tennis stadiums are small stadiums.

You buy boxes, and you buy the season box for the tournament.

And everybody goes to be seen there, like they go to the opera.

That would be the problem.

Yeah, they wore fancy hats.

I think it's all right for her.

She was like, I don't care about the factory.

It's a television show anyway.

We'll just be there watching matches.

What do you think?

I don't know.

Apparently it's worked out with this factory that she didn't want to go to the goddamn thing.

It's a...

It may not be.

It's good television.

That's the only reason.

It's a way to hit it.

It's the TV.

They're coming in here to the office.

Is that the way you're trying to be here?

No, I can pick on them.

I don't know.

I thought you said we couldn't do that.

We can't do it out on the court, but I think they're going to do one on the inside or something.

And there's no point with me doing it on the court.

I'm going to find out that my intern is fine.

Try to work it out with them too.

Well, I didn't even... heard it.

Just got to... see this, uh... Vietnam thing through now, as we said yesterday.

To the end.

Three, four weeks.

And then people went, that's what happens.

It's pretty huge.

The political ones are having, I think, they're going to have a hell of a time jumping on this one with effectiveness.

I mean, they're going to be leery of it for fear that it might work, for fear.

Other than Terry, who follows the strategy always of going all out and way beyond anybody else.

Nobody really, they're very cautious.

I'm referring to them.

They're having their problems with this.

Yeah, and you've got the, oddly enough, because it's a strange place for it to have come from, but Oberdorfer's book on Tet, which is the definitive work among the intelligentsia, which, it makes the point that Tet was a massive victory for us.

gives them all pause, because they don't know what, you know, they, they keep talking.

They didn't, the enemy failed.

Enormous losses.

And now they're starting to point out the differences between this and Tepp, where this is, in Tepp, the enemy was largely South Vietnamese.

B.C.

is in South Vietnamese defectors, where now the enemy is all North Vietnamese, virtually.

There's damn few South Vietnamese involved on the other side.

And now you've got this thing which they're playing, which is amazing, that the Buddhists are supporting the Thieu government, which is kind of a switch.

People are sort of rallying to the National College, and I saw some of them.

It's at least got them cautious.

They're not quite sure that they can go running, running out and say this is a terrible disaster, because they're not sure whether it is or not.

They're sure they'll jump on any indication they've got that it is, because they're so sure.

And they will come.

There will be days that are bad, days that are good.

So you're writing through that score.

You've written through other things, so we'll write this.

Right now, you're writing two.

I'm still at that point.

Oh, you haven't updated it yet?

Well, that may not matter.

You know what I mean?

The thing is,

Not everybody's got to understand that in this, there are battles won and battles lost.

When the battle's lost, you don't figure the war's lost.

You figure, well, what's tomorrow going to be?

Maybe tomorrow we win one.

The other side scores a touchdown, then you score one.

That's the way the game goes.

But when a battle's won, you can't just heed the sign and say, thank God that took care of the war.

It is true.

They've just got to be ready for it.

Keep hitting them.

I'm sorry we took the orders today to follow up on the I-card.

The goddamn weather is still in the blue today.

Yeah.

But one day, it's just, you know, just like this weather here.

It's just as unusual this time of year, but it just hangs in.

But one day it breaks.

You've got the symbolism, at least, to put the B-52s up there.

Don't you think that's good?

Damn right.

And those, the Navy out there, I do think that's having some effect.

Must be having an enormous effect on them.

And it's having some effect in the, well, certainly the thing here.

To the extent that any hawks, and the Navy's pretty good at finding those hawks common out there.

You know, we've always found that maybe 15 to 20 of them still can be hawkish.

It gives them enormous heart.

They've got to have material.

And it gives pause in the Douglas.

They don't know what the hell's going to happen.

The middle is always playing winners.

That's the way it works.

So he laid them all.

That's the way it's going to do.

And we're sticking to them.

We're certainly not reacting weakly.

That's the whole point.

I think that's getting through in everything we're saying.

I'll then talk to both.

Again, it's very minor and full of each other, but we...

clearly very much intended in Minnesota and UCLA.

I talked to both of them.

I said, we talked for quite a while.

I just waited to see whether they were going to raise something.

And they didn't.

So then I said, well, what about the war?

Is everybody upset about that?

No.

I said, well, aren't they starting to organize marches and things?

No.

Well, doesn't everybody think China's going to come in against us or some horrible catastrophe is going to happen?

No.

Aren't they upset that we're bombing the North?

Didn't know you were bombing the North.

They both said that just there isn't even a ripple on either campus.

That's a ripple.

Now, that's straight up.

See, there was a March scheduled, as you probably know, for that.

There was an anti-war March scheduled for, I think it was April 22nd, somewhere, in the next couple weeks.

It's been scheduled for a couple months.

And I'm not at all sure that that timing wasn't...

Could have been.

Totally coordinated with the North Vietnam Navy.

Could have been.

And I would guess that it was, because they are always very much involved.

This time, maybe we better say that.

I mean, maybe we better... We did this.

We did November 3rd, and we're starting to say it on this one.

I think that's...

But maybe... Well, I want to be careful, because as of now, the march isn't getting any steam up, and I don't want to build it up.

Yeah, I see.

We've got to be ready.

This is the 11th.

It's got 11 days to go.

Yeah, but they aren't...

It's a national march.

They're having big signs out about, you know, they're supposed to march from all different places, but there has been, they had a preliminary thing only for something like 25 people showed up for it, and they were expecting 5,000.

And we're here.

No, it was someplace else.

Chicago or someplace where they were getting a mobilization meeting or something.

And it didn't work out.

Well, certainly you would think the war actually would sure help.

I'm not so sure.

I don't know if there would actually be any different reality than anything before.

I mean, leading up to the invasion, right?

But the war is, in my book of mine, is eight to ten minutes every night on the network.

It's a devil.

I'm sure you realize.

I'd rather have the war eight to ten minutes a night than TNT every ten minutes.

Wouldn't you?

Yeah.

Or food prices .

Or which, I don't know.

No, I would.

I think the war is buying us some time now.

And if, first place, you don't have any option.

You've got to .

Second place, it's not all bad by any means.

Third place, there aren't enough Americans.

And if you do have that, somebody raised that question at the POW, which is a stupid thing for one of our people to say, but you would have one hell of a problem if the South Vietnamese announced that

Every day that you sent bombers across the DMZ to shoot a POW in the square, you'd have to come up with a deal with them.

Blockade the command place.

That would have to be all over.

Move tighter, yeah.

I'd go for the blockade and the...

In my ignorance, that's the one thing I don't understand is why we don't go for the blockade anyway.

It just seems to be a confrontation with the Russians.

Well, you know what I mean?

That puts it to the Russians in a way that what the hell do they do?

They've got to say, well, you're going to stop Russian ships.

That's really what it is.

All they're doing is destroying them.

But you said yes.

Yeah, well, you might blow the... Stop.

They might go for mining instead of...

Same for Russian ships.

If you blow up Russia, sure.

But anyway, they do it by their act.

Mining is their main overt action.

We have a very much in mind as an option.

It may come the next week.

Well, that's the thing.

You've got the Russians in a crunch on it because it puts, you know, as long as they think you're going to do it, they've got to have a way about it.

Whatever, just to the extent that we can do it without short on the one side, and on the other side, American ground forces, everything is necessary.

Well, your thing yesterday was, I think, a super big step in putting that in focus, too.

that the Russians made a warning without being belligerent, which was very important, and used in marvelous form for doing the biological security for a certain thing.

After everybody had a crockery, they were being gushed about peace.

I didn't want them to be gushed about you, which is... That's good.

When will John be able to be here?

I said right away.

He's ready to move the middle foot.

Step into it.

Food prices.

Cry.

Anytime you see anything like that, shoot a note to him just as you did.

You know, just cry.

In other words, I'll do it to him.

That's right.

And then he gets to work on...

And we'll work with him on the backup.

Like you said, you apparently now wanted to work on playing with other people.

Gee, I just don't know.

How good I am at that.

So you didn't have in mind deciding whether some undersecretary should give the speech or not.

What you had in mind was the overall guidance of what they were going to be saying.

I will work on the schedule.

He doesn't have to get into it.

Oh, yeah.

And then they get together and charge him.

I'm not going to say lucky ball about speeches.

Having the conference of not 300, but maybe 25, 30 of our best speakers, and they come over here and say, Mitchell did that this morning.

He said, you have a great being here of getting your service.

Mitchell, we've got a lot of good service, a lot of good speakers out, but they need to be charged.

They need to know what, they need to be told what to say.

It isn't just giving them speech material on one piece of paper.

And I think that's .

He could do that.

He could have a weekly meeting where he calls in the 20 on the .

And fires them up.

And takes the four big issues.

Let's hit these as much as possible, OK?

And what about Henry's thing?

Now, Henry will do that, of course.

Henry can go in and hit him on his thing, too.

But he doesn't need to do it once a week.

He can go in and do it.

every couple weeks, maybe, at the same meeting.

But the domestic issue is really, but he's not gonna take the initiative on it.

They don't have a section, because you've got to do that personally.

And, and, and Mitchell says they need that, do they?

They won't.

We don't have any leaders, no self-spiders, no guys who would go out and be smart enough, and they're not sure enough of themselves.

See, that's the advantage of Ehrlichman.

Ehrlichman has the inner assurance that he knows what to say.

He knows what things to attack on, what things to avoid.

The other people are a little unsure of themselves, and so they tend to be safe.

Ehrlichman doesn't worry about being safe.

And what we've got to do is encourage these people to make some mistakes.

But don't make them say it.

Go too far on a few things.

And make moves.

That's right.

Now, I don't, I want them all to know that we're not going to hold them responsible for anything like that.

Get out there and slug a little.

Yes, sir.

We may have to back away from some of the things that have been said.

Yeah, that's right.

But we've got to wish we had a few things to back away from.

Good.

Well, you go ahead.

Yeah.

That's what I had in mind as leadership.

I'd get a man and I'd say, but...

We've got a good story to tell right now.

Wholesale prices are down, so that means prices are going to get better.

Stores are beginning to come down.

And the President is taking leadership on this thing.

And the Price Board and Conlane are taking leadership on it.

But where is the follow-through?

Isn't that the problem in our food prices?

Has anybody said anything since commenting about the problem?

You haven't done none.

That's my problem.

You ought to have a real symphony there.

Maybe that's it.

Drugs, can we follow up?

Are we going to follow up on the hotline?

Give that another shot.

There I realize.

They want me to make that speech.

You still think that's an ordinary issue?

Yeah.

They're working on a speech now, aren't they?

Yeah.

Well, John can help us on that.

Yeah.

We're going to be up in ten minutes.

Ten minutes, that'll hit the line.

Again.

Yeah.

That's drugs and crime.

And prices.

Bussing.

Crime.

Drugs.

Crime.

Bussing.

What?

Drugs.

Drugs and crime.

Bussing.

Bussing is another issue.

Bussing.

Prices, inflation.

Got it.

Labor readers, the whole pie in there.

Right.

So then you're men of peace.

On the other side, the positive leadership in foreign affairs, the man of peace thing, which, personally, you don't need to worry about.

Just don't.

They're going to have to change their script.

Just stand by the president for his strong leadership, the strong leader thing.

There's going to be, I think, one thing that this show of strength does do.

It tends, at least, to undermine that, if we say it.

Don't you agree?

And if others say it, which they are.

I'm talking about others.

Like you mean the media are saying?

Is that what you mean by others?

Yeah.

We don't have a problem.

Well, that's a good trade.

I'm sure the media think they're hurting you, but they make the point of the B-52 strikes, which were personally ordered by President Nixon.

They probably think they're hanging that around your neck.

That's exactly what you want.

If you're going to do it for yourself, better get credit for it.

That's right.

And yet you're not in that sort of absurd posture that Johnson got in of running down in the room, picking out the tarpons and telling him his oil oil would roll out.

Never.

Not an experience in that respect, but I think the idea of personally ordering the fleet out there, too.

The fleet.

And then start another 20 B-52s around the way out.

That's good, isn't it?

Shale gas.

I mean, no doubt it's true, but at least if it's a start, maybe the last one.

Maybe you always get right about things, but well, they think we're just not so right.

But all that's good on the basis that if it comes out right, you get a hell of a lot of credit for it coming out right.

Because just as in Cambodia, when it finally came out right, they had to give you credit.

There was no... Because they gave you so much blame.

They couldn't just separate it from you after it became a success.

This they won't be able to either, if it's a success.

It's a failure.

You know goddamn well they're going to hang you with it.

Either way.

You should try.

Okay.

I'm not even afraid of that.

But another thing too is this, the fact that I'm doing it somewhat alone is good.

You know, the fact that Laird made a statement, but only after I had taken the initiative, and the fact that Rogerson said a word, it would be all right.

I agree with Henry.

I don't think Bill would be convincing enough.

He wouldn't say anything at this point.

Bill would be convincing.

When the actress does, it's all right.

If he thinks it's going to come out.

But I don't really think Bill will stick his neck out.

I think that's right.

Therefore, I think that we were going to talk.

I remember we thought, as I said, that I think we'd better just let him talk to everybody.

He's probably right that you don't want to press Bill to do something until he...

I mean, he's good when the letters, the sun is shining.

Bill isn't very good with the train.

Unless he has no other place to go.

Here he figures he's got another place to go.

He fears he can wait, and that's what he's going to do.

Wait?

Well, and he also justifies it by saying, well, this is the time to say anything concerning.

Things are going all right.

Let's just wait and see how it comes out.

But I must say, it couldn't be more wrong for him to say it.

It just couldn't.

If he had any sense.

I understand.

Bill would help us if he would do it with purpose.

He really could.

And he would also help himself.

He looked like he was leaving.

He got a damn thing.

I wonder if maybe you shouldn't have talked with him just to put him to the test.

Well, except if you do and he doesn't, I think Henry's right.

I don't think he will do it with the right kind of scum.

He will contest too much that we are still seeking negotiations.

That is not... You see, Bob, that's really good making speech.

Yeah, because there was no way, and Henry said he brought the sapphire king and screamed as it was from what he had written.

But nevertheless, that's what everybody wants me to do.

They see this generation of peace floating off into the upper atmosphere, and they want me to protest that we're still for peace.

Well, I am not going to do that.

God damn it, we proved we were for peace.

We proved that we were going to do it.

You can't say it now because that jeopardizes your chances for it.

Well...

We've also got our say.

We've got a quarter position to make a good statement in Paris.

It will go.

On the other hand, what we say is, let me say, 40 million back, we're going back.

You'll make a statement Thursday.

And I'm going to put in another little crack at the Russians, which is a Canadian speech, which is a good way to do it.

And there's a group back.

We have two.

I'll mention that.

But they'll be Friday.

And so we'll keep that thing alive a bit.

Let me tell you, I'm going to Canada and having demonstrators up there, it doesn't bother me.

I just think it will reflect life in a lot of Canadians.

You apparently aren't going to have any.

They've apparently put a security ban on them.

How do they do it?

The last report I saw was that the Mounties have finally decided they're not going to allow demonstrators.

They've put out the word to the radicals that they're not to come to Ottawa at all.

They have to come in the city.

Apparently they do have some control.

Well, and they had a terrible experience, you know, with the seagulls.

That's right.

And they're afraid of getting that again.

And that they do.

Sorry.

We don't want them to be.

Of course, we want a few friendly Canadians out.

There must be some.

Oh, and I don't give a damn.

I wouldn't worry about them.

I don't worry about them.

I don't give one damn what they have out.

I mean, it's up to them.

It matters.

One thing for sure is we've got a good reception in the parlor.

I mean, because it's just the fact you went to this on the bench.

We're doing enough for the Canadians, believe me.

going to the Parliament, going to his show, going to the Governor General's thing, and leaving, I mean, and signing the heavy meeting the second morning, huh?

Absolutely.

More than none.

Rogers, don't try.

Don't try.

Let me say, if we seem true, Bob, though, I really believe in this instance that

Only then, as he said, then if Roger says it, which of course he will, he's got to do it in terms only of grace and presence.

We've just got to get our guys then get lined up if it comes through, but that's another game.

But who knows?

And Bill has just got to handle it.

Look, he'll do, the only time he's ever done anything that was greatly to his benefit.

But he was shading like a leaf.

It wasn't a musky thing.

Sure.

But it's the best thing he's done this year, wasn't it?

Sure.

It's the only move that made him any positive points, really.

That's right.

I'm curious, because he's not a solid man.

Nobody's just obsessed with himself.

A good press is negative.

Because he'd be in life.

And each day's good, but that's not the long term.

See, if he could see ahead, he'd see he could get the best price he could get is if he'd come out now all out for this Vietnam thing.

Then he could turn around in a couple weeks and say, I told you something.

And he'd get the attention if he came.

You got me speaking.

I had to build the economic nose.

is certainly much more strongly on the positive side of that.

And on the downside, food supply, I think you have, I think a major weakness we have are two, one, the price issue.

I don't think the unemployment thing is all that big.

They're not, as in the price thing, food price, food price, and everybody, the ability to be talking about this, I'm sure that's what makes people mad.

People are all bitching about prices of the groceries that you cost money.

The other thing is,

Of course, the big business pie, right?

That was annoying.

You see?

For something dramatic, you can do a full crush.

I mean, about just before the election, I mean, about two months before, I'd say, you've got to live in another freeze to come here, sir.

I may be on the other end of the question, so it'd be better.

What's your opinion?

What do you understand?

And, well, it's been extraordinary things to do.

Thank you.

I mean, not now.

I don't know what now.

But right now, you want to get off the clock and say things are going to be better.

Well, there's some advantage.

You could argue that it's pretty good to get over the stir about food prices now.

Because, for one thing, the survey is causing them to come down to a certain extent.

I would argue that James wouldn't have reduced meat prices even when the wholesale prices went down if they thought they could get away with it.

They couldn't get away with it because of all this, sir.

And, uh...

There's this heat on the middle man and all this stuff.

They feel that heat.

They know that they're holding on.

And I think you'll see a continuing, that they'll do a hell of a, this pressure, the jaw-boning type thing may work a hell of a lot better than controls, in fact.

And if you get them down some, in fact, then, and as things get stimulating, of course, you're never going to stop the inflation.

The more you get the inflation, the more you get the inflation.

That's the difficulty with Tusk's science.

Remember Annamise?

He said, we ought to do this, we ought to do this.

But he's totally insistent.

He can't, on the one hand, say what we have to do is to fight the horizon, but on the other hand, on the second, we also have to speculate the economy out here, and we kid ourselves how the hell he can't do both of those things, and he knows it.

He knows it.

Well, he's trying to say it.

It's nice to have kind of an interesting idea, which is to issue a mid-year economic report, which would be written as a campaign document, and talk forward, and talk and take rebuttal.

Let's have it in three years, and have it right after the Democratic convention.

Let's stab in July 1st, okay, and go forward on that.

It's a very good one.

Mr. Conley agrees with doing it.

He hasn't discussed it with the Council.

You might raise a comment when you talk to him today.

That could be damn effective.

Give him an official government document that the press would have to give some play to and that our speakers could then refer to.

That's the mid-year economic report.

I think that's it.

I'll talk to Conley about that.

You mentioned doing this, you know, I want to talk about that.

And about what I called this morning.

I think we have to realize that we are maybe setting targets.

We probably are setting targets in terms of public approval and so forth that present day are not possible because of the massive

disenchantment that has been planted in the minds of people and also a great number of young people, a lot of government in general.

And that's the cycle we're just doing.

If you would think, actually, there are people that have done a better job on the channel than state electors doing things like that, maybe there wasn't anything they could have done.

Maybe now, after Russia, we'll turn that.

That, it would seem to me, had quite a bit of an appeal to people.

I don't think so.

And I think it has had some.

We run into people that were, it seems to have had some.

It's had some of it.

But it's all a question of a percentage point or two, isn't it?

And maybe nothing to do with it.

Just stay the hell with it.

Do the best you can.

And also recognize the fact, too, that we have a massive media problem.

We just get through it.

I was very interested in another Times Review Appeals book where they said

that actually Nixon's press hadn't been all that bad.

Now, for Christ's sakes, that was an unbelievably shit-ass thing to say.

My press has been terrible, and they know it, considering what I've done.

That's the point.

You've had a lot of good press, but your good press has been forced by, and it hasn't been as good as it should be.

That's right.

He's a good press officer.

Look, for Christ's sakes, I would go to a press conference and get a half-assed treatment.

But generally speaking, we've only had a good press to the extent we've been pretty god-damned hard to handle.

That's right.

And we look at what... Well, that's what he said, going over the heads of the press, right?

The biological war thing, if Matt Kennedy had done that, they'd have been, you know, giving him a second start with his crown.

Well, Kennedy did most everything wrong and got almost all good press, even some.

You've done most everything wrong and got mostly bad press.

I think it is more, it is when Osmer is closer to the mark when he says, most of the person doesn't want to trust you.

That's true.

That's basically the way it is.

And I think that's one good piece of advice that we're asking.

Is it that we ever get that hand thing done for the China thing?

Should we do it?

If we're going to do it, I think...

I think it's getting around the lake.

I think it still isn't an idea to do, don't you?

Yeah.

If it isn't, Nelson.

Oh, no, I don't think it's a good idea.

But I think it's a good idea.

Let's get it out right now, pretty soon.

Without any letter or anything.

And let, uh, let, let Ziegler handle that.

That might be an idea.

Ziegler.

And, uh, mail it to him.

And we give it to the staff and all the rest of the team and so on.

Give it up and down the lines.

This time, everybody that was there, including the Secret Service and the airplane crews and down the street, so that they all have a feeling that we have won a medal for them.

I think you should have said, won a medal for them.

Now, the other thing is...

But what I was addressing, the thing about Zegers is that he's absolutely right.

You know, I'm tempted to go into a room and see some, I mean, have something for the press socially or some other goddamn thing.

And Zegers says no, except for the one time we had a picture of a child.

But I think he's absolutely right.

I think it would be nice for some of those that are our friends, but for the most, they are not our friends.

And therefore, don't lower yourself to get in the pit with tons of edges.

Do you agree with that?

I sure do, and it doesn't do any good.

People will argue with you on that.

I'm fine with arguing with you on that.

Bill Rogers will argue with you.

Oh, Bill, Bill, you know, Bill, when he's taking his trips, always has a reception for the press.

Before he goes, he has one when he's there.

You know, he invites them all in.

They have a drink and so forth.

The end.

And he chats with them.

I don't think they respect you for that.

I think you are not the president, especially the secretary of state.

That's all right.

I don't think they respect you.

What I'm getting at is this, that I think my socializing with the press, our friends would love it, and I'd like to do it with the Vanderlandes and the others, you know, they're really nice guys and they want to be home.

But typically only 20% basically are friends or non-enemies.

The 8% who are the other way around.

We've only used it as a saying on the summit of which he's trying to mutter something so cruel.

So the way that our friends understand that they are members of a group that is against us, and they have accepted it.

And as far as our enemies are concerned, all that they deserve and what we should give them is frankly a very courteous but cool contempt of Jewry.

And I think that's the way we've been handling them, and that's the way we should handle them.

Is that the argument?

Yeah.

And Zacher feels that way, doesn't he?

All the way.

He doesn't want any goddamn socializing.

I think he's delighted to do any of these events this year.

But didn't they ask for White House Correspondents after last year?

I will never go back to them.

I know.

It's just too damn bad the timing that Poe, you know, is President of Correspondents this year also.

He's President of both.

He's President of both, but we're never had a Correspondents.

First time in history, one that's been President of both.

Don't worry.

And it's just, no, you shouldn't.

But it's too bad because he's such a nice guy, but he's also, you know, so blind.

And he can't control it.

He can't control it.

And I don't think there's, I had a long talk with him at the Grid Army.

I don't think it was the least bit disturbed that you weren't there.

I mean, I was relying.

Well, he knew why you weren't there.

Did he?

Yeah, he didn't say it, but he knew it.

He said, I just love that man that you work for.

I said, well, he knows that.

He knows.

He appreciates.

Can we do one thing for him?

Can we be sure that Ziegler finds a way to get him subsidized for this trip?

OK?

And you know what I mean?

Is get him to, so that he gets something special.

and through his talking to his editor and the rest of it.

That's the least we can do.

And any way we can do that, probably he's the head of the two correspondents.

Maybe we can share with him what kind of things we can work on.

What Ron was just saying, you shouldn't even know about it.

We can work it out.

We just don't charge for the airplane.

See, we prorate the airplane costs and we can just not build some of them.

That's the big cost.

That's the big air cost.

That's the hotel cost.

It's nothing.

The country's country does.

For China, it's $300.

And I suggest something.

One thing that I'd like to do for him.

It would be an awfully nice thing.

Why don't you invite him to go on our plane, on the pool plane, since he is the president and the president of the White House Correspondents.

He goes, he said, that'd be very easy.

And then he's not charging for it.

Get my mind.

I just let him ride the whole damn thing all the way.

The rest of the two of them.

See if it's wrong.

If it gets wrong, it's just not great.

They managed to call me there, but that's a good way to do it so you don't have to charge.

I knew it from Ron.

Ron was on the line.

This is how you can do it.

You can bet they wouldn't get around if they weren't charged.

The only guy you tell you're not charged is the guy you can tell me about.

I didn't know we ever did that.

We don't.

We have not.

We have not charged you before.

Yeah, but...

Uh, troops in this country.

Certainly.

Yeah.

And they were probably the number of people that would go down to South Carolina that time.

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

Well, it's a great thing, certainly.

I'm sure it has.

You see, that's the nice thing for Cole, to get him on that branch and get him into every one of them.

You're sure he'd go.

If you go, we'll bring him back on his plane.

All the way.

Well, I jogged the other 12 if I said the one that really disturbed me the most about Afghanistan this year was the fact that he was president.

And I was a little disappointed to be here for his year.

He said, oh, your junior's in that one.

I doubt that there's been a spring in the lake in history in Washington City.

It's a...