Conversation 711-004

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Well, what's the, uh... Big things you gotta get.

You want to eat, you got another?

You want tomorrow?

You want to enjoy any good stuff there, or are you getting any old things?

Action on Vietnam going pretty well.

And a bunch of them yesterday.

But they got picked up.

The biggest thing we got was Aiken.

Who, just because it was Aiken hitting the Vietnams, the aggressor, there'd be a bloodbath if they went in.

A number of others also.

some good ongoing stuff on the Canada Show magazine.

And follow-up, I'm curious as to how well you handle it.

Mrs. Whitman did a good U.S. News interview on your determination to win the inflation battle.

Agnew hit the supermarket time trimming their food prices.

Or facing the prospect of government action.

the food industry has shown too little restraint during a time of rising prices.

And he went to the supermarket institute and hit him head on.

And he said Conley had inspired some change to reduce prices and even further sacrifice in the street.

And he gave Conley credit for his action there.

Time magazine spends two pages criticizing

They're afraid it isn't.

They think we'll go through this hot tub.

They're afraid we'll go through it again.

Charlton's scared to death we'll go through it.

Stick a stick to the door.

All right, let's see.

This is a stretch line.

U.S. News has an interesting Montgomery quote.

It's saying, with Democratic students, Montgomery has talked, but Nixon commands much more strength on the campaign.

Gallup pulled stuff on how far you're ahead of Wallace in the south.

Stuff like that.

What farm was that, Wallace's farm?

No, it was, it's, in this case, it's just a general claim saying that it's Clayton Yoder, you know, our guy, saying, oh, it's the recent focus.

He's making a point of growing a farm sport.

And, uh,

I came up with a fascinating byproduct of our infiltration or attempted infiltration of the demonstrators in Canada.

which is that the demonstrators that you saw and that demonstrated were not anti-war demonstrators.

They were anti-US demonstrators.

And they were under direct control of the Prime Minister's office.

That was a set-up job from start to finish.

It was run by his office.

It was done carefully, deliberately, and our people were unable to infiltrate.

Our people infiltrated the anti-war group, and the anti-war group was kept away.

It never got to that point until after you had left.

Have you gotten the word in?

I haven't gotten it to his office.

I haven't had a chance to.

I want it directed, Rob.

I really want it done.

We've got an iron-clad case here.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police moved those demonstrators in four minutes before you arrived, positioned them.

We had been told, and the whole arrangement was, that there'd be no live television coverage of that signing ceremony.

in the mall, they put the other camera where it could shoot right past your car and get the demonstrators in the same shot.

They set the demonstrators where your car would go up and our people moving out fast.

Your people moved fast because we saw what had happened.

I know, that's what I meant.

They didn't get much, but this is exactly what they had moved on.

They set the two cameras up an hour before your arrival and moved the demonstrators in

that were set up right where your car had to drive by the day before when you left.

Remember that group as we drove out, who were on the left there?

And the prime minister's executive assistant stood right with them.

And when the next service arrived, our secret service tried to move them out.

And he was physically pushed aside by the Canadian police.

Why don't we do something about it?

Well, I have a feeling we ought to get the story out.

I want you to get it out.

Now don't ask Henry about this one for Christ's sakes.

Get it out through

A White House aide.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Is there any other, you know, you'd make a way?

It would be Buchanan.

I'd like to hurt, I'd like to hurt him.

I'd like to hurt Trudeau, you know what I mean?

Yeah, if you could trust Oswald Beckman or somebody like that, that would be a good one.

Well, the problem is that anybody, they're going to want to be reassured that it's true, which it is.

The way we've got to reassure them is by our own people.

Why don't you just have a memorandum and have it so that Jack Anderson, and I use him on this case.

There's a good way to use Anderson.

You print it.

But you know what I mean?

The way it is that

put out that the White House is trying to cover it up for some damn thing.

Is there a way to do that?

Let me just say, find a way to get it out.

Find a way to get it out.

Don't tell anybody.

Don't tell them.

What I meant is that there's some Secret Service agent or...

I think you should... Don't you agree?

You've got to put it to these people for kicking the U.S. around after what we did for that glossy son of a bitch.

Wasting three days up there.

Don't worry.

Play it.

Anyway, play it.

Play it hard.

Find a way to put it to somebody around here who's...

I tell you who would probably have a better idea than you can.

Usually you've got to send all the time.

They've had to cover this very big up now.

You know?

And not in just a little, but a lousy column, but maybe about a, um, something like a, like Jack Anderson.

Way up, you know, where the hell they go.

But Andy can't say it's a friend or a white-out line captain, too.

The line is so sloppy, mind, if he could get it out, I mean...

You see the basis for your changing the executive privilege, is that deal still being worked on today?

Yeah.

Do you understand the basis for it?

The client doesn't talk to me about it at the convention, and it doesn't involve the advice of the president.

They talk about that, but you don't gain anything by that.

And you open, then you establish a principle that anybody who, you know, any time you might find it, get some of it.

What I mean, the point is that a White House aide who is in a capacity other than advice of the president,

Yeah, we're working on the police thing.

I don't think we've got another employee today.

You see, Mike, I think you've got a principal here.

Yeah, we could feed him some more raw meat if we had it.

It looks pretty good today because there's a memorial service for Justice Black.

And they've got Stewart and Sutherland and so on.

And then they've got a letter to the chairman that has been delivered to them now, the planning letter, which they'll have to meet and discuss.

And our guys here have a lot of reservations about that today.

So they're going to wallow around that, or they're supposed to anyway.

Gleason's definitely scheduled for tomorrow.

He's not really definitely scheduled.

They don't schedule the witnesses very definitely.

It sort of waffles around.

Gleason's sort of on call.

And Chairman is aware that there's some sensitivity on witnesses.

The Ruska is very much aware of it, because they've pointed out that this process is never as simple as it sounds.

That's why they're playing all of these off against each other.

Of course, you see, if we offer 10s and all that, that busts our deal with Irvin, too, at this point, because he's agreed not to.

But you see what I've had.

Yeah.

Those guys, it's a good boy for us to have him on.

See, it gets me away from the contention.

And that's the only thing that I would think is that they were on the order anyway.

Finch may be in a problem that he has told people that I'm on San Diego, which would not be true, because I never discussed San Diego with Bob Finch, never in my life.

I think he may not have told them directly, but I'm sure he must have implied it.

Well, he gets up and says the truth.

He says, no, I never discussed it with the president.

I'm from California, and I thought maybe he would want it that way, but he actually wanted it in Chicago.

You know, I don't think you can assume that I'm sort of away from the convention.

Well, maybe we are.

Maybe we aren't.

I don't get that again the other day that you had pushed on finding a Midwest location for the convention, specifically in Chicago.

to look at other Midwest possibilities.

At least they're working on that.

That is an important point at this point.

Except it has to do with whether or not I was rambling.

You see what it would be to get it out?

The $400,000 thing falls flat as far as the White House is concerned, unless the President was so panicked to have a goddamn thing in Chicago that we'd be well

They only have two days left up to today, haven't they?

Because they haven't really gone on Thursday.

Yeah, and they've got to take time or so.

Well, it's also, the panda story is building now as a building story.

As soon as you open, as soon as you lift the lid, right, that's the end of the panda story.

Well, there'll be a non-crowd story and all that, but hell, there's a damn good panda story in today about the, you know, what their names are and that they're in seclusion and that

There was a room where the girl was 19 years old and past the mating age, and now it was shut down.

They're both 18 months old, and they won't be ready to mate until they're three.

It was all kinds of interesting.

You know, the mating process is very rough, the zoo director says.

But he says, but then, while in those mating processes, it's always very rough.

Right.

You know, the details of the sex life of the pendant.

They're not going to let the two of them together for a while.

They're staying in separate cages.

They refer to their accommodations as garden apartments.

Air-conditioned garden apartments at the zoo.

Yeah, the zoo director had a press conference yesterday.

What did he say regarding why we weren't putting them out?

He said to get them implantatized and adjust their body pox.

He said just as human travelers have a problem covering that much distance and that they need time and we're not going to run any risks with them.

He's played it beautiful.

But their names are already set.

They were already named, Shang-Shang and Ling-Ling.

And Shang-Lang figured that we should leave them what they're saying, should only call them Shang-Lang.

And he describes how they eat, how they roll their food.

Well, even Henry could see that Rogers had done the best that he had ever done in his testimony.

Really, even reading through it, he couldn't find anything wrong.

And Bill really felt good about it, which is also good.

That's right.

Well, he had to get out of there.

He's waited two weeks.

He took Trisha to the bank month last night.

I know.

I think we're going to must be such a good target.

God Almighty, everybody out there in 60 days must sell the Vietnamese, make an attempt to get peace.

What in the name of Christ is he talking about?

I'm going to put that on, but he's doing, he's in Tulsa, had a Republican fundraiser, which they didn't want to do it at.

On Friday, he does the ASN East that I'm going to do.

I think we should anyway, regardless of what the... Well, you've got to get them basically in the interest of the country.

These people are being disloyal.

I mean, they've taken the side of the enemy, and that's the side of our own forces, Bob.

Don't you agree?

Yeah.

And I think we ought to take the show.

Well, it's a... To make my point, you know, doesn't anybody...

Doesn't anybody criticize the North Vietnamese for launching the invasion?

And no, of course, the North Vietnamese

And by God, that's what they need to be.

I remember that that was the start of it.

The start of this must be down the hole when he struck it out too far at the time of May

Just couldn't let these folks have out this week.

At some point, I think you're gonna have to take a few minutes and see bugs.

who has, you know, always said that, you know, I don't even see the president any time he wants me to give him a call, but, uh, on a report in his career, yeah, and particularly he wants to report, it may be kind of interesting, he has an exactly opposite evaluation of Brezhnev than the one you've gotten from being behind him.

He thinks Brezhnev has a deep personal hostility towards you,

And that because of the kitchen debate that you were a young smart aleck and that he didn't want any grandstanding by you in public and he wants serious private talks.

And Bean at that point thought, and Bean was in the meeting, and Bean's interpretation of that was the president was criticizing Khrushchev's conduct in the kitchen debate.

But Butz's impression was exactly the opposite, that he was criticizing you not.

I don't, we, Buzz maybe have the impression that I have some illusions about Gresham.

No, he's not, he's not at all.

Not that you, I don't, just, you know, just that, you know, he's interested in the thing.

Oh, he's a guy we've got out front.

I think you'd have to see once in a while anyway, and he ought to go.

What we ought to do is to establish a pattern in Crips in the future, and everybody should be told in advance.

And when you return, you do not report me to the President of the Appalachian Institute.

What do you think?

I hear you think that's quite, you know, we've been very generous with people on Crips, but it's not that high a price to pay.

The other thing is that it clutters up.

That's pretty much what I'm going to do here.

I'm going to put it down on a piece of paper and I'll read it and throw it in the basket.

It may be useful.

It may not be.

Well, be that as it may, that's only for the future.

It's really quite true.

We ought to set it up as standard procedures.

You see, we have so many that travel abroad.

That's what they want to come in here and report for the next trip.

Well, and there's a good substantive reason for them not to because they have...

And also, you show me an individual who does not sit on his fat ass and write it all out and think it through, knowing that that is it.

And I'm sure the individual isn't going to contribute much in the conversation.

It'll be a nice cocktail talk.

But I'm past that stage, Bob.

I mean, I'm bored with it.

I just don't want to sit and hear somebody gasp about the engineering medicines and where he was or how many minutes he had.

Do you really have to ?

I don't .

But my point, I think, is this.

Generally speaking, disciplining of your staff requires they sit down and put their goddamn things down.

And that's a report to me, isn't it?

Sure is.

And I'll read it.

The report.

And then you can read it, go through it.

And if you have questions or areas of you want more of what you never

about it, you know, but he, particularly the guy Kissinger,

And Henry's report on the meeting says how well received he was.

Well, most people don't talk to them.

Well, Bob, it isn't a question of coming.

They haven't traveled enough, and they haven't been in the big leagues.

It's like a little leader trying to talk to a big leader about how to hit a curveball.

It's really the truth.

Yeah.

And it's no reflection on, God damn it, I would have been in no use to, I could have delved into reporting to him on a trip abroad, delved into more than I'd ever learned at that time.

He really would have.

But you see, our people, the difference is if I'm in the league, unfortunately,

And I sit there and cry out, who's telling me about what the king says and this and that.

Christ, oh my, there's nothing in it.

Or this ambassador isn't good and you've got to watch the foreign service.

All the usual things.

I can almost dictate what they're saying.

Everybody, Don Kendall comes in.

Jesus Christ, I mean about the Japanese.

Oh, they don't have words.

I know.

But ego requires that people report.

Take both of you.

He is the most ridiculous catapult.

He sits and talks and talks and talks and talks.

But that is important.

But you see, what you need is a listener.

And what we have, really, in this staff, that's what Kissinger's for, isn't it?

He's the listener.

And so not a very good listener.

But to sort out what has any meaning, if anything.

Sure.

That would be one where I will not make any remarks, whatever.

We could just go into the blue room.

I mean, it's a big gaggle of people in there all sleeping.

It's almost impossible without any remarks.

I think your idea of just providing entertainment for people over Christmas, but yeah.

something that, I mean, Alex and Bing all work together for once.

Set it up like the Christmas party.

Have some bell ringers in one place and some singers in another place and some strolling rings in another place.

You know what I mean?

Where they don't feel it, but they feel it.

You bring booze and everything all over the place.

And we should just stand there in a hall and let people come gang and crew.

Correct.

Keep it a fairly short line so they don't stand in line forever.

They move around and keep out of the river.

She's figuring that we would be taking off at Camp David.

We just have to take the upstairs door.

out there for basically very unimportant people, you know, just because, you know, we sort of want them.

Why not?

There's some people that'll have a reverberating effect all over the country.

These people will go back.

The Y, you know, there were many of these editors and writers named O'Briens, and I saw them upstairs a little millennia ago.

It's a hell of a thing.

It is, too.

I'll have to talk to her.

She's terribly hard to talk to.

He still let the editors do it on the ground, and he says, we've got to go get the hell out of there, but we can't do it.

It just occurred to me this morning, I didn't like it when I heard it.

So Conner's up Wednesdays, and Egg is Friday.

Good.

Shows a great advantage you might not like.

We still have, still have, we don't build them.

We can't create our people.

We don't got them.

You're absolutely right.

In other words, we've got a lot of stuff.

I remember as vice president, when you were campaigning, we'd haul along a cabinet of the Secretary of the Interior.

And we'd make a big thing.

Christ, they'd introduce him on the platform.

Secretary of the Interior and President Eisenhower's cabinet.

Remember, we always used that line, too.

That was a good maneuver.

I don't want to do it again.

I don't need to.

When everybody else is there, they ought to do it.

They ought to build them up.

They ought to have a fan character they've got to bring out.

He comes on, he gives a wave, and they see somebody that they've heard about.

And even if they don't recognize him, which they usually don't, people don't know who the captain officer is.

They still know that they're, you know, that's a big deal of a guy in the canon.

You know, it's an interesting thing that he did.

That Trudeau, he's a clever son of a bitch.

You see, he's on that side of the canon liberation movement.

He tries to indicate, he's trying to play both sides.

So he has them out there in order to sort of give us a little comic card.

But after the way he treated the son of a bitch,

Well, not because his hair was long.

He's a weird guy.

Our guys said he was just... You see his eyes?

Totally uncooperative and very strange.

Was he?

I didn't, but our guys said he was.

His press secretary's a hell of a nice guy and very cooperative and sort of stocky.

It's a different guy.

Very nice guy, sort of.

I also have the feeling that some of it, strangely enough, I'm not sure how long she was talking to me.

I wondered about that.

Actually, it wasn't a theory.

It was very subjective.

There was something.

Actually, it probably meant that the governor-general said that they'd be speeding time a whole shit.

Four-month old baby doesn't have a mother there.

It's like, why is it?

But they were, they were totally distant.

And I never, I mean, it was actually, yeah, there didn't seem to be any, no, come on, yeah, whatever.

I don't think it's his.

I think basically that he was as clear as he could be, and I just can't, I can't.

Well, that's true.

You had, that was a rather neat, subtle sticking in.

He doesn't bother me about being queer, but I just have a feeling that this guy, he's got an unclean feeling about him.

I just don't like him because he's not my kind of man.

Not worth a damn.

That office of his, did you notice that?

Everything was covered in a tan suede, leather, his desk, his counter, all the couches and chairs.

Those buildings did have a minority leader before they were made.

That's the British.

And that speaker's chair was the baker's chair.

That room was nice.

Well, it took you the goddamn comedian trip.

I can't get over the fact that Ziegler's treatment of the crust is the best.

Cold, icy, and don't give him the little bignets.

How the president slept and he didn't have to go to breakfast or he took a walk before or he worked very hard and prepared a toast or he does things, this and that.

They gave him that and

Don't do it anymore because I think that they just put you down so hard that I just sell the hard stuff.

You're dignity suckers, Bob.

People's dignity suckers.

The only one who, well, Ron's argument on that is you can't, they don't, if you don't have a pool letter,

Well, if we're going to do one, you might as well have it.

Like, when you had a pool, we've got great pickups.

Like on the Indian, you know, the blind Indian on the road, and the little kid on the edge of the desk, the deaf kid or whatever he was, returned.

And, sure, you have some of those where they put blind kid out and blind little girl out in Chicago.

And she was blind because she couldn't see.

She couldn't see the cookies or whatever.

She loved cooking.

But you're right.

So you get that.

What's the difference, Bob?

Not now.

Now it's the cold side.

Don't you agree?

And also, I'll tell you, I don't like

to lower themselves and talk to these goddamn enemies of the press.

I mean, they are enemies.

I mean, in particular.

As I said, I just, I know it won't do any good on the other side of Osborne.

No, no, never, never, never.

Either one, I don't care what they write.

Don't see them.

I told Henry, I said, I can see Sheckler from now on.

I told him, too.

So, he was very inquisitive.

The point is, the point is that the, the zinger and the rest of them can just not talk to society.

And I want Sapphire to talk to too.

Now, Sapphire's got to clap himself up, because he's always, you know, we're the best of the nation.

Sapphire's is, he is the one guy that is impeccable of, when you say, don't know what turns someone off, he does, he turns them off, just to the point where we, when we turn somebody off, he had invited to dinner, he was going to cancel the dinner.

He'll love playing checker.

What do you want to do?

Let us in tomorrow?

Not very good.

The other thing you can't do if you want.

Right.

We've got another drug story and then we've got our drug abuse law enforcement guys in town.

No, not today.

Not today.

We haven't, we've gone out and we've got a show.

But that kind of thing.

It isn't one that has any, in the country I'll do something.

Well, let's not have any sex killings.

The regional directors are in town, you know.

No, no.

Thank you.

That's not a decision.

That's not.

He's not operating.

McGregor's doing that.

McGregor and Dean and the other right over there.

And Wally Johnson.

The maneuvering.

Colson's working on the war side.

That's good.

Why don't you better have a follow-up?

You should follow up with the extension.

I heard he said the crime thing, he was good.

It's really, it's an interesting thing, again, that the- Why can't they cooperate?

Yeah, we got an incredible crime statistic.

Crime in the district first quarter is down 30.8% from the first quarter last year.

The star ran, it was a big story last night.

The Washington Post hasn't even carried it.

It's just in the goddamn paper.

And the wires didn't move it.

Now it isn't a very big wire story in a sense because it's a local story, but in another sense it is the national capital and it's a place where we're all showcasing how we're going to identify any question on crime.

Erland, you know, fear is because it was a big story, we've got to get him over right.

So what he's, among other things, it's just beginning.

He recalled and he remembered the...

about D.C. crime, remember?

Kay Graham and Joe Califano and Jack Coughlin and Edward Bennett Williams and some of them were just scared to death.

They said, you've got to put National Guard on every corner and all this stuff.

Well, he's going to summon them all back, the same group.

He's going to say, okay, you were in here pleading, and we did it.

Here's what the Star said about it, and here's the Washington Post and this crap.

probably today, great, absolutely, if I had a racket to the teeth and just smile at the kid and say, you know, that'll happen, you know, what's the trouble?

Why are you trying to suppress?

But do it by summoning that old group back, you know, and say, well, you came in and were bleeding and we did it, now what are you doing to help us out?

Would you name the post, the order that you're trying to suppress?

Or just bear with those?

And I'm going to stick it to the public's back.

Starting with very big front page.

Big story.

Crime drops 30.8%.

That's a hell of a figure.

Now, one third of the increase in crime for God's sake.

Hell of a figure.

Usually we're dealing with crime that drops

using me to try to sell stories can only be done once we've overdone the DC one we've done it time and time again there's no reason why John can't meet with the mayor or the chief I've talked to the press and said that's what we've done absolutely great absolutely great and that's all I have to say

That may be our major crime achievement through the administration.

We're going to have to talk about D.C. crime again.

That's right.

It's the showcase city, and it's the one where we put our work, the one we control.

And through revenue sharing, our other devices, we're attempting to export our success to the other cities.

All the schools in the world, they do, Bob, is not going to sell the people on buses.

Never.

Do you think?

No.

I don't look at all they've done.

All right.

I don't think there's any way you're going to sell it down to people sending their kids.

I don't think they're going to be sold on the fact that it'll be bussed across town because of a black school.

Other people's kids are not theirs.

Right?

And that's, you know, there's never been any variation of that.

I wanted to be sure they didn't expect that I got them reading Skelliger at a long event.

This is just going to be a picture out of your handshaking, not a long, I don't kind of say any more than a couple of, you know, a couple of words.

It shouldn't be, you know.

Now Skelliger's disease is totally absorbed in this thing.

Sure.

Well, that's a great minor report, but I just want to be sure that somebody is being built up to the value.

that they're touring the White House and hope to have a chance to be present.

So AMU will go Friday, presumably.

I think it's a good idea.

And smack it.

It's really got layered today.

And even assuming we don't get anything tomorrow, or Thursday, well, that would be the Democrats' day.

But Thursday we'll have it.

Tomorrow we'll get money.

See, we get half the time tomorrow.

By the Senate.

On a three-hour day.

Yes, sir.

Oh, it's a three-hour debate.

It's a three-hour debate.

On what?

Open debate on that.

I hope we got Goldwater.

If they got the hard line, we're ready to fight.

Yep.

To take the tough line.

If you've given that tough line to Colson or, yes, I have to talk to him a little about.

He knows.

He's got it.

He's running more of it than what I gave him already.

I particularly think that the line of the

They're in a bad spot.

They're in a bad way.

They could tip on it.

And even the lawyers have picked up, you know, some of the, they sort of raise their, what's their gun count, which is not that great.

And they, all the Platt Rogers, you know, we've got to get tough and stay tough in the administration attitude.

All that stuff, but the Aikens thing was just a damn good thing.

Jerry Borg, I saw his, you know, hit the thing.

And Pizer, is it Pizer?

Asked if Nixon's critics are willing to sacrifice the lives of nearly 85,000 men still in Vietnam.

He had that side of it.

Buckley,

cover story on it, which is, you know, it doesn't hurt to get us a good story in human events once in a while.

Good.

Goldwater said at long last the U.S. has spoken to North Vietnam and their Soviet suppliers in the only kind of language they understand and expressed great admiration for Nixon and his courage in finally taking the steps necessary to end the war.

Good.

Defendant.

Jackson said you're six years too late.

Supports you in any necessary bombing of all of the supply ships, but he doesn't understand the timing.

Six years are late, for Christ's sake, I wasn't here six years ago.

Interesting, Dax is still digging the hard line.

He said, oh, I know that.

Our position is good, though.

I mean, we'll do whatever is necessary.

We aren't going to say what we are doing and aren't doing it.

It's better than East Moscow for us.

Of course, it's inevitable.

It's so .

That is what matters.

He said .