Conversation 714-022

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We don't have the time off because...

Hey, Bob, how are you?

How are you, Mr. Fred?

I'll give you a look right here.

It's pretty good.

You know, I had an idea that you might have fun with.

You've got lots of pictures.

Is the light enough out there, Ollie, for the garden?

I can check it.

Well, let's get some of the flags here.

ollie everybody gives me stupid things this is a lot of the clutter they told me

I won't play.

I know, I know, but I didn't tell them.

Look at me.

But it's yours.

It's got a present for you.

It's in your bag.

Oh, listen, I don't want to get that money.

By the way, I drove you.

You drove you.

There you go.

That's all the present I got for you.

I had so many things.

All right, come on around.

Now, I have so many jokes for you tonight

Well, they told me you were coming, you know.

Oh, yeah, they were.

And I have a lot of things.

About the canvas and all that.

Well, use it.

I'm, well, I'm using it.

I've got a good one of them.

I understand it's going to be there.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to throw the seat in here in spite of this accident.

This boy, we had a blowout in his water, and he was about to start to leak all over Jack and me.

Well, let's get the outside shot before the sun goes.

Do you want this?

No, this is yours.

But you've got a lot of balls to hit those.

You need that.

Well, let's get some lovely shots.

Now anyway, let me get a key.

I think you will find... Do you want any?

Why, no, I'll give you one.

Okay.

Let's see what this is.

Well, have you got five minutes or something?

Go with it.

Hey, come in, will you?

Sit down.

Well, let me tell you about this situation in a nutshell.

You've often heard in Vietnam, and you've been there many times over the last seven, six, seven years, that this is the enemy's last hop.

This is.

This is all they've got.

Fifteen of their 16 divisions in South Vietnam.

If, for example, we were still there, it could land even a mini Inchon landing kind of a thing.

You could go fall right into hell.

It's bare.

Now, point two.

Oh, too bad.

Anyway, the second point is that they have thrown everything in, and what they were guessing, and their calculation we found, and we have good intelligence on it, was that they thought that if they threw everything in, that I would not react.

and that the South Vietnamese would cave.

Well, they were wrong of course, both of those particular propositions, because the first instance, the South Vietnamese have stood up well.

They have not panicked.

They've been under enormous pressure.

But the second point is, and this is the thing they had not calculated, they didn't figure that instead of just keeping Surgis at 300,

day, which is what we've been having for the last few months.

We've de-escalated a lot.

But I have ordered out there the enormous force that we have.

It's a hell of a force.

We've got six carriers there now.

We've got about 35 destroyers and we've got four cruisers shelling it in.

day, every day.

They are hitting the battlefront every time they shake their heads up.

But you can see what that does for South Vietnamese morale.

This strike on Hanoi and Haiphong was necessary due to the fact that after they had violated the DMZ and invaded, you see now there isn't, they used to say it was civil war.

We are going to continue to bomb military targets in North Vietnam until they quit invading South Vietnam, until they quit killing Americans.

They're not killing many Americans.

You can still say that.

And South Vietnamese in South Vietnam.

Now, as far as the fighting is concerned, it's all being done in South Vietnamese.

Our casualties still run 10 to 12 a week.

It's not .

That's air.

People lost air.

We are, our participation is solely in terms of air and sea power.

But when you say the immunization hasn't worked, I'm sure it has.

This is proof of it.

It's only half of the tactical air stories are being flown by the South American peace themselves.

One half.

And that's quite an achievement.

So it shows you that this country, as a result of our long suffering,

defend itself without our help, if we, with that we have stayed, of course.

But now we come back to why bomb the Hanoi-Haito complex.

If, after such a massive invasion, we just tit for tat, it's no message.

So what we are in effect saying is, look here, if you're gonna play this kind of a game, we then are going to hit you, and more is to come.

There's another reason too, we want the Russians to know this.

Now, as you well realize, this is coming as it does after the Chinese summit and coming as it does before the Russian summit.

Many observers say, well, do you actually want to risk the Chinese summit?

All hope of that is the Russian summit.

The answer is, of course.

But the greater risk is to have a president of the United States go to Russia, hat in hand,

Oh, losing to South Vietnam, to North Vietnam, supported by the Russians.

This is five years later.

That's right.

Five years later.

That's right.

It's fine.

That's right.

How could you not?

That's right.

It's like taking and letting a guy, if you can know a guy that sure has a gun, and you let that fella keep bringing ammunition, fire at your house.

That's right.

You know, it's stupid.

And this has been the story.

You know, one time we had a talk, and you asked me what I thought about it, two years ago, last October.

Amber and I said what Mr. Eisenhower said, you know.

I asked him after one of the trips about five years ago, four years ago, I said, if you were president, they wanted you to go in the backyard of his house at Palm Desert.

And he said, I would invade North Vietnam and not be against you.

So if you don't give them a hard stroke, we can blame them.

Gee, they must think we're the, you know, we're a big deal.

You see, what we have done now, Bob, is that we have put them tall.

And they know it.

But they also, because of the naval strength we have there, that we could put more to them.

Because, you see, we now have a potential blockade there.

Yeah.

We see.

We've got it all there in place, Bob.

And what we're doing is now see how they react.

And curiously enough, don't be surprised if they react.

I hope they all can make it in time, but they might react in a more conciliatory way.

We don't know.

lose Vietnam.

We can't lose 50,000 Americans and lose this war, sir.

And this is where our democratic critics are just dead wrong.

And what about the future, Jeff?

You have no future.

Nobody can beat you.

What about Southeast Asia?

Nobody.

What about the Middle East?

The world.

You're Jewish, Frank.

You see most of those people.

Let me tell you, if a Russian-supported invasion of South Vietnam by Communist North Vietnam succeeds against the United States,

What the hell do you think the Russians are going to do in the Mideast?

They will arm those missiles over there and man them with Russians in the UAR.

And Israel is finished.

The Jews have better understand that.

And what will they do?

All over the world, you see, the Russians will then get an enormous...

If they figure they can get away with this, they'll push us again.

But if you stop them, they'll back down.

And that's what we're doing.

We're playing...

put it this way, they're very, very easy to play each other.

I would say, in the guy's opinion, in terms of poker, the way you might be able to put it to you is this.

I was a pretty fair poker player.

Everybody's got a different style.

And to be a good poker player, you sometimes have to bluff him, sometimes.

But there was one characteristic of my poker playing that I recall now that most of them notice.

I can hardly remember a time

that I was called, that I didn't have the cards.

In other words, we've got the cards now.

And if they call us, and if these bastards continue to go down there, and if they do not come to the conference table and freely negotiate about everything, including prisoners, we're going to continue to bomb the hell out of them until we get a ban.

I don't know what happens.

People say, well, you lose the election if you don't have an impeachment.

you might win an election and lose the country.

And you've got to win that way personally, too.

That's right.

I think so.

I don't know.

Who knows?

You can't.

If these guys start to sell you out, which you read every day now, you know.

God, I've never read such a press.

I was telling the president a piece about the Russian embassy.

I am surprised that the American Legion or some patriotic group doesn't go over there and kill those guys.

Did you read about that?

Mm-hmm.

Give the North Vietnam more missiles so they can shoot down U.S. airplanes.

How do you like that?

Well, why didn't our people react to that?

Not here, no.

They should have.

I mean, I'd go over and have some of the boys work over some of those things.

They didn't like what happened.

Did you?

Did you also know that?

I haven't talked to Trump directly.

I think I would.

I didn't know that.

Was it in the paper this morning or something?

It really is.

I mean, they can say anything they want, but when they stand in Washington and say to a Russian embassy, give no Vietnam missiles so they can shoot down our guys, something's got to happen there, huh?

Yeah.

Well, you know, you have to realize, too, Bob, is that the press, you know, we have to realize about 90% of the time, I guess maybe it's better to ignore them first.

Well, let me tell you, Daniel...

They're nuts anyway, aren't they?

They know what they're doing.

They just want us to lose.

Yeah, what do you want Daniel to say about that?

Daniel, tomorrow, is going to make a speech to the editors, and he's going to read it.

I am going to call him when I get back to the hotel, because I want to tell him this.

He should say something about this, you know?

Call him.

This will point at him.

Call him, because Daniel is finding that he's...

And I wanted to bring it back.

And I left it in my other coat.

I was gonna just put it in the envelope and leave it at the door of the sheriff's apartment, you know?

And say, give this to the vice president for me.

What a guy.

But I let Ross have it, though.

Isn't that great?

Well, listen, Colin, Colin,

But we'll be saying a little more next week, I think.

It's probably going to be the right time, particularly as we see how inviting this could all be.

But if you...

I totally agree with what I said.

What happened?

You see, you remember there was a lieutenant colonel who was trained under Hayward, and when a couple of young recruits, you know, didn't want to go out on some mission, these lousy son-of-a-bitch reporters that were there, and this lieutenant colonel said, you pressed that because you were responsible for this, and he says, credit.

I hope you have credit.

Second, this was a beautifully trained outfit and so forth.

They're all recruits.

None of them had seen any action before.

But members of the American press went to them and told them, and said, look, kids, don't you realize that they're not sending in helicopters because the South Vietnamese are using them, and they're going to send you through a minefield on this thing.

You shouldn't take this.

They did that.

Abrams tried to

You know what I'm saying?

You're not going to publicize that.

You see, the point is, I'm giving the best, not for his language, but basically for being a courageous man, training people.

And he then talked to the kids, calmed them down.

He said, that's a goddamn lie.

It's all amazing.

But to think that the Americans

It was a horrible thing.

What do you think of it?