Conversation 720-019

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I see, fine.

Well, if you'd like to stop in for 10 minutes before you go, you might do that at your adventure, whatever you're doing.

What I would do is come right on a Sunday morning.

I see no reason to do that.

Well, by then we ought to start putting the planning together.

Until then, there's not much we can do anyway.

But I'd like to get back to Maine at that point.

But I don't think there'd be any problem being gone now, you know?

Good to talk to you, Andrews.

He kind of laughed.

He said, I think the president has a mistaken view of me because my hair goes down over my collar.

He just can't help it.

He doesn't realize.

and we have to reach out to the price theory of consensus that we are the confrontation.

And see, he's learning that.

Because he said, I wasn't sure whether, you know, he said, I'm not trained as a politician.

My question is really whether to compromise on something.

And I said, well, the key thing you've got to learn is that compromise is a useful tool sometimes, but that the key to success is to know when not to compromise and to stand firm.

And he said, that's one thing I'm learning at a rapid rate at age 28.

And he kind of shook his head and he said, you know, there's pretty heady stuff being called in to write this kind of thing for the President of the United States at my age.

No, sir.

I did not tell him anything.

I didn't even tell him it was about Vietnam.

I just told him it was very hard on him.

I just said you had – you wanted me to be up there at noon tomorrow, that you were going to be working on something you wanted him to help on, that it may involve some decisions with which the President feels you may not agree, but he wants it understood that he's not – he doesn't want any questioning on substance on this, that your job is to work on the form and rhetoric and so forth.

That's all I'll tell him.

He has no idea that it's a boy.

And I've told him he's not going to tell anybody, including Ray or anybody else that he's going or why he's going.

See, that's why I think Andrews has over both Ray and Sapphire.

They just can't resist.

Like, Ray always clears things up.

He talks to them.

And Sapphire clears everybody.

You know what I mean?

He just feels he's got to.

And by God, they're not going to do that.

I'll listen.

Yes, sir.

I really think, in a sense, that the conversation made a very significant contribution to this decision, where you've got to see more clearly the point.

We'll let the Russians break it up.

You see, I, that was when I was young Henry, because I felt that Henry, and he really was, wanted to break off his son because of his irritation at what they had done to him.

Remember, that is the people who, and that was the factor.

There's no what you think it was.

Sure it was.

Well, I got a little discomfort.

It's an understandable factor, but it's not an excusable one because it isn't the basis for doing it.

The other thing was my own bad judgment and saying, well, don't let the Russians break it off.

We ought to break it off.

It makes all that difference.

The Russians break it off.

They can calmly say, well, I got there, but I didn't dance with the sun.

They'll say that you're the black dance.

Oh, yeah, me, you know what I'm saying?

What we did destroyed the sun.

Yeah.

That's what they do.

Yeah.

We do.

We just give us the code.

Although, it will certainly, it will certainly, it will lose a fellow like Frank Hartnett right off the ball.

Because he's so obsessed, as he told you earlier in World War II, I remember the conversation about China.

He said, you know, everybody talks about China.

Everybody's fascinated with it.

Everybody believes it.

Now, I explained it to him.

I said, you know, people are protracted for all reasons.

Not people, but the leader class.

They think, well, finally, this next, this old hardline communist finally got over it.

No, no, no.

and I left that after all.

It must have taken three days to get a little father.

That's what it's about.

That's what the Chinese communists are dedicated fanatics who are out to get us someday.

But right now, they fear Russia more than they do us.

So we're doing that.

I said, now, that's the priority.

I said, probably, of course, we've got to get hold of people that we can get along with.

You know, I didn't want to crack that, too.

But I just don't want, I don't want sophisticated people in my presence that says they're, yeah, oh, shit, about the fact that they did great, that we went over and had this wonderful glass table with Joe and I.

But that they believe it.

They believe it.

They think it was.

And they also think that it means friction.

Yeah.

They also think it means that that is why we are not

it's fine for the public to think that but but us leaving many decisions must never remain in a state of thinking that typically a couple of glasses is going to change the world but a lot this is roger's problem roger's brilliant sometimes it is sometimes he's he's such a mixed bag at this time i think on the one hand he's you know always you know he's always saying how

Henry's solid now.

It's been changing.

And I think he does the right thing.

He questions our concern.

I called over afterwards last night.

Bob, I know all the names.

It's got to be questioned.

I know all the names.

I know that we're going to catch up.

I know particularly none of the firsts.

So Mike, we'll have some public support if we can.

How much, I don't know.

I think you'll have tremendous public support.

I know.

I'm not so sure.

And I think you'll catch up.

Very little will have to come.

Well, I'm not so sure about that.

My point is, you'll catch up in the meeting.

It's not a joke.

No Russians cancel the summit.

Okay, I'm talking about on your first announcement.

When you come out with the iPhone.

I don't think it's that much.

Anyhow.

If I were you, I'd be like, is that my voice?

I'd be like, is that my voice?

yesterday so the experts have covered both sides and also

And I said, Henry, I'll be the one who's going to try and save the summit.

And you know, Henry was ready to sing it.

And you know, he sang it without .

So my point is that I said, let's just remember the Soviet summit is an armistice report .

But Vietnam, unfortunately, here's fatal.

It's .

So I'm going to do that with mine.

One of them gets seriously damaged.

The other can kill us.

And so under the circumstances, we cannot lose in Vietnam, and we ain't going to.

It would be better now, I said, especially at what point we'll possibly win in Vietnam.

Bonnie and I are sure to go.

But it might not.

A blockade, once you determine and determine to see if it's true, will, because eventually they crush if you do the bonding too.

When I talk about a blockade, I'm talking about mining, bombing, everything.

The bonding is an imperfect exercise because you can't get everything.

They can't.

They shouldn't because of what we dropped, but they don't.

But the blockade, you've got to put a cork in the top of the bottle.

You've got no way to pour anything in.

Where's the second one?

I know the third one.

Yeah, I know the third one.

He's in Idaho.

He said he was listening to Frank Murphy.

I'm excited to meet him, actually.

I don't know whether Frank Page was there.

He was at that dinner last night.

He said, as a Democrat, but he said to me after dinner, he said, I want you to know that as a Democrat, I am of the view that the only salvation for this country is the election of the president.

And there is no conceivable alternative.

And I think... No, I think you'll do anything you want.

Yeah, yeah.

and also what the charge now said.

I came in this morning, really, it was a very, very violent exercise.

The child scared me to death.

He scared me to death, and he's right.

But Nelson's great.

He said, by God, you're very fortunate.

He came in afterwards and said,

The president gave a great speech.

He said he admires your equanimity, what must be a very trying week.

And he said if what happened in Paris was what the newspapers report, he hopes you will now blockade North Vietnam, he said.

And the country will keep a sigh of relief that they have a strong leader.

And, well, I'll tell you one thing.

Nelson is just great.

I was just thinking about this.

Nelson would be an almost impossible handle in administration.

If you have Nelson with Henry,

I think Nelson's problem, he sees something, he's just so full of ideas, open skies, all these other things, you know what I mean?

And he runs with his damn set.

And on the other hand, the man has the right of gut reactions.

You agree with that?

Because this morning, I must say, this people, I told them a very interesting thing.

I said, I described after they had gone through the most hard way then,

Let me go back in and have a minute of your attention.

I was supposed to have that in mind.

Maybe there was one, sir.

I didn't recognize you.

I didn't know any staff or who it was in the government or any of the people I know.

No, no, I wasn't in the government.

There was an accident back here.

It must have been all right.

I told you it was not.

Jack had his thoughts.

But anyway, this follow-up was in the meeting.

My people didn't have a lot of thoughts, but there hadn't been any leak out of my office.

A point that I may have become very eager to do a follow-up with you, sir.

First of all, I gave them uninsured help.

I said, now, you were all talking about strategic weapons, open skies, and all the rest.

All of this is terribly important.

I said, I want this board as a system to make a thorough study of the conventional horses in the United States.

and to look at the weaknesses that are shown on those horses in Vietnam.

And I said, even though they're 13 weapons, they have bigger and better tanks.

They have bigger and better guns.

They point out that they, in 1970, point out the danger of a Stalag missile or whatever it is, a truck, and it took five planes and shot down the missile array.

Then I said, do you realize that the whole Nixon boundary rises or falls depending upon whether the weapons we furnish are equal to the weapons the Soviet furnishes?

I said, do you realize that in the Mideast, and I hit that hard, I said, I, if I were in Israel, I would be damn worried at the present time about the quality of the weapons.

I told him about the conversation with the Turk.

Well, he said, I recognize good as theirs.

And I said, Western Europe, I said, just quit having this malarkey around here.

I said, at the present time, the Western American conventional weapons are not up to theirs.

I said, I ought to study this thing.

That ended with that.

They went through Dr. Baker and his team.

He said to me that that's not true.

And they called me.

And I told our director, David Baker, my teacher, and said, we need some scientists.

We need to work with the scientists and develop some of these new programs and so forth.

And Tyler said, you need to do this and that.

And then I just broke the game.

I said, bring it again.

I said, and tell everybody.

I said, bring it again.

I said, when the president of MIT comes out against

presidents, the only, shall we say, quote, worthwhile or respected colleges and universities, comes out strongly against the use of American air power as military targets and is totally silent with regard to massive Soviet arms being used in a massive invasion of a neighboring country.

What the hell do you expect from those students?

Where are you going to get it when they're back?

Where are you going to get it across the country?

Because one of them came on, and it was Murphy.

He said, well, the president makes speech for the country.

And quite often, we have the Soviet thing.

And then some of these young people would then, scientists and others, would be available for this kind of work.

And I said, not just a man.

I could make that speak.

And I'll get some of them.

But in fact, they hear from the president of the United States.

They have a drumbeat from the university presidents, from the university faculty, from the university associate professors, from the media, from the press boards, including the Los Angeles Times.

Did you say that?

Yes, good.

I said that they have a drumbeat from the Newsweek and Time and the three major networks.

And the New York Times and the Washington Post, all the papers that both matter, end quote.

What do you think?

I said, we can't blame the young people, the young scientists, we've got to blame ourselves.

We've got to blame ourselves.

We

And he said, I don't have the same equation.

I said, I want to.

I made these decisions.

I had a universal opposition from all of the publications that quote, count, end quote.

And that's true.

From Time, New Street, The New York Times, Washington Post, and the three networks.

Second, and I said the Los Angeles Times, too, in some occasion.

Second, I said in addition to that,

We have had universal opposition of the leaders of the universities and educational institutions that hold them in common.

Third, except for a Billy Graham on the Protestant side and a Cardinal Crow on the Catholic side, we have had strong opposition from the more fashionable religious leaders in this country.

I said, as far as the business leaders are concerned, I said, oh yes, mainstream businessmen across the country, many of them.

But as far as the business elite, I didn't mention the business council.

I should have, with the exception of three.

They're all ministers here, too.

The major day business people are playing winners.

They want us to trade with the Soviet Union.

They want us to trade with communist China.

They're thinking of all the sewing machines and the types of clothes they can sell to them.

But they don't want to hear this news that we have this kind of competition.

I said, you wonder, who does support us?

He said, I'll tell you.

I said, they're the nuns.

He said, those farmers out there.

He got some of those.

Those Southerners that you call racists.

I said, well, you couldn't have even run this country without the support of John Spence and Jim Eastman and David Russell and the others.

Some of them are dead.

And I have to say, I didn't think of all those things.

You realize, at the present time,

As far as the leader class is concerned, the only members of the leader class, the majority of which are supporters, are some people that all of you in this room either despise or at least do not respect.

I said, I found out something yesterday.

I said, follow me on this.

And you had another call from the head of the vice president of New York called Joe T. And then another call from the head of the vice president of Chicago called Peter DeGioia.

And they had all of Boston by the name of a lag.

So I said, these were the heads of the teams, Drew.

And instead of a jargon, I said, Peter, that would have taken the same line.

I said, they can't use good grammar.

They have lousy educations.

But they've all got guts and spine.

And the business is going to be lax.

And the education is going to be lax.

And the great press lords lag.

And the religious leaders lag.

And I said, now, let us make time.

but the fault of this country fails is not going to be the fault of its people.

I said, Wells and others in this grand district, when they say that the people lose their son, I said, what's that?

to go back to the Romans, the Greeks, and the rest of them.

It's when the leader class loses its courage and its mind and does not lead that a country goes down.

I said, let's make no mistake about it.

The president can get out and he can preach from the housetops.

But if the whole band established a leader class, instead of going with the president, as they did in World War II and after World War II, when the Marshall Plan was against him, I said, this battle can't be won.

I didn't know you had said this, but Nelson came in.

In fact, he was waiting for half an hour for me.

I was seeing Moira and Alex Johnson, just to tell me how impressed and moved he had been.

And then, incidentally, I've been talking to Bob, and I've mentioned my thought to him about the speech.

I think the speech should be low-key and calm and very cold.

That this is what you've done.

This is what these bastards have done.

Never do this.

And very conciliatory with the Russians at the end.

Put the bonus on that.

I always think when action is strong, rhetoric can be weak.

When action is weak, rhetoric has to be strong.

That's why you remember third and have strong rhetoric.

This is just the outcome.

I had almost to say, ladies and gentlemen, the...

and always turn on every minute we've done this thing, and so forth, and constantly monitoring the blockade.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

That would be too short, but I think ten minutes.

That's with a little packaging, that's why I told you, that's a few ten minutes.

Ten, fifteen minutes of the answer.

Then at nine o'clock is the time to go, of course.

Conciliatory towards the Soviet, there should be a conciliatory paragraph to the Soviet,

at the end, sort of putting it up to them, and perhaps two sentences on asking public support for those who are supporting this.

This is not directed at you.

We are asking nothing of Hanoi that is self-respecting.

People should not be eager to accept.

But nature powers have a responsibility for the general people.

I could give this to a speech writer or so on.

The Lord will give it to me and I'll start working on it tonight.

And I had a new last week.

Next week.

I think, Mr. President, the more I think of it, this is going to be dramatic.

What I found so interesting is that Nelson came in.

I hadn't asked to see him.

And he said the same thing that Connolly said.

He said, look, the president has no choice.

He said, if he does something right, he can win.

He said then that he has no political problems.

If he loses, there is nothing he can do in any other area that's going to...

There's more important thing here.

The thing that I want you to have in mind.

Because I am in this position.

not greatly, probably irreparably racist in some way.

I think it's very greatly racist in the election.

I agree.

And I have heard of them.

There is none that I have seen, however, as an option which would not possibly permanently

I don't give a damn.

We're going to do it.

We'll do the best we can.

The camera will look just about the election.

Bob, I don't want to hear it.

I personally think it's righteous.

Henry, you don't have any idea.

The only place where you and I disagree at the present time is in regard to the bombing.

You're just out of that concern about the civilians.

I don't give a damn.

I don't care.

I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.

We can do it without killing civilians.

Without trying.

We can do it without killing very many civilians.

All right.

I'm glad.

We can knock out these railways.

We can knock out these stocks.

But let me tell you, I am not going to do a job.

and pick out every damn target and then say, now you've got a guarantee you're not going to kill any civilians.

No, but if you don't watch these military, they are totally irresponsible.

And I mean, we have run this as a very tough thing.

What I mean by ferocious, that's not the problem anyway, but veracity.

The problem with respect to veracity is that people themselves

niggling away, and can they do this, can they do that?

The answer has to be they can do nothing.

No ship is going into North Korea.

No hospital ships, nothing?

Nothing.

That can go into China.

Let's bomb them on the way in.

I beg your pardon?

Let's bomb them on the way in.

No, if they want to run a hospital train in or something like that.

But let's first knock out all the rail lines.

Yeah.

And let's not... We can't get through.

We can do that.

They'll never use rail lines.

Well, they will use rail lines.

There are no rail lines.

What really disturbs me about our goddamn Air Force...

is with no railroad lines.

When they talk about highways down the ocean trail, it's no goddamn highway, Henry.

It's a damn, it's a damn little dog track.

And they have brought heavy guns and heavy tanks on there and have not been knocked out.

And do you know what they're going to do now against the artillery around the way?

What?

The guns which you ordered out there that they didn't want.

We have now 34 gunships, which we ran down their throats.

If we had 200 of the goddamn things, we just don't have them, otherwise we'd order them out there.

So, Henry, I come back to this, and I know that you beat over the time.

Hey, did I make it?

Mike, Mike.

You beat them this time?

Yes, God damn it.

And they're better than gunships.

The B-25 is a hell of a good blow support.

What they do by gunship is C-130 with cannons on them.

But the sort of thing which the Air Force didn't want, which we had to ram down their throats, and that's what they're now shooting, getting the artillery with.

That new DMV general looks pretty good in the public, right?

That's, we're getting some good stuff out of it.

No, no, that general is all right.

I am just, they had a plan to get an extra division up there.

Well, I don't want to, because that hatred, they were going to scrape that division together by getting a regiment out of one place, a regiment out of another place.

Of course, none of these regiments are getting out because they are all fighting.

No, no, those are the few that are fighting.

If we get another division up to the way, we're going to give them a hell of a fight.

I better go and see my truck.

I'm going to the... And he said anyone on the... That's what he did.

He sent a hundred trucks down the road ordering deserters shot on the site.

And he disbanded the two divisions.

He made them replacements.

Except that's no longer a big fit unit.

And they took an offensive action.

The Bushes also reported a paper and reopened the highway.

That may not have happened, but that's what the press is reclaiming.

This is a dangerous story.

Let me ask you this.

The way I read the thing is, you've got to be a narcissist.

Remember old, one thing we all have to do now.

There could be no turning back.

There could be no, we must not let Laird and Rogers come in here and piss all over us and all that.

So they are the order.

I think Ross will be brought back someday because it's a free day on his schedule.

It would be easy for him to get back.

Well, the only thing is I don't want to have to see him until Monday morning.

Monday morning, I will.

Well, I think that's the best thing to do.

Monday morning?

He can come back.

Just tell him that I've made this decision.

He'll say, well, is it still open, Mr. President?

And I'll say no.

I've got to get Laird in tonight, Mr. President, because there are too many ships being moved.

And it's too dangerous.

Why don't you get him in, myself?

No, I'll tell him.

I'll do it.

If you think it'll help.

It's necessary.

If it's needed, I'll tell him.

No, I'll tell you, and then you can have him come up.

No, no, I think what you should do is, as I may suggest, I'd like you to call now and say, now we're telling you this, we're not going to tell Bill the money money, because we know that he will probably oppose it.

The President believes he will put it that way.

get him in on a conspiracy and then say the president knows that you're that you would support this thing we need your support it's decided he knows he's risking everything it may not work but he knows nothing else will work and we're going to go balls out we will not lose if we did not just say that of course you're going to get some sort of move this weekend

But the senior North Vietnamese is in Moscow now.

We can pick it up from VIP traffic.

No, no, it won't help us.

They may propose a four-week ceasefire, which, incidentally, we couldn't accept, because that means they could build up and then, after four weeks, kill us.

We could...

But we could blockade them, sir.

Yeah, but we could accept it only if they agreed to stop resupplying activities in some way.

All right, sir.

I think if they offer a four-week ceasefire, we might get the best of both worlds.

I know exactly what you did this morning, raising questions.

I don't need bucking up because I'm passionately for it.

My nightmare was that we would, that for a variety of reasons we would try to straddle the fence, which anybody else would have done, including Nelson.

That's, that's the obvious truth.

It really is.

And, and that was, that was, and... You didn't come here, the only two...

So I, I felt strongly, once I realized that you were willing to have them canceled, then we could go all out with the military.

Then the blockade was better, but I had to give you the way to give you the other option, so that afterwards you didn't feel like I had no benefit.

As a matter of fact, we all...

I can talk about ferocious soul.

and I am going to, we've got to fire some people.

Oh, if there are any leaks out of that State Department about a ceasefire, or, and once we, you worked on this now, but one thing I should tell you about the speech.

Henry, when I said that we will lift the blockade that gives the POWs an interaction, supervise, supervise, which you said ceasefire, and what was the other thing?

Four months later.

Let me say it.

Except for the POWs, I don't care about the rest.

Put in whatever will let us survive and what seems to be reasonable.

Do you understand?

It'd be an ambivalent matter to supervise C-SPY because we can negotiate to Coons.

Uh, I think it's an attractive phrase.

The POWs...

The POWs is just gonna be one hell of a thing for these sons of bitches to be against.

And it's as if we'll have no more problems with the POWs, except for a while with you.

Yeah, I don't see what more they could want.

Well, the enemy then might offer.

I suppose they might come back.

If I were them, give it to the FW.

They'll offer.

They'll say, well, give it to the FW.

They'll stop the bomb and they'll blockade.

Refuse.

That's the one they should have pulled along back, but I can't.

That wasn't happening.

They'll stop the bomb and they'll stop the bomb and they'll blockade.

They'll give it to the FW.

I don't know if they might consider that, but they won't do that.

Why in the world would you leave with him?

If we start the bombing, all of the Vietnam troops will know it.

And look at the blockade we've got the P.O.W.

issuing.

We put on them.

You mean we don't stop bombing for P.O.W.s?

Why don't we get them for that?

Well, because... You still lose the war.

That's my problem.

You don't want the P.O.W.s.

No, because we could stand one because the P.O.W.

is back.

But they won't come to that.

I suppose they did.

The smartest thing they could have done any time in the last few weeks is to just return the POWs.

They sent back the POWs.

given any impression that we're going to do anything.

No, I'm going to do what it's got to be done.

I'm just saying it.

I just use the term that you've just known from the president.

And the president has said, look, he regrets that we weren't able to do anything.

And as he's told you and I've told you, you recall, this is now our problem.

And anything we do is not directed against you.

But we want our people to be very strongly about going ahead with the summit, and let's go ahead.

Now, what is his smart role?

Henry Hubbard was in, and he said he's in a terrible trouble because New York, New York people say the president has gone international today.

He said he might go totally international.

I said, actually, from the point of view of my impact on Moscow, that's a good story to put out.

He said, but I said, well, you took Henry.

I said, I bet you the president.

and calculated.

And he knows exactly what is going on.

Tell me this, where is this irrational stuff?

Who the Christ puts it out on here?

Who the hell is doing it?

What do you mean by that?

The Washington Post has a story.

Actually, it's not in terms of foreign policy.

In fact, it doesn't really, but it's...

But what I find interesting is that the people who watch you close out here, for example, Hubbard told me that the loose weed man who was on the ranch said that it was the coldest, most calculated speech, that there was no emotionalism involved.

You knew exactly what you were doing in every setting.

And there was no question about that.

Well, when I tell you what we've done, though, you've got to have the fact that our left,

They won't get away with it.

Some of them.

That's a small... You don't get very much of that.

You get it in his circles, you don't see much of it beyond that.

Actually, the post editorials, not bad.

Because they say you now have a...

And the best chance of all on both sides to negotiate is their argument.

But then they say that it's absolutely clear that the President cannot inflict a communist government on South Vietnam.

What do you say to that?

Yeah.

Couldn't believe it.

I read it a couple more times.

I'll listen to what he goes.

Three minutes on all three cameras.

Did it carry all right?

Very well.

Extremely well.

Excellent camera work.

I hate that church, but it's a dang good church for television.

Because of the open space.

And it's neat.

And I just don't like that kind of church.

I didn't realize it had gone so long.

I saw the papers in 11 minutes.

That must have included my standing at the table.

It took you a minute at least to get up there.

That's a long hike, weaving around in that.

It took two or three minutes to get back.

It was more than that.

I delivered it and cast it, which was very, that was a very moving kind of thing.

It was very, very .

Yeah.

I couldn't figure out who they were or where they were.

But it was a very good shot, because it was when you were making a point, and then they cut to these men.

And you could see that they were in a strong motion.

And that's good.

She's our gardener's wife.

She's a real kooky woman.

Not kooky, actually.

But she sent a card.

She said, Victor, my hearts go out to you and our great president and your moment of sorrow on the loss of that great archangel.

And she had a crying reading card, you know, and she said, and then she had put the bald eagle stamp, the postage stamp on it, and she said,

Mr. Hoover's gone, but may the bald eagle always stand as our national symbol or something, as we look to the days ahead.

Then she cut out a big picture of you in a newspaper that was taken after your television thing the other night, and then she had taken a sticker of an American flag and pasted it on your lapel, and she said his valet must have been off that day, because apparently you didn't have your flag in your lapel at one of the TV things, and if I did not wear it...

It's just a spot.

I think that's probably right.

And I think, too, it's just a little too, too.

Probably.

But it bothered her.

She slapped this flag up because she knows.

And a lot of people know that you wear that flag all the time.

And I think they like it.

Our kind of people.

I don't understand why she put on Monday night.

Yeah.

Last time.

Yeah.

She agreed.

Sure.

What do you think about Monday night?

You know, it's interesting.

Every time I say it.

God damn it, his people write a lot.

He started with me on that, and I said, well, the key thing, Henry, is for God's sake, let's not go through all the litany of who met whom at what time on what address, because that's the last thing he needs here.

He's taking an action, and all you need is a very general, you know, that we move these directions, and this is where we are.

This is what I'm doing, and that's that.

This is one where actions speak much louder than words.

You know, if you've got a four-week ceasefire and didn't agree to it until after you mined high fawn, it'd be kind of interesting if you could just leave the mines there and take the ceasefire.

He's always saying he's going to get some other man.

There was a senior man down there.

Christ, there was a delegation.

He's definitely down there.

He's got no spot.

You're wrong.

I've had that impression all the way back.

He goes through this living time and time again.

In fact, he really should have been my friend today.

I felt that he should have canceled me because I was too much to see him.

Why in the hell would he be doing this to you?

Except that he hadn't said it.

Well, of course, I did this post-mortem.

God had to let me post-mortem.

But I did give him some good advice.

And we tend to overreact one way or the other.

I didn't want him to go over there and be cold and menacing and harassed.

But I said, slobber over, son of a bitch.

They're going to treat us that way.

Slobber over.

And it appeared that we're not going to do it again.

We're going to do something, you know?

It's like the blood of a poker.

And if you don't shout around the rest of them, you've got to compromise.

Just sit there.

Old kid.

I mean, very much so.

And what Henry, every time I read this, he thinks Scali's leading the serve.

Oh, only Scali ever does the serve.

So, right.

Scali's playing the other thing.

Scali has totally done a superb job on stuff that we've given him to do.

He needs guidance.

Only because he doesn't know the whole play.

If he knew the whole play, his conclusions would also be good.

But it's not what's happened, no, no.

Oh, God.

There's nothing for him.

I mean, the whole thing is, actually, total clues.

You know, it's an interesting thing that you're watching, and I'm like, when I was there in Texas, it was very important, you know, to shake hands with people nicely, walk around, look at the fire, put the fireworks and stick around, and answer your questions.

That's one of the reasons we're supposed to answer questions, part of the assumptions.

It's giving them time and attention.

But I mean, I don't mean for that audience, but I mean for the people who are the next watchers.

There's a lie in the fact that the brain is all overrated.

Yeah.

We also want to remember that the likes of Rattler and Hosmer and others make it happen.

I'm sure they do.

They're going to make it happen.

There's no way you're going to stop that.

They're going to make it happen.

It's frustrating as hell.

That's why you have to use it so much.

speech for the 26th, and I was nervous and obviously upset.

But that was a little harder.

To go on after you've been on TV and try to characterize it, it's hard to do.

Maybe you should wait until the next morning.

Clawson came up with an interesting idea, which I'm not sure what it is he's exploring, in our war on the media, which is to bring her capital to the director.

What do you think he might do?

Well, it turns out that he might very well be.

Let's see.

Let's see what they've done to him.

Well, he knows very well that he's not a decent man.

Well, it goes beyond that.

I didn't know if I just found it out.

I'm going to watch it from all angles.

And the guy who was saying it, the capitalist's wife, told Boston's wife how much money Herb had lost in the last couple of years because the network turned down stuff that he did because it wasn't strongly anti-insane enough.

And that Herb is very bitter about.

And he's bitter as hell about the way they're treating him.

He's just sitting in an office waiting for an assignment, doing nothing.

Klaus, he's going to explore.

He's not sure it's the right idea himself.

Klaus is a guy that could be effective as hell if he decided that's what he wanted to do.

You could only do it if you really wanted to.

Klaus is going to explore that a little bit.

But you get something else.

You get this Novak turning on the press.

You have followed up history with that.

Well, we've distributed it internally.

We've got a problem, because it's not a speech, and it's not an article.

It's a paper for a symposium.

How the hell are we going to do it?

They gave it to us.

Evidently, Novak sent it to us.

But he doesn't want it.

It's copyrighted.

He does.

But it's copyrighted by the name of the column.

And, uh, they, Novak is now revising it, and then they're gonna release the revised version.

And that'll solve it, qualify it, and shut up.

But what we've done, later on in the Pentagon Papers game, we were having it read into the congressional record on the original basis, and that'll break the copyright.

Sure.

Then we used the record.

Right.

And we got it run internally, and it gets to the instructions that everybody should read the God's name there.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna push harder on that.

You also made the read curse book, didn't you?

Yeah.

Programming for conservatives.

Well, you didn't write, because it's the kind of thing that, in fact, you ought to re-read it every Monday morning.

In fact, you ought to have a staff meeting, have someone stand up and read the guidelines, and allow them all the way through on every Monday morning.

Just to...

Because it does stir up your juices when you read that.

You realize what these bastards are doing.

That's right.

How they're trying to cut us out and so forth and cut out the country.

They did it again yesterday about the CPS.

And a little thing, but it's the same kind of example.

They ran the thing on the demonstrations yesterday at Kent State.

They ran a film of protesters marching in candlelight and stuff and all those kind of things that they did.

and of the speakers and tied it all in.

And that was it.

Now, you got the impression it was a very large protest and they're quoting and all that.

UVI reported on it, says that at the meeting time, maximum of 500 to 600 of the 20,000

400 participants.

If anybody thinks, call CBS.

Oh, yeah.

That's one.

That was so blatant that there's got to be a way to take it.

If you've got the UPI report of what happened, and you've got the CBS report.

I'm sorry, I don't know.

The specifics like that, the little ones like that, we just fill them up.

Well, I know what it is.

They do it all the time.

I don't know for years.

I couldn't get anybody here.

Well, Kevin Phillips has gotten going on all the press.

Now he's writing down the incredible events of college students regarding Vietnam.

Did the survey and found that one-fourth of them couldn't identify Saigon as the capital, one-third were unable to name U.S. allies out of Vietnam, and one-fourth couldn't find Vietnam on an unmarked map.

is embraced by a multitude of brainless students who would not even be in college anywhere outside the US.

I think you're wrong about that.

In any society, I think the smart students are more likely to be in a protest than the brainless ones.

He's not, yeah.

Oh, he thinks all schools are great.

He says that most many American colleges would be, and then he says any society that builds on 10,000 colleges to satisfy the dubious notion that everyone ought to have a higher education deserves to be confronted with a counterculture that spoiled the campus challenges.

Well, I should appear from the market today to be designed to be good.

And then we can go back and wind around.

Last night they had a man at a war rally in Capitol Hill, Judy Collins, who's a very big singer, wore a bowtouch tightrope and cussed at the attorney who was the speaker.

Two to three hundred attended.

Really?

Two to three hundred?

Not quite.

Then the hell was that?

That's what he came for.

I may worry the Senate goes.

Trenton had a mass rally.

50 people attended.

800 in New York City.

That figures.

It was a big one in Tucson for some reason.

3,000 in Tucson.

Of course, that's Arizona State.

How many in the University of Arizona?

and 2,000 in San Diego, a couple hundred of them.

Oh, here's a UPI thing on Kent State.

Classes were canceled at Kent State.

That's your great friend, Glenn Olds, planned to cancel the classes now.

So the students who wished to take part in anniversary events, but only 500 to 600 of the 20,000 students showed up to hear the speakers, and 400 marched in the silent parade.

Now, there is news, and the sons of bitches on the network

The news of that is that nobody cares.

You'd rather do the TV at 9 anyway, wouldn't you?

Yeah, I'd rather have it on for 10.

No, we haven't raised it with the networks.

I've just been looking at the schedule.

But 9's a good breaking point.

Well, I'd do it at 9.

I might get all over it at 9.

Gunsmoke's on CBS from 8 to 9, and Black Men's on NBC from 8 to 9.

So you have two big shows on...

And at 9 o'clock, you've got movies on two networks starting, so that's a good time to come on.

You don't interrupt anything.

Good.

9 o'clock.

So 10 o'clock, you interrupt two movies.

Oh, I heard a little line in the way.

That's better.

Hurts a little in the way.

8's not good.

Great.

No leading in this.

Yeah.

No, really.

I mean, in Vietnam, we've had a few setbacks.

But it's not closing out on too bad of a note.

What do you mean?

Vietnam.

Because?

Why?

Because it's calmed down.

Because we lost the base, and everybody has lost its capital.

And now that's recognized that you can lose a capital without the war being lost.

There's an air of optimism, I think, on the way.

And Chew went in there and did a good job, apparently.

He did.

Yeah.

Very upbeat, cocky, crank him up.

And this new general is from a PRV, by the way.

He's working down this general from a PRV.

Boy, he's absolutely sensational.

Because he's going to hop.

He's going to charge in.

He said, get your asses back here and defend the city.

Get the refugees out, which they're doing.

And get the troops in.

And then he built a wall over here, and he said, that's the execution wall.

That's where we shoot the deserters.

He left it there to remind them.

And then they went out and opened this road, and they're building that as the first offensive action they'd taken in the war, just to think where it was at that time.

And Highway 13, I think it was.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Highway 14 in the highlands.

Their first counter attack with the offensive yard and it reopened Highway 14 in the highlands.

And then it made a big thing out of more planes and tanks that were on the way.

And I think this stuff, that something new is going to happen, isn't bad at all.

And it's building up to an action.

And what most of them are talking about is it being more violent.

They only lost two dead.

Those were our paratroopers, designed to end the isolation of the road to Contemp, and it succeeded.

So they've opened the road to contact.

Long people fleeing to get out of the cities, but no, we're not chasing them out.

We're not getting out of these areas.

Okay.

You know, on one hand, as I said, it's been pretty weak, I think, in terms of public appearances.

She was up here twice on the Uber thing.

The search must have had an impression of calmness to the country, didn't it?

That non-Vietnam.

Huh?

That non-Vietnam.

Not a Vietnam.

It was calm.

I don't think John Wright would agree, but I believe that the two little Uber things were worth $10,000.

I agree.

I do, too, because the people were listening.

Because John was delighted to speak to you, because just what he had hoped you would do on getting the law and order going and supporting the law enforcement people.

It was great.

Good.

And John then pointed out to him very carefully that the appointment of Pat Gray was only his acting director until after the election.

Then he said to Rizzo, have you given any thought about the federal service?

He said, well, I haven't thought about that.

He's good.

He's got a little new bait hanging out there in front of him.

And they got off the bison tent, you know what I mean?

They did.

They went over the backs and everything.

He says, fine.

This is going to help that.

He's in good shape right now.

We're going to get him out of there.

But we're going to have to do that.

I think what we should do is send advice internally.

I think the silly thing, the 50-state thing, I thought it was going to be a half-assed, patchwork sort of thing, and so we're actually just going to go, we're going to have somebody come up with a speech.

I'm afraid that the country is just ready to support it by some kind of a ton at this point.

You know, they've got a lot of energy.

And frankly, let's wait.

We'll wait a year.

And then we'll see what the temper of the country is.

We'll wait about two years.

We don't have to wait a couple years and then decide in a year and a half.

Wait until we end the next year.

Then decide what to do.

We're not here.

That's another subject to worry about.

Rose said, for sure, slew that little bitch, Barbara Walters, and she was very wrong.

What's happened today, sir?

You can't have an NET interview show outside today.

Great job.

Good for you.

He had a lot of, obviously had a lot of fun, didn't he?

He hit the media for announcing a South Vietnamese defeat even before the North Vietnamese had started playing victory.

He says many reporters had predicted a Harbin defeat for so long that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He called a tap.

Good.

Talked about the busing thing.

Good.

Said that the media treatment reflected not only the president, said that your proposals reflected not only your stand, but that of 80 and 90 percent of the people, yet one instant analyst flatly called the program unconstitutional.

Hit the commentators after your November 3rd speech and the busing speech.

Said that there's no constitutional right in the press to query the president.

It's up to the president to determine the best way to communicate.

liberals have gone into the press, to working in the press, while conservatives see America as a pretty good place to head for business or finance to make money.

Says the networks ought to recruit conservatives like they recruited blacks.

And he says, whoever answers Brinkley got to match his Brinkley with NBC.

That's true.

The Pulitzer Prizes for Anderson and the Times were appalling and atrocious.

What kind of a lesson is that to a young reporter?

Hey, what about that Anderson crew?

Yeah.

He says, what did Anderson do to get the products?

Open up his mail.

Yeah, they gave Anderson one on the Pakistan.

Horrible job, Anthony.

Really, it's incredible.

Time to finish me with that.

Time to finish with this one.

There are times when a question of those is time, misery, and life.

It was really quite an exercise for the Navy.

They thought I must be one of those Navy guys, a person who wishes to love to do something.

I think a lot of people like me.

Minds, they use it fast.

They can set those to become active whenever they want and to become inactive whenever they want.

They have an on and an off switch that they can set at an automatic timing of when they end, then operate.

No, once they set it, it's set.

It's active, Shannon.

And that's something I can put in the off switch, I can leave it on.

And the motorist, he just practically chortles.

He just loves the mining department especially.

Because it's damn effective.

Mines, I guess, are much more sophisticated than the stuff we knew about in World War II.

They go down to the bottom and just lie on the bottom until something comes open and then magnetically shoots up and hits it.

One of our own hallucinates.

Probably will be.

There's more.

Somebody will say it.

Mining is a beautiful thing, though, really, because that, you lay the mines down and you tell the people they're there.

Somebody said it was until he used to do it, he wouldn't do it to himself.

Well, let me tell you, for a few days after we announced this blockade, it was going to be goddamn hard if I ever remember the house.

the security of Vietnam, and preventing the invasion of communist government after we bought the area, but that Vietnam.

Correct?

Yep.

It would be god damn hard.

Particularly when Iraq is aimed not at destroying part of Vietnam, but preventing the delivery of legal weapons which are going to be used to kill people in South Africa.

Who could possibly even, you know, how could McGovern even argue that?

Nobody can rationally argue the right of North Vietnam not to get more arms.

Okay.

You know, this is great.

We've got another press conference.

I don't think we should worry about it.