Conversation 724-003

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Very well, thank you.

How are you feeling?

Oh, I'm in good shape.

Am I in the right?

Very good.

Is Bob anybody?

Yeah, I heard about it.

I heard about it.

Right, I heard about it.

We're here in LaSalle.

And I got all of us to go here.

So you can go to the statue.

And we were meeting with these biracial committees and trying to take care of policy, keep that in shape.

But it was very interesting.

Almost everybody came up to me individually, sort of on the side, either before we had our regular meeting or afterwards, and said, can you tell the President that we are 100% behind?

But it was really, this was the solicitors,

and see what the director would like.

Coca-Cola or Coke?

Coke would be fun.

I'll try the Coke.

He's talking to the Swiss Ambassador the other night.

I don't know how he was.

The Swiss Ambassador should be plenty of money to tell you.

including the communist actors that are not pro-Soviet, are shitting for the president.

They've said, finally, the United States is acting as a big power shift.

They're acting responsibly, but they're acting in a way they shouldn't, which is surprising.

And frankly, we've got to say that as far as our goals are concerned, I mean,

I mean, you may have heard of the 74th, the remarkable RC, which is just a remarkable, with Harris, with 68, and all of the bad opinions for it.

And when you broke it down, this is on a personal version, it was 59 to 24.

And with the rest undecided, what you're afraid to do is you can go over two of them, four of them, or one of them.

So it was not a main one.

This was work.

And the point is, well, you see, the people, all the arguments about whether it works missed the point.

The CIA has from 1968 was based on a different war and different tactics.

The main thing is we have cut off Cambodia since then.

And if you recall, 90% of all the supplies of the 3rd and 4th Corps came from Shino buildings and Cambodian cut as a result of our Cambodian activity.

Second, we have cut off all supplies by sea.

They were only sporadically cut by a bomb here and then in 1968.

Third, we are really, with our air power,

Now, on a surgical basis, knocking on the railway bridges, recognizing that we want to cover.

And also knocking out, not trying to knock out everything in Vietnam, every stinking little clothing plant, but we're knocking out oil.

Now, and that brings us to the fourth point.

The art of war is being fought now in South Vietnam, not by a guerrilla, but by art with everything on its back.

And it is being fought.

Well, my personal reaction is that it's long overdue.

It's a tough thing, I believe.

Everybody's sort of brash.

In fact, we jeopardize the generation of thieves and so on.

That drives them off the wall, too, the Russians.

Whether you need their words or not.

So I just need to get them.

But to be honest with you, it's got to be at the war now.

And also, we've made a hell of a peace offer.

And when we say, look, we will lift the treaty blockade, as effective as we can call it, we will quit banging you when you release all our VWs and have an international supervised fire truck into the channel.

We'll get out before once.

Now, what the hell more than everybody else has to do?

I would be really petrified of what would happen to the Americans in Saigon.

I mean, there are several thousand there, citizens and others.

What in the hell is going to happen to them?

The populace could turn on them.

We need to know why.

We didn't have it on them.

We just couldn't be done.

So anyway, let me come to the point on the new assignment that I want you to take.

because we'll accomplish the strategy that necessarily has to be performed by the economy is something I had known for some time.

It's something I was aware of because of the background of the National Committees and others.

When Conway came,

in the middle of December last year, he and I were saying he would come in only a year.

He said he couldn't do it in the state longer.

In January, in California, I talked to him.

I said, you can't leave now because we just started a new monetary thing and all the rest.

You've got to stay.

If you can't, you'll have to go to Russia.

And so he agreed to stay six months.

They don't call her.

which is now, I believe, June the 15th, at least before.

Yeah, it's May 15th now, and tomorrow it's May the 16th.

Tomorrow, I know you announced that the company that's going to serve, you know, such distinction, and it's a guitarist, and so forth, and that's...

He's not willing to communicate in this court in the presence of the human faction.

I didn't mean directly, but quite directly, as he did last year.

And that he now is leaving his post, and that this will be a very great loss, and I'm very, very, very sure of that.

And we're talking about new colleges that are now very improved, and all that sort of thing, and also very sure of his service to the National Security Council, and so forth.

So that we, after

Consideration that the secretary and I have concluded that the best qualified man in every respect to assume the responsibility as a secretary to trade here is Steve Schultz.

And that George Schultz served terribly badly as Secretary of Labor, correct me if I'm wrong, but he destroyed the federal problems and so forth.

Next member of this field, Don, please read briefly.

That would be comfortable to announce, to the effect that I am not getting Kat Weinberger, who is the director of the budget, to succeed Director Schultz, as the director will be.

But now, obviously this is difficult, even in the sense that you've just done an OMB, and we're in the middle of it, and all that sort of thing.

On the other hand, in terms of our

is worthwhile.

First, we need a strong man to stand up for Burns.

We know that you do that because you know more than he does, or as much.

Second, we need somebody who will work closely with the OMB and develop a good budget and so forth, which actually we will do.

And the third point is that we need somebody that will have no problems of confirmation.

Anybody on the outside of the business

Now, uh, the, uh, this, uh, comes to you, as I know, as sort of a surprise.

Uh, I would say that, in telling you to ask me to take it, that, uh, I think you're what the creator needs for your part in this thing.

John pointed out to me today, I just saw him.

He'll be waiting to see if I can finish it.

But he found out that he just got through this legislation, and that's keeping him in position.

He says he doesn't have anybody in Portland yet.

He realizes that he hasn't shaken up the treasury as it needs to be.

How much you can do with that before the election remains to be seen.

I would say, finally, in that connection, in terms of getting all the right people to assume that responsibility, I do not have confidence in either of the two other secretaries, the three secretaries of the treasury.

So I think you ought to take it.

I don't think you can always go through the usual games.

I don't know whether or not you've noticed or something like that.

Because I already thought it through.

I'm thinking about it through as a matter of fact.

So I've lost a bit.

So he's totally for it, and I'm for it.

So the way we're going to handle it,

That's what he's going to be handling.

The way we plan to do it, at 10.30 tomorrow, we'll have a cabinet meeting.

That's what we've heard about that meeting.

And I'll go ahead and make a brief announcement.

After that, the three of us will walk out and I'll introduce the three of you to the press.

Connelly will, of course, take two or three questions.

The other, even the catalyst, will say, well,

We're honored to be taking this responsibility, whatever you want to say.

And I was going to talk about this, that I would like to, the only one condition that I'd like to pull as a three-year-old is to go to the administration building house, get quick people, bright people, and trace your leaders, keep them growing, you know,

It's bureaucracy, I imagine, to you, et cetera, et cetera.

But that isn't the point.

We're not suggesting you take this because of the people you're going to pick, or you pick the people because of yourself.

But I do strongly urge you not to just go over there and take a little time to sit on top of the heat.

It's going to be a hard damn thing to run.

This I know.

But you know them so well, anyway, and you know the business so well, that that's a whole new person.

That's the order of the day.

It took only 10 minutes.

I'm sorry, but Connolly is leaving.

I've got to, well, like him a great deal.

Well, let me say, it'll be a great loss, but the reasons for his leaving have nothing to do with this channel demonstration.

He's totally on course.

Everybody works with him like that.

But it's a personal one.

He feels it.

He's sort of a man of the country here, you know, and he'd like to move now, sort of after the Democratic convention.

He can't do it as Secretary of the Treasury, so it's a good move.

It's the right thing for him to do.

Otherwise, he's virtually patched as Secretary of the Treasury.

He's sure been a good man.

Absolutely, I'll tell you.

I know.

But he wants to do more.

And will at a proper time.

We're starting to see him go through the night trying to get him to stay obviously.

But he told me in January that he felt that he shouldn't have been there.

We don't have any control.

The guy likes to leave him.

He thinks he's done his job.

You know, it's the August 17th thing.

We caught him.

We got him to move.

So we thought it was time to shoot him.

We had him go home.

We just got him nationalized.

He didn't get a ride or anything.

But now he's come this far.

You know, it's really good.

I mean, he's not going to be a man over in Washington, and particularly with his wife, he's not going to know.

If it's a wife, there's peace in place.

They have a marvelous farm down there, a ranch.

So that's it, George.

So it's not that hard to talk about cocaine.

I will.

Well, this is quite an assignment, a little different than mine.

Well, I know some of the issues.

You're another reason that's frankly a common degree with me on this, because he's not an expert in economics in your mind.

But your economic philosophy is closer to mine than any of the other people I know.

I mean, I open the international market.

You'll stand up to art.

And you'll have a better political view on it.

But the other thing is that

And the budget, we've got to continue to work on that.

But it's, it'll be a nice working relationship between you, Pat, and I.

Great.

And we'll work pretty well, you know.

All right.

And maybe you.

He wrote a letter in his damn speech.

He said, this is depressing.

All this stuff.

He said, I'm not really tired of that.

The economy should not look crazy.

It's hard to personalize better than anybody else.

It's depressing.

Let's not talk about that.

That's not depressing, sir.

Well, I hope I can measure up to the section that I was using.

Oh, I'm very bossy, bossy.

Of course, you look like that.

Or she can if you do a hell of a job.

And you know, it's a great thing to urge, you know, you've got to think big of these things.

Don't tell a head that's out of place and ask your wife to do the same.

But you think that great building over there where the men just sat there, it's a, uh, it's a, uh, it's a, uh, an arm of society.

And so he did a thank you job of carrying one of the other costume panels that we used.

Now that's just, he's just, continues to be an energy center.

You know, the purpose of the job is that people get the closest idea to what he's got now.

And an airplane that's a mess boy.

I think that's what most people want about the cook.

Well, I am.

I don't mind thinking about Vietnam.

I think it's important to get that done, but I'm trying to think there's just exactly the right way.

The right way.

you guys might oh i brought in a whole list of things to talk to you about today um maybe tomorrow uh well i have gotten it from bob that you are basically in agreement with the idea of a very tough budget to tell yes and uh people know right now that we're going to do a

Well, I don't mean to say let them know.

I don't want them to be left and let know.

George, some little bastard's down in the woodwork making a political issue in the campaign.

That's the problem.

You see what I mean?

So I just don't know about that.

I think that's got to be played very, very closely.

But I can tell you that the moment the election is over, we're going to cut the very hell out

Well, there's certainly things that we have to

be working with, and I know John is doing it, like the HR1 problem.

That's gotten totally out of hand.

If we never see the light, if we never see that, we'll reach that problem.

I'll be coming to a degree, I must say, I've come to feel the same way.

Well, the main thing is, you know, now there's a lot related to it, so we just put it away.

That's done.

HR1, grab the shirt.

I'll screw that up, too.

No, I think we've just got to get very tough.

And in a lot of other areas, foodies and our farmers, if they have to fight that, they have to cop and program some of the others.

I mean, somebody's got to fight it sometime.

What else, Greg?

The toughest oil director of the budget in the history of the country.

And he's a great fellow.

Right.

And a fine person.

Yeah.

He's very loyal to you.

Good man to work with.

Would you talk to him, if you will, about who wants to, about who takes his job?

Who's at the other job now that you're telling him?

He wouldn't be able to do it at all.

No, he's not a question of that.

No.

The person who could do it is Arnie Weber, but I don't think we can get him to come back.

No, not for that.

All right, he should come back.

We got him, we should have him basically in the number one position.

He's young enough, vigorous enough.

We need young vigorous guys, guys who can still play tennis and all that sort of thing.

I've heard a lot of reports from people who've heard how you're making speeches around the country.

And they said he's great.

He's the strongest speaker for you and the administration.

But they've heard that he's been speaking a lot.

He's very effective.

He's a man that I think we need to keep our eye on in terms of the future cabin material.

He got it on.

And smart enough, tough enough, and loyal enough.

But you see, I have served at the other levels for one time.

Should have come back at the secondary level.

He should have come back on the internet or otherwise.

He should stay in that.

He's first class.

And he took that tough, routine job.

Instead of that, they weren't too pleased with the whole Georgia-Venus game, Drew Lawrence and Vietnam.

Yeah, that was my call at that time.

I understood it then.

I figured he still wasn't releasing.

Instead, he was still a patriot.

He could get smug, but he's a patriot.

You won't have much time for tennis until you're closer to the court here in Oklahoma.

No, you're on next year anyway.

I know you're right across the street, aren't you?

Thank you.

Sir, would you please help me, please?

Hello, Mike, how are you?

I'd like to see you.

He's got to do it, but he said that you and I, we're unanimous.

We voted two, and he got two votes.

That's right.

Three.

Yeah, three to nothing.

We voted everything in.

Well, I'm flattered.

I told you the other day, I've really come to enjoy working with you, and I hate to see you leave.

You've got to get into that.

But you know, we've all been around that.

Well, you've got a background, a knowledge, working, running a relationship with Kevin, a buddy, just admirably suited to be on the program in general.

I think you'll enjoy it.

It's a relationship directly with the one operation line.

Well, you're absolutely equipped.

What are you trying to do?

That's right.

Thank you very much.

That's been a great thrill for me.

It's been a great thrill.

Maybe a little freedom to come down and find your assistance.

You know, you have to be a lawyer.

John, do you have any, any, any names to suggest for these positions?

I mean, that's going to be a hell of a thing.

It'll get people to the end of the administration.

It's almost impossible anyway.

No, I think he's, I think he'd be well advised if he didn't try to keep about what you have and move in some new people, if anyone else possibly, except what you do about Mr. Jacker.

I mean, Dick Adams is new.

Uh, we got a new man in, uh, uh, Succeed John Doe.

And he's, I think, gonna be a good man.

How's that Bennett?

Sir, is that Bennett?

No, Jack Bennett is new.

And, oh, this is Fred, uh, Pickman.

Fred Pickman took the old place.

And he's a good, calm fella.

So that's three of the fellas that you work with the most.

They're all new now, in any way.

Volker, you'll have no problem with it at all.

Not at all.

He really operated pretty well and did what you wanted him to do.

I just need you to let him leave if you want to replace him with somebody.

It's going to be very hard at this point.

But many probably can succeed.

And Bennett's just come in.

I had Bennett aboard in the third or fourth class.

Adam's in the third or fourth class.

They've got a new PR man, Jim Donnelly, who looks like he's going to be great.

Just now, he's due to make some of the personnel changes.

He said, should have been when I came in.

By the way, you'll meet your staff.

Yesterday, I thought I was going to put them in the morning.

And I was going to put them in the morning.

The race will probably be made for you.

And you were referred.

You and the charge.

Are you bringing him over?

Yeah.

I'm not sure of that.

Well, one thing that John has agreed to do is to, of course, stay on until you're confirmed.

It won't take that much time to transition.

But you'll be confirmed, I think, quite easily.

That's certainly the intent.

I'll do whatever you want me to do regardless of it.

Somebody said that we can't be made active.

That you can't move from one department to another.

I don't think you can.

about that, but I think it's much better not to assume that responsibility until being confirmed.

I think he's certainly gone.

There should be two weeks even he can be.

So, about the 5th of June at least, then you can start making my rounds right away.

You're gonna make rounds both ways, you're gonna call in your staff, and say you're buying that, and say you're gonna go over to see John, and John's gonna put me around.

You're gonna have all day, aren't you?

Well, I will.

I guess I'd probably have to get the OMB people together, say it now or beforehand, and tell them a cap will be there, and then I will have to do it afterwards.

Perhaps I could just go over to the Treasury with you after.

That's right.

Actually, that's your meeting with the press.

Exactly.

Walk right over with him.

Excellent.

That's a very good idea.

You've got a beautiful, I won't bore you with these details now, just a whole new team internally.

You've got new men and new customers.

So you've really got major changes already that have occurred in the directory, and they've just settled down in their jobs.

But they're really getting

So you can really change the thing if you want to.

And at least, even if you don't want to change it, bring in two or three people with you.

And I've got one thought that I really want you to look at.

And I don't know how, but this young lawyer, he's a general counsel,

federal power named Gooch.

His father is a lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, and this is a young lawyer, Houston, who I think is one of the most attractive men in this government.

He's the father of a big Republican in Fort Worth, tiny Gooch, great athlete, etc.

So you've really got major changes already that have occurred in the tractor, and they've just settled down in their jobs.

But fortunately, you have two or three slots as a result of this new bill.

That's true.

Yeah, it's true.

So you can really shape the thing if you want to.

And at least, even if you don't shape it, you can bring in two or three people with you.

And I've got one fellow that I really want you to look at.

And I don't know how to carry away this fellow, but there's a young lawyer who's a general counsel with the federal parliament named Goose.

His father is a lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, and this is a young lawyer in Houston who I think is one of the most attractive men in this government.

as far as the great republicans in Fort Worth.

Tiny Gooch, a great athlete.

Quite a legendary character.

And this boy's about 6'4", 6'5".

Blackhead, smart as hell.

Way to talk like him.

And he wants to move out of the federal department.

How long has he been there?

About three years.

What's his first name?

Gordon.

Gordon Gooch.

But he is smart, and he is tough, and he's dedicated, and he's a free enterprise, and he's a top black dog.

Anyway, we won't take the president's time to talk about things like that, but he just needs it.

Well, let me say, it's a great loss for the property, but he's trying to be available to do some assignments and come up and see us and all that.

The only one that's worth noting is reorganization, which that hasn't really happened.

It's one of the few things that's ever been pushed through.

There's a lot of important things to be done there.

One thing, too, is that I want you to be sure, George, to fight hard for the position John's taking on as an international monitor of that trade and all the rest.

You know what I mean?

By God, we are not going to get pushed around here anymore.

We can't do it.

We've got to play a tough game.

We're not looking for convertibility there.

No, sir.

Yes.

Not just a little bit.

You just gotta play that line.