Conversation 754-008

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card Congress, you know.

Yeah, buy now, pay later.

Right.

Pay later.

And he did a good job.

He's always, he's always a very good man.

He's always responsible.

He doesn't make mistakes.

He's so concise.

And also, he's got a hell of an honest face, isn't he?

And he's great.

I mean, he's responsive.

He's direct, and he doesn't create the impression, like some do, that he's holding something back.

He'll come right out and talk, you know, straight.

What's that?

Oh, no, that's all right.

That's why much as we love George Shultz and others, that the beauty of John is that he's forceful and direct and clear.

John would make a hell of a candidate.

He would.

He's a candidate type.

He really is.

He likes people.

At least he gives that impression.

He doesn't like that much physical work, though.

That's where he falls out as a candidate.

Very.

He doesn't like to push himself that much, does he?

Uh-huh.

John certainly likes to take his time.

And he works like a son of a gun, but when he goes down to take time off, he takes it off.

But he never goes into high gear, though.

He always moves along slowly.

But you know, one of the things about the invasion, if you had a lawyer, you had to beat a lawyer.

kind of a man that you would always have.

He has the same quality as Mitchell does, in that respect.

Cool, unflappable, you know?

That's the kind of lawyer you want.

I don't want any lawyer that's excitable.

I mean, all that.

Believe me, don't tell everybody you want to hear that, too.

Well, I decided, I was talking to Bob, that I thought that possibly we ought to not do that press anymore because of the interest.

I was asking about this morning.

Well, I see this is the first time I've been before the whole break.

Since it happened, it happened after the briefing.

So I've never been in a briefing situation.

So I was asking.

They had asked about it.

And the question came on the basis of whether or not you had directed Clark McGregor.

that there would be no comment on the matter.

I said, yes, as a matter of fact, he did.

Of course, the president's always thought that there should be comment on personal matters.

He said it again yesterday, that he directed that.

And they said, who does this apply to?

I said, it applies to anyone.

They said, vice president.

I said, this applies to anyone who is in a position to speak authoritatively and the responsibility of the position to speak authoritatively.

I said, that's the president's view.

Well, did he send out a memo?

I said, no.

As a matter of fact, he said it yesterday.

And you'd be surprised how fast the word goes out.

But they got a kick out of it.

Then I was asked, Gary Hart, McGovern's man, said in the breakfast this morning that he felt there should be reciprocity.

In other words, that all candidates, he said, release their financial, medical, and mental records.

So I was asked about that, and I smiled.

And I said, Gary Hurt's in there?

And he said, yes.

I said, where?

I didn't see it on the wires.

Then the guy said, well, the backgrounder this morning.

I said, well, he did.

He did.

I said, well, of course, he did that.

I said, that was John Wood.

In 1968, when the president was a candidate, he just went right away from it.

Because it's true.

Sure.

You did.

We put out your whole thing.

Your whole thing.

I remember doing it.

But I thought it was better just to...

You know, Rose had shown me that she had just called Hutschnecker, who was, of course, a very good friend of ours, as well as him.

And he said, wouldn't you know, they had two calls on the Washington Post and the other from Newsweek.

And he said, yes, they said aye.

And in an early bit, he said the president used to come to me.

He was a senator when I was an internist.

But after that, when he was vice president,

in the field of psychiatry, he was not good at consulting.

Which is the truth.

He basically, I think, he's probably one of the best insurance in the world.

But then he's so good at this field that he's saying, oh, that makes more money.

I'll let him get some of that.

No, no, that's dirty bullshit.

No.

No, I thought we had talked about it.

So I just said that was done.

So there'd be no pressing you when it's .

No.

So I said that was done when the president was candid in 1968.

And then they said, well, they followed it up by saying, well, what did the president favor doing?

I said, look, I'm not going to have any further comment on this matter, because the president is so direct, period.

And so that's it.

What do they think?

They're going to catch agonists on it?

I don't know.

They were following up on the Q&A.

That's right.

There's been no hinting at that.

There's no hinting at a drive on this.

I think one thing about it that nobody's going to believe as far as this is either acting or acting.

They may believe other things.

We've been worked over four years, for God's sake.

If there's anything they could have gotten if you were acting, it would be way farther than that.

We've been worked over for ages.

When you hadn't been for all that time.

Yeah, I didn't sense that bill being out.

Now I'm coming closer.

I do handle it.

They ask me about it.

Just sit around and handle it.

Oh, he's a fascinating man.

Doctor, have you ever seen him?

A little guy with a rabbit.

He has a terrible little dick.

It's terrible.

an Austrian Jew, but he is just fascinating to talk to.

Great, just great.

But he told us, he said, he said, this may happen.

Because it appears that this view

mentioned by one of the psychiatrists, and I was going to say, now what do they say?

You've got the psychiatrist who'll say, oh, we can get a whole range, because there's no agreement on any other of those.

Basically, you've got to be

Well, how did he look on today's show?

Well, he was, I thought, very temperamental.

Abernathy asked him a question as to whether or not there was any depression involved.

And he said, initially, well, I've covered all that.

I'm not going to cover it again.

She stopped right there.

Then Abernathy continued depressing.

I mean, continued depressing in a hard way.

He said, well, now, Senator, this has been made available.

The health of the man running for vice president is of key importance to the American people.

I'm going to ask you this question.

Scott covered it all before.

And then Abernathy pressed him again.

And then he began to build into the defense of Usher.

He would not restate it, or he would not say anything at all about it.

And then Abernathy said, but Senator, there are two matters involved here.

Not only the fact that you helped me, but there's a question of judgment as to why you did not inform him.

Senator McLaughlin has this Abernathy curse.

So they just Bob Abernathy.

But no, he's not.

So then they went through that.

He's not the worst.

The whole interview was consumed with Abernathy asking him not to respond.

He was about five minutes.

And then at the end, of course, oh, then Abernathy asked a very interesting question, which the guy totally blew.

He said, well, now, Senator, he said, don't you think this will give you a good opportunity throughout the campaign to really educate

a lot of Americans about the fact that you can recover.

And the guy dropped them all.

He didn't pick up at all.

He just said, well, education is not brought about by repetition.

And then they cut back to New York.

Oh, and then Abernathy said, well, I hope we'll be able to interview you again when we'll be talking about some other issues.

They cut back to Frank Blair, who said, before they went to a commercial, I'm sure the political realities are that Bob Abernathy will not be the last reporter to ask Senator Eagleton about this matter.

That's true.

What kind of treatment would he have had, and how he would handle it?

You were telling me this morning.

How he'd handle it, what the person had said.

He said he'd talk too much, but go ahead.

Well, he said that Eagle can talk too much, that any student would know that he was in that shape, that they do not give shock treatment, you know, quickly and easily.

He really thinks, you know, that it's a very serious thing.

Still, I don't think he thinks it's cured.

Well, no, you never said it's cured.

He didn't say that, but I know you're not.

You're not sure you're cured of anything in life.

I was talking about the thing about this, and it's going to be very much a problem for me, and I don't think for anybody to be hit.

But everybody is, to an extent, hypochondriac.

From the time Eisenhower had a heart attack, he worried about having another one.

And by the time he had a stroke, he worried about having another one.

And Johnson, that's not Johnson's problem.

He didn't have another heart attack.

He just thinks he does.

Now, this, of course, is the Hutschner theory, the psychosomatic thing and all that.

He says that, and I agree with him, the British scientists carry it to the extreme.

But he believes that almost all illnesses are directly related to mental illness.

stress.

And I think that is true half the time.

Let me tell you what Elton said about it.

He said that people go through these things as a strong man.

It makes, you know, somebody who's really strong, it makes stronger by, anyone's depressed when, we'll say they're through a big thing.

People have depressions after any big battle.

That's right.

But if you go through it and you're all right, it makes you stronger.

If you collapse, as he has done, it makes you weaker.

Is that what he said?

Yes.

Very good.

It's probably, that makes sense to you, doesn't it?

Well, sure, if you can take it, then you're a stronger person.

But if you can't take it, and these are, for all practical purposes, each one of these was a nervous breakdown.

So she said, I mean, that's what it is.

Well, that's right.

It is explained that way.

There's three breakdowns.

Yeah.

I remember Kyle saying, he has to stay in.

You have to stay in almost forever to get your share out of the retirement fund.

Oh, yeah.

So just letting that out.

That's the way they keep it, John.

Sure, after all the years Kyle put in there, I think he paid a grand total of $8,000.

Really?

Yeah.

Because they made it out of profit sharing the thing, and the mirror was losing money.

So after all the years and all Kyle called me to do for that paper,

But that and the Channers were probably half billionaires.

They should have settled with $80 million.

I'm sure they should have, but they didn't.

I'm surprised.

That's something they ignored generally.

Well, he didn't know that.

Sweetest guy.

That paper is just impossible.

I think it's just bad as a post.

Oh, fair enough.

Is that bad?

That's right.

And it should be your paper.

It's interesting.

That might, you know, it'll certainly bump the negative acting issue.

It might even make that an answer.

Because where Grant's acting has very, very serious liabilities,

The one greatest strength he has is dignity, composure.

He's cool under pressure.

He's never, in these meetings we have with me and the NSC and all the big decisions, Agnew sits around, sits across like an iceberg.

And frankly, Bill might be shaky.

Mel will be a little bit.

The boys get pitched.

Henry will be, you know, Agnew, quiet, and just as cool as he can be.

On the basis of coolness, I would take anything over any nose.

Absolutely.

Because under fire, he's a very strong man.

I may make the wrong decision, but by and large, I want a man that's strong.

Yeah.

Don't you?

But he would never be a tough one.

And nobody even thinks of him that way.

Even people who maybe don't like him for some other reason or something.

He is a strong man.

There's no doubt about that.

When you weigh, you may not like the weight.

You know, there's a letter in Frank's assertion that he kicks the kids around here that he doesn't like the press.

But when you weigh those deficiencies against the other one, you have no questions.

You will work, as I said.

You, of course, know it.

I have done two things, and maybe you wanted to turn one or both off.

First, I had indicated to Haig that Haig should call and say that the president directed that Governor Wallace would like an invite to give him a briefing on national security and national defense and foreign policy matters.

He would be glad to at any time.

Would you like for that to go forward now or not?

All right.

The second point, of course, I have already indicated, and I don't go about this morning after our conversation, that he was to work out a plan where McGregor or I was even thinking somebody like Johnny Rhodes of the platform committee or somebody like that would indicate to Governor Walzman a very significant contribution to the national debate on these issues and that we certainly have in mind that some of these

For example, our busing plank is right down his alley.

I mean, and the new summary this morning, so it indicates.

Now, I think one thing we could do on that, on the busing plank, I might even, I was even thinking if we could have a discreet way to have somebody just take it to him and show it to him and see if he thinks of it.

What do you think?

Who's, who, let's see, Snyder, Snyder, and say that we've,

say from our side should we have, let's see, let's see, Harry Dent maybe, that too is ridiculous.

How about Ed Martin?

How about, I'll tell you, how about Ed Martin?

Yeah, they would know, he worked around here in the South anyway, and he's handled all this segregation thing and talks to all this stuff.

Great.

Right.

Yes, sir?

Yes, sir.

Well, I'll... Yeah.

We can do that with one other...

I can have it.

If you want to get a little closer, I can have a client say something.

You know, just gets out.

You know, a client or...

No, maybe that's the White House.

I think that's too close.

I agree it should be the campaign.

I think you're right with that either.

I think that's a great recommendation.

And our role is in the platform.

I'll get that one done.

I do want to sit down with them so that they know that I've done that with

Because there are times when you've got to go balls out, even when you're dead.

Balls out.

It's because the LACVS are conceited.

Bill Rogers, it's a major failure because he has so many other .

But I know Henry will say anything.

I'll say anything.

Bill just can't help but say, oh, yeah, I know about that.

Yeah, I've heard that already.

Yeah, we've done that information.

Yeah, I know about it.

So I'm not going to do it.

About 80% of the time, when people come to tell me I've heard

I don't, but at first it's courteous.

And second, you never know, you might become some.

And there was a man, there was a poor man, a man that I saw in government who was the best at that, was Brownell.

Really, Brownell, this is what he was looking for.

I heard Brownell, who virtually did everything.

But he, you start talking to someone, and he just listened.

All of us, all of us, all of us.

And then he started questioning, and a lot of us,

But he was never one to step into the unknown about that.

See what I mean?

It's a marker, but I'd rather it's a marker of smallness.

You're trying to prove that you're .

I guess it's that thing, the hymn thing.

Of course, that's all right, I think, don't you think?

No, I was watching it on television last night.

I don't care.

I never do it, but I just wondered.

I don't think it is.

Not for a press conference.

I think it's okay if they were at a picnic.

You know, they were getting filmed at a picnic or something.

But when you have a serious press conference and you're on explaining, I just have a feeling you should

I don't know.

I don't think if they had planned it that way, they would have went and handled it that way.