Conversation 764-001

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Yes, did they have a briefing for the White House staff?

They had a briefing for the whole White House staff.

Yeah.

They all had a briefing?

Yeah.

Top to bottom.

I understand.

There's no problem, room, or any of that stuff.

There's plenty of room, and everybody, and so forth.

It's only in question how much you compliment the Dan Academy.

Sure.

And that I'm a little concerned about.

As a matter of fact, maybe I should cut some more off up here.

Well, you've got to have Mitchell, Stans, and McGregor, for sure.

Yeah.

They have Mitchell, Stans, McGregor, and Dole.

And Dole, right.

Sure.

So there's... What I was thinking was this.

Just... As I had a little talk with Pete, I said something which I frankly was saying for other reasons.

I said that I wanted him to sort of stay a little bit out of the politics thing that I was asking Stein to accept in his speeches, and I was asking Henry to...

I said, now, John, I said, Ervin's in a little bit of a position because he has

It's very, very important, John, that we do, you know, for Pete's protection, that we not get him involved in anything.

People let it go.

You'll have no problem.

Henry has, well, he has some, but Pete, for reasons of the law, he's going to get that part involved.

Do you agree?

Absolutely.

I just don't think we're going to get Pete in there.

I don't think we should.

Well, he was.

I wonder, I don't think you have to have tenants, for example.

I think you have to have all of them.

But I don't think, this is not for the purpose of dealing with, you see what I mean?

The purpose of this is to talk about the cabinets, the cabinet's role.

I mean, just brief them.

I didn't hear the name brief, but what did it deal with?

Was it a rah-rah thing?

Yeah, McGregor started out, said we're gonna have the greatest campaign, talk about it.

Malik got up and he had some charts and said,

McGregor got up and said, we're going to have a media attack, and he said, this is our media approach, and here are our literature and our buttons and this and that.

Was it congressional related to something?

No.

Would it be here?

Then the youth guy got up.

No, it wouldn't be.

Then the youth guy got up and he said his piece.

Now, there's another aspect of this that I've run into.

You can have all the voices.

Well, we've asked Romney to fly back from Wilkes-Barre tomorrow to report to the cabinet in the meeting before you come in with the vice president presiding.

The cabinet?

Will he get here?

Well, if he doesn't, then it'll be Rogers presiding.

But anyway, that pre-meeting before you show up.

So there will be a little substance to that effect.

He will be saying it.

I've been up there and I've personally checked this.

We sent him a hell of a rough memo, signed by you, which is being put out.

And he's being dispatched up there in the morning.

He's canceled all his appointments.

He thought he had an appointment with you tomorrow.

We canceled that.

Said that this was top priority as far as you were concerned, much more important than whether he had 700 new slots for mortgage applications.

And his ears are just as red as they can be, but he's off and he'll be back to report

tomorrow night.

Well, he does now, because we've shaken him today really hard.

Well, he tended to play it down.

Said the OEP told him everything was all right.

No, I've been taking some readings today, and it has not been handled intelligently up there.

So there's that little thing.

No, I'm not arguing for that at all.

No, I understand.

Well, how about doing this?

You may have it both ways.

Supposing you were to have this cabinet meeting with these people or some of them sitting around the outside of the room for that part of it.

and maybe intermingle them at the cocktail time.

And then the staff goes over to some other place for their dinner.

And you dine alone with the cabinet.

I think that is perfectly satisfactory to the staff.

I don't think that's a bit of a problem.

You should have Ziegler there, obviously, for coverage.

Do you decline to?

No, you can avoid it.

It says, you know, he'll... On this list, I think you have to add Stein and Kissinger.

Kissinger being there will complement the Kevin.

That's right.

I imagine if you have the others.

Well, if you have the others, clearly you have to have them.

But if you had...

My view is, I think if you don't have Stein and Kissinger directly, you shouldn't have you in planning, see?

That's my point.

If you have substantive people, we either have substantive people or we don't.

That's how I think.

And if we're about to...

If Romney's going to make a report with the cabinet, well, that's something else he can.

It doesn't make that much difference, because I don't want to spend much time on that.

You have Malick, Magruder, and Reitz at the bottom of that list.

Those are the fellows that put on the briefing.

They have to attend the briefing, but they don't have to attend the dinner.

Well...

Unless you want to draw on them, you know, for some reason.

No.

No, they really shouldn't.

And neither should Butterfield.

They don't need to attend the dinner.

Coal is strictly substantive.

It should.

You see, I don't see...

even though we even though we think of you and peter as being more political people we have to realize that basically you planning and kissinger and steinberg are basically all the same level as a sort of subsidy man right i mean one domestic council with a foreign affairs council the security council and constantly economic advisors

Well, it depends on what you're after here.

The thing that you run into is Ziegler puts out who was there.

And that makes a difference to some of these birds in terms of their ability to operate.

You're almost better off not to have anybody

people that should always be there.

You know, the ones really that are captain rank, in my opinion, are one of these ultimate, early planning, which should not be, but it's just one of those damn things.

Of course, there's a chance.

And I'd have to say Stein.

There are others who we honor.

What about Timmons?

Timmons has succeeded to McGregor's mantle.

Well, I would say this, that you will probably have less difficulty internally

If you had that group and no others, then if you had a selection of various ones of this whole list mixed up, I mean, it would be harder to justify it on the basis that some are political and some aren't and that kind of thing, because everybody would have some quarrel with that.

It's really hard when you're finding just your chance.

I guess so.

I don't know.

And Ziegler would logically be included in that.

And so it's unraveled right off the bat.

We have a sort of, one of the reasons I raised this is sort of a nice exercise because it does show that we didn't have a lot of people.

Yes, no question about it.

We were just building on that.

come right down to it.

I really think when Bob first started this, we said they were going to be bad.

We would not lightly give up the position of assistant to the president.

But we've been awful about that, haven't we?

Well, no.

Actually, on this list, you've got one.

You've got Bob and me and Peter.

Those are the only ones that have that.

And Henry.

That's right.

that have that, and then you've got signed who's sort of, sort of ex-officio in that category.

So it hasn't been, it hasn't been, uh, much beyond that.

I thought you'd be delighted to be interrupted and talk to that slimy son of a bitch.

Well, he had the methods that he did to improve relations.

What about just drawing a line right under Haldeman's name?

And you having dinner with the cabinet plus Haldeman, period.

For him to be the note taker.

Feed the others in another part of the place.

If you get into some kind of a discussion.

Well, that box, right, that box, because they're all of them.

That's right.

They're sort of emeritus or in one way involved.

I wonder if that really is the best thing, to give them a crack at being solely there.

And then, of course, we all, importantly,

without any staff people there, I think you've got to maintain it.

If you can keep them on that.

Now, Romney will want to hit you, uh, clearly on this employees thing.

And you'll, there's no way to avoid that.

You'll get a bite.

What do you want to say about that?

Well, you'll just have to, you'll just have to duck or, or say, uh, go see Weinberger here or, or, uh, fetch somebody out of the other room or something of that kind.

But you could feed them in the conference room there, or you could feed them in the dining room and feed the staff over in the other, in the old laurel.

I don't need to have the other people present.

You'll want them present, will you not, for the cabinet meeting itself?

Who?

All these other people?

No, sir.

Okay.

No, sir.

I mean the other people are all members of the staff.

I get you.

All right.

So I don't think there's anything.

All right.

I mean, why...

Everybody's here, so they've got to run up there and sit around here and .

That's what I meant.

OK. Well, then maybe we better reschedule Romney for a different way of reporting.

Yeah, I wouldn't have him report with this.

Because that's sure to lead to all kinds of bloodshed.

He's going to come back and criticize the Department of Transportation or OIB or something.

I didn't report with the Master Consul.

Agnew's there.

Agnew's in charge of that.

Yeah, well, no, but we can say he is.

Well, then you aren't sure how much you should send a message to Johnson for him.

I'm not going to sit down with him, according to me, on that damn thing.

He'll hit you on it, though.

If he's there, if you're there, he'll hit you.

I mean, it's just as sure as night is day.

It's a night today, but... Catch him.

Can't do it.

Just can't.

But I wouldn't have all the others.

See, I think I had one time.

Perhaps just one that ought to sit down.

I haven't thought of that.

That's a huge room.

It seems about 40.

But I wouldn't have him report to that meeting.

I don't want him reporting to that meeting.

I don't want them to be bored with Romney, you know what I mean?

Because he'll... Well, this won't be boring.

This will be quite exciting, because he'll have steam coming out of his ears.

He'll have been the falsely accused maiden.

But we can arrange to have him report some other way.

We can tell him that this is going to be a strictly political meeting and that the report should be held, but you're not going to be able to attend the political part of it.

yeah so we're going to postpone it we'll have a we'll have a different kind of reporting session but he will he will undoubtedly hit you on his on his other thing his appeal letter and so forth and holloman can feel that if he's there you can use him as a use him as a buffer

Maybe I have, but I'm just trying to see.

You have 15 plus 5 would be 20, you see, with the extroversial guys.

And plus all of them would be 25.

It's a pretty big crowd.

But I would not have all the others, and I haven't been there.

Why don't we just do that?

Let's leap off, uh, I think you have to have a saber, however, but not climb.

Can that be done, or is that impossible?

Well, let's try.

I would think so.

Let's try.

Let's see what happens.

Well, this isn't a breathing academy, or a very, very

I'm trying to get it out so that they think they're getting something special.

We finally had 15 cabinet officers and 21 others.

So he's going to get it down.

I don't think you have to have to.

We're not reporting this to the press.

I see no reason to.

I really think this is a confidential meeting.

I don't consider it a problem with Romney.

Let's just stay loose on that and see.

We'll just figure the 24 for now.

That's what I would do.

I think I would do that and then say, we're not bringing up any other subjects.

We're not bringing up any substantive matters.

So that that keeps Romney and others from hearing out.

We're not bringing up any legislative matters.

Legislating, we've already discussed that.

Just to repeat at a briefing that the staff had.

Because if we were going to have tenants do a briefing, that would be one thing.

But he isn't, I understand.

He's not going to be part of the deal.

No.

already in the convention right so they know it's really your deed of staff then okay i'd like to sort of try them at once just leave them right there and then you see otherwise for example if you have if you have others how the hell can you have them out of the post and i think you just say we're just having this meeting on the cabinet

Because he has to have one man there representing the others.

How about Conley?

No.

We don't want to mix him in on anything.

He's got to be, we've got to keep his identity separate.

Okay.

All right.

Well, let's see if we can set this up.

Unfortunately, some of these invitations went out.

Oh, they did?

Oh, yeah.

I don't think so.

It would be awful damn awkward.

You're going to have all 95 people on that basis.

If you stick with the invitations that are outstanding, you're going to have Bob Brown and Ken Cole and all these people.

The same plans have been changed.

No, I just wanted to be doing it the way you wanted it.

I don't think that's a problem.

You can... Well, I really don't think that's a...

I had thought that they hadn't sent him.

No, they went out this morning.

Then add Stein to the list.

All right.

And him, if he's willing.

Hey, you.

What is it?

The cabinet meeting about politics.

So we're basically going to camp David tomorrow.

They're going to listen to him.

They're going to have dinner.

You'd like to do it for your lover, right?

We'll have them all.

But invite Stein.

That's all right.

Sure.

All right.

No, I was just trying to get that statement.

In the future, and with you, and really talk to him, I've talked to a lot of others, and I want to get him, so he doesn't have to bother.

But Butterfield or somebody's got to take over this kind of cancer, so that they can end the meeting without 30 people standing around the house.

Don't you agree?

Absolutely.

Or do you?

I do.

I would much rather.

And it felt like coal or somebody could do that at times.

And you can shut them off.

So that's a function that some of them can perform.

But here, you're in close quarters, and it's

had his heart set on having you meet their health minister Petrovsky, who he said is also the personal physician of Brezhnev.

I thought somebody said they didn't want me to meet him.

Well, that was me.

Oh, that's right.

I was the one who said no.

But given all the looking these guys have been taking, like,

He could do it Saturday.

I don't think so, but he could, I'm sure, do it tomorrow afternoon.

Or Wednesday, I think so, one, but they could even do it Wednesday afternoon.

But I would not come back for that if I were you.

Look, I'd be glad to meet you.

It's a surprise.

It's all right.

I'm excited.

Oh, I should know all they wanted to picture with you five minutes.

That's all they could say.

Oh, I didn't have anything particularly crazy.

We have a situation here, Henry, which we all have.

He's got a staff name.

He's got a goddamn thing to do.

Isn't this right?

When you look at it, for Peterson to come in and blab around, we'd be over in state.

We'd be all out on the papers.

We'd screw that up.

And he has no trouble.

He likes to push papers around.

Pete Flanagan.

I've explained to him that when we conduct a negotiation, we use the State Department to give us

He just isn't settled with that.

Well, anyway, so that's where we've got it going now.

They're going to study Europe.

But Jesus Christ, that's the trouble.

far better with one guy and working together, rather than have a whole group of people who have access to the president.

That's the point.

Of course, I don't let them have access, and that makes them all unhappy.

But I do agree that that's the way it is.

But I understand those two.

Tell me, he said he was, he's also based on what he heard from Erdogan, that we really weren't going to have this true, true, true, wise discussion of Tanaka.

But the problem with Tanaka, with the trade things, Tanaka is, he doesn't want to bring Nakasone with him.

Nakasone is a wild nationalist.

So he...

Hello, Anatole.

Uh, I've been, I've been in the presence of to arrange this Petrovsky meeting.

And he was wondering whether by any chance he was here now.

When is he arriving?

Because the president's going up to Camp David tomorrow late afternoon.

Uh, how long is he going to stay?

How long is Petrovsky going to stay here?

But he could stay for a good part of Wednesday.

Well, you see, the president may not come back in the morning, and... Oh, well, let me just...

If we have until 5 o'clock, we'll find 15 minutes.

We'll find 15 minutes.

The president was just wondering if by chance Bischofsky would be down.

Then he would have asked you to bring him over.

Well, no, I think the president is going to be going up to Camp David tomorrow afternoon.

Well, no, you can come.

Well, the president said it.

Thank you.

I had told, actually, I figured that I got impression of seeing everybody we sent over there.

Now, I've got to see the people they sent here.

Their relationship is a hell of a lot different with us than with other countries.

It isn't like seeing the health minister's

during the election period and that they should not retaliate violently or anything of the kind because we wouldn't understand that.

She said simply as a person, we got an answer, as a personal assurance to the president, if we don't tell them that they're out of the city, they're going to tell us that they will take no drastic action even under extreme provocation during the election period.

So we've got a practical assurance of quiet.

tell me this on the Japanese thing you don't see us being able to come up with anything on this I think we can come up with some general principles and I trade missions

We can't actually conclude it there, because they don't want to bring that conclusion.

But I would have a better opinion.

Well, I guess let's not bring along Flanagan.

You know, we shouldn't.

They don't want us to bring it.

You know what I mean?

We, I just want to overload our side.

And I don't want that.

Not, if I may say, not for Christ's sakes, Kennedy.

We called him.

I am getting more and more concerned about the fact that we do so much better if we don't have a hell of a lot of big crowd that we have.

They will resume in November 9.

They're trying to take advantage of the election and publish the whole record.

And then we will have McGovern in a position where he would say, no, we want the imposition of a communist government.

But you can consider that.

That's right.

My worry is that if we go on and on through October, it's going to get tough.

It's going to be tough in the sense that it's quite clear that they are beginning to try to develop the line.

The further we get away from A8, we find that the less they... that our support erodes for what we've done.

Because, you know, you take a strong hand and you say, well, Jesus, we didn't miss and what the hell's happened and we're still fighting.

i think you can make an announcement at the end of august because we're going down to 15 000 by december 15. yeah certainly to 20. so then you would have pulled out 530 000 troops

The only thing we haven't done is to put the communists into power.

You read through, for example, all the talks you had with those bastards and parents.

True, they made some, they moved here, they moved there, they moved there, and it was significant.

I agree.

regarding withdrawal and other things.

I could see them.

I said, OK, if I make the announcement, they didn't move an inch on one thing.

Those bastards want political victory.

They want us to do it for them.

That's right.

But I say this.

They're only hanging on, we know, because of the political reasons here.

And the conduct of the opposition is so shocking.

You just wonder if there's anything more.

I don't mean the way it would crawl,

I mean, I'd like to do something tough rather than weak.

You know, one of the things we, one thing which I'm playing with Fritz when I'm

We could say we're not going to play with any more American lives in this period.

We will resume talks on November 9th, two days after the election.

But since we don't want innocent civilians to suffer this, suffering the bombing north of the Chinese parallel until the talks resume, I'm just thinking I'd love to take some of their, except that that's a we move rather than a strong move.

I don't like it.

I think stopping the bombing before

was effective only because it gave an indication that there might be peace because talks were restarted.

This time, we stopped the bombing.

For what purpose?

It just looks like we're putting our tailgates in our legs.

I don't think it would be helpful.

I asked him, I said, I didn't give him very much.

Well, I said, we are in a position to sell out if we want to and make it look good.

His judgment is it deludes you.

His judgment is that what has distinguished you from your opposition is that you've served for the honor of this country.

And he thinks if we go a hard line attack, it would help politically.

It would certainly not do it much.

Well, you come to this point, too, you know, the more I read the thing.

Sure, we don't want him everywhere.

We've got to take all the insurance we can.

We ought to try to crush him.

I wish there were more we could do, but I'll be goddamned if I know what we can do without really, you know, frankly, dishonor.

Well, I've come up with an idea now.

I've tried it on Hagen and myself this afternoon.

really genius.

And I just want to remind you once more, and my idea would be, I won't present at the next meeting, at the next meeting, we can accept seven of their ten proposals, slightly related.

And I'll tell them to go to to

Well, it takes a lot of their elements, but gives them a twist which forces them into negotiations with you and into some sort of election.

They have asked for a government of national reconciliation.

We could call these commissions.

of organizing elections.

The elections will run the way we proposed it on January 25th, with Jew resigning before, but promising that they will get the number of seats in the cabinet proportional to their vote.

Then we could say this commission of national reconciliation after the elections will draft a new constitution that

gives Hugh a veto.

He doesn't want a new constitution.

And he doesn't care about a 60-50 representation, because that gives him a veto.

But all of the details of this have to be worked out in direct negotiations between Hugh and the BRG.

This they've already accepted, that there'll be direct negotiations.

Now my view is, and that there has to be a ceasefire,

Commission of National Reconciliation, and a new constitution.

If they turn this down, what the hell is Mukundan going to say in October?

If we publish all of this, what else can we do?

On the other hand, if they accept it, they'll be forced into a negotiation with Chu, and if he can't screw it up through October, I have no confidence.

He's serious enough to keep that negotiation going.

So we'll have that nuclear treaty, you know, but we're going to have to come up with something, too.

What happens on Vietnam?

Of course, it's still an issue.

Well, there's a lot of Trump issues.

That is one that we, at this point, come up with.

I saw a negative reaction.

which is understandable due to the fact that as I said, time passes, and that's what these bannings to Congress are reflecting on us.

It's a miracle we're alive, but we just haven't, frankly, we just haven't got much to do on the strong side.

I don't mean the weak side.

I must say, probably,

I guess you could say you're getting a residual force of advisors and such.

I wouldn't say anything.

I just say we'll go down to $20,000 by December 15.

I'd make it $20,000 if we don't get any money.

Not a goddamn thing.

Well, we don't face it yet.

Well, I don't want to indicate any delay in proposal inconsistencies.

or packaging surrender differently, it is also consistent with their wanting to do something.

It's the biggest step they've taken, and it's the biggest step they could take as a group.

When you think about a communist government, that's a tremendous challenge for them.

Let me say, just to be very sure of whatever happens, we have a plan.

In fact, they have the election.

And I mean, really.

I talked to Joe Alza over the weekend, and he said that you're going to see the damnedest thing after you're re-elected.

He says all the intellectuals are going to move towards you, which is what I also think.

And he says if you then smash the North Vietnamese, everyone will say, well, the sons of bitches have been asking for it.

Just let's get it over with.

that they put it out to the boys.

Yeah.

Well, we'll find something to do and say that, but I just want to, I want to do it calmly.

I don't want to do anything that's frankly tricky or tedious.

We've got to live, let's face it, I mean, of course, we're going to have to live in the election,

You really come down to it.

The cost might be too great to sell these people off.

It might be too great.

Well, Connolly said, and I think it's a good point, he said, the best strategy is to do what's right.

Because if we are caught having made a trick proposal and having played politics with it, you lose your moral position completely.

Exactly.

And we can take some attrition from people who worry about the war when we got over it and all that.

We're likely to come to a point, one week here, we'll have no casualties due.

I think that's going to come.

You didn't bring more, and you decided not to?

No, because they were really doing all the things.

I didn't feel that we should say that.

It's really just, we've given up everything.

We're mining, we're bombing the North.

Jesus Christ.

I just don't think they're doing the fine things.

I just don't know.

When I'm out there, I'm going to take a shiny book into the woodshed.

Well, they've come to hold the power.

Why the Christ don't they use it?

What about the 52s and so forth?

They ought to be

They party around, too, or they... That's the one weapon they're using, right?

You know, it's so shameful.

There's some witches on the other side over there.

Squealing on these dykes.

God almighty, I mean, it's so damn shameful.

Well, one of them has to be ashamed.

We are not going to.

That is, we are not going to.

We are not going to buy a piece.

They may not wish you good luck.

I think, Mr. Dresden, they may not wish you good luck.

Some part of this is going to get settled.

They ought to settle.

Yeah.

Or they know too well what the ceasefire could mean to us.

Yeah, but we have to remember...

putting them in between, but they don't know that.

So, we can just, it won't recede after that.

You know, one discouraging thing in here that we've always noticed is the goddamn CIA is always putting out the most puzines, half-assed analyses

Bunker ought to send us a note or something like that.

I just think, I'll tell you what the American people need to hear now, that what we have been doing is affecting some way.

Somebody's got to say that.

The North Vietnamese don't like to hear that, but somebody else has got to say it.

Can Bunker say it?

Can anybody say it?

Oh, absolutely.

It has to be.

We might consider bringing Bunker over to Hawaii by the end of the year.

And I hope to meet him.

And, well, I'll be.

We'll just do that.

That makes it much more worthwhile.

Bring Bunker over there.

And how about mine, too?

Well, I don't know whether we should have that.

That makes it too much of a misplacement.

But bring Bunker over for a report.

Also, if you print a line, you'll get the latest on it.

Oh, Christ, yes.

But bring Bunker.

We've got Rodgers there anyway.

Is he going to raise for the minister tonight?

Yes.

I think, I think that the wine meeting is a useful thing for that reason.

I think we have enough theater going on.

I would urge you not to mention it to anybody else standing here.

I wouldn't even, I wouldn't mention it to, I wouldn't, I mean, I don't feel it, but Bob sometimes talks to her, and earlier, with the best of intentions, I'd mention it to, who knows, Klein or something.

You know, I mean, they all mean so much.

Don't mention it to anybody, and just let them keep everybody in the dark.

that I've mentioned, but more in general principles.

There's no reason for any of the rest of these people