Conversation 805-010

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Who's the ranking person for this, sir?

All right, all right, we'll get to the minute.

We've got time.

Is that going to be that long?

We don't have any time.

All right, I think it's better.

where I was with the Presidents, the Prime Ministers, and the people that come in here.

Just a big shock to me.

But one Prime Minister that sat in that chair, they've shocked, they've hummed since we've met.

I'm not sure that's all he is.

What do you call it, a seafarer's weapon?

Well, it's a bad seafarer's weapon.

A bad seafarer's weapon, I'll tell you.

I don't even want to go.

I'll be this good.

Give me a run.

They're all on that.

I got it.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

One more.

That's where he came from.

I just don't realize the huge losses we've done.

We didn't take as much as they did.

We did a marinal.

But the percentage of the loss of the emergency center was higher than any branch of our service.

The greater part of the loss, the higher percentage of the emergency center retailed at World War II.

And Army Navy Air Force.

Yes.

That's a good point.

And the great part of the losses were the first two years before the development of the techniques of the little baby carriers.

Oh yeah, it was Chief Kerry.

And the original.

Yeah.

That all tuned in.

Oh yes, it saved a lot of lives.

Mr. President, we've come to talk very briefly to you.

First to tell you that we were setting up a committee to work with you.

That we have the D'Arcy, the Murray, the Strait, and to talk politics only to the point of describing to you precisely what we have done and what we intend to do.

First of all, on behalf of all of the industry, I want to express to you

appreciation.

First, for the space in Seattle, which we, you know, at that time we were a candidate.

The difference in the candidate, so I believe it.

The president's performance, you know, I believe that.

But I'm here to tell you that after a long duration and a lot of reviews, the great author of this industry, Paul Richardson, the president of the largest American shipowner, who has not suffered that direct by federal capital, he's an independent author, a great author, and of course, Teddy Lewis.

I must tell you this, Mr. President, I'm great.

I'm known for your policies.

The policies that you've known me for, what you've done with the gifts, and the gifts, and implemented your policies.

And I want to always express to you our appreciation for your point of direction.

I've said to many of you, Mr. President, that there's a great thing about this, Mr. President, to be transparent, and it isn't just that you've

We're taking part of the National Maritime Council with the instruction on a regional basis.

One of those regional affairs with the whole thing was the cross-sectional crime.

That would be like a moment, Mr. President.

I'm the head of an organization within the framework of the Constitution there called the Maritime Trades Department.

This is composed of 42 national and international, representing indirectly the seven and a half million workers.

They're not all affiliated, only that part dealing with maritime.

Now, we also have a structure we call Port Councils.

And each of the principal cities, every place there, Siemens, Longshill, or Allenburg,

We put them together and we have frequent meetings.

Now, we've taken Andy Gibson's dream and put it together for organizational purposes.

And we intend today, as you well know, to announce our full support to you.

We have a great amount of the work already done.

Thanks to Andy and thanks to our own people.

We'll be able to do the right work for you.

We believe, sir, that we can help in those areas where we think, not from your point of view, but from our own information.

We thank you for the help and the help.

I was in the opposite corner that time, Mr. President, and I was sitting in the last three weeks of the California campaign, and I ran for the campaign.

Yeah, right.

How many ladies got started late?

But consequently, I've been able to take a look at California's mayor in particular.

You need help.

Right, right.

Now, in addition to that, Mr. President, I don't have this, but I'm going along the day today, but I'm talking purely of the political realities of this.

You know how I feel about America.

I'm miserable on the basis of all of that.

I didn't want to sign much of anything.

The chair, I spoke with over three people when I stopped the chair.

UC, the president of Louisiana State, Victor UC.

John Smith from Wisconsin, the president of the Wisconsin State.

Very different hearings in Colorado.

That was part of it.

But in the process of this chairmanship, I've made it my business to attend every one of the four to two state meetings of the graduate level.

I've done it primarily to support and manage the position.

George Finney had a problem with the graduate level.

to assist in the sense of lining up to answer the question of each other.

Your colleague, Chuck, in the first hour of all meeting, that gentleman didn't beat around the head.

But after that, a lot of interesting things developed.

But in the process of going through California, going through Texas, going through all these places, there's several things that we were able to determine that we were interested in.

You were well ahead, it seems to me.

I think we'll have more non-voters than some people are figuring.

Your opposition has caused some concern with a lot of people.

It's very interesting to me.

I know you, but in political life, it's a very interesting phenomenon in a way.

The first 30 minutes to 45 minutes, it's a resentment over effective conflict.

And then when you listen to that, and you get that off the table, then they start talking.

These are graduate people, right?

Many of the rank and file working out of the shops, shops very well, both of them as agents.

They're about to recognize the people you can get to without going into the plant itself.

And once you take this thing of, you know, accepting a certain number of rapid punches in class, then they get down to talking what I consider the facts.

It would be interesting to know that more and more, many of them were terribly concerned over the House and the Senate, which I was working on.

But the talk of the Democratic thing doesn't take them down.

They're greatly concerned.

There are a bunch more examples.

The Connecticut boy was terribly concerned.

He was all for Congress, purely on the basis of what they considered.

They're estimating anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000.

Now, these are people, including the stronger government people, who get these estimates.

And so the estimates run through the country.

Of course, you know what's developing in South Dakota.

The Senate seats are solid, but they're not solid.

But it's possible, I should say.

Well, it doesn't matter.

Look, you are probably ahead in South Dakota.

Now, this is, I haven't read this in a paper, Mr. President.

I'm talking to the people.

Oh, I heard South Dakota and South Dakota.

But I guess I'll give you some insights on what I have known.

I might say this, too.

My life has been marked.

I'm not convinced of something with just one condition, which is

in the room, I have a great deal of affection and respect, that I would go out and be just a whipping master or whipping boy, whatever the case may be, with one provision, Mr. President, that when it was all over, I could talk about maritime.

And we've been able to do that.

And I want you to know this.

We've been able to tell people in many public and private meetings, whatever they may think of your administration, some think very highly and some don't, that as far as the President of the United States is concerned,

And I want you to know this, too.

You know, it's a strange thing, Mr. President.

You should know this about this industry.

It's small, but it's popular now.

It's very active.

For example, the political center, the best fund raisers in the trade union world.

They are?

Yes, sir.

I mean, in America, I'm ready for more money.

Of course, a Navy guy, you wouldn't get a ship as much, I don't know why, it's very compact.

It's a family.

The legislature, the federal administration, we live or die.

You have 30 guys on a ship for six months, do nothing but talk about living or dying.

And it gets in, and it gets in.

He put one line on that platform on Maritime.

Now, he says McGovern has compensated, he thinks, for that.

He won a lot of his speech last night.

That speech had come out with a program that was really on cloud nine.

Now, he's done that for one reason.

Some of those people advised him not to do anything for Maritime.

But when the professors come back, or tried to, they said, you've made a terrible error.

These are volatile guys, it was these guys who

This is a, I'm not doubting people on this, but it would actually be of interest to you.

The maritime group, through the gathering of the port councils, and the thing that Andy Gibson has established, we have the forum.

We'll be having a series of dinners and a meeting.

We have a situation.

Yes, I'm moving now.

Well, for example, we've got the period call from George Mason, John Roney, Al Lowenstein,

Well, within 24 hours, we had 15 servo trucks in the district.

We could turn out the troops, and it was so good.

That's the point.

But that's the thing we don't do.

There's no partisanship with our, as you know, just a rupture for one moment.

I'm catching a little heat, and I expect to be a little more, because I'm not going out and just taking on all those who happen to be Democrats running for the House and Senate.

I don't do that for a reason.

Obviously, I have to endorse as the leader of the party.

I endorse virtually all the candidates.

Not all, frankly, but most of them.

On the other hand, it's my view that where Democratic Congress and where Senators give us support,

particularly in the field of foreign defense policy in the administration.

I just, you know, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our Democrats for next year, you know.

They're working for a lot of Democratic and Democratic congressmen, senators.

But I wanted to know what our principle is.

Like today, I have to figure out what's your comment on Congress.

Well, I said I have to say that Congress, in terms of the domestic side,

We have to say that we had a poor record, except the regular chair got that through and I said, we might do better next time.

But I said, just be sure you don't put it in partisan terms.

So that's what we're trying to do.

So I want to level with you as to what you're trying to do.

I know you're supporting, and you should.

You should support your friends in the Congress.

You know what I mean?

The people that are supporting you.

He was the only human to ever invite, welcome, and greet and love every person to a union convention with our organization.

That's right.

And Terry, people didn't know he loved ships, so same with him.

He had operated a 10-foot company for the members.

I thought I'd heard about that one.

And today, with you, Scott, we also met again.

Yeah.

We were very close, you said.

Scott, we supported one another.

You were here in the house with us before.

We're very good friends here.

We supported you consistently.

I'll say, one of the great reasons we wanted to participate in the Bay Area is that there's another people called Bill Maher.

Oh, sure.

He has a tough campaign.

Oh, that's right.

Roger Gillespie, you've never had to mess with that to make your opposition.

He's tough, he's smooth, he's well-heeled.

I didn't really want to waste your time by having to take it like this, but now that I'm here, I want to let you know that in those areas, we'll be consulting with Chuck, and we'll be consulting with appropriate people.

We think in certain key areas, we can get to that clout.

We think we can carry many, many local unions with us.

What we try to do, Mr. President, is to substitute instead of great size, is to put soldiers the ability, the bell, the doorbell ringers, the literary

We couldn't even get it done pretty in California.

We have our own commercial truck shop.

We put it pretty in front of an air express station.

But now it has to be working for you.

And it's going to be working for you certainly, but we respect you for what you've done for the maritime and the performance that you've made.

And that's my wish.

Well, I'm very grateful to be here.

And let me say whatever we've done in the past is I don't take it easy.

That door is open, not just two weeks before the election, but it's open for the future.

And we don't know what Andrew's plans are.

Of course, he's made a sacrifice to come here, but he's my top advisor in this field.

And whether he's here in the government that he chooses or whether he's out, he can tell you what he advises we'll do.

Thanks, man.

You advised the right thing, though.

It's sort of a mean thought, but actually, you just want him on your side.

Well, if he wasn't the president, that's really the best thing to do.

You're a classmate.

Brown.

If all the world could go to Brown, he'd be on our side.

If you went to Brown, he'd hold it.

That's right.

Well, the main thing is, it's not an American thing.

As you know, there's a lot of people in the country who do it in the United States, and it's not a good thing.

The United States is a sea power.

The Soviet Union is not.

It's becoming one.

But it's basically a land power.

But the United States, in terms of national defense, now, we don't need to have the biggest army in the world.

The Soviet has.

But we've got to have the biggest navy.

Or we cease to have to be a great power.

We've got to have the biggest navy.

Second, you cannot have sea power without having, I'm speaking on national

Because what happens in the event of a war and so forth, the Soviets have quite a merchant fleet now.

They're building a supply, because they know very well that if you get a war, they get one.

And apart from all the atomic age and the rest, part of this, I think we're going to avoid a nuclear war.

God help us if we don't.

But part of the way to avoid it is to have that conventional strength that will discourage them from pushing us around in the Mediterranean, in the Caribbean.

or anyplace else.

Now, coming to the United States is a great nation.

To see it as a nation which is basically one which cannot cease to be what we want it to be, the first nation in the world from an economic standpoint, we can trust them.

That's what's going to happen.

That's what I was trying to say in Seattle.

So we've got to, where we've just begun, as I see this, what we have to do is to build more.

That's why I was glad to see it.

It goes to everything.

It's what you do with your people, loading the ships and so forth.

at least run us on.

It's a concept that Bud Zumwalt has been talking about a number of people in the Navy who have picked it up in the last year.

So, sea power.

The whole concept.

And the Russians orchestrated that.

Putting all these pieces together for one specific thrust.

The merchant marine, if you look at it,

The point is when it's over, the ships are going to go in and out of the title.

Just as they go down to Berlin.

And as they go to Tokyo.

That's the American tradition.

We help our enemies.

That's about as interesting as it could have been.

But I tell you that this time here, this is the first time in 20, 20 years that I've been on one of the Russian ships.

And we did this because you thought you were right.

Absolutely right.

The security is probably hitting at me.

It's brushing me up.

And you know what?

You know what?

You're right.

That's why I didn't touch it.

One of the great reasons that we want two years for international policy.

I don't need to add to that thing.

He's a smart patriot.

He knows this, like, he first stepped on this China trip, and China was

And he said, well, you know, it's probably the right thing to do, because he sees what many of the unsophisticated don't see.

The China game makes the Russian game work.

The Russian game makes the China game work.

Now, you know, when you go to China, that doesn't mean that your attitudes toward the communist system change.

If there's anybody that has any strong feeling, a stronger feeling than that on that, because I visited communist countries.

I know how these people live.

I don't want the gray uniformity.

of the communist system to fall in this country in any way.

But let me say, on the other hand, it's a fact of life.

You've got 250 million Russians.

They're the second strongest economic power.

They're virtually equal to us in military power.

What are you going to do?

Japan is, for example, with one-tenth, one-fifth of the people produces money more, much more.

But they will be, because they're Chinese, not because they're communists, they're going to be a major economic power within 20 years.

They are a mini-nuclear power today.

But because they are Chinese, the Chinese are smart people.

You know that.

They are going to be a major power.

let a billion people, that's one-fourth of all the people in the world, sit there in isolation in the United States.

If you allow that, it's too dangerous.

And what do you do?

That doesn't mean that you go in and say, hey, man, we're going to concede this and that and the other thing.

We want to get along with you.

We're going to pay a price.

We're going to be friends.

It has nothing to do with friendship.

It has to do with interest.

The reason the Chinese, frankly, were willing to talk to us was, frankly, that their interests were great problems.

They looked around.

They saw their eastern border of Soviet Union, with more divisions lined up against China than there are against Western Europe.

On the south, they saw India.

India, they have utter contempt for the Indians because they hooked them once for the war.

On the other hand, India, supported by Russia, could be significant in their fight for Vietnam.

And then they see up in the north in Japan.

Japan, despite the fact that it has no military capabilities,

They did it again the next time around.

But all of them, in various ways, they considered, as they made the decision to see us, as people who could be protected, whose interests could clash with theirs.

And in the middle of what else did they see?

The United States of America.

We, the great capitalist country, have less in common with them ideologically than anybody else, than any of these other nations.

And also, we want them in Korea.

They look at us.

They realize that of all of their neighbors, we are the only one they can assume will never have any designs on the territory.

Also, as they see us, they realize that as far as the Soviet is concerned, if the Soviet has any designs on China, and I'm not pretending that they are, but if they have any designs on that, if the United States lets them have a free hand, they're in more danger.

So why do they come to us?

because they need a friend and not to be surrounded by potential enemies.

Now, since we've gone there, they talk to the Japanese, the Japanese foreign ministers in here.

That doesn't mean that the Japanese and Chinese are going to love each other any more than the Arabs and the Israelis are going to love each other.

They're going to hate each other for the balance of time.

The Arabs and the Japanese and the Chinese will have their differences.

And we'll always have our differences.

What we have to do is to be strong, strong enough that we can always talk without going hand-in-hand.

That's the reason why I risked the summit, if you recall, when I made the decision on May to reduce the border to New York.

You didn't think Joe would change it.

And as I pointed out, most of the so-called intellectual community just ran out of the hills.

But I had to do the bombing and the mining before going to Russia.

They wanted the sun for their own reasons.

Haven't they been to China?

And we were there.

Well, they didn't like what we did.

And they bitched about it privately when we were there.

But on the other hand, what you see so many other people, like the fellow running against Meyer, these intellectuals and so on, do not understand is that I think the way to get along with these dictators and the rest of them is to get into them, to be nice to them for us.

That is the way to go.

It doesn't mean that the way to get along with them is always to kick them in the groin.

But the way to get along with them is to say, well, you have your interests, we've got ours.

We've our differences.

We're not going to sell those.

But there may be some places where it's more important for us to get along than it is to be fighting each other.

And so let's discuss those.

That's what we've done with the Russians.

This deal with the Russians on grain is good for us.

It's good for the United States.

Sure, some of the farmers sold too soon.

That's too bad.

We're sorry.

But on the other hand, most of the farmers are happy as clams, my goodness.

It's going to be more jobs.

That's what we're looking at.

I think we need more jobs in your industry, we need more in yours, and the whole thing.

And I hope that our emerging marine will continue to grow, and that in this new world in which we are now living, I don't work for the time, it won't come in my time, or yours, but it will come perhaps in yours.

We're going to see a time when there will be massive trade, massive trade, that won't come.

with both China and Russia.

And when it comes, let's have a part of the business, a piece of the deal.

See, that's what we're trying to set up here.

On our terms, other than theirs.

Well, I appreciate it.

Mr. President, I want to tell you before I would make this decision, I talked to George McKee, I had that courtesy, and I just didn't know that we had no problem.

I have a few little conflicts for you here.

I gave the... Oh, is there?

They should bring a cup like you did.

You don't have one?

No, I don't.

A lot of conflicts I gave of an analogy.

This is the President's office.

You will know it from the seal on the floor.

There, here it is, the place in that room you see.

So that's, in these packages, a train for each of you.

And use it.

They actually still come out here.

They're coming.

Now they're coming still.

The reason they're in color is that it's taken off the seal on the flight, which is the color.

So they're in your company.

Thank you.

Now, why don't we get some, too?

We don't give you the color, but we take the seal off the floor.

There you are.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That's good.

Do you have to report any of this stuff either?

Right on, right on.