Conversation 813-020

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Not very much, no.

I'd rather pack one bag than pack the next one.

Hmm?

Are the kids organized?

Or are they going someplace?

No.

There's packing is planned.

Is that it?

Yeah.

Get it done in about a couple of minutes.

I will still plan to go to Florida at 4.30 today.

We'll be ready before 30, and I'm probably adjusting to the idea that they should go down there.

So that's good.

It's very important.

I can tell you.

You told Roe she's going down here.

She's been on Centro 2, though, unless you, you know, whatever you want.

But we'd have you here to set up for her to go.

I don't know how long I will stay, depending on how I feel about their job.

What do you want me to say to the staff?

Do I say I'd like their resignation?

No, sir.

I'll just thank them for their work and so forth and so on.

I'd make a great reason to get their help.

Absolutely.

And say that you know I've

I'll look for the plans for the next few weeks.

I want Bob to talk to you a bit about it.

I've already done it.

Unless you want to come in at the beginning of the meeting and go out.

That's 1045.

I'll come in at 1045.

Okay, that's better.

You open it.

Right.

And go out.

And you'll take them.

No.

I think you'll make that meeting at the beginning of the meeting by 11.

Yeah.

It's just going to take a couple minutes.

We've got to, we've got to do it.

Well, whatever you want.

I don't know whether you want me there or not.

I can... Who the hell is going to talk to them about their resignations?

Bill will talk to them about their resignations.

And then I was going to go in at that point and cover the wrap-up set.

Now, Bill thought I ought to be there.

I thought maybe I ought to...

not be there, that you ought to have a chance.

I kind of think I should not be there when you're in.

Yep.

You can talk to them alone, and then let me go in when you come out.

You come out.

It's okay.

All right, fine.

Unless, but don't you, but nobody else.

Right.

I wouldn't take Irving in, for example, and not, well, not Butterfield or any of those certain decisions.

Understood.

So that they all don't feel that we're trying to run them, but you can come in.

Now, what would you suggest I say to the staff?

Shall I say that I know we want a discussion of future plans or just say that I will be discussing the arrangements for the short term and we do plan to be making some changes and that's what we're going to spend this time studying.

Then I'll go over the things that need to be done now in the interim period and that we'll make changes.

Just say you've done a great job.

Right.

In this past term, we're going to look to

doing better in the next term that i know some of you will be leaving some of you will be moving to different kinds of jobs and some of you will be staying where you are yeah whatever it is you're doing it's been great you're appreciated we want to work out in a way that we'll be investing because everybody's concerned these are the same you know whatever the staff is you should tell them to say the same thing they'll each be having a meeting with their own units

later today and you should tell them to say the same thing to them.

I will tell them they're awesome and there was some help.

I'll thank the captain for his work with the campaign.

And essentially the same kind of thing again that we know some of you have plans to leave and some of you will be moving to different things.

We are going to be working on some very

Sweeping plans are changes.

I don't want to, and I want to talk to you individually.

But not now, but after I've had a chance to get a little rest.

They can give some to some of the things we've done on the workout.

And I know, see, you've got...

I know the evil ones, if you think about it.

You've got, like, Bolton wants to come in and see it before, right after the campaign.

So you've got to kind of, partly, I'll cover it specifically, but you can just say, I want to talk to each of you.

Yeah, I want to talk to each of you individually about your plan.

But we expect to, first and nicely, I think, get on and catch other people.

The idea that you have of giving them a form.

No, we're not.

We're not.

That cannot be done.

You can do that to staff people.

That's why I don't think you could, Captain.

We are not doing that.

Oh, it's going to be done, Captain.

Captain, people will just be asked to submit their resignations.

And what are we going to do with regard to...

I guess perhaps one of the compasses is pretty much a couple of years ago.

Mr. Martin.

A lovely bear wants to stay.

He's totally incompetent, but a great public relations figure.

Well, I was just going to say, if you let me put it under secretary, that's it.

Anybody who stays, there's got to be a very tough discussion with first about

The terms under which he stays, which have got to be radically different than the terms under which he can't.

If he buys that and wants to stay, that's fine.

Oh, no.

If I can't come back to him, I can't do that with Peterson.

No.

Well, he should stay.

I don't feel he's there.

I'm talking about the ones that would stay.

I don't think Hokey should stay.

I don't think Romney should stay.

Romney isn't going to stay.

Hokey should stay.

I don't think Hodgson should stay.

Hodgson.

I'm talking about a later man.

Peterson should not stay.

Uh, Rogers and Laird are separate special contractors.

Clanky's, we've sort of agreed he should stay, but it's got to be done under their very own name, whereas that department's got to be changed.

You're not going to go back and bring Marty in as Deputy Attorney General?

No, no.

That's got to be picked out of here.

Yeah.

And you see, if you look at it, you don't have the Congress.

Exactly.

It's got to be run even better than it was previously.

That's right.

And we're going to have to have that Congress run a whole tough way.

Which is another point you might make, that we've got to look at our terms of our structure for the second term on the basis of not having Congress.

Well, it's a very negative note.

OK. OK. Well, might or might not.

The way that's playing has come out, I think, quite well.

I know that there are three things that they were playing negatively, which are inevitable.

One, we didn't help Congress enough.

Incidentally, at one point I was talking to dentists this morning because they're trying to get something.

And I hope you will rectify this immediately.

I told him about it.

I said to Harry, did you realize how many telephone calls?

And he said, yeah, I thought you had yourself a good time.

And Jerry goes, I'll get it around a lot.

i get it over to him what i mean is every you get a chapter in first to gary because he's a hell of an advocate because he says these guys have got nothing to complain about that's right and so what i mean is i know you get the decline but then that's fine but you know i'm a politician but i want i want the whole list

Are you aware of what I mean by the list?

Yes, sir.

How many television spots, how many radio spots, how many pictures, how many phone calls, publicized phone calls, how many letters to the endorsement?

Right.

And then some of the special, the very extensive efforts to channel financing to provide.

Well, they say the president has no clue.

Yes, okay, second.

That's the fact.

The party is the problem, you know.

But we're going to be very, very tough with them if they want to play that game.

That's the way they're going to play it.

The second point is that the vote is low.

How you handle that, I don't know.

The third point is that basically the Nancy Dickerson

that is in Seattle and D.C. and so forth, they were in the idea, well, it makes the sport very soft, a little of that crap, but I think that that's a very small, but it's hard to settle on the bus side.

I think that most of them are playing the back of the signs like you can, although we haven't got a figure yet to know what the hell it might end up to.

I'm trying to get them, but they don't seem to be able to.

This last time, I think it's just a speed or a speed, but there's still...

It's still a fair amount.

I'm going to tell you, you have 60 to go.

This is the 31.

The 931, I just ran out the multiplication myself, and it comes out of 60 point something.

The other 60, well, that's California.

Well, if California aren't realized, California's going to be very close to a million votes.

Of course it is.

What is the figure you've got there?

Well, they don't run a percentage, but it's almost a percentage.

44 million to 27 million.

Well, that's the same line of the 58 UPI.

Yeah.

This is 931.

44, 137 to 27 million, 455.

Yeah.

Schmitz is going to get a million vote.

Yeah.

Does it turn out to be equal to the Johnson's?

Not quite.

Johnson's, Goldwater got 27, Johnson's got 43.

44.

Well, the goddamn, the vote's got to be more than it was in 64.

There's got to be more votes cast.

How many, what's your precinct number there?

Well, see, it doesn't give you the percent of precincts.

It gives it to you by each state, but it doesn't give it to you for the total.

I see.

Well, they really don't know, do they?

But it has to be, these are all, almost all in the high 90s.

Yeah.

And the ones that are lower are small states, like Alaska.

How do you handle the low vote situation?

I think you handle the low vote by the,

And that's what they're handling anyway.

So you're riding with the tide, which I think is the best way to go.

But everybody figured we were in.

That's right.

That the polls were a depressant on the election.

That's right.

It never is a poll.

You can't name a poll more thoroughly or discuss it more thoroughly.

That's right.

Well, on the plus side, if I could suggest, the main thing is to say the record number of states here, that's probably been .

That's right.

Unfortunately, in the United States, on the other side, it occurs to me that you're probably going to have the record plurality, our majority.

Let me explain.

Johnson was the biggest before.

It's not all over when it's land, right?

I think there's been two different problems.

You've got a percentage of our plurality.

And those percentages are irrelevant, you see, to the average person.

And how does that stand?

What was the Johnson figure?

I don't have it here, but where are they?

I guess we'll tell them when those will be.

I guess you can't expect it.

How about you give me the plurality, not the percentage, but the number of votes, and the number of voting, and also give me the latest number of voting figure for yesterday.

It's just Nixon winning by a landslide.

Overwhelming landslide.

Historic victory and all that kind of

And that's the impression that people have to have.

And there's... What is the impression?

They've been trying to erode the party in the House and Senate and saying that the party failed to carry the Congress.

And they don't seem to be building that up as a very basic... Is there one thing to do?

You start pissing on the party before the party gets pissing on the House?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

That's occurred to you?

Yes.

And they started that yesterday, to a degree.

And Harry and Benny and the rest started doing that.

Yeah.

who else would start running in fifth?

And, you know, Kenneth was very strongly about it.

I talked to him, and I said, you know, I don't agree with what you're talking about as much as you can and should.

He does, oh yeah, he said it's a question of candidates.

He said, you've got candidates, and he said, you've got a loss as part of the organization.

Now, that point has come through.

In fact, it's come through that some of them are a little afraid of the next year, so we've,

I said, Harry, I said, aren't there two states making where a visit would have been?

Delaware and Colorado.

I said, I thought it was bigger than otherwise.

I said, oh, there's no way.

I said, well, it's too far from home.

He said, well, it's very far.

Miller lost by a resounding walk.

He lost about 125,000 votes, 10% in points spread.

Now, incidentally, did you notice one of those questions?

Quite a close one, huh?

Yeah, I've already kept calling people to put some money in the god damn safe.

But we did put money in.

What was the figure?

12,000 he lost time.

Of course, 12,000 is six percentage points.

It was $47.50 period.

God damn it.

That's one I'm supposed to, wasn't it?

Yeah.

The box is the one that was really close.

I don't think it was anybody.

For example, Jack Norris was always nitpicking.

Gordon Allen, nitpickers of the last on our budget stuff, didn't he or did he?

Yes.

And Allen caused a lot of problems.

And Margaret Spence was never with us, never saw any good.

She had a primary.

Louis Dunn is one of them.

He should have won, but I think that nickel-black probably didn't, and it's not his fault.

And he lost only by three.

percentage points, but 34,000 votes.

But I'll tell you this, thank God, thank God, thank God, we went to Oklahoma, we went to North Carolina, and we went to New Mexico.

Agreed?

Yes, sir.

We picked the right ones to go to.

Oh, we've been fighting.

Lost.

We've lost.

Yeah.

You know, I'm convinced we'll be finding a good TV for what was our market.

I think, well, I had my last interest in the area, 42, but it's 60-40 now.

But what's that, 60-40, what's your number?

So 94% of the vote in.

What's open issue?

Ogilvy was 49-51.

Well, he was just a lousy candidate.

That's an Ogilvy vote.

Ogilvy, that's rent a half a million for five years.

But we didn't go around that far behind Percy.

We walked around 400,000 boats ahead of MacGuffin.

Percy was around 2.6 million.

He got 33,000 more boats than you did.

We've got five million votes, four and a half million votes.

I would have just, at the end of the day, before things started to shrink, I'm going to announce the Hague trip today.

I'm not very ready.

Yes, sir.

But I want to double, you know, for the financials.

But I'm ready to go on that.

On the meetings that you're having with the cabinet,

It's explained better already, and I think you're right about it.

You're meeting with them to review the general plans for the and the overall approach to the second term.

It's already played that way, and it sounds great.

It says the president won't be long.

That's this matter.

It has to be long.

John, what you do, that's what they say.

These are internal meetings, and we've set the tone now.

The president's going, and you've got it perfectly, because it says, you know, and he's expected to be working for the rest of this week on,

with his staff on basic plans for the upcoming year.

This is what's really happening.

What I want to do is, because John suggested that I talk to you about the cabinet meeting.

He said, you know what?

We're going to have the cabinet people there.

They're going to go out, and they're going to be hot news targets.

And what he feels, and I don't know if you've discussed it with John, is that we could come up with a cabinet meeting where they fix

line from me or from the White House on, you know, what developed and so forth, so that they're all not running out in, and I assume it's traditional that they all offer their resignations.

Now, if that's the case, it's better to say that, you know, give a description of what took place instead of them all going out and then that filtering in this very smooth barrier and then go out.

The other thing is you get people who go out and then report on the meeting independently to various agencies, and then you get a lot of different stories.

So the question is, it's an executive session.

The question is, could I sit in a portion of it or sit out?

No, no, no.

Okay.

Well, the only reason would be to report, but I can't fill the game report without being in it.

The question is, what do we report?

The point of the question are reviewed over the problems.

There was a quick review on an overall basis of the upcoming plans and the short-term plans for getting ready for the second administration in January.

That this would be an intense period, the next week, the next couple of months,

review and reorganization, research.

Why don't you just say that the purpose was to initiate both the series of discussions over the next month, the next 30 days, on the plans for the second term.

I've heard a lot about the first term and so forth, but I believe we've got nothing like none of that to discuss today in the

It would occur to me that they want to get out the Elson and their resignations, because I've already told that partner.

Yeah.

So get that out today.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I would say that you stay down with the president.

Let me convince you that, uh, wait, wait a minute.

Don't you report until after the meeting's over.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

So then Bob can tell them that the Elson and all the members of the cabinet, the White House staff,

Everybody, all residential F.O.I.D.s and all Seattle C.O.I.D.s are submitting their resignations.

Period.

And all ambassadors and senators are submitting their resignations.

And, uh, which is tradition.

Well, some don't.

All presidential appointees and all appointed, all subject to the president or subject to agency heads or subject to capital options are to submit and ask to submit their reservations.

Some may be appointed, some may change, some may leave the government.

Those decisions will be made.

The purpose of this assembly...

That's again, a series of discussions will be taking place over the next month.

The next month?

With regard to the second term and the role of each role.

What about the next story that's premature to discuss?

That will be discussed.

They've all been submitted and there will be specific discussions over the next month as to what actions will be taken in each of the weeks.

That will depend on us to

some intensive planning that'll be... That's going to start, should I say... No, don't say it.

Wait a minute.

I just want to ask a question.

Well, it's going to start... No, no.

Discussions are, yeah, that's what I mean.

Oh, yeah.

The President is going to Florida?

I'd say that, yeah, the President's going to Florida with the backers of his staff.

The throne, the kids, Jared Holliman.

Yeah, the president.

for some intensive review of the review of the main of the staff on that.

I will talk about that, sir.

There's going to be.

Yes.

All departments of the government, all departments of the government.

I know we went to that thing.

Yeah, of course it is.

a little titillation of the kind of, you know, that something's going to try to run blood in here.

Well, I'm going to do my own story with all of them.

Yeah, this year will.

Now, of course, I've done leaking out, say, you're going to fire all the Watergate people and say, that has nothing to do with it.

The point here is a structuring of the bridge.

You know, the key words I think I should get out of it, I mean, first, you know, there's restructuring, intensive review, and also should I put in the reform somewhere?

You know, reform into the...

i don't think so rose uh wake up what was this morning

That was a great, great victory.

Yeah, well, you know, we didn't talk to as many of them as I'd like to last night, because it was, as usual, too late.

But I had to go to the store, and we talked to everybody there.

Everybody got to talk to each other.

But I got through the ones that I really stood.

I got on the phone, and he got me.

I don't think there was any problem with the policy.

Rockefeller was just, he was dying to talk to you.

Oh, that was spectacular.

It really was.

The people you talked to, they didn't even think about asking for you.

They just wanted to know about you.

We'll leave at 430 Rose.

Okay.

Oh, would you tell Manolo when he gets back, since we're now going to 430, that he should go earlier now?

I was... Let me explain.

We were going to go again.

And therefore, I told him to come with us since I didn't want him to come in there later.

Now that we're going to 430, he can go on that.

Unless the other plane is already gone.

If the other plane is already gone, he needs to come with us on our plane with the dogs and so forth.

Okay?

Okay.

But whatever it is, it works out fine.

All right.

She's probably about to take a vacation this week anyway.

Rose asked if she could come down.

Okay.

We're sure you can be out and about.

Okay.

I just don't want to goof this one part up.

I'm going to have a meeting on the resignation thing.

I'll just say that, uh, I'll talk about the first, the tits meeting, the repeal or something.

You're going to say, discuss the merit of the people.

You should also say the rest of the candidates.

So that the resignation is at the beginning of each of them.

And, uh, will there be change?

Yes.

Uh, those will be discussed individually by the president and the members of the county, and will be announced when they are meeting.

Right.

I just put it that way.

Yes, sir.

Will the entire cabinet be needed?

Probably not.

Will Senator Cameron be needed?

Probably not.

Well, my bridge line is that the President has not made... Well, hold on.

I mean...

The President's made no decisions.

We'll let you know.

That's right.

He made no decisions.

And that'll be... Now, that's right.

You know, I will go in with the entire cabinet.

Great.

No decisions have been made.

And that'll be...

The President will discuss this individually with the members of the cabinet.

Now, the hate thing today will...

It'll spark.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

What they'll ask is the only question in our...

The coattails thing, but...

But that's the point.

And also, you know, if you look at the figures, since World War II, ticket splitting has been an actual...

That's the other thing.

The other point is, is that the Republican Party is a minority party.

The Republican Party, 25% of the electorate that takes place this year has now become, I mean, actually we may have, we may have the interim period, but we're not going to have...

I don't want to be.

I could say anything.

Apparently you didn't get the material that should have factored the number of telephone calls that we made, the number of pictures I had made.

Yes, sir.

quite extensively up the campaign.

But don't be defensive about it, but if anybody asks why, no, no, it'll sound offensive, but you did get it out there, didn't you?

Yes, sir.

Television clips, audios.

Absolutely.

All that stuff.

Calls from Air Force One.

You have passed the LBJ vote already.

This was 43,126,000.

43, that's right.

You already had 44,137.

Goldwater's was 27,176.

The governor's now 27,455, so he's also passed Goldwater.

What about the number of voting in 64 was 70 million.

Yeah.

The number of voting now is gonna be, close assessment is 77,200,000.

I just moved back.

And on that basis, you'll end up with better than 45 million.

What about the margin?

What are your margins?

The Johnson margin was $15,949,000.

We call it $16 million.

And yours is now $16,500,000.

Your margin is also a little bigger than Johnson's.

Well, you have a dollar mark on it.

They both have account entities and the same thing now.

But in any event, you've still got some old stuff.

Yes, sir.

What is the margin over Johnson?

Is the margin bigger than Johnson's now?

Yes.

But not the percentage.

The percentage is, well, see, Johnson's was 61.1 to 38.5.

This, at the moment, is 61 to 38, and that's where it is right now.

Now, see, you've got a bigger third-party vote than you did than Johnson had.

Oh.

Johnson, they have 99.6.

And Spock's got, in other words, there was only four-tenths of a percent for other candidates.

Now Spock's going to get better than 1%.

Spock is?

I don't mean Spock.

I mean Spence.

Of course, Goldwater got how many electoral votes? 58.

Oh, yeah.

You put the popular and electoral combination, it is clearly, and by any definition, even if you come out a little shorter on the percentage, it's clearly a far bigger landslide than Johnson's.

Absolutely.

You carried a lot more states coming back.

You carried the whole goddamn country.

Thanks to them, it's coming back to the electorals.

Electro is 521.

It's the first time.

I'm going to come back to the popular vote margin now.

The popular vote margin is what?

Popular vote margin.

Your popular vote margin is $16,600,000 at this point.

What was Johnson's?

Johnson's was $15,949,000.

Well, then you exceeded that array.

Now, if McGurn comes up faster at the final votes than you do, then that could still close.

But it ain't like that.

No.

The likelihood is it will go the other way.

You don't have any, the California figure is only 92%.

No, 92 is the last one.

That's 940,000.

It's going to have to be called a million.

Nearly a million, if not a million.

And that's 50 million.

$50,000 or $500,000 like people were talking about.

All being mentioned, I can't speak for everybody, but I've made this statement.

I've heard it all the time.

Yes, sir.

I appreciate it.

Got it.

Okay.

Regardless, please.

Yes, sir.

Can I say, uh, bye, everybody.

Thank you.

a lot of changes.

We'll be doing different things.

I understand some of you want to leave.

I appreciate what you've given up and staying here all the time.

I ask them to talk to somebody.

I'll be talking.

No, sir.

Just say I'll be talking with them as soon as you leave about how we're going about this interim period.

Then they should be meeting with their own staffs and getting that set up.

We'll be

in the next few weeks get the whole new approach worked out, taking into account their interests and ours, but that there are going to be a lot of changes, which you know they'll agree is what should be done, which they do.

Sure.

There's no problem in this at all.

90% of the people are going to come out exactly where they want to come out.

Right.

Either in or out.

Well, you'll have problems if you fight, as I said, the fighting.

Finally, it's going to be tough, but we'll work it out.

Cline is not going to be, I don't think, after all.

I talked to Finch, and he said, Cline's maneuvering hard to position himself in that copy structure.

They're all, you know, Vince, I also, everybody's bouncing around the grave.

And Fox and Herb's ready to go.

He's in a position now where he can't catch.

But let me be direct about the planning thing.

First, I don't want him in the White House for all these reasons.

Second thing, I do not want to put him to a confirmation.

We have to be more honest with ourselves about confirmations.

You know, I've gone down and fought with people like everybody from Nickel to

the Car Swallow, the Hainsworth, and so forth, and that we'd be coming through, but we did not need to do that.

Yes, sir.

And when we've got people that have a few specks on their head, even if it's not their fault, we just have to do it.

Now, that's the way it has to be with land.

That's all there is to it.

I just know that there's no way you can get it confirmed without one hell of a bitchy body, because they've got to get out of some way.

Within the next couple of weeks.

Who's going to tell them that they're going to ask all their people and their departments to resign?

Bill will, and I'll follow up on that.

We've got a follow-up patent form on that.

Also, we're trying to recover, as I mentioned, all the papers, which is part of that.

You should mention that to us to try to meet him.

Okay, I got it.

Okay.