Conversation 823-006

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All right.

Get that log in with the gift office so they can have a sense of the day that they have.

They have some other ideas.

All sort of modern stuff.

Not another modern.

They just want to do the best they can.

You know what I mean?

They're doing the best they can.

They really don't give a damn.

They've got a kiss of an egg in this picture.

We should get the, I want to know about the Stennis operation.

Stennis is...

I've got to get my schedule set so that we see the time rushing down on me here.

The 20th is going to come.

And I just don't know how many senators I've got to see before the 20th.

Albert.

Stennis...

Schlesinger says his relations with Stennis are excellent, but that Stennis tends to forget who he is between times.

I mean, when they've dealt, they've dealt very well.

Is he willing to go see him?

Yes.

Good.

And I've been trying to get to Helms, and he's back in town this morning, so I can get him today.

To be sure, tell Helms that I have spoken to both Scoop Jackson and Henry about the idea of this taking on an ambassador of extraordinary assignments.

The whole Persian Gulf area is from Iran because of the oil situation.

And Henry will speak to me about it.

I don't want this done very quietly, but I want him to do something.

It ought to be.

It's okay.

It's quite true.

Homes would be a tremendous asset out there.

And I like her homes.

I told Scoop, we talked about homes.

And if Helms, if he would take the initiative, I want him to talk to the school about the school's concern about the oil situation out there.

If he would, you know, at this point.

Okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

Good.

The president thought that you should not talk to the Senate.

He said he wants to talk about the same thing.

I don't want to handle that.

Mr. President, are we all right?

I don't know what's happening.

I'm getting a briefing to tell him, to tell Scott, the president, that I know all about it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

I see, I have not confirmed to Schlesinger that we're going ahead on the appointment.

I think we've got to do that.

But we're going to try.

We're going to try, right?

I'll cover it, and I'll just say we're going with Schlesinger, that we want his support on that.

I want to take somebody from the outside.

I just don't want to take somebody from the inside.

I know that this is what I'm doing in every other department.

I'm not promoting from within.

And I'm moving from one to the other.

And it breaks the pattern.

The son of yours understands the problem.

He's moving.

And he'll be a loyal and totally...

People who will serve, whoever wants to work with him is a great, you know, and I'm picking because I know that he and Helms are, you know, compatriots.

Okay, good.

Schlesinger says Helms will react well to his thing.

He'll be concerned about changes that he knows Schlesinger will make, but that he will recognize Schlesinger's confidence.

Helms would rather have Schlesinger do it than have someone else do it.

What he'd most rather is just have one of his own people to move up.

I understand.

So that fits right with this.

Good, that's good.

I feel, I kind of feel, I don't want to stand up.

That's good.

Good job.

Hi.

I'm too late.

I was dated.

Well, I guess I'll say it now.

Please find a job and work it out.

It's going to be great.

Great, great.

And pick you with that wood there.

Can I ask you to take off two little silence now?

I think it's very important, you know, I haven't thought about that, just so that there can be no whining about it.

Would you take the responsibility this morning, and I just want to get involved in it, to invite Rose to come to dinner tonight?

I may not be able to meet her, don't tell her then, because I'm terribly tied up, but maybe she's going to stay for dinner, I think, before flying back to Florida.

So would you call and say to ask her to come at 7 o'clock?

You know, invite her and so forth.

Second point.

We should have Mrs. Longer over for dinner.

Right.

And so we do talk to your mother about it and tell her that I will be available in the damn time that she'd like to take the time for.

I don't think actually that Mrs. Longer or Mamie is that I'd love to do together.

I think they get along, but Mamie isn't really...

Quick enough in the areas, but she isn't as interested in the areas, you know what I mean?

We couldn't talk about this frankly.

I'd rather frankly... Would you be here Monday night?

Yes, if you could offer her Monday night, and tell mommy, just Mrs. L, and you and I and her, and mommy, that's what she would want, I think.

How's that sound to you?

Fine.

And you work it out with your mother.

Now, if I understand it, your mom says she's got all the volunteer letter writers on the 20th, right?

She'd like to leave on the 20th, maybe.

And you're going to try to talk to her a little, a little about whether, when she goes to California, she presently doesn't want to go, just fly out of the game, fly right back.

It's up to her.

I don't really care that much.

It's fine.

I understand it's tough, but I think the way you told us, Connie, look, we're slimming down the staff, we're doing all that, and how do you say about this?

I suggested it wrong, but I think it's one hell of an idea for the press girl.

Yeah.

Big, fat, pleasant woman, likes the band.

I don't want you to do with Pat's staff, but I just, I don't want to snitch that girl fire and say she's loyal and good and everything.

I believe her.

I think maybe you need her.

I believe her.

You'll have a Connie.

Connie should go anywhere.

She's married, isn't she?

Yeah.

Of course she should.

I have a thought.

What I'd like to tell her is that what she knows anyway, Mrs. Nixon feels she can run her own thing.

Without the election.

Connie doesn't have a job without the election.

She isn't going to do as much.

Put it that way.

And then she'd like to rent it herself.

And there is really a need.

I'm the person that cares about the rent and all the rest.

Connie really isn't something she should be paying home to.

So what about the rest of the staff?

Well, as I understand it, she's planning to keep Lucy and Helen.

It's hard to recall.

The other thing I was going to say, on the 20th, I've had these other people, did you find out when I called for a civil election day or night or something like that?

He called me, or I called him, or something like that.

The operators have records of that, so let me know right away.

I have to do a physical examination, and I think I'll do it before I go, but I don't want to fart around on the floor.

I've already had, I don't want my ears examined, and I don't want my eyes examined again.

And, you know what I mean, I don't want to do that.

All I want to do is the absolute minimum that is necessary at this time, you know what I mean.

I mean, I think he needs to take the cholesterol, the blood pressure, he needs to take the, you know, the prostate stroke or whatever kind of mind he's doing.

No ears, no eyes.

They don't know anything out there.

They're not really very smart.

What I see very smart, it is like mayo.

Some people have that going on.

Mayos is that good, but this is a very ordinary operation.

I'm not going to have those people talk on me.

So I got about an hour or two that I had spent on the plane.

I didn't want to do it.

See?

On the first evening flight.

You have to do it.

He could do it.

We'll try to do it that day.

That's the best day that I could do it, and we can't do it then.

What day of the week is it going to be?

Wednesday.

Call also of the Rylan thing, then.

I have told him to come down.

We've already got him established on that Tuesday.

That's good.

We should try.

We should try very, very hard.

I'm glad she is.

She wants to do it with volunteers.

I'd like to do a hell of a lot more with volunteers.

I just haven't got the time anymore to run around and thank everybody.

It's just wonderful.

How much can you do?

These are the people that do the Christmas party.

Yes.

But I have somewhere to send everybody cards and all that stuff there, and I just can't do the personal things.

And we've got to get down to this whole business in relation to Congress, and I'm sure that stupid scott will be at me.

And the more I think about it, I think I've just got to spend some time with congressmen and matter, and so forth.

And not get tied into regular...

and hair down sessions with the congressman, the governor, or anybody else.

We've got to get control of this in the public sector, or they're going to suck us to death.

Now, one of the problems you've got here is Timmons.

Timmons is still thinking in the old terms, and you've got to get Timmons involved.

You and Earl have got to get him and say, no, no, no, Bill, let's start thinking in new terms.

I mean, about, oh, in fairness to Timmons, in fact, he's the one that said, people don't want some money, but they have souls.

That's right.

But he's still on the birthday card kit, you know, and they tell him the calls and all that.

That's all out of the window.

What we do is on a hard-nosed basis, I'll see if Scoop Jackson is going to be useful, or I'll see if John Sanders, or I'll get in Harry Bird, or I'll, you know what I mean, we'll just work them over so we just see a little of this stuff.

We're working on it.

Okay.

Second point, it would occur to you to have a greater end and say, but we could really use some help.

Thank you very much.

It occurred to me that why should McGregor start sticking out and say, now, god damn it.

I mean, what I mean is, it isn't all that big, but don't let, not particularly, McGregor should get dominant and push his head right down on the sand.

Correct?

They're very close.

Or, I don't take these because I give them.

I was saying that I don't know anybody else around.

There's nobody in the staff to do a goddamn thing about it.

You know what I mean?

I mean, with the tenants gone, I mean, the tenants can't do it, because he can't talk up to these people and damage it all.

You see, we had nobody here, so it does look like it's a self-serving operation.

I don't know if the coast has been working this, if you know.

I don't think that's correct.

I don't know.

And give the woman the other thing.

Or another thing.

Do you think Brenner would take that?

And get out of the oil business.

We've got some problems on that.

That doesn't give it to David.

How will David then?

I'll give David the other thing.

And give the woman the transportation job.

In Armstrong?

Yeah.

Anybody could be transportation, for Christ's sakes.

Julie could be transportation.

I don't think she'll take it.

See, her whole thing is, ours is a part-time job.

She's looking at something where she works half-time.

All right, fine.

You see, Mike, I want to get to work three days a week, and David to NASA, and the woman to the head of the Oprah arrest.

I don't know if you've got somebody else.

I mean, I'm just trying to get something done on.

I guess it's hard to make a political input.

The end

I think you can.

It would look ridiculous.

You've got a problem making a meaningful role out of it as a specialist.

Oh, well.

Yes, you do.

That's exactly it.

That's exactly the point.

It's above Wilkinson, Bob Finch,

Well, you can't by giving her the first hand.

You can't by giving her the goddamn.

The thing that I really think in her case is that I want her to do a lot of politics.

I want her to do a lot of the dense stuff.

I want her to do the national committee and the governors and a lot of those asses.

I also want her.

But we've made a big thing out of it.

We're getting politics out of the YSC.

We all know that.

That's the announced role.

I just want somebody sitting in the meetings who has political antennae way up there.

Right.

You know?

Right.

And that, she's great at it.

But, and then give her the bad damn bison and he'll get angry at her.

Well, another one we can give her is the POW business.

Huh.

That's a long, long, long, long, long time in the future.

No, it isn't.

It's dealing with the POWs right now.

Yeah, I know.

It's tough.

But you need someone, need someone to handle that.

Get a study made immediately of all the ages of our ambassadors abroad.

All right, let's see that.

I mean, I've got to look, start looking at these ambassador things, y'all.

I gave Lang, and I agreed it, so that he'd have something to do.

Yeah, it was unfortunate that you did, because I can't get him out of it now.

You can't get him out of it?

He was just preparing the list.

We were still trying to get the list prepared.

They had it all ready.

We had it all ready after that one round I went through with you.

Then Flanagan got back into it, then Stans got back into it, and now Rogers is back in it.

I'll have a whole new list with everybody's input, all the pluses and minuses tomorrow.

Cool.

You can see why.

He was a bag of snakes, because there's a thousand different people each.

And Henry's tugging at the edges of it.

Sure, sure.

Alex Johnson does want to take salt.

That's good.

Very enthusiastic about it.

As long as he is not tied to Acton, he doesn't want it.

Take the hell out of it.

Which is fine.

We've got an interesting woman possibility.

Brendan has come up with a woman he'd like to have as undersecretary of labor.

Who is with the labor relations lady at Macy's.

Apparently so, and she's Jewish.

What's the goal today?

I don't know.

Just do it over that one now.

That would be good.

One that's kind of interesting.

Yeah.

Right.

We've got to be sort of labor-oriented over there.

She's not labor.

She's management.

All right.

When I get the agents and ambassadors over 60, I know that I've got a very good... Let's face it.

Well, I just appointed this one.

I just appointed Helms for the other D-60, but I'm just going to flush them all.

Now, Lodge, I understand.

Now, that's done.

I understand that he's to be told.

You've got to get some of those told, and they've got to make their changes, and it's tough.

Shelby Davis is the only one that I'm going to hang on to.

The planning thing was a mistake.

It was a mistake really not to face up to Pete.

I mean, like, you know, keeping somebody around like we did, pinching ourselves was a mistake, keeping, and so forth.

Now, basically, I'm planning, and I think it was a mistake to keep him.

I really think it was.

He should leave.

We don't have, because if he finds, we can get him out, get him confirmed or something.

If we get him out of the White House stuff and into Georgia's economic stuff, he can be a lot of help to Georgia.

He's going to fade away and go out anyway, I think.

How about putting him in the European Union?

I don't know if they might.

That's just a thought.

Everything else in the European Union, if you put that down, I wrote that down last night.

Now, the other possibility is everyone can.

Or do we know what everybody wants to do with anything?

He does not want to be an undersecretary.

We know that.

We should talk to him about that.

How about everything he wants to do with anything?

We have him on the list.

I don't know what his... Fine.

Well, we've been holding on that with Hodgson as he turned it down.

Oh, I know.

I've been asking you.

That's true.

I don't know.

Fine.

We'll find out what Hodgson wants.

Hodgson is the first president.

I think McGregor, you know, he can be part of our inside group.

McGregor, Harlow, you know, and Armstrong.

What I mean is, let me suggest what I thought about an inside group.

Let me put it this way.

Bob, the best thing you can do, you can do, so that this idea that they say, well, what the hell, we don't care about politics, is bullshit.

So all we do is to do politics around here.

You and Irving can sit down and gasp at them.

Don't send them to Dartmouth.

I mean, in debt, you know what I mean?

One of the good things about having the debt office dismantled is that now the White House will really, they'll only care about the politics.

Right?

What do you think?

And also the abortion care.

But we care about the White House.

Oh.

And they know.

Well, they know.

They are not caring for them.

They thought you were caring not only about how the president did it, but not enough about how they did it.

It's going to work out.

I thought he'd be helpful, frankly.

I didn't think he'd be too helpful, but somebody had to grow his hands with him.

Stange incidentally, you've got to see.

Again?

Yeah, you know, we put that off three weeks ago.

And he went away for a week, which worked out fine.

You had told him you wanted to see him.

And he very much wants to see you.

I'd like to get this ambassador list in first, but he apparently is calling me now.

And he's back and wants to see you, so... Give me a time.

I've still got to figure out what the hell to do with him.

Let's put that off.

Why don't we give him a time like Monday, you know?

I mean, he knows that Christmas parties are all set and so forth, and I heard he bogged down like a son of a bitch.

He'll give you Monday morning, right?

Could I receive those credentials like Monday morning also, the best throughout credentials?

Tuesday, is that it?

Tuesday, but what if I go to the doctor Tuesday?

Oh, no, the doctor's Wednesday.

But, again, the doctor works, and you don't spend all day there, right?

No, no, but the Wednesday, the credentials...

Ok, what I meant is, we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of next week, is that correct?

Good.

Then get Stans in, but press him a little bit back, give him a date right now about, you know, the old store.

And say, all right, come in.

But then try to get a little chap out of the way before he comes in.

I know that's a big thing.

Elaine handled herself quite well this time.

You know anything, if she got on a hell of a tear about Maureen Stantz, I know that you probably don't know this, but Jack wanted me to be sure to tell you that you just don't rely on whatever, how much Maureen Stantz has gone through.

What a wonderful job he did in 62, and what a great job, and how much he stayed in 68 and 72, and nobody appreciates Maureen Stantz.

Now, the one other thing she asked, I said, I like it, and she probably said, well, you know what I mean?

Yeah, Senators, you're going to be out in about five minutes.

I'll be over.

I'm on my way.

And I thought, God almighty, if they'd only known what tender-loving care is.

And I had fought for him.

That's right.

And now with the crisis, I got to hell for mentioning him on Monday, on the night of the election, and not mentioning that stupid goat, which is something I'm glad I didn't say.

You know, we had it forever.

You apparently gave some indication to John Sherman Cooper that you wanted to see him without giving him some job in the administration.

I assume you want us to give him something.

about the Scoop-Jackson race, so that's coming at me in a different way.

I had not seen Cooper at all.

I had not seen him at all, believe me.

I said, you know, while you were in Kentucky, do you remember what I said?

That he's concerned about, apparently there was some article saying he was going to be ambassador to Egypt.

And I said, trust you, I'm thinking of making him ambassador.

He's too old now.

But the fight with Cooper, that...

Scoop, Cooper, can be very useful with some dozen.

He says he can always do literature for us, and he's a very loyal dog.

He should be good with something.

Let me get the right around of the poles.

We'll be there in a minute.

Boy, it would be a great contentment there rather than here.

What do you think we could do?

Can they find a place for him?

But not in something where he has to push for arms control.

See?

Cooper would be understanding.

This is not something he needs.

It's something we need.

It's something where Cooper would be useful to us.

We could call on him and say, look, could you do some work for us on this vote or that vote or the other vote?

That's all.

I never discussed the job with him.

The answer is no.

Except when I mentioned we hope to do things in the future.

And I want to tell you that it worked out better when he finally got out of the way.

It made it 100% easier to have our own man, who had studied the list, and knew everybody, and introduced the gamble last night, than to have a military aide who doesn't know anybody given their names.

And so I've just got to stop the military aide thing from now on.

I'm just not going to do it that way anymore.

Except for ambassadors.

I mean, I don't see any reason for it.

Why does a military aide stand there?

What does it add to me?

What does it add?

Well, it adds maybe to the person, like the church service, I suppose.

Now, even the church service would be good, perhaps, to have somebody stand there, and somebody might say, this is old Joe, or something like that.

You see, the military doesn't know what it does in this.

Huh?

No, no, no.

I meant on this church service.

Oh, yeah.

That's what I meant.

Oh, after the church service, let the military aid a woman, stand there and say, Mr. So-and-so.

They could say, Mr. So-and-so from Jacksonville.

You can get a special purpose function.

It's much better to have somebody tied to that purpose on there who can identify you.

I've got a general purpose thing, a steak dinner or something like that.

There isn't much you can do about it anyway.

You can see how much better it is.

It would be a much better way to do it, and it should have been McGregor than before.

That's right.

So I think there might have been a problem that they didn't know, trying to pick between McGregor and Stanton.

Yeah, but Clark would have been the guy.

Clark would have been the guy, because he knows how to do it.

He won't stand for the two, but there were more his people than were Stanton's side.

You know, I just fitted exactly the other thing in the way.

Which is absurd.

But Bob was so emotional on that whole thing, you know, it wasn't working.

Maybe it would have been for pushing it.

How's he coming out?

He's out there, yes.

You know, I saw an interesting article about Rumsfeld, which was about what I would have anticipated, but he said it was obvious you put down for Rumsfeld, maybe put an ankle.

God damn him.

That's the job he wanted.

So there's no problem with him now, is there?

No, sir.

Jesus Christ, I've got the extra mile in Rumstow.

It's about no fundraising.

I want this curvy underdue with all these guys, and I'm not going to go to Chicago, and I'm not going to go to Kansas to raise money for Dole or Rumstow.

I'm not going to go to California to raise for Ben.

Do you agree that you did it for Ben?

Well, they raised it.

That was really a waste of time.

What do you think about Rocky's case?

Maybe that's a story.

It's a good story.

It's a good position for him.

Sure.

It's exactly what he wanted.

If Rocky gives him the second one of his turns, it may not, you know, the external analysis now may not be that it's a good position for him, but when he goes back to run and pedals that,

He's covered the whole range of the federal government, and he's got a hell of a list.

I have a time to do a report on the second one.

I don't want to be too tired of it.

Are you ready to order it?

Not now.

If I get the list, I'll catch it Saturday.

I'm supposed to get it by the end of today.

What about our undersecretaries?

The woman appeals to me.

She's a woman, frankly, and that's all.

But Colson is the guy that's got to be let out of the court.

No, that's it.

Brennan is smart, though.

See, that's the political eye working.

Yep.

See, I just came up with it.

I said, uh, well, Brennan...