Conversation 823-007

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Well, you, how are you?

Nice to meet you.

You were vacationing, weren't you?

Oh, pretty much.

I'm glad you like it.

I like it.

It's a pleasure.

I've been there a lot.

It's changed my heart.

I remember.

We took a vacation five days up in Nova, Thailand, and Chiang Mai.

How was that?

Excellent.

It was a 70 degree temperature.

It was kind of a mountain station mountain.

Oh, it was delightful up there by the hilltops.

You're becoming an aviation expert in space, aren't you?

What's coming down the line is a squaring off, as I told you, even then I told you, I think that Bill Brock is likely to campaign.

He wants it, that's the thing.

Well, he wants it very much.

You can't see me in that, but I would encourage you to do it.

Yes, I do encourage you to do it.

I said, you want me to be neutral, I'm not all neutral, but I encourage you to do it.

I think it's going to be a good one.

He's got the means.

He's got the young and he's got the youth out there.

Now for the conference championship, as I told you, that's one of the...

There, Bennett had gotten the sweat away from him.

But if either one does, he'll have another idea for somebody else.

Cotton's secretary, you know, the Bennett's chairman of the committee on the Bennett's.

So what I'm doing, oh, the task is to contest him for the power of the chairman of the policy committee.

His father had it.

Yeah, he did.

Yes, he did.

He did.

Well, I'll take you to the...

I'm going to be thinking of having Tal and Tash come in and suggesting to them that whoever wins, support the other one for the vacancy created.

That is, if Cotton gets the conference championship, Tal and Tash support the loser for Sanctuary Conference.

Then it gets the conscience challenge.

If Tallow or Taft, whichever is the winner, supports the other one, the chairman committee or committees, then we'll have a solution where everybody wants a white job with Tallow.

If Tallow was the chairman of policy, then what job would he lost?

Nothing.

If it made a deal with me, if it made a deal with me, then Tallow becomes secretary of the conference and comes down here to meetings.

Or if Benny wins, he becomes chairman of the Committee on Committees, which puts him on the step of a good chance to win next time.

I'd be proud of the talent they have today, that's my guess.

But I haven't talked to a single senator.

I've got to get my...

Yes, sir.

Why don't you get into it?

I don't get into it.

You know what I mean?

You know, what the heck you've... What I mean is you've got to get along with all of them.

My own being, for whatever word is it, I think...

I think Brock's got the dough, and he's got the push, and the rest, and probably would do it better.

Bill, I think that if I hear Stephen Stevens is a candidate, then he shouldn't do that.

I don't believe he is.

He couldn't possibly do it.

I mean, I like Stevens, but that's a job where somebody's got to get off his ass.

work and get money and so forth.

Now they didn't feel too well.

He wasn't able to put as much into it.

Barack will break his butt.

Now people, I don't think I've heard as much as he wants to run for president.

What's wrong with that?

I don't see anything wrong with that.

That's right.

We talked to his office, but he was out of touch.

I had to keep it very quiet.

I told him one thing, I said,

And second, you're going to take the Senate campaign committee, and the House campaign committee, and the National campaign committee, and for Christ's sake, there's going to be one research group, not three, and we're going to pull it together.

That's what all we should be doing.

And then they will be our political arm.

See, we're not going to get out of this.

So I'm going to have Bush now as basically the one.

I think that's it.

See, my wife didn't know that, but I think that's it.

Well, is that not blended?

Bush would be the political man.

And he'll really be the political man.

See, it might not be a chance.

He's perfect for that.

He's perfect.

And everybody likes him, don't they?

Oh, yes.

I know.

Now, Bush and Brock, that's a better idea.

Maybe you could help on that.

We talked very comfortably last year.

What in the hell is the matter that we can't get the Wilson thing resolved?

Bob Wilson should not go on with this House campaign.

He got that in 1972.

Hugh, you run for the House.

You cannot carry the country with 61%.

They're not carrying the House.

Did you see some of our campaigns for the House?

You know what I mean.

Some are all right.

But it wasn't a question.

It wasn't age.

It wasn't, but there's damage.

And in Italian, we weren't running Italian.

You know, so in Irish, I mean, we weren't running Irish.

means we wouldn't have enough.

You know, I mean, it was an awful deal.

You know, the committee in Philadelphia, where we had no chance anyway, and I didn't even appear on the committee, ran a John Berkshire against Eidelberg in the Jewish district, for God's sake.

Well, look, in California, they ran, it was a close district, Berkshire, so we had Berkshire.

But let me say this, O.N., you and I, I think, and can we keep this in the greatest of confidence?

I know that.

The board believes that he is a man.

But Jerry won't bite the bullet.

Is that how it is?

Or is he going to bite the bullet?

No, he is.

He's going to bite the bullet with Wilson.

You see, we don't want to hurt the feelings of the call from Kirkendall.

Kirkendall, a great friend of ours.

But you can't have two from Tennessee.

You could have two from California, but not two from Tennessee.

See what I mean?

That's the same problem with Dominic and Alex.

If you've got two from Tennessee and Bush, it looks like a straight-out Southern ploy.

You've got to have somebody in mind for the Midwest.

Or you've got two Scots from Virginia now.

Because I have more Scott relatives in the state than he does.

And I've been all right.

When they talk about who's to the right of whom.

I'm going to give you the right of Bill Scott.

I have a great letter from Bill Holt.

You may wonder about this friendship.

Bill Holt loves Bill Scott.

He loves Jesse Hill.

And I wrote to him and said, I'm so glad you shared my admiration for Jesse Hill.

You're a liar, son of a bitch.

So I know where you are.

I know you.

Personally, I know I'm going to love you right now.

I talked to Jerry last night.

He's gone.

Wilson says he's doing it to keep Kirkendall out of the rights.

Now, Jerry doesn't really trust me to tell you the truth.

He's going to have a heart-to-heart, but Jerry's going to divide that boy.

And Jerry's with Brown.

That's right.

But what Brian likes more?

Well, how do you feel about Brown?

All right, so I'd go with him.

I like him better than I did his father.

Yeah.

Well, his father's a great... And he had those two kids, so...

If you get his mother, if you get his mother Brown...

You have a hell of a team there, which you would.

And then you see the leaders.

You could speak out and say, this is good.

It's what you're trying to encourage.

This is a great leadership in the party, and we're going to do it.

But did Brown announce he would be a candidate?

No, Jerry didn't want him to until he gets this worked out with Wilson, because he wants the Wilson support to go above it.

And he's afraid that would jeopardize that if he got out and challenged Wilson.

I talked to Brown and Brock together last night.

There you go.

That's pretty good.

Talking about Brown.

Oh, yes, he's going to go.

Yes, he is.

He's going to cooperate.

He's going to be a planner.

Oh, no, he'll be 100%.

He's got some ideas, and he's got some union people, and he wants to make an advisory committee.

He is going to make it a, basically, an Ohio Republican.

You know, the trouble with the Ohioans, they always think just vote Republican.

They don't win in Pennsylvania or California, just vote Republican, right?

He does, and he works the middle rope in Ohio.

There's a conservative group, the Sam Devine group, and a liberal group.

from either side.

All right.

Here's the nice part.

I don't know anything, but what I've known makes me feel that he is a reasonably smart individual.

All right.

It's all about that surrogate thing.

I mean, this is Bill's chemical body, but there's no restriction on how you do this.

I don't think that my office arranged and supervised

The parents can't concentrate now.

Fifty-five administration of congressional speakers are leaving the bill, because I doubt if you have that in my head of state.

And during this year of 72, we had 55 Republicans.

You can't have none of them.

In different parts of Pennsylvania, if you stick pins in the map, you'll see the Republican position was total.

The difference only is, you know, we, uh...

Well, incumbency is either assuring virtually in the House.

It's awful hard to get an incumbent out in the Senate.

I mean, God damn it.

When I looked at what we lost, not what we won.

Not a sure thing in the Senate.

We should have won.

In the Senate, it's almost a liability.

But in the House, though, we get Domenici, and we get Helms, and we get...

I wouldn't worry about Domenici.

But we lose.

Kentucky, well, that was just a tough fight.

I wouldn't worry about Domenici.

He's the brother-in-law of my administrative assistant.

We raised $35,000 for him.

I mean, it's time I can tell you now that I raised just under $2.7 million for the Central Campus.

It might have had something to do with why I had a lot of decisions.

Good to know.

I can't answer.

I was in there, too.

Just tell me, for God's sakes, not to get trying.

The way outters start pissing on me.

The way that we go to the top is not to try and make it to the radicals.

Coming on to the others, though, the ones we lost.

Did anybody think Margaret was going to lose?

No.

Hell, we called.

We offered help.

We did everything.

She said no.

I mean, did anybody know?

Well, we offered more than that.

We offered servants.

We offered everything else.

My daughter, anything.

Did anybody think that Al was going to lose?

Did you hear anybody?

Did he say something?

He was worried.

Nobody in Colorado knows.

And Jack Miller was right out of the blue.

Well, Jerry, his wife told me and asked for money for you.

I told him Edwards is in the Congress to help him.

Asked me if I could go to Bob Wilson.

I sent it over to Bob.

But I said, how's Jack?

Oh, she said, no worries.

Jack's fine.

This is about two weeks before the election.

Well, you see here, and you see the point is, we did everything we could.

Well, Bob's

Bob told me he was the head.

It was a candidacy.

Bob's a wonderful guy.

He started a little bit late.

He had a wonderful job there, but the tax state pulled him down.

Some kind of tax, I think.

Bob was the hardest to understand, because he's such a, you know, no enemies.

I'm trying to get him to succeed Howard Pyle as the head of the Gunders National Safety Council, and I recommend to Howard that he consider Cale for the job.

Go hard, isn't it?

Howard Pyle is getting out of this job.

Cale wants that, too, I think.

Yeah, Cale wants it.

That's a national—it pays well, too.

It's better than her.

I talked to John Irwin a few months ago about how he can bring resources

in line and all this thing.

Now, we've got to deal with the moment.

Some highly independent characters.

We've got one third of them, more nervous than ever.

That's the ones running in 74.

They're going to be as unpredictable as hell.

That's right.

I know.

And I did talk to him about what he suggested, the possibility of you all having a joint leadership meeting in which you give them the word on when

tolerances within which you can stand legislation, otherwise it risks a veto.

So they'll pretty well understand the rules of the game before the session starts.

You mean the other president?

And the Republicans.

But they aren't going to be back until after the fourth of the month.

That seems John had in mind in January.

But some way by which everybody knows the rules of the game.

And he said, we're going to have to ask you to do things that you would find hard to do.

Well, maybe you won't want to do it.

I said, I'll find an alternative, but I don't want to do them, if you want them.

And if you'll tell me your goal— Tell them the spending thing.

I'll tell you.

Good God, I don't think you're spending money.

It's so much easier.

But as you know, if the choice is spending the money and raising taxes, I've got to say no.

I know that.

Well, you know that.

I know that.

Well, I said that.

I don't—I don't carry— My idea is that it would be a good congressman, Senator, or the State of Mount Prairie.

We should do it with our guys.

I said, I'll carry the ball for you.

And if you leave the final tactics to me, you know, tell me what you want.

Leave me the last option of which tactic to take to get it.

And I'll be responsible if that tactic doesn't work.

He said, fine.

You know, you and I just keep a close touch.

You talk about it all the time.

I can always check that through, you know.

Sure.

I said I would deal with everything but possibly bussing.

We agreed that he had tossed the ball to Griffin on bussing to say- Well, Griffin's not- On account of my- Well, sure.

Griffin has to take that position.

We understand.

I don't always have to be much of an issue.

Well, I think we can well describe- We are having, as you know,

We're having the difficulties in attempting to wrap up the final parts of this negotiation.

We've got to insist on getting it done right, and we're going to continue to insist on that, as I'm sure you understand.

If we don't, I don't want the goddamn war back with us a year from now.

As a result, they're breaking the deal, and that's what this is all about.

So I just thought that's all you should know about it.

All right.

I just hope that you're confident of the outcome.

All of them, yes.

Well, in fact, it should have been done before now.

It should have been done before the election, a very close invitation.

But they keep backing off of this and that, and keep insisting on provisions which would impose a communist government, which wouldn't be adequate in terms of getting our, getting the war, the intended, the supervisory, and all the rest.

But the main point is that we're keeping the pressure on.

And we've got to keep it on the chart, as you understand.

That's one of the reasons that I will continue the mining and the bombing, et cetera, until we get a settlement.

Because we've also got to do that, because they're going to get those fields out just back.

But fortunately, there's not going to be any increasing power here.

We've only got 29,000.

Well, actually it was zero two weeks ago, zero a week ago, but I guess it's just one of those things, we just keep it working.

We've been working against it this morning.

Well, as a legislator, I hope that whatever happens, happens before the Congress gets involved in these damn fool second-gassing resolutions again.

I mean, they have a great take.

No problem between now and inauguration, but after that, as soon as they meet, somebody's coming in.

Like, I don't know.

Somebody will come in with a bathrobe.

Worse than that, they will line up for a musket together or something.

And of course, there's always masks.

Nobody?

No resolutions on a pass order which would leave our prisoners without any?

No, no, sir.

Just the prisoners?

That's my point.

We should say, that's all that's left.

You see what I mean?

No senator in his right mind could take the position that we will withdraw and stop the bombing and let them have our prisoners and hope to Christ that they give it back.

Nobody can't do it.

I was simply hoping that if I'm Congress convened, I'd be able to say that what you have done

It's more efficacious and works out better and even sooner than the Mansfield Resolution would have worked out had it been passed in October.

See, that was four months.

Yeah, got it.

You mean that would be withdrawal of all forces?

Yeah.

Opposite withdrawal of all forces?

Just the people without the industry?

Yes.

I'm simply just discussing the parameters.

That's all I have with that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mansfield Resolution provided, it did not, however,

for maintaining horses until we got our deal with them.

Or did we?

I don't know.

I think so.

Withdraw all horses and then four months after all horses were returned, it was the law.

I had said nothing unless he spotted it.

Got it.

You see my point?

Yes.

So they'll have to have a resolution that said they would not be withdrawn until after the ceasefire.

They'll try to have a gimmick.

I haven't been able to visualize yet what they'll come up with.

I'm just hoping they won't have the gimmicks left.

If you have enough, we'll see.

We'll do the best we can.

But we have to play a strong game with the North in order to keep our bargaining chips.

And people say, well, we just, you know,

I don't have an agreement.

You'll never get one that way.

The way you can get an agreement is to continue the pressure on.

So they've got a reason to say, look, of course, we've got to stop this pain.

So we'll agree.

It's close, but we don't have it yet.

And we may not have it by the time we meet, but we'll have a pretty good deal.

I mean, we'll have something to vote for.

Well, we won't be able to understand about the prisoners.

And I don't see any United States senator who could take a government position

which was withdrawal.

Oh, no, I didn't get it.

I mean, there's not much of that.

I don't know.

I do not think we'll be able to get my sympathy for President Chu in the next country.

Not at all?

Well, I think that you will.

On the other hand, even there, apart from President Chu, I think you can probably get enough to continue not

that is in person with our prisoners and so forth.

But I think about all of Congress, we will provide aid to the South as long as the Congress provides aid to the North.

That's not it.

If you agree you could get that much, you could get that much.

If they go to the North, we'd have to go to the South.

But that's all.

So if I had to say the degree, in other words, if we would allege the army back to some sovereign invasion center, hell no.

Well, neither has the problem.

Well, I talked to another one, but I hope you get to jump on the Democrats with good health proposals and that pension barrier and all that.

Pension?

What else?

Pension, Bill.

If you could find more of a formal pension.

They said portability, but at least investability on that federal, you know, all the federal charges.

That pension thing means more to the laboring man in this country than anything I know of.

It's better than most of the rich benefits.

If he wants that security in the back of his mind, then he is going to lose that pension.

I think it's a way to make a gesture toward labor that I couldn't forget.

Senator Mike Mansfield has agreed to expedite the hearings for the confirmations.

So you can kind of say what I want to do.

We ought to get it done then.

We're not sending any turkeys down there.

We're trying to keep them as non-controversial as possible.

Well, I think that they will pretty well understand what you're saying.

So there will be no problem.

People say we're organizing without the approval of the Congress as before me.

I'm organizing in terms of running my relations with the cabinet, which, of course, is very important.

But as far as Congress's relations with the department, it's the same.

Let's face it.

Congress is going to change its ways for a while.

Well, I won't express my high regard for August Sampson, who's acting GSA.

I wish I had any time.

He's the only person making it.

He's a hard-nosed administrative deputy.

I can ask you another thing, too, is that if you could... We're going to have to meet with the...

bipartisan leaders, quite often, you know, basically to get the goddamn stuff true.

And I think in terms of the meetings with our own leadership, that we're going to do it more often, rather than that huge group, more often than just you and Jared.

And I need less thought, and that's all.

And I think we can accomplish more.

Well, you get a more honest reaction when you talk about the benefits and the benefits.

And then the four of you that have come down, we can work out some things.

And I'm going to have to be, I'm not going to do it a little bit quickly.

I'm going to really play hard and break this one.

I never break silence.

You understand, right?

Yeah.

That's why it was always hard for him.

But he is on some major issues at the moment.

He recorded the script.

I had a good reason to.

I'll get you into a dialogue with Mike, although it is not usually productive.

But he's a gentleman.

Well, and then he's capable of some sudden impulsive actions that help you a lot.

Sudden declarations, for example.

I don't know if you're going to get that.

But we have no illusions about the Muskees and people like that.

I agree.

I'm sure we should.

We should, however, play hard.

We've got to play extensive.

But I have more trouble on my committee.

I hear that the government wants to come on foreign relations.

So that adds to the full-blown ship, Symington.

Who?

The government.

On board relations, yes.

But we've got a forum, I think.

We have one vacancy, but having lost two senators, we may not hold it.

Well, I mean, I made a very small request.

Well, I was the second boy in the hall, excuse me.

I stole my presidential ticket.

I know that it was hijacked.

I know that.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Take us on WMF.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.