Conversation 824-002

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Thank you.

Yeah, sure, she's got that thing.

You know, they've got to do with it.

Those cures are just keeping the shoe on.

You know, if they can put something on it that just...

I've had, I've had stuff on my wound for a long time.

I can't walk.

Sorry.

I'm going to need to stand up a little bit.

No, I mean, no problem.

The reason I go,

Another reason is that there's something that you can't, I don't think you should.

In the first place, you've got a weather problem, but in the second place, you should not come out at 4.30 or 5 o'clock, get in your helicopter, and fly over that Christmas tree.

It's going to be, thank God, you don't have to do that today.

It's going to be another miserable, it's going to rain hard this afternoon.

If it snows, it would be nice, but if it rains, it would be awesome.

majority types.

I know the early ones, but it's an order that I want kept.

The people love it.

That's the main thing.

We're keeping track of that.

All thinking the greatest things.

He's a very fresh man.

That's why it is.

He may not be able to track all like John Whitaker can, but Whitaker has got no God in him.

This guy's got it.

Now, let's face it, Bob.

We've got to, we must not just go with our three men.

I like the three men better.

I mean, I like them better as operators.

I like the ball songs better as people.

You know, we just have to face that.

We're going to, we're going to go with, and keep them there.

It'll be a problem with Irvin and his crew, but just tell me, John, that's the way it's got to be.

We need those people, too, and they've got to work for it.

Paul Hall's going to be a problem.

I mean, Pete Brennan's going to be a problem.

Pete speaks to these ethnics last night, and he talks, but I think it's great.

You know, we had to get Charles to come and say, Charles was so responsible.

And if he doesn't say a fucking thing, it never gets across.

He's got to be on that damn property protection act.

I've heard of them, you know.

But it's because they're warm.

That's why they have them all warm.

You've got to watch your cap.

You don't have any cuts on your thing.

It doesn't amount to anything in the way of money.

But it's going to have a hell of an effect on the surface when you cut it.

I had mentioned paraplegics in particular.

I said, now, don't cut a goddamn thing out of the paraplegic money.

They said, paraplegics be a law to get everything you should.

And goddamn, they should.

But you know, cap is such a straight liner, I'm not sure what we better change on it.

just doesn't understand.

Maybe you don't agree.

I agree that you shouldn't have paraplegics.

And that you obviously, if you take all the money you spend on paraplegics, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Dollars aren't a sin.

I mean, there are no, I don't know what you're saying, but it can't possibly, when it's all added up, it can't get any faster than that.

I like the idea of the Laker guy in the restaurant, but I don't want Sweden to become a black post.

Maybe take the Norway guy.

You said you didn't want to take it.

Revision.

Okay.

I was going to do a sweet status, but I don't think I'm speaking out in the terms of blacks.

I'm speaking far in terms now.

I don't think that's the only post they can get is Sweden.

Take sweet, take and give that to somebody that wants to go sweet.

A real son of a bitch though, a hard line, hard rock, right winner.

A right winner, you understand, that they might turn down.

I want somebody that eats the goddamn sweets.

And also get right, absolutely right, it's got to be crunching in terms of the P.O.W., I mean the draft documents, you understand?

Yep.

All right, that's free.

Then put the black in some country like Norway or Denmark or something like that.

You see?

You want to keep them Scandinavian.

Well, I think that's the easiest place for somebody to come out.

The easiest place for them to be accepted, you see, is for them to go to a Scandinavian country, maybe Austria or something.

But I don't know.

I don't think it's a German-type country.

I don't think it's one.

They're quite white-stomach black.

But they're not the Scandinavians.

They don't want to punish them.

But if he's a good black, put him in there.

Got it?

Yep.

Two quick things.

First of all, I wanted to get your view and approval for the Kissinger briefing today.

Is that something we should proceed with?

Yeah, I did give it to the law member.

I didn't mean to last night.

It was a little girl.

I saw she was sitting in the pocket with Steve Bowles and I said, excuse me, I've got to get back to you.

But when she gets it in to me...

Then I'm going to kiss her and I'm going to work him over and I want you to come in and we're going to give him a working over, you and I.

So he knows what the hell he's going to say because I've worked him over and he's worked him over.

And then we'll go.

1130.

1130 is what we're shooting for.

We're not going to cancel tours over here.

I think we may if we get a big crowd to do it over the hill, be sure.

No, wait, wait, wait.

I don't want this to be a briefing.

I don't want you to announce he's going to give a briefing.

I want you to do it at your regular briefing and have the assholes come and do it right out here.

No, sir.

I don't want to create a big Chris Dissinger extravaganza with television and all the rest.

You understand?

And you'd owe it without television.

Well, it'd be tough out here without television.

But I think if he's programmed, we're better off letting him do film.

You want to tell me to make it as low-key as possible?

And short.

That's why we make it shorter than I ran them on.

Well, we can emphasize that.

I noticed you've got a year's supply of sarcoma.

And I wrote to you this summer.

I said, don't leave the nursery.

We're going to build you.

OK, we'll shoot before 11 o'clock.

I don't think it's going to change.

The way we're going to handle it will probably.

It's broken bad.

It's just a splinter.

But anyway, I got Henry Weller in trouble.

We're going to hand you to an alchemist.

It's a problem.

It's going to be like bro-mommel.

Bro-mommel.

You should never use bro-mommel.

You should have.

Never have.

And the point is that, is this a step up and so forth?

There has been substantial buildup in North Vietnam, and we obviously have to take the precautionary measures.

We call them precautionary measures, because we're still hoping for a ceasefire.

We don't want to have a buildup of forces so that

It wouldn't give anybody the incentive to break the ceasefire.

Something like that.

It would have been out of your mind to not talk about it later.

The other point, too, is that it would be very simply said that this is a policy that has been stated previously.

You can also say this, head high, I'm saying, rather than say it's been bombed.

My name is Garfield.

We'll continue.

And that's what it is?

R.P.O.W.

is the president.

He's concerned about R.P.O.W.

They're going to have a police inspection.

He's going to do the work.

I'll have to do it.

It's not easy.

I said that earlier.

They're calling 100 over there.

I said, it's going to make a difference from 60 or 100.

I mean, shouldn't it?

That's absolutely right.

It's actually not.

You could run 100.

100 B-52s, over and on, or five F-104s, and the same damn thing.

Either bother or you deny.

You see, we've started to bother for a couple of weeks.

I don't want that.

Quit doing something that we want, and we're going to get what they want.

And then it's our turn to get something we want.

Yes, sir.

I thought we should raise, because we're on deadline, Bob, the point about the man of the year cover, on how we approach that.

Is there time to get that out of the way?

As a matter of fact, Bob, let's end it out there going with the man of the year.

The president's aware of the Rockefeller effort, despite everybody's efforts.

And Henry really has, to his credit, he is scared to death.

Because it's a bad deal for that default.

Just let me say, I see coal.

I will not see the farts.

Is that the exact question?

No.

is, and it's, it's available, whether we want to have Henry talk to Sheppard.

There is some merit in doing it because Henry is so scared of this story that he will play it so heavily the other way that it might be worthwhile.

And we can either do that or not do it.

No.

They know, Mr. President.

I just freeze them, freeze them, freeze them.

I let them fucking story come out the way it wants.

I don't ever have time in this place again.

I know, Bob, that you're not carrying out these orders in regard to that, because I talked to Pat about it last night.

The Washington Post is not to be in the White House during the Christmas season.

They are not.

They absolutely are not.

The time is not to be in the White House during the Christmas season.

Is that clear?

I don't know.

Clear?

Yes, sir.

Totally clear?

Great.

You made it clear on the Washington Post.

We'll be done, isn't he?

Absolutely not.

The point on... Oh, I know, but Henry will help.

So that's why you saw him have the hand and see the Italian woman, did you?

Well, he did not have the hand and see the Italian woman.

Mr. President, on the...

I understand.

I know Henry sees you.

But Henry cannot, cannot help you.

Help, help, help.

They're going to give time.

Time, the best way to handle time.

Now, listen, take my advice for once.

They can do what we want.

We freeze them.

They don't get to see Henry.

He's a hell of a property right now.

It gives them a hell of a big story.

He is not to see them under any circumstances.

And no one in this White House has seen time under any circumstances, whatever.

And there's no argument about it.

Don't try it with Schenker.

The other side of it is the problem.

if he does see him because he's not really he he will try to get over but he will also be determined to get over the other side of course the other the other point here too just to wrap this up is that henry will probably see him anyway

Bob, you're ordered to tell him that we have an order from now until the end of the year.

There are no, under no circumstances, that there are not going to be any interviews, no social contact, and no return of any calls to time.

Now, second point, this is something you can carry out, and I wrote it down on this, and I'm curious, my friend, and I'm sure you'll be.

You are to call

were to call him, and to say that, like John Osborne calls for Dr. Kissinger, the call is to be put through Ron Kissinger's office.

You understand?

When anybody, from any other time, not that you can get away with that, but let me say that he had a private phone.

Well, A, he has a private phone, but B, Osborne didn't call Henry Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger called John Osborne.

because he read an osborne piece and said that you and he were divided and all this he called i was going to correct the things and that's where i got the quotes it was not an osborne

At least on time, you have my way with it.

I want an I.C.

code.

Just check it.

I just say.

And don't put it that way.

You say, Dave, we're too busy.

You know, I'm very, very worried about that.

Your option.

We've been on our knees.

Not we, but people with the interests of the country at heart have been on their knees.

that Hedley Donovan and the saying that they're doing American foreign policy a great disservice by running this.

Henry Kissinger has told them that.

Nelson Rockefeller has told them that.

And they have decided that it's a matter of editorial judgment that they'll go ahead with the story anyway on this basis.

We have decided, as a matter of editorial judgment, that we, therefore, can't cooperate with the story.

I just want to raise this point.

The other thing is, we'll follow this up.

And I'm not talking about the box.

The point of it is that if we carry it out, we'll do it on the basis you suggested, but we won't be able to do it in a subtle way.

It would be a quite hard thing, which I definitely sense, which is fine with me.

And they'll say the White House reviews it, because they .

So what?

I'm not worried about that.

The point Schechter's getting on his knees about, and I'm inclined to go with your point, is that they say they are going out of the way to put this in a proper perspective.

That if it's not a man of the near future,

They're worried about it now.

They're worried because of the heat that's in the room.

Christ makes fleas want to do it mightily.

It isn't because of Henry.

It's because they are deliberately trying to insult the president.

And I know it, and you know it.

Now, they made that decision, so they can do it.

They're not going to insult the presidency of the United States.

They've never done this sort of thing before.

Who the hell thought of the China thing?

Who saved the Russian summit when Henry wanted to come home and cancel it?

No, sir.

It's not going to be.

This is one time I have my way.

It's going to be that way for four years, too.

I know it's hard for you, Ron.

No, it's not hard for me.

I just want to make sure that we talk it through.

It's not hard for me at all.

Yes, sir.

Yes.

She wants to go on working.

She said she has to go on working.

Well, she would be very good as a PR person.

She should be great.

She doesn't want to be a PIO.

She doesn't want to deal with the press.

She wants to work on communications.

don't work and stuff like that.

MARVIN MINSKY- Marv.

It should be great.

I think it will recognize us, as well as yours, substantially, really well.

The point is, if you can get the other woman, it will be helpful, too.

If you're going to get her, you've got to get this woman.

Yeah, that's right.

We'll get her.

Incidentally, Marge Myers is floating around.

So I'm going to have her come in one day.

I'll have to explore it.

Explore it next time.

I'll do whatever it takes to get that done.

Why didn't they explore something specific?

The main thing is to get something started on that before Julie gets away.

Julie's going to be flying away on Thursday.

Julie's the one that broke it out with her mother.

I had Marge in Monday.

Now, another thing that occurred to me on Marge.

This is my letter to you.

Maybe I need a woman on our staff who understands the woman's point of view.

Christ can come in, you know, and I see people who don't understand, you know, when there's a little heart in something, and not some man who's been through the naked space looking a little embarrassed, inhibited, you know, not really knowing what the Christ is.

That's a hell of a good idea.

You know what it is?

Mm-hmm?

That March fire is on your set.

Is your backup in this?

And the second, you know, she's a nice girl.

I would never mind having her in a room.

She could sort of melt into the background, get a little ginger or some rest from it.

And then our help with East Wind, she's also your contact.

I hear all your training in East Wind operations.

It's their training and so forth and so on.

Now, uh, and let Halisman do the other job.

She did the job, actually.

With Marge Huffman.

Marge Huffman showed a different ear size.

I mean, the story was with Marge.

No, Connie made the point to me yesterday that she said you ought to think about making this change.

handling all the press for the White House out of the press office.

There's a real question whether there even should be a press office for the first level.

That's what I want.

He said the hands will screen for a little bit, and it's a pain in the ass for Ron, but he has somebody in the office who does handle all the inquiries.

I'm going to put it in the press office.

And make the press then start to cover it.

You see, the women's press covers only stuff.

really great stuff over there that she'd mis-admissions done for years.

You know, goddammit, I wonder what she's doing.

She's doing things for people that have never been done before.

And it never gets a goddammit even in the press.

The way you could move to that was put Marge in your office as the second person.

I like old Marge.

I do too.

And then...

let it evolve after Julie comes in.

And also, it gets the woman's feel again.

It gets the woman a point.

And women in the press office.

I'm my old baby woman, which is hard.

That's what I know.

I've been in the industry.

I've always wanted to have a woman.

A woman has to be an assistant to the president, the press officer, and get rid of a bully man.

Easily.

Well, he's a good man, but get rid of him.

See?

And Warren will.

We're cleaning it up.

You know what Warren may say, but it bothers me.

But also, you had wheel hands over me.

Yeah.

You wanted me to stay for a while, but I put a fire extinguisher.

Well, I'd like to bring, explore bringing Marge in.

That's a good idea.

I don't know if she's really had something to do with it.

I have everything out of the press office.

It's a very good idea.

And I left the goddamn hands over there.

They get around, and they're so smart that they take those poor women, at least Connie, the bride, and Gracie,

and brutal and crude.

She'd like to live in a press car.

She handles them.

Yeah, that nice old thing over there is going to get the hell kicked out of it.

Marge Byers is a good old gal.

Kind of likes to be a bad idea.

Kind of likes it.

And then she'd come in, you know, when I see the blind Indian kid or something like that.

We'll get something out of it for her.

It'll get more attention.

Julie takes over over there.

And if you do it on the face, it's not the white that the West took over the thing, but that Julie asked you to handle the press.

That's a good idea.

And so that way, if we see that the little girl with that camera and the gun, she just finished .

Okay, I'll proceed with March 5th.

I know he's the right guy, and everything's going to be good right now.

But not in any sense.

Everybody has talked to him yesterday.

The president's just too goddamn busy.

There's no problem.

I told him very coldly yesterday.

He's just too goddamn busy.

I told them that you will not see it.

I told them that three weeks ago, and I told them again yesterday.

I told them it's, I think we can just say, on the basis, and they'll see it as the stuff that's unfolding here in the next few days.

It's not a time when the president or Henry is available to speak.

The thing I'm turning off, Jerry, on the whole, you know, mandate,

All that type of thing that they want to include in here when they talk to you and they want to talk to her.

No, no, no.

Don't do that.

No, listen, we've turned that off.

I'm saying that's turned off.

I'm just saying that that's what he wanted to pursue.

We made the decision to go this way.

I wanted to bring it up to see what the decision would be, and we'll do it.

It's not hard for me to do.

I get a little satisfied.

You're all supposed to raise up.

and all the people around here.

But the main thing you have is not me.

The main thing is Earl and all the rest of the people in the White House who will figure, well, maybe you ought to do something here.

Maybe it'll help.

It ain't going to help.

I think of that we made a mistake.

He does it well, he's tough, and so forth.

We can change all of them.

The MH-1 helps a lot.

And it should be changed.

Because I think it's very important that they have an impression about them.

No, I mean, I'm speaking in the press.

I'm speaking to the goddamn congressmen, senators, and the rest.

And it's just wrong.

He works his butt off with these things.

He does everything with the iron.

Tell him to do it.

If anything, he's softer than I am.

I'm the one that wants to do tougher things.

See, we're going to do tough things.

Don't have him see it.

See, Adams, it was a mistake of Adams to hide him as much as he did.

Oh, you don't hide him as much.

Get him out.

Be careful with that.

But on the other hand, you do have the others, you know, the soft heads.

I mean, soft hearts.

And Erland felt you things went well with his breathing.

Did you?

I didn't know.

Oh, I heard the show said that you're in the background of the technique.

The client.

Is that it?

Good, good.

Well, matter of fact, in the Vietnam thing, I'm very relaxed about it.

I'm much more relaxed about it this way than I have a half-assed Russian agreement that turns out that in about three months, we walk into a situation where there's a basket of bread, and we look at the prisoners, and I say, what in Christ did this son of a bitch do?

We're going to bomb these son of a bitches into the center range.

I mean, and then something, Goldwater said something good, you know, about Q.

Well, if somebody don't want to go home, go ahead.

We'll go ahead and do it our own way.

The thing is, Henry's terribly worried, so you'll know Henry's terribly worried.

He's like he was at Camp O.

He has many agents.

He's afraid of students who are going to riot.

Well, yes, we've got to get contingency plan to handle the riots around the 95 house at Christmas time.

And he's very concerned about the press and the radio and television will be very bad this week and so forth and so on.

The memory in my writing him, I think you should know.

And I think when you come in, I want you to get this.

I'm saying, Henry, don't play this in anger or sorrow.

you to give a cold, objective, up-to-date reading, and above everything else, don't do it in a way that it makes it appear you're trying to justify what you did or didn't do.

Don't do that.

Is that okay?

Play it through confidence.

Play it through the position of confidence.

And the thing of it is, also, if we play it through the position of confidence, if we don't worry about what Cronkite said, if we don't worry about Reston and Barter and Max Flankel and all these people for two

or a month, or whatever.

I'll tell you, come next June.

This is Ron's point to Henry.

Next June.

In June, nobody's going to remember what happened.

No one will remember this.

No one will care.

We've been through that.

I remember sitting around here.

Cambodia, Laos, all these periods.

Nobody's going to remember this.

Come four years from now, it was your boss who put it out last night.

I don't give a damn about it.

I care, of course, about trying to do things.

I don't like it.

It's 100% goddamn stupid that he, of all the things that he cuts, he cuts the paraplegics.

I want the Christ to cut the paraplegics for me.

Well, I'd sure like to have, and I don't think it'll happen.

I would almost predict it won't happen.

There'll be no riots around here.

But I would sure like, rather have a lot of frustrated people floating around here next week than I would having all those people out in the country come June and July out of, you know, in the picnics and all the other places being frustrated because of a

We remember at the end of last year, we bombed between Christmas and New Year.

It caused a little bit of a flutter.

And I remember Colson was so worried.

And because the poles went down.

The poles went down.

The poles went up and then went down the campaign.

It didn't go either way.

It stayed the same.

It was never going to change.

Yes, we hadn't had the peace initiative.

We were one, two, one.

screwed up and the whole thing.

Water gave you the one to the one, but after all, maybe one helped the other.

Yeah, that's it.

You go that way and also if you hadn't had those, maybe you wouldn't have had Eagleton.

Maybe you would have picked up a couple more points.

Maybe you wouldn't have had something else and something else.

Yeah, but we still went pretty good.

You did have them.

It's what, it's what Earl and his wife was crying and said, it's what impressed me about the week and the reason he got them.

You know, in that way of it.

He saw the spine and realized he wanted the emotion.

I said, well, that's a different report than I got from Ron.

I said, Ron, I would take the waiting license.

I said, because I really got this from another newsman.

He's never seen the press more frustrated, more vicious, more mean, more, they, it's a little swift.

which you've probably missed, Bob Novak, where he warned the press that they're going overboard, as a journalist of advocacy, and predicting the government's covering, closing the gap, will be in the post-election.

Did you see it?

I did.

You didn't see it.

Yeah.

We talked about it.

All right.

Was anything done about it?

We can't ever get that story out.

That's the kind of stuff that kills the sense of maturity.

And that kills their, it kills their versatility.

It raises a great question about the credibility of the events and the deaths.

It keeps them a little looser about that drive.

You know, when they go out and predict horrible things, if you understand a lot, I'm not going to be the person

Oh, absolutely.

Where we've changed lives, what we're going to do is have a special candlelight tour.

We're not going to just bring a family show and so forth and be good enough.

You may be here, you may be out of town at that time.

It doesn't matter who you are.

The other thing that I was going to say is that we're not going to... No, if I could suggest one thing.

could one of our better advancements.

Somebody that should go a little longer than we are.

And at least one of our little up-to-date, fresh guys that was very subtle.

Go with Pat Pasadena.

Well, we have no problem with that.

I don't know where it stands now, but she's... Then why go?

Well, what she wants to know is that she's raised the question

what happens and all that.

The thing we can do is just have someone out there not go with it.

We can just have someone out there just to go with it, but just kind of pick their rivals and mix things up.

They all want her.

She's got to go to the band.

No question of her going.

She's all for that.

It's only a question.

She doesn't want to look like she's making a big thing out of it.

Yeah, there is a big thing.

I don't mean to overcompensate, but otherwise,

Nobody, not even the Packers, at their best, or the Redskins at their best, could beat Southern Cal, their area.

Southern Cal's got so much personnel, but Southern Cal is a ragged team.

Up and down, up and down, up and down.

And Ohio State is never sensational, but it's always .

This is the one time that Ohio State might do it.

Either that, Ohio State will either win it by a small score or Southern Cal scores a drop-off on today's Notre Dame.

Due to the fact that Southern Cal, that's the greatest personnel I ever saw on a college or professional football head building.

That's big every day.

Every day.

You predicted that when Redskin lost, I predicted that.

Well, these others are sure, because they have to hold back.

Well, they have to.

Well, with Larry Brown not playing, another thing with it.

You know, Allen is doing a few things that are a little stupid.

He has been sitting on the bench all year long, Mulkey.

When you see Mulkey run back kickoffs,

And compared to the speed dunking that he's now put on the jab squad, and Albany, both of whom are 15-year veterans, Mulkey is sensational.

That son of a bitch will break one.

He'll break one without any question.

He is great.

And Allen should use him more.

And the other one is George Knox.

George Knox, in an open field, can run better than Larry Brown.

And he doesn't use him at all.

And because he's not experienced the radio pummel.

Yeah.

There you are.

But Al's done pretty well.

But this is a pummel, and you can't take the...

No, the Redskins didn't look that bad against Dallas.

Frankly.

Because the Redskins, with Larry Brown out getting behind and then ending up what they did, they're quite a team.

They're a real bunch of pros.

I wouldn't bet against them against any.

They're going to have a hell of a time against the Packers the second time.

No one is ever going to beat the Redskins much.

That's the way I look at that.

And they aren't going to beat anybody much.

But that's it.

There's a solid team.

Marvels for a coach.

Wasn't it?

Did you see Monty?

Did you see any of them?

No, I didn't see them.

Did you see any of them?

He was great.

I'll talk to you early about this time thing.

Didn't you all handle Kissinger?

Yep, yep, yep.

I'm trying to just cut the word line off.

Call them.

Call Rogers.

That's a nice little thing to do.

We all feel here.

And it's not a hill.

This is a very gross time.

And we appreciate it.

No one in the state talks to them at this time.

on the basis of .

Please do not talk to anybody about this.

He's the only one.

Is there anybody else?

Herbie Klein.

Anybody about Herb?

Herb will talk to anybody.

Sapphire.

Ordered.

Price.

Ordered.

You can't.

Ordered.

Those three aren't ordered because they both are given back.

And the way to do it is to say you've been too busy.

They're working on a 50-year-old stuff.

Just put it all on that basis.

They'll know.

See, you tell people without telling them, they'll know.

And then they'll say to the White House, they'll name me right in the box the other way.

I understand that.

But don't give them the quote.

They can do whatever.

If Schecter come in today, and I'm just going to be very firm with him, I say I don't think we'd work out of anything out there.

He'll cry.

You know, I couldn't care less shit.

Here you go.

The China trip would have been enough for us.

The Russia trip would have been enough for us.

The Navy would have been enough for us.

And certainly the election.

It's Dublin, the biggest election victory in history.

And that's enough for any one of these things.

And this shows what they are.

Now, Bob, this is one thing.

Why don't you call up Colson, or will you?

And tell him this is one thing.

I didn't want about a flood of letters to come in and say, this is all about .

And tell Colson, ask him to get about 1,000.

Let me tell you an interesting thing, Robert.

That marvelous new Secretary of Labor later on will be saying maybe he's a problem.

But don't you understand?

He came through, you know, and he did it for this great big Irish man.

He said, you know, Mr. President, I did it very, I had a lot of fun with it.

He said, I went around the Labor Department.

He said, I put your picture up in all the offices.

He said, you know, your picture wasn't up in any office except the secretary's.

God damn it.

Have we got any other cabinet officers that may start doing that sort of thing?

Remember, I gave you that order out before.

I want ambassadors, ambassadors, cabinet officers, and the rest of the instructions, the president's picture.

It is done.

And to get a good picture, it's got to go out.

You know what I mean?

I mean, they still got Kennedy's picture up over the Labor Department.

But he said, I've got your pictures up online.

I said, who's also?

He said, Kennedy's.

It's not far from down.

You know what I mean?

He's going to be, I'll tell you, it's going to be great one day when he's out there before the press in one of these little categories.

The guy that takes out after him.

The difference between meeting

They're wonderful people, the Maury Stanton Squadron, and they are wonderful, because they're my kind of people, and their kind of people, and our kind of people.

We talk with low voices, and we're all wonderfully restrained.

We never want to show any emotion.

We never show any tears or anything.

They came to the first morning, and in the next few minutes, my wife's son came in, the president of the barbershop, and the president of the bar, and the president of the bar, and the president of the barbershop.

Joe T. and people, you know, Frank and so on and so forth.

And he said, they all came through the line with their nice little wives.

And funny, he greatly mentioned it, very little wives.

They've got a little wife who dressed them to kill, you know, and they're hand-shaping them with them.

They took their gloves off and all, and that's what they went through the line with.

And Julie, bless her soul, who would have

So I've been barred from school, and she's the only thing, but the greatest, the great people.

She said, these people were the real people.

The others were fine, very nice, and appreciated their support, but they're all there for a certain reason.

These people, these people were the warmest, most generous people we ever had in the violence.

I do tell some of those goddamn lost vets,

Sure.

That's why I get discouraged around here when I see the kind of people around who don't really appreciate the jobs.

And I love John Colby.

You tell Ron, please Ron, John Scali.

John Scali, he came over after that, and I was in with her.

And Connie, my secretary, she said, Scali's got to see everything.

So I walked out.

It was a great, great movie.

I was.

I hope somebody you meet knows what I said.

No, I didn't.

He was standing in that little corridor at the back of the mountain.

His eyes were this big.

And he was just flushed with excitement.

He said, this is the greatest thing that could ever happen to a man.

I said, Scali, I said, you'll have to look great style.

And he said, yeah.

I'm going to do my best.

I'm going to do the job.

He really means it.

I'll be the president, said the ambassador.

I will not be the secretary of state.

Well, he really means it.

Well, they're not going to kill a spirit.

I'm going to do everything I can for him.

I'm going to have him as a member of the cabinet.

And we're going to go to the launch on Saturday.

I talked to Bush this morning.

Are we not?

No, no, he says it's okay.

He says it'll, in a way, it's kind of a problem to announce it before the assembly ends.

And I said, well, George, they already know you're leaving.

And he said, yeah, that's right.

And we don't really have anything important that matters anyway.

Got to do it.

So I kind of left it hanging, but I'll call it back and tell them we've got it.

Because our house is leaking, and it's better to get it out.

The main reason is, actually, we're going to be bombing all weekend, and I want one hundred in the bombing.

It's going to be a goddamn good story.

And take the raps and say, the president thinks that we couldn't find a better qualified man.

That we want to remember the president.

The president, gentlemen, feels that all parts of society, including top news media people, should be in.

He said that he wanted to remember that Benjamin Franklin printed a paper.

Beyond that, I know it's really quite true.

No, T.R.

was an editor.

But the main point is this.

Scali has a unique experience.

And he will be probably the only ambassador at the UN who has been both to China and to Russia, as well as to virtually every other country in the world.

with the President.

He probably would be the only one who has been to both.

Certainly the only one that's been there with the President of the United States.

He has been in the policy, you know, things in the White House, he has covered the State Department, he's covered the White House, he's covered the Congress, and he's covered the UN.

And, but beyond that, the President's acquining him because he shares the President's convictions about

the need to have a strong, articulate voice, and you want to strengthen there your representation, anything that you will follow, not push a person.

I told that guy, I've got to be with this guy, that son of a bitch, he's going to go to Mass every Sunday.

He'll go.

Maybe late Mass, but he'll go.

He sure will, right?

I think David's going to take NASA.

I can't wait.

I can tell David he's going to take NASA early.

Come on then, Henry.

I can't offer a job longer than that.

He's going to take NASA.

He should take it earlier so I can give the woman the other job.

NASA's a good job.

Okay.

Okay, Spock, we'll bring him back.

Very nice, Spock.

Be made.

My, uh, empty desire to devote my present life to him tomorrow could lead up to all that Paris today.

And he said, Dr. Kissinger and I have... No, no, he was very conciliatory.

He said, Dr. Kissinger and I have agreed to make no comment on the private talks

Therefore, I have nothing to tell you.

And they said, when one newsman asked him whether he had hopes of peace by Christmas, he replied, I'm always optimistic.

Stringing you along.

Oh, yeah.

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

He's certainly stringing me along.

The only question is whether I should do it on a day when he has said that we have an agreement not to say anything.

Well, Henry, we keep diddling.

We won't get the bombing going.

We won't get the mining going.

All the rest, I'll understand.

I've been the one that's holding back up to this point.

But now, I'm the one that's...

I agree with you.

I think everything is...

This was late last night.

It doesn't mean a goddamn thing in terms of the words, but I'm trying to get... No, no, I agree completely with what...

In fact, I have no comment to make because I agree with it.

Actually, I'd like you to be in the light.

Well, you're not there to give the message.

You're not there to say what we did.

I just want to give you enough today to report here is what's your report later today.

Well, and I can use this statement as an excuse for not going into detail.

Yes.

I'm not going to get into detail.

I simply want to give you a status report as to where it stands.

Now, you can go tomorrow if you want.

If you do, it's all right with me.

But you think you can do it today?

No.

No, no, no.

Tomorrow's fine.

Tomorrow's fine, but the bombing's got to go Monday, Sunday.

Sunday.

I cannot hold the bombing up.

No, no.

I'm not urging holding up the bombing.

Well, if you are, tell me, because I'm holding it up to you.

No, no, no, no.

But you understand, I think, once we decide to go down a certain track, you've got to...

There's no advantage.

There's no advantage in holding up the bombing.

The, uh... See this?

They're different.

Okay, sir.

Yes, sir.

I can...

Oh, yes.

Oh, their strategy, their strategy is to give us enough vote for peace so that we won't do anything but not give us peace.

I mean, that's our...

I'm just thinking...

for a week and then do it.

Is that long enough?

You won't be here.

Frankly, when you start, you have to keep going.

All right.

Wait a minute.

Is that long enough before we change our position?

That's why I want to know until they get the prisoners back.

Do you understand?

Every night, there's a 52 over that place.

Every night, if it's locked in, there's a 52 over that place.

Well, the 52 can go any time.

That's the point.

But Henry, you remember?

You remember?

No.

Look, I had a very, very small win at Boca Jo.

What do you mean?

Perhaps I was there a month or two.

The Japanese had these old planes, and they were not synchronized.

You know, they were .

Every night, they'd send over this goddamn plane.

And so they'd just fly around and so forth.

Now, when they hit a foxhole, they should hit a goddamn thing.

But we'd all be sitting there in those goddamn foxholes, not getting anything, so we'd be shivering.

Waiting.

They said, some of the bigs are going to hit us.

That's what I want to do to these people.

Every night until they settle.

Well, they won't hear the P-52s until they farm them.

That's my point.

That's what drives them crazy.

That's my point.

That's what drives them absolutely crazy about the P-52s.

All right.

What is your view?

Because I'm open.

No, no.

I've got another announcement I'd like to make today rather than Saturday, if you'd like to go Saturday.

But maybe you're talking about not going at all.

No, no.

You see, now we do.

Don't let me push you.

No, no.

You want to do it?

President, I think time is away.

The advantage of going today is that there's a 48-hour time period before we hit on Sunday.

Or you have to get it Sunday.

That's right.

And so the advantage of doing it today is that people don't have to get used on Saturday to hear for the first time that they're settled in the negotiation.

Bingo, Sunday, you go.

On the other hand, it means that the nitpickers can start writing their analyses for the Sunday papers.

If I go today, I'm just giving you the case.

If I go tomorrow... And you couldn't go Monday in the bombing?

No, you could go Sunday in the bombing anyway.

It would be a tremendous one-two punch.

I go on Saturday.

Next morning, you bomb.

All right, good.

Go ahead.

So...

That's the case.

There's a case to be made for the fact that people, that it might be that the shock gets to be too great to people.

That one evening they hear that the negotiations are in trouble and the next morning B-52s are over Hanoi.

It's not going to be great anyway.

What do you mean?

How do you make the shock last?

Wait three days and then what?

Then we go today and Sunday.

How about Saturday and Monday?

No, in a way, I mentioned it only because it's a small thing.

I'm rather glad that it's one of the good things that we got to have a Vietnam peace thing before the end of the world isn't too much of a state of euphoria.

The Germans elect the left-wing government.

The Poles show Heath in trouble.

The Poles show Poncagou in trouble.

The Australians elect and cut out the Tishnik government.

The Sunnites elect the Tishnik government.

Shah sends a statement about Tishniks.

Everybody thinks that because of what we did in China and Russia, what we're doing in Vietnam, a new wave of peace is coming to the world.

There is no peace.

There will never be peace.

There's only going to be peace on the terms that you and I understand.

We're going to have to be tough and strong and have to handle everything around here.

And I don't like to get up and mention the state of it.

It's going to be tough, as I said.

You can't make the first draft and own it down.

I'm not going to get up there and blurt around about peace, human brotherhood, and all that bullshit, second inaugural, second inaugural.

Maybe it's going to be, I don't want to depress people, but maybe it's going to be something different.

Well, Mr. President, the thanks for an outpour should always be exactly what you point out, that we encourage the soft hats all over the world.

I know.

On the other hand, you've gotten there by strong action.

Now, I have no doubt that we've got to do what we decided yesterday.

That's our point.

We still have to do it despite this.

Oh, this is bullshit.

This is bullshit.

This is strategy.

The only thing I'm discussing isn't strategy, but tactics.

I'm discussing whether...

I should go today when this is planned, or whether I should go tomorrow so that we can say we had 48 hours of discussions here, and we decided we couldn't let all these things stand on the record.

We couldn't let the people suffer from the illusion that all of this was wrapped up, and therefore you have asked me to step out there, and in its effect, follow your life.

The question is, the question is, who's breaking up?

He leads the citizens.

And then you go out.

You see, in the follow-up line, I took it.

Now, that's not done carefully, because I just... No, but the line you have to say, it doesn't break up the negotiation, this line.

Yeah.

Say it to me first.

You are willing to settle for a serious solution.

You have to keep going back to the main thing.

We want a ceasefire which has a chance to be a permanent, you know what I mean, I want to say that, a lasting peace rather than a temporary truce.

I have one more minute here that's very good.

I'm trying to give you a little feel of lines that are sort of language that everybody would know is mine and not yours.

And which would give them, you see, the left hand ring.

They know very well.

I was trying to make notes.

Both the North and South must recognize that they have an obligation to change their conduct in the battle field with a ballot box.

both the South Vietnamese and the Congolese and South Vietnamese who also are prepared to present the case to the people, to present the verdict to the people, what kind of government the people have.

I slightly lean towards slipping the process 24 hours of going, of going tomorrow and hitting Monday.

But I'm not, I don't feel, we can't let it go much longer.

Henry here is a fan of mine, asking the prospects of the future.

We are going to continue to be pressed for a second.

But we are patient.

Because after this very long war, we will not settle for a very short peace.

That's a leave.

That's a hell of a leave.

I thought that was the middle of the night.

You see what I mean?

After this very long war, we're not going to make it.

We're not going to settle for a very short peace.

And then the idea that we will continue to negotiate whatever, or the other side is willing to negotiate on all the remaining points, which admittedly are technical.

For black people, we've got a rule on both sides.

Couldn't it be made over in the great town if we would not work them out at this time?

So the idea is it's all part of the technical agreement.

See, that holds up as a pieces of hand thing.

So what I've been trying to do is to rationalize the whole case here.

I thought it was a superb paper.

This is a third paper because I haven't thought it through as well, but it gives you, it gives you some lines.

I thought it through, but it gives you some lines.

And once you go tomorrow, let us go to something else today.

Let me just check with Brown.

Sure, you should.

Yeah, well, let me go check with Brown.

Do you want all of them to help?

Yeah, it's up to you.

It's usually a good judgment.

One other...

Well, I like it.

It's good Lee Duck Toe is saying this.

This, however, plays in the line of making it more less belligerent, less bizarro.

Mr. Laker, please, and Mr. Hall, right away.

See, one other thing, Mr. President, is I'm just trying to think of all the angles.

Lee Duck Toe will be in Crete on Sunday, coming back to Hanoi on Monday.

I'm just wondering whether it is better for us to clobber him than when he's not in teaching.

Well, those things are in, but...

It's not decided.

I mean, one day, you could wait another day, make it go even monthly.

The only thing I know is that...

The bill's up too much.

I've got to go.

I must go no later than tomorrow.

Oh, good.

I must go to the bank to clobber him and wait for him.

You might as soon not clobber Sonny.

I think that's all right.

You said we'll be getting the clobbering on Monday.

Yeah.

And then he'll be out at 8 p.m.

He'll be back at 1 o'clock that day.

Good.

That's the day we begin, Monday.

That gives us 48 hours.

And, uh... All right, fine.

That's the line.

Okay.

We'll go tomorrow.

Then we have to put off the mining 24 hours, too.

The mining that goes Sunday.

Mining Sunday, that?

That will, that's all right.

That's good.

I don't want the mining.

We can announce tomorrow that Haig is leaving Sunday night, or we can announce on Sunday morning that Haig is leaving Sunday night.

I'm also about a letter for you.

I think that speech is better.

But I think this is out.

Is that 2.30 in the morning?

Well, I think this is exactly the time.

We are going to continue to press for a second.

We've got a fight then.

I want to talk to you about that announcement, because we have a schedule for tomorrow.

I want to discuss it this time, which we must move up to today.

In that case, we've got to do it.

Now, don't worry about what we have.

JUSTICE BREYER- Just order it.

Any deal on that?

JUSTICE BREYER- Let's move Middle East tonight.

All right.

Go ahead.

The problem is that I was going to hold a press conference today, explaining the problems of the negotiations, where we stand, what the difficulties are, and why we haven't

And we were then going to start some military actions tomorrow, which would culminate into some, in fact, a very massive one for Sunday.

Now, that's one way of doing it.

Now we face the problem that Peter Coe has said more than he did Harris, that he and I have an agreement.

not to comment on the private talks.

And as a result, he didn't say anything.

And that really meant that the message.

Now, that, of course, is their strategy of diddling us along, of giving us just enough hope that we'll be able to settle, and never giving us quite enough to complete it.

So the alternative, of course, is that we let this ride today so that I'm not, so that we don't look precipitated, so that we don't look like lying off the handles.

I go on tomorrow.

We start the minor military action on Sunday, which won't get too many clips.

But the bombing, that was Monday.

I do the on Monday.

Now, the problem here is, who shot John?

I'll say, the lead doctor told me a very conciliatory statement.

There was still hope.

But the way that that memo was written, as you know, doesn't knock the hope down either, does it?

But they'll say this anyway, whether I go

That depends in part on whether I can catch the tone of your memo.

Your memo doesn't say, I'll piss on it.

Your memo says we've got some tough problems, which if arms off, we're not going to have a lasting peace.

We want to solve them.

They can be settled quickly, but we are not going to be maneuvered either by false euphoria or by toughness.

Now, that problem

Whether I go today or tomorrow, they're going to say, here's Li Dazhou optimistic.

The case for going tomorrow rather than today is as follows.

One, this minor issue of being optimistic of what Li Dazhou said today leads to shows we've thought about it and haven't just screamed back at him.

Second, he's going to be pleading on Sunday

And if we lay in some of the mass itself that we have planned while he's in PK, they might have to do some more when he's there than otherwise.

And thirdly, it will show us having been a little more deliberate, you and I spent 48 hours

We have taken account of this statement, but we don't want either of you for your Norfolk fans.

The case for doing it quickly is that, by God, they diddled us along, keeping me there for 10 days and first for six days.

And we want to give them a massive shock.

Those are...

Those are the two cases, and the weather will be a little better.

Let me take a quick look.

It might be helpful to get a little feel of how I think this ought to go.

Henry Hughes and I are about the same, his tone.

Mr. White says he's got much better lines than he was yesterday.

Oh, yeah.

I've got that.

Right?

Oh, yes, but none of it dictates at all.

Well, I don't think he gets atoned.

Yes.

But here's what we're talking about, the kind of atonement I gave you this morning.

Further reflection in regard to our talk last night, I think it's very important that you handle this greeting in a rather detached, matter-of-fact way, and not in a manner in which it could be interpreted either as anger or sorrow.

That's atonement.

What is particularly vital is that you leave no impression that you were attempting to agree to defend your statements made in previous briefings as well, where the press would have gone overboard, where the press would have gone overboard in being more optimistic than they really should have been as to whether the negotiations succeeded, and that they would have recognized adequately the KDFs that you worked in, and of course the ones that I worked in, in my speeches before the election, particularly the Delvin speech on Thursday night before election,

to the effect that while we were very close to agreement, we were complicated to get to agreement, there were still some very sticky matters to have to be worked out.

Correct, isn't it?

That is why it's critically important that you get hard on the point that while we want peace just as soon as we can get it, we want a peace that is honorable, a peace that will last.

Those two considerations, an honorable peace and a lasting peace, are the overriding considerations, as distinguished from any deadline.

or rush into a peace settlement, which is not adequately nailed down as details, and which could lead to another war in the future.

I think what you should do is to start off this statement with the fact that you want to give the President up-to-date report on the status of the negotiations without going into details.

I thought I would say, I will not go into details.

We have an agreement to move on.

You can then go on to say that incidental progress has been made in a number of the tables that we're going to, but we are indispensable for any line of action.

Since October 8th, we have had narrow differences in summary.

On the other hand, with reluctance and objectivity, you must report that there are other areas where there are still significant differences, but we have not reached them.

These differences are ones which could be described in one sense as being primarily technical,

But until these differences are resolved, the peace agreement would not meet the conditions which I, the President, laid down in my fellows' speeches for the election.

We will not be standing in agreement after this longest war of our history, which would give the occurrence of temporary peace, but which would, because of its defects, lay the foundation for a war later on.

We feel we have an obligation after all this time.

This is very interesting, and it's a good one.

You may take it.

I may also not.

to both North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the people who have suffered in the war for over 25 years, to make an agreement which has a chance to last.

And that is why we are insisting on getting these two ideas worked out so that there can be no misunderstandings.

We do not want to have a repetition of the situation in 1968 when there were misunderstandings, regardless of what happened.

And we've been paying the price for it ever since.

You are having this briefing for the purpose of laying out the differences in an objective way, not with any sense of recrimination, but for the purpose of letting both Hanoi and I know that the conditions are what the conditions are that we will insist upon before we find something.

It's very important that you emphasize.

I want to get it very simple so that we don't, and Henry can go through a few other details.

That is all.

But here are the points that I want.

If you emphasize the goals, the three goals we've been seeking from the beginning, which were laid out by the President in his speeches in January, Monday, and May, those goals in principle, in principle, were agreed upon, which they were on our authority.

Right?

Go ahead.

You didn't do any of this, but that was why.

you felt justified, this is all in, and say that peace was at hand, because we had agreed to principle on those goals, and we still believe that peace plan will retreat.

We have always insisted that there be a ceasefire.

While we have agreed on this goal, accurate machinery for policing a ceasefire is not going to greet you.

On the contrary, we've been greatly concerned that Hanoi has been made to nasty preparations, which can only be interpreted unfortunately as laid in foundation for starting up the war and to break the ceasefire.

That's why we are particularly insisting we strengthen the line of guard at the ceasefire, we call it the machinery, so that it will be one that will be enforced, so that there will be no doubt on either side that the amendment is broken.

The second goal is the return of our POWs.

We agreed in principle on this, but Hanoi has unfortunately recently insisted upon some conditions without going into them.

With regard to civilian prisoners in the South, which are totally unacceptable under the circumstances, we have to have this matter cleared up before we can be reassured that our POWs will be returned.

That's a little stretch, but you've got to make it clear that the POWs are on the line here too, Henry, and they're insisting on conditions that are unacceptable.

Third, we have insisted that the South Vietnamese people shall determine their own future and that a communist government shall not be imposed on the world.

And I have been insisting on conditions which would be inevitably interpreted at this time as imposing a communist government on the people of South Vietnam.

This we will never agree to.

Incidentally, I should point out, this is a new condition which they have not insisted on before, which is very true, right?

Yes.

I mean, they're doing it.

But the main thing you've got to say is that we've always said that there must be an autonomous government in COVID.

And now, Hanoi, the new language, the new language that our people need to be consistent about is language.

creates an impression, unfortunately, ambiguities, which could lead to the agreement that it was a government.

Well, what the sons of bitches have done, actually, is, in the agreement, they've given us what we want, and they've now put it all into the protocol.

All right.

Well, you could say that, but we must not have any doubt

left on that story, et cetera.

There'll be no, because there, what I'm getting at, the points that may essentially turn people to the P.O.W.

ceasefire, that it's a chance to last.

And no communist government imposed on the people of South Vietnam against their women.

Those are the three issues, the limits, just again.

It is very important that you come back with three fundamental conditions that we have laid down as often as possible in the agreement, at least three times.

So they will get the lead of the story.

You can say that as far as we're concerned, we are very close to an agreement.

And all it will take will be an exchange of messages, accepting clear understandings that we had a month ago.

On the other hand, and I have backed off some of those understandings, this we cannot accept.

You should lean hard on the fact that the president lost absolute chances regarding the U.S. with no unacceptable conditions attached there to it.

I simply say that.

That would be a hell of a leap.

Even though we know that's a little tricky.

No, no, we can get away with it.

You're just saying that we want a ceasefire which has a chance to be permanent rather than some temporary truce.

I really don't like to be permanent.

It has a chance to last.

I know, because I think, frankly, there's going to be the goddamnedest mess.

I know.

All right.

We want a ceasefire that has a chance to last rather than just some temporary truce.

You know, you can pick up the light, but not too much so people can understand what the words are.

That we want a political settlement that does not impose a communist government on the people of South Vietnam, yes it will, but allows the people under proper international supervision to determine the future with all political parties, including the communists, having an equal chance to present their case to the people.

I think that at some point you should get it very clearly.

The President has had a strong gut desire to get the war settled from the day he entered office four years ago.

There were strong political considerations for him to get it before the election.

Now we have the upcoming Christmas season.

He has a very strong personal desire to get the war settled because of the very special circumstances with regard to the U.S. as well as to all the people of North and South Vietnam who have suffered so long to result in this war.

On the other hand, the President insists that the United States of America

not going to allow any artificial deadline to stand in the way of the wrong kind of agreement, which would bring great elation and joy now, and I'm certain this Christmas season, now that peace is here, when actually it would only mean that we would have agreed to, what we would agree to was a temporary truce, which was a trade without a war.

You should also point out, the President insists that the United States is not going to be pushed around, that's your phrase.

Black men are stampeding to making the wrong kind of a peace agreement.

Those are great words, I'll tell you about that.

We owe responsibility to those who have fought and died for it.

It's the people of North and South of the town.

Huh?

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

You're not going to be pushed around by black men

Charmed, uh, you know, uh, you know, whatever they do.

We have a responsibility to support that.

I don't know if you've ever had a music story.

It would be charming how some of our new majority talks.

Fitzsimmons, uh, your friend Gibbons, you know, who went over to Vietnam and the rest of the...

He saw the story in the paper.

He threw him out as, uh, international vice president.

No.

Fitzsimmons fired him.

Very well.

Said he wasn't up to the job.

Got it.

He said he wasn't.

That's what he said publicly.

I read everywhere that all my friends are getting purged.

Well, he came to the line, and Fitz came to the line.

So literally, he's on our side.

I don't think you read where it is currently.

I think he's an old caller.

And I said, Fitz, I said, what the hell is this story about what you did to my friend, who missed all those golf shots out of San Bernardino?

His wife was standing right by him, and he didn't seem to care in the most.

There was a whisper he got out of my ear, and I, he said, you know what I told you in San Juan, I didn't ask you a question.

I said, these two go along with us, and I didn't, and I thought, and then I thought, I said, fine.

He didn't go along with it.

He didn't go along.

I didn't know that the president...

But then with a completely straight face, he goes out and says, it had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't support President Nixon.

It was just that he wasn't up to the job.

I didn't know the president had that much power.

Oh, yes, the president says the United States...

We owe responsibility to those who fought to die in the Civil War.

We owe responsibility to those who fought to have a chance to live in the right hand of the people and the people around the world who look to us for leadership, to stand for the right principle and bring its word.

The President has committed to standing in front of those countries.

That's stuff that you could really charge him with.

In fairness, you should say that South Vietnam, as well as North Vietnam, has shares of their responsibility for the fact that we have not reached an agreement as soon as we all would have liked.

A peace agreement is only as good as the will of the parties to keep it, and only as good as the will of the parties to implement it vigorously and effectively.

Neither South Vietnam nor Vietnam can expect an agreement which will humiliate the other, or which will give one an advantage over the other, or which will enable one nation or the other to start up the war again.

Keep working on that.

Both the North and South must recognize they have an obligation to change their conflict from the battlefield to the ballot box, and that both the South Vietnamese and the Communists in South Vietnam as well as the North must be preserved.

It's to present their cases to the people, to accept the verdict of the people as to what kind of government the people have.

You should, of course, find out that a ceasefire does not, by definition, impose a coalition, particularly in view of the political office that we've agreed to.

As for the prospects for the future, we are going to continue to press, this is not what I think is the best one, for a sudden, but we are big.

But because after this very long war, we will not settle for a very short peace.

We will continue to negotiate whenever the other side is willing to negotiate seriously these remaining points, which is very, very technical.

but might be goodwill to both sides.

The crew would be failed to break the agreement down that we do not work this out in the future.

We have, of course, been continuing our military air, this is a issue of operations and other mining operations in the Manning Island region.

We have a volunteer armed force in Vietnam to be kept there for all of our various war returns.

As far as military activity is concerned, on that part, we are close to Washington.

The other side, and as an anonymous building made of oil, we will be repaired to act accordingly.

You should point out on the plus side, as far as the war is concerned, as we enter this Christmas season, we can all be thankful I could get this in.

No draft teams are going to Vietnam on the volunteers.

Our captains have been at either zero or near zero for the past three years.

No Americans are engaged in ground combat.

And for the first time since the war began, both sides are negotiating seriously and trying to find a peaceful subject.

You can say you're talking to the President, and he is confident we will reach him.

However, he is also insistent that it be the right kind of agreement, that we will not rush to an agreement, that it is the wrong kind of agreement because of his desire to accept the process.

Finally, repeat the fact that we will not induce the President to sponsor the European Union here.

And he is insistent, he is insistent.

And make me the tough guy to repeat the fact that we will not accept any agreement

which imposes unacceptable conditions in amending the release of Erdogan.

Second, we will not agree to the 10 provisions which would have the effect of imposing a communist government on the people of Saudi Arabia.

Third, we will not sign any agreement which would have the guise of bringing peace now would leave the siege for war later.

Now, basically, that's what I did.

The only question is whether we should do it today, Sunday, or tomorrow, and Monday.

Well, that's what we want wrong, sir.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

If he does it today, he's flying right in the face of Lee Doctoe's statement, which is already right in the wire, that we aren't going to comment on the piece name.

So Henry Kissinger goes out, no matter, even in that tone, which the tone's pretty conciliatory.

Oh yeah, the tone is fine.

But it still says they have fucked it up.

And they'll get hitched while he's in the basement.

And also, without the bomb being in, my view is that it doesn't make that much difference.

Why not go Saturday?

Well, my point is that we can get to the point where it doesn't.

We're not pressured to go today.

I think what would be a good line today is this, which is quite true.

Is that a word?

I think that's a good idea that we met.

We probably didn't know, but we met last night.

Also, I should point out that Dr. Kissinger has met with the chairman of the Chinese staff, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the director of the CIA, and he said this last day.

How's that sound to you?

Good.

I haven't made an account yet, but I will.

Well, sure.

Well, just give me all the time.

If you can find it, if I find out that the president, that we have met, that we have given greetings to all of them, the president, Dr. Cichor, that we're meeting again this morning, set it up so that tomorrow he goes.

But without that, it'll be a smaller group tomorrow.

A smaller group.

It'll get the right life.

We can write the story for the assholes.

and then it'll get everything and uh and then when the bombing starts of course we can i don't like to feel from another standpoint about going after just starting the bombing on monday morning on sunday that's i was wondering about that you're having a white house worship service for christmas time and all that it just isn't the real best days

I'd rather delay the bomb on Sunday.

Of course, we can also have Mikko tomorrow and still bomb on Sunday.

There doesn't have to be 48 hours for this.

I'd rather bomb on Monday unless you think we need to do it on Sunday.

No, we need to give them a good job, but whether that's Sunday or Monday, it doesn't make any difference.

But you can mine on Sunday, bomb Monday.

No, we can mine on Sunday.

But I think what Ron's saying is that from a purely press or PR or political or public standpoint in this country, it really doesn't make much difference whether you do it today or tomorrow.

From a substantive standpoint, militarily, diplomatically, and all that, it would appear to make quite a substantial difference.

Therefore, that should prevail.

But they're lacking in the fight.

It's going to get one enormous.

It's going to be a hell of a story, but it's the main thing, too.

We need this chance to blend more and get in tune with it.

A lot of this is chemistry.

Absolutely.

A lot of this is chemistry.

Henry's going to walk out there confident.

And it's been a, uh, Henry said a very interesting thing.

He probably forgot what he said.

He said he felt better when he started to use it.

You know why you feel better?

Because we're getting in control of the virus again.

Rather than getting these bats to push us around, they've been pushing us.

You know where we are.

Well, and I'm not sitting like a rabbit watching these two snakes in Saigon and Hanoi and wondering which of the bats is going to strike first.

Now, Mr. President, Mr. Bell, I would ship Hague off any time.

Sunday night.

Whenever you want to get Hague off, don't let that go.

Well, Hague goes Sunday night anyway.

And we can announce that tomorrow, too.

You can do that.

I have a feeling.

Or announce it Sunday morning.

It gives us another third.

Yeah.

Do it Sunday morning.

Because my, my thing.

And the briefing should be followed by an announcement by a hand going to Saigon on Sunday morning.

That shows that we're working the peace side.

Then the next one we bomb the bathroom shows we're working the war side.

I think this tone is perfect because you know you've been out before these guys and I.

You'll walk out there and they're going to be primed.

And if you present yourself as this tone indicates

Well, Harry, this is my bold agreement.

Right, that's what I mean.

As you outline here, in terms of my impression, this is confident, this is what we're going to do, this is where we stand.

I didn't want to give you enough of the data.

I wouldn't be taking on lead octo within an hour of this being on the wire.

I'm not going to be taking them on here.

You could say these are technical differences, and I'm not going to discuss them.

I'm simply going to say there are differences that involve the ceasefire.

Well, I've got to make it tough enough

We've got to hit a line.

I understand.

You've made it tough.

I was just trying to not be the conciliatory one because I'm the one that wants to say screw you.

I've got to make it tough enough to justify what's going to happen on Monday, which is going to be spectacular.

Henry, if you say technical difference, if I can just be my view on it, they will sense that as an opening.

They will sense it.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

You know, if there's another way you can put that, just by saying there are differences that remain.

No, I can do it in terms.

I can do it.

I can do it in terms actually of the conditions.

we laid out in october 26 and said they were all easy to fulfill and one way or another every time we turn over a rock uh i don't want to use that similarly don't don't don't get any of that in so that it looks like you're arguing with lee doctor and remember you're mainly talking to the american

What we'll talk to the South Vietnamese or the North Vietnamese audience will be those goddamn bombs.

But this American audience, you want up here, we're trying.

There is hope in this Christmas season.

We're doing our best.

There are these little differences that we're working on.

That's very important.

The less specific you are, the better, sir.

So I don't want to be specific, because if I am, I'll wind up negotiating with Bernie Grutzman.

That's exactly right.

You won't have to worry about him.

I'll just list the categories.

And you can say that the president and I agree.

Under no circumstances are we going to, we have an understanding with regard to the specifics of the details.

We will not divulge the negotiations.

And we're keeping an understanding.

All I'm trying to do, gentlemen, is to give you an objective appraisal of where we stand.

And there are differences.

Well, the nature of the differences are, the nature of the differences is that they are not on principle.

I say that.

Some are on principle.

We all go there on principle.

those assholes, you see, the three principles, Henry, the reason your piece in here stands up is that they had agreed that people got to cease fire.

But wouldn't it be best to say they're trying to slide off these principles?

in the guise of technicalities.

And therefore, it would be very easy if it can be settled in- I would say this.

The moment you do that, then you are then taking them on in terms of their motives and so forth.

Rather than their tendency to slide off in the guise of technicalities.

It's a better language and so forth.

That'll start leading.

But then we want led areas.

We're fighting for our POWs.

We're fighting for ceasefire in San Diego.

the right of people's object on that non-conversation i would say bring the slide on i said we have agreed that these the president i want to make it clear that the reason we said on october after october 8th or whatever it was that pieces in hand is that there was fundamental agreement that they would accept the three

the three major principles that we have introduced from January 25th through May 8th, which are field, WSC, SPIRE, and political settlement.

Now, there are differences.

The differences, some would say, were technicalities.

But on the other hand, we interpret those differences as being so fundamental that they compromise the principles.

That's what I would say.

Let it be that.

But we say they are so fundamental that they would destroy the principle, that they would jeopardize.

We cannot jeopardize the right of our POWs to get home.

We cannot jeopardize the cease

We cannot jeopardize the principle of a coalition government.

See, what I'm getting at is, again, your tone.

I don't want you to be up there.

I know these assholes out here.

They're going to... You see, you're a public figure of the greatest magnitude now, and they're going to try, rather than to write the things that are really sound from our standpoint, to peel it up and cease fire.

No communist coalition.

They're going to, right?

Henry Fitch and Kissinger attempting to rationalize and justify statements that were made before the campaign said that they were sliding off and so forth.

Hanoi then comes back and says, Kissinger is lying.

It is not we that have slid off.

It is they that have slid off.

And to a certain extent.

Henry Goodman.

I'm not driving.

No, no, no, no.

They're all disregarding that goddamn sidewalk.

That's what I mean.

That's what we're going to bomb the bastards.

The sons of bitches could have settled any day.

You know what I know?

We all know what is right, but we know what we need to say.

We have got to say this.

Don't put it in the context that it looks as if you were good with it.

that we were misleading the people, or any of that.

We said we'd stay if we could ever do it.

But now, in the case, say it in the guise if it feels comfortable with you.

I would feel a little better if you were to say that now,

They're insisting on certain technical conditions, and so forth and so on, which many would say were purely technical.

But when you analyze them, they completely destroy the principle and would lead to a communist coalition government.

They would lead to a ceasefire that could not be enforced.

They would lead to a real chaperone that's getting their prisoners of war back.

Yeah, and we can say that much .

using into the protocol applications which we had rejected

before, in order to get these three principles.

So then it isn't we who are holding things up.

If we can show that they have introduced into the protocols new conditions.

I have no problem when you're getting into the protocols, or that'll confuse the press a little, and they'll think you know more than they do about it.

Just be sure that you don't talk too much about that, for fear that the press will not make the points that the American audience is interested in.

The American audience, I don't know, have known very little about the protocol, and hold the same.

I don't know what Peter is.

He answered that last week, and I said, did you hear what Moynihan said when .

He said, yeah.

He really did.

He said, I got it on the phone.

I said, now, when you were there with me, weren't you, when I called in?

I would say when you called in once, yeah.

I said, the problem here is that everybody that goes to India, starting with Chester Poles, which was your former colleague, and my beloved, they go there and they become more afraid of Indians.

They are American.

And they all end up testing Mrs. Gandhi's ass.

And I said,

If you have that kind of an attitude, I said, you're to be our representative.

You're to report not to the State Department.

You're going to report directly to Henry Kissinger.

And I have another conversation with him where I want to be sure that he knew the line of command.

And I've done this with all these exiles.

He put his scalp in and he loved it.

I said, now look here.

I said, the main thing is I don't want you to go over there and after a while start wearing sandals.

He said, sir.

He said, I understand completely.

He said, I think India is the greatest challenge in the world.

It's the biggest migration order.

There's more poor people here than there is also in the world.

I like to work with poor people.

It's an enormous challenge and all the rest.

But I had to realize that the Indians are deep, and sly, and bunch of bastards.

But he said, no, sir.

When you talk about my disease, Mrs. Connolly's honest, just like he says, you can be sure that you have no problem with that.

Because frankly, if I lived without her shirt, I don't know what I would find.

That's great, that's great.

He told me that again.

That will be terrific because he's so contentious.

The reason I thought of him was because he told me, he came in to see me for a few minutes, he was down for something, I forget what it was.

And he said he's sick and tired of the fact that no American ever talks back to that crap that's put out all over, well, he didn't say it here, he meant the UN.

And he gave a really good speech at the UN a year and a half ago.

Now he will hear more crap in India that will get us in.

I mean, he'll just automatically... That is a question of manners.

That is not true.

She'll say it matters.

Do you realize you're ruining this fucking country?

What I get a kick out of with Moynihan and he, if he really came in to see me, is to talk me into going back to Harvard.

Really?

Yeah, right here.

All you want to touch is Twitch.

He runs it out of Harvard.

It's really funny because, boy, he jumped at that idea thing.

He was so, he's all excited about it.

His wife is all excited.

He said, my wife, my wife wouldn't consider living in New York.

You know, my wife wouldn't live in New York.

She wouldn't live in that despicable place.

That's if she will live in New Delhi.

He said, yes, sir.

The main thing is he's on track with us.

And he'll get so fed up with the idea.

He got fed up with the blacks, you know, and he wrote the book about the black pastor.

He's in another town.

We need somebody for Pakistan very soon.

Listen, are you going to put Farland, you still think Farland is best for the Mideast, and him for Latin America?

Him would be good for Latin America.

We've got to fight for Africa.

I want to lose him out of there.

I love my life as a person.

Or anyone leaving?

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Hill couldn't do Africa.

Because we need a really tough, mean bastard for us.

Hill is tough.

Oh, Hill is tough and mean.

What?

Hill.

Oh, he'll do anything we say.

He'd go out and cut the calls.

Hill couldn't.

For example, there's a rather good...

There's something that he said not to send Hill back.

You know, he liked America.

There's a guy...

He's been to Spain.

The minister at the embassy in...

In Paris, a fellow veteran, Kubitsch,

He could do Latin America.

He sure could.

He's a hell of a guy.

He's smooth.

He was in Mexico.

He'd be totally our guy.

And we need to pick a...

I'd like to pick up a guy like that.

Kubitsch is a guy, and he's a... You know him.

Yeah, I think he's a hell of a guy.

And if we pick... And why not put Hill in Africa?

And if we had Hill in Africa, there'd be no...

There'd be no...

Exactly.

And he will not be...

He would kill the State Department.

I mean, that was really first and foremost.

And Hill would be totally our guy.

I'm satisfied.

The India Pakistan thing, he was spectacular.

Now, a guy I really think would be best for East Asia is the man we have in law, Scott Lee.

rather than CISCO.

I'd give CISCO an embassy someplace like Turkey.

How about CISCO to Pakistan?

That's a good one.

CISCO to Pakistan.

That's a good move.

CISCO to Pakistan.

Tell him it's Turkey.

Send him the list and post.

We need somebody there.

Pro-Indian?

Oh, no.

Cisco, the thing we have to do with Cisco is get him in before he goes and say, you have your eye on him.

I do.

And he'll get a high post.

They need to get out of the country for a while.

They all live in the embassy somewhere.

Yeah, well, Cisco isn't quite a foreign service officer, but that would get him out elegantly.

And he's energetic.

He'd be a good spokesman for Pakistan.

All these ambassadors turn into spokesmen for their country.

Are you agreeing?

Goddamn, he's 60 years old, isn't he?

Retired or something.

We were going to move Cisco in his Marshall Green account.

Yep.

Godly is more energetic.

Well, that's East Asia.

Godly is nervous.

And he's totally loyal to me.

Absolutely.

And a total hardliner.

And he's an absolute hardliner.

He's been fighting.

Then we could move White House from Saigon to Laos.

That's it.

Yeah.

Who do you put in sight?

Graham.

You've got to call him.

Well, Hal tells me that he talked to Graham, and Graham is delighted that all Graham wants is to be sure he's working for us, and that we... Roger's talking to me that Mark didn't want to talk to me.

There's something I told you, remember, I told you that I'm always...

After Bart talked to me yesterday, I said to Al, send a back-channel to Gray.

Said I want to see him and explain it.

He said that's unnecessary.

If Graham is dying to get the job, the only thing he wants is to make sure he's working for the State Department there, but for you... Well, he probably was playing a smart move, just telling us he didn't want to use, you know...

Right, right.

If he knows he's your man there, and that he has direct access to you... That's why we want him there.

Well, all right, you go tomorrow.

Okay, I think under those conditions I go tomorrow.

Now, we still can do the military operations on Sunday.

No, I'd rather not.

I have other reasons for not wanting to do it on Sunday, because I don't want to blast them on Sunday when I'm having a church service there.

I'd rather do them Monday.

Tell the military everything is on Monday except the mining.

No, the mining, then we should slip till Sunday, so that's, because there'll be bloody murder when these planes come up the high-farm estuary.

Would you prefer not to do the mining on Monday, too?

No, no, the mining should be a day before.

All right, fine.

Because we need the planes.

That's okay.

But the day, the mining anyway won't be, they won't be able to do it.

Now, Henry, it'll give you a chance to do some thinking.

So far, you've got any good lines and so forth?

Well, I've got the good lines here, but I'll do a bit of an outline now.

Henry, when you left Paris, the statement you made at the airport about you staying in touch with messages, that came over very effectively on film because you projected an image of confidence in the people.

That was a very positive thing.

You may want to take a look at that.

The main thing is, Henry, I was just thinking, interesting thing.

Here we go.

Everybody worries how it will look inaugurated.

And sure, I have to rewrite the speech.

I'm afraid Rice is going to die.

I've got that nice little selfie speech on the piece that I've got.

It's now flush.

I'm sure they ever made it.

They may cry again.

That's something they don't get.

I don't think they will.

But if they do, fine.

But my point is, let me come to you.

So we looked good, and everybody said, gee, he starts the new administration, accomplishing everything that he did.

He said four years ago, we ended the war.

We're going to say we're going to end the war.

He doesn't want January 1st.

I'm going to say the administration is concluded, and all we're doing now, we're going to continue bombing and mining until we get a group that's going to manage it.

That's all.

The war is over.

All right.

Second point.

The most important.

What is wrong?

How do we look 60 days from now?

Three days?

Or six days?

But more important, four years.

Four years from now.

God damn it.

Get it back.

There's all this suffering and dying and bleeding and so forth.

This place is going up again.

And the Russians aspire.

respect for us and for our friends in Europe who we haven't.

It doesn't make any difference.

In the first four years, we had these great openings.

Because you and I know that the road with peace is a very rocky road.

And you and I know that the only thing that's going to keep it is a strong United States and, frankly, a strong President who at times appears to do very rash things.

And they've got to think that I am

on the bench in the swerve.

And let the assholes in this press write it that way.

I don't care what they write.

I don't care what time says.

And why.

Thank God it's done.

Finished.

Out of business.

CBS may go on.

I keep that strike going on.

I'm going to send up another $300,000, $400,000, $300,000, $300,000.

How much is it?

You've been in it already.

Send up another $200,000 or $300,000 to keep it going on that strike.

That's why you...

got to Peking and Moscow, and by the government taking the same trips over Hungary, would have been a total disaster.

It's because you are not soft.

I think it will buy you tremendous equity in both Moscow and Peking.

Painful as it is now, the most painful thing would be to make a settlement that comes totally apart in six months.

That would kill us.

That would really kill us.

The only good thing about making a settlement now, there is one good thing.

It's a very personal, emotional thing.

We get the POWs.

That's the only good thing.

We aren't going to get them.

But on the other hand, on the other hand, God damn it, we can't fight the war for our POWs.

We'll get them eventually.

We'll take some heat.

Every little white guy out there is going to make fun of you.

The thing of it, see, that in-room comments, they're going to take one quick run at you on the pieces at hand.

I had an awesome teddy bear yesterday, which was an interesting one.

You're talking about 10 years, three months, pieces at hand.

You see, that's the way Teddy's story looks like.

If you don't make one, you don't make one.

I don't get it.

It's not war.

It's not that.

It was.

That's the point.

It isn't that.

Somebody else puts it in the goddamn bush.

On Wednesday, when I had parents, the reason I feel good now, Mr. President, as I told you this is, we were sitting there absolutely paralyzed.

In the morning, I was getting shit from Toad.

In the evening, I was getting shit from the South Vietnamese.

I had no freedom of movement.

I had to sort of wait to see Toad would make a concession in the morning, make another condition in the afternoon.

With this, we were going up and down, up and down.

You're on a roller coaster.

We were on a roller coaster with him.

The other guys were just sneering at us.

This way, we get Haig out there to slap you around.

Let her in very soon, because I decided I may rather get in with him.

Even better.

And it's going to be one page, about 50 words, and it's going to be the roughest, coolest letter he's ever done.

But we sent a scorcher to him yesterday from USA that if he knocks the props out from under us with a ceasefire, then we will have no choice but to separate totally from him.

So he's already pulled back from that.

It's only 24 hours now.

All right.

We're going to link to ABC tonight.

Maybe we can still do that in a message tomorrow.

It's all right.

It's a good story.

It's amazing.

ABC gets the main ride on it still.

So it does get possible.

If you do it now, it's too late for the star now anyway.

Yeah, but I mean if we'd announce it soon.

What the hell?

We won't announce it.

We'll never get it to the star now.

What about giving it to the star and giving it to ABC and then announcing it tomorrow?

We have a small announcement this morning because I'd just love to leave it there.

Yeah, you've got to leave it there.

And just get it to the star now and let them leave it.

Yeah, I'm just going to put it in there.

Go right back.

Let me tell you this idea.

As you can imagine, I have a lot of rooms.

That's better.

It's not exactly what...

you were doing and what the result had been, which you're still trying to lie, trying to get him, and he was on, he was on this kick, you know, you could hear some of this, you know, he was putting in a purple language to the effect that they had tricked us, they were deceitful, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so I wrote this goddamn humor in the middle of the night.

That's not the right way to end it.

You don't want an appearance of a problem, do you?

You want an appearance that you're just blotting along.

hit a stumbling block and then the chip plodded off.

But you could hear that memorandum.

You could hear it.

And also, you know, so I came back to the three major ones.

And again, notice how he came back.

Well, it was in the protocol.

I said, what the hell?

What the hell?

It was in the protocol.

But for Christ's sake, make it three points.

I have done this wrong.

I didn't have any copies made of this memorandum.

Ron should take it.

And Ron can think of some better lines.

But the best line I've said,

I think you agree with the one.

We don't want to end the long war with a short peace.

That's the kind of thing that God damn it, Christ and our assholes never come up with.

Or do you tell me when they come up with it?

Do they ever come up with a line like that?

Very often.

I'm not being critical.

They mean to, but they don't know how.

We don't want to end the long war with a short peace.

Henry's breathing would have today been a disaster.

But it wouldn't have been if you read this memorandum.

But you see, it takes time.

It's a good thing to let it go until tomorrow.

Let him breathe over that memorandum.

Word reworking.

I have no pride of authorship.

That's the kind of thing that I need, has to get more into the

stuff we ran around here we don't want to end the long or with a short piece uh it's not a sapphire isn't it no that's right it's quite different from sapphires sapphire would have had more issue in this sense or maybe i might wrong he would have a different kind of more clever twist he would have added some alliteration in it too or something no that's absolutely right that that's the way to put it

What I want to do is to get the Scali story out.

Bust it.

Get it at the Star.

God damn it, screw the Post right now.

And get the ABC, let them run it tonight.

Confirm for them.

Only to them.

And let Scali worry about Golden's arrest.

He's gonna, he's doing that anyway, so we're okay.

He's meeting with Bush today too.

He wants to go over and see that department.

You know, he maybe, I was not kidding, he must go to Mass.

I want him at that Mass every Sunday.

He needs to go over to that Mass.

Tell him it would be good to have a representative of the UN singing in St. Patrick's as often as possible.

And I'm on very close contact with Cardinal Cook.

He should go call the cardinal because he's telling the cardinal who's traveling, watching the world.

And the president wanted him to know.

Exactly.

And instead of him, did you stop and think of something else?

He's not only the first Italian that's been passed into the flag.

The first Italian.

I don't know, but I think so.

And somebody, of course, should have checked it out, but I suppose hasn't.

But they ought to, shouldn't they?

That's the little point to make to get around.

We can check these things in five minutes.

We had a Catholic in the UN.

The first little guy was from someplace up in Vermont.

He was not a Catholic.

God's law was not a Catholic.

So why is there a Catholic?

Huh?

Why is there an old rational?

It's a loss.

And you see, the others, we all was the gals.

I don't want to be in that now.

I love it.

Really?

Can I use a phone back here?

I said, now, Jack, you need to keep in mind that team will be able to do this faster.

You say what's on the ground.

than the China, the Soviet Union, and many countries throughout the world.

When the first amount of states in the world .

The other thing is that, you know, he's not only the first attack .

He's the first Catholic to be ambassador to the United Nations.

And there's more Catholics than there is Protestants in this great, big, beautiful world we live in.

And more atheists than either.

Now, with the other thing we can do, Horner's cover, the Star's cover, the other thing we can do now is give this to ABC, not only for the night's news, but have them break in about, oh, 40 minutes on radio.

Good.

That'll give it to the Post, well, the Post will get it anyway.

Post will get it off at the night anyway.

Post is going to have it in the morning paper anyway.

The Star's got it.

Why does ABC do anything by breaking it down?

So they don't pick up the Star.

I don't want to let ABC go.

Let them pick up the star, don't you think so?

I don't care.

You know what you're doing, so you care about it.

See, yeah.

Well, but I mean, you get a TV anyway, but you give ABC a big story going on.

Giving it to ABC doesn't help the post.

The star will be the first paper to have it.

And it does help ABC.

We want to cultivate it.

We want to get, you know, work with the others.

They'll do more on it.

They've got Scali's bio and all that stuff.

That's right.

They had a twist.

The idea is they say, I don't know, gentlemen, but Scali says he's the first Italian ever to be federal American, ever to be in this post.

Be sure that as soon as you get in the fight, he will be in the cabinet.

And he's got full cabinet status, not exceptional cabinet status.

The president believes.

Full cabinet status.

And a twist you could work on is, which will help in the general reaction thing, is an agency are the ones that ought to go with it.

is this recognition of the prestige of a newsman.

In other words, that a newsman who has covered all these posts is just as competent to deal with those things as has got then also the private emails that any U.N.

is one of the great news centers in the world.

We need somebody who understands.

We feel that he understands our policy.

He understands the media thing.

And we want better communication at the UN.

It's kind of a nice reverse twist on the of American policy and American positions.

And one who, of course, can advise the president

I think Austin was the first one, and I'm sure he was not a Catholic.

And Lodge was not a Catholic, of course.

After that, you had a few, you know, some kind of wadsworth in there.

That asshole we sent up there, robs your recommendations.

Yes, I wonder.

Oh, sure, he could have been.

Charlie, he could have been.

He could have been.

Well, don't run the capital thing unless he wasn't.

But the fact that he was Italian is the best.

Whether it was harnessed, pleased, or pleased because it's true.

Well, yeah, but he was kind of

his son, and he was right on deadline, and I said, now get on out there and find a phone, Jack.

You got this, of course.

It's just, you've got to flow automatically.

He's a good guy, though.

Well, of course.

And it screws the Post again.

He knows what we're doing.

We're getting around, but we're trying to get it to the Post.

The Newsweek is doing a special story on Jack Warner.

Are they?

They called me and asked me when Newsweek said,

Are you really doing that?

I said, listen, the Washington Post is the Washington Post.

It's one of many newspapers in this country.

I'm not going to discuss the relationship that we have with one media, with another media, just like Bill Cook with the Newsweek.

I wouldn't talk to the Post about our relationship with the April.

Whatever that may be.

Because Horner got that.

Oh, he said, why did Horner get the interview?

Because he asked.

He said, he's been covering you for a long time in the White House.

And he's a fine reporter.

Washington Star is a fine newspaper.

We have requests all the time.

Bill, sometimes we grant them, sometimes we don't.

He said, well, I guess we've bounced around on this long enough.

I said, yeah, we probably should.

Bill Cook from Newsweek keeps doing this.

He said, well, hasn't the president given any interviews like this before?

I said, the hell he hasn't.

Over the last four years, he's given many.

I don't remember the ones I gave.

And I said, I referred to that.

I said, as a matter of fact, you know, the magazines and then you see the president on the NMU.

Sure, this is not the first one.

It's one of many.

But this is one we've got at this time.

I said, why don't you send a request in and Dylan will consider it.

Won't guarantee what we'll do.

So he got the message.

Got the word.

Teddy White said yesterday that Post was a little bit worried about us.

He had a

The night before, I had a conversation with Graham.

I think we're gearing up to battle.

I said, no one's walking around the White House worrying about the Washington Post.

I said, we've got, quite frankly, just enough to think about, enough to do without talking about any either reconciliation or non-reconciliation with the Post.

The Post is the Post.

I said, we're not concerned about it.

He said, well, what if Catherine Graham or someone came to have lunch?

I said, let's have lunch.

No, you know, he was saying, what if they made, I said, Ted, well, the fact of the matter is, our position really in relation to the Post is one of complacency.

We don't have time to fool around with this type of thing.

They report the news, and I'm sure they don't want to take their time to fool around.

Why don't you put it this way?

We realize they're against us, but we're not against them.

That's the point I'm making.

That's the line.

They're against us.

We're perfectly relaxed about it, but we're not against them.

As Teddy said, he said, well, you know, as you move into the second term, it's important to get the best coverage.

I said, there are an awful lot of newspapers in this country, and we're not going to get them anyway.

I said, for four years, we've been through four years.

We're not going to get them anyway.

I said, why should we waste our time?

I said, we are not sitting around in peace.

It's kind of a piece of art.

Put it to Teddy.

It's so totally zeroed in on New York.

And it just killed.

Just make the point that the kind of media we're concerned about are the ones that reach people.

Like the New York Daily News.

And we get that.

We get that.

And it was the largest New York time.

Then we carried New York over many of the roads now.

We want to keep going.

And the Daily News is getting more and more coverage.

We are.

Anyway, let's get into it.

OK.

I'll cover Bill and George Bush, please.

I'll cover both of them and just confirm the announcement.

I mean, you've got Mr. Ziegler, the copy of the thing.

In his case, you'll have to pick up the big words, you know.

I've tried this before.

We've done it with Scali, we've done it with others, and Henry always drops the ball.

Now this time, he must not drop the ball.

You can see the difference.

Sure.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Wasn't there a difference in tone with what he's saying?

I was saying there wasn't.

Sure there is.

He's trying to justify it.

He sees it through a whole different set of lenses than you do.

They misled us and they slid off.

That's what I'm saying.

You don't need to say that.

That's the way I handle a press conference.

I do it in a more subtle way.

And Henry's always thinking of himself being a battle.

But we've got to smooth up.

He's up now.

He's gone again.

No peace.

Give me those four memoranda.

I didn't get time to count the words.

I want you to count the number of words

Theodore Roosevelt's, well basically it was not his second inaugural.

It was inaugural for his term when he was first elected in his own right.

You may recall that he became president after McKenna was shot.

He was president for four years, almost four years, and then was re-elected president.

So this would be the inaugural that he delivered in about 1905.

I want to know how many words was in that inaugural.

Second one, I want to know how many words were in FDR's inaugural of 1936.

That was his second inaugural, his first inaugural.

Actually, it's 37, obviously.

The other one, I want to know how many words were in it.

I decided that what I had to do

But I'm going to have to go out and get a hold of this government, including Amarillo, Erwin, Whitaker, Lannigan, and all the rest.

And I've got the rights and the rights.

the results and the rest, you just want to lose.

You just kind of go through the agony of sitting through a long session, you know, and farting around, and he isn't going to ever even get to fight you for public relations that way.

But I think that when I can, and it takes an enormous energy, far more important than my sitting down and preparing for a fucking press conference,

where I have to be shading and botching and so forth, is to do what I did last night, that is work about half the night, getting up a little memorandum for Henry Kissinger as to the points to make.

Now, would you agree or disagree?

Or do you think, well, you ought to go to the press conference and I'm saying it to the world.

Oh, well, that's right, too.

Well, you're saying some words.

You're also, you, in some ways, you lock it tighter by saying in the press conference that you've been right in the middle of those people.

The only problem is that these people are going to be out a day after day.

That's right.

I'm going to do the press conference about once a month.

I know I have to do the press conference.

The press conference is a terrible lot of work, and I've got to do it, and I've got to do it on a hell of a lot of subjects.

So I have to do the press conference, too.

But my point is I need my time cleared away so that I can give these people some guidance other than sitting around and bullying them.

so that they come up and do it their own way rather than my way.

What do you think?

I have a feeling that the government's out of control.

I just feel as much as we've done, we've got nice, capable, honest, loyal people doing the best they can, which they don't know what the hell to say.

I should have done more of this on the third line.

It was, of course, a wonderful guy who knew anything for us.

You see, we even tried that before.

I had to go see him.

Be sure that Henry gets a hell of a hard treatment before he moves out for free.

Now, I know that maybe it's been tried.

They tell me that Scali is putting through, Sigler is putting through, and so forth.

But, as you know, most of them have ended up as walking disasters in terms of getting our funds across.

Am I being unfair?

Many of them have, I should say, not mostly.

It really happens, as far as getting our points across, in a way we want to make us, and in making us.

That's my whole point.

I see my point.

Figure of confession, great performance.

That's what I'm trying to do.

That's what they always talk about.

Of course, but what came out, what got across.

I've never heard Klein described as great.

I have always heard him described as effective.

That's the point.

It's effectiveness.

Effectiveness.

On that, incidentally, Ehrlichman really does pretty well.

He did just a much better job of being effective rather than brilliant.

And that's why he's denigrated, in a sense.

And they say you don't have in domestic stuff a guy with the intellectual capacity that you have in the foreign world.

Well, I know.

When I met Ehrlichman, I knew he's got a problem with the internet.

I mean, whatever all of these adequate jobs have gotten at, neither one of them has been seen in the pizzazz, you know, earlier.

Earlier, when it was a hell of a combative, able man.

I know we've been around the track, and it's both these people that I have the greatest affection for.

I know they're tremendously loyal and tremendously all through, but the planning of the thing particularly troubles me.

Flanagan gets us into trouble, and he's got to continue to, Bob.

He will continue to.

And we've just got to do something about it to break that goddamn thing off.

What we can do, I don't know.

We should take the administration.

We will, honey.

The EDC.

Good night.

Or you can get David to NASA if you're working on that or anything.

I wouldn't screw him up doing that.

He was Schultz.

He has no point.

He has a reason to make that point.

But anyway.

He did on the ABC because it gets into all the science and energy business.

All right.

Who does NASA?

Don't you?

No, John.

But we can... You can ask that one today.

John.

I've got a whole and seeing Stan's and getting him squared away, and then you'll see him on Monday.

And Finch is here, and he's trying to do his terminal discussions.

So, my buddy's already about out of the house.

Oh yeah, he has, but he's just, you know, Finch just heard about Sarah Burnham.

He does a fair little tour, so we're gonna quit.

And he's got another one now.

I didn't even know he was here.

So I'm going to see Bob.

Oh, Rudy.

And talk to him.

I don't know him, so I want to talk to him.

Colson comes down now, proving that he is the guy that succeeded in detecting these done around.

confirms it.

Harlow very strongly agrees.

He says it's, but that's not a stroke of complete genius to get him in here.

And I kind of look at, Colson said, Colson's worried, he says he's worried about it as far as me and you, because he says you probably aren't going to like the guy because he's swore the complexion and all that.

And I said, Chuck, as far as I'm concerned, that's a plus as long as the guy, because I think for what we're trying to do there, if we get a guy that's not a wasp, you know, crew cut, then we're better off.

And if the guy has got the ability, he thinks it's going to bother us that he doesn't look mean and all that.

And I said, please, Chuck, I thought you were misjudging the whole thing.

Tell me about the staff.

That's what he really, I think he probably is.

Do you know anything about the staff?

The staff is basically crew cut, boss, and a little bit, uh, snobbish.

God damn it, I'm not.

I don't like to play other people.

I should have stayed on top and, and cut it.

If Baruti's the guy, and we have Baruti in that little bag of sinks over there, you know, the Balzano and, and Rogers, Rogers.

And we'll put a little unit together and crank it all out.

And then we get Andy Armstrong working with them as well as across the board here.

Another thing we have to keep in mind, we've got to get Colson's out there to crank them for a well and a hell of a lot of support.

That's my main thing.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk to him about it?

I'll mention it to him in case it comes to my mind.

You tell him this is his last hurrah.

But we really want to know what we can do.

We don't want to build it up again.

We're going to just let Ziegler announce it.

But as a thing goes afterwards, we want to put my life on the line.

We'll go orders for us and say, thank God.

We will continue this thing.

And we'll slash back at the basements.

Let's be ready to go.

Smash it.

You know, I knew that was what I was going to have at the time.

I love the whole deal.

Which they should have done, frankly.

But you got what they really thought.

Huh?

Now, is this a good argument to be on?

One thing to consider

If he goes, I think we should cancel the Christmas tree line.

I don't care about that.

But I think if he goes, if he goes today, we do not cancel the other day or tomorrow.

Okay?

Or do you agree?

I completely agree.

I understand that

I think you don't cancel the cabinet dinner, but you do put out the fact that you ask the cabinet members to rise or...

Yes, yes.

Let them in.

Keeping that mind closed up, that's the best thing that I can do.

At least I got to have some pleasure of doing something that I like.

We'll see about the success Ron has in keeping time and getting his people.

He talked.

That's it.

But it won't be tough if you won't be tough.

There are

Why?

Well, then, this could be told.

So they write a story about the fact that our bad relationship to France

But it's a wrong thing to do.

They should run it that way.

It is a totally wrong thing to do, because basically they assume that they're going to run the Kissinger thing and the rest.

What the hell did Kissinger do with the illness?

They murdered him, but not so long.

They're wrong to do it.

And they're running it.

And I don't think we'll be as bad as we've been concerned about.

I think it's too bad they're doing it that way.

We've fought it.

Now we've lost, so I think we forget it.

Turn them off.

They have that on the Georgia governor or something.

Man of the year, Tom Eagleton.

Most admired man on the crowd.

Don't build it.

It's your view as the principal and the agent as the agent.

God, this lady will run the new business.

All right, as we will do it, Troy.

If he dies today at the camp at dinner, it should be canceled.

Really?

No.

No?

No.

I don't see why.

We'll have a moment.

It's not a public celebration.

We'll just have dinner.

But then I think, however, we should cancel the entertainment.

And just say, I'm sorry, Fred, because of his death, it's just going to be a private dinner.

And we're not going to have any caroling or dinner.

I think that would be wrong to have people say we were dancing in the White House that night.

There ain't going to be no dancing.

You see my point?

Or could you just have him say, I've been there for, uh, I don't know, it's going to be misinterpreted.

He would be the same as Christmas carols.

What do you think?

I know the answer.

I think probably it's better to cancel the entertainment.

I try.

Jesus, you've got all those kids invited for the entertainment, too.

It's only today or Sunday.

I hope it's Sunday at heaven.

He just laughed through until Saturday night, when we were all right.

Palo, who all brought scallions.

He was a terrible priest.

I wonder what he sees.

That's funny, because he's a type that you should always have.

Somebody's poison.

Is it your thought still to go out for the lying in state rather than the funeral service?

Go to the funeral service.

The lying in state might not be bad, because there is a ceremony there.

It's a very brief one.

But they move the body from the thing to where he's lying in state at the library, I guess.

And they say a prayer.

And there's a little bit of ceremonial stuff.

And it will be covered on television.

So it might not be a bad thing.

If I had to find an excuse for avoiding the service, I'd rather, because I have to be there with all the Truman people, many of whom are violent and I hate some people.

And that I would prefer not to do.

I prefer to be there with my own, but I can't do it unless I've got one hell of an excuse.

What do you think?

Let's just wait and see.

We'll have a few days to decide if we don't need it.

You're going to put me in a tie for a month or something.

You know Eisenhower, do you remember how many times we had airplanes set up to fly back for his death?

It went on for months.

Yeah, I don't remember the day Larry was here.

What's that?

At least Henry walked up around to Rogers and Larry and said, they're all over Rogers and you've got no other choice.

I don't think you're going to find Rogers.

I think he's...

I may be guessing wrong.

He may be just throwing it out for something.

But I think he doesn't want to go out.

He's finally doing what he should have started doing four years ago.

He should have started playing our game, and then he could have come through looking great.

But now he isn't.

He seems to be.

Unless I'm misreading anything, but you know, I, it wasn't my guess right to hear him argue, and then say he won't take it.

Now, my normal reaction when I argue with somebody else, but I knew there was something wrong there.

Oh, I never said, I wasn't arguing to give it up.

I was just saying, Roger's report wasn't, I shouldn't take it, because we had to work at it.

I'd take it in a minute.

And I don't know if you can help it.

Martin may have played it that way on purpose, because he didn't want to.

He wanted to be an assistant president, which we wanted to be.

Now, let me say, when I mention all these people that are in arrest, I don't include him.

I think he's one of our better properties.

And I put that at a very high level, due to the fact that he's got brains, he looks good, he's honest, and he's mean and tough and ruthless as hell.

underneath all of that nice, and yet he likes people.

And he's got a craze, he's got an interest, he's confident.

He doesn't even like kids.

He talks too early, and he's a remarkable fellow.

So he's fine, but there are others that are, well, frankly, the planet is, frankly, a square peg in a round hole, and I've told you for four years that he's got to get in the hell out.

Whitaker isn't a strong enough personality.

He's been here.

He's been very nice.

He's done a good job.

So what's on Whitaker is not a hell of a lot of balls.

He should leave.

I'm glad he gave Walker a part of his right now.

Walker's got more balls.

He's younger.

He's bigger.

He's kind of white.

He's young, young, young.

25 or 35, god damn it.

There's some of these that you've got that whole thing that says, and I know the problem is that the people that contribute are moral martyrs.

Friends are all older than God.

Regarding the list of names for my Christmas calls, maybe more on the folks side now.

I had one call in Mansfield that day.

I gave Mike a call today.

My answer to the question, even if you just aren't getting a hold of things, you know, the time has never run out on themselves.

I guess people are not getting a hold of things.

for the election paper.

Well, here's the time to relax and really enjoy it until then the 60% everybody should be churning it.

Now we've blown the course of going to the country for events.

We can't go to Vietnam and come back.

So all that.

So therefore, we don't build a presidency.

We don't build this presidency as we could have and all the rest.

And I guess it's up to you to flip it all.

And we've sort of gone from gray,

Except for Brennan, a lot of competent guys.

And I'm just awful afraid that it's going to end up like Eisenhower said.

Basically, he has no parts.

But also, they were the same people that couldn't cut across.

We put in new people, but they don't cut across very well.

You don't agree with me?

No, I totally disagree with you.

But it's a question of definition.

You're saying one thing, and I don't think that's what you're meaning, really, because you say you don't have control of it.

That is what we do have.

Now, whether what we've got control of is what we want control of, and whether we know what we want to do with what we've got control of is something else.

And then I completely agree on the thing that we don't have the people to present it.

what we're doing, or to create the flair and all that sort of stuff.

I'm not convinced yet that that's an answer anyway.

I'm not convinced how they value all that kind of people are.

We used to say that I used to lie and all that.

I used to make these speeches.

It isn't what we do.

I mean, what we say and what we do would count.

I was totally wrong.

How are you doing here in Washington?

Oh, that's great.

What I wanted to tell you, I was a word chooser, you know, and I had to wind up a few things.

And, you know, I did something quite unusual.

Instead of taking off after the election, I said, all right, I didn't give anybody off.

So on December 15th, you can all take off and take off a week or two weeks.

But anyway, that's what we've done.

to talk to you about I met Hugh yesterday as a matter of fact he wanted to come in and chat about a few things including who's going to be the head of the GSA which I'm sure you don't give a damn about either but anyway

I sort of wrote this into you, and I haven't talked to Carl.

I was trying to call him, but Eddie, I don't know, he's out of touch.

I don't know how he'll reach you.

But it's just as well, I just want you to know about it, and I'll get Carl tomorrow, or next year, or something like that.

What I would like to do when you all get back, and I don't think we should try to do this until we do get back, because it's kind of, as I thought, it's just hard to find enough people around.

Rather than having a, getting myself, and I told Hugh this, and I talked to Bill Timmons about it, getting myself tied down to a weekly meeting with just Republican leaders, you know, the whole leadership.

What I'm going to do is to have, of course, a sort of a monthly meeting with, or well, let's say even biweekly, or sometimes we'll do it weekly if it's something that we have to get at with our old age, which I should do, and I think you realize I have that responsibility.

But what I'd like to do, if you would be willing, is to have occasions, an occasion on a fairly regular basis where

If we could get the right-wing group, and here's the problem, if we could get a small bipartisan group,

where we sit down and talk about things where, you know, I'm not saying every other Tuesday or something, but on a fairly regular basis.

Now, I was thinking of you, on both sides of the public and Senate, it would be just the two of us, Scott and Greg.

On your side, it would be yourself and whoever you, who is it, Burt?

On the Democratic side, it'll be Albert and whoever replaces Boggs, and of course on the Republican side, Ford and Aarons.

We could sit down and just chat about the, perhaps on occasion, about the general workload and support and so on that we have.

The reason that I say this is that I do not want to get, and we all have our differences, but I don't want to get into the business where the Congress and the President and the White House are in total confrontation.

There's no reason for that.

I don't think you want to.

And you made some very good statements on that.

But what I'd like for you to do, if you would, is to think about this a bit, as to how we can work this out.

Now, in addition to that, I would like to, of course, continue the situation where you and I get together and just chat about it.

Because we never know who's going to talk after some of this.

And so you and I will have a talk.

And now and then I'll get Carl in.

But usually with him, he always insists that his second follow.

It's a little different situation there.

But what I'm thinking about here is, as you see, is a special edition where we have this end.

Now, carrying this step further, what we have is we will have some

things on reorganization, which do not involve in terms of the relationship of the departments with the Congress, but will involve how I deal with the departments.

What I would like, what I want to do then is to bring in the key committee chair, Michael Hollyfield, and whoever is the Republican, I don't know who it is on our side,

And we check with them over and over.

Now, there are a few involved here.

There's a special problem with Russell Long.

There's a special problem with Wilbur Mills.

I have to handle those somewhat separately.

I bring them in.

There is sometimes, even in Georgia, I've got to see separately.

Not always, although in Georgia.

What I was saying, if you could think this over, because I've got to do all the Christmas stuff over the next two or three days and try to get away on the 19th or a week off going to Florida.

I'd like to have a meeting with you, just you and me alone.

And maybe if you could sort of, you and I could chat as to what is the best way to do it.

suggesting that as a result of this, we have sort of a situation where it's all the Kerman and Honeymoon and the rest.

I know there are going to be battles on this and that and the other thing.

And we understand that.

But I am suggesting that there are some areas where

uh, perhaps a considerable number of areas where we can and should just work together.

Uh, at, uh, well, that's Dick Henry.

Uh, School Jackson came in the same way.

He had taken a trip abroad.

And, uh, Michael, he has a chance to talk to you on Sunday.

He has been, he gave you an excellent reporting.

Now, energy is something that comes across party lines.

It comes across the executive lines.

We've got to get the Congress in on the act.

In fact, it comes across the many executive lines.

It's the one area that I can't buck off at any one of the White House, at any one of the departments.

We've got to keep it out of the White House.

But I just talked to John Erickson after I talked to Scoop, and I said, look, maybe we can work out a situation where the House or the Senate or both

they would engage in a cooperative action here.

Because you see, it involves not only oil in the Middle East and in the United States.

It involves shale.

It involves conversion of coal to gas.

It involves the enormously important decision we're going to have to make with regard to the Russian gas deal, which is not only energy, but politics.

And it involves our relationship

In the Mideast, how do we play the Israeli thing in terms of the Saudis?

You can see what I talk across is across everything, and why I've got to keep it here.

But on the other hand, the Congress should be in on the takeoff on such a thing.

You see what I'm saying?

What I'm doing, and I'm not necessarily trying to give you my sense of the thing, so that you could just put it in the back of your mind, mull it over, don't worry, and then perhaps we could sit down shortly after the first of the year, before Congress gets in, on the first or second, on the second.

How does that sound to you?

How does the idea sound to you?

I mean, the general idea is, in other words, trying to find a new way for us to work together.

Because as I go to the American political scene, I had a long talk with John Conney about this recently.

And, you know, we people have their job, and everybody respects his political suggestion.

He thinks that for years to come, we may have situations where people are going to vote man round the party.

Now, if they vote man rather than party, if we continue to act as if it's party versus party, we're going to have a disastrous government in the United States.

But you think so?

And that's why I feel that maybe we have an opportunity here to think in terms of how, with a divided Congress on the one side and the president on the other side,

that we just find areas where we can agree, where we reduce the partisan, the totally partisan thing, to those areas where it has to be.

We both understand partisan policies.

But after all, there's no election coming up, thank God, for another four years.

And I think that if a few sensible people could sit around and talk this way, that we'd work somehow.

I've got some problems.

I mean, you've got, oh, for example, I've got some hard rock partisans on my side that say, by God, just leave them for the public.

Don't leave them ever.

You've got some partisans that I know don't feel this way at all.

But I'm speaking about other responsible guys.

I mean, it's a question of liberal or conservative people that really are trying to think of ways that we can work together.

And at least we can talk about it, and we can work out a plan if we can.

And then we'll try to do this the way we used to.

But the reason that I came to this conclusion was that Timmons was very, very sagacious on that sort of thing.

When I talked to him a week ago at Camp David, he came in at the usual schemes and so forth.

And I said, not the usual schemes.

He said, look, we just can't go forward with the fact that the president sitting in the White House each week meets with the Republican leadership.

What's he doing?

He's meeting with the minority.

What the hell can the minority accomplish without the majority?

And so what I'm not, what I am not suggesting that each week we substitute for that a bipartisan group of course, but I am suggesting that we hit certain areas where we work together and try to work the thing out.

Do you see what I mean?

And if you could give us some thought, now I understand my thinking is not nailed down, I don't quite know how to work it, and I realize that the personalities

There are various people, as I mentioned, and others, where you've got to just do them one on one.

But on the other hand, perhaps we can work some things out that could be very cooperative.

Then let me say, if you, on your own, I mean, if you, I don't mean on your own, but you're of liberty

if you would like to discuss it with Bob or anybody, anybody would like to see what we can come up with.

The one thing I would say is this, try to discuss it in a way that we don't get into the creps, because then I'm going to have to answer it very coldly.

What the hell are you doing here?

You didn't ask us.

See?

Because I'm keeping this very close to the end.

I haven't gone into it in detail with you, except to tell you that there were going to be more bylaws to be

and less partisan, so he understands.

See?

Well, he understands.

Okay.

All right, Bob.

Bob, the second, I think, is a conscience contender.

The third.

Bob.

Yeah, we, of course, oh, I should, yeah, go ahead.

Yes.

Yeah, you like him, don't you?

Well.

Tom had an understanding, a totally understanding of the school people.

And frankly, if you would, it would be very helpful if you would bring him in and sit him down and tell him how you think it ought to work.

And he was talking in total confidence.

The only other time we might see each other, of course, as you know, could be with John.

If that develops, we will have to, you know, I'll go down for it.

I'll have Tom be in touch with you because we'll have a fleet practically going down there because everybody should have been a little while ago.

I will not be able to go, it's a penalty, to the box memorial service.

It's a little different situation anyway, you know, because you see, it is not, it isn't like Allen Elementary.

You still don't know.

You're not totally sure.

So my wife is going, that's fine, but I thought I should, does that sound all right?

All right.

You know, that's a good way now.

Damn right it is.

Didn't take it.

Didn't have a practice.

He set a hell of a lot of emotion in his mind.

Because in his own mind, he knows that we're trying to work with you.

I think that he signed that.

That was the line.

And it was great.

But they're all well under 2,000.

There can't be a word over 1500.

And then you could say, Theodore Roosevelt's 19 put in the back.

Don't mention Franklin Roosevelt's inaugural.

John Kennedy's inaugural.

Two of the greatest inaugurals.

Teddy Roosevelt's in 1905 was 991.

John Kennedy's inaugural in 1961 was 1357.

Julie said to report your refrigerator will be .

wants to see you for 15 minutes, either now or after the reception.

So get out now.

Do you have any idea of working on that progression before that gets cut away?

Does he know that this has just got to be it?

He's looking for, you know, you told him also to look at one for my brother Eddie and for the other poem.

Eddie is very pleased about working with the Foundation.

Has a lot of ideas on what needs to be done.

Wants to do it.

He's a good man.

Yeah.

Wants to do the fundraising thing.

He wants to make a site presentation to the trustees.

He's totally convinced that San Clemente is the place to put it.

But he says, let me make the presentation.

I can be more effective with the Whittier types and all that.

Do something for Whittier.

That's right.

We've got to do something for the library.

That's right.

But the trustees will all be here at inaugural time.

And Ed said, let's have a trustees meeting in Washington when they're all there.

And let me make the pitch, and let's get that thing settled.

And then he said, I'd like to do the traveling around, shaking hands with people, lining up some of the governors, and getting things, getting it rolling.

So he wants to do it.

He wants to be based in Washington.

work out of there, but that'll work fine.

I think he's gonna need gated air, it's a big country.

He's out of there, you're only five hours away from any place in the world there as well as here.

Yeah, you're only three hours from, two and a half from there.

You'll do a great job, Rob.

You really will.

Well, I'm delighted that it's family.

It's good.

Most of it ties in with my friend Jack Brown doing it, or a piece of fire stove, or any of our other friends.

All of them have other interests involved.

Eddie will do both of them.

So the family stuff's falling into place pretty well.

That's one of the things we're getting hold of.

Everything we urge, find you strong.

Don't let anything get out of you.

And who want it now?

Who want it fast?

That's why on the scallop, they fart around the way.

Get it out.

Float it.

Do it.

I'm going to take you back fast on that.

I'm just wondering if we shouldn't hit that hard.

I'm going to hit it now before he has problems.

No.

Again.

That's one I can't comment on.

I'm going to talk to John about it, because he knows it right now.

But he wants to talk to me about it.

Thanks, honey.

Is this a 2-3-3?

Yeah.

I would guess it's not going to take that long.

Would you add, you know, Julie, please, and see if she and Mr. DeVos would come over?

You know, the part of the decision, the ability of Julie, plus the subtly beating into the gun, that was a combination anybody's ever had in their song.

It sounds good to me.

He was just so subtly, subtly beating.

I know.

He sold lots of glory.

He gets the money.

He gets it with the right people.

He doesn't get screwed by people.

He said there were a couple of Italians, and he wasn't sure whether they might be mapping people.

So he put it through .

He's one step removed.

Smart.

He is smart.

He's doing the same thing with this damn house.

That house, that's a great idea.

Doesn't that sound great?

Well, you keep my house.

Well, as a matter of fact, I told you, it's 25 minutes to a little far.

It's not that far.

Can I ask you one other thing?

What about the refrigerator?

Are you kidding me?

making any progress in putting the theater up above, or is that broken down?

No, the bowling alley, if you try to call in, I've got the plan for the bowling alley.

It doesn't fit in the theater.

Well, can they put it someplace else?

Yes.

Great.

I'd rather have it at another place.

What is the theater?

Where it fits is you go, I'm not exactly sure, but you go out, you go forward, and there's a hole where the carpenter shops are and stuff underground, out under the front of the portico.

And the way you go is through that entrance down there by the kitchen and right on out across that driveway.

And there's a little place where you go down a hall and then you turn left and there's room for a single-lane bowling alley and a room where they put the sauna and the other thing and a little big sort of island's rowing table in there so that you can do that all day.

You should have a sauna and a shower.

I don't want a big one.

It's really a big bathtub.

That's what they use at the spot.

That's all we want because nobody's going to be in there except you.

If they get the big thing, they have to put a filter in and all that.

All I want to get is just me or Pat will be in there.

The way you use it then, see, is you just run the water in when you're going to do it.

You fill it up, and then they turn on the machine that kurgles it while you're in it.

And when you're finished, you pull the plug, and you get a bathtub.

So you don't maintain the water, so you don't have to have the filter and all that.

I heard of him.

I mean, it is an expensive project.

It is, yeah, because there's a lot of, you know, we love waiting.

That's right.

There you go.

Apparently they can't find you.

Yeah.

Okay.

I want you to stay here.

I'm in here.

It's cold out there.

I've got a problem with you, though.

I checked to get a nice job.

How's your house in Georgetown tonight?

It's pretty.

Oh, not really.

Does it have a nice yard?

No.

It's almost no yard.

But you like being closer in?

Yeah.

We don't want a yard.

We don't use a yard.

So what happened?

You know, we have a place that does, well, it doesn't have much of a yard.

It has a lot of land, but it's not a good yard where we are now.

We have a huge house.

Now we're in a house half the size.

Good.

Easier to take care of.

Much easier.

The yard is about half the size of this room.

It's a great big cherry tree in the south.

Cherries, that's all.

I just sit outside and eat.

Do you have a picture today, Gary?

Huh?

Do you have a picture today?

Well, I took the bandages off.

I perhaps should, perhaps that's part of the problem.

Hey, tell us, uh, two minutes.

I mean, uh, where are the Lukacs or somebody else?

Oh, you know, none of those doctors know about that thing.

Lukacs is good.

None of Lukacs?

No, it's Lukacs.

He's wonderful, but no doctors know anything.

Lukacs likes to overtreat.

No, uh, I don't care.

They didn't feel that bad.

Uh, what is the situation with the guard?

We've never talked a little about the house.

What can you do?

I don't know where he went, Daddy.

He must be, he was buying the deal.

Listen, John, if you find out where Mr. Ramone is,

I want to ask you one thing about Marge.

Do you like her?

Yes.

You like her?

Yeah, I do.

You know, they went out of business.

Went out of business.

Ron thought she'd be a hell of a woman if we could hire her for his office.

Yeah.

And then C, .

Yeah.

Very good idea.

She loves mommy.

And she could bring Harper to this office and all the rest.

Do you like her?

I really do.

And your mother likes her?

David?

Tricia?

Great idea.

Hold on.

What is the cost?

Hi, Daddy, what's the tone of that nap?

I could be thrilled.

I haven't told anybody.

Have you told them?

No, I haven't told them.

No, because they haven't.

I only sent in a note to Steve Ball saying, Steve, you bought a house.

So wasn't there anything more word on like where and all?

I don't know if Daddy knows.

Daddy, we just have to tell you what Dee Dee did on the price of the house.

He took what Dee Dee did on the price of the house.

He took them down 12,500 dollars.

I can do that.

I'm not telling you.

What happened?

Did you close the deal?

Yeah, we got it for 1.26.

How did you get it now?

Because something had already turned down.

I just talked a little bit.

I didn't like quite as much of this deal.

I didn't have to put the pool in the other place, but I needed to know right away if we could take this.

So that's my father.

You're gonna think I'm a big liar and poor girl.

There were a couple of things.

coming to mind.

One is, if David is going to run for Congress, should he own a house in Maryland at this date?

Should he just?

He should rent.

Should he rent?

No, no, no.

He must not own it.

He must not own it at this point, you see.

No, no, I should rent it.

The Secret Service will want to put some trees in it.

Great.

Go ahead.

I was wondering if you thought I should talk to Bob or to anybody else about that aspect of it at this stage or just for a while.

There might be some areas that I can talk to some of them because I participated in them.

One, when they start putting the trees up and they do it, we won't do anything because we didn't do anything.

Don't worry.

You can talk to Bob.

Just say the Secret Service can look it over and put in everything they think is necessary.

You're going to love it, Daddy.

You'll go out there and write speeches.

I can't either.

I think it's because it's only two bedrooms.

That's right.

That's it.

That's what the real estate has said.

It really could be a four-bedroom or a five-bedroom house like that.

But they are a charming couple of people, too.

They are.

And they're not business people.

No.

He owns a school, a private school.

He and another fellow, because he's sober and he retired.

He's not a businessman.

He's just a broke guy.

He's a broker.

He's always like that.

She said no.

And then he said yes.

Can you believe this, Danny?

You don't believe this.

Oh, the house is so great.

We just love it.

There's so much privacy.

And then we put up a couple more trees.

You're a complete part of it.

Well, it's very easy to get out of it now and get signed.

It means I want to be signed first, which is the next procedure.

I'm signed and taken up to her with the check of $10,000.

And she's bringing it back to me there.

And I've got the decision to use the jury to get me out of it.

Once we get that back.

Well, once they get it back, if they back off of it, they can't back off once it's assigned.

So, you know, she should be back pretty soon.

What I meant is... Oh, no, they can't back off once it's assigned.

But it's assigned to you.

Well, it should be now.

It should be by now.

She was here about an hour ago, and I assigned it to you.

Good, Shelly's not here, huh?

Daddy, you don't know what charm this yard has, the beautiful little stone patio.

OK, as soon as you hear it, I'll get it cracked down on you.

Thank you.

She's late getting here herself, so I'm sure that it's just an hour ago that she left here.

Rain will slow things down today, Charlie.

I think by 1 o'clock.

And your refrigerator's being put in.

Mommy didn't know about that.

No, but I just wanted them to love it.

I mean, you know, it's so easy to... Well, it's true.

It's just being put in there.

It's a great idea.

All the shelves should be taken out of there.

Oh, they want... Don't you want the shelves in so they put glasses and little cans in and stuff?

Yeah.

I mean, the other shelves.

The junk, yeah.

And shoes and everything.

Put it out in the store, all that crap.

Mm-hmm.

You heard about this?

a little refrigerator in Daddy's bedroom closet.

So if he wakes up in the night, he doesn't have to walk 50 feet to get a glass of milk.

Isn't that a great idea?

Also, I come in and all those, frankly, those other people, they're all jabbering at the kids.

You know, it's hard to walk in.

Oh, and we're getting going on the solarium.

It's going to be beautiful.

He likes bright yellow.

with red and orange.

And comfortable furniture.

And we're getting you a reclining chair.

You know, the kind that goes back to the seat.

You like the dining room chairs at Camp David, don't you?

Yes, I do.

We're getting those and a table.

Right.

The main thing is to get nice, beautiful draperies, too, so that it folds up.

So break us a room up and take off that horrible bar, but have a nice bar there.

We will.

Because we've got to have a bar where we can have booze there.

With a folding door.

With booze so that we can close it and have lunch.

But we're, you know, we're... You got a two-thirty here.

Daddy?

Uh, yeah, they were to come in.

Maybe, maybe, maybe if, uh, if you were to try to testify for the two of them.

He's going to stay.

Then if you would do this, and suppose after we finish the reception, we all, you and I, we'll get in the car.

I think we'll get in the car.

Let's not get her to get any negatives in this.

Maybe let Vivian and I drive by.

I think that'd be good.

How about that?

Because I need a little ride.

Good.

We'll have one of the drivers.

Take the black card.

Listen.

The thing you can go straight up and they can't hear you.

Yeah, we'll just leave off the limousine.

That's right.

The limousine.

Not the big fancy limousine, but the limousine that just has the regular catalog.

Okay, fine.

Great.

Fine.

Okay.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thank you.