Conversation 826-011

Transcript (AI-Generated)

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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

You don't like the rest of it?

I don't like the rest of it.

Where did they practice it?

That's the, uh, Jewish Virginia Convention.

Oh, I didn't practice it.

You didn't practice it either?

I didn't practice it either.

Oh, okay.

I'm glad you didn't.

Pardon?

Yes, I was going to tell him to kiss you back.

No, I'm not.

I'm going to tell him to kiss you back.

How cold is that, Missy?

It is cold.

Topic cold.

Well, you're right, Missy.

Well, she's there, too.

Well.

What do those little boxes sit here for?

I don't know.

They're individually made.

Well, they're not going to be ready with the songs you want for her that I don't want.

That's one of the ones I can't get rid of.

We have one here now, but the others, some are supposedly going to be here in a couple of days.

He sent that over to me, I don't know, this morning.

I asked if I could get it to room, not room and all the time.

I think he wanted to get it in before the announcement.

Yeah, he put it on yesterday.

And the other one, the bunny letter, he just thought it was terribly important that you do that before you take any recommendation from Mallory.

You should have exacted the names, Mallory, if you don't mind.

Well, but on the back, he had to, some of those he had to be exacted.

I don't know why he didn't read the letter he called.

These are people that are being used.

Of course, I've drawn that for you.

These are people that you consider for other things.

It includes a wire house or a building stand.

Once we gave her other mild threats, Conrad.

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

With this group the other day, I don't know, I could still call it, but... Oh, there's nothing to it.

Just leave it with me in case I can put it at risk, because I might have time to do it.

But he's, uh, I had a good talk with him.

You know, he, he was in, you remember, the group of, uh, they just, they were, when they returned from Russia, and, uh, he told me, I think,

He was very pleased about Jim Keele.

He was a largely white man.

I'm just, I'm not just calling anyone exactly, you know what I mean?

Well, I'll leave it to you.

On those, on the boxes, if you, if any of them drove to get here, I would send them with jewelry and all that.

But she's leaving Saturday night.

Yeah, so they won't be here today, huh?

And they wouldn't be able to stop you from walking in.

That's all right.

It's just that I just told them I'm going to, I told them they're going to get that as a present.

But you think that takes care of him anyway?

Yes.

Because then they won't need to carry him back into the office.

You don't need to read that one to tell me.

Sure, let's do this.

That's okay.

Of course.

This morning.

This time it's about that I really want to review.

Let me get it all out to you.

I said in the morning, I said...

It's a list that we didn't get.

Where was it?

Was it 68 or what?

We may get some things like that, too, from the greatest group.

But we've been pushing.

The money, though, we've got to get in the names.

But Maurice, he says he's down now.

Right in front of me.

He said he's got an absolute name.

So he's got them all down.

$9,150,000 and above, which are a few.

All $100,000 and all the way down.

And he asked about the events.

I said, we're all set for the inauguration.

And I said, we would work them in, but it would take a couple of years to get them all in the dinners.

Because you see, after you get through, I've got to give a dinner for the big ones.

I have to, you know, like the very big ones myself, maybe two.

Then, you know, a person who gives 25 to 10,

But he feels that he's given a hell of a lot.

And they got to come in too.

But I told them, but I didn't worry with them.

I said, they liked it.

And I said, fine, but we can't do it.

They just got to come in over a period of time.

And we'll have them for dinners in the evening.

So I'll just give you, as soon as I look over the whole thing, he's asking me to look them over for people I can help.

I'll just give you the list.

And as we come along, I

when we started intercepting the inauguration.

Sorry to believe it.

When we started.

He's done a very good job, I think.

He's aware of the fact that they missed last time, and it wasn't our fault.

Well, he gave a very idiotic press conference.

He said that on the last day, I had asked for 126 sentences.

And that that's why these thoughts broke down.

You know, if he drives us to him, he'll just show the transcript of the last day to a few people.

I hadn't asked for one single change on the last day.

I mean, that's just a blatant lie.

But that's the least bad thing he could say.

Radio Hanoi is off the air completely.

Yesterday we knocked it off.

What did they say about the talk and all that sort of thing?

They asked him and he said they haven't been counseled yet.

They've let us know.

They'd make an announcement when the time came.

That's not very strong.

No, they made it stronger, but they don't.

I had lunch with Fulbright today.

I had that said last week.

He called me.

But it's very interesting.

I know.

I know you had a son.

You had a son.

What I find very interesting, Mr. President, is that he said, notice, I didn't say anything except that I'm disappointed.

He said, nothing is going to happen until after January 20th.

He said, I don't think we've got the strength to expect you out of the war.

Now, that's the second one.

Fulbright was very sore.

And I think that line you took last night, that you haven't really played the fact that you've won by 61%.

I'm beginning to wonder whether we need to go to that bilateral deal.

Excuse me, since Trish is overseas, she's calling.

I'm going to put it on for one minute.

She'll be on the line in about 30 seconds, if she wants to.

Well, don't tell me about it when I'm happy to see you.

I think that's really the best thing.

I'll just say it.

I'll call back in 15 minutes.

Okay.

Because I was really struck.

He was extremely surprised.

Well, at least you know where they go up and down, though.

He doesn't know.

He doesn't have any instructions.

That's what I'm saying.

Fulton.

Oh, you're a Fulbright.

Oh, I'm a Fulton.

Oh.

Yeah, Fulton.

Yeah.

With regard to the... No, Fulton, we have...

and have the press conference.

But they haven't made the final decision yet.

Well, you know, the break-off is there.

Well, there's the technical talks, there's the prepared talks, and there's still the talks between Leader Goh and me.

Yeah, but yours, none are scheduled at the moment.

We proposed it yesterday.

You proposed it, not publicly?

Yeah.

That's the problem.

They might ask you publicly.

No.

No, and it doesn't go into any of the details of the talk, except for this egregious lie about little 26 strangers.

But that's the least bad thing they can say about them.

And that's so blatantly wrong that they can undermine their credibility.

I mean, we'll just say this is an egregious, blatant lie.

And as I said, I was really struck by Fulbright.

You know, normally he's all out on the attack.

And I really think you are strong because we are so used to the last four years.

These guys are terribly circumspect.

Fulbright, you know, called John Scalding.

He said he thought he was a superb one.

I didn't know that, but I had lunch with

I had lunch today.

It was full bread because it was set for a week.

So I went to do it.

And, for example, after we left the Senate restaurant, the NBC hiker came up.

He said, they said to him, you must have reviewed the Vietnam situation.

He said, oh, no, we just had a general review of the world situation.

He said, but you must have some news on Vietnam for Friday night.

We just had our general friendly review of the world situation, to say one word, about Vietnam.

But both he and Chavez were much more circumspect than I've ever seen them.

And Paul Brighton said to me, you won his sake by 68%.

He's up for an election.

And he's running for re-elected.

Well, look, the main thing is, I mean, they can knock off the talks, but they can't.

Whatever they do, we're going to go right and forward.

And our, you know, we're going to keep on running.

The Chinese are leaking stuff to their new settlement in town, in Peking.

Thank you.

They're losing confidence in me because I can't deliver them the beads, and obviously there's a split in our administration.

I mean, that's the sentence being peddled all over the place.

That was at the moment?

Yeah.

Apparently.

Who do you think's peddling that?

That's coming out of... That might be fell out of North Vietnam, too.

Well, at first... North Vietnam.

It might be... Well, it started here.

A lot of people were putting it out when things looked fairly good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And...

And now it's being picked up elsewhere.

But that's what I'm going to be holding on to.

But if you want to leave tomorrow.

Is this today or tomorrow?

Business is today.

Labor is tomorrow.

I'll do the labor, but I won't do this one.

Okay.

That's what I'll do.

I see no reason to do this.

There's a reason to do labor because if it comes back, it's gone and it's coming back.

But anyway, it's fun to read up to now.

It's really, it's very soft considering what you're doing to them.

We really seem to have knocked out all of them.

We knocked it off one way like yesterday and they switched to a different one with a very weak signal.

Now it's completely off.

It's been off for six hours.

They got me.

of their fires visible in Hanoi.

They say every fire engine in Hanoi is running around on the outskirts.

They'll have blown out every window in Hanoi.

It seems to be something wrong with the roads.

I don't know what the hell it is.

Somebody had a problem with it today.

I don't know.

Well, she brought in this letter from Bunny Lasker, and she's on it, and said that, don't let the, and so those, the man that's supposed to be doing this, Malik and his group don't know anything about this, and they've got the wrong names, and so forth and so on.

I want to be sure.

Bunny Lasker, so that would actually be SEC.

No, Bunny Lasker.

Well, at least that's what he did at the moment.

But why the hell do you think this has to happen to me?

I don't know.

The one he's for is Cook.

His son is George Cook.

That's the one we have.

I thought that was the one we were going to play.

That's the one we have.

We don't, we have.

He's one of them.

I don't see a goddamn thing in him except for that personal honor of the Lord.

If he prepared a letter to him thanking him for his, I suppose that's all.

He doesn't have to speak his testimony.

I don't know.

Those are good things that they do, you know.

Goddamnit, we do a lot of good things.

That's the whole point.

But her case is, uh, I think what's meeting her must be the, uh, I think it's this woman in the field.

Could be another packet.

All right.

I should have thought of that earlier.

If you mind doing that.

Thank you.

You might put it this way, that we were too loaded with California.

That might have occurred to somebody around here, I'm not sure.

No.

But obviously there are two cabin members from California, and one of them involved Renner, right?

So what the hell?

We can't put another California in it, so.

to keep in the back of your mind to do is

very unplanned kind of, you know, that George isn't such a goddamn, frankly, bore when it comes to, you know, sitting down and talking with these idiots, and I, I just haven't got the time, and there won't be a brief photo opportunity, and I'm seated.

No, I wouldn't do this.

If you do it, what you do, you just do it on the way back from the diplomatic, I'm sorry.

and just be walking by, see him there, walk in the door.

It's great you're doing this, and walk out.

There isn't, I don't believe, any real reason to do the, uh... We've done it, it took me for 30 minutes to park in the parking lot.

You should have decided to drive you places and use this roof and the crow's roof and what our new roof is.

There's a guy like Ed Carter there.

My view on those is when they're happening, you've got to know they're there, and you've got to go solely on feel.

If you want to swing by and catch it, if you're going to move forward, have a minute, want to do it, fine.

If you don't, there's no need to do it.

The labor one, it is obviously a good idea to do, because they're coming back.

There you go.

The only question was whether doing that, you'd want to also... Have you asked Sonic Rose about her brother or anything?

Have you talked to her about any of the... Wouldn't it be a good idea?

Do the trial, yeah.

Oh, I don't know.

If it is one man, I don't know any problem.

I mean, we can't base it on any more than we have.

You know, she hasn't been around most of the week, so it is a no.

I mean, uh, I mean, uh, artists and civil rights have had to do with artists.

And I think we just heard your idea of something.

I guess the problem is that she just won't fit in any of her goddamn plans.

I told her before you brought the list down.

There's nothing on the full list.

You said, well, you said the rigger and the rigger ain't sure we've done anything.

You've got a thing in for that.

Very inadequate.

But she's not that.

Well, I think that's a good question.

But she's not that.

For what?

We invited her to things.

I mean, apparently she was complaining about whatever group we had for the McGregor Recruiter thing.

You remember the first night we had political people?

Yeah, that was silence.

And then we had these other groups, which of course were the...

The McGregor list on that list, they only had 15 people.

And he took his 15 top campaign people.

Stans could have 15, he took his top 15.

That was a quick shot so that you wouldn't get all this new majority stuff and it wouldn't look like you were totally ignoring your own people, your campaign people and all that.

Well, understand what I'm really coming down to is a basic point as to whether or not we better let her go.

She's got that.

Unless you're going to have this constant hassling around about her.

I just don't know.

She's got to do something.

She does that awfully well.

Anything she does, you're going to have to ask my friend about it.

She doesn't like to be told anything from anybody else.

And yet she's got to, just like all of us, we've got to be told.

I've just now been exposed to being told things, which is, you know, I need to be.

I mean, there's things he knows I don't know.

I mean, about people and positions and all that sort of stuff.

He knows the people I don't know.

I don't know any of these labor leaders.

I don't know which ones we ought to be pushing further and which ways.

Right.

And what can I do?

I can't get his judgment on it.

You know, the problem with what we do with this is we've got a little guy that works for the county, a little Democrat.

Mickey Gardner.

I don't know what to do about it.

The question is, it's a close call.

Will we keep him in or don't we?

We've decided not to.

He's set his sights too high and all that.

And Chuck feels we should accomplish it.

No, the county can use him probably on his own.

He's not all that good about it.

He did a good job in one area, and apparently not too good a job in some other areas.

But Chuck's worried.

See, Chuck, I can sit down and talk to him and say, you know, what do I do about this guy?

I don't know whether we want him or not.

Chuck says, yeah, well, if I got out, I'll run and throw him.

Chuck's got some ideas on this.

He's got some ideas on some other things.

Just in this case, they know what they want.

I mean, I don't know what he called it, but...

I think Greg's about to...

He runs the letter in through...

I think we'd better run it back, because he's sending it to you, because he doesn't want us to... No, I don't... That breaks the system.

I won't allow that.

I just want the...

I just want to... No, as a matter of fact, he says I've expressed these views to Fred Allen, because of the great importance I felt I should express to Greg.

He's not really arguing with that.

He's just saying we all...

Brad Cook's the guy, the only thing we've been afraid of is bringing, you know, a son of somebody in.

We just want to make sure he's good.

That's the guy that came out on top in the internment.

She's still doing a hell of a job.

She's where she's at.

She's her middle mother.

She's not a... Rose is practically obsessed with the Pat Hinton.

That's what it really gets down to.

She thinks she's really the greatest thing.

Pat's a wonderful person.

That is a great guy.

She does a lot of good.

We think that Pat's gotten a lot of money, and she did a great job in the campaign, backing her up, giving speeches and all.

But she doesn't have enough here to do anything.

Pat's got a heart of gold and a great personality, and she likes people.

Armstrong...

Has both of those.

Plus, she's very, very tough.

And she's a much better speaker.

She's just a damn, she's got more balls.

The main thing, the difference in brains.

Wow, that's a lot smarter.

Yeah, but Armstrong presents better, too.

She's got a good voice.

That was a damn good toast that she did.

With no noise.

I mean, minimal noise.

But wasn't it something that some speechwriter wrote out for her?

Have a little talk about it.

Has she been told she's going to stay on?

I don't know.

I don't know what Matt's plans are.

Any idea?

Who would be happy to change things up?

I don't know.

I can check.

It would have been established, so it would be in the book.

I can see where she...

I assume she's probably planning to stay on, but Bob isn't.

Yeah, I think she'd want her to stay with him.

Of course, that's true.

I think she'd want him.

Maybe she has to be told.

I want you to have a little talk with Schultz so that you and her, at some point, you can get her home.

She had her in here.

Just say that we're not going to do this.

Let me just ask as we've gone through this.

I think they should know that.

I'm sure we haven't.

So, okay.

So, Erland knows that.

Erland agrees with him, too.

And I think, you know, George just does, George, George just works a different way.

He said, so does John.

John, he's just sitting and chatting with folks.

John's amazing.

I don't know how he does it.

He should agree.

Gives the appearance of having time to talk to whoever happens to be there.

Just goes and goes and goes.

So on and so on.

Of course, he just, he doesn't worry about anything.

He just didn't.

You know what, I would handle the last journey fairly fast.

So that he doesn't, that he gets through.

I mean, you want to call him.

Well, look, now I call him.

Now I see how he's working with it.

Let him call me and say, President, I got your letter.

Appreciate it.

I tried.

Is that George Cook's son, Nebraska?

Well, I believe you can do it for whatever reason.

That's his sentimental choice.

Well, he's in the SS, so he knows what's going on.

The SS is basically his sentimental choice.

And that, uh, that's, uh, that he desires.

If there's any questions, if I ever get this view, why don't you just tell Malik?

I'll be about 15 minutes.

I'll let you know.

Of course, maybe not.

Do you know what I mean?

I do it instantly.

Like, you know, that's, that's what it is.

I think what this indicates is that they're doing a pretty good job of checking people around.

I mean, the fact that, that money knows all of this has had the opportunity to go over them with all these people and get the readings and all that with, it's a hell of a lot better than what we did before.

Well, what was, what was disturbing to me is that Rose said, her friend, a veteran, and they said that, and I read about it, about what was the case, that, that she said that, that they had both implications of

He says you should not appoint a Wall Street broker and that two of these people are, which is Sam Butler.

This is the guy that Colson was talking about.

He's the guy that signed the newspaper ad against Vietnam.

And we caught that last week.

We all agree that Butler should not be considered.

Now, Calum Knudson was one of the considerations on the basis of bringing an outside guy in.

He's an unknown quantity.

Well, he's unknown to the New York establishment.

That's what you told us to get.

These people are unknown to the Washington, to the New York establishment.

Knudson happens to be a Westerner.

Coke, on the other hand, is from Nebraska.

He's staffed at the SEC right now.

But it's not bad.

That's right.

I don't know where the president of Nebraska is.

He may be.

His father is.

How nice of a son he is.

But that's the point.

That's what we lull up a range of names for.

That's what Malik's done on every one of these lists is look at a couple inside, a couple outside, you know, take the best of each category.

I have some doubt about it.

It isn't.

Flawless at all.

That's what Chuck and I were talking about.

It is lacking in adequate, loyal input, and we've got to keep pushing that all the time, but we are.

Sure.

And that, I'm protected at these levels.

When you get a guy like Sam Butler, you know, so he's a well-qualified lawyer, that the son of a bitch is against us.

How did he even get on the list?

Well, because he was strongly recommended by some people, and then after getting them in, they checked out.

And John Mitchell was ascertained.

That's a bunch of bullshit.

We told John Mitchell that he was

We were dropped empty.

So it is not a matter of someone having to ascertain that the guy was against us.

He was dropped because he was against us on Vietnam.

And we're doing that right after another guy has turned.

He's for you.

But a while back, he signed newspaper ads against Vietnam.

We have another guy in some other category that did the same thing.

And so it's cruel.

It's awful.

I mean, we're just not taking it any way.

It doesn't matter how good they are, because that indicates that they're kind of impersonal when you get up against a crunch.

And at the SEC, for instance, this is a point Chuck makes.

What if we get to the thing where we have to bury the ITT papers, like Casey had to do?

Will this son of a bitch stand up when you call in and say that?

Of course not.

Right.

Like Kirk Packard.

That's right.

And we made that change on the CAB.

Yeah, CAB.

There was a strong pressure for a very understanding lawyer

Very competent guy.

Thoroughly versed in aircraft regulation stuff and all that sort of stuff.

We dropped him.

We put the political hack in about Tim.

Because Tim will do what he's told to do.

Because he and Conley wants him.

And the airlines want him.

Everybody wants him, really.

Most of our friends do.

They want him because he's been manipulated.

But also we can manipulate.

The other guy will be like Kirkpatrick.

He'll come in and clean up the CAV.

Well, that isn't exactly what we're after, because when they clean them up, what they do is screw our friends.

Always.

Well, I guess really what I'm saying is maybe the...

It's too bad, but you can have it in mind.

I don't need this.

I think that's really one of the problems.

You can say, well, you know, this is 71, unfortunately, it's these folks.

I don't really know.

It's obviously, it's obviously just a irritation now because, hell, why don't you just call and invite her here?

You know, I, of course, I've been to that embassy.

People around here realize that I haven't cared for Lizzie these last few days, at least, and so forth and so on.

And, uh, I think, I think it really involves people like the family and her brother probably, which I understand.

Tell somebody.

Tell you, for example, or something.

God, I mean, Joe Woods, he can't do something, but he can't get ahead of the FBI, for Christ's sakes.

He doesn't have the, I don't know, the problem, I don't know what it is.

I don't believe he...

And I suppose, too, Bob, it's a question of during the campaign, it gave obvious and everybody else were logging things in, you know.

And she was out there saying, thinking the whole staff wasn't working out then, and nobody was working, and she's the only one working, and all that bullshit.

And then it all came out the way we expected it to be.

And how did it feel?

A lot of people didn't quite...

There used to be a day when she worked harder than anybody else, and she was right in thinking that.

She's still thinking that, but it isn't true anymore.

What I meant is, and that is... Oh, well, you... You are harder or something.

It comes out better than it looks down.

You do tend to sort of want to knock it.

Yeah.

It's too bad.

It's a shield of betrayal.

Right.

It shouldn't be that way.

But I guess, too...

I'm not sure it bothered her, you know, we had this thought about that we'd hold up, you know, trying to work these appointments out and everything, and she wasn't, again, it wasn't there, it wasn't a damn thing for her to do, there was nothing to type, nothing, nobody to call, it was a matter of just plain hard work, putting people in and out, trying to process them after, probably with that problem.

Maybe that was it.

She hasn't said so, but...

Well, the reason was that when you invited her to come up there, however she is, she wanted to come.

You had her up there for a while when she came up.

Somewhere in that campaign process, remember?

She left that note for a typewriter one day saying, sorry to cause so much trouble for one day or something.

Oh, that's right.

I went back because I had it.

That's when you were doing something on letters.

Thank you letters or something, campaign follow-up or something.

But what we've done all this time, to the degree we can, is try and divide and conquer, get everything done by getting everybody busy.

That's why I got here.

Yep.

Zero personality and total efficiency.

And no trouble.

Do you think you should tell Rosa to look for her?

Nope.

She doesn't like it down there anyway.

She doesn't like it because she's kind of alone down there.

I think I should tell Rose to get out of here.

I agree.

Just tell her that you're going to be gone.

Everybody else is going to be gone.

She ought to take some time.

Get off.

She's probably going to go to Chicago.

There's a lot left to be done.

Just let it stack up.

Don't stay back.

I'm not going to be able to do this.