Conversation 835-006

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He just keeps waving and smiling.

I talked to him before he left.

Once his meetings became public, it seems to me that Kissinger really

Press man from here, I think, would tend to spook Henry.

He'd think he was watching.

But I do think, Mr. President, as we get to the point where, yes, if it develops, then I think someone has to go over.

And I've talked to Henry about this.

I'm involved in the discussions of how the scenario goes.

But we don't have to make that decision at this point.

You're safe.

We have no further, no comment, whatever.

going to the, you know, the assault negotiations and so forth.

Smith?

Not Smith, excuse me, Alex Johnson replaced Johnson in the ground assault negotiations.

And it's a deputy of the agency that comes up.

I have a question.

But we don't get close to that.

Why did it get so easy?

Because of the .

No comment.

Good.

Any comment?

Good.

Why don't you just say what you're advised?

Yeah, totally true.

Right.

There's a lot of attention also on your 60th birthday.

Well, uh, the wires and so forth asking them, of course, what you're not talking about, what we say about the party.

Yeah.

Rose.

Yes.

sort of a low-grade virus, but it will be up to the president.

The other point...

I also heard that... Do you think we should do anything about it?

Well, I...

I was wondering this.

If you watch, you'll get the control, probably.

Just for color and so forth, not for substance.

Because...

Uh, it might be well to, uh, tomorrow.

I'd be surprised at the two wires.

Uh, what is your, what is your minimum goal?

Without any television, what I meant is, uh, I mean, I can't tell you.

Or can you just do the two wires?

Sure, you can do it for Anna and Alan.

Is that good?

For women?

For what day?

Both of them have come to me.

I said, Ronald, you can get anything at all.

Anything at all.

Even if he says he feels there's no today as he did when he said that, it's just something reflected from the press.

Well, what I was thinking was that I would like to start this.

You see, my own feeling about this press thing, after the inauguration, I don't let me breathe, and frankly, you know, I can't start doing press.

But I'd like to, I have decided that

No, it's coming out the week of the inauguration.

That's why I want to keep that pure.

In other words, on the 60th birthday thing, it's only on the 60th birthday.

I could even give him some comments about it.

Well, don't worry about it.

I wouldn't get into the salt pet thing, but I would compromise this.

But what I, let me go back to that.

I'll come back to that later.

I was trying to say, in terms of the

More than if I had done, frankly, the pool.

You see what I mean?

Wow, I'm better now.

I would continue to do that sort of thing now.

In other words, the individual assault had things in that same category.

And the others will pick up on that.

Second point.

In terms of now, where, indeed, I'm speaking now, those days when I'm not using television, when I don't use television, the use of the small pool

On the kind of pool, if you did have one for an event of this sort, should it be just the two wires, or should you have a forest void, and who else do you pick?

You have to pick somebody that works with magazines, or television magazines, or whatever they do.

I don't care.

What should you do?

Well, I'd like to hear a little about what a small pool would look like.

Well, I think two things.

I mean, do it alone with the wires.

If you do have a small representative pool, I think we should include the various categories.

Wire, special, magazine, independent radio, and the network pooler, which would be basically made up of about seven people.

Isn't that really better than the two wires?

Which is better, Mike?

The third wire is only the two wires alone.

Here's what I would say.

Oh, let me go ahead with my scheme.

Then we do that.

Then as far as the press of Sullivan is concerned, the, uh, the, uh, what we do with the press, uh, I'm going to keep the Easter thing at a minimum.

Uh, first because of the greater impact I see when I use it.

Second, because it requires, uh,

Now, I think in terms of the White House press, I think

And then, after I've done one in the office, I think what I'm going to do is to go, is to use, that's the last one we do in the office.

Because we really don't get

I think the thing to do is to walk out at the time that you have your brief description around 1130.

And then on occasion, I'm just surprised.

They can turn on their cameras and all the rest of it.

We have one thing going for us now that we didn't have before.

I'm in discussions with the networks now.

They, because they do film and so forth off and on, they all have mini-cams.

Now, a minicam is a live television camera.

Now, they don't transmit it live, but they put it down on tape.

And it's a much better quality of a thing than film.

And I think they'll use it more than it's targeting.

It gives us more flexibility in this room out here, and it gives us better quality than just a film.

It is film.

It's just a technique.

But it is an advantage to us.

There's a small little thing.

The reason that I think I should do it out there, I'll do one in the office, sort of a casual one, say, now this is the first, and I'll announce at that time what my, you know, what the press will be.

It's helpful to have this thinking.

I have it.

I think we've learned some lessons over the last three to four weeks.

I'm not at all bothered by the Washington Post.

But I think we've learned some lessons in terms of how our friends in this city and around the country react to this general liberal, and it's true, I believe,

The struggle that is held on this town and the press corps, they are intimidated by it.

They are very disappointed in some of the guys.

I think we have to realize that it's a fact.

Frank Vanderland is a good guy.

Gary Pershorse is a good guy.

All of these guys are good guys, but the fact of the matter is Morris Boyd is a good guy.

They are intimidated because of the weakness of their numbers by the overall impact of the superior.

Yes, sir, absolutely, no question.

Let me, let me, sorry.

I think you're right.

I'm sorry, too.

Sure.

But on this, I think using that room out there is frankly the best thing.

you'll have, then you'll be on live two or three minutes.

You'll be on the networks.

You'll get a little more on the networks.

Now, the disadvantage of doing it out there is that it gives them a chance to pick up the kind of question that they want.

People do not see the whole thing.

But that isn't all that great a disadvantage.

The point is they're going to pick it out anyway.

If you have it in here, you understand, they're going to pick out the nasty thing and go.

And it's maybe better for them to see me

and giving the answer to the question and doing it otherwise.

Also, you can watch them very closely and say, well, that's how it comes.

You've got a pretty good thing on.

Now, that's true, we miss you, and we miss the prime time.

As far as the press conference itself is concerned, I did not intend to do any of the 9 o'clock.

I mean, I know all of this is very surprising to all of us, and you miss half the audience.

I know.

We do do an Easter lunch.

I'm going to do it at 730.

And it's just, you know, it's right up to the news.

And it doesn't interfere with any prime time stuff.

The idea of going to a press conference at 9, 9 o'clock, and so forth, it tends to take a little too much.

As far as the speeches concerned, I'll do that.

I don't have any problem with that, because they'll be short.

I don't know unless it's very important.

But I'll say something.

Good.

I'd like to hold the option generally open at some point

9 o'clock for a press conference.

But I agree with you.

I don't know if you want to make an impact.

You don't want to do it for a press conference.

That's true.

That's why you use a press conference, which is an adversary proceeding.

You want to make an impact, make a speech.

I mean, say, I just go on.

Wow.

And even sometimes five minutes.

Like you might even say, use the day where you don't remember radio in the old days.

They'd come on, very excited to have an announcement.

So we're going to come on for three, four minutes.

And that's on the mic.

I have too many people in this building to see me in Texas now.

And I couldn't get off.

I mean, there's something that's built up.

And you don't, you don't rock the hell out of the thing.

I just don't like the whole, like, half hour.

I don't like it.

Unless it's one hell of an event.

It doesn't do.

I don't like to, also in terms of the restaurants, I don't like to wait.

I don't want to get the damn work out.

I mean, it's, you know, you have to wait all day.

It's hard to keep

The point is, using the outside office rather than the Oval Office.

Well, I've always said that the Oval Office is nicer in the press, guys.

And it's a pleasant, easy way.

But I think it's easier in the outside office.

It's an informal, chatty kind of place.

We have found that via your performance over here.

heard it yesterday

comment, even no comment, by saying no comment on matters of sensitivity.

And then Herb said, we have moved from that period now.

We are moving from that period.

We've opened our relations with China.

We've had our first summit with the Soviet Union.

We are involved in negotiations, which hopefully will bring an end to

get one thing.

It's an in-house thing, Rob.

It really is.

On the other hand, the press conference can be useful for us.

So we should use it, right?

And as time goes on, I think it can be an early effective innovation, which I'd like the Congress to do.

But we want to take our time and our place in support.

It's an effective way to give discipline to the administration, which we want to do, and give their orders and so on and so on and so forth.

Now, the other thing, before we get to the birthday thing, I was talking to all of them a little about this hassle on the social thing.

The thing that I'm concerned about there is not the hassle of the social thing.

Let me say that's fine.

That's a good thing.

Today we have that.

That's open coverage.

It's a photo thing.

And on that, to raise with you, I think we should just have everyone go who wants to go because it's open coverage.

But here's what I have in mind.

My view is that you've got to separate the social things from the things over here.

And I think about the social things.

Yeah, first of all, you've got to think.

I mean it.

It doesn't make that much difference.

That takes care of her.

It's always having a moment.

Now, activities in which I also participate.

Let's take the examples.

Let's suppose we have a event.

We have a heat event.

Then, what I do not like is the press women coming in and making little guests.

Do you understand?

Do you like that?

Let me tell you why.

A lot of these guys are pretty rich.

They can create this kind of, you know, potential.

And they'll talk, you know what I mean?

And some sharpie will get in there and they'll burgle out something that gives like, you know, take a big seat.

You get a, yeah, I mean, obviously, he is a notorious flush.

I just don't want to impress him when we get out, right?

Now, my view as to how to handle that is to say that the press pool can cover the

And then they are invited to the entertainment afterwards.

You understand?

And what we'll do is to bring them up.

Don't invite them to these occurrences, but they're invited to the entertainment.

Don't get them in there with the others.

Can you handle that all right?

Or do you think that's a problem?

Yeah, I think so.

Just say they're invited to the entertainment, and they can do that.

And I realize that after dinner, you'll probably sit and stand around.

That's a little late.

There's a little bit of ideas going on.

I don't want them standing around.

Now, the third kind of thing is to take the event like the church service.

Now, the church service should not be able to come.

That, basically, is not a social event, Ron.

Do you agree, Ron?

I do.

Yes, I do.

Unfortunately, the problem that we have here, and as I said, I'm disappointed in these guys.

We invited, we called these guys up.

We're not talking about the social events.

You can have a Washington Post and a Washington Star, all the social reporters, you know what I mean, for the dinners, for the evenings in the White House.

I'm talking now about an event like a church service, which is not a social event, which is basically speaking.

Or suppose that I'm going over there to create a group of people.

I don't think, in other words, I think we should not, like future farmers, I don't see why the Washington Post and the Star have to be there.

Why isn't the church service exactly the same category?

Because the Washington Post and the Washington Star are always coming.

I don't give it any money.

If you really have to have them for that, it's not that much skin on my back.

But I just think that the third church service is certainly a great area where basically, well, let me see, the Post and the Star, I've never given.

past versus how they covered it when they were not in.

They've made such a big deal about this.

We're getting far better coverage and more extensive coverage in the social pages.

Well, I appreciate about the coverage, but it doesn't make a difference to the women.

So let's establish that now, but don't let them know.

Don't let them know.

Just change it when they come in.

But they have open coverage now for Mrs. Nixon.

That they are invited.

I mean, I don't care who else is invited, but they're not invited as guests to stand there.

I don't want them mingling with the guests while the guests are drinking their coffee.

They are invited when the receiving line begins.

They come up right at the head of the receiving line.

They have a little wire, a rotor there.

Do you see any problem with that?

No, I really don't.

You do?

No, I don't.

I'd like to move the guests that I don't like.

That won't happen.

We have that pretty under control.

This is what we want.

They're very, very aggressive.

We can work with them.

Now, on the church thing, it isn't that much of a confusion.

You think you ought to just invite them all to take the inaugural church?

I thought you were moving to a point where we wouldn't have, you know, we just hadn't concluded your thought when I reacted.

On the church services, I'm for the regular pool rotation procedure that we've been following all along.

And I'm also for, not only on the dinners, but also for the church services.

Let them be open coverage.

But basically, they're social.

That's right.

And they're more open.

But I believe exactly what the point that we put forth.

And that is that the Post and the Star do not have a special target.

And what they're trying to do, sir, is through every technique that they have available to them, and they're using Newsweek this week in their cover story, attempting to intimidate and put pressure on this administration to cave in and go back to the traditional situation that has existed in this town for too long

A group of little people are the star in the post who move around in the same circle, control over everything in this town.

And I understand this is Nixon's view, and I understand that there's been a very confident person.

That's exactly right.

Now, they're not subtle enough.

You've got to be...

We do have a situation, just very briefly here, where I think I underestimated some of our friends.

Overestimated.

Now, therefore, I think we've got to shift to a little more subtly in how we do this.

But I'm not for moving off of it.

Why not?

Well, I'm for it.

I'm for it.

Why don't you move on?

I'm using the L-side.

I tend to take the hard line.

I tend to.

But frankly, if you're on our band, we could... Well, I think that's my point.

And moving to a more subtle position.

I think on Mrs. Nixon's event, we just opened them up.

They're open for coverage like her computing session today.

On the social thing, we've said before, and we'll cut them off by doing this, we've said before, it's we're opening this up to the nation, and the post and the star will be on pools in the future.

I mean, what we do on the heat visit, for example, we let the post on it.

We get up some LA times, and we have the Baltimore sun, and we get up... Not have the star.

Not have the star this time.

I thought they would have come.

Us, uh, Isabel Shelton won't come unless the post is there.

Well, that post won't come unless the star is there.

If that happens,

If that happens, then we'll let them come.

This time.

On the heat, you'd let them both come?

Well, my view would be, and you raise the point, what if they won't come?

My view on the heat thing would be to see where the rotation system, let the post come this time and not this time.

Because, you see, we've never said we're keeping the post out.

That's correct.

spread this thing out across the country.

Post from the start will be on Google in the future.

But on the, we just do that.

We subtly do that.

We let the Post come in with a group of other newspapers.

On the heat visit, what do we do in the church service?

Then on the church service, we let the Star come into position on the church service.

Give it to everyone.

Give it to the Post.

Well, that's, I don't, I think if we, if we give the star the heat visit, it's going to continue to escalate.

I see.

Well, now we've got the, uh, the, uh, the woman, the Jewish woman coming.

True.

Oh, hello there.

Oh, go over there.

On here.

So you'll have...

We're thinking about having .

You've got two there to play with.

But the point is, Ron, let's just try to analyze.

What is our goal here?

What are we trying to accomplish?

What we were trying to accomplish was to build our own establishment, basically.

Right.

And we will for a period of time.

we were trying, of course, to break down the old establishment so that we were not constantly at their mercy.

Now, the trouble is, the establishment that we were trying to build turned around.

It really is a minor thing.

As I said, I think we've learned, I've learned some lessons over the last four weeks on this by doing it on this basis.

The real way we do it is with the

not so much on the social side, but on the tall pet and the harder.

And as we move along with a good thought-out strategy that you have in contact with, I hope maybe that the post, I don't know, cut the point on this.

And I'd still like to be able to have the flexibility to move on this subtly where we can.

to diffuse it as an issue.

It's becoming too big of a thing.

And I know that Mrs. Nixon will probably be uncomfortable with it.

One of the other things that we face here as we move into the second term is this combined, even though it's a minor thing, with the Whitehead.

us on what we really want to do with the press.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that we have to deal with the networks, and I'm a firm believer that we have to begin to build our men, but I want to do that, and as I've talked to Pat, I want to have an opportunity.

We should have the opportunity to do that in the second term, and I'm afraid that

Maybe we're moving back too fast.

We're going to back ourselves into a corner that we're not going to be able to accomplish this thing over a period of time that I think has to be done suddenly.

The only way we're going to correct this Georgetown-Einstein set, which has a grip on this place, is to be smarter than they are.

And we are smarter than they are.

But they will use every clue we've got in the park.

That's right.

They will use every clue.

The very fact that I have been out of the, out of the, uh, uh, out of the White Hall as a matter of fact since the election, I do not quite think you can relate about it.

I've been to New York.

I've been to the general election.

You're posthumous as far as I'm concerned.

I'm working like hell.

You know, we've got to realize that

It's like a, it's an insatiable appetite they have.

What they really want is to have you down here every week being hammered to pieces.

But they're not going to get that from me.

I agree with it 100%.

That's going to be reflected in...

But on this thing, what is...

So how are you going to be more subtle?

I mean, you figured... Well... First of all, you're going to let them cover the social events.

Sure, sure, yeah.

The point is, I just wouldn't let it be an issue.

I agree.

Now, how do people avoid it being an issue without letting them all in?

That's my point.

Well, by considering on a pool basis, a rotation basis, and just let it begin to unfold here and not always have the post and not always have the star in the air.

Good.

But in order to get back to ground zero, I think we have to...

move to let the post in and the SAR in and some of these things coming up.

But I want to do it the way, you know, I hope I can pull it off where it doesn't look like it's really going to turn out.

They may write it, but I'll take the heat on it.

I'm not worried about that.

I just want to cut it as an issue.

But going back to the other point, Mr. President, just briefly, in terms of the post, how they reacted and used every resource.

in terms of how our friends reacted the other night when they were invited over here to the congressional thing.

Also, the point was that was perfectly proper.

Absolutely, and they were told, and they were invited.

The point is they were invited because they, each of them, represented a state that had a hell of a contest, and where they had a chance to end theirs.

That's exactly the way we discussed it with them.

But they, the pressure, they caved up.

The same thing

You know, that combined, and this is what Newsweek is talking about.

This is where I'm making a point.

I don't want us to checkmate ourselves.

These independent stations, as sound as the Whitehead theory is, these independent stations out across this country are going to do the same damn thing because they really are crushing them as the guts down in South Carolina.

But he's about the only one.

I used to be involved in his business in Los Angeles.

where I used to go to the affiliate meetings with the NBC people.

Mr. President, the owners and the managers of most affiliate organizations across this country, although they are basically in our camp, they are weak men.

They like the cocktails.

They've got themselves a very nice slush income.

And they don't like to accept the responsibility of fighting.

And I think the point I'm making, I'm all for moving

Absolutely against the network hold.

But here again, it's doing it subtly and with, I think, great skill to break that power thing.

To conclude, I think the post situation and the reaction, the post with all their forces against us, the reaction of our friends in Washington, the Whitehead speech combined with the reaction of the station managers,

plus the field laws and all of the other type of things going on out there now, is moving, perhaps moving us into a position where we won't be able to accomplish what I feel has to be accomplished so badly because we are going to checkmate ourselves by the sheer force of opinion

That's what I was concerned about.

Because I said, you've got to play the big game and let this crash up.

And I was the one that suggested, you know, that we ought to cut the post off from some of these events because apparently they were covered in such a nasty way.

But then I don't think it's worth it.

I think it's worth dealing with.

I don't want to back away, you know, or out front.

But I know you can do it anyway.

But just rotate it in a proper way.

Just so they understand that nobody has to mess with the right computer at some point.

And that's the way I would do it.

Except for the misconnection events.

Let them always cover that.

That's the social.

And the way to really take, the way to deal with these people is as we move into the second term, there's no one who can complain.

You can't complain about the individual session that you would have.

And that's... Well, some.

That's my point.

That's why they can't... That's right.

And intermingled with that, your sessions, as we've talked about earlier, here in Eastern and so forth, that's the way some...

to move against the establishment, because that is the only way they can build and remove people.

Incidentally speaking, the one-on-one and so forth, one thing I did want to tell you about, as far as toleration is concerned, I've heard no circumstances in America to do a one-on-one event with a television commentator because we get too small a share of the audience.

It requires just as much network and just as much literacy.

You know, like the rather things, the spending and so forth, are basically not worth our time.

And I hope every other, if I do, if I do anything for the networks, I think I should do the true one.

You agree with that?

I just shouldn't make it better.

Now, the only exception would be if one of the networks wants to cover up, do the effort of covering it up like we have once covered the Christmas thing.

But I think as far as my Q&A session, no one after a commentator is going to be able to recommend it.

With a newspaper person, that's a very good thing.

Like the Horner thing, I think you've really got to see Horner's play across the Minnesota.

It'll be a different kind of play because it's more personal.

I mean, Horner's hard to see a sense of the direction of the administration in this.

So there's, there's your seat.

Let me ask you about one other thing.

About the, the setting of the birthday thing.

If you could handle it in a way that said, well, they all know I saw something.

No, sir.

They don't.

You're going to tell them?

No.

Well, then you can say, well, I had a first amendment to the two.

I would say second.

You say you've got a lot of questions and so forth, but

If you know, let me be quite candid there.

The president has deliberately done policy.

He's not going to see the president.

Why don't you just say, now, this is, this is, this is, you know, deep background or anything.

I don't want you to indicate, I don't want you to get anything, to write anything out of what you tell them about that, about the fact.

No, I just, the way I handle it is, I don't want you to, if you want to, I mean, you can say this or that also, but I don't want to, I don't want to go into any, it's obviously, we actually want hot news.

If you've got any hot news questions that, uh, we're going to have to, you, you, you are going to have to provide them because, uh, it's not fair to the other people.

However, this can be, he can talk about this can be the birthday.

And we can talk basically about age generally.

It actually has an effect on world leaders, Congress, judges, and so forth.

I can say that's about it.

And he can sell it.

He can bail out without hurting our friends.

Now, we can keep them around, and that it should be a Q&A with regard to...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll just say this.

Talk about, this was simply a discussion about age.

Right.

Thinking about age alone.

And I can tell them about what I was at 30, what I was at 40, where I was when I was 50.

I look back and I can tell them about the birthday.

Right.

They can't carry the burden.

I said, no, they're exceptional.

and this whole, you know, inaugural, the budget and so forth, you see it just very briefly.

I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said,

I don't think you need a half an hour.

I'll take whatever comes.

I'll take it.

I'll have it.

People are more interested in what the President of the United States has to say on his 60th birthday than they are in the Vietnam negotiations.

That's absolutely true.

Just like I've had more people rant about that fellow yesterday who's over on the moon in the island.

He's been there.

He's 70 years old right now.

He's been there since 1936 or something.

It was in Prairie Magazine.

People were talking about it all over.

This American went over there in 1936 and was never locked up.

He's sired about five kids.

But he's a diabolist.

When I was there, they tell us it's a brief piece about his life.

People read that as an human interest.

I'm not equating it with the President's birthday.

It's an human interest.

People are talking it all about him.

Well, I have not walked at the time that we're going to have to do it.

And that will change too.

I mean, the Congress could, once the Vietnam thing is over one way or another, they're going to have some second thoughts about some other activities.

I think you agree.

I agree.

You see, the whole network, the network people right today are in absolute, total fear.

What's that fear?

The fear.

And they are building up

every force that they can to use every asset they have to move against this administration in every way they can because they're fearful that we're going to attempt to destroy them.

Now, I think we should attempt.

I think we should.

We shouldn't have it be afraid.

But the only way I think that you really catch a guy or deal with a situation is by subtle surprise.

If we run ahead on that, we may accomplish it with the power force, but the environment and the tone, even as it relates to the whole congressional thing, the whole setting in Washington, the whole setting and tone of the administration in the early years, which I think is so important, that we don't look that way.

One of them here, though, because of the Biden thing.

Yes, sir?

I'm all for that.

Go for the cable television?

Hell, yes.

I think we should.

Hell, yes, I'm for it.

I've seen it.

Folks are for it.

Don't misunderstand me.

I'm absolutely for that cable television thing.

Absolutely 100% for it.

In other words, we're down for it.

But we don't want to be in any of it.

As far as the light of day.

We're not cutting off any network people or anything like that on the news, are we?

Is that what they're saying?

Well, the impression is that it makes a great deal of logic is that the TV management who receives a license from the FCC has a responsibility to present a balanced view to their community.

They buy from the networks, or they take from the networks, network programming, and therefore they should have the responsibility to monitor that programming.

And the suggestion is that as they monitor and present balance, that the force should come back from the affiliated stations to the networks and therefore, you know, lead them to present a more balanced view.

Very good theory.

Except the network, except the affiliated stations are weak.

You see?

And therefore... What do you do?

Just roll over?

Absolutely not.

We don't roll over.

You just don't pick them up promptly, I agree.

Why don't you get the Congress to do it?

That's what I think.

The Congress will be prepared to do it, you know, in some areas.

Science is no lightweight, whatever.

you're going to hear some, too.

But what I'm saying is that I don't want, of course, to take steps that would... Well, we don't want to make our life harder around here, getting our story back.

That's the reason I want you to get this social thing out of the way.

Let me just... And that'll cool off a little bit.

Sure will.

and it's

They don't want such a thing in the future as doing this experiment.

Put it that way.

But they're on to good behavior, and that's what I do.

I don't think I don't want to see why they don't know what you think about your relationship with Congress.

You don't know about the networks and so forth.

Watergate, Watergate.

He doesn't want Kennedy to get into it.

He's facing Kennedy gets into it.

We will plan to do that.

I will retain.

Now let me say in terms of my own relations with the press,

saying that the Congress, I'm not going to get down to this bloody, bloody, let's have a drink, boys, and all that sort of thing.

I don't agree with that.

Absolutely.

I mean, we've never advocated, but somewhere around here, too, and I said, oh, like, for example, on the social basis, I even had somebody there read my e-mails, like Dick Wilson and Howard Smith the other night.

If you see what he did, he had a good dinner.

He was not the thing.

These guys are real pro.

They came in, they had a nice session, a good evening with the President of the United States, and they're flapping out around the city.

Howard K. Smith goes back, and he has a different point of view in his own mind, and presents his own.

Howard K. Smith is professional, unfortunately.

Nick Wilson is, too.

A new factor I think we have to bring into this, and this is what I was thinking about a

But our friends, most of them, who we have to work with and deal with, don't have, unfortunately, because... No, but they didn't beat me.

They didn't beat me.

As I said, I... You know, it's not that we don't need to do with regard to the Georgetown thing.

We can put on a few parties.

Pat and I did the whole thing.

Yeah, I could come on and flare up.

That's exactly right.

We had as many... You had a great administration, Mr. President, as many sharp...

good-looking young people, any of the Kennedys or any of these, this gal who's selling all of her china over there and all of her household goods at Barbara Howard Gallow.

Their parties are dull, in other words, in terms of what they have to offer.

We have in this White House, in this place, the young people we have, we have to offer.

Ray Price, you've got guys like that.

You have a lot of them.

Ken Cole is a sharp young man.

Ken Cole, I think, also used that earlier.

I think, also, you can use somebody like Ann Armstrong.

Ann Armstrong.

That's right.

Right, actually.

Where this town does not revolve around the Carl Rones and the Ben Bradleys and the Catherine Grahams and all of these.

Tom Brady.

What are they?

They are nothing.

He goes to Brady.

I have a little system where we try to do that.

On the second, Henry, not Bradford, Henry called Bradford.

There you go.

He called him.

If he was still here, he called Bradford on the final response.

After talking about the craft, I said, Henry, boy, I'm going to really hit that craft column today at my best.

He said, well, I don't think you should give a checklist on every decision, do you?

Should you not?

I mean, of course you should be aware of that.

I said, well, Henry, I know my business, and I said, if I don't hit it hard, you're going to have a situation where you or we're opposed to buying a brother's work.

I said, fine, Henry.

I said, well, what I'll do then is I've got to do this for your own good.

I'm

I don't know that he...

I don't think he...

I think he's made it subtle with it.

They say that.

He just says, well, you know how it is.

Am I clear?

Oh, we understand that he's got his problem.

But if he would only stay out of that, stay away from that, George Johnson, and make himself available for a new second.

That's right.

Now, I think on that side, you could have some of your press people in.

Sure, absolutely.

But we... And not only, not only are...

Our friends, but I'll tell you a guy that we can use here.

You may react negatively to this, but Clifton Daniel, for example, is coming down here.

I'm not complaining, giving, leaking all the stuff from the New York Times.

Is Clifton Daniel over here?

No, he's head of the Washington Bureau now.

Oh, why didn't you know he wrote it?

Yeah, I've never seen it before.

He spent, he took that Michael's place.

He's got a whole family now.

The Times, the Times is the only real competitor that Post has.

Absolutely.

That is it.

So you can take the Times to the Post better.

Absolutely.

Good.

What do you do?

How do you deal with the handyman?

Well, I have lunch with him.

Good.

And, you know, get off to a good start.

Talk about a very good name.

Say...

Look, let me tell you something you might say.

I'm sorry, I'm pressing you.

Thank you.

And I don't want to say it's really irrelevant who's on the staff, and I understand the editorial positions that are going to go with it, and certainly we don't want to get it, because it says that the U.S. president gave us a train seal, and there has to change, and there has to be a reason to never, I never called a coalition race all of Australia, and, uh,

He said that he deals with it, that in recent years, that the advocacy journalism, which has been allowed to be done for some of the time, for him, seriously has affected the credibility

I can't pay that much attention to that one.

I do understand he's distinguished.

Tom Webber should express that as a journalist, and Scotty Ruskin should under their violence.

But it should be so labeled.

The Times, the Situs, must be the most, it's most important, it's most important to strike against the President of the United States.

and he says, he pointed out to me, he could say this, the Times has never endorsed anyone in this contest for public office.

Except when he was on the day of the election.

Has never endorsed anyone in this contest for public office.

So he's not concerned about that.

And he respects the right, but he says on the other hand, he says that he's been around here for four years, the Times is an armistice report.

I'll say that we'd like to have a right-hand relationship, but President, you cannot have a special relationship.

You can have a special only to each other.

You have more reporters covering, but the time that they, the times that all the inspired cases are always gone.

This is one country.

It's the whole country.

There's a whole, there's a new annex in the country.

They all want it.

We're going to play everybody equally.

to be sure that the Times will not be discriminating against you.

I think, I can't talk about that.

Now, instead of, I would not have that kind of a talk with the Post.

I think that you're in a different situation.

Let me say, I deal with the Times.

Well, they don't take the shit out of us on the editorial page and on the rest of the quicker and the rest of the way.

The Times knows they have to live with this.

They don't want to be totally outside.

Do you agree with me?

I'm sure because he's called me three, four times.

Even just sensitive, you know, to encourage, you know, sitting down and talking.

So that's it.

But I'd rather, you know, I'd say let him complain about the fact that, I mean, who went out there to do it?

Did our friend go to the government?

John Apple.

That's what I said.

I said, you said John Apple over here.

I said, well, what is happening?

John Apple, you can say this.

Well, we're not asking if we want a transceiver, but we've got to have somebody who can ride it straight up and keep it there.

I was opposed to probably handling that.

and newspaper politically managed is ingrained with the political point of view that permeates every reporter in the entire organization.

And the only way that we should deal with the White House is not to let them get it managed.

I think we can use these magazines as we move into the second term.

Sight's hurting badly.

We are.

We're no one's going over the center.

We're trying to keep that, the heavy drop of it down.

Everyone, hopefully, is going to be busy.

But there's a difference in national figures.

Sir, I need a dinner January the 30th.

Where do they have the PR?

No, here.

On your line, there's a dinner here January the 30th.

Where at home?

Off work.

I want to get to the position where we heard ourselves, right?

You would have thought that our friends at the press would see what we were trying to do and welcome the opportunity to get in there and fight.

They will, but you've got to make it easier for them to use those.

One of the things that hurts us too, quite frankly, is the fact that we're checkmated again with the SAR for a while

Someone around here says that, or someone says that, tongue-in-cheek, that we want to build the star up, and we're not doing it.

Well, if I was, perhaps, you know, moving the waves and so forth, sitting over there, I'd say, to hell with this.

I'm not going to be used as a, as a, as a, that's why you've got to have a post-social, you know, social, you know,

We'll work it out.

Second.

All right.

We'll have the girls on with you.

Nice to meet you.

And we have the men.

Should we have a cool picture of each other in the podcast?