Conversation 836-006

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Happy birthday.

That's 60 euros.

Is that 60?

Yeah, 5,000 pounds.

I was talking to Ron about that.

He burned this.

I know he raised it.

It grows.

But I don't want you to do it now.

But if you do tonight, when you go home, you take that away.

So thank you.

See you.

I suppose it was in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We look at the color.

Yeah, well, that's it.

Jake by the sign.

Doesn't have that little bit, yeah.

All right.

There you go, buddy.

Yeah, I was thinking of you.

I thought you dropped it, but then it was nice knowing you all.

Yeah, we gave you a nice.

Rose, would you follow up on the machines?

And I'll tell you, if you would do this with Rose, with you, first, maybe just bought this one.

And I don't want him to pay what he wants to give me, because he shouldn't do it.

Just pay for him out of petty cash.

And get a transcribing machine, too.

The other thing I want you to do is buy one so that I can give one to Julie.

Check with Julie to see if she'll use it.

Say, I'm sure she will.

I don't want the White House to, but you see these are nine minutes, and they should put an hour.

I don't think the White House, per se, the White House can be buying some.

The White House should not buy some.

They should be personal gifts.

Let me buy some.

Yeah, they like it.

You can have Walker buy it.

I'll just detail it to you.

There's no point in you paying for stuff.

Nobody else does.

Walker supplies communication equipment to everybody in this place.

Well, Walker might get two of them.

Just tell them to stock them, and then they sign them.

You don't know.

Yeah, they don't know the site.

I'll construct two of those.

Well, it's not free because they'll stop paying.

Well, actually, well, they didn't stop paying because basically I will now start to use the AC.

I'll tell you what I need.

I need one in Camp David.

I need one in Florida.

I need one in California.

And, of course, I need one here.

Well, why don't you just buy this?

I didn't.

Yeah, I need one in EOB.

Not here, I'm not going to use it here.

I need one in EOB because I do sometimes do five of those there.

And I need one more in the residence.

So I already, we're already talking about six of them, see.

Now I'll get one in the jewelry.

I'm going to get one in the jewelry.

Okay?

Really going to take it.

I only need one.

You only need one transcriber, you see.

Yes.

Because we are going to have to be throwing these around everybody.

I mean, I'm not going to be doing these for other people.

Well, these are transcribers that take a whole hour, like things.

Do they go in a cassette?

They go in a cassette.

As a matter of fact, Rosie, they take two hours.

That's right, on both sides.

You can use that to play music.

Don't do that.

Oh, maybe he does.

He takes music off of records and puts it on this and takes it out to his boat.

I think we tried it last night in the house.

And just we opened it.

I didn't even know it was on.

And it picked up the conversation in the whole room.

I just wanted to know what we ought to do.

What Patricia said, we got to the dinner.

She said, you know, the next time we have somebody like this in Long Island, she said, I think I'll just bring it in and talk to the radio.

Just let it sit there.

Nobody knows it.

And there's the conversation.

The whole dinner conversation is recorded.

It's really fun.

That would be nice, because she's just a character, and there won't be very many more times when you could just accept it.

Well, anyway, this is my job.

Well, they may not have to do it, but I'm going to have to work at it.

Well, on that, we've got the reasons on your products, because of the fact that a broad person should have them.

Ron's analysis of it, he tried to shoot it down yesterday, because Carol said they put his line, and I'm sure he's right.

And I, the reason why, you know, what I was concerned about, maybe it came from Clawson.

No.

I don't think so.

No, no, they did call Sparks, but I don't know.

No, they did Clawson.

You see, they wouldn't talk to Clawson.

Clawson never talked to the Bush.

They checked Clawson on it.

See, the point is, the reason that I first was a little surprised with Ron,

this reasoning is i think unassailable see we changed the plan the director of communications is not going to be placed under ziggler and ziggler knows that and swanson knows that and client doesn't because we never got we never went back to playing on the restructuring of the thing we just said that's the way it's going to be you know when we first talked to him then he talked with ron ron to his credit said you can't put the director of communications

You've got to put him separate.

Now, sure, he can report through me, just like cabin officers report through Earl of them, but he can't be put operationally under me.

He's got to be senior.

And that was agreed upon.

Why would I put him on?

In order to keep himself here.

Create a backwash.

Keep himself here.

So that he would change his mind?

Yeah.

Because he...

And I think it's probably right.

See, my first reaction to the story, before that, I said to Ziegler, you shouldn't, I was kidding him at that time, I said, you shouldn't have put that story out.

And he said, I didn't, of course.

I said, well, you know what you've done now, you've just assured that Klein stays here for about two more years.

He said, I know, that's exactly the point.

That's, now figure that result, then figure back to who put it out.

Then, it goes to the point of the other thing.

I think it is, because there was a New York Times leak a while back

I think he's doing it probably in a thing where he talked to somebody and they said, well, why are you, you know, why would you be leaving?

He said, well, we're going to put the office under the press secretary and I think I should get out.

Now, it may not be...

I tried to reach her yesterday.

I was going to talk to her after our discussion.

I just sort of slowed down on his departure, but cut down on his original.

I think we've still got to do the same thing.

I just... Yeah, the only thing is, I do say he's a damn valuable property in terms of coming out and doing things for us.

And I don't have anybody else to...

is quite, can quite fill that niche, you know, across the board.

You know, I don't know if you know anybody who, at this moment, across the board, you know, deserves a unique type of person.

I think you won't get anybody who, across the board, isn't that sort of, isn't that, frankly, an asset for us to have around.

You see, you can't put, take Herb, Herb, Herb with the domestic stuff, but he can and should get involved in all the other things.

Curb has the great advantage of that soft shoe, direct, and also Curb does not answer questions.

He's very, very clever.

I think he's more clever than he realizes.

He just pushes some story out.

He's got some things in his mind and he goes into these things.

He puts those out of the story and does not answer the other questions.

I don't know anybody else in the show that does that.

If he can keep it

on the, the, without having an office.

But one thing you can do with it, I say, is to make it a council.

You see, I know you're probably downgraded.

This is Armstrong and all that sort of thing.

I don't think it makes that much difference.

But I'm just thinking out loud with the council,

With the understanding that he's a counselor, I think he will be like the other counselors.

I'm just thinking out loud for a moment.

With a second term.

In other words, he's got an enrolling assignment.

Very good.

And he's got a closet for his kids.

Well, to do that, he needs somebody to answer his phone at the clinic.

It's just a, he's got a, is he a clock?

It's unbelievable.

He's got a guy who's a, he's a nice guy, but he is so dumb.

It's almost beyond belief.

He's a SC football player at Blacksmith.

He wasn't even a good football player at all times.

But he's a total jock.

He's a guy who, you know, is typical, punchy.

Couldn't have gotten into any place that didn't.

Well, let me say this.

I had no idea that Heard would ever develop the capabilities that he does in television.

I mean, you know, he did.

A lot of smart people did.

But Heard, Bob, is better than any of us realizing this.

I have talked to any number of people that say he's our best man in the world.

Well, I said that, and I firmly believe that.

And that's the name of the game.

That's a hell of an asset.

I think Heard totally, in my view, totally...

relieved of other duties.

Totally relieved.

Okay, but remember that.

You've got to have him in meetings.

You've got to let him be in and out of things.

He's got to know that.

Yeah, he can be in meetings.

I have no objection to that.

And he says in the cabinet meetings and, uh, for that matter, he can sit in the NSC meetings too.

But he's going to sit in meetings of the, uh, you know what I mean?

He isn't going to come in to greet the leaders.

That sort of thing.

There's where you've got Zellweger.

Zellweger is the press secretary.

I'm thinking of him.

Basically, as a counselor, just like a Capitol officer doesn't sit in the seat.

I think a counselor, if anything, just sort of appeals to me.

He works with those people and kind of advises them about some shoes around.

The problem with that, well, I know there's a problem with that.

The problem with that, well, I think he's got to stick around anyway.

No.

Keep him around.

We can handle that.

The problem with making him a counselor also is that

then you don't have a director of communications.

Do you bring in another director of communications?

See, we've said, Herb would argue that, and I think rightly, that there's a lot of pluses to having set that office up, and that there's a value to maintaining it.

Now, what we can do is say we're changing the role of director of communications under our organization.

We can make it a counselor-type role.

Counselor of communications.

And instead of directories, there'll be consular communications.

He will be not in an operating role, but in a, in a, let's face it, you know darn well the letters and all the rest.

You might get that away from her anyway.

Don't we?

Most of it, yeah.

Some of it, it's good because he can do a lot on his own things.

Yeah, but he can do telephone calls and a lot of it is done or not.

But I would like to get the things that have to be well organized, all of them under it.

in some other office.

You know, you say the Counselor of Communications, right?

Herb is the guy that attends everything.

That's the other thing.

Somebody with the time, life, people that have their heads on meeting, the scripts hard, people have their heads ready.

Let Klein go.

You know?

Let Klein be the representative.

He can, well, that doesn't represent anything.

And then you keep the cap out of things that we recommend.

That's all the way.

Okay.

This is a pretty good way of having a cake meeting at two.

It might get him to leave.

Why?

Well, he realized what was happening to him.

In my view, it was a serious personal mistake for him to do that.

from an employer's viewpoint it'd be 60.

I mean, the way you look at a guy at that point is he seems just at the age where he's just about at the last time that he can get up.

And he isn't a chief executive or executive vice president.

He really is.

Well, and Hurt won't be a young 60.

He'll be an old 60 when he's 62.

I mean, you're a young 60 now.

Well, you are.

But you are.

I mean, you're in physical and mental condition.

You're...

twice as fast as Klein was when he was 30.

And Klein is a slow guy.

He was slow when he started, and he's never speeded up.

And that doesn't mean he's dumb, because he's not.

But he's deceptive.

Klein's a hell of a lot truer than he appears to be.

And everybody likes him.

I can't spread it around everybody else.

Well, that's the point I made to Ann Armstrong.

And one of the pitch I made to her is that on coming into the White House, I said, Ann, one of the most important things you can do is to be nice.

Because we've got a lot of good people in the White House.

We've got a lot of capable people.

We don't have very many nice people.

You know, I'm rather sorry that we...

I wonder if we could ask Helen to write up her full notes just for us.

Did Ron say anything?

Yes, he did take me notes.

You know, I think on that type of occasion, so that they don't know that a record is being made, I would take a little sign and put it just kind of laying there.

All right, then have a good deal with the other one.

That's one thing I was going to raise with you.

I think we ought to do that office, too.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, where does this thing stand?

You understand, I want to control these.

I want nothing ever transcribed out of this.

You have total control.

Nobody knows it exists except Alex and me and one guy, one technician.

And this covers everything.

And I'll have to tell Steve, you just cover everything in the room.

And they hear things over there, too.

Good.

It has pluses and minuses.

Some of it's better than others.

It's not broadcast quality, but someone working on it can get the substance out.

They can get the substance out.

You won't want to sit and have to work on it.

I mean, if we want to someday, if someone has to write a history, we've got a history of communication.

It comes here and covers the capital.

Oh, yeah.

Put it in the EOB, too.

And it should be in the EOB because actually that's all put in other places because I make my own notes for camp.

They're not in other places.

You don't need them there.

The EOB, I think it could be in there.

I always want to do it outside.

I want to save me having to try to recall some things.

Not that everybody should make notes.

They should pick up some things.

Well, the value of people making notes, those things are going to be impossible to, or not impossible, they're going to be very difficult to utilize.

There's tons of them.

But the point is, from the notes and from the logs that we've got and everything, we've got a system, we've got a tracking thing now where we can very quickly, if you want to say, when was the day that I did such and such, and how long back did this go?

How many years?

Something like that.

I don't know.

But I've thought a number of times over at DOD that there have been things that was too bad, you know, cottony needs and things like that, that it would have been good to have had.

All right.

We could do, you know, that little thing that kind of you're talking about.

We could, we could use those in places where you could just keep it inside a drawer or something, you know.

I don't know if that's a good thing.

He wants to tell us.

It's a damn sensitive mic.

Let's just say that we'll see.

We'll see.

We'll never do it unless people are making obvious notes so that they know what they're saying is being recorded.

Well, that depends on the usage.

The point of these tapes, they're locked in a vault that nobody knows what they are or anything else.

I don't think Rose or anybody else knows about them.

Oh, hello.

That's what I was saying.

Hello.

And that kind of thing, that's yours.

Hello.

Well, look, you can do the climbing the way you want.

I think your point's right.

I think the counselor in this service, I think he'd say that prestige of him.

So that's not bad if he does.

Then we have our pay-per-view, too.

And he'd give him Captain Ryan, O'Henry, or the others.

It doesn't make any difference.

That's my point.

Here we understood that he's over in the EOB.

None of that bullshit about being in this office.

I heard we've got three counselors over there.

You're going to be over there in the EOB.

Just keep your press in office.

But you shut all this up.

Counselor communications.

See, I just, it just occurred to me, I just think it's got a whole lot of pluses.

And it gets that bad communication sent out here.

Now it's that way.

If he leaves, I put David in the same thing.

I don't mean that we should be good, but we can't.

It's the highest we can pay.

It's 42.

It's 45.

We can't pay more.

Okay.

The outlook is quite strongly that we will have the entire cabinet confirmed before the inaugural.

We're not going to have that much trouble.

They don't think so.

We may have been confirmed, yeah.

We may have some hang-ups with sub-cabinet, but not with cabinet, apparently.

What kind of sub-cabinet?

Oh, they're going to play some games with Krogh and try to use him as a way to look at Watergate-type things, you know, or White House legal operations.

And they're going to... Krogh, I don't want to go back into that.

They won't have any problem with Simon, except there's a delay because the Finance Committee, the Republican side, has to organize so they don't have to lose one.

And Krogh...

It's ideal.

If we're going to have anybody get hurt on Watergate, Coach, you've got to be hurt.

First of all, he has no deal.

He said nothing about Watergate.

It had nothing to do with it.

And the other operation, the leak coverage thing, he was involved in.

He can handle it.

He talked about it.

He would be ideal.

And he goes up Thursday.

He makes a hell of an impression.

The only thing I can hit Bud on is with any validity is lack of experience and qualifications.

He often hasn't.

So what does it matter?

Transportation?

Well, but the other answer to that is he's been running the goddamn department in effect from here for four years, three years.

I hit very hard on the idea that the older men, the way that they, the most important in the world, is that they're associated with the younger people.

Yep.

I don't know.

Did that, you read the story?

No, I haven't read it.

You'll have to read it.

You'll see.

Well, that's right.

I heard the radio, I don't know what they did, but they, uh,

The radio thing, they had the lead was the greatest danger is becoming bored.

But then they had the key to that is to have young people and that they do have them in terms of both your contact with your children, which is very close, and with your young staff, you have a very young staff, which is a hell of a good point to make.

It's quite true.

It sure is.

I kept a secret about, about the, this idea of mine marching in front of the cameras, literally defraying, without, and without trying to delete it.

So I, he came down strongly against it.

But the very reason I did, I, he said, this is the right time, this has to go out there.

He said, it's going to look as if you are trying to divert attention.

We all agree on the other, I mean, you see, the thing that you can watch,

You've got to continually watch with the domestic people.

As you know, John Erickson pointed out, he had rather ruthlessly worked his ass off preparing for questions to meet the president.

They were asking him about sharing domestic programs.

That's what goes on.

How many times have we been through that?

I mean, in our own press conference, that's, you know, I feel true.

You can't force all those man-to-man issues out of the domestic.

You never get any questions on it.

But I'm getting at it.

Not that that proves it.

At the present time, the primary interest is on Vietnam.

And you cannot divert attention.

In fact, what you do is only going to raise this issue the other way.

All right.

I want to congratulate you for starting on the road to speaker.

Yeah.

I'll tell you, if I only hear you now, I apologize.

But I wanted to say that, you know, it's good to have our state so recognized.

Did you ever expect this when you came to the House?

Yeah.

I had exactly the same thing when I was, uh, used to hoe weeds around the tomato plants in your home.

Ha ha.

Right.

Better try it.

Well, if you can't make it look like the lawyers are running into the box right now, I don't, uh, we'll see the lawyers if we can find them.

Ah.

That's worthwhile, because that guy really has such a fine stand-up.

I don't know why the hell he is.

I can't figure that one out.

Because he's from B country.

His press letter has to be in it.

Okay.

Yes.

Well, I don't know.

It's his birthday.

He's got to go.

He's ready.

There are some people who actually, you know, you'll find these kinds of stuff.

Sure.