Conversation 848-009

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I want to set up one other meeting at 4.30 today.

That's the meaning of it.

I want, uh, I want basically to try to, try to, try to, try to, try to, try to, try to, try to, try to.

I don't want to have it.

That's just a concern.

Why would he get it?

I don't know.

It's a counselor's meeting.

It was supposed to be just the three cats and John.

Or wherever.

Schultz.

Schultz is the counselor.

All right.

Be sure that the ash can't come up with the other one.

It's okay.

The other one has been here.

I'm sure it's fine.

It's fine.

Well, see where we are.

He's playing a strong game of trying to stay over longer.

And Henry's view is that he's got to be ordered back by the Knights, which I think I'd better do over Henry.

His declared purpose is that adding Manila makes it impossible for him to get back on the Knights.

Henry argues that he can compress the others and do it.

And he's convinced he's playing, he's got a golf game in Kuala Lumpur or something like that.

He's still got, he's in Singapore now, it's nighttime.

He's still got Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila, but that's all.

And he's got, this is Monday, well, it's Monday night there.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, he could be back.

Which is having a reason to want him back.

Henry says he talked to you, Henry sent him a cable on your orders, he says, saying he had to be back here for a cabin meeting on the 9th.

Before that had gone, the Vice President called me to ask, just for general guidance, what your plans were, because he was trying to determine whether he should come back to Washington or to California, because he has to be in California on February 12th, he's giving the link today.

So his plan was to meet you in California and stay in Palm Springs for the weekend and give a speech on Monday and then come back.

If he comes back here, we just let him go to California.

It's important that you say if I'm still here, because I'm currently not planning to go to California.

So you aren't at all?

It looks like you just go out and meet Henry.

What I was trying to do is get the vice president to go on the way with the captain and to have an excuse for getting the captain together.

That ought to be useful.

We can still have him come on in here and he can go back to California.

It's just a hell of a lot better than any other way to do it.

Well, we can have the captain after the, if you're going to stay.

That's still what, let me go back to California, stay there, give this one day speech and then come back on the 13th, unless you're planning, if you're.

I don't think you're going to have a cabinet meeting next week.

without mission, design, or purpose of this experiment.

But let's go from here.

The other thing I'm saying is that he apparently has something that where he feels it's imperative that the device starts to be out of agent by the 8th, 9th of the 8th.

Because of his arrival, he doesn't want the Vice President there when he said he arrives in Hanoi on the 8th, I guess.

He'd probably write.

And if he was the Vice President, it would be very bad, you know, if he's making something about strengthening Saigon at the time of Henry's.

Well, he won't be safe.

Is Henry concerned about anything he's said so far?

No.

I don't think I can order him back unless.

Well, they're staying in California.

But he's gotta be in LA as well.

Do you like this boy?

The other question is Henry had all these to do with the fact that

But obviously, so this is entirely new to me that he ever wanted to go past it because I thought he was even coming back.

He was the ninth.

But he said, I said, is he definitely coming back?

He said, yes, he is coming back.

And that was before Manila was added.

And then he said, that makes it the 10th or the 11th.

The vice president did.

But Henry never met him, because Henry wasn't back when I said that he has to come back to arrive in Washington on Friday so that he can meet with the captain.

And for reasons that Henry explained when he left, Henry went into Hawaii and had to be back before Henry got there with him.

Yeah.

And Henry's very distressed that he's trying to extend the trip.

And he thinks he reads all kinds of possible bad motives, including being in Manila at the time that we were .

Well, I was just going to say, he does the same thing for social engagement at night or something.

It's just your schedule and the entire free world's basic plans.

Well, we're dealing here with a couple of children.

But what happened was that BP called me yesterday morning and asked about this.

I had covered just what generally, not the question.

He was on an open base.

He said, I'm adding vanilla, and I just want to get a feel of what the president's report about us would be if he wants me to report back.

And I said, well, your tentative plan then would be more to be in California on the 10th or 11th.

And he said, well, I have to be there the 9th or the 12th.

So if it works out, I would, if he wants to see me, I can come in there and see him and then go over to the 12th.

After that, Henry sent the cable.

After they got the cable, the vice president, Art Sommer, called me just to ask what the signal was for, and I told him, just come a little bit later.

So then Henry and I talked about this morning.

He thought we should report, you know, an order.

But don't, the point is, don't put it on the basis that I have to have you back for the handwritten treaty.

I was simply using that.

Frankly, I thought it was a damn good way to have a captain down the middle.

We had to get that out of the way so that he wouldn't be mixed with memory, which was, of course, downplayed.

So that was all, and that was the purpose of my call.

Okay, now the second point is that I agree to an amity.

So you really gotta get to the heart of the problem with him as to why he thinks he's got to come back early.

Okay, if he wants you back early.

See, I'm not gonna go to California, you'll see him there, he'll come here.

But it won't do any good if you don't get any of her legs on the money.

What was he at the end of the night?

Oh, there's going to be a cat at the meeting.

Yeah, that's what had to be true.

Instead of playing around with cables, I got that thing.

Wait, it's off on the phone.

I think you said you were going to buy it.

I said I was going to buy a cat, but I didn't have a cat.

Okay.

And then I might go to California for the next weekend.

I'm not sure.

My alternate plan would be that I just report it for a couple days now and come back here the next week.

Okay, thank you.

Done.

I saw you called Lady Bird.

Did she, is there anything to follow up on that?

No, she's appreciated it very much.

Great.

I mentioned that he went and just hold it over.

You're speaking of the one thing I did have to raise.

I'm wanting to get in front of the three or four page letter about a ambassador to Britain.

I think that would give the stands a harder time.

I don't think any of them.

Yep.

Correct.

Yep.

Stand schedule and everybody else.

If you were late, we're going to give you some time because you're sweet, baby.

Yeah, because Alex can't sweep down, so we're, and we're not, we offered Alex to sweep, uh, and he doesn't want to, so we cut both ways on that, and that's how we got DeRoy.

But, yeah, we're going to either put DeRoy there or work our way, but sweep is better, you know, in a decent sense.

That's a good job that I have to understand.

I have a Ferrari, and I have experience, huh?

Yep.

I want to have a race with you that I've turned down, sure, 13 times, and solidly, and neighborly, of course.

It's a neighbor.

No neighbor.

Harlow, Armstrong, Butts, Scott, Ford, and Timmons have all urged to be reconsidered, and that is a reception at the Capitol Hill Club this evening honoring Bob Dole.

No, I'm not going to do that.

Flatly said no, and they all think it's a terrible mistake, that you should go up there and, you know, be very good.

Every time I've been there, I'm going to go up, it's been a disaster.

And this will lead to a big jam with people, with the church party, and with church, and with the asshole group, and so forth, and I just can't do it.

That's all there is to it.

Who's on this?

Harlow, I would expect.

And Buzz, I would expect.

And Armstrong.

And Armstrong doesn't know anything about this.

Which is Scott and Ford.

Which is Scott and Ford, I would expect.

And Tim is relaying it simply because he has to.

Why did I give the reception to the White House and the National Committee?

That's exactly it.

I gave them a reception.

I talked to them.

I can't go out for the Capitol Hill about it.

Okay, well, that's exactly the line I'm taking, but I just, yeah, when the pressure's built that many times around, then I figure we should raise it.

Well, let me say, you've got a hell of a problem there, because you've got the whole Harlow Center working with all these other people that I thought you wanted to deal with.

You know, I'm going to do these things for these people and so forth, and all that we cannot give.

Our organization, we're going to be swamped with it the next time that I ever reception with Scott.

or they're gonna have one with somebody else.

You know, we've done Dole.

Well, and Dole, you know, makes all these, he can't help them, it's his way, but he makes all these crackles, and I think, you know, he could get into a damn embarrassing kind of a thing up there with the folks drinking and trying, and Dole giving his swansong the dressing in, which he's done about 18 times.

And I can't help it.

He wasn't.

And I'm strong period.

She used to go and represent us.

You just say that you've got the, you just got this stage, Bill Bell, if you can't do it.

Well, I haven't been.

I mean, we've got two nights where I'm already, yeah.

I haven't done two nights.

The other minor item is on this, you're meeting with Whitehead on the, you know, Colson Whitehead on this telecommunications thing, which, as Earl raised with you the other day, is sort of out of hand, and maybe that's the way you want it, but Colson, this is one where Colson in his briefing paper says in coordination with the domestic consulate, and that isn't true.

Colson and White have been working this plot unbeknownst to anybody else, including the legislation.

John's concern simply is that it...

it may very well be right but it is not being going through right and he wonders if in this meeting john john john john may forget though at one point he was in the meeting when i met with the broadcast yeah so he he can't say that i mean i myself but the implementation what we've gone through has not

Well, why can't he?

All the races is whether someone else ought not to sit here and be to just recover.

Oh, Kim Cole or somebody.

John Wood, that he's over at U.S. News.

John is the one that should be hurt, but he can't, but you can't sit in.

Well, how about Janet Evans?

All right.

Well, it covers more stuff.

You're getting into some wild questions.

It's political, too.

You're getting into legislation.

Some of it.

It's legislation, budget, and I hope they call those cable TV policy and that kind of stuff.

Cole is not directly involved in it.

Does he know enough about it to be able to hear you?

No, he'd know enough to listen so that he'd know what to follow up on.

Somebody, if there's anything to be raised, if there's other points of view, I mean, what I mean is that I don't mind anybody sitting in, but I don't want them to sit there like a bum on a log.

If they disagree with what I had to do, I'm not going to say so.

Has John got another plan for example?

He doesn't know what the plan is.

He doesn't know what's going on.

He just saw it this morning.

He questions, while it refers to a cabinet committee, which he doesn't know exists, on a policy for cable television.

And then the bill on license renewals is the one that has to.

I wrote down this program when you saw it before.

I just want to be sure.

I agree with John totally, but I think that there's, that there, in both of those cases, was it Flanagan that was in on that?

I think it even Flanagan was at one point, yeah.

Flying cars with people.

Even Flanagan was.

But you don't want to, don't get me mad.

The goal was my idea, just to get a very general question.

I understand, you know, the point that I'm concerned about is that I don't want to be stuck with something that neither see, but I don't...

Um, I read Colson's memorandum and so forth, and I saw there was a follow-up we had on him.

And I had a three-hour discussion with Cable Television, and I had a whole goddamn room, um, and we decided we were going to go on it, right?

And maybe, so Johnson, we haven't decided, but if he wasn't there, I don't know, I don't know who was there.

But there was a hell of a long discussion with Cable Television, and there's also a discussion with my insurer, Colson.

Of course there's two things to that plan, but understand, if it hasn't, it thinks there's a different point of view that we should have, we need to know.

That's what I want, because I don't want a private white head to have a franchise.

Why don't you get a hold of Coach King?

Isn't that the best thing?

Yeah, I had a call with him.

Well, can I get you to just say, look here, we've got a, we've got a follow-up tonight.

He's become quite a protege of Connelly's now.

I mentioned to Connelly that I have a problem with Jim Henry.

I have a problem there because he's a guy I've known all my life.

friends and all that stuff.

And he has so thoroughly antagonized the State Department that any time I raise him a positive one, they think I'm trying to promote a buddy.

So I told Connie, you push him and let me stay away from him.

Let me ask you one thing.

Would you get a chance to report on it?

This is my own information, but I'm sure that they don't know in a heavy-handed way about what the situation is with regard to David's release and whether he's going to be or not.

You said that he was, and I'm not going to lie to you.

asked for it or something, but we had done something about it.

I just want to be sure.

I mean, I don't want you to handle it through Skullcroft or somebody in a really stupid way.

I want it done suddenly.

So, uh, is there any way Skullcroft's the one who will do it suddenly without getting into the, well, okay, crossfire?

I was thinking of the military people that made it very late.

I just want to know what the facts are.

I understood that there was some problem with all that he was doing, getting exactly everybody else who's got a grand jury.

Yawning out 3,000 people, some big bachelorette character.

It was really surprising to me.

And, uh, was there anything in Burger on that congressional memo I should know?

And I can see that they're small.

A venous thing.

That's, we've just told them the moment the baby gets back, it's all, well, I don't know.

It's a hamburger boy.

I thought you said that it was such a good looking guy.

Yeah, baby boy.

Does he want to see ?

Well, he does.

There's every feeling that one state that makes it known that he's going to go for it, that they can move the rest of it and clean the field out.

Scott's going to .

That should be done.

Who is the one that can handle it other than somebody close to the chief to get the damn thing done?

Who is it?

Is it Dan?

Bush.

Well, Bush and Dan, it's a combination of the two of them.

Yes, sir.

He's talking to Scott about it.

I finally unraveled what happened to the guy.

He was supposed to come back here.

Well, he'd be playing games.

He was supposed to come back the night of the 8th.

He's known all along he was supposed to come back the night of the 8th.

He's rejected.

He certainly never planned it, because our schedule always had it back on the morning of the 9th unless he had it in the Philippines, in which case it would be the 10th or above.

That's right.

I just wanted to give you the history.

He was supposed to come back the night of the 8th.

Then we had it three hours up in the Philippines, which we couldn't have.

But there's something he's planning to do in Kuala Lumpur that he swears takes him six hours now.

You know, and I do, that there's no business that he can't do it four hours in Kuala Lumpur.

He's undoubtedly playing golf or something.

Then he's had his heart set to go to sink pad.

This we had canceled three times.

I've just found out that when we had it in Manila,

He added 24 hours in Hawaii to it.

Now, that I don't think he should do under any circumstances, because he gets out of these militaries.

There's no way you can keep the press away from him in Hawaii.

There's no business he's got with Singpac.

And you'll get blood-curdling statements out of them.

Nor should he arrive in Washington the day I arrive in Hanoi.

There's no telling what he'll say here.

He's got to be back here.

I don't think you need to worry about what he's going to say when he arrives here.

We Muslims must be pretty sure of that.

Well, he's just played one, I must say, Jewish instinct.

It was so right.

You see, Bob, that's the same fact that he was...

He never asked me about SYNCPAC.

I've been told it for very different reasons.

SYNCPAC gives the deal of, you know, perhaps, you know, brandishing the war and consoling with the bombers and all that sort of thing.

He shouldn't...

He is not the Commander-in-Chief.

He should get his ass nailed back.

He should not go to SYNCPAC under any circumstances, because you're absolutely right, he is... Well, it puts the war on a peace trip.

That's the thing I'm concerned about.

You should have done this, Taylor.

I spoke to some diggers on this about that.

He harbors a lot of security and laws.

He harbors a lot of security and kind of what he does.

What he should have done inside of him.

What he should have done.

I wish in the future he would have given us one of his schedules and forced it down his throat.

He should have done that.

Is it a hospital where there were orphans of South Vietnamese that were blasted by the North Vietnamese?

Or he should have gone to something like that, but he's never done something like that.

And we put that on his schedule.

He talked to him about it.

He says, oh, all right, I will, and everything.

Then his secret service agent comes in and says, oh, that would be very dangerous, and they scratch it.

I wanted him.

I didn't think of a hospital, including

I wanted him to go to an economic development project, which wouldn't have been as good as what you suggested.

Well, that would be good, too, though.

Because he puts too much on it.

All he's doing on his goodwill trip, so-called, is coming in like a man.

Even more than like a president.

He doesn't do the fences or any of that, as you know.

He claims he does, but he doesn't.

He comes in.

He comes in with enormous secret service.

He goes into hiding.

He makes fun of the chiefs of state and so forth, and then he leaves.

Now, what really makes the trip for a vice president is not your meetings, which you cannot talk about.

I'll be about a half hour.

And then, but what makes the trip, Bob, is the color.

God dammit, that's what I've told him time and time again.

My 53-year-old trip, my 57-year-old trip to Africa, my 55-year-old trip to Central America, my 58-year-old trip even.

Sure, the color until the time we had the problems.

That's all base news.

The color, the color, the color of God damn his ass.

He's got to start thinking of those terms.

Because he cannot do any substance.

If he does substance, he's got to be quiet about it.

And as a matter of fact, if he could take a lesson I ever spoke, you know what?

Instead of trying to seek publicity, if he'd act a hell of a lot more mysterious and then do color stuff and this smile, he'd get publicity.

How does Henry get publicity?

Well, first, Henry's doing substance abuse, people know that.

But on the other hand, he gets it by trying to avoid it.

God damn it, that's what I'm trying to get people to believe, people that just do it.

But I must say, Mr. President, it hasn't killed anybody's trip.

We dodged a bullet not sending him out on that cycle, right?

Okay, but now what do we want to do with it?

Because they're sitting there and something's wrong with it tonight.

Well, it's up to the president.

I don't think he should stop at St. Pat's.

There should not be a stop at Singpac, I agree.

Because I do not want the connotation of military activity at this point.

Are you saying Singpac or are you saying Honolulu?

It doesn't make any difference.

He's not called Singpac.

Honolulu is something else.

He stops over in Hawaii.

If he wants a rest stop in Hawaii, I look at his arrival schedule.

It might be that he arrives at an ungodly hour in the morning.

If he didn't say that, I don't want to call it.

And as far as when he arrives, I just think under the circumstances that I'm not gonna bother having to report to him until after the whole thing is over.

Well, see, that's why I ran out there.

That's what you can do is just have it flying to California and pull up for the weekend instead of coming back here.

And then you can play down.

I mean, then you don't build up this return at all.

Yeah, that's right.

So I'll have to, I'll have to undertake this report by myself.

It doesn't make any difference.

We don't have to report it to the cabinet.

You can, uh... Well, the president thought it was not to get his report and my report.

I understand.

I never reported to the cabinet.

Well, I mean, I think that this instance would be useful to talk about the economic aspects of...

I mean, just the bluff that you give the damn leaders.

We'll see, we'll see.

But I, but if they do, we do it separately.

Well, just forget the cabinet meeting.

Probably doesn't work.

But probably you've got to get these things.

I noticed they're coming.

So forth.

You'd better get them.

i think you've got a problem

He's bound to want to stop it, but he should not do so, in fact, because I do not want a military overtone at a time on basically what is the true peace name.

I guess it is his name, peace, and I do not want any military overtone.

We couldn't have avoided Manila without really slapping and mocking it.

Okay, so he goes to Manila.

Now what do we tell him?

That he's got to be back by a certain time?

No, no, no, no.

And my view is that under the circumstances that he's under the weekend, he should stay in California.

And who is going to take that?

My plan is that I will depend upon him.

We have a lot of congressional problems.

And I will probably be in, I may be in Washington or I may be in Florida.

But in any event, he should just go to California.

He should go to California and he should stay a few days.

I think he should stay a few days there.

I'd get him out of Hawaii, though.

There's no way.

I mean, that's a... Because if you...

He'll be triggered into making some rash statement.

In California, we can get him under control.

Sure, sure.

And wherever we can reach him...

In California?

In Hawaii?

Where else?

In California?

Tell Art to make no statements.

because of the crossover with your trip and he knows the importance of your trip

What we want, Bob, is that I can see what I can do, that I don't know whether I'm going to be in California or not.

Therefore, he should plan his trip, but he can stop at Hawaii and he wants to do it for his family, right?

But under no circumstances does he do see a military group there.

He used to avoid that at all costs.

It would give the wrong connotation.

He went, basically, I want two peace missions to be.

And then my view is that he should spend, probably spend a few days in California resting.

And I may be in Florida for over a week.

And I don't know.

Because I may not go to California.

I may have to be able to do it.

We just see it that way.

What I'm getting at is, is he going to insist that he's going to have to come in and give me a report right away, and so on?

That's the first thing.

Well, not the first thing, but maybe we can put him on for a few days.

You can put him out for three days, but you can't put him out for very much.

You can put him out over the weekend.

We're going to have to see him somewhere sometime that week.

Okay.

Well, I may have him come forward.

You mean have him come forward?

Yeah.

On Tuesday.

Well, I'll be back here.

You can be back and come here, or you can go west.

It's good.

Whatever you want.

So if you stay, we'll have a call.

I'll get you.

So that's our, we've got him in control.

Don't worry.

And he will not make any changes.

Don't worry.

Why didn't they have a little bit of inspiration for it first?

I'm sorry.