Conversation 855-011

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Good point, good shape of the day.

I'm covered on everything, so we issued the communique this morning at 10 o'clock, the joint communique with Hanoi.

So, that's it.

I think that's it, sorry.

A lot of people are writing to us.

She's on the phone with Nick Timmy.

She's doing a column on the active day in California, the active day yesterday, solidifying the fact that

The President really had a reason during the period of Dunnegan.

It's similar to the Ossoff Cop.

And, uh, as, uh, well, Nick said, well, Sure, and this is what we talked about before.

All it takes is one day.

about one conference go back to that period when they were writing about isolation questions

four years stay above

Well, just one point on what you said.

Gary Windham, he had a moral issue that they, you know, there was something that was being done that was immoral.

Now they're looking for something else.

I think last night when I went to the

Uh, going out to the, uh, Great Ovation, right?

Enjoying one of these.

It's one of the first times I've been to a restaurant in Washington.

Might be the right time.

At night.

No.

Not Washington.

You went to breakfast one morning over at the, uh...

Right.

We went out to...

S Street Club, you know.

It was the first time we did that.

We did dinner.

No, not at the S Street Club.

We did dinner once, too.

But that was not a restaurant.

Right.

It was just a club.

And we went out, of course, to the club.

We went out to the club, too.

Right.

For dinner and all that.

So, there's nothing to say about the state version.

My point is, when we came out, the, uh, I'm not sure if you're right, or if I'm wrong, but they were all very excited.

One typical anniversary award, I think, was a guy with a big horn and glasses.

Your answer is great.

Of course, we have that in mind very soon anyway.

They asked me about it, and I said, well, I'd say, you know, what do you think the president's going to do?

He's going to have to come up with something.

because when when we complete the uh necessary um and we discussed of course the overall tax problem right but you know but you see what i meant that is that they are they don't ever get the impression that the whole business is not easy

Perfect.

the 25% that would have been against us for a piece of any price and so forth, they wouldn't give a damn.

They'd start screaming about the environment for the Blacks and the rest of them.

Let's suppose that they would get the help of some subjugated editors.

You know, it would so enrage the right.

And that's about 25% also.

If we divided the country the other way, you know, absolutely, you'd have people in trouble.

I don't know how to call John Ford.

It's not like yesterday.

I don't know what freedom is.

but uh

The middle might say, well, you know, I'll be against it, but there is a ranger, good God, that would just be furious with God's comparison.

I mean, it's beautiful.

Why don't I say that?

She said before, it's wrong to do that.

It's wrong, totally wrong to do.

It's wrong to do, that's the main thing.

But it isn't a question of trying to, I mean, we'd like to unite the country, but it's like Lincoln had to unite the North and South.

That was a good thing.

But the point is, Lincoln didn't feel that he had to give amnesty to the radicals in order to bring them back in.

Did you know that a lot of GrabFighters fought in the Civil War?

Oh, disagreed with the war.

You know, the Civil War divided the North.

They disagreed with the war.

They more or less thought it was wrong for the North to wage war against the South.

All right, what happened?

Well, they didn't have a shot.

They deserted.

And they had to pay a penalty.

You know, they didn't get back.

My answer is this whole business about the, you know, here we want to unite the country and so forth, but we, by uniting those that do it by, it's basically, see the people that are in the industry are basically the 25% that are missing in the total overall.

It's a depression, right?

Mr. President.

You want to be compassionate, I'll say, sure.

It's a question, or it's a little question, and just take the same line, but don't ever think that, in fact, I would like to remind us that if good, any serious law, anybody guilty of a certain offense, a lawbreaker has to, obviously, on a individual basis, I mean, if his mother is sick, if he's got an injurable disease, he should be taken care of.

But only two observations I'd like to make to you.

First of all, my view is that the country is united.

The strength of this country, you've said before, and I firmly believe, is that this has never been a country of conformity.

It's never been a country without diversity of view.

And we're always going to have it in a democracy.

But they're not really talking about unity in the country.

They're really talking about my surrendering and capitulating to their view about the MRI of the war.

That's what the amnesty is about, Ron.

Is that your opinion, sir?

Their view of unity is not uniting the country in the context we've just discussed.

Their view of unity is the country's united if everyone agrees with my point of view.

Something like that.

Yeah, a couple of things, sir.

What is this thing on Taylor?

Who was putting it out?

Was Taylor putting it out?

Oh, I'm convinced it's not Taylor who's putting it out, Mr. President.

I'm not sure.

I worked on that for a couple hours last night.

Well, they were going a different direction, and I pulled that basket around as much as I could.

Who was their director?

Well, their director was Bob Haldeman, and he's taken up, again, a bad crunch on this one.

It's not that big, but their thrust was that Haldeman had gotten into an original conflict up in Providence, Rhode Island, and that Taylor threatened to arrest him.

And that Duncan was leaving the White House because he supported Taylor.

Now, that's what I talked to the Times last night.

I said, it's flat on true.

Duncan was offered the head of the White House detail.

He did not want to take it.

I said, yes, they left it out of the story.

Because Duncan is a dedicated Secret Service agent who wants to broaden his experience and build his career within the Secret Service.

But there was enough, as I talked to these guys who were calling in about this, there's enough money out there.

that it was very difficult to penetrate against.

From here, I think we just let it pass.

Rowdy is going to call a meeting of the senior service, you know, the top senior service.

Well, I think what the situation is, is the way I would sense it, and I don't know this, is that Taylor is pretty confused on it.

he was uncertain about what he wanted to do going all the way back a year and a half ago when he went to the court to administrator school he wanted to get out of secret services but then there's something below this

That has, well, there's a certain tone below the Taylor Duncan level that has generated these stories.

I don't know where it's coming from.

But I could tell last night on the inquiries that I was getting that someone

speeding this type of venom out.

And I don't know where it's coming from.

I don't know.

There's no way for me to say that.

I think it could be from amongst some agents.

It could be from within the staff here.

I don't know.

Because a lot of it appears to be aimed at Bob.

I know that.

I mean, that's obvious.

It could be staff.

Helen Thomas filed that story at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

She flew back on the pool, but she could have picked it up before then.

She called Bob Taylor's wife at 1 o'clock in the morning.

She called Jack Warner over to Secret Service at 1.30 in the morning and really picked up the story from there.

Warner simply confirmed the fact that Taylor was leaving the house.

But then after that story, and after the warning briefing, then came the nunson, and the Providence, Rhode Island, uh, that's in line.

I don't agree with you on the Providence.

Because the, the, the advance men are always interacting with the Rochon.

I like the Rochon.

I don't like to see any Rochon back there, and I'm told that Taylor has been many times.

Right?

But here again, also from a news standpoint, you're dealing with the dramatic news, and they don't, this happened, I went back, John F. Kennedy changed the Secret Service agent, it was a big story.

I think Eisenhower changed the Secret Service agent, it was a big story.

LBK changed the Secret Service agent, it was a big story.

Here, how about this?

Anyway, questions of...

You know, I noticed that, uh, that, uh, Newsom sort of, uh, stood the eyes on this case about the cost of the Senate committee operation and the rest of it.

I don't know if this is a good question or not, but, uh, I was, I think it was still one of them.

And that cost them $20 million, $10 million for the plane.

I wasn't really...

I guess the plane was going to have to be washed away.

And that point was made.

The airplane.

But we haven't faced that question.

The fact sheets, any briefing on it made clear that the money was requested in November 1971 by the Air Force.

that it is the normal rotation that the Air Force has a responsibility and has since the days of Roosevelt, not the Air Force, but the Army before that and then Roosevelt, to provide transportation to the President of the United States.

It's not a decision of the President.

It's a decision totally of the Air Force.

All of that's been spelled out in fact sheets in detail.

That the money had been authorized by the entire, and appropriated by the entire Congress in 1971.

But you're always going to get,

And that would be that connection, if you know, if you ever get the question about, there is, Julie's travel, when it's personal.

They do use their, they do use the small plane.

That is not a rare choice.

That's the, that's the decision of the Secret Service.

And they always pay, they pay the first price there.

The question about the cost of Air Force One, any questions?

Well, there's other kinds of questions I want you to read.

We're not done.

I suppose the, it was unfortunate for me that I had to cap line and come out there.

But it didn't take long.

You get sworn in because I had to come back here.

Now, that's the other thing you're trying to do.

I don't know quite how to deal with this.

I'm going to maybe talk to Randy Tillman.

UPI is becoming very politicized.

and as a wire service.

Yes, sir.

For example, you take Merriman Smith, who was one of the greatest wire service men, Merriman Smith, I think, my judgment would be that he was a moderate supporter of yours.

But he didn't reflect that in any way as a wire service man.

Frank Cormier, who is a dove, was a dove,

uh, came up, wrote Walter Luther's, uh, uh, Huddle Violin, uh, uh, No, but Frank Cormier never, at any time, slanted the story, or, or, goes for the cheap shot lead.

Fran Lillen, another, uh, little Jewish gal, who, uh, she never, never does anything but to straighten down the bar count.

Cornell was the same way.

On the other hand, United Christ,

who is pressing now economically.

Helen Thomas, back in about October of 19, well, no, it was before that, September of 1972, began to show her colors, in other words, her political, began to show up in her copy of what she did and how she moved.

And it's the first time I've ever had to deal with a wire service reporter which has such a massive impact.

Knowing her political persuasions,

enters into a lot of what she does.

Norm Kinster, the other man here, is the same way.

He's a fellow from Sacramento.

I worked out in 1960 with him out there.

Completely dedicated, un... busy, unintelligent liberal who doesn't think alike.

He looks like he is.

He looks ugly.

He's tall and thin.

uh has glasses on and comes in with a pool his problem is he's a liberal he doesn't know why he's liberal and he's stupid on top of it and out of it when you get a man writing a wire service copy along that line he's going to write bias bad copy the best one we've got going there with epi is gene risher who has a conflict because within himself he can tell because he comes from the south

His father was the head of a military, private military school that all of his life they didn't let blacks around and so forth.

So he moves up here to the north pretty well.

So he's kind of pleased that, and he's trying to compensate for it.

So that's Gene's problem.

He's smart, though.

But Rich is good, and he's smart, and I think our only chance at UPI.

Well, why don't we, uh, we should say, I don't want to be heard.

I mean, they, they need to sit in competition.

Is that early or not?

UPI.

They are.

Why is that?

Well, you see, they have a different system than AP.

They receive their income on the amount of copy which is used in all sorts of decisions.

So therefore, they sensationalize.

They're going away at times.

The way they look at that paragraph, it'll destroy them.

I don't want them to be in a position, all of them.

I just don't like to take in individual reporters and question the IRS about their bias.

I don't ever go, I'm not sure you should either.

What do you think?

I think that's, yes, but what do you have in mind?

Well, as I said to Dan, I don't know really quite how to deal with it.

I don't think, I tend to agree with you.

I think, see, perhaps the best way to do

I mean, for you too, I think that, directly, I think that you've just got to control it.

But Helen Thomas is obviously, uh, she's just sticking her needle in it.

Let's not, let's not have any illusions about it, and just, just don't give her the opportunity to do it.

I think that's what you're doing.

What do you think?

You know, she sidles up the needle, and she hung her gun, and so forth.

I don't mind it, but I'm not going to have, I'm not going to have, I'm not going to have her sidle up and stick me in the eye, stick me in the groin.

See what I mean?

And she's going to be around, and she beat down an awful lot of cops.

So I haven't, and she works like hell.

Yeah.

But my point is, I just, I just wouldn't ever get pregnant.

And she runs forever trying to, trying to influence the wire services.

I leave her alone.

I just really think so.

Why, why?

See, one way to keep her, her, her stabilized is to just beat her.

Well, I would beat her.

Just a lot of facts.

I would beat her facts and so forth, but I...

And I sort of grin about it.

I smile about her bias and so forth.

I'm going to grab my little cake here.

Just let her go with that.

And by the way, I just don't think that she's...

I don't know how she's going to reflect.

She's the worst.

But, uh, I'm just going to get ready.

We can...

Fairly well stabilized.

Right.

And I would show it.

One other thing, Ron.

The guy with the, uh...

You know, I was thinking, the deal about the historic experience, because we could never just, they would all come out and say what they did.

This guy in San Diego said it again this morning.

He did.

We want to thank President, we want to thank President Nixon and everyone that has had an effort in bringing us back to those on the radio, North Vietnam.

We're grateful for the opportunity to serve our country.

They're all just,

I was going to say, too, that, well, I was supposed to try to vary it, but I think the symbolic gesture of raising the flag gets home to millions of people.

Oh, that played well on network.

Did it play on network?

Oh, yeah.

And on the radio this morning.

I came in and listened to WTOP News.

It was mentioned five times.

It was mentioned five times at the head of every news show.

President Nixon...

Raise the flag to the full staff so that when the PMWs come back to fly, you're flying high.

Good.

Let me start with the Johnson student.

I know it's just a little, I trust the, I mean, I just want to get a laugh about the remark about the human thing.

Let me say that the reason I did that was, I'm going to talk about it later.

Rogers is taking such a beating, you know, this week in time.

I'm trying to get him over here so we can get a picture.

I wanted to get out of the fact that we were talking to Rogers.

You know, I mean, I was talking to him on the phone.

And I had to hang up on something.

And it's no problem with those people.

My advice is state press.

They think you're a state.

They have a story like that sometimes.

They want to put it out.

If you realize it, I think they have to read it.

Many of the departments sort of have a feeling.

I mean, that should have been a write-off story.

It's a big story.

It's been writing for years.

For things like this, whenever there is a story that we really want, you know, what we really want to do is we want to show that we are the writers.

And we are the writers.

and it did and it played well being on the department that kim clausen is going to be very good at this he's met he has met now with all the pio people through our government