Conversation 865-016

Transcript (AI-Generated)

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Maybe right here on the side.

Oh, wow, wow.

That's good.

Do we have anything else, Patrick?

Yes, a couple of things.

There was some sort of mixed-race confusion.

The part where we had to pass it to his daughter was flying up, just so she could be there and see the process and see the prevention.

All right, well, this is Lance.

Sure, sure, sure.

U.S.

Dr. Grant from the CIDB, the minister.

Oh yeah, the minister.

And of course, Dr. Grant speaks very highly of the PLC, mostly corporate.

I know all about that, but we have a great report on the operation.

And yes, sir, I spoke with him yesterday.

I don't know where he is.

Grant, he's probably going to get elected.

Yes, sir.

And in a few cases, he's never had a very strong support.

Even if he supported you already, he could have started to support you.

And even if he had any differences, he's too much of a gentleman to treat.

Well, you could go with him, and not just next year you get McCartney, which currently we've got in our office.

McCartney, it's right now, he's John McCartney, from Illinois.

He's from Chicago, yeah.

He's been very well.

And he was considered a participation in our good.

And get killed for the next church service whenever we have one.

That gets our black ball out of us.

So the golden manger dinner.

The standard press coverage, which would include the photograph of the arrival of the merry-go-round and the stairway.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

The toast piped down to the press.

Yeah.

For that, yeah.

Right.

However, the evidence that it's been done is to be filed to the press.

That's, that's my comment to be all, all correct on that.

There's no coverage tonight.

Yeah, there should have been for that.

That's so sure of that.

Photographed at the beginning of... That's all.

I mean the photograph.

Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure.

The photograph's not mine.

I don't want my marks to be just blood on the person's hands.

And there's no pool hanging around.

It's just the, the picture of the source.

It's a visiting lens.

They don't have the goddamn mic there either.

You understand?

I know they need it for the archives and the rest as well.

Have somebody outside set up, they can set up outside, you know, a small machine or something, but don't have something that's stuck in front of the people.

so that they don't get all of them to think that they're on, too.

Or in front of me, they'll think we're talking.

I'd rather have them feel that we're just talking to them.

But do that and record it, but have it recorded, but basically upload it, rather than have it .

I think there's sufficient interest in the library to photograph the introduction of the entertainment.

Oh, sure.

I think at the end is better.

I think a photograph at the end of the opening, and then myself with a photograph.

If you've got a hold of Davis about the spec over here, I can see it.

Yes, sir.

He will probably arrive and so forth.

He will get the... Well, I've got to be sure, sir.

All right, fine.

And I'm taking care of the astronauts.

I'll listen to watches and hear the answers.

Well, I was thinking that what you might do with the astronauts is this.

They might come up to the yellow oval at 15 minutes or 10 minutes before they get there.

And I will meet them and present their watches to them and give the wives something.

I mean, buy something for the wives.

We'll do that in D-15.

And then A-15.

And we'll do that in science.

And then that'll give us time to go down to the entertainment.

And then they can go down.

So have them in the yellow room so they've got that much.

The other thing I'm going to suggest is you go to those.

But Sammy Davis just told him that I was seeing him the next morning for breakfast.

He said, you know, for breakfast.

Yeah, not for breakfast, but he said, I was seeing him at a private company.

He served his wife.

And he said, you know, I love you.

Where would you be having a breakfast with ?

You don't need to tell him what it is.

It depends on where people are, so that I can think their way around it.

Just say it would be on the second floor.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

OK.

So the situation today.

The line got out.

We haven't heard back from Rogers yet on his meeting.

He's calling in and wants to reach Henry.

Henry should be back shortly.

Where is he?

He was at a meeting somewhere.

I don't know specifically where he is.

They said he was at a meeting.

The word out of the Joint Military Commission on whether or not the North Vietnamese had brought down the list is

has not been confirmed.

It's only on Phibus, and that's no confirmation by any sense of the meaning.

My judgment is that you should not go today.

Well, that's what I was thinking.

I think it would be... Well, they got the list by before the end of the...

It's not right today.

It isn't right to go out on top of the list.

I think they get it.

They'll probably get it.

tomorrow.

We'll see what's nighttime there now.

10 or 30 there now.

But you're probably not going to get it today.

And in your case, I think you should just go home.

That's right.

Now, I talked to Friedheim over at Defense today, and they had a thought that Richardson should go out today.

Who was it?

Well, you know, you can confirm the fact that we're

not uh sweeping the mines and the fact that the troop withdrawal thing has been held up but i'm afraid no it takes you no no no no but i want that escalator and all that i think we should hold there uh and they should all there's no comment none of that is decent there is no comment on that stuff i prefer we want to be that private you know i haven't had i have not talked to henry about this he apparently talked to richardson last night

I thought that a strong statement might be good by Richardson.

I can't make a judgment.

That's why we'd like to get Henry.

We better get him before he agrees.

But my instinct from the standpoint of the judgment, from the standpoint of the news, if you go out today, it's too high.

If Richardson goes out today and says something hard and firm, it's going to move this thing up even further.

Don't do it.

Just play it cool now.

Play it cool.

And so you're going to think like this.

No, it does not hold to that.

Because, hell, he was going to have me say, and I knocked that out, and then he was going to have you say it, and we knocked that out.

We've got it at the right level now.

I say this is what we're trying to say.

We've got to get a chance, like we did in the bombing, a chance to get all this thing as gracefully as possible.

Of course, this is testimony to how naive McGovern and the

I mean, this very act.

And I've talked to Clausen at the right time to begin to move this around.

Nothing, nothing proves how naive the McGovern and his supporters were to say, oh, well, all the United States has to do is just withdraw their troops.

I remember back a year ago, and then the good-hearted, good-natured North Vietnamese would turn over their prisoners.

Even after they signed an agreement,

Along this line, they're using the prisoners as a measure of where we have to get those prisoners back.

Absolutely.

All hell breaks loose.

They're going to have to go.

I don't think it's going to happen, is my guess.

From the reports out of Paris this morning, excuse me, out of Saigon, the bar service reports, it appears that basically what the... No, no.

It appears that their main concern, at least from the reports, is the fact that they get kicked around in the Joint Military Commission.

That's right.

Well, you indicated it.

In other words, housing and that type of thing.

That's right.

Well, we can handle that.

We've got assassins.

We've sent very sharp ones.

Very sharp ones.

Throughout this very early stage.

Well, I'll call, uh, I'll call Richardson, uh, in our free time.

Yeah, you should ask him about the Jews visiting or something like that.

You should say, well, we're still trying to work.

We're working on a date.

We have a bunch of work.

Call Richardson.

Well, I don't know.

You should call him until, until then.

Well, we're speaking in a holding pattern.

Yeah.

But, uh, Henry should be, uh, be around here sometime soon.

I'm, I'm, I'm going to check right now.

The other thing, in terms of you going today, and I think one of the key things, you're surely going to question on aid, and there certainly is no time to respond to a question on aid alone.

Well, what is your view?

And I'd just like to get my own plans to whether I should go or not.

I think we'll be able to determine today by at least 2 o'clock how this thing is going to go.

And if it looks like the POW list is forthcoming and that we set a date with the Joint Military Commission for the POWs to come back, then I think you should go on Friday.

If it appears this is going to drag on, I don't think you should go out Friday.

In the press conference where you are going to appear on any discussion of Vietnam, the question of aid, the question of all that, because there's a question of the agreement that's going to come up.

Sure.

And I don't think you want to be out there talking questions.

We don't have any on the agreement and so forth and so on.

You just say we've dissipated difficulties and we haven't.

We always have.

That's why we worked so long to...

That's why it's very important to be ready for these violations that you mentioned about at the beginning.

And we're going to have to be on both sides of that as well.

We're using the influence of both sides to get adherence to be ready.

And it's going to be surprising to see the number of attacks that are going on in the same place as what it is.

And you can read the number of violations and so forth and so on.

But sort of take your, take your shot at it.

We weren't too hard yesterday, I don't think, I think.

Huh?

Were we too hard yesterday, you think?

Hell no, I didn't think so.

But I think, let me say, he told me a hell of a lot from what Henry wanted.

Yes, sir.

And he may have had second thoughts.

I don't know how he is.

He's always second guessing everything we ever do after he recommends a much harder course of action.

But on the other hand, my view is that you did exactly what you should have done.

What else did he say to me?

You were firm, and so forth, and the press above.

I don't seem to be.

Of course, we're talking to the American audience, too.

That's what they want.

Even George Hill said this morning at a Saturday, he said, we were talking about the Roy Ash race, the thing, about the aid question.

George said, look, he said, the main thing is to get the prisoners back, which was kind of a gut reaction, not as George normally is.

I think that's the job.

I say to the governor tonight that no aid, that the aid will not be funded out of, I mean, it will be funded out of resistance events and others.

Of course, if you do that, there'll be a story tomorrow morning.

I understand.

And I may not discuss, I suppose there's a problem that we don't have a POW thing.

But this may be solved by this evening, and it may not be.

Well, we'll see.

Then I can say something that would be useful.

Let the hell out of the governor's office and talk about other things.

Okay, let me check in.

I can see a piece.

Well, why don't you check and have him come in, perhaps, like I said, as long as you get him available to come in.

Let me ask you, if it doesn't roll, if I have to keep it scheduled, if it doesn't roll Friday, I want to get it over with.

We don't have it by Friday.

Since you gave me that, I have to go.

Monday.

Right.

I would hope that this would sort itself out so it could be held on Friday.

Why?

If I do go right, though, my feeling is that I will want to do it at 3 rather than 11.

That's due to the fact that we're going to have a very late night's dinner.

I don't want to have to get up and try to get myself wet.

Of course, if you're free on Monday...

I'm eager to always...

Maybe mine's a better time.

Well, I was just saying, it seems to me that the decision could be made at about 2 o'clock today, or maybe when Henry talks to Rogers, or when it's tomorrow, when it gets into tomorrow morning in Saigon, I think the decision probably... Let me say this.

The only problem about holding us up and saying, well, I'll go Friday, is frankly that...

I don't know.

well if we had to make the decision right now my feeling would be it's a mistake to go today and go monday at this moment if the decision would have to be made i'd say

Well, because I'm not certain how this thing can sort itself out.

I still would go for Monday.

It's the start of the week.

This has been a...

With Golda Meir coming on Thursday, I think Monday's just about right.

We have Golda Meir and the social thing.

We've got $70 tonight.

We have Golda Meir Thursday.

We've got the evening at the White House.

Let's just decide, Monday or today, and then you see, that'll give me Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon, I'll pull the thoughts together.

I'll go Monday at 11 o'clock.

It'll be a little surprise, and sort of thing.

Good.

Mine is a little better.

That's right.

You also cut yourself out of five good hours.

Particularly if you go west.

Radio, broadcast, new news, you know, a whole collective combination of things.

I'm just thinking about getting going.

I'll update everything.

Well, please do.

I think it's going to be a sudden depression.

Well, let's just wait and see.

Okay, sir.

And all the britches and things before you, hold them well.

Don't be here.

And as soon as Henry gets back, you hand him a banana.

Yes, sir.