Conversation 867-019

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Mr. President, Mr. General, hello, how are you?

It's a pleasure to see you again.

It's been a long, long time talking to you.

Good to see you, New York.

And once you say that, let's get a picture over here.

Would you like to record this one in terms of color?

Stand right here in front of the body.

We'll look at it while we're here.

All right.

I have to sit down.

He doesn't sit down.

But I want you to know that I am really grateful for all your support.

Not only this time, but the other time.

Well, if you go back a long, long time.

Do you like a cup of tea or coffee or Coca-Cola?

He's got everything.

I know.

I'll talk to you.

Well, your relationship and mine goes back so many years.

I've been a supporter of yours from the time you've been in politics.

I appreciate it.

Great faith.

I'm a defender, too.

I think one of the most trying periods I've had is this period just recently, when you resumed the bombing.

THE PRESIDENT.

Sure, sure.

I know you.

THE PRESIDENT.

There are 200 people who are good Republicans.

That's enough.

This man knows what he's doing.

And thank God we've got him in the White House.

I don't hear a lot of criticism of what he's doing.

He's the only man in the world that has all the information that's needed for a decision of this kind.

You know, John, you'll be pleased to know that all POWs that have come back have said that the brightest day they had was December the 18th when they heard those B-52 bombs come down.

They said they knew then that they were going to get out.

That's the only thing they didn't show.

Those people were stonewalling us, so we had to let them send in a little common car.

That's all we did.

And with the communists, you can't...

That was the trouble with, you see, Johnson and Kennedy both didn't use our power.

And you can't fritter it away.

You talk and talk, and the minute they don't play, you've got to clobber them for two reasons.

That's what happened.

Absolutely.

And they didn't trick, too.

And they've been great the way those POWs handled themselves.

That's just...

Marvelous.

Who was it?

I saw this.

He built up his paper.

National mute.

I've forgotten what you just said.

The Washington Post.

Yeah.

Said they have to eat crow.

Yeah.

Did you read that?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

But nobody likes it.

We don't like the crow, but we ought to give credit to the country for what it did here.

Well, it's been a distressing mess.

But it's over now.

It's over.

And in an honorable way, because we've taught these people that they can't move around with us.

What was the reason that we permitted the North Vietnamese troops to stay in there?

Well, actually, they will get out.

They will get out over a period of time.

That would be practically understood.

But they couldn't admit it publicly that they were there illegally.

That's the problem.

But it's going to work, in my opinion, because the South Vietnamese are so strong now.

My God, they're just kicking the hell out of them right now in this period.

These firearms, the South Vietnamese are winning all of those tournaments.

I think they're going to make it.

Do you think they're going to have a backup here in the Congress with respect to

The aid, well, we're going to sell it on the basis that not a humanitarian wouldn't be worth a dime.

But by giving them some aid, frankly, we've got a string on them.

And then we can say, now look here, unless you lay off the Laos, we can't hold you no aid.

That's the way to control these people.

Look, take Japan, Japanese, and Germans.

Now, fool, everybody hated them at the end of the war, but we hated them, and as a result, we turned them into peaceful pursuits rather than the other way.

Don't you think so?

Yes, and that's what this is all about.

I think that was the beginning of what I'd call the revival of civilization, because, you know, the defeat of Hitler, if it had been allowed to go on much longer, it's the end of civilization.

That's right.

I think the only...

The famous statement, I think, was Roosevelt's Yalta Agreement.

Well, we had the victory.

We frankly threw it away and gave Russia back to Europe.

That's what that did.

But now we have to live with it.

It's not easy.

You see, the problem, we've got two jobs that Kennedy and Johnson could do, but it has allowed our defenses to get...

And now we've got to get to the point where we can help him out, trying to negotiate it so that we then can get ahead of him.

Let me ask you a question, sir.

This is for guidance.

Sure, sure.

Olin Corporation has just recently completed a long and a very interesting and very important negotiation with a man named Dickerson in England, who I think is the outstanding, speedy genesis that there is in this country.

He posed the question that we're going to take on all of his developments for the United States and for the North America.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It will be a big thing.

All of this stems to the recent, don't call it a, it's supposed to be for patents in the agricultural field.

Oh, I see.

Where a new variety becomes individual property.

Oh.

I didn't know that.

It's the same as the patent law.

Is that right?

Yes.

And this man's way ahead.

So we're going to have the embassy thing promoting this in this country.

Is that law in effect now?

Yes, it's in effect.

In other words, you're going to be patenting.

That's not yet issued any individual license.

Now, he proposed this question to me.

He said, Russia probably has the outstanding particular area for grazing grains, as far as the soil is concerned, as far as the water is concerned, as far as everything is needed, but they do not have the expertise in doing it.

Now,

Should our seed developments be made available to these people?

That's the question he posed to me.

Sure, it's going to make them do better and all that sort of thing.

But, you know, the more I think of it, the more these countries like the Russians have.

And they're going to see foreign adventures otherwise.

I don't know.

I have no use for the commons, you understand.

But I think it would tend to soften up a little.

I hope.

Now, in doing so, I may drive a hard market.

What do you get in return for that?

Well, they must have...

If you Google things for that, they must have things that you want from them.

I don't know, but they expect you to pay something.

Agriculture-wise, we don't know anything from that.

No, we don't.

But I wouldn't stay out of the Russian market.

I wouldn't stay out of the Chinese either.

Maybe that's it.

Hmm.

I was thinking the Russians having it up for themselves, but if it's... You really hit their soil, that's good.

That's exactly what John... That's what Nickerson tells me.

Really?

My God.

I didn't think it was, but of course they like it.

They like it.

They share it.

It seems to be an incentive.

your companies and so many different things.

Maybe you can cut the deal in some other way.

I don't know.

I don't know very much.

We, we as a company need to work one from Russia.

Yeah.

I just thought it was interesting.

Well, I'm turning it over and turning it over.

Right.

It's interesting.

I got acquainted with this man.

This,

small things lead to big ones.

He has probably one of the greatest, the best grouse mowers of our northern Yorkshire.

He and I became acquainted through our love of hunting, shooting.

I remember you always said that.

So as he was interested in me because of my background knowledge of the Orange Nation, I was interested in him.

for a place to shoot grouse externally in the United States.

I've been over there every fall, every August or every September, shooting with him.

And through that, I learned to know what he was doing.

This is his operations in Linkshire.

That's all he's doing.

He did the kind of research which I like, which wasn't

a lot of elaborate buildings, a lot of push-button people and so forth, and a lot of people working.

He's way ahead of them.

I think he's great.

Particularly barley, wheat, and I bought them with corn because that's the only private corn in this country.

Yeah, yeah.

Wheat and barley, and it'll be in other fields and dishes.

I agree.

You know, that's one of the new ventures.

I understand you were concerned, somebody told me this, about the salmon situation.

Very much so.

That had to do with the ambassador to Denmark somewhere, is that right?

Yes.

Of course, they had a lot of salmon, some salmon here in the river.

Well, I don't know much you know about the history of the salmon thing.

Oh, I know.

Well, the Danes and the Greenlanders

did not contribute one signum to the stock of Atlantic Cyanide.

The bulk of Atlantic Cyanide would come from Canada and from Great Britain.

Of course, Norway, that's a different stock.

Starting in the early 60s, the Greenlanders, due to the disappearance of the Cod, found that they had an influx of Atlantic Cyanide off the west coast of Greenland.

So it started from a few tons

It was fixed in 1965.

It reached over 300,000 salmon.

Two-year sea fish.

Now, that is wrong.

Then Denmark came in.

They found that the Davis Strait had an influx of two-year sea salmon.

So then they started ridden that.

And that resulted in two impacts.

It came up over 600,000 two-year sea salmon.

a year.

Now that is more sound than any other country takes.

And there's such an impact on our stock that if it continued, the stock would hit the saddle and be eliminated.

So that's been my interest in battling this.

Now it finally resulted in the Kelly bill, which you signed on Christmas Eve, and that was the unlocking period.

So now we've

We forced Denmark to phase out in 1976.

There would be no more IC emissions but then.

Now, we got the same problem in Norway on a different stock.

Now, the Greenlanders were allowed to take 1,100 long tons per year.

I know, I don't know this, but I'm sure the figures will indicate that this year they'll probably exceed that.

by a substantial amount.

So we're not home yet.

Now, the reason I wanted Phil Crowe to be given Denmark, he already had him in the ambassador to Norway.

Oh, I see.

That's right.

I think you did that.

No, this is up now.

I know the State Department would like to retire him because he's been an ambassador to Africa for a number of

I wish you wouldn't do this.

You're probably going to destroy the opportunity to have to finish the job of protecting the sun.

We're going to have to get Denmark, the Greenlanders, back to a reasonable amount of tech.

You can't ask them to eliminate them entirely.

But 1,100 tons is too much.

Now, Canada has eliminated the bulk of their commercial netting in a five-year period.

They've had to reap it to compensate those netters, which cost them a million and a half dollars last year.

And that goes on for four more years.

Now, when Canada's doing those things, we just can't stop in the middle of our job.

That's the only reason I want to fill Crow there so that he can

deal with Denmark, and then guide Norway.

Now, the Norwegian stock is different.

It originates in Norway, and the Russian stock is also, that's one reason Russia has to cooperate with us.

The Icelandic stock is at stake.

So what we want to do through the International Commission, Northeast Atlantic Commission, to get a prohibition on any

increase any high seas fishing related to the norwegian stock you know there's been an upset politically in norway and the new uh the official was in charge of this statement i just talked to phil crow a while back so what i would like would be crow go to denmark and then have someone in norway it doesn't necessarily have to be a

sandwich but with an open mind who can work in other words have probe manage norway as well as denmark that's that's the only importance of it now i have to have to disappear to our duties over fine i think my job is done i'm now the chairman of the international advisory board which comprises all of the

They'd buy next time on producing countries.

You really had a lot of business.

Well, I'm a son of a bishop.

I know.

You're a hunter, too.

When you deal with a man's hobbies, there are more to it.

I remember when I ran for the Senate, I went up in the Central Valley one time, and they asked me, and this is up near the mountain country, you know, the gold...

I thought they were going to ask me about what's going on in Korea or something like that.

Well, that's interesting.

I'll take a look at this.

I don't know how far it's gone.

The girl's a good man.

I think the problem was simply...

If you could insist upon this one thing, get the opinion of Don McKernan, who was the man in the State Department.

As a matter of fact, he and I are responsible, I think, for what we've accomplished thus far.

And he's very knowledgeable.

And I haven't advised him of the feeling that Morris Sands expressed to me.

If there's some opposition in the State Department, I don't know where it is.

Yeah.

Well, we'll check it out.

We'll check it out.

Let me just say, the first time that this subject ever came before the State Department, I asked my close friend, Jack McCloy, to come down and open up this subject with the State Department.

I know that they called upon him for many, many things.

Sure.

I thought he'd be the best pressure.

I can find the name of the man he dealt with, but I don't remember it now.

But this man was about the third echelon down below the structure.

And he said, Mr. McCloy, as much as we wish to do something for you and your request, certainly that's serious consideration.

We have so many serious problems facing us.

in the State Department.

We just come on the board to spend our time and our talent, to play a sport for a wealthy American fisherman, sportsman, who'll go to Canada to catch time.

I said, well, Jack, why don't you just slap him in the face?

Well, now that was the beginning of my approach to the State Department.

Now look at what it is now.

Don McKernan's the man who got this county bill

What I'd like to have, Justice Brionne, the conviction, as done concurrently with my request for approval, for the time being, to Denmark, in order to quote a court made Denmark and Norway, has this recommendation.

I'll take a check on it.

I'll take a check.

I'll let it.

If it stands, I'll take a check with it.

Don't grow it, they will remain in Norway, say, two years.

I prefer not to do that if we can work the sea out.

Let's take a look at it.

Okay, so let me say one thing or two that I noticed when you were interested, and I can tell you something, and great confidence in the tax thing.

Great confidence in what I was going to bring up.

That's the most important thing, is the great confidence.

The Treasury Department has recommended

matter of the capital gains and debt and so forth.

I am against it because my former partner, John Alexander, the great tax expert of the old Nixon election,

says it's a devastating thing in terms of anybody leaving any kind of a state.

So we're, I can tell you, I'm not going to recommend it.

Now, the problem you've got, John, though, is that God manned Congress.

They made the demagogues get in there.

So get your, get your, believe me, get the business community and the friends up there to start lighting the Congressmen and Senators.

Now, the two key ones are Wilbur Mills and Russell Long.

And yet be sure to line up Wilbur on the one side and Russell on the other.

Russell Long is chairman of the Senate and the National Committee.

They should be all right with this.

But Wilbur, when I talked to him about tax reform recently, was made a noise about doing something about a state tax.

And that's what this gets at.

So I can tell you that as far as our position, it's awful.

Well, we will not recommend it.

That's fine.

All right.

Let's be practical and honest.

If anything like Sandy Surrey's recommendation, which was in the 1969 tax reform and which was kicked off, ever comes into being, this is the end of the free enterprise system.

This is actually the end of it.

Well, that's what I concluded.

Well, frankly, it seemed to me that it just struck all the entrepreneurs in this country, right?

It's the end of ambition.

That's what I mean.

So you analyze and you analyze success, right?

It's like what the British did.

They ruined their accomplishment.

You take the position of so many people, and all of them are people who have supported you, whose wealth has started years back with the family.

It's come on through a generation at least, such as my case.

My book value is minimum.

My market value is big.

I see.

No, if you assess the capital gain on that, then plus the state tax.

I see.

It's not the same.

I see.

Well, I got the message.

And you take every family that lives, the Rothschild family.

Yeah.

All that is.

Ford family.

You take any group that is supposed to be wealthy.

This is liquidation.

Yeah, I see.

And beyond that, anyone who is... Well, it breaks the statement.

It stops all ambition.

It would break the statement.

I mean, when you try to administer the darn statement, you'd have to match up with the...

foundations without character gain.

So it's suicide.

I got it.

Why don't you work on that, those two guys?

A lot of the people that make up all these guys, you all, they're all ending up...

Starting with the 1969 so-called tax reform, I got hold of Bill Beroli, and I put him on the job then, and I financed it with him, because he has a

He's not a lobbyist.

He's a braided man.

He will have reports on this entire situation coming out now.

I would say within 60 days.

It's a very complete study of the state tax legislation.

Taxation.

That'll be available in 50 days.

About 90...

I think he told me that 92...

of the senators that are on his list to receive his data.

Yes, I know.

And about 85% of the Congress.

Right.

This will all be dead to them.

It'll be dead to the media.

So...

He's a good man.

I know.

I haven't been asleep on this one.

Right, right.

Well, you should not tell him that I decided...

I'll tell you why I did it.

I like it.

I think this is just enough.

Because we will...

When George Shultz testifies...

the worker, the way he's been with that hot month, then he'll say no.

Because I told him to say no.

I just told him this week.

I decided right here.

You don't have to hear anything about leaving from me.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

Obviously, there'd be no reason except in this instance, I don't want them to start a lobby against me in this administration.

I just hope when word came that you wanted to see me, that I could discuss this matter with you.

Got it.

Do you still go down to the recess and all those places that we have in New York?

I think the last time we had lunch in New York was at the Lancaster recess.

We went at the recess.

The recess, that's our place.

That's right.

I remember they had that, so you were deciding whether or not to run.

You were with somebody.

No.

By yourself.

No, no, just the two of us.

You called with the owner of the law office and...

We went back up to your office.

We went back up to your office and I said, now, Dick, if you decide to do this, I want you to just remember one thing.

When you get before the television, keep your face straight toward it.

Don't turn it sideways.

Yeah, yeah.

Remembering the first TV exposure you had.

You don't have to worry about that anymore.

That's done.

Well, let me ask you a question, sir.

After you get over this first troublesome year, did you have any interest in coming down to the plantation for a few days?

You shoot it all?

No, I never shot my life.

I haven't downed my time down to the law of...

Yes, Jim Higgins.

Jim Higgins, who used to put the artificial flowers out there and oranges and things.

Is he still there?

He's a nice man.

He died overnight in his place.

That's the only time I was ever there.

But I don't shoot.

But I might someday, though.

Someday.

You go down every year.

I go there.

I try to go right after Christmas until just now.

Yeah, that's what it's like.

Today I had a quail symposium down there, which is my baby, and I had about 50 or 60 people there.

So when a message came to me through my New York office, come here this afternoon, I said, oh my God, what am I going to do with all these people on one end?

So I'll be back.

I just...

He was fired out of there at 2 o'clock and got us waiting down at the airport.

You came back from Georgia?

Out of the fuel room.

Well, that's not too far.

Two hours?

An hour and a half.

I'll be going back half an hour from now.

You'll get a mind test.

I can't say.

Have you ever seen Charlie?

No, we haven't seen him.

We'd, we'd, we'd, uh, 10 more of us.

We would have killed 1,800 birds this season.

which is a big kill for an amount of acreage out here.

You do it with dogs?

Oh, yes.

Pointers.

What kind?

Pointers.

I've got a beautiful Irish Shepherd.

That's what I was talking to you about.

He's magnificent.

He's one of the greats.

He's a champion.

We don't hunt, but he's so smart.

He can do anything.

I also raise leopards.

I love dogs.

Just a little while.

How old is your Irish Shepherd?

Four.

Four and a half years old.

Well, he's got a long time to go.

Yes, sir.

Thank God.

He'll last through this four years.

That's right.

He'll be able to retire from politics with you.

That's right.

Now, I'm a big fan of Labradors and also Springer Spaniels.

I've won the national championship three times with Labradors and twice with Springer Spaniels.

So when you need another dog, let me know.

I've been around for a little while now.

I know.

Bob Woodruff.

Did he go down to your place to hunt?

Maybe he did.

He went right across the... Yeah.

The next place to his loose range from Mount Bowman to Lee Jones.

Lee Jones.

Yeah.

And Bob Woodruff.

I've seen that place.

Lee Jones.

I was there once.

Not to stay for a night, but just to remember.

Yeah.

It was beautiful.

He was a great fellow.

Jim Hayes, by the way, was my fishing, salmon fishing partner.

He was until we both left the rest of the ocean.

I went to the moisture.

He went to the...

The Sanjay, do you go every year to Sanjay?

As soon as they tell me, as soon as they tell me I'm there, that's where it keeps you going.

Well, one more thing.

Sure, sure.

Peanuts are of tremendous importance to Georgia.

Yeah.

It's one of our own, only one, practically only paper.

And, uh, shows to us

cut down on parity, and so forth.

He must have a special position in this whole economy.

Now there's an export problem.

I've helped to get the people down there organized, and this is for your compensation.

I know that you're approved.

I recommend it to them that they get Harry Mann on the job.

Good.

He's the best man you could get.

Herman Tellem is just chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

He's a powerful guy at the Agricultural Committee.

Right.

And he certainly said that Harry did get him on the job.

Good.

What I'm saying is, Christopher and Schultz here, don't be too hard on Peanuts.

Peanuts is safe.

All right.

Good, and thanks for coming.

Thank you for playing.