Conversation 871-005

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How are you?

I don't need anybody on this next channel.

He's a perfectly trustworthy fellow, totally on our side.

I wanted to tell you a personal

I do know what I'm thinking.

You know, frankly, I was going to bring him back here because I want to try to get the benefit of his leadership as the assistant secretary, for example, and also let him slip over to the economic area.

But they told me that you wanted to get him from Greece, and I'm going to keep him there unless something happens that we have to have someplace else.

I had nobody else in Greece.

A lot of people liked to go, but none of them know enough about it.

Now, on the economic side, I went to ask Schultz to talk directly to him, because I had great confidence in Tosca.

And then we, in France, probably find a way to get Tosca to keep Greece, which is probably likely.

When he comes in sometime, we'll have him just sit in and give us a minute.

I don't have a friend, you know.

He used it in Korea and all the rest.

But you can't put a guy in two places.

But you want him in Greece?

Well, not necessarily.

I want whatever you want, sir.

Well, get somebody else in Greece.

I think he ought to stay there for two or three months.

Oh, we can do that.

But you and the other one.

What's Henry want to do?

Henry, no Henry Blake.

I'm not going to do that.

I think you like it.

It's done.

Yes.

You talk to Henry and let him.

But I don't want to write me.

No, no, no.

Let him tell you what he really wants.

But he did tell me.

Yeah.

He did tell me.

Yeah.

Why don't you leave?

You can't do that.

We had to.

That's John.

Right.

Oh, yes.

He was born out here and so forth.

And he loves going over there to do a little job.

I didn't want to put him in charge of the mid-age desk, but the statement went right up the wall.

They said he was too close to be here.

But anyway, he's got it.

He's got it.

He's our man.

I think he's done a good job.

Now, let me tell you about the prime minister.

I got him.

Play that in a way that we don't have an international incident.

If he comes here, I've got to be checked out.

I think all hell would break loose at the moment.

You know, these nutheads, they'll let you have a communist and say nothing.

But you get a guy that's an anti-communist and they run at him.

Let me say that you don't know what a game I've had to play here.

I've bought the State Department off everybody else they want to play.

knock this guy down, do this and that.

I said, now look, he's got three divisions and Norway's got one battalion.

I said, the hell with all of them.

The hell with Denmark.

Right?

So I want you to know, we're for it, but I'm a visit thing.

It's not to fight the thing that's on you.

You're coming back.

But I think if you could let him know what the present persecutes are, but probably he's got some domestic problems.

He could move a little.

That's fine.

I'm not crazy.

He's got to do what is right.

Well, I don't want to reach to remain independent.

Well, I don't know.

He called me.

I don't seem to see him.

No.

I don't see me.

He calls me.

And he did call me.

He said that I understand that you're going to Washington.

Yeah.

Well, he said I am going to the States.

I said, I don't know about Washington.

Well, he said, uh, that's what I was told.

Yes.

I don't know my own issue.

But I said, uh, what is it?

My respect and my admiration, this is his words to the president.

He said, you know how I feel about him.

You know I've told you many times that we've got problems.

And he says, I think of him because he's got a lot of problems too.

And I sympathize and he's doing a fantastic job.

I don't know how all this was created, but everybody I talk to,

says, what a fine job this man is doing.

And this is not America.

These are Balkans.

In Italy, they tell you this.

In France, they're like, I've been through the Balkans, by the way, and I'm going again next week.

And I was like, I'm so, thank God.

You're never going to retire?

No.

Don't you do it.

And I say the same thing.

Oh, yes, yes.

Beautiful words.

And he was the one who came up with the question, God bless America.

And he said, I said, I'd like to come to America and see the president.

I'd like to sit down with him.

And talk to him.

Why don't you tell him that not now we can't move on.

It would work.

I want to be very frank with him.

I don't want him to be embarrassed.

No, no, no.

Tell us that the president has got no present plans.

I think by the end of this year, I think he's going to have a chance.

Let's just keep him in the back burner.

Yes.

I can't tell you what the president's going to do if he comes in.

He knows where he's going.

So keep that in mind.

I got a message, President.

The other thing is, is Frank Birch a good friend?

Excellent man.

Okay.

Wonderful man.

And the poor fellow apparently just, he's independent, getting oil.

A decent guy.

He's a stripper.

And just a great man.

A family man for 30 years.

And he's going to talk to me again.

He said, you can ask the President.

Let me say, I just say he's a wonderful man.

And he's going to call me kind of a fucking monster today.

Well, you know, I remember Frank when he had one of the little service stations in Whittier.

You know, he's one of these self-made men.

And you just got to admire him.

Am I honest?

I'm going to help you.

I don't like how he's in trouble.

And he's a little chump.

He's Mr. Preston.

Our bishop's son.

Seven sisters.

Eight sisters.

But you're...

Seven whores.

But you... You thank God for...

I gave him $50 million, Mr. President, to say that Standard Oil and Jersey are my partners.

Well, they're my partners, and I'm not their partner.

And I think that's a sign of me that I've balanced worthwhile.

Let me say one other thing.

I want you to know that I'm, what I was mentioning last night, I am aware of what you're doing to help out on some of these things and encourage people and others involved.

Every day at the office.

Well, I made 12 trips back and forth.

I'll tell you.

I started in January.

How did you do it?

Well, I did it because, well... And basically, as you say, we were so shocked.

I didn't think you'd hear such a stupid thing.

Mainly because...

about a second.

You're going to do it.

I did something here, but I just want you to read.

I think you're looking for a three-by-three.

Good, good, all right, good.

I'm going to be a showman soon.

I've got a chance to give it to you.

As a matter of fact, I've got a statement.

I've got to get this lady there tonight.

Can I make a comment?

Yes, I am.

I'm right here.

You see?

Right now.

Well, yes, you can.

As a matter of fact, I'm just going to call you later.

I'm sure I'll have you say hello.

No, that's all right.

I'm just coming in.

I said goodbye to you the day you came home from Europe.

It's good to see you.

Oh, I appreciate it.

Well, that was a nice farewell tonight.

Those are wonderful people, aren't they?

Wonderful people.

I get a great kick because of them.

But you were in at the beginning.

A lot of those are new.

But you know they're all in good shape.

Yes.

And they are, I must say, wasn't the Army Corps great?

Oh.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Good luck.

Take care over there, Tom.

Thank you, sir.

We'll be right back.

One week in Russia, roughly, or not quite.

Well, I'll go to Paris and be there Friday and Saturday.

And then I'll go from there to Moscow.

I'll go to Moscow and be there by Sunday in the late afternoon.

Be there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

And return on...

Yes, sir, we are.

Return on... And then...

Thank you.

Right now, it's not on the schedule.

I hope to meet with the Italians in Paris after the interview.

Although I can't do that for the placeholder.

I know it's desirable to go to Rome.

Well, there's a sense of the schedule.

So I had that on my mind to do.

And I could go from London, either to Paris or Rome.

And then come back.

And I think, depending upon what emerges from this meeting and what seems to be...

The most important thing is that I could go to either Paris or Rome or not go to either one.

With regard to Moscow, you've got a good point about the political considerations and so forth there.

You expect probably to see, I'm sure you'll see, that request easy, economic, I guess, freshness.

That was something that I would have done.

I would have done it.

Yes, you should be a little more work.

I think that's not for the purpose of being work.

It's for the purpose of thinking about some other things.

We have an event.

This explains the problem that I am committed to, and I think you've got to say first, let's understand the President's position.

He's committed to it, and he's going to fight a lot for it.

Second, we've got this unease, this difficult problem of Soviet Hillary.

The President has flatly told Mrs. Meyer that we can't do that.

It would be a great mistake to tie that condition together, which I have.

That is the absurdity.

Mr. President, I want to comment.

No, because Sabrina mentioned it to me yesterday.

And he said the president will take that up on that other occasion when we'll discuss it.

What do you want to say?

But run by it lightly.

Well, just to me, can you say that there's a major commitment we've had to the problem?

Yes.

The president said it was very important.

We're still on behalf of that.

Now, Dobrynin and I will discuss it, and Bredman is going to discuss it with me.

He said they don't want to be pressed.

You better not be in a position where you have brought up Soviet Jewry with them.

That's what I'm saying.

They're very sensitive on that.

Say, therefore, you don't bring up the subject of Soviet Jewry, because I don't want you to come back to Congress and say, well, you bring up Soviet Jewry, and you say, well, no, that's not mine.

You just say that's not your thing.

Maybe you can mention the Jackson Amendment.

You can mention the amendment.

You can mention the amendment constantly.

But I think what works is if you say, look, we don't consider it part of American policy.

It is your domestic profit.

That is my view.

There is the fact of the Jackson Amendment, which you're familiar with.

It's a fact of life that we have to deal with here.

But we will fight it, and then if they want to say any more, listen to them.

We will fight it, but don't try to get anything out of it.

What are you going to do about it?

Don't raise that.

That's not your thing.

Well, I have thought this description of how you are trying to rearrange how it's done

As much as possible, if you can put, say, of the President's crucial commitment to the relationship with

like because...

Unless he's talking to the city.

Yeah.

That's right.

Unless he's talking to the city.

But even then, he should say the President's personal commitment to Soviet-American rapprochement.

Yeah.

And I'm working on it.

And if we're trying to finesse it, then Dr. Getsch and the President discuss the purpose of this agreement.

And when he's here, as to the need for it.

Okay?

Now, on the gas thing,

I think it is pretty helpful.

Judging from these numbers, I've been studying these numbers.

On the merits.

But all I know is there's a way off in the distance, and everyone is speculating about it.

But the thought I had, I don't know whether I really got it across in this write-up, is to explain to them what is going on.

The fact that probably our prices will rise, that will make their...

Prices look more competitive.

There is a question how much supply we get, but certainly this is a very promising line of approach, and as evidence of that, after listening to them say, we will, and the President has said that I can tell you that, that we will go ahead and approve the signing of a no objection.

And that's all that's necessary in order to get that through.

All right, fine.

Leave it at that.

So that I can... You see, we have to have something to get him, and he's here.

And that's what we want to do.

Well, I have...

So you laid the foundation.

I have explored with the companies.

I've talked with Conley, and then Simon has been talking with the company.

What can you accomplish between now and...

a month, two months, three months, four months, five months from now without trying to give them any idea of this when.

And it's not possible, I don't think, to have a deal all worked out because there's a lot of engineering work to be done.

But probably enough could be done so that the next step could be taken of saying, well, all right, if this looks

promising we will agree to some government guarantees and government financing.

That is implied in this protocol.

It's sort of implied.

It's not laid out.

So I think there is an additional step that we can try to mend.

I'm not sure.

Just be sure they know that there's a lot going on.

And I've got a real lot of them, so that they feel that they just don't have it in the bank.

That's the main thing.

The more we can leave it

something that the president... Not because I want to do it, but because I've got to ask them to do some damn hard things.

And I don't want to, and I've got very little time.

Including cutting off... Well, if we're taking this step, we've got a lot of things that we've tried.

But you're saying here that this is a good thing to say to the president on this one, and that he can't get married on this one.

And as he does, all the major issues with the Soviet Union is personally...

They can understand that and will personally be in charge, use that charge.

They do not want to think that a cabinet officer, because, you see, they don't have a cabinet officer to decide anything.

A cabinet officer can make the decision.

They like to think.

They don't mind to think, but they want to be sure.

They like to feel that the president they have to talk to rather than she does everything.

They like to think that I do everything.

Well, I don't, but I let them think we do.

Right?

Well, and also, he...

It sells a lot of things in the Soviet Union on the basis of his presumed relationship with the president.

So you would say, you know, he's been our president all this, he's tremendously interested in it, he's looked at these numbers.

You might even say that when we saw the first numbers, that one of the experts said it is going to be competitive.

The president said, look, let's look down the road.

It can be competitive.

And we want to do that now.

He sent it back to the drawing boards.

Now that you say you went back to the drawing boards and you looked at it, I do think we can be more positive on it.

At least we can explore it further.

It's part of the idea, though, that if they didn't have a feeling that I am intervening, George, to carry out our commitments.

Let me tell you what we've done.

Last time we got our deal on something.

We got Randy the space man.

Okay.

and all this other stuff on the environment, it was about two for us.

They didn't get the Mideast, which they wanted, and they didn't get anything on Europe, which they wanted, except for words about what we were going to do next time.

And frankly, we got them also, I should say, we got them as a layoff from Vietnam.

Now, we, we have to give them something.

That's the real problem.

So the purpose of all this is not, is not really to say, you know what, you can do it, but to have in mind the fact that you've got to constantly play the impressionist ego and so forth, that this is all being done at a very high level.

Thank you for giving me the chance to say

And when he comes over here, he got it from the president, so... That's right.

And he started working on it for me, and he had to get it for me.

Okay.

On this, you know, we did have this approval of $211 million of accident credits the other day, and I caught up with Henry about it.

Yeah, he was very good.

And I did... And I called for him and said, you have done that.

Yeah, I...

So I came off the night before, and I said, I understand you're going over to the exit bank tomorrow.

I said, that's right.

He said, something like $210 million.

I said, I think it's $211 million.

I said, well, I hope that things go well with you over there.

I know the president's fully aware of what's going on and should work out.

And then he reported to me later that he had a good discussion on St. Louis.

George, do I get that you want to take this somewhat negative attitude on the freight?

No, sir.

My view is that so much so that we can't let those services out here and get the farmers off the subsidies.

Right.

I agree with that.

And the only thing is that...

How people hit this market can make an impact on price.

Oh, yeah.

It's always said they don't understand how the market system works, but they were very clever about how they bought that grain in the past time.

They do.

When you leave stuff for the Chinese, they want to do something else.

This is stupid.

We don't.

I mean, we're all out on our production.

I don't know what happened.

I don't produce.

We got it from the Chinese.

I saw Dave back yesterday.

Dave has got a really little contract with the Chinese.

He's the first one in the research involved.

It's being held by that silly COCOM thing or whatever.

I want you to follow up personally.

I told him that it's to our interest to develop the Chinese, and there are other reasons.

And Dave, of course, wasn't raised by the research.

He said, look...

on my end, particularly.

But he said he, Dave, had the impression that probably we wanted to worry.

I said, you're totally right.

I'm totally confused about it.

So would you call Dave and say it's done?

Yep.

He's doing the whole co-conflict, so it's easy for us to do that.

I want to overrule it.

There you have it.

Overrule it.

Now, George, let's monitor it.

The main thing that Henry has raised here, which is not a challenge,

Thank you.

But he says Europe is...

a chaotic state of mind, and they're looking for leadership from the U.S. to come and tell them what to do.

And this is our chance.

And I thought, well, what he's leading up to is massive intervention.

I said, well, what do you think we should do?

He said, well, we've been working for a more flexible system, and somehow we've got to take the leadership on that and make that stick.

Well, that's easier said than done, but that is our basic philosophy.

to try to work in each one of these crises toward the kind of long-run system that we would like to see emerge and sell down.

So that would be the only other side of that.

It deals in Europe now with the factory situation of what maintenance will work and what...

responsibility we should undertake.

Now, we can't allow that to control us, but we have to at least reflect our response in that way.

We're going to go over there, and then for a ranch, it's got to come out.

So, I'm speaking out of the way to have the jurors, the secretary of the board,

It's not a good thing.

What I would like to do is to use this for the company.

You know how I feel about intervention.

Having the dollar paid, having us have to get in and all we say is international monetary.

What it would stand for.

However, this is a time when some leadership who would be very, very helpful to us.

Does that make our position?

My feeling is that it

If the common float works, then it's all right.

If it doesn't work, if the Germans may be driven towards a national float, then I think we must have shown some willingness to alleviate their situation or within the German domestic political sector, we're going to be stuck with it.

I talked with Schmidt this morning on the phone.

said that I was aware of his conversation with you and so on, and that I was going to meet with you and with the President.

And I would like to have breakfast with him Friday morning before all these meetings start, so he's coming to my hotel for breakfast.

Now, he told me that he is working on the idea, if we can't have a common flow of Germany, Benelux, Switzerland, maybe Denmark, which would bring in the other Scandinavian countries,

In other words, he's thinking about letting go of France.

He's worried about that.

But anyway, he's moved in that direction.

He'll associate some others with him in some linked or moderated flow.

I said that I was coming over under instructions from the President to work in a cooperative way with him personally and with Germany in every way we could.

One of the things that we ought to think about is if there is a sort of float, how would you manage that float?

In other words, are there some conditions that would be helpful and that we could work out together and understand and operate with together?

And I think that there are some constructive things to be done in defining the rules of the game in a flexible system that are coming at our planet from a different direction.

Heat

I asked him, well, what did he think about that?

He said, well, that was interesting, and he would like to talk to me about it.

Now, Arthur, by contrast, is, last night, said he's got the idea that will solve all the problems.

I said, what's that, Arthur?

He said, get the Japanese to re-peg the yen, and then get all these other currencies re-pegged, and then we'll defend.

The world will announce that it's under these currencies.

Well, I think that's a formula for disaster.

So, we have displayed, through all the discussion of the common blood, the joint votes, the national votes, and so forth, the fact that the governments involved are very uncertain about their ability to defend any race, whether they're right or wrong.

And you just put up a target for speculation.

We may not be ready for that kind of thing.

We may be some later time.

When we all come together, we are, for us now,

to patch it up quickly over a weekend is what we've been doing too often.

So I agree on that point.

On the other hand, George, we've got to find a way before things turn to one other thing.

I want to be sure I don't want anything to come out of George's trip that could in any way affect the French election.

Yes, that is important.

Very important.

The Gaullists have got to win.

The Socialists win.

It's a disaster.

I've analyzed the figures now.

The Gaullists are not in a bad position.

They have a chance.

of getting a narrow majority all by themselves, which then together with the center would give them a good majority, they have a very good chance of getting a majority together with the center.

Because the way the votes fell, they got more percentage-wise.

I can't even say 43% of the vote in Chile gave us all a sign of victory.

They've gerrymandered France in such a way that the left has to get nearly 55% of the vote to get the control, and they've only had about 41%.

Of course, what the French want is an indirection system, and that's what Giscard will be putting pressure on for, I'm sure.

Do anything you can, all the way up by your name.

I know you will not see often, but I'm sure you will.

Well, if you have any question at all about anything, any statement would be very, very forthcoming on the French, regardless of what we do.

But we don't want to hurt the French.

We can't hurt the Gauls.

Is there any particular thing that I should say?

You should say nothing.

Well, if you can say something, that you will take them.

First of all, let me call the French ambassador and say that if Pompidou would like to see you, you'd be happy to see him.

Why don't you just say this?

We're aware of the fact that there are some differences on this.

The President feels very strongly that we, the United States, should play a constructive role.

That's why you're here.

Second, the President feels, as a very quote, a high respect for President Pompidou, not only as a political figure, but as an economic expert in the first round.

And therefore, we'll be very, very happy with it.

And he wants to be sure that the president's views are thoroughly explored and considered in developing whatever plans we have.

I think that's very important.

And if you're ever asked, I think you can say that.

Yeah.

You can say that.

No, no, no, no, no.

Let me check with the president.

Yeah, bring it back.

But all the Secretary says is the President.

The President recalls his meeting with President Pompidou.

Previous meetings, meetings with him.

And President Pompidou is obviously a – and you always say we curse him.

No one mentioned it.

Well, there are two amounts of President Pompidou.

He is not a Russian.

That's his party.

But the President of France, he was – he thinks of the European statesman.

only experience in this field.

I just put it that way, which is true.

Pompidou is an expert.

Pompidou is better.

He just has the deck, I would say.

When management endorses one of the Indian leaders after election, he generally kills it.

I don't know.

Let me check with the French ambassador.

let me offer him that you'd be glad to call on Pompidou.

That's right.

And secondly, that you'd be prepared to make some sort of a statement either emerging from there in any other way.

But this is the plan.

This is the plan to make a statement that the President was very interested in getting his views because he has high respect for his understanding of his view.

He already has experience that most of the world's statesmen do not have.

Very good.

Yes, that would be good.

The reason why George should...

The forthcoming, as I've told you, Schmitt called me on Monday.

And as you know, Schmitt is on the right wing of the Socialist Party, which will probably be one of the few good guys.

He, and the possible successor to Brown, he said that he had told me when he became finance minister that his great emergency...

He might call me if they were a political contest, and he just wanted me to know that the time had come where we should exercise a political judgment.

Now, I take it quite seriously.

Now, what that means in technical detail, George will have to figure out, but we don't want Schmidt to be in a domestic position at home where he turns to the Americans, got totally kicked in the teeth, because that would shift the whole pattern of his journey, too.

If they are finally forced to go to a national floor, if none of this works, we don't want them to be able to say that we drove them to it.

I mean, it ought to result from our having tried something that they then decided not to go with.

There are a lot of kind of technical things that we can probably do that would be helpful.

And we'll...

We'll try to get up a list and do those things.

I would get from this that we shouldn't agree to any effort at massive intervention.

Not yet.

On the other hand, if you get very strong, I would want to follow you.

On the other hand, I would leave without totally misleading them.

I believe that we would be very constructive.

but that we just feel massive intervention is the wrong step, but that we ought to look down the road as to what, you know what I mean, the idea that if everybody, if you want to build a new system, we'll build a new system.

How about this?

It's not the time to do it, but the time where I put the dimension, you sort of seem to like it over the phone anyway, that rather than say you're floating, say that we think, and we will support this, we think the relationship between the mark and the dollar is about right.

and that you are maintaining that car value, but you're going to remove the vans temporarily, which is the same thing as floating, that is, you're going to remove the upper limit, you're not going to intervene, and let the market clear the air a little bit, and then we'll come in and we'll have some understanding with them about the pattern of operation.

I was going to say that, how about the point that we were discussing the other evening, that have some understanding with them that if the mark floats too far,

We will help to stabilize it because their big worry is not so much its relationship to the dollar but its relationship to the franc.

If they float and the French don't, it's going to hurt their farmers and they're going to have a massive domestic problem with which we don't want to be stuck, particularly when they've made a direct appeal

I think you've got to be more forthcoming than you know I feel like being.

And I think the Germans have got to know where they're from.

And I think you should be safe.

We don't feel things are a good idea at this point, but on the other hand, we're acutely aware of their problems, and we want to be as cooperative as we can to see that they are not.

Don't tell us frankly what you think is going to happen, and draw them as far as you can away from a massive intervention, of course, because that we don't want.

So a massive intervention implies...

Yeah, right.

I don't know.

It is like setting up a whole new system now.

Do you want to do that?

No.

That we shouldn't do.

Although we should have a new system, I wouldn't mind if we could have the right kind of flexibility.

And I think Smith, first of all, is an intelligent guy and a good guy who will listen to reasonable arguments.

But he isn't going to come there in a combative spirit with troops.

He has a massive domestic problem.

And about two weeks ago, they got a lot of credit domestically for not having floated on a national basis.

So he's got to begin some way of maneuvering off that spot.

And he wouldn't have called me knowing my lack of confidence in the field.

And certainly am I talking to you unless he felt it was a major political problem to him.

So it's partly a psychological thing.

If we could keep him moving in the right direction but giving him enough cushion so that he can feel he's got something from us and that we were sensitive to him.

And that also, in the long term, I think will help you move towards your system because that gives them the maneuvering room to separate from the French.

If we kick him completely, they'll have to eventually move back to the French.

I've got to go.

There's 50 people in here.

Could I just raise the right of way?

Sure.

What's your license?

Son of a...

He's a damn valuable man.

And he'd be very good over there.

He'd be very good with Henry.

But Henry's got to turn.

Well, I've talked to him.

I think he really right now would slightly prefer to go with George.

And I would like to be extremely useful of these.

What I would like to do is work out the true understanding.

He stays here through the summer.

That's what we can do.

Through the summer.

We can do that.

Oh, we can do that.

Yes, he stays here through the summer.

He can be named and he can be told that he has to work for you.

And that's the way it's going to spend its time.

Okay.

The other thing is this Commission on Industrial Peace.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Fine.

What we would like to do, if we can work it out, is to use the President and the Commission as the basic groups, and then have subgroups on transportation and others.

mass production industries, and so forth.

If it's agreeable with you, we'll proceed on that basis, and we would get a man named David Cole, who you may remember from your Steel Strike days.

He's an old-timer in that area.

He was a chair.

Now, the only question I would have on this, we're exploring this done off this meeting with Fitz Simmons.

Fitz has some reservations about Jim Roach, but he doesn't think he's swayed much weight.

He found him

I don't think this quite appreciates Stephen Swarbrick, the Chief Executive of General Motors.

And I think he sees, first, we proceeded in good faith.

And to a certain extent, we managed to convert the conversation into one of, it's our common enemy, the press, that's done this to us.

And we've got to let this settle down.

And I pointed out to him your statement, which he...

He said, well, I'm in the present.

I'm in the present.

And I used that with him.

I said, George, that was no accident.

The president said that.

We discussed it.

He knew your view.

And he put that very carefully.

It didn't just happen off the cuff.

He appreciated that.

He saw that.

And...

So I guess I'm going to try to be helpful to them, or not.

If he needs us, I'll certainly see him.

I will tell him that.

I think perhaps right after I get back, there's going to be a meeting of the committee, and it would be good if they could meet with me.