Conversation 876-004

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Well, it all did do damn well.

Yes, they got even.

I told you last night that we're computer protected.

I know.

It's a hell of a setback.

I was reading, you know, the tradition that, of course, Jonathan Randall and the Pope, which, of course, is all I follow from the French on seven times, after this fight, and I learned something.

He's been writing ecstatic columns about the socials of the college.

I've watched everybody get into that all the time.

His thing this morning is the most abject goddamn thing I've ever seen.

You've got to read it.

Did you notice it's awful hard to find out after the first paragraph how to go all the songs?

A lot of it they report also in terms of the number of seats to go that's lost.

Yes, the first press dispatches last night where the callers today lost 100 feet.

They didn't say that they had a majority of 210 in a very unusual election, but the fact of the matter is that if the communists and socialists had done separately, the callers would have done nearly as well as in the last election.

It seems to me that the question of the press is very important.

I think it's very important.

As we have the hotline to them.

Yeah, put it on the hotline.

Read the line.

The Chinese have agreed that you can announce Thursdays.

Now that we've told them that you're going to do it, they're sure to promise to come.

Oh, sure.

Well, I... Well, it's not rather secret.

I don't think...

If you don't have a press conference, it would make it too high if you just step out.

But we can just... We should tell them ahead of time as long...

I just tell them that you would make the announcement.

We got a good play out of this Downey thing.

Yeah.

What is the situation with regard to, uh...

I was reading the, uh... ...the... ...the... ...the... ...the...

I'm crying on crocodile tears, what a horrible thing it is, and so forth and so on.

And yet, to show you what is at stake here, they've got to make this fail.

They're not going to make it fail.

That is what it is.

Is that in the news somewhere?

Oh, yes, yes.

Here we are.

Yes.

Yes, I have.

Thank you.

I'm not thinking of the 22 killed.

I'm thinking of the number.

If they say 243 wounded and 90 missing, that's a hell of a considerable amount of weapons and equipment.

It's probably a very bad defeat.

If I had to kill 90 missing, they're dead, of course.

210, 243 wounded and half of them are dead.

So now there's, what the hell are the Air Force doing?

Are they doing any good in that chunk of land?

The chunk of land is going to hit the chunk of land.

They've got a different excuse every time.

Because they think there are a lot of civilians in there.

But we can step up to D-52.

We can just tell, tell Moro you want to lay the... Tell Moro I want to be able to do strikes on massive bases in Cambodia for the next five days.

And I want to bring out a daily report on targets, including the jump plantation.

They can find good targets in that area.

I've got to let you say that tonight.

This is, I consider it to be critical.

Okay.

Now, in order, I'd like you to now pass it directly to Maura if you want to have her look at it.

Have her look at it.

Okay.

The other thing is, with regard to the infiltration and so forth, Maura, these fire violations, is there anything further...

Well, we're getting another batch of prisoners on Wednesday.

I think we ought to wait for that.

I think we ought to send them another message today with this last week's violation, just so that we have a record when we do hit them.

But then I think over next weekend we should do a one- or two-day strike on the old Jim and Trey, just to get their attention.

That's all there is to do on it.

Well, it will.

No, actually, we'll get quite a lot.

It will knock out quite a few trucks because they're not ready for it.

But at this point, the major thing is to intimidate them.

That we really should justify on the basis that having done such devastation to the North, this would in effect sap our national conscience for what we have done.

That we can never do.

Well, can you imagine us getting the votes for it?

The first vote.

That's just bullshit.

It's bullshit.

And what is killing them, Mr. President, is that the American consciousness has come out of this war without a feeling of guilt.

You think that's it?

I think that's it.

What is your judgment, though, on this?

McGovern came up to me as a gridiron, and he said he wanted me to know how guilty he felt about some of the things he had said during the campaign.

He was very overawed.

What do you mean about you?

Well, I suppose about me, but I said, well, I didn't say anything.

Don't let them get off on that.

Don't let them get off.

They knew what they were saying.

Mr. President, what these people did last year was what they put this country through, what they put you through, and their total lack of generosity.

I mean, now they're being forced by the fact that the public...

And the P.O.W.s.

Those P.O.W.s are really impressive.

But it's unbelievable all the way they happen for us.

We have written P.O.W.s constantly on the cross.

I do think some more writing needs to be done, and I have indicated a memorandum.

book on Vietnam, what we've done is Robert Thompson, he wrote a damn good book, you know, no exit from Vietnam, it won't be all positive, but he'll write one hell of a lot.

He could write one hell of a good book.

And I wonder if you could, what I meant is, Mark, you could get a publisher, we'll get a publisher, we'll get a publisher, Thompson could write the book and we can cooperate with it.

We need somebody to get one damn good book out in the halls, I don't know who else is.

Tim is just going to...

He'll try, but he hasn't got the brain.

He won't have to.

He's dead.

We hope that he could get him out of this stuff.

Thompson knows a hell of a lot about what happened.

I spent some time with Dimmish, but that's not the real book.

He's dead.

So also, he could.

Well, so also, still may do it.

He's so, it's not so awful.

I don't know what he'd do, though.

What should he do?

I think it might be so.

I was waiting to see whether they'll get out of love.

That's to him to test, and that's another reason why we have to hit them, Mr. President.

Our experience with them, after all, has been that the only

They can't even put it forward.

I don't see it.

I don't see how we can put it forward.

realization that the South Vietnamese are doing a bit better in these terms with the North than anybody anticipated.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so far, they're winning.

Yeah.

Only one reporter, a post-reporter, or a lieutenant was reporting the contrary in some places.

The way it got down, the way the press looked at this, that we lost Cambodia at least 300 times in

It's an unbelievable thing.

I was rereading Thompson's book last night.

He saw everything clearly.

He wrote it in 69.

He saw what was going to happen.

He predicted it.

He saw the mistakes, the fact that we went in and fought without a man for it, for it, rather than letting that fight themselves.

He overthrew it beyond everything.

But the point is, he also sees that the heart of the problem is American will.

And if we had bucked out

We would have destroyed the determination of this country to play a useful role in the world.

That's really what this has to do with other countries.

And, of course, the main point is the point that you all have made before the November 3rd speech, which is confidence in ourselves.

Confidence in ourselves.

The United States will not be moving unless we are confident that what we are doing is right.

I saw in the dead New York Daily News that this son of a bitch, Paul Vortke, made a speech in which he said you could have had this piece in 1959.

Now, the fact that...

The fact that...

The fact that was in here.

Talk to Haig.

Talk for five minutes to me during the campaign to become a police man.

He said that's what we've been hoping for.

That's what we couldn't get in 68 and 69.

Then when you debriefed,

In those minutes.

I mean, in his case, we know he didn't draw judgment.

It's a deliberate lie.

We were really ready for it in 69.

They didn't offer it.

Because they could not have survived if we had pulled everything out in 69 and had accepted this, they would have closed it.

But they never offered it.

That's what we created.

They know that this is a fabulous procedure, Scott, now, aren't they?

But we've got to be sure that's answered.

You've got to answer that, sir, then.

We've got to...

I think we've got to keep this thing together at least through the 74 elections.

Keep something, huh?

That's what I mean.

Could be.

Turning to other subjects, I'm sure this is, the governor, he said that already, that there is a new one, so I didn't know in person.

No, you did not know.

The second one is that... And they just don't really know who did it.

The first reports were that it was a group of black radicals.

But, you know, it can't be anyone else.

No, he's the right kind of queen.

Yes, and, you know, with regard to the...

He is a British government, and I...

I should go to Queens.

Let me check what the protocol is.

I think he is the Queen's representative.

He's certainly the Queen's representative.

Yeah, I'd rather think that he'd be a nice guy, but he will every while.

And I guess the last good guy must be cancer.

Yeah.

And he's going to get some early, so he's going to win again.

The military is going to cool us.

They dare.

They wanted, Lanus wanted to make a coup before the election and the other military didn't let him do it.

So it's harder to do it after the election.

The Peronistas are going to be very nationalistic and quite anti-American.

And that's what our idiots at the State Department have never understood, that the coming thing in Latin America is for these right-wing people to adopt left-wing programs.

And our constant, I mean, there'll be another plane in Argentina, but our constant hacking away at these right-wingers is going to drive them into a coalition with the extreme left.

The one thing the extreme right and the extreme left all agree on is basically isolation and imperialistic actions.

They all do.

Unless the extreme left is tied directly to the communists,

So we're going to get bogged down reacting to all these things.

I know there's some common folks and all that.

But you better know it's a common flow without the critics.

And it's apt not to work.

And as long as so it will be a lot of work.

So I would put you in charge of the doors of the market.

I was afraid to put it in writing, but I told it to Donald Bell to keep him in the memory.

Very good.

Now, getting away from that, getting away from it, he's getting away from the song for a moment.

You and I have got to sit down and talk about it.

I agree.

A philosophical talk about where we're going.

Now, think of two or three guys.

One that occurs to me is Herman Collin.

khan writes goddamn well about you know uh the american spirit and not just vietnam but he has a great understanding of what the hell the role of the world should be i wouldn't have any hint i mean khan is a funny guy khan is very good at briefing you he's very bad in a conversation i mean if you ask him the question you gave you asked me and said now herman come in and give a one-hour briefing yeah he'll do a superb job why don't we do that if you say herman

Sit around with the president.

But if you want a briefing from him, that he would do superbly.

Well, there's somebody I've always wanted you to meet, Mr. President, a historian.

at the Smithsonian called Daniel Forster.

He's written the book, The Image, or What Happened to the American Dream, but he does it from a conservative point of view.

Now, him you can talk to.

We should ask.

No.

The trouble is, Mr. President... Look, what about the state?

What about the feds?

Is there anybody in their policy planning people?

They'll screw it up to a fairly well.

The way to do it, if you assign it to a research group, first of all, they're going to ask you for a lot of money to redo what they've already done.

I don't want anything like that.

I want a man to sit down for a week and think, God damn it, this needs one bit of money, no bit of research money.

Let me get a few of these

And again, he's good.

Hoffman, I just spoke to him.

Well, Mr. President, I talked to him.

He's smart.

He's smart and he's basically not a lip.

I called him this morning.

I called him to talk about the French election, and I've told him essentially that this is going to Europe.

What you have said, I can sit down, Stanley, and in two weeks have a paper for the president and me in which you tell us what should happen in European-American relations.

He used to be a goalist.

He used to be against European unity.

And I've got a draft of the article that he wrote.

Out of the harbor, can you be out there in the Midwest, in Chicago perhaps, or one of the other places?

Is there a school that's got their thousands and thousands of people in this room?

See, we always come up with the same old establishments.

Let me... Of course, for example, he isn't so good on foreign policy, but about the American...

image of itself, what America's role in the world could be.

He's one of the most brilliant people around, exceptionally thoughtful.

And, uh, and basically on our side.

And I'll call him today.

But if I could recommend, I think you should meet with small groups like this.

We should get Khan to do a briefing.

Uh...

But if we've got a few of them to do papers first, then once you've clarified your mind, we can give orders to the bureaucracy.

But if we start with that, it will leak all over Hell's creation and it won't be worth it.

Well, it's going to be interesting.

Oh, yes.

I didn't want to leave it.

But we need to have a little of this before sitting down and deciding where the hell we go.

You see, we are going to be sitting here otherwise, so busy, not just making small decisions, but very big ones, that we will not have a philosophy.

I just know that's the way it works.

It's true that subconsciously we will always be guided by certain rules, certain principles.

But what you really need is to have a goal out.

got to say this is what we're going to do.

And everything fits into that pattern.

What you do in every goddamn election, what you do in the French election, what we do with regard to the monetary thing, all is fitting to that goal.

And that's what we've got to do.

That's what we've got to do.

Do you agree?

I agree.

I think we do it more than anybody else has done.

But I think that we've only got three years and ten months left.

We must not lose this.

That's the point.

Nobody else is going to do it.

They don't care.

They talk about it.

Let's face it.

If Connolly should win and should be elected, Connolly will not sit on a 20-year basis.

He'll think on a 20-month basis.

He'll do that.

That's what he's done.

None of the other, Bart, Percy, or the rest of them are going to do anything.

Rockefeller would tend to think in one of their terms.

But Rockefeller at times doesn't have his head screwed all the time.

You know what I mean?

He's got all these brilliant people around him.

He'll come up.

He has the right name.

But he isn't.

Well, Rockefeller tried to do it.

For one thing, he's really intelligent enough.

And in a funny way, he doesn't know a hell of a lot about foreign policy.

He has a great instinct.

And he would be closest in mood to what you're trying to do.

But he could never do himself.

What you are asking here, because he doesn't have... Well, he doesn't have your sceptical mind either.

I mean, he's just...

He gets too enthusiastic about everything.

Well, and he gets sort of...

He's really become a little old-fashioned.

He's giving a speech in Europe at the end of the month on to the European unity movement.

And he asked...

He told me what he was going to say.

He said he was going to say that justice...

As a governor in New York, he couldn't operate independently, and he needs a federal system.

They've got to have a federal system.

I said, Nelson, that was the shibboleth of the 50s.

You ought to ask yourself how much it's in our interest to push European unity at this stage, and then I'll let it drop.

Also, we've got to take, for example, things like the Alliance for Progress.

Now, look, I kicked the Alliance in the ass in 69 when I first came on, like, over the OAS, and everybody in the state was horrified and so forth.

But I was right.

The alliance is a total failure.

It is a total failure.

It was misconceived and it failed.

Now, what are we going to do?

I agree with you that although Africa is a separate province, I agree with you that in America we have to be reasonable.

We just have to do it.

Japan is indispensable.

And Southeast Asia, on the other hand, is very important because of Japan.

But, Mr. President, once one has said that... And India...

But I think, as I said, that horrifying figure, that more people were killed when India and Pakistan fell apart than were killed in all of World War II.

Later.

Take, for example, the case of Japan.

You make an analogy.

If you say Japan is indispensable, which is 100% correct, then the next question is, what is the likely trend of Japan?

And one of your great strengths is that you never look at things sentimentally.

And the facts about Japan seem to me to be these.

Here is a country which is totally infuriating in conception, in its history, in the way they run their affairs.

Everything is designed to cut them off from comprehension by outsiders and from their being able to comprehend outsiders.

If you look at their history, totally nationalistic.

They don't have cosmopolitan traditions like the Chinese.

If you read the intelligence reports, you see that these are people, the motives they ascribe to others must mean that they're perfectly capable of these motives themselves.

So here is a country that is going to be driven by its inability to establish priorities, by its lack of comprehension of foreign countries, and by its tremendous economic power.

It is very likely...

to be a disquieting element to everybody.

Now, there is no way, in my judgment, one can win the Japanese by sentimentality.

The Japanese, great strictness, they're like a sensitive seismic parameter to the currents of power in the world.

They're individually never impressive, but socially, as a leading group, I mean, when you talk to Tanaka or Zato, any of them, there's nobody there who can talk to you like Joe and like him.

Yet the leadership group is impressive in setting their compass course.

Therefore, as far as Japan is concerned, it is imperative that they have enormous respect for the United States.

Babbling around with them is nice window dressing.

We need the emperor here.

We need these periodic visits.

But we always have to have a framework.

Now, my view is we have to make the Japanese inability to choose

work for us, we should suck them into Siberia, we should suck them into Southeast Asia, for the reason that the more they frighten others, the better it is for us, we shall beat China.

Again, I wouldn't say this publicly, but we must prevent the Japanese from tying up with any one other country.

The great danger is that they'll choose China, and that their resources and Chinese intelligence

are going to do to us in Asia what the common market may do to us in Europe.

That's one reason why we have to lean a little bit towards China wherever we can.

On the other hand, we should tie the Japanese to us where we can, but one good guarantee, that's why I'm not against having the Japanese active in North Vietnam.

If they're active in North Vietnam, the Chinese get worried.

If they're active in Siberia, the Chinese get worried.

If they're active in China, the Russians get worried.

It's in our interest to have the Japanese 10% overextended.

Then there'll be, I know this is cynical prose, but that way they're always a little bit off balance.

And since it's impossible to make conceptual deals with the Japanese, now I think the deal will be made with Mao and Chou.

It's going to last for three to five years.

We don't have to maneuver the Chinese through every little device because they understand it.

I don't know whether you've signed these letters.

Oh, that's fine.

I'm planning on taking it through.

Well, I'm planning on taking it through.

No, I'm planning for a New York Thursday.

I thought I'd bring Bruce up there after you've announced him.

And I thought I'd talk to him about North Vietnamese infiltration just to set up what we may do later to tell them about the Russian summit, these little things that day.

We are not Russians.

I've done that already.

What are you talking about?

Oh, yes.

Internally, I forgot to tell you, the reason told me may not be true.

I said, he said that they lost 200 tanks in China that they were sent to, to North Vietnam that never arrived.

And he said sometimes the whole train loads disappeared in China of military equipment.

When I told him about those 300 tanks, he said, well, maybe they're not new shipments.

Maybe these are these shipments that got lost in China.

And I don't believe that, but...

But I warned him very strongly, and I told him that it would affect our relationship severely if a North Vietnamese offensive were started with Russian equipment.

Sure.

And we've got to force them now to quiet down the

the North Vietnamese, and we've got to let them both know that it won't be free.

Well, I'll tell you what, since those people are out, let me tell you, I hope they'll be ready on the 28th of February, March, to bomb the shit out of those places.

Is that clear?

They heard the bomb, the bejesus up, the trail every goddamn day, right?

How about with the objection, money, budget, blood?

Well, they'll be starting to ward off again, and

No, no, no.

After bombing, I think we can get away with it.

But my point is, well, if there is, it is happening.

We've all been there.

We'll be on the ocean.

That's what I'm saying.

That's right.

Well, the objection is that they're breaking the ceasefire, that they're giving them a pretense to start again.

They'll be all the usual.

We'll be away with it for a while.

Oh, yeah.

And I think what we should do is fairly soon, maybe this weekend or the next week,

do a two-day strike on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and stuff.

These fellows have been very sensitive to overreactions by us.

When we started raising, they dismantled that anti-aircraft site in Kitsang now.

And they still, this is why it's so important that you keep your reputation with them for tough, unpredictable actions.

They know every threat you've made, you've carried out.

Despite what is happening with regard to the, you know, particularly with the workers and all, and others and so forth, but, you know, do you see any model line at all, all the arms of the thing?

Oh, yes, oh, yes, Mr. President.

Or do you tend to see that all the time?

No.

About the mood change?

About the mood have changed, Mr. President.

No.

But not even now?

Well, not among, no, but basically, Mr. President, you are...

if you hadn't been in China last year, you couldn't have done the other things.

I think what is happening now is the filthy lands and companies find it almost unbearable that you've turned out to be right.

We can't expect them, I did expect them, but that was wrong, to express any positive views.

But while they are mumbling around, making petty criticisms, there's no steam behind it at all.

There's no passion.

They're just sort of groping around, and they basically know that the whole atmosphere, even at the gridiron, I don't know what Bob and Ron said in the vice president gave a sort of sickening speech at the end.

Oh, yeah, Mr. President, you don't deal with the press by being the gentleman of the press.

I salute you.

That sort of pandering.

I don't ever kiss their ass.

And it doesn't do them any good.

They don't like me.

And that's the best way to treat them.

Hugh Seide, for example, wrote this week essentially what he called me up about.

Quite favorable to his view.

And he quotes something I said about Hugh saying,

The difference between you and other presidents is that when one mentions Karachi or Saigon, it's a street scene to you.

It's a reality.

It's an abstract place.

You've been everywhere.

You've thought about it.

It's quite true.

And that is very true.

Well, it is.

Also, you've absorbed it.

It was a mollified atmosphere.

Even your critics

I don't read Wicker as a question of principle, but he's really a net plus now.

I mean, he writes a few respectfully, and while he hits away at it, he had a column yesterday about, in effect, writing our story on infiltration.

And... Saying what?

That they were infiltrating?

That they were infiltrating.

There's no excuse for them to put 300 tanks in, and they can't expect to get military aid.

While they're putting taxes, wasn't it a criticism of the...

The thing is, that's a very tough thing.

And I'm really putting the ball now, as you will know, in that court.

I'm not going to let the agencies get away with this stuff and say, well, the White House is going to screw them.

No, it's that way.

Independently, you do what you want.

But I've got to make... See, Rogers can have their little lunches over there, and they can entertain these assholes until they run out of their ears.

I don't know.

The only thing I wonder about is, in that memo, it's a committee chaired by an artist, because whenever you put him in charge of a committee, he claims he has exclusive jurisdiction.

I mean, this is not something that's going to be more difficult to put them in charge of.

This could be a loser.

You know, they, they never thought...

But they are going to have a response.

They're going to have a response.

Except they're so bloody selfish, aren't they?

They have no...

I thought the other day that Bill was saying we should put these violations into the ICCS.

We do that and we paralyze ourselves.

Then nothing happens for six weeks while the ICC has argued.

I mean, that's a good way to avoid action.

I see.

I don't know if we can't go on, sir.

We're going to get the responsibility for getting aid through where it belongs.

It should always have been there.

That's it.

The State Department.

Donald's used to get it through, Andy.

Donald's used to take the responsibility.

Now, God damn the State.

here's another reason

we must not take responsibility if i have a

But Timmons is considered an administrative assistant to the Congress, rather than the White House.

It's his great fault, and he'll get the votes in the world.

But Rogers and Richardson, I think, have got nothing else to do that is more important than this, have they?

Absolutely right.

You know, is there anything on committees, or any other ensemble?

Is he aware of the function?

No, I think he's so afraid that you ask me to do something that

He now wants to get it all done.

By that he meant the Israelis and the Egyptians.

They've now slammed him, the Egyptians, for having made a polyamorous statement that things were going well.

They've publicly attacked him.

But that's all right.

But he said we can use whatever his motive.

It fits exactly into our game plan.

Publicly, that's fine.

Publicly, nothing should be of us.

Probably, I don't know.

They always say that he probably managed there.

But nevertheless, you and I know something.

I had a talk with Rabin before he left, and I think I've got him around.

But he then talked to Mrs. Mayer on Saturday, and she totally rejected it.

The idea of having some common principle set going to an interim agreement.

She'll accept the interim agreement.

Yes, the interim agreement she'll accept, and that I've worked out with her, but she will not.

But she may have to be enrolled.

We just may have to do it, Mr. President.

Look, that's the cost we're doing.

We were very kind to her.

She should do these principles.

She should settle with her son.

I don't understand why she won't settle with her son.

Because if she settled with Hussein, got an interim agreement with the Egyptians, she'd have ten years of quiet.

She's so smart.

Yeah.

I think... Rabin, I think... Rabin, I think...

I like Rubin because of his enormous character.

And he's smart, too, isn't he?

Very smart.

Very good analytical skill.

What's the ability of those guys?

He's in trouble because Dayan hates him.

Johnson.

Eban.

I think he's by far the most impressive if really he's tough.

But then we don't mind.

He has at least a big view.

And his recommendation was... Can we get him to stay here?

Not that.

He'd be terrific.

He'd be the best chairman we could get.

I'm kidding.

He'd make a great chairman of chiefs.

He's, as I've told you before, he's radically the same kind.

Icy, cold, ruthless, no nonsense.

There would be any crapping around.

Absolutely.

Please, uh,

And all of these things, as I say, you and I, and I'm going to get a little bit into it, so I'm not going to get a lot of money out of it, necessarily.

But you and I have got to spend our time seeing that we don't blow the big picture.

In other words, after China, after Russia, after the United States.

Howard Smith's commentary is, in other words, rather interesting.

where Smith said that he drew a parallel.

It was the wrong parallel, but nevertheless, it was the right analysis where he said that Nixon was not coming out.

This is the strongest president since FDR.

I think that's true.

And then he goes on to say that he was not a big war, and that's why FDR is a big war.

uh he wiped out his opposition there were only at that time at the end 76 republican members of the house

There were only 26 Republican senators.

What did FDR do?

He tried to pack the court, which was ridiculous.

And he went too far in some other stuff.

And in 1938, the Republicans made a sensational comeback, one of the 150, 170 members of the House.

And FDR never, the only thing that saved FDR was the war.

The war ended down in 1939, he'd been out for seven years.

Now, no repression on him.

We know what we're going to make of him.

And that's what worries the liberals.

The liberals want to hear.

They want it in Washington.

They don't think mayors and governors know what's best.

And they're probably right.

On the other hand, it's wrong to have a bunch of goddamn woollyheads here in Washington make decisions about this country.

The other point is that in terms of foreign policy, though, we're not going to make that happen.

We're not going to reach, we're not resting on our own.

As a matter of fact, we're using this for the purpose of building.

That's why, remember, I've made so many talks where I said that so many people are going to say that once the war is over, that everything is going to be

As a matter of fact, if that incidentally will be on the campus, yeah.

But the campus will have other things to show.

Actually, I think they're going to become very studious students.

That's great.

But that's the other thing.

The people jump once the war becomes down on their consciousness and the big issue becomes inflation.

Because basically we have been so crisis-oriented for so many years.

ending the war could be a great advantage for any president.

And that's what I started.

He ended the war and kept the nation out of other wars.

I made that speech a dozen times.

And that's why he is here.

That's why he, one of the reasons he's remembered is we're very present.

We ended the war.

It's a little longer, but we ended the war.

A much more difficult war.

And we will keep the nation out of other wars.

The point that I make is that what we are doing is so much more profound

China is bigger than that in the war.

Russia, some of it, is bigger than that in the war.

The war is bigger.

It's a question of how.

The war is difficult.

Now, the China-Russia thing, though, even as big as those things were, we don't look at those as ends in themselves, which might be the jackasses in the press, and I think it's great to go out to China and be shaking hands, and I think it's going to be hunky-dory, it's going to be hunky-dory, it's going to be tough to eat.

So now, now that we have come this far,

The real thing is how you build on these great nations.

It's probably true that, generally speaking, the leaders of great revolutions are the lousiest people to lead in the building of an nation.

Washington is one of the few exceptions.

But he wasn't a revolutionary.

That's true.

Was he not?

And he was trying to maintain the continuity of American policy.

And he saw it.

Almost all revolutionary leaders have been destroyed.

There need not be a revolution.

But in our case, we've got to leave that out of your sight.

This is a revolution.

Generally speaking, those who make big plagues, spectacular plagues, are not the best fit to carry on the less spectacular but equally important process of peacemaking in the world.

That's my point.

Now, we are going to prove them wrong.

That's what I'm saying.

The three spectacular plagues were the trip to China, the soldiering of the Russians,

to take from us an amount of intellectual power, not intellectual, but vision, more than intellect, vision, and also skill in putting these pieces together over the next three years, four years, so that whoever succeeds us can't blow the goddamn thing in six months.

Absolutely.

I do not only come to total agreement with you, Mr. President,

And I would just add, in terms of historical perspective, your task was harder than FDR's, because what FDR was doing was implementing what the intellectual elite of the country was thinking in the 20s.

I mean, you look at what FDR did, and all the leading intellectuals in the country had been writing it for 15 years.

And they were all for him.

He had all the media, not editorially, but

But the editorials don't matter.

But in the day to day life... You know, one of his few ones who weren't wasn't for him at the beginning was Walter Lippman.

Because Walter Lippman thought it was going to be Hoover, and he admired Hoover.

But when Lippman turned around about 34... That's right.

So there was no look except for the Chicago tribute.

John O'Donnell, you know, John O'Donnell.

Remember he gave the Iron Cross to Cincinnati a piece of that.

Who was against that, Leon?

Everyone?

That Trump.

And then, in addition, all his big decisions were forced on him.

No one forced any of your decisions on you because they were all against your decisions.

The opening to China was opposed by everybody.

The leftists wanted to play with Russia.

The rightists certainly didn't want to open to China.

The radicals couldn't even conceive it.

So the redesign of new foreign policies had to be done entirely alone.

You've been in a solitary position more than any president that I can think of.

And therefore, it has had a much more idiosyncratic stance, also hysterically important.

Therefore, that's why I've always thought I should get out sometime during this term so that somebody else does it for a while with you.

But that's a different issue because there is a problem of institutionalization.

I would seriously consider leaving and getting out.

No, you can't.

I really wouldn't for the reason that I'd like to have somebody else in who could frankly with me.

We've got to have a feeling for excitement about the unimportant as well as the important.

The reason that you and I have to stick around in this damn place is that we have, at the present time, we, there's nobody else who conceptually understands what we're trying to do.

And nobody's going to learn it.

And the, the, the, and take the Malaysian, Malaysian money, some of the sharing of

Russia's going to be a continuing game.

Japan's going to be a continuing game.

And Europe's going to be a continuing game.

Now, that's kind of a game.

When you look at Russia alone, you know damn well, this summer's going to be good.

And the other one's going to be terribly important.

And what they're planning for you is a triumphal tour through Russia.

And that's what the freedom has already told me.

He took me aside at the great iron dinner.

The president has sent you a bubbling letter again.

how much he appreciates San Clemente and Camp David, and he knows you've never done this for anyone.

Next year, when you come to Russia, you will see how the Russian people will... Well, I think... Oh, no question.

I think, incidentally, Mr. President, that after the Russians are here, I ought to go for two days to Peking to brief them.

And on that occasion, tell Joe and I you should come here

that then you can come back.

Where did he go?

You can come to the UN, and then he comes and visits Italy as a missionary.

Will he get there?

Oh, yes.

I'm sure that's what's going to happen.

Yeah, I think you should tell him that.

And...

I don't know that you have to wait until after the Russian visit is going.

Yes, now the Russian visit is in June.

Well, now the problem is they can't come on the 25th because the European Security Conference is starting that week.

And Gromitro has to go there, so he's...

They have mostly 11.

A little early.

Maybe they have to bust out a tail to get it done.

To get to your basic point, Mr. President, it's absolutely imperative that we establish, while you are in office, this tradition of American politics.

Could we do a B.E.T.?

Why don't we just tell them it's got to be the A.T.?

You know, we need the time.

Eleven is damn early for us.

Yeah.

Tell them we can make it the A.T. Yeah.

Fine.

It'll be...

I don't know.

On other things, the weather will be much better in Santa Monica.

We did nothing.

It does get so much better in just one week.

It early gets lousy late, you know.

Then you could stay out there until you leave.

I don't think it makes that much difference, actually, that the 11th.

It's just that for me to undoubtedly want to be at the beginning there.

But if it's got to be, we can do it on the 11th.

Okay.

But, you see, a lot of people now take for granted this three-corner game we're playing.

And they think it's easy because you make it look effortless.

But six months after you're out of here, I shudder to think how this thing is going to work.

Because if it isn't done with a nice touch where everyone... We can't.

We really have to take those files out of here.

and some son of a bitch here could... Well, somebody wanted to do us in.

Don't worry.

And I think they should go into a special section of your library where you can... Oh, yes.

Or some place where you... Rather than the library, which might fit for the public, I have to keep a very personal kind of a safe, because we just have to be very sure that that sort of thing doesn't injure our foreign policy.

You see what that goddamn Bundy did on the Pentagon Papers?

I would share with you what would happen to our files here.

You understand?

Oh.

But finally, it has an effect, given the green light, that dealers have files and so forth from the government.

And it puts the burden on the government to prove that individual documents weren't damaging.

And it's an absolute outrage for him to say the North Vietnamese knew all of this.

That's total baloney.

But it's not for foreign governments to learn how our government works.

For foreign governments to have to wonder which of their documents are going to be leaked out of our files.

Oh, you have all the time for us.

Yes, please.

Do you have a chance to talk to him about bail?

No, no, no.

I was just going to.

I wanted to go in there and see what's on the ground.

And you called me.

I'll get something out of you.

Yes.