Conversation 876-005

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to get involved or any of his condolences about space and shipping around.

No, I don't know.

The question is, should we go on giving it to him or should we fight it?

I'm just telling him the space is gone now.

Or I can tell him I'll give you the money.

I'm trying to get it pulled together on some rational basis.

Well, God damn him, what he ought to do is to get his ass up there

And I don't know what he's putting in there.

Because he has supposedly at least reduced his staff by one or two.

What do you want to do?

No, sir, I sure don't.

You should totally stay out of it.

I've tried to stay

healing it, so I've got to do something.

Now I can't ignore him.

And no, I don't want you to get, I think that would be the worst possible solution.

The question really is how, I don't have an approach to him.

I don't really want to be on Amber's side where I think that he's made entirely of cutting.

He is.

Amber had a curious reaction to the prayer and the different prayers that she had done that well.

Correct.

Yeah, he really, I've been thinking about it.

He did well on one part, and I overlooked it, and I agree with Henry.

Good.

really revolting, sucking up at the press.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

And it went to the point, like Ziggo was saying this morning, in checking, he did the parties and stuff afterwards, and also yesterday at the replay, you know.

And he said it didn't fool any of them at all.

The guys were back there in the dressing room, just roaring.

They said, well, it looks like we're entering a new era of negotiation, not confrontation.

At least when I hear it, they don't roar.

They're better at it.

It's interesting, this whole guy, Brayden, do you know him?

Sure.

He was our distributor.

Yeah.

He worked for DuPont.

Now, he used to be a reporter here in Washington, and he's a past president of Gridiron.

Great old president in 42.

But he is writing a mystery of the Gridiron, a book.

And he said, my opening chapter...

is on the greatest night in the history of the gridiron.

And I said, gee, that would be fascinating.

What is it?

And he says, the night that Richard Nixon and Sparrow had to be.

But it's kind of interesting that, you know, that's my view.

And I said, well, I've only been to six or seven gridiron dinners.

No, we never got on board.

Sorry about that.

Which I do.

I know, I know.

They're the client.

I've tried it.

But I suppose everybody knows that I can take the gridiron.

But that was...

My idea was not suggested to me by anybody.

I told Raymond that's totally my idea.

I wrote the whole script, but we'll get into that in a second.

I mean, you get the impression, you know, that maybe Sapphire or some other smart fellow has done it.

And, you know, at the time, I just wrote it.

They wrote it for a year.

except that I know that nobody here at the gridiron knew what they were doing and that the guys backstage were mad as hell because those two pianos were cluttering things up.

And he said, what the hell have they got these goddamn pianos in the way for?

And he said he's going to play up that part, which is good because that's a dramatic way of making the point that it wasn't enough.

And he said Jack Steele knew there was something coming because he had ordered those up at the last minute.

And I said, that's right, because the president called Jack, as I recall,

And I said, but the interesting thing about that isn't really that day, but it's the fact that that whole idea was the president's.

And then he wrote the thing out, and it was so secret that nobody at the White House at all, on any of our staff, including me, knew what he was up to.

I said, I suspected something was happening because I knew that he had had the vice president over at the residence several times in the afternoon, and they were doing something, but I didn't know why.

But he wrote that whole thing out, devised the concept and everything else, and Brayden was just fascinated with this.

So I think it will get in his book, and we'll read his book, but at least it will get it on the record somewhere, how it was done.

but uh he went on and on about that he said there's he said that will that will be the highlight the gridiron is in the decline now and it'll never that will spark its people

And another one was the evening where I opposed to hearing Truman now.

He mentioned that one just brought the house down.

Was that the same night that Vandenberg made the point, made the remark to Truman that we are the loyal opposition, Mr. President, and...

Because he talked about, he wasn't clear as to whether it was the same night.

He talked about your toast to Truman.

Then he also talked about my toast to Truman years later.

Okay.

This man and her did a thing with Truman where he, and it was in 48, I guess, so it would have been before you were.

Wait, it was at Lousy Files at that time.

My speech when I was then vice president.

Rose, boy, none of them could find the goddamn thing.

He said that's a real problem.

He's trying to get these texts, you know, the great things.

He said Vandenberg's classic in 1948 was before the election, when Truman was considered.

It was before there was the spring meeting.

At that time, he considered that Truman would be a certain loser, of course, as he did present to the election.

And Vandenberg said, Mr. President, we are the loyal opposition.

As you know, we are totally loyal to you.

And our loyalty extends, Mr. President, to our total backing of your nomination for re-election.

And we, the loyal opposition, back you all the way.

You know, it's a subtle thing, because we know you'll lose.

Yeah.

Which he said, the way it was done, it was one of the classic, sort of rough ones, done in a smooth way.

Someone played off of that the other night.

They said we backed Montgomery.

I guess we'll just get back to the governor a little later.

We're in nomination.

I was a little concerned.

Whatever it were.

I just wanted to say, well, Bush is perfectly satisfactory in his election.

But his material retreat is not up to his day or government.

It wasn't.

And, uh, my point is that maybe the keys to the consultant didn't do anything.

The keys, of course, the keys, however, he's very, very heavy-headed.

Right.

He does not, he doesn't understand, you know, so many of his jokes are real, you know.

But he's at least had jokes, and he knows timing and a few other things.

But our people, invariably, have to agree that our people love the job, because first they have a gag writer write it for some other asshole, and they get up and breathe it into a family.

But what you happen to have is a good gag writer who's got to write it because a guy can't think of it.

Then the speaker, or somebody who knows how to speak, has got to get down and edit it.

We just have a hell of a time around here to edit anything about it.

The other side of that, though, is Bush's material wasn't bad, it just wasn't really good.

The other side of it is that even with good material, Bush couldn't have scored, because the key to the gridiron success is if you take yourself on the needle.

If you needle yourself, which McGovern did.

And it was especially effective for McGovern, because it was so completely out of character for McGovern.

Bush needling himself wouldn't have been any good, because nobody gives a shit about Bush.

Bush can.

Humphrey was always funny.

Humphrey was sensationally funny.

Of course, Humphrey, at his last meeting for Johnson, was funny, but a little bad, too.

Speaking of polls, I see you've got one.

Yeah.

Is this a label?

I'm sorry.

And he ran it as his, you know, popularity stays high post-war.

Popularity or something.

It's interesting that disapproved stayed the same.

The shift, 65 to 68 was a shift of three up and undecided.

Probably.

This group was 25 on both of them.

And decided from 7 to 10.

What are your opinions about the domestic demand?

Like the inflation issue and the M1.

Wow.

And the veterans issue.

Those are two.

That I think we're okay on the veterans thing I think is a matter of

The other thing is, they all believe that it's going to be way down.

And way down soon, though, in April.

On food, yeah.

If that's true, though, in a way, that would argue that we ought to do something so that it looks like what we did worked.

Or maybe we just leave it the way it is and say that that was basically what it worked on.

But your point is exactly right on that.

It's easy to excuse it by saying there's something we can do.

I mean, you know, sure, people are against us on it because the price is going up, but we aren't saying the right thing.

And then you're memoing the point of but saying, well, everybody's just got to be patient.

Is it the wrong thing to say?

I'm biting to the nail to try and get these things down.

Well, the real problem, as they're working on today on that, is not agriculture, it's transportation.

The problem there is we've got the wheat, but we can't get it moved.

We've got no trains to move it.

And that's their, that route that you were going to meet with is meeting.

Go down.

That's why I told them to lay it down.

Well, they're meeting there.

The...

I wonder if in the case of our domestic issues, like the light bulbs on us, let's say, the budget problem, I think we'll come out all right on the budget then.

If we could just get people to, all right, people to continue to get the cash and so forth.

But on those issues, really what we don't have to do is to get John off the spot.

which he does very well at.

And frankly, to take those same lines that he apparently has developed himself, like, you know, the Trojan horses and all that sort of thing, and give it to other speakers and get them out.

In other words, I wonder basically if John's value isn't more in thinking.

He can do some of the doing, too, and I think he needs to do it on the big stuff.

There was word that was going on issues yesterday to get on that.

I'm terrible on that subject, but...

But he's doing too much individual stuff, I think, and low on the scale visibility stuff as well as the high scale.

One point is, it's a small one, but it's kind of a thing that John had the judgment to handle.

When they sent a speech in the city, I didn't have much time to hear what he had to say.

time, I almost shrunk.

I was so disappointed.

The crisis had never broken.

I'd marked it before, but I didn't think it was a very good line in front of me, because I knew that, I think that's true, and I know what, our whole program is, that everything's not a crisis, but a problem.

When you say it's over, and then something happens, you're, you know, you are strung up by your own guitar.

Now, John should have called that, but he's really on a ball, or should he?

Yeah.

I think Price would have called it an evening editing.

I doubt that Gergen would.

I don't think Gergen is much of an editor, just from what I've seen so far.

I think that's right.

They're using evening more as the editor than Gergen.

Gergen is the getting the stuff done.

That one does show you that I'm all in.

Sometime in between, it kind of gets to me.

Well, Price ought to go over your speeches in any event still.

I'm already sure.

That's not going to interfere with his free thinking or whatever the hell it is he can take.

You can press, you don't give that many speeches.

You give one speech a week at the most.

Price is competitive in terms of getting at my style of events.

Sure.

And also watching myself.

basically two or three hours work on this part should always i think any basic

with the view of how they're, where the bad news comes from.

Do you have a copy of the intellectuals?

Where is it?

Okay, we've got that one.

Yeah, I'd like to see that because I'd like to do some research.

My feeling is that we have a serious problem.

I don't think the situation is probably as crisis-prone at the moment as we can.

I mean, I am totally aware of the movement in Africa.

i think it should the tendency is to

And his part is to be concerned that if he points out the positives, we'll satisfy ourselves with that.

And that we should waste time on our positives because our negatives are showing up all the time.

That isn't always right, though.

You know, we tend to be, let me say, in anything, our staff tends to be a little too crisis-prone.

It really does.

Everything is.

We've never seen anything really like that.

We're always nitpicking everything we do in terms of, well, I would say this is better, this is better, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's all crap.

I mean, what you have to do is to have a mind in the fact that we do a lot of things right.

You see, you can name a different reason because they come right out of a meeting with Congress.

That's their attitude.

And every staff is also thinking that way.

Well, Peter Drucker, one of the basic management folks, and that's the thing we hammered a lot, has made the point that 90% of managers and people spend their time analyzing problems and solving them.

And if that's totally the wrong way to approach things,

Because if you are 100% successful in solving all problems, you will then have managed to stay where you are.

Where the approach that one should take, and he said it isn't as simple as this, but his thesis is, the approach you should take, rather than solving problems, is capitalizing on opportunities.

analyzing opportunities, and capitalizing on are the ones who get somewhere.

While other people say that's solving problems.

And his point is, forget the goddamn problems, because if you solve them all, you will have just gotten yourself back to ground zero.

So the thing is, leave those.

Let the negatives fall around.

But spend your time capitalizing on opportunities.

Well, it's exactly, it's your theory that he enunciates in a little different way than management.

Your approach is to capitalize on opportunities.

It's to look at the big things.

Look at the things that matter and move where we gain.

Play our issues.

The management way is the way he said it.

The political way of saying it is play to our issues, not their issues.

Play in our field rather than theirs.

Right.

And look instead of the problems.

I'll let you money that after that crime speech that we don't follow up on our people.

Oh, yeah.

They're working hard on that.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, sure, they had the whole plan for mailing it.

They really are doing a pretty good job.

Yeah.

I think my kind of memorandum indicated that I thought it ought to go to about 100,000 in the sentence, and I really didn't show it.

Yeah, I'm not sure what they don't get is 1,000, but police chiefs and the rest are the kind of people they were to think of.

No, that's exactly what they did.

That was the whole law enforcement fraternity.

Police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, I mean, you know, the guys that have the...

have the positive side of law enforcement.

That's what I mean by talking about our issues.

Right, that's the point.

If we had followed, and I use it only as an example because it's so damn great, if we had followed Buchanan's advice in the year 1972, we'd be down to that end too.

Because remember, he's concerned about China.

Remember, he's concerned about the Soviet side.

There's always the idea about fighting on their ground.

Now, in fairness, we also saw, we ought to talk about that, we ought to come around and get some, hit the law, hit the, some of the reasons and so forth.

But my point is, the staff, the average staffer thinks in terms, exactly, I never thought it that way, of the problem rather than the opportunity, which is always negative.

And it's also, you don't always depend on the other guy's ground.

It also affects the morale of your people.

See, that's his point.

If the guy comes in in the morning and says to his secretary, what are the problems today?

And then spends all day, and then starts something.

You spend all day on that.

Whereas if he comes in and says, how can we move ahead today?

Where can we gain some ground?

If he spends his time on that, he's better off.

Because the problems generally go, anything goes away if you let it go.

The question is, where do you devote your energy?

Do you devote your energy to

Do you play defense and try and hold where you are, or do you play offense and try and move ahead?

You can argue that a good defensive team doesn't lose many ballgames, but they don't win many either.

I noticed that, according to this, it says that urban tends to have a lot of media and go a little better.

Well, that's a pretty goddamn long time.

Maybe a misinterpretation by someone because it's, yeah.

See, the charge, the bill like that, the order, what requires a report, requires a report by February.

They gave them a year.

Has anybody thought of the fact that...

The candidate against her, she probably says, guard, get going now.

Yeah, definitely.

Dead, dead on the ground.

In other words, you're bound to be a candidate against her.

You ought to be worried if it, you know what I mean?

You've got to ask for a lifeguard or you might not win.

Also, I need to have the IRS guy with the name that sat down here.

How's that stuff?

The IRS guy.

Oh, I don't know.

That's it.

I think there's still a go-getter to get in the FBI.

As soon as it gets down, it's over.

You've got a little orbiter.

You can't get rid of that.

Actually, I don't get any recommendations.

There should be just a blank.

There's a check in Congress.

There's a check.

Yeah, I wanted to check with you on that, because you had said you wanted me to get Timmons to have a senator call for him.

Well, that's the point.

I want to know whether I'm going to do it that way, or whether I should include him.

You see, if you have an individual view on it, or a guy, you can say your question to him, and on the other hand, we're doing it for other people.

You can't say your question to him.

Another way to do it, of course, is to have your IS guy go in and pull the file of the people that you want, and then go after them.

That's really the better way.

I know, but...

Who's going to follow up on that?

Right?

But it's really only a few, and the problem is if we get word out that we're doing all of them, we get a... We may come to that, though.

The event we started, they stay at the center and say, I don't want to do all of them.

But the church won't worry about it.

Nobody in the administration is going to worry.

We're going to do all that, and then we ought to go for a White House cabinet, too, because Christ...

We want the White House.

We're all so clean that it's revolting.

It would be kind of nice to have four sheriffs on us.

And they just put out, you know, just the fact that they're worried the shit out of the thieves.

They're worried the shit out of the thieves while they're having an investigation on them.

They can't quite read it out.

Even when the person isn't a thief, you know, here it is.

Boy, the guy's on it.

What are our positive, that's what I thought after reading this thing this morning, which is very valuable.

What are our positive issues?

What are we wanting?

Do I need to send a bunch of people?

We seem to have dropped the business on trying to get the war story across.

We've been doing that pretty much.

Well, but we've kept the POW thing.

We?

No, yeah, because we've kept on top of it.

We've tried to keep the specific good stories going.

I've talked to the board, and he's a little concerned that we may get some of the bad ones, and I said that, of course, you know, we can't worry about that.

There are going to be some, and the key is just to keep the flood coming of the guys that we've got that are solid.

And we're not really doing anything about that.

We can't.

We're just lucky.

Well, yeah, that's right.

You can't do it unless the guys are for you.

Of course not.

But I think we're getting as much money just to be hoped for out of the guys that are for us.

They are moving.

They're doing it on their own, but they're getting it.

Proper encouragement.

Well, I didn't think of any camaraderie intent on that today.

But again, the whole war thing now, you're past the short-term phase, and you're not into the long-term analysis type.

and then we're going to get into the aid to Vietnam battle.

Right.

We've got to keep moving in the world stage as well.

Well, that's why I think the fall trips are a good idea, too.

Because when you come down to it, the trips are what force stuff.

The state visits here don't do us any good at all.

In terms of advancing that, our cause and foreign policy, well, they do, given what is said, so in the case of the big countries, it will have an effect.

Yeah, but just the very backward way is the foundation for the right.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's...

And we can't take a trip now.

Anybody I know would suggest that.

It would be a very big mistake to go running around the world at the time of the Battle of the Congress.

Really?

Yeah.

And plus, you don't need it now.

You're right in the POW stuff and all that, the Battle of the Congress.

We've got to go on an all-out basis.

Now, that's a positive.

I bet it was.

In a sense, on the war issue, our enemies don't want to talk about it, so we talk about it, right?

Okay?

I mean, the peace, basically, the leadership, all that stuff.

But they talk about it.

All you have to do, you should have, and the gridiron was impressive Saturday night.

It was more so yesterday afternoon.

And that, they introduced the POWs again yesterday afternoon.

Two of them were there, of the three that they had at the dinner.

And they had the guy stand up, Jesus, the air

handsome, strong gun.

And the little sergeant didn't look so good, but he's all right.

And the foreign service officer wasn't there yesterday.

But they went through the whole show, you know, and then at the end they said, we introduced the good guys.

So they introduced them, and they had each one stand.

They told everybody not to clap until they introduced them for it.

And then the people stood and gave them a standing ovation.

Well, of course, everybody in that room was crying.

And I really think everybody, the men and the women, there was nothing you could do about it.

I mean, you just...

It kind of overwhelms you.

Then they all sat down, and then they did the Stars and Stars Forever finale, about the flag-waving finale.

They never would start crying again.

And Christ, they stood up at the end of that and gave them a standing ovation to the gridiron, which they had never done in any of the ones I've done.

This way I've got help from the gridiron to come to the corner and turn back on the track.

It's a good thing I wasn't there, however, to be in that position.

Well, no, you shouldn't have been there, because the other stuff, the gang stuff wasn't, and the finale went great, just by itself.

Anyway, the...

It kind of makes one very sure of the thing, though.

Okay.

I don't know that this whole business of repression and so forth in the press has that much of a smidgen of effect on the general public anyway.

But to the extent that it does, you can't point too much change from administration bias against the press to the press bias against the administration.

That's totally right.

Right.

Has anybody ever thought about that?

Or I don't think they particularly want to do that.

No.

But we can.

And it'd be nice to have all that, if it were possible.

But it isn't possible.

The, what if they were on the cover?

Yeah.

Why'd they come out?

Hard to judge your own story.

What was Ziegler's view?

Ziegler's view, everybody's view, was that it was on balance.

Plus, in some areas, there were some strong pluses, and that the negatives were not bad negatives.

I might be back out there.

I think maybe I'm more realistic in some ways than the rest of them are, because they're trying to make it sound nicer.

My view is that it probably did come out of a net watch, that it didn't hurt us any more than if it hadn't.

Well, yeah, it did, yeah.

What about Taylor?

A little bit.

They lobbed in some of the negatives, and they picked up.

What happened here?

And I, God, wish the story of the story could be told someday, because I know he did.

I know what he took, and what he did was he took various, he took the Holloman myths, and that was his instruction.

What do you think happened?

Yeah.

The author of it, the signed author of the article is Peter Goldman.

So they got a Jew in New York to write it down.

What's his name, you know, the old-time dude who's got a friend, Al Bruno.

God, he's extraordinary.

Yeah.

And he did a lot of the interviewing.

And Truett did a lot of the Washington interviewing.

They had good stuff.

I know what the questions were that New York kept throwing back at them.

They took it.

and they went back and replayed the Bob Taylor story, and they tried to lob in Watergate a little bit, although it was very, very light on that.

And what it comes out, when it's all done, is that the one thing that bothers me about it is, and everybody else says I'm oversensitive to it, we didn't score any pluses for you on it, which I tried to do in all my stuff.

They put in a haul of quotes, but none of one.

the positive stuff on the stand that I did.

And, well, you can't expect that there.

Well, why don't your people go out there?

I think we've got to keep the discrediting of the press program going.

I agree with Colson on that.

Do you?

Yeah.

I disagree with Ziegler.

But not as far as Ziegler's concerned.

I think Ziegler's got to play his role his way.

I don't think he won the White House.

No, sir.

You don't gain anything by trying.

In the first place, it comes as sour apples if it comes from you, let's say, or me.

Does that matter?

I mean, I'm viewed as who's not described as that.

Well, Colson can do some of it from outside and wants to.

Accuracy in media has got to keep going.

We've got to keep that kind of program going, which we are.

The...

These articles that we get going on discrediting specific things, the Nailing the Little Lies program has got to continue.

Good.

I agree with you.

I think somebody, it doesn't make any difference, it's a minor thing, but I think somebody's got to take the factual errors in the Newsweek article and hit them somehow.

Buchanan's got to maintain his watch.

Press watch.

Well, his press watch and his op-ed.

Thank you.

He does.

And Buchanan is close to you, but he's still a separate mood, in the sense that he can be a very honest, objective guy.

Everybody knows Buchanan won't lie.

And he's a newsman, by trade.

He's much better than Klein that way, because they consider Klein a suppository, which he really isn't.

And Buchanan is not so good.

But Buchanan, on the other hand,

But the other thing, Erland was pointing out this morning, it's really kind of interesting.

The Post, for instance, today gave Erland a hell of a good play on his TV thing yesterday.

The Gritter, overall, gave us very good treatment.

We didn't get any, there were no shafts at the Gritter, no real shafts at all.

Much better treatment than we usually get.

The, uh, the, uh,

things were making headway.

Now they fought, for instance, the Washington Post, they ignored, they ignored Erland's briefing.

They ignored the briefing and ignored the Harris poll too.

And ignored the Harris poll.

Good.

Right.

But incredible.

They ignored his briefing.

Why?

Because Carroll Kilpatrick was mad at Erland because he made some crap about the Washington Post.

And so he either didn't file the story or he told him not to run it.

I don't know what.

They didn't.

They told me here that the New York Times gives it a leading story.

The Post doesn't even report it.

Well, they hit him on that.

Ron hit him hard.

Now, Phil Jalen, at the grid, I wrote to Erwin, and I noticed this independently.

We're just doing backflips to get to us.

Now, Post's point is, and I think he's right, he says the media are hurting financially.

Taylor, the new president of CBS, come in to see her.

I saw Taylor.

Now, that's not an accident either.

I said, don't blame the family on us.

Oh, no, no, no.

Taylor, you know, is a Nixon man.

Broadcast Express at all.

And he's going to be a business manager, not president.

Although he says he wants to be a business manager.

Well, anyway, your view then is that you've got to continue to whack them.

Colson's view is that.

I think you're right.

Well, and grind on the economic side.

That's what really hurts.

We can't convert.

There's no way.

Convert.

You can spend the rest of your life.

A terrorist right in Berlin.

Frankly, if I may say so.

Maybe wrong.

I think that's right.

I mean, I talk to them.

I'll do the news thing.

I'll do their White House dinner.

I'll be gracious, but I'm not going to get close to them.

Yeah, but even like now, when you do the correspondence dinner, the worst thing you could do is what Agnew did at the gridiron.

I was saying, maybe you don't want to go to the balance of any job.

I want to salute you.

No, I'm going to salute the entertainer.

Why am I going to the entertainer?

Hell no.

I remember one time I did say something that was halfway complimented.

I didn't intend it that way at all, and it wasn't.

It was the first thing I did.

But I mean, Chuck, the press wants to surrender.

They want the capitulation.

And what we have to do is not to be so stupid as to be in constant confrontation.

We've got to appear to be treating them all fairly.

Chuck makes an interesting point that maybe comes

It makes the point that we succeed in foreign policy and fail in domestic policy as far as people are concerned.

Because in foreign policy, the president makes very tough decisions, and we stay with them no matter what flack we get.

Where in domestic policy, we make tough decisions, and then we back off of them as soon as we get flack.

Why flack?

Why do we back?

Now we're getting flack, so we back off.

The Holly Phillips business on OEL, he comes out and he said, we were doing exactly the right thing.

Now we told Holly Phillips to shut up.

The business where we didn't tell him to shut up.

He said he could continue exactly what he was doing.

But not to give them unnecessary, I mean, in foreign policy, look, we don't give them unnecessary things to hit us over the head with.

That is the point.

We're skillful.

And Chuck's thing tends to be sometimes too blunt and it's unskillful.

Too blunt, yeah.

In other words, you don't, it's just a question of being an ass, you know what I mean?

But then we overreact.

Maybe that's the point, is that our people are skillful in domestic stuff as they are in foreign stuff.

Therefore, they come out too blunt, and then we have to be careful.

Why didn't it maybe just come out too bluntly, too?

No, I don't think so.

Well, I don't think so.

Why didn't it be on the right of the network for local control and local responsibility of the network?

Well, you see, I've got a big argument there, which is that ABC, our friendly, friendly network, is the network that will be hurt by that.

NBC and CBS don't make any difference.

Sure.

He said, just watch what you're doing.

You're killing your friends.

You're going to preserve your enemies in the process.

So what's...

I mean, though, when we talk about what we do or don't do, the generalizations, you know, sometimes you've got to get down to specifics.

I don't think we back off.

It's goddamn hard to get them to cover our side of the domestic stuff.

It sure is.

I mean, we made one breaker, frankly, the long order, and that was that damn little radio speech.

That's why we said something, too.

It was not, it wasn't in the text, the first text.

And we're well aware of our first proposal.

Most of the anti-baddie goddamn thing would have been otherwise.

That's their plan for the leadership meeting tomorrow is to hit the crime thing again.

Unless they've got to cover some of the community development and revenue sharing stuff.

But their plan is to have a plan to extend the grief on crime and blame on Irvin and carry it at our initiative.

Good.

What do you think, Norma?

Do you think we ought to be hitting the crime?

Yes, sir.

Now, what do we do about the pricing?

I'll meet with him tomorrow.

I threw out to his sign that I have a brief story on that.

Here's what we'll do.

It might help for maybe 30 to 60 days, but we pay one hell of a price for six months.

No, we're not stuck with it.

That isn't the problem.

We're not stuck with it.

What we point is that if you freeze, it means that the people that grow beef and chicken and all the other things will then get the hell out of that, and the supply will shrink, and then later on, you'll have an even greater economy.

That's the point.

Anybody that's right might love to see that.

Is that true, though, if you're at a level now, which is so high, and you freeze at this high level?

That's the way it works.

Is it going to have to keep on going up?

If it is, then you've got to...

Well, we're going to take a hard look at it.

The way that Congress is squealing at me, calling for me to reinstate, they do the rest.

We have somewhat of a problem here with Schultz, which has added free market volume, but he just cannot understand the sometimes agreeable.

Another thing you've got to do, Bob, is to keep this all in perspective.

And please get the staff off of the business that they, as I said, they're crisis-prone.

I think that's a very valuable thing that they do every week in here.

I would only suggest that you get out and say, what are our opportunities?

Rather than spending a paragraph, as they did on the VOWs, which we have nothing to do with,

that we can't control unless they were that's just a banana that fell right before about that much they ought to say well now what should be beginning and the other point is that uh but i think what it does that kind of analysis tends to put everybody in the bomb shelters hunkered down uh wondering what the hell we're going to do would you agree or not there's something to that let me tell you more important than anything else about this other team is the spirit

The Spirit, when people read that, will be inevitably, inevitably knocked down.

And they say, well, I'd like some friends to come and cheer us up.

Okay, I'm going to cheer them up.

But how many times can you jam on?

You know what I mean?

And it should be the other way around, shouldn't it?

That's what I'm trying to get at.

The whole group should have got problems, but the fight is, the other thing is, this problem,

This is March 1973.

All right.

How's it going to look in June of 1973?

Is that what is important?

How's it going to look in June of 1974?

I do tend to think one thing.

isn't above everything else.

What the media is trying to do is to get on your skin.

They're trying to get diversity.

They're trying to get you to think about and talk about their issues.

They're trying to get you to be immense and so forth.

Now, this is, that is why the news summary should balance it the other way.

That's what I've been trying to get across.

Is that the goddamn thing is still twice too long.

Okay.

I was going to go through it all today.

It's an illusion.

I'm going to go over it with more depth.

Of course it is.

This is a weekend Sunday, I realize, but the point is that they do such a great job.

I don't want to get there.

See, it was a weekend with no news.

And if you go through that next Sunday, there really isn't any news.

Look what's going on.

And the ethics of it are less than any stuff.

It doesn't make any difference.

Do they have something for the mothers to read?

We can.

Also, the fiancé has one.

The fiancé has one agent this year.

We also have the Navy photographer.

Do you like them to attend?

Or just all the elements?

I just want to see if there's anything that was potentially a problem.

There really is none.

I'd love to be in a theater one.

No, that's the other thing I wanted to talk about.

There's, well, it's, it's, or what?

No, Mario Day has a connotation of death.

That's, the problem is that saluting the POWs, there may be some adverse reaction to, you know, on the day.

How about the 29th?

What's trouble, huh?

Yeah.

No, it's likely that they're going to change that June 2nd thing, but I still think it's better to get ours up earlier.

If we can't get it earlier, it's being screwed away.

Why not the 24th then?

Get it to work.

In other words, before Memorial Day.

Yeah, and take off.

Rather than being right so close to Memorial Day.

Why not the 24th, Thursday, 24th?

Yeah.

The, um,

Well, anyway, he decided today he's got to get a hold of the, he's got to get a hold of the people and totally get our own land, regardless of the people in Hollywood.

That's got to be done very, very fast.

Because he's running like a hog on ice every moment.

earlier is a little better.

Let's pick a name.

So I, as I told you today, Reisner was inclined to think a little earlier than June 14th anyway.

I'll just say that the amount of forms we did.

There's certainly no reason to have it on Saturday.

It's ridiculous.

Why screw a weekend?

For them, it's just a matter of minutes.

not bringing the kids.

Because, in a way, having a midweek is better than a weekend, probably.

Uh, have you checked any further on the, uh, on the Tom bagel things, or whether that can be opened up?

It can be opened up.

Uh, we had a, a, uh, businessman candidate who was supposed to be good, but, uh,

You know, it's just, I had no compunctions at all.

I wrote some other, more, more, more slots if you need to.

But I feel myself that we, that we need in Germany somebody that knows for us all.

trickier than Japan, it could really show us.

And I think you better take bail for it.

I think bail would be good.

He's not a strong man, but he...

I just want to get the business man.

The business man they had is a strong man.

It's this guy here in Spain.

They've moved up to what they think is a better guy.

It's this guy, Cerini.

How about getting the largest stockholder in RCA?

Why don't you get it from Spain?

There's no problem with that.

Our problem with Germany was trying to get, you know, a guy that was really, right, both kind of programmable and they didn't work around.

I think it would be good if Henry could call Bales and establish a line.

I mean, I didn't know.

That was a lot of phone calls.

I know.

I just got paid.

I could call him.

That was after you talked to me about it.

Was he interested?

Was he coming back all the way?

Sir, I did this only because they're here.

I thought that.

He said if I do it, he's going to talk about getting totally confidential until I work out who's going to be my successor.

Because I want somebody who's going to be with me.

Of course, this is him who I was changing, I'm sure.

And he's smart that way.

But I think I can't really call for him and tell him, all right, we're going to put you in.

Now, you won't need to go through all the agonies and the checks and so forth.

At this point, anyway, he's got a big problem.

I mean, he's already got a check for USA.

I think Ray was good.

He's not wrong, but he's wrong.

What we would like to do on a couple of others, and instead, you know, we were talking about support.

We need a sophisticated guy there.

I think the guy's not going to be able to do it.

I think it's better to do it without him.

Do we need there somebody again who knows the business and who's taught the boy a lot?

If you want to put McCain somewhere, you can put him into Taiwan.

Yeah, he was very good at Taiwan.

I think that might be the... You haven't really promised him.

Well, the king isn't... No.

We promised Claire Luce to put her on.

Put her on, put her on.

That's right.

Okay, we got that.

On top of that, that opens.

I mean, Taiwan.

That opens up.

I didn't want to send a non-career fellow there.

I know you.

You said you wanted to.

Yeah, I want a friend.

So that opens a very good post.

It's a very good post.

We're going to have to work it over fast so we can hold it up to them.

So Harry can call Hale and tell Hale that Canada's not open.

Tell him it's really almost the toughest spot we could give him right now.

What are you going to do then?

Leave Cisco where he is?

No, I prefer him out, but I don't have... Because that's the other problem area we've got.

We really won't have changed many assistant secretaries, Cisco says.

That's Kubitsch.

Kubitsch.

You want him?

Yeah.

All right, there's a better one.

Okay, Newsom.

Is he going to stay?

Well, that's...

They wanted to send him to Pakistan, which is impossible.

Newsom?

All right.

Yeah, and they want to keep him at stake.

Bill, what Bill wants is to keep him there.

He wants to keep Newsom in Cisco.

Well, he's got to move.

Either one of the other has to go, because we've got to have him die over.

to go to Russia.

Well, who the hell do we have in mind for Russia?

Mac Toon from... No, no, no, the hell of Mac Toon.

He's in Yugoslavia.

That's what he has now.

He's fine, he's fine, but let's, why not just go to Russia?

Well, we just ignore him.

We don't

There is no way that he can get in because the Russians won't see him.

That's all there is to that.

I have no problem with the Communist Party.

You could send any of them.

You could send a chimpanzee.

There's no difference.

If we do the business here.

They're sending Bruce to Beijing because we wanted a good man.

They've agreed to announce

We've got another problem.

Do we have to do something with Farmer?

Well, we promised with Chris.

Yeah, but we have a problem, man.

What?

We need to leave Tosca and Chris.

That's right.

We do?

Well, we have Farmer on the left.

Yeah, he'll take the bus.

How about him in Mexico?

He'd love that.

He'd like to go to Mexico.

He'd love that.

Well, he wasn't found.

But for one thing, he knows too much of what we did in Pakistan.

That's why I figured that you had to do

Mexico, Colombia, or Venezuela are all good spots to farm.

They're major countries close to the United States.

Argentina, I've got a businessman in there.

Brazil, a businessman.

They've got Scott for Brazil now.

presence to begin with.

Then the Russians made a complete monkey out of him, and he slobbered over them in a way that was really... And he isn't a very...

He won't screw it up.

He won't add anything to it.

In Brazil, if we had a good man, it would be a good place.

We need a strong man in Brazil, so I think you've got to give Scott something like, I mean, out here in Colombia or Venezuela, your four good spots in Latin America are Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, of course.

We can send a businessman to Argentina.

How about sending Scott there?

We have a guy named Ed Bride down here in Argentina.

The problem is every time you change one, it changes the whole thing.

It's like the domino theory works here in space.

I don't want to raise any more questions.

Why not?

Well, I can't recommend it.

And once he understood what we wanted, he was pretty good at it.

He wants to stay.

It's over.

We've got to get him out of there.

It's a disaster.

He's trying to do it.

See, that's, you've got a couple of the contributors.

Okay, he wants to keep the guy.

Okay, he wants this guy.

Well, that's much better than them.

Half of us wants this guy.

Well, they are crazy.

Good.

Foreign service would scream, but in practice it makes no goddamn difference.

But at Cisco, there's a good way to get on top of the foreign service and take the other countries away from them.

You see what I mean?

Yeah, exactly.

Iceland and Malta and Yugoslavia and Venezuela.

Foreign service?

Yeah.

Good God.

They have career people there that would normally, those are all normally non-career type of countries.

And then they're trying to get, in trade, we're going back to picking up Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, the Dominican Republic, places like that, like a hard

I'll look here.

They can have them.

They can have an expert.

They've done enough.

They've done that for us.

But there are people, of course, that we've got.

We've taken all the European folks, which we have.

In England, France.

See, they count.

Irwin.

That's ours.

Irwin.

Why do we send them?

Because they want them there.

Irwin doesn't do us any good.

Not at all.

They just add them up in numbers.

Now they've got Germany that we want to take away from them.

We're not giving away fathers.

We're taking the Scandinavian countries.

We shouldn't send anyone to Sweden until after their election.

Anyway, if they all should go to Germany, I really feel that I have to do it.

So you'll talk to John.

Have you had a chance to talk about the summit?

He said that any day is all right.

So Tom, we were over the 18th, but we can't take it earlier.

There's no problem with us.

We can do the 18th, the 11th, whatever the basis of what you need.

You know, it's going to be a pain in the neck to get the blood in.

It doesn't give us a lot of time to be there, but two weeks, we can do it.

And then Tanaka, we're not going to play with him.

Well, Tanaka, I've had another message.

They think the only date they can lock is late July or early August.

And they don't want to announce it until after the diet debate on the budget which will be in May.

I understand.

That's a good date for me.

Late July?

Sure.

Is that a date?

Do you have a week for that?

No, no computer.

Sure.

Fine.

Tuesday, Wednesday is where we've been going.

It's the 24th of July.

Or the 31st.

Do you want to give them a chance?

Let's do it the suited.

I think they stopped it the suited as late as possible.

Congress leaves the end of that week.

If that is making a difference.

Congress is taking an August recess.

It's the end of the week.

I agree.

I think you should.

And people are used now to the fact that you're working out there.

Yeah.

But it doesn't make any difference whether you work or not.

Why don't we take the 31st?

The 31st will put you right before the recess.

It would be sort of a spurt, and then you'd go on to recess.

Okay.

You want to get into the 31st?

Okay.

31st and 4th.

He said that.

He's got to get this bastard leader too, but sometimes it's July and August, but that doesn't affect you.

Then let's get the African.

Can we get the African in May?

Sure, let's do it.

Who's the boy?

Give me a date.

May 15th.

Okay.

You may have the African, but I thought we had somebody else.

The shot won't come to the ball.

Try me now.

Okay, Bush.

Very early.

He won't come to you.

Let me check him.

See, the Shah will come and offer to him first and then after him second.

Or you can take both.

I would like to put two visits in there for the Russian visit.

I agree.

This is the time to do it.

You can do it at the time.

And the Shah is really one of the few people with whom you can have a conversation at your level.

I'd very much like to have him in.

But the second point, put the aggregate in the latter part.

One on the first part, the other in the latter part.

Put them about two to three weeks apart.

Unless you put one on the 8th and one on the 29th.

Good.

Fair enough?

Good.

And that gives us three figures.

Now, if the aggregate, or the first and the 27th, these are really pretty open.

If the aggregate can't, now the aggregate can come anytime.

But if the aggregate, if the shock can't,

The last American in Kwanzaa there, which one did you have in Latin America?

I forget.

You have, uh, I love you.

Anybody?

I agreed to one.

What the hell was it?

I don't have the message.

I just don't know.

That's no question to Mexican Canada.

Poland.

Poland would be in November.

Yeah.

All right.

Come on, is he, is he on the right with me?

Well, now he is because the military have pretty well taken over the government.

They've left him at the... Do you want her by then?

Not the ticket or the... What do you want by then?

Why haven't you asked Preston?

No, really?

No, you can't have him before Preston.

And he hasn't got any influence anyway.

Well, do I have any?

Columbia, Venezuela, we've had...

Well, we don't have to have the Latin.

You have the Italian and Asian.

No, I'm saying you don't have to have the Latin American.

Yeah, well, is there anybody else you'd like to have?

Is there any other country you'd like to have?

Oh, you're pretty well...

Yeah, his wife's not coming.

Great.

That'll be a very fine dinner.

Oh, you'll love that one.

I'll pick a guest list.

You've pretty well promised Butoh a visit this year.

I want to have him.

I want to get him ready now.

He should stick the ending too hard.

Yeah, we've got to get that decision.

I've got more than I have.

Is there anybody else in Europe that you'd like, a European that you'd like to have?

You're going to be free if you get the Shah and the African in May.

Well, no, but this is a substitute.

Yeah, but you see, I mean that the Shah can't come.

A South American is a substitute.

I want a substitute for the Shah.

I want two names in May.

Well, Brown would come.

Brown?

Bubbling over.

Brown would be dying.

What about Longwood?

We need to do big things at this point.

And Brandt is more likely to come before Brezhnev.

I agree, instead of the Shah.

No, instead, if the Shah can't come.

The Chinese would love it if you had the Shah here.

Because then that would fit with the Shah.

But not the acronym you think should come then?

Or should we have the Shah and Brandt push the acronym to the ball?

I see no great need for the African.

He can come in and... Well, let's try it.

I would rather have... And then the African, if he did...

I want...

I thought... Nobody...

They won't understand this and say it, but...

I want important people before the Russian.

And I want important people this time.

So you have the Italian, you have Iran, and you have the Shah.

That would be great.

Then the Russian, and then you have Japan, Africa, and then... And then place the African and the Latin Americans.

You have that day to be in the summer, and the other day to be in the fall.

The ember in the fall.

So try these things, right?

And the boat in the fall.

And the boat, sure, but the wind.

All right.

If you might consider a trip to Europe in the fall.

Well, that's another thing.

Or a trip to Africa or Latin America.

Those are things which, you know, that particular work goes in between.

I'll approach.

You're going to check the Shaw.

I'll check the Shaw and Brown.

Brown.

See if he's willing to come sometime.

Fair enough.

All right.

And who's the other one?

Oh, that's all we need.

We check Shaw and Brown.

And if they come, that's the deal.

And if they can't come, we push them to Africa.

I guess so, yeah.

But in the African North, it's better to have a Latin American in that period.

It might be a little better to have a Latin American.

Well, let me look.

I can't not think of any better choice.

We had one of them set.

Bolivia, Peru.

It couldn't be Bolivia.

It couldn't be Peru.

It had to be Colombia.

It can't be Argentina, no.

Never.

You look around and there are different countries and there just really isn't anybody else to have.

How about a Central American country?

We're not going to get any of those.

It should have been on a shoreline.

Fair enough.

Yeah, and it's a substitute.

Just to dip our hands.

Dip our hands.

Ecuador.

I'll just have to look at the business.

Yeah, we went through those.

It's okay.

All right, let's go.

You see this, Johnny?

Thank you for your efforts.

I don't think he would.

I agree as well.

He was very good.

He said, I thank the Chinese government and President Nixon for his efforts on my behalf.

Thank you.

Well, that's good.

And then we can be thinking in terms of what I have in mind for the last hour, if there's any relief.

They had one before.

Could go either way, or they feel they have to do the opposite, no?

Right.

Venezuela has a pretty good relationship with China.

Yeah.

So maybe we go back to Caracas.

If it worked well, it'd be a triumph.

You know, if you got a great reception in Caracas, it would have more symbolic effect than any place else you could go.

So we should really assess it on that basis.

Then we should actually go all the way back to the first three countries,

Well, if you're ever going to go to Mexico, it'd be a healthy thing to put the bastards in together with other Latin Americans rather than on a special trip.

Okay, with Africa and Mexico City?

With Africa?

Well, it's a hotbed.

But everything is a hotbed.

Everything is.

I just don't know why you've got any Latin Americans.

They have no control.

Really have no control.

All right, let's go there to Africa.

With Africa...

I do not think I should go, even though we're getting all the walking by.

I don't think we should go to one of the places.

I think we ought to go to Nigeria.

I think we ought to go to...

I think you ought to go to that savage in Leopoldville.

Congo?

Yeah.

You go to Congo.

He'll give you an unbelievable... And how about to see the old man in Kenyatta?

Yeah.

What would be a good... And how about what?

Do you think we ought to see the Dan Golden...

It's almost impossible for you to go to Africa without going to Ethiopia.

That was the reason, the reason is the organization of African States.

That, and he's been our best friend.

And you might consider leaving via the Sudan, Mr. President.

I think it'd be a hell of a symbolic thing, particularly if he comes through.

Well, anyway, Congo for sure.

Would you do Nigeria?

Why not?

Yes.

Nigeria.

Congo.

Kenya.

Or would you skip Nigeria?

No, I would not skip Nigeria.

All right.

Nigeria.

Would you do Congo for sure?

Yes.

Nigeria and Congo for sure.

Then you ought to.

Then if you go to Ethiopia, that should be the other one, not to Kenya.

You could easily go to Ethiopia and then home, or you could go to Ethiopia and Sudan and then home.

That's what I have in mind, which is about a 10-day trip.

You can put in 10-yard days.

Well, I think beyond a certain point, it doesn't help.

I think three countries is about what it takes to listen, and it wears people out.

Three countries.

That's what I want.

Three countries in the South and three there.

That's enough.

So let's take Ethiopia...

You're better off going to Latin America before going to Africa.

Okay.

So it doesn't look as if Latin America is at the bottom of our list.

That's why Latin America heard why we've got to come ahead with our front concrete.

Incidentally, there's no reason why he couldn't be invited this summer.

July would not be a pretty good idea.

Okay.

Are you thinking in the fall of one or the other of a Latin or African trip?

You're not thinking of doing both, are you, this year?

At one point, I guess in person you were.

It would be well to do both.

Plus your...

I think actually the first priority has to be Latin America.

I think we've got to go to Brazil.

Right.

So figure that to the fall.

Europe, I don't know that there'll be, do you think there'll be a possible way to push it together?

Well, I think you should gear your European trip to whether we actually have something concrete to do.

All right, fine.

And I would say Africa should be pushed over to, see, we'll have the African here the next year or so.

As you go to October is good for Brazil, that's correct?

Yeah, so that's what we're thinking of.

All right.

This is that thing, and I've now got Moynihan all geared up on it.

He just needed a little shot across the bow.

I saw that you sent one in to me.

You should do that with you.

The main thing is I indicated to you, Henry Montes, with both of you and with several of our ambassadors that are...

I just wanted to have sent one in.

I won't bother you from now on, just so that when he comes back, you can say...

When I saw that message, you summarized it in three paragraphs, and I imagine it's 30 pages.

Graham Martin will be very good in Vietnam.

Yes, I think so.

So we retire one day, right?

Well, it'll be practically promised at some point.

Well, how do you do it?

How do you do it here?

Look, I can't give you another diplomatic.

Well, we ought to give her the Foreign Service Institute.

Sam Booker has said now that what she'd love is to be head of the senior corps of the Foreign Service Institute.

We can give her a call to another new somebody.

That's a nobody that makes any trouble with her.

And get free pot, I would say.

Free pot?

No, it's legal, not free, not legal.

We go over that part of the world.

That's where all these demonstrators came from.

Did you, did the Tosca thing come up when you met?

Did you met with Pappas, didn't you?

Oh, sure.

It came up.

I told him what you told him.

I said to him, I know that that's where Tosca used to go.

And I said, yes, he's going to stay.

Now, he did not insist, though.

So he left it open.

So if you want to, we could still bring Tosca back here.

He'd be a hell of an assistant secretary or something, in my opinion.

Of course, I've always thought he'd be an awfully good assistant secretary for the Cisco job.

But I understand State throws up its hands out.

Yeah, so does Henry.

Henry doesn't want a strong man like that.

I guess he couldn't do that in America.

Could he do that?

I don't know.

He'd be a hell of a good man.

The job he would do extremely well if we wanted to maintain what is basically the planet.

He's a highly sophisticated international economist.

But what the hell if we don't want to get another thing in there?

We can't.

I think actually he'd be a good assistant secretary for him.

If we pull him out of Greece, then we get the problem that we put in, I guess.

It takes you a chance for it.

Yeah, but you've got to get one that's satisfactory to Pappas.

Sure.

But Pappas said it was all right to make a change there.

He didn't say he was insisting.

He just said, I'm not insisting.

That's what he said, whatever you want.

Let me talk to Mitchell.

I think he is insisting, but doesn't want to be insisting.

Well, the point that I wouldn't talk to Mitchell in terms of that, I'd say we would like to have Tosca the war assistant secretary for Africa.

What do you think of that?

Why don't you explore that a bit?

smart as hell.

If you were talking to me now, Dr. Henry, don't worry.

See, we're doing pretty well with the assistant secretaries.

And let's face it, Henry hasn't come up with an assistant secretary for the Mideast.

If he had, he'd get his sister's out of there tomorrow.

That's exactly the point.

Right.

Yes, when he says we haven't changed any, the hell do we have?

What haven't we changed?

See, we've changed the Far East, right?

We've changed, yeah, we've got Godly in East Asia, right?

We've got Stessel in Europe, which he wanted.

That's our hope.

Hope we consider to be people we want.

We put Kubitsch in Latin America, which he wanted.

Africa.

In the process, we got Marshall Green out.

We got Hillenbrand out.

And we got that Sergio guy out.

Maher.

All of whom he didn't want.

Now, he's still got Newsom.

And then get Cisco out, perhaps, to...

I think Cisco would be fine in Russia.

I have a much higher regard for Cisco than anybody.

I think Henry's evaluation of people too often is distorted because they're strong or weak.

He paid money, got under his skin, stood up to him.

Cisco gets under his skin and he stands up to him and runs around here.

And Henry prefers people that are just, well, it's great, and you don't want that totally.

They've got to play ball.

Well, anyway, at least it's a good start.

We've got some pretty good lines here on the state of business, I would say, in terms of what we do, though, in the rest of the year.

I didn't, uh, you know, I guess go through that, certainly.

Uh, because I want to get, I want to keep these dinners, these statements, I'm sure, totally within our pattern, where I, where I give them the welcome and have the talk and have the dinner, and have it very well thought and all.

And we can get by with that from the front.

We sure can on the attack.

the shop, I just might do something extra.

We go around a pattern of this where the protocol people, and so that way we're going to keep this kind of protocol that we're out and about.

We've got some new candidates now.

We decided to go

more of a finance man type.

We're trying to get a balance.

We're trying to get a finance man that's a programmable type of finance man.

A programmable type of finance man in the sense that you need, for example, a rich Tom Polanol, for example.

Yeah.

That's right.

I know.

Yeah.

Or maybe if one of the guys, David the Tributor, had his son, maybe.

By putting Brad Cook in that job, Jesus Christ, the pressure's on them.

How is Henry Caddo in that regard?

Do you know him?

I know him.

That's why he's a strange fellow.

Oh, is he?

I understand she is, and so forth.

But you might ask.

He knows he's moving out of his ambassador post.

He wants to stay in

They go and call them and say, I'm going to ride in this car and we'll go over here and we'll see you at the dinner.

courtesy, I've got to spend a little time with Mrs. Mosbacher and her brothers and all that.

That's a waste of time.

I should spend it with the Board of Minister of Medication and the government of the other.

So don't you think we've got the right pattern there?

And I know they're right and they're wrong from a physical standpoint.

Just put the new guy in.

You set him up on that basis so he understands it.

Then there isn't going to be any questions.

But you do need, that's the

Research on it is clear.

You do need a guy who can handle...

The chief has to handle a hell of a lot of the... Actually taking care of the folks himself, and especially the lesser likes.

The big part of the job isn't the few state visits.

It's all the stuff that goes on in between times.

Sure.

And the foreign ministers here and stuff like that.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

I mean, Archie Bush has always been a host, of course, but it's a beautiful way to have a cabinet officer be proud of this and that.

But he just, you know, he can go down and be once more a staff member.

But they go down and not use it for anybody else but that for 60 days.

Right now, we've got a zero in on the goddamn Congress.

And when I say anybody else, you can't get to Congress, and they don't want to go to what's a horrible place to rescue them.

But you sit down with Edmondson and say, all right, here's either way.

We've got 24 people.

Look at how many you can take care of.

36 people, can't you?

There are three theaters at once.

Right now, all three are running, and they're running every night.

So you're running seven nights plus two matinees.

You can also have a matinee, you know, and take wives with you.

Right.

Get some money.

Yeah.

Give this to somebody like Larry Hamill.

He sits down and dances, and they work on the whole plan, and say, all right, here's the theaters, and who's the people?

He brings them every night, and they start going big, big things.

The president would like you to use his box.

I'm sure it's done that way, rather than the secretary calling, I'm going to the theater, would you please come?

I'd like you to join me.

I was even thinking of the kind of way the invitation could go to the president, but they can't do that.

They'll expect him.

No, but what it does is when they get the tickets, it comes in a nice, fancy blue thing with a presidential seal that says, President and Mrs. Nixon, I hope you'll enjoy your evening at the theater, as their guest does.

We have a, you know, it's very nicely done.

We have a little, we have a little pop.

We have a refrigerator in the Andy room there, and they keep a little bottle of champagne in there so they can go out of the intermission and have some, and some of the congressmen, on some occasions, can't have any.

I would say that when you have only eight in the box, you may not have to have a host.

Or do you have to have a host?

I don't think you do.

We've had hosts, and sometimes it's a good idea, but sometimes I think maybe it would be good if you just let them go.

Well, basically what you could do, if you have eight in the box, is have the senior congressman or senator say, we're going to have this, and let him sort of... Or have our eight...

Get them into the box and say, enjoy yourselves.

Yeah, enjoy yourselves.

How would that be?

I think when he had the 16, I think he should have a whole tree.

One person, and then he can give a dinner for them.

If he wants.

What other problems do we have today?

It seems to be healed every day.

Yeah.

I think you told us so far, and I see them all the time.

Right.

He should wait in there.

I don't think he needs to.

He doesn't need to wait in there.

I don't think he needs to wait in there.

Question on this, I think I raised with you, and Denton may raise the question on this Middlesex Club in Boston.

You were invited to receive a citation and award for an international piece, and we've already told them no.

We came in through Chuck, and they want to do it at a Lincoln Day dinner in Texas.

And we said no.

And nobody in the family has committed to doing it.

They've set a date of April 11th and asked Denton to present the award.

Let someone in the family go up there and let them present the award to them.

The POWs are going to the man or the woman.

Probably the woman.

If you let David go up, you'd be out of the service.

Yeah, that would be a nice job.

Sure.

Okay.

for a few minutes today or tomorrow, Congressman Doerr of South Carolina, who is the new chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

And why didn't Teague give it up?

Yeah.

Teague dropped it and moved over to Science and Astronautics.

clear to Hammersmith, who's our ranking member, that he wants to run it.

They want you to see him because they think they've got a pretty good chance of getting him to slow down these three veterans bills that you have to veto.

And they want to slow them down so that we can get some other vetoed stuff up and done first.

And they think I can hold this a lot for these two reasons.

It feels very close to me.

I don't think we're doing anything right, according to that, because we are good people, but it's the, uh, you know, their analysis, their analysis.

Yeah.

Their purpose, of course, is to throw off problems for the time.

So.

Well, we've got, we've got the problem, no question.

Sure.

But what I meant is, the, uh,

again, could be a debt he calls a repressive administration.

The veterans, which he's absolutely right on.

Aid, I know, of course.

Veterans, where serious problems, I know, most negative stories, I don't think I've ever grabbed any of those.

The Indians, which...

I wonder if that's a mix of the economy and the value.

The Indians is a mixed bag.

I'm not sure at all sure who's more on that or if we're even in a, I don't know, actually phase three.

That's where we're heading.

Harris is out today, and I think we are.

are now rising faster than they were a year ago.

It also says, though, at the same time, worries over unemployment have now reached a new low.

Right?

With only 24% feeling that unemployment is coming up.

51% say there's no longer any recession in the country.

But most of them think better times will not last.

Americans look at disapproval on phase three, 47 to 39, and they go on all over.

Prices go up.

Yeah.

But we haven't gotten that story across.

I remember talking about that this morning.

We don't have our side of the clearly established, and we need to push that.

John took a stab at it.

He did a good job yesterday.

How do you want me to deal with what I think is going to be maybe a continuing crisis, not crisis, problem?

uh the vice president there's a thing well there's a thing wrong building no he isn't anything wrong no yeah he's hit me on on a thing where he's demanded uh a whole batch of additional office space in the eov in spite of the fact that he's reduced his staff or supposedly has

And we shifted his offices around with his request to give him contiguous office space.

Now he's demanding more space, which, I mean, his staff guy was, and our staff guy said, no, it had already been assigned, which it has.

It means throwing Roy Ash or somebody out.

And so he's written me a real shitty letter saying, I'm not about to debate my need for this space.

I would assume that my appraisal is that it is needed immediately would be accepted.

And...

The problem is, I'm not going to do that about the office space, you can give it to them or not, it doesn't matter, but it's really a deeper one and it's going to be rough when Conley goes in.

You know, your note on our need to look into that and be programmed right.

You understand?

Great.

Oh, yes, of course.

And from the outside.

That's what I'm closing the dent and so on rather than in here.

But...

He's running around, pushing his weight around at the present time.

If he sees somebody cutting him on the other side, he'd think he'd get a little better.

But I'm not about to... We could have David go up.

He'd be out of the service.

That'd be a nice touch.

I think we could do it, but I don't think...

There's no sense in saying I'd have David do it.

Uh...

for a few minutes today or tomorrow, Congressman Doerner of South Carolina, who is the new chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, and, why didn't Teague give it up?

Yeah, Teague dropped it and moved over to Science and Astronautics, and they thought he was

who's our ranking member, that he wants to run it.

They want you to see him because they think they've got a pretty good chance of getting him to slow down these three veterans bills that you have to veto.

And they want to slow them down so that we can get some other vetoed stuff up and done first.

And they think I can hold this a lot for these two reasons.

I'll obviously see him.

He's an old man.

He goes very closely.

Maybe we've got John overworked in this field, I don't know.

But I think that, I mean, you have to read Buchanan's poems, and some of them are safe.

I don't think they were really right according to that.

If we aren't doing it, then we better fix it.

You know, there are analysis, there's analysis.

Yeah.

Their purpose, of course, is to throw out problems.

So.

Well, we've got... We've got the problem solved.

No questions?

Sure.

But what I meant is, the...

on the, looking at the domestic issues apart from Watergate, which we know is a problem.

The political crisis for the administration's reputation, according to Buchanan, could be a debt he calls a repressive administration.

The veterans, which he's absolutely right, aid, I know, and of course, veterans, where serious problems, I know, most negative stories, I don't think I've ever grabbed any of that stuff.

The Indians, which I wonder about.

That's a mix of the economy.

Who?

The Indians is a mixed bag.

I'm not sure at all sure who's more on that or if we're even in it.

I don't know.

Actually, phase three.

That's where we're heading.

Harris is out today, and I think we are.

He's different.

feel prices are now rising faster than they were a year ago.

It also says, though, at the same time, worries over unemployment have now reached a new low, with only 24% feeling that unemployment is coming up.

51% say there's no longer any recession in the country, but most of them think better times will not last.

Americans look at disapproval on phase three, 47 to 39, and they go on all over.

Prices go up.

Yeah.

But we haven't gotten that story across.

I'm going to talk about that this morning.

We don't have our side of it clearly established, and we need to push that.

John took a stab at it yesterday.

He did a good job yesterday.

How do you want me to deal with what I think is going to be maybe a continuing crisis, not crisis, problem?

of the vice president.

There's a thing, well, there's a thing building.

No, he hasn't done anything wrong.

Yeah, he's hit me on a thing where he's demanded a whole batch of additional office space in the EOB in spite of the fact that he's reduced his staff, or supposedly has.

And we shifted his offices around with his request to give him contiguous office space.

Now he's demanding more space, which, I mean, his staff guy was, and our staff guy said, no, it had already been assigned, which it has.

It means throwing Roy Ash or somebody out.

And so he's written me a real shitty letter saying, I'm not about to debate my need for this space.

I would assume that my appraisal is that it is needed immediately would be accepted.

And...

But the problem, that's sort of indicative of the way he approaches stuff, and the problem is, I'm not going to do that about the office, especially if you give it to him or not, but it's really a deeper one, and it's going to be,

And from the outside.

That's what I mean.

Closer than then and so on, rather than in here.

But, well, on the other hand, you may find him behaving a bit better.

You never know what that's going to happen.

In fact, that's going to happen.

He's running around, pushing his weight around for prison time.

I guess he's somebody cutting from the other side.

He may be a little better.