Conversation 878-022

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Well, I do notice a flower here.

Wasn't that something?

A tree and a guy.

It is a tree and a guy.

The one over here is a flower.

So, I mean, really, I mean, I can see it.

Well, are there any more insoluble problems today, or is this what we call an insoluble problem?

I don't know.

Well, the point is he's doing it.

We call him in this tribe already selling this stuff.

But they've killed the market in that.

And there's no way to get the buyer.

For the buyer to get his purchase from where it is in the market.

And that's where Bringer comes in.

So you're getting involved with a very useful brand.

No, he doesn't use this version.

He's going to charge it out.

You know, so I've got to keep going.

I've got to keep going.

Heart crisis, I mean, you know, those minerals.

And some of those things do affect the finished product.

That's right.

Aluminum has a big factor, and we're talking about $600 million worth of aluminum, which is a lot of aluminum.

John Harper will be in here crying tears, you know, but we'll run that thing down very satisfactorily.

Actually, since yesterday,

has come a long way.

Yesterday, nobody knew whether cold cards should be used to move grain.

So overnight, he has found 15,000 cold cards and find out how to use them.

And he moved them.

And that's in college.

So that's coming along.

And it will have some little effect out there.

One thing I would like to suggest to you, just not because that we would

I'd like for him to talk to, for him to get in with Brannan, me and Brannan to sit down and call all of the seafarers, and Frank to the sentence of the trekkers, and say, now, by God, we need help here, and I'm very interested.

You know what I'm saying?

That would be a good part of the thing.

All right.

Mike, do you mind?

It's always interesting to talk to the other people.

Thanks for the action.

OK.

I'll check with you later.

I wanted to check on your service.

I wanted to talk to you about this tonight.

Oh, about the problem you're dealing with.

Or do you think you should do it tonight?

Maybe.

Well, let's get on a wicked seminar, that's... Maybe we learn.

Huh?

I don't think so.

I thought that I gave them two or three names and they heard three of them.

So we go down the road and say, we want you to prove something.

And I said, check it out.

And we checked it out with them.

They said they'd check.

I want a senior man because of that table.

And that means they will send a very senior man here.

But I think you should also announce Jenkins and Mosley.

I'd like to announce all three of them.

I want you to look tomorrow so that I have one less day to discuss it.

That's fine with me.

The answer will be the same either way.

The reaction will be the same either way.

You don't need to be against him.

Maybe not.

Oh, he'll cry that he's too old.

Of course he's too old.

Sorry for saying that.

He isn't now.

He isn't.

So why am I?

The point is, the point is, he's a damn distinguished appointment.

He's a Democrat.

And so we're sending him.

Yes, I call it a symbolic fact.

And he's somebody who symbolizes a major advance, which we tend to, as I told one in Boothby, specifically in my game,

Thank you.

This is a good man.

Thank you so much.

We want to send a delegation.

Why don't you say that when they were there, they indicated they would prefer to have a rather, I mean, a higher-ranked delegation.

That is, can you do that?

But you have too much in line.

That's not true.

What is too much in line for you?

I do think it hurt you very much when I didn't snap at the strength of the chairman.

Yeah, but you handled that very simply, too.

I wrote somebody who's not for it.

I knew from Livermore, from the fellow we wanted to set him on, I said, Livermore, he would be content.

I think, did you think maybe it ought to wait until tomorrow?

I'll wait until tomorrow.

What are you trying to do?

I'm focusing on what you're trying to do.

You can say that we've just got to do it.

Are there any further feelings on how you should handle it?

I don't think there's any problem as a week.

But I suggested a delegation of proof that I thought of somebody.

Because I thought we should do it in a, I thought we ought to try at least to have it as high as possible, but with a couple of experts.

And frankly, it's been a reason to our surprise that they accepted it.

And they want to send somebody fairly senior.

I'm just trying to make your life a little bit more believable.

Okay.

Don't be blind.

No way.

Well, the leadership needs to be pretty much here.

You say you're going to stay out of the fire department.

Yes, sir.

Except for Farm R. Except for Farm R. Except for Farm R.

Domenici is going to do us some good out of that meeting, if you could hook him up with some columnists.

Because he meeting over about three quarters of the way through the meeting, he said, my God, does the president always participate in these meetings like this?

He said, he knows all about this stuff.

And he said, well, sir, what did you think?

And he said, I had the impression from people who have been down here that this was kind of pro-formal.

And I went over to him.

Scott doesn't go back.

I'll share it.

Right.

Well, that's why you could get him hooked up with a columnist.

Sure.

To get a Timmish or somebody, to get a Framon's impression.

Get it, get it.

And then you get an author to play the Timmish.

Well, he's moderating all the way.

Yes, sir.

Of course he is.

He's going to be a great team, I'm sure.

That's his friend.

Right.

So he, you know, so he delined and finished what he'd already picked up on.

I've been reviewing the past stories and past manuscripts and so forth just to see how the things share a block together and see if there's another way to go.

I'm meeting with Maura and Dean to go over it.

We made another way tomorrow for you to go.

Well, just to see if there's another, something we can find that there's another way.

The only thing I would suggest is this, that the lion has not decided to cross the bridge.

He ain't going.

We're going.

But on the other hand, I would say, I would start at the answer to any question.

Let us understand.

there has been complete cooperation, was with the Justice Department, in its conduct of the hearing, with the grantee, in the trial, and with the FBI, in furnishing all information.

Complete cooperation.

Not anything like that.

Second, as far as the, and that includes everybody that they, second, President indicated there will be complete cooperation in furnishing information.

consistent with the traditional rule of executive privilege, which cannot be compromised.

What that means is that any permanent probation that the committee is interested in will be punished, but on the basis of written interrogatories.

A swarm of statements answering any questions that they have.

stick right there, that's all there is to it.

Will they come down?

No.

What about mine?

That's a different kind of, I don't know how you define it, that's the one that's going to come down.

I would start with the complete cooperation, then, and burning and burning.

You see, I get back always to my, my case analogy, in which I know every other president has always followed, but his case analogy, my

The day after the first hearings, he issued an exacting order prohibiting any agency of the federal government to cooperate with the committee.

The FBI closed its doors flat.

They would furnish no information.

Were all files to be furnished to the committee?

I'm surprised somebody left two invitations.

Nobody, even Congress.

The Justice Department refused to hand them in.

They had conducted an investigation against the court.

They wouldn't turn it over to us.

Understand?

That's the usual way.

So you see, I don't want to be in the way where we indicate that we are refusing to cooperate, that we are refusing information.

On the contrary, we are furnishing information.

We're furnishing it completely, fully.

We simply are not going to have, because of executive privilege, we are not going to break the precedent of having members of the White House staff

The question in your form will say it, but I plan that we will make swarming statements and answer the questions that are submitted.

Period.

Don't worry about the background.

What kind of question would have gone that way?

You're answering the S.W.O.R.D.

signature.

We will not testify personally or in formal silence.

That is a violation of executive order.

We will, and gentlemen, I should point out, this is a very significant step forward.

Don't point out any precedent.

Ken, you'll have to do a little checking.

Goddamn, get his office to check it out.

I don't know any precedent that ever let any member of the staff up there testify.

It didn't happen to him.

Yeah, but that was a different thing, though, really.

Well, he was charged as accused of wrongdoing.

Why do we have Adam's book?

I don't think you should have.

What did I say?

Adam's is the first to say that.

This is not, there's been no evidence, there's been no evidence of the

I thought it really inspired the Lighthouse to happen, so then that's it.

I do have to leave, move to, to cooperation a little bit.

On this sworn testimony and response to answers.

Sworn statement.

Sorry, sworn statement, excuse me.

Sworn written statement.

As far as the question, I'm very hopeful that we need to say it on Thursday, actually.

Because that's pretty new, and that's, that would be hard.

All right.

Don't you think?

Well, I don't think you ought to say it.

I don't think you ought to say anything.

You covered everything today.

No, I won't say it.

I mean, I don't know.

Why do you want the president to make news on Watergate?

That's the point.

Why don't you get the Watergate news out of the way so the president can say, well, the president might have covered that.

Basically defensive.

Huh?

This is basically defensive.

I'm sure it has better consequences.

And the president can't.

I think it's better to recover that.

Of course, if you have an equal operation, they'll make sworn statements, not just repeat it.

But I don't know if it's a good point, even though that's recovered.

I don't know.

If he answers that question, that will be the television.

That's right.

Of course, there's, you know, what to do.

So that bill is our money.

I'm sorry, Mr. Tegner covered that yesterday.

I don't have anything to add.

I think I'm just continuing a hard line.

I do, too.

I was talking to David, and he said he was preparing a long dissertation on how to answer, whether or not they're all open to a lot of security.

Are you going to answer that?

Yeah.

He wasn't advising me.

He just said...

Again, I'm not going to comment on current hearings before the congressional committee.

I had a funny thing on Sunday on this talk show.

We got all done.

The last question I asked was a larger question.

Herb, the student spy, and then we're leading into the Watergate and we're all out of time.

The producer came charging out of the booth after the show and took Tom Darrell and Herb Capolo off and just, she really rained them out.

Because there were two questions that they had to get in on Watergate.

And they didn't ask either one.

And she was so mad.

She was this woman that produces that thing.

She judged them 50 times.

Pay you.

Same one?

What's the matter?

She pissed off us?

No, but see, her bureau, her New York bureau had given her two mandatories, whatever you call it.

I know the concern that the expressive judge had, and I can well understand why go out and meet the press again when Watergate's the only thing they're interested in.

I think everybody knows what I mean.

We always have that.

And we're going to have, on my day this year, I think we're going to have Watergate, not for you, but we're going to have a front and center for three months.

I mean, hearings will be going.

Do you agree?

I think so.

A couple of people mentioned that they're concerned that the press may try to make a run on Watergate on Thursday.

That's all the more reason for the press to run on Thursday.

But I've got to make a run out there in this press room.

I think that's a sure thing.

Oh, yeah.

You're going to get questions like that in the context of Gray.

The first question you'll get will relate to Mr. Gray because of the FBI files.

I don't know.

The sexy question in all of this is, if you don't send Dean and he's held hostage by the committee, what will happen to the FBI?

What do you think?

Will you withdraw Greg?

Yes, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

But that's the one that they keep forcing on us.

But segregating, I would never comment on that.

It's a matter of being considerate.

Isn't it being considerate of the committee?

But they've been asking segregating questions in a great way.

That's a matter that's under consideration for the urban committee.

I'm not going to comment on it.

Let it be on the fact that I'm out there.

I don't comment on committee hearings while they're in process.

Period.

That's the way I'm going to handle it.

I think you should too.

They'll hate it.

But on the other hand, they raise hell.

I commented upon it over one of theirs.

Some goddamn communist that was up there.

They said I was infringing upon his rights.

That's the way to handle it.

I'm sure it would be covered up by an election.

That's our problem.

But there's no way you can beat it.

I understand you wrote that in a speech, but you didn't prepare it.

And so you turned it to the press, huh?

I told people afterwards, I said, because everyone was making such a big deal about the fact that the governor had that speech right here in the campaign.

All right.

People mentioned that to me.

I said, well, I agree.

If he would have had that right here in the campaign, I'm sure he would have carried Massachusetts by many

That's good.

Sir John Claude Strauss is the one.

Why do you feel, do you feel in the brotherhood, wait a week?

No, no, no.

You do, I just don't.

No, I think we should go.

But my view is, my view is that we, in the war periods, I have a way.

In the campaign, I didn't do it for officers.

And in the war period, I had to do it for national security workers.

But now there's always a countdown problem.

There are always losers.

One day there will be inflation, and the next day there will be the Congress, and the next day there will be this and that.

And it's going to be Watergate.

And if you just say, well, I'm not going to go because of Watergate, I'm afraid that we're going to leave.

Then we're going to leave them always.

And it will make a little difference out of some of the other things we say.

Am I right?

Yes, sir.

I think so, right?

I mean, I just love to go out and show that we're not that concerned about it.

Because of course, one of those things is kind of hanging around us.

It hasn't been hand-worked well, I believe.

But in Greece, it hasn't been hand-worked well.

It's a goddamn difficult thing to handle.

Some of my players, I mean, are quite as good as we know them.

Well, he said it was one of those silly, jackass-y things.

And she would have thought that they were going to go to St. Scrooge, and thought, hey, we're coming to Jason, and he's like, they're going to be right.

It was a crazy thing to do.

I mean, the extent of income, it was the stupidest goddamn thing I ever heard of.

And unbelievable.

They're always done.

There's always that stuff.

But, you know, they do it from outside sources.

Vesco is systematically hiring every lawyer in the city of Washington.

That's the only firm I've heard of so far.

Everybody in town.

And in New York.

And they're just awful.

I didn't do law firms, so they cover all sides.

And the stuff comes over the tax department every day.

You know, we've been doing more things around here.

It's looking the worst.

I mean, we've got more useless things that we've been doing.

And it's been a, with a possible assumption, a crime speech.

I would say we've had four of the most wasted weeks with more energy than I've ever spent in my life.

You know what I mean?

What I mean is meeting with Congress, meeting with Governors, meeting with Mayors, meeting with Tributes, meeting with other governors, you know, crapping around, you know, all the crap.

I hate to divide the states and so forth and so on.

But it does show you how you can facilitate time and accomplish nothing.

Well, it's a...

It has to be done.

It's always been done.

All this business, you know what I mean, that you're able to do.

I don't believe it.

I don't know, maybe Seattle was different than other places when I was out there for that time.

We heard all about it.

It all played back to me.

I'm curious, what happened to the meeting with the governors is what you don't ever hear of.

Meeting with the governors?

Well, except that the governor got up at this time.

It was on television the next night and told all about how he was at the White House and all this when he was running himself.

But at the same time, here, you know, he gave prayers a big nod.

But what I think we have learned is the enormous effectiveness in terms of authority.

In other words, they said go out and make a speech in Tulsa.

If you go to make a speech in Tulsa, the purpose is not to make a speech.

The purpose is to get the crowd and that kind of thing.

Because if you want to make a speech, other than going on television, which is a different thing, crime, crime television, which can only do if it's a hell of a subject, you want to make a speech.

rather than going to some asshole organization here, you know, and flapping around somewhere.

That radio advice is for you to be the best version.

You put the text out a day in advance.

You deliver the damn thing with no pain and no strain.

You work on it.

You send it out on Saturday.

It dominates on the papers, and it has an enormous cloud prediction.

Forget the radio audience.

This is the perfect.

Like I said, you've got a silver radio audience.

It's ten.

But it's not, it's five million.

Okay.

And that's of the speech itself.

And they don't have anything else that's really spot stuff, so they fight every half hour.

Killer.

Last week he was a bomber.

I'm sure he's a killer.

The only two people I've seen take that man are Ramsey Clark and George McGovern.

I haven't seen anybody else...

Although George McGovern said he wouldn't go for the dope thing, to be honest.

Yes.

He was very careful about it.

He couldn't leave for the death penalty because of the relationship.

But did you notice an interesting thing?

I didn't find many people speaking out against it, did you?

That's what I'm saying.

It's just been the two of you.

And everybody else is just...

It's gotten way down.

Why?

Where do they leave the poles?

Just like amnesty.

You can't find anybody for amnesty now either.

Except the nuns.

Alright, we'll take it over here.

Now we can give it a second check now.

We should take our people to the basement.

That's right.

They can check it out and bring the lights down.

Well, Peterson's pretty impressive.

I was very much impressed.

I was going to mention that.

And we should watch.

Very classy.

He's a classy guy.

The client needs to hire him.

He needs to take him with him.

Peterson is a career guy.

He was a decent operator.

He should get the head.

He should go into private practice.

That's right.

Oring or operating private clients is a demeaning thing anyway.

Especially on the crime end.

You see, the only thing he knows is criminal law.

I think Peterson's the guy that you can think of in terms of...

So he did well, too.

Yeah.

He's impressive.

He believes in scholar.

Always, always.

Sandra Elliott, of course, is always...

Another guy that's proven to be a star is Lynn.

Lynn Seltzer.

He's still talking.

He's about 20 years ahead of Stans.

And frankly, Romney.

Romney got people mad.

I was going to read it yesterday.

The Urban Coalition has turned Romney down.

Good.

And so he's got no place to go.

Linowitz wants to retire, so they put Ramey's name up, and the board blackballed him.

He's too... Well, I think he's all sound and furious.

John, I think I wanted to ask about, I don't know if it's better to say that it's possible to make a speech every week.

Unless Cole can come up with something

a few bucks for something for Vietnam veterans only.

Well, I would work disabled only, rather than all this plummy stuff that they're going into.

You understand, one bill that is tough, though, is that these veterans provide for hospitalization for totally disabled Vietnam veterans dependents, which wouldn't sound to me like a chip of a million dollars, I think, which is what the Bureau of the Budget

The bill was coming to you for all parents.

Totally disabled?

No, for service-connected disabilities, not totally disabled.

If it's totally disabled, that would be something else.

But it is service-connected.

Service-connected disability.

Anybody that has a service-connected disability can work.

You can have a 5% service-connected disability or you're still entitled to have your kids take care of them in the hospital.

That's why it runs up to a million dollars.

Do you have an outline of what you thought you said at the Congress?

Yes, I turned a draft in here about 4 o'clock.

He probably has out there.

Where did you turn it in?

Let's see.

It's the second draft, and it's largely budget, it's largely spending, which is the main thrust of it.

It talks about the comparison and so on, but it also talks about responsibility.

It puts a monkey right on their back as well as yours.

It's conciliatory in a way, but it's a sort of a velvet glove and a little fist for me.

I think it's very important, John, for you to turn that thing, which I was trying to do, to be used as a divestiture of power.

Yeah.

This idea of grabbing the power out of it.

We're giving up power.

That's a bad good line.

So, Genevieve Silverman?

I'll get a chance to turn that tomorrow.

CDS is doing a special.

Well, it's the Congress that doesn't want to give up power.

The Congress doesn't want to give up its power to have its pet projects, its pet spending projects, etc.

We want to give up this power.

At the present time, the law ruling of the Congress and all that sort of thing, etc., that's what we need.

We think that power should go back into Congress 3,000 miles a day, back into Congress.

That'll fit very nicely.

It's avoiding loss as much as you can.

I'm a veteran, so when the time is right, they don't use it very often.

It's beginning to come through a little bit.

There'll be a veteran speech draft tomorrow.

We'll go with that.

They already have a speech.

They've done one.

general wrap-up for radio on the function of government or something like that.

That is what you want, don't you?

What should happen if you were to do something for the Congress?

The Congress should get up and say, basically, I've now delivered six focused speeches on various aspects of the state of the union.

I want now to wrap it up and unpack it.

issues basically.

Although there's some lead into it about the progress being made, various fields, things left to be done, quickly summarizing the six areas.

And then you swing into the setting back and say we've got to stand shoulder to shoulder, protect jobs, taxes, prices, and so forth.

This is a great challenge.

Talk over the Congress.

I don't think so.

I don't think you would.

Well, it wouldn't be dull as dishwater because the fact that you're going there makes it exciting.

Well, you don't babble for 30 minutes.

It runs about 1,500 words and by the time people realize it's dull, they've gotten the point and you're off.

And it's a way of getting at people on free networks that I can't think of a way to do any other way, except to hang by our heels in the port-a-dough out here.

Or wait for a question at a press conference, which they may not ask.

That's right.

Just sit here and do the same thing.

You don't have to go to Congress.

And address the people of the country and the state of the union.

Send all the messages to Congress and they've been addressing the people before each other.

That's the, that's the bandwagon.

I like the drama of the Congress.

The drama of the Congress basically is a time when the Congress is enthusiastic.

Let me tell you that.

Let me tell you the problem that you've got.

It doesn't mean a goddamn thing to us.

We don't think anything about it.

But for the public, the public sees these assholes sitting there in their hands, and the lukewarm receptions and so forth, and the commentaries afterwards.

And let me put it this way.

With a speech, if you want to get the speech across, then you want people talking about a speech.

If, on the other hand, your enemies in the press, and most of them are enemies, are smart and they're pretty goddamn smart, they'll put the reaction across, and the reaction will be negative.

Well, let me look at it in a little larger context.

You are riding enormously high in the country in terms of public confidence.

credit for doing the job.

You can go there and get a bad reaction.

Well, I don't think you're going to get a bad reaction.

Well, put yourself in the shoes of a Jenny Brindle, for instance, who's a pretty partisan guy.

He can't be seen disapproving of the kinds of truisms that you're going to state in a speech of that kind.

You say, we've got to be responsible?

My calculation is that the mixture of the unassailable truths and your high-riding popularity forced some of these guys to a response that you wouldn't get another day's time.

No, I don't think so.

I cut out a bunch of stuff about the P.O.W.s in there because they were grant and deliver grants.

What's on that back?

I don't agree with that at all.

That sort of thing should never be granted.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean the...

There are ways of getting some graduates back, which will occur to you, but I just didn't let it come to me.

This is pretty bare bones.

Let me think a little bit.

I said it's not speculation.

Sure.

Right.

There are other ways we can do this.

But I do think, one way or the other, in the next two weeks, we've got to shoot over the heads of the Congress and the people.

Now, maybe you get just exactly the right question first.

Why are you going to do it personally?

I thought I was going to do it as a show.

Yeah, that won't fit the people.

Well, one that I was just maybe, maybe over time, you know, compared to the audience listening to it, I realize it's subject.

It's subject.

which is that

But in terms of level of concern of people, taxes is not a problem.

Inflation and prices, and they use the word inflation on the Playback, rather than just high tax, is no problem.

But in our argument on all this stuff that we're talking about up here, we keep saying, no, we'll have to raise taxes if you overspend.

But I never said that in a long time.

I know.

But actually, he said,

If you can bring yourself to do it, just hit it as well.

But look, you can couple it with this other one we had about the homeowners.

That the guy is most motivated by the fact that he's a homeowner.

And who can grab him.

70% of the people who live in homes are people who pay taxes.

That's the reason I cranked it that Sunday about the mortgage deduction.

I've never been impressed with Peter's voice in depth anyway.

I don't think he has.

He's never had much of it.

He was the guy that said legalize marijuana.

His interpretation is Tudor basically is not, Tudor is so oriented toward the liberal side that he doesn't understand how to read other things.

In my opinion.

That's one that's worth checking out.

Anybody want to legalize marijuana?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

in the city of Washington, so I could find a bunch of colts.

I didn't know anything about that.

That's the only firm I've heard of so far.

It's just down in town.

Yep.

Snyder's.

Everybody in town.

And in New York.

And they're just all over the place.

How do you do law firms?

Do they cover all sides?

And the stuff comes over the past, I mean, every day.

You know, we've been doing more things around here, especially nowhere else.

I mean, the last four weeks we've been doing more useless things than we've been doing.

And it's been, with the possible exception of crime, I would say we've had four of the most wasted weeks with more energy than I have ever spent in my life.

You know what I mean?

What I mean, sure, meeting with Congress, meeting with governors, meeting with mayors, meeting with the tribunals, meeting with the governor, you know, crapping around, you know, all the crap that they're going to hate you in the White House today and so forth and so on.

But it doesn't show you how you can piss away the times and accomplish nothing.

Well, it's a...

It has to be done.

It's always been done.

All this business, you know, anything, you know, other than be ready to...

I don't believe it.

Out in the country, I get a huge playback from those kinds of things.

Trader Vic's is an example.

I don't know, maybe Seattle was different than other places when I was out there for that time.

We heard all about it.

It all played back to me.

The meeting with the governors?

Well, except that the governor got up at this time and it was on television the next night and told all about how he was at the White House and all this and he was running on himself.

But at the same time here, you know, he gave prayers a big nod.

But one thing we have learned is the enormous effectiveness in terms of authority.

They said go out and make a speech in Tulsa.

If you go to make a speech in Tulsa, the purpose is not to make a speech.

The purpose is to get the crowd and that kind of thing.

Because if you want to make a speech, other than going on a toilet, which is a different thing, a crime-crime toilet, which can only do if it's a hell of a subject, you want to make a speech.

rather than going to some asshole organization here, you know, and flapping around somewhere.

That radio advice is for you to be the best version.

You put the text out a day in advance.

You deliver the damn thing with no pain and no strain.

You work on it.

You send it on Saturday.

It dominates on the papers, and it has an enormous cloud prediction.

Forget the radio.

I'm missing the purpose.

Like I said, that's a silver radio audience's tent.

But actually, the rate of the bill is $500.

Yeah, but the delivery is almost just the impact of it.

Yeah, but how many rounds?

Is it $500?

I don't know if it's close to $500.

But it's not.

It's $500.

Okay.

And that's of the speech itself.

And they don't have anything else that's really spot stuff, so they fight every half hour.

Last week he was a bomber, for sure he's a killer.

I'm sorry.

Well, the only two people I've seen commit that are Ramsey, Clark, and George McGovern.

I haven't seen anybody else say that.

Although George McGovern said he would go for the dope thing.

Yes.

He got very careful about it.

He couldn't leave for the death penalty because of the relationship.

But did you notice an interesting thing?

I didn't find many people speaking out against it.

Did you?

That's what I say.

There's just been a few.

And everybody else has just...

It's gotten way down.

Well, I clearly read the polls.

Right.

Just like amnesty.

You can't find anybody for amnesty now either, except the nuns.

All right, we'll take it over here.

Now we can give it a second check now.

We should take our people to this side.

Yeah.

We can keep it up and bring it to the next challenge.

So, Peterson's pretty impressive.

I was very much impressed with him.

I was going to mention him.

And we should watch.

Very classy.

He's a classy guy.

He's hired him.

He's taken with him.

Peterson is a career guy.

He was a decent operator.

He had it.

He wasn't sure to go into private.

That's right.

Oring or operating private lines is a demeaning thing anyway.

Especially on the crime end.

You see, the only thing he knows is criminal law.

So he did well, too.

He's impressive.

He believes he's a scholar.

Another guy that's proven to be a star is Lynn.

Lynn Sullivan.

He's still talking.

He's about 20 years ahead of those fans.

And frankly, Romney.

Romney got people mad.

I don't know.

I read it yesterday.

The Urban Coalition has turned Romney down.

Good.

And so, he's got no place to go.

Linowitz wants to retire, so they put Romney's name on it.

And the board blackballed him.

Is it?

He's too... Well, I think he's all sound and pure.

John, I think I wanted to ask about, I don't know if it's better to speak English, but it's possible to maybe speak German.

I mean, these people, they want to speak German.

unless Cole can come up with some scheme to put a few bucks into something for Vietnam veterans only.

I would work with disabled only, rather than all this plummy stuff that they're going into.

You understand, one bill that is tough, though, is that these veterans provide for hospitalization for totally disabled Vietnam veterans' dependents, which wouldn't sound to me like a chip of a million dollars, which is what the Bureau of the Budget

The bill was coming to you for all parents.

Totally disabled?

No, for service-connected disabilities, not totally disabled.

Totally disabled, that would be something else.

But it is service-connected.

Service-connected disability.

If anybody has a service-connected disability, it can work.

You can have a 5% service-connected disability, you're still entitled to have your kids take care of them in the hospital.

That's why it runs up to a billion dollars.

Do you have an outline of what you thought you said with the Congress?

Yes, I turned a draft in here about four o'clock.

He probably has up here.

It's a second draft, and it's largely budget.

It's largely spending.

That's the main thrust of it.

It talks about the compounding and so on, but it also talks about responsibility and puts a monkey right on their back as well as yours.

It's conciliatory in a way, but it's a sort of a velvet glove and a little fist for me.

I think it's very important, John, for you to turn that thing, which I was trying to do, to be used as an investiture of power.

Yeah, yeah.

For giving up power.

That's a bad good line.

So, Genevieve Silverman?

I'll get a chance on that tomorrow.

CDS is doing a special on the president of Congress.

Well, it's the Congress that doesn't want to give them power.

The Congress doesn't want to give them its power to have its pet projects, its pet spending projects, etc.

We want to give up this power.

At the present time, the law ruling of the Congress and all that sort of thing, etc., that what we need, we think that power should go not be in the Congress 3,000 miles a day, but back into the Congress.

That'll fit very nicely.

Just avoiding the wall as much as you can.

On the veteran's side.

I don't use it very often.

You can do that a little bit.

The speech draft of what, the State of the Union?

Yeah, the State of the Union.

There will be a veteran speech draft tomorrow.

They've done one that's a general wrap-up for radio on

The Congress should get up and say basically I've now delivered six focused speeches on various aspects of the State of the Union and I want now to wrap it up and I'm back.

Oh, there's some lead-in to it about the progress being made, various fields, things left to be done, quickly summarizing the six areas.

And then you swing into the setting back and say, we've got to stand shoulder to shoulder, protect jobs, taxes, prices, and so forth.

This is a great challenge.

Talk over the Congress.

I don't think so.

I don't think you would.

Well, it wouldn't be dull in this water because the fact that you're going there makes it exciting.

Well, you don't babble for 30 minutes.

It runs about 1500 words and then by the time people realize it's dull, they've gotten a point and you're off.

And it's a way of getting at people on three networks that I can't think of a way to do any other way, except to hang by our heels in the port-a-dough out here.

Or wait for a question at a press conference, which they may not ask.

That's right.

Just sit here and do the same thing.

You have two other comments.

We request time to address the people of the country and the state of the union.

We send all the messages to Congress and we've been addressing the people before each other.

That's the, that's the vanguard, right?

I like the drama of the Congress, that the drama of the Congress basically is a time when the Congress is enthusiastic.

Let me tell you that.

Let me tell you the problem that you've got.

It doesn't mean a goddamn thing to us.

We don't think anything about it.

But for the public, the public sees these assholes sitting there in their hands, and the lukewarm receptions and so forth, and the commentaries afterwards.

And let me put it this way.

With a speech, if you want to get the speech across, then you want people talking about speech.

If, on the other hand, your enemies in the press, and most of them are enemies, are smart, and they're pretty goddamn smart, they'll put the reaction across.

And the reaction will be negative.

Well, let me look at it in a little larger context.

You are riding enormously high in the country in terms of public confidence.

credit for doing the job.

Well, I don't think you're going to get a bad reaction.

Because, well, put yourself in the shoes of a Jenny Brandol, for instance, who's a pretty partisan guy.

He can't be seen disapproving of the kinds of truisms that you're going to say in a speech of that kind.

You say, we've got to be responsible?

My calculation is that the mixture of the unassailable truths and your high-riding popularity forced some of these guys to a response that you wouldn't get another day's time.

now i don't know why i cut out a bunch of stuff about you know nobody's in there because uh that sort of thing should never be read

Uh, now that you've sent it over to the guests, give them a little.

There are ways of getting some graphics back, which will occur to you, but I just didn't blurt out a clue.

This is pretty bare bones, but, uh.

Well, let me think a little.

Let's say it's on speculation.

Uh, sure.

Right.

There are other ways we can do this.

But I do think, one way or the other, in the next two weeks, you've got to shoot over the heads of the Congress and the people.

Now maybe you get just exactly the right question first.

Why are you going to do your press conference?

Well, one that I was just maybe, maybe over time, you know, compared to the, the, you know, the audience listening to it, the key to real life is subject, is subject.

which is that

But in terms of level of concern to people, taxes is not a problem.

Inflation and prices, and they use the word inflation, playback, rather than just high marks, is no problem.

But in our argument on all this stuff that we're talking about up here, we keep saying, no, we'll have to raise taxes if you overspend.

But I never say that a lot.

I know.

But I just don't even think he said it.

If you can bring yourself to do it, just hit it as well.

But look, you can couple it with this other one we had about the homeowners.

That the guy is most motivated by the fact that he's a homeowner.

That's right.

And you can grab him.

The 70% of people who live in homes are people who like taxes.

That's the reason I cranked up that text Sunday about the mortgage deduction.

I've never been impressed with Peter's voice in depth anyway.

I don't think he has.

He's never had much of it.

He was the guy that said legalize marijuana.

That's bad.

His interpretation is Tudor basically is not that bad.

Tudor is so oriented for the liberal side that he doesn't understand how to read other things.

In my opinion.

That's one that's worth checking out.

Anybody want to legalize marijuana?

No.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.