Conversation 915-004

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How are you?

Nice to meet you.

Morning, Mr. Bell.

How are you?

We enjoyed your speech last night.

It was great.

That was a very fun night.

Nice to meet you.

um um

The point that I want to make is this.

I don't know.

I don't think that's real.

But it doesn't mean how somebody said it has to be.

Can you turn the camera to the United States and give me all your answers?

I'm a deficit with no involvement with any of this.

I understand that you can say, well, I have nothing to do with it.

Well, I've been using them in various statements, which I think should have never happened.

But I've been working right through that.

I can talk to the president too, right?

I'm giving complete authority, I'm giving full authority.

but the lord the rest of that kind of thing before the

Before the vote in committee, maybe after the hearing, during the consideration.

The hearing, sir, could run no longer today, could run tomorrow or Monday if anyone asks for it.

Committee can delay consideration.

We can't motion any senator.

But if he names the man...

Then there's the question of a separate statute and a separate prosecutor.

And drugs is a mood, because don't forget the strings on the man's hands rather than on the set's very throats.

The confidence in the man, he can pull a lot of the claws, but the question of having everybody considering that attitude is the person's getting on with the thing.

Yes, I mean, that's what I was saying.

In the Department of Justice, if you want to start over again, it's got five or six months of an entirely new investigation.

It would take many, many weeks for it to get to that date.

You've got the bank right now as a position.

I understand that it's great to move on several people, but, you know,

They're sort of waiting for the special prosecutor.

Number four, let's not forget that Hawks, excuse me, Gary, has already said that he leaves George having it done by him as long as he can get satisfied.

If Peggy can find a way to say that it's a special prosecutor that makes a recommendation, I will be bound by it.

He has said, I will expect to be bound by it.

It's just that close a problem.

We don't know.

I'm concerned, Mr. President, if you have both the prospective trial and the trial running concurrently with the Paris Senate hearing.

I think that's a serious matter.

Well, I don't want to talk about that subject a little.

First, let me say this.

If you will work with Hugh on this, if you're going to work with him, and the rest of you got to get him abused and all that kind of stuff, you know what I mean?

Well, then, Hugh working through the television and so forth and so on, don't fiddle about the damn idea.

The part is, it'll be done, you know what I mean?

It's gonna work with the Attorney General.

I'm not doing the job, it's fine under us, but are you?

Are you bothered?

In that case, I'll move right away to get Elliot and Phil off the same road.

Yes, sir.

All right.

What do you want us to do?

It's over.

Now the second point is this.

Now, remember, we've referred.

frankly, the whole Senate process and so forth.

I've been an investigator.

I remember that I told somebody that when I investigated this case, we kept talking about it.

But the moment, the moment that the grand jury looked at it, we pushed it.

We would have considered having committee hearings while individuals were ejected maybe for a grand jury.

Now, for the Senate of the United States to have hearings and have individuals come forward who are not being justified for a grand jury is a travesty of justice beyond belief.

Now, what, if anything, can be done on that?

You see the point is, these hearings,

If these hearings go forward next week, I don't give a goddamn about any of the hearings in the sense of their mind.

Let them all go up and have all these people.

But the point is, these guys, a lot of them are being heard, have been, or are being heard for a great jury.

Some are potential indictees.

After Christ takes them, you try them in front of that committee on living television without any rules about us.

You'll kill them.

And if I was their lawyer, I'd have them strapped and not held.

And that 30-day period, that Sam Roberts demagoguery, that's disgraceful.

That 30-day period, especially the 20-day period, is to give the Attorney General and the District Attorney time to decide whether to indict.

If you go on to these hearings and proceed with the usability theory, the attorneys have got to decide whether to indict these

Let's see, I don't think it's very good.

I'm gonna do the police.

I think it's starting to get nasty.

I'm referring to the, uh, see, they have a whole bag of references.

They're gonna start with American 17, before it's like old rules, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you know, you know, the clerks and so forth and so on.

But you, you can't have hearings go forward at a time that a grand jury is considering.

Isn't that really the thing?

Now, the Senate may not know what it is, but let me tell you.

I didn't do it last time, but if this goes on, if that goes on, I will publicly, on national television, take the shit out of the United States Senate on this.

I'm going to do it.

It's got to be done.

Well, they love you.

You've got me in touch right now.

I've got some words for them, but...

I mean, understand this.

I don't care about them having hearings on other subjects.

They can go into campaign financing.

They can go into seed ready or abuses, and they ought to go into some of the Democratic, you know, bombs of our headquarters and a few little things like that too at the end of time.

But for them to be in, for them to go into a case, presently

It's just a joke.

You just almost said it.

Very well, I know.

But this is because they're all seeking a piece of the action.

So is it.

Come on then, tell us.

I'm so passionate, apparently, to be on that TV.

That's right.

They have all the passion.

I'm not optimistic.

I think that all the characters on this committee are working together, and they're all after the television.

All right.

Yeah.

There's one man.

Is there any way that the Senate could act?

I don't know.

Uh, apart from attorney.

I mean, apart from the committee.

There's the committee, the law unto itself, again, the Senate itself.

I don't know how the Senate used to stop committees from doing things.

But you know, it's a tough thing for me to be very excited to do this thing.

I see, but I mean, in this case, what do you think about it?

It's not realistic, Mr. President, to expect that the Senate is going to do that.

I think that it's over here to go forward.

That's right.

Somehow, Erwin can be convinced that he's getting out of line or going too far.

I don't know how he'd do that.

Maybe he says to talk with him.

Maybe others can talk with him.

But in terms of getting the Senate to move to stop these things.

Okay, okay.

My only hope is to read the Eastman notes, then they could get some sense in his head.

But I don't know if that's possible.

He's now the hero of the press.

He's here.

He's gone first there for the shoe of his arrest.

And now Irving can do no wrong.

It's ironic.

But they could go forward with the hearings and go into those hearings.

They don't use it.

And they won't try to stay away from it.

To the rest of us, they handcuffed because they made me think we were safe.

We don't know what the hell they were doing.

Then they all get in bed and they work out of the blind with the seven.

Could the prosecutor talk to the virgin?

Would that help?

Right.

Yeah, especially the prosecutor.

If he had help, he would.

But I think it would terrorize them.

Yeah, the silly part is, well, there is, when you say it's unrealistic, there is this, of course, if we had this thing moving along a little faster.

the prosecution could move to a joint court case.

And that's what should be done.

Would it be feasible for Sir Richard to sign it?

Or is that improper?

I don't know.

Sure, sure.

I mean, he said something already.

He's going to be talking to Urchin, right?

He's the fellow that's going to...

I think it would have the biggest impact, Mr. President.

If he talked to Urchin, he'd be talking to Sir Richard, right?

Yeah, but he ought to be as concerned about this as he's been concerned about some other things.

Yeah, well, he was right to be concerned about that.

He was absolutely right.

But he ought to be equally concerned about this.

Irvin's supposed to be such a great constitutional lawyer.

He had cast him back.

He said he had to make a lot of changes and all that.

But I don't know if he was right on that.

Yeah, yeah.

And because of the other thing, I think I'll have him eventually be confirmed to replace him.

And we've got this with the armed services people in the residence.

And so, he would .

So, I .

And I think this will be very welcome to the superb career man in CIA, the name of Bill Colby.

Colby, you may not remember, but he invited Americans on my visit.

He's Helms, Dick Helms, the 10-year captain.

And putting him up to the top spot seems to be the easiest thing to receive.

Isn't that right, Alan?

Yes, sir.

And so many people are very high here.

So we're going to go up on those two men today and try to borrow some staff for your information.

on a certainly interim basis in the present time, Alice and some of the vote, and sort of our chief coordinator, and so forth.

On the other hand, we're going to have to have, and this is probably a good thing, we're going to have to have a lot, a lot more of, of, of, of, of, of, of,

And so it probably is as well.

I think many of you don't know there was too much of a wall around him anyway.

All of them, et cetera, et cetera.

And I can assure you, Al, we know the wall.

And I should point out that he, what objection, I don't know if he had an objection, but he's a military man.

or anybody that worked for just four years got to be in contact with us.

That's right.

But I'm saying is that now there's excellent relations on the island.

We're very open and available to all of you and so forth.

And indeed, we are going to, as far as I'm told, as much as that is concerned,

We're going to keep up to the extent that we can find those men.

Congressional relations and for the era kind of thing.

If it were possible, from time to time, to give yourself to revisit the site of all that, I would say it would be very useful.

It would be useful if you could, you know, I mean, if you use the word superb, Bill's name is superb.

It's delightful.

Just a couple more.

It may take a while.

If you could get Al to grab me on that, too, it's great.

But there's been some non-access, which is greatly exaggerated and inaccurate.

Sure, sure.

Big bellyache.

I should have.

But there's no bellyache.

And we've got to try to find a way to drop up there and increase the access.

Unfortunately, some would rather bellyache.

I'm just curious.

We don't have a chance to come here today, would we?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I think Frank Sanders would be excellent.

He worked for the Committee on Appropriations for many years.

and brought him over to the Pentagon because he'd been on the Defense Subcommittee staff all the time I was there and all the time Mel was there.

Frank, it would be excellent.

He's a North Carolina member of the President's orientation.

I think he would be excellent.

Mr. President, I'm sure you've thought about this, but the fact that Schlesinger's nomination led to those people to the hearing, it was time to do that, huh?

Unfortunately, he wasn't there.

You see, all this, this last year, this last year, Justin mentioned C.I.

And I just, I sent him to come up, but the point is that he didn't go to C.I.

until January this year.

What kind of history?

Did Colby have any involvement in that?

I was able to give the CIA evidence, so involvement was very necessary.

We have to realize that you can't give a bullet surprise to the people that steal documents.

And kind of put them in jail.

They're dead.

They're trying to stop them.

Well, to me, they're dead.

In fact, if you can't look into that, you could right now.

They're stealing the government.

They steal security matters.

You can't even go after them.

They're probably going to have it.

And who does it just by their hands?

And you hear them tell us.

What do you think about that?

How about the talk about Schlesinger on that one?

I think Schlesinger's all right.

Colby might be more vulnerable in the sense that he was in the agency at the time this request was made, and his hands are hot, to a certain point.

But if he had anything to do with the U.S., he would try to change the name as such, but he...

You can just probably be conscious about either of that today.

Well, you know, I have a lot to do about it, of course.

You know, the same as with Al.

I'd like to make one of them.

I'm a slusager.

I think we...

It's pretty well...

I mean, there's no problem there.

You know, it's a gender.

A slusager is already satisfied to die.

Before I got here, it turned out I was always trying to see him.

He said to me, my God, do I have to see him every time he asks?

And I said, yes.

And I had the same thought about your speech last night.

The press will continue to try to erode the effect of that speech.

I don't sincerely hope that for time to time you'll simply repeat what you said.

One capacity I've had on you.

But this is going to go through all the way to whether it's responsible or held responsible.

Just on whatever other occasion arises, for a while, about once every week or so, there is a record that you repeat.

You want to say what I'm getting at?

Sure.

They're trying to make the public forget what happened last night.

And it's in our interest that they don't forget that the president has made these statements.

It would be very helpful to have some of them do a lot of other things.

Well, Jerry and the house and the others can speak up along the line themselves.

If you think you could get a share of the battle, the battle might just go to this point.

How about that?

Your side, yeah.

We can get some, yeah.

Because you said you're out there.

Well, I don't know what you do with the problems by yourself.

I said to them yesterday, they didn't carry it.

I said, if you people don't have any confidence in anybody in this system, you better go get yourself another country.

Because they're like this one.

It's been very unusual, Mr. President.

The Democrats have said nothing in the House.

It's very unusual.

spoken up about this thing as a prompter or all of you.

That's very good.

At least it's got any news.

It's got any news.

I think others have.

Not very much.

Not much.

But they just have a shell shop.

They have a shared direction to take.

I guess that's my point.

I guess at least it provides the direction.

It's the function of easy gear, which you mean.

And if you did it from time to time, I'll find ways by which public memory can be refreshed.

You'd make it easier for Bob and myself to go up to somebody and say, hey, give us a hand.

Would you say this?

We know it's really tough.

It's good.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a suggestion which I think would be extremely helpful.

You may have heard or read

The rest of us, I'm sure, have seen the things that have happened in the House and the Senate.

There is a growing resurgence that something has to be done on campaign spending.

Spending and practices.

Bill Brock put in a bill yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure which,

I think it would be very, very helpful to get us on the right track if you would make a recommendation to the Congress that a blue ribbon panel be

set up by legislative action, where you appoint four, the Senate appoints four, and the House appoints four.

And to include George Bush and the Democratic chairman, actually, they'll be anchors to some sense and reasonable discussion.

Yes, sir.

But that is in line with my old federal electoral commission.

I didn't have a commission which we made after the conference last time.

But Hugh, this is for the purpose of reviewing existing law, and for the purpose of grabbing the ball from the hoops, because I know that Carl Albert and I, and I'm sure Hugh and mine will appoint not some of these selves who want to come up with bad legislation.

Well, tell me this, I'll figure it out, and I'll figure it out.

I think it's a good idea, but...

I think if you send a message

or that comes from a White House proposal to say that the situation has gotten terribly out of hand.

Apparently the law that was passed last year was inadequate.

There ought to be a certain surveillance of existing law on that.

I'll have to give that project to Darby.

I think he's the best one to get on and let Price write the message.

And they're going to get going.

It's a very good idea.

We've already been, they've already worked on it.

In terms of, you know, having a telephone on that roof.

We might as well get that in there and talk to Jerry about it.

And one of these people, make sure they're way, way up here.

People that are, you know, I don't know, Bill Nye.

and he's going to pick them up.

If we take the initiative and it's a blue-ribbon line, we can work out the formula.

Those will be the four that will lead to the outside of Congress.

Correct.

And then it's up to us and the leadership on both sides to appoint responsible people.

Otherwise, you're going to get these damn zealots in the Congress who wrote a bad law last time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerry, when the president appointed Elliott, which is now a public statement, he indicated that Elliott would have the responsibility and the authority to review the election laws beyond our conditions.

I don't want to get cross-closed on it, but that's perfectly all right.

That's the legal side.

The laws.

And he did work on it.

a little bit of information, to make recommendations, recommendations.

Yeah, and to indicate why this is important right now, Bob Byrd is trying to get out of the Rules Committee, and probably will next week, a simple bill to change the date of national elections, but it's a month out of court by itself.

It's not the right to do it, sir.

You wrote that right carefully.

It is a congressional right on the panel.

What's that?

If we don't have the Congress in it, right?

Right.

Now, this is what you've also suggested, that we send this down with the message that the Congress would then pass the resolution.

Right.

But we're participants.

And we give statutory authority to presidents.

Right.

And we can get the right people on and keep these things at the county level.

You talk about the four people that I pointed to now.

That takes two weeks.

Two, two.

So what?

That doesn't mean too many other responsibility.

They need that one good Democrat, totally responsible, senior man.

Why don't you make it six, four, and four?

So we get a little more flexibility.

We could say that.

And then we could say that.

That's right.

That's good.

Well, there's nothing to do with it.

This is going to be tricky.

You've got to get them in a hurry.

Yeah.

Tell them to get them.

We can't help them on it.

See if we can get something.

My journey's quick, but we can't do it by tomorrow.

No, Monday.

It'll be good by Monday.

Yes, by Monday.

You can do it Monday.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get it done now.

Let's get it done.

Hey, Steve, how many boys are there to kill over here?

Well, David, Steve, I'll get it out in a day.

If it helps.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get it.

Well, look, I know it's going to be tough.

I mean, with these hearings going on, it's going to go on for quite a while, but this is the time for it.

All of us who have strong, strong hearts and minds and so forth, you remember that we were elected to do great things in New York.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

That's right.

Well, I've got to run into this thing.

I'm a little rooty because it's a beautiful little gift given by the Chinese people there, the spank-faced people who have attained the venerable age of 60.

You can't take it on.

I mean, that's great.

Thank you.

But the point is, without compensation, you see, he can't have us going back in.

He doesn't have a position, but we will have him this morning, for example.

He could be helpful.

We've made this a certain areas of work on what we can say today.

What you want to say?

I think we're going to say that these are some very responsible appointments.

You think you want to hold Kobe until we check that problem on that CIA?

You just say, just let Kobe go for a while.

Because you're going to be able to explain it.

But he would understand, like I said.

Well, we can, because basically I don't, I don't think there's any problem there.

But on the other hand, in his case, if you've got to take somebody from the CIA, you've got to, he's like that man I know, he's the best man, he's the best man.

I don't intend to count as long as he didn't have an actual participating figure, even though you may guess the rest of it.

He's the best man, huh?

He's by far the best man.

What did his boss say?

He has to say.

He would be below whatever decisions.

He didn't make any decisions.

I'm playing him.

I don't think we ought to say anything about this message coming up.

We're working on that, see, and I keep that down because otherwise the Democrats are going to try to get out in front of us.

If you're going to say it, you can mention it.

I think we all, if you want to, should we mention Colby or should we move that?

I think we should just go ahead.

Well, it might be that all that happens.

What do you call it?

What the hell?

They raise salary.

And Connolly will be, Connolly is a special advising person.

Uh, on a part-time basis, a part-time, volunteer, unpaid basis, uh, on general matters with the President and the Cabinet.

I don't want to mention something that's a housing situation in Detroit, especially.

I wish he wouldn't get going on that.

There are thousands and thousands of homes in the city that have been foreclosed.

Even our people of Detroit do live here.

There are thousands of homes that have been foreclosed.

But it's going to be a city that's going to blow up on us.

Why is this?

Because of the scale of the law.

I don't know.

Thank you.

I told her she would get me free.

We haven't distributed her, they haven't heard the telephone speech, you know?

Yeah, I know.

They said, you're repeating the same thing.

Whatever they got to do, it wasn't that simple.

It was.

We called them beforehand, and we watched them.

We sent transcripts up afterwards.

We even got them to say good things, you know?

We crossed out a few people, and the president says, do it.

They keep going over the same thing, every time, every time, every time.

We've distributed the leadership meetings, fact sheets on issues, and then quickly they send us in the chair.

And...

Well, I guess they just can't take tea, can they?

Oh, don't worry.

It's good you haven't been here for a while.

Well, I think it helps that I'm making it.

But let's...

I'll make the errands, sir.

You make the... Sir, Captain Goats hardly has a problem with that.

We'll be arriving tomorrow.

We've got to get the race completed tomorrow morning.

We've got to get the plan wrong.

Hart will take a seven-day rule, and he has to file a report on it.

Let's work on this darn thing, though, to see if they can work on that damn language.

Well, how's your vote going to be in the House today?

Well, I think we're down a little bit.

We've got about 160 Republicans and 40 Democrats, for about 200.

And it depends on how much it takes to break.

The Democrats have a caucus this morning.

We still got some of our guys on the side that we're working on.

It's going to be real tight.

Real tight.

Just do the best you can.

You know, Bill, I mean, I love you so much, but we are going to have to get back to the job.

We've got to get back to the job.

I don't know.