Conversation 921-008

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I think David... You can't deny it.

Not only about the gentleman who bit the airman, and I noticed as well that it really looks...

I would have imagined that Dean would have taken all that out already.

It means to me that the bastard is right.

He's pregnant again.

He has a problem.

Well, his problem is he has men of commons.

In some way or other, there's a terrible character flaw in this man.

I think that the character flaw in the man is there.

That eventually comes throughout.

It does in this case.

It comes through learning.

Everything comes through learning.

Well, looking at our nature quite briefly, basically the moment is...

whole Ellsberg business that I was very tough with Peterson on the 17th of April saying, you cannot go into national security matters in the Watergate case.

On the other hand, Peterson, when I talked to him, said, well, the bottom line, Mr. President, is I told Ron Ziegler, which the first reason he was, we did the same thing after your directions.

So my fight is, if that comes up, that's the answer he needs.

I have to say that he'll secure it with certain things.

But I wasn't trying to cover up his own name.

I didn't.

Oh, and as a matter of fact, nothing had been furnished to the ultimate reviewer.

Nothing had been furnished to the prosecution, which Peterson also knew.

In fact, he already had his stuff.

So he's going to, his testimony.

is a reflection of the sense of responsibility here, not anything short of a goddammit.

What would have served our purposes better than to send a wiretap out there in which this son of a bitch has proven to be a goddamn sex maniac and a drug addict?

Well, the wiretap.

And we didn't know that enough wiretap was one of them, but also,

The burglary, too, was also involved in this.

That's your conversation.

But what good would that be to send that out when nothing had happened on that either?

You see, that was the whole point.

It was a national security thing.

You see, a burglary in obtaining evidence does not poison a trial unless it produces something that gets in the hands of the prosecution.

And that gets out of the hands of the prosecution.

That's why Pearson didn't act on it.

until much later when the word began to get around.

But we're going to play it very strong here.

We just got to play the national security thing.

The other thing I wish you would think about, and let's keep our top of your eyes and say, is how we respond to this whole memorandum when they try to break.

I just, I guess in some way I just abhor the idea of, I know that there's a say, they say rally the country and all that sort of thing, but it just shocks me that I have to think of my going out on national television responding to the fact that there was a memorandum and defending the fact that, well, two days later the memorandum was not carried out, we did this and that and the other thing, but maybe that is going to be necessary, I don't know.

I think it's undesirable, and I don't think it will be.

And if I were you to ask me today, I'd say it's far better for you not to be out there on an issue that, God damn it, that's for someone else to do.

Yeah.

Now, how would you handle if that, if that is, you try to do it?

You know what I would do?

What?

It might be necessary to have the spokesman for the policy, maybe all of them,

Maybe the key done is to participate in it.

Yeah.

And have it explained in detail.

Hand out the white paper and press for it.

Maybe a congressional meeting.

It's not your business.

God damn it, this was the ecologist community.

Well, it was their recommendation to me.

And it was their recommendation to me that I approved.

And it involved a lot of them.

Unfortunately, the bad thing is

President-approved burglaries.

That's a tactic, correct?

Yes, but, you know, that's right, and that's, uh... That's a tactic.

Meanwhile, it's not a tactic.

It's going to be very easy in the context of taking on the issue of what's done.

What's done.

Contingency planning and enforcement.

Contingency planning, whatever that is.

Correct.

The intelligence community recommended it as a contingency plan.

See, I could see a hell of a situation in which you might have a briefing over here or over at Justice.

The admiral's.

General Bennett.

The helm's.

And that mover which could end the next struggle has.

Not assaulted.

Assaulted.

And ruffle house perhaps as a spokesman because he was sitting in through or he was a chairman.

And say, God, man, this is it.

Nothing like that.

As you can see, what would that look like?

I think you'd want to do it with a handout on the white paper.

That may not be the thing to do, but that's one option.

Another one is just a simple reading of the press and a handout on the white paper.

It's conceivable that the thing got totally out of hand.

There was really an onslaught there, and the paper itself was compromised.

It was put out by either the committee, which it may be.

Then there's the possibility that she would run around the country on that issue.

And look what has happened.

Now is the time to get this thing back.

I will speak no more on this subject, but here's where the facts were.

Boom, boom, boom.

Now, with respect to Watergate,

It may have been this end.

Maybe take that on one more time.

And it may be the time, you see, to wind up here.

It's a wave of popular revulsion.

You see, that's, all these things are converging to where this might be what you wanted.

It is a VR game.

There's no God named question about it.

And we want to be able to make the longest number of contingency lines, right, to the best way to do it.

If they don't have the paper, they're getting the dope as fast as they can run it.

And it's very evident they fired their first shot this morning.

But there's even more than that.

There are those that want to trace it back in the earlier administration and to build into civil liberties the over-concentration of power and presidency.

But that's why we've got to throw it back to 67.

That's the way you talk about that.

what these policies were.

These weren't anything new.

This was a return to the policies of the 60s.

And you get every president who's ever, any man who's ever supported a presidency.

Let us understand improving anything that the television community recommended for degrees, I mean, in service to these

but that's genomics and so forth.

That's the response.

It's so easy to handle.

What people would be watching that.

They live that way.

Every American lives with television watching this stuff.

And it's the good guys who do it.

And if they do it successfully, they're better guys.

We haven't done that.

We're not going to have to come up with anything in that way.

Yeah.

I still am, I still feel my soul heart right now.

I don't care what you say.

They're trying to swap this whole bad thing, I don't know, it's, you see, water heating now is getting, I don't know, they're now getting, this is the other day involved, mixing it up with that.

And then, of course, I'm trying to mix it up with this.

Maybe that's bad, I don't know.

Bad in the sense that the country looking at Watergate as a keeper is one thing.

The country looking at Watergate in the context of a sort of a repressive fascist.

That's the great danger.

That's the one we have to be so sensitive to.

And the really dangerous elements in the opposition, that's the track they're pursuing.

That's what they're after, at least.

And it goes beyond you.

It goes beyond you.

It goes beyond the whole constitutional process.

Well, frankly, once we're out to get over, you know, it goes to the whole business about whether or not you have security, which is a freedom.

You know, security versus license, basically.

But I fight that issue to come hell or high water.

And maybe that is what you do when you want to talk to us.

And that's why I say, I hope not.

I hope not, too.

But maybe, probably, we'll come to that.

See, if that issue breaks suddenly, and it becomes the key issue, which these bastards have in their crawl, that they want to do, then you're the best guy to take that one on.

Yeah.

And that, in the process of doing so.

And then pointing out the top people with it.

You can be sure of it.

You'd think it was massive, but it's not.

It is the least.

It could be behind you.

The least in this iteration of any administration.

I mean, why?

This is a, that we mine.

I, I think that's a good point.

I think you could, it could be on there.

It is the opportunity.

You could have these array of people behind you and do it in the restroom.

That's right.

God, I'll tell you, it would really be impressive.

Why would you kill them?

How would you kill them?

Because I don't believe you.

What they've done, this is a typical example of how justice is being distorted.

There are problems.

There were.

We know.

I have cut cars at any point.

We've got to get the juridical process there.

But the court, this government, we're going to run the government.

Well, it would be great things would happen if this would be just, I think it would be good.

Now, it may happen, it may not crystal all the time, but you can't lose sight of it.

That's right.

I agree.

We must be prepared to go to that lake.

Yes, sir.

And there have been a number of ways of dealing with this.

That's why we must keep our lead naturally quite free.

in that direction.

Don't worry about doing outstands and so forth and so on.

We'll know in another day or two.

They'll still start to beat you.

See how by after the day goes on on this issue.

I think it won't break

They don't have enough yet.

They are hard pressed on whether to go out with this thing at this time.

Why are they hard pressed?

They've had it for a long time.

I think they have a gold mine.

I think they have a gold mine and they're going to further our salary atmosphere and put that out and bait us to come back and deny.

Set us up with grants.

Then they'll do it.

We will not fall into that trap that we've been after.

That's what I told her the same day.

I've heard that story several times.

He's a very serious allegation to us.

He's an allegation that we ought to sort of present ourselves to the fact.

That hates him a little bit.

And yet not to.

I know what they expected.

God, they don't want to move to that.

So I was going to make a big story today.

If you go no, no, no, we'll be playing their game.

They'll be in control of the pace.

I'm just baiting them a little, going back.

They're going to have a skull section, trying to figure out how to go around to it.

How to press it and grab it real fast.

We want to suck them out.

Do you think they know what they may not know?

This is them trying to turn it off.

I think they don't know what was happening.

But they think the worst.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we'll try to make it worse.

But our whole point is to be sure that our guys, Peterson in particular, must know it.

Uh, Rappelhaus must know it.

And Schuster must know it.

That this goddamn thing never went through.

And Knowles must know it.

Uh, among all your radio charters then today, uh, can you, uh, can you read your accounts?

I mean, interrupt.

So, Lazard said that he was asking Lazard whether he thought he ought to submit his resignation.

His ambassador and I said, what in the name of Christ is he thinking about?

Of course he should have submitted his resignation, his ambassador.

Don't you agree?

Unless he testifies something we don't know.

That's it.

The letter you get from the doc, fill it out here.

We can't possibly believe you did anything to him.

I don't think we have any assets.

We don't have.

I don't either, but we can't lose sight of that, that some of these guys down here at that level... God knows what they did and didn't do.

And we can't be rattled by it.

Can I ask you this?

Is this something that...

You should alert John O'Reilly, just say, John, do you know anything about me?

If there is, then you can receive the letter and then we are going to turn it over to Pearson because we don't know about him.

You know what I mean?

I wish you would be very honest with that.

See, I, you know, Christ, I wouldn't blame myself if I were him.

It's not a political operation either.

Oh, we didn't need it.

They went to see the doctor.

You see, it could have been, you understand, it could be somebody, a Democrat, turning an evil on them.

It could have been a Democrat.

Yeah.

But the doctor said that his office was burglarized.

Yeah, it could be a coincidence too.

I wondered if you would mind, just to step on my wrist, would you mind checking that, you know, before you get into the bad news about the other thing, just say, this routine thing, you want to check, you know, anything where, is there any activity which, rather than John, I'd ask Bob.

This is more in Bob's province.

Bob would, Bob would know,

I need Bob to say this for you.

Yeah, because John likely gets stirred up about it and so forth.

You mind that?

No.

Call back when I come back.

Thank you.

Just saying, Bob, if you know anything about it, we're going to have to turn it over to Peterson because we just want to know.

We don't want any surprises and that we could... We just don't have any possibility.

Come on.

Come on, man.

No, sir.

Well, first of all, the CIA matter, we discussed that at length.

My concern, and I think we now agree that it would be a mistake to hit the CIA thing today, because we have several things.

We've got the urgent need

started.

We've got the Walker's Helm testimony out there.

And no matter what we say, the story will be presently to our president-directed meetings be held.

And there's so many actors involved.

And to be .

Well, that is part of it.

But also, the other part of it is, let Bob and John move out on this thing a little bit, too.

In other words, on a story like this.

They would like to .

But now he should.

He should.

I mean, after all, this is a PR game.

What do you think?

Well, what I think is this, sir.

Eddie, the only people that have the fact that you can be the leader is the committee, or the director of the grand jury.

Sure.

Now, right now.

In this climate, would you answer, express yourself, to have a, the Erwin Ernst, start a fiasco and a banner headline generated by Ron today that you did bring in that evening, turning all the reporters loose on Bob, John, Allen, and the rest of them?

So even if there are several ways to look at this, we need to decide that today, but just in what we talked about, a story like this could even be, from our standpoint,

With this environment, two pretty credible witnesses, quite frankly, Walters and Helms, stating what they stated about the meeting and the environment.

Instead of us going out and initiating the leak, although we have a very good, positive story to tell that this environment would become distorted, I'm not so even concerned even about the leak.

I don't know if we three collectively agree with that, because then you can hit it.

Yeah, respect him, you see.

But the point is, too, if the lead comes, the way that I want you to handle him, let me say, this is the reason.

And then I talk to Fred, and I think, I know he was very direct.

And was the president aware of the meeting?

Of course he was aware of the meeting.

The president had ordered a full court of press to see whether or not the CIA or any government agency was involved in this operation.

And that was the purpose of the meeting.

Does that sound right to you, Fred?

And he was assured of it.

After that, and I would say he was assured by, by, and I think we can say, and I want you, somebody to, we've got to talk to our friend Helms, but he assured them that they were not involved, that he was not involved.

And I just put it out in plaster that they were not involved, period.

You see, the whole involvement for CIA here is all based on this other stuff about Dean.

Dean asking them to get involved.

Dean asking them to pick up the jet.

They didn't do any of those things, did they?

No, they did not.

The point of the charge is that the White House tried to get the CIA involved.

Isn't that the charge?

That's the charge.

All right.

The point that we make, our answer is, has to be,

Yes, the White House did, but that we are getting a bad rap in the terms that we were trying to get the facts to see whether they were involved.

Once we were sure they were not involved, that was it, period.

Well, she was, you, you, you.

I would have said the White House.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

Once the president was sure, because Holmes did assure me.

No, that's, that's enough.

That's enough.

So did Walters through the telephone conversation with, uh,

and we had another advantage you see because the woodward story today is their first man yeah

this issue in the context of that other issue in which our position is going to be so strong, if the timing can work out.

the Watergate, the Ellsworth, Mercury, and all of the rest, to an atmosphere and tone of operation here in the White House, and then the government going back to 1969.

Now, it would appear that they're attempting to build this, or are the source leaking this?

We don't know what it is.

Is it attempting to build up to these papers?

Yeah, all right.

Could be, all right.

That's why we don't want to respond to her story.

That's why I think, Fred, your bird dog in the day is so important to me.

Yes.

I've got to put this together.

You're what you're working like.

That's what we're trying to get at today.

And get these people back.

That's right.

Get these people back in here so we can get the appetizers.

Because we, without being a bit polite, we can crack them hard on this story.

Well, as a matter of fact, Ron is going to fade very, very suddenly today if he gets hit on the wood, which is where my mind was.

Yeah.

Ron was going to say that I've read that story several times.

See, I get the question, can I confirm or deny that this took place?

See, I've read that story several times this morning, and they're broad and sweeping.

And so forth, and I'm going to say, I'm not, it's not the burden proof here to respond to that multifaceted story, and I'm not going to do that.

Those who alter the story have the obligation to present the facts.

Of course, they have before, so now let's try again.

See, then they'll come and say, well, can't you just go in and find out whether or not there was a 1969, you know, actually from 1969?

I'm going to say, no, I'm not going to.

I'm just saying no comment.

We don't know how.

The one point I'd like to raise is whether there was other activities besides...

I'm not sure that there wasn't some... You see, that's in the story today, too, that John Ehrlichman had the Eagleton found two weeks before it broke.

Eagleton?

You mean his, uh, getting off the ticket?

His medical file.

So, what else do you mean?

His court.

Oh, that was in the campaign for Colonel Robinson.

What do you mean?

And, uh, that was old.

That...

I'm not concerned about that.

We have something that came out of newspaper sources or something like that.

We have some indication that not this office was burglarized, Mr. President.

Well, let me say it.

I would be utterly shocked if that's anything other than out of this place.

I really would.

The doctors often said that people with steroids want to be as flat as anchors can be, except to let it run.

No, except it's in the paper this morning that Erdogan knew this well before it was made public, which he may have and which may be damn good, it shows.

That's right.

The only thing we have is a very worrisome letter.

He was approached by a government security people and asked to do something.

He refused and shortly thereafter his office was burglarized.

The only thing we can do under this circumstance is to give that letter to Peterson.

Stand away from it.

We cannot approach this.

Stand away.

Stand away totally.

Don't get in that.

We don't know anything about it.

All the parents should early be informed.

We don't even know that it is.

I don't know.

He did not give date in his letter.

also been under mental treatment.

That was also pretty bad, though.

But anything about we didn't do any goddamn thing, all we did is sat back.

Because we could do it either way.

I know we're going to do the goddamn thing.

I just know we didn't do anything.

Yeah, I think we're going to do that.

Turn it over to Peter.

It's not even a major issue.

All right, go ahead.

Well, that's all I have.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, one more problem.

Under the circumstances, I think we must grant that this brings to

That is, Bob and John's access.

This is hurting terribly.

That they're still here.

I got hit by the prosecutor's office yesterday.

We don't have any credible information.

They're here for the purpose of trying to carry out a transaction of four and a half years of work with their successors.

But go ahead.

The prosecutor's office says that they accused us

I think we have to give my point in return to go through this to the prosecutor was that their access their files are under covered they have access only to those files under supervision and you even would have to give access if there was a charge to a defendant to the records being used

Their response was, yes, those files are under control, but they're right there in the White House with access to every other record in the White House.

They have secretaries.

They've got the whole nine yards.

They're riding around in White House cars.

They aren't even White House employees.

They have secretaries' access to all the files, the ongoing things in the White House.

Well, what's your recommendation?

that they not keep out of this space.

And that they not...

Yes, I think we have to.

That's where they go.

See, they go off the payroll, and I think... We can make the position that we had to have... A transition.

A transition.

All right, what is the date?

17?

All right, they go off this Saturday, I think.

You could say that they're reversed.

Totally true, right?

I've been talking about it.

I think we should move Higley across the street.

Move him out of the office?

Move him across the street?

In the EOB.

Oh, that's fine.

There are accusations that he's a homeless man here, a homeless man.

Good.

Get him out of here.

That's for his protection.

Get him out of here.

You don't think you should let him go?

No.

I don't know if the service is an issue.

I mean, he's a good man who should just be... My point is, my point is false.

We cannot let everybody go who's called us a witness.

That is my God.

I mean, that is... You have no more practice this morning.

Yes, St. Wilson...

that they were subjects of the investigation and given the Fifth Amendment warrant.

Now, that's the first time it's proceeded to that point, where it's public knowledge.

All right.

That's a lot different than what I'm getting at.

I mean, uh, George Shultz, for example, came in yesterday and he's called people up, you know.

And you remember, he's the policeman that worked around here.

And, and I said, well, what's the charge, George?

I almost said, you know, the thing that I had at you

He said to the Secretary of Transportation, well, we're going out right now.

I said, you could give him a leave.

He says, oh, no, I don't want him around.

Well, now, when you really come down to it, Fred, that's not fair.

Caulfield, Caulfield, Caulfield may be guilty as hell.

I don't know.

I mean, he was in some of the security operations before.

But the point that I make is because Caulfield's been called before the Grand

It's not a reason to fire him off.

You better not say to him, am I right or not?

That's correct.

All right, we'll take it.

Go ahead.

Well, the point I was making on Larry is that he shouldn't leave.

He's a good man.

He's a good asset.

He's here for six months right now.

Yeah.

If he services as a point of detention, then he's going to lose.

Yeah.

See, I don't get an airline.

That's right.

And Bob and John, how do you handle their stuff then?

Sorry, one more thing you may have to be clear about.

I think we have to take the car away.

It surfaced again in the press last night.

I saw that.

It was driven by a man who was from Camp David, a soldier.

It's just timely.

Right.

And it's going to be done.

That's the way it's going to be done.

All right, fine.

Done.

Okay.

What other questions?

That's about cover secret.

We need to get back to me.

I talked to Barry .

I said, Barry, God almighty, why did you join the caucus?

He said, well, he said, I was going to call a president.

He said, .

He said, what worries him is he's been after the country.

He said, the country is 100% behind the president.

Every place I've gone, .

And, uh, he didn't see him.

And he said, I just wanted to get him out so that he could rally the, what support has there been?

Well, you see, there will come a time when we will get out and rally our supporters, but it is not yet.

That's what I told you.

That's the point.

We don't want to go out.

I'm sure I can go out and make an armed forces state speech.

That's all right.

And, uh, we'll be on national television with the POWs.

That's all right.

That's rallying the country some.

But you see what I mean?

You don't have to rally the country.

You don't have to go to Tucson.

And I thought I'd do the Dirksen thing, right?

I got a hell of a schedule coming up here.

But if we start a, a, a, uh, uh, to talk about it at this point in time, this is going to be a very great mistake.

You agree, John, right?

Yes, I do.

Well, I explained this to him, and he said, you're right.

He said, I agree with you.

He said, you're right.

The pitot study can be a very good thing.

Yeah, but we don't want to exploit it.

You don't want to exploit it.

If the VOWs aren't in the building, they surely will be, Mr. President.

I think if they cue some of them, you'll get some good, strong support.

Yeah, they always make sense.

Well, the President won't print them, that's all.

Could I just suggest one thing on the Dean thing?

That this idea that the way you're here, I think, is good.

It seems to me, Ron, it seems to be taking up the functions for Dean.

Is that right?

So, sir, maybe Dean made a mistake, though.

No, no, that was Radcliffe's lead, which was in the new summary.

Yeah.

Rather, you can always depend on not being about whether you're pressuring.

Right.

Yeah.

The point that I made.

We have to be cautious, though.

Yeah.

In other words, yesterday was about as much as we could do.

We had to do it.

Right.

Yeah.

We had to do it.

You can't make him a martyr.

Well, the point that I would make about me is that we're treating everybody the same.

Well, I made that point in the briefing.

That's it.

The only other point is that there's no other major white house person in Washington, D.C.

I don't know what he's planning.

Isn't that a legitimate point to make?

Yes, sir.

Or do you want to make it?

Or do I say it's on the background?

I don't think I'd make that on the background.

Well, as far as today's hearing is concerned,

reaction right everybody agreed yes and uh because the charges will fling around and so forth and so on now fred's assignment is to get this uh we feel ron a little last night on this thing and he knows what it is and uh and ron and i called ron the phone last night and gave him the latest thing after you and i

and pointed out that the damn thing was turned up.

Actually, what I wanted to point out is I didn't realize that the so-called policy paper that was developed after this long goddamn meeting was not written for two months.

See, this is an inter-agency battle.

Then after two months, they finally came in with a unanimous recommendation.

That recommendation was approved.

Haldeman approved it in my behalf.

I did not sign on for the proof in my name.

And I hopefully don't know.

In fact, all of that

I thought I take responsibility for it.

Then, what happened is, Hoover, apparently Jolson gets to Hoover, according to Fred, Hoover two days later gets some, raises it again.

We think he may have raised it with the Attorney General and Mitchell with me.

We think he may have raised it.

We believe and said, it's a no-go.

In other words, go, no-go.

So it was in the past four years.

Finally, nothing was done under the policy.

Now, is that a fair statement?

No, I'm sure Ron knows where he is.

You're, you get to have 30 of those today.

And get him today, yes.

And you get some of them today, yes.

We're going to try to get him plumbed back to do that.

Yeah, and I think you can get Houston today, although he is... Well, he's got to be plumbed in good.

Yeah, but he's got to know what the hell his, uh...

When did Houston leave?

August.

Oh, Houston doesn't have much solid recollection.

He doesn't look at his files.

Do you think he could find something in the files?

Because, uh,

Fred's judgment on the PR is not the best.

I mean, it's good, and we can't expect him to be in leaders' garments.

Ron's is.

Ron's is just.

That's why I say this whole Ron is invaluable to us.

Ron didn't want to go on this, did he?

Or did he?

I don't know.

I just feel good to see him on this.

You were at it, weren't you?

Fred raised this with me, and I said, well, raise it in your meeting.

That's about all we have.

But my point is, at the proper time, simply hit the back.

Our end was not, was trying to get the backs.

And if we could put that, fold that in simultaneously with this other thing, if it should turn out that way, that's the best one.

In other words, if we tear apart this big charge of collusion, to intimidate and to take over the mechanism of intelligence

which is what they're going to charge.

And you just put that out there.

And say that this is the charge we took over intelligence.

See, it all makes more sense then in the context.

Then this is part of the framework for people.

Highly sensitive, highly responsible concern for the internal security of the company.

Finding out at that point that they're hitting very hard

Now, listen, we've had enough of this crap.

The intelligence agents have been attacked.

The sensitive things have been attacked.

The sensitive have remained.

Leave.

And here is the past.

Now, again, let me say, I'm inclined to think a white paper on that is a little better than my doing.

You should.

What do you think?

I don't know.

I think, well, we'll keep our pastor.

Fine.

I would prefer not to.

I prefer not to get into, because then there will be something else that will say, can't the president go out and answer?

I cannot be up there as the damn defendant and all this thing.

The country doesn't consider me the defendant.

They consider me to be presently the abused at the moment.

And I sense this very, this is, that's very right.

That's right.

He said that support is solid and complete.

Now, where the convicts are is where you'd expect them to be.

The Schultzes and the Conleys and the Republican leadership is at the cutting edge of this thing.

These are the guys that are wobbling in need.

They're wobbling in need.

They sit here and live in Washington.

That's where they're stuck at end.

And they need tending, quite frankly, and it doesn't cost us anything.

They never tend.

Yeah.

Clearly, I did speak to Bussard, and he turned it off.

But apparently he is already, you know, he's covered slush in here.

And I thought that he ought to cover, I mean, on this, this sort of, this vegan paper, so to call.

Well, he says all the intelligence agencies are aware of it anyway, because they're trying to get all that down there.

They, our own people, like, who did I mention, Spencer?

Oh, Russell's now.

They've got to know that it was turned off.

So they don't rattle.

Huh?

So they don't rattle.

So that they argue with the charge.

They'll say, look, don't worry about this.

It was turned off.

This was a paper.

And they're trying to make a lot of it.

But remember, this is what we're doing.

I think we've got to let them play their strength and let them run their paper about it.

the present atmosphere, and all that I said.

But I'm inclined to think we can certainly blast this one in terms of the fact that, now, they take a charge, and the charge is totally untrue.

It was turned off.

And we've got to have the data to prove it.

We've investigated it.

And it's, therefore, irresponsible for them to put out this fact of an internal study and all, and so forth and so on.

I couldn't agree more.

And that's where things don't make any sense.

Because once he puts it out, and then it's shown for what it is, the fact that he stole it from China and went a bit wide, and we'll weave it into this thing, I think he's going to surface it as an arch-villain.

On his own.

Through his own actions.

Uh, okay.

I require a great degree of attention for information and action.

which is that I'm going to get in an economic deal, get it next week, and take another hard look at the controls and so forth and so on.

I still don't believe we can do it.

And politically it would help, but economically we think it would be a loser.

So we'll have to maybe talk it through.

But I want you to know that I told them, Schultz will be fixing the date, you know, for that, for an economic deal.

Well, there's, you know, I've been in the case.

I'm very encouraged.

And also, another thing that you're going to find is that you've got a boom, you've got an air balance budget, and also you've got a situation.

It's the main thing, it's the inflation.

That's what the polls all show everybody.

It gives you very bad marks of inflation.

The point is everybody's always worried about inflation, but the inflation is not going to come down.

Now, later in the year, I don't know.

I almost think we just because of this watergate and say, well, we've got to see this is the company there.

Prove you're a leader.

And I said, well, how do you prove you're a leader?

He said, go away to price controls.

Then when he got over to Schultz and the rest, then he said, should you go away to price controls?

I don't guess.

Oh, no, I've got to go out.

He got that fine with me.

See, I know that you'll be running into this problem, and my fight is, God knows, I know the political problem.

But, uh, like, for example, they say, you prove you're a leader.

And so, uh, how do you prove you're a leader?

Well, maybe we could say, well, let's surrender to the Soviet Union.

Huh?

Well, let's interrogate what their, what their initiatives are in that process.

And it's always the wrong way.

We have got to be unflattable.

We've got to see this damn thing through, take this agony, but let's do the right thing from a domestic perspective.

Everything professional.

Professional.

What you call the set of professional presence.

Now, with regard to confidence, are we having that kind of meeting tomorrow?

Yes, I think so.

I think so.

Have it every week.

Yes, sir.

And a leaders meeting on Tuesday, I suppose.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I think, you know, during some of these recalls, it might not be a bad idea to have him over for maybe a half a dozen or so next week.

Would you have him this week?

No, next week.

You want to talk to him this week.

You know, these guys are really after all the stability of the Washington Buffer.

I'm not worried about Hugh Scott and the guys that you see right here.

You don't have to give people that cold water at all.

Cold water and gold, of course, it got rattled and really turned shitty, I thought, and Al knows that he did, and it's funny.

Oh, he's funny today, isn't he?

Yeah, at least he is.

Now, the other thing is that you've got the real job of keeping, of being sure, Al, that our N-22s are familiar with all the ins and outs of this, not rattled.

Bazaar said he had a long call with Schlesinger Sunday, just to be sure that Schlesinger wasn't all rambling on this whole thing.

And now you think Schlesinger's standing firm.

He isn't going to go running off the reservation.

Bazaar seemed to be a little more, understand, I don't want him.

Because everybody gets rattled.

She always rattles, but she got her time.

No, no.

You see, my wife, his meeting with you yesterday, he came in here this morning, the first time, asking how free.

And he goes, yes, just because he kind of looks for you when you get closer to him.

Tomorrow, you're the captain of the week.

Uh, Richardson.

You haven't talked to him today.

Not yet this morning.

I've got a call in two.

Right.

Every day.

I want to call Richardson.

Just to be sure that he's staying.

Well, maybe if you would make that call now.

And, uh, I'll call Celestia Chip.

Celestia, you know, is going to watch you.

I, I plan on Celestia Chip.

He's talking to me.

I'll see him.

He's got very confidence in Bazaar now.

I don't mean in his work and intelligence, but also in his confidence.

He's got to believe in praise now.

Do you know what I mean?

I think he is the same.

Possible, really good guy.

Good.

Because he sees all this crap.

And he knows how to be misinterpreted.

There's a lot of crap going around here.

And now, I cannot ever be in a position with any spanker of anything to say, look, Paul, I didn't do it.

Okay, got it.

He tends to give you that impression because he's so conscious of protecting you.

Overly conscious, maybe.

Come back here, Ron.

I've just watched a few minutes of that committee.

I'll tell you if he's going to do that.

He has an older sense of where he said, my God, he said in the five or ten, he said about ten days of this, and they're going to kill us.

They really, that's my prediction.

Robin's done a beautiful job.

Smooth, good looking guy.

I mean, if you, if you've been, you know, fully spirited cooperation, if you've been trying to be pompous, I suppose, you know, on my own, to try to project this into what the public would think,

My view is that Bob and John don't make that good of a thing.

Bob and John really care for these old guys.

They've got some fun.

We've got fine men here.

I mean, they are called some of them, but they're damn fine men.

Now, I'm going to, when they, I didn't talk to this before, but they haven't talked to this very briefly.

All right.

I'll get to typical water service, Helen Thomas question.

You know, does the president have a battery of TV set up and so on?

He's probably going to do it.

I'm just going to say it.

The President has made it clear that he has full cooperation with the hearings.

He cannot, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, he does not have the time to watch the television programs.

He does not have the time.

But he gets a full summary of the hearings, insofar as they might bear on anybody in the White House.

What are you getting from him?

on anything in the White House.

Who's doing that?

That's right, we're in the direction of a general neighbor.

And he gets that, but he cannot, he cannot, he just can't.

We're trying to watch during the process.

That's a very good question.

The other point, Alan, is that, okay, we, on this so-called war in Illinois, I'd say we're probably going to be struck.

This is going to kill us.

It's going to embarrass us.

I mean, it's going to embarrass us, you must remember, but it's not going to kill us because there's some good stuff in it as well as bad stuff in it.

Very good and different than what he's already tested.

Except the back.

If they come to the back, the president ordered them to see if they could pull up all the funnels.

When that customer comes out, then he gets that.

Then he gets it.

Let it come out first.

But if the Walters thing is going to come out, I don't want it to become a capital case.

Let the damn thing out.

In other words, I would simply say, well, the only reason we've held it here is because of the security problems.

But if you all work on the security problems, we'll let it come out.

I'm striking you with that.

But understand, I'm not ready to give up yet.

I just want

So when they left, they all, you know, weeped a lot on scars and all that sort of thing.

But it was terribly difficult, even, you know, to go through the terrible agony of getting to the leaves.

I couldn't do it that day.

And, and, and, but now it does have to be done.

Well, we've got, we've got a specific legal complaint.

Yeah.

Apologize.

and then I'll say, well, how the hell did they get access to their papers?

What do you say?

They can't call us.

How often do they come in?

The same privilege we give to other people.

You see, that's what Bazar was saying.

We can't turn down Dean's request because it would really be good.

What was Dean's request for?

He wanted to look at a chronological file, and that would be an official correspondence that he would send.