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But the problem is we've been there, and I think it depends on how much of the fight will take hold in Congress and in the country.

If you go in the 60 days,

Now, I think you just have to lay down a challenge to the Congress and to everybody else and just say, now, in this 60-day period, we've got to have this trade bill, we've got to have this stabilization bill, we've got to have the bill for millions to sell stockpiles, we've got to have a farm bill, we've got to have this, we've got to have that.

If you don't, we can't structure a program for that.

And I think the entire industry can really wait for all of the Congress and everybody else to push them in that particular way.

And it's a 30-day freeze.

You might get by without doing anything, but it's just on the way.

So once you go beyond that, it's very serious, but it also has to freeze away.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

I was discussing this with Lenny Burke at lunch today, one of the other members of our labor management committee, which we'll meet again tomorrow.

And he agrees it's a practical matter, and he agrees in many dimensions, but we have to go back into the labor side and stuff, you know.

You're very good.

Well, the company name, Breeze, is basically, it is just,

It's an action, so when you do it, it isn't worth the trouble.

No.

That means you're not going to have an effect, whatever, on the psychology.

It doesn't give you time.

And, uh, basically, once you go back, it says 30 minutes.

And that wasn't a new evidence.

I can't agree with that.

If you're going to do something in the way of a freeze, you'd have to do a minimum of 60 days in order to have any psychological effect.

But if I had the reaction of the group that's against the 60 day freeze, you'd have to go back to the wage cycle.

You'd have to go even further because we feel if you have a 60 or a 90 day freeze, you're going to have a fairly good program following it.

You're almost forced into it.

And that's going to include a tougher wage program than we have now, or at least a more, one that grips them a little bit more than the one we have now.

They sort of like this free form, because they've done a lot of play with it, and it's working very well.

And the whole construction industry is set for the year now, right?

Rubber is behind us, oil is behind us, railroads are behind us.

is pretty powerful.

It's pretty close.

Auto is ahead of us, but really it doesn't constitute much of a problem because of the formulas they have.

And it's just a big one that could derail us, but that, even that one, according to some of the non, some of the others, it's not too bad.

It's pretty cool.

I mean, you could, I'm sure I'll work with that.

You tell me what you want.

Yes.

Let me tell you another thing, Mr. President.

There's a group here, but it's certainly a way out.

But the big culprit is food.

That's the big culprit.

And this whole picture of us, we didn't want to go for the free stuff.

We didn't care about it.

All right.

This is what they're really saying to us.

Food stuff is going to affect 1% of what's mine.

It says January, what's the time frame?

Do you remember the nine days?

Or, you know, it probably says the first year. 51%.

This is because it's outside of foodstuffs, your rate of inflation is about 3.8%.

Right.

With it, it's about 8.9%.

Just enormous in foodstuffs.

I had the air-brained idea.

It may not work, but let's just say that you've already done some fancy business.

But to reiterate, just free, ask the Congress to repeal immediately this emergency measure.

Any tariffs, any restrictions on the import of foodstuffs,

to remove, for one year, all acreage limitations of every kind and character.

So that the American farmer is free to plant whatever he wants in whatever plant he wants.

And that you then call up the president of Mexico and say, or get somebody to do it.

Let them just say that you know they have 100,000 work permits.

And just say, and I'm quite serious in this book, just say we're going to provide six months work permits for 100,000 Mexican nationals who want to come in and do farm labor.

And during that period of time, make them work in, you know, lettuce patches and cabbage and beets and some of them.

Now if you really want to hit it, just move stuff.

Now you're making the Indians money.

But my answer to that is, let the housewives fight the Indians.

That's why we've got to keep them around.

But we're going to have enough lettuce, because every time you turn around, some of this brick will have, or some of this other brick will have about six to nine cents of lettuce.

Six to nine cents a head is kind of ridiculous.

But, you know, there's a lot of it.

Sorry if it's ridiculous, but I haven't had a problem.

That's what I'm talking about.

You can do that.

But this is a solid thing that you're working with and you're fighting against.

It's this continual grunting.

It's high cost of food stuff, high cost of food stuff.

This is one instrument.

There are a dozen other instruments that are better, but at least this is one.

Now, you say, well, this is unheard of.

It's not unheard of.

Germany, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, and all the neighboring countries.

That's where they get all their money.

That's where Yugoslavia lives.

Now that Germany got an opportunity, Yugoslavia worked in Germany.

Yugoslavia started there.

Now they have a 1.5% unemployment rate.

All right.

I modify it.

Just to say that any time an American citizen shows up in a legislative or a county inspection and wants a job, it would be for the president.

They want to do the work.

And they won't show up.

They will not show up.

So, boy, they're gorgeous.

That's right.

Maybe that isn't the issue with food trucks, but it's at least another alternative to food.

I think that I like the first part very much.

I think we've got to bear down on getting these tariffs removed on food.

It's ridiculous.

Well, there's another question on people's choice.

3% is going to like that.

The food export question is, could I go on that?

Right.

Who do we have for you?

I've got to be in this room in a couple weeks.

I mean, it's just tomorrow.

The way the prices are going, it's a very great problem.

Meat, egg, you know, supply.

I'm very proud to be here.

And, you know, the fact that I'm going to finally come around to things like this is a very good problem.

It's very convenient, but it's a problem.

So...

So are they, what do you suggest?

Well, it's a very tough decision because they're going to throw everything that we want on the 40-pound line.

the question that nobody's suggesting that we should say no to the next report, we should say no more than that year, something like that.

But it's a terribly hard thing, very messy thing, and all the international people, they've got their questions.

It's a question that is about the one big shot left in the locker on the food side, I think, this year.

What do you reckon?

I guess I would.

I wouldn't recommend it.

It gets around that we might have export control, and it's around now.

And that means that people try to get what they can now, and it tends to aggravate the very problem that we might try to cure.

The more the package talks about a freeze, the more people are surprised it's not going to be free.

So what we've got to have...

A breeze or no breeze, one way or the other.

We can't sort of live with the breeze hanging over our heads.

I remember in the first, uh, in your year, uh, in your period, the second period, I remember that we, we decided that you may, that you, uh, said, well, we're not going to do anything, right?

And that's where he told me, you know, that my office would change their mind.

And that's why, frankly, you're mind-capping people who have to be expendable to charge incentives.

They've got to say, you're not going to do that, you're not going to put on a parade, you're not going to do that, and you make fireworks out of it, and you can't go around.

You can't go around, and frankly, just, you can't go around talking about these things.

Just watch them.

And the whole, the worst thing that's happening right now, the uncertainty is creating greater uncertainty.

And the Congress, after you get to the middle of this and pass the resolution on freeze, they've got half the world thinking we're going to have a freeze or export control or something they don't want.

But everybody's jittery or something.

And constantly everybody's waiting to see, well, what's it going to be?

Well, maybe it ought to be this, maybe it ought to be that.

And at some point, it has to be quiet.

Now, that's the biggest benefit you get out of a freeze.

He would have stopped the speculation, but God would have created more problems.

But he would have also stopped the speculation and said, we're in distress.

He would have also said, we're not land free.

The Congress wants to take advantage of it.

Except they don't put one on the table today.

They approach it.

It's kind of a rest place.

Good.

Good luck.

I'm just going to decide to give you some idea now.

But the trust note is positive.

These are the things that we're doing and have done and intend to do and are going to do further.

It's not a stand-past speech or a stand-past policy.

There's not a lot more than we have now, but what we have now is positive.

There is a low-freeze line in there, but the thrust tends to be a positive thrust.

Where do we understand there's a problem?

There is something about it.

We tend to keep doing it.

I've been feeling here that this group has struggled with this now for some time.

Struggled with it today.

I've had a freeze for such a few days.

I've been sick.

I'm treating it now.

I understand now.

I have to serve.

I've got a question for the side.

Regardless of the

That's the way I read this paper.

That's what they're saying.

But I hate to say that in the context of a comparison.

They say no freeze, but they are also what this paper is saying, that you don't freeze, but you do take these additional actions, and so you go to the country with what you have already done, what you have now been before the Congress, and what you do here, and so what you do.

You see, if you just throw out, let's assume you just adopted this, and assume you put it out as a statement, it's going to fall as dead as yesterday's water.

It's going to be just as flat as a painting.

It's going to have no impact whatsoever.

It's not good.

It's not.

I think inherent in this recommendation is the strong vehicle for everybody here.

The economic policy that you've had for the last 18 months has been a good one.

It has accomplished what it set out to do.

It is still in the process.

There are some things, some modifications, some fine-tuning that has to be done, and you're prepared to do that.

There needs to be the public perception that there's a firm handle on the tiller and the power is on, and you know where you're going, rather than just

following and letting the weather determine where we go.

And I think that's what this program is built around, is to show that there is a good policy, that there is a firm hand leading to all that we know, or to describe to kids.

And that's the key.

Why is it that some are responsible economists are, other than, I mean, I'm not referring to partisan economists, why are they for free?

Well, I think, to some extent, they're a trouble.

Well, I think that they aren't really so much for a freeze as they are for any struggling control of the economy.

They want control.

And a freeze is an end to control.

And it seems to me that's really the way you have to think about it.

A freeze by itself for 60 days is not going to do any damage at all.

The entire things that we say are not really the freeze.

It's what comes after the freeze that's the problem.

Unless you get yourself into this.

If you just had a freeze for 60 days and took it off again, you can have some stability and you can have a close and you can be back where you started from.

But if you follow that back this way, you know,

I'm prepared to go through this again next year where maybe, you know, you can just have a SOC letter 18 once you have it for you.

You can have phase two and you can be back row right now.

But there's also, in this process of going to the right and the next back row, in our discussions, I think you mentioned to you, Wes, that everybody learns as you go along if you don't have the same, i.e., business community and labor community that you sort of took it and

People that went along for a while there, they all geared up to do battle with the, uh, machinery of Waste and Crisis Control, and they're pretty smart.

Oh, yes.

I don't know how to get around to it.

I noticed that you didn't deal with the, uh, you might have came down and gassed the, uh, one, the, uh, freeze, the mandatory for the, uh, the big corporations for two reasons.

One, that, uh, it has, uh,

Because that is the problem.

That's right.

The other is that they find a way around it.

Now that, what about that, at least that much, from a psychological standpoint?

Well, I've heard a few of them.

We talked about it all last night.

They had a pretty good conversation.

That's one through the ten, I suppose.

I've heard a few of them talk about it.

One of them, I don't know how to explain it.

against it, is that it represents a movement back into the control mechanism.

Do you have any more questions?

Keep your space away.

Well, I can see that.

But let's talk about that in terms of basically doing something that looks somewhat stronger than this.

You see the terrible consequences that you see in the 60 days that we know about that terrible consequence.

It's not a big deal.

Either way, I don't want to do it.

I don't want to do it.

And it would, I think, be a worrisome signal to the business community to create more uncertainty about... What about the food thing?

Has anybody thought of that?

We've already recommended getting the kettles.

That's pretty good.

Yes.

So, what about... What about the looking at the actual trade and all the rest of it?

What about the...

Freeze on exports.

Without a freeze.

That's a big question.

That's right.

The chair is about to talk about it.

Would it have an effect on food prices?

Well, so it poses problems in our international trade.

Which is our greater.

Well, let me say that I think we should consider it.

The food problem is so great that we have to look at that.

You have a 50% increase in the price of food.

It's just, it has a very, very troubling effect on every family in America, every family.

And I think that at this time, that issue

is more and dealing with it is far more important than whether we get a good trade agreement with the GAD or any of these other organizations.

Well, one of the, one of the things about the gentleman that's always in the evening

We can have more.

We're, we're recording this question a lot, a lot of times in the rest of the world.

We can have more of a question like this.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if you want to talk to some people, but if you want to be, what was the last question?

Excuse me.

I don't want to fall in there.

Right, but what might be the reaction?

Let's look at it in terms of what we did in August of 71.

I think most everybody thought that the 10% surcharge was very good for the domestic politics.

We're pretty good internationally now in negotiating.

That's pretty turned out.

But it's at the State Department right at the wall, you know.

What I'm saying here is that... How long would you have that?

What could you do?

Well, Ruth talked about two ideas that were not in the area.

One is that a lot of the proposal might be a predator of nullification at the time.

And he purges it to keep a handle on the fact, which we now do not yet.

Secondly, would it be a proposal to limit them for some period of 60 days or something until you've gotten to the

to give you time to get a license and operation on it.

And there I came to remove the barcode and just license it.

And you can determine how much of a sale, a sale basis for it, I just wanted to go through.

And it doesn't all matter.

It's the control of the United people that's important.

Because I think this commodity thing, every day for the last about ten days or two weeks of commodity, some of the money has been hidden.

Mike, I think they all want to be afforded for this.

We want to be afforded for this right now.

Can't they have an embargo against deliveries on contracts already made?

I think so.

Yeah, that's what's going on.

People are making all these advancements.

I'm sure Bob, Bob's suggestion has been that you would say, you know, no more orders to be priced in the next 30 or 50 days.

So that does, you don't have people pricing your orders.

When you were complying everything was working.

And then you could put on a licensing system and you would not give anybody the rights for it.

You could stop the flow of orders, which that was not surprising, not to ship on a new order.

Let's see what we can get on that.

Let's try to do that.

There's been a lot of put into it already.

That should be part of the package.

I think we should do it.

We're going to go on the, shall we say, this minimum option.

We've got to tackle the food thing some way.

Now, if you're not going to tackle the freeze or anything of that sort,

Uh, maybe this is, uh, this is one way and, uh, it was going to cause problems in our international trade and all the rest of it, but it comes in today.

So it gives us your input to this.

Well, you know, there, there, there's a meeting called the department back up there, chapter approval.

Now they said, here we go.

I don't, I'm not interested in a meeting and a split paper.

He's trying to do it.

He, uh, let's see if I can get something that we can put in this thing.

Because I know Jack will come out of that meeting and he'll have this, Cooper, Cooper will be against that thing.

Because you see, you always have that situation here.

You have your, the international people, the State Department people always come down on the side of, oh, this is going to affect our foreign policy.

They were all against it.

That's their job.

So for other reasons, you know, the reasons had nothing to do with the problems we were confronted with.

And as I know that at the present time, the weakness of this option that we considered is that it does not speak.

It speaks hardly at all to the first problem.

I think that the 60-day embargo on exports of food

and then a licensing proposition and so forth, put it on there.

Just to see what the situation is.

Now, I'm going to kind of put this, this project, we are probably probably out in November, December, so we're going to talk a bit about the feed grains on a district that we plan to pull chickens and pollens and so on.

You know, in the place of psychology, people run their circuits.

At least they say some hope.

You see, we say, we say here, and yes, what we've been saying since the first of the year, since February, we can't have this enormous amount of food prices.

It's going to abate in the second half of the year, while it was in the beginning.

It was one or two tenths for May, not much after that.

I don't know, I'm not trying to say that we were, you know, I'm not trying to question a bunch of predictions, but I think, well, you can see the psychology of the individual, you know, but the annual rate, December to April, the annual rate was about 27%.

I mean, that's so that, of course, that marks the annual rate, but even the 1.2 has that.

But of course we are looking to what will happen when the crops are in on Wednesday.

They're coming up and it's clear that we're going to have a big crop and we've had terrific uncertainty in the weather.

And now people are wondering what kind of summer are we going to have and so on.

I don't want to consider it.

I mean, there you let it there.

Let them be at the bottom of the piece of paper.

This is an example of a domestic problem, which is a very suspected one.

And, uh, do you agree with that, John?

Yes, sir.

We'll let this go ahead, but we'll...

Why don't we just tell, I'll tell Secretary Butz and then the coverage department actually does this.

They are to figure out how to...

Right.

Let's get them thinking in those terms.

or something to be put in here tomorrow.

What?

Tomorrow, why is that?

We want to look at it.

Yeah, let's look at it tomorrow.

I'm there to see it with the president.

So that's all.

Well, I said, why later?

Go to Paris.

But I'll work with Denton, but get it back to Georgia.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, it seems to me

After looking all this over, I only ask these questions to see if there was somebody who did not pass that test.

The best thing to do in Malaya is to pray for 60 days.

And yet, now as I hear you, as I read this, I reach the conclusion that

And 60 days from now, we will be facing a problem that could be much more difficult than even today.

You know what I mean?

You see, John, we all know that if we face any kind of a problem, this is the end of the world.

It's never the end of the world.

There's always something worse going on in the world.

And sometimes something better.

And sometimes things change.

But then we come up to 60 days.

It's a, it would be a certainly great psychological moment that we have for this P.R.F.

Bray, and all those people that say, great, the president is finally active.

And 60 days from now, we would all be faced with horrendous problems.

And now what do we do?

Is next here a few in the end?

I agree.

If you agree, even a business leader would applaud us if you made trades like that.

He has a bunch of problems and I keep asking him, what did you do last year?

He says, well, there's nothing there.

We may be faced with situations like one down in our lives, meeting with the American people, are so enamored with control that they don't want to go along.

The business people want labor control.

And labor wants private control.

And the housewife wants prices control.

And they really, with all our talk about freedom, aren't quite that much in love with it.

You see?

I'm trying to narrow it.

We may be at that point.

And frankly, we may be faced with that in Congress.

And if so, then we're going to have to live it.

So the question is whether or not we can take this limited option, when possible, and get public support for it.

I believe that people are in love with controls, I think, or maybe getting in love with controls, or they're beginning to get in love with their idealized version of how controls would work, and their idealized version of what controls might be will be still different than what controls really could be.

Yeah, but they really aren't in love with the prospect of controls in their idealized version.

The question we have to make is this, that our magnitude of reach

It worked a lot better in 71 than it did today.

No question about that.

That's the problem I think we face.

Right today, it's going to be very difficult to work as drivers.

I can keep you in line, but we need to make sure we have your acquaintance.

And it's after the freeze.

Is that over?

Oh, well, I was meaning to say, you know.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, the freeze will work for 60 days or so.

And then the point is, what do you do afterwards?

In our scenario, it's an attempt to mobilize support of people who are being in control.

But as you were saying earlier, what if I'm looking at it now that I was

for the interest of the suburbs, the people who are in disease and who are restrained by the controls.

They finally woke up to it.

The cattlemen came down.

Yeah. .

That's what defeated the controls in 1946, was to cut the throat out of the solid interest.

And we don't have part of our program to try to get those people to realize that he's just behind the camera and behind the controls and expect to escape.

That's a good statement today.

This is the day to be a stickler.

It's most difficult, but it's the time to be one.

And, uh, I'll take your words.

I get it.

I do think that we should take a very good look at the food.

We'll have that looked at.

We'll have it adapted.

There's so much you can stand.

You can't stand the kind of grease that you had in the process.

Sure, it looks good.

Yeah, I'm happy.

Sure.

Sure, so who told you to make it?

Well, I had to throw balls for a while.

Sure.

No, we can't do that.

There's a lot of circumstances.

Well, George, let's get right to it.

Butts and John and I had lunch together today, and we spent most of the time talking about this very issue, and I think he is probably in favor of it at this point.

So, I mean, all of you just wrote it right to him, but it's up $435.

We'll have it at that.

John, you've got a minute or so.

Sit down.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your time on this gentleman's notice.

Would you give me an easier answer, sir?

Yes, sir.

Now, I want to say that before you go to the West Wing, Mr. President, I'd like to say that you've got two more minutes.

That was a statement that we're ready to make.

It's just a statement that...

This?

No, I'm just a question of if you have a brief and maybe...

You're going to have some word for me before I leave.

Oh, and Mr. Wriston, right?

Walter Wriston.

There's nothing I would say about it.

Good luck.

He wasn't quiet or something.

He was thinking of him for the energy, sir.

He was listening?

Yes.

A hell of a man.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, he was a big man.

A strong fellow.

He noticed.

What do you think?

He's very strong.

He's energetic.

He hasn't no energy too well, but he's got a problem.

I'm excited to move on the other hand.

Walter Wilson.

His father was Henry.

Yeah.

The great Ford Wilson.

Walter Wilson.

Very smart people.

He sure is.

I don't know how much he knows about it.

He's a manager.

He's got to know about it, John.

Nobody can be the head of the biggest bank in the world and not know a lot about it.

He knows enough.

Do I have to go too much?

Well, you've got to go to West Point, don't you?

Yes, sir.

Make up a speech on the way up there.

Oh, I have to.

I've got a plan.

What is it?

Graduation?

It's the graduation banquet that ended.

Great.

I'll give it to him.

I gave it to him before.

You gave it to him before?

That's all right.

You know, he'll get up there and slug it out of the water.

You know the right niche to save.

Well, you know, John, I was, uh, I want you to, I appreciate your slaving with this problem, but it seems that we've come full circle in 1971, where we are again.

But, John,

I really don't feel that I can do something that is basically wrong.

Because in 1971, as you know, we all became convinced it was the right thing to do.

But now, none of us can convince that it's the right thing to do.

I know what it would look like if you asked me where to pull those congressmen there today.

They'd all come down on the site, but they won't follow through on it.

No, I think we'd like to control it and never leave it.

This would be the end of a free economy, and that's a decision that's probably debatable.

But I think your controls would last forever.

It would have to take more time to get another issue.

It would have to take more time to get another one.

I don't, I don't have any argument with this.

I think that we all agreed on it, but I couldn't stop it.

I think the question is, you know, it's a hard time to stop it.

And I do think that you can't stop it if you move on through the process.

And I don't really think that's a pretty substantial move, is it?

Yes, it is.

It has an impact all the way along the line.

If you put 60 dead, bark over it, then begin licensing.

shepherd's grain, because this impacts the poultry business, the hog business, the dairy business, because this grain leaves this country.

And I've got to have enough to feed these animals.

And if that means a price, then I've got to put the weight on it so the price goes up.

And I thought, oh, you know, it's all intertwined.

This is a complex day in society.

And that's what most of these congressmen don't realize.

They just look for a simplistic answer.

Well, let's have it free.

Number one, they don't have to plan what comes after.

And they don't have to administer it.

And it makes a lot of difference if you have a responsibility for it.

But on the food stuff, I really think you're going to have to move on.

I think it's going to get so bad.

It's going to get worse than it is now.

And for 10 days.

uh, they've just been bumping and seeding on the commodity market every day.

The commodities go up to the maximum.

A lot, a lot.

I like, uh, I like that kind of something, something particularly sophisticated.

It's more than, it'll, it'll trickle down to folks too, you know.

Absolutely.

We can put a good, strong paragraph down there.

But they're, uh,

Butts, Earl Butts is saying today he helps soybeans to be, in fact, in a matter of a few days, to be $15 a bushel.

And that's up from $2 in, I believe, $0.08 last October.

You know, it's just incredible.

You know, I was talking to Al, John, about your, he was telling me about your own run.

Right.

I wanted to just be quite candid about that.

And I want to add here, so that you notice what I'm thinking, that I feel your presence at the time you were willing to, you know, you came to Florida because you gave us a psychological solution, an answer.

would have preferred that you come to the administration full time.

You couldn't then.

In other words, you couldn't go back to Treasury.

I wish you could, but you couldn't, as I can see after what we talked about.

And for reasons of the ongoing stuff that we have, we can't make the change in state now.

We've got to get through the Russian summit and the European thing.

Then we're going to take

That's why we didn't ever look at that one.

I'm not saying anything about it because I don't want to create any uncertainties in the minds of people.

They've got to feel.

Everybody's got to feel.

If you ever thought you were bleeding, a lot of things would happen.

And it's working extremely well now.

The Russian thing is going to be very good, we think.

The European thing, as a result of our French initiative, despite some misunderstanding or perhaps deliberate distortion of the press, is going to come off.

It was a very successful meeting.

We've got the French on board, which is a major accomplishment.

We pulled that, basically, into the alliance again.

they will be joining with us in whatever so-called charter we develop.

I just don't call it a charter.

It was a better word than that.

That wasn't a very good word at the time.

And we had a lot of lines.

Of course, there were kind of economic and tall length and so forth and so on.

But we got a lot of work to be done on it yet.

But that will come before the end of the week.

That'd be years, so I'm sure, for them too.

I particularly appreciate your doing this at a time when, as a politician, you were under a lot of attack.

You couldn't be sure as to how this would come out.

Because a lot of people would say, oh, you know, how long did he need to floor?

How many years ago?

Four weeks ago.

A lot of people then were talking about resignation, you know, and all that sort of thing.

He said right after the Hall of Honor, the President should resign, impeach, and so forth.

They still talk about that.

And, uh, I don't know if Lasky's going to have the President impeach.

What happened?

Do you have any news on today?

He didn't.

Oh, but we're not worried about it.

No, I thought, I mean, I don't know, I don't know what were present.

As you know, they were really wound up for their big blow this last Sunday when they ran that stuff with Dean and the men in comms with regard to the CIA.

And Clark said, Clark Clinton came out for the president and vice president should resign and set up a coalition government.

Governor Lucey says the president should resign.

All of that did not just happen last Sunday.

I think it was all planned three weeks ago.

I think if it had hit us three weeks ago, it would have been pretty damaging.

Well, it probably might have been.

I don't know.

But what is your judgment as to where it stands now?

Mr. President, you've topped out.

I think, frankly,

You are not saying any more about Watergate?

I don't think at all, under any circumstances, under any circumstances.

I don't know.

A lot of people want me to get out.

I'm going to ask you questions about watergating.

Well, I've heard that you have a press conference on watergating.

Well, if you have a press conference, I would just say that I'm not going to answer questions about watergating.

I've issued my statement on May 22nd.

This matter is now in hearings before the Urban Committee, before the Granger.

I'm not going to respond to those questions.

If that's your only interest, please let someone who's interested in this country and this economy ask questions.

That's what they ask.

I wouldn't ask any more statements.

For two reasons.

First, I don't know that you have anything to add to the body of information, but be that as it may.

Secondly, I don't care what happens.

I don't care if they really say anything to you about it.

Either I'll strike you or I'll cover it.

I don't think that at this point is important or critical to you, strangely enough.

I don't think they'll even respond to it.

Strangely enough, most of the people think you didn't know about it.

I know.

So, and there's no way you can't, there's no way, at least it proves you didn't know about it.

That's right.

There's no way.

So, you can't help yourself.

Right.

I don't care what happens.

You can't.

You just say you're, uh...

So just from this point on, I think, you know, unless somebody is just absolutely crazy and just gives you all kinds of heinous crimes or something, I would just pay no more attention to it.

Now, you obviously have to have Lynn Garland, somebody keeping up with you, working on you, trying to be sure that you do everything that you can.

But as far as you are concerned and your policies and your position, I think that's already set.

And now it seems to me that you just forget about it and you can't run the public.

You go on about your other business, you create as much activity in the government.

You do as many things as you can within the government.

You show up as many places as you can so that people, they don't say, well, is he tough?

Or is he afraid?

Is the energy going to drop?

Or was he really involved?

Get out before people continue to get told because this is part of the answer to this whole thing.

This program, however limited it is, will give you an opportunity to do that.

The mere crossing of the country with Russia, which you ought to make one or two trips, hopefully next week before that.

But the point I'm making, and then I'm going to make one other point.

You have begun to pop out at the hearing's end.

Don't let any of your people try to suppress you.

Don't let them try to support you.

Your greatest hope

of salvation now is the continuation of an ad nauseum because the people are already beginning to get sick of it.

That's an open question.

But it's just beginning.

But the press is so emotionally wrapped up and the city is so wild for publicity and exposure that they're going to carry it beyond the point of reason.

And when they do, the people are going to react.

And it'll endure to your benefit.

And you can do anything.

Your life's doing that.

But this, but you can't stop it anyway.

No.

It's on an integral course.

That's right.

There's no way you can stop it, so let it run.

And even if, if somebody says you can do it, everybody thinks you can do it, but I didn't do it.

That's right.

And you can't prove you didn't.

So you're almost immune from any further damage.

Obviously, the problems he had is that they can follow him, and earlier they knew I had him.

What?

And they can't understand.

they could have been in that whole year and not have told me, which they did.

They don't have to break that exchange.

No, I'm not saying that.

They never told me because I was so busy getting the war and other things.

I can understand why they didn't.

The average person doesn't believe they didn't.

That's right.

And you can prove that they didn't.

So don't cry.

And don't worry about it.

Now, they're going to carry this to work.

A reaction is going to set in.

And you're going to benefit from the sympathy.

and the overexposure that this thing is going to have.

And that's the position you ought to be in.

But in the meantime, the reason I think these economic changes are important is that you're creating this activity because people are going to want to be thinking about something else.

And the time these hearings are going on, if you're not talking about everything but that, people are going to like it.

And particularly if you do no more than recognize their problems.

If you remember Roosevelt used to get these fireside chats and he used to talk about their problems.

He never did have a lot of them.

But everybody thought he knew about them, he was concerned about them, he had great care about them.

And this is really all people expect.

They always expect miracles.

But you have to be in this posture at a time when these guys are trying to persecute you.

If you argue them to come out of this, it's a very, very good show.

Survival, of course, you're going to do more than survival.

You're going to come out of heaven again.

You'll come out and say, John, we've got to do the job for the country.

We've got big things to do in the world and big things to do at home.

You'll come out of it with sufficient strength to carry on any program you want to carry on.

But you're going to have to come out in a very aggressive, in a fighting mood.

Not mean, not vicious, but a very strong, firm, fighting group.

But not fighting on this.

No, but not fighting on this.

Oh, I'll just forget about Watergate.

Just completely let it run its course.

So that's an interesting point to do.

You know, our congressmen and senators and so forth, they're all so interested.

Not always so interested.

They kind of want to take them on.

Oh, I agree with this.

I think you, you're a little helpful.

And they've done this, as John said, to all the banders they can do.

Yeah, they have.

And now you've got talks right in the room about whether or not they'll have these years.

And Mr. Perkins, you're going to have to live with one of these for five years, for your entire term of office, for three and a half.

Well, I don't know what the, what the, the, uh, and, and, well, it doesn't make any difference.

It'll go on after your time.

Once these cases get into trial, you know, you're going to hear one day at a time, you're going to hear, oh, sure, we're going to appeal to a prison court, and it'd be an active matter in the country.

But you, for all parts of the purpose, on May the 22nd, if you should have any of your participation, what are your thoughts about it?

In the minds of the American people, I'm going to go over what I did.

And, uh,

And if you do that, I don't think you've got that much .

You've already hit your low point.

And you're not worried.

You don't have to worry about being reelected.

The only thing it seems to me that you have to be concerned with is manifesting leadership.

How do you do that?

You can't solve all the problems in the world.

You manifest a leadership, and that's the only thing that you really ought to be concerned with.

Now, sometimes, particularly coming out of the dark days such as this Watergate thing, the best way to manifest leadership is through the espousal of an unpopular cause, not a popular cause.

We always use a reverse psychology.

It's easy for any political leader to come out and support a popular issue.

But it takes a strong, dedicated leader to come out with something that, at least on the face of it, might not be a popular cause.

Now, I'm not advocating the out of any of mine.

But whatever you do, it ought to be done with an air of despisiveness and strength.

And with a very frank expression, he said, yes, in 60 days, Brownlee changed his mind.

We've got a problem on foodstuffs.

He said, I don't want to export it, because we need to sell these commodities in markets around the world to help our ballot stations.

But before I worry about the ballot stations, I want to worry about the ballots in the American tables, right?

So I'm going to stop.

And I just think you have to.

And when that one's over, do something else if you have to.

But always do it in spice and do it with great firmness and with manifesting strength.

Because the crying need for the country today, and my judgment for the world, is for your leadership qualities to be beyond question in the way of service.

And I would just, I would take whatever balloons are necessary to do that.

And whatever they are, whether you ever bring them to fruition in Oscar is beside the point.

This is why I was suggesting that you get a dozen ideas that you might just say, I'm considering, I'm thinking about, I'm toying with this.

Here's something that might be a good idea.

I think the nation ought to discuss it.

But I would just constantly feed out some new idea that you're thinking about.

in the interest of the United States.

And they're not that hard to come by.

Well, it'd be good to, you know, we're trying to get the cabinet and even the leaders to come outside, but they don't.

The cabinet may, they may.

I think you give the captain a charge and give them the broad parameters and tell them, maybe they'll come up with it.

We're going to tell them Thursday and see what happens.

But if they don't, then you come up with something.

You see all this stuff.

What about this?

What about that?

And I'll be trying to give some thoughts, drop some notes from time to time and pose something that you can toy with.

Three good ones, right?

Now, I'm absolutely convinced.

One is this curriculum thing about a common market job.

Another one is this, I'm convinced, I'm convinced it's good, I'm convinced it's probably already done.

Yeah, throw both of those in the pot.

Another one is this is U.S. ownership, American ownership of gold.

You say, I'm seriously concerned.

I don't know.

I don't know if a billion and a half people in the world can buy and sell gold.

I don't know why Americans do it.

Certainly, certain fraction of that stuff.

That's right.

And if you get this capital to start feeding you a few ideas, not just something they have a parochial interest in, but something that has a broad stream of interest in the country, you can come out with something.

What you need to do now is keep the Congress in the rest of your life.

That's enough.

You kept them off balance for two and a half years.

And unfortunately, the tragedy of Watergate is personalized, obviously, but the real tragedy is that you lost initiative.

Yeah.

And you've been on the defensive, and they've been in the aggression, and you need now to press and calm yourself down.

And the only way you can stop the defensive move on Watergate is to do it in a completely different arena, as you well know.

And you do it with ideas.

We couldn't have done it a month ago.

No, two weeks ago.

Now is the time to start doing it.

Let me ask this.

What Al was saying, you thought you ought to change your role and so forth.

I wonder if that's a good idea.

I would like to, if you would be willing,

It's extremely helpful for you to be here whenever you can be, you know, for the reasons that we've talked about in Florida.

Now, I don't want you to get

I don't want you to have to, I don't want you to say, just float above that.

And I don't, unless we, unless at the time, and I hope this, and we cut the umbilical cord, we just can't run this conflict of interest crap, I don't want any crap falling on you.

I think that you and me, and all propriety, shall we say, a special consultant to the president, right, which will give me the opportunity to give you, you know, for you to sit in on meetings, to be here, to travel abroad, you're a special consultant to the president, and so forth and so on.

I think that

It's just good for the country to know that I'm talking to you.

That's what I mean.

It's very good for the country to know that.

Well, and I think that it appears, for example, that because Mel Laird came that, well, how many figures of his job has done that?

So you're, what we need, what I need you for is something quite different from what we go ahead and do.

Go ahead.

Well, my, what I said to Al was, I felt that

Obviously, I told you that I wanted to try to be helpful in a way that I could, that it appeared to me over the past month that you really did not need, and I really believe that you don't really need my advice.

And so I did say that I thought this week I wanted to change my status simply because when the announcement came out that I was a special advisor that obviously the conflict of interest thing was raised and I withdrew from the firm and I of course have not practiced and don't intend to now that's not a fatal thing.

But at the same time, I think it puts, it has put me in my mind, that's particularly important, that I will sit in a hotel over here, day in and day out, week in and week out, because I climb the damn walls, you know.

I get cat and fever.

I'm directly available to you, as you know, any time that you want me to.

But I get more than a minute.

Because what a man is in this position, as far as you well know,

And I don't get any title at all.

In retrospect, I think it would have been better except for one thing.

You said that you need the identification.

Well, I take that as a very great compliment.

I'm not sure you did, but at least that was the only thing to be served by the announcement.

In retrospect, it would have been better if there had been no announcement.

I could have come and gone.

I don't care.

But I just don't want to do it.

I walk around and I get an uneasy feeling that I'm kind of a fifth wheel in all these meetings and all these gatherings.

And, you know, yeah, you're a half man, half animal type of thing.

You're just kind of a weird creature.

There's some opinions around you.

Not that everybody has been wholly honest, I'm sure, in particular.

He has been extremely solicitous.

And more than that, he's really talked to me time and time again, and I've tried to help him in every way that I could.

But I just think I'm in an unhealthy, almost untenable position.

And one reason is it affects you, because I think my continued presence here is going to continue to build up speculation.

And it's already started.

If we don't do anything,

I mean, he's a great chef, because then, obviously, put one presentation.

If we do, we do take a major step.

Then they're going to say, well, Conley came in, and they overrode Hughes and Stein and Burns, and Arthur's feeding out a bunch of stuff.

And he and I are in agreement that we're against Hughes.

Hughes don't want to change.

This is stuff that says our third place is always in.

Oh, yeah, he never has changed.

This has been in the news magazine.

Well, that doesn't help anybody.

It doesn't help you.

It doesn't help anybody.

It doesn't help the shields or anybody else.

So I don't want to be in a position of just trying to second guess these guys and being a part of a damn charade in effect.

And so I just thought I ought to just, as soon as you make this statement, which I assume will be this week, whether or not I should have rendered what the hell I could on a short term basis.

Yeah, but you go home.

Yeah, I understand.

But how do we get the best of both worlds?

I don't know if you know anything about it.

I think it's invaluable for John to deal with the cost of a new console.

I think it's invaluable for him also to deal with the energy thing.

We get that, as we know we are going to have this.

And even though you do, you have the interest.

And of course, I've got some family at Boren, so I'll just advise them for you.

But the point is that, well, I'm still, I did not resign from that.

I don't know if I should have.

I'm still on it every week, Thursday, Friday, and the week.

Of course, I'll stay on that.

I'll stay on that.

And if we're going to farm an energy, we have a farm advisory council.

We're on the base.

Jack McCloy said he would be willing to chair it.

We could work out another arrangement.

Would you chair that?

Oh, I don't think I should.

I think John McCloy's probably the best we've done.

He's old.

Well, he's old, but he's very active, Mr. President.

I don't know how long.

I haven't seen him in six months, but he has what you need.

He has standing in the New York theater.

Yeah, but you don't invite your son, right?

That's right, sir.

This is an out-of-house group of people.

But what I would like to get John, and though I want him, you know what I mean, so he can find a meeting like this with John here in Bayou, you know what I mean?

It's this kind of a meeting.

I think we can continue.

Are you just that John said he's going?

We're going to cut down the pace and the regularity of this consultation, but he's still available, and we'll continue to.

I would not, frankly, John, I would not, if we could, I would not like to have announced that you were changing, unless it's necessary for other reasons.

Because that would be a big story.

I think it would be a negative story.

So it might be, you see, what I would like to do would be to just, I mean, change the character to the extent that you can.

But, like, for example, let me see.

I can see the idea of setting up a hotel.

I don't understand that.

But we get to...