Conversation 942-001

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Well, what I say, we can do it either way.

I think I'll put statement by the president on the top and then you can read it or you can read some of it or you can refer to some of it.

Actually, it's not bad.

It's very good.

It's good.

Just in order to save my energy, I don't think I've been looking at the crops, I've been squeezing everything over.

Yeah, it's a good speech, Dr., and so forth, and it wraps the other good thoughts into it.

But I don't, and then we want lots of good things that could go either way.

Yeah.

Use portions of it, changes, and so forth.

Good.

Okay.

I'll do that.

Well, on the economic side, I think this is a statement of courage and fairness.

Thanks that you showed courage and fairness.

It looks serious national problem right in the eye and has taken bold action to solve the economic dilemma.

Meany, in his own way, was supportive.

He said... No, he said...

Experts have taught him to look at results rather than to concentrate on rhetoric.

He used the test of phase four of being speed with which he used a baron-free economy.

Not bad, decent.

He puts a little dig in.

I'm sure that's fine.

On the water game, actually, they played that the biggest game, huh?

Well, the group of them would stick testing on me yesterday, right?

Sure.

Scanning points out that...

He said the economy ranks the number one issue over Watergate by four to one.

He cited the New Gallup poll that 45% of the field of Watergate has been over-covered.

And the direction of the government also favors a government of the unopposed atmosphere.

He says that's what they're thinking about.

He also says that the president is considered a man of great personal integrity.

Some of the statements which have been made are unbelievable.

About the staff?

Yeah.

About not knowing about it?

Well, not a few, but it's just...

It's not natural.

Carl Curtis charged the publicity city politicians are out to get the president.

In pursuit of Watergate, he said the president was totally on the same road doing a scandal.

He didn't plot it.

He didn't condone it.

The facts weren't what held him in for too long after it happened, said Curtis.

Eddie knows he couldn't get the argument.

I'll never have to get him now.

So this is what we were talking about yesterday.

That's good.

McGridder relating.

Yeah, it's very .

Yeah, .

McGridder, January .

Yeah.

You think he meant it?

No, I don't know.

He's a perjurer, so if a perjurer is right, all of us are part of the perjurer.

It's a hell of a thing to say, isn't it?

I see if Mark is right.

If he's right, so am I. Yeah.

No, not a perjurer.

Goldwater, after complimenting, or I don't know, that said that

I expressed total belief in the president.

I said, I believe him when he says he knew nothing about this.

I say this to believe, but I believe in my president.

I further think there's a realization and so forth with Laird coming on.

He's sensed as far as a fine hand in the background and so forth.

It's a good addition.

The president wants to tell the president to forget about the water gate, forget about what the post and the time say every day.

Come out and buy water and get on with the business of running the country.

Don't cancel meeting with President.

By all means, go do it.

This was a statement he made about a week ago.

What do you think about the report on Strong and Cleveland?

It could be.

The report would be going to the Senate.

I say what a man is saying when he's... We've talked before when those doors start clanging in front of him.

My assessment of the strong story, that's the thing we talked about yesterday.

My assessment of the strong thing, Mr. President, is that

It's interesting how even recently I had to apologize to Irving.

Yeah, we should just let them run their course.

Kevin Novak started this morning as president, which is not in the news tonight.

They do.

Dean planned, I think, where Evan Novak talked about the dropping credibility of Dean and a major effort, not applied here, but by the defenders of the president to discredit Dean and

So the credibility of Dean is out there, but this particular column shows the potential problem we face if we take him on.

I think he's going to destroy himself, and Irvin is, you know, dropping something.

Well, Evans and Novak, as most of their columns are, are

not building up the, actually the net effect of the Evans-Snovak column is negative on me.

Because the reader looks at all the contradictory statements and the charges that have been made about it.

Evans-Snovak suggests that these charges are floating around and being planted around.

So it's not by us, because we're not.

And they raise the point of his credibilities and the impact of his credibility, which is people thinking about that problem.

The captain on CBS Spectrum said that this is a rotten, that he said time is rotten overwrite for papers to stop breaking stories on someone's predicted testimony with implications, leaks coming from the prosecution and other places.

He said, A has accused B, B will come rushing forward to clear his skirts by accusing C, and on and on and on.

has worked most effectively in the Watergate.

But now trial by leak and innuendo is necessary because courts are in pretty full command.

But prosecution leaks from sheer malignant joy of gossip.

UPI reporter around here.

What comments do you say range from a little too late to a good job?

What's your reaction on the

The economic thing.

It was a mistake, not a mistake.

The economic thing.

It was a major loss.

In spite of the fact that London perished, the total reactionary and the municipal migration action necessary.

This is the economic factor.

Well, you see, the spread of the mud, etc., the cotton,

So we can go back and read the news summary the day after the announcement of phase one.

I remember the comments that were being made then.

But the action, I can't judge from an economic standpoint.

From what I know, it's sound and pocketed.

It doesn't work.

Staying above and lightly, whatever it works.

I'm telling you, this last two weeks, including today, before we were on the aircraft,

Yes, the Watergate thing in the news, Mr. President, is, you know, the presidency is moving above, beyond, and away from those hearings.

We're on that, we're on that track.

We still have a lot of rough days ahead, but that's at least a sense I have.

There was a convoy reported frustration against the CIA.

The convoy couldn't assert the bills.

He said, I'm available to the president at any time.

He said, we didn't visualize this as a long run, you know, personal role.

And he reposted in his comments to us and to Hay the night before.

But some of his staff or his supporters, I think, are moving this around.

It's not a serious thing.

May have moved it out sooner, too.

You know, he'd come country as he thought.

We've had to work it different.

We're trying to work out a role that is proper for him, and it's just damn hard.

He won't pay the permit, and that's it.

And he can't be here.

This is a good deal.

That's nothing to worry about, Senator.

The copy of the contributors was supposed to be destroyed by sand.

What's the hell with that?

There's a story of about four or five days old where Stan said that he sent a list over here or something.

He sent a list over, which Jerry said on her behalf after consulting around here, that it was sent over for a list to invite people.

That's on a list we've got.

A list of people who come to the vets.

There's a ton of dogs and people on there that have to be public.

We're gonna have a lot of action

And a lot of significant announcements.

And there are ways that we can do things in a spontaneous way, but having them in the back of our minds that we're going to do them.

Good pictures underpin the subject.

And one very important announcement, the other one right here.

I mean, the other two.

I've got to figure that the way the week will start out wrong, I think, is with the Dean thing, well...

I mean, for example, our good report, they have a lot of Deans, but they don't give that much of a play on their story, do they?

I don't play pretty heavy.

Do they?

I just guess so.

They're taking more of my show home.

Well, that's better.

At this time.

That's just better.

They're going to be sure.

trying to go soft on games.

I don't sense that, no.

I think if we give them a chance, they would.

It's indicated by a column that Mary McGurray wrote.

She's, you know, in her sick little world.

But we can't judge anything by Mary McGurray.

Never have, never should.

It would be a big mistake for us to draw a conclusion from what she writes.

If we give them a chance, they would jump on his side.

That's why this- If we start- That's why this- All of that, I think they're exactly right.

That's why this- My line is so- If we've done everything- We've done pretty good so far.

It's pretty good that we didn't, at the time of the 30th, John Early was just insisting that I put in that speech, John Dean was discharged.

And I slowed him down, requested an acceptance.

You see, not because of Dean, even though that just as well not to, but because of the medias.

We couldn't make it.

One kid wanted to give them too much of the handle to say that we were just kicking the hell out of him because he blew the whistle on them, right?

I really can't tell.

I didn't quite frankly watch it all day.

He indicated, however, that he had talked to Bob in January.

And although he was not, as my understanding, attacking him, he was, you know, associating Bob with the first-hand discussion that he had with him about it.

He said that Bob knew, according to him,

Well, we have to live with the fact that a lot of people aren't going to believe that God

that we didn't have .

Well, but.

I don't mean to break .

A lot of people.

A lot of people in the country believe a lot of different things, but the majority of the people support you.

And the way to maintain that and the way it has to do is do what we're doing.

And not to be, but this is .

The urban committee.

It must not be the bird garage.

And the urban committee is a little burlesque showdown in a slum part of the city.

You know, compared to what's going on here.

And that's the way we should look at it.

I suppose the being shot and solved will be in the charge of serving.

That's the only thing the committee will use.

That's what they said about the president.

I said all the time.

You don't see this story.

This story, by now, 45% of the people think it's over covered.

It's so built.

It's so confused.

People have already made up their minds one way or another.

They've already, as someone wrote in a column, the lynch.

Bob has already lynched.

All that remains to be done now is to cut down the body.

Not referring to the president, but referring to the story.

And that is the truth.

The American people have, I do, have lost the spark of this.

Well, there isn't much sensation.

i mean they knew that this is a crazy story in fact that we were gonna he told me that the lawyer was gonna fix judge richie so that the judge would not bring a civil excuse i don't think i don't think i can't believe that

Why do you think he just said that, though?

He must have talked to some lawyer.

No, I'm expressing my theory on that yesterday.

Well, I think that Dean has committed himself, even by his lawyers, to a particular direction.

Not necessarily aimed at you, but only at you.

Yeah, that's right.

But that's something to raise his credibility, perhaps.

It's the only way he can rest his case.

And to get it pressed on his side.

Yeah.

You see, he could do one of two different things here.

Not having received transactional immunity, he just said, oh God, I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to pull everybody down with me.

Or, he said, not having received it, he could say, well, I'm going to just say what I need to say and get off as well as I can.

I mean, like his wife is pushing the pressure on me.

He's just going to be wild.

I don't know which one is best for us.

I don't think either of them.

I'm not totally concerned about either of them.

Let it be wild.

Don't make these flat charges.

We just speak the poised posture in one sentence.

That's all you need.

That's all the prices you need.

I agree.

If we get into the business, why don't we start?

We didn't plan this.

When he said, for example, we promised clemency after Herbert Burroughs came in, that didn't happen.

But if you get a deny letter that I directed and he paid, and tried to find the money to pay off Bittman and Hunt, and we discussed with him,

Next week, while he's in this hearing, we depend on Lazard and his team.

Because we don't even talk about Watergate.

We don't even think about Watergate.

In our state of mind, Watergate doesn't exist.

Well, we've been moving in that direction.

Yes, sir, but I mean- I think they're right.

We can get everybody.

It is now.

I'm becoming immune to it.

I mean, it's supposed to be credible if I know it.

I think that all of this is true, that he says about it.

I kind of love this.

I wish he called on me today.

I agree with him.

I'm getting some direction about that.

I'm going to cover it up.

You know, next week is so important to me.

Sure, stay.

Help to resolve the question of the spirits of the enemy who got Mitchell down.

Of the White House being cussed, and farmers just wanting to be shocked at the question of what happened to John Mitchell.

Sure.

We've got the live coverage of the arrival Monday.

Right.

Young and I will brief Monday.

We've got the Tuesday thing going with the announcements.

We've got the Camp David action that we've arranged.

We've got to be in Congress, too.

Oh, yeah.

All of that.

But we'll have a lot of action.

And we're doing the, you know, kind of the showboat thing on a lot of this type of thing.

I don't mean that in a negative way, but I don't mean that.

We've got a big press center on the Camp David.

Oh, I'm sure we'll bring it.

Give us a little bit of medicine.

Why not drink them?

I mean, we just show them.

Oh, no.

I mean, maybe we'll show them.

So on that basis, I told Henry that it's important that myself be around again, David.

Be around, you know, all the activities and stuff.

Well, Henry doesn't understand.

We need this story out.

No, Henry.

Not this community.

Henry has no problem with this.

I talked to him last night.

Well, he's

Okay.