Conversation 949-007

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unbelievably, uh, despicable remarks by David Gunson.

Now Howard Baker has broken his pick.

Uh, this conversation never takes place with people who have never been in the White House again.

Never.

I understand.

He'll never be on a presidential plane again.

I understand.

I don't care what he does.

The softballs he threw up with me.

But what he did to John Mitchell was unforgivable.

And he's now playing that game.

Now, I screwed him today.

He had that good business.

So I told him, I'm Irving.

I told him, I'm Irving.

He said, he and Baker might have come in.

I said, oh, no.

I said, I'll see you at home.

Baker is not going to be here again.

Is that clear?

Yes, sir.

Then I think it's despicable conduct.

And I just don't understand how out of Tennessee or something, which might have brought out any guns.

about it since we chatted on the phone this morning.

And we're generating some mail from back home, uh, just letting you know.

That's a big deal.

You want to call him?

He's a little bastard.

Pat Wilson, maybe.

He's a finance chairman.

He's close.

He tried out there.

He struck out, but, uh, I think he was tried earlier.

I'm afraid he must be a nice guy, too.

He's like George Bush.

Yeah.

They're all really nice guys, though.

Well, it just shouldn't be right to allow John Mitchell to not care whether or not John Mitchell stole Capitol Dome.

He was Attorney General.

He did a hell of a job.

He helped all these guys, including Howard Baker.

He's held their hands.

He's appointed their judges and the rest.

And for him to treat him like a common criminal wasn't any

Absolutely totally finished.

He's never been one of my favorites, as you know, because I've identified with a broad faction down here.

But it's kind of difficult for us out of here to go up and put the squeeze on it.

We get caught at it.

I realize that.

I couldn't agree more.

I didn't mean that.

I meant that you, Tennessee, ought to be able to stumble on it.

That's what I meant.

Out of Tennessee, somebody ought to take on a goddamn prick.

You see, he's turned out to be a television star and all the rest.

He's going to lose.

He thinks he's going to be president.

He's finished.

You realize he's finished?

Sure.

That gurney's coming out pretty good, generally.

Although he votes with them all the time, they come up with unanimous things they say.

But he's the only guy that halfway stood up on that damn committee.

Uh, the rest of them have been in urgent, for Christ's sake.

He's terrible.

Uh, Montoya's dumb.

I don't know about this.

It's, uh, it's just sickening.

Howard is smart enough to know better.

He also owes a great deal to all of us.

I've campaigned for this on the bench time and time again.

He's been in here.

We've done favors for him.

He's not going to get away with this, you know.

I don't know what you're going to do, but...

was probably letting go because he's part of the club bill is a madden hella and bill says that his tennessee mail is running strongly against the committee and so i've asked him to stimulate some more and just try to lean on howard he'll bet because of the tennessee reaction that bill's getting he said he would now i can go talk to howard i know him well if you think uh when we lay it out to them never no never though i want anybody in the white house to ever get in contact with him again ever

And another thing is this.

Cut along.

Give him the deep freeze.

He's got judges and marshals and all the rest.

The people that want to do the tours and the rest.

Just don't get around to it.

Don't make it so obvious.

If you get caught, just say, gee, Howard, I'm sorry.

Give me one now and then.

But remember, nothing that is important.

Whatever the decision is that is important is one way or the other.

If you didn't get it, give it a break.

In other words, that's the way to go out and say, I'm sorry, Bill Brock, we promised that to him.

Okay.

I agree with you on that a little bit.

Because they're having their problems now.

You see their big boy Dean didn't make it for them.

You know, he was going to clobber us.

And after five days of crap, you know, they realize that he hasn't got the case.

Mitchell turns out to be quite a strong witness.

That's why they're writing this damn letter.

Well, they're going to just get a kick in the ass on that, too.

My guys up there called him just a little while ago and said, Dick Moore's doing wonderful.

Just doing great.

He's on now, I guess.

See?

Just doing good.

He's knocking Dean down about all the meetings and everything else and just cutting to ribbons in a nice way, smiling and really putting it to him.

He said, all right, see?

I'm sorry about that.

I don't understand.

You understand, Bill.

That is why the committee is going to document the hunt.

They could have asked for these documents a long time ago.

Why didn't they ask for them?

They didn't need them.

These guys can all walk in, walk out, make their notes.

They ain't got nothing.

They want to find something.

They're trying to find something.

They want to fish.

I don't even let you go through my papers.

You shouldn't.

Let that goddamn kite go through these papers.

You're damn right he has to go through these papers.

I know a different part would be good.

No, I didn't mean to read you out, but I know, I knew, I knew you don't want, I don't want you to do anything, I don't want, I don't want Howard to think we even know we exist.

I mean, I don't know how long, but I went to pay a hell of a lot of attention to Brock.

And I'd get Brock down as often as you possibly can.

And it'd be a good contrast.

But I did talk to Bill afterwards.

I didn't tell him we chatted, but I told him I was upset about the way John Mitchell was treated by Howard Baker.

And Brock agreed.

And he said his mail was running, and he was going to try to do something.

So we'll stay far away.

Sweet guy.

They're all reluctant to take on their own college, you know.

It's just the rule, I guess, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, those were hurt very much last night.

They were hurt.

They're all 70ish, I guess, average of 70 years old.

And their voting record is, that group's about 75%.

Yeah.

And I think really any of those guys would do virtually anything that, uh, that you'd ask.

Well, this paper, you know, you could be sure that, you know, the Senate's got to support the goddamn committee.

They always do this sort of thing.

But we're not going to get one damn inch.

Not one inch.

There's no way.

We have to, we're not going to go right through our files.

No, I, I...

They can question the witnesses.

The witnesses know their paper.

But I sat there, and I said, you know, we're going to at least, on the first basis, as a do-it-yourself center for the cops who were knocking on the public record.

The dean came.

God, really, I choked him up good.

I used to treat the old fire guys in the great country like frogs.

I've seen a lot of people blabbering around with their eye out.

And blabbering publicly in a massive way.

I've got a good quote on him I'll send in for information.

Out of a New North Carolina newspaper a few months ago, he said, no, the president shouldn't send secret documents to these committees.

He said, I've been in committee meetings where secret executive sessions, and 10 minutes later, it's out in the press.

Well, that's what he says.

Then you look through all the files, determine what is secret, and just send the non-secrets out.

Bullshit.

You can't separate it out.

I had a conversation with Alderman earlier, for example.

He would call us, pick the Alderman up, and we'd discuss so goddamn many things at a conference.

I'm not going to have that stuff out.

Well, even in my room, I sense it's not national.

Well, basically, what we all do is that we sit in this office and we talk frankly.

I mean, I don't want to sit out a little later and never be in this office again.

That's an headline.

But that's going to be a fact.

That's the kind of stuff.

You've got to be able to talk like this.

And your staff doesn't express it, because we couldn't be here forthright if we thought that the damn set was somebody floating around.

And he's got the stars in his eyes.

He's got a lot of camera.

And he's been floating stories, backgrounders, you know, on his own career and the Dirksen tie-in and all that stuff.

And he's fine.

He is totally fine.

Well, part of the people can't like him, and... Let me say this.

You don't strike a king unless you kill him.

He struck the king.

He didn't kill him.

That's the truth of the whole committee.

Now, that's it.

The guardians behaved extremely well.

They had a hell of a power of hand.

I don't remember the others, they were all bastards.

Tommy's was not too bad.

The next best, I guess.

Well, Gurney got so mad that Dean tried to intimidate him by saying, Senator Gurney, you remember when we were up in your office on the IT&T case, trying to imply that there was some shady stuff on that.

And Gurney just went to the roof, and from that point on, he tried to nail him.

What is the meeting next week that you want to have?

Do you want a congressman?

You know, congressmen are so many that I wonder if we should sort of work the Senate again next week.

Well, you couldn't expect that.

Even work a few of those in.

I mean, I personally, I like a guy like Worth.

He'll get my job.

What the hell?

Can I get him?

Or should he just come and do something else?

Thank you.

No, we kept him out deliberately.

We did invite him to worship service or something.

But he's no good.

The strategy on the House was that, for the last election, we lost a little in the House with some of the changeovers of our old Tigers.

We've got a new bunch in there.

And consequently, on the vetoes, it's got to be the House, not the Senate.

On national security, it's got to be the House.

And so your idea was to— Well, the thing to do there is to have— Bryce, of course, can work the Senate on a provincial basis.

But old Mel can help you work the House.

He loves that House.

But you're responsible for it.

What do you want to have that group of the House Policy Committee?

That's about half of what I've already seen.

I know, that's a problem.

But I'd just like to see just sort of a rig under the House.

Right.

I mean, I've shook their hand, but I don't know who the hell they are.

Ben Blackman called in the other day and said that he and old Dan Kirkendall had an idea.

He said, we'd like to get a couple of buses up here in one afternoon, go around, round up about 60 houses,

and just say, let's go down and tell the president, by God, that we want, we are supporting him 100% and shake his hand and we don't want anything, kind of like the Carpenters thing.

But they initiated it.

I said, well, I don't know.

What's the format?

He said, we just want to go on the floor, pick up 60 guys, get on a bus, come down, run through and tell the president we love him, we're behind him 100%, and get the hell out of there.

and blockers from georgia and of course dan is kind of kooky sometimes all right he's a good good guy and uh i was worried about the mechanics of who do you advise who do you overlook you know all that so it's not a leadership thing it's just we'll tell them we want to go down the street

would have liked to have come.

That's right.

But they were all a good bunch of folks.

Well.

It meant a lot to them, didn't it?

That's right, a hell of a lot.

They loved them, didn't they, Mike?

Oh, they sure did.

And Curtis told me that he only had one per state, so he didn't have Goldwater from Arizona because they had Fanta.

And they didn't have Roscoe because they had Curtis, and on and on and on.

But there was another group, of course, that would be entitled to come on the same basis.

Well, you've got 918, but I mean, don't overlook it.

a few sort of modern liberal flags too.

Let them feel that, I don't mean the Basin Company, they're gonna support us.

Just come in and have a little talk.

I don't want it.

Well, they really enjoy that.

That kind of thing.

They're not productive from your point of view, really.

Oh, I know that's part of the view.

Let me say, for me, it's much better to have it at 5 and 6.

I suppose it's better than 6, is that right?

Depends on what's going on, but generally it is.

5 is much better for me because, you know what I mean, if I go to 6, then it's...

Pushed beyond what I usually do in my evenings.

So let's have her at five o'clock, get her over.

That's a good time for her.

And, uh... Strangely, out of that group last night, I think there were only two drinkers.

And the rest of them had, uh, Cokes or, or... Yeah, yeah, I mean, it made sense.

Tower and, uh, I guess Fannin.

A tower, I think.

Somehow he doesn't need to run to the water, but he never gets out of line.

He just loves that booze.

Well, it's good.

Let's see if we can actually put him in the hospital.

I think it'd be nice.

They don't expect that, but it'd be nice.

It's a very nice thing.

Also, we've got to have some of the Senate favorites sometimes on the Democratic side.

He had to win another operation, as you know, and he's a little slow coming out of this.

Well, I like James Dennis.

Well, I mean, I'd like to have old, old Eastlands.

You know, some of the others, they don't, they aren't big, as well as they used to be.

You could have Eastland and McClellan and, you know, Alabama Nunn.

Jim Allen.

Jim Allen, right.

Right.

And then Johnson is coming along real good.

He's coming along real good.

Russell, I have old Russell.

Harry, by all means, just go right down the line.

Senators, we must get it so that we just a bunch of reactionaries up.

one or two reasonable lips.

Uh-huh.

Well, Gayle McGee, uh, is good on that security, but...

He's in China now, but...

Boy, that magazine might have two perfect guys in it.

I know.

I've been seeing some of the cables.

I've been telling you.

Well, I mean, according to... Bruce, who was in the Congressional Center for four years, he's the worst one he's ever seen in four years.

Uh-huh.

Exactly the wrong guy.

Not everything.

He's pressing it all the time.

He's got a real problem that way.

The repulsing bastard is going to be next time.

Jackson, you understand Jackson?

Jackson's a very good man and a very good patriot in their expertise.

He's just going all out to keep the hell out of us because we understand that.

I think of your groups.

It's very difficult for me to have more than one a week.

And I think it's, I may find a way to do two, but you see there's so many other groups that we've got to have them do it once a week.

If you do it, I think they'll be pleased with once a week.

You'll get through one hell of a lot of people too.

Because we've got, what, three weeks left, I guess.

So we're talking about three different groups.

Sure.

So we can, at least three, maybe four, depending.

All right, so I'll come up with some lists.

I have a feeling that, according to Hague and so forth, that these guys, they screwed around and so forth and so on, and some such assholes, and they got to turn off a lot of people.

get that from members all the time around the district i called around last weekend to tell all the guys about your letter to urban so they could be prepared and talk to john anderson who is you know kind of funny out there and he said well good that's a good letter he supports it he said but out here they're talking about inflation they're talking about cost of living problems he said nobody in illinois is talking about watergate now from him that was significant from sam's advice these are washington issues but what i mean is that

But all that crap with Dean after eight weeks of these crappy stories, he gets up there and talks for five days.

I mean, every other sophisticate knows he didn't lay a glove on the president.

That's why this committee don't have the papers now.

But you agree?

I do.

They figured it.

They struck out on that.

As much as the press tries to build them up, they didn't strike out.

You know, I never knew that he wore glasses until I told him.

I don't think he did.

I've never seen him wear glasses.

Good job.

Is that good?