 At this year Paul Knits could present it Clark Clifford could present it service secretaries could appear or I could do it It would be hard for Paul to do it if I were gone and Clark were here two reasons They ought to be here when Clark's here so he can help him get adjusted be Paul's only been in the job six months and really wasn't at the heart of the budget preparation or My reaction Bob is two-fold one my personal reaction From my standpoint and the country standpoint is that you ought to do it second I have some hesitancy because of what one or two of them have indicated to me that it Might be a little blood for you. I know you don't give it to him But I do I wanted to pursue that father now one of the men and talking to me about Clifford said that He just didn't think we could have a finer record and a better man there But he said now that I think it'd be better McNamara's indicated He wants to present this statement And I think it'd be better that if he didn't because you'll get him some arguments and you get cut up And he's in perfect shape now and what I do is take the information he has and after Clifford gets confirmed Let us come along here and while he will be new He can take bring secretaries with him and they can get through it And I think that you you won't have you won't hurt him and you won't hurt McNamara now I had rather you do it because whatever arguments got to go on I think first you can take them on better. You know more about it and so forth on the other hand I don't ask you to go give your arm just before you The answer is then on that basis. I definitely should do it I sense a little uncertainty in your mind both when we talked last week And also very frankly, I don't want to decide this second But the reason I did is Russell told me said now McNamara, I know how much you think of him and like him and so forth I told him you're gonna finish up there and when I wanted to wait a little bit to Forgetting and I thought it's better for you to do it. He said that's wrong So I think it he'll get cut up and you ought to do that now. He's leaving and I said well Let me talk to you about it later. Yeah, I would be badly cut up by McClellan on the F111B and goddamn And I'm just not gonna do that and I've been trying to figure a way out of that portion of it I know that it'd be a serious problem And I just I just can't take it psychologically at this point and I'd be goddamn if I'm going to take it So I've got a way out and it's the some of Russell's committee members objected to Holding the two hearings together McClellan's on the subcommittee for defense Appropriations but not on the armed services committee. I would a little I gave him a little Assistant and they have overridden Russell's desire to hold a joint hearing and at the moment He's by these pressure from his committee members been forced into agreeing to hold separate hearings The armed services committee hearing of course would come first the appropriations in the Senate would would follow by weeks Normally even a couple of months. I would not plan myself to handle the appropriations hearing McClellan would turn it into an absolute Inquisition of the worst possible kind it was bad enough last year and it'd be far worse this year and It's really a personal vendetta by him against me And there's no no reason why we have to take it or will my successor be exposed to it So that part I could put aside apart from that being cut up the rest of it is it just routine to me I don't care I can handle it, and I really think quite frankly. It's the only way to do it Let me call you back. Sure. I check with him The reason I the only reason for my call the body at the moment is that I haven't said a word to rivers or mayhem And I don't want to until you decide what you want me to do one of this post take place Well, normally it would start Next week roughly a day or two after your budget message goes up And that would be let's say just Thursday Russell's ready to start on Thursday And I would be prepared to start on Thursday if if you want me to if you don't want me to We'll make some other arrangements and that there would be some delay because others would have to take time to get prepared But I've got I've got all the work in I think damn good shape But with this coming going to press tonight being off the press in the morning in classified form The next step is to get an unclassified version. I would about 180 pages long We'll have that by Monday or Tuesday next week and then everything's done as far as putting on paper the program the thoughts the Justification and so on I think it I'll call you back shortly, but sometimes morning, but I think that That's my feeling unless I change unless I it does create more of a problem, and I hope it will that's the way We'll go my strong recommendation the the next thing I think you ought try to see that the armed services are fully brief their statements awfully wild on this other thing And I don't know how much you know. I'm rather disappointed We don't know more and I don't quite understand this fellow's action I was concerned with all the radio reports this morning He called for help and we wouldn't respond although we had airplanes a half hour from there now That's Russell and folks like that. We got I think we've got that turn around the newspapers this morning are very good Mr. President the radio reports I heard at seven o'clock. We're good That we turned it around last night. You called walled won't call me about 830 and we had it turned around in half an hour after that on the AP with the AP Wire that caused the initial problem and the reporter here got the information in the Pentagon I think he got it right, but in any case he wrote it wrong and whether we gave it to him wrong or he Understood it we changed it within half an hour And I think we're all right on that answer on half an hour and those were armed and we couldn't they weren't there Was that right my point was within half an hour after 830 and I mean Russell statement He doesn't know Russell in the facts said this morning and they've been repeating it twice on TV and a half a dozen times on radio since 530 I've been listening to it I started to call you at 7 I said well now you'll be late five minutes Embarrassing you've been here seven years, and I've never missed him, and I don't take any chances But Russell said that what he could not understand that from the time of the man got in trouble Until he was told in there's two hours that he did ask for help We didn't respond although we had planes in a half an hour from him now I understand it the planes that we had close by South Korea Were loaded and couldn't be unloaded in time. That's a correct statement. Absolutely a second a man never did ask for help Is that a correct statement correct now third? Do you have any what's your speculation on what happened at the present? I honestly don't know and and I called Nick this morning and later Walton said I think we need a Cuban missile crisis to approach to this and got down We ought to get locked in a room, and you ought to keep us there And since we stay there until we come up with answers to three questions. What was the Korean objective? Why did they do it? Secondly, what are they going to do now? Blackmail us and let it go. You know what and thirdly what should we do now? And there are a whole series of things we've thought of here at Quarantine them steal one of their ships Etc. Etc. Etc. But we just have got to act quickly I don't think we can let the day go by before reporting to you are at least Kennedy views on those three questions I told Walt that I thought we ought to have done that again in two o'clock night for like yesterday and then today too And I just hope that they will quickly as you can. I don't want to get in and confuse it But I'm ready anytime any event. We're meeting at 10 30 this morning. We'll have Dick Helms, Bruce Wheeler, Nick Paul Nitsapal, Warnacky, Walt, Sam Burger. If Clifford's got any time, I'd call him in there Because he'll be kind but he ought to learn it. Sure because it's gonna be heavy. Okay Thank you