 I think I'm a little better. I want to call you. I waited until he got through this press conference. He played about the same old broken record in private that he did in public. We tried to get agreement on four or five points. We may have made a little progress on non-proliferation. We're going to have Rusk and Grameco work on it some more tomorrow. We may be able to table agreement, but we're not positive. It looked like there was some movement on arms limitation and on arms shipment and on disclosure and on reducing military expenditures, cutting their budget down for nuclear weapons or for offensive or defensive missile systems, etc. We both agreed in general principle, but he never would set a time and never would set a place and never would get down to really executing it. Just largely a conversation, pleasant, no vitriolic stuff, no antagonistic stuff, no better stuff. Two or three little blows blow the belt every now and then when you'd meet him the same way why he would get back to normal level. He made clear that he didn't want to confrontation the United States, didn't want to fight us, didn't want to go to war, but on the Middle East just one simple instruction looked like he couldn't move one inch away from it on anything. It must be complete, absolute, immediate withdrawal of troops. Period, nothing else with it. That's going to be the resolution. They could pass that in the General Assembly. The on-dust is supported there and in the Security Council and nothing else and unless and until that is to be done there's going to be a big great war and those people will be fighting for ten years. That they would have to support the Arab nations and he couldn't understand why we don't support the Jews, three million people and a hundred million Arabs. I told him that numbers did not determine what was right. We tried to do what was right regardless of the numbers and we felt like that we'd have to take in maritime passage and we'd have to consider where they were before they closed the gulf and if they were going to go back to where the armistice line where they're going to have to go back to the Gulf of Aqaba as it was. He said, well, that has to be done later and take two, three years to work out all these other things. Wouldn't give an inch on that on Vietnam. He said, we've got to stop our bombing. We've got to pull out, that's what he said on television, and just get all of our troops out. We're an aggressor there. We're an invader there. We're a perpetrator of aggression and not anything else will do, no substitute. We exchanged some views and I asked some questions of him in that connection and asking what would happen if we stopped our bombing. What would they talk and if so how long and would it just be another Korea talk to delay it or would it be serious or what would come from it and what could he guarantee underwriter's sure or what did he think. The net of it was just another line, stop the bombing, send your troops home, then things will work out. And after that we'll start talking. Yeah. But I submitted him some questions, things to think about and his folks, I asked him to let Michael Marr sit down and talk to him about this armament and give me the name, the date and time and place. He would always dodge it. He claimed to be fired in principle but specifically he wouldn't. He claimed that there should be other elements taken in the Middle East settlement and he wouldn't do any of them until withdrawal was affected. The Latin America thing, I gave him told him there's six, seven hot spots that they're using Soviet material, Cuba was. We caught a bunch of them the other day in Venezuela that they were giving us hail in the Dominican Republic and Haiti and Bolivia and half a dozen places. That this is a very serious matter of Soviet equipment and Castro trained people. So, give me one of those, will you? That we ought to... He ought to realize that we thought this was very serious and we're going to have to take action. The OAS was going to take action. But he gave me his judgment, his comments and what he could do about it. He said he couldn't come in now but he was leaving for Cuba tomorrow to bear these things in mind and talking to them, acted like he's a little upset with Castro. Didn't say so. I guess that's about all he... He very has an obsession on China and just said we better understand that they're very dangerous people and we better start talking about their exploding these nuclear weapons. They are trying to promote this. We're just their stooges. He kind of makes the same speech about us as China makes about him. He said they all charged me with selling out to you. He said, you know what the Chinese are saying? You know what the Arabs are saying? He said, I want to ask you if you think I've sold anyone out. I said, yes, you sold me out. But you haven't sold them out. He was staying off close to them. He laughed. That's about it. I thought he was less vituperative and antagonistic and vicious and cutting and debating and argumentative than I have expected him to be. Gromico has been, or McLean, or any of the rest of them. He's pretty stolid, pretty stubborn. I felt like one time we got into Cuba somewhere and I said, well, you talk about you don't believe you think that we let Israel have some arms or troop carriers or whatever it was, these tanks, these planes, I think he said. I said, we have tried. We've given very little arms. Most of our aid's been economic aid. That's not true with all the countries. Your aid there's been mostly military and much more sizable than ours. Then you've helped others. Remember, you've had to do many missiles in Cuba. He just flared up big, waved his finger at me and said, I want you to know what I opposed that. I fought that. I tried to keep Khrushchev from doing it. When he did it, I made him back up and get out. And... Funny thing, I have to add, here's Khrushchev. Bring me his processors. And then the other thing, he said, I want you to know we're grateful to American people. We fought by your side. We... I was in Leningrad. I started at David's, 12 years. We remember your great war against fascism. And you were with us. You were patriots. And we all were grateful. We'll never forget it. But he didn't show damn bit of evidence of it. Anything he said on anything. And I held back about the meeting because I know these meetings, you just have a lot of hopes. You don't get anything until the night he was due to go home and put off the day. And I finally made Russ go over it carefully, to bring in with Thompson. And then I got Russ to go over it with Gromyko. And then I got Russ to go over it with him himself. He assured us it'd be substantive talks. We could take up any of these things and get his opinion. And I would say that in fairness as a teacher, I would grade him about a B-plus on discussions on arms, that is offensive, desuffensive missiles, the ABM. And I think that when he gets back, he'll probably set a date. But he didn't assure me of that. He did assure me that they would talk before he came here. But I just kept trying to get that time and place. I'd send Mike and Mary, whoever he wanted, anyplace. We talk in Geneva, we talk in Moscow, we talk here, we talk there by story level. The main thing that I had told Congress, I said, I've had him waiting three months. I don't think I ought to go on this with a big appropriation here if there's any chance of our reasoning this thing out. But he never did say what to do. But I believe I made a little progress there. I believe we made a little step closer in non-proliferation. I think that he thinks that we're not wild men. I believe I made a good impression on him from the standpoint of being prudent, being firm and being determined and not being a freight cat or a bully either. And he made one or two passes. I don't want to discuss with anyone but you, but he said that I want you to know that if you do not deliver Israel here on this resolution withdrawal and you cannot pull these fighters back like you do two bucks of men in the ranch and separate the combatants. Where they were before this war started, then I want you to know there's going to be a big war and there's going to be a great war and it's coming soon. And I said, well, now, Mr. Chairman, I hope that there's not going to, and he said, they'll fight with their fists and they'll fight with arms. And I said, now, if you're saying that the Israel's and the Arabs are going to have some further difficulties, I hope they don't. I'm going to do everything I can to keep them from fighting. I hope you do everything you can to keep them from fighting. But if you're saying it goes beyond that area and others will be fighting, then you're speaking very serious business and something that concerns me greatly. And I think it should concern you. He backed away from it and said, well, I said that they would be fighting out there and I said, well, I'll do all I can to keep them from fighting. Hope you do too. He made another pass this afternoon along the same line and I made him the same way and he backed off from it again. I said, I was talking about they would be fighting, he said. Uh, isn't this about to say about, uh, our concern and his concern about it? Did he make any specific? No. He said, we ought to have another conference on that. And you better be real concerned about these explosions. I said, we are. So that's, uh, that's a matter that we ought to talk about another conference. I said, we're ready anytime. I'd be glad to have on every year except time part. We stack up every problem we got, every bilateral situation, and we could come and you could come here and we'd come there. Uh, when you sent, um, Dr. Thompson down here the other evening, he gave me a good briefing. Then I suggested him the thoughts that I've been talking with him and he had a chance to, to convey it to you, to be settled before there's ever going to be any, even, uh, modus operandi there in the midst. And one of them was these, uh, water, and the other one was the, we could, uh, set up a, uh, this, uh, atomic thing in, uh, Vienna. And suppose we, our government bought 51% of the stuff in succession, three great big kids so attractive that most sides would almost be, uh, compelled by their people. Then sees a thing that you could, put, uh, 500, uh, minutes. But here, I broached that to him this afternoon. I didn't get any comment. Our people at, to the meeting, he said, well, uh, I just want to say this, I don't think we can talk about anything else, get the troops withdrawn. So we were referees in a fight and you got to get your man to the nap of the neck and I got to get our man to the nap of the neck. You got to separate him and put him back in that corner. So then we can talk about other things. I'm gonna be back to you, I'm gonna be back to you, man.