 Give me John McCormick with our beloved friend Mendel Rivers Well we've talked to about 280 people and we haven't found 10 that disagree with us And what I would like to have if I had a loyal Democratic chairman Our loyal committee would be to have a moderate reasonable understanding The desirable thing would be that it would require the president to notify the congress I got the memorandum you said That's right, now wait a minute, let me tell you That would be the most desirable, that's what the lawyers want Now I've overwritten the attorney general and all the lawyers And I'm willing to take the 30 days like you have in the GSA Act That meant we had a weaker president that took that But it's already been done for the rest of the departments And I see no reason why it shouldn't be done for the defense department So I agreed to what I sent you in that memorandum I'm not going to agree to any more If he wants another veto and he wants another funds impounded If he wants to take me on and Admiral of Charleston Navy Yard If he wants a war he can have one He's just been playing with McNamara McNamara doesn't know how to fight But I've got a good sharp knife and I'm going to cut off his Peter John, tell him this now Just tell him that he's getting too big for his breaches And I'm going to cut off his Peter and poke it in my pocket As Mr. Rayburn used to say And I served with men a long time And I don't trust him as a greatest tactician And he's already damn near ruining me By ordering to bomb P. King And those congressmen got to have some responsibility I don't care how much seniority they got They're Americans And a damn fool that's out here advocating bombing P. King Ain't got no business being chairman of a committee He ought to be removed Man ought to be expelled that advocates bombing P. King With a situation as terrible as it is right now And so you're just going to have to talk to him If you can't do it I'm going to send for him And talk to him myself Now I talked to him night full ass And he was so thrilled because I'd signed his pay bill Boy said we work this out Said I don't want any trouble I want to get along with you I'm ready to do it But they tell me they met with him Three or four times this morning And he's just trying to rave and rant And throw his weight around and Talk to him the other night Yes sir, he's one of the first men I called And I said I've got two bills here I'm going to sign one of them It's wrong to sign it It cost us $600 million And you ought to go down that well And Carl Albert ought to And Jerry Ford ought to And you ought to say this is fiscally irresponsible But we went ahead and passed it unanimously 414 to nothing It cost us $600 extra million And most of it's wasted It didn't go to the people It ought to go to a toll It goes to people that we don't need in this service We need the specialists, the electronic people But I signed that bill and I told him so And I said on the other one I can't go along with that Because you run the whole defense establishment I'm just not going to run the country Even if the Congress, the House And the Senate don't know any better Now most of the Senate didn't even know What was in the bill Because they didn't have anything Like this in the bill This was the crazy committee over there So when I talked to the senators I haven't found a one of them That even knew what was in the bill And that's a sad thing to say But that's true And I've had 15 men calling every member of the House And we've had Pike and Shelf And one other guy, I've forgotten the third one But just about his IQ against it But I called Mendo and Mendo said Oh, Mr. President, we worked out something I said, now I'm saying in my message That I'm not against a reasonable notification I'll do that Now my attorney general says That's the president ought to do that That's bad But I'm going to do it anyway To try to get along with you But I'm going to send 30 days And I'm going to say, oh, should we work it out? We can work out something We can work out something Now this morning in the McNamara I got him out of a joint chief staff meeting Now we got serious things these days We got no time to be messing around with a nut From Charleston, South Carolina Thurman R. Rivers But I got him out and he says Well, we've argued with him all day And said, what do you say, Mr. President? I said, you tell him 30 days Or go straight to hell And I'll veto whatever he sends me Because I'm elected And I'm going to be president while I'm elected And I'm going to put a fight with him Right in his own damn house And then I'm going to go to court In some of these ridiculous, irresponsible statements He's making and you all are going to have to Get a baseball bat And we'll wake up up there And work on him Because I can't take this Mendel Rivers, Frank Boykin Everything made to love And go to bombing P. King And doing food things like this I like Mendel But I just can't I haven't seen it Did he advocate for his bombing? Yes, sir Yes, sir Hell, yes He's got us every intelligence Reporting the country Scares the hell out of every ally The British government's about falling They just read these extreme statements That damn food like rivers or mors makes And they ought to be careful We got Marines that are dying out there every hour And they don't understand What their folks back home are saying Let me read you what one of them just says Over the ticker, right this second He said it's from Hamilton, New Jersey A.P. 146 You ought to clip it off your ticker I feel sorry for those Americans Who are saying the VIT war is not their war Wrote Marine Sergeant George De Lucio Of Hamilton three days before he was killed In the war If you ask the fighting men who are there The tragedy of Vietnam is indeed necessary De Lucio wrote his sister-in-law And her husband, Mr. William Aircraft Polson In the last letter he ever wrote If China takes about South Vietnam She has control of the Indian Ocean And from there she can put her tactics Into Africa, into Australia, into Japan And she can just keep moving, said the Marines If we don't stop them now Georgie and Mike Georgie and Mike will be fighting Ten to fifteen years from now Georgie is seven and Michael too Our De Lucio's son That he was talking about, his own son When I read or hear about those demonstrations Back home And the people saying this is not their war I just plain feel sorry for them He wrote Well, you're the next one to shape us a lot Listen Well, I want to give you the information You'll have no trouble on the outside But John, let me tell you something, my friend You, the speaker I've seen Mr. Abram call in people And say, now listen, this far no further I've seen you do as a majority leader This far no further I sat down there in that board meeting And heard Joel say, we gotta stop this Now here's what Rivers said last week In New York Quote, you want to write it down? Yes I Now mark three little dashes under that Up to underlining Will accept nothing I will accept nothing But total and complete victory in Vietnam But total and complete victory in Vietnam Who the hell is I? Now what meat does this Caesar feed on, John? Now the House of Representatives You gotta protect them But somebody, we can't protect them With damn fool stuff like that Going across the world on the tickers And right at this moment I'm trying to negotiate agreement So they better keep their mouth shut And go on And if they don't want to give us an army Turn it down If they want to give us $600 million I'm concerned, I'm completely back to you All right, you bet you are Now what I want you to do is just You and Carl just get a hold of him Just say now we're going 30 days, period And if we got a fight, let's fight Okay? All right