 It's looking better. I would say that when you get those five, six, seven bills down there for your signature, the average will go up to about 40 and two or three percent will do better than eight weeks ahead before the fort. And the others you got left to, some of them are pretty, pretty good people. I mean, the Morris Group, for instance. He moves education pretty well. He's got a hell of a thing on his hands. I don't know how to solve it, this airline strike. He did an exceptional job. That was just an unbelievable one, and they just turned him down flat. And we had two real good liberals, Dave Ginsburg, who used to be with Henderson, the OPA, you remember him. And Dick Neustadt, and they asked for four dollars and four cents, and they gave them four dollars. And they asked for a re-open it when the Consumer's Price Index went up, so they provided it if it went up as much as one percent above the average it could. And they gave them four weeks' vacation after 15 years. And this guy just really wants to cause trouble. Well, he seems to think that both sides are in cahoots. He does? Yeah. A couple days ago he said he didn't think he really wanted a settlement, but this was a good settlement. I think he knows more about it than anybody, but I think the airlines will settle for damn near anything. They'll make it so much money. And they don't want to close down. And I think that they would, but we're afraid that they don't, because what I called you about this morning, I was quite distressed at Dirksen's statement yesterday. I called him about it. I went out to the hospital to see him before I went out to see you, before you went to hospital. I went out to see the Vietnamese fellows and Eisenhower and Dirksen all at one time. And I sat down and talked to Dirksen and told him about what was going on in Vietnam and told him about a big problem with the petroleum supplies. He said, well, you want me to come down and meet with you? I said, no. I don't have anything to meet about. This is just one of the problems and decisions we have. Either way you go, it'll be bad. He said, well, his views were pretty clear on it. He gave them to me. And that was about all of it. He came out of the hospital and gave an interview that said he thought they ought to have a meeting. So I called him up and said, I'd be glad to have a meeting. Who do you want in the meeting? When do you want it? I said, I thought we ought to bring everybody up to date. So I, after a security council meeting, I asked Russ to go and speak here in Mansfield and meet with both sides. So there were all the leadership before he went to Brussels and I answered any questions they wanted to ask and briefed them. And they did that. He said, well, that was all right. He didn't think there's any need for any meeting. I said, well, if you do come on down. I'm ready here. I'm here seven days a week. Now he didn't want it yesterday. He made the same statement. So he said that there's a crisis of confidence because I thought we ought to have a meeting and make it clear. So I called him again and told him I'd be glad to see him. What did he, what had developed since we talked? He said, well, these fellows on my side, talking, think about forward and layered, put pressure on. I've got to throw him a piece of meat now and then. And I said, well, now I'll be glad to have a meeting. When do you want it? Who would you like to have come? Would you like to have the overall leadership or do you just want to send it? No, he said, I just said what I wanted to say and I'm with you all the way and you don't need to worry about that. Now, I don't know. I don't know what they're, I guess he just playing a little politics. The APS party, I said, well, he had suggested that the day he got out of the hospital then two or three days later, he said there was no need for it. Now he's coming back the same thing. And I said the president would be glad to see him with leadership at any time they desired or any senator who would make the request. Yes, I told him to bring anyone he wanted to anytime. And I told Hickenlooper that yesterday at the lunch for the Nicaraguan president. And I tell you that now and any of them come to you raise any question. You tell them that you'll have Ruskin their office in an hour or you'll have McNamara or you'll have the appointment with me. Anyone of them want to talk about anything. We'll just make the senate priority matter on any information that we can give them. I had no request. But you let them know because I told the Rackett members, I told Russell down, I told them, I want to see you in the hospital, I want to see Dirksen and I've reported pretty well to everybody that I know of. I've had all the senate in this year. Do you think maybe we ought to have them all in again? I think it might just stir up things more than they are. I don't know. I wouldn't unless there's an increased cry and I don't detect any. Well, develop otherwise then you can reconsider the situation. I had to hurry to make a careful study again just between us, Mike, our friend Rayburn is leaving us. He's kind of like man and he's quitting. So I rather think I might put in him. Do you have any reaction? Well, I don't even know the fellow. I have no reaction to it. He's the one you said that's the old pro down there. I don't know how he gets along with the hill. He doesn't know a thing in the world about politics. Never got elected. Well, that's an important fact you have to consider. Yes it is. He's a newspaper man and he gets along with all the press. They all like him. And all the folks are like him and seem to trust him more than they do a fellow with a military background. They didn't like McCormick much. Yes, they liked McCormick. Did you turn that thing over to Harry? Yes, I discussed it with him. I asked him to review it and make recommendations and told him just about my feeling. I'm going to see him today and get a report from him on it. I told him to talk to you. Did he see you? Not yet, but I'll have a talk with him. He wants to see you. I told him to see Dierkson. I told him to see Russell. I told him to study the rules. My own feeling is that our position ought to be that this is a matter for the Senate. Under that rule, certain committees have jurisdiction. They determine what jurisdiction certain committees have. If they want to change that jurisdiction, they can do it without messing it. And I think then that would require probably having to bring that up. And I would guess maybe then that somebody'd clear the floor and let them debate it. It will be cleared. It will be cleared. If this is brought up on the floor, it looks like it will lead to an executive session. Do you have any thoughts about any other things in the world? No, sir. No, sir. Not at all. What do you think about Vietnam? Well, I'm not happy about it any more than you are. I was a little bit disturbed by a largest first paragraph. It is quickly reported to you about heavier bombing, which I understood under, which I assume meant the Haipong-Hanoi complex that was leading up to it. I think it would be the most serious mistake because those places have been evacuated to a degree except for industrial needs. So there won't be much damage hurt, but you've got jobs with 320 or 30,000 men waiting. And if you knock them out of there, they'll say, what the hell? We've got to lose. Let's go. They won't come down in divisional strength. They'll just disperse those divisions into really units. And it will be awfully hard for us to maintain the ratio needed. As far as petroleum is concerned, I don't think it pays a hell of a lot in the life of the Vietnamese, rather. As far as mining or blockading Haipong harbors concerned, you've got more stuff going out of Haipong than going in. There are those coming in at Haipong. The ships have been reduced considerably. What British ships are left are usually under Hong Kong registry and are struck. Maybe a very old ownership of the communists. You run up against other nations and create a situation that is already difficult. You make it more difficult. It's just a hell of a can of worms. If you really go at them, this could turn into an open-ended war. And other countries would begin to criticize this more than they ought to do. I think it nearly everybody. Well, they're not going to mine the thing. And they're not going to bomb any industrial complex. What they're going to try to do is take out the POLs. They find the petroleum supply is almost double what it was last year. Their needs are, and their supplies are stored there. And they're trying to get rid of that storage and dispers it. And they're scattering it around where we can't get to it with the individual bombs. They put it underground and put it in concrete, and they won't take it out before it's all gone. And they're just about to walk out on it. They think it's a tragic mistake not to destroy that petroleum that's supplying 10,000 trucks that are coming down there. It's in the edge. It's kind of like a Mount Vernon or Alexandria or Arlington in Washington, D.C. I seem to be the only one that's afraid that they'll hit the United States Capitol or hit the hospital or hit a school or something. They don't think so. But I see so many of these airplanes get off all the time. They don't, like this B70 thing. And they just constantly make mistakes. And they don't know when these planes will fly over to China. Oh, they do that. They do that. They do that. I don't think that'd be a problem here. But just as they do get off over there, they'll probably get off here. If they get off one little inch here, you could drop a bomb on a school or on a hospital. And that's quite different from the oil. The experts say that the oil is not going to infuriate or inflame them more than the bridges that we're taking out running to China now. That is about as big a needle as we can put at them what we're doing now. But the oil is so much more important because they've got to have it to the trucks. And now we've got their light plane knocked out. And they knocked out one of ours yesterday too. That we've got to take out the oil. Now we just keep delaying these decisions for various reasons. It's somebody going on a mission. This time, Russ, because in Brussels, you can't do it. When you get back, we've got another fellow going to Hanoi. And things of that kind that it's pretty hard to do this while this is going on. Because they'll say that you do it. But the military and the fellows out there, Westmoreland, just feel like that you're just letting them shoot our men unnecessarily. That you don't stop this, you ought to make it as difficult. You can't stop it, but make it as difficult for them to get supplies as possible, or you ought to be in there. And that's another thing. None of them think you can get out this year. They all think that while the casualties are like hell, they killed several hundred yesterday at one rate. We just give them a mop it up every time we meet them. They nevertheless think that we're going to be there all year. Do you see anything further that we can be doing on the negotiation fund? No, sir. The only thing is, DeGaul sending John Santamé, an old China hand, to Hanoi v. King after Cougti Murgle had conversations with the North Vietnamese accredited delegate to Paris, indicate that something might be in the wind, and I would assume that this is going to be a matter of the highest priority when DeGaul goes to Moscow and meets with the hierarchy over there on the 20th of this month. I'm assuming, of course, that you're still maintaining your indirect, all indirect contacts that you can with Hanoi, but no break so far in sight. But you've got to keep trying, and you are. Okay, my friend. Thank you. Listen, Mike, you might bring up this question with Dirksen and see if he wants to come down, tell him that you saw in the paper where he won't do it, and you're ready to come anytime he wants to. Okay, I'll talk to him. It's a matter of...