 I've been able to get in this morning. I wanted to find out about the general conditions in the area as a result of the hurricane and to determine whether I should be down here this morning. The National Command Center is searching for Reeves, but I haven't found it yet. Do any of the men on the scene or any of the folks in the Navy give you any of their judgments about the real dangers inherent here? No, we don't have a good judgment on that. I just talked to the Admiral in charge of the command center and told him to track down the technical people in the company that owns the barge. It's a Pittsburgh plate glass company barge, as we understand it. We haven't yet gotten in touch with the technical directors of the Pittsburgh plate to find out exactly the condition of these tanks or the degree to which the chlorine may seep out. But we are developing a plan to deal with it if it does. Is there any thought being given to what all we said to the people or whether the women here for any pre-cultures could be taken? Yes, I have Phil Goulding who is our public affairs officer under Sylvester working on the public affairs aspect of it. Last night they had to put out a notice to Mariners indicating that a dangerous object had been had broken loose and that was done and then a low key announcement made of it and I don't think there's been any serious problem as a result as to the precautions to be taken with the populace that is being developed and I think there's an adequate plan for it. What do you think that'll encompass? Well, it depends where this thing happens. The danger doesn't appear too great at the moment. If it were near a populated area it could be very serious. It doesn't appear to be. But we don't really know, do we? Well, we don't really know but it doesn't appear to be at present. Well, how does it appear at all? Do you mean the last they saw of it was between Baton Rouge and New Orleans or something and that's not a populated area? Yes, and the point is if it sank at this particular point in the bend in the river it's not so near a populated area to cause it. To indicate that it might have sunk there because that's where it would probably get hung. Yes, that's the point. Now I think I'm just giving you surmises because nobody knows but we've got every search device that we possibly can. I guess not to put in all the aircraft that anyone conceivably could have required and that they did. Matter of fact, they turned back some of our aircraft. They said the condition of the field is such that they don't want any more aircraft down there. And then the sonar devices that we're using both in the airborne and the seaborn craft are the maximum number required. I don't think there's anything more we can do to find the damn thing. I think there is more we can do, Mr. President, to determine how to deal with it if this quarrying breaks loose. And the last conversation I had which is about half an hour ago with our people was directed to that end. The Coast Guard is actually in charge of the preparations for dealing with it and the preparations for handling the people. But I told our people to assume we were responsible for it and go ahead and develop the necessary plans. Okay, it looks like Pittsburgh ought to be getting high behind. Well, that's right, but we, best of my knowledge, we haven't talked to Pittsburgh. And this is exactly what I asked them to do again in touch with. And I was then that I tried to call General Reeves but I am yet gotten hold of them. Okay. Pittsburgh gave a nice end to the very profitable long-time relationship with a few suits there, wouldn't they? Absolutely. It's tremendous liability here, of course. What do you think about the Indian pack standing? Well, I'm pleased that it hasn't erupted to a higher level of military action than it has. I don't really know how it's getting along. Our intelligence is, and I don't mean CIA necessarily, I mean the information we get through our military source and our diplomatic is really not very good. And I don't know exactly how the battle is going, what little information I do have on it indicates to me the packs are ahead at this point. Yes, that's where it appears. And my own impression of the relative military strengths of the two countries is that the packs could continue to achieve military advantage for a period of I just guess offhand four weeks. And then at the end of that period I would think of the total strength of the Indians in terms of men and equipment, which is roughly four times out of the packs, would begin to be felt. And then by the end of say 12 weeks, if the conflict continues that long, I would expect the Indians to reverse the trend and then be in a militarily advantageous position. What about the Chinese? That's a 64 pound. We don't have any real evidence and I think we would have if there'd been substantial moves. We don't have any real evidence that they're building up strength on that northeast frontier agency border. And we've been very anxious to get more intelligence. We worked out a plan to do it with some U2s. And I think this will give us advanced notice of any movement of men or equipment up there. And there just has to be some movement before they can effectively intervene. They can intervene with a few advanced days of preparation on their part and I think they could just clean up that area and push the Indians out if they chose to do so. I rather doubt they'll choose to do it. It's very dangerous for them to do so. My own view is that it almost certainly involves western support to India, which China would like to avoid. The great danger here it seems to me is the weakening if not destruction of the Indian political institutions as a result of this. I bet they've got a new government for very long. Well, it's like, if it's just a new government that's stepping in and placing a shoster, it's pretty weak anyhow. That may not be too bad. But if it's a fraction or fragment of that country, I think it's going to be very serious over the long run. What do you mean a minute? Or if some of those states that want to break away from the Indian government do so and you just get that huge mass of discordant people splitting up into smaller states, then I think two decades or a decade from now there's no effective barrier to the Chinese in the area. What do you think about continuing to send in economic help to both of them while they're fighting? Well, I put it off for a while, Mr. President. I think you're going to have to send the food a week from now or two weeks from now, but you don't have to do it today. I just don't see how you can avoid sending food to really starving people. Well, it's just, you know, damn well Napoleon says, armor runs on its belly and you know the trick won't go right to the army. No, I don't think so. The food's going to the army anyhow. And there's not going to be any food shortage in the army if they send food or not. But on the food, I, as I say, kick that one ahead of me. You don't have to decide it today. You probably don't even have to decide it a week from today. You can't tell me this is the eyes of the board or the agencies coming in to meet and don't be raised in hell. They don't do something. We attack as far as I can. You mean of the aid agency? No. We've got to kind of affront hypocritical operation where we say that we give the food to the private agencies. All the private agencies distributed. And they'll have a series of picketing of something, I guess. Kind of like the professors, the private agencies. Who's in charge of that? The private agencies? I don't know. They got an advisory board. I wonder if we can just get a close phone. They'll meet next week at the private agency. I'll look into it today. I saw a memo on my desk last night about it. Well, that's the kind of thing I would think we really could control for a week or two. What do you think about Vietnam? Well, in the short run we've been reasonably well, I think, Mr. President. We've stopped these large Vietnam operations. The disruption of transportation in the country, the isolation of the district towns, and provincial capitals. The pressure on the economy that was leading to inflation has all been stopped, I think. And we're sort of in a stalemate position at the moment. I think the danger is that our forces, effective there in the sense of preventing any large Vietnam operations, may not be effective in dealing with these very small harassing and ambushing and terror operations. And that perhaps neither may the South Vietnamese forces be effective in that action. So yesterday afternoon Mackon and Dean and I met and I think we agreed that we'll get a cable out to or a draft cable for you to see before it goes to launch either tomorrow or the next day that will say to them, in effect, now we've taken care of this first phase of military action. What are the plans to get back onto the pacification program? Where are you going to try it? Are you going back to that hop-tack area, which is the area around Saigon? And if so, how many troops are required South Vietnamese troops? Are they there? And do we have people to work on the police reorganization and the political developments that are necessary to extend the government control over that area? And if we aren't ready for it, how the hell are we ever going to win this war? Because you can't win it with American troops going out after Vietnam terrorists. It just isn't going to be done that way. But I'm encouraged by the results of the last six to eight weeks. I think it proved that our military deployments were correct and proper and effective. But it doesn't prove that two months from now we'll be any better off than we are today unless we get this pacification effort working. When do we meet again on more troops? Oh, I think that the additional support troops and the additional airspottings required, which were part of that 210,000, as opposed to more army battalions, will have to meet on the former within the next week. The additional army battalions above 34 U.S. battalions, I don't think we'll have to meet on for a couple of months probably. But I talked to how many will the first phase cover? Total. When we complete. It looks to be about 210,000. You've authorized 175. We've been dribbling out the authorizations within the limit of 175 day by day and up to yesterday we were up to a total of 171,000 and then they had in requests for another five or six and a couple of them we turned down and we had requests for four air squadrons and I think it was for a total of about 4,000, which would take us just over the 175,000. And so we'll have to come back within a week and review this all with you. And the thing that's holding us back is that we're insisting we get a good analysis of why it's 210 instead of 175, which we told you in June. Are we losing more planes than you think we ought to be losing? No. The loss rate is very low, Mr. President. That's true both in South Vietnam and North Vietnam. No, I'm not at all concerned about the aircraft losses. I am concerned about the future of the bombing program that Chiefs came in yesterday afternoon with a recommendation for this next week's Rolling Thunder program that we will be talking about Monday or Tuesday that just bombed the hell out of North Vietnam and I sent it back until it wasn't been accepted. We haven't done the work that I think we should do to even be considering such a move. But this just shows the kind of pressure it's building up and I think very irrationally about it yesterday. And he isn't strongly in favor of many aspects of it. I think he wants to go further in the bombing than I do for example. But he's not prepared to press for bombing Phuket and Airfield or the other airfield or taking out all of Sam's or doing some pose morning on them. No, I haven't seen it yet. On page two it's very interesting. Of the times of the pose. Yeah, I've got it right here. It shows that we've gone up in the last needed past I guess two months I believe in July to September. Also the boys that all our bombers go up Yeah, that's about in the list. I believe the pull-outers are. Oh yeah I see but it didn't but they didn't go up much. They went from 22 to 26, made a September 25 to 26 July to September. Went up one in the last. That's right. That's what we want to pull back. That's your idea for So I think your policies of anything are gaining strength but they are very, the strength is very thin. I know that. We had a group of business men in here on Friday and Saturday that signed. I met with our advisory council. George Brown was one of them for example. And you could tell from them the support was thin. What good facts to give you. But we don't, it isn't to get advice from them. We have minutes for us to give them the feeling we know what we're doing. You know what you're doing and it's all in the interest of business. And I think we got that point across. They were ecstatic when they left. They ought to be. We spent a hell of a lot of time with them. We've been neglecting them. We meet once a quarter with them and we've been so terribly busy that frankly I hadn't done all I should have done in holding their hands. And this time I really did. And so I did and they left feeling very good. We get this Congress out here now and we've had an awful, unimbleedly good year. I know, it's terrific. We just get them out here now. The American Motorstrike settle there. One of those tracks we've got a railroad or two.