 Mr. President, I'll put you on with George Ball here in just a moment. I've been with Mr. Schroeder. He's been meeting with Bob McNamara. I was about to con go, but the essence of it is that the Belgian cabinet is now meeting at this moment to decide their view on whether it is in the best interest of the hostages to go ahead and drop these fellas tomorrow morning. But let me put you on with George Ball to bring you and give you a little more detail on it. Hold on just a minute. How you can sort of get on. President, Spock's own view is that it's necessary to go ahead with the drop tomorrow morning. He feels that not to do so when that force is assembled would, in his words, be grotesque. The situation is that the column, which is moving by road, should be there about the not later than the mid-morning. The drop would take place at the first light of dawn at the combination of these two that one would reinforce the other. And we're expecting, within the next half hour, word that the Belgian cabinet has made this decision. We have to make a final decision in order to get the word there by not later than five o'clock this afternoon, our time here, which is about three and a half hours from now. So we wanted to get your reaction to this situation as it's now development present. I don't think we got much choice, have I? I beg your pardon? I don't think we got much choice, have I? I wouldn't think so. We're all unanimous Bob McNamara is right here and standing by and as well as being and we're all in agreement as to what we have to do if the Belgians decide to appear and meet a case now that they want to go ahead. What domestic reaction are we going to get from the Negro in this country? I think that what we have prepared, Mr. President, is a dossier of the kinds of messages that we have been getting out of Stanleyville about the killing of the threats to heat and burn and so on, these hostages. I think that this can be represented quite properly as a strictly humanitarian effort. And I don't think that it should create any problems of that kind. You made it clear that our rescue efforts are directed toward the Congolese as well as toward our own people. That is, that it's not solely a matter of saving the white hostages. Is this in any way going to involve us in getting us in there and getting us tied down there? Well, we're very conscious of that and of course these are not our troops that are big. I understand it. I understand it. And we're all very sensitive to the idea that we get out as fast as we can. That this is not a commitment to get into a land fight in the middle of Africa. Okay, we'll talk a little later. I get it. But now we've just had a message while I've been talking to you. I was just handed a note saying that the Belgian cabinet has formally approved the spot recommendation. And that if the United States concurred, they would give the order for tomorrow morning. Well, all of you are in agreement then. We're all in agreement. All right then, let's go. Right. If you don't think we need to check any more. Oh, not unless there's some new development, Mr. President. Would you like to speak to it, Mr. President? Right here. Hello? How are you? I say, do you want to speak to the President? Yes, sir. Yeah, how's it going? Yes, Mr. President. How are you? Very well, sir. Are you still riding out your base situation? Oh, yes, indeed. A editorial comment has been consistently favorable all over the country. I have Ed Muskie coming in at 2.15. He and the others in that area have been working well with us. I think even New York is going to soften up a bit. Any other trouble? No, sir. Other than this one that George was talking about, which is a very great trouble, but which we're all agreed on. We should go ahead. If the Belgians request that we do so, they have so requested. Are you going to be there all week? Yes, sir. Or are you going to spend time together? Home. Is that any of your family there? My daughter's coming in from Pennsylvania College. Okay, well, I'll be talking to you. All right, sir. Do you want to talk to Dean again? No, you all can go ahead. He wants to say a word to you. As far as I want to assure you that all of us outside here have been giving this a lot of prayerful thought for the last several days. And our unanimous recommendation is if the Belgians want to go, we should go. We should let them go. We'll pick up some corpses instead of everybody alive. But on the other hand, we're going to find some corpses anyhow, perhaps. And we think we'll pick up fewer corpses if we go ahead and... How many Belgians involve 800? Over 800. It's about 850. How many Americans in the plane? Well, the air crews involve about 200 Americans in air crews. But they will be preceded by at least an hour's full reconnaissance with T-28 and B-26 escort. And I'm sure that the force commander there would use an alternate drop zone. In fact, it looks as though our planes would have to come in over a heavily defended area. And our crews will stay on the airfield there not to engage in any combat operations themselves. How will they defend themselves? Well, they would... The first place they'll have these 800th Belgian paratroopers whose primary mission is to secure the airfield. But they would, of course, defend themselves locally. But the estimate... We had one report that they're only about possibly 250 really armed and trained rebels in the city at this point. In other words, the Belgians do not expect any significant resistance. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you, sir.