 Senator Birchby is calling me from the airport, Mr. President, on 9-1. President, this Birchby... Yes, Birchby. I'm sorry to bother you, sir. I'm getting ready to go out to the Mar-State Convention. And I thought you ought to be appraised. And if you got a second, I'd really like to have your advice. I wouldn't have bothered you except one evening when we were sitting there in the White House. You looked down at the end of the table and said that I should be careful about this Vietnam thing. In Indiana, it was not a good state on this. And we've been having a hell of a time with that senior colleague of mine in which he has succeeded in blackmailing. I found out this noon, our state committee, and really our congressmen, all of whom are running, about the way the platform is worded, in which instead of coming right out and saying that we support the president on the course that we're taking in Vietnam, we've worded something like this. We commend our president for the strong and enlightened determination he has consistently played in advancing the rights of free men at home and abroad, for his determination to assist people everywhere to ward off communist aggression and to enjoy self-determination and for his untimely effort to bring about an honorable and lasting world peace. I don't, in my estimation, are making a mistake. My neck's not on the chopping block as far as who's running this time, and they're just scared. Vance is threatened to take this to the floor and make an open floor fight of the damn thing. I know we could beat him, but the thing that concerns me personally is that he is giving the keynote speech in which I am concerned that he might come out with a vitrallic anti-Vietnam speech, and I am following him as permanent chairman. My gut reaction is to really cut him up and put him on the thing. Now let's see, what is this language that you're reading? What is that proposed of? That will be a resolution which will be proposed to the convention. And he will oppose that. No, he will buy this. I don't see anything wrong with that. Well, it takes out of there any reference to Vietnam, please. That's all right, but I don't care about the Democratic convention ever getting with Vietnam. It's not a Democratic thing, it's an American thing. It's both conventions. If you get into a state convention that way, I think that I just take the position that you don't want to make Vietnam a partisan matter. And if you go to urging one course of action in a specific country or the other, the Republican may just be opposed to you on that basis. I think that language is all right, and I think you have a pretty dangerous, isolated country. Things are going pretty well in Vietnam. Vance is upset because he's got family problems and he's got influences around him. And very frankly, Vance is running with some bad people, and he's going to be sorry in due time. We have some experiences like that now, but I'm watching his old card all for careful. You don't want to get into fight with him and you don't want to embrace him. You just stay as reserved and as distance as you can without being provocative and without being ugly because you've got a great future. But Vietnam is going to work out all right if people here don't lose it for us. What if he comes out, Mr. President, doing his keynote speech immediately before I take the gavel and gives you unmitigated hell and points to the fact that the school lunch program and the agriculture research, I've heard him do it. He did it in fact before our Jefferson Jackson Day dinner in which he said that this was all caused by the Vietnam War and that this was why he was opposed to it and this type of thing. Now, do you think I can just ignore that, sir? Yes, I think I would. I just, I think that, I don't like him shooting at you like that. No, I don't either. I don't either. I think it's very regrettable. But I think it, I think that Birch, I honestly think that he's hurting himself in due time. I think he'll ride kind of high now because he'll have Republicans boost him and he's got to Alia Janeway and a few of these New York boys that are calling some signals for him. And he's enjoying the limelight that comes from disagreeing with the president. Anybody can do that. Most irresponsible man can get up and denounce the president or the first lady or anybody and get a little attention. Now, he's done it and he hasn't had much through the year. So I'm not going to, I just don't want you to get cut up. And what I'd do if he got up and said that the president was doing terrible and that he had wrecked these other things and so on and so forth, if I were you, when I followed him, I would say that I'm not here to engage in any personal debate or differences with my colleague. Suffice it to say, I'm very proud of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Administration, the Democratic Congress. And I think the record will show that 85% of our platform was enacted last Congress. The administration submitted 91 measures of importance this year on school and health and conservation and important things. And of those 90, the House and Senate have already acted on about 60 of them. And I believe before we get through, they'll act on 75, some of them will defeat. Some of them will postpone. But it will be a good, bad and average, 85% last year, maybe 75 this year. And we do the greatest good for the greatest number. And we don't all see everything alike. If we did, we'd all want the same life. But by and large, I'm very, I'm very proud of the overall record contrasted to our opposition party. Now they worry about our having too full employment, labor being tight, getting too much money and inflation and too big a gross national product. Everything's inflation these days. Well, I'll tell you one thing, if you have Republicans, there won't be any inflation. You won't get too much for your commodities and you won't get too much for your work and you won't get too much for your labor and you won't pay too much for anything. It'll be back where you're burning corn and some of these other things that you did back in the 30s. You've never seen any inflation in the Republican period and if you want that kind of stuff you got in the Republican period, it's all right with me. But I just don't believe any farmer wants to or any worker wants to. And there not even many bankers that want to. And that's the way I'd answer it. And I just get off my shoulders. I wouldn't fall out of him. I wouldn't get personal. He is riding. He is riding for bad days. He can't go this way always. I'm not going to quarrel with him. And you notice I haven't, he says something ugly about us nearly every day. And we don't fuss at him and I don't want you to because you're going to have to have indian or someday and you want everybody in it you can get. And if they say, why don't you answer him? You'd say, I did answer him. But I answered him in a high lofty manner. I'd say that there never was a Congress in the history that agreed with the president more. And the Congress agreed with us last year and the Congress agreed this year. It didn't have me too. It moderated, it amended, it improved, it changed. But it was constructive and it moves. It passed 24 education and health bills. And practically every man here voted for them. And of course when they stay in office while they like to be critical, when you have a war on your hand, I didn't start this thing. I didn't make this commitment. But I have my choice of evacuating out there and running are standing and fighting. And if I evacuated and ran there, I would be evacuating 41 other alliances. I said to a group of Jewish friends by New York the other night to a real worried and grab our Weinstein. It got them all worked up. And I said, now may I ask you fellas, if the commitment to Eisenhower and Kennedy made in Vietnam is not worth a damn, and that alliance is no good. And the promises we made to come to their rescue and attack be thrown out the window. What about our promises to Israel? I said, no good to a nation of 14 million. What about a nation in the Middle East of only two million? And my God, you think that over? And what are they to NATO? And what are they to Hamza? And what are they to the other 41 we got? And they start singing a different tune. And what are they to Indiana? So my God, if he advocates breaking up what we promised, well, I don't have to let medical care apply to Indiana. Wouldn't that be fine? I'll just say I'm not gonna tear it out. This is the law of the land. This is a solemn promise. Now I didn't vote for it. And John Kennedy didn't vote for it. He was in the hospital in Florida, the bath back and I was in the hospital with a kid named Van Derksen didn't vote for it. But 82 of the others did. Now they can demagogue and run and so forth. But I'm gonna stand and fight it. I remember old Louis Ludlow demagogued the hell out of Roosevelt. He wanted us all to vote before we drafted a boy, to have a public referendum. And I was big enough damn fool to sign his petition. And after they got to debating it and people got to laughing about it, I saw, I was peace. We called old Louis mother peace. But we all had this peace jagged, it's full bright sky. And of course you got peace. But hell, if we had peace, we never would have been in existence. Well, Mr. President, it's just that because of your friendship tomorrow and me, I've had the chance to hear you and see this great burden that you're carrying around. And that just imposes a double obligation on me to watch out when these son of bitches start out trying to make a fool of me. Well, they're not gonna do that. They're not gonna do that. We gained four points this week in the Gallup. Four points. And we're going through some dark days, we may go down to 10. It may be hard to even speak to us. But that's not the test of a strong president, a great president, a statesman. Whether it's Lincoln, or Wilson, or Roosevelt, or Truman, or Kent is not how popular it is. Whether what you do is based on principle and right. We've got some terrible decisions out there, and I've made them, my friend, and some of them are behind us, and you'll be reading about them in due time. And it's gonna, you're gonna have to hold on to your hat. But one goddamn thing, sure, you're not gonna see us run. And I've got some boys involved, too. And I just rode down on the elevator with Lucy's little husband. He's going out to just go into his two weeks' training, his camp, and his brother. The only brother's got some marine right at Denang, he just went out in the Operation Double Eagle and killed 191 mid-cong and lost 13 of his 37. So every order I issue, I know. And I issued one yesterday that will probably cost me a good lead number of men. And I knew it when I issued it. And they told me it would. But I got to do it to protect the others. So, Vance is upset. He's got, he didn't want his people held. I never saw a heart to anybody's spelling in that way. They don't get scared when they get in the war. They don't. I could tell you that from looking to Sue DeMires at Fredericksburg. I just wanted you to know, Mr. President, that just because we got one guy killed that way, he's the rest of us all. What you do is, though, don't you get involved in personal things. You hit it on a big broad scale on a general basis of the Democratic Party. And you'll find that he's voted for practically every day I'm one of these things. Thank you, sir. I apologize for bothering you. I appreciate you wanting to get your time. Appreciate you calling. I just don't want you to live for another day. Thank you. Bye.