 Oh, you all day, but I had so many troubles. I just couldn't get my head above the water. How'd you come along with your statement? Well, Russell asked the question, and I gave it. And the group that was there expressed agreement with Russell, who said that his concern was that we were being excessively restrictive, and we're imposing undue penalties on our pilots and achieving less than optimum destruction as a result. So I think it went very well. The question now is what to do next. And we've been pressured again today. The New York Times has sent a telegram down, and they claim they've been after me since Sunday, and I won't answer the phone. And there's just a tremendous amount of pressure building up. So the question is, how, if at all, do we put this out? And I thought tomorrow I would suggest to Russell that he ask us to declassify this because of the interest in the public press, and that the committee would then put it out. I haven't talked to him about it. The hearing lasted until rather late today, and he was busy afterwards, and I didn't discuss it with him then. Now, the state has some, or did have some, concern earlier today about it. I haven't talked to Dean either. But I will do so tomorrow morning before I go up to the hearing. Now, what is the New York Times worrying? Oh, there, the Hanson Baldwin was in today and talked to Psy this afternoon at Great Lane. The Times internally is split on the Salisbury articles. And they have some impression that we have some photographs that would support Salisbury, and they're just bound determined to get those photographs out. You tell them to go screw them. That's as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, they just say, we don't think we owe the New York Times a goddamn thing. We're not going to have to destroy this country knowingly. Yeah, this is what I've done. And we learned a little bit about the way this thing developed in the times. It happened on either Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. And can't think of it matching that. The Catledge was out of town, and Daniels was out of town. And two or three others of the seniors were out of town when they saw it, and when they saw the articles came in. And one of the juniors received them and called Daniels on the telephone and read a portion of them to him. And he authorized, he made a few changes, then authorized their publication. And Oaks, who was also out of town, got very upset at this and came in and said, he was going to write an editorial announcing the Times. Now, Oaks is no lever of ours. He's been torpedoing us from first to last. But he was going to write an editorial announcing the Times for publishing such loose reporting. And Daniels, who had taken the responsibility for publishing them, finally persuaded Oaks not to do this. Daniels then called Sheehan and asked Sheehan to get in touch with me. And I was an astman. Sheehan called me there and insisted that he, Sheehan, come out and see me. This was either Christmas Day or the day after. I hadn't seen the articles, of course. So I said to Sheehan, well, I know damn sense and you're coming out to Aspen. And I don't have anything out here to use as a foundation for discussion. Maybe I'll come back to Washington and meet you there. If necessary. But I'd first like you to get in touch with the Public Affairs Office of the Pentagon. So I then called Bill Goulding. And I also called others here and got them working on it. And it's just developed from there to the point where the Times is internally so split that they're one group's trying to prove the other group's wrong and catch us in the middle. And this is why I've been withholding all information from them. But I suspect at the moment, the best thing to do is to talk to Russell and just have him ask us to declassify the testimony of the day. Ultimately, it would all be declassified anyhow. And it's simply a question of when it comes out. And I thought we might try to do it for Saturday papers, or the worst to add in the least, rather than the week. And we put it out too late for Friday night TV and too late for Friday afternoons. And in time for Saturday mornings, we'd get the least possible publicity on it. We're gonna get a hell of a blast, Mr. President, when it comes out. I did the best I could with what I had today. We really did trim down those casualty figures to the absolute maximum. And Russell, give you any hell about what the communists were killing? Oh, yes. Well, I emphasize. He made me a big speech over the phone what he was going to say to run the Thorbrights in the hole. Well, he didn't say it really quite enough. I, of course, in the statement had the figures on the number of South Vietnamese that have been killed, and US forces that have been killed, and civilians that have been killed. Thurman intervened and said he thought all those figures should be made public. I said they all have been made public senators, just that neither you nor the American public has had an impress upon their memory that this is the case. That's why I'm repeating them now and putting this in context. Well, he wanted them especially really, so we're doing that. But Russell did take the tack, which I think is the appropriate one for him, that these are excessive restrictions, and they impose undue penalties on our pilots and lead to possible loss of American lives in the effort to save North Vietnamese lives, and lives of those who are actually engaged in moving equipment to kill our men, which I think is a strong position for him. Now, what do they wire you from the top? Well, I haven't got Hanson Baldwin told us today that the telegram was in. Now, it hasn't come in as of about 7.30 at night, which is the last check I had on it. And I told my secretary to follow it carefully tomorrow. They, the Times told Baldwin to come down and talk to Psy and say that they'd been after me since Sunday morning, and I refused to talk to them. There's some substance to it. They called me four times on Sunday. I was in the office all day, and they finally called at 11 o'clock Sunday night. And I had Marguerite answer. And I told them to go to hell in fact. I just wasn't going to talk to them. And since then, I've been told they haven't talked to them. But between them and Pryce, they're just badgering us to death. And I think the best thing to do would be to get out of this favorable situation. Oh, you're just starting. You're just starting a new hearing when that comes out. Well, I'm afraid so. You're just starting. You're just starting to microth the hearing all the most. I agree. You just keep nudging. And I think what you've got to do is get on the record that you told the truth and you told it to the people that you're supposed to report it to, but that you're not in the business of turning over to Ho Chi Minh, all the information I got and everything. And I just tell them, I don't want to go to Ho Chi Minh. I just can't do it. And I don't know whether Ho Chi Minh reads the times or not. But if he doesn't, he ought to. Well, one of the things I did is he needs any inspiration. I took the photographs and had our intelligence people try to find something in them that warned our withholding. And frankly, we couldn't find anything. I plus, we were grown up, personally. And we just haven't been able to find it. But I'm still withholding. And I'm going to continue withholding. The only question I think at the moment is, should we allow them to get a damn full bunch of generals and thinking about hate like hell to them that's run for office on my ticket. Well, I mean, I'm withholding them instead of it. And I'm withholding one of the grounds of security. But I must say that if we ever get called before a committee, you know, it'll be pretty rough to point out what it is in the photograph that is secure. It's not to have somebody find that. Well, I'm going to have a target or something. Well, we've got it, you know. And one of the charges I make is that it discloses the resolution of our cameras and the tactics of our aircraft and thereby endangers our pilots. The anti-aircraft gunners can aim more accurately if they know exactly what we're doing, what access we come in on and so on. But it's a, I must say a pretty weak argument if you really get it technically qualified. Man, you get him a governor, somebody like that on the other hand, we're in trouble. But I haven't reached that point yet. So I don't have to worry about it. I'm not going to release him. And the only question at the moment is, what more do I say? Should we have Russell asked to release this? I would say no now. I'm going to talk to him more. Okay. There's no need to, if we're gonna do it.