 I've been able to get him 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. What 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 at 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 it's when and if any pre-cult should be taken? Yes, I have Phil Goulding, who's our public affairs officer under Sylvester, working on the public affairs aspect. Last night they had to put out a notice to Mariners indicating that a dangerous object had been headbroken loose, and that was done and a low-key announcement made of it, and I don't think there's been any serious problems as a result. As to the precautions to be taken with the populace that is being developed, I think there's an adequate plan for it. What do you think that'll encompass? Well, it depends where this thing happened. 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. Well, we don't really know, do we? Well, we don't really know, but it doesn't appear to be at present. Well, how's 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. And what is it to indicate that it might have sunk there, because that's where it would probably get hung? Yes, that's the point. Now, frankly, 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 seaborne 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 in the last conversation I had, which is about half an hour ago, 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, is get in touch with them. It was then that I tried to call General Reeves, but I haven't gotten hold of him. But Pittsburgh gave a nice end to a very profitable long-time relationship with a few suits there, wouldn't it? Absolutely, 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. 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'd just guess, offhand four weeks. And then at the end of that period, I would think that 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 the 64 miles? We don't have any real evidence, and I think we would have if there had 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 U-2s. And I think this will give us advance 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'd 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. Yes, and if it's a new government that is just stepping in and placing a shoster here is pretty weak anyhow. That may not be too bad, but if it's a fraction or fragmenting of that country, I think it would be very serious over the long run. Do you mean a minute? Yes, 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 and food to both of them? 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, you know damn well, Napoleon says, the army runs on its belly, and you know that they're going to go right to the army. No, I don't think so. The food's going to the army anyhow. There's not going to be any food shortage in the army, whether you 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. The agency's coming in to meet and going to be raised now. We don't do something. We attack as far as that. You mean of the aid agency? No. We've got a kind of a front hypocritical operation where we say that we give the food to the private agencies. Private agencies distributed, and they'll have a series of picketing or something. Who's in charge of that? I don't know. They've 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. 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, with 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. 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 Mack 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 lodge, either tomorrow or the next day, that will cite 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 Viet Cong 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 will 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 airspot are required, which were part of that 210,000, as opposed to more Army battalions. We'll 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 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. 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 bombs 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 that's building up. And I think very irrationally, we talked to Vice Wheeler 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. Did you see the poll this morning on Vietnam? No, I haven't seen it yet. On page two, it's very interesting. About the times of the poll. Yeah, I've got it right here. It shows that we've gone up in the last immediate past, I guess, two months, I believe, in July to September. Also, the boys that all our bombers go up. Yeah. At the bottom of the list. I believe the pull-outers. Oh, yeah, I see. But it didn't. But they didn't go up much. They went from 22 to 26 May to September or 25 to 26 July to September. They went up one. That's right. That's right. They went up four. That's right. Yeah, four. So I think your policies of anything are gaining strength, but they are very... This drink is very thin. I know that. And we had a group of businessmen in here this... On Friday and Saturday that side, 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 advice to give you? Frankly, 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. At this time, I really did. And so I did. And they left feeling very good. We get this Congress out of here now. We've had an awful, unimplemented good year. I know it. Terrific. We just get them out of here now. There's a motorist track settled there. And one of the tracks we've got, we've got a railroad or two.