 Cool him off and calm him down straight away. I know that that is Spock's view. We've talked to MacArthur this morning But Spock is under some pressure because his own man out there is beginning to try to make a record on him and I'd like to have your Understanding of this if there is a major and you change in the situation We can always take a look at it But the present plan is to pull these fellows out of Paulus in the next 12 hours or so Get the rest of the paratroopers down to Camina and then get them on back to Belgium And not to attempt a paratroop drop on the other outlying places but I wanted you to know that our ambassador there has Strongly recommended that we undertake additional drops. This is not the Belgian view at the present time It is not our view here, but I thought I would not do Give our ambassador category constructions on this without touching face with you Well, I think we have to consider I agree with you I think that they ought to tell us if they're going to have a series these things are Anticipates conceivable because I think when we perform these two that they will corral some more somewhere and we will just have a Situation that we never end on the other hand. I assume if we get out of there It's going to be a major operation getting back in and The question is do you abandon people in Houston and After you've saved them in San Antonio in Dallas, I don't know I think we got to value it carefully evaluated because if we get out we can't get back in can we Well, I'd be pretty difficult wouldn't it wouldn't it with no Americans and just to go in to Clean up these two places. We could have cleaned up before we left Would it be a little more difficult to get back in once we've gone? Well, that is that is true that we could take you keep taking a reading on it information we can get from other parts of the country about that While the trouble is that the other places don't lend themselves to the same type of operation is at least as far as Americans are concerned Out in the bush somewhere. We just don't know where they are the Belgians are Early ones who would have the primary interest in this in spots Do we have any possible conceivable Alternative of what's going to happen when we get out of there. We're just going to sit there and wait until we have to get back in Government columns are moving into this northeastern area It'll take a vendor while a few days to clean up the standard error, and then he's moving on to the northeast is another column On the ground that is supposed to move toward the funia They were given their being given the trucks that they were asking for today by air and they present will be ready to move Are we moving those trucks? But it's America, but you think it's American transport It might have been Well, now one of the military men say about this Well, you might check that get their support then I would I would be sure that to Belgium we're on town So we don't lose the friends that we've had and I just give this one extra thought I think we've got to watch it a little bit because we're going to be investigated and we're going to be murdered And I just have by Mackamara call Russell and say that his this is his inclination And we've made two of them now and we had to do it because Americans involved And we've got to have the flag follow the man But that these are not Americans and get him to tell him that he can't do it And that I think that gives you a little extra support all around the place is to ask him for That's telling Mackamara tell him that's his judgment and what does he feel about it? He'll tell him that right off the bat quick away And then you pretty well touched all your bases I think that supports you a little bit and if you have to move back in why you can say here's a change situation Greenfield has been getting a wrap-up of American press reaction And the first look at it shows that almost unanimously in support I just hope that's right. What I read is what this country says more about African country says more to somebody else says and I just think you ought to be Everybody we got ought to be background instead of Maxwell Taylor telling us about what we're gonna Do out there and Vietnam before we meet? I think it'd be better if you and Mackamara and Greenfield and rest of them We're telling all the press that You saved many lives of Americans by daring and Justified action and your great humanitarians now we're moving out and we've shown that we seek to Dominate no one but that ought to be and they do get his mind the times and the post particularly and Because if you don't you're gonna get these Africans and the Muslims are raised male now I'm saying that to this is a colonialism and you are not careful Martin Luther King wants to be a International figure that our FBI shows that he's getting ready to go international with the bigger thing You'll be interested in the Times this morning I'm in the same edition editorial thing that the government should have moved earlier and the Press should have kept their mouth shut about these operations and then I'm in that same edition of the paper on the front page They carried a story Telling in advance that we're gonna drop in politics. They do that and then they send a letter to me in sanded state And Mackamara I don't have enough meetings with them and the Johnson Doesn't give them a several days notice and the White House Correspondents are incompetent. We have to send over and get your ears and who are specialists I don't know. I just thought that there are study rest and who comes to my meetings and Eddie Foliard is The most experienced man they had his little onion the rest of them they come to my meetings But anyway, they're starting a big Press campaign now and you don't have the Greenville make a number of conferences You've had and try to compare them with other secretaries. I need that information. They've called sent me a ultimatum now head of the editorial association and AP and UP and all the press To have their leaders come in and sit down and talk to me about How secretive we are? Particularly why we wouldn't let them go into Guantanamo per day or two and why we wouldn't let them go into the Gulf of Tonkin for a day or two and why I don't give them a week's notice before I Give some news that I didn't get but an hour before and if I didn't give it to them an hour Why they'd raise hell because I delayed it a day and I really don't know how to please them But I'm gonna try to show them and McNamara seen the press more than forestall and Anybody ahead of him and you've seen them more and appeared on both programs and Give them all back rounders and Your man sees them twice a day and I've seen them 463 times the first year and I've seen them 60 times and I just don't know how you can satisfy them But we'll try to do it, but I think we ought to get work cut up pretty good And and I if I were you I try to sit down with the times people pretty often, but I'd particularly point this out to them and We're gonna go fishbowl and before our planes come in they're all told to be ready They arrive and get your guns ready on your mark set go and they told how to fire on them And that the president government needs improving too, but you sure do thank you to press ought to have a coat of ethics one of one of the problems that I've had with the top New York Times men like Johnny Rustin is that They Insist upon scoops that is they insist upon something that nobody else has my general Approach to the press has been and I won't ever say to one used a man when I won't say to another one That's what I do and you're right. You're right. And that's what they do do They're a bunch of damn blackmailer scottie reston worse than Pearson In that field and what they've been they've been ruined on the Cuban thing the president I heard him say to make fun did tell Scotty not to write this tonight I'll give him exclusive tomorrow, and they have been they've been bride before and they are just a bunch of whores They've been slept with and you can't expect any any virgin territory there so Well, I think you just have to sit down and say if you give one scoop the rest of them Yes, raise hell and they mean the first thing you do get your best Statistician to try to prove that you as good as your previous Secretary's prove that your press man are better than your previous Secretary's to prove that When you have a White House presidential announcement That you get it to president as soon as you can so he can immediately announce it instead of asking him to give notice And say it come back two days later On the gulf of taunton get our own Guantanamo or something else there's another side to that coin they say I call them Because they're incompetent people that have to cover me Well, now I think that's a real reflection on them that they've got incompetent people covering the president It's an indictment of them not of me I found that there's quite a difference between the press car that covers you and the press car that covers me and foreign policy matters Cover you just don't have the depth and background and the confidence in the mind That's what they say though That's the point and they say that that's why I ought to give them three days notice Before I discuss with them and make an announcement that we're shooting in the Gulf of Tonkin So that they can wake theirs up import them get them in get them back from New York or their lecture tour to Jewish bond ride And they can cover me they say I don't give them but two hours notice and therefore Scotty is off speaking to their tutorial Association and he can't be there and that the man they've got there is incompetent Well, I think the order First thing they ought to do is sign competent people to the president that can report what he says if they don't fail to take his Stenegraph copy and and report on it because that's available to them But their chief criticism of me they say I have more conferences in Kennedy That I am more accessible than any president's ever been I'm more available But I do not give them Two or three days notice so they can get their people that are touring the country on world problems back in to haze me And I take the position if the rest of them there and four yards there and They're a hundred of them there That if they came to depend on them that then at least by God They ought to be able to read the transcript and it's printed to them and available to them in 15 minutes So but anyway, they are after Tonkin in one ton of all their letter here to me yesterday signed with AP UP President editorial association all over and it's a major problem They're demanding to call on the president and when they do I'm going to say yes We'll justify we'll modify our procedures to try to Do what we can to be helpful. I'm not going to fight with them But I do want to point out that in my first year in office Dean Rusk has had 21 press conferences and His first year in Kennedy's office. He only had 14 Whatever it is or the dollars only had 18. Do you have more than dollars or not? I'm not sure. I'm checking the figures on that. Well, take her to before you came in I wouldn't imagine he'd be having many Just just get you a good comparison And Michael Marrow do the same and then Then you ought to conclude Submitting this memo to me that you have insisted the secretary stated when we had a presidential announcement They'd be made as promptly as possible That would not be put on the deep freeze for a day or two And that you had to assume that they had confidence and the people that reported it You can't indict them as being incompetence and say I'm going to fire on these ships in the Gulf of Tonkin But I want to now sit to two days until scottie gets back from los angeles israel drive Right, that makes them look ridiculous. And then I think it's an indictment. I think what you say is correct I think the people that cover you are more confident in the foreign policy field than the one cover me But I think that's their fault not ours And I think we ought to say well dammit if you want to know what the president's thinking You want to his input some men over there capable doing it A few more of the White House fellows into them This could create some problems within within the organization They don't object to that what they object to is that I don't cut the state department people in the mind. I don't give them enough time to get over there That's what they want. I see they don't object to That they just they say their people's white house are not as confident as people's state and defense They want hansen ballroom To handle the the intricacies of the paratroop drop and they want Higginbotham is it over to your place? What's this John high tower? They want him to handle What I did In connection with the paratroop drop when I made the decision and what kind of shirt I had on it How long I considered it who I talked to and what minute I did it They want to log on Anyway, that's a problem and anyway