What were President Kennedy’s concerns for Indochina back in early 1960's?

Well, the...you know, I came in first as Ambassador at Large and I got involved in the Laos negotiations. And as far as the Laos negotiations were concerned, he was unwilling to send troops to Laos. His Chief of Staff said if he wanted to get started in that direction... on the question of the ability to go through a war with China, possibly using nuclear bombs...and he decided he did not want to become...have any troops in Laos.

As far as Vietnam is concerned, I didn't really know, in the beginning, what his ideas were. But later on, when I did...after I became Under Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, which was in the end of 1961, I got to know more about what his views were about Vietnam. Eisenhower had talked with most about Southeast Asia, but Vietnam wasn't one of the major problems, Laos was the major problem.

And therefore, he hadn't given a great deal of thought in the beginning to Vietnam. But after having the Bay of Pigs and then making, in 1962, the arrangement for neutralized Laos, I feel that he felt that...he couldn't make another compromise...that he had to have a policy of good support in South Vietnam or else in the elections in '64 he would be accused by the Goldwater contingency of being soft on communism and doing nothing.

On the other hand, he was never very keen about it, and of course, I'm absolutely satisfied that if he'd lived, he never would've gotten as deeply involved in Vietnam as President Johnson did. He...he wanted to limit our commitments, and...when...up to the time of his death because we had limited it to economic and military assistance and sending in advisors and strengtheners but no combat troops. We had 16,500 I think, when he died.

Governor, you....

And we already had had under the Geneva Agreement the number that was, the minimum number which was provided for, which I think was about six hundred and eighty. So he'd expanded the number of advisors but he...he...wanted to see what he could to help them but he always felt that it was a Vietnamese war, and said so, and that shouldn't be taken on as an American war.

You made a reference to the Bay of Pigs. Could you elaborate on that? In what sense did the failure of the Bay of Pigs influence the President's attitude on Vietnam, in your opinion?

In my opinion, was, as I've just told you, I can't repeat it a second time, he'd been the Bay of Pigs is well known and it's not involved in this discussion. And that was a great failure, and a great mistake. He'd inherited it from President Eisenhower. President Kennedy, when he first came in, came in rather humbly. He had won by a very small margin President Eisenhower as an older man who'd had a lot of experience in military matters and he didn't have a desire to upset any of Eisenhower's plans.

And I think that's what got him into trouble in the Bay of Pigs, although I was traveling at the time as Ambassador at Large and was not involved in the Bay of Pigs decision but I was on the fringes of it, so I knew what'd happen. But he felt, he felt very deeply that there'd been a great mistake made. It would have been almost impossible, I think, for him to have called it off, at least some people think so, because there were so many of the...of the...Cubans that knew about it and there would have been a major uproar about it.

But it should never have been undertaken...for it would have been difficult to do...And then...he realized that was a mistake and a blot against him. Now, making a neutral, neutralized settlement when the Eisenhower administration had been very firmly for having a right wing government in Laos...under the head of this General Phoumi...to switch that into a neutralized Laos was a step backward in terms of an aggressive, anti communist attitude. So these two things, I think influenced him in not wanting to have a third case of where he moved away from the obligations of President Eisenhower had undertaken.

Do you think that the Kennedy Administration considered that Vietnam was vital to America's strategic interests?

Well, nothing is vital to American strategic interest. There was...the domino theory, there were differences of opinion... some of President Kennedy's advisors that felt it was vital, others that didn't think it was so vital...and he would've like to have seen, obviously liked to have seen Laos maintain its independence under a non communist government.

But I didn't get the impression he felt it was very...I think he felt it was more a domestic political issue...or I wouldn't say it was a moral one but the internal political situation did affect his judgment on this as to what to do rather than the vital nature. It's a question of whether Ho Chi Minh was an independent Vietnamese as Tito, or, whether he was a stooge for the communists and would drive...from you know, the domino theory...drive into Thailand and then drive into Malaysia and this would start the whole course of events.

And, I got the impression he didn't believe that the domino theory, he...didn't he...was very much for anti-communist action but he wanted to do it in a way that was sensible and a way that we could be successful.

Our presence in Vietnam, in those days was very much linked to our attitude towards China and we inherited the containment policy. What was your own attitude towards the question of China? Did you...

I can tell you as far as I was concerned, I agree with President Roosevelt when I explained to you that he wanted to stop the French from going back into Indochina. And then, as I told you in 1949, I urged that we do not help the French in Indochina because I thought they were...they they were not gonna...that they were involved in a disastrous situation and it was affecting their ability to recover and play their role in NATO which I thought was more important. The recovery of Europe and NATO...And...so that my record there is pretty clear that even before I came to the Kennedy Administration.

On the other hand, when I did get involved, I was very strongly for protecting the Laos and I was very strong for protecting the South Vietnamese if we could possibly do it. But, unfortunately the Diem government was a very weak reed. And as you know, there were very real difficulties...with it...it didn't have very wide popular support. And he inherited all that.

How important was Indochina, that is, Vietnam, Laos with the Russians? Was Khrushchev really serious about supporting national liberation wars? Was he serious about Vietnam, was he concerned about it?

Well, he stated his support of national liberation wars. Mr. Brezhnev today states he supports national liberation movements. He doesn't use the word wars, its a little bit lighter...but they do want to see, they do believe that the communist ideology is bound to sweep the world and as Khrushchev said it's bound to outlive the capitalism and take the place of capitalism. That's their faith. They think they can win by ideological developments.

But they Southeast Asia, I think got into the row between China and the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union saw a chance to increase its influence in Vietnam and seized it.

And even today, as you know, the South Vietnam, North Vietnam I mean, is looking to Moscow for its help and having very real differences with China...which shows the developments which have taken place but the seed of those developments were already in the situation when we were discussing Laos and also Vietnam with them.

I think that explains why the Russians were for a settlement there and the Chinese of course were...said war was inevitable and the uh...I have real evidence of the fact...I'll tell you about...I talked with Mr. Kosygin...and he really believe that the Chinese wanted to use Laos as a place to expand their influence but Ho Chi Minh didn't want to do that.

He wanted to have it independent. You've got to realize that Ho Chi Minh was a man of great patriotism. He talked to Wilson about...he wanted to have Wilson in the peace treaty accept the independence of Indochina.

And he was a real patriot of Indochina, and if you go through the history, the Chinese have always wanted to conquer South—uh, Vietnam...invaded them, but were never able to conquer them.

So there's a history of Vietnam's independence of China which Ho Chi Minh and his followers were very strong believers in. So that, this is why, Moscow saw a chance to support an anti-Chinese group right at their borders.

Could we go back a bit to the Laos situation which was, as you said, uh the more important situation at the beginning of the Kennedy Administration. How did you get involved in the negotiations on Laos?

I was Ambassador at Large...and one of, I was one of the three principle officers of the State Department, there was Dean Rusk as Secretary, and Chet Bowles as Under Secretary and I was Ambassador at Large and it was understood that I would take as many of the foreign assignments as possible so that Dean Rusk wouldn't have to travel so much.

But I was to have a very...very important position...when this Laos situation developed, Dean Rusk asked me to handle it for him. Uh, he wanted...he and the British wanted to have it on a very high level...and obviously Dean Rusk couldn't sit in Laos and so he asked me to do it.

And...I...he told me this when I was on the way to a CENTO meeting...there was the meeting in Turkey of the group in the Middle East. And I took a very quick trip to Southeast Asia; I'd never been there before.

I think I went to about seven different capitals in ten days. And uh, I went to Laos, I went to South Vietnam, went to Cambodia, went to Thailand, went to India. The Indians were...I played a role with they...because they were chairmen of the ICC, the International Control Commission.

And I first got a view of it. And so I went with him when the Laos negotiations started in May, 1961, it was accepted by, by Kennedy and the others that there should be a negotiation for the settlement of Laos.

And that really meant that a neutral acceptance of the neutralization of Laos. And he...he was there only for a few days and then I handled those negotiations from then on. I think we finally came to an agreement in July of '62. Uh. So, that was the manner in which I, I became involved.

What...

And I went through...What?

What was it like negotiating with such a large group? There were Russians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laos...

Well, there were two co-chairmen. There was Mr. Pushkin...who represented...assistant secretary...assistant foreign minister and Malcolm MacDonald who had been a...very high official in the British ranks.

He'd been, I think, director of the Southeast, South Asia area and I dealt with them. Largely, I had an assistant, Bill Sullivan who was not of the old school. I found the whole old school that we inherited...in East, the Far Eastern division was very strong for maintaining a right wing government in Laos.

But if we weren't ready to send in troops, that was quite impossible. For...the consideration...of the division of Laos...leaving the delta area in the hands of the right wingers and the Plaines des Jarres and the mountainous area in the hands of the Pathet Lao who were the communists.

But that didn't seem to be very practical. So we began to concentrate on working out a...neutral Laos. And the question was...who could be the Prime Minister? Souvanna Phouma, had been, had not had a good reputation with the previous administration. They thought he was a communist, others thought he was a playboy.

I talked to him. I happened to run into him in India and had a very long talk with him. And I talked to him in Cambodia when I saw him. And finally, I had a special meeting with him. Spent three days with him in Burma with one or two of my advisors.

I made up my mind he was a very solid patriot. He was a Vietnamese first, I mean a Laotian first. He wanted to see Laos developed. And he's proved to be that.

He's, he's still as of today in Laos although the communists have taken over. But he stuck to it and he was very loyal to the agreement and um, it was a very wise decision. The previous administration had misjudged him entirely. He could have been the Prime Minister, he was Prime Minister on several occasions, but the previous administration had supported General Phoumi and that booted him out.

And he had had...he would have been much better off if the previous administration had accepted him as the Prime Minister, many of the problems of Laos would have been avoided. He was a very fine man. And if you want to wait a minute.

...cut for just a second?

Yeah...Have to go back... because we really couldn't hear the governor over the uh...

He was...

...sound of the air...

Where do you, where from?

He was a very, Souvanna Phouma.

Wait a second, where from?

From uh...

Just, just repeat something because the air problem...

Can't I say Souvanna Phouma was a...

...Burma...

...huh?

Yeah, you were saying you met, could you just repeat the, you met Souvanna Phouma in Burma...

Well, we had a long talk...I think about three days talk in Burma and we went over all the details. I made up my mind that he was a very sincere patriot and would stick to it and if the previous administration had taken that position he'd been Prime Minister before and supported him...they might have avoided many of the difficulties we...later had.

He proved himself to be a patriot. He proved himself to be determined and he stayed there in Laos all through the period. Laos agreement might have worked if it hadn't been for the blowup in Vietnam.

But it was a very difficult thing to get the Pathet Lao and the neutralists and the Phoumi group together and Souvanna Phouma showed a good deal of skill in that respect.

Did you ever meet General Phoumi?

Oh, certainly I met General Phoumi. He was, he was our representative...he was head of the government that we were trying to support.

I'm sorry, the previous administration had the American protégé, until Souvanna Phouma came in, was Phoumi. right?

Yes, Phoumi when...President Kennedy came in...Phoumi was the titular head of the government.

Yeah. What kind of impression did he make on you?

He was a soldier and very right wing. And the only trouble was he didn't have an army that would fight. He was full of ambition but he didn't have the support of troops that would fight...Laotians are very peace-loving people...and his soldiers were not...competent.

During the Laos negotiations, did you feel any pressure from agencies or groups in Washington against the neutralist solution? In particular, did you feel that the Pentagon was cool to the idea of a neutralist solution...or the...

I don't know about the Pentagon. I know about the State Department, and the State Department was, as I've told you, very much opposed to Souvanna. They thought he was a communist. And...

And no basis for it. And also I'd been schooled in the idea that we had enough interest in Laos so we ought to insist upon a right wing government remaining. And those people gradually dropped out. But they didn't have any influence on President Kennedy. They were...

Were you in close touch with President Kennedy during the negotiations?

Oh yes, I used to see him whenever I came back to Washington and...I remember...this was in...June...I think almost less than a month after the negotiations started we had a talk and I developed the idea that we should have a neutral government and spoke to Souvanna.

And I spoke of the pros and cons and Dean Rusk approved it and when I got back to the office...uh, Kennedy was a great man for telephone...he called me on the telephone and said Governor, did you understand that I want a neutral Laos and I agree that Souvanna is the man for us to back as...And I said, "Yes, sir, I did." But he was so...he wanted to be so sure I understood it...

When you have a big talk of that kind there's a...views expressed by a number of different people...he wanted to make sure I understood he was strongly in favor of a neutral Laos with Souvanna as the head of it. So with that direct instructions from him I went to it. Took us a year to achieve the settlement, but we finally did achieve a settlement.

Why is it, in your estimation, that the Kennedy Administration was in favor of a neutral solution for Laos but seemed to be opposed to a neutral solution for South Vietnam?

They did not want to send any...they...the military situation in Laos was completely different and so was the political situation. The President decided he didn't want to send any troops into Laos and that meant it was necessary to have a neutral.

There was no government...no real government there. There was civil war going on. Whereas, in Vietnam there was an established government under Diem. He was making progress in getting control of the country. And...there was, no reason at that time to consider any change.

Excuse me, Stan...

The situations were entirely different.

Hold on.

Want to change the set?

Can we have a repeat of the last question also?

What was the matter?

Just the question or the answer?

The answer, the...Governor, Governor?

Yes?

When sometimes, your tie, it's making a lot of...

What?

...on your tie, occasionally.

I see, I'm sorry.

Occasionally.

Uh, now uh, there's a good...if you're going to repeat any of this stuff about Phoumi, toss in that story about Phoumi's troops retreating. It's a good little story.

Oh no, that's another st...no, that, that story leads to Namtha. Namtha.

Namtha?

That's my story and it relates to Namtha.

Well, you can tell it, could you tell it?

No, we'll tell it when we talk...

Why did the Kennedy favor a neutral solution for Laos but oppose a neutral solution for South Vietnam? Could you jus, that's the question. And just, could you repeat...?

When you ask, you don't have to ask the question again.

Go ahead.

Uh, we have speed?

All right, go ahead, why don't you ask the question?

All right, just give you a cue.

Any time.

Okay, go.

Why did the Kennedy Administration favor a neutral solution for Laos but oppose a neutral solution for South Vietnam?

Well, there was civil war going on in Laos and the President had made up his mind he was not going to send in American troops and...therefore, there had to be a political settlement. And the neutralized, the neutral settlement looked as if it was possible...there was...obviously far more desirable to us than to have the Pathet Lao win a war that was not going well.

There was a...we...sent our White Star teams out there to, to advise. I can tell you a story of one of them...reported...that his...unit that was under his advice...had in the Namtha battle had shown better morale than in the previous engagement.

And the previous engagement... the North Vietnamese they always used to shout, you know...They would yell and then attack...The Phoumi forces dropped their arms and ran. He said in the Namtha situation...they ran but they carried their arms with them. So that you can see, it wasn't a very stalwart group of people.

Now as far as South Vietnam was concerned, there was a government there that was in charge, it was expanded its operation, it was successful in putting down some of the difficulties and it was there didn’t seem to be any major problem. There was no reason for considering a neutral Laos at that time...a neutral Vietnam at that time. The situation was entirely different.

Joe Alsop had written...Alsop wrote that uh President Kennedy told you that the United States was going to make its stand in Vietnam. Was that...Do you recall the President saying anything?

No. I wouldn't take what Joe Alsop said as strong evidence.

Hold on just a minute till that airplane goes.

We're going to have terrible air, problems with airplanes.

Well...

What was the question?

Wait a second. That was a question about Joe Alsop, wrote...

All right, ask again, ask it again.

One moment. Bruce?

All right, ask the question.

Just waiting for the [incomprehensible] to stop out there.

Okay.

All right?

Try it.

Joseph Alsop has written that President Kennedy told you that the United States would make its stand in Vietnam. Do you recall that?

No. No, I don't. I don't recall him saying that. He never...I was never directly involved with him in...in the Vietnam problems. My contact with him, as far as the Far East is concerned, was largely related to Laos.

What was it like negotiating with Pushkin who was the Soviet diplomat?

Well, he was a very...he wanted to have a settlement. He had a great deal of difficulty with the Chinese. That's when I first got to know the real difficulties between them. We used to have meetings with what we used to call the Big Four, which was the British and the Russians, the Chinese and myself for tea. In talk it was quite obvious that the Chinese were...wanted to see the war continue and didn't want to see a settlement.

Uh...Pushkin tried his best to come to an agreement. He was obviously under instructions to try to come to an agreement for a neutralized Laos and he worked, he worked with us to achieve an agreement. And Malcolm MacDonald was a tower of strength.

He was a man of very great ability and patience and tact. And between he...he at the big...I negotiated with the two of them and I always found myself in agreement with Malcolm MacDonald the British representative.

But I found Pushkin, very...trying to be cooperative as far as he could, within the realm of being able to bring along the Chinese. And also bring along the Pathet Lao. You know, that was a problem. We had to...we had a problem of bringing along the, General Phoumi's group.

In Vietnam, President Diem of Vietnam, considered that the Laos settlement was a stab in the back because it left the Ho Chi Minh Trail open. What was...could you comment on that?

Well, we provided in the declaration on Vietnam which they all signed, that no country could use the territory of Laos to move any troops...from its...into any other country. And it was specifically provided, the North Vietnamese never paid any attention to it, but it specifically provided that the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as it was later called, could not be used.

Therefore, the agreement was in fact violated by the Vietnamese.

The agreement was violated.

Now, if I could jump ahead a moment here...

That part of the agreement was violated.

If I could jump ahead because I want to come back to something...In April of 1963, you met with Khrushchev in Moscow. And reminded him of the Soviet pledge to support the, the uh Laos agreement.

Well, I certainly did...

I'm sorry, would you repeat that I met...

Yes, he certainly did agree. He agreed with Kennedy at Vienna...to come to an agreement on Laos. And then there was also which we thought was an agreement with Pushkin that they would do everything they could to get the communist members, and the British on their side would do everything, as co-chairmen, would do everything they could to get the non communist group to abide by the agreement.

We tried to get that written in, in that language, but...the co-chairman should have the obligation to see that the agreement was kept. But we couldn't get them to agree to that. They weren't willing to take that obligation. And when I saw Khrushchev, he made it plain that even though Pushkin did indicate that they would do what they could to get their...do everything they could to get their people to...their communist signators, to carry out the agreement, he said they had no facilities.

It was a very friendly chat and talk, but very firm. They only had an ambassador there, they had no facilities, they had no way to investigate the situation. They didn't believe our stories that the North Vietnamese had sent troops into the Plaines des Jarres. Gromyko started the rumor that the uh, Chiang Kai Shek's Chinese who were up in the mountains, came down and were creating trouble. That was a completely fabricated story. But it was a story going around...

Finally, all I got out of Khrushchev on this particular subject, we'd talked about many other subjects, but on this particular subject of Laos, all I got from him was that he would authorize his ambassador there to talk to our ambassador and also to the British ambassador, particularly talk to the British ambassador, see what they could cooperatively do to keep the negotiations, keep the agreement going. And I reported this to Mr. MacMillan on my way back, who was Prime Minister of Britain at the time, and he agreed that his ambassador would work with the Russian ambassador. There was...there were...he...dodged the issue of taking any responsibility but indicated that he was anxious that the agreement should succeed.

He made a great deal of stock out of the fact that the foreign minister had been assassinated. Mr. Quinim. He was supposedly one of Souvanna Phouma's followers, I always thought he was closer to the Pathet Lao than to him. There had been, Kong Le, was the general of Souvanna Phouma's neutralist forces. There were three forces. There was the Pathet Lao forces, there was the Kong Le forces and there was the Phoumi forces. And Kong Le's principal colonel had been assassinated. And sometime later Quinimwas assassinated. He was a member of the government. And the Pathet Lao members of the government, the government had been established in Vientiane with the representatives of each of the three sides having different ministries.

After this assassination, they left Vientiane and went up to the Plaines des Jarres on the basis that it wasn't safe for them to remain there. I always thought it was possibly an excuse, but in any event, there was, there was some...they went up there, and there was some fighting between the Kong Le forces and the Pathet Lao. And we wanted the International Control Commission to go up there and...the Pathet Lao wouldn't, would only let them come in a very limited way. The International Control Commission was chairmanned by the Indian and there was the Pole and the Canadian. And they were supposed to see that the agreement was carried out. But the Indian chairman wasn't very aggressive and the Pathet Lao did their best to keep him out, so...these questions were never fully settled.

Do you think?

But, in the meantime, Souvanna Phouma did keep his government going. He kept his government going all through the whole Vietnamese War, even though in the Plaines des Jarres there was fighting, as you know. But he kept the area of the country which had about two thirds of the population under the control of the government. The mountainous area, the Plaines des Jarres, which had about one third of the population, as I recall it, was under the control, was either under nobody's control or under the control of the Pathet Lao.

Could I go back to Khrushchev for a moment? I wonder if we could take advantage of your reminiscence of Khrushchev, to ask you to do a little bit of description of Khrushchev. How it was to talk to him.

Well, I knew Khrushchev very well. The first time I met him was in '59 and I spent ten hours with him on end. From 1:00 mid-day until 11:00 at night. We moved from one place to another but I never realized how much one could learn about a man in that period of time.

Then when he came to the United States, he came to my house. I had some of the Wall Street bankers and businessmen to met him and it was rather an amusing meeting. He said, now at last I've met the people who control the country. He really believed. He was not very well educated, you know. And he had, he had...a certain, only one, I think, only the first grade in school. Then he went to the communist school, night school. And...that communist night school was largely propaganda. And...so he was full of the communist propaganda...and...so that...what was this in connection with?

I was asking your impressions, what it was like to be with him...

He was, he was very strongly for the, for the communist movement. He believed in it. Remember he said that...what did he say...what he meant was we will outlive you and some people, what was the word...?

We will bury you. Bury you.

Yes, we will bury you. Ah, people thought that meant he was going to drop an atomic bomb on us. It wasn't at all. He meant, he meant from a time schedule standpoint. He said capitalism had replaced feudalism and communism was going to replace capitalism. This was on a time schedule.

But he was quite genial, had a good sense of humor, and always treated me courteously. But was very tough about the subjects he believed in. And he was, in this Lao situation, he was quite ready to have it succeed, but he wasn't ready to...to...I mean I don't think he was able to send any more men down there. I think part of the trouble carrying out this Pushkin agreement...incidentally, Pushkin died, which was a great tragedy because we couldn't continue negotiating with him. And there was no one in the foreign office who knew the details as he did. Which was really a great loss. He just didn't have the facilities, nor did he have the influence in North Vietnam to change their policy.

But we did talk...he was very anxious to develop trade. He spoke about that at this meeting. He spoke about the fact that we had blocked him getting a big pipeline.

He thought that there were those in this country who felt if we gave him the big pipeline that would give them a lot of money in exporting oil to Europe, Eastern Europe. And he said that we had to make our own pipe and the net result was it cost us a lot more money and...the Germans it cost a lot of effort but we got it done and the Germans lost some business.

He spoke about desire to have trade. And in a way he rather indicated that he would like to have...the beginnings of what is now called détente. That he would like to be able to come to an understanding with Mr...President Kennedy on our relations so that we could avoid, we could avoid difficulties.

He was...I talked to him about Cuba. He was leaving troops in Cuba, which was very embarrassing. And I didn't get too far with that. But he, he did get quite far along in terms of trying to get together. And remember, that in three months, three months later, I negotiated for President Kennedy, with the British, with Khrushchev, the limited test ban agreement. And he was for, very strongly, for reducing the dangers of nuclear war and that was the first step, we didn't accomplish as much as we'd hoped but it was a very important ecological agreement.

Because testing the air, you know, forget it, it was very dangerous. Probably forgotten. But in those days when you were testing the air and the Russians were...We didn't know if we could let our children drink milk because the...contamination would go over the grasslands and cows would eat the grass and they'd get...their milk would be contaminated. So the limited test ban was very useful ecologically but it didn't stop the arms race unfortunately.

Lets go back to Laos and Southeast Asia. In the spring of 1962, even though you were opposed to military intervention in Laos, you reportedly supported a limited commitment of American troops to Thailand. What lay behind your uh...?

Well, we had...in our whole negotiations the great problem had been to create a cease fire when we first went there in May '61. We had to have a cease fire before we could discuss a political settlement. We finally did get the cease fire. But in the spring of '62, the Pathet Lao broke the cease fire and with the help of the North Vietnamese they advanced on a town called Namtha which was in the northern, northwestern part of Laos up close to the Chinese border.

And we were afraid that that would be a direct route to China into Thailand and the President wanted to show that he wasn't going to sit by and see the cease fire broken or as a warning signal to the Chinese, that he was going to protect Thailand. See, Thailand was protected under the SEATO agreement. And as a warning to the North Vietnamese that they better stick to their agreement under the cease fire.

And I think it was a useful event and I think it simmered them down and helped us get the final agreement...

Did you think though that...?

But it was a relatively small number, I think it was only fifteen hundred.

Change pace here a moment and ask you why you were given...

Could, could you handle it with these questions because my answers have been developed in connection with your questions. It's confusing me by...by moving from one question to another...I've got it thought through to answer to stick to the order of the questions, it would help me a lot...We've got another about ten minutes.

Let's end the morning session, if you would...I have a question down here. Why were you given the name of crocodile...nickname of crocodile by your staff?

It wasn't given to me by my staff, it was given to me by Mac Bundy. He originated it and the reason why he originated it was that...

Excuse me, Governor, could I ask you to start again and saying, I was given the nickname of crocodile...

Yes, all right. I was given the name crocodile, not by my staff but by Mac Bundy, you know, who was...President Kennedy's assistant, principal assistant...and he used to attend the, of course, naturally attend, kept all the minutes of all the meetings that took place...in the...was a major advisor to the President. And I'd learned in dealing with the Presidents that you have a fraction of a minute to answer a question. The question would go up, it would go around the room and each person would have to answer. If they had a long winded answer...it annoyed the President...a lot of people felt they wouldn't answer it, then they never got a chance to speak again.

So when the question came to me, I'd always, in the time that I had, thought of my judgments were pretty well established, thought of a way to answer the question quickly and sharply. And I would always answer these questions very quickly and sharply. He used to comment on the fact that I did that. And finally, he said you were the crocodile. The President would turn to me and I would have a sharp and quick answer regardless of whether he agreed or disagreed with previous statements...speakers. But I'd learned that you only have a minute or two to get your ideas before the President and you either seize them or you bow out.

Listen, I want to...

And...it was a, it was a kidding question...it was a kidding title and its stuck to me ever since.

I wonder if we can break because the next session is a whole new chapter.

This is not a bad time.

Listen, we're doing very well. I don't...I don't see a...

The, there's a, that period is quite a long story in that period I was sent by the President around the world, you know I went to [incomprehensible] countries.

I've got that down. Another words we come back we start with question twenty...

Dan, have you got anything before you leave.

No, sir.

I got in your role. Both your things that you wanted me to.

You've got everything I heard yesterday, and quite a bit, quite a bit more.

How about Chet?

We give you an "A".

Okay.

So far...