and obviously came through halderman or early when -- ehrlichman or the domestic sides of the house, or came from the state department, or somehow got into the president without going through kissinger's filter. and this was clearly one of them. because we felt that this was going to lead to, politically was a really weak, almost laughable argument. that would be made. even though you could construct a legal basis around it, it just wouldn't sell from a public relations point of view. and so, you know, this is one of the times when kissinger used to just shake his head. and it was, one of the reasons we chafed the nsc staff for keeping us totally separate from the rest of the white house staff. you really -- he really felt that very strongly. keeping us out of the white house mess and that sort of thing. but he was right. he said that these people are going to bring this president down. he said that in my presence couple of times. he really did not have much of admiration for the domestic the top domestic guys on the white house staff. >> can you talk about the complicated nature of

- i keep forgetting whether it was humphrey or wall rosstow one or the other -- both speaking to halderman and hague and nixon's people about the pentagon papers. one of them made the comment, no good democrat could have released these. now, i was a democrat. and i am a democrat. but i wasn't a good democrat. nor am i now, i must say. i'm kind of a self-hating democrat at the moment. in '69 i wasn't a good democrat. i was prepared to see the democrats get the blame which they richly deserved. i didn't want to punish them or do anything but in terms of ending the war, i thought it will only happen if the democrats accept the blame that is rightfully theirs. early on before nixon has planted his flag on this war. quickly. and i say the democrats i talked to were democrats and they rejected that idea. they would not have wanted to put out the pentagon papers. and so in answer to your question, my thought on the pentagon papers was this. that if they are the basis for hearings before fulbright they may -- fulbright's initial reaction was very favorable, to put them out till he thought better o