Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 274 › Conversation 274-046

Nixon, Price & Yates on Economic policy and Phase II controls

Wednesday, September 8, 1971 · 5:35 PM–6:05 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 12 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Price, Raymond K., Jr.; Butterfield, Alexander P.; Yates, Nellie L.; [Unknown person(s)]Conversation274-046 on Tape 274 (tape position 04:51:16–05:08:16)StartWednesday, September 8, 1971 at 5:35 PMEndWednesday, September 8, 1971 at 6:05 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 274-046 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with speechwriter Raymond K. Price, Jr. to finalize the draft of his upcoming September 9 address to Congress regarding economic stabilization. The participants, assisted briefly by Alexander P. Butterfield and Nellie L. Yates, focused on structural edits to the speech, specifically refining sections on Phase II price controls, revenue sharing, welfare reform, and inflation rhetoric. The conversation also touched upon administrative logistics for a forthcoming Kennedy Center event.

Audio

Download MP3 · 10.9 MB

This clip was extracted from the full tape recording by Easy Nixon.

Listen to the full tape segment

Position in tape: 04:51:16 – 05:08:16

part C, 51:29

274a.mp3

274b.mp3

274c.mp3

NARA Description

On September 8, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Raymond K. Price, Jr., Alexander P. Butterfield, Nellie L. Yates, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:35 pm to 6:05 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 274-046 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 274-46

Date: September 8, 1971
Time: 5:35 pm - 6:05 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with Raymond K. Price, Jr.

     President’s address to Congress on economic stabilization, September 9, 1971
          -Editing draft
                -Revenue sharing
                      -Congress
                      -Page 14
                -Taxes

                       -Page 2
                             -Paragraph removal
                 -Page 7
                 -Phase II
                       -End of freeze
                       -Price stabilization
                       -Text
                       -Congress
                 -Page 9
                 -State Department
                 -Revenue sharing
                 -Welfare reform
                 -Sales tax
                 -Page 6
                 -Typing
                 -Page 4
                 -Page 6
                 -Page 7
                       -Congress
                       -Inflation

Alexander P. Butterfield and Nellie L. Yates entered at 5:55 pm.

                 -Corrections
                      -Typing
                 -Welfare
                 -Typing
                 -Deadline

Butterfield and Yates left at 6:01 pm.

Show the rest of the log (36 more lines)

     Kennedy Center show
         -Time
         - Mass
              -Script
         -Leonard Bernstein
         -Haldeman
         -Catholics
         -Hebrew
              -Protestant ministers
              -Catholic priests

                       -Latin
                 -Protestants
                       -Greek

     Economic speech

     Kennedy Center

     Country Club

An unknown man entered at an unknown time after 6:01 pm.

     An unknown man's location

The unknown man left at an unknown time before 6:05 pm.

     Special session

     Economic speech
         -Court
               -Political
         -Congress

Price left at 6:05 pm.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

the Congress.

The house has to be in a transaction that comes back in the middle of time.

And I just, you know, I take it to the south there to act, to act with the sign.

And then I make the correction, you know, and then I do the works about that hour later.

And then I do the transactions, you know, and that kind of thing.

... ... ... ... ...

I believe we've gotten it down here.

I think we've taken out the paragraph.

where we announced the end of the freeze, and the price stayed the same, and I feel like we've reached too much now, like, the way I think we've got around it, is to take off, and see that sense that we've got to take that off,

I agree with all of this.

I am asked today to breathe about the effect of the R-98, but I assure the Congress and the American people that when this first, temporary, necessary drug protection is over, we should take all the steps needed to see that America does not get affected by the virus and runaway inflation.

Thank you.

The new things, the new approaches, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things, the new things,

So, this is the beach.

This is the beach.

... ... ... ... ... ...

In fact, are committed to a free economy, and we are not going to have, we're not going to go along with the current controls.

The rapid share is no problem.

The wealth that we want is to be expected.

I think it starts off better right this way.

Straight on.

Well, yeah.

Sales tax payment.

We actually say that in previous times.

Is it one of the things that, uh, some of the, you know, types say is that it's something that's obvious?

I don't know.

I just think that's, you know, that's, uh, it's true.

I don't know.

We're going to start on a well.

I just thought it might be a good idea to start on page 67.

Yeah.

Page six.

I'll get my copy ready.

If I enter Congress,

Okay.

I think we've got two.

See, we've taken, we've moved this paragraph out.

Now we've got prosperity.

We've got to do the job of fighting inflation.

I mean, that's what we did.

We took another thing out.

You see, that's where you can put it in.

It will never again be more profitable.

It will not be more profitable than it was before.

I agree with what this is about.

It's a very important point.

It will not be more profitable than it was before.

It will never be more profitable than it was before.

I need to bring out a control in addition to the control system.

And in the same way, this comes up.

We're afraid that we just dictated how to do it the first time.

And if you use a dash, you can't do that.

If you use a dash, you really can't bring out a control.

People are going to afford that bad, but people are going to have to afford it.

Also recorded on September 8, 1971

008-054 3:08 PM · 41 sec — Raymond K. Price, Jr. and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:08 pm and 7:40 pm.
008-055 3:08 PM · 2 min — Raymond K. Price, Jr., White House operator, and Alexander P. Butterfield talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:08 pm and 7:40 pm.
008-056 3:08 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:08 pm and 7:40 pm.
274-041 3:08 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:08 pm and 3:26 pm.
274-044 3:26 PM · 1 hr 36 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:26 pm to 5:10 pm.
274-045 5:10 PM · 40 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:35 pm.
274-047 6:05 PM · 49 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:05 pm to 6:06 pm.
008-057 7:40 PM · 56 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Nellie L. Yates talked on the telephone from 7:40 pm to 7:41 pm.

All 36 conversations from September 8, 1971 →

Nixon phone call with Rockefeller on Wage-price freeze August 16, 1971 · 9 min
Nixon phone call with Finch on Economic Policy and Welfare Reform September 9, 1971 · 4 min
Nixon & Finch on Revenue Sharing and Welfare Reform September 9, 1971 · 3 min
Nixon & Colson on Economic Policy and Revenue Sharing September 22, 1971 · 7 min
Nixon & MacGregor on Legislative Strategy and Economic Policy October 7, 1971 · 4 min
Nixon & Butterfield on Congressional leadership and Welfare reform March 27, 1972 · 2 min

Cite this conversation

Conversation 274-046, September 8, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/274-046 (accessed November 1, 2026).