Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 285 › Conversation 285-039

Nixon & Safire on Economic policy and Speechwriting

Thursday, October 7, 1971 · 3:25 PM–3:32 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 4 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Safire, William L.Conversation285-039 on Tape 285 (tape position 03:58:23–04:01:55)StartThursday, October 7, 1971 at 3:25 PMEndThursday, October 7, 1971 at 3:32 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 285-039 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417184717 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and speechwriter William Safire review a draft text, likely an upcoming presidential address regarding economic policy. The President emphasizes the need for brevity to maintain audience engagement while debating the effectiveness of price-cutting strategies. Nixon expresses optimism that his economic initiatives will stabilize inflation and stimulate gradual job growth and market recovery.

Audio

Download MP3 · 8.1 MB

NARA Description

On October 7, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:25 pm to 3:32 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 285-039 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 285-039

Date: October 7, 1971
Time: 3:25 pm - 3:32 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

William L. Safire talked with the President.

[See Conversation No. 10-136]

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 2 minutes of this recording (about 43% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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).

Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
It's the second one.
Page two.
Yeah.
Post-it price in September goes through the button.
All right.
Where are we?
Do you have my company?
All right, I'll find it in a minute.
This is on the, on the problem thing.
By cutting prices.
I think by cutting prices is better than, say, an affordable price.
Hold, hold.
By cutting prices.
Yeah.
No, I think I've got everything I need.
We're...
15 minutes.
About 17 out of 8 words.
That's fine.
Although, some of them take a little longer to read, you know, those letters.
I don't want to rush them.
This is too long.
People get so bored.
I think we've got a good thing here.
We just don't know how people are going to take the, you know, the squealing world or something when they see a little of a curtain dam on the property and they're likely to go right up and down that wall and be interested and so forth.
But that's fine.
I mean, if this is going to work, we've got to let it apply to everybody.
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
But I think we're doing it right now.
I don't care if it's only temporary.
The market is what happens.
The inflation is down.
Jobs go up gradually.
The market's got to go up.
That's what's going to happen.
The market is basically just going to show us that we're up.
That's what's going to happen.

Also recorded on October 7, 1971

  • 285-037 3:05 PM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:05 pm and 3:25 pm.
  • 285-038 3:05 PM · 14 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 3:05 pm and 3:25 pm.
  • 010-136 3:25 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and William L. Safire talked on the telephone from 3:25 pm to 3:32 pm.
  • 010-137 3:32 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:32 pm and 3:43 pm.
  • 285-040 3:32 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:32 pm and 3:43 pm.
  • 285-041 3:32 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:32 pm and 3:43 pm.
  • 010-138 3:43 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Clark MacGregor talked on the telephone from 3:43 pm to 3:48 pm.
  • 285-042 3:43 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Clark MacGregor met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:43 pm to 3:48 pm.

All 108 conversations from October 7, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 285-039, October 7, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417184717). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/285-039 (accessed October 28, 2026).