Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 009-090
Date: Monday, September 20, 1971 at 10:50 AM
Participants: Connally, John B.; Petty, John R.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/009-090

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:02] I have Mr.
[0:02] Petty.
[0:03] All right.
[0:03] John.
[0:05] John.
[0:06] Hello.
[0:06] John.
[0:07] Yes, sir.
[0:09] I'm here with the president.
[0:10] We're trying to get these dates.
[0:12] You don't have your calendar with you, do you?
[0:14] You're not in the office, are you?
[0:15] I am.
[0:15] I might ask.
[0:15] Yes, sir.
[0:16] Oh, you are?
[0:16] Okay.
[0:19] What...
[0:19] What night is Treasury planning on having its reception?
[0:23] Wednesday.
[0:23] Wednesday what?
[0:25] Wednesday, September 29th.
[0:26] Wednesday, September 29th.
[0:28] Okay.
[0:29] That's at the flag hall at the Smithsonian.
[0:31] Yeah.
[0:32] Okay.
[0:33] Now, what other events are taking place?
[0:38] Assume for the moment that the President might want to have a reception and supplant the Treasury, but soon we want to have it some other night.
[0:45] What night would be the best?
[0:48] What other official functions are there, in other words?
[0:51] There are a whole series of different countries that give their own receptions for their visiting ministers.
[1:02] And ordinarily, Wednesday night has been reserved pretty much for the U.S. big show.
[1:07] Wednesday the 29th.
[1:09] Now, if we chose any other time, obviously we'd be preempting
[1:14] which is possible.
[1:17] Every other night there are a bunch of parties being given functions.
[1:21] And there's not much competition with the U.S. from 6 to 8 o'clock on Wednesday.
[1:26] Okay.
[1:27] Now, what's the least number of people that we could invite?
[1:30] Who comes to this IMF?
[1:31] Obviously the finance minister.
[1:33] The finance minister and the central bank governor are almost always the delegates, and they have their undersecretaries.
[1:39] Most of them come with their wives.
[1:42] Okay, so you do have the central bank governors.
[1:46] Central bank governors.
[1:47] Let's say there's 120 country members.
[1:49] Right.
[1:50] How many of them will be here?
[1:51] Oh, they'll all be here.
[1:52] They'll all be here, 120 of them.
[1:53] Yeah.
[1:54] 120 finance ministers and their wives and 120 central bank governors and their wives.
[2:00] And there's, in addition to that, there's sort of the Paul Volkers of the delegation, things like that.
[2:07] Now, at the...
[2:10] The Secretary's reception in the past, we've invited as much as, oh, about 22 to 2,500 to about 1,500 coming.
[2:18] Yeah.
[2:19] Now, that includes the big banks of the respective countries that are in town, and they don't need to become that type of thing.
[2:25] Okay.
[2:26] Okay.
[2:27] Thanks very much.
[2:28] Okay.
[2:30] Bye.