On October 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 3:41 pm to 4:00 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 010-094 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Well, those are pretty good figures on the wholesale price thing, aren't they?
Boy, they sure are, and they come at a...
I was going to say this is a very unusual day when there's nothing but good news.
Yeah.
They come tomorrow at a very, very helpful time.
Yeah.
We're going to have Weber...
and mccracken have a briefing at noon and of course they don't they don't die down much do they they're oh well yes considering that's down uh yeah three tenths of one percent for the month of september with the industrials down one tenth of one percent of course the farm prices account for part of it but even i don't remember the last month we had a a drop we've had some level months yeah uh i'll have to get those figures i don't believe there's been a month when they've come down and uh
At least not in my recollection over the last year.
So what it says is that the freeze has worked.
Whether it's a direct result or not, people are sure as hell going to think so.
And the unemployment is edged down a bit on Friday, if you get that figure.
Yeah, I got the six, yeah.
Well, that's just good it didn't go up, isn't it?
Psychologically, even a slight downward movement, I think it's helpful.
If it had gone up one-tenth of one percent, we'd have...
We'd have had a lot of explaining.
Well, and coming the day after your speech would be tough.
No, I think having a good figure tomorrow on the inflation front and... And the unemployment figure not going up and edging down a bit, they've got to play it that way.
They do.
I haven't got the raw figures yet, but I understand that the total employment...
one up significantly in september as i said i don't have it yet they're still kicking that labor force up that's what they're that's what they're doing yes sir and uh why you know i think that's padded that damn labor force thing well we've got it do we get our man in there now yeah and uh i've taken our heat and we're gonna move number one man out very shortly and we'll control that before the end of the year right but i think the uh
The combination of the two, the one tomorrow and the one Friday, is just terrific.
And the House acting is good, too, on the tax package.
That's right.
And I don't know yet what the situation is in the Senate.
The Mathias Amendment passed.
Yes, but you see, that doesn't really give us any trouble.
That is not a straight up and down veto of the deferral.
And in fact, the legislative fellows figure that this will help us on the deferral vote, the veto vote tomorrow, because a lot of people who voted for Mathias...
will now feel that they're off the hook.
They've cast a vote that argues that whatever you do in phase two for the private sector, you should do in phase two for the public sector.
Well, that's kind of harmless, really.
I shouldn't say harmless.
It'd be better if it hadn't passed.
I don't believe it's binding.
I have not read the language, but I understand from the fellows up on the Hill that it is not.
So if we win that one tomorrow... Are we sure got to win that?
Or I told Scott, God damn it, we can talk it to death, can't we?
Yes, I told McGregor just an hour ago that if he doesn't have the votes in his pocket, just talk it to death.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I had a fascinating lunch with Sinlinger, Mr. President.
Oh, yeah.
He's an interesting guy.
Yeah, he is.
Well, he's an unusual fellow.
He's totally non-political.
Yeah.
And...
I won't go into describing to you the whole analysis he gave me at lunch, although it's very interesting, very different than I've heard from anyone else.
But I will tell you that politically, he's turned up some very fascinating information.
He runs a continuous political poll in addition to his economic poll, and he makes 1,000 telephone calls a day, which gives him really the most sensitive information
uh telephone polling system in the country i never realized this but yeah whole bank of people up there before the uh in july yeah in july before china uh people were asked the question he conducts a completely different kind of poll than anybody else he asks would you vote for the president's reelection
If the election were today, would you vote for President Nixon's re-election?
And that figure, before the China announcement, was 26.7% said yes.
After the China trip, it jumped to 34%.
He is now running it, and it's on a steady upswing, and it is at 48%, which is the highest you've been in his polling in a long time.
And that's a loaded question, because that really is, he puts it, that gets the absolute hardcore.
People are asked, would you vote for the reelection?
And then if they say no, or they don't know, which is a good factor, or they haven't decided, then he says, who would you vote for?
And you'll pick up some Agnews, and you'll pick up some Rockefellers, and you would be their second choice.
In other words, 48% he looks at as rock bottom.
And he considers that very significant.
He also said,
And one of the interesting things about his polls is that they're continuous.
They run on it.
Every day he can watch it.
And then after he's tested for three weeks, he publishes.
He'll be publishing the week after next.
And will show a tremendous upswing.
Same week Harris is going to publish his.
But he said it's been steadily climbing.
He said the same thing almost word for word what Harris said.
He said that it's your political strength has grown very steadily since August 15th.
Every day that
When they throw that question in, they don't throw it into everybody, but they space it out.
Every day they get just a little higher response.
And he said it's on an upswing.
And public support for the freeze, according to his figures, is 73%, which is exactly the Harris figure.
And he regards that as politically very meaningful.
And he totally voluntarily made exactly the same point Harris said.
He said the public right now has tremendous confidence in what the president is doing.
witnessed 73% supporting the freeze.
He said, as you get into phase two, if you make them think it's kind of a continuation of the same thing, he said, you're going to gain politically.
Oh, it's fascinating.
He said consumer sentiment hasn't changed all that much.
It's come back up, but he said that isn't important politically.
He said that what is important is the public's confidence that the president is doing what needs to be done with the economy.
He said another interesting thing.
He said before the, all of this are by telephone, before August 15th, his questions, surveys,
ran 33 and a third percent longer in time than they have been since.
The entire reason being that people would take a long time bitching.
I see.
And answer the questions.
Now he gets crisp yes, no answers.
And he said that's one way he's able to tell the mood of the country that it is now, well, content was the word he used, and now satisfied.
And I made the point to him, what's going to happen to the economy?
And he said, well, it doesn't make any difference.
Politically, what happens doesn't make any difference.
He said, what really counts is the public satisfied with what the president is doing.
He said, if they think he's doing the right things, then whether the economy improves or not,
isn't important.
He thinks that the economy itself will be relatively flat.
He's different than the other economists.
Well, he's not an economist, first of all.
He's a pollster.
But he said, I'm just not so sure.
And his reasoning is also fascinating.
He said, you go back through the years, and people expect peace
they don't feel the same job security as when they expect war.
And he said, you're being penalized by the fact that there is peaceful...
They know that people are being let out of defense and all that thing.
That's right.
He said he goes back through various periods in time and he takes the Berlin crisis and Lebanon and the beginning of Vietnam and Korea.
And he said every time that there's been an international crisis...
confidence in jobs has gone up very markedly.
And when you get into peaceful periods, it goes down.
But politically, it doesn't necessarily affect you.
He said the thing that affects is... Are we doing something about it?
That's right.
Exactly right.
I think he may...
I trust he's wrong on the economy.
So do I.
Certainly an awful lot of other people, all the time, editors and a lot of others are coming up with this
the big 1972 deal, aren't they?
They all are.
Every one of them.
McCracken joined us for lunch and Paul said, oh, I think you're wrong.
He said to Sindlinger, I think you're wrong.
And Sindlinger said, yeah, he said, I'm the only guy that feels it's going to be flat.
But he said, I'll also tell you that I think the president and nobody can touch him with a glove if he keeps going the way he's going, because he's had a phenomenal upswing in the last month.
To me, this is significant, not
necessarily that his when did he pull this uh 48 oh he does it every day so what he what he does is he'll throw in a 100 questions political uh every day for like four weeks so he started let's say a couple of weeks ago and he'll be finished the week after next and he's now getting he's now getting it at the rate of 48 percent but he said it's it's it's gaining it's been gaining over the past three weeks well the events this week we trust will help a bit too
Oh, I think the China thing will help enormously.
And I have a feeling that the public reaction to phase two will be positive because they will feel that it is a continuation.
That's right.
And again, it's astonishing that in both Harris and in Sinlinger, it's held at 73 percent support.
Just amazing.
He also did some quick polling last night on Meany because he anticipated we'd be asking him.
And he said every time Meany speaks, he loses labor support.
He's driving a wedge deeper and deeper between himself and his members that the typical response they get is he's out of step, he's out of phase, he's too old, he's not speaking for me.
He shouldn't be opposing the president.
He's getting a lot of that.
And he's getting a lot of positive on you for standing up to the critics.
And he thinks the Meany thing is helping you and hurting Meany.
Which I thought was very interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's fine.
Our friend Joe Vassidis, Mr. President, who was in yesterday, put out a great press release after trade.
After here, I'm confident that the president will bring our men home and he will not have to resort to crawling on his belly to do anything.
Good.
Just running over the wires.
We're just going to keep that pounding rye home.
We'll use that every day.
I thanked Goldwater, incidentally, and he was appreciative.
Excellent.
I just got handed the stock market report today.
Have you heard it?
No.
I hope they gave me the right figures.
It says up nine points.
Hmm.
Up over 900.
900.4 it closed at.
What the hell would shove it up?
Why don't you call and find out?
Oh, I'll tell you.
The fact that you're announcing phase two tomorrow.
Oh, you think so?
Sure.
Remember, all these fellows have been telling me for two weeks they've been just, it's all a wait and see on phase two.
Yeah, it might go down Friday when they hear what it is, but who knows.
Well, it was down, sure, at 1135 it was not up at all, so that has to be it because Ziegler announced about it.
We just hope that the announcement doesn't cool it.
Well, I think it's going to, if it removes the uncertainty, I don't think it can help but give us a bit of a shot.
Mm-hmm.
So I hope that number's right.
It looks startling, doesn't it?
Yeah.
15 million shares.
Well, it might be.
Well, I'll double-check it, but it sounds good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Check it and call me back, will you?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.