Nixon phone call with Colson on unemployment statistics and ITT hearings

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Anyway, the market gave us a good shot today.

I was glad to see it.

It's about where we want it.

I want it to go over 1,000 by November.

Well, I'm afraid it's going to do it before that, according to almost everybody I talk to.

They seem bullish right now.

Yes, sir.

And the economic news is all good.

We're going to get a

Temporary setback on Friday on unemployment, I'm sorry to tell you.

Well, it was, what, two-tenths to 5.9.

That's hard to figure.

No, it isn't.

The March figure, we take the worst seasonal adjustment break in March of the year next to October.

I mean, October gives us the worst seasonal adjustment break.

The next worst is in March.

And, you know...

I can demonstrate to you how that happened.

It's unbelievable.

Last month, it changed.

Well, we changed it to the extent that we could at the beginning of the year.

And if we had gone any further, what would they claim?

A massive increase?

No, they're not going to be able to, Mr. President, for this reason.

The total number of jobs increased last month by 600,000, which is probably the biggest.

I haven't traced it, but the biggest.

The total number of jobs increased by 740,000.

which is, again, although I haven't established it yet, and we'll get a very big break in June.

Then the game is to hold it in July and August, and get a little break in September, and break the computers not too long.

Not anymore.

And the interesting thing is that in these figures, the married males figure, which is the lowest it's been in this administration, stays the same as last month at 2.8%.

The total increase is in adult women, which is probably part-time workers.

You have the average for the first quarter now being 5.8%, which is not bad.

We have total net employment up 600,000.

I think they'll have to play it over as jobless rate rises, but employment increases 600,000.

That's a lot of people.

We're going to have Herb Stein take care of that.

Well, you can talk about, of course, almost a million new jobs in the first few years.

Of course, I still don't trust these figures.

Well, I don't either.

Well, they could be a hell of a lot more cooperative than they are.

And I must say, when you see a month where the total workforce increases by 740,000, almost 1% of the total workforce in the country in one month, you have to figure that the census figures weren't accurate.

If you had decent statisticians over there,

I think they'd go back to census and say your figures are off, you can't have that much of an increase.

No question about it.

The time we have to watch them, and I've got some ideas in this respect that I take up with Schultz.

The time we have to watch them is from June on.

That's when they can play games with us.

And...

He's the guy out now, then.

Well, he's been for that for a long time.

He's a jackass of a pro.

He goes up on the hill before the practice market.

He makes good news sound bad.

Bad news sound worse.

He's just a...

No, there isn't right now, but I'll talk to Schultz about this.

Hodgson called me tonight and said he was, he said, I'm just done.

Every month for five months.

And he said, yes, the index is rising substantially.

Well, the only way you can figure this one is that

You know, they take a statistical survey.

It's like a poll of 30,000 people.

It's 50,000.

And you can get pretty wide swings in the workforce.

That's where they've always been able to do it.

Every time we've had a bad break, it's because the workforce has gone up an inordinate amount.

No, this can play alright.

Herb is good at handling this, and then we're using Marina Whitman to talk about the wholesale prices.

We don't have that figure, but we know the food price component is down.

And that's the one with the component bargain.

Oh, I think we can... Yeah, and I want to get her out around going to supermarkets and doing some of the things that we...

I think she's a more...

saleable personality than Virginia Nauer, who tries awful hard, but she's smarter, and she knows how to handle herself beautifully, and she's an attractive woman.

She has that little bit of verve that will make her valuable to us.

But we'll watch her on that, and then we're going to have her every month handle the food price issues, and we'll get her kind of out front.

What's the deal on the hearings tomorrow?

We don't know.

Well, we'll know probably, Mr. President, around 11 o'clock where we stand.

I just came from a meeting with McGregor, Mitchell, Quindy, Marty, Pat Gray, and Wally Johnson.

Well, the Republicans are in good shape.

They're holding firm.

To my shock, however, John Mitchell indicated he wasn't too sure how Eastland was.

I thought we had him locked up, but I didn't.

he has from the beginning of this campaign, as you know, flipped all over the place.

What Mitchell is afraid he will do is in the morning say, well, I don't want to

filibuster.

I don't want to try to push this to a vote today.

If Kennedy and Sonny want to talk, we'll let them talk.

We'll come back next Tuesday and John Mitchell's task is to work on him.

Meanwhile, Clark and Wally Johnson have been working on the Republican side.

I think their feeling is that we can hold our fellows in line, that they're prepared to stay in there tomorrow and just

to fight it, to fight it hard.

The key is, of course, we can't pull it off without Eastland's approval.

We just don't hit the boats.

I don't know.

Oh, I think from the beginning, he's played games with us.

And I, of course, the prime, the thing of prime importance is whatever they come out of there with tomorrow morning, our guys, you know, we've already talked to Scott and Buster, they've got to head right for the cameras.

And no matter what the outcome, well, if we close the hearings, they say it's a vindication.

But if they don't?

If they don't, by God, they're continuing this inquisition.

And this is a political inquisition.

And a filibuster.

And it's being perpetrated for political purposes.

Just raise hell so that at least our story tomorrow night will be positive.

Right.

Thanks for watching!

Well, okay.

We'll push hard in the morning, Mr. President, to see if we can get these hearings over.

I think it'll work.

We'll try.

We'll stay with it.

Nixon phone call with Colson on unemployment statistics and ITT hearings

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 6, 1972

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