Conversation 081-001

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I thought it might be worthwhile to begin by commenting briefly on the question of where are we as the pay boards and credit unions are now coming into the picture.

There are, I think, clearly indications that the rate of inflation, for example, was announced approximately three months ago, as I recall, and it showed a tenth of a percent rise.

But I think the more interesting thing is that approximately 4,000 non-food commodity prices priced

or the usual index, 80,000% of the prices remained unchanged, and 6% went down, or in other words, 93% of all of the 4,000 prices either remained unchanged or declined, 8% went up, and much of the rise in the 210, which is part of the statistical scenario, could be explained by the question

factors as some of the highest indexes in the price index are not actually priced every month, such as college tuitions, which are priced once a year, and first came into the index in September, or I think more prices went up some because they are hot and cold, that's because the surcharge could be faster and so on.

So at least there is a trend here that has been, I think,

The freeze itself, the waste price freeze itself has been well accepted.

In fact, I think it has been generally fairly well brought.

This is a tribute to a man who has become an elder statesman with that operation, Art Weber.

And my question was about one of the great challenges of public service in this century.

So I started around .

Good to see you.

First of all, thank you, Mr. President.

You thought you were playing up to me.

Well, of course.

I said that it's the Golden Gate Women's Federation.

I said, having one woman here, that's a better rate than the American Bargain of Women.

I said, how are you?

I appreciate it.

Mr. Grayson?

Yes, how are you?

Good to see you.

Good to have you here.

Thank you.

I do not, President.

Good to see you.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Mr. President, we just got started.

And, yes, you and I, it won't take long.

The will, I'm trying to say, is a very unusual one.

They're saying, how many days?

So I wanted to say to you, to this group, that first, to express appreciation for your taking this time.

I can also say from long experience, not only in government, but in humans,

the old OPA, beginning of the war.

This is a thankless job, but an armistice report.

I decided to begin my own evacuation by making an admission of something that many of you will hear, and this is absolutely something that you cannot deny.

One of the analysis waiting for the price to be made and the answers to the committee, et cetera, et cetera.

I am the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

We can make it not fussy and very certain.

But the way to make it not fussy and very certain is to have a system of absolute control throughout the economy.

And rather than having basically a system which will have the need and the sort of compliance

and a system that depends upon existing government personnel for the most part, and the police system, and a system that depends primarily upon massive public and voluntary support, you may go, or speaking of a massive office of controls for wages and prices.

What would that cost?

Well, it would cost the person money.

at least 50,000 new patients.

But the cost that concerns me the most, and the reason we've taken this road, is the cost that we would be involved in.

taking this, what I believe is this

a vibrant, potentially powerful economy of ours, and putting it in a straitjacket, and slandering its capability for growth and the like, and then ran into a situation where we would be such damage to it, or on the other side of the coin, that people

that become so used to controls that they might resign themselves to continue.

Let me start at the other end of the discussion.

If there's anything I believe very, very strongly is the future of this country lies not in the group of more hard government controls or less.

And so having said that, if you were to poll a majority of the people today, a majority would be for wage controls and price controls.

As a matter of fact, the majority very strongly supported the wage price breach when I announced it, because they thought, well, it's gonna stop the rise of the cost of living, so they fought.

That is true, this is the beginning.

But when we look at what happens to controls, our own experience in this country, the experience abroad, we all have to reach the conclusion that the rigid, regimented government control route is not the best route for this country if we want to continue to expand to lead the world in our economy.

So consequently, we have set this one.

on a basis where we do have sanctions.

Understand as you know, we have asked the Congress for sanctions.

But we do have a price commission, a wage board that we expect to do a job.

But also set up on the basis where we hope that over a period of time, we can move away from the control system.

And two, an economy that can operate without a form of freedom.

So having set that goal, I want to say that that makes your job all the more hard, all harder.

It's very easy really to take a system where every I and a is is done and every T is crossed, but when you know

We have all the rules and regulations.

When somebody asks you questions in one of the areas, you don't do this whack and so forth.

Or you've got enough personnel and police and so forth around the country to be careful.

It's that simple.

A bunch of clerks can do it.

And a bunch of top clerks.

But a system like this is very different.

A system like this requires, which requires men, women, and

the program will fail if we have to rely too much on the compliance as far as government is concerned.

If we have to rely too much on the sanctions of government, then in my view,

And this will fall on its own weight.

So what you need to come down to is your responsibility as you mentioned before to take this very, very difficult assignment, look at some objectives, make them realistic, and then proceed to find a way to implement those objectives without the installation of massive controls.

Now, I would like to tell all of you that getting you to serve in the force, that you were the only ones we had.

It's not true.

In fact, we wanted all of you.

You were asked.

But I can tell you that there are many people in this country, officers, executives, the rest, who didn't have the guts.

to take this on.

I'm afraid it might not work.

For that reason, I just want to say that I appreciate the fact that around this table we have to stand and know that this is a difficult problem, and know that it's necessary for the country, which we're going to have an economy without this burial of inflation that destroys all the goals we have.

We know that, and we have to take the assignment on public business.

I think if I could speak, if I had total backing from the White House, or if I had total backing from whatever, that may be able to contribute.

I will, of course, be here.

You will be the customer, the counsel.

I will, from time to time, of course,

Whatever the case may be, I do realize that you, and particularly those who have accepted the responsibilities of the chairman of both districts, have given a great sacrifice

great risk, the reputation you have, and you all have fine reputations, are on the line, and that I am most grateful for, and the country will be most grateful for.

Looking down the road, I just spoke to a group of women in Sheridan Park, very interested in many things, bees, all the great ideals, and this motivates all of our people to

war also must be addressed.

And I made this point that we're in a very interesting and to use almost a cliche word, historic period in our war policy.

We're ending a war that's going to come in a long history.

But we're doing something that we haven't done adequately after the other wars that we've had.

We are looking far down the road in attempting to build the peace.

In Paris, like we said, Wilson tried to after World War I and failed because of lack of cooperation and response from both sides.

And then after World War II, we had the United Nations, but too many hopes were raised for an organization that could never be solved, felt no great powers from a submitted state to a hundred and fifty soldiers.

And so therefore, that is important.

But since the United Nations, since World War II and all those great hopes, the United States has had two wars, one in Korea and one in Vietnam.

So when you finally come down to it, we have to look at the power structure in the world.

We continue to support the United Nations.

We work with our friends in Europe and our friends in Latin America and our friends in Africa.

But where the game is going to be determined is what happens between the United States and the Soviet Union today and the next media future.

And looking further down the line between the United States and the Soviet Union and the other great superpower, mainly China.

That's why I'm taking the trip to China.

That's why I'm taking the trip to the Soviet Union.

These are those trips are going to mean that after the United States, Americans, Russians, and Chinese, particularly our leaders, who might all agree on everything, we have great differences, philosophical differences, historical differences, that will never be resolved.

We're destined to be competitors.

and making what it is to compete without war, only between ourselves and the simulating one of our swords.

And so, we're in this period of time where there's still a great deal, of course, of danger.

But Larry, I think we can say that the easiest problem is ending the one war.

Can we come to the more difficult problem?

Problems in the relationship between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Can we have an agreement on Europe?

Can we have an agreement on living arms?

Can we have an agreement to find cool off committees and all these things?

And further on the line, between the United States and China.

On all of these fronts, I can only say that

that there's no greater hope than there's been at any time in this century, mainly because great forces are propelling, for different reasons in some instances, and for the same reasons in others, that same reason being the fear of a nuclear confrontation that each nation has toward talking rather than fighting.

Once that happens, let us suppose in the last third of this century we've had, and what we have not had,

and any generation in this century a period of peace for the United States.

What does it mean?

It will be the greatest challenge this country has had since it began.