On November 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and George P. Shultz talked on the telephone from 8:45 am to 8:54 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 015-058 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
I was wondering what the tactics should be with regard to keeping these guys in this pay board.
What I'm getting at is that it will, to a certain extent, determine whether or not
And that's what you play it at this moment.
Substance.
They're getting what they want.
That is, they're getting extra activity from the Congress.
House and Senate have voted that on there.
When will that be done here?
Well, that may be sometime.
We don't know exactly, but...
The payboard would straighten it out, but now we see the payboard isn't, so we're pushing it.
And when I do it, I will sign it reluctantly with a blast effect, don't you think?
Might as well.
I suppose so.
I don't think we have to make up our mind on that.
My point is this, that we may as well at least get a few points for the business community, who say we're soft on little Barry.
But anyway, that's what we can see.
Go ahead, Barry.
Well, so on the substance, they are getting what they want, so they really don't have any complaint left.
However, the process that we've gone through in the last two or three weeks has poisoned things very badly.
I should think particularly within the pay board, since media has made fun of Bowles and denounced Weber and so forth.
You have to watch that pretty carefully.
You have to watch it, but the point is how much now you want to have Migny taken on.
You see, that gets back to it.
I think you see what I mean.
You were saying last night he should be taken on.
Should he or should he not be?
My own feeling is that...
Might be that we have to try to isolate him to an extent to make him look bad.
I think so.
Because if you don't do that, George, I'm afraid that we're worse to both worlds.
He'll get out and take the others with him.
I don't know.
What do you think?
That's the way I read it.
I think we need to isolate him.
I have a golfing date today with Frank Fitzsimmons.
Good.
And I'll see what he has to say.
I would hit him hard in saying how crude and rude and so forth he was.
Right.
Well, that has come through.
I don't think many was dumb about that.
It's come through to an extent, but it didn't.
you couldn't tell that from reading the times account that there was any rudeness i mean i mean you get the rudeness but you didn't but you just got the in the times the poor reception didn't get the strong speech you know which was the thing they wanted but that's where they were playing you know i think um but nevertheless the television is what is important if they may have gotten more of it through
I think we have to alert to the possibility that the pay board might blow up.
The public members might walk off, for instance.
They're increasingly isolated themselves.
Where Meany might, in a fit of temper, he's become so irascible that his own union people like
and unstable, and they don't know quite what to make of him.
His recent glories have gone to his head, apparently.
So he could do something erratic.
So I think that we need to be building ourselves.
You're worried that if that happens that we just confuse the board?
You're welcome.
We could continue as a public board, or we could reimpose the fees for a short period while a public board of price and wage people put out broad guidelines and then just lift the fees, lift everything, except that they have a kind of exhortation approach and repeal of bureaucracy, so to speak.
Right, right.
I guess that would be my preferred way to go, 60 days.
But I think we need to start building a broader space for how we're going to deal with inflation and prosperity.
I've been trying to work out a...
what you think of a line of chatter that maintains our interest in the machinery and the controls, but basically says that what is going to make phase two work is not only the controls, but what came before it in terms of economic policy, the determination of the president after the
strong fiscal stance, and the impact of an expansion on productivity, which will cut the daylights out of labor costs.
That's the pattern that I'm developing.
So that if we're out in front a little bit, we're not so dependent on the controls.
Very, very important, and we hope they work, but they go out of their way.
We're not lost.
It's the end of the world.
Right.
Let me ask this.
It's a very good idea to do that, and I hope you can get it done soon.
Let me ask if you could, if you think you have to have two, and would it be inclusive plan, ready to go?
I see people like, I run so commonly, I don't think they're thinking in those terms at all.
I've been working on that a little bit for a while now.
There should be a contingency
almost everything you could imagine.
Anyway, sir, it's quite obvious we know various things that could happen and we should have a continuous plan.
And I think that's what should come up now.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
All right, fine, George.
Enjoy your golf game.
I hope it doesn't rain.
Yeah.
It's not exactly my idea.
Well, I like that.
Saturday afternoon, they'd follow that.
That's a double A.
Keep the possibility of our friend there, you know, Mike.
raise it, discuss that with him, what he thinks would happen and so forth.
Would you do that?
I will.
I got another reading since the time you and John Mitchell and I got that he didn't want it.
The meaning of the idea was implied into by Woodcock.
And Meany's stance is that he thinks Hoffa's paid his penalty.
He's not going to take quite any effort to get him freed.
On the other hand, if he is freed, or if Meany is asked about it, that's what he would respond, that Hoffa's paid his penalty.
If he isn't asked to
Never can depend on that, can you?
You sure can, and I thought it was quite changeable.
His references to private conversations that Hudson, I imagine, had with him was very surprising to me because Meany has historically been very good about that.
Yeah.
So it keeps you confident.
You sure have.
Yeah.
No, I'm not, but...
It isn't a question of whether or not we are at war with Meany and Company.
It's only a question of how to rage the war.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Enjoy your game.
Yes, sir.