Nixon, Connally & Shultz on Economic Policy and Wage and Price Controls

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Let me suggest this, I'm putting this on, and I think that's just don't tell the industry.

They don't need to know.

I think we've really got to develop enough together on what the public industry should see.

That's right.

And we have another plan.

We have another plan.

We're going to have a combination of congressional action, a combination of congressional and diplomatic action, and we'll let them know just to buy some time.

Don't talk to them at all.

And don't talk to anybody else about it.

That is murder.

You've already talked to Nils about it, and that's bad, you see.

Okay.

Oh, I know, I know, but we shouldn't talk about it.

You understand?

Thank you.

Have a good time.

Well, how's the truck?

Good afternoon, sir.

I'm just working on it.

Well, excellent to see you.

I'm just so attracted to the life here in Washington.

I just couldn't stand to have a say in the work.

Sit down there.

I'm just reading something.

I'll put that aside.

Go ahead.

I'm headed in this subject.

Oh, we've got to get into it.

While you were on your way here, John, I had George Goldberg, the Carver's temperature, figure, the test that you brought in, probably a cracker, this is of course George Goldberg.

No.

And you, I don't know, you've gone to your office.

Do you have anything more to add to our conversation?

I don't know, would you like to hear what George has heard from Mark?

Yes, I'd really like to start with George's reaction to his visit with the Poles.

Where we stand for the Poles.

What our options are.

Okay.

Everybody.

And I firmly believe that we have a moment of correctness Alright Alright then

I'm curious, I'm going to ask you, contrary to what goes on for all of us today, on the 12th and on the 16th right?

The 16th, correct.

Yeah, nobody can.

Go ahead.

Something may be funny.

Go ahead.

Nothing I don't know.

A set of message pages, like today, suddenly has 20 directions over the border, and there's a call for appropriating any of the monetary assistance, uh, uh, speculators, uh, and, uh, and could be, uh, get by with that, but, you know,

I don't know.

I'll call her.

The first case is to do a position of, um, have labeled as having, uh, gone or go there, whatever that means.

Right, there's so many things that we all agree on.

But what would happen if we told them that?

That would put them in a great question.

Nobody knows what would happen.

And so it's always a bunch of assumptions.

There's an unfair amount in the way of changing current theories and reactions of one kind or another.

He would hesitate to predict whether the stock market would go up or down.

He doesn't feel he has a sense of direction.

So that's the thing.

He hesitates.

He doesn't know what he's going to have to think through.

Finally, I would say that the support for

Everybody thinks it has to be done tonight.

You see, John, one point that is of interest to all people, when we talk about the film, we talk about doing these things.

The goal was simple.

That required no thinking at all.

You would do it, you know.

You're an old kid.

You can ask impressions.

The difficulty with the others, well, we've done an awful lot of work on the tax and the budget and all the rest, but we haven't contributed enough.

But the one that we have not contributed the work on, and we disagree, and it's not that we checked with Paul Volcker on that, Volcker's done a lot of work on the same, is not the question of the wage price freeze, but how to administer it.

I mean, that's got to be put it out.

And to screw it up, of course, to put it out might be fine, but to screw it up would be, when I say screw it up, I guess it's over a period of time we just stumble along and figure out a way to do it.

And George has been working on various methods of administration and so forth and so on as to how it would be done.

For example, one proposal is that

You wouldn't set up any organization at all.

You'd simply say, well, the Justice Department would receive complaints.

That's right.

Now, that's one way.

On the other hand, the question is, what do you leave out in anything?

What do you do with regard to

Dealing with the labor negotiations, I'd like to strike somebody.

When the wage price breaks, you cannot, of course, stop the strike.

You've got to hold a long charge and strike.

God damn it.

George Henshaw.

George Henshaw, that is, well, in short terms, they then could feel whether they could delay their strike until they get a chance then to wank it off.

But the way I see it, the way the guy's making the impression, he was being positionally insane.

They didn't strike before a weight increase.

They're striking a portion of the fire before it goes off.

So he was less enjoyable.

Now, whether or not the coal miners would actually go back to work, I'm not sure.

There's a question today that he has on the theory of designing everybody's truck.

I don't think they have on the set of the time the coal is back in.

I mean, that's what it is.

Well, incidentally, of course, one thing about the coal miners, they're not nearly as important to this economy as they once were, hardly.

That was true for a while, but as we learned last winter.

Energy.

Going into winter.

Okay.

I see the problem that little.

All right.

Well, Mr. President, I think if you don't have to emphasize that emissions need to be done, actually, when the regulations didn't give any more issue, um,

I think you have to have the conviction for some relief, for hardships and other things.

And you want to stress that.

The initial announcement, she's going to say that they're frozen.

That's a 12-0-1-A-N, August the 13th, or whatever they teach you, in effect, across the board.

But I think next week, you have to remember the regulations and actually spit it out.

You ought to have in there some conviction.

for taking care of our chickens.

I don't care how long, 60 days, 90 days, or 120 days.

You don't have to emphasize it.

You don't have to.

Otherwise, I just really don't think you ought to be in a position to say, we're going to freeze wage prices for 120 days or 60 days.

There would be no exceptions.

That is difficult to defend, just as a political measure.

Well, I think that's right.

Yes, I think that's right.

And I think the regulation would have to be with the language with respect to exceptions.

It would have to be with a very limited fashion.

You don't have to just cut it out, I suppose.

It doesn't inherit anything.

It didn't create anything.

It just thought it did.

Oh, I'm certain.

I'm certain.

I have a question.

We previously negotiated a deferred increase at a certain point in time.

There was a question about the contract that had to come before the escalator, and the date for an escalator to wait.

And we know when the escalator comes to a cut, then we have all these equity-type things where you have people who are very, very poorly paid.

The relationship between the word act and the devaluation

You know, we started to do the same thing.

Again, it's no good having the evaluation take place and see what it does before you make the decision on what exactly and how much and how much you want to do on the prototype.

We agreed generalistically that that's the point.

...very much on the side of studying to as great an extent as possible.

So that you are taking leadership in the world on the economic front, similar to what we were talking about yesterday.

That's John's point.

That's very correct to do.

That's John's thing.

Bring something out of it.

I just really don't think all these problems are this big, provided we posture it correctly.

I mean, the thing I see is not a problem.

I see it severely on the question.

at a different level of magnitude.

I do not, I doubt, John, that we could figure that we could get together, that we shouldn't get together and half-ass each.

and go out on the television and panic the whole country.

My view is that, let me say this, let me see it the way I see it, like we were talking about the options.

I regressified the idea of closing the gold window now, and then on February, I always say February, because I'm thinking of the second month, on September the 7th,

The plan that I had, John, was to call the leaders back the day before they come in and have them four o'clock and say, all right, fellas, we're going to go this and this and this before you can appreciate your cooperation.

And then make an announcement that night or at the hotel or whatever the case is, depending upon the order of magnitude we were interested in.

Now,

By doing the thing, we would have an opportunity to prove something that we can't do now.

First, we could background the members of Congress and develop congressional support for them.

so that they just don't take plenty out of it and shoot at it without knowing what the hell it is.

Second, we could develop a very thorough background in the press.

In other words, you would have the background, George would.

We had to put our best people on there.

People who really understood about them.

We couldn't have them crack it, though.

You would have the background.

George would have the background.

I think there's so many other things.

are going to be enormously effective on this.

When I say McCracken shouldn't be, he isn't very effective on it, right?

He'd be heavy with some of them, you know, and they're wasted.

Now, in other words, I think this is something where the reaction of sophisticated people is going to be enormously important.

the reaction of people generally is going to be more effective than anything else than the wages prices freezing.

Right?

If you were to say hello to a lot of people about the prices and wages and growth, people are going to say, thank God.

I mean, you know, you say we're going to freeze wages and prices and we're going to...

The way, for example, that I would handle the...

I'm trying to find out the advantages of going three weeks from now are so great

And it will enable us to go forward and do this work.

And Georgia's got some nice little budget duties that we're trying to do.

And incidentally, I just talked to Earl from the east.

He said he just looked into HEW's welfare, their means of doing family assistance.

And he says, even if we, the Congress passed it, and if we want to do it,

Elliot would have to come to us and ask for a year's postponement.

He says, it is a horrible mess.

There is no way that you can manage it.

So we're off on family assistance.

Thank God.

Why, if we postpone it a year, we ain't going to have it.

And that's the way it is.

So we've got a few other things.

If we got that, we would be in a position to make a pretty positive thing.

Now, the other point is that

However, if everybody says, if it's a moment of crisis, if the dollar's going to, if that's going to be too late, do it.

Then they can do something now.

Looking at what we, what is needed now in order to stop the crisis, if you look at the international monetary thing, all that is needed is to close the gold.

That stops the crisis, right?

But from our losing assets, it may create a crisis in terms of the international money markets.

It'll leave them in a chaotic state until something else happens, in my opinion.

I have to say, of course, that when you do this, but the way I had it positioned was that the way it was being done, and I mean just petting it out, was that you would make it possible to be effective.

that because of speculation against the dollar, that the United States was taking action to preserve the dollar and defend it, and that we were temporarily closing the deal.

And that we would be prepared now to discuss with our major, with nations around the world, setting up a new, a better, more stable system, or whatever we want to call it.

And we're prepared to do that.

Right, George?

Is that the way you would say it?

And then that sets in motion so that you and I could go ahead.

You're meeting with five nations, or one, or ten, or fifteen, or nine.

You know what I mean?

At least it would say that.

You're doing it for the purpose of defending the dollars against speculators.

And in that way, if we did just this one thing, I would not have you do it.

You should do it, not me.

And you should not do it at primetime at night, because people will know.

And there's no use to stir up a lot of people about they don't understand.

You should do it just in a brief statement.

Take questions.

And that's it.

Now, that's the way I would position that.

Then, also, you would say that I think we could lift the lid.

We can't lift the lid, but we're at a great price for you, unfortunately.

But you could say that we are going to take actions.

We're also going to take actions if the President will present the Congress letter of returns.

And we could say on the budgetary front,

put them off a little bit.

If you say it's going to have a wage price being freeze, then the cat's out of the bag.

They'll all raise their prices and we're screwed.

So you might throw them off on that and we're going to take action or something of that sort.

And then three weeks from now go together.

Now that's one way of planning.

The other way of planning is to do exactly the reverse.

And that is just to announce now

only, to announce only the wage price free.

Just that.

That's another way to do it.

And then, figure that that will sort of stabilize the, that that might, might, we should say, stabilize the situation.

And then,

then come up with our legislative package on taxes, including the border tax and so forth at a later point, and then, if necessary,

as necessary, work out your international problem on a negotiated basis, rather than on getting a ladder and closing the gold mine.

Now that's another way to get an answer.

And, of course, the third way is to, frankly, to go before we're ready.

Do it now.

The difficulty with going before we're ready is, I think you're about the same as we talked about before, and we probably didn't talk too much about this then,

First, that we won't do it as well, not nearly as well, in terms of everything we do, in terms of our budget action, in terms of our, well, we can put that off, I guess.

We can really put our budget and tax action off.

We can put that off until the 7th of May, because that is not essential for this.

Really, all we have to do in relation to the present crisis

is to do the wage price thing and, presumably, the gold weapon thing.

We ought to do both.

I mean, to be sure that we, to deal with it most effectively, we ought to do both of those things now.

On the other hand, that misses the great advantage of your program, the way you can have one big, bold play when you do the whole damn thing at one time.

Now, the question is, if we knew the world ain't a one time, could we do it now?

Tonight?

I don't think so.

I do agree with that.

And I don't think we can do it, you know, I guess we can start burning the coal and then we can get it by tomorrow.

But I don't see any damn advantage to that.

In my view, if we don't do it tonight, John, then if we're thinking of doing the whole package, what I was thinking we would do is just call the whole working group together and we'd whip up the hand day tomorrow and Friday and Saturday and Sunday.

And then on Monday we announced the whole program.

Now that's one thing that you do.

You go for the whole ball on Sunday and on Monday.

So it's a...

It's a, it's like all these close-ups.

Because we have this one, we know that we have a good idea what the public reaction will be to everything else.

Nobody knows what the public reaction will be that will go with it because, frankly, the people that are the experts don't know what the hell it ought to be.

I'll make it for Darryl.

I don't want that.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I think that the

The impact of that has already been taken into account in the market question.

My bet about it is that there will be a lead for evaluation between other states.

That's basically my judgment.

There's been too much this week, too much written.

It has to come.

It's not a question of whether, it's a question of when.

There were three stories I picked up.

There were three stories on the editorial page in the Dallas Morning News this morning.

Don't provide a mention.

Three different stories.

One was a question and answer stockholder's advice.

What does this mean?

Does this mean we need some woman who writes a story?

And basically, she said that it's not going to affect you.

Now, other stories were bad.

They were all just ineffective.

Well, they're all predictive.

All the professionals.

think it's coming that may be one of the reasons everybody's considering it well sure that's why that's why i don't really think we ought to be concerned about that i think you'll primarily be concerned about about how you can most effectively convince the american people that you

Number one, are aware of your economic problems.

Number two, that you have thoughtfully considered them not as a piecemeal emergency stopgap measure, but that you have analyzed them in depth and that you have dealt with them in a substantive manner and all of them.

I think that's the whole point.

I would consider the Congress.

too much, and your impact on the Congress, I wouldn't think about what the reaction would go with the thing.

That's not going to be the big news.

The big news is going to be, and what else do you do?

The wage and price, just as you said a moment ago.

The wage and price, this isn't the big news.

That's not going to stay.

That's all folks are going to care about.

Sure, that's all they're going to care about.

All they're going to worry about is the tax thing.

All the business people are going to eat the tax up.

The investment tax bill.

And most people will have to say that the problem of doing it piecemeal, and this is what worries me, the problem of doing it piecemeal is, number one, everybody's going to be saying, well, he's got to do something else.

What comes next?

And beyond that, they start speculating that everybody starts trying to jump the gun on you.

You get a bunch of leaks.

You get a bunch of congressmen.

They're all going to be proposing things to show how smart they are.

And they've already proposed a lot of these things.

This is what, and I just think you're going to get robbed of a hell of a lot of the impact of it.

That's what worries me about it.

I agree with you completely that if you can wait until the day before, if you can wait until September 7th to do it, no question about that's the wise thing to do.

No question in my mind, what if you could do the whole package, the impact would be infinitely greater than the sum of the parts.

But the next point is, I don't think you can wait that long in terms of the international money market.

We've lost since August, the 12 days in August.

The foreign governments have acquired over $3 billion, and what we consider our $3,694,000,000 just since the last 12 days.

Today was a billion-dollar day.

Tomorrow might be 3 billion.

We could ride it out.

When you consider what debt we have... Let me ask you this, John, just so we can see what our options are in terms of doing it all at one package.

I'll leave it to you to see if I get your opinion correct.

You believe.

You would have doubt about closing the gold window and then doing the rest of it on some kind of a better design.

But I don't think it's the best solution.

Yes, and I think the net effect of that is that, number one, the impression is that you were forced to do it about what's happened in Europe in the last two weeks.

And secondly, that you didn't know what to do.

It took you from now, from tomorrow, until September the 7th to figure out what to do.

And if you were very reactive, that's the thing that worries me about that.

Another way you could put it, I don't know if you've been around, but I would say, when the Congress returns, I would quote him.

Yes, you can do that.

That immediately starts wild speculation.

What's he going to propose?

What's he going to contain?

Then you've got everybody harassed from now on and trying to find out.

Everybody's going to be speculating and writing a think piece, which may not be bad.

But it is bad.

I think it's bad.

Frankly, you don't have a good situation.

The polls indicate that you're...

You're taking a whipping on this economic issue.

So I don't think we're up to a thinking term for the crisis.

We wind up here with $6 billion.

What the hell is that?

That's $6.10 billion.

And when the final analysis, I'm not worried about that.

That doesn't worry me at least.

That's the reason I received that $6 billion.

I couldn't care less.

We owe 30 people so much so we can't pay it any more if they call on us.

That is the critical point.

Seems to me the critical point is that if nothing has been written now to trigger

a comprehensive action on your part.

I think that's the main point.

And the main point you want to come out of this, and I'm being repetitive with the governor here, is that none of this is new to you, that you knew what was happening, you picked a time, and you can just say, I hope that I might wait until the situation reaches the point where I think I will say to the nation of the world now, what are my plans?

I hope not to reveal this until Congress returns on the 8th.

But the situation is such that I think damage will be done to the international monetary stability, and it's one of the best that can come.

It's a way further than I'm telling you now what my plans are going to be and what I'm going to ask Congress to do.

I just think that overall it makes you a much wiser person.

gives you the initiative again.

I think it takes away a lot of the criticism that you've done, the heat done between now and then, which you can always recoup from.

But I don't think it helps to have these poets coming out showing it.

More and more people think the Democrats are the party of prosperity, and they've got less and less faith in your ability to deal with this economic issue.

And we all know if you let that go too long, that you'd have more races to come.

I'm sure.

How long can you stand it?

I'm not going to say that you can't stand it until September.

And I must say, Bill, we can't go tonight.

We're not ready to go tomorrow.

We can't go tomorrow.

We're not ready to go tomorrow.

We don't have the text.

We don't have this type of presentation ready.

and I think we could have a good thing.

Well, I agree with that a lot.

Well, by the way, it seems to me, George, based on what you said, let's come back to our interview.

Our dispute is that they should do it all at once.

Well, he had his choice, wasn't his program on the two copies, one piece, to do the domestic type thing, including border tasks.

I see that that doesn't handle the road crisis.

Don't close the road crisis.

and carry on these discussions that are essentially aimed at changing the price of gold.

In other words, what I had suggested to you over the phone, John, of doing the whole domestic side of it and letting the gold

Then you don't buy that.

Well, if I say that I was going to see an appointment, hell, if you're going to do all this domestic side, let's close it all up so we don't have to risk it.

These guys just keep nibbling at us because if they keep nibbling, if the announcement of the domestic program doesn't work, then next week you've got to close it all up.

And I think that's a, I think he has a point there.

I think that's a wish, you know, I find it.

As a matter of fact, George, as we look at your analysis of the world, we really ought to close the global relationship.

I believe it's a low-run proposition.

We ought to close it and keep it closed.

Well, that's what I mean.

That's why I agree with that.

No, but you've got to remember now, Arthur Fuchs is a central banker.

He didn't want to close the building.

He said he would support whatever we decided.

I'm sure he would.

Oh, I'm sure he would.

I told him that I was sure.

I said I was just coming over to get an initial reading.

And that I knew that he would want to talk to him personally before he decided anything.

And so he said to me that

Oh, sure.

He's got to be involved.

And also, our career, of course, is getting something out of this that he dearly wants.

The way it's price-free.

Did you buy that?

Well, he wants that, but he prefers the way he's riding the board.

He thinks the idea of a breeze with the board falling coming out of it is fine.

And he's very agreeable.

He has the idea, but he's very agreeable.

Again, what was Paul Goldberg's reaction to what we did?

He wants to do the whole, the whole ball.

Well, I think the moral, you know, the moral field there is that it's just a T-day.

And then secondly, I grabbed the green from the left and the right and said, well, that should be the only field that's going to come.

In other words, he feels that the two have to be put together, which, of course, we all feel.

But the question is whether or not it can be separated, if you separate one from the other.

I don't think that'll work.

What did you say the attitude of the market was?

The last thing I told him, he said, it looks like panic.

It just looks like panic on the market and the international market.

Yeah, we'd already had it in papers, but I got an e-mail from Psychological Department of the jury.

Well, I've got a hand in that.

Which, of course, has an effect the other way, even on those guys, doesn't it?

Or just never know who.

No, Mr. President, after all this international market thing, you know, in a way it's a mystery, and in a way it is a mystery.

The guy who's the best informed man in the United States on it is down here.

And at some point, I think you ought to talk to him a little more for yourself, and let him get it right for you.

You know, what Charlie Coons would have said if he'd walked down here, and he looked more like the president.

in terms of the mechanics, I say, in the judgment system.

But in the final analysis, why did this look like?

I don't know.

We all know .

I don't think it's that big a deal.

I think what you have to do, what is really important is the impact on the American people and their reaction to you and what you did.

and their reaction to your action.

That's the important thing.

The international thing, hell, it's going to be a turmoil, a state of turmoil, a semi-turmoil, for now, and it has been before.

Frank Stratton went through the boat and went through the bottom of the British crown, but has, and the German mark has, and the Italian letter has,

and then the dollar will be up and down, and I just don't think you ought to worry too much about that.

That's the answer.

There's one point where Booker, in previous meetings, where I disagree with him, is he, like all people,

is so tied up in international things that we should make every sacrifice domestically to save the dollar internationally.

I do not agree with that.

Well, I wouldn't say that's his view.

Well, he leans more.

My view is, John, he's got to look mainly at his view of the domestic problem.

The international problem is going to be here regardless of what we do well.

To put it in perspective, we talk about the balance of payments.

The balance of payments, the exports from this country represent

So we can't let the tail wag in the ocean.

Now what's happening in the international markets, frankly, is a reflection of what's happening here at home.

You've got to cure it.

This is what I've said to you, what I've said.

There's no monetary magic.

International monetary magic is going to solve our problems.

Our problems are basically, to the extent that we have them, are right here at home.

And when they're solved, your international problems are solved.

Your international trade problems, to a large extent, are solved.

Because it's merely a reflection, it's merely a reflection of your economic strength at home, that's all.

But what I meant, one thing that you and I, whether we're men or women, our primary goal must be

to continue upwards to serve the domestic economy.

And we must not, in fact, we must not, in order to stabilize the international situation, cut our guts out here.

See what I mean?

In other words, blood, sweat, and tears.

I mean, we'll cut the budget.

That isn't wrong.

But I mean, we've got to continue to have an expansive policy in terms of, that's why we're going to have the tax moves.

That's substantial.

Well, to put it a different way, the whole practice appeals to me so much.

At home, if you have a problem with the conservatives because of the China thing,

Cutting the budget, these budget cuts, is going to be a matter of heaven for me.

That's why I couldn't agree to that.

Yes, sir.

Tax liability, fiscal responsibility is just going to be, I hope, in the gates of heaven to the church, which will be critical to the child's policy.

to the American businessmen who sit around who are ambivalent, really, and they really want to be Republicans, but they don't want anybody that they think is better for them.

When you start talking about investment tax credit and other tax actions, they're going to jump up and down and shout out at me, whether they're at the Bohemian Grove, the New King Club, or wherever they are.

Now, to the average person in this country, this wage and price breeze, to him means you mean business.

You're going to stop this inflation.

You're going to try to get control over this economy.

Now, when you take all of these actions, you're not going to have anybody out.

You're not going to have anybody left out to be critical of you.

Again, you're going to have, it seems to me, you're going to have your critics and your opponents.

uh, fenced off to where they keep really laying no one.

The critics, the critics will, will, will, uh, will develop confidence after realizing the administration.

The administration, the administration of the wage price is on a pitch.

Sure.

And we must have no illusions.

But on the other hand, we all know that a great majority of the American people want to go, go down that road at this moment.

So we've got to give them a little whack at it.

That's right.

You know what I mean?

As soon as the problems get insurmountable, the White administration can move the damn thing and follow it with something else.

That's why we have to be ready.

That's why I think it's good to have people ready for it.

the idea of selecting the major industries that will come up with George's plan and what George and I can do, actually, and have it forward.

And we can do pretty well that way.

Fortunately, we don't have many labor negotiations coming up next year.

Thank you.

On the way to crisis, it may freeze.

The shorter it is, the simpler it can be.

The longer it is, the more you have to have provisions for equity.

But for Instructor 3, what the hell?

Anybody could suffer for 60 days, or 90 days.

120 maybe.

And I think that has to do with some kind of a body that deals with national problems and attention.

And it can deal with them in generalities, and it can spin off.

If you continue your construction panel, it doesn't continue the construction panel.

What I think we should do is this.

I think that

that after hearing all the possibilities of trying to separate it out, waiting for it to set and so forth and so on, which is better than trying to find a preparation.

to do what you say, George, about the amount of work people have done.

And you've done a lot of things.

And I hope you've done.

What I mean is your people, McCracken's people, who you've seen.

So you've got to leave for all these people who don't know what the hell they're working on.

And so we've got a lot of work done.

I think we ought to go Monday for the whole law.

I think, George, that just makes sense for a reason.

First of all, I think...

The way I would do it, the way I would do it is that I would suggest that, and this is one way we could keep it close to hell, that we just have a meeting in Camp David over the weekend.

And we'd like to lock up on there.

That's not our right to do it.

Now, we go, I think we leave, say, tomorrow.

I think maybe I'll put that in the CD.

I'll start there.

I'll start there in a week, two weeks.

A week.

Well, actually, this is more important than one time.

I just don't want to take, get it, get through that at this point.

It's on the national, it's on the bank, on all the budgets.

In fact, I didn't even have to come to California to appear.

They're not going to let me find out very soon.

What I would like to do would be to set the whole thing up.

The men that I intend to participate in, and you've been doing this for hours, should naturally be on the air shot and John should be over.

or wherever else you want.

I think Arthur obviously should comment.

As far as people who participate in the meeting, the only ones that should participate in the meeting are the three of us plus Arthur and McCracken and Peterson.

I think Peterson has to be in on two because he's done all of this.

Don't you agree?

I think that's a good idea, too.

So those are the people who have basically a quintuplet deal.

Five of us will be the meeting.

Now, I don't, as far as staff people, I would not expand it beyond what is needed, but you could take, you, for example, have to have Weingartner up there.

Well, let me say, do you have a question?

Yeah.

No, no, no.

You could frankly just get it from Andy Horton.

Let me say that.

And also, we don't have to get into the nuts and bolts of this.

We can just say we're going to credit him with so much money, including these things.

And later on, that can come.

But we get Arthur up there.

You may want to bring one man with him.

I think having the fewer we bring, the better.

You?

You are, well, you should have Volker, of course, you need him, right?

Right.

Volker, this group, I would say, knows the mechanics of the monetary system, whatever you may think of it.

He knows the mechanics of the system.

Volker?

All of that, yes.

He's the best man in the government.

I think that the three of us, I think we should go up there, and I just frankly think we ought to fight for it.

It does appear that, well, let's face it, George, I'm answering my own.

I raised this question, and I'm wanting to appear to panic and not do things in a deliberate way.

We have been meeting for a long time on this subject.

So we're up there, we're weak-edged, and we go over this thing.

And I don't think, incidentally, John, in recent presenting it, I would say that I was hoping I could delay.

I think I would be a bit defensive.

I think we'd just go out and say, we are taking these steps.

We're going to be able to sign off on the United States to do this and that and the other thing.

But it is there.

If you crack it out there, very simply, not too much explanation.

I'll tell you, the wage price freeze is going to be so... First of all, as far as the taxpayers are concerned, you don't have to explain anything to business guys to hold them to that.

As far as the budget cut is concerned, you don't have to explain anything.

People are going to know about that when he's cutting the budget.

As far as the wage price freeze is concerned, they say, thank God we've got a wage price freeze.

This isn't something where I think...

that there should be, the more I think about it, you know, I thought about the great, the long presentation, you know, and the, you know, half hour speech about the economy and so forth.

I don't think that's as good.

I think this is something where, where action, it's like the China announcement, where action is so hard, the words should be very brief.

That's my view.

Or do you disagree?

No, I don't disagree with that.

See what I mean?

We're doing things that are so, so, so powerful in themselves.

But in that, the background is good, strong material for the background.

The background is one of our sessions John mentioned, the idea of having a charity.

You know, the build-up of the liabilities and the decline.

Right.

So that is something, by the other hand, that is something I should not do.

It's too complicated, but it's something John should do.

That's where the experts will then see it and write it.

The reason you want this background in the table along this line is to show that we've been here in 25 years, and that you're the first president that's had the guts to take this comprehensive action.

Because out of this whole thing, we want to come, hopefully somebody will say that he not only did move in the international community,

We've moved our investment funds.

Moved out of that, that I thought.

So that I would want to get in my own remarks.

I would say, for the past 25 years, we've seen a gradual deterioration of our position.

And we have this situation.

We've had these monetary crises and so forth, and it's time not to call home.

So what we're going to do is do these things.

First, we're going to close the gold and we're going to be prepared to negotiate about this so we can have a more stable system.

Second, we're going to have an import tax.

Now, let's wait a minute here.

I want to play here.

The import tax, the question, George, is the legal question that you raised.

George has got two different ways, John, we might be able to do the import tax.

Without that, he's asking the Congress.

I hate to have the Congress go in there, because that would have set things, you know, screwed up beyond belief.

So he thinks that you might be, he doesn't know, the national security's been there.

Or you might be released.

the GAP provision, but this could only cover those items that were named GAP and could only mean moving up our duties.

Like, I don't know, those would be 60%.

That's right.

Not bad, though.

Well, we've got this divided opinion on that.

Yeah, with the Treasury, we've got two legal opinions.

One says you can do it, and the other says you can't.

One of them is a trace of the enemy act going all the way back.

That's one way you can do it.

That's 1917.

Yeah, there it is.

Your authority is a little scrapped under the, let's see the precise title of it.

Well now let's, let's, let's test that out.

Let us suppose, John, if we go on Monday, that we say that I am going to ask the Congress for legislation imposing an import tax.

Maybe.

If we, let me say, if we have to get it to the Congress, I don't think I should say it three weeks before I get my claim.

I'm afraid of that.

Now, the breeze, you don't have to go to the Congress.

There are other legislative proposals, no problem.

You can just say I'm going to send these to the Congress.

But this one doesn't.

It has the same attitude and the way you write it.

in that if people think that might be imposed, they'll import as much as they can beforehand.

They don't tend to aggravate the amount of payments for a while.

Now that has to stay out of the way.

The second point I would make is to go back again to your point about the connection between the devaluation and the tax.

In a sense, the tax is a form of devaluation and growth.

I'll be able to go to the fair.

Yeah, I'll be able to go to the fair.

Maybe they can hold something for me there, but I just can't get away now.

I'm going to have to forget it.

The devaluation.

questions and the tax question are close to the connection.

As to the point of that, the tax is a form of devaluation.

Sure, sure.

So, you have the goal and the flow and will anything happen as a result of that question mark?

And some time you'll ask if you can find out how much.

So that you know more about what you want to do in the next second.

There's the question of what kind of negotiations take place and what can be done on that score.

So it seems to me there's an argument at least for saying

Do these things, not including the court attacks, and those court attacks come along a little later, whether or not you decide you want to do it in a lateral interaction with Congress?

Well, let me put it this way.

Let me say this.

If we decide that it is too close a question from a legal standpoint to do it,

unilaterally, then we must not announce it.

I think you would agree, John, or would you?

Yes, I guess I would.

I do think the idea that they would pour it in for us, and that we could accurately apply it to all of Spain is probably true.

But then we hold that in reserve and smack that later.

But how much does that detract from our package, John?

Well, quite a bit.

What I will do, I just have to say that I'm going to ask the Congress to impose the border tax that Becky and I is off today.

The Congress can always back take things.

They do it on tax bills.

They do it on everything else.

You have to assume they're going to act favorably on it.

And they certainly will.

Just say, I'm going to ask what about that.

It's a border tax deal.

It would be hard to take that and take care of this speculative property.

But I think that it still leaves the question of the interrelationship in that.

and whether or not you can get what you want out of the devaluation.

And because of that, Paul, that's an incredible way to do it.

George is right.

What's that?

George is right.

They really reach toward the same objective.

Paul takes the same position that George does.

Really, if you're going to handle the flow, this ought to cure you.

You don't need the vortex.

trying to reach the same objective.

But I would, to get to the evaluation, I just think if you don't ask something and just say we want the Congress, if the Congress can put it on there, you can say it, then we can say it, the Japanese, the journalists, and so forth.

If we get a proper exchange rate differential here, we'll repeal it.

of the border tax.

But I just think you ought to leave them straight as long as we're doing it.

I recognize full well that the two are basically incompatible.

You shouldn't leave both.

except that we're dealing with all these countries around the world, and hell, they're not going to just let us do what we want to, to the extent that we want to.

Now, they'll give you a 5%, or they'll give you a 7% differential in your exchange rates without too much trouble, but that's not going to solve our problem either.

I'd like to have 15% border tax.

And then say, we want a 10% defraction of the exchange rates, or a 10% devaluation of the exchange rates.

In other words, your idea would be to oppose the border tax contentment.

Would you ask the Congress to oppose it?

Sure, I'd ask them to oppose it.

Take new authority to remove it when the...

When your judgment, the international exchange rates have reached the point where the United States is receiving a fair deal, in effect, on its trade arrangements.

I didn't ask them to oppose it.

Now, the other way you play it, and I assume it's a part of George's and a certain part of Paul's right, is if you go float, that this tends to let the currency seek their level.

So you don't need the border tax.

But threaten them with the border tax.

Say, now, we have got it, but if we don't get an exchange rate that's satisfactory to us,

If you don't, in effect, revalue the yen 20% to the 5%, we're going to ask the Congress for a harder time.

So it's just a question.

It's a question of which comes first, particularly if you get the tax and agree to remove it if you get what you want, or if you try to get what you want and threaten to impose it.

Because I think you have to have something to deal with these companies.

Other than Judge Floke.

I think Judge Floke, George Proctor Rogers, Rogers said that it was not an opposed order.

He called in to give me that reason.

Who had called in?

Pearson.

I don't know who had called in.

Well, that's an interesting view.

I'm sure it is.

I'm sure Chris Richardson, who's the State Department bureaucracy.

Well, it represents here that we have a big quota bill, and they better end that.

We're talking, George, about some other things here, too.

Think about the border tax because it's a computer game.

I think it gets us away, even though it doesn't solve the textbook.

It gets that away.

It gets a lot of people.

My God, if you get the Congress, and I can't believe they won't pass it.

And you immediately get it laid on textbooks and automobile, Japanese automobiles, Japanese steel, and everything else while you're negotiating.

Mr. President, we can be negotiating.

Georgia's not going to be in any hurry to stop the flow of the dollar.

And a lot of people are not.

We may be close here from now.

This exchange rate will be up and down.

And you have to remember that we are the least controlled currency, and we are the least controlled economy in the world among the industrial nations in that first step.

We certainly are less controlled in Japan.

We certainly are less in Germany.

We certainly are less in France, or Italy, or Great Britain, or India.

So they've got the advantage over us.

Well, that's very true.

But they've got the advantage over us in negotiations, because we don't have the tools with which to negotiate with them.

That's the problem.

I don't have any argument with George.

Not at all.

But it's a practical matter.

I damn sure rather have 15% tax on them so that they can't ship in their card without paying in their textbooks.

And then it makes them a little more pliable if we say, we'll take it off of those.

If you all give us an exchange rate that's acceptable to us.

This is, I suppose, just the kind of thing we need to stay out of for the weekend.

And the first thing is to have a place

I think that John's right about the

And again, you can make that correction.

You can make that correction.

The thing that I fear, I think, on this is the length of anything I have.

move to impose a tax or do something that's going to be unconfirming, either.

Or it's hard just not to do something that's just terrible.

That is all right.

But let me point out to you now, George, if you don't, don't even do it for a little bit of years, and if we don't get some real relief, if we don't improve, I mean, odds are right that our balance of payments is not going to improve the rest of this year.

Because the turnaround time takes that long, as you well know.

And maybe I'll break it.

Or I'm proud of it in a third way, but it may be in any way I would anticipate it would be as bad as federal.

But I would anticipate that anyway.

But the point is that our actions are not going to result in any great change.

for several months.

Now, during that period of time, you're going to have these guys in Congress hollering for more protection.

And they've got to go on a quarter basis in an election year.

But if you go with the import tax, you can remove it.

There's not a person that I know that wouldn't rather have a tax, a border tax, than to have a border.

I must say, George, that that argument is quite persuasive to me.

The quarter thing is there.

He's just desperate for that.

It is totally wrong.

And I have come down, John, against the, I know there's a thing about the textual thing, about the arrestment of that.

And fortunately, it's all in this company, too.

But I just can't, I just have come down against the use of that national security.

I chose for it.

Spence is for it.

Hodgson is for it.

And actually, all of them are most important people.

I'll tell you what, if we do it there, we are opening Pandora's box, and I don't have to go through Steele and a lot of other, and it's stretching one hell of a lot.

I think Lincoln, well, not that he doesn't, he probably hasn't done it.

I mean, you really can't, you just can't beat him over the head and say, look, textiles, you know what I mean?

I just don't, I don't think we can stretch it that far, and I think it's a hell of a bad precedent.

Now on the textiles, this could give you one hell of a lot.

Looking at the textual problem, George, here that's what it kind of says.

Goddamn, look at that paper reading.

But anyway, this gives you some bargaining position with the Japanese, even on the textual problem, in my view.

Well, I think, you know, I mean, they, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

Suppose that we get a favorable pay gap this way and that could be serviced.

So everybody knows that you have that, so you've got that tool there.

Then you can go to board of taxes or you can go to quotas under that.

Quotas are more specific in that law.

And it may be, in addition to the devaluation, if you could hit the textile thing like the tonneau breaks on the bases and that, it would work a way.

What do you mean?

On the base of the gap?

It may be that you wouldn't have to throw across the board, that you could just take a particular thing on the devaluation, take the textile and then do some other special

In other words, rather than the National Security Authority, the GATT, under the rules of GATT, you're going to do this?

Yes, sir.

It may be.

Why the hell haven't we thought of it before then?

What's the matter?

Well...

It seems to me that that was possible.

Somebody should have told me a year ago.

Well, it's not possible.

This reactiveness is related to the recognition of a critical point in the balance of payments, the general international situation.

Well, everybody said it's critical.

And that's the one thing you've got agreement on, but unanimous is we're in a crisis.

Well, I think there's also an agreement on the basic set of points that you and Tom talked about in Australia.

There's somehow some combination of the gold and the monetary business and the wage price and budget stuff and the order tax.

Some combination of that is the right answer and those are the pieces that everybody comes up with.

There's a very strong centrality of view on that.

Of course, there's a great relationship

Both politically, as John pointed out, and I think substantively, among many things, it seems to me you have a short-term monetary crisis that has to be dealt with.

That's part of that package.

There is a long-term monetary or international balance of payment problem that has to be dealt with.

The package deals with it.

There is a problem with domestic inflation.

Regardless of the international bill, it has to be dealt with.

This deals with it.

And then, beyond that, there is this great underlying point that you've emphasized, that there's the problem of continuing domestic expansion.

Stimulating the economy.

We're speaking to all of those presidents.

And creating jobs.

We're speaking to all of those presidents.

Speaking to every single one of them.

And that's the beauty of it.

Then there is the notion of leadership from you.

domestically, and I think domestically also, because he says that now it's a good chance to make a strong international economic leadership that you have to go alongside the other.

And that's very, very powerful.

what to say on that.

That's a very good point, because it's a good one to say, now we're, rather than that we're doing this because we're, our backs are against the wall, we're simply saying we're doing this because it's time to change this obsolete system, to set a new system in place, pieces of the steps we're gonna take, and now we're prepared to negotiate with our friends around the world to try to solve problems that we're using.

Here, I think the order tax has

It's a negotiating point.

It is a point of, it's one of these retaliatory things.

To a greater extent, I think, than the monetary is.

If you just do it and then negotiate it.

At the same time, it seems to me a very good thing for service if we can say what it is in your hands to do and let everybody know.

Rather than doing it directly.

Just to let people know it's there and not do it.

Well, the thing about doing it that appeals to me is that, of course, you would go either way.

I prefer to do it in charge for another reason than I am.

I feel we're dealing with a world that's very tough on people.

And I feel that we like what the Japanese do.

They don't believe.

And that's usually what we deal with.

I'm glad to think that we will first talk later.

We'll have to be shot the gun out of their hands.

Anyway, that's something we should, that's the way I believe at this point.

Particularly if we do it all in a context of leadership and conciliation, we will say, look, we're not doing this for the purpose

We're doing this for the purpose of building a more stable system.

We're prepared.

We're prepared to negotiate.

That's the way out of it.

We're prepared to negotiate.

I don't think we should, I don't think, John, it would be in our interest, and it is in the interest of world leadership, to step up and say, the United States is going to isolate itself.

They don't need to send war on itself.

Because also, that's very bad for American industry.

A lot of these guys are just sitting in their bus and won't work.

The purpose of this really is to be useful for the temporary nature of the country.

And Bill, I would insist that you have the authority to lift the tax at any time in your judgment.

You no longer need it.

And if they didn't give you that, I don't think they owe you both 15%.

Without your having the right, if we don't, the beauty of not having to build in a building

What do you think you could do with it?

Yeah, that's my chief.

Well, just doing it and taking it away, that's great.

I was just going to ask, suppose you could have it either way, unilateral from the president or from Congress.

Would you have a preference?

I think you have to have flexibility to cover.

I would use it as a treaty.

I prefer the unilateral thing for another reason.

The Congress is likely to put hedges with so damn many restrictions with regard to it must and cannot be imposed without sending it to the Congress or it cannot be removed, etc.

And it'll get screwed up, George.

It'll just get screwed up.

One way or another, I think we have got to bend the law, let me say.

We're not bending the law.

So somebody will sue us.

So what the hell?

We'll be sued for two years.

We'll fight that damn thing in the Supreme Court.

Right?

I mean, I think you've got enough color required under both, under the Trade Agreement Act of 1917 and the Trade Agreement Act to do it.

One of our, one of our young lawyers would think so now.

I don't know about that.

Well, I disagree.

Well, sure, as long as you get one good lawyer to say you can do it.

That's right.

And if he can find a way, I just...

Now, John, that's John Nichols.

Let's get the ducks in a row, then.

I think we should go Monday.

And I think that having this meeting, George, to a certain extent answers my concern about not being ordered.

Another thing about this is that putting it in the context of the challenge, and I did that with great surprise,

And when we brief one Monday, we'll say the president has had this under consideration, which is actually true.

Peterson wrote me a memorandum a month ago on border protection.

You wrote me one on the...

Well, I think you take the position that we've been actively discussing this since the Mark crisis in the spring.

That's right.

Because we did talk about it.

And discuss it.

And that now is the time for decision.

And we're deciding.

And we're getting up there.

And then we just come up with what's unexpected.

It's right to it.

And off we go.

Now, you've got to remember that there are many parts of the

here, we've learned this from you, so forth and so on.

They'll hear this.

The businessmen will hear this.

And it'll be the shot heard around the world.

You can be sure of that.

It'll be in every town and a half.

Well, can we talk now again about who goes?

Because I don't want to get this beyond there.

John, you'd like anybody to be satisfied with this?

No, we ought to have one good lawyer knowledgeable in this field.

And justice is going to brief this question.

They ought to have a man.

Otherwise, we ought to take them all to England or somebody from the Treasury.

That's the thing you could do.

He doesn't have to sit in on the line all the time.

There is always a space for everybody on the scene.

You would want your son constantly.

No, not necessarily.

One possibility is .

Yeah.

I don't know what he spent that.

He said he worked pretty long.

There's no problem.

One of the few problems is that Archer alone, right?

Archer just needs his wisdom.

Archer and Peterson, I think Peterson should be alone.

McCracken.

I think we ought to have McCracken and Stein.

The reason I'd have Stein, John, is that I wouldn't have the new man.

Because he isn't up with the young people.

But Stein has a very, what I would call, a very cold, hard mind.

And he's the kind of guy that will contribute more than McCracken will to this kind of conversation.

McCracken will continue to contribute to the discussion.

Stein will contribute to the decision.

He's a very cold, tough customer.

So I think they all come.

How's that sound?

Now, will you, George, take the logistical bank, work it out with that?

With regard to what we put off, with regard to what you're going to put in that budget package and so forth and so on, my question is, that's all in the domestic field.

Well, there are two major things.

One is the putting off the referring.

Maybe you can talk to him about it tomorrow.

Could you do that?

Good.

You do that now, and we'll arrange for that.

And let me say, John, I think what we'll do is to just helicopter out.

We'll go up and do it.

We'll go right after lunch, like you said.

That's all right.

And we'll ride it up there, and then we'll have a meeting.

You said that you were going to have a meeting with Mr. Maloney.

Yes.

I would simply say that you ought to have a meeting with everybody, and I would take anybody up there that you couldn't have and just make it happen.

That's just that.

And discuss this whole problem.

And if you have not made a decision at all, don't tell me you've made a decision.

I'll let them all sit there.

I'll let them all discuss it.

Leave the thing.

And then after an hour or so, general discussion, which they all agree on, we'll do something.

Then we'll sit down and say, all right, y'all go work on this and this and this and this and come back.

We'll have another meeting some other time.

without any things left to make them safe.

Let them all feel they're part of the city.

What I was... Oh, sure, sure.

Oh, I want them to do that, but what I meant is as to how we could best get a lot of them to do their thinking and homework before they get to the meeting.

Maybe they've all done it.

Well, to some extent, we could work up a little thing for them.

All right.

Well, I think...

I'm wondering if you have a general vision like that suggested.

and the elements that they have.

If you then might want to suggest that, say, Jonathan chair a meeting that's essentially to task the people up there who is going to be charged with coming up with what, and let him chair another meeting that, in a sense, develops that material before it's brought to you.

And then we have a second meeting with you.

They have these pieces lined up, and we've had some.

We've had this kind of discussion with people over the past, and we're having one today.

Right.

I've had a few of those.

Well, listen, I've heard people like this sit in and talk all night, you know, if it's useful.

But I do know that when time is of the essence, that you finally get down to the depth of it.

And you get some guys who just got to go off, and I say, now what the hell is the program?

Now let's see what it is.

See what it ain't got.

Now may I suggest that you take somebody with you that will designate one of these people to start working on the speech?

I don't know.

I don't know who you'd like to have do it.

We can start working on it.

I can work on all of them.

We can watch you speak for them.

But someone should be there, and they should get started fairly early on that.

You know, perhaps a little later on.

Right.

There's a lot of press.

There's marketing, but there's a press now that has no version on that.

All of them just want to do that.

I mean, he will supervise it.

He knows how to create somebody else's name.

A clever writer there is.

You know, you're right.

He's just written a little piece that I got this morning.

I don't know if you've seen it.

It's called The Discouraged Employer.

The Discouraged Employer.

How fast it's been heard, right?

You know, he writes like that, right?

Thanks.

what i'd like to let me say is what we need from your side john let's get from your people what they think ought to be said but let me get i feel that what ought to be said should be chris

reassuring, and free.

I feel very strongly that where you have strong, powerful action, that it loosens by adding a lot of fattened words around it.

And I think it's, in a sense, to identify not satisfied with the way it's coming around, say, Sunday in the afternoon, or something like that.

And I'll try to think of one of our people here, and maybe we can all go down.

Sapphire has a considerable ability to speed what he's done.

I think I'd like to give, let's see what's, Stein is so sophisticated.

What's that?

I said that's not Hellstein.

Right.

That's one of the drovers.

Right.

Well, John, your people have already done some running on this.

Oh, yeah.

We just give them whatever you want.

We're all determined to do that.

Right.

Or we'd rather...

Well, let's start with this.

I'd like to see what they come up with in the way of administration.

You know, I find in this speech business, I dredge out, I guess, out of everyone.

Sure, you get the best out of that one.

But mine, do you do that?

Yes, sir.

I would say that we would go, let's say that we would set up meeting at 3 o'clock in the morning.

and we will be prepared my thought is that that first meeting to me for uh uh say uh basically at six o'clock i think john can just take three hours to get there don't you think so yeah don't you think so okay i hope it wouldn't take that long well three or five

well let me say we'll just keep i'm just thinking that if you want to give everybody a chance to advice and you see when we talk about the uh the uh investment tax credit that's what we need to talk about is going to be seven percent of one out of ten yeah 180 percent i think that's very good i think that changed in order to change yeah okay

But that is without the import tax.

That's what I mean.

Yes.

10% activity.

and also you ought to check it out in terms of gag things and the other things you know if you do that well we'll have uh we'll work uh then it would be my view that after we have the opening meeting then we break up and each

You take the budgets, you take the cash.

We'll go out on Saturday.

We'll get down to some real tough art.

I think we ought to decide.

The meeting Friday should be for discussion.

I think Saturday afternoon by 3 o'clock we should begin.

We should then get it for the purpose of where I say, well, this is what we're going to do.

So we come up with another idea.

Isn't that a reasonable thing?

So I've got to decide it, because if you see the speech then, I then have to know I left on my Saturday night, so that I can then use Sunday and Monday, well, all day Sunday, and part of Monday for writing and speech.

You had a meeting on Friday afternoon.

Yeah.

And then some of that dragged out on the basis of the study.

Yeah.

We want to go on Monday if you want to.

types of things, and I've got all the details of just what happened.

You would say that Friday?

At the end of the evening?

Maybe Saturday morning, just send word to us.

Right.

That's what you decided.

And then people are no longer working on the question of whether they're working on the question of how to do it.

Because I think that really is what we want to spend our time on.

Because you don't have that much time for it all the time.

We just don't know how we do it.

Yeah.

But the thing is, John, look,

I personally have pretty much decided what I want to do.

I mean, what about a national party?

And I think that there is one of those things where there are no safe choices, and nothing worthwhile is ever safe, and perhaps no good ones.

But on the other hand, I feel that on this thing that I'm pretty well-decided, and I think that

And I think the Friday afternoon, said, well, this is what I think we ought to do.

That's really the way I tend to operate anyway.

And everybody knows about you if you don't push around and say, well, let's take a vote.

And so then I'd say, now, Paul, let's work out who's going to do what.

And some of the art was pretty good, but that wasn't good.

Oh, yes, he is.

Very good.

We could have him on the trust.

Do you all think we should have a speech?

Yes, I mean, just be the devil's advocate for one moment.

On the other side, rather than going on television and, you know, talking to the American people about the crisis we've got, you know, and so forth and so on, you just make up that hell of a good statement.

It's uneducated.

The advantages of that are that it is a complicated subject, and no one can judge whether a speech, no matter how careful you are, is going to have the effect of shaping the confidence of people.

The very fact of speech, you know, can't shape it.

It may be that these actions are so defective, so defective, that they would be, rather than asking for, you see, the speech requires asking for comment at the nature of the testimony.

And then, of course, the other way to do it is to just put out the thing and say, 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon, we mark the book.

Oh, really?

Good.

You know, we know, of course, that driving is a stupid, dumb, and can't-safe job.

And we don't know who it is, so let's drive here.

Let's do that.

That's right.

That would, it seems to me, mean that it's a close meeting.

The markets will boil Friday afternoon, and on Monday, there will be a tremendous amount of speculation about what the changes may include.

Perhaps we could manage by saying, either take to your statement, or we should have the statement Sunday night.

Well, if you do it Sunday night, it has to be issued by, well, it has to be, but it's a little bit, it's not really quite a good thing to just go on Sunday night and, you know, preempt time in terms of talking about this kind of subject.

That's my view.

I see your question Sunday night.

Once we can get rid of that, it'd be better than if we would screw around and have money that would lose another billion dollars.

What's your feeling, John?

Do you think there ought to be a national speech here?

I'm trying to think about the national speech.

It is a national speech.

It is a major one.

Oh, yes, it is a very major one.

And rather than viewing it as, again, as a reaction to a crisis, I think you...

You've got to posture it as a position.

You're speaking from a position of strength and finding solutions to problems that plague this country.

You've got to ensure that they continue the expansion in Java.

Let me say this.

I think Monday is better.

I think you're just going to take the risk Monday.

So you have another Monday.

There's going to be a lot of speculation on what you're going to do and what the hell.

We do a better job, too.

Yeah, we do a better job.

In our time, our opening came about midnight Sunday afternoon.

All right.

What's that?

Yeah, it's a side difference.

This is kind of speculation, though, not to be thinking about midnight Sunday.

Oh, it's better.

Five hours difference.

Well, three in the morning.

Yeah.

But that will be another point on the subject.

Yeah.

Well, there's no question about that.

We're not thinking just about our money.

We're thinking about the international market.

Well, the international market.

So we need to run there and do something to make more dollars out of it than we did.

We may know the answer to that.

We're not going to make that decision.

We may know the answer to that tomorrow.

Monday's going to be a very dead day because, and I've got to check, they're going to give a big castle call to the whole of Europe tomorrow.

That's why we think tomorrow's going to be such a Donnybrook.

Tomorrow will be the last trading day.

I don't even think they're trading.

Hello?

They may trade, but in any event, my information is fragmentary, but if they do, it's going to be deader than slavery.

I think they've got an extended weekend holiday.

Tomorrow's the last one.

You prefer to speak?

Yes, sir, I do, Senator McCullough.

I think you can make some real hay out of it.

You're talking to the American people, and they get their impression from you about your concern for expansion, your concern for jobs, and you're taking these actions to ensure that they're going to have these opportunities.

I didn't do it myself.

I'm just trying to raise all the dollars.

And now, if it were just going to be a strictly technical move in terms of closing the market or something, no, I wouldn't do it.

But my God, if you're announcing...

The import tax, if you do it, the investment tax credit, and so forth and so on, all of which has a direct impact on these people.

Wage and price freeze, wine.

I'm sure that you're up there.

I just want to let you know.

I'll hand out a message.

Because I used to think it was better than thinking of it in politics.

and it will work.

As I said, it's not that easy.

That's a good question.

I think it gives you an opportunity to make a tremendous amount of capital out of your life.

I may be wrong.

I mean, first and foremost, I don't think this is going to put your critics so far behind April.

They're not going to want to know what to do.

Well, I'm supposed to take my wife to the Wolf Trap Farm.

Has anybody been to the Wolf Trap Farm?

No, sir.

I've heard of it.

You been there?

I've never been there, but I've heard about it.

I was going to go tomorrow night.

Well, I'll tell you.

I'll tell you.

You can have my seat.

No, if you want it, the program tonight is supposed to be marvelous.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a great show.

This is fine.

Listen, John, if it occurs to me, hell, we don't have to quite screw up the market tomorrow, because you're thinking about our stock market tomorrow.

I don't think that's going to make a difference.

Hell no.

In fact, we can get our helicopter to go.

We don't have to announce we're all going.

We won't announce it on anything.

We'll just get on the helicopter, too.

I go to Camp David regularly, and some of our rescue teams happen to come up.

I don't know if he did.

I'm not sure.

The main purpose of going to Camp David, I can take people up there.

They don't need to know a hell of a lot about it.

The main purpose of running the campaign with Frank used to be everybody and everything.

I'm not going to talk to you about that.

Everybody needs a damn mouth shut.

There's no papers out.

I know there's going to be stories in the New York Times Sunday about the fact that the then-Native administration is going to have that.

That is what I don't want.

So we wait for three days.

We get the job done.

They come back and slap the floor or something.

And I even keep them up there once a week.

So I'll get back to doing it.

I'm going to be released.

That's what I have to do.

So we won't say, I think, just say, I would tell everybody who's going to talk all about this, everybody would like to say about the records inviting you up to the weekend, inviting you up to Camp A for the weekend, and have all the arrangements made, apparently.

We would think, we just want you to have a very heavy work-like weekend.

People will love you and their families.

Nixon, Connally & Shultz on Economic Policy and Wage and Price Controls

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 12, 1971

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