Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 273 › Conversation 273-026

Nixon & Mitchell on Economic Policy and Wage and Price Freeze

Sunday, August 15, 1971 · 5:04 PM–5:10 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 4 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Mitchell, John N.Conversation273-026 on Tape 273 (tape position 03:46:40–03:50:58)StartSunday, August 15, 1971 at 5:04 PMEndSunday, August 15, 1971 at 5:10 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 273-026 ↗

AI Summary

President Richard Nixon met with John N. Mitchell to finalize preparations for the administration's major economic policy announcement, specifically the upcoming wage and price freeze. The two discussed key components of the new program, including tax incentives, budget cuts, revenue sharing, and the decision to close the gold window. They also coordinated the President's schedule, including an upcoming cabinet meeting and the rollout of his national address regarding these fiscal measures.

Audio

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Position in tape: 03:46:40 – 03:50:58

part B, 1:46:48

273a.mp3
273b.mp3
273c.mp3

NARA Description

On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:04 pm to 5:10 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 273-026 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 273-26

Date: August 15, 1971
Time: 5:04 pm - 5:10 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

John N. Mitchell talked with the President.

     President's previous meeting with unknown people
          -Business competition
                 -Steel industry

     President's schedule
          -President’s forthcoming announcement

     President's forthcoming economic program
          -Provisions
                 -Wage and price freeze
                 -Taxes
                       -Investment tax credit
                       -Repeal of automobile excise tax
                       -Personal income tax exemption
                 -Budget cuts
                 -Revenue sharing
          -Timing
          -President's schedule
                 -Cabinet meeting, August 16, 1971
          -Arthur F. Burns’ views
                 -Closing gold window
          -Paul W. McCracken
          -President's forthcoming speech
          -John B. Connally's forthcoming telephone calls
          -Provisions
                 -Wage and price freeze
                       -Duration
                 -Import tax

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Oh, yeah, hi, Brian.
Brian, Brian.
Yeah, we've been a little busy.
Yeah.
The problem is when they came in, the national student with the U.S. company, Grant and so forth, I mean, we discussed that with them, you know, and that's what they said.
Like tomorrow, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, John, I had to indicate to these people that you were ambitious and so forth and so on, that the need for another university will come and so forth.
That's the problem I had with it.
Yeah.
I'm going to take it.
This is Washington.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Which, for a while, I knew the fact that we were talking about competition and getting a public American issue.
That's over the night, you know.
Oh, no.
Well, we moved it up to the night.
You know, that's old competition.
That's what I know now, the 9 o'clock.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you get it, I guess, what time it is, 5 o'clock.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Your, uh, it's, uh, we're going for the wage price freeze over the, uh, tax.
The, uh, costs for, uh, around $40.
Uh, and we're going to, uh, to, uh, cut the, uh, we're going to the investment tax credit.
We're going to reveal the exercise tax on automobiles.
We're going to the personal tax exemption.
We're going to cut the question of four and a half billion.
It's quite a bundle.
It's going to have quite an impact.
And that way, we're striving to leave it on the policy, which, of course, we're doing this problem with.
Or actually, they want to do it with a country that's a member of the state.
But because of the financial situation,
But it'll, uh, it'll be quite, uh, quite something that's going to be going right up on the league.
If anybody's concerned.
They've got a captain meeting scheduled for tomorrow at 10 o'clock.
Uh, where we're going to do some of those things.
We'll get the stuff done for tomorrow, and, uh, so that's when we can work on all these things.
So you're going to, I think this is something that they'll hold the award.
We even got, we got our group awarded to them.
He opposed the trade policy on gold and all that.
He came along and he's going to lose the ostrich.
It's really working.
I heard him crack a whole bunch.
So it's going to be something that I, this is a 20-minute speech, but probably has more to get on the thing than it really was.
Well, he's going to make, even John is going to make calls to the dentistry a little bit.
He's going to make calls to some of the major critics.
And, of course, he's going to do it right off the bat.
The wage price freeze, temporary, of course.
And all the companies that we've been passing on, we've been passing on to the dollar deduction, and, of course, again, also the 10%, which, unfortunately,
I think it doesn't mind turning around.
So I think in the light of that, well, tomorrow, it just would be good because that's what we're waiting for.
But I think in the light of this, this is a good time to try to do some nice things for business as we can.
We didn't know it until, well, I'll tell you, this is in front of you.
And I was up all night.

Also recorded on August 15, 1971

  • 007-117 4:53 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:53 pm and 9:30 pm.
  • 273-025 4:59 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 4:59 pm and 5:04 pm.
  • 273-027 5:10 PM · 53 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Marjorie P. Acker met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:26 pm.
  • 273-028 5:10 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:26 pm.
  • 273-029 5:10 PM · 53 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:26 pm.
  • 273-030 5:10 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:26 pm.
  • 273-031 5:10 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:10 pm and 5:26 pm.
  • 273-032 5:26 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:26 pm to 5:28 pm.

All 70 conversations from August 15, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 273-026, August 15, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/273-026 (accessed November 2, 2026).