On February 7, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 7:15 pm and 11:59 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 319-020 of the White House Tapes.
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In the current issue of Fortune, the story is told of three men on a desert island who spotted a tidal wave headed their way.
The first man decided to use the time remaining on wine, women, and song.
The second man chose to get down on his knees and pray.
And the third man, perhaps he was an emergent businessman, got busy trying to figure out how to breathe underwater.
As we look ahead to the industrial world of the future in this White House conference,
You can well remember that there is something to be said through enjoying life, and the power of prayer is important.
But as we face the future, we must also get ready to live in it.
In the course of this conference, you will be exploring the exciting prospects that lie ahead for the working man and the businessman.
You will be examining the new social responsibilities of business, the challenges of the new technology so vital and better for the lives of our people in the future of our economy.
There's never been a time, a hard, searching look ahead, that's been more essential.
We cannot really plan for the future we're in without considering the total picture of the world of the future.
We have to ask ourselves which way the world is headed.
What we as a nation must do to influence the course of history toward more freedom and generation of peace.
What kind of people will we have?
What kind of people we will have to be
to make a difference in our children's lives and the world we live in?
These are profound questions, and the kind that all too many people consider themselves too busy to deal with.
But the American dream is too important to be left to the dreamers.
Practical men have to examine their ideals and shape the future for their individuals and their homes.
The people of the United States of America make up 60% of the population of the world.
What does that figure mean?
First, it means that we have a great community problem.
When six percent of the world produce one-fifth of the world's steel, one-third its electric power, one-third its automobiles, then even our most severe critics will have to admit that the American economic system must be doing something right.
The fact that we number only six out of every hundred people in the world means something else that must give us pause.
It means that we, who believe in majority rule, are a minority group in the world.
If we are to lead, we cannot lead by force of arms or weight of numbers.
We can lead only by the force of our example and the quality of our nation.
What is it that has brought this 6%, this minority of the world that calls itself America, the highest family living and the highest expression of human freedom?
What is it that will propel this nation forward in the coming generation to lead mankind in its search for a better life and a world of peace?
I am convinced that the answer lies in the real and tangible quality called the American spirit.
In today's world, that spirit is the intestine of America.
We've got to learn once again to compete in the world.
And the only way we can compete is on the basis of our own productivity.
In the past, America has been able to pay the highest wages in the world, enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, and still compete in the world's markets because we had the best technology and the highest productivity.
While other nations have been modernizing, while others have been spurting ahead of productivity, in America, we have let productivity slip.
We have neglected capital investment.
We have fallen behind other nations in the attention and support we give to applied science, to advancement and knowledge.
We can be proud of our record of generosity and foresightedness for the years since we were working.
With your help, old enemies as well as old friends have gotten back on their feet, and new nations have been started on the long road
to prosper.
This help has been good for other nations, good for the world, and in the long run, I believe it's good for America.
We see that during the decade of the 60s, exports of American manufactured goods increased by 10%.
But we see also that during the same decade, exports of German manufactured goods rose by 200%.
Canada's increased by 285%.
Japan
Now, the second largest producer in the non-communist world increased her exports of manufactured goods by 400%.
This is one major reason why last year America suffered its first trade deficit since 1888.
Nations never stand still.
They go forward or they fall back.
Other nations in the world today are going forward, rapidly forward.
And America has to exert herself to be at her best if we are to remain competitive in the world.
In business and in life, there's a time when tough decisions have to be made.
In the administration, we made some tough decisions in order to help get this economy back on its feet.
On a stable basis, with full employment, moving forward in a sustainable way.
Economic freedom.
The best economy for America is a free market economy.
The basement of choice of wage and price controls with continued inflation.
I chose temporary controls to curb inflation.
I believe in balanced budgets, but based on the choice between budget deficits and unemployment, I chose deficits to create more jobs.
In the long run, our goal is to remove the controls and get rid of the deficits once we have brought about price stability in the whole market.
In the short run, there's going to be a lot of inflation, and I'm prepared to take the heat because I know I put first things first.
Full employment without inflation in a period of peace comes first for all of us.
Now you, the leaders of the American industry, are going to have to make some hard decisions.
Are you going to crawl into a shell and demand protection from the world economy?
Or are you going to do all of these things and increase production?
Are you going to expand your industries with planning about control?
Or are you going to do about wage and price policies that will remove the pressure of inflation and the need for control?
I am convinced I made the right decision.
I am convinced you will make the right decision as well.
Right for yourself, right for your country.
There's still some people around who are uncertain on whether we will cut the rate of inflation.
There are two attributes to this balance.
First, there is the record of what has been done so far.
Consumer prices rose 3.4% in 1971, compared to 5.5% the year before.
That's the right direction for inflation, down.
That shows that it can be done.
Second, this administration is determined to keep pushing down the rate of inflation.
We have made a commitment.
We have proved the rights we were prepared to go to keep our tax.
And we will see that this fight against rising prices through is still on.
Justice controls are going to work to stop inflation.
Our policies agree on jobs.
You all know that in the past six months, the rate of unemployment has increased by over a million jobs.
Yet that surge is not made early enough with debt and the unemployment rate.
most recent quarter, real output rose at a rate double that of the preceding two quarters.
That's the basis for real confidence.
Confidence that should generate further expansion for more jobs.
Nobody says the road to full employment is quick and easy, but we are on the road.
If we ask what it is that enables each worker to get more out of his work, each investor to get more out of his investment, and a nation to get more out of its economy, the answer is productivity.
For a long time,
we took productivity increases for granted.
We imagined this sort of technological carnival that promised increasing abundance every year without any real effort on our part, and this made us complain.
We tended to imagine that more was our duty, whether we did anything for it or not.
But now the new situation of the world has changed all that.
Even if we were content just to fight with one another for a bigger slice of the same old pie, instead of making the pie bigger, this would no longer be enough.
Our markets would disappear, and not only would we no longer sell abroad, but we could no longer afford to buy from abroad in America or Spain.
We are not going to Spain.
We still have the American spirit.
Having a spirit is not enough.
We have to reach.
We are to maintain our leadership in the world of the future.
It will not be by force of arms.
It will be by the strength of our spirit, backed by the vigor of our economy.
And if we slip as an economic power, then we will slip also as a moral force in the world.
For it will have been because we ceased to try, because we ceased to compete, because we gave up on ourselves and the world.
I do not believe America will come up.
Nor do I believe we will try to build a wall
If we were ever to permit this nation to turn isolationist in foreign policy, we would be inviting a war.
If we were to let this nation turn protectionist in its economic policy, we would be inviting a trade war.
And like the other kind of war, every nation is a planet of groups.
We're not going to let either of these things happen.
We're not about to forget the secret of the world's highest standard of living, a competitive spirit that results in rising productivity.
After years of lagging productivity, we made a comeback last year, back to a three and six-tenths percent rise.
Now we have a momentum, and we must never again forget the secret of American success.
For too long, too many businessmen and working men thought of the American economy as a kind of a giant turtle, bad and lazy with a protective shell that seemed impregnable.
Let me point out to you that nature played a trick on the turtles.
The only way he can move forward is to stick his neck out.
The time has come for that turtle to stick its neck out and get moving.
As it does, it will show that America's competitive spirit is alive and healthy, ready to lead the world into the new prosperity.