Nixon, Shultz & Ehrlichman on Economic Policy and Trade Policy

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Oh, hi.

Another round of hearings, huh?

Yes.

Well, you were up there from 7 until 1.

I figured if you were going to make this meeting, you'd waste your time.

Oh.

Apparently you have a secretary.

You know, we're a serious exploration of a serious topic.

Yeah, so it's all eagerly trying to make the TV.

That's one of the horrible problems of the

I followed by the congressional hearings.

I never felt it was a good idea.

I was always opposed to it.

I was overruled on it.

I was instructed to go

Yeah.

What are the suggestions?

Right.

And even though the situation, regardless of everything we talked about yesterday, remains the same, regardless of what kind

Right.

Yeah.

Well, we evaluated the flow of turkey we got away with the last time.

But I would review the comment that I think I mentioned to you in August of 2017, the reaction of my little boy, who said, Daddy, I want my money to be written more.

Nonetheless, I think that's a problem.

Even so, for you, I think a trip to the coast, where I go to this, really makes it sound like an international crisis.

I'm not an African-American.

I just wonder if you want to take a look at that point.

Eric, that was just my honest opinion.

You've got everything going for you now.

This is incredible.

You've got all the leadership on the domestic side.

Everybody's over-cleaning up the formal side.

You're on the move.

And I've got to thank you for all of the stuff we've seen.

Here's a thing we've got to react to in some way, way, way.

I think that what we could do is this on the devaluation part, which I do think cannot be good news.

It could only be troublesome and potentially bad.

That part is a part that we've already discussed.

We've discussed it in considerable length.

And we've really made the decision.

And that if you decide to do that, and then we can do the poker and we get it, then that should possibly be announced.

It would be $100, but it's not $100.

So there's no trading there.

Second, and that trade package is something else.

The thing that we have to bear in mind is that this is not at all like the August 2nd Inc. announcement.

The August 2nd Inc. announcement, I don't know how hard it was to understand this, all the people looked up at the monetary and the division.

The only big thing in that was that people thought they were going to freeze the prices.

They didn't see that effect as a thing.

And to a certain extent, our trade package has one positive element and only one positive element.

90% of the people are against it.

They're wrong, but they are.

Because they think the more trade, it's going to help them stand forth.

At the same time, none of the people are for keeping things out if it's cutting their jobs.

So therefore, our estoppel and so forth is good news.

That's positive news that I should know.

But my feeling is that it's very unfortunate that we now have made the record

And then I would say, you can close it that way if you can.

That, I think, is the better way to close that.

And then come on shortly thereafter with the speech.

Well, I'm certain that could be done that way.

I do think that the trade package helps the evaluation that we're doing things that are consistent with our IMS approach.

Yeah, I'm for the trade package, I understand.

I'm just a question of when.

The evaluation helps the trade.

The formulation we had is saying we are going to go forward and it's going to have these kinds of things in it.

And the President has instructed, sort of like the way we announced with 33, the President has instructed that there be conversations with this and that and the others.

It has got all that information.

What would be your thought about the, what would be your thought about the, let me put it this way.

We want to put it all in one talk that I announced, or we want to do the evaluation thing first, and have it done with the treasurer.

It's not very interesting to play.

And then, of course, in the evaluation, it's not as impressive.

That's sort of the way I had it in mind.

Now, the other way is to put it all in one speech.

What you're doing, John, is to put it from the outside.

What you're doing, I deal with that.

Or what if you're just said it, or put it in one speech?

One of the difficulties that I see with putting up one speech is like the August 15th thing.

The August 15th thing, we've got three different leagues.

One was the league of freezing waves and prices.

One was the league of the value of the dollar.

And another, of course, was the league of post-insurgency.

There were all three different leagues in one thing.

And depending on how people reacted, it would be maybe the overall interest

Now in this instance, I would say that I would like to have the trading thing play as we can as a separate positive story, rather than drawing an evaluation.

The evaluation is too damn complicated, and I'm afraid it would override the trade.

That's my view.

So I whacked that evaluation out and followed with a one for two and then a double punch to come out with the trade thing.

I could even come out and eat the next day actually.

I got no problem with that.

In other words, having the evaluation, everybody worried about it, I whacked the trade.

But the trade, that hits the books.

That's another way to do it.

Would it be preventing doing the evaluation thing as saying at the time you do it,

that the president will be having some major things to say about trade on such and such a day.

Very sure.

As a matter of fact, I just called today, and that filled the hell out of that.

So they expect there's going to be something on trade.

People will be wondering and all that.

That gives a positive feeling for the evaluation.

I think we could get the best of both worlds.

Well, you see, you get the positive feeling for the evaluation.

And then, of course,

It'll leak around about all the better people on trade, which is no problem.

And that eye-whacking trade thing went out.

So you don't say, which is probably better?

Let's evaluate either here or there.

We can talk about that.

But I think that doing it in two separate stories, I thought about it since our meeting yesterday, is better than doing it in one.

Because I went back and thought about what happened on the 15th, and I don't want to have the people writing on it.

I'm afraid the evaluation story would get amazing.

bias in the media would be played natively, no matter what the hell we did on trade.

And I want trade to rival all the simple issues, the simple direct, I mean, the positive sides of the trade.

For that reason, you would not want to catch it in the press conference, say?

Oh, hell no.

Never just standoff?

No, no.

I have a plan to do this with the radio program.

There's a bunch of investment to do with the radio program.

And then that can do it in there.

That way you get as huge a sphere of light as you want.

It'll make all of that work.

And I would take, I would excerpt out for one minute, that part of the thing which dealt with stopping foreign goods and what we call a safeguard.

But what I had is, whatever we may think of as important, that doesn't have to be balanced.

But we'd like to have the television audience hear what they want to hear about trade.

And that is, we're going to stop the foreigners from flooding our mines.

And that we're going to make our goods more competitive.

We need to throw that in.

We need to say, our devaluation is going to do that.

But you see, I could do that for a minute, for a minute.

So that would get the television.

The television people have the right to that.

But that balance of it, of course, we could speak to the world in the future about the fact that we're not being isolated.

And we are being expensive.

I don't mind any of that rhetoric, provided that the folks here, the other rhetoric, and also the Congress, because basically it's basically the Congress what will make, what will sell these fancy policies is a protectionist policy.

That's what I meant.

In the meantime, we can go ahead and talk.

Yes, sir.

That's all been well done.

Just like we should have been.

I want you to... At the same time, all of our talks will be in the forum as well.

We all know what the President

And I think you can say this.

I think you should tell them, when you're talking to these fellows, that you have had extensive conversations with President Obama.

And he's thinking of a number of them.

So that they don't feel that I just said that when you do announce it next week, that this is something that was thought up and I haven't had a chance to do it.

So you've had extensive conversations.

And he has requested...

That we talk to you if you'd like to give your ideas before he makes, before he, well, might give your ideas during his term.

Okay.

With the devaluation, we're really not asking for your ideas.

We know, well, we are, but we're not going to change it.

Yeah.

There's no problem on that either.

You can say, well, I'm going to make sure he makes a final decision.

We've made a decision on devaluation.

But we can say that we've considered all this and that's reinforced.

I think you're in a good position.

The other thing I was going to say, on Mills, I wanted to tell you this.

I was going to say that with Mills, I think just so that she doesn't have to be surrounded.

I think John should sit in, because what he primarily wants to talk about at this time is not the tax thing, but he wants to talk about welfare reform.

I'd like to get him drug in on that, and then I will guide him a little to see what he wants to do.

In fact, to lay the foundation for you to start raising taxes, I'll get you in.

The law, I'm going to start to learn about very soon.

But when we get through, when we get through welfare, which I want to get some of his coca and health, I want to get some of his coca.

I need it.

It's terrible.

I've got to, you know, I've got to play ball.

I'd like to get him out of the way.

So if you will stand by tomorrow, and then if we break him to the other side, I will pick up the ball and say we're on the way.

After all that's where the action is.

But I think he will feel it very freely.

open the door for you to talk to him about it.

So I guess it was a one-two punch with these two guys.

The other thing, perhaps, that should be done, John, and has not occurred to me, you should call Wally Bennett and say that Russell asked to see me, and I just wanted to know if it's all real, because we'd sit down and we'd be chatting.

And I don't know what the subject saw.

And I thought it was a good idea.

Matt will be perfectly happy about it.

With regard to that following sneakily or whatever, it made me run it.

It's very sick.

You can talk.

You can tell she made me look good.

That Johnny Burns, and this is true, always had an arrangement with me that I could see Mills alone.

And he did.

Johnny said it was necessary.

The president wants you to know that we will do that.

And actually, it will be the president, the leadership, who will discuss this and, you know, but this is mainly the parent meeting of the millennials, which is part of our responsibility.

We don't want to do it on a double basis, etc.

I agree.

Mr. Cichene, long as millennials can agree that the welfare of all will start at the sun,

So, my burger has been gone for a long time.

I don't know if it's really possible.

Well, that's good.

Thank you.

Now, coming off, let's, incidentally, just for sort of John's sake, you had better fill in, George.

We did our own job, John.

Well, of course, Andrew,

I don't think the evaluation thing should be discussed with anyone.

Of course, with Roy, Roy can talk.

But beyond that, John, it should go one step further because we all know it already.

There are the trade things.

I think that's something we can talk around with them.

If they know what our thinking is, I don't have to change my mind because I know we're in the right direction.

But I think it would be helpful if you agreed to office those people, the tenants, for example.

The tenants will be able to handle this, the congressional guys.

You'll all be asking about this.

And I look forward to having trade deals also with your coaches.

But what about those guys?

They should have gotten a heavy recovery last time, just on the evaluation.

Well, I'll tell you what you do.

I'll tell you what you do.

Oh my, this is fine.

Very good.

You just tell the scout crowd that the scout crowd was on the key there on the door.

That's the other thing you can do is to tell us.

After you get done.

So I think we should go before.

What I would say what we are considering.

I think you should tell Starcraft so that Henry will know that that's what he's planning to get back.

Well, it's not right.

It's not right.

Henry should cover that.

Well, right now, you can't see him.

He should be working.

Incidentally, he was very, very high on the work

So when he gets back, we've done some, you know, we will, I asked my

you get it in as many packages as possible.

And I'm trying to sell that idea to the North, to the Indians on the ground.

But what we're going to provide, we're going to sort of .

We can get much more musical in the practice if others are also helpful.

And also, what you can get in the long run is going to be enormously multiplied.

We're going to get others in on the game.

On the other hand, the North Vietnamese do not want that.

They don't understand the world.

They don't trust anybody in the world.

They don't like the Japanese.

You know, you know the Japanese very well.

With us, if they were on the international stage, you know, who would not want that?

Neither the Vietnamese nor the Japanese.

You know, they hate the very Japanese.

But what we have in mind, you see, is the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, all that sort of stuff.

Now whether he can sew that or not remains to be seen.

He doesn't.

We're going to have to go in a different direction.

But all of this is pretty much sure.

At the present time, all that he's got to come back to is the fact that he's set up an economic condition in terms of national security and so forth.

But we'll be right with that.

That's why Henry doesn't want to.

I agree.

That's why he doesn't come to the meetings.

But I want to have a talk with Henry and do a thought job to get it back.

You've got to talk to it quite candidly.

Probably without, with George there, no, so embarrassing.

You and Bob are used to talking to each other all the time, too, and telling him he must attend.

Tell him his monetary and economic issues are so important that a principal, he as a principal, must attend.

If he can't have the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Trade should be there, and then somebody at a lower level from the NSC.

Also, Henry is perfectly capable of his mind to understand all this.

You know, he was great at Azar, he was a fellow, he made the people, he had the people talk to him.

Well, if you ask me, I haven't had to teach to develop, I haven't, but I do know that I have Henry Moran still there, which I should have, and it just happens so fast, so fast.

But only this morning before he left.

He said, now we have to have some of the income to get our long-range policy work done.

Well, Henry, we've been having some meetings.

Sure.

And go ahead.

So where would you get back?

Well, he has been overwhelmed with work.

But there's a speaking of Henry.

We just have to wait a little bit.

But I was going to say, we're going to have very interesting time to get back.

We have got to give Henry nothing.

He's got to be cursed completely, involved in everything, like committees.

No, he'll be up for a while.

He'll have to work something on that.

But, Henry is the kind of a person who, after Russian victory, had a great amount to see him scale.

He's going to have a very great depression now, and that will be emotional, because the challenges are not that great.

running for a high office and running for a high office.

In Henry's case, to get him involved in some of this was a good thing for him.

It was a good thing for him psychologically and otherwise, to get him involved.

I had a long talk with him yesterday about, let's make this the development of a great plan for Europe and America.

Europe and America can have a lot of ideas of appeal, but we're thinking about the economic and political very well.

very beautiful.

But the key to that, what really is the common bond for those all three of us is human honor.

And if you get into that, it's a great contribution to a spiritual life.

But it's not like that.

As God just said to me, He's a terrible person.

And He is wonderful.

And He's delightful.

Rogers is talking, you know, make faces, looking down.

I'm going, something, you know.

I said, even if it doesn't have a foreign guest, I said, no.

Usually if it's a foreign guest, he doesn't think it's going to be interesting.

I decided, I said, boy, I'm sorry.

I've got a very important meeting with a messenger.

I said, at least I've got a foreign sponsor there or somebody there.

He knows when he does the meeting.

He comes when he thinks it's worth his business.

No, I don't.

I don't know.

I should have gone out of my way to do it.

He would never come.

You know, he was mine.

You don't need to prepare this.

See, I'm going to leave, kind of leave tomorrow with three blocks.

I think the best way that I can be willing to tax them is to get the various things that we seriously think ought to be considered

on a checklist.

It's sort of a mark, like a ballot, basically, to say, do you think this or this or this ought to be done?

Like, that's going to simplify it, and then on a tax report, I would say, yes, I'd check that.

Reduce capital gains is what you may have to know.

But my point is, going down through there, then I can get the checklist, and I'll get it back to you, and then

And after we've done that, we're going to go over the nature of it.

That's pretty much the way it's arranged in here.

That's right, that's right.

That's the way you have it.

I got a newspaper article about it.

It's good sympathy.

Trying to get it linked off of it.

For those of you that are off of it, you can.

It's on there on the web.

It's February 3rd.

There you go.

It's a newspaper.

Trying to tie it up.

Oh.

I'm surprised I didn't get fired.

I got it wrong.

I hope so.

I engineered how it was released.

You see that, Sherman?

Well, I didn't know you were that powerful.

You can't engineer anybody else's release.

That just may end up being the only thing I get done the whole time I was here.

I don't have anything to do with it.

Nixon, Shultz & Ehrlichman on Economic Policy and Trade Policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 7, 1973

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