On April 27, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, Manolo Sanchez, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Ronald L. Ziegler, John D. Ehrlichman, Stephen B. Bull, unknown person(s), Henry Ford, II, and Lide A. Iacocca met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:19 am to 11:43 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 488-015 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Well, that's, uh, okay.
Uh, there was some more of this, uh, of this selling last night, but, uh, I think if they keep it up, they may have to consider doing something, because, uh, it don't cause a great deal of cash.
It, of course, wouldn't if they, I don't, we haven't had any reports of that yet.
But, uh,
clearly an attack on our bases.
But we knew they were trying to do something.
What were the captions last week?
46, which is down 10.
No, no, just basically the 10th.
They should have gotten more than that, shouldn't they?
Well, we had projected before Laos that
They've run actually a little higher because of that seasonal activity.
They should start dropping around May, starting partly because of the season and largely because of the season.
We're getting a message off to the Chinese today through Walters.
I've talked to Walters and
have Santini set up the appointment, that if he goes to the Chinese embassy to visit.
Right.
I don't know whether you noticed that Edgar Snow quoted Mao saying that he'd like to see you in Peking.
And Edgar Snow, everyone here is buzzing.
Actually, that China story, I don't know what Vought's reaction is.
but it is building into a longer-term plus for you.
Then a big initial splash would have been almost all the stories since we decided, Osborne, and so forth.
Now building it into an initiative that you took, and now Chama Chavez has picked up the snow story.
Apparently snow picked up in China, but there were a number of messages that came from here.
to peek in.
The newspapers are buzzing, and we have to say, obviously, we can't comment on anything.
I'll ask you that at the... Maybe.
Probably.
One question.
One question.
What is the situation?
Can we tell that they're always off on some tension?
The situation on the small prisoner thing.
I will ask something by this afternoon.
Good.
Oh, absolutely.
Four minutes.
Four minutes.
Unbelievable.
I don't know whether we can even, I don't know whether we can prevail, but we've just got to fight it.
We've got to fight them, and we need to let them out.
Can I, uh, take a glass of tea, please?
Yes, sir.
Coffee.
these people have been doing.
Stuart Alsop has a rather good article this week.
I don't know whether you saw it.
The Democrats are really preparing the most shameful betrayal in American history.
In Vietnam.
In Vietnam.
Because now they want not just for us to withdraw, they want us to wreck the government and the million people who have been fighting with us.
And he says he thinks it will turn into an electoral boomerang on them in 72.
But leaving that aside, the viciousness.
I found, of course, the gang we had in Woodstock this summer.
Well, you had the Europeans.
Well, the Europeans and myself.
But I noticed the Americans.
When I took on Regal, I usually don't speak emotionally.
In fact, I never do it.
I usually understand her.
But this time, I really tackled him.
And then the Americans all came running to me, with the exception of these nuts, and said they were really for me, but for you.
Really?
David Rockefeller.
It's such a cowardly bunch.
Robert Dean.
Robert Anderson, the good Anderson, but he's also a weakling.
Is he?
Oh, yes.
You can tell.
Oh, yeah.
It is all right, but until I spoke it, I talked to myself against it.
It's great that I was on that show.
It's, uh...
But I think these people have to be fought, and there has to be a counterattack.
Somebody has to... People are beginning to doubt their sanity.
They're making Vietnam look like sound as if it were a bombed-out wasteland.
hot marked with shells.
It is an absurdity.
80% of our farming is in the uninhabited parts of Laos and on roads.
A vicious campaign.
If we do what these people want, the United States is a great power.
They'll be finished.
It would be one of the most shameful betrayals.
You know, these kids out here,
That was a rock festival.
That was the most exciting thing they could do.
What else were they going to do?
Oh, God damn, they didn't pass.
The other thing, though, is that I, I don't know, I said, get on up there on the side and some of the senators got to go together.
They, they were going to see what they are.
I can tell you, you know, when you see these kids from there,
and started banging against the windows of my car and the names they called me and said, better enjoy it, you filthy pig.
We're going to kill you.
And then a lot of dirty episodes.
Not anyone.
Fuck you, motherfucker.
I mean, you look at it.
It's just not funny after a while.
It just gets tiresome, tiresome, boring.
Let him continue it.
Well, I don't know.
We've got a long haul, so we've just got to stick her down.
Bloody heads in the mill again.
Let them chop away.
And I think we ought to consider a counterattack, Mr. President, when this is over.
How?
How?
How?
Well, when?
When?
When this week or so is over.
Oh.
I wouldn't do anything while they're in town, but I think... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder.
I just don't know how the hell to counterattack them.
With what?
Me?
I go out and start counterattacking them?
I don't know how or what the hell I do, just to... Well, just somebody puts the facts straight.
I've said everything really that I can say.
The facts?
Maybe some of our senators.
Well, they're trying.
They don't cover it.
Let's face it.
Some of them do try.
They really have.
They don't cover it.
All I know is...
They didn't give coverage to that.
The Washington Post left out the fact.
The Times didn't even carry the story about this.
Demonstrations and posts left out the fact that Hungary had refused to clear the galleries.
They left it out of the story.
It's been a long time.
It's a biased, vicious coverage we get.
Well, if our cabinet were a little stronger, finally it's the only one who can do it.
Actually, he's just discrediting himself so much by popping off so extensively.
Popping off how much?
I didn't tell you.
Lately?
He wants to go to Jamaica this weekend, and I think he shouldn't.
Yeah, I think he ought to go next weekend.
Why not this weekend?
Because I don't think it's good for him to leave the country during this demonstration.
That doesn't seem like leaving the country, I think, but maybe I can, too, but...
It's going to be, yeah.
Yeah, well, I'll be back.
Yeah, I mean, no, what you're doing is very, it is a very, very good point to make.
I think that's a very, very good move.
I'd like to come, Father, and come back on Monday or Sunday...
Oh, I think Monday is time.
I think if I'm back, if I'm on the way back at the time, they're demonstrating that that's fair enough.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, I would think so.
I think we just overreacted.
No, I don't know.
Monday, I think as long as you're back by Monday night, in fact.
So then we'll be back.
We're going to be doing something.
Then these sons of bitches may want to pull up.
I'm under his middle name and I wish you well in his operation.
He asked me if I could sort of pat him on the back and he said, I'm really becoming discouraged.
Mainly because he takes so much heat in his family.
He says his family's all gone.
He's against the war.
His wife's against the war.
And Stanford's having problems.
Dave's friends, you know, are against him.
You see, Dave's part of the establishment, you know.
And it's just goddamn hard for him.
And things are hard to get done in government.
And I just don't know why.
Well, we will put our arm around what the hell we can do, but, gosh, I think we've let him know that we think he's a hell of a follow-up.
Precious.
Precious on him?
Well, on everybody.
It's not really, I mean, it used to be an honor to be in the government.
Now, if one loses one's friends, they begin to work.
I mean, I was in
instead of ABM.
Listen, you say this to me once more, and you've lost yourself a father, because I won't put up with it from children, but...
I can look at it today.
We have Elliot Richardson, who's a fellow reporter in the White House conference, and he hasn't been out there and handled it as well as we could.
I said, well, I said, well, I said, Elliot made the point that we had to have a dialogue with him.
That's what they really want, somebody just to listen, not to agree with them.
I do not agree with you on that.
The activists do not want just to listen.
They want you to agree.
Am I right?
And the others have nothing to say.
You would be appalled, Mr. President.
I've been seeing them for a year.
I've seen 52 student groups in the last year.
I know you have.
They have nothing to say.
It isn't that I disagree with them.
They don't even know their own case.
It's a bundle of emotions.
They go through these romantic exercises.
The trouble is that the previous generation, people like old Joe Kennedy and so forth, just wouldn't have stood for this.
It's partly the weakness and the waffling.
I mean, since when do 18 year olds know what they want?
They are in the process of learning.
Well, the 21-year-olds know what they want.
Well, the 21-year-olds know what they want.
There they come and pontificate to cabinet members.
This was a very young government and a very young group of founding fathers, but for Christ's sake, they said the president had to be 35.
That's right.
Right?
That's right.
And they said senators had to be 30, right?
Right.
We call it the age of the jury.
But now that we're giving the 18-year-olds, we want to give the 18-year-olds all the rights to the 18-year-olds, including the right to drink and have marijuana or whatever the hell they do.
All right.
And the right to rent the Congress.
That's nice.
The 17-year-olds in the Congress.
Wouldn't that be a hell of a goddamn thing?
You know, really, they don't know anything.
I know how I was a little more mature than most 18-year-olds because we were
I was 30.
But anyhow, they signed me.
They haven't noticed me in youth.
I told the candidates, you can listen to them, you can have dialogue with them and so forth, but don't follow them.
Remember, we have to lead.
I said, the reason that you, then I went on to say, I said, I found out that at that conference, that the adults, as Eliot put it in charter, that the adults were just, that they were in exactly the same views as youth.
And I said, who were the adults?
Well, the adults, of course,
I said, let me tell you, I said, how the hell do you think you got that way?
I said, if you call college youth today, if you go to high school, well, if you call it youth and college, you will find the back ways are more radical than the youth.
Agreed.
Oh, absolutely.
And less human.
Less human, yeah.
That's the idea when I was 18 or 20.
I thought I had to go ahead, I had to write articles, I had to learn something.
These kids who know nothing, who have nothing but emotion, who've been pampered and spoiled all their lives, think they can run amok in Washington.
And I think it's a mistake to romanticize them for tactical reasons, one may want to listen to them.
I said, for Christ's sake, also try to listen to some others.
And I gave them a call.
I said, get the Texas A&M Choir and talk to them.
Talk to the Ohio State group that were here the other day.
Talk to some kids that may not be here to throw a damn bomb.
I said, maybe they're not activists.
Maybe their teachers would select them as the ones most likely to succeed.
But they are part of you, too.
I said, I love a lot of them.
I know what youth is, and I know how the polls show and all that, and the polls show that a great majority of youth are against the administration and so forth, and they are because for Christ's sakes, they get it from their goddamn teachers.
I don't even know what they'll do, Mr. President, when they vote, if they vote.
Yeah.
Because it's considered fashionable at the universities.
Yeah.
But youth is always alienated.
That is the process of growing up.
That's in adolescence.
The only way you can get a sense of identity is in reaction to somebody or something.
But this is the first time that alienation has been elevated
into a positive good instead of a transitional process.
When you say tango taking them off, you see, I don't know what the hell or whatever else I can do.
I mean, for me to put out a white paper on Vietnam where I can't go on actual television again and say, look here,
The one thing that hasn't gotten across is that we thought that a ceasefire, for example, that when people say, who is perpetuating?
Well, the one thing, I want to be sure we have these figures in the press conference thing.
One, the number of, again, the number of North Vietnamese that are in Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam.
Just estimates, that's all I hear.
Second, the number of civilians
that they had murdered.
I mean, the North Vietnamese had murdered in South Vietnam.
We've had these figures before.
But then the number of refugees in Laos that resulted in North Vietnamese actions.
The other thing is, remember, the number of North Vietnamese
I mean, after the partition of North Vietnam, the number of refugees that came south, I think, was about 900,000, or maybe.
I have a list of the ISUs around here.
Maybe 90,000.
I need that.
Then also, however, the number of North Vietnamese that were
either were exterminated by the government, which is estimated at $500,000.
I think we just throw back a few little figures.
I don't want to sit there and insult this.
For example, personnel officers in certain companies were not hiring.
Well, they think the veterans are not very good people to hire because of my lady and things like that.
And I said, now, God damn.
I said, that is terrible.
Get in these top American businessmen and I'm going to read the accident.
the Coast Guard, you know, just burns my tail, turns my tail.
Isn't that a horrible thing?
Oh, it's terrible.
I mean, they, you know, can't you just care about because of my life and so forth, we think this guy may be... And also because, yeah.
Yeah.
Because this is an unpopular war.
Now, what the hell are they talking about?
But the peace could easily turn out to be even more unpopular.
Yeah.
Although it is what it gets down to.
Yeah.
Why wouldn't we do something?
Well, what's killing us is our attempt to do responsibly what the establishment wants, namely wind down the wall.
Because that's losing us.
They want to lose the wall.
That's what they want to do.
But if they were against it and they weren't through, they were wrong.
So the only way they can do it is to have the wall.
I mean, we can see it now, for example, I can already see it in China policy.
Four weeks ago, a true China policy would have been considered the height of this by the establishment.
Now they're smelling, now they, you already see the truth.
You have to throw Taiwan out, you have to give Taiwan back to the communists, and they're already starting... That's right, that's right.
We've still got them a little psyched on China.
I don't think the Chinese are going to play the same petty little game as for a while that's the Russians are.
I think there's a good chance that by the end of this year we'll have the Seoul Agreement and the summit and the Chinese opening.
If Kennedy had done that in a whole term, much less in a year, he would have been enshrined by the press as one of the greatest presidents in the world.
And we may even get the North Vietnamese thing.
Well, it's that we're going to find out almost soon.
That they'll know.
There's no reason.
They're smart.
And they know damn well what cars we've got in place.
We know what cars we've got in place.
And we might even come down to what only we've got in place.
It's small.
We can keep the residual force there for...
of time, and in the sub-region period.
That's what happens to prisoners.
But after that, I cannot keep a residual force entry indefinitely in South Vietnam if they return to prisoners.
That's really what they're getting at.
That's what they're getting at.
So that's why our Vietnamization thing, we ride with it.
We hold firm over the crisis we're in.
They have to decide whether they want to fight two more years, at the end of which our forces will be out anyway, while if we get out earlier, they may have the chance, just from their point of view, of toppling the government as long as their American forces say they've got to be careful with the French, because we may just bother to be treated as out of them.
With the air power.
With the air power.
If Civil War was to not have the air power, should we attack the first meeting in Paris, right now?
Unless they do something outrageous, it's ugly, but I'm in best case we have to hit them.
Otherwise, you'll certainly be dead.
Not yet, but if they keep it up another day or two, I think we've got to take our chances.
There hasn't been that many casualties.
If it turns out that our castle is done, I think that we've just got a problem.
Yes, sir.
Hold on a minute.
Let me say one thing.
Here, it's all going to go down anyway.
Don't worry, we're not going to go out there again.
We're going to back the goddamn hell out of those people.
I think the President... Well, I think, Mr. President, you really...
and they don't accept it.
Then you might cover your retreat from the preachers out of them.
And it would make their attacks next year harder.
We figured out that if we want to, if at that point we do that, we've got the American public because we...
Look, the way the press and the television starts from playing us, they're really crushing it into the piece of music.
This work just is believable in the crack that they put it in.
It's probably a shenanigan.
That song, that's the category he was asking about.
But I couldn't believe him.
Now, what the hell?
For four minutes, they ran the song.
I don't get it, but then what I've done, the other hand...
What I think is...
The German people made a revolution in 1918 to end the war.
And three years later they were convinced that they had been betrayed.
By the people who made the revolution?
In fact, by some others.
Oh, I see.
And including by the people who made the revolution and all the people who agreed to it.
One thing to advocate a defeat, it's another to live with it.
Well, you've got a damn right.
Whatever.
And yet, as I said, we're all, you know, he's such a fighter and he was so goddamn mad this morning in the press.
The actors didn't carry it.
They refused to carry it because it didn't serve their purposes.
That's why I have to use this.
Considering a few hundred veterans out of millions,
Again, there's totally one-sided, no description of what the North Vietnamese have done.
You can deprive a people of its pride and of its self-confidence in a straightforward way, in any way, without getting... People want to be proud of themselves.
They don't want to feel that that's what the Cali reaction was about.
They don't want to feel that they're a bunch of criminal sucks, that they're engaged and that they've lost 50,000 men in an enterprise.
Uh, that was, uh, that was, uh, that was a disaster and a moral disgrace.
We'll see.
You know, I suppose that's all we had, Tom Curran, and that's what they all found in it.
and maybe it will destroy us.
But that by 76, 80, the patriotic feeling is going to be the dominant one.
If I wanted to run in this country, I would run against these guys now, and whether it would work in 72, I mean, this is no help for you now in your present situation.
But they don't represent the future.
I don't think either.
What is wrong, Mr. President, is that when you have withdrawn 300,000 troops, wound down the war, reduced casualties, that we should be in the position where we have to defend that we are for the war.
That is a national disgrace.
No one is standing up in one senior newspaper and saying, just a minute here.
And that is the outrage, that these bastards can say, we spread the word into Laos and Cambodia.
They were there.
We wouldn't have trend of going to Laos and Cambodia.
If they hadn't had that infernal pressure on us, we wouldn't have gone into Laos either.
We had to go into Laos so that we could cut short our withdrawal.
Well, anyway, that's all.
We'll get you to eat tomorrow night if you're determined.
Schmucks.
Schmucks.
We call these people schmucks.
I call them sheds.
Sheds.
Schmucks.
I'll stay.
There they are.
Don't be depressed.
I'm not depressed, Mr. President.
This is... We're doing fine.
Well...
I think we are.
Absolutely.
We're doing good.
The economy's moving along.
We're getting a lot of people...
You've got the American people with you.
They just don't have anyone to rally around.
I'm going to try to get the American people with the men so we got a lot of them.
But if you were, you'd get them.
Believe me, Mr. President, I'm no problem to you.
I'm...
This has to be done.
Whenever we were talking to Packard, he might just say to me, just a pretty day goes by when I say how fortunate we are to have a man from the establishment standing up and fighting like he does.
I know that it's not that tough, but I just...
He's a good soldier.
Of course, I don't know about you.
Oh, he's a soldier.
That's a name that's like this.
Did you raise a point with Packard on the panel on that?
Go there?
No, the Southern Command.
Yeah, the Southern Command.
Packard.
I wanted to raise a point.
Henry was recommending that you see Packard and or Henry.
Well, you have to be today if you're going to do it.
Well, packet feels very strong, but let me see that I can handle it.
Well, let me just bring in that money or something.
I really can't add it in.
No, no, no.
This can wait a week or two.
Next week, Monday, Tuesday, put it on Tuesday.
How's that?
Yeah.
Give it a date.
Then hey, that's it.
I'm just curious, will they really want it?
Want it.
It's the focal point where the Latin American concealed the dust.
Yes.
The police, yes.
They're supposed to pack it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we'll talk about it Tuesday.
Let's just go over and have a chat so that we can at least talk about it.
We may be able to watch it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know the California Wednesday.
I know they expect you to be around here.
I'll go tomorrow.
Huh?
Yeah, I'll go tomorrow.
You haven't made that draw yet.
You're taking too much of a beating.
I'm not.
I'm not.
Of course, listen.
I don't like it.
I think what you're doing is a great story.
I don't think the country could survive this sort of collapse that these bastards want.
And all of these, we're supposed to throw to the, to the North.
Cut off all that.
It's an unbelievable process.
If you want, you can proceed with the press conference today.
Contact with the- Sure.
Also, if you don't announce it, we're coming back on Monday today.
We're going to do that.
But don't, just do it as a routine.
Just make it a routine.
You're not even going out.
I mean, I don't try to do it this way.
I'm just saying that he's going out to do the marine thing, and we'll stay there.
We'll be back Washington Monday.
We'll be returning to Washington Monday, sort of on that line, and see.
And we can come a little later.
What we've said before, that he would be back, of course, before the 7th.
That's enough to turn the table.
I'll charge you with putting that back.
Well, they will.
Since they know, since they have time at the end, they're going to be still waiting to see how much time we're going to spend out there.
We need to be back.
Yeah, I'll say that.
Here, we're coming back.
We don't have any event on Monday.
Here, we won't be back here in time.
Yeah, we'll have one on Tuesday.
We've got the leaders meeting.
Set something up Tuesday.
Yeah.
The regulations are promulgated in the Department of Transportation.
If you tell him that, that's all he needs to
turn off the lights and start surfing and everything else.
It's about the George and John Connolly were very, very disturbed about that piece of the Manchester Garden.
I remember that conversation.
Arthur mumbling around as he always does about industries, but I said nothing about that.
As a matter of fact, I said, Arthur, you've got to work with John Connolly.
Remember?
in this?
I'm always open to suggestions on it.
But you gave him no affirmative assurances.
I got my notes out this morning when George showed me the clip.
He got more than that.
I saw exactly what he said.
And we got it right on the ball, right where the ball was.
That's right.
I wrote out.
Now I don't want him to have a public laugh about what George had written out a statement that would have just completely be wrong.
I think both George and John may be overreacting to it, except that Arthur has no business going over there.
He's saying, by God, we're going to keep interest rates up.
But he really said, we will keep interest rates up in America, even though it hurts our domestic economy.
He's just bullshit.
It's not going to happen.
or a little old hop-hopper, making these assholes save the children.
They're just like everybody else.
Shut their goddamn mouths.
They're working here.
And it's wrong because of my business.
I'll tell you how John taught me to make that, sir.
He made it, and he called me on the phone.
He says, I said, what do you think?
I said, I approved completely.
It chased wrong.
And he calls the bandits from there, and they discredited the Secretary of the Treasury.
I want to know who did it.
Who put that stuff out at the C.E.A.?
They should have undercut it.
You understand?
We've got enough trouble with Arndt here.
But I, I, I just, I, that was, Colin had me mad, but I want you to tell Colin that I'm checking the fire.
We'll do that in a second.
Because he's, he's, he's fighting our battle.
Good God, we finally got somebody that does.
And here are these simpery little boys with the CD.
They go around, you know, and
I assume that at first glance, that the chase going up was a response to something that Arthur pulled off.
And George says not, that he doesn't think so at least.
And I told George about the conversation that Arthur had with him.
up and you had said that you didn't want him to go up.
I think I said that.
I know you did.
I know that way.
Yeah, because I had talked to Conley.
And then you remember you talked about the Republican balance and the tightrope act, and that was his metaphor, that he was on the tightrope.
Listen, I want you to get on the phone, though.
Don't worry about George.
George will be all right.
But get on the phone with Conley.
I don't want Conley to lose his spirit, or I say not you.
Arnie did not approve it.
On the contrary, he said, we've got to think of this economy here.
And that comes back to the fact that I agreed with the Secretary of the Treasury, that I raised the Secretary of the Treasury to name one, and said, he is our top man.
The three of us should meet from time to time, the Secretary of the Treasury, Arnie, and myself.
And he said, that's fine.
And that this was the line.
Also, that I'm going to get the ass of that CEA guy who popped off.
Well, I'm not so sure because I know that Ziegler got asked yesterday whether the president agreed with the secretary of treasury or agreed with the CEA on the chase.
Ziegler wouldn't comment because he didn't know.
See, he wasn't aware of the CEA.
Well, I should have agreed.
He wasn't aware of the CEA comment.
All right.
He didn't confirm it.
He didn't confirm it.
I just want to be sure that Ziegler firmly comes back and says that Connolly speaks for his administration, not the got-back C.E.A.
and not the Federal Reserve Board.
That's what we've got to understand.
Connolly is the Secretary of the Treasury.
That's what we brought him in to have one strong voice.
I think you've got to get...
George Conway and Crank.
Because I think this idea of a CA is, they're a weak breed anyway.
John Conway properly feels you can have one voice on financial matters.
He is right.
Don't you agree?
Absolutely.
That's been our problem.
I think also we have this degree of what we want.
So that's good too, isn't it?
All right, sir.
Well, if you'll return
And that he is a valuable tie to the Italian community.
And that it's worth the price of uncomfortable dealing with the department to have a guy from a political viewpoint.
That's great.
That's mentioned again.
Just a second.
Two minutes.
Well, look, you and John talk about it.
I don't know whether you temporize sometimes with somebody who is stupid.
But I understand I can spend an hour a month.
That's all that counts for every two months.
I guess we're too damn well organized now.
from the, I can't find what he did, and I can't find the speech, but we'll just get the tape from the Chamber of Commerce.
I'd just like to know whether he breathed money in there, whether he spent, I know he talked about revenue sharing, but he went off on that damn kick about this monocular neighborhood labor cop.
Of course, we're all against that.
But whether also he came in with a ring defensively present might be a good idea, too.
I think he would.
Volpe does, but who the hell believes Volpe?
That's the thing, John Maynard and me, I don't think both is credible.
For many years, people we don't know.
What do you think, John?
You must be credible.
I'm credible with us.
Badly bad on this subject, I'm afraid.
I can't be very objective.
All right, don't be objective.
We're not talking about that.
Well, let's see.
Salston.
I don't want to come back.
I don't want to be here to be reigned back for this thing.
So I'm just trying to say that I'm going out.
I'm going to come back Monday and be here.
I'll be back Monday and be here for the legislative meeting, the leaders meeting Tuesday.
Actually, I'll be in the air.
And also, we're going to the shipyard.
I think that's a good idea, back and forth.
I think that's one of the reasons, among others, we do pretty well in the South.
It isn't just that people are doing a little better.
Everything's good.
Texas is fine.
Things are good.
Dallas does not.
But he doesn't feel strongly about it if you announce today that you are.
He very much doesn't want you reacting to the demonstration.
Why not?
And he feels it's basically better for you not to be here than for you to be here.
But he doesn't feel strongly about it.
And he feels it.
And he'd say, today, you're better to back.
You're better to catch.
You're better to catch.
Ron.
No, Ron, that helps in a second.
John's.
John's.
It's not Ron, but John's.
You want to take a little more time to think about it.
Ron, that helps in a second.
You think about it.
I think about it.
Oh, these people, man, he ain't nobody associated with.
Oh, great.
I told him to go to Vienna or something.
It's a question of balancing the priorities.
Let me say that we're going to meet later.
Well, anyway, I want to say first that on this subject that I'm glad to have you come in and talk about it.
Let me introduce it by trying to tell you what I know about it and what I don't know.
And then I want to hear directly from you, and you can talk to me in complete confidence.
I can assure you that John is a lawyer who says my name.
My views in this field, I'm just telling you my personal views.
And, Henry, you would not be surprised at this, but, uh, we, uh, Fred Dilling tells me about, uh, the, uh, the, uh, uh, these backgrounds and so forth, uh, and he's amazed at us.
The issues are, are, are, frankly, whether it's the environment or pollution or nationalism or consumerism, are extremely pro-business.
We are fighting, frankly, a delaying action in many instances.
We're fighting a delaying action due to the fact, now let me separate two things up.
There is push, we all know that, you can fly over various places and you can see the stuff in the air.
Maybe there are safety problems, I assume, in the Congress, I think they're a great example, but there are some.
But where there is pollution and where there is safety, the general principle, by the way, is that, well, then we have to do the best we can to eliminate the causes.
But we can't have a completely safe society or safe highways or safe corridors and pollution-free and so forth.
We could have them go back with like a bunch of damp animals, but that won't be too good either.
But I also know that using this issue, and boy, this is true, it's true of the environmentalists, and it's true of the consumerism people.
There are a group of people that aren't one really damn bit interested in safety or clean air.
What they're interested in is destroying the system.
They're enemies of the system.
So what I'm trying to say, it says that if you can speak to me in terms of I am for the system,
I try to fight the demographics to the extent that we can.
I would say is, I think we have to know that the tides run very strongly.
I mean, you know, it's the cake now.
You know, the environment, the cake is in your hands.
Of course, if you were reflecting kids or four or more, that's what they say.
The safety then is the cake.
There's nadir going around, swilling around about this and that and the other thing.
And so out of all this, what we have to do is to get it out.
One, what it's great to do.
And then second,
what we have determined what is right to do, we have to determine what we can do, having in mind the political problem that we have, and redoubling the Congress, and the things they will pass, and things that they will ask us to do.
So, it's with that in mind, that's the background.
Now, tell me the problems you've got with the industry, with the Department of Transportation, and all these things, and let me listen.
We fully understand your time is very limited.
We, I haven't, but has seen all of these people, Ruggles House, and Volpe, and particularly Tom's, and the deal with Tom Silver.
Do you know why anybody feels that?
No, they're trying to go over to these guys.
So we have, the best we can, tried to keep as close as possible.
We even set up a special office down here with engineers so they can be right next door rather than come from Detroit and all that kind of thing.
Second, I don't think we want to talk to you today about emissions.
It's very political.
It's pollution.
It's very political.
We lost 73 to nothing.
You know, Mr. Ruckelshausen has just come in.
Lee's already been in to see him.
He's had his big hearing in the first part of next month.
We would somehow, from Mr. Ruckelshausen, how he runs these test procedures, if he can help us a little bit, we can probably, we can just have any five stands.
We hope we can.
We're not sure we can.
requirements of nox and we can fill in more of the details of this because i hadn't been down in any bridge
is really the economy of the United States, if you want to get into the broad picture, because we represent the total amount of industry supplies, dealers, dealer mechanics, and all that, about one-sixth of the M&A.
Now, if the price of cars goes up because emission requirements are going to be in there, even though we don't need to talk about it this morning,
Safety requirements are in there.
Bumpers are in there.
And these things are in.
That's leading out to inflation and material cost increases, which are also there.
We think that prices of cars are going to go up from next year to 75, anywhere from $100 up to maybe $700 or $800 in the next four years because of the requirements that are in.
That's leading out to inflation, which we don't need to discuss right this morning.
And all of this will be reflected in the consumer price index and so forth, even though you're buying a hell of a lot more cars, presumably.
But I say it is.
In other words, it will kick up the price of cars.
And of all, it will be inexpensive once it enters, too.
Now, we see 5-gig of pitotage down sales for $1,919 going up something like 50% in the next three years.
with inflation is part of it, but that's not the big part of it.
It's the safety requirements, the emission requirements, the bumper requirements.
Now, what we're really talking about, we're talking about trying to put some sense into the DOT and how they go about doing their business.
I've been in business for, since 66, supposedly.
And they have problems, we understand that.
But the cost effectiveness of what they ask us to do has got to be important.
There's one thing this week that they canceled out and sent us out in another direction the next week.
They've got bumper standards for 73.
They've got different bumper standards for 74.
They've got airbag standards, all of these things.
The only thing that we want to try to talk to you about this morning is the fact that these things are all going to cost money.
If these prices get too high and people stop buying cars, they're going to buy more cars.
on these sort of things.
The law has given us 60 days to respond to a rule they put out.
After that 60 days, they hear from everybody, foreign manufacturers, the big four here, and then they put out a standard.
Then you have 60 days to decide what you want to do about that.
Once it becomes a standard, we're approaching one right now.
In fact, on a Monday morning, we will in all probability, I'll tell you honestly, because our meeting isn't until 30 this week,
before, but this brings up this whole issue of how important is safety.
It's a faith we're going to.
It's not a fad.
We did manage to kill 50 people on the highway.
But I feel that, you know, we worry about inflation, and we should, because it's heating us up a lot right now, and in the next few years,
not willfully, but maybe unknowingly, it is really getting to us.
They are not only changing our industry.
The law has been in the books six years now.
Through the prior administration, I've been coming down.
I used to talk to Dr. Hattman, and the new group said to me, he said six years ago, well, we're new, and we had trouble staffing with good people,
But we'll get around to it.
And I keep saying it.
The clock is running.
We are wasting money.
It just kills me to see, starting with Ford, we are becoming a great inefficient producer.
What they're doing to us, and without getting into all the details, what they're doing, it's easy.
I should say it this way.
As tough as you made the 75 stickers for 75, remember when we had that environmental pollution in here?
18 months ago, we did that.
Seventy-five seemed tough.
And your eating standards at least gave us a target.
Then I spent some time with Mr. Muskie and others, and, you know, haven't got into, well, Michael Freud.
They've not yet.
That's right.
But now we're going to try to get to 75.
But the good thing you can say about emissions is give and take from changes in procedures and the like.
Mr. Walton's also told what his problem is.
Yes.
Well, he, and that law is written so that he is on the spot.
He is in a dilemma.
His last words to me as I left his office were, if you come up with any solutions, I might as well please give you a call.
And what it is, he's given only one year to establish for every manufacturer in the world whether they exercise good faith.
And he can give them a one-year respite
from 75 to 76, did they show good faith?
The reason I'm not seeing it was, how are we deterring good faith?
And he zeroed them.
Yes, the National Academy of Sciences didn't help him, but he said, I am the judge.
I said, well, I got a question for you.
It's a tough job, because do you mean to tell me that people have to decide each individual's good faith and decide on that basis whether to give them a one-year moratorium?
He said, well, yes.
I said, well, you're going to end up with 50 different standards for 50 different
Four may not be best, but we'll be at least first or second best because we think we have our hand on how the liquor's going to come.
Well, you can't take us in case you'll outlaw everybody else.
You can't take the least common denominator.
You need to tell me that Fiat, who we've heard already, has said we only put 57% of our cash over there.
So will you consider our resources and our sales in defense in order to show whether we
that the guy who does the best job under this law will probably be the one at the most.
So there's no incentive.
So he knows that problem.
to probably get very close to meeting the intent of the law for 75 and with some relief for 76.
But now take safety.
It's six years old.
I don't know what the national priority is for safety, but the Bureau has no idea what their priorities are.
So they keep saying, well, we're hot on pass restraints.
And, of course, we say to them, well, why don't you get hot on alcohol?
That's a
But now with all this sign passing, they're saying put in an airbag.
They're saying get the bumpers better.
By the way, I don't mean to take it.
We're dragging our feet.
We've got to make our bumpers better because they're rather frantic today.
We know that the consumer wants better bumpers and he wants lower insurance costs.
But they have care of it.
I don't know about the bumper thing.
You're talking about collisions of two and a half.
our best estimate today is $13 a year.
I'm in a position, I said to Mr. Kornheim, in a way, I'm going to give him a $15 bumper, and he's going to get $13 of value for three years at $39.
He's got $11, and he's got an uglier car, and we're in trouble.
But that's consumerism for you.
You can't find everything at one time.
So we're going to get the bumper probably, although DOT, again, has a free...
to take over because we've got about 30 states with different laws and to do 30 different cards.
But their point has been, well, when we write our standards, we must write them.
The law says, the safety law doesn't say here to work on property damage.
So all of their tests are designed to meet the bumper standards in order to
But nevertheless, that's the way it's written.
But I get to the basic safety standards.
Now, the key officials over there, I've talked to them now for, you know, two years constantly.
And they're dedicated, and they say, well, we're going to get on with this, but we have problems.
And they talk about major risk to them, and, you know,
But along this area of safety, we don't know whether we're trying to cut the carnage
They say, we want, yeah, so when you drive a car by 90, 80, at 50 miles an hour, head on, we want you to walk away from that car.
Oh, God.
Well, you see, but now they're writing standards that are 20 miles an hour.
Now get the computers.
They write that 20, but they say by 74, B.
I think that they have said in the Department of Transportation that we are dedicated to passive restraints.
The citizens of the U.S. must be protected from their own agency.
So we will put in a sophisticated device that will blow up on impact.
Well, we agree that work has to be done in this area.
But look where we are.
This is a whole lot of land now from 1974.
They have said, well, they didn't modify it.
See, actually, we've got 60 days to tell them.
You know, just last week, I told you.
So anything we do at the last moment to tear them up, our fixed investments at, well, you're used to big numbers, but we have already sunk $244 million into the safety area.
And we have on our card today $150 of, I don't want to say all, because it's
us are a complete waste of money.
Every hundred dollars of those kind of, let's call it, grivel that we put on, we have to go down to the same level.
Every hundred dollars is a billion dollars a year to get to the safety problem.
Now, we already have at retail $150 a month.
What we have in savings
Through 1973, Higley City Care Backyard is about the $400 level on a car.
Now, true, we will be real good at it, get it down 10%, 15%, but it's going to be very expensive.
But DOT is making decisions right now saying that up until now, they've only put $80 on their cars.
Well, at least we could have added their emissions, right?
We could pay $150, we could prove it, though.
But they say it's easy, okay?
The Post has said, the newspapers, they're going to come and speak to this big town and say that another $50 will clean it up.
And we say, well, it's not another $50, it's another $250, which is five times what he's saying.
Which brings me to the crux of it.
There is nobody, I mean nobody, whether I talk to Muskie, whether I talk to someone at the Secretary of Transportation, that ever wants to talk to me is going to spend a lot of costs.
And I say, but we're the same business as you are.
We are not sure what the consumer will demand, and there are certain things he'll never demand, like a pleading to be tossed by him.
So for the good of society, you need laws to force people to do this.
But they've gone beyond this.
We don't think that they're charging under the law.
We don't think it's that political.
And we think when we had inflation on top of pollution,
We don't know what to do anymore.
Except, we're booking numbers.
These aren't betting on a con.
We're booking these numbers.
And I would predict that our P&O will be closer to $3,000 in 75 than it is to $2,000 now.
And in 1919, we haven't deterred the Chattanoogers.
At $3,000, the ball game's over.
We've made what I termed our dynamic of viable auto industry into a sect industry.
Now, that's my new point.
I'm working on 75 cars now.
Hold up.
You can't take them.
You've got to wait in line for one.
We're going to have to price them.
But the Japanese are on a price of $102,000.
With what?
With their toilet.
Spread.
We came from a meeting in Toronto.
And this time we'll be using it here.
1990 you know using german componentry to do that we had to stop on the west coast of california about 27 all cars formed in vancouver it's up to 50. toyota also all of your products in vancouver and and you say well what is this to do with safety well that's one big thing to do with it they are going to put whatever
So their pollution standards, sure, they have to meet them, but it favors them because they're smaller cars, and we'll have to just be competitive and make smaller cars.
But overall, if we dare think of $1,000, I hope that, by the way, there aren't any really safe places.
He doesn't care whether it's inflation.
All he knows is I'm a working man, and Ford, who might have pioneered this area of all people, is going to price themselves clear out of the market, and we're going to be in trouble.
Well, I won't over-say this to you, but I have a feeling that the auto industry, I'm only speaking for Ford, price stability and employment, we are an abdominal slide, the likes of which we have never seen in our business.
And the gas and the wind are going to eat us up alive.
So I have the position to be saying to the towns and old people, when you guys cool it a little bit, you're going to break this.
And they say, hold it.
People want safety.
I say, well, what do you mean you want safety?
We get better donations.
We get a lot.
How is it going to cost a return if you can't get your car fixed?
We don't get anything from safety.
So again, give us a priority.
We cannot carry the load of inflation.
You mean the Department of Transportation issues an order?
uh they will say uh we wanted 30 miles an hour for an airbag to be deployed and you won't be you know you won't be injured let's say and they well we had 70 of those proposals of their grant
Okay.
Then we heard everybody, but now here is the standard.
Then the law says you have 60 days to say you can meet it or to a few days to serve court of appeals.
And that's the way this law is set up.
Well, if you have a nervous state of mind, you should try to get the law changed.
But there's no such language in the law, except it says they don't need
I think we could stand it, Mr. President, even though it seems high, because it still makes a gap between you and Toyota and the like.
But we are not projecting price increases, because 50 and 75 percent, I can almost predict this fall's price increase for it.
And the fall of 72, because of emissions and safety and inflation again, I think we'll be in the very close to $200 a year for two years now.
Right now.
Right.
can be done under the law.
I won't say this, I can't even use their names, but they said, we would like, to me on the telephone, we would like you to take this into court.
And I said, very openly, you are trying to put the burden out of your shop into ours.
And they said, well, you know, we have PR problems, too.
And I said, well, we don't want any confrontations in court.
We'd like to argue this out privately with you.
They said, well, enough time has passed.
Hey, they never even said the battery's going to be for 72 years.
But they let us off the hook.
I said, well, 74 is ridiculous.
It's just, you started so low.
He thinks he's given us a two-year arrest now, when in fact, it's still illogical.
We can't do it.
So they say, well, why don't you go to court?
And I go, well, I don't know, pre-trial.
The court will do the right thing with the evidence we have.
And I probably said, will you reconsider it, please?
But with the plot running, it means that we could handle the jury now with 7,400, which is almost 7,300.
And then it's just, well, you know, we've lost a couple of cars.
And guess what?
The last time we met Cold Feet, we pulled out an explosive charge because we can't get a volunteer report to drop them.
And we were through the worst.
The thing we have to do, let me say, let me take a look at the whole, John, what I can do.
But the other thing is I want to see what the hell the department is doing in the future.
And we've got to have, now you can either, John, as you know, is the head of the domestic council.
Are you taking responsibility of taking both the,
He drives around, of course, because he's got all this heat, you know, makes him a big hero to begin with, and all everybody wants to be a hero, you know, and be for this group or that group or the other group, but he's a decent fellow.
But the point is, I'd just like to see that if you have the time, some time, either on this trip or another one, I'd like for you to, maybe you've already done this, to sit down with Peterson,
...tell him his building and take a few minutes as you have me on your competitive situation with the Japanese and what is going to happen if you continue on the emissions and inflation.
We've got a whole policy book on this.
And we just come down and put him on a screen presentation.
We've already given it to Paul McCracken last summer.
Paul, I know, is very familiar with your industry, but Peterson knows that it's an investment economic policy.
I will
position involves the health, the economy.
It involves a lot of things.
I mean, maybe we can get along this year, maybe next year, and the next year.
Because you're saying right now you're making up your 74 models.
They're just about came.
Really?
That's the way it works?
Yeah, that's the way it works.
I think there are many things in DOT, Mr. President, that would be done administratively.
But you could do a lot.
You know, I saw them up.
I just said, well, let's get some data out.
We all realize the problem.
You realize the problem.
The industry's doing an awful lot in the environment.
I think we should be able to mention, as you call it, the question as to whether that 75 kick is...
There's a law, but not the law requires it.
I'm simply saying, John, there's a law that's moving.
That shows you the problem.
I said that we are not dealing here with just what I believe.
Exactly.
Throw the macy down with the bathwater.
That's what you're confessing.
The point is that, if you really come down to it,
that we are now becoming obsessed with the idea that what it really gets down to is that America is afraid of progress.
But I will not judge it until I hear the other side.