On July 2, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Chalmers P. Wylie met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:02 pm to 12:12 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 535-017 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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, all right.
All right.
All right.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
You're going to sing today?
Oh, yeah.
I was going to sing this morning, and I told him I was coming to see you.
So we talked about some things that I'm not really sure when we're going to do.
But maybe it's going to happen in a couple of miles.
Not yet.
So I set down a memory in the form of some observations.
There you go.
Isn't that good?
Especially on the Lord.
I have something in here I've been wanting to say for a long time.
You know, I first met you in 1964 when you went camping for my friend.
And, uh, I carried your briefcase around the bay.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Because you were coming to take your birthday.
Yeah.
And, uh, I came to take your birthday.
I was very, very, very smart and supportive, so...
Good.
Let's take a couple of observations.
Let me say that, as it were, I was a before and I want to basically
I do not believe in helping people who will not do everything they can to help themselves.
And I told Richardson, I said, no, if we get this thing through, the most important thing is administration and these people on welfare.
If they're offered part-time jobs, it won't take them off, done, right?
I agree with you.
I had a little conversation with a man who was sitting in the same room.
Yes, I know.
He was on television talking about it.
But, you know, I did the right thing.
You know, come on, all right?
We don't have to work with everybody.
We don't.
You know, it's been favorable since my book.
Yes, sir.
The parts that it has, the people, we don't support from someone in the same group.
Yeah.
Sometimes they say, you've got to support your president-elect.
They're all ready to go.
They're all ready to go.
They're all ready to go.
They're all ready to go.
The economy is a little bit of a problem.
There's less than 4% unemployment in my area.
But up in northeastern Ohio, it's in this turnaround.
There isn't unemployment.
There is under-employment.
I'm not getting any overtime and that sort of thing.
This is something.
What kind of part of work do they have up there?
Is that steel?
There's steel, youngstown, steel, rubber, and the huge industries.
Well, Thomas, I think you're going to see the economy move.
Now, for example, I'm trying to crop this last one.
We just announced this one.
biggest drop in 20 years for one month.
Now, that doesn't mean it's going to stay down, but it's moving along.
But the point is, we, the main thing that's going to happen is going down next year.
That's right.
In a free economy, nothing, you tell Carl, nothing ever goes up all the time or down all the time.
The important thing is when it goes down.
But we're going to continue.
Our plan is not to see some of yours all the way down there.
That's why we do that public website.
Not because I'm pouring public works, but I didn't want to have to pour in a lot of money.
What isn't going to do any good next year is the wrong.
It's going to be too late to receive money.
So you just saw what we're trying to do.
On the other hand, we'll take the emergency and we'll put the money in those jobs.
But if we want to keep this economy, we want to goose it up this year and have a lot more inflation.
And that's what I'm talking about.
Right.
So we could, we could, uh, I'm not a critical person, but I want you to ask Bowling to run through the construction he did.
Yeah.
Well, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna cut it out.
We're gonna start cutting back on the budget now.
A lot of your people are people.
I didn't like that.
That's right.
There is a concern in the area.
Particularly, particularly on the Fred Preston rule.
Yeah, that's right.
Now, this is an information on the economy of the region.
Now, I've got some other members of the House.
Oh, I've got this now.
Well, I'll have a look at it, but I've been on it for a while.
Not now, but in August.
Now, may I tell you something?
Yes.
You said that you talked about the policy.
You've got a private report on our foreign policy, particularly the non-armed withdrawal policy.
That's right.
We lose all of our support.
You're not going to change that.
So I say that if you want to go elsewhere, come to the right thing.
And then we talked about, I mean, also that the visit to Ohio, and I'm hoping in August, when the Congress is out to make a trip to Ohio, I said that I thought we were on the right track here.
Government spending, we're going to keep under control.
That's why I had to veto the public works bill.
And I'm going to go against it.
It's not a very good one, though.
Emergency.
so we're going to sign that one because it deals with the problem now the public works they feel would be spending the money when the economy was too hot so on the one side we're doing something that attacks employment but does not raise inflation on the other hand we're going to do something see the other bill would would create
would do more in increasing inflation and housing inflation.
Now, of course, are you going to see Carl?
That's something new you've got to come to.
Well, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you, sir.
Okay.