Nixon, Passer & Colson on National Economy and Media Relations

3:07:29And also, particularly the other story that comes, maybe you work here sort of in the arms of earnings, an area whereby you might meet with the, after moving on this, then you meet with the international bankers or whatever they are, and say, now, what are we gonna do about this?
3:07:38Because you're in a hell of a lot smarter position without import tax staring you in the face, right?
3:07:44So there's another way to look at it.
3:07:50Well, anyway, there's plenty to think about, and we don't have a plane out there, I guess.
3:07:57Good.
3:08:00Fine.
3:08:01Good.
3:08:03Anybody else?
3:08:04Fine, fine, fine.
3:08:09Okay.
3:08:10Volker just called over from Prairie and said the day was worse than he had told Tom.
3:08:14He was twisted at 6.25.
3:08:15I'm going to put him at 2.50.
3:08:23But I think what I hear, I think Volker just loves the old reality.
3:08:29Yes, sir.
3:08:33Volker?
3:08:34Yeah, he's a, basically, it's his bag.
3:08:38He's turned the alarms.
3:08:41And I'll tell you what you do while I'm in the basket.
3:08:44The rest of you get on with your jobs.
3:08:46Pull him out whenever he's in and fill him in on this.
3:08:50Talk to him about the company and about Volker and I want him to study these figures and so forth.
3:08:57You know what I mean?
3:08:58Whatever you need.
3:08:59You don't want to see him right away.
3:09:01Volker.
3:09:01Oh, Christ.
3:09:01Shut up.
3:09:01Shut up.
3:09:02Now hold on Schultz.
3:09:04I'll see Schultz.
3:09:04I'll see Schultz at about 3.
3:09:05At 3 o'clock this afternoon.
3:09:06He needs a couple hours.
3:09:07I need a little time to do a little thinking.
3:09:09About 2.
3:09:10Okay.
3:09:10All right.
3:09:10Let's get Schultz to work on this.
3:09:14And, uh, I thought Tom would be back.
3:09:19Fortunately, that little trap farm is not way o'clock or something.
3:09:27Yeah, it's an 8-12.
3:09:28Right.
3:09:28You leave here at 8-10.
3:09:29All right.
3:09:29We will invite all captains, so it's a quick run.
3:09:32No problem.
3:09:34All right.
3:09:36And the worst comes to worst, you just can't go.
3:09:38The opposite.
3:10:07All right.
3:10:11All right.
3:10:12All right.
3:10:21All right.
3:10:24Good.
3:10:25All right.
3:10:36I'm very grateful and I'm also glad to have you around because it's so important at this point, too.
3:10:46We don't want anything put out that is not active, but we don't want anything put out that makes our case worse than it is.
3:10:55And that's the real problem, as you know, the compulsion of our opinion.
3:10:59your father's sons, your sons-in-law, et cetera, et cetera.
3:11:05That's the only thing they're talking about.
3:11:07They're looking to be able to just take care of this job right now.
3:11:10It must be pretty hard.
3:11:11You must be fighting it out right now.
3:11:13Well, I just try to call attention to the plus side of the ledger.
3:11:17And there's so much that you should get credit for that you don't get the proper credit for.
3:11:23And I just try to bring this to the attention of people to...
3:11:29It's just, it's ignored, and the press likes to look on the black side of everything, and this is quite a problem to get a more balanced view.
3:11:41Al does a very good job also, Mr. President, of getting the figures in some respect that come out of the census.
3:11:49If we had the same thing with BLS, as Al and I discussed, we'd be happy.
3:11:54He's able to take it and put the positive stuff
3:11:59have a front so that people at least see that.
3:12:00Most of the things that come out of census now have been coming out very strongly.
3:12:04Yes, we had to go say those.
3:12:05I don't know.
3:12:08A lot of figures have come out of census.
3:12:12Yeah.
3:12:12Yeah.
3:12:14Yeah.
3:12:15Yes.
3:12:16I mean, they, for the most part, and see, you might tell
3:12:24Well, at the Consumer Council, where you talked here last week, wonderful talk, as usual, I was talking to Phil, and he was just saying how he himself felt very buoyed and spirited because of the settlement of the steel strike, the two days later settlement of the rail strike, and then the Lockheed passage, and he thought that these were two things coming together, which were sort of critical crisis-like events, which all went our way, so to speak.
3:12:55The international monetary thing, of course, is the one how it bothers people a lot.
3:12:59Of course, these are things we can't do very much about.
3:13:02The situation has grown up over a period of years.
3:13:05Well, at one point you may have to float the dollar or something like that.
3:13:14Yeah, yeah.
3:13:14Yeah, I think we'll have to see how people in the New York financial community pay a lot of attention to that.
3:13:18Sure, sure.
3:13:19And some of the others.
3:13:23Right.
3:13:24But may I say that...
3:13:32This whole economic thing is really a question of psychology more than anything else.
3:13:37Just taking the one number on a planet, I know it's been a new summer here, and it must be that we need to talk to the effect that we need to do economic policies, voluntary wage price control and so forth, and various other things, so that we can get back to the prosperity that we had through previous administrations.
3:14:02Now, somebody can just devastate me on that.
3:14:05What does he want?
3:14:07In the three Kennedy years, unemployment averaged 6%.
3:14:12So, and is that what we want?
3:14:14Was that prosperity?
3:14:16And in the Johnson years, unemployment was less than 60 percent, but at the cost of war.
3:14:23So it's a devastating thing.
3:14:25I don't know about that.
3:14:28They have never had unemployment less than, well, I mean, they've never had unemployment less than 5 percent.
3:14:36Is that how it works?
3:14:39Right at the end of World War II.
3:14:42Sure.
3:14:42It was only in the 90s in our years that we were able to accomplish that goal.
3:14:47And I think that's the main reason it has to be here.
3:14:50Our Council of Economic Accomplishments people don't get to talk.
3:14:54They're just basically comments.
3:14:57But the politicians have political times, too.
3:15:02But that's a devastating point, what they're talking about, what prosperity.
3:15:086% unemployment without war, or 4% unemployment with war, which you want, or you want to have our goal, which is to bring unemployment down to 0.5% without war.
3:15:18Yeah, right, right.
3:15:19Romney is giving a speech in Atlanta today, and he worked it over with him yesterday.
3:15:26He insists on it very, very, very much.
3:15:30We'll probably have to look at the media coverage.
3:15:33Of course, it's a positive thing.
3:15:35The media's less usually, but the media don't want to ever accept that things aren't doing as well as they can be, to the extent that they have obsessed themselves with the idea that that was the great period of America's front of the century.
3:15:51And when we look back on it, it was a disaster in foreign policy and economic policy.
3:15:56It was incredible.
3:16:00the inflation as it was in the ice in our years was not a major factor in those years.
3:16:05Yeah, but it was because it was the conditions were established.
3:16:08We had put ourselves through the rain.
3:16:10Sure.
3:16:11So we left a solid base.
3:16:12Oh, yeah.
3:16:12And the economy was growing.
3:16:16But on the other hand, on a plant, they didn't crack it.
3:16:21They did not crack it.
3:16:2310.7, 50, 61, 5.5, 63, 5.7, and now 62, 5.7, 63.
3:16:26Yeah.
3:16:27And those were sluggish years, too, because you would fall out of 62.
3:16:33The stock market just took a treatment of this.

Nixon, Passer & Colson on National Economy and Media Relations

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 12, 1971

Cite this conversation