On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 9:24 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 564-001 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
All right.
Let's see.
It's not only required bold leadership ready to take bold action to help support the greatness of the great people.
We must create more and better jobs.
We're going to take that action.
You know about that?
Yes, sir.
It sounds like it.
That will be the first.
That will be the first.
Oh, yes, sir.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Well, we'll toss it around.
I'll be showing you underneath the camera, like you're driving your personal camera.
Your hand goes down and I go up.
In the event that we have any difficulty, we will be going to this gentleman here, and this gentleman is going to be able to respond.
I'm sorry.
I guess I should sit here again for a second.
Yes, sir.
Well, let's see what we can do.
All right, if you'd like to sit around the road for a bit, and then we'll get outside, please.
We'll have up here pretty soon.
You have two minutes to air now.
Pretty good stuff you had here, didn't you?
Yes, sir, I did.
That's okay.
which is the only one that's coming.
How was the wedding?
Yeah, it was great.
I want to thank you for the gift.
Lovely.
Who wants to do it?
Who's going to take the same one?
Who are you?
Chris Rippin.
Well, there's a cranky style out there, boy.
I'm not worried about it, Mr. President.
There's a lot in those places.
There's a large club among that press corps.
What is that?
I don't know.
It's a group.
Huh?
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
It's a group.
Mr. President, you will see the tally lighting just a moment before I actually drive in.
We have 30 seconds to air and about a minute and 15 seconds to start the elevator.
It might tend to go on.
You know, it's going very wrong in here, but it's going on with the red light.
That's why they have new directors.
Yes, sir.
They come here.
Yeah.
It's not what's in there.
I'm going to freeze it tonight.
Oh.
Yeah.
I hope you don't have one on the way.
I mean, a race.
We're now on the air.
The mayoralty will be coming to you in 35 seconds.
30 seconds now.
Good evening.
I have addressed the nation a number of times over the past few years on the problems of ending the war.
Because of the progress we have made toward achieving that goal, this Sunday evening is an appropriate time for us to turn our attention to the challenges of peace.
America today has the best opportunity in this century to achieve two of its greatest ideals.
to bring about a full generation of peace and to create a new prosperity without war.
This not only requires bold leadership ready to take bold action, it calls for the greatness and great people.
Prosperity without war requires action on three fronts.
We must create more and better jobs.
We must stop the rise in the cost of living.
We must protect the dollar from the attacks of international money speculators.
We are going to take that action, not timidly, not apartedly, and not in piecemeal fashion.
We are going to move forward with a new prosperity without war, as defense of great people, all together and along a broad front.
The time has come for a new economic policy for the United States.
Its targets are unemployment, inflation, and international speculation.
And this is how we are going to attack those targets.
First, on the subject of jobs.
We all know why we have an unemployment problem.
Two million workers have been released from the armed forces and defense plans because of our success in winding down the war in Vietnam.
Putting those people back to work is one of the challenges of peace, and we have begun to make progress.
Our unemployment rate today is below the average of the four peacetime years of the 19th century, but we can and we must do better than that.
The time has come for American industry, which has produced more jobs at higher real wages than any other industrial system in history, to embark on a bold program of new investment
of production for peace.
To give that system a powerful new stimulus, I shall ask the Congress, when it reconvenes after its summer recess, to consider as its first priority the enactment of the John Goodall Act of 1971.
I will propose to provide the strongest third-term incentive in our history to invest in new machinery and equipment that will create new jobs for Americans.
A 10% job development credit for one year affecting as of today, with a 5% credit after August 15, 1972.
This tax credit for investment in new equipment will not only generate new jobs.
It will raise productivity.
It will make our goods more competitive in years ahead.
Second, I will propose to repeal the 7% excise tax on automobiles effective today.
This will mean a reduction in price of about $200 per car.
I shall insist that the American auto industry pass this tax reduction on to the nearly 8 million customers who are buying automobiles this year.
Lower prices will mean that more people will be able to afford new cars, and every additional 100,000 cars sold means 25,000 new jobs.
Third, I propose to speed up the personal income tax exemptions scheduled for January 1, 1973 to January 1, 1972 so that taxpayers can deduct an extra $50 for each exemption one year earlier than fine.
This increase in consumer spending power will provide a strong boost to the economy in general and to employment in particular.
The tax reductions I am recommending, together with this broad upturn of the economy, which is taking place in the first half of this year, will move us strongly forward for a goal this nation has not reached since 1956, 15 years ago.
Prosperity with full employment in these times.
Looking at the future, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to recommend to the Congress in January new tax proposals for stimulating research and development of new industries and new techniques to help provide the 20 million new jobs that America needs for the young people who will be coming into the job market in the next decade.
To offset the loss of revenue from these tax cuts, which directly stimulate new jobs, I have ordered today a $4.7 billion cut in federal spending.
Tax cuts to stimulate employment must be matched by spending cuts to restrain inflation.
To check the rise in the cost of government, I have ordered a postponement of pay raises and a 5% cut in government personnel.
I have ordered a 10% cut in foreign economic aid.
In addition, since the Congress has already laid action on two of the great initiatives of this administration, I will ask Congress to amend my proposals to postpone the implementation of revenue sharing for three months and welfare reform for one year.
In this way, I am reordering our budget priorities so as to concentrate more on achieving our goal of low-income.
The second indispensable element of the new prosperity is to stop the rise in the cost of living.
One of the cruelest latencies of the artificial prosperity produced by war is inflation.
Inflation robs every American, every one of you.
The 20 million who are retired and living on fixed incomes, they are particularly hard-earned.
Homemakers are hard-earned to balance the family budget.
And 80 million American wage earners have been on their treadmill.
For example, in the four war years between 1965 and 1969, your wage increases were completely beaten up by price increases.
Your paychecks were high, but you were no better off.
We have made progress against the rise in the cost of living.
From a high price of 6% a year in 1969, the rise in consumer prices has been cut to 4% in the first half of 1971.
But because this is the case and our fighting is unemployment, we can and we must do better than that.
The time has come for a decisive action, action that will break the vicious circle of spiraling prices and costs.
I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States for a period of 90 days.
In addition, I call upon corporations to extend the wage price freeze to all dividends.
I have identified a cost of living council within the government.
I have directed this council to work with leaders of labor and business to set up a proper mechanism for achieving continued price and wage stability after the 90-day freeze is over.
Let me emphasize two characteristics of this act.
First, it is temporary.
To put the strong, vigorous American economy into a permanent straitjacket would lock in on fairness.
It would stifle the expansion of our free enterprise system.
And second, while wage price freeze will be met by government sanctions if necessary, it will not be accompanied by the establishment of a huge price control bureaucracy.
I am relying on the voluntary cooperation of all Americans, each one of you, workers and partners and consumers, to make this race work.
Working together, we will break the back of inflation, and we will do it without the mandatory wage and price controls that crush economic and personal freedom.
The very dispensable element in building new prosperity is closely related to creating new jobs and holding inflation.
We must protect the position of the American dollar as a pillar of monetary stability around the world.
In the past seven years, there's been an average of one international monetary crisis every year.
Now, who gains from these crises?
Not the working man, not the investor, not the real producers of wealth.
The hangers are the international money speculators.
Because they thrive on crises, they help create them.
Recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar.
The strength of a nation's currency is based on the strength of that nation's economy.
And the American economy is by far the strongest in the world.
Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against speculators.
I have directed Secretary Conley to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.
Now, what is this action?
It's very technical.
What does it mean for you?
Let me lay the rest, the bugle of what is called devaluation.
If you want to buy a foreign car or take a trip abroad, market conditions may cause your daughter to buy slightly less.
If you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.
The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.
Now, this action will not win us any friends among the international money traders, but our primary concern is with the American workers and with their competition around the world.
To our friends abroad, including the many responsible members of the International Banking Committee who are dedicated to stabilizing the flow of trade, I give this address.
The United States has always been and will continue to be a forward-looking and trustworthy trade department.
In full cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and those who trade with us, we will press for the necessary reforms to set up an urgently needed new international monetary system.
Stability and equal treatment is in everybody's best interest.
I am determined that the American dollar must never again be a hostage in the hands of international speculators.
I think one further step to improve our balance of payments and to increase jobs for Americans.
As a temporary major, I am today imposing an additional tax of 10% on goods imported into the United States.
This is a better solution for international trade than direct controls on the amount of imports.
This import tax is a temporary action.
It isn't directed against any other country.
It's an action to make certain that American products will not be at a disadvantage because of unfair exchange terms.
When the unfair treatment is ended, the import tax will end as well.
As a result of these actions, the product of American labor will be more competitive, and the unfettered edge that some of our foreign competition has will be removed.
This is a major reason why our trade balance has eroded over the past 15 years.
At the end of World War II, the economies of the major industrial nations of Europe and Asia were shattered.
to help them get on their feet, and to protect their freedom, the United States has provided, over the past 25 years, $143 billion in foreign aid.
That was the right thing for us to do.
Today, largely with our help, they have regained their icon.
They have become our strong competitors.
And we love their success.
But now that other nations are economically strong, the time has come for them to bear their fair share of the burden of defending freedom around the world.
The time has come for exchange rates to be set straight and for the major nations to compete as equals.
There is no longer any need for the United States to compete with one hand tied behind her back.
The range of actions I intend to propose tonight on the job front, the inflation front, and the monetary front is the most comprehensive new economic policy to be undertaken in this nation in four decades.
We are fortunate.
To live in a nation with an economic system capable of producing for its people the highest standard of living in the world.
A system flexible enough to change its ways dramatically when circumstances call for change.
And most important, a system resourceful enough to produce prosperity with freedom and opportunity unmatched in the history of nations.
The purposes of the government actions I have announced tonight are to lay the basis for renewed confidence, to make it possible for us to compete fairly with the rest of the world, to open the door to new prosperity.
But government, with all of its powers, does not hold the key to the success of a deal.
That key, my fellow Americans, is in your hands.
A nation, like a person, has to have a certain inner drive in order to succeed.
In economic affairs, that inner drive is called the competitive spirit.
Every action I have taken to do it tonight is designed to nurture and stimulate that competitive spirit.
It helps us snap out of self-doubt and self-discouragement.
It snaps our energy and erodes our confidence in ourselves.
Whether this means stage number one and the world's economy or resigns itself to second, third, or fourth place, whether we as a people have faith in ourselves or lose that faith,
Whether we hold fast to the strength that makes peace and freedom possible in this world, or lose our grip, all that depends on you, on your competitive spirit, your sense of personal destiny, your pride in your country, and in yourself.
We can be certain of this, as the threat of war recedes, the challenge of peaceful competition in the world will greatly increase.
And we love competition, because America is at her greatest when she is called upon.
As there has always been in our history, there will be voices urging us to shrink from that challenge of poverty, to build a protective wall around ourselves, to crawl under a shell as the rest of the world moves ahead.
A few hundred years ago, a man wrote in his diary these words, Many thinking people believe America has seen its best days.
That was written in 1775, just before the American Revolution, the dawn of the most exciting era in the history of mankind.
And today, we hear the heckles of those voices preaching the gospel of gloom, gloom, and defeat, saying the same thing.
We have seen our best heckles.
I say, let Americans reply, our best days lie ahead.
As we move into a generation of peace, as we blaze the trail toward the new prosperity, I say to every American, let us raise our spirits, let us raise our sights,
Let all of us contribute all we can to this brave and good country that has contributed so much to the progress of mankind.
Let us invest in our nation's future.
And let us revitalize that faith in ourselves that built a great nation in the past and that will shape the world of the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
We're there.
Keep that up there so we can see it.
Thank you, sir.
No, he's off.
He's still on the couch.
You're on the phone.
How do you find the chatter when you take your call?
Oh, it's fine.
I see.
There you go.
You have no word of it?
Your last call, I believe it had to do with the chatter from your head when the light directed behind you.
Yeah, I see.
It was like this.
This way, it was fine.
There's a little bit from your hand to this one.
Yeah, that's terrible.
Thank you very much.
You can't do that.
Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Yes, sir.
Thank you, boss.
There are any words on the program with my wife, but the ABCs are special.
I mean, I'm sitting here.
I don't see them on the telephone.
You should be on that detail.
Well, I say goodbye.
Goodbye.
You're gonna be nice.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I'll be there almost every day.
I'm sorry, I didn't think you were losing your mind, sir.