Nixon & Colson on Pay Board and Wage and Price Controls

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I think our situation, Mr. President, is that business fellows on the paperwork

on today, which may be the solution, may not be.

Shultz has been asked to kind of give a signal to the paperwork, whether we try to get all of the 71 increases traded off against a 72 standard in a way that will be satisfactory to, not satisfactory, but acceptable to money through about three years.

I think it has to be negotiated with the law.

In other words, there will be some deferred increases in the brief period that you have to recognize, some you don't.

It just depends on the circumstances of the contract, timing of the increases.

And then Schultz, in my opinion, should sit alone in the room with me, nobody else present, and should say, look,

that, or we can't go beyond this point.

And if you want to blow it, George, you blow it, and we'll go with public members alone.

And if your people strike, we'll strike.

Now, George's feeling is that – and I think I shared this with President – that if we take that line, most of the employers will end up paying the deferred increases to avoid strikes.

The steel industry.

would rather, I'm sure, pay the increase than have a strike.

So it is clearly in our interest to develop a strategy in the next two days that puts us in a position where we can hammer out the settlement and get something for it, rather than to have it happen as it would happen anyway, and get something until probably

Oh, tomorrow night.

Really tell you what the parameters are, what we can accomplish.

I've got her.

No, I don't think so.

They're doing well.

where it could get blown this week if it were to be blown would be if the pay board would have come to the conclusion meeting today and tomorrow that they're not going to pay any deferring increases period and would have just set that down as the guidelines and he might decide this is the week to do it i don't think he would my own guess is he would wait for his convention and go before the convention and say here's what they're doing and get a standing vote of support and then be able to say well i

I'm just asking the basis of what my membership wanted to do.

I don't think he'd blow it this week.

I think it would be a bad strategy for him to do it this week.

And his perfect opportunity is the convention meeting on the 18th and the 19th.

The problem I have is that Mr. Kennedy would be in a position where maybe he just boggles down.

Maybe he boggles down.

I think I've got the role.

Oh, in any way, I just, I just, you know, I mean, I think that will be asked, but I just want to keep that gut out of that.

I'm sure it's a hard voice on me to get in on, but they do, they're done.

It came up this morning in a discussion, and my answer to that was absolutely and gladly no, because he's a tough guy.

Well, but it's more than that.

It's the symbolism of one member of the pay board bypassing the whole process, and he will be the chairman, including the chairman, because he happens to be doing meaning the hell of it.

He can't do that.

And that's where I would get very tough.

Otherwise, you're going to be just over there.

Maybe not today, but tomorrow, then.

Or to get Leonard, Schultz, and yourself in the head when we talk on this.

Yes, sir.

By tomorrow, we'd be able to finally talk intelligently.

By what time?

That afternoon or by morning?

No, after lunch would be better.

OK.

The problem that we have today is that we don't quite understand all the trade orders we get.

Now, the other thing is...

But in the back of your mind, it's hard.

I couldn't get it out of my mind last night.

It's a powerful lip-up to the prediction of a problem.

I must say that all the heat you may need for a day's work is done.

Maybe just as well.

I think they're going to get it out of the way this year.

You're going to be under enormous heat to do it next year.

The parole board.

The more I think about the composition of that board, it won't have the guts to do it next summer.

Which means that your idea of having them leave again is absurd.

They'll just turn it down again, and then we have Connor Hammond, who will be dead.

I wonder if we're reading on, I'm reading, I wonder if we're reading the Clayboy to Hand lawyers, for some reason, that, including on the Christmas list, say that he was turned down then, the reasons for which he was turned down and now then corrected, and because of that correction, because he's been a model prisoner, because he has served his time and paid his debt, is that presidential advocacy being done?

I don't think it would be a problem.

The only argument for having the pro board meet again is if Mitchell could have it wired in advance of the goddamn level.

The problem with that is that in August, Fitz thinks that Mitchell killed him.

Mitchell doesn't believe this, but thinks that Mitchell killed him at the pro board with my father dead.

He feels he had a commitment.

And then when the pro board didn't, Fitz really, it took me three days to keep him from really going

It's blowing everything.

This was the week that the freeze was announced, and Fitz came out for us, and I'm five days late again.

But that is one that I think we've had enough.

It gives us a lot of power.

It gives us power beyond Fitz.

You know, I didn't mention to you last night, but most of your building trades are so international.

With the steam suits, and I did a couple of other things.

I did a few other trades this week that I haven't started this morning.

For example, eight

They didn't want to see that adjustment.

Not today, but annual contracts and drill up on this.

They're continuing to work on that.

Yes, sir.

We have an option paper coming to you so that we...

I'm not even going to know that we are going to do it.

Right.

We're all the oil people.

The option paper will come to you and...

That may abate the need for a meeting.

I think if you just...

I know what we have to do.

We have no choice.

And it has the additional benefit for us of picking on some labor, strong labor support this week if we do it.

That, plus the building trades, plus what Fitz can do, if he can parlay that.

I think we'll box the meeting, Mr. President.

I really think we can.

The interesting thing about this solution that George is playing with this morning is that it was advanced by the business members in the paper.

So one thing about this all is that it's probably going to be a problem.

It's just a matter of principle.

I don't know what you've got to do with this.

We've got to keep this going, Chuck.

We cannot have our, even though this is only one leg of the three-legged stool of the so-called new economic policy, we cannot have it shut off at this point because then the whole policy that everybody wants to do is not connected, even though the tax part remains, the surcharge and the national interest are both at home, which are enormously important because they get to the point where it crosses and it will remain.

Now that these circumstances are over to the public, this is the biggest step

visible and also it's crisis and so forth and the job part of what we're going to have with all these jobs all right

We'll see if we need to be set up tomorrow, you know, maybe work on that.

That'd be a good money and time, because that's the truth.

I don't want to lose it, that's the truth.

I mean, whoever's doing some of this stuff, you know, just have a, you know, mind that, where I was going, I don't know, that'd be useful.

Let me talk to George about that.

That's George.

I just, I just want to have a cold therapy talk.

I don't know how to do this.

Nixon & Colson on Pay Board and Wage and Price Controls

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 2, 1971

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