Nixon, Shultz & Ehrlichman on Economic Policy and Farm Subsidies

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tomorrow.

Now, Mills made a very important trade speech.

I don't know if that could have been that.

As a matter of fact, it would be very helpful after we finish to leave the call tonight for some seconds.

They're having this very important meeting.

He will be at the cabin this morning.

Thank you.

Yes, it's been a while.

And I must say, there are impressive people on the whole.

But the last time we had you for our president, they did fine.

You stuck up very well.

Well, you know, it doesn't seem like...

They look like a fellow who's been done for office in the U.S.

He has.

Thank you.

It's hard to get back out.

What's our what's our

Thank you.

We're in a very different situation now than we were.

And basically we were able to sort of take advantage of oil and basic policies and put there and consolidate the gains from that.

We didn't have oil.

It would have high demand.

Well, it's not maybe not as spectacular.

Okay.

It was great politics.

Good politics.

All right.

Now I'm going to charge you because we've got credit to grab.

Thank you.

Well, let me say that there's a politics and there's a right and so forth and so on.

Thank you.

They're our main guys.

They want to see it.

They don't like it.

Thank you.

I'll post it next week.

I'll post it.

Yes.

That will be interesting that Jim Hudson can do.

I know that's a great desire to get him accomplished.

And I would like to be able to just go to that tomorrow and maybe, by all means, by all means, but then you should say, let's go on that.

But I want to participate very actively in that, or this, or a combination.

It's going to be the same groups.

They would be sort of the overall group on this commission of industrial artisans.

Now, that's hung up at the moment.

I checked on this about a week ago because I was concerned about it not getting appointed.

And I find it's hung up on the question of whether Colson should be on it or not.

He's got a hold on it because he's not on the list is what it comes down to.

And so I don't think that Jones has it hung.

No, we shouldn't have it on the list either.

Are there supposed to be public members?

I'd rather leave the library than go get with this same group.

The original concept was to serve a tri-partite commission.

But then as we have worked out this other idea, Chuck has done an awful lot of organized labor, and they often like him, and most of them do.

George meeting this wedding, and I've been trying to ask him.

All right.

They are coming out and I've given what I think is the guidance I got from you in this.

They are coming out about a spot that we

Lines of track and so forth, which if that was the railroad.

claims by selling stock to the incorporation, I guess, to the public.

And then the cash that you got, you would use to pay these claims.

And that would be the method for trying to untangle this thing.

Now, that's what the court would do on Monday.

The reason

They're getting up.

What happens to the uneconomical portion?

whatever it will bring.

And the judge, you see, the judge is in a tough spot because what's happening now is that there are good assets that are wasted.

And he has a responsibility to see that that doesn't happen again.

So he has issued an order that if nothing else happens, he's just going to close the thing and sell the assets.

And so this is an app that I think is

It's a good opener.

They're just waiting for us to recommend giving another big bunch of money to some big business.

Oh, thank God.

This year is going to be on the

Thank you.

One other thing about farming.

Is there anything to be said at the present time?

I mean, we're using this as a time to come out for a much more drastic farm program rather than sort of the half-assed one of waiting to see what the Congress will do.

Why not?

Why isn't this a time to hand subsidies?

I know we've got plenty of problems with farmers.

Well, and the farmers' congressmen.

I was just thinking, you know, those are guys you need.

You can't follow that right at the moment, but later on we're going to have to.

I'm just thinking ahead to the folks you're going to need down the line.

We just deal with it.

I don't even know if we should.

You'll testify.

And then the next day, you'll testify on taxes.

That would be a fine room.

That might be a little bit too long.

Your meeting has to be Sunday, doesn't it?

Yes, we set up for Sunday.

I was thinking, wouldn't it be a big deal for that meeting?

That's always available.

The library is a more pleasant environment.

It's more pleasant environment.

Would you like lunch?

Yes, sir, of course.

Have it come in the south gate, George, so they won't be seen.

Oh, I'd love to see them.

It isn't because of this time, because I've got to be in state through Monday night before.

But they're not going to be here to balance the week.

Right.

When they come back at some time, I'd like to see them.

That's the kind of people we're seeing.

I'd like to discuss with you a little bit a decision that I understand has been...

Thank you.

The way to make a bill is not to...

Let me say what I'd like to do here.

This one I want to play very crassly and politically.

I would like to put the thing out, even if it is subject to constitutionally, and then have the Congress trim it down to the other, rather than to go up to what we think is...

uh... uh...

My God, Eleanor Roosevelt didn't know anything about how to avoid having children.

How the hell would he know?

His wife, his wife had eight kids.

Jordan wouldn't get that.

He's been out of the country since that happened.

Did you hear about that?

Eleanor Roosevelt said that.

He said, Ma, in his letter, contended, she said, the reading tells about that President Roosevelt slept with Missy Leanne for...

Well, everybody knew it all.

The other one was the social secretary.

But what about, he tells us, he says, well, after Ma had six children, my father and she did not live, man and wife, because she was not knowledgeable in the ways of birth control.

I would not beckon them.

I want to take a strong political view on this one and then let them hear it now.

And I know that they won't pass it in that form, but let them hear it now.

Rather than have them add it, let's have them push it.

I would love to have them pass it, but I don't think they're going to do it.

I've been talking to John that you've got to wait.

I'd like to get you, that's old John, I'd like to get signed.

You've got to take taxes, you've got to take prices, you've got to take trade, and all the rest is over.

The main point is, just to show you an area, I don't want you to get into it yet, but I want you to think about it.

Whatever we say about welfare, benefits, assistance, we haven't seen a better word.

You've got to get some of the best and express the best.

It just may be, George, that you've got to move along.

It's sort of a negative impact, right?

coming around that, aren't you, John?

Well, I'm intrigued with some of the opportunities in this to solve some of our problems.

So my point is, let's dibble it out there.

All right.

I know you're getting a little crazy.

No, I'm not afraid of it.

I think it's probably, I think the reason for us being asked that is right.

Well, that's an interesting thing.

I'm looking at the British thing.

I've got a bunch of reading that I hope to do this weekend.

You're going to find that you are going to have too much food.

And second, you will be a target of too many people.

I want you to, I mean, I think that you've got some value.

Any time on a regulating course, in four years, you get settled off.

Well, I know that's what you give me these assignments, and what you expect me to do is get them organized, not to do them all the time.

Yeah.

Well, he seems to go back and forth.

I thought the last I heard was with you.

Well, that's his present thinking.

But I don't, I think what you and Henry wanted to do should be the determining thing.

But when I got to see Wes, he seems to know a lot about that.

He knows Europe, too.

He even knows my church.

He knows.

Right, right.

He's got a horrible personality.

Very, very bad.

That's what happens to us when we don't have a nice person.

Well, I'm just stressing.

I've gotten along with him.

Do you like him?

He elevates everybody else because he's elevated.

The thing is, here's the point.

uh... uh...

I agree with that.

I don't know

I am very reluctant about that, as you know, and there are various reasons.

One that I think is particularly important

Thank you.

Well, I think it would be good if you would talk to Bob about it.

All right.

Well, I will tell you all about it.

I better get going.

I've done these various surgeries.

You've had some, haven't you?

Henry Kern wants to resign.

Yeah.

And I believe he really does.

I've tried to talk to him about staying and so on.

And I've done a hell of a good job.

He's done a good job.

He's done a hell of a good job.

We have a person with John.

I don't know what Henry's view of this would be at all.

I don't think he's been consulted, as a matter of fact.

Larson is young and bushy-tailed and very bright and attractive.

He comes from a San Francisco law firm.

Not an Ivy Leaguer.

So all kinds of things going for him.

But let's do run that by Henry.

I think Henry ought to be asked, George.

I'll have it cleared around.

I mean, he's got to be in the relationship.

What other questions do you have?

Do you remember our friend Pierre Paul Schweitzer?

We're getting to the point where we have to take the lead

decide on somebody else or possibly go along with it to be there another year or something of that kind.

And what we had come out against was it being reappointed for a term or a four-year period of a five-year term.

With the meetings coming up here next week, we don't want to change it.

Well, we're going to

I would like to be in the position of being able to say, well, we'll go along with Schweitzer for another year.

Or there are various candidates now that are beginning to emerge.

I think it would be more desirable to...

If we find one or two that we think are good and reasonable possibilities, then I might ask one or two of them to stay here, and they're all Europeans.

Well, it is sort of like some of the internal personnel that...

It's not bad to have the fellow feel that he has some kind of a relationship with you, and that he has a sense of that.

But maybe I can sort of speak for you and work out if that seems to be something particularly important.

You're skillful enough.

I want to make one.

I would like you to just...

You'll be back Monday afternoon, Monday night?

Monday night.

Oh, really?

No, but I think that we're in trouble with history, and we've got to think about it very hard, and if we can come up with something.

And I would say let's do it.

But I would not like to do something just to the sake of doing something.

But I will talk to the prayers.

I'll talk to the son.

I'll talk to the partner.

And the other two names.

Well, I knew for a long time that it would be helpful.

Dunlop, of course, is still my doctor.

And I will conduct a discussion and enslave a man of him.

And I'll tell them if you ask them.

You see, what you recommend in phase three has got to be critical.

You see, all these people have different views.

And you've got to pick a damn hard way to come up with it.

And I'll have to examine it from a political standpoint.

But I mean, like I say, get back to your thorough consideration.

You feel that there is nothing that will really help.

If it isn't going to blow in labor or blow in Congress, we'll have to list out a commission to stand on.

I'm not saying, I mean, that's what I meant.

I'm not, I know, I know all the, you know, it's typically about the stock market, and it's all the writers and the finance people and the business people and so forth and so on.

I don't get that excited about it.

I just, I just want to, you know, look beyond it.

There's people that's coming at the right time.

rather have it now than next year.

We have some PR problems in this too.

We've got a lot of people speaking on this.

We've got to focus on George is the one that's focused on this.

George is focused on somebody, for example, and of course, somebody in the kitchen maybe might be in control.

I've never heard of that.

That's the trouble.

But, you know, do you remember two years ago, we were in the same situation.

We were checking everybody in here, and we got one guy.

We got one guy, and he said he marked me with a man.

That's what we have to do.

That's right, but we may have to do something like that again, regardless of what the record is.

We don't want it because we're the economy for one thing.

Second, we don't want them because it isn't good to have class warfare.

And third, we don't want them from a political standpoint.

So I would say that if you can pay a certain price for them, particularly because of the labor settlements and the amount of people living in them, aren't all that bad this year.

It's going to be an election to come out.

but there are reasons for it.

Of course, there's a number of good and bad, housewives and crime and so forth, but it doesn't make them feel any better that our problems are not as bad as others.

But nevertheless, if our problems are not as bad as others, let's not do something in reacting to the fact that we do have some problems, which makes our problems, well, it makes people feel a little better at the moment,

Everybody says that.

Everybody says, get out and do something.

Be active.

Day one.

Breeze, of course, breeze agriculture, you know, right?

Yeah, we're showing some motion this week, as you'll see in the clipping.

We had quite a bit going on around here.

It's not at work.

Well, here it is.

Kansas City Week, March 7th, 255.

Okay.

I've been asked to give a little press briefing on the trip, which I guess I'll do tomorrow.

I'll do it tomorrow.

No, you'll waste the day.

You'll do it tomorrow.

If you call the Canadian, you're going to see Mr. Mills.

I've made a press briefing.

So anyway, it was a great trip.

So let anything worry you when you come back.

Just remember to be worse tomorrow.

Nixon, Shultz & Ehrlichman on Economic Policy and Farm Subsidies

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 22, 1973

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