Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 935 › Conversation 935-015
Nixon & Haig on National Economy and Wage and Price Controls
Monday, June 11, 1973 · 12:50 PM–1:12 PM ET · Oval Office · 17 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Alexander Haig met to discuss strategies for managing the national economy, including potential wage and price controls, and to coordinate preparations for the upcoming visit of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The two also addressed personnel matters regarding Attorney General Elliot Richardson and assessed the political impact of the ongoing Watergate investigation. Nixon expressed frustration with the political nature of the Ervin Committee hearings and the handling of potential immunity for figures like John Dean.
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All right.
We're going on a constructive track now.
What's it different than it's been?
Well, frankly, the, you know, the decision is made.
They've got to go.
What they want is to talk about the life of Erich Stein going to Florida's college and say, well, he's going to say, well, the president decided to give him direction, but we're still really philosophical in these things.
Well, what they really have sort of had this morning has been fuzzy up to the food price issue, and I think it's managed.
Well, and we saw tonight at 10.30, so you're bringing it at 1.30.
What about it?
working hard, and things maybe will come off embarrassing, you know?
Then we've got a good day to ride that one.
This kind of Wednesday's better.
What we will do then is probably have, I believe it's 11 o'clock.
The purpose of my getting in is to have our run-down today.
On Wednesday or Tuesday?
On Wednesday.
Well, we won't know it until tomorrow morning as to what kind of situation they should be told as well.
It's a comparison of what we do to what we'll see.
I've got, uh, we've got 10 minutes to go until 4 on the other, on the resident visit.
There's been a hell of a lot done already on the resident visit for security reasons.
Ms. John, you should be on top of that, together with Lynn Garner.
And Lynn is working, of course, on the jury shootings.
She has been.
So that thing is under control, but I don't want you to know exactly what it is, but that's a specific question.
I expected something to be done.
The tenants will try to get the work done.
We have sexual support and so forth.
So this is a leap for some of our guys to stand up and be counted.
That's easy to make.
Maybe some of them have.
We haven't read about them, too.
That's the other thing.
No, I don't think they have.
No?
No, I haven't seen them.
Not on the Russian thing.
I may have seen the guy's trigger on that.
No, I met, though, with a part of the Russian, just basically against the president.
Oh, man, I'd be into it.
They can have their, uh, not many people writing it.
The only ones that ain't afraid of that are the ones that are crying in the other direction.
Sure.
I mean, a lot of them came out after that meeting with Connelly and the good boys this last week.
Got to give them a good night's sleep.
We're going to have a lot of things.
China was able to tell us the benefits, and I think, frankly, that the 60-day debt, we may as well, if we're going to fight this, fight a little bit more, and we can survive.
That's manageable.
What we say about wages, it ought to be, A, we complemented on the restraint.
B, we provided an incentive for additional restraint.
And C, we have an underlying threat that if they go a long while, the controls will be put on them before 60 days are up.
And that's just sort of has to be between the lines of, you know, you've got to find them, work up different schemes.
They're all the team players.
We're going to take some of them, right?
The guy that has the most inferiority, inferiority, is Richardson.
He's very contrived.
What's he want to do, not attend cabinet meetings, no?
Right there.
Right.
Yeah, I know a son of a bitch, he fought Kelly, you know, tooth and nail, he called me, just played flat the cubes, and then he used all last week to wrap himself around it.
Yeah, well, I walked out of it.
Oh, yes.
Actually, in Hanlon.
He's just gonna have to.
We're getting close to a time where he's not necessarily a requirement, sir.
No, sir.
He is at the moment.
That's right.
We must remember this, too.
I mean, if the time comes, it's not now, but it turns thinking now into a year and so forth.
We're going to have to do that now.
My God.
You selected the guy.
You selected him.
I know.
Jesus.
Kind of asked me this earlier as well.
You said it wrong.
Things are a lot better than they were four weeks ago, aren't they?
Oh, boy.
Oh, yeah.
They really are.
And you know, you know how you want to work across hand, don't you?
But I don't have to talk to the congressman.
We've talked to Connelly.
He talks to him.
I don't have to go to him.
He said we won't get away with that.
We know that the Congress is sure as we don't do anything.
It's a 90-day mandatory freeze on everything.
And I, being told, will never suspend.
And you see the other thing is that Dunlap, he really plumbed in.
He's more, you know, you're questioning him at the end, should we just do the food?
I don't think so.
Dunlap told me he was more concerned about the trend in industrial prices.
Would Patrick do a move on that?
He said that's a good phrase to use.
Well, we've both become economists over the last few weeks now.
I became one of August's seven ones and forgot it all the time again.
All right.
I did comment with all of you about this morning.
He thought that he could critique you.
That's what he needs, doesn't he?
That's what he needs.
I know you're paying a terrible price to these guys.
They go in there and agonize over it and bring it out, but...
When it's all done, then you've got advocates who are confident they've looked at every turn.
They know the answer to every question.
And after all, they're going to have to stop.
And we've got to know your thinking.
And I think it's as tough as it's been.
Yeah.
I think, too, that I don't agree with her as much.
We've got to get out of this.
I'm concerned about it.
Yeah, if they're managing it properly, as soon as you get it ready and in control and the trends are proper, then you can adjust it.
Now, on the exports.
That's what it takes.
That's what it takes.
What you do there is reassure people privately where it's going to be a problem.
That should be part of the game plan under public speech.
Well, I deliberately talked to him.
Let's go over there.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
I'm so darn afraid he hasn't got the cases that he thought he had.
Aren't you the investor?
I think he really believes he doesn't have a case.
He's got three cases.
He's certainly not going to give the most guilty guy all immunity and end up with two at best who may, may themselves be free and may themselves be their cases.
Thank you.
And everyone said it's all part of the same old game.
It's pure goddamn politics.
And it finally got to its maximum.
They took all their frustrations about it.
Our success in the war and our success in the Soviet Union.
Our success in the elections.
All of which came to their greatest advantage.
I mean, all of us.
He's one of these, I think he wrote the right verdict a month, two months ago.
He's been good all the time, but he's begun to get tougher.
Do you think that, I mean, as he describes it, he thinks in strategic terms.
You know, he just assumed he'd turn on us if he believed it.
But he knows that we're dealing with a company and cruise ships in each of those countries are all free, so that's...
Do they have any major problems today?
No.
Oh, no papers.
Right.
Thanks.
And on the other place.
And everyone said it's all part of the same old game.
It's pure goddamn politics.
And it finally got to its maximum.
They took all their frustrations about our success in the war and our success in the Soviet Union, our success in the elections, all of which came to their greatest event.
I mean, all of us.
He's one of these, I think he wrote the right verdict a month, two months ago.
He's been good all the time, but he's begun to get tougher.
Do you think that him, as he described it, as he thinks in strategic terms, how he just assumed he'd turn on us in a minute if he believed it, but he knows that we're dealing with a goddamn crucial issue in this country, and we're all free, so that's...
if they have any major problems today.
NARA Description
On June 11, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:50 pm to 1:12 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 935-015 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 935-15
Date: June 11, 1973
Time: 12:50 pm - 1:12 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
National economy
-President’s previous meeting with Herbert Stein, George P. Shultz, John B.
Connally, John T. Dunlop
-Decision
-Philosophy
-Food prices
Henry A. Kissinger’s schedule
-Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
-Meeting
Vietnam Negotiations
-Paris
-Press coverage
-President’s schedule
-Congressional leaders meeting
-Publicity
Leonid I. Brezhnev’s forthcoming visit
-William E. Timmons’s Efforts
-Elliot L. Richardson
-Security
-Haig’s Conversation with Elliot Richardson
-Kenneth R. Cole, Jr.
-John D. Ehrlichman
-Leonard Garment
Watergate
-Supporters for President
-Timmons
-Brezhnev visit
Melvin R. Laird [?]
-Media coverage
-John B. Connally
National economy
-Possible freeze
-Wages
-Controls
-60 day freeze
-Shultz
-Stein [?]
-Dunlop [?]
Richardson
-Conversation with Haig
-Haig’s assessment
-Views concerning Clarence M. Kelley
-Conduct with media
-Tenure
-President’s plans
-Compared to Claude S. Brinegar [?]
President’s previous conversation with Ronald L. Ziegler
Cabinet
-Morale
National economy
-Option 1
-Capability of US economy
-President’s plan
-Congress
-Connally
-Timmons
-Possible action on 90-day mandatory freeze
-President’s response
-Possible freeze
-Dunlop’s views on food and industrial prices
-President’s and Haig’s knowledge
-Economics
-Connally’s views
-Confidence
-President’s advisors
-Answers to questions
-Stein’s views
-Duration of controls
-1974 elections
-President’s plan
-Controls
-Export regulation
-Haig’s forthcoming conversation with Gen. Brent G. Scowcroft
-PL 480
-India
-Meetings with affected parties
-A speech
-President’s meeting with Stein, Shultz, and Dunlop
-Tone
-Arthur F. Burns, Stein [?]
-Shultz
-Salesmanship
Watergate
-Ervin Committee hearings
-John N. Mitchell, John W. Dean, III, H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman,
John D. Ehrlichman, Jeb Stuart Magruder
-Archibald Cox
-Possible indictments
-Dean
-Possible immunity
-Ervin Committee hearings
-Magruder
-Joseph W. Alsop
-Editorial
-J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.
Haig left at 1:12 pm.Also recorded on June 11, 1973
- 935-011 12:18 PM · 39 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and members of the press met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:18 pm to 12:36 pm.
- 935-012 12:36 PM · 24 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:36 pm and 12:40 pm.
- 935-013 12:36 PM · 24 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:36 pm and 12:40 pm.
- 935-014 12:40 PM · 15 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:40 pm and 12:50 pm.
- 040-004 1:16 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:16 pm and 1:20 pm.
- 444-001 1:16 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:16 pm and 1:20 pm.
- 040-005 1:20 PM · 28 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull talked on the telephone from 1:20 pm to 1:21 pm.
- 444-002 1:20 PM · 23 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 1:20 pm to 1:21 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 935-015, June 11, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/935-015 (accessed October 14, 2026).