Word: graysons
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...friend's suggestion last week, Price Commission Chairman C. Jackson Grayson put through a telephone call to a key Republican campaign agency: the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon. From the other end of the line, Grayson heard his own voice proclaiming that General Motors and Ford will not be allowed to raise prices on the 1973-model cars that they will put on sale later this month. Without his knowledge, G.O.P. campaign aides had taped the announcement at a press conference two hours earlier, and were playing excerpts over a telephone number that voters can call free...
...Grayson, who cherishes his image as a nonpartisan price controller, professed surprise at the blatantly political use of his pronouncements. Yet the attempt to capitalize on his auto-price ruling was predictable. Last month chiefs of the four U.S. automakers were summoned to the White House and asked by Donald Rumsfeld, director of Nixon's Cost of Living Council, to withdraw requests for price increases on 1973 models that ranged upward from $85 per car or truck. G.M. eventually agreed to reduce its increase to $54 per vehicle and Ford came down to $59. Then, last week Grayson announced...
...contretemps raises several questions. Why, for example, did the White House initially bypass the Government's formal economic control mechanisms and jawbone against auto boosts that were not likely to get through the Price Commission anyway? Quite possibly, aides wanted Nixon rather than Grayson to get credit for stopping the rise. Indeed, TIME learned last week that Rumsfeld never asked Grayson what the commission was likely to do, and did not even tell the price czar about the jawboning until after it had begun...
...Grayson's own actions are difficult to explain. First he called public hearings on auto prices for Sept. 12, leaving the implication that the commission would do nothing until then. Last week, after forbidding price hikes, he announced that he would go ahead with the hearings-which seems rather like holding a trial after the defendant has been sentenced. Presumably, the Price Commission wants to get the view of all interested parties on record before judging any new auto-price requests. Right now, however, the hearings shape up as a brightly spotlighted forum for consumer advocates and union leaders...
...case, the Administration has won the highly visible victory over inflation that it sought. Grayson stoutly denies that his motives in turning down the G.M.-Ford hikes were political, and there is in fact a notable coolness between him and the Nixon Administration. Nevertheless, his timetable for further action could hardly be more pleasing to Nixon. According to Chairman Grayson, the earliest the Price Commission could possibly act on any new G.M.-Ford price requests would be Nov. 1, and a ruling would probably come somewhat later than that. Like just after the election...