Recording among 200 hours of new tapes, 90,000 pages of documents released by Nixon Library

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WASHINGTON - A scratchy, long-lost recording reveals a rambling Richard Nixon struggling to discuss trade issues in the Oval Office with a wily and eloquent Pierre Trudeau, someone the president had referred to hours earlier as a "son of a -----."

The two-hour conversation is believed to be the only discussion between the two men captured on the infamous Nixon recording system -- and the storied chat that later prompted the sputtering president to call Trudeau names, including a "pompous egghead."

Indeed, Trudeau serves up a miniature lecture on economics to the president throughout a discussion about the Nixon administration's controversial shift towards more protectionist practices against its trading partners, including Canada, which was previously exempt from some punitive American tariffs.

"If you're going to be protectionist, let's be in it together," Trudeau tells Nixon at one point during the tape that's often punctuated by loud but largely indiscernible background noises.

"I am not a nationalist, I am not a protectionist ... if you were going to take a very protectionist trend, our whole economy is so importantly tied to yours, we'd have to make some very fundamental decisions," Trudeau says.

He hints that Canada, in response, might be forced to enter into trade agreements with other countries that wouldn't be to the liking of Americans.

The recording is among 200 hours of new tapes and 90,000 pages of documents recently released by the Nixon Library, and comes amid renewed interest in the Nixon presidency that ended in disgrace after the Watergate scandal.

An acclaimed new film, "Frost/Nixon," is in theatres and already garnering Oscar buzz. It portrays an interview between Nixon and British journalist David Frost after the president's resignation in August 1974.

The newly released material captures Nixon and his operatives dishing the dirt on an array of public figures, including snarking about their marital, mental and drinking problems. They also struggle to come up with ideas to contain growing public unrest over the war in Vietnam.

One tape features Nixon discussing, with his trademark profanity, how to deal with Trudeau a few hours before their chat on Dec. 6, 1971.

"I got the note, John, on what to say to this son of a ----- Trudeau," Nixon says to his treasury secretary, John Connally.

Connally is best known for being seriously wounded while in a limousine with John F. Kennedy when the president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. He was the man behind the Nixon administration's detested new trade policies that became known as The Nixon Shock.

"Where do you want me to lead Trudeau? I don't know where to lead him," Nixon tells Connally.

Indeed, throughout his subsequent conversation with Trudeau, Nixon seems to grapple at times to articulate his administration's intentions when it comes to trade relations with Canada. Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser at the time, occasionally weighs in to provide the prime minister with more details.

Nixon reassures Trudeau that the U.S. considers Canada a close friend -- "you are terribly important to us," he says at one point -- but is standoffish about making any commitments to him on trade issues.

"Both the U.S. and Canada are inevitably going to pursue their own interests ... they have to do that," says Nixon, who hosted a White House dinner later that night in Trudeau's honour.

"We do have a very close relationship, we are close neighbours, and I think Canadians and Americans get along reasonably well, very well as a matter of fact ... be that as it may, let us understand first we both must do what's necessary to serve our nations."

The legendary Nixon paranoia occasionally reveals itself, particularly when he accuses other countries of "ganging up" on the United States on trade issues.

Finally Kissinger intervenes to assure Trudeau that Canada will soon get a fairer shake in the aftermath of The Nixon Shock. As he speaks, the president makes demurring noises in the background.

Kissinger apparently disagreed with Connally's economic policies, and his implicit show of support for Trudeau's arguments seems to illustrate some of the tensions that existed between Nixon's top advisers.

Trudeau, who emerged from the meeting touting it as a triumphant one for Canada, seizes upon Kissinger's suggestions that the measures aren't permanent.

"That is extremely helpful," Trudeau tells Kissinger, sounding relieved.

"I think we're reassured by everything you've said, that this is temporary, this is not a philosophical approach that we want to keep you in a state of domination just because we want to protect our society now, and we'll go back to being more or less free traders ... this is the most important reassurance I can take home."

Nixon then softens.

"The long-term goal is to move toward freer trade rather than more protection," he says. "That's the policy, there's no question."

Later, however, he furiously cursed Trudeau in comments that were also captured on tape and released several years ago.

"What in the ----- is he talking about?" he asked Kissinger.

To H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, he fumed: "That Trudeau, he's a clever son of a -----."

He then ordered Haldeman to plant a negative story about the prime minister with Jack Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.

Trudeau's feelings for Nixon were apparently equally hostile. When the prime minister later learned that Nixon had called him a derogatory term after the meeting, he quipped: "I've been called worse things by better people."

Nonetheless the dinner at the White House the night of the meeting was, by all accounts, jovial. Trudeau even asked the American guests in attendance what they thought of the state of Canada-U.S. relations and was pleased by their positive impressions.