Interview With Foreign Television Journalists
Q.
This is the Oval Office in the White House. First, Mr. President, let me thank
you for this opportunity to give us an interview before the
And,
Mr. President, you are soon in
The President. Well, I value it very
much because it specified the agreement of a number of governments to recognize
those basic rules of freedom for people. And since our country, this country here, is the first one that ever declared that government is
the servant of the people, not the other way around, we heartily endorsed it.
Right
now our concern, as I'm sure the concern of a great many other people is that
there has not been a complete keeping of those pledges in that agreement by
some of the participants -- by the Soviet Union, particularly -- in recognizing
the fundamental rights of people to leave a country, return to a country,
worship as they will, and so forth.
Q.
Do you think that the
The President. That what?
Q. -- -- has moved that direction after this
document -- --
The President. I am, I think,
reasonably optimistic in view of the summit meetings that we've had, and the
meeting we're going to have, that we have made progress with the
Strategic
Arms Control
Q.
Mr. President, you hoped, I think, to have an agreement on strategic nuclear
weapons ready to sign in
The President. Well, I don't know
whether he necessarily wants to do that and gamble that much. But we're working
as hard as we can, and it's a far more complex treaty than the INF treaty,
which we did sign here at the summit in
Allegations
of Former Staff Members
Q.
Since the last time you saw Mr. Gorbachev, your former press spokesman has said
that he manufactured quotations on your behalf, including one at a summit. Your
former Chief of Staff has said that astrology played a part in your scheduling,
indeed, in summit planning. How do you think that may change the way Mr.
Gorbachev views the President and the administration he's dealing with?
The President. Well, I hope Mr.
Gorbachev has heard some of the things that I have been saying about those
charges, because no decision was ever made by me on the basis of astrology. And
some of these other things -- the quotations by a former Press Secretary --
actually, I have to say he was not too far wrong with some of the things that
were being said in our earlier summit meetings.
I
remember that the General Secretary and I, together in a room, one on one,
remarked about the uniqueness of our situation and that very possibly, between
us, war and peace for the world could be decided, depending on what we did. And
I remember also saying to him that I didn't think that we distrusted each other
because of our armaments. We were armed because we distrusted each other. And
therefore, while we were going to talk about weapons and reducing the number of
weapons and so forth, at the same time we should recognize that we ought to try
and eliminate those things that cause the mistrust between us.
Q.
Among the many discussions you will have in
The President. Well, I don't know
about the sending of troops or anything of that kind. I'd like to be a little
more optimistic and say that I believe there is a desire in the
Q.
With the State of
The President. There, I think, is an
issue. And actually I think that a lot of that has to do with the feeling that
some of the Arab States -- because I know that there is a great difference in
many of the nations about who could be a proper representative for the
Palestinian people and a great feeling that that could hardly be Arafat's
element, since here again you have a group that refuses to recognize the right of
Israel to exist as a nation.
Soviet
Domestic Reforms
Q.
Mr. President, do you honestly support a statement made by British Prime
Minister Thatcher that the West should support Mr. Gorbachev's domestic reform
because it is not only to the benefit of the Soviet people but also to the
West?
The President. Well, yes, I think that
if there's any way that outside nations could be helpful in this they should
because many of the reforms that he is undertaking are aimed at the things that
we have always criticized in the
Q.
Could you tell me what's your personal opinion of Mr. Gorbachev's ability to reform
his country and chance of success?
The President. Well, I think it is
evident that he is running into opposition, that there are those who want to
cling to what are more the Stalinist policies, and yet he is apparently going
forward with the recommendations. Just recently it became public information
that he had met with the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church and discussed
some loosening of their opposition to worship.
Arms
Control
Q.
Mr. President, with Mr. Gorbachev running into some kind of opposition and your
term of office expiring, have you ever discussed what is solid and will
definitely remain of the arms control process, for example, whoever is in the
White House, whoever is in the Kremlin, or do you see the chance that this
thing might falter, for example, like detente did?
The President. Well, I have to be more
optimistic than that, because I would hope that whoever is there in that
office, and whoever is here in this office, would recognize the truth of a
statement I made once in addressing the British Parliament and the legislature
in Japan and elsewhere: We have to recognize, I think, that a nuclear war
cannot be won and should never be fought. Once you engage in that kind of
conflict, how do you declare a victor if their country is so poisoned by
radiation that there's no place for the people to live? And that's what would
result if we began exchanging the weapons that we have today. I think that's
what has led us to some success in the reduction of nuclear weapons, is that recognition.
Possibly in the
I
was interested one day not too long ago, back around the time of our summit
meeting here, to hear in this room my own words coming back to me, not with any
acknowledgement that they were mine -- maybe he didn't know it -- but from a
Soviet official who word for word said, ``a nuclear war cannot be won and
should never be fought.''
Q.
Mr. President, on the future strategy of the arms control talks, especially among
the western NATO nations, sometimes there still is a bit of confusion. The
Germans, for example -- there are a few people across a political aisle who after INF believe -- or are very nervous about
modernizing short-range nuclear missiles. They say the shorter the range of the
nuclear missiles in central
The President. Well, I know, and I
have talked with the Chancellor [Helmut Kohl] many times about this. And they
see the possibility of -- if such a war would occur -- they would be the
battlefield, largely. And I think that has to be recognized. But at the same
time, as I say, those weapons -- I have to repeat myself -- those weapons are
the thing that right at the moment are kind of wiping out the imbalance in
conventional weapons. And when you look at that imbalance, you have to say that
the
American
Hostages in
Q.
In the last 2 years,
The President. I can't say, and I
can't hazard a comment because I know none of the elements that were involved
in that transaction. And until I do, I just won't comment.
I
still think that all of us want our hostages free. I believe it's the duty of
government when the citizens of a country are -- their human rights are being
unjustly denied by a means of that kind of kidnaping
-- that the government should take advantage of everything it can to get those
people free. At the same time, we must recognize we can't do something in the
form of ransom that creates an advantage for those other countries in taking
hostages.
I've
labored under a misapprehension here -- well, worldwide, I guess -- about the
so-called Iran-contra affair. We were not dealing with the Khomeini or with the
Iranian Government. Some individuals had sought a meeting with us on the basis
of better relations in the event of the passing of the Khomeini and that it
would be a new government. And they had an idea of a different kind of
government and a relationship with us. And at one time, asking us to prove our
credentials, they made the proposal of us violating our policy and selling,
really, a token force of weapons to them, and also that they could use those to
build some prestige for themselves with the military, which they would need if
they were to become important in the next government.
Well,
I said back to them that, yes, we could do that, even though it was against our
policy of providing weapons for nations that supported terrorism. But they had
made it plain that they did not support terrorism. And I said we have kidnaped now some Americans held hostage by an
organization, the Hizballah, that we understand has a
relationship with the Government of Iran, and said maybe you would have some
influence, that if we did this, you could be helpful to us to try to get some
of our hostages free.
Now,
we argued right in this room about it, and some people said that would appear
to be trading arms for hostages. Well, no, because we weren't giving them to
the Government, and we weren't -- or we weren't giving
them, I should say, to the kidnapers. We were doing nothing to make an
advantage for them. And I likened it to if I had a child who was kidnaped. I don't think that you should pay ransom, but if
I found there was another individual that could get that child back for me in
return for my doing something for him, that would be all right. And that this was
much the same point.
And
the truth was we got two hostages back and had two more that were scheduled to
be released in the next 48 hours. And that was when the story was leaked, of
what was going on, in that Lebanese paper. And all of a sudden the world media
was full of this and translating it as trading arms for hostages. And I went on
the air and tried to convince all of them that we weren't trading arms for
hostages and tell them what the truth was, but that's what it's been made to
appear.
Q.
Speaking of
The President. Well, I don't know.
We've been doing everything we can behind the scenes to try and bring about
peace between
Q. Mr. President, you're going to certainly talk
about
The President. We feel that as long as
the Soviet Union has provided support and arms and so forth and advisers to the
Afghan force of their puppet government, that even though they go, we must
continue to support the Mujahidin so that the people
of Afghanistan can now, without the absence of the Soviet Union -- I mean
without the presence of the Soviet Union, that they can bring about a
government that is a government chosen by the people of Afghanistan. And we do
not recognize that the government there in
General
Noriega of
Q.
Mr. President, the Vice President yesterday broke publicly with you over the
negotiations with
The President. Well, I think that I
have not changed my mind about the hard line on drugs. But you have me now in a
situation in which I can't comment on what has been going on because there has
been no resolution as yet. And I've never believed that when, say, negotiations
are going on that you go public and tell what's being debated and negotiated.
So, I can't comment there.
I
can see why the Vice President said what he said because the impression has
been given, based not on information from us but based on rumors and news leaks
and so forth, that we are in negotiation somehow over -- or with a participant
in the drug trade and all. And I think he was making himself plain that you
don't negotiate with people of that kind with regard to their activity in
drugs.
Our
goal, what we're trying to achieve, is the restoration of democracy in
Strategic
Defense Initiative
Q.
When you speak about -- I know you hate the word, the name, but they are Star
Wars in
The President. On?
Q.
The American -- --
The President. Well, yes, our SDI.
Well, this started a number of years ago when I first came here and I met with
the military of our own country and asked, is it possible, can you foresee that
our science and technology is such that we could create a defensive weapon
against nuclear missiles, ballistic missiles, that could literally make them
obsolete because there would be so much doubt as to whether, if they were once
employed, they could ever get through that defense? And a few days later, they
came back and told me that, yes, they believed such a
weapon could be designed. And I said, go to it! And so the Strategic Defense
Initiative was adopted. It has made such great progress -- some scientific
breakthroughs -- that the people involved believe that not only can we have
such a system but that it will come much earlier than we had believed was
possible. There have been a number of breakthroughs that have advanced the
timing on this.
And
then, once you have such a weapon, I believe that that is when we could then
really move worldwide, even if it meant sharing that weapon. And I would be
amenable to that, that if we had such a weapon, a defensive weapon, that we
could eliminate the offensive missiles. Now, the question arises naturally,
well, then, why would you need that system if you'd eliminated the weapons?
Well, you can't wipe out of people's minds the knowledge of how to build a
nuclear missile. And someday there could be a madman loose in the world, as
we've seen in our own lifetime a number of times, who, with that knowledge,
could then secretly build the only one. I've likened it to when, after World
War I, the nations all met in
Q.
Mr. President, you deserve credit for including a Far East Asian region for
elimination of INF at the
The President. Well, now, I'm not
quite sure I understand your question there.
Q.
How do you plan to propose to Mr. Gorbachev in order to ease the tensions in
the Asian region?
The President. Oh, well, I think that
will be a subject for us to talk about and discuss. I think that all of us have
an obligation to see that in the world tensions that nothing -- if I'm
answering you correctly -- in the area of terrorism or something could be
employed to upset the Olympic games. And I think what
that would require are those nations that probably have a more friendly
relationship with North Korea than we do, by virtue of the war that was fought
there, that if some of those other nations would make it plain that North Korea
should not take advantage of their proximity to the games and do anything of a
terrorist nature to upset those games.
Vice
President Bush
Q.
Mr. President, how would you like to be remembered in history? I'm asking about
the Reagan legacy, something like that -- just a remark. The two frontrunners
struggling for your succession -- both of them seem to be of quite a different
brand of politician, more the managerial type of candidate as compared to a
Reagan revolution and inspiration and these kinds of things. Has the mood
changed in
The President. Well, now, wait a
minute. I have to say something about the Republican candidate for President.
Now I can safely say that since everyone else has dropped out of the race. I
have to say that the Vice President has been an important part of everything
that we've achieved in this so-called revolution in these last 7 years or so. I
could just give you a figure here of one thing from the very beginning. I had
always believed that Vice Presidents in our system of government were relegated
to a kind of just standing and waiting position. And I think that's a waste of
talent. I have always believed that your Vice President should be like a vice
president in a private corporation. He should be an executive with duties and
functions.
So,
one of the first jobs that I put on the Vice President was to set up a task
force and find out how many government regulations imposed on the private
sector, on people and on local communities and State governments and business
and industry -- how many could be removed. And that task force, under his
direction, was so successful that we estimate that we have eliminated 600
million man-hours a year of filling out government paperwork on the part of the
citizens and businesses and the local and State governments. The book that
registers -- or contains all those regulations -- is only half as thick as it
used to be.
And
then I put -- in the next time, in the task force when the State of Florida --
it became disgraceful, the extent to which drugs were being flooded through
there into the United States -- and put him in charge of a task force there.
And for the first time, he put together the law enforcement agencies from the
Federal, the State, and the local level, and including cooperation from the
military. And that was so successful there that then moved him to a task force
for the whole southern border, across the 2,000 miles, the border between our
country and
One last little thing here. I know I'm taking a
great deal of time. My wife has been very active in that area, and all on her
own. She's not a government employee. But she answered a little girl's question
in a schoolroom one day when she was talking to them about drugs and why they,
as children, should not engage in this. And the little girl stood up and said
to her, ``Well, what do we do when someone offers us drugs?'' And Nancy said,
``Just say no.'' One answer in a schoolroom to one little girl -- today there
are over 12,000 Just Say No Clubs in the schools across the United States. And
that's why we're going to try to win that battle.
But
that all started from what you were saying about differences with the Vice
President. And, no, I think that, as I say, he's been a part of all that we've
done here with regard to the economy. We've had the longest period of economic
expansion in the history of our country. In the last 5 years, we have created
16 million new jobs for the workers in our work force. We have the lowest
unemployment rate in many years. And we have the highest rate of employment
among what is considered the potential employment pool -- all of the people
that could be considered as potential for jobs -- the highest percentage of
them today are employed than has ever been true in our history. And as I say,
the Vice President's been a part of all of the things that helped bring this
about.
Soviet
General Secretary Gorbachev
Q.
Mr. President, do you consider Mikhail Gorbachev as a friend -- I mean, a real
friend?
The President. Well, I can't help but
say yes to that because the difference that I've found between him and other
previous leaders that I have met with is that, yes, we can debate, and we
disagree, and it is true he's made it apparent that he believes much of the
Communist propaganda that he's grown up hearing about our country that -- the
big corporations and whether they dictate to government or not and things of
that kind. I try to disabuse him of those beliefs. But there is never a sense
of personal animus when the arguments are over, and I'm reasonably optimistic,
although at the same time I'm realistic. The only Russian I know is a little
Russian proverb. And I've used it so many times on him that he's going to hit
me over the head one day if I use it again. And that is, Dovorey
no provorey -- trust but verify.
Q.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm pleased, as a Finn, to welcome you and Mrs.
Reagan to our country on your way to
The President. Well, thank you very
much. We're looking forward to it because we're celebrating, as you perhaps
know, mutually the 350th anniversary of the Finnish-United States relationship
and the Finnish community here in our country at that time that was
established.
Note: The interview
began at