 As I say, these are all about the American family and their problems today and how government can help and how government can hurt. And I think that you have spoken to this issue before, and I just like to put it all together in one interview in a sense. In your view, Mr. President, what's happening to the American family today? You read more and more about children being raised and a climate of divorce. The more and more one-parent families, there are more and more children going to daycare centers out of the direct care of the mother who has to work or whatever. Is the government doing something wrong or is this just the way society is going? Is there anything government can do to bring the family and keep the family together? Well, yes, I think in a number of things. First of all, while it was not aimed directly at the family, the government policies that led us to down the road of excessive inflation, excessive taxes, and that thus impoverished families to the point that both members, both parents, found it necessary to work, if they were going to provide the things they believed that children should have, this had an effect on the great many families. I think there are other things that are not so much just the government, but in this modern time there have been trends that have reduced family values in many people's minds. But the government can be of help in this and is being of help now in such things as we almost have doubled the tax credit for working mothers for childcare facilities. Through our private sector initiatives department here, we're working with employers throughout the country and holding seminars, and more employers are now putting in daycare center facilities for the children of their workers. This could wind up being the best kind of daycare because then the mother would have an opportunity, a chance during the day and the working day and go forth to at least get in and out and see her child and that would be better than just the purely institutional care that goes with so many daycare centers. Mr. President, you know, you hear a lot from critics and so forth about we need more government aid for abortion and more government aid for birth control and things like that, but I'm wondering if you feel that there are enough people speaking up for the family that wants to nurture life rather than to end it. In other words, the whole business of helping people adopt children and being able to associate the government with that kind, that's sort of the equation as well as the other side. I really do believe that this is where the government, if there's a way for the government to be involved, and I think there are ways where we could be helpful in that, to add to what is going on with the purely volunteer efforts throughout our country, and I don't underestimate that, it's magnificent, but to recognize that there are probably a million and a million and a half people in this country that can't have children and want them and are on waiting lists to adopt abortion is not the answer to their problem, the answer to their problem would be facilities, a helping hand to say a young girl that's gotten in trouble and that now chooses the abortion route, make it more possible and to help in that child, her child to be born and be adopted, take care of her in her time of trouble. And a life alternative for people who want to choose that route to balance the equation better is what you're saying. Mr. President, some people advocate teaching sex education in the schools because you have been prominent in your support of school prayer, your political position on school prayer is well known and astute, but do you think that there is a level of sex education that needs to be taught in the schools? Well now, let me answer that in two, I don't think my position on school prayer is well known. As a matter of fact, it failed of the two thirds majority it needed because a number of senators whom I talked to personally were convinced that a yes vote would have meant the federal government mandating the schools that they would have to have prayers and they were sincerely and honestly concerned, well who's going to write those prayers? What we were advocating and the bill that we presented did nothing of the kind. I don't know how this distorted view got around. My view on school prayer is that the government is supposed to be neutral with regard to prayer because the government is neither to advocate nor to prevent religious practice and all that we were asking was that the constitution be interpreted as I believe it really reads to say that if someone wants to have prayer in school, they can have prayer in school. Now so much for that, now to get down to sex education in my present capacity it doesn't matter much what I may feel about it, I don't think the federal government should have a part in that, that belongs right back where most of education does and that's at the local school district level where the parents can have a voice in the education their children are getting and that's where that should be decided. Now speaking as a parent I have to say that I think there's reason for concern that touching on the previous half of this question because of the concern about separating church and state and so forth that that has segwayed over so far in sex education where it is being taught that there is a total avoidance of any moral connotation with regard to sex and to teach sex as a purely physical function without taking into consideration the moral precepts that are involved I think this should be of concern out there at those levels where they are in charge of education. Just a quick footnote on school prayer in 19, I understand the issue is more or less dead for the short term, but for 1985 would you be game to go along with Warren Hatch's suggestion on something to the effect that there be silent prayer, could you buy that? We could have had this this time and no to me that is evading the issue. Actually you can have that now. Who in the school room is to know if someone shut their eyes or bow their head that they may not just be dozing or contemplating or what. It seemed to me that that suggestion was simply avoiding the issue and the issue is did that court decision really violate the first amendment not support it? The constitution is supposed to be neutral on religion. It is not neutral when suddenly that constitution is interpreted as saying there are certain areas where you cannot do what you might want to do in a religious manner. But you might be able to accept some Warren Hatch formulation or am I pushing it? Well I just think that what we proposed first of all we protected and said that this amendment to the constitution would not permit any public officer or official and this would include teachers to concoct a prayer or force a prayer nor could it mandate that anyone had to pray or that even the school had to. It simply said that if the people that are in the school want to have prayer that is their privilege. And another issue Mr. President we know and admire your position on reducing the government's involvement in people's personal lives. But the intervention of the Surgeon General into the baby Jane Doe case on Long Island struck some people as good old busy body Uncle Sam acting like big brother. Would government be involved in this kind of thing or is that sort of a special case and you don't see that's going to be any pattern of government activity? Well you know the first interest in all of that came about with a baby that was allowed to starve to death because it was believed that that baby had such handicaps at its birth that it would not be able to have a full and rich life. There are many people with physical handicaps who have very full and rich lives and the fact that in this one they could decide that the baby shouldn't live but they knew that if they took its life that would be murder. So they stood back and in a sense technically did not take its life they just let it starve to death which took about a week. But in this case in Long Island you see there is in the civil rights there is a rehabilitation feature about not discriminating against the handicapped and all the government asked in this case in Long Island was to see the records to see if because of the handicaps with which the child was born it was being discriminated against in denying it the surgery that could change some of those handicaps. And a court has ruled that no the government couldn't see those records but this was done in the context of as I say the civil rights law regarding the handicapped. Well one worry though would be that with medical science as you know it comes up with some fabulous new operation or whatever almost every week that the whole business of prolonging life beyond a sort of sensible point is likely to arise again and again. I just wonder whether you're worried about the government getting involved in every other case. Well no the thing is though if there's one thing that is a responsibility the federal government is the guarantee of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now there is life and someone takes it upon themselves to say we want to cancel that life out based on our opinion of what that life might become. How do you rectify that or reconcile that I should say with a letter that I got from a 24 year old young lady who is paralyzed from the waist down because of birth defect the thing at her birth but her parents did have the operation performed that saved her life and she said she so loves her parents and is so grateful for that decision and has found her life so rich and rewarding that she's glad that decision was made. Well now as a little baby she couldn't have made that decision someone would have made it for her and they made it the right way in favor of life. So this is a situation where you think a little bit of government pressure on the side of life probably is a good thing. This can we can we have a constitution that says that and then have faced with problems of this kind can the government say well in this case it doesn't count they're not entitled to life. Mr. President I've been a journalist it seems for about four or five hundred years and sometimes the press does things that I find a little difficult to stomach and particularly on the question of personal privacy for public officials it would seem that even the president of the United States is entitled to a bit of it but yet you the press is occasionally filled with criticisms of a species kind it seems to me I saw one press account about saying how can the president talk about the importance of religion in American life when the president Mrs. Reagan don't go to church on Sunday or you know how can you talk about family life because you don't visit your grandchildren every ten minutes or whatever does the press sometimes go too far in looking at the private life of public officials or are these fair points to raise in your view? I don't think I don't think it's a fair point to raise when they take from their viewpoint just something they see and they don't have all the facts and they don't have all the facts Nancy and I miss going to church very much and we know why we can't go now some have implied that we didn't ever go that we we did and when we came here we started going to church we became self-conscious about the fact that we did kind of when we arrived on Sunday morning sort of I think detract from the frame of mind that people should be in when they go to church and yet we were encouraged by the people there but when it came to a matter of security and when you look at the barricades that have to be put up around the White House itself how can we go to church knowing that some terrorist we could be responsible for causing the death of how many people are in that church by our being there so we can't go but I've been encouraged by some clergymen that I respect very much who've told me that they think that with in view of that that it's possible to practice religion without that attendance even though we would like that and we do I after I heard and learned all the series of miracles that intervened to save my life when I was shot three years ago I decided whatever time I had left to belong to someone else I would think that that 1981 experience is something that no one could ever quite walk out of their mind and not that one lives in fear but it must put us a cat I said put things in certain context yes if you're out amongst the mirror a little more alert than you and before I can imagine the another question is the president that generation gaps are nothing new where there seems to be at least one generation gap in every family your daughter Patty Davis has been quoted as saying that arresting people for smoking pot of silly and they're living with a boyfriend is as normal as brushing your teeth what has to be done with these young people Mr. President or does Patty have a point and maybe the old morality is well a little bit old for today's times I'm just sorry that spanking is out of fashion now and you and you mean that a bit yes the the small time values that one learns growing up in a small town Illinois which I think may form the core of the American conscience and consciousness do any of these come in handy in Washington or they just simply irrelevant I mean the honesty and the openness that you find a small town is there a well I'm I'm glad that I grew up in a small town I'm glad that I even went to a small college and if I could recommend it to any young people I'd tell them to do the same thing I think there's a I don't know how to describe all the things that are there I don't say this that they're better than people who are living in cities I don't mean it in that way at all but I think in a small town where you're not anonymous mm-hmm where you're recognized and just the same when you get to a small campus mm-hmm you can't hide mm-hmm you know that you're known you there are more things expected of you for example in a in a small school in a big university it's so easy for students to just go to class and back into their quarters from class and not get involved in any of the other outside activities that are also very educational but in a small school that you're needed so you may have had that in mind that you were just going to go to school and and go back to your room or go to class go back to your room but no somebody grabbed you by the arm pretty soon it says hey we need we need people over here to help with this or and we need cheerleaders or whatever it might be mm-hmm and pretty soon you find everyone's involved and they there they discover things about themselves they might never have discovered mm-hmm well there is a drift the demographic population is drifting as you know in the census bureau has identified the drift into smaller towns and into the suburbs into the Sun Belt I wonder if in a certain sense the things that you stand for if you don't feel that they are direct reflection of those of those values and the people are responding to them as something that's important to have I think what we're seeing is a swing of the pendulum when I was a young man over 70% of the people in this country lived in what was small town and rural America today about 75% of America lives in urban centers we've turned to an urban population mm-hmm it's hard for people to realize that even in the doubling of our population there are any number of counties out there a tremendous number of counties that have a smaller population than they had 50 years ago mm-hmm now what we're seeing I think is that first the big migration into the cities and then it didn't live up to what some people wanted for themselves and with the advent of freeways transportation in which it isn't necessary to live next door to where you work and so forth people are finding they can go back to that somewhat freer type of life and still even television provides entertainment in the home where you don't have to live where the bright lights are to mm-hmm to get culture and entertainment so forth as the president I think that some American Americans are troubled or puzzled when they see their bishop or their you know their preacher or whatever get involved in what they regard as political issues so on the left side left wing of the Catholic Church you have not just left in the Catholic Church but left wing of the church you have their involvement and then you have bishops speaking out on the nuclear freeze and so on and so forth and then on the conservative on the right you have clergymen speaking out you know on so-called moral issues that have a political dimension do you think in a certain sense the American clergy ought to sort of go back to prayer and stay out of politics leave that to you or for what no because in the society like ours if you start designating professions or trades that should not participate in political discourse where do you stop I used to face that as an actor there were many people that said that actors because they're known and because they can attract an audience shouldn't be out campaigning for candidates or for causes they believed in speaking at fundraisers and so forth and we used to be criticized and there were people within the profession that said no you should do your businesses acting up there you just wait and act and as I said then and I say about these others where then would you stop who would be the ones that would be permitted to talk about public issues now I do say this because I have disagreed sometimes with some of the more extreme positions taken by some of the clergy I would say about anyone if they're going to do that they have an obligation to really look at both sides and make sure that they are advising their flock correctly mm-hmm so it's interesting that your position in a way on the church state is that in a way we may have overdrawn the line a little bit and you're a little more comfortable with with clergymen talking about political issues and politicians talking about religious issues yes to those people who say those people who say that a clergyman you know well he has in a he can make a bigger have a bigger effect on his parish because of what he is well then if you took that then what about newspaper publisher what about an anger man on TV hmm well I don't think the publisher should be allowed to say anything Mr. President this is a little bit off the beaten track but if you were to resign voluntarily sometime in your second term assuming as many do that you were reelected is Mr. Bush ready and able to assume the office of the presidency have you trained him well enough I told him just in case of my training him in case of what he's capable of doing I told an audience last night that I think he's probably the best vice president and we've ever had in this country I believe when I was governor and had a lieutenant governor and I believe now in this job that we have over too many years thought of that second in line as someone who was just sitting on the sidelines you know looking for signs of ill health and number one and until something happened well no I've always believed that they're really like an executive vice president in a corporation and they should be used as that and he is very much a part of everything that goes on in our cabinet in our administration he has been in 48 states he has been in 53 countries he was in charge of our project of reducing and we did successfully the number of regulations by far any number of things I don't know of a vice president who has ever been as much a part of the action as he is mm-hmm well that certainly is a pretty favorable assessment of his abilities and that's the way I think people will read it my final question according to Michael is this and this is sort of an easy one and it's the kind of question I suppose you expect to be asked after an interview like this but as you approach the the conclusion of your your what some many people think will be only your first term can you think of two or three things that if you could do it all over again if God said okay mr. Reagan you can go back and that January 1 January 1981 and do it all over again and so it could come out differently two or three things stick in your mind it's little blips that you wish you could have smoothed out well I'd have gotten in a car quicker that's hard to top you're not gonna be able to top there I don't know I've been asked that question for and always there are things that I don't think of the great major things there well they may have do with major issues but in the handling of of your relationship with the trying to get something passed in the in the Congress and you can wish you had or had not done something that you did but I couldn't just pick out any glaring or dramatic but it's been a learning experience oh yes oh sure well thank you very very much it's been a great experience for me well thank you I'm honored pleased to please to do it thank you we'll send you we'll only send you about three million copies