 Mr. President, Mrs. Reagan, distinguished guests, the people who see this return visit us a testament of your administration's recognition of the Western Pacific's strategic importance on our role as a bridge between East and West. Because of our direct experiences with the horrors of war, we strongly value and maintain the principles of American democracy. Similarly, our Micronesian neighbors have shared those experiences and have also adopted those same principles. As you well know, the Micronesian islands within the United Nations trust territory have made important political and socioeconomic decisions and have now emerged as separate of the Sting Island nations in free association with the United States. This process should stand as a proud accomplishment of your administration. On a parallel, we in Guam also seek greater autonomy and self-determination of our political future. We believe we can achieve this via change in our political status from unincorporated territory to that of a Commonwealth of the United States. Mr. President, your administration and Congress have strongly supported our efforts to pursue this new political status and greater self-sufficiency. And now we have completed the draft of the Guam Commonwealth Act for review by the people of Guam. The House Interior Committee had planned to hold a vitally important hearing on our political status efforts in Guam this coming June. As the single most important event in our island's history, our quest for Commonwealth and political status merits on-site sensitizing of those congressmen who will participate in this process. Regrettably, however, the Grand Rotman Deficit Act has precluded this important hearing here on Guam. Mr. President, I appeal to you, to your commitment to the full development of democratic political systems on a respectfully request, the use of an Air Force aircraft to transport the congressmen to Guam to conduct their field hearing. We know you can appreciate the goals we seek to attain. We believe that the Commonwealth of Guam, with its strategic significance, can contribute even more in terms of trade, travel, and commerce. By continuing to support a political status pursuit, you can count on Guam to be a geopolitical and economic leader in this region. Like you, we believe that a strong Pacific America will make for an even stronger America as a leading Western Pacific community steered in principles of democracy. We stand proudly and willingly along with the island nations of the Western Pacific as loyal patriots and sentinels of the corridors between the United States and Asia. Before coming here, you said the winds of freedom will be propelling my mission. Mr. President, we as ancient navigators of the Pacific stand ready to hoist sales for you. We know that the ill winds of terrorism are very real and have swept all over our world. But nevertheless, we have faith that we will weather these thorns. Although your mission may be construed as ideological adversaries, as new globalism, Guam and all of America know that your foreign policy aims at assuring future peace and prosperity. On behalf of Governor Bordaio and the people of Guam, I offer our most appreciative Sidjus Mahasi for the honor you accorded us by your visit. We will continue to pray for your safety and success in this mission to enhance the peace and prosperity of all of America, including those of us in the Pacific America. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lieutenant Governor and Mrs. Rages, Congressman Blas, Archbishop Papura, General and Mrs. Schuler, Admiral Hoffman, ladies and gentlemen, Nancy and I are delighted to be able to join you once again in Guam, your enchanting home. By the way, if there's one inside word I can bring you from Washington, it's that your Congressman, Ben Blas, is making quite a mark. Ben serves as president of the Republican freshman class in the Congress, and I hear again and again that he's earned wide respect as an expert on the Pacific and a man of vision and courage. Ben, congratulations. My friends, your island represents one of the distinctive characteristics of the United States. It's pacificness, the way in which America looks to the west and is bound up with the waters of this huge and peaceful ocean. From the first, it's been one of the chief goals of our administration to make our nation's policy look to the west just as surely as do our people, to strengthen in short our ties with the nations of the Pacific. It's therefore fitting that this journey first to Indonesia to meet with President Suwarto and the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, then to the Tokyo summit should be punctuated by a moment of rest on Guam. It's said that it's here on Guam each morning that the sun first casts its rays upon the stars and stripes. Well, my friends, I can't think of a more beautiful way for America's day to begin. Guam, America's flagship in the western Pacific, possesses an importance out of all proportion to its size. A vital hub of transportation, Guam lies within an easy range of virtually every city in East Asia, and your practice of free enterprise is setting an important example for the entire Pacific basin. I commend you and your neighbors in the northern Marianis for the economic growth and low unemployment that you've achieved. Perhaps most important in this crucial region of the world, Guam shines forth as a beacon of democracy. Indeed, the large number of Guamanians serving in the United States Armed Forces represents a tribute to the patriotism of this island 9,000 miles from our nation's capital. My friends, distant from the mainland, though you may be, you have kept the faith, the faith in freedom that unites us all and gives our nation purpose. In the days ahead, we'll be bearing this message of freedom. The foreign ministers that I will meet with in Indonesia represent nations that have each and large part embraced human liberty, both political and economic. And in recent years, the people of these nations have produced a remarkable record of economic growth. In meeting their foreign ministers, we'll reaffirm America's commitment to free markets and free trade. And we'll reassert our belief that in liberty, we can work together to bring still greater prosperity to the Pacific, prosperity in which the people of the Asian nations and Guam itself should share. After our stay in Indonesia, Nancy will travel on her own to Malaysia and Thailand, where she will meet leaders working to combat drug abuse. The rest of us will fly directly to Tokyo, where we will participate in the 12th annual summit meeting of leaders from the industrialized democracies of Asia, Europe and North America. Again, we will stress the connection, the necessary connection between freedom and economic growth, and we'll lay plans to expand world trade still further. As the site for this meeting, Tokyo itself will make a powerful statement about the expanding role of Pacific nations in the economy of the entire world. But to return for a moment to this part of the world, to this beautiful island of Guam and your many island neighbors, soon four new democratic entities will join this Pacific family. One, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will do so like Guam as part of the United States. Three others, the Republic of Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau will do so as new nations in free association with the United States. The people of these nations chose their new political arrangements in liberty, voting in elections carefully monitored by United Nations observers. Congress is at present considering the compact of free association of the Republic of Palau, and I am confident that the necessary implementing measures will be promptly approved. And I don't very often say that about the Congress, with apologies to one present. And a word to you, our men and women in uniform. Those love you laboring here on Guam to keep our nation free and at peace. Many of you are thousands of miles from your own homes, and beautiful as Guam is, know you must miss familiar sights and sounds and above all your families and friends. Yet you're willing to make that sacrifice, willing because you've understood all along what recent events have once again made clear. In the name of freedom, in the name of decency, we have no choice but to defend American values and the American people themselves and to do so unflinchingly. To use a phrase made famous by the sea bees who have toiled so long here on Guam, we respond to this challenge with two words which say it all, can do. As your Commander-in-Chief, I extend to you men and women in uniform the thanks of a grateful nation. I have to tell you that there are many things in this job I now have which you can be proud. But none of them makes me more proud than you, the men and women in the uniform of our military, what you stand for and the way you stand for it. It's been wonderful to have this chance to talk with you and I want you all to know how very much the warmth of your reception has meant to Nancy and me and our entire party here. And now it's time for me to go someplace and sit down while they put some more juice in the plane out there. But first, let me try out a fitting word of greeting in your beautiful language. Chamorro, I can't promise to get it just right but I'll give it my best. And to all the people of Guam, half a day. Thank you all and God bless you all. I've got to tell a joke. I can't leave without one little joke. I have become a collector of jokes that I understand our friends in the Soviet Union tell among themselves which is sort of revealing of their government and so forth. And this little story is one that I had the privilege of repeating or telling to General Secretary Gorbachev in Geneva and he laughed. The story had to do with an American and a Russian who were arguing about their freedoms in the government and the Americans said, look, I can walk in the Oval Office, I can pound the President's desk and I can say, Mr. President, I don't like the way you're running our country. And a Russian said, I can do that. The American said, you can? He says, yes. I can go in the Kremlin, I can walk into the General Secretary's office, I can pound my fist on his desk and I can say, Mr. General Secretary, I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country. Thank you all very much. It is not my single honor and responsibility to make a presentation to the President. But before I do that, let me just say that it was an extraordinary privilege for me to be on the aircraft coming with the President of the United States as if that was not enough. I was compelled by the allusion by the President to the service of the men and women of the armed forces and with us today are two members of his cabinet who has young Marine officers helping the Liberation of Guam and that's the Secretary of State, Mr. Schultz, and the Chief of Staff, Mr. Reagan, who are both Marine officers here for the Liberation of Guam. And I think it's an absolutely magnificent commentary on the greatness of our country that it is possible for me, one of the many, many Wamanians who was liberated to be in the aircraft today to come here. So for those people who may continue to have any doubt as to what America stands for, Defense Exhibit A for the United States stands right here. Mr. President, you frequently mentioned in a very poetic and a compelling way that America is a land of destiny and the people of America are the people of destiny. So you're looking at part of the land of destiny and part of the people of destiny. And it is now my pleasure to give you a little memento of a batik painting by one of our local artists of a village, the Interahun Village of Guam, just to remind you from time to time of the culture that Guam has here and blends with the overall American culture. Mr. President, would you join me in making the presentation, please? Okay. You see and hear the natives say as you come along and visit us over her local Hafa Day with a happy smile on the face oh, then you know you're in a friendly place just really meaning what they say it's time they simply say Hafa, Hafa, Hafa Day Everybody now Hafa Day, Total Malika, are you? Hafa Day, Total Malika Hafa Day, Chamorita Girl oh, then you know you're in Hafa Day, Hafa Day Hafa Day