 Mr. President, how do you do? Charles? Well, I know we have a limited time here, and please sit down. Thank you very much. I think we better open the day with me. What? Thank you. Thank you all. Mr. President, it seems like a long way from November 21st, 1985 in Geneva, where the exchanges agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States were signed. But here we are, and these lovely, attractive people are part of the implementation of the exchanges agreement that you initiated with General Secretary Gorbachev. And Jack Richards of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts is the director of the exchanges program. He can tell you a little bit more about this specific group. And also you are exchanging visitations also with the General Secretary who hosted in a similar manner young American students who were over there, Jack Richards. Mr. President, we're very grateful to you for making this possible. The Geneva agreement, when we learned of it, we immediately made a proposal to implement it, and we were pleased to have that proposal accepted by the two ministries involved. And we started sending students to Novosibirsk, which is a city in Siberia, last April. And they returned and sent students to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, the school that I represent, and which incidentally is the school from which your Vice President graduated. And this is now the second group of students. They have been with us for five weeks. They are now going to be touring your city of Washington for four days before flying home. Our students are doing the same thing over there. They have finished their stay in Siberia and are now touring the Soviet Union. We hope that this exchange will go on and on and on and can be expanded and improved in every way. But we are very grateful to you for making this possible, you and General Secretary Gorbachev. And I think it's working very well indeed. Well, thank you. All right. I want you to know I'm very pleased to welcome you all to the White House today. And when General Secretary Gorbachev and I met in Geneva, as you said, we agreed that exchanges of high school students would be an excellent way to increase understanding between our two countries. Seeing the actual results of the agreement gives me a great deal of personal satisfaction. As you, I'm sure all of you know by being there that the Phillips Academy signed that agreement with the Physics Mathematics Institute for this Reciprocal Exchange of Students. And it's enabled all of you to study here in our country. And I can say, he probably would have been a little hesitant, to say that Phillips Academy is a famous part of our American educational heritage. And through your experience at Phillips, you had the chance to learn about the American educational system at the secondary school level. And in addition, you undoubtedly were able to improve your language comprehension through classroom and informal social situations. I hope that your exchange is the first of many between our two countries. So that other American and Soviet students will have the opportunity to study together, to learn each other's language and to understand better each other's aspirations and culture. General Secretary Gorbachev and I placed great importance on these exchanges as you've been told between our people and particularly our young people, for you are our hope for the future. I want to express my support for you and all the other citizens of our two countries who are contributing to the effort to expand exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union. And this weekend, while you're in the capital, I hope you have the opportunity to go sightseeing and visit some of our museums. We're very proud of our capital city and I hope you'll have a wonderful time while you're here. Mr. President, we know you must be terribly concerned about your life. Of course. How are you coping with this and how are you feeling about this upcoming procedure? Well, I think you've said it. It's very evident. But then I think I have to let you go because I have a limited time here for visiting with these young people. But, well, of course, I'm concerned, and so is she. But at the same time, I have great confidence in the medical personnel who are in charge of this case. Mr. President, how can you let Iran get away with this attack without Italian? I think maybe you're jumping to conclusions here. I cannot and will not discuss what our future action may be, but we're in discussions with the government of Kuwait. And it would be very unwise to inter-suggest at anything we might do. Mr. President, before you go, I'd like to acknowledge the great work of Stephen Reinsmith, who's been our coordinator under your exchanges agreement actively over there. Steve, just say hello. That's fine. Thank you very much, Mr. President. We appreciate very much. Well, I'd like if I could just stay for a minute, and then I want to greet each of these visitors individually here, but I think I'll wait while the Fourth Estate leaves. Mr. President, I've had a master of the school in Novosibirsk with which we are speaking. It's Alexander Nikitin. Well, I think he needs to see you. He needs to see you, too. And the assistant headmaster is Yuri Nikayevs. All right. My colleague, Victor Sveck, is the chairman of our Russian language department. Well, I hope it's OK. I want to steer away from this. You know, there's one question I did not ask. We won't ask these young people here. We have had exchanges over many years with young people from other countries. When I was the governor of California, they used to once a year there in California, the exchange students would visit as you were visiting here. And I would always ask them, the first thing I'd ask them is, how is our education here much harder than it is in your own country? And then I got to know exactly what the response would be. They'd look at each other, and then they'd start laughing. And I found out at the time they decided that theirs was a lot more work and a lot harder than going to school in America. Well, since then, we've tried to do some things to improve that. We decided that we needed a little more quality in education, so we've been working on that. Now, just I know that I'm going to, I want to get up and read each one of you here. I think we can have a little meeting back here. But before I do, I just can't help but ask you, sometimes you must have said, if I ever had a chance, would I ask him this or that? Does anyone have a question that they'd like to ask? How do you, how are you, you know, what is your personal feeling towards what's happening in our country, the Soviet Union, in Perestroika? Well, I like what we have seen happening and what you call glasnost. And I must say that I think your general secretary and I got along very well. Does that answer it? Yes. Thank you. Another question? You see, we saw at the end of it that it's very friendly people are there, they are, but we know that and see that there's not so many new, there's no about Soviet Union. And I want to ask you, what do you think about this? Well, obviously we have a difference of opinion about our two systems and we support or favor ours. You know, there are many constitutions throughout the world. Most countries have a constitution. With one exception, I think ours is different from any other because all those other constitutions, the government is telling the people what they can do, what their privileges are. Our constitution explains our whole system. It says we, the people, are telling the government what it can do. And we like it that way. There is one thing I'm going to say to you young people here and then I have to get back up here and I'll have a chance to meet you individually. But the thing is, your generation, in a world that is divided and there are many differences between the peoples of the world and even today there are wars going on over the world, if the young people, your generation could get to know each other that I mean the young people of other countries, I don't think there would ever be another war. I think you must have gotten acquainted well enough where you've been in school to realize that you have a lot more in common than you have dividing. Well, I'm going to get back here and hope you all will come back and I can say hello. Let's check while organizing the line. Have a line coming. Come with me. Thank you, Mr. President. For me. One more picture? Just one. I wish we could have had more time for more questions from these young people but I'm afraid I'd run out of time. We appreciate it. They have a better understanding of our country and how we work now. There's one thing about this job that I have. Somebody tells me every day what I'm going to be doing every 15 minutes of the day. That's the government. I want to go to see you all. Thank you.