 You don't have to wear one of these, Mr. President, they let you in, they don't worry about you. And we can provide a transcript if you can read one now. Yeah, that's great. I'm delighted you could do this, and I wanted to kind of devote this time to a single subject, this idea of peace. And I wanted to start out the very beginning, if I could, because I think you're like me from a little Midwestern town. You probably learned in Sunday school that old verse from Matthew, blessed are the peacemakers, for they should be called, I think, the children of God, however it goes. Was that something from your background, this idea of peace, because you mentioned several times having been through four wars in your lifetime? Yes. I usually answered that in response to these charges that suddenly sprang up that somehow I was sitting here with a loaded gun and wanted to go out and get a war started. No, I just, I've been very conscious of the horror of it. And I also, I've said that in the context that defensively about our national defense and why we need one, and that is that as I look back, none of those wars happened because we were too strong. We didn't, they didn't happen because we were all well armed and looking for a fight. If you remember, Roosevelt was pleading for this before World War II. And I think one of the startling things when I was, went to Japan on that first trip when I was still governor at Nixon and asked me to make a trip there for him. I heard a story very interesting. When our generals and admirals could talk to their counterparts after the war, they asked them, they said, why Pearl Harbor, you know, why would, and the answer was pretty amazing. The Japanese said, why not? You had just had your largest war games ever in Louisiana, Louisiana maneuvers. And you had soldiers carrying wooden guns and cardboard tanks to simulate armored warfare. They said, we didn't think you'd fight. You were out of the guard by then, weren't you, at the reserve, because you were in Fort Des Moines there, didn't you? Well, no, I got my commission there when the 14th Cavalry was stationed there. And was, no, I was a commission in the reserve and when I was making a picture called Desperate Journey with Errol Flynn, when, when playing an RA, an American in the RAF. And one morning I was greeted with a special delivery letter before I left the house. I didn't even have to open it in red ink on the outside. It said, immediate action, active duty. And inside it said that I would report in 14 days to Fort Mason in San Francisco. I see, your aunt was. So the last part of the picture, there were a number of scenes which, in long shot, it wasn't me. It was a double, because I was long gone. They wouldn't even let me finish the picture. But going back to those childhood days, did your mother, whom as I remember from the reading, was quite religious, or your family, emphasize this matter of peace? Because that came right after the World War I, of course. Well, I don't know that it was anything particular of that kind, but you have to remember, I was, I was about over seven years old when the war ended. And I remember my mother taking me down, and we lived in Galesburg at that time, taking me down to Galesburg, and my brother, there was a troop train coming through. And all the crowd all went down, and the train stopped, and all these young soldiers were leaning out the windows, and yelling, and waving, and everything, and I remember as a seven-year-old, I had a penny, and I ran up and handed it up to one of the soldiers and asked him, you know, take it as a good luck piece, and I've often wondered if he was lucky. It was on its way east to go overseas, this train loaded with soldiers. But so conscious, and at that age, I can understand the kids today with the nuclear talk and the nightmares, because I had them. So much of the press was about the atrocities that were taking place in Belgium. As a matter of fact, the weekly reader, which goes to kids nowadays, they had a survey, and I think 40 percent of the children said the greatest thing you could do for them would be to make a top priority, reducing the risk of nuclear war. How do you answer that? What do you say to them? That's my top priority. I just feel, and that's why I was, whether they met it or not, when the Soviet leaders, Chonenko and Gromyko, both made public statements about wanting to see the end of nuclear weapons. Well that's, I just feel that we have to do that. After World War I, and there were great atrocities against civilians and so forth, in Geneva all sorts of rules were made about war, and the rules of war, and the protection of civilians that you didn't make war on civilians. And here we are, all these years later, in which the principle weapon on both sides is a weapon that is designed mainly to kill millions of civilians with no discrimination in men, women and children. And how do we think that we're more civilized today to have these and to say that well our peacemaking policy is based on the threat that if they kill our people, we'll kill theirs? And I think we'd be wise if we started getting back to the point that if there has to be a conflict sometime, there are rules of warfare that apply that you don't, well isn't it significant that in Afghanistan the somewhat numerous Russian deserters, and they don't, it isn't a concocted thing because they're not even in the same place, but when they're asked why they deserted, over and over again they're getting an answer that these young men say they were told to kill women and children. And they deserted rather than do this, and this is in a country that is banned religion. Richard Nixon I think in his first inaugural said that the greatest honor that a nation could bestow on anyone was the title of peacemaker. Is that your objective in these last four years? No, I didn't think about it, but in World War II, I was in the service for more than four years. I never heard a shot fired in anchor. I was tagged limited service because of my vision and I wound up flying a desk for the Air Force and brought every desk in at five o'clock for a safe landing. You got them all down. But at the same time though, our post happened to be directly under Air Force intelligence. We weren't under any intermediate command. And we trained and sent out the combat camera crews with all the bomber groups. So as Adjutant of that post, there were a number of occasions when I had to phone parents and tell them that they weren't wives, that they may have been killed in some of these engagements and all. And at the same time we got all the intelligence reports that came over my desk as Adjutant. And I used to stick them under the blotter so that at the end of the day I could really go through them. And they contained not just routine intelligence things, they contained stories of things that were going on, unusual incidents, heroic things that had taken place. And you just, even without seeing it, well, the other thing I should add, dramatized it was, we also got from all the branches of the service their film. And we put together a top secret report for the general staff in Washington. And you had it from all over. And it spared you nothing. It was combat film. You saw all that was, and you just, you came out with one feeling and one only. This must never happen again. Are there any particular presidents or others that you admire in that role of peacemaker from history, from either your life as you observed it or read about it? Well, I've tried to think that I really can't, I know that some sincerely have tried, but in a wrong way, such as Woodrow Wilson's watchful waiting policy, the election slogan for the second campaign was he kept us out of war. But it was a policy that took so much from enemy action, our own ships being sunk and so forth, finally the Lusitania, that we realized that maybe we got in that war because that policy was one that made the enemy think they could do anything and we wouldn't fight. And then finally, you're pushed beyond that certain point. I think that Ike brought about the armistice in Korea, and he did it with a quiet little leak that we might consider a change in weaponry, meaning we might lose that thing we had lost once before. And that almost overnight, we went to an armistice table. Well, you came in, of course, with the gunslinger image, you know. I don't know whether it was from your Hollywood background or your political philosophy, but a lot of people, I guess, still do suggest that that makes peace very difficult. Here the thing is, I think really that came about just out of political talk because I had criticized the SALT II Treaty and the Lord, the Democrat Senate, refused to ratify it, so I wasn't alone out there. But I also, over and over again, said that my criticism of many of the agreements before had been that they simply limited the rate of increase in the weapons, and that I wanted and would sit at a table as long as it took to get a decrease, that the only arms program shouldn't be arms controlled, it should be arms reduction. Now, I said that over and over in the campaign, but I also said that the way to get there was to refurbish our military, that we had unilaterally disarmed so over the years that there wasn't any reason for the Soviet Union to give in. When we would cancel a whole weapon system that had formally been approved, the B-1, for example, what did the Russians think? Why should they go to a table and give up something? Now, I've often said if that particular weapon was not useful and that there was some reason for not having it, well then why don't you go to the negotiating table and see what the other side will give up for? Why did they sit and come back to Geneva in your judgment, principle reasons? I think because we are showing a determination to maintain a national defense policy, they hadn't seen that before, and I think they knew that we were looking at them realistically and then I think the crowning thing was, are going forward with research to see if there was a defensive weapon. Once again, what you've been emphasizing all through this talk, the strength, the idea that the only alternative is to sit down and talk about it. And it's got to, if we're going to have any, and we have to live in the world together, for me it goes that way, you were sitting, and I told him that we didn't like each other's system, we didn't like theirs, and they don't like ours, and we're not going to change each other. Paul Knitz has said the other day, he wrote, he said, they have a different idea of peace than we do. Their idea, he said Americans don't understand their idea of peace. Their idea is that you don't have war, but you contend on every other frontier you can for advantage over the other. Yes. And I think this great buildup of theirs, particularly in the nuclear weapons, is because they don't want war any more than we do. They want to win without war. In other words, win by being able to say to the other fellow, do you want to give up or die? And the only practical way to negotiate is to show them that it is as much to their advantage as it is to ours to get along at peace. Some people have described peace as the absence of war. Under that definition, we've got it. You want more than that, I take. Well, yes, because I want to see the absence of a threat of war, and I don't want to see us. When you sit here with as many nuclear weapons as both sides have, and they have more than we do, I heard one of your shows the other night where some of your compatriots on the show were talking about us, and we've got enough to kill them over and over again, and so forth. You're getting to... I always wait for the camera to go to you, because you're the only one that seems to indicate that maybe there are things they don't know. Yeah, well, they can't add. Those are the fellows I told you about. But the risk is so great of something not planned, let's say, directly between the two, but you suddenly find yourself in a confrontation. And then you say, you know, how easy it would be for someone to take that step and use nuclear weapons. And I think that's the end of the world as we know it, if they do. Well, should we have a generation growing up that from childhood on has got to face this and say, we live in this kind of a world that in 20 minutes somebody could be wiping us out? And I think the answer to it is rather than a defense of mutual or assured destruction that we get rid of them. That bothers you a lot, doesn't it? That idea that it's founded on this notion that you will kill each other. There's something so immoral about it that, think, if you're sitting at that desk and the word comes that the other side, that they're on their way and you sit here knowing that there is no way at present of stopping them. So they're going to blow up how much of this country we can only guess at and that your only response can be to push the button before they get here so that even though you're all going to die, they're going to die too. What's the most heartening thing that happened in your first four years, four peace, do you think? There have been a lot of things, but I think the really one is to see the return of America to what it once was, people that are optimistic, people that believe in the country again, that are proud of it. During the campaign, I've never seen so many flags before. I've been in several campaigns state level and otherwise before this, and the flag companies say that they've never sold so many flags as they have, and it really came to a point, a critical point for me in the appearances out there on campus is to see the young people. When I was governor, if I went to a campus, I'd already been burned in effigy and then they'd try to do it for real. But that sense of nation and patriotism underlies peace again. And the morale, the esprit de corps of the services. Remember four years ago people were saying that the volunteer military was a failure, that we'd have to go back to the draft and force them in. Well, I never wanted that, never believed in them for peacetime. And here we have a volunteer military and the, as I say, the morale of the patriotism, the dedication of these young men and women that are in service is just so thrilling. Do you get any special signals from Moscow? I know you write now and then to whomever is over there in charge. And I just wondered if there is, besides what we saw from Mr. Schultz over in Geneva, if there's anything other that indicates some more hope here. Well, it culminated in the Geneva meeting, the fact when Gromyk was here, the fact that first of all that he accepted the invitation and came, it was not a meeting of storm and him shouting any implications at us. And I was convinced that that we had made, we'd made some headway when he was here. And yes, then when Chernenko went public with a statement that he would like to see the elimination of nuclear weapons, I think all of these were signals and the very fact that the meeting was held. But nothing private, special, nothing. Well, their letters exchanged, yes. I always feel constrained about discussing them because I feel that they might... Gentlemen, don't read other gentlemen. We don't do that. Is there a chance of a summit meeting with again whoever is in charge over there? I don't know. Again, I just have to say that if there's always been a chance, as far as I'm concerned, except I don't think there'd be any point in just having a get acquainted meeting. I think that you've got to really have something where some progress can be made and an agenda that's been very carefully planned. And I think they feel that same way too. They have remarked about publicly that there must be a practical agenda for such a meeting. You know, you said some harsh things a while back about the Soviets, and they said even more harsh things about you. It doesn't bother you to talk with them now. You accept that as part of the game? I think all of those served a purpose. I think that I had a very definite feeling when I came here that they had to understand that we were seeing them realistically. Too many times in the past, we've dealt with them on a mirror image basis that, well, gee, they're just like us. And if they see that we're nice, why they'll be nice too. And I thought it was time that I believe until they prove otherwise that they do have expansionist ideas. So you're still an enthusiast about your original idea. You haven't changed that through strength and wise use of it comes the greatest chance for peace. And yes, the one thing that I say that if they recognize that it is it has to be a good deal for them to they have to look and see that they would be better off than they would trying to engage in an endless arm race with us. Would you like to go to the Soviet Union and just see the people there? Have you been? No, I've never been there and looking out the window at all this snow. I think you're right now. I'd rather pick a better place. I for the moment. I mean, it's like the Bahamas. Yeah, I see. You know, the line you've always talked about, you'd like to talk to their people and let them see what I think that, you know, that's always been a good thought. Yes, I've often thought if we, you know, I don't think that the people of either country would ever start a war. Governments start wars. And I've often thought, I know when I'm in the helicopter here and going over many of our cities and like in the campaign and you're looking down and you know, being an American, you're looking down at the homes of the rank and foul working people of America. And you see that car and trailer with a boat on it and the driveway of a car house and another one's got a swimming pool in the backyard and so forth. And I have a fantasy of if you could only have the helicopter filled with some of those people in the bullet bureau and then say, look, there's no pre-planned route, you tell us where you want to go and what you want to look at and then tell them those are, those are where our working people live. None of those concrete rabbit hutches that they have over there. We were flying out of Illinois probably to make a speech during the campaign in the helicopter and there were those fields below us in the farmhouses and it was the most golden and green every color you could imagine of the grain growing and so forth. That's our farming. That's, those are an all individually owned, that isn't a state farm down there. He said, I wish I could choke on this. Some scientists, you know, who form groups and others who talk about nuclear weapons and have written papers on the threat claim that contrary to what you suggest that we are closer to World War Three and that you've upset the progress that had been made before. How do you answer those people? Well, I answer them to look at the record now. Yes, they are still in Afghanistan, but they haven't started any new operations any place. They haven't taken over any new territories and they're back wanting to talk. And I, we must have been doing something right. To have these exchanges. I just saw our ambassador off to Stockholm, who's for the continuation there with the Eastern Bloc and the others. The whole thing about peace in Europe, that they're still negotiating and talking and all of the Eastern Bloc nations are represented there too. And the talks are still going on and they're contributing just as the Western nations are. I just know I have to think that that we've, that what we've done, remember that they, after World War Two, they have to have a pretty healthy respect for our technology and our industrial might. And up until now, they've seen that they could just sit, as I said earlier, and we didn't do anything about matching their, their build-up. But I think it's all summed up in a cartoon the other day, some time ago with our build-up, military build-up now. And that was the cartoon of the two Russian generals talking and the one of them said, I liked it better when we were the only one in the arms race. Now, with that respect, there must come a pause when they say to themselves, if this is what it's going to be and if we're going to continue on our side over here, is there going to be a point where they fall behind? They've been behind once when we were the only ones that had the weapon. They didn't like it. Why are they so upset about your idea in Star Wars? Does that relate to that, our technology? Yes, I think it does. But in the other hand, all we're doing is research. And if they really mean it about wanting to eliminate the threat of these weapons, if we, if research can bring us the idea of a weapon that makes these others obsolete, then it's good for them and good for us. And no way, if we come up with that and find that it can be done, there's no way that I would say that we should sit here with our missiles and that weapon and then have them able to suspect that we might be planning a first strike because we have a defensive weapon. I would say that once you've got the knowledge of the weapon, that's when you go public and sit down with them and say, now, you know, what are we going to do? I wish that they'd go forward with the same thing themselves. Because if both of us knew that we'd stop the other fellow's missiles, we wouldn't have to have them anymore. You remember that back a few months ago when somebody said, because of you, discussion of Armageddon with one of your pastors in the way back there that you wouldn't have your heart in this business. But I never did see whether you answered that. Well, the thing is, I have a couple of times and this had to have come from somebody talking out of school, not seriously, but talking sometimes, I've pointed out that some years ago I got interested in this from something that was told me by a well-known clergyman. Well, I, you know, I haven't raised going to Sunday school, I know about the prophecies of Armageddon and it does take place in the Middle East and so forth. But this clergyman had met with Adenauer and was surprised to learn that Adenauer, one of his kind of hobbies, was theology. He was a very well-informed theologian and he brought the subject up to this clergyman, American clergyman, about the prophecies of the Old Testament seeming to come becoming together in this particular era. I'm going back to his time and sometimes something will happen, but it's been as casual as this. Somebody bring up the unusual weather that hasn't happened for a hundred years or something of this kind and knowing the old prophecies, I would say, well, you know that was one of the prophecies, that there would be great natural disasters in the world and storms and so forth. And whoever got this idea out that I was guided by Armageddon, no. Just one of those discussions that people go through. It doesn't enter into your concerns. I guess you're sickly if we got to go. Do you anticipate, Mr. President, you've got to spend more time on this peace issue? Is that going to consume more of your working hours in this next term? Well, you know, there's an awful lot of time already that's been spent. Things of this kind, that's a very large part of this job. But does that become more special than it was? Oh, well I think there will be far more concentration now because you will be, once the negotiations actually start, you will be in constant communication about what's being said and decisions will have to be made about what is a fair trade or not. I just, my one principle about them is that we will not send negotiators over there and say, you know, at whatever price get an agreement. No, it's got to be a good agreement that's beneficial to both sides and to the cause of peace. They'll know that if that's impossible they'll walk away before they sign a bad agreement. What are your chances of being remembered as a peacemaker these next four years? Well, I have to hope that they'd be pretty good because the alternative is so terrible to think of. Great, good. Mr. President, that's terrific. That's wonderful, I appreciate it and gets you off to a good start here with the inaugural. Are you all set for that? Yeah, but I'm, George and I were both wishing that maybe