 Then if anything happens, we can provide a transcript or a tape. All right. No, but I mean, if anything should happen to your machines. That's what these are on here for. We'll put these on the table. So you've had quite a busy day around here today. A little bit. All right. Got a little surprise for us this morning. This morning with the... Oh. Oh gee, I don't know why. That's just routine. Tuesday morning. Can we ask you if our time is limited, if you can tell us anything about what's been going on in Geneva, because that's what I think everyone is the most interested in. Well, let me just say there isn't too much I can tell you right at the moment, but I have just finished talking to George Schultz. The meetings are concluded. And in 45 minutes, in our time, George will be addressing the press over there and making a statement to the press and probably taking some of their questions. And then he will be home. Some of the others are going to stop by other heads of state like Bud McFarland is going to go to Siemens Thatcher and I think also in France and Italy and brief others of our allies on what took place. And George will be here to brief me tomorrow afternoon and then I'll know more when they start asking questions at the press conference tomorrow night. Are you pleased with what's happened? I mean, has it met what you expected? It sounds very good. I don't want to go any further than calling attention to what George is going to say, but I think we're going to see meetings that will be arranged shortly, meetings to negotiate the nuclear weapons and space and all. But this really meets what you had hoped... Have we gotten from this what we had hoped to get? Yes, this is all this meeting was supposed to do is to establish procedures for negotiations. I'm afraid some of the people overlooked that and I'd flinch a little when I would see references and particularly in the air as if this was supposed to be the arms negotiation. No, this was to set up the procedures. But there was always a question whether it would in fact set up the procedures. That's right, yes. And what you're saying the announcement will tell us that it in fact has. I think that's what George will be telling people in the 45 minutes. Okay, let's... I guess we'll switch to domestic issues. The Senate Republicans are planning to put out a budget several days before you put out your budget and there have been information from White House officials in recent days that they don't think you'll be able to reach the targets that have been established about a month or so ago for deficit reduction. Do you think that this process is moving away from the White House? Do you think that some danger you may be dealt out of this process? No, not at all. As a matter of fact I'm perfectly willing to have the Senate do that. I think that in working together they may have some ideas we didn't have but know what our goal is and what we hope to present to the Congress in our budget proposal is one in which the overall spending will be no greater in 86 than it was in 85. Now that means that because some things are inflexible such as the interest on the debt that there will be some particular parts of government that will be getting less money. There may be some that we think ought to be eliminated and so it won't be in a freeze in the sense of freezing every item of spending in the budget at its previous level. Some will be increased, some will be decreased, some will be eliminated. But the total we're aiming at will be no increase in overall spending. Many people on the Hill and many Republicans as well as Democrats are saying this are saying that because of your feeling that defense spending has to grow as opposed to the rate intended and because of what you've said about social security and other things like that that it's impossible to reach even that goal. No, let me take two items. Defense to begin with. For 1986 the Defense Department itself has come in with a bigger cut than had been asked in the original plan that came over from OMB. The difficulty there however is in the out years. And I think that defense has a legitimate argument about not setting figures. Now you know we're required anymore by Congress and I have to tell you having been eight years in the budgeting process in California I do not look with great favor upon this idea that you're supposed to project for the next five years what your budgets are going to be. And with defense their argument is that no one with regard to defense spending can tell you what the necessities are going to be down the road or in years ahead. What if a potential adversary does something in the coming year that forces your hand to have to meet in some way with an additional defense capability or whatever. So defense has done it for this year and then has expressed the inability they have to project some figures but those figures are meaningless for the out years but they've done that. Now as for social security here again I'd like to point out with regard to social security that while social security is included in the unified budget and that again by an edict of Congress social security is totally funded by a payroll tax and that payroll tax cannot be used for any other part of government. In other words if you somehow reduced social security actually social security is running a surplus over and above its present income but that surplus goes into their trust fund it cannot be used to fund some other department of government. There's been some indication some an administration official who's met with a group of reporters yesterday indicated that you might be willing to accept some kind of freeze on cost of living adjustments for social security recipients if Congress gets together on the idea. No I think whoever that individual was was referring to was someplace here in our own meetings and there have been hours of them on the budget thing my own remark on one occasion that obviously if Congress was because there were stories that Congress was targeting and said something should be done about that that if Congress in mass came down on the side of say reducing or holding off on the COLA the cost of living increase what would I be able to do about that? Now a veto is only possible if there's a chance that your veto be upheld and I never remark about possible vetoes until whatever legislation we're talking about comes down to my desk and I see it but that was the only remark but again as I say you can't blame any of the deficit on social security Are you saying that they would have to be able to pass it over your veto in order for that to happen? Or that Well I'm saying I'm waiting to see what is Congress's attitude about that But you might be willing to change your previous position on that if it looked like an overwhelming number of congressmen really felt this was necessary No I feel committed to what I said about social security before that this attempt during the campaign as they did in 1982 to charge that I had secret plans for reducing social security I had no such plans I have no such plans and I see no reason to target social security when it plays no part in the deficit So that in fact that you're basically not encouraging this idea very much Some of the conservatives in town have been watching what's been going on with your administration especially since the election and they see Bill Clark is going to go back to California and they see that Ed Meese is going to go to the Justice Department and from their initial comments they're not going to be any much more happy with Don Regan than they are with Jim Baker and they're afraid that they're not going to be any true believers in this White House in the second term Should they be concerned? No I don't think so because the true believer in the White House is sitting here in the Oval Office and no one has been whittling at me or trying to change my philosophy since I've been here but now the case for example of a Meese going over to Justice well he's been a counselor to me and we've been together for great many years as you well know well being my attorney general does not remove him from my being able to seek his counsel whenever I feel like doing so as for Don Regan coming over here I don't know how anyone can complain about him ideologically or philosophically he has been as loyal to everything that I've wanted to do as anyone that I could name So you think this is not something they should worry so much about? No and sometimes I wonder if some of those very vocal conservatives are really conservatives in conservative's eyes they're not in mine One of the people they would like to see you find a place for is Mrs. Kirkpatrick I want to find a place for Mrs. Kirkpatrick Have you found one yet? We'll be talking again after the inaugural I can quite understand she's been longer in her post at U.N. than anyone who ever held that job and it is a job in which you can find yourself saying enough already but I am hoping that I can find that I can keep her in the administration With all these changes how do you think this how do you feel about this I'm going to enter your second term with a rather changed cast of characters around here and a lot of people you've dealt with for a long time really like Ed and Mike are not going to be here Well it's going to be here as I say he's within reach he'll still be a member of the cabinet he'll just be sitting in a different chair and Mike I can understand he's wanting to leave now for the private sector but this isn't as many changes as some administrations have had It's been remarkably stable up till now Yes and I have been gratified by that because everyone that I asked to serve I told them as I told the public that I recognize that many of them most of them would be coming at a great personal sacrifice and I could not expect them to contract in for the run of the show and so they've all known that when the time came that they felt they had to return to their own lives I would understand and I'd try to replace them with someone equally qualified and I'm just gratified that we have so many still here and some of the moves are just as I say changing slots but still here in government this latest change is this correct that you didn't know what was going on till they came to you yesterday? They weren't ready to come to me until yesterday all I know is that originally it was Don Regan's idea and he'd talked to Jim Jim has always let me know he has always wanted if something opened up to a cabinet post and he's been a long stretch for four years here in that job you encouraged Secretary with this idea? No as a matter of fact it was Don's idea and Don himself felt that he'd had enough of what he was doing that he wanted a change so I was Were you easily convinced? Were you easily convinced? Don came and we had a talk about it and then I had to talk with Jim I wanted to make sure that this was something that both of them were very happy about wanted to do and frankly I thought it was a great idea it sure beat having them decide to go back to private life Now that you have Mr. Regan over here you're going to have his tax plan over here too you're going to... No that will be Jim's to sell up on the hill but I'm quite sure that Don will be most helpful on that Are you going to endorse it basically in your state of the union speech? I'm going to speak of the need for simplifying taxes I'm not going to get into that great details as I will in the subsequent state of the union address but the tax program and incidentally some of your colleagues in the press and particularly columnists have been sniping that I'm dangling in the wind here and all the momentum has stopped because we haven't been doing anything with that that's not true we realized all of us agreed that the first priority had to be the budget and we've been spending hours and hours we've had no time to go on something else when that's done then we go with the tax program and that's one that just like the budget we're going to have to look at everything that has been recommended treat some of them I'm sure as options and then decide what form we want to take it I think it's been one of the best tax studies that's ever been made But you're not ready to endorse a lot of the specifics yet Well we haven't had time to do as we've done with the budget to sit down with it and say all right point by point let's go through it I haven't even done that I have a copy of the plan on my desk and while I've read a summary I haven't been able to do that because my mind is too filled with the budget Could you tell us the level of your confidence that you can enact a plan along the lines you described and meet the deficit reduction targets that you've set? Yes I think we can and the goal is one thing that I will be saying publicly is that there's never been any thought in the part of any of us that after 50 years of built in structural deficit spending with only a few exceptional years when it didn't take place there's no way that you can gear segments of the society to government doing many of these things and then just pull the rug out from them all at once and say we're going to balance the budget in one year it just couldn't be done it's only fair to do as we will with some programs and say to the people look this program is going to either disappear down here or be reduced down sizably before in the years ahead to give people a chance to adjust to this so yes we have hit upon a plan of putting us on a declining path as far as the deficits are concerned to the point that we will be able to project a date certain at which the budget will be balanced and then I would hope and before then I would hope that we would make it constitutionally impossible for the government to run another deficit I was going to ask given the fairly widespread view perception that you don't think too highly of the media however one defines it I wonder if you would tell us what you think of not the media but newspapers and television specifically and what the faults are and what the I've never had any complaints about the paper you represent no I think that inside the belt line here in Washington is a kind of a company town and the great search for leaks and the premature billing of something as a fact when many times it isn't a fact this can become a problem it can become a problem for example on the international scene to take a leak some information from someone who won't let their name be used and take this as valid enough to print on the front page of a paper and then leave us with having to mend fences with some friendly government that is offended by this misinformation and there have been cases of that kind I guess all that all that I would like to say is that I wish that the the media that does so much of that to the media I wish that they would have an ethic in which they would check that out with us to see whether it in some way might be harmful to our national security and take our word for it if we said that it would be we'd be willing to explain why it would be then we might we might not have so many incidents that do cause us problems and set back sometimes programs that have been going forward Miss Redd, is it true that as you have some interest in astrology someone told me that recently no no I'll tell you we had a we knew personally Nancy and I the gentlemen out in California that did this for the Los Angeles Times and so knowing him and all it used to be fun in the morning and it was easy for me cause I always read the comics and they put it on the same page as the comics that I would take delight in telling Nancy what her day was going to be and what mine was supposed to be and so forth you know what the signs are for your inauguration uh no nope I haven't I haven't done things like that I looked it up it looked pretty good you're an aquarium I'm an aquarium yes and of course I do believe that part of astrology since I found out that there are more aquariums in the uh recorded up there in New York some place in the well known citizens uh list of uh hall of fame so I said well that must be true then alright we appreciate the time thank you very much you bet