 I have to find the money. I have to find the money. I have to find the money. It was really a surprise. I had this one in the night before. I don't know where to get this one. Ah, that's great. Are you ready? I'm all in. The wire is up here and then it's in. The wire is up here and then it's in. Okay. The purpose is if you need a transcript or anything. And that sort of thing. And then the other one towards the end, we're doing a cover story on Ortega. And no matter how the boat goes, and sort of before I leave, I'd like to just a few of your thoughts beyond the boat, just generally about that part of the world and your feelings. Ah, but let's start out with something a little a little longer lasting. And I guess let me put it in terms of you were a you were a professor and had a class now after five years of being here. What would you tell your students about this office? About being president. Well, I suppose I'd describe it to you in what I feel about it. Some people become president. I've never thought of it that way. I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody. And it has to be treated that way. For example, presidents that have come in and drastically changed traditional things or selling the yacht or something. As long as I've got my horse, I'm happy. But I just don't I've never tried to do anything of that kind because I don't think it belongs to the individual. It belongs to the institution. And that would be one thing. The other thing I think I'd be tempted to point out to them how in recent years congresses have tended to try to curb and take away from the presidency, from that same institution some of the prerogatives that belong there, the handling of foreign policy and so forth, and placed restrictions on the office that in effect would have sometimes an attempt to have foreign policy determined by a committee of 535, namely the legislature. But other things though, I think I would also tell them that I've enjoyed the job and that some nights you go home feeling 10 feet tall. Have you had more of those than the other? Well I've had, I guess, a fair sprinkling of them. Looking back, what's been your best moment? Well actually one it's a kind of an ongoing moment the fact that all those years I was out on the mashed potato circuit and making after dinner speeches and being a luncheon speaker and all and talking about what I saw over the years this was long before I was governor as the inordinate growth of government, the adversarial relationship with the business community, the interference too much with other levels of government and with the people's rights and all those years that you looked at Washington and the government was waging a fight over that growth and there were some trying to slow it or prevent it and others insisting on more government power government moving into new areas and so forth. I think one of the things I'm happiest about is that 50 years for example of almost unbroken deficit spending with this great growth in the social reforms and so forth that that other fight over all those years is no longer the fight there's no quarrel about deficit spending, the only argument now is how to control it well for almost a half a century they were telling us the deficit spending was good of course and there was no problem with having a national debt we owed it to ourselves and they would talk about deficit spending as encouraging prosperity and so forth but today to see the total change in the debate that goes on in government and in the congress particularly is a debate now not between those two views of government but simply a debate of how to bring down spending how to curb the deficit well is this the Reagan age well I wouldn't be so bold to put my name on it but I think it represents a drastic change in the view of government of the federal government I remember back in 1932 when I cast my first vote and it was cast for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the depths of the of the depression and most people today are astounded to learn or to be reminded that Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned on a program of cut federal spending by 25 percent eliminate useless boards and commissions and agencies return authority and autonomy to the states and local government that has been unjustly seized by the federal government so you're back where you started yeah only I have to wear a different trademark now it doesn't fit the democratic label you seem to work harder than ever you told us earlier that you weren't going to be a lame duck but it looks to me like the hours get longer the issues get thicker the fights get tougher maybe because that's some other people thought it might be a lame duck I learned happily in my second term as governor that actually we accomplished more in the second term than in the first we just getting revved up in that first one and beginning to whittle away at things and then it was in the second term that we got the great welfare reform which I think was probably the most drastic reform of welfare that's ever taken place are you going to be able to do that on a national basis I'm sure trying are you going to do it right at the end we're talking tax reform now this program which is people have talked about it over the years but no one has ever brought it to the point of where we're actually trying to get it implemented we're talking a reform of welfare that has long been a dream of mine and that is that if welfare was properly run we would be boasting each year how many people we had been able to rescue from welfare not how far we'd been able to extend it to more people so it's going to be all out for the next two and a half years I wouldn't know how to coast the ranch doesn't pull you always but then I learned that a long time ago too that the job they can talk about you being on a vacation Nancy put it once correctly presidents don't get a vacation they just get a change of scene rate you've still got the job it's still with you when you're there well that's fascinating let me switch gears here and go to our part of the Central America if I may somebody has said that your doctrine is talk loudly and carry a big stick that you're doing both what is it down there about the application of American power that is so frustrating well the one cancer that has to be excised is Nicaragua but when I came into office in the beginning I had for a long time looked and worried and thought that we hadn't done what we should properly do to bring these countries of the Americas into more of a real relationship yes we've gone down there with various programs and said to Latin America let's have a good neighbor policy or this or that but it was always the big colossus of the north going down and telling them what the plan ought to be and that's why very early on I made that trip down to south and central America not to every country but to some key countries and actually you I went and when I met with the leaders down there then I said what are your ideas that in reality we all we all worship the same God virtually in this this unique hemisphere we all have the background of coming here as pioneers and roughly in around the same period of time and we should be far better friends and have a closer partnership than we've had and I think that part was there was a time when the big colossus from the north was seen as just interfering and sending the Marines and all this sort of thing so everyone can talk about what were some of the patterns down there military governments dictatorships great wealth and great poverty and nothing in between now in these several years we have seen where it was once only about a third of the countries in this hemisphere could be said to have democratic forms of government today 90% of the people in Latin America are living in democracies or a few countries that are still making their way toward that and there are only one or two places where they still haven't managed to bring about democracy and one of the most glaring is Nicaragua but what has happened there was hijacking the people of Nicaragua set out to get rid of a man who was certainly you couldn't call a totalitarian but an authoritarian government and a government that there were areas of corruption and so forth the Somoza dictatorship and they did in a revolution and actually they did a thing that was a little different than a lot of revolutions they the revolutionaries appealed to the organization of American states and asked them would you ask Somoza this was during the revolution to step down so we can end the killing and the organization of American states said what are your revolutionary goals and they told them democracy pluralistic society free trade, freedom of religion all the things that we treasure and Somoza stepped down and our government as before I was here our government immediately started to give financial aid to the revolutionaries to help them establish this government but in among the revolutionaries there was one central nucleus which was an organization that had existed before the revolution the Sandinistas a communist organization and the man himself whom they honor, Centini he said he was a communist and this was the way to go but they hijacked the revolution they ousted their other allies in the revolution and some of them very forcibly and in oppressive ways and drove some of them away and some just fled and then they established a totalitarian communist regime the same process that Castro employed in taking over Cuba and we wanted the people to make the decision in the Philippines we want the people to make the decision in Nicaragua can you work with Ortega? I mean is there any possibility the only possibility that I see we've made ten attempts to negotiate with them but when have we ever seen a communist government once installed totalitarianism voluntarily give up their power and say well okay do you want to have more democracy we haven't now the people that form the countries that began to want to take back their revolution they repeatedly have said to us yes they are willing to lay down their arms and seek a negotiation a political settlement that will get back to the goals of the revolution in letting the people make a decision and have elections the same thing that the people in El Salvador succeeded in doing it's kind of curious that the communist backed guerrillas in El Salvador that are still fighting against that democracy that the people have now voted three times for are the same and are helped by the government of neighboring Nicaragua and the so called contras are the exponents of democracy akin to the El Salvadoran government that's why Duarte right now has said he will negotiate with the guerrillas in his country if the Sandinistas will simultaneously negotiate with the contras what rules of application of American power do you go by at this time in Central America what guides you in because we still are the colossus of the north but if we can be of help this way if we can try and help those people who want freedom to bring it about themselves when Ortega shows off recently after 10 to 10 is by saying he wants to negotiate with me by what power would I be able to go in there and negotiate for the rights of the Nicaraguan people but I do feel that we have a right to help the people of Nicaragua who are demanding what we think are any people's rights the rights to determine their own government and I know one thing all of this talk that I'm nursing an ambition to send in the troops no I came into office several years ago and when I told you about those thoughts about the rest of the country with the knowledge that to send in troops would lose us every friend in Latin America their memories still are of that other way and that would be the worst thing in the world that we could do but they're not even asking that's one thing that all of them they say to us they want us to help the countries but not with troops now whenever there's been a mention of interviews with CAP or congressmen asking something about when or how would we send in troops the only thing we've ever uttered and that I've uttered is a warning revolutionary well the Sandinista group is allowed to continue to solidify their base and they themselves the documents reveal they intend to spread that revolution to other countries now with us dependent on the Caribbean sea lanes for more than 50% of all of the things that our economy must have we see that the only thing that could happen if this goes on and they continue this expansionist policy with the backing of the Soviet Union by way of Cuba there might come a day then when their hostile acts would be directly against us and the situation then when it wouldn't be going down to try and run someone else's government it would be protecting ourselves how do you judge that well this is what I see could happen if this goes on a direct threat to our sea lanes and suppose there's trouble someplace else suppose we have to go to the aid of our NATO allies half of everything that we would send would have to go through those same sea lanes we only have to look back to World War 2 with a very few submarines the Germans with their own bases 4,000 miles away did some of their worst damage in the Caribbean to our shipping there so there is a time when we could say well the threat is to us now but right now we just simply see a people that obviously want to have a democracy and there are their own people there to portray the Contras as having been the remnants of the Salma Sistas no in fact the three of the three leading political leaders now of the Contras two of them were imprisoned by Somoza you know that the average age of the Contras is 20 years the youth of Nicaragua is in the Contras and they have an esprit de corps that is just amazing to see they believe in what they're doing I see somebody is signaling me are they looking over by you I've talked too much it's fine one of the things about your record over five years now is the is the restrained use of power I don't know if there's any calculation but we've probably sent fewer troops and portions of our fleet around the world now over in this period in a similar period for quite a while this this is a deliberate calculation of course but you talk very forcibly though yes there are things as for example that first naval maneuver that crossed the line that Gaddafi calls his line it's an interference with international waters and so forth there they came to me and they said if we didn't do this we've traditionally that's been an area for maneuvers in that part of the Mediterranean and they said there will be some ships and planes that will cross that line they said we need guidance as to what do we do if we're threatened with hostile action if Gaddafi takes hostile action and I've said one thing yes we've used restraint but I've said anytime our men are fired upon we fire back and if you remember yes they came out and attacked two of our F-14s and we shot them down and I'll always stay with that but and we have some more maneuvers coming up again the same kind of maneuvers we've done before but the other thing I have to think that the hardest decision anyone in this job can ever make is asking those young men uniform out there to go into some situation where well look at the tragedy they fell us in Lebanon now why was that terrible terrorist act done to those Marines there at the airport we were part of an international group the United Kingdom the French and ourselves have gone in to try and maintain some order while the new government of Lebanon tried to get control of its own countryside and take authority away from some of the private armies that are still there the truth of the matter is we were succeeding and it was because we were succeeding I have a letter I can show you from a mother who wrote to tell me that for the first time in eight years her daughter was able to go to school like other kids to leave the house and down the street to school I have a letter from a young woman who was engaged to a young man in Lebanon and he wrote to her to tell her that if it wasn't for us and our allies being there doing what we were doing he said there's never been anything like it he said there would have been massacres by now well because this was beginning to straighten out those who wanted the trouble had to take action and that action resulted in that suicide bombing of our men at the air base back in the Caribbean though with Mr. Artega and the possibility of a commitment of American troops are you absolutely satisfied that you've exhausted every opportunity for negotiations to talk to them, to bring in outsiders the whole what we need see that's another thing that I do believe restraint yes but diplomacy is kind of behind it the strength that there are things that you can do and in this instance I don't think that they are going to agree to all the things that Contadora has been asking of them and everyone else has been asking of them they're not going to do that unless they feel the pressure of the Contras and they felt that pressure before 1984 and the Contras were doing very well but in 1984 the Congress shut off our ability to help finally we got that $27 million of humanitarian aid, band-aids and so forth and I don't underestimate them they need that too but from 1984 on they have been shrinking in size because not because they don't have volunteers they have five times as many people willing to serve as Contras as we're in the revolution against Samosa but they can't fight if they don't have the tools and we've been prevented from giving them the tools this is why we've asked for this and this is new money this is $100 million that comes out of the defense apportionment but we feel yes, we would start from the minute the Congress would give us the authority to provide these materials we would start again to negotiate believing that there now would be some added pressure on them just the knowledge that these Contras are going to have the weapons and then if by that time they still don't show any inclination well then the Contras are able to do what they've been doing they're out in the countryside I think they have the support of the people out there in the country and the Sandinistas are governing a smaller country and they're drunk and continuing to shrink populace that supports them you'd be surprised how many of the Contras are deserters from the Sandinista Army much as this is also waged in the minds of people isn't it, I'm talking about your idea that if we grant aid the perception then that we'll continue to back them and help the Contras means much in the struggle then the Contras have to look at one of two choices the possibility of an outright military defeat and being totally overthrown or a choice of having a political settlement in which while they would have to give up this monopoly they have at least they would still be in a position to run for office and seek office if they could get the people's approval Mr. Ortega said you weren't rationally the other day did you reply to him? Well, I don't find him very rationally well he's rationally in his belief and that is he is a died-in-the-wool believer in the totalitarian Marxist government which he has isn't it strange that people have noticed that the ruling body consists of nine officials isn't that exactly the size of the Politburo in the Soviet Union I think they got a hint from over there Mr. President thank you that's great I think I got two columns out of that the way I work in here you've got to use all the time you can well good luck on it here I guess the vote coming along is it there we we're hearing some some sounds about the we're going to fight right down to the wire we'll still be meeting with them but I think in those terms I don't follow the reasoning otherwise most of their most of their arguments just don't have a basis in fact now one of them some of them say well yes we will go on but we want a diplomatic settlement so they would like a waiting period before the weapons could be given and then they would like another vote but at that time if we chose size because she was over then they would approve the weapons well that is self-defeating to begin with first of all you then have got the Sandinistas and say well they don't really want to give those weapons they've got another they're going to have to vote on it again before they're going to give up and they've got an interim period in here for the Sandinistas with their gunships and their tanks and so forth to say we've got X number of days to knock them off and they would rebel the offensive action against them I'm glad you cut the problem I guess we all have but I think this is going to work out I think this is going to change the name I instinct tell me listen don't you get the feeling don't you get I think it's a one-on-one good to see you again alright ok, best of luck