 tradition that every president leaves a message or a little gift of some kind in the desk here in the Oval Office. And I wondered if you'd given any thought to what you might leave behind for George Bush. A gift in the Oval Office? Or a note or something. Oh, I had thought maybe that I'd leave a little note in the desk to our foreman. And what might it say? I hadn't completely worked that out. Just ideas going through my mind and I'll have to wait and see when I write down. I wanted to ask you about one of the problems that you've thought a lot about over the last eight years in the problem of hostages. You'll probably be in a position of leaving offices leaving office with nine Americans still being held hostage in Lebanon. How much does that bother you and do you wish in retrospect you might have pursued a slightly different strategy, maybe a more high profile strategy for getting them released? I don't know what more we could have done. No, we didn't. In fact, we kept very quiet about it because we thought there was a better chance with all the various things that we explored in trying. Yes, it prays very heavily on me and has from the time that they were taken hostage. I think it's one of the cruelest, most cowardly, barbaric things that any group of people can do. And to those who have taken them, I feel that way. I hope and pray if it can't be us that it can soon be the next administration that will see them come home. Did you wish though that maybe you had made it a more high profile issue? No, it's a very touchy and ticklish thing. It's a case of if you try to explore the idea of rescue, you don't know where and you don't know what you could cause the execution of them by attempting any such thing. Mr. President, I wonder if you could reveal your private thoughts on one subject now that you're just a few days from leaving. If the Constitution hadn't prohibited it, would you have run for a third term or have you had enough? I haven't really thought about that because from the very first you knew that it was impossible, so it didn't enter my mind. And I can't put myself in that position now, but I can tell you what I feel about that amendment. Now that no one could accuse me of thinking this for myself or my own benefit, I feel that that never mind the individual who was holding the presidency at the time. That is an infringement on the democratic rights of the American people. This is the only office that is chosen by all the people. And I think they have a right to vote for whoever they want to vote for and for as long. You have people 30 and 40 years sitting up in the legislature. What is so different that says to the people how, no, you can't do that for this office? Mr. President, I know just to follow that up briefly if I could, it was Roosevelt of course who broke the pattern of the two term limit. Have you consciously in many ways emulated or copied his presidency? I mean you've sometimes been compared with him in terms of optimism and that sort of thing. Have you patterned yourself after him in any way? No. Over the years and long before I ever thought of public life, but when I was out there on, as I've called it, the mashed potato circuit and speaking on the things that I believed in, I came here with a pretty set program in my mind of what government should be and what it was intended to be by the founding fathers and where it had violated those precepts and my determination to change it. Now on the other hand, having voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt four times because I was a Democrat, my first voted age 21 was cast for him. There is a similarity. There's been some great changes not in people but in parties. Franklin Roosevelt, when I voted for him, had a platform of reducing federal spending by 25 percent, returning to states and local governments and to the people authority and autonomy that had been unjustly seized by the federal government and the elimination of useless boards and commissions. Well now which side today is at home with that type of program? Ours, not the party that he was representing at that time. And I've called attention to that a few times. Mr. President, when you and I were growing up, the situation in America concerning immigrants was quite different. We had a different kind of immigrant coming into this country. Now we have an explosion of immigrants from countries like Mexico. We have immigrants from Central America and they bring a different set of problems. They fit into the American society differently. I'd like for you to talk about your view of America with these new immigrants and their role in shaping America into the future. Well, I think what maybe you've brought up is a subject that immigrants, to me I've always believed that the Lord put this great continent here for those people wherever they may be in the world who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave family and friends and come to this country to start a new life. And I still believe that this country should offer that. But what has caused this kind of new immigrant, as you call them, are their refugees in the search for democracy that's going on in the world and the development. These are people that are fleeing from threats to their lives, to their freedom and so forth, in these various other countries. And I know that this can bring about a problem in which you can say can't any one country. We've always offered a refuge. We've always had and set quotas of refugees that we were willing to take. But do we come to a point in which we just plain can't handle them? Which doesn't that then say that what we should be doing is even more in trying to replace totalitarianism and persecution with democracy in these other countries to where they won't have to be refugees? What steps as you leave office do you recommend to your successor in either making sure they don't leave some of those countries or inhaling them in places like Miami now in the event they do reach this country? Well again as I say we must we must do everything we can to offer humane treatment to these people who are legitimate refugees from persecution. And yet at the same time as I say I think that we must step up our efforts to reduce the need that the refugees have by in those countries to do everything we can to continue the spread of democracy. It was a good for them to be here in this country. Do you welcome them with open arms? Should they be here? Are they doing good things for America? Well I think not only should we welcome them but I think there is an area where we should also collaborate with our allies and other democracies to make sure that everybody is doing their bit in this that maybe we're going to have to redirect refugees to other countries that are also willing willing to take them. Which countries? Well as I say all the democracies should recognize a responsibility in this but the real responsibility is to eliminate the things that make them. For example I have talked to the leader of one country where persecution is based on on a religious factor and the and yet there is a reluctance to let them go of all manner of things that they can't afford the loss of the manpower or anything of this kind and I once said well isn't the real answer to your problem then not the keeping by force of people are trying to go but to allow those people the religious freedom in which they won't need to be refugees they won't be seeking exit from your country I didn't get an answer but which country which leader well since I may be still asking that question no I won't name the country in the leader. Mr. President I have two questions about Central America. What can the Bush administration do and what should it do to redeem your pledge to keep the countries alive as a fighting force against Marxism and aren't they doomed now to live in an exile as sort of on American care packages. Well we've haven't changed our mind about the need to help those people and I'm quite sure that I can't speak for the vice president but I know that he's been a part of all these things that we've been doing here but again we come down to the problem of the division here in our own government of a Congress that refuses to acknowledge that need for those freedom fighters and thus in a way is on the side of of the Sandinistas in Central America and who are who have a totalitarian state and I've never been able to understand it there's no question but that the Sandinistas have mounted over several years a very potent disinformation program for example one day they arrived on my desk a slick paper magazine a beautifully produced magazine produced in Berkeley, California and it was a program it was a magazine of straight propaganda by the Sandinistas and when you came in there to that card that is in every magazine about how you can subscribe the card in that magazine said to whichever reader was reading it said here are the instructions as to how you can get this magazine in the hands of your congressman or senator and urging them to subscribe for congressmen and senators but there's division right now up there in the hill not only just on the contrast but within the other party which has whose leadership has opposed us on this contra aid from the very beginning there are members of that party people in the Congress who have journeyed down in Nicaragua to see for themselves and who have avoided the Potemkin village policy of the Sandinistas and have come back having seen for themselves the persecution of the people and so that they are immune to this well let me give you an example just personal experience I read a story in the press about a bishop in this country who had gone down there and who in his story told them about he had led a group of refugees up across the Honduran border who were fleeing the Nicaraguan government and the story said that on the way they were attacked by the Contras and rescued by the Sandinistas well I made it a point of tracking down by phone where he had returned to this country that's how the story came out to track him down in the phone and told him I'd read the story and what he had said about this attack and evidently he hadn't read the story because he said to me no that's just the opposite we were attacked by the Sandinistas and rescued by the Contras the second question was should the United States abide by the treaty with Panama that requires us to turn the canal over to them in ten years time if as long as general Noriega remains in power well I know that that is a subject that I think we should be treating with and of course it's too late for me now to be treating with it but I think it is something definitely to look at because our attempts to to oust him I think we're in line with the thinking of a great many people in Panama and there's no question about his totalitarianism and also I don't think there's any way to escape the fact that he's a part of the the drug fraternity so it's going to be I'm let me just say that based on whatever the situation is I think that's something that should be taken into consideration by whoever is in charge at that time president you said in a recent television interview that there have been times in this office when I've wondered how you could do the job if you hadn't been an actor I I'd like if you could to explain what you meant by that and just and if you could give us an example of of a time or two where where being an actor was especially beneficial to you as president well what I had in mind when I said that is not that you learn something in the acting profession that could be helpful to sitting at that desk what I was what I really meant was there's a kind of a comparison back in the golden days of Hollywood when there were the major studios and the stars were under contracted studios and salaries and so forth the publicity about Hollywood was such that there was a kind of looking down as if we were not quite good citizens and so forth and there was public portrayals and so forth were quite critical that was one thing that's similar to what happens here and the second thing was and incidentally that was wasn't deserved because back in that era this is part of what I started making speeches about when I was president of the screen actors guild divorce that we were supposed to be just people out there that were marrying and divorcing in a whole scale manner you know that the divorce rate for Hollywood was lower than the national average but there were a few people who were guilty of this multiple marriage concept and the portrayal then and the public acceptance and even the media treatment didn't look up the fact but just gave that general impression and then there was the other thing the in that day of so many fan magazines more than there are today and of the press major press having movie reviewers to review pictures we put up with an awful lot of critical reviews that I think were unjustified I was in a picture that I think is the best picture I've ever been in than many times has been listed as one of the 10 best movies and that movie was King's Row out of the 53 movies I did that one probably received the worst treatment from the movie critics of any picture that I was ever in they just I can remember one term that was used that it was a picture about people you wouldn't want to know and things of that kind so this is what I meant that it didn't come as a shock to me to read columns or editorials or hear criticisms of and this same kind of thing I'd lived with that for more than a quarter of a century in Hollywood. If I could follow up I remember when you first ran for governor of California the the you had to answer a lot of questions about whether you were just an actor who had memorized your lines or whether you could you could you could handle the job of being governor of California do you think that this is kind of a two-part question do you think you were underestimated because you were an actor and do and is there some way in which being an actor really did beyond this business that you you were you had had been criticized and you knew what that was like was there some way that it helped you in in your work in your in your in campaigning or in in or in any way well it's what made me think of that thing that I've just been discussing about saying once in the job looking back and saying could I have done it if I hadn't already been subjected to this and was able to tolerate and live with it the as I say I don't think I know I'd be taking up your time here with something but many years ago something happened an actor did something and the media it was out of line and the media jumped on it but not only on the individual the attack was widespread that on all the people of that profession and said that the entertainers the performers that were they were childish in their ways complete children in their attitudes and doing childish things as a result of this one misdeed by somebody and it remained for one journalist Irving S. Cobb to write a column rebuking his colleagues on this and I thought he did it rather well he said about this being childish he sent children he said if this be true and if it also be true that when we approach the final curtain that all men must bear in their arms that which they have given in life the people of show business will march in the procession carrying in their arms the pure pearl of tears the gold of laughter and the diamonds of stardust they spread on what might otherwise have been a rather dreary world and when they reach the final stage door the keeper will say open let my children in I kind of like Cobb for that Mr. President in the eight years you've been president there's been a remarkable change in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union much of which some people say is attributable to you and being tough in the beginning and then being willing to meet with Mr. Gorbachev can you retrospectively look back and see from your personal standpoint what it is you think inside you that changed or what changed in Mr. Gorbachev and what advice would you give Mr. Bush in terms of his future dealing with the Soviet Union and secondly looking at some of the criticism you've still received for having brought us to this point say from George Will who's a conservative or Bill Sapphire who say just recently that you will not go into the the halls of the great presidents chiefly because you embrace Mr. Gorbachev too quickly have I embraced him too quickly what harm has been done he's reduced his forces we have the first treaty that the Soviets have ever signed in which they agreed to destroy weapons they already had no I came here with a belief that some of the previous efforts to meet with the Soviets who had we must recall the previous Soviet leaders had an expansionist philosophy every one until the present one had at some time or other reiterated before the great Soviet Congress and so forth that their duty must be a one-world communist state that this must be the goal to not just be communist where they were but to spread it throughout the world and in many of the attempts in the so-called detente and so forth of previous efforts I thought it was the wrong track and I believed and I thought that I was something of a student of this because in Hollywood we faced our own international crisis right after World War two when a number of our unions had actually been invaded and taken over by communists and there was a great effort by virtue of a jurisdictional strike to gain economic control of the picture business for propaganda purposes and that was at a time when 75 percent of the playing time of all the theaters of the world was taken up by Hollywood made motion pictures and having had that experience and studied enough to know that I was speaking fact when I said that the Soviet Union that the leaders had openly expressed to their people the right to lie and cheat and steal if it proved if it furthered socialism and I came with a belief that peace could only come about through strength you still have total faith in SDI the Star Wars as a as a practical and achievable method before you go to that could you go on and whether let me finish with this and I will let me just just say that I came here with that belief now under the previous administration our allies had asked for help because they became aware that the Soviets had targeted all the major cities of Europe with the intermediate range nuclear weapon and they asked for help from this country well time ran out on the previous administration although and it fell to us and we evolved the plan of putting in the Pershings and the cruise missiles in other words intermediate range weapons on our side as a deterrent to them using theirs against Europe and in the negotiations that had been going on in the talks between our two countries the Soviets oh they were wild in their objections about us putting those weapons into Europe and this was when I proposed then we'll all write 0 0 you take yours away and we'll take ours away and we won't put any more in we won't complete what we're we've started and they walked out of the meetings in protest this was in Geneva they just walked out and we proceeded to put in the the Pershings and the and the cruise missiles as a deterrent and quite some time later they contacted us said they wanted to talk about this situation and they used our own term they wanted to discuss 0 0 on intermediate range weapons so you felt vindicated at that point and then you would leave office now feeling that not only was the right thing to do but you would advise Mr. Bush it was the right thing to do the there wasn't any question but that that's why they came back once they were targeted themselves with intermediate range weapons they came back and we're willing to talk and the talk resulted in a treaty in which we have eliminated those weapons but the one thing that I must say about no change in me and even though I've found Gorbachev to be apparently quite different than the three leaders who were here for before he came during my term they kept dying on me and there wasn't very much chance to talk to them although I did I had had meetings with some of them and talk but they were still addicted to that expansionist philosophy then when it turned and and they came back and in this treaty and we then opened up the Star Treaty which was on another type which is still going on another type of weapon but this was not suddenly me saying oh everything is fine that's why I used that one Russian expression that I kept using in all the negotiations with Mr. Gorbachev Dover Yae no Prova Yae which means trust but verify and this in previous attempts at treaties had always been the great problem was to get agreement on their side to allow verification of terms well does it hurt you the conservatives have criticized you for saying that you embrace Gorbachev too quickly and therefore diminishes your place in greatness and history they're wrong because I am not and even to this day I am I'm motivated by deeds not just words and the deeds have been there we have the verification to an extent that I don't think anyone had ever dreamed would have been possible we've got literally hundreds of officers the military personnel in their country in positions to to verify they have the same here now without us you expect them to have such deep to do to do something about the San Adistas or about Cuba do you do you expect this this new attitude that you see in Mr. Gorbachev to be translated into the Soviet Union taking any kind of a different position in terms of arming its countries or the countries that it's alive within this hemisphere well the on that we do the same thing some other countries where we're helping to spread democracy to but we are still negotiating we haven't everything isn't a hundred percent as yet but I must say the progress that we've made the and particularly in human rights which has been at the base of most of our our dealings with him the change there is is beyond anything they've ever done before I know he's telling me that we're out of time no I think that would look like trying to cash in on this honorable position no I don't think what oh no I'll see what's out there in the market I don't even know what but your question SDI yes we have to go forward with SDI I think that I believe in that this is I believe and I have actually heard words himself a nuclear war cannot be one and it's never before nuclear war is contrary to all the rules of warfare that we always subscribe to the World War one and so forth with regard to the safety of civilians nuclear war the target is civilian the wiping out of cities and so on and so I think my idea very very beginning when I first came at a meeting with the Joint Chiefs asked if they believe it was possible to conceive of a defensive weapon there's always been a defensive weapon for every other weapon in bed that could start eliminating these weapons if they were ever used as they came out of their silence and they asked for a few days they came back in a few days and said yes they believe that such a thing couldn't be and I said we'll start you're gonna have your work cut out for you I'm just gerrymandering when you go back on the mashed potato circuit in California gerrymandering district line Supreme Court said the California case was okay correct everybody you see it's gerrymandering yes that's gonna be part of my that I'm going to be happy because this has been going on for half a century whether the Supreme Court said yesterday hey the California redistricting was fine no problem