 Gentlemen, the President of the United States. I think you recognize the gentleman with me, Chief of Staff, Senator Baker. Well, please, be seated. I'm grateful to have this opportunity to speak with you and to answer some of your questions. Having worked as a journalist of sorts, I was a sports broadcaster. I sympathize with what some of you must have been going through, facing a deadline yet with little information about what was going on behind closed doors. I must believe that what you reported from this summit was some of the best news the American people and our allies have heard in a long time. The INF agreement signed at this summit will bring about the first mutual reduction in Soviet and American nuclear arsenals ever, and the first step back toward a safer world has been agreed to. The word historic is frequently used in describing the INF agreement. I know that adjective is overused, but in this case I think it's appropriate. This is the most important action since World War II in reducing the arms race. Instead of trying to put a ceiling on future growth of the number of weapons, both sides are now focused on ways to mutually reduce our nuclear forces. We're in a better position to make tangible gains in arms reduction than at any time in the last 40 years. Of course, arms reduction is only one of several significant areas of discussion between the East and West. For example, I made it clear to the General Secretary that the continuing occupation of Afghanistan undermines the progress that we would like to see between our two countries. I also emphasize that there are people fighting for their freedom in many parts of the world. In Nicaragua, freedom fighters face a communist Sandinista military machine supported by the Soviet Union. Now is not the time for Congress to turn away from those who are fighting for freedom. Similarly on human rights, I explain how difficult it is for the people of the Western democracies to have trust in a government that doesn't trust its own people and denies their human rights. Also be assured that General Secretary Gorbachev is aware that forward movement in areas like arms reduction will be helped considerably by the solution of regional conflicts and more respect for human rights. A moment ago I mentioned the Western democracies. I would like to stress that in preparation for this summit, I frequently sought advice and counsel from other Western leaders. And today I've spoken on the telephone with Chancellor Cole and Prime Minister Takeshita to convey my impressions of General Secretary Gorbachev in the summit and to consult on next steps. And later today I'll be talking with Prime Minister Thatcher and communicating with other key Allied leaders. Our Allies have been most supportive and I'm gratified at the unity and responsibility demonstrated by the Alliance during the sensitive negotiations we've gone through in the summit and in the weeks and months before the summit. And now with that said, you have some questions. As we watched General Secretary Gorbachev this week go around the capital, meet with people on the street, with reporters, with business groups, we saw one perspective. From your aides and advisors, we hear another perspective as a tight bargainer as opposed to the polished salesman of himself and his country. Could you tell us please from your impression, which is the real Mikhail Gorbachev? I think they're both real. I think there's been one characteristic of the Russian people that they have a great similarity to our own people and sense of humor and warmth and so forth. As a matter of fact, I remember some years ago some scholars on subjects of this kind have pointed out that many times there is a difference between the people of countries that are large in area and the people in countries of smaller area that there's a kind of an outgoing bigness about them. So no, I think he was being perfectly natural, but yes, he's a hard bargainer. He believes very much in their system and what they're doing and well, he was born and raised in it. If I could follow up, the relationship between the two of you also seems to change. From Reykjavik, where it seems a little bit strange, to this time it seems a little more natural. Was that just a general progression of relationships that people know better, or was there a difference in bargaining? I think you're taking Reykjavik down to one final hour because, no, we found that we had quite an open relationship from the very first in Geneva and in Reykjavik, but in Reykjavik toward the end of the final session, when we thought we had made a great many breakthroughs, then for the first time an issue was raised by him that just simply halted everything that we thought we had agreed to. And if I seemed a little upset, I was. Excuse me. In your personal relationship, how has it evolved? When you sit down together, do you ever try out new ideas on each other? Do you ever snap at each other? Well, there have been times when we get kind of forceful and whether we're alone or with our teams around us, when there's a real difference and we're trying to make a point. But for the most part, no, it's as you described it. Yes, we make suggestions and bring up new subjects and so forth. I find it's an entirely different relationship than I had with his predecessors. An example, an anecdote of that relationship? Well, as many of you know, yes, I have a hobby now of collecting jokes that I can prove are being told among the citizens of the Soviet Union to each other and about their system and so forth. And every once in a while I find one of them that I think I'll tell him. And so far I've gotten a belly laugh from both of them that I told you. I'm Fred Fez from the Post Standard up in Syracuse, New York. In the past, the start talks seem to have been held hostage, if you will, by the SDI, Star Wars and ABM compliance dispute. Do you feel as a result of your summit meeting with Mr. Gorbachev that that obstacle, those obstacles have been reduced or indeed eliminated? We have made great progress in that particular area. As a matter of fact, by agreement, we will go forward with our research and development of SDI and completely with whatever is needed in that development. And then after a certain point, if and when we have succeeded in putting together this initiative, then we will deploy. Mr. President, I'll get to you next. Mr. President, he'll tell from WABCP in New York. Back to Mr. Gorbachev for a moment. I wonder if you could tell us what he said to you or about the people he met on Connecticut Avenue on the way to the White House yesterday that he was delayed? Well, by the time we got here and we had so many things yet to do in that final session that, you know, there wasn't any discussion of that. Some of the television did over here and carried what I said when he got out of the car a few hours late. I told him I thought he'd gone home. And he laughed. He didn't take any exception to what I had said. But no, but I think that's kind of, that's rather typical. Do you take any exception, sir, to the fact that he did that in your city on the way to a meeting with you? No. Wait until next summer and he sees what I do with his people. Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Impart to follow up on the SDR question, Mr. President. Have the Soviets agreed to drop their objections to the U.S. testing under the board interpretation of the ABM Treaty? And was the agreement that you reached a breakthrough? Does the formula resolve the issue or does it merely postpone it for now? No, it resolves it. The very fact that we have agreed that we are going forward with whatever is necessary in the research and development without any regard to an interpretation of ABM. On the other hand, we do have an agreement also that there will be a period of time in which both countries have agreed we will continue the ABM, although that does not affect our testing. And actually, that time, we do not believe, represents any undue delay for us because the information we have on the potential, the possibility or probability of getting SDI is going to take a certain length of time. Well, there and then the other. Well, Hustle Times, John Anderson from Hustle Times, can you categorically state now that Star Wars or SDI is no longer any impediment in the Star Talks that is completely put aside? I don't think there's any impediment there at all. Well, yes, we could have the normal impediment that we have sometimes here in our own circles. That is, if the Congress will be forthcoming on the funds that are needed to proceed as we want to proceed with it. There's no longer. The Soviets no longer will require SDI to be restricted. That was eliminated. Let's refer it. Now maybe, and then I'm going to come over to your side for a second. You said last night that some limited movement was made on the human rights issues. Can you talk a little bit more about what slight progress made and made in those areas? Well, the progress that we've made so far has led to an increase in the number of actual individuals who have been prevented from getting visas or who are incarcerated. And this is because what we've been following here is a policy of getting names and creating lists. And we have presented those lists to them as the people that we know about and that we are interested in seeing freed and seeing allowed to emigrate. And they have been forthcoming on that and that's why there's been quite an increase. At the same time, we've got a long way to go on this whole matter of total immigration. But I think, again, the discussions that we've had have, I think, improved the situation. But you have to recognize also that, as I say, he believes in their system and so forth. And since these few days here in Washington, his only experience in the United States, I've issued an invitation for them anytime pleased to come back when, not a summit, but when they can go touring the countryside and see America and get acquainted with it, they don't think they're violating any human rights. They think we are. But let me take this young lady here and then back there in the office. Mr. President, first of all, thank you very much for a very exciting week. Ann Edwards from the KBW Buffalo. Western New York is the home of the Chicago Institution where, for the last three years, we have had private peace initiatives and exchanges with the Soviets. We are going back again next May. How do you view these private peace initiatives following your summit? Not only do we view them well and approve heartily, but we have negotiated on that basis and agreed on the subject of more exchanges between our people wherever possible and so forth. That, we think, is very, very helpful. Also, a quick follow-up. Terry Anderson of the Tavia is a native of Western New York. He is a hostage. We've been discussing human rights this week through the Soviet Union. What about the human rights of the American hostage who's still known in Lebanon? Well, I can tell you that the fact that you don't hear anything doesn't mean that we're not concerned and not exploring every avenue that we can with regard to getting them back. Now, the gentleman... Mr. President, Bob Lee from Wilson Critication in Michigan. Both you and Mr. Gorbachev have spoken about the improved relationship between the two of you as being one of the benefits of this summit. If that's the case, why not expand upon it and do as you just suggest to meet more often even when there isn't a treaty. Or do what you do this morning, pick up the phone and call him more often. Well, we stay in communication. It doesn't mean now that this has ended and now there will be no relationship until the next summit in Moscow. No, our teams and our teams that are in Geneva are going to continue now going forward with the things that were discussed here and in which in three days you can't completely agree on all the things that must be resolved. But we will be going forward in contact with him but with also our teams working together so that just as when we came here and found we had a treaty we could sign on the first day and hopefully that will take place also. The telephone that you have with the other world leaders this morning. What's that? Will you be talking with him more on the telephone that you have with other world leaders this morning? I think so. Yes, when there's a need or occasion for it, you bet we will. Mr. President, Mr. President, Jeff Marks from Lexington, Kentucky. We've heard a lot about nuclear weapons. Can you tell us a little bit about what has been done this week with chemical weapons and where you see that headache? I think one of the most hopeful signs is that he, not me, was the first one to bring up conventional weapons and chemical warfare as something that we had to resolve and go forward with further reductions in those weapons. He wants military or reduction in military in arms all the way across the board. Did you discuss on chemical weapons and where do you go from there? Well, no, just that as I say, he brought that up as a part of the subject that we've got to go forward with as, right, specifically we're going on, as I say, the nuclear weapons because of these are the things we've been discussing, but he made it plain that he doesn't want to stop there. He wants arms reduction, period. Joe Dates from WNED in Boston. The American people know you very well, but they don't know Mr. Gorbachev very well. You know him better than anybody else. Do you believe he's a good man and do you completely trust him? That's a difficult question to answer because, as I say, there was a certain chemistry between us. On the other hand, I think I've been involved in the communist situation long before I was in this office. I was once president of a union in the motion picture industry in a period in which immediately after the war, the Soviet Union, through their local chapters here in our country, were doing their best to infiltrate and gain control over that industry which could be such a propaganda machine. And so I have to say that yes, there is a chemistry and all of that, but I repeatedly use their own language to them and still do. But with regard to any of these issues, Dovayi, no Provayi, trust, but verify. Mr. President, can I follow on that? Mr. President, Christopher Jones from Fox Television, New York. You have described in the past that the Soviet Union is an evil empire, and you said that communism would be swept into the dustpan of history. Do you still feel that way? Well, I think the very situation that has in a way helped bring about these meetings and agreement with regard to arms has been the enormous economic problem that he as the new leader of the Soviet Union is faced with and his own proposals about which he's running into some opposition in his own country, for glasnost, for an opening of his society is an indication with regard to whether that system, as it has been in the past, can continue without winding up in the dustpan of history. That's true. And the other fact on the other hand with regard to the evil empire, I meant it when I said it because under previous leaders they have made it evident that they were based, their program was based on expansionism, on going forward toward the Marxian philosophy of a one-world communist state. All of those things were true. The first day I ever stood here in a press conference with our own press people in Washington. Most of them they've cited what I said about no morality unless it furthered the cause of socialism but they forgot I was answering a question about how could they be trusted. And it was true that there was a philosophy then and under the previous leaders that there was no immorality in anything that furthered the cause of socialism therefore permitting themselves to violate trust and so forth. There seems to be an entirely different relationship. The young lady right here. We're selling from WITF FM in Harrisburg. Mr. President, doesn't the verification process provided in the INF Treaty leave more than 90% of the Soviet Union off limits to U.S. inspectors and doesn't that leave a lot of room for cheating and are you concerned about that possibility? You'll always have to be concerned about that just as I'm sure they are too but never have we ever had an agreement that had the verification principles that are embodied in this agreement on the INF agreement. They will have people at the assembly plant for that type of weapon in our country for 13 years and we will have people there. We will have the ability to stop a weapon coming out of the plant have the hood removed and count the number of warheads that it contains to see that it is meeting the requirements. We've agreed in both cases that for on spot checks in which in addition to these permanent things that we have that if we have some suspicion or get some hint that something is going on we can go in like that into that particular area wherever it might be to check on it and they can do likewise. Mr. President, Richard Lessner of the Arizona Republic Sir, you placed great emphasis upon these rigorous and intrusive verification procedures yet short of withdrawal from the treaty there's no specific provision for compensatory or penalties should the Soviets be found cheating. Now you abrogated SALT 2 on the basis of Soviet cheating would you favor and support doing the same thing with the INF if they're found to be cheating or should the Senate attach specific penalties should the Soviets be found to be cheating on INF? I think that we would have to face that problem and take up that issue when it happened and as to what our course would be and with regard to SALT 2 remember we're talking about something there was a treaty that was never ratified there was then a kind of an agreement between the two that well they'd go ahead and try to stay within the parameters of what the treaty would have called for had it been ratified. Do you not believe that the treaty should have some penalty provision short of abrogation or total withdrawal? Well I think those are things as I say that should be considered and action taken that would be appropriate to whatever the violation was. I'm John Kimmelman with the Charleston Daily Mail what do you think of some kind of Senate amendment or reservation that would have the effect of setting a timetable on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and what do you think it might have the effect of killing the whole treaty? Wait but could you briefly repeat there because I thought I'd been pointing at somebody else but I'll take your question. What do you think of some kind of Senate reservation that would have the effect of setting a timetable on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and do you think that a Senate action of that kind would have the effect of killing the treaty altogether? Well this is something that we have underway in negotiation and he has made it plain that he really does want to withdraw and he would do that within a 12 month period at the most and yes he has some concerns then about our continued support to the Mujahideen. I related to him what our concern is that anything that was very similar to Nicaragua anything that would force us to weaken the freedom fighters in either country at the same time that the governments of those two countries have a military the Afghan army it's not only the Soviets that have been fighting the Afghans have an army like puppet government the Sandinistas have a military even while they're pleading and demanding that the Contras should disarm themselves and I in turn have made it plain to them that there's no way that we could create such an imbalance that what we must have is an agreement that sees the ability of the people in each country on both sides to come together and the people of that country decide on the kind of government they want and a neutral government. Would you best for the Senate not to attach any kind of reservations and kind of clear the deal so to speak? I would like to I wouldn't like to see the Senate start amending this that would have to bring us back into negotiations of a treaty that has already be resolved and we believe is is probably really an historic event and the most forward thing that has happened between our two countries in the last 40 years and as I say these are these other things are still they're not in the part of a treaty they're part of the continuing negotiations You're the one I was talking to Thank you Mr. President Ken DeCoster, WROK in Rockford, Illinois You characterized the successful signing of the INF Agreement and one of the most important actions concerning nuclear weapons since World War II If I could ask you to speak personally how do you characterize this successful agreement as far as your accomplishments in office since 1980? Well, I'm very pleased that it happened because I've for a number of years before I ever got here I have been concerned about the very presence of nuclear weapons and to hear this man now without any urging from me express his wish that we could totally eliminate nuclear weapons because of the threat they represent and he quoted back to me a line that I used as long ago as 1982 in speaking to some foreign parliaments such as the British and the Japanese that is a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought Is this the most important aspect of the Reagan legacy? 100 years from now will we look back and see Ronald Reagan improve relations with the Soviets? I don't expect to be looking back 100 years from now and I don't know whether that's the most important or not I think that it's kind of important that for the last couple of years the battle going on in Congress between our two parties has not been a battle of how big will the new spending programs be but a battle between what method we should take to eliminate the deficit and I think that's kind of a step forward One last question Jen Fisher from WTBJ in Miami We too in South Florida are a little concerned about the communist influence in our back door Recently we have normalized relations or not normalized the relaxed immigration policies with Cuba What would you have to say to the folks in South Florida about all of this? Well, having been a governor of the state myself and believing in federalism I have to say that there are many things that I believe are rights that belong to the states and the local communities and in fact I'm trying to have the federal government give back more authority to the states that I could quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt from his 1932 campaign for the presidency and I was old enough that I was voting and did vote for him but he said that one of his goals was to restore to the states and the local communities the rights that had been unjustly seized by the federal government so I whatever they want to do in that but I do believe this that there's no question that Cuba is totally dedicated to the communist cause and to that philosophy With the number of Cubans we expect to be coming into South Florida there are real and severe economic concerns about how we can cope with 100,000 more folks coming into our area. Does the federal government have any plans at this point to help out with the city of Miami and Dade County? Well we've been doing things of that kind and helped and that's part of involved in our immigration plan but again I have to say that because as a governor I found so many times that when the federal government tried to help it couldn't do as well as the state could have done if we'd been left alone so I'm not going to make a snap answer here Elizabeth there was one question I did want to take from the lady back here in the aisle if I could and I'm cheating on Elizabeth here she's telling me I'm trying this out I'm Joyce Captain WBUT If you were the verification terms will the security of our vital defense systems become vulnerable and also at the next proposed summit in Moscow what's the status of the BUDGE American Embassy? That they know very well how we feel about that and we're going forward with clearing up our embassies and they won't be be set with the built-in bugs and so forth from Iran that we just simply declared what we're going to do in that regard and the first part of your question was let me just say I know there's been concern about that and believe me that is all taken under consideration for example this matter in our position and where our front line is in NATO the people that have been concerned that somehow in this treaty we've weakened NATO because of the superiority of the Soviet Union in their conventional weapons no, we still thousands literally of warheads on that front which alleviate that difference between us and it's true we have several times as many tanks and artillery pieces and so forth as NATO does but tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons have evened up that competition and I can tell you now that it has always been our intention and will continue to be but before anything has done about those weapons there will have to be a parity achieved in arms reduction in the conventional state and that's why we were so pleased when he himself volunteered his willingness that we should have equalizing and reduction of conventional weapons no, our security has not been threatened or eliminated in any way as a matter of fact the weapons that have been destroyed four to one they're destroying four times as many as I said Ken Watts, WAGA in Atlanta we've learned today that on November 24 you authorized, you signed an executive order regarding the use of federal troops of the Atlanta pen during the Cuban uprising could you explain that order and exactly what those troops would have been authorized to do by your order? Very quietly I issued an order that troops could be made available only on the basis to be used if it was necessary to save human life and they quietly moved in there was no great you get some phone calls to make yes, starting with Margaret Thatcher that's right, you don't want to keep her waiting we won this round, Mr. President what? we won this round I think the people of both countries want to we are teaching them because we never have let us go down and we're going to continue how quickly should the Senate act? how quickly should the Senate act?