 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. As you know, I've been told I do have a short statement here. Before we begin, I thought I'd mention that one reason for our visit to Illinois, especially this morning at the State Fair, was to bring a special message to America's farmers, one of concern and hope, amid general prosperity that has brought record employment rising incomes and the lowest inflation in more than 20 years, some sectors of our farm economy are hurting, and their anguish is a concern to all Americans. I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. A great many of the current problems on the farm were caused by government-imposed embargoes and inflation, not to mention government's long history of conflicting and haphazard policies. Our ultimate goal, of course, is economic independence for agriculture, and through steps like the tax reform bill, we seek to return farming to real farmers. But until we make that transition, the government must act compassionately and responsibly. In order to see farmers through these tough times, our administration has committed record amounts of assistance, spending more in this year alone than any previous administration spent during its entire tenure. No area of the budget, including defense, has grown as fast as our support for agriculture. Earlier this month, we announced our decisions on grain exports, and this morning we announced a drought assistance task force, and with regard to storage problem, the availability of price support loans for all the grain in this year's crop. The message in all this is very simple. America's farmers should know that our commitment to helping them is unshakable. As long as I'm in Washington, their concerns are going to be heard and acted upon. One other brief point. Tomorrow the Senate will cast a crucial vote. The question is that of assistance to the freedom fighters who are trying to bring democracy to Nicaragua. Where a communist regime, a client state of the Soviet Union, has taken over. The question before the Senate is, will it vote for democracy in Central America and the security of our own borders, or will it vote to passively sit by while the Soviets make permanent their military beachhead on the mainland of North America? It's the end of statement, and now as is traditional with the Presidential Press Conference, I start by calling on the representatives of the two major news bureaus. Teri. Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, Soviet and American negotiators just completed two days of top-level talks in Moscow. Did they narrow any differences on arms control, perhaps paving the way for a summit later this year? And how does the Soviets react to your offer to delay deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative and return for an agreement to deploy it later? Well, that isn't exactly what we've proposed to the Soviet Union about delaying our Strategic Defense Initiative. And I'm not going to discuss what was in my letter, and no one who has been guessing at it has guessed right yet, but the General Secretary did not reveal his letter to me, and I'm not going to reveal mine to him. But we don't have an answer or a reply yet from the negotiations from our negotiators over there, and I'm waiting for their report to see where we stand, but we have no word as yet. Are you more or less optimistic, sir, about the prospects for a summit in November? Yes, I am optimistic, and I am optimistic that we're going to make more progress than probably has been made in a number of years because of some of the problems that are concerning the General Secretary at this time. Norman. Mr. President, your recent speech on South Africa welcomed that with what one account called a bipartisan chorus of booze on Capitol Hill in neither silence, nor critics, nor satisfied members of your own party were pressing for a more forceful U.S. approach to that problem. At this point, are you willing to ignore those calls for former U.S. action and possibly see Congress seize the initiative in setting policy toward South Africa? Well, I don't think that it's a case of whether it's firm action or not. I think the simple case is that punitive sanctions that would affect the economy there would not only be disruptive to surrounding states that are virtually linked to South Africa's economy, but would also be very punitive to the people that we want to help. And whether the members of the Congress were ready to accept what I said in that speech, I can tell you that in communication with some of the most prominent of the black leaders, individuals who are leaders of groups of several million four-and-a-half million in one religious group and are all solidly opposed to the sanctions, and the one group that is in support of them in South Africa is a group that very definitely has been the most radical and wants the disruption that would come from massive unemployment and hunger and desperation of the people because it is their belief that they could then rise out of all of that disruption and seize control. And this has been transmitted to me personally by some of these other leaders, like Boutelezzi of the largest tribal group in all of South Africa, the Zulus. And there are others. There are religious leaders. Another one, another bishop you never hear of him. I don't know whether I pronounce his name right, but it's, I think, Moreno or Marnerema. I'm going to have to find out how they, what sounds they attach to some of their combination of letters. But he's the leader of some four-and-a-half million Christians there, and all of them are deadly, deathly opposed to sanctions. So I just think that up on the hill there, well-intentioned though they may be, they're asking for something that would not be helpful. On the other hand, I think there are evidences that maybe ourselves and some of our allies could be invited to meet with their government representatives and see if we couldn't bring about some coming together of these responsible leaders of the black community. If you're unwilling at this point to define what a reasonable time table is for the abolition of apartheid, does the situation in fact reach a point at some stage where the United States is pushed to go beyond friendly persuasion to prod the South Africans for change? Well, I think that's something that you face even when that time comes. Yes, we're impatient, and yes, we feel as strongly about apartheid as anyone does, and it should be done away with. On the other hand, President Bota himself has said the same thing, and that his goal is to eliminate apartheid. Now, we'll go over to the home side here. I'm Hugh Hill from WLSTV in Chicago. We came here today on behalf of Republican candidates, and two years ago you had a landslide victory in Illinois, and yet the man you campaigned with over and over, Senator Percy, lost. And I'd like to ask you this, what value do you place on a presidential trip, particularly in an off-year, with the exception of drawing crowds to these fundraisers? Well, I don't know. I don't believe that coattails, if there is a dissatisfaction with some candidate, I don't think that someone else's coattails can do that individual any good, but there is another facet that you haven't even mentioned may sound crass, but you can also help them raise the funds they need for campaigning. And so far I've been rather successful in that area. Mr. President, you've said that you would support voluntary drug testing in the workplace and perhaps mandatory drug testing for those with sensitive government jobs. I'd like to ask, sir, how any form of drug testing, voluntary or not, which is subject to peer pressure, can be truly voluntary? And also what that does to our constitutional rights, not to incriminate ourselves and the presumption against self-incrimination and the constitutional guarantee and the presumption of innocence? Well, I think I made it plain and one-count. They won't be incriminating themselves because what I have said is that in voluntary testing, these individuals that might turn up and that are found to be drug addicts, I would say that there should be no threat of losing their job or of any punishment. There should be an offer of help that we would stand by ready to help them take the treatment that would free them from this habit. So it's not a case of saying that we're now going to find a way to, as you say, have people incriminate themselves so they can be fired or anything else. And I just have to believe that the time has come as it did run around the turn of the century in this country. And again, cocaine was the villain. We had a great drug epidemic around the turn of the century. And it really was eliminated simply by the ranks of the people. Suddenly said enough already. And then whether it was peer pressure, whether it was a friend helping friend or whatever, that disappeared for a very long time. Well, now we have a thing back again. We have done all in our doing and going to continue to do all that we can to intercept the drugs. And you might be interested to know that since we've been here, we have increased by 10 times over the seizure of narcotics with our drug enforcement, but that isn't going to do it. The only answer is going to be taking the customer away from the drugs, turning them off. Sir, how often if a member of your staff declines to take a voluntary drug test, aren't you or is not someone on your staff likely to be a little suspicious? Might be suspicious, but nothing is going to happen to him in the sense of firing or anything else. What would you have thought of me if I'd refused to voluntarily do it? Mr. President, at least once a week, the Mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, says that your tax and fiscal policies are destroying cities like Chicago. He points out that despite having laid off several thousand employees over the past few years, the city is still projecting a $65 million budget gap for next year, and he blames that on your policies. He says it could force the layoff of essential service employees like police fire or a tax increase. Is he correct? And he wants what? Is he correct that your policies are leading to the destruction of basic services in America's cities? No. As a matter of fact, several hundred million dollars come here in grants and a good share of that, at least half if not more, is for rapid transit. And we have tried, as a matter of fact too, in a number of the helpful grants and so forth that the federal government's been giving to states and local communities. Speaking from my experience as a governor, I can tell you that in many of those instances, the administrative overhead of the so-called compassionate programs that were to help the needy amounted to more than the money that was actually reaching the needy. In some instances costing $2 to deliver $1 to a needy person. Now, what we've tried to do is take the red tape off these grants to put them together and to allow the local communities more power to determine how the money will be used. I found as a governor that many times I had to look at a program and I had to follow the federal rules and regulations with the administering of the program. And this made for great waste and fraud. Well, I call waste fraud. And if we had been allowed to do what we felt was best for our people and our state, we could have managed the program at far less cost. So, since I've been in Washington, we have tried to put things together in block grants, take off the restrictions, and allow them to use it the best of their ability. Channel 2 news here in Chicago. The mayor says that the net result of your programs have been large tax increases in Chicago. And from where he says it looks like your tax breaks at the federal level amount to a shellgate forcing larger corresponding tax increases at the local level. Do you think that's a fair assessment? No, it isn't a fair assessment, because in some instances what we set out to do did involve local and state governments with regard to taxes in the sense that the federal government had so usurped the tax sources that local and state governments, there wasn't anything left where they could turn to without disruption of their economies and certainly distress to their people. So we thought that if we could reduce that federal burden, that this would then open areas to where a local government or a state government that had a need for additional revenues could take those revenues. We had just, the federal government had simply monopolized and grabbed off all the resources and then the federal government turned and said, oh, you poor people back there, you haven't got the money to do things. You'll have to take our programs. We'll do them for you. And every place that there was government help, there was government control, Washington control. So they're just painting it wrong. Sam? President, after you announced your decision to subsidize grain sales to the Soviet Union, Secretary of State Schultz was extremely critical and I'd like you to reply to his criticism. He said, the Soviet Union must be shortling and having sales to them subsidize and scratching their heads about a system that says, we're going to fix it up so that American taxpayers make it possible for Soviet housewives to buy American-produced food at a price lower than an American housewife. Now that's Secretary Schultz. What do you have to say about that? Well, you felt as all caught, Secretary Schultz. He'd been away and you caught him before he'd had a chance to talk to us and find out what it was we really had done. Now, we're not out as a matter of policy to continue subsidizing the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has a long-term grain agreement with us and it calls for a purchase of four metric tons of grain this year. They have not yet bought that. This measure that I employed was in the bill that the Congress passed. And what we did was safe for this one crop and for this one season that we would offer this subsidy to the farmers. We didn't do it for the Soviet Union. We did it for our farmers, who are, as you know, and we hope temporarily, but in a real bind, a very severe one. This amounted to a subsidy for them but allowed the Soviet Union to buy that four million. If they came in and wanted to buy five, the other million would be back at the regular price. And I think George has meddled considerably since he found out what it is that we did. A lot of people just simply think you were trying to buy votes in the fall elections because, sir, the American taxpayer is going to pay you about 20 cents a bushel for this subsidy. We're trying to help in a situation that I believe was originally created by the federal government. When the federal government, back in the days of the Depression, started invading the farm community and with all its various programs, it has brought on most of the problems that bother the farmers today. I have to go back over here to the home side. Mr. President, Bruce Dumont from WTTW Television in Chicago. Yesterday you offered strong words of encouragement to those who would like to see the Berlin Wall torn down I'm wondering if at some point in the future you might be willing to go beyond rhetoric perhaps put it on a future agenda for negotiation with the Soviet Union. Well, I would have no hesitation whatsoever in a summit meeting to discuss this with the General Secretary. I think it's a wall that never should have been built and I happen to believe that at the time that they started to put it up and they started with wire, barbed wire instead of a wall that if the United States had taken the action it should have because that was a total violation of the Four Powers Agreement for Berlin that if they'd not, if we'd gone in there and knocked down that wire then I don't think there'd be a wall today because I don't think they wanted to start a war over that. Some critics have suggested that it raises false hopes for those beyond the wall. Well, I don't think anyone is intending to do anything of that kind but we know that they've done a kind of lucrative business in letting people come through that wall if the price was right and rejoin their families and friends in West Germany and it just isn't strange that all of these situations where other people build walls to keep an enemy out and there's only one part of the world in philosophy where they have to build walls to keep their people in. Maybe they're going to recognize that there's something wrong with that sooner. Mr. President, I'd like to go back to your first answer on South Africa. You said that the only blacks who oppose, who want sanctions are the radical blacks, the ones who want upheaval. One of the blacks who very much is in favor of sanctions and is very critical of your policy is Desmond Tutu, who is a bishop of the church and the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Are you saying that he's one of those radical blacks who wants upheaval? No, but I don't think he's right in what he's advocating now. But Chris, I guess that was careless on me. I was talking in terms of the various groupings, political alliances and so forth of the people in the black community there. Of course, there are individuals that may be all over individuals that think that's the thing to do, that there is no other answer now except just punish, never mind trying to find a solution to the problem. And so I agree that was careless of me. No, I was not linking him in with that particular group that I had in mind. You also, on my follow-up, sir, you also in your first answer talked about a possible meeting Western governments invited to talk to the South African government and to blacks. Could you tell us a little bit more about where that stands and also where does it stand now, the question if you're appointing an ambassador to South Africa and also the possibility of a special envoy? Well, we have made no decision yet on the ambassador, nor have we made up our minds that whether we want to send an envoy or not. But at the risk of violating something I thought that I wouldn't do, I am going to say one thing about Mr. Boda's speech today. Now, I'm not going to comment generally or take questions on that because I haven't heard it and I'm not going to comment until I hear the whole thing. But I did, thanks to the media, hear at least one line of his. And this line, I think that he himself was, he spoke of the idea of having the leaders of West Germany, France, United Kingdom, and the United States to some meetings. Well, this is what we ourselves have been talking about and among ourselves, these same leaders is if we could be of help. This is a sovereign nation. You can't go in and dictate to them and tell them how they must run their country. But if we could be of help in bringing together various groupings there to discuss and with the government as to how something could be planned to bring along an end to apartheid earlier, this we would be pleased to do. Well now, the only, as I say, I can't comment because I haven't heard or read and I will get his transcript and read the speech, but he did and that was quoted in the air. He did say that he was thinking of such a meeting. Now I got to go back. I don't know whether it would require us or whether it could be done with foreign ministers or not that, we'd have to see the details. I have to go over to this side if you've noticed. I'm going from Washington to Chicago. Mr. President, Basil Talbot from the Chicago Sun Times, two followers of Lyndon LaRouche won upset victories on the Democratic ticket here and sent Adley Stevenson off into a third party. Paul Kirk has referred to this group as Freakish Fascists and Attic. Adley Stevenson calls them Neil Fascists. And I was wondering, your CIA top officials have met with Lyndon LaRouche and the spokesman confirmed that a couple of years ago. Do you think that Lyndon LaRouche is within the pale or do you agree with the Democrats that he is an extremist? Well, let me say I'm not here to do battle with him, but I don't believe I could find myself in agreement with him on just about everything that he stands for. And my suggestion to those people, since he chose the Democratic ticket to invade, is play it safe and vote Republican. Andrea? Thank you, Mr. President. When you spoke earlier of that one group that you said wants disorder and is radical, just to clear up the point, you seem to be referring to the African National Congress, the very group that Secretary of State Shultz says should be negotiated with, that the Commonwealth Nations field should be part of a solution. Now, are you saying that they should not be among the groups that ought to be included in some sort of dialogue, even though they seem to be very representative of a large number of people in South Africa? Andrea, the African National Congress started out some years ago and there was no question about it being a solid organization. But in 1921, in South Africa, the Communist Party was formed. And some years later, the Communist Party of South Africa joined with and just moved into the African National Congress. And it is that element. I don't say the entire ANC. We've, and George Shultz has talked with them. We know that there are still sound people. We've had enough experience in our own country with so-called Communist Fronts to know that you can have an organization with some well-meaning and fine people, but you have an element in there that has its own agenda. And this is what's happened with the ANC. And right now, the ANC in exile, the ones we're hearing from that are making the statements are the members of that African Communist Party. So, no, if you could do business with and separate out and get the solid citizens in the ANC to come forward on their own, that's just fine. So the logic of what you said tonight about sanctions. The frontline states, the neighboring states have said that they, even though hurt by sanctions, would welcome it if it came from western countries. Yet President Bota has imposed sanctions upon them. You have not criticized him for that, you personally. And at the same time, this country has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua and Poland. Are you saying that what those regimes do to their people is worse than what the South African regime has done to the residents of that country? No. With regard to Poland, if you would check the sanctions that we finally felt had to be applied there, we applied sanctions that we were sure and we sought Polish advice on this that would not harm the citizens of Poland. That there would be restrictions on the government that was at that time denying Lekwalesa and the Union and so forth the solidarity movement its rights. And with regard to Nicaragua, there is no comparison between South Africa and Nicaragua. In South Africa you're talking about a country, yes, we disagree and find repugnant some of the practices of their government, but they're not seeking to impose their government on other surrounding countries. Nicaragua is a totalitarian communist state. It is a sort of a vassal of the Soviet Union and it has made plain in utterance after utterance ever since the Somoza Revolution that their revolution is not going to be confined to their borders, that they intend to spread that revolution throughout Latin America. So what we're talking about is helping the people of Nicaragua. Just recently the last newspaper, La Prensa, was silenced. Two religious leaders were ejected in the country for criticizing some facets of the government and we simply feel that the revolution against Somoza, which declared in writing to the organization of American states what their goals were, a pluralistic society, a democracy, free speech, freedom of the press, free labor unions, and all of this they pledged was what they were trying to achieve. Then one element in the revolution throughout the others that had fought beside them and who are now largely make up the contras took over seized power at the point of a gun and we simply believe that the people of Nicaragua have got a right to try for their original goals. President, thank you Chuck Gowdy from WLS in Chicago. After a reverend Lawrence Martin Janko was released by his captors a few weeks ago, he met with you and said he delivered a message from his captors. What was in that message specifically and how have you been using that to obtain the release of the other Americans held in Lebanon? Well, we have been trying contrary to what the tone of some people is. We've been trying relentlessly to get those hostages back from the first day of their captivity. First we had to try and find out where they were. We still don't really know that. They're moved frequently. And we're going to keep on trying. We have had some broken hearts. Many times that we thought we were on the track and that we were almost going to be able to set a day when they would be free and then it would disappear into the sand and we'd have to start on another path. We're going to continue until we get them back. But he did bring some oral messages. Well, I say messages because I didn't hear the one that was for the Pope but he did to us. And I feel that it was told to me in confidence and I have a feeling that if I should go public with some of the things in that I might do harm to our efforts to try and get them back so I'm not going to comment. Can you say tonight that we're any closer to seeing the other Americans held there being freed as Father Jekyll was? My hesitance about that is just what I've said before. That there have been times when if you'd asked me that question I would have been tempted to say, yes, it's imminent. And then as I say, it disappeared and we had to find another track and start over. And we've known encouragement and discouragement and I can't comment. We must get them back and we're going to keep on doing everything we can and trying to get them back but I don't want to say anything that will endanger them. The comparison you discussed before between Nicaragua and South Africa seems to agitate many of your critics who know the eloquence with which you address the issue of freedom fighting in Nicaragua but seem to lose that eloquence in South Africa. Do you honestly believe that the South African government treats its black majority worse than the Sandinista regime? Marxists though it may be treats Nicaraguan citizens inside Nicaragua keeping in mind the number of black South Africans who have died over the past year alone the amount of cross-border incursions the South African government has conducted against the neighboring states, et cetera and all. I think that I have condemned publicly all of those things that you're talking about. On the other hand, I also realize the complexity of the South Africa problem because much of that death that you spoke of is being inflicted by blacks on blacks because of their own tribal separations and all of this must be taken into account into finding a system of government but also I'm quoting now one of those black leaders who wrote a most statesman like an eloquent letter to me just recently and he pointed out that while yes they were impatient and yes we hope that we can make progress faster he pointed out he was, he did not disapprove of Bota he pointed out what he has accomplished and the things that he has done he also made a point about what would happen if those in our country who want us to have the American companies that are over there doing business withdraw and he pointed out that those companies following this, some 200 of them following these Sullivan principles in which there is the kind of treatment that we would recognize as being decent in this country with regard to their employees and outside the actual employment the things they've tried to do to improve life for the families on the outside that this would all be lost if some people had their way with sanctions and so forth and with forcing us to withdraw but then he also pointed out that because of the Sullivan principles that were used by these American companies a great many South African companies had taken the cue from that and adopted on their own principles that were similar to that having to do with promotion having to do with hiring having to do with ignoring racial difference with regard to promotion to supervisory positions and all now this is all going on well nothing like that is going on in Nicaragua not when a priest stands up and speaks to his congregation and because he says some things that well for example protesting the fact that the government has shut down on the church's newspaper shut down on the church's radio station sees their printing presses so that they can't even have church bulletins anymore and then he's thrown out of the country for having said that that's a little different than what was going on in South Africa twice now black candidates to become your new ambassador to South Africa for one reason or another to a caller by the wayside is it are you having difficulty in finding a black ambassador to South Africa because you can find a qualified black who agrees with your policy then no has nothing to do with that and the one that fell with the wayside let me tell you that I regret that more than anything I have the greatest respect and admiration for that man and what happened was the some possible connection with the legal action involving some institutions he is in a public relations field at this moment that he for one thing he probably would not be able to leave and have the time to go there because of as this comes to a head now Mr. President Brown Major of the Channel 5 in Chicago about three years ago at an editor's lunch at the White House you said that you thought a great deal of the problem of homeless people in America was mental health patients who had fallen through the cracks and you tell me you still recognize that as a problem or what you've done to patch those cracks up in three years well what has happened as you know that under the guise of civil rights the there were rulings that people who did not represent a threat of violence to themselves or to anyone else could not be committed to an institution and thus a great many people were turned loose from institutions who did have mental problems whether it was retardation or whatever and there was no place for them at the local level and many instances either no family or no family that wanted them and there they are in the streets and they present a problem also in the sense that in many instances having walked away from an institution they turn away from many efforts that helped because they feel that it might get them back institutionalized now I don't know what percentage of all of the people that are out there fall into that that particular situation but I do know that from my experience as governor that we tried at the state level to subsidize local treatment centers where they could live at home and be with the development now of newer drugs and so forth drugs in the good sense that they could be outpatients and this was coming along although in some instances counties just even with the state subsidy would not take this up but this is a problem in which unless they represent a threat to someone else we're helpless to put them in an institution where they would receive the best of care and certainly have fine quarters and be fed and all let me share with you a letter I received today from a family that does have someone in the family who is mentally ill and what they say about it they say first they suffered through emptying and closing of hospitals they say then the dumping of their relatives onto the streets then they had the withdrawal of funds for community based programs they say they say in Illinois because of a withdrawal of 18 million dollars Governor Thompson has cut from mental health programs based on the stoppage of research what would you tell these people? Well I would look into all the things that they've the charges they've made there to find out if all of these things are true and whether the financial things that they mention there are the reason for those cases I would think that Governor Thompson would like to see that letter very much they're supposed to be going back and forth here oh well he just settled the whole argument there no I can't really take any after it is traditional when the when the man in the aisle tells me the time is up I can't take any more I'd be breaking all the rules here and then I'd never be able to live with that side of the aisle when I got him back in Washington thank you all very much I'm sorry I couldn't get to more of you did you have any problems before you went into the test? the test just proved what I already knew where you didn't have any problems we didn't know if you were going into the drug test we didn't know the results of your drug test they haven't told me yet but I can bet on what it is because I know what I've put in I know what I've put in I can bet on what you think he meant I think he meant I know what I've put in I know what I've put in