 United States! Thank you. Please sit down. Well good afternoon and welcome. It's good to have you all here for this briefing and it's a real pleasure for me to see so many friends. My pleasure I must say is tinged with sadness because of one who is not here, Cliff Evans. I don't have to tell anyone here what a fine newsman Cliff was. It's a White House correspondent. He reported events accurately, incisively and with a sense of history serving not only RKO but the American people. Cliff was also a friend, a sharp mind, a kind and gentle heart. In the course of his life as you know he received all kinds of awards. He was a complete professional and a true gentleman. But knowing Cliff I think he'd want us to get right on with the business of government that he loved so much. Now I understand some others. Jim Baker and Ed Meese and others have or will be going over various subjects with you in detail. So what I'd like to do is give you a general overview of our accomplishments in the past two and a half years. And first let me mention the engine that drives everything else the economy. America's engine had broken down. In fact we face the worst combination of economic problems in our post-war history. The month George Bush and I were inaugurated inflation was well into double digits. The prime interest rate reached a level not seen since the civil war and real wages, housing starts and productivity were all in decline. Uncontrolled taxes and spending had nearly destroyed our economy. With the support of responsible Republicans and Democrats our administration set to work to make what we called a new beginning. We reduced the growth of spending prune needless regulations, reduced personal income tax rates allowing Americans to keep a bigger share of their own earnings and passed an historic reform called tax indexing so that never again can tax or government use inflation to profit at the people's expense. And today less than two years since we set our policies in place our nation has one basic problem to help every American woman and child and it's called economic recovery. The prime rate is almost half what it was when we took office still too high but I think it's going to come down further. Inflation has plummeted to 2.6 percent over the last 12 months from two years of double digit inflation before we got here. The American workers real wages are rising for the first time in three years and housing starts are at their highest level in four and a half years. Factory orders, retail sales and productivity are all up from a year ago and since last August the stock market has gone up sharply as we know. This has greatly increased the value of America's nest egg because the retirement savings of millions of workers are invested in pension funds that have benefited from the stock market surge. Unemployment is still too high but is dropping fast and since December more than two million Americans have found jobs. Just as we're turning the economy around we're strengthening our armed forces and bringing a new sense of purpose and direction to American foreign policy. In the military the number of combat ready units has gone up a third since 1980. We're attracting better recruits and keeping them longer because we're giving them better pay, better equipment and the respect they deserve. In foreign policy we've let the world know once again that America stands for the political, religious and economic freedom of mankind and something else. Under this administration our nation is through wringing its hands and apologizing. We don't put up walls to keep our people in. We don't put religious and political dissidents in mental hospitals and we don't cold, bloodedly shoot defenseless airliners out of the sky. Instead we're laboring for peace in southern Africa. We're giving firm support to the democratic leadership in Central America and working for a just peace in the Middle East. The ceasefire in Lebanon now more than a week old represents a definite step toward peace yet it's only a first step but now that the guns are quiet the different sides can hear each other talk and the peace process can go forward. In our relations with the Soviets we have more major arms control negotiations underway than any other administration in history and for the first time the Soviets are talking about more than just a nuclear arms ceiling. They're talking about nuclear arms reductions and yet while we're intent on reaching arms control agreements we can accept only those agreements that call for balanced arms reductions on both sides not pseudo arms control and we will insist on verifiability. As I said at the United Nations the Soviets have violated the Helsinki final act by failing to provide their people with rudimentary freedoms and they've broken the biological weapons convention by reigning yellow poison among villagers and Afghan tribesmen. So when it comes to arms control agreements we have no intention of simply taking the Soviets at their word. Sooner or later they will realize that arms reduction are in their interest. In the meantime we'll continue to negotiate in good faith and from strength. New vigor in the economy new strength in our national defenses new purpose in our quest for peace I think we are making a new beginning. We still face a multitude of challenges both here at home and in foreign affairs but I know we'll meet those challenges successfully and I'm convinced that historians will look back on these years at the time our country began to heal the wounds of the past and under God once again to look to the future with confidence and courage. So I thank you and God bless you and I know I haven't got too much time left but I what I time I have here is that you might have some questions. Yes. Mr. President I'd like to ask you a question about the interior secretary. There is so much or as much congressional and public opposition to Mr. Lott. Why then do you still support him? Do you not consider him a political ally? Well I know that he he made a ridiculous statement and one that was was just should never have been made but at the same time I don't think that came with any malice or nor was that an attack on any of the people mentioned in there. It was a very poor choice of words and if he'd wanted to point out the legitimate mix that he had on that commission to reveal that it is typical of our society he could have done it in a far better way but as Jim Wright the majority leader of the house said yesterday he doesn't think it was an impeachable offense. I have to look at the same time at the record of what he has accomplished in the job and contrary to what some critics say about that he has done a fine job as secretary of the interior. So I believe that I don't believe that this was something that you would lynch someone for. I have a two-part question sir. Did you have an opportunity to speak with Margaret Thatcher when she was in Washington last week about the troubles in northern Ireland and the second part of the question sir is and I know it's not one of the major trouble spots of the world but it's an ongoing situation and when I was recently there I heard a lot from the Republic of Ireland officials pleas for the United States to get involved. Do you see any circumstances under which your administration could play a role in mediating the troubles in northern Ireland? I think that no it did not that subject did not come up. I think that it would require us being invited to participate in that. It is a purely internal affair involving two the governments of Ireland and England and the local autonomy of northern Ireland. It is a tragic affair. It's horrible to think that both sides are doing what they're doing in the name of God and being half Irish and half English I feel I feel very deeply personally about it. I also have a theory of my own. I believe that what you have on both sides is a relatively small group of extreme radicals or let's just say extremists who are terrorists in their acts and that the majority of people on both sides if given a chance could come together and work out their problems but their lives are in danger if they suggest such a thing openly. I remember that one very brave woman when her sister and her sister children were killed as a result of a terrorist act in the street when she crossed the line and to one from the other side another woman they organized the wives the women on both sides to strive for peace and yet their open activity has more or less well if it exists at all it's underground because of the threats that I've mentioned but we would be more than happy if there was a way that we could be involved here but again as I say I think in that case you have to be invited in. If she brought it up I would have volunteered to be helpful if we could. President can you tell us about any possible modifications in your travel plans for the Philippines? I can't say any more than that probably before the day is out there will be an announcement we are reviewing the entire trip and it's scheduling we're not thinking in terms of any cancellations we are thinking in terms of a change of schedule and the entire reason is because the trip had been scheduled an unusually long trip to be away in the country but scheduled and the understanding that the congress would not be in session and now we have learned that the congress will be in session and will be in session on the most contentious of all the issues having to do with the appropriations the continuing resolution and all all those things so what we're doing and it is not aimed at anything going on in any one country we're not talking of cutting anyone out of the trip we are surveying to see if possibly we can do a couple of the nations for specific reasons early in November but it would only take a few days and I could be going that long but there's no way that I could be going for the entire trip with congress here so what we're doing is surveying the idea of a of a postponement of the others no cancellations in talking to the average man and woman on the street it's not real clear why we are in Lebanon and I was wondering if you could tell that person why the Marines are there why their sons are there and exactly what are the interests being protected I would love to and I have to tell you that that if you won't tell anyone Saturday morning on my five-minute radio broadcast I sat down yesterday afternoon and I wrote next week's radio program to do just that very thing of I'm aware that there just is a great lack of understanding of why we're there and if if our people and this is what I suggest in my script if they'll ask themselves some questions first of all could the United States or the western world stand by and see the Middle East let's say incorporated into the Soviet bloc we know there are others that have eyes on it we've tried as you know to be helpful and as a result of the camp David process and resolutions 242 and 338 of the United Nations we brought about peace between the two primate antagonists Israel and Egypt they have a peace treaty so a year ago with trouble still there and with the bulk of the Arab state still denying the right of Israel to be a nation I came up with a proposal that we would again offer our services not to impose a settlement we can't do that but to help bring one about to help bring the Arab states into the realization of that Israel does have a right to exist as a nation and that should negotiate out their differences and then have in effect more egypt's in the meantime the internecine strife that was going on in Lebanon and then the occupying of part of Lebanon by the syrians the PLO with their own militia which was shelling and rocketing across the Israeli border killing innocent people in the villages along that border Israel was forced to invade Lebanon not to attack Lebanon anyway but to drive back these PLO terrorist bands and I made the proposal that we offer our good offices to try and bring about an overall peace in the Middle East but it began with first having to solve the problem in Libya and stop the shooting and the killing that was going on so we proposed and our allies went along with us England France and Italy a multinational force to then persuade the outside forces to leave Lebanon and then while the Lebanese government brought into being its own military and began to take control of its own borders this in multinational force would be there as a stabilizing influence you might say behind the lines to help keep order while the Lebanese army went out to restore its sovereignty now that's the mission and it is still the mission of one thing that happened to both countries Syria and Israel had agreed that they would leave when the other did that they'd leave together Syria then changed its mind and with the occupation in Syria not occupation but let us say in Syria there are substantial soviet forces now I'm sure that they've had some influence on this we have had diplomatic measures going round the clock for a year now are people going back and forth from Damascus to Beirut to Tel Aviv and to Saudi Arabia persuading the Arab nations to join us in trying to bring about an end to the bloodletting Israel has made its agreement with Lebanon Syria still has not acknowledged that it will get out we're holding for that but I think that our mission there is because as I say there's no way that the western world could let the Middle East go into hostile hands first of all the western world and Japan are virtually dependent on the Middle East for the energy that fuels its industry I'm taking more than the five minutes I'm going to take on the air to explain all of this but we have to face that that the you have to say could any of us in the western world stand by and just see the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union interfere with what the Middle East means plus which since 1948 when Israel was created as a nation this country under every administration has always had an assurance to Israel that we uphold their right to be a nation that we are allied and that we do have a very definite interest in their security so this is the reason we're there and we're not thinking of expanding our role I do say that anytime that we send our armed forces any place in the world and for whatever reason they're going to go with the assurance that if someone starts shooting at them they can defend themselves and that's the only participation they need I can only take this one because I'd recognized you at the same time and I'm sorry but he tells me that time is up thank you mr president during the Carter administration there were those who accused the administration of losing Nicaragua and losing Iran and my question is sir do you feel that no matter what we do in towards the Philippines that because of the human rights violations of the Marcos regime and the continued problems there that we are in danger of losing a pro-american government in that country as a result of what's been happening there I don't think we can afford to lose a pro-american government in that area with the bases our own bases that give us a presence in the western pacific I do think that there's been a great distortion of what is going on over there I had a I won't name him but a rather liberal senator who had served there in the military come back recently from a trip over there and he told me that the situation was far better and far different than what we're portraying the violence in the streets and so forth and I I do feel that this country held back in Iran at a time when it would have been a benefit not only to the western world but to the people of Iran themselves to have thought out our policies better with regard to Nicaragua under the Carter administration it was a case of we know that for more than 20 years the Somoza regime and members of his family before that had an authoritarian they weren't totalitarian they did allow some freedoms that are not present in a totalitarian society and yet it was authoritarian and when a revolution arose in Nicaragua the United States held hands off we did not under during the Carter administration we did not help the Somoza regime at all we stood back totally neutral and when the Sandinista government on the basis of its revolutionary promises which it had made in writing to the organization of American states that that government if it assumed power would guarantee human rights would guarantee free unions free elections freedom of speech and freedom of press and so forth and when it assumed office the under the Carter administration aid was immediately forthcoming in the hundreds of millions of dollars to Nicaragua until we discovered that number one the Nicaraguan government was providing the weapons for the guerrillas in El Salvador to that were attacking the democratic government of that country and number two found out that the Sandinista revolutionaries made up of several factions and groups that the one group which was totally communist totally beholden to Cuba and the Soviet Union had no sooner gotten in than it ousted those other revolutionaries that had participated with them in the revolution and it was then that the Carter administration withdrew all aid and stopped sending any additional aid to Nicaragua well we have looked at the situation there we've watched them since we came in and there's no question this is setting up to be another Cuba on the mainland and they themselves have been blatant in their open statements that their revolution knows no boundaries as a matter of fact one of our congressional delegations that went down there to learn what they could came back and reported to me that one gentleman high in the present government said don't be surprised in 18 months if you see us at the border of Arizona and New Mexico now he may have been being pretty boastful but this is I think we've been consistent they had supported what they thought was a legitimate turn to democracy in Nicaragua it proved not to be and the Carter administration stopped aid we are we've made it very plain that unless and until they return to the promises they made to the rest of the organization of American states as to what they do incidentally they made those promises at a time when the organization of American states had said it would ask Samoza to step down in the bloodshed by resigning if these were their promises these were their principles so the government is going to be totalitarian it's going to be pro-cuban pro-soviet they have a few thousand Cuban so-called advisors military advisors there they have a few thousand Cuban teachers there who are setting up schools throughout the country where they've never been schools before that sounds very benevolent they're teaching the children to read like read Karl Marx and the other night one of the networks on television showed the little children standing there singing a hymn they called it out in the schoolyard translated the hymn kicked our brains out it was all for the revolution and we were the villains so well I'm sorry that I have to go without taking any more of it it a pleasure to be here for a few minutes thank you very much