 Well, thank you all very much for rearranging your schedules in order to be here, and I like to talk to the press. It's always challenging. Of course, I don't know why I'm giving myself a challenge on Friday the 13th, but you see above me there a portrait of perhaps our greatest president, Abe Lincoln. He lived what's been called the most moving life in the American experience, a big raw lonely boy from the raw loneliest part of the wilderness, no mother, no special warmth from the father. He found hope and sense of communion only in books and lived, of course, in a place where they had about two of them, and luckily one was the Bible and the other was Shakespeare. He was our great unlettered genius who became a poet of great ease and fluidity. He was a politician and a gifted one, and he told the truth. And one of the truths he told was this. He spoke in his second message to Congress of the terrible storm that had come, and he said to fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. Well, indeed they could not, and neither can we. You know what storm I speak of. Over this week, to a Georgetown group, I spoke of the situation in Nicaragua. My remarks were well covered, and you're familiar with all the arguments pro and con. You know my views. The current regime in Nicaragua, sustained, encouraged, and used by Cuba and the Soviet Union, is intent upon institutionalizing a communist, totalitarian form of government in that country. A communist regime in our hemisphere is good news for no one. It's bad news for those who love freedom and bad news for those who love peace. We have a chance to help stop this ominous development and help stop it relatively cheaply by giving support, financial and material support to the growing body of men and women in Nicaragua who are resisting the imposition of communism in their homeland. We prefer a peaceful solution to the problems of Central America, but it's every day more evident that the Sandinista game is a game of delay designed only to give themselves time to crush the democratic opposition and consolidate their totalitarian system of control over Nicaraguan society. We're now asking for $100 million in aid, $100 million to help the democratic forces resist, and to pressure the Sandinistas to remember their promises of democracy and peace to the people of Nicaragua and the wider international community. I'm telling you this because I'll need your help and the help of the American people. I know that support begins with understanding, and so if there's anything that is left that is not understood about our policy toward Nicaragua, well, I'm here prepared to testify, as they say, so let's fire away. President, that's your update of the NEP between Obama and all that subject, sir. There have been calls, as you're well aware, for investigations of alleged criminal activity on the part of the freedom fighters of the countries. And I wonder, sir, whether you think that's a good idea and whether you are satisfied with the conduct of those people who you are seeking additional aid for in Nicaragua. Let me say that in any conflict of this kind, we understand, of course, that there are going to be individual deeds, there are going to be acts of brutality, whether against civilians or whatever, by individuals. But we know and are satisfied that the policy of the leaders is one of abiding by humanitarian rules of warfare as far as the countries are concerned. This is not particularly true of the Sandinista forces and we've had individuals here in our country testify as to the brutal treatment that they have received. And we have not found that much of this, well, that much of this we have found is a part of a disinformation campaign, tending to discredit them. For example, the charges of dope running, well, the factual evidence that we have and its photographic as a result of a kind of sting operation is that among the high officials of the Sandinista government utilizing one of their military air bases is the transshipment of drugs aimed for the United States. As I say this, we have pictured. And now the latest one is the big investigation is has there been shenanigans with the $27 million of humanitarian aid that was sent down there or that was passed by the Congress reluctantly to do this. Well, I don't see why their investigation has not revealed as yet that they were so concerned that the agencies of the executive branch might not be trustworthy in the handling of this money that in the passing of the $27 million they laid down the strict rules as to exactly how that money must be delivered and spent. And we followed those rules. I think they ought to give us back control over that because they didn't do too well. President, Brad Willis, WBVTB Boston, can you tell me why you're putting a larger effort into aid for the Congress of Nicaragua than the Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan who have been under Soviet occupation for over six years now, and also what your feelings are about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and what the U.S. should do? We are helping in Afghanistan. I'm not at liberty to tell you any details as to how we are and what we're doing. We're definitely on their side, the Ujjahedin, and believe that this invasion by the Soviet Union is just further proof that they are following an expansionist policy that is based on the Marxian doctrine and the Marx-Lenin doctrine that communism must become a one-world, that it must be a one-world communist state, that that is their goal. And no, we're doing everything we can to hopefully get them out of there. Let me spread around a little bit here. I'm looking in the same direction. From Miami. Of course, Nicaragua is the priority, but you also have mentioned you are always as part of the Nicaraguan problem. We hear rumors that an employee of the church had met with you several days ago and that Castro, because of the economic situation, wants to better relations with the United States. What would it take for this to happen? Have you had those reports or signs from Cuba? I know there have been, and ever since I've been here, every once in a while, there have been statements of this kind, and early on we made contact at a very high level down there to see, and nothing came of it. It's very simple. If he really means that he would like to have better relations and rejoin the countries of the Americas, of the Western Hemisphere, all he has to do is engage in some actions. All he has to do is release some political prisoners. All he has to do is change his persecution and his dominance or interference with the free press and all of those things, and show that he's ready to change from a totalitarian form of government, and to allow the people, Cuban Americans were here to be able to visit their families and so forth. And until they take some actions, this is much of what I said in our negotiations in Geneva also. We need more than words. We need some action. With regard to the Israeli spying on us, all we can tell you is that the Israeli government has sworn to us that this certainly is nothing official from them if there is such a thing going on, that they have not been doing this. We have been doing all the investigating we can. We have no evidence that it is a part of their government policy. But as to spies, I think they're always present, and we do everything that we can to be able to identify and find them if they're doing these things. And the reason that has come to the fore, and there's so much attention, is we've been successful of late in bringing some of them to justice. And we're going to keep on with that, but we can never rule out that that's going on. Young lady. I do that often. Go ahead. And several members of that committee have suggested a tax increase as a means for you to get the tax increase. Now I want to write back, just tell me why you would not like to have at least a small tax increase to get the kind of stimulus. This has been, of course, the pattern for a half a century that I know of in our government here. That you can nibble away at increasing the taxes in order to get the spending that various individuals want for their favorite programs. It's also been traditional, and not just under Republican administrations, but coming back, I remember with FDR, that defense has been the grab bag. Anybody that's got a social program up in the hill and they want to do it for whatever reason, they can get the money from defense, take it away from defense. That is why when some of our ranking officers ask their counterparts after World War II, in Japan, why Pearl Harbor? Why they ever did that? The answer was very simple. They said, we didn't think you'd fight. And they told our officers that in the Louisiana maneuvers, the great war games that preceded World War II here in our country, we had soldiers carrying wooden guns and were using cardboard tanks to simulate armored warfare. So they assumed we wouldn't fight. This still goes on. Defense is always supposed to be the one that is, and yet defense is the first priority under the Constitution of the Federal Government, the protection of the national security of our people. And right now, with all of our increases and what we've done, our defense budget is a smaller percentage of the national budget and of the gross national product than it has been in years past when we weren't doing as well as we've been doing. And this thing of tax increase, the plain simple truth is the Federal Government is spending too much. If we had gotten the cuts that we asked for in 1981 when we were asking for our first budget, there would have been $207 billion and $7 billion less deficit than we've had in these last few years. And they're still protecting many of those, the budget that we presented. And I'd like to take a chance to just tell you something about the budgeting process. Having been governor of a state, I can tell you that the Federal Government would simply pattern itself after one of the states, any one of about 40 of them, they'd have a better budgeting system than they have here at the national level. We sit around a cabinet table for months and for long hours with all the heads of the various departments who are going to implement the congressional past programs. And these people who have to implement them and work with them tell us the figure that they need to do the job that Congress has assigned to them. And we send this up to the Hill as a budget. Then they sit down in a committee and without any regard to who's going to run the program or whether they know anything about how to run the program, they say, oh no, we've got to give them more money than that. And then when they give you the more money, they tell you also you have to spend it. Lots of times, you know, in the past there have been government agencies here that come the end of the year, they go out and buy new furniture because they've got to get rid of the money. And this is one of the things we're trying to change. So for them to sit there again and say, we believe that the tax decrease that we achieved in 1981 is the principal cause for the astonishing economic recovery that we've had. We believe right now that to go to a tax increase again would be detrimental to that recovery and would risk us going back into that thing we've known for the last 50 years of every few years of another recession. So we've said, no, cut spending. We suggested the elimination of scores of federal programs that aren't serving any useful purpose. None of them have we been permitted to eliminate. And so we say again, the only time you could ever say a tax increase is if we get government spending down to where we say this is it. This is now the level at which we can perform the tax government is supposed to. And if then that isn't enough, we don't have enough, then you say we will have to have revenues to match this. But when we're doing the things we're doing, when we're doing social programs that when I was governor, we had programs in which it cost $2 for the federal government to deliver $1 to a needy person. And things like this are still there's too much of that going on. Mr. President, Chuck Gowdy from WLS in Chicago. A suburban Chicago priest, Father Lawrence Martin Janko, has been held in captivity hostage, if you will, in Lebanon for 17 months now, one of five Americans who has been held for at least a year. The family of Father Janko today is calling on you and the administration to take a more aggressive role in securing the release of those hostages. If you can tell me what is the government doing now to get the hostages out and why haven't you been successful out of this morning? I can answer the question here and let me just say to you and I've, we've tried to impress this in the families of all of those hostages that are being held. We're not sitting idle. The fact that we aren't on the front page of the paper every day with the story is because that would be counterproductive. There has never been a minute that we have not been working for that release. We have gone down channel after channel and many of them have brought us to the point where we believe in a few days we were going to be successful and then would find a dead end that it didn't, didn't work out. We have never given up for a minute in our efforts to get them back but I cannot describe those efforts because as I say that would be counterproductive and all I can do is tell you that we're going to continue. We've never given up for a minute and trying to get them back. We know the anguish of the families but we know more of the distress of the men who are being held and we've gone in every direction possible and followed every lead possible. Sir, if I could follow up, you said that you were close at some points in securing the release of the hostages. How close would you say you are right now to getting them released? Well, to be honest with you, we're right now in one of those moments in which we have had the great disappointment that the channel that we had been following and that we thought was going to be successful failed. No, no, he's been helpful to us and we'll continue to use him where possible. It seems like every day you're involved in something that's serious, something that's trying, something that's emotional, something that's stressful. You've got the most stressful job in the whole world, obviously. My question, I guess, is how do you deal with this? How are you able on a day-to-day basis to face all these things and keep your head above water? Well, for one thing, I'm surrounded by some awfully good people who are sincerely dedicated to serving and who made great sacrifices to be a part of government and serve. And I'm a little self-conscious about this next one. Let me just call on Abe up there for his answer. He said many times he has been driven to his knees because there was no place else to go. And if he did not believe that he could call on one who was wiser and greater than all others for help, there was no way that he could stand this position. I'm from Miami, Florida. What kind of immigration program are we going to have between Cuba and the United States? I hope we're going to have the thing that is now before the Congress. We tried with their previous effort. It is true that our borders are getting out of control or are out of control. And we do need an immigration program. And we're still trying to get it through the Congress. Wait, all right, I'll be... Mr. President, there are Cuban prisoners who have recently been released waiting for visas to come to America. Is it possible for you to waive them on into the country? I know there's an impasse right now with Cuba and the immigration standoff. Is it possible for you to just say they've been released from prison in Cuba now they can come to the United States? I would think that we could. And I would like to know if there's any case where there's a release and they haven't. I would make any effort that I could. Mr. Niestone, you were looking into the situation. I wonder if the technicalities can be done away with and they can be brought in. Well, I imagine that what they're probably looking into is are they people who were strictly political prisoners? Because you know that the Mariel lived the time when so many came flooding in. Mr. Castro filled their ranks but infiltrated among them even mental patients and people who were guilty of horrendous crimes, not political prisoners at all. And then we had a tremendous job that isn't finished yet of trying to find people that were just outright violent criminals who had been sent here as refugees, political refugees. So this might be what they're looking into with regard to these others. Earlier it was mentioned that we've had some meetings with some of the clergy from Cuba and we voiced our belief to them, particularly about one man in particular and if they had any influence on Castro and that one man has been released. I've signaled him and they're not. Thank you, Mr. LP Phillips, WJBC for looking to Illinois. Mr. President, the people of America have got conflicting opinions and statements about the Saul II treaties. A couple questions. First, are we going to abandon, for sure, the unratified Saul II treaty? Does this mean more missiles? I'd like to follow up with you. No, we're engaged now in a modernization program that's made necessary as it would be with any kind of weapons that better ideas come along and some things get outmoded and so forth. And we're not going to retreat from that modernization. We're behind the Soviets. They've been doing it much longer, beginning with the SS-18. Our MX, which is not yet deployed, is our counter to the SS-18. We are, right now, technically, within the limits of Saul. They are not, as they have not been for seven years, that they have been violating it. So we're going to be guided by what is necessary for our national security and a deterrent to their ever-feeling temp to launch a first strike. And what we're doing down the road in our modernization program, there is coming a moment in which to continue with that modernization will take us beyond the terms of salt. But salt was a treaty that the Senate, some of the members of that Senate, then are still members now and they're criticizing me for talk of not abiding by salt. Well, they were members of the Senate that wouldn't ratify salt as a treaty. It has not been observed, as I say, for seven years with the Soviet Union. There's no way that we could possibly or should possibly go on unilaterally adhering to this treaty. In the first place, I always opposed the treaty because it didn't do anything to reduce armaments. All it did was set a pace at how much you can and how fast you could increase. What we're going to do in the intervening time, however, is since the Soviets for the first time and I know of, have made proposals themselves about reducing the number of weapons, we're going to try to engage them in that kind of a practical treaty of negotiating reductions of weapons that will replace this unratified treaty and a treaty which incidentally has already outlived the period of time for which it was established. P.W. Buffalo, New York. American hostage Terry Anderson is from my area. His sister, as you probably know, was granted a visa to Lebanon last week. Is the government going to help her go there, get there, and be safe there? And how safe are all Americans traveling Well, I think in many places there's, there certainly is a reasonable safety. Our ambassador to England recently was quoted in your papers and I have not argued with him on this. I agree with him. He's quoted that he believes that London is probably as safe as any city in the world. On the other hand, in a situation such as Lebanon, which is virtually out of control, I don't believe that anyone could say that an American is safe there. We're bound to be a target with the factions that are fighting there in Lebanon. Now, whatever we can do, I didn't know about this, but I'd be very, now that you've told me about it, I'm going to go back to the office and see that we look into this to see whatever we can do. Last question. A question about strategic defense. There were quotes, I hate to rope you from channel 5 News in Boston, there were quotes by a high-level policymaker who chose to be unnamed a couple of days ago at the Boston Globe, suggesting for the first time that parts or perhaps all of the strategic defense initiative may be subject to compromise by your administration. Given recent Soviet proposals on defense research under the ABM, and given their recent proposals as to possible reductions in offensive weapons, is any or all of SDI in any way a negotiation? Not in the sense of using that as a bargaining chip to get anything in the line of arms reduction or anything of the kind. I think that this is one of the best things that has come along in scores of years here, is this idea of switching from a policy, the mad policy, mutual assured destruction, that we in the Soviets could be safe, the people of our two countries, if we each had so many destructive weapons that for either one of us to start a war, the one who started it could get destroyed also. This doesn't make sense in a world where mad men can come along as one did half a century almost ago, Adolf Hitler. The idea of a defensive weapon that could probably make us take a second look at intercontinental ballistic missiles, they are the most destabilizing. That's the weapon that if you push a button 30 minutes later a lot of people blow up. If we could have a defensive system that says anyone who decides to start a war with those things may have trouble because not very many of them may get through. This we're going to continue, but we also know that the Soviet Union has preceded us. They have been working and researching on a defensive program long before we started. Now our idea is that research on strategic defense comes within the ABM Treaty. We're not violating any treaties or anything in doing this. If we can come up with a development idea that shows that these ballistic missiles can be rendered obsolete, that is a time then when Mr. Gorbachev's proposal of total elimination of those weapons, that we could both have it. And frankly I have said publicly a number of times. I'm prepared to say that whichever one of us can come up or that both of us come up with such a defensive weapon. As far as we're concerned, we'd be happy to make ours available worldwide in return for the elimination of those weapons. Reduction of nuclear weapons is our goal. That is our purpose. What about South Africa? The state of emergency? Do we need to have sanctions now in the U.S.? Are you going to change your position on that? We still don't think that sanctions have, first of all, American investment in South Africa is one percent or less of their total investment. So we couldn't affect them very much in doing that. But secondly, whatever we did do in that line would militate against the people we're trying to help. And we feel that also for us to get out as some of our young people think we should, we're taking away the only contact and base we have there for continued contact with them to help try and help bring about a solution to this problem and an end to apartheid, which we find repugnant, as I'm sure all of you do. You condemn the state of emergency there right now? Well, let me say we regret it. It's awfully hard when you're not involved in that. But what we're seeing now is an outright civil war that is going on and it's no longer just the contest between the black population and the white population. It is blacks fighting against blacks because there's still a tribal situation involved there in that community. And we want to continue doing everything we can to help that faction of the government that has made some progress and has corrected some of the evils and has announced its desire to do the rest but as a faction in its own government that is opposing it. But she told me I'd answer it all like an answer any more. And you've got an idea who's the most powerful person on earth, don't you?