 in business. Mr. President, you know that we would like to concentrate on U.S.-Soviet relations. And if I could open up by asking you whether after three years of experience with the Soviets, you haven't counted anything that has surprised you, anything that happened about their behavior or the actions that was different from your expectations? No. And I might say I'm pleased that this is going to be the subject because I think there are a great many misperceptions out there about the situation now, and I welcome an opportunity. Matter of fact, if you correct the misperceptions, you'll have an exclusive scoop. I came here into this office having pledged all through the campaign, and I was determined to attempt to bring about a reduction in the arms and end of the arms race that's going or that, well, there hadn't been an arms race going on. There'd only been a buildup on one side. But to bring that about, but also to see if we couldn't get the world on a practical road to peace, and I'm still dedicated to that, and I think that contrary to some of the cries of despair that are going on out there, I think that the world situation is better than it was when we came here. But the, no, I think I had long been aware of the Cold War sort of thing. I was blooded in that as a union leader back in Hollywood many years ago when in the days of the communist front organizations and everything in our own country and the attempts to infiltrate organized labor, they had made great inroads and I was impressed then with how the tactics, whether it was on the domestic scene or at Panmunjam and the armistice talks or in the summit meetings, all seemed to be the same. There is a new development that I've worried about for some time. That is the, lately, extent to which military leaders in the Soviet Union are apparently without any coaching or being brief, but at least there's no evidence of that by the civilian part of government, are taking it upon themselves to make statements and rather bellicose statements. I think this would be a new element if we're seeing a time when the military in the Soviet Union are kind of feeling their strength and deciding to have more of a voice in policy. Do you think they have more influence now, let's say, when you took over or before operation? Well, if you look back over the years, there has not been, as we've seen now, in connection with the KAL, the shooting down on the plane, the things that he disputes that are going on now with regard to the arms discussions, there has not in the past been that evidence of top military personnel going public with attacks on the United States, verbal attacks, and seeming to enunciate policy on their own. I think it's something that we should be aware of. Mr. President, do you feel the military leaders are affecting the policy? They're certainly out front in a fashion they weren't. Well, that's what we have to, I say, we have to be aware of this and pay a little attention to this to see if they have become a power on their own within the Politburo or with regard to the Politburo. Do you feel that you and the government have less contact with the military than with the civilian leadership? Is it more difficult to talk to them or to exchange ideas with them? Well, a government deals with a government. It would be out of place for us to attempt to bypass the government and make contact with the military leaders just as we would feel the same if the Soviet government tried to do it with the Pentagon instead of the White House. You and your advisers spend a great deal of time thinking about the Soviets, particularly these days, their plans and their policies. You've also had personal correspondence with both Brezhnev and then Dropoff. Have you formed any image in your mind of your counterparts over there, of people worrying about what you're going to do next? Does it help to try to think of them as individuals, as human beings, with the same kinds of, you know, with strengths and failings and the same kinds of concerns you have? Well, no, you deal with them as human beings, but you're aware that certainly they are ideologues dedicated to the philosophy that has brought them into power. No, as a matter of fact, we've had some reports from other observers there and people from other countries that they seem to feel that they can communicate better because we're more consistent. They know where we stand. Better with you than with Jimmy Carter. Well, I won't use any other names, but when they didn't know really what the policy of America was and what we were doing, this has been related to us, as I say, by third parties, that these expressions have been made, that at least they know where we stand. But do you have any better image or a different image in your own mind now that you have been dealing with them in this way than you had when you came in? Do you have any image of them as individual government leaders? Can you tell us anything about, for instance, your correspondence with Andropov? Well, no, and I wouldn't use the word correspondence, although we have channels open. This again is part of this misperception that is out there that somehow we're in communicato. We have turned our backs and we're not speaking to each other. No, we've been in communication with them and intend to continue. I had correspondence directly with Landed Brezhnev, as a matter of fact, going back to what I said earlier about when I first came here. It was in those first few months when I was lying in a hospital as a result of a little incident at the Hilton Hotel. While I was in the hospital, having met Brezhnev some 10 years earlier when he was here for those extensive meetings with President Nixon and when there was such a euphoria, when it seemed the two of them established such a rapport that maybe there would be giant strides toward peace. And as governor of California, and he was in California, I had a chance to meet and talk with him. And I told him how many millions of people throughout the world it seemed were putting their hopes on these talks that were going on. And did he realize this? And oh, he assured me that he did and told me that this was what was in his heart. This was what he wanted, peace and so forth. And I reminded him of this. And then I said to him, now that I was in this other position, that I've long believed that his people and our people wanted the same things. Those people out there on the street in their homes, they want to raise their families in peace. They want to educate their children. They want to work at their chosen callings. And that only governments seem to cause wars. They don't come from people. And I said, couldn't propose to him that couldn't we have a meeting in which we would try to represent and do what our two peoples wanted us to do, rather than getting tangled up in the policies of governments that didn't seem to meet the people's demands. And I wrote that letter in longhand. It was sent to him in longhand. Now, whether he read that letter or not, I don't know. We'll never have any way of knowing. But after quite a long delay, the answer that came to me was not handwritten, and nor was it personal. It was a communication that sounded more or less like it, that had bureaucratic hands on it. And it was the usual rhetoric that is publicly exchanged between our two countries in the first few lines. We were called imperialists and threats to the peace. We were the aggressors and we were at fault and so forth. And there was no real response to what I'd suggested. Mr. President, would you make the same kind of letter to Mr. Andropov? Well, we've tried to get this kind of correspondence, but it has been difficult. And I understand the situation with the new regime coming in with the death of Brezhnev. And now, if there are health problems or whatever has had him more or less out of sight, but we have, as I say, we've kept channels open and have tried to communicate there and what our desires are. And they are consistent with what I was saying back during the campaign. Let's start reducing on both sides these stores of weapons and let us try to arrive at a point where there can be a better understanding and we'll find that those weapons aren't necessary. But you don't feel such a letter would be appropriate at this time? Well, I feel a little hard put because of the lack of information and knowledge that we have of where he is and that it wasn't like Brezhnev after years of being in the Kremlin and you knew where he was and felt you knew how to reach him. When you say where he was, Mr. President, you mean in the in the Soviet hierarchy? Yes, in the hierarchy. You don't mean his health or anything like that. In other words, that suggests you're not absolutely sure that he's totally, that he's has yet totally taken control of things. That and I, when I try to visualize myself here trying to get a, and yet I had a few months advanced warning to get a government organized so I know what some of those problems are. Mr. President, I think you're so correct about the public perception, the channels of communication are exceedingly limited. We've had three major sets of talks now either suspended or aware with no dates for the renewal. It would probably be beneficial if you could give us some idea of what kinds of channels you're talking about when you say there are still channels and they're being used. Well, would you forgive me if I suggested that's difficult because I don't want to do anything that might upset contacts that we have made or make it more difficult. So I would prefer to just let you assume that what I'm saying that we do have contacts, we can get our views there and solicit theirs and we have discussed specific issues between our two countries and had some results. Favorable results? What? Favorable results. In some instances, yes. Could you give us an example of that? Well, it was favorable to them when we resumed the grain agreement. But you've based your nuclear negotiating strategy on the conviction that once the modernization of our strategic weapons was well underway and once the Moscow was persuaded that deployment of the INF missiles would go ahead that then the Russians would bargain with us seriously. Now those two conditions have been met. Modernization is underway and purgings and cruises are going in. Yet the Russians are not negotiating seriously, rather they seem to be threatening another lap in the arms race. Now, how do you propose to deal with that? Well, isn't it possible that they had embarked on a kind of a negotiating procedure that didn't result in negotiating directly with us, but was trying to build up forces in other countries and among our allies propaganda devices that would bring some weakening of the alliance, the NATO alliance, in order to prevent the deployment of the intermediate range weapons that NATO had asked us for in 1979 of this program of supplying the NATO front with intermediate range weapons to counter the Soviet SS-20s and 4s and 5s that were there. Remember, that was on my desk when we got here. That program had started beforehand and we're going forward with it because I think it's very important, but the Soviets made it plain that particularly with regard to the Pershing-2 missiles, this was anathema to them and they were making every effort to hold out the bait of negotiations if we would give up the deployment. Well, we had to look at the fact that for a number of years our country has tried unilateral disarmament. We've canceled weapons systems, sort of with the idea that well, if they see that we're willing to do this, well then they'll be nice guys and they'll do something of the same kind. They didn't. They have kept up this constant military build up the greatest the world has ever seen and even with the intermediate range weapons and after 79 when NATO asked for a deterrent weapon on their side, the Soviet rhetoric had to do with, well, a balance has been achieved and we don't need any more, but they kept right on adding literally week after week to the number of warheads on their SS-20s that were targeted on all of Western Europe. These are weapons that could reach their target in five to seven minutes, less with some of the closer ones and we felt that there was only one way to really get these negotiations for reductions underway and that was to make it plain that we were going to deploy on schedule. Now, I offered what I think was a very reasonable and common sense proposal. The one way that there would be no deployment is if they would join and they would destroy their weapons and we'd have zero, zero, no intermediate range weapons in the European theater, no intermediate range weapons on our side. This they rejected out of hand as if it was somehow unfair and so I said, all right, if they're unwilling to go that far, then we'll make a proposal for a reduction to fair and equal amount on both sides and let them come in and let's negotiate out what is a number that they would be agreeable to that would be less than what we presently have and so far they haven't, they have still kept up their program. No, we must stop the deployment. In other words, they bought our zero, zero proposal, 50% of it, zero for us and they had over a thousand warheads already targeted on Western Europe. Now, they have gone out, they haven't really said they won't be back. What they've said is that they are not ready to name a date for resumption of the meetings. Usually this has taken place when there's a recess and then they say, well, we'll meet in such and such a date again and so they're still making this last step. I have to believe that once those missiles of ours are put in place and are being put in place and they see that we have the will to go forward with this, they have not been able to separate the alliance, the alliance is solidly behind us on this, then I think they'll return to the table and we're waiting for any proposals that they want to make and we're open to negotiations. You think the original strategy, negotiating strategy on our part is still sound and yes, it will lead to a reasonable deal when in the next year or so? I don't know what the time period will be but I do know this when we came here, you asked about a surprise. We were all surprised. We thought we knew something during the campaign of the situation but we were still surprised to find how desperate the United States position was militarily. The planes that couldn't fly for lack of spare parts, the ships that couldn't sail for lack of crew, people talking about reinstituting the draft and saying that the volunteer military was a failure, we didn't have enough non-commissioned officers left in the service to have trained draftees but we've been very successful in what we have done and I think this is what has brought the Soviets to the table in the first place. For the first time in years, they have seen that the American people have the will to provide a deterrent force. Mr. President, do you feel they abide by their treaties and agreements? Well, this is like a question that was asked at my first press conference when I was here. It's been misconstrued many times since. I was asked directly about the Soviets and what did I feel about them and could they be trusted and so forth and what did I think were their goals and their ideas and I answered that I didn't have to have a thought of my own about it. They themselves have declared that pie crusts are meant to be broken and so are treaties. They have themselves every leader that has ever been there until this present one and maybe just hasn't had time but every Soviet leader in my lifetime has at more than one occasion publicly declared that the Soviets idea of morality differs from ours, that the only immorality they recognize is anything that prevents the coming of the world revolution and world communism and that anything is moral, any crime is moral if it furthers that cause. And I cited this and then found that no one indicated that I was quoting them. They said that I was calling them liars and cheats and so forth and I was citing what they themselves have said is their doctrine. Now I think that this is one of the reasons why if we're to have really good will and a treaty of any kind then the only way to have good will is to avoid any possibility of suspicion and that is to have legitimate verification. But if you go back through our history of negotiations with them since World War II you will find that when Eisenhower proposed the open skies policy they turned it down. They've turned down on the basis of verification virtually everything that's ever been proposed with regard to limiting arms. Mr. President along this line when you made the remark containing the phrase focus of evil which certainly meddled the Soviets would you make that kind of remark again? Do you feel that it was appropriate to get the kind of reaction you thought it would from them? I thought there was a time in which they really had to know and understand how we saw them, where we were coming from and no I wouldn't say things like that again even after some of the things that have been done recently but I think they're aware of where we come from, what we understand and what I would like to convince them of if it's at all possible believing that in addition to their aggressive policy of wanting to spread their doctrine throughout the world I believe also that there is a great fear on their part that they must be constantly on guard and defensive and this goes even back before communism this was characteristic of Russia before it was communist a suspicion of neighbors maybe it comes who goes back to Napoleon and his march in Moscow maybe it goes back to other things of that kind that they feel they must be defensive. I would like to find and ways to convince them that there isn't anyone else in the world that has aggressive intent where they're concerned certainly we don't and we have proof over 50 years or more that we don't when we were the only power with the nuclear weapons when we had that weapon and no one else did what would it have been like in the world if they had had that weapon and no one else had had it but did we do anything did we threaten the world did we say to everyone lay down your arms no as a matter of fact in 1946 before they even had it we offered to create help them create an international body and put all nuclear forces and energy and weapons in the hands of that international group and eliminate them and they who didn't have them at the time but must have looked at them something they would like to have they were the ones who turned that down there was a case in which they had zero and we had the monopoly and we were offering to give up the monopoly and they wouldn't accept it because they wanted to go down that road of having nuclear weapons also now no i want to open a contact where hopefully we can make them see that it is to their best interest to join in reducing arms it would be in their best interest to join us in eliminating such arms in the world and to their best interest in reducing the conventional weapons what what more of a of an international superpower they could be if it was not just in the military that they were super but if they could join the family of nations as trading partners and out here working together as all of us are for the improvement of their own people and their own people standard of living i don't know whether that's possible for the embassy or not but i think it's worth a try speaking of they are joining the family of nations as you put it mr president and switching to the middle east for a moment do you think they have any useful role to play jointly with us in the middle east or do should be pursue our policy of essentially keeping them out of the middle east right now they're in the middle east in one place and that is where there's trouble going on and that has too been a tactic of theirs that they do not necessarily start the trouble but wherever such things are they have found it kind of helpful to get in and stir the pot right now if they would use their influence to persuade syria to withdraw from lebanon and let lebanon regain control of its own country and have a viable government piece within the country just as we could use our and would use our influence then for whatever we have with israel to persuade them but israel in the other hand has said that they they want to get out and are willing syria said that once and then changed their minds and why syria was invited into lebanon to help preserve order the lebanese government has now asked them to leave now they've refused to leave which makes them an occupying force i was thinking of something slightly larger like for instance the geneva conference which was once proposed that the Russians and we were supposed to chair uh i thought that we abandoned a long time ago i take it you don't think the moment is right to to resume thinking about that no no when i put it on that basis the moment isn't right let me turn to i'm sorry go ahead let me just go back a minute to clarify one item when you said in response to ray's question that you probably would not use formulations like focus of evil or evil empire again is that because you feel you've communicated that to them they now know you're thinking on that and so message delivered or because you think perhaps it was a mistake to deliver that message because it only got their apprehensions and paranoia up no i i felt that at the time that they needed to know how we felt what our views were and why we felt it necessary to build up our military defenses and so there's no use there's no point in repeating that because that's on that right well with the benefit of hindsight looking back over nearly three years of your dealing with them is there anything else that you would rather not have done that you did do or can you spot anything that your administration should have done that it did not do well in this context of our relations with them i know i can't think of anything they uh let's be fair they have made things a little difficult for us there is their efforts in central america here in our hemisphere to create trouble here there was the shooting down of a plane and killing a great many of our citizens as well as the citizens of other countries and then they refused to acknowledge any blame in that to or to make any amends or even hinted an apology for what they had done but instead of flat declaration they'd do it again there is their well their continued expansionism throughout the world including afghanistan we were talking about the middle east and i mentioned syria we forget about over in the horn of africa and they've gone in there in ethiopian south yemenan countries of that kind which indicates that they have some less than peaceful intentions as far as the middle east is concerned so it's been a little difficult for us i was heavily criticized because i didn't do more of uh not only name calling but uh retaliatory actions when the plane was shot down i did the only things that i thought were were practical and that would have any meaning at the time the president has been suggested once or twice on the basis of some things that were attributed to the mr androprov directly a statement issued over his name that they have sort of given up on you that they've decided that really they can't deal with you do you uh how do you what's your comment on that suggestion well maybe they're thinking of getting involved in an american election as they did in germany i would hope with the same lack of success but you have you have not uh well i guess in a sense you've answered that because you've talked about the continuing contacts i take it you don't feel that it is impossible it's become impossible to do business no no i don't because they have to look realistically at the alternative the alternative well it was summed up in a cartoon that i loved to cite and was while brezhnev was still a leader and that was when brezhnev was portrayed as saying to a russian general i liked the arms race better when we were the only ones in it well they have to know that we are not going to go back to where they can't compete as president you've uh held a very consistent point of view on the question of a summit meeting that it needs an agenda a program uh and uh that it should not be involved upon unless there's some visible result to come from it but as internationally concerns uh continue to rise about the strain between the us and the soviet do you conceive of any form of of symmetry uh that there's not that could be less formalized that you could embark on in the near term well i've never thought of as being formalized so much but i think it's one in which uh when one of those things is we know from the past takes place the hopes of people worldwide are brought up to a level and then if there's nothing but that you've had a meeting and you don't either one of you have anything to say when you leave that meeting the let down we saw that once under the uh the johnson administration when they literally had a meeting i guess for the sake of getting acquainted and the the let down the disappointment uh i just don't think that's healthy or good but you mentioned all the strain and everything i have to say that uh i think there is less of a risk and less of a danger today than there was a few years ago i think the very fact of our re-strengthening what we have done the very fact that we have been sitting at those tables and that there's not been a flat no that they're never going to talk to us again i think the world is safer and farther removed from a possible war than it was several years ago do you think that they are afraid that we might regain clear military superiority over them you know and uh i'm not going to use that term uh our military is for a deterrent uh my belief that the soviet union uh is not a threat uh in regard to to starting a war if they could see and believe that the damage to them would be unacceptable so the ancient chinese used to think this and i think it also the most successful army in the world is the one that never has to fight what about miscalculations either on our part or their part or by both parties that could bring about a war even if it only starts in a small well i know a lot of people in particularly with nuclear type weapons a lot of people are concerned and say like that recent movie that somehow an accidental war could start but here we have also entered into another attempt at negotiations with them certainly a contact with them and that is to see if we cannot come to agreement on improving communications on guarding against such things if we can't agree on treaties that would have to do with prior notification of military movements or maneuvers testing of course of weapons of of of that kind and uh an improvement of the hotline so that anytime there is a thought on either side that something may be happening that isn't understood that we can communicate directly and uh this was initiated by us also as worthy arms reduction talks so i think regardless of their rhetoric uh rhetoric isn't going to start a war but again i say that i think that we are in a in a better position than we've been for a long time because these things are going forward and we're going to continue trying to persuade them to to join us in these efforts you're dealing with the soviets have you found the western european allies a help or hindrance well they have been very much a help here again i think there's been a great improvement in strengthening of the alliance we found it was in kind of disarray and we were the focus of some of it but i think recently and uh this is evident in the i n f deployment here that how they have held up under all of this propaganda under all of these demonstrations and so forth and own people and uh even the success in the german election i think that uh that yes the alliance is stronger and better than it is ever been i can get back for a moment to points you were making about afghanistan angola other uh places in which the soviets have uh have been mischievous or aggressive is it inevitable that for that matter eastern europe uh will remain in the soviet orbit uh what about cuba afghanistan angola is there anything that this government could or should be doing or do you think it's just sort of in the hands of history and fate well no all of those things are of concern to us and uh we have put forth efforts in in a number of directions on some of those things because obviously the world would be better off and peace would be more assured there'd be less chance of the accidental war if these trouble spots could be uh well reconciled in the in the uh for example that well what excuse can cuba have other than taking orders from the soviet union but for having military forces in angola the it's things like that and in the horn of africa the the same thing uh this these are the things that if we can begin talking and uh they can accept the idea of uh reduction in arms and force all of these other things could fall in line so your own uh that's conservative supporters uh have argued that you should be doing more for instance to help the savimbi forces in angola or the rebels in afghanistan that uh that that those are places where you could be showing the russians uh other examples of your determination to to be firm well in both of those uh well in one i'd rather than talk about what is going on in one country in angola uh we have been trying to persuade the uh angolan government to accept the the cubans moving out with regard to the namibia settlement that happens to be one of the requirements uh with regard to south africa south africa is very concerned that with angola uh seemingly a satellite state of the soviet union by way of cuban surrogates that then to accept the independence of namibia right there on south africa's border is like asking for the same kind of a situation only not separated by space but right on their border and we in trying to arrange the namibian independence and trying to help bring it about have been trying to carry that forward this would be a peaceful departure and it would mean no harm to angola domestically and it would bring about the independence of another african nation namibia mr president you have said the one thing that is sort of really contrary to public perception and i wonder if you'd elaborate on it you've said the world's a safer place that is the bottom line question yes tell us why well because if you were looking at the two superpowers and estranged here and that window of vulnerability was there and now that there is a deterrent on our side to conflict arising i think that it that it is safer that there was more risk of someone gambling if it didn't look as if we could retaliate in any extremely damaging way now i think that they understand and that we have the will power to preserve the deterrent so there is logic in our talking and seeing if we now can't eliminate the differences that could bring this about and as i say they have not we have tried some nineteen times since world war two to engage the soviet unions in arms talks and arms reductions the only two that ever really arrived at anything you might say is with assault agreements and yet those assault agreements were simply limitations on how many more weapons you would build and that was why during the campaign when the senate was refusing as it did to to ratify the assault to agreement i expressed my approval of the senate in refusing but made it plain not that i was against arms talks or arms limitations but i believe that the time had come for arms reductions now i was informed by professionals when i got here that had the assault to treaty been ratified that from the time it was ratified until our administration came here under the terms of that treaty the soviet union would have been able to add to its nuclear forces the equivalent explosive power that was dropped on Hiroshima they would have been able to add that much every eleven minutes well that i don't think is very much of a of a peacemaking treaty that isn't the kind of thing that we're after take a look at the different difference if both of us would say hey we've seen the scientists talk about the world itself could be destroyed as long as we maintain so that neither side is able to start a war with the other why don't we reduce and if we start down that road of reducing for heaven's sakes why don't we rid the world of these weapons why do we keep them there was a time not too long ago when the Geneva accords with regard to the rules of warfare made every took every precaution to prevent harm to civilians in a war that wars should be fought between the warriors and not involving the civilian population here's the world today whose principal armaments are armaments that would wipe out the civilians in the tens and hundreds of millions uh let's get back to being civilized in other words let the professionals do the fighting is that what you're saying well no as i say if you have a good enough army then you'll never have to use it right mr president thank you very much thank you mr president