 I'm going to start out with a couple of central American questions and see how I do. Are you happy with the things you got from the house today? Not completely happy. The cup's half full. We need the full cup and we will go back for more. On the Senate side, I understand they didn't ask the full 60 that we'd asked for. I think a lot of Americans wonder if you are getting us into another Vietnam. I think that is the general glory there. Something that's secret and quietly slipped in before we realized we were there. Are we? No. And there is no comparison whatsoever in this situation in Vietnam. And I will be speaking more about this tomorrow night to the Congress. But there is no and never has been any thought or discussion of sending troops any place here in the Americas, nor are they asked for it or wanted it. And three-fourths or more of all the aid that has gone down there has been the economic aid. And less than one-fourth of it has been military aid. But Vietnam started similarly in that country saying that we had no intention of sending any troops there. We weren't going to get into it. And because of all the debate over secret operations, I think there's a great concern. Do you think there's a point where you can tell Americans more about what we're doing in Nicaragua, for example? Well, no. Look what we had in Vietnam. We had a place that wasn't even named that. It was named French Indochina. And it was part of the decolonizing that began after World War II. And at a meeting of the leading nations in the Western world in Geneva, it was decided that there would be a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam. And two companies were, countries were created. All sorts of provisions were made as to how they could determine where they wanted to go and so forth. And the people of one country or the other were supposed to be allowed to change if they wanted to. North Vietnam, when a million people crossed over into South Vietnam, preferring that to the communist rule that existed under Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam, they shut the borders contrary to the agreement and so forth. But you had there an assault on one country by another. But the advisors that were in there were in there because it was a new country, South Vietnam. They were for the first time going to have-to-have things like their own defense, their own military and so forth. And we were simply in there trying to help them establish all the things that go with being an independent state. And the invasion from North Vietnam really started while most people portrayed it as a-as a-a Viet Cong, a domestic revolution. It wasn't at all. We know now that they were sent in deliberately. They were North Vietnamese forces. But the whole thing was on a totally different basis to say nothing of being 10,000 miles away than the situation here of a duly elected government that is being attacked by guerrilla forces that are sponsored by outside countries. But it's the situation in Nicaragua that I think right now is causing so much concern because of the secrecy of what's going on there. Do you think there's a tomorrow night or some point where you can describe more fully what we're doing there beyond the trying to intercept the allies? What I think I will point out is that the difference between San Salvador and Nicaragua is that Nicaragua is a revolutionary government that by force took over the governing of Nicaragua. But then you had the internal fight in which many of the revolutionaries were cast aside and the promises that had been made as being the goals of the revolution were never carried out. Our country had tried to do and been trying to get along, negotiate with Nicaragua. But our interest there is because the arms and the training and even the direction of guerrilla military movements are all centered in Nicaragua. The arms are coming into El Salvador in the way of Nicaragua. We know that the operations of the Salvadoran guerrillas are directed by radio from the capital of, near the capital of Nicaragua. Well, you said in your last press conference that we wouldn't do anything to violate the Bowman Amendment. How would you feel if the guerrillas themselves said that their intentions are to overthrow the government? Well, we can't control what they're saying. What we're interested in is preventing this continued military supply and training. Well, can't we control what they're doing with our arms, then? With what? Can't we control what... If they're saying that they're trying to overthrow the government, can't we control that? Well, as I say, we're interested in making it more difficult, in fact impossible, for Nicaragua to continue to arm the guerrillas in El Salvador. Jump from it to taxes, another of your favorite subjects. Howard Baker said yesterday that, or I think it was earlier today, that he thought that the Republicans would have to go for about $8 billion to $10 billion in new taxes in order to save the third year of your tax cut and your indexing. If they structured that in such a way that it wasn't an income tax, do you think you could buy it? I just have to say that I think that right now, with this recovery, at the stage it has reached, no one should be talking increased taxes. This would be a good way to set back or cancel out the recovery. But if both Democrats and Republicans are, and you've got the choice between what the Democrats are trying to do with $30 billion, which could mean no third year tax cut, no indexing, wouldn't you accept something to save that? If they attempted it, I would veto that. No amount at all, not a cent, not a nickel? No. Mr. President, could I ask you about your commission on educational accidents? Today I made a report saying that there was a tide of mediocrity sweeping American schools and implicit in what they said, I think there would have to be more money spent for longer class hours, better paid teachers and so forth. Would you be inclined to support more federal aid to education if that's what it took to have the kind of crash program that you're talking about? Yes, we've talked about that, but providing there would not be any increase in federal administration of those funds. We think there's a parallel between the federal involvement in education and the decline in quality over recent years. But what is more needed than just throwing money at education? We're right now spending more money than any other country in the world. We're spending $215 billion on education in this country. We think has happened, as well, the report speaks for itself, that we have let up. We are not actually taking the students to the limit of their ability. We think we need more required courses. This is what the commission has come up with. I know that today the question was asked of David Gardner as to the one thing that was lacking in the report was the demand for a big federal program. I thought his answer explained it very well when he said, no, we are trying to improve the quality of education. That doesn't take a big federal program. You don't think there's any need for additional federal aid, excluding administrative costs? I have not had a chance to read the full report yet, but no, I don't see any need for it. Mr. President, in connection with your visit with the newspaper publishers tomorrow, yesterday Senator Moynihan told the publishers they should roll like a title, I believe he told them, over press restraints on coverage by Congress and the administration. Do you think the press has anything to do all about in terms of covering Washington and your administration? Well, now, how did he just mean that, that they're to roar like a lion? He said that there was a montage of restraint, no major problems, but he referred to the Secret Agents Act. He referred to the power of the Supreme Court. He referred to several incidents and he said there is a montage of restraint and the press should be more vigorous and noisy about protecting its ability to cover. I don't see that, and I don't think so. I think the press is free to print those things that should be printed. I think to suggest that we should declassify things that, in regard to national security, would be ridiculous. I think the press would feel that way too. Do you think the public has anything to complain about in terms of what it is getting in a way that moves out of Washington and your administration? Yeah, I'd like to see the press complain about that they're getting too many leaks. I guess that's your complaint about that. You've said before, frequently, that one of the reasons that you're not getting as much support as you should on some of your policies is because the public doesn't understand them. Do you think the public is not getting full economy? Well, I'm trying to think of a specific here in what we're... I think defense was the problem. I think it was the defense build-up that the most recently was complaining about. Well, yes, I think there has been a perpetuation of an image of a perception that somehow defences the cornucopia from which you can get all the revenues you need for anything else that you want to do, and that it doesn't have any bearing on our national security. And people have been led to believe that, well, it's just larded with fat, and so you wouldn't really be hurting the muscle fiber of our security if you took more money away. And what I guess I suggested recently was that to talk about defense spending, the defense budget, and to talk about, well, let's take 5 billion off, or let's take 10 billion off of the budget, there is no way that you can budget militarily that way. Those of us who are responsible for security, we don't go at how much we want to spend. We go at what do we need to meet the strategic plan that we have that we believe is necessary for our security? And then you add up, what is that going to cost? Now, the only way that you can look at the defense budget is not by way of just counting dollars. The man who says let's reduce the budget by 10 billion dollars should be made to come in and look at that defense plan, and then we say to him, okay, where do you think? What would you do away with there that would save 10 billion dollars? And how much does that increase the insecurity of our country if you do that? Do you think that the public generally just doesn't understand this process? Because the polls still show that even though you gained some back in recent weeks on this defense spending issue, the polls still show that people believe that they want a defense builder, but not necessarily as much as a defense builder. When you told that over and over again, you realized that when I was campaigning during the campaign, it was exactly the opposite. Everyone in this country was prepared to believe and did believe that our defenses had, as they have, been neglected and that we were in a very risky situation. In fact, much of it was obvious. When ships couldn't sail naval vessels because they didn't have enough crew or didn't have spare parts for their machinery, the public knew something was wrong. Since that time, I think the constant drumbeat about charging that there is excessive spending has the thing that has turned the public around. They've been told over and over again that there is waste and extravagance. By Republicans or by the press or by Democrats? Who's trying on that? Well, you're set a budget committee run by your Republicans. Think that the point has come where we have to go for a little bit less of an increase. Not a decrease, I understand that, but less of an increase than you want. Well, except that even including the chairman of that committee are going to wage a fight on the floor for more money. They knew they could not, in the committee, they could not get majority vote. Turning to a topic that is a little less complex, what about Senator Doe's comment yesterday? He doesn't think the public understands the issue with the bankers over withholding tax. Well, I think there that there was a perception built among millions of people that this was a new tax, that somehow something that had never been levied against them was going to be levied. They did not understand how many of them, the great majority of them, that wouldn't even be touched by this, that they would be exempt on the basis of their income or the size of their savings accounts. And this generated probably the most successful lobbying effort that I've seen in many years. The way it's structured now, for your delay, would you veto that the way you would veto? Well, I'm going to wait before I make any comment of that kind of veto or not till I see what eventually arrives out of the legislature. But the plain truth of the matter is this is not a new tax. It's a tax that people are presently paying. And all that we wanted to do, the same as we do with wages, with withholding, was to be able to head off several millions of people who are cheating on their income tax and are escaping payment by not paying on dividend and interest earnings. Do you think the process failed to explain this? Or do you think it's the fact that the public doesn't want to understand it? Well, I don't know that I've seen that carried very much. I think I've seen the news carried of the lobbying, the news carried of the resentment of this, but I've never really seen an explanation of it. The editorial writers were with you. I don't think I read an editorial anywhere in this country that was not on your side on this. I know the editorials, but then as we all know, only 10% of the readers read the editorial. 90% were reading something else in the same papers. No, I was surprised at many of the papers that normally don't editorialize in my favor, but we're in this one. Could I ask you a couple of questions about 84 without expecting you to announce while we're sitting here? But you can if you want. One of the State Chairman who was having lunch with you last Thursday, when he left the White House, he told some friends at the Republican National Committee that during the lunch you had leaned over and said to him, don't worry, I'm going to go again. And I was just wondering if he was telling the truth. Have you told anybody that? I did not tell anyone. You haven't told anyone? No. You're still saying you haven't made up your mind? I haven't said that to anyone, really. You've been Nancy? Not even Nancy. Secondly, one of your sort of supporters, Terry Dolan from NICPAC, occasional supporters, I don't know if you've heard about this or not, but they are running television commercials now saying that the press is slinging mud at you and is trying to drive you out of running for a second term. And they are actually collecting money and they're asking for contributions to NICPAC on your behalf for running for reelection. Are you aware of this and do you condone or encourage this kind of back? This is the first that I'd ever heard of it. And no, I couldn't condone it because the election models are very strict about that sort of thing. Do you feel that the press is trying to get you out of the campaign for running for reelection? No. I just think you wouldn't have all those things to pick on if I weren't here. That connection, Mr. Brown, it was common that there's an imbalance of bad news over good news. Lately, since the economic news has been brightening, I haven't sensed that feeling quite as much. Do you feel that the news has gotten better or the coverage has gotten better? Well, for one thing, the news has gotten better. But I think I was probably speaking more of the media, the TV news that I think sometimes is interested in. Well, you know, show business is based on the audience having an emotional experience. And so the sad stories were appealing and so forth. There seemed to be a great emphasis on this. But, for example, just the other day, though, the use of non-use of figures, the other day there was a little note, and I can't recall, so I'll be honest, I can't recall whether it was a columnist or whether it was a news story, to the effect that someplace or record that we're setting a record of 500 businesses going belly up every year. And this year there will be 500 and so forth. But no mention was made of the fact that new businesses are setting records in starting. But in the same period when several thousand businesses were reported as closing, I guess in the year 1982, 600,000 businesses started up. And the same was true for a long time. Every week, faithfully reported, was how many people left or how many people signed up for unemployment insurance. But each week the same source of information gives the number of people that go off unemployment insurance. Now, admittedly, maybe not all of those go back to work. Maybe they just come to the end of their term. But for many weeks the number of people leaving unemployment insurance has been greater than the number of people going on. Speaking of good economic news, some experts think that part of the beginning of the recovery is due to Paul Volcker loosening up a little bit on the money supply. Why do you want to get rid of him now? The way you ask that question, you can't get a yes or no answer to that. There's never been any discussion over here of this. I know that's an appointment that comes up down the road of ways. There's never been any talk here about... You mean when you're saying here you mean yourself, not your senior aides, or are you including your senior aides on that? There certainly has never been any involving me or no one has ever brought this subject to me. So if they're saying that as I've seen reported that they're almost unanimous and thinking you should get your own man in that job, that's their opinion and not necessarily yours. That would be their opinion. Speaking of the aides, just one more. Do you intend to do anything about the feuding that's going on among some of the senior levels on your staff? Yes, I'm disturbed about it and I think there again this comes under the subject generally of leaks. And I think it's time to put a stop to what I think is incorrect information. If leaks are more honest, that's one thing but incorrect information is added to this whole atmosphere. How are you going to do that? Well, I've thought of the guillotine. But I'll stop short of that. Is it incorrect the reports that Clark and Weinberger, or Clark and Weinberger and Baker, or is it incorrect that for instance the defense people and Jim Baker and his staff are not communicating as well as they should? Well, whether someone in the lower down echelons thinks they're doing a service for their own shop in putting out this kind of talk or not, that's what I aim to find out. But no, I think some of the attacks that I have seen recently both ways are reprehensible and do not portray the situation. So they're not free? No, any time that maybe some of this comes from the way I chose to do business. It's the way I did it in California for eight years. I understand that in the past cabinets, for example, each person had his own turf and no one else in the cabinet would talk about a decision affecting the turf of that one cabinet. I don't do business that way. Ours is more like board of directors. I want all the input because there are very few issues that don't lap over into other areas. Can you talk about farm exports without being involved with the Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department so forth? So I want everybody's input. I want to hear all the views and all the input. And then I make the decisions. The only thing different from the board of directors is I don't take a vote. I know that I have to make the decision. Well, one of the problems is that there was a feeling that you could have gotten a better deal out of the Budget Committee if the issue of what your negotiating position was going to be as an old negotiator you didn't want to say too soon. Well, it appears that it may have come too late. No, what really happened was we had asked, I had asked for more time, to see if, number one, if the Commission was studying the MX and all. They had not come in. Whether what they came in with might change the figure that we had put in the Budget. Also, the swift drop in inflation, we thought, had made some changes. And it takes time. There again we come back to, you can't just discuss money. You've got to discuss what are we talking about? What are we talking about doing away with or that won't cost as much and so forth. And frankly, I had asked for time because I believe that we could have some flexibility, that our original figure could be changed. And the Committee was in Marka and meeting and I asked for more time again and they wouldn't give more time. And the only reason I was asking for more time was it took longer than we thought. They were working on it over the Pentagon and they came in with a figure and it was a lower and a compromise figure. But it was too late. They had passed their figure. Now we're going to try to get our figure which isn't as low as theirs. We're now going to try to get it considered. The 75. The 7.5%. Mr. President, you mentioned a showbiz and emotional experience. Does that suggest that you distinguish between the coverage you get in print and on television? Well, I think I'd be courting an awful lot of newspapers if I said that there is a flavor of showbizness more to TV news than there is to the front page of a newspaper. Does that bother you? What? Does that bother you? Not when it's in my favor. If I could get back to Mr. Volcker just for a minute. I think it was the Chairman General Motors who said yesterday that this thing shouldn't be left hanging. That it could have a powerful effect on the Wall Street. You know, the way they perceive what's going to happen here at the Federal Reserve. Most people assume that nothing around here happens by accident. Was it an accident that some of your aides set the tone for perhaps pushing Mr. Volcker out? Does that concern you? If they did, and if those leaks, they actually were leaking this, then it had to be. As a matter of fact, I told Mr. Volcker just the other day after all of this flurry appeared that there had been no decision made or no conversation of any kind carried on here in the administration about this. And I hope he won't mind my telling you his answer. His answer was to laugh and say I've been around to Washington a long time. Don't worry. Well, you see, as Donald was saying, it's because you're trying it out in the public. I mean, you know, there's leaks and there are leaks, and some of them are helping you because you get policies across. This one wasn't one of these. Believe me, these would not have been what you're talking about are leaks of trial balloons. Yeah, okay. No, there were no trial trial balloons because if it was a trial balloon, I would have had to know about it. Yeah, I want to get one more. Mr. President, I'd like to make a pitch that you and your associates consider sending your message on leaks and news coverage to the Convention of the Marvel Society newspaper. As I expected, I want to visit with two newspaper groups in two weeks. We hope somebody from your administration can visit with us, and I'll leave this with Mr. Speaks. Oh, all right. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Are you all ready for your speech? I hope.