 Mr. President, I'd like to say to you that my purpose here is less to try to get a headline than to ask you about some of the things that have happened in the course of Presidency. But there is one issue that didn't come up at all last night at your news conference, perhaps it surprised you as it did us, and that's the issue of Afghanistan. And I wanted to ask you whether you think the Soviets are really going to withdraw from Afghanistan, withdraw their troops, and if so, why? Well, I believe they are, and Colin Powell and George Schultz have been there in the Soviet Union and come back. They're convinced that they really want to get out of there. I think that a large part of that could be the economic situation in the Soviet Union and the fact that after going on nine years, it's still a stalemate. So I think that there's reason to believe that they really want out. How much of a role has the support that we have given to the Afghan rebels had to do with this Soviet decision in your view? Well, I think it would only have to do with the decision on the basis that as long as the Mujahideen were being supplied with weapons and ammunition, they just couldn't be defeated. You see, most people don't understand that when you're up against a kind of guerrilla operation, the normal military has to outnumber the guerrillas roughly 10 to 1 to be equal because of the nature of the way they fight, the strike can disappear and so forth. And they've been a very effective fighting force, the Mujahideen. What do you think the prospects are now for you and Mr. Gorbachev actually signing a treaty in Moscow that would reduce strategic nuclear arsenals as you proposed by 50 percent? Well, that would be nice if it could happen, but I have to tell you that common sense indicates that the time is too limited for us to really think that we could bring a treaty ready for signature to that meeting. It would be nice if we could, and we're not going to slow down or anything, but this one is so much more complicated with regard to verification and everything else than the INF Treaty, which we were able to bring together, but even that took a few months to do. So we're not going to be disappointed if, in fact, we're not at this moment anticipating that it would be ready for signature then. If you can't get it signed there, are you going to try to get it wrapped up during your presidency or are you, R-D-U-C, perhaps announcing those things you do agree on and leaving a foundation for the next administration to build on? Well, I believe with the amount of time that would still be remaining that if there's sincerity on both sides with regard to getting such an agreement, and I think there is, I think that could be done, yes, before my term expired. But we just feel that to even speak of having hopes of having it by the time of the summit or pressing that hard, it'll be fruitless and we should just keep on doing the best that we can and take it when the time comes. You've now, you'll be meeting with Mr. Gorbachev for the fourth time, the most contact between the U.S. and Soviet presidents since World War II period, I believe, do you think he really is a different kind of leader than the Soviets have had before? Yes, I do, having met most of them. I think that, and this is just my own theory, he might give you a different answer. I think that one difference is that he is the first leader that has come along who has gone back before Stalin and that he is trying to do what Lenin was teaching. And with Lenin's death, Stalin actually reversed many of the things, Lenin had programs that he called the new economics and things of that kind. And I've known a little bit about Lenin and what he was advocating and I think that this in Glasnost and Perestroika and all that, that this is much more smacking of Lenin than of Stalin and I think that this is what he's trying to do. Does the world look different to you now that it did when you entered all the office seven and a half years ago? You're the first two-term president since Dwight Eisenhower, you're in your eighth year. Do you have a different view of the Soviets, a different view of anything in the world you deal with? Well, for that one specific, you take the Soviets, remember that in my first coming to office and for a few years there, they kept dying on me. They had three leaders and they were, I think, of a different philosophy than this one. But generally, and for that subject, I have to remember that there weren't too many surprises. First of all, a governor's job is an executive job and you know that you sit at the desk where the buck does stop and when the decisions have to be made, you have to make them. And even with regard to the principle difference which would be foreign policy, I recall to you that a former president several times asked me to represent him abroad in meetings with heads of state. I had been in 18 different countries in trips of that kind before I came to this job so it wasn't a complete sudden immersion in foreign policy. I guess I wasn't, I know that but I was thinking more of whether your own opinions of dealing with crises or dealing with difficult foreign policy or domestic problems had changed during this period of time you've been in office. Maybe I was blessed in one way when I became governor of California, I walked into a situation that was very similar to the one I walked into here. If you will recall that even though California's constitution said you had to have a balanced budget and the new governor in California comes in the middle of the fiscal year and I came in and found that while it had been sort of glossed over during the campaign there was a sizable deficit already piled up in that first year and I had to within six months, wasn't anyone else I could pass it to, I had to resolve that and wind up the here with a balanced budget. And so coming in here with the economic things that we had and the double digit inflation and so forth, again it was almost like a repeat. And the other things, the things of somebody handing you a piece of paper every night that told you what you're going to be doing every half hour the next day, that wasn't new to me, that happened in California too. See, you're saying essentially that the kinds of problems that you had to deal with and the way you dealt with them, you'd already had formed your pattern of doing that while you were governor of California? Yes, it was one if you remember there of delivering authority back to local communities, counties and communities that I didn't think were properly functions of the state government. Here we've called the program federalism because I think that over the years and over the decades, the federal government has assumed authority and autonomy that properly belonged back at state government. So we have a program called federalism and that was not new. And the whole economic philosophy of reducing government, government's authority and all and you know this wasn't new. This has been coming on for a long time when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president the first time on the Democratic ticket in 1932. In his platform was the promise to return to the states and local government's authority and autonomy that he said had been unjustly seized by the federal government. Well by the time I got here it not only had been unjustly seized they had added to it. I think it had been accomplished in reducing. Another one of FDR's promises as you remember was to balance the budget and it was also something you wanted to do. Without going into the business of who is responsible for the deficit, you're going to leave office. There is going to be a sizeable deficit. Do you think that this is going to have a negative consequence on the next generations? Is this going to be a real burden for the country? Well it's a burden. There's no question about that but at the same time it is not the disaster some people proclaim. Now for me to say that is really a reversal of roles because way back before I ever thought I would be a governor when I was just out making speeches on the mashed potato circuit about things that I thought should be changed in the governance of the nation I was complaining about the fact that for almost sixty years now with only eight single year exceptions this country has been running a deficit. Now the deficits today look so much bigger and it's true they have become a part of the structure the maybe you've heard me use this or explain this term back in the middle sixties when in Johnson's regime they launched the war on poverty I great many social reforms and so forth. In the fifteen years from 1965 to 1980 before we came here the budget federal budget increased to roughly five times what it had been the deficit increased to thirty eight times what it had been. And so the problem was still here but when I'm covering for the fact that I said I don't think disaster remember this one thing about no one seems to pay any attention to the great burden of the interest that's a great part of our one of the major factors in our budget right now is the interest but who gets that interest and you find out then that a great many institutions universities educational institutions of all kinds that part of their endowment our government bonds and so a lot of that interest is going to them and a lot of that interest is going to individual Americans who are this is a part of their saving instead of putting in the bank or something so instead of it being something that is just disappearing down a rat hole it's a kind of a redistribution you might say of national wealth and that these institutions and so forth are getting this interest from the government now maybe some of them would have to be getting straight grants from the government if they were not getting that that interest. So no I don't think it's disaster I'm disappointed that we haven't been able to do better and from the very first that we were here every budget that I have sent up as the law requires that I send up the Congress added to that that budget the only place they were willing to cut and are still that way is the defense budget but unfortunately I had inherited also as president a defense situation in which on any given day fully half the military aircraft in this country couldn't fly for lack of spare parts naval vessels tied up because they either lack spare parts or didn't have crew and I campaigned on the basis that even faced with the deficit where it came to national security national defense that's the prime function of the federal government I told audience after audience when I was campaigning that even faced with that deficit problem I would have to come down on the side of augmenting the defense now as I say I was trimmed back time after time in one five-year period since I've been here the Congress cut a total of 125 billion dollars from my defense budgets now you they could take credit and say well we were fighting the deficit but were they in that same five years they added 250 billion dollars to domestic spending over and above what I'd asked for I wanted to ask you just one more soviet question which is sort of this is a good place to ask it because this SDI was a creation of your administration and I remember you saying many times that you had a background as a labor negotiator that in negotiations you're trying to get an agreement both sides have to get something and I'm wondering whether you have a formula whether there is a formula that would allow you to preserve SDI as this research and development program and still satisfy the Soviets in some way on that issue is there a meeting ground possible? I can't see that at all as a bargaining chip the first place they've spent 20 times as much as we have on defense programs in spite of ABM they've been doing this for years they just weren't as fast at it as we might be able to be and I think that one of the reasons that made them try to use it as a bargaining chip which they would buy it with some arms reductions and so forth was because knowing our technology our ability and things of that kind they were afraid and are afraid that we'll come up with it first now what probably scares them I say we'd come up first remember that if they had now an almost foolproof defense against our nuclear missiles at the same time they've got their nuclear missiles they would have the ability for a first strike they could hit us and when we fired back we couldn't hit them they see the same thing for us if we get SDI strategic defense initiative and we still have these missiles that we have they see a first strike capability now the difference is and it's almost impossible to convince them we don't have any intention of a first strike you know that there's no one in America wants to go to war with them so what's the way out of this well we've stood firm but I have told him every time I said look we come to this and it is that good and we're going to deploy it we see it as the basis then for eliminating the strategic ballistic missiles on both sides and I have even told him that I would be willing to see this shared so that just as we all have gas masks and for for gas warfare that all right because if if we set out and eliminated nuclear missiles on both sides and there wouldn't be any reason not to treat this like a gas mask and let anyone that wanted have it because we have to remember that we all know how to make those missiles now and suppose we had come to an agreement where we'd done away with all great ballistic missiles in the world how can we know that someday there wouldn't be a madman in some country come along another hit for example and suddenly if you didn't have a defense could suddenly threaten you with nuclear missiles when no one else had them and therefore he couldn't come along and do that if just like keeping our gas masks if everybody had a defense at your news conference last night you were asked about ethics and government and we led our story with your response my question is a little different uh Mike Deaver, Lin Noff singer who were convicted who worked for you a long time and I of course know them well from California and I wonder if what's happened to them and plus the constant fire that Ed Meese seems to be under whether you're whether you're saddened by by what's happened here personally well of course I'm saddened first of all I've I've found all those individuals to be very soul of integrity in the more than 20 years that I've known them I can't comment too specifically because these cases now are in the courts and before the law and so forth and I don't know just exactly what I could do without or how I could comment without maybe causing trouble for them I want to see them all come out all right and uh yes I'm saddened for another reason I have a feeling that there's a certain amount of politics involved in all of this and I have a feeling that I'm really the target they would like to get at and they're doing it by going after these other people and as I cited last night Ray Dunovan Jim Beggs both totally cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever but look at what they had to endure and look at the campaign of vilification that went on for months and months that caused Ray Dunovan to say when finally he was declared totally innocent is now where do I go to get back my reputation because you know the thing that is remembered by most people are all those charges and all those accusations and somehow just the declaring of someone innocent that's kind of lost in the in the background you said for a very long time that you were going to remain neutral in this campaign and I respect that very much but as you know I'm sure that an overwhelming number of the voters who have supported Vice President Bush have been those voters according to exit polls at least who say they approve of your presidency and without regard to your stance of neutrality which which which is stipulated in this campaign does does does Vice President Bush does he carry on that legacy is that does he you work with him now for a long time Lou trying to walk the the thin line because as you said and in this office your titular head of the party so therefore you have to be neutral in a in a primary situation but I would have to point out to answer your question I would have to point out that George Bush as Vice President has been a part of all that we've been doing you see when I became governor I made up my mind that the lieutenant governor was not just going to be somebody sitting there waiting for me to get sick or die that he was going to be involved and used why do you let able-bodied manpower sit by and the same things true with the vice president I always felt that both cases the gubernatorial case and this one here that that man should be like an executive vice president in a corporation he should be involved in what was going on and have assignments and so forth and that's been true in both in California and here in Washington I have I have just one last question I I wrote my first story about you in 1965 and as you know I've covered you many of the intervening years and I wonder if you as you look at your own quite considerable career but with the especially in the presidency if there's something you're particularly accomplished particularly proud of and if there's any area where you feel you have a regret or or or it hasn't come out the way you you want it to come out well yes I could tell you some things that struck my heart a number of times on the other side of the accomplishment I think in these years here that the entire debate has been changed that we once had a debate in which the two parties were divided as to one of them a battling for more and bigger government and the other one trying to at least hold the line if not reduce it and in these several years the debate has been over not over that at all the debate has been over how much do we cut and granted that they have not wanted to cut as much as I did interfered with that but it has been a totally different debate and I think that's that's good and the the fact that we have been able to well the federal register that contains all the regulations as 45 less pages than it had when we came here we have we have eliminated regulations and paperwork and so forth that was imposed upon the people on local governments on business and industry to an estimated that there's estimated 600 million man hours a year less of paperwork than there was when we came here I am pleased that the thing that I had thought had to be rectified the the defense situation that we have a defense now that we didn't have before and I think this has been what has made the change in the Soviet Union and their willingness to talk disarmament in every meeting that I've had with the general secretary I've warned him that there's no way we will sit by and allow them to have a dangerous superiority over us and the choice is either we reduce weapons as we've done so far or we engage in an arms race and I've told him that I don't think he can win that arms race if if we're racing at the same time so those things yes I think we've what would be your regret on the other side of that well the regrets there's one thing that every time when you've had to order our young men to go into a position of danger and then to have a tragedy such as the one in Beirut the terrible thing was they were actually succeeding in their mission and that's why the violence was turned on them the people that didn't want things brought to order in Beirut started to resist first by sniping and so forth and then finally with that one thing where they took advantage of the men being moved into that one building found the suicide bomb they could car bomb they could cause all that death the challenger I in other words I suppose put it down it's the calls that have had to be made to families to we've lost someone such as the tragic mistake of that Iraqi airplane and our ship in the Persian Gulf those are things for which you you have to be very sorry on the other hand I couldn't help can't help but be proud that there is an island now down in the Caribbean where there aren't any signs Yankee go home but where somebody sent me a postcard the other day an American tourist from there and the postcard that they're selling is a photograph of a wall and where the wall is painted with all kinds of graffiti and it is all graffiti about god love the USA and things of that kind and that was Renata of course thank you mr president all right looking forward to this meeting with the NATO allies next week yes I think that their people are probably