 Why don't you take a seat right here and this as you know is because of our own and yes she rides I take it she does and very seriously and she oh and what the type of bride what does she do hunters jumpers she does some jumping but mainly for the show. Well we have a lot of fun talking about saddles and everything else politics and foreign policy don't go to the core of her life. You can tell her that for 37 years I rode one family of horses until just recently I rode a mare and then as the years began to pile up she gave birth to a daughter and I started riding that daughter and then subsequently sometime later the mother bred again and this time a colt and so the daughter came past and left us and then I rode the son and then just a couple of years ago at the ranch he came to the end of the line and I added it up I'd ridden those three 37 years total she'd be interested in that you're not. I read the beginning of that story in your autobiography when you first shared the horse with someone who was involved in a movie with you I think it was. Nino Pepitone yes a former officer in the Italian cavalry. Let me tell you what this strange interview is all about. He's ordered up by my editors on the mind of Ronald Reagan. I think the impetus for this is really the sense that here you have been a tremendously successful governor and president and yet there is little sense of thinking behind your decisions even now and I guess I've been dispatched to do this piece and to talk to you today not in any way to debate any of these issues but with all due respect to probe to see what the memories and associations and analyses and anecdotes go into how you've done your job all these years and it's in that spirit that I will be asking these questions. All right. The first is a question that I guess has plagued you throughout your political life. Why do you think you've been underestimated time and again? Well now underestimated by whom? I thought you were going to answer that. I think by people who write about politics not only in the press but in academia. A lot of the books that have been written about you almost start off with this question. People tend to underestimate this man the legislators who deal with you the press that deals with you. Well as I was going to say the polls kind of indicate that the job rating right now is very reassuring even including in your own paper. So that's why I answered with a question but I think maybe part of it is of those who do. I think part of it is because of my previous profession. You know it was only a generation ago that actors couldn't be buried in the churchyard so I think that must have something to do with it. Do you think it's also because you've not put yourself forward first as an intellectual governor and an intellectual president that you operate on a different level that that has something to do with it? Well it could be I've never thought about that. You know my own interest in this was on my own. I was always a participant when I grew up a Democrat and a New Deal Democrat and I was always been a history buff and then as the years went by and getting into the business that I was in in Hollywood I've often described it as that if you don't sing or dance in Hollywood you wind up as an after-dinner speaker because the request for personal appearances is very great and having begun as a sports announcer I had been exposed to the mashed potato circuit by way of football banquets and so forth when the seasons were over and this continued in Hollywood becoming a board member this is what I mean by a participant of the Screen Actors Guild and six times president of that union I found that I was when I wasn't involved in a picture I was invited as a speaker to various groups and I usually I started out then doing as I did when I was in sports and spoke on sports I started out talking about Hollywood and about our own industry and gradually to tie it into if you're talking to a Chamber of Commerce banquet why should I be talking to them about Hollywood I used to point out examples of how because of our penchant for publicity and not good public relations and because of the things that people believed about the profession the industry we were victims for discrimination but if I may you say you're a historical buff part of this underestimation may be that that knowledge is in portrayed in how you explain your policies that people have a sense of humor as a president operating on the basis of his own personal political experience and instincts rather than a sense of history well yes but but you you have to have an historical background for I think really sane policy decisions but for example in making those speeches and talking about things I found that and I did my own research might and read a canned speech or anything and I found that some of the things that I was criticized for example what I thought was tax discrimination against the people of the industry that I was in and no one to stand up for us because who's going to feel sorry for gay mad Hollywood and but I would then draw parallels with what could happen to other industries and businesses well pretty soon people were telling me what was happening to them and there came a day when I had turned completely around from New Deal Democrat to a belief that government had grown beyond the consent of the governed and that it was government that was contributing to our economic woes and incidentally not an intellectual but my degree was in economics and I converted myself and began talking about the things that I thought were wrong and that needed changing in government. What historical events guided your thinking and your change in thinking about government at that time? What were the dominant historical events that you think shaped your thinking outside of your own personal experience? Well it was pretty much the thing that this country started out with this great belief in the individual and individual freedom in government as close to the people as possible meaning as much at the local and the state level that we're a federation of sovereign states and then I saw that as the federal government grew and kept on growing and usurping most of the tax resources that the that that was disappearing this very basis of our system that the states were in danger of becoming administrative districts of the federal government not sovereign states and that government was engaging more and more in a kind of adversarial relationship with its own business community. But this again rests a good deal on your own personal experience. What historians did you turn to or what people did you turn to to flesh out your own personal sense of this? Well it would be I am a voracious reader and it would I I couldn't pick out this but for example Jefferson and Jefferson's line that if the government tells us when to sow and when to reap we shall soon want for bread Franklin Delano Roosevelt and this is history that I think there are a lot of Democrats up there in the hill that don't know anything about Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 in the depths of the depression campaigned on the need to reduce government spending by 25% the need to restore to local communities and states and individuals powers which he said had been unjustly seized constitutional rights by the federal government to eliminate useless boards and commissions and departments of government how many remember that the new deal started with the president that that was his philosophy so it was a case of of not only the past and that and seeing where we had gone astray when I was studying economics we knew that the classical economists back at the turn of the century in looking at our so called business ups and downs are hard times as they call it that would periodically come on their theory was that they came on every time government went beyond a certain point in the share of the private sector the gross national product that government took for itself that government then became a drag on the economy and so with respect Mr. President I don't think you answer my question about why you've been underestimated because you know this is this is something that's followed you wherever you've been you've been successful and yet the writings have raised all kinds of questions about it why do you think that's happened well frankly I've had a feeding that some of them who were writing that way do it because they know very well what I'm trying to do and they disagree with it so they they write in that fashion so I think this is more reflection of different political beliefs that's right then it is a fair look at what you've been doing yes and they many of them are inheritors of that era of the big federal government and federal domination and they don't want to be proved wrong and move into a second area that's related to this as governor's president in your experience with the Screen Actors Guild you were faced with a lot of situations where your advisors and experts all loyal to you would have different viewpoints on a problem different suggestions how do you and how have you decided between them what goes on in your mind in your head well faced with these different views from the experts who know all those details facts well you were right in starting off with president of the Screen Actors Guild because I found myself heading up the guild in the first and only strike that it had ever under ever and the strike was forced upon it I also found out that the membership sort of listened to what I was advocating and our conduct in that strike and so forth and I was worried that I was the welfare of some 30,000 people was hinging on decisions that I made and I made up my mind as to how I'd make those decisions on a straight basis of what I in my own mind could believe was absolutely the morally right thing to do when I became governor I look back now and think it was pretty significant I created a cabinet style government and I think it was unusual California there and then I told the cabinet members that we were going to operate like a board of directors with one exception we wouldn't take a vote when I'd heard enough I'd make the decision but we wouldn't sit there with one cabinet officer reporting on his particular area and everyone else remain aside we the round table whatever issue policy came before us and I told them that one thing I did want to hear was the political ramifications of any issue I wanted only to hear debate on was it good or bad for the people because the minute you start thinking about votes and political things it's a little bit like seeing a player's card you can't take out of your mind that you know where that card is no matter how honest you want to be so I said I don't even want to hear the political ramifications I listened to them then I encouraged them I wanted to hear every viewpoint I wanted to hear the pros and cons and if I didn't hear enough in one session for me to make up my mind on this I'd say we'll come back tomorrow and you'd be surprised that kind of a meeting and discussion that had been going on tomorrow when they came back you'd be surprised the number that would have changed or modified their previous positions as they had all night to think it over and come in not for any other reason except you know I see so-and-so's point on this and this and this whatever it was and then I made the decisions well we do the same thing here well you have been faced with a lot of situations where your advisors really did disagree and it's legitimate to disagree yeah based on the jobs they have the perspectives they're bringing to bail on deficits difference between Mr. Regan and Mr. Stockman on Lebanon between Mr. Weinberger and Mr. Schultz what goes through your mind when they don't agree when that next day they don't come back how do you decide I have to decide on the basis of all that I've heard and they all know now I think that we can disagree without being disagreeable because when I finally come down on one side of the other it isn't a personal thing that's saying I'm on his side or his side I give my reasons as to why it gels with what I myself think and that for that reason we're going to do the following this is it and sometimes somebody's a loser and sometimes somebody's a winner but they all understand that and I think they accept my making the decisions that way but is your instinct to try to get them to reach a consensus first do you prefer that oh well of course it's much easier if everything that the really tough issues are the ones in which there's so much right on both sides you know it's awfully easy if someone is so patently wrong you say look this is the the morally right and this is the thing that's going to be best for everybody to make that decision but when you have to say gosh darn it he's saying things over there that that makes sense also and then you have to weigh it but against this over here what what is the drawback there and where are the least drawbacks and and the most good things on a situation like Lebanon which is just a God awful series of decisions that you've had to face you hear from your advisors do you call anyone beside them do you try to read any books about Lebanon how do you bring your own self to bear after you've heard your advisors speak sometimes I leave without making a decision and come in here and then as you say I review the bidding and all that's going on maybe I call somebody for a little more explanation on a point that was made in the meeting and did they want to amplify it or not and then on the basis of those things I make the decision but you call people beyond your own official advisors for example your wife lots of people think their wives understand them better than they understand themselves oh Nancy and I talk about things we have a happy marriage and like any happy marriage sure I there no secrets I go upstairs and tell her and what it is we're talking about and we hash it around and and talk about it sometimes we wind up a disagreeing but again without being disagreeable and many times it helps to talk that out and to hear someone else's reaction to something and you say well what I hadn't thought about that but essentially you look to your official advisors yes and as they and most of the issues are privy to move to all the information and all the facts on the case but it it's worked and I've I'll tell you I don't think there have been many cabinet cabinets that have met in this same way in the past you know I have some cabinet members who've been in other cabinets and evidently before it was sort of a reporting thing of what is and no one getting into the other fellows department but I can't find many issues in which there are several departments that are involved in it and I've had this experience of early on now we don't hear too much anymore but early on some of those who've been in other cabinets we finished a cabinet meeting and I've had them various times say this is the most substantial productive cabinet meeting I've ever attended they never had that kind of a round table discussion you've been through this for four plus years now has it changed you at all has it changed any of your thinking in any ways what have you learned from the four plus years oh my well you'd have to start way back to those eight years as governor of California for that that I guess is where the greatest learning came because as I say for years I'd been out talking about government oh I was assailed by a lot of people and praised by others for views that I expressed on what government should do but then to find yourself in a position to do it one thing I learned there and I've learned it and it's continued here the learning it was a shock to discover how long it took to get some things done bureaucracy does not move swiftly but that too and that incidentally is what made it I thought it was going to be very dull I had never wanted to hold public office in my life when a group came to me and suggested that I seek the governorship as an instrument of helping to put our party back together after the great divisions in 64 I thought they were crazy and I didn't want it and I loved the occupation I was in I thought well you know I can help fundraisers and things my reason of being in show business and so forth told them fix someone else and I'll help campaign for them and I really Nancy and I we lost a lot of sleep and finally we were reduced to saying what if they're right what if I can win the office for for the cause I believe in it but we finally had the job and I thought it would be a great change but I just let me just say this one thing that it didn't take very long to realize being able to actually deal with it rather than just make speeches about it I found it more exciting than anything I'd ever done in my life but did it also change your views on some things let me be specific before you became president one of the major issues for you was the question of deficits something you you did a lot to erase in California it's been different here also beforehand you had deep questions about issues such as the Panama Canal Treaty or the salt to treaty but in office you've behaved differently about these things well the two treaties had came on come about before I was here now the Panama Canal Treaty yes I was opposed to it but have you ever heard what it was that I suggested as an alternative can recollect that I well I suggested that since all of the Americas here that canal was vital to us to our trade and all I suggested why don't we internationalize it and have a board of directors of the canal that consists of representatives of all of the countries to whom that canal is important but you've held to the trading nonetheless that would have been that would have taken it away that would have been internationalized allow Panama to have the sovereignty over the territory but I mean as president you've held to the treaty well held to the salt to treaty well it's passed well the salt to treaty no my objection to the salt to treaty was because it legitimized the arms race the salt to treaty was a treaty that simply set a limit as to how fast and how much you could increase the number of strategic weapons and I believed at the time that it was well past time when we should be talking treaties that reduced the number of weapons and I said repeatedly the same time I criticize salt I said I will agree to sit at a table as long as it takes to bring about a treaty that will start the reduction of nuclear weapons and hopefully one day the elimination of them totally the thing that we're doing now in Geneva but also let me explain that when I inherited this agreement that the two countries were sort of observing the terms of the treaty even though it was not formalized I learned that the Soviet Union had a capacity to increase weaponry much faster than the treaty permitted we didn't we had shut down the only missile line we had operating in this country we had to start from scratch to try and catch up with our deterrent capability under the mad policy of mutual assured destruction that we needed a deterrent enough that would prevent them from the first strike from starting such a war because we could perpetrate as much damage on them but they wouldn't want to take it and so I said and I found the chiefs of staff agreed with me that because of their superior ability to increase the arms and we were trying to catch up that this agreement that had been reached this informal agreement about both sides observing the terms of the treaty fine with me because we couldn't produce as we started as fast as the treaty would allow us they could produce faster so we stuck to it but as we've seen them when it was to their interest break the treaty or that agreement and produce something that's why this time as it came time to make a decision I said we will continue as long as they continue but we will do it consistent with their observance of the treaty but if they go off on their own on something and there's something that is advantageous to us to do the same we'll do the same but there is a sense that there's a real difference between a lot of the Reagan campaign rhetoric and Ronald Reagan is president of the United States that your rhetoric was tough on almost everything I was going to cut all the deficits I'm not going to stand by this fatally flawed salt to treaty but then as president your behavior turns out to be much more moderate no I didn't say with what's happened no I didn't say about not keeping the treaty or anything I was one of who openly stated my belief it should not be ratified well a Senate whose majority was of the same party as the president refused to ratify it and I agreed with that then I came and found this agreement but I also learned things I didn't know about their capacity for building as versus ours I was not prepared for how how far down we were in military capacity what had been done to us over the years and how far we had to go to rebuild and with regard to the deficit yes in the early in the campaign for president I turned to the best economic advisers that I could find for any comment economic plan and under the terms and the things that they told me yes they themselves said that we could under a proper economic plan and the deficit within a span of years that like by 83 84 that this could end the deficit but what no one has paid any attention to is that in those several months that then took place beyond that plan my announcing of that plan I announced it one day in the summer in Chicago I think those same experts had to come back and say wait a minute the economy has done such a thing that no it can't be done by that time and I said that I couldn't say anymore that we were going to balance it in those couple of years because 20 and a half percent interest rate double digit inflation unemployment that was was coming on the automobile industry literally shut down those things which also is another indication of why we should be very careful about economic projections because there's limit beyond which they can't project so they themselves had said these circumstances they weren't there when we made this original thing so if the circumstances change it calls for a different kind of decision by you except that the economic plan because it was an economic plan that was aimed at doing that we put into effect the I this charge that I'm responsible for the skyrocketing of the deficits ignores what was happening to the deficits in previous years yes they're bigger now than they've ever been they aren't quite as far out of line if you take them as a percentage of gross national product I remember it was consistent with what they've ever said before you're not really saying that are you well let's look all right while I had to engage in something I didn't have to do in California name of the military build up but we set out to reduce the size of government we set out to eliminate useless programs we set out to restore as much as possible to local governments and states authority over programs as a governor I had seen these grants for federal programs that we then administered in the state and the regulations that came with the red tape and as governor I had to I was able to say if we could do that program without those restrictions we could do it for a lot less cost and make it a lot more efficient and do a better job so I brought that with me here now we took some dozen specific grant programs categorical grants and we coupled them into block grants combine them and the difference with the block grant is you don't have all of that specific dictating exactly how each program is run in just one situation of that kind the pages of regulate regulations went down from 805 to 31 that were imposed on the local and state governments for managing those programs I said that I felt that the federal government had usurped too much of the tax part of our economic program even with a recession on was to reduce taxes which we did I'm still holding that taxes are not to be raised because right now I think it would be a drag on the economy again and we face problems again but you're not telling me you haven't changed on any important issues because that's almost saying you haven't learned anything on the job well no I'm talking about the basis of the place of government and what it should do we have reduced the domestic side of the federal government by about a hundred thousand employees all of these are important to us these are I'm continuing the same things that we did in California the only thing that difference was in California I had one big help when I went into office and discovered in the middle of the fiscal year because you take office in the middle of that year that the government was spending at a deficit rate considerable deficit had been piled up in those six months already the California Constitution says you can't have a deficit I was responsible as a brand-new government for having a balanced budget in six months and that's why in spite of campaigning against high taxes I had to ask for a big tax increase because we couldn't implement enough economies in six months to overcome what I inherited now I saw the people though when we increased those taxes why it was necessary and told them also that as soon as we were out of the hole we'd start giving that money back and the first time that Cap Weinberger then my finance director came in and told me that we were going to have a hundred million dollars surplus and he said because since you've been here you haven't been able to do maybe some of the things you'd like to do because of the economic situation I thought I'd tell you first before the legislature found out about it because I had a Democrat majority in both houses then too I he said maybe do you have some favorite program or something and I said yes I do let's give it back and he said well it's never been done before and I said well they never had an actor up here before so you're much better in answer the answering these questions that I am at asking them and we gave the hundred million you know how we gave it back we told him we figured out that a hundred million dollars came out to about the ten percent of the state income tax so we said to everyone when the income tax came due we said send us a check for 90 percent of what you owe we will use the surplus to make up the other ten the last surplus we gave back was eight hundred and fifty million dollars and I remember a Democratic senator came in storming into my office on that one and he said I consider that an unnecessary expenditure of public funds but we're doing the same thing or trying to do them here and I know there have been these these challenges that I've I'll tell you where I think some of them come from and some of them come from die-hard conservatives I found this also as governor that they thought that if I couldn't get everything I asked for I should jump off the cliff with the flag flying go down in flames no if I get 70 80% of what it is I'm trying to get yes I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future and maybe it's easier to get it as they see that this works and this was what they were critical of they couldn't stand it that I would compromise and settle for less than I'd asked I asked for three ten percent instalments in the tax cuts ten ten and ten I got five ten and ten should I should I veto that turn it down because it wasn't exactly what I wanted I didn't get it I wanted it retroactive to January first of the year I started 1981 no they wouldn't do that I had to take it starting now in October I think it was with the new fiscal year well but look what's happened we've got the recovery and we've got the tax cut and now we're going to try for tax reform and maybe that'll get some more reduction for the people if I may ask a few quickies otherwise I'm not I'm not going to piece on my hands at the New York I know I filibustered on some of these but the way you ask them I couldn't say yes or no let me ask it just quickly you'll see where these questions are going one is you're getting ready to meet Rajiv Gandhi did you in getting ready for that meeting did you assume that he's basically a political leader faced with the same kind of forces you are having to put his pants on one leg after the other just the way you are well that there was something very different about his situation that you had to learn about well yes you knew that there was a government that was greatly different than ours in a society and economic structure but what you do is and I do with all the heads of state that I've met with I do some biographical research and study that's provided to me and then I get memorandums from various cabinet sections on our relationship or problems we may have between us or trade situations problems that may be in conflict or argument between us and so forth I get all of that and do all of that before they're here and also what we think would be advantageous mutually if we could arrange things that haven't we'd like to propose to them for their consideration and did you read any books for the meeting no but I did on this one call in people like Dylan Ripley and who was organizing the great cultural thing and talk to him and some things of that kind and get some kind of cultural background on it and I had met with his mother already she had been here so I was prepared for already for some of the things that were true typical of our differences question on Bitburg you made the statement that German soldiers were victims of Hitler as much as the victims of the holocaust what was the historical basis for your saying that all right now you see I didn't say it that way that's the way the press said that I said it I said that everyone the victims of the bombings the soldiers on both sides all were victims as well as the victims of the holocaust were victims of of Nazism of that evil thing that brought about that world war their lives were interrupted they died too but never would I ever suggest that those other victims were victims in the same sense as the victims of the holocaust I don't think in all of history there's anything ever quite like that and I insist that we must never forget it we must always remember it and we must remember it with the determination that it will never happen again now on the Bitburg thing when I said this yes those soldiers you know the some of the more teenagers as we know and toward the end of the war and all but their lives were wasted by this one man but never would I compare soldiers death with the torture the brutality the things the scars that the that the survivors of the holocaust must bear for the rest of their lives I don't think any of us can ever quite realize how much we try to empathize and learn about those horrors I don't think any of us can ever quite understand what is within them and what can be triggered by a number of things in their memories of that I've had friends that were in those camps I've heard their stories firsthand but I also felt this my as I say history buff nature I've always believed that particularly in Europe the continual wars that every time a war ended it laid the groundwork and the seeds planted the seeds for the next war the rivalries the hatreds they remained you still thought after world war one grew up thinking of the hum and then we had the greatest war of all world war two and things were different maybe a large part of it was due to this country and the Marshall plan here was a nation that once defeated instead of getting a treaty and saying well you can't do this and you can't we set out to rebuild a war ravaged world including our enemies and today our staunchest allies are the countries that were the hated enemy at that time and 40 years of this so I felt that the time has come to stop celebrating armistice days do you remember how many years armistice day after world war one was a big celebration you grew up celebrating your victory over the hum here we had 40 years in which the erstwhile enemies had become as I say close allies and friends there's 40 years of peace and the Germans and this we must give credit the Germany did not bulldoze those camps out of existence and then say let's pretend that never happened let's not talk about it let's hope everybody forgets they've preserved them as tourist sites they have at Bergen Belsen I went through the building that they call their museum they have the great blown up photos that our people took of the bodies the emaciated human beings that looked dead already the graves and so forth and they bring their schoolchildren there and they show them these things and they say you're seeing this so that you will realize what was done and must never be done again must never be forgotten now surely the time has come that we can recognize the days of VJ day coming up and VE day and recognize them not as times of great triumph but as times of recognition that back there 40 years ago we not only ended a war but we started 40 years of what has become friendship and 40 years of peace and maybe we can have 40 more years if we're right and also at the Bidberg cemetery I was only continuing what has been done by our military and the Allied military for many years they jointly have gone to these cemeteries and had ceremonies there so I thought this was a thing and also very necessary I think part of the misunderstanding came about because of my refusal first to go to Dachau well no one asked me what was that all about I had been asked to be after the summit a guest of the state of Germany and to do this thing and to do some other ceremonial things another man in political life in Germany an office holder but not the head of state he invited me to go visit Dachau because it's in his district and I he was well-intentioned I don't quarrel with that but I thought good Lord I can't take off as a guest of the state on my own and do this thing over here and it might be misunderstood as looking as if I'm trying to say hey you fellas look what you did so I said no but when helmet Cole called me and said no he believed that we should also visit one of those camps I said yes fine and so it was our own people that helped pick Bergen Belsen as a better location than than Dachau would have been and from the very first the minute it was part of the state tour I said yes and I must say I think I think it had a great impact and solidified the relationship between our two countries very well but never in anything as my speech at Bitburg indicated did I ever suggest forgetting the holocaust in fact I reminded them all of that last question for me alright which 20th century president do you admire most and why I don't know whether I can answer that I must say I don't want to say a Democrat I think that's why no no really I wanted I'm going to answer it in a peculiar way I there are a number of them and a number that I'm I disagree with on some things so forth no I the last Democrat president I campaigned for was Harry Truman and I campaigned with him that functions and so forth and I have a great respect and even more respect for many of them since I've sat here at the desk myself but I I'm going to pick one out single him out not because of the greatest or anything but because the least appreciated I have come in my reading of biographies and all and I have in fact I just recently finished one for one of our assassinated presidents back in the early days McKinley but before that Teddy Roosevelt and all I think one of the least appreciated is Calvin Coolidge when you look in his quiet unassuming way the reduction in taxes the reduction of the war debt several installments paid off on the world war one debt while he was in office and also he had a great sense of humor and lately I've been very gratified just received another book that his son sent me I've been gratified that there are a number of biographers who have been writing poems about him and saying the same thing and quoting many of his statements and all but he wasn't a great communicator like Franklin Roosevelt no that's really had skills to act and to stage management to move the nation yeah that's right and yet when you read some of the statements quotes of Coolidge but that's it he didn't go out and make them to the world he maybe said them in a cabinet meeting or someplace you read some of them and they're very pungent and they're also very darned effective I remember hearing one story though that had to do with you can get something of his nature and something his son said you know his son every summer had to work on the farm and one day sitting having their brown paper bag lunch another kid his age