 It's good to see you, and it's good of you to have us for Fourth of July. I think this is for our Fourth of July issue. Well, please do. One of the things, I mean, when the readers read this, you'll be front and center, I guess, on a big stage in New York celebrating the Fourth of July. People criticize the event as being overly commercialized, but I think you have proved more than anyone successful in using a symbolic event or a symbolic time to really help them in the leadership of the country. And you know how to use it to get across to America. A good feeling about itself. Would you like to comment about the day and what you hope to attain? Well, I think the pattern was almost set in the 200th anniversary and the parade of the tall ships and all, and I thought that the whole country did get a great boost out of that. And I don't see it really so much as being commercialized, this particular thing, since everything, well, there are no tax dollars paying for all of this great extravaganza that is being paid for by the people. Have you been to the Statue of Liberty as a private citizen ever? I have never been to it, and my first time to ever see it was an experience I do remember. I guess I was a little surprised myself at the kind of goosebumps feeling. 1948, I had gone to England to make a picture, and I was there over four months and came back on the Queen Mary and had, believe it or not, never seen the Statue of Liberty. And it was a very early morning arrival of the Queen Mary, and I was surprised at my inner feelings because at four o'clock in the morning I made sure that I got up and was at the rail. I wanted to see the lady, and we came into the harbor. That's good. On a tougher issue, the summit, when we came out of the summit last November, there were reasonably warm feelings, but your actions have been increasingly tougher towards Mr. Gorbachev and the Soviet Union. And I'm basically wondering, do you have a new assessment of him since that time? No, and as a matter of fact, I have tried to avoid any personal criticism of him, although I've been realistic with regard to some of the things that have happened since then. The failure for us to move forward in real negotiations on arms reductions when both of us have made the statement, he has, and I accept his word, that he wants and would like an eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. Well, this has been my goal from long before I got here, and I really believe in that very much. But then the proposals are made, and we put them in the hands of our negotiators in Geneva, and nothing happens to really enter into the kind of negotiations that I experienced once as a negotiator for a number of years in labor relations, that they've made a proposal. You accept some, but have some difference on others. You come back with yours, they come back, and you finally reach a meeting point. Do you think he bears the U.S., Mr. Gorbachev, bears the U.S., or you personally, any ill will? No, I think that, like so many there, he subscribes to some of the beliefs and the propaganda that have been prevalent in their media about us and doesn't understand our system, and he has never seen our country, and this was one of the reasons why I hastened to invite him on the first day we met in Geneva to have the next meeting here, and he accepted. And I think that he, I think he still does want to, want such a meeting. I also have to believe that maybe we were a little too optimistic about how quickly he could come in after these last several years of what they've been through and establish a new administration. I wanted to ask you a question about spies, Mr. Reagan. In this year of 1986, we're prosecuting more than any time in the history of the Republic, and they've taken our lives, our secrets, our technology worth billions of dollars. Do you think your administration should stop treating these people as white-collar criminals and start treating them as traitors as we did during the era of the Rosenbergs? Well, if we're talking about those who have been arrested as spies here, I think that is it. They are being prosecuted as spies with tremendously heavy penalties if they're found guilty. Oh, Mr. Reagan, I visited some of those prisons, and they're, you know, they're not bad. I'm talking about during the time of the Rosenberg administration, we treated them as traitors. We had death penalties. How do you feel about this, our secrets, I think? Well, I'm not a lawyer, and so I don't know where the proviso comes for asking for the death penalty, but obviously they are traitors, and maybe it's a difference between spying and wartime in which you have caused the death of people. As I say, not being a lawyer, I don't know how that comes about as to what the penalties are, but I know that there are very severe penalties that are being talked about. Well, would you favor something like a death penalty? Well, I happen to be supportive of the death penalty, but I also, as I say, I'm not aware that our law is provided for such things as this peacetime spying. I'm quite sure that in wartime, yes, the lending of comfort and aid to the enemy and the spying for the end, then we know that that penalty applies. But we allow them to cop pleas now, and they do sit in, I mean, in my own magazine, we had Walker explaining how it was like a country club where he was imprisoned, and it seems like very, very lenient kind of punishment, and that's what I wonder about. Shouldn't these people, having what they've done, having, having what they've done, they're traitors, and shouldn't they be treated as traitors, and the U.S. government, you know, lawyers go into the courts and make this known? Yes, but isn't this true that for a great many years past, we have had a kind of liberal philosophy in this country which did tend to coddle all kinds of criminals, and maybe this is part of it, and the constant assailing of prison conditions as being inhumane in our country, and therefore they must be improved. Isn't this a... But can't you make the difference? If you say to your government lawyers, you know, I don't want these people to go to a country club prison. Can you make a change so that people understand that giving away these huge amounts of technology, you know, it's to make 25,000 so they can have an extra boat. It's not a good thing. I agree with you. I don't know exactly what the situation is as to where they would be. I'm quite sure that the federal prisons, the bulk of whose inmates are not people of this kind who have done something of this kind, but isn't it true that there has been a philosophy, a kind of soft-on-crime philosophy up and down in our country for a number of years now? But now you've been in office six years and I think you've changed people's attitudes about this. And I wonder if you weren't able to change the system a little too. Well, isn't confinement really the punishment itself? Should we follow the Gulag and say that we're not only going to imprison them, keep them confined, we're going to add discomfort and torture, denial of human rights on a larger scale than that. But I think there's a big difference between Alan Wood and the Gulag, but let's not... Your domestic policies aren't getting increasingly more conservative. And you spoke recently of third term. Do you ever feel now, with only two years left, that you have a short time to remake America as you wanted? And if you did have six years instead of four years, what would you expect to achieve that you don't have time to do now? I would be very much opposed to the idea of a six-year single term. No, I'm saying that if you were to run... You yourself, you have endorsed a third term even though you would not run for a third term. That's right. But if you had six years right now, which you don't, you only have two years, what would you want to achieve that you can't in this time? I'm going to try to achieve what we want in these two years remaining. And I have to tell you, I had the same experience as a governor. And many of our greatest gains, including probably the most comprehensive reform of welfare, ever attempted in this country, we got in my second term. I have never thought for one minute that I am going to suddenly sit back and say, I'm a lame duck and I can't get anything done. On the international scene, there is still, and we're working as hard as we can in the Middle East situation for what I had advocated quite earlier and that is to hopefully bring about negotiations to end the state of warfare that technically exists there between Israel and the Arab states of the matter of arms. I still believe that we should be on the road to the elimination of nuclear weapons. And back of this is SDI, our Strategic Defense Initiative, which I think could be a great help in bringing this about. And our efforts to pursue through succeeding summit meetings the beginning of arms reduction with the Soviet Union. And I think there's reason to hope there because the Soviet Union has some economic problems that have been aggravated by their tremendous military buildup. So I'm not thinking that they will suddenly change their spots or something, but I'm thinking they find it to their practical advantage to join in arms reduction. On the economics and the government side, the whole idea of federalism has been greatly advanced. We have a program in operation here and our administration aimed at a change in management procedures in government. And great progress has been made there. I can remember as a governor looking at some social programs of the federal government and actually finding out that it cost $2 to deliver $1 of help to a needy person. And this is the type of thing we're trying to change. We have vastly reduced the number of publications that the federal government puts out as well as made some healthy cuts in the number of personnel employed by government. All of these things right now, the tax reform idea. Is there one thing that you really hope to do coming in in 1981 that you feel you will not be able to achieve by the time you're doing so? Well, there are a couple of things there that have been headed off on. One, and I'm not giving up on them though. One is a constitutional amendment that would ban in the future deficit spending. Two is to give the president some prerogatives that most governors in the country have. And that is the right of line item veto. The federal government is one of the last remaining places where the legislature can sneak into a bill something that they know could not pass on its own, a spending measure and extravagance. But as a pet of theirs, whoever the individuals are promoting it, they want it. So they sneak it into a bill that is so essential that a president will have to sign that bill and get it. Now, 943 times in California in eight years, I vetoed such line item things and found that never once could the legislature, if that particular bill then had to be put up to be voted on by itself, they could never get the two-thirds majority to override my veto. And yet it took in my state two-thirds vote to pass the budget in the first place. But the same two-thirds would not vote for it if they had to stand up and do it publicly. Mr. President, if there was a constitutional amendment in effect right now that prevented deficit spending, and your administration certainly has had the largest deficit spending that we've known in the history of the country, how would you be running the government? Well, for one thing... What would you cut? Well, I can only tell you that just look back at the record of the cuts that I have not been able to obtain. All of this talk about this deficit being mine, the president can't spend a nickel. The Congress spends the money. Right now, and since our budgets and our first budget was the 1982 budget, we inherited the 81 budget, right now there would have been $207 billion less in federal spending if I had been given the things I started asking for in 1981, in cuts in various social spending, elimination of some programs that I don't think are the proper province of the federal government to begin with. I don't think the federal government should be running railroads and doing things of that kind in competition with the private sector. But many social reforms that not only some should be eliminated, but others that shouldn't be eliminated should be more properly aimed at the people of true need instead of setting a figure and then a minimum figure, let's say, and saying, well, everybody at this level and below is entitled to these various government programs. Do you expect that you would have spent as much on the military and would have cut some of themselves? There has been about, as I recall it now, about a $64 billion cut so far in what we had asked for in military. And that is the one place, the only place where the Congress has reduced anything in our budget that I have submitted, but they've increased over all in the domestic side. And yet to this day, our defense budget is only about 30% or less, running somewhere around 29%, 28% of the total federal budget. Now, back in an earlier day, you'll find that national defense was about 50% of the federal spending because that is the one thing that is the prime responsibility of the federal government, is the national security. But there's been, and not just with me, this goes back to FDR when he had his own Democratic Congress and yet they would deny him the things that he was asking for when the rest of the world was going up in flames before World War II, before we got into it, would deny him this. There's been a tendency in the part of Congress to think that a source for more money for pet projects can be found in taking it away from national defense. Let me ask you on the situation with the countries where you have a lot of Americans not saying we should not aid the countries. The majority of Americans say this. Do you think that sometimes American citizens don't know what's best for themselves in the country? And do you think that we as citizens are too faint of heart sometimes? I still think that the people of this country in their wisdom are the ones who are in charge. Government is by the people here, but I do think this also. Thomas Jefferson said, if the people have all the facts, the people will not make a mistake. But on a thing like Nicaragua, I have to say the people do not have all the facts. There has been a tremendously successful disinformation campaign, and yes, it has been helped along in many instances by the media that has portrayed the Sandinista government as something different than it is, and this goes also for the freedom fighters that they have been portrayed in a different light. We've been doing our utmost to try and get the truth to the people, and I think more and more people now do understand what we're trying to do. But if you run up against that and then you run up against a thing that is just so easy for people to think, well, wait a minute, I don't even know where Nicaragua is, what are we doing down there? Well, wasn't this the same type of thing that got us Cuba? You'll remember there were people telling us and voices in the media that said that George Washington or that Fidel Castro was the George Washington of Cuba. And as soon as he won his revolution and was installed, he then said, I've always been a communist and we're going to be a communist country. And now we have benefited in one way by that that a million or so refugees fled Cuba to our country and they have become very fine and successful citizens. Let me ask you a lighter question. I think it should be considered lighter, Mr. President. Your son is about to go on the masthead of the playboys, my understanding. And I wonder in the light of the findings of the Attorney General's commission on pornography, is this a source of some embarrassment or amusement or whatever? No, I have read the first article that he did for that magazine. One of them I think was on the convention back in 1984 and the other one was on the Geneva summit. And I tell you, I have to say I was surprised and greatly gratified to find that he has his own writing style and I think does very well and I don't think he'll be indulging and he won't be writing pornographic material. Have you ever, you've obviously looked at a skin magazine since you've read his articles. Have you ever watched a blue movie and have you found them repugnant or? Well, I've never sought out or tried to run one of those movies that appear in those kinds of theaters or anything. No, as a matter of fact I have to tell you that and I'm not a prude or a blue nose but I have to tell you that I've not been very proud of some of the legitimate things that Hollywood is turning out these days. I thought back when we all observed the voluntary code. It wasn't censorship from outside. The motion picture industry set up its own code of what would not be on the screen and this had to do with language and it had to do with explicit sex and so forth and I think the pictures were better. For one thing I just object on the grounds of some of the rules of theater that are being violated. There's an oldest rule of theater is that you can't do anything on the stage or now on the screen that is as good as the audience's imagination and today we don't leave anything to the audience's imagination. Do you remember those wonderful scenes and so forth in which you could take the children they could be at the movie with you and then there would be that scene of the embrace and suddenly the camera pans over to an open window with the curtain blowing and the moon shining outside and you fade out on that but the audience takes care of that with their imagination and there's no embarrassment with their children and you don't have any embarrassment now of young Ron is in a brown envelope they're putting brown rappers on Playboy Well I could perhaps wish that he would find some more dignified sources because I think he's capable of it his writing is very good. That was one of the questions I wanted to ask you. Both your trusted aids and your own children have benefited financially by their closeness to you I wondered if sometimes you feel like a commodity Mr. President and No, not really You know there's no way they can escape that. On the other hand there are lots of disadvantages to being the kids of a president Well I wasn't just talking about the kids of the president I was talking about many White House aids that walk out the door and just by the perception of their closeness to you do very well I mean do you think the rules should be changed? That you are that's what I meant Let me point something out there about the type of people that you get in government most of the people that have come into our administration well I said it over and over again during the campaign. I didn't want people that wanted a job in government I wanted the kind of people so successful that they would have to make a sacrifice to serve and I'm surrounded by a great many that are in exactly that position Now I also know that in many of them, younger people, children growing up that are going to have to be educated and all there's a limit to how long they can stay at the government level of income when they know they can do better in the outside indeed many of them gave up much better incomes in the outside to come here and there comes a time and many times I've said in that chair when someone comes in and tells me they have to leave and they tell me why that they've now got a family problems income and so forth and they have to and I've said to them then look when you give me that as a reason there's no way I can try to persuade you to stay. I can't argue with that and to get down to rules and to start saying they can't go out and better themselves you know it's difficult enough already to get this kind of person to come in government. Things that have been passed that have borne out of past scandals or something in which an individual has to bear his entire personal holdings and so forth has to report every year on what he got for Christmas even from friends that they've been exchanging gifts for years it's the same thing holds true for a president you know. I wonder how do you go to somebody and say how much did that sweater cost you? I have to put it in the paper. Is that what you had to do with the Buckleys on the dog? With the Mr. and Mrs. Buckley when they gave you racks? Yes, anything that's a gift has got to be we have to we have to report it but I think this that in order to get that kind of person don't make it more difficult than it is and I I would think that maybe there could be a review sometimes of some of the things that are almost insulting that we impose on people before they can come to government. But don't you think for instance that Mr. Dever the Canadian government really probably thought they could get a good hearing, a better hearing because he had worked for you and is that is that a good thing? I don't mean to sort of peg him is it a good thing when somebody knows that they have influence with you or at least a hearing with you? I think that's much less of why they hire than it is the knowledge that this individual knows his way around Washington and knows the situation, knows the things that are impossible in our government to do, knows the things that are possible can advise them as to this could not this thing you're asking just cannot be done under the laws and so forth of the government. I think there's much more of that than any idea that somehow an individual can come in here and lean on a president any president and say hey do this for me I can't think of a president that would do those things and certainly no one in this administration have ever ever tried to do anything of that kind with me. Mr. President on a stranger level in the Washington Times on Friday I read a story that a psychic from the Midwest from Chicago had written a letter to you predicting the destruction of the space shuttle and even went into talking about the O-rings and NASA the letter has been forwarded to NASA and they're taking it very seriously I was wondering do you think psychics ever make sound predictions and have you ever used the services of a psychic? No, but I have to tell you this It's my UFO question I find it difficult I didn't know about this particular case you're talking about Fascinating, no they're good I find it difficult to write them off entirely as a matter of fact the scriptures say that there will be such people the Bible has even referred to that but the reason I'm saying this is I know of instances where police in our country for example with the Boston Strangler and I know of one that I have met personally a little more than that in California that has been used and I know of an instance in which there were bodies missing in an airplane crash down near Palm Springs and this individual told the police that they couldn't find the wreckage had been able to find it he described a canyon and an overhang and that it was under there that it had gone under that overhang and from his description he'd never been there the all and when too many law enforcement agencies around the country have resorted to this I wanted to ask you the latest Gallup poll which I think was this last weekend showed that you had never been more popular to what degree do you think your ability to get straight to the American people on television and put out simply what you have in mind what you want to achieve get across those ideas to what degree is your popularity in that and can a person be elected president nowadays can not perform I mean in a show business sense on television to reach the American people well there's only one rule a show business that is employed in all of this and anyone can do it they don't have to be a performer but the one rule is every actor knows that when your face is up there on that screen in a close up if you don't believe the line you're speaking the audience will know it and won't believe it either and if somebody goes some people are better than others and I just wonder you believe in I think the American public believes in you when you get up in there I believe in them well now tell me what do you taking another television personality if I can what is your attitude of the evangelist I don't know have you ever watched him on television I've seen him now since this has been talked about and a few times on the news that he's been on the TV news and all and certainly he's much respected by his his following and those people who turn to him for their religious counsel but there's one thing that I must point out all this suddenly being raised and is this right or wrong for him or for religious people and all how come there was no he's not the first clergyman to run for president we had one in 1984 that sought the Democratic nomination and I have to wonder is the criticism now a little bit because this one is seeking the Republican nomination but no one should be barred from running for public office or holding public office on the basis of their previous occupation or profession oh I didn't mean it that I mean how do you see him as a figure and it didn't mean I didn't imply a criticism of this religious backing but how do you see him as a figure in the political arena of the Republican party well I'm quite sure that he is totally sincere in what he is what he is proposed doing and but would he give George Bush you know all I know is I can't comment on remember I'm the titular head of the party as long as I'm in this job and I therefore have to remain neutral in the inner party contests for primaries then when the party has made the decision the people in the party as to who should be the candidate I'll support them all out but I'm very hesitant to say anything that might be interpreted as a for or against but even behind the scenes you might not not even behind the scenes no you can't do that alright well basically we should ask we've gotten more letters about Lucky we're wondering we're wondering how she is and we've heard reports that Rex may be joining her because of the polling and talking no let me just say here and this will thank you you're going to give me a chance to clear something up Lucky was not exiled Lucky was always intended to go to the ranch and she's there she is the queen of the place there are five dogs and she is really taken over she's a giant now but that was what she was an outdoor dog and it was a kind of cruelty we had to keep her for a while until she reached a certain age and was still undergoing training here but you know to have to take her out on the leash as they did out in the lawn there and walk her around that was not for her and when we go to the ranch out there 688 acres of meadowland forest everything that you want and running free and that's where she was always intended to go now Rex is an entirely different dog Rex I think is probably happier in the house than out and so there's no hardship in having him here and then out in the lawn when we go to Camp David oh he has a great time running around there but Rex I think would be totally lost at the ranch Is he going to have to stay in Beverly Hills when you move back home? I think he would continue to be our home dog but really I mean from a standpoint of risk up there that's wild country and Rex with bob cats mountain lion ooh that's a terrible thing to look forward to 1988 better not come quickly for him for times every once in a while we have a bear that moves in and I've never seen the bear yet others people up there are so that's dog heaven for the other kind of dogs that we have are all outdoor dogs a husky and golden retriever things of that kind Mr. President and hilarious throwing us out and I just wanted to ask you one question to accompany this we would like to run your favorite picture of you and Mrs. Reagan do you have one favorite picture that was taken at any time? you know I have to I have to say with regard to this that having been in the motion picture business for all those years both of us in Hollywood and then governor and then here we've had a jillion pictures taken of us I wouldn't know how to find out or have a favorite they're just so darn many they say pretty good one over there I think on the one that you like but the that's really why we asked because there's so many pictures taken we thought perhaps maybe there was one in an instant that I like oh dear I've got them on horseback I've got them dancing I've got them everything that you could imagine you've got them dancing kissing you know it'd be hard for me to pick one up I think they're all pretty pictures and I counter her I don't add to them she does Mr. President while you were while the interview was going on Pete went out and checked out the espionage it depends on which statute the case is filed under so your answer was basically right the Pollard case was brought under a statute that allows only life sentence as the maximum and of course it's still being discussed in the courts as to what the sentence will be can't comment on that but that's the fact one favorite picture of mine up there in my dressing room is Nancy I'm not in it Nancy's about that high it's a little girl and I have that she was cute when she was in New Jersey back then yeah well maybe we'll get a copy of that you can write the caption underneath it for what you think is the suitable thank you so much thank you for having us I don't know whether I gave you any startling material or anything have a good 4th of July we hope it's not too mocked for you but too miserable that they're floating around they'll be out there in the carriers