 I'm surprised to see you again. Well, you're looking, Mr President. It's been a little while. Hello, Mr President. Patrick's Day, in fact. You were busy on that. Thank you. Moving the ceremony today, Mr President. Oh, I had trouble getting my remarks out. It's a... It catches people. Doesn't it? I mean, it is an emotion, and maybe because people haven't thought about it for such a long time. But you... It's that... Oh, all right. Is this okay, talking about like this? Where am I? I thought of all those people walking by and wondering what their reflections were. Yes, yeah. We'd like a little bit more of that sound. Tell you what I'm going to do. I have a feeling that... Take my hearing aid out that I can hear myself better and more normally without it. There. There must have been a million there. Yeah, you wonder how many of those people maybe have someone that is still missing in action and they're wondering, is this ours? But all sitting there today and watching that, your mind turns to who is in there. Was he... And I said, was he somebody out there in his first combat? Or was he somebody that was counting the days until his hitch was up and he was going home? He was a young man with his life in front of him. Was that...? He was a young man with his life in front of him. Yes. That's what the poet says about the graves in France. France? They'll never grow old. A bit more level from you. Bit more level from me, okay. We're rolling. Good evening. Welcome to today tonight the Library, White House, Washington, D.C. On Friday, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, begins his European tour with the state visit to Ireland. Mr. President, it's not your first visit to Ireland, of course. It is your first visit as President and in an election year. So is it a sentimental journey? Is it election-eering? Well, it is true. I have been there more than once in a previous occupation when I was a performer in the entertainment business and then subsequently when I was governor and when you and I met and I was sent there by President Nixon on a mission for him. Actually, I would be going, if I were not a candidate, so it isn't part of an election process, but I'm accepting an invitation that was first made by former Prime Minister Haohi and repeated by your present Prime Minister, Fitzgerald, when he was here. But there is another reason, a personal reason why I'm going also. I have known I would be going one day because up until I became President, I had no knowledge of my father's family beyond him and his parents. He was orphaned at less than six years of age, so he had no knowledge of his family roots. And I must say, the people of Ireland and the government of Ireland have been very kind and generous and I found when I arrived here and have traced our family roots and found that Ballyperine is the local and so forth, so I've always known I was going to have to go there. I want to go there. But it's not going to do you any harm in an election year. So how important is that Irish-American constituency anymore? Well, I want the vote of all the Americans that I can get. And obviously the Irish-Americans constitute quite a sizable block in our country. There is a rich history of the millions of them that we have. I'm one of them. So of course I would like to have their approval. But I'm not making this trip for that purpose. I think that their votes will be based on their belief and whether I should be President for four more years or not. You're coming to us after the New Ireland forum has finally reported. The Congress is already giving its backing to that report. What's your view of the findings of the report? Of the report? The New Ireland forum. Well, I think that Prime Minister Fitzgerald said it very eloquently and that was that it was a practical agenda for a meeting of the minds and discussion. And I think so too. But I believe to go beyond that would be presumptuous of me. This is a problem to be settled there between not only the governments of England and Ireland but also of the people in the north and the people of the south. They too must be considered in their wishes and we hope and pray we can find a solution that will bring peace. So you wouldn't be proposing to pick up Mr. Hawes' suggestion that in fact the United States might intervene at this day? I don't think it's our place to do that. Will you be raising it with Mrs. Thatcher for instance and seeking, using your good offices to encourage her at least to begin a process of further discussion? Well I confess to a curiosity knowing her well about a problem that has been made and a curiosity to how she sees it and how she feels about it and I could possibly ask a question about that. Mr. President many Irish Americans still see what goes on in Northern Ireland as a freedom fight. They see the IRA not as terrorists but as people to be supported. Can they be persuaded they're wrong on that? Well I think that there is a faction of the IRA that is revealed now. Mainly what is called the provisional IRA that is not the IRA of the glorious days of the fight for freedom and that it has all the attributes of a terrorist organization. At the same time I think that there is an element on the other side of that. I have a feeling myself that the majority of people on both sides of the border out there and would want and do want a peaceful solution but that possibly on both sides of the border there is a problem about voicing that because of fear of the more radical elements and that if it's true that's a tragedy and there must be a solution found. Mr. President as you know there are people in Ireland who are objecting already to your visit. In particular they feel that your stand on Central America has not supported just as sufficiently. How do you feel about the likelihood of those protests? I feel that they're misinformed. We know that Cuba and the Soviet Union have vast worldwide disinformation machineries or machines in which they can give out misinformation to the media and to organizations and groups and so forth. I'm sure that many of those people if there are people demonstrating on this issue I'm sure they're probably sincere and well intentioned but I don't think that they know the situation. Now we've had a case here in which with the three elections that have taken place bipartisan groups of our Congress and others have gone down there in addition to the bipartisan commission I appointed under Dr. Kissinger to go down to Central America. When they come back viewing those elections many of these congressmen have gone down openly admitting they're like those people that would want to demonstrate they think we're on the wrong side. They have come back completely converted by what they saw. We've got a situation where for decades and decades or even centuries in Central America and Latin America generally we've had revolutions in which it's simply one group of leaders being overthrown by another group of leaders who want to take over and be in charge in the dictators. Some years ago there was an overthrow of a military dictatorship in El Salvador and the government that was set up then became kind of same type of military thing and then a man named Duarte who was president after that first overthrow was exiled first was imprisoned, was tortured was exiled even though he'd been chosen as president he has now returned and the people overwhelmingly have elected him as their choice for president. Now how anyone could not believe that he is going to be determined to enforce civil rights and if there is well first of all he's picking up something that has already been vastly improved under the existing government already there which was elected by the people. We've had three elections in 26 months there and in each one of them more a greater proportion of their people turned out for that election than turns out for an election in the United States. But of course it's mandatory to vote. Not really. As a matter of fact they had something like about a $20 fine if you didn't vote but these teams of observers of ours went down they couldn't find anyone that ever worried about that or the thought that would ever be enforced whether they did or not but they did find an overwhelming enthusiasm on the part of the people when a woman stands in the line for hours waiting her turn to vote and has been wounded by the guerrillas whose slogan was vote today and die tonight and she refused to leave the line for medical treatment of her bullet wound until she had voted. She wouldn't take the chance of missing the opportunity to vote. Now these the guerrillas the government offered amnesty the government offered for them to put down their guns and come in and participate submit candidates for office in the electoral process and the guerrillas turned that down by the same token in Nicaragua the Sandinista government which is as totalitarian as anything in Cuba or the Soviet Union indeed they are the puppets of Cuba and the Soviet Union that government the so-called freedom fighters there or if they prefer to call them guerrillas they are former revolutionaries who were aligned with the Sandinistas in the revolution to overthrow the authoritarian government of Somoza and once they were in the Sandinistas which is the as I say totalitarian element communist element they got rid of their allies in the revolution and have broken every promise that the revolutionaries when it was still going on made to the organization of American states as to free elections human rights freedom of the press freedom of religion the present government of Nicaragua right now the Catholic bishops are protesting as far as they can at the risk of great persecution they embarrassed one bishop by parading him through the streets of the capital naked now the Archbishop of San Salvador has been quoted by this disinformation network here and there as being one who wants America to stop lending aid military aid to the government of El Salvador he has refuted that he has denied that and said no he knows that the others the guerrillas are getting outside support and he knows from whence it comes and he has said no he does not want us to leave so the program that we have is one in which three out of four dollars will go to helps establish a democratic economy society in El Salvador and only one dollar is going in military aid you can't have social reforms in a country while you're getting your headshot off by guerrillas but your critics Mr. President your critics here in the United States your critics in Europe, your critics in Ireland don't see necessarily Nicaragua and El Salvador quite in the same way there are those who've come back and who've said Nicaragua isn't as repressive as it looks there are those who say American aid going in to the guerrillas there strengthens and tuffles that government How do they explain then the mosquito Indians which even under the Samosa authoritarian government were allowed to have their own communities their own culture and religion and so forth and almost upon taking office the Sandinista government marched its forces in to those mosquito villages burned their crops burned their homes, their villages and then confined as many as they could in concentration camps but thousands of them fled across the borders now we know an awful lot about some of those mosquitoes because some of our medical personnel in our military are helping taking care of them where they are in refugee camps in Honduras all I can suggest to some of these people who are saying this in Europe and who have evidently been propagandized is and I don't mean this to sound presumptuous but is there any one of them that has access to all the information that the president of the United States has I'm not doing this because I've got a yen to involve ourselves or spend some money but I do know that when the Sandinista was a revolution one in Nicaragua the previous administration immediately set out to help them financial aid to that government and it was only a few days before my inauguration when that administration had irrefutable evidence that the Nicaraguan government was supplying arms and materiel to the guerrillas in El Salvador attempting to overthrow a duly elected government that was trying to be a democracy and he put a hold on any further help now we came into office a few days later and we still had to find out for ourselves we thought if there is a possibility of negotiating some kind of a settlement and so on that basis we renewed the aid financial aid that was going to them and tried to deal with them by April we had found out that no there was no honor, no honesty they were totalitarian but more than that they openly declared that their revolution knows no boundaries that they are only the beginning of what they intend to be further revolution throughout all of Latin America would that nevertheless justify mining ports? those were home made mines that couldn't sink a ship but let me ask you this right now there is a Bulgarian ship unloading tanks and armored personnel carriers at a port in Nicaragua that is the fifth such Bulgarian ship in the last 18 months just a week or two ago there were Soviet ships in there unloading war materiel now the Nicaraguan government the Sandinista government is funneling this through to the guerrillas in El Salvador indeed the headquarters for the guerrilla movement in El Salvador is only a few miles from the capital of Nicaragua in Nicaragua where the strategy is planned and the direction of their their revolution is taking place now it seems to me that if you're going to justify people trying to bring this present Nicaraguan government back to the original promise of the revolution to modify its totalitarian stand and you're going at the same time as we were offering help is to interdict those arms and weapons that were going to the El Salvador guerrillas but you know that a flood of that material is coming in through the ports being unloaded that you're going to try to think of a way to interdict that and those were home made mines as I say that couldn't sink a ship they were planted in those harbors where they were planted by the Nicaraguan rebels and I I think that there was much ado about nothing Mr. President you have an image problem don't you you said it in your press conference last week that people think you've got an itchy finger many people in Europe see you as a cold warrior they see you as the man who started your presidential years talking about the empire of evil they see you as the president where at this stage is not involved in disarmament talks with the Soviet Union but we didn't walk away from the table did we the disarmament table they did and let me point something out there have been some 19 efforts by our country since World War II to enlist the Soviets into talks to talk about disarmament the reduction of arms and the control of weapons it was this country that as far back as 1946 when we were the only ones who had a nuclear weapon we made a proposal that an international commission be appointed to take charge of all nuclear materiel all weapons turned over to them the Soviet Union hadn't even completed one yet but they turned down that proposal I am the first one since 1946 who has gone to the bargaining table and proposed the total elimination of the intermediate range weapon system in Europe and they wouldn't listen so we said all right we still think that's the best idea to free Europe of this threat but we will then talk to you about what figure would you suggest that we could reduce the numbers to to at least reduce the size of the threat and the response is to walk away from the table now I think that we know that the relations are bad right now very bad? not all that bad there may be a more unhappy than they've been in the past but I think one of the reasons for that is that in the past the Soviet Union has seen this country unilaterally disarm cancel weapon systems such as the B-1 and other systems close down our Minuteman missile assembly line we don't even have the facility to make them anymore and they've seen that while they were doing while we were doing that with some idea that maybe they would see we meant no threat and therefore they would follow suit they continued with the biggest military build up in the history of man now how can anyone what I started to say I guess is that sure they're unhappy they're unhappy because they see that we're preparing to defend ourselves if need be many West Europeans are very unhappy though because they see the danger that if the confrontation happens if you don't get to talks in some shape or form it is Europe where that war will be fought yes but also there's some 300,000 American troops there which are an indication of our standing by them in the alliance they have lived almost 40 years now since World War II under an umbrella which has kept peace and that umbrella is our nuclear capability in this country I don't think I know that there are demonstrators and I know that there are people that influenced by the Soviet Sponsored World Peace Council but I don't think our alliance in Europe has ever been stronger than it is today but as I say I think the Soviets sure they're unhappy because they liked it the other way when under a kind of détente they were having things their own way now they know that we're not going to make ourselves vulnerable as was done before but they also know that we're willing anytime they want to sit down we are willing to start reducing these weapons and my ultimate goal is I think common sense dictates it the world must rid itself of all nuclear weapons there must never be a nuclear war it shouldn't be fought because then it can't be won when do you think that might happen when do you think the process the talks might begin I don't know we have kept the door open on any other number of other negotiations we've been doing business with them on some things of interest to them as well as us and with some progress being made it is only in this area they did come back to the mutual balanced force the conventional arms treaty and we are discussing with them as well as others at the stock home disarm the talks but it is on those two the major nuclear weapons the start talks as we call them and the intermediate range weapons where they are being intransigent what about the boycott on the Olympics many people see this symbolically as just that further little bit of evidence of the Soviet Union and the United States pulling further apart well I know that no one can really understand or fathom the thinking of the Poled Bureau the people in the Poled Bureau, the Soviet Union but I would hazard two ideas that stick in my mind as possibly an explanation for what they've done one is retaliation for the boycott President Carter in those Olympics when it was their Olympics number two frankly I think they don't want to be embarrassed by having revered athletes in their country come to this country and decide to stay a different part of the world very much in the news this week the Gulf we're obviously teetering into a crisis there do you see Mr. President the possibility of a direct American involvement well so far it doesn't seem to be the Gulf States have themselves said that this is their problem and they want to deal with it some have asked for some military assistance in the sense of weaponry and this is why we are sending some weapons stinger weapons to them and possibly augmenting our our little squadron of tankers that are there we have four there presently have had for quite some time that could be expanded to six but they have not asked us to intervene and certainly we have not offered to intervene do you see this as essentially an American problem or is it a problem for the west is something that either regionally it should be picked up by the Gulf States or is it something that the western line should come in that you should stand back from well if it comes to a complete shutdown of the sources of oil in the Middle East this is a western problem and far more than for us actually only about three percent of our oil comes from the Persian Gulf many of our allies are not in that advantageous position they are very dependent on that and I have said previously that I don't see how the western world could let that be closed down but at the moment the Gulf States who are directly involved and who are on the firing line there believe that the problem can be solved and without outside interference what about the Middle East you after all tried the Reagan plan in terms of resolving the West Bank problem do you see now a possibility of somehow coming to a reconciliation of Israel with its Arab neighbors this is what we have to continue to try we have never given up on that it was set back by the inability to get a solution in Lebanon it seemed impossible to go forward with that well for example Israel itself was engaged in combat in Lebanon but ultimately the solution as I put it is we must find more Egypt's and our job is to convince our Arab friends over there that we can be even handed and that we're not seeking to dictate a settlement of any kind but that they must be prepared to sit down and the Israelis at the same time to sit down and end to a war situation in which there are countries that have still said they do not recognize Israel's right to exist now we have been supportive of Israel since 1948 and and continue to be but we also believe that rather than the Arab friends and the Israelis between exist in armed camps it is time to do what the government of Egypt did a few years ago and make peace Mr. President you're constantly being asked to do the impossible you're being asked to intervene and not intervene you're being asked for instance in Ireland to make an intervention in regard to the trial of priests there in Manila you're being asked to do something about Gaddafi can you do anything in these areas all of the things that people suggest I think we've taken action with regard to Gaddafi we've moved many of our people as you know and recognized him for what he is you mentioned the Irish priest in the Philippines I do not know the details of that I have only recently heard about that but we've had a long standing relationship dating back to when we were the protector of the Philippines with that government and if there is any way in which we could be of help in that we'd be pleased to do it Mr. President we're in a library in the White House surrounded by the lives of American presidents most of them in the long haul of history are remembered for one thing one speech one decision what do you want to go down in history for doing I I know that's a question that comes up every once in a while I find rather difficult to think that way or think about yourself and history I I guess if they just said I did my best I might be pleased with that but your priorities after all you're expecting to run into a second term this is the time for you to do things you said last week but the top priorities disarmament do you think you can achieve action on that over the next four years I have to believe I can because I don't think the world can go on this way and we're going to try yes if I had to say one thing that we would be aiming for that I would be aiming for is mine it is our country continuing along the path that was set so many years ago with its goal the ultimate in individual liberty and freedom consistent with an ordinary society with a government that is the servant of the people not the master and with peace throughout the world the United States began with a revolution with a message for the rest of the world mightn't some people argue that you've run out of steam when they look at Central America they look at the North South debate they look at the inequality of resources they look at your richness and what you've got they wonder whether you can really appeal to the poor people of the world effectively