 They've got me packed kind of full on the schedule here this morning. I appreciate that very much. And I always say, because I consider this part of it, welcome to the White House. But I know it's the executive office building, but then that's part of the establishment. Now, I wish the occasion for your visit today was a more enjoyable one, but we all know you're here for a serious purpose. This audience understands the dangers of a violent minority. It is seeking to impose its will by terrorism. In the Middle East, terrorist elements of the PLO are committed to the destruction of Israel and the democracy that it represents. In Central America, communist guerrillas seek the destruction of El Salvador and its budding democracy. But more than a similarity of terrorist methods links events in the Middle East with those in Central America. For make no mistake, just as the terrorists in the PLO deal in violence and subversion in the Middle East, they are also an active ally of communist revolutionaries throughout Central America. The strong tie between them and Nicaragua's Sandinista government is particularly revealing. Sandinista soldiers were trained and fought beside their PLO comrades in the Middle East as early as 1970. In 1978, they issued a joint declaration of war against Israel. This PLO element has provided the Sandinistas with material advisors and training in terror. They espouse the same principles and the same hatred. As one Sandinista spokesman has said, there is a longstanding blood unity between us. The results of this self-proclaimed unity between the Sandinistas and terrorists in the PLO are evident for all the world to see and an evil echo of history. Virtually the entire Jewish community in Nicaragua has been frightened in a exile. I think you've probably been told that already before I came here. Their synagogue, if you hadn't been told, which had its doors torched by Sandinista supporters in 1978 while services were in progress, it has since been confiscated and turned into offices for a Sandinista organization. The Sandinistas and their terrorist brethren have widened their scope and now direct their brotherhood of terror toward the struggling democracy in El Salvador. And when the world fully understands the intentions and consequences of communist rule in Central America, I believe that it will appreciate United States efforts there. Our goal is nothing less than to protect human liberty, dignity, and ensure the rights of persecuted minorities. The United States stands for religious freedom. In fact, that's why our pilgrim forefathers first set foot here. Our belief in religious freedom is one more reason that we must give assistance to those in Central America who are fighting totalitarian anti-religious forces. So I hope when you leave here today, you'll discuss what you've heard with others. Please share with them the truth that communism in Central America means not only the loss of political freedom, but religious freedom as well. You have a vital message to deliver and one that concerns free men and women everywhere, one that must be told. And now I think I've got probably about two minutes left here of my limited time and perhaps some of you have some questions if I can squeeze them in in that time. Yes, Mr. President, John Anderson, no relation to the other one. Oh. Sure. Pure accident of birth. Rescue Central America. Once we have prevailed on our short-term goals to reestablish democracy in Central America, what do you see as being requisite in the long run to ensure that 20 years hence we're not sitting in the same situation again? What plans and programs do we need to enact? Well, this is one of the reasons for appointing the commission that I've just appointed. Some time ago when I made a trip down to Central and South America, spoke to leaders down there. I couldn't visit all of the 30 countries. But when I spoke to them, I told what my dream and my aim is. I believe that for a long time this country has been insensitive in its relationship to our neighbors here in the hemisphere. We haven't realized that we're the big colossus. So with the best of intentions in the past, presidents have gone to Latin America and have said, here is a great plan for closer relationship. But it was our plan. We were imposing our plan. And nothing ever really happened. So this time I went and I said, I want to hear your ideas. What do you think? And I pointed out to them, and I must say they were warm in the reception of this. I said, look, look at all that we have in common in this hemisphere. Unlike any place else in the world, from pole to pole, from the South Pole to the North Pole, in the Western Hemisphere, we have the same background, the same heritage of coming here to develop these undiscovered lands. We, from pole to pole, worship the same God. We are all, even if we cross the borders of any of these 30-odd countries, we're still among Americans because we are all Americans. I know sometimes we in the United States take the tendency to use that word with regard to ourselves. You'd be surprised how they react when you recognize they're Americans too. We're all Americans. And so what I believe is we're trying to stop the shooting and the killing long enough then to proceed with the economic development, the social reforms that are things that are needed to bring them up to the levels that we ourselves accept as normal here in our country. It is true that in the past, their revolutions down there have simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. For the first time, we're seeing something different, Nel Salvador. For the first time, 80% of the people went to the election and voted. Sure, they aren't perfect yet in human rights. They haven't understood human rights for the last 100 years. And so they've got that great division where you're either in the rich ruling oligarchy or you are down there in the thatched hut. But American investment, I had a letter the other day from a man in America who's got six, five plants in America and one in Mexico. And his salary scale there is about comparable to what it is in the United States, which means those people are well above the standard. But he sent me a snapshot. And the snapshot was a young lady employee of that one plant that they have in Mexico. She was wearing a t-shirt and inscribed in the t-shirt was eat your heart out, Russia. That's what we have in mind for all of them together as equal allies and partners in this hemisphere. 600 million people or more. Can you imagine what a power for good we would be if we were all joined together as allies and not one exploiting another? I'll haunt anyone that turns that around 20 years from now. Someone else? Yes. Mr. President, much of a communist subversion today is credited to instigation of youth programs that the communists started some 15 or 20 years ago. And often American administrations are criticized for being short-sighted in their policy approach to South America. Would this administration perhaps consider initiating a youth program to train people, to see, inculcate the values of freedom and democracy so that we could better unify and better understand the values that we mutually share South America, North America? Thank you for asking that. Yes, this is the thing that I spoke of to the British Parliament when I was there at the summit conference more than a year ago. And it is a program that we already have underway. And that is a program that recognizes that we have it here, but we've never sold it. We, who are the great merchants and advertisers, have never really sold the principles of democracy. And this is one of our aims, yes, to show them the difference. And look at the examples we have. Take those new developing countries that have turned to the totalitarian or socialist way and compare them with a South Korea, to a Taiwan, to Singapore, to Hong Kong, all those that chose private freedom, our system, democracy. Their standard of living is up here compared to down here. And yes, we have a world program going to peddle what we've got and convince them of its value. Security council, why has Congress become so politicized over your Latin American policies? And what can you do and what can your supporters do who believe in what you're doing to depoliticize certain members of the... We're trying and we've, this is one of the reasons for a secret meeting in which we made available to them information that is definitely classified. Then last night I turned on the television set while I was getting ready for bed and there on C-SPAN, the cable network, was the broadcast of what's called, I think, a special order in Congress where in the evening after it's done, they arrange a program and then speakers get up and make a speech and they were having a whole, I have to call it a diatribe about us and about Latin America. I've never heard so many lies and I've never heard so much demagoguery in all my life as the opponents of what we're doing. They flatly declared that all of the revolutionaries in Nicaragua who are trying now to change this government that's there, this revolutionary government, that they're all Samosa remnants, that they're trying to bring back the dictatorship of Samosa. Well, the truth of the matter is that leaders of the guerrillas in Nicaragua were part of the Sandinista Revolution. Once the revolution succeeded, just as Castro did, they were thrown out, thrown in jail or exiled and the government became totalitarian. The Sandinista government has a broken contract with the Organization of American States. Everyone forgets that in an effort to not have too much bloodshed, the Organization of American States asked Samosa to resign and turn the country over to the revolutionaries and Samosa, in spite of all his dictator ways, said, all right, if it will help the country and he resigned. But in return, the Sandinista revolutionaries had pledged to the Organization of American States. They would institute full human rights, early elections, freedom of the press, freedom of labor to organize all of these things. They have not kept a single one of those promises and the Organization of American States has just recently notified them that they consider they have a contract with this government. And what is prompting these people? I'm inclined to believe that we somehow destroyed some of the principles of government when we air conditioned the capital. I mean, let me just take the lady back. I can only take one more and I shall take that lady there with her question. But, you know, once upon a time they all used to go home for the summer. My name is Carla Whitman. I'm a member of the Nespers tribe from Idaho. And I came here with one particular concern and that was for the Mosquito Indians in Nicaragua. And I was wondering what was being done to help them. The Mosquito Indians in Nicaragua. I should have mentioned this. This is another part of what the revolution has done for years, even under a ruler like Samosa. The mosquitoes have been allowed to have their own culture, their own religion living in their tribal areas. This government has moved them forcefully, forcibly out of their villages, burned their villages, destroyed their crops, refused to allow them to plant and has driven many of them into what can only be called concentration camps. And so the mosquitoes have risen up and are part of the Nicaraguan force that is fighting, they're fighting for a return to the freedom that they always had had, and which they expected to have under a more democratic regime. Mr. President, we have a representative of the Mosquito Indians. May I ask one thing? Did I exaggerate? Exactamente lo que usted acaba de decir es lo que está sucediendo en mi país. Exactamente lo que está sucediendo en mi país. Just what you said. Thank you very much. Well, you see how far we progressed in equal rights? She's ordering me out.