 Good to see you. Good to see you. Let me introduce my family. This is Will. Hi, Will. How are you? Good to see you. Hi, my name is Limby. Hello. Thank you for coming. I'm daughter Kay. Hi Kay. Nice to see you. My parents, Mr. Mrs. Carter. Hello, Dad. Introduce her. Hello. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. All right, Will. I think maybe we should all gather here for a little something that's going to happen right now. This is certified that the Secretary of Defense has awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal to Major Thomas L. Carter, United States Air Force, for exceptionally meritorious service for the Armed Forces of the United States with the citation to read as follows. Major Thomas L. Carter, United States Air Force distinguished himself by exceptionally superior service as the Air Force State to the President of the United States from July 1984 to August 1986. Major Carter has displayed superior leadership, exemplary foresight and tireless effort, which were a permanent importance to the President and the nation. In this highly visible position, he routinely planned and coordinated numerous events of national and international significance. His role as the emergency action officer for the President's travel was accomplished with expertise and professionalism. Major Carter served as a White House agent responsible for supervising the use of Department of Defense resources, supporting the Commander-in-Chief's travel throughout the world. His performance as the military coordinator for the Presidential trips to Canada and Spain in 1985 were particularly noteworthy and contributed measurably to the office of the President and to the effectiveness of the White House military organization. The distinctive accomplishments of Major Carter reflect great credit upon himself, United States Air Force and the Department of Defense. Well, congratulations, and thank you and good luck. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it. We've got a good family. John, would you like to see one? Yes. Well, I think we should. Come on, Katie. Thank you. Family section. Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you for all that you've done and over a period of time. Sometimes you're going to put on a civilian clothes and be in the way of company. Oh, yes. Thank you, sir. You're a civilian here. Oh. And you may be reading a book and have to put it down to be a book. You also... Thank you, sir. And maybe you could use a key ring or a flexor seal. Thank you. And there are two other people here that can share a jar and grave with a seal along with jelly beans. My. Oh. And in case you're tempted to try and open it before you get home with someone might not be right, here's a sample for each of your 14 minutes. Mr. President. It was. Major Carver has assumed a position as Secretary Gold's senior defensive officer. That's what I understand. We're going to do our best to facilitate your defensive gins up there as much as we can. Senator is solidly behind you all the way. Thank you. Good enough. Let's do it again. Thank you. Yes, sir. It's been a pleasure. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Can you say thank you? Say goodbye, Mr. President. Thank you. Yes, sir. It was a pleasure. Goodbye. Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. Okay. Thanks again, sir. Okay. Call us now or anytime. All right. We'll see you. Thanks, Jim. Goodbye. Have a good one. Good to see you. Thank you. I'm very glad to meet you. Well, listen, I'm glad to meet you. And I'm glad to show you thank you for all that you have done for our country. I'd do it again any time. Especially in you. I know you're busy. I thank you for this time. Well, listen. You're just a little stupid here. All right. Thank you so much. No, thank you. Thank you. God bless. You're the best. You're the best. Thank you, sir. You know, Mr. President, I think that Dave is the only person in the country that talked to more young people last year than you did. You know what I mean? That's wonderful. I have a page of speaking to about a quarter of me kids here in public schools. Hey, that's professor. And I walk in. I dress when I use to say, hi, I'm Dave Fever. I have pimples. You have scars. They don't know the difference. Good day, sir. Thank you. I'm so honored to meet you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, you deserve a word and a lot more. I certainly appreciate all you do in place. All right. Thank you. Sure. Yes, as Pat probably told you, I'm working on a new book, The Guardian. Primarily your defense and foreign policy. And trying, we hope to build public support, particularly for the FBI. So I want to ask a couple of questions primarily on that. Tell me, first of all, how did you happen to decide upon the FBI? Who gave you the first idea on it? What happened? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Decided upon the FBI. Who gave you the first idea on it? Well, now, the funny thing was it was the other way around. I don't know. And having some meetings, a number of meetings on this situation, I have never been comfortable with the idea that the only defense that we could have in this very dangerous world was the threat of blowing the other fellow up if he tried to blow us up first. And so one day, I'm meeting in the cabinet room with one of the chiefs of staff. I have always been of the mind that there has never been an offensive weapon, and that is that someone didn't come along with a defense against it, except with nuclear weapons. And then the only thing we could think of was the threat of the mutual assured destruction program. So I asked them, citing this fact of every weapon having the biggest defense against it, so I asked them if they believe that there could be a defensive system developed that could really make these weapons obsolete. And almost unanimously, well, it was unanimous. They said yes, they felt that could be done. So you told them to go right to work with it? I said yes. Let's start and see if we can find this. That's how it came into being. Of course, it was an opponent of the idea that launched the title of Star Wars, and they thought that this was supposed to deprecate the whole idea. But it's now the research is going on. There have been several breakthroughs, and there's great optimism among the people working on it. Such assistance can be developed. I know you said several times that you will not show you away to the FBI on the 3rd or any kind of confessional missile. No, as a matter of fact, I think that the great purpose of FBI can be to make itself in reality unneeded. In other words, that if this does come true and we have the research reveals that we have such a system that can destroy the incoming missiles, that this can make those nuclear missiles obsolete and can then be the greatest help in getting agreements to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. Do you think that before your term is on that you could actually destroy a small part of this that has been advocated as a point? No, I don't think so. But what I think we can do is work toward an agreement. A treaty that could supersede some of the existing treaties to the effect that if and when research develops that there is a system then to explore the idea rather than to try and deploy it while you still had offensive weapons which would seem to the world that we were then trying to develop a first strike case that we would instead say to the world, now, let's share in this on the basis of all of us doing away with our offensive weapons. Have you made that in effect an offer to Gabbach out? I've talked about that with him in Geneva and you know there's always mistrust and he wasn't prepared to believe that I really meant that. Well, he of course is giving the same line that all we wanted for is a shield behind which to launch the first strike. Yes, that's what he was thinking. That's why I'm looking forward to future meetings which maybe we can indicate to him that that isn't what we were. You've told him that time again and then you have to really improve it to him like that. Well, you know some of your best friends in the Senate aren't very good with including Senator Pete Wilson from California are advocating that you do deploy at least part of this as a first phase perhaps to defend perhaps our own missile sites. Is that still a possibility? I don't know. I think we have to be very careful and watch, remember that deployment isn't going to be like suddenly being handed a new gun and now you've got a new bullet trigger. And you wonder what would be the threat that would be generated if with all of us still having the nuclear weapons who started to deploy knowing that it was going to take a considerable period of time to get this in place and would someone then be tempted to say well we better get them while we can before that is in place. And is the danger it might stimulate a strike? Yes. Although, boy. This is something that's serious to think about. You certainly are going here not only with research but actual testing aren't you? We think that that has to be done but I would think then that we should invite the world to see it. And so it's a particular disease. Yes. And you think according to your interpretation that this would be permitted on the ABM tree, you wouldn't have the testing? I don't know whether final or any extensive testing is permitted under that treaty but I do think that we're safe in going forward. We're within the treaty in going forward with the research and then the knowledge that we either have or do not have such a system. And you were really, I know in the meeting today with several members of Congress heard them to restore some of the cuts that would be made in FDR and other defense items. I hope they will restore those put back in you mean the money. Yes. And it depends on whether they yes because actually the things that they wanted to do with that typical attitude among so many up there that the only source of money when needed is taken away from defense. Actually what they would do if they had their way with the reductions is really send back the research that we're doing now at a very sensitive moment and considerably to the period of time it would take to. Well that's the problem and you stretch it out and you delay it so you want a minimum I guess three billion at least. Yes. Or you can get it. Are you encouraged by the the search advances made in the laser for example? I think there have been a number of breakthroughs that as I say people have worked in this very optimistic and I'm sharing that optimism now on the basis of what we know. But you do still have a lot of opposition I know apparently in Congress from people who were afraid that this would break up the whole arms control. Yes and I wonder how they reason and what they think a number of those same people if you look back over their time in this particular incident are those that believe that appeasement is the way to go. Well they tried that and we wound up not the whole rhythm of the monopoly on nuclear weapons but far back in second place. No that's true when we relied on them just to be nice and build up a certain point they went on to be honest. Well you certainly have tried to be a Soviet Deer student like they understand you don't aim to be able to be on for a first strike. You're confident of another summit maybe you can explain those ideas a little better. I think we can. I think that we have returned to a man now. You have to. No one's noticed very much. This is the first Russian leader in all these years that went all the way back to 1946 in attempts to get arms control agreements and so forth. This is the first one that has ever volunteered to reduce the number of weapons they already have. And you're going to hold and do that opera often. Yeah. Because you know up until now you take all these treaties they are all based on limiting how fast you increase. Well I said several years ago when I announced my opposition to a couple of the treaties I said isn't it time to sit down and start talking about a treaty that reduces the number of weapons. And this is the way I think to go and this is the first man that has made that same kind of a suggestion. Excuse me Mr. President you do have some more people out there that need to come in. I think we'd just love to stay and talk all night. No other way to play it is. Well you gave me some much help in writing the other book. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have time to read back some of the things you said there. It's been a great pleasure to see you. I'll take it back to you. Thank you very much. Thank you.