 Thank you. I'm going to shake hands before it, so I'll be here. It's a real pleasure to see you again. John Seminole and Tom King. I want to congratulate you again for making this reality. I know you had a successful meeting up there in New Jersey, and I'm not going to try to pronounce the name of the town. I think we're a mayor of the death row, aren't we? Well, congratulations for making history. Those of you who are governors elect have for the first time increased the ranks of governors for the party in power in the White House, the first time it's happened. And it wouldn't have been possible without the quality of candidates and the fine performance of the Republican governors who serve as your colleagues. Some of you new governors, particularly Guy Hunt and Carol Campbell, I think I have an opportunity to build a strong Republican party in your states. In this campaign, I don't know about you but going around the country, I was amazed and impressed with the percentage of young people that are now in our corner. It used to be that they don't even mention it when I was a Republican governor, but this is different. And I think we've got a great chance for real, real run in the future here for all the things that we believe. But I know I sat where you were sitting once you had one of the most important jobs in government. I want to make sure that Washington doesn't interfere with the way you perform. And that's why I've ordered that we do a further study on federalism, which is what we came here to reimplement and to see what further we can do and what we have failed in our efforts to bring it about. I believe that this being a sovereign federal, a federation of sovereign states is the greatest assurance of freedom for our people and the base of the strength of our country. And there's been too many years in which there were people in Washington who were trying to make you or your states, all our states, as just administrative districts of the federal government. That's no way to go. So we'll welcome all the suggestions and help that you can give us on what we're trying to do. I wish I had some of the tools that you have to keep the legislated body that I work with in line, a balanced budget amendment and a balanced environmental authority. I miss it. Well, I didn't invite you here to lecture. You want to hear what's on your mind. So Tom is the new chairman. Why don't you start off? Excuse me, Mr. President. We have one group of self-attahed first and one brand person. Take a picture of what the governor starts. I don't mean to be sacrilegious, but you know, for some of you, you're going to feel like the last words of the last supper, and you have to get them in pictures. You should be on the side of the table. No! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Vectority is an American. You have to build an attitude. Session like that only with about four times that many of the previous to this prime minister of Japan is visible. He just sat there fascinated. I'm pleased to meet with the leadership of the 5th Annual Inaugural Anniversary Interdance. It's especially nice to see our Party Chairman Frank Theron-Goffen, National Finance Chairman Keith Brown, and both very instrumental in the success of the Republican Party, and particularly the Eagles program. And I'd like to give my special thanks to Ambassador John Gavin, National Dinner Chairman, and Maureen Reagan, National Dinner Chairwoman. And each of you here have been tireless in your efforts to support me and the Republican Party. And I want you to know how much Nancy and I appreciate all that you've done. You've all given back to America some of the success you've realized, not only have you given freely and personal resources, but also of your time. The Eagles are such a vital part of the Republican Party. Since 1975, you alone have contributed $56 million to the Republican Party, and all that we've accomplished together would not have been possible without you, without that. As a Democratic political in California, you used to say money is the mother's milk of politics. Nancy and I are looking forward to being with you again at this wonderful celebration on February 12th, with each of you working to raise funds for this important event. I know that this year's dance will be the most successful ever. And with that, I won't make you listen to any more of a speech out of me, but again, just a heartfelt thank you to one of you. Maureen has been very nice to show us the Christmas decorations. One on the horse, and then followed by another one. Maybe no one told you, but his family a few years ago, his descendants brought this in, the first gift of its kind ever to the White House, and presented, that's the Nobel Prize, the Teddy Roosevelt won for ending the Japanese Russian War. And there was purely a Republican gathering, I would point out, that he did it in typical Republican fashion, or won it in typical Republican fashion. He settled the war sitting on a yacht. Gentlemen of this historic 100th Congress of the United States, I want you to know what an honor it is to welcome each of you here to the White House. And if I could address what some of you may be wondering, no, it isn't a dream. The campaign's actually over, and you won. And reading about you, I was struck by your diversity as a freshman class, in both the national, well, from the only pitcher to pitch no hitters in both the National and American League, Jim Bunning, to the basketball star Tom McMillan, from lawyers like Benjamin Cardin and Jay Rhodes, to a member of my own former profession, Fred Randy. I knew Fred had been elected when Cap Weinberger sent me a request for a new aircraft carrier to six destroyers, and I love boat. Fred, knowing you'd be here today, I could now think back to my own transition from acting to politics. When my old boss, Jack Warner, of Warner Brothers, heard that I was running for governor in California, he said, no, Jimmy Stewart for governor, Ronald Reagan for best friend. More than once during that campaign, I was reminded of a report that was made by Jack's brother, Harry Warner, with the advent of soundtracks for movies back in the 20s. He said, who the heck wants to hear actors talk? I want to congratulate each of you. You once again are welcome to the grand stage of national policy. Certainly on matters of substance, many of us in this room would disagree. There'll be time enough for that later. For now, it's enough to consider where we would do well to agree. Contrary to the demand of all of us Republicans, Democrats alike, that we work together, always stressing the element in our national life that makes a national life possible at all, by force and cooperation. At all times, it'll be wise for you, as it is for every member of the House and Senate, to work with and through your leaders. This makes life easier for us here at the White House, because my staff and I meet with the leadership regularly. But it will also be in your own interest as members of Congress. For without the coordination that the leadership provides, the House and Senate alike would fall prey to fragmentation and inaction. Perhaps most important, let us agree that the correct motive force in politics is ideals. In the coming months, you'll find your ideals along with your patience and stamina sorely tested. You'll work long hours, you'll be subject to conflicting pressures, you will need to compromise to further your ideals, but you will also find yourself subjected to the temptation to compromise those ideals yourself. Permit me to quote one who both served in the House and held my office, and was the uncle of Joseph Kennedy, a member of this freshman class. In Profiles Encouraged, John Kennedy wrote this about the conscientious member of Congress. He realizes that once he begins to weigh each issue in terms of his chances for reelection, once he begins to compromise away his principles on one issue after another for fear that to do otherwise would halt his career and prevent future fights for principle, then he has lost the very freedom of conscience which justifies his continuance in office. So if you'll permit me, fight every political fight long and hard, but fight every fight in the name of principle. It'll be trying to balance the legitimate demands of constituents, party, colleagues and family. The hours will be long and frequent travel often exhausting, but never doubt that it's worth it. To quote John Buckin, one of President Kennedy's favorite authors, public life is the crown of a career, and politics is still the greatest and most honorable adventure. When I spoke him home to go about that travel, I can't help but tell you that you're going to have to get used to the phone operators around here, particularly in the White House. I, early on, would pick up the phone and say, hey, would you get me so-and-so and put the phone in the ring, and I'd pick it up, and there'd be so-and-so. And one day it took quite a while for the phone to ring again, and when I got him, very jovial, I said, well, I'm a congressman, I was calling. I said, where did I find you? He said, in New Zealand. He said, what time is it? He said, 4 a.m. Now sometimes I point out, if there's some plate, they say, don't be traveling. Thank you all, and God bless you. I think I've got a couple of minutes left here. Not many more than that, but maybe one or two of you might have a question you'd like to ask. Since this is a kind of indoctrination session for all of you, did you really go to Mexico Rollo's Time Zone? There's no illusion in that. I was a freaking viewer. They made it kind of tough for me to watch television here, but... Well, no one has a question here. We're all intimidated, Mr. President. We don't know what to ask. They won't start a fight. What was that last time? I don't know what to ask. They won't start a fight. Mr. President, we have an orientation for us. What do they do for presents? Just get them up in the morning. I think the most orientation I got was from an 11-year-old girl who wrote me a letter, told me all the things that she thought I should do, and you'd be surprised at 11 years. She had all the major issues. It wasn't Amy Carter. Then she wound up the matter and said, now get over to the open office and go to work. I'll tell you, having been a governor, I would confess it wasn't all that strange. I guess that's probably the nearest job to this job that there is in the country. And having eight years as a governor there, but now having added on foreign policy, it wasn't much different. You think you're in charge, but every morning there's a slip or sheet of paper on your desk that tells you what you're going to do every 15 minutes. Mr. President, having just gotten through an election campaign, I just wanted to perhaps remind you of the plight of the poor and many of our senior citizens and hardworking American families that really are struggling in our country today. And I know as you're preparing your budget on January 5, I just hope that you'll be cognizant of the plight of so many Americans that aren't having the kind of economic success that some of the few are. Well, let me assure you, of course, and I feel it is the responsibility of those of us in government to do everything we can for those who through no fault of their own that cannot help themselves. And yes, there will be efforts to eliminate certain programs and there will be efforts to trim them down. But let me tell you why. When I came here, one of the discoveries I made with federal government, let us a matter of fact, I'd condemnated when I was governor, I discovered that in many of those well-intentioned programs, passed with all the compassion of people in government can have and should have, at the same time the bureaucratic overload was such that in many of those programs it was costing the federal government $2 in overhead to deliver $1 to a needy person. And I feel that we can find better ways to do it and make those dollars go further and really help the people they intend to help. Early on, I vetoed a job training bill and I vetoed it because that bill was aimed at, as I recall, 300,000 individuals to be helped and would have cost $250 million in six months to do this. Now, by some of the things we've done to get this expansion going for four years, we have been averaging around 300,000 new jobs for people in this country every month. So it isn't a case of lack and compassion. It isn't true that I ever wanted to do away with social security. There again, I found some problems that were denied when I came here, but later admitted when we started social security was faced with being bankrupt by July of 1983. And after the 82 election was over, we did get together in a bipartisan commission, Congress and the administration here and worked out a reform of social security to put it on sound footing for as far as we can see into the future and didn't deprive anyone of what they needed in that program. Mr. President, I'm from Baltimore and this past year you came to throw our first pitch at the Orioles opening game. We finished in last place. Did you go to New York this year? No, and I tell you, I don't think I'm going to be invited back. I've only been to a few Oriole games and everyone that I've been to, they lost. So I think that knowing the superstition of athletes, I think they may have in mind that I'm the jinx for some reason or other. But I do recall that I threw out that first ball. Maybe I should have known something was wrong when I missed the catcher on the first pitch. Mr. President, we understand that Speaker Wright is gearing up for us to send back to you right away, the thing you are about. Are you going to send it right back down to us? It could depend on whether you correct the thing that made me send the first one back down. And that was a cost that was so far out of line that even our own people who would have to implement the program doubted that they could spend that much money and use it. So there were some things in there of that kind. It wasn't that I'm against clean water. It was just that, again, it was one of those overhead problems which government is so frequently guilty. Just one question, Mr. President. I'm sure all of our country is concerned about, but it's so prevalent in the press now. It would be helpful to us. I think you can give us your judgment as to when we might put it behind us, when we might move on to other programs. The Iranian arms sales process. No one wants it behind us more than I do. I think I'd like to call something to your attention on that. That the press now, these last three weeks, has been going on day after day hammering away at this. And everything that they know to ask about is what I told them. Because the thing is, of course, the transfer of funds, was there such a thing, how did it come about? And I absolutely had no information on that. The two individuals who have stepped down who did know about it and neglected it told them what we had learned and then went into the press room, took the Attorney General with me and told them what we had learned for the first time and that we were going to continue to investigate this and turned it over to them and for one hour he took their questions. Now I gave him all the information I had and within about 18 hours from when it was given to me. And now to see this attempt, apparently, on the part of the press, it indicated I must be covering something up. Nobody wants it uncovered more than I do because I told all I know and I'm glad about the committees that are going in. We have now made a decision to ask for a, I keep calling them Special Prosecutor, but recently they've changed the name to Independent Counsel. But he's still a Special Prosecutor and we want to get to the bottom of this quickly as we can and find out was there any criminals. They're telling me I overstayed my time here. That would be the last question. All right, Ms. President, I'm Ernie Kanya. I was born in Hungary and we're very concerned about most favored nation treatment for Romania, which is repressing about 2.8 million Hungarians. Yours and prior administration have supported that kind of treatment for Romania. Is there any thoughts in your mind that, based on Tom Lantus and my concerns as well as others, perhaps that can change? We are very conscious of that and the nature of the dictator there in that country. But at the same time I think this came about under the previous administration because of his resistance to the kind of Soviet control that is imposed on the other nations in the communist block. And it was an effort on our part to kind of recognize that he was willing to stand up and oppose them and charge his own course. At the same time, I have to tell you, just as we are the Soviet Union, we are trying behind the scenes to get more humane treatment and observance of human rights in that country. And you said you were from Hungary. Yes, sir. I have to tell you, you don't know of a story that's going around in Hungary among the Hungarians. I kind of collect stories that I can find, take place or are told behind the iron curtain that gives an indication of their real feeling, the people's feeling about their government. This one was a young Hungarian, Jano, and his friend just across the border in the Soviet Union, Ivan, very close friends. And they were walking along the border one day and they came upon a treasure chest. And they were delighted and Ivan turned to Jano and he said, Jano, let us divide this amendment between us like true communist brothers. And Jano said, not in your life, we split it 50-50. Your statements about public diplomacy and by diplomacy I also like very much. Thank you, sir. We're glad to see you in the United States again. Your family can allow to join you. And congratulations. Thank you, thank you. It's really very pleasant. You suddenly become so rich having a daughter after all this years. We called you here at Rachele because Isaac worked for Rachele for 14 years and we were working for 13 years. A little bit less. Well listen, we're a... this whole matter and I know what you're doing. We're... Stars. Chance to shake hand with all of you. Please be seated. Mr. President, the wave of photography is going to come in first and we'll just have to kind of mark down all of the... My eyes. I'd like to final words at the last second. I'm going to get some pictures from down here. Well, welcome to the White House. I want to thank each of you. Contribution that you're making by serving on the U.S. Savings Bond Committee. Bob, you and the 1986 members have turned in one of the best performances ever. We haven't had so many months when bond sales exceeded a billion dollars since the World War II years. I congratulate each of you and want you to know that Jim Baker and I deeply appreciate all of your efforts in making the 1986 Bond Drive the most successful one since 1945. As for the 1987 campaign, John, you and your committee have quite a challenge before you and I thank each of you for volunteering to lead next year's Bond Drive. You have my best wishes for a successful campaign and all of you have your country's gratitude for all your efforts. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Let me add before I mention some good things about our campaign that everyone in this room is totally impacted you and you should know that we're proud of you. Thank you very much. I once had a substitution here. I mentioned at lunch that Jimmy Goldsmith almost bought a good year. But I'm glad that I was able to make it. We wanted to blip right that bad because you'd have told me. I'm very proud of the championship team that we have and if you'll excuse the picture here, there are three bullets here to tell us really what happened. We now have over 90 million of us. The highest amount in history and savings bonds in 1986 of nearly 10 billion are doubled last year's savings and more than 1.9 million Americans invested for the first time were increased their participation in the payroll savings plan exceeding our goal by nearly 27% and last year's record by 200,000 individuals. And I'm very proud to present you with this report to thank you for the support. You give them spots for us that were just a burden. I think that puts us over the top. Jim Baker and K. Ortega and tremendous talented staff did a great job for us. And I'm just so proud to present this to you. Well, thank you very much. I guess I learned a little about how to do this and I was doing the GE Theater. That's a great report, kind of, I remember that. Thank you. Mr. President, I would like to first congratulate Bob and the 86 team for the great job that they did. But I want to assure you that we have an even better team like that tonight. And that we will exceed the performance in 1986 as long as Secretary Baker doesn't fool around with the racing. Hey, let me just make one thing clear. Only the President of the United States can make it. I've been taking credit, Mr. President. We did fool around with the race before, now the truth is out. I'm sorry, Jim. I was going to try to start off a campaign by selling you a savings fund, but we couldn't get it orchestrated quickly enough. But I will try to get back to the same one at the perfect time. I also thought that if I had a life insurance policy, you know, being from metropolitan life, I might have sold you a life insurance. I was discouraged from doing that. I am pleased, Mr. President, to present you with a copy of the brochure that we put together for the 1987 campaign, where the theme for the campaign is U.S. Savings Fund is a great American investment. I think it is a great American investment on a variety of counts. We tried in the brochure to make it people-oriented. We have five people here from each of our five of the companies that have been participants in the program, Jen and Mota, who won a good year, but bought life in the next year, the manufacturers hand over. And so there's a little story about each of them and some good pictures, a great picture of you, Secretary Baker, there's even one that made me look good, which is difficult, but each of them has a little story to tell about why they've invested in savings bonds, and why you'd be proud of how they have expressed themselves. And so we think that we're off to a good start, and we all welcome the opportunity to do this and promise you that next year when we're back, we'll be reporting a very successful year. Well, thank you very much. Again, I thank you all. I think I'm supposed to have the opportunity now to meet each one down at the end of the room right now. I think that's right, Mr. President. Before we do that, may I, everybody in this room has heard you tell jokes about age, and I just think it'd be great if Bob Mercer told you the story he told us about, which is a selling to each of them during the 1980s. I got worked up for President in trying to convince some of our retirees that they should be buying savings bonds. And one of them said, well, look, in 10 years, and he said, look, son, at my age, I don't even buy green bananas. I have to return the favor and give you one, I just heard the other day. You see, stories about age, that's the only ethnic humor I can engage in. This was a golfer, 86 years old, and finally, natively, one of the members that he was going to have to give up golf. He could still hit the ball, but he couldn't see anymore where it went. But one of the members said, wait a minute, I've got a golf partner for you that I think can take care of that and won't have to give up golf. He said he's 95 years old, and he's a great game of golf. So, run him and introduced him. 86 year old told his problem. He said, wait a minute, that's all right. He says, I can see as good as when I was 12 years old. So, they stood up in the first tee, they both drove, got in the car and started down the fairway in the 86 year old driving. He said, did you see where my drive went? He said, oh, yes, I saw it every foot of the way. He says, where did it go? He says, I don't remember.