 Do a little here and I'm gonna get a chance to say hello to each one of you individually and we'll have our pictures taken And so never mind the speech except for one joke. I was gonna tell what you probably know But in case you don't know it It's the story about the little boy that had a litter of puppies. He was trying to sell and It was a democratic meeting in town and he went there and he told him these were democratic puppies and the fella bought one About a week later some Republicans had a meeting and he went over there With his little friend that had been with him all the time and the unsold puppies Somebody asked him he said no the Republican puppies and the little boy friend said to him you said last week They were democratic puppies. He says yeah, but today they got their eyes open And now that's all the speech you're gonna get Because with the limited time here the last line of the speech was I know that some of you may have some questions And I I know that at some time or other many of you said boy if I had a chance to ask him what I Well, let's do that and have a dialogue instead of the monologue here that was in my pocket And then we'll we'll catch up on the schedule So somebody must have a question about that wasn't covered in the briefings As a position I talk to a lot of people every day Well, you will understand why I don't comment on that last point there I've explained to some of our other party members now and then in the face of the same question that And they've said when I'm gonna wait until the last possible moment because if the decision were no You'd be a rain lame duck and couldn't do anything and if the position was yes You'd be accused everything you did that it was political and part of the campaigning and you couldn't get anything done So I'm just gonna let those seven other fellows go out there and wear their spikes down Yes Chairman and farm worker and we two agree the way you have their Korean air affair There's a side effect from that that is very far reaching and most important to agriculture And that is that you did not give consideration to nullifying long-term grain agreement You did not give consideration to an embargo and you have told the world and the Russians that for the first time in some nine years that we will live up to our contracts and This is something that you seem to have the wisdom to learn from your predecessors Which is a talent that not all have and I want to let you know that we appreciate it the agriculture community Appreciate it and our trading partners appreciate Let me just say and I did explain to a few here at the table We looked at everything my first reaction was where can we drop a bomb? But at least I didn't have to I didn't have to go through what my predecessor did when they invaded Afghanistan And he said he was so surprised now. He'd have to change his whole thinking about I didn't have to change my thinking a bit I knew what they were to begin with but we did look at these seriously and we felt that There wasn't any point in just doing something for show that Wouldn't affect them a bit hurt some of our own people To make a gesture or something what we're trying to do and right now the meeting that's going on started yesterday in Montreal some 34 countries are there in the International Organization of Aviation and They're there dealing with amendments to the regulations what we can do to try and Ensure that such a thing as this can't happen again Demanding an international investigation of what took place so there will be no question about it Things of that kind we did cancel negotiations like cultural agreement and things of that kind the opening of a of a consulate Those things I could understand But I think that a couple of the things that we're talking about are the best things that we could do one of them Keep on with the arms negotiations because the last thing in the world. They want is disarmament so we're gonna withhold their feet to the fire under the table and That one and the other one is take advantage of the fact that finally some people here in Washington have seen them for what they are and The result has been the passage of our appropriation bill including the funding for the MX and other weapons systems that we'd asked We want we really truly want disarmament We want a reduction of weapons to cry and at least reduce this great threat and particularly when you realize now what kind of people they are but So we'll keep at it there, but at the same time we will keep on building our defenses because The thing is we must have the equality in strength That is a deterrent that will prevent them from going adventuring and starting a war and now they can have it one or two ways They can have it through Mutual reduction of weapons or they can have it with us continuing to build the choices there's but one way or the other We're going to be equal to them A year ago in August you were in Billings, Montana and Montana courted you a very nice welcome And I was the one person permitted to ask you a question My question was the grass roots were out there and there were white knuckling it. Mr. President I want to thank you for giving this country hope and not only have you given us hope you have fulfilled your promise and We can go back from this Meeting today and we can tell the people what you've done and we want for more in Thank you very much Someone else yes, you mean with that out of time already. All right I want to thank you for having us Today I had the pleasure of addressing the Paris Republicans in Paris, France In the 1972 election President Nixon had sent me on a mission I was still governor for him abroad and I did this chore on the side and The president of the Paris Club had introduced me and I stood up in that 1972 election and I said, thank you President McGovern and I hope that's That's the last time I ever have to say that Well, I know that that's the last question and and We have to go I do think that we have a better relationship with our allies now than we've had in years Incidentally among the things that have come out of this plane crash I can tell you things that have been proposed by critics that we should have done. We've done We've had a problem and I was aware of it in 1981 at the Ottawa Economic Summit with our allies there and Since then and as of last spring We have an agreement with all of our allies on the restriction of credit to the Soviet Union Subsidized interest rates for buying products and so forth. They have now come along with us as of last spring Also, we have an agreement with regard to the sale of high technology That is shut off anything that can be of help to them militarily all these things have already been done We so there wasn't any more we could do about them But I just I'm going to leave with one more little anecdote We do all get along very well and Thanks to I know it that Margaret Thatcher was responsible that Diplomacy or let's say protocol goes by the board at the summit meetings anywhere. We're all on a first-name basis I discovered that and it was Margaret who said helmet But when we had this last one in Williamsburg that Wonderful historic place in Virginia where they have restored it to what it was when we were a colony Up to and including the British governor's home And I had it all set that the first meeting was the dinner meeting the first night when we all gathered around the table The heads of state I was all prepared and my line was going to be Margaret You realize that if one of your predecessors had been more clever You would be hosting this gathering So when they all settled I said Margaret Do you realize that if one of your predecessors had been more clever? She says yes, I would have been hosting this gather Well, I have to go in the other room now, and I'll be waiting for you in there