 He believes that we can go on just with a constant state of warfare and unrest. And I believe that we have presented for discussion a pretty good solution that would remove some of the problems besetting the people in the occupied territories. Prime Minister Shamir has already expressed his opposition to Secretary Shultz's plan. He will be coming here next week. What kind of additional pressure do you intend to put on him? Well, I don't think it's so much pressure as it is just an attempt of persuasion. But also I'd like to point out that his cabinet is pretty evenly split on the solution. So it isn't a case of outside pressure there. He has a great element in his own government that sees merit in the proposals that we've made. Will early Israeli elections be considered an American success in your view? Frankly, I haven't given much thought to that and to their election process there as to whether it would or not. I know that he has now broached that subject. And yet, if they were held, maybe it is that he would believe that he might have more support for his position because the other faction then in the election is the one that is already differing from the Prime Minister and supportive of what we've proposed. Do you share the view that Israel should ban all television coverage from the troubled areas? Well, I'm a great believer in a free press and the right of the people to know. And so I would have to be opposed at thinking that they want to conduct operations in which they would rather not have public knowledge of them. What would be the ultimate goal if Secretary Schulz was to succeed? Would it be to have an international conference on the Middle East with a seat for your friend, Mr. Gorbachev? Well, this is a problem because you have a situation there where the Soviet Union is not recognized Israel as a nation. It's very difficult to have someone participating in a conference of that kind who doesn't even believe in the right of statehood of the other country. What we've also thought is not the kind of international conference that would seek to impose a settlement. I don't think that really is the province of the other countries. But to be helpful and see if we could not join in helping arrive at a solution that would once and for all end the hostilities, I think most of the world tends to forget that war between Israel and the Arab states still is a fact. It has never been settled. There has never been any peace agreement arrived at and it would be a great achievement if once and for all that state of war came to an end. Mr. President, after more than seven years here at the White House, in a capsule view, how would you qualify the global shift of economic power in the world? Would you say that this country is a fading empire, that Europe is an economic decline and that Japan is the emerging world power today? Well, I'd say quite the contrary, not as to whether Japan is an emerging power. I think that having been governor of a state on the Pacific Basin, the western part of our country, I believe that the old adage will go west, young men, still holds true that the Pacific Rim is something very great economically for the future. It is coming into being as a great economic force. Is Europe an economic decline in your view? No, I don't believe so. But I'm speaking of the developing nations when I speak about the other. But I would think the reverse is true. I believe that with our economic summit, that our turning away from protectionism to the extent that we are and our efforts to even do more of that with the GATT Treaty and all, that we've made great improvement in world economy. And we have to face the fact that it is a world economy that none of us anymore can believe that we can stand off and just achieve prosperity by ourselves. The U.S. budget deficit has reached unprecedented proportions. Not you feel that in a way it means the failure of liberal economic policy that you pursued? You were speaking of our federal budget deficit, not any trade deficit. Yes, for over 50 years, this country has been running deficits. As a matter of fact, it's almost 60 years now in which there have only been eight individual years in which there was not a budget deficit. It was a false economic theory that was adopted by one of our two political parties and that party happened to control the legislature for most of these 60 years. And it has been proven false. So what we've been doing for these seven years is trying to get on a path leading toward a balancing of the budget, the elimination of deficit spending. It has reached a point that you couldn't do it in one year. You couldn't suddenly pull the string and say... Not even in two terms, two presidential terms? Well, you see, I was still up against that legislature with that other philosophy. But I do believe that that's one of the things that's happened in these seven years, is that instead of the argument, as it had been for more than a half a century, in which those who believed in deficit spending defended it. And they said, this brings prosperity. This is necessary to do this. Now that argument, which was a fallacious argument, is gone. And the only debate between us now is how best to achieve the balanced budget. There is no longer anyone defending deficits. You don't want to take sides in this presidential election in this country, but whom would you support in France? I think I should remain neutral there also, that that would be best for all of us. And I wouldn't want to seem to be trying to involve myself in what the course of the French people should be. You wouldn't have no personal preference? Because you know all our candidates, or most of them. Well, I think my philosophy there would have to be the same as it is here in our own election process, that until decisions are made as to who the nominees are going to be, I will remain neutral. Has President Mitterrand given you any tip in Brussels a few days ago as to what his own personal behavior would be? No. No, he hasn't. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, do you trust Mr. Gorbachev? Well, let me say I used a Russian proverb. I'm not a linguist, but I did learn this and have used it several times in his presence. If I'm pronouncing it correctly, it is dovii no provii. It means trust, but verify. And I think that's the policy that has to be followed. I have cited Demosthenes, 1,000 years or two, back in the Athenian marketplace, said what sane man would let another man's words, rather than his deeds, telling who is at peace and who is at war with him? Then are you not in a great hurry to get a strategic arms agreement with him that you can sign in Moscow? Well, this is one of the problems. It's a pretty complex negotiation that is going on. Apparently, both sides would like to get this 50% reduction in weapons. But it's a little more complex than the INF Treaty that we did agree to because of the verification features and all. So I think I am acting on the supposition that he also wants the treaty. And it's a case of not setting a deadline whereby you have to hurry and maybe accept something less than is possible, simply to meet a deadline. So we've set no date, but we're working just as hard as we can to arrive at an agreement. Will you go to Moscow if you can't get an agreement in advance? Well, yes, because I think there are other things. Our negotiations at the summit meetings and our discussions have been on a number of things, not only the arms control, but the regional problems, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, things of that kind, and also human rights. We believe that that is of great importance if the relations between our countries is to improve, that there must be some solution to these things that we think are such violations of human rights. And we've made progress in all of our meetings on all of these subjects. And so I'm looking forward to the summit. It will be nice if we have reached a point at which, as we did here, we could sign that treaty. But if not, I think we would continue to discuss it, make progress and eventually come to a signing. Why do you suppose Mr. Gorbachev would want to make progress with you rather than wait, say, for your successor? Well, you know, there might be some merit in the fact that we now know each other. We've laid a groundwork of relationship. And someone coming in new, and he remembers his own experience coming in, there would be probably a wait while someone else established themselves in the position. And you discovered what their ideas were and so forth. So I think that probably he would like to get some things wound up because of all the groundwork that's been laid. Do you agree with Mrs. Thatcher that it would be foolish for anyone to expect a nuclear-free Europe for many, many years? I do agree. And I think that probably what she is saying is something that I have also said, but that hasn't been recognized as much. And that is that this idea that came into being of a nuclear-free Europe, at the same time that we're all aware that in conventional weapons, the Soviet Union is far in advance of NATO. And it is only the presence of some of the nuclear, particularly tactical weapons, that have redressed that imbalance so that before you could ever look to a nuclear-free Europe or world, you would have to have an establishment of parity between the forces and conventional weapons. On the other hand, I believe that as we continue with our strategic defense initiative, the seeking of a defensive weapon that never has been an offensive weapon yet in the world that has not led to a defense, even the sword and the shield. And I believe that it is possible to come up with a defensive system that can render the nuclear weapons obsolete, because I have said, as a matter of fact, to your parliament when they graciously allowed me to address them, I have said, a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. It can't be a victor in a nuclear war. Where do we live after we have poisoned the Earth? Are you reinforcing America's nuclear capacity in Britain? I try to refrain from speaking in such details as matters that are strategy and that I don't think should be discussed. But so I can't go beyond that. I don't want to talk about systems that I think is information that should be held. But many people do think that the INF Treaty, for example, made it necessary for you to reinforce American nuclear capability. Well, the truth is that there are still a great many nuclear weapons in NATO and the tactical and battlefield type weapons. We still have our tried-and-submarines and so forth and are going forward with those programs. And I think the enemy is well aware of that. So I don't think that that first fear that was expressed by some people, that INF, was in some way lowering our defensive strength. Let me point out that it was the Soviet Union that came along with a nuclear weapon that was based and targeted on all the leading targets in cities and so forth of Europe. NATO had nothing to match it. NATO appealed to us. This was before I was in office here and for weapon systems to provide a defense, or not a defense, a deterrent, I should say. And when I came in office, I inherited this situation. Well, first we asked the Soviet Union to withdraw those weapons. And they refused. And then we went forward with the deployment of our own match to their weapons. And if you remember, there was great objection in the part of many people to that. At the same time, however, that we went forward and the Soviets were quite upset and left the table, I proposed to the Soviets that we would join them in a 0-0 option. And again, there was some scorn about that as if I had done something that could not possibly happen. And the Soviets left the bargaining table. But they returned. Would that be the special advice that you would give to your successor after seven years in the White House? Yes, the special advice, and it was proven very simply with this particular thing we were talking about. And that is, deal from strength. Twice the Soviet Union walked away and said they wouldn't discuss things with us. We persisted in implementing and putting the weapons in, deploying them. And they came back. And now we have a treaty that 0-0 and has eliminated an entire weapon system for both sides. So peace through strength is very common sense. And who is your successor going to be? That I can't say. In this position in our country, I'm the titular head of the party. And therefore, with all of the primaries going on, until a nominee is selected, I must remain neutral. Thank you, Mr. President. My pleasure. Mr. President, when you have been last year in Germany, you said that the wall should be torn down. Is this a topic you might take up with Mr. Gorbachev again when you go to Moscow? That could very well enter the conversation. I've made no secret about my feeling about that. And yes, I'd be very happy to speak to him about it. Do you think German reunification could be taking place somewhere along the line in the East-West dialogue? Well, couldn't that grow from such things as I also suggested in addition to tearing down the wall and without going so far as to offer an opinion about reunification? I said that couldn't Berlin then become a city in which maybe some things, for example, Olympics games, meetings, international meetings and so forth could take place and also a change in the whole aerial position, aircraft position, so that Berlin could once again become a hub for international air traffic. And then maybe from all of those things, reunification could grow. Is the summit in Moscow just the continuation process of the East-West dialogue? Or could there come out some concrete results? Well, we have achieved some results with them. Because mainly we have talked about regionalism, things like Afghanistan and Nicaragua and so forth. We've talked about human rights and the violation there and what an effect that has on our trying to improve relations with each other. And we have made gains. There has been softening in their position on human rights and they have freed political prisoners and so forth. We think they have a long way to go to meet our standard of human rights. And also we see now his determination to leave Afghanistan. So we talk about all those differences that are between us as well as the arms matters. And obviously we've made progress now in that with the treaty that has already been signed and the one that is being negotiated now. Mr. President, you have another nine months and you have presidency. What is the problem number one in USA you would like to tackle during these remaining nine months? Well, there are a number of things that we've made progress that I would like to see us speed up the progress. Economically, for example, we're on the path now toward returning to the balanced budget idea for almost 60 years. The opposition party has been in control and has practiced a policy of budget deficits. We at least now, the argument about whether you should or should not deficit spend has changed to where for these last seven years it is only a case of, well, how fast do you restore the balance and how do you, what methods do you use to restore a balanced budget? So we've made a gain there. I would like to see us act faster with that, some modernization of our budgeting process that I think is very lacking right now. Then we have one spending area in which there is controversy. And that is when I took office on any given day, half of our military aircraft couldn't fly for lack of spare parts. Half of our naval vessels couldn't leave port for the same reason or for lack of crew. And I said that even with my intent to try and eliminate the deficit, if it was a choice between eliminating the deficit or rebuilding and refurbishing our national security, I would have to choose the national security. And we did, we made great progress only in this last year. So that now that again the opposition party has a majority in both houses of our legislature, they have forced reductions in defense spending on us that I think are very detrimental and are going to remove some of the advantage that we had gained. And I would hope that we could change and continue to restore and reach our defense targets. I think that peace comes through strength. There are some other things of that kind, some changes. We as you know, the unique thing about our country, we are a federation of sovereign states. And a great deal of authority has been left in the hands of local government and the state governments. Clear back when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for election, his promise was to restore the authority and autonomy to those local levels of government that had been unjustly seized as he put it with the federal government. Well, things didn't get better over the years, but we have embarked on a program of restoring that federal balance, restoring the sovereignty of the states. And we've made progress in it, just as we've made great progress in improving the management, the business management of government. We estimate that in these few years, we have reduced the amount of paperwork imposed on our citizens, on our businesses, and on our local levels of government by 600 million man hours of work a year. And I would like to see this continue. There are some social reforms I would like to see also. Do you still enjoy to be president? Or do you're looking forward to? Well, maybe people are surprised to hear this, but yes, I do enjoy it. I was out there as a citizen making speeches and arguing about things and campaigning for individuals, for government posts and so forth. And then to, I never expected this, but to find myself in a position where I can actually deal with the problems is very exciting indeed. Is it, if you look back the last seven years, that it's mainly the accomplishments you'd like to remember, or is there some failure you would say, I wouldn't repeat it again? Remembering, for example, your visit in Bitburg, 85 on a war cemetery in Germany, do you regret that? Not at all. Not at all. I thought that it was very worthwhile and I came home with a message also for our own people that I think the courage of your country in maintaining those evidences of the horror of the Holocaust and bringing your own young people in to see them so that this can never happen again. I think it's something that you have every reason to be proud of. Mr. President, our last question, the President of the United States especially in such a large country and considering the complicated governing system is very heavily reliant on his advisors. Is it that your wife is your main advisor? No, and she's very embarrassed about the press stories that for some reason continue to say that. No, she has been a good and faithful wife and I share secrets with her and my problems and all of that. But no, I'm surrounded by people that I have appointed to the cabinet positions and all and I have made it very plain from the first that I want to hear from them their views on these problems. Even if they differ with what my own might be, I want to hear that from them and one thing I do not want to hear, I do not want to hear the political ramifications of any problem, whether it is good politically to do something. All I want from them is their opinion as to whether is it good or bad for the people of this country and then I will make the decision having heard them out. Thank you very much. You give me the signal. Mr. President, you have less than one year's work left as a president ahead and do you still expect to achieve something important in the final 10 or 11 months left? Well, there are some things pending that I think are of importance and that I believe we can achieve and I'm going to keep working right down to the last minute. Which things? For instance, a strategic answer agreement? Yes, oh yes, we're going to pursue that and hope that well before my time is up we will have that resolved. But there are other things here and our own domestic problems. I think that our budgeting process that has led to the deficit spending over the last almost 60 years must be corrected and I'm going to be fighting for legislation to achieve that. And for my successor that he could have some things I haven't had such as what's called a line item veto, the power to pick things out of legislation and veto them and we still have further to go in the building up of our national security and that is important to me as is our relationship with our allies in Europe in NATO. You have made very important agreements and there may be others to come with the Soviet Union. Now people remember that you had once called the Soviet Union and the evil empire and they also wonder has the Soviet Union changed or have your views changed or both? My views haven't changed but you must remember that the Soviet leaders when I first came into office kept dying and finally there was little chance to work with any of them on some of the things that I thought should be straightened out. Now there is a new leader and he does seem to want to make some changes in their system. I have read his book Perestroika and I know of his theories on Glasnost and so we have been able to reach agreement on some of the things that we've discussed in our summit meetings that I always take up the matter of human rights and there has been an improvement in that. Regional conflicts and we see them now this leader wanting to get out of Afghanistan so I think progress can be made but as I have frequently said to him I'm not a linguist but I do have learned Russian proverb that I use on him every once in a while. Dovii no Provii, trust but verify. Does he approve of your proverb? He once complained that you tell him that too often. I know, I know, he told me that. But you do like each other. It's an important question for people of the whole world. I have found that yes, that we can discuss things and in an affable manner and he is totally unlike the other leaders before him that I had dealt with. Mr. President, you sometimes have been described as the first pacifist at the White House meaning that your aim is to make nuclear weapons obsolete through SDI. Is that a forgotten and lost hope? No, not at all. As a matter of fact, we're still going forward and we've made progress and there have been breakthroughs. I believe that the strategic defense initiative that we're working on can be such an effective defense that it makes so much more sense than thinking that a deterrent in which we're trying to keep the peace by threatening to blow each other up, that if we can come up with a defensive weapon and I have expressed to General Secretary Gorbachev my belief that we'd be willing to share it, that if we could have a defense that did render those weapons obsolete because I have stated many times that I do not believe that a nuclear war can be won nor should it be fought. Where would a victor live after we'd poisoned the earth with an exchange of these multiple weapons that we have? Do you feel that you have made some progress in convincing Gorbachev and the Russians in general of the importance of defensive systems? Well, we have the one treaty signed already now, the Intermediate Range Weapon that was targeted on every principal city in Europe and now it no longer exists and we're now trying to negotiate a treaty that would reduce by half the strategic ballistic missiles but to those people who talk denuclearization and think that somehow I am suggesting something that might be dangerous to Europe, not at all, I recognize that the tactical nuclear weapons that we have and the airborne weapons and so forth are necessary to balance the great superiority that the Soviet Union has achieved in conventional weapons and until those weapons can be reduced and we achieve a defensive parity there, then you cannot, until then, you cannot go on with further denuclearization. What would you like future historians to remember as your main achievement and what would you like them to forget as your main failure? Oh my. Let's take one at a time, maybe we have time. I don't know, that's so hard to pick out. The achievement or the failure? On the economic side, I think we've made great progress in changing a philosophy that was here in our land in which the political debate was between how much more spending, how much more deficit spending the government should do. Now, that whole argument has been changed and it's down to, well, what is the best way to eliminate or reduce the deficit spending and the argument is how to reduce the spending not between one side that wants to spend more against the other. I'm proud of that and I hope that before I leave we can have some improvements in our budgeting process that will be adopted by our government. I am proud of that. I'm also proud of the fact that when I came into office our national defense was quite a shambles on any given day, half our military aircraft couldn't fly for lack of spare parts. Today, we have achieved a great improvement in our military and I think the fact that we have signed this INF Treaty, the Soviet Union, is an evidence of the fact that peace comes through strength. We didn't say anything about what failure was but the girl says you have no time to remind us of your failures. Maybe there were none, that's too much. No, I'm sure there were things I would, I think there were some things that, whether they were failures or whether they were just terrible disasters, one, namely the terrorist murder of some 240 of our young Marines is a tragedy I will never forget and I will never forget the families that I met with those young men. You feel good looking back at your eight years at the White House and beyond that your career and actor and union organizer, how does that make you feel? Well, I think the Lord has blessed me very much and I am truly grateful to him. I hope I can be deserving of the good things that he's bestowed on me. Thank you, Mr. President.