 The President of the United States. Oh, please, sit down. If I'd had this kind of a supporting cast, I never would have left Hollywood. Well, good morning. And today, we celebrate victory in the name of a right as old as the Union itself and as central to our Union as any. The right all Americans have to protect their property. We're here to sign into law the Bern Convention Implementation Act of 1988. It will enable the United States to adhere to the Bern Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works. The Bern Convention, which was originally concluded in 1886 and approved by our Senate earlier this month, provides for the protection of copyrighted works from international pirates who make their living by stealing and then selling the creative accomplishments of others. With 77 countries as members, including most of our trading partners, the Bern Convention features the highest internationally recognized standards for the protection of works of authorship. Our membership will automatically grant the United States copyright relations with 24 new countries and will secure the highest available level of international copyright protection for U.S. artists, authors, and copyright holders. This is especially significant because American works protected by copyright, books, recordings, movies, computer software prominent among them have been at risk because of differences between U.S. law and the Bern Convention. And the cost to Americans has been substantial, not only in terms of the violation of the property rights of Americans, but in terms of our trade balance as well. We've been running a trade surplus of over a billion dollars annually in copyrighted goods, and it would have been much larger had it not been for the pirating of American copyright work. In 1986 alone, the entertainment industry may have lost more than $2 billion in potential revenue, and our computer and software industry is more than $4 billion in potential revenue. That's why adherence to the Bern Convention has been such an important goal of the administration and why this occasion marks a watershed for us. As Ambassador Clayton Yider has said, joining the Bern Convention will also boost U.S. efforts to strengthen intellectual property protection in multilateral negotiations. In 1986, we succeeded in placing the issue on the agenda of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and committed the general agreement on tariffs and trade to address the relationship between trade and intellectual property rights. When trade ministers meet in Montreal in December for the midterm review of the Uruguay Round, they must direct negotiators to commence substantive negotiations. Officials in our administration work closely with many key members of Congress, such as Senator Pete Wilson and Congressman Carlos Morehead, to get this bill passed in Congress. And we must also remember our good friend and former Secretary of Commerce, the late Malcolm Baldrige, who led the charge on this legislation. And now, with great pleasure and great pride, I will sign the Bern Convention Implementation Act into law. Ladies and gentlemen, the U.S. government quashed a release of the hot suit as they were about to be let out. That is absolutely not true, but let me point something out. Terry Anderson in that terrible confinement at the hands of those barbarians, any information he has has to have come from them. There is no contact with the outside world. We've been doing everything we can to, in the interest of our hostages, and the very simple answer to that is, for those people to let them go. And we're going to continue our efforts until we get them back. But there's never been any interference, and nor have we ever been negotiating any more than we would with any other kind of a kid napper on a ransom type of basis. Are they trying to influence the election, sir? What? Are they trying to influence the election, do you think? You'd have to ask them. I've... I can't fathom their minds. Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President... Wait a minute, wait a minute. Terry Anderson also says, Mr. President, that both you and George Bush dealt with the terrorists in Iran, Qatar, and TWA. Was George Bush involved in any negotiations in those... Nor was I, because we were never doing anything of that kind. And I, when the covert operation, which was not with Iran or Iran's government, but with people who were looking forward to a day when there could be a decent government in Iran that we were talking to, and it had to be covert or they would have been executed instantly. Was George Bush involved in the TWA hijacking talks, Mr. President? George has been a part of everything that we've accomplished. He is like... I have always felt that a vice president should be an executive vice president. It is in a corporation and not somebody sitting over the sidelines waiting for me to have a relapse. And, but he's been a part of that, but in a constructive way. And that's why he's my choice in this coming election. Can you tell us, please, Mr. President, I'll talk to this one, Rick. Can you tell me, Mr. President, under what circumstances did you make this speech was made of tarantulas? Under what circumstances did he make that tarantula? Well, there have been instances before in which we have seen, on tape and film, hostages, in various circumstances, some message. And some of them have been able in their reading to indicate to those who are familiar with them that they were being, they were reading something they were forced to read and did not represent their so you have to remember. These men are in the closest type of confinement, right, people that, as I said, the only way to describe them. They're barbarians. And you have to recognize that no hostage is taking something upon himself. They're telling him what to do. Hold on. All the auditors have seen that the Ron Contra bear would come up in a scandal. But what? And your administration? Well, there was no scandal. That scandal, Helen, I'm afraid, was actually created by a media that I cannot understand because the minute the news broke and the operation was exposed and we found out that there was more than the purchase price for the missiles that had been delivered. But we didn't know it. And I am still asking, after ten months of a congressional investigation, I still don't know who delivered the weapons and where the money came from. What hope do you think there is now for winning the freedom of care in Anderson and the other hostages? I'm not going to give up hope for any of our hostages that we have. That's just too unthinkable. And we, as I say, we have kept every door open that we can. And the one thing we cannot do is negotiate with the kidnappers on a sort of ransom idea because that just encourages more kidnapping and more hostage-taking. What do you think about Terry's remark that the United States cared more about saving the whales? I don't think that was Terry's thinking. I think that was, I think he had a script that was given to us. And I was given a script, I always read the lines.