 everyone having a great summit 633 all right we'll have a 30-minute press conference and the president will have a brief opening statement Terry Hunt of Associated Press has the first question Helen Thomas of United Press International will end it and the subject of the opening statement will be the summit pardon sure the president of the United States please be seated I have a little statement here first I'd like to impose on you how this will be before taking questions today ceremonies you know marked the end of my eighth economic summit and over the years I've come to regard the summit process is extremely important in forging a coordinated economic approach for the United States and the other industrialized democracies it's helped return the nations represented here to steady growth and help to establish a consensus among us that only free and open markets and only free and open societies foster economic progress and opportunity maybe one of the best ways to view these economic summits is to compare discussions at them whether heralded in our communicates are not with later results for example our 1981 communicate from Ottawa said the primary challenge we addressed at this meeting was the need to revitalize the economies of the industrial democracies revitalization of course has been achieved in part because the common commitment at Ottawa inaugurated a search for consensus on how to work together to release the productive energies of our peoples and today gross national products are growing as our employment numbers and real personal incomes our economic expansion in the United States got the ball rolling and help crystallize the new consensus and now everyone is part of the act to take another example in our 1986 Tokyo economic communicate we said there should be close and continuous coordination of economic policy among the seven summit countries today policy coordination is a major pillar of the economic policies of all our countries it's a significant reason why the world market in stabilized ladies of last October or instabilities I should say of last October had so little impact on our underlying economies the summit in Tokyo gave the political push that ensured that the fledgling process of coordination grew strong and robust so here we are celebrating this summit with a measure of pride some significant items are still in need of attention but all in all how things have changed over the years the economies of the summit countries have come roaring back driven by a common commitment to replace government control with market-oriented policies these summits are building blocks for tomorrow goals we set in earlier years of born fruit I believe that the goals we're setting now will become the landmarks for the future looking back at how much has been achieved since the last time the summit was in Canada is it any wonder that our seven free democratic industrialized nations are turning with confidence to the future to the challenges and opportunities that new technology more closely knit global markets and a free world will bring on and working together during our meetings here we discussed the international economic and political situation we reviewed the economic policy coordination process the world debt situation particularly that of the poorer countries the state of the Uruguay round of trade negotiations particularly in agriculture and international cooperation to stop the production and flow of illegal drugs we also had a fruitful exchange of views on east-west relations terrorism and regional political issues yesterday afternoon prime minister Mulroney organized an informal session where leaders shared their thoughts on the economic future of the summit countries in that session I said that I believe that the expansion of global markets and the enormous technological advances that are coming in the years ahead will demand even closer coordination of economic policies all of our economies must be flexible and open not burdened by excessive regulations high taxes and all the other rigidities that too many economies have known too well last night my colleagues and I spoke of the future of the education of our children of assisting those displaced by the rapid pace of economic change most notably our farmers of removing structural impediments in our economies so that we're all flexible enough to meet the challenges of the rapid technological changes and economic integration that is the hallmark of the future the summit nations can be partners in a great venture to progress yes we can seize our opportunities or we can watch the world go by I'm confident which path our nations will choose as I said before leaving Washington the future belongs to the flexible eight years ago you'd have heard arguments about that today it defines the consensus among the seven nations that meet at these economic summits and finally in closing let me say thank you to the people of Toronto and to prime minister Mulroney for hosting us with such courtesy and enthusiasm they made all of us in the American delegation and I'm confident those in the other delegations as well feel right at home after just three days here we share one common sentiment we love Canada so thank you and Terry tee off Casper Weinberger your former defense secretary says that perhaps the Defense Department wasn't as vigilant as it should have been do you share any responsibility for that sir or fear when he said failure or disappointment well I was disappointed and upset that such a thing as could happen I think that kept Weinberger was just being we're trying to join in here I think he was one of the finest secretaries of defense this country has had and I think he was doing all that he could to bring a national security out of chaos the kind that we inherited for him to take some responsibility of course he was heading up there and I suppose I should do the same thing except that you have to look at what is being unveiled here that one tip came from one individual and immediately the naval intelligence or investigative unit began an investigation based on that single tip and then called for help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation they joined in and for two years they've been tracking this down to finally the place where they have come to the point in which they feel they can serve indictments and I have to say that I think that it should be understandable how such things can happen in something as big as our government is but I think we also ought to recognize that within our government and the minute there was one tip something of that nature was going on it it was the units to which we entrust such things the this naval unit and the FBI that's set to work and now is ready to act this gives Michael to caucus on the so-called sleaze factor I don't think it really gives him any at all I don't think this is a case it apparently at high levels I think the very fact that it was investigated let me just point something out I need as there's almost an accusation in the fact of why didn't some of us know I think the tip that came and the investigation that was started reflected that there wasn't anyone up to and including me that the investigators could feel free to inform of this they had no idea where this leveled off or how far it went or how high it went so they set out keeping their own decisions to themselves and investigated and now they have come forth with this and some of us have been notified now about what was going on but I think they were proper the danger of leaks and everything else and not knowing where this investigation might take them to do just as they did Ellen you didn't know about the divergence of funds you say in the Iran-Contra scandal Weinberger doesn't know about all of this alleged rampant bribery fraud who's in charge I mean where does the box stop why aren't you accountable to the public trust and I'd like to follow up we are accountable on the other hand I think there's some things that you can see in something as complex as that whole process and the number of corporations and all corporate heads probably are surprised at what they're learning also because you can't be down there watching several million people in the total of all of the companies and of the Defense Department every day and what they're doing or what phone calls they're making and I'm quite sure that no one would think that we should be tapping all of those phones and listening in on conversations of everybody just on the on the suspicion that someone might be out of line the scandals senator Mitchell has asked that specifically they not pardon criminal north and Admiral poindexter before they are tried because he said that otherwise there might be a perception of purchasing silence are you willing to give that commitment well I have said already that while I don't think that those men were guilty of any law breaking of any kind but of course the case should has to go forward or they would live the rest of their lives under a shadow of guilt so I have no intention of now wait a minute let me move back for some of our visitors president you plan to visit to the areas of the country that have been afflicted by the drought and recognize that's about the job you plan to visit the drought area of the country sir and and recognizing that your interagency committee on the drought has not made its report could you give us an idea what specific steps you're considering to help the farmers in view of the drop oh well here we secretary of agriculture has taken this place and we have a task force out there taking a look first hand look at the situation and we're going to have to see what we can do the we don't underestimate the seriousness of this at all and I'm here in this summit there out there finding out and outside of praying for rain there isn't anything I can do until we hear from them are you planning to visit the dot area yourself and take the first hand look yourself that's going to depend on whether the task force sees that there might be any any value in doing that Chris president you suggested the other day and you seem to be suggesting today that the Pentagon scandal is just the case of a few people gone wrong but in fact there are 200 subpoenas out in this case a number of the top procurement officers of the Pentagon are under investigation and so are almost all of the top defense contractors isn't the greater likelihood that this is a very widespread scandal oh listen I'm I'm aware of the numbers and I if I gave that impression that this is minor in some way not at all I don't feel that way at all as a matter of fact I'm very upset the only thing I'm calling attention to is that that same that same department the Department of Defense is the one that uncovered and then proceeded to investigate and pinned down where they're where there was guilt but we now have to wait and find out under the due process of law that it definitely is guilt on on individuals part there may be some people that are falsely suspected and we should know that too but no I'm not taking this lightly at all but I do think that you all ought to call it you all ought to pay attention to the fact that it wasn't an outside investigation it's been suggested that contracts with some of these defense contractors may have to be suspended until the investigation proves out are you concerned about the impact on the national security either in terms of slowing down the defense buildup or the further erosion of support for your defense buildup well I'm concerned about any or anything that affects our national security at the same time however I recognize that we have established a national security system that we didn't have a few years ago and that we have we have produced enough strength that resulted in things like the INF Treaty with a potential adversary the Soviet Union and that has to be taken into account too but I I haven't seen any we can't judge yet whether there's something specific in all of these things that might have in some way lessened our the recovery of our defensive strength I I'm looking for somebody from the local press and then I'll come back down front and I like to ask about the savings and loan industry this year there were record losses in the industry close to four billion dollars has been spent bailing out savings and loans it's estimated it'll take 75 billion to get it on its feet is there a crisis in the savings and loan industry and we'll be American taxpayer have to bail it out well I certainly hope not and I don't think so and I don't believe there's a crisis the market today went up 25 points and our growth is still continuing and there's no sign of inflation and things of that kind or or panic but yes there is a problem there and we're we're trying to deal with the problem Sam president recently Washington columnist Carl Rowan believed he was threatened by people in his backyard he took a gun which was unregistered and he shot he said as a warning shot the young man was nicked in the risk you think it's a good idea for citizens to have guns in their home and to go out and to use them if they feel threatened well Sam as I understand it Carl what Carl was saying was that his son who was entitled to have a gun left that gun there and it was a registered gun with regard to his son the other hand I try to keep thinking this was two o'clock in the morning someone is coming toward him he had that but you asked the question in general not just about him you asked whether people should have Sam I'm going to I'm going to answer by way of a letter a very interesting letter that I received when I was governor of California it came from a burglar who was serving time in San Quentin prison and there was a big movement on in California at that time as there continually is every place to eliminate the citizens having weapons and this burglar prisoner wrote to me and said I just want to tell you that if that goes through that law there will be hundreds of very happy people here in San Quentin he said we case a place that we've planned for robbery or burglary we get to know the habits of the people and their comings and goings and so forth but he said the one thing we never can know in advance is in that household in a drawer by the bed does the householder have a gun and he says if you can never tell us that none of them do that they don't have them said I can assure you that all those burglars are going to be very happy I think we ought to pay heed to that statistic shows that when homeowners or citizens use handguns normally they shoot themselves their loved ones or strangers who are not engaged in a criminal act by mistake is it worth all these lives in order to attempt to try to shoot one burglar well Sam I'll tell you there's some certain things I would go for for example in California for a citizen to buy a gun that citizen has to come in lay down the money of course name address and so forth and then doesn't get the gun and this goes to an agency in the state government that looks into that person's entire background as to who and what they are and then they come back after that investigation and if they don't have a record of any crimes or mental problems or anything of that kind they are allowed to take their gun home now I would like to see that generally I think that all states ought to take a look at that system but in addition I think that maybe we could tie to that to making sure that they aren't just totally absent of any knowledge of weapons I taught my entire family out of the ranch how to shoot a gun case they ever had to and I think maybe there's could be some restrictions that there had to be a certain amount of training taken let me know here and then I'll then back to you no no don't you get out there no man he I'll take care of my name is Jerry I know Jerry Mr. President have you given up on doing anything forceful forceful about the continuing chaos in Manama and Nicaragua and now once again in Haiti since you have not used up all of your options including the option of military force and is there any prospect at all the rest of your administration for resuming military assistance to the resistance fighters Jerry on the first thing of Panama I have to say to you that there are many things I can't comment that we still have some of our our economic measures in place we still feel as we always did that a military dictatorship in Panama under general Noriega is not what we want to see continue but I can't speculate or even hint at what might be options that are being considered or anything of that kind because I just don't I don't think it would be suitable and I don't think it would be helpful but we have not changed our minds about the fact that Panama should return to a civilian democracy what did you mean when you said today when you were asked if mr. Dukakis would win and you said over my life well because the old expression is my dead body and I wouldn't want somebody to take me up on that the gentleman back there if I could ask briefly about the economic summit the community praises the Canadian American free trade deal if for whatever reason the deal doesn't go through what would that do to Canadian-American relations well I certainly don't think it would change the relationship that the prime minister and I have and I also don't think that it would do away with the friendship that exists between Americans Canadians we're pretty unique in the world there's no place quite like that but there isn't any place like this 5,000 miles of border as your prime minister has has said without a loaded gun along that border I think we're very very proud of that and I've had an idea here I know that in your Parliament there are critics there are in our Congress and I've had it figured out that if I could get what the critics in the Parliament are saying about maybe this bill favoring the United States and take it down and show it to our Congress and in turn send what our Congress are saying about this favoring Canada up here to the Parliament I think it would be passed in a minute and a half and I'm not going to do that but I'm optimistic that we can get it and it will be I think it will have an effect on the entire trade of the world we are the two biggest trading partners in the world and for us to establish the biggest free-trading area in the world is right in keeping with all the things that we've been doing Bill Mr. President during the Iran-Contra scandal America learned that there were people in the White House making foreign policy in effect without your knowledge and that of some of your other senior officials now we have the situation in the Pentagon sir where there is apparently a burgeoning scandal which happened without the knowledge of you or your Secretary of Defense reflecting on this sir have you thought that you might have changed your style of management would you wish to have had a more hands-on approach now that you're at the end of your term would that have changed things would it have helped I don't think it would have changed anything in this present situation at all I don't think there's any way that anyone at higher levels could have had access to this information or what was going on with regard to the Iran and Contra Contra fair I would just like I haven't had a chance to do this for a long time I'd like to remind you all that I'm the one who told all of you of what had just been discovered and it was discovered after the leak came out of a newspaper in Lebanon charging the trading of hostages for arms and that I was dealing with the Ayatollah let me say with great emphasis to all the rest of you who aren't as close to Washington as some of the people here there's no scandal we were not doing business with the Ayatollah we were keeping the operation covert because by way of a third country some individuals from Iran who were heeding the warnings that we were being given at about that time that the Ayatollah might not live out the week and there was factionalism rising as to who was going to have to do with the new government these individuals were we were assured were pretty responsible by that third country which much closer to the situation and they wanted to meet to discuss with us what might be the future relations between our two countries when the Ayatollah was gone and I sent a team now you couldn't send secretary of state or people of that kind there because it wouldn't be covert any longer they're recognizable I don't mean that he'd tell he's just you know you he can't be anonymous anymore or people like him but anyway we sent them there to make contact and now back came this request from them that what it would do for them in the event of forming a new government and so forth but more or less token shipment of of a type of weapon we I sent word back that we didn't do business with countries that supported terrorism well they sent back reminding us that they weren't representing the country they weren't that government and they wouldn't if they were be a government they wouldn't do these things and so then was when I sent word back and said well all right but I know that there are connections in Iran with the Hezbollah who are holding American hostages we'll do this if you will use your influence if you have any to see if you can get our hostages back and they said yes well they got two of them back and we were supposed to get two more within 48 hours now all of this I told you when after it broke and the news had broken that we were doing this the our own investigation began and we found one memorandum that indicated that there was more money than we had received for our weapons we got the money that we had coming to us but suddenly we had and I told you that and that we were trying to find out and that I was appointing a commission under secretary or under senator tower to find out how could there be additional money there and after all the months of investigation by the Congress I still haven't found out how there was extra money sir if you had to try to rain on what was going on and inquired more closely into what was happening in this and in other situations might it not have happened I don't see how I could have without endangering the people we were doing business with if they were identified or they were they could be executed they weren't representing the government and to tell you the truth I don't know whether they're alive today and as a matter of fact when this all broke one of our hostages had just been released Jacobson and he pled with you one day out in the Rose Garden at that time to please not talk about this because we could get some people killed but in this case you have said that Kat Weinberger helped take the national security out of chaos can you really disagree with both Republicans and Democrats were saying that your administration through so much money at the Pentagon and hired people to manage it who were hired for their conservative values rather than their management skills that that in this administration there was a different structural approach to controlling the spending of these billions of dollars no I don't believe that or agree with it than they were appointed because of their business skill I'd made statements many times during the campaign that I didn't want people that were out looking for a job in government I wanted people that would make a sacrifice to work for government and I'd then take them for as long as they as they could stay there and this we did but with regard to throwing this money at the Pentagon I'd like to call your attention to something when I took off us on any given day 50% of our military planes couldn't take off for lack of spare parts and fuel half of our naval vessels couldn't leave port for the same reason or in addition and lack of crew I had promised during the campaign and answered a questions from just people in audiences over and over again that with regard to deficit spending and all where did this figure the military thing and I said if it comes to a choice the prime responsibility of government is the defense of the nation I have to do that but I would like to call attention to this fact president Carter evidently realized the situation before he left office and as you know a president leaving office gives you a five-year projection of his plan what his budget my the first budget when I came in was passed by the previous president but then where it goes we have not yet spent as much money on defense as he had advocated should be spent for the next five years feel about the fact that even though you pride yourself on cutting government spending and regulations but the legacy you may well leave is a counter reaction where there is an erosion of public support for defense spending and a public reaction that actually hurts rather than helps national security well you're just saying some things that I don't know how I would I'd answer that but I I think if people will listen and get the explanation and exactly what the situation was and wait until all the facts are in for example on this particular investigation that I don't think that they will find that we were derelict in our duty no there's a young lady just there was there any concern when you met with summit leaders this week that higher interest rates in the United States would push the dollar too high I don't recall any any conversation of that of that kind we were we all of us have been feeling pretty confident of what we're doing the stability we have and right track I think we have stability right now and I'm afraid to look at Jim Baker because I might I might find myself asking him to answer the question for you what do you really think you've achieved in terms of drug interdiction here how many drug traffickers are going to be apprehended as a result of these deliberations when more have been apprehended in this past year or so than ever before and more thousands of literally tons of illegal drugs seized more airplanes more ships more trucks and automobiles and more money has been seized than ever before but we have come to the conclusion with boundaries like ours and coastlines like ours the only answer that is ever going to win this war for us we keep this up we keep doing that of course but the real answer is going to be a bigger effort at taking the customer away from the drugs that's why we're going to implement all the programs we can about appealing to the people and getting former drug addicts who are many of them in the entertainment world and the athletic world are doing more than their duty to speak to young people about their ex they their ex addicts and about this but that is going to be the only way we can really succeed but we have stepped up this this interception thing and I think more than has ever been intercepted before rather than multilateral do you think oh well you were talking about the summit in our all of all well listen we're all in agreement here and I think we've we just we've discussed this today and we we thought of a number of things and they're going to be we're going to be working on this and putting a team together that will be represent more than us we're going to do such things and we're agreed that we're going to do such things as tracking money and interfering with the laundering of illegal drug money and so forth so we are united on this there's no question about that but wait a minute for all the hands Helen's in charge and she tells me I've used up all my time I can't do it so I'm sorry I'm always sorry I have to leave hands I thought you already all knew everything about it because you didn't ask me any questions about it yes you can't help but to feel it's it's something I'll miss what you mean in the summits or I couldn't pick any one thing out I just think the whole process has been most unusual in the world at large and and I'm very proud and pleased that we're a part of it