 Mr. President, may I please introduce Ambassador Williams. Yes, Mr. Ambassador. Hello, Mr. President. Turn and we'll... All right. And my wife, Jane. Oh, yes. I'll go there and see you. Mm-hmm. Well, I think we ought to get a family picture. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Well, in this era, it's very hard to be first at anything, but you're the first. Ambassador, come on. Go to him. Yes. And I know your Asian experience is going to help you forge a relationship that maybe might be quite difficult, a little difficult right now. Yes. Starts to fall. Well, just one second. Little reminder. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It's an honor to wear. Well, good luck. Certainly appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Bye-bye. Introduce Ambassador Gargano. Mr. President, how are you? Pleasure to see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I don't have any time for this one. I appreciate it. I do, and I appreciate it. Thank you. This is my wife, Crudence. Hello, Mary. Pleasure to see you. My daughter, Carla. Hello. My son, Larry. Hello. My father, John. How do you do? How do you do, Mr. President? How are you? Just fine. Good. Wonderful. Lots of luck with you. Thank you. This is my mother-in-law, James Barry. Who's this? I'll have to take hands with you. It's a long one. Pleased to hear you. My sister, Connie Oliva. We brought the whole crowd to see this. Well, and I think we ought to get a family photo. Thank you. It'll be wonderful. I think some of you may be coming from the other side. Yeah, come on the side. Right. Okay. Carla, maybe you want to go on the other side. I'll go on the side, Mr. President. Pop over here. Okay. Can we all? We'll help you very much. We have a good relationship with Trinidad and Tobago, and I'm pleased that you're going to do that. We're trying to keep it that way. I don't even make it better. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, now, before you leave, just one second here. Reminder. Thank you. And I thought the rest of you would be here tonight. Some key rings with the seal on for a souvenir of the visit to the Oval Office. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. A pleasure. Well, good luck. Thank you very much. Thank you for having us here. Pleased to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, I'd like to introduce Ambassador Ryan. Yes. Hello, Mr. President. Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Turn the wheel. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Well, I know with what you've been doing, they're going to have a well-run embassy. I hope so, sir. Do my best. Thank you very much. My daughter, Rene, has been there a couple of times. I hope she comes again while I'm there. Good day. Good. All right. Well, a little bit sooner or something. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. God bless you. Good luck. Thank you. Mr. President, I'd like to introduce Ambassador Barrett. How do you do? How do you do, Mr. President? Nice to meet you. Do you mean my wife, Melis? Hello there. It's so nice to meet you. My daughter, Elizabeth. Nice to meet you. Well, I think maybe with the ladies in the middle, we ought to get a family picture. Oh, how nice. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know too, with your experience in Africa and Asia, you do a great deal in Djibouti where we don't have all the influence in the world to take care of that. I'm delighted that you're going to be going there. This is for you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate that very much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Professor Garcin is ready. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to introduce Ambassador David Howe. How are you, Mr. President? Good to see you, sir. Thank you for receiving it. Well, Mr. President, this is my wife, Jo. Nice to meet you, Mr. President. How do you do? My daughter, Audrey. How do you do, Mr. President? My daughter, Gwen. How do you do, Mr. President? My daughter, Gwen. How do you do, Mr. President? My daughter, Gwen. My daughter, Gwen. I think maybe the ladies are getting the middle between us. Oh, okay. That'd be very nice. We have a family photo. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. One more lady. Okay. Thank you. You have an experience. I know that you're very good. Sir, that's well. Thank you. Thank you. Zambia and incidentally, I had a pleasure of meeting you. President Cayonda, last year. I understand you did. Please give me my regard. I shall do that, sir. The two young ladies came in. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yes, visit. Oh, what a nice surprise. Thank you, sir. Couple of things. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Well, thank you for what you're doing. I'll wish you well. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you. How are you doing? Well, it's been a distinct honor. Well, there's something in the background. Witnessing your historic time here, Mr. President. You've done it. Well, you've got our children kind of in front of you, man. I have a family photo. What do you think? Open this one. Is it the biggest smiley to you? Is it? There you go. Thank you so much. Just thought that all of them are still needing bookbills. They're not, but... Whenever we've been there, we've been on vacation. But they have to realize this time it's for working for schools. Got one too many. Well, there was an extra one there. First time together. Mr. President. Good luck. Thank you. My pleasure. We appreciate it. Thank you. My pleasure. You got five for the President? Five. Thank you. Somebody has to do the advance. Yeah, right. Those are real, man. You want one of those? Yeah, help yourself. I think the President will let you have one. Sure. Say goodbye. Thank you. Well, welcome. There will be two waves of the media and the press coming in and we'll wait at least for the first one, which is just photographic, to do their chore and then wait for the second one to come in and when they leave, we'll really get underway. It's nice there at the end of the table. You know, there's a sacrilegious little remark about here that this is a little like what the Lord said at the Last Supper. Everybody that wants to get in the picture, get on this side of the table. I can't help but notice, sir, that the tape recorder is clearly in evidence. It's obvious. Well, the next one in will be the one for it. That would be more than photographic. How many times a day do I have to do that? I think it was nearly. Oh, say, that was a wonderful trip down memory lane for me. A short time ago, I was down in the press room and I attempted a joke in response to a question and I think I was kidding, but I don't think I should have said what I said. But with some of those who were present in that room, I think I should tell them that I do believe the medical history of a president is something that people have a right to know and I speak from personal experience. Nope, I was just trying to be funny and it didn't work. I won't repeat it again in front of them, but I have a I think that I will say I thank you all for coming and I want to welcome you here today and begin by speaking briefly about Nicaragua. It was last August that the Sandinistas signed on to the Guatemala Accord and once again pledged themselves to democracy. Since then, two deadlines have passed. Neither were met and last January the four Central American democracies agreed that Nicaragua had failed to comply, had failed to democratize and called for immediate Sandinista compliance. Then Congress cut off military aid to the freedom fighters and the Sandinistas have become only more repressive. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator David Boran, said a few days ago, the idea that if we removed all the pressure on the Sandinistas, they would somehow then move to peace and democracy has been proven false. Well, the fact is that it is only strong pressure on the Sandinistas from Nicaragua's Democratic resistance that offers any hope of keeping the compliance process alive. And for regional security, freedom is the bottom line. By guaranteeing freedom for the Nicaraguan people, we will also guarantee peace and stability for the rest of Central America. Senator Boran warned, as I have repeatedly, that Sandinista subversion poses the risk of potential chaos in Central America all the way up to the Rio Grande. I believe that the American people want to prevent that from happening. But on matters of national security, the real issue is not whether it's the popular thing, but whether it's the right thing. Standing up for democracy, supporting freedom against communism is the right thing. I know you've closely followed the state of press freedom in Nicaragua, and I applaud that. Yes, you do this out of reciprocal interest, but also because the issue is fundamental to you and to all of us. The Sandinistas have tried to eliminate the independent press because they want to carry out the rest of their program under cover of darkness. But despite arrests, beatings, death threats, midnight police visits, and violent mob attacks, the few Nicaraguan press outlets not completely state-controlled have tried to keep truth alive for the Nicaraguan people. Three weeks ago, after a massive demonstration was brutally put down by the regime, the Prince's headline told the story. Sandinista police beat the people with rifle butts. For that, the newspaper was shut down for 15 days. The church-run radio catalika was closed the same day, and Estelle not reopened, and two independent radio news programs have since been suspended. Just two months after taking power, the Sandinista leadership in a message meant only for the party. Faithful wrote that we are an organization whose greatest aspiration is to maintain revolutionary power. A free press threatens that, and they will not tolerate one. So much of the discussion of Nicaraguan press freedom is narrowly focused on Baprenza and radio catalika because not much else has survived. Two other daily newspapers were seized early on, as were all television stations and most radio stations, and the Sandinistas have refused to give new radio or TV licenses. In Nicaragua, public opinion polls are illegal and free labor unions, opposition political parties, and the Catholic Church have been repeatedly denied the right to publish and are subject to violent intimidation and suppression. Early on, after shutting down a newspaper, one of the nine Sandinista commandanties warned that other media, quote, unless they change their attitude, will have to receive the same medicine. And a week later, the official Sandinista Party newspaper laid out the new regime's theory of the press. It wrote, in our revolutionary process, therefore, there are only two alternatives for journalists. Either they are revolutionaries or they are counter-revolutionaries. In Nicaragua, press freedom must be understood as the Sandinista people's right to decide who should and who should not inform them. Well, the original Sandinista commitments of the OAS, their obligations under the Guatemala Accord and those under the Sapoah Accord of last March have been continuously violated. These have been communist falsehoods told to deceive well-intentioned people. Token relaxations are done to provide a smokescreen. Then the regime clamps down again, unless the Nicaraguan people believe it's for real. And last January, at the same time that the Sandinistas were again promising their democratic neighbors that they would honor their broken promises under the Guatemala Accord, Nicaraguan opposition leaders and a senior editor of La Prensa were being arrested in Managua. The Sandinistas' real face is not hard to find. A few years ago, the chief of censorship at the Interior Ministry explained the censoring of La Prensa and a comment that would have made George Orwell blush. She said, and I quote, they accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie, and we could not let them publish it. Well, since the signing of the Guatemala Accord a year ago, the Sandinistas have confiscated film from television crews, organized mob attacks on journalists, electronically commandeered radio stations to block news broadcasts, denied newsprint to La Prensa and prevented the newspaper from getting paper elsewhere. Radio news programs, the chief source of news in Nicaragua, have been closed down again and again in recent months, and some 20 were never permitted to reopen in the first place. And there have been constant threats and acts of intimidation. What greater proof can there be of how these dictators fear of free press than that Sandinista state television has been broadcasting visual personal attacks on the publisher of La Prensa because they fear her ability to tell the truth. Or when Interior Minister Tomas Borges summoned the director of a radio station to his office and personally beat the man bloody because the station had reported police attacks on members of a labor union who were on a hunger strike. And in a police state, when the head of the secret police beats you, you can't hit back. Well, when the Guatemala Accord was signed, we knew it would produce one of two things, either Sandinista compliance or Sandinista exposure. Well, it has succeeded. The Sandinistas have been exposed. After nine long years under the Sandinista communists, in which Jews and Christians have been persecuted, business and labor oppressed, children indoctrinated, a nation militarized, a people abused and a region subject to constant aggression, the Sandinistas' deceit and violence and corruption have caught up with them. After nine years of giving power and then over a hundred million dollars in USA to prove by vote of Congress, the Sandinistas could never have held power as they have had they not continually taken new vows about their democratic intentions. When are the people in Congress who have been lied to by the Sandinistas for nine years going to get angry about it? When are the people in Nicaragua going to get the democracy that they fought for and that the Organization of American States set as the necessary condition for the government that it helped bring into being? Today, I call upon the U.S. Congress to keep faith with itself. Last December, by a remarkable six-to-one margin, the House of Representatives passed the Brian Tallon Chandler Amendment that enumerated 33 specific items the Sandinistas would have to honor to comply with the Guatemala Accord, four of them related directly to press freedom. The Sandinistas have failed across the board to meet the minimum criteria specified by Congress. Unless Congress provides new aid to the resistance, I do not see how that body can expect any of its democratic requirements to be met or even taken seriously by the Sandinistas. A new chapter in this issue has now begun because we've reached a point where the true nature and intentions of the Sandinista regime are exposed and beyond dispute from the crushing of press freedom to the expansion of military plans revealed by Major Roger Miranda, we know who the Sandinistas are and the pose they threat in the region. And I hope that with this knowledge, a new consensus can be reached on our policy. And now I think the press has heard enough that they would leave. Are you backing the $47 million aid package? What? Are you backing the military aid package for Congress? Yes, I am, as always. How much? I don't know the exact amounts that are being talked about, but we could begin with the $18 million worth of military supplies that are in warehouses once passed by the Congress and now are prohibited from releasing the material to the countries. Please, thank you. Mr. President, you mentioned that press freedom was fundamental in Nicaragua. Mr. Colesco, we wait for just a moment. They won't leave as long as the President is talking. I thought perhaps if I talked... I know they're not interested in what... Oh, okay. And then we will take some questions. I made a promise to answer something. I'll take your question right after I... It's been funny. I said I'm not going to pick on an invalid. Then I left the room. So I wanted to kind of square that with a few people here. But it was trying to be funny. Well, your question? Back to Nicaragua, Mr. President, you said that when I accepted the U.S. and the Oregon Commission, all of those things we wanted to see rectified, our feeling has been that the only efficacy that's come as a result of the threat of... U.S.