 We'll be there now and he'll be home tomorrow, so we'll be continuing. There is a meeting in Montreal, the 15th. It begins on the whole matter of international air regulations. And we'll see what comes out of that. Now, I have to ask a question to about Levin. The backup of the Marines. You're going to keep them in there? You're going to pull them out? What are you going to do without a range over there in Levin? Well, the function that they were set in there for, along with a whole lot of national force, that was one that anticipating that we would then be able to remove the foreign forces that did with Israel but not with Syria, that then to enable Levinon, the government of Levinon to put together its own military over its own territory, that the multinational force would be there, you might say, behind their forces to help create stability while they're able to take over. I don't know that any of us anticipated what we're seeing now or to this degree. So there are still air that's mentioned. One thing is we have, and this is true of all the multinational forces, we have assured them that we're going to protect our people. I heard on the television this morning that there had been some naval bombardment of gun positions. This morning the French were doing something in response to their reconnaissance yesterday, but we had short batteries with the Marines and one ship and we, I don't know what it's taking place since then, but they silenced the guns. This is going to be a continuing policy to take out the artillery weapons. We're not going to put anybody over there and not let them defend themselves. In the meantime, we're doing our best to convince Syria and getting their Arab friends to also do their best to influence them, to get them to... Are you making any progress though toward getting the Syrians out of it? I'll know more when we hear from McFarland who has just been in Damascus and I think I was trying to get out of there yesterday. I was trying to remember how long it's been, but I think it's been about a year since you set this whole peace project to motion on that. Has it been that long? Well, let's see. It was a year ago that I announced the whole peace plan. Now, when the Marines must be pretty much, we could say safely, a year. It couldn't have been too long afterward that they went in. You're disappointed that nothing more is happening? Well, I think all of us were optimistic that it would have happened sooner. And there's been foot-dragging in a number of places, including the Lebanese government itself, trying to broaden the base of the government, because they do have the problem that their own laws deal with, with regard to the mix of the Maronite Christians, the various Muslim sects. That's SECTS, I understand. Can you look ahead, six months in Lebanon? What would you say? Syrians still there, the country potentially? I'd be afraid to try. A lot of tough things for you to play. Yes. Okay, now, let me come home. I did a call on the other day on this gender gap business. Talk to me about this gender gap. Is it growing? Does it exist? Is it getting worse? Better? What are you supposed to do about it? Well, we're going to, I think what we really need to do is not so much an improvement over what we have been doing, except that nobody knows what we have been doing. What we need is for more understanding. Now, and this wasn't the last minute thing, as so many have implied for political reasons, we had been very successful in California in reviewing state statutes and getting laws changed where there was actually built-in discrimination in the law. For example, we found we had a law that said that a wife with her own money couldn't invest that money without her husband's permission. Now, you've got to repeal it. Yes, we changed those. Now, when we came here, the first thing I did was ask the 50 states, someone here to ask the 50 states to set up some of the states to bring about the same thing we did in California. All responses? Yes, not a very thorough response. All 50 of them appointed a representative to do this. Now, in a number of the states, well, it's like you could imagine it would be. It's been faster than some than others. Some of them have been rather successful. Some of them are pretty slow at it. We're continuing to press on this. We can't order them after all. They are sovereign states. But then here in Washington, we set out with this plan of having the Justice Department do it with regard to federal laws. And this was a laborious process to go through all the laws and everything. We've had three reports back from the Justice Department. Now, I'm familiar with the first quarterly report. The second one was a very small one, as I understand it. And I have not yet seen the third quarterly report. Well, the third quarterly report is the one that contains the information that I think I'm correct in this if I'm off one or two. It isn't any more than that. The 27 laws have already been corrected. 60 more will be corrected when Bob Dole's legislation passes because we have sent up the findings on 60 more. We're having a cabinet meeting as soon as this is over, two o'clock on the subject of the balance of about one other 65 or more laws to make the decisions on those, because now some of those we probably won't want to correct because they're laws that actually provide advantages for women that are not provided for men and that we think are justified. Now, some of the women's leaders don't want these advantages. I know, but I think you have to recognize in some instances, such as labor laws that women and men are different. Well, our physical strength. Most states have laws about how much weight you can lift. Now, I'm going to be sure I have my count straight. 27 federal acts already have been corrected. 60 more will be corrected under Bob Dole's bill. Then you have another 60 or so that you have not done. Since they're continuing, of course, to look, but under this bunch, we're discussing these this afternoon. In a cabinet meeting with the Justice Department in charge and presenting the presentation. Now, on top of that, there are the other things that I know are well known, but we at this point are ahead of the previous administration in the employment of women. We have, for the first time in history, three women at one time in our cabinet, and of course we all know that it's the only time there has ever been a woman on the Supreme Court. But more than that, we have appointed 1,200 women in executive and policymaking positions. And I think that this compares favorably or better than any previous administrations, and we're continuing on. Well then, why do you experience this hostility from these leaders of the women's groups? Well, for one, because they don't know these things, or they're not paying any attention to it. And I think basically it's because I don't happen to believe that the ERA is as good an answer as what we're doing. Now, it sounds very simple and easy, a constitutional amendment. What did I say, ERA? Well, equal rights and money. Yes, I want to make sure I got that right. As I have viewed it, and I am not a lawyer myself, but I sought legal advice back when I was a governor and was going to be faced with it there in California. This will put in the hands of the courts what I think can be handled in legislation. And it doesn't simply guarantee everyone. What it does guarantee is that if someone thinks they're being discriminated against, they'll have to go to court to get a settlement. Well, I think changing the laws makes a lot more sense where it's just specific and right there in the law. But I think that this is part of it. You haven't been able to persuade some of these more militant women though to all that point of view? No. But also, Jack, the other thing is I don't have anything to do with whether a constitutional amendment is passed or not. They were trying to do it and said they haven't been able to get it passed. That's right. And I suppose it'll come out. Did you have to read that transcript of the songus and the horn hatch when, oh, oh, it was something? Yes. But Songus had no answer. He said, let the courts decide what it means. Yeah. He said it over and over. It was very strange coming from a legislator also that he just wanted to let the courts make all the decisions. Do you have? Now, do your pollsters indicate that this gap, so-called, was getting worse? I haven't seen any indication of that. Am I right or wrong? What's in this numbers do not show a broadening of it. Gallup has shown some of the worse on its own. I said in a column I wrote the other day that I'd like to see a survey done of those women who voted in 1980 who voted for you and find out how many of them have decided they would vote against you. That'd be pretty interesting. I'd like to see that myself. Wouldn't that be interesting? What the switch is. Wouldn't you think it'd be pretty small? I, if any at all. Jack, an example of this is the other day when I went over to render that apology that then kicked up the fuss. The caveman. Well, I have to tell you the only person that I recognized in that room, whether found out afterward, felt was the woman that I had called and made the arrangements through, Polly Maidenhout. I couldn't have asked for a better reception. I walked out to a standing ovation. And as a matter of fact, even she, with every opportunity to have laid into me, she was smiling and warm and friendly and thanking me profusely for having come over. And within the hour, I called a press conference and was kicking my brains out. You're going to push for this bill of Bob Dole's to get that on place? Most of those 60 statues that are covered by Bob's bill are pretty innocuous, aren't they? Many of them. But what they take, many of them can be corrected simply by changing one word. Change it from men or women to persons. And it'll solve all the problems. The law doesn't have to be changed. Well, he mentioned one of them to me the other day that I mentioned in my column. It had to do with members of the Ute tribe of Indians. A statue passed around 1850 somewhere that the Ute Indians could be moved from one reservation or one piece of land to another only with the consent of the adult male members of the tribe. Well, the statue had been invoked. I mean, it's been lying there on the books for a hundred and thirty years or so, and it's only going to repeal that. I asked for a typical statue. I didn't have to tell you to say that. Most of them were at about that level of importance. Listen, before we get off this, I left out some things, too, about what we've done. And it goes back to the very beginning. The first thing we ever tried to do when we came here, of course, was the economic program. Well, tax-wise, we have virtually eliminated the marriage penalty and the income tax and the widow's tax in the state or the inheritance taxes. We have almost doubled the tax credit for childcare for working-wise. We made changes in the pension laws. Economically, we have, and I think in the economic recovery, we were seeing that what we did was most beneficial to them because last month, when that biggest decline in unemployment in 24 years took place, it was a bigger decline for women workers than it was for men. And their rate of unemployment is much lower than the men's and lower than the average. Right. Now, this kind of carries me into the next area I want to ask you about, and these deficits. What's going to be done about it? How do you feel about this idea of a commission to make recommendations on what to do about the deficits? No, I think the economic recovery that is showing up is better than we had predicted or than anyone else had predicted is a large part of the answer to the deficits. But the other one is we've never been as successful as we should have been and that we must be in persuading the Congress to cut spending. I don't think that a commission they could come in with recommendations about tax increases and so forth, but the history of tax increases shows they're not. They don't cure deficits. We double the taxes in the five years from 76 to 81. And in those five years we have $650 billion worth of deficits. Now, we think the economic recovery and a tax increase would certainly set that back. Everyone seems to be agreed on that. But right now the deficit would be $40 billion less than it is. Had we gotten from Congress what we asked for in spending reductions, but key members of your own party refused to go along with the spending cuts. Now, the program that we asked for in January, the budget they wouldn't consider, we may not be able to stay exactly with that, but if the Congress will not give the spending cuts again that we think are necessary, I'm going to use the veto pen to bring them about. Our plan in January, and we submitted that, with the contingency tax, that could have brought us on a declining pattern. Granted, there are going to be pretty big deficits this year and next year, but it would have brought us on a declining pattern out of the next five years that you could point to a time certain in which you would balance the budget. Now, the contingency tax, I still support. This, the idea of that was because so much of the thing that's keeping interest rates up, for example, is pessimism about whether we can hold the line on inflation. Exactly so. And because of the deficits and so forth. So the contingency tax was put out there that if they would pass it along with the spending cuts, it calls for that if they, we have the spending cuts. If the deficit remains above a certain percentage of the gross national product, if the recovery is solid enough at that time that it cannot be set back by a tax increase, the tax would go into effect. Now it would be passed already. By passing it already, no, it would go into effect in 1986. The idea in passing it and having it there fixed would be not only for the fact that it would give people in businesses an ability to plan. They would know what the tax was going to be in advance, make their plans accordingly. But also it would reassure these pessimists in the money market about dealing with the surpluses to the place that I think we could see an even faster recovery. But don't you face for 84, 85, there are almost certain prospect that there will not be significant cuts in spending and there will not be tax increases? Well, I've got to be more optimistic in that, in fact, because I've got on my desk a letter signed by 146 representatives of both parties saying and outlining 11 specific spending areas which, if the Congress submits appropriations excessively above what we asked for in January in those, they will support my veto. That's one way of making it stick. I've got about 10 minutes left here. Let me ask you about one of these entitlement programs we don't hear much about. These price supports for foreign commodities. I was reading a piece by Cliff Harbin that just came over my desk yesterday about $21 billion. That's worse than food stamps. Yes, and you've named it. The thing is most people never realize those are entitlement programs based on 1977 and 1981 legislation of foreign bills. Those were based on anticipation of continued high inflation. And the result has been that those things just kept going up because of what had been passed. Now we had bumper crops in 81 and 82 that reduced the prices because of the surpluses and what we must have at the very least is a freezing at the present level of those price supports because now the prices have gone back up on foreign products. It'd be good if they could be reduced below the level they are, but it was the fact that that legislation anticipating inflation just paid the prices too high. Building a price support that... It's pretty difficult to defend $20 billion. Yes, it is. Of course. This PIC plan, the P-I-K, what's your impression of that now that it's been in effect? Too much success? Well, I don't know whether they're doing it wrong. I thought of it. Here's why I thought of it. I kept seeing the figures for how much it was costing us to keep all that cert to buy and accumulate all that surplus and then store it. So I said, if we've got to pay out all these payments to farmers like for taking land out of production to soil erosion and so on, whatever they were doing, and the cash, why don't we give them the crop that they didn't have and let them sell that crop in the market? Incidentally, the farmers' position also when we talk about these farm support prices has been benefited now by the reduction in inflation because this has made a difference to them in the cost of production. But it seemed to me and it made a lot of sense because here's a fellow that had X number of dollars coming and you give it to him in a crop and say, go out and sell it. You're going to continue the program? I don't know. We haven't... I would think that as long as we have to accumulate such surpluses that for such things as a farmer who loses his crop in a flood in weather disaster or something production because of, you know, there's a big problem today of are we eroding too fast? Things of that kind that seems to me it makes more sense to give a farmer a crop that he lost to go out into the market to sell than to keep on paying storage on that crop and give you money. Hasn't it succeeded beyond your wildest dreams? You didn't anticipate this many or this larger percentage? The application started coming in, I think, with more of the surplus than we had. My idea simply wasn't you ran out of the surplus, you stopped doing it. I don't think you're at that point yet. It hasn't been a popular program politically in the Midwest? Apparently the farmers, I was amazed that farmers were divided with it. So you think probably it will be continued then? We haven't, I can't really say because we haven't had a meeting on that to see where we go from here. But as for the cost of it, if you thought it would be to try to freeze these at least you said to freeze them the price supports where they are. Yes. Would that go for dairy products too? This surplus cheese is bound to be a concern. Yeah. There may be one change there in the dairy laws. Again, Jack, I have to be honest with you I would have to sit down with Jack Block and our people here and find out what the situation is. That's what I see on the television and we talk about these enormous services of cheese. They can't give it away as fast as they have to buy it. Well, and one of the problems was in giving it away that in such quantities that we have to watch that we don't suddenly make basket cases out of the merches. They're in business, we can't do that. The original idea and the one that I hope we would continue with is where you're giving it to destitute people in such a way as not to not to interfere with normal trade and business. We have about three minutes on politics. What's the prospect for holding on to the Senate next year? Well, I know it's going to be tough. Like the last time out, we have the most seats up for grabs and we've had to retire to the accounts that are going to be very difficult for us. Tennessee is almost conceded now, isn't it, Tagore? Well, I won't give up on any maybe recovery and all the continues when people will see the value of us having some allies here. The loss of five seats would change anything. What's your guess? You're going to hold it? Why nationwide is a party harder than you've ever tried before to keep that from happening? You'll be out there helping some of these key senators to be re-elected? Yeah. You ever need to tell me about your own re-election? Jack, no decision is yet because one fellow came in here from representing a magazine set for your city and he was the first man from your profession that ever said this. He opened the meeting by saying I hope you will wait until the last possible minute before you make a decision and announce it. It was my own thinking to do that and I said, why? And he said exactly what I thought. He said, well, if your answer is no, you're a lame duck and can't get anything done. You might as well go home now. And he said, if you say yes, he said in the climate today everybody will say from then on everything you're trying to do is political and you can't get anything done. Do you think I would sound advice that he was good? I thought I would sound advice. You go and wait a while before letting us know. Yeah, as long as I think I can. Well, certainly before the end of the year though, you've let us know. Well, that's probable. Maybe at some time. I'm afraid to work in. How are you feeling these days? You're looking good. I feel great. Good. Are you ready to get working fine? Well, he said to me, although he didn't. See, each year I go back out there, he's one of the finest in the country. This injured ears does have a gradual rate of deterioration. And it's most evident in things like a state dinner or a cocktail reception or something sorting the voice out from the background noise. This year is normal and I'm staying that way. But this time he didn't recommend it or anything but he said maybe I'd like to see the latest state of the art. And I said, well, yeah. And he held out a kind of a wax ear with this thing in it. And I've never seen anything so small along that line. And I said, let me see that. But he brought it out and showed it to me and told me all about it. And I thought about having something that I could put in for those state dinners and so forth. And I said, I'll go for that. It works. It really helps. Yeah, that's good. I want to see it. Got it. And that's all there is. That's the whole thing. Isn't that so? I remember those days of the people with the panel on their chest and turning their arms and so forth. That's it. That's the volume control. We used to have a member of the Virginia House of Delegates on the front row of our House of Delegates, Uncle Billy Adams. And when the debate got dull, he was hearing a way down. Couldn't hear a thing. Uncle Billy had to ride out here to get that sound out of his ears. I have to tell you one of the most unkind tricks I've ever heard of was a fellow on a train and in the club car, the Ritz brothers were on there. And years ago in the club car, he kind of made a little pest of himself. So the Ritz brothers started talking to him and gradually getting their voices lower and lower and lower. And he's turning up the dial and turning up the dial. Finally, he excuses himself and they know to go back and get a new battery. That's much wrong. He comes back with this and turns it all the way up. And then he stops! Ritz brothers! Alright, when you're looking good, it's been almost exactly a year since I was here. At that time, you were telling me you were exercising and putting on a little muscle up here and keeping up that program. As a matter of fact, I'm wondering if I'm not going to have to get some coats changed. I can really kind of break out some seams if I try to do that. I'm still at it. Good to see you. I am. Give my best to the family. Yeah, Marie came in with me. She said, Oh, what happened? Give my best to the families. No, it's the quartermaster that's home. Where is the Marie? Chris, he's at sea. He's the quartermaster. He's the number two son. They're out right now. Oh, I thought he was the one that came home. Oh, the one that came home was in the Army. He'd been in Abidjan. That's the youngest boy. He'd been in the Army for nine years in non-intelligence. Oh, I thought he was a Marine. No, he was Army. No, my number one son had been in the Marines for two years. Ah. My number one son was a Marine. My number two son was Navy. My number three son was Army. You've got a lot of service. The only one that's made a career out of it is our navigator, the quartermaster, the number two son. He's on the destroyer out of Charleston. And he may wind up down in Nicaragua after you send him down. Well, I hope you don't send him down. I'll be good to see you soon. Okay, good to see you.