 Well, come in and hopefully you've got enough. That's just our own tape. If anybody needs any assistance afterward, they can call on us and we'll be happy to provide it. Come in. That could have been an accident. Okay. So, Mr. President, first of all, our genuine appreciation to you for sparing us the time. We know your schedule is very busy and we know that time is limited, so we'd like to get down to business writing. All right. Well, then I say I'm appreciating you. I'm appreciating your paper and its upholding of our country and the principles of involved and so forth. Very refreshing. Well, we should continue to do so. Mr. President, it would seem that congratulations are in order over your efforts to bring about Lebanon's ceasefire. However, all Mid-East ceasefires seem to be fragile at best and we're wondering what are the contingency plans if the ceasefire breaks down? Secretary Schultz has said there is no timetable to pull out the Marines. Does that go for the Navy as well? Yes. I think right now, this is a first step. We know that it's a tenuous one and that it's a very complex problem. It has to be worked out. But it is right in line with the mission that took the whole multinational force there to be in a position to help preserve stability as a government of Lebanon re-institutes its sovereignty over its own territory and the foreign forces get out. So we could be hopeful and optimistic and certainly you have to be grateful that the shelling has stopped, but much it remains to be done. Mr. President, you said yesterday that the Saudis were playing an important part in helping to bring the ceasefire about. Did they put pressure on Syria by threatening to withhold their bank rolling? I don't know of any pressure of that kind, but I do know that just as we had two ambassadors there who were back and forth working virtually around the clock trying to bring the various parties together, they were most helpful in doing the same thing. And I think have to be recognized for that. So I wouldn't know what persuasion was used or anything else. Finally, we have the ceasefire. On October the 15th, Paul Laxoff and others will be formally committed for your re-election. Can you say at this stage, if you have made up your mind to run, if not will you at least endorse Mr. Laxoff's commitment? At least I would endorse what? Mr. Laxoff's commitment. Oh, well, let me just say I don't think there's, this is a time when I can make an answer of any kind to that question. First of all, I believe that campaigns are too long anyway, but I've said there is no way that I'm going to make or announce a decision until the last possible moment that it could be done because either way it's going to make things more difficult. If you're not a candidate, you're a lame duck, and if you are a candidate, suddenly everything you try to accomplish is viewed as part of the political campaign. So I'll hold, I know there's coming a day when I'm going to have to make a statement, but not now. Have you discussed the possibilities yet with your family? Well, obviously this has come up in conversation. Will you endorse the committee that's being formed though? Is it with your blessing? That would be getting into the area of commenting that I still don't think I should. When do you think Mr. President the day may come when you'll have to make a decision in public? Do you see it within the next month or so perhaps? Well, I haven't set any specific date, and so I won't hazard one, but as I say, I know that such a day is coming and there is a day alone, says that a decision must be announced. You had a rather historic meeting of prayer with Cardinal Cook yesterday. How did you find that very brave man? Very brave, and it was just amazing. He expressed his interest in so much that's going on and in the world and some of the things that we're trying to do and it was a moving experience, but also we were so grateful for the opportunity to see him have this meeting with him. They had arranged a little prayer service in his chapel, but not with him present, but we then went to his room and he concluded the service before our visit with the final prayer. Senator D'Amato of New York and many others have been very forceful in their language calling for Mr. Watt to resign. What are your views about that? Well, first of all, I think Mr. Watt has done a very capable job as Secretary of Interior. I think we have to point out with all of this that it was an unfortunate remark. It certainly was a mistake and he has admitted that, both those points. He has apologized to the people on the commission for that, but I think in all fairness we have to recognize that yes, it was a very improper thing to say, but it certainly was not said in the sense of any bitterness or bigotry or prejudice. If I thought he was bigoted or prejudiced, he wouldn't be a part of our administration. It was an attempt at lightness that as we all have to admit fell very flat and it was unfortunate. So I think that we have to recognize that and hope it won't be repeated. Do you think it would be possible for him to continue in office? What's that? Do you think it would be possible for him to continue in office? Well, I think that's a decision that he himself would have to make whether he feels that he has made a questionable as to whether he could be affected or not. You have no plans with the President to ask him to leave? No. I accepted his apology. If it could turn to your speech at the United Nations today, which is very calm and very measured, have you had you, while you're preparing the speech, had any indication or signal of any sort that your proposals might not be agreeable to the Soviets? Well, you can always hope. What I said today, I've thought for some time, the things that needed saying, both with regard to the United Nations and to their approach to these matters, I just feel very deeply that when I remarked about governments starting wars, that the representatives of the Soviet Union and ourselves sat down at those tables, those negotiating tables with the conviction in our minds that there must not be a war, then there won't be a war, and there could almost instantly be a reduction in those terrible and dangerous arms, those weapons. I'm certain that the Russian people don't want a war, and I know our people don't. We don't. And I just do, are they willing to come to the table with that idea in mind instead of an idea as to how they can preserve some margin of superiority for themselves? Apart from hope, Mr. President, has there been the slightest signal of the overall regret expressed by some segments of the Soviet leadership, which there has been, small as it may be? Have you regarded that as any kind of general signal? No, because I don't think it's come from the kind of people that normally would give the signals, but it is an indication there of certainly recognition in the part of some. You say that this was as terrible a deed as we have said it was, and I just think the world is owed an apology plus a statement to the effect that they're going to join the rest of us in cooperating to see that such a thing can never happen again. And that could be aided and depended also if they would recognize some responsibility and compensation for the families of the victims. Mr. President, do you think there may be some sort of a high level political dispute going on in the Kremlin that the statement's about these lower level officials, which we would just refer to, may represent that in fact there isn't unanimity in there on what happened? I wouldn't hazard a guess on that, but I do say that there is evidence that is a little different than what we usually expect because usually the official reply comes out with unanimous support over there, and that's it, and that's the story everyone tells. So this has been a little different, that there have been voices that have begun now. They weren't heard for quite a while. In fact there was such a difference in the stories that it just further added to the evidence of how deliberate and despicable this act was. Most people are pretending to forget that their first statement was that they just didn't know anything about it. It just disappeared from their radar. And then when the evidence was presented that it had been shot down and that they were responsible for that, suddenly they come up with a new story about spy plane and so forth. And no one's mentioned this yet, but isn't that a pretty hard, the idea of error, a pretty hard thing to believe when that plane is one on a regular schedule that at least every week is flying that same route? And at the same time of day. Mr. President, are your plans firm for Manila? What's that? Are your plans firm for Manila? Well, the trip is still planned. If there would be any reason to change it, it would be domestic because there is a probability. We had planned that trip with the idea that Congress would not be in session, that it would go on home. And that is questionable now as to whether they're going to go home. And now it makes you wonder, can you be in two places at once? But so far, don't take that as an indication, so far the trip is still on. The First Lady has expressed her second thoughts, misgivings about that particular trip. Given the recent events, the recent and tragic events. Well, let me just say, and I sympathize with her very deeply, but since a previous experience that we had, I shouldn't use the expression she's a little gunshot. No, but she does feel a legitimate concern in many places where I have to appear. Mr. President, just to come back to your speech today and your three proposals, let me not talk for everyone because we haven't all talked about it. It struck me as being rather generous towards the negotiating position in the view that they've constantly said no. And you say, well, all right now, we'll count the aircraft and we won't count the planes and the missiles in the fiery. So that would reduce the total number to which we're responding in Western Europe. But we reserve the right to place in other areas to counter what other threats might be involved in their disposition in other areas of their missiles. And you go very far towards meeting the Soviet position over the Persians, which they've been making most noise about. Maybe that was a restatement of something that was always in our mind. The original concept of what was going in NATO in INF was going to be a mix of Persians and cruise missiles. And at one time there was a Russian voice raised that, well, they might listen to cruise missiles but not Persians at all. Well, this in a way today was a restatement that, no, there will still be a mix. But we're willing that if they agree to reductions that means that our original figure must be reduced, that reduction will be in both Persians and cruise missiles. But as I said in the remarks, I'd like to see it on the zero, zero basis. We know that can't be. Well, now we want any reduction that can be achieved is going to be better than what threatens us now and threatens our allies in Europe. And so that's what we're going to continue to strive for, is to the lowest possible point that they will come and we will meet them on an equal and verifiable basis. You've been at the UN, I mean with leaders and stuff like that, and there have been reports that out of your administration that you and some of your senior aides feel that there's a double standard operating conditions, for example, being quick to condemn Israel for its invasion of Lebanon, but not condemning the Soviet down in the airline or the Libyan invasion of Chad. Do you feel after being here that there's a double standard? Well, no, I've noticed that many times on many votes they have been able to marshal a majority of votes their way and not on ours. What I was trying to point out was again, something happens to the whole concept of the UN. If we find the UN like the world beginning to divide up into blocks, the ideal was supposed to be that every nation would be there as an individual and seeking the same thing, the things that are called for in the charter of the UN. And there has been evidence of the other, of kind of taking sides or block loading, and I was just trying to call their attention back to the original purpose. I'll tell you, may I say something else about that too? It's time that all of us recognize that maybe we're not as civilized as we were when I was a young man growing up. By that I mean that it was taken for granted for years and years, the days prior to World War II, that all the rules of warfare were aimed at limiting warfare to warriors and providing protection and neutrality for civilians. And without quite realizing it's happened, we're in a world today where not only are the civilians fair game, but the most potent war systems, weapon systems, the nuclear weapons are definitely aimed at the destruction of civilians. And wouldn't it be nice if in a forum of this kind we could get back to being as civilized as we once were? Since very New York, could we ask you a question about the Jewish vote? In 1980 you scored a very high proportion of the Jewish vote for a Republican, but since then we've all suggested that support was dwindled. Do you think it would be possible to recapture that element in your 1984 strategy? Well I never conceded that we lost them. I think we have more to offer them than the other side does. And no, I haven't felt that at all. I know that sometimes in all of this debate with regard to the peace plan and all, there were times when the Israelis and ourselves found ourselves differing on various points, but that never in any way, and they knew this as well, the Israelis knew this, that never slackened in any way or weakened to resolve this country which has existed since 1948 of a moral obligation to see that the state of Israel continues to exist as a nation. Can I just ask one last question? Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask you as a astute political observer, not as a president, who do you think amongst the Democratic candidates a president might be the toughest candidate? If I knew the answer to that one, I would give it to you. Why should I help them make their decision? As long as I say it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mr. President, thank you very much. Now that we're informed that I have a Teddy with you, I'm going to put in my little experiences and read them for the summit that I just welcomed. I had it all set. I had an opening line for the first meeting. And that line was going to be the effect that Margaret's nature, that if her predecessor had been a little more clever, it would be hosting the gathering. It was all set. If I may be all set down that first night at dinner on the table, and I opened my mouth, and I said, Margaret, if your predecessor had been a little more clever, she says, I know, I would have been hosting. I never underestimate her. Thank you again. How are all your meetings with the... Oh, these are all ours. We don't trust any of the equipment. I never show which one works. That's because they're all Japanese men. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it. Now, there used to be an old-fashioned story about that. So un-optimistic. There were suspenders in the belt. Who's going to win the America's Cup this morning? No, it's not going to. Oh, it's not. I appreciate it. I kind of regret it. The appeal is... I don't think you're supposed to be a gentleman. You have friends who compete. That's all. Thank you very much. Thank you.