INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY THE WASHINGTON TIMES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505390004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 27, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Sec
For Immediate Release
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
BY THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 1984
The Oval Office
November 28, 1984
4:33 P.M. EST
Q Well, Mr. President, we know you're busy so perhaps
if we could just go ahead with a few questions.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q It's been suggested you have only six to eighteen
months to accomplish your agenda before your post-election honeymoon
with the Congress ends. What is your strategy to capitalize on your
victory with an even more recalcitrant Congress, particularly after
the 1986 Congressional elections? Doesn't this threaten the
completion of the Reagan revolution?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I've never thought that the
completion of what we've been trying to accomplish is going to be
easy, particularly as long as there is in the House a definite
majority of the other side. On the other hand, we have accomplished,
I think, a great deal. We'd be much further ahead if we'd gotten all
that we'd ask for from the very beginning. But we're going to keep
right on with those things and see what we can do.
First of all, I think we have to -- we have to go after
some budget reforms. You realize there hasn't been a budget since
I've been here, and I guess even before I got here. The budgeting
process is just a kind of a chaotic thing, and finally you get a
package of appropriation bills. Until we can have a budgeting
process where you start and set a figure as to what overall can be
spent, and then within that, negotiate out as to which program gets
how much and arrive at a consensus on that, we're going to be in
trouble.
We need to do that. We need the balanced budget
amendment. We need the line-item veto. If we're to do those things,
we need economic growth, and for that, we've got to have the tax
simplification program that we've been studying and working on.
We've got to have such things as enterprise zones. Everything that
will help stimulate the growth of the economy, because that is the
sure way back to sensible running of the government.
And we've got the -- it goes without saying -- the
defense and the security assistance measures, and so forth. That we
have to have. That's the top priority of government in the sense
that that's the main constitutional requirement, is the security of
the people.
And then there are social things that I think we want,
having to do with abortion, school prayer, tuition tax credits.
Things of that kind. And what we're going to do is try to work with
the.leadership of the Congress. And I'm not sure that it is even
more hostile or inimical.
If it is, and if it simply
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tries to throw roadblocks, then, yes, we take our case to the people.
Q Mr. President, the deficit has been described as a
debt that the people, the American people, owe themselves. As such,
does the deficit really matter, or has the slowdown in the economy
forced you to reconsider whether growth can substantially reduce the
deficit?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, of course, we had this example this
year in which some $20 billion came out of the deficit as it had been
projected by ourselves for this present year, and that was almost
entirely due to the economic growth. But when you say the deficit,
and does it really matter, well, for 50 years that's what the
Democrats have been telling us, that it didn't, that we owed it to
ourselves.
I think to look at just the deficit ignores the real
problem. The deficit is a result. What you have to get at is the
problem, and that is government is spending too much and it's
spending too big a share of the private sector. The -- that's why my
opposition to those who think that the only answer to deficit
spending is higher taxes. Well, we've done that in the past and all
it did was take the burden off the backs of those who wanted to spend
more, so they could just go ahead and spend more.
If you look at about the five years before we came here,
taxes just about doubled. And the deficit came to over something
like $318 billion. I've -- in fact, just a little while ago I was
citing some figures. If you go back to '65, and in the years
following '65 was when the Great Society got underway, '65 to '80, in
those 15 years, the budget, the overall spending, increased about
four-and-a-half times. The deficit increased 38 times.
So I think the -- we go back to what the classical
economists used to say at the turn of the century when we had, as
they put it, business cycles and hard times. It was usually when
government spending crept up to above -- they never told you what the
percentage was, but above a certain percentage of the gross national
product, took that much more money out of the private sector. That's
when you had hard times.
Well, I think that's what we've been seeing.
Q Mr. President, how far are you prepared to go to
support the Treasury's modified flat-tax plan and are you fully
committed to pushing a comprehensive tax reform through Congress in
this year, and if you want a balanced budget, why don't you submit
one? (Laughter.)
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THE PRESIDENT: I haven't been able to get the budget I
wanted -- (laughter) -- as low as I wanted it without going that far.
I don't think there's anyone that would suggest that at
this point you could suddenly come back and say, "Here, we're -- "
not without hurting an awful lot of people. What I think you have to
do is look down the road and say, "Let's aim at a target here that
we're going to get this budget on a declining pattern." And then
maybe you can't exactly foretell the day -- which it would happen,
but if you can get the spending level, the share of private level
coming -- or even if it isn't coming down, if your budget continues
to increase to meet needs and whatever inflation there is, but if it
increases at a lower rate than it has been and if the growth of the
economy you can bring up, those two lines are going to meet some day
and when they meet, you've balanced the budget. And as this one goes
on past, you begin to get the surplus that you should use to reduce
the national debt. And this is what we're trying to do.
Q Excuse me, but the earlier part was how far are you
prepared to go to support --
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, that one, yes. Well, you've kind of
got me. There on my desk is the printed version of the whole study
of the Treasury Department. And I -- no decisions have been made.
We've just had a briefing of the Cabinet on it. Everyone is now
studying it. I think it has come with the recognition that there are
some options in there, that it is not a hard and fast plan. And so I
want to study this. And then, when you say about Congress, we've got
two tax proposals in Congress, and one from the Democratic side, one
from the Republican side, not too far apart, as I don't think this
one is too far apart.
Well, I think that it shows that the climate is there
that if we get going and we want to take this up with the Democratic
leadership -- we also want to make it available to the public, to all
the various groups out there, so that they understand what it is
we're trying to do. And I think that with all of that pot there of
three, you might say, proposals, I think we can come up with a plan
that calls for simplification and lower tax rates in the areas that
will make it more fair than the tax system is, certainly simplified.
And I know that there are some very interesting proposals
the Treasury Department has come up with to do that with regard to
easing the burden at the bottom, lowering the rates for everybody and
simplification, making it far more simple. One thing, the -- going
down to three tax brackets instead of 14 is a pretty good step.
Q Mr. President, even after the election there's still
some muttering about the GOP gender gap. Now looks like there isn't
a senior foreign policy post in the White House for a woman who
dazzled them in Dallas, Jeane Kirkpatrick. How can you let her leave
the Cabinet and what will you offer her to induce her to stick
around?
THE PRESIDENT: (Laughter.) She and I are scheduled for
a talk this week. We've talked off and on, and I've known about her
feelings now about the UN job. But I don't know when she talks
whether she is determined that she wants to return to her previous
profession in the academic world or
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whether she is still interested in government. And, believe me, I
want to find something for her in government if I can because I count
on her a great deal and I value her abilities and her great
intelligence too much to just sit there and let her go if there's a
way to keep her. So I'm going to try to keep her. She's turned us
around at the UN, our position in the United Nations, and she did it.
Q But there isn't any way that she can stay --
function in the White House, is there?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't see anything there that would be
worthy of her. But I -- so I'm going to -- but it depends, first of
all, on what are her desires. What is it -- how strongly does she
feel about whether she wants to leave entirely.
Q But you would like her to stay on up at the UN?
THE PRESIDENT: What's that?
Q You would like her to stay on up at the UN?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, except that I can't ask her to do
that. That assignment has a way of kind of burning people out and I
think she's --
Q So does yours. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: I think she's had about all of that that
-- (laughter) -- that she wants.
Q Are you above a little arm-twisting to keep her?
THE PRESIDENT: I did that to keep her there as long as
she has. (Laughter.) But I have to -- no, I -- it's difficult for
me, when someone really has served and done the job and you know that
they've kind of had it, it's very difficult for me to try to persuade
them to do it.
Q Mr. President, why, after an overwhelming electoral
victory, has arms control become such a high priority for you, and
that there's now a rush to the negotiating table? Isn't the "evil
empire" evil any longer, or aren't you still concerned about the
Soviet distain for treaty obligations?
THE PRESIDENT: I have been as critical as anyone of
previous agreements in many instances where I thought somebody just
made an agreement to have an agreement. I have all the quotes of
Brezhnev and others with regard to detente and what they thought of
it. I don't know whether you're aware that Mr. Brezhnev said that
detente was serving their purpose and that by 1985, they would be
able to get whatever they wanted by other means.
So I have no illusions about them. But I do believe that
the Soviets can be dealt with if you deal with them on the basis of
what is practically -- practical for them and that you can point out
is to their advantage as well as ours to do certain things.
Now, I think it's -- I think they have seen that if
it's to be an arms race, if we are determined that we're not going to
let them maintain or enlarge their superiority in weapons -- and they
know our industrial power and might -- and they see that we're
determined to not let them maintain or continue that lead,
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then, rather than an arms race, I think there's an advantage to them
in saying, well, maybe we'd better find a different way. And,
believe me, I would not hold still for a deal that simply makes a
deal. Evil empire, the things of that kind, I thought -- I wasn't
just sounding off. I figured it was time to get their attention, to
let them know that I was viewing them realistically.
And I think it's worked. They -- you know, everyone says
about the horrible relations between the two of us, but they haven't
gained an inch of territory in these four years and in the four years
before there was Afghanistan and there was Ethiopia and South Yemen,
and there they were, advancing down through Africa. So I don't think
the relations have been all that bad.
Q Why do you think they've dropped the preconditions
to the arms talks at this time?
THE PRESIDENT: Dropped the -- ?
Q Dropped the preconditions to the arms talks.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I just -- I think that -- I think
they were kind of stalling until the election, also, and then
decided, well, now, they know who's going to be around for a while
longer. They've made a proposal and we've said fine.
Q Mr. President, Congress has prohibited support for -1
the Contra forces fighting against the government of Nicaragua. How
can you live with this restriction and doesn't it send a_message to
the world that it might be risky to be a friend of the United States,
as it was when President Carter was here?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this is -- this is one of the
things where I think the Congress, up until now, has been
shortsighted and, in fact, irresponsible with regard to that
situation down there. And we are hopeful that -- we know that there
was a kind of a consensus of feeling just recently among them, when
they believed, as we all did, that possibly that ship was bearing
high-performance planes, MiGs, to Nicaragua. We don't know for sure
that it wasn't. We can't prove that it was, we can't prove that it
wasn't, because-of some maneuverings that went on.
But there are six more Russian ships, as nearly as we can
count, that are on their way to Nicaragua now with more arms. I
think that maybe, if they remember that feeling that they had with
regard to the possibility of high-performance planes, that they will
see that there is value in our carrying on.
What we have are revolutionaries that only a short time
ago they and the Sandinistas were all on the same side, fighting the
same revolution. And fighting it ostensibly, and by their own claim,
for democratic processes. Now they got in and, a la Cuba under
Castro, the one faction took over, has created a totalitarian Marxist
state, and the others are still in the revolution, still trying for
,the democratic principles that they'd fought for in the beginning.
And I think that the -- and the very fact that the
Sandinista element is continuing to support revolutionaries who are
trying to overthrow a duly elected government, this is of itself of
great interest to us.
Q Sir, have you drawn a line that says if there are
high-performance aircraft introduced into this theater, that there
will be a reaction from us that --
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have let them and we have let
the Soviet Union know that this is something we cannot sit back and
just take, if they do that, because that is so obviously, then, a
threat to the area. That's not -- well, their whole military today
isn't defensive. Their whole military is greater than all the
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combined countries of Central America put together, and it's so
obviously offensive in nature that we can't ignore that.
And that would be just the crowning thing to have those
high-performance planes representing a threat to the area and to the
hemisphere. We've made it plain that we're not going to sit by
quietly and accept that.
Q Do you think, sir, that the MiG crate episode and
the six ships that are believed on their way now is any way an
attempt by the Soviet Union to test your resolve on this issue?
know they --
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know whether it is or not. I
Q Sort of like the missile -- Kennedy's Cuban crisis?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Yes, I know they do things like
that and -- so we're keeping watch on what's there. We're not going
to raise Cain over a purely domestic type cargo, or anything of that
kind, but we are in contact with the Soviet Union.
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Q Do you know if weapons, or MiGs specifically, are on
any of those six ships you mentioned?
THE PRESIDENT: No. We do know that in several of the
ports where those ships have touched down there have been evidence of
those aircraft and crates that could contain them. And we want to
know that after the ships leave those aircraft are still there.
Q Was one of those places Libya, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: I would be guessing now because my memory
doesn't tell me. Of all the reports we've had, I don't know whether
-- I couldn't tell you specifically.
Q -- that Black Sea port, though --
probability.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I would think Libya would be a
Q Speaking of Libya, Mr. President, your
administration has taken a strong rhetorical line agaisnt state
terrorism. What are you going to do about Colonel Mu'ammar Qaddafi
of Libya, the world's most prominent practitioner of terrorism?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, again, it's one of those things
that you can know and he can talk, but you can't really -- you
couldn't go into court and prove that actually they were the -- they
were responsible for it, any more than you could have a couple of
other governments that we feel are apparently supporting terroist
movements.
So what we do is try -- intelligence is the most
important thing with regard to terrorism. Can you, in some way, find
or get access to information that would let you know where and when
operations are planned? Can you get information that really ties a
terrorist group to a certain force or a certain government? Among
these -- the things that we're trying to do is if -- and we're having
some reasonable success with getting together with the other nations
to do what we did some years ago with regard to hijackings, so that
we all pool our-information, we all inform each other of everything
that we know. And we take action to-so that there are no safe
harbors for terrorists, that they can't cross a border and find that
they won't be troubled --
Q Excuse me, sir. I would have thought there was
overwhelming evidence that Qaddafi was involved in terrorism
everywhere from Northern Ireland to Mindanao.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, yes, except when the bomb goes off,
can you establish --
Q That particular bomb.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, sometimes you get those phone calls
of somebody claiming credit. But when you get two or three different
outfits claiming the credit -- (laughter) -- you say, "Well, which
ones are just bragging?"
THE PRESIDENT: The other thing is when it comes to if
you can't intercept -- punish to retaliate, there, again, you've got
to be able to get some evidence as to where are the bases from whence
come these terrorists that you could strike at. And, at the same
time, you have to recognize that you don't want to just carelessly go
out and maybe kill innocent people. Then you're as bad as the
terrorists.
Q Well, if the terrorists are in a village living
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amongst people who are innocent, are they then safe from retaliation?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it's -- you know, what -- that's a
decision that I think you have to make on each particular case. I do
know of one instance in which we thought we had pretty good evidence
of the locale. But, again, to attempt to pick out the guilty would
have been impossible. You would have wiped out a lot of innocent
people who had nothing to do with it.
Q Well, if you ever get a clear-cut case, where you
know exactly where the terrorists came from and that -- there is no
question of their responsibility, what then is the nature of the
retaliation?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there what George Shultz said in
his speech that caused a little hoopla for a time, what he was saying
to our people was that you must recognize that in this whole thing,
if you're going to try to defend against terrorism, there are going
to come some times when military action will be called for. And you
need the public understanding of that and their awareness so that
they will know it is necessary if you're to conquer this problem.
Q Mr. President, why is Assistant Secretary of State
Chester Crocker negotiating with all sides in the Angola crisis to
get the Cubans out and reach a settlement, except for Jonas Savimbi,
who's one of the strongest anti-communist leaders in the region
there?
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And will you recognize Marxist Angola if the Cuban troops leave?
THE PRESIDENT: What Secretary Crocker has been doing is
actually having to do with Namibia. Namibia and its independence.
And there is the 435 Resolution of the United Nations about Namibia's
right to become a country. Well, right now, it's South Africa
territory.
Now, South Africa is willing for Namibia to become
independent, but not while on the northern border of Namibia sits
Angola with the Cubans and the possibility remains of Namibia
becoming another satellite of the communist bloc. So what he's back
and forth negotiating is that -- for to create Namibia, for Angola to
agree to remove the Cuban troops, and South Africa has agreed that
they will move out and they will be helpful in making this a state --
and he's made quite a bit of progress.
For the first time, Angola has made a declaration that
they are prepared to bring about the withdrawal. It's a negotiating
matter. They want to phase it and they have some conditions on doing
this. And so he has come back just recently, but he'll be going back
again. But that's where it stands and at least that's the first time
in all the years that this has been going on that Angola has said,
yes, they will remove Cuban troops.
Q If the negotiations are successful, would you then
recognize Angola, the government of Angola, if the Cuban troops
leave?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that that would be a part of the
whole negotiated -- of the negotiations that are going on.
Q Doesn't that risk throwing someone like Jonas Savimbi
to the wolves, in effect, though?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this is another problem, and I
can't talk about that. No one wants to do that. But certainly that
has to figure in the whole negotiations. No, we're not going to --
we're not going to turn on him. But, somehow, there has to be a
negotiation that involves that situation domestically in Angola.
Q - Mr. President, the Syrians seem now to have become
the serious focus in the Middle East, and with your September 1982
peace plan at least grievously wounded, if not dying, do you think it
can be revived or, if not, do you have another initiative that you're
going to pursue there?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, no. I think that was the proper
course to take and I think that it is a little closer than it's been
for some time. The very fact now that King Hussein has recognized
Egypt, which kind of strengthens Egypt's position as being accepted
back in the Arab community even though it has the peace treaty with
Israel; the recognition the other day or the restoring of relations
with Iraq is a step forward.
I think that there has been some trust buildup by the
moderate Arab states in the United States as an intermediary and
trying to bring about -- see, we're not trying to negotiate the
peace. They have to negotiate the peace. Syria is -- and still is
the stumbling block. But even so, now there is the negotiation going
on with regard to the removal of Israel's troops from Lebanon.
So I think that some things are coming together now
which, if anything, including the fact that the PLO held its meeting
in Amman instead of Damascus -- I think these things are all leading
toward the possibility again of getting the Arab states to agree to
negotiate.
You see, they've been sitting there with the position
that they refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist as a nation.
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Well, you can't negotiate with someone until that's removed.
Well, Egypt did it. And now I think the attitude of
Hussein shows that -- Jordan can't be alone in doing that, but I
think that what they're saying is that if the others can come
together on this and enter into negotiations -- The PLO, we now see
them taking on the radical faction in their own midst that was
pro-Syrian.
And we're going to do everything we can to hopefully
encourage this.
Q A final question, Mr. President. As -- and I want
to thank you for being so generous with your time to us. As most
Presidents go into their second term, and not many of them do
nowadays, it seems
THE PRESIDENT: Somebody shat off there.
Q That's all right. That's for -- Many of them start
thinking about their place in history. What would you like to see be
your legacy to this country from eight years of Reagan Presidency?
THE PRESIDENT: Peace and freedom, and the government
back in the hands of the people.
Q What will you settle for? (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: What?
What will you settle for? (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: I'll only settle for that. I'm going to
keep on trying. That's -- why else would I be doing this? You know,
I figure my future is -- (laughter) --in these next four years.
That's one advantage of being my age.
Q Well, thank you very much, Mr. President, for your
kindness today. We're gratified that, apparently, The Washington
Times is amongst your morning reading. Is that true?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Oh, yes.
My ambition is to get to be your age. (Laughter.)
END 5:02 P.M. EST
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