Recall your feelings when you took office for the first time . Pres. Reagan i recall that day with great clarity. All of it, the coming to the white house, the being taken thoseappearing before thousands of people stretched wason the mall, there unreality to all of it. Awareness of what it meant in my life, and i mean an awareness of the importance of the occasion, and at the same prayer in my mind that i could meet the responsibilities. Godfrey people have told us one of your great strengths is that you had an agenda with just a few big things that you wants to change you wanted to change. Pres. Reagan the country was in the economic doldrums. Doubledigit inflation, great unemployment. The economy stagnating. People in the country seemed to have lost belief in themselves and in the country. There was the matter of National Security, of on any given day, half of our military planes could not take off for lack of spare parts. Half of our naval vessels cannot leave port for that were lack of crew. I determined we had to restore the economy and i had been asked many times campaigning if i went into the deficit problem, because we had been running we had been deficit spending for almost half a century with only a few years scattered here and there where there was not an annual deficit. I would be asked questions about, what what would i do about National Security and spending for that in the face of a deficit . I said, i would have to choose National Security. Out to restore the economy. I had definite ideas on that. One of them was a very controversial one. That is that having a degree in economics, i believed, and from experience in our own history, that the best way to increase government revenues was to cut the taxes, not spend them, to restore incentive. We had a wide range of tax rate cuts, and it worked. There was a sizable increase in our revenues as those tax cuts took effect. There still is today. It was to get that done and then, the other, i always foreved there was a hunger a spiritual revival in our country. Not only in those things of morality and family and so forth, but our nation as a whole. We set out to do that. I hear from a great many people who say they have now a restored belief in our country. When you speak about the United States moving forward as number one, as american pride, do you worry about that . Pres. Reagan there is something you have to member about america. This is the melting pot. All of us by way of ourselves or our ancestors and our immediate parents came to this country from someplace else. You do not quit loving your mother because you took in a wife. All of us have a feeling of attachment to our original sources. I think that still as part of our makeup. It does not mean we are denigrating what is happening any place else. That we want to live up to the heritage that has been given us. You declared a new climate for business in the early years of the administration. The stock market is down. Some indicators are not good. How confident are you the country is competitive . Well, all of those things we had to deal with, and i know i have not explained them very well come all the facets of in the 65th month of a sustained economic spansion. Expansion. That is the longest period of expansion in our nations history. There is a potential employment pool. All of those people that either wanted a job, the highest percentage of that pool is employed today than has ever been true in our nations history. I learned in economics there is nothing so timid as 1 million. That is not a valuable or a valid sign. I think all the signs are there from employment and the fact that we have gotten inflation under control, down from the doubledigit figure that it was, and so i believe our economy is on a sound basis. We met with you when you made your speech in notre dame. You said that, the manufacturing industry. At the same time it is , thesible not to notice problems. A lot of planes have moved to mexico. Do you think the government should be doing something about restoring the competitive nature of american industry . Pres. Reagan we have a program of trying to restore competitiveness. Our standard of living is so high that rates for production here, cost of production is higher than a great many countries. That is something we are not going to do with our standard of living, to be more competitive. All we ask is a fair Playing Field with other nations. I would look to point out that in this nation of ours, average figures for the nation, of course, do not apply to every sector. There are pockets of unemployment. Let us say a plant, a manufacturing plant close because there is no longer a market for its product. I think back to earlier days of what happened when the automobile came along. They had to find new jobs someplace. This is true. There are not signs of actual economic decline nationwide. ,here are areas where concentrated around a particular industry, the industry has changed. In some instances it has changed because of technology. They find they can produce what machinesnment of and so forth, they can develop where they do not require as many employees. We have as a result of that a mobile society. People are accustomed to going to other areas. You will find areas in this country where they are begging for employees. Right now in the Nations Capital here, last sunday, the adsl papers help ads, those , hundreds of advertisements on one page. 74 full pages. Employers looking for employees. Godfrey over the past eight years in the United States, there have been winners and losers. How do you feel about that . Pres. Reagan i think anyone who , through no fault of his own or her own, yes, the government can play a part helping. My criticism and one of the things we sought to change and are still seeking to get changed in the nature of welfare reform, is that it is one thing to help someone, to once again become selfsustaining. It is another thing one government introduces a welfare actually preserves andjobs for the bureaucrats makes the dependence of that individual permanent rather than seeking to bring him out of that to where they can earn their own. Godfrey you mentioned the budget and the budget deficit. One of your mandates when you were elected is to balance the budget. I am just as critical of it as i was before i got here. I knew of course, the budget by that time was 1 trillion. I knew there was no way you could balance the budget in one year without pulling the rug out from under any number of institutions. But i said that we must set out to get it on a downward path to where we can see a date certain we would be balanced. I advocated an amendment to our constitution that would make permanent the necessity of a balanced budget. But the budget had been getting out of control for a number of years. As i said earlier. Now, what happened back about 15 president re 1980, johnsons administration adopted a program called a war on poverty, and it was a Great Program of government programs, health and so forth, one kind or another. Poverty won because beginning in 1965 to 1980 in those 15 years, the budget of the United States government multiplied to almost five times what it had been. Multiplied toicit 52 times what had been. Builte came here, it was in to the structure and it has just kept on doing this. Our fight with the legislature all these years has been to continue working at the cuts that would bring this down to the day in which we could balance it. Are you frustrated by the difficulties any president has whenworking with congress controlled by the other party . Pres. Reagan there are frustrations. I dont know whether it is one party alone. There has always been a kind of contest there. You can go back over the years and see where congress has sought to restrain constitutional powers of the president. That has continued. There are areas in which they have restricted the president , think such a way that i it acts against the best interests of the country. Do you feel you are losing that battle with the congress . Well, there may be some where they or there have increased their attempt to control but the fight goes on. A lot of people would never have believed back in 1981 that you would be flying to moscow, that you would be negotiating with the soviet leadership and can be getting on quite well with the soviet leadership. When did you decide, when did you change your mind about negotiating . I have always felt there should be negotiations. I have always felt that that was the answer, not an eventual war, as so many think built into their thinking that it is inevitable someday. You must remember, when i first came here in the first two years i was here, soviet leaders kept dying on me. I met with some. If we will be having a fourth summit when i go to moscow. I came here with a belief that what was needed was realism and strength. Detentee lured into a because it sounds good or to make a treaty in which you shake hands and yet you know that the evils are still going on. Realism was to make evidence that i had a career view of what the differences were. Strength was in the building up of our defense structure and some things such as when i came here, they had leveled were greatat europe and the targets of europe, nuclear missiles. There was no counter weapon in europe against that. The nato nations had asked this country prior to my arrival for us to provide a counter weapon. So it felt to me to begin the installation of this. Protested about our installing these weapons. I offered an alternative. I said, look, we are willing to not put those weapons in there if you would eliminate yours. Lets have a 00 agreement between us and those weapons. Well, they walked away from the table. They would not even discuss it. We went ahead and installed the weapons, and one day, they came back and said they would like to talk 00 with us and i think this is another evidence that strength, you have to deal from strength. Do you still think of the soviet union as an evil empire . Fmr. Pred. Reagan i have to because of the many things that are being done there to their own people, not just to other countries where they sought to influence them and make them communist allies, but in looking at their own people and denying people the right to practice religion. Virtually the taking way of the children from the family with regard to its raising of education. Kind, the things of that the person whose career can be destroyed in the soviet union simply if they express a desire to emigrate. Among the downtrodden and unemployed, the labor camps for Political Prisoners that are there just simply because they do not agree with some of the governments policies. Evil. Find that i think they are violating some of the principles in the helsinki pact with regards to human rights. Reporter many of your closest conservative supporters are troubled by your policy. Seriouslyt it could put the security of the United States and the west at risk. What do you say to them . Fmr. Pres. Reagan they dont know what they are talking about. Times a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. To hear a interested foreign minister of the soviet union repeat those words himself not too long ago. The policy that existed when i came in called the mutual assured instruction, was a policy based on both of us having enough Nuclear Weapons. When the other one started a war with Nuclear Weapons, you could retaliate. Well, what kind of a defense is that. In a nuclear war, how could there be a victor after those Nuclear Weapons exploded all over the country and made it radioactive . The people who once lived in chernobyl still cannot go back there to live because of the poison. My feeling is we start eliminating these Nuclear Weapons and getting rid of them. Thatalso very determined after the present treaty before we proceed any further, such as the tactical battlefield weapons, then we must negotiate. Before we do that, we must negotiate a reduction of the conventional weapons down to parity to make sure that one country will not have an advantage over the other. Reporter why have you insisted on keeping the capability to build a Strategic Defense Initiative as opposed to detente . Fmr. Pres. Reagan because that is the ultimate way to get rid of Nuclear Weapons. Obsolete. Em if you have to face shooting them with no knowledge as to whether you can get one through to its target, then why go on with those costly weapons . I asked in the very beginning i am not a scientist. I brought in our people and our military leaders, and i said is it worthwhile . Is it possible to look and see if there cannot be developed a defensive weapon, there has been one for every other offensive weapon since history began. A defensive weapon that could actually intercept those missiles as they came out of their silos on the way . They came back to me after talking it all over and said, yes, they think this is worth investigating. We have made great progress now. We know we are on the way to such a defensive program. I have never considered a bargaining chip to giveaway and return for eliminating a certain number of missiles my thought is that once such a thing is proven and practical, then we can all take a look at our Nuclear Weapons and say we do not need these anymore. In fact, i told general secretary gorbachev that if and when we were able to establish there is such a weapon, they have been working on such a thing for 15 years longer than us. If we should get it first, i would be willing to share the information with them. Get ridasis that we all of our Nuclear Weapons. Reporter are you afraid that im sorry. Thats wonderful, mr. President. I can understand the argument for this strategic defense. Is there a danger that insisting on this would miss a historic opportunity of doing a deal with the soviets on this missile . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no, it seemed perhaps that way at reykjavik when we finally found ourselves agreeing completely on the eventual elimination of all the weapons. And then, the general secretary put the price on that as our stopping the development of sdi, so i came home. We are now back negotiating on a treaty to cut in half the strategic ballistic missiles. Many people in europe are logically afraid that sti might be a sign sdi might be a sign of a weakening american commitment because the United States could defend itself but also others could be a sign of a weakening commitment. What do you say to those people . Fmr. Pres. Reagan i have said it to them. I met with our nato allies and made it plain exactly what i see as the goal is not just for us but for all of us. All of them, too. I canhey see now understand it. They have been led to believe that maybe this Nuclear Umbrella which was part of the basis for eliminateding to be and leave them facing that gigantic conventional force there. Them that weed have nothing of that kind in would haveat there to be the inclusion of conventional weapons as we went further in any agreements. I think they are all very satisfied now because that is our first line of defense. Reporter before we leave this subject to Nuclear Weapons, can you Say Something about the personal burden of being president in the nuclear age . How conscious are you of the fact that that decision is ultimately yours . Fmr. Pres. Reagan i dont think you are conscious of what can happen. You certainly would not want to be presiding when such a thing takes place. I have always felt that it is you do not become president. Custodygiven temporary over an institution called the presidency, and with that goes some responsibilities. And if you are willing to raise your hand and say i do, so help you have to accept that these are now your responsibilities. Reporter do you literally lose sleep over it . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no, i sleep pretty well. After i have said my prayers. Reporter what do you understand by what is called the reagan doctrine . Fmr. Pres. Reagan well, the reagan doctrine was based on the of that economic slump we were in and putting it on a firm basis such as reductions in tax and so forth. It was also based on my belief that one of the great strengths of america is that it is a federation of sovereign state, and our constitution from the beginning provided certain rights and laws that belong at the state level, where they were in charge. And over the years, again, the Congress Passed bills that invaded that right and was taking more and more federal power to wear it almost looked as if the federal government was trying to make the states just administrative districts of the federal government, so i pledged also a return to this federal system, and we have been working at that. ,here is also a part of that this need for the people. Again recognize their responsibility as citizens because our constitution is different from most all of those in the rest of the world. It is not a document in which the government says with the people can do. We the people tell you the government what you can do. I wanted to restore all of that, so that was part of it, including dealing with the nations abroad and seeking to ,elp wherever we could developing nations throughout the world to understand democracy and to choose democracy and Free Enterprise as their path. Reporter mr. President , perhaps of yourhe worst crises presidency rose over what is called the iran contra affair. What was the driving force behind that . Fmr. Pres. Reagan it is something that with all of the investigations by the committees and the special investigators and so forth, has been completely missed, overlooked, and distorted. We have been trying for a long time behind the scenes to bring about peace between iran and iraq. We knew we were not the favorite houmanif how many because of our relationships with the shah. Let me put it this way. It started with this. By way of a third country in the middle east, we were informed there were some representatives of iran, not the government. He wanted to make contact with the United States to see if they could not establish a better relationship and they put it on the basis you will remember at that time, not too long ago, we were hearing every day that their days were numbered and he might not live out the week. These people are representative of one of the factions that are still there within that country as to who is going to be in charge when he i