Meant in my life, and i mean an awareness of the importance of the occasion, and at the same time, a great prayer in my mind that i could meet the responsibilities. They said that your great strength was you had an agenda of the things you wanted to change. What were your goals . 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 could not leave port for that or 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. And so we set 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. And 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. And there still is today. It was to get that done and then, the other, i always believed there was a hunger for a spiritual revival in our country. Not only revival in those things of morality and family and so forth, but in 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. Sometimes when you speak about the United States as moving forward and being no. 1, and you speak about american pride, that is not quite so easy for people who are not americans to relate to. Do you ever worry about that . 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. It just means 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 it, we are in the 65th month of a sustained economic 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 think 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 was not in difficulty. At the same time it is impossible not to notice, the 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 . 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 closed 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 for buggy whips. This is true. There are not signs of actual economic decline nationwide. There 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 the government of machines 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 local papers help ads, those ads, hundreds of advertisements on one page. 74 full pages. Employers looking for employees. There have been winners and losers. How do you feel about the losers . 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 when government introduces a Welfare Program that actually preserves the jobs for the bureaucrats and makes the dependence of that individual permanent rather than seeking to bring him out of that to where they can earn their own. You mentioned the budget and the budget deficit. 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 years before 1980, the middle 60s, president 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. The budget deficit multiplied to 52 times what had been. When we came here, it was built 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 with working with congress when its controlled by the other party . Yes there are some frustrations, i dont know whether its one party or alone, but there has always been a kind of a, contests there. You can go back over the years and see what congress has sought to restrain some of the constitutional powers of the president and that has continued. There are some areas in which they have restricted the president , and restricted him and such a way that i think it acts against the best interests of the country. Do you feel the president is losing that battle in congress . Well, more or less held our own. Maybe something zero there were anne they have increased their attempt to control, but the fight goes on. Many people would never believe back in 1981, that you would be flying to moscow, that you would be negotiating with the soviet and getting on quite well with the soviet leadership. When did you decide or change your mind about negotiating . I have always felt that there should be negotiations. I have always felt that that was the answer, not an eventual war, as so many people think i 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, the soviet leaders kept dying on me. I met with some, but not in the sense that we met now. But with this present leader, yes, we will be having a fourth summit when i go to moscow. But i came here with a belief that what was needed was realism and strength. The realism meaning, do not be lowered into a detente 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. Well listen was to make evidence that i had a clear 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, that they had leveled or aimed at europe and the great targets of your, the 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 that. The soviet union 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 years. Let us have a zero zero agreement between us and those weapons. 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 zero zero with us, and i think this was another evidence that strength you have to deal from strength. Do you still think of the soviet union as an evil empire . I have to, because of the many things that are being done there to their own people, not just to other countries where they have sought to influence them and make them communist allies, but in looking at their own people, and the nine people the right to practice religion. Virtually, the taking away of the children from the family with regard to its raising and education. One of the things of that kind, the person whose career can be destroyed in the soviet union simply because they express a desire to emigrate. That certainly is among the dawn trodden in the unemployed, labor camps, the political prisoners. They are there just simply because they dont agree with some of the governments policies. Yes, i find that evil. I think that they are still violating many of the principles that they agreed to in the helsinki pact regarding human rights. Many of your closest conservative supporters troubled by your arms control policy. They are afraid that it could seriously put the security of the United States and the west at risk. What do you say to them . I say to them, they do not know what they are talking about. I have said many times, a nuclear war cannot be one, and should never be fought. I was very interested to hear a foreign minister of the soviet union repeat those words himself not too long ago. Now, the present the policy that existed when i came in called a mutual assured instruction it was a policy based on both of us having enough Nuclear Weapons that of the other one started a war with Nuclear Weapons, you could retaliate. Well, what kind of the defenses that . In a nuclear war, how could there be a victor . Where do they live after those Nuclear Weapons have exploded all of their 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. But i am also very determined that after the present treaty, before we proceed any further with 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 when country will not have an advantage over the other. Why have you insisted on keeping the capability to build a Strategic Defense Initiative as opposed to did not . Because that is the ultimate way to get rid of Nuclear Weapons to make them obsolete. If you have to face shooting them with no knowledge as to whether you can get went through to its target, then why go on with those costly weapons . I asked in the very beginning im not a scientist. I have 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 at all over and said yes, they think this is worth investigating. We have made great progress now. We know that we are on the way to such a defensive program. I have never considered a bargaining chip to give away in return for eliminating a certain number of missiles. My thought is that when such a thing is proven practical, then we can all take a look at our Nuclear Weapons and say, we do not need these anymore. In fact, ive told general secretary gorbachev that if and when we were able to establish there is such a weapon, we know theyve 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 on the basis that we all get rid of our Nuclear Weapons. Are you afraid im sorry. Thats wonderful, mister president. I can understand the argument for the strategic defense. Is there a danger that insisting on this witness a historic opportunity of doing a deal with the soviets on this missile . No. It seemed perhaps that way when at reconvict, when we finally found ourselves a green completely on eventual elimination of all the red weapons and then the general secretary put the price on that as our stopping the development of sti, so i came home. Well we are now back negotiating on a treaty to cut and have the strategic ballistic missiles. Many people in europe anne logically are afraid that both the sdi might be a sign of the weakening american commitments, because the United States could defend itself, but also others could be a sign of a weakening commitment. Would you say to those people . I have said it to them. I have met with our nato allies and made it plain. Exactly what i see is the goal is not just for us, but for all of us. All of them as well. I think they see now i can understand it. They have been led to believe that maybe this nuclear umbrella, which was part of the basis for nato that was going to be eliminated and leave them facing that giant a convention force there. And i convinced them that no, we have nothing of that kind in mind, and that there would have 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. Before we leave the 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 . I think you are sdi conscious of what could happen, and i certainly would not want to be presiding when such a thing takes place. But i have always felt that it is you do not become president. You are given temporarys custody 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 me god, the time inauguration, you have to accept that these are now you responsibilities. Do you literally sloughs sleep over you responsibilities . No. I sleep pretty well. After i have said my prayers. What do you understand by what is called the reagan doctrine . Anne will, the reagan doctrine was based on the recovery of that economic slump that we were in, and putting it on a firm basis such as reductions in tax and so forth. To put doing that, it was also based on my belief that one of the great strengths of america is that it is a federation of sovereign states, and our constitution from the beginning provided certain rights and laws that belonged at the state level, where they were in charge. And over the years, again, the congress had passed bills that invaded that right, and was taking more and more federal power to wear it almost looked as if the federal governments was trying to make it look like the states just administrative districts of the federal government, so i pledged also return to this federal system, and we have been working at that. There was also a part of that as i have said earlier, this need for the people. To once again recognize their responsibility as citizens, because our constitution is different from most of all of those in the rest of the world. In that it is not a document in which the government says with the people can do. Hours say we, the people tell you, the government, what you can do. I want to restore all of that, so that was part of it, including dealing with the nations abroad, and seeking to help wherever we could. Developing nations throughout the world to understand democracy and to choose democracy, and Free Enterprise as their path. Mister president , perhaps one of the worst crisis of your presidency rose over what is called the iran contra affair. What was the driving force behind that . It is something that with all of the investigations by the committees and the special investigators and so forth, has been completely missed and completely distorted. We have been trying, for a long time behind the scenes, to bring about peace between iran and iraq. We knew that we were not the favorite people of the homey, because of our relationship previous with that of the shaw. We knew also that, well, let me put it this way. It started with this, by way of the third country in the middle east, we were informed there were some representatives of iran, not the government, who want 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 e