I have a brief Opening Statement here before i take your questions. Yesterday, secretary of the treasury, donald reagan, sent to raisengress a request to the debt ceiling to 985 billion. This represents a dramatic jump of 50 billion over the previous debt ceiling. The administration took this action with great regret because it is clear the massive deficits our government runs is one of the root causes of our profound economic problems. And for too many years, this process has come too easily for us. We have lived beyond our means and then financed our extravagance on the backs of the American People. The clear message i received in the Election Campaign is that we must gain control of this inflationary monster. Let me briefly review for the American People what we have already done. Within moments of taking the oath of office, i placed a freeze on the hiring of civilian employees on the government. Two days later, i issued an order to cut down on government travel, reduce the number of consultants to the government, stop the procurement of certain items, and called on my appointees to exercise restraint in their own offices. Yesterday, i announced the elimination of remaining federal controls on the u. S. Oil, production, and marketing. Today i am announcing two more actions to reduce the size of the federal government. First, i am taking major steps towards the elimination of the council on wage and price stability. This council has been a failure. It has been totally ineffective in controlling inflation and it has imposed unnecessary burdens on labor and business. Therefore, i am now ending the wage and Price Program of the council. I am eliminating a staff that carries out its wage pricing activities, and im asking congress to rescind its budget, saving taxpayers money every year. My second decision is a directive ordering key federal agencies to freeze pending regulations for 60 days. This action gives my Administration Time to start a new Regulatory Oversight process and also prevent certain lastminute regulatory decisions of the previous administration, the socalled midnight regulations, from taking effect without proper review and approval. All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution composed of buildings, files and paper. The people are the government. What we create, we ought to be able to control. I do not intend to make wildly skyrocketing lovely deficits and binary governments as simple facts of life in this administration. As i said, our ills have come up on us over several decades, and they will not go away in days or weeks or months but i want the American People to know that we have begun. Now, i will be happy to take your questions. Helen . Reporter will your posture towards iran be one of revenge or reconciliation . And will the u. S. Honor the recent commitments to iran, especially since you approved of most of them during the campaign . Pres. Reagan i am certainly not thinking of revenge. And i dont know whether reconciliation will be possible with the presence of a government or absence of a government in iran. I think that the United States will honor the obligations. As a matter of fact, the most important of those were put into effect by the preceding administration in the negotiating the release. We are however studying. Because there were four major agreements and nine executive orders. We are studying thoroughly what is a pretty complex matter we discovered with regard to whether they are in keeping with international and their own national laws. So i will not be able to really answer your questions on specifics until we have completed that study. Reporter the treasury secretary said monday that budget cuts will be of a much higher magnitude than most people thought they would be. You said they would be across the board. Now that you have have some time to study the budget, can you say where these cards will be made, what program will fill the cuts will feel the cuts of the most . Pres. Reagan they will be made every place. What we meant by acrosstheboard, it describes what i meant was that no one is exempt from being looked at for areas in which we can make cuts in spending. And yes, they probably will be bigger than anybody has ever attempted, because this administration did not come here to be a caretaker government and just hope we can go along the same way and maybe do it a little better. We think the time has come where there has to be a change of direction of this country and it is going to begin with reducing Government Spending. Mr. President , in your welcoming address to the americans, you sounded a warning of swift and effective retribution against the future terrorist government. What kind of action are you prepared to take to back up this hard rhetoric . Pres. Reagan well, that is a question that i dont think you can or should answer as to specifics. This is a great and powerful nation. It has a lot of options open to it. To try and specify now particularly what you should do i think is one of the things thats been wrong. People have gone to bed in some of these countries have done these things to us in the past, confident that they can go to sleep, wake up in the morning, and the United States wouldnt have taken any action. What i meant by that phrase was that anyone who does these things, violates our rights in the future, is not going to be able to go to bed with that confidence. Walt . Reporter mr. President , you campaigned rather vociferously ii treaty,e star saying it was slanted toward the soviet union. I noticed your secretary of state seems to suggest that for the time being, the United States will abide by the limits of the treaty and he hopes the soviet union will, too. How long do you intend the United States should abide by the terms of the agreement, which you consider inequitable, and what do you consider it latest inequities to be . Treaty,agan well, the festival of all, i think permits a continued buildup on both sides of Strategic Nuclear weapons. In the main thing, it authorizes an immediate increase in large numbers of soviet warheads. There is no verification as to the number of warheads on the missile. No method for us to do this. That a treaty sault means strategic arms limitation that actually a permits a buildup on both sides of Strategic Nuclear weapons properly be called that. I said that when we can that i am living for our people to go orto negotiate, discussions leading to negotiations that we should start negotiating on the basis of trying to affect an actual reduction in the numbers of nuclear weapons. That would then be real strategic arms limitation. I happen to believe also that you can sit down on the table and just negotiate that unless you take into account the consideration at that table, all the other things going on. In other words, i believe in linkage. Reporter mr. President , what do you see as the longrange intentions of the soviet union . Do you think, for instance, that the kremlin is bent on World Domination that might lead to a continuation of the cold war or do you think that under other circumstances, detente is possible . Pres. Reagan so far, detente has been a oneway street. A street that this will be in has used to pursue its own aims. I do not have to think of an answer as to what i think their intentions are. They have repeated it. I know of th the leader of the soviet union since the revolution, including the present leadership, but has not more than once repeated in the various communist congresses they hold their determination that their goal must be the promotion of world revolution, and the oneworld socialist or communist state, whichever words you want to use. As long as they do that and as long as they have th, at the sae time have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning the reserve under themselves the right to commit any crime, july, to cheat in order to attain that , and that is model, not a moral. And we operate under a different standards, i think when you do business with them, even in a detente, you keep that in mind. Reporter mr. President , what is your opinion of American Companies that now want to resume business with iran . Pres. Reagan my opinion of American Companies that want to resume business with iran, i hope they are going to do it by long distance. [laughter] we would want to go back to having just a different cast of characters but the same show going on. I can understand that, particularly in the field of energy, them wanting to do that. But we are urging the people think long and hard before they travel to iran because we do not think their safety can be guaranteed there. Reporter mr. President americans are still incarcerated , three in vietnam. Can you tell us the status of their cases and whether the administration is doing anything to get them back . Pres. Reagan i have told our people about those three. They knew about them of course. But i have told them that yes, we continue. We want to get them back also. I know i have been saying down front here too much. I have to prove i can look at too. Ack roads there, reporter mr. President reporter mr. President , some administrative officials have promised adherence to the civil rights laws which are on the books, but there has been considerable discussion about dismantling the affirmative action aspect that gives those laws and some people greater meaning. I am wondering, mr. President , if there will be a retreat in the federal government on the government checking advocacy for affirmative action programs generally and in federal hiring of blacks and hispanics specifically. Pres. Reagan no. There will be no retreat. This administration is going to be dedicated to equality. I think we have made great progress in the civil rights field. I think there are some things, however, that may not be as useful as they once were or that may even be destroyed in the practice, such as some affirmative action programs becoming quota systems, and i am old enough to remember when quotas existed in the United States for the purpose of discrimination. I dont want to see that happen again. Reporter mr. President , when and how will you seek to take control of National Gas Prices . Pres. Reagan we have not dealt with that problem yet. We thought oil would do for a starter, but i cannot really answer your question. That will be a matter for discussion in future Cabinet Meetings. Lou . Reporter mr. President , during the campaign, you repeatedly talked about the unfairness of the grain embargo as you saw it. Do you have second thoughts now or will you lift the grain embargo . Pres. Reagan with the grain embargo, my quarrel was that i thought it was asking only one group of americans to participate, the farmers. It was not you only have two choices with an embargo, you either lift it, or you broaden it. We have not made a decision except that at the request of secretary of agriculture, john bloch, i have taken the matter of the embargo out of the discussions of the National Security council, and next week it is on the agenda for a full Cabinet Meeting as to what our course will be. So i cant answer what we do about it until next week. As i say, it was asking one group of americans to bear the burden, and i have always thought that was more of a kind of gesture than it was something real. Yes, maam. Reporter mr. President , what will you do to honor the request by federal officials, atlanta officials for you and the federal government to intervene in the atlanta case of 17 missing black children . Pres. Reagan just a few minutes before i came in here, that message was handed to me that , the Atlanta Mayor wanted to talk, and we are going to get someone in touch with him immediately. Now, you recognize, of course, that possibly civil rights , would be the only basis upon which we could have any jurisdiction down there. For fbi, for example, on any other thing, there has been no evidence of crossing state lines or anything. Yet we want to be helpful because that is a most tragic case, and so we will be meeting on that very shortly. Reporter mr. President , when the jamaican Prime Minister was here yesterday, he suggested publicly that now might be a good time for you, as the new president , to have a Foreign Policy initiative for latin america and for the caribbean. Do you intend to follow that suggestion, and if so, how would your policies differ from those of president carter . Pres. Reagan i think we have seen a great reverse in the caribbean situation, and it came about through the Prime Ministers election. It was the turnover, turnaround, of a nation that had gone certainly in the direction of the communist movement. It kind of was a protege of castro. And his election was greeted by me with great enthusiasm because it represented the people by their vote, having experienced that kind of government, turned another direction. And i think this opens the door for us to have a policy in the mediterranean of bringing them back in those countries that might have started in that direction or keeping them in the western world and the free world. So, we are looking forward to cooperation with the Prime Minister. Reporter i think you meant caribbean in that last answer, not the mediterranean . Pres. Reagan i meant caribbean. Im sorry. Reporter what do you intend to do about the draft registration laws passed during president carters administration and in view of your opposition to it the campaign, how is that consistent with your intention to strengthen our National Defenses . Pres. Reagan to answer the last part first, i just did not feel that the advanced registration and all the evidence you could get would really speed up the process if i was required the draft. It did create a bureaucracy. It caused certainly some unrest and dissatisfaction. And we were told that it would only be a matter of several days if we had to call up in a draft that we could do that several , days earlier with the would beion than we able to if there was no registration at all. This is one that is something to be looked at further down. I have only been here nine days and most of these nine days have , been spent in Cabinet Meetings on the economy, getting ready to send our package up to the hill, and so, i just have to tell you that we will be dealing with that and make a decision on what to do with it down the road someplace. Gary. Reporter speaking of your economic package, can you give us your thoughts on Effective Dates for the tax cuts that you plan to recommend in your economic recovery plan, and specify whether you prefer Effective Date for business and one another for personal cuts or whether you would like to combine them . Pres. Reagan i would like to see them go forward all at once. As to the date, i know there has been talk about whether it should be retroactive or whether it should be as of that minute. That to me is as important as getting for individuals the principle of a 10 cut for each of three years in place and the business taxes also so that we can all look forward with some confidence of stability in the program. And we are going to strive for that and i cannot really answer you about what the date will be until we submit the package. [indiscernible] mr. President. Mr. President. Pres. Reagan know, young lady. Reporter mr. President , i know you said earlier that you are not thinking of revenge towards iran, but does that preclude anything whatsoever for what they have done . Pres. Reagan again, i have to ask your forbearance and wait until we have finished our study of this whole situation as to what we are going to do. I dont think any of us have a friendly feeling towards the people who have done what they have done. But i think it is too complex for me to answer until we have had time to really study this. Reporter one follow up, would you go so far as to encourage american businesses to resume commercial trade in iran . Pres. Reagan at this point, no. Reporter mr. President , do you intend to follow through with your campaign pledges to abolish the departments of energy and education . Pres. Reagan i have not retreated from that at all. Yes. The process, however, that i have asked for, is for both the secretary of education and the secretary of energy to , to produce the most effective streamlining of the department of their departments that they can. In education, to look at the appropriate role of the federal government in education, if there is one, and to report back, and then, we will decide on making our recommendations. Much the same thing holds true with the department of energy. The reason for this being that while they were new cabinet level agencies, they incorporated government functions and programs that had been going on in them when they came under that umbrella, and we have to find out which of those functions that have been a federal government function continue, and where they would best fit. But yes, i am determined. And i believe that it was wrong to have created the two agencies to begin with. Now, there. Reporter mr. President , during the campaign, your chief arms spokesman put you on record as favoring for the time being the price support level where it had been. Your budget director and your secretary of agriculture indicated the Dairy Program is too expensive and should be cut back. Could you reconcile those differences of approach for us . Pres. Reagan i can only tell you that this again is something to wait for the next Cabinet Meeting. All of these things are worked out between the appropriate cabinet members and our director of omb, and then they come to the cabinet for full discussion so that others who have an , interest in this can have their input. And so i cannot answer you, because that has not yet come to the cabinet. Young lady . Then , you and reporter iran and best share a long border. Given the antiu. S. Sentiment, how do you think the United States can share the stability of the region . Said thegan you border between iran and the soviet union . I think one of the first things that has to happen is for in irany, has got to be itself, to establish a government that can speak as a government for iran. And part of our problem in all of these long 444 days has been the inability of anyone seemingly to speak for that nation. To have a government. Now, i think that any country would want to help another if they really showed an intent to have a government that would abide by International Law and do what they could to help in that regard, but until such a thing appears apparent there, i dont think there is anything we can do. Go ahead, young lady. [laughter] reporter mr. President , is it your intention to signal the world that this country will risk on with served retribution in cases of International Terrorism in the future . Why is it your policy not to retaliate against iran . Pres. Reagan what good would just revenge do . What form would that take . I do not think revenge is worthy of us. On the other hand, i do not think we act as if this never happened. I would rather wait until, as i say, we complete this pit i know i know i have been on this side for too long, but someone said por favor. [laughter] reporter mr. President , i am impressed when i listen the laer day, viva la roja, blanca, y la zul. Mr. President , is it true that given the opportunity to serve this country. When are you going to appoint a hispanic american to serve any administration in policymaking positions . Pres. Reagan we are definitely recruiting and definitely trying to do that. I want an administration that will be representative of the country as a whole. Please dont judge us on the fact that we are only picked 100 to it will be 1600 positions fill in the executive branch, in the white house senior staff and staff. The Personnel Committee in her talenthuntings and looking for these people contained members of the minorities hispanics, and even a , majority of women, and we want that very much. So dont judge us now for the tip of the iceberg. Wait until it is all in. Reporter mr. President , paul volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve board has been implementing policies that are exactly opposite in basic thrust from what you recommend. He has been grazing the productive sector of the economy in favor of the speculative sector. Frankly, mr. President , there are important sections of the american economies are about to go under and will not even have the opportunity to benefit from the program you are putting forward because of the Federal Reserve policy. I have a twopart question. First of all, do you think that objective Economic Conditions justify the Interest Rate levels we now have . I dont mean for your answer to imply a criticism of the fed. It is just an objective question. The second question is, are you concerned that there may be a sabotage so to speak of your policies by programs that the Federal Reserve might putting forward . Pres. Reagan i am not concerned there would be sabotage. I have met with mr. Volcker, not with the intention to dictate, because it is an independent agency and i respect that. I think that we have to face the fact that Interest Rates are not in themselves a cause of inflation. They are a consequence. When you have, as we have had, doubledigit inflation backtoback for two solid years now, the last time that happened was in world war i. And when you have doubledigit inflation, that way, there is no question that Interest Rates are going to have to go up and follow that inflation rate. So, the answer to the Interest Rates is going to be our program of reducing Government Spending tied to the reduction of the tax , rates that we have spoken of to bring down inflation. And you will find that Interest Rates come down. We do want from the fed and would ask for a moderate policy of money supply increasing relative to legitimate growth. All of these things have to work together. But i dont think that the fed just delivered he raises Interest Rates. The reason that we have got to tie taxes and tie spending together is, for all of these decades, we have talked and talked about solving these problems, and we act as if the two were separate. So, one year we fight inflation and then unemployment goes up. Next year we fight unemployment and then inflation goes up. Its time to keep the two together where they belong and that is what we are going to do. Yes, sir . Reporter mr. President , a number of conservative leaders, among them, some of your staunchest supporters are very concerned about some of your appointments. The basis of their concern is that many people who have been long time reaganites and supporters of euros do not seem to be able to get jobs, like one of them who played a key role in your transition team, where as other individuals who have not supported you throughout the years or your philosophy, like , andecretary of education the deputy secretary of defense, who was not a supporter of yours, they have gotten jobs. My question is, why are these individuals in your administration. Why is mr. Vanfleet . How much of a problem do you think this dissatisfaction with your appointments is . Pres. Reagan the only problem i have had that is more difficult than knowing which hand to point to hear, and believe me, it bothers me. I go home feeling guilty, all the hands i could not point to. [laughter] the only problem greater i have had is in the selection of personnel. In many instances, some of the people that have been mentioned, whose names have been mentioned by others, did not want a position in the administration. Helped, worked very hard and wanted nothing for it. But you also have to recognize there are not that many positions. After all, look how many votes i had. [laughter] cant reward them all. But thank you. All right. Thank you. [laughter] dont feel guilty. Washington to george w. Bush, every sunday at midnight eastern, we feature the is exploring the president s, their politics, policies and legacies. Watching American History tv on cspan3. The president s, from public affairs, available in paperback and ebook. Presenting biographies of every president from best to worst. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s to learn more about each president and order your copy today. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend featuring archival films and programs on the president , the civil war and more. Here is a clip from a recent program. Painstakingly a little british girl with disdain of a vaccinating needle. His most brilliant research that resulted in the discovery of contagious diseases. Thus, medical science marched forward. There had beene despair. Dreaded germ. E in america,e sea walter reed and his colleagues theyt to prove that offered their lives and won. Forging modern weapons. In the course of the 19th century, striking change, giving birth to the industrial revolution, transforming mans way of life. Becoming part of a vast machine, deprived of done and fresh nurse meant. Becoming more vulnerable. New means of transportation brought the world closer together, making it one tremendous and congested city. From a disease infected zone, the traveler became a carrier of deadly germs. Wherever he went, the germs stayed and spread. Epidemics breakout. Country to country, continent to continent. The deadly cargo is transported, menacing on a vast scale. Mass infection is a threat to every city, every nation. In common defense, nations join an International Agreement and the battle against epidemic. Quarantine measures extended. Strikes madeaic subjected to special restrictive measures. Suspected carriers are isolated. The dangers of contagion grow less and less. This and otherh American History programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. Is cspan. Org history. Historian Margaret Mcmillan is the author of paris, 1919. Six months that changed the world. She examines the 1919 paris peace conference, which sought to hammer out a peace conference for world war i. The difficulties in reaching an agreement that satisfied all participating nations and adequately punished germany for its wartime actions. The National World war i newseum and memorial in kansas city hosted the talk as part of their annual symposium last november. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. What a day. Really a terrific event we have had so far and thank you for being with us. I know there is a lot of excitement, as there ought be about this evenings conversation, so thank you for taking time to be here