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 every day that the houmani would not leave out the week, and these people were representative of one of the factions which are still there within that country, as to who is going to be in charge when he is gone. This third country recommended them. He said their credentials were honest. So we accepted and we sent some people. It had to be a covert operation, because if they were discovered, it would be executed. After our people had met with them for a time, that we too would like to have that better relationship, they made the proposal that they would have more confidence in our people meeting with them because there was no one like the secretary of state or anything of that kind, not to have a covert operation. We couldnt do that. It would convince them that these people they were talking to were able to contact the top of government here and represented the top of government. They put out that that, if they would sell them, literally what amounted to a token force, it did not change any balance between iran and iraq. Those missiles, those told missiles. This would reassure them, but also, it said it would strengthen them in the coming factionalism about taking over the government, because they would present these to the military. Not the revolutionary militia. This would give them a prestige, and they would have to have the help of the military. Now, this was presented to us. I told our people over there that we had a policy and we could not do business with any country that supported terrorism, which iran does. They made a pretty good case for themselves that any governors of theirs would not support terrorism, and i said, there is a pretty good way they could establish. That if we do the same with the weapons, weve got some hostages held by the hezbollah, which we know has a relationship with iran. And what they use their influence to see if they could free hostages . This is what happened, and i ok the shipment which i am legally entitled to do as president. Not to the kidnappers, to these people. And when some of our people said its going to look like arms for hostages i said wait a minute. A child was kidnapped, if they were and you believe in paying ransom, but you found an individual that you believed to get your child back, you wouldnt mind doing something with that individual. And thats the bases on which this is done. You regret taking that decision . I regret one thing, some of the people in the cabinet who opposed it, never opposed it that it was grounds that was basically arms for hostages, they said if it will become no, it will look like we have traded arms for hostages. And that is what was what happened, but, i do not know you cant sit back when you know the citizens of your country, who are held in savage captivity by barbarians of that tight and here is a plan, and i would call your attention that before the singles made public two hostages had been released. And i was told there was too much to more coming back in 48 hours. Got they never got out. Because someone tipped off the scandal sheet over there in beirut and published it and our press took it up, went wild with it, and it was known and distorted. It was then that i found out a number of things that had been capped. I had not known. But i am the one who went before the press here and before the congress and told them what the plan had been, and now, what we just discovered about the extra money and so forth. Mister president as you look back on new years in this office, what do you think its been your greatest achievement . Sometimes i think, just staying alive but no seriously, i think that we have as i said earlier, about the economy. We have implemented a number of the things we set out to do. There are some things we have not changed yet, or chief yet that i think are part of this whole program but i guess i am most proud of the change in attitude on the part of the people and the attitude of our young men do you know that when i came here, most of our people in uniform, young men in uniform, they would not go into town in their uniforms on a saturday night . They changed into civilian clothing. I came here with a mission i took up with the military as to how to restore pride in the uniform so that they would be proud to wear that uniform and let people that pass them on the street be able to say a kind word to them when they saw that uniform, and that has happened. One of my greatest prides is to do with the young men and women in uniform in our military. They are all volunteers. They are the highest level of intelligence and education that we have ever had in our military. Mr. President , throughout your career, you seem to have a consistent knack at persuading people. What is this . Reagan maybe it is because back when i was governor of california, i issued an order to my cabinet, to all the people around me, and i issued the same order here, that no decisions would be based on the political ramifications. We would make a decision to do or not to do something based on is it good for the people . I have stuck to that. I think that is it. It is not any time i go running and saying we must have this because it will be politically helpful. No, we have stuck with that. Maybe that is part of why i had some success in persuading them. Do you think of yourself as a politician . No. Ex actor. How important has mrs. Reagans advice being to you in this job . This is a help make, that every man dreams of having a relationship that sort of matches your dreams of marriage when you are an adolescent. But she does not, as so many people have tried to enter bait in the media, she doesnt try to get involved in any affairs or anything else. She does what she thinks is good for me. And i feel free to confided in her on the things that are going on, and then at the same time she is i think one of the finest and played unpaid employees of the government. Because as the first lady, she is not the shes not employed, but what shes done with the drug program, nationwide and how she continues to work with that and a few other interest of hers, she is a tremendous help as a matter of fact, she is a help just by my knowing she is up there when i go to meet her at the end of the day. We have been dogging your footsteps. We went to dixon and found a lovely place. Talked to a number of people who have known you. Can you Say Something about what values you acquired or learned in dixon that have helped you in a political career . Reagan oh my goodness. Yes, i have often thought that our children were born there and we tried to raise them under a handicap. We lived in a large city. I have often thought there is something out there in small town america, rural america, where you know everyone and are known by everyone in the community that is different than being anonymous in a large city and being able to go down the street and no one knows who you are or cares. We were not welloff. As a matter of fact, we were poor by any standard, but i never knew a time when my mother was not finding someone in the community that was worse off than we were and she was helping them. Fmr. Pres. Reagan did your mother reporter did your mother specifically plant the ambition of a public career in your mind . Reagan no. As a matter of fact, without her knowing that she planted in my mind the first ambition, the entertainment world. She had been a hometown talent, in a hometown talent club that put on plays in the small town and she gave readings. I dont think that goes on anymore, but she would be invited to go to Club Meetings and recite whether it was comic or dramatic or whatever. When i was a little boy, she kind of got me interested in memorizing. I think that is why i could recite the robert w service, a couple of those poems. But i had two great interests in my education in addition to getting an education, and they were athletics, playing in the athletic teams, and being in the entertainments, in the class plays, and the drama club plays and so forth. Even though i got my degree in economics when i got out of college and was forced to face up to what did i really want to do . I realized it was in some part of the world of entertainment. The democrats in california used to say you were only an actor. Do you think being an actor actually helped in your public career . Reagan yes, very definitely. Actually, i did not suddenly change and say i wanted to be a politician. I made a speech. I always believed that you have to pay your way, so in hollywood, if you do not sing or dance, you wind up as an after dinner speaker, so i was out on the circuit quite a bit. I always did my own speeches and talked on what i was interested in. And this led to my making a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater that was played on national television. And as a result of that speech, a group of Prominent Party members came to me before the 1966 governor race in california and claimed that i was the only one who could bring the party together. It was quite divided and split up. And win the election. I thought they were crazy. I said you pick someone else and campaign for them. Pretty soon, nancy and i could not sleep. What if they are right and we live with ourselves if we keep saying no . Finally, i made a proposal to them that i would go out on a circuit throughout the state making speeches and come back and tell them whether they were right or wrong. And i came back and told nancy i thought maybe they were right. So i finally gave in. You know, i was well into the campaign before i realized i would not be back in show business by november when election time came. It suddenly dawned on me i might win and that was the end of show business for me. Before that, when you were with the Screen Actors Guild in hollywood, you encountered the evidence of strong leftwing influence. How important was that to changing your political ideas . Reagan i dont know that it changed my political ideas so much as it did give me a real understanding of the communist menace. I had been on the board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild and i came back from the service after four years in world war ii and back to the board and discovered that something was going on in hollywood and there are some 43 unions in the Motion Picture business, and some of them had they were way off on a tangent and they called a jurisdictional strike. This was not a fight with management. This was a fight that they believed another union was doing the work they should be doing and it threatens to close down the Motion Picture industry. The responsibility hit the Screen Actors Guild. If we aligned ourselves in that strike with the other side, the picture business would close. You cannot have a picture business if you dont have anyone in front of the camera. I made a motion on the board that we inject ourselves into this fight by inviting both sides and management to sit down at a table with us as the third party. The neutral party to see if we could not find a peaceful solution, and it was out of this meeting every day for months that i learned what was going on and i was helped along when pretty soon, some of the people from our own fbi made contact because of what they saw i was doing. I had become president of the Screen Actors Guild and they came wanting some findings from me on people i had dealt with and so forth. I got an insight into what was happening in the Motion Picture business and i set out to do everything i could to stop that kind of takeover of organizations like that, and we won. Is that what you are trying to do on a world scale . Reagan i never got over realizing i could recognize the signs and that was one of the reasons i said, just as they were doing this, they were doing it in the way of not trying to convince the people but in having the takeover at the top, just like their own country is, and i said why dont we spread the word about democracy to these emerging countries so that they will know that there is an alternative to this . What we are just going to ask . I was going to ask you about the days, and what your feelings were you know when you are shot, because i think that was in a way it solidified your popularity. And it was a crucial think, do you agree . The only unique thing i think about that, was i got all the way to the hospital and walked into the emergency room, and the nurse came to meet me and i said im having trouble breathing, i didnt know i had been shot. I thought when the secret service man jumped on my back, and threw me into the car, that you get. Damage a study broken i had broken rib. Then i start to spit blood, i thought the rapid punctured along. That is amazing, and when we you first hear what would have happened. When they got my clothes peeled off including cutting at the suit that i was wearing for the first time a brandnew suit they found near the wound of my arm where the bull had hit me there. And i was not aware of it. What it happened is the bullet tour decide when i was coming to the car, and went through the space between the door and the hitch base and caught me right here. Your microphone is off and the producer would love to get this in the program. Would you mind starting from the beginning of the story. Its a great story. We just wanted to to what did i say . laughs seven minutes to do that. When i said the last question there i am sorry. Oh my goodness. You could just do it very very quickly. Stand by. Tape rolling. Mister president , could you tell us about what happened when you were shot at the hilton hotel . The most unique thing about that was i heard what i thought was firecrackers and the next thing i knew secret service men were standing behind me and literally picked me up and threw me headfirst and dived me into the car. The door, waiting there. I got in the car, and he got in behind me, the door was closed and we started away and suddenly i felt the most awful pain that you could imagine and i have not felt it up until then. I did not feel a bullet hit me or anything. And they said to the agent who was in the car with me, i said i think you broke a rib when you jump in on top of me, and just then i coughed, and i had a handful of frothy blood, and they said, and i think the rib the broken ribs punctured along. He by this time was telling the driver, George Washington hospital, and we were on our way. Well, i finished off my handkerchief with the blood and i finished off his because i kept coughing and it kept getting more difficult to breathe. We got to the emergency, and i got out and walked into the emergency ward, and a nurse came to meet me and they said, im having trouble breathing, and just about that time, my niece began to get robbery. The next thing i knew, i was on a gurney and it wasnt until they cut my clothes off of me, which included a brandnew suit i was wearing for the first time, and then found the wound back appear where it had gone. In the pain had come when it had hit that seventh rib, and the pain came when it glanced off the rib, and then went on down through my long and about an inch from my heart. And that was about the time that they told me i had been shot. I had not known. Thank you. We are going to have to run so yes. Midway through his presidency in june of 1985, president reagan talked in the oval