And this is a guy from South Carolina-we know about South Carolina, he is confirming everything we feel- I still remember looking at him like, Really? what are you doing? It was just so unexpected and raw that I did not -and to me just kind of ridiculous-that I could not really generate anger. There is no doubt that there have been occasions during my presidency when I have said, 'Y'all just would not do this with anybody else.' There was one time where I was making a statement out here. And in the middle of my statement, somebody just started yelling. It was a reporter from The Daily Caller. I remember this. And I was probably more mad on that one. Because-whereas Joe Wilson, you got a sense of just this weird impulsive action on his part-this felt orchestrated and showed a lack of respect for the office that I think was unprecedented in a Rose Garden statement. Part of what is been difficult, though, during my presidency, is untangling the degree to which some of these issues are because of race and some of these issues being reflective of just a coarsening of the political culture and a sharpening of the political divides. Because I do remember watching Bill Clinton get impeached and Hillary Clinton being accused of killing Vince Foster. And if you ask them, I am sure they would say, 'No, actually, what you are experiencing is not because you are black, it is because you are a Democrat.' And right around the beginning of Bill Clinton's presidency and what corresponds with the rise of right-wing media, a lot of the old boundaries and rules of civility just broke down. Now, one way to think about this is that issues of race and issues of political philosophy have always been entangled, and it is hard to draw them out. So when I think about the Tea Party or conservatives who've opposed my agenda, I have no doubt that there are those who oppose my agenda because they have a coherent and sincere view about the role of the federal government relative to the state governments; they believe that an overreaching federal power that is taxing, regulating, redistributing is contrary to the vision of freedom that the Founders intended-and they can believe those things independent of race.

Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates


Having said that, a rudimentary knowledge of American history tells you that the relationship between the federal government and the states was very much mixed up with attitudes towards slavery, attitudes towards Jim Crow, attitudes towards antipoverty programs and who benefited and who did not . And so I am careful not to attribute any particular resistance or slight or opposition to race. But what I do believe is that if somebody did not have a problem with their daddy being employed by the federal government, and did not have a problem with the Tennessee Valley Authority electrifying certain communities, and did not have a problem with the interstate highway system being built, and did not have a problem with the GI Bill, and did not have a problem with the subsidizing the suburbanization of America, and that all helped you build wealth and create a middle class-and then suddenly as soon as African Americans or Latinos are interested in availing themselves of those same mechanisms as ladders into the middle class, you now have a violent opposition to them, then I think you at least have to ask yourself the question of how consistent you are and what is different, what is changed. You know, I always talk about when I was doing civil-rights law and people would talk about the dearth of African Americans in police departments and fire departments around the country. And they would say, 'Well, this should be a meritocracy, and everybody needs to take a test, and that is objective, and anything else is affirmative action and unfair.' And I am thinking, Well, when Officer O'Malley or Officer Krupke was walking the beat, nobody said it was a meritocracy then. We are suddenly now of the notion that somebody who is a police officer or firefighter having some affinity and familiarity with the community they are serving is completely out of bounds. So I think that one of the things I am always trying to do is to just promote a consistent philosophy and ethic about how government can help everybody and try to show that what worked for the majority community in previous generations would be likely to work now, too. And the burden is on those who oppose investments in these things to explain what is changed. I was caught because you said that you were the only person that Ben Nelson brought in to campaign for him. And maybe my memory is wrong, but I believe he was one of the harder folks to negotiate with in terms of getting the passed.

Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates


You can correct me if I am wrong, but as I recall, I heard in 2008 from your campaign that there was room to work across party lines, there was room for people who disagree to come together. If we just put forth intelligent proposals, folks would be able to come together. Did that surprise you when that got to you? No, because by that time we had seen the behavior. But, and I have told this story before, the economy was in a free fall. And the one thing I anticipated was that we could get some bipartisan cooperation early on, at least to stop the bleeding, before normal politics kicked in. I mean, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, folks were losing their homes everywhere, the financial system was locked up, the auto industry was melting down. And the risks of us going into 15 percent unemployment and a real catastrophic situation were reasonably high. And so speed was of the essence. And we put together this package, called the Recovery Act, which was basically a big stimulus package, and we designed it in such a way that we thought it would have some appeal to Republicans. Because we had infrastructure spending, and we had spending going directly to states to make sure they were not laying off teachers and police and firefighters, and we had a big tax cut for ordinary families, as well as spending for clean energy and education and a whole host of other things. And I still remember the day that I am scheduled to meet with the House Republican caucus, and I get into the car and we are driving up, and I forget who it was, but one of my staff tells me that John Boehner has just announced that they are opposed to the Recovery Act. Before they had even seen it, before I had made a presentation, before I had had a conversation with them This was going to be sort of the opening round of negotiations where I am explaining to them the dire situation and asking for a bipartisan effort to help the American people. And they had shut it down. And that, I think, gave me an inkling of a different political environment than the one that we had seen in the past. Now, again, I think it is really important to understand that had there been a white president-had Hillary Clinton been president, or Joe Biden been president-it is entirely possible that they would have pursued the same strategy.

Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates


Because the way politics had been structured at that point, where there was so much political gerrymandering, and the media has increasingly become so balkanized, there was an understandable political incentive for them not to cooperate. You know, the genius of Mitch McConnell-and to some degree John Boehner-was a recognition that if we were about to go into a bad recession and the president had come in on this wave of good feeling, Democrats control the House, they control the Senate-if he is completely successful in yanking us out of this and cleaning up a mess a Republican president had left behind, that we might lock in Democratic majorities for a very long time. But on the other hand, if Republicans did not cooperate, and there was not a portrait of bipartisan cooperation and a functional federal government, then the party in power would pay the price and that they could win back the Senate and/or the House. And they executed well, and we got clobbered in 2010. I just want to push this a little bit more. What about the idea that it is not so much you as a black man as ENTITY, but the fact that we are at a point in history where the Democratic Party, especially locally-the states-has become very racialized? Well, I think what is true is that when the southern Democrats all flipped, and over the course of successive elections, dating back to '68, you have a process whereby 90 percent African Americans are voting in the Democratic Party, and southern and many rural and western whites are increasingly voting Republican, and cultural issues become more prominent, that it helped to accelerate what has been called this great sorting. And when you combine that with political gerrymandering, when you combine that with the impact of the media, it makes it easier for Republicans not to cooperate, because there is nobody in their districts that will punish them for not cooperating with a Democratic president. I think what was more of an early lesson around race was the Skip Gates incident. And the reason that was interesting to me was because I did not think it was that big of a deal, and I did not think my statement was particularly controversial. I do not know if you know Skip, but Skip is a little guy who uses a cane and has a limp and is late 60s. And if he is on his porch and he ends up being handcuffed, then my working assumption was, everybody would kind of think that was kind of an overreaction.

Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates


Now, Skip can be, you know, salty, so I have no doubt that-I was not there, but I would not be surprised if Skip used some inappropriate language with the officer when the officer came up to question him. The Cambridge police probably handled this a little stupidly. And the fact of the matter is that part of the reason this becomes news is because there is this underlying feeling on the part of a lot of African Americans that interaction with police is not always evenhanded. To see the cultural reaction, and in retrospect to see how my poll numbers with white voters dropped really significantly off this one tempest in a teapot, that was instructive. Now, there are some who say that is when Obama started trimming his sails on racial issues. The truth is that I wanted to make sure that we did not have a bunch of distractions at a time where I am just putting out fires everywhere. I mean, I have got two wars, I have got an economic crisis of a proportion we have not seen since the Great Depression, and that was not the time, from my perspective, to just open up a big floodgate of conversation around race, which I did not think was going to be productive. What I did learn from that, though, were two things. One was-that was one lesson among many, in those first six months-about the magnification of my words. So if I look at the statement that I made at the time that I thought was pretty innocuous, using the word stupid would be a word I'd never use now, just because I am ENTITY and everything gets magnified. So I could have made the same point in a way that would not have, I think, felt as visceral. You think you could have got that across about it? I think I could have got it across better. What it also showed me was the degree to which the filter that I discussed earlier can completely shape a narrative in a way that will just run until you get some sort of circuit breaker going. not to overreact to that. Because what is absolutely true is that, you know, my press office freaked out around that in a way that I was not that freaked out about. There was a part of me that was like, 'Okay, so the Cambridge police is not happy with me, but this really is not a big deal, we have got other stuff we have got to worry about.'

Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates


Have these guys told you what I am up to? I will give you the quick version. It is a piece about year 8 of the Presidency. It is not a legacy piece, looking back at the 8 years. It is a piece about this year and sort of what you are doing on the policy front, on the political front, on the personal front. The historic pattern in, you know, basically since World War II has not been last years of Presidencies. Most people have sort of slunk to the finish line, if they made it at all. And it seems to me that you are defying that pattern, and the China vote showed that you have continued policy relevance. I think there is a lot of interest in what you are doing politically for Democrats, particularly for the First Lady. And I think there is a lot of interest in how you are doing personally, after you know, by any definition the ordeal of '98, '99, sort of how do you come back and have, by any sort of objective measure, this very energetic final year? So those three dimensions are all things that I am interested in. One thing I am curious about is to what extent how self-conscious you were at the end of last year, at the start of this year, that, look, we have got a very limited window, and was there sort of a methodical approach to organizing the limited amount of time you had left, or was it just sort of, you know, a race to the finish line? In other words, was there an acute sense of the window closing? Well, let me back up a minute and say I have I was aware, I suppose, at some level, from the moment I got here, although I did not have much time to think about it, that generally, Presidencies seem to wind down. And normally, it starts sometime not just in the last year but in the year before that. I did not think that that was necessary but that it was something you had to have a definite strategy to avoid, because it is just not right for the country. You know, they pay us to show up for 4 years, and there is always a lot of business to be done.

Interview With John Harris of the Washington Post


And even in the political context of an election and even, clearly, the change of administration as I always remind all my colleagues in the Congress, on both side no matter how much we get done, there will still be plenty of things that will not be resolved, over which there will be genuine differences, and therefore, you can have a meaningful election. So we all had a job to do. So if you just want to focus on the last year, let us start with that. I essentially organized this year the way I have every year from the beginning. And that is, you begin by laying out a strategy consistent with the vision we started with, based on what has been achieved already, what has not been achieved, and what has come up. And you articulate that in the State of the Union Address with as much clarity as possible. Now, this year what I did was to try both to articulate what I would try to do this year and to look in terms of not just what had been achieved over the last 7 years but in terms of the remaining long-term challenges for the country. I laid it out with great specificity. And the good thing about that is, it serves as a real organizing principle for the White House staff and for the Cabinet, for how I spend my time, both in the office with the Congress and in the country. I think one of the things that has gotten that has led to some Presidents and some White Houses to get less than they might have out of all their days is the tendency to become overcome with the politics of the political environment or the conventional wisdom. A lot of being ENTITY is a job like any other job, and you have control over your attitude toward it, your priorities, and what you work on. And if everybody is working on the same page and full steam ahead, a lot of things happen. So you start with a strategy and with as many specifics as possible in the State of the Union, and then you just try to execute it. And we have had some success, as you pointed out. I was talking to somebody, one of your advisers, who said they had come back from a meeting with one of the organized labor leaders who told him, Look, we have got the votes. We are jamming you on this.


But I did not think so because I thought that in the end, the vote was so clearly in the national interests, and the consequences of defeat where somebody says, Well, let us just put it off, or, Maybe we will come back to it next year, or something like that were so clearly adverse to what was good for America's future that I thought in the end they'd come around and do the right thing. How much easier do you think this job is in year 8 than in year one? I mean, is there a sense of, like, Look, there is no kind of curve ball that is going to get thrown at me that is going to be one I have not seen before? Well, at one level, it is much easier because I had never worked in the Washington environment before, and as you remember, the strategy of the opposition was that I would have no honeymoon and I did not . And I also had a country with a lot of big problems when I started, and we had to get a lot of big things done. And I tried to maybe even too much I tried to put a lot of things through the system in the first 2 years. We got three of the four big things I wanted to do done. We got the economic plan that eventually we got welfare reform, but I could tell we were going to get it. And we got started with executive actions, and we passed the crime bill. But we could not do health care. And then there was all this, you know, a lot of and we were also, at the time, putting together a team in the White House, in the Cabinet, working together, and working with all the others, which the White House and the whole administration with whom the White House and the whole administration had to work. So to try to get stuff done and put the thing together, it was very difficult. Since then, every year I think it has gotten a little easier from that point of view. On the other hand, there are always it never ceases to be challenging or interesting. And if you are trying to do meaningful things, there are always going to be things that are very, very hard to do. For example, one of the toughest things we are working on now is the Middle East.


I think it is a mistake, just because you are near the end, rather than the beginning of an administration, not to try to do the big things, especially if they really need doing within the time frame that you have. One of the early themes when I showed up on this beat, which I guess was '95, '96 period, was a sense among a lot of your advisers, and I think it reflected your view, that you were not getting credit for what had been done the first couple of years, either from the press or from the public, more broadly. Do you think you will get credit for your Presidency, at this point? I do not worry about it as much anymore. The only reason I worried about it in those years was that I felt that Congress. those people reported back you were feeling really angry about this. Well, you know, I do not think it is possible for me to convey how terrible I felt for other people that we lost the Congress in the '94 election. And all those people that put their necks on the line and were defeated, primarily because they voted for the economic plan and the voters had not felt the positive impact of it yet and they voted for the crime bill. And they had all these fear arguments out there on what we did on assault weapons and the Brady bill and that was really in the election cycle, and that passed and there was no attempt to see that the 100,000 police and the gun safety measures would work. But the fear was out there and then, of course, when we were unsuccessful in getting even a compromise initiative on health care that deflated our side's vote a little bit. And those three things together caused a lot of very good people to lose their seats, and I felt badly about that. I never felt that as so many people did at the time that it meant that the administration could not get reelected, because I always believed that the country had serious problems, and we had to tackle them early and brave the controversy early and that if I turned out to be right about our economic strategy and we continue to make progress and we passed our education program, the beginning of it, in '93 and '94, that it would work out fine. But I was frustrated more by what I thought was the preoccupation with other things, which seemed to me anybody who looked at the evidence would see did not amount to anything. And now we know, after all this time, that Whitewater thing was a total sham.


It was a sham from the beginning. It was a put-up deal, and everybody knows it now. But it seemed to me everybody should have known it years before they did. So I was frustrated by it, just because I felt that the most important thing was to keep moving the country forward. In terms of personal credit, I think that you know, Presidencies go through several incarnations, many of which occur after they are long gone. I have had the opportunity just in my service as ENTITY to read about administrations, through a lot of American history reading, including about administrations that most Americans do not know much about. And I see all the time there is this sort of constant process of reassessment about every period in our history. So I will have to leave that to history. People will be reassessing this period after I am not even alive anymore. The only thing I ever wanted enough credit to do was to keep elected, to stay in office, and to keep pushing the country in the direction I thought was important and to get enough support in the Congress to do the things we had to do. When you see Republicans borrowing at least some of the image of your political model, if not necessarily the content, do you take that as a compliment in any way? Or does it tick you off, or do you feel like, How dare they steal my playbook? What is your reaction to that? No, I am complimented by it, because I think it shows that what we did was right, you know, to change the whole nature of our political rhetoric in the Democratic Party, and that it resonates with the American people. This country has always worked best when there was a dynamic majority for change. And it always operates out of the center, but it is not the center, a split-the-difference center. It is a center that reflects the commonsense judgment of the American people that the time has come to change, and we ought to change in this direction. So I take that as a great compliment. It is an important beginning for them to say, Okay, we know we cannot be and we should not be mean, extremist, and sanctimonious in our political rhetoric anymore. I think that is a positive thing for them. Now, I think there is a big difference, however, which is that when I ran in 1992, I did not just say we are going to change our party so we can say to change the country.


Here is the way I am going to do Government. Here is the way we are going to change the way Government works. And we had you know, people used to make fun of me and Paul Tsongas, in New Hampshire, because we put out these long, detailed booklets about what we'd do, and then all of a sudden, there were more people showing up for our town meetings than anybody else. Maybe it is because I'd been a Governor for a dozen years and because I'd been through a lot of these the policy debates, as well as the political debates. But I think one of the most important reasons that we have had some success in our Presidency was that we actually laid out in 1992 a vision and a strategy for achieving it. And one of the things that I thought was interesting, just reading the aftermath of the Republican Convention and what a lot of the swing voters are saying, is that I liked what I saw. They seemed like very nice people, and I am glad they are being more inclusive, but what are they going to do if they get the job? We do not have to say that some of it was, We have not really changed our policies, so we cannot say what our policies are. One of the things I think is great about Al Gore's selection of Joe Lieberman is, it sort of ratifies this kind of New Democratic direction we have taken, where we say we will continue to have policies that are pro-business and prolabor, that are pro-growth and pro-environment, that are for individual responsibility and a broader, inclusive American community. I do not want to beat this to death, but I think this is very important. There is a scholar named Thomas Patterson, who used to be at the Maxwell School at Syracuse, used to do a lot of work on the media and the Presidency, who said that in 1995 He is a Ben Bradley professor at Harvard, by the way. Well, he put out a I had never met him at the time. I have since actually met him once or twice now, but I did not know him at the time. In 1995, when our fortunes were not exactly high, he was quoted in a newspaper article saying that my administration had already kept a higher percentage of its promises to the American people than the previous five Presidencies, even though we made more commitments, more specific commitments. These State of the Unions have been very important.


State of the Unions for us have been the equivalent of that first booklet I put out in New Hampshire. They are a guidepost, and we do the best we can on it. But you also have to take other initiatives that come up that are consistent with it. You know, all the things we did with Executive orders, setting aside the national monuments or including making sure seniors could be in clinical trials because Medicare would cover it, all those things that they those are things that may come up, where we have got an idea factory here, where the staff is encouraged to come up with ideas, the Cabinet is encouraged to come up with ideas. It is all consistent with that. And even then when we are reacting you know, sometimes things just happen, and you have to react to it. You cannot be so rigid in your organization that you cannot change. That is the sort of whole essence of the new economy. Can I ask you about the First Lady's campaign? There is this sort of universal consensus that, you know, you are aware of great details, or the ins and outs of that campaign, even though you are not running it or trying not to run it. But I am not really sure I know what you do, do. Like, what is the sort of the nature of your involvement or at least awareness of the campaign? How often are the two of you talking? What kind of input can you give? She spent a quarter century being a, sort of, contributor to your political career. Now the shoe is on the other foot. What do you do? Well, first of all, I bend over backwards not to get too involved in it. Sometimes a week or 10 days will go by, and I will not talk to the people that are running the campaign. But obviously, I talk to her every day, usually more than once a day. And I ask her how it is going, what she did. We discuss it, talk about her day, talk about how it is unfolding. I give her my best thoughts. And then if they ask me to come to a meeting and sit and listen, I do it. But it is no there is no organized part to it, except that we talk every day, and we talk about it. Were you an important voice in having her hire Mark Penn, not just as the pollster, but also helping run the media strategy?


At one point there was an expectation, like, David Axelrod in Chicago was, you know, almost had that job. And some people attributed that to you, saying you thought that was really important because he had sort of the right formula down for Democrats to get elected. Well, I do think that, and I have a high regard for him. Axelrod helped me in '92 and has done things for us since then. And it seemed to me that she got the best of both worlds, because Axelrod works with the New York Democratic Party and does their party thing. She came to me and she said, What do you think about this? And I said, It sounds good to me. She thought it through because she wanted to find a way to have both of them involved, and because of our relationship with Mark over the years, she felt very close to him. I think that there are a lot of good people, pollsters and political strategists, but it is important to have someone that you feel really comfortable with. And he basically Mark has basically been a part of our whole kind of New Democrat movement. And I think she just felt a high comfort level with him. The call you made to the Daily News was one thing. I did not know if that was you sort of acting sort of impulsively, as a husband who was angry about that; or whether that was you saying, Look, this is potentially a problem. I better see if I can help blunt that as a political matter. What was that about?  Most people knew it was hokum. But I think it hurt her for a few days only because it happened fortuitously fortuitously for her adversaries right at the opening of the Middle East peace talks, when anxiety was very high in the Jewish community. So I think that I may have been in error. But what actually I just wanted to make sure that since they were working the story, and I knew Mort Zuckerman and Michael Kramer quite well, and that since I had been injected into the story, that I had a very clear memory of it, and I wanted to know what did and did not happen and what the whole background was. And so I told him. But you know, by and large, I try to stay out of it. He is got moxie. Senator Moynihan was really angry when he was used and said what he thought about it.


But I figure the voters of New York are smart enough to figure out that I am for her and not him. But I have not been harshly partisan so, you know, Tom DeLay could do the same thing because there is one issue that Tom DeLay and I really agree on, and I bragged on him. He came to the White House, and I bragged on him. I think that is what we ought to do. I think we can argue with each other in elections without demonizing each other, and I think when they do that, they are wrong. But I think the voters are smart enough to figure that out without my help. You mentioned the Whitewater thing a little earlier, which leads to a question I wanted to ask about. Remember in September '98, when you spoke to your Cabinet, and many of them afterwards spoke to us? They said that you had said you had been you realized, had been angry for many days of your Presidency. And I remember that struck me quite a lot, because, you know, to cover you, you do not seem most of the time like an angry person or somebody filled with. I am not by nature an angry person. So I was sort of astonished to learn that description. I work on it all the time. But I think that this whole Whitewater business will be looked upon by any rational observer in history as an absurd episode in American history which did not amount to a hill of beans if there had been any special council law on the books at the time it came up, it would not have triggered a special council and that the coverage of it as if it were serious required people essentially to suspend all ordinary notions of proof and common sense. That is what I really believe. And as a consequence, scores of innocent people got hurt. A lot of people got charged with criminal offenses, simply because they refused to lie, and it did a lot of damage to our political system for no good end. And I think it will be viewed as an absurd aberration in American history. I felt very badly about it. I felt very badly about the way everybody involved was treated about it. Terry McAuliffe and other people who are friends of yours I was out in Arkansas last week and saw David Leopoulous and Jim Blair, everybody I do not know him well. Did he tell you how he did in his tennis tournament? He told me he was playing that weekend. Oh, so you saw him right before?


Yes, because I have not talked to him since then. And I was reluctant to see him. I went out to dinner with him and his daughter. The one that lives here, in Maryland. She made millions of dollars and now spends all her time she spends all her time tutoring innercity kids in math. She is only a year or two older than me and she is All of his kids are wizards. They are all in computers somewhere or another. One of them has a Ph.D. in philosophy, but she does all the data processing for a big hospital network in Chicago. And the other one works in Texas, his son. He showed me his art, Peruvian art collection. Anyway, everybody is sort of the mind that you seem more relaxed, sort of more at peace than you have previously. In a funny way, I think I am. And I think part of it is, when you go through any difficult period, it either breaks you or makes you better. I just wake up every day with this enormous feeling of gratitude. I am grateful to my wife and to my daughter. I have got my family back. I am grateful to the people who work with me, who stuck with me. And I am enormously grateful to the American people for continuing to support what I was trying to do for them. To me, every day is a gift now. And one of the things that I am doing, that I have to work on, frankly I will make a little confession. The only thing that I am feeling about this last year is that I just want to keep working. And when Hillary is gone, particularly, in New York, you know, I go to bed with a pile of stuff that I want to do, and I just read and read and read and read. It does seem like you are in a sprint, you know, traveling here, fundraiser tonight, fly to Japan and then back, land here today, down to Charlottesville. Look, I have got 6 months to go or whatever. I am just going to race to the finish line. Is that what it is about? And also, I think of it in a different way. I think, you know, I do not have a campaign to do. I do not have to live with those pressures.


And if there is something out there to be done that is good for my country or that I think is the right thing to do, even if it puts a big strain on me physically, I know that I will not be under the kind of stress that I would be in if I were trying to manage a campaign and manage the Presidency; and I ought to resolve down in favor of making the effort. Because I ought to do everything I can for America as ENTITY that I can do and still function at a high level, and I can rest starting at noon on January 20th. And that is what I intend to do. We are all going to a rest home together. You know how the ENTITY gets to take one last ride on Air Force One, and you wave to everybody, on the helicopter, and then you get on Air Force One, and you wave to everybody? I am thinking of loading the whole White House staff and the whole Cabinet on and going to Bermuda. How much progress have you made in figuring out to me, one of the big mysteries of the Clinton year, which is, you are a ENTITY, not a leftwing President I think your basic instinct is to try to get along with people and yet, you have this intense antagonism that you excite on the right? Do you have a theory on it? That is, I have not been but I think there are two or three reasons for it. And I guess I should start with a little humility. You cannot be liked by everybody. You know, my favorite story that I tell at least 10 times a year is about the guy that is walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, and he slips. And He says, Son, there is just something about you I do not like. So you have got to allow for that. But I think, first of all, I have some insight into this because I was a Governor for a dozen years, so I knew all these guys. I knew the people that were engineering the campaign in '91 on. I think, first and overwhelmingly, you have to understand that basically the Republicans believed that they had made a marriage between the establishment Republicans and the far right, the religious right, and other ultraconservative elements like the NRA and all those folks.


And they thought that that coalition, particularly when it came back and gave President Bush a resounding victory over Governor Dukakis, they basically believed that they would always beat Democrats, that they would never lose the White House until a third party came along. That is what they believed. They thought they had found a formula and that they would put us in a certain box, and we would be there, and they would make us, in the inimitable words of Newt Gingrich, the enemy of normal Americans, and it would always work. I think one of the problems that their party had was they developed a sense of entitlement to the White House. They railed against entitlements, but they thought they had an entitlement to govern, and I think it caused them a lot of trouble. You have got to give Gingrich some credit. They do not want to anymore, but the truth is that he figured out that if they came back in '94, before people felt better about what we did with the economy or what we did with crime or whether they saw any progress on welfare, with a specific plan that could both mobilize their right and hold their establishment, Republicans, they could make some gains. And what we did in '96 and '98 is, we came back with better plans and better ideas. But a great debate was joined in America about the future of the country, and we were winning it. So I think that but they got back in the game, and they stayed in the game, even though what we did in '98 was truly historic, what the Democrats did and I give Gephardt and Daschle a lot of credit for it and what our people do, because we had a program, and we ran on it. And we said, We are interested in what we can do for you, not what we can do for ourselves. So I think part of it was they secondly, what were their options? If they knew the American people agreed with my political philosophy more than theirs, if they knew the American people agreed with the specifics I was advocating more than theirs, then what was left? And they never stopped, not from '91 through the '92 campaign. Then they just started the day after I took my hand off the Bible taking the oath of office; they kept on going. That is, they succeeded in hurting me but not helping themselves. So now they are in a different place now.


They are trying to change their image and their rhetoric. But to be fair, too, I think that there are a lot of the whole movement of the Republican Party, even beginning with President Nixon and the Silent Majority campaign, to what President Reagan said, right up to the present day, was based on a certain critique of the sixties, and what the Democrats were. You know, our notion of inclusiveness was, to them, accepting things that even now, the leadership, we cannot get them to embrace the hate crimes bill because it includes gays and the whole idea of opposing the Vietnam war and all that. And I think they thought Ithink a lot of them genuinely felt that I represented a lot of things in the culture that they did not like. I think a lot of them did not like that. Have you figured out I mean, I think it is fair to say you had a certain amount of scratchiness in your press relations over the 8 years. Is that your view of it? And I have got a theory about why that is, but I think if you leave Whitewater aside, because I know you have very specific grievances about that, we have talked about that modern political journalism makes its business sort of first and foremost to go to what are motives behind what somebody says. And I think that kind of reporting felt like whenever your motives are questioned or not taken at face value bugs you a lot. It used to bug me a lot. It does not bug me so much anymore. That is, I do not make a big habit of questioning the motives of people who are on the other side of arguments from me. And I have learned enough from my own mistakes in life and also from misjudging other people to know that an analysis based solely on what other people's motives are you need to try to understand them. But in the end, what matters in public life is what is done and does it advance the American people's does it advance the ideals of our country, the values of our country, the interest of our people? Also, I did feel that, in a certain way, I got a little more of that than most, maybe because I was the first person of my generation to win the Presidency, and maybe because I was, in the stirring phrase of my predecessor, just the Governor of a small southern State, not really known to a lot of people, and also the fact that I had basically carried this New Democrat DLC banner.


And there was, I think, a lot of suspicion to that, because there was a certain paradigm, I think, for reporters about, Here is what the Republicans are. And I think when you challenge that paradigm, it was easy to say, Well, that is just a political stratagem. But out there in the country, I do not think those paradigms ever worked very well. I was talking to Dirk Kempthorne today, who is a Republican I admire a lot and like very much and a man I worked with on a couple of fairly important pieces of legislation when he was a Senator. And he said he really liked being Governor, and I told him he would. He asked me one time if I thought he should run for Governor. I told him I thought he would like it very well because he is a guy who thinks, and you know, we are really different on a lot of issues. If I were running against him, it would be an honor. I admire him. I like him. We could have an honest difference. And then we could make a lot of agreements and do a lot of things. That is the politics that I grew up with. And to be fair, I also grew up with a lot of the other, of the race issue in the South; there was always a lot of politics and personal destruction around that. So I was not unfamiliar with the kind of things I had been exposed to. But I think, to me, motive analysis at least has to be undertaken with a certain amount of humility. That reminds me of a question I have got. What is your view of Arkansas? Are you going to go home there, at least part of the time? Skip Rutherford showed me the site where the library is going to be. I had not been there in a while, that whole new shopping center there. That is an important part of my life, that whole area, because it is very close to the old State House, where I declared for ENTITY and had my two election nights, a building that I basically restored to its historic that was one of my projects as Governor, to take it back to the way it was between right when it was opened in 1836, the year of our statehood. When you look at Arkansas, it is a place with all this sort of sentimental attractions for you. And a lot of your friends are still there. I would think, on the one hand, it is a very positive association.


And it is also the place where it seems like somebody is always crawling out from under some rock. You have got this disbarment thing. Jim said, If I were him, if they do that, I'd pull the damn library out of there and put it in Georgetown. A lot of my friends in Arkansas think that. But see, I do not have a look, I always had adversaries in Arkansas. And when Dale Bumpers and David Pryor and I retire, they got the upper hand, because a lot of the people that we thought were coming along behind us, like David Matthews, whom you know, decided for personal reasons not to run for Governor, not to run for Senator. And Arkansas, I believe, was hurt by the fact that the Arkansas Gazette could not go on. It was one of the great progressive newspapers in America for decades. And it got in this newspaper war, and the man that won is a hardcore conservative Republican with a longstanding opposition to me. They basically intimidated all the good people off that committee. Blair probably told you what happened. But I think it is a great mistake to analyze a situation only in terms of the adverse factors. I mean, look at this this State, they elected me Governor five times; they stuck with me through thick and thin; they voted for me twice, even after the Democratic Party had lost a lot of its leverage there, and the main newspaper was in a tirade daily against us. And if it were not for them, I would not be sitting here talking to you today. We have got this very progressive my Congressman, Vic Snyder, is a great, progressive Congressman. He is one of the few people in Congress he is a lawyer and a doctor, a very interesting fellow. Marion Berry, who worked in the White House for me, is our other Democratic Congressman from there. I think we have got an excellent chance to win a third seat down there. You know, you cannot let the politics get but all these rocks that turn out, you have got to understand the kind of people that they have turned up. I made enemies in my years in politics, and there are people who are disappointed. What they learned was, they got a certain set of signals here. People will assume it is true, unless you can disprove it. And you will be rewarded for that sort of stuff. So I think that, with all of that, the great majority of the people there just hung in there.


I often get the sense at these fundraisers that you are you hear it when you are talking at these fundraisers. It is almost like, well, you wish you could make the argument or grab the Vice President or other Democrats by the lapels. This is the way to frame the argument. This is the way to frame the question. How often are you sort of befuddled by the inability of other Democrats to articulate the case the way you feel it should be articulated? Well, first of all, I think that in '96 and '98 we pretty well sang out of the same hymnal, and we did a very good job. As I said, I think you have to give Gephardt and Daschle enormous credit, and their colleagues, for what happened in '98. Only a few people understand the truly historic significance of that election. I mean, we could have lost six Senate seats and did not lose any. And it was the first time since 1822 that a President's party had won seats in the sixth year of a Presidency, in the House. And what I think has happened this year is, you know, we had a primary, a Presidential primary; then other things happened. And I think that one of the reasons I am really excited about the Lieberman selection is, I think what you will see now is a clear commitment to build on the future. We will be able to distill it in the congressional races around three or four issues. And then I think the Vice President and Lieberman will do a great job at the convention. I think my job is to try, in these fundraisers the reason I talk the way I do at these fundraisers is that all these people who come to our fundraisers know a lot of other people who do not come to them and who are not as political or maybe even moderate Republicans or whatever. And what I try to do, that I think I am in a unique position to do because I am not running, is to analyze the choice before the American people today in terms of what is happened and what is going to happen. The frustration you pick up in my voice is not what the others are not doing; it is what I think is the only risk for us in this election which I, by the way, if you have been talking to our people, you know I have always believed that Al Gore will be elected. I have always believed it.


I never stopped believing it when he was 18 or 20 points behind a year ago. I always believe it. I think he is easy to underestimate because he is a very serious man who does not think only about politics all the time. But if you look at that sort of bouncy, bouncy Gallup poll that is in the USA Today, today you know, 19 down, 2 down it shows you that the people are looking for a little meat here. That is the most encouraging thing I have seen, because the thing that I have been frustrated about is when times are really good and people feel good and nobody wants to bring them down, least of all me everybody has got other things going on in their lives. So the temptation, first of all, is to think, well, things are rocking along here, and this is not the biggest election I have ever had to face here, because things are going so well; and then to feel, well, because of the strategy adopted by Governor Bush and by the whole group, well, there is maybe not that much difference anyway, which reinforces that it may not be important, and it clouds everything up. What I want to do is to have people stay up but understand that what you do with all this prosperity is as big a decision as what we had to in '92 and maybe more difficult because you have to create something. What is it you want America to look like in 10 years? You actually have the ability to do it now. It is not like you have just got to turn the ship of state around. What do you want to do? So I think that I am in a unique position to sort of talk to the American people about it like that, and that is what I do at these fundraisers. I do not want the Democrats to be in a position of personally attacking the Republicans. I do not want us to get in the position that the other guys have been in for so much the last 8 years. I do not think we should say bad things about them. I think we should posit that they are patriots, that they love their country; they love their families; and they can do what they think is right. But we should not be fuzzyheaded here that there are not profound differences that will not have profound consequences for how we live and how we go into the future.


And I believe that, after we have our chance at the convention and then we will have the debates unfold, I think that we will have some clarity of choice, and then we will see what happens. When young people come to me and say they want to run for office, what should they do, I always give them two pieces of advice. Number one, you have got to have a reason that is bigger than yourself for wanting this job, and you have got to be able to tell people what it is in fairly short order. On election day, everybody who votes against you will know exactly what they are doing. Because if everybody who votes against you knows what they are doing, then you do not have any gripe if you lose. Now, if everybody that votes against us this time, votes against the Vice President and Joe Lieberman, knows what they are doing, we will have a majority of the vote. Can I ask a one-sentence answer, or will I be in the doghouse? Do you think a strong year, finishing up 2000 in a sprint, can that cleanse the mistakes of 1998 to some degree? And you do not view it that way? For one thing, I think that the only thing that can cleanse a mistake, ever, is an apology and an atonement. And I think that my to the extent that the promise I made to the American people to work like crazy for them every day I was President is a part of that, I think that the answer to your question may be yes. They know that I did something I should not have done, and I apologized for it. But I have tried to atone for it both in a deeply personal way with my family and my coworkers and friends but also in a larger sense by serving the American people. And I think they have long since been a framework of putting it behind and of looking to the future and seeing whether what I am doing makes sense for them and their families and their future. But it is, for me I have felt a renewed sense of rededication to the business that I have been elected to perform because they stuck with me, and it is something I will never forget and always be grateful for.


ENTITY, can you hear me? Can you hear me? This is ENTITY, and welcome to Cleveland. Thank you, ENTITY, it is nice to hear your voice. Now, let us clear up a matter here of this budget memo. This story broke yesterday in the Washington Post, and your reaction to it came on the West Coast yesterday. And some people in Cleveland may not be caught up on it, but apparently there was a budget memo that was leaked to the Washington Post indicating that one of your administration's options in the future might be a reduction in Social Security benefit COLA's and a raising of some taxes. What is the straight story on that? The straight story is that that was not an options memo for us, it was a memo which simply cataloged all the things that we might be confronted with over the next couple of years by this commission on entitlements that is meeting, this bipartisan commission, as well as if the Republicans make substantial gains in the Congress and try to implement their Contract With America. big tax cuts for the wealthy, and they have promised to balance the budget while cutting taxes to the wealthy and increasing defense and increasing Star Wars again. Our calculations indicate that it would require a 30 percent cost cut in everything else. So you are going to have exploding deficits, Medicare cuts, and other things if this contract goes in. This memo was simply designed to show us the kind of problems we were going to confront over the next few years if those sort of things came up. The truth is, we are doing a good job right now in bringing the deficit down. Today I am going to speak at the Cleveland City Club and talk about the deficit reduction. We brought it down from $290 billion-plus to $203 billion this year in 2 years. That is $100 billion less than it was projected to be when I took office. And we have done it by cutting the size of Government, by eliminating Government programs, by cutting others, while still being able to increase our investment in education and training and new technology. And that is what I want to keep doing, managing this thing in a very disciplined way to give us a smaller Government that does more. And if we do that, we can maintain our commitments to our senior citizens and do what we have to do to grow this economy. The main thing we cannot do is to throw our economy in a tailspin by going back to trickle-down economics.

Interview With Chuck Meyer of WWWE Radio in Cleveland, Ohio


ENTITY, I am looking at a political cartoon that appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer the other day, and it is a couple sitting on their front porch and she says, I know I am mad at Clinton. And the whole question comes up here, while Ronald Reagan was the Teflon President and nothing stuck to him, everything is sticking to you. And you are getting blamed for just about everything going on in the country today, including the heartbreak of psoriasis. I think part of it is the skill of the Republican congressional leadership and the far right in this country in just continuing to keep the American people in a turmoil and obscuring the facts. I mean, what I have got to do is to spend more time communicating with the American people about what we have done and where we are going. Business failures have dropped by 24 percent; jobs are up. The economic plan that the Congress passed has given us 2 years of deficit reduction already for the first time in more than 20 years, and next year it'll go down again; it'll be the first time since Truman was President. Eleven times as many Ohio families got a tax cut as a tax rate increase under our economic plan, 509,000 families. The Family and Medical Leave Act that we passed gives 2 million families in this State opportunities for the working people to take a little time off when their babies are born or their parents are sick. That bill was something we supported that the Republican leadership opposed. The same is true of college loans for middle class kids, immunizing all the kids in this country under 2, things that will strengthen work and families. So I believe if the people of Ohio and the people of this country knew what we have done to empower working people, to increase our investments in education, to shrink the size of the Federal Government, shrink the deficit, and grow the economy, they'd be pretty well pleased with this administration. But if you look at the environment in which we have operated, which has been highly contentious, highly negative, and almost no opportunity to get through the positive achievements, it is not surprising. People can only act on what they know. But, ENTITY, do not you play into those hands sometimes yourself? For instance, the crime rate's been going down now for several years, and yet crime seems to be the number one issue in this campaign, if there is such a thing as a top issue.


We have a lot of politicians running around the country ready to throw everybody in jail, and yet the crime rate's going down. No, it is not a non-issue for a couple of reasons. The crime rate is going down in some categories in some places because we know that local police and community groups have figured out how to lower the crime rate with community policing and having neighbors work with law enforcement. We know that. But we also know that the crime rate is going up in two ways that are very troubling. First of all, it is going up among teenagers and people under 18. And secondly, the amount of random violence is going up among children under 18. And that is very disturbing to people, and it makes for a more insecure society. Now, what happens about whether people know the crime rate is going up or down is a function of what they see on their local and national news. How can you say we made our own problem? I gave the Congress a comprehensive crime bill, which the first time around both Republicans and Democrats voted for it, and the second time around all the Republicans bailed out and tried to make it a political issue-or most of the Republicans bailed out. Some of them stayed on and showed good citizenship. But that crime bill will increase police presence by 20 percent in the communities of this country. It offers strategies to help prevent crime, and it has much tougher punishment for seriously violent offenders. It makes a real start in the right direction. So if you look at what we have done here in the last 2 years, we have strengthened the economy, we have made a serious assault on crime, and we have done a lot of things for ordinary working people like the family leave bill, the middle class college loans, and things of that kind. But I think most people in Ohio support the Brady bill, support the crime bill, support the things we have done and regret the fact that it became a political football in Washington. ENTITY, we have had some calls this morning asking about health care. I know it was a big disappointment that it did not pass, and I read where the White House is gearing up for a more aggressive health care plan to pass next year. And yet, the other day I read where that 30-some-odd million people in this country who do not have health care has grown to nearly 40 million people now.


I think these people want to know why health care did not pass and why the debate got so bogged down when this was clearly a top issue that Americans wanted and were willing to pay for 2 years ago. Well, it got bogged down because the people who are making a huge amount of money out of the system that we have spent a lot of money to terrify the people who do have health care today into thinking that if our bill passed it would make it worse and it would lead to more Government intervention in the health care system. And what we have got to do is to come back and find a way to demonstrate to the American people what we want to do is to protect the plans that they have now that they like, but to make sure we cover the people who do not have health insurance and we control the costs better. Every other country in the world with an advanced economy, every other wealthy country, spends between 9 and 10 percent of its income on health care to cover everybody. We spend 14 percent of our income, or another $240 billion, and we have almost 40 million people without insurance. Another million Americans in working families lost their health insurance last year. Well, the people that are making that extra $240 billion by and large do not want us to change. And they spent somewhere between $200 million and $300 million lobbying against our health care plan. Then again, the Republican congressional leadership operated on the theory that they could not permit any kind of health care to pass because it would be politically beneficial to the Democrats and to the administration. I wanted them to have half the credit. And we have just got to keep dealing with this. The health care problem is the main cause of the big Government deficit. It is a main source of insecurity for working people who have jobs. And we are going in reverse. We are the only major country where we are actually losing ground in providing coverage to people. So I am going to come back and try to find a way that the American people will support and will not be frightened by, to cover the people who do not have coverage, to protect the coverage of the people who do have coverage, and to slow the rate of cost increases. ENTITY, I'd like to ask you another political question. My 17-year-old daughter, Andrea, told me to pass along the message to you that she intends to vote for you in 1996 when she is allowed to vote in a Presidential election for the first time.


The bad news is, why is not Tom Foley as excited about you as my daughter? Well, what are-Tom Foley has done a pretty good job. Well, he was not by your side in Seattle yesterday. He had a debate last night, and he was preparing for it, and he was doing exactly what he should've done. He was over in the part of the State where his district was, doing exactly what he should have done. And I think he-I would have been disappointed if he had come all the way over there and then turned around and gone back and taken away 3 or 4 hours from his debate preparation time. He is in a tough fight. He is been in tough fights consistently in his district for the last 15 or 20 years, and he is over there paying attention to the people of his district, which is what he ought to be doing. But there are Democrats around the country this year who do not want you to come and campaign for them. And you are reduced to helping get votes for Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy, and these guys should be winning easy reelection, should not they? I do not know why you would say that. It is very hard for any Governor to get elected to four terms, very, very difficult. And Governor Cuomo had a pretty close race 4 years ago. I think he is going to win, but it is a very combative environment in New York. And I was asked to come in there because it was a difficult case and because I think he is an important leader for our country and I hope he can be reelected. Senator Kennedy has been in office 30 years, and there is a big anti-incumbent feeling out in the country this year. I think he will be reelected because he is been willing to change, embrace new ideas, and take a different approach in the last few years. I think he is really become an instrument of a lot of the new ideas the American people would like to see adopted by the Congress, and I think that is why they will reelect him. But I do not think you should assume that because somebody is well known they will have an easy reelection. Sometimes that makes for a tough reelection, particularly given the harsh feelings people have about the Congress. I know that you have to go in a moment, but I wanted to ask you a quick question about Syria.


welcome to St. Louis, and thank you for making this your first stop. Our first question concerns a matter of major concern to the vast majority of Americans; that is, your personal safety. It is a frightening fact that a President of the United States would have to wear a bulletproof vest, and we wonder whether this is going to become standard hardware, standard issue from the White House for future American Presidents and yourself? We also wonder whether or not you feel that in the interest of national security, world security, you should modify your campaign style? Julius, let me say at the outset I do not think I should discuss whether I wear or do not wear--or whether I do something or do not do something that involves the security. The Secret Service makes recommendations. I feel an obligation to follow their recommendations. But to identify, Julius, what I am doing or why I am doing it, involving security, I think makes security that much more difficult. As to my desire to meet people when I come to either St. Louis or in New Hampshire, where I was yesterday, I feel it is important for the American people to have an opportunity to see firsthand, close-up, their ENTITY. In any job, you know, there is a risk of some kind. I feel that you have to balance or weigh the risks as to my own personal security against what is a very important aspect of our political life in America. It is helpful for me to meet with the people, shake hands with them, get their questions, and it is just as important for them to have me say hello or to answer their questions. So, as I put the alternatives or the contending arguments on the scales, it seems to me that what is good for the country overbalances anything else. We can see that your vest today, that we can see, matches your suit and is quite attractive. ENTITY, you seem to be doing more than just meeting the American people, though. You are actually campaigning at a breakneck speed, with the election still 14 months away. Why are you doing that? Are you afraid of Ronald Reagan as a possible rival? I'd like to ask you, also, if you think this is a wise use of your time when there are so many problems of government bearing on you? I will answer the last question first.

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


I work a minimum of 12 hours a day, and usually it is 14, and the odd times that I take out to come to St. Louis, to New Hampshire, do not in any way whatsoever interfere with the conducting of White House business by me as President. I have an excellent staff. They prepare the options for me to make decisions. I have ample time to read and to study. So, when I come to St. Louis, or Kansas City, where I am going, or New Hampshire yesterday, it in no way whatsoever interferes with the responsibilities I have, which are the highest, of being President of the United States. Now, I do not consider coming to St. Louis a campaign effort. I did not go to New Hampshire yesterday for myself. I went there for the purpose of trying to elect a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. That was not for me, but for him or for our party's candidate. The aim and objective of coming here is to appear on this program, to attend a White House Conference, to help the Republican Party in Missouri and Kansas City. Dudman also asked you another question, and that is regarding Reagan and your possible fear of his candidacy. Julius, I like competition in the political arena. Governor Reagan has not announced as a candidate yet. He has indicated either personally or through one of this representatives that he may sometime in November. Governor Reagan was a fine Governor of the State of California. Until he announces his candidacy, I am assuming that I am the only Republican candidate, and I will welcome any competition. I love it. ENTITY, with the seeming inability of government to solve the Nation's critical problems--oil, energy, the economy, growing Federal spending--and the seeming preoccupation with intelligence probes and pay raises and recesses, what can be done to restore confidence, believability, and credibility in government? There are a number of things that I think can be helpful. There is not any one thing that will answer the perplexing problem that you have posed. I happen to believe that a ENTITY traveling around the country, meeting people, is one way. The alternative for a ENTITY is to sit in seclusion in the Oval Office. I do not think that adds to the credibility or improves or enhances the public impression of Washington.

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


On the other hand, I think the Congress, which is an integral part of our Government, one of the three major branches, has an opportunity to also project itself and to improve its credibility by the work that it does, the answers that it gives, and its efforts to meet firsthand the American people. There are some substantive matters that have to be solved that would enhance the credibility of the Government as such. We are making slow progress but, I think, constructive progress, out of the recession. Employment has gone up by about 1.5 million in the last 5 months, even though the unemployment statistic is still too high. We are making headway in meeting the challenge of inflation. But as we move forward in meeting the challenge of our economy, that will enhance our Government's credibility with 214 million people. Also, energy must be solved, and this is probably the most frustrating domestic problem that I have faced. Having submitted a plan, a comprehensive program to make the United States invulnerable against foreign oil cartels in January, I hate to admit it, but the Congress has done nothing affirmative either on their plan--if they have one--or on my plan, which I submitted. I think the American people are frustrated in this area, and our credibility as a government is harmed. I still think we can do something here, but we have to achieve this improved credibility two ways--by people in Government appearing to be human and by having the Government do things affirmatively. ENTITY, the latest poll shows that Nelson Rockefeller is not doing too well in the form of popularity. I wonder if you'd give us some thoughts on the polls and how much faith you have in him and whether Rockefeller continues to go this way that he will not be your running mate the next time around? Of course, you recognize the final decision as for myself as the Republican candidate and the Vice-Presidential candidate will be made by the delegates to the Republican Convention. I am, of course, interested in the polls, both personally as well as concerning any other individual for President or VicePresident, but I do not think that should be the sole criteria. I believe that a candidate for President or Vice President must be either approved or disapproved on the job that is done. If a President does a good job, even though the immediate public opinion polls may not be favorable, I think the delegates ought to approve him, and the same for Vice President.

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


Now, in the case of Nelson Rockefeller, I picked him because he had done a fine job in New York State. He has done far better as Vice President than I could possibly have expected. He has got a vast amount of experience. I think those attributes will be watched, and the delegates will respond to them at the Republican Convention. So, based on performance and expectations, I would assume that the delegates would probably nominate him. If I may interpret, as we so-called political experts do, that sounds sort of like an endorsement for the Vice President. Well, I certainly have to endorse the job he has done, no question about it. ENTITY, in your speech to the National Baptist Convention,1 you promise that economic and social equality will become a reality for black Americans. That is a rather easy surface promise to make to a group that represents some 5.5 million potential votes. In the first place, we are going to get the economy as a whole out of the recession, and we are on our way now to, I think, a substantially improved economic picture. In the process of that, the black American will also benefit, as all other Americans will. If we look back on the last 5 years, Julius, we find that more blacks have gone to college, more blacks are entering better paying jobs. We are doing our utmost to improve living conditions for all disadvantaged people, including blacks. We are seeking to enforce very vigorously the equal employment opportunity legislation. I appointed a friend of mine from Michigan, Lowell Perry, who you may or may not know, as the new Chairman of that very important Commission, and they are going to do a good job. So, through a combination of circumstances, the general improvement plus specific actions, I believe that blacks as a whole, particularly those in the lower end of the spectrum economically, will be the beneficiaries. ENTITY, I'd like to ask you a question about the Middle East. The United States, for the first time, is becoming directly involved there, and quite deeply, with the prospect of stationing technicians. Do not you owe it to the American people in these circumstances to make public every American commitment that is being made and every detail of the deal that the United States has helped bring about between Israel and Egypt?

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


We have submitted all of the official documents to the two committees in the Congress--the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on International Relations--and Secretary Kissinger has testified to those two committees and the two Armed Services Committees. We are working out arrangements to give the documents that I mentioned plus the content of any other communications between me and the heads of state. of Egypt on the one hand and Israel on the other. Now, we have committed to give the content of those documents and those communications, but I do not think--it has never been done in the past--that a direct communication between a President and another head of state should be made public. I think that is adequate assurance to the American people. I would add, the commitment that we have made at the request of Egypt on the one hand and Israel on the other--they made them to us--authorizing up to 200 U.S. technicians, nonmilitary, in a U.N. buffer zone--all of the details concerning that part of the agreement will be made public. The sense of it will be filtered through selected Congressmen and Senators. Well, the exact words of our commitment of up to but not more than 200 American technicians will be made public, no question about that. I understand that, but things like the level of aid that is to be given to Israel and-- Well, no, no, I must correct the record there. When I submit the budget request for the total foreign aid program on a worldwide basis, I will submit the details of the request of economic and military aid for Israel just as I will do it in the case of Egypt. But that will all come as a part of the package for the total worldwide foreign aid program. ENTITY, it has been suggested that we use our grain for Soviet oil or for somebody's oil. You currently have someone working on that in the Soviet Union now, we are told. What kind of a deal do you see, sir? We have a high level group of negotiators under Assistant Secretary of State Robinson in Moscow now negotiating for a long-term purchase agreement by the Soviet Union up to, say, 5 years for American grain and other agricultural products. We feel that a long-term agreement with minimums and maximums is in the best interests of the farmer and the country, as well as our relations with the Soviet Union.

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


Now, there are some very preliminary discussions going on concerning grain and oil, but they have not gone beyond very preliminary discussions. Have you reached some level of amounts when you talk in terms of oil? Have you set a figure or a number of barrel amount? We have no specifics, because these are preliminary discussions. The Soviet Union, we understand, does have a surplus of oil. We have a surplus of grain. So, at least we ought, in a very preliminary way, just discuss any alternatives, but we have not gone beyond that. Has any kind of barter arrangement--if the Soviet Union cannot supply the oil in exchange for grain, are you hoping that they will exert their influence over the Arabs who listen to them? I think there is a better way to exercise our influence with the Arab nations, and that is through the International Energy Agency, which was set up or promoted primarily by the United States about a year ago, where the basic industrial consuming nations have joined together to meet with the producing nations, OPEC, for example. We are negotiating directly with them. I think that has more potential than relying on the Soviet Union to help us with the Arab nations. Our relations with the Arab nations are good. I do not think we have to go through the Soviet Union in this case or any other case, as far as dealing with Arab nations. ENTITY, if Israel is expelled from the United Nations, would the United States withdraw, and can you foresee any circumstances that might prompt the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N.? I do not expect the United Nations to kick Israel out, and of course, the United States would vigorously protest and vote against any such effort on the part of any nation or nations. We believe that the prospects for that happening have subsided considerably, particularly since the agreement between Egypt on the one hand and Israel on the other. If we can continue to have momentum in the Middle East--which I think will continue--the prospects of Arab nations and other nonaligned nations trying to kick Israel out becomes less and less. In other words, the position of Israel in the United Nations becomes stronger as we keep momentum going for a solution, a long-term solution, to the problems in the Middle East. To answer your last question, I foresee no circumstances where the United States would leave the United Nations. It is good for us to be a part of that forum, to have an influence --

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


You know we have had problems there in the past. We have problems in other forums as well. I have always found the best way to win a game is to play it, not to sit on the sidelines. And the United States ought to be in the game in the United Nations to protect our interests. It is a lot better inside than sitting out doing nothing. Would it be in the interests of the United States to try to arrive at. a formula sometime so that North and South Vietnam could enter the United Nations? They were vetoed this time because of the connection with Korea. But is not it true that the United States continues to have a great interest in that part of the world, and is not there a danger that relations with North and South Vietnam can get into a deep freeze the way China and Cuba did for so many years, to nobody's advantage? We believe in the universality of the United Nations. We feel that it is in the interest of the world as a whole to have all nations that want to become a part of the United Nations be members, but the effort of North and South Vietnam to get in was predicated on their coming in alone. We felt if North and South Vietnam were to be a part of the United Nations, South Korea, that has had its application in to be a member for a good many years, also ought to be included. You cannot be selective on who or what nation should be a part of the United Nations. I presume, based on our overall interest in matters involving Southeast Asia, that it is conceivable under certain circumstances that our relations with North and South Vietnam will improve, but a lot has to happen. For example, North Vietnam continues to refuse to give us information concerning the MIA's, and they try to bribe us by saying, We will give you information about MIA's if you will let us in the United Nations. Well, North Vietnam agreed in January of 1973 to give us information, to give us access to North Vietnam to find the MIA's, and they have not lived up to it. So, how can we trust them? They have got a lot of things to do before we are going to be very receptive to their participation. ENTITY, busing is a subject and a practice that is distasteful to a large segment of the American population, both black and white. And is there any alternative that you see?

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


I think we have to decide in the first place what we are really trying to do by busing before you discuss whether it is good or bad. All of us-white, black, every American, in my opinion--wants quality education. Now, the Court decided in 1954 that separate but equal schools were unconstitutional, and the courts have decided that busing is one way to try and desegregate on the one hand and perhaps improve education on the other. Many of those decisions have raised great problems in many, many localities-Louisville and Boston being the most prominent at the present time. Discussing those two communities, let me very strongly emphasize the Court has decided something. That is the law of the land. As far as my Administration is concerned, the law of the land will be upheld, and we are upholding it. But then I think I have the right to give what I think is a better answer to the achievement of quality education, which is what we all seek. I think that quality education can be enhanced by better school facilities, lower pupil-teacher ratios, the improvement of the neighborhood, as such. Those are better answers, in my judgment, than busing under a court order. Quality education can be achieved by more than one method. I was reading in the Washington Post this morning a column by one of the outstanding black columnists, Raspberry. And Raspberry has come to the conclusion that court-ordered forced busing is not the way to achieve quality education for blacks or whites in a major metropolitan area. That is a very significant decision by Raspberry, who I think Dudman, for example, highly respects. In Boston and Louisville, where the court has ordered busing, how well do you think the people of those two cities have conducted themselves in bringing about court-ordered exchanges of black and white students? I am thinking about this fall. Are you reasonably well satisfied with the way things have happened or not? I hope that that attitude can prevail in the months ahead as the police involvement and the Federal marshal involvement becomes less and less. I am always an optimist, even though I disagree with the method by which they are trying to achieve quality education. Well, are you counseling the people of those two cities to cooperate with the courts, or are you encouraging them to maintain their strong feelings in some cases that this is an improper solution? Last year I did a televised tape urging the people of Boston.

Interview With Reporters in St. Louis.


ENTITY, Secretary Cheney was saying on the weekend that he might envision deeper troop cuts after the CAFE One, as sort of CAFE Two. Now, do you think that such talk is premature, or have you calculated that you may need further troop cuts in order to avoid raising taxes next year? Well, there are pressures on the defense budget; and Dick Cheney, a man who has always believed in a strong defense, still believes in a strong defense. But for those who follow our budget process, they know that defense has been hit 5 years in a row, and so, it is appropriate that any Secretary of Defense encourage active reviews. What I want to do is get on with the -- you call it CAFE One -- and get those conventional forces reduced in accordance with that and do it on schedule, and then see where we go. And I am not suggesting that forevermore we will have the same levels of troops anywhere -- standing army, Europe, Korea, anywhere else. But we are certainly not doing to take any unilateral action. We do what we do in conjunction with allies. We will be perfectly prepared to think anew -- always -- because we are living in fascinating, changing times. The Secretary of Defense, in conducting a review, is doing what I want him to do. But there will be no what I would call premature decisions in terms of unilateral cuts. Sometimes we accept cuts in the congressional process that we do not want. We have got to digest those cuts. But I think Dick is, along with the Joint Chiefs, are looking forward, looking ahead, trying to figure out what levels are appropriate under various scenarios with international tensions or lack of tensions. So, I think we are on the right track on this. But I think people are reading, in some places, in some cases, too much into the story that he has ordered this review. At least I did not get all excited when I saw it, because I know what he is doing. Could you tell us what is your agenda for the summit meeting in Malta? You are quoted as saying that that would be an historic opportunity to enhance the peace. How do you think you will be able to achieve that? And lastly, would it be correct to say that your Soviet policy is firmly in place now? And if so, what are the basic premises of your Soviet policy? Arms control will be taken up in the summit that has already been set, and that summit will drive the arms control agenda.

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I know the third part. You were quoted as saying that it will be an historic opportunity to enhance peace. What I want to do is be sure we do not miss an opportunity. I want to be sure we do not have any misunderstandings -- Mr. Gorbachev conducting himself in one way and our not understanding the underpinnings of his thinking. It is not a meeting -- because I do not like using the word summit. Summit has the connotation, in our country anyway, of mainly agreements on arms control. And we are not looking forward to crossing t's and dotting i's at this meeting. I hope he does not , but maybe we can use your newspaper to make clear to him that we are not expecting that. But there is enough background of understanding here on the meeting that I do not think there is that expectation. But look, there is so much rapid change going on in Eastern Europe that I am very anxious to hear from him what his thoughts are about the future of Europe. a Europe whole and free. They know my convictions about self-determination. They know our conviction that democracy and freedom are on the move. And I will have a chance to reiterate that and to give him my conception, my ideas of the future. In terms of U.S.-Soviet relations, they are based at this juncture on our desire to see perestroika succeed. And I think there may have been some misunderstanding on the part of some of our Soviet friends about that. I think they wondered from various statements or the time it took for us to formulate an arms control agreement, a proposal, or maybe even to set the date of a summit, or maybe even to make the proposal -- which was mine -- that we meet in Malta. Certain elements in your country want to see perestroika fail, or wonder if perestroika will succeed. There are no serious elements in the United States that want to see perestroika fail. I am not sure that he understood that this new administration, taking our time prudently to review our defense posture and all, really believed that. But so, you ask about the relationship. that freedom and democracy are best, the right to self-determination is the best, that people have the right to choose their leaders is the best. And so, I cannot mask that. We still have some differences of system.

Interview With Foreign Journalists


But our policy is based on respect for what he is trying to do and for our interest in seeing perestroika succeed, because if it succeeds, the world will be a lot more peaceful for everybody, it seems to me. And a lot of us can, indeed, have more of our product going into helping people instead into arms. In view of the changes in the Eastern bloc, would it be possible and in the interest of the United States to limit military expenses and to increase economic assistance for our countries in order to help us with reforms? Well, take Poland, a country with which you are quite familiar. We will help, I might say, in concert with our allies, too. And I have been talking to most, and I think you will find a common interest in seeing the economic success. But if your question is can we make unilateral defense cuts in order to put more money into the development of Eastern Europe, the answer is no. I am not going to recommend unilateral defense cuts. I will not do that without -- not even unilateral -- but we will discuss the legitimate defense needs, given the changes in the world, with our allies. And I think every country -- the emerging democracy of Poland, and I say that because they have had free elections; those that want to be democratic and will have free elections. Other countries in Eastern Europe -- Hungary coming up -- who knows what will happen in the GDR in terms of elections. All those countries have a stake in NATO being a respected alliance. And it becomes less of a respected alliance if we make unilateral cuts, unless the changes around the world on other forces take place. I mean, the Soviet Union is spending, we reckon, about 17 percent of the gross national product on defense. It is an enormous burden on an economy that is having difficulty anyway. So, what we have got to do is have good discussions with the Soviet leaders and try to show that a lessened defense will not hurt their security, because we have no intention of raiding the Soviet Union, going after them. And once we convince them that the West does not threaten them, then I think you can see a reallocation of resources worldwide from arms into helping others. Can I get to the beginning of this story about the meeting and ask you who thought of Malta and the Mediterranean first? It takes two to tango. You have heard that expression.

Interview With Foreign Journalists


And we went back and forth with several ideas, always -- and I say this without any reservation -- in a spirit of total frankness and total accommodation. But I think he would tell you that, in terms of logistics, that I was the one that proposed Malta itself. How about this as a suggestion? He made a couple of other suggestions that, for timing purposes, did not work out. So, in telling you that -- you come from Malta -- I'd love to take full credit because I think it will be good. I think we made the suggestion, but I think it was a collegial decision. It was a decision that clearly the Soviet side was enthusiastic about, and it was driven somewhat by Mr. Gorbachev's own logistical problems. He will be in Italy, and so, it made inordinate good sense. But in any event, I think both sides are very pleased about it. As I am the only Asian journalist present today, so I have to ask you this. The Pentagon published a report on the Soviet military at the end of September, saying that in Asian regions there are no indications so far of the lessening of Soviet military strength. Have you seen since then any indication of the lessening of that strength? And also, are you talking about -- with Mr. Gorbachev -- about new Asian security situation, including the Korean Peninsula problem and our dispute with the Soviet Union on the Northern Territory? No, I see no reduction in defenses. Now, I want to check with our experts on that. I have not seen them, but I do not want to misrepresent. Has the Soviet Union, since that Pentagon report came out in the fall, to our knowledge reduced defense spending -- -- Well, they have cut back some on conventional forces and, therefore, probably on spending. We see very little evidence on strategic forces that they have reduced their expenditures. In terms of the rest of your question, this meeting is so open that we can discuss anything we want. And clearly, the United States considers itself a power with tremendous interests in the Pacific. And I would have absolutely no inhibitions about discussing the lay of the land in Asia, and your other question related to the Korean Peninsula. And again, I will be prepared to discuss our policy as it relates to the Korean Peninsula with Mr. Gorbachev.

Interview With Foreign Journalists


To the degree we can get understanding on that question, although I am not sure we differ too much -- why, that would be good. But again, no agenda item -- a preparation to discuss not just the changes in Eastern Europe that I referred to as one of the things that spurred our interest in a meeting at this time -- the rapidity of the change -- but, indeed, the entire globe. There is a lot of regional problems that we have with the Soviets. And we have been frank about it. They know of our concerns about Cuba, their relationship in Cuba -- one of three people in this hemisphere that is swimming against the democratic tide -- Nicaragua the same thing. And so, we will discuss this, and I expect Mr. Gorbachev will be very open to discussion on this. We are not going to just discuss things that are of more interest to the Soviets. And this is of prime interest to us. So, I am glad you raised it because we have not diminished our interests in Asia, given all this change in Eastern Europe. I will tell you one little anecdote, and then we will go to the next one. All this talk of yours about Eastern Europe, does this show -- he put it more negatively towards me, he said: Should not this lead us to believe that you are showing less interest in your own hemisphere here? So, I would say that I would like to feel that we can discuss problems anywhere in the world. I would be very anxious to discuss all these things. That is not what this meeting is about. It would be a mistake to do that. ENTITY, the most recent developments in Eastern Europe have taken people by surprise -- I guess even your administration. And some people in Western Europe are very worried about it. And the big question is how fast the process of integration of Western Europe should happen. Do you think that the idea of having the monetary fiscal integration should move forward as soon as possible as a guarantee of forming a strong bloc on the other side? In the first place, I do not think many people in Western Europe worry about the fact that the change has taken place. Some might worry about where it leads and whether some unforeseen event will happen that will reverse this very salutary change. We are very pleased this is taking place, but we are a little uncertain as to what is next.

Interview With Foreign Journalists


And that is one of the reasons we as the United States are trying to not listen to those that are out there encouraging flamboyant action but to rather respond prudently, as a great power must, to the change. And you know and I know that I have been criticized for timidity. I discount that by about 99 percent as pure, gut, American politics. But nevertheless, some are saying that. And what they mean -- some have wanted me to go jump up on top of the Berlin Wall. Well, I never heard such a stupid idea. I mean, what good would it do for an ENTITY to be posturing while Germans were flowing back and forth by the millions? It makes no sense at all. So, we are conducting ourselves in a prudent way. In terms of what comes next or what role we can have, the only thing I can speak to in managing the change is to encourage a Europe that is whole and free, self-determination when it comes to elections for people, openness, a glasnost that spreads -- give Mr. Gorbachev credit for igniting the fire -- it spreads to countries that have been denied glasnost, openness, for years; and do it in a way not to incite violence, not to do something that will cause repression. And so, I come back to the word of prudent -- managing of what we do and what we say -- and resist flamboyant actions. Things are moving our way. And I speak in response to your question -- the West. What do you mean by our way ? They are moving our way. And so, we do not need to be out there trying to micromanage the desire for change in these Eastern European countries. We want to be ready and available -- this gentleman suggested -- in terms of trying to help financially, if we do not go broke in the process. And we are going to do our best. And we have limited resources now -- it is a great country -- but we want to help. It takes time because you have got to have fiscal reforms before you can have the confidence that would lead to total fiscal and monetary reunion, but it is coming. Poland is trying hard, for example. ENTITY, as you know probably, that a lot of Hungarians are urging that Hungary should declare neutrality.

Interview With Foreign Journalists


But others say that it requires more than a Hungarian decision because it should be accepted and guaranteed by others, especially by great powers. So I wonder, sir, whether the United States would be ready to accept and guarantee Hungary's neutrality, and would you even support this idea at the forthcoming summit? Every country has sovereign rights; and every country, the way we look at it, has a right to determine its own fortunes. And that will be the guiding principle behind the U.S. I think it would be a mistake for the U.S. to try to dictate to a country what course it ought to follow in relationship to the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union, or anybody else. I do not think that is the role of the United States. Here is what we think is best -- democracy, freedom, free elections, freedom of the press, freedom of worship. This is what we believe. We have always believed it. Keep advocating it, but I do not think it would be a productive role for the U.S. to try to micromanage the change that is taking place in Hungary. That is a matter for the Hungarian people. But will you accept if Hungary would declare its neutrality? Well, one thing I learned to do is to not answer a hypothetical question that might position me in terms of favoring one course or another. But you can rest assured that the more countries that are free, reform their economies, want to have the very freedoms I talked about -- to the degree they want good relations with the United States, that makes it a lot easier for us, given the constraints in our laws for countries that are not willing to do that. ENTITY, what do you say to people in France and Great Britain who are against a German reunification? That is a matter for the German people to decide. And there are some that worry about it. I understand that Mr. Gorbachev has some understandable constraints, because he looks at borders, he looks at history -- he is concerned. This is 1989. And we can learn from history, but we also can look to the future. Let this matter be determined by the people in Germany. And if that determination is made, there will be all kinds of representation that this is not by the parties, that this has no reason to threaten anybody else or change borders or anything of that nature. So, I think it really is better at this juncture to be in that broad posture, which we have always had.

Interview With Foreign Journalists