Interview With the President Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Editors and Broadcasters.

THE PRESIDENT. I'm very glad to have you here. I believe that since I've been in the White House this is the 48th group of editors from outside Washington who've come to meet with me and Dr. Brzezinski, Jody Powell, and others, depending upon the current event emphasis of that particular week. There obviously are a broad range of responsibilities that I have to face each clay with a great deal of enthusiasm and enjoyment, sometimes with some degree of concern.

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

This has not been a good week for us in the Congress. But I had a meeting last night with about 100 Members of the Congress—of the House—concerning key issues—the Panama Canal implementation legislation, which must be passed by the 1st of October; the debt limit, which must be changed and raised by the 1st of October; and also the second budget resolution, which also must be passed if the budget process is going to be successful. And now, of course, that must be done as well.

We've had good progress recently in the evolution of our overall energy policy, concerning rationing standby authority, concerning the windfall profits tax, concerning the security corporation to develop synthetic fuels, and concerning the production board, which is designed, as you know, to—the mobilization board, as it's called—which is designed, as you know, to expedite decisions to be made concerning energy projects. This is an extremely complicated subject, multifaceted, with broad-ranging responsibilities in the House and Senate. But I think we've had good success this year and, particularly, this last week.

There's a momentum building up in the House and Senate, and it's very gratifying to me. And I think this is derived directly from an increasing interest among the American people that I and the Congress must act on energy this year. The prime responsibility that I have as President is to guarantee the security of our country, and I see our Nation directly threatened in its security by an excessive dependence on imported oil.

The House and the Senate have many other items to consider—the Senate, obviously, involving itself with consideration of SALT. The Cuban-Russian troop item has been a matter of extra concern for us the last 2 or 3 weeks, and the size of the defense budget is being negotiated with the Senators. This is just a range of subjects that we have in legislation.

In addition, as you know, it's important for me to have as good a working relationship as I possibly can with other interest groups around the country, particularly mayors, Governors, and others in positions of authority. And of course, we have a broad range of foreign policy issues that come before me literally every day.

I think the best thing that I can do at this moment is to answer your questions about any matter that might be of interest, and I'll try to answer them.

QUESTIONS

DULUTH-SUPERIOR GRAIN MILLERS STRIKE

Q. I want to ask you about the Duluth-Superior grain millers strike. I know before you started your trip down the Mississippi, you met with Governor Link and Governor Quie about the strike. A lot of people back in the Dakotas and Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin are wondering, since you stepped into the Rock Island situation—and that was obviously a major part of grain transportation in the Midwest—wondering why similar action hasn't been taken in the Duluth-Superior strike.

Today the port director of Duluth is saying that if the strike is not settled here, maybe over the weekend or early next week, no more grain would move out of Duluth. And that's about 5 percent of the exports, and it's the third agricultural port in the country.

If you could, sir, could you characterize the differences in the situation between your intervention in the Rock Island situation and the stand you've taken as far as the grain millers in Duluth is concerned?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, there are some common features, one of the most notable of which is that I hope the both of them are rapidly settled. There are obviously some additional features, in that employers and employee negotiations are ongoing.

There are differences in law. The Federal laws relating to railways give the President special responsibility and authority to deal with the transportation interruption. And this is an act under which I have recently proposed a resolution of the issue to get the railroads moving again.

The Rock Island Railroad is on the verge of bankruptcy. And it's obvious to me that if a settlement even is reached between the owners and the employees, that the settlement is unlikely to be implemented because of an absence of funds, if I don't act.

In the Duluth elevator question, we have provided, under the law, maximum Federal assistance and participation. The Federal negotiator has been directly involved with an increasing degree of emphasis since I visited the St. Paul area, and we have seen spasmodic indications of progress. Some days we have very good reports that progress is being made, even tentative settlements having been reached; other days not.

It's inappropriate, according to the legal rulings that I have from the Attorney General and Labor Secretary and others, that the Taft-Hartley Act is legally applicable to the Duluth grain elevator strike. The security of our Nation has to be in danger. And it would be difficult to prove in court—and the burden of proof would be on us—that this one strike is, indeed, threatening the crippling of our Nation and its security state or is a danger to the health of the Nation.

But we're doing everything we can to resolve both issues. I have much more authority on the Rock Island Railroad than in the Duluth.

GOAL SUPPLIES

Q. Mr. President, Glen Moyer from WOAI Radio in San Antonio, Texas. The conversion to coal is a well-known prophecy or directive of yours as a part of your national energy program.

The city of San Antonio, a couple of years ago, made that conversion and now owns and operates municipally—or owns a municipal electrical power-generating plant that is coal burned. The problem that we are facing is continuous rate increases being granted by the Interstate Commerce Commission to, particularly, the Burlington Northern Railroad. Since January their price increases have increased by 18 percent. In fact, just this morning the Commission upheld yet another rate increase that now raises the price more than $19 a ton to get coal from Wyoming to San Antonio. The city has even looked at the possibility of importing from overseas, coal from Australia, at a more economical rate than we could use American coal.

I have somewhat of a two-part question, if I might. First of all, does your administration have any plans for getting involved or intervening in any way in that pricing situation? And if not, how then can the administration continue to urge the conversion to coal in order to limit our need for oil imports, which you, a few moments ago, said is in some ways a threat to our security?

THE PRESIDENT. We're doing all we can, through legislation and through administrative action, to encourage a shift from oil to coal. And of course, the competitive price of the two fuels is one that is of great concern to me.

As you know, the Interstate Commerce Commission is an independent agency, and I have no authority over that agency in directing them to establish a particular rate for the hauling of coal. That's done in a judicial forum, where the customers and also the railroads have a right to present their cases. And I presume the ICC has made a reasonable judgment in it.

We also are pursuing the option for coal delivery using slurry lines. The railroads are fighting this proposal, and of course, you have the additional problem involving environmentalists, that it may be an excessive use of water if the origin point has a scarce supply of water. But this is something that we've put forward, we're trying to fight through the Congress, to give the appropriate agencies the right to require rights-of-way under railroads if the coal slurry pipeline needs to travel in that direction.

We will make every effort, through public statements and otherwise, to influence the ICC and the railroads to restrain their rate increases. I would presume that the railroads and the coal miners know that if coal should get to a price level, including transportation costs, that's non-competitive, that they would lose very important and very large customers.

I don't know the details of the San Antonio area, but I think it's worthy of my inquiry now that you've raised the question.

AGRICULTURE EXPORTS

Q. Mr. President, a number of congressional leaders from the Midwest have mentioned that it would be feasible for this country to use the agricultural products, primarily wheat, beef, corn, to other nations to establish more of a balance of trade, import-export, especially with Japan and China. What's your stand on that? Do you plan to go more to that?

THE PRESIDENT. We've already done that, and we are pushing that as hard as we possibly can.

One of the prime campaign issues when I ran for President in '75 and '76 was the repeated grain embargoes that had been implemented under former Secretary of Agriculture Butz and under both Nixon and Ford, and I pledged that this would not be done unless our own Nation's security was directly threatened. We have sustained this commitment and have massively increased agricultural exports.

Our exports this year in volume, not counting even price, will probably be 60-percent greater than any year's exports in history, before I became President. We have set new United States and even world records every year on the total volume of agricultural exports. And I would presume that 1980 would show an even faster rise in exports of American grain to foreign customers.

There's a fairly good crop of grain in China and some other areas of the world. There's a fairly short crop of grain in the Soviet Union. And of course, we will have a bumper crop of grain this year. So, we have really emphasized this ability.

I want to make two other quick points. The second thing that we've done is to set up, within the Agriculture Department, export promotion centers, I believe in six foreign cities, where grain is purchased at that point, to encourage additional customers of our grain that wouldn't ordinarily, maybe, turn to us for grain. It's a highly competitive area.

And the second thing we've done is to greatly increase the quantity of grain that can be stored on the farm. In the past, farm storage was minimal, and quite often the farmers had to sell their grain at the most depressed price level—that is, during harvest season—and any fluctuations later in the grain market, the profits ordinarily went to the middlemen. We have now increased substantially the amount of farm-stored grain, which gives us a chance to let the farmers participate in any improvement in the price, but also to stabilize grain prices, so that you don't have the wild fluctuations that did exist in the previous two administrations before mine.

I think all of these efforts have been very fruitful. And we've got a good reserve supply of grain on hand, rapidly increasing exports, additional emphasis overseas to broaden the customer range that we presently enjoy, increased participation by the farmers in seasonable profits.

PROJECT SEAFARER

Q. Mr. President, Dave Rood, the Delta Reporter, Gladstone, Michigan. When you were campaigning for the Presidency 3 years ago, you made the commitment at that time that you would not put in Project Sanguine, Seafarer, ELF, the Extremely Low Frequency—

THE PRESIDENT. Seafarer.

Q. Seafarer against the will of the people of the Upper Peninsula. Yet there still persists—ELF is still alive. What is your position on that now? Would you still reiterate what you said before?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, my commitment was not to proceed with Seafarer against the will of the people. We have greatly modified the Seafarer proposal in every possible way. We have brought Michigan officials in to the Defense Department, and we've had people go out to explain to them what modifications were taking place. We're looking for every alternative to what was considered a threat to the Michigan, and—I think primarily the Michigan environment—and I will still be very reticent about violating the desires of the Michigan people.

Having departed almost completely from the Seafarer proposal, which was my pledge, if we can find a successful alternative to that—and I consider it to be necessary for the security of our country-then I would have to make that decision to defend our country. But we are still assessing it, still working with the people in Michigan and other States to try to find a reasonable alternative to any objectionable use of this very low frequency communications system.

STORAGE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Q. Mr. President, I'm Rob Rule from KJQ Radio in Ogden, Utah. The Army is planning to move some 900 Wet Eye nerve gas bombs into Utah to be stored. These are bombs that were manufactured in the early fifties and obviously have never been used against an enemy. I have a two-part question. Number one, do you see any reason why these weapons and other weapons like them shouldn't be neutralized tomorrow? And number two, why does Utah have to be the storage ground for these terrible weapons and for so many nuclear waste piles, too?

THE PRESIDENT. We have successfully, I think, concluded a negotiation with the Soviets on the prohibition against radiological weapons—that is, using radioactivity. We've not yet been successful in working out an agreement with the Soviet Union to abolish chemical warfare weapons, but we are actively pursuing that.

I don't believe it would be good for our country unilaterally to take this action. If we did, there would be no possible means in the future to induce the Soviets to join in with us and remove the threat of chemical warfare from the world. The major unresolved difficulty is how to verify compliance with such an agreement.

I cannot tell you the reasons why the Defense Department has concluded that Utah is a better place to store it. I think, as you know, we've got destructive weapons and caustic materials and potentially dangerous operations possibly existing in every State in the Union. And sometimes a particularly offensive weapon might be stored in Utah; sometimes it would be stored in Georgia. We manufacture at the Savannah River plant, just on the border between Georgia and South Carolina, substantial quantities of radioactive material. We have, as you know, in Tennessee, ever since 35 or 40 years ago, manufactured plutonium. We're doing the same thing in Ohio. And I think you can go down the gamut of States, and you'd find in almost every State there are some objectionable things taking place, to certain groups. One was just mentioned here in Michigan.

Q. Wouldn't we look very good to the world community, though, if we said, regardless of what the Soviets are going to do, that the United States makes a commitment never to use one of these weapons, regardless?

THE PRESIDENT. We would look very good to some people in the world if we unilaterally disarmed and prostrated ourselves and said to the Soviets, "Come in and walk over us." But I don't feel that that's an appropriate position for me as President to assume.

KU KLUX KLAN

Q. Mr. President, I'm Milton Reid, the Journal and Guide Newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia. Mr. President, there's a two-part question here. There has been a general rise of the Klan in the South and in the Nation. More recently there's been an organizing of the Klan in the Navy.

THE PRESIDENT. In the Navy?

Q. In the Navy, in Norfolk, with the blessings of one admiral, who said that there was room in the Navy for the Klan as well as anybody else.

THE PRESIDENT. I've never heard that. I'll check on this right after this meeting. When was it?

Q. It was on Monday, Monday morning of this week that the admiral said this in Norfolk.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, what I consider—the Ku Klux Klan and everything it stands for is absolutely abhorrent to me and, I think, to our Nation. My assessment as a southerner is that the acceptability and the presence and the influence and the threat of the Ku Klux Klan is minimal. These are erratic people who have earned the contempt of the rest of the Nation and also of their immediate neighbors in every community in the South with which I am familiar.

There are certain rights of free speech, however, under our constitutional system that protects even obnoxious groups like the Klan in having a right to voice their views and even to march down a public street or, as you know, in the Chicago suburbs, to get the right under the courtordered system to participate in a public park. We have to face that kind of thing in an absolutely free society.

But I think that the condemnation of our country concerning the Klan, which was anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, antiblack, and shrouded in understandable secrecy, is pretty much a thing of the past as far as having any real import.

But I certainly would not approve of any sort of imprimatur of acceptability for the Klan in the armed services. And I'll check on this right after I adjourn this meeting.

PUBLIC OPINION POLLS

Q. Mr. President, maybe a philosophical question. I'm Charles Davis from Iowa Falls, Iowa. The press and politicians seem to pay a lot of attention to public opinion polls. Given the complexity of international-domestic politics, the economy, and everything else, is it reasonable to expect a President under these conditions to rate very high with the majority of the people in the public opinion polls?

THE PRESIDENT. My guess is, in this present political environment it is almost impossible. There are times of euphoria that sweep the Nation immediately after an election or after an inauguration day or maybe after a notable success, like the Camp David accords, when there's a surge of popularity for a President. But most of the decisions that have to be made by a President are inherently not popular ones; they're contentious.

There is not a single vote to be derived from the evolution of a national energy policy. It's down all the way, because the highly motivated consumers groups, for instance, or environmentalists, and so forth, can never be satisfied with any acceptable proposal that has a chance to be approved by the Congress, and the oil companies and all those who are from producing States can never be satisfied with a compromise that's acceptable to Congress and is able to be passed. And for the President to espouse a balanced program naturally arouses the condemnation, certainly the opposition, criticism at least, of those highly motivated opinion-shapers.

In addition, there are times when you have to take a stand that you know is unpopular. A case that comes to my mind as I sit here is the Panama Canal treaties. When we got to the conclusion of the Panama Canal negotiations, after 14 years of negotiating, knowing that this is in the best interest of our country, there was a public opinion poll run, I think, by Gallup under the Foreign Affairs Institute—it was not a Government poll—that showed that only 8 percent of the American people favored a new Panama Canal treaty. But my predecessors, ever since President Johnson, all the knowledgeable people in the State Department- mine and the previous administrations—knew that we had to have a new Panama Canal treaty. And for me to espouse that and to work with a great deal of commitment to get twothirds vote in the Senate was patently a losing political proposition.

Also, when you have uncontrollable things happen—I could control it; I could have avoided it. I didn't have to put forward an energy policy. When you have an uncontrollable situation like inflation—inflation has been with us for 10 years. It's fluctuated between about where it is now, which is about the same as it was in 1974, down to maybe 6 1/2 or 7 percent. The President is naturally held to be responsible for the state of the economy. I think the fluctuations in the state of the economy are one thing which hurt President Ford just before the election in November of 1976.

But a President is responsible for the inconveniences or the disappointments or the concerns of the American people. And you're constantly involved in contention and debate. And as you know, the press-and without criticizing the press—is not going to emphasize the successes or the agreements or the cooperative attitudes or the achievements.

The first year I was in office, for instance, I put forward maybe 15 major programs in which I was personally involved. I guess at the end of the year, we had gotten 9 1/2 or 10 of them passed, but the emphasis was on the ones we didn't get. And even those that we got passed, the emphasis was on—when a subcommittee would vote no, it would be a headline on the front page. If, the next day, the full committee voted yes and then the bill passed, there would be no notice of it.

Another thing is that you have achievements that are not recognized—and this is the last thing I'll say about this. When Kennedy was President, I think it's generally accepted that in all the domestic achievements that he had, a trade bill-where trade barriers were stricken down and an ethical standard for promoting trade was passed—was his major achievement. We passed one this year that is broader and, I think, superior in every way to the one that was passed in 1962 or 1963. In the Washington Post, which is a major focal point here for the promotion of news stories, there was not a single word when the Congress passed that bill^*

^*The President meant there was no separate news story. Passage of the trade bill was given two paragraphs on page 3 in the congressional digest for that day. [Printed in the transcript.]

So, you know, it's hard to mold an approving public when you have those kinds of varied responsibilities to meet. I'm not saying this to deplore the situation, but to tell you that this is the way it is, particularly in an off year. Now, when we face an election year, it'll be time for the American people to make an assessment, an inventory of what has been done—and I think we've got a superb record—a projection of what we hope to accomplish in the future, and then, of course, your own character assessment, the reputation that you have for being steady in an emergency, the organizational structure or commitment of your supporters. Those things become much more important than the relatively transient public opinion polls.

The last point is this: Where I come from, which is southwest Georgia, if you ask these days, "How do you think the county school superintendent is doing?", if somebody says, "I think he's doing a fair job," that is a high approbation. But in most of the public opinion polls, for instance—there are, I think, I don't know, I won't name the public opinion polls they've got excellent, good, fair, and poor. And excellent and good are considered positive; fair and poor are considered negative.

There are a lot of complications about public opinion polls. I look at them; I'm concerned about them. I would like to be highly popular in our country. I'd like to have a 75-percent favorable rating; that would be very nice. But I remember that a week after I was an announced candidate for President, Gallup ran a poll and listed 36 people—Ralph Nader, Julian Bond, and 34 others. My name was not on the list. But I became the President.

So, public opinion polls are interesting. I think they are a guide on how the public feels, but, I think, have relatively little significance about the outcome of an election that might be held next year.

SOVIET TROOPS IN CUBA

Q. Mr. President, I'm Dale McIlwain from the Washington Star. I wanted to know what steps you might have in mind to get the Russian brigade out of Cuba.

THE PRESIDENT. I think it's better for me not to talk at this moment about specifics on that.

Secretary Vanee made a statement, which I later followed and basically repeated, that, I think, goes as far as I want to go as far as a President. I said this was a matter of great concern to us, that the status quo was not acceptable, and that we would be working with the Soviet Union to change the situation in a manner that would be acceptable to us. If this effort should be unsuccessful, then I would have to take appropriate action. And I think to go into further detail than that would be inappropriate.

We are meeting with the Soviet Union, assessing our intelligence data, understanding clearly what is the status quo, and I'll have to make a judgment on what to do about it within the near future.

Ms. BARIO. Thank you, Mr. President.

Q. Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, one more question.

GOAL

Q. The lack of specific incentives to develop anthracite coal is of particular concern in my area. I'm from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the Scranton area. We're sitting on a mountain of coal, and the production is now at 6 million tons, when it was at nearly a hundred million tons a year in the 1930's. The people in our area would like to know, are you prepared to support tax credits to encourage the use of anthracite coal? Are you prepared to support government stockpiling to create a market for anthracite coal?

THE PRESIDENT. I believe the answer to both those questions would be no. I don't have any plans to do either of the two. We are taking other action, however, to increase the use of coal, and I think anthracite, in some instances, would be affected. My guess is that by 1985, we'll have a substantial increase in the use of coal, perhaps even doubling the present use and maybe before the end of this century to triple what we are presently using in the way of coal.

There are some uses for coal which are not particularly related to the original characteristics of the coal. One is obviously the derivation of synthetic oil and gas from coal supplies. My own expectation would be that as we get the windfall profits tax passed and establish a security corporation and set up production plans, that we would want to have them disbursed so as to assess, in the broadest possible way, every energy resource that we have. Knowing of the enormous reserves of anthracite, a major emphasis will be on how to use anthracite in this process.

We expect over a 20-year period to spend about $88 billion on the synthetic fuels program. I believe that 75 billion of that 88 billion is designed for use in synthetic fuels from coal. And so, I would say that in every way the increased use of coal for broad purposes to replace oil and natural gas, eventually, and the use of coal for new synthetic purposes would guarantee that all forms of coal would have a better opportunity to be used in the future.

Let me say in closing that I appreciate your presence and your questions. It gives me a good chance to know what is of interest to you. And I always enjoy these exchanges.

If you don't mind, I'd like to get a photograph with everyone here, and I'll stand right back—right back here?and let you all come by and let me have a handshake and a photograph and send it to you.