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

THE PRESIDENT. I hate to interrupt Jody when he's in trouble [laughter] —which is most of the time.

This part of the press will only be in here a few minutes.

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

I did want to just outline in brief terms some of the issues that I am facing at this moment. I think you all know what they are. We are trying to carry out the momentum of the Mideast treaty. We are dealing with the energy question, I think, in a very responsible and bold and adequate way. Inflation is still a heavy problem on all of us, which has certainly not been resolved. We took action this morning, announced by Fred Kahn and Esther Peterson, to enhance the interrelationship between the Government and the consumer groups and also to inform the public about certain items which are heavily impacted by rapidly rising prices, so that there can be more cautious and prudent buying.

On the Hill, we have several reorganization proposals in the prospect of being passed: deregulation, reduction in paperwork, which is very important for us. The budget, I think, is in basically good condition—a very stringent 1980 fiscal year budget. I think the Congress has recognized and joined in the general philosophy about budgeting this year, which is compatible, I think, with the attitude of the American people.

We have, obviously, other international and domestic concerns. But I think at this moment it would be better for me to let you ask questions rather than to continue this dissertation. And I'm available to you for the next few minutes.

QUESTIONS

COAL

Q. Mr. President, I'm Walter Dear from Henderson, Kentucky. My wife joins me in thanking you for your personal leadership in resolving this problem between Israel and Egypt. God bless you. We really do appreciate that.

And now, with my other hat, because I'm from Kentucky, I urge you to come to Kentucky in 60 days, after you've got the results from the three agencies on the implementation of coal, and launch a Manhattan Project and do, likewise, to resolve the question of 10,000 miners being unemployed, hundreds of mines being shut down, and having this 400-year coal opportunity.

And, frankly, at the Hill and elsewhere, we feel that with all the 26 pages in the fact sheet last night, there are about three graphs on coal. How much is too much? This may not be enough. Can you help us in this area?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. Obviously, we want to have more coal production, under the presently existing state of technology, and to expand sales not only within our own country but overseas.

Secondly, the new technology to give us clean burning gas, liquid, and solids from fuel—from coal, will depend heavily on whether or not we get passed the windfall profits tax. The oil companies are going to fight it, I'm sure, tooth and nail. But I'm determined to see this put on the books. And I'm willing to go to the wall and use my utmost influence among the public and in the Congress to get this tax passed. Otherwise, there will be tremendous, unwarranted profits going to the oil companies, and we won't have available the major coal solvent refining plants, one of which would be constructed, undoubtedly, in Kentucky.

We've got, as I said last night in my talk, tremendous reservoirs of coal. We're not going to back off on the safety and health standards for coal miners. But within those bounds, and also within the bound of not destroying the environment, I think that coal has a wonderful opportunity in the future for increased growth in production and increased prosperity for those regions that produce it.

WAGE AND PRICE GUIDELINES; OIL PRICE DEREGULATION

Q. Mr. President, are the wage-price profit guidelines completely ineffective as applied to these windfall profits? Is there no way that it could be brought into play in some effective way?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, the wage-price guidelines, as you know, are voluntary. And I think, in general, wages have been within the guidelines—some few exceptions, but on the average, within. And as we've monitored the major corporations-the 500 top ones, the Fortune 500, so-called—they've complied fairly well.

The application of that to oil would be a difficult proposition. I think that we have assessed the inflationary impact of deregulation fairly carefully—and the statistics are available to you in the handout sheets—one- or two-tenths of a percentage point. This has been one of the reasons for the quandary that I've had to face—that any deregulation of any product that presently has its price constrained would be inflationary in nature.

But to artificially hold down the price of domestic oil and to, therefore, encourage the importation of expensive foreign oil and to have this vast Federal bureaucracy that's getting more and more complicated, I think, is a burden that we can no longer bear.

There's an additional factor, also, in that coal and oil and gas are not replenishable. And we have excessive consumption of these increasingly scarce materials, not only in our country but around the world, because of artificially low prices.

So, I think it's better to go ahead and let the prices go up on a carefully scaled basis, in accordance with the present law, and accept the temporary adverse effect on the inflation rate. And as I said last night in my speech, my belief is that the net result of this will be, in the long run, a natural reduction in inflation.

ENERGY CONSERVATION IN RURAL AREAS

Q. Mr. President, I'm Philip Williams from WBNZ in Frankfort, Michigan. What effect are the conservation measures that you've asked for going to have on rural areas, where we depend on the automobile for driving to work, to the store, to everywhere?

I'm sure you are aware of the problems in the rural part of the world. We also depend on it for harvesting our fruits and our vegetables in our area. We also depend upon it for our tourism. If we don't have the tourism that we expect every year, for the 3 months out of the year during the summer, we're going to be in a depression. It's simple as that. What can we do to—

THE PRESIDENT. I grew up in a rural area where every time we went a half mile, we jumped in the automobile and went there and came back; did it frequently; went to Plains, 2 1/2 miles away, shopping sometimes two or three times a day. And most often, you see on the highways or streets of our country now, automobiles with one passenger in them. In addition to that, Americans don't get enough exercise. [Laughter]

The average automobile now travels 10,000 miles a year. And to call on a family to cut down their automobile travel by 15 miles per week is not a very great sacrifice. I pointed out last night how this could be done—by using either a bus or some other form of rapid transit or a carpool, once a week, or perhaps by walking if you don't live too far from work, or cutting out an unnecessary shopping trip, and so forth. I don't think it will work a hardship.

As far as the areas that depend on tourism, we have carefully constructed and will carefully construct the directions of gasoline conservation to the States to give the State Governors and legislatures the option on how to reach those targets.

I was a Governor during the 1973-74 oil embargo, and we were allotted that responsibility by the Federal Government. At first, in order to accommodate States' needs, we were given a 5-percent allocation base. It worked so well that we cut that 5-percent allocation base down to only 3 percent of total consumption. And eventually, we came up here and advised the President and his subordinates to cut the amount of fuel that we had allocated down to only 1 percent of the total State's consumption because it worked so well.

But we depended on this reduction in oil and gas consumption by using State and local volunteers, some small administrative structure, and the regular distribution system. And there's no doubt in my mind that any State in the Nation can cut back its gasoline consumption, for instance, 5 percent, if given the flexibility to do so, which they will have, without wreaking any havoc in their tourism industry if that's their dependence. I don't think there's any doubt that we can do that.

U.S. PALESTINIAN POLICY

Q. Mr. President, I wondered if you could—I'm changing the subject, but if you could redefine your Palestinian policy. Exactly what is the current position?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I wouldn't want to redefine it, because it's been very consistent from the beginning. [Laughter] And I wouldn't change one part of it.

As far as direct relations or consultations or negotiations with the PLO is concerned, we will not do this unless the PLO endorses the United Nations Resolution 242—the basis for all our discussions, and a resolution that's been endorsed by all of the Arab countries, as well as the Israelis-and also recognizes Israel's right to exist. As long as the PLO and its constitution and commitment is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, we will not negotiate with them.

As far as the Palestinian people themselves are concerned, we are eager to see them join in the discussions and negotiations to effectuate the agreements reached at Camp David and encompassed in the recent Mideast treaty and all its ancillary documents.

My hope is that in a couple of months, when El Arish is returned to Egypt and the borders between Israel and Egypt are open, that the free travel of Palestinians and Egyptians, for instance, back and forth between their homes, will alleviate the tension and let the Palestinians escape from the unwarranted constraint of the threat of terrorism against them if they negotiate to get full autonomy, to use Mr. Begin's expression—full autonomy.

I think Sadat has done more for the Palestinians and their cause than any other Arab leader. And now they are fearful of the carrying out of threats of death by some of the more radical Arab elements in the Mideast.

So, we're eager to see the Palestinian people participate, to have full autonomy. And we will not deal with the PLO unless they meet the requirements that I described.

ENERGY SECURITY FUND

Q. Mr. President, Bill Franklin from WNJR in Newark, New Jersey. I want to just extend the greetings of our staff. You were with us before you were elected. We'd like you to come back to the ghetto and visit your friends sometime. [Laughter]

My question is, last night, sir, in your message to the Nation, you asked the poor people of this Nation to pay more for gas, and you said you would give the money back to them. How do you propose to do that, sir? Would you define that, please?

THE PRESIDENT. It's defined, I think, in the handout sheet that you are all welcome to take.

I believe that we've set up for those poor families $100-per-family allocation that would cover for the poorer families the increase in the costs that would be attributable to the deregulation. It'll be a simple mechanism. Exactly how it comes back, we have not yet described. But in the reserve fund, there will be money set aside for that purpose.

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR FACILITY

Q. Mr. President, Don Mulford, Montclair, New Jersey, Times. Are you satisfied that the parameters of the peril in Pennsylvania have been adequately presented to the American people and that the radiation levels have been adequately monitored, so that you can go before the Nation and say with confidence that you have the information necessary to reassure the people who want to come back to their homes near Three Mile Island?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. The answer is yes. I don't want to minimize the seriousness of the accident and the importance of the lessons that we will learn from it. I think the result of that unfortunate accident will be a much more careful assessment of nuclear power, and the product will be a much more stringent set of safety regulations and operating procedures than we have followed in the past.

But I felt perfectly safe last Sunday when I was in the control room, just a hundred feet away from the reactor core itself. The level of radiation was carefully monitored even before they found out the President was coming. [Laughter] And as I pointed out, I was getting about one-third the radiation in the control room that I would have been getting if I was in an airplane flying from Washington to Los Angeles at 35,000-foot altitude.

We have monitored very carefully the entire region, as you know, around Three Mile Island. And we've not found any evidence that there's an excessive level of radiation. It had been well within the safety precautions. And I think the same thing applies to the water in the Susquehanna River as well.

The entire government structure and the nuclear industry, I think the entire country—indeed, the whole world—is concerned about maintaining an even safer set of standards in the nuclear industry. But I can tell you that I felt perfectly safe, when I was there with my wife. And I believe that they have done a .good job in protecting the safety of the people who live in that area.

TUITION TAX CREDITS

-Q. Mr. President, Gerard Sherry, the Voice, in Miami. Several private groups, school groups especially, have suggested you have reneged on your precampaign promise to support tax tuition credits. Can you give me some idea where you feel this might be in error, in relation to the charge that you have reneged on a campaign promise to support tax credits?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't think it's reneging at all. I've always been concerned about the constitutional prohibition against the mixing of church and state and pointed out frequently during the campaign what we had done in Georgia when I was Governor.

We authorized a direct allocation of State funds to the colleges of Georgia, both private and public, on a per capita basis, beginning, I think, with $400 per student, increasing it while I was Governor to $600 per student. So, there are some elements of aid to private colleges of which I strongly approve.

But to see a substantial amount of very limited funds for education going outside the public education system, I thought, and still believe, has been in error. And this would have been an extremely costly proposal to the Federal budget. And my objection was on that basis and not [just] ¹ on constitutional grounds.

Q. Thank you.

¹ Printed in the transcript.

PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Q. Mr. President, the Helms amendment to the education bill calls for the opportunity for voluntary prayer in public schools and other public buildings. That's obviously going to be a constitutional issue. Do you see it as unconstitutional?

THE PRESIDENT. I won't try to judge. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know. The Constitution, I think, has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in such a way that students should not feel a constraint to pray while they are in a public school. And as a Baptist, not particularly a President, I agree with that. I think that prayer should be a private matter between a person and God.

There are constraints that are placed on students other than ordering a child to pray. If everyone else in the classroom is engaged in public prayer and doing it voluntarily, for a young 7- or 8-year-old child to demand the right to leave the room is a difficult question to answer. But in general, I think the Government ought to stay out of the prayer business and let it be between a person and God and not let it be part of a school program under any tangible constraints, either a direct order to a child to pray or an embarrassing situation where the child would feel constrained to pray.

It's a difficult question to answer. And I don't know if I have given you an adequate answer.

U.S. RELATIONS WITH THE PHILIPPINES

Q. Mr. President, Joseph O'Hare from America Magazine in New York City. As you know, there have been some complaints by critics of the Marcos government in the Philippines of the recent pact that we have completed with the Philippine Government over the bases. Could you comment on the choices that we were confronted with in dealing with the question of the bases and how your emphasis-which I salute very strongly—on human rights seems to be somewhat compromised by the support that we're now giving the Marcos government as a result of the leasing agreement?

THE PRESIDENT. Before I became President, I think in the fall of 1976, Kissinger and, I think, Romulo, negotiated a base settlement. The one that we have recently negotiated is much more attractive to our own country. The Philippine Government rejected that agreement several years ago, I think early in 1977.

I have never been under any doubt, as a former Navy man nor as the present Commander in Chief of our military forces, that we genuinely need to maintain the right to base our naval forces in the Philippines.

We have made the human rights issue, arguments, as strongly as we could possibly make them with the Marcos government, to the extent of even straining our relationships with the Philippine Government. This has been done at the top level by me and also by others who worked within the State Department itself.

So, we are obviously not pleased with the human rights situation in the Philippines, as measured by our own standards here in our country nor in many other nations that I could name. But I don't have any apology to make about the agreement on the Philippine base rights.

I don't think that our displeasure with meeting American-type standards on human rights protection ought to interfere with our consummating this agreement.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Q. Now that human rights has been mentioned—I travel a great deal, and particularly with newspaper people on-[inaudible]—trips, and almost consistently during the last year and a half I've heard leaders of foreign countries complain about our talking about human rights on the ground that, number one, that we seem to be talking down to them; number two, that we don't seem to understand their backgrounds, their religions, their economic problems, and so forth.

For instance, the President of Bangladesh-the military governor, now President-said, "We have trouble even feeding the people. When your Government says, 'Look to human rights,' you're inciting to rebellion." Now, I've been bothered by those things.

I didn't want to mention human rights; I wanted to be a gentleman for once in my life— [laughter] —but somebody mentioned it. Now, would you mind addressing that, cause that's bothered me now for 2 years.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, there have been a number of occasions around the world where our human rights policy, which I espouse very strongly and think we ought to maintain, has been a diplomatic problem-in dealing with the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, the Philippines—just been described—and other countries. I could name a lot of them.

Q. Afghanistan.

THE PRESIDENT. Afghanistan and others. I acknowledge that. I think, in balance, it's one of the best things that we have ever done since I've been President. I think for us to raise the banner of being deeply committed to human rights has been and has had an enlightening effect on the rest of the world.

Some of the administrations or the regimes in other nations have been embarrassed. But I can assure you—and I don't think I'm saying this in a gloating way-that in previous administrations, quite often—even in very popular administrations-when visits were made to countries, say, in Latin America just to use an example, there have been, sometimes, massive anti-American demonstrations against. very popular leaders, like Eisenhower or Truman or Nixon or Rockefeller and others.

When we have visited those countries, the response has been overwhelmingly favorable and friendly among the people, even when I drove through the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the midst of an argument where human rights and nuclear power were raised.

I think the people have responded well, even though the leaders in some countries have been. somewhat embarrassed.

I think it's also reminded the American people about our own Nation's principles. And sometimes the arguments with the totalitarian regime that has several thousands of people imprisoned without trial and without any charge, those arguments have made vivid in the minds of Americans that we are indeed better, or different—I think better—in our basic philosophy than those philosophies espoused in some other countries.

There has been a substantial shift toward democratization in many of those nations, partially encouraged by our own standards on human rights. And there have been literally tens of thousands of political prisoners released from within those countries in the last year and a half or so because of our human rights position.

The last point that I would like to make in this answer is that it's raised the issue of human rights to a high degree of intensity. There are very few leaders in the world, in the 150 countries that now exist, who don't every day or every week have to remind ourselves—including me—"to what degree are we violating basic human rights? To what degree are we earning the condemnation of the rest of the world? To what degree are we arousing the animosity or distrust or displeasure or disappointment among our own people because we violate those rights?"

I'm very proud of what we've done. And I think in balance, this posture on human rights has helped us considerably.

If you would go back 3 years or so and look at the attitude, for instance, in the General Assembly of the United Nations every fall when it convened, where our Nation was the butt of every joke and the target of every attack mounted by almost 100 nations on Earth, and compare it with the difference now, the last 2 years, part of that improvement is because we have espoused basic human rights.

I think this is particularly true in Africa where black people now feel they've got a friend in the United States; they can depend on us.

So, to answer your question, I think we've got the right policy, and I intend not only to maintain it but to elevate our commitment to that principle.

MR. WURFEL. Thank you, sir.

OVERSEAS TRIPS BY JOURNALISTS

Q. Could I ask you one question, sir?

THE PRESIDENT. Just one quick one, then I've got to go.

Q. In the 1950's and the 1960's, the State Department encouraged journalists to make trips overseas, and we were briefed—for a day and a half, we came to Washington. Would you think of restoring a program like that to encourage more groups to go overseas?

THE PRESIDENT. I think it would be a good idea.

Q. Thank you very much, sir.

THE PRESIDENT. I wonder if I could do something. I've .got another meeting, and I've only got 3 minutes left. Would you all mind if I have a photograph with each one of you individually?

Q. No. [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. Okay. Thank you.