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

THE PRESIDENT. Well, first of all, I want to welcome you all here and let you know that it's very good for me to have a chance to meet on these fairly frequent occasions with editors and other news leaders from around the Nation. I'll outline just a few things that are going on right now that might be of interest to you and spend what time we have available answering your questions.

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

We've now concluded a very good agreement with the South Koreans and with Tongsun Park and his lawyer for a very thorough discussion with him on the record, without any constraints, even with a lie detector confirmation of his veracity, and without any prohibition against future interrogations by the congressional committees, which I think is very satisfactory.

This has been an unpleasant interrelationship between ourselves and the South Korean Government because of the sensitivity of this issue. But I've always kept in mind how important our good relations with the South Korean people is to us and to them and even to all the people of Northeast Asia.

We've had a defense pact with the South Koreans ever since 1954. We intend to honor all the elements of that defense treaty. We are committed to the security of South Korea. We'd like to have the differences between them and North Korea resolved in a friendly and mutually constructive fashion.

We support direct negotiations between the North and South Koreans. We will participate with them and other interested parties if necessary. We've been invited by the North Koreans, indirectly at least, to meet with them without the South Koreans being present. We are not willing to do that.

We enjoyed last year about a $5 1/2 billion trade with South Korea, about a billion dollars of which was for agricultural products. So, I wanted to mention this because quite often, in the excitement of discussing the unpleasant Tongsun Park experience, we lose sight of the fact that South Korea is a strong ally of ours.

We are concerned about the human rights issue in South Korea, and we're doing everything we can to impress upon the leaders in South Korea that this is a problem for us and creates a bad impression among our own people.

We have, additionally in foreign affairs, the prospective meeting in Jerusalem on the 15th between the foreign ministers of Egypt and Israel. I'll be consulting with Cy Vance tomorrow before he goes to join those discussions. He's just now returning from a speaking trip around the country to talk about the Panama Canal treaties.

I stay in close touch, as you can well imagine, with Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat and other leaders. I communicate with some of them several times a week through diplomatic dispatch and personal letters, which are delivered very quickly between us.

We put a great deal of importance into these discussions in Jerusalem. I think if the peace process that Sadat has initiated should break down, it would be a very serious blow to world peace. And we're determined to add our good offices whenever we can.

In the upcoming Congress—to change the subject again—we'll be considering quite early the Panama Canal treaties, probably second only in urgency, as far as time goes, to the energy legislation itself. We hope that we can get both these major matters out of the way fairly early, so that we can address the more routine subjects that are important to us all.

I'll be presenting the budget to the Congress later this month. I'll make a State of the Union speech the 19th. I hope to get up to Camp David this weekend to do some final work on the State of the Union draft, on which we've been working for several weeks now.

I think it's important that we continue to put strong emphasis on the economy. As you know, we've had a fairly good year in 1977 as judged by the cold statistics. We saw the unemployment rate drop a little more than 1 1/2 percent; corporate profits were up about 11 1/2 percent.

We had an increase in the gross national product, between 5 and 6 percent. In the last 6 months, we had the inflation rate down around 4 percent, although we still have about a 6-percent underlying inflation rate. And we want to keep this going.

The prospects are for fairly good economic indicators to show up the first two quarters of 1978, and then, because of worldwide problems, it's likely to taper off unless we do something. So, I do intend to advocate to the Congress a substantial tax cut for American citizens and businesses for this coming year, to begin or to be effective the 1st of October.

I think it's a well-balanced budget. We used zero-based budgeting techniques in every department, every agency. It worked out well for us. I think it will get even better in subsequent years because of experience with it. We are concerned about some of the pockets of unemployment, particularly among young minority groups—in fact, young people of all races. But we'll be emphasizing this during this coming year.

I'm consulting with both congressional leaders and business, labor leaders, trying to get as much harmony as possible within our democratic institutions—democratic with a small "d." And we have, I think, a need to recognize what a strong, viable, productive, progressive, great country we have.

Quite often we tend to emphasize overly, I believe, the disharmonies and the debates and the contentious, transient issues, because that's where the news lies. But I think pervading all the consciousness of America, and also the consciousness of the outside world as they look at us, is the realization of our strength. And this, of course, relates directly to our system of government and our system of free enterprise and the confidence that the people have in our institutions, government and otherwise.

I've enjoyed being President this first year, almost a year now, and look forward to the next one. I think I've learned a lot. We've got along well with the Congress, and for our first year of the term, I think we've done a good job in keeping the promises that I made.

A lot of people say, "Well, you promised this, and you've been in office a whole year now and haven't done it." And I think it's obvious that many of the things are so longstanding and so difficult that you can't possibly expect miraculous and instant results. But I'm pleased with what we've attempted and especially pleased at the cooperation the Congress has given to me.

I'd be glad to answer any questions that you have now in the limited time we have available.

QUESTIONS GOVERNMENT REFORM

Q. Mr. President, as a candidate for the Presidency, one of your great assets was the fact that you weren't a member of the Washington establishment and, therefore, gave your supporters the hope that you could raise the level of our Government above the morass of bureaucratic redtape and cynicism.

Mr. President, after a year in office, what are the possibilities of you or any new President improving our form of government and getting it above this business of "government of the people for the bureaucrat and by the bureaucrat"?

THE PRESIDENT. I think one of the most frequent criticisms that has been made of me and my own administration is not becoming a part of the Washington establishment. [Laughter] If you read the local news media, you see that that's one of the things that we haven't been assimilated into—the social structure and so forth of Washington.

We've made some, I think, good improvements in the organizational structure of Government. We formed a new Department of Energy. We've eliminated now, I think, about 400 agencies and commissions, advisory boards, and so forth, that were unnecessary. We've gotten authorization from the Congress for a much more substantive reorganization effort to be concluded within a 3-year period.

As I said earlier, we've initiated zerobased budgeting. We've begun to cut back on paperwork. We're eliminating unnecessary regulations and constraints on the free enterprise system and also on private citizens. We've made substantial progress with OSHA, for instance, which is one of the most highly criticized Federal programs.

I think that we have brought some constructive ideas to Washington, derived from our long campaigning around the Nation and also from my own experiences as President.

We've got a superb Cabinet. There's not a single member of the Cabinet that sits around this table every Monday morning that I would want to change. I'm proud of every one of them. They're individualistic. They run their own departments without interference from me. They consult with me and the other Cabinet officers on basic policy. There's a harmony among them that's almost unprecedented, and the harmony exists, too, among people within the White House staff and between the White House staff and the Cabinet. Some of these things are quite different than they have been in the past.

When we deal with the Soviets on SALT or a comprehensive test ban, or when we deal with the Middle East question, I don't have to worry about contentiousness or jealousy or lack of communication or an incompatibility between the national security adviser, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Treasury, and others.

This has not always been the case. We've still got a lot of faults, of course, but I think in these ways, we've improved the situation in Washington. That's a completely objective and unbiased opinion. [Laughter]

SECOND TERM IN OFFICE

Q. Mr. President, Marx Gibson from Joliet, Illinois. You said you've enjoyed the first year in the White House. When will you decide if you're going to try for a second term, and are you aware of Governor Thompson from Illinois' interests in replacing you here?

THE PRESIDENT. The answer to your first question is I don't know, and the answer to the second question is no. [Laughter]

THE MIDDLE EAST

Q. Mr. President, I gather there's some concern at the State Department over the course of Middle East negotiations, specifically a feeling that President Sadat's initiative has not really been matched so far by Israel and specifically a feeling that Israeli action over the settlements has not been helpful.

Do you feel that the Israeli response so far has been satisfactory, or do you simply feel that it would be impolitic for you to exert the influence that, I guess, some people at the State Department are urging you to do?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know of any urging that has originated in the State Department to which I have not responded to their satisfaction. Cy Vance and I, you know, are constantly working together, along with the Vice President and Dr. Brzezinski and all of the staff that work under all of us, to make sure that our approach to the Middle East is carefully considered.

We have a limited role to play. We are there to be constructive and to respond to their requests and to be active when there's a dormant situation in the Middle East; to be much more reticent when we think progress is being made without us.

It was an unpleasant thing for me for 9 months or more to be the intermediary between nations who wouldn't even speak to each other, who wouldn't communicate directly with each other almost with a religious fervor. And now, to see Sadat and Begin and their representatives negotiating directly is a very major step forward and a very gratifying thing for me to observe.

I think Sadat's initiative has been bold and courageous. I think it's too early to say whether or not the Israeli response is adequate. That's for Sadat to judge. The major bone of contention right now, of course, is the highly publicized Israeli position on settlements, which we have always considered to be illegal.

And I just can't imagine Prime Minister Begin and the Israeli Government having the basic peace negotiations broken down because of an argument about settlements. It may very well be that in the West Bank or the Sinai that there could be some mutual agreements between Jordan, Egypt, Israel, that some of those Israeli settlers could stay on there. But that would be tied in very intimately with whether or not United Nations forces were the peacekeeping forces or whether the responsibility was Jordan's or the Palestinians' or Egypt's.

I think the details of those things are matters that I ought not to address publicly. I do discuss them without constraint with both Begin and Sadat, and we are very forceful in letting Prime Minister Begin and the Arab leaders know when we disagree with their position.

I've been very careful to do one thing, and that is that whenever we have an American position to put forward as a compromise or as a basis for discussions earlier this year, to put it in writing and show exactly the same document to Sadat, to Hussein, to Begin, and also to Asad, just so there's no doubt about where we stand and what we are proposing. And then, if Begin disagrees with item number four, we tell Sadat—with Begin's permission, of course—this is something that Begin disagrees with, and seek his response. That was a tedious and, I say, unpleasant responsibility. But now we are there to cooperate with them.

The last thing I want to say is that our effectiveness in a time of stalemate or dispute is exactly compatible or commensurate with the trust that they have in me. If I should ever do anything to make either the Prime Minister or President Sadat or King Hussein or Asad feel that we weren't acting in good faith, that I was lying to them or misleading them or shading the truth, our effectiveness would be completely destroyed.

I don't think we've ever done that yet. It means, sometimes, that our Nation is taking the blame from both sides when we put forward a position that was not instantly acceptable. But I'm pleased with the progress made so far.

NUCLEAR POWER

Q. Mr. President, I'm Dick Smyser from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mr. Brzezinski told us this morning that you are a man who chooses his words very carefully. It seems to us in Oak Ridge, either rightfully or wrongfully, that when you talk about energy you either consciously don't mention nuclear power or mention it only in negative terms. And it seems to us that this has something to do with the public perception of nuclear power.

In the light of recent concern for CO2 and what you said yesterday about oil imports, do you still think that nuclear power is kind of a last resort, a necessary evil?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, you know, when I say "last resort," a phrase that I used throughout the campaign and have used as President, too, it doesn't mean that it's a necessary evil. My own position is that we ought to have conservation of energy as a first priority—in fact, if I have to put them in an order, to cut down on the waste of all kinds of energy.

Secondly, we ought to try to use as much as possible of our oil and gas in this country, rather than importing very expensive oil and gas, which causes us to have balance of payments problems. We ought to shift to other forms of energy. Coal would be one. I would say I would rather shift to solar than coal. But there's a legitimate place for nuclear power in our country.

My background is in nuclear power production, as you know. In the early stages of the development, before there was a nuclear powerplant in existence in the world, I worked in this program. And I was active early this past December in a highly publicized ceremony to put into operation and to connect with the power grid of our country the first thorium breeder reactor.

But I think we ought to have a realization that nuclear power should fill in the gap between those other sources of energy and what our Nation's total needs are.

We've just approved an agreement with the Iranians where that country, very rich in oil, can purchase atomic reactors from our own Nation, which I think will bring in a lot of job opportunities for Americans.

The major dispute has been on whether or not we should go forward immediately with the Clinch River liquid metal fast breeder reactor. I don't think we should. I don't think it's time. I don't think we need it yet. I think if it were built as presently designed, it would be outdated by the time it was completed. It's extraordinarily expensive.

But we still have allocated, with my complete support and approval, almost a billion dollars for research and development in the breeder reactor field. And I think this has been the major item that has been highly publicized that has caused concern in Tennessee.

So, I'd say that within that framework, there's a legitimate role for atomic power to play. If there are constraints in the future on light water reactors, it won't be because of obstacles placed in their way by the Government. It will be other problems that might prevent their being widely used in this country, economic problems, primarily.

Q. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT. Yes?

Q. Ladies before gentlemen.

THE PRESIDENT. Go ahead.

TOBACCO PRICE SUPPORTS

Q. I am Linette Burton from the Wilton, Connecticut, Bulletin. I happen, by pure chance, to be sitting in the seat that really belongs to Mr. Califano, which made me think that isn't it odd that while the United States Government continues its price support of the tobacco industry, Mr. Califano has come out so strongly against smoking?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't think it's odd. As you know, Connecticut produces a lot of tobacco, and so does Georgia. [Laughter]

Q. That's not why I asked. [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. No, I think that this is not particularly odd. The price support program is designed to provide stability in the agricultural community. Tobacco is produced in this country. It has been produced in this country for more than 300 years, and I imagine it will be produced in this country years and years in the future. It's a major export item.

The people of our Nation decide to use it. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, as a matter of fact. I just don't have any urge to. My father did smoke four or five packs a day, and he died with cancer, per- haps because of cigarette smoking.

But I think to stabilize the production of an agricultural product like tobacco, which is accepted, which is legal, is a responsibility of Government, and it's one that I approve.

On the other hand, Joe Califano is responsible for the Nation's health. And the Surgeon General, years ago—I'd say 15 or 20 years ago—and all HEW Secretaries since then, have supported a highly publicized campaign to reduce the consumption of tobacco, certainly cigarette smoking, which is the most potentially harmful. The same thing applies to the State Department, who are constantly searching for peace at the same time the Defense Department, you know, prepares military strength to try to make sure we have peace.

And we have a real need to understand that the two are not necessarily incompatible. We are not trying to encourage cigarette smoking by providing a stability in agricultural production of tobacco. As a matter of fact, the relatively small subsidies that the Government pays—it's not an expensive program—actually increase the cost of tobacco to some degree, perhaps, and make the price of cigarettes higher.

The HEW Secretary has advocated an increase in taxes on cigarettes and a more severe warning on the packages. But I think there is, you know, no real conflict, although on the surface there seems to be.

U.S. RELATIONS WITH ASIA

Q. Mr. President, I'm Larry Giesting from Rushville, Indiana. During the past year you were to Europe twice to reassure our allies there of our continuing support. Are you planning to meet with our Asian allies either here or some other spot?

THE PRESIDENT. Asian?

Q. Asian.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I've had come to meet with me this past year the prime ministers or other leaders of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and so forth. I have met with them already. I don't have scheduled a trip to Asia. It might very well be that the Vice President would go to Asia later on this year. He's going to make a trip very soon to Canada and to Mexico. But there's a possibility that he would go to visit those countries personally.

As a matter of fact, last year, my staff figured out that I had met personally with the leaders of 68 nations—that's the top leader. I don't think any President has met with that many before. I think President Kennedy met with 44.

I won't meet with nearly so many leaders this year. Many of them wanted to come to see me because I was so unknown. I didn't have a voting record in Washington. They didn't know what to anticipate, so there was a heavy pressure on us to invite them and we responded to that.

But this doesn't mean that we ignore the problems in Asia. I was in Japan the year before last, in May, and Prime Minister Fukuda is very likely to come here before the summer to see me again. I met with him personally in London last May.

I started out this session emphasizing the importance to us of strong ties to South Korea, which is kind of a linchpin, militarily speaking, for the Northeast Asian part of the country. My son was just out in the Southwest Pacific this past week. We added as commonwealths the American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. It's the first territory that our country absorbed since 1914. And I couldn't go personally, but my family went out to let them know we care about them.

So, I don't think by any stretch of the imagination we have ignored Asia's importance.

VIEWS ON THE PRESIDENCY

Q. Mr. President, this is the time for New Year's resolutions, and you've been President for a year. Do you have any New Year's resolutions as to how your administration can do its job better in the second year than it did in the first year? I'm more concerned with how, rather than what.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, we've obviously learned. I had never been to Washington in any official capacity until I became President.

I had come here to represent Georgia as Governor. I had been through here when I was an ensign, lieutenant jg. in the Navy. But Washington was new to me when I came. And quite often when I meet with congressional leaders, I ask them to remember how they felt the first time they came to Washington and how other people helped them. Well, I've had good help this past year.

We've learned a lot. As I said in the TV interview just before I went on the trip, my most serious problem, I think, was inadvertently building up expectations that were too high this past year. Without any criticism of the Congress, I underestimated the time it takes for Congress to act on major, controversial bills.

I thought we'd have a good start on tax reform. I won't present it until a week or so from now. I thought we'd have an energy package complete. I thought we'd have welfare well on the way—the committees are holding hearings now. But we've had good accomplishments. I think this next year, this year that we're in now, we'll have a much more carefully planned agenda for the Congress.

We are consulting much more intimately now with the congressional leaders and their staffs before we send to the Hill a specific bill of any importance. I think the Members of Congress have gotten to know me better. I think I'll be much more reticent to set specific deadline dates for ourselves to meet when I don't have control over the meeting of that target date.

I'm going to reduce substantially the number of issues in which I'm personally involved before the public and let the Cabinet officers do more of that, which I think will be better. It'll give me much more of an ability to focus on the things where the President's personal involvement is necessary.

I think as far as foreign issues are concerned, I've weathered the year of just becoming acquainted with foreign leaders. I think I'll be able now to meet with and negotiate with leaders in a much more discriminatory way, just where my presence, again, is necessary.

As far as family life and my physical well-being, it wouldn't be possible to improve that this year. It's been very, very good this past year. I feel at ease with the job.

So, I think, primarily restricting my own personal involvement in a multiplicity of issues simultaneously and working more intimately and closely with the Congress, consulting with them better, understanding the congressional processes and giving more responsibility in a public way to my Cabinet officers—those are some of the things offhand that come to mind.

Yes? Let me get my old friend from southeast Georgia.

URBAN POLICIES

Q. Talk about the problems with the suburbs and the major cities. It's not just a Georgia problem, I understand.

THE PRESIDENT. That's right. We'll have an urban package to put forward in March. Of course, the thing to remember is that almost every program that we put to the Congress or every budget item on the domestic scene is oriented primarily to the urban areas, because that's where your major concentrations of unemployment and the major problems are. Even many of the aspects of the agriculture bill, you know, relate to urban dwellers.

Food stamp reform, which was accomplished last year, is one example. We'll have a substantial increase in the allotment of funds for housing, for urban development, for education, for transportation, for providing jobs for those who are currently unemployed. And I think we've brought back a great deal of the balance that ought to exist between the downtown, sometimes deteriorating urban centers on the one hand, and the suburban areas on the other.

We are trying to rebuild both the interest at the local community level and also the Federal Government involvement in the downtown urban areas which, I think, had been to some degree neglected. Quite often the Congress would design a program in the past for the more rapidly deteriorating, more needy parts of the country, but because of the better organization, higher level of education and public awareness, higher degree of political influence, the suburbs, completely legally, would get most of the benefits of those programs. We are trying to provide a better balance now.

Q. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT. Good to see you up here.

FRIENDSHIP FORCE

Q. Mr. President, thank you for recognizing me. I don't think my family would have let me come home if I had not mentioned this to you today.

My oldest daughter has just returned-or shortly returned from Caracas, Venezuela, having participated in one of your people-to-people programs.

THE PRESIDENT. Oh, great.

Q. She wanted me to report to you that her trip, at least, was a tremendous success. This does seem like a pretty effective way to improve relations between nations on a people-to-people basis and a relatively inexpensive one. Do you have plans to expand this program-

THE PRESIDENT. Yes.

Q.—to make it available to more Americans?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. I wish all of you would mention this when you get back home in your own way. [Laughter]

My wife initiated this program. It's called the Friendship Force. We started it when I was Governor of Georgia. Every year we would send a planeload of people down to Brazil, and we'd bring the same plane back to Georgia full of Brazilians. And each group would stay about 10 days—never stayed in a motel or hotel; they stayed in private homes. The expenses are very, very low, like $250 for the round trip, which is the only expense. The only thing you had to do was to pay your way down and back, that very modest amount, and get one of your neighbors to take a Brazilian in the home.

Since then, my own family—this has nothing to do with government, it's all outside the government—since then, my mother's been to Ireland on a trip. This one actually originated in Des Moines, Iowa. And Mother just went out and joined them to fly over to Ireland and spent 10 days and came back. My mother-in-law and my brother-in-law went to England, to Newcastle, England. This trip to Caracas, I think, originated in Tennessee, did it not?

Q. Yes, sir; in Nashville.

THE PRESIDENT. And my second son, Chip, and his wife will go from Connecticut this coming week, I think, to Tel Aviv, to Israel, and stay over there. I think there will be 420 people on a 747 going from Connecticut to Israel. And that same plane will bring 425 Israelis over here to stay in the Connecticut area. It's one of the finest programs I've ever seen. It really generates a genuine interest in each other's countries.

And we'd like for that to happen all over the Nation. If you have an interest in it, you could write my wife. And I think if you could stir up a planeload of people, you would find that your problem would be trying to keep the crowd down, rather than to recruit people. It's a wonderful, nongovernmental program that I think is worthy of legitimate pride. I'm glad you brought it up.

U.S. FORCES IN EUROPE

Q. Mr. President, Steve Frady from Carson City, Nevada. Do you intend to use the troops leaving South Korea to meet the pledge you made to the NATO nations?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. Those troops will probably come back to our country to a staging area. We will increase in the NATO area our troop placement, in this 18-month period, about 8,000. We now have about 210,000, roughly, soldiers in Europe and roughly 300,000 in all, including the Air Force and the Navy, plus another 50,000, approximately, in ships around the European theater.

But we are trying, also, at the same time, to make a more efficient use of our money. We'll reduce substantially the projected defense expenditures below what President Ford had projected for 1979. But at the same time, we'll have a real growth above the inflation rate of about 3 percent in outlays or expenditures this coming fiscal year. We are trying to cut down waste, and we're trying to orient our forces where they're most needed.

We also are preparing—by stockpiling materiel in the European theater and by having a much more mobile military capability-we are trying to reduce substantially the amount of time it would take to shift continent-based, United States-based mobile units over into Europe if it became necessary. Of course, what we are doing this for is not to create a war but to provide an open, sure demonstration to the Warsaw Pact nations that we are capable of defending Europe, along with our European allies.

So, when we do bring the troops back from Korea, they won't be disbanded. They'll be used on this continent as a reserve force that can be used in Europe expeditiously, if necessary.

Let me just take one more question.

Q. Mr. President, you may be sorry.

THE PRESIDENT. That's all right.

Q. This is going to be a Marston question. [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. Go ahead.

U.S. ATTORNEY DAVID MARSTON

Q. It seems to have become, from a local political squabble, it has escalated into a national test of the political climate of this administration. I wonder if any thought had been given to the heavy burden that whatever Democratic appointee would carry going in there, having to produce indictments, whether they're called for or not, simply to prove that he did his job?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, it may or may not be a Democrat. I don't think that's been decided. I'm repeating substantially what the Attorney General has said. I never heard of Mr. Marston until just recently.

We have literally dozens of these appointments all over the Nation. And the Attorney General generally works out the decision whether to replace the incumbent and, if so, you know, whom to choose as a replacement.

He decided, apparently last March, that Mr. Marston ought to be replaced. I don't think it's a responsibility of the President to outline to the public the reasons that the Attorney General did not think Mr. Marston ought to stay there. I have no inclination to criticize him or any other person that is being replaced.

Because there were ongoing investigations, the Attorney General decided not to make the change immediately. The Pennsylvania congressional delegation-I think, to be honest, the Democrats there—finally came to me because of the delay. Once a decision was made, they thought in order to get rid of a very serious political dispute that kept going on, that the Attorney General ought to name his successor.

At that time, I still didn't know who Mr. Marston was, but I relayed the congressional concerns to the Attorney General. He replied to me that he had long ago decided to replace Mr. Marston and that he was determined to make that replacement on the basis of merit only and requested that the Democratic Members of Congress not become involved in trying to help choose a successor, to let him do it on strictly a basis of merit. And I said that's what I would like to do.

The congressional Members assured me that although some of them in the past had recommended persons to take that job, that they would withdraw from that process and let the Attorney General do it, because of the controversy, apparently, that was surrounding this case in Philadelphia, that they would just get out of it and let the Attorney General make it.

I don't have any doubt that the Attorney General will make an excellent selection. I think he would have without the publicity. Now, it's incumbent on him to make sure that when the choice is made and the announcement is made—I make the ritual approval—that there's a sigh of relief and a general consensus, assessment, that this replacement for Mr. Marston is indeed highly qualified.

We're not ignorant about who—among what group the choice will be made. The Attorney General has been checking with the top members of the bar, the judges in that area, and so forth, to make sure that the people that he is now considering are all highly qualified.

It's a slow, tedious process. After he decides whom he wants—and he has not yet told me whom he will recommend-but after he decides then the FBI has to do a long, tedious check to make sure that there's nothing in the person's background that might cause embarrassment.

We're going through the same process on a number of other appointments. The FBI Director is one of the most important. I've just done the same thing, as you know, to choose a Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. It's one of the time-consuming responsibilities that I have.

But I'm positive that there will be no distortion of the attitude or commitment to prosecute, or to decide whether or not to prosecute, by the replacement for Mr. Marston. There are about 40 attorneys in that office in addition to Mr. Marston, I understand. And they will continue any investigation that's underway.

I did not know until yesterday that any Member of Congress was being investigated by Mr. Marston. It's just one of those things that was of high interest in Philadelphia that had not come to my attention until I encountered it yesterday, you know, with the press conference.

Q. Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT. But I think you can be assured that it will be a good appointment. And I think, without derogating Mr. Marston at all—which I don't have the inclination to do—I hope and expect that it will be well received in Philadelphia.

Let me thank you again. I've had a chance to meet with editorial groups like yourselves, I think, every 2 weeks since I've been here. It's a kind of an unprecedented thing, but it helps me more than it does you, just to learn what your interests are particularly from around the Nation.

The White House press corps is a highly professional group, I guess among the best newspeople in the world. But they, like I do, live right here in Washington. And I get a much more widely ranging series of questions from you than I do from them. And I thank you for being willing to come to Washington to meet with us. I know you've met with several of the people on the White House staff this morning, including Dr. Brzezinski. I'm sure you got a good response from them as well.