Remarks on the Major League Baseball Strike and an Exchange With Reporters in Tampa

The President. Since I'm here in Florida, it might be appropriate to say something about the baseball situation. The judge is going to hand down a ruling, apparently, pretty soon. And I would just say, if the injunction stays and the players do again state their willingness to go back to work, then I hope they won't be locked out. I think it gives us a chance at least to start the baseball season in a good way and without the replacement players.

Ultimately, of course, they're still going to have to work this out, and they're going to have to do it by some mutual agreement. But we may be given an opportunity in the next couple of days to have a baseball season. And if that opportunity arises and the players are willing to go back, then I hope the owners won't lock them out.

CIA and Guatemala

Q. [Inaudible]—CIA covered up the murder in Guatemala?

The President. Well, we have no information to that effect. We are looking into all the allegations. And I have taken exceptional steps to make sure that there is a good investigation and to make sure that the records are secure. I think I should do that. As you know, this relates to events that occurred before I became President. But we need to know the facts, and we're going to do everything we can to find out the facts.

Haiti

Q. Is there any evidence that—any evidence that Aristide's people were behind the assassination?

The President. President Aristide immediately asked for help to investigate the action. Indeed, the people who were down there were working before to try to head off any political violence leading up to the handover this weekend. And as soon as the killing occurred, he asked for help, and we had dispatched immediately a substantial team from the FBI. So I think that is significant evidence that he wants to get to the bottom of this and that he's keeping his word not to support political violence.

There are many factions there. They've done a good job of keeping down political violence. They don't need to start it again. What they need to do is to keep things calm, maintain a low crime rate, continue to work with the United Nations, and rebuild that country. We only have, I think, 6,000 of the 35,000 factory workers who were working before the military coup back working. So we need to keep working on building the country. And that's what I'm going to say when I go down there.

Thank you.