San Diego, California Remarks at a Reception Hosted by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

Congressman Van Deerlin and his beautiful and very wise, dedicated, competent, friendly constituents:

I'm glad to be with you. As a matter of fact, it's nice for me to come back home. As some of you may know, during the time of the Korean war, my wife, Rosalynn, and I and my older son, Jack, and Chip lived here in San Diego. Coronado was looked on as the retired naval officers' heaven, and I never quite reached that high and exalted position. I had to take second best, President of the United States— [laughter] —but it's not too late. It's not too late.

I was serving on the U.S.S. Pomfret, Submarine SS 391, and we tied up not at a dock, but at a submarine tender. And the only bad thing about where I lived was that I had to get up at a quarter to four every morning to catch a ride down to the pier to get a boat that didn't travel on a regular schedule out to the Navy tender and then get on a submarine to be there on time. And that's almost my most vivid memory of San Diego. [Laughter] That's right.

And I understand that they put a freeway through the house where I used to live. I cannot believe— [laughter] . It must have been under a Republican administration. [Laughter]

We had a good life there. Most of our neighbors spoke Spanish, and it gave me and Rosalynn a chance to learn that language. And we had an overwhelming expression of friendship for me and my wife and my two little children.

I went from there to be the only officer, as a matter of fact, on the first ship that the Navy built after the Second World War. And I went from that antisubmarine submarine to serve on one of the two nuclear-powered submarines, the first ones ever built. So, I had a good launching for my naval career from San Diego. I'm glad to be back.

This is a good trip for me also to express in the clearest possible ways to the Building and Construction Trade Union-they're having their annual convention here—some of the challenges, some of the problems, some of the opportunities which our Nation has to face together.

As I said in that talk, our Nation is strong. We need not fear the present or the future if we accurately assess the blessings which we've been given in this country, have confidence in one another, and have faith in the future. We can meet anything that arises. The rest of the world looks to us for leadership not only in material things—economic and military strength, political influence but also, I hope and believe and pray, in ethical and moral standards, the things that have always been the core of American strength.

We've grown, I think, in the last 200 years. We've not gone backward. The vision that our Founding Fathers had in establishing this country are being realized more and more as each generation of Americans have a chance to serve our country together. We've opened up the processes of government to more and more people, to young people, to women and the others, which we didn't have before. Now Americans elect our U.S. Senators directly. Formerly, just State legislators made that choice. We've guaranteed rights to black citizens, to those who don't speak English well, to those recent newcomers to our country.

And I'm always reminded, as President, trying to assess on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis, our strengths and our problems, that we are a nation of immigrants-we are really a nation of refugees. Our ancestors came here some 300 years ago, some, 3 years ago, to find a greater degree of freedom, a chance to be an individual, a chance to be different, a chance to assess our own God-given talents and to use them in the most productive and exciting way. And I hope we never dampen that sense of Americans being individuals when we choose, but also unifying in a time of challenge and testing.

It's obvious that we can unify ourselves and put aside petty differences and put aside unselfishness when we can see clearly that our Nation is threatened by a Great Depression of the thirties or by the First World War, the Second World War. Then families, communities become close to one another, and we honor our government, and we kind of minimize the mistakes that public officials make. And we say, "Our system is the best, I'm going to make it work," rather than withdrawing from it because of something we don't like on a transient basis.

And sometimes we forget, in the excitement of reading the news, where you only see the small failures and the transient inconveniences and the debates and the setbacks, we forget about the strengths and the blessings. And I believe that Americans are hungry now for a restoration and a reminder of those standards that never change, those commitments that never change, those human qualities that are always cherished in spite of temporary challenges.

We can overcome the energy challenge. It does threaten our security. I'm not exaggerating that. We buy now half the oil we use from foreign countries, from an uncertain source, and they change the price, and we can't control it. Four percentage points of our inflation rate are due directly to the increase in the price of oil charged to us by OPEC because we buy so much of it.

Next year we will send $70 billion of American money overseas—as I said in my speech earlier today—and not only does this make us dependent on foreign countries, but if that supply should be interrupted, it would cause severe problems for our economic structure.

You experienced that very slightly earlier this year with gasoline lines and temporary shortages of fuel for your automobiles, and it created semi-panic in some communities. People spent half their time sitting in gasoline lines. Just with a slight interruption, we lost about 100 million barrels of oil because Iran had a revolution. They only produced about 3 million barrels a day out of over a hundred million in all in the world, but that little, slight interruption caused us to have severe problems.

What I'm trying to do now, with your help, is to get an energy program established for our Nation that will make us secure and to let us produce American oil and American gas and use American coal and depend on solar power and things that can be replenished and don't waste away. It's not easy. I'm the first President that ever tried it. After being bogged down in it for the last 2 1/2 years, I can well understand why my predecessors did not do it. [Laughter]

As Congressman Van Deerlin would certainly certify, this is the most difficult and divisive issue perhaps that the Congress has ever addressed in the last 200 years of our existence. On every vote on natural gas or whatever, not only was the House and Senate exactly divided, but within the House and within the Senate and within the conference committees, almost a precise 50-50 division. But now consumers' voices are being heard more clearly, and the oil companies and others are beginning to see that the Nation's wellbeing must be put first. And in doing that, everyone will be better off. It's not a time for selfishness, it's not a time to gouge others, it's not a time even to find scapegoats or to try to blame those who might be responsible. We ought not to forget about that.

Inflation has been with us 10 or 11 years. We're trying to address it calmly and persistently. I have a fairly conservative philosophy about economics. We have cut the Federal deficit by $36 billion since I've been in office, more than 50 percent, almost 60 percent.

We have less Federal employees now than we had when I took office. We'll have less next year than we have now, in spite of tremendously increased government services available for our people because we are more efficient now than we used to be.

We're spending with the Federal Government a lower percentage of our gross national product than we did before. It was 23 1/2 percent when I took office; now it's down to 21 1/2 percent. We're trying to get government's nose out of the private and internal affairs of individual citizens and also out of the affairs of the free enterprise system.

When I got off the plane at the San Diego Airport, one of the first people that met me there was the president of a major airline that serves your State. He said, "Airline deregulation is the best thing that ever happened to the airline industry. We have not only reduced air fare sharply below what it formerly did, but we've got more paying passengers and our profits are higher." And when I met with the President of Mexico 2 weeks ago, he pointed out to me that tourists now are able to travel so much more cheaply that the number of tourists traveling to and from Mexico on airplanes have gone up 60 percent. So, deregulation and getting the Government's nose out of our business has paid off, and eventually, those things will help us with inflation.

I just want to mention two other things briefly. As I said to the construction workers, it is absolutely necessary that the Senate ratify SALT II. I need every one of you to help me with this. Alan Cranston is really one of the leaders in fighting for SALT II. We need both Senate votes. And I hope you'll use your own influence. Whether you're Democrats or Republicans is of no concern of mine on this particular issue. It's a bipartisan issue.

This treaty has been negotiated by three Presidents over a period of 7 years. If SALT II should be rejected, the consequences would be a severe blow to our country. We would have no way to monitor what the Soviets are doing. They could do everything they wanted to secretly, and every time we got a rumor of a new weapon for the Soviet Union or a new breakthrough for the Soviet Union or additional weapons for the Soviet Union, we would have to suspect the worst. It would create an enormous nuclear arms race, exactly the opposite of what we want, and the balance between ourselves and the Soviet Union would not be changed. It would just greatly escalate both of us in the percentage of our resources spent on nuclear weapons. We don't need that.

And also our allies in Europe look upon us as being responsible for containing and reducing the nuclear threat to them. And if the Soviets have accepted the treaty, which they have, and then the United States rejects it, it would be a clear signal to our own allies that we cannot be trusted anymore to represent the Western World in controlling these terribly devastating weapons.

We couldn't control proliferation of nuclear explosives in other countries, because it would be very embarrassing for me to go to the Prime Minister of, say, India, or Pakistan—the President of Pakistan—and say, "Don't build a single nuclear explosion," and they would look at me and say, "You've got thousands, and you cannot even agree to limit additional thousands." It would mean that many countries would probably shift toward more and more dependence on a nuclear world.

So, I ask you to help me with this, and of course, we'll keep a strong defense. It's important to San Diego and to California and the Nation that we have a strong defense, not only a strong defense in general but especially a strong navy. That's one of my prime interests.

Let me say in closing that Congressman Van Deerlin and the board of supervisors here have been very gracious to let me come. I do have a challenging job to represent 220 million people well and to lead the greatest country on Earth. But it's a job that's not only challenging and sobering but also exciting and gratifying, because the strength that comes not from the office itself but from the interrelationship with literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Americans who share with me a dream of an even greater America, a more peaceful world, a place where the quality of life can be maintained, where people can live in closer harmony, one with another, and where we together, under a democratic system, believing in freedom, committed to human rights for everyone, can make the greatest nation on Earth, our Nation, even greater in the future.

That's what I want. With your help, we'll do it.

Thank you.