President Ronald Reagan addresses the Nation after his administration informs Congress about arms se — Transcript

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1. 0:00trudy
2. 0:01can we turn to u.s soviet relations for
3. 0:03a moment please
4. 0:08your chief arms negotiator max kampelman
5. 0:11said that as a result of
6. 0:13your meeting with mr gorbachev in
7. 0:15iceland that there indeed were
8. 0:17substantial results uh in agreements but
9. 0:20the soviet u
10. 0:22the leadership in the soviet union
11. 0:24say that there were no
12. 0:26results nothing positive and the area is
13. 0:30widely scattered still
14. 0:32how do you propose in your term
15. 0:36in the remainder of your time to close
16. 0:38the gap
17. 0:39and bring
18. 0:40for an agreement
19. 0:42well trudy the
20. 0:44the thing is about that situation
21. 0:46they're not widely said the all the
22. 0:48agreements
23. 0:49or the apparent places where we agreed
24. 0:51at reykjavik are on the table now
25. 0:54with our arms negotiators in geneva
26. 0:57and for the first time
27. 0:59there was an agreement reached
28. 1:02on the desirability
29. 1:04of eliminating all strategic nuclear
30. 1:07missiles
31. 1:09in a five-year period
32. 1:11and
33. 1:12then dealing with the intermediate-range
34. 1:14missiles
35. 1:15in germany
36. 1:17and just before the meeting broke up
37. 1:20was the first time
38. 1:22that it had always been our purpose and
39. 1:24was our purpose when we went there to
40. 1:26see if this
41. 1:27these are the destabilizing weapons
42. 1:29these are the weapons that people in
43. 1:30their mind can picture someone pushes a
44. 1:33button and
45. 1:34a lot of places blow up
46. 1:37and we always thought that if we could
47. 1:38make a start on those the destabilizing
48. 1:42missiles and then we could work on to
49. 1:44the other nuclear weapons bombs carried
50. 1:46by airplanes and so forth
51. 1:49and
52. 1:50we had gone there with the express
53. 1:52purpose of seeing if we could arrive at
54. 1:54some kind of a settlement on one or the
55. 1:55other of these
56. 1:57other two missile times and it was just
57. 1:58before the meeting broke up that for the
58. 2:00first time they
59. 2:02suggested that they were talking about
60. 2:04all weapons nuclear weapons
61. 2:07not just the others well there was no
62. 2:08time for us to discuss then
63. 2:10uh this
64. 2:12this new
65. 2:14new
66. 2:15force that was in there but i think mr
67. 2:17kaplan was saying right
68. 2:19that i just call to your attention that
69. 2:21never in the history of the soviet union
70. 2:24as a soviet leader
71. 2:26ever
72. 2:27publicly proposed eliminating weapons
73. 2:30they already have
74. 2:31and this
75. 2:33soviet leader has he has talked actually
76. 2:36of totally eliminating them and so the
77. 2:39only thing i can say to this is i know
78. 2:41they're difficult to deal with
79. 2:42but all i can say is they're still at
80. 2:44the table in geneva and the proposals
81. 2:47are still there so i continue to be
82. 2:49optimistic
83. 2:50do you think you're going to see mr
84. 2:52gorbachev again during your term or do
85. 2:54you think he's thinking that he'll wait
86. 2:56for the next president to negotiate an
87. 2:58arms control agreement
88. 3:00well
89. 3:01i have to i have to believe there's
90. 3:03reason for optimism because
91. 3:05he himself suggested the iceland meeting
92. 3:08as a forerunner to the summit that was
93. 3:10supposed to take place in the united
94. 3:12states
95. 3:13and all i can do is
96. 3:14recall
97. 3:16that when the soviets
98. 3:18some time ago got up and walked out of
99. 3:20the geneva arms meetings
100. 3:22uh because we were installing
101. 3:24the medium range the pershings and the
102. 3:26cruise missiles in europe
103. 3:28uh and they walked out and said that
104. 3:30does it well they came back
105. 3:34but you have a date to meet them again
106. 3:36no that's what we're waiting for is for
107. 3:37them to give us a date right
108. 3:41president going back over your answers
109. 3:43tonight about the arms shipments and the
110. 3:45numbers over there
111. 3:46are you telling us tonight that the only
112. 3:49shipments with which we were involved
113. 3:50with one to two that followed your
114. 3:52january 17th finding and that whatever
115. 3:55your aides have said on background or on
116. 3:58the record there are no other shipments
117. 4:00with which the us condoned
118. 4:02that's right i'm saying nothing but the
119. 4:04missiles that we sold and remember there
120. 4:07are too many people that are saying gave
121. 4:09they bought them