President Ronald Reagan addresses the nation after informing Congress of previous sales of arms to I — Transcript

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1. 0:00and now I'll take your question Helen Mr
2. 0:03President in the recent past there was
3. 0:05an Administration whose byword was watch
4. 0:08what we do not what we say how would you
5. 0:10assess The credibility of your own
6. 0:13Administration in the light of the poong
7. 0:16deception of Congress and the public in
8. 0:19terms of your secret dealings with Iran
9. 0:21the disinformation the trading of of
10. 0:23zarov or danov and I'd like to follow up
11. 0:27well Helen let me take the last one
12. 0:28first I know you some persist in saying
13. 0:31that we traded sakarov for danoff we did
14. 0:34not we said that we would may have no
15. 0:36dealings with the Soviet Union even on
16. 0:38going to Iceland until danoff was in our
17. 0:42hands but to bring it up to date on this
18. 0:45there was no deception intended by us
19. 0:48there was the knowledge that we were
20. 0:51embarking on something that could be of
21. 0:54great risk to the people we were talking
22. 0:56to Great risk to our hostages and
23. 0:59therefore we had to have it limited to
24. 1:02only the beest number of people that had
25. 1:04to know I was not breaking any law in
26. 1:07doing that it is provided for me to do
27. 1:09that at the same
28. 1:12time I have have the right under the law
29. 1:16to defer reporting to Congress to the
30. 1:19proper congressional committees on an
31. 1:21action and to defer it until such time
32. 1:25as I believe it can safely be done with
33. 1:26no risk to others and that's why I have
34. 1:29ordered in this coming week the uh
35. 1:32proper committees will be be briefed on
36. 1:35this and we uh there are still some
37. 1:39parts of this that we cannot go public
38. 1:41with because it will uh bring to risk
39. 1:45and danger uh people that are held and
40. 1:47people that we have been negotiating
41. 1:49with we were not negotiating government
42. 1:51to government we were negotiating with
43. 1:53certain individuals within that
44. 1:56country you don't think your credibility
45. 1:59has been Dam damaged and are you
46. 2:00prepared now to disavow the finding
47. 2:03which may let you make end runs around
48. 2:06the Iranian arms
49. 2:08embargo are you going to tear it up no
50. 2:11as I say I have we are going to observe
51. 2:14that embargo and it's part of the same
52. 2:17reason that as I've said we were doing
53. 2:19this in the first place and that is to
54. 2:22see among the other issues involved if
55. 2:25we can help bring about peace between
56. 2:28those two countries peace without
57. 2:30victory to either one or defeat and that
58. 2:32will re recognize the territorial
59. 2:35Integrity of both and this is something
60. 2:37that all of our allies uh are seeking
61. 2:40also but I think the people understand
62. 2:44that sometimes you have to keep a secret
63. 2:47to in order to save human lives and to
64. 2:50succeed in the mission just as we went
65. 2:53into Grenada without prior notice
66. 2:57because uh then we would have put to
67. 2:59risk R all of those men who are going to
68. 3:01hit the
69. 3:02beach
70. 3:04yes president has secretary Schulz
71. 3:07discussed his resignation with you have
72. 3:10you agreed to accept it or have you
73. 3:12asked him to stay on Mike he has never
74. 3:16suggested to me uh in our meetings that
75. 3:21that uh
76. 3:22resignation and in fact he has made it
77. 3:25plain that he will stay as long as I
78. 3:28want him and I want him so uh there's
79. 3:31never been any discussion there he knows
80. 3:33that I want him to stay and uh he has in
81. 3:37advance said that uh he wants to there's
82. 3:39no been no talk of of resignation if I
83. 3:42may follow up Sir has he uh uh has he
84. 3:46made his staying uh conditioned on your
85. 3:50agreeing not to send further arms to
86. 3:52Iran no there have been no conditions as
87. 3:54I say we didn't we didn't discuss that
88. 3:57and uh as I've said now I
89. 4:00there's no need to go further with this
90. 4:02we the mission was served that made us
91. 4:05wave temporarily that for that really
92. 4:10minuscule amount of spare parts and
93. 4:13defensive weapons Chris Mr President you
94. 4:17have stated flatly and you stated flatly
95. 4:19again tonight that you did not trade
96. 4:21weapons for hostages and yet the record
97. 4:24shows that every time an American
98. 4:26hostage was released last September this
99. 4:29July again just this very month there
100. 4:31had been a major shipment of arms just
101. 4:33before that are we all to believe that
102. 4:35was just a coincidence Chris the only
103. 4:38thing I know about major shipments of
104. 4:40arms as I've said everything that we
105. 4:42sold them could be put in one cargo
106. 4:45plane and there would be plenty of room
107. 4:46left over now if there were major
108. 4:49shipments and we know this has been
109. 4:50going on there have been other countries
110. 4:52that have been dealing in arms with Iran
111. 4:54there have been also private merchants
112. 4:57of of such things that have been doing
113. 4:59doing the same thing now I've seen the
114. 5:01stories about a Danish steamer and
115. 5:04uh a Danish sailor Union officials are
116. 5:08talking about U their ships taking uh
117. 5:11various supplies to Iran I didn't know
118. 5:14anything about that till I saw the Press
119. 5:16on because we certainly never had any
120. 5:17contact with anything of the kind and uh
121. 5:21so
122. 5:23there's it's just a that we did
123. 5:27something for a particular mission was a
124. 5:29risk
125. 5:30entailed and
126. 5:32U Iran held no
127. 5:35hostages
128. 5:37Iran did not kidnap anyone to our
129. 5:41knowledge and uh the the fact that part
130. 5:46of the operation was that we knew
131. 5:49however that the kidnappers of our
132. 5:52hostages did have some kind of
133. 5:54relationship in which Iran could at
134. 5:56times influence them not always but
135. 5:59could influence influenced them and so
136. 6:00three of our hostages came home on if I
137. 6:03may follow up S on that first point your
138. 6:05own Chief of Staff Mr Regan has said
139. 6:08that the US condoned Israeli shipments
140. 6:10of arms to Iran and aren't you in effect
141. 6:13sending the very message you always said
142. 6:15you didn't want to send aren't you
143. 6:16saying to terrorists either you or your
144. 6:18state sponsor which in this case was
145. 6:20Iran can gain from the holding of
146. 6:22hostages no because I don't see where
147. 6:24the kidnappers or the hostage holders
148. 6:26gained anything they didn't get anything
149. 6:29they let let the hostages go now
150. 6:31whatever is the pressure that brought
151. 6:33that about I'm just grateful to it for
152. 6:36the fact that we got them as a matter of
153. 6:38fact if there had not been so much
154. 6:40publicity uh we would have had two more
155. 6:43that we were expecting