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Interview of the President by Joseph Benti at the Senator Hotel, Sacramento, California [Interview Transcript]
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Interview of the President by Joseph Benti at the Senator Hotel, Sacramento, California [Interview Transcript]
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Digitized from Box 15 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
EMBARGOEDOR 6:00 p.m. EDT
Monday, September 8, 1975
September 5, 1975
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
BY
JOSEPH BENTI
THE SENATOR HOTEL
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
2:15 P.M. PDT
MR. BENTI: When I started the process to get
this interview with you about three months ago, it was for
an idea that I had for a new program, or a new part of a
program called "At Ease," and I thought it would be nice if
our viewers could meet people, starting with the President,
the Governor, and people who are familiar and talk to them,
hear them talked to about things they are not normally
asked.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MR. BENTI: After a 19-hour day yesterday and another
grueling day today -- and your biological clock getting
buffeted back and forth Coast to Coast -- how in the world
do you get at ease?
THE PRESIDENT: It is a developed characteristic,
I think, Joe. You know, the pressures, you learn to live
with them and pace yourself and sleep hard when you get a
chance to sleep. It is a matter of conditioning, mentally
as well as physically.
MR. BENTI: I am told you don't sleep a full eight
hour day.
THE PRESIDENT: It is a matter of mental and physical
conditioning. All my life I have gotten between four and six
hours of sleep a night. I fall asleep quickly, I sleep well
and I think it is a matter of habit. I always used to say
when I was young -- and I think this gave me the guidance --
I wasted time either eating or sleeping, so I like to keep
moving.
MR. BENTI: We know about the pool and the swimming,
how important that is. Do you have another regimen of exercise
beyond that?
Page 2
THE PRESIDENT: I get up in the morning about 5:15.
I spend about 20 minutes riding a stationary bicycle. I do
about ten minutes of weight lifting for my old bad football
knees, so I can ski and golf and play tennis. I do a few
push-ups, and then I try to swim, now that we have a pool,
somewhere between a quarter and a half a mile a day.
MR. BENTI: When you are physically in gear, how
do you get yourself mentally in gear with the tremendous
flood of information that must be coming in each day?
THE PRESIDENT: You would be surprised. You can
do a lot of thinking while you are swimming, and you can do
some thinking while you are riding that bicycle. But,
I also have a knack -- if that is the right word -- of
moving from physical exercise to mental pressure.
Again, it is a matter of conditioning, organization
in my day and schedule.
MR. BENTI: You were talking about Secretary
Kissinger apparently thriving on the conflict between the
diplomats. He comes back rested or apparently in good
spirits. Do you have the same kind of energy drive that
comes out of the combat of ideas?
THE PRESIDENT: As a matter of fact, in that respect,
I think Henry Kissinger and I are quite similar. The tension
seems to stimulate a challenge mentally and physically,
and yet it doesn't drain me, and I don't see any evidence of
it draining on him.
It is a matter of understanding that you have to
be ready and when the challenge is over, then you can relax
quickly and get ready for the next round.
MR. BENTI: It is incomprehensible, I think, to
most of us with the kind of pressures of your office and the
things you have to worry about that you can truly relax. Is
it so easy to just turn off the Middle East in your mind and
go about pleasure seeking?
THE PRESIDENT: You have to. I can spend an hour
on the Middle East, looking at reports, talking to Henry
Kissinger. But, when that hour is over, we have the energy
problem, or we have some other major issue that has to have
gainful attention.
Page 3
You can't be thinking about the last hour if you
are concentrating on the problems of the current period.
It is a matter of compartmentalizing, I think, your day. That
is the only way I know to organize and to meet the problems
that every President has had.
They aren't a limited number, and they aren't
all in the same area. You can go from foreign policy to
domestic policy, and you have to have that capability
of total concentration on one for the hour or two and then
moving into the next.
MR. BENTI: In your personal life, when you are not
worrying about those things and you are able to turn them
off, do you have the same kind of problems we do? Do you
worry about money? Do you worry about retirement, things like
that? Does that ever come into your conversation with Mrs.
Ford?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me phrase it this way: Of course,
I worry about our family problems. We have four children. We
tried to bring them up right, and you don't do that unless you
have contact with them, unless you are thinking about their
day-to-day operations and their long-range future.
We have family discussions with them, individually
and collectively. Yes, we do worry about our personal finances.
I look over her family checkbook, and she asks me a few
questions about my checkbook for the family.
MR. BENTI: Do you keep a checkbook?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes.
MR. BENTI: You don't delegate that to somebody
else?
THE PRESIDENT: I do delegate it a bit more now
than I used to, but I sign most of the checks. Although it
is interesting, speaking of checks, I don't know how many,
but a few checks that we have written to people who have
done services for us, painting our house or something else
or even a charitable contribution, all of a sudden we found
they weren't being cashed.
Page 4
So, we checked up on them and people wrote back
and said they had had them framed and they weren't going to
cash them. What we have tried to do in every case was to
now send them a check with my secretary signing so there is
no permanent identification.
MR. BENTI: The questions I am asking you are con-
sidered by most people to be personal, and the wife of Henry
Jackson yesterday said that she considered the questions that
Mrs. Ford was asked on that CBS program to be, in her words,
"rude and outrageous," and that she would not have
answered them.
Do you, as you now look back on that incident, think
that perhaps the press pries too much in some areas?
THE PRESIDENT: I have never had that experience,
personally.
MR. BENTI: I am thinking of Mrs. Ford, particularly.
THE PRESIDENT: I wouldn't want to pass judgment on
whether the questions were too personal or otherwise. I felt
that Betty responded to the questions in her own characteristic
way, which is to be frank, to be candid. I think some of
the news stories that came out, instead of carrying the full text
of her response, took excerpts that seemed to distort the full
impact of what she was trying to say.
I was very proud of her. I watched it. Knowing
her as intimately as I do, she was expressing her deep concern
for her children. She was indicating her own personal views
on some matters. I was very proud of her.
MR. BENTI: Do you worry about the morality of young
Americans? Does it bother you what we read about and hear
about, and that line of questioning which indicates some
change in our moral tone?
THE PRESIDENT: There is a different attitude on
many problems, different at least from the attitude that seemed
to prevail when I was younger. Of course, that was quite a few
years ago. But, on the other hand, we with four children
between the ages of 25 and 18, we have had to deal with the
overall approach at the present time.
Page 5
I am not the best person to pass judgment in any
specific area. I happen to think that America is a moral
Nation and that our people, the American people, have a
high degree of morality that they live by and work by. There
are some variations.
MR. BENTI: It is not something you are losing any
sleep over.
THE PRESIDENT: I have a lot of faith in the
morality of the American people.
MR. BENTI: The office of the Presidency, those
of us who remember you when you were in the Congress, and
I am sure you yourself never thought some day you would be
President --
THE PRESIDENT: I certainly didn't.
MR. BENTI: It was not an objective you had. Now
that you are and knowing what you can recall from the days
in Congress when you were in much closer touch with the
people, are you walled off in any way? Do you have that
feeling that so many critics of the Presidency, the modern
Presidency, have noted, that the President is removed,
isolated, does not get out and know what the people are
thinking?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't believe so, particularly
since my office in the White House operates much differently
than most other Presidential offices.
I have a broad staff. We have a specific assignment
of responsibility. I have day-to-day contact with eight or
nine of my top people.
I see them frequently. They have the obligation to
me to speak up if they have something to say, whether they
think I agree with it or not. I solicit different views among
my staff. So, I don't feel walled off as long as they perform
what I think is their obligation.
I do get out to see people. I travel a good bit,
like coming to California, like having gone to the State of
Washington, and Oregon.
Page 6
MR. BENTI: Do you really get a sense on those
trips, though, of what it is people are thinking, average
people?
THE PRESIDENT: I do.
MR. BENTI: How?
THE PRESIDENT: In the first place, for example,
in Washington we had either the ninth or tenth White House
Conference. There were approximately 800 people there from
all walks of life in the City of Seattle, from the State of
Washington, from Idaho and Alaska, and this was a good give
and take.
We had a question and answer period, and I think
I answered some 20 questions covering a wide, wide range of
subject matters, and I meet with other groups as I travel
from city to city.
It might surprise you that when I do shake hands
with people along the street or when I shake hands with
people in a hotel, or any other place, you get a sense, or
you get a feeling as you shake hands or somebody says some-
thing to you, there is a communication that does have an
impact on my thinking.
MR. BENTI: But do you get close to the issues,
what it is they are thinking about, the mood?
THE PRESIDENT: We certainly do at the White House
Conferences.
MR. BENTI: You know the office carries with it such
imposing -- like waiting here for you, I began to get nervous
and then you come in and everybody rises.
THE PRESIDENT: You shouldn't.
MR. BENTI: I think it is partly the press' fault
over the years. We have magnified the office so greatly.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the office of the Presidency
is a very important one.
Page 7
MR. BENTI: Perhaps I should say we have magnified
the people who have held the office.
THE PRESIDENT: I trust that I will never succumb
to that magnification because I think a President, if he
wants to do his job well, has to be a part of the people and
he has to have the American people feel that they are a part
of him.
That is why I do travel. That is why I do like
to shake hands and talk to people. That is why I do like to
attend these White House Conferences, because it does provide
a method of communication on a two-way street, which I think
is vital.
MR. BENTI: I don't know if anybody has ever done
this to you before. You were told in advance one of the
things we tried and since we talked about the average person,
we sent a crew, two camera crews out the other day in Los
Angeles and we said, "Now, look for average people, if you
can find them, and say to them, Benti is going to talk to Mr.
Ford. If you had that opportunity, what would you ask the
President?"
We got some very interesting, repetitive questions
in some cases.
THE PRESIDENT: I think thatis a great idea.
MR. BENTI: Let's try it. Then if it works, maybe
you will like it and perhaps use it in your campaign, but
I don't know.
For example, there is a man named Robert Soles.
He is a construction worker, a Chicano. He says, "How is
he going to fix the economy and the construction business?"
THE PRESIDENT: He has asked a tough question.
MR. BENTI: That is right.
THE PRESIDENT: The construction business, for a
variety of reasons, has been hit as hard, if not harder, than
any other business in the country.
Page 8
First, we have to restore confidence in the
American people that we aren't going to have increasing
inflation. We have to have a restored confidence in the
American people that our economic basis is not going to
pot.
The restoration of confidence is the number one
thing. And, of course, that relates to results. We are
getting results in the battle against inflation. We are
making some headway in adding to the employment rolls. In
fact, today, Friday, September 5, we got some, I think,
encouraging news in employment figures. We had an
additional 275,000 people added in this last month to
employment figures showing that over the last six months
employment has gone up almost a million and a half.
Once you get a restoration of confidence, you
are going to get people buying houses, you are going to get
businessmen investing in additional plant facilities, you
are going to find people buying automobiles, and that has an
impact on the economy as a whole.
I believe that is the way to build a sound economy,
and if you build a sound economy, the construction segment
of our economy will bound upward, like others will.
MR. BENTI: In these kinds of interviews, and the
questions, everybody fixes on the President as though he can
solve all these problems, so I have a beautiful question for
you from a young lady named Andrea Dresser. She is a shop
clerk in Los Angeles. She wants to know what kinds of music
do you like?
THE PRESIDENT: My favorite musical -- and I will
probably get criticized for picking one over another -- is
"Oklahoma." I just think that is a great musical. I like
the setting and I like the music.
I do like musical comedy. I like to go to the
opera, but I must confess I am not expert on it. I like
music, even though I don't play anything. It does give me
some rejuvenation and the kind of music exemplified by
"Oklahoma," that is the kind of music I like.
MR. BENTI: I bet you can't imagine what was the most
asked question, and it had to do with what is going to be the
price of gasoline.
Page 9
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think the price of gaso-
line, even with decontrol, is going to rise significantly.
I don't believe some of these expert analyses that have
been made by people who haven't studied the total picture
and don't understand all the alternatives.
My best guess is that in the next six months, we
could have -- may not have -- a gasoline price increase of
2 to 3 cents a gallon.
MR. BENTI: You don't see it going up over $1.00,
$1.25, $1.50?
THE PRESIDENT: I think those are ridiculous
forecasts. I don't think they have any justification. There
is one unknown factor, which we don't control; that is,
what the OPEC nations, the Arab nations, are going to do about
their proposed September price increase.
But, that brings up something that we have to
recognize, and I will say this very categorically, if the
Congress had approved my energy program that I recommended in
January of this year, the likelihood of an Arab oil price
increase would be less and less.
But, the inaction of the Congress -- Congress has
done nothing to approve an energy program. The inaction of
the Congress is almost an open invitation to the Arab
nations to increase their crude oil prices.
Now we are working hard to persuade the OPEC nations
not to increase prices. Maybe we will be successful, but that
is an unknown factor.
MR. BENTI: The question that Leroy Nickleberry has
is when is he going to get a tax break? Is that a Congress-
ional problem?
THE PRESIDENT: You tell Leroy that I did recommend
to the Congress in January that they pass a personal income
tax reduction, and I also urged the Congress to give another
reduction in taxes to compensate for any increase in energy
costs.
Page 10
Now, the Congress did pass a tax reduction bill
following generally what I proposed. They made it for one
year.
The big question now is whether we should recommend,
whether the Congress should extend that tax reduction for
another year or make it permanent. It is a bit premature as
to whether or not that should be done and on the other hand,
sometime within the next month or so, we will make a recommen-
dation.
I just hesitate at this point to make any categorical
comment.
MR. BENTI: There was an elderly woman from New
York who happened to be in Los Angeles. She is retired.
Her name is Dorothy Verity, and she said, "What is he going
to do about hunger in America?"
THE PRESIDENT: We are doing a great deal in America
about helping people less well off than the average citizen.
We have a wide variety of programs. Of course, you start
with Social Security. You have then, in addition, welfare
payments.
We now have a $6 billion food stamp program. We have
Medicare and Medicaid. All of these contribute to the
economic sustenance of people who are either aged or not
well off economically. There is no reason in America today for
anybody to be hungry because there are Federal programs,
welfare, et cetera, that will take care of that immediate
problem.
What we want to do is make the economy strong so
that instead of people depending on welfare, they can apply
for and get a job in the private sector.
Page 11
MR. BENTI: As you were answering that question,
I heard all of these bureaucratic agencies of the Federal
Government come into play and I thought to myself, going
back again in your political history, the contradictions
of Gerald Ford, conservative, versus President Ford, who
now represents the Nation.
Have you moderated your sense of what the Nation
must do compared to what you thought it should do when
you were a Congressman?
THE PRESIDENT: I represented roughly 550,000
people in the old district that I was privileged to
represent and it did have certain political, philosophical
views and it was my obligation, representing them for 25
years, to reflect their views.
On the other hand, it is also true that a President
has to represent 214 million people in 50 States. I
suspect that in my determinations in the broader sense
inevitably take into consideration a broader philosophical
view, a more diverse political attitude of more people.
On the other hand, what we have tried to do is
not approach any problem on a conservative or liberal
viewpoint. My whole approach in the job as President
is to solve the problem, whether it is in foreign policy,
whether it is in domestic policy. We have to look at
problems from a practical point of view and solve them
whether it has a label of liberal or conservative.
MR. BENTI: I mentioned contradictions. That
does help explain something that mystifies me, and I
know it mystifies a great number of people.
We are going to spend billions of dollars in the
Middle East to try and insure a peace there, and at the
same time we have the largest city in the country teetering
every day on the brink of bankruptcy. And an infusion
of billions of those dollars, most Americans would sim-
plistically probably say, that would solve New York's
problems, why are we spending it in the Middle East? Why
is the President making that decision? How do you
explain that?
Page 12
THE PRESIDENT: Let me take the Middle East first.
This country, for 25 or 26 years, has had a foreign aid
program where we made available economic and military
assistance to a number of countries around the world,
including Israel. As a matter of fact, we have been
making economic aid available to Israel on the magnitude
of $300 million or $400 million for a number of years.
And following the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Egypt, Israel
and Syria, the Federal Government gave to Israel over
$3 billion to help take care of a war.
Henry Kissinger and myself, working together,
think it is a good investment to make U.S. Government
funds available to Israel and to Egypt to preserve the
peace. The emphasis that we take is peace, not rehabili-
tation from a war.
And I can assure you that if we hadn't taken the
leadership and helped to negotiate this extremely critical
problem between Egypt and Israel, I am confident in a rela-
tively short period of time you would have had another war
in the Middle East. So what economic and military assistance
we are giving is aimed at sustaining a peace, and I think
that is a good investment.
Now let's turn to the problem of New York City,
and I understand people who may connect the two. They
are different problems.
In the case of New York City, for the last 10
or 11 years they have consistently lived beyond their
means. They have borrowed more and more money to meet
their local needs, regardless of what they were, and they
haven't kept the books very well.
MR. BENTI: So they are going to have to solve
their own problems?
THE PRESIDENT: So basically New York City will
have to tighten its belt, make up for the poor management
that existed for too long a time and find the solution
internally.
Page 13
Now let me say that the Federal Government doesn't
avoid New York City. We have a great many Federal programs
that pour a lot of money into New York City, but despite
that Federal help over the last five or ten years -- it is
massive -- they have still been mismanaged, and they
still have a problem.
I am sympathetic, I understand their difficulties,
but basically New York City is going to be forced to
straighten out its own problems.
MR. BENTI: I have so many questions but I am
just about out of film.
Will Ronald Reagan fit on a ticket with
President Ford?
THE PRESIDENT: Ron Reagan is a very good
friend of mine.
MR. BENTI: Would you run with him?
THE PRESIDENT: I will let the Convention make
that decision.
MR. BENTI: I am down to 20 seconds.
THE PRESIDENT: It is nice to be with you, Joe.
MR. BENTI: Mr. President, I appreciate this and
I am awfully sorry I didn't have an hour of film because
I think you would have sat for it.
THE PRESIDENT: It is nice to be on the program
and I thank you for your courtesy and excellent questions.
MR. BENTI: Thank you. It is a pleasure.
END (AT 2:43 P.M. EDT)