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Interview with the President by Frank Cormier, AP, Helen Thomas, UPI, Ralph Harris, Reuters [Ford Speech or Statement]
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Interview with the President by Frank Cormier, AP, Helen Thomas, UPI, Ralph Harris, Reuters [Ford Speech or Statement]
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EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
JNTIL Saturday ugust 9, 1975
August 8, 975
at 6:00 p.m. (EDT)
INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT
BY
FRANK CORMIER, AP
HELEN THOMAS, UPI
RALPH HARRIS, REUTERS
11:35 A.M. EDT
QUESTION: We would like to start out by asking you,
Mr. President, how you view your past year in office, and what
do you think were the high points and the low points, good and
bad?
THE PRESIDENT: I think obviously the first several
months were the most difficult. We had some tough decisions to
make in that period.
First, we had to handle the staff problem. Secondly,
we had the problem of the Nixon pardon. We had almost immediately
the problem of the economy -- primarily, at that time, inflation.
We had some upcoming international matters, not only
the prospective meetings with Mr. Brezhne, but also the problem
of the Middle East, as well as trying to reassure our friends
in Europe that we were going to continue our policies relating
to NATO. All of these crowded in in a very short period of
time and I think that they were the most difficult.
Gradually we sorted all of them out and came up with
some answers and then we were able to plan ahead and meet some
of the long-range problems. I think it has gotten progressively
easier to handle even though the problems have been tough. We
have the organization and we have had a little more time, so I
think since the first of the year, despite the problems, it has
been a much easier time.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you move so fast and keep
such long hours that some critics wonder, do you get adequate
time for thought and might you not be indeed endangering your
health?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me answer the latter first, Frank.
In all honesty, I have never felt better than I feel today, for
a long, long period of time. I get more daily exercise. It is
better regulated. It is easier to organize. My weight is
down and my muscle tone is really the best it has been in a
long time. So health-wise, I haven't felt better than I feel
right today.
Digitized from Box 14 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Page 2
Now the question of do I have enough time to think
about and analyze the problems. I make the time. That is the
way I have always done it, except the problems are a little
larger in their scope and complexity but with the good staff
we have and the way we organize it and the time I spend, I do
get enough time to read and make decisions and to handle the
matters. Fortunately, my health is such that I can get five
hours sleep a night and feel good.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you said yesterday that
during your first year in office you have been restoring confi-
dence in Government. At the same time you said, and I quote,
"Not many people in public life are doing very well in
the polls." I think you made reference to yourself, that the
polls are rising but not high enough.
I wonder if there is any conflict in those two
statements. The second statement indicates to me that you
might feel the public is still disenchanted with Government
after Watergate and the previous problems and still cast a
wary eye at politicians despite your efforts this year.
THE PRESIDENT: The polls I have seen do show that
Government generally is looked upon with some suspicion or
lack of confidence. The Congress is down. The Congress, if
my memory is accurate, is down pretty much at its low ebb right
at the present time. There is a questioning of Government
generally and I think that would probably include the top people
in the Executive Branch.
However, bearing in mind the problems we have in the
economy and have had, and bearing in mind the world situation,
and the improvement that I think is going to take place in
both areas, this will have, as I see it, an impetus to the
restoration of public confidence at least in the Federal
Government.
QUESTION: May I follow that one up with a related
question? There is, sir, without being condescending, a
wide agreement that there is on the Presidency a man of
openness and honesty.
Isn't it rather an ironic commentary on the state of
affairs in this country when people can say, "Thank heavens,
at last we have an honest man as President. "? What has that
done to America's stature?
Page 3
THE PRESIDENT: I believe that is a reflection of the
basic American character. I feel that the American people
as a whole are very open and basically very honest, very
friendly and gregarious. It seems to me that those characteristics
being so imbedded in the American people, they rather approve
of a President who has those somewhat similar characteristics.
They feel a certain rapport with someone that they feel has
the same characteristics that they have.
I am not sure that is answering your question, but
as I understood the question I think it is responsive.
QUESTION: I was wondering again, if I may follow
up--you know the good happenings, the feelings that at last
we have an honest President-- if it didn't represent something
lacking in American society in previous years.
THE PRESIDENT: I really don't see how you can
compare -- if I understand the point you are making -- I
really don't see it as the past relating to the present. I
just feel comfortable that the American people have that
feeling about me which I feel in a reciprocal way toward them.
I would hesitate to compare their previous characteris-
tics with the previous characteristics of another Administration.
I can only refer to my own feeling toward the American people
and what they feel, as you expressed it, towards me.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you never discuss Watergate
or you never seem to indicate in an interview that you under-
stood what it was all about. Why is that, and why is it that at no
point, from reading the newspapers every day, your daily
encounters, your contacts with President Nixon, you never
grasped what the whole motivation was until the last moment,
and even then? I know you don't want to be a Monday morning
quarterbacker, but I think it behooves a President to know
what happened in the past.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, Helen, as I look in retrospect,
obviously I know what happened. I don't understand why the
people who were involved let it happen. That is the thing
that really bothers me.
Page 4
QUESTION: They not only let it happen, they made it
happen.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that is true. I just don't
understand that. That has been a real perplexity to me. It
was so unnecessary, so nonessential that it just stuns me when
I look back and see the things that took place.
QUESTION: Do you ever feel that you were personally
betrayed as one of the spokesmen for the Party by Nixon himself
in the sense that you were defending him and speaking out and
so forth, and don't you feel that you were put on a spot?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I was put on a very difficult
spot but I don't think I should go beyond that.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you never had regained the
popularity standing that you had prior to the Nixon pardon.
The Nixon pardon, however, looks better in retrospect. Do you
think that it did indeed help put Watergate beind us?
THE PRESIDENT: I certainly do, Frank. Somebody
either wrote or said -- they took the first two or three press
conferences that I had and somewhere between 70 and 90 percent
of the questions in those first two or three press conferences
involved Watergate or involved related matters. Once the pardon
was done and I said it was done, in the press conferences, if
they are an indication of public interest, we just didn't have
any more questions and we were acting on issues and problems that
were fundamental to the country both at home and abroad, and
the Nixon pardon, I think, at least took off my desk the nagging
things that would have gone on and on and on.
So it did give me an opportunity, and the people working
with me an opportunity to concentrate on those very, very tough
problems we had both at home and abroad.
So I thought I was right then and I am more convinced
I was right as we look back on it.
Page 5
QUESTION: Could I change the subject to energy?
Your whole energy policy is predicated on discouraging
consumption by raising prices. Do you think with this rekindled
fear of inflation that will make it all the more difficult
now for you to win adoption of your energy policy?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't believe that the last two
figures, one in the CPI and the other in the WPI are an indication
of a resumption of the kind of inflation we had a year ago.
As a matter of fact, if you take the last six months and put
the figures on an annualized basis, including, of course, the
last figure on the CPI -- it is a figure of 6.4, as I recall.
That is too high but it is half of what it was a year ago.
Now, in the implementation of our energy program,
if we can get Congress -- if we ever get Congress to pass it --
I don't think there will be any surge in inflation as a result
of that. There will be some minimal higher prices, minimal,
but they are not going to force a broad overall increase in the
rate of inflation.
QUESTION: But with this veto, it seems like the whole
thing is a new ball game. Have you got a lot of options other
than veto or not veto?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, on that one issue I can either
veto or sign it. If I veto it, I have a number of administrative
and proposed legislative matters that I think will mitigate the
allegations that have been made. Of course the study, the
theoretical study made by the Library of Congress, doesn't really
know what options I have or what actions I will take. Those
options that are available give me an opportunity to come out
with a different decision than what this theoretical study
comes up with.
QUESTION: But it would rely on Congress. Congress
would have to go along.
THE PRESIDENT: There are some administrative things
that I can do, Frank, and as I say, these options will be
thoroughly analyzed. I don't have the bill down here yet. It
is coming when?
Page 6
QUESTION: The 27th.
QUESTION: You keep saying "if," if you sign it?
THE PRESIDENT: I am still firm. What did I say --
99 percent? That is pretty strong odds. But the point I am
making is that the options that coincide with that give me a
chance to mitigate some of the alleged inflationary threats.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I would like to discuss
the Helsinki declaration within the context of domestic
politics. I know you have explained the declaration you signed,
the benefits you see in it, but I want to relate that to
what I think has been an upsurge in anti-Soviet feeling in
the last few weeks, sparked by the Solzhenitsyn visit and
the criticisms of the European Security Declaration by the right
wing of your own Party.
Despite your own justification for signing the
declaration and in the light of a possible challenge to your
nomination by the right wing, do you think this is going to be
an issue, a major issue not in the election, sir, but in the
campaign for nomination?
THE PRESIDENT: In my judgment the vast number of
Americans who will study the European Security Conference
documents, and what was done there and what was said there,
will come to the conclusion that it was in the best interest
of Europe, including Canada and the United States -- actually
the world.
I think you can turn that point around. Supposing the
United States did not go there. There would have been an empty
seat. Thirty-four other nations would have signed documents
that would have listed many, many good things and the United
States would not have been a participant. Our absence would
have been, in my view, a rebuff to our allies and it would not
have permitted the President of the United States to continue
the contacts with the peoples in many of the Eastern countries--
the Eastern European countries-- and those contacts are important.
And equally important, if not more so, is the solidarity of the
Western Alliance. So when you look at what might have been
if I had not gone , it would have been very bad for the United
States. By going and by saying what I said, which I said very
firmly, I think we have put the CSCE in the right context and have
solidified the Western countries and have served notice on any
other that any violation of the agreement will be construed as a
very serious act on one country's or several countries' part.
Page 7
QUESTION: Yes, but, granted that you can persuade
the American people -- and I am sure you can -- your immediate
problem, sir, is not the November election. It is the
nomination.
Now, we saw what happened in 1964 when the delegates
were out of tune with the people as was proved by the election
results. So it is the nomination I am questioning you about,
and I just wondered, will this encourage the right wing which
is pondering now what to do -- will it embolden them? What
about the delegate reaction?
THE PRESIDENT: The Republican Party is a broad
spectrum party and the more conservative group makes up a
part of that spectrum. But they are not the majority.
The majority of the Republican spectrum is in the
middle. We have some on the left, as we have some on the
right. So in the seeking of the nomination I believe that
the middle and those to the left will support the actions
that I took in going to Helsinki. I am not so sure that
all of the people on the right will take the views of some
on the right.
So I don't believe that what we did in Helsinki,
believing as I do that it was a positive thing, that it will
have any adverse impact on the nomination.
QUESTION: Mr. President, on the Middle East, in
your interview yesterday you said that the possibility of
confrontation between the U.S. and Soviets in the Middle East
had increased, but you didn't say why.
And also, the second part of my question is, I am
operating on the assumption that there is going to be U.S.
monitoring if there is an interim agreement that has been
written, and I don't know if you can confirm it, but do you
think American personnel should be directly included into a
possibility of a conflict in the Middle East?
THE PRESIDENT: Helen, I don't think that you should
assume any details of negotiation between Egypt and Israel.
These are terms that they have to agree to.
QUESTION: But there is a U.S. --
THE PRESIDENT: I would not want to get into, one,
the actual final agreements that they make or any participation,
if any, that we have.
Page 8
QUESTION: You are not denying it, though?
THE PRESIDENT: I am not talking about any of the terms.
QUESTION: Do you think the Americans are going to
be involved? We would be interested in knowing before it is
a fait accompli.
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever the terms are, Helen, whatever,
I will certainly be frank and honest with the American people
as to any involvement in the negotiating process or any
subsequent involvement.
QUESTION: How about the question about the confron-
tation, and why is that in view of detente?
THE PRESIDENT: As you will recollect, in October of
1973 at the heighth of the war between the Israelis and Egypt,
President Nixon did put the American forces on a degree of
alert because of certain intelligence information we had that
they -- the Soviet Union -- were taking some action involving
their forces.
Now, detente was very helpful in cooling off that
potential confrontation. What I tried to point out yesterday
was that that sequence having taken place in 1973, it is
possible that it would happen again if there was a conflict
between Israel and any of the Arab states.
As you look at this volatility of that area, historically
as well as in the present, you have to be cognizant of all of
the contingencies and that inevitably is a contingency.
QUESTION: Back to politics, Mr. President, I think
you are generally regarded as a middle-of-the-road conservative.
Perhaps that is as good a label as any.
THE PRESIDENT: I like that label.
QUESTION: Your campaign organization seems to be.
staffed mainly by people who are to the right of you. Many
commentators, meaning people who write, I guess, see you moving
to the right to appease the Reagan forces. Is there some
danger that you will be vacating the middle ground to the
Democrats where presumably most of us live?
Page 9
THE PRESIDENT: May I assure you we are not going to
give up the middle ground. I don't really believe that all of
my campaign people are in the right part of the spectrum.
Certainly Dave Packard is not. Dave is a middle-of-the-roader
by any definition.
We are just starting to build the campaign organization.
I think they have 10 employees.
MR. NESSEN: They only had four the last I saw.
QUESTION: But it is weighted in terms of the four.
Dean Burch is a Goldwater man.
THE PRESIDENT: I think Dean's subsequent service in
the Government would put him pretty much in the middle, though,
really. Then you can look at that advisory group -- Bobby
Douglas came from the Vice President's staff. Johnny Byrnes --
I keep getting the transition group and the other group mixed
up, but as I looked at that group I think it is fairly well
balanced. The advisory group and certainly the transition
group, which isn't in the political sphere at all, is
pretty well balanced, as well.
The Republican candidate is -- I should say I, as a
Republican candidate, am in the middle and we are going to stay
in the middle.
QUESTION: Mr. President, a couple of questions on
Vietnam, please.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought that was behind us.
QUESTION: They are philosophical in the context of
this interview.
You said yesterday, "Past and current actions do not
convince me we should recognize South Vietnam or North Vietnam."
If you are divorcing that from the situation in the
United Nations, what actions do you have in mind? Vietnam
seems very quiet and there doesn't seem to be much anti-
American propaganda coming out of Saigon these days.
The second question is, sir: Have you received any
intelligence reports of that bloodbath that you feared would
occur after the take-over in April?
Page 10
THE PRESIDENT: There was a great fear of a blood-
bath in Vietnam, and I think that apprehension was legitimate
because of the experience that took place -- when was it,
Dien Bien Phu in 1954 -- when some half a million people
fled from the north to the south and they told tales or
stories of the kind of harsh action taken by the North
Vietnamese Government.
So I think it was a legitimate concern and apprehension.
From the reports we have gotten in South Vietnam, at least in
the Saigon area, there doesn't seem to have been that, for which
I am very thankful. But I must say that we don't get a lot of
information as to what is taking place throughout the rest
of the country, and I can only say I hope that our apprehension
will not come true. We certainly don't want it to come true.
But let us turn to Cambodia. What we hear and what
we have read about the action of the Khmer Rouge certainly
confirms what many of us said would take place. Some of the
treatment accorded to people trying to get out of the country,
non-Cambodians -- those are horrible stories and I guess written
by reliable news people.
So I am encouraged that what we forecast, and at
least in Saigon, has not taken place, and I hope it doesn't,
and I, of course, am shocked by what we hear from Cambodia.
QUESTION: And the first question, Mr. President,
about the current actions that you mentioned yesterday
which persuaded you that there is no reason to move towards
North or South Vietnam.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, when you consider the complete
violation of the Paris Accords by the North Vietnamese, it
hardly is the atmosphere for the United States to undertake
diplomatic relations with them and/or South Vietnam.
MR. NESSEN: We ought to take about two more minutes.
QUESTION: From the moment you stepped into this
office you decided apparently to be President; you were bitten
by the bug. What happened, and why do you want to be President,
and why do you think you will be a good one?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't say from the moment I took
office.
Page 11
QUESTION: Jerry terHorst announced it almost within
a week. Actually when did it happen?
THE PRESIDENT: I analyzed the situation and for me
to have announced that I would be a lame duck President would
have seriously undercut my capability to be a President during
that two and a half years. That was one factor.
Secondly, I felt that with the opportunity to
handle the problems domestically and internationally, I could
build a record which would be in the best interests of the
country. So it was a process that I went through and I am
glad I made the decision. I am looking forward to the
opportunity.
QUESTION: There were reports that you told Congressmen
that you would not run if Mrs. Ford got sick; is that true?
THE PRESIDENT: Obviously, I talked with her about
it and we came to the conclusion, one, that her health was
sufficiently good that she could be a good teammate in the
operation, and I think that judgment has been born out. I think
her health todav is better than it was on many occasions
when I was the Minority Leader. So we don't foresee any
health problems as far as she is concerned, except that she
shouldn't try to keep up with the schedule that I keep up
with sometimes.
MR. NESSEN: Nobody should.
THE PRESIDENT: But you know, she can handle it, and
I think the way she handled it in Europe this time, when she
got tired from the jet lag or tired from doing too many things,
she just took a half a day off.
QUESTION: But is it a factor at all?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, bearing in mind the good condition
of her health, it is not a factor.
QUESTION: All right, how about the opposite?
THE PRESIDENT: We don't speculate on those things,
Helen.
QUESTION: But it is a factor?
Page 12
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, I don't anticipate
that so I don't anticipate that being a factor.
QUESTION: Mr. President, Dave Broder wrote a column
that said a lot of nice things about you last week, but he
said you have yet to show us where you want to take us. Do
you have a long-range agenda for the country?
THE PRESIDENT: Frank, that was a very nice column
and he asked a very good question in the last paragraph or SO.
We are going to develop either an explanation of what we are
doing and how it fits into a long-range program, or we will
come up with some long-range focus and answers. We are in
the process now of trying to respond to what I think was a good
question.
QUESTION: Do you feel so far you have had to be too
preoccupied with the minute-by-minute things like the economy
and energy problems, to really focus in on the wild blue yonder?
THE PRESIDENT: To some extent yes, although the energy
problem, Frank, is a long-range 10-year decade problem. I
just wish we could get some progress on it. It has been a
hard struggle.
QUESTION: We are all eager to know how you are
going to decontrol and mitigate the effects.
THE PRESIDENT: You watch. We will handle it with
skill and success.
QUESTION: What about bread and gasoline?
THE PRESIDENT: All you do, Helen, is postpone the
answer.
QUESTION: You don't think bread prices or gasoline
prices are going up?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there probably will be a minimum
increase in gasoline prices. Didn't I see where some company
took a pledge, a public pledge that over the next 12 months
gasoline prices wouldn't go up more than two cents -- Union Oil
in California? I think that is a statesman-like attitude, and
I think that is the point of view that industry ought to take.
I am pleased that they did it and I would hope others would.
Page 13
QUESTION: Are you going to start jawboning on that?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I am just commenting on what
they did.
QUESTION: Why don't you? You do it with everybody
else -- the Congress.
THE PRESIDENT: I think they understand their role
in this very difficult situation.
QUESTION: How about bread?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't quote the precise statistics
that Earl Butz used on one show, one of the Sunday shows, but
he pointed out very dramatically from what I read that any
increase in grain prices will have a minimal impact on bread,
and I think that is true. I happen to agree with Earl.
QUESTION: Mr. President, we thank you for your time
and we enjoyed it very much.
THE PRESIDENT: We will do it again some time.
END (AT 12:10 P.M. EDT)