Strategic Missiles

Mr. Trewhitt. Mr. President, I’d like to head for the fence and try to catch that one before it goes over, but I’ll go on to another question.

You and Mr. Mondale have already disagreed about what you had to say about recalling submarine-launched missiles. There’s another, a similar issue out there that relates to your — it is said, at least, that you were unaware that the Soviet retaliatory power was based on land-based missiles. First, is that correct? Secondly, if it is correct, have you informed yourself in the meantime? And third, is it even necessary for the President to be so intimately involved in strategic details?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, this had to do with our disarmament talks. And the whole controversy about land missiles came up because we thought that the strategic nuclear weapons, the most destabilizing are the land-based. You put your thumb on a button and somebody blows up 20 minutes later. So, we thought that it would be simpler to negotiate first with those. And then we made it plain, a second phase, take up the submarine-launched or the airborne missiles.

The Soviet Union, to our surprise — and not just mine — made it plain when we brought this up that they placed, they thought, a greater reliance on the land-based missiles and, therefore, they wanted to take up all three. And we agreed. We said, “All right, if that’s what you want to do.” But it was a surprise to us, because they outnumbered us 64 to 36 in submarines and 20 percent more bombers capable of carrying nuclear missiles than we had. So, why should we believe that they had placed that much more reliance on land-based?

But even after we gave in and said, “All right, let’s discuss it all,” they walked away from the table. We didn’t.
The President’s Age

Mr. Trewhitt. Mr. Mondale, I’m going to hang in there. Should the President’s age and stamina be an issue in the political campaign?

MR. MONDALE: No. And I have not made it an issue, nor should it be. What’s at issue here is the President’s application of his authority to understand what a President must know to lead this nation, secure our defense, and make the decisions and the judgments that are necessary.

A minute ago the President quoted Cicero, I believe. I want to quote somebody a little closer to home, Harry Truman. He said, “The buck stops here.” We just heard the President’s answer for the problems at the barracks in Lebanon, where 241 marines were killed. What happened? First, the Joint Chiefs of Staff went to the President, said, “Don’t put those troops there.” They did it. And then 5 days before the troops were killed, they went back to the President, through the Secretary of Defense, and said, “Please, Mr. President, take those troops out of there because we can’t defend them.” They didn’t do it. And we know what happened.

After that, once again, our Embassy was exploded. This is the fourth time this has happened — an identical attack, in the same region, despite warnings — even public warnings — from the terrorists. Who’s in charge? Who’s handling this matter? That’s my main point.

Now, on arms control, we’re completing 4 years. This is the first administration since the bomb went off that made no progress. We have an arms race underway instead.

A President has to lead his government or it won’t be done. Different people with different views fight with each other. For 3\1/2\ years, this administration avoided arms control, resisted tabling arms control proposals that had any hope of agreeing, rebuked their negotiator in 1981 when he came close to an agreement, at least in principle, on medium-range weapons. And we have this arms race underway. And a recent book that just came out by perhaps the Nation’s most respected author in this field, Strobe Talbott, called “Deadly Gambits,” concludes that this President has failed to master the essential details needed to command and lead us, both in terms of security and terms of arms control. That’s why they call the President the Commander in Chief.

Good intentions, I grant. But it takes more than that. You must be tough and smart.
The President’s Leadership

Mr. Trewhitt. This question of leadership keeps arising in different forms in this discussion already. And the President, Mr. Mondale, has called you whining and vacillating, among the more charitable phrases — weak, I believe. It is a question of leadership. And he has made the point that you have not repudiated some of the semidiplomatic activity of the Reverend Jackson, particularly in Central America. Did you approve of his diplomatic activity? And are you prepared to repudiate him now?

MR. MONDALE: I read his statement the other day. I don’t admire Fidel Castro at all. And I’ve said that. Che Guevara was a contemptible figure in civilization’s history. I know the Cuban state as a police state, and all my life I’ve worked in a way that demonstrates that. But Jesse Jackson is an independent person. I don’t control him.

And let’s talk about people we do control. In the last debate,\1\ (FOOTNOTE) the Vice President of the United States said that I said the marines had died shamefully and died in shame in Lebanon. I demanded an apology from Vice President Bush because I had, instead, honored these young men, grieved for their families, and think they were wonderful Americans that honored us all. What does the President have to say about taking responsibility for a Vice President who won’t apologize for something like that?

(FOOTNOTE) \1\Mr. Mondale was referring to an earlier debate between George Bush and Geraldine Ferarro, the Vice-Presidential candidates.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. President, your rebuttal?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I know it’ll come as a surprise to Mr. Mondale, but I am in charge. And, as a matter of fact, we haven’t avoided arms control talks with the Soviet Union. Very early in my administration I proposed — and I think something that had never been proposed by any previous administration — I proposed a total elimination of intermediate-range missiles, where the Soviets had better than a 10 — and still have — better than a 10-to-1 advantage over the allies in Europe. When they protested that and suggested a smaller number, perhaps, I went along with that.

The so-called negotiation that you said I walked out on was the so-called walk in the woods between one of our representatives and one of the Soviet Union, and it wasn’t me that turned it down, the Soviet Union disavowed it.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal?

MR. MONDALE: There are two distinguished authors on arms control in this country — there are many others, but two that I want to cite tonight. One is Strobe Talbott in his classic book, “Deadly Gambits.” The other is John Neuhaus, who’s one of the most distinguished arms control specialists in our country. Both said that this administration turned down the “walk in the woods” agreement first, and that would have been a perfect agreement from the standpoint of the United States in Europe and our security.

When Mr. Nitze, a good negotiator, returned, he was rebuked, and his boss was fired. This is the kind of leadership that we’ve had in this administration on the most deadly issue of our times. Now we have a runaway arms race. All they’ve got to show for 4 years in U.S.-Soviet relations is one meeting in the last weeks of an administration, and nothing before.

They’re tough negotiators, but all previous Presidents have made progress. This one has not.

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Excerpts from Mary Lee Orsini transcript

The following is a series of excerpts from a July 17 interview between Mary Lee Orsini and Sgt. Jim Dixon and Major Jackie Goodson of the Pulaski County sheriff’s office. The transcript was edited only for basic spelling.

Goodson: On the 12th the night before, would you go over some of that for me. As to what your mind set was, and what your-I know that’s asking you to go back, but I think probably you’re pretty clear about what all you did that night?
Orsini: Uh, um my husband’s father was in the hospital dieing of cancer at that time and he had gone to, he’d eat supper. He had gone to the hospital and he had come back home and uh, uh, I’m not real clear it was just an ordinary evening. He and my daughter were talking about football and different stuff. They done talked about. Tiffany had been staying home like I said for a couple days, or a day or so and from school. And uh when we went to bed, and I, you know, and which I had done the night before, I had slept with Tiffany; which had nothing to do, you know I know that it looks like it does, but it had nothing to do with the crime the fact that I was in another bedroom. Um she had actually been watching the TV during the day and had been in our bedroom most of the day as I recall. And uh, you know I wrestled with it probably all the way up to the moment that I went in there.
Goodson: So y’all were in the bed in her room. She goes to sleep and at some point…
Orsini: And she wasn’t sedated. They made comments at the trial that she was sedated. I sedated her to do…
Goodson: Was she on medications from the illness?
Orsini: I don’t recall that she was. If she was it wasn’t a sedative; it would have been an antibiotic or something. I don’t really recall. The only thing that she ever took and she didn’t have any at that time as I recall uh was something for her menstrual cramps. But uh…
Goodson: So you and her are there in the bedroom, and is that where you made your decision to go…
Orsini: To be perfectly honest I think I made the decision the second before I did it, you know, I mean the actual decision. You know, like I said, you wrestle with it…
Goodson: Right.
Orsini: You go back and forth.
. . .
Goodson: So when you left the room you had not made the decision to do that then you think, or do you think you decided to do it?
Orsini: You know, I think that there was other night that I had pondered this. You know within a few week period of time and I think until the moment that it actually happened that is was one-it was just an indecisive. Cause it was-it was many days that I wanted to sit down and tell him the truth.
. . .
Goodson: So this was just one of those nights out of those few nights that you just did it. Okay, let me just-and again I hate to ask you details but I have to get details in order to again, there’s a lot of stuff in the paper, there’s a lot, there’s a book, one or two I think out on this thing. I’m trying to have you remember something that maybe that you haven’t told anybody or that someone else didn’t know. That we could find out that occurred that night.
Orsini: Well, other than that fact that I didn’t know about a jacked-up car that a little girl saw. I didn’t hear it or see it. and I was up…
Goodson: That’s the thing that law enforcement had come up with…
Orsini: Yeah well it stands that I never knew. I never even, I was up walking around the house and I never saw a car out there, so whether this little girl made this up, whether it actually happened. I do know that once that the gun went off, dogs all the around the area started barking.
Goodson: That’s what I’m talking about.
Orsini: Yeah, dog’s started barking but…
Goodson: Let me tell you a little bit about what you just saying…
Orsini: And my daughter, when I went back in the room, my daughter raised up. You know after in fact, you know, in fact I do remember that. My daughter, I had gotten back in bed and my daughter raised up and I pretended to be asleep and she climbed over, looked out the window then she got back in bed.
Goodson: After you, after you had shot the-that’s what I’m trying to do…
Orsini: But she thought I was asleep. She did not know that I was awake.
Goodson: Okay, so…
Orsini: I did not disturb her.
. . .
Dixon: When you fired the gun, what did you do to prepare it to fire?
Orsini: I don’t understand what that means.
Dixon: Did you actually aim it at the back of his head…
Orsini: Yes.
Dixon: Or did you-did you touch the back of his head with it at any time.
Orsini: No, I did not touch, no.
Dixon: Did you shoot directly into him…
Orsini: Yes.
Dixon: Or through the pillow or bed sheets or anything or…?
Orsini: No. It was directly into him.
Dixon: Okay. And this was a revolver uh, how did you fire it.
Orsini: I pulled the trigger.
Dixon: You just merely squeezed the trigger.
Orsini: Um huh.
Dixon: Okay, now it has a hammer, so did you pull the hammer back on it with your thumb or did you just…
Orsini: I wouldn’t have known to do that.
. . .
Orsini: And the sound of the gun shot was deafening to me, you know. But if I had not been asleep, I mean if I had not been awake trust me I wouldn’t of heard the gun shot. I just have that kind of sleep pattern and so does she. Cause in fact that night with that other thing that you came to the house with that. That gun went off and I don’t know if you recall it; we like to have never gotten Tiffany up. Tiffany was in the room and did not wake up. She was sound asleep and the door was there. So you know the position where the bedroom is at the top of the stairs. So yeah I have about a four hour sleep pattern. I have a real, a real strong sleep pattern.
. . .
Goodson: And what time did your daughter get up?
Orsini: Uh from 21 years ago I couldn’t honestly tell you.
Goodson: But she was going to school that day.
Orsini: She was going to school it was on Thursday…Thursday the 12th.
Goodson: So she got up, your husband’s still in bed. Y’all are both aware of that right? I mean you made some excuses for him still…
Orsini: No I did not make no, no, the door was locked and um, I had gotten up, and if uh, if I recall Tiffany wanted to get in the room for some reason I don’t remember what it was-what the reason uh for the sake of being honest I don’t remember what the reason was but she wanted to get in the room. And I told her the door was locked and leave it alone, that I would call Daddy and find out where the key was and so she left it alone.
Goodson: So she, she assumed that your husband had already left to go to work.

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

General Robert E. Lee

General Grant