pd10ap95 Remarks at the United Nations Transition Ceremony in Port-au-Prince...

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    Q. Mr. President, with all due respect, your nuclear policy is 
filled with inconsistencies, replete. You want to stop Russia from 
building a nuclear reactor in Iran. You want to ease sanctions against 
Pakistan, which we believe is developing nuclear weapons. You want Egypt 
to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and all other states in 
the area. And you never try to persuade Israel, which does have a 
nuclear arsenal, to sign the treaty. Can you explain?
    The President. Well, first of all, I'm trying to remember if I can 
remember all those three things. [Laughter]
    The United States does not want Russia to give the capacity to Iran 
because we don't want that to be the beginning of their increased 
capacity to develop nuclear fuel and technology for other purposes. And 
given their conduct, I think that is the right policy, and I don't have 
any problem with it.
    With regard to Pakistan, the simple question there is whether the 
policy we have pursued in the last few years is achieving its objectives 
and whether we will be a stronger force for peace and reconciliation and 
ultimately for the defanging, in terms of weapons of mass destruction, 
in the area if we change our policy or if we stay with it. I think it's 
time for--I think we should seriously review the policy.
    If you look at the number of people in those countries in South 
Asia, the potential they represent for the future and the powder keg on 
which they sit because of their problems, the United States, it seems to 
me, has an obligation to do the very best we can to bring about the best 
result and the most peaceful result. And that's all we're doing.
    Q. [Inaudible]--producing weapons?
    The President. We don't support that. We want everybody to be a 
member of the nonproliferation regime. We want everybody to do that. And 
that's why I said what I did to President Mubarak of Egypt. Our position 
is that we want the largest number of people possible to participate in 
the nonproliferation regime and to go forward with its requirements. And 
we want to keep as many states non-nuclear as possible. And we are doing 
our best to reduce the nuclear threat by reducing the number of nuclear 
weapons that we have, in agreement with the Russians and with the other 
former states--States of the Former Soviet Union.
    And I think that our policy is consistent if you look at what the 
objective is. The objective is to reduce the threat of nuclear war to 
the world in the future and to reduce the threat of other weapons of 
mass destruction. There still is no more significant obligation I have 
to future generations, and that is the common thread running through all 
these policies.
    Prime Minister Major. Adam.

Anglo-American Relationship

    Q. Given that historically--[inaudible]--on opposite sides 
ideologically, and given that we understand Teddy Blair of Labor may be 
coming here soon, I wonder if I could ask you how important you think 
your personal relations are for the relations between our two countries.
    The President. Well, first of all, I think that in foreign policy, 
the differences are not easily discernible by party. We have, as you 
heard today, broad overlap, and indeed, in

[[Page 538]]

our country the differences among us here in America as Americans in 
foreign policy don't tend to break down along party lines. For example, 
the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader supported the 
position I took on debt relief for Mexico, which was opposed by a number 
of members of their party and a number of members of mine.
    So I think there is--at the end of the cold war in this country, and 
I sense throughout Europe perhaps, there are forces arguing for kind of 
an inward-looking approach, a little bit more, if not isolationist, 
disengaged approach. And there are others who believe we must still 
continue to broaden the frontiers of relationships, to expand trade, in 
order to support democracy and prosperity. I am in that latter group. 
Prime Minister Major's in that latter group. Last year at the G-7 
meeting, we were the two strongest proponents of expanding opportunities 
for economic integration of the countries there. So I just don't believe 
that there is a necessary partisan breakdown to our common objectives in 
the world community.
    Secondly, I think we've got a good personal relationship, and I feel 
very comfortable about where it is. And I think it's honest and open. 
And it endures occasional disagreements, but the agreements are far more 
numerous, and over the long run, should be the shaping factors of our 
relationship.
    Prime Minister Major. The fact of the matter is that we know well 
enough--we know one another well enough and the relationship is good 
enough to have those disagreements. And it doesn't affect the broad sway 
of agreement that exists between the two countries. I was fascinated to 
see that you referred to differences between parties and not within 
parties. And I think that's a great advance. [Laughter] I'm delighted--
I'm delighted you put it that way.
    Let me just make a broader point, really, about the Anglo-American 
relationship. At almost any time there's probably an issue--be 
astonishing if there wasn't, if there wasn't some measure of difference 
on an issue between two sovereign governments, whether they happen to be 
Conservative or Labor in the United Kingdom, Democrat or Republican in 
the United States. But against that, I think you have to look at the 
huge range of things in which the instinctive outlook between the United 
Kingdom Government and the United States Government is exactly the same.
    If you run down most of the great issues of the moment--relationship 
with Russia, relationship with the Middle East, relationship on 
terrorism, relationship with Iran, relationship with Iraq--you won't 
find a scintilla of difference--present policy on Bosnia--between the 
British Government and the United States Government. If you look at the 
two nations that were foremost in propounding a free trade agreement, 
the GATT agreement, and taking that forward, you'll find the same 
relationship, the British and the American Government.
    As for looking forward, I spoke a few moments ago of two areas where 
we've actually been looking forward today, together, of what we might 
actually do in the future. But as to whether the relation is good 
enough, perhaps I can just give you a practical example. If you were to 
spend a weekend, Adam, on one of our nuclear submarines, you would find 
a Trident missile on it. I'm not sure you could travel on anyone else's 
submarine and find a Trident missile on it. And I hope very soon in the 
future that you'll be able to see Tomahawk cruise missiles in the United 
Kingdom armory. And I'm not sure anybody will have those.
    Now, they're practical illustrations of the extent of the closeness 
of the defense, of the security and other relationships between the 
United Kingdom and the United States. And the fact of the matter is, it 
is sufficiently close and has been sufficiently close for a large number 
of years to enable the President and I to have the occasional 
disagreement if we want without any harm coming of it.
    The President. Rita [Rita Braver, CBS News].
    Press Secretary McCurry. Make this the last one.

Russian Nuclear Cooperation With Iran

    Q. If I could get back to the issue of Russia, you said that you do 
not want the Russians to go forward with their plans to sell a nuclear 
powerplant to Iran. What, if any- 

[[Page 539]]

thing, did you talk about in terms of putting some real pressure on 
them? Is there anything you can do at this point to stop it from going 
forward? And if they do go forward, will it put a damper on the Western 
relationship with Russia?
    The President. Well, we're continuing to have negotiations and 
discussions with them about it. And I think that's all I can really say 
at this time because we're in the midst of our conversations.
    I thought Helen was going to ask me the question I think you asked 
me the last time, which is, are we trying to discourage Russia from 
selling to Iran the technology we're trying to finance in North Korea. 
The difference is, when I became President, I found a full-blown nuclear 
program in North Korea, which I'm trying to take down. And I don't want 
to leave some future President in the United States and the people of 
Britain with a program in Iran that they have to try to take down. I'm 
going to do the best I can to deal with it.
    Q. Well, a lot of Americans, sir, are questioning whether or not the 
United States can really rely on Russia in any way--[inaudible].
    The President. Well, let's don't jump the gun here. We're having 
these serious discussions. We're working it through. We have a lot of 
interests in a democratic and a reformist Russia. And the Prime Minister 
and I talked about it at some length today. And I think that they have 
done better economically than either the Prime Minister or I thought 
they would a couple of years ago in terms of pursuing the path of 
reform. They have continued to honor their Constitution and their 
electoral system and obligations to democracy. And we're going to have 
differences from time to time, but I wouldn't assume we can't work this 
one out. We're going to keep working hard on it.
    Prime Minister Major. Peter [Peter Riddell, Times of London].

Bretton Woods Institutions

    Q. Mr. Prime Minister, the President mentioned your ideas on the 
Bretton Woods institutions in the U.N. How much have you worked that up 
in detail and what would it actually involve? I mean, is it a fully--a 
several-page plan, or what?
    Prime Minister Major. It's developing rather than being developed. 
We agreed last year that we needed to look at some of the overlap there 
was in the Bretton Woods institutions and see how we could look at 
making the--bringing the United Nations a little more up to date.
    If I could just give you a couple of illustrations--if you mean have 
we yet got a detailed, worked-out position between the United Kingdom 
and the United States, the answer is, no, we haven't. We've both been 
looking separately as we agreed we would do at the G-7 summit last year 
at the sort of ideas we might bring forward for discussion with partners 
at Halifax later on this year and the sort of things that we're looking 
at in--by ``we'' I now mean the United Kingdom--in terms of the 
financial institutions. You'll be aware of the idea we've had in the 
past of selling some IMF gold to help some of the poorer nations. That's 
still on the agenda as far as we're concerned. Looking at, perhaps, a 
greater degree of rationalization of some of the activities of the IMF, 
OECD, and the World Bank--that's an area we're looking at.
    We'd like to look at the way in which poverty is dealt with through 
the U.N. There seem to us to be a number of overlapping agencies, a 
certain amount of duplication, which could credibly be looked at. In 
terms of trade, we'd like to see what can be done to bed down the World 
Trade Organization satisfactorily. In terms of environment, I would 
suggest that there are some areas of overlap as well. The U.N. 
environment program and the Commission for Sustainable Development, 
there seem to be areas of overlap.
    Now, they're just specimen samples of the sort of things we are 
looking at. I emphasize, we are in the early stages of that examination. 
We haven't reached any conclusions. But I think those are matters we 
must examine.
    Other things I'd like to see us examine at the summit would be to 
look more comprehensively at crime, drugs, and money laundering. We had 
a G-7 task force on money laundering some time ago. That's been 
successful. I think we should revisit that, given the nature of the 
problem and given the problem that exists internationally

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with crime and drugs. And I think we'd like to look a little more 
carefully at what might be done in terms of conflict prevention.
    Those are just broad headlines of some of the areas we're looking 
at. We shared them in general outline today. We will come to them in 
detail at the summit.
    The President. Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 90th news conference began at 2:53 p.m. in the 
East Room at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to President 
Saddam Hussein of Iraq; Rolf Ekeus, chairman, United Nations Special 
Commission (Iraqi Weapons); Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein; and 
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.


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[Page 540]
 
Monday, April 10, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 14
Pages 521-576
 
Week Ending Friday, April 7, 1995
 
Statement on the Buyout Program for Federal Employees

April 4, 1995

    More than 2 years ago, I promised to fix the Federal Government. I 
was firmly convinced that we could do more with less, that we could 
create a Government that was ``leaner but not meaner,'' and that we 
could make Government our partner rather than a problem.
    I established the National Performance Review and put Vice President 
Gore in charge. He and his team have helped to transform Government, to 
cut bureaucracy and redtape, and to find ways to give the American 
people the service they deserve. At the same time, my economic plan is 
bringing down the deficit by more than $600 billion, and we are 
proposing another $81 billion in deficit reduction in the budget I 
recently sent to Congress.
    A major element of my strategy was my commitment to streamline and 
cut the Federal work force. For too long in Washington, we have had too 
many layers of bureaucracy, too many workers whose main job was to check 
on the work of other workers rather than to perform useful work 
themselves. As the National Performance Review noted, we had good people 
trapped in bad systems. I promised to cut the work force, and that's 
what I'm doing. Through our efforts, we have already cut the work force 
by 102,000 positions and we are on track to cut it by a total of 272,900 
positions, bringing it to its smallest size since John Kennedy was 
President.
    While committed to cutting the work force, we want to do it in a 
humane way. We faced the same dilemma that confronted many private 
companies; they needed to downsize but wanted to avoid firing large 
numbers of loyal employees. Many of them have given people an incentive 
to leave by offering ``buyouts.'' We wanted to do the same.
    Early last year, Congress approved my request to allow non-Defense 
agencies to offer buyouts of up to $25,000 a person. The Defense 
Department and a few other agencies already could offer buyouts under 
existing law. Because normal attrition will help us downsize in the 
future, we offered buyouts only until March 31, 1995, which was last 
Friday.
    Looking back, I can safely say that our buyout program has been a 
huge success. It achieved what we had hoped--to help us cut the work 
force in a fiscally responsible and humane way.
    To reduce the work force by 102,000 positions by the end of fiscal 
1994, we offered about 70,000 buyouts. Several non-DOD agencies have 
offered deferred buyouts that will take place between now and March 
1997. Defense will be using buyouts as it continues to downsize through 
1999. Counting those, we expect to buy out another 84,000 workers 
through 1997 as we reduce the work force by a total of 272,900 
positions.
    The buyouts were not offered in a random fashion, however. We 
targeted them to reduce the layers of bureaucracy and micro-management 
that were tying Government in knots. We made sure that departments and 
agencies tied their buyout strategies to their overall plans to 
streamline their bureaucracies. As a result, almost 70 percent of our 
buyouts in the non-Defense agencies have gone to people at higher grade 
levels, such as managers.
    I'm proud that our buyout program was so successful. It shows that 
we can, in fact, create a Government that works better and costs less.

[[Page 541]]




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[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
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[Page 541]
 
Monday, April 10, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 14
Pages 521-576
 
Week Ending Friday, April 7, 1995
 

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