Newspaper Farm Editors of America Interview With Members of the Organization.

THE PRESIDENT. First of all, let me apologize for interrupting your meeting. [Laughter]

It's a great pleasure to be with you. I think that all of you noticed with great attention yesterday the signing of the 1977 agriculture bill, which is probably the most far-reaching and innovative farm legislation in the history of our country, certainly in the last 35 or 40 years.

I just had lunch with Chairman George Mahon from Lubbock, Texas, and he agrees with that assessment. So, it's not just a newcomer's assessment. He told me that in his district this year they will produce 3.2 million bales of cotton, which is an unbelievable quantity.

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

I would like to say that I know that your interests are broad-ranging because you represent literally millions of families in this country who look to you for leadership and guidance and whom you serve. I believe that so far this year we've had a good beginning of our administration. We've approached some questions that your readers, listeners, and viewers are deeply concerned about.

I've gotten authority from the Congress to reorganize the executive branch of Government, which we're doing now, and we have a 3-year period in which that can be accomplished. We've formed a new Department of Energy. We now see the Senate engaged in dealing with the energy questions which the House has already successfully accomplished, in my opinion, in a very courageous way.

We've proposed to the Congress a far-reaching reform of our welfare system to give our people a better chance for both jobs and income, and this will primarily be decided by the Congress early next year. And before the Congress adjourns, I'll present to them a comprehensive tax reform package.

In addition to that, we are trying to work on the international field and resolve some of the longstanding questions that confront us. The Middle East is difficult, southern Africa is difficult, the SALT negotiations are difficult, the strengthening of NATO is quite difficult.

We also are trying to enhance international trade, the export of our agricultural and industrial products. We have had, so far, good success.

The only very serious cloud is that we are importing too much oil. This is going to give us an adverse trade balance this year of about $30 billion. If we didn't have the excessive oil imports, we would have a positive trade balance of about $15 to $20 billion.

Agricultural products exports in the last 12-month period was about $24 billion, which is as high or higher than it's ever been before.

I've met this week with a series of foreign leaders, which has been my custom and, I guess, my predecessors'. I spent this morning meeting with the heir apparent to President Tito of Yugoslavia, Mr. Kardelj. Earlier this week, I met twice with Foreign Minister Gromyko, with the head of the Government of Malaysia, Prime Minister Hussein, and with leaders from Jordan and Syria, and another group last week.

So, this is a continuing obligation of mine, which I welcome. I think we are making good progress, and I've been pleased so far with my own life here in the White House. This is my first experience in serving in the Federal Government, except for the Navy, and I think the Congress has been very cooperative and I've got a good Cabinet.

I think since we have a limited amount of time, I would rather spend the next few minutes answering questions that you might have, if I can.

QUESTIONS

COLOGNE FOOD FAIR

Q. Mr. President, you mentioned international trade, expansion of international trade. Recently, Governor Thompson of Illinois sent a two-man agriculture team over to Europe on a trade mission. They reported that when they were at the Cologne Food Fair, the United States was about the only country that did not have a national food display, a national agricultural display, and they thought that was in the eyes of many of these nations a loss of face in some way. There were about five or six states exhibiting there, but not the United States. Do you think we ought to have a unified effort like that?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, I do, and I would just about guarantee you that the next time such an occasion arises we'll have a display there. I didn't know about it, and I'll contact Bob Bergland about that this afternoon and find out why we didn't. That would be Agriculture and Commerce combined.

We do have a fairly substantial budget allocation which we expend with enthusiasm for displays in international fairs and other opportunities of this kind. But why we missed the Cologne Food Fair, I don't know. But I'll find out.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ACT OF 1977

Q. Mr. President, were there any sections of the farm bill that you were dissatisfied with?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know, a bill of that complexity is a result of innumerable conferences and compromises. And my own presentation to the Congress was about $300 to $600 million lower in cost than the final bill was, not counting food stamps. We don't know if it's $300 or $600 million, depending upon how the question of oats will be handled. But I think in its final form, I didn't have any reluctance about signing it.

I think there's a great improvement in allocation of funds for research and development. It eliminates the concept of acreage allotments, which have, I think, been abused in the past. It fairly well equates production costs with target prices, at least on an average. There are some places which have very high production costs which can't be accommodated exactly.

I think the loan levels are reasonable enough to give us a competitive place in the international market. It establishes the concept of increased food reserves, the control of which is primarily in the hands of farmers, which was an important consideration to me as a farmer. It has adequate safeguards on that concept to prevent Government dumping of farm products on the market to artificially lower prices. It changes the food stamp program to one that's much simpler, much more free of fraud, and much more equitable in its concept. And I think, in general, the agriculture bill, for all those reasons, is good.

We did have a difference of opinion of about 10 cents here and 10 cents there on some of the farm prices. I think, for instance, the price of rice is too high. But that's not a serious objection. But that was a result of negotiations.

We still have a problem with sugar. The de la Garza amendment on sugar did cause me some concern. I would like for the Congress to have placed a greater emphasis on encouraging the international sugar amendment. We do have in the bill a provision that we were successful in implementing, that at the time an international sugar agreement is confirmed by the Senate, that the present support price structure would be replaced.

But I'm afraid that if the international sugar agreement price is even slightly below the 13 1/2 cents, roughly, that's in this bill, that the Senate might lose its incentive to ratify the agreement.

There were just a few technical negotiating points like that, but in a 150-page bill, those are relatively minor.

ROBERT H. MEYER

Q. Mr. President, there have been some questions raised lately about Mr. Robert Meyer, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Have you looked into this matter, and do you have any thoughts on it at this point?

THE PRESIDENT. I've not talked to either Robert Meyer nor Bob Bergland about this. I read about it in the news and understand from my staff reports that there has been nothing illegal done. But I have written Bob Bergland a note and told him that I wanted the practice stopped, whether or not there was an illegality.

I really don't feel that anyone in Government, including myself, should use the official position to pursue a goal that would result in financial advantage or other advantage for the public official. I'm not alleging that Bob Meyer has done anything improper or illegal; I don't know that much about it. But I just don't want to have the accusation of impropriety there.

Q. You plan no action against Mr. Meyer?

THE PRESIDENT. I certainly have no information about Bob Meyer's actions at this point that would indicate any action needing to be taken, except that I have asked Bob Bergland to stop the effort of Bob Meyer to determine land policy in the Imperial Valley.

As all of you know, this is an ancient problem. The law that the Congress passed, I think back in 1902, limited the ownership of land in some irrigated areas of the West to 160 acres. And in some instances, a husband and a wife can own 320 acres. In the Imperial Valley and in other places, the acreage owned by single families is much greater. The law was just not enforced.

The altercation has been not between Washington and farmers, honest farmers in the West; it's been between farmers in the West and their neighbors--their neighbors wanting to have an easier ability to acquire land; the farmers wanting to hold the land that they possessed. This ultimately went to the Federal courts. The Federal courts have ruled that the U.S. law has to be enforced. And Cecil Andrus, who is the Secretary of Interior, has no alternative except to enforce the law.

So, we're not trying to intrude ourselves gratuitously or on an initial basis into this controversy; we inherited it. And under the present law, I'm sworn on my word of honor to enforce the law and will have to enforce it.

But I recognize, as do many of you, that 75 years ago, 320 acres for a husband and wife of irrigated land was all they could handle. And now, with massive investments in large machinery, a larger acreage is sometimes necessary for an economically viable farm operation.

So, the law needs to be changed. But we don't have any alternative except to enforce the law. And I think Bob Meyer was not doing anything except expressing, basically, what I've just said. I don't think he was trying to do anything surreptitiously or improperly. But I think that there are other people that can be adequate spokesmen, even including myself. I don't think Bob needs to do that.

DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT

AND BUDGET

Q. Is Charles Zwick of Connecticut a serious candidate for Director of the Budget--being considered?

THE PRESIDENT. I'm not looking at this point for any Director of Office of Management and Budget. I'm completely satisfied with James Mcintyre, who was my OMB director in Georgia and who was Bert Lance's deputy, and I think that it would be an improper time for me to change the directors of that department while we are well involved in the preparation of the fiscal year '79 budget preparation.

So, I'll wait until the end of this year before I start considering a permanent OMB Director, and when I do, James Mcintyre would be one of those I would consider. But I don't have any intention to pursue that at this time.

NUCLEAR REPROCESSING

Q. I understand that you are against any more plutonium recycling. We have a nuclear plant to the east of us, with three reactors, and we have another one going up to the west of us with two more reactors. And we're wondering, with all these reactors in the area, the huge quantities of nuclear waste material that will be generated there, well, what are we going to do about the disposal of these materials without any recycling? Do you not think that it might increase our Nation's energy independence to extend this nuclear fuel supply through the recycle?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, you know, recycling or reprocessing, as it's most often called, is not an answer to the question that you raised. We've been involved in nuclear power production now for 35 years, and also weapons production for 35 years. The nuclear wastes, even if they were reprocessed, would still have to be stored somewhere. And, as you know, there have been two major plants of the most modern possible design already completed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. Both of them have been abandoned because they simply didn't work economically, they were not feasible, and also they created environmental questions of contamination that just were never resolved.

The thing that we are trying to do is to provide some long-range and comprehensive spent fuel storage capability, maybe injecting the Federal Government into it more deeply than it has been in the past, to handle spent fuel from commercial powerplants.

At the same time, we are trying to prevent countries that don't have a nuclear explosive capability from getting into the reprocessing field. This reprocessing capability also means that a nation could very well acquire the atomic bomb.

I have no objection to the plutonium age coming. I have no objection to breeder reactors. I don't think that the time has yet come. We are now about to waste, in my opinion, about $2 billion if the congressional action on the Clinch River breeder reactor is carried out where we don't need the particular breeder reactor that's in question.

I think 25 or 30 years from now-maybe not quite that long--we will need to go into the breeder reactor field. By that time there's no doubt in my mind that major advances will be made in the technology. We have a massive research and development program that would include pilot plant operation in the plutonium field. So, this is a problem, again, that I've inherited.

My background and graduate work is in nuclear physics. I think I understand most of the principles involved. So, we are reprocessing spent fuel now under the Government programs. There has not yet been resolved the problem of whether to reprocess and how to store spent nuclear fuel from commercial plants. In most instances, they are storing that spent fuel on their own premises and sometimes, perhaps, carelessly--I can't prove that. Past efforts to reprocess commercially have been a complete failure, and I just think that the emphasis ought to be in the prevention of the proliferation of explosives around the world. And we will be ready to move into the plutonium or breeder field when the time comes and when we need it.

We do have a breeder reactor operating today. It began operation about a month ago. It's at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It was developed under the auspices of Admiral Rickover, and it uses a thorium base for the breeding capability. It'll be up to a hundred percent operating level within the next few days. So, the breeder reactor concept is with us.

PRESIDENT'S SUPPORT IN FARM AREAS

Q. Sir, the New York Times recently carried a story that indicates you're losing support among farm people. I was wondering if you're aware of this, and if so, do you plan anything to counteract this possible loss of support as indicated in this newspaper article?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know from looking at the maps the day after the election, my political support was about equally divided between urban and rural people. There were geographical delineations. I didn't carry many of the States in the Midwest or in the Far West. I carried the rural areas in the South and in New England and in States like Wisconsin and Minnesota, Ohio, very well.

I don't think any of our polling results indicate that I've lost support in the Farm Belt. The farmers are disturbed, and I'm a farmer and I'm disturbed as well. We've had a complete, total failure of our corn crop. We won't make any cotton at home. Our soybean crop is very badly damaged. Our peanut crop is probably going to be off 25 or 30 percent--because of weather, not because I became President. [Laughter] But I know from experience that farmers tend to blame the President when they have a short crop or when the prices are low.

I think this new farm bill, when it's analyzed by farm groups, and also the set-aside program for wheat and some feed grains next year will be, I think, an indication of my understanding of the farm needs. And I think the increase in support price and target prices for the '77 crops will also help.

But I would guess that political popularity with the President will always go up and down, depending upon the general attitude of farmers.

When I wasn't in office, I used to cuss the President and cuss the Secretary of Agriculture when my crop was poor. And when it was good, of course, I didn't give the President and the Secretary of Agriculture any credit for it. I figured it was because of me.

And so, my answer in a nutshell is, I don't think that I've varied much in my political support among farm families. I do think that the new legislation that I've helped to provide will be an indication that the farm families can trust me not only to understand their problems but to carry out my campaign commitments.

TRADE WITH THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Q. Mr. President, several times this morning in our conversations with people on your staff, the question was raised about penetrating the Chinese market with American exports. And thus far, we've been effectively shut out. And I'm wondering if this is a concern of yours?

THE PRESIDENT. It is. Nothing would please me more than to see our trade with all the nations in the world build up.

There's some question now about the result of the Russians' crop year. There's a possibility they might buy 5 million more tons of food grains, for instance. We don't know that yet. I would hope that we could provide the major part of that to the Soviet Union. As you know, we have a permanent contract now with them, a multiyear contract, for the sale of specified quantities of wheat.

Since Nixon went to China, there has been, first of all, a brief flurry of trade with China--nothing earthshaking, but at least some--and there's been a steady decrease since then.

I think the Chinese have, this past 8 or 9 months, bought large quantities of wheat from some of the other countries-Canada, Argentina, and perhaps, Australia. I would like to see us get our share of those Chinese purchases, and we are doing everything we can to meet that goal. This was one of the items on the agenda when Secretary Vance met with the new Chinese leaders.

Q. What are some of the roadblocks immediately to trading with China, as you said?

THE PRESIDENT. It's a very complicated question. Let me give you one example. We have an old claims question with China that has never yet been resolved. When the Communist Chinese took over from Chiang Kai-shek 35 years ago or so, they confiscated some property that was owned by Americans. In retaliation for that, we impounded Chinese bank deposits and other financial resources in this country. The amount of money involved is in the neighborhood of $200 million. We've never yet been able to work out with the Chinese an agreement of how to settle those counterclaims.

There are lawsuits involved on our part. For instance, if a Chinese ship should come into, say, New Orleans or to Los Angeles to load a cargo of wheat, that ship would be subject to impoundment by some American citizen who still claims they've got property in China and the Chinese owe it for them. I would guess that the American courts would uphold that American citizen's claim. That's one of the complicated obstacles to it.

Another one, of course, is the Chinese relationship with us. They refuse to send any of their major officials into the city of Washington because we have an ambassador here who represents the Republic of China in Taiwan. And I would guess that if the situation existed a hundred years that they would never deviate in that policy.

They will send top officials into New York to attend the United Nations, but as a matter of principle, they won't send their top persons like the foreign minister or one of their premiers into the city of Washington because they claim that we erroneously have relationships with Taipei. That's another question that arises.

And another one is that the Chinese insist upon being very independent. They're cautious about how they buy goods from any other country.

I think that my own judgment is that under the new government with Premier Hua and Deputy Premier Teng, that the Chinese are going to expand their interrelationship with other countries on a foreign trade basis, and perhaps we can benefit from that.

We are eager to meet them more than half way in order to enhance American sales and, I think, through trade, to improve our relationships with the Mainland Chinese.

It's so complicated; it's hard to explain briefly.

AGRICULTURAL LOANS

Q. Probably the most severe problem right now seems to be this financing, refinancing, keeping the loan levels in certain areas. Do you think that there might either through cooperative credit agencies or through the Farmers Home Administration, might be some bridge that will allow farmers--see, the thing, like banks just run out of loan--and they're really getting pressed on this, and the drought, last year's bills are coming due, and 1974's early freeze coming due, and all these things putting hundreds of millions of dollars in Wisconsin alone coming due to the Government, and by golly, they can't have the comeback quite to make it. And I just wondered if this type of immediate problem might be addressed through an existing agency or some special program, just a loan, not--

THE PRESIDENT. I know. We've had an extraordinary demand this year for agricultural disaster loans because of floods, droughts and so forth, and we've met those requirements. I think that about at least two-thirds of the counties in the United States are now eligible for disaster loans, and still we've had one of the most bountiful crops on a nationwide basis we've ever had.

As you know, we did increase the price support of milk, which certainly helped Wisconsin. Also, we've increased the loan and price support levels of 1977 crop commodities, which does mean that the banks would have a more secure loan at a higher level of the loan itself. If you increase the loan level of wheat that the farmer has in storage, then he can go back to the bank and on a secured basis get a higher loan or extend his loan more carefully as far as the bank is concerned.

We also have tried to encourage, through decisions made from the Agriculture Department, more easy loans, both in the paperwork involved and also a higher level of loans for the installation of storage equipment for wheat, soybeans, feed grains, and so forth.

So, within the present structure, the extension of credit is enhanced. We've also had Bob Bergland, who's an excellent man, working very closely with Arthur Burns and with the Secretary of Treasury, Mike Blumenthal, to analyze from one region of the country to another if the banks were truly overextended in loans or if they did have lending reserves that they were withholding for some other reason.

I think those are some of the things that come to mind just offhand that have already been done and obviously can be continued in the future.

Maybe one more question, then I have to--

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Q. Mr. President, probably our peanut farmers in Texas have benefited as much as anyone on agricultural research, basic research. The gap is closing faster all the time on what research has to offer to the better farmers to stay in business. I understand that the Congress is contemplating-or making a move to increase the amount of funds for basic agricultural research.

THE PRESIDENT. That's correct.

Q. How would the administration go along with that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT. We favor that. In fact, in the new agriculture bill that I signed yesterday, there is a substantial increase .in commitment of the Federal Government for the basic research program. I, myself--and you use peanuts as an example--have seen production rates of peanuts, I'd say, either tripled or quadrupled because of the results of basic research.

In the case of peanuts, the basic finding was that the less you cultivate peanuts, the more they made. We used to cultivate peanuts so much that we destroyed the vines, injured them, and created problems for the growing nuts.

But I think that some of the money that pays the richest dividend is in the field of basic research, because one or two scientists who are adequately financed can change the basic production rates of crops.

We've got a lot of needs because of changing times. We're going to have to learn how to produce crops with less fuel being used. And the environmental standards that are being enforced--passed by the Congress and obviously enforced by us--are making it necessary to produce crops with fewer herbicides and insecticides which we used as a substitute for the massive cultivation in the past.

We also have insects that are growing immune to the standard pesticides that have been used on the farms for literally decades.

We are now seeing one of our basic insecticides challenged as far as toxicity to human beings is concerned, and that's toxaphene. I can close my eyes now and smell toxaphene. I've lived with it 25 or 30 years.

But all these changing demands on farmers require that we stay up with the basic research.

I'd like to say one other thing. I happen to be a nuclear-trained person, but there's no group in the world that's more eager to take advantage of basic research in practical and immediate application than farmers. Farmers are not conservative at all in the way they produce food and feed and fiber. What has always been a concern to us in Georgia is trying to encourage farmers to wait 2 years or wait 3 years to let the experiment stations complete their testing program before the farmers adopt it on a massive scale. And some of the more successful farmers have, in effect, turned their farms automatically over into an experiment station which they themselves have been willing to finance.

I've been part of that. As a small warehouseman that had 200 or 300 farm customers, my farmers, if you came out with any sort of a new planting technique or cultivating technique or herbicide or pesticide or curing technique, they were eager to try it out and take all the risks themselves. And you quite often would say, "Now please, don't do this yet. It hasn't been proven." "I don't care if it's been proven or not. I'm willing to try it on my own farm."

And the competitive nature in the agricultural community has been eager to take basic research and, rather than wait for a long period of delay in the applied research field, they'd just skip over that completely and implement basic research techniques right on their farm, in the production, which I think is a tremendous contribution to the country, voluntarily carried out by farmers. And so, that makes in agriculture, especially, basic research pay immediate dividends which it wouldn't pay in many other areas of life where basic research is followed by applied research and years later by prototype models and then years later by a small production model and then later on by the final consumer product. Agriculture short-circuits all that almost immediately and jumps directly from basic research into full production application.

I'd like to stay with you longer, but I have got to go. I want to say this in closing: I don't claim to know all the answers about agriculture. It's my life, and I always feel at home when I'm meeting with or talking to farm groups like yourselves.

I have learned, as Bob Bergland is learning very well, that we have a highly diverse agricultural economy in this country. It's our most important industry by far. And when I assess in my own mind-sometimes in the quietness of my office, late at night, looking at a globe--the advantages that our country has over, perhaps, competing nations, our agricultural production is one of the greatest, constant, unshakable advantages, and I'm very thankful for what the American farm family and ranch family have done to give us this advantage. It's one also that contributes not to competition leading to bloodshed, but it contributes to competition leading to peace.

And I am very grateful that you would come here and take a day of your time getting to know some of my own fellow workers in the White House, and hope that the day is productive for you.

I hope you'll extend my personal best wishes to all of your readers and all of your friends when you go back home, because they've got a friend and a farmer in the White House.

Thank you again very much.