Press Briefing by Mike McCurry

G-7 Filing Center

Lyons, France

3:03 P.M. (L)

MR. MCCURRY: I'm doing this only because people are starved with nothing to do and they would like some entertainment until we read the communique. I'll talk a little bit about the working session that the G-7 leaders had this morning. I have not had an opportunity to touch base with Mr. Tarullo to get a readout on the luncheon.

Q: Be quiet everybody.

MR. MCCURRY: All right, I'll have someone figure out the sound.

Q: We're okay now.

MR. MCCURRY: They got the feed back there? You're okay? All right.

During this morning's session, President Clinton began with an overview of the U.S. economy and the general outlook for the G-7 session. There were then discussions about Asia, about countries in transition, about Latin America, where, again President Clinton was the lead presenter; and then a discussion about globalization, which is President Chirac's chosen thematic focus for this summit discussion.

It will not surprise you that much of the discussion the leaders had today reflects very much what the President has been talking to the American people about -- the enormous changes that the global economy is going through as we make this transition from the Industrial Age into the Information Age; the consequences of those changes for people who lived in industrial societies; and the balances that policy makers must make between the tradeoffs that exist between federal spending, macroeconomic policy, job creation, inflation and rates of growth. How do you manage successfully the transition that the global economy is going through at a time when there is increasing interdependence between the economies and increasing focus on meeting the challenges that will define the 21st century global economy.

It was a very rich discussion filled with enormous detail, filled with some of the frustrations that leaders of other countries face who still face high rates of unemployment and rates of growth that they consider unsatisfactory.

The President's presentation went through things that any of you who have heard the President stump speech will find familiar. He talked about the position that he was in at his first G-7 Summit in Tokyo in 1993 and the changes that have occurred in the U.S. economy since then. He talked about reducing federal budget deficit in half, from its high of $290 billion before he took office, to about $130 billion for 1996. He talked about that being a very low percentage of our country's

gross domestic product -- in fact, the lowest percentage of debt to the total economy of any of the G-7 economies. He talked about our rate of growth, our rate of job creation. He noted his satisfaction that we created almost 10 million new jobs since early 1993. He talked about goals that we have for the future, eliminating the federal budget deficit early in the 21st century, by the year 2002; about the need to reduce worker insecurity through measures like making pensions more portable, making health insurance more portable.

He talked in general about those ways that we can help the workers adjust to the demands of the new global economy by extending them additional education and he specifically cited as an example his recent proposal to extend public education in the United States for an additional 13th and 14th year by making community college practically cost-free to any student who can go and who can maintain a B average in the 14th year.

The President's presentation drew some admiring comments of praise from other leaders. I'm not allowed to quote any other leader directly, but one said that he in particular respected the U.S. and Japanese economic performance in recent years. Another leader said at the same growth rate of some European countries the United States creates an astounding number of jobs, making that observation. Not one that we would quibble with, as you can imagine.

But, in general, the discussion was what are the outlooks -- what is the outlook for the performance of each of the seven economies and the total global economy as we look ahead to the 21st century.

On the -- I don't feel at liberty to brief on the presentations that were led by some of the other leaders, but there was a vigorous discussion of the Japanese economic performance as well, with Prime Minister Hashimoto obviously playing a lead role; a discussion of the regional economies of Asia and the potential for trade liberalization in Asia.

The President led the discussion on Latin America, as I indicated, and talked at some length about the Mexican economy and about the resurgence of the Mexican economy following the economic assistance package that was rendered in early 1995. He talked about the importance of stronger economic performance to lift incomes, but also noted that the danger with that was the freeing up of additional funding for drug trafficking and pointed out that there was a concomitant need to increase public expenditures for the fight against drugs, a point that another leader underscored by saying that it was important for the Europeans to do what the U.S. had done to commit itself with greater resources and greater firmness to the fight against drug trafficking -- a subject that the leaders will begin to take up this afternoon.

The largest part of the morning's discussion was devoted to globalization, with President Chirac leading that discussion -- that being his chosen theme for this conference. In general, President Chirac sees the anxieties that workers in industrialized nations face as a far greater problem that needs to be addressed -- I think reflecting a European perspective as they deal with higher rates of unemployment and dislocations in their economic system and challenges to their spending for social insurance programs. The President responded by saying we have to take into account all the different things that are at play in the macroeconomy and answer a series of very important questions together collectively. And I think this was probably his most significant contribution during the morning discussion.

He said that, again, in the United States, people are dealing with the consequences of these changes that we're going through as the global economy changes and trying to determine how individual families fit into this interdependent world economy.

The President identified four great issues that he thought needed to be addressed. One, how can we maintain acceptable levels of growth by working together? How can we deal with developing countries who are increasingly a major factor in the global economy, and how we can do that consistent with our needs to manage the fiscal equation by keeping budget deficits low.

Second, how can you translate job -- or how can you translate economic growth into job creation -- picking up on the point that the one leader said who said that, even though we have rates of growth not dissimilar from the United States, we have not seen nearly the number of jobs created that the U. S. economy has created.

Third, if you can have both growth and job creation, how can you preserve social insurance -- the social insurance network, the social compact. What are the ways in which you do this? What are the ways in which tax policies affect that equation?

And then, fourth, how do we sustain growth and sustain environment. Even though the President didn't cite it here, he's fond of describing his conversation with President Jiang Zemin in which he said the Chinese economy, as it explodes with economic growth, will have to figure out how to manage some of the consequences of environmental degradation. He's made that point privately to some of these leaders in discussions.

Clearly a vibrant discussion -- during this morning's session no barbs directed at the President on the subject of Helms-Burton or extraterritoriality or secondary boycott issues. Frankly, we had expected those to arise, if they did at all, during the luncheon session, most likely with President Santer making the point. And I'll have to talk to Dan Tarullo and get a readout on the lunch after he has a chance to talk more directly with the President.

Q: Did you say no barbs, or there were barbs?

MR. MCCURRY: No, the subject did not come up during the morning session. And it apparently did not come up during the working dinner last night, no. A brief discussion of it yesterday with President Chirac and a mention of it by John Major, as we told you yesterday. And that's been the only discussion until now, but, again, it may well have come up at the working lunch.

The leaders, by the way, sat in a round table in a lovely rose garden with sort of a draped canopy over them. And the sherpas were at the next table concluding the final work on the communique, which is now out. And if there is any delay in getting the final version, I think Mary Ellen may help you with a reasonably penultimate draft.

Q: Mike, you're talking local, you're talking internationally. This is still the club of seven countries. Any discussion taking in the likes of Brazil, China, India?

MR. MCCURRY: For those of you who couldn't hear the question, the question is whether or not taking on those emerging economies which are so vital in the world economy -- Brazil, Argentina, China, among those frequently mentioned. I haven't heard anything that indicated that was raised, but I don't have as complete a readout on all the discussions as I would like.

We'll try to see at some point we can have Dan Tarullo come down and provide maybe a little more color and a little more background.

Q: The Dole campaign says it's going to wage its campaign against Clinton economics. I don't know if you saw it. The President is not paying enough attention to job security.

MR. MCCURRY: Helen's pointing out that the Dole campaign is indicating that they may have some desire in the months ahead to wage the coming campaign on issues related to the economics. Our response would be, the sooner the better. Given the fact that the other leaders of the industrialized world expressed some envy today for the performance of the American economy, I think the President is in a very good position to argue to the American people that in some respects the performance of our macroeconomy now is the envy of the world. And we'd be happy to debate that early and often with anyone who wishes to take up the issue.

Q: Mike, you said there was no discussion about Helms-Burton during the morning session, but there is kind of a slap at the United States in the draft communique. What's your response to that?

MR. MCCURRY: Which language, in particular?

Q: Well, I can't find it exactly. I can look for it and point it out to you, but there is one paragraph that talks about that kind of legislation --

Q: -- that countries should avoid taking trade and investment measures that contradict global trading rules.

MR. MCCURRY: Well, we would take some issue with whether or not that necessarily represents a contradiction of global trading rules. Why don't I leave that -- that would be a good question for Secretary Rubin to address, who will be here shortly.

Q: Just a logistical question. The Russian Prime Minister is apparently delayed getting here because of business back home. Could you now give us the latest version of how he interacts with the summit?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, looking ahead to Prime Minister Chernomyrdin's arrival here in Lyon, he is well-known to most of these leaders in one fashion or another. Most of these nations have got a bilateral dialogue that includes the Prime Minister as a key element. You're all aware of the degree to which the Vice President and the Prime Minister have worked on a basket of issues that are very central in our bilateral relationship -- the so-called Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission.

He comes here, of course, at a time -- with an interesting political dynamic going on at home. But we are certain that he will be in a position to report on things related to the performance of the Russian economy, the status of market reforms and liberalization in the Russian economy. He'll also have a keen sense of some of the issues related to technology enhancements and Russia's desire to integrate with the West, which are a central part of this whole discussion.

He has been very active in managing issues related to the Ukraine economy and to Chernobyl, in particular, which will be a subject of discussion, I'm sure. And he is well-versed in the intricacies of policy in the Balkans and the participation of the Russian Federation in the IFOR implementation force. So on a range of subjects we expect him to be a very worthy representative of the Russian Federation and in a position to convey to President Yeltsin the consensus views of the other leaders.

Q: I was asking -- you know, he's late. Does anything have to be aborted because of this? Can you do all the things you wanted?

MR. MCCURRY: We will, I'm certain, be able to move through the agenda we're addressing this afternoon. As you recall, some of our afternoon performance deals with questions related to fighting international crime, terrorism, in particular. You'll hear from Secretary Christopher later today that the United States is very keen on putting some new initiatives related to Bosnia before the group. So there will be a significant discussion about Bosnia as we go into coming days.

Q: -- waiting for Chernomyrdin to get here to get clarification of Lebed's remarks, or have you already gotten those clarified?

MR. MCCURRY: My understanding is there may have been some sidebar conversations informally with the Russian delegation, but this is an issue -- it will be raised in some fashion by President Clinton. It may not be raised in the context of the summit, it might be raised when we have our bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin tomorrow.

Q: Anything new on Dhahran?

MR. MCCURRY: Nothing. I haven't heard anything new on Dhahran, no.

Q: -- these proposals on Bosnia?

MR. MCCURRY: I'll leave that to the Secretary of State who will be here in an hour or so, and he'll have more to say.

Q: -- ask what I'm trying to ask you now to ask the Secretary I'll be happy to, but there's reports now that the discord between the Saudi authorities -- have you heard this -- and the FBI, that folks are saying they didn't appreciate the American investigation, they were hemming in the Americans.

MR. MCCURRY: Well, I don't want to -- we have enjoyed cooperation with the Saudi government. There are always ways in which law enforcement officials might work together in a different fashion and U.S. authorities may have wished to have more opportunity to learn more about the assailants that were apprehended, convicted and executed for the November bombing. But we have been assured at high levels in the Saudi government of their cooperation with our law enforcement efforts.

Q: You said we wished we had more information?

MR. MCCURRY: We may have wished that we had had more. I tried to make that as soft sounding as possible.

Q: On what? On the last bombing?

MR. MCCURRY: November --

Q: Did you have any, Mike?

MR. MCCURRY: Yes, there was some -- there was certainly exchange of information. The question is whether it was sufficient in the eyes of the FBI. And that's what Barry is referring to. And you can ask the FBI their view of that.

Q: Do you know whether there's been any agreement that U.S. investigators could question any suspects personally or anyone who seemed to be involved in this? Because that's apparently what the hangup was.

MR. MCCURRY: You'd have to ask those who are actually doing that work. The FBI would be in a better position to answer.

Q: Mike, on another issue, since Fabiani isn't talking about it, are you reacting to or characterizing in any way the Aldridge book?

MR. MCCURRY: No, except that space aliens had probably landed on the South Lawn of the White House, too, and we're cavorting with them as well. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Q: What is this?

Q: What do you think about the appropriateness of an FBI agent --

Q: Now, wait a minute. Let's hear his answer on this.

MR. MCCURRY: He's talking about a Washington Times story that, frankly, is not worth taking the time to read. I just don't have any comment on it because it's ridiculous.

Q: What about the appropriateness of an FBI agent assigned to the White House leaving a service and then writing a book like this?

MR. MCCURRY: It borders on fiction. I guess people are entitled to write fiction.

Q: Mike, is the official White House position that it denies all these allegations?

MR. MCCURRY: Nobody has taken the time to read it because it's a ridiculous book.

Q: So you have no position on the --

MR. MCCURRY: It's fiction, that's our position.

Q: On foreign exchange, has anyone come up with the idea of currency ranges --

MR. MCCURRY: Say again.

Q: Trading ranges for currency -- has anyone proposed that at all or has it come up in the discussion?

MR. MCCURRY: The discussion is reflected in the communique which has a lot of things that you'll need Bob Rubin to translate. And then it ends up by saying, we the seven believe we should probably listen to our finance ministers.

Q: Mike, can I try one more time on the Saudi thing? Did the Saudi Arabian government deny the United States investigators the opportunity to interrogate the convicted suspects in the November bombing?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know the answer, Mark. I know that the FBI would be in a better position to say if they were satisfied with their ability to learn all they could learn from those accused.

Q: So you are satisfied now?

MR. MCCURRY: They would tell you whether they were able to.

Q: The word is --

MR. MCCURRY: I didn't want to say that because I think it should really come from them.

Q: Let me ask you a question on Helms-Burton. Has the President decided whether or not he will sign a waiver, issue a waiver in connection with the Helms-Burton?

MR. MCCURRY: In all of his discussions here about Helms-Burton -- and there have only been, as I say, two brief ones to this point -- the President -- but there have been other delegation meetings and the Secretary of State and others have had bilateral meetings -- we've made several things clear. One, the enactment of Helms-Burton was directly related to what the international civil aviation organization has now confirmed was a, one, violation of international law when the Cuban government shot down two civilian aircraft and murdered four people; that the Helms-Burton legislation in some fashion was going to pass by a margin that surely would have prevented a presidential veto from being sustained; three, that the President, also because of his anger about the actions of the Cuban government, felt that he should support the Helms-Burton legislation, craft it in a way that would allow him some flexibility as we deal with these issues, knowing the concerns our allies would express.

But, lastly, and most importantly, that if there is concern about the application of this law to our European allies, the very best thing they should do is to join us in encouraging positive democratic change in Cuba. And he has, in turn, urged these leaders to in common voice express outrage at the actions of the Cuban government and to call upon the Cuban government to free its people by moving to the right side of history and in the direction of market economics and democratic political change.

Q: Mike, that sounds very much like a headline, "Clinton to G-7 leaders, drop dead." Is that a fair interpretation?

MR. MCCURRY: No, because it's not -- the discussions -- as again, Clinton's discussions have been one short, brief, amicable one with President Chirac, and then a mention in passing at the conclusion of his bilateral meeting with John Major. I'll see again if it came up at the luncheon, but the President was prepared to say what I just said -- in a sense tell them that the issue here is Cuba, it's not application of U.S. law to our allies.

And what you need to do is to recognize that the fundamental desire of the American people is to see positive economic and political change in Cuba. And they are in a position -- many of those governments, we believe, are in a position to help encourage that type of change.

Q: Isn't there a July 15th deadline for the decision?

MR. MCCURRY: Article III of Helms-Burton goes into effect August 1st. An exercise of the labor authority can be made by the President beginning July 15th. The President took no position on the issue of a waiver with any of those leaders and did not tip his hand one way or another about his consideration of waiver authority.

Q: What do you think he's going to do?

MR. MCCURRY: We're not going to speculate.

Q: Let me ask you a follow-up if I could.

MR. MCCURRY: That's next month's story, not this month's story.

Q: Can I ask you just a follow-up? Sort of using that as an example to expand -- to try to boycott companies that deal with Iran or Libya or Iraq, is the President in support of the Gilman legislation, which would do that?

MR. MCCURRY: We've been supportive of the D'Amato legislation and that's the version that is more often talked about by our European allies. They're still going through some permutations in the House.

Q: You are in support of the D'Amato --

MR. MCCURRY: We have supported the D'Amato legislation, yes.

Q: Do you expect the European nations to be able to persuade Cuba not to be communist by July 15th?

MR. MCCURRY: We expect them to help use their influence to bring about positive economic and political change in Cuba.

Q: Mike, just to follow up on that issue of D'Amato legislation -- yesterday the President was talking about how happy he was that all of the countries seemed to be taking strong stands against terrorism. But when this seems to be one of the most concrete things that could be done to really combat terrorism and get these countries that support terrorism and hit them where it hurts -- is he disappointed that the other countries don't seem to be willing to make any economic sacrifices?

MR. MCCURRY: No. The President, as he said last night, is delighted by the very strong statement of support that he's received from the other leaders here, the need to combat global terrorism and, more importantly, he is satisfied that the specific steps that we are taking will be helpful in combating international crime and terrorism.

Q: Just for clarification, the 40-point plan, what is the status of that right now?

MR. MCCURRY: The status of that is if you visit with David Johnson he can probably help you out a lot more on that. He's got -- they are pretty close to finishing the package of measures the President will present this afternoon to the other leaders and that we hope will be included in the Chairman's Statement issued tomorrow.

Q: Will we be briefed on those today?

MR. MCCURRY: If you see David, he can probably help you out a little bit.

Q: Mike, before the summit, some administration officials were saying that the bombing in Dhahran would strengthen Clinton's hand in getting the Europeans and Japanese to look more favorably on the U.S. strategy with regard to rogue states, particularly Iran. So far the --

MR. MCCURRY: I specifically avoided saying that, so if others have said that --

Q: But others have. My question is, has the President even brought that up in that context? In other works, has he said, look, we just lost 19 Americans to terrorism and you guys are playing too soft with states that support terrorism?

MR. MCCURRY: Leo, again, unless that subject came up at luncheon, it has not come up in any of the sessions of the G-7, and it came up very briefly in the two bilaterals we had yesterday, so there has not been an opportunity for any lengthy discussion and, frankly, has not been a central focus of the discussion here in Lyon. It just has not been.

Q: Is it being discussed at ministerial levels below the leaders?

MR. MCCURRY: It's been raised on and off. But it is not a central focus of the discussion here by the leaders.

Q: I'm sorry, I don't think you realize how hard it is to hear because of the system here. But did you say that -- I heard you say that they were going to talk about it this afternoon, and then you said something about tomorrow and I couldn't hear what you said.

MR. MCCURRY: The President will present -- he's got the lead presentation this afternoon on international crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism as they begin their political discussions at 8:00 p.m. He will be talking more about this package of measures he has referred to in the last couple of days. And we believe there will be consensus around those measures today and they will be incorporated in the measure tomorrow in the Chairman's Statement.

Q: Will somebody brief us on how --

MR. MCCURRY: Hey, Dan, do you want to come entertain for a while? I've got my color commentator here if you want to hear from him.

Q: Maybe he can do this now so we can have a coordinated story.

MR. MCCURRY: Dan thinks it would be better if he just took some questions. I asked him to provide some color. And he looked at me blankly and he said, from this group? So I don't gather that there's much like that to report. But just set the scene for us, Dan. Tell us what it was like to be in the room as these leaders wrestled the major issues of the day?

Q: Any fights?

MR. TARULLO: Any fights, Helen? No, no, there were no fights. Everybody's been asking about Helms-Burton, right? Helms-Burton came up at lunch -- some question of criticism of the President. The President pushed back fairly hard on the issue of needing to confront terrorist states to take action against countries that are threats to democracy and to the safety of our citizens. It was not the dominant point of discussion at lunch, and I certainly wouldn't characterize it as a fight.

Q: And from where did the criticism come?

MR. TARULLO: It came from a couple of other leaders. You guys know the rules of G-7; you can identify what your own leaders say, you can't identify the source --

Q: What specifically did the President tell President Chirac? (Laughter.)

MR. TARULLO: He didn't say anything to President Chirac.

Q: What were the questions to him?

MR. TARULLO: The questions today -- there was an expression -- stuff you've heard before, Helen. There were expressions of concern about extraterritoriality of U.S. measures; of, in the case of Iran, the possibility of secondary boycotts. There was nothing we hadn't heard before.

Q: Did the criticism come from the usual camps --from where we've been seeing criticism come previously?

MR. TARULLO: I think you would not have been surprised by the sources of the criticism.

Q: Thank you.

Q: Did the French threaten to retaliate if the U.S. goes ahead and imposes these restrictions?

MR. TARULLO: Wolf, you would want to rephrase that to ask whether any country threatened to retaliate. There were no threats of retaliation.

Q: Were there any hints of retaliation?

MR. TARULLO: A lot of this was at the lunch where it was just the leaders, so I didn't hear the whole thing, but I certainly didn't hear anything like that.

Q: Did the President indicate that he might use the waiver?

MR. TARULLO: There was no such indication.

Don't overstate -- seriously, don't overstate the degree to which this was the topic of discussion. It was one of three things discussed at lunch.

Q: What was the topic?

MR. TARULLO: They talked about international financial stability and banking regulations, supervisory regulation. They also talked some about trade issues during lunch as well.

Q: Was there any discussion at all about these 40 measures? And if not, when do we find out more about them?

MR. TARULLO: Those will be discussed this afternoon beginning in the global issues section which starts at 5:00 p.m. -- runs from 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. or a little bit thereafter. That's when crime, terrorism, environment, infectious diseases are all done.

Q: Is that when the Russians get into today?

MR. TARULLO: Yes, exactly.

Q: Do you expect to be able to tell us specifically what's been agreed on on those at that time?

MR. TARULLO: Yes. In fact, to think the State Department will be -- where is Michael? The State Department, I think, is going to be doing a briefing that will include very specific stuff on that this afternoon.

Q: Now, these are different than what's apparently being announced at the Treasury by the International Crime Task Force later in the day?

MR. MCCURRY: What they're doing at the Treasury Department is some follow-up work. It's indirectly related to the G-7, as I understand it from Howard Schloss correctly, but they have got a package of things that have been in work for some time that are not connected to the steps that are related here. Two different things. It grows out of some discussions at the G-7 level, but it's not directly related to this.

Everyone should understand that the Treasury back in Washington is doing some kind of briefing around 1:00 p.m. today that Howard Schloss from the Treasury Department here can tell you more about. But that should not be confused with the crime-terrorism package that we have under discussion here.

Q: Can you confirm there is going to be bilateral talks on semiconductors in July?

MR. TARULLO: Can I confirm that there -- there have been a series of bilateral discussions, most recently a couple of days ago, between Ira Shapiro and Vice Minister Sakamoto of MITI. And would certainly anticipate there are going to be additional discussions, yes.

MR. MCCURRY: Another way of saying that, in the words of the Prime Minister and the President, there better be.

Q: What's the news?

MR. TARULLO: What's the news out of this? This, unlike last night where I think there was movement on action, today, remember, had been styled as a discussion of the impact of globalization. And I think Michael, who stole my notes, already basically told you the nature of that discussion. And I'll tell you what happened basically. They began with the conventional -- more or less conventional review around the table of the state of each economy the state of the world economy, which was a little bit on the predictable side. I mean, we all know what people's views are to the particular positions.

Then when they moved to the discussion of globalization as a phenomenon, kind of sets of issues that they confront, I thought it got considerably livelier. Mike gave you the matrix that the President laid out, which was accompanied with the message that there needs to be sustained growth in each part of the industrialized world. It's important for our exports; it's important for sustained growth. And then they confronted the issues of the social contract and how that stands up in a period of rapid change.

MR. MCCURRY: Helen, you're going to hate this, but take that little pen and write: The headline in Lyon was the strong performance of the U.S. economy and the envy the rest of the world expressed for it.

Q: May I quote you?

MR. MCCURRY: You didn't write that.

Q: May I quote you?

MR. TARULLO: Please, quote him. But use proper grammar when you quote. You can correct his grammar.

Q: Dan, can you tell us who exactly it was who was heaping all of this praise on the U.S. economy? I'm sure they would want to be named.

MR. TARULLO: You may be sure about that, David, but I try to abide by the groundrules. If they want to tell you, that's fine.

Q: The leaders said that they welcomed the movements in exchange rates since April '95. Was there any indication that they think that -- have been completely corrected, or that they have --

MR. TARULLO: I'm sorry. Can't hear you.

Q: The leaders welcomed the movements in exchange rates since April last year. Was there any indication that they think those misalignments have now been completely corrected or that they have got further to go?

MR. TARULLO: There was no discussion of particular levels of various exchange rates or whether there needs to be an adjustment, an additional adjustment in one direction or another. They received a report from the finance ministers which emphasized the need to maintain sound economic fundamentals. There was no discussion of the levels.

There was more of a discussion, frankly, of international financial issues -- not exchange rates, but banking, financial institution practices, the need for more cooperation and supervision. There was a proposal laid out on the table to make sure that there is an assigned lead regulator for every big banking group around the world. There was also some discussion of the need to assist developing countries in their implementation of their banking supervisory standards.

This, obviously, to a considerable extent, is a reaction to both financial institution problems that we've had in the last couple of years, and also still some of the reaction to the peso crisis of late '94.

MR. MCCURRY: Do you all need to hear Chirac's communique? Why don't we just suspend here and we'll come back in a short while with Secretary Rubin and Secretary Christopher.

Q: Hey, Mike, Marceca invoked his fifth amendment right in front of the Senate committee. Any comment?

MR. MCCURRY: No, I'll have to check on it back home. I haven't been following that here.

END 3:40 P.M. (L)