White House Diaries

Monday, January 16, 1984

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Staff & N.S.C. meetings but the day really began in the East room at 10:00 A.M. when I went live on T.V. worldwide with address on Soviet-U.S. relations. The press, especially T.V. is now trying to explain the speech as pol. etc. The speech was carefully crafted by all of us to counter Soviet propaganda that we are not sincere in wanting arms reductions or peace. It {therefore} was low key and held the door open to the Soviets if they mean what they say about loving peace to walk in. Then a meeting on the St. of the Union address. I worked the whole weekend on a rewrite of a draft which represented the input of every agency. Now my re-write will go back into the mill. After a briefing on issues at lunch I went back to the East room where 161 members of Peter Graces task force was gathered & recv’d. from Peter the full report— a 6 inch volume of almost 2500 recommendations for making govt. more businesslike & economical. An interview for year end round up in Wash. Post or rather a 3rd anniversary of our admin. Lou Cannon, Hoffman & Juan Williams—3 journalists who usually kick my brains out. The Q’s. were OK but I’m not sure how honestly they’ll treat the answers. Then Jerry Carmen came in. He’s going to Geneva for us but he’s done a h--l of a job for us heading up G.S.A. He’s reduced the no. of emps by 23% & has not reduced the workload by one Iota. It is a fantastic job in what was once one of the most wasteful departments. Ended the day meeting with Am. Arab group on the Middle East situation. I think they went away happy. I’m still waiting to hear whether our kidnaped (?) Corporal in Germany—who is back safe—was kidnapped or is playing games.