White House Diaries

Friday, January 22, 1988

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Started out a gray day. A little more discussion of St. of the U. speech. I’m going to do some work on this draft—it’s too wordy & too long. Discussed an Evans & Novak column re N.J. Principal Joe Clark & our Gary Bauer. Gary offered Clark a job if school board fires him. He’s a fine Principal & should not be fired. But Gary shouldn’t have done what he did without checking with anyone.

N.S.C.—Colin mentioned some press confusion about summit & the A.B.M. treaty. Press portrays us & Soviets having some kind of disagreement. Truth is after signing I.N.F. we & they agreed to a joint statement where we agreed to disagree about Space & Defense. We also agreed that we would have to negotiate on S.&D.

I explained to Colin where Bill Buckley was concerned about I.N.F. He feels Soviets can violate treaty by substituting SS 25’s for SS 20’s. We dont think that’s something we cant handle. One other subject we mentioned was the Soviet proposal that we have a meeting—several states about Middle East.

At 11:00 A.M. an N.S.P.G. meeting—discussed how we can convince Congress we must appropriate money to help the Freedom Fighters in Nicaragua. Then I did a 10 minute phone call to the 10’s of 1000’s of Right to Lifers on the mall—their annual demonstration.

After lunch—photos with Jim McCreary our cand. for Cong. in La. special election.

At 1:15 met briefly with a dozen or so leaders of Right to Life movement. Then my regular meeting with George Shultz & over to the East Room to address a group on Central Am. In my remarks I mentioned a Nicaraguan clergyman whose ears were cut off & his throat slit, who was then left to die tied to a tree. He didn’t die & he was in the front row. A church in Maryland got his wife & 6 children out of a refugee camp & they all live in Wash. Then it was off to Camp D. after photo with Jimmy Dean & a few others.