White House Diaries

Thursday, April 4, 1985

View the President's Schedule

Ambas. Mike Mansfield (Japan) is home on leave. He came by & is as distressed as I am over some of the Reps. & Sens. who are hysterically ranting about a trade war with Japan. The truth is we’ve made substantial gains in getting Japan to open her markets. A big factor in this is the best P.M. Japan has ever had Yasu Nakasone. I hope he’ll get some press on what he has to say—whoops I mean Ambas. Mansfield. The new Nat. Champs—Villanova’s Basketball team came to the Rose Garden. I wound up with a jacket.

Then Pres. Betancurt of Colombia arrived—we had a good meeting. He’s done a great job of cracking down on the drug trade. We told him of our peace plan for Nicaragua. He’s enthusiastic about it and is going to stop off in Nicaragua tonite on his way home to meet with Ortega.

At 3 P.M. I went before the press and outlined the plan to them. At 4 P.M. Don Regan went before them & told of our budget plan. Yes we finally worked it out with the Sen. Earlier Don had told me our Sens. were mad because I wouldn’t agree to a freeze on the Soc. Security COLA. My beef is that the Dems. should be made to propose this. If we do it they’ll base the ’86 campaign on us being the enemies of Soc. Security. I told Don I’d agree to a compromise—a 2% raise each year for 3 yrs. regardless of the level of inflation. They bought it.

Jack Anderson came by to report on progress of our “Young Astronauts Program.” It’s meeting with success & enthusiasm everywhere.

Then came “Administrative Time”—means visitors, photo ops etc. Frank Hodsoll came by with the Oscar our program for the Arts was awarded. Then the Premier of Bermuda. I presented the Cancer Foundation award for courage to Jeff Keith the young man who ran across the U.S. with one artificial leg to bring attention to Cancer. Then Nicholas Ashford of the London Times was in for a short period. A photo with Bob Ryan & his wife our new Ambas. to Mali.

After a haircut I met briefly with 3 leaders of the Contras—Cruz, Robelo & Carello. All these men were leaders against Somoza & helped overthrow him. Then the Sandinistas double crossed them & stole the revolution for Cuba & the Soviets. They were here to be briefed on our peace proposal. Tip O’Neill & his cohorts are already bad mouthing the idea. Indeed Tip sounds irrational. Tomorrow on to Calif.