White House Diaries

Friday, November 19, 1982

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Another budget review then met with members of the “General Advisory Comm. of the U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency.” It was more ceremonial than anything—Judge Clark swore them in. I then told them we would not settle for an arms treaty just to have a treaty. If it wasn’t a good one I’d told our team to walk away & leave it. Went over to the Chamber of Commerce studio & did one of their hookups (satellite T.V.) to 37 meetings across the country of builders & industrial leaders. Spoke to them & then took questions from several of the groups—all had to do with unemployment. Back to a Cabinet meeting on the budget. Our deficits are structural as well as recession caused. We have a built in increase in the budget which is automatic—we must deal with it. Finished up talking about trade & the coming G.A.T.T. meeting in Europe. There is a threat of protectionism widespread here & abroad. We must oppose it & strive for free trade. Ended the afternoon (early) on the S. Lawn with an exhibition by riders from the Spanish Riding School in Austria—with those beautiful & especially trained Lipizzaner horses. One a stallion was presented to me—I accepted on behalf of the Am. People. The Austrian Ambas. & his wife & the Pres. of the Austrian C. of C were on hand. The Pres. of C. of C. Mr. Salinger is the actual donor of the horse. The whole thing was televised live to Austria. I felt sorry for the trooper whose horse I was accepting. The rider & horse are permanently assigned to each other so this has been his horse for almost 8 yrs. We then left for Camp David—had to finish the trip by car because of fog. Saw Clint Eastwood’s picture “Honky tonk man.” He dies of T.B. in the end. Sat. night saw a picture in which the little girl dies at the end of Leukemia. It’s still too early for Nancy to be seeing things like that—the wound hasn’t healed. On my Sat. broadcast or before it I should say I did a voice check & remarked the ec. was in a h--l of a mess. The mike was opened to the press room—I’d been told it wasn’t. That night on the news—there I was being quoted on NBC even played a sound tape. It was a cheap shot on their part.