Secretary's interview on "Meet the Press."

US Department of State Bulletin, August, 1988

Secretary Shultz was interveiwed on NBC-TV's the Press" on June 19, 1988, by Chris Wallace and John Cochran, NBC News, and Robert Kaiser, The Washington Post.'

Q. I want to ask you first of all, if I might, about this apparent scandal in military procurement which some Republican Senators, who have been briefed on it, are calling the worst in the history of the Pentagon. How concerned are you about the threat to national security, both in terms of this slowing down the military buildup, and also in terms of it further eroding public support to the Pentagon?

A. First of all, I know nothing about this other than what I read. It's been uncovered by our chief law enforcement agency, the FBI, and they're pursuing it. Just what its dimensions are I don't have any information on.

However, it is essential, I think, for our country to maintain our capability to defend our interests and represent our values around the world, and a strong defense establishment is essential to that.

Q. What is it going to do if a number of the major Defense contractors in this country are now going to be involved in investigations for weeks or months or years?

A. Individuals who participated and the corporate entity, if they are guilty of something, will have to pay a penalty. Nevertheless, those are great organizations and very productive-full of ability, both scientific and engineering production possibilities-and so they'll proceed. They're very competitive.

Q. You pride yourself on being a good government manager. Some people say that what's happened here is exactly what you would expect when you throw $2 trillion at the Pentagon, that there was just too much money and too many contracts for them to be adequately overseen.

A. As I say, I don't know the details of this investigation at all. Obviously, when you're spending large sums of money, you have to have procedures and safeguards to do it properly, and you have to have people who have high standards of proper behavior. By and large, I think they have those things. Whether there are some people around the edges who have managed to distort this flow of ethical behavior, I just don't know.

Q. You talk about the now of ethical behavior. I want to ask you, if I might, about the public reaction to all of this and public support for the military buildup. Isn't this just going to add to the general impression of the sleaze factor, that there's a pattern of unethical and, in this case, perhaps illegal behavior within the Reagan Administration?

A. There are problems that come out when you have large amounts of spending like this periodically. I think it's worth noting that this was uncovered by people working in the Reagan Administration, so you have to factor that in. But it's a problem, and I think that the way to deal with it is to hit it hard.

I think it was Ike who said he wanted people who, his phrase was, "were as clean as a hound's tooth." And I also remember Senator Paul Douglas, one of my favorites from the old days, from Illinois who always said, "It all starts with a cigar." So you have to watch the little things before they become big things. I'm sure that's true.

Q. It was announced yesterday that you're going to go down to Central America. At the same time, one of your senior officials said on background that the Administration has no hope of getting more lethal aid, military aid, for the contras out of Congress. What sort of bargaining cards have you got if you don't have the possibility for military aid? What can you do down there?

A. I'm going to carry a U.S. message of what our objectives -are and our program and ideas for getting there. Those objectives have been set out by the President way back in a speech to a joint session of Congress in 1983. They are reaffirmed and developed in the Kissinger commission report.

What are we for? We're for peace; we're for freedom; we're for the rule of law; we're for economic development. We have major efforts and lots of resources being put into those things, and we are in the process of succeeding, particularly in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, to add to the basically good picture in Costa Rica.

The odd man out is Nicaragua. It's the rotten apple in the barrel. Somehow or other Nicaragua has got to be brought into this fold, and that's a problem. We want to somehow, through some combination of pressure that's generated internally to Nicaragua and the obvious opportunities they're missing, to get them in the fold.

You know, the situation in Nicaragua is really lousy, both from the standpoint of suppression, repression, and from the standpoint of the absolutely terrible situation in their economy. So they are under intense pressure, but we want to bring them into this fold of peace, democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and economic development.

Q. Some people might think your description of the Central American situation is a little rosy in that the far right looks like it's coming back in El Salvador, President Duarte's deathly ill, you've completely had a flop in Panama it looks like so far, the contras now seem to be a spent force. Aren't you a little concerned about the general drift down there?