At the end of a long campaign, I believe I know the people of our state as well as anyone. Based on this knowledge of Georgians North and South, Rura… - Jimmy Carter

As you know, we have a longstanding treaty with the Soviet Union preventing any atomic explosions in space. But we were guilty of that a long time ago. I think it's time to reexamine that question. I believe that this recent incident with the Soviet satellite has shown that we don't have an adequate, guaranteed safety requirement on nuclear fuel in space. This particular satellite and all those that we've ever launched—I think the first one we put up using nuclear power was in 1965—they have what's called a subcritical mass there's not enough radioactivity there to cause an explosion under any circumstances. And when the satellite is first launched, it's relatively clean; you could get probably close to it without having radiation. The longer it burns, the more byproducts are made and the more radioactive they become. This particular satellite was designed, as are most of them, to be elevated into a higher orbit when it had served its purpose. And when the Soviets attempted to elevate it into a higher orbit, which would have kept it in space for a thousand years or more, some mechanism failed—I don't know the details of it. But I think that we now are in the process of deciding' what we can do to minimize this danger from space. One possibility would be to design such a nuclear powerplant, which is very small, so that it would surely burn completely as it came down through space itself by increasing the drag of friction, and so forth. Another one would be to have standby mechanisms, so that if the first one failed to eject it into outer orbit, another standby would be required. This is something that we have not yet gone into in any definitive way. We have a much higher reliance, as you may know, on solar panel power supplies, and we do not rely on the atomic power supplies as much. But you have a good question. It's something that we have not yet addressed with the Soviets, but I'm sure it's something that we will address.

I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

Thank you all. I'm sorry I have to go, but I've got another meeting in a few minutes. I've enjoyed it, and I hope that you had a chance to meet with some of our staff members. I didn't make a speech at first, but I would like to say that it's important to us to have you come here. We learn, I'm sure, a lot more from listening to your questions and from my staff members talking to you about domestic and foreign affairs than you learn from us. And I think it's important for your readers and listeners and viewers to know that this is their White House, and that we don't have anything to conceal here. We've made mistakes. We're obviously going to make them, like you do at home in your own business. But we don't try to cover up, conceal anything. I've enjoyed the press conferences twice a week. Cy Vance has a press conference every month. It happens to be this afternoon. And on many of the controversial issues that in the past have been decided in a very secret way between the Secretary of State and the President, for instance, are now discussed openly with the American people. I feel that's a good move. It exposes our doubts and uncertainties and controversies on occasion, but after that debate goes back and forth in the Congress and throughout the Nation, among American people, we monitor that opinion very closely. And I think that by the time I make a decision--which may or may not always agree with what the people are thinking at home--I have a much surer sense of what our country ought to do. And I think that foreign countries feel, for instance, that when I speak or Cy Vance speaks or the Vice President, that we speak for the country. We also do the same thing with the Congress. I've met with every single Member of the Congress, Democrat and Republican, unless they just didn't come when they were invited. And if they missed one meeting, they've been invited to subsequent meetings. You know, very recently, I've had breakfast with all the Democratic Members of the Senate, and now we're starting to have breakfast with all the Republican Members. We've spent an hour and a half just sitting around a small table, and let them bring up any subject they want to me and I answer any question they ask me.