We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights… - Jimmy Carter

Well, we've tried to make this a joint, voluntary effort on the part of government, business, and labor, so that there could be a self-imposed restraint on escalating wages and prices. Here again, I'm not in favor .of wage and price controls, either voluntary or mandatory, and the degree to which labor and business will cooperate is really up to them. I think the first step has already been taken, and that is to draft the proposal in writing and present it to the leaders in business and labor. The second step has been taken, that is, my public espousal of it in the State of the Union message. The third step is now under way, whereby, as decisions are made to increase prices and to demand wage increases, they measure the average increases of the last 2 years and try to make sure that the 1978 increases are at least less than they have had average in the last 2 years. In most cases, a patriotic motivation and one to assuage or to please the public will have at least as much or more effect than any jawboning or pressure from us. We'll offer the good service of the Council on Wage and Price Stability to assess the inflationary impact of proposals. We're not requiring, for instance-don't have any inclination nor authority to require—that labor unions propose in advance to us the demands that they'll make for fringe benefits, health programs, or for wages, but we just hope that it'll create a tone in the country of generally dampening the inflationary impact. We have now an underlying inflation rate of about 6 or 6 1/2 percent. So, that's as far as we are inclined to go. And I've met around this table with a fairly large number of the top business men and women in this country, and their response was favorable. I've had a luncheon last week with President Meany. He expressed some concern about the point that I just raised to you, that they can't submit ahead of time all of the labor union negotiating demands. We don't ask for that. But we hope that in Government, we can also set an example. But it's a strictly voluntary program that I think can work with the right sort of spirit and tone. If—the last thing I'll say about it is this—if we tried to be too intrusive in the private sector from the Government, I think there would be an adverse reaction, and the whole thing would fail. So, the degree of voluntary compliance in self-initiated compliance is the measure of whether it'll be successful. There's no way to answer your question specifically, because it's kind of an ephemeral thing, but I think it can be the source of tangible benefits.

I made the decision myself to contact the Soviets. We told them that we were aware of the problem, asked them for any information about the satellite, and told them unofficially that we would not try to capitalize on their misfortune in a propaganda way. We wanted to be sure that the adequate preparation was made for the reentry of the satellite into the atmosphere, and we notified some of our key allies around the world who would have the capability both to monitor the progress of the satellite and also to deal with radioactivity once it fell. I had a difficult decision to make in how much publicity to bring to this satellite, because it's almost impossible to let people know the facts without the threat being exaggerated, and we didn't want to create exaggerated fears. We monitored the satellite constantly. We shared with the Soviets estimates of when it would come down. the exact point of its penetration of the atmosphere was not known until just an hour or two before it crashed, because it was tumbling. And when a satellite of that kind enters the atmosphere, it can skip off and go several thousands of miles further than you have actually anticipated. We knew that it would fall somewhere between just north of Hawaii, northeast of Hawaii, or the eastern side of Africa. And it was making a great circle route up above the point where it finally fell. That was just about the northern point. The Soviets did tell us, in general, what kind of reactor it was. They told us that their best estimate was it would burn as it entered the atmosphere. So, I can't—without going back and checking the exact language of their report to us—I can't say whether they gave us all the facts. But I think it was handled properly; certainly, by us. I don't know who else the Soviets notified. When I found that it was going to hit Canada, early that morning—I come over here quite early in the morning—I called the Prime Minister of Canada and talked to him on the phone. And we were pretty lucky in telling him where it was going into the atmosphere. We had it on radar. But in retrospect, it may be that the Soviets could have given us more information. I think they probably gave us about what we would have given them in a similar circumstance.

We've made a major expansion in what is called countercyclical revenue sharing to focus into the most deprived urban ghetto, unemployed areas, to be administered by Patricia Harris. And I've already signed into law a $4 billion public works bill. Under a new urban program that we are proposing, the Secretary of HUD, Patricia Harris, will have the authority to target large amounts of this money, in her judgment, on areas that are the most needy. For a long time in the past whenever a Federal program was approved by the Congress and the Republican Presidents, a large portion of that money went to areas where the need was least, in the suburban areas for housing and jobs went to areas with already low unemployment. We have reversed that now, and we're going to send the Federal money where it's needed most. Another of my first tasks has been to reorganize the Federal Government and to handle discrimination complaints faster and more effectively than we have in the past. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission now has a backlog of 130,000 cases. Many of these cases aren't considered for 3 years. There are seven different Federal agencies that are supposed to be taking care of these needs, these discriminatory practices. That's not been done yet. Because these cases have dragged on so long, quite often the witnesses have disappeared and the victims have given up. This is one of our top priorities--to reorganize the structure. It's not an easy or quick thing that can be done, and the person in charge of it is Eleanor Holmes Norton.