My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm not running for president. - Jimmy Carter

Tonight I do want to thank Arthur Krim and Steve Ross and Mary Lasker for being our hosts and hostess. But I would like to recognize one special person in the audience who hasn't yet been recognized. When I started campaigning for President a long time ago, and I would come to New York for a fundraiser, there would be four or five people present in this early friend's apartment-and she worked awfully hard to get five people to come. And I want to ask Alice Mason if she would stand. Arthur Krim wins both ways. He is recognized throughout the Nation as a man who has given his heart to sacrificial public service. And when I knew that he and Steve and Mary would be in. charge of this banquet, I had no doubt about the outcome. But he also benefits from the Democrats as well. Late this past year there was a movie that was going to be made about the former Republican Governor of New York. And he found that he couldn't have this biographical film made, so Arthur went down to Philadelphia and got a Democrat ethnic with the same first name as Rocky and made a film, and he made a lot of money on it. [Laughter] So, the Democrats help Arthur Krim as well as helps us.

Do you think we are making some progress now? Do you think we have a long way to go? Do you think we are going to get there? Right on. I'm very proud to be here tonight in what I think is an historic occasion that will perhaps go down in the history of our country as a turning point in the minds and hearts of the American people in their long overdue concern about a large group of Americans, about 36 million, who in the past have too often been ignored. This is the first White House Conference on the Handicapped. I know that this is a tremendous assembly of leaders who have fought a long and sometimes discouraging battle to arrive here in Washington tonight. But this is not the first meeting. There have been dozens and dozens of meetings, attended by thousands of people in the 50 States of our country, and you have already brought to the consciousness of local and State officials an awareness of potential change 'for the better and many improvements that have already been made. Labor, industry can work together with government to make sure that, jointly, our efforts are successful. There is hardly a national leader on Earth in all the 150 nations that span the globe, who are not now thinking about two words: human rights. And now we in our own country are applying those two words to the handicapped people of our country. It's long overdue.

I haven't given up on that hope yet. Of course, a lot of those agencies, as we all know well, are minor commissions and boards and so forth that have been established by statute and you know can be eliminated when the need for them is no longer there. But I have not been unpleasantly surprised, Billy. I had a good bit of experience, as you know, as Governor of Georgia and was familiar with at least a State bureaucracy. And I had heard such horrible stories about the Federal Government that I didn't expect to find a smooth-running, well organized mechanism here in place. So, I wasn't very greatly surprised. I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of my Cabinet; that there is not a weak person on it, and not a single one that I would want to change if I had the whole choice to do over again. They've worked well together. We have, for the first time in years--I don't know how long--we've got a weekly Cabinet meeting. And any defects that are carrying over in the governmental structure are partially overcome by the close-knit working relationship between the White House staff and the members of the Cabinet. We have established now--almost completed the Department of Energy, which is to some degree a replacement for about 40 other Federal agencies. And our plan for reorganizing the entire structure of the Government is well in place. I've been through this before, for 4 years in Georgia, and I think there's a good parallel there to serve as a guide for me. So to answer your question, I'm not disappointed nor unpleasantly surprised. And what defects are here, we are overcoming them by close relationship among the officials involved.