Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930620.zip/06-20C.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-21 | 33KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Fri Jun 18 23:11:43 1993
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 13:03-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Background Briefing on Space Station Plans  6.17.93

    E X E C U T I V E   O F F I C E   O F   T H E   P R E S I D E N T


                             THE WHITE HOUSE

                      Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________

                           BACKGROUND BRIEFING
                                    BY
                      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL

                              June 17, 1993

                            The Briefing Room

3:08 P.M. EDT

    MS. ROMASH:  Just to set the ground rules, this is a BACKGROUND
BRIEFING.  You can identify the gentlemen here as senior administration
officials. [name deleted] is still on the Hill testifying.  He will try
and join us if he finishes his testimony on time.

    I think you all should have information from this morning, the
President's statement, a press release, a summary, and a copy of [name
deleted] statement up on the Hill today.  If you don't have that, let us
know and we'll get it to you.

    Why don't we get started.  This is [names deleted].  We don't
have any opening statements, so just fire away.  Again, this is on
BACKGROUND.  You can identify these folks as administration officials.

    Q    Can you give us some sense of -- are we talking A minus B
plus here?  Could you talk a little bit about the alphabet soup question?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Right.  We're talking Option A
with improvements from Option B as determined in the next three months in
consultation with the Vest Committee and with the Congress and with NASA.
But the basic station model is Option A.

    Q    Are you going to go up to the standard NASA orbit or are
you going to go up higher after the Russian orbit?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The Vest Committee highly
recommended going up to the Russian orbit.  That decision has not been
made.  There are also intermediate orbits between ours and the Russians
that allow for international access, but those negotiations and decisions
are still going on.

    Q    Now, you need a couple hundred more million in the
appropriations bill, the House Appropriations bill, in order to meet the
President's level.  Is that going to be possible?  To win space station
will be hard enough; to get a couple hundred million dollars more will be
even more difficult.  How do you intend to do that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The appropriations committees
have been looking at that and also at the NASA budget in terms of what
other savings in addition to our management savings can help us reach
those targets in their markup in the next week.  And we anticipate that

the levels of the President's budget can be reached by the Appropriations
Committee through NASA savings.

    Q    Are you going to gut the technology package?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  No, we are not going to gut the
technology package.  It was reduced from $500 million in the original
submission to $200 million in the submission that went to the Hill today.

    Q    Can you go through the arithmetic?  The President -- or
Mr. Gibbons speaks of saving $4 billion to $7 billion in the next five
years.  How do you do that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  We are talking for the
President's decision today, $2.1 billion a year each year for five years,
which comes to $10.5 billion.  Space Station Freedom's cost over the same
time period was $14.4 billion.  And to completion, the Vest Committee
estimated Space Station Freedom at close to $26 --$25.6 billion I believe
-- and the Option A at $16 billion.  So, over the completion to
permanently manned capability, we're talking a savings of $8 billion to
$9 billion.  After that, you have $1 billion a year savings from the
President's decision today in operations cost over Space Station Freedom.

    Q    Can you tell me the impact on the Canadian contribution;
there are three bits that matter.  The glorified Canada arm, the baby
robot with two arms and then this transporter.  What has happened -- I
gather that two would be safe because it's a, what about the transporter
or the mobile platform; what has happened to that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Until the decision is made about
which parts of Option B should be appended to Option A for increasing the
scientific capabilities -- those negotiations aren't complete.

    The international partners, obviously, were part of the
descriptions of Options A and B in the Vest Committee report and have
been generally supportive of the President's decision.  And we,
obviously, have a lot of technical details to work out, but at this point
we expect to be able to accommodate the Japanese contribution, the
Canadian and the European.

    Q    The President at his press conference on Tuesday and
again in the statement today spoke very glowingly about the Vest
recommendations regarding NASA management.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yes.

    Q    Could you tell us a little bit more about how the
recommendations about managing the space station program can be applied
to NASA across the board?  Are we talking trimming bodies, organization?
Could you just talk about that a little bit?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yes.  And then I would like to
ask [name deleted], since this is his life experience.  The Vest
Committee had a very simple conclusion; that NASA as currently structured
cannot build this space station or any other, and that a 30-percent
reduction in federal and contract employees is required to be able to
produce any space station.  There is a significant number within that
that could be achieved through early out at NASA.  The number of people
who could be eligible for such a program vary from 4,000 to 8,000 based
on the type of early out and when it is implemented.

    In addition to the personnel reductions that are working on the
space station, there is also the issue of the management structure.
Right now, the management structure is labyrinthine.  Everybody is in

charge and no one is accountable, and the Vest Committee proposed a
different sort of management structure to provide more line
accountability.  And now I'll my colleague add to that.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  My colleague made the points
absolutely right.  The only thing I'd add to it is that these are views
which the Vest Committee, I think, has put together better than anyone
else has for sometime, but that have been felt strongly by external
observers of NASA for a long time.  I've felt them throughout the '80s in
membership on various commissions.  And [name deleted] and I've had -- is
a member of the Vest Committee -- have had long conversations.  And the
labyrinthine, which is the term my colleague used, is really the best
word, the best point, in that NASA has gone for a very long time without
going through the kind of organizational -- forgive the word, but
organizational re-engineering that most major companies have had to go
through in the last seven to ten years.

    And that's basically the point, is it's decision structure is
cluttered, it's circular, it's labyrinthine.  And what I think the Vest
Committee basically meant -- it's certainly what I would have meant had
it been my original observation as opposed to the Vest Committee's -- is
when they saying that NASA could not build the station, could not have
built -- or space station Freedom could not have been built, was simply
that  the organizational structure to provide clarity of decision,
clarity of line management wasn't there to do it, that someone needed to
be in charge.

    Q    What can you tell us about contracts?  Which ones will
need to be terminated or bought out?  And also, is the White  House going
to take the recommendation of the Vest Committee to go with a single-
source contractor and change the management style in that way --as the
redesign team suggested?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I can't tell you enough, and I'm
not trying to dodge the question, I can't tell you enough yet to be
informative.  One of the reasons why we keep saying that we need the
summer is that we went as far as we felt we could and still be reasonably
accurate in both what we said in terms of policy terms and what we said
in terms of organizational terms.  And the answer to the question is
that, frankly, we've got to go through in detail with NASA, and NASA will
have to make the decisions about what has to get renegotiated, what has
to get discussed.

    Q    Are there any obvious losers with Option A, though, that
you can tell us?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I couldn't tell you right now.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me add to that --just one
second -- that the contracting situation now could be described as either
no primes or everybody's a prime.  (Laughter.)  The Vest Committee's work
was added to by staff from the national performance review that the Vice
President has initiated within NASA and without of NASA to identify just
these kinds of problems that were identified --not just the number of
people, but what they were charged with doing.  And let me give you one
basic example.

    You will note in our handout that the space station budget has
two major components:  the development budget and the science budget.
They were controlled by two different offices.  So there was no one
office that was in charge of the space station budget.  Small wonder that
we were never able to say in previous administrations what the real cost
was, because no one person was in charge of it.

    Q    A follow-up to that.  Isn't it true, though, since you're
going to go with a prime, a single prime, that Grumman is out as
integrator?


    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I couldn't get into that level
of detail at this point until we look at exactly what the tech package --
the station itself, the engineering and technology package would entail.

    Q       on Capitol Hill say that this will not pass anyway
unless the President takes an active, affirmative role in supporting it
and pushing it.  Will he do that?  And if he does, will he also try to
find some way to secure stable funding, without which the thing will
continue in its current pattern?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The President has certainly now
done everything -- to date has done everything that he said he would do.
He said that he would request a redesign for the station that involves
significant cost savings.  He set up a structure.  He then abided
entirely by the structure.  One of the things that we did was be, I
think, obsessive about making certain that, having set up a structure, we
allowed it to operate in an integral fashion; that the redesign did, in
fact, yield substantial savings.  The President has spoken -- has
supported the process, the Vest Committee report; has spoken in glowing
terms about the need to continue a station.  He has his director of OSTP
up testifying as we speak.  I think that you can and should assume the
President will support this.

    Long-term stable funding.  One of the implications of doing this
now, given the cap situation now and in the future years, is a clear
indication that this is a high priority for the administration.

    Q    But he didn't do the thing he set out to do, and that's
to limit the cost to $9 billion.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Well, what we could have done is
say that we did it and not be telling the truth.  What we did is that the
commission did the best it possibly could, it did a damn fine job, and we
took it at its word.

    Q    Is the White House is satisfied the numbers you have are
accurate and you're willing to stand by the numbers that were developed
by NASA and the endorsement by the Vest Commission?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  We are -- let me say this
carefully -- we understand the process that they went through and believe
that the process was a rigorous process and a good one and an honest one.
I couldn't for a minute vouch for every number in an area that I don't
understand that much.

    Q    I want to be correct on the arithmetic.  As far as the
taxpayers' concern, this thing's already cost about $9 billion and you're
adding another $16 billion, I understand, to bring it to operational
readiness, at which point it will cost about $1 billion a year to
operate?  So we're talking about $25 billion plus operational costs?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me clarify that.

    Q    Is that correct?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The money spent to date plus the
$16 billion for Option A would amount to $25 billion.  But let's be clear
what we're buying for that.  There has been the concept before that we
are putting up a tinker toy in space and until you have the entire thing,
you have nothing.  What we're talking about today is the beginning in
five years of putting up in space the capacity for an orbiting science
laboratory and that can be added on and improved over the years as we can
afford it, and as it pays for itself in terms of the results.


    At the end of five years, under the President's decision, we will
have human-tended capability, that is a laboratory, a power station, and
the shuttle dock there to do work, that will have immediate value in five
years.  And then we will add value to it over the remaining time.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  If I could add to that, and it's
a point I've made to a number of you all in the room, is that there is a
-- you have to see this not as a tinker toy,
not as a particular project, but as an infrastructure and as a new kind
of infrastructure.  And in that respect, it is much like other major
scientific and technological infrastructures that a government supports.

    Moving from that down a little bit, what is really truly
difficult and what is hard to fathom is the first kind of big step, which
is getting something up there that can be built upon.  You can quarrel
about whether that first step is getting a power supply up, or whether
that first step is getting to man tended -- whatever it is, it's that
first step that is absolutely crucial.  Once you have the capacity to
start to do something, then you can make a judgment increment by
increment as to whether it's worth it.  But you'll never have the
opportunity to make that judgment unless you take the first step.

    Q    As far as your current plans are concerned, is $1 billion
a year to operate, is that what you're thinking of?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The number's $1.4 billion; the
Freedom number is $2.4 billion.

    Q    That's $1.4 billion a year?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The savings that [name deleted]
had in mind was the billion difference between the two of those.

    Q       international contributions, what, given this sort of
fuzziness about the second phase -- what have you told Canada, Japan and
your international contributors?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  We've told them that we're
committed to the station.

    Q    Do you want more international involvement in this
initial stage?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Are you referring to the first
five-year stage?

    Q    Right.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Just as we are being flexible in
changing our design.  We are asking the international partners to also
take a look at how to maximize their contribution to the station.

    Q    What kind of contribution?

    Q    Are their contributions going to be the same as they have
been, or are you looking for contributions to cut the U.S. cost during
the first period?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:   Well, the U.S. cost of the $2.1
billion a year is what we're going to spend.  For the international
community to expedite their value from the station, it is in their
interest as well to look at how they can lower their costs and hopefully
expedite their ability to bring their modules to the station under the
schedule that we have now.


    Q    You've been talking about astronaut capabilities.  What
does it take for a permanent occupation after 1998?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  That's the total of $16 billion.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  That gets you the $16 billion.

    Q    The $16 billion gives you the permanent in year 2001?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yes.

    Q    Are you looking for funds from your international
contributors?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The discussion with the
international partners deals with their technology and their approach on
how they would hook up with the station and how to make maximum use of
their technology.  We are not at this point talking cash contributions.
We're talking about engineering changes that reduce cost -- for instance,
smaller air locks and that sort of thing.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The point that -- let me expound
on the point because the point that he was making is the following, and
it's a very simple point -- is that we've gone through a very substantial
redesign and have discovered opportunities for cost savings and design
improvement.  Without changing the basic thrust of what the international
partners have proposed to do in their technology, our sense is that over
the summer they may well do the same.

    Q    Are you sending a message, though, to the international
partners that you intend for them to renegotiate what it is they're going
to contribute to the station?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  No.

    Q    Can you give us an idea of what was discussed between
Vice President Gore and Mr. Chernomyrdin I guess on Tuesday it was?
Evidently, the space station was going to be on the topics of discussion
in those meetings.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I wasn't there, so I can't tell
you.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I think you're talking about the
meeting that didn't take place.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Unless you're talking about --
there was no meeting between the Vice President and Chernomyrdin last
week.  I thought you were referring to one with some other members of the
Russians a month ago.

    Q    In addition to the Soyuz's assured crew return vehicle,
will the administration make an effort to involve the Russian Federation
in the development of this new space station?  Will it extend to launch
vehicles, launch services?  Can you give us some notion of that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I think the short answer is that
those haven't been discussed yet.

    Q    How about the long answer?

    Q    Do the cost estimates include the Russian involvement?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yes.  I mean, the cost estimates
are for the structure as you've seen it, for the U.S. involvement --


    Q    Will that mean accommodating the Russian orbit?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Could be extra cost or extra savings,
depending on how the design works and what the participation is.

    Q    Will there be management changes just for a space
station, or for NASA across the board?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
Well, you certainly should have taken the strong point from both the
report and what we said is that we would think that the Administrator
will put in changes in terms of the management of the station.  And our
own sense is that that can't help but flip over to NASA as a whole.  But
those are his decisions.

    Q    At the beginning of the briefing, you mentioned a cut in
a particular science package from $500 million to $200 million, I think.
For the nonexperts, can you explain what that is?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The President's budget included
$500 million when it was submitted in February for a new technology
package within NASA.  Many of these programs involve NASA industry
cooperation similar to what the advanced technology program would be
doing at the Department of Commerce.  Some of them involve improving the
expendable launch vehicles.  Some of them involve work on advanced rocket
technologies.  Some of them involve small satellite programs and the
Discovery program, which is a solar system exploration program.  They
also involved institutes, NASA technology institutes that would be around
the country.  That package has been reduced in size and certain
priorities selected within it, and sent up to the House Appropriations
Committee for their review.

    Q    And that savings is going to go toward a space station?
Is that the idea?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Well, the original budget was
$2.3 billion, and there was basically an agreement with the House
appropriators that that would be -- we'd have a placeholder of $1.8
billion and $500 million for the technology package, with a player to be
named later based on the Vest Committee report.  And based on the Vest
Committee report, we have now changed those numbers slightly.

    Q    To what?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  To the $2.1 billion for the
station and $200 million for the technology package.

    Q    There have been several reports that Mr. Golden, the
Administrator of NASA, would save his job if he pulled this redesign
effort off.  Has he saved his job, or are you still thinking about a
replacement?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I thought that was my problem.
(Laughter.)  All of us work at the pleasure of the President, and I'm not
aware of any save-your-job situation.

    Q    The Administrator's name was not included in the
President's statement; Vice President Gore's was, Dr. Gibbons's was.  Why
is that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The President was responding to
the Vest Committee report, which was outside of NASA, and to the Vice
President's work in the national performance review on the management
changes.  The recommendation is officially coming from the Vest
Committee, but the President, in the press release and I think in

meetings and in other public comments, has said very nice things about
Dr. Goldin's work in this regard.  The fact that it wasn't in the
official statement has absolutely no implications.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:   If you'll note in the testimony
that Dr. Gibbons gave today, there's a specific reference to the
Administrator in there and the job that he did in this effort.

    Q    Can I follow up very quickly on the Russians?  Will there
be an effort to go beyond the Soyuz, incorporating the Soyuz as part of
the space station to involve Russians, the Russian government in this
project?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  We can't really -- we can't
speculate about things we don't know.  As you know well, coming out of
Vancouver, the Vice President was, in fact, put in charge of the SUTAS,
of the development of the SUTAS cooperative relationships with the
Russians.  What those specifically are and that there are mutual
dependencies between them involve a whole series of things that haven't
been worked out.  And that's goobly-gak, I know, but it was sort of
intended to be.

    Q    Whose going to make the final decision about the
inclination?  WIll the White House make that?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Beats the hell out of me.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  First there has to be some
further negotiations with the international community and a look at the
technology and the technological problems and opportunities, and a
balancing decision made.  But the White House will be working with NASA
and with Congress based on the implications of such a move to the Russian
orbit.

    Q    Is there coming a time when you quit planning, when you
can actually say, this is what we're going to do, this is what it's going
to cost?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The President proposes; the
Congress disposes.  The President --

    Q    But things like the inclination --

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  This will have to be decided by
the fall.  When the conference bills are finalized in the Congress we
will have a final program in place.

    Q    Do you have any concern that by streamlining the
management you're going to erode support in the Congress?  Right now
practically every member has a piece of this.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Well, our sense would be that,
by and large, making the management of NASA -- improving the management
of NASA would enhance the attractiveness of the program to the Congress.

    Q    I'm sure improving the management would, but I'm talking
about all the different subcontractors.  You know, right now a lot of
people have pieces of the space station in their districts.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Our view of it is that it is a
national technology project which we're supporting because it's good for
the country.  Congress will wind up supporting it or not supporting it on
that basis.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  A comment to add to that.  At
the hearing we were just at, the Chair of the Appropriations
Subcommittee, Mr. Stokes, made the comment that those management changes

were exactly what the committee had been seeking for some time.  And to
the extent that that builds support in that committee it's obviously
helpful to the station.

    And the other thing to keep in mind is that the Vest Committee
did say that without these management changes that NASA probably could
not build any space station.  So, to the extent that the supporters of
the space station want to see a station developed and built, this is the
only way to get there.

    Q    Can you give us a clear, concise explanation of why
President Clinton thinks we ought to have a space station?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I think that the argument that
has appealed and the point that's appealed to many of us for a long time
is the fact -- is the infrastructure point; is that you have in essence
an entirely new environment and that it is of -- there have been a large
number of arguments that it is of potentially immense importance to be
able to carry out both science and technological experimentation and
development in that environment.

    No one can really know what is the precise mechanism by which to
do that until you have an instrument, a vehicle through which to do that.
So that the best way to think about it is the creation of a new
scientific and technological infrastructure for the country, not as a
project, not as a specific piece of science.  We would argue that it's a
technological infrastructure.  It is certainly not basic science by
itself.

    Q?    Could I ask -- I realize you've been asked this before but
once more -- could you give a ballpark estimate on what it would cost to
pay off the contractors who are now working on things that you're not
going to use?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  And the answer is that we don't
know the answer to that question yet.

    Q    Do you think it's likely to be in the million dollar
range, like it's been estimated?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  We just don't know.  We can't
speculate, we don't know.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me go back just a moment to
the question about why are we doing this.  It is not just the capability
of doing science and technology in space.  It is also the capability of
the technological infrastructure we have on the ground.  There are
skills, there are technologies that are developed to support the space
station that exists nowhere else on Earth.  And the United States should
not lightly dissolve this with both a huge technological and economic
cost when we have the opportunity as a world leader to develop this
technology within a budget and with achievable milestones in a way that
can teach us things about space, teach us things about ourselves, and
help our economy through technological progress.

    Q    Do you think the American people understand this and
support it and will tell people on Capitol Hill to support it so that it
might eventually end up in something floating up there a hundred or so
miles up?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, it would have been easier
in a number of different places to back out.  It would have been easy in
January when we were putting together the economic program to begin with.
It certainly would have been -- you can make an argument it would be
easier right now.  We decided it would not be.  We decided it would not
be with as much -- probably no more, but with as much knowledge as you
have about the fact that there is a substantial amount of

congressional opposition to this and knowing, therefore, that we have a
convincing job to do.

    Our view is that the combination of the fact that, a, there has
been a substantial redesign, b, that there will be substantial management
savings emerging from this, and c, that the argument for it is a critical
piece of both space and terrestrial infrastructure is not only a -- it's
a sellable argument because it's the right argument.  So we wouldn't have
gone forward if we didn't think, a, it was the right thing to do, and, b,
that we could  sell it.

    MS. ROMASH:  This is the last question.

    Q    But aren't you risking a perception both on the Hill and
amongst the public that when the stories appear tomorrow, because you
haven't decided which parts of B are going to go on A, that there's going
to be confusion, that it's going to look like mush, and people are going
to say, well, it's just more of the same?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  First off, it's legitimate to
ask, why can't a space station look like the Starship Enterprise.  They
always look relatively complicated.  The American public, going back to
John's question, want a space station.  They just have never believed we
could get there from here the way it's been done so far.

    The story tomorrow won't be mush.  The story tomorrow is that the
President has chosen one of the three options by the Vest Committee.  We
have a few months to maximize the benefit from that option.  We're not
going to try to do things in a hurry.  If we don't do it right the first
time, how are we going to have time to do it later?  And between now and
September, the decisions on the details will be made to allow this to go
forward.

    Today the decision is that we're choosing the modular option over
the other options.  And we are going to have the kind of budget and the
kind of management controls to achieve it.

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  If I could -- this is the last
point, but if I could expand on that because it's not mush.  What I say
on this of an editorial nature is probably not going to influence what
you write, but let me try to make the point, that the incentive in a big
public policy decision like this one is always to take the marginal way
out.  It's to kind of marginalize yourself to death.  That's always the
incentive.  The President didn't do that.

    The President put this into a process which led, within the time
frame that he proposed, to a quite clear decision.  He chose one of three
alternatives.  It led to substantial cost savings.  It will lead to
substantial management changes and savings, and it has a clear rationale.
There are details on the edges that remain to be done.  I guess the thing
that we would ask is your forbearance as well as that of the audiences
that we go and talk to, that we had a choice between doing it right or
pretending we had everything done.  And there are details on the edges,
as my colleague has said, as we both said from the beginning, that need
to be done.  But the level of clarity, we think, is really pretty hard to
argue against.

    Q    Can I follow up on that point, though?  That the lack of
decision has an immediate impact upon your international contributions,
specifically on the Canadian part, because half the money has already
been spent and the decisions are all being taken. What do you expect the
international contributors to do?

    SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Actually, we expect the
international contributors to be pleased with the way we've proceeded and
highly cooperative, and we suspect they will.  It is for the first time -
- I mean, they have -- of a program that's been troubled for some

time, they have a President standing up and saying that he's committed to
it, that he's committed to it in a particular direction at a particular
cost level, and with respect to a direction that can accommodate them.
That's pretty good for one day's work.

    Thank you.

                             END3:39 P.M. EDT