Reagan-Carter Presidential Debate: on Homeland Security

Jimmy Carter: Steady increase in defense to offset 37% drop since 1969

CARTER: In the 8 years before I became President, had its own military strength decreased. Seven out of eight years, the budget commitments for defense went down, 37% in all. Since I've been in office, we've had a steady, carefully planned, methodical but very effective increase in our commitment for defense.

REAGAN: We were in a war that wound down during those 8 years, which of course made a change in military spending because of turning from war to peace. Gerald Ford left a 5-year projected plan for a military buildup to restore our defenses, and President Carter's administration reduced that by 38%.

CARTER: I think, habitually, Governor Reagan has advocated the injection of military forces into troubled areas, when I and my predecessors--both Democrats and Republicans--have advocated resolving those troubles and those difficult areas of the world peacefully, diplomatically, and through negotiation.

Jimmy Carter: SALT II is result of 7 years of bipartisan negotiations

REAGAN: The SALT II treaty negotiations [began after] Mr. Carter had canceled the B-1 bomber, delayed the Trident submarine, and whatever other things that might have been done. The Soviet Union knew we had gone forward with unilateral concessions.

CARTER: There is a disturbing pattern in the attitude of Mr. Reagan: He has never supported any of those arms control agreements--the limited test ban, SALT I, nor the antiballistic missile treaty, nor the Vladivostok Treaty negotiated with the Soviet Union by President Ford--and now he wants to throw into the wastebasket a treaty to control nuclear weapons, negotiated over a 7-year period, by myself and my two Republican predecessors.

Ronald Reagan: America has never gotten in a war because we were too strong

REAGAN: I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security. Now, I believe, also that this responsibility for preserving the peace, which I believe is a responsibility peculiar to our country, that we cannot shirk our responsibility as the leader of the Free World, because we're the only one that can do it. And therefore, the burden of maintaining the peace falls on us. And to maintain that peace requires strength. America has never gotten in a war because we were too strong. We can get into a war by letting events get out of hand, as they have in the years under the foreign policies of Mr. Carter's, until we're faced each time with a crisis.

Ronald Reagan: Scrap SALT II treaty; too many unilateral concessions

REAGAN: I think I'm right, because I believe that we must have a consistent foreign policy, a strong America, and a strong economy. The SALT II treaty was the result of negotiations that Mr. Carter's team entered into on the Soviet Union's terms, because Mr. Carter had canceled the B-1 bomber, delayed the Trident submarine, shut down the Minuteman missile production line, and whatever other things that might have been done. The Soviet Union knew that we had gone forward with unilateral concessions without any reciprocation from them whatsoever. I have not blocked the SALT II treaty, as Mr. Carter suggests--it has been blocked by a Democratic Senate.