We are very lucky today to have Secretary George Shultz and very much appreciate his willingness to come here.

It was quite a negotiation to get him to come.

I think this is about the...

Do I have to speak as loud as you do?

You're just...

The answer is no.

You don't need to speak as loudly as I do. I'm not used to, as a non-famous

person, I'm never microphoneed. You're probably mic'd all the time. But it was a negotiation

to get him to come here. This is probably my fourth or fifth year attempting so. We had our

final negotiation, although he might not know exactly how it went this morning, mediated by his

assistant.

I called in a moment of panic and I said, is the secretary wearing a tie today?

Because I felt like if he's wearing a tie, I better go home and get a tie.

And she said, can I put you on hold?

And I assume she went and talked to you about that.

And she said, the secretary is not wearing a tie.

And I said, well, good. She said, but would you like him to? He has one.

I said, no.

And we went back and forth.

So we're here without ties, but with microphones.

I want to resist the temptation to do a lengthy introduction.

When you're speaking with someone of such eminence, we could occupy the whole hour doing the introduction.

...