President Carter about air-traffic security and relationship with communist China and capitalist Russia

Interview during Carter's visit at Stanford University

Question: According to the events after September 11 and your engineering background, at Stanford, there has been a program brought up that would involve remotely disabling access to the controls of an airplane from the cockpit and you would be able to land the plane from the ground. Would are you opinions about such a system?

Answer: I think it would be a good back up to have. I think the final decision of whether or not it should be used should be the pilot assuming that the pilot survives. The pilot, once he triggered it, let it be so automatic that it could not be modified again. If someone threatened to hurt the pilot or torture the pilot, he could not reverse the process. I think somebody from the ground shouldn't be able to initiate it over the objection of the pilot.

Q: The professors who have been contacted about this said there are no technical limitations at this point. It is simply the certification process that needs to be completed. Would you implement such a system?

A: That process would have to be followed, maybe even with hearings in the congress to let all the voices be considered. Then, either the FAA would make an administrative decision if they're authorized to do so or the congress would pass a law, which may or may not be necessary.

Q: Would a law through Congress would be a viable option?

A: Of course, the Congress could always do it. The only thing that could change that is a Presidential veto. I don't know how much authority the FAA has, but you may not need a law.

Q: Compared with relations with China, how do you see relations with the former Soviet Union?

A: They are similar in some ways and also different. China is a viable country with a strong economy, it hasn't been divided up into parts, is self-sufficient, and doesn't have the nuclear arsenal to threaten ours. On the other hand, in Russian, what's left of the Soviet Union is debilitated economically, they have a massive nuclear arsenal that is on somewhat ready alert, and are somewhat dependent on the United States and on the European countries to bring them into a negotiating status so they can have some role in shaping future events. China is willing and able to stand alone. The two nations should be treated completely separately. There used to be tensions along the Chinese-Russian border, but I don't think you now see any competition between the nations.

Q: What do you see about our relations with Russia?

A: I think we should reach out in every way to help Russia economically. We should strengthen Russia's move of commitment to democracy in any fashion we can. We should treat them with respect and continue to negotiate with them on things like comprehensive test ban and desensitizing nuclear arsenals. I would like to see them taken out of their ready stage and put into semi-mothballs, which hasn't been done yet. We should consult with them on matters relating to other countries. Obviously, the Middle East situation is one of those of involved, as well as our future relationships with Iraq, with Iran, with North Korea. They still have pretty good relationships with those countries, which we have condemned as an Axes of Evil. The main thing we need to do is help Russia economically and treat them with respect so they won't be embarrassed, won't be paranoid, and won't turn against us with animosity.

Q: It seems that after your presidency, world hunger hasn't been on political agendas centrally. Why do you think this is and what do you think can be done?

A: Since I left office, the United States' commitment to development assistance of foreign aid has dropped precipitously, and we've now gotten to be the least generous nation on earth. As far as sharing our wealth with needy people is concerned, we give a little bit less than one-thousandth of our gross national product in development assistance for the humanitarian nature. A good portion of our so-called foreign aid goes to other countries to buy weapons from us, not to alleviate hunger or to provide education. The average European country gives four times as much the average American. A Norwegian citizen gives 17 times more than we do, and we're at the bottom of the list as far as generosity is concerned. 1.2 billion people on earth live on less than $1/day, and that includes food, shelter, and clothing, which they have to have, which means an absolute absence of education or health care, which is a very serious problem.

"I think it would be a good back up to have (anti-hijack system)."

"The main thing we need to do is help Russia economically and treat them with respect."

President Carter