Bill Clinton: “Well, basically, I agree with you. The reason that I asked Mack McLarty to take on that job is that I thought our…”

“Well, basically, I agree with you. The reason that I asked Mack McLarty to take on that job is that I thought our relationship with Latin America was of profound importance and that it cut across economic and political lines, and we needed to have somebody concentrating on it who could deal with not just specific diplomatic or security issues but the whole range of political and economic issues. And it's worked. And what I'm hoping we can do now is take a look at whether we could do the same sort of thing in other parts of the world and how we'd have to reorganize the State Department and how we might integrate our diplomatic and economic efforts even more closely than we have to date. Let me just say generically, one of the things that stunned me when I became President was how antiquated all the organizational and information structures of the Federal Government were. When I walked in the Oval Office as President the first day, Jimmy Carter's phone system was on the desk--you know, where you punch those big old plastic buttons and the light comes up--[laughter]--and you dialed. And if you were having a call with three people, everybody else in the White House that had the line on the button could pick it up and listen. It was unbelievable--1993--we had an almost 20-year-old phone system. And believe me, that is a metaphor for other problems. One of the things that Speaker Gingrich and I have discussed as a possible bipartisan project is an effort to totally upgrade the information systems and communications systems of both the executive and the legislative branches, to try to get us in tune with the world. I know we had some high-tech executives testifying before Congress recently, and they were asked--they said, ``One real problem is in communications. We operate at 3 times the speed of normal business decisions.'' Normal business operates at 3 times the speed of Government; therefore, we're at a 9-to-1 disadvantage in trying to harmonize these policies. [Laughter] So I think Bob's made some very good points about that. [The discussion continued.] Trade Policy and Domestic Economic Development”