Such was King Hussain's summary of his long working relationship with US Presidents who have dealt, each in his own way and time, with Middle Eastern problems. Ronald Reagan proved to be no exception. As a presidential candidate he started to promote, in what might have been a vote-catching exercise, the view that ‘Israel is the only strategic asset in the area that the US can rely on.’ But in his first presidential press conference, he expressed what now seemed to be a conviction, that ‘Israel's combat-ready and even combat-experienced military is a force in the Middle East that actually is of benefit to us. If there was no Israel with that force, we'd have to supply that with our own. So, this isn't just altrusim on our part.’ Pressed at one point as to whether he had ‘any sympathy for the Palestinians’, his answer was a flat ‘no’, unlike his predecessor at the beginning of his term of office.