|
Forward
For Freedom
Ronald
Reagan
Thank
you all very much, and may I just say that
every bit of show business instinct that
is within me says that perhaps it would be
better if the entertainment followed the
speaker. You are a tough act to follow.
[The President was referring to the comic
routine of Yakov Smirnoff.]
But let me begin by saying how appropriate
it is that we honor tonight the Shuttle
Seven; all of them were heroes. Each of us
is in their debt. And we know now that God
holds them close, and we pray He'll
comfort their grieving loved ones. And
we're aware, too, of our own duty to them
and to their memory. We must continue.
Other brave Americans must go now where
they so valiantly tried to lead-a fitting
place, I've always thought, for
Americans-"the stars and
beyond."
And in some closed societies, a tragedy of
this sort would be permanently
disheartening, a fatal setback to any such
program, followed not by mourning and
national recommitment, but by attempts to
evade responsibility. Well, not so in a
democracy, and not so in America. John
Glenn said the other day that after the
pad fire that killed three astronauts in
1967, support for the space program
skyrocketed among the American people. And
that's because here the government does
not rule the people; it is the people. And
ultimately what happens to programs of
this sort, and what follows tragedies of
this kind, are decisions that belong not
to government, but to the people.
The tragedy of the Shuttle Seven will only
serve to strengthen the resolve of America
to pursue their dream of "the stars
and beyond." And anyone who doubts
this does not know the history of our
land, the wonder of America and her free
people, or the meaning of the words
"the right stuff."
You know, I called the families yesterday
of those seven heroes. Every one of them
concluded the remarks between us by
saying, "The program must continue;
they would have wanted it that way."
And it will.
Well, I'm delighted to be here tonight.
And I want to extend my heartfelt thanks
to the American Conservative Union, along
with Human Events, National Review, and
Young Americans for Freedom for putting on
this conference and for extending the
invitation.
Tonight my thoughts cannot help but drift
back to another conservative audience of
more than 20 years ago and a Presidential
campaign that the pundits and
opinion-makers said then was the death
knell for our movement. But just as the
opinion leaders had been stunned by Barry
Goldwater's nomination, so too they would
be shocked by the resiliency of his cause
and the political drama to unfold around
it: the rise of the New Right and the
religious revival of the mid-'70s and the
final, triumphant march to Washington in
1980 by conservatives.
And you know, that last event really did
come as a shock of seismic proportions to
this city. I can remember reading about a
poll that was taken at a Washington
National Press Club luncheon in January of
1980 on the eve of the primary season.
Those in attendance were asked who would
be the next President of the United
States. Well, Jimmy Carter got a large
number of votes, and so did Teddy Kennedy.
But there was one candidate on the
Republican side who got so few votes from
the wise men of Washington that it wasn't
even reported in the lineup. I think it
had to do with his conservative leanings.
Well, I hope they know I'm not about to
change.
But while official Washington always
underestimated our cause, some of the
shrewderjournalists did over the years
sense something astir in America. Theodore
White said openly, just after Barry
Goldwater's campaign: "Some see this
as a last adventure in the politics of
nostalgia. Others see this Arizonan as a
symbol, cast up by the first crest of an
early tide, thrown back this once, but
bound to come again in greater
strength."
And you know, to be here tonight and to be
a part of this historic conference, your
biggest attention-getter, to look at your
program for the next two days and all the
important people and discussions, to stand
here now with the Presidential seal on
this podium, to feel the energy, the
almost festive air of this audience, I
think you've provided an answer to Teddy
White's implicit question about the fate
of our movement, the state of our cause.
Fellow conservatives, it took us more than
20 years, but who can deny it? We're
rockin' and rollin'.
Now, I know a few liberal observers will
try to downplay all this. But don't you
think they're going to sound a little bit
like Yogi Berra on that famous occasion
when he said of a restaurant, "It's
so crowded, nobody goes there
anymore"? And as for those liberals
who finally are catching on to the idea
that there is a conservative movement,
they kind of remind me of a cowboy who was
out hiking in the desert one day and came
across the Grand Canyon. And he said,
"Wow, something sure happened
here!"
Well, something has happened in America.
In five short years, we have seen the kind
of political change rarely seen in a
generation on nearly every issue: Federal
spending, tax cuts, deregulation, the
fight against career criminals and for
tough judges, military readiness,
resistance to Soviet expansionism, and the
need for candor about the struggle between
freedom and totalitarianism. The old
taboos and superstitions of liberalism
have collapsed and all but blown away, to
be replaced by a robust and enlightened
conservatism, a conservatism that brings
with it economic prosperity, personal
opportunity, and a shining hope that
someday all the peoples of the world -
from Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Poland
and, yes, to Angola - will know the
blessings of liberty and live in the light
of freedom.
Those in this room know how often we were
told the odds of accomplishing even a
small part of this were all against us. I
remember my own first visit up to the Hill
after the 1980 election, when issues like
the tax cuts came up. I met a Congressman
there. He was a kind of a big fellow, as I
recall - had lots of white hair. He was
from the Boston area, I think. Maybe you
know him. He smiled very indulgently and
told me not to expect too much because I
was, to use his words, "in the big
leagues now.
But you know, as a conservative, I had an
advantage. Back in the hard years, the
lean years, when we were forming our
political PACs, sending out our
fundraising letters, and working for
candidate after candidate in campaign
after campaign, all of us learned
something vital, something important about
our country. Something became an article
of faith, a faith that sustained us
through all the setbacks and the
heartache.
You see, we knew then what we know now:
that the real big leaguers aren't here in
Washington at all; they're out there in
the heartland, out in the real America,
where folks go to work every day and
church every week, where they raise their
families and help their neighbors, where
they build America and increase her bounty
and pass on to each succeeding generation
her goodness and splendor. And we knew
something else, too: that the folks out
there in real America pretty much see
things our way and that all we ever have
to do to get them involved is to be brave
enough to trust them with the truth and
bold enough to ask for their help.
And it's here we find the explanation for
the success of the last five years, the
reason why on issue after issue the
liberals in this town have lost and are
still losing: they've forgotten who's in
charge, who the big leaguers really are.
It reminds me of a favorite little story
of mine about a career naval officer who
finally got his four stripes, became a
captain, and then was given command of a
giant battleship. And one night he was out
steaming around the Atlantic when he was
called from his quarters to the bridge and
told about a signal light in the distance.
And the captain told the signalman,
"Signal them to bear to
starboard." And back came the signal
from ahead asking-or saying, " You
bear to starboard." Well, as I say,
the captain was very aware that he was
commander of a battleship, the biggest
thing afloat, the pride of the fleet; and
he said "Signal that light again to
bear to starboard now." "Bear to
starboard yourself." Well, the
captain decided to give his unknown
counterpart a lesson in seagoing humility,
so he said, "Signal them again and
tell them to bear to starboard. I am a
battleship." And back came the
signal, "Bear to starboard yourself.
I'm a lighthouse.
Well, the American people have turned out
to bejust what the forefathers thought
they would be when they made them the
final arbiter of political power: a
lighthouse to the ship of state, a source
of good judgment and common sense
signaling a course to starboard. But you
who are not nautical-minded know that
starboard is to the right, don't you?
But I come here tonight not just to
celebrate these successes of our past, but
also to strike a serious, even somber,
note to remind each of you not only of how
far we have come together but how tragic
it would be if we suddenly cast aside in a
moment of dreadful folly all our hopes for
a safe America and a freer world. My
fellow conservatives, I want to speak to
you tonight about our movement and a great
danger that lies ahead.
Now, some of you may think I'm reacting
here to claims that 1985 was a
disappointing or, at best, a mediocre year
for conservatives. In fact, I want to take
sharp issue with this, suggest to you that
those claims themselves are evidence of
the broader problem I'm talking about: the
danger of growing soft with victory, of
losing perspective when things go our way
too often, of failing to appreciate
success when it occurs or seeing danger
when it looms.
First, let's talk about 1985 and three
legislative victories whose strategic
significance were both enormous and
largely overlooked. Now, some of you who
go back with me to that campaign in 1964
can remember how easily the liberals
dismissed our warnings then about the
dangers of deficit spending. We were told
it would bring prosperity. Others of you
know how passionately the liberals
believed in the use of high and punitive
tax rates to redistribute income. And
finally, all of us can remember how
liberals found in the post-Vietnam
syndrome a form of religious exercise, a
kind of spiritual ecstasy, however much of
that syndrome paralyzed American foreign
policy and jeopardized freedom.
Now, let me ask you: if someone had come
up to you even as late as a few years ago
and told you that by 1985 all of these
cherished doctrines-a belief in deficit
spending, the politics of envy via high
tax rates, and the refusal to help those
resisting Communist dictatorship-would be
formally and publicly rejected in a single
12-month period by the liberal Democrats
themselves, wouldn't you have thought that
person prone to acute shortages of oxygen
in the cerebral hemispheres? That's a kind
of bureaucratese for meaning playing
without a full deck.
But consider 1985. We saw a de facto
balanced budget amendment passed by both
Houses of the Congress. We saw a House of
Representatives under liberal leadership
agree to cut the top marginal tax rate to
the 35- to 38-percent range. And we even
saw that same House not only approve funds
for an insur-gency against a Communist
government but spontaneously repeal that
symbol of liberal isolationism, the Clark
amendment.
So, friends and neighbors, salute Halley's
Comet. Salute that space shot "U-ra-nus"
- I'm too old-fashioned to call it "
Ur-a-nus. " I just remember politics
in 1985 was also a celestial phenomenon,
Steven Spielberg all the way.
Actually, the remarkable year of 1985 at
home was a reflection of a broader, even
brighter strategic picture. In Europe and
Asia, statism and socialism are dying and
the free market is; and all across the
world, the march of democracy continues.
Yet, even as I think the tide of history
is all but irreversibly turned our way and
this strategic picture will continue to
improve, we must guard at all costs
against an unnecessary but costly tactical
defeat ahead. I'm talking, of course,
about the election in November.
Now, this isn't going to happen as long as
we conservatives will shoulder the burden
of our recent successes, if we'll realize
how much is at stake this November, forget
for the moment the flowers and the
sunshine, and summon once again those deep
reserves of will and stamina that won for
us our first victories. And bear in mind,
this will require a supreme effort; our
job is going to be even tougher this year.
The very years of prosperity and peace
that conservative programs have given
America may in a strange way actually help
those who fought the hardest against them.
Good times, after all, tend to favor
incumbents and fortify the status quo.
Yet you and I know how unacceptable that
status quo is, how much - on everything
from right to life, prayer in the schools,
enterprise zones, aid to the
anti-Communist insurgents - still waits to
be done. So, we must go to the record, get
the facts to the American people.
The Speaker of the House has already
indicated a tax increase is the solution
to our problems, and recently another
important member of the House leadership
echoed his sentiments. Not much has
changed on the federal spending either.
Sure the liberals are angry about
Gramm-Rudman, but they aren't looking
realistically at our bloated expenditures,
only talking nonsense about shutting down
the FBI and the IRS-though I do admit that
in mentioning that last point they may be
tempting me beyond my strength. And as for
defense, let me assure you the liberals
haven't changed a bit; they're still
looking at America's defense budget with
lust in their hearts. A lust to strip it
bare and use the funds for more of their
social experiments.
Yet this year we have to work even harder
at summoning the vigor to tell the
American people the truth and the vigor to
ask their help, to remind them that what
they do this November will decide whether
the days of high taxes and higher
spending, the days of economic stagnation
and skyrocketing inflation, the days of
nat onal malaise and international
humiliation, the days of "blame
America first" and "inordinate
fear of communism" will all come
roaring back at us once again. More than
that, we must tell the American people
that the progress that we've made thus far
is not enough, that it'll never be enough
until the conservative agenda is
enacted-and that means enterprise zones,
prayer in the public schools, and
protection of the unborn.
And that's why, my fellow conservatives,
we have to stop limiting ourselves to
talking about holding on to our strength
in the Senate and start talking about
conservative control of the House of
Representatives. That House has been in
the hands of our opponents for virtually
half a century. Never forget that for
those nearly 50 years the liberals had it
all their own way in this city and that
the loss of such great power is rarely
accompanied with graceful acquiescence.
Well, since the liberals are feeling
pretty sorry for themselves, and that's
why they're anxious about this election.
They know that unless they deliver a
telling blow this year to conservatism,
the 1988 Conservative Political Action
Conference will see major Presidential
candidates from both parties demanding a
chance to appear here and claim the mantle
of conservatism.
So, this is our break point; our opponents
are pulling out all the stops. And you
know, I think it's going to be worthwhile
reminding the American people of how
desperate the liberals are, how so much of
their strength in the House of
Representatives, as many as 18 to 23
seats, is due to gerrymandering on a scale
unprecedented in modern history. And this
is not to mention the outrageous episode
in which a legitimately elected Member of
the Congress and the people of Indiana's
8th District were disenfranchised in the
House of Representatives.
But there's another issue that I also
believe vividly illustrates how seriously
out of touch the liberals are with the
American people. We sometimes forget that
no one is more realistic about the nature
of the threat to our freedom than the
American people themselves. In fact, their
intuitive realism is why that "Bear
in the Woods" ad some of you can
remember from the 1984 campaign was so
successful. Yes, the American people want
an administration that pursues every path
to peace, but they also want an
administration that is realistic about
Soviet expansionism, committed to
resisting it, and determined to advance
the cause of freedom around the world.
Now, we know what happens when an
administration that has illusions about
the Soviets takes over. First, there are
the illusions, then the surprise and anger
when the Soviets do something like
invading Afghanistan. Any way you look at
it, it heightened tension and the
prospects for conflict.
In fact, the liberal conduct of foreign
policy reminds me of a little football
game that was played at Notre Dame back in
1946, when Notre Dame player Bob
Livingstone missed a tackle. And his
teammate, all-American Johnny Lujack,
screamed, "Livingstone, you so-and-so
you," and he went on and on. And
then, Coach Frank Leahy said,
"Another sacrilege like that,
Jonathan Lujack, and you'll be
disassociated from our fine Catholic
university." Well, in the very next
play, Livingstone missed another tackle,
and Coach Leahy turned to the bench and
said, "Lads, Jonathan Lujack was
right about Robert Livingstone." And
that's why it's, important to go to the
record.
I remember a little booklet that came out
a few years back. Although it was by the
Republican Study Committee and entitled
"What's the Matter with Democratic
Foreign Policy," it was really about
a shrinking group of foreign policy
liberals here in Washington. And I just
think that if we were able to get some of
those choice quotations on issues like
Vietnam, Grenada, and Central America
before the American people and they were
able to see what the Washington liberals
really believe about foreign policy, the
naivete and confusion of mind, I believe
we would shock the American people into
repudiating these views once and for all.
And let me interject here two points that
I think can be important this year. First,
the question of defense spending. During
the last few weeks, there've been a number
of columns, editorials, or speeches
calling for a slash in the military budget
and quoting President Eisenhower as
justification. President Eisenhower did
warn about large concentrations of power
like the
military-industrial complex, but what's
being left out is the context of that
quote. In his farewell address to the
American people, yes, he did warn us about
the danger of an all-powerful
military-industrial complex, but he also
reminded us America must always be
vigilant because "We face a hostile
ideology-global in scope, atheistic in
character, ruthless in purpose, and
insidious in method." The pundits
haven't been quoting that part of his
speech.
I know there's been a great deal of talk
in the media recently about the situation
in Southwest Africa and especially Angola.
And I know also you'll be having a special
guest here tomorrow evening, as I did this
morning in the Oval Office. Well, let me
just say now it would be inappropriate for
me as President to get too specific
tonight. But I do want to make a comment
here on some recent history and let you
draw your own conclusions.
Last September, at the Lomba River in
southern Angola, when a force of UNITA
rebels met an overwhelmingly superior
force of government troops directly
supported by the Soviet bloc, the UNITA
forces defeated the government troops and
drove them and their Communist allies from
the field.
In the history of revolutionary struggles
or movements for true national liberation,
there is often a victory like this that
electrifies the world and brings great
sympathy and assistance from other nations
to those struggling for freedom. Past
American Presidents, past American
Congresses, and always, of course, the
American people have offered help to
others fighting in the freedom cause that
we began. So, tonight, each of us joins in
saluting the heroes of the Lomba River and
their leader, the hope of Angola, Jonas
Savimbi.
So, you see, like the Panama Canal in
1976, foreign policy issues like defense
spending and aid to the freedom fighters
may prove the sleeper issues of the year.
So, let me urge you all to return to your
organizations and communities and to tell
your volunteers and your contributors that
the President said that they're needed now
as never before, that the crucial hour is
approaching, that the choice before the
American people this year is of
overwhelming importance: whether to hand
the government back to the liberals or
move forward with the conservative agenda
into the 1990s.
My fellow conservatives, let's get the
message out loud and clear. The Washington
liberals and the San Francisco Demo-crats
aren't extinct; they're just in hiding,
waiting for another try. Well, let's make
it clear to the American people that they
must choose this year between those who
are enemies of big government and the
friends of the freedom fighters and, on
the other hand, those who are advocates of
Federal power and a foreign policy of
illusion. So, let the choice be clear.
Will it be "blame America
first," or will it be "On to
Democracy" and "Forward for
Freedom"?
And freedom is the issue. The stakes are
that high. You know, recently Nancy and I
saw together a moving new film, the story
of Eleni. It's a true story. A woman at
the end of World War II, caught in the
Greek civil war, a mother who, because she
smuggled her children out to safety,
eventually to America, was tried,
tortured, and shot by the Greek
Communists.
It is also the story of her son, Nicholas
Gage, who grew up to become an
investigative reporter with the New York
Times and who, when he returned to Greece,
secretly vowed to take ven-geance on the
man who had sent his mother to her death.
But at the dramatic end of the story, Nick
Gage finds he cannot extract the vengeance
he has promised himself. To do so, Mr.
Gage writes, would have relieved the pain
that had filled him for so many years, but
it would also have broken the one bridge
still connecting him to his mother and the
part of him most like her. As he tells it:
". . her final cry, before the
bullets of the firing squad tore into her,
was not a curse on her killers but an
invocation of what she died for, a
declaration" how that cry was echoed
across the centuries, her cry was a cry of
love- " ' My children! ' " A cry
for all the children of the world, a hope
that all of them may someday live in peace
and freedom.
And how many times have I heard it in the
Oval Office while tryng to comfort those
who have lost a son in the service of our
nation and the cause of freedom. "He
didn't want to die," the wife of
Major Nicholson said at Fort Belvoir last
year about her husband, "and we
didn't want to lose him, but he would
gladly lay down his life again for
America."
So, we owe something to them, you and 1.
To those who've gone before-Major
Nicholson, Eleni, the heroes at the Lomba
River-and to the living as well-Andrei
Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Adolfo Calero,
Jonas Savimbi-their hopes reside in us as
ours do in them.
Some 20 years ago I told my fellow
conservatives that "You and I have a
rendezvous with destiny." And tonight
that rendezvous is upon us. Our destiny is
now. Our cause is still, as it was then,
the cause of human freedom. Let us be
proud that we serve together, and brave in
our resolve to push on now toward that
final victory so long sought by the heroes
of our past and present and now so near at
hand.
Thank you. God bless you.
|
