Ronald Reagan is the godfather of modern conservatism. He slam-dunked TWO landslide elections – arguably three as Bush was elected in 1988 purely on Reagan’s coattails. Almost every Republican since then – AND EVEN A HANDFUL OF DEMOCRATS – invoke Reagan’s name today and quote his speeches from memory. There’s a reason for all that.
After the horizontal divider line below are nothing but direct quotes of Reagan that fully illustrate this view.
The source for every quote is provided, and for almost all quotes a YouTube video link is provided.
Read, carefully and attentively. Watch. Let it soak in. Get to know him and how he saw the world and our role in it. And then ask yourself, (1) WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO REGARDING UKRAINE? (2) ARE YOU REALLY A “REAGAN REPUBLICAN”? AND, just for fun, (3) can you imagine Trump EVER talking like this?
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” … There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace – and you can have it in the next second – surrender.
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement…
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin – just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain…
Source: A Time for Choosing Speech (October 27, 1964)
Video: YouTube
We hear the cry for peace everywhere, but another word seems absent — no voices seem to be crying “freedom.” How long since we have heard about that? Each year we observe Captive Nations Day. At one time, pronouncements on that day here in our own land anticipated the future freedom of those now held captive and enslaved. But more and more, we have diluted that theme, until now we use the day to speak of peace with no mention of freedom. Is it possible that while we are sorry for the captives, we do not want to offend the captors? If we have the courage to face reality, peace is not so difficult to come by. We can have peace by morning if we do not mind the price. What is blocking the quest for peace? We all know the answer even if some in high places are reluctant to voice it. …
Why are we so reluctant to do this? Because there is a price we will not pay for peace, and it has to do with freedom. We want peace, but only if we can be free at the same time. Too many of us remember a few years back when the tanks rumbled through Hungary and over the bodies of the freedom fighters. And then above the echoes of the last few shots came that final radioed plea to humanity: “People of the world, help us. People of Europe, whom we once defended against the attacks of Asiatic barbarians, listen now to the alarm bells ring. People of the civilized world, in the name of liberty and solidarity, we are asking you to help. The light vanishes, the shadows grow darker hour by hour. Listen to our cry.” And sometimes, when the wind is right, it seems we can still hear that cry, and we find ourselves wondering if the conscience of man will be hearing that cry a thousand years from now. …
… It is precisely because we do want peace that we plead for a review of history. Page after page has been bloodied by the reckless adventures of power-hungry monarchs and dictators who mistook man’s love of peace for weakness.
How many nations have backed down the road of good intentions to end up against a wall of no retreat with the only choice to fight or surrender? We do not repudiate man’s dream of peace. We must not. It is a good dream and one we share with all men, for the dream is as old as man himself.
But we do repudiate an attempt to achieve that dream by methods disproven by all of our past experience, methods played against the background music of Neville Chamberlain’s umbrella tapping its sorry way to the slaughter of a generation of young men. …
A few months ago, there was talk of World War III as the Middle East bubbled and boiled over into a war that began and ended within a week. A small nation, faced with a denial of its sovereignty — indeed, of its very existence — reminded us that the price of freedom is high but never so costly as the loss of it. They brought what almost seems to be a new concept of war to the world — victory — and it didn’t bring on World War III.
Go back a few years and recall another time of crisis; this time the Red Chinese were threatening to invade the off-shore islands and Formosa [Taiwan]. The world tensed, and we heard the familiar terror talk that any action of any kind would bring on World War III. And then another voice was heard speaking in a tone we have not heard for too long a time in this land of ours. Dwight David Eisenhower said: “They’ll have to crawl over the 7th fleet to do it.”
The invasion of Formosa [Taiwan] did not take place; no young men died, and World War III did not follow.
Source: Excerpts From Veterans Day Address by Governor Ronald Reagan (November 11, 1967)
I’ll probably lose a lot of people because it isn’t popular to publicly say this today: when we withdrew our troops, we made a ceasefire, a peace agreement [that if the agreement was violated we would aid Vietnam]… We’re in that agreement, we pledged something, and the Congress is now saying that the United States reserves the right to just break its word. What other ally is ever going to trust us?
Source: YouTube: Ronald Reagan Sits Down with Johnny | Carson Tonight Show (March 13, 1975)
Wandering without aim describes the United States foreign policy. Angola is a case in point. We gave just enough support to one side to encourage it to fight and die, but too little to give them a chance of winning… We’re disliked by the winner, distrusted by the loser, and viewed by the world as weak and unsure… …
Ask the people of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary all the others: East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania ask them what It’s like to live in a world where the Soviet Union is Number One… Now we learn that another high official of the State Department… has expressed the belief that, in effect, the captive nations should give up any claim of national sovereignty and simply become part of the Soviet Union. He says, their desire to break out of the Soviet straightjacket threatens us with World War III. In other words, slaves should accept their fate.
Source: “To Restore America”, Televised Campaign Address (March 31, 1976)
Video: YouTube
… During a time when the Soviet Union may enjoy nuclear superiority over this country, we must never waiver in our commitment to our allies nor accept any negotiation which is not clearly in the national interest. We must judge carefully. Though we should leave no initiative untried in our pursuit of peace, we must be clear voiced in our resolve to resist any unpeaceful act wherever it may occur. Negotiations with the Soviet Union must never become appeasement.
For the most of the last forty years, we have been preoccupied with the global struggle the competition with the Soviet Union and with our responsibilities to our allies. But too often in recent times we have just drifted along with events, responding as if we thought of ourselves as a nation in decline. To our allies we seem to appear to be a nation unable to make decisions in its own interests, let alone in the common interest. Since the Second World War we have spent large amounts of money and much of our time protecting and defending freedom all over the world. We must continue this, for if we do not accept the responsibilities of leadership, who will? And if no one will, how will we survive?
The 1970s have taught us the foolhardiness of not having a long-range diplomatic strategy of our own. The world has become a place where, in order to survive, our country needs more than just allies it needs real friends. Yet, in recent times we often seem not to have recognized who our friends are. This must change…
Source: Ronald Reagan’s Announcement for Presidential Candidacy (November 13, 1979)
Video: YouTube
… the United States has an obligation to its citizens and to the people of the world never to let those who would destroy freedom dictate the future course of human life on this planet. …
Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breath freely: Jews and Christians enduring persecution behind the Iron Curtain, the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti, the victims of drought and famine in Africa, the freedom fighters of Afghanistan and our own countrymen held in savage captivity. …
Source: Republican National Convention Acceptance Speech, 1980 (July 17, 1980)
Video: YouTube
Clearly, world peace must be our number one priority. It is the first task of statecraft to preserve peace so that brave men need not die in battle. But it must not be peace at any price; it must not be a peace of humiliation and gradual surrender. Nor can it be the kind of peace imposed on Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks just 12 years ago this month. And certainly it isn’t the peace that came to Southeast Asia after the Paris Peace accords were signed.
For too long, we have lived with the Vietnam Syndrome. Much of that syndrome has been created by the North Vietnamese aggressors who now threaten the peaceful people of Thailand. Over and over they told us for nearly 10 years that we were the aggressors bent on imperialistic conquests. They had a plan. It was to win in the field of propaganda here in America what they could not win on the field of battle in Vietnam. As the years dragged on, we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering and go home.
It is time we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause. A small country newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a totalitarian neighbor bent on conquest… …
Is it only Jimmy Carter’s lack of coherent policy that is the source of our difficulty? Is it his vacillation and indecision? Or is there another, more frightening possibility, the possibility that this administration is being very consistent, that it is still guided by that same old doctrine that we have nothing to fear from the Soviets if we just don’t provoke them.
Well, World War II came about without provocation. It came because nations were weak, not strong, in the face of aggression. Those same lessons of the past surely apply today. Firmness based on a strong defense capability is not provocative. But weakness can be provocative simply because it is tempting to a nation whose imperialist ambitions are virtually unlimited.
We find ourselves increasingly in a position of dangerous isolation. Our allies are losing confidence in us, and our adversaries no longer respect us. …
We do not stand alone in the world. We have Allies who are with us, who look to America to provide leadership and to remain strong. But they are confused by the lack of a coherent, principled policy from the Carter Administration. And they must be consulted, not excluded from, matters which directly affect their own interest and security.
When we ignore our friends, when we do not lead, we weaken the unity and strength that binds our alliances. We must now reverse this dangerous trend and restore the confidence and cohesion of the alliance system on which our security ultimately rests.
There is something else. We must remember our heritage, who we are and what we are, and how this nation, this island of freedom, came into being. And we must make it unmistakably plain to all the world that we have no intention of compromising our principles, our beliefs or our freedom. Our reward will be world peace; there is no other way to have it.
Source: Ronald Reagan’s Speech at the VFW Convention (August 18, 1980)
Video: YouTube
Now, I believe, also that this meeting, this mission, this responsibility for preserving the peace, which I believe is a responsibility peculiar to our country, that we cannot shirk our responsibility as the leader of the Free World, because we’re the only one that can do it. And therefore, the burden of maintaining the peace falls on us.
Source: Presidential Debate with Jimmy Carter (October 28, 1980)
Video: YouTube
But let it also be clear that we do not shirk history’s call; that America is not turned inward but outward toward others. Let it be clear that we have not lessened our commitment to peace or to the hope that someday all the people of the world will enjoy lives of decency, lives with a degree of freedom, with a measure of dignity.
Together, tonight, let us say what so many long to hear: that America is still united, still strong, still compassionate, still clinging fast to the dream of peace and freedom, still willing to stand by those who are persecuted or alone.
For those who seek the right to self-determination without interference from foreign powers, tonight let us speak for them, …
For all the countries and people of the world who seek only to live in harmony with each other, tonight let us speak for them. …
To our Canadian neighbors who so recently rescued Americans in Tehran, to the people of Great Britain to whom ties of blood, language and culture bind so closely, to the people of France who midwifed our birth as a nation, to the people of Germany and Japan with whom we bound up the wounds of war, to the people of Ireland and Italy and all the ethnic communities whose national heritages have enriched this nation and become our own, to the people of Israel with whom we enjoy the closest of friendships, to the people of Latin America, Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea to all our allies great and small, we say tonight: at last the sleeping giant stirs and is filled with resolve, resolve that we will win together our struggle for world peace our struggle for the human spirit.
Source: Ronald Reagan’s Election Eve Address “A Vision for America” (November 3, 1980)
Video: YouTube
When radical forces threaten our friends, when economic misfortune creates conditions of instability, when strategically vital parts of the world fall under the shadow of Soviet power, our response can make the difference between peaceful change or disorder and violence. That’s why we’ve laid such stress not only on our own defense but on our vital foreign assistance program. Your recent passage of the Foreign Assistance Act sent a signal to the world that America will not shrink from making the investments necessary for both peace and security. Our foreign policy must be rooted in realism, not naïveté or self-delusion.
A recognition of what the Soviet empire is about is the starting point. Winston Churchill, in negotiating with the Soviets, observed that they respect only strength and resolve in their dealings with other nations. That’s why we’ve moved to reconstruct our national defenses. We intend to keep the peace. We will also keep our freedom.
Source: State of the Union Address, Joint Session of Congress (January 26, 1982)
Video: YouTube
I believe the unity of the West is the foundation for any successful relationship with the East. Without Western unity, we’ll squander our energies in bickering while the Soviets continue as they please. With unity, we have the strength to moderate Soviet behavior. We’ve done so in the past, and we can do so again. …
… We must learn from the lessons of the past. When the West has stood unified and firm, the Soviet Union has taken heed. For 35 years Western Europe has lived free despite the shadow of Soviet military might. Through unity, you’ll remember from your modern history courses, the West secured the withdrawal of occupation forces from Austria and the recognition of its rights in Berlin. …
High on our agenda must be progress toward peace in Afghanistan… to secure a full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and to ensure self-determination for the Afghan people.
Source: Address to Eureka College Graduating Class of 1982, Eureka College, Illinois (May 9, 1982)
Video: YouTube
If history teaches anything it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today the marks of our terrible dilemma — predictions of doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in which the West must, for its own protection, be an unwilling participant. At the same time we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil? …
… On distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And, yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifice for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren’t fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause — for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed … If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn’t have suffered the bloodletting of World War II. …
Some argue that we should encourage democratic change in right-wing dictatorships, but not in Communist regimes. Well, to accept this preposterous notion — as some well-meaning people have — is to invite the argument that once countries achieve a nuclear capability, they should be allowed an undisturbed reign of terror over their own citizens. We reject this course. …
I’ve often wondered about the shyness of some of us in the West about standing for these ideals that have done so much to ease the plight of man and the hardships of our imperfect world… Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable. …
Well, the task I’ve set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best — a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.
Source: Address to Members of the British Parliament (June 8, 1982)
Video: YouTube
Our adversaries would be foolishly mistaken should they gamble that Americans would abandon their Alliance [NATO] responsibilities, no matter how severe the test. …
Some Americans think that Europeans are too little concerned for their own security. Some would unilaterally reduce the number of American troops deployed in Europe. And in Europe itself, we hear the idea that the American presence, rather than contributing to peace, either has no deterrent value or actually increases the risk that our Allies may be attacked.
These arguments ignore both the history and the reality of the transatlantic coalition [NATO]. Let me assure you that the American commitment to Europe remains steady and strong. Europe’s shores are our shores. Europe’s borders are our borders. And we will stand with you in defense of our heritage of liberty and dignity.
Source: Address to the Bundestag, Germany (June 9, 1982)
Video: YouTube
Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness — pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that… they are the focus of evil in the modern world. …
… like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly…
… I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Source: Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, FL (March 8, 1983)
Video: YouTube
… the freedom we enjoy carries with it a tremendous responsibility… Good and decent people must not close their eyes to evil, must not ignore the suffering of the innocent, and must never remain silent and inactive in times of moral crisis.
A generation ago, the American people felt like many others in the Western World — that they could simply ignore the expanding power of a totalitarian ideology. Looking back now, we must admit that the warning signs were there, that the world refused to see…
A few brave voices tried to warn of the danger. Winston Churchill was driven into the political wilderness for speaking the unpleasant truth. There were also those who in their sincere desire for peace were all too ready to give totalitarians every benefit of the doubt and all too quick to label Churchill a warmonger. Well, time has proven that those who gloss over the brutality of tyrants are no friends of peace or freedom. …
Source: Address to the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Capitol Centre, Landover, Maryland (April 4, 1983)
Video: YouTube
… If the United States cannot respond to a threat near our own borders, why should Europeans or Asians believe that we’re seriously concerned about threats to them? If the Soviets can assume that nothing short of an actual attack on the United States will provoke an American response, which ally, which friend will trust us then?
Source: Address on Central America, Joint Session of Congress (April 27, 1983)
Video: YouTube (quoted segment at 27:50)
To every person trapped in tyranny, whether in Ukraine, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, or Vietnam, we send our love and support and tell them they are not alone. Our message must be: Your struggle is our struggle, your dream is our dream, and someday, you, too, will be free. As Pope John Paul told his beloved Poles, we are blessed by divine heritage. We are children of God and we cannot be slaves.
The prophet Isaiah admonished the world, “… Bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives.” Some 25 centuries later, philosophers would declare that “the cause of freedom is the cause of God.”
We Americans understand the truth of these words. We were born a nation under God, sought out by people who trusted in Him to work His will in their daily lives, so America would be a land of fairness, morality, justice, and compassion.
Many governments oppress their people and abuse human rights. We must oppose this injustice…
Source: Remarks at a Ceremony Marking the Annual Observance of Captive Nations Week (July 19, 1983)
Video: YouTube
I’m coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet Union against 269 innocent men, women, and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world. …
But despite the savagery of their crime, the universal reaction against it, and the evidence of their complicity, the Soviets still refuse to tell the truth. They have persistently refused to admit that their pilot fired on the Korean aircraft. Indeed, they’ve not even told their own people that a plane was shot down. …
Make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations.
They deny the deed, but in their conflicting and misleading protestations, the Soviets reveal that, yes, shooting down a plane — even one with hundreds of innocent men, women, children, and babies — is a part of their normal procedure if that plane is in what they claim as their airspace. …
… But we shouldn’t be surprised by such inhuman brutality. Memories come back of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the gassing of villages in Afghanistan. If the massacre and their subsequent conduct is intended to intimidate, they have failed in their purpose. From every corner of the globe the word is defiance in the face of this unspeakable act and defiance of the system which excuses it and tries to cover it up. With our horror and our sorrow, there is a righteous and terrible anger…
Source: Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner, September 5, 1983
Video: YouTube
One of the men in the early days of our nation, John Stuart Mill, said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The ugliest is that man who thinks nothing is worth fighting or dying for and lets men better and braver than himself protect him.” …
Source: Address on the U.S. Casualties in Lebanon and Grenada, Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station (November 4, 1983)
Video: YouTube
We Americans bear a heavy burden. Others must do their part. The people of Korea, the Republic of Korea, are certainly doing their share. Yet, if freedom is to survive, if peace is to be maintained, it will depend on us. Our commitment in Korea exemplifies this heavy responsibility. We’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with the Korean people for 30 years now. It reflects well on the character of our country that we’ve been willing to do this in a land so far away from home. And in the end, it is this strength of character that will make the difference between slavery and freedom — but more important, between peace and war.
Source: Remarks to the American Troops at Camp Liberty Bell (DMZ) (November 13, 1983)
Video: YouTube
We can and must help Central America. It’s in our national interest to do so, and morally, it’s the only right thing to do. But helping means doing enough — enough to protect our security and enough to protect the lives of our neighbors so that they may live in peace and democracy…
…We’ve provided just enough aid to avoid outright disaster, but not enough to resolve the crisis, so El Salvador is being left to slowly bleed to death. …
…If the Soviet Union can aid and abet subversion in our hemisphere, then the United States has a legal right and a moral duty to help resist it. This is not only in our strategic interest; it is morally right. It would be profoundly immoral to let peace-loving friends depending on our help be overwhelmed by brute force if we have any capacity to prevent it. …
There are those in this country who would yield to the temptation to do nothing. They are the new isolationists, very much like the isolationists of the late 1930s who knew what was happening in Europe, but chose not to face the terrible challenge history had given them. They preferred a policy of wishful thinking, that if they only gave up one more country, allowed just one more international transgression, and surely sooner or later the aggressor’s appetite would be satisfied. Well, they didn’t stop the aggressors; they emboldened them. They didn’t prevent war; they assured it. …
As I talk to you tonight, there are young Salvadoran soldiers in the field facing the terrorists and guerrillas in El Salvador with the clips in their rifles the only ammunition they have. The lack of evacuation helicopters for the wounded and the lack of medical supplies if they’re evacuated has resulted in one out of three of the wounded dying. This is no way to support friends, particularly when supporting them is supporting ourselves.
Source: Address to the Nation on Central America (May 9, 1984)
Video: YouTube
… We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent…
Source: Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-day (June 6, 1984)
Video: YouTube
Look at the lesson of history. Many nations today have been conquered by force — not by moral force, not by persuasion, and certainly not by the tides of history. No, they were seized by forces of violence — by tanks and guns in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia; by bombs, chemical poisons, and forced starvation in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Kampuchea; and everywhere by the forces of persecution against innocent people… …
To all those trapped in tyranny, wherever they may be, let us speak with one voice — not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans — saying you are not alone; your dreams are not in vain… …
… to those who believe our policy must always be willful ignorance of ugly truths, must be silence in the face of persecution, and appeasement or surrender to aggression, I say, no, that price is far too steep, and we dare not and will never pay it.
… Today I’m calling on people everywhere who enjoy the blessings of liberty to join with us in helping the freedom fighters in Afghanistan, because they need our support, they want our support, and they deserve our support. The cause of peace is not served by a conquering force of more than a hundred thousand Soviet troops. The cause of peace will only be served when those troops are out and Afghanistan belongs again to the Afghan people.
And today I’m appealing to those who refuse to help the freedom fighters in Nicaragua, refuse to assist their courageous struggle … I urge you to ponder long and hard, to reflect on the fatal consequences of complacency and isolationism, and, above all, to understand that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
Source: Remarks on Signing the Captive Nations Week Proclamation (July 16, 1984)
Video: YouTube
[free Latin American States] valiantly struggle to prevent Communist takeovers fueled massively by the Soviet Union and Cuba. Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies… …
Source: Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address, Republican National Convention, Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas (August 23, 1984)
Video: YouTube
We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that’s not innocent; nor can we be passive when freedom is under siege. Without resources, diplomacy cannot succeed. Our security assistance programs help friendly governments defend themselves and give them confidence to work for peace. And I hope that you in the Congress will understand that, dollar for dollar, security assistance contributes as much to global security as our own defense budget.
We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives — on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua — to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. …
Source: State of the Union Address, (American Revolution II) Joint Session of Congress (February 6, 1985)
Video: YouTube
… We know [the Nazis] were totalitarians who used the state, which they had elevated to the level of a god, to inflict war on peaceful nations and genocide on innocent peoples. We know of the existence of evil in the human heart, and we know that in Nazi Germany that evil was institutionalized, given power and direction by the state and those who did its bidding. We also know that early attempts to placate the totalitarians did not save us from war. They didn’t save us from war; in fact they guaranteed war. There are lessons to be learned in this and never forgotten. …
The leaders and people of postwar Europe had learned the lessons of their history from the failures of their predecessors. They learned that aggression feeds on appeasement and that weakness itself can be provocative… …
Source: Address to European Parliament (“Soviet Military”), Strasbourg, France (May 8, 1985)
Video: YouTube
In advancing freedom, we Americans carry a special burden — a belief in the dignity of man in the sight of the God who gave birth to this country. This is central to our being. A century and a half ago, Thomas Jefferson told the world, “The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs…” Freedom is America’s core. We must never deny it nor forsake it. Should the day come when we Americans remain silent in the face of armed aggression, then the cause of America, the cause of freedom, will have been lost and the great heart of this country will have been broken…
Source: Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit in Geneva, Oval Office (November 14, 1985)
Video: YouTube
To those imprisoned in regimes held captive, to those beaten for daring to fight for freedom and democracy — for their right to worship, to speak, to live, and to prosper in the family of free nations — we say to you tonight: You are not alone, freedom fighters. America will support with moral and material assistance your right not just to fight and die for freedom but to fight and win freedom — to win freedom in Afghanistan, in Angola, in Cambodia, and in Nicaragua. This is a great moral challenge for the entire free world.
Source: State of the Union Address (Welfare Plan) Joint Session of Congress (February 4, 1986)
Video: YouTube
We need to remember where America was 5 years ago. We need to recall the atmosphere of that time: the anxiety that events were out of control, that the West was in decline, that our enemies were on the march. It was not just the Iranian hostage crisis or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan but the fear felt by many of our friends that America could not, or would not, keep her commitments. Pakistan, the country most threatened by the Afghan invasion, ridiculed the first offer of American aid as “peanuts.” Other nations were saying that it was dangerous — deadly dangerous — to be a friend of the United States. …
… The record of Soviet behavior, the long history of Soviet brutality toward those who are weaker, reminds us that the only guarantee of peace and freedom is our military strength and our national will. The peoples of Afghanistan and Poland, of Czechoslovakia and Cuba, and so many other captive countries — they understand this.
Source: Address to the Nation on National Security, Oval Office (February 26, 1986)
Video: YouTube
The question the Congress of the United States will now answer is a simple one: Will we give the Nicaraguan democratic resistance the means to recapture their betrayed revolution, or will we turn our backs and ignore the malignancy in Managua until it spreads and becomes a mortal threat to the entire New World?. …
… now the freedom fighters’ supplies are running short, and they are virtually defenseless against the helicopter gunships Moscow has sent to Managua. Now comes the crucial test for the Congress of the United States. Will they provide the assistance the freedom fighters need to deal with Russian tanks and gunships, or will they abandon the democratic resistance to its Communist enemy? …
Some Members of Congress ask me why not negotiate? That’s a good question, and let me answer it directly. We have sought, and still seek, a negotiated peace and a democratic future in a free Nicaragua. Ten times we have met and tried to reason with the Sandinistas; 10 times we were rebuffed. Last year we endorsed church-mediated negotiations between the regime and the resistance. The Soviets and the Sandinistas responded with a rapid arms buildup of mortars, tanks, artillery, and helicopter gunships. …
Forty years ago Republicans and Democrats joined together behind the Truman doctrine. It must be our policy, Harry Truman declared, to support peoples struggling to preserve their freedom. Under that doctrine, Congress sent aid to Greece just in time to save that country from the closing grip of a Communist tyranny. We saved freedom in Greece then. And with that same bipartisan spirit, we can save freedom in Nicaragua today…
Source: Address to the Nation on the Situation in Nicaragua (March 16, 1986)
Video: YouTube
… Europeans who remember history understand better than most that there is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil…
Source: Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike Against Libya (April 14, 1986)
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Nearly 40 years ago a Democratic President, Harry Truman, went before the Congress to warn of another danger to democracy, a civil war in a faraway country in which many Americans could perceive no national security interest. Some of you can remember the world then. Europe lay devastated. One by one, the nations of Eastern Europe had fallen into Stalin’s grip. The democratic government of Czechoslovakia would soon be overthrown. Turkey was threatened, and in Greece — the home of democracy — Communist guerrillas, backed by the Soviet Union, battled democratic forces to decide the nation’s fate. Most Americans did not perceive this distant danger, so the opinion polls reflected little of the concern that brought Harry Truman to the well of the House that day. But go he did, and it is worth a moment to reflect on what he said. …
… President Truman said, “that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” When Harry Truman spoke, Congress was controlled by the Republican Party. But that Congress put America’s interest first and supported Truman’s request for military aid to Greece and Turkey — just as 4 years ago Congress put America’s interest first by supporting my request for military aid to defend democracy in El Salvador. …
Many brave Nicaraguans have stayed in their country despite mounting repression — defying the security police, defying the Sandinista mobs that attack and deface their homes. Thousands — peasants, Indians, devout Christians, draftees from the Sandinista army — have concluded that they must take up arms again to fight for the freedom they thought they had won in 1979. The young men and women of the democratic resistance fight inside Nicaragua today in grueling mountain and jungle warfare. They confront a soviet-equipped army, trained and led by Cuban officers. They face murderous helicopter gunships without any means of defense. And still they volunteer. And still their numbers grow. Who among us would tell these brave young men and women: “Your dream is dead; your democratic revolution is over; you will never live in the free Nicaragua you fought so hard to build?”. …
And that’s why the measure the House will consider tomorrow … which prohibits military aid for at least another 3 months, and perhaps forever, would be a tragic mistake… The bill, unless amended, would give the Sandinistas and the Soviet Union what they seek most: time — time to crush the democratic resistance; time to consolidate power. And it would send a demoralizing message to the democratic resistance that the United States is too divided and paralyzed to come to their aid in time. …
The question before the House is not only about the freedom of Nicaragua and the security of the United States but who we are as a people. President Kennedy wrote on the day of his death that history had called this generation of Americans to be “watchmen on the walls of world freedom.” A Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, said much the same thing on the way to his inauguration in 1861. Stopping in Philadelphia, Lincoln spoke in Independence Hall, where our Declaration of Independence had been signed. He said far more had been achieved in that hall than just American independence from Britain. Something permanent, something unalterable, had happened. He called it “Hope to the world for all future time.”
Hope to the world for all future time. In some way, every man, woman, and child in our world is tied to those events at Independence Hall, to the universal claim to dignity, to the belief that all human beings are created equal, that all people have a right to be free. We Americans have not forgotten our revolutionary heritage, but sometimes it takes others to remind us of what we ourselves believe… …
… My fellow citizens, Members of the House, let us not take the path of least resistance in Central America again. Let us keep faith with these brave people struggling for their freedom. Give them, give me, your support; and together, let us send this message to the world: that America is still a beacon of hope, still a light unto the nations. A light that casts its glow across the land and our continent and even back across the centuries — keeping faith with a dream of long ago.
Source: Address to the Nation on United States Assistance for the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance (June 24, 1986)
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When we approach our dealings with Communist governments and the governments of other countries where freedom is under assault, we do so knowing that we have a special responsibility. We must not only be mindful to our own interests, but we must also keep faith with those millions of souls who live under oppression… To be true to ourselves, we must remain true to them. So many who live under communism see us as their only hope… …
… wishful thinking is not the way to a better world… Human rights and humanitarian issues cannot be ignored or trivialized. We care about those people, … We share their suffering, and we will not forget them or ignore their plight… …
… Until the Soviets stop trying, through force of arms, to turn Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and other Third World countries into colonies of their empire, we’ll continue to support freedom fighters who are struggling for their independence…
Source: Remarks on Signing the Captive Nations Week Proclamation (July 21, 1986)
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…the goal of American foreign policy is both world peace and world freedom, that as a people we hope and will work for a day when all of God’s children will enjoy the human dignity that their creator intended…
Source: Address to the Nation on the Soviet-United States Summit Meeting (December 10, 1987)
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… Those brave freedom fighters cannot be left unarmed against Communist tyranny. Now, some say that military supplies aren’t necessary, that humanitarian aid is enough. But there’s nothing humanitarian about asking people to go up against Soviet helicopter gunships with nothing more than boots and bandages… …
The freedom fighters are inside Nicaragua today because we made a commitment to them. They have done what Congress asked: They have proven their effectiveness. Can we, as a moral people, a moral nation, withdraw that commitment now and leave them at the mercy of the Sandinista regime or turn them forever into refugees — refugees from the country for which they are making such a heroic sacrifice?
What message will that send to the world, to our allies and friends in freedom? What message will it send to our adversaries — that America is a fair-weather friend, an unreliable ally? Don’t count on us, because we may not be there to back you up when the going gets a little rough.
By fighting to win back their country, the freedom fighters are preventing the permanent consolidation of a Soviet military presence on the American mainland. By fighting for their freedom, they’re helping to protect our national security. We owe them our thanks, not abandonment. …
My friends, I’ve often expressed my belief that the Almighty had a reason for placing this great and good land, the New World, here between two vast oceans. Protected by the seas, we have enjoyed the blessings of peace — free for almost two centuries now from the tragedy of foreign aggression on our mainland. Help us to keep that precious gift secure. Help us to win support for those who struggle for the same freedoms we hold dear. In doing so, we will not just be helping them, we will be helping ourselves, our children, and all the peoples of the world. We’ll be demonstrating that America is still a beacon of hope, still a light unto the nations.
Yes, a great opportunity awaits us, an opportunity to show that hope still burns bright in this land and over our continent, casting a glow across the centuries, still guiding millions to a future of peace and freedom. Thank you, and God bless you.
Source: Address to the Nation on Aid to the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance – February 1988 (February 2, 1988)
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