Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency 20150524

cspanhistory for information on our schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. Up next on American History tv, Regent University looks back at president reagans june 8, 19 82 address to the British Parliament delivered in a royal gallery and the palace of westminster in london. The speech is remembered for reagans declaration that the march of freedom and democracy would leave marxism, leninism on the ashby of history. We will hear the speech after a brief introduction, and then hear a Panel Discussion on reagans role in the soviet threat. This twohour program was part of the reynald Ronald Reagan symposium at Regent University. Thank you, dr. Patterson. In the hot summer of 1982, president reagan delivered a speech that is come to be known as his westminster address. He predicted the downfall of the soviet union at the hands of the democratic one that would leave leninism on the ash heap of sister he on the ash heap of history. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher called it a magnificent speech, but then she was expected to say such a thing. The American Press viewed it as anything but. One Prominent Network figure it really waived the speedway as vintage reagan full of reagan platitudes. Another called it naive. The president had been shot just a year earlier. Media figures thought him rather a lightweight on foreign policy. One of them characterize reagans parliamentary audience as bemused purity you are going to see it in just a moment so you can make up your own mind. American academics however viewed the president as downright dangerous. He was, as they said, strident prude, an ideological warmonger and he was very wrong about the future. The soviet union insisted in the journal of Foreign Affairs is not now, nor will it be in the next decade in the trolls of a throes of a true crisis for it boasts unused and stability. As an academic, i can only hope they had tenure when they wrote that. [laughter] of course, in less than a decade, reagan proved to be very right. By 1989, the soviet empire, he would call it an evil empire the following year, was beginning to spend apart, and the burling berlin wall came tumbling down. The revolution seem to be coming to pass, but had it . We will hear more about that in our second panel before the next 30 minutes or so, i invite you to watch and listen to president reagans westminster address from 1982, generally given to us by the reagan library. President reagan. It is my privilege to welcome to the palace of westminster the president of my mothers country, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, mr. President reagan. [applause] president reagan thank you very much. My lord chancellor, mr. Speaker, the journey of which this visit forms a part is a long one. Already it has taken me to two great cities of the west, rome and paris, and to the economic summit at versailles. And there, once again, our sister democracies have proved that even in a time of severe economic strain, free peoples can Work Together freely and voluntarily to address problems as serious as inflation, unemployment, trade, and Economic Development in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Other milestones lie ahead. Later this week, in germany, we and our nato allies will discuss measures for our joint defense and americas latest initiatives for a more peaceful, secure world through arms reductions. Each stop of this trip is important, but among them all, this moment occupies a special place in my heart and in the hearts of my countrymen a moment of kinship and homecoming in these hallowed halls. Speaking for all americans, i want to say how very much at home we feel in your house. Every american would, because this is, as we have been so eloquently told, one of democracys shrines. Here the rights of free people and the processes of representation have been debated and refined. It has been said that an institution is the lengthening shadow of a man. This institution is the lengthening shadow of all the men and women who have sat here and all those who have voted to send representatives here. This is my second visit to Great Britain as president of the United States. My first opportunity to stand on british soil occurred almost a year and a half ago when your Prime Minister graciously hosted a diplomatic dinner at the British Embassy in washington. Mrs. Thatcher said then that she hoped i was not distressed to find staring down at me from the Grand Staircase a portrait of his royal majesty king george iii. [laughter] she suggested it was best to let bygones be bygones, and in view of our two countries remarkable friendship in succeeding years she added that most englishmen today would agree with Thomas Jefferson that a little rebellion now and then is a very good thing. Well, from here i will go to bonn and then berlin, where there stands a grim symbol of power untamed. The berlin wall, that dreadful gray gash across the city, is in its third decade. It is the fitting signature of the regime that built it. And a few hundred kilometers behind the berlin wall, there is another symbol. In the center of warsaw, there is a sign that notes the distances to two capitals. In one direction it points toward moscow. In the other it points toward brussels, headquarters of western europes tangible unity. The marker says that the distances from warsaw to moscow and warsaw to brussels are equal. The sign makes this point poland is not east or west. Poland is at the center of european civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. Polands struggle to be poland and to secure the basic rights we often take for granted demonstrates why we dare not take those rights for granted. Gladstone, defending the reform bill of 1866, declared, you cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. It was easier to believe in the march of democracy in gladstones day in that high noon of victorian optimism. We are approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracys enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a notatallfragile flower. From stettin on the baltic to varna on the black sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy. But none not one regime has yet been able to riskfree free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root. The strength of the Solidarity Movement in poland demonstrates the truth told in an underground joke in the soviet union. It is that the soviet union would remain a oneparty nation even if an Opposition Party were permitted, because everyone would join the Opposition Party. [laughter] americas time as a player on the stage of World History has been brief. I think understanding this fact has always made you patient with your younger cousins well not always patient. I do recall that on one occasion, Sir Winston Churchill said in exasperation about one most distinguished diplomats he is the only case i know of a bull who carries his china shop with him. [laughter] but witty as sir winston was, he also had that special attribute of great statesmen the gift of vision, the willingness to see the future based on the experience of the past. It is this sense of history, this understanding of the past that i want to talk with you about today, for it is in remembering what we share of the past that our two nations can make common cause for the future. We have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the industrial revolution, which began here in england, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined. There is first the threat of global war. No president , no congress, no Prime Minister, no parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. And i dont have to tell you that in todays world the existence of Nuclear Weapons could mean, if not the extinction of mankind, then surely the end of civilization as we know it. That is why negotiations on Intermediaterange Nuclear forces now underway in europe and the s. T. A. R. T. Talks strategic arms reduction talks which will begin later this month, are not just critical to american or western policy, they are critical to mankind. Our commitment to early success in these negotiations is firm and unshakable, and our purpose is clear reducing the risk of war by reducing the means of waging war on both sides. At the same time there is a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the dangers of government that overreaches political control taking precedence over free Economic Growth, secret police, mindless bureaucracy, all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom. Now, i am aware that among us here and throughout europe there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the Public Sector should play a role in a nations economy and life. But on one point all of us are united our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms, but most particularly totalitarianism and the terrible inhumanities it has caused in our time the great purge, auschwitz and dachau, the gulag, and cambodia. Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the west. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their Nuclear Monopoly in the 1940s and early 1950s for territorial or imperial gain. Had that Nuclear Monopoly been in the hands of the communist world, the map of europe indeed, the world would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded afghanistan or supressed polish solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in afghanistan and southeast asia. If history teaches anything, it teaches selfdelusion 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 . Sir Winston Churchill refused to accept the inevitability of war or even that it was imminent. He said, i do not believe that soviet russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Well, this is precisely our Mission Today to preserve freedom as well as peace. It may not be easy to see, but i believe we live now at a turning point. In an ironic sense, karl marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, nonmarxist west, but in the home of marxistleninism, the soviet union. It is the soviet union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and Human Dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the National Product has been steadily declining since the 1950s and is less than half of what it was then. The dimensions of this failure are astounding a country which employs 1 5 of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the private sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. These private plots occupy a bare 3 of the arable land but account for nearly 1 4 of soviet farm output and nearly 1 3 of Meat Products and vegetables. Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the soviet system pours its best resource into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of Economic Growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the soviet people. What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where Productive Forces are hampered by political ones. The decay of the soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies west germany and east germany, austria and czechoslovakia, malaysia and vietnam it is the democratic countries what are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this of all the millions of refugees we have seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the communist world. Today on the nato line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving. The hard evidence of totalitarian rule has caused in mankind an uprising of the intellect and will. Whether it is the growth of the new schools of economics in america or england or the appearance of the socalled new philosophers in france, there is one unifying thread running through the intellectual work of these groups rejection of the arbitrary power of the state the refusal to subordinate the rights of the individual to the superstate, the realization that collectivism stifles all the best human impulses. Since the exodus from egypt, historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom the stand at thermopylae, the revolt of spartacus, the storming of the bastille, the warsaw uprising in world war ii. More recently we have seen evidence of this same human impulse in one of the developing nations in Central America. For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in el salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave Freedom Fighters battling oppressive Government Forces in behalf of the silent suffering people of that tortured country. And then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the Freedom Fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are cubanbacked guerrillas who want power for themselves and their backers not democracy for the people. They threatened death to any who voted, and destroyed hundreds of buses and trucks to keep the people from getting to the polling places. But on election day, the people of el salvador, an unprecedented 1. 4 million of them, braved ambush and gunfire, and trudged for miles to vote for freedom. They stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for their turn to vote. Members of our congress who went there as observers told me of a women who was wounded by rifle fire on the way to the polls who refused to leave the line to have her wound treated until after she had voted. A grandmother, who had been told by the guerrillas she would be killed when she returned from the polls, and she told the guerrillas, you can kill me you can kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you cant kill us all. The real Freedom Fighters of el salvador turned out to be the people of that country the young, the old, the inbetween. Strange, but in my own country theres been little if any News Coverage of that war since the election. Now, perhaps they will say it is well, because there are newer struggles now. 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 arent fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed and the people must participate in the decisions of government. [applause] the decisions of government under the rule of law. If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation would not have suffered the bloodletting of world war ii. In the middle east now the guns sound once more, this time in lebanon, a country that for too long has had to endure the tragedy of civil war, terrorism, and foreign intervention and occupation. The fighting in lebanon on the part of all parties must stop, and israel should bring its forces home. But this is not enough. We must all work to stamp out the scourge of terrorism that in the middle east makes war an everpresent threat. But beyond the troublespots lies a deeper, more positive pattern. Around the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength. In india a critical test has been passed with the peaceful change of governing political parties. In africa, nigeria is moving into remarkable and unmistakable ways to build and strengthen its democratic institutions. In the caribbean and Central America, 16 of 24 countries have freelyelected governments. And in the United Nations, 8 of the 10 developing nations which have joined that body in the past 5 years are democracies. In the communist world as well mans instinctive desire for freedom and selfdetermination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for selfrule 1953 in east germany, 1956 in hungary, 1968 in czechoslovakia, 1981 in poland. But the struggle continues in poland. And we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the soviet union itself. How we conduct ourselves here in the western democracies will determine whether this trend continues. No, democracy is not a fragile flower. Still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy. Some argue that we should encourage Democratic Change in rightwing dictatorships but not in communist regimes. Well, to accept this preposterous notion as some wellmeaning 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. As for the soviet view, chairman brezhnev repeatedly has stressed that the competition of ideas and systems must continue and that this is entirely consistent with relaxation of tensions and peace. Well, we ask only that these systems begin by living up to their own constitutions, abiding by their own laws, and complying with the International Obligations they have undertaken. We ask only for a process, a direction, a basic code of decency, not for an instant transformation. We cannot ignore the fact that even without our encouragement there has been and will continue to be repeated explosions against repression and dictatorships. The soviet union itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it, if necessary, by force. While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations universal declaration of human rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections. The objective i propose is quite simple to state to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine selfdetermination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to workercontrolled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single Political Party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity . Since 1917, the soviet union has given covert political training and assistance to marxistleninists in many countries. Of course, it also has promoted the use of violence and subversion by these same forces. Over the past several decades, west european and other social democrats, christian democrats and leaders have offered open assistance to fraternal, political, and social institutions to bring about peaceful and democratic progress. Appropriately, for a vigorous new democracy, the federal republic of germanys political foundations have become a major force in this effort. We in america now intend to take additional steps, as many of our allies have already done, toward realizing this same goal. The chairmen and other leaders of the National Republican and Democratic Party organizations are initiating a study with the bipartisan American Political Foundation to determine how the United States can best contribute as a nation to the Global Campaign for democracy now gathering force. They will have the cooperation of congressional leaders of both parties, along with representatives of business, labor, and other major institutions in our society. I look forward to receiving their recommendations and to working with these institutions and the congress in the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world. It is time that we committed ourselves as a nation in both the pubic and private sectors to assisting democratic development. We plan to consult with leaders of other nations as well. There is a proposal before the council of europe to invite parliamentarians from democratic countries to a meeting next year in strasbourg. That prestigious gathering could consider ways to help Democratic Political movements. This november in washington , there will take place an International Meeting on free elections. And next spring there will be a conference of world authorities on constitutionalism and selfgoverment hosted by the chief justice of the United States. Authorities from a number of developing and developed countries judges, philosophers, and politicians with practical experience have agreed to explore how to turn principle into practice and further the rule of law. At the same time, we invite the soviet union to consider with us how the competition of ideas and values which it is committed to support can be conducted on a peaceful and reciprocal basis. For example, i am prepared to offer president brezhnev an opportunity to speak to the American People on our television if he will allow me the same opportunity with the soviet people. [applause] we also suggest that panels of our newsmen periodically appear on each Others Television to discuss major events. Now, i dont wish to sound overly optimistic, yet the soviet union is not immune from the reality of what is going on in the world. It has happened in the past a small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure, or it chooses a wiser course. It begins to allow its people a voice in their own destiny. Even if this latter process is not realized soon, i believe the renewed strength of the democratic movement, complemented by a Global Campaign for freedom, will strengthen the prospects for arms control and a world at peace. I have discussed on other occasions, including my address on may 9th, the elements of western policies toward the soviet union to safeguard our interests and protect the peace. What i am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term the march of freedom and democracy which will leave marxismleninism on the ashheap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the selfexpression of the people. And that is why we must continue our efforts to strengthen nato even as we move forward with our zerooption initiative in the negotiations on intermediaterange forces and our proposal for a 1 3 reduction in strategic Ballistic Missile warheads. Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that is now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets, but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. The british people know that given strong leadership, time and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil. Here among you is the cradle of selfgovernment, the mother of parliaments. Here is the enduring greatness of the british contribution to mankind, the great civilized ideas individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under god. I have 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. This reluctance to use those vast resources at our command reminds me of the elderly lady whose home was bombed in the blitz. As the rescuers moved about, they found a bottle of brandy shed stored behind the staircase, which was all that was left standing. And since she was barely conscious, one of the workers pulled the cork to give her a taste of it. She came around immediately and said, here now there now put it back. Thats for emergencies. [laughter] well, the emergency is upon us. 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. During the dark days of the second world war, when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about britains adversaries, what kind of a people do they think we are . Well, britains adversaries found out what Extraordinary People the british are. But all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that mistake again. So let us ask ourselves, what kind of people do we think we are . And let us answer, free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well. Sir winston led his people to great victory in war and then lost an election just as the fruits of victory were about to be enjoyed. But he left office honorably and, as it turned out, temporarily, knowing that the liberty of his people was more important than the fate of any single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message of hope for the future, as timely now as when he first uttered it, as Opposition Leader in the commons nearly 27 years ago, when he said, when we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future . We have, he said, come safely through the worst. Well, the task i have set forth will long outlive our own generation. In 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. Thank you. [laughter] [applause] prof. Morrison i heard that applies, and you heard it there didnt you, from the britain the bemused audience. We heard from the first panel of engaging and knowledgeable speakers, and you are about to hear four more. Dr. Henry nau is a professor at George Washington university in d. C. He also taught at williams college, john hopkins in d. C. , stanford and columbia universities, and was a senior staff member on president reagans National Security council. His latest book is conservative internationalism foreign diplomacy under jefferson, polk truman, and reagan. He is focusing on spreading liberty abroad while protecting at home. Dr. William inboden is executive director at the center for history an associate professor at the lbj school of Public Affairs at the university of texas in austin. Previously, he served as senior director for Strategic Planning on the National Security council on the white house, on the department of state and as a staff member of the United States senate and house of representatives. He will be speaking on into the stooges thing he will be speaking on institutionalizing freedom reagans words into actions. Dr. James Graham Wilson is a diplomatic historian and he works on soviet and National Security policy volumes for the Foreign Relations of the United States. He is also affiliated with the history and Public Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars, also in washington and he is the author of triumph of improvisation gorbachevs annotation, reagans engagement, and the end of the cold war. He will be speaking on reagan and his cold war adversaries. Finally, we will be hearing from dr. Kiron skinner. Dr. Skinner is an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon university and the Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution stanford university. Her books include turning points in ending the cold war the strategy of campaigning, reagan a life in letters, and reagan in his own hand. Dr. Skinner will be speaking on Ronald Reagan and human rights. Dr. Henry nau. [applause] prof. Nau delivery much professor morrison. I have a really tough act to follow. Ronald reagan. I should just say he said it all, and just sit down. I am a minute of something Dwight Eisenhower said, a very wise man, he said watch out for the experts who come in to advise you. He says those of the people who use a lot of words and take a long time to tell you more than they know. [laughter] lets see if i can avoid that criticism by Dwight Eisenhower. I want to talk briefly, some of this will be repetitive, about how reagan view the world because he had a very consistent view of the world, a very coherent view that he had been shaking for a very long time. We are now learning from all of the records that are being released that he wrote, and he thought, a lot. He read, by the way, also a lot. Long before he went into politics. George scholz says in the profound when you do a lot of writing, and reagan did an enormous amount of writing 10,000 so far come even Thomas Jefferson wrote a 16,000, and that was the only means of communication in jeffersons day, but when you write a lot it means you can think a lot and reagan did do a lot of thinking. His views were revolutionary, as the panel has said this morning. Unconventional and clash with the conventional views of the time. For reagan, what was most important in International Affairs was in fact the ideas that countries represented and that countries competed with one another. The ideas of how people should live together in a society, and for reagan, america was always this kind of an entity. It was an idea. He said already in 1952, this is in a speech, 1952, in a speech at William Woods college in missouri where churchill gave his famous iron curtain speech. These of the following, america is less a place than an idea. The idea of man, the idea that deep within the heart of each one of us is something so godlike and precious that no individual or group has a right to oppose his or its will upon the people. So for reagan, International Relations is all about ideas that stood in juxtaposition to one another. And those ideas were determined the outcome. Now, conventional views at the time was that you really could not make choices and change the world. You had to accept the world the way it was. You had to accept the world the way it was. Leaders like Richard Nixon would say the soviet union is a chief military power and we must recognize that and probably expect to live in permanent coexistence with the soviet union. We needed to get on with the achievement of common Interest Despite our different philosophies. Others like jimmy carter at the time and maybe prison obama today believed the way that you get ahead or change the world is through negotiation. President obama today believe the way that you get ahead or change the world is through negotiation may be that through negotiation. That is the opposite of how reagan thought of the world. He thought of those worlds being in competition. In the end the struggle over ideas with determine the ultimate outcomes. I want to briefly touch on the four touch points of reagan fell view of the world. The first, i have already suggested. Ideas create and shape realities. Thoughts in terms of moral choices, not in terms of material strengths. And he believed that the source of violence in the world was the character of authoritarian regimes and they were the ones more inclined to use force as they did domestically to maintain power, and therefore would be more likely to use force internationally. He said to congress in 1984 governments which rest on the consent of the governed do not wage war on their neighbors. So, he was very conscious of the fact that the problem of the world it was not misunderstandings in international negotiations. It was the kind of ideas propagated by authoritarian powers. I heard him frequently say if the soviet union treats its own people that way, with arbitrary force, think what they will do with us if they get the chance. This is the source of conflict in the world. And the time that he met with gorbachev for the first time, here is the way he started the conversation. Countries do not mistrust each other because of arms. But rather countries build up their arms because of mistrust between them. I hope in our meetings both of us can get at the source of the suspicions that exist. That was exactly in contrast, by the way, to the way Richard Nixon focused his conversation with mao in 1970 two. Richard nixon said we should not let our philosophical differences get in the way of our common interests. So, reagan was reversing the relationship between ideas and relationships and military competition. Secondly, in this competition of ideas, any competition of ideas there was no moral equivalence. Reagan was simple simply very, very clear about this. He said the soviet union was illegitimate and only free countries were legitimate actors. He said, there is one border that can never be made that is the dividing line between freedom and oppression. And we are not going to roll back that border. He took a stand on the competition between democracy and tierney and tyranny. I urge you to beware of the temptation of pride. To ignore the facts of history, and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding we heard a lot about that this morning. And reagan was very aware of what he was doing. He said, shortly historians will see their that is in the soviet union the focus of evil. But reagan knew if he changed the words to they are later he told us he did this all with malice of forethought. He said this in springville before he went to mask out moscow. He said to the people of springfield, look, we spoke plainly and bluntly. We said that freedom is better than totalitarianism. Experts told us this kind of candor was dangerous, but far to the contrary. This made clear to the soviets the differences that separated us in the soviets were deeper and wider than missile counts and the number of warheads. A third point ideologies drive the balance of power. Reagan believed societies were in a contrast with one another both in terms of which produced better economic outcomes for their citizens, and which produced better security and a better world for their citizens. So he saw ideological competition driving arms competition. He believed that arms competition was necessary. In other words, he believed the only way to bring the soviet union into play was to have an arms race with the soviet union. He said the following the only sure way to avoid war is to surrender without fighting. The other way is based on the believe that our system is stronger and eventually the enemy gives up the race. In a hopeful nation extends its hand and says, there is room and the world for both of us. Think about that. Thats exactly the way he came into office and faced the soviet union. The arms buildup he initiated was crucial and it was crucial to his being able to get across to the soviet union that you are not going to be able to win outside of negotiations. This is an arms race. We will win, you will lose. Lets get serious about the negotiations. And you know what . I think that arms buildup had more to do with gorbachevs determination to negotiate than many people concede, because here is what gorbachev said to the politburo in 1985. We have this from the minutes of that meeting. The last thing we can afford is an arms race with the United States. We will lose. There in my mind is the indisputable proof that reagan got this message across. You cant win now inside outside. Start seriously negotiating inside. The struggle will not be bombs and rockets, but a test of wills and ideas. The idea of freedom would win. Thats the last column of his worldview. He really genuinely believe freedom was universal and that freedom could spread without war. A unique combination from Ronald Reagan. He believed the potential for freedom existed in every country. And because that potential was there, freedom was universal. He said and you heard them a few minutes ago we have to consider here today while time remains is the permanent prevention of war and the permanent establishment of freedom and democracy as readily as possible in all countries. That was an unusual combination. Wanting to spread freedom and wanting to do it without war. I think there were two considerations. First, freedom was not going to be americas style when it emerged in other countries. It would always be unique to their culture, but he believed there were liberal traditions in all of those cultures and they would struggle against to tell terry and totalitarian regimes. As it did not country. Think of how it did that against the british slavery, the jim crow era. There are liberal tendencies and they struggle against authoritarian ones. The battle for freedom is local. It is always local. Another one of his pithy comments that reagan would often say freedom is only one generation away being lost. If it is lost in america, he said, where do we go . You lose it, you run, you, here. You lose it some other place you come here. Where do we go . He was very open to the emergence of freedom on its own terms and other countries. He did believe that freedom necessitated a Civil Society. He announced he would create an National Endowment for democracy, which he did which was one of before institutions that exist today to do what he said in that speech. Mainly to build the political parties, bilby political system of the free press, unions, etc. That make for an independent democratic country. Now he did not see this as cultural imperialism. He thought that was when no other country was able to have democracy. To say that they all possibly could have democracy was probably the right way to go. He said, look, in the struggle america has to be there. We have to be at the side of other countries. He said we have to encourage them to a band of the use of force and then enter into the negotiations to move the needle of freedom forward. Reagan had ideas and democracy at the center. The conventional views had reality and constraints at the center. Today unfortunately too many people are focusing on the constraints. Americas decline, america is relative loss of power. Were trying to negotiate, i think sometimes without any real backup, without military backup. We want a wrong to take negotiations seriously, but meanwhile they are securing the materials outside of the negotiations aiding terrorism getting to a threshold nuclear capability. Reagan would have had none of that. Reagan would have been standing tall facing to the strong revival of americas economy and americas military and he would not negotiate with iran. Fully confident that the strength of free societies would prevail in those countries would eventually compromise and negotiate in ways that advanced the cause of freedom. [applause] so one of president reagan felt most effective tools in his arsenal was humor. And you pick that up from a couple of anecdotes, a couple and it the earlier panel today and that was the theme of our symposium here, to put together a question of freedom. There is a reagan joke that in my mind is very part of his approach. That freedom was available to all societies and all systems. And he was sitting down with brezhnev, reagans main nemesis at the time and was trying to get the points to premiere brezhnev about what it means to live in a free society governed by the rule of law or other than a dictator. So, you said, let me he said, let me tell you what it means to live in the american society. In american citizen can stand right in front of the white house gates and scream at the top of his lungs, president reagan is a bomb and he is free to do that president reagan is a bum and he is free to do that. Brezhnev said, in the soviet union, someone can read in the 10 stand in the middle of red square and yell the same thing. [laughter] think about that for a second. The theme of my remarks today the paradox of president ial power and powerlessness. We often think of the United States the most powerful man in the world. In a lot of ways, he is. At the same time, american president s, when they are behind the desk in the oval office often feel relatively powerless. They feel victim to world events. Sometimes things are spiraling out of control around them. No matter what they do, they cannot change that. Sometimes they feel powerless about this own government, this massive bureaucracy. The president can issue orders and give speeches, but the media and congress will just present them and it makes him feel powerless. President reagan used to joke about this with his own government. He said, my government is a little confused. Sometimes my right hand does not know what my far right hand is doing. But he had a real insight there. So when it would come to a big initiative, to promote freedom around the world and into the cold war, it was hardly a matter of coming up with the right words. How do you translate these words into action . How do you translate them into a program of action . That is what i want to focus on in my remarks today. The subtitle of my remarks talks about institutionalizing freedom. Institutionalizing can be one of those fancy academic words, that as you heard from the westminster address, it means the lengthening shadow of a man. Creating a body of entities that will carry on your values and your ideas after you leave office. For a country, for a system, it means a system of government that is not governed by the whims of a dictator, but the rule of law. So, there are three ways that president reagan worked on institutionalizeing freedom. There was an security staff cabinet staff, the secretary of state shall secretary of state schultz. He implemented an overall were strategy. War strategy. It was integral to his overall strategy to weaken communism. Second, he created expanded promotion within the american system particularly he knew he was going to leave office eventually, but he wanted there to be chosen the american system to Carry Forward his ideas about institutionalized freedom. And he wanted it so other countries knew about the separation of powers, rule of law, constitutional governments. So just to give you a few examples the way that he institutionalize these how to institutionalize freedom into an overall cold war strategy . Usually we think of a superpower standoff between archrivals and negotiations and it was important for the mujahedin in afghanistan, things like that. President reagan also supported dissidents and peaceful Freedom Fighters behind the iron curtain, so they would knew they have the power and the moral authority of the United States on their side. There were a series of secret strategy documents that have been declassified and we can now read these and see what the strategy was. One of the most important strategy documents was nsdd 75. When it was issued early in the presidency they said, this is how american policy is going to be. This is how we will carry it out. The american policy will consist of three elements. Resist soviet imperialism. Weaken the sources of soviet imperialism, and then negotiations to eliminate the reciprocity of outstanding disagreements and then a memo to president reagan from the National Security advisor at the time, bill clark, elaborating on the significance. It says the objective am of american policy was negotiation but our strategy document as a third objective, namely encouraging insight to tell terry and changes antitotalitarian changes. This makes it central to the Reagan Administrations overall policy toward the soviet union. Reagan have long taken interest in political and soviet dissidents. It served in his mind to personalize the brutalities of the cold war and then the in the political and strategic terms, he believed that these prisoners of conscience, political dissidents but trade the fragility of the soviet system. People were risking their very lives to resist the government. That probably tells you its not a very legitimate or entering our strong government. So as an instrument of statecraft, reagan found the diplomatic initiatives could also serve as testament so reagan and his senior advisers giving them freedom to immigrate to israel or to the United States. Whether it was these siberian pentecostals who lived in the basement in moscow for about five years they were holed up there, because if they left it, they would immediately be thrown back into the glove. That was a safe haven for the pentecostals from siberia. And reagan negotiated their release. They had this real intention. They said, im not going to tell you about arms control or negotiations or any of these other issues until you release the siberian seven, because then i know you are a credible negotiating partner. Then i know that i can trust you and we can sit down and do business. Trust, but verify. This would allow those seven siberian pentecostals to leave the u. S. Embassy and seek freedom in the united dates. United states. Promoting freedom and democracy was another thing altogether. That was precisely what president reagan called for in the westminster address, which we reviewed earlier. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not be sold prerogative of a lucky few, but the universal right of all human beings. To foster the infrastructure of democracy, universities, which allows people to choose their own ways, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. So, in the context of the cold war [indiscernible] put increasing internal pressure on the kremlin. But it was not just confined to the communist fear. There were some more right wing authoritarian nations that were not allowing their people much freedom. And in reagan from mind, he also wanted to encourage them to democratize, to open up, to allow freedom. This showed the value of freedom in america to give moral legitimacy, and also ensure longerterm stability of these actions. So, and how to turn this lofty speech from westminster into specific action . This is where the staff picked up the torch. Left by walt raymond, who was a career cia official, they set up project, chrissy, which became the National Endowment for democracy and several other became project democracy, which became the National Endowment for democracy and several other organizations. Then over the next 18 months, they worked through the american bureaucracy, getting funding from congress, getting others on board to set up these new institutions to promote freedom in all places at all times. So, the National Endowment for democracy was created in december of 1983. What did all of these efforts lead to . It did lead, of course, to the creation of different institutions, which continued today, which have celebrated their anniversaries in recent years, even though the cold war ended the oppressive societies and authoritarian governments have continued whether it is china, north korea, cuba laos. Or oppressive societies in the middle east and northern and central asia the need for human rights promotion continues, even though the cold war is over, even though president reagan is no longer in the oval office. But i think the record is pretty clear that the Reagan Administrations support for human rights and democracy contributed to one of the greatest expansions of human freedom in history when the iron curtain fell and the soviet union was no more. But what is also important is the Reagan Administrations support for democratic administrations like south korea, taiwan, the philippines. They all had rightwing authoritarian governments, and yet he helped encourage democratic transitions in those countries as well. There was a real moral strategic consistency there, showing he wanted to encourage our friends to go that their action as much as he wanted to support the freedom aspirations of our enemies. I think reagans record is more consistent than is probably appreciated. And perhaps one of the testaments is the United States still struggles to figure out its leadership around the world. In reagans case, you must remember of course, he helped augur in the expansion of freedom in the soviet bloc, but he also helped usher in expansion of freedom on every continent in the world. This is the inheritance he bequeathed to the world and innocents to our generation to carry it forward. Thank you and in a sense to our generation to carry it forward. Thank you very much. [applause] let me say what a pleasure it is, what an honor to be on the panel. And i should say that there was some reference to getting the material out that illuminates reagans thinking over time. And there is no person more responsible for doing that in the last 20 years then kiron skinner. Everyone owes a deep debt of gratitude to her. I would like to thank professor morrison for inviting me here. I was reluctant at first. But he encouraged me using my private email [laughter] mr. Wilson there is a phrase i have to read here. Some of you who have been in government and some of you on the fifth row are getting used to the views expressed therein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the department or the u. S. Government. Ok, i got that out of way out of the way. There have been mentions of democracy and just to reiterate this is the great followthrough of the westminster speech. In 1983, when reagan goes to inaugurate it he says, we are not trying to create imitations of the american system around the world. There is no simple recipe for Political Development that is right for all people and there is no timetable. Americans should approach the world with but without doubt for the ultimate outcome. It is a freedom tied. That is the real message of our time in it may just be the reason why those who do not like it are so worried. Six years after reagan inaugurated the National Endowment for democracy, the berlin wall came down. Poland czechoslovakia, hungary and the rest brought in democracy. East germany overwhelmingly rejected communist power. Their elected officials oversaw a peaceful conclusion to the communist state. It was a reformation that the tide was a freedom tied. It was a reinvigoration of the truman doctrine that it would be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who were resisting subjugation by armed minorities and would play in Important Role in the end of the cold war. My argument is here, in the spirit of this symposium and the university setting, my argument here is that even more important than reagans rhetorical crusade, his support for anticommunist forces around the world was his persistent rejection of cold war adversaries. If you go to the reagan diaries he finds a distinction between enemies and adversaries. Clearly Muammar Gaddafi was an enemy. Reagan wrote, he is a madman. We got that. So was castro and a few others. I think reagan intended to conceive of enemies beyond this particular bogeyman as in the abstract. That is to say terrorists were faceless. Communism was an ideology. It was not terrorism. It had a set of principles. Reagan, we know, rejected those principles, but i do not think after the 1940s, after mccarthyism, i think reagan thought communism was less an International Conspiracy then a false religion. And as such, it corrupted individuals. Yet this was the lesson of the life of whittaker chambers, whose other barbie was a foundational texts for reagan. On a less dramatic scale, reagan knew from his own experience is swift conversion was possible. He said again and again he did not leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him. I do think that reagan had in his mind his political views did change between the 1940s in the early 1960s. And the early 1960s. As an example, i think it is constructive from 1985 when reagan goes to fit berg germany and the news broke out that he and the german chancellor helmut kohl were scheduled to visit a cemetery. Reagan doubled tripled quadruplesd down. I think if you dig into reagan and his diary at the time, to him, even those germans to perpetrated heinous crimes were also, to a degree, victims of nazism. And the same thing applied to russians in the soviet union. Yes, the soviet union may have been an evil empire. If reagan wanted to see a distinction between russians and soviets, he became very interested, particularly in 1984 onward in hearing he took in hearing this story this information to disaggregate russians and soviets, he took heart in hearing in late 1984 that the soviets are experiencing a wave of religious revivals, particularly on the part of young russians. He famously said, i dont know, mike after Meeting Gorbachev for the first time i honestly think that he believes in a higher power. He was ambivalent and paradoxical. The distinctions between soviet and russian, however meant that he saw them as partly be victims of their own ideology. Those in human monsters, he wrote in his diary. Eventually, however, he came to view them more as adversaries. Reagan wanted to negotiate. He wanted, from the very start to negotiate. In january of 1983, in discussing some of the arms negotiations with the soviets he wrote in his diary, i found i was wishing i could do the negotiating with the soviets. They cannot be any tougher than Frank Freeman and harry cohen. Let me briefly summarize three examples of reagan engaging his cold war adversaries. The first is i think its still a somewhat surprising story of reagan preand postgorbachev. For more than five years, reagan wrote in his memoirs i have made little progress with my efforts. For one thing soviet leaders kept dying on me. When he wrote that, a lot of people thought, thats a great line, but its true. He did pursue diplomacy and soviet leaders did respond by dying on him. The first letter he wrote to brezhnev in april of 81, he described having met him and brezhnev came to visit and reagan said you took my hand in both of yours and assured me you were aware, that you are dedicated in all of your heart and mind to fulfilling our hopes and dreams. It is in the spirit and the spirit of helping the people of both our nations that i have lifted the grain embargo. Perhaps this will contribute to creating the circumstances which will lead to the meaningful, constructive dialogue which will assist us into finding a lasting peace. The following year, around the time of the westminster switch reagan was advised of the possibilities of meeting with brezhnev in new york. He made overtures. Brezhnev declined brezhnevs decline in health made this impossible. In the speech were the president talked about i will agree that brezhnev can speak on american tv if i can speak on russian tv i believe that he was 100 sincere about that. And not just to humiliate brezhnev. But i think he would have followed through on it. After brezhnev. Reagan rites i continue to believe that despite the profound differences between our nations, their opportunities, indeed in necessity for us to Work Together to prevent conflict, to expand our dialogue and to place our relationship on more stable and constructive footing. Though we will be vigorous in protecting our interest, we do not seek to challenge the soviet union and his people. The following year after i drop of adropov andropov departs, he wrote to his successor ive requested at some length on the tragedy and skill of soviet losses in warfare surely those losses, which are beyond discussion, must test it thinking today. I want you to know that neither i nor the American People have anything but the best intentions towards you or the soviet people. This goes on. In march 1985, reagan was still propelled and headset the positions to work to achieve truly incredible things the inf treaty. 90 of the start treaty. No one else is as responsible for shifting the negotiations. The critics have mocked the zero option when he proposed it. He changed him a more than anyone else, the terms from strategic arms to reduction. Now i may not have time to finish all of my points. But critics at home and within nato were adversaries. Of the slave there are those with much more experience than i in terms of having seen the present. I find the record of this idea was critically important in terms of reagans Strategic Thinking around the time of westminster, as someone mentioned earlier. The Nuclear Peace movement was a phenomenon. One Million People gathered in central park on june 12. And this sort of old guard, cold warriors george tenet, bob mcnamara start riding that the u. S. Should consider start righting start writing that the u. S. Should consider this. Nothing could anger reagan more that the author of mutually assured destruction put him in in the position as president of having to think about this every morning and every night when he goes to bed, that they come out, having not been involved with the government for 15 years, and basically say to give it up. If i could just close quickly dashed the end result of that, i think, shaped very much reagans efforts to engage adversaries at home. I think it helps us understand why we get the announcement at westminster when we do in march of 1983. I think it is a way for reagan to take the stalemate out which was the real threat to what he perceived as things that needed to be done. You can all go get the book. Its about the deep relationship between reagan and gorbachev which is more remarkable now that i think we knew then. I think in the end, reagan was sincere in his vision that the u. S. Would build sti, and the two nations would use that and as you said over and over again to prevent madmen from like gaddafi from threatening free nations. Thank you. [applause] professor skinner i would like to begin by thanking the staff and faculty who have worked on this fear he of Ronald Reagan from almost a decade. The determination, the organizational capacities they have demonstrated have made them one of the important reagan theories that exist in universities and in the president ial library world. I would really like to congratulate them [applause] i would also like to continue that i believe its important that theories continue on reagan add regent. Religious faith was at the core of his personal and political life. At the end of his days, some are saying that reagan was agnostic. That he was a relativist. That was not the case. And it is consistent with the way that Ronald Reagan governed. Within moments of having been shot in arriving at the George Washington hospital in washington d. C. , and then learning about what happened to him, one of his first acts was to say a prayer and ask for the forgiveness of John Hank Lee junior, his wouldbe assassin, but because John Hinckley junior, his wouldbe assassin, as he believed so much in the power of prayer. As he recovered a few weeks later from his wounds back at the white house, he asked the deputy chief of staff to set up a meeting with a man of faith, and quickly there came the archbishop of the Catholic Diocese in new york, straight to the white house to meet with the president. They were over talking and overheard reagan saying, what ever happens to me now im going to serve god in my life is in his hands. And then he quickly translated that into a belief that it was his job as the president of the most powerful nation on earth to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons. He has been somewhat of a nuclear abolitionist, and that has been written about before. He translates what it means to have a military buildup. It was part of a strategy for a very different goal and that goal was to promote human rights around the world, to make people free. I do not think it was to install democracy in every country he could, but to increase the capacity of Civil Society and let People Choose the particular form of government they would want. He believed in the power of the american ideal, as noted earlier, but he was, like many, both republicans and democrats in recent decades, at least since the 2000s who have seen it as the responsibility of the United States to make the work over to nation build. Reagan really cared about freedom, and he believed in people. What i want to talk about today is how it may counter way, you can say how reagan, Ronald Reagan, was a human rights activist. That would be intellectual heresy for many of my colleagues in the academic world. Many who did not like reagan, but i think when you look at his record it was not that he was just trying to build up a military, trying to and the cold war. I think he wanted to increase the free people to unleash freedom around the world and let people, given his belief in liberty and independence, figure it out for themselves. That to me is the essence of reagan, and that is why is having been shot was the defining moment of his presidency because it clarified in his mind what his purpose was and it was to use military strength to achieve the goal of freedom in the world. And also human rights. Reagans First Successful negotiation with the soviets had nothing to do with arms control nothing to do with bombs and bullets and trade and commerce, but it had to do with allowing seven pentecostals who have lived in the u. S. Embassy in moscow for five years to exit safely to the west and reagan never talks about it. We learned about it many, many years later, that the human rights issue that was his first major victory was the soviet union. Let me talk a little bit more about why i think human rights are so important to reagan. It was important to him because people were important to reagan. Reagan believed the people were the sovereign. That sovereign is still in here and in the people and if people could be half the power they were naturally given by god that they would undo totalitarianism without war. In addition to eliminating Nuclear Weapons, reagan desperately wanted to eliminate war. He focused on poverty. I think that is something that mystified his critics. He was talking a language they kind of agreed with. He shared the goals of the movement to eliminate Nuclear Weapons. His strategy was very different through a military buildup. Calling the soviet union the evil empire. Similarly on the right, human rights activists and there was a new person in town, kind of a new sheriff in town. Elliott abrams, the Human Rights Bureau got infused in all of the other regional bureaus. For reagan, it was trying to understand who the sovereign was , and he was clear it was the people and if it was the people, he had a special responsibility to help protect people and make freedom important. So, a big part of this reagan story that is not known beyond what he did on the military side, what he did in terms of Economic Growth was that he poured resources, millions and millions of dollars and a lot of his own personal time into the military dimensions of american power. Radio few radio free europe. Speech is like the westminster speech where he was listened to in real time in the soviet bloc with an intensity they had not been before including his famous evil empire speech. It was our government, our leaders, it goes against nature. The purpose of government and the purpose of mans life in the world. He was a president trying to reach people and a populist manner locally. In a manner that no cold war president had tried. And it resonated. The evil empire for the soviet union. Always about the government. He was always trying to lift people up to topple the run government with the United States backing him up with the rhetoric and the policies of military and nonmilitary, making it clear they would not be left alone. I think when he had the kind of hostile victory, people said he would have many more and in fact, he did. Soviet dissidents, known as refuse to refuteniks many of the causes he helped resolve, and by resolved, an important part of the soviet jury and still is in israel, much of that reagan had worked on in the 1970s before he became president. And that is where i believe he got the sense that he would focus on human rights as a core objective. He wrote about the soviet pentecostals in his daily radio essays in the 1970s. He gave radio prompts. Before theres was talk radio. I believe that reagan was the first call radio person. No one could talk back to him. But he gave radio scripts for about four years after he was governor of california and before he launched his 1980 president ial campaign. Many of them were about human rights issues. He was working on their behalf as an activist speaking to about 20 Million People a week. That was a huge number in the late 19 centuries. In the late 1970s. He was probably talking to more americans than any politician. Remember, we did not have the internet or we were just beginning cable news as he was winding this up. So reagan was using the radio essay as a way to have a conversation with the american public. People would write to him. He would tell their stories through the radio program. So, when you listen to speeches like westminster deeply influenced, in reagans own hand and in his own riding writing, he is telling a story. Often about a particular individual. He used radio scripts to contribute as a human rights activist. And even policies like the Strategic Defense Initiative that drew criticism, it was done for human rights purpose. He rejected the notion, the traditional classical thinking of the cold war, that the only way to Nuclear Stability was to have people on both sides, the soviet union and the u. S. Held as hostages to a Nuclear Conflict thereby rejecting the possibility that either leader would pull the trigger knowing the with the retaliatory policy that his side, too would be destroyed. It did not make any sense, but it was also immoral because it does not let the people decide. So it was about getting to a policy of human rights that would make Nuclear Weapons irrelevant. Develop a shield that could keep them from entering our country. So, it was done for a nonmilitary reason really about protecting people, but while a governor in california, Ronald Reagan authored a paper. A typescript exists, but we do not know if he wrote it himself. He begins to wonder aloud about mutually assured destruction which robert mcnamara, the secretary of defense, had put forth as the doctrine that would carry us through, and in fact has until now. A government has a responsibility, first and foremost, to protect the people in his or her state. Earlier, before he became president hughes thinking and Human Dimensions about his political responsibility. I think there is a part of reagans story that has not and told and his understanding of military aspects from a human rights aspect, and how his own religious faith helped him build this unique equation i do not think until we can understand that we can understand Ronald Reagan. The day before he was shot, he attended i believe it was the local up the bowl or presbyterian church. And after the service, the local episcopal or presbyterian church. And after the service, he met and he was shot surely thereafter and he began to think about usually assured destruction mutually assured destruction. The beginning of his presidency day 69, reagan was thinking about how of to get out of the military equation that hurts peoples lives. I do want to say this. There was so much at home that there were continual issues around race and rights. No one can say reagan was a race president , one that expanded the conversation around race in the United States. I actually think thats not quite right. I think reagan was a man of his time and he did talk at some pivotal speeches after he lost to gerald ford in 1976 about making the Republican Party the party of lincoln. It was in january of 77 at the Mayflower Hotel where he talked about making the Republican Party the party for blacks and hispanics and robbing it. I dont think the Republican Party was there and i dont think the advisors around reagan were there. I do think he set the stage powerfully in his rhetoric if not some of his policies to make the United States domestically look like what he was fighting for domestically. When we look at the reagan doctrine, his policies in Central America and the irancontra scandal that almost toppled him, these were his attempt to make the United States a more noble place. Iran contra was a violation of laws and understandings the u. S. Had with other countries after claiming neutrality in the iraniraq war, but but who would have done better since reagan . He was trying to get americans being held hostage in lebanon free. When you are a great power and you are a democracy and your adversary is a transnational actor and is a black box and Holding People hostage in such an unfair fight he violated the spirit of understanding and tried to get iran to pressure hezbollah so that it would facilitate the release of americans being held hostage in lebanon. But now we have an Obama Administration that has negotiated with the haqqani network. It is just very difficult. Its very hard for the United States to find a way reagan was perhaps after jimmy carter the president who faced it most immediately carter with the hostage crisis and reagan with the lebanon high stitch hostage crisis. But i dont suggest reagan was attempted to be moral and human rights oriented. He just stumbled the way every president has. Ive gone over time and i thank you very much. [applause] i told you to expect four engaging and informative talks and i think you will agree with me that our panel delivered. [applause] i hope that like me, you learned a great deal. One thing in particular i learned is that james Graham Wilson has a sense of humor. [laughter] i thought when he was sending me emails signed comrade wilson, that he just spent too much time in the archive, it was a joke. We will have a questionandanswer session of roughly 20 minutes thanks to all seven of our panelists for keeping to their allotted time. We are just ahead of schedule, so we will make good on our promise to get you out of here. We have called through the audience questions and the first is from jeff palmer from sarasota florida. He asks and this is for any or all of the panelists, what lessons can we draw from reagan cost strategy against the soviets . How can they apply to a grand strategy to deal with islam and russian expansion is . Russian expansion . One of the reagan approaches to policy that has not been fully absorbed is the way in which he integrated the use of military strength and diplomacy. We often separate those two. For example, we approach problems by wanting to focus on diplomacy as we are doing arguably with the case of iran. They will eventually make some progress and dont maneuver with any military force before that . Before negotiations are ended or nailed, then you can use ella terry force that if you try to him lawyer while its going on, thats not any good. Youre just going to antagonize your adversary. He thought you could do both simultaneously. He thought you could negotiate and was ready to do it. He told george saltz george schultz, dont be too eager to negotiate. There is other evidence that suggests he knew he wasnt going to get anywhere until he revived the american economy. Then he thought i will be in a position of strength. Then they will be willing to negotiate and that is what happened in 1984. He did try to negotiate with soviet leaders that they were clever. Once that was clear, then the negotiations roque out. The willingness to take some risks reagan took risks sometimes i listen to the conversation about the reagan era and i wonder what it was i lived through i lived when reagan was accused of being ready to start a Third Nuclear war. People thought he was off the reservation but they were for the purpose of making the negotiation succeed. The engagement was forever without that kind of military strength but they are not going to get their goals outside the organization. We are not absorbing it right now in the case of iran. Iran is changing most of its negotiations, increasing their support for terrorism increasingly in yemen and lebanon and gaza. Their man in syria is stronger now than he was a couple of years ago. They were moving toward the threshold nuclear capability. Why would they be eager to negotiate . Strength has a lot to do with it. Many of us are too fearful of that and we dont see how you combine as reagan did strength and negotiation. I agree with everything he said and want to elaborate on that. The importance of a edible threat enabling diplomacy too often, a current of ministration likes to think there is either force or diplomacy but in fact they need to be integrated and sometimes a credible threat of force is needed so you dont have to use force. Two responses to that question one is using all elements of National Power sometimes the Reagan Administration was so adept at using the power of ideas and broadcasting psychological warfare economic power, economic strength as well as building a strong economy. The war of ideas against militant islam, we are not engaged on that. Were working on how to kill or capture terrorists and we need to be aggressive on that. How do we win the battle of ideas and counter radicalization to make sure young muslims dont want to turn into the next generation of terrorists . How do we have greater Economic Engagement with Eastern Europe using our resources here . We need to do it so they cannot be blackmailed by the russians. It would be good for the american industry and good for supporting the freedom of the world. Using all elements of National Power. Too often, debates these days are about do we send more boots on the ground, more american Ground Troops or do we sit back and do nothing . That is a false dichotomy. Reagan was quite he was pretty reluctant about sending troops into combat. They were good at arming and supporting our friends, whether was the afghan rebels or the contras. They are willing to fight, they just want american tools and weapons. Why arent we doing that for ukraine . Why didnt we support the moderate Syrian Rebels before the terrorists took over . Arming, equipping and training our friends they are the ones willing to do the fighting, they just want hours or. I should clarify my brief at the department ended in 1992. Its comforting because the cold war and the same way every time and i defer to my colleagues. I would say in response that one should think about in the Reagan Administration and looking back and outside the experiences, the relationship between conceptions of strength and when to negotiate. Yes, id agree the deployment in 83 was important and did instill a perception of strength. Back to the westminster speech in the u. K. And throughout western europe on the upswing , the atlantic crisis, but one of the purposes of talking about this with more clarity was to show the protest movements who believed reagan was a warmonger that there was not an equivalent between the United States. So yes, once the moment goes through, theres a big moment as other problems arise throughout the Reagan Administration landbased mobile missiles, that becomes an issue. At the end the u. S. Was surprised and the b2 number which well see in commercials now, its effectiveness was not at all clear. Theres a perception we have restored some of the strategic imbalances, i think reagan was prepared to negotiate. From 83 onward, they were negotiated negotiating even though they knew there were strategic deficiencies to address and the money for the defense was not a question of putting the gas pedal down. I will say a couple of things. In terms of how to deal with radical Islam Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were faced with challenges that they left the doctrinal method that they lacked the doctrinal methods for once they got power. But it was related to the Building Blocks of the post9 11 world. It was 1983 when u. S. Central command came into existence. That was partly in response to the iranian highest such iranian hostage crisis. Not having a military command devoted to the middle east simply was not possible. Then, a few years later, we got special Operation Command due to the fact the United States was at war with iran in 1987 when iran when iran was hitting ships and we developed two new commands around a handful of middle east countries where iran is the center. I think he would have suffered in his policies for the reasons i spoke about earlier once he would see americans being beheaded, it would have affected him the same way american america is being held hostage. I think his policies might falter because there would be no easy answer and i think he would try to figure this out. I dont think he would take the advice of advisors primarily when dealing with the human dimension which he saw as a core responsibility as president. I agree with what james said. I believe reagan wanted to negotiate with his adversary. The soviet generals secretaries cap dying on him. I think the conditions got better and had an opposite number with him he could work but reagan believed in communication with adversaries and the story of the pentecostal one is before the deployment in 1983. There were earlier examples where he was trying to build some bridges also. The next question is from samantha who is a graduate student in government here at regent. She asks how do we preserve and further democracy of people no longer value the ideals and morals no longer necessary to maintain it . If the political conditions are not present, how does it affect global democratization in the spread of freedom . Want to start at the other end this time . [laughter] that is a hard one but reagan also cared about the ideals and idea of the west, not just of american exceptionalism. Liberty, individual rights coming from natural law. All of these we have seen as what marked off the western zone. Reagan believed in that fundamentally. Not just the destruction of the United States but the western world more broadly. Given the fact that the west was as much an idea as a set of institutions and the ideas were more attractive than the institutions, all of which he mistrusted at various different times. I think he would have been deep we troubled talking about the west, putting the west is often seen as medically incorrect. That would have been for him a Central Educational issue. To educate older people and what it means to be part of western civilization. I think it is important to ask whether we can meet the goals reagan laid out directly because george w. Bush, in his inaugural address the longterm goal of ending tyranny in this world and according to the metrics of the freedom council, the number of democracies in the world declined over those years. Which is not to say we give up on it. Marshaling the strength we do have around the world the u. S. And the last year and a half, private industries have come up with a cure for hepatitis the which affects 200 Million People on the globe. That happened in the United States and we need to focus on big things we can do abroad that could potentially get us into trouble. Great question. Three comments in response. First, we heard freedom is just one generation being lost and one generation away from tyranny. That implies citizenship and custodianship we here in the eye that states hold. A woman asked Esther Franklin what have you created and he said a republic, if you can keep it. Our Founding Fathers may have given us the architecture and institution and ideals, but its up to every generation of americans to preserve it. I know that is part of the calling here at Regent University. The second is remember one of reagans great attributes with his optimism. Not utopian, but an optimist. Western civilization has gone through different times before. Worldwide great depression, not just here at home it was an extinct system that would not work and people would think either communism or fascism were the only answers and there were real questions about could democracy and capitalism even survive . Thanks to great leaders like fdr and churchill, it did. In a more recent decade of decline, our institutions did not need to be working and soviet communism seemed to be advancing across the globe and there was a real sense of despair, the infamous jimmy carter speech. Then we saw in the 80s, dynamism, National Security advances led by president reagan. Weve seen difficult times before but we should not let the travails and straights we are and now discourages too much. We have a responsibility to carry forth the inherited freedom here and share it as much as others abroad are willing. One of my previous government rules, i had the honor of working for Condoleezza Rice and should a great line she would repeat often when people would ask why are you trying to support the expansion of freedom around the world . She said lets remember, democracy is never imposed everywhere. It is tyranny thats imposed. Other people didnt choose to live under a tyrant. Tierney has to be imposed. This is not to say democracy is easy or natural, that there is one particular system of government that has to be exported everywhere else around the world, there can be all sorts of flavors and expressions. But it is not democracy that gets imposed on others, it is tierneys that do. I liked the melody that was raised this morning this is a 1980 moment. What she meant as we are facing this question of our relationship to opposing ideologies in the world as we were with the soviet union. The next the question for the next generation or two is this question of whether or not freedom, some kind of liberalization process is possible in the islamic world and ultimately in the authoritarian powers in russia and china. I think what reagan would have argued is that we can get along with one another. We can manage peace with these countries but we will never achieve any lasting accomplishments or Lasting Development unless there is some narrowing of these ideological differences. For example, and some islamic countries, its not possible to have an Opposition Party because you cant be secularist. You must adhere to the islamic law which is identified with the government and with the state. Individualism and many Asian Society is a somewhat more difficult concept that it is that individuals have the right to question the authority, even their own parents or own families. We believe that in the west. We educate our children to think for themselves and that means they do disagree with their parents and others. We need to be clear eyed about that and as reagan would have done talking about what we believe and the fact we do believe there are elements of this and every other culture that can be extremely modest. He even said in his autobiography that he wonders if Chinese Students didnt go little fast with their demonstrations. He said they had allies and may be those allies would have enabled to carry it a little further if they hadnt tried to push it too soon. Reagan understood this was very longterm and he knew what the object of had to be. He was also aware of the struggle we had in our own country over how many years in order to perfect our union and not perceive. On one hand, you can be patient and on the other hand, you can be clear about what are the essentials of what our what is a democratic society. I cant think of a better way to and our session here. Our time is going is going to a close. I will make some closing comments and dismiss you all. First, i invite you to join me in thanking our panel. [applause] on behalf of the Robertson School of government here, i would like to thank our sponsors and our friends at cspan for their coverage. The audience here in Virginia Beach and our audience online and the audience that will be watching a broadcast on cspan. I would like to thank the community members, some of them came from as far as d. C. And the Northern Tier of North Carolina to be present at this event. Just one order of business following our completion here there will be a networking lunch for students and you are welcome to join that. There will be a uniformed person , a Student Ambassadors that will help you find your way over to that on campus, at the divinity building. And with that, it is my bittersweet task to conclude and an ounce the 10th annual Ronald Reagan symposium is hereby concluded and thank you for your attendance and participation. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] with live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan, here on cspan3, we complement that by showing you the most relevant programs. Then cspan3 is home to American History tv on the weekends. The civil wars 150th anniversary, dissing battlefield and key events. American artifacts, touring museums and Historic Sites to discover what artifacts reveal about americas past and, the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies of our commanderinchief. What top College Professors delving into americas past. Reel america features archival films from the 30s into the 70s. Watch as in hd, like us on