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mardigrasbob

President Reagan Health Declining

By mardigrasbob, in Speakers Corner

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bodypilot90    0

bodypilot90
a loss for the US and the world :|

anyone have a link to a sound bite of Reagan's Berlin wall speech?

here's the text

Quote



Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate
West Berlin, Germany
June 12, 1987

This speech was delivered to the people of West Berlin, yet it was also audible on the East side of the Berlin wall.
2,703 words

Thank you very much.

Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the City Hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to Berlin. And today I, myself, make my second visit to your city.

We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it's our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom. But I must confess, we're drawn here by other things as well: by the feeling of history in this city, more than 500 years older than our own nation; by the beauty of the Grunewald and the Tiergarten; most of all, by your courage and determination. Perhaps the composer Paul Lincke understood something about American presidents. You see, like so many presidents before me, I come here today because wherever I go, whatever I do: Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin. [I still have a suitcase in Berlin.]

Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East. To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to you just as surely as to those standing here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow countrymen in the West, in this firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. [There is only one Berlin.]

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.

President von Weizsacker has said, "The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.

In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged from their air-raid shelters to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the people of the United States reached out to help. And in 1947 Secretary of State--as you've been told--George Marshall announced the creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40 years ago this month, he said: "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."

In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign read simply: "The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen the free world." A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium--virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the European Community was founded.

In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.

Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany--busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there's abundance--food, clothing, automobiles--the wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But my friends, there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on--Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.]

In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent-- and I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these burdens. To be sure, we in the West must resist Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses of unassailable strength. Yet we seek peace; so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides.

Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the Western alliance with a grave new threat, hundreds of new and more deadly SS-20 nuclear missiles, capable of striking every capital in Europe. The Western alliance responded by committing itself to a counter-deployment unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution; namely, the elimination of such weapons on both sides. For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in earnestness. As the alliance, in turn, prepared to go forward with its counter-deployment, there were difficult days--days of protests like those during my 1982 visit to this city--and the Soviets later walked away from the table.

But through it all, the alliance held firm. And I invite those who protested then-- I invite those who protest today--to mark this fact: Because we remained strong, the Soviets came back to the table. And because we remained strong, today we have within reach the possibility, not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time, an entire class of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting in Iceland to review the progress of our proposals for eliminating these weapons. At the talks in Geneva, we have also proposed deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons. And the Western allies have likewise made far-reaching proposals to reduce the danger of conventional war and to place a total ban on chemical weapons.

While we pursue these arms reductions, I pledge to you that we will maintain the capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur. And in cooperation with many of our allies, the United States is pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative--research to base deterrence not on the threat of offensive retaliation, but on defenses that truly defend; on systems, in short, that will not target populations, but shield them. By these means we seek to increase the safety of Europe and all the world. But we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty. When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.

In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place--a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications.

In Europe, only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of freedom. Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.

Today thus represents a moment of hope. We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safe, freer world. And surely there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting place of East and West, to make a start. Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States stands for the strict observance and full implementation of all parts of the Four Power Agreement of 1971. Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of this city, to usher in a new era, to seek a still fuller, richer life for the Berlin of the future. Together, let us maintain and develop the ties between the Federal Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin, which is permitted by the 1971 agreement.

And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the city closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with life in one of the great cities of the world.

To open Berlin still further to all Europe, East and West, let us expand the vital air access to this city, finding ways of making commercial air service to Berlin more convenient, more comfortable, and more economical. We look to the day when West Berlin can become one of the chief aviation hubs in all central Europe.

With our French and British partners, the United States is prepared to help bring international meetings to Berlin. It would be only fitting for Berlin to serve as the site of United Nations meetings, or world conferences on human rights and arms control or other issues that call for international cooperation.

There is no better way to establish hope for the future than to enlighten young minds, and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth exchanges, cultural events, and other programs for young Berliners from the East. Our French and British friends, I'm certain, will do the same. And it's my hope that an authority can be found in East Berlin to sponsor visits from young people of the Western sectors.

One final proposal, one close to my heart: Sport represents a source of enjoyment and ennoblement, and you may have noted that the Republic of Korea--South Korea--has offered to permit certain events of the 1988 Olympics to take place in the North. International sports competitions of all kinds could take place in both parts of this city. And what better way to demonstrate to the world the openness of this city than to offer in some future year to hold the Olympic games here in Berlin, East and West? In these four decades, as I have said, you Berliners have built a great city. You've done so in spite of threats--the Soviet attempts to impose the East-mark, the blockade. Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges implicit in the very presence of this wall. What keeps you here? Certainly there's a great deal to be said for your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But I believe there's something deeper, something that involves Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life--not mere sentiment. No one could live long in Berlin without being completely disabused of illusions. Something instead, that has seen the difficulties of life in Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to build this good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence that refuses to release human energies or aspirations. Something that speaks with a powerful voice of affirmation, that says yes to this city, yes to the future, yes to freedom. In a word, I would submit that what keeps you in Berlin is love--love both profound and abiding.

Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere--that sphere that towers over all Berlin--the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

And I would like, before I close, to say one word. I have read, and I have been questioned since I've been here about certain demonstrations against my coming. And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again.

Thank you and God bless you all.



Note: The President spoke at 2:20 p.m. at the Brandenburg Gate. In his opening remarks, he referred to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Prior to his remarks, President Reagan met with West German President Richard von Weizsacker and the Governing Mayor of West Berlin Eberhard Diepgen at Schloss Bellevue, President Weizsacker's official residence in West Berlin. Following the meeting, President Reagan went to the Reichstag, where he viewed the Berlin Wall from the East Balcony.

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Michele    1

Michele
Rest now, Mr. President.

Rest with the secure knowledge that you gave all you had, time and again, for the whole world. Rest knowing that you changed the world, and, in doing so, changed the lives of millions of people. Rest knowing that you lived your life in service, and, as such, you lived the best life anyone could ever aspire to.

Rest now, Mr. President. And thank you.

Ciels-
Michele


~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

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skydyvr    0

skydyvr
Quote

Quote


Hmm. I believe Reagen left office with a budget deficit larger than the combined total of all of his 39 predecessors. Reminds me of someone else...



No class... :(



Yep, a big -zero- in the class department there.

Blue Skies President Reagan.


. . =(_8^(1)

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bodypilot90    0

bodypilot90
here's what you ask for it too is a good read

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/974/robinson.html



HOOVER DIGEST
1997 No. 4
Peter Robinson
TEARING DOWN THAT WALL

In 1987, President Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and addressed a challenge to the general secretary of the Soviet Union: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!" Ten years later, Robinson, who drafted the historic address, tells how the speech came about.
Last summer, a television producer wanted to interview me for a piece on the tenth anniversary of President Reagan's address at the Berlin Wall, a speech I drafted. We met at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, so the crew could film the interview in front of the actual documents. I was looking forward to seeing the papers after a decade: my two drafts and the dozens of revisions and alternative drafts that circulated when the State Department and the National Security Council (NSC) responded with such contempt and vehemence to what I had written. That was the purpose of presidential libraries, after all, to keep intact the history of small but important aspects of the administrations whose papers they house.

No such luck. Two thick files were present, each containing dozens of pages, but they were the files assembled by the researcher who worked with me on the speech. They showed a great deal of what had taken place--I had forgotten that one NSC staffer had so objected to several pages that he had meticulously lined out every word. But my own file--the file with my notes, my first draft, and my comments on each of the subsequent drafts--was missing. "It never got shipped from the White House to the archives," a member of the library staff said.

Ronald Reagan delivering his speech in Berlin. Photograph courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Library.
In the library's small amphitheater, an older couple sat alone among the rows of benches, seeing a short film: President Reagan appears on a blue platform; behind him, through a big plexiglass window, you can see the Berlin Wall. Above him tower the pillars of the Brandenburg Gate. The president fixes his jaw. He speaks with controlled but genuine anger--shortly before delivering the speech he had learned that in East Berlin, on the other side of the Wall, a crowd had assembled to hear him, only to be dispersed by the police. He enunciates his words deliberately, so that the last four words, each a monosyllable, sound like hammer blows: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!"

The work I did on the speech was the most notable of my professional life. It proved a monumental struggle to get to the point at which President Reagan could speak those words that seemed fanciful even at the time I wrote them--words that would come gloriously true two and a half years later (even if it wasn't Mikhail Gorbachev doing the tearing down). The Berlin Wall address is merely one of half a dozen or more Reagan speeches that even now remain important--the Westminster address, the "evil empire" speech, the address at Moscow State University. But historians will have difficulty getting the story of the Berlin Wall address right, and not only because documents have disappeared. Ever since the Wall came down, people in and around the government in those days have sought credit in part or full for the speech. In Europe, recent articles have attributed it to John Kornblum, a career foreign service officer, now ambassador designate to Germany, who actually fought it tooth and nail.

Kornblum didn't write it. And, in some very important ways, I didn't write it either. The key phrase came from a woman I met at a dinner party, and the phrase remained in the speech solely because of Ronald Reagan.

In May 1987, when I was assigned the task of drafting the speech, Queen Elizabeth had already visited Berlin on the occasion of its 750th anniversary, and Gorbachev was due in a matter of days. All I had been told back in Washington was that the president would deliver the speech in front of the Wall and that he would be expected to speak for about thirty minutes. In Berlin for a day and a half with the White House advance team, I needed material, and I had my notebook ready when I met Kornblum, the ranking American diplomat in the city.

Kornblum, a stocky man with thick glasses, appeared impatient. He spoke rapidly. He kept looking up, as though searching the room for a more important member of the advance party with whom to speak. His comments ran roughly as follows:


Berlin is the most left leaning of all West German cities. Be sophisticated. Don't let Reagan bash the Soviets. Don't mention the Wall. Berliners have gotten used to it. Mention American efforts to persuade the East Germans to permit more air routes into West Berlin. Talk about American support for West Berlin's bid to host the Olympics.

Here in Berlin, where the conflict between the communist world and the West was at its most visible, Kornblum was saying, President Reagan should talk only about a grab bag of minor diplomatic initiatives.
That evening I had dinner with a dozen or so West Berliners at the home of Dieter Elz, a retired World Bank official. I was the only American present, and I related what Kornblum had told me. "Is that true? Have you gotten used to the Wall?"

On the very morning Air Force One left for Berlin, there was a last effort to block the speech.


There was a silence. The West Berliners looked at one another, as if deciding who would go first. Then one man spoke. "My sister lives twenty miles in that direction," he said, pointing with an outstretched arm, "but I haven't seen her in more than two decades. Do you think I can get used to that?" Another man spoke. On his way to work, he explained, he passed a guard tower. The same soldier peered down at him through binoculars each morning. "He speaks the same language I speak. He shares the same history. But one of us is an animal, and the other is a zookeeper, and I am never quite certain which is which." Our hostess, Frau Elz, broke in. She was a gracious, pleasant woman, probably in her mid-fifties, but she was angry. She made a fist of one hand and slapped it into the palm of the other. "If this man Gorbachev is serious with his talk of glasnost and perestroika, he can prove it. He can get rid of this Wall."

Back in the office, I adapted Frau Elz's comment about Gorbachev, making it the central passage of the speech. Two weeks later, after two drafts, the speechwriters joined President Reagan in the Oval Office. Tom Griscom, the director of communications, asked the president for his comments on the Berlin speech. The president said simply that he liked it. Griscom nodded to me.

"Mr. President," I said, "I learned in Germany that your speech will be heard by radio throughout East Germany. Depending on weather conditions, it might even be heard as far east as Moscow. Is there anything you want to say to people on the other side of the Berlin Wall?"

"Well, there's that passage about tearing down the Wall," Reagan said. "That Wall has to come down. That's what I'd like to say."

The speech was circulated to the State Department and the NSC three weeks before it was to be delivered. For three weeks, State and the NSC fought the speech. They argued that it was crude. They claimed that it was unduly provocative. They asserted that the passage about the Wall amounted to a cruel gimmick, one that would unfairly raise Berliners' hopes. There were telephone calls, memoranda, and meetings. State and the NSC submitted their own alternative drafts--as best I recall, there were seven--one of them composed by Kornblum. In each, the call for Gorbachev to tear down the Wall was missing.

This presented Tom Griscom with a problem. On the one hand, he had objections to the speech from virtually the entire foreign policy apparatus of the U.S. government. On the other, he had Ronald Reagan. The president liked the speech. Griscom had heard him say so. The president especially liked the passage about tearing down the Berlin Wall, the very part of the speech to which the foreign policy experts were most vehemently opposed. If that passage had to come out, it would be Griscom's job to explain to Reagan why.

The week before the president's departure, the battle reached a pitch. Every time State or the NSC registered a new objection to the speech, Griscom summoned me to his office, where he had me tell him, one more time, why I was convinced State and the NSC were wrong and the speech, as I had written it, was right. (On one of these occasions, Colin Powell, then national security adviser, was waiting in Griscom's office for me. I held my ground as best I could.) Griscom was evidently waiting for an objection that he believed Ronald Reagan himself would find compelling. He never heard it. When the president departed for the Venice summit, he took with him the speech I had written.

On the very morning Air Force One left Venice for Berlin, the State Department and the National Security Council made a last effort to block the speech, forwarding yet another alternative draft. Griscom chose not to take it to the forward cabin. Air Force One landed. Hours later, President Reagan delivered his speech.

There is a school of thought that Ronald Reagan managed to look good only because he had clever writers putting words into his mouth. (Perhaps the leading exponent is my former colleague Peggy Noonan, who while a Reagan speechwriter appeared in a magazine article under a caption that said just that: "The woman who puts the words in the president's mouth.") There is a basic problem with this view. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, George Bush, and Bob Dole all had clever writers. Why wasn't one of them the Great Communicator?

Because we, his speechwriters, were not creating Reagan; we were stealing from him. Reagan's policies were straightforward--he had been articulating them for two decades. When the State Department and the National Security Council began attempting to block my draft by submitting alternative drafts, they weakened their own case. Their drafts lacked boldness. They conveyed no sense of conviction. They had not stolen, as I had, from Frau Elz--and from Ronald Reagan. ***

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Gawain    0

Gawain
I am so saddened by this. Nancy is a saint, her suffering a story we'll likely never know. I'm thankful that she will not need to keep this chapter going in her life.

President Reagan is a hero to me. I've missed him since he left office. He restored pride in this country. He crushed self-doubt. He always made me feel like there was something better yet to come, even at high points in this country's history.

May God Bless Ronald Reagan, and his family.
So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

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Duckwater    0

Duckwater
Certainly, President Regan is a man we can be proud of and Nancy was the best first lady since Jackie.

I saw his White House departure speech on CNN just now. He wanted to make it clear that he led by telling you how good things can be, rather than how bad they can get.

He made us eager for the future, not scared of it.

Godspeed, Mr. President.

Mike

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Gawain    0

Gawain
Here are some neat quotes off of Fox News' web site:

Quote

• "I did turn 75 today -- but remember, that's only 24 Celsius."

• "It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"

• "A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist."

• To wife Nancy after John Hinckley, Jr.'s 1981 assassination attempt: "Honey, I forgot to duck."

• During a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale: "I'm not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

• "You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans."

• "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

• In testing the microphone for his weekly radio address, Reagan declared, ''My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today I've just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.''

• "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

• "Mr. President," TV reporter Sam Donaldson yelled out at Reagan after a 1982 press conference, "In talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed the mistakes of the past and you've blamed Congress. Does any of the blame belong to you?" Reagan responded, "Yes, because for many years I was a Democrat."

• "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

• "Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination."

• "Above all we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

• "I hope you're all Republicans," he told doctors who were about to operate on his bullet wounds.

• "Did we forget that government is the people's business, and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of taxes paid?"

• "We do not have a trillion dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough. We have a trillion dollar debt because we spend too much."

• "But with these considerations firmly in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."

• "Abortion is advocated only by persons who themselves have been born."

• "Politics is a very rewarding profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

• "America is too great for small dreams."

• "We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we can always be free."

• "Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom."


So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

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miked10270    0

miked10270
Perhaps now is the time to celebrate his life.

And to give thanks. I lived my youth with the likelihood of the "4 Minute Warning". Backfires flying low over the North Sea. Megatonnage and Megadeath. "Mutually Assured Destruction". The First Guards Division pouring through the Fulda Gap - next stop Biscay and Shannon. The removal of my basic liberties. If I lived.

I hold President Reagan primarily responsible for the removal of those fears. Fears which my children will never experience and possibly never comprehend.

Thank you Mr. President.

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

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slug    1

slug
Quote

Quote


Hmm. I believe Reagen left office with a budget deficit larger than the combined total of all of his 39 predecessors. Reminds me of someone else...



No class... :(



I agree no class:S

I don't have anything good to say about President Reagon so I'll keep my mouth for a change:o

Except IMO::| The reason we ended up with such a large deficit after President Reagon left office was because during his time in office he/his administration accelerated the arms race with the soviet union and they went broke trying to keep up with us.

IMO this ended the cold war,& broke up the Soviet union a lot sooner and saved us some money in the long run.

I don't consider this post to be political or in favor of any political party or choice thereof.

R.I.P.

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kallend    2,103

kallend
Quote

Quote

Quote


Hmm. I believe Reagen left office with a budget deficit larger than the combined total of all of his 39 predecessors. Reminds me of someone else...



No class... :(



Oh so I was incorrect. I think not.



It was worth borrowing in order to win the cold war.

That is the difference between RR and the "someone else".
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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