America is Bursting with Ronald Reagan’s Speeches

In the past week, famous speeches by Ronald Reagan, in which he called the USSR an “evil empire” and pushed through the Strategic Defense Initiative (later to be coined “Star Wars), have been celebrated in the United States. In the opinion of the admirers of Ronald Reagan, it was these sort of speeches by which the late president won the Cold War for the US. A special correspondent of Kommersant, Mikhail Zygar, has tried to figure out in Washington how American politicians plan to use the experience of Ronald Reagan.

“The Evil Empire 25 Years Later”

The first among the US think tanks to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the famous speeches, was the American Enterprise Institute; which is one of the closest think tanks to the Bush Administration. Among its staff are the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, Lynn Cheney, and the former head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz. A week ago it held a celebratory conference to commemorate the speech made by Ronald Regan on March 8, 1983 at the Evangelical Conference in Orlando. There he made a speech where the phrase “empire of evil” was uttered for the first time. On March 23, 1983 in a speech to Congress, he proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative.

On the anniversary of the “evil empire”, the commemorative speech at the Enterprise Institute was given by Newt Gingrich: a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and one of the most influential conservative thinkers in the US.

“What would have happened if Ronald Regan had decided not to make that historic speech? What if he would have chosen never to call the Soviet Union an evil empire? I’ll tell you: the Soviet Union would have existed to this day, and we would have continued to conduct the Cold War,” Mr. Gingrich assured us.

Mr. Gingrich is known not only as a political persona, but also for his literary works. He has written a couple of novels under the genre of “alternative history”. In one of them, for example, he illustrates what would have happened if the US would have never entered the Second World War. In the novel of the former Speaker, the Soviet Union looses the war and a Cold War between the US and the Third Reich ensues. Honoring Ronald Regan, Newt Gingrich chose to use his favorite method and explained how history would have passed without the historic speeches of the 40th president of the United States.

In the view held by Mr. Gingrich, and this view is upheld by many American conservatives, the Cold War was a battle between two opposing ideologies. That is why, they believe, that it would be impossible to speak about a renewal of a Cold War, because neither Russia nor China have an ideology that can be spread successfully throughout the world. And Ronald Regan, speaking at the Evangelical Conference in Orlando, struck the crushing blow against the Soviet ideology.

“At times it is very important to call things by their proper name. One should say, what is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong,” said Mr. Gingrich. “But only Ronald Regan could do this. He understood that to defeat the USSR, we should not be making deals with them; that it isn’t necessary to make any concessions.”

In the opinion of Newt Gingrich, today’s empire of evil is Iran. The one ideology that stands counter to the American liberal democracy, and is spreading throughout the world, is Islam. Therefore Iran is seen as the most dangerous of America’s enemies.

In closing his passionate speech, the former speaker came upon the current electoral campaign. He remembers how the empire of evil speech by Ronald Regan was criticized and laughed at by the liberal press and the dissenters in the Democratic Party.

“Now we know that Reagan was right and they were wrong. And today the same people who were so wrong 25 years ago, that proved even then that they know nothing about world politics, are trying to teach us how to live. They assert that the politics of George W. Bush are a mistake and that they are ready to fix his mistakes. That’s laughable!”

Turning to the support of his candidate, the 71 year old John McCain, Mr. Gingrich came back to the method of alternative history.

“Imagine, if in 1980 Ronald Reagan decided that he was too old to run for president. That he can no longer serve his country. What would have happened? The Cold War would have continued to this day.”

“Star Wars Returns”

The anniversary of the Ronald Reagan speech to Congress, in which he proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was celebrated even more. Many in the press published a few stories. Time magazine, for example, released an eleven line piece.

On March 23, 1983 Ronald Reagan spoke to Congress that proposed to cut the defense budget. In the speech he said that the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction of the US and USSR was a part of the past and that the US must find a new system of anti-ballistic missile defense, that would protect American citizens from a Soviet nuclear strike. The president proposed the positioning of the radars and rocket interceptors in outer space. It was therefore dubbed “Star Wars” jokingly (a name of a George Lucas movie that was already popular).

In the opinion of the same Newt Gingrich, it is the Star Wars and the initiatives to lower the price of oil by Ronald Reagan, that diminished the power of the Soviet Union. The USSR was dragged into a new arms race, that it couldn’t carry on due to a lack of petrodollars.

Many American conservatives are certain that Star Wars are possible today. The Defense Department adviser Bob McGuinness, speaking at the commemoration dinner organized by the Heritage Foundation, said that the idea behind the SDI is very modern and the present American administration must follow the path that was outlined by Ronald Reagan. Vice President Dick Cheney was also present and was in complete agreement with Mr. McGuinness. He remembered a recent commercial that was put out by Hillary Clinton’s team. Viewers were asked: “The world can find itself in a crisis, the president of the US may receive a phone call that will relate this information in the middle of the night. Which of the candidates is best suited to pick up the phone at that moment?”

“We hope that the Commander in Chief may never pick up the phone and hear that ballistic missiles are coming upon the US,” stated Dick Cheney.

The logical continuation of the SDI, in the eyes of the Republicans, is the current anti-ballistic missile defense proposal that set up interceptors in Alaska, California and Poland; instead of the outer space, as proposed by Ronald Reagan. In the opinion of the Republican Congressman Trent Franks, the new defense system must be set up because it was proposed by the 40th president of the United States.

Caspar Weinberger Jr., the son of the former Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, proposed setting up the new defense system in an article written for the anniversary of the speech, even if it was strongly opposed by Russia. He remembered how Ronald Reagan proposed to share the SDI technology with the Soviet government, if the USSR would give up its nuclear arsenal. “But this enslaved nation was not in a position to understand what it means to be free. It didn’t trust us then and it doesn’t trust us now. What a shame,” exclaimed Mr. Weinberger Jr.

“Reagan Lives”

In recent times, the respect for Ronald Reagan in the US has risen to new heights. A long line of conservative activists have proposed to immortalize the 40th president by adding his face to the four presidents already present on Mt. Rushmore. Currently the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are depicted. The home page of the Heritage Foundation website asks its visitors: “What would Reagan do?”

The Reagan Factor is rather important in the present presidential election. The Republican John McCain is actually trying to compare himself to Ronald Reagan, calling himself the continuer of his work and “a foot soldier of the Reagan Revolution.” Actually, many active conservative Republicans are vocal in their opposition to him; saying that Senator McCain isn’t of the same mold as Ronald Reagan. He isn’t in the position to radically change the country like the 40th president did. Also, it is remembered that in the 1980s, soon after being elected into the American Congress, he often spoke against the president.

Actually there is an alternative view regarding Ronald Reagan. It looks like that the Democrats are trying to deprive the Republicans of their monopoly on the former president. They assure us that Ronald Reagan wasn’t a “hawk” who yearned for war, but on the contrary- an idealist and romantic, that was able to radically change the country, after putting an end to the blind course of his predecessors. And in that sense, the Reagan of today is not John McCain, but Barack Obama.

These analogies began from the Senator from Illinois himself in one interview where he said that he admires Ronald Reagan “because he was able to change the country, unlike Richard Nixon nor Bill Clinton.” After that interview, more supporters of Barack Obama caught on to that theory and claimed that only their candidate commands the same charisma as Ronald Reagan.

This point of view is even held by the daughter of John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, who actively travels throughout America, speaking for Barack Obama. She says that he reminds her of her father and Ronald Reagan. And like the 1960s and 80s, today’s America is a place that is in need of radical change.

While supporting the principled nature of Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama doesn’t necessarily support his methods. For example, he is skeptical about the reinstatement of the SDI and the continuation of Reagan’s Star Wars. In his opinion, a war with Iran must not take place, and the whole anti-ballistic missile system is useless.

Out of all the candidates in the current presidential election, only Hillary Clinton doesn’t strive to be like Ronald Reagan. Even her campaign team celebrated the anniversary of the speeches by the 40th president in their own way. The former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, being the foreign policy adviser for Hillary Clinton, has released a new book this month called “A Reminder for the New President of the United States.” In it she gives a more skeptical view about Ronald Reagan’s contribution to the end of the Cold War. She compares it to attributing a sunrise to a rooster’s cackle.