Here is the video clip of Reagan's address to the British
Parliament. It is split into four parts. Scroll down for
the transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Ronald Reagan's Address to the British
Parliament, delivered
in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster in London,
UK - June 8, 1982.
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 America's
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 democracy's 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. 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.''
[Laughter]
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 Europe's
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.
Poland's 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 Gladstone's day -- in that high noon of
Victorian optimism.
We're 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 democracy's enemies have refined
their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is
in order, because day by day democracy is
proving itself to be a not-at-all-fragile
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 risk 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 one-party nation
even if an opposition party were permitted,
because everyone would join the opposition
party. [Laughter]
America's 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 of our
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 don't have to tell you that in
today's 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's why negotiations on
intermediate-range nuclear forces now underway
in Europe and the START 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'm 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 nation's 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 forties and early
fifties 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
suppressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical
and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast
Asia.
If history teaches anything it teaches
self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is
folly. We see around us today the marks of our
terrible dilemma -- predictions of doomsday,
antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in
which the West must, for its own protection, be
an unwilling participant. At the same time we
see totalitarian forces in the world who seek
subversion and conflict around the globe to
further their barbarous assault on the human
spirit. What, then, is our course? Must
civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms?
Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening
accommodation with totalitarian evil?
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, non-Marxist West, but in the home
of Marxist-Leninism, 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 fifties and is less than half of what
it was then.
The dimensions of this failure are astounding: A
country which employs one-fifth 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
percent of the arable land but account for
nearly one-quarter of Soviet farm output and
nearly one-third of meat products and
vegetables. Over centralized, 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've
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 so-called 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 super state, 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've 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 -- Cuban-backed 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 can't kill us all.'' The real
freedom-fighters of El Salvador turned out to be
the people of that country -- the young, the
old, the in-between.
Strange, but in my own country there's been
little if any news coverage of that war since
the election. Now, perhaps they'll say it's --
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 aren't 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 wouldn't 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
ever-present threat.
But beyond the trouble spots 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 freely elected 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, man's
instinctive desire for freedom and
self-determination surfaces again and again. To
be sure, there are grim reminders of how
brutally the police state attempts to snuff out
this quest for self-rule -- 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 right-wing dictatorships, but not in
Communist regimes. Well, to accept this
preposterous notion -- as some well-meaning
people have -- is to invite the argument that
once countries achieve a nuclear capability,
they should be allowed an undisturbed reign of
terror over their own citizens. We reject this
course.
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
self-determination 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
worker-controlled 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
Marxist-Leninists 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
Germany's 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 self-government 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. We also suggest that panels of our
newsmen periodically appear on each other's
television to discuss major events.
Now, I don't 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 Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of
history as it has left other tyrannies which
stifle the freedom and muzzle the
self-expression of the people. And that's why we
must continue our efforts to strengthen NATO
even as we move forward with our Zero-Option
initiative in the negotiations on
intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a
one-third 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's
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
self-government, 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've often wondered about the shyness of some of
us in the West about standing for these ideals
that have done so much to ease the plight of man
and the hardships of our imperfect world. 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 she'd
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. That's 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 Britain's
adversaries, "What kind of a people do they
think we are?'' Well, Britain's 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've set forth will long outlive
our own generation. But together, we too have
come through the worst. Let us now begin a major
effort to secure the best -- a crusade for
freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude
of the next generation. For the sake of peace
and justice, let us move toward a world in which
all people are at last free to determine their
own destiny.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
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