The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Tape 654 Part 1 Edited compilation of speeches by Ronald Reagan made during his Presidency.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Jan 20, 1983 Ronald Reagan Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Reporters on the Second Anniversary of the Inauguration of the President. He opens the third year of his presidency by rehashing his goals. Some of you may know today marks the second anniversary of this administration. Time flies when you re having fun. I remember John Kennedy saying that, when he came into office the thing that surprised him most, was to find that things were just a bad as he been saying they were. My case the biggest surprise was finding out that they were even worse. And it s a real human tragedy that so many of our people today are still suffering for the political mistakes of the past that we ve finely started to correct. Looking back, I guess my greatest satisfaction is the conviction that the country was skidding dangerously in the wrong direction, loosing the respect of friends and foes alike in the world and even worse loosing faith in its own future, has been set on the right course. We begun to undo the damage of the over taxing, over spending, over regulating binge of the 60 s and 70 s has inflected the American way of life and we made America respected in the world again.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Mar 23, 1983 Ronald Reagan Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security. As the Soviets have increased their military power, they have been emboldened to extend that power. They re spreading their military influence in ways that can directly challenge our vital interest and those of our allies. The following aerial photographs, most of them secret until now, illustrate this point in a crucial area very close to home, Central America and the Caribbean Basin. Their not dramatic photographs but I think they ll give you a better understanding what I m talking about. (Photograph - Airfield Under Construction - Point Salines, Grenada) 10,000 Foot Runway, Fuel Storage). On the small island of Grenada, at the southern end of the Caribbean Chain, the Cubans with Soviet financing and backing are in the process in building an airfield with a 10,000 foot runway. Grenada doesn t even have an air force. Whose is it intended for?
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Sept 5, 1983 Ronald Reagan TV address regarding the Korean Airliner Flight 007 shot down by the Soviets. Ronald Reagan denounces the heinous act. I m coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre. The attack by the Soviet Union against 269 innocent men, women and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world. Despite the savagery of their crime, the universal reaction against them, and the evidence of their complicity, the Soviets still refuse to tell the truth. They have persistently refused to admit that their pilot fired on the Korean aircraft. Indeed they have not even told their own people, that a plane was shot down. Let me state as plainly as I can. There was absolutely no justification either legal or moral for what the Soviets did.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Sept 26, 1983, Ronald Reagan Address Before the 38th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York. He calls USSR's bluff in terms of arms reduction; good wide shots of delegates, delegate hall. I call upon the Soviet Union today to reduce the tensions it has heaped on the world in the past few weeks and to show a firm commitment to peace by coming to the bargaining table with a new understanding of its obligations. I urge it to match our flexibility. If the Soviets sit down at the bargaining table seeking genuine arms reductions, there will be arms reductions. The governments of the West and their people will not be diverted by misinformation and threats. The time has come for the Soviet Union to show proof. That it wants arms control in reality not just in rhetoric.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Oct 27, 1983 Ronald Reagan Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada. TV address regarding the terrorist truck bombing of Marine headquarters in Beirut & the invasion of Grenada. This past Sunday at 22 minutes after 6, Beirut time, with dawn just breaking, a truck looking like a lot of other vehicles in the city approached the airport on a busy main road. There was nothing in its appearance to suggest it was any different than the trucks or cars that were normally seen on and around the airport. But this one was different. At the wheel was a young man on a suicide mission. The truck carried some 2,000 lbs. of explosives. But there was no way our Marine guards could know this. Their first warning that something was wrong came when a truck crashed through a series of barriers including a chain link fence and barbed wire entanglements. The guards opened fire but it was too late. The truck smashed through the doors at the headquarters building at which our Marines were sleeping, and instantly exploded. The four story concrete building collapsed in a pile of rubble. More than 200 of the sleeping men were killed in that one hideous and insane attack. Now I know another part of the world is much in our minds a place much closer to our shores, Grenada. Grenada we were told is a friendly island paradise for tourism. Well it wasn t. It was a Soviet, Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine Democracy. We got there just in time.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
May 16, 1984, Ronald Reagan Remarks at the Annual Awards Dinner of the White House News Photographers Association. He is speaking in TV address about the safe return of the American students from Grenada, quantifying the Grenada invasion. Earlier this year one event said it all. It took place at an air base in South Carolina. Shortly after a plane had returned from Grenada carrying the medical students whom been trapped at St. George s Medical School. As one student got off the plane, we all know, he dropped to his knees and kissed the good earth of the United States. And nearby there was a news photographer clicked his camera that caught that moment for all Americans to share.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Mar 23, 1983 Ronald Reagan Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security. Ronald Reagan condones the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), calling the science community to focus their energies upon making this project a reality. What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the treat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack? That we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? I know that this is a formidable technical task one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. Yet current technology has obtained a level of sophistication where it s reasonable to for us to begin this effort. 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.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Mar 29, 1985: Ronald Reagan Remarks at the National Space Club Luncheon. He amusingly quotes author Arthur C. Clarke. Arthur C. Clarke, distinguish author of science and fiction says ideas have often three stages of reaction. First, it s crazy, and don t waste my time. Second, it s possible but it s not worth doing. And finally, I always said it was a good idea.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
June 22, 1983: Ronald Reagan Remarks at the National Conference of the National Federation of Independent Business. He gives a glowing economic report to a meeting of independent businesssmen. It s clear that recovery is strengthening and spreading throughout the economy. Venture capitol investments have reached record levels. New businesses are being formed at near record rates. The stock market has awakened from a decade of disappointment to surge into new high ground. Sunrise industries are springing up like jackrabbits. Production in autos and steel is regaining strength. Housing starts, in May climb to the highest levels in three and a half years. Factories in May ran in their highest rate in fifteen months. More and more workers are being called back. And as Al Jolson would have said, You aint seen nothing yet. But there s an easier way to tell you that our program works. That recovery is here, and the economy is beginning to sparkle. I ve said this a few times before but I ll say it again. Suddenly our critics are no longer calling the program Reaganomics.
The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Jan 16, 1984 Ronald Reagan Address to the Nation and Other Countries on United States-Soviet Relations. I believe that 1984 finds the United States in the strongest position in years to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the Soviet Union. We must and will engage the Soviets in a dialog as serious and constructive as possible. A dialog that will serve to promote peace in the trouble regions of the world. Reduce the level of arms and build a constructive working relationship. As I said before my dreams is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth. Last month the Soviet Defense Minister stated that his country would do everything to avert the threat of war. These are encouraging words but now is the time to move from words, but now is the time to move from words to deeds.