Address
to Members of the British Parliament
Delivered by President Ronald Reagan, 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.''
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.
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.''
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 supressed 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. 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'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 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'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 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 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-goverment 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.''
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.
Thank you.
