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The Great Communicator, Vol 1: The Reagan Presidency 1981-1989
Aug 15, 1988 Ronald Reagan Remarks at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. "This office is not mine to give, only you the people can do that. But I love America too much, and care too much about where we will be in the next few years, I care that we give custody of this office to someone who will build on our changes not retreat to the past. Someone who will continue the change all of us fought for, to preserve what we have and not risk losing it all. America needs George Bush and Barbara Bush as First Lady." Applause. "There's still a lot of brush to clear out at the ranch, fences that need repair and horses to ride. But I want you to know that if the fires ever dim, I'll leave my phone number and address behind, just in case you need a foot soldier." Applause. "Just let me know, I'll be there, as long as words don't leave me. And as long as this sweet country strives to be special during its shining moment on earth." "I'm ready to volunteer a little advice now and then, offer a pointer or two on strategy, if asked. I'll help keep the facts straight or just stand back and cheer. But George, just one personal request, go out there and win one for the Gipper." Reagan smiles and the crowd roars with applause. C/As delegates standing and applauding, some holding Bush '88 placards.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
DO NOT USE Glowing, sentimental opening spot with titles.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
DO NOT USE Excerpt from FOR GOD AND COUNTRY (1943), a World War Two film in which RONALD REAGAN the actor portrays a brave chaplain on the front; he refuses a pistol, the rescues a wounded GI but a mortar blast blows them both to bits.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
January 20, 1981 Excerpts from Inauguration Address. Ronald Reagan, "When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength. 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. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have." LS solemn white grave markers in Arlington National Cemetery. "... the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery, with its row upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom. Each one of those markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire. We're told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, ``My Pledge,'' he had written these words: 'America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.'''
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
January 27, 1981 Excerpts from Remarks at the Welcoming Ceremony for the Freed American Hostages. White House Ceremony honoring the freed Iranian hostages: C/As of hostages. Ronald Reagan, "I'm told that Sergeant Lopez here put up a sign in his cell, a sign that normally would have been torn down by those guards. But this one was written in Spanish, and his guards didn't know that ``Viva la roja, blanco, y azul'' means ``Long live the red, white, and blue.'' They may not understand what that means in Iran, but we do, Sergeant Lopez, and you've filled our hearts with pride."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
February 24, 1981 Excerpts from Remarks on Presenting the Medal of Honor to Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez. Ronald Reagan praises those who served in Vietnam, that the veterans were denied "permission to win". "Men and women of the Armed Forces, ladies and gentlemen: Several years ago, we brought home a group of American fighting men who had obeyed their country's call and who had fought as bravely and as well as any Americans in our history. They came home without a victory not because they'd been defeated, but because they'd been denied permission to win. They were greeted by no parades, no bands, no waving of the flag they had so nobly served. There's been no ``thank you'' for their sacrifice. There's been no effort to honor and, thus, give pride to the families of more than 57,000 young men who gave their lives in that faraway war." edit "Bob Hope, who visited our men there as he had in two previous wars, said of them, ``The number of our GI's who devote their free time, energy, and money to aid the Vietnamese would surprise you.'' And then he added, ``But maybe it wouldn't. I guess you know what kind of guys your sons and brothers and the kids next door are.'' Well, yes, we do know. I think we just let it slip our minds for a time."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
November 22, 1982 Excerpts from Address to the Nation. Reagan discusses the Vietnam Memorials in Washington, thanks the vets "from the bottom of my heart". "The week before last was an especially moving one here in Washington. The Vietnam veterans finally came home once and for all to America's heart. They were welcomed with tears, with pride, and with a monument to their great sacrifice. Many of their names, like those of our Republic's greatest citizens, are now engraved in stone in this city that belongs to all of us. On behalf of the Nation, let me again thank the Vietnam veterans from the bottom of my heart for their courageous service to America."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union - Vetrans
February 18, 1983 Excerpt from Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner. Ronald Reagan talks about the Vietnam Memorial. "Last November, on the Mall, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, a new memorial was dedicated - one of dark, low-lying walls inscribed with the names of those who gave their lives in the Vietnam conflict. Soon, there will be added a sculpture of three infantrymen representing different racial and ethnic backgrounds. During the dedication ceremonies, the rolls of the missing and dead were read for 3 days, morning till night, in a candlelight ceremony at the National Cathedral. And those veterans of Vietnam who were never welcomed home with speeches and bands, but who were undefeated in battle and were heroes as surely as any who ever fought in a noble cause, staged their own parade on Constitution Avenue. As America watched them, some in wheelchairs, all of them proud, there was a feeling that as a nation we were coming together, coming together again, and that we had at long last brought the boys home." edit "We've learned that government owes the people an explanation and needs their support for its actions at home and abroad. And we've learned -- and I pray this time for good -- that we must never again send our young men to fight and die in conflicts that our leaders are not prepared to win." [Applause]
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
June 17, 1982 Excerpt from Remarks in New York, New York, Before the United Nations General Assembly Special Session Devoted to Disarmament. Ronald Reagan stresses the importance of deterring conflict worldwide and his commitment to it. "The United States has fought four wars in my lifetime. In each, we struggled to defend freedom and democracy. We were never the aggressors. America's strength and, yes, her military power have been a force for peace, not conquest; for democracy, not despotism; for freedom, not tyranny. Watching, as I have, succeeding generations of American youth bleed their lives onto far-flung battlefields to protect our ideals and secure the rule of law, I have known how important it is to deter conflict. But since coming to the Presidency, the enormity of the responsibility of this office has made my commitment even deeper."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
November 18, 1981 Excerpt from Remarks to Members of the National Press Club on Arms Reduction and Nuclear Weapons. Ronald Reagan talks about the significance of the United States' involvement in WWI and WWII. "Twice in my lifetime, I have seen the peoples of Europe plunged into the tragedy of war. Twice in my lifetime, Europe has suffered destruction and military occupation in wars that statesmen proved powerless to prevent, soldiers unable to contain, and ordinary citizens unable to escape. And twice in my lifetime, young Americans have bled their lives into the soil of those battlefields not to enrich or enlarge our domain, but to restore the peace and independence of our friends and Allies. All of us who lived through those troubled times share a common resolve that they must never come again."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
June 6, 1984 Excerpt from Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-day. Pointe du Hoc, France. Reagan praises the sacrifices made by the Allied soldiers. Patriotism. C/A of veterans sitting and listening to Reagan. "Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest." edt "Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.'' Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
MSs of Allied cemetery in Normady, France, small flags of nationality (America, France, etc.) flying at each headstone; MSs of Ron and NANCY Reagan walking through cemetery, placing flowers; CU grave of Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.; VO of Ron talking about the sacrifices made by the soldiers. "Where do we fight? Where do we find such men and the answer came almost as quickly as I asked the question. Where we always found them in this country. On the farms, the shops, the stores and the offices. They are just the products of the free st society the world has ever known. "
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
September 14, 1986 Excerpt from Address to the Nation on the Campaign Against Drug Abuse. Ronald Reagan sentimentalizes America & the sacrifices made by our armed forces. "The freedom that so many seek in our land has not been preserved without a price. Nancy and I shared that remembrance 2 years ago at the Normandy American Cemetery in France. In the still of that June afternoon, we walked together among the soldiers of freedom, past the hundreds of white markers which are monuments to courage and memorials to sacrifice. Too many of these and other such graves are the final resting places of teenagers who became men in the roar of battle. Look what they gave to us who live. Never would they see another sunlit day glistening off a lake or river back home or miles of corn pushing up against the open sky of our plains. The pristine air of our mountains and the driving energy of our cities are theirs no more. Nor would they ever again be a son to their parents or a father to their own children. They did this for you, for me, for a new generation to carry our democratic experiment proudly forward. Well, that's something I think we're obliged to honor, because what they did for us means that we owe as a simple act of civic stewardship to use our freedom wisely for the common good."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
November 11, 1985 Excerpt from Remarks at the Veterans Day Wreath-Laying Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Ronald Reagan honors who served our country, prosaically of course. Among those seated behind the President is Sen. BOB DOLE. "It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and the one they would have lived."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
January 25, 1984 Excerpt from Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union. Reagan, "And I hope that you're as proud as I am of the young men and women in uniform who have volunteered to man the ramparts in defense of freedom and whose dedication, valor, and skill increases so much our chance of living in a world at peace."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
DO NOT USE Still photo.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
President Ronald Reagan visits the demilitarized zone in South Korea: LSs of Air Force One taxiing on a runway, daytime; MSs of Reagan attending outdoor religious service with US soldiers stationed there; MSs Reagan at mess hall, being served (apple pie, natch), eating with soldiers; MSs Reagan meeting & talking w/ soldiers in quarters. Great material, shot on film. "And I hope that your as proud as I am, of the young men and women in uniform who have volenteered to man the ramparts in defense of freedom. And whose dedication valor and skill increases so much our chance of living, in a world of peace."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
May 22, 1985 Excerpt from Address at the United States Naval Academy Commencement Exercises in Annapolis, Maryland. Ronald Reagan says military service is a noble, colonial tradition. "Well, looking out over your faces in this inspiring and historic setting gives reason for confidence in our nation's future. These last 4 years have been spent preparing you to assume responsibility for the protection of our country and all that we stand for. You're part of a noble tradition. America's independence and freedom, since we were but 13 Colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast, have relied on the bravery, the good sense, and leadership of her officer corps."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
June 4, 1986 Excerpt from Remarks to Marine Corps Basic Training Graduates in Parris Island, South Carolina. Reagan rehashes defense spending glories & praises the state of the military. Senator JESSE HELMS sits to his right, watches on. "The news about our country today is good, and it's getting better. Pride is back. Patriotism is fashionable once again. We've taken our Armed Forces, which had suffered neglect and budget cuts for too many years, and gotten them back in shape - given them a little PT, you might say. We've restored our military to what it ought to be: combat-ready and fighting-fit, the strongest, proudest military for the strongest, proudest nation on Earth. And we've got to keep it that way." edit "Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent in World War II, reflected on the Marine Corps spirit. He wrote that he never did find out what perpetuated it. But he concluded: A marine just plain ``considers himself a better soldier than anybody else.'' Well, Ernie Pyle didn't just admire marines; he died with many of them on a terrible campaign called Okinawa, a campaign of bloodshed and valor for the men of the globe and anchor. You are the inheritors of that tradition. You carry on. You know, sometimes I'd like to take some of those people in Washington who are always trying to cut defense spending and bring them here to Parris Island - or to Fort Jackson, Orlando, or Lackland. And I'd tell them these are the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are putting their lives on the line to keep America free. And if we ever must send our young service people into harm's way, then it is our moral duty to give them absolutely the best equipment and support that America can muster. (applause) And I promise that I - and I'm sure I'm speaking for others here on this platform - will fight as hard as I know how to make sure you get the support that you deserve. And to all of those who say that we must always cut defense first, that America can't afford a strong military, I have just one thing to say: Tell it to the Marines!" (applause)
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
Universal Newsreel, 1947, "Movies Fight Communism": slow motion MS of actors GEORGE MURPHY, RONALD REAGAN and ROBERT MONTGOMERY posing outside of Capitol Building in Washington DC.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
Universal Newsreel, 1951, "Crusade for Freedom": MSs Reagan in office, talking to camera about the services of the Crusade for Freedom; MSs World Freedom Bell ringing; EST shots of Radio Free Europe transmitter, MSs radio engineers, radio announcers, technicians, etc; LS/MS of Gen. LUCIOUS D. CLAY speaking at Crusade rally; map of proposed radio antenna in Eastern Europe & China.
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
January 20, 1981 Excerpt from Inaugural Address: President Ronald Reagan. C/As of Lincoln Statue at Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Building, crowd attending Inauguration. "As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it, now or ever." edit "And as we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world. We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
January 29, 1981 Excerpt from The President's News Conference. Press conference: ABC News reporter SAM DONALDSON, "Mr. President, what do you see as the long-range intentions of the Soviet Union? Do you think, for instance, the Kremlin is bent on world domination that might lead to a continuation of the cold war, or do you think that under other circumstances detente is possible?" Reagan, "Well, so far detente's been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims. I don't have to think of an answer as to what I think their intentions are; they have repeated it. I know of no leader of the Soviet Union since the revolution, and including the present leadership, that has not more than once repeated in the various Communist congresses they hold their determination that their goal must be the promotion of world revolution and a one-world Socialist or Communist state, whichever word you want to use. Now, as long as they do that and as long as they, at the same time, have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that, and that is moral, not immoral, and we operate on a different set of standards, I think when you do business with them, even at a detente, you keep that in mind."
The Great Communicator Vol 2: The Military and the Soviet Union
May 17, 1981 Excerpt from Address at Commencement Exercises at the University of Notre Dame. Ronald Reagan, "The West won't contain communism, it will transcend communism. It won't bother to dismiss or denounce it, it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written."