Remarks at the Annual
Conference of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Thank
you, Commander Earl Stock, and it's good to see here
Ladies Auxiliary President Joan Katkus. I've always
said it's a pleasure and an honor to speak before a meeting of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars. You are the men who, from the
Today
as veterans you're still defending freedom. Whether it's supporting adequate
defense budgets or aid to the freedom fighters in
As
you may know, I returned last Thursday from a 2-day visit to
Let
me say here something that I regard as an obvious truth, but one that seems to
need repeating.
To
you who came home, the Emergency Veterans' Job Training Act I signed at your
convention in
I've
always found that Americans are deeply grateful to our veterans -- even those
Americans who aren't too good at showing it. This is my way of sliding into a
story. While it doesn't concern an American veteran, it's about a great allied
fighting man. It was during World War II, and British Field Marshal
Well,
as I said a moment ago, I've just returned from meeting with the leaders of our
At
the meeting last week, the Atlantic alliance celebrated one of the great achievements
of its history. More than a decade ago, without warning, without provocation,
the Soviet Union challenged the strategic balance in Europe and stationed an
entirely new level of weapon, one for which NATO had no fully effective
deterrent: the intermediate-range SS - 20 nuclear missile. To keep the balance
that keeps the peace, NATO had to meet this challenge, and meet it NATO did. In
1979 it voted to deploy
Shortly
after I came into office, I proposed that our negotiators should work for what
we called the zero option -- remove all
But
NATO stuck to its guns. In the face of heavy political fire, the leaders of
NATO moved forward. Many faced demonstrations at home, and some of those
demonstrations turned to violence. But eventually, after the missiles went in
place, the Soviets returned to the bargaining table, and today we have the
agreement our critics said was impossible: the zero option. Now, I can't think
of any better demonstration of what you and I've been saying for years: that
the road to peace is through American and free world strength.
And
no one should ever forget that you helped
And
by the way, let me just tell you, I wouldn't have signed that or any other
agreement with the Soviets if I didn't believe we could effectively verify it.
The networks have been having fun in the last few months playing clips of my
statement just after I came to office that the Soviets reserved to themselves
the right to lie and cheat for their own ends. They say I've changed. I've got
news for them. [Laughter] If I trusted the Soviets, I wouldn't have insisted on
the strict verification provisions that we have in this treaty -- the toughest
that have ever been adopted. Now, maybe they call that trust. Well, if so, it
must be the kind of trust a sage meant when he said, ``Trust everybody, but cut
the cards.'' [Laughter]
But
something amazing has happened since Mr. Gorbachev and I signed the INF
agreement in
The
truth is just the opposite. This is not the time to drop our guard. It's time
to look forward and ask what we must do to keep the peace not only in
Keeping
The
Soviets have been spending far more money developing strategic defenses than we
have and have been doing it longer. In the last decade, they've poured roughly $200
billion into their programs. In 2 weeks, we mark the fifth anniversary of our
Strategic Defense Initiative, and in that time, we've spent only $13 billion --
less than 7 percent what the Soviets spent in the decade. To give you an idea
of the magnitude of the Soviet efforts, they've assigned 10,000 of their top
scientists and engineers to their military laser program alone. It would be
foolhardy not to pursue SDI, and that's why
Now
that we have the INF treaty, our negotiating priorities are a 50-percent
reduction in strategic arms; a conventional arms balance in
Not
long ago I saw a letter from your commander to Members of Congress. He sent it
following his recent visit to Central America, and I think he summed things up
as well as anyone ever has when he said that, in his words: ``The real issue
before the Congress and the country is not the contras, it is communism in
Central America.''
You
know, recently the Government of El Salvador found documents on the body of a
Communist courier. The papers included a review of the situation in Central
America, and in those papers it said: ``The defeat of the contras would be a
grave strategic defeat for the United States, especially if we take into
account the geopolitical position of Central America.'' Well, the VFW
understands this. The Communists in
During
the first round of debate on aid to the freedom fighters a few weeks ago, one
of the congressional leaders opposing aid said that we shouldn't keep money
flowing to the contras, because for every dollar we gave them, the Soviets
would give the Sandinistas five. Well, he ought to remember something Pericles, the great leader of ancient
You
know, when I listen to the critics and their claims to be what F.D.R. and
Truman would be today, it reminds me of a time I was on the set of a movie that
happened to involve Irving Berlin. As a matter of fact, it was called ``This is the Army.'' I was already in the Army, but some of
us on active duty were sent back temporarily to be in that film, which as you
all know, all the proceeds went to Army emergency relief. Well, Irving Berlin,
who had written that and who had written the first one in World War I, ``Yip Yip Yaphank,'' was on the set. And Irving asked if he
couldn't play one part there, because there was a flashback to World War I, and
Irving wanted to sing his song ``Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.''
[Laughter] Now, he's a great writer of songs, not particularly a great singer
of songs. [Laughter] And as we were filming that scene and he, in his World War
I uniform, was singing, one of the crew leaned over to me and whispered, ``If
the fellow that wrote that song could hear this guy sing it, he'd roll over in
his grave.'' [Laughter]
Courage
hasn't exactly been the watchword of some opponents of contra aid. Harry Truman
said: ``The buck stops here.'' But last week, aid
opponents tried to pass the buck of responsibility for abandoning in the field
the young men and women of the democratic resistance. And that ploy failed, as
it should have. Now it's time for Congress to show that it knows you can't have
real peace negotiations when one side has helicopter gunships
and the other has bandages. Recently, Daniel Ortega has said he's going to
crush the freedom fighters, and he has thrown out the peace mediator, Cardinal Obando y Bravo. You know where Ortega stands. Isn't it time
for Congress to have the courage to show where it stands?
You
better than anyone know that Americans have never lacked for courage. On the
eve of the Second World War, an observer from another country said: ``Most
people think Americans love luxury and that their culture is shallow and
meaningless. It's a mistake. I can tell you that Americans are full of the
spirit of justice, fight, and adventure.'' Those were the words of
In
thousands of foxholes and trenches, cockpits and decks, around the world, the
American spirit of justice and the just fight, our love of freedom and devotion
to the dignity of man have been the hope of millions for liberty and a better
life. You more than anyone else know what courage it has taken. It was courage
like that of Sergeant Howard Collette, whose bomber was hit over the Celebes,
and as it plunged toward the Pacific, he was heard over the radio reading aloud
from his pocket Bible to his wounded comrades, calming them, comforting them,
as he and they fell to their final rest.
On
every continent and ocean in this century, Americans have left such stories.
Courage is our mark, freedom and democracy our gift to mankind. And you, who
know this so well, help us keep it that way forever. Thank you,
and God bless you.
Note: The President
spoke at