community, too. yeah. and the more conservative branch of the faith community is not going the direction. i would like to see. you think so? yeah, i agree. i agree. well, it's been a fascinating hour. let's give joan warm, warm welcome and thank you. thank you.

today we're talking about ronald reagan's speech on june 8th of 1982 in the palace of westminster in the royal gallery. it was quite a dramatic scene. let's watch just a few of it. i ladies and gentlemen, mr. president, reagan reagan. you see the beefeaters behind him, though? the wind. lord. you see the assembled people. doesn't look much like state of

the union in the united states. it is now remembered as of the most important presidential of at least the 20th and 21st century. in the speech seemed to predict that the soviet union would end up, and he is quoting trotsky here on the ash heap of history. he said that the cold war was a battle of ideas and that we were at a turning point, and that the west and democratic ideas would win almost no one believed he was right at the time. but within a decade, the soviet union did, in fact, end up on the ash heap of history. and many of the nations that had former that had formerly been allied with the soviet union in the warsaw pact, nations like poland or what became the czech republic. they became democracies applied

and were admitted to the european union. and as quickly they could, they joined non-nato because they had experienced soviet. and the arms control agreements that reagan mentioned briefly in westminster. they in were negotiated the two most important arms control in the united states and the soviet union. then russia's history, a quarter century. the speech was celebrated at the national endowment for democracy. i know and organized action that was created in part because of the speech because of reagan's predictions had become so true. that's why the speech is considered to be among reagan's most significant speeches. according to one of reagan's closest advisers, edwin meese. the speech was especially important because. it functioned as the kick off for activities in support of

winning the cold war. when reagan was famously asked what his strategy for the cold war, he answered that the only possible strategy was we win, and they. and what he meant by that was that the only possible strategy was that democracy forces would win and actually the long term, he hoped that russia would win as well by becoming a democratic nations. nothing had happened for a brief period of time. one of the most insightful observers of reagan's rhetoric, lou cannon, who wrote for the washington post, concluded that the westminster speech stands the test of time as the most farsighted and encompassing of reagan's anti-communist messages. as to a judgment supported by our recent biographer john patrick diggins, who labeled it as one of the president's two most famous speeches. but now we have the beginning of a puzzle, because the speech was

not well received at the time. margaret thatcher, the prime minister, great britain called it a triumph immediately after the speech. she was virtually alone in making that judgment. the response to the speech in britain was quite negative. steven rattner, writing a new york times cited a conservative columnist for the daily mail, andrew alexander there, who attacked reagan over a simplified view of the world. a former british ambassador to washington, peter jay, labeled the speech as extremely hard line and said he seemed to be declaring nonmilitary on the same on the soviet union. he said if he if he does mean it, it's very frightening. one of the most brutal reaction lines came from nancy banks in the guardian newspaper, who labeled the speech as unmoored and then set about it that it was like lincoln at gettysburg. in only one way, it propelled

lincoln's calm at the world. well, little note nor long remember what we here. a prediction that turned out to be quite wrong. she even criticized reagan's, calling him an average of performer and. editorial in the guardian hit. listen to the incredibly negative language and the the the arrogance of the language. they talked about reagan's homespun. amy ability and said the president, a senior citizen who when crisis breaks, is left to slip up. the editorial concluded that very little can be built on the president world words which reflects his benign blank helplessness. it is revealing that some of the most positive comment in the british press about the speech referenced the president's use of a teleprompter, which they'd seen before. in their view, it was a failed

speech in style and substance, and the only thing that mattered was that reagan used the magic of the teleprompter. the press reaction in the united states was, i think we could say tepid, not quite lukewarm. they wear, many of the commentators argued that reagan's claim that about the precarious condition the soviet empire was wishful thinking. edmund morris, later a biographer of reagan, said it came across as a strain an attempt at grand rhetoric. another dominant reaction in the american press was the speech. it sounded good, but it just wasn't very specific. well, while reagan's defense of democracy example, the new york times said that characteristically failed, to point the way from here to there or to give the russians a plausible of policy choices. jim anderson of upi the speech

had few specific examples of the kind of project that reagan had in mind. the new york times and the same editorial i referenced a moment ago, reference reagan claim that democracy is not a fragile flower and the times concluded sarcastically about that flower power. it can work. but where's his spade? others thought that the speech just reflect american soviet policy, that the administration seemed, in the words of one commentator, have no soviet policy. peter schweitzer, who later wrote about the star wars program, noted that reagan was ridiculed scholars who believed he was fooling himself about the weaknesses of communism. now we have a couple of. this is a speech that is remembered as one of the most important presidential foreign policy speeches of the 20th and 21st century in, the same

category as fdr fought for freedom speech at the time, people thought it was largely ineffective and a failure. what makes it resonate so much better in the long and how did reagan see what others did not? the fundamental weaknesses in the soviet union? those are the puzzles that we have to confront to begin to answer those puzzles we think need to start by thinking about the audiences to whom reagan was speaking. and we've seen a little bit of the audience there in the royal gallery. so he certainly is speaking to parliament, other assembled people in great britain, but more broadly, reagan was speaking to the united states, to our allies in western europe and our allies, asia, you know, australia new zealand, taiwan,

on japan, south korea. and he is asking them to continue to his soviet policy. he's on a trip to, europe, where he's trying to build support. and his conclusion is that optimism is an order because day by day, democracy is proving itself to be a not at all fragile, all pile up, a fragile flower. his goal was to preserve freedom as as well as peace, and he predicted it may not be easy to see, but i believe we live now at a turning point, a conclusion that almost everyone thought was wrong, but that was totally right. but reagan also spoke to another audience. reagan was speaking indirectly to the soviets because he knew that they were listening. one message he had for the soviets is he's telling them that he recognizes and they in

their hearts know that the soviet system simply work. he says, we are witnessing today at great crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic are conflicting directly with those of the political order. and he concluded, it is soviet union that runs against the tide of history almost no one thought that was true then, but we now know that it was entirely from the analysis of soviet economic data after end of the soviet union. but he had a second message and he was sending this message with the arms build. he had believed the united states had fallen behind and he was using an arms buildup not to prepare for war, but to prepare for peace. the arms buildup was primed merely rhetorical, in a sense, that he was sending a message. reagan said in the speech, our

military strength is a prerequisite to peace. but let it be clear we maintain the strength and the hope never will be used. he supported an arms buildup that ultimately led to the two most important arms reduction treaties ever negotiated. the intermediate nuclear forces agreement and the start agreement. unfortunately, only the start agreement remains in effect because putin pulled russia out of the imf agreement. one reason that we can understand why reagan message didn't work very well in the short term is to focus on the credit war barriers that he faced in getting this message across. so i want to talk about attitudes in europe and to a lesser extent, japan and south korea, in asia, now, allies of the united states, the united and then the barriers and faced in sending the message to the soviet union, the first message

was the first barrier was fear of nuclear war. over the course of the spring of 1982, it very clear that there was major opposition to reagan's arms build up in western europe. writing in businessweek, saul sanders noted authorities in germany are worried about, i'm quoting, vice outpourings of youth and radicals who accused the us of seeking world domination. according to the guardian, the problems related to india policy disagreement in which the u.s. is on the opposite side from europe on almost every important topic in right before the speech in the days before a hundred thousand demonstrators jammed hyde protesting american policy. a member of reagan's national security council's and a major soviet scholar, richard pipes, cogently explained to the

audience problem that reagan faced in europe as the english elite regarded reagan as a dangerous simpleton simpleton. the anti-gay fear of nuclear war was a major problem for reagan. the united states as well. michael barone mouthed it in the washington post and a great many americans and europeans believe that reagan is significantly more likely in his predecessors to get us into a nuclear war. a washington post poll found that by a 3 to 1 margin, american people supported a nuclear. what that what we have not nuclear weapons but what a frozen nowhere they. and it might sound like a good idea but reagan's whole approach was to build up to create leverage for arms reductions. so reagan faced a really big problem in the united states.

a washington post abc poll, the same poll found that a significant portion of the american public has become in increasingly anxious over the prospect of a nuclear war. frightened over the buildup of the arsenal. and frustrated the lack of serious negotiation between. the two superpowers. so an awful lot of people in the also south korea, japan, taiwan. there afraid. and that's true in america. there is a second barrier he faced which is the perception that many people had that he was a mouthpiece piece that he had just been a grade b movie actor hollywood. that he was simply not up to the job. a british commentator, roy hattersley, labeled reagan, a man of naive ideas and simple opinions which he holds with the certainty of a midwestern preacher. one another. british commentator labeled

reagan and thatcher as the lone ranger and the iron lady. a columnist in the sunday referred to him as old hopalong and said he needed to do some fast fence mending. they're talking about president of the united states in this incredibly dismissive way, and an awful lot of people at home in the united states thought. reagan was just a mere mouthpiece. frankly, at this point, i have thought that to he also faced a problem of low popularity at home. he began 1982 with less public support than president carter at a similar stage in his presidency. president carter was not very good at molding public support to have less than carter had had. that was not good at poll in april of 1982. found that 52% of the american people were opposed to reagan running for a second term. new york quoted a reagan

adviser, a senior adviser who said, there's no question the guys in deep trouble. finally, reagan faced the barrier that the was complicated. reagan was saying that we to build up and in order to cut back our forces. that was a complicated message. he was also saying that he was for real arms reductions while label the soviet union a failed tyranny. it was a camp placated message that people didn't understand. and and it was a special complicated for the soviet who understandably reacted. the guy is insulting us constantly. he said our system doesn't work and. we're supposed to believe he really wants reductions. they found that very hard to believe.

now, now we need to talk about the answer to the puzzles. i've out most rhetoric in american politics in general, probably politics around the world is tactical. it responds ends to issues of the moment. sometimes it's stylistically well presented and it doesn't make much in the long run. think about all the speeches of president bill that were very well received. he was thought of as incredibly effective and then try to remember one of those speeches that resonates since his presidency. i don't think you can find one, but rhetoric has more import and the rhetoric has more import. it's about not the style, but about the. it's about the. and especially about messages that lay out ideological visions, world views. definitions of the world or that give us a narrative about world

about what is america's place in the world and where are we going, where have we been and how are we going to get to that better future? and this rhetoric also tends to give us values, things that we believe. think about barack obama talking, about the audacity of hope, the most political leaders, both roosevelt, reagan, obama, king, more than anyone else in the 20th century, and lincoln than anyone else in american history have given us ideals, logical arguments, narratives that reenacted those ideological arguments and sets a value does that move the nation forward? in fact, there is a strong argument that i've made in my academic writing that dominance in american politics from fdr or through reagan to obama at least, could be charted based on

the party that had a better conception that resonated with the american people of the american dream. this rhetoric is has a broader in-flow alliance because it's more than a stylistic statement about a particular point. it gives us a way of understanding the world. think about reagan's statement in the first inaugural address that in this present crisis, government is not the solution. government the problem. that attitude. we needed less government to move the nation forward dominated the nation for a quarter of a century. and then think in contrast about barack obama, who said that with just a slight in our priorities, we could help all who needed help. those two worldviews dominated american politics before the age

of trump at westminster. reagan gave us was a coherent, ideological definition of the world. that said democracy works and authoritarian systems don't. he gave us a narrative of moving toward greater freedom, and he embraced a set values that was consistent the narrative and consistent with the ideal. and i want to begin by talking about the ideological worldview, which really is you had to boil it down to a sentence. it was would be that democracy, say, works and soviet authoritarianism totalitarianism doesn't. after speaking of the danger of nuclear war, reagan said, at the same time, there are a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. history teaches the dangers of a government that overreaches political control taking

precedent over free economic growth. seek replace mindless bureaucracy, all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom. he then contrasted those horrors with democracy and he admitted here that there was disagreement on the west on how big government should be, how the social welfare system. he said, 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 the nation's economy 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 inhumanity it caused in our time. the great purge, auschwitz and now the gulag in cambodia. he then added that democracies were also not just to freedom

and, protecting their own people, but to peace. he said it was democracy's who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or empirical gain. and he said that nuclear monopoly been the hands of the communist world, the map of europe, indeed the world would look very different today. now, i've given you the main he made, but i want to give you more of flavor of how reagan said it 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 marx leninism, the soviet union. it is the soviet 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 of growth in the national has been steadily declining since the fifties and is less 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% of the arable land, but account for nearly one quarter of soviet farm and nearly one third of meat products and vegetables over central ised with little or no incentives. year after year, the soviets system pours its best resource into the making of in-stream

ions 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 us. wherever 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 that are prosperous and response 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 need to align, military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. on the other side of the the soviet forces also east to prevent their people from leaving the hard. i want you to remember that line today on the naito line our military forces faces to prevent possible invasion. on the other side of the line, the soviet forces also bases to prevent their people from. i'll tell you in a minute why that line is so important and what it tells us about president reagan. at this point, reagan's ideological vision is clear. democracies protect rights, keep the peace and produce economic growth. the soviet system fails on all three grounds. therefore, he said, what we have to consider here today, while time remains as is the permanent

prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. at the time, it seemed that reagan people rejected it out of hand. but what it really was was like the little boy pointing out that the emperor has no clothes and that and it's all explained in a manner that is why it resonated so well at this point, the rationale behind reagan soviet policies is clear. he called out the soviet union hit back as a failed system to provide rhetorical for those who suffered under soviet rule. he also wanted to make it clear to the soviet union that the united states on the west could not be bullied. he supported a build up in which he said the west must for its own protection be an unwell participant. at first you might think that makes understand why we have to be an unwilling participant.

but because it was because wanted to create the preconditions for real arms reductions by sending the message to the soviet union that their economy simply couldn't keep up with what the united states. and that's why he supported those real arms control agreement the zero option that led to the iron treaty and his proposal. he says, for a one third reduction in strategic ballistic missile warheads. that was the start treaty and it eventually was more than a two thirds reduction. why was reagan so confident that we were at what he called a turning point. he was confident not because of guns and, bullets, but because of ideas, he says, an early in the speech, optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracies enemies have refine and their instruments of oppressive repression.

yet optimism is an 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 more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy. but not one regime has yet been able to free elections. and then in a wonderful line, regimes planted by bayonets do not take root. there, he pepper. he was paraphrasing, echoing reagan's churchill's iron curtain speech, but more importantly was arguing that it was ideal as that would ultimately decide that cold war. so i've laid out the ideological version. what about the narrative? reagan combined the ideological worldview with a narrative retelling of history that was driven by ordinary people

wanting a say in their own lives. what a chance to build a better life by wanting democracy. and in a passage that reagan wrote himself, he began this by saying the exodus from egypt historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom the sand at thermopylae, the revolt of spartacus, the storming of the bastille, the warsaw uprising, or world war. and then provided a little bit frame talking about current events. at beyond the trouble spots lies a deeper, more positive around the world today, a 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's moving into remarkable and unmistakable ways to build and strengthen its democratic.

in the caribbean and central america. 16 of 24 countries have freely elected governments. and in the united nations, eight of the ten developing nations which have joined that body in the past five years are democracies. in the communist world. well, nans instinctively desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again. and. to be sure, grim reminders of how brutally the police stamp state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-rule in 1953 in east germany, in 1956. in hungary 1968. in czechoslovakia. in 1981, in poland. but the struggle continues. 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. and then reagan what we're relatively modest steps to promote democracy. she, as i stated, led to the creation of the national endowment for democracy. why were they modest? because reagan wanted to support democracy everywhere that that could be done without risking war. and those steps did off sometimes in earnest, impacted ways. reagan administration officials looked at their own foreign policy. george shultz, who was secretary of state and decided that they were not living up to it in the

philippines and put pressure on the government of the philippines to move toward democracy. the power of reagan's narrative of gradual little movement toward freedom and democracy in opposition to totalitarianism has been. documented in the 40 years since the speech, as democracy has spread around the world. of course, there's backsliding there. anti-democratic forces in world. but reagan's fundamental argument that totalitarian governments use force to keep their people from toward democratic governments is evident today from hong kong that taiwan gone to ukraine to the arab spring, people across the world and every possible culture and religion have demonstrated they want a say in their own government. they want a say in their own lives. they don't want secret police, right. and combined the narrative and the argument with a set of

values. he contrasted freedom with totalitarianism and arbitrary arrest. he contrasted opportunity with economic decay. he contrasted democracy versus state control by unelected dictators. and he made it clear that when talking about those values, the appeal to values is dominant way. one produces an emotional reaction. that he was not talking about western values. he talking about human values. he said democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experience is that it would be cultural kindness, ascension, or worse to say that any people prefer dictatorship to. who would volunteer choose not to have the right vote decide to purchase propaganda, out handouts instead of independent newspapers. prefer government to work out control unions.

opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who tell 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. democracies often not lived up to those values, but the power, those values is evident. of course, no one would make the choices that reagan outlined and choose totalitarianism. that's why reagan was that the world was at a turning point. and i think now we can answer the puzzle. why did reagan's message work so much better in the long term than in the short term? first, reagan's speech combined the three most important strategies for influencing people. when you give someone an argument, an argument that two coherent world worldview is ideology, that tells us the

world is now how, the world could be and how to get from here to there. he gave us a worldview. democ racy works totalité and doesn't. he gave us a narrative and an empowering narrative, not about a western desire for freedom, but a human for freedom. tracing it to exodus from egypt. and then he tapped into a set of values. and that's how one produces the emotional reaction that if you think about those three worldviews the ideological worldview, the narrative worldview, value laden worldview as three venn diagrams, you think those venn just fit right on top of each other? they're entirely consistent. those circles. it's because the power of the message that resonated so much in the long term.

there's a second reason it resonated so much in the long term. it resonated in the long term because what reagan said turned to be right. reagan's armed build created pressure on the soviet union that eventually led to serious arms, negotiate that led to the two treaties i've mentioned. it turned out that reagan really was for arms reduction early in his when reagan said he was for arms reduction. liberals thought that he was giving lip service to control and he didn't really mean it. many conservatives hoped that he was just giving lip service to real reductions, but in fact, reagan didn't mean it? and the two most important arms control agreement are negotiated during the reagan administration. he was also right that the soviet economy was crumbling. the soviet looked at the arms build up and especially because

they had a visionary leader in mikhail, realized they couldn't keep up. and that's when serious arms negotiations were made. and gorbachev him sad said about reagan that himself was there the real hard times to carry the negotiations and perhaps most importantly because the power of ideas. he was right that the people of eastern europe, the warsaw pact slate that had been allied with the soviet union that wanted freedom and democracy as soon as the soviet union began to end with the liberation wall coming down. there's a vast outpouring of people moving toward the free world. and so and the free world includes a united germany, the czech republic, slovakia hungary, etc., because people did in fact desire that freedom

and those nations quickly applied for membership in the union. and as quickly as they could. also, nato's because they wanted to protect that freedom. it turned reagan was totally right on those points as it almost all true with reagan. the narrative is the most eloquent, but the ideology the most important. i now want to talk about some conclusions that can be drawn, and i want to begin with the stereotype of reagan as a great b-movie actor, as old hopalong. remember that line i talked about today, the needle line, and you can see it there. this is the draft of the speech written by tony dolan. the handwritten line there, that's ronald reagan's handwriting on it. he's the one who inserted that line. and then if you go to the next

page page, well, our technology there, that's the page since the exodus from egypt. that's all written by reagan. i've traced in my book reagan at west minster. what my written with my dear friend john jones. i've traced almost every paragraph in this speech. reagan wrote personally, almost 15% of the speech and he edited it often quite heavily over 45% of the speech. reagan was not a great actor maybe old hopalong is not a bad way to describe him in western eyes. but he was a very sophisticated writer and editor. i want to say something about. the importance of academic objectivity at this point. the ideal of it. when i first started writing about reagan more than years

ago, the press told me that he was been a bad actor, that he didn't know much, he was a mouthpiece. he was a threat to the world. and he was this radical anti-god, conservative and i studied reagan and i studied reagan. my personal personally, a lifelong liberal democrat. but when i studied reagan, that's not what i found. what i found, as in that editing there, was that reagan was a gifted writer and even a better editor. i found that he was actually not a warmonger, but very afraid of war that. he didn't put forces in danger. i found that he genuinely believed in real arms reductions, and that's why he did a buildup to create leverage that. the funny thing about reagan is he'd learned to negotiate dealing with the studio chiefs in hollywood when was the president of the screen actors guild? he later said pretty good

preparation. and bernardo shooting with the soviet union. i think he was right about that. and when i studied is domestic policy and red is i saw that reagan was not simply anti-government but but he was for less government. in this particular instance in this present crisis as, he said in the first inaugural address, if had not believed an academic objectivity, i would never have seen those things. a lot of people say objectivity is impossible. post modernists say that it's unimportant. i say it is an epistemic a knowledge protection because we can see when they're wrong. as i saw when i was wrong about ronald reagan, i want to make another point i want to make about this speech. is that it's harsh words. and what reagan said played key role in the end of the cold war. there's no question that this speech got the soviets attention. the new york times reported that tass stated that the president

had, i'm quoting now, slandered the soviet union with crude anti-soviet ism and was supporting a fascist regime's. another soviet newspaper, izvestia, was equally harsh, calling it labeling the speech. i slander of the soviet union and arguing that the president washington administration does not to come to terms with reality, and it will not the principle of peaceful coexistence. the negative reaction of the soviet tells us reagan succeeded in getting the attention of the soviets. reagan richard pipes, the national security council staff member i mentioned earlier, a very significant soviet scholar, told reagan about the soviet, and reagan's reaction was, so we touched a nerve. he wanted to get their attention. the harsh words also cheered in the soviet union.

former soviet dissident natan can't ski. sharansky wrote of the impact of reagan's words attacking the soviet union. the dissidents were ecstatic. finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth, a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us. think how navalny might have reacted to a speech this. the arms build up. the harsh sent the message that the us couldn't be bullied. reagan consistently pushed for arms reduction. and that happened. it seems to me the westminster address also to us today. it tells us in the west and nonetheless the democratic world, how to confront totalitarianism, defend democratic values, speak up against totalitarianism and authoritarianism. to the united states says that

we should support allies such as ukraine, taiwan, elsewhere in the world. but as reagan was, be very careful to avoid direct confrontation the be open to real diplomacy as reagan famously said himself you don't yeah you don't need democratic agreements just with allies. it's your potential that you need to negotiate with. and i think finally, like reagan's word, speak of the importance of nurturing democracy in our own country. at the end of the speech the very end of the speech, reagan wondered about the shyness of some in the west, about standing for these ideals that have done so much to ease the of man and the hardship of our imperfect world. he spoke of the bravery of the british people during the second world war when this island was

incandescent with courage, he told the story of a british woman whose house was bombed and during the blitz, the second world war and it that the people came to rescue her, they pulled out. they found a bottle of brandy underneath the stairs, which was all that was standing. they poured some for her. she wakes up and looks up, says, hey, now that's for emergency things. reagan then said, well, the emergency is upon. reagan then spoke about the importance protecting democracy. he said, so let us ask ourselves. what kind of people do we think we are and let us answer free, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so, but to help others gain their freedom as well. then he references churchill. sherwin huston led his people to

a victory in war and then lost an election, just that the fruits of victory were to be enjoyed. and then in words from the past to present, reagan said. but he churchill left office honorably, and as it turned out temporarily, knowing the liberty of his people was important than the fate of any single leader. history recalls, his greatness and ways no dictator will ever know. and he left us a message. hope for the future. reagan knew that one of the keys signs that democracy cs were working is that when you elections, you leave office. it like a nothing phrase when he said it doesn't seem like nothing now. reagan like churchill left a

message of hope for the future. but even more important in his narrative was, his argument that people want to say their own government and chance to build better lives. a blueprint for democracy promotion and keeping the peace. thank you very much. and we've got some time for questions and you shouldn't be shy. oh, come on. and over there to the microphone. it won't bite. i was just going to ask if you think use of composite narrative was used throughout the attacks. yeah. i mean, it's good it's a good question because you're you may

be thinking reagan doesn't a single story except in passage which he begins with the exodus from europe from egypt. but he tells a bunch of little stories. but if you think about those little stories, fit together into a larger story. what is that story. ordinary want to build a better life for their family. ordinary people want to not worry that the knock on the door is the secret police. ordinary people want a free press. they want to be able to read stuff and have it not be lies. ordinary people want a say in their own government. they want a chance to vote for people who can lead them. it's a pretty powerful narrative and. we've seen it over all around world. think of the speed the people trying to get from hong kong all

the way to taiwan in a little boat. what did reagan say that people never toward totalitarianism. and in the 40 some years since then that's always been true that ordinary people fleeing toward a chance for a say in their own lives lives. i know some of you have questions. and you're not this shy. normally. so you some statistics about reagan's approval rating. in 82 and that many he should not seek reelection. and then only a couple of years he wins in the biggest landslide. so do you think that that is due

to the things he's talking about here the war on totalitarianism and the shrinking of government or something else? i, with reagan was always eloquent, but this he won reelection mostly because the economy came back very, very strongly. but i hear an implicit question there about. the relatively similar political situation that biden finds himself in at kind of a similar dance a little bit later than when that speech was. and, you know, i think one thing you have to say that if the economy continues to come back, if the reagan is right, that should help biden. but hasn't helped him to the same degree. it helped reagan and it is no criticism of president to say that he lacks president reagan's

level of eloquence a level of eloquence, that it's only been matched by fdr and and a few others only exceeded by king and lincoln. so and president biden simply does not have that. that's not his fault. it's just the way it. but in long run, it's ideas that matter most. and reagan's ideas resonated because they turned out, you know, the economy did come back. you said critics were calling it during the time oversimplified and unremarkable. and that was the average delivery. what do you think reagan could have done to get his message to the british parliament a little bit better? well, i think reagan got his

message across. you know, a perfectly great way they had this is what happens when you have very very strong stereotypical worldviews. they knew that reagan was just a movie actor. right. it just that that wasn't true. they knew that reagan was a warmonger. it just that that wasn't true. and so the problem, not with reagan's words, it's that they went what they thought was the case. and over time, it turned that what reagan said really was what he meant. and i why people thought those things. if you just read the newspaper. you would think these things at the time time. i remember very early in my period studying, i thought many of things until suddenly would run into things that i couldn't explain.

if reagan was such a great b-movie actor, how come in his debate with president carter in 1980, he was so better a debater than president carter. and it it occurred to me that as i said already, reagan really wasn't who we thought he. he was a gifted. rhetorician. later not a very good actor, a really good political leader. he was he was well-informed, especially about the soviets, and had a coherent ideological worldview. and he had a very empowering narrative worldview. those are the things that made reagan so a in the short term, it was an impossible situation in the long term, the message resonated. you you mention in this that one

of the things that is pointed is the idea that we should stand up our allies. and you mentioned ukraine as one of those. wondering if more concretely, the words of reagan and what we see here offer a path how people who are sort of pro ukraine supporting ukraine as that has become the thing of contention in u.s. politics for at least the material for ukraine. does this offer us some ideas for how one might make a pro argument for doing that? well, i think if reagan here that he would largely support what the biden administration has and and what and what military support. he would definitely agree. but one thing they've done is that they've said to the ukrainians, the material we send to you cannot be used to attack russia directly. and that was reagan's essentially reagan wanted to build up. he wanted to support democracy

and oppose the soviet union rhetorically. but was extremely careful about putting u.s. forces into into conflict in general, and especially only with the soviet union, because he was well aware of the dangers of, nuclear conflict and in today's world, vladimir has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons on a number occasions. i think being extreme cautious is something that reagan would advise republicans and democrats, but he would also speak up for defending democratic values. and he would speak, i think, quite strongly to members what have his political about the importance of defending democracy and call out russian tyranny. in some ways, the situation is less stable today than it was then because the soviet at least had a collective leadership. there were some and balances

within the soviet. there is no leadership in russia today. there's only. there's only. and so i think that's would suggest that reagan's policy. but being extremely careful about putting u.s. forces in any way, any anywhere close to direct conflict, that would be very wise. i, i, i, all americans could read the speech today and draw insights about how we should be reacting to the totalitarians in, our world. how do you think his speculations he made was in his argument about like russia's future and things that people the british parliament might not that i've thought were true would have affected this argument and made it hard for him to convince people. at the time, people thought the

soviet union was going to be there forever. they thought it was naive. reagan had seen economic data that demonstrated that the soviet wasn't doing very well. he also fundamentally believed in the power of, well, democratic capitalism, not unregulated capitalism. reagan was was on the the conservative end of right. and they just thought that our economic system and our political worked better than their systems and. there is a tendency among people like me experts. i'm not an expert in those areas. i'm an expert in rhetoric and argumentation. to think that the world as it is, always remain that way. reagan was looking at something more fundamental. he was looking at what real human beings wanted, you know, real people want a chance to build a better life.

they weren't getting that. and so we had real people want to be able to say what they think and not about the knock on the door. real people want media that tells them at least the truth a lot of the time real people want to say in their societies. that's why said democracy is not a fragile flower. democracy is strong because that's what real people want every and what i've just said that's in the united states that's true in ukraine. that's true in hong kong. that's true taiwan. that that's true in moscow, too. you know as you saw all the people showing to vote honoring navalny. you see that all around the world africa, south america obviously australia. i think reagan say the fundamentals support democracy. that's what real people want. i think if reagan were here,

he'd say that, we need to cultivate. but he'd be very optimistic about future because he thinks he's talking about real people every throughout human history. i'm very confident that he would be optimistic. as long as we to stand up for freedom and democracy, do not in to totalitarians anywhere that the most arms we have are sending messages that bombs and bullets are about rhetoric than they are about actually fighting. and if we are strong, then that will produce both peace and a free democracy. thank you very