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lincoln. he used his words to win two overwhelming presidential victories and helped shaped what has been called by many authors the age of reagan. we have four panelists today and i'm going to introduce them now and then we are simply going to go and in the the order that is listed and we have agreed thatt we are going to take no more than 15 to 16 minutes each leaving time for discussion at the end. i know there are very distinguished scholars in the room and we will all look forward to that. the firstt presenter is allison from the university of wisconsin. the world has stage, policy rhetoric and invocation of peace and talking about research done as part of outstanding new book.

elizabeth spalding from the victims and pepperdine is going to talk about evaluate empire and moral rhetoric of peace through strength and i'm going to the talk the about the arc of soviet rhetoric. >> thank you all very much. i had a brief title change at the last minute so apologies. his was the actor that appeared in junctures in geopolitical context the and, in fact, for

many u.s. americans the 40th president of the united states spoke as the ultimate cold warrior, reagan cultivated, embodied and embraced. layed inci his ability to make proposalss and ideas come quite esliterally to live. this description positions rhetoric as radicalically contingent exercise one that requires to identify and then address the complexities of the political and the historical moment while also attend to go the overlapping and often conflicting expectations of multiplele audiences book and ot, some of the most important means of persuasion reagan deployed not just through his words, but

through the images, the stories and the the people and the places he gestured to rhetorically. in so doing, he invited his to see themselves as participants in the narrative that he recounted. and in fact, i would go so far to argue that this invocation of images, bodies and places is what made him the great communicator. to be sure, his language was eloqnt, moving and able to help members of the u.s. public see themselves as part of national narrative. he described, but it was also physical, tangible and material laden with elements. the vivid pictures he displayed the ordinary civic actors he featured. and the symbolic places from which he chose to speak. this is what made his image of the nation come to life. and so in today's talk, i revisit three specific scenes in which reagan used his rhetoric to bring people and places before the eyes of his audience. and although these specific episodes are, i would imagine,

well-known to many in this room, i draw on these examples not just to demonstrate how the centrality of, images, bodies and places in reagan's rhetorical practice created a lasting template for all future presidents to use, but also demonstrate how future presidents after reagan utilized these strategies, they've come to shape how we think about and we talk about our expectations for presidential rhetoric seen one. visualizing the landscape of u.s. when reagan defeated jimmy carter in the 1980 presidential action by more than 8 million votes, many saw reagan's victory as a direct rejection of carter's at home and abroad. paul fessler notes that when ronald reagan took office in early 1981, the united appeared weak and faltering in foreign affairs. the united states still reeling from defeat in vietnam faced not only a soviet expanding into afghanistan, but also a major hostage crisis iran.

it seemed as if america's as a strong, confident international superpower was fading into a distant memory. reagan addressed this perception of a weakened america in his inaugural address, pledging that as a nation took the steps to, quote ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world and be exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom. as john and robert roland have argued, reagan's first inaugural address offered, a foundational statement of his governing and of contemporary conservative ism. by offering we the people as the antidote to big government, the heroes of this moment, reagan argued, ordinary americans who went about their lives and their livelihoods with quiet determination, a form of patriotism. but reagan also used the or location of his address to remind his audience of a shared historical narrative, one he

believed would inspire a renewed sense of national ideity. in so doing, he also established a new norm for presidential inaugural addresses. for the first time, the ceremonies were held on the west front of the u.s. capitol, allowing the assembled audience to look out over the national mall as new president spoke. photographer and news organizations also captured and circulated images of the scene and those watching television coverage at home were transported to the through vivid imagery and depiction. and so you're now going to see in clip which was broadcast on c-span and what viewers at home may have seen. you're missing sound. i'm just showing you the images as i talk about it. toward the end of his speech, reagan emphasized the significance of this view, and he said, standing here one faces a magnificent vista. opening up on this city's special beauty and history, the president went on to reference sites as the washington monument, the jefferson and the lincoln memorial, and then

across the potomac arlington national cemetery. reagan said that inspired by those giants on his shoulders, we stand, he asked his audience to see themselves as a living, breathing between past, present and future, a nature, a nation of individual actors who could, with their best effort and their willingness to believe in themselves and to believe in their capacity to perform great deeds that they could confront. the problems facing the nation. reagan's depiction of these people, places and moments that comprise the nation's history was made possible by his direct references to the markers on the symbolic landscape before him. later, u.s. followed suit with, the exception of reagan's second inaugural, which was held indoors due to bitterly cold temperatures. all successive inaugurations have been held on the west front of the u.s. capitol building. several presidents, including barack obama and joseph biden, have also rhetorically gestured

to the scene set before them to evoke a shared historical narrative. most recently, in january 2021, and just two weeks after the attack on, the u.s. capitol building, biden repeated point at his audience to various places on the national mall to remind his audience the sacred nature of the space. and in so doing, he also noted resiliency of the american project. like reagan, biden reminded his audience of other moments in u.s. democracy had been tested and yet endured. this was a history that was not certain, not guaranteed. the democratic experiment was. one that required collective commitment. a respect for. and a conservation of the nation's most foundational and principles. the challenge now, biden said, was whether the nation could meet this moment and write the next great chapter in the history of the united states. and it is a challenge that remains a scene to elevating

ordinary american heroes. one year and six days after his first inaugural address on january sixth, 1982. ronald reagan delivered first state of the union address. in his speech, he cast a hopeful vision for american renewal, even as he addressed the weak economy and proposed cuts to the federal budget. but what made reagan's 1982 state of the union address notable transformative even was his salute to lenny's sputnik during the final moments of his speech just two weeks earlier, sputnik dived into the frigid waters of the potomac river to a passenger of an air florida that crashed into the 14th street bridgeurg takeoff from what was then known as washington national airport. we now know it, of course, as the ro reagan airpor sputnik became overnight celebrity and the media replayed heroic cor millions of americans on the evening news, the white house invited sputnik and his wife linda to sit next

to first lady ncreagan in the house gallery during reagan's address and, the president concluded his speech by identifying sputnik as an example of the spirit of american heroism at its finest. even as he honored publicly, reagan also the young government employee, to represent what he called the, quote, quiet, everyday heroes, unquote, who sacrificed their time and their energy to revitalize the american spirit by pointing out sputnik to those in the house gallery and to millions of americans watching at home. reagan helped his audience visualize what. he was describing the ideals of a modern american hero were now reflected in the person of lenny sputnik. this salute to inaugurated a new generic norm for the state of the union address. prior to 1982, presidents relied on strategies of language to deliver their report to congress. but reagan's featuring of one ordinary civic hero a new rhetorical strategy by which

presidents now display individuals as evidence for their argument. beginning with reagan this now expressed expected invocation of a sputnik offers the opportunity to display both rhetorically and physically. the civic ideals they wish to laud, the national issues they deem important, and the policy proposals they wish to. these scott notes then provide a physical representation of the overall body politic living, breathing, metaphor, testifying that the state of the union is fact strong. the presidential deployment of scott next can also provide a cautionary tale, one that can be used to galvanize members of congress and, by extension, the u.s. public. such was the case in 2018, when donald warned of the threat north korea's nuclear arsenal posed to the united states and its allies. to underscore the point, the president featured several individuals who had direct experi ence with the depraved character of the north regime,

and one of them included ji sung hu, a north korean deftor who escaped to south korea in 2006. and soou canee in this image, the crowd is applauding and mr. sung ho is holding up his crutches becse he had lt two limbs as part of his escape. and prior to his life in north korea, president trump heralded mr. sung ho's and sacrifice as, ot a test, admit to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom, unquote. this trump argued the same desire that had inspired early americans to declare independence from great britain and to form the united states. and, like reagan, had first done in 1982. trump the u.s. public to recognize quote the heroes who lived not only in the past but all around us defending hope, pride and, the american way. the task, he said to his audience, was, quote, to respect them, to listen, to them, to serve them, to protect them and, to always be worthy of them unquote. and this is the task remains.

scene three commemorating d-day, reagan's deployment of bodies in place continued two years later when he commemorated the 40th anniversary of d-day. in his speech at point, a hawk, reagan told the story of the mission that 225 u.s. army rangers undertook on the morning of. 6th of june 1944. their mission, he said, was one of theost difficult and daring of the entire invasion for these u.s. army rangers were to up the sheer and desolate cliffs behind him. and you can see those the image on the right to take the emy guns that could have decimated rest of the allied warships ferrying troops across the english channel. throughout his 13 minute speech, reagan repeatedly referenced the 62 surviving u.s. army rangers who enacted the narrative he had described and who were seated before him. and he reminded his audience that were here together in the

very place where these events unfolded. now, to be sure, the text of speech is moving eloquent, beautiful. it's a rhetorical masterpiece. but what made it stand out? an exemplar of presidential commemoration, was how reagan repeatedly pointed his audience to physical material evidence the boys of point, a hawk and, the sheer and desolate cliffs behind him to encapsulate his argument, the decision to feature these people and places was not some mere flourish. instead was a deliberate rhetorical strategy supported by reagan's white house speechwriting team, most specifically. peggy noonan, secretary of state. short schultz and a number of white house advance staff. indeed, as materials from the reagan library here make plain. officials saw the president's featuring of the boys of point a hawk and his rhetoric in place as a central of his overall commemoration. numerous u.s. presidents followed his example. but i think it's important to note how reagan reagan's commemorative action extended

well beyond the 40th anniversary of d-day and also influenced his reelection campaign. in fact, the retelling, the normandy invasion, became a central part of the 1984 convention film the producers of the convention documentary that was shown in dallas. that fall explained in one memo to the campaign that their goal was to position reagan as a narrator of a shared. they wrote that, there would be no interviewer or narrator, only the voice of the president. and i quote from their memo he is our guide. in effect, the film as the president speaks, we begin to dissolve through and see those actual elements of which he speaking the verbal images become, visual images we see and hear those moments the president is talking about. and we begin to relive those events and experiences on film, unquote. on the final evening, the 1984 republican national convention in dallas the u.s. public encountered these striking

images in an 18 minute campaign film. and what up on the screen is the of the film that uses reagan's speech at point hawke. entitled a new beginning. the striking video montage featured snippets of speeches at point of hook, including panoramic shots of the cliffs at point of hawk and endless road rows of white crosses and stars. david in the normandy american cemetery, the most poignant aspect of this section was how the campaign interspersed reagan's speeches with actual of the men storming the beaches on june six, 1944. the video also featured close shots of the 62 boys of pointe a hawk that were present reagan's address and as the listened to reagan's narrative of allied landings landings at normandy, they watched and white footage of soldiers swimming to shore. when reagan recounted the courageous climb of the u.s. rangers 40 years earlier, the camera zoomed in on the faces of

the aged veterans. this juxtaposition of text and image provided a striking tribute not just to the men who fought at normandy, but it also reinforced reagan's image as a focused, patriotic head of state dedicated to protecting us democracy at home and around the world. conclusion reagan's rhetorical legacy as these scenes make plain reagan's skill was not due to alone. the president used his spoken oratory to bring people, places and historical events literally before the eyes of the audience, helping them to see or imagine the policies events he sought to describe. throughout his presidency, reagan relied on such imagery to make complex proposals tangible and relatable to the ordinary citizen. his vision for what the nation had been, what it was and what it could be came to life on the national mall. his hope for an active, engaged u.s. public was embodied in the person of lenny slotnick, an everyday american hero, and his

enduring in the u.s. commitment to defending democracy in europe was encapsulated by physical presence of 62 u.s. army rangers, 40 years after they scaled the cliffs. pointe a hawk. but examples also demonstrate how the words and actions of u.s. presidents shape the norms of presidential public address, not just what we expect a president do or say within a particular context, but also how their speech and contributes to the nation's character, its ethos, its overarching narrative and sense self. when the president speaks, people listen and they respond. kind. what a president says and how they say it matters. the choices of individual chief executive. a precedent for what the public can and should expect to hear from their leader. past choices dictate present expectation ones and the rhetoric of past presidents. the choices current and future chief executives make for good or for ill.

as president reagan understood the significance of, these rhetorical norms and even more importantly, his sacred responsibility to protect and defend the institution, the u.s. presidency and the u.s. constitution. as we reflect on reagan's legacy, rhetorical and otherwise, we would do well to consider what the 40th president's vision of the nation and his fundamental respect for the presidency as an institution might teach us and what it might require of us in the present and in the future. thank you very much. well, me say slightly taller. it's an honor to. have you all here especially knowing that taylor swift is performing down the road this evening. so i'm very that you're all here. i learned that this morning at the hotel. okay, so my talk is over. reagan, iran. typically when we think about

reagan in the middle east, oftentimes think of lebanon, perhaps the airstrikes in libya or the iran-contra scandal. but i want to refocus us on a topic that isn't often discussed, and that is reagan's relationship with the islamic republic. so to begin, i'll set the scene for. you see if i can get this to work. there we go. in 1979, much changed in the middle east. and i'm just going to highlight three events that you may or may not be of. number one, the soviet union invaded, afghanistan bng their ten year occupation of the country. number two, drew heyman, maltby and severalslamists radicals with him occupy the mosque in mecca. and they hel it for two weeks until french special forces able to evacuate them from the premises. and third, of course, you had the iranian revolution and the hostage crisis that it resulted in. and so during the 1980 campaign, reagan didn't necessarily raise the issue.

but was, of course, dominant in media narratives. and on the evening, in december 1977. jimmy carter, very regrettable said the shah was an island of in one of the more troubled areas the world. as late as august 78, he received a cia report that that iran is not in a revolutionary or even pre-revolutionary state. november the next year, the us ambassador in iran cabled back to washington. the authority of the shah has been considerably. his support among the general public has become almost invisible. we need to think the unthinkable at this time. and of course the unthinkable did occur. and ronald reagan, during october 1980, made his one remark where he said, i just don't understand why these hostages are still. and, of course, this has been described as a german or media event. we have walter cronkite, ted koppel going on the air every single night saying it's been this many days it since the hostages have been taken.

it dominates the airwaves and carter even says, i wish if i'd seen one more helicopter, i would want reelection. so this was an event that, of course, prime and the american public to view the islamic republic in a very negative way, that americans have very hostile attitudes, iran as a result of this. but it's not clear what meaning this will take within reagan's larger foreign policy dramas. so we look at ronald reagan, he comes into office the consummate cold warrior and he casts a vision of a two sided conflict, both globally and the middle east, in the vehicle through which articulated that was strategic consensus. strategic consensus was primarily the catchphse of alexander haig, who is reagan's secretary of state. and they said, we're goi to go to the region, we're going to unite all of our allies there in. recognition of a common threat, e soviet union and the region. and so al haig departed on a diplomatic and he went to

jordan, he went to cairo, he went to riyadh. and he went and spoke with u.s. allies across the region and said, you know, why don't we set our differences and all recognize that the soviet union is the greater threat? it did not go well. he did not. let's say success. in fact, a kuwaiti newspaper that i have the joy reading thought that it was all a plot for him to lead marines to occupy an oil field. so you have a situation where. the reagan administration retreats from strategic consensus idea. but i think that there's three elements of this basic premise. number one, that middle east is a battlefield. number two, that that battlefield has two sides that are fighting it out. and number three, that the us wi lead this battle in some form or fashion. and so i think these three themes continue on. so i'm going to pivot to my manuscript here, but i want to set scene for you and discuss

the three acts of reagan in iran. so you might have noticed i've been talking lot about the soviet union and not as much about iran in this drama. and the reason for is because iran did not fit well within this picture painted by reagan administration. it's it's awkwardly as a noncommittal state, but still hostile to the united states. and so my claim is that treatment of iran was a tale of two terms. during the first four years of the reagan presidency, he depicted iran in criminal language, using metaphors of misconduct to depict the revolutionary regime as a violator of international law. this picture of iran as a miscreant fit well. one on one, not as well within the overall strategic consensus campaign which read the soviet union as source of all regional disorder by second term. however, the administration had come to view iran as a major threat to u.s. oil access, and it shifted from the rhetoric of

criminality to that of enemy ship drawing overt between the menace posed by iran in the soviet union. in the persian gulf. reagan borrowed from language he had used earlier describe communists to vilify regime in tehran in the picture painted by reagan's rhetoric. iran sought to impose its tyrannical rule as a would be hegemon, cutting off the needed oil supplies to the united states and its allies. this found purchase and press coverage, which malign the revolutionary islamic republic. and in the process, these outlets also circulated. this equivalence between iran and the soviet union and persian gulf security and us access to the oil in the region. so act one as neither a u.s. nor a communist state. tehran did not feature prominently in the administration's early efforts to rally regional allies against the soviet union. instead reagan described the country as a criminal, said iran should have a government quote that would abide by international unquote if it wished for better relations.

the united states. when asked if would permit u.s. oil companies to return to operate there eventually, he questioned whether iran could even enforce its own laws. reagan highlighted delinquency again when hostages returned, saying that it should be aware that when the rules of international behavior are violated, our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution, unquote. in a statement honoring, the freed hostages he contrasted dignity, determination and quiet courage with the abuse of their captors. implying that heroism was quote, something the iranians not understand. to reinforce this characterization, reagan commonly accused iran of acts of terrorism. he did that during 1980 campaign. weeks into presidency, he thanked margaret thatcher for british to bring the american prisoners home from iran. and in the next breath he said together, we will work to continue to confront the scourge of international terrorism. indeed, reagan invoked the threat of international terrorism rather often in relation to iran. in a 1982 address, he called for

a political settlement in the iran-iraq conflict and then immediately exhorted here is to continue the fight against international terrorism. other times, reagan referenced the threat international terrorism presents to the free world and the dire peril that terrorism and intimidation in the gulf posed. this was he continually characterized the persian gulf as a perilous region. these references worked to isolate tehran, both in terms of coverage and the treatment of the administration but also on the world stage. brian mccann writes that criminal criminality is not a static state, meaning but highly contingent rhetorics of law and order inscribe markers of fear. those markers, in turn, work to justify criminals, surveillance and confinement by invoking fears associated with khamenei's regime, terrorism and the hostage crisis. reagan's utterances rationalized a policy of isolation, portraying it as a rogue, felonious state policing, not military confrontation. was the logic of the rhetoric of

criminality. and of course, since khomeini hardly a communist. this rhetorical formula a way out of the strategic consensus. reagan didn't need say that iran was on the side of the soviet union, merely that it was an outlaw state. in an early outworking of the rogue state idea so that it was ruled by fanatical theocracy that was beyond the normal rules of the cold war and. so he continually summoned, like being a sheriff, a cop. so the united should treat iran like did all squalid criminals and lawbreakers. he said, we're going to bring the full weight of the law them. ultimately this worked to subordinate iran to the soviet union as the primary threat that reagan identified in the persian. and i'll skip all the examples i have of u.s. media coverage. we do not have time for that. all right. act two, enemy ship. this assessment of iran began to change near the end of reagan's first term as the administration started to modify its internal its internal evaluation of the

gulf in may 1984, in a c report reveals this shift in thinking titled politically sensitive approach to enhanced military cooperation with the key gulf arabs. the paper first reiterated the administration's elusive goal of organizing a truly multilateral effort to defend western to the gulf. it's an enumerated the various threats to western access to the gulf. and it said, although the continuing soviet occupation of afghanistan a constant reminder of the larger menace, it said the stalemate in attrition, warfare in afghanistan had made that less immediate, less poignant. consequently the paper argued a new danger had started to be on par with the soviet union. iran and its particular brand of islamic fundamentalism has become the most immediate threat to the moderate. the nsc report said by formally arguing that iran a more direct security threat to the american allies in the gulf and the soviet union. this report captured a broader shift from a strict fixation on

and reagan had long course called the revolutionary regime a danger and he characterized as this lawless, malevolent actor on the world. he had denounced the barbaric persecution of the baha'i in iran. he regularly said that tehran, quote, a place where international and common decency were mocked. so while it was common for him to use these in his public utterances, at no time prior to this that i was able to find in the archives did the or the nsc say that tehran was as dangerous as moscow in the persian gulf. this, in the administration's thinking, shown most clearly in weinberger's june 1987 report to congress on gulf security. the 28 page document was intended address legislative fears that reagan had made an open ended, unilateral american commitment to all non belligerents shipping in persian gulf. this is during the iran-iraq war. the us started escorting oil tankers through the gulf and clearing mines as a way to make

sure that oil access continued and was not hampered by the war. ultimately, what this report the free world was heavily dependent on oil, which meant it was our vital national for our vital interests are at stake in the and this meant that the of iranian hegemony over the gulf presented an equal hazard the soviet union. when it came to the free flow of oil. and so this report marked an like haig weinberger distilled an image of the gulf as under terrific from an imperialistic aspirant regional dominance. unlike haig, weinberger identified iran, not the soviet union, as this dangerous foe. this portrayal of iran as an equal, if not greater threat than the soviet thus grew out of the original image put forth by the reagan administration of, a two sided conflict with an imperialistic power seeking to gain advantage over the region. the body of the report went into more detail.

it said since the gulf is a region vital economic importance, we have strategic interest in ensuring that it does not come under dominion or hegemony. a power hostile to the united. and so this is an echo of the carter doctrine, but it takes a step further by identifying iran not the soviet union as the country at threat. and so the magnitude of this development can be in how the report described gulf domination by moscow or tehran as equally either, quote, soviet or iranian hegemony. the gulf, in, quote, it stated, would represent a serious strategic setback. and so for the first time since the beginning of the cold war, since all the way back to truman, u.s. defense planners talked about a country than the soviet union as a power might be able to dominate the gulf and its oil. and so on a rhetorical level, this was marked by a shift to enemy under an enemy ship framework. rhetoricians make an active and ongoing construction an enemy who must be vanquished. jeremy engels observes in his book enemy rulers can bolster

their authority, manufacture consent in such a way to provide rhetorical cover for leaders to prosecute aggressive policies against those identified as enemies the nation. that was certainly the case in this instance. once we get to intervene. can we have the united states taking active steps to, confront iran militarily and to, as reagan said, let me find my quote. reagan promised to find ways to end this scourge once for all. so i'll skip through my other quotes that reagan had and we'll get to intervention by show of hands as heard of operation praying mantis. okay, we have a couple hands. all right. this move to describe iran as an enemy. took place in the midst of hostile engagements between two countries. these clashes built on earlier actions taken by the administration in the iran-iraq after become to share after it had begun to share geospatial intelligence. iraq in 1982, for example.

the administration launched operation staunch, which was a global effort to halt conventional weapons to iran in 1984. u.s. ships started escorting oil tankers through the gulf from 84 to 86. iranian and mines damaged 67 oil tankers, which significantly global gas prices and maritime insurance rates. and so reagan reacted, ordering the u.s. navy to conduct more minesweeper escort missions, reflecting operations and retaliatory strikes, which culminated on april 18th, 1988, when u.s. warships sank over half of iran's navy in operation praying mantis. days later, reagan followed up this action by commanding the navy to use military force, defend neutral ships from iran. and then, of course on july 3rd, the trigger happy quote, uss vinson's shut down iran air six, five, five. a civilian plane carrying 300 passengers. reagan attributed this tragic incident to the ongoing war, which he blamed iran for continuing. and so operation praying mantis

still ranks as the largest u.s. naval battle since world war two. portrayal of iran as an enemy, therefore not simply a matter of words. his function to legitimate actual military against khamenei's regime. in this regard, reagan's characterization of iran as an enemy that demanded active intervention to stop and as a danger to gulf security. and u.s. allies there prompted a pivotal step towards the united states not only articulating a responsibility to protect the gulf, but also asserting a military of intervention to exercise duty as it saw fit. iran contra doesn't fit nicely in this story when, of course. the united states was caught se the united states was caught selling weapons to iran. i would argue. the iran operates as evidence for iran underwent transformation under reagan

presidency. after 79 revolution it was the unclear what iran's relationship to the united states would be especially coming from the a president who focused so much on the rhetoric of cold war in the overarching threat. by the end of his presidency many of, he had applied to communist countries and that they saw to dominate their neighbors had been transferred to iran. the fact that the iran scandal i happened and generated such outrage is testimony how much this vision was accepted by the american people and so i think to conclude my talk, i would say that observers who saw iran at the time were left with one of two conclusions, either the reagan administration had lied about being the enemy or dealt weapons and designed as threat and by u.s. extension u.s. national security that reagan chose to admit lack in judgment.

shows the image of iran and the american enemy was in the eyes of the administration and perhaps the public by the time the iran-iraq war had ended, the navy shot down and cleared thousands of mines. the actions start contrast in the administration's early proclaiming that is soviet union worked behind all the middle east where reagan started out where it was part of cold war, by 1988 effectively making the case and mandated military operations be undertaken for reasons disconnected from the larger cold war. reagan fulfilled the doctrine the and prevent hostile power not by targeting the soviet union by authorizing air and naval strikes. the nation's former gulf ally.

thank you. [applause] >> thank you to the reagan library and to the reagan institute. it is fitting we meet to discuss and analyze all things reagan especially duringn, the ongoing 40th anniversaries of his presidency. i'm one of the participants here focused on the meaning and significance of president ronald reagan's key speeches and how they help us understand strategic and moral thinking. my questions, how did reagan get to 1983 especially march 1983. what made reagan reagan and what did he bring to the white house with him? what wasas the end of his cold r

strategy of peace through strength expressed and pursued as president and especially in two central speeches at moment he helped sought to make. did he stay the course so to speak? what can we learn from the strategy today and some of these questions obviously will have to be saved for discussion here and i hope throughout the conference. in a year retrospect a key inflation point in the cold war march 1983 marked a critical month for reagan, the strategic defense initiative, fdi is unfeasible, reagan defense buildup or bargaining chip that he stubbornly refused to use in cemetery. such interpretation devalue and ignore reagan's own thinking that informed visionrary

project. this thinking is best understood especially inn the proximate setting by examining reagan's announcement of fdi in march rc23rd remarks on defense and national security in combination with his more famous statement just over 2 weeks earlier. in the profound long-term context thinking best understood by examining how reagan got to march 1983. the evil empire speech of march eighth distill thed a lifetime of reflection on human nature, theology, politics and freedom. manifest the asian of reagan's political, strategic, moral and religious understanding of the cold war which he describes in the evil empire speech as part of the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. and in the time here i would like to briefly go through these four areas, political, strategic, moral and religious to understand how reagan got to

march 1983 and how he understood what he was u saying and doing. political, reagan placed the cold war and the necessities requirements and contingencies imposed by the central conflict of his time in his framework for politics overall. justice was central as was freedom, a good in and of itself and necessity to the exercise of justice. he wanted to be a man of peace, not war and said privately and publicly and i have seen in days of research many examples of this and good to have something confirmed when you come to the archives. should bed defined with those with a similar outlook. this is a key reason that a recurring reagan theme concerns the importance of and need for the unity of the west against soviet totalitarian communism.

the principles inspiring a government mattered to him as did structuring institutions and attitude toward the individual, family and community. reagan viewed ideology, a single view that carried revolutionary plan to transform man, state and society as a proversion of politics. in the. 20th century ideology brought forth totalitarianism in two species, communist and nazism, from the 1940's on reagan spoke totalitarianism and in general, reagan view totalitarianism as a vehicle owith radical ideology and illegitimate regime. for reagan and other students from ana to alexander, the

ideology informs the ism. strategic, reagan typically operated at the leverage of principle. it was not his goal to go to war but there was always the risk of hot war. reagan saw the cold war as a real conflict. he did not believe in stability or long peace between what he viewed as two worlds at complete odds, he thought was not politically morally mistaken but incorrect because it enabled soviet repression and regression and extended the cold war. in this sense, the u.s. defense buildup and the economic and technological ussr were tools, not ends. so were diplomacy.

he spoke of forward strategy for freedom to achieve peace through strength. to help eliminate the stakes of the cold war, reagan quoted lennon, for example, it's the inconceivable side by side with imperialistic states and one must conquer and i found yesterday in files yesterday that the reagan knew a variation on the phrasing from lennon at least as early as 1962. reagan cited about the correlation of forces being on communism side and he understood that lennon said the same and that communists did not define coexistence as dayton did. the coldd war could not be wishd away, ideaism or made into routine balance of power politics, realism.

.. .. secured not created by this republican form of government. reagan said all this for decades. in opposition the soviet union system required to the abolition of individual rights the false promise and subsequent negation of collective rights, lack of consent and repression of dissent, tierney and unlimited state and party. when reagan referred in the 1975

radio commentary to a disease like communism, he offered a regime judgment. due to this understanding of the regime, he distinguished between legitimate and illegitimate governments. the soviet union, although a superpower in world affairs was in reagan's view and illegitimate regime. if it could go, it would go. this is thehe context to put the we win, you lose through peace and strength. if reagan the ussr was not only legitimate within the legally recognizedan borders, but it was also an illegitimate empire with respect to the people and nations it enslaved and threatened outside of its legally recognized quarters. for him no moral equivalent could or should be made between the opposing regime's and the cold war.

religious. reagan's deepest well of inspiration, his religious faith intertwined with the political, strategic and moral. how did he look at god and the human condition in those problems ultimately conquered by faith, hope and love and researching here this week i've askedre archivists if there are more letters to be found like that discovered five years ago fromom reagan to his dying fathr in law. of the theological virtues, reagan was a man of hope with faith and love. he believed in the triumph of good and passively were fatalistic late with man and in practice others of goodwill doing their part in god's divine plan to be a part of the reason the cold war was winnable is the genius of totalitarianism and including its soviet species was evil. this meant it should not and ultimately could not stand

forever. communism aimed to overturn work god had made, all of creation including the highest part, human beings. for reagan it mattered that man was made in the image and likeness of god. asumum a result human beings wee not to be reduced. although reagan deeply agreed that absolute power in the hands of human beings corrupts absolutely. in the peace through power and strength he believed that freedom was morally right and communism was wrong. of those who dismissed did not think reagan capable of possessing or expressing a spiritual anthropology. in reagan presidency scholarship, the discovering of theha antinuclear reagan rather than seeing that reagan never liked a war or nuclear

destruction. he was a committed cold warriors so that there would be no world war iii or nuclear destruction. he held these points of principles simultaneously, yet critics regarded him as a warmonger. and i've been struck here at the library this week of the dominant criticism at the time all over the place in the files. sometimes these are the same commentators s who see reagan oe and reagan to rather than analyzing reagan as a whole person who prudently applied to the same fundamental principles and the circumstances he faced and seeing the subsequent actions of america and other states went into his assessments and that he was capable of looking at a short, middle and long ranges. he was able to keep his end in mind. so, the big question then what was that and? in the peacemaker, he analyzes the pursuit of and the success of bringing this soviet union to

a r surrender. he responds to and builds on the question about whether reagan named to win or end of the cold war although the historians reached different answers. he points out that reagan was influenced by fdr's insistence on unconditional surrender in world war ii but knew a similar demand against the ussr would have been delusionalal and foolhardy in the case of the cold war. instead, reagan combined pressure with diplomacy, working against the soviet system while working with soviet leaders and seeking to bring the kremlin to negotiated a surrender. this is very helpful in examining the peace through strength strategy. by looking at what made reagan, reagan, by following him on his intellectual, political, practical experiential road to the white house, it seems reagan always thought the cold war could be one. he committed to and brought this

perspective with him to the white house. what did we win, they lose mean? it meant the false and negative about the ussr ideology, illegitimate regime, rotting and corrupt state, and at the true and positive about america and the west. as well as about the brave individuals and growing movements and communities wanting and struggling to be free behind and from the iron curtain bringing all he had seen, learned, read and written and said since the 1940s about totalitarianism and communism into the 1980s reagan identified current factors underlining the ussr and helped to create the conditions for the soviets ideological surrender and this is the context in which to place certain number negotiated and strategic by the ussr. reagan wanted tore free those.

for reagan if the truth prevailed, the legs could be kicked out from under the lives of the ideology. as president, reagan called for in pursuit of the ideological surrender by the soviet union and his grand strategy of peace through strength. the evil empire speeches constitute a culmination of t decades of thinking and which reagan aimed to change the terms of the debate and break the status quo. heth believed a victory at the level of ideology would morally disarm the enemy. political rhetoric, economic recovery and prosperity, armed diplomacy, allied relationships andd well conceived consistent pressure on the communist totalitarian corps were all essential tools to the strategic and and in the midst of securing the ideological victories towards the end of the presidency, reagan extended victory. thank you. [applause]

in talking about the ark of the soviet rhetoric and policies, i am boiling down a much larger project. i've written about all of the soviet speeches and i also written a book at westminster and i've written with my friend, former student and colleague john jones. students sometimes say to me soviet policy, that seems so dated. with putin's invasion of ukraine and chinese efforts to express power in east asia it doesn't seem to me.ha if there are three theories that are presented about the influence of reagan as cold war policies and rhetoric. there is the theory that says

reagan won the cold war and forced the soviet union to collapse. commentator that involved supposedly by the united states made them the soviets of the outpost and led to the radical reconsideration. i think this interpretation is quite simplistic because it minimizes or ignores reagan's reagan'sconsistent advocacy fors control and reagan's commitment to nuclear abolition. and you also have to understand reagan of course forced the soviets to do nothing. the soviets made decisions to do nothing in part based on policies that reagan implemented that impose costs on them. a second view, which has been labeled the reagan reversal view very distinguished scholar beth fisher has developed this view and argues, for example, the

reagan administration pursued a hard-line policy only during its first three years in office. by january of 1984, he was pursuing reprocurement with moscow in a very sophisticated analysis on the 1984 great speech. there's a third view that i've developed in the essays and i'm hoping to develop any book that i sometimes have called reagan's rhetorical theory of the cold war. and that of view is not so much a reputation of the reagan reversal as a reinterpretation of some of the data arguing that reagan relied consistently on a four primary strategies. that the strategies evolved in part and in response to the situation he faced for example the evil empire speech in part was aimed at undercutting the nuclear freeze by cementing support from evangelicals, and

that played a crucial tactical role. and the strategies also evolved creating new conditions. and that allowed for the change in tone that is so evident in the january 16th, 1984 speech. and i point to the starting point, that reagan continued on occasion a very tough talk with the soviets. it's well known, for example, that he used humor in ways that infuriated gorbachev. and of course the brandon gates speech, in a way, is the most dramatic moment when reagan challenges the soviets saying if they could prove it was real by opening this gate and tearing down this wall. and by the way, defense spending did not begin to decrease in

1984. it peaked in 1987. so i'm going to argue that there are four dimensions and what was fundamentally a rhetorical theory. why do i say it is fundamentally rhetorical? obviously reagan used major speeches andnd we know from any number of sourcesbe that reagan could win the argument notth only with the wet but that he could actually convince the soviet leaders of the superiority of democratic ideals. he was an idealist. john lewis has written about that, that reagan sought to break the stalemate of the cold war with a potency of ideas. but there's another way that it was fundamentally rhetorical. and that is that all the steps the reagan administration took were designed to send a message. in that way i argue that the

arms buildup was not preparation for war but was preparation for peace. that reagan did the buildup to create the preconditions to have a strong negotiating hand and as soon as he thought he had that hand, he immediately took steps that led to the successful negotiations. and that also explains something that's been eluded to in the famous statement that the only appropriate strategy is we win and they lose because that strategy, that goal was based in ideas. reagan more than any other major political figure in the time understood the weakness of the soviet union. yes, there were experts that recognized the weakness of the economy but reagan saw that

before anyone else and he was often ridiculed for those of use by policy commentators of the time. so what are the four components in this grand strategy of the cold war that i see reflected across the ark of reagan's republic rhetoric throughout his presidency? and reagan's view, to speak the truth about the soviet union. andum we know that reagan made y number of harsh comments that as i demonstrate later in the paper, these harsh comments on the occasion continued after 1984, and even the great januarh criticism. i wish i had time to make the argument in detail, but the eye of him and on the passage, one of the most eloquent and all of reagan contained in the implicit

message that jim and sally could travel where they want and ivan and anya could not. the strategy, jack matlock referred to telling the truth about the soviet union. reagan himself said when i came into officee i believe there'd been some mistakes in the policy. i want to do some things differently like speaking the truth about them for a change. peter robinson, the great speech writer, argue to the insistence on telling the truth produced a trumpet like quality to his speeches, and i think that is especially evident in the great, great soviet speeches. and one goal of this was to get theio soviets attention. we know that he was successful in doing that after the westminster speech, they labeled reagan the new messiah. richard types said the wind and speech infuriated the russians more than anything else reagan had said and they added the

response was so we touched a nerve. reagan wanted to touch a nerve to get their attention. he combined that with an arms buildup that as i have argued previously was not designed to prepare for war but was designed to create a strong negotiating position so that he could get real arms reduction. his objection to the previous arms control agreement had been that there had been limitation and not arms reduction. reagan said in his autobiography i wanted to go to the negotiating table and end the madness of the policy but i knew america first had to upgrade its military capabilities so that we would be able to negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness. third, reagan supported arms control and ultimately the elimination of nuclear weapons. he said this many times in

public. but i remember at the time not believing that he meant it, thinking that it was entirely tactical, but we now know it was not. it was a very firm belief. even in the evil empire speech, reagan said this doesn't mean we shouldse isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. i intend to do everything i can to persuade them of the peaceful intent and to remind the west refused to use the nuclear monopoly in the 40s and 50s, something he saidth many times, and that he referenced his proposal for a 50% cut in the ballistic missiles. even in the speech labeled the most incendiary of reagan's speech is also possibly the first press conferencece might e in that category as well, that reagan made a clear commitment to arms control. now the linchpin of this approach, this grand strategy

was reagan's defense of democratic ideas. i suggest to you that since the freedom speech at westminster is the most important speech by a presidentes talking about what western values, what western liberalism means. the wonderful passage is where he makes clear the commitment to the democratic values. he echoed churchill when he said from the baltic and on the black sea planted by totalitarianism has had more than 30 years to establish legitimacy but not one regime house and i love this line b regime supplanted by bayonet do notak take root. george w. bush should have read that line before we decided to invade iraq. i especially like a passage that reagan wrote himself when he pitched the battle for democracy and freedom in the history of the west beginning with the

exodus from egypt and then in a longon rhetorical question but m going to read it to you it is eloquent on the part of the democratic ideas and reagan wrote this himself. who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers for the orgovernment to work the controlled union for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it and want the oppression of the religious liberty in a single political party instead of the free choice, the cultural orthodoxy instead of the democratic tolerance and diversity. and again and again the truth in those words has been demonstrated often regimes stifled dissent but it remains that there's a desire. ideas were utterly central to reagan'slu policy. there is evolution over time. in the beginning of the first term, reagan focused on getting

the attention of the soviets via the tough talk and arms buildup while also calling for eventual arms reduction and defending democratic values. after he succeeded in getting the arms buildup in process, there is a shift to greater focus on the calls for the arms control. it is what i see as a shift in emphasis and that is when he proposes the inf and s historic talks and many at the beginning perceived it as an unfair proposal,, but it became the basis for the actual treaty that was finally negotiated. i argue the principle that holds together the strategy is the defense of democratic ideals. reagan really believed that he could win the argument and

create a situation that was in the interest of the soviets to change their policies. he was an idealist and classical liberal. the consistency and evolution present in the strategy and rhetoric would reinforce the judgment that reagan was a skillful politician and one of its sharpest strategists ever. it also suggests american presidents should negotiate against the studio chiefs first and if they did that, they would learn a great deal. now i want to make the argument here what i call the evolution in the strategy is reflected across the ark of his rhetoric and i do not have time to develop this now. in the paper that is a rough

draft of about a third of the book, i look at the question of whether reagan consistently made the statements for arms control and statements affirming the desire for peace between 1981 and 1983, and he did. then i consider whether reagan continued to critique the soviet unionh and make other statemens that were harsh in nature and defend an arms buildup after 1984. i don't have time to go through that today, but i see that across all the ark of the major soviet speeches. what does this suggestge i think that having a coherent policy based in ideas should be at the core of responding to threats to

world peace from totalitarian governments. it seems to me that it has great relevance for how the united states and the west deal not only with putin and russia but also in the future potentially with china. so i see the evolution of reagan's soviet rhetoric is demonstrating one final thing. and you see this in the handwriting files into speechwriting files that reagan was the primary author of the strategy often overruling the pragmatists in his administration but also overruling the others that are let's say less pragmatic. that reagan was the author of this. in the westminster speech, and this is only one anecdote, but reagan either edited or wrote about 60% of the final speech.

you cannot spend more than five minutes with speeches that reagan edited. i remember clearly when i first discoveredre this the realizatin that reagan was really smart because that skill reveals a very sophisticated mind. thank you very much. [applause] we mostly kept to the time limits. we have time for some discussion. question, comment. it's great to have all of you here. an excellent presentation. i am curious particularly for the last two presentations but welcome the entire panel.

to 1976 and the work and arguments. >> you can tell from my presentation i went earlier and earlier when i submitted my topic i was going to be focusing on the two speeches but then i just kept going backwards. so for me when i started going back to the 1940s i mean the 1940s but the period that you are talking about blinds up a lot in terms of content and rhetoric with the reagan addresses and we know that reagan wrote all of those. so again, looking at the handwriting robin was talking about is both illuminating and fun. so you see over and over all these different scenes are there

but he is going to develop in terms of strategy and policy. there's so many examples that it's in every area. it's in the military part. it's an arms reduction argument. it's in his dislike and hatred of war. the real meaning of peace is multiple addresses on the real meaning of peace he does to addresses on the declassification of the classic truman administration statement and human rights around to get a lot on that. so all the different pieces of reagan are there and since he's been thinking get through, writing about it, speaking about it. i'm struck by i forget where nancy reagan writes it in her own book she says her husband was always a writer and people didn't notice that and i think getting to spend time in

archives shows that. i went through the handwriting. even though we have seen anderson's books and the addition of the diaries and stuff but it makes a difference when you immerse yourself in the handwriting. >> let me addys that i've done d an analysis of the campaign speechesar in 1980 that i think are consistent with the argument that i've made. some of the speechwriters slide the famous debate with robert kennedy in the 60s, and the speechwriters say that consistently the first place they always started with mining the previous speeches because they agreed that there was consensus that reagan was his own best speechwriter. now as reagan assumed office this happened both when he became governor of california and became president and he said things with more nuance than he

did as a private citizen and to some extent thate change happend when he was running for president. >> if i could add very quickly on that. he even says in various places and interviews and elsewhere that when people asked him how did you write so well for reagan, it's because i went and read reagan. >> you said look at the westminster address. look at that draft and then what reagan does to it. there are places reagan will mark alta for paragraphs and have a personal sentencing he will link it to another sentence eight or nine paragraphs leader and doggone if it doesn't read better. and he cut out things that would have unnecessarily offended people for no reason then you look at the things he wrote like some of the passages i just mentioned. it's just magic. >> i agree with so much of what

you said [inaudible] >> the argument in the book about reagan -- >> [inaudible] you say he was committed to -- i love the question about leverage and capability. [inaudible] arms control and abolition, but it overlooks the fact he was always still concerned and realistic enough to understand you still would face the world in which -- what would you use to detour the concept?

[inaudible] >> reagan definitely saw involve rhetorical purpose. you build up so you don't have to fight. i see that as -- think how many nuclear weapons between the u.s. and soviet union existed before the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and how incredibly dangerous it is becoming again as the chinese are dramatically increasing the number of their nuclear weapons with who knows what kind of control and commandce and decisn making processes. i think reagan recognizes those risks and consistently use an arms buildup yes, for arms control, but to maintain that determines and you've written eloquently about how reagan thought you could have conventional forces that have adequate deterrence once you got to the regime.

and of course reagan against the advice of everyone wanted to share the technology even internationalized which i think demonstrates what an idealist he was. he is an old dramatic liberal. to what extent in your work do you grapple with the actual effect of the implementation of the reagan era policies and to what extent does the development and implementation of policies reflect the ideals that reagan touted, and so that's an open-ended question for anybody that wants to tackle that, and then i did have a more specific question for randall because of course the iranian communist party supported the revolution

and so have you found any evidence that they were not aware of that connection and if they were, why do you think reagan didn't make more of a big deal of connecting the threats posed by the iranian revolution and soviet union? >> between the radical islamist groups with they communist par. [inaudible] because he was, his main

commitment was to israel so in so far he wasn't trying to talk about iran as the soviet partner did say over and over again what you doam find in all sorts of campaign documents is disillusioned that they are behind everything, behind terrorism, hostagetaking, behind lebanon, everything. so i think if you are reading behind the lines, you can see a type of weary assessment of iran as a partner of the soviet union without wanting to declare that outright. in terms of policy, what i would say is the main affect of the tilt of reagan's demonization of iran and seeing it as an enemy i would say resulted in the tilt towards iraq. obviously the united states are sharing geospatial intelligence in 1984. there is progressively more involved in helping the iraqi

side. by the time bush gets into office, it's established a very close relationship with the hussein regime. so i think there is the sense in which it gives cover to these type of transformations even though from what i've been able to tell he wasn't minutely involved in a lot of the policy formulations on the iran iraq war or the persian gulf specifically. do you want to add anything on the relationship of rhetoric and policy? >> it's a great question in thinking about what is the relationship between the rhetoric and affect of describing or the narrative of the world and what does that do on a practical level. so i would say i very much agree with what you're saying to provide cover but i also think for individual citizens, not everyone was concerned with the minute details. in particular in particular

regions of the world if we think about more broadly one of the things he needed to do and accomplish is developing a vision for the nation that individuals good to see themselves as a part of. i use the students in class as i show them the 1984 convention film that starts out with individuals being interviewed andel a saying i see myself in this particular vision he's describing and to be clear it is a vision some cannot see themselves in. but i think that that vision and that narrative encapsulates these policy proposals. so even if you have a public that doesn't may be cared about the fbi on a technical level, they do see themselves as a part of c its anti-communist narratie such as elizabeth was talking about. so i think that is where that nexus of the policies come in that it can be both a producer

of history and also provides individuals a narrative they can see themselves a part of the policy even if they don't care about the minute details. >> let me add one other thing that in a way rhetoric can become the ideology. i'm thinking of the most famous lion and the inaugural address andt this present crisis government is in the solution, government is the problem. but that became just orthodox conservative policy. and in an essay on the first inaugural has written about major figures and conservatism refer toed that as doctrine andy the way the introductory phrase in this present crisis was largely lost and began simply an antigovernment philosophy. think of how different that is from the environmentalism, richard nixon for example, or even the montréal accords that

were created and negotiated in the reagan administration that dealt with the ozone crisis that was a pragmatic conservatism that those words helped transform into simply an antigovernment conservatism. >> richard marsh from norad. back to fbi. the question how much did reagan truly believe in the technology and ideas and how much was it just a matter of rhetoric or getting the bargaining position establishing a position of strength and negotiation? is there a way to know that? does anyone have an answer? >> again from the 1970s, and norad -- [laughter] [inaudible] when he realized this was a thing, he was very interested in

it technologically. the evidence what you see in his handwriting again that he wrote for the speech shows that he thinks it is attainable and he believes to create and to develop so all of that i think for him it was a real thing. he thought it was a real thing that could be used to bring about [inaudible] >> if he thought of it as just a strategy, he would have given it away because he was very close to even bigger arms reduction agreement. my reading is reagan was very good on the larger audiological questions. but the minute technical questions i think you are right

he had to pay some of the scientists and didn't need a lot of other details. university of connecticut. this question is for anybody that wants to take it. in rhetoric there is always an audience and so i was wondering how each of you -- it seems implicit for many of you you assume the audience domestic or american public, but who do you, for each of you, do you think is the audience of this rhetoric that you're talking about? >> ford my project but i preset today is part of a larger project that analyzes the images and metaphors. so for iran specifically, i think the metaphor paints a picture of this one big battle

everyone's on one side or the other so part of that audience question has to do with how does the court image get picked up by other politicians or the political opposition as well as reagan and his team. so there's a question of not just audience but who is the audience and how are they recirculating the ideas even if they disagree. so in my project that is what i'm tracking is how do they get reproduced across multiple contexts. in terms of audience, there is obviously dozens of figures you could name. clearly for my case study the primary audience would be thel american people as well as the international scene because reagan is sending messages to iran what he would consider a red light. he is also sending message to the allies reassuring them we will protect them. there's also this larger question looming in theat background of what is the relationship with this conflict to the wide american foreign

policy. >> the soviet rhetoric noted in the american audience he needs to maintain support for the arms buildup and at the end of the presidency maintain support for the arms control agreements for the conservative opposition. 'many were very skeptical and do some of that is tactical as i said responding to the nuclear movement. there is a european audience because there's a major antinuclear movement and he's especially concerned with the west germans because he's got to maintain support for putting the persians into europe is the linchpin of the strategy of creating the negotiating strength to get rid of the intermediate range nuclear weapons which are incredibly dangerous. so he's obviously speaking to the soviets. he's saying things that were true but that presidents never said because he wants to get their attention but he is also

speaking to the people of warsaw pact and we know from their reaction, which was about half a secondd so after the soviet unin that has to join nato how effective that message was in combination with our own experience. so i think those are the four crucial audiences. there's a a statement about rean that he didn't need a pollster because he had an intuitive understanding of the american people and i think he had a very sophisticated understanding of the audience and multiple audience. >> one example for the evil empire speech there's a story about how behind the iron curtain, he found out about it because he is rating soviet

sources and then taps out from isolation on the prison walls and the way that they did. oh my gosh, the president of the united states calls it an evil empire, keep fighting. so we know this is just one story, but we know will many where it mattered and it helped create these conditions like i said where people were fighting from within, behind the iron curtain as well as the kind of pressure that the united states was leading the west to do so i think that it's really important to keep the multiple audiences in mind. >> i would add a very briefly several people have noted the importance of looking at the archives and i think there's always multiple audiencesg that play but also looking at particular moments into speeches very particular audiences and the desire to reach specific ones and i will say the example i mentioned points out one of the best descriptions of the speech in the process of writing

it and what i thought the revolution and she talks about how she wanted the american public watching at home because the speech was timed precisely to coincide with the 8 a.m. news cycles on the east coast. and they went through a lot of discussions with individuals fighting over that time in the white house, but it had to be at like 2:12 p.m. because it would be 8:12 a.m. but there's this incredible passage where she says my goal was to ride so that the president would describe what the u.s. army rangers to do so that the teenagers that were eating theire rice crispies wod pause and stop and say that really happened because at this moment in u.s. foreign policy it's post-vietnam and thinking how we see our vision in the world and the purview of your mind so that was a very specific

audience. and yet at the same time it had a multiple ripple effect and moved out in the campaign. a passage that is still replayed. thinking about this multiple audiences tells of the simple rhetorical purposes in the individual speech. >> we are at the very end but i ewant to say one more thing. to use my role as moderator here, i think reagan was also in a way speaking from the past to future americans. and i want to point a to two passages.al one on the first inaugural and one the great westminster speech where he spoke to us about the importance of our democracy. in the first inaugural, he talked about the transition of power as a miracle that almost no other country in the world could declare. i think reagan if he were here today hete would say we should remember that miracle and protect it and at the end of the

westminster speech, he spoke of the moment where at the end of the second world war when churchill lost an election and he praised him for recognizing the importance of democratic norms and leaving power and noting that he came back again later on. it seems to me the greatest importance ultimately in his rhetoric is for that defense of democraticic values is central o the american story and his belief that ideas could move mountains and they did in the cold war and perhaps they can again so thank you very much. [applause]

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