Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency Ronald Reagan BBC Interview 20240712

But it was an awareness of what it meant in my life, and i mean an awareness of the importance of the occasion. And at the same time, a great prayer in my mind that i could meet the responsibilities. Godfrey a lot of people have told us that one of your greatest strengths was that you had an agenda of just a few big things that you wanted to change. Can you tell me what your goals were . Pres. Reagan yes, the country was in the economic doldrums. It doubled inflation, great unemployment, the economy stagnating, the people of the country seems to have lost a belief in themselves and in the country. Also, there was a matter of National Security. On any given day, half of our military planes couldnt take off for lack of spare parts. Half of our naval vessels had that or lack of crew. So i was determined that we had to restore the economy, and i have been asked many times, and campaigning if i ran into the deficit problem because we have been deficit spending for almost half a century, with only a few years scattered here and there where there was not an annual deficit. I would be asked questions about what what i do about National Security and the spending for that in the face of a deficit . I said, i would have to choose National Security. So, we set out to restore the economy. I had some definite ideas on that. One of them was a very controversial one and that was i had a degree in economics. I believed and from experience and our own history, that the best way to increase government revenues was to cut the taxes, not spend them. To restore incentive. We had a wide range of tax cuts, and it worked. There was a sizable increase in our revenues as those tax cuts to affect, and there still is today. So, it was to get that done. Then, i always believed there was a hunger for a spiritual revival in our country. Not only a revival in those things of morality and family and so forth, but in our nation as a whole. And we set out to do that. I hear it from a great many people who say it, that they now have a restored belief in our country. Godfrey some people speak about the United States is moving forward as being number one when you speak about american pride. Thats not easy for other americans to relate to. Do you worry about that . Pres. Reagan there is something you have to remember about america. This is the melting pot. All of us, by the will of ourselves or by our ancestors, came to this country from someplace else. You dont quit loving your mother because you have taken a wife. All of us still have a feeling of attachment to our original sources. So, i think that still is a part of our makeup. It does not mean we are denigrating whats happening anyplace else, it just means that we want to live up to the heritage that has been given us. Created a new climate of business for the early years of an ministration. Some of the stock market is down, some of the businesses and Economic Data is not so good, how confident are you that the country is truly contested . That competitive . Pres. Reagan all of the things we had to deal with there, and i know i have not explained them well, but we are in the 65th month of a sustained economic expansion. That is the longest period of expansion in our nations history. There is a thing in our country called the potential employment pool. All the people who wanted the job are available for work. The highest percentage of that pool is employed today and has ever been true in our nations history. Never mind the stock slump or something in the market. I learned in economics that there is nothing so timid as 1 million. I think all the signs are there, from employment and the fact that we have gotten inflation under control, down from the double digits of what it was. So i believe that our economy is on a sound basis. Godfrey we went with you when you made your speech at notre dame. You said that the Manufacturing Industry was not in difficulty. Its impossible not to notice that the plants have moved to mexico or abroad. Do you think government should be doing something about restoring the competitiveness of american industry . Pres. Reagan we have a program of trying to restore competitiveness because our standard is so high that cost of production is higher than and many countries. We are not going to lower our standard of living to be a little bit more competitiveness. All we ask is a fair Playing Field with other nations. But i would like to point out that, in this broad nation of ours, average figures for the nation do not apply to every sector. There are going to be pockets of unemployment or the manufacturing plant closed because there is no longer a market with product. I think back to some earlier days of what happened. They had to find a new job someplace. This is true, there are signs of actual economic decline nationwide. There are areas where they were concentrated around a particular industry and that industry has changed. In some instances, it has changed because of technology. They find that they can produce with the development of many machines and so forth that they have developed something where they dont require as many employees. But as a result of that we have a mobile society. If people are accustomed in this country of moving and going to other areas, then we find areas in this country where we are begging for employees. Right now, in the nations capitol here. Last sunday, the local papers had ads. Those are the ads where there are hundreds on one page. 74 full pages last sunday of employers looking for employees. Godfrey in general, over the past eight years in the United States, there have been winners and there have been losers. How do you feel yourself about the losers . Pres. Reagan i think that anyone who is faced with need, and to no fault of his own or her own, yes, government can play a part in helping them. My criticism, one of the things change seeking to get change is the nature of welfare reform is that its one thing to help someone, to once again become selfsustaining, but its another thing when government then introduces a Welfare Program that actually preserves the jobs for the bureaucrats and it makes the dependence of that individual permanent rather than seeking to get them out of that to where they could earn their own livelihood. Godfrey you mentioned the buzz the budget deficit earlier, it was one of your serious mandates when you were elected to balance the government. U. S. Is the biggest debtor nation in the world. How do you feel about that . Pres. Reagan i am just as critical of it as i was before i got here. The budget by that time was 1 trillion. I knew that there was no way you could balance the budget in one year without pulling the rug out from any number of institutions. But i said that we must set out to get us on a downward path to when we can look ahead and make sure that we would be balanced. And at that point also, i advocated an amendment to our constitution that would be a permanent necessity of a balanced budget. But the budget had been getting out of control for a number of years, as i said earlier. We have not been balancing for more than a half a century. Now, what happened back about 15 years before 1980, the middle 1960s. President johnsons administration adopted a program called war on poverty. It was a Great Program of Government Programs to help one kind or another. Poverty won in that war because beginning in 1965 to 1980, in those 15 years, the budget multiplied to almost five times what it had been. The budget deficit multiplied to 52 times what it had been. So that when we came here, it was built in to the structure, and it has just kept on doing this. Our fight with the legislature in all those years has been to working at the cuts and bring this down in a way we can balance it. Godfrey are you frustrated by the difficulties that every president has with working with the congress when it is controlled by the other party . There are frustrations. There has always been that kind of contest. Years when congress has sought to restrain constitutional powers of the president. That has continued. There are areas they have restricted the president , in such a way, i think, it acts against the best interests of the country. Do you feel you are losing that battle with the congress . Well, there may be some things here or there where they have increased their attempt to control but the fight goes on. A lot of people would never have believed back in 1981 that you would be flying to moscow, that you would be negotiating with the soviet leadership and getting on quite well with the soviet leadership. When did you decide, when did you change your mind about negotiating . I have always felt there should be negotiations. I have always felt that that was the answer, not an eventual war, as so many think built into their thinking that it is inevitable someday. You must remember, when i first came here in the first two years i was here, soviet leaders kept dying on me. I met with some. We will be having a fourth summit when i go to moscow. I came here with a belief that what was needed was realism and strength. Do not be lured into a detente because it sounds good or to make a treaty in which you shake hands and yet you know that the evils are still going on. Realism was to make evidence that i had a career view of what the differences were. Strength was in the building up of our defense structure and some things such as when i came here, they had leveled were aimed at europe and the great targets of europe, nuclear missiles. There was no counter weapon in europe against that. The nato nations had asked this country prior to my arrival for us to provide a counter weapon. So it fell to me to begin the installation of this. The soviet union protested about our installing these weapons. I offered an alternative. I said, look, we are willing to not put those weapons in there if you would eliminate yours. Lets have a 00 agreement between us and those weapons. Well, they walked away from the table. They would not even discuss it. We went ahead and installed the weapons, and one day, they came back and said they would like to talk 00 with us and i think this is another evidence that strength, you have to deal from strength. Do you still think of the soviet union as an evil empire . Fmr. Pred. Reagan i have to because of the many things that are being done there to their own people, not just to other countries where they sought to influence them and make them communist allies, but in looking at their own people and denying people the right to practice religion. Virtually the taking away of the children from the family with regard to its raising of education. All of the things of that kind, the person whose career can be destroyed in the soviet union simply if they express a desire to emigrate. Among the downtrodden and unemployed, the labor camps for Political Prisoners that are there just simply because they do not agree with some of the governments policies. Yes, i find that evil. I think they are violating some of the principles in the helsinki pact with regards to human rights. Reporter many of your closest conservative supporters are troubled by your policy. They assert it could seriously put the security of the United States and the west at risk. What do you say to them . Fmr. Pres. Reagan they dont know what they are talking about. I have said many times a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. I was very interested to hear a foreign minister of the soviet union repeat those words himself not too long ago. The present the policy that existed when i came in called the mutual assured instruction, destruction, was a policy based on both of us having enough Nuclear Weapons. When the other one started a war with Nuclear Weapons, you could retaliate. Well, what kind of a defense is that . In a nuclear war, how could there be a victor after those Nuclear Weapons exploded all over the country and made it radioactive . The people who once lived in chernobyl still cannot go back there to live because of the poison. My feeling is we start eliminating these Nuclear Weapons and getting rid of them. I am also very determined that after the present treaty before we proceed any further, such as the tactical battlefield weapons, then we must negotiate. Before we do that, we must negotiate a reduction of the conventional weapons down to parity to make sure that one country will not have an advantage over the other. Reporter why have you insisted on keeping the capability to build a Strategic Defense Initiative as opposed to detente . Fmr. Pres. Reagan because that is the ultimate way to get rid of Nuclear Weapons. To make them obsolete. If you have to face shooting them with no knowledge as to whether you can get one through to its target, then why go on with those costly weapons . I asked in the very beginning i am not a scientist. I brought in our people and our military leaders, and i said is it worthwhile . Is it possible to look and see if there cannot be developed a defensive weapon, there has been one for every other offensive weapon since history began. A defensive weapon that could actually intercept those missiles as they came out of their silos on the way . They came back to me after talking it all over and said, yes, they think this is worth investigating. We have made great progress now. We know we are on the way to such a defensive program. I have never considered a bargaining chip to giveaway and return for eliminating a certain number of missiles my thought is that once such a thing is proven and practical, then we can all take a look at our Nuclear Weapons and say we do not need these anymore. In fact, i told general secretary gorbachev that if and when we were able to establish there is such a weapon, they have been working on such a thing for 15 years longer than us. If we should get it first, i would be willing to share the information with them. On the basis that we all get rid of our Nuclear Weapons. Are you afraid that im sorry. Thats wonderful, mr. President. [indiscernible] i can understand the argument for this strategic defense. Is there a danger that insisting on this would miss a historic opportunity of doing a deal with the soviets on this missile . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no, it seemed perhaps that way at reykjavik when we finally found ourselves agreeing completely on the eventual elimination of all the weapons. And then, the general secretary put the price on that as our stopping the development of sdi, so i came home. We are now back negotiating on a treaty to cut in half the strategic ballistic missiles. Reporter many people in europe are afraidthat that sdi might be a sign of a weakening american commitment because the United States could defend itself but also others could be a sign of a weakening commitment. What do you say to those people . Fmr. Pres. Reagan i have said it to them. I met with our nato allies and made it plain exactly what i see as the goal is not just for us but for all of us. All of them, too. I think they see now i can understand it. They have been led to believe that maybe this Nuclear Umbrella which was part of the basis for nato was going to be eliminated and leave them facing that gigantic conventional force there. And i convinced them that we have nothing of that kind in mind and that there would have to be the inclusion of conventional weapons as we went further in any agreements. I think they are all very satisfied now because that is our first line of defense. Reporter before we leave this subject to Nuclear Weapons, can you Say Something about the personal burden of being president in the nuclear age . How conscious are you of the fact that that decision is ultimately yours . Fmr. Pres. Reagan i think you are conscious of what can happen. You certainly would not want to be presiding when such a thing takes place. I have always felt that it is you do not become president. You are given temporary custody over an institution called the presidency, and with that goes some responsibilities. And if you are willing to raise your hand and say i do, so help me god, you have to accept that these are now your responsibilities. Reporter do you literally lose sleep over it . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no, i sleep pretty well. After i have said my prayers. Reporter what do you understand by what is called the reagan doctrine . Fmr. Pres. Reagan well, the reagan doctrine was based on the recovery of that economic slump we were in and putting it on a firm basis such as reductions in tax and so forth. It was also based on my belief that one of the great strengths of america is that it is a federation of sovereign states, and our constitution from the beginning provided certain rights and laws that belong at the state level, where they were in charge. And over the years, again, the Congress Passed bills that invaded that right and was taking more and more federal power to where it almost looked as if the federal government was trying to make the states just administrative districts of the federal government, so i pledged also a return to this federal system, and we have been working at that. There is also a part of that, this need for the people. To once again recognize their responsibility as citizens because our constitution is different from most all of those in the rest of the world. It is not a document in which the government says with the people can do. We the people tell you the government what you can do. I wanted to restore all of that, so that was part of it, including dealing with the nations abroad and seeking to help wherever we could, developing nations throughout the world to understand democracy and to choose democracy and Free Enterprise as their path. Reporter mr. President , perhaps one of the worst crises of your presidency rose over what is called the iran contra affair. What was the driving force behind that . Fmr. Pres. Reagan it is something that with all of the investigations by the committees and the special investigators and so forth, has been completely missed, overlooked, and distorted. We have been trying for a long time behind the scenes to bring about peace between iran and iraq. We knew we were not the favorite people of the houmani because of our relationships with the shah. Let me put it this way. It started with this. By way of a third country in the middle east, we were informed there were some representatives of iran, not the government. Who wanted to make contact with the United States to see if they could not establish a better relationship and they put it on the basis you will remember at that time, not too long ago, we were hearing every day that their days were numbered and he might not live out the week. These people are representative of one of the factions that are still there within that country as to who is going to be in charge when he is gone. This country recommended him. Said their credentials were honest. So we accepted and we sent some people. Had to be a covert operation because if they were discovered, they would be executed. After our people we would like to have that better relationship. They made the proposal that they would have more confidence in our people meeting with them because there is no one like the secretary of state or anything of that kind not to have a covert operation. Could not do that. It would convince them that these people they were talking to were able to contact the top of government here and represented the top of government. They put out that that, if they would sell them literally what amounted to a token force, it did not change any balance between iran and iraq. Those missiles. This would reassure them, but also, it said it would strengthen them in the coming factionalism about taking over the government because they would present these to the military. Not the revolutionary militia. This would give them a prestige and they would have to have the help of the military. Now, this was presented to us. I told our people over there that we had a policy that we could not do business with any country that supported terrorism, which iran does. They made a pretty good case for themselves that any government of theirs would not support terrorism, and finally, i said theres a pretty good way they could establish that. If we do the same with the weapons, we have got some hostages held by hezbollah, which we know has a relationship with iran. And what they use their would they use their influence to see if they could free hostages . This is what happened. And i okd the shipment, which i am legally entitled to do as president , to the kidnappers. Not to the kidnappers. To these people. When some of our people said it is going to look like arms for hostages, i said wait a minute, if your child was kidnapped, and you did not believe in paying ransom, but you found there was an individual that you believed had the power to get your child back, you would not mind doing something for that individual. That was the basis upon which this was done. Reporter in view of the way things worked out, do you regret taking that decision . Fmr. Pres. Reagan i regret one thing, at some of the people in the cabinet opposed it, never on the ground that it was on for hostages. They said if it ever becomes known, it will be made to look like we traded arms for hostages. They were right. That is exactly what has happened and the media has helped. So have the opponents of our program i dont know. You cannot sit by when you know that you have got citizens of your country who are held in savage captivity by barbarians of that type. Would call your attention. Before this thing was made public, two hostages had been released and i was told that there were two more coming out in 48 hours. They never got out. Someone tipped off the scandal sheet over there in beirut and published it and our press took it up, went wild with it, and it was known and distorted. It was then that i found out a number of things that had been capped. I had not known. But i am the one who went before the press here and before the congress and told them what the plan had been, and now, what we just discovered about the extra money and so forth. We have gotten our 12 million for the 12 missiles. It is only when this scandal broke that i discovered there was more money in a swiss bank account. Someone had raised the price on the missiles. Reporter mr. President , as you look back on your years, what do you think has been your greatest achievement . Fmr. Pres. Reagan sometimes, i think just staying alive. But no, seriously, i think that we have, as we said earlier, about the economy, we have implemented a member of the a number of the things we set out to do. There are some things we have not achieved yet that i still think are a part of this whole program. I guess i am most proud of the change in attitude on the part of the people and evident among our young men. Do you know that when i came here, most of our people in uniform, young men in uniform, they would not go into town in their uniforms on a saturday night . They changed into civilian clothing. I came here with a mission i took up with the military as to how to restore pride in the uniform so that they would be proud to wear that uniform and let people that pass them on the street be able to say a kind word to them when they saw that uniform, and that has happened. One of my greatest prides is to do with the young men and women in uniform in our military. They are all volunteers. They are the highest level of intelligence and education that we have ever had in our military. Reporter mr. President , throughout your career, you seem to have a consistent mac at persuading people knack at persuading people. What is this . Fmr. Pres. Reagan maybe it is because back when i was governor of california, i issued an order to my cabinet, to all the people around me, and i issued the same order here, that no decisions would be based on the political ramifications. We would make a decision to do or not to do something based on is it good for the people . I have stuck to that. I think that is it. It is not any time i go running and saying we must have this because it will be politically helpful. No, we have stuck with that. Maybe that is part of why i had some success in persuading them. Reporter do you think of yourself as a politician . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no. Exactor. Reporter how important has mrs. Reagans advice been . Fmr. Pres. Reagan this has helped me such as i think every man dreams of having. A relationship that sort of matches your dreams of marriage when you were an adolescent. But she does not have the so many people in the media have tried to intimate she does not come down and get involved in affairs like disarmament or anything else. She does what she thinks is good for me and i feel free to confide in her on the things that are going on, and then at the same time, she is i think one of the finest unpaid employees of the government because as a first lady, she has been employed but with regards to the drug program nationwide, and how she continues to work with that and a few other interests of hers, she is a tremendous help. As a matter of fact, she is helped just by my knowing she is up there when i go to meet her at the end of the day. We have been dogging your footsteps. We went to dixon and founded a lovely place. Talked to a number of people who have known you. Can you Say Something about what values you acquired or learned in dixon that have helped you in a political career . Fmr. Pres. Reagan oh my goodness. Yes, i have often thought that our children were born and we tried to raise them under a handicap. We lived in a large city. I have often thought there is something out there in small town america, rural america, where you know everyone and are known by everyone in the community, that is different than being anonymous in a large city and being able to go down the street and no one knows who you are or cares. We were not welloff. As a matter of fact, we were poor, by any standard, but i never knew a time when my mother was not finding someone in the community that was worse off than we were and she was helping them. Did your mother specifically plant the ambition of a public career in your mind . Fmr. Pres. Reagan no. As a matter of fact, without her knowing it, she planted in my mind the first ambition, the entertainment world. She was she had been in a hometown she had been a hometown talent in a hometown talent club that put on plays in the small town and she gave readings. I dont think that goes on anymore, but she would be invited to go to Club Meetings and recite, whether it was comic or dramatic or whatever. When i was a little boy, she kind of got me interested in memorizing. I think that is why i could recite the robert w. Service, a couple of those poems. But i was i had two great interests in my education in addition to getting an education, and they were athletics, playing in the athletic teams, and being in the entertainments, in the class plays and the drama club plays and so forth. Even though i got my degree in economics, when i got out of college and was forced to face up to what did i really want to do . I realized it was in some part of the world of entertainment. The democrats in california used to say you were only an actor. Do you think being an actor actually helped in your public career . Fmr. Pres. Reagan yes, very definitely. Actually, i did not suddenly change and say i want to be a politician. I made a speech i always believed that you have to pay your way, so in hollywood, if you do not sing or dance, you wind up as an after dinner speaker, so i was out on the mashed potato circuit quite a bit. I always did my own speeches and talked on what i was interested in. And this led to my making a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater and his president ial campaign that was played on national television. And as a result of that speech, a group of Prominent Party members came to me before the 1966 governor race in california and claimed that i was the only one who could bring the party together. It was quite divided and split up. And win the election. I thought they were crazy. I said, you pick someone else and campaign for them. Pretty soon, nancy and i could not sleep. We thought, what if they are right and we live with ourselves if we keep saying no . Finally, i made a proposal to them that i would go out on a circuit throughout the state making speeches and come back and tell them whether they were right or wrong. And i came back and told nancy that i thought maybe they were right. So i finally gave in. You know, i was well into the campaign before i realized i would not be back in show business by november when election time came. It suddenly dawned on me i might win and that was the end of show business for me. Before that, when you were with the Screen Actors Guild in hollywood, you encountered the evidence of strong leftwing influence. How important was that to changing your political ideas . Fmr. Pres. Reagan well, i dont know that it changed my political ideas so much as it did give me a real understanding of the communist menace. I had been on the board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild and i came back from the service after four years in world war ii and back to the board and discovered that something was going on in hollywood and there are some 43 unions in the Motion Picture business, and some of them had they were way off on a tangent and they called a jurisdictional strike. This was not a fight with management. This was a fight that they believed another union was doing the work they should be doing and it threatened to close down the Motion Picture industry. The responsibility hit the Screen Actors Guild. If we aligned ourselves in that strike with the other side, the picture business would close. You cannot have a picture business if you dont have anyone in front of the camera. I made a motion on the board that we inject ourselves into this fight by inviting both sides and management to sit down at a table with us as the third party, the neutral party, to see if we could not find a peaceful solution, and it was out of this meeting every day for months that i learned what was going on and i was helped along when pretty soon, some of the people from our own fbi made contact because of what they saw i was doing. I had become president of the Screen Actors Guild and they came wanting some findings from me on people i had dealt with and so forth. I got an insight into what was happening in the Motion Picture business and i set out to do everything i could to stop that kind of takeover of organizations like that, and we won. Is that what you are trying to do on a world scale . Fmr. Pres. Reagan well, i never got over realizing i could recognize the signs and that was one of the reasons i said, just as they were doing this, they were doing it in the way of not trying to convince the people, but in having the takeover at the top, just like their own country is, and i said, why dont we spread the word about democracy to these emerging countries so that they will know there is an alternative to this . [indiscernible] fmr. Pres. Reagan what were you just going to ask . I was going to ask you about the days, what your feelings were then. I think, in a way, mr. President , that solidified your popularity in the country, the way you dealt with all of that. It is a crucial thing. Do you agree . Fmr. Pres. Reagan the only unique thing i think about that was that i got all the way to the hospital and walked into the emergency room. When the nurse came to meet me, i said, i am having trouble breathing. I did not know i had been shot. I thought when the secret service man jumped on my back after throwing me into the car, i thought he had broken a rib. And then when i started to spit blood, i thought the rib had punctured a lung. That is amazing. When were you first aware what had happened . Fmr. Pres. Reagan when they got my clothes peeled off of me, including cutting off a suit i was wearing for the first time, a brandnew suit. They found the wound under my arm where the bullet had hit me there. And i was not aware of it. What had happened was the bullet went off the side where the bullet had hit me and i was not aware of it. What happened was, bullet caromed off the side of the car as i was coming to the car. Went through the space between the door, the hinge space, and caught me right here. Im sorry. Your microphone is off, and the producer would love to get this in the program would you just mind starting at the beginning of the story . Its a great story. We just wanted to try again. Fmr. Pres. Reagan what did i say . Well take a minute to do that. When they said the last question i stopped. We can just do it very, very quickly. Tape is running. Mr. President , i wonder if you would tell us about the day you were shot at the hilton hotel. Fmr. Pres. Reagan the most unique thing about that was, i heard what i thought was firecrackers and the next thing i knew, a secret serviceman standing behind me, literally picked me up and threw me head first and dived me into the car. The door waiting there. And i got in the car, and he got in behind me and the door was closed and we started away and suddenly, i felt the most awful pain that you could imagine, and i hadnt felt it up until then. I didnt feel a bullet hit me or anything. And i said to the agent, who was in the car with me, i said, i think you broke a rib when you jumped in on top of me, and just then, i coughed and i had a handful of frothy blood, and i said and i think the rib broke and has punctured a lung and he by this time was telling the driver, George Washington hospital, and we were on our way. Well, i finished off my handkerchief with the blood and i finished off his because i kept coughing and kept getting more difficult to breathe. We got to the emergency, and i got out and walked into the emergency ward, and a nurse came to meet me and i said, im having trouble breathing, and just about that time, my knees began to get rubbery and the next thing i knew, i was on a gurney and it wasnt until they cut my clothes off of me, which included a brandnew suit i was wearing for the first time, and then found the wound back up here, where it had gone in. The pain had come when it had hit that 7th rib, and the pain came when it glanced off the rib and then went on down through my lung and about an inch from my heart and that was about the time they told me i had been shot. [laughter] i hadnt known it. Thank you were going to have to run, so [indistinguishable talking] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] tv,his is American History covering history cspan style with lectures, interviews, and discussions with authors, historians, and teachers. Weekend, every weekend, only on cspan3. Each week, American History ca provide films that provide context for todays Public Affairs issues. Governor reagans accomplishments were the kinds of things people all over the country asked him to talk about. Then, the inevitable happened. Over thehe went, all country, people ask him where he stood on the national issues. This is where he stands. Not many days ago, our country was on fire because an assassins bullet took one mans life. Whatever you may think of Martin Luther king, whether you approved or disapproved, i think something of america was killed also and i think the murder of that man, the death of america began with the first acceptance of compromise with the law. Those who would apply the law unequally because of race or religion and acceptance of those who advocate breaking those laws with which they are in disagreement, and it includes se in government, and unless and until they have the courage to say the law will be enforced equally to all and at all times with no exceptions. I have learned how our economy is not extended, it is bounty to all of our citizens. Plea andard their curiously, it is not for more itfare, it is for jobs, and is for good schooling and discipline in the schools their children attend, not buzzing across town to some other school. I have to ask why. Why, in all these recent years, have we as republicans left this whole humanitarian field be preempted by the opposition when their record in the entire field of welfare, in their entire field of human relations is one of colossal and almost complete failure . [applause] their whole Big Government approach has institutionalized poverty perpetuating its degradation until welfare becomes a way of life under the second and Third Generation of the recipient families. They have tried this raising of people by mass movements. Our philosophy is based on a belief in the individual. It is freedom and it is rights. In this area of human relations, we are dealing with individuals. Each one of these people unique, each one crying out for his rightful heritage of dignity in the right to shape his own destiny. We have a chance to prove as republicans, to prove we are more than just negative critics. We have a chance to prove that hours, ours is the wave of the future. Lets tell them that we will employ whatever measures are necessary to start saving human beings and we are going to stop destroying them. [applause] tv,ext, on American History world war ii scholar James Holland talks about his book, the allies strike back, 19411943 the war in the west. And nazi germanys weakening position as early as two years 1943, before they were defeated. The National World War Ii Museum in new orleans provided this video. Good evening and welcome to another great book lunch here at the National World War Ii Museum. My name is stephen watson, i am the president s the president s the president , ceo of the museum. Its a delight to have you with us on this rainy evening. I also want to make a special welcome to all of those watching online and i hope those of you watching through our facebook feed or other social media channelspl