EDITORIAL: Ronald Reagan 1911-2004 (06/13/04)

EDITORIAL

Ronald Reagan 1911-2004

As these lines are being written, thousands of people are lined up to pay their last respects to former President Ronald Reagan, whose body is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The outpouring of respect and love for the 40th president of the United States is palpable. Among those mourning the passing of this great man - whom President George W. Bush described as "a gallant leader in the cause of freedom" - are Ukrainian Americans and, indeed, Ukrainians around the globe who remember President Reagan's words during two terms in office (1981-1989).

They were words that changed the course of history.

President Reagan was credited with winning the Cold War and hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he described as "The Evil Empire." He delineated his view of the USSR as evil in his June 8, 1982, speech to the British House of Commons, expressing his fervent hope that Marxism-Leninism would wind up "on the ash heap of history," and underscored that "We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings."

In a June 14, 1983, letter written after he read the special issue of The Ukrainian Weekly devoted to the 50th anniversary of the Great Famine of 1932-1933, President Reagan wrote: "We should never forget the brutality and inhumanity of a system that did not merely permit but actually induced this holocaust by starvation in the 'breadbasket of Europe.' I share with you the hope that the Ukrainian people and all the people who yearn for freedom and the recognition of their full human dignity will one day realize their dreams." That same year, while addressing the 25th observance of Captive Nations Week on July 19, President Reagan assured his listeners: "Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream. And someday, you, too, will be free."

He uttered perhaps his most memorable words on June 2, 1987, when, at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, he challenged the Soviet leader: "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

And his actions buttressed his words.

On May 30, 1988, he met with 98 Soviet dissidents in Moscow at the U.S. Embassy. The unprecedented meeting became a tangible expression of the U.S. president's support of the human rights movement and its persecuted activists, to whom he said: "I came here hoping to give you strength. Yet, I already know it is you who have strengthened me, you who have given me a message to carry back. While we press for human rights through diplomatic channels, you press with your very lives, day in, day out, year after year, risking your jobs, your homes, your all." He lifted their spirits when he stated: "I have to believe that the history of this troubled century will indeed be redeemed in the eyes of God and man, and that freedom will truly come to all, for what injustice can withstand your strength and what can conquer your prayers?"

There are many, many more examples of Ronald Reagan's devotion to freedom and the moral clarity of his world view, which shaped the policies of his administration and laid the groundwork for the new world order yet to come.

In bidding the nation farewell from the White House on January 11, 1989, President Reagan noted: "We meant to change a nation and, instead, we changed a world." The truth of those words was reinforced by subsequent events, as the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union disintegrated and in its place arose independent states, including our beloved homeland, Ukraine. Ronald Reagan's "crusade for freedom" had been realized.

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