In one of the most memorable speeches of his presidency, Ronald Reagan stood at the beaches of Normandy and described how Army Rangers on D-Day had scaled cliffs and defeated enemy troops who were firing down on them.
"The air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. ... The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. ...Two hundred and twenty-five came here, After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. ... These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."
The 1984 election was virtually over before it began. During his first term, Ronald Reagan had established himself as one of the most popular leaders of all time. The chant at the Republican National Convention of "four more years" would not be denied. After the convention, the President's Democratic rival, Walter Mondale, mounted several solid attacks on Reagan's record and apparent lack of knowledge on certain issues. Reagan simply laughed off the charges and used his fantastic sense of humor to deflect the criticism. To Mondale's dismay, it seemed as if nothing could stop another term for the Reagan-Bush team.
In Ronald Reagan's 1983 State of the Union Address, he declares that America is on the mend. He starts with a hopeful note of what the American people can accomplish together. He states that the economic problems concerning the federal budget, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates will be met with a four-part plan to increase economic growth and reduce deficits. He also provides reports on international trade, technology, education, criminal justice, national defense, and foreign policy. He lauds the american people for leading in the economic recovery program and being responsible to putting America back on top.
Reagan made the speech A Time for Choosing in 1964 in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. This speech marks the beginning of Reagan's political career.
When President Ronald Reagan spoke to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in Orlando, Florida, on March 8, 1983, he used the term evil empire to describe the Soviet Union. Millions of Americans heard or read the phrase and remembered it for years; it was powerful language that in Reagan's view explained why the United States had been locked in a cold war with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics since the end of World War II. The speech, which came to be known as Reagan's “Evil Empire” Speech, was not mainly about the cold war, the Soviet Union, or international affairs, however. It was about moral values, particularly how they underlay American democracy and how political disagreements were often, at bottom, moral conflicts. Reagan delivered the speech at a time when his defense and foreign policies divided the American people. He was hoping to enlist the members of the NAE and other Christian conservatives to support his national security policies.
"From the day our administration took office, our top priority has been to rescue this economy from years of government mismanagement. We inherited the highest rates since the Civil War, the first back-to-back years of double-digit inflation since World War I, rising budget deficits, and a national debt ready to break through the trillion dollar barrier.
For years, government spending and taxation have grown faster than the underlying economy. The American people elected us to reverse that trend, and that's what we've begun to do. Our program has only been in effect for some 40 days, and you can't cure 40 years of problems in that short time. But we've laid a firm foundation for economic recovery in 1982.
...We have no plans for putting Americans in combat any place in the world. And our goal is peace; it has always been. And at the end of this month, we will go into negotiations with the Soviet Union on what I hope will be reduction of the theatre nuclear weapons in Europe to the lowest point possible."
Ronald Reagan
"All of us should remember that the Federal Government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files, and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control. I do not intend to make wildly skyrocketing deficits and runaway government simple facts of life in this administration. As I've said, our ills have come upon us over several decades, and they will not go away in days or weeks or months. But I want the American people to know that we have begun."
Ronald Reagan
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
Ronald Reagan
In one of the most memorable speeches of his presidency, Ronald Reagan stood at the beaches of Normandy and described how Army Rangers on D-Day had scaled cliffs and defeated enemy troops who were firing down on them.
