 Enough of me and enough of introductions. He is here. Take him to your hearts. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And may I say that every bit of show business instinct that is within me says that perhaps it would be better if the entertainment followed the speaker. You are a tough act to follow. But let me begin by saying how appropriate it is that we honor tonight, the shuttle seven. All of them were heroes. Each of us is in their debt. And we know now that God holds them close and we pray He'll comfort their grieving loved ones. And we're aware too of our own duty to them and to their memory. We must continue. Other brave Americans must go now where they so valiantly try to lead. A fitting place I've always thought for Americans, the stars and beyond. And in some closed societies a tragedy of this sort would be permanently disheartening. A fatal setback to any such program followed not by mourning and national recommitment but by attempts to evade responsibility, or not so in a democracy and not so in America. John Glenn said the other day that after the pad fire that killed three astronauts in 1967, support for the space program skyrocketed among the American people. And that's because here the government does not rule the people. It is the people. And ultimately what happens to programs of this sort and what follows tragedy of this kind are decisions that belong not to government but to the people. But the tragedy of the shuttle seven will only serve to strengthen the resolve of America to pursue their dream of the stars and beyond. And anyone who doubts this does not know the history of our land, the wonder of America and her free people, or the meaning of the words, the right stuff. You know I called the families yesterday of those seven heroes. Every one of them concluded the remarks between us by saying the program must continue they would have wanted it that way. Well I'm delighted to be here tonight and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the American Conservative Union along with human events, national review and young Americans for freedom for putting on this conference and for extending this invitation. Tonight my thoughts cannot help but drift back to another conservative audience of more than 20 years ago and a presidential campaign that the pundits and opinion makers said then was the death knell for our movement but just as the opinion leaders had been stunned by Barry Goldwater's nomination so too they would be shocked by the resiliency of his cause and the political drama to unfold around it. The rise of the new right and the religious revival of the mid-seventies and the final triumphant march to Washington in 1980 by conservatives. And you know that last event really did come as a shock of seismic proportions to this city. I can remember reading about a poll that was taken at a Washington National Press Club luncheon in January of 1980 on the eve of the primary season. Those in attendance were asked who would be the next president of the United States. Well Jimmy Carter got a large number of votes so did Teddy Kennedy. There was one candidate on the Republican side who got so few votes from the wise men of Washington that it wasn't even reported in the lineup. I think it had to do with his conservative leanings. Well I hope they know I'm not about to change. But while official Washington always underestimated our cause some of the shrewder journalists did over the years sense something astir in America. Theodore White said openly just after Barry Goldwater's campaign, some see this as a last adventure in the politics of nostalgia. Others see this Arizonan as a symbol cast up by the first crest of an early tide. Thrown back this once but bound to come again in greater strength. And you know to be here tonight and to be a part of this historic conference you are biggest attention getter to look at your program for the next two days and all the important people and discussions to stand here now with the presidential seal in this podium to feel the energy the almost festive air of this audience. I think you've provided an answer to Teddy White's implicit question about the fate of our movement, the state of our cause. Fellow conservatives it took us more than 20 years but who can deny it? We're rocking and rolling. Now I know a few liberal observers will try to downplay all this but don't you think they're going to sound a little bit like Yogi Berra on that famous occasion when he said of a restaurant it's so crowded nobody goes there anymore? And as for those liberals who finally are catching on to the idea that there is a conservative movement they kind of remind me of a cowboy who was out hiking in the desert one day and came across the Grand Canyon and he said wow something sure happened here. Well something has happened in America. In five short years we have seen the kind of political change rarely seen in a generation or nearly every issue on nearly every issue. Federal spending, tax cuts, deregulation, the fight against career criminals and four tough judges, military readiness, resistance to Soviet expansionism and the need for candor about the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. The old taboos and superstitions of liberalism have collapsed and all but blown away to be replaced by a robust and enlightened conservatism. A conservatism that brings with it economic prosperity, personal opportunity and a shining hope that someday all the peoples of the world from Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Poland and yes to Angola will know the blessings of liberty and live in the light of freedom. Those in this room know how often we were told the odds of accomplishing even a small part of this were all against us. I remember my own first visit up to the hill after the 1980 election when issues like the tax cuts came up. I met a congressman there. He was a kind of a big fella, as I recall, had lots of white hair. He was from the Boston area, I think. Maybe you know him. He smiled very indulgently and told me not to expect too much because I was, to use his words, in the big leagues now. But you know, as a conservative I had an advantage. Back in the hard years, the lean years when we were forming our political packs, sending out our fundraising letters and working for candidate after candidate in campaign after campaign, all of us learned something vital, something important about our country. Something became an article of faith, a faith that sustained us through all the setbacks and the heartache. You see, we knew then what we know now that the real big leaguers aren't here in Washington at all. They're out there in the heartland, out in the real America where folks go to work every day and church every week, where they raise their families and help their neighbors, where they build America and increase her bounty and pass on to each succeeding generation her goodness and splendor. And we knew something else too, that the folks out there in real America pretty much see things our way and that all we ever have to do to get them involved is be brave enough to trust them with the truth and bold enough to ask for their help. And it's here we find the explanation for the success of the last five years. The reason why on issue after issue the liberals in this town have lost and are still losing. They've forgotten who's in charge, who the big leaguers really are. It reminds me of a favorite little story of mine about a career naval officer who finally got his four stripes, became a captain and then was given command of a giant battleship. And one night he was out steaming around the Atlantic when he was called from his quarters to the bridge and told about a signal light in the distance. And the captain told the signal man signal them to bear to starboard. And back came the signal from ahead asking or saying you bear to starboard. Well, as I say, the captain was very aware that he was commander of a battleship, the biggest thing afloat, a pride of the fleet. And he said signal that light again to bear to starboard now. And once again back came the answer, bear to starboard yourself. Well, the captain decided to give his unknown counter part of lesson in seagoing humility. So he said, signal them again and tell them to bear to starboard. I am a battleship. And back came the signal, bear to starboard yourself. I'm a lighthouse. Well, the American people have turned out to be just what the forefathers thought they would be when they made them the final arbiter of political power, a lighthouse to the ship of state, a source of good judgment and common sense signaling a course to starboard. But you who are not nautical minded know that starboard is to the right, don't you? No. But I come here tonight not just to celebrate these successes of our past, but also to strike a serious, even somber note, to remind each of you not only of how far we have come together, but how tragic it would be if we suddenly cast aside in a moment of dreadful folly all our hopes for a safe America and a freer world. My fellow conservatives, I want to speak to you tonight about our movement and a great danger that lies ahead. Now, some of you may think I'm reacting here to claims that 1985 was a disappointing or at best a mediocre year for conservatives. In fact, I want to take sharp issue with this, suggest to you that those claims themselves are evidence of the broader problem I'm talking about, the danger of growing soft with victory, of losing perspective when things go our way too often, of failing to appreciate success when it occurs or seeing danger when it looms. First, let's talk about 1985 and three legislative victories whose strategic significance were both enormous and largely overlooked. Now, some of you who go back with me to that campaign in 1964 can remember how easily the liberals dismissed our warnings then about the dangers of deficit spending. We were told it would bring prosperity. Others of you know how passionately the liberals believed in the use of high and punitive tax rates to redistribute income. And finally, all of us can remember how liberals found in the post-Vietnam syndrome a form of religious exercise, a kind of spiritual ecstasy. However much that syndrome paralyzed American foreign policy and jeopardized freedom. Now let me ask you, if someone had come up to you even as late as a few years ago and told you that by 1985 all of these cherished doctrines, a belief in deficit spending, the politics of envy via high tax rates, and the refusal to help those resisting communist dictatorship would be formally and publicly rejected in a single 12-month period by the liberal Democrats themselves, wouldn't you have thought that person prone to acute shortages of oxygen in the cerebral hemispheres? That's kind of bureaucrates for meaning playing without a full deck. But consider, 1985, we saw a de facto balanced budget amendment passed by both houses of the Congress. We saw a house of representatives under liberal leadership agree to cut the top marginal tax rate to the 35% to 38% range. And we even saw that same house not only approved funds for an insurgency against a communist government, but spontaneously repealed that symbol of liberal isolationism, the Clark Amendment. So friends and neighbors, salute Haley's comet. Salute that space shot to Uranus. I'm too old-fashioned to call it Uranus. I just remember politics in 1985 was also a celestial phenomenon, Steven Spielberg all the way. Actually, a remarkable year of 1985 at home was a reflection of a broader, even brighter strategic picture. In Europe and Asia, statism and socialism are dying and the free market is growing. And all across the world, the march of democracy continues. Yet even as I think the tide of history is all but irreversibly turned our way and this strategic picture will continue to improve, we must guard at all costs against an unnecessary but costly tactical defeat ahead. I'm talking, of course, about the elections in November. Now, this isn't going to happen as long as we conservatives will shoulder the burden of our recent successes. If we realize how much is at stake this November, forget for the moment the flowers in the sunshine and summon once again those deep reserves of will and stamina that won for us our first victories and bear in mind this will require a supreme effort. Our job is going to be even tougher this year, the very years of prosperity and peace that conservative programs have given America may in a strange way actually help those who fought the hardest against them. Good times, after all, tend to favor incumbents and fortify the status quo. Yet you and I know how unacceptable that status quo is. How much on everything from right to life, prayer in the public schools, enterprise zones, aid to anti-communist insurgents, still waits to be done. So we must go to the record, get the facts to the American people. The Speaker of the House has already indicated a tax increase is the solution to our problems. And recently, another important member of the House leadership equities sentiments. Not much has changed on federal spending either. Sure, the liberals are angry about Graham Rudman, but they aren't looking realistically at our bloated expenditures, only talking nonsense about shutting down the FBI and the IRS. Well, I do admit that in mentioning that last point, they may be tempting me beyond my strength. And as for defense, let me assure you the liberals haven't changed a bit. They're still looking at America's defense budget with lust in their hearts. A lust to strip it bare and use the funds for more of their social experiments. Yes, this year, we have to work even harder at summoning the vigor to tell the American people the truth and the vigor to ask their help to remind them that what they do this November will decide whether the days of high taxes and higher spending, the days of economic stagnation and skyrocketing inflation, the days of national malaise and international humiliation, the days of blame America first and inordinate fear of communism will all come roaring back at us once again. More than that, we must tell the American people that the progress that we've made thus far is not enough, that it'll never be enough until the conservative agenda is enacted and that means enterprise zones, prayer in the public schools and protection of the unborn. And that's why, my fellow conservatives, we have to stop limiting ourselves to talking about holding on to our strength in the Senate and start talking about conservative control of the House of Representatives. That House has been in the hands of our opponents for virtually half a century. And never forget that for those nearly 50 years, the liberals had it all their own way in this city and that the loss of such great power is rarely accompanied with graceful acquiescence. Well, the liberals are feeling pretty sorry for themselves and that's why they're anxious about this election. They know that unless they deliver a telling blow this year to conservatism, the 1988 Conservative Political Action Conference will see major presidential candidates from both parties demanding a chance to appear here and claim the mantle of conservatism. So this is our breakpoint. Our opponents are pulling out all the stops. And you know, I think it's going to be worthwhile reminding the American people of how desperate the liberals are. How so much of their strength in the House of Representatives, as many as 18 to 23 seats, is due to gerrymandering on a scale unprecedented in modern history. And this is not to mention the outrageous episode in which a legitimately elected member of the Congress and the people of Indiana's 8th District were disenfranchised in the House of Representatives. But there's another issue that I also believe vividly illustrates how seriously out of touch the liberals are with the American people. We sometimes forget that no one is more realistic about the nature of the threat to our freedom than the American people themselves. In fact, their intuitive realism is why that bear in the woods ad, some of you can remember, of the 1984 campaign was so successful. Yes, the American people want an administration that pursues every path to peace, but they also want an administration that is realistic about Soviet expansionism, committed to resisting it, and determined to advance the cause of freedom around the world. Now we know what happens when an administration that has illusions about the Soviets takes over. First, there are the illusions, then the surprise and anger when the Soviets do something like invading Afghanistan. Any way you look at it, it heightened tension and the prospects for conflict. In fact, the liberal conduct of foreign policy reminds me of a little football game that was played at Notre Dame back in 1946 when Notre Dame player Bob Livingston missed a tackle and his teammate, all American Johnny Lujak, screamed Livingston, you so and so you, and he went on and on. And then Coach Frank Lay, he said another sacrilege like that, Jonathan Lujak, and you will be disassociated from our fine Catholic university. But on the very next play, Livingston missed another tackle and Coach Lay, he turned to the bench and said, lads, Jonathan Lujak was right about Robert Livingston. And that's why it's important to go to the record. I remember a little booklet that came out a few years back, although it was by the Republican Study Committee entitled, What's the Matter with Democratic Foreign Policy? It was really about a shrinking group of foreign policy liberals here in Washington. And I just think that if we were able to get to some of those choice quotations on issues like Vietnam, Grenada, and Central America before the American people, and they were able to see what the Washington liberals really believe about foreign policy, the naivete and confusion of mind, I believe we would shock the American people into repudiating these views once and for all. And let me interject here two points that I think can be important this year. First, the question of defense spending. During the last few weeks, there have been a number of columns, editorials, or speeches calling for a slash in the military budget, and quoting President Eisenhower as justification. President Eisenhower did warn about large concentrations of power like the military industrial complex, but what's being left out is the context of that quote. In his farewell address to the American people, yes, he did warn us about the danger of an all-powerful military industrial complex, but he also reminded us America must always be vigilant because we face a hostile ideology, global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. The pundits haven't been quoting that part of his speech. I know there's been a great deal of talk in the media recently about the situation in Southwest Africa and especially Angola. And I know also you will be having a special guest here tomorrow evening, as I did this morning in the Oval Office. Well, let me just say now it would be inappropriate for me as president to get too specific tonight, but I do want to make a comment here on some recent history and let you draw your own conclusions. Last September at the Lomba River in Southern Angola when a force of, I always called it Unita, but recently I hear it's being called Unita. Maybe he'll tell you tomorrow which way it is, but any of this force of Unita or Unita or rebels met an overwhelmingly superior force of government troops directly supported by the Soviet bloc. The Unita forces defeated the government troops and drove them and their communist allies from the field. In the history of revolutionary struggles or movements for true national liberation, there is often a victory like this that electrifies the world and brings great sympathy and assistance from other nations to those struggling for freedom. Past American presidents, past American Congresses, and always of course the American people, have offered help to others fighting in the freedom cause that we began. So tonight, each of us joins in saluting the heroes of the Lomba River and their leader, the hope of Angola Jonas Sevimbi. And your contributors, that the president said that they're needed now as never before, that the crucial hour is approaching, that the choice before the American people this year is of overwhelming importance. Whether to hand the government back to the liberals or move forward with the conservative agenda into the 1990s, my fellow conservatives, let's get the message out loud and clear. The Washington liberals and the San Francisco Democrats aren't extinct, they're just in hiding, waiting for another try. Well, let's make it clear to the American people that they must choose this year between those who are enemies of big government and the friends of the freedom fighters and on the other hand, those who are advocates of federal power and a foreign policy of illusion. So let the choice be clear. Will it be blame America first or will it be on to democracy and forward for freedom? And freedom is the issue. The stakes are that high. You know, recently Nancy and I saw together a moving new film, The Story of Eleni. It's a true story. A woman at the end of World War II caught in the Greek Civil War, a mother who because she smuggled her children out to safety eventually to America was tried, tortured and shot by the Greek communists. It is also the story of her son Nicholas Gage who grew up to become an investigative reporter with the New York Times and who when he returned to Greece secretly vowed to take vengeance on the man who had sent his mother to her death. But at the dramatic end of the story, Nick Gage finds he cannot extract the vengeance he has promised himself. To do so Mr. Gage writes would have relieved the pain that had filled him for so many years but it would also have broken the one bridge still connecting him to his mother and the part of him most like her. As he tells it, her final cry before the bullets of the firing squad tore into her was not a curse on her killers but an invocation of what she died for. A declaration how that cry was echoed across the centuries. Her cry was a cry of love, my children. A cry for all the children of the world, a hope that all of them may someday live in peace and freedom. And how many times have I heard it in the Oval Office while trying to comfort those who have lost a son in the service of our nation in the cause of freedom. He didn't want to die, the wife of Major Nicholson said at Fort Belvoir last year about her husband. And we didn't want to lose him but he would gladly lay down his life again for America. So we owe something to them, you and I, to those who've gone before, Major Nicholson, Eleni, the heroes at the Lamber River and to the living as well. Andres Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Adolfo Calero, Jonas Salimbi, their hopes reside in us as ours do in them. Some 20 years ago I told my fellow conservatives that you and I have a rendezvous with destiny. And tonight that rendezvous is upon us. Our destiny is now. Our cause is still as it was then the cause of human freedom. Let us be proud that we serve together and brave in our resolve to push on now toward that final victory so long sought by the heroes of our past and present and now so near at hand. Thank you, God bless you. Ladies and gentlemen, our president mentioned Senator Goldwater in his remarks. The gentleman I'm about to introduce to you would understand those very well. F. Clifton White was the inspiration of Senator Goldwater when he ran for the nomination for the presidency of the Republican Party, the candidacy of the Republican Party and ran his campaign. And he's a legend among conservatives. I'd like to introduce Clif White to make a very special award. Mr. President, Nancy, fellow conservatives, the American Conservative Union and the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs are this evening creating the John Ashbrook Award for Public Service. And I'm going to present that award and read it to you now with no further comment. This will be an annual award. This evening we are presenting it for the first time. This is the John Ashbrook Public Service Award, presented to the Honorable Ronald Wilson Reagan, President of the United States. The Ashbrook Award is intended to recognize and honor individuals in the field of politics and related fields who exemplify the ideals so splendidly upheld by the late John M. Ashbrook and so well symbolized by his career. These include integrity of thought and conduct, the knowledge of what is right and the determination to do right. They include a firm dedication to principles, the conviction that politics must be based upon sound doctrines and noble objectives and not merely on winning elections. They include a rock-like conservatism based on a profound understanding of the nature of human beings and civil society with all of their perils and possibilities. They include a determination to fight alone if need be for worthy goals. It is our hope that the Ashbrook Award will encourage others to follow the example of John Ashbrook and will serve to honor their achievements when they do so. We trust that its recipients will better understand from the honor in which we hold the memory of John Ashbrook our respect and admiration for them. Mr. President. Thank you very much. I'm a long admirer of the man for whom this is named and thank all of you. And now we'll bid you all good night and wish for you the very best in the continuance of the conference here. Thank you all again.