 President Pertini and distinguished guests, while looking over President Pertini's schedule, I noted that consistent with his interest in the arts, he'll be attending the theater while in San Francisco. Now, Mr. President, if I could be so bold as to make a personal suggestion in a few years when your term of office is coming to a close, you might consider making the theater a second career. For an energetic man like yourself, there are interesting opportunities. I know that it works one way and it might work in reverse. But seriously, all of us wish you a wonderful tour on this your first visit to our country. We only regret that we've had to wait so long to be your host. Tonight, we honor a man who, had he never become president of his country, would still inspire awe from those who meet him. The overwhelming respect of his countrymen has resulted in his election by an unprecedented margin, 832 out of 995 votes cast in the Electoral Assembly. And this tribute was due to the recognition by all Italians of his courage and integrity, and he hasn't let his people down. President Pertini has been second to none in upholding those principles of political freedom which bind all who love liberty. Shortly after his election, he said, if someone offered me, who has always been a socialist, the most radical social reform at the expense of freedom, I would refuse because freedom must never be bartered away. Such commitment to freedom found in decent people of both left and right offers us all hope for a better tomorrow. All of his life, President Pertini has tried to remain true to these ideals. As a young man, he fought the onslaught of fascism, then threatening humanity. He was imprisoned for his opposition to Mussolini and later was sentenced to death by the Nazis. This kind of brutal experience turned many in those days away from democracy and toward totalitarianism. President Pertini never wavered from his democratic ideals. As it was for many nations, the last decade was a trying time for Italy. Italy faced a sinister challenge that shook its system to the roots. Like fascists and Nazis, red terrorists sought to undermine faith and democracy by demoralizing the people. The Italian people needed a symbol of strength and a symbol of courage, and they found that symbol in President Pertini. One of his first actions was to protest the trials of Soviet dissidents in Moscow. Few western leaders have expressed such sincere moral outrage over Soviet oppression in Afghanistan and Poland. Perhaps tonight, we should realize that the solidarity that unites all those devoted to freedom far transcends the limited differences between the democratic right and the democratic left. President Pertini, we are in a unique position to prove to the world that freedom works, that people with different domestic policies can work together if liberty is threatened. I've enjoyed meetings today, and I thank you for honoring us with this visit. May I ask all of you to join me in a toast to President Pertini and to the Italian people. Thank you, dear friend President Regan, for what you have wanted to tell me about my person. President Regan, when you have finished finally doing the President of the Republic, you cannot do either the actor. In my political life I have never recited President Regan. And then, in order to do so, I would have to say that Mother Nature had gifted me with her qualities and her beauty while I, instead, did Mother Nature. How did she do it? Mr President, I am particularly proud of you and the people of the United States for the so friendly and cordial kindness that I received in the American land and for the atmosphere of particular sympathy in which this meeting takes place. It could have been otherwise, given the traditional deep links that unite our peoples, they are links that have a distant origin, they do not carry with them the seeds of the great Turk, Cicquantino, and the other seeds of Tuscany, that Filippo Mazzai tells in his memoirs was given to Thomas Jefferson to plant them in his factory. I will also recover a symbolic gift, I will recover the renewed friendship of the Italian people for that American one, a deeper and deeper friendship from many sad and sad occasions of our common history and from the bloodline that unites Italy to the seed of your people, that of Italian origin that is different despite all the enormous difficulties of the Trapianto. For laboriousness and attachment to the Patriot adoption, however, never forget the ancient mother Patriot Lontana. Who, Mr President, is forced to run away from political persecution as in this moment who speaks to you? Or to the servitude of misery and hunger to take the sea away from the island? Never forget your mother Patriot. So deep are the links that unite our two peoples and this is a long and ancient story that begins with my counter-war that opens the borders of the old world to the new. A long story of men and ideas that the Great Ocean did not stop. I think of the influence that the American Revolution exercised on the motives for unity and Italian independence, to the reciprocal influence political and cultural that was between Italy and the United States in the first 50th century, where the first great migration of Italian work towards the United States, especially from the most depressed areas of our Middle Ages. We Italians cannot forget that in the darkest hour of our national history and not only ours, a decisive intervention from the United States of America against fascism and Nazism. The moral encouragement, the economic aid that allowed our country to be destroyed the work of reconstruction and reinforcement in the international community. Thinking again about our struggle I cannot not remember the noble message that Franklin Delano-Ruswell directed to the Congress of the United States in the winter of the war of 1944. His freedom was the same for which we were fighting Italian patriots in the mountains and cities for which they were fighting the European Resistance and the Allied Armies. It was a complete, political and social freedom that today still constitutes the fundamental value that the President is fighting now. I want to quote two songs of that speech that we all have to meditate. This republic has its origins and reaches its current power under the protection of some unalienable political rights. Among these, the freedom of words, the freedom of print, the freedom of culture, the guarantee by law, and the arbitrarian arrests. These were our rights to life and freedom. But the great President so completed his thought we are now fully aware that there cannot be any real individual freedom which is not accompanied by security and economic independence. The needy men are not free men. The hungry and the unemployed are the material with which the literature is edified. Today, these economic postulates are accepted as truth, evident for themselves. We have accepted a new declaration of the rights of the citizen in virtue of which we can set new foundations for the prosperity of all without regard to the social conditions and the race and the faith. This notion of freedom, Mr. President, is proposed and defended coherently, even in the international order, in the relations with all peoples, with the emerging nations, with the Third World, which so much needs industrialized nations to resolve life and death that will overcome it. While I speak, millions of human creatures fight against hunger and die for nourishment. This strife of innocents weighs like a condemnation on the conscience of every man in the state and therefore also on my conscience. Solving these anxious problems and consolidating that exalted freedom with noble words by President Roosevelt. To defend this freedom entirely and independently invisible, twice, the United States came into the old continent two memorable ships that I personally lived in the First and Second World War and of which remains the old monument that remember the fallen American soldiers for the freedom of Europe. Perfectly, fallen for the freedom of Europe, because the United States came into our continent not pushed by the promise of conquests, but only by the firm's purpose to prevent the overthrow of authoritarian regimes. They came to defend our freedom. Mr. President, Italy Italy Mr. President Italy pursues a dialogue and distension policy aware of the need of contacts who want to understand the positions of other parties and to appreciate their own. And in the conviction that distension is the only way to prevent a dangerous war. Here the utility to strengthen solidarity between us through intense and deep contacts between the responsible of the Allied countries. Today, the 25th anniversary of a peaceful and fundamental solidarity in the history of the Second World War. The firm in Campidoglio is one of the institutions of European communities. I want to celebrate here in Washington that event that was celebrated in America in Europe as a sign of hope. That hope did not go to waste despite the gradual commitment that requires every great historical process. The community today, in the dialogue with the United States, in the opening of these continents, is a great reality that works in favor of peace and progress of men. On the other hand, just in this difficult period of international life we are convinced and more often we have decided that the dialogue must be maintained in the firmness of its principles and in the clarity which is the only way to achieve a dangerous involuntary spiral of international relations. But let's note at the same time that the process of extension should mean something more than a simple dialogue between the United States. In fact, it can only favor a general climate capable of competing with the maintenance of behaviors and respect for the fundamental freedom of the individual and which must be universally understood above any ideological belonging. That is why Italy is the United States. They could not fail to let them know their condemnation for the involuntary spiral that has been imposed following the indebted and heavy external interference in the center of Europe so generous towards the common culture of the whole civil world and desiderous only to autonomously travel the streets of its own social progress. It is also necessary to repress the full dignity of Poland because international collaboration and especially the East-West dialogue are all fundamental for the world balance and take their right course. Both the noble Polish people the master of their own destiny whether whether even the tragedy of the Afghan people as a free man, Mr. President and as an ex-partisan who fought against the foreigner for the independence of his homeland I, my brother in solidarity to the Afghan partisans who courageously fought for the liberation of their homeland from the foreign domination. They can forget all the countries in which if they fight for the defense the restoration of the human rights where the human and civil rights are entangled where the human life is not respected and innocent creatures who are atrociously twisted we must be with all our brotherhood and human solidarity if this solidarity does not offer in concrete way we will reject our conscience free men and our past Mr. President please allow me, Mr. President to exhort the people of the United States and how much respect for the human life and give heart and peace to not observe with indifference the criminal work which in my country is consuming terrorism this criminal activity started with the cruel decision of a political man from the strong ingenuity and from the pure heart linked to my brotherhood friendship from then the cruel episodes of terrorism have disturbed and troubled the life of my country the courage with which my people at the top of the political differentiation face the terrorism without precedence we will know one day who will handle it who with terrorism pretends to destabilize Italy to make this democratic bridge that unites Europe, Africa and the Middle East if you forgive the hypothesis Mr. President terrorism succeeded in this intent not only the peace in the Mediterranean but all over the world we are here we are not here to delimit the Jews we are here to reaffirm our firm will to oppose with all our forces to terrorism not only in the interest of our democracy but also in the interest of peace in the world I allow Mr. President to remember you and the present with how generous and humane solidarity my people all my people have gathered around the family of the General of the United States and as we have and as we have for the luck of the courageous General courageous soldier who was able to keep his head to the terrorists I, Mr. President have the honour to welcome General Dosier his daughters and Mrs. Dosier courageous and proud worthy of the companion of his life those hours spent with General Dosier and his family will not be forgotten by me speaking openly as if I were old friends I have seen partisans of freedom next to a partisans of freedom the American people can be proud to have their defense and the defense of peace in the world similar soldiers Mr. President the natural location of Italy in the Atlantic Alliance and its commitment in its Western solidarity do not go beyond in my country which is indispensable to the other people of stability and security for the global situation that the political union of the old continent to this union the Republican and Democratic Italy dedicated for more than 30 years its best political and intellectual energies union that is conceived as a overcoming of the old the consensus convinced of all the political and democratic forces of my country the European community its consideration and its progressive extension to new sectors according to the proposed advancements of the Italian and German governments are a gesture of peace of responsibility of global balance of solidarity to the countries dramatic aspects of civil and social development Mr. President generations and generations come from all over the world they have found in the United States of America their land and their homeland they were men and women persecuted for political and religious reasons or suspended from a secular fame or from the impossibility to realize in the land of origin so in the history of America we are constantly referring to the man in all his dignity in the search for his happiness in respect of the law that preserves and rules the human coexistence the deep humanity and the generosity of America that they have found the most popular symbol in the struggle for freedom in the port of New York they constitute more than the military force economic power the real, authentic greatness of the United States that statue in the mist of the pier with tears in the eyes the anti-fascists and anti-nazis the persecuted ebra the poor but courageous and courageous that now in the United States the intellectual, the loyal and strong arms that statue of the most affectionate or courageous will remain even in the future centuries the symbol of freedom and the generosity of America the enemy of the dictators of the intolerant, of the statuettes because it is directed by a government that comes from the people that governs with the people and for the people there was therefore a reason in the song of the sequel when prophetically I see the genius of the modern son of the real and of the ideal to open the road to the immense humanity to the authentic America and the king of a great past because it builds a greater future President Reagan to the safeguard and to the consolidation of the values that are at the base of our civilization and the citizen before and now which leader of this great nation will operate and operate with convincing and commitment so that all of you inside of your country can be promoted more and more everywhere in the world it is too far away in my table to take my idea I raise to his personal well President Reagan I think we have become friends also in this short time to his personal well of his lady so rich of Charles to the personal well of all present and above all always the narrowest between the American people and Italian people