 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Well, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen of the National Newspaper Association, good afternoon and welcome to the White House. It's an honor to be able to speak to so many of the men and women whose labors keep our nation well informed. And it's addressing so many publishers and editors. I can't help but think of my favorite journalist. It's a newspaper man called Mark Twain. We were good friends. Of course, seriously, we cherished Twain for his brilliant wit. It was reported that he was the one who said that clothes do make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. And on morals, Twain said simply this, always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. And on politics, Twain made a remark that I often find coming to mind. It were not best that we should all think alike. It is difference of opinion that makes horse races. Well, Washington today has always be set by differences of opinion. Hundred horse races of issues and policies coming on all around. With your permission, I'd like to focus on just one, a great debate that will determine the shape of our foreign policy for quite some decades to come, a debate that concerns a single country, Nicaragua. Nearly seven years ago, the Sandinista revolutionaries in Nicaragua brought months of fighting in the countryside to an end when they marched triumphantly down the avenues of Managua, the nation's capital, and took control of the government. Thousands of Nicaraguans danced in the streets. The new Sandinista leaders claimed to embrace the highest ideals of individual liberty, democracy, and economic opportunity. Friendly nations provided the new government with economic aid. The United States alone contributed some $118 million. Across Nicaragua, hopes ran high. And soon those hopes were crushed. Just months after taking power, the communists began to oust their critics, even many who had supported the revolution and fought beside them. They used their total control of the military to build a totalitarian state. And today, news media in Nicaragua are subject to official censorship. Radio Katolica, the voice of the Catholic church has been silenced. La Prensa, the last independent newspaper, is subject to constant and sometimes violent threats. And of course, censorship. They've driven the Jewish community out of the country and persecuted the Mosquito Indians calling thousands of these gentle people, or killing thousands, I should say, of these gentle people. Soviet, East German, and especially Cuban soldiers swarm in the thousands across the country. And in Nicaragua, we see one of the monstrous crimes of our century. Simply put, the murder of liberty in a nation that had the chance to become free. Now the communists have made clear their intentions to spread communism across their borders. They are the principal suppliers of the guerrillas in El Salvador. They provided the weapons to those who carried out the recent killing of Columbia's Supreme Court justices. And they have constantly harassed their smaller, unprotected neighbors. They've built their original, lightly armed force of 5,000 into a heavily equipped army in militia of more than 100,000. They possess scores of long-range howitzers and rocket launchers, hundreds of armored vehicles, and some 30 Soviet-made helicopters as deadly as flying tanks. This ground force represents a mighty that is far more powerful than that of any neighboring country or even of several of them put together. And above all, it is the national interest of the United States that is now threatened. Indeed, Nicaragua today represents another step in the Soviet grand strategy of expansion, a direct challenge to the United States just 700 miles from our territory. In purely military terms, Nicaragua could be used as a staging base for strikes against our Caribbean sea lanes, sea lanes that bear almost half our foreign trade and more than half our imports of crude oil. But the graver threat arises from the possibility that as the communists continue to spread violence and unrest among their neighbors, refugees, millions on foot, and yes, terrorists too, will stream toward our borders. Right now, one out of six, one sixth of the population of Nicaragua are refugees. How many times have we seen this tragedy re-enacted? Germans fleeing from east to west before the erection of the Berlin Wall, boat people escaping communist terror in Vietnam, Ethiopians fleeing sick and starving from a famine that has been used by the communist government of Ethiopia against whole segments of the population. The flight from communism in Central America has already begun, as I said. Some 200,000 that have fled Nicaragua and many flooding into Costa Rica and Honduras. And once again, they're keeping score down in our own southern cities like Miami of the numbers that are coming in and how they're increasing virtually daily. If the Sandinistas are allowed to export totalitarianism, the flood will grow. And our own southern states could become a wash and a tidal wave of the homeless. The freedom fighters inside Nicaragua represent our shield of safety. They can avert this disaster and replace it, at last, with a true democracy. Today, these freedom fighters, number 20,000. Four times the number who fought Samoza. To those who claim that the freedom fighters are being led by former members of Samoza's forces, we can only say, listen to the actual role. Adolfo Calero, who was imprisoned by Samoza. Arturo Cruz, an anti-Samoza activist and a former member of the Sandinista Hunter. Alfonso Robelo, also a former member of the Sandinista Hunter. Eden Pastora, the famed Commander Zero, a hero in the anti-Samoza revolution. Recently, there's been an intensive effort to discredit the democratic opposition in Nicaragua. Some of us have been around long enough to know that such disinformation has a long history. I remember the reports of Walter Durante from Stalin's Russia who denied the existence of the Gulags and forced famine, even though he had witnessed firsthand Stalin's genocide. I remember Lincoln Steffen's famous statement when he returned from that land of Slaughter and said, I have been over into the future and it works. And I think we all remember Herbert Matthews' reports on Castro before he came to power, calling him a Democrat in the hope of Cuba. And then we remember the cynicism of Mr. Castro when once power was entrenched, he then said, of course I'm a communist. I always have been. Well, those reports helped shape the climate in Washington that allowed us to cut off aid to Batista and facilitate Castro's march into Havana. Likewise, I can't stop right here. I have to tell you the most recent uncollector of stories that people in some of these totalitarian countries tell among themselves, which indicates their cynicism. And this one, if you haven't heard, it has to do with Castro speaking to a large entourage out there. And every other sentence, there was a fellow out there yelling Pico, peanuts, popcorn, candy. And about the third time Castro finally interrupted himself and said, the next one who says peanuts, popcorn, and candy is going to get a one-way ticket to Miami. And 40,000 people shouted, peanuts, popcorn, and candy. But, you know, likewise we were told Ho Chi Minh and Paul Pot were just nationalists before the boat people and before Cambodia was nearly devoured by program starvation. History moves on. The smokescreen of lies and disinformation vanishes. And the brutal reality of communism has always laid bare. By then, it's too late. Today, we see an orchestrated effort to slander the freedom fighters. But whom shall we believe? Dedicated communists who call their American supporters useful fools were lifelong Democrats like Arturo Cruz, Alfonso Robello, and Adolfo Calero, who opposed the Samosa dictatorship yesterday, just as they fight the communist tyranny today. I have just as of today found further information of this orchestrated effort. I was given a magazine. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It is a Nicaragua magazine. Sells for $3.75 an issue. And they're advertising it here in this country. It's $18 and something for a subscription. It is a magazine of outright propaganda published and being sold here in the United States and looking through and seeing some of the plugs in that magazine for subscriptions, suggesting to their American subscribers that they might be interested in buying subscriptions for their congressmen and senators. And this is a planned program of propaganda that is against everything that the freedom fighters are trying to do, but is trying to sell us that Nicaragua now is a wonderful democracy, taking care of its people and being beset by these terrible radicals that the Contras. Well, last month, I asked the Congress to provide aid to the freedom fighters. Yes, there is congressional opposition, but I can only call to mind what happened a year ago when the House voted no. And just a few days later, the little dictator showed his true allegiance by flying to Moscow. Public opinion forced the Congress to reconsider its decision, and this time it voted yes. I hope they're aware that the same little dictator right now is in Cuba, visiting Castro. The episode reminded me of my favorite journalist on an ocean voyage sitting at the captain's table in the dining salon. And Mark Twain asked if a gentleman would pass him the sugar and maybe wanting to impress Twain, Twain being a writer. As he passed the sugar, the gentleman said, isn't it interesting, Mr. Twain, that the only time in the English language that the letter S has a sh sound is in sugar and Schumack. And Twain said, are you sure? Well, the time has come when we can be sure that the communists bode ill for Nicaragua and our hemisphere, sure that the freedom fighters can lead their country to a better way. Congressional defeat of this aid proposal could deliver Nicaragua permanently into the communist bloc, creating a second Cuba on the mainland of North America. That would invite strategic disaster and say to the world that in an hour of need, the United States deserted an ally. Think of those brave men hiding in the hills living off the land, braving death, and picture the tens of thousands of children for whom this crisis will decide whether they grow up in a nation seeking prosperity through liberty or in a poor and backward communist state that censors the press and harasses the church. The freedom fighters need so little, in the name of the very ideals upon which our own nation is founded, we must meet those needs. The reason I'm telling you all this is because I'm asking you to help, you who can be so persuasive by way of your editorial pages and whose opinions are so highly valued in the communities that you serve. Just as we stand for freedom in the rugged land of Haiti, just as we believe in human rights for the Green Islands of the Philippines, let us take a stand for democracy in the mountains and plains of Nicaragua. And forgive me for taking up so much of your time. Yes. Your city relationship with Pearl Lagoon, Nicaragua, at the urging of some religious and educational groups on the grounds that people to people, hands across the sea can solve world peace. Have you come in on that type of evidence? I haven't had much time to think about it because I just read about that and about your town and some others that is going on this as a part of the campaign scattered across the country in that magazine that I just had handed to me today. And when you mentioned something about educated people and some of a religious bent that are furthering this cause, the first article, propaganda article in that magazine handed me today was authored by a professor on one of our large campuses, university campuses. So I think it's a part of that, again, the disinformation campaign. And I think that well-meaning, sincere people are taken in. I know something about being taken in. I was once on the board of directors of a communist front organization in Hollywood. Does it give you no cause that the United States accuses to go into the world court and defend itself against Nicaraguanist charge against our country? No, because we've had some feelings about the world court and some of its decisions. So they could make the charge and we know it isn't true and we just are not going to be bothered. Thank you very much, Mr. President. All right. Well, this patch told me I'm out of time. Just one more hand was up and then I will have to leave. Right there, final question. I know there are many pressing problems in the world today such as the deficit and so forth, but the St. Patrick's Day approaching, I wonder if you can review again how an Irishman by the name of Reagan got the nickname of Dutch. I can. Yes, my father was Irish. My mother was English and Scotch. And the word has it that my father, used to when I was still in the crib, used to refer to me as looking like a little fat Dutchman. And having an older brother, it spread. And I found out that by the time I was able to toddle out and join the neighborhood kids, I was known as Dutch. And then, I guess, I perpetuated it when my aunt had my cousin first and named him Donald. And my mother had always wanted to name hers Donald. So she did the next best thing and called me Ronald. And I didn't know that didn't quite sound right to me. So when I became a sports announcer, I used the name Dutch Reagan. And then to finish the story, I got to Hollywood. And there, I sat in the publicity office under contract with Studio. And it's like you're a racehorse. They talk about you in front of you as if you can't hear what they're saying. And they were exploring and trying, sounding out names for me. And I began to squirm a little bit. Because as a sports announcer, I had quite a sizable following in the country. And I didn't want to throw away a well-known name. And I said to them, you know, I called this to their attention. And they looked at me and they said, Dutch Reagan. And then I said, well, Ronald Reagan. And they tried it out, Ronald Reagan. Hey, that's all right. So I got to use my own name. Well, thank you all very much.