Excerpts of Remarks Made by then-Governor Ronald Reagan at the POW-MIA International, Inc. Dinner

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s-con_293_023_003_tr.txt

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9 Pages

File Name (Dublin Core)

s-con_293_023_003

Title (Dublin Core)

Excerpts of Remarks Made by then-Governor Ronald Reagan at the POW-MIA International, Inc. Dinner

Date (Dublin Core)

1971-06-04

Date Created (Dublin Core)

1971-06-04

Congress (Dublin Core)

92nd (1971-1973)

Topics (Dublin Core)

See all items with this valuePrisoners of war--United States

See all items with this valueVietnam War, 1961-1975--Missing in action--United States

See all items with this valueFamilies of prisoners of war

Policy Area (Curation)

Armed Forces and National Security

Creator (Dublin Core)

Reagan, Ronald

Record Type (Dublin Core)

speeches (compositions)

Rights (Dublin Core)

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Language (Dublin Core)

eng

Collection Finding Aid (Dublin Core)

https://dolearchivecollections.ku.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=31&q=

Physical Location (Dublin Core)

Collection 002, Box 293, Folder 23

Institution (Dublin Core)

Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Archival Collection (Dublin Core)

Robert J. Dole Senate Papers-Constituent Relations, 1969-1996

Full Text (Extract Text)

(page 1)
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, California
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571 6-3-71


RELEASE: Saturday A.MS.
June 5, 1971

EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
POW-MIA International, Inc., Dinner
Los Angeles, California
June 4, 1971

(the following line is handwritten with blue ink pen to the right of the previous four lines)
POW

It is customary for a speaker, when invited to address such a distinguished gathering, to describe the opportunity as a privilege. And I am privileged to be with you this evening, privileged and honored.

No one could stand before this particular assembly without also feeling deep humility and great pride.

Humility because that is the only possible emotion in the face of the human courage and sheer fortitude we are acknowledging by our presence here tonight; and pride because it is an occasion for pride to see so many Americans expressing their personal concern for the fate of a gallant few.

It is these missing men who are the real guests of honor here tonight. And perhaps it is appropriate for us to leave one empty chair on this rostrum and mark it reserved--reserved for those who cannot be with us, but whose courage and endurance in captivity brought us together.

We are not here for a partisan reason. We are here for a humanitarian cause. And our cause transcends any political divisions. We are not here as hawks or doves. We are here as Americans who are concerned about the plight of almost 1,600 brave countrymen who are missing or held prisoner by this enemy in Southeast Asia.

Some of them have been held captive for six or even seven years... longer than any other prisoners in any of our past wars or conflicts. The fact that we do not even know how many are prisoners is a grim reminder of the inhumane and barbaric treatment they are enduring.

In violation of the most basic terms of the Geneva Convention, the enemy has not given us a complete listing of the men they hold prisoner. The North Vietnamese Communists have not allowed Red Cross teams to visit the internment camps to see that these prisoners are receiving humane treatment. They have not permitted release of the sick and injured. And they have not even exhibited a minimum of human decency and compassion by allowing the men they hold to maintain a regular correspondence with their wives and children.
(end of page 1)



(page 2)
POW-MIA

Instead, time and again, the Communists have cruelly and cynically used the plight of our missing men in a sadistic game to further their own aims.

Only some among us tonight--the wives and families of these brave men--can ever really know in full measure the terrible anguish this inhumanity has caused.

But millions of Americans, from every corner of this land, who can only try to imagine your pain, say to you and to all the other wives and relatives of our missing and imprisoned men: We want with all our hearts to share your burden.

There is an extra element of tragedy in the plight of your husbands, sons and brothers. Unlike other conflicts, in other times, they cannot take comfort in the knowledge that whatever their hardships, America is united behind them.

This is the first group of American prisoners of war who have ever had to endure--along with captivity--the bitter awareness that some of their own countrymen are more concerned about the enemy than about them. No doubt many participate in parades for peace with all sincerity, but I would find that easier to believe if they weren't marching beneath the enemy's flag.

One of the more prominent demonstrators recently said on national television the prisoner of war problem was a "joke" and that there is no way to get them home without setting a firm date for withdrawal in advance.

The issue of the prisoners is not a joke. It is the single most important issue involved in this long and savage war and we want them back (underlined) now (end underlined text).

Those in America who speak of "peace" say it can be easily purchased by accepting the terms the enemy has dictated. They imply that the United States and those who serve their country's military forces do not share their desire for peace. Whatever the divisions we may have over the origins of the Vietnam War, the desire for peace is unanimous. And nowhere is this felt more strongly than among the men who know the sight and sound and smell of war.

Some of the ugliest and more lasting scars in this war have been inflicted, not by the enemy on a far-away battlefield, but by divisions among our own people, at home, in our own streets.
(end of page 2)



(page 3)
POW-MIA

Psychological warfare is practiced in time of war to reduce the enemy's belief in his own cause, to make him distrust his own leaders and colleagues... to raise serious doubts in his own mind about the justice of his system of government and to make him lose faith in the stated objectives of his society.

No matter what their declared intent or how sincere the demonstrators' desire for "peace", they have been fulfilling the mission of psychological warfare --- not against the enemy, but against our own nation.

And the cost of this has been the unnecessary deaths of thousands of young Americans and an unnecessary prolonging of the suffering and hardships of our prisoners of war.

Peace demonstrators subscribe to many myths easily exposed if only they were interested in the truth. How many students have been assigned Marvin Gettleman's book on the Vietnam War as outside reading? And have any been told to test it's blatant propaganda against the historical facts in "Vietnam: Anatomy of Conflict" (by Wesley Fishel)?

Professor Fishel's book commits the apparent academic sin of recalling the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, including the fact that that great Vietnamese patriot, Ho Chi Minh, never saw his native land in all the years between 1911 and 1940.

Nor was this because he was in lonely exile. He was a founder of the French Communist Party and in 1924, worked in Moscow as an official representative of the French Communists. When he did return to Vietnam, he did so as a representative of the Comitern, fomenting revolution against the French in that phase of this long war.

Ho Chi Minh was not even a true Vietnamese nationalist. In fact, in 1946... before the National Union movement had actually engaged the French in combat... Ho engineered the slaughter of many Vietnamese nationalist supporters... those who were interested in a truly free Vietnam.

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POW-MIA

One of the Communist tactics was simple assassination of all who dared disagree with them. Another was to send the Vietnamese nationalists as a vanguard against the French. In one incident, 2, 000 young Vietnamese between the ages of 15 and 20 were left to defend Hanoi while Ho's own Communist forces slipped out the back door. This was hardly original with Ho --- it is standard Communist operating prodedure.

Or doesn't anyone remeber World War II when the Polish and Jewish guerrillas in the Warsaw ghetto were told by the advancing Soviet armies to rise up and strike against the Nazis as the Russians attacked the city.

The signal was given and Warsaw freedom fighters struck with every weapon they had, including rocks and bricks. But, the Soviet army halted its advance and waited -- waited until there were no sounds of conflict from the ghetto -- not even the cries of the wounded --- just a deadly silence. The Communists would not be sharing power with local leaders when they took over Poland from the Nazis.

It only took a few days in Warsaw. In Hanoi the young Vietnamese nationalists betrayed by Ho Chi Minh held out for two months before the benevolent kindly dictator Uncle Ho heard the silence he was waiting for.

Another myth is that at the Geneva Conference on Indo-China in 1954, the United States and South Vietnam agreed to hold free elections to unify the country and that we refused to honor the agreement for fear Ho would win. All propagandists sell this one -- Richard Goodwin, Felix Greene, Dr. Spock and Norman Cousins. They often misuse a quote from the late President Eisenhower to support this claim --- always carefully omitting the lines which would reveal he was speaking of an election that would have pitted Ho Chi Minh or anyone else against the French puppet Emperor Bao Dai.









POW Speech

The truth is the United States and South Vietnam did not endorse the so-called 1956 election proposal --- not because they were not interested in free elections, but because Ho Chi Minh and the Communists refused to agree to hold such free elections under international supervision. The United States was not included as an official party in the final settlement of the French Indo-China war.

Subsequently South Vietnam repeatedly proposed free elections throughout the country --- to be held under international supervision when peace and order was restored. Always it was Ho who refused.

In 1955 the people of South Vietnam proved the correctness of President Eisenhower's assessment of Emperor Bao Dai. In a legitimate referendum with 90 percent of the people participating he was overwhelmingly defeated by the late President Diem.

A year later the Diem government announced that South Vietnam would accept the defacto separation of Vietnam and would not resort to force in an effort to re-unify the country. He urged the re-unification of Vietnam by peaceful means through truly democratic and free elections. Again it was Ho who rejected such overtures.

Then on May 8, 1960, Ho Chi Minh held his kind of election. There was no need for voting booths because there was no secret ballot. The people of Vietnam marked their ballots at tables set up on street corners, helped by Ho's Communist agents. And what do you know? Ho got almost 99 percent of the vote. Less than a third of the other offices were even contested.

All this time there was an International Control Commission set up by the 1954 Geneva agreements. It did very little because the Communists had insisted on unanimous decisions. The representatives were from Canada, India and Communist Poland and the Communist member could be counted on for a consistent vetc. Finally in 1962 the representatives of Canada and India charged the Communists of North Vietnam with subversiv: and hostile actions designed to overthrow the free government of South Vietnam.

This is just part of the history so often edited out of the versions some of our students receive.

- 5 -









POW Speech

But all of this is historical fact --- available to anyone who seeks the truth about Vietnam.

For those in the demonstrations and marches, especially those who truly believe in peace and prefer to march under our flag --- I have a question: suppose we do what they propose? Tell the enemy we are getting out now --- give them a date and unilaterally lay down our weapons? We are told the enemy will leave our departing men unmolested and return our prisoners after we have reduced our presence to zero --- demonstrators, Congressmen, Senators and any number of assorted bleeding hearts tell us this.

What if they are wrong? What if there is even one chance that the enemy descends on our retreating forces once their numbers had been sufficiently reduced? What if there is a battle on the beach --- a "Dunkirk" with thousands of our young men killed and captured? Do our pleaders for peace have facts not known to the President? Will they guarantee absolutely this will not happen?

The answer, of course, is they have no such facts and they can make no such certain guarantee. They are just sure in their own minds that everything will turn out all right. If it does not --- well their purpose was noble. Their only sin was wanting peace --- at any price. But someone else will pay that price.

The President has no such easy write-off. As Commander-in-Chief he must take into consideration even that one in a million possibility of disaster --- for he must answer to each one of our men and for each one of them.

Into his consideration must go all that he knows of the enemy --- the murder of more than 30,000 village leaders, the violation of holiday truces, the slaughter and burial of thousands of men, women and children at Hue. He must remember the terrorist bombings of school rooms, buses, movie theaters and street corner crowds long before we were even in the war. There are a million refugees who fled North Vietnam to escape the mass executions in the North which were as savage and senseless as the mass murder of landlords by Mai Tse Tung in China.

- 6 -










POW Speech

For four years we have sat at the table in Paris offering bombing halts, cease fires and mutual withdrawal. Never once has the enemy said "If you do this your prisoners will be returned", he has said only that he will talk about it if we will quit.

Some of those who yearn for peace as well as some members of Congress have been playing Russian Roulette again at no risk to themselves. For the gun was always aimed at someone else's head.

There are signs that the enemy --- badly hurt in Cambodia and Laos --- was putting out feelers indicating he might finally be ready to do business in the Paris meetings. The massive demonstrations, the talk in Congress of trying to vote our capitulation, has given him reason to hang on a while longer, to launch raids and increase American casualties for propaganda value here at home. How many young Americans died and will die in Vietnam because of the parades and speeches in Washington? The enemy has been encouraged to believe he can win the cruel waiting game --- not by how many divisions he can put in the field in Vietnam but by how many divisions there are among our own people --- here in America.

The President has chosen, as he should, a program of withdrawal geared directly to the ability of the South Vietnamese to assume responsibility for their own defense. And this too is our concern, or have some of us decided we no longer hold out the hand of brotherhood to the downtrodden?

At one of our state colleges recently a speaker was explaining our Vietnam policy. A middle-aged man in the audience began heckling him and of course was immediately joined by a certain element among the students. Then a young man in the audience stood up and addressed the hecklers. He was an exchange student from Vietnam --- in fact a refugee from North Vietnam.

He said, "If you don't think it is in your interest to help my country --- why don't you get out? It's that easy, you don't have to find a reason --- just go." And then he made it plain that his people need our help, but he asked, "Do you really ever think about our people, wonder about them --- do you care about them? If you don't --- if you don't want to help us then go home." The crowd was silent --- I would like to think --- ashamed.

- 7 -









POW Speech

We can hope that meetings like this one here tonight will help Hanoi from fatally misreading the mood of America.

The President has offered the Communists an immediate cease fire throughout Indochina, the immediate release of all prisoners, an all Indochina peace conference, complete withdrawal of all outside forces and a political settlement of the hostilities there. But he has said we will not abandon our men who are prisoners. We will stay as long as we have to and do what we have to, to get them back.

Millions of Americans must endorse this position, must in a thunderous voice tell Congressmen, Senators and the faint of heart --- but most particularly the enemy --- he is not going to win his war here in Main Street America.

Some of the young ladies on my staff have been wearing bracelets which are distributed by a student group on behalf of our prisoners.

Each bracelet bears a name and date. The name of a missing man and the date he was lost. One reads --- Lt. David Rehmann --- 12-2-66. The lieutenant is a U.S. Navy pilot from Lancaster, California. He is known to be a prisoner --- a captive for 4 1/2 years.

I find myself asking, "Where do we find such men?" Young men who leave their homes and loved ones to go half a world away. They fly out over a strange land through machine gun and rocket fire and then having done their appointed task seek out a dot on the ocean and try to land in stormy darkness on the heaving deck of a carrier.

What produces these young men --- where do they come from? The answer is so simple. America produces them and has in every time of crisis for 200 years. They come from our cities, our farms, our small towns.

Last December, T.V. recorded the White House meeting of the President and some of the gallant leaders of that daring attempt to rescue prisoners from a camp in the enemy heartland. The President asked the commander where he had found such men. The answer so quietly given should have thrilled every American. He said, "We could have had thousands, Sir." Thousands willing to gamble their lives to save another --- greater glory hath no man.

- 8 -








POW Speech

But even this heroic rescue mission became the object of criticism and debate by some public officials whose carping surely lent some measure of comfort to the enemy.

A decade ago, an American President said that Americans should let the word go forth that we would pay any price, bear any burden, to assure the survival of all those things we hold precious --- to guarantee that the freedoms we enjoy will be secured for our children and their children.

Those words should be a reminder of the very meaning and purpose of government; to offer the protection of all to even the least among us wherever in the world he may be. Distance alone must not be allowed to rob a man of his God-given right to life and liberty.

If we are unwilling to make such a pledge to each other then our trumpet will sound an uncertain note and all the world will hear. And therein lies great danger. From the vantage point of history, we look back on wars we might have avoided had an enemy not mistaken our desire for peace or our patience for weakness.

We are not given to bellicose sabre rattling or unnecessary belligerance. But the savage captors of our young men must be made to know that each one of those young men is precious to us; that there will be no peace until they are restored to their families. Our President has said as much. Now it is up to all of us to make it unmistakably clear to the enemy that he spoke only what is in the heart of each one of us. We will not buy our peace by abandoning even one American.

########

(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions to, or changes in the above text. However, the governor will stand by the above quotes).

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