[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 78 (Monday, June 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6486-S6488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TRIBUTE TO FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this week we mourn the passing of Ronald 
Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. My wife Karyn 
and I, and indeed the entire Senate family, extend our deepest 
sympathies to his beloved Nancy and the entire Reagan family. More than 
15 years have passed since Ronald Reagan gave his final cheerful salute 
as President of the United States. He left the Oval Office with the 
highest approval rating since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
  Ronald Reagan had restored our confidence and our optimism in what it 
meant to be an American. The countless tributes and recollections of 
the past few days have brought forth a flood of memories, not only of 
his extraordinary leadership but of his truly exceptional character. We 
remember Ronald Reagan and love him as we did the day he left the 
highest post in the land. We feel a strong personal and unbreakable 
connection with our 40th President.
  Some attribute Ronald Reagan's ability to connect with the American 
people to his abilities as an actor. No politician was better or more 
comfortable around the camera. When he looked into the lens, he was 
looking directly into the eyes of the American people. His timing was 
flawless, and he had a soft touch that could disarm even his most 
stubborn political opponents.
  After being wounded by an assassin's bullet as he lay on a hospital 
gurney drifting towards unconsciousness, Ronald Reagan quipped to his 
beloved Nancy:

       Honey, I forgot to duck.

  So many stories like this remind us that Ronald Reagan was a man of 
remarkable courage, coupled with boundless good humor. There was more 
to him than what he said and how he said it, as there was more to 
Abraham Lincoln than his stirring speeches, and more to Franklin 
Roosevelt than his fireside chats. Ronald Reagan believed in what he 
said, and that conviction came through. He believed there is good and 
evil in the world and that America stands for the good. He believed we 
must protect freedom wherever it may be threatened and plant its seeds 
wherever freedom may take root. He believed democracy to be not the 
privilege of a fortunate few but the rightful and ordained destiny for 
all mankind.

  At the 1992 Republican convention in Houston, TX, he expounded on 
these beliefs, telling the American people:

       Whether we come from poverty or wealth, whether we are 
     Afro-American or Irish-American, Christian or Jewish, from 
     big cities or small towns, we are all equal in the eyes of 
     God. But as Americans, that is not enough; we must be equal 
     in the eyes of each other.

  There was one thing--second only to the Almighty--in which he had 
more faith than all else, and that was the American people. We trusted 
Ronald Reagan, we respected Ronald Reagan, we loved Ronald Reagan, 
because he trusted, respected, and loved each and every one of us.
  This week we will bear witness to a rare and extraordinary tribute to 
one of our greatest leaders. Half-masted flags will snap in the wind. 
Cannons will pound the air with salutes. And a horse-drawn caisson will 
solemnly pull the flag-draped casket of Ronald Wilson Reagan up to the 
Hill of our Capital City.
  Americans will line up by the thousands to pause at his side, bow 
their heads, and pay their final respects. Hundreds of leaders will 
gather at the National Cathedral to show their deep appreciation of a 
grateful Nation and a grateful world, and on Friday, when President 
Reagan is laid to rest, each of us will give a moment of our day to 
remember a man who gave us his very best.
  All of this is right and fitting. This is how we honor the lives of 
great leaders whom we love. But our tribute to Ronald Reagan must be 
more than a passing historical moment. Although we say goodbye to the 
man, we must never say goodbye to his values. Let this week reaffirm 
the goodness of our Nation. Let it reaffirm our faith in freedom. Let 
it reaffirm democracy as the destiny of all mankind. And let our fond 
memories, our deep affection and regard for Ronald Wilson Reagan 
reaffirm that we believe, above all, in ourselves as Americans.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from North 
Carolina is recognized.
  Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, this past weekend we lost one of Americans 
greatest leaders, Ronald Reagan. I had the privilege of serving under 
President Reagan's strong, principled leadership for 7 years--2 years 
in his White House as assistant to the President, or public liaison, 
and almost 5 years as his Secretary of Transportation.
  Greatness in a President is marked by the ability to chart and 
implement a new course, a better course, and by his level of decency 
and integrity. Ronald Reagan knew why he wanted to be President. He 
came to office with the clearest of vision, a passion for achieving his 
goals and in conveying them with an eloquence almost unsurpassed.
  Ronald Reagan made all of us, the American people, believe in 
ourselves again. He literally changed the world. Despite conventional 
wisdom, he determined that communism had to be defeated, not tolerated. 
He rejected the Iron Curtain, rejected the status quo, and his legacy 
to the world is freedom. His strength of character and bedrock belief 
in right and wrong ended the cold war, and his leadership unshackled 
the yoke of tyranny for millions upon millions of people who had known 
only oppression.
  I will always remember his remarkable rapport with the American 
people and what a true gentleman he was. During my time on his White 
House staff, I brought scores and scores of people, organizations, and 
groups into the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Roosevelt Room, and 
he treated every person with courtesy and respect. Occasionally, there 
would be some who had a difference of view with him on some issue or 
another, and they were going to give him a piece of their mind. Well, 
they came into his presence and you could almost see that anger just 
fading away. He would express his views, he would address their 
concerns, and then he might sit back and tell them a story or two--
perhaps a humorous one--and maybe pass jellybeans around. They would be 
ready to climb any hill for Ronald Reagan. When the President would 
explain his position, obviously, he did it in a very eloquent manner.
  What a remarkable person his wife Nancy is. What a tremendous 
partner. She was his best friend, his confidant, his trusted, beloved 
spouse. She deserves great credit for his accomplishments and hers.
  When I left the Cabinet, a farewell function was planned, and we 
talked about the fact that it would be nice to invite to that farewell 
party people who would not otherwise be able to meet the President of 
the United States. He readily agreed.
  I can remember one young woman from Arkansas. She was a part of the 
Make a Wish group. She had a terminal illness and her great desire was 
to meet President Ronald Reagan. I can still see her there in the White 
House and the compassionate way in which he greeted her and talked with 
her.
  There was a young man named Tommy, from my hometown of Salisbury, NC, 
who was in a wheelchair; he had to wear a helmet most of the time 
because if he were to fall, it would be very severe. His mother and his 
uncle very tenderly brought him to Washington to carry out his wish to 
meet the great Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. Once 
again, to watch the President and his compassion as he talked with 
Tommy is something I will remember forever.

  One of the things that will really be an inspiration to me for the 
rest of my life is a conversation I had with the

[[Page S6487]]

President when the two of us were alone. We were waiting in the holding 
room for him to give a speech. You don't often find yourself alone with 
the President of the United States. On this particular day, we were 
waiting for a speech and I said: Mr. President, I just cannot resist. I 
have to ask you how in the world, when you have the weight of the world 
on your shoulders, are you able to be so gracious, so thoughtful, and 
so kind? I never see you flustered or frustrated. How do you do it with 
such weight on your shoulders?
  He kind of leaned back, and he loved to tell a story and to 
reminisce. He said: Well, Elizabeth, when I was Governor of California, 
it seemed like every day yet another disaster would be placed on my 
desk, and I had the urge to hand it to someone behind me to help me. 
One day I realized I was looking in the wrong direction; I looked up 
instead of back. I am still looking up. I don't think I could go 1 more 
day in this office if I didn't know that I could ask God's help and it 
would be given.
  There is no doubt in my mind that President Reagan was welcomed into 
the gates of Heaven with open arms and with the words: Well done, good 
and faithful servant. Well done, indeed.
  God bless President Ronald Reagan and his family, and God bless this 
great land of the free, America.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, a few years ago when Ronald Reagan was 
President of the United States, he attended one of the many press 
dinners which are held. I think it was the gridiron dinner. I think it 
is well known that maybe 90 percent of the press corps in Washington 
had a different point of view on issues than President Reagan did, but 
they liked him anyway, and they respected him and he had fun with them, 
just as they did with him.
  I remember on that evening he strode into the gridiron dinner looking 
like a million dollars, smiling big. The press rose, smiling back, 
applauding. He stood in front of them until it subsided, and then he 
said to his adversaries in the media: Thank you very much. I know how 
hard it is to clap with your fingers crossed. And they laughed, and 
they had a wonderful time with President Reagan.
  The first thing we think about, those of us who had any opportunity 
to get to know him--a great many of us--was that Ronald Reagan was a 
very friendly man. He was a congenial person, an easy person to know, 
the kind of person you want to spend a lot of time with, if you had the 
opportunity, and that what you saw in private was what everyone else 
saw in public.
  Howard Baker, the former majority leader of the Senate when Ronald 
Reagan was President, got to know him especially well, and then in 
1987, President Reagan invited former Senator Baker to come to be his 
Chief of Staff, which he was for nearly 2 years.
  I remember Senator Baker telling me that, to his surprise, when his 9 
a.m. meetings came every morning with President Reagan, he discovered 
that Mr. Reagan had a funny little story to tell to Senator Baker, his 
Chief of Staff. What surprised Senator Baker even more was President 
Reagan expected Senator Baker to have a funny little story to tell 
back. So for that whole 2 years, virtually every morning at 9 a.m. when 
the President of the United States and the Chief of Staff of the White 
House met, they swapped funny little stories. It is very reassuring to 
me that two men who have maybe the two biggest jobs in the world were 
comfortable enough with themselves, each other, and their 
responsibilities to begin the day in that sort of easy way. That is the 
part of Ronald Reagan we think more about.
  Another part of Ronald Reagan which I think is often overlooked is 
that he was a man of big ideas. I would say intellectual, although I 
guess there is a little difference between being devoted to ideals and 
being intellectual but not much difference.
  Unlike most people who are candidates for President of the United 
States, Ronald Reagan wrote many of his own speeches. When he had a few 
minutes, he would sit in the back of a campaign airplane and make notes 
on cards in the shorthand that he had. His former aide, Marty Anderson, 
has written a book about that and told that, to a great extent, Ronald 
Reagan's words were his own words, ideas he expressed or ideas he 
gathered himself and ideas he had thought through and wanted to 
promulgate.
  Maybe that is partly why he seemed so comfortable with himself when 
he finally entered public life. He came to it late in life. He was age 
55 when he became Governor of California, so by then he knew what he 
thought, and he had a sense of purpose, and he knew what he wanted to 
do.
  I got an idea of that kind of big thinking when I went to see 
President Reagan in my second year as Governor--third year, I guess it 
was, his first year as President in 1981. I talked to him about a big 
swap which I thought would help our country.
  I suggested: Mr. President, why doesn't the Federal Government take 
over all of Medicaid and let the State and local governments take over 
all responsibility for kindergarten through 12th grade? That would make 
it clear, I said, where the responsibility lies. You cannot fix schools 
from Washington, and it would make more efficient our health care 
system if we did things that way. He liked the idea. It fit his 
unconventional brand of thinking. He advocated it. It was a little too 
revolutionary for most people in Washington in the early 1980s.

  He had the same sort of unconventional attitude toward national 
defense policy. Many people overlooked the fact that Ronald Reagan did 
not just want us to have as many nuclear weapons as the Soviet empire 
did, he wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons. He saw them as wrong, as 
bad, and he wanted a world without nuclear weapons. Instead of mutual 
assured destruction, which was the doctrine at the time, he built up 
our strength so we could begin to reduce nuclear weapons and then 
unilaterally begin to do it before the Soviets did, hoping they would 
then follow. We can see the results.
  At the time, some people said Ronald Reagan was naive to think we 
could transfer power from Washington, from an arrogant empire, at home 
or naive to think we could face down an evil empire abroad, and 
especially naive to think our policy should be based upon getting rid 
of nuclear weapons. It turned out Ronald Reagan saw further than most 
of those critics did.
  Perhaps his most famous speech, not my favorite speech--my favorite 
speech is the one we heard a lot about this weekend, 20 years ago at 
Normandy, which moved the whole world to tears and reminded Americans 
why we are Americans and what we fought for--but his most famous speech 
may be the one in 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin where he said:

       Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

  Earlier this year, I visited Berlin with John Kornblum who at the 
time was U.S. minister and deputy commandant in the American sector of 
West Berlin where tanks challenged tanks and white crosses marked grave 
sites of those who were killed trying to escape over the wall from East 
Berlin. Mr. Kornblum talked about the development of that speech that 
Ronald Reagan gave that day. Those words, or the thought, ``tear down 
this wall,'' went into the speech at an early stage. Some fought to 
keep it in. Many fought to take it out. Those who had thought Ronald 
Reagan was wrong to say the Soviet Union was an evil empire were not 
anxious for him to say:

       Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

  Some suggested that President Reagan try his hand at German as 
President Kennedy had in a memorable speech at the Berlin Wall in the 
early 1960s. Some suggested that the speech should not be made at the 
Brandenburg Gate. That was too provocative, Mr. Kornblum remembers. But 
the speech was made at the Brandenburg Gate, and Mr. Reagan did keep 
his words in that speech. He did make his point, and his point was 
clear:

       Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

  For those of us who had a chance to see the new countries of Eastern 
Europe and their enthusiasm for freedom

[[Page S6488]]

and for a free market system, we can see the legacy of Ronald Reagan 
and his unconventional thinking.
  So I think it is important for us to remember that this genial 
President was a man of ideas, of all the Presidents I have worked with, 
as much a man of ideas as any one of those Presidents.
  Ronald Reagan also taught us something about leadership. I recall in 
1980 when he and Mrs. Reagan visited the Tennessee Governor's mansion 
during the Presidential campaign. I had not known him very well. He had 
served as Governor. He was several years older. He was from the West. 
It was really my first chance to meet him.
  After 1 hour or an hour and a half of breakfast with him the next 
morning, I remember going away thinking this man has a better concept 
of the Presidency than anyone I have ever been privileged to meet.
  Ronald Reagan understood what George Reedy said in his book, ``The 
Twilight of the Presidency,'' is the definition of Presidential 
leadership: No. 1, see an urgent need; No. 2, develop a strategy to 
meet the need; and, No. 3, persuade at least half the people that you 
are right.
  Ronald Reagan was as good as anyone at persuading at least half the 
people that he was right. He taught that and he also taught us the 
importance of proceeding from principles.
  Sometimes we are described in Washington these days as being too 
ideological, too uncompromising, too partisan. President Reagan was a 
principled man. He operated from principles in all of his decisions, 
insofar as I knew. He advocated his principles as far as he could take 
them, but he recognized that the great decisions that we make here are 
often conflicts between principles on which all of us agree. It might 
be equal opportunity versus the rule of law. And once we have argued 
our principle and the solution, and strategy has been taken as far as 
it could go, if we get, as he said 75, 80, or 85 percent of what we 
advocated, well, then that is a pretty good job.
  So he was very successful because he argued from principles. He 
argued strenuously. He was good at persuading at least half the people 
he was right. Then he was willing to accept a conclusion because most 
of our politics is about the conflict of principles.
  There is another lesson that he taught us, and that was to respect 
the military. Now, that seems unnecessary to say in the year 2004 where 
we have a volunteer military that is better than any military we have 
ever had in our history; when we have witnessed the thousands of acts 
of courage, charity, kindness, and ingenuity in Iraq and Afghanistan 
recently; when the men and women of our National Guard and Reserves are 
also being called up. We have a lot of respect for our military.
  In 1980, we were showing a lot less respect for the men and women of 
our military. I remember riding with President Reagan in a car in 
Knoxville during the 1980 campaign. As we pulled out of the airport by 
the National Guard unit, there were a number of the soldiers waving at 
him, understanding and sensing that he respected them. He turned to me 
and said something like this: I wish we could think of some way to 
honor these men and women more. He said: We used to do that in the 
movies in the 1930s and 1940s. We would make movies honoring men and 
women in the military and that is how we showed our respect for them.
  Well, he did find a way to honor them during his Presidency in the 
1980s, and by the time he left at the end of that decade there was no 
question but that the American people remembered to honor the men and 
women in the military.
  There is one other aspect of President Reagan's leadership that I 
would like to mention, which is probably the most important aspect of 
the American character, and that is the belief that anything is 
possible. The idea that we uniquely believe in this country, and people 
all around the world think we are a little odd for believing it, is 
that no matter where you come from, no matter what race you are, no 
matter what color your skin, if you come here and work hard, anything 
is possible.

  That is why we subscribe to ideals such as all men are created equal, 
even though we know achieving that goal will always be a work in 
progress and we may never reach it. That is why we say we will pay any 
price, bear any burden, as President Kennedy said, to defend peace, 
even though we know that is a work in progress and we may never reach 
it.
  That is why we say more recently we want to leave no child behind 
when it comes to learning to read. We know that is a work in progress 
and we may not reach it, but that is our goal.
  We Americans say that anything is possible, and nothing symbolizes 
that more than the American Presidency. And no President has symbolized 
that more in the last century than Ronald Reagan. He has reminded us of 
what it means to be an American. He lifted our spirits, he made us 
proud, he strengthened our character, and he taught us a great many 
lessons.

                          ____________________