[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 167 (Monday, November 9, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S11262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      COLLAPSE OF THE BERLIN WALL

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on this 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's 
collapse, I would like to say a few words about the Cold War and the 
lessons we should take from it.
  It is often said that President Ronald Reagan won the Cold War 
without firing a shot, and that is true. Unfortunately, the current 
administration seems to have forgotten the overarching lesson of 
President Reagan's legacy.
  Reagan's predecessor had urged Americans to abandon their inordinate 
fear of communism, but Reagan was determined to infuse U.S. foreign 
policy with a sense of moral clarity, which had been lost during the 
1970s. The Reagan administration championed the cause of democracy 
activists in Russia and Eastern Europe, and it did not shy away from 
highlighting the Soviet Union's complete denial of personal freedom.
  In 1982, when the United States was mired in its worst recession 
since World War II, President Reagan defied the pessimism of the day, 
and he predicted:

       The march of freedom and democracy which will leave 
     Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left 
     other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-
     expression of their people.

  Roughly a year later, he called the Soviet Union what it so obviously 
was, an ``evil empire.'' The ``evil empire'' speech drew criticism from 
many of Reagan's domestic political opponents, and it greatly angered 
the Kremlin. But it also galvanized Soviet dissidents who were 
encouraged that a U.S. President had been bold enough to denounce the 
moral bankruptcy of communism.
  One particular Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, found Reagan's 
speech deeply inspiring. Sharansky read about it in the pages of 
Pravda, the Soviet propaganda newspaper, while he was imprisoned in a 
gulag prison camp on the Siberian border. Years later, Sharansky 
described his reaction to the speech and the reaction of his fellow 
prisoners:

       Tapping on walls, word of Reagan's provocation quickly 
     spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. 
     Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth--a 
     truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of 
     us.

  Mr. President, this past June, when prodemocracy rallies broke out in 
Iran following a fraudulent election, I hoped the current 
administration would follow President Reagan's example of American 
leadership and offer strong support for the Iranians who took to the 
streets and risked their lives to oppose a tyrannical regime. But the 
President's statement at the time, expressing ``deep concerns about the 
election,'' lacked the moral fortitude the world has come to expect 
from America, the world's standard bearer of freedom and democracy.
  New antigovernment protests began last week to mark the 30th 
anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Still, 
the White House failed to use the opportunity to make the moral case 
for freedom over totalitarian oppression. In a message to the White 
House, demonstrators could be heard chanting: ``Either you're with 
them, or you're with us.''
  The President's decision on how to respond should be easy: the 
administration should stand with democracy and use this opportunity to 
underline the moral failings of Iran's dictatorship.
  Anthony Dolan, chief speechwriter for President Reagan, wrote in the 
Wall Street Journal today:

       Reagan spoke formally and repeatedly of deploying against 
     criminal regimes the one weapon they fear more than military 
     or economic sanction: The publicly spoken truth about their 
     moral absurdity, their ontological weakness--their own 
     oppressed people.

  Moral clarity helped Ronald Reagan bring down Soviet totalitarianism 
during the 1980s, and it can help us bring freedom to Iran today.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.

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