[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[March 11, 1992]
[Pages 428-432]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Richard Nixon Library Dinner

March 11, 1992
    Mr. President, thank you, sir, for that wonderfully warm 
introduction. I, like I think everybody across our country, was once 
again so impressed when we saw what you did today in outlining foreign 
policy objectives of this country. And it's a wonderful privilege for me 
to be introduced by you.
    If you will excuse me a little reminiscence, why, in '64, I ran with 
a spectacular lack of success for the United States Senate. In 1966, I 
started off to run for the Congress in Houston, Harris County. And it 
was then Richard Nixon, former Vice President, President-to-be, who came 
down there to kick off my little campaign. And I thought I was right on 
top of the world. And what he did in endorsing and supporting me and 
many others like me that year resulted in our picking up some 49 seats, 
I think it was, in the Congress and propelling me into a life that has 
been full and fascinating, sometimes frustrating but always rewarding. 
And I am very, very grateful to him then; I was grateful to him when I 
served while he was President, while I was head of the Republican 
National Committee. And I value his advice today. I get it. I appreciate 
it. And I'm very grateful to him for his continued leadership in this 
area that is so vital to the United States of America. So, Mr. 
President, my sincere thanks. And it's a great privilege to be here 
tonight.
    And of course, I want to thank our friend, all of our friend, Jim 
Schlesinger, for his leadership on this; and Walter and Lee Annenberg 
for their fantastic support; of course, Julie and David Eisenhower over 
there. I agree with everything Jim Schlesinger said about Julie, first-
class and wonder-

[[Page 429]]

ful. To Gavin and Ninetta Herbert and our friend George Argyros from 
California; John Taylor; Brian, over here; distinguished guests all; 
ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be here among friends and to 
renew old ties.
    A writer once said of Richard Nixon, his life ``somehow was central 
to the experience of being an American in the second half of this 
century.'' I am proud tonight to salute a President who made a 
difference, not because he wished it but because he willed it.
    As our 37th President, he placed crime and drugs on the national 
agenda; he created a pioneering cancer initiative; he ended the draft; 
and he created the EPA. And we've been fighting over the spotted owl 
ever since he created the EPA. But nevertheless--[laughter].
    As I said when his library opened, Richard Nixon will be remembered 
for another reason: dedicating his life to the noblest cause offered any 
President, the cause of peace among nations. A cause told in his books, 
now nine of them, each written out in longhand on those famous yellow 
pages, yellow legal pads.
    So, I could not be more pleased, and I know I speak for Barbara on 
this, both of us, to be here this evening. And I'm pleased to be able to 
speak before this gathering devoted to exploring ``America's Role in the 
Emerging World.'' The subject could not be more timely. The auspices 
couldn't be more appropriate. The Richard Nixon Library, and I was 
privileged to be there at the opening, stands as a monument to a 
President and to an administration devoted to an active, thoughtful, and 
above all, realistic approach to the world.
    The challenge faced by President Nixon could hardly have been more 
daunting: How to maintain domestic support for a foreign policy mandated 
by a growing Soviet threat at a time that an overburdened America was 
fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam. What emerged, the policies of 
detente and the doctrine that bears the name of the 37th President, 
provided a balance between confrontation and cooperation. President 
Nixon managed this and more, extricating us from a war, negotiating the 
first comprehensive U.S.-Soviet arms control agreement, opening up 
relations with China, mediating disengagement pacts in the Middle East, 
all while preserving a consensus at home favoring continued engagement 
in world affairs.
    To be sure, today's challenge is fundamentally different. Yet I 
think we'd all agree it does bear some resemblance. Once again we've got 
to find a way to square the responsibilities of world leadership with 
the requirements of domestic renewal. What we must do is find a way to 
maintain popular support for an active foreign policy and a strong 
defense in the absence of an overriding single external threat to our 
Nation's security and in the face of severe budgetary problems. In this 
post-cold-war world, ours is the wonderful, yet no less real or 
difficult challenge, really, of coping with success.
    This challenge is by no means unprecedented. Think back to the era 
after World War I or the years in the immediate wake of World War II. In 
both instances, the American people were anxious to bring their 
victorious troops home, to focus their energies on making the American 
dream a reality.
    Perhaps more instructive, though, are the differences between our 
reactions following this century's two great wars. After World War I, 
the United States retreated behind its oceans. We refused to support the 
League of Nations. We allowed our military forces to shrink and grow 
obsolete. We helped international trade plummet, the victim of beggar-
thy-neighbor protectionism. And we stood by and watched as Germany's 
struggling democracy, the Weimar Republic, failed under the weight of 
reparations, protectionism, and depression and gave way to the horror 
that we all know as the Third Reich.
    Likewise, our initial reaction to victory in World War II showed 
little learning. But galvanized by an emerging Communist threat 
spearheaded by an imperialist Soviet Union, the United States acted. 
NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, the Marshall plan, these and other 
institutions prove that Americans grasped the nature of the challenge 
and the need to respond. Our military was modernized, free trade 
nourished, U.S. support for former adversaries Germa-

[[Page 430]]

ny and Japan made generous. It was fitting that Dean Acheson titled his 
memoirs ``Present at the Creation'' for these years were truly creative.
    The result, as they say, is history. We kept the peace. We won the 
cold war. Democracy is on the march. Now, for the third time this 
century, we've emerged on the winning side of a war, the cold war, 
involving the great powers. And so, the question before us is the same: 
We have won the war, but are we prepared to secure the peace?
    That is the challenge that we must face. Yet already, there are 
voices across the political spectrum calling, in some cases shouting, 
for America to ``come home, gut defense, spend the peace dividend, shut 
out foreign goods, slash foreign aid.''
    You all know the slogans. You all know the so-called solutions, 
protectionism, isolationism. But now we have the obligation, the 
responsibility to our children to reject the false answers of isolation 
and protection, to heed history's lessons. Turning our back on the world 
is simply no answer; I don't care how difficult our economic problems 
are at home. To the contrary, the futures of the United States and the 
world are inextricably linked.
    Just why this is so could not be more clear. Yesterday we saw 
conflict, and today, yes, the world is a safer place. Yes, the Soviet 
Union--aggressive, looking outward--that we feared is no longer. But the 
successor Republics are still struggling to establish themselves as 
democracies, still struggling to make the transition to capitalism. We 
invested so much to win the cold war. We must invest what is necessary 
to win the peace. If we fail, we will create new and profound problems 
for our security and that of Europe and Asia. If we succeed, we 
strengthen democracy, we build new market economies, and in the process 
we create huge new markets for America. We must support reform, not only 
in Russia but throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
    As a former President, Richard Nixon is a prolific author. As 
President, he wrote a chapter that previewed the new world order. Today 
we are building on RN's roots planted in Tel Aviv and Cairo and Moscow 
and Beijing. Look at the lands of the former Soviet Union, reaching out 
toward Western ways. Look at the fledgling democracies here in our own 
hemisphere. You talk about an exciting story, look what's happening 
south of the Rio Grande, all moving towards democracy except one. Look 
at Cambodia and its neighbors in Southeast Asia, yearning for an end to 
decades of violence, or at the historic peace process in the Middle 
East, one that holds out the hope of reconciling Israel and her Arab 
neighbors. Long way to go, but they're talking. Look at a U.N. that may 
at long last be in a position to fulfill the vision of its founders. 
Look at Africa, the changes in South Africa. Look at the exciting 
changes in Angola or what happened in Zambia. The success of each 
depends on U.S. support and leadership.
    Look, too, at the threats that know no boundaries, these insidious 
threats like drugs and terrorism and disease and pollution and above 
all, the one that concerns me perhaps the most, the spread of weapons of 
mass destruction and the means to deliver them. They, too, will yield 
only to an America that is vigilant and that is strong.
    In the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda--I hope all of you have seen it; 
if you haven't, you ought to do that--there's a world leaders room, a 
room of giants who provided such leadership, Churchill and Chou En-Lai 
and Charles de Gaulle. President Nixon not only knew the greatest 
statesmen of the 20th century, he became one of them; like them, judged 
by disasters averted and dreams achieved.
    A former aide once told of how President Nixon asked about a foreign 
policy speech. The aide shook his head. ``Frankly,'' he said, ``it's not 
going to set the world on fire.'' President Nixon shook his head. 
``That's the whole object of our foreign policy,'' he said almost to 
himself, ``not to set the world on fire.'' [Laughter]
    Yes, carrying out a leadership role in determining the course of the 
emerging world is going to cost money. But like any insurance policy, 
the premium is modest compared to the potential cost of living in a 
warring and hostile world. Many in Congress today, perhaps for 
understandable rea-

[[Page 431]]

sons, domestic policy considerations, are calling for a peace dividend. 
They would have us slash defense spending far below the reduced levels 
that we have calculated would be prudent. This must be resisted. The 
United States must remain ready and able to keep the peace; a well-
trained, well-equipped military cannot simply be created overnight if 
and when the need arises. Anyone who has ever gone to war knows that 
peace is its own dividend.
    Those who would have us do less ignore the intimate 
interrelationship between overseas developments and those here at home. 
If we had not resisted aggression in the Gulf a year ago, if we had not 
liberated Kuwait and defeated Iraq's invading army, we would now be 
facing the economic consequences not of a mild recession but of a deep 
depression brought on by Saddam Hussein's control over the majority of 
the world's oil. And I am absolutely certain--I expect we could get a 
good lively debate in this room of enormously intellectual people--but I 
am absolutely certain in my mind that if we had not moved against 
Saddam, he would be in Saudi Arabia today. The coalition would have 
fallen apart. He would be in Saudi Arabia, and we would be facing agony 
like we've never faced before in the history of our country.
    It is a pipedream to believe that we can somehow insulate our 
society or our economy or our lives from the world beyond our borders. 
This is not meant to suggest that we should not do more here at home. Of 
course we should. But foreign policy, too, is a powerful determinant of 
the quality of life here at home.
    Isolationism is not the only temptation we need to avoid. 
Protectionism is another siren song which will be difficult to resist. 
There are, indeed, many examples of unfair trade practices where U.S. 
firms get shut out of foreign government markets owing to trade barriers 
of one sort or another or owing to foreign government subsidies. But the 
way to bring down barriers abroad is not to raise them at home. In trade 
wars there are no winners, only losers.
    Export growth is a proven economic engine. We estimate every billion 
dollars in manufactured exports creates 20,000 jobs for Americans. And 
we should have no doubts about the ability of our workers and farmers to 
thrive in a competitive world. Our goal must be to increase, not 
restrict, trade. Opting out, be it under the banner of protection or 
isolation, is nothing more than a recipe for weakness and, ultimately, 
for disaster. And that's why I am so determined to do all I can to 
successfully conclude the Uruguay round, GATT, and to get a fair trade 
agreement with Mexico, the North American free trade agreement with 
Mexico and Canada. It is important to us; it creates jobs in the United 
States.
    Now, if I can choose a theme for you to take away from what I have 
to say tonight, it is this: There is no distinction between how we fare 
abroad and how we live at home. Foreign and domestic policy are but two 
sides of the same coin. True, we will not be able to lead abroad if we 
are not united and strong at home. But it is no less true that we will 
be unable to build the society we seek here at home in a world where 
military and economic warfare is the norm.
    Ladies and gentlemen, the responsibility for supporting an active 
foreign policy is one for every American. But this task, in some ways, 
falls especially upon those in this room tonight. We are entering a 
world that promises to be more rather than less complicated. I thought 
when we were facing an imperial Soviet communism that that was the most 
complicated of times. I don't see it that way; more rather than less 
difficult to lead in this world. And again you have a special 
responsibility to help show the way, all of you.
    Mr. President, there have been literally millions of words written 
about you. As President Reagan said, some even have been true. But let 
me close with words that you used 33 years ago in the kitchen in Moscow 
in that famous meeting with Khrushchev, former Premier Khrushchev.
    You describe the scene memorably in your last book, ``Seize the 
Moment.'' When Khrushchev bragged that ``Your grandchildren will live 
under communism,'' you responded that his grandchildren would live in 
freedom. He was wrong, but at the time you weren't sure you were right. 
Today, we know you were, just as you were right in

[[Page 432]]

helping build a safer, more peaceful world.
    As we look toward the future, the only thing that is certain is that 
it will bring a new world. Our task, our opportunity is to make it 
orderly, to build a new world order of peace, democracy, and prosperity. 
Let's dedicate ourselves to making the most of this precious 
opportunity, of this privilege.
    Thank you all very much. Mr. President, thank you, sir. It's a joy 
being with you. And may God bless the United States.

                    Note: The President spoke at 9:35 p.m. at the Four 
                        Seasons Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to 
                        James Schlesinger, chairman of the conference on 
                        ``America's Role in the Emerging World'' 
                        sponsored by the Richard Nixon Library & 
                        Birthplace; Walter H. Annenberg, Gavin Herbert, 
                        and George Argyros, members of the library's 
                        board of directors; Mr. Annenberg's wife, Lee; 
                        Mr. Herbert's wife, Ninetta; John H. Taylor, 
                        director of the library; and Brian Crozier, 
                        British biographer of Charles de Gaulle. A tape 
                        was not available for verification of the 
                        content of these remarks.